In my joint-owned blog, The Truth About Macroevolution, there has been an ongoing war in the comments that I have decided to address in an additional comment and a full-length post on that site. I decided to post my article here as well. So here goes!
I will start with a rather novel and even startling admission. There is no evidence for creation. Well, there you have it. The plain statement. However, we have to admit something else as well. There is no evidence for evolution, either.
That is right, there is no creation evidence and no evolution evidence. All we have is . . . evidence.
We must understand that both creationism and evolutionism are forensic models of history. Creationists and evolutionists both have the same evidences at their disposal; the same fossils, the same rocks, the same trees, and the same strata layers. The question is which model best fits the existing evidence.
Both sides are usually able to cram whatever forensic evidence that exists into their model. An excellent example of this is found in an old Father Brown mystery. A detective believed that the ragged man he has captured is the murderer of one Lord Falconry and determined to test his theory.
He set up a machine to monitor the man's pulse. Then, he wrote "hawk", "eagle", and "falcon" on a chalkboard. When he wrote "falcon", the prisoner's pulse leapt. When he added an "r" to the end, the man's pulse skyrocketed. Proof enough! A machine cannot lie, can it?
True. However, as Father Brown pointed out, a machine cannot tell the truth, either. The man did get excited when "Falconr" was written on the board, but not because he had killed Lord Falconry. In fact, he was Lord Falconroy, but did not want to tell the officer because of a scandal he was involved in. Why was he ragged? He had just left a masquerade party.
So you see that the way you interpret evidence depends on your preconceived model, not whether the evidence is "creation" evidence or "evolution" evidence.
When I found out that a T. Rex bone had been found with still-bloody soft tissue inside, I was sure that this proved dinosaurs lived recently.
However, the long-age establishment had a way to fit this seemingly inexplicable evidence into their model. They explained that the bones "fell" into a primordial stew which quickly transformed the blood vessels and stretchy tissue into a nanopolymer with identical properties. This mineral nanopolymer, then, retained its properties for millions of years, not the actual tissue.
That is quite a preposterous explanation, to be sure. My point is that any forensic evidence can be form-fitted to match a particular model. The question is which model best fits the existing evidence with the least "massaging" of the data.
We can also test things we see around us to determine whether a particular interpretation of forensic evidence matches reality. These tests or observations yield "empirical" evidence, which unlike forensic evidence is much more repeatable and testable.
For example, creation scientists interpret the Grand Canyon as forensic evidence for a huge flood that deposited millions of layers quickly, then receded from land, carving out the canyon. Evolutionists see it as millions of years of gradual mineral deposition followed by millions of years of gradual erosion by the Colorado River.
We can take a look at Mt. St. Helens to determine which model best fits. When the mountain exploded, the fast-moving ash and rock deposited and carved out a massive canyon with thousands of layers . . . in a few hours. Even though this is not repeatable, it was directly observable. This makes it empirical evidence instead of forensic evidence. If you want something even more empirical, try putting clay, silt, gravel, sand, and mud into a jar along with lots of water and shaking it. Global Flood on a kitchen-sized scale! You will find that lots of churning water yields lots of layer in a little bit of time.
So we have forensic evidence: The Grand Canyon. Decayed radioisotopes. Bleeding T. Rex fossils. These are the remnants of the earth's past.
We have models. Catastrophism. Gradualism. Young-earth. Long-age. Creationism. Evolutionism.
And we have supplementary empirical evidence. Observations like Mt. St. Helens on the one hand and observations of gradual erosion by the Colorado River on the other.
We cannot prove that evolution or creation are true. All we can do is collect forensic evidence and show with empirical evidence how and why the forensic evidence fits best in our model.
So in this discussion, asking for or giving "evidence" is rather pointless until we know exactly what we are asking for.
The forensic evidences in this discussion are fossils, strata layers, and life itself.
The model we are focusing on in this site: evolutionism.
So you, the defender of evolution, need to come up with empirical evidence that shows why and how specific forensic evidences fit evolutionism.
An example of this would be. . . .
Forensic evidence: Simple and complex life.
Model: "Life evolved from simple to complex through natural selection and mutations."
Empirical evidence: Some example of natural selections and mutations producing a positive, uphill change in an organism from simple to complex.
We, the attackers of evolutionism, need to come up with empirical evidence that shows why and how specific forensic evidences are incompatible with evolutionism.
For starters on our side, I will show:
Forensic evidence: Dinosaur and human footprints in the same strata layer side-by-side.
Model: Humans and dinosaurs walked or ran side-by-side along mineral-laden sand as the waters rose in the global flood.
Empirical evidence: Today, we can see that strata-like layers often result from mineral-rich sand that is quickly flooded. Footprints are made by walking in sand or mud.
Obviously, that is not supposed to be the ultimate death-knell for evolution. Rather, the combination of empirical and forensic evidence lend support to the model that humans and dinosaurs lived simultaneously during a large flood.
Hopefully my lengthy discourse here has cleared up some confusion and defined exactly what we need.
So what do you think?
In Him,
D3
No comments:
Post a Comment