Creationists: since speciation has been confirmed many times?

Question

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY


(here are at least 15 examples):

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html

and since evolution proceeds by the accumulation of many small scale changes,

if there were no barrier to these small changes, you would expect the changes to give an incredible diversity of living organisms (the way the fossil record shows).

So, what barrier to constant change do you propose?

Extra points if you know what my avatar is.


(Ben, I'm a botanist too.)

Monty - What?

Rebekah - EXCELLENT!

OK, 19 responses so far and only Monty and dell boy, have attempted an answer. I'm not sure dell boy understood the question and I'm not sure anyone will understand Monty's answer.

Ezekiel: "I actually see more earnest desire to know the truth from those who believe in God (and wonder how Creation works) than from those who disbelieve (and have no inclination to wonder if there might actually be a Creator)"

You and I have very different experiences then.

realchur - perhaps you should look a little closer. In almost all of those cases, reproductive isolation has been achieved (that would make them new species).

sure yep - you did not understand the question... look at the part of it that has this "?" mark after it.

The question is, "what barriers to constant change do you propose."

G-flux - we know there is constant change, because we see it going on all the time.

tetsuno1 - no, not moss. One of the responders already gave the correct answer.


OK, 26 responses and no one has really proposed a mechanism (or at least one that was intelligible).

I have asked this question here 2 times before, and never received an answer in those either.

ben - I agree, there are limits on some things (e.g. land animals can only grow so large before they collapse under their own weight). But it is important to remember that they will always continue to change in other forms. (This is what creationists deny).

As for hallucigenia, I believe there is little consensus.


As for most of the creationists, I think Mark Twain give us the best insight here:

"The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that aren't so."

Answer 1

Answer to your question: I don't see a barrier to constant change. Comment, I love your avatar. That Hallucigenia is in my kid's 'Exticnt Animals Alphabet Book' What a cool critter! And a cool book, and none of the extinct animals in the book are dinosaurs(I am not making a dinosaur comment,here, just sayin'). The funniest page is C for Coelecanth, which, as the book says, shouldn't be there at all! Ha!

Answer 2

Adaptation within a species (AKA micro evolution, natural selection, survival of the fittest) is fact. It is observable within a few generations of a species.

Evolution on the other hand, the idea that one species can adapt to the point that it becomes an entirely different species and that 1 species over millions of years became all the species we have today, is nothing more than a theory. It's the best theory science has come up with, but that doesn't make it bullet-proof.

Where is all the good solid evidence for evolution? It's not observable. It's not in the fossil record. We see different species in different places occurring at different times, but nowhere is there any solid evidence of one species becoming another. Where are the in-betweeners? Where are the missing links? Where are the fossils of such creatures?

Evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to. Like a religion their faith in evolutionary theory makes up for the gaps and holes.

The evidence you use to support evolution could also be interpreted in ways that support creation if you were willing to accept the possibility of other forces that you cannot observe first hand.

I can respect your belief in Evolution, but I don't share it. I hope you can respect the beliefs of others as well.

P.S. Calling it a new species because it has adapted in some way doesn't make it a new species. Take dogs for example. A Chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same species, but are phenotypicaly very different. How do we know they are the same species? Because we can observe that they are able to mate and produce fertile offspring. If all dogs died out 100,000 years ago and scientists were to dig up a skull from 2 very different breeds, how would they know whether they were the same species or not?

Ultimately this is just another religious dispute. The only difference is that many evolutionists try to pass off their faith as fact so that it looks like they're position is 100% fact instead of 80% fact glued together with 20% faith.

Answer 3

You could try being a little clearer about what your question is. I'm guessing you've asked why we see less diversity today than we've seen in records. Or maybe why the records show some limits to runaway diversity. Either way, the records seem to show a series of explosions of diversity, punctuated by sudden (and sometimes extreme) drop-offs in diversity.

Each punctuation seems to match up with some extreme change in the habitat that occurred more quickly than the biological mechanisms could adapt. A pandemic here, a solar flare there, an asteroid the other place. And as nature abhors a vacuum, after the change occurs, species rapidly diversify to fill in the gaps left behind.

Or something like that.

Answer 4

Thanks for the link. I was not aware of specific examples of speciation in complex animals like bees or mice. I have observed speciation in plants though. It happens all the time.

revulayshun, a species is a set of organisms reproductively isolated from other organisms. It is not an arbitrary classification.

EDIT: Heh, thanks, I'm not a botanist, but I do have friends who are.

I didn't see the barriers questions below. Organisms evolve in minor increments but they go back and forth within a moderate zone - the Bumpus equilibrium (Hermon Bumpus discovered this by studying sparrows). Natural selection weeds out individuals who strays too far beyond this zone. Size is a common factor of change, so I'll use that as an example. An animal that gets too large becomes slow and easily falls prey. An animal that becomes too small is unlikely to survive the cold of winter. These are the BARRIERS to constant change.

In any case, organisms only evolve when there is a need to evolve, when there is a major event - such the introduction of a new predator or a change in climate. Only then does an animal break free of the equilibrium.

EDIT: Does anyone really know what a hallucigenia is?

Answer 5

Who's opposing constant change? I only bristle at the constant suggestions that (a) this speciation had no purposeful guiding hand, yet (b) the creatures themselves somehow willed the changes. (If I hear one more nature documentary say that giraffes developed long necks in order to reach the higher leaves, or that whales developed fins in order to swim, or deer developed their camouflaged coats in order to avoid predators, etc.....)

Even a transcendent creator's work would eventually have to cross the boundary into physical processes, in order for anything physical to occur. So why are both sides of the debate so offended by the suggestion that the evolutionary process might be God's tool of creation?

After all, the added durability that comes from having a built-in, dynamic, generational adaptability like this could well be one of life's most brilliantly conceived features.

Answer 6

I believe in an all powerful God who created the universe, but I'm not going to take my belief and inject it into pure science which is based on facts through undeniable evidence. Its simply a belief, one based on faith not fact.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

In other words, I know that God exist, and I can make the argument that he exist because we and everything around us exist, but I can't see God nor can I prove to you undeniably that he exist. Just like we know protons, electrons and neutrons exist, but I've never seen any of them and no one can emphatically prove that they do exist, much more quarks neutrinos, or strings for that matter.

Essentially what we have here is animalistic vs. spiritualistic. The bible calls it Terrestrial and Celestial, or natural and spiritual, the reality is they are connected far more than what people may realize

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Heb 4:13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Speciation may take place, but to be quite honest, the examples you gave seem fairly limited. I'm open to the idea, but you've presented your question with the supposition that evolution has been undeniably proven, when in reality it's still a theory and can't be proven no more than the Bing Bang theory can be proven, so in essence your supposition in many ways resemble the same qualities of my belief in God and creation which is not science. You believe that evolution exist because of small adaptive variances in species that may come and go with the environmental circumstances, but the fact of the matter is that you can't prove these small scale changes created the many diverse creatures past and present. The only way for you to prove it is to find the fossil record of every living creature from the first microbe all the way to human beings and show how microbes slowly adapted and mutated to eventually form us today. You can't do it. Its a theory/belief not a fact, and its not pure science.

So what is the barrier to constant change, how do you know there is constant change?

G-flux
God bless

Answer 7

I'm not a creationist, but I am not fully convinced that the "many small scale changes" can satisfactorily explain some of the transitions that must have occurred. These include the rise of vertebrates from invertebrates (would fish develop from worms?) and the development of man as a thinking animal (can expanded protein consumption be the full explanation for development of more cerebellum in the brain?)
Moreover, if you have an "improved" organism, how does it continue to propogate itself in a bisexual surrounding?

Answer 8

Your examples on www.talkorigins.com is typical.

Every example given speaks of what you call 'micro-evolution'. Variations WITHIN the existing species. To label them as variations into different species is a re-definition of species and ultimately just cheap deception.

This is what Evolutionists are reduced to. Since they have no evidence they use fake transitional forms and masquerade micro-evolution as proof of macro-evolution.

If the mosquitoes can breed between themselves, then they are still of the same species.

If the dogs can breed between themselves, then they are still of the same species.

The Bible does not say that there will be not variation in the different kinds of animals.

A German Shepherd can still breed with a Poodle.

This is so basic and easy to see, you are like the person surrounded by the trees screaming, "Where is the forrest?"

Answer 9

I went to your link and read it.
1) There is no proof that these changes mentioned here are fully genetic and will be reamain genetic characteristics in subsequent generations if the catalyst for the changes were removed.
2) There is no proof that these changes are anything more than adaptation to changing environment and do not reach the rna or dna levels of the organisms.

Answer 10

Nothing has been confirmed, it's still just theory. Because you say it a million times doesn't mean it's proof. Just add another million years to it, it all makes sense now.That's the proof. Right? Why does it bother you that people believe in God? You will sooner or later as will everyone else when you die, what will you say then,oops? This is your chance, don't screw it up because you think your too smart for God, be honest with yourself.