I don’t understand how we can all be debating the methodology of science…while using the fruits of this methodology. Like the computers we are all using. Or all of the other benefits . . . Would you go to a doctor if you were sick?

I also don’t understand how evolution is so threatening.

Couldn’t the Garden of Eden be explaining human existence in a time of hunters and gatherers—we fell from the garden’s grace –when we became civilized—agriculturists (wearing clothes, etc.)

This also marked a time when humans fell out of harmony with nature and needed a system of rules to govern society—in the promotion of peace—and of course love!

The Bible is full of metaphors (no disrespect to fundamentalists). Why does evolution make such a spark? Does accepting evolution mean denying all faith?

J -


Yes +.

First, to me, "faith" as I'm using it here is a reliance on something we may not completely understand and/or requires a diety or supreme being or mystical force that we shouldn't strive to understand and provides purpose and morals. "Why" is covered. It is beyond our feeble little mind's comprehensive ability. We do not expect it to be fully explained. We accept it without further challenge. In short, a religion.

As for gravity and evolution - I see their effects, I see the explanations that rely on natural phenomena, the current understanding is testable vs observed evidence. Perhaps instead of gravity I could have used any number of other "non-faiths" like weather forecasting or electromagnetic radiation or nuclear physics or whatever. None of these attempt to provide the moral "why." It's not a perfect analogy, I admit.

Unlike you, perhaps, I can see the reality of evolution. Just looking at primates to me demonstrates how sooooooooooo similar we are. The fossil record + the genome information + the behaviors + all the biological similarities + etc. etc. etc. scream out to me that we have a common descent. Also, why would a diety make so many similar versions? Practice before the final version? That implies fallibility. Finally, humans are FAR from perfect - again implying fallibility of a creator. Our mouths are too small for our teeth, our eyes are woefully inferior to other creatures, childbirth is amazingly painful and difficult (because our heads are bigger than the birth canal), my hair is almost gone - reappearing in my ears, things flap when we run and we have no cup holders. I'm convinced.

I think it's important to point out that there's a political agenda at play here. Folks who would like evolution replaced in schools, or at least "balanced" with "other competing theorys" have a keen interest in evolution being labeled as a "faith." This, they reason, would gain equal billing for their particular faith and they'd have an argument to shoehorn their faith along side it. I think it's easy to grasp that in this sense, evolution is far from being a "faith" and ironically, not in religion's best interest to be branded so. Think of the countless other "faiths" that could then make the same claim.

JMHO

WAT

FH-
I don't like blue blockers...anything that drops out an entire primary color makes me a little nervous about what I'm really seeing.

BTW, you know, if you take one set of polarized glasses, and cross them perpendicularly with another pair, you can see....


Nothing.


Total blackness.


You know this of course, but others do not.


It's the danger of a "pass-band" filter. When you only allow certain spectrums in, and only if they are coming from the same direction (for example, MM has admitted there is nothing to his "right") then you are extremely limited in what actually makes it through the filter.

I'm wondering why God gave us not only a full spectrum of light, but also the ability to filter out all but one teensy-tiny wavelength.

I'm sure you have a good take on this, and that's why I brought it up.

I'm still wading through page 9. Sheesh, y'all talk fast and use big words. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Hmmmmmm. Okay. Here is an area where I have some small expertise. (Emphasis on small.)

For those who are not familiar with them, here are the first and second laws:

1. The change in internal energy in a system is equal to the heat added to the system minus the work done by the system. (This is the application of the conservation of energy principle to heat and thermodynamic processes.)

2. Energy spontaneously tends to flow only from being concentrated in one place to becoming diffused or dispersed and spread out.

These two laws are some of the most complex and elegant laws in all of physics. From them arose our initial understandings of how air and other gases interact, as well as our invention of things like the combustion engine. They are still some of the most important concepts any engineer, chemist, or physicist ever studies.

They are also, however, applicable to limited situations and limited circumstances. To indicate that some part of nature goes against a particular scientific theory does, of course, indicate that the theory is incorrect, inaccurate, or incomplete. In this case, the thermodynamic laws are best described as being incomplete.

As far as we know, the first law of thermodynamics has never been broken. We have never seen energy increase or decrease in the universe, though of course its form can be transformed (as I notice every time my daughter converts a cookie into running screaming through the house) and it can be transferred (which is what happens when said daughter smacks into a wall).

The second law, however, is trickier. It's not an absolute statement. "Energy ... tends to flow," for example. Not, "Energy ALWAYS flows." Tends to.

