How To Define "Evolution"?

[PoliticalChic]

Gee whiz, but princess was on a cut and paste tear across the web. Ya’ know, I so appreciate one who engages in this type of comical quote mining. Are creationists really so desperately insecure in their belief system that their compelled to scour the internet to find validation of their beliefs by quote mining? How sad!

Another aspect of this practice is that these "quotes" are widely passed around and used repeatedly by creationists, while neither bothering to check the original source nor giving any indication that they are taken from secondary sources. This is shown by the fact (as can be seen in a number of these cases) that there are errors that can and have crept into these quotes or their citations which are then propagated by other creationists when they are copied without attribution.

You know, while the web can be an invaluable source of information / data gathering, it can also be a playground for cut & pasters such as the princess. There are those... "less than discriminating types", who scour the web for "quotes" they cut and paste without feeling any need or obligation to confirm the accuracy of their "quotes".

Not surprisingly, every one of the "quotes" dumped into this thread by the princess appears in virtually every creationist website, exactly as cut and pasted by the princess. And, not surprisingly, these same "quotes" share the expected editing and parsing. Additionally, most are 1980's vintage material.


Regarding "quote" a, we see that only an edited, parsed portion has been "quoted". Here is a fuller description:

Edwards v. Aguillard: Dean Kenyon's Affidavit



"Quote" b is another example of a "quote" being mined from a creationist website. As usual, only a portion of the "quote" is available so we are left to question why is there a need to cut and paste the "quote" without any underlying context.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 23.** Fossil Gaps

The particular "quote" was mined from a site titled "Center for Scientific Creationism".

Yeah, I know, I was laughing also. This site seems to be nothing more than a repository for "quotes" that appeal to the "quote- mining" types who cut and paste with abandon... and are suffering from oxygen starvation.




But more fun. This particular “quote” can also be found on Harun Yahya… with a different citation as to the “quot-or”

Harun Yahya

Gordon Rattray Taylor is an evolutionist author and chief science advisor for the BBC:

... there are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world.225


Oh narly. The princess is a Harun Yahya groupie.




"Quote" c appears here:

Harun Yahya

If anyone missed it, Harun Yahya (real name Adnan Oktar), is a failed college student and previously served time in jail for some less than legal activities involving underage girls.

Lovely!



"Quote" d is another snippet of 1980's origin. And as bogus as the princess is a fraud.

Check out quote 33, here:

Quote Mine Project: "Sudden Appearance and Stasis"

"Quote mining" is the phrase you hide behind when you fail in a debate.

As you have.

....where are the fossils?

Where are the fosills? You'll need to wait till after dark when those atheistic, evilutionist scientists go out under cover of darkness with their rakes and shovels to plant the evidence.

In the meantime - Archaeopteryx is clearly a transitional. Eohippus is shown in various stages. Whales have intermediaries. Creationists simply ignore the facts written in stone (they prefer the myths inscribed on parchment)

Secondly, It is an identifiable fact that there is genetic variation within species. It is an identifiable fact that this genetic variation is passed on. That, essentially, is evolution. It is a fact that the earth is billions of years old, and that the oldest known microfossil is 3.8 billion years old. That leaves a lot of time for genetic variation to be shaped by selective pressures.
If princess is looking for the fact that species are observed to evolve into new species, princess can look here: Observed Instances of Speciation


Would princes like more?
Some More Observed Speciation Events


How about transitional fossils? Would princess like transitional fossils?



There are tons of transitional fossils, showing the transformation of species?
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ

"How about transitional fossils? Would princess like transitional fossils?"


"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much -- ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago, 50:22-29)



"....ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time."
(Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago

 

[orogenicman]

On a Common Creationist Quotation of Dr. David M. Raup

From: Evan Yeung

Let me congratulate you on a fantastic website! I have been thoroughly impressed with the articles and information presented here. It's too bad that many of this information seems to be deliberately ignored by many people who post on this feedback board...

I do have a question...

In a number of articles that I've read from pro-creationist or intelligent design theorists, they have quoted David Raup from the Field Museum, who reportedly stated in 1979 that "We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much... We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time." Did David Raup really say this, or is he being taken out of context like so many other paleontologists when they are quoted by creationists?

Thanx! Evan
****************************

Yes, Raup did say this (in "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology", Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin Jan. 1979, Vol. 50 No. 1 p. 22-29). Here is the quote in the immediate context:


Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information -- what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appear to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. (p. 25, emphasis mine)

Note that while Raup says that some of the examples have been "discarded" he also says that others have only been "modified". For example the classic horse series Raup mentions is one of those that has been modified, but it is far from discarded. Also note that Raup clearly states that the pattern of the fossil record is one of change in living things over geologic time, something that young earth creationists deny.

And yes it has been taken out of context. The paper is about Darwin's mechanism of natural selection and whether this mechanism is reflected in pattern of the fossil record, not whether there is a lack of evidence for common descent. From the beginning of the article:

Part of our conventional wisdom about evolution is that the fossil record of past life is an important cornerstone of evolutionary theory. In some ways, this is true -- but the situation is much more complicated. I will explore here a few of the complex interrelationships between fossils and darwinian theory. . . Darwin's theory of natural selection has always been closely linked to evidence form fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. We must distinguish between the fact of evolution -- defined as change in organisms over time -- and the explanation of this change. Darwin's contribution, through his theory of natural selection, was to suggest how the evolutionary change took place. The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be. (p. 22)

The transitions Raup seems to be talking about, in the quote creationists use, are mostly at the level of species or genera (like between a horse and a zebra or between a fox and a wolf). Not intermediates between higher classifications like between classes, orders, or families (between reptiles and mammals etc.), which are the ones creationists most object to. However it is these "missing" species level transitions that creationists (in ignorance?) often quote paleontologists talking about. This seems to be the case here as well:

There were several problems, but the principle one was that the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution. In other words, there are not enough intermediates. There are very few cases where one can find a gradual transition from one species to another. . . (p. 23, emphasis mine)

Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge are favorite targets for this creationist tactic because their hypothesis of punctuated equilibria is intended to explain why, from a biological point of view, we should expect species level transitions to be rare in the fossil record. Thus in their writings they frequently state the problem(s) they are attempting to solve. Creationists quote them stating the problems but not the solutions they propose. This seems to be the nature of the quote they have taken from Raup. The beginning of the very next paragraph after the one they quote tends to confirm this:

Now let me take a step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works. (p. 25)

He then moves on to the fossil record:

Now with regard to the fossil record, we certainly see change. If any of us were to be put down in the Cretaceous landscape we would immediately recognize the difference. Some of the plants and animals would be familiar but most would have changed and some of the types would be totally different from those living today. . . This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; but it does not tell us how this change too place, and that is really the question. If we allow that natural selection works, as we almost have to do, the fossil record doesn't tell us whether it was responsible for 90 percent of the change we see or 9 percent, or .9 percent. (p. 26)

He then goes on to discuss natural selection versus other possible explanatory mechanisms and how they might relate to the fossil record. He also discusses the effects of historical contingency as it relates to extinction pointing out that sometimes species may become extinct due more to "bad luck" than bad genes (this by the way is the basis for Raup's 1991 book Extinction - Bad Genes or Bad Luck?). Raup concludes this article stating:

The ideas I have discussed here are rather new and have not been completely tested. No matter how they come out, however, they are having a ventilating effect on thinking in evolution and the conventional dogma is being challenged. If the ideas turn out to be valid, it will mean that Darwin was correct in what he said but that he was explaining only a part of the total evolutionary picture. The part he missed was the simple element of chance! (p. 29)

Not particularly damning. Perhaps the more interesting question is where do creationists get the idea that lists of such (out of context) quotations are a valid form of scientific argument?

********************
I'd say that Creationists don't get much more dishonest than this, but that would be wrong.

 

[rightwinger]

Evolution is a FACT

God is a Theory

 

[Hollie]

"Quote mining" is the phrase you hide behind when you fail in a debate.

As you have.

....where are the fossils?

Where are the fosills? You'll need to wait till after dark when those atheistic, evilutionist scientists go out under cover of darkness with their rakes and shovels to plant the evidence.

In the meantime - Archaeopteryx is clearly a transitional. Eohippus is shown in various stages. Whales have intermediaries. Creationists simply ignore the facts written in stone (they prefer the myths inscribed on parchment)

Secondly, It is an identifiable fact that there is genetic variation within species. It is an identifiable fact that this genetic variation is passed on. That, essentially, is evolution. It is a fact that the earth is billions of years old, and that the oldest known microfossil is 3.8 billion years old. That leaves a lot of time for genetic variation to be shaped by selective pressures.
If princess is looking for the fact that species are observed to evolve into new species, princess can look here: Observed Instances of Speciation


Would princes like more?
Some More Observed Speciation Events


How about transitional fossils? Would princess like transitional fossils?



There are tons of transitional fossils, showing the transformation of species?
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ

"How about transitional fossils? Would princess like transitional fossils?"


"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much -- ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago, 50:22-29)



"....ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time."
(Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago

Good for you. More "quotes" you mined from Harun Yahya. You don't seem to understand how comically tragic it is that you cut and paste from Harun Yahya. As usual, you mindlessly spam the thread with "quotes" which, as I've already demonstrated, are largely fraudulent. That makes you an accomplice to the fraud that is creationism.

The fossil record does, clearly, support evolution, in spite of your revulsion for knowledge and truth. There is no other rational explanation for the fossil record. Click on the seach button at the top of your browser window and type in "Cambrian Explosion" and please get educated.

As far as the quotation from David Raup, please state the exact source with a link to the relevant "quote". I know from experience to be extremely careful in accepting any "quote" offered by a creationist, as they routinely lie, fabricate and twist.



Archaeopteryx: Answering the Challenge of the Fossil Record

When Raul says the following (1983, p.157) it is unlikely that he said or meant what you claim.

