Answers in Genesis: Yeah, that's the Ticket
Rick, a Young-Earth Creationist gave me a citation from Answers in Genesis in a comment thread earlier in an attempt to explain how Kangaroos got to Australia after the ark of Noah landed in Turkey. The citation is full of logical inconsistencies and lunacy and I link to it to allow the reader a chance to peruse it for herself.
It is not a problem for us to rationalize why certain animals do not appear in certain parts of the world. Why, for example, does Australia have such an unusual fauna, including so many marsupials? Marsupials are, of course, known elsewhere in the world. For example, opossums are found in North and South America, and fossilized marsupials have been found elsewhere. But in many places, climatic changes and other factors could lead to their extinction.
It's not a problem. See? It just isn't. Hey, look over there, there's an opossum. The Young-Earth Creationist doesn't even deal with the fact that animals cannot migrate long distances through deserts or ice fields without dying first. They adapt to conditions in the location which they exist and if the ecology changes in that location and they cannot complete their life cycle, they die. There's no attempt there to explain how a koala bear, who can only eat Eucalyptus leaves could travel from Turkey to Australia without going extinct first. There's no attempt to explain how an aquatic species like a duck-billed platypus could complete its life cycle during the "mini-Ice Age" that followed the flood while all the water was frozen. The truth of the Genesis account is simply asserted and no explanation is given for these problems.
The lack of great marsupials in other continents need be no more of a problem than the lack of dinosaurs. As with many species today, they just died out—a reminder of a sin-cursed world. One proposed theory is that marsupials—because they bore their young in pouches—were able to travel farther and faster than mammals that had to stop to care for their young. They were able to establish themselves in far-flung Australia before competitors reached the continent.
Yes, kangaroos managed to get all the way from Turkey to Australia bearing their tiny live young from a founder population of two (2) individuals and the reason they got there is because they were faster than the cheetahs, gazelles, horses and other slow placental mammals who were bogged down by the need to care for bigger offspring. I really can't imagine an adult finding this explanation compelling. But it has to be compelling if you can't give up the Bible.
At one level, the authors realize this is one of their weakest positions. They know these explanations will not satisfy a critical reader. The article ends in the following way:
We must not be downhearted by critics and their frequent accusations against the Bible. We must not be surprised that so many people will believe all sorts of strange things, whatever the logic.
I believe this is not even intended to be ironic. Yet the unintentionality of it makes the irony drip off it even more. They continue:
Starting from our presupposition that the Bible’s account is true, we have seen that scientific models can be developed to explain the post-Flood migration of animals. These models correspond to observed data and are consistent with the Bible’s account. It is notable that opponents of biblical creationism use similar models in their evolutionary explanations of animal migrations. While a model may eventually be superseded, it is important to note that such biblically consistent models exist. In any event, we have confidence in the scriptural account, finding it to be accurate and authoritative. The fact of animal migration around the world is illustrative of the goodness and graciousness of God, who provided above and beyond our needs.
Notice that only if they start from the presupposition that the Bible is true can they find any reason to believe the Bible. However the models do NOT correspond to the observed data unless you consider a model that can be torn apart by a teenager who's seen a couple of shows on Discovery channel to be valid.
The authors are to be scolded for foisting off such poor explanations to an uncritical fundamentalist audience. Commenters like Rick and DSHB should demand more of them.
It is not a problem for us to rationalize why certain animals do not appear in certain parts of the world. Why, for example, does Australia have such an unusual fauna, including so many marsupials? Marsupials are, of course, known elsewhere in the world. For example, opossums are found in North and South America, and fossilized marsupials have been found elsewhere. But in many places, climatic changes and other factors could lead to their extinction.
It's not a problem. See? It just isn't. Hey, look over there, there's an opossum. The Young-Earth Creationist doesn't even deal with the fact that animals cannot migrate long distances through deserts or ice fields without dying first. They adapt to conditions in the location which they exist and if the ecology changes in that location and they cannot complete their life cycle, they die. There's no attempt there to explain how a koala bear, who can only eat Eucalyptus leaves could travel from Turkey to Australia without going extinct first. There's no attempt to explain how an aquatic species like a duck-billed platypus could complete its life cycle during the "mini-Ice Age" that followed the flood while all the water was frozen. The truth of the Genesis account is simply asserted and no explanation is given for these problems.
The lack of great marsupials in other continents need be no more of a problem than the lack of dinosaurs. As with many species today, they just died out—a reminder of a sin-cursed world. One proposed theory is that marsupials—because they bore their young in pouches—were able to travel farther and faster than mammals that had to stop to care for their young. They were able to establish themselves in far-flung Australia before competitors reached the continent.
Yes, kangaroos managed to get all the way from Turkey to Australia bearing their tiny live young from a founder population of two (2) individuals and the reason they got there is because they were faster than the cheetahs, gazelles, horses and other slow placental mammals who were bogged down by the need to care for bigger offspring. I really can't imagine an adult finding this explanation compelling. But it has to be compelling if you can't give up the Bible.
At one level, the authors realize this is one of their weakest positions. They know these explanations will not satisfy a critical reader. The article ends in the following way:
We must not be downhearted by critics and their frequent accusations against the Bible. We must not be surprised that so many people will believe all sorts of strange things, whatever the logic.
