At first look, I don't see anything really new here. The document alludes to things like:

The Theory of Evolution is as sound and provable as The Theory of Gravity.
I disagree, with reason. There are ways in which we can measure and observe empirical data dealing with the forces of gravity that have no such counterparts with evolution.

The fossil record is proof of evolution.
I disagree, with reason. The fossil record shows that there are species that once lived on this earth that are now extinct. It is a step of faith , or I'm sure more comfortably called a projection that some of these fossils were ancestors to living organisms today. Creationists do not dispute the fossil record (other than the fabricated fiascos perpatrated by overzealous "scientists" like Piltdown Man or Lucy) On the contrary, the fossil record shows the tremendous diversity of an earth teeming with life before the flood. It is the flood, in fact, that creationists believe created many of the fossils we see today.

DNA research is proof of evolution.
I disagree, with reason. Think with me on this... if 2 species have similar characteristics, they will probably have similar DNA characteristics as well. This does not equal proof of evolution any more than the physical characteristics of both a duck and a platypus having a bill and webbed feet leads to proving their relatedness. There are many similarities between carbon based life forms. This is not so much a proof of evolution, that it is also a possible "design scheme".
Our knowledge of DNA to this point is rudimentary at best. We have yet to even scratch the surface of the mysteries that lie within the human genome. This in fact is one of the most interesting challenges to the idea of evolution. Even the DNA of the most simple life form on the planet is unbelievable complex. The idea that something of this complexity would come together on its own is mind boggling. It is not something that can be slowly built over time. It has to be exactly right the first time to have any possibility of life. If it is wrong, there is no life, and if there is no life, there is no possibility of adaptation/evolution.

The idea of Common Ancestry is a proof of evolution.
I disagree, with reason. It strikes me that this is actually part of the idea that is trying to be proved. How is that a proof in any way? To use forensics, the possibility of a potential interpretation of evidence does not mean that possibility is proof in itself. If that were true, then no further proof for Creationism would be needed other than the possibility of a Creator. There are no viable transitional forms in the fossil record. We have discussed this at length in our prior posts. The document suggests that there are many discovered transitional forms, but then the only ones in offers are in no way that. Virus and/or animal adaptations does not equal evolution. There has been no new species created. The idea that the TIKTAALIK is an ancient transitional form is a bit laughable. Have these biologist/scientists never heard of a Mudskipper? We have no evidence, only faith, to make the connection that this Tiktaalik even evolved into anything other than extinction.

Their arguments against Creation are 3 main ones.

1. Transitional forms.
Having just discussed this, or rather the lack of it I feel we can move on.

2. Irreducible complexity of organism characteristics.
Since I do not hold to this, I feel no need to defend it, however, I do notice that they stay well clear of the idea of irreducible complexity in DNA. I wonder why.

3. The earth age.
They say that the earth is proven to be 4.5 billion years old through geology and astronomy (and other mysterious fields which they do not mention that I could find), but if you use an unverifiable measuring stick like carbon or radioactive dating, what do you expect? Even the masters and inventors of carbon dating state that you can only determine the age some something that you have a test sample with a known date to compare the carbon readings to. With out that piece, it is a shot in the dark. We have no idea of the rate of entry of cosmic rays in the past. Super old carbon dates assume what they want to get the results they want. That is hardly science. Secondly astronomy provides some big obstacles as well. if the earth is 4.5 billion years old, that would mean the sun is much older. At the rate the sun is being consumed now, how big would it have had to been 4.5 billion years ago? What effect would that have had on the earths orbit? It's not hard to see where this leads.

In summary this seems to be a well written and thought out document describing the pillars of evolution, and their perceptions of what Creationists believe. Nothing really new or ground breaking from what I can see. I'm sure you don't agree with my analysis, but then my position is not really one of trying to convince you to Creationism as it is to show that I do base what I believe on reason along with faith, just like my evolutionist counterparts.

Wii? I haven't checked the other thread, but I suppose that's what you are referring to. I appreciate your comments and thoughts. Hopefully it will start some debate.

Unfortunately your reasons don't stand up scientifically, but I thank you for taking a look at the evidence that was presented. I won't waste your time trying to convince you.

And where exactly does it lead? Sorry, I cannot accept your rebuttal as the one done "with reason". Are there any specific issues known at the moment? Any actual regression analysis calculations that show impausibility of the Sol's age beyond 4.5 billion years given it's current condition?

Edit: and what about the Wiis?

I don't want to take sides in this, but it seems to me that Nomad's contentions, generally stem from his subjective assessment of the evidence presented as inconclusive. Conclusiveness is an inherently subjective determination, however, so his threshold on this matter is going to be different than that of other people. Perhaps he has prejudices that lead him to be more skeptical of the claims generally, but I think it's fair to say that we all, often despite our best efforts, bring our own prejudices to every assessment me make.