"[t]he practicing paleontologist is obliged to place any newly found fossil in the Linnean system of taxonomy. Thus, if one finds a birdlike reptile or a reptilelike bird (such as Archaeopteryx), there is no procedure in the taxonomic system for labeling and classifying this as an intermediate between the two classes Aves and Reptilia. Rather, the practicing paleontologist must decide to place his fossil in one category or the other. The impossibility of officially recognising transitionary forms produces an artificial dichotomy between biologic groups. It is conventional to classify Archaeopteryx as a bird. I have no doubt, however, that if it were permissible under the rules of taxonomy to put Archaeopteryx in some sort of category intermediate between birds and reptiles that we would indeed do that."


Late edit: I realized the "quote" from PC was already addressed in more thorough detail.

Kudos, OM. Nicely done.

 

[flacaltenn]

Please watch this video, and then come back and explain how any of the ancient creation stories are in any way "remarkably in tune" with what we know today.

Don't know or care what "rational" video you needed me to consume.
Probably one of those "we're so smart -- because we hate the Bible" PowerPoint deals eh?

When's the last time you READ the beginning of the Book of Genesis?

It's really simple...

Earth was unformed and void. First came the Light (Big Bang) -- formation of land and oceans, PLANTS BEFORE BEASTS, Beasts before Man..

Also the basic order of higher life springing from the sea is in there..
As well as the recognition that the stars in the heavens were signs of seasons.

What's the prob chief?? Gonna get picky with that narrative?
It's only a page or two... Almost as brief as a twitter feed.. Can't get wonky in a twitter msg -- can ya?

Back to the topic...

http://www.huecotanks.com/debunk/genesis.html

Is Genesis Scientifically Accurate?

Many creationists make the claim that the order and timing of the events described in Genesis are scientifically accurate, and thus could only be the result of divine knowledge. The most vociferous proponents of this argument are the Jehovah's Witnesses, in their booklet "Life: How Did It Get Here?". Are the creationists right? Is Genesis accurate in the order and timing of the events it describes? Is Genesis a historical narrative that accurately describes the appearence of life? A cursory examination shows that it is not. To see why, let's go through the creation accounts verse by verse.

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".

There are some questions about this translation. The original Hebrew word usually translated as "God" here is elohim, which is actually the plural form. Literally, this verse reads, "in the beginning, the GODS created the heavens and the earth." This is one of several places in the Bible where God is referred to in the plural. Biblical scholars conclude that these fragments are left over from an early part of Hebrew history when the Jewish religion was, like every other religion on earth at the time, polytheistic, with more than one god. During this time, the god Yahweh was a storm god, one of many others.

There is also some dispute about the words. An alternate translation has this verse as "When god began to create the heavens and the earth".

This verse implies that the "heavens and the earth" were created more or less at the same time. Scientifically, we know that the "heavens", that is, space, appeared billions of years before the earth ever appeared. The sun is at least a "third generation" star, which formed from condensed gas clouds made up of remnants of at least two supernovae from previous stars.

2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The early universe was not "dark". We know from quantum mechanics that the earliest universe was a sea of quarks, followed shortly after by a sea of free nucleons and photons. Until the era of "decoupling", about 300,000 years after the formation of the universe, the entire universe was as bright throughout as the surface of the sun is today.

The verse refers to "the face of the waters". If this verse refers to the waters on earth, such as the ocean, it is completely wrong. The early earth had no ocean. It was not until millions of years of accretion had built up the planet that liquid water began to form, both from volcanic outgassing and from the impacts of comets attracted by the gravity of the earth.

However, most Biblical scholars believe that the "waters" referred to here are those in heaven, from which rain comes. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Genesis account later describes how these "waters" were divided from those of earth by a wall, with one portion of these divided waters forming the oceans.

But we know from science that the early universe did not have any liquid water. None at all. Not even any water molecules. In fact, for a period of several hundred thousand years, it did not have any molecules of any sort. The Genesis description of water above the "firmament" is simply wrong.

3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

This verse has the formation of light occuring only AFTER the "waters" and the earth already existed. As noted above, this is simply wrong. The entire universe was brightly lit for its first 300,000 years of existence, billions of years before the earth came into being.

4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

This verse betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of "light", one that was common to the pre-industrial peoples who wrote the Bible. During these times, it was believed that "darkness" was an element separate and distinct from "light" (see, for example, Amos 5:8, which declares that God "maketh the day dark with night"). This of course is simply not true. Darkness is nothing more than the absence of light. One can no more "separate" light from darkness than one can separate "left" from "right" or "up" from "down".

5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Notice here that there is no Sun yet, it not having yet been created. This account is thus contradicted by science on several grounds. Since a "day" is itself based on the earth's rotation near the Sun, there could have been no "day" until AFTER the sun appeared. Nor is there any cosmic source of "day light" other than the sun. Scientifically, we know that the sun actually condensed first, and was already burning nuclear fuel when the earth first began to appreciably accrete. The Genesis account, which has the earth and the "waters" formed before the Sun, is simply wrong.

6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The word "firmament" refers to a hard, clear wall or divider. It refers to the ancient belief that the stars and planets were held in the sky by a huge transparent wall or roof. The "waters above" the firmament were presumed to be huge reservoirs of water in the sky, from which, it was presumed in ancient times, rain came through holes in the firmament. This is referred to during the Flood story by Genesis 7:11, which says "the windows of heaven were opened", and also in Genesis 8:2, which says "the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained". It is also referred to by other verses in the Bible like Acts 14:17, where God "gave us rain from heaven", Deuteronomy 11:11, which says "But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven", Deuteronomy 11:17, which says "And then the LORD's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain", Deuteronomy 28:12, which says "The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season", Isaiah 55:10, which says "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud", and Revelations 11:6, which says "These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy".

Needless to say, there is no "firmament" that holds rainwater or stars up in the sky. The ancient writers of the Bible, having no knowledge or understanding of "gravity", simply postulated that this hard clear sphere MUST be there, or else the stars and planets would all fall down, and that the "firmament" must have "windows" to let the rain through. They were wrong.

9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

According to the Genesis account, the oceans come from water that was already existing when the earth was formed-----the "waters above" and "the waters below". From the description given, it appears that the Genesis writers assumed that the entire earth was covered with water ("the waters below"), and that the dry land was formed by moving all that water to specific locations to form the oceans. Scientifically, we know this to be untrue. There has never been a time in earth's history when its surface was covered with water. In fact, the early earth had no liquid water at all on its surface. It wasn't until millions of years after it accreted that the earth began accumulating water, in the form of volcanic outgassing and impacts of ice comets.

11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.

According to the Genesis account, the first living things to be created were grasses and plants, and they lived on land. Scientifically, this is untrue. For the first three billion years of its existence, all life, both animal and plant, was entirely aquatic and lived in the sea. The land area was sterile and had no life. During this period, all life consisted of single-celled prokaryotes that were not grasses, not herbs, and not even plants. The Biblical account that has grasses appearing at the same time, or shortly before, fruit trees is also incorrect. Flowering plants, or angiosperms, appeared during the Cretaceous period, just before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and before any grasses appeared. As far as grasses, they weren't even remotely the first forms of life---grasses didn't appear until the early Tertiary period, well after the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are actually one of the LAST major groups of plants to have formed. The Genesis writer's idea that plants appeared before animals is also simply wrong----we know from the fossil record that multicellular animals appeared first. The Genesis account gets all of this wrong.

Note here too that the Sun hadn't been created yet. . . . Plants, of course, cannot live without photosynthesis using sunlight. The Biblical idea that plants could have appeared before the Sun appeared simply reflects their lack of knowledge about the most basic biology of plants.

14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Lots of problems here . . . .

According to the Genesis account, no heavenly bodies were created until this, the "fourth day". Yet the same account has "day" and "night" appearing on the FIRST day. This is simply impossible, since "day" and "night" are defined according to the earth's relationship to other heavenly bodies. There could not have been any "day" or "night" without a Sun for the earth to rotate near.

The "lights of the firmament" refer to stars and planets. As pointed out earlier, ancient peoples believed that the stars were held up by a clear invisible roof in the sky, the "firmament". Scientifially, we know that the firmament does not exist. We also know that, contrary to the Genesis account, these stars existed for billions of years before the earth (or even our own Sun) ever existed. The biblical account that has the stars forming after the earth did is simply wrong.

Note also that this narration has the lights of the firmament being formed to "give light to the earth". This, of course, had already been done way back in verses 3 and 4, on the first "day". We also see a reference here to "dividing the light from darkness", which had also already been done, in verses 4 and 5. There are in fact several instances where the creation narrative gives two different times for the occurence of certain events. This leads Biblical scholars to conclude that, not only is the creation narrative in the first chapter of Genesis from a different source than the creation narrative in the second chapter (which contradict each other in several ways), but the narrative in the first chapter is itself a compilation of several different narratives which contradict each other.

Note also that the Genesis account has the sun and moon both being formed at the same time, and has both being placed on the same "firmament" that holds up the stars. This reflects the ancient belief that the "crystal spheres" of the "firmament" --including the ones that carried the sun and moon---revolved around the earth. In other words, the Biblical account concludes, as did all ancient cultures, that the earth was at the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon and all the stars were carried around the earth by a transparent wall in the sky. Scientifically, we know this is silly.

Scientifically, we also know that the sun and moon were not formed at the same time, as the biblical writer states. The sun already existed when the earth accreted. The moon didn't exist for about a billion years after the earth had already formed. In fact, from geological evidence we know that the moon was itself formed by the debris from the impact of a large body with the already-formed earth---this impact debris accreting to form the moon. The Genesis account here is simply wrong.