When you learn more about physics, you switch from thermodynamics to statistical mechanics. In statistical mechanics, you discover that the laws of thermodynamics work, in part, because you're looking at systems with gigantic numbers of particles that have been allowed to settle into their steady states. In other words, things have gotten quiet.

When they talk about energy flows, they might mean warm (more energetic) air molecules are transferring energy to cooler (less energetic) air molecules by running into each other... or the air molecules are flowing from one place to another... or there is radiative heat (infrared light) transfering the heat from one place to another.

The tendency for all those methods of energy transfer is that they get all jumbled up -- energy becomes evenly distributed throughout all of the air in your room, more or less. But it takes time. It's not an instantaneous process. You have to wait for the steady state.

You know that from walking into a flow of air out of a heat register. You can feel the difference initially, though eventually it settles out into a relatively even temperature.... until someone opens a door or turns on the oven or all the little leaks in the house allow that heat to transfer itself to somewhere else, and you have to warm up the house again.

So. How does all this apply to life? The premise, as I understand it, is that a biological system should tend to the most disordered and random state, to an evenly distributed and non-complex state. It should not, as the theory of evolution indicates, tend toward more complex systems.

The trouble with the idea is that thermodynamics, and its underlying "big brother" statistical mechanics, are incomplete descriptions of the physical universe. As a very basic example, they do not take into account gravity... nor do they describe transient energy states (in other words, they deal only with the steady state solution after all the variability has smoothed out), even when those transient states will last longer than any human can comprehend.

As you look out into the solar system, and farther out into the galaxies, there is a truly beautiful and astonishing order out there. It works like clockwork. Every darned year we go 'round the sun. Every month the moon goes around us. Every day we spin like a top on the axis of the earth. It is a highly ordered and elegant system that "runs" on the energy of gravity. It's been going that way for as long as we've been watching, and it looks like it'll continue going that way for as long as we continue to watch.

But... doesn't that break one of the laws of thermodynamics? It looks like it. The matter is clumped into one giant clump in the middle (the Sun) and a whole lot of smaller clumps around it (the planets, their moons, asteroids, and comets). The energy, too, is concentrated at the Sun and streams outward in all directions in great giant gobs of energy. That's not anything like the disorder the Second Law talks about.

Will it ever get there? In the grandest of grand schemes of things, perhaps it will -- if nothing interferes and transfers energy to or from the solar system.

In the smaller scale of things -- that being this entire Earth that we live on, we must always remember that we live in the greater system of the solar system. The Sun, in particular, bathes us in a huge amount of energy every day. (I had to calculate the amount once, based on how hot the Sun is and how much of that heat hits us every day. It's a LOT.) Does that energy "tend" to diffuse? Sure -- just like water "tends" to flow downhill. In the course of doing so, though, water builds complex river systems, and solar energy contributes to the ongoing functioning of lots of complex systems on Earth. Weather, for example, is a vastly complicated system of interactive and sometimes opposing forces. Solar energy, the energy stored in water vapor, air molecules, gravity, the friction caused by the rotation of the planet through the atmosphere, etc. When so many energy reservoirs dynamically interact with one another and with the physical forces (gravity and electromagnetic forces, in this case), though the energy may "tend" to diffuse, it is again a situation where the transient effects of the interactions produce extraordinarily complex systems.

In other words, it rains and snows with great regularity, but not (except in Seattle) steadily and at an incredibly boring constant rate.

(By the way, "air molecules" is a misnomer. Air is actually composed of quite a few different kinds of molecules. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, etc.)

I haven't mentioned biological systems yet. Biological systems dynamics make the weather look like child's play in terms of their complexity. And yet this is another system in which a simplistic application of the second law of thermodynamics has little real meaning. Remember, thermodynamics is based on statistical mechanics. Statistical mechanics is all about averages and tendencies applied to huge, uniform systems that have very specific things done to them -- and which are then allowed to return to whatever their 'steady state' is. That steady state solution takes a few seconds or a few minutes or a few hours when you're heating or cooling your house. Your house is much, much, much smaller than the world, though -- and the time frames are commensurately longer for the whole world to reach some steady state solution. (And it will not do so while there is still a ready source of energy from the Sun.)

And just like those other systems (the solar system, the earth, weather systems), the complex interactions of reservoirs of energy and the interactions of the physical forces on those reservoirs prior to reaching a steady state is unlikely to look like the laws of thermodynamics would seem to predict. Not any more than the eddies in the current of a river, or the arcs of lightning that flash over my head on hot summer nights.

