Creationists' theory in detail

[Hollie]

No chain of evidence proving 'evolution' is a fact, so no need to keep lying about that to school kids, either, but of course irrational 'rationalists' insist on it.

Well, other than the fossil record.

True, the fossil record records gaps which are consistent with Divine Creation. As posted by others, the 'Cambrian Explosion' of many distinct life forms is an example.

Gaps in the fossil record do nothing to support supernatural creation by your gods or anyone else’s gods.

Firstly, the Cambrian explosion is expressed in geologic timeframes. The length of the Cambrian explosion is still ambiguous, but five to ten million years is a reasonable estimate; starting about 550 million years ago. 550 million years vs, 6 days is a little bit of what we might call a discrepancy. Even the shortest estimate of five million years is hardly sudden and nothing suggests a timeframe of 6,000 years ago.

Fossilization is rare. Supernaturalism makes things easy. One can shout out “the gawds did it”, and magically, anything is possible. You’re demanding that science meet a standard of demonstration not required of the gods. I’ll require fossilized remains of the gods in order to accept the existence of the gods, any of them.

Letting the Fossil Record Speak — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”⁠20

20. Are there any fossil links between the Cambrian outburst of life and what went before it?


20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”⁠21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.⁠22

References 20-22 - (chapter 5)

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

20. A View of Life, pp. 638, 649. [ by Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, 1981]

21. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 90. [by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition]

22. Natural History, “Darwin and the Fossil Record,” by Alfred S. Romer, October 1959, pp. 466, 467.

I haven’t gone through all your references and I need to do that because so often, the creation ministries will edit, purge or simply falsify the “quotes” they use.

Beginning with the JW doctrines, they immediately make an error. There was no “sudden, dramatic turn”. As I noted earlier, the Cambrian explosion was an “explosion” lasting millions of years.

How do the JW’s resolve that with a 6,000 year old planet?

You did not read the quote or you would have realized that we referenced "10 million years" for the Cambrian explosion - reposting this clip from above:

"A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.”"

I guess you also forgot we believe the earth (actually the date of shield rock) is about 4 billion years old - I will repost that for you as well:

How Science Affects Your Life — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"Scientists estimate that the earth is about 4 billion years old and that the universe was born some 13 to 14 billion years ago. The Bible sets no date for the creation of the universe. In no place does it affirm that the earth is only a few thousand years old. The very first verse in the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) That general statement allows scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to sound scientific principles."

Sorry, but a statement from genesis clearly doesn’t allow scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to “sound scientific principles."

What “sound scientific principles” support your gods or any of the other alleged gods? You simply can’t base a “sound scientific principle” on an unsupported assertion.

For example, Lord Vishnu rules the heavens and earth is a sound scientific principle thus, we can asses with confidence that your your gods are subordinate to Lord Vishnu.

I’m using your sound scientific principle.

 

[BreezeWood]

^ Perfect example of bias.

Yes, bias is a problem. To find the truth one must study the Bible and Science objectively - putting in the background our pre-conceived beliefs.

Of course, it is not wrong to be biased for the truth:

John 17:17
(ISV) "Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth.

Of course, it is not wrong to be biased for the truth:

"Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth.

is that a typo -

word - words are spoken, the spoken religion from antiquity is the same for the first life form the elements as it is today in purity not translations but the truth. not found in the written 10,000 page documents of the desert religions, altered as appeals shared by select motivations.

 

[Hollie]

No chain of evidence proving 'evolution' is a fact, so no need to keep lying about that to school kids, either, but of course irrational 'rationalists' insist on it.

Well, other than the fossil record.

True, the fossil record records gaps which are consistent with Divine Creation. As posted by others, the 'Cambrian Explosion' of many distinct life forms is an example.

Gaps in the fossil record do nothing to support supernatural creation by your gods or anyone else’s gods.

Firstly, the Cambrian explosion is expressed in geologic timeframes. The length of the Cambrian explosion is still ambiguous, but five to ten million years is a reasonable estimate; starting about 550 million years ago. 550 million years vs, 6 days is a little bit of what we might call a discrepancy. Even the shortest estimate of five million years is hardly sudden and nothing suggests a timeframe of 6,000 years ago.

Fossilization is rare. Supernaturalism makes things easy. One can shout out “the gawds did it”, and magically, anything is possible. You’re demanding that science meet a standard of demonstration not required of the gods. I’ll require fossilized remains of the gods in order to accept the existence of the gods, any of them.