Another problem: according to this account, the moon is itself a source of light, and shines under its own power. This is further reinforced in Isaiah 13:10, which says "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.", and in Ezekiel 32:7, which says "And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light", and Isaiah 60:19, which says "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee", and Jeremiah 31:35, which says "Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night", and Mark 13:24, which says "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light", and Matthew 24:29, which says "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken". Scientifically, we know that all of these verses are wrong; the moon does not produce any light of its own, and simply reflects sunlight. The writers of Genesis, who knew nothing of astronomy, were unaware of this.

Finally, note here that verse 16 has God creating the "stars", which had already been created back in verse 14. Another instance of two different narrations being edited together (and not quite fitting).

20: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22: And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23: And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

The Genesis account here places the appearence of marine life AFTER the appearence of terrestrial grasses and fruit trees. Scientifically, we know this to be wrong. This account also has whales as one of the first (if not THE first) marine life to appear. Wrong again. Whales are a very recent appearence, not developing until long after the dinosaurs had died out. The Genesis account mentions that birds were created at the same time. Wrong again. Birds date from at least the Jurassic period, millions of years before the first whale. The Genesis account is also wrong in stating that birds appeared before any of the other terrestrial animals---the "creeping things" (the literal translation of the latin root for "reptiles"). This is simply not true. Not only did reptiles and dinosaurs appear on land before birds did, but we know from fossil evidence that, taxonomically, birds and dinosaurs belong in the same group.

25: And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

The Genesis account here places the creation of "creeping things" (this phrase usually refers to insects, spiders, reptiles, amphibians and other "creepy-crawlies") at the same time as the creation of mammals ("cattle"). According to Genesis, these things all appeared AFTER grasses, fruit trees, whales and birds had already appeared. And Genesis is wrong. All of these groups appeared several hundred millions of years before mammals did. All of them first appeared in the ocean, not on land.

The reference to the creation of "cattle" is also wrong, since cattle are a domestic animal that were produced by ancient pastoral societies. They are not a species that ever lived in the wild. The ancient Hebrews, knowing nothing of archaeology, got this wrong.

26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Note here: God says "Let *us* make man in *our* image." Yet another leftover reference to Judaism's polytheistic past, that hadn't been edited out of the creation narratives. . . .

The least sophisticated of Biblical readers interpret "in our image" to mean the PHYSICAL image of God, and this is the source of most creationist opposition to evolution. It is an untenable interpretation. God has no more a "physical image" than does gravity. Note also that despite all the creationist howling, the Biblical account doesn't say a word about HOW man was created (although this IS described in the different creation narrative found in genesis chapter two).

Note here that this creation account has man and woman created at the same time, in contradiction to the second creation account in chapter two, which has woman created after man. Yet another indication that the Genesis accounts are edited and redacted versions of several different narratives, each written and passed on independently of the others until spliced together by the emerging Hebrew preisthood.

On to Genesis Chapter Two:

1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

The idea here is that creation is completed---i.e., there are no new things appearing. Wrong. New species have been observed forming in the wild. Humans, despite the Genesis account, were NOT the last living things to appear.

The end of the first creation narrative is reached with verse 3 (the diving lines between chapters in Genesis do not reflect the dividing lines between the different narratives that were spliced together). I include it only to note with interest that, according to the Biblical writer, God "rested" after his creation, and to wonder why a presumably omnipotent being would feel any need at all to "rest" . . . .

4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Here begins the second narrative of the creation story---a much shorter one than the first narrative. There are several differences between it and the earlier account in chapter one. First of all, the word for God used here is NOT the plural "elohim". This indicates that the second account was written long after the first one, at a time when Judaism had already firmly rejected its polytheistic roots.

We immediately run into the first contradiction between this creation account and the preceding one. According to Genesis 2, plants and herbs had appeared, but there had never been any rain yet. Not only is this scientific nonsense (plants cannot live without water), but it also contradicts Genesis 1, which talks about the "waters above the firmament" (presumed by the ancient cultures to be the source of rain) and "separating the waters of the earth". The Genesis 2 account then describes the earth being watered by a "mist", which is not mentioned in Genesis 1 and which is contradicted by the account of God dividing the waters. Note too that in Genesis 1 the earth is covered with water and dry land appears when the oceans are gathered up-----in Genesis 2, the earth is dry and water comes from within it. The two accounts are mutually exclusive.

7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Here we have the second creation account's version of how man was created. As we know, it is scientifically untrue. Humans come from the same evolutionary process as every other living thing.

9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now we have fruit trees and other plants being created AFTER humans had already been created, a contradiction with the earlier account, which has trees and plants created before any humans.

10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

And here we have the rivers being "parted", despite the fact that the first Genesis account has the waters being "divided" BEFORE the appearence of plants or humans. Yet another instance of the two separate narratives failing to conform to each other.

19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

Now we have cattle being created AFTER the man, which directly contradicts the earlier version that has cattle being created BEFORE humans. We also have birds created AFTER cattle and AFTER humans, which also contradicts the sequence given in Genesis 1. According to the first creation account, cattle were created, then both man and woman. According to the second account, man was created, THEN cattle, THEN woman. Another indication that the entire book of Genesis is an edited compilation of several distinct and separate narratives, written at different times by different peoples, that was later spliced together somewhat clumsily. It is NOT a single unbroken historical narrative.

21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

And finally we have a story here where woman was created AFTER man, in contradiction to the earlier account which has them both created at the same time.

*******************
Sorry, genesis is not remotely based on reality. By the way, that video I posted for you if an episode of "How the Universe Works", and is very good. I highly recommend it.

Watch How the Universe Works online (TV Show) - on PrimeWire | LetMeWatchThis | Formerly 1Channel - Season 2 and Episode 8

Bravo --- you have demonstrated the complete lack of appreciation for literary license and a VENOMOUS desire to crush anything that disturbs you..

I disagree.. I pointed out the GENERAL agreements with science theory -- that light was before matter and all the rest.

It's almost comical how desparate the attempt to squash those rational observations about the story are. For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH --- since there is no proof of a steady-state map of the territory. And the literary comment about God's face "upon the waters" is taken WAAAAY too literally. It was clear in the progression of events that there was no Earth, no light, only VOID. And I'm happy to imagine to imagine the "waters" as ether.

There's only one thing I hate in this life --- and that's those who HATE so badly -- that they lose all sense of proportion and rationality.

Go on believing that LIGHT pervaded the universe before the Big Bang. If that's your "FAITH" -- I won't mock it..
Just like I won't mock your nutty belief that all matter and energy in the universe fit into an area the size of a pinhead prior to the "bang" ignition.
How much FAITH does that take eh??

Won't continue this here. Don't want to distract from "Darwin explains everything evolutionary" nutcases who don't understand the evidence or lack thereof..

 

[Derideo_Te]

For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH

Not in the least. The Law of Conservation equates to an eternal universe. Speculation is nothing more than normal interest in the unknown. What would requires "faith" is the belief that there was a specific "state" for the universe to have assumed prior to the big bang. (That there was no light for instance.) But simply speculating on all of the possible forms requires no faith at all.

 

[orogenicman]

Don't know or care what "rational" video you needed me to consume.
Probably one of those "we're so smart -- because we hate the Bible" PowerPoint deals eh?

When's the last time you READ the beginning of the Book of Genesis?

It's really simple...

Earth was unformed and void. First came the Light (Big Bang) -- formation of land and oceans, PLANTS BEFORE BEASTS, Beasts before Man..

Also the basic order of higher life springing from the sea is in there..
As well as the recognition that the stars in the heavens were signs of seasons.

What's the prob chief?? Gonna get picky with that narrative?
It's only a page or two... Almost as brief as a twitter feed.. Can't get wonky in a twitter msg -- can ya?

Back to the topic...

http://www.huecotanks.com/debunk/genesis.html

Is Genesis Scientifically Accurate?

Many creationists make the claim that the order and timing of the events described in Genesis are scientifically accurate, and thus could only be the result of divine knowledge. The most vociferous proponents of this argument are the Jehovah's Witnesses, in their booklet "Life: How Did It Get Here?". Are the creationists right? Is Genesis accurate in the order and timing of the events it describes? Is Genesis a historical narrative that accurately describes the appearence of life? A cursory examination shows that it is not. To see why, let's go through the creation accounts verse by verse.

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".

There are some questions about this translation. The original Hebrew word usually translated as "God" here is elohim, which is actually the plural form. Literally, this verse reads, "in the beginning, the GODS created the heavens and the earth." This is one of several places in the Bible where God is referred to in the plural. Biblical scholars conclude that these fragments are left over from an early part of Hebrew history when the Jewish religion was, like every other religion on earth at the time, polytheistic, with more than one god. During this time, the god Yahweh was a storm god, one of many others.

There is also some dispute about the words. An alternate translation has this verse as "When god began to create the heavens and the earth".

This verse implies that the "heavens and the earth" were created more or less at the same time. Scientifically, we know that the "heavens", that is, space, appeared billions of years before the earth ever appeared. The sun is at least a "third generation" star, which formed from condensed gas clouds made up of remnants of at least two supernovae from previous stars.

2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The early universe was not "dark". We know from quantum mechanics that the earliest universe was a sea of quarks, followed shortly after by a sea of free nucleons and photons. Until the era of "decoupling", about 300,000 years after the formation of the universe, the entire universe was as bright throughout as the surface of the sun is today.

The verse refers to "the face of the waters". If this verse refers to the waters on earth, such as the ocean, it is completely wrong. The early earth had no ocean. It was not until millions of years of accretion had built up the planet that liquid water began to form, both from volcanic outgassing and from the impacts of comets attracted by the gravity of the earth.

However, most Biblical scholars believe that the "waters" referred to here are those in heaven, from which rain comes. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Genesis account later describes how these "waters" were divided from those of earth by a wall, with one portion of these divided waters forming the oceans.

But we know from science that the early universe did not have any liquid water. None at all. Not even any water molecules. In fact, for a period of several hundred thousand years, it did not have any molecules of any sort. The Genesis description of water above the "firmament" is simply wrong.