I'll just go with what the National Academies of Science wrote, since they did such a good job of it:

My experience with the creationists is that they DO dispute the fossil record. They either insist that there be a direct, traceable fossil record of one species as it evolves into another (no gaps allowed) or ignore pesky things like there being no fossils of humans riding dinosaurs. They convieniently ignore things like we don't even know what all the living species are today, so having a perfect record of all the species of the deep past is pretty much an impossibility. The flood myth is addressed in the booklet, with creationists unable to match the story with known sedimentation rates or the sheer volume of water required.

Your statement about it being a matter of faith is actually scientific method. Someone posed the hypothesis that ancient life is related to modern life and, so far, the fossil record has supported that hypothesis.

Creationists really have it easy. All they have to do is come up with one fossil record that shows two species we thought were separated by millions of years together (that can't be explained by geological changes) and evolution would be dealt a serious blow. That's what they don't get. A hypothesis either gets stronger with each point of evidence or it gets reworked (or dies). All the evidence collected so far has pointed to evolution, not away from it.

Then why do species that don't have a lot of similar characteristics--like fish and humans--share so much DNA in common? Squencing of the tiger pufferfish in 2002 showed that it shared 75% of is genes with humans. That's either one hell of a coincidence we have so much in common with a species that is 440-odd million years older than us or shows that we share a common ancestor. Me, I go for Occam's Razor. Since we know DNA get's passed down from one generation to another, it makes a heck of a lot more sense to say that we shared a common ancestor with the tiger pufferfish than it does to say that its completely random that two very different species just happen to share 274 million nucleotides.

You're falling back onto irreducible complexity bugaboo with DNA. The Miller-Urey experiment and others showed that amino acids and nucleic acids (the base pairs of RNA and DNA) could be created from the conditions that existed on young Earth. Fast forward two or three billion years and it's not a stretch to see that soup evolve into DNA as we know it today. If anything, our growing understanding of DNA will be the nail in the coffin for creationists. It will allow us map out common ancestry.

If there was no evolution, no Common Ancestry, then all the species alive today would have had to simultaneously exist with all the species that have ever lived on Earth. That means that little woodland furry creatures like deer would have not only lived for billions of years with uber-predators like raptors, but that they would have also somehow never been hunted to extinction while their counterparts mysteriously disapeared. That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Additionally, the Earth's fauna has changed considerably over time (we have fossil records of this), meaning that deer would have had to continually adapt to a very different diet (something that the panda shows doesn't work too well). Not only that, but the fossil record doesn't show deer and raptors together--ever.

Common Ancestry does make sense. It allows for a species to go extinct (which is why dinosaurs aren't seen much lately) or evolve into other species (which is why birds are common today).

As for transitional forms in the fossil record, please forgive me if you've successfully defended your assertion in previous posts. My take is that the evidence actually is there, but creationists tend to reject it for an ever shifting number of reasons. The burden of proof is on them, not the other way around. If they want to dismantle a scientific theory, they have to disprove it, which means they have to play by the established rules. Where's the proposed alternate theory of creationists and their proof?

Viral changes don't equal evolution? Let's see. Viruses have either RNA or DNA and both the SARs and influenza examples provided in the booklet show that they changes over time. For SARs, the original sequencing showed that it was an entirely new type of coronavirus and subsequent studies showed how it evolved over time to more effectively infect humans. That's specization and evolution.

The example of the Tiktaalik proved that a transitional form existed between fishes and tetrapods. The hypothesis of evolution said some transitional form should exist between fish to limbed creatures and, lo and behold, the fossil record supports that. The booklet doesn't say that we all evolved from the Tiktaalik, just that it existed where evolution predicted something like it should exist. You'd be hard pressed to compare Tiktaalik with the mudskipper because it pre-dates mudskippers by about 325 million years.

I don't mean to pick on you, Nomad, but your statement here actually scares the crap out of me. It scares me because it I see it as an example that creationists actually need to discount and discredit ALL science in order for their particular worldview to remain in tact.

The "debate" of evolution vs. creationism might have started with biology, but questioning the age of the Earth makes it seem like you're ready to disbelieve physics, astronomy, chemistry--heck, all science--because they give you answers that you don't like.

At the same time your questions are great because they're a hint of the "hey, why are things around me like they are?" question which is at the heart of science.