I believe this is not even intended to be ironic. Yet the unintentionality of it makes the irony drip off it even more. They continue:
Starting from our presupposition that the Bible’s account is true, we have seen that scientific models can be developed to explain the post-Flood migration of animals. These models correspond to observed data and are consistent with the Bible’s account. It is notable that opponents of biblical creationism use similar models in their evolutionary explanations of animal migrations. While a model may eventually be superseded, it is important to note that such biblically consistent models exist. In any event, we have confidence in the scriptural account, finding it to be accurate and authoritative. The fact of animal migration around the world is illustrative of the goodness and graciousness of God, who provided above and beyond our needs.
Notice that only if they start from the presupposition that the Bible is true can they find any reason to believe the Bible. However the models do NOT correspond to the observed data unless you consider a model that can be torn apart by a teenager who's seen a couple of shows on Discovery channel to be valid.
The authors are to be scolded for foisting off such poor explanations to an uncritical fundamentalist audience. Commenters like Rick and DSHB should demand more of them.
44 comments:
Now, now, Evan. I pointed this out to you once before here, but you ignored me: the kangaroos got from Mt. Ararat to Australia using their powerful tails as propellers. The mama kangaroo carried the koalas in her pouch, and the duck-billed platypuses rode on the papa kangaroo's back. No problem.
Hi Evan,
that explains why he couldn't understand me in the "chimp" thread when I told him
"you've got a bit of problem there of inconsistency with data.
- Adam could not have been specially created because, for example, evidence shows that at any give time there were other humans around. There was never a time when humans were alone. And the founder effect would have eliminated them eventually.
- Language could not have been given by god because it was so prevalent in some form or another and heirogliphic and cuneoform(?) writing seem to have arose independently
- It is just stupid that god gave adam a choice from animals first instead of a woman. Adam evidently was not a sheep man.
- And all the evidence shows that there too many animals for adam to name them all and even if he did, who was going to remember all the millions of animal names?
pull your head out of your bible."
He dismissed me as arrogant.
Who am I to point out that the bible suffers from lots of "contrary to fact" fallacies?
A new piece of evidence against special creation is ERVs.
ERVs are fragments of retrovirii that have been put into DNA long ago by ancient infections.
By tracking what species have what ERVs inserted you can track which ones share common ancestors.
And, guess what? It matches up with the common ancestor tree we got in other ways.
Game / Set / Match
Can Answers in Genesis explain how penguin crossed the vast Sahara, the jungles of the Congo, and swam the Indian Ocean to get to Antarctica?
Geez louise heissailing, don't penguins have feet? Don't they have flippers? All they had to do was run like hell over the hot sand, dodge the leopards in the Congo, and swim the Indian Ocean. Next question.
From a blog discussion I enjoyed with a charismatic:
> why are Kangaroos in Aus? well there is one perfectly reasonable
> explanation for kangaroos being isolated to your part of the world -
> Australia. After Noah’s Ark I believe people got a great idea:
> boats. I think the very logical explanation for kangaroos in
> Australia is that people took them there in boats. Animals were very
> commonly used in trade in ancient times. Perhaps someone living in
> Australia had a hankering for marsupials and traded away for them?
>
> However the true point really is and I don’t know why kangaroos
> ended up there and neither do the evolutionists, creationist and big
> bangists.
So, there we have it: boats. Oh, and marsupial fetishism by indigenous Aussies.
You guys are making a huge mistake yet again. Your using logic to displell an illogical beleif.
God can do anything.
He could load the ark at a rate of thousands of animals a second.
He could, since as we know there are no new animals, make sure every kind was present, down to every kind of beetle and ant (which alone would make for a huge arc)
He could enusre they all made it to their new homes and didn't need food for years, after all what would the predators eat? Why do we still lions and zebras? Wouldn't the 2 lions eat the 2 zebras in month (If not week)?
He could make sure no one mentioned any of the animals that where suppose to be discovered later where kept secret, despite all those people seeing them.
He could even make enough water to cover the world all just disappear.
Heck he can even make a story of a king in desperation to avoid a flood hop onto a trading barge and sail down river for three days into an epic. Oh and throw in a couple centuries later disaster of tidal waves into the true tale.
See logic never works in these cases. Otherwise the whole house of faith might shake.
Anyone else hear cards failling?
Bahamthered,
That was a really great post! You are absolutely right, that logic does not work for many of them. But for some, me included, it does get through. I am sad that until this year I had never heard of ANY of the major criticisms against Christianity. I am so glad that there are people (like Evan) willing to piss Christians off by telling them the truth. My deconversion took a long time, but it did eventually sink in.
However, point well taken, Bahamthered.
And not a single fossil to mark the journey...
I've heard Hovind tell stories like this before. What a great image of a wave of Australian fauna struggling across India, some animals that can only survive in deserts, some only in shallow ponds, some only in specific varieties of Eucalyptus trees, all banding together to survive the jungles and high-mountain passes of the Himalayans, all apparently possessing some map of where they should live and despite this hardship, none of them dying. What can I say, it's precious.