Isn't that cool?

I can perhaps explain this a little. I am a research molecular biologist (Phd) and, like all biologists, apply a lot of theories to my work every day, including mutation and natural selection. They are fundamental theories of modern biology.

OK, to this analogy.

When you drop a book on your toe, what do you observe?

I imagine you see an object (ie the book), move towards the ground, where your toe is, quite quickly.

The theory of gravity, roughly that the earth as an object with a high mass will attract other objects within its gravitational field towards it, is what we currently use to understand and explain what we have observed (that the book moves towards ground). We can then use this explanation to make a prediction. We predict that if we let go of a book from above our head, it will fall on our head. We can do the experiment, and if the book instead flies off into space, we know our theory was wrong.

It is exactly the same with evolution.

What are our observations? Here are just a few as an example:

- That there exist on earth hundreds of millions of species of living things, some of which appear very similar to one another, and some of which are more different from one another.
- That there exist fossils of organisms that do not correlate with any living thing alive today, but have many interesting similarities.
- That certain fossils tend to be found in certain rock strata, whose ages can often be establised.
- That DNA sequences of all living things have some fundamental parts in common, and other parts are different.
- That living things that are quite similar to one another in general morphology tend to have similar DNA sequences, and those that appear most different often have most different DNA sequences.
- That mutations can occur in DNA sequences as it is copied.
- That DNA sequences 'code for' character traits
- That certain character traits can slowly become more common in some populations of animals/plants/fungi/algae/bacteria etc over several generations.
- That there often appears to be a positive relationship between how much a particular trait tends to improve the survivorship of a species in a particular place and how common that trait becomes in future generations.
- In living things with extremely short generation times, like viruses and some bacteria(reproduce at least several times a day), within a matter of years, DNA sequences of a 'species' can mutate to the point where it could be called another 'species'. (with the proviso that the species concept cannot be fully applied to viruses).

Biological change through time via mutation and natural selection have been found to be the most 'useful' theories to apply to these and many other observations. This is because they work. When we analyse DNA sequences with the model that they have evolved from a common ancestor, it will predict our observations. If we analyse fossil evidence on the basis that fossils that look like X are found in deposits that are Y years old, and then, predicting that other X fossils will also be in deposits that are Y years old... we can then go out and do our experiment to see if we are correct.

Science is all about falsifying (ie DISproving) theories and then going on to develop better ones.

Therefore, I invite anyone who has a better explanation for observed data to attend a professional biological conference and give their opinion about the speaker's data and its interpretation. You will need to give reasons why you think your model can better predict the observed data, and suggest experiments that can be performed to falsify the hypothesis.

While I don't know the definitive answer, I think it's because we "gave ourselves" the ability to see the "full spectrum of light" when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We KNOW right and wrong. We know HOW to sin without any help. Sort of like light itself, we know it's there and we can use it, though it has the innate ability to both "do good" and to "cause harm" if there is too much light (all the wavelengths). It can also burn and destroy and result in things like melanoma.

But, God has provide the "polarizing filter," the "narrow gate" that protects us from the ultimate harmful effects of our innate capability.

Just my own reflection on your question. Put it on and see how it fits your own needs.

God bless.

Smur - as a Ph.D Biologist I would be most interested in your thoughts, and perhaps what you know of "current" biological thoughts regarding the old maxim "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny" that I was taught many years ago.

Viable, discarded, amended, etc. in current Biological theory?

In addition, on the subject of mutation, what "useful" mutations that you might know of have lead to a change from one Kind of organism into a completely different Kind? You most likely keep up with the current literature much more frequently that I do. Also, if you know of some technical publications on the subject that would be germaine, I'd appreciate any links to them that might be available so I can read them.

Also, along the lines of virus and bacterial mutation, are there any know examples of viral mutations to something other than a virus or bacteria mutating to something other than bacteria? I'm thinking along the lines of, say, flu viruses, for example. E.Coli, as another example, is still an E.Coli despite "millions of years of evolution." A Drosophila is still a fruit fly despite it's utility for genetic analysis and testing.




With respect toward this statement, have there been any testing or papers presented that "test" the theory of mutations resulting in any new Kinds of organisms? I am not talking about recessives becoming prominent, as in the case of the Peppered Moth, I am asking about REAL change into a totally new organism. This would be along the lines of a dog has always been a dog (Canine Kind) and a cat has always been a cat, apes have always been apes, man has always been man, etc. Variation with a Kind is "allowed," but evolutionary change into a completely new, self-replicating Kind, and in the case of sexual reproduction, the reproduction of "male and female" of the "new Kind" is what I'm curious about. If there have been such tests or research, have they proved the theory or have they led to unsuccessful (falsifying as it were) results?