3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

This verse has the formation of light occuring only AFTER the "waters" and the earth already existed. As noted above, this is simply wrong. The entire universe was brightly lit for its first 300,000 years of existence, billions of years before the earth came into being.

4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

This verse betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of "light", one that was common to the pre-industrial peoples who wrote the Bible. During these times, it was believed that "darkness" was an element separate and distinct from "light" (see, for example, Amos 5:8, which declares that God "maketh the day dark with night"). This of course is simply not true. Darkness is nothing more than the absence of light. One can no more "separate" light from darkness than one can separate "left" from "right" or "up" from "down".

5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Notice here that there is no Sun yet, it not having yet been created. This account is thus contradicted by science on several grounds. Since a "day" is itself based on the earth's rotation near the Sun, there could have been no "day" until AFTER the sun appeared. Nor is there any cosmic source of "day light" other than the sun. Scientifically, we know that the sun actually condensed first, and was already burning nuclear fuel when the earth first began to appreciably accrete. The Genesis account, which has the earth and the "waters" formed before the Sun, is simply wrong.

6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The word "firmament" refers to a hard, clear wall or divider. It refers to the ancient belief that the stars and planets were held in the sky by a huge transparent wall or roof. The "waters above" the firmament were presumed to be huge reservoirs of water in the sky, from which, it was presumed in ancient times, rain came through holes in the firmament. This is referred to during the Flood story by Genesis 7:11, which says "the windows of heaven were opened", and also in Genesis 8:2, which says "the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained". It is also referred to by other verses in the Bible like Acts 14:17, where God "gave us rain from heaven", Deuteronomy 11:11, which says "But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven", Deuteronomy 11:17, which says "And then the LORD's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain", Deuteronomy 28:12, which says "The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season", Isaiah 55:10, which says "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud", and Revelations 11:6, which says "These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy".

Needless to say, there is no "firmament" that holds rainwater or stars up in the sky. The ancient writers of the Bible, having no knowledge or understanding of "gravity", simply postulated that this hard clear sphere MUST be there, or else the stars and planets would all fall down, and that the "firmament" must have "windows" to let the rain through. They were wrong.

9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

According to the Genesis account, the oceans come from water that was already existing when the earth was formed-----the "waters above" and "the waters below". From the description given, it appears that the Genesis writers assumed that the entire earth was covered with water ("the waters below"), and that the dry land was formed by moving all that water to specific locations to form the oceans. Scientifically, we know this to be untrue. There has never been a time in earth's history when its surface was covered with water. In fact, the early earth had no liquid water at all on its surface. It wasn't until millions of years after it accreted that the earth began accumulating water, in the form of volcanic outgassing and impacts of ice comets.

11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.

According to the Genesis account, the first living things to be created were grasses and plants, and they lived on land. Scientifically, this is untrue. For the first three billion years of its existence, all life, both animal and plant, was entirely aquatic and lived in the sea. The land area was sterile and had no life. During this period, all life consisted of single-celled prokaryotes that were not grasses, not herbs, and not even plants. The Biblical account that has grasses appearing at the same time, or shortly before, fruit trees is also incorrect. Flowering plants, or angiosperms, appeared during the Cretaceous period, just before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and before any grasses appeared. As far as grasses, they weren't even remotely the first forms of life---grasses didn't appear until the early Tertiary period, well after the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are actually one of the LAST major groups of plants to have formed. The Genesis writer's idea that plants appeared before animals is also simply wrong----we know from the fossil record that multicellular animals appeared first. The Genesis account gets all of this wrong.

Note here too that the Sun hadn't been created yet. . . . Plants, of course, cannot live without photosynthesis using sunlight. The Biblical idea that plants could have appeared before the Sun appeared simply reflects their lack of knowledge about the most basic biology of plants.

14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Lots of problems here . . . .

According to the Genesis account, no heavenly bodies were created until this, the "fourth day". Yet the same account has "day" and "night" appearing on the FIRST day. This is simply impossible, since "day" and "night" are defined according to the earth's relationship to other heavenly bodies. There could not have been any "day" or "night" without a Sun for the earth to rotate near.

The "lights of the firmament" refer to stars and planets. As pointed out earlier, ancient peoples believed that the stars were held up by a clear invisible roof in the sky, the "firmament". Scientifially, we know that the firmament does not exist. We also know that, contrary to the Genesis account, these stars existed for billions of years before the earth (or even our own Sun) ever existed. The biblical account that has the stars forming after the earth did is simply wrong.

Note also that this narration has the lights of the firmament being formed to "give light to the earth". This, of course, had already been done way back in verses 3 and 4, on the first "day". We also see a reference here to "dividing the light from darkness", which had also already been done, in verses 4 and 5. There are in fact several instances where the creation narrative gives two different times for the occurence of certain events. This leads Biblical scholars to conclude that, not only is the creation narrative in the first chapter of Genesis from a different source than the creation narrative in the second chapter (which contradict each other in several ways), but the narrative in the first chapter is itself a compilation of several different narratives which contradict each other.

Note also that the Genesis account has the sun and moon both being formed at the same time, and has both being placed on the same "firmament" that holds up the stars. This reflects the ancient belief that the "crystal spheres" of the "firmament" --including the ones that carried the sun and moon---revolved around the earth. In other words, the Biblical account concludes, as did all ancient cultures, that the earth was at the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon and all the stars were carried around the earth by a transparent wall in the sky. Scientifically, we know this is silly.

Scientifically, we also know that the sun and moon were not formed at the same time, as the biblical writer states. The sun already existed when the earth accreted. The moon didn't exist for about a billion years after the earth had already formed. In fact, from geological evidence we know that the moon was itself formed by the debris from the impact of a large body with the already-formed earth---this impact debris accreting to form the moon. The Genesis account here is simply wrong.

Another problem: according to this account, the moon is itself a source of light, and shines under its own power. This is further reinforced in Isaiah 13:10, which says "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.", and in Ezekiel 32:7, which says "And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light", and Isaiah 60:19, which says "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee", and Jeremiah 31:35, which says "Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night", and Mark 13:24, which says "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light", and Matthew 24:29, which says "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken". Scientifically, we know that all of these verses are wrong; the moon does not produce any light of its own, and simply reflects sunlight. The writers of Genesis, who knew nothing of astronomy, were unaware of this.

Finally, note here that verse 16 has God creating the "stars", which had already been created back in verse 14. Another instance of two different narrations being edited together (and not quite fitting).

20: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22: And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23: And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

The Genesis account here places the appearence of marine life AFTER the appearence of terrestrial grasses and fruit trees. Scientifically, we know this to be wrong. This account also has whales as one of the first (if not THE first) marine life to appear. Wrong again. Whales are a very recent appearence, not developing until long after the dinosaurs had died out. The Genesis account mentions that birds were created at the same time. Wrong again. Birds date from at least the Jurassic period, millions of years before the first whale. The Genesis account is also wrong in stating that birds appeared before any of the other terrestrial animals---the "creeping things" (the literal translation of the latin root for "reptiles"). This is simply not true. Not only did reptiles and dinosaurs appear on land before birds did, but we know from fossil evidence that, taxonomically, birds and dinosaurs belong in the same group.

25: And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

The Genesis account here places the creation of "creeping things" (this phrase usually refers to insects, spiders, reptiles, amphibians and other "creepy-crawlies") at the same time as the creation of mammals ("cattle"). According to Genesis, these things all appeared AFTER grasses, fruit trees, whales and birds had already appeared. And Genesis is wrong. All of these groups appeared several hundred millions of years before mammals did. All of them first appeared in the ocean, not on land.

The reference to the creation of "cattle" is also wrong, since cattle are a domestic animal that were produced by ancient pastoral societies. They are not a species that ever lived in the wild. The ancient Hebrews, knowing nothing of archaeology, got this wrong.

26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Note here: God says "Let *us* make man in *our* image." Yet another leftover reference to Judaism's polytheistic past, that hadn't been edited out of the creation narratives. . . .

The least sophisticated of Biblical readers interpret "in our image" to mean the PHYSICAL image of God, and this is the source of most creationist opposition to evolution. It is an untenable interpretation. God has no more a "physical image" than does gravity. Note also that despite all the creationist howling, the Biblical account doesn't say a word about HOW man was created (although this IS described in the different creation narrative found in genesis chapter two).

Note here that this creation account has man and woman created at the same time, in contradiction to the second creation account in chapter two, which has woman created after man. Yet another indication that the Genesis accounts are edited and redacted versions of several different narratives, each written and passed on independently of the others until spliced together by the emerging Hebrew preisthood.

On to Genesis Chapter Two:

1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

The idea here is that creation is completed---i.e., there are no new things appearing. Wrong. New species have been observed forming in the wild. Humans, despite the Genesis account, were NOT the last living things to appear.

The end of the first creation narrative is reached with verse 3 (the diving lines between chapters in Genesis do not reflect the dividing lines between the different narratives that were spliced together). I include it only to note with interest that, according to the Biblical writer, God "rested" after his creation, and to wonder why a presumably omnipotent being would feel any need at all to "rest" . . . .

4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Here begins the second narrative of the creation story---a much shorter one than the first narrative. There are several differences between it and the earlier account in chapter one. First of all, the word for God used here is NOT the plural "elohim". This indicates that the second account was written long after the first one, at a time when Judaism had already firmly rejected its polytheistic roots.

We immediately run into the first contradiction between this creation account and the preceding one. According to Genesis 2, plants and herbs had appeared, but there had never been any rain yet. Not only is this scientific nonsense (plants cannot live without water), but it also contradicts Genesis 1, which talks about the "waters above the firmament" (presumed by the ancient cultures to be the source of rain) and "separating the waters of the earth". The Genesis 2 account then describes the earth being watered by a "mist", which is not mentioned in Genesis 1 and which is contradicted by the account of God dividing the waters. Note too that in Genesis 1 the earth is covered with water and dry land appears when the oceans are gathered up-----in Genesis 2, the earth is dry and water comes from within it. The two accounts are mutually exclusive.

