Comment on An apology to PUC by Sean Pitman.
@Eddie:
So Sean, when exactly did the ice ages occur? How long was it between the end of the flood and the onset of the first ice age, during which all those slow-poke plants (e.g., liverworts and hornworts) and animals (forgot to mention millipedes, centipedes, scorpions and freshwater minnows) had to dash across Beringia en route to South America before freezing to death? Was there only one ice age or were there multiple ice ages? How much rain would it have taken for ice to accumulate up to 2 miles deep (that’s right, up to 10,500 feet in Greenland) since the flood?
There is good evidence that there were no polar ice caps and that it was quite warm after the Flood for at least 500 years… long enough for millions of mammoths to establish themselves, along with those of many other types of warmer weather animals such as the horse, lion, tiger, leopard, bear, antelope, camel, reindeer, giant beaver, musk sheep, musk ox, donkey, ibex, badger, fox, wolverine, voles, squirrels, bison, rabbit and lynx as well as a host of temperate plants within the Arctic Circle – along the same latitudes as Greenland all around the globe.
After this time, there was a sudden ice age that trapped millions of these creatures within a single season, killing millions of them and preserving their remains, all jumbled up together. The world was a really different place within recent history. It was a much much warmer and wetter place. Even within the Arctic Circle it was warm. Large fruit-bearing trees grew there and a great abundance of animal life was supported which cannot now exist there. Yet, for some reason, even though the Greenland ice sheets are melting right now at a rate of over 250 cubic kilometers per year, scientists somehow believe that these ice sheets survived the Hypsithermal period? – a warm period some 2 degrees Celsius hotter (global average) than it is today? – and lasting until the time the Egyptians were building their pyramids? Based on what? How could everything around the same latitudes as Greenland be warm and lush, and Greenland remain covered with ice? You explain that to me…
Not even Erv Taylor and the 99.9% of scientists that agree with him have been able to explain that one away…
http://www.detectingdesign.com/ancientice.html#The%20Warm%20Age
Also, who said that plants had to migrate? Plants, or their seeds, could have survived outside of the Ark. You keep forgetting that only the land animals with “nostrils” needed to be saved on the Ark to avoid complete destruction by the Flood.
You also forget that the Earth isn’t that big of a place. Even small insects and amphibians can migrate very rapidly given the appropriate conditions and sources of food. Right after the Flood, the warm wet climate would have yielded abundant food for hundreds of years. The continents would not have been nearly as widely separated as they are today. There would have been many more land bridges. Even after the ice ages hit, there would have been more land bridges than there are today due to a significant reduction in ocean level.
As far as the thickness of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets in particular, ice can form very rapidly over very short periods of time. Even today, a period of relatively decreased moisture, dozens of snow storms can hit Greenland in a single season. Along the coasts where moisture is greater and more storms arise, snow can be deposited hundreds of feet thick within 50 years (this is actually documented by the team that search for a recovered a WWII era plane dubbed “Glacier Girl” from deep within the ice sheets of Greenland). How then do you come to the conclusion that the present thickness of these ice sheets is some great mystery from the biblical perspective?
I short, I really don’t see animal migration or current biogeographic distributions or thickness of modern ice sheets as the huge problems for the credibility of a worldwide Noachian Flood that you and others imagine them to be…
Sorry if I seem inquisitive but I’m merely asking some simple questions which I’m confident you’ll have answers for, buttressed of course by overwhelming scientific evidence validating your views. After all, you have spent much more time studying all of this stuff than I have–and my faith just might hinge on your answers.
There’s a difference between having a reasonable faith or belief in the existence of some kind of God or God-like power in the universe and having a rational faith in the credibility of the Bible in particular – vs. other “good books” like the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an. If someone where to ask you why you believe the Bible to be somehow superior or to reveal more privileged information than any other book on God, what would you say? What are your reasons?
I’m sorry, but a response that “I just have faith” just wouldn’t do it for me. Personal faith that is not based on generally available empirical evidence might be fine and good for the one who has faith, but how does that help those outside of yourself? What “reasons” can you offer them that would have general appeal?
The reason most people find “science” so powerful as a basis of faith is because it appeals to generally available empirical evidence. That is a very powerful appeal to the rational mind. We, as Christians who believe in the credibility of the Bible should take advantage of this. We should also be able to appeal to the weight of empirical evidence. After all, this is exactly what the Biblical authors do in their own support of the authority of the Scriptures. Jesus is reported as doing the same thing – appealing to empirical evidence to support his metaphysical claims…
In short, faith in the metaphysical is not rational if it is not and cannot be rooted in the physical realm… in empirical reality.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
An apology to PUC
@OTNT_Believer:
Must you keep harping on the one statement on Darwin’s finches that few other than yourself and maybe some other creationists disagree with?
I have yet to see you present one phenotypic or genetic difference between any of Darwin’s Finches and other members of the Dome-nest Clade which could not be rapidly realized in a few thousand years. Certainly a 0.3% difference in cytochrome b isn’t a significant problem. I’m not sure what else makes you think that Darwin’s Finches are no uniquely evolved that they could not be explained as originating from Noah’s Ark a few thousand years ago?
As far as your arguments for the date of the first Egyptian dynasty being preceded by over a thousand years of cultural development, it simply doesn’t take very long for groups of humans to develop complex cultures and governments. Also, there are those who argue that the date for the first dynasty is more likely to be less than 4,500 years ago. Either way, the dating of Egyptian dynasties is hardly a very solid basis for challenging the historical SDA position on origins…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
The “striking phenotypic differences, and even unique genetic differences†among different populations of humans and dogs are the results of random mutation, genetic drift, natural selection or (in the case of dogs) artificial selection–not “some span of reproductive isolation.â€
It doesn’t matter how the reproductive isolation is achieved, be it “artificial” or “natural”. The resulting phenotypic differences are much more obvious between certain breeds of dogs or even various human ethnic groups than between certain “cryptic” species.
The reason why cryptic species are given taxonomic status while various breeds of dogs and human ethnic groups are not seems arbitrary to me. There really is no clear dividing line for taxonomic status on the one hand, but not on the other…
Humans don’t depend on the color or texture of eyes, hair and skin to avoid mating with chimps or apes, or even different groups of humans.
Are you kidding me? Humans are indeed biased in the choice of a mate toward those of similar phenotypic appearance. While this is not a universal rule (as is also the case with many kinds of cryptic species who also experience the occasional hybrids), it is certainly a bias.
When a female poodle is in heat, it doesn’t matter what “breed†a male dog belongs to, it is equally stimulated and could care less about the length, color or texture of eyes, hair, ears, snout, legs, tail, etc. The reproductive isolating method between dogs (genus Canis) and foxes (genus Vulpes) is likely based on olfaction rather than external morphology.
Have you considered the efforts of a Great Dane to mate with a chihuahua? Come on now, there are clear examples of not only artificial but natural reproductive isolate between various breeds of dogs and even between various human ethnic groups. Aborigines have arguably experienced some time of natural isolation, as have numerous other ethnic groups of modern and ancient humans. Unique phenotypic and even genotypic features were realized that are arguably more significant than the differences between the songs or nest structure of cryptic species of birds or the other very minor variations between cryptic species of frogs or giraffes, etc…
Again, don’t pretend like this is entirely objective science. It isn’t. There is a a fair amount of subjectivity in play here…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
An apology to PUC
@OTNT_Believer:
And the fact that taxonomists use a b it of subjectivity is a new revelation? Come on Sean, you are nitpicking. Of course there is some subjectivity.
Hey, I’m not the one who came out and said that the differences between Darwin Finches and all other birds were so dramatic and clear cut and objectively understood that they could not be reasonably explained in just a few thousand years… or that the Egyptian dynasties are definitively known to go back over 6,000 years (when they probably go back no more than 4,500 years)…
A “bit” of subjectivity involved here? – no?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