The scientific consensus is that the world is 4.5+ billion years old largely based on radiometric dating of rocks. Far from being "unverifiable," we've actually figured out that isotopes decay at standard, very predictible rates (the Navy Master Clock and the entire GPS system we use everyday is based on the constant rate of radioactive decay) and, therefore, if we know how much of an isotope and its decay products exists in a rock today we can calculate how old it is. Carbon dating is typically only used to date organic materials and can only go back about 60,000 years--a heartbeat of evolutionary and geological time.

The Sun is only about 500 million years older than the Earth--5 billion years old and it has another 5 billion years left in it. I'll leave the calculations to someone else, but the Sun doesn't loss that much mass with fusion. When it fuses hydrogen into helium, only about 0.7% of that mass is "lost" as energy. Some big brain over at the Stanford Solar Center calculated the Sun's mass at the end of its lifetime is 99.966% of its current mass. That means the orbits of the planets haven't been significantly impacted, etc., etc.

Remember that the different radiometric dating techniques have all been used to crosscheck each other. Each isotope is good for a range of ages, but at the transition points you can use multiple isotope decay calculations to ensure consistency.

I thought it was pretty good. Given that I've read several of Richard Dawkins's books there wasn't anything very new for me personally (if there's one thing I take from his books is just how bloody amazing animals are). I think it would convince a reasonable person that didn't have any preconceived ideas. The trouble with the evolution/creationist debate is that there aren't many undecided people, I think people decide one way or the other pretty quickly.

I'm normally quite good at seeing other people's points of view, but I can't honestly say I can empathise with creationists' position at all. I really can't understand how anyone could ever not be convinced by evolution. It postulates so very little and explains every single living thing on the planet and every single fossil ever found. What more could you ever ask from a theory?

Upon reading the bit on microevolution a thought occured to me. Apparently, this is how species seperate: after differientating through breeding within a seperated group among a certain species you get a more or less different species. First, the attraction to the kindred yet "other" species is dimuinished. Eventually it is even impossible to breed with the formerly same species. Voila, a new species has arisen!

With humans, interracial reproduction is far more uncommon than breeding within race. This is largely due to cultural differences, or so I assume since we're all genetically identical wether you're black, yellow, white, purple with pink dots or whatever, but could this result in the long term in a true seperation? I mean, within a million years or so (45.000 generations)? Or in other words: could cultural difference - which is unique to the human species - lead to genetic seperation?

What are your thoughts upon this?

I think the differences would have to be enforced by other means (isolation of cultures, for example, or extreme beliefs across genetically significant populations for many generations), but they could. However, I think most futurists would argue for a *more* interracial future. The advent of common world travel has led to more cross-cultural and interracial reproduction than was common in the past.

That could be different from purposeful differentiation, but that's probably a fair bit in the future, unless we actually hit the singularity, in which case all rules change.

Ashkenazi Jews?

Thank you for planting the seed of an online Socrates Cafe, Robear. I read Christopher Phillip's book of the same name a few years ago. The idea of a modern Socratic dialectic is long overdue.

Also, thank you for posting the link to the National Academy of Sciences document. I finished reading it on the train this morning. One item I was expecting to see in the FAQ that was absent was an acknowledgment of the common misconception held by some creationists that the scope of Darwinian evolution includes the origin of life itself. While, I can't say that the majority of creationists I've encountered have asserted that Darwinian evolution attempts to explain the origin of life and fails, the misconception is held broadly enough to take time to correct. My guess is that it wasn't included because it would provide an opportunity for an erroneous god-of-the-gaps interpolation.

Hey! Lookit! Its another Online Socrates Cafe! I'm so proud...

Excatly what I thought of when I first saw the link to this place on theother thread.

Right. My point was that even culturally, the Ashkenazis are not so separate as to enforce breeding rules.

What the heck is "intellectual prejudice and profiling"?

The paper was designed to explain scientific method, how it was expressed through evolution, and to counter the basic arguements of creationists (no fossil record, no transitional examples, etc.). I don't need to know who the creationists are demographically, I don't need to know what their influence is, and I certainly don't need to know why they believe what they believe. I don't need to know that because all of that is pretty much beside the basic point, which is evolution happens and the science backs it up.

The selective logic, sloppy science, and politics are all being done by creationists--not the National Academy of Sciences. Creationists ignore or discount evidence, they pervert basic concepts of science (often relying on the general ignorance of people), and run political campaigns to get their religious ideology forcibly inserted into schools.

The paper wisely avoids any discussion of scripture because the science of evolution really has nothing to do with how someone might chose to interpret a particular passage in the Bible. Unfortunately, the reverse fails to hold true.

Well, I think they assumed anyone who believed in creation couldn't read, because they were , you know, an inbred hick. Those sorts couldn't read the book so they wouldn't be offended.