Letting the Fossil Record Speak — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”⁠20

20. Are there any fossil links between the Cambrian outburst of life and what went before it?


20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”⁠21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.⁠22

References 20-22 - (chapter 5)

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

20. A View of Life, pp. 638, 649. [ by Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, 1981]

21. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 90. [by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition]

22. Natural History, “Darwin and the Fossil Record,” by Alfred S. Romer, October 1959, pp. 466, 467.

I’ll take this “quote” from Charles Darwin as an example of “quoting” out of context and the practice of parsing snippets out of entire paragraphs.

“To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”⁠

You need to look at what Darwin wrote following that statement. He is referencing the lack of fossils before the Cambrian, and seeks to explain it in terms of the wearing away of the earlier strata. He notes here (sixth edition, 1872) that he had said in 1859 (first edition) that fossils would be found in earlier strata, and they eventually were.

Additionally, you also need to understand the context of the time; 1859. The developing sciences of paleontology, biology and the earth sciences were very young.

Why would the gods leave fossil evidence of ancient life if there was no such ancient life and biological evolution never occurred.

Did your gods play a cruel joke on Christians?

 

[james bond]

the apple for them was to realize the difference between good vs evil their mission was then to triumph one over the other to have knowledge while in the garden and became the same for all beings to make for their lives by their own accord, failure is to face extinction.

I explained this, too. What was Adam and Eve's sin? It was disobeying God's one command, but how did Satan through the serpent able to tempt them? He told them that would be "like God." That's a pretty great temptation and why I give him plenty of respect. Satan is quite powerful and persuasive.

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

Besides evolution, today's apple could be Apple Corp. It's CEO is homosexual. Coincidence?

 

[Hollie]

the apple for them was to realize the difference between good vs evil their mission was then to triumph one over the other to have knowledge while in the garden and became the same for all beings to make for their lives by their own accord, failure is to face extinction.

I explained this, too. What was Adam and Eve's sin? It was disobeying God's one command, but how did Satan through the serpent able to tempt them? He told them that would be "like God." That's a pretty great temptation and why I give him plenty of respect. Satan is quite powerful and persuasive.

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

Besides evolution, today's apple could be Apple Corp. It's CEO is homosexual. Coincidence?

In the genesis fable, the gods told A&E that fruit theft would cause their deaths. The talking snake said otherwise.

A&E didn’t die. Your gods lied. The talking snake told the truth.

How ‘bout them apples, eh?

 

[Newtonian]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

 

[Newtonian]

I

the apple for them was to realize the difference between good vs evil their mission was then to triumph one over the other to have knowledge while in the garden and became the same for all beings to make for their lives by their own accord, failure is to face extinction.

I explained this, too. What was Adam and Eve's sin? It was disobeying God's one command, but how did Satan through the serpent able to tempt them? He told them that would be "like God." That's a pretty great temptation and why I give him plenty of respect. Satan is quite powerful and persuasive.

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

Besides evolution, today's apple could be Apple Corp. It's CEO is homosexual. Coincidence?

In the genesis fable, the gods told A&E that fruit theft would cause their deaths. The talking snake said otherwise.

A&E didn’t die. Your gods lied. The talking snake told the truth.

How ‘bout them apples, eh?

I think A&E still exists? I used to watch some programs from it - but it is not in Genesis.

The fruit (not likely an apple - Adam's apple in still in my throat) did not cause their deaths. That wouldn't make sense since they did not die until hundreds of years later.

Rather, God created Adam and Eve perfect - but their bodies would only stay perfect if used in harmony with the purpose for their being created. They were not purposed/created to sin - apparently the chemicals caused by sin disrupted their DNA in some way. You might compare it to a perfect car (none exist btw) that is not operated in harmony with the owner's manual. For example, if the perfect car was not given oil it would die.

The definition of perfect in Biblical usage is 'complete' for the purpose for which they were created.

For example, a perfect TV would fail to produce good toast for you.

Bottom line - you could not receive A&E on a toaster!

 

[Hollie]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

The first “quote” ran in a New York Times Article on November 4, 1980.

As expected, the “quote” is intentionally parsed from the broader context to convey something out of context.

It’s a dishonest tactic.

 

[BreezeWood]

the apple for them was to realize the difference between good vs evil their mission was then to triumph one over the other to have knowledge while in the garden and became the same for all beings to make for their lives by their own accord, failure is to face extinction.

I explained this, too. What was Adam and Eve's sin? It was disobeying God's one command, but how did Satan through the serpent able to tempt them? He told them that would be "like God." That's a pretty great temptation and why I give him plenty of respect. Satan is quite powerful and persuasive.