What can you do to debate with someone like that? They've obviously decided that reason no longer applies to them.
This is a really funny (and telling) passage from the AiG article:
The principal error of this view is that it starts from supposed scientific anomalies, such as the fossil record, rather than from Scripture. This has led to the proposals among some Recolonizers, but not all, that there must be gaps in the genealogies recorded in Genesis 5 and 11, even though there is no need for such gaps. Indeed the suggestion of gaps in these genealogies causes further doctrinal problems.
The principal problem, you see, is begin with and considering the EVIDENCE, in AiG's view.
Even after all these years of reading AiG, Poe's law still messes with my mind reading it. If the Onion were to lampoon AiG, how could you tell the lampoon from the real thing? Seriously, I'd wager that an "Onion" version of young earth creationism would be more credible than the real thing, despite their considerable satirical skills.
Anyway, Rick (or anyone else), the current hypothesis for why you find opposums in Oklahoma and other marsupials in the Americas is that the ancestors of these guys migrated to the Americas before they were the Americas, and part of Gondwanaland, along with Australia.
There are accumulating analyses of genetic and other evidence that support this idea in the scientific literature -- see here, for example:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T39-4D98XVW-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=06b6c03a2911595720abd0d3b6bdafd1
tyro,
Young earth creationists are actually saved by their own folly when it comes to the fossil question, here. If the marsupials did "hop" from western Asia all the way to Australia over just a couple thousand years, then we would not expect, statistically, to find a single fossil recording that fact. The numbers of individuals and the timeline are both too small to expect that enough marsupials lived and died along the way to leave enough fossils that we might reasonable expect to find one.
It's perverse, but that's how just making ridiculous stuff up to fit religious dogma goes. If God "poofed" marsupials over to Australia, that wouldn't leave any fossils, either. So, really, the lack of marsupial fossils across the Himalayas can just be seen as a testimony to God's "poofing power"!
When your explanations include a God that can do anything, any time, for any reason, then there are no ridiculous explanations (except the ones that don't need God).
Don't want to be belligerent on the fossil question with you, but in fairness to their preposterous ideas, if they were true, we wouldn't expect taphonomic evidence for 10,000 mile trek by a small group of animals over just a few centuries.
As I mentioned above, real science hypothesizes the migration of some marsupials (like the Virginia Oppossum) over great distances and formidable territory (from current Australia through the current horn of Africa through current South America to current North America). It just places that process within a reasonable and generous time frame -- millions of years, where populations wouldn't be moving more than just over the next hill over any given generation, and for many, many generations, not moving at all toward their ultimate (current) destination.
Touchstone,
"If the marsupials did "hop" from western Asia all the way to Australia over just a couple thousand years, then we would not expect, statistically, to find a single fossil recording that fact."
Here we hit two unpleasant problems. If the animals established stable, breeding populations along the route then they would need to survive and thrive in each of the intermediate environments which, if this isn't preposterous enough, would have to go unnoticed and unrecorded by any local inhabitants.
If the animals moved quickly then we have no problems with remains or fossils but have an Herculean marathon by animals that have a natural territorial range measured in tens of metres. If the animals moved slowly then the locals should notice them. Remember that we're not talking about a migration which occurred millions of years ago, but a few thousand years ago, within the range of written records. If the migration was slow enough that the animals took several generations, we should expect to find not fossils but living ancestors!
Your right that if they moved fast enough and in small enough numbers that we shouldn't expect to find much, but when the numbers drop and the speed increases it stops being a natural explanation and becomes a magical 'poof'. I know, I know, most of AiG is essentially a magical 'poof' explanation, but their goal appears to create the illusion that these events were natural and not magical.
Hi Tyro,
We're agreed, the various scenarios a creationist might advance in the constraints of 6,000 years across 10,000 miles all fall down badly. One can see why they often just resort to "poof" answers. You've got an omniscient, omnipotent God on your side, why bother with the problematic features of migration. Supernatural transport cleans the problems right away!
As for this:
I know, I know, most of AiG is essentially a magical 'poof' explanation, but their goal appears to create the illusion that these events were natural and not magical.
That's putting it quite charitably, yes, indeed.
This is a post that I found particularly relevant to my situation. Up until the end of last year I considered myself to be a born-again Christian. I was an active member of one of the many African- and Caribbean-majority Pentecostal churches that have sprung up here in London. One weekend I was away on a retreat with fellow-minded friends when the after-dinner conversation turned to Genesis. I proposed that the stories in Genesis were not literally true but were allegories. My companions insisted that all the events had actually happened. I posed the question "how did kangaroos get from Australia onto Noah's Ark?" One of my friends, a doctor, replied that they walked there. I laughed loudly at this ridiculous answer, glancing around the table only to find my friends looking bemused at my reaction. I remember thinking to myself "these people are insane!" The conversation continued onto other aspects of the Bible, such as Adam and Eve and the genealogies of Jesus. I was told that all of the Bible was true or none of it was, otherwise I would simply be picking and choosing which parts to believe. I understood that argument, but inside I knew that not all of the Bible could be true. I went away, did my research, and found the various inconsistencies in the Bible (including in the genealogies). It is amazing how quickly my faith began to unravel. Suffice it to say that I never went back to church, and now consider myself to be a sane, rational member of the human race.