7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Here we have the second creation account's version of how man was created. As we know, it is scientifically untrue. Humans come from the same evolutionary process as every other living thing.

9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now we have fruit trees and other plants being created AFTER humans had already been created, a contradiction with the earlier account, which has trees and plants created before any humans.

10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

And here we have the rivers being "parted", despite the fact that the first Genesis account has the waters being "divided" BEFORE the appearence of plants or humans. Yet another instance of the two separate narratives failing to conform to each other.

19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

Now we have cattle being created AFTER the man, which directly contradicts the earlier version that has cattle being created BEFORE humans. We also have birds created AFTER cattle and AFTER humans, which also contradicts the sequence given in Genesis 1. According to the first creation account, cattle were created, then both man and woman. According to the second account, man was created, THEN cattle, THEN woman. Another indication that the entire book of Genesis is an edited compilation of several distinct and separate narratives, written at different times by different peoples, that was later spliced together somewhat clumsily. It is NOT a single unbroken historical narrative.

21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

And finally we have a story here where woman was created AFTER man, in contradiction to the earlier account which has them both created at the same time.

*******************
Sorry, genesis is not remotely based on reality. By the way, that video I posted for you if an episode of "How the Universe Works", and is very good. I highly recommend it.

Watch How the Universe Works online (TV Show) - on PrimeWire | LetMeWatchThis | Formerly 1Channel - Season 2 and Episode 8

Bravo --- you have demonstrated the complete lack of appreciation for literary license and a VENOMOUS desire to crush anything that disturbs you..

I disagree.. I pointed out the GENERAL agreements with science theory -- that light was before matter and all the rest.

It's almost comical how desparate the attempt to squash those rational observations about the story are. For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH --- since there is no proof of a steady-state map of the territory. And the literary comment about God's face "upon the waters" is taken WAAAAY too literally. It was clear in the progression of events that there was no Earth, no light, only VOID. And I'm happy to imagine to imagine the "waters" as ether.

There's only one thing I hate in this life --- and that's those who HATE so badly -- that they lose all sense of proportion and rationality.

Go on believing that LIGHT pervaded the universe before the Big Bang. If that's your "FAITH" -- I won't mock it..
Just like I won't mock your nutty belief that all matter and energy in the universe fit into an area the size of a pinhead prior to the "bang" ignition.
How much FAITH does that take eh??

Won't continue this here. Don't want to distract from "Darwin explains everything evolutionary" nutcases who don't understand the evidence or lack thereof..

Well, hate boy, hate all you want, because that is your weakness, not mine. I'm certain you are prepared to imagine all sorts of things not in evidence. Rest assured, your faith is intact, no matter the evidence.

 

[PoliticalChic]

For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH

Not in the least. The Law of Conservation equates to an eternal universe. Speculation is nothing more than normal interest in the unknown. What would requires "faith" is the belief that there was a specific "state" for the universe to have assumed prior to the big bang. (That there was no light for instance.) But simply speculating on all of the possible forms requires no faith at all.

You never miss an opportunity to prove you are less than the sharpest knife in the draw.





While the Judeo-Christian definition of God includes 'always was, always will be,' the same does not apply to laws of physics.






Tutorial coming up:

1. Observations of the heavens made the Big Bang plausible. Begin with light, understood as the undulations of the electromagnetic field. It is due to the energy of the atoms, released as electrons move between orbits.

2. Each atom has a unique spectral signature, a distinctive electromagnetic frequency. Therefore the light that comes to us from space reveals the composition of distant galaxies.

3. It was found that the frequency of the hydrogen atoms of these galaxies was shifted to the red part of the spectrum. In 1912, Vesto Slipher was the first to observe the shift of spectral lines of galaxies, making him the discoverer of galactic redshifts…. Edwin Hubble was generally incorrectly credited with discovering the redshift of galaxies.

a. Why? For the same reason that the pitch of a police siren is changed as the police car disappears down the street: the Doppler Effect, the waves carrying the sound is stretched by the speeding car. That is why the redshift indicates that the galaxy in question is receding! The universe is expanding. Thus, the reasoning behind the Big Bang.






4. So, if the universe is expanding,
a. The particles must have been closer at some time
b. And hotter at some time
c. The ‘retreat’ into the theoretical past ends with all material particles at no distance from each other, and the temperature, density and curvature of the universe at infinity!! This is known as the Big Bang Singularity.

5. Get it? All the lines converge into…..the beginning! This presents a problem if one is tempted to believe in a universe with no beginning and no ending.
That would be you.
The Big Bang, therefore, suggests a universe that is finite in time....there was no time prior to the Big Bang.Was there a time before the big bang? - Curiosity

6.In the Sixties Hawking and Penrose joined in constructing ‘singularity theorems’. These seemed to show that everything now visible to us must have originated from a single point, or from something much like one: some ‘singularity’ where gravitationally induced curvature was indefinitely high, and at which particle histories had their first moments. John Leslie reviews ?The Nature of Space and Time? by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose · LRB 1 August 1996






OK....now...get ready!

Astronomer Joseph Silk states that at singularity the laws of physics break down! On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe - Joseph Silk - Google Books



Check this out....you're gonna hate it:

"Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists.

At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [steady state] or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory." Isham, C. 1988. "Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process," in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, A Common Quest for Understanding, eds. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, p. 378.



Get it?

"...one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory."

Know what he's saying?

 

[Hollie]

Don't know or care what "rational" video you needed me to consume.
Probably one of those "we're so smart -- because we hate the Bible" PowerPoint deals eh?

When's the last time you READ the beginning of the Book of Genesis?

It's really simple...

Earth was unformed and void. First came the Light (Big Bang) -- formation of land and oceans, PLANTS BEFORE BEASTS, Beasts before Man..

Also the basic order of higher life springing from the sea is in there..
As well as the recognition that the stars in the heavens were signs of seasons.

What's the prob chief?? Gonna get picky with that narrative?
It's only a page or two... Almost as brief as a twitter feed.. Can't get wonky in a twitter msg -- can ya?

Back to the topic...

http://www.huecotanks.com/debunk/genesis.html

Is Genesis Scientifically Accurate?

Many creationists make the claim that the order and timing of the events described in Genesis are scientifically accurate, and thus could only be the result of divine knowledge. The most vociferous proponents of this argument are the Jehovah's Witnesses, in their booklet "Life: How Did It Get Here?". Are the creationists right? Is Genesis accurate in the order and timing of the events it describes? Is Genesis a historical narrative that accurately describes the appearence of life? A cursory examination shows that it is not. To see why, let's go through the creation accounts verse by verse.

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".

There are some questions about this translation. The original Hebrew word usually translated as "God" here is elohim, which is actually the plural form. Literally, this verse reads, "in the beginning, the GODS created the heavens and the earth." This is one of several places in the Bible where God is referred to in the plural. Biblical scholars conclude that these fragments are left over from an early part of Hebrew history when the Jewish religion was, like every other religion on earth at the time, polytheistic, with more than one god. During this time, the god Yahweh was a storm god, one of many others.

There is also some dispute about the words. An alternate translation has this verse as "When god began to create the heavens and the earth".

This verse implies that the "heavens and the earth" were created more or less at the same time. Scientifically, we know that the "heavens", that is, space, appeared billions of years before the earth ever appeared. The sun is at least a "third generation" star, which formed from condensed gas clouds made up of remnants of at least two supernovae from previous stars.

2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The early universe was not "dark". We know from quantum mechanics that the earliest universe was a sea of quarks, followed shortly after by a sea of free nucleons and photons. Until the era of "decoupling", about 300,000 years after the formation of the universe, the entire universe was as bright throughout as the surface of the sun is today.

The verse refers to "the face of the waters". If this verse refers to the waters on earth, such as the ocean, it is completely wrong. The early earth had no ocean. It was not until millions of years of accretion had built up the planet that liquid water began to form, both from volcanic outgassing and from the impacts of comets attracted by the gravity of the earth.

However, most Biblical scholars believe that the "waters" referred to here are those in heaven, from which rain comes. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Genesis account later describes how these "waters" were divided from those of earth by a wall, with one portion of these divided waters forming the oceans.

But we know from science that the early universe did not have any liquid water. None at all. Not even any water molecules. In fact, for a period of several hundred thousand years, it did not have any molecules of any sort. The Genesis description of water above the "firmament" is simply wrong.

3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

This verse has the formation of light occuring only AFTER the "waters" and the earth already existed. As noted above, this is simply wrong. The entire universe was brightly lit for its first 300,000 years of existence, billions of years before the earth came into being.

4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

This verse betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of "light", one that was common to the pre-industrial peoples who wrote the Bible. During these times, it was believed that "darkness" was an element separate and distinct from "light" (see, for example, Amos 5:8, which declares that God "maketh the day dark with night"). This of course is simply not true. Darkness is nothing more than the absence of light. One can no more "separate" light from darkness than one can separate "left" from "right" or "up" from "down".

5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Notice here that there is no Sun yet, it not having yet been created. This account is thus contradicted by science on several grounds. Since a "day" is itself based on the earth's rotation near the Sun, there could have been no "day" until AFTER the sun appeared. Nor is there any cosmic source of "day light" other than the sun. Scientifically, we know that the sun actually condensed first, and was already burning nuclear fuel when the earth first began to appreciably accrete. The Genesis account, which has the earth and the "waters" formed before the Sun, is simply wrong.

