Sean&#032Pitman: The various concepts I’ve presented to you regarding the …

Comment on Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit by Eddie.

Sean&#032Pitman: The various concepts I’ve presented to you regarding the potential and limits of RM/NS only seem incompatible to you because you’ve spent very little if any time considering what actually happens to this mechanism at various levels of functional complexity. Once you actually start to investigate the concept of levels of functional complexity and the nature of sequence space at various levels of functional complexity, things will start to come into focus for you too… and you’ll be able to move beyond your more or less empirically blind faith to a more rational understanding of the claims of the Bible regarding origins.

Why is it that so many geneticists arrive at a different conclusion? Is it because they spend less time investigating levels of functional complexity and sequence spacing than you do? Or because their conclusions are based on faith, unlike yours?

Eddie Also Commented

Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
@Bob Helm: A remnant population of lions still exists in India.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
@Bob Helm: If I recall correctly, John Ostrom, who studied the theropod-like features of Archaeopteryx, exaggerated its reptilian features, including its lizard-like (saurischian) hips, but later studies revealed its hips to be distinctly bird-like (ornithischian). Critics of the theropod origin of birds consider the lizard-like hips of theropods to be a serious flaw.

As for Protoavis, its bones were rather smashed so I doubt the hips bones were preseved well enough to interpret their shape.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Sean&#032Pitman: At what point is a distinct species realized? For example, just how different does one have to be, genetically, to be classified as a different species? How many mutations, for a given stretch of DNA, does it take to consistently define a novel species with universal application?

Two species could potentially differ by a single mutation if the mutation happens to code for a reproductive isolating mechanism (consistent with the Biological Species Concept).


Recent Comments by Eddie

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

Sean&#032Pitman: The Bible has proven so accurate about the life of Nebuchadnezzar (when the “higher critics” long claimed that he never existed, that he was just a myth), that I would accept the Biblical claim of Egypt’s defeat without extra-Biblical confirmation.
However, in this particular case, there is extra-Biblical evidence of Nebuchadnezzar attacking and conquering Egypt:

What are the extrabiblical sources for evidence of Nebuchadnezzar attacking and conquering Egypt? The only sources you quoted above were Biblical.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Very interesting, that is an old reference. As I recall I once looked up those verses in the SDA Bible Commentary, which stated it was difficult to understand what event would have fulfilled the prophecies. The prophecy has troubled me for years, so I’m happy to see there is an extrabiblical reference to Nebuchadnessar fighting in Egypt, even if it doesn’t provide any details about conquering Egypt.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

Sean&#032Pitman: Others, who do not have your experience and background, will often be strongly influenced by claims for the supposed weight of empirical evidence against the claims of the Bible… since most do not have a sufficient background to understand that the weight of evidence strongly supports the Biblical perspective.

Does that mean that any SDA scientist who obtains a PhD degree, develops a successful research program with dozens of publications in peer-reviewed journals, and remains a young life creationist who is committed to the mission of the SDA Church, yet disagrees with you that “the weight of evidence strongly supports the Biblical perspective,” simply lacks “a sufficient background to understand that the weight of evidence”?

To be rather candid, Sean, this is the attitude that scares the daylight out of SDA scientists and other scholars who honestly disagree with you. For some reason you and others seem to conclude that there is either something deficient in (1) their ability to interpret data or (2) their commitment to God. No matter what such scholars have to say, their views will be considered heretical and unworthy of an SDA employee. Maybe that is why so few are willing to dialog with you on this forum.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

Sean&#032Pitman: For example, the LDS claim that the American Indians are really descendants from the lost tribes of Israel is a testable potentially falsifiable claim. If this claim is tested and shown to be false, as it has been, it reduces the credibility of the story teller for anything else the story teller has to say.

The same would be true if falsifiable elements of the Biblical stories were shown to be false as well. Such demonstrations would lessen the credibility of the Biblical story tellers with regard to anything else they have to say…

The Bible makes multiple falsifiable prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt, yet history never records it happening. Does this mean the Bible is effectively falsified? Here are the texts:

Ezekiel 29:19-20: “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 30:10-11: “Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon. He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.”

Jeremiah 46:13: “The word that the LORD spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt.”

Jeremiah 46:25-26: “The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saith; Behold, I will punish the multitude of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods, and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him: And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD.”