Wow, don't you atheists have jobs to attend to? You've been busy! ;-)
I can't possibly respond to every comment here, so I'll "cherry pick" (that's what we creationists do, right?) a few.
First, Evan, as I understand several of your comments, you think I should be MORE CRITICAL of creationism and LESS INCREDULOUS of evolution, right? Why should skepticism only be reserved towards matters of God? But for your comfort, please know that I started out just like you are now; an atheist skeptic of God with a scientific bent. So there may be hope for you yet!
There seems to be a lot of hilarity here regarding the idea that marsupials could have "hopped their way from Turkey". Has anyone here read the history about the "European rabbit plague" in Australia? It appears that the critters where brought to Aussie BY BOAT (for you stevie) in the late 18th to mid 19th century, and that now there is not a corner in Australia to be found without them across the entire continent. It appears "hopping" served the rabbit quite well.
For more info, ask your library to fetch you a copy of:
Stodart, E. and Parer, I., Colonisation of Australia by the Rabbit, Project Report No. 6, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia) Division of Wildlife and Ecology, 1988.
So, if we have a modern example of migration across thousands of miles in 150-200 years to look at, on what basis would I believe the rabbit to be the only species capable of such migration? And how many rabbit fossils do you think we could find along their migration paths?
I keep seeing the duck-billed platypus mentioned on this blog. Is this some kind of athesit mascot animal? I am curious though, what in your world did this evolve from? A duck? A beaver? What? You know of any transition fossils of that evolutionary path? If not, how do we know it happened?
And perhaps you can explain to me why is it that sendimentary rocks are found ALL OVER THE EARTH, why some sequences span entire continents or even cross continents (like the 'white cliffs of Dover' or Pennsylvanian coal beds). And is it really easier for you to believe that the continents have heaved themselves above and below sea level 20 or more times across millions of years as opposed to a single flood and reconfiguration of the Earth? What in the world would be the source of that much power to lift and lower that much mass so many times? Where would it come from?
It also strikes me as odd how you folks try to think like a creationist (for a strawman argument) but can't quite really do it. For example, comments like "lions and zebras" on the ark eating each other. For one, there were neither lions or zebras on the ark, but rather ancestral "kinds" that were likely common to many feline and horse breeds we see today. Nor did felines, or man, eat animal flesh until after the flood.
For a blog that advertises being run by "ex-ministers, and even ex-apologists", I see no evidence here that you folks ever knew and understood the Word of God. Perhaps that is why you are where you are.
Wow! Don't these YEC folks realize that they are going to do more damage to the faith of Christians than good? I've never understood why they couldn't just say "God is the creator. I have no idea how it happened, Genesis is a neat story, but it doesn't have to be literally true." I'd be much more impressed with a god who invented evolution than one who mucked around in some clay, shaped some critters, and breathed life into them.
rick,
I keep seeing the duck-billed platypus mentioned on this blog. Is this some kind of athesit mascot animal? I am curious though, what in your world did this evolve from? A duck? A beaver? What? You know of any transition fossils of that evolutionary path? If not, how do we know it happened?
This only points to your massive misunderstanding and blatant ignorance of evolution. What you are doing is arguing from ignorance. The complexities of evolution, allude you and you are ignorant to the overwhelming evidence of evolution that is substantiated by hundreds of other scientific fields. Go HERE to learn, one way, evolution supports how the platypus evolved.
--S.
Rick,
"It appears "hopping" served the rabbit quite well."
You must have powerful selective reading skills if you managed to overlook all of the detailed, substantive problems and focus solely on the method of locomotion. Perhaps you should read the original post again.
"And how many rabbit fossils do you think we could find along their migration paths?"
This gets back to what I'd said earlier. If an animal is capable of making a migration over the last few thousand years, far from leaving fossils they should leave active breeding populations yet we see none.
Yes rabbits are a big problem in Australia, as are foxes, some toads and many other invasive species. These animals tolerate a wide range of environments (unlike many species) and yet they didn't make the journey to Australia and needed modern sailors to help them. Care to explain how animals which can only survive in a very restrictive environmental range (such as dry deserts or shallow ponds) could have made the trek across India and Asia to Australia but foxes and rabbits couldn't? Care to explain why these hardy trekkers didn't just leave no fossils but didn't leave a single, isolated breeding population along the way?
"I keep seeing the duck-billed platypus mentioned on this blog."
Yes, they're iconic and like the koala they can only survive in a narrow climactic and environmental range - warm, shallow, muddy ponds. Very much unlike what you'd find in the Himalayans or Middle East.
"I am curious though, what in your world did this evolve from? A duck? A beaver? What?"
If you're that ignorant, it's intentional and no answer can help you. Look it up for yourself or shut up.
"What in the world would be the source of that much power to lift and lower that much mass so many times? Where would it come from?"
Read about plate tectonics. It seems hard to imagine that you could be really so ignorant without it being a conscious decision. This is very basic stuff and if you were genuinely curious, five minutes of reading could answer all of your questions.
