googlef87758e9b6df9bec.html A Sure Word: To Speciate or Not to Speciate; What's the Question?

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

To Speciate or Not to Speciate; What's the Question?

Secular science is the epitome of contradiction. I see it so often that it seldom surprises me anymore. While looking for quotes for my last post, I came across still another amusing example. Since it wasn't relevant to the point of that post, I didn't bring it up then. However, I cannot let it pass without comment.

In my last post, I quoted a NY Times editorial. You can read the entire article here but I wanted highlight two points it made.

The key event for the young Earth creationist interpretations of geology and biology is the great flood, which the [Creation] museum places at 2348 B.C. Obviously, Noah’s ark could not fit two of every single land animal. The exhibit notes that the Bible says two of every “kind” of animal, so there weren’t two dogs, two wolves, two dingo dogs, etc., but rather one pair of wolf-like dogs. After the flood, the two wolf-like dogs multiplied and “diversified” into a panoply of species.

That's a fairly accurate description of the typical, creationist position. The animals taken on the Ark were representative kinds and the thousands of terrestrial species alive today are descended from the few thousand kinds on the Ark. However, in the same article, the author made this comment:

Usually, creationists make a distinction between “microevolution” — antibiotic resistance among microbes, for instance, which they accept — and “macroevolution” — the appearance of new species, which they dispute.

Isn't that funny? I mean, which is it? Do creationists believe in speciation or don't they? Obviously creationists don't “dispute” the appearance of new species – I just object to calling speciation, “evolution” (either micro- or macro-). However, this science blogger can't seem to make up his mind. How can he say at one point that creationists believe in hyper-evolution only to immediately assert that creationists deny speciation at all? Such is the irrational reasoning of non-believers.

Evolutionists will sometimes say anything to discredit creationists. They will even lie. It's rather typical for them to make up caricatures of creationists beliefs which they then ridicule. Their default position is that creationists deny “macroevolution,” which they say includes speciation. This very claim was raised in the video, “Things Every Creationist Must Deny” which I blogged about a while back. However, when creationists talk about speciation that has occurred since the Flood, evolutionists do a 180 and accuse creationists of believing in “hyper-evolution.”

I've heard both of these criticisms before, I just can't think of a time when I've heard them both used at the same time. This particular evolutionist couldn't keep his objections straight so he employed them both.  It's a sort of reflex.  I often suspect evolutionists of not being sincere but in this case, I'm sure of it.

7 comments:

Steven J. said...

Since I've been reading your blog, I don't even know if creationists believe in "microevolution" or not. You say you don't, though you believe in what most creationists call "microevolution" and what actual biologists call "macroevolution." And I've run across a number of creationists (admittedly not the top rank of YECs) who assert flatly that one species cannot change into another -- even though they seem to accept that, e.g. elephants and wooly mammoths (different species in different genera) are the same "kind." For that matter, it is very frequent for creationists to talk about "change within kinds" while limiting their examples to changes within species (e.g. they imply that foxes and wolves can share common ancestor but the explicit examples they cite are all breeds of the single subspecies Canis lupus familiaris, the domestic dog.

You're basically complaining that the New York Times (not a science journal) uses "species" with the same imprecision as creationists. It's not that the writer can't keep his objections straight as that creationists can't keep their word use straight.

RKBentley said...

Steven J,

So long a time you've been with me and you still don't know me? I don't believe in evolution AT ALL. Not micro-. Not macro-.

One complaint I have with evolutionists is that they call any kind of change in a population, “evolution.” It's hog wash. Populations change but they don't evolve because the changes we observe could never turn a single cell into a cedar or a bacterium into a blue whale.

One complaint I have with many creationists is that they use the term “microevolution” to describe the kind of changes we see in populations. It plays right into the confusion created by evolutionists' equivocal use of words.

Evolutionists are welcome to continue abusing the language. It's not like I can stop them but I will always continue pointing our their abuses. I beseech all creationists to stop playing along!

God bless!!

RKBentley

Anonymous said...

To conflate terms and play on people’s feelings, seems to be a liberal thing.
For example “pro-life or pro .. choice” while we know it’s really “pro-life or pro-death”.
Since “choice” sounds better to justify what they want, they will use the term, even though in reality it still results in the same outcome.

The same with using terms like “micro or macro” evolution.
Neither is logically possible, neither are observed or repeatable or verifiable.
Statements that include “found fossils demonstrates and proofs evolution”, or statements like we share 98% DNA similarity to a gorilla, is irrelevant.
Calling something proof, does not make it so.

Conflating terms helps them believe whatever they want to believe or justify.
I seriously cannot understand that seemingly logical people seems to believe in the “big bang” or “evolution”.
They do not have to believe in God or any other creator, they can simply state that they are atheists and they do not know how everything came to be.

I see many more theories being postulated in the future, none of them would include God as a creator. The theory of evolution is just one of them, which in the future will be scoffed at.

They are willfully blind, worshipping the creation(evolution/naturalism) instead of the Creator.
Heck, I only have to believe in one miracle, that God was always there, outside of creation itself.
The probability they require for a series of miracles that is evolution, is staggering, even if it would be possible, it would not help.
The required presence of matter and energy that would create at the beginning of time …
Matter itself do not create .. sigh, oh well.

-jjk

Steven J. said...

My point is that you believe in evolution; you just don't accept the word. You might as well tell me that of course you accept the existence of a 2000-mile-wide ball of rock orbiting the Earth; you just have no truck with this idea that "the moon" exists (yes, I realize that you'd never do this, because the moon is mentioned in the Bible; it's just an analogy).

Anonymous said...

I do not believe in anything evolving, without “designed/aka new information” input.
Global transport “evolved” because of additional input, car “designs” became better over the years as we “input” newer information into the “design”.
The design, which is new information, evolved, however, a particular “car” or vehicle itself, does not “evolve”, in fact it deteriorates over time.
So I do definitely not believe that biological life can evolve, unless new information is added, for example, in a lab, which again, requires information. In such a case I would not call it evolve anyway, I would say some human took life/(or some building blocks of life) and mixed it into another combination, and the building blocks themselves just do what they were able to do before.
Cloning for example, is not the creation of life, it’s just making another copy, by using the ability of the cells themselves to copy themselves, and then, it will either be the same or worse – aka, devolution/ deterioration.

I make sure to raise my children to question everything, and raise them in a Godly manner, and also not to just believe anything because someone says it. I used to do that when I was still naïve and studying engineering. As my studies progressed I came to realize how ridiculous the concept of “life” evolving was, not because we were taught anything related to evolution, but because we were taught and trained to become logical thinkers and solving problems.

-jjk

RKBentley said...

Steven J,

As they say, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. In other words, you can call a rose anything but it doesn't change what it is. Right? However, neither does calling a weed a rose make it a rose. Evolutionists have a penchant to call any change in a population, "evolution" but that doesn't make it so. It's no different than calling a weed a rose.

We've been over this already. The most famous example of "evolution' is the peppered moth. As I've asked before, how long would birds have to eat one color of moth before new colors start to appear? The obvious answer is that no new colors would ever appear because continuously removing one color doesn't create new colors. If the trend continued for a billion years, in the end you would only have one color of moth.

Dinosaurs changing into birds is evolution. Apes changing into men is evolution. Light/dark moths becoming only dark moths is NOT evolution. The kinds of changes we see in populations (natural selection and speciation) could never turn a dog into a dolphin. You can call it evolution if you'd like but it still smells like a weed.

God bless!!

RKBentley

RKBentley said...

jjk,

You said, “To conflate terms and play on people’s feelings, seems to be a liberal thing. For example “pro-life or pro .. choice” while we know it’s really “pro-life or pro-death”. Since “choice” sounds better to justify what they want, they will use the term, even though in reality it still results in the same outcome.”

Rhetoric can be powerful and persuasive. I try to use words here on my blog to defend my faith. However, things like equivocation, obfuscation, and conflation are deceptions. They aren't powerful uses of words but rather are abuses of the language.

I agree that we often see such abuses employed by liberals. We also see them used regularly by evolutionists and atheists (who may not necessarily be liberal). I have said before on my blog that any world view not founded on the Bible is ultimately irrational. Thus they have no choice but to resort to logical fallacies. Their house is built on the sand and cannot stand up to scrutiny.

Thank you for visiting and for your comments.

God bless!!

RKBentley