A lot of testing along these lines may have occurred since I graduated in 1973 and I'd like to hear the current thoughts in Biology.


Respectfully,
FH

Just J - yes it is.

Now, with all that available energy, how is it utilized, that is, put to useful work? Obviously the availability of energy is not the fundamental question with respect to evolution. To my knowledge, for example, no rocks or chemicals on land or in the ocean, though bathed with sufficient energy resources from the sun, have ever been shown to be utilized to "create" life. There IS sufficient energy available to "temporarily" overcome Entropy, though not in the long run. People grow from fertilized egg to adults, and buildings "grow" from raw materials to finished product (though obviously the availability of energy is not the question, the utilization of that energy is the question). Yet both people and buildings WILL "obey" the 2nd Law and will eventually become "disorganized." Neither people nor buildings "give rise" to new Kinds on their own. People are people and buildings are buildings sort of thing. So the question is NOT "is there sufficient energy to reverse the direction of entropy," it is HOW is that energy utilized, and is the direction of entropy permanently reversed to negate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

As for the "why" of the universe still being there, I'd have to get into religious thought to attempt an answer to that one. But let's leave religion out of for a moment and simply ask, "Is the universe obeying the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics in total?" If so, perhaps we should talk about eventual "Heat Death" from the loss of available energy to do "work."

smur - good job. You said it better than I did.

I've been waiting for the "kinds" issue to show up. Predictably it has. For those who may not know, "kinds" is a ruse used by young earth creationists to help them wriggle out of the Ark pickle. I think this excuse was popularized (in modern times) by Dr. Henry Morris, Scientific Creationism and The Genesis Flood (previously mentioned in this thread). Fixity of kinds is based on the philosophy of Plato, not the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible say that kinds themselves cannot change and diversify. Reproduction "according to their kind" is entirely consistent with evolution, as long as it is recognized that kinds are not fixed.

When presented with the obvious question of how could it be even remotely possible for all the land creatures to fit on Noah's ark, "flooders" play the "kinds" card. I think - I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong - that scripture (well, some translation of it, anyway) states that Noah rounded up all the animal "kinds." For example, one pair of canine kind and one pair of feline kind and one pair of beast of burden kind was all that was needed. See, YECers are fine with what they call "micro evolution" - e.g., a horse evolved into a zebra, or vice versa. They're of the same "kind." I surmise they have to accept micro evolution because they have no choice, given the Ark pickle. This is why they're comfortable with a virus mutating into a different one, say, H5N1 into a version that can be transmitted between humans.

The problem with "kinds" and micro-only evolution is that creationists have been unable to specify what the originally created kinds are or were. If kinds were distinct, it should be easy to distinguish between them. Instead, we find a nested hierarchy of similarities, with kinds within kinds within kinds. For example, the twelve-spotted ladybug could be placed in the twelve-spotted ladybug kind, the ladybug kind, the beetle kind, the insect kind, or any of dozens of other kinds of kind, depending on how inclusive the kind is. No matter where one sets the cutoff for how inclusive a kind is, there will be many groups just bordering on that cutoff. This pattern exactly matches the pattern expected of evolution. It does not match what creationism predicts. "Macro" evolution (the YECers term) is merely micro evolution over much longer time scales.

Here's something for YECers to chew on - According to Morris, fungi were not part of the original creation. They were not among the categories listed in Genesis 1, and as decayers they would not have their form until after the Fall. Thus, Morris's own theology requires new kinds to originate after the creation. How can that be?

WAT

Because the "mutations" topic has now been breached, here's something else to chew on to go along with the Flood.

I'm not a biologist - but I did lose a son to cancer. I had LOTS of time and resources sitting in the hospital to learn as much as I could to make sure no stone was unturned in my efforts to save him.

According to the creationists, all humans alive today are descended from 8 people who got off the Ark. Anyone who understands junior high genetics will know that 8 people have between them a maximum possible of 16 different alleles for each genetic locus (in reality, the 8 people on the Ark would have had even FEWER, since some of them were descended from others and thus shared alleles, but for the sake of argument let's give the creationists every possible benefit of the doubt and assume that they were ALL heterozygous and shared no alleles at all in common). That means, if the creationists are correct that "most mutations are deleterious" and that "no new genetic information can appear through mutation", there can not be any human genetic locus anywhere today with more than 16 alleles, since that is the MAXIMUM that could have gotten off the Ark.