Rick, you wrote
For a blog that advertises being run by "ex-ministers, and even ex-apologists", I see no evidence here that you folks ever knew and understood the Word of God. Perhaps that is why you are where you are.
Actually you paint with a broad brush. Sure there may be some here who were not strictly creationists but others like myself were. Your baraminiology, or classification based upon biblical "kinds" just doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.
Some of us became evolutionists based upon the overwhelming evidence. No scientist takes baraminology seriously just as they do not take creationism in any form seriously. Contrary to what you might think their rejection is not based upon bias, presupposition, or philosophy (naturalism) but on the evidence.
Sconner,
I'm sorry you have been taken in by PZ Meyer's deceptions. The man is notorious for not being able (or perhaps just willing) to distinguish fact from conjecture. The man has an agenda, and will say anything to promote it.
You should learn to read more critically. Anytime you read a "scientific" post full of words like "probable", "likely", or "candidate explanation", you should immediately clue in that you are reading a story. An act of the imagination. Usually PZ is more careful than to to drop such clues in his ramblings, but I guess he got sloppy this time.
So what is the answer to my question? What did the platypus evolve from? According to PZ, from a "Synapsid" 166 million years ago. Do we have a fossil example of a "Synapsid"? No. Where did 166 million years come from? From an arbitrary assignment of this "branch" to the Jurassic. In fact, the dirty little secret of all such "evolution trees of life", is we only have evidence for the endpoint "leafs", whether living or extinct, and for none of the "nodes" of the millions of supposed branch points of one species or family becoming another. This is why such "trees" are so dynamic. They constantly change who branched from whom and when.
Yet, here you are, holding your story out as "proof" evolution did it. At least until the story changes...again. Should I be convinced now, or can I wait for the next iteration of the story?
Tyro:"What in the world would be the source of that much power to lift and lower that much mass so many times? Where would it come from?"
Read about plate tectonics.
Rick: Plate tectonics says nothing about raising and lowering the continents 20+ times as to "explain" long ages for the sedimentary layers. Try again. That's about as deep an explanation as "God did it".
Mike,
Theistic evolution is dead. That was an early mistake of the church over 100 years ago to go down that road.
YEC is the coming wave, and growing.
Rick I don't have time to tear your arguments limb from limb right now. But one glaring fact needs to be addressed immediately:
According to PZ, from a "Synapsid" 166 million years ago. Do we have a fossil example of a "Synapsid"? No. Where did 166 million years come from?
You are deliberately ignorant.
It took me 3 seconds of googling to find this on Synapsid fossils and on the very first section of this link you will see the following quote:
The fossil record of synapsids is one of the most extensive of any groups of vertebrates. (emphasis mine) This fossil record has been used to illustrate the concept of evolution (Hopson, 1987) and to test macroevolutionary patterns (Kemp, 1985). The largest gap in this fossil record is between the Permo-Carboniferous synapsids and therapsids.
The fossil record provides conclusive evidence that synapsids are the first amniotes to diversify. Synapsids quickly became the most diverse, widespread and most common amniotes in the Late Carboniferous, and they maintained this predominant position throughout the Paleozoic. Only during the Early Mesozoic are the synapsids eclipsed by the evolutionary radiation of reptiles (Benton, 1983; Charig, 1984). Within the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian, two different herbivorous and several faunivorous synapsid groups can be recognized.
The fossil record suggests that during the Carboniferous and Early Permian, synapsids and other amniotes were restricted to the paleoequatorial and subequatorial regions. During the Late Permian, the distribution of synapsids, and of some of the other amniotes becomes cosmopolitan. However, the evidence for this pattern rests on rather weak negative evidence (i. e., no Permo-Carboniferous synapsids have been found outside paleoequatorial regions, but other areas have not been prospected intensively).
You are not even trying to be skeptical of the arguments people give you for YEC. You just assert stuff that is easily proven wrong, Rick.
Are there fossilized synapsids? YES! There are. Biologists and paleontologists have studied them extensively. And their fossils are found in layers that are between 320 million years ago and the present.
Guess what Rick? You are a synapsid.
"Theistic evolution is dead. That was an early mistake of the church over 100 years ago to go down that road.
YEC is the coming wave, and growing."
I know very few evangelical Christians who are YEC advocates. In fact there are quite a few OEC advocates. Most of them are satisfied knowing that God created everything and let him worry about the details. I'm sorry so many YEC Christians have to try to fit God into their pocket.
If he exists he is much greater than any of them could imagine.
Rick,
"Plate tectonics says nothing about raising and lowering the continents 20+ times as to "explain" long ages for the sedimentary layers. Try again. That's about as deep an explanation as "God did it"."
I've no idea what you're thinking of when you talk about raising and lowering continents 20+ times. The continents move via plate tectonics, they are lifted up and subducted. In some cases they are pressed down through masses of ice or water above them such as during ice ages. I don't know why you think they should bounce "20+" times.
"According to PZ, from a "Synapsid" 166 million years ago. Do we have a fossil example of a "Synapsid"? No."