6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The word "firmament" refers to a hard, clear wall or divider. It refers to the ancient belief that the stars and planets were held in the sky by a huge transparent wall or roof. The "waters above" the firmament were presumed to be huge reservoirs of water in the sky, from which, it was presumed in ancient times, rain came through holes in the firmament. This is referred to during the Flood story by Genesis 7:11, which says "the windows of heaven were opened", and also in Genesis 8:2, which says "the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained". It is also referred to by other verses in the Bible like Acts 14:17, where God "gave us rain from heaven", Deuteronomy 11:11, which says "But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven", Deuteronomy 11:17, which says "And then the LORD's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain", Deuteronomy 28:12, which says "The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season", Isaiah 55:10, which says "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud", and Revelations 11:6, which says "These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy".

Needless to say, there is no "firmament" that holds rainwater or stars up in the sky. The ancient writers of the Bible, having no knowledge or understanding of "gravity", simply postulated that this hard clear sphere MUST be there, or else the stars and planets would all fall down, and that the "firmament" must have "windows" to let the rain through. They were wrong.

9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

According to the Genesis account, the oceans come from water that was already existing when the earth was formed-----the "waters above" and "the waters below". From the description given, it appears that the Genesis writers assumed that the entire earth was covered with water ("the waters below"), and that the dry land was formed by moving all that water to specific locations to form the oceans. Scientifically, we know this to be untrue. There has never been a time in earth's history when its surface was covered with water. In fact, the early earth had no liquid water at all on its surface. It wasn't until millions of years after it accreted that the earth began accumulating water, in the form of volcanic outgassing and impacts of ice comets.

11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.

According to the Genesis account, the first living things to be created were grasses and plants, and they lived on land. Scientifically, this is untrue. For the first three billion years of its existence, all life, both animal and plant, was entirely aquatic and lived in the sea. The land area was sterile and had no life. During this period, all life consisted of single-celled prokaryotes that were not grasses, not herbs, and not even plants. The Biblical account that has grasses appearing at the same time, or shortly before, fruit trees is also incorrect. Flowering plants, or angiosperms, appeared during the Cretaceous period, just before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and before any grasses appeared. As far as grasses, they weren't even remotely the first forms of life---grasses didn't appear until the early Tertiary period, well after the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are actually one of the LAST major groups of plants to have formed. The Genesis writer's idea that plants appeared before animals is also simply wrong----we know from the fossil record that multicellular animals appeared first. The Genesis account gets all of this wrong.

Note here too that the Sun hadn't been created yet. . . . Plants, of course, cannot live without photosynthesis using sunlight. The Biblical idea that plants could have appeared before the Sun appeared simply reflects their lack of knowledge about the most basic biology of plants.

14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19: And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Lots of problems here . . . .

According to the Genesis account, no heavenly bodies were created until this, the "fourth day". Yet the same account has "day" and "night" appearing on the FIRST day. This is simply impossible, since "day" and "night" are defined according to the earth's relationship to other heavenly bodies. There could not have been any "day" or "night" without a Sun for the earth to rotate near.

The "lights of the firmament" refer to stars and planets. As pointed out earlier, ancient peoples believed that the stars were held up by a clear invisible roof in the sky, the "firmament". Scientifially, we know that the firmament does not exist. We also know that, contrary to the Genesis account, these stars existed for billions of years before the earth (or even our own Sun) ever existed. The biblical account that has the stars forming after the earth did is simply wrong.

Note also that this narration has the lights of the firmament being formed to "give light to the earth". This, of course, had already been done way back in verses 3 and 4, on the first "day". We also see a reference here to "dividing the light from darkness", which had also already been done, in verses 4 and 5. There are in fact several instances where the creation narrative gives two different times for the occurence of certain events. This leads Biblical scholars to conclude that, not only is the creation narrative in the first chapter of Genesis from a different source than the creation narrative in the second chapter (which contradict each other in several ways), but the narrative in the first chapter is itself a compilation of several different narratives which contradict each other.

Note also that the Genesis account has the sun and moon both being formed at the same time, and has both being placed on the same "firmament" that holds up the stars. This reflects the ancient belief that the "crystal spheres" of the "firmament" --including the ones that carried the sun and moon---revolved around the earth. In other words, the Biblical account concludes, as did all ancient cultures, that the earth was at the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon and all the stars were carried around the earth by a transparent wall in the sky. Scientifically, we know this is silly.

Scientifically, we also know that the sun and moon were not formed at the same time, as the biblical writer states. The sun already existed when the earth accreted. The moon didn't exist for about a billion years after the earth had already formed. In fact, from geological evidence we know that the moon was itself formed by the debris from the impact of a large body with the already-formed earth---this impact debris accreting to form the moon. The Genesis account here is simply wrong.

Another problem: according to this account, the moon is itself a source of light, and shines under its own power. This is further reinforced in Isaiah 13:10, which says "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.", and in Ezekiel 32:7, which says "And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light", and Isaiah 60:19, which says "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee", and Jeremiah 31:35, which says "Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night", and Mark 13:24, which says "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light", and Matthew 24:29, which says "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken". Scientifically, we know that all of these verses are wrong; the moon does not produce any light of its own, and simply reflects sunlight. The writers of Genesis, who knew nothing of astronomy, were unaware of this.

Finally, note here that verse 16 has God creating the "stars", which had already been created back in verse 14. Another instance of two different narrations being edited together (and not quite fitting).

20: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21: And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22: And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23: And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

The Genesis account here places the appearence of marine life AFTER the appearence of terrestrial grasses and fruit trees. Scientifically, we know this to be wrong. This account also has whales as one of the first (if not THE first) marine life to appear. Wrong again. Whales are a very recent appearence, not developing until long after the dinosaurs had died out. The Genesis account mentions that birds were created at the same time. Wrong again. Birds date from at least the Jurassic period, millions of years before the first whale. The Genesis account is also wrong in stating that birds appeared before any of the other terrestrial animals---the "creeping things" (the literal translation of the latin root for "reptiles"). This is simply not true. Not only did reptiles and dinosaurs appear on land before birds did, but we know from fossil evidence that, taxonomically, birds and dinosaurs belong in the same group.

25: And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

The Genesis account here places the creation of "creeping things" (this phrase usually refers to insects, spiders, reptiles, amphibians and other "creepy-crawlies") at the same time as the creation of mammals ("cattle"). According to Genesis, these things all appeared AFTER grasses, fruit trees, whales and birds had already appeared. And Genesis is wrong. All of these groups appeared several hundred millions of years before mammals did. All of them first appeared in the ocean, not on land.

The reference to the creation of "cattle" is also wrong, since cattle are a domestic animal that were produced by ancient pastoral societies. They are not a species that ever lived in the wild. The ancient Hebrews, knowing nothing of archaeology, got this wrong.

26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Note here: God says "Let *us* make man in *our* image." Yet another leftover reference to Judaism's polytheistic past, that hadn't been edited out of the creation narratives. . . .

The least sophisticated of Biblical readers interpret "in our image" to mean the PHYSICAL image of God, and this is the source of most creationist opposition to evolution. It is an untenable interpretation. God has no more a "physical image" than does gravity. Note also that despite all the creationist howling, the Biblical account doesn't say a word about HOW man was created (although this IS described in the different creation narrative found in genesis chapter two).

Note here that this creation account has man and woman created at the same time, in contradiction to the second creation account in chapter two, which has woman created after man. Yet another indication that the Genesis accounts are edited and redacted versions of several different narratives, each written and passed on independently of the others until spliced together by the emerging Hebrew preisthood.

On to Genesis Chapter Two:

1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

The idea here is that creation is completed---i.e., there are no new things appearing. Wrong. New species have been observed forming in the wild. Humans, despite the Genesis account, were NOT the last living things to appear.

The end of the first creation narrative is reached with verse 3 (the diving lines between chapters in Genesis do not reflect the dividing lines between the different narratives that were spliced together). I include it only to note with interest that, according to the Biblical writer, God "rested" after his creation, and to wonder why a presumably omnipotent being would feel any need at all to "rest" . . . .

4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Here begins the second narrative of the creation story---a much shorter one than the first narrative. There are several differences between it and the earlier account in chapter one. First of all, the word for God used here is NOT the plural "elohim". This indicates that the second account was written long after the first one, at a time when Judaism had already firmly rejected its polytheistic roots.

We immediately run into the first contradiction between this creation account and the preceding one. According to Genesis 2, plants and herbs had appeared, but there had never been any rain yet. Not only is this scientific nonsense (plants cannot live without water), but it also contradicts Genesis 1, which talks about the "waters above the firmament" (presumed by the ancient cultures to be the source of rain) and "separating the waters of the earth". The Genesis 2 account then describes the earth being watered by a "mist", which is not mentioned in Genesis 1 and which is contradicted by the account of God dividing the waters. Note too that in Genesis 1 the earth is covered with water and dry land appears when the oceans are gathered up-----in Genesis 2, the earth is dry and water comes from within it. The two accounts are mutually exclusive.

7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Here we have the second creation account's version of how man was created. As we know, it is scientifically untrue. Humans come from the same evolutionary process as every other living thing.

9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now we have fruit trees and other plants being created AFTER humans had already been created, a contradiction with the earlier account, which has trees and plants created before any humans.

10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

And here we have the rivers being "parted", despite the fact that the first Genesis account has the waters being "divided" BEFORE the appearence of plants or humans. Yet another instance of the two separate narratives failing to conform to each other.

19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

Now we have cattle being created AFTER the man, which directly contradicts the earlier version that has cattle being created BEFORE humans. We also have birds created AFTER cattle and AFTER humans, which also contradicts the sequence given in Genesis 1. According to the first creation account, cattle were created, then both man and woman. According to the second account, man was created, THEN cattle, THEN woman. Another indication that the entire book of Genesis is an edited compilation of several distinct and separate narratives, written at different times by different peoples, that was later spliced together somewhat clumsily. It is NOT a single unbroken historical narrative.