But wait, today we find human genetic loci (such as hemoglobin or the HLA complex) that have well over 400 different alleles (indeed some have over 700 different alleles). Hmmmm. Since there could have only been 16 possible on the Ark, and since there are over 400 now, and since 400 is more than 16, that means that somehow the GENETIC INFORMATION INCREASED from the time they got off the Ark until now.

That raises a couple problems: (1) if genetic mutations always produce a LOSS in information, like the creationists keep telling us, then how did we go from 16 alleles to over 400 alleles? (2) if these new alleles did not appear through mutations, then how DID they get here? Poof?

But wait - there’s more: According to creationists, not only must these new alleles have appeared after the Ark, all of these mutations must have appeared in the space of just 4,000 years — the period of time since the Big Flood they say. That gives a rate of BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS, which add NEW GENETIC INFORMATION, of one every 10 years, or roughly two every generation - a much higher rate of beneficial mutation than has ever been recorded anywhere in nature. Nowhere today do we see such a rate anywhere near so high.

So, the obvious questions: (1) what produced this extraordinarily high rate of non-deleterious mutations, AND (2) what stopped it? (indeed, what stopped it conveniently right before the very time when we first developed the technological means to study it?)

But wait - not done YET: Since less than 1% of observed mutations are beneficial (the vast majority of mutations are indeed deleterious or neutral and have no effect), that means for every beneficial mutation which added a new allele, there should have been roughly 99 others which did not. So, to give us roughly 400 beneficial mutations would require somewhere around 40,000 total mutations, a rate of approximately 100 mutations in each locus EVERY YEAR, or 2,000 mutations per locus for EACH GENERATION.

But wait, we’re STILL not finished: In order for any of those mutations to be passed on to the next generation to produce new alleles, they MUST occur in the germ cells - sperm or egg. And since any such high rate of mutation in a somatic cell (non-sperm or egg) would have quickly produced a cancer, if the creationists are right this mutation rate could ONLY have occurred in the germ cells and could NOT have occurred in any of the somatic cells. If one of our resident creationists can propose a mechanism for me which produces a hugely high rate of mutation in the germ cells while excluding it from any other cells, a Nobel Prize in medicine surely awaits - such information would be critically valuable to cancer researchers. Maybe my son could have been saved. But alas, no such mechanism exists. The rate of mutations made necessary by our starting point, the Ark, would certainly have killed all of Noah’s children before they even had time to have any kids of their own. In order to produce 400 beneficial alleles in just 4,000 years, humanity would have been beset with cancers at a rate that would have wiped us all out millenia ago.

WAT

Hi WAT...

I will confess...I HAVE NOT read all of these posts. (Short attention span).

But...there is something I've been curious about, perhaps you can give me your answer. (Please keep it short!).

It has always seemed to me that if we want to follow the evolution argument (for simplicity sake, let's just stick with humans), then both the male and female would have had to evolve at the same time or else the whole thing would have been for naught.

I know...it's a simple question, but how is that addressed in the evolution world?

FGG - I am not well enough informed about the nature of the origins of sexual reproduction to answer. From my limited knowledge, this feels more like life origins stuff than evolution. Remember - evolution IS NOT about the origin of life. It's about speciation. BUT - aside from the very few examples of asexual reproduction, isn't it interesting that all other life forms on earth utilize two sex reproduction, as opposed to, say, three? Why not three? (Good thing, huh? Think of THOSE infidelity problems! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> ) Anyway, does the fact that there are two make a strong argument for common descent? Of course the creationist answer would be that that's just due to one creator. "Try again." OK - then why are there ANY asexual examples?

JMHO

WAT

I'm assuming that your questions are rhetorical...(I don't consider myself anywhere nearly well enough informed to debate the subject).

So...I would like to keep the microscopic spotlight on my question, which I pose as a sincere one...not one that is a "gotcha" sort of thing.

Any of the other folks who have participated so far, I would welcome a response as I've always considered this kind of a curiosity.

If (again, sticking with humans) we "morphed" from some biological / chemical recipe (I think it's referred to as "primordal soup"), then it seems to me that there would have had to have been actually 2 parallel, idenical paths of "evolving" (I know, WAT, I'm misusing the term, but please give me temporary license here)...one male, one female....or else all those years (be it millions, billions, trillions, whatever) would have been with no way to propogate. This would, in turn, mean that each and every individual "person" would have had to been the direct (not indirect) result of evolving.

