Bigfoot I'm not pretending, I am a creationist. In my studies of genetics that's what I conclude. You choose to conclude Dna self assembled from space components, began as marine hydra, then aquatic mammals, then terrestrial hominids, then someone as smart as yourself that he has it all figured out with no doubts on how it works. Did I get the summary pretty close?
If that's your understanding of evolution, I respectfully suggest that you go back and study the subject. That's like describing Romeo and Julliet as "Chick poisons herself", or the Civil War as "a few guys taking pot-shots". It's so wrong it's not worth correcting.
Remember, try not to get mad at someone who draws a different conclusion, that's too common in creationist/evolutionist debates.
The other thing that's too common, and which you're doing here, is attacking straw-man arguments.
I drink, but not heavy. I simply don't care if the county I live in is dry. alcohol can be had if needed.
So as long as it doesn't impact YOU you're okay with it. Tell me, would you accept slavery if you aren't black? Would you say that since I'm not a Jew I have no business objecting to the Holocaust? It's all the same argument--"It doesn't impact me, therefore it doesn't matter."
I'm replying to all of you each time.
And making a right mess of it. WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU. Is that clear enough? You're saying words, and they make sentences, but without context they're without meaning. We're asking you, rather politely for this forum (and particularly with a self-described creationist), to fix a problem that's effectively shutting down communication.
Tsig, of twenty thousand posts id expect you to be able to sell me on evolutionism more concisely.
Fine. Allow me.
1) Heritable variation exists. This is uncontroversial, as a geneticist should know perfectly well. That said, heritable variation doesn't have to be DNA--the theory holds true perfectly well with prions.
2) The world is ancient. Angular unconformities prove this. If you want to see more, I suggest looking at Lyelle's Principles of Geology.
Evolution is change in populations over time. Therefore, if there's heritable variation and a great deal of time, evolution is an inevitable outcome. It would take divine action to stop it. This has been demonstrated numerous times, both in computer simulations, actual evolution of computer programs (not simulations, but the evolution of the program itself), innumerable experiments in biology including, most famously, the evolution of a new species of bacteria under extremely well-controlled conditions, and observations of organisms in the wild. It has been used to predict disease progression numerous times, so it makes testable predictions which have been experimentally verified many, many times.
As for the paths evolution took in the history of our planet (not to be confused with the theory of evolution itself), the fossil record is the evidence of that. Genetics can get you so far, but it doesn't show the side-paths, which is a major problem once you get back past the Late Pleistocene. Your ramblings about how evolution " began as marine hydra, then aquatic mammals, then terrestrial hominids, then someone as smart as yourself..." shows that you have no understanding of the complexity of the fossil record. Frankly we don't know what the first animals looked like--we haven't found them yet. The first animals we have good data for are extremely diverse and vastly more complex than marine hydras. There's the better part of a quarter-billion years between the Cambrian Explosion and the rise of mammals, and another huge gap between the rise of mammals (originally shrew-like things) and the rise of aquatic mammals. Humans evolved from a completely different line--our ancestors were arborial, then savannah dwellers. And all of this ignores the enormous role contingency plays in evolution. If the fish population that evolved into a terrestrial population had had six fins, we'd be centaurs--if something like humans even evolved.
Since you want to talk about HUMAN evolution, not evolution as such, I have some books to recommend for you:
"Vertebrate Paleontology and Ecology", by Robert L. Carroll.
"Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America",ed. by C. M. Janis, K. M. Scott, and L. L. Jacobs.
"Mammalogy", Fifth ed., ed. by Vaughan, Ryan, and Czaplewski.
These will give you a brief over-view of human evolution, from the evolution of Phylum Chordata to the evolution of apes. They'll also show, which I consider vital, all the innumerable side branches that you're ignoring. Finally, they'll give a brief overview of the fossil record for this study. And it IS brief--these three textbooks are only a small part of the literature on this subject. I'll warn you, they can be expensive (the second one will cost you a few hundred bucks), but if you want to critique our understanding of the history of life on Earth from an informed perspective, that's what it takes.
Both sides in this debate have exceeded their knowledge limitations.
You can't honestly say this. You don't even know what the evolution side says--the fact that you seem to think that humans evolved from aquatic mammals is proof enough of that.
my family will make a lifelong study of the two and be in awe at each new development on both sides.
This shows your ignorance of Creationism. There AREN'T any new Creationist arguments. The newest one that I've encountered is that radioactive decay rates are variable, and that was proposed and disproven before my father was born. Most of their arguments were debunked before DARWIN was born. By the time Darwin was on the Beagle Uniformitarianism was the dominant school of thought in the budding field of geology. The idea of an ancient Earth was already proven to be true--TO CREATIONISTS (ALL scientists were Creationists at the time).
Only the evolution side of this debate has had anything new to say in the last half-century or more--all the Creationists do is re-use old arguments that were long ago debunked.
tsig said:
You seem to be carrying on a conversation that no one else is having.
Very true. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to ignore anything else el zone has to say on any topic outside of evolution in this thread. They're off-topic, and I believe only here to be provocative. I think he's a troll, and want to see how right I am.
each time. Your paradigms seem connected by an underlying nerve net such that if you prick one polyp they all withdraw