Do we have fossil synapsids? Yes, tonnes. All mammals are synapsids so all fossil mammals are examples of fossil synapsids. Of course there are many pre-mammalian synapsid fossils such as Dimetrodon which you may have heard of.
A very simple wikipedia search would have shown how dismally wrong you are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsida
"Where did 166 million years come from? From an arbitrary assignment of this "branch" to the Jurassic."
What a sack of PRATTs you do have. Would you like to argue that the dating methods (of which you seem to know nothing about) have error bars which can fit 6,000 years just as well as 166,000,000 years or are you flailing out to distract everyone from the topic at hand?
rick,
I'm sorry you have been taken in by PZ Meyer's deceptions.
You suffering dolt, it was a study conducted by:
Warren WC, Hillier LW, Marshall Graves JA, Birney E, Ponting CP, Grützner F, Belov K, Miller W, Clarke L, Chinwalla AT, Yang SP, Heger A, Locke DP, Miethke P, Waters PD, Veyrunes F, Fulton L, Fulton B, Graves T, Wallis J, Puente XS, López-Otín C, Ordóñez GR, Eichler EE, Chen L, Cheng Z, Deakin JE, Alsop A, Thompson K, Kirby P, Papenfuss AT, Wakefield MJ, Olender T, Lancet D, Huttley GA, Smit AF, Pask A, Temple-Smith P, Batzer MA, Walker JA, Konkel MK, Harris RS, Whittington CM, Wong ES, Gemmell NJ, Buschiazzo E, Vargas Jentzsch IM, Merkel A, Schmitz J, Zemann A, Churakov G, Ole Kriegs J, Brosius J, Murchison EP, Sachidanandam R, Smith C, Hannon GJ, Tsend-Ayush E, McMillan D, Attenborough R, Rens W, Ferguson-Smith M, Lefèvre CM, Sharp JA, Nicholas KR, Ray DA, Kube M, Reinhardt R, Pringle TH, Taylor J, Jones RC, Nixon B, Dacheux JL, Niwa H, Sekita Y, Huang X, Stark A, Kheradpour P, Kellis M, Flicek P, Chen Y, Webber C, Hardison R, Nelson J, Hallsworth-Pepin K, Delehaunty K, Markovic C, Minx P, Feng Y, Kremitzki C, Mitreva M, Glasscock J, Wylie T, Wohldmann P, Thiru P, Nhan MN, Pohl CS, Smith SM, Hou S, Renfree MB, Mardis ER, Wilson RK (2008) Genome analysis of the platypus reveals unique signatures of evolution. Nature 453(7192):175-183.
--S.
umm, help me if i missed something as i am kinda new to thinking about this stuff in any serious way, but if god could poof the animals onto the ark and poof them back into their habitats or make them 'evolve', i mean, differentiate, so fast into many species from a common ancestor that had to be poofed to and from the arc, and if god could poof all that water into the clouds to make all that rain and then poof it away again, well, and don't laugh if this is obvious, but why did he need the ark and the flood in the first place. would it not have been more efficient to just poof away all the bad stuff he was trying to get rid of with the flood waters? this seems like a lot of poof-work to do something in a roundabout way that could have been direct-poofed, well, directly out of existance.
and if the bible story about the flood is literal truth, are songs about the flood like that one about the uni-corn literal truth too? maybe shel silverstein was inspired by god to tell the rest of the story?
Evan, you beat me to it: I remember having a paleontology final where we had to identify all the parts of a synapsid skull cast.
Rick- seriously, at least google your questions before simply asserting stuff. Even if you don't believe what you read, it's only common courtesy to come prepared to a debate. That way, at least elementary misconceptions get nipped in the bud.
Since eveyone else went after him (rick) on the science I tried to go after him on the biblical side. Had to read genesis (yuck).
But then I realized a point I'd missed.
Rick said:
For one, there were neither lions or zebras on the ark, but rather ancestral "kinds" that were likely common to many feline and horse breeds we see today. Nor did felines, or man, eat animal flesh until after the flood.
Is it just me or did rick not only endorse evolution but state an theory of evolution more extreme than any I've ever heard?
Complete develpoment of new species, development of carnviours behavious, and radical specification all at the same time just since the flood. Only thing I don't know is if our boy Rick is an YEC. Boy would that be extreme.
Bahamthered,
Rick said:
For one, there were neither lions or zebras on the ark, but rather ancestral "kinds" that were likely common to many feline and horse breeds we see today. Nor did felines, or man, eat animal flesh until after the flood.
Additionally, rick's hot air, logic balloon, completely deflates, when you ask the question -- what animal flesh did the animals eat, after the flood? Or did god restock the animal kingdom?
--S.
goprairie: yes, "God goes poof" is indeed the last refuge of the creationist, and it comes in many guises. One of the best examples I've come across is the following gem, by John Hartnett, in an article proposing a way of reconciling the apparent great age of starlight with the Genesis account (thanks to Reynold of Skeptic Friends who pointed me to the EvolutionBlog's nice fisking of the current Conference on Creationism):
A new model, of a type similar to Humphreys’, has been described that allows billions of years to pass in the cosmos but only 24 hours on Earth during Day 4. In this model, the laws of physics are suspended while creation is in progress and enormous time dilation occurs between Earth clocks and astronomical clocks. This solves the light-travel-time problem faced by creationist cosmology and makes all astronomical evidence fit the Genesis account. No non-physical requirements are placed on the model.