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

Besides evolution, today's apple could be Apple Corp. It's CEO is homosexual. Coincidence?

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

the Almighty triumphed over evil -

they, all beings became by choice the "intermediary" opening their eyes to sin they then were required to triumph over evil for remission back into the Everlasting - the religion of antiquity, that's all there is.

the question remains - why do christians believe they can not stop sinning - and expect a messiah to save them and have basically been assholes throughout history, bing - and expect then to be rewarded ...

listen to "satan" is evil lurking nothing more - secular humanism is not evil nor is evolution anything but a critical study.

 

[Newtonian]

Breezewood - I am not quoting your post - metaphysics is a branch of philosophy - discussed here:

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics: Although sensations (i.e., the conscious experiences that result from stimulation of the sense organs) are mental events, they seem to most people to be a source of information—fallible, perhaps, but in the main reliable—about a nonmental world, the world...

www.britannica.com

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

metaphysics

metaphysical - to be more exact

is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.

substance and attribute - the spiritual composition for a composite physiology.

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

the religious itinerant never claimed to be a messiah ... nor disavowed their beliefs, the religion of antiquity.

as pointed out before, the 4th century christian bible is a book of forgeries, a political document disguised as a religion.

Why do you think the Bible was from the 4th century? There are a number of manuscript copies of portions of the Bible dated to well before that - e.g. a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah dated to the 2nd century BCE. And the Greek Septuagint translation was produced from the 3rd to 2nd century BCE and we have manuscript copies of LXX (=Septuagint) from before Jesus' time.

There are also papyrus fragments of the Christian Greek Scriptures (aka NT) from the 2nd century CE.

See this article on an early 2nd century papyrus fragment of the book of John:

Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Excerpt:

"Roberts suspected that this papyrus scrap was very old. But how old? To find out, he compared the handwriting on it with other dated ancient manuscripts—a discipline called paleography.* By applying this method, he was able to assign an approximate age. But he wanted to be sure. So he photographed the fragment, sent copies of it to three papyrologists, and asked them to determine its age. What did these experts conclude?

By studying the style of the script and the strokes, all three of the expert scholars agreed that the fragment had been written in the first half of the second century C.E.—just a few decades after the apostle John’s death! Paleography, however, is not a foolproof method of dating manuscripts, and another scholar believes that the text could have been written anytime during the second century. Yet, this tiny scrap of papyrus was—and still is—the oldest existing manuscript fragment of the Christian Greek Scriptures that has ever been found."

 

[Newtonian]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

The first “quote” ran in a The New York Times Article on November 4, 1980.

As expected, the “quote” is intentionally parsed from the broader context to convey something out of context.

It’s a dishonest tactic.

Which quote and what did you find from the context? A link would help btw.

 

[Hollie]

I

the apple for them was to realize the difference between good vs evil their mission was then to triumph one over the other to have knowledge while in the garden and became the same for all beings to make for their lives by their own accord, failure is to face extinction.

I explained this, too. What was Adam and Eve's sin? It was disobeying God's one command, but how did Satan through the serpent able to tempt them? He told them that would be "like God." That's a pretty great temptation and why I give him plenty of respect. Satan is quite powerful and persuasive.

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

Besides evolution, today's apple could be Apple Corp. It's CEO is homosexual. Coincidence?

In the genesis fable, the gods told A&E that fruit theft would cause their deaths. The talking snake said otherwise.

A&E didn’t die. Your gods lied. The talking snake told the truth.

How ‘bout them apples, eh?

I think A&E still exists? I used to watch some programs from it - but it is not in Genesis.

The fruit (not likely an apple - Adam's apple in still in my throat) did not cause their deaths. That wouldn't make sense since they did not die until hundreds of years later.

Rather, God created Adam and Eve perfect - but their bodies would only stay perfect if used in harmony with the purpose for their being created. They were not purposed/created to sin - apparently the chemicals caused by sin disrupted their DNA in some way. You might compare it to a perfect car (none exist btw) that is not operated in harmony with the owner's manual. For example, if the perfect car was not given oil it would die.

The definition of perfect in Biblical usage is 'complete' for the purpose for which they were created.

For example, a perfect TV would fail to produce good toast for you.

Bottom line - you could not receive A&E on a toaster!

Why did the gods lie to A&E?

 

[Hollie]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

The first “quote” ran in a The New York Times Article on November 4, 1980.

As expected, the “quote” is intentionally parsed from the broader context to convey something out of context.

It’s a dishonest tactic.

Which quote and what did you find from the context? A link would help btw.

List of fallacious creationist quotes

Many creationists quote the statements of others to lend a veneer of authority to their own work. This is a legitimate strategy, if used correctly. Unfortunately, creationists often quote-mine scientists, misrepresent the authority of a source, or quote vastly outdated texts, which create...

rationalwiki.org

 

[Newtonian]

Breezewood - I am not quoting your post - metaphysics is a branch of philosophy - discussed here:

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics: Although sensations (i.e., the conscious experiences that result from stimulation of the sense organs) are mental events, they seem to most people to be a source of information—fallible, perhaps, but in the main reliable—about a nonmental world, the world...

www.britannica.com

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

metaphysics

metaphysical - to be more exact

is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.

substance and attribute - the spiritual composition for a composite physiology.

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

the religious itinerant never claimed to be a messiah ... nor disavowed their beliefs, the religion of antiquity.

as pointed out before, the 4th century christian bible is a book of forgeries, a political document disguised as a religion.

As I documented above, the Bible is not from the 4th century - the Nicene Creed is though.

Jesus did claim to be the Messiah/Christ/anointed one. You might want to research that.

 

[Hollie]

Breezewood - I am not quoting your post - metaphysics is a branch of philosophy - discussed here:

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics: Although sensations (i.e., the conscious experiences that result from stimulation of the sense organs) are mental events, they seem to most people to be a source of information—fallible, perhaps, but in the main reliable—about a nonmental world, the world...

www.britannica.com

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

metaphysics

metaphysical - to be more exact

is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.

substance and attribute - the spiritual composition for a composite physiology.

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

the religious itinerant never claimed to be a messiah ... nor disavowed their beliefs, the religion of antiquity.

as pointed out before, the 4th century christian bible is a book of forgeries, a political document disguised as a religion.

Why do you think the Bible was from the 4th century? There are a number of manuscript copies of portions of the Bible dated to well before that - e.g. a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah dated to the 2nd century BCE. And the Greek Septuagint translation was produced from the 3rd to 2nd century BCE and we have manuscript copies of LXX (=Septuagint) from before Jesus' time.

There are also papyrus fragments of the Christian Greek Scriptures (aka NT) from the 2nd century CE.

See this article on an early 2nd century papyrus fragment of the book of John:

Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Excerpt:

"Roberts suspected that this papyrus scrap was very old. But how old? To find out, he compared the handwriting on it with other dated ancient manuscripts—a discipline called paleography.* By applying this method, he was able to assign an approximate age. But he wanted to be sure. So he photographed the fragment, sent copies of it to three papyrologists, and asked them to determine its age. What did these experts conclude?

By studying the style of the script and the strokes, all three of the expert scholars agreed that the fragment had been written in the first half of the second century C.E.—just a few decades after the apostle John’s death! Paleography, however, is not a foolproof method of dating manuscripts, and another scholar believes that the text could have been written anytime during the second century. Yet, this tiny scrap of papyrus was—and still is—the oldest existing manuscript fragment of the Christian Greek Scriptures that has ever been found."

The Watchtower doesn’t identify what “experts” viewed the manuscript.

 

[Newtonian]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

The first “quote” ran in a The New York Times Article on November 4, 1980.

As expected, the “quote” is intentionally parsed from the broader context to convey something out of context.

It’s a dishonest tactic.

Which quote and what did you find from the context? A link would help btw.

List of fallacious creationist quotes

Many creationists quote the statements of others to lend a veneer of authority to their own work. This is a legitimate strategy, if used correctly. Unfortunately, creationists often quote-mine scientists, misrepresent the authority of a source, or quote vastly outdated texts, which create...

rationalwiki.org

Again - which quote and what did you find from the context? Most of the quotes are not from us - some are from creationists. Your link lists us as among creationists whom we disagree with.

No chain of evidence proving 'evolution' is a fact, so no need to keep lying about that to school kids, either, but of course irrational 'rationalists' insist on it.

Well, other than the fossil record.

True, the fossil record records gaps which are consistent with Divine Creation. As posted by others, the 'Cambrian Explosion' of many distinct life forms is an example.

Gaps in the fossil record do nothing to support supernatural creation by your gods or anyone else’s gods.

Firstly, the Cambrian explosion is expressed in geologic timeframes. The length of the Cambrian explosion is still ambiguous, but five to ten million years is a reasonable estimate; starting about 550 million years ago. 550 million years vs, 6 days is a little bit of what we might call a discrepancy. Even the shortest estimate of five million years is hardly sudden and nothing suggests a timeframe of 6,000 years ago.

Fossilization is rare. Supernaturalism makes things easy. One can shout out “the gawds did it”, and magically, anything is possible. You’re demanding that science meet a standard of demonstration not required of the gods. I’ll require fossilized remains of the gods in order to accept the existence of the gods, any of them.

Letting the Fossil Record Speak — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”⁠20

20. Are there any fossil links between the Cambrian outburst of life and what went before it?


20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”⁠21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.⁠22

References 20-22 - (chapter 5)

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

20. A View of Life, pp. 638, 649. [ by Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, 1981]

21. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 90. [by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition]

22. Natural History, “Darwin and the Fossil Record,” by Alfred S. Romer, October 1959, pp. 466, 467.

I haven’t gone through all your references and I need to do that because so often, the creation ministries will edit, purge or simply falsify the “quotes” they use.

Beginning with the JW doctrines, they immediately make an error. There was no “sudden, dramatic turn”. As I noted earlier, the Cambrian explosion was an “explosion” lasting millions of years.

How do the JW’s resolve that with a 6,000 year old planet?

You did not read the quote or you would have realized that we referenced "10 million years" for the Cambrian explosion - reposting this clip from above:

"A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.”"

I guess you also forgot we believe the earth (actually the date of shield rock) is about 4 billion years old - I will repost that for you as well:

How Science Affects Your Life — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"Scientists estimate that the earth is about 4 billion years old and that the universe was born some 13 to 14 billion years ago. The Bible sets no date for the creation of the universe. In no place does it affirm that the earth is only a few thousand years old. The very first verse in the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) That general statement allows scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to sound scientific principles."

Sorry, but a statement from genesis clearly doesn’t allow scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to “sound scientific principles."

What “sound scientific principles” support your gods or any of the other alleged gods? You simply can’t base a “sound scientific principle” on an unsupported assertion.

For example, Lord Vishnu rules the heavens and earth is a sound scientific principle thus, we can asses with confidence that your your gods are subordinate to Lord Vishnu.

I’m using your sound scientific principle.

K-40 dating of earth's shield rock for starters. The half-life of Potassium 40 is 1.25 billion years, so atmospheric argon contamination does not significantly falsify dates near that half-life - including dating shield rock at c. 4 billion years.

In contrast, using K-40 dating for shorter periods of time are unreliable for dates in the thousands to a few million years as it involves such a small percentage of K-40 that atmospheric argon can make a fossil from 10,000 years ago appear to be 1 million years ago (Just giving a ball-park estimate).

Note: Jehovah's Witnesses do not worship Vishnu - we worship Jehovah (Psalms 83:18 KJV).

 

[Newtonian]

Breezewood - I am not quoting your post - metaphysics is a branch of philosophy - discussed here:

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics

Metaphysics - Problems in metaphysics: Although sensations (i.e., the conscious experiences that result from stimulation of the sense organs) are mental events, they seem to most people to be a source of information—fallible, perhaps, but in the main reliable—about a nonmental world, the world...

www.britannica.com

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

metaphysics

metaphysical - to be more exact

is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.

substance and attribute - the spiritual composition for a composite physiology.

We do not base our beliefs on philosophy - the Bible warns against philosophy:

Colossians 2:8 - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
8 Look out that no one takes you captive* by means of the philosophy and empty deception+ according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;

the religious itinerant never claimed to be a messiah ... nor disavowed their beliefs, the religion of antiquity.

as pointed out before, the 4th century christian bible is a book of forgeries, a political document disguised as a religion.

Why do you think the Bible was from the 4th century? There are a number of manuscript copies of portions of the Bible dated to well before that - e.g. a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah dated to the 2nd century BCE. And the Greek Septuagint translation was produced from the 3rd to 2nd century BCE and we have manuscript copies of LXX (=Septuagint) from before Jesus' time.

There are also papyrus fragments of the Christian Greek Scriptures (aka NT) from the 2nd century CE.

See this article on an early 2nd century papyrus fragment of the book of John:

Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Excerpt:

"Roberts suspected that this papyrus scrap was very old. But how old? To find out, he compared the handwriting on it with other dated ancient manuscripts—a discipline called paleography.* By applying this method, he was able to assign an approximate age. But he wanted to be sure. So he photographed the fragment, sent copies of it to three papyrologists, and asked them to determine its age. What did these experts conclude?

By studying the style of the script and the strokes, all three of the expert scholars agreed that the fragment had been written in the first half of the second century C.E.—just a few decades after the apostle John’s death! Paleography, however, is not a foolproof method of dating manuscripts, and another scholar believes that the text could have been written anytime during the second century. Yet, this tiny scrap of papyrus was—and still is—the oldest existing manuscript fragment of the Christian Greek Scriptures that has ever been found."

The Watchtower doesn’t identify what “experts” viewed the manuscript.

First of all, we do not believe our literature is miraculously inspired or infallible. We are into scientific and Biblical research and both become outdated as new discoveries are made. I have not found any errors in our current website - have you?

www.jw.org

So, how old do you think that manuscript fragment of John is? I will post more documentation shortly.

 

[Hollie]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

The first “quote” ran in a The New York Times Article on November 4, 1980.

As expected, the “quote” is intentionally parsed from the broader context to convey something out of context.

It’s a dishonest tactic.

Which quote and what did you find from the context? A link would help btw.

List of fallacious creationist quotes

Many creationists quote the statements of others to lend a veneer of authority to their own work. This is a legitimate strategy, if used correctly. Unfortunately, creationists often quote-mine scientists, misrepresent the authority of a source, or quote vastly outdated texts, which create...

rationalwiki.org

Again - which quote and what did you find from the context? Most of the quotes are not from us - some are from creationists. Your link lists us as among creationists whom we disagree with.

No chain of evidence proving 'evolution' is a fact, so no need to keep lying about that to school kids, either, but of course irrational 'rationalists' insist on it.

Well, other than the fossil record.

True, the fossil record records gaps which are consistent with Divine Creation. As posted by others, the 'Cambrian Explosion' of many distinct life forms is an example.

Gaps in the fossil record do nothing to support supernatural creation by your gods or anyone else’s gods.

Firstly, the Cambrian explosion is expressed in geologic timeframes. The length of the Cambrian explosion is still ambiguous, but five to ten million years is a reasonable estimate; starting about 550 million years ago. 550 million years vs, 6 days is a little bit of what we might call a discrepancy. Even the shortest estimate of five million years is hardly sudden and nothing suggests a timeframe of 6,000 years ago.

Fossilization is rare. Supernaturalism makes things easy. One can shout out “the gawds did it”, and magically, anything is possible. You’re demanding that science meet a standard of demonstration not required of the gods. I’ll require fossilized remains of the gods in order to accept the existence of the gods, any of them.

Letting the Fossil Record Speak — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”⁠20

20. Are there any fossil links between the Cambrian outburst of life and what went before it?


20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”⁠21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.⁠22

References 20-22 - (chapter 5)

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

20. A View of Life, pp. 638, 649. [ by Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, 1981]

21. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 90. [by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition]

22. Natural History, “Darwin and the Fossil Record,” by Alfred S. Romer, October 1959, pp. 466, 467.

I haven’t gone through all your references and I need to do that because so often, the creation ministries will edit, purge or simply falsify the “quotes” they use.

Beginning with the JW doctrines, they immediately make an error. There was no “sudden, dramatic turn”. As I noted earlier, the Cambrian explosion was an “explosion” lasting millions of years.

How do the JW’s resolve that with a 6,000 year old planet?

You did not read the quote or you would have realized that we referenced "10 million years" for the Cambrian explosion - reposting this clip from above:

"A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.”"

I guess you also forgot we believe the earth (actually the date of shield rock) is about 4 billion years old - I will repost that for you as well:

How Science Affects Your Life — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"Scientists estimate that the earth is about 4 billion years old and that the universe was born some 13 to 14 billion years ago. The Bible sets no date for the creation of the universe. In no place does it affirm that the earth is only a few thousand years old. The very first verse in the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) That general statement allows scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to sound scientific principles."

Sorry, but a statement from genesis clearly doesn’t allow scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to “sound scientific principles."

What “sound scientific principles” support your gods or any of the other alleged gods? You simply can’t base a “sound scientific principle” on an unsupported assertion.

For example, Lord Vishnu rules the heavens and earth is a sound scientific principle thus, we can asses with confidence that your your gods are subordinate to Lord Vishnu.

I’m using your sound scientific principle.

K-40 dating of earth's shield rock for starters. The half-life of Potassium 40 is 1.25 billion years, so atmospheric argon contamination does not significantly falsify dates near that half-life - including dating shield rock at c. 4 billion years.

In contrast, using K-40 dating for shorter periods of time are unreliable for dates in the thousands to a few million years as it involves such a small percentage of K-40 that atmospheric argon can make a fossil from 10,000 years ago appear to be 1 million years ago (Just giving a ball-park estimate).

Note: Jehovah's Witnesses do not worship Vishnu - we worship Jehovah (Psalms 83:18 KJV).

Why not worship Lord Vishnu when I used your sound scientific principle to identify Lord Vishnu as the true god?

 

[Newtonian]

Hollie - for starters this source:

The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

All of the books of the New Testament were written within a lifetime of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Not so the so-called “other gospels,” which were pseudepigraphical Gnostic works written 100…

biblearchaeologyreport.com

Excerpt:

"P90 (P. Oxy. 3523), is a small fragment of papyrus with portions of the Gospel of John (18:36-19:7) on both sides in Greek. It has been dated paleographically to the second century A.D.4 This text is part of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, a group of manuscripts discovered in the ancient garbage dump near Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.

Papayrus P104 (P. Oxy. 4404) is a second-century papyrus fragment that contains Matt. 21:34-37 on the front, and traces of verses 43 and 45 on the back.5 This manuscript is 6.35 cm by 9.5cm in size."

P90 (P. Oxy. 3523) comes from an ancient codex of the gospel of John and dates to the second century. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society (London) and the Oxyrhynchus Imaging Project (Oxford). Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

 

[Newtonian]

Darwin noted accurately the micro-evolution of finches on the Galapagos Islands due to survival of the fittest and natural selection.

He also noted speciation. This is what you usually refer to with the fake, useless, madeup term, "macro evolution".

True. We believe in speciation but only within the Biblical 'kind.' For example, we do not believe thousands of animal species were on Noah's ark. The vast amount of animal species evolved (micro-evolution) from relatively few 'kinds' on Noah's ark. An example is multiple cat species which may have come from 1 or 3 cat kinds - I think one btw. But cats did not come from dogs (etc.)- macro-evolution has never been observed.

Creationists did not originate the term macro-evolution btw.

Disagreements About Evolution—Why? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “[Evolution] is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”⁠3"

Reference 3

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

3. The Enterprise, Riverside, California, “Macroevolution Theory Stirs Hottest Debate Since Darwin,” by Boyce Rensberger, November 14, 1980, p. E9; Science, “Evolutionary Theory Under Fire,” by Roger Lewin, November 21, 1980, pp. 883-887.

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"... in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33

Reference 33

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

33. Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, (www.archaeology.org/online/ interviews/newman.html), accessed 2/23/2009.
[now you need to go to archive for this article]

Evolution—Myths and Facts — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"The teaching of macroevolution is built on the claim that mutations—random changes in the genetic code of plants and animals—can produce not only new species but also entirely new families of plants and animals.19"

Reference 19

Bibliography — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

19. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, 1999, “The Production of Mutations,” by H. J. Muller, 1946, p. 162.

Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

"Antievolutionists argue against macroevolution so loudly that some people think they invented the term in order to dismiss evolution. But this is not true; scientists not only use the terms, they have an elaborate set of models and ideas about it, which of course antievolutionists gloss over or treat as being somehow problems for evolutionary biology."

"The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iuri'i Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was an early attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist (he believed evolution had a direction). Moreover, Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition (Todes 1989).

In Dobzhansky's founding work of the Modern Synthesis, Genetics and the Origin of Species, he began by saying that "we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937: 12), thereby introducing the terms into the English-speaking biological community (Alexandrov 1994). Dobzhansky had been Filipchenko's student and regarded him as his mentor. In science as in all academic disciplines, it is difficult to deny a major tenet of one's teachers due to filial loyalty, and Dobzhansky, who effectively started the modern Darwinian synthesis with this book, found it disagreeable to have to deny his teacher's views (Burian 1994).

The term fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories. As a result, apart from Dobzhansky, Bernhardt Rensch and Ernst Mayr, very few neo-Darwinian writers used the term, preferring instead to talk of evolution as changes in allele frequencies without mention of the level of the changes (above species level or below). Those who did were generally working within the continental European traditions (as Dobzhansky, Mayr, Rensch, Goldschmidt, and Schindewolf are) and those who didn't were generally working within the Anglo-American tradition (such as John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins). Hence, use of the term "macroevolution" is sometimes wrongly used as a litmus test of whether the writer is "properly" neo-Darwinian or not (Eldredge 1995: 126-127).

The term was revived by a number of mainly paleontological authors such as Steven Stanley (1979), Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the authors of punctuated equilibrium theory (see Eldredge 1995), who argued that something other than within-species processes are causing macroevolution, although they disavow the view that evolution is progressive. Many paleontologists have held that what happens in evolution beyond the species level is due to processes that operate beyond the level of populations – for example, the notion of species selection (the idea that species themselves get selected similarly to the way alleles get selected within populations, see Grantham 1995, Rice 1995, and Stidd and Wade 1995 for reviews and discussions)."

Bottom line - it was evolutionists, not creationists, that originated the term "macroevolution."

The first “quote” ran in a The New York Times Article on November 4, 1980.

As expected, the “quote” is intentionally parsed from the broader context to convey something out of context.

It’s a dishonest tactic.

Which quote and what did you find from the context? A link would help btw.

List of fallacious creationist quotes

Many creationists quote the statements of others to lend a veneer of authority to their own work. This is a legitimate strategy, if used correctly. Unfortunately, creationists often quote-mine scientists, misrepresent the authority of a source, or quote vastly outdated texts, which create...

rationalwiki.org

Again - which quote and what did you find from the context? Most of the quotes are not from us - some are from creationists. Your link lists us as among creationists whom we disagree with.

No chain of evidence proving 'evolution' is a fact, so no need to keep lying about that to school kids, either, but of course irrational 'rationalists' insist on it.

Well, other than the fossil record.

True, the fossil record records gaps which are consistent with Divine Creation. As posted by others, the 'Cambrian Explosion' of many distinct life forms is an example.

Gaps in the fossil record do nothing to support supernatural creation by your gods or anyone else’s gods.

Firstly, the Cambrian explosion is expressed in geologic timeframes. The length of the Cambrian explosion is still ambiguous, but five to ten million years is a reasonable estimate; starting about 550 million years ago. 550 million years vs, 6 days is a little bit of what we might call a discrepancy. Even the shortest estimate of five million years is hardly sudden and nothing suggests a timeframe of 6,000 years ago.

Fossilization is rare. Supernaturalism makes things easy. One can shout out “the gawds did it”, and magically, anything is possible. You’re demanding that science meet a standard of demonstration not required of the gods. I’ll require fossilized remains of the gods in order to accept the existence of the gods, any of them.

Letting the Fossil Record Speak — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”⁠20

20. Are there any fossil links between the Cambrian outburst of life and what went before it?


20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”⁠21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.⁠22

References 20-22 - (chapter 5)

References Listed by Chapter — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

20. A View of Life, pp. 638, 649. [ by Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, 1981]

21. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 90. [by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition]

22. Natural History, “Darwin and the Fossil Record,” by Alfred S. Romer, October 1959, pp. 466, 467.

I haven’t gone through all your references and I need to do that because so often, the creation ministries will edit, purge or simply falsify the “quotes” they use.

Beginning with the JW doctrines, they immediately make an error. There was no “sudden, dramatic turn”. As I noted earlier, the Cambrian explosion was an “explosion” lasting millions of years.

How do the JW’s resolve that with a 6,000 year old planet?

You did not read the quote or you would have realized that we referenced "10 million years" for the Cambrian explosion - reposting this clip from above:

"A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.”"

I guess you also forgot we believe the earth (actually the date of shield rock) is about 4 billion years old - I will repost that for you as well:

How Science Affects Your Life — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

"Scientists estimate that the earth is about 4 billion years old and that the universe was born some 13 to 14 billion years ago. The Bible sets no date for the creation of the universe. In no place does it affirm that the earth is only a few thousand years old. The very first verse in the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) That general statement allows scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to sound scientific principles."

Sorry, but a statement from genesis clearly doesn’t allow scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to “sound scientific principles."

What “sound scientific principles” support your gods or any of the other alleged gods? You simply can’t base a “sound scientific principle” on an unsupported assertion.

For example, Lord Vishnu rules the heavens and earth is a sound scientific principle thus, we can asses with confidence that your your gods are subordinate to Lord Vishnu.

I’m using your sound scientific principle.

K-40 dating of earth's shield rock for starters. The half-life of Potassium 40 is 1.25 billion years, so atmospheric argon contamination does not significantly falsify dates near that half-life - including dating shield rock at c. 4 billion years.

In contrast, using K-40 dating for shorter periods of time are unreliable for dates in the thousands to a few million years as it involves such a small percentage of K-40 that atmospheric argon can make a fossil from 10,000 years ago appear to be 1 million years ago (Just giving a ball-park estimate).

Note: Jehovah's Witnesses do not worship Vishnu - we worship Jehovah (Psalms 83:18 KJV).

Why not worship Lord Vishnu when I used your sound scientific principle to identify Lord Vishnu as the true god?

First of all, Brahma, not Vishnu, is the Creator in Hindu worship. Their supreme gods are a trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Siva.

What sound scientific priniciples for the existence of any of these gods did you post? I must have missed it!