A Look at Creation “Science” — Part I
June 22nd, 2006 Bones Posted in Commentary |
THIS IS THE FIRST OF A CONTINUING SERIES examining what is being passed off as science on creationist websites.
The following are the concluding paragraphs from an article titled The non-transitions in ‘human evolution’–on evolutionists’ terms, by John Woodmorappe. This article is posted on the answersingenesis.org website.
Conclusions
Typical textbooks show the following progression: an apelike knuckle-walking primate, followed by forms which are progressively larger, progressively more bipedal, and progressively more intelligent–all culminating in us modern humans. As we have seen, the scientific evidence shows no such thing.
The relevant evidence clearly shows that Homo sapiens sensu lato is a separate and distinct entity from the other hominids. No overall evolutionary progression is to be found. Adam and Eve, and not the australopiths/habilines, are our actual ancestors. As pointed out by other creationists [e.g., Lubenow9], Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis can best be understood as racial variants of modern man–all descended from Adam and Eve, and most likely arising after the separation of people groups after Babel.
This short two-paragraph conclusion ignores well-established science by omitting evidence, telling half-truths, and including religious beliefs as if they had been scientifically verified. It is a wonderful, and informative, example of the genre.
But what is even more amusing — what if this wonderful bit of creationist “science” was actually correct? It would have the following implications, most of which run contrary to what creationists generally claim:
- The change from modern man, i.e., Adam and Eve, to these four species of fossil man took place since the Babel incident, which is usually placed after the global flood and in the range of 4,000 to 5,300 years ago. The change from modern man to Homo ergaster would require a rate of evolution on the order of several hundred times as rapid as scientists posit for the change from Homo ergaster to modern man! This is in spite of the fact that most creationists deny evolution occurs on this scale at all; now they have not only proposed such a change themselves, but see it several hundreds of times faster and in reverse!
- Creationists keep claiming that there is no relationship between Adam and Eve and many of the species of fossil man. In this article, they say the opposite, that at least four species of fossil man are directly related to modern humans. So much for the “no transitionals” argument (if you accept that these species are related and transitional in one direction you can’t deny they are related and transitional in the other).
- After their evolution, or devolution, these four species, or racial variants as the article calls them, would have had to become fossilized and deposited into the correct geological strata in Africa, Asia, and Europe so that they would have the correct ages and interrelationships. No other extant individuals, normal descendants of Adam and Eve, could be included, even though they were presumably much more numerous at the time. Neither could modern fauna and flora; instead, the correct species of extinct fauna and flora would have to be around somewhere, waiting to crawl into the same layers and die at the same time!
- Some explanation needs to be found for the fact that these four species, or racial variants, were all fossilized, while “normal” individuals were not. It is very easy to find skeletal material dating to within the last 10,000 years, and that material is virtually all bone — not fossil. Why were members of one “racial variant” fossilized while “normal” individuals not fossilized? And this is all after the global flood, so the flood can’t be used as a cause for fossilization, as is usually the case.
This wonderful bit of logic and apologetics is just one more great example of the “science” which can be found on creationist websites. It can be entertaining–if you have a strong stomach. But it isn’t science.
A Look at Creation “Science” — Part VI
A Look at Creation “Science” — Part V
A Look at Creation “Science” — Part IV
A Look at Creation “Science” — Part III
A Look at Creation “Science” — Part II
A Look at Creation “Science” — Part I
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:23 am
Feh! John Woodmorappe is the nom de propaganda of one Jan Peczkis, a high school teacher. Woodmorappe’s execrable scholarship in his publications (primarily on the subject of geology) are easy to Google up. He can be relied upon to defend his nonsense with further hocus-pocus, delivered with a snarl.
I also don’t see Woody dealing with how man-like some extinct “apes” supposedly became under his theory. Homo habilis, Homo rudolphensis, and all the australopithecines are just variations within ape-kind which got particularly close to man-kind.
Yes. And why did that happen just before the time Homo erectus (that most apelike of men) makes his appearance in the fossil record, John?
It probably need not be stated that Woodmorappe is a YEC and does not accept the conventional chronology at all. Thus, the question almost doesn’t make sense to him.
September 11th, 2006 at 2:32 am
Nice demolition.
And, still, there are those among our -ah!- worthy opposition who stridently maintain that scientific creationism is empirical, and that creation scientists actually practice science.
One wonders… what would it take, what demonstration of abysmal idiocy and entranched fallacy would suffice, to coerce these worthies to admit that maybe, just maybe, the gurus they love to cut-n-paste either know not of what they speak… or lie like used car salesmen?
I’m beginning to think that a “smoking gun” of whatever caliber could never suffice. Perhaps the rhetorical equivalent of a hydrogen bomb might dent their concreted heads.