In other words, if there's a problem, God can poof it. Of course, ID suffers from, er, rejoices in the same powerful methodology.
Well not to mention what animals did people eat?
And why did the people suddenly decide to start eating them?
And also why did they even keep livestock before the flood? (some answers here, maybe)
For one, there were neither lions or zebras on the ark, but rather ancestral "kinds" that were likely common to many feline and horse breeds we see today.
I have heard of this absurd, rationalization before. What lengths the creationist will go to protect their idiotic, feeble, beliefs. Because they know two of every species couldn't have fit on the ark, they have to start slicing and dicing. Creationist couldn't possibly account for the hundreds of thousands of species of dogs, alone, so then they have to assert, one ancestral kind (canidae) went aboard the ark. Which begs the question, was it the chihuahua, that took on this burden and after 6,000 years, it produced this:
Side-striped Jackal, Canis adustus
Golden Jackal, Canis aureus
Coyote, Canis latrans (also called Prairie Wolf)
Gray Wolf, Canis lupus (2.723 Ma to present)
Red Wolf, Canis lupus rufus (3 Ma to present)
Domestic Dog, Canis lupus familiaris
Dingo, most often classified as Canis lupus dingo
New Guinea Singing Dog, Canis lupus hallstromi
many other proposed subspecies
Black-backed Jackal, Canis mesomelas
Ethiopian Wolf, Canis simensis (also called Abyssinian Wolf, Simien Fox and Simien Jackal)
Genus Cynotherium †
Sardinian Dhole, Cynotherium sardous †
Genus Cuon
Dhole, Cuon alpinus or Canis alpinus (also called Asian Wild Dog)
Genus Lycaon
African Wild Dog, Lycaon pictus (also called African Hunting Dog)
Genus Indocyon†
Indian Mute Dog, Indocyon caribensis † (also called Caribbean Dog)
Genus Cubacyon
Cuban Dhole, Cubacyon transversidens †
Genus Atelocynus
Short-eared Dog, Atelocynus microtis
Genus Cerdocyon
Crab-eating Fox, Cerdocyon thous
Genus Dasycyon † ?
Hagenbeck Wolf, Dasycyon hagenbecki † ?
Genus Dusicyon †
Falkland Island Fox, Dusicyon australis †
Genus Pseudalopex
Culpeo, Pseudalopex culpaeus
Darwin's Fox, Pseudalopex fulvipes
Argentine Grey Fox, Pseudalopex griseus
Pampas Fox, Pseudalopex gymnocercus
Sechura Fox, Pseudalopex sechurae
Hoary Fox, Pseudalopex vetulus
Genus Chrysocyon
Maned Wolf, Chrysocyon brachyurus
Genus Speothos
Bush Dog, Speothos venaticus
unnamed bush dog species, Speothos pacivorus †
True foxes - Tribe Vulpini
Genus Vulpes
Arctic Fox, Vulpes lagopus
Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes (1 Ma to present)
Swift Fox, Vulpes velox
Kit Fox, Vulpes macrotis
Corsac Fox, Vulpes corsac
Cape Fox, Vulpes chama
Pale Fox, Vulpes pallida
Bengal Fox, Vulpes bengalensis
Tibetan Sand Fox, Vulpes ferrilata
Blanford's Fox, Vulpes cana
Rüppell's Fox, Vulpes rueppelli
Fennec Fox, Vulpes zerda
Genus Urocyon (2 Ma to present)
Gray Fox, U. cinereoargenteus
Island Fox, U. littoralis
Cozumel Fox, U. sp.
Basal Caninae
Genus Otocyon (probably a vulpine close to Urocyon)
Bat-eared Fox, Otocyon megalotis
Genus Nyctereutes
Raccoon Dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides
And if you were to just take one of these sub-families, for instance domestic dogs this sub-family has thousands of DOG BREEDS A-Z That one dog on the ark had a massive undertaking -- can anyone say MYTH?
--S.
Don't forget about the dinosaurs. According to AIG they were on board the ark as well, but they were "probably teenagers" so says AIG. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Furthermore, I read and re-read genesis from the beginning to the end of the ark myth and nowhere, did if find evidence, that animals didn't eat flesh. More imaginings, conjecture and pulling out of the butt -- huh, rick?
--S.
"Furthermore, I read and re-read genesis from the beginning to the end of the ark myth and nowhere, did if find evidence, that animals didn't eat flesh." Good thoughts, sconnor. To add to your point, I've always understood that the seven pairs of every clean animal were food for the journey. Come to think of it, why did they have to load the unclean animals at all? Not to mention that this is the first time there is ever a mention of clean and unclean critters, which opens up whole other can of worms.
From the Gospel According to Rick:
There seems to be a lot of hilarity here regarding the idea that marsupials could have "hopped their way from Turkey". Has anyone here read the history about the "European rabbit plague" in Australia? It appears that the critters where brought to Aussie BY BOAT (for you stevie) in the late 18th to mid 19th century, and that now there is not a corner in Australia to be found without them across the entire continent. It appears "hopping" served the rabbit quite well.
This argument doesn't work as an example for kangaroos et al getting to Australia post Noah's ark:
Rabbits and kangaroos hop, yes, but the rabbits in this example didn't hop to Australia. They took a boat, so they were helped there and did not get to Australia under their own power, largely due to the inability of rabbits to hop on water (unless it was Rabbit Jesus).
Ignoring the fact that these rabbits are also found all over the world, Rick's story fails to mention whether or not there were more than 2 rabbits on this boat that delivered them to Australia.
Finally, the kangaroo-boat theory requires that the two surviving Kangaroos, Platypi, Koalas, and all other animals that do not presently exist, to have been almost immediately have been put on a newly built boat and sent to their new homes around the world. The problem is, who did that and why? If you take Genesis literally, then post-flood, you've got Noah and his immediate family, since everybody else was killed in the flood and Shem, Ham, & Japheth had to go repopulate the whole Earth. How did anybody have the time and manpower to build these boats and set sail all over the world to populate all the other continents with both people and animals? An event of that magnitude surely would have been of interest to report in the Bible wouldn't it? I mean, somehow, before all of these species managed to heavily populate the area where Noah and family settled after the flood, Noah's family produced enough male and female offspring to allow them to build boats, fill them with the animals and people to maintain the boats, set sail with every indication that they never came back. Meanwhile, any kangaroos that were around that didn't go on this primitive Carnival Cruise, must have just died out in the surrounding areas of Turkey. But why didn't they die out BEFORE the other kangaroos even had a chance to get on the boat?
Did the kangaroos breed after the flood and multiply up until there were enough people to build and sail the boat(s) to Australia? Then either they managed to put ALL of the kangaroos on the boat, leaving none in the area of Turkey or for some mysterious reason, the kangaroos that didn't go to Australia all mysteriously died, leaving no fossils for us to find.
Or did the kangaroos just not breed for however long it took for the humans to move them on the boats, meaning that this male and female kangaroo just lived a long time without ever mating? What, Turkey didn't get them in the mood?
And even if, somehow, the kangaroos ended up in Australia because Noah's descendants decided to move them, how was this particular species chosen? Did somebody say, "These weird looking hoppy-punchy things with the big pockets don't fit in here. Let's move them to some secluded land mass far, far away"? And so, kangaroos, platypi, koalas, and Inland Taipan snakes were all deemed odd or whatever and sent to Australia while the pandas were sent to China.
And yet, this distribution of people and animals is not mentioned at all in the Bible. How odd.
Picky, picky, rotten arsenal. Actually, all your questions have the same answer: God went "Poof". Do you expect the authors of the Bible to have documented every last detail? All the "poofs" required to make just Genesis fit with real-world evidence would constitute a book right there, and the prophets had their hands full with prohibiting linsey-woolsey and such.
Luckily, there are lots of modern-day apologists who have taken up the slack, and come forth with very entertaining descriptions of the intricate dance that the animals, plants, people, planets, and stars must have done at Jehovah's bidding, to reconcile the Word of God with the Book of Nature. I am constantly amazed at their ingenuity.
One of the things that has always puzzled me about this story, as well as the other stories in the book of genesis, is, how did moses know about them?
If he was raised as an egyptian he would have learned the egyptian creation myths and if the stories were told to him after his "conversion" then he should have given credit to whoever taught him these tales.
Now if god was the one who told these stories to moses then we have a different problem. God's goal was not necessarily to teach history but to garner faith so it really wouldn't matter to god whether or not the flood actually happened, but whether or not people were willing to believe it.
God's goal was not necessarily to teach history but to garner faith so it really wouldn't matter to god whether or not the flood actually happened, but whether or not people were willing to believe it.
So tigg- you're saying that God told a fib? Boy, will you get a hot spot in Hell.
after the flood, when the waters had poofed back into the oceans, then each of noah's 8 sons (of course it was the sons -womens lib hadn't been created yet) built another boat out of the trees that died in the flood and each one took some of the animals to a different one of te 8 continents. That explains why animals appear only on one continent. Each one picked the animals he liked and took them. That personal preference explains why there are similar animals on that continent. isn't it obvious?
goprairie- you have the makings of a true apologist!
"The man is notorious for not being able (or perhaps just willing) to distinguish fact from conjecture." - Rick
You've broken the irony meter and made an ass of yourself.
Pot
Kettle
Black
How about this sentence early in the piece:
"Skeptics often claim, “The Bible is not a science textbook.” This, of course, is true—because science textbooks change every year, whereas the Bible is the unchanging Word of God—the God who cannot lie."
It should read:
Skeptics often claim, “The Bible is not a science textbook.” This, of course, is true — because science textbooks change every year, whereas the Bible is the perfect book for people who are too lazy or illiterate to pick up a science textbook and grapple with the accompanying math. Such people are equally disinclined to actually read the Bible, being generally content to sit back and listen to someone "interpret" it while making the listener feel complacent and good about having the mental and social maturity of a 5-year-old. The Bible is the ultimate bedtime fairy tale and is especially good with a glass of warm milk."
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