21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

And finally we have a story here where woman was created AFTER man, in contradiction to the earlier account which has them both created at the same time.

*******************
Sorry, genesis is not remotely based on reality. By the way, that video I posted for you if an episode of "How the Universe Works", and is very good. I highly recommend it.

Watch How the Universe Works online (TV Show) - on PrimeWire | LetMeWatchThis | Formerly 1Channel - Season 2 and Episode 8

Bravo --- you have demonstrated the complete lack of appreciation for literary license and a VENOMOUS desire to crush anything that disturbs you..

I disagree.. I pointed out the GENERAL agreements with science theory -- that light was before matter and all the rest.

It's almost comical how desparate the attempt to squash those rational observations about the story are. For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH --- since there is no proof of a steady-state map of the territory. And the literary comment about God's face "upon the waters" is taken WAAAAY too literally. It was clear in the progression of events that there was no Earth, no light, only VOID. And I'm happy to imagine to imagine the "waters" as ether.

There's only one thing I hate in this life --- and that's those who HATE so badly -- that they lose all sense of proportion and rationality.

Go on believing that LIGHT pervaded the universe before the Big Bang. If that's your "FAITH" -- I won't mock it..
Just like I won't mock your nutty belief that all matter and energy in the universe fit into an area the size of a pinhead prior to the "bang" ignition.
How much FAITH does that take eh??

Won't continue this here. Don't want to distract from "Darwin explains everything evolutionary" nutcases who don't understand the evidence or lack thereof..

I should probably know better than to ask, but what do you mean by “literary license” in the context here?

Are you suggesting that the words in the bible are sometimes metaphorical - sometimes not? Sometimes in “general agreement” - sometimes not? Sometimes an accurate rendition – sometimes not?

The only way to evaluate the veracity of an ideology is to examine the core documents of that ideology. Applying external standards does mean that we ignore the very document(s) upon which the ideology is based. Which words / verses are “gospel” and which words are not? Does this related to specific letters as well? For instance, is English verified as a proper language by which these gospel words are delivered (I believe the Koran is considered corrupt by fundamentalists the moment it is translated out of Arabic). Can one sentence be gospel, the next not, the next two yes, the rest no? What is the standard by which this is judged?

I think you can see I'm being facetious here, but it really is the underlying context of your approach. Sure, you can pick and choose whatever you want, and think you are right -- but you have no baseline by which to assess whether or not your interpretation is correct. Why not simply be clear and do not allow for such confusion? Why is it that the theistic perspective offers a god who confounds us, but the materialist perspective offers one that makes sense-- a star is a million light years away because it's taken light a million years to get here. Simple. Explainable. Understandable. No need to assert mysterious beings using mysterious ways we can never know, precluding us from ever finding out.

This is most spectacularly displayed with apologists’ tendency to interpret length of days, well, this puts you firmly on a slippery slope. The story doesn't indicate anything is particularly metaphorical-- it seems to be in the context of "This happened, then this happened". Suddenly you can play fast and loose with the term "day" (and I know there are numerous translations of the word "day" from the Hebrew and Greek, but then we'd get in the problems with shoddy translation and why god'd allow that, etc. and that is a different thread). Well, if you can play fast and loose with the term "day", then so can anyone with... oh, the parting of the Red Sea. The Flood. The resurrection.

And yes, as a materialist, I can dissect the stories because I believe them to be wholly fabricated. You have a lot less latitude if you wish to assert a perfect god is the author of all of this, directly or otherwise.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Darwin was a failed and frustrated medical student. Let's impeach him..
He had NO KNOWLEDGE of the mechanism responsible for mutations and supposed there was a constant and consistent pressure for mutations. He also had no idea of the statistics or speed of the mutation process.

Darwin obtained the concept for evolution from a good friend of his who was studying capitalist market systems. How opportunities present themselves and are exploited while other existing markets whither and die off as change occurs. FYI that friend was an ordained minister of religion.

 

[Hollie]

For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH

Not in the least. The Law of Conservation equates to an eternal universe. Speculation is nothing more than normal interest in the unknown. What would requires "faith" is the belief that there was a specific "state" for the universe to have assumed prior to the big bang. (That there was no light for instance.) But simply speculating on all of the possible forms requires no faith at all.

You never miss an opportunity to prove you are less than the sharpest knife in the draw.





While the Judeo-Christian definition of God includes 'always was, always will be,' the same does not apply to laws of physics.






Tutorial coming up:

1. Observations of the heavens made the Big Bang plausible. Begin with light, understood as the undulations of the electromagnetic field. It is due to the energy of the atoms, released as electrons move between orbits.

2. Each atom has a unique spectral signature, a distinctive electromagnetic frequency. Therefore the light that comes to us from space reveals the composition of distant galaxies.

3. It was found that the frequency of the hydrogen atoms of these galaxies was shifted to the red part of the spectrum. In 1912, Vesto Slipher was the first to observe the shift of spectral lines of galaxies, making him the discoverer of galactic redshifts…. Edwin Hubble was generally incorrectly credited with discovering the redshift of galaxies.

a. Why? For the same reason that the pitch of a police siren is changed as the police car disappears down the street: the Doppler Effect, the waves carrying the sound is stretched by the speeding car. That is why the redshift indicates that the galaxy in question is receding! The universe is expanding. Thus, the reasoning behind the Big Bang.






4. So, if the universe is expanding,
a. The particles must have been closer at some time
b. And hotter at some time
c. The ‘retreat’ into the theoretical past ends with all material particles at no distance from each other, and the temperature, density and curvature of the universe at infinity!! This is known as the Big Bang Singularity.

5. Get it? All the lines converge into…..the beginning! This presents a problem if one is tempted to believe in a universe with no beginning and no ending.
That would be you.
The Big Bang, therefore, suggests a universe that is finite in time....there was no time prior to the Big Bang.Was there a time before the big bang? - Curiosity

6.In the Sixties Hawking and Penrose joined in constructing ‘singularity theorems’. These seemed to show that everything now visible to us must have originated from a single point, or from something much like one: some ‘singularity’ where gravitationally induced curvature was indefinitely high, and at which particle histories had their first moments. John Leslie reviews ?The Nature of Space and Time? by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose · LRB 1 August 1996






OK....now...get ready!

Astronomer Joseph Silk states that at singularity the laws of physics break down! On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe - Joseph Silk - Google Books



Check this out....you're gonna hate it:

"Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists.

At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [steady state] or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory." Isham, C. 1988. "Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process," in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, A Common Quest for Understanding, eds. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, p. 378.



Get it?

"...one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory."

Know what he's saying?

Why didn't you simply link to your cut and pasting from an earlier thread?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/4638044-post178.html

 

[Quantum Windbag]

For future reference, it wasn't dirt that I learned about in college.

I thought you said that you had a degree in geology? Isn't that the science that deals with the Earth's physical structure and substance? If you want to pretend that rocks and dirt are different because one is harder than the other, I refer you to ice and water to make my point.

If all scientists did was collect data and post it on a web site, you might have a point (which is all the volunteers referenced in your paper did). What apparently went straight over your head is that those volunteers didn't analyze the data and publish it in peer reviewed papers. Even the paper you referenced was not written by non-experts. Would you like to know their names? Here you go:

Linda See, with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria

Alexis Comber, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Carl Salk, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria, and Institute for Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, Colorado

Steffen Fritz, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria

Marijn van der Velde, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria

Christoph Perger, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria, and University of Applied Sciences, Weiner Neusdadt, Austria

Christian Schill, Remote Sensing and Land Information Systems, Albert-Ludwig University, Freiburg, Germany

Ian McCallum, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria

Florian Kraxner, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria

Michael Obersteiner, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Ecosystem Services, and Management Program, Laxenburg, Austria

ALL Degreed academics, career professionals certified in their respective fields publishing their results in a peer-reviewed professional publication. Would you have given that paper as much weight as you did using it in your example if it had been written and posted on a religious blog by a lawyer with no standing whatsoever in applied science? Well, perhaps you would have, but that's because you're a dumbass.

I know you think your degree in dirt makes you special, and proves that you are automatically smarter about dirt than anyone else, but quite a bit of the knowledge you were taught came from the efforts of people who were self taught.

You also described yourself as an amateur astronomer, which is probably the most open field in all of science for people who do not have specialized training to make historical impact, even today, Yet, for some reason, you insist that all your efforts as an amateur astronomer are worthless.

Why do it at all?

Well, since he was not random, being the guy you were apologizing for, I guess that makes your outburst a moot point. If you can't keep up with the thread, perhaps you should bow out before you get more mud on your face.

I didn't apologize for anybody, all I did was point out that your arrogance that your degree in dirt trumps the fact that his degree is in law. That, in case you have future questions about my friends, means I am attacking you, not defending a random lawyer.

By the way, since you are the idiot that claimed evolution is guided, when it clearly is not, how do I have mud on my face. The only way evolution could be guided is if you assume that someone is controlling everything that happens, which would make you a believer in either creationism, or intelligent design which is actively guided by advanced aliens.

 

[orogenicman]

For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH

Not in the least. The Law of Conservation equates to an eternal universe. Speculation is nothing more than normal interest in the unknown. What would requires "faith" is the belief that there was a specific "state" for the universe to have assumed prior to the big bang. (That there was no light for instance.) But simply speculating on all of the possible forms requires no faith at all.

You never miss an opportunity to prove you are less than the sharpest knife in the draw.





While the Judeo-Christian definition of God includes 'always was, always will be,' the same does not apply to laws of physics.






Tutorial coming up:

1. Observations of the heavens made the Big Bang plausible. Begin with light, understood as the undulations of the electromagnetic field. It is due to the energy of the atoms, released as electrons move between orbits.

Erm, what? No. Light is composed of photons, not atoms or electrons.