June 19th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
In all this nonsensical yabbering about Intelligent Design, I can’t help but notice that the ID creationists consistantly and desperately overlook and dismiss the fact that evolution does not contradict the principles behind creationism or intelligent design.
It only contradicts their literalistic interpretation of the Book of Genesis. But Genesis is nothing more than a fable written by a fallible human author lost to history.
If one sets their judeo-christian creation mythology aside or takes it as an allegory, I see no reason why one can’t postulate that a patient, all-knowing god might have used evolution as its means of evolution.
Think in terms of directing evolution through a long sequence of environmental changes and other selective factors, like a master chef slow-cooking his culinary masterpiece. A complex recipe takes time and patience, and terrestrial biology is nothing if not complex.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
This seems easily the weakest of these “looks” at creation science. Creationists would answer these critiques fairly easily. For the first 2 items on the list, they would simply point to dogs as an example of severe rapid structural variation. And they would claim that the fossils weren’t transitional because they weren’t “transiting” to anything; they were just different races.
For the last two points, they could just point to a list of hominid fossils on wikipedia which shows homo sapiens, homo heidelbergensis, and homo erectus as contemporaries dating back to between 250k and 500k years.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:24 am
thanks
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
The mystery of ancestral descent, from Noah’s Ark
This is tale which tells what recessive genes hold, what inbreeding cause’s and what degenerate animals look like.
A male lion breeds with a female tiger, makes a liger of great size!
2
a male leopard breed with a female lion brings forth a leopon. Which not only has the size and strength of the lion but also has the climbing abilities of the leopard.
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All that has so far been said, is recognized by science.
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Now into the realm of what has not yet been ‘validated’ (by science).
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All the other cats are said to interbreed
from time to time.
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The division of Species is based on the idea that, only members of the same ‘Species’ can indeed breed.
But if all cats ( including the Egyptian house cat) can breed, they are not different Species but only subspecies of the original cat.
Now, if the liger is bigger and the leopon is of the same size and better. Then it comes to reason that the original cat from off the Ark was a super cat.
Scientists say that the “extra” abilities that come out of these ‘hybrids’ are caused by “recessive genes”
Recessive Genes are created by inbreeding.
Now here is the part that might interest a historian.
Gen 7:2
“Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.”
In this I think that the clean animals were allowed to descend without inbreeding and therefore pure. While the others were forced into inbreeding, which caused their abilities to go into ‘Recessive genes’. The ancients had enough trouble with the lions, tigers, etc. So this might have been set to preserve man. Did you know that in India they breed the wild dog with the wolf to get a bigger breed. This alone means nothing, except that there is a story whcih appeared shortly after the flood. No later that 500 years, or 600, or 700, etc, after the flood. The story told of a great king who had wolves so great that his men were able to ride upon them, for they were far greater than any horse.
Maybe I’m going nowhere, but if only two cats, two dogs, two bears, etc, walked off the Ark. Then I say that it would immediately force inbreeding, which in turn would force abilities to go into recessive genes. And (to the point) would force the super Cat to degenerate into the lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah and house cat that we have today.
I’m sorry I couldn’t help joking and calling the lion and tiger a degenerate.
“In the production of pure breeds of sheep, cattle, hogs, and horses inbreeding has frequently been practiced extensively, and where in such cases selection has been made of the more vigorous offspring as parents, it is doubtful whether any diminution in size, vigor, or fertility has resulted. Nevertheless it very frequently happens that when two pure breeds are crossed, the offspring surpass either pure race in size and vigor.”
Sudden Origins by Jeffrey H. Schwartz
The tiger is either a pure breed are a degenerate species!
Or I say.
They are one and the same..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Else, the reason why the clean were in sevens as opposed to the others.
Genetic research (and this basic reasoning and breeding) has shown that every type of wolf, dog, fox and coyote etc. came from the 1 original wolf.
Scott, John Paul and John L. Fuller Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog
Behaviour of Wolves, Dogs and Related Canines (Hardcover) by Michael W. Fox
Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca)
“Mitochondrial Eve is the ………..common ancestor (MRCA) of all human via the mitochondrial DNA pathway . In other words, she is the MRCA found when ancestry of all living humans is traced back in time, following only the maternal lineage. Mitochondrial DNA pathway is equivalent to maternal lineage, because Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down from mother to child, never father to child. [1]”
Camel-Llama-alpaca
All known subspecies of the “horse” are known to breed!
1 Last thing.
this theory is observable & testable, in that you can breed new ‘breeds’ of dogs in just a few years. But each of these will have less ‘ablities’ than the last.
Just take 2 dogs (of your choice) & place them in a zoo. Now there children will be fine but as there children breed with each other you will see the same thing happen. Only it will go ten times further than before.
Kentish Son
I am sending this into the world because I want to get the word out.