Posted by John on September 16, 1998 at 19:24:44:
In Reply to: Substantial scientific proof that evolution occurred posted by eman on September 16, 1998 at 11:28:33:
: The reason that almost all scientists have accepted that evolution has occurred on this planet over billions of years is that there is an immense amount of scientific evidence and data to support it. Also some small evolutionary mechanisms have been repeated in the lab. One reason it is becoming so difficult to keep up with antibiotics that will kill the various viruses and germs out there is that they are evolving/mutating into different strains that are immune to the antibiotics. The only science that can support Creation is to misstate, misunderstand and distort scientific principles and evidence to make them appear to support a theory that is supported by a literal reading of the Bible alone. To this day, nearly every "scientific" arguement in support of young-earth creationism has been exposed to be a sham by those who truly understand basic scientific principles and methods. If the so-called Creation Scientists have research to support there cause, why don't they present it to the world and the scientific community for scrutiny? It is not that the scientific community is biased against their research; they do not even submit research to be published. Those few that have submitted research documents in the past have been rejected, not because there was a bias against their ideas, but because the research is academically deficient and fails to follow even the basic scientific methods and standards. If you just read some of their literature, it is laughable. Many of the leading Creationists, such as Carl Baugh, Kent Hovind, Kelley Segraves, Thomas Barnes, Richard Bliss, Clifford Burdick, John Grebe, Don Patton, and Harold Slusher, to name a few, have very questionable academic credentials. Many have supposed degrees from schools with no accreditation and many are widely considered diploma mills. Some even hawk their honorary doctorates as if they are actual earned degrees. Those in the Creationist movement who actually have valid credentials usually have obtained degrees outside of the realm of biology, anthropology, paleontology, etc., and therefore are no more an expert on the origins of life on this planet than the average aerospace engineer or computer scientist.
As I stated before in my previous followup, the evidence for evolution is only there if you want to see it there. A virus that develops a resistance to certain drugs may be able to evolve that resistance, but I do not dispute whether or not an organism can evolve within it's own genetic boundaries. That's microevolution and it does indeed occur, however in a billion years that virus will still be a virus and nothing more. Microevolution plus time does not equal Macroevolution. A large amount of Native Americans were wiped out by diseases that the Europeans had become resistant to. That doesn't make the Europeans any more evolved as a species. An African who can spend the entire day in the blazing sun is not a more evolved species than that same fair skinned European, is he? I really would like to hear some of the immense amount of scientific evidence and data to support evolution, that you speak of. I haven't heard any yet that I think even supports it as a theory. The entire concept of evolution and how it caught on reminds me of a trial I watched in which the prosecution contended that when a certain song was played backwards you could hear satanic references in it. No one in the courtroom could make out any such thing when it was played on the P.A. Not until the prosecution told them what they were supposed to hear, were they actually able to make out some kind of jibberish that could have been taken as the statements in question. All I'm trying to say by all this is that scientists believe the earth is so old and that life evolved over billions of years because we, in our infinite wisdom, cannot create life so it must have happened by accident, and because there are so many different forms of life, it had to have taken a really long time. A literal interpretation of Genesis was completely out of the question because it would acknowledge the God of Christianity and man's accountability to Him. After that as soon as they developed dating methods that fell in line with an earth that was millions and even billions of years old, they called that proof. Carbon dating was inaccurate from the get-go because it is based on the assumption that the ratio of c12 to c14 in the atmosphere has always been what it is now. It is a proven fact that c14 is building up in the atmosphere and is not at a balanced state. Things that died 8,000 years ago may not have taken in any c14 at all, or at least a whole lot less, so when a paleontologist digs up a skeleton and labs test show no measureable traces of c14 the thing is instantly tagged as over 60,000 years old and is tested by another method that is only accepted as valid simply because it gives them the answer they want. Of course, there isn't a paleontologist on the planet that would send a dinosaur skeleton for RC dating. I was using that as an example. I'm sure Darwin didn't develop his theory completely on his own but by publishing it he gave people who were reluctant to believe that God created us as we are now, an avenue to travel and feel they finally figured it all out.