2. Each atom has a unique spectral signature, a distinctive electromagnetic frequency. Therefore the light that comes to us from space reveals the composition of distant galaxies.

Just so you understand that the light that reaches us from space comes from photons emitted from ionized gas and reflected light, not atoms in a neutral state.

3. It was found that the frequency of the hydrogen atoms of these galaxies was shifted to the red part of the spectrum. In 1912, Vesto Slipher was the first to observe the shift of spectral lines of galaxies, making him the discoverer of galactic redshifts…. Edwin Hubble was generally incorrectly credited with discovering the redshift of galaxies.

That is correct. What Hubble did was discover the Hubble constant along with Milton Humason. What any of this has to do with anything in this thread is the real mystery.

<snip>

Check this out....you're gonna hate it:

"Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists.

At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [steady state] or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory." Isham, C. 1988. "Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process," in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, A Common Quest for Understanding, eds. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, p. 378.



Get it?

"...one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory."

Know what he's saying?

The mystery unfolds. So you want to use the big bang as evidence of some ultimate cause, (i.e., your Judeo-Christian god), right. Problem is, as soon as you make that leap, you've left theoretical paradigms behind and jumped right into untestable speculation. As you tried to point out, "The ‘retreat’ into the theoretical past ends with all material particles at no distance from each other, and the temperature, density and curvature of the universe at infinity" - i.e., the so-called big bang singularity, as you called it. This "retreat" includes the known laws of physics, and therefore, of causation. Causation requires a few things, particularly time. And there is no evidence that time existed at "t=0", nor any reasons to expect that it would exist. So it follows that there is no evidence of the existence of causation in that "singularity". The result is that trying to find your god there as a first cause for everything breaks down into meaningless.

 

[flacaltenn]

On a Common Creationist Quotation of Dr. David M. Raup

From: Evan Yeung

Let me congratulate you on a fantastic website! I have been thoroughly impressed with the articles and information presented here. It's too bad that many of this information seems to be deliberately ignored by many people who post on this feedback board...

I do have a question...

In a number of articles that I've read from pro-creationist or intelligent design theorists, they have quoted David Raup from the Field Museum, who reportedly stated in 1979 that "We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much... We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time." Did David Raup really say this, or is he being taken out of context like so many other paleontologists when they are quoted by creationists?

Thanx! Evan
****************************

Yes, Raup did say this (in "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology", Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin Jan. 1979, Vol. 50 No. 1 p. 22-29). Here is the quote in the immediate context:


Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information -- what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appear to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. (p. 25, emphasis mine)

.
.
.
..



I'd say that Creationists don't get much more dishonest than this, but that would be wrong.

Well thanks for helping us identify all the weaknesses of viewing evolution from a Darwinian POV.. It certainly has led folks on wild goose chases looking for missing links.

The "dwell times" of those transistions in the fossil record OUGHT to be long enough to FIND THEM --- IF they led to survivable species. But this guy is SAYING that the transistions are likely MUCH SHORTER than explainable by "natural selection".

Thanks for help in CORRECTING the public misconception that all our kids need to know comes from Darwin.. Better Science is always a good thing..

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Evolution is a FACT

God is a Theory

I suggest you learn the difference between fact and scientific theory. Evolution is the theory used to explain the observed phenomena of adaptation of all life to environmental conditions, and change. The fact here is that this change occurs, that does not make the theory of evolution a fact.

Evolution is the theoretic underpinning of biology. If someone manages to prove that it is false at some point in the future biological science will adapt and switch to whatever theory best confirms with the new information. A good example of this would be the way physics had to adapt to the fact that Newton was proven wrong by Einstein and all the experiments that confirm various aspects of relativity. Physics managed to chug along even though the entire underpinning of everything that they knew up to that point was destroyed, and most people never even noticed.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH

Not in the least. The Law of Conservation equates to an eternal universe. Speculation is nothing more than normal interest in the unknown. What would requires "faith" is the belief that there was a specific "state" for the universe to have assumed prior to the big bang. (That there was no light for instance.) But simply speculating on all of the possible forms requires no faith at all.

Since physics tells me that the universe is not eternal, does that mean that the law of conservation does not exist? Or does it really mean that you have no fucking idea what the hell you are talking about?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Darwin was a failed and frustrated medical student. Let's impeach him..
He had NO KNOWLEDGE of the mechanism responsible for mutations and supposed there was a constant and consistent pressure for mutations. He also had no idea of the statistics or speed of the mutation process.

Darwin obtained the concept for evolution from a good friend of his who was studying capitalist market systems. How opportunities present themselves and are exploited while other existing markets whither and die off as change occurs. FYI that friend was an ordained minister of religion.

And?

 

[flacaltenn]

For instance. SPECULATION on the state of the universe PRIOR to the Big Bang requires FAITH

Not in the least. The Law of Conservation equates to an eternal universe. Speculation is nothing more than normal interest in the unknown. What would requires "faith" is the belief that there was a specific "state" for the universe to have assumed prior to the big bang. (That there was no light for instance.) But simply speculating on all of the possible forms requires no faith at all.

That desparate attempt to slam a prosaic story about the Creation wasn't speculating "on all possible forms". It was asserting SPECIFIC CONDITIONS for which there is no theoretical linkage or proof. If it was an excersize in trying to account for energy conservation in the tiny dense spark of the Big Bang --- whatever wasn't at Ground Zero is taken on faith...

I find this to be PARTICULARLY humorous...

The early universe was not "dark". We know from quantum mechanics that the earliest universe was a sea of quarks, followed shortly after by a sea of free nucleons and photons.

Besides being ambiguous as to whether this is pre-Big-Bang or after, the use of the word "SEA" is hysterical.. Because later on, the author chastizes the Bible for using the reference to "God's face upon the waters" to blast the concept that water actually existed. It's OK to use literary license if you're a mighty arrogant Bible basher -- but no slack for the literal words in the Bible itself.

 

[orogenicman]

For future reference, it wasn't dirt that I learned about in college.

I thought you said that you had a degree in geology? Isn't that the science that deals with the Earth's physical structure and substance? If you want to pretend that rocks and dirt are different because one is harder than the other, I refer you to ice and water to make my point.

Geology is the study of the planet Earth. The study of soil is pedology. The former encompasses far more than dirt. You didn't know this? Huh.

I know you think your degree in dirt makes you special, and proves that you are automatically smarter about dirt than anyone else,

No, just smarter than you.

but quite a bit of the knowledge you were taught came from the efforts of people who were self taught.

You also described yourself as an amateur astronomer, which is probably the most open field in all of science for people who do not have specialized training to make historical impact, even today, Yet, for some reason, you insist that all your efforts as an amateur astronomer are worthless.

I never said that, so don't put words into my mouth. Amateurs make important contributions, but they cannot and don't do it alone. That bulk of amateurs don't have the requisite expertize for many fields of study, nor the capital needed to do the work. Aside from the legal issues, that is why we have no amateur brain surgeons. And any amateur worth his salt knows when to step aside and let the experts do their job. As an amateur astronomer, I may discover a supernova, and may even take some rudimentary measurements such as apparent brightness, location in the sky, and even some spectroscopic data, but I don't possess a 200 million dollar observatory where I can throw the state of the science at the problem, nor do I have the expertize to wield that science. And neither does your creationist lawyer friend.

Well, since he was not random, being the guy you were apologizing for, I guess that makes your outburst a moot point. If you can't keep up with the thread, perhaps you should bow out before you get more mud on your face.

I didn't apologize for anybody, all I did was point out that your arrogance that your degree in dirt trumps the fact that his degree is in law.

My degree in geology does trump his degree in law in matters of geological science in the exact same way his degree in law trumps my degree in geology in matters of the law.

That, in case you have future questions about my friends, means I am attacking you, not defending a random lawyer.

Was there any doubt?

By the way, since you are the idiot that claimed evolution is guided, when it clearly is not, how do I have mud on my face.

Not once did I say that evolution was guided. I said that it is non-random. That is a statement of fact. Do you understand that concept? Of course you don't.

 

[orogenicman]

On a Common Creationist Quotation of Dr. David M. Raup

From: Evan Yeung

Let me congratulate you on a fantastic website! I have been thoroughly impressed with the articles and information presented here. It's too bad that many of this information seems to be deliberately ignored by many people who post on this feedback board...

I do have a question...

In a number of articles that I've read from pro-creationist or intelligent design theorists, they have quoted David Raup from the Field Museum, who reportedly stated in 1979 that "We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much... We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time." Did David Raup really say this, or is he being taken out of context like so many other paleontologists when they are quoted by creationists?

Thanx! Evan
****************************

Yes, Raup did say this (in "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology", Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin Jan. 1979, Vol. 50 No. 1 p. 22-29). Here is the quote in the immediate context:


Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information -- what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appear to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. (p. 25, emphasis mine)

.
.
.
..



I'd say that Creationists don't get much more dishonest than this, but that would be wrong.

Well thanks for helping us identify all the weaknesses of viewing evolution from a Darwinian POV.. It certainly has led folks on wild goose chases looking for missing links.

You do realize that he is an evolutionary scientist, right? And that his position is that of an evolutionary scientist, right? And that science advances as new knowledge is gained. RIGHT? Do you honestly believe that we have learned nothing since the 1980s? REALLY?

The "dwell times" of those transistions in the fossil record OUGHT to be long enough to FIND THEM --- IF they led to survivable species. But this guy is SAYING that the transistions are likely MUCH SHORTER than explainable by "natural selection".

Continuing to misconstrue what he said demonstrates the willful ignorance of creationists I've been pointing out since I joined this thread. Congratulations.

Thanks for help in CORRECTING the public misconception that all our kids need to know comes from Darwin.. Better Science is always a good thing..

The misconception is that something as complicated as the theory of evolution can be taught from the pulpit of uninformed, willfully ignorant creationists.