From: muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen)
Subject: Re: YOUNG EARTHERS _AND_ BIBLE CRITICS WATCH OUT! (huh?)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 09:33:43 GMT

From: kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)

>> It is enough, therefore, to show that what is there is consistent, 
>> which it is.  If you have evidence to the contrary, lets see it.
>
>With pleasure. Ross has
>
>> 5.  production of plants on the continent(s)
>
>Here is the text:
>
>> {Genesis 1:11}
>> And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
>> and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
>> itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
>
>This is day 3, before the creation of water creatures and birds on day 5.
>Unfortunately, fruit trees are angiosperms, and angiosperms didn't evolve
>until about 140 mil years BP in the early Cretaceous, well after the
>appearance of water animals. Ross is wrong; this is out of order.

"'Let the waters teem with swarms of living 
creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the
heavens.' And God created the great sea monsters, and _every_ living creature
that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and _every_ winged
bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good." (emph mine)

First, what is meant by water creatures is far less clear than what is meant
by fruit trees.  I'll give you this one, pending point #2:

I am wondering about these periods (more on "day" later).  Assume for a
moment that "day" should be rendered as "indefinite period".  Let day 3 be
the creation of all vegetable life, and day 5 be the creation of all water
"creatures" and birds.  Draw lines on a time line, with the start being at
the supposed occurence of such life, and the end a realistic conclusion to
development.  Which region (in general) occupies the earliest time?  I am
genuinely interested, and I am guessing that you have better resources than
I.  When it says "and God saw that it was good", that makes me think the day
marks the completion of the task, and maybe the sequence could be ordered
based on these endpoints in time, or at least as an average.

In fact, "and there was evening, and there was morning, a third day." would
seem to suggest this completion scheme, would it not??  Just something to
think about...  I don't think the Bible says that days cannot overlap, as
each day is referenced only at its conclusion.

>
>Genesis 1:20-24 has birds created before reptiles ("creeping things") -- the
>fossil evidence suggests birds evolved from dinosaurs. Again, Ross is wrong;
>this is out of order.

See above argument.

>
>Genesis 2:5 says that Eden was watered by a mist rising from the ground,
>"for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth". Fossilized
>marks from raindrops in mud which then dried have been found, and predate
>humans. Ross is wrong; the data does not match the Genesis account.

How do you identify a fossilized raindrop!?!  C'mon...  This may be true, but
I don't think you can build much on it.

>Genesis has dry land emerging from the watery waste. Modern theories have
>water exuded from the crust. Again, the Genesis order does not match current
>scientific views.

OK, but nobody knows for sure... :-)

>Genesis 1:30 has all the animals being plant eaters. Are we to understand
>that Ross claims there is no evidence of predation in the fossil record, or
>does Ross explain the verse in some other fashion?

One thing at a time.  I have no desire to show that Genesis is a complete
account - only that it is remarkably accurate in what it does say from a
modern science point of view.  It is certainly possible that such a period
existed, if this is really what is meant.  

>Genesis has land plants (5 in Ross' list) created before sea life (7 in
>Ross' list). By the end of the Cambrian, almost all animal phyla had
>appeared; plants were still limited to algae. Ross is wrong; the Genesis
>order does not agree with the scientific evidence.

See completion musings...

>> >> We are told, too, that the earth's atmosphere (and/or
>> >> interplanetary debris) blocked out the light that exists throughout
>> >> the universe.  Light could not pass through to the surface.
>> >
>> >We are told no such thing. Ross is making the common Fundamentalist mistake
>> >of conflating his reading of the text with the text itself. 
>> 
>> No, he is making the UNmistake of responsibly integrating science and
>> scripture.  Genesis says it was dark even though we know the stars existed,
>> and we also know with some certainty that there _was_ such a cloud cover
>> through science, and scripture _does_ say that God was hovering over the
>> _surface_ of the waters, which places the point of view under the cloud
>> cover, and _responsibly_ explains the seeming contradiction.  
>
>Thank you for proving my point by demonstrating that you also don't
>understand the difference between a text and a reading of that text. Ross
>post hoc applies modern scientific findings to generate a reading of the
>text which is (he claims) consistent with the evidence, and then computes a
>(bogus) probability of guessing the order of events in that reading of the
>text to claim that the text is inspired. I'm not saying that I think his
>conclusion is wrong -- even a blind dog hits the hydrant on occasion -- I'm
>just saying that his argument doesn't support that conclusion.

OK, ok.  But give the guy a break...  Remeber that he isn't building this
from nothing, rather he is attempting to show that his preconception holds.
I can live with this approach, while some cannot.  It is the difference
between not believing until proven true and believing until proven false.
You must admit it is interesting to think about!  Call me stupid for taking
this approach, but 1 Cor 13 calls it loving... :-)

>> >> The following table lists the eleven major milestones in order, giving
>> >> suitable English equivalents for those verbs. 
>> >
>> >For "major milestones" read "the events whose order happens to work out".
>> >I have, for instance, a list of 41 items (anonymous, but "Based on the
>> >initial work of Richard Nielssen as contained in THE CREATION RESEARCH
>> >SOCIETY QUARTERLY, March 1980, pp. 220-221") which states in its
>> >introduction, "Listed below is a close examination and comparison of the
>> >supposed evolutionary sequence with that of the Biblical record. This
>> >comparison reveals numerous contradictions which such reinterpretation
>> >attempts are unable to harmonize." 
>> 
>> Don't keep me in suspense!  Lets see 'em!!
>
>Here are excerpts chosen to avoid items arising from differences in the 
>old Earth creationist and young Earth creationist readings of the text:
>"THE EVOLUTIONARY SCENARIO            THE BIBLICAL RECORD
> 5. The earth initially had a         5. The earth was created with a
>    molten surface.                      cool, liquid surface. Gen 1:2

"God created the heavens and the earth."  What happened between 1:1 and 1:2?
Could be col1 to col2 above...

>10. Land was formed before the       10. The oceans were formed before
>    oceans.                              land appeared. Gen 1:9

Oh well...  And I was doing so good!  Maybe I will think more clearly after
some sleep...

>13. Plants evolved over a long       13. Plants were created with seeds
>    period of time.                      and fruit on their first day
>                                         of existance. Gen 1:11-12

<BUZZ>  No fair concluding 24 hr periods!  Thats not agreed upon!
Once again, I would like to see where the "days" end...

>18. Many animals and plants          18. All animal and plant kinds have
>    became extinct before man            lived contemporaneously with
>    evolved.                             man. Gen 1:20-30, 2:20

No way - nowhere do I read "every thing that ever was".  I think "everything
at this point in time" will do quite nicely.

>19. Reptiles evolved into birds.     19. Birds were created before
>                                          "creeping things." Gen 1:20-24

What is a creeping thing anyway?  I think I squished one on my way out of the
house today... :-(  Guesswork...  This does the same thing you accuse Ross of
- making "creeping thing" mean "reptile".  I mean really... :-)

>21. Early animals were carniverous.  21. Early animals were plant eaters
>                                         and did not become carniverous 
>                                         until after either the Fall or
>                                         Flood. Gen 1:29,30

Maybe, but can you show that this period never existed?  I don't think it
puts a serious damper on the thrust of the account.

>27. It has always rained upon earth. 27. Prior to the Flood there was no
>                                         rain. Gen 2:5-6, 9:11-17

According to fossil record? ;-)

>30. The first animals that could be  30. The first man, Adam, was a 
>    considered as human were hunters.    gardener (Gen 2:15); later he
>    Hundreds of thousands of years       became a farmer (Gen 3:17-19)...
>    later man became a farmer.           No more than 9 generations later
>                                         man became a hunter (Gen 9:3)"

Assuming that these early "men" were human.  These relies on the belief that
animals evolved into humans.  As Ross points out, Genesis says that God made
humans, and the Hebrew word adds "from scratch"...

>> >> The odds that Moses could have guessed the correct order even if he
>> >> were given the events are 1 chance in 40 million.
>
>Given that 11! is 39,916,800, it seems pretty clear what Ross' model is.
>It's a stupid model. No one would give an ordering in which land plants
>appeared before the land. No one would give an ordering in which land
>animals appeared before land. No one would give an ordering in which ocean
>animals appeared before the oceans. No one would put the creation of any of
>2-11 before the creation of #1 on Ross's list (can you picture a creation
>account that described plants as created before matter?). 

I agree totally and 100%... I also noticed this, and thought it was
exceedingly strange.  It would still be a remarkable bunch of guesswork,
though, wouldn't you say?

I think he even says he used 11! somewhere.  Of course this comes from a book
that explains scientific notation in the preface - I don't think he was
shooting for a mathematically (or even logically) rigorous model.  He was
only showing that it would be improbable.  I do think it is a stupid model,
though... 

>> >Sorry, but if you have a list of N events, you can't pick a subset of 11
>> >that happen to be in the right order, compute the odds of getting the order
>> >of those 11 right, and ignore the ones that are wrong.
>
>Actually, I'll put this more strongly -- even some of the 11 he does present
>are not in the correct order, as shown above.

Depending... (this is the little voice that says "do the timeline")

>> >Let's see...70% of all forms of algae go extinct at the end of the
>> >Precambrian, 90%+ of all marine species go extinct at the end of the Permian,
>> >and all the dinosaurs + >50% of all invertebrate marine species go extinct
>> >at the end of the Cretaceous, and you think *we're* in the middle of a big
>> >extinction event?
>> >
>> >I suppose you have equally good evidence that the emergence of new species
>> >has fallen off?
>> 
>> "According to the fossil record, more and more species of life came into
>> existence through the millennia before modern man.  Through time, the
>> number of extinctions nearly balanced the number of introductions, but
>> introductions remained slightly more numerous.  Then came mankind.  In the
>> years of human history, the extinction rate has remained high while the
>> introduction rate measures a virtual zero.  
>
>First of all, I'm skeptical of the accuracy of measurements of speciation
>rates during the geologically very brief period anatomically modern humans
>have existed. This is a _claim_ by Ross. What is his _evidence_ -- what
>papers does he cite to support this claim?

Ehrlich, Paul R., Ehrlich, Anne H., and Holdren, J. P.  "Ecoscience:
Population, Resources, Environment." (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1977).

(above) "Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of
Species. (New York: Ballantine, 1981).

>Second of all, there have been a number of mass extinction events where the
>extinction rate far exceeded the rate of introduction of new species over a
>limited period of time.
>
>> Though estimates of the
>> current extinction rate vary widely, from a low of one species per day to
>> a high of five species per hour, and though man's influence upon that rate
>> is significant, even without man's impact at least one species per year
>> goes extinct.
>
>And how many species per year were going extinct at the end of the Permian,
>when 90+% of all marine species went extinct?

I guess that day was done! :-)

>> At the same time, as biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich
>> report, "the production of a new animal species in nature has yet to be
>> documented."  
>
>Given the size of the haystack, and the number of people searching for the
>needle, this is hardly suprising.
>
>> Furthermore, "...in the vast majority of cases, the rate of
>> change is so slow that it has not even been possible to detect an increase
>> in the amount of differentiation."
>
>That's right -- welcome to the wonderful world of punctuatated equilibrium.
>Species evolve in peripheral isolates. If you don't stumble on the right
>population, you won't see the differentiation. Also, the rate of species
>appearance is not constant. Williamson's work with the Lake Turkana fauna
>established that (NATURE 293:437).
>
>> Only a theory...  I don't think it really matters, but it is something to
>> think about.  At least give me that "day" does not mean a 24 hour period.
>> This is simply a feature of the Hebrew word yowm, which can mean any
>> unspecified length of time.
>
>I'm not a young earth creationist, nor do I play one on TV, but from what
>I've heard them say I see no reason to give you that. James Hall of Liberty
>University points out that "yom" is used over 900 times in the OT for a
>literal 24-hour day. Falwell claims "olam" is the word used in the OT for an
>indefinite period, not "yom", citing Ex 31:16-17, Ps 33:6,7,9, Matt 19:4,
>and I Tim 2:12-14 as evidence that the Genesis days are meant to be viewed
>as literal 24-hour days.
>
>Karl

I'll reply to this after I get response on the above.  I'm way to tired
right now to type in another chapter.  I think it would be helpful to this
conversation if you could manage to latch on to a copy.  By far most of the
book is on cosmology, and even I think he does a better job on that
than on applying his conclusions to Genesis.

<yawn> g'night...

John M.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan