dallashistory

Thanks to Adam and James for responding. I surely have more than a dozen Bibles, various translations, in my house including several with references, study notes, and so on, and seperate reference books. That is not really so many of course. Before Katrina James might have had more and probably other people on this board have more.

And yes, I've seen (have) commentaries like the one one James mentioned. If you are on this board you also have access to the internet and Ihave lots more information.

Still, you have touched on a point I tried to make. In my opinion, the Bible is not inerrant. To me, if the Bible were inerrant it would have one reading that would be clear to all, no arguement, period. No discussion or commentary or advice from a religous advisor would be necessary.

Quote:
"Still, you have touched on a point I tried to make. In my opinion, the Bible is not inerrant. To me, if the Bible were inerrant it would have one reading that would be clear to all, no arguement, period. No discussion or commentary or advice from a religous advisor would be necessary."

I can't honestly say when I started to question the literal accuracy of the Bible. I know I was very young (possibly as young as 8 or 10). Coming to terms with it took time. I'm sure now that I knew by the time I was 11 or 12 that a lot of Bible stories (e.g., Noah's Ark, Jonah and the Whale) I was told in Sunday School were myths (or parables or object lessons of the same sort as Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny). Yet, the adults seemed serious about the process of our indoctrination. I wondered about that. What was the purpose. By the time I was a pre-teen of 13 or 14, I was starting to come to terms with the contradictions of different religious denominations that I visited in Oak Cliff. I went to church with friends to see the differences in different approaches to God, mostly Protestant. It was eye-opening to see how fiercely everyone embraced their own separate reality. After a serious accident at age 14 when I came close to death, I was in the hospital for a long time (almost a year) where I witnessed death and dying for myself. That added to my maturity and understanding the functional importance of belief. Getting married at age 18 added more maturity. Having children of my own added another layer to my understanding.

The decision of whether and how to educate a child about life is one of the great ethical decisions one has to make. I've known parents who decided not to teach their children about God and I've known parents who decided to teach their children that God existence is a myth. It doesn't always work out well.

My parents sent me and my brother to church where I was able to learn for myself what organized religion had on offer. I've always been grateful for that experience. I decided for myself that I believed in God, but that I didn't believe the stories in the Bible were true. I don't have any doubt at all that the creation myth in Genesis is false. How anyone could think otherwise escapes me. Still, I find value in reading that book. I understand the practical value of faith, especially when raising children.

I gradually developed a belief system I could believe. My system differentiates between belief in God, and belief in the Bible. I believe in God. I do not believe in the Bible. I don't advocate that to others. It works for me, because I understand God in a very special way based on my studies of science and history.

I can summarize the fundamentals of the beliefs that work for me.
For a very long time, there was no life on earth.
The first earthly life forms were very simple.
Gradually over vast periods of time, life forms became more complex.
A long time after the first complex life forms came to occupy earth, humans appeared for the first time.
After humans had been on earth for a long time they began to conceive of a god or gods who might have created them, earth, and other creatures.
In my case, I call "God" the creator of life on earth.
I do not confuse my "God" with the "God" or "Gods" described in the Bible.
JMO

C.S. Lewis once wrote in an essay:
"The understanding of the old orthodoxy has been mainly the work of divines engaged in New Testament criticism.
The authority of experts in that discipline is the authority in deference to whom we are asked to give up a huge mass of belief shared in common by the early Church, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, the Reformers, and even the nineteenth .

..That then is my first bleat. These men ask me to believe they can read between the lines of the old texts;
the evidence is their obvious inability to read --in any sense worth discussing--the lines themselves.
They claim to see fern-seed and can't see an elephant ten yards away in broad daylight.

Now for my second bleat.
All theology of the liberal type involves at some point--and often involves throughout--the claim that the real behavior and purpose and teaching of Christ came very rapidly to be misunderstood and misrepresented by the followers, and has been recovered or exhumed only by modern scholars.......(Lewis goes on to say he had met this sort of "theory" long before he was interested in theology but in the study of Greek philosophers and on to Shakespeare etc)

His third bleat:
I find in these theologians a constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur...
now I do not want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible.
I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question.
Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else.
The canon "if miraculous, unhistorical" is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it.
If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics of the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men;
men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in.

His fourth and "loudest bleat" .........What forearms me against all these Reconstructions is the fact that I have seen it all from the other end of the stick. I have watched reviewers reconstructing the genesis of my own books this way....

.....while I respect the learning of the great Biblical critics, I am not yet persuaded that their judgement is to be equally respected. But secondly consider with what overwhelming advantages the mere reviewers start....
the superiority in judgement and diligence which you are going to attribute to the Biblical critics will have to be almost superhuman if it is to offset the fact that they are everywhere faced with customs, language, race-characteristics, a religious background, habits of composition, and basic assumptions, which no scholarship will ever enable any man now alive to know, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter there willl be more pressing matters to discuss..."

----------------------------------------------
Anyhoo sounds like the more some things change, the more they stay the same.

Bill;

Anyone can read the Bible. And everyone should. Not just the bit and pieces talked about every church service; but cover-to-cover on a regular, even daily basis.

Where the "rubber meets the road" is understanding what you read (as Peter asked the Ethopian Eunuch in Acts Chapter 8.) It is here that people's opinions about what they read, and what they should think or do about it deviate. It is these differences in interpertation that caused the various church denominations to form once the printing press and the Protestant Reformantion put Bibles in everyone's hand to read for themselves.

I have been given some guidelines to interpreting scripture over the years that have helped my own understanding. One comes from the Bible itself: In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established (2 Corinthians 13:1.) Doctrine should be treated as such if it can be found in more than one book, usually by more than one author.

But the most important help of all is the Holy Ghost itself. One can have study books of every kind, and memorize the Bible itself. But the Bible was never intended to be understood through human logic and science alone; it was always God's intention that he "lead you and guide you in all truth. (1 John 2:18-27)" It is God himself that draws all men unto him; it was not His intention that well learned scholars who have not faith or believe in Him; but a knowledge of what the Bible says; be able to do so.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:25-31

I can't honestly say when I started to question the literal accuracy of the Bible. ... I decided for myself that I believed in God, but that I didn't believe the stories in the Bible were true. I don't have any doubt at all that the creation myth in Genesis is false. How anyone could think otherwise escapes me.

My feelings about the Bible have taken the opposite path. Growing up Catholic; my Bible reading took the form of scriptures that were included in the missal (sp?) that we found in the pews every Sunday. We had Bibles at home, but we were not encouraged to either read them or accept them at their word.

I was facinated with fossils; and read several books on them. My parents gave me an excellent book that covered ancient life from it's earliest beginnings, to early man. I read it several times through, and enjoyed looking at the pictures.

So like Moses, I was brought up in the latest that science had to offer. When I recieved the Holy Ghost, and decided to be a part of a church that took the Bible as literal; it was not the Holy Ghost itself, or the changes in my lifestyle, that bothered me the most. Rather, it was turning my back on what I had learned regarding science and evolution, and the Catholic Church. (Though I have said before, and will say again; my decision was not one of turning my back on the Catholic faith, but seeking a path that brought me closer to the promises that God had for me; a decision I have never regretted.)

What I have noticed over time is that I could put my faith in God. God is the same "yesterday, today, and forever." I have seen firsthand what He has done in my life, and in the life of others. And what I saw did not contradict what I read in His word -- rather, the opposite was true. It only cemented my faith in Him AND in His word.

At the same time; I have seen several things that I learned about "ancient life" in that book from my childhood refutted, disputed, and changed. Global warming has proved to me that beyond the basic sciences and engineering; science is as much about politics and the pursuit of grants as it is about uncovering the truth. Those that have opposing views are simiply dismissed as nutcases; those who cannot see what is so obvious to them. It has served as a reminder that though they pretend at times to be, they are not infalible. And, when they have been caught in a mistake or hoax; it is quietly made right, then life goes on as though it had never happened.

So my life experiences living with the Holy Ghost has formed different opinions of the Bible and sciencetists. They have shown that the word of God is not in conflict with itself; not is it contradictory to what I have experienced in real life. On the other hand, I have lost faith in "pure science"; in my opinion; "Spock has no clothes."

Quote:
I was facinated with fossils; and read several books on them. My parents gave me an excellent book that covered ancient life from it's earliest beginnings, to early man. I read it several times through, and enjoyed looking at the pictures.
End quote.

I had a similar experience. My parents bought a set of encyclopedias called The Book of Knowledge that had additional books on lands and peoples. I liked those books more than any of the books we read at school. They had big pictures with captions that kids could understand. I wish I still had a set. They were wonderful.

For people who get cable there's a special this Sunday on National Geographic Channel on the preserved Woolly Mammoth baby they found recently in the tundra of Siberia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth

Now that I think about it, I think it must have been the pictures in the family encyclopedias that first led me to question the mythology about Noah's Ark. How did the land animals living in North, Central, and South America get to Noah? Swim?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark

Quote:
Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח, Tevat Noach; Arabic: سفينة نوح, Safinat Nuh) is a large vessel featured in the mythology of Abrahamic religions.[1

Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח, Tevat Noach; Arabic: سفينة نوح, Safinat Nuh) is a large vessel featured in the mythology of Abrahamic religions.[1

Adam, you know I love you (as a poster 'cause that is the only way I know you) but sometimes I want to say to you "put away childish things" then I think that I cannot do like so many and take the Bible out of context. So what it really says is:

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

If you really want to know the story of Noah's Ark I could tell you but I won't because you don't.

Sharon Marsalis wrote:... then I think that I cannot do like so many and take the Bible out of context.

Hmmm; should I, or anyone else here, take this personally?

Hmmm; should I, or anyone else here, take this personally?

Nope, especially not you--or anyone else here.

You misspelled سفينة نوح
You forgot to ي your

LOL Ronnie--I like your style.

Quote:
You misspelled سفينة نوح
You forgot to ي your ن

Ronnie,


Sharon's Quote:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
End quote.

I like those words, but that prose brings to my mind the lyrics of Bob Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe.

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/it-aint-me-babe

Quote:
If you really want to know the [real] story of Noah's Ark I could tell you but I won't because you don't.
End quote.

I do, but do you mean the (real) story about how the story showed up first in Gilgamesh, or the real part about how the land animals in America swam to the mid-east, or the part about how Noah convinced the extinct dinosaurs to come aboard?

Quote:
Most ancient civilizations have a legend that speaks of a great flood that covered the whole Earth. The civilizations include places as the Middle East, India, China, Australia, southern Asia, the islands of the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. ("Creation/Flood") With so many
stories in so many regions of the world, is it safe to say that perhaps these legends in fact really happened?

In recent scientific investigations, it has been discovered that floodwaters from the Persian gulf may have covered southern sections of the Mesopotamian valley. There are also many details between the biblical and other Near Eastern flood stories that are in agreement, such as the ark, the raven, and the dove. However, "there are fundamental differences in approach." (Plaut 56)

In Gilgamesh, the flood hero is elevated to immortal status and thereby is removed from human history. In the Bible, it is human sin that causes the Flood and Noah is saved so that he might begin the human voyage over again (Plaut 56).

The story of Noah and the Ark, as recounted in Genesis, is the most famous flood story in Western Society. "But the flood legend on which the story of Noah is based had its origins among the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia, in the epic Gilgamesh." ("Creation/Flood")

"Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C." ("Gilgamesh"). Towards the end of the story, Gilgamesh discovers the secret of the flood and its survivor. ("Amorites")

In the beginning of the story, "Gilgamesh is the epitome of a bad ruler: arrogant, oppressive, and brutal" (Mack 11). The people of Uruk complained to the Sumerian Gods whose response was to create Enkidu. Enkidu was to act as Gilgamesh's counterpart, but although they tried to destroy each other at first their encounter resulted in a deep bond of friendship. (Mack 11)

Enkidu died after the last of his and Gilgamesh's adventures. His death revealed to Gilgamesh the hollowness of mortal fame and led him to undertake a journey in search of immortality. His journey led him to Utnapishtim, the survivor of the great flood. This point
of the epic tells the story of the Old Babylonians' version of the Flood. (Mack 11)

In the story, Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh that the great god of the city Shurrupak was aroused by the clamour of the many people of the world. Enlil, the gods' counselor heard the clamour and complained about it to the gods of the council. He told the gods that mankind's uproar was intolerable and prevented him from sleeping. (Gilgamesh 37)

Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh that the God Ea warned him of the flood and told him to tear down his house of reeds and build a boat. When Utnapishtim asked Ea what he should tell the people, Ea replied that he should tell them that Enlil will rain down abundance. (Gilgamesh 37)

Utnapishtim continued to tell Gilgamesh how he built the boat, slaughtered bullocks for the people and killed sheep, gave shipwrights wine to drink, and feasted with them. The boat was built on the eleventh day. Utnapishtim loaded it with his gold, his family, his kin, the wild and tame beast of the field, and all the craftsmen. That evening, the rain began. (Gilgamesh 37)

"For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled" (Gilgamesh 38). Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh "I looked at the face of the world and there was silence, all mankind was turned to clay. The surface of the sea stretched as flat as a roof-top; I opened a hatch and the light fell on my face" (Gilgamesh 38).

Utnapishtim said he then looked for land and for fourteen leagues distance there appeared to be a mountain, and there the boat grounded. After staying there for seven days, Utnapishtim sent a dove loose, but it returned when she found no resting place. He did the same with a raven who saw that the waters retreated and did not come back. He "heaped up wood and cane and cedar and myrtle" as an offering to the gods. Ishtar came and told the gods to gather around the sacrifice, except Enlil. (Gilgamesh 38)
When Enlil arrived he was angry to see the boat and wanted to know if any mortals survived. Ea wanted to know how Enlil could "so senselessly bring down the flood". She told him, "It was not I that revealed the secret of the gods; the wise man learned it in a dream. Now take your counsel
what shall be done with him". (Gilgamesh 39)

Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh that Enlil entered the boat and had Utnapishtim and his wife kneel before him, touched them on their foreheads and blessed them. "Thus," Utnapishtim said, "it was that the gods took me and placed me here to live in the distance, at the mouth of the river." (Gilgamesh 39)

Such is the flood story of the Old Babylonians. Although tablets containing the story were found at sights throughout the Middle East and in all languages written in cuneiform characters, it banished from memory. Some portions of the story survived in subsequent traditions, but only as scattered and anonymous fragments. (Mack 10)

Fragments of the tablets were found in 1872. The flood story was on the eleventh and last tablet. The tablets created a sensation because the story was very similar to the story of Noah's flood. ("Old Testament Discoveries")

But there were differences between Gilgamesh and Noah's flood. In Gilgamesh the gods created the flood because of the noise the mortals were making; in the story of Noah, known simply as The Flood, God created the flood because He could no longer tolerate humanity's behavior, which had become hopelessly evil. The story says that God saw that the wickedness of man was great and that He was sorry He had made man on the earth. So He said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them." ("Daily Bible Study")

But there was one exception: ("Daily Bible Study")

"But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord...Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God" ("Daily Bible Study")

Like Utnapishtim, Noah was to build a great boat, an ark, which could hold enough contents to begin life on Earth again. Because no one but Noah and his family were on the ark, it's likely no one believed his explanations for building it and that he was subjected to ridicule from the people who saw him building it. If anyone had believed him, God would have put them on the ark as well. But only Noah is recorded as believing. ("Daily Bible Study")

End quote.

Or, were you offering to explain the mythical importance?

Neither.
You answered why I won't. and that's why I don't.

As for your words association--sometimes words do speak louder

Go melt back into the night, babe,
Everything inside is made of stone.
There's nothing in here moving
An' anyway I'm not alone.
You say you're looking for someone
Who'll pick you up each time you fall,
To gather flowers constantly
An' to come each time you call,
A lover for your life an' nothing more,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

(Incidentally Dylan who was born Jewish found the Agape " type of love".)

I do, but do you mean the (real) story about how the story showed up first in Gilgamesh, or the real part about how the land animals in America swam to the mid-east, or the part about how Noah convinced the extinct dinosaurs to come aboard?

Everyone knows that Noah didn't have to convince any of the animals to come on board; it was God that did it "two by two"; and shut the door on them when everyone was aboard.

The Gilgamesh flood story is part of additional evidence for Noah's Ark. It would seem that the story of a global flood that drowned all but those that were in the Ark can be found not only in the middle east, but around the world; even in the South Pacific:

http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html

The fact that the flood story is recounted around the world leads one to believe that it was a global, not just a local, event; and that all men descended from Noah's sons.

Another area where science is not just science but politics and a desire for federal funding is embryonic stem cell research. President Bush and others were againist embryonic stem cell research because it involved the destruction of human embryos; it has also justified other more controversal actions such as abortion and human cloning.

Democrats and others, including Oprah and Michael J. Fox, have demonized them for their beliefs; and accused them of not wanting Fox and others cured through this research; and stating that their stubborness was delaying finding a cure by decades. Needless to say; Oprah and Fox were both shocked on national T.V. when a doctor they respected declared on Oprah's show that embryonic stem cell research is dead:

Doctor Mehmet Oz Tells Oprah's Audience Embryonic Stem Cell Research Debate is Dead

http://www.lifenews.com/bio2820.html

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 7, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A recent appearance by Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon at Columbia University and a regular on Oprah Winfrey's popular eponymous television program, is generating buzz within pro-life circles. During the program, Oz told Americans the truth about embryonic stem cell research.

Oz made it clear that the "stem cell debate is dead" mostly in part because embryonic stem cells have yet to catch up to their adult stem cell and iPS cell counterparts.

The comments are drawing interest because Oz made them in front of the iconic television personality and embryonic stem cell research advocate Michael J. Fox who has warped and twisted the positions of pro-life advocates during previous elections.

"The problem with embryonic stem cells is that embryonic stem cells come from embryos, like all of us were made from embryos, and those cells can become any cell in the body," Oz explained.

"But it's very hard to control them and so they can become cancer," Oz added, pointing to the efficacy problems of the cells causing tumors after injection into animals during experiments.

Oz went on to talk about the new science of induced stem cells made by reverting skin and other adult stem cells into an embryonic-like state without the destruction of human life.

He said he believes researchers are within ten years of making major breakthroughs using adult stem cells, which have already helped patients with more than 100 diseases and conditions.

"I think we are single digit years away from making a big impact in the lives of Parkinson's disease (victims) but also diabetics, heart attack victims, people who have had a lot of problems," he said of the potential success of adult stem cells.

Those successes could be even sooner than Oz thinks.

In what is believed to be the nation's first such procedure, doctors in Texas were recently able to successfully use adult stem cells from a patient to treat the effects of his stroke.

Doctors removed the stem cells from the patient's bone marrow in the leg, then separated or purified the stem cells and intravenously returned them to the patient within a few hours.

Because they are the patient's own stem cells, rejection was not an issue as is the case with embryonic stem cells.

The debate in Texas on human cloning goes public. Notice that the arguement for human cloning is for embryonic stem cell research; not to grow body parts for rich Texas Republicans, or a clone army for the new independent country of Texas.

http://cbs11tv.com/local/texas.cloning. ... 91229.html

The sticking point may be how human cloning is defined in the proposals.

While introducing his bill, Rep. Mark Homer said he hoped it could be a middle ground for a House that is deeply divided on embryonic stem cell research.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... cc92b.html

Saw an interesting update on Homo Floresiensis on TV. There's still a lack on consensus among the experts about where it fits in. I tentatively agree with those who think it's a distinct species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis

Quote:
Homo floresiensis ("Flores Man", nicknamed Hobbit) is a possible species in the genus Homo, remarkable for its small body and brain and for its survival until relatively recent times. It was named after the Indonesian island of Flores on which the remains were found.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090507/sc ... siahobbits

Studies say 'hobbit' previously unknown species

by Marlowe Hood Marlowe Hood

Quote:
PARIS (AFP) – The tiny ancient humans dubbed hobbits, whose remains were discovered on an Indonesian island in 2003, were a previously unknown species altogether, according to two new studies.

Debate has raged in the scientific community since the fossils were found on the island of Flores, with some experts insisting they were descended from Homo erectus and others saying evolution could not account for their small brains.

About a metre (three feet) tall and weighing 30 kilos (65 pounds), the tiny, tool-making hunters may have roamed the remote island as recently as 8,000 years ago. Their fossils are about 18,000 years old.

Many scientists have said Homo floresiensis, as the creature is now formally known, was a prehistoric human stunted by natural selection over millennia through a process called insular dwarfing.

Others countered that even this evolutionary shrinking, well documented in island-bound animals, could not account for the chimpanzee-sized brain -- just a third the size of that in a modern human being.

The only plausible explanation, they insisted, was that the handful of specimens found had a genetic disorder resulting in an abnormally small skull or that they suffered from "dwarf cretinism" caused by deficient thyroids.

Two new studies in the British journal Nature go a long way toward settling the debate.

A team led by William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York tackled the problem by analysing the hobbit's foot.

In some ways it is very human. The big toe is aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the toes as the body's full weight falls on the foot -- attributes not found in great apes.

But in other respects it is startlingly primitive: far longer than its modern human equivalent and equipped with a very small big toe, long and curved lateral toes, and a weight-bearing structure closer to a chimpanzee's.

Recent archaeological evidence from Kenya shows that the modern foot evolved more than 1.5 million years ago, most likely in Homo erectus.

So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time -- considered extremely unlikely -- they must have branched off the human line at an even earlier date.

For Jungers and colleagues, this suggests their ancestor was not Homo erectus "but instead some other more primitive hominin whose dispersal into southeast Asia is still undocumented."

Companion studies published by the Journal of Human Evolution bolster this theory and conjecture that these more ancient forebears may be the still poorly understood Homo habilis.

In any case, Homo floresiensis would be confirmed as a separate species.

But what still has not been explained the hobbit's inordinately small brain.

That's where hippos come into the picture.

Eleanor Weston and Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum in London compared fossils of several species of ancient hippos found on the island of Madagascar with the mainland ancestors from which they had evolved.

They were surprised to find that insular dwarfing -- driven by the need to adapt to an island environment -- shrank their brains far more than had previously been thought possible.

"Whatever the explanation for the tiny brain of H. floresiensis relative to its body size, our evidence suggests that insular dwarfing could have played a role in its evolution," they conclude.

While the new studies answer some questions, they also raise new ones sure to spark fresh debate, Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman said in Nature.

Only more fossil evidence will indicate whether the hobbits of Flores evolved from Homo erectus, whose traces have been found throughout Eurasia, or from an even more ancient lineage not yet found outside Africa, he said.
End quote.

RUSH: Now, I got some sound bites here with Chris Matthews and Mike Pence last night. I want to play these for you because it's very instructive about what the liberal media is attempting to do to Republicans: portray Republicans as anti-science; portray Republicans as not believing in evolution, only believe in creationism; blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I play this Matthews stuff for you because I don't think it's just Matthews. Normally I won't give a hoot, but I think this is a template that the left has come up with and that they're going to be hitting a whole lot of Republicans with over the course of the near future. So here's the first of three sound bites we have on this. This is an exchange, again, Chris Matthews with Mike Pence of Indiana on science.

MATTHEWS: (shouting) Republicans aren't known for being green! Your party's come up with this alternative but nobody really believes you got any passion on this subject! If there's any passion on the subject it's Limbaugh! How can your party be credible on dealing with CO2 emissions, with greenhouse gases, when the loudest voices in your party don't believe in it?

PENCE: Well, I --

MATTHEWS: (screaming) They just don't believe in it!

PENCE: Well, let me tell you. I think the science is very mixed on the subject --

MATTHEWS (interrupting): Okay, well, how can you get excited...?

PENCE: -- of global warming, Chris. I --

MATTHEWS: (interrupting) -- then -- then -- th-th-then --

PENCE: Well --

MATTHEWS: Why should your party believe you're going to get serious --

PENCE: Yeah, absolutely, I --

MATTHEWS: -- about if you say the science is mixed?

PENCE: Yeah, that's fair question, but look, I'm all for clean air. I'm all for clean coal technology. You just wait and see. We're going to go all across the country with these energy summits and --

MATTHEWS: Harrumph!

PENCE: -- hear from the American people, and we're going to educate the American people on a twenty-first century Republican --

MATTHEWS: Okay.

PENCE: -- agenda for the environment.

RUSH: So you see what's being set up here? Republicans are anti-science because -- and there's this word "belief." We don't believe that CO2 emissions are destroying the planet. Therefore, we're anti-science. And presumptive in this question is that there's no question at all about the science. The science is settled! That everybody knows that carbon dioxide emissions destroy the planet, and that's a false premise. It isn't true. So the effort here is to portray Republicans as Neanderthal on this basis. Here's the question if I had been on with Matthews last night. I would have ask him the following question: "Why is it, Chris, that you and all of the other environmentalists in the West who subscribe to the theories you subscribe to, always end up hurting poor people?"

And he would start sputtering and spewing and spitting.

I'd say, "Is it just a coincidence that your environmentalist policies hurt poor people?"

"What do you mean? What do you mean?"
"Well, go to Africa! Go to Africa where the environmental movement is denying technological improvement in terms of agriculture, air-conditioning, refrigeration. You want them to remain Third World countries under this silly belief that their primitive lifestyles will save the planet. All they're doing is staying poor. They're not advancing; they're starving to death! They're dependent on the rest of the world for whatever it is they get, but you're happy that they're starving and dependent because somehow they're 'saving the planet' because they have no CO2 emissions. Let's go to China. We have just learned that these new curlicue lightbulbs, these compact fluorescents...

"There's a story: 'Green Lightbulbs Poison Workers' The mercury in these lightbulbs is poisoning poor people in China who have to manufacture them. Why is it, Chris, that you say the science is totally settled here -- and the science is that the CO2 emissions are destroying the planet -- and yet when I look around, everybody that is benefiting so-called from your belief is poor and they're getting creamed! Why do you western environmentalists always end up hurting poor people, wherever it is?"

And I could then produce a list of scientists who don't buy into this at all. "Chris, you exhale CO2! By your standard, you are helping to destroy the planet. Here's the next bite from science into evolution."

PENCE: Do I believe in evolution? I embrace the view that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that's in them, and --

MATTHEWS: (interrupting) Right, but you believe in evolution from the beginning.

PENCE: The means, Chris, that He used to do that, I can't say, but I do believe --

MATTHEWS: (interrupting) You can't what?

PENCE: -- in that fundamental truth.

MATTHEWS: Well -- well did you take biology? (screaming) Did you take biology in school? Did you take science, which is all based on evolutionary belief and assumption?

PENCE: Well, I've always wanted to --

MATTHEWS: (screaming) If your party is to be credible on science, you've gotta accept science. Do you?

PENCE: Yeah, I want to --

MATTHEWS: Accept science?

PENCE: I always wanted to play in Inherit the Wind, but on the global warming issue --

MATTHEWS: (mocking laughter)

PENCE: -- I know that in the mainstream media...

MATTHEWS: See how you're hedging?

PENCE: In the mainstream media --

MATTHEWS: (screaming) This is why people don't trust Republicans!

PENCE: In mainstream media, Chris --

MATTHEWS: (snorting)

PENCE: -- there is a denial of the growing skepticism in the scientific community about global warming.

RUSH: See how this is working? I'm playing these sound bites because it isn't just Matthews. I want you to get ready for more of this to come down the pike. See? Republicans don't believe in science. You don't accept science! You Republicans are Neanderthals. So the premise is out there. Whether you're talking about global warming, evolution, regardless, the premise is out there: Republicans are Neanderthals and don't accept it. All Republicans do, have blind faith in God. Now, had I been on the program, this is an easy answer. Matthews' question: "You want to educate the American people about science and its relevance. Do you believe in evolution?"

"Yeah. I believe in evolution."

"Oh, you do? We got a Republican believes in evolution!"

"Yeah, wait, Chris! Wait, though! It can't explain creation. I mean, we've got both. Where did it come from, Chris? Don't give me the Big Bang. Don't give me evolution for the Big Bang. Where did this all come from, what was it before it was what it is? Certainly things evolve. There's no question. There's no denying it. But evolution does not explain creation."

(sputtering) "Buh, buh, buh, buh, but you're against science!"
"No, I'm not against science. I'm against lies. I'm against phony science. I'm against propaganda. I wish people like you would get smarter. You're a journalist; you're supposed to be curious. You're not curious about anything. You blindly believe whatever people on your side put out. I'm curious, Chris. I'm wise enough to know that there are answers to questions I will never get while on this earth. I am wise enough to know that as a human being, there are a lot of questions I can ask to which the answers will not be made available to me while I'm alive. I have the humility to understand that all this is much larger than I am. I am not in control of all of it, Chris. I can't master it and neither can Stephen Hawking and neither can you. And, by the way Chris, why are you trying to politicize this? And, by the way, Chris, you're Catholic. What's wrong with believing in God? Why don't you tell me, Chris: Is the pope a dummkopf? Is the pope anti-science? Is the pope somebody who ought to be thrown overboard?"

I don't know why our guys go on the shows. They don't have any audience anyway. Here's the final sound bite in this roster. Matthews says, "Look, I've asked, do you believe in evolution. Let me go back to the question. You don't take a fundamental view of the seven days of creation, do you? I mean, there were polls that show a huge percentage of the American people don't believe in evolution. A lot of people don't believe in climate change. I'm just questioning your passion of your party for climate change."

PENCE: Look, you know, I've supported extensive increases in funding to the National Institute of Health.

MATTHEWS: Humph!

PENCE: That happened under Republican administrations and Republican Congresses. This anti-science thing is a little bit weak.

MATTHEWS: (snide) The trouble is that your Mount Rushmore now includes Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and these characters that don't share either your intellect or your honesty, and thank you for showing your honesty today.

RUSH: Well, now what is it that Beck and Palin and I do not believe? (interruption) We're being dishonest? Okay. Now, what are Beck and Palin and I being dishonest about, H.R.? Because I've lost...? What are we being dishonest about? It's gotta be global warming, it's gotta be: Okay, we're "deniers." See, gets back to whatever. Matthews simply BELIEVES. He cannot intellectually prove his case, he cannot intellectually explain it. Do you remember...? I'll give you a great example. Juan Williams at Fox, who's a bright guy, heard Vaclav Havel from the Czech Republic when he was in the United States totally nuke the "science" of global warming. And Juan Williams said, "I'd never heard that. I'd never heard an alternative to..." These guys, they just believe it. Algore says it! The scientists at the green clubs, Sierra Club say it, and they believe it, just believe. There's no curiosity; there's no doubting. Some of them don't even see the left-wing agenda aspect of it. They really think they're good people here. Somehow people that deny global warming... I don't "deny" global warming, by the way, Chris. I just deny manmade global warming. Because, even if it's warming up, we can't cool it off -- and if we're heading into an ice age, we can't warm it up. We don't have the power. What Chris Matthews refers to as "stupidity" is a characteristic I think he ought to try to retain and get back -- and that's a little humility in the face of things much larger or complex than he can ever explain or understand.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I got a note from a friend of mine, and it's well worth mentioning here, talking about settled science, something to throw back at Chris Matthews. Hey, Chris, the American Psychiatric Association once classified homosexuality as a neurosis. Was that settled science? Did you believe them, Chris, when scientists came out, the American Psychiatric Association, a bunch of scientists, classified homosexuality as a neurosis? Was that settled science for you, Chris?
END TRANSCRIPT

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Funny how "politics" creeps into everything.

Quote:
I want to play these for you because it's very instructive about what the liberal media is attempting to do to Republicans: portray Republicans as anti-science; portray Republicans as not believing in evolution, only believe in creationism; blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I play this Matthews stuff for you because I don't think it's just Matthews. Normally I won't give a hoot, but I think this is a template that the left has come up with and that they're going to be hitting a whole lot of Republicans with over the course of the near future.
End quote.

All's fair in love, war, and politics, I guess. Many religionists (both Dems and Reps) do deny even the most obvious aspects of science, such as the age of the earth, the non-literal truth of the Bible's creation myth, etc. which opens them up to all sorts of criticism, both fair and foul. Republicans (such as the some members of the recent Bush Administrtion) who explicitly try to mix religion and politics invite such claims by the "liberal" press, who by the way seem to be quickly going out of business.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165060983493531.html

How an Evolutionary Garden Grows
By JAMES TARANTO
Cambridge, England

Quote:
Darwin was studying divinity at Cambridge University when John Stevens Henslow, a professor of mineralogy and botany, awakened his interest in natural history. "Henslow spotted something extraordinary in Darwin," Mr. Parker says. "He created somebody who was able to think. . . . Without Henslow, there would have been no Darwin."

Henslow himself had begun his research in botany in the 1820s, before Darwin arrived at Cambridge. As Mr. Parker explains, "The major consideration of the day, according to Henslow, was, What is the nature of species?" This, of course, is the question that became Darwin's life work. Henslow would invite the public on "rambles" around Cambridge to examine and collect local flora. As a student, Darwin participated so regularly that he became known locally as "the man who walks with Henslow." It was Henslow who recommended Darwin to the captain of the HMS Beagle, the ship from which he conducted his famous biological surveys of South America.

Henslow left another legacy: the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, which he established in 1831 to grow trees and other plants for research and teaching. Mr. Parker is now the garden's director. On a rainy spring afternoon, he led a group of journalists, visiting for a Templeton Fund conference, on an hour-long ramble of our own.

The centerpiece of the 40-acre garden is its 1,500 trees of 1,000 different species. Just inside the main gate is a giant redwood, "probably the biggest organism that's ever existed on the face of the Earth," says Mr. Parker. Two more stand some 600 feet away, at the other end of the garden's Main Walk. The redwoods here look a lot smaller than the ones I remember from a childhood trip to California's Sequoia National Park, and Mr. Parker explains why: "These are babies. These are only 150 years old. They're about 120 feet in height" -- one-third as tall as a full-grown redwood. "The oldest one we know is 3,500 years old, so at 150, this is still in its nappie stage."

The Main Walk, the only straight line in the garden, showcases the coniferous (cone-bearing) trees, including pines, cedars and spruces. On either side are curved paths with flowering trees: chestnuts, maples, poplars. Each genus of tree is planted in clusters of different species or subspecies, showing both continuity and variety -- for example, cedars from Lebanon, Morocco and the Himalayas. "They're arranged in a particular order, and they're arranged in families," Mr. Parker tells us as we stroll along one of the paths.

That order was set out in a book by Swiss botanist A.P. de Candolle. Mr. Parker explains how this works when we stop in the Systematic Bed, which holds 1,600 species from 100 families of herbaceous plants, divided into groups according to de Candolle. Mr. Parker shows us how one group is arranged: "[Henslow] took the first page of that group -- and it's the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae -- put it in, in the far corner of his particular quadrant here, turned the pages, and you work your way all the way round. The last page of the entire book is an American family called the Phytolaccaceae, the pokeweeds, which is on the opposite side of the hedge from the buttercups. So you've gone all the way round the book and you've come back where you started."

He adds: "There's nowhere else where a book has been translated onto the ground in this way. . . . Everything Henslow did, he did for art as well as for science."

The beds are replanted annually, and new trees are added each year too. "The garden never looks like a decrepit 19th-century garden, which many of them in this country now do," Mr. Parker says proudly.

Cambridge is not necessarily the ideal location for a botanic garden. As we stand amid the maples, Mr. Parker says those trees are "quite difficult for us to grow, because they tend to require an acid soil. This is a terrible soil, because it's really chalky, very calcareous, and it's not good for plant life of any sort."

If modern agriculture can compensate, Henslow's heirs aren't interested: "We do not dig if we can avoid it, we do not fertilize, we do not water, we do not spray. The plants either survive or die," Mr. Parker says. "The reason that these trees look so good . . . is that these are the survivors. They will survive under our conditions. . . . You grow them tough, they'll stay tough."

In case anyone hasn't gotten the point, he adds, "This is an evolutionary garden. What would you expect us to do?"
End quote.

Adam;

Sorry I am so late in responding to your “hobbit” article. But it is a classic example of why evolution is such a “soft science” in my and others book.

Debate has raged in the scientific community since the fossils were found on the island of Flores, with some experts insisting they were descended from Homo erectus and others saying evolution could not account for their small brains.

Evolution studies like this are of bones of dead creatures, not direct observations. So, causation cannot be proved. So, scientists have to resort to studying characteristics and DNA; and inferring that the changes they see are a byproduct of evolution.

But, as in this case, what they are seeing may not be the result of evolution at all; but other factors; in this case, "dwarf cretinism" caused by deficient thyroids. Because they don’t have the entire body, they can only speculate by examining other species.

In some ways it is very human. The big toe is aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the toes as the body's full weight falls on the foot -- attributes not found in great apes.

But in other respects it is startlingly primitive: far longer than its modern human equivalent and equipped with a very small big toe, long and curved lateral toes, and a weight-bearing structure closer to a chimpanzee's.

Recent archaeological evidence from Kenya shows that the modern foot evolved more than 1.5 million years ago, most likely in Homo erectus.

Once again, they can study differences in the fossils that has been uncovered to date. Along with hoaxes, the Chinese have been caught altering fossils to increase their value on the market. While they may be educated guesses, still guesses.

So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time – considered extremely unlikely -- they must have branched off the human line at an even earlier date.

How much evidence has been passed over to date because it did not fit their picture of the way events happened? The very nature of evolution violates the law of entropy – the world is winding down into a state of greater disorder; while evolution requires that the opposite is happening.

And there’s that “branch from the evolution tree”; though some now go with clouds of statistical data rather than inferring a “branching” that can’t be proved, since there was no one to see it.

But what still has not been explained the hobbit's inordinately small brain.

…

They were surprised to find that insular dwarfing -- driven by the need to adapt to an island environment -- shrank their brains far more than had previously been thought possible.

Once again, showing the “softness” of evolution theory; and how many of the changes attributed to the evolution of a species may just be the adaptation of a species to it’s environment; something that I think is plausible; but still not easy to prove the cause.

Only more fossil evidence will indicate whether the hobbits of Flores evolved from Homo erectus, whose traces have been found throughout Eurasia, or from an even more ancient lineage not yet found outside Africa, he said.

So there you go. Like global warming – oops global climate change --; it will take yet another expedition, another research study, another computer program to prove their point add infinitum. Your money, please.

And those lovable dinosaurs. After decades of study, they are still debating – hot blooded or cold; fast or slow; brightly colored or camo? And now… with feathers?

"Feathered" Fossil Bolsters Changing Image of Dinosaurs

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... rdino.html

From a series of fossil discoveries in recent years, scientists have been expanding the picture of dinosaurs to include creatures that apparently sported tufts of primitive feathers. On Wednesday, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City unveiled what observers say is a "remarkable" specimen showing a small dinosaur that had a feathered covering from head to foot.
The fossilized skeleton, which is on loan from the National Geological Museum of China, is embedded in two mirror slabs of rocks estimated to be 130 million years old. It was unearthed last spring by farmers digging in Liaoning Province in northeastern China.
Covered by lakes and active volcanoes millions of years ago, the region has yielded a treasure trove of fossils over the past decade that are unusually well preserved because the animal remains were buried in the lake bottom's fine sediment of volanic ash and muck. The anatomical details in the new specimen are so well etched that the scientists who analyzed it could discern a herringbone pattern in some of the creature's primitive feathers and even observe how they were attached.
"I've seen the specimen and other feathered dinosaur fossils, and this one is a visually spectacular specimen with a halo of feathers," said James Clark, an associate professor of biology at George Washington University. "It's well preserved and amazing—a small dinosaur surrounded by fur."
Clark said the new fossil is important because it offers far more complete and compelling evidence of "feathered dinosaurs" than most of the other similar specimens that have turned up in recent years, which have shown only patches of feathery fibers.
The team of U.S. and Chinese scientists who describe the find in this week's issue of the journal Nature say the fossilized creature belonged to a group of small, fleet-footed dinosaurs known as dromaeosaurs, which are the most closely related dinosaurs to modern-day birds.
"We're pretty confident it's a dromaeosaurus," said Mark Norell, chairman of the division of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. The discovery is part of a long-time research collaboration by Norell and Ji Qiang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.
Norell said the scientists based their conclusion on the presence of several anatomical features that are unique to dromaeosaurs, including a hyper-extendable curved claw on the middle toe and stiffening rods in the tail.
Dromaeosaurs are a subgroup of a dinosaur class known as advanced theropods, whose members included the well-known predator Tyrannosaurus rex.
Norell said the new fossil and similar evidence of feathered dinosaurs acquired in the past decade is "radically" altering common ideas about the nature of dinosaurs such as theropods. "We've experienced dramatic changes in the way we view dinosaurs, going from scaly Godzilla lizards to weird birds," he said.
Because birds and some dinosaurs, particularly theropods, have so many anatomical features in common, most paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts have come to believe that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
The presence of feathers does not necessarily mean that a dinosaur could fly. Some non-avian dinosaurs—especially smaller species—may have acquired a downy coat to help maintain their body temperature, the scientists speculate.
"Modern birds are warm-blooded and their feathers play an integral role in keeping them warm, so a reasonable idea is that non-avian dinosaurs developed primitive feathers at the same time they developed warm-bloodedness," said Norell.
Whether dinosaurs were warm- or cold-blooded is still open to debate. The widely assumed connection between birds and dinosaurs is also the subject of contention among a small but influential group of scientists.
The bird-dinosaur link was first proposed more than a century ago by Thomas Henry Huxley, a contemporary of Charles Darwin. The idea got a considerable boost in the 1970s when a Yale University scientist named John Ostrom documented close similarities between dinosaurs and the skeleton of a well-defined early birdlike creature.
Storrs Olson, curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution's Natural History Museum, is one of the most highly vocal critics of the theory that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs. He and others of a like mind say the theropod origin of birds has been oversold on the basis of "wishful thinking," and that fossil evidence suggesting that some dinosaurs had feathers is too sketchy to bear out the claims. Any true feathers that have been documented could have come from birds that nested amid theropods, some suggest.
In an open letter he sent in 1999 to National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration, which has funded some of the recent dinosaur fossil discoveries, Olson called the theory of feathered dinosaurs the "paleontological equivalent of cold fusion."
He issued the highly critical letter after National Geographic magazine published a story in November 1999 reporting on several feathered dinosaur specimens that scientists claimed were "a missing link" between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds that could fly. One of the specimens from China was later found to be a composite, which prompted an internal investigation of the incident.
Among his comments, Olson said that "none of the structures illustrated in [the] article that are claimed to be feathers have actually been proven to be feathers."
Emerging Species
Whether the fossilized dinosaur now on display in New York represents a new species is not yet clear. Clark speculates that it may belong to one of several theropod species that have emerged in recent years.
The paper in Nature describes the embedded creature as having matted tufts of feather-like filaments on nearly every part of its body. Downy fibers sprout from its head and tail; its arms bear branched structures that resemble the barbed feathers of modern birds.
While the new dinosaur specimen is clearly exciting for the level of detail it provides, Clark said the discovery should be viewed in the context of a steadily growing body of evidence that is rapidly advancing scientific knowledge about dinosaur "integuments," or bodily coverings. "We already knew that some dinosaurs had this kind of feathered integument," Clark said, "but this [latest fossil] is giving us a much better picture of what it was like."

adam wrote:If modern agriculture can compensate, Henslow's heirs aren't interested: "We do not dig if we can avoid it, we do not fertilize, we do not water, we do not spray. The plants either survive or die," Mr. Parker says. "The reason that these trees look so good . . . is that these are the survivors. They will survive under our conditions. . . . You grow them tough, they'll stay tough."

In case anyone hasn't gotten the point, he adds, "This is an evolutionary garden. What would you expect us to do?"
End quote.

No, it is an adapting garden. No new species evolving from it; just survival of the fittest.

(How can that be in the world of Obamanation? Shouldn't the weaker plants be living on fertilizer; or the stronger plants and trees chopped down so the weaker ones can flourish? Don't we owe the weaker plants something for decades of natural discrimination? I demand several trillion dollars to right this wrong worldwide!!!!)

Quote:
No, it is an adapting garden. No new species evolving from it; just survival of the fittest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation

Quote:
Adaptation is one of the basic phenomena of biology.[1] It is the process whereby an organism becomes better suited to its habitat.[2] Also, the term adaptation may refer to a characteristic which is especially important for an organism's survival. For example, the adaptation of horses' teeth to the grinding of grass, or their ability to run fast and escape predators. Such adaptations are produced in a variable population by the better suited forms reproducing more successfully, that is, by natural selection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

Quote:
Natural selection is the process where heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive long enough to reproduce become more common over successive generations of a population. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

The natural variation within a population of animals, plants, bacteria, etc. means that some individuals will survive better than others in their current environment. For example, the peppered moth exists in both light and dark colors in the United Kingdom, but during the industrial revolution many of the trees on which the moths rested became blackened by soot, giving the dark-colored moths an advantage in hiding from predators. This gave dark-colored moths a better chance of surviving to produce dark-colored offspring, and in just a few generations the majority of the moths were dark.

Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, but the genetic (heritable) basis of any phenotype which gives a reproductive advantage will increase in frequency over the following generations. Over time, this process can result in adaptations that specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species. In other words, natural selection is an important process (though not the only process) by which evolution takes place within a population of organisms.

Natural selection is one of the cornerstones of modern biology. The term was introduced by Charles Darwin in his groundbreaking 1859 book On the Origin of Species[1] in which natural selection was described by analogy to artificial selection, a process by which animals with traits considered desirable by human breeders are systematically favored for reproduction. The concept of natural selection was originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of heredity; at the time of Darwin's writing, nothing was known of modern genetics. The union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in classical and molecular genetics is termed the modern evolutionary synthesis. Natural selection remains the primary explanation for adaptive evolution.

Natural selection is the process where heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive long enough to reproduce become more common over successive generations of a population. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

Yes, and I have no problem with Natural selection/adaptation. I've seen it being played out in the South, and is documented on the Natchez Trace - over the decades, the pine trees have been disappearing, because with their low hanging branches, they cannot compete for sunlight with leafy trees, which have a leaf canopy higher up, and blocks sunlight to the pine tree's lower needles. With the southern pine beetle causing faster losses, pine trees may all but disappear.

But God made them as stated in the Bible. Most, if not all Creationists have no problem with Darwin's Natural selection. For the upteenth time, it is the theory that one, different species evolved from another, and not Creationalism that is the problem. It has never been observed, attempts to do so by man (like the mule) turn out sterile, and as shown by the scatter graph of brain size; statistics regarding physical characteristics do not always bare it out; much less prove it. Now, this study proves that other factors such as "dwarf cretinism" may influence brain size and height as well; does that render the following graph of cranial capacities versus species of no use, or explain the outlyers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hominins_1950.png

The garden proves natural selection, or adaptation. But once again, no new species will ever come from it.

Quote:
I have no problem with Natural selection/adaptation. I've seen it being played out in the South, and is documented on the Natchez Trace - over the decades, the pine trees have been disappearing, because with their low hanging branches, they cannot compete for sunlight with leafy trees, which have a leaf canopy higher up, and blocks sunlight to the pine tree's lower needles. With the southern pine beetle causing faster losses, pine trees may all but disappear.

But God made them as stated in the Bible.
End quote.

James,
Interesting. I don't see the difference in differential viability in pine trees and animals (including dinosaurs). Lots of evidence of extinct species of each kind (both plants and animals).

Inquiry: What (in your view) is/was the functional purpose for creating organisms with varying viability? Why not just create them perfect (for their environment)?

adam wrote:James,
Interesting. I don't see the difference in differential viability in pine trees and animals (including dinosaurs). Lots of evidence of extinct species of each kind (both plants and animals).

Inquiry: What (in your view) is/was the functional purpose for creating organisms with varying viability? Why not just create them perfect (for their environment)?

The problem (and the problem I have with carbon-14 dating pre-flood) is that the environment is not steady-state. Mankind's influence only makes things worst.

It states in Genesis that prior to the flood, it did not rain; rather that a mist rose from the ground to water the plants. When the flood occurred, it is written that God opened the fountains of the earth and the sky; so water rose from below as well as fell from what must have been a thick cloud layer in pre-flood times.

This would explain why men lived longer pre-flood -- they were exposed to to less radiation from the sun prior to the flood, so their bodies were less subjected to aging (which is the bodies' growing inability to replace dead cells with healthy new ones.) And, since carbon 14 dating is dependent on atmospheric conditions, it could have the effect of throwing off the carbon 14 "scale."

One of the most frequent uses of radiocarbon dating is to estimate the age of organic remains from archaeological sites. When plants fix atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into organic material during photosynthesis they incorporate a quantity of 14C that approximately matches the level of this isotope in the atmosphere (a small difference occurs because of isotope fractionation, but this is corrected after laboratory analysis). After plants die or they are consumed by other organisms (for example, by humans or other animals) the 14C fraction of this organic material declines at a fixed exponential rate due to the radioactive decay of 14C. Comparing the remaining 14C fraction of a sample to that expected from atmospheric 14C allows the age of the sample to be estimated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating

After the flood, once the ground and atmosphere was saturated with water, some of it could have been loss into space. (Some observations on Mars suggest that there was more water on Mars at one time; but that it has since either been locked into the soil or polar ice, or lost into space.) The resulting environment may have been a drier and hotter or cooler one, that favored certain plant and animal species; even though examples of every animal species were saved on the ark.

In more recent times, changes in global temperatures and rainfall, and local events like a volcanic eruption can cause changes that favor one speices over another. It is well known that man is another factor.

We still do not know what caused dinosaurs, which obviously was the dominating species of their time, to disappear. Did the earth become dryer, cooler? Did changes in the plants that predominated the earth's surface cause them to die (i.e., they could not be like Euell Gibbons, and eat pine cones?) Was it a giant meteor or comet that changed the environment and caused them to die off?

We know that the earth and areas of it have been subject to cycles of temperature and rainfall over time, but we don't know the cause of it. Unless we understand the cause, we cannot determine what effect man might have on global weather conditions. The environment over recorded history has been anything but steady state; such as the "year without a summer."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_without_a_summer

I don't know what the functional purpose of a Dodo bird could have been; a cockroach is easier to figure out. But, the Dodo bird was able to hold his own, until man came along and upset the balance of the Dodo bird's environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird

It could not adapt to presence of man in his environment, so it died off. And none of this has to do with the evolving of one species from another. (Some thought that mammals first appeared in the form of tiny mice like creatures, they then ate all the dinosaur eggs, and caused them to die off. But this was never proven; I don't know if anyone still thinks this anymore.)

Inquiry: What (in your view) is/was the functional purpose for creating organisms with varying viability? Why not just create them perfect (for their environment)?

Perhaps so you and James and Bill and I could sit here in May, 2009 AD (or to be pc CE) and discuss how many angels dance on the head of a pin?

Btw did you know barely 1/3 of Americans can just barely name the 3 branches of government, much less say what they do? The same poll shows roughly 2/3 s of Americans can name American Idol judges but have no idea what Supreme Court judges do or are.