Thank you SoSick for your help in understanding this topic
Your argument is illogical RAZD.
Because you already use this statement (and similar related others):
Theory #1: (...)...
...and state that it is true, and it is true, ... you cannot then in the next breath state:
No theory is "true" - you can have a valid premises and sound conclusions, but that's as close as you can get. You can invalidate theories but never prove them true.
What I said was known, was that the two processes previously discussed were observed to have occurred, and therefore they are
fact, they do happen:
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Biological Process #1 is the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation.
Biological Process #2 is the division of a 'parent' species into two (or more) 'daughter' species.[/color]
They are both processes recognized in creationist articles as processes that occur and that are therefore observed facts. Then I said:
The question is whether this is what has happened in the past and whether anything else was involved. To test this we will form a theory:
[color:"white"]:[/color]
[color:"blue"]Theory #1:
That each species known today can be traced backwards to parent species through historical, fossil or genetic records, while only involving (1) the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation, and (2) the division of a 'parent' species into two (or more) 'daughter' species.[/color]
[color:"white"]:[/color]
Stated simply: we posit that Process (1) and Process (2) are sufficient to explain the diversity of life today from the records of previous generations of species.
We don't know if this is true for the whole natural history record of life on earth, so we have to test it. Through testing it we can either invalidate it or find that it is
sound in being able to explain the evidence we know and test it with.
... you cannot then in the next breath state:
Quote:
We should see not one orchard but two, one after the other, and not a tree ... IF creationism is true.
Why not? This follows the AiG article strictly in it's interpretation.
If you have trouble with this conclusion, then maybe you should take it up with AiG, that is where the orchard concept came from. Each orchard starts with the kinds that were at the start of each growth period, one at creation and the other at the flood. Each branches out from the original kinds, one is "pruned" by the flood event and the other ends with the diversity of life we see today.
What I don't see, SoSick, is where the illogic is -- you have not shown any in the argument.
Furthermore, your seeming assumption that the earth is static and all things that have ever died should be found in perfect ordered layers within the earth is idealistic and unfounded. The earth is not static.
Not at all. We know that is not the case (see discussion of La Brea tar pits), but what we do assume is that the fossils that we do find are evidence of previous life. We assume that the evidence we are able to find is a true representation of life that did exist.
The earth is not static. A flood of major proportions would disturb and mix layers of sediment beyond recognition.
But it would not be able to do that
after the flood, so the record after the flood should be clear. In addition, if what you say is true, then there should be evidence of that mixing, a level below which everything is fairly homogeneous in distributions of material and fossils, and it should be then easy to determine the upper level of flood deposits. We can discuss this issue later if you wish.
Earthquakes or other disturbances in places would further raise or lower or bury or expose old layers while burying new layers. And since there are not any dating methods truly perfect to the year to date layers or items that might be only 100 or 1000 years older or younger than one another, because environmental inconsistencies exist which make such dating accuracy impossible, and since you (should) alreadly know this, your statements and assumptions are completely illogical and even misleading.
Landslides, mudslides and the like, could also distribute old material over new material at lower elevations (in eroded valleys for instance). These would only occur in isolated locations, not universally, and so could be identified by studying adjacent strata and by what the strata look like. You may also be able to find where the old material came from. Curiously this is what geologists do actually do and have been doing for
centuries. Relative dating of strata based on
superposition has been around since the 17th century.
All we need to show the descent of daughter populations from parent populations is
relative age. Certainly we don't need it accurate to an actual individual year, and thus methods that are accurate +/-10% can still be useful -- if specimen {A} dates to 1000 BCE +/-10% (900 to 1100 BCE) and specimen {B} dates to 2000 BCE+/-10% (1800 to 2200 BCE) we can be pretty sure that specimen {B} is actually in fact older than specimen {A} -- the relative relationship is what is important, not the actual age for determining lineage.
We saw in the age dating thread that the accuracy of tree ring dating was +/-0.5% over 8,000 years of tree ring data. We also saw that carbon-14 dating was less accurate than tree rings due to the annual variation in atmospheric carbon-14, but that you could still correlate one set of dates with the other and have consistent
relative age results.
To assume that we can know
nothing is illogical as it ignores the wealth of information that we can and do know. To say that because we can't know a date to the exact year (month? day? minute?) that dating methods are
completely useless is false and misleading in the extreme.
Your use of the word species is also misleading in this context, you should use the word 'genus' instead., since 'daughter' species are not truly new species in the context you seem to want to make them appear to be. either or, you are not aware of the variations within a genus that are referred to as different species but are actually different variations of the same genus. What you are doing is equivalent to saying that within the human race, asians and caucasions are two different species. Essentially, it is merely rhetoric which human beings find offensive when applied to themselves but freely apply to animals, fish, insects etc.
All of which is completely irrelevant to the issue of daughter populations descending from parent populations. Whether we use biological varieties (human race for example), species (dogs and foxes), genus (canine and feline), etc. doesn't matter, what matters is the evidence of the division of a 'parent' population into two (or more) 'daughter' populations. I used species because that is what was used in the AiG articles:
If you have a problem with this terminology, maybe you should take it up with AiG.
it's probably not true though.
(picture of lion jaguar cross)
(picture of donkey zebra cross)
Thanks for showing me how to post pictures with forum extras, it is always good to know how to prevent deep links to other websites (saves their bandwidth) and that may up and disappear (annoying). It's also a way to get around those sites that try to protect their copyright images with a deep link detector that then posts "this image stolen from
messybeast com" and the like eh?
Don't you think those pictures show the hereditary relationship of the two crossed populations to a parent population? Don't you think this means that lions and jaguars (and tigers and leopards and cheetahs etc) are related by descent from a common ancestor population and that donkeys and zebras (and horses and onagers etc) are related by descent from a common ancestor population?
Do you think we can organize all existing life by their ability to form viable hybrids (even if we have to do it artificially)?
http://www.hemmy.net/2006/06/19/top-10-hybrid-animals/6. Cama<img src="http://herballure.com/ForumExtras/Images/avszmksftl.jpg">
A Cama is a hybrid between a camel and a llama. They are born via artificial insemination due to the huge difference in sizes of the animals which disallow natural breeding. A Cama usually has the short ears and long tails of a camel but the cloven hooves of a llama. Also most noticeably is the absence of the hump.
Do you think this shows that camels and llamas are related by descent from a common ancestor population?
Your argument and way of presenting it assumes the reader is ignorant of the facts and you carry on with the argument in deceptive ways that continue to assume the reader is ignorant of the facts and will easily accept your notions.
Actually I assume that skeptical people will challenge every notion, and thus they will need to see substantiation for any and all claims made in an argument. It is not assuming ignorance (which itself is not a bad thing - it can be cured by gaining knowledge), rather it is making sure we are talking about the same thing.
Enjoy
[color:"green"]Note: my time is limited, so I only choose threads of particular interest to me and I cannot guarantee a reply to all responses (particularly if they do not discuss the issue/s),
and I expect other people to do the same. Thank you for your consideration.[/color]