Am I even asking that clearly enough to warrant an intelligent answer? I hope so....

WAT about it 2Long...do you have an answer?...others?..

Georgia

Yes, but reasonable, huh? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I understand very well what you're asking and I don't know a detailed answer. I doubt, though, that it's independent evolutional tracks. This would suggest inter-species reproduction.

WAT

Yes, there are lots of very reasonable questions. But, I'm trying to avoid rabbit trails.

My question is so elementary that I'm sure that anyone who really pays much attention to this sort of thing must have a well worn response to this by now.

If I understand the question, why do you think that male and female "lines" would have to evolve separately?

Males and females have to mate with each other in order to reproduce. Thus, every offspring produced is going to be a mix of the genes of the two parents. This would happen whether the offspring were male or female.

Sexual reproduction means that males and females of the same species cannot possibly evolve separately.

Is that what you meant?

Regards,
rs0522

FH, I've read your response to me twice, and it appears that you're now arguing that the laws of thermodynamics DO apply, and that evolution does not violate them? I'm confused.

Smur, thank you for your thoughts. I, too, would like to hear more.

WAT, I was trying to make clear the distinction between observable data (monkeys and little girls are, yes, very similar) and theories/models (like the theory of evolution). I know gravity well enough to be sure of when I'm talking about data and when I'm talking about theories. I'm not nearly so clear on the distinction in biology. Smur did a fantastic job of naming the data versus the theory, though, and I appreciated it.

The discussion of "kinds" and evolution past a particular one is fascinating. I wonder when we change kinds? A change of "species" is a change of kind? Is it a change to go from a fox to a wolf to a poodle? Or is it a change of kind to go from a mouse to a lemur to a monkey? Or from a mouse to an elephant? I'm not being rhetorical -- I would really like to have a clear understanding of what FH might be looking for.

Not exactly...

Let me see how I can explain this...

Let's say that if the human had "evolved" to be 100% human, and the human started out in the "soup" to be 0% human...then,

When that 0% individual had evolved to be..say...20% human...and he/she died along the way..does that mean the next "individual" had to start back at 0% and begin all over again? If not...that would indicate the now dead indiviual passed along his/her progress. But in order to do that, there had to be an "offspring", which would require a male/female. How would that be possible unless the male / female were evolving simultaneously?

In other words....20% boy had sex with 20% girl, giving birth to 20% baby who then continued the evolutionary progress...right up until we got to 100% man (i.e. - Mel Gibson) and 100% woman (i.e. - Halle Berry).

Those questions are non-sensical to me because I cannot distinguish what a "kind" is - other than to replace, as you suggest, the word "kind" with "species". - or to distinguish, e.g., a collie from a poodle which most call breeds within a species.

Again, I'm not a biologist, which I'm sure I'll hear any minute now.

WAT

Oh, and I meant to go back to the Mount Everest question and never did. I think most people now understand that plate tectonics is occurring in our lifetimes, and has been occurring for the whole of human history. Work backward long enough and even Mount Everest can end up underwater. To say that it -must- have been because of a Great Flood is a similar argument to saying that it -must- have been plate tectonics working naturally over millions of years. Neither one is objectively provable. We don't have time machines to go back and observe how the fossils got there.

We can observe factually that there are fossils in sedimentary rock up there (though I haven't been there personally to verify it). We can observe, also factually, that plate tectonics are happening now and affecting the height of Mount Everest (and everything else in the world) now.

We can also observe, in various parts of the world, things that lead to the theory (edited because this isn't actually a fact; the facts are the structures left in the geology that look like lots o' water ran over them) that there have been gigantic floods. They appear to have happened at different times (I'm taking all my info from that other thread on floods that 2Long wrote about).

I'm not enough of a geologist to know whether plate tectonics or a massive flood are the preferred theory regarding the fossils at the top of the world. But neither of those theories necessarily requires the Hand of God. There may someday be a time when we do look and look and look at an event or phenomenon and say, "Without God, this cannot have occurred."

Alternatively, we can say, "In all things, God (or God's will) is present."

I prefer the latter, myself. I don't really need a specific set of proofs to know that Existence is closely linked to something much, much greater than I am. All I have to do is lie on the beach and look up at the stars.

Oh, and I'm really amused that no one wants to admit any common ground. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />