Yet another example of astonishing fossil preservation

[Youngblood]

That was a great read Andre.

Thanks.

[brucelee]

Thank you Andre for that wonderful explanation though like a child, I could not grasp the meaning of all that you have said thus making your statements as fuzzy as my knowledge in Latin.

To Youngblood, you are indeed a wonder boy and a prodigy in terms of your knowledge of this world but like a child there are mysteries in this universe that we will never fathom nor understand. I must agree therefore with Andre on that aspect. Though we may think that our mind has infinite capacity, our biological makeup will always put a finite end to our understanding of this world.

What Bilbo did was to give us a proof that science and the bible do not necessarily contradict. In fact, if we only have enough scientific tool and if we are open to accept all the results of our scientific inquiry, it is my opinion that science will help explain our faith and will ultimately lead us to God.

I must accept though that I am prejudiced towards the belief that there is someone who created the universe. That is a blinker that I have decided to wear; I could not make myself wear a blinker based on the knowledge of man which I know is fallible.

The discussion involving metaphysical constructs is indeed something that will never be ended with agreement yet it gives me satisfaction that at least I (and Bilbo) have tried to unveil my(our) faith to others especially to those whom I believe to be spiritually benighted because of too much faith in science.No offense meant.

[TheMacMagician]

I don't believe in evolution and little by little, Bilbo is giving me more reasons not to believe it.

Thanks Bilbo.

I'd love to hear more about how you don't believe in Evolution, do you have some madcap list of theories?

[Youngblood]

Bruce, Bilbo hasn't given you anything I'm afraid. Little more then the proverbial chain jerk on your already need to believe. I'm fairly certain he is secretly laughing too. And although I often tease you, on this point I am serious. I know you're not a stupid guy. And I readily agree many smart people have a need to follow certain religious doctrine no matter how improbable.

I believed in Santa Clause long after most of my friends tried to tell me otherwise, long after I knew in my core the whole story and deal didn't line up. Silly right? I'm a smart kid, right. The thing was, my dad always bred into me the value of honesty, integrity, and I trusted the man more then anything in the/my universe, especially through the eyes of my innocent childhood. So when person after person tried to tell me Santa didn't exist, and when I'd ask my dad, again and again and he'd go into great detail on the how and the why he did, I couldn't bring myself to believe my father would lie to me, would betray me in such a way. For he was large and perfect in my eyes. And so I defied all the reason and logic as long as I could, to dispell the reality that he was and is nothing more then a flawed man, much like we all ultimately are.

Just a bit of an analogy from my perspective. But it has to do with some of our basic human traits that often can overwhelm our logic. Consider it a sort of emotional system fail safe. I believe we are often too fragile to understand, or moreso unable to believe a truth that dispells a story we so trusted as a truth. It's just too painful for many of us.

[brucelee]

Bruce, Bilbo hasn't given you anything I'm afraid. Little more then the proverbial chain jerk on your already need to believe. I'm fairly certain he is secretly laughing too. And although I often tease you, on this point I am serious. I know you're not a stupid guy. And I readily agree many smart people have a need to follow certain religious doctrine no matter how improbable.

I believed in Santa Clause long after most of my friends tried to tell me otherwise, long after I knew in my core the whole story and deal didn't line up. Silly right? I'm a smart kid, right. The thing was, my dad always bred into me the value of honesty, integrity, and I trusted the man more then anything in the/my universe, especially through the eyes of my innocent childhood. So when person after person tried to tell me Santa didn't exist, and when I'd ask my dad, again and again and he'd go into great detail on the how and the why he did, I couldn't bring myself to believe my father would lie to me, would betray me in such a way. For he was large and perfect in my eyes. And so I defied all the reason and logic as long as I could, to dispell the reality that he was and is nothing more then a flawed man, much like we all ultimately are.

Just a bit of an analogy from my perspective. But it has to do with some of our basic human traits that often can overwhelm our logic. Consider it a sort of emotional system fail safe. I believe we are often too fragile to understand, or moreso unable to believe a truth that dispells a story we so trusted as a truth. It's just too painful for many of us.

Regarding Bilbo, I know that he agrees with me and even if he doesn't categorically admit that, his posts against evolution impliedly gives assent to my opinion regarding faith and science.

Your analogy regarding Santa Claus is somewhat misplaced and your reason not to believe in a divine being as the creator of all things is definitely not plausible for me. In life, we simply don't decide not to believe because we don't want to get hurt. This is where discernment comes. When we are unsure, we think. When we can't think, we believe. In believing, we take risks and that's the beauty of faith. As you may have known already, wherever we go and whatever we do, we always take risks. The intensity of risks may vary in different situations but there will always be risks. For example, when you go to school there is a risk that you might get hurt along the way but it doesn't hinder you from attending classes because you know that you need to learn. As you take your classes everyday, you learn to forget and discount the risks of getting hurt and later on you will realize that thinking about getting hurt is futile and counterproductive because learning something everyday from your classes is a "taste of heaven". That is because I assume that you are the type of person who seeks knowledge and relishes on wisdom.

My faith is just like that. The risk I'm taking in my belief in God is nothing compared to the return I will get if He really exist... and that's my pragmatic side speaking. If the reward of heaven and the damnation of hell has a probability of one over a billion true, prudence dictates that despite the risk of being disillusioned, believing in God is the ultimate road to take in a world full of diverging roads of lies, deceits and pains.

Will I then believe in the work of scientists and all their postulates which I happen to know to be changing even as I write now? My answer will be NEVER. Of what eternal good will I get if I trust in the works of men which I know is fallible, prejudiced and biased? My erudite analysis says, "NONE".

I will rather trust in God and His promise of eternal heaven. If God and heaven is not true, at least, I will pass away knowing that I live a "good and contented life" because of my belief.

So Santa Claus is not true and you got hurt. At this moment, could you honestly say that the pain of disillusion was too great that you could no longer take risks concerning God?

[Youngblood]

I''m sorry Bruce, but the lottery is a bad bet. And that is what you're doing given the explanation.

Anyway, I hate getting into these discussions, because I don't want to convert anyone, or change their beliefs. And I often feel like that is what I'm attempting. It really isn't. And I feel the Santa analogy (albeit all analogies are weak) is not at all misplaced. It speaks to human nature.

But I am going to sign out of this discussion, as again, it really isn't my intent to persuade.

[brucelee]

I''m sorry Bruce, but the lottery is a bad bet. And that is what you're doing given the explanation.

Anyway, I hate getting into these discussions, because I don't want to convert anyone, or change their beliefs. And I often feel like that is what I'm attempting. It really isn't. And I feel the Santa analogy (albeit all analogies are weak) is not at all misplaced. It speaks to human nature.

But I am going to sign out of this discussion, as again, it really isn't my intent to persuade.

It may seem to be a lottery with the way I presented my argument but if you allow me to use the scriptures, then it becomes 50/50 chance. If you would agree that the Bible is true, then it becomes 100 percent sure.

Honest to goodness, in all my bible expositions, it has been my intent to make all my listeners Christian converts.

People can mock me on this but it is my belief that I have the responsibility to share the word of God to whoever I meet in life whether it be in the classrooms or in the forums.

[CGM]

Bruce you categorically state that you will never ever believe things that don't fit your already conceived world view (i.e. you will never believe the work of scientists). So all of your knowledge is already formed and you are convinced. So It would be a waste of my energy to attempt to present any kind of a case for the contrary, cause your mind is already made and cast in stone.

Make no mistake though. In no way shape or form is your case bolstered by the issue of the fossilized ink, or anything that was said about it in the first two posts.

[Kev]

It is astonishing to me, yet nothing new, to hear someone claim to be intelligent, then within a few breaths say they don't believe evolution. And it isn't even that I am suggesting all smart people agree it is part of our history (even though most do) but more that it amazes me that people have so little subjective reasoning ability. That they'll totally not notice the giant mountain rising up from the Earth in front of them, to then grab a questionable pebble and say, "here it is, and so we climb!"

Josh you need to question the mountain that is put in front of you my friend.

The theory of evolution is a giant delusion, the evidence for which evaporates under scientific scrutiny.

The theory does not stand up to logical reasoning or scientific testing.

The confusion lies in people's misconceptions. They see adaptation and change within a species, different breeds of dog, Darwin's finches etc and are told that creationists deny these self evident truths thus they rightly reject such apparent blindness to the obvious and then accept without question the rest of the evolutionary dogma, i.e the Macro Evolution, life from non life, changes within a species can lead to new species and ultimately new life forms evolving over time.

This is one giant hoodwink however. Firstly all creationists accept that creatures can adapt and change according to enviromental pressure etc but this is NOT evolution on a macro scale.

You see it all comes down to information.

Each animal and plant kind has encoded within its DNA all of the information necessary to build that organism. There is a tremendous amount of information, and variability encoded within that DNA and can lead to a great variety within species, or animal kinds.

However with every reproduction information is LOST, half of the information of the male, and half of the female goes into producing the offspring, the rest is not transferred to the offspring.

Thus by selective breeding, either natural or artificial certain traits can be removed and added by the process of reproduction.

Thus a wolf can over many generations eventually be weaned down to a tiny poodle if the breeding process takes away the right chromosomes and elements.

However and this is the key fact, there reaches a point where too much information is lost and the creature cannot change any more. In fact it will nearly always been unheathly, and have less intelligence and a shorter lifespan than animals that mix up their gene pool.

Eventually you get to the point where the only way to reintroduce new information to that animals DNA is to breed it with another dog species to add back some of the information that is missing.

This is the OPPOSITE of evolution which says that new information can be created out of nowhere by random mutations in the reproductive process. Such beneficial mutations have NEVER EVER been observed to occur, not one single time, yet this is according the science the main driving factor of evolutionary change, a near infinite number of such mutations must have occured during the span of life on earth, more numerous than grains of sand on all the beaches on earth yet not one has EVER been found.

We also know from observation and experience that is a universal law that order turns into disorder, everything is mixing up and become less orderly as time advances. There is not a single observation or experience which contradicts this law of science, yet evolution requires it, out of disorder and chaos comes order and increasing complexity, the universe ordered itself as a result of random processes following a gigantic intergalatic explosion etc.

Properly understood macro evolution is impossible according to mathematics, logic, science and observation.

The fossil record screams against evolution, no gradual change of organisms over millions of years is found, but rather just extinction, once again order descending into disorder, as all of our science, logic and experience indicates.

It is a bold claim to make, but one that cannot be contradicted, but there is NO, not a shred, not iota of evidence for evolution on a macro scale.

I urge all of you enlightened and intelligence souls to investigate this for yourself.

Look behind the curtain, examine the theory in detail and you will see it collapse and evaporate into nothingness before your very eyes.

[CGM]

We also know from observation and experience that is a universal law that order turns into disorder, everything is mixing up and become less orderly as time advances.

Much of your post seems to rest on this. It's a "natural law" that is widely misinterpreted and misused, as it is here.

[Kev]

We also know from observation and experience that is a universal law that order turns into disorder, everything is mixing up and become less orderly as time advances.

Much of your post seems to rest on this. It's a "natural law" that is widely misinterpreted and misused, as it is here.

Its a universal experience CGM. Please show me a single example from either your own experience or scientific testing where increasing order has resulted from disorder?

How many times has science managed to create an explosion that built something, or how many times has life 'popped' into existence, or maybe an inanimate object turned to life?

All of these ideas are ludicrous to the extreme, yet for some reason people believe that by extrapolating them to even greater heights, and then placing the events billions of years into times past that they become plausible. It is an interesting exercise in self delusion.

If a hand grenade thrown into a house cannot tidy the house up or a bombing of an automobile factory cannot produce a new car how much more absurd is it to believe that an explosion could create the entire known universe?

Order into disorder is a universal, unavoidable fact of this universe. Everything is dying, everything is losing information and deteriorating. Please if I am misuing this idea then suggest just one single example where this is contradicted?

Macro evolution runs counter to science, it is anti scientific by definition.

[CGM]

We also know from observation and experience that is a universal law that order turns into disorder, everything is mixing up and become less orderly as time advances.

Much of your post seems to rest on this. It's a "natural law" that is widely misinterpreted and misused, as it is here.

Its a universal experience CGM. Please show me a single example from either your own experience or scientific testing where increasing order has resulted from disorder?

Well, for starters, your original claim stated that it is a universal law that order turns into disorder. If I were to show an example of order coming from disorder, that would hardly disprove your original claim, would it? In order to disprove your original claim I'd have to show a situation where order didn't turn into disorder. Agreed?

[Kev]

Much of your post seems to rest on this. It's a "natural law" that is widely misinterpreted and misused, as it is here.

Its a universal experience CGM. Please show me a single example from either your own experience or scientific testing where increasing order has resulted from disorder?

Well, for starters, your original claim stated that it is a universal law that order turns into disorder. If I were to show an example of order coming from disorder, that would hardly disprove your original claim, would it? In order to disprove your original claim I'd have to show a situation where order didn't turn into disorder. Agreed?

Well not really, evolution operates on the basis that order and increasing complexity results from disorder.

But I can't see you producing a satisfactory answer to either statement so feel free to offer up what you will.

[CGM]

Its a universal experience CGM. Please show me a single example from either your own experience or scientific testing where increasing order has resulted from disorder?

Well, for starters, your original claim stated that it is a universal law that order turns into disorder. If I were to show an example of order coming from disorder, that would hardly disprove your original claim, would it? In order to disprove your original claim I'd have to show a situation where order didn't turn into disorder. Agreed?

Well not really, evolution operates on the basis that order and increasing complexity results from disorder.

But I can't see you producing a satisfactory answer to either statement so feel free to offer up what you will.

What you said at first was that order turns into disorder, which is something quite different, and highly debateable I might add.

But anyways, I think I know what you meant. there's two ways of responding to your question, based on what what exactly you mean by this so called law.

I think what you are referring to is the law of statistical entropy, which is a statistical law, not an immutable one. What it says is that in a system where events are happening randomly, that system tends towards disorder. It does not say that it must result in a disordered state.

We can also talk about whether or not the theory of evolution requires that things must have started in a disordered state. I do know that proponents of intelligent design say that the theory of evolution requires it, so that they can turn around and use (misuse) the order disorder argument. But anyways, that ain't a critical argument.

As I see it, the essense of your argument is that an ordered state could not have happened accidently. And that is not an immutable law.

There's also the role played by Newton's 2nd law of thermodaynamics. And no I don't wish to get into a long drawn out discussion about that.

interested parties can start their own research at the following page of particular interest is the section on Entropy and Life.

Entropy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyways, I'm really not interested in spending a lot of time digging up examples and writing up explanations that you will not give due consideration anyway. I've been down that road before. Nor am I interested in making a case for evolution. I'm merely trying to show that some of your key arguments are fallacious. People can decide for themselves whether I've done that.

I'll take this opportunity to say again that you completely misinterpreted the report of the British Geological Survey on the case of the fossilized ink.

[Kev]

Well, for starters, your original claim stated that it is a universal law that order turns into disorder. If I were to show an example of order coming from disorder, that would hardly disprove your original claim, would it? In order to disprove your original claim I'd have to show a situation where order didn't turn into disorder. Agreed?

Well not really, evolution operates on the basis that order and increasing complexity results from disorder.

But I can't see you producing a satisfactory answer to either statement so feel free to offer up what you will.

What you said at first was that order turns into disorder, which is something quite different, and highly debateable I might add.

But anyways, I think I know what you meant. there's two ways of responding to your question, based on what what exactly you mean by this so called law.

I think what you are referring to is the law of statistical entropy, which is a statistical law, not an immutable one. What it says is that in a system where events are happening randomly, that system tends towards disorder. It does not say that it must result in a disordered state.

We can also talk about whether or not the theory of evolution requires that things must have started in a disordered state. I do know that proponents of intelligent design say that the theory of evolution requires it, so that they can turn around and use (misuse) the order disorder argument. But anyways, that ain't a critical argument.

As I see it, the essense of your argument is that an ordered state could not have happened accidently. And that is not an immutable law.

There's also the role played by Newton's 2nd law of thermodaynamics. And no I don't wish to get into a long drawn out discussion about that.

interested parties can start their own research at the following page of particular interest is the section on Entropy and Life.

Entropy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyways, I'm really not interested in spending a lot of time digging up examples and writing up explanations that you will not give due consideration anyway. I've been down that road before. Nor am I interested in making a case for evolution. I'm merely trying to show that some of your key arguments are fallacious. People can decide for themselves whether I've done that.

I'll take this opportunity to say again that you completely misinterpreted the report of the British Geological Survey on the case of the fossilized ink.

So no examples then? Just like evolutionists cannot produce any missing link fossils or transitional forms, beyond a bird having some teeth.

So in effect what you are saying is that you know that evolution is true and that it doesn't need any examples because the truth is self evident.

It's an interesting use of logic and science I must say.

As for me misinterperating the Geological Survey regarding the fossilised ink, I think I am interperating it correctly.

You see they KNOW that the squid is 180,000,000 years old, they KNOW that because their evolutionary theories say it is so, based on the rock strata it is found in.

So faced with a preserved ink sac, which the discoverer himself admitted was a greater than 1 in a billion chance, instead of challening the age theory they instead invent a whole new process of fossilisation called the 'Medusa Effect' whereby this fossil must have turned to stone in just a couple of days!

So they now believe that fossils can turn to stone in just days, that's wonderful, but does this not mean that the rest of their uniform approach to geology is under threat? I mean if this can fossilise in just days thanks to a hitherto unknown fossilisation process could not some of the geologic structures that they believe took hundreds of millions of years to form similarly not have been created in a much quicker fashion, requiring just days or weeks rather than entire epochs?

The Grand Canyon for example? Is it really several hundred million years of slow and gradual erosion caused by the Colarado River, or could it have another cause, more catastrophic in nature?

I think for you this becomes just a matter of debate and you are not really thinking with your own mind.

It's a fascinating subject and you should test the evidence.

The whole theory of evolution totters on shaky foundations and a little digging of your own can topple the entire structure.