Couldn't resist. The Door was left WIDE OPEN

Celtic,

The way you phrase your comment is a whole lot easier to stomach than the screaming liar approach.

So I will attempt to clarify why I keep coming back to chance. Just for you.

I am not banging the same gavel for any other reason than to say that IMO "natural selection" walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..."

but it most certainly isn't a duck, b/c a duck has a brain. I'm just saying that exchanging natural selection for chance does not solve the problem IMHO. It still feels an awful lot like a disorderly, chaotic, random, directionless nothing. IMO Maybe it helps to add IMO. I do have a tendency (like our mutual friend, Barefoot) to assume my opinion is the only one that matters. Not one of my strong suits. :(

In going back over the "exchanges" Barefoot and I have had (where I talk and he calls me a liar) <-- ok, ok, occasionally he types a paragraph without the theatrics. I admit, I have a tendency to stay on points that were not adequately answered rather than moving onto the next rabbit trail. And, in regard to the whole chance thing I've seen a lot of smoke and a few mirrors but no answer. And maybe that's b/c we all know there is none. You either choose 'natural selection' or you choose ID.

But I can't help but see a lot of assuming going on. Especially in not drawing a distinction between macro and micro evolution (stay with me, this IS relevant).

I have a tendency to over simplify things, by zooming out too far, but you all have failed to show where I am wrong in doing so.

For example, to me there seems to be an awful lot of blurring of the lines b/n macro and micro evolution. Darwinists, for example, love to point to "fun with bacteria." "Look what bacteria does when antibodies are introduced. They adapt. See...evolution!" <-- yes, Larry, this is just one example. One at a time please.

But this kind of stuff isn't even a little bit hard to explain without evolution. When bacteria survive a bout with antibodies--survive and even multiply, the surviving group may be resistant to that antibiotic. But they are resistant b/c the parent bacteria possessed the genetic capacity to resist, or a rare biochemical mutation somehow helped it survive. I say 'rare' b/c mutations are almost always harmful, not helpful. Since the sensitive bacteria die, the surviving bacteria multiply and now dominate.

Presto, Chango! Evolution.

I say, 'fair enough.'

Surprised?

You say, "game over" we finally got the preacher boy!

Hold on to your fiery pants a minute longer. B/c here's the rub.

WHAT KIND OF EVOLUTION?

Larry fails to see how critical this is. It has to do with why I keep mentioning chance. It has to do with why I keep bringing up probability and improbability, and it has to do with why I sometimes wonder why someone who claims to be debating with one half of his brain behind his back wouldn't employ the other half and get in the game.

And make no mistake about the relevance of this line of attack because, outside of the philosophical presuppositions I've been exposing, defining "type of evolution" is perhaps the greatest point of confusion in the creation/evolution controversy.

This is where Darwinian errors and false claims (i.e. ‘lies’) begin to multiply like bacteria if left unchecked by those who actually still believe that observation plays an important role in science. And here’s what observation tells us, the surviving bacteria always stay bacteria! They do not evolve into another type of organism. That would be macroevolution. And here it comes…ready?

Really, really, ready?

Natural selection has never been observed to create new types. And if Larry attempts to pull up a fictitious study from the underground gnomes of middle earth ‘proving' me wrong. It will be as much a fantasy as are the underground gnomes themselves. I understand evolutionists are ‘working on it.’ I just happen to believe they will keep right on working until the cows come home.

Ok, back to the point. Macro evolution is clearly NOT seen in bacterial studies, however, macro evolution is exactly what Darwinists claim from the data. They say these observable micro changes can be extrapolated to prove that unobservable macro evolution has occurred. In other words they often make no distinction between micro and macro, and thus use the evidence for micro to prove macro.

By failing to make this distinction, evolutionists can dupe the general public (as Larry often does by attempting to keep things on the highest shelf with flowery, albeit often incoherent babbling. No, your vocabulary is not outside my range of understanding. It's just outside my range of relevance. Most often it simply isn't necessary to making your point. In fact it hurts your arguments rather than helping).

Back to our previously scheduled programing...

Evolutionists are masters at defining evolution broad enough so that evidence in one situation might be counted as evidence in another. Unfortunately for them the general public is beginning to catch on to this tactic, thanks largely to Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson.

Johnson first exposed this Darwinian sleight of hand with his ground breaking book, Darwin on Trial (And you might want to try reading it b/f you default to name calling [i.e., ‘everyone knows Johnson is a dolt!’] tactics. In his book he points out that, “None of the ‘proofs’ [for natural selection] provides any persuasive reason for believing that natural selection can produce new species, new organs, or other major changes, or even minor changes that are permanent. Biologist Jonathan Wells agrees when he writes, “Biochemical mutations cannot explain the large scale changes in organisms that we see in the history of life.”

At the risk of going on and on, I’ll stop here and give you all some homework:

Why can’t natural selection do the job? Why do I refer to it as another name for chance? Here are five reasons. Chase them down and you will see that I am right.

1. Genetic Limitations
2. Cyclical change
3. Irreducible complexity
4. Nonviability of (adequate) transitional forms
5. Molecular isolation

“Hey Rob! You didn’t include the fossil record in there. Why not? Because you’re afraid of the fossil record aren’t you? You can’t handle the fossil record!”

Take it easy, Nicholson. It’s not that I can’t handle it. It’s that it’s so pathetic even the author of your Bible (The Origin of Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life) cringed every time he was reminded of it. Kind of a long title for a book, but then again, I can see why that second half is almost never shown in modern titles. Pretty big racist, wasn’t he?

Anyway, he said (about adequate transitional forms), and I quote, “why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”

My hats off to him for at least a couple of reasons.

1. At least he’s honest and straight forward about the obvious flaws of the theory rather than trying to hide them, and,
2. He calls his theory just that, a theory.

In his defense, he genuinely believed that, in time, further fossil discoveries would prove his theory, but the exact opposite has occurred. Time has proven him wrong. Contrary to what you may hear from the general media (you mean they lie?! Tell me it isn’t so!!!), the fossil record has turned out to be a complete embarrassment for Darwinists. As I said many posts or comments ago, if Darwinism were true than thousands, if not millions (I’ll be careful not to exaggerate with ‘trillions’ – Larry’s never heard of using that in arguments and often miscategorizes it as, big surprise, “lying”) of transitional fossils would have turned up by now. Instead, according to the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (an evolutionist – I prefer using your own camp’s words against you. Notice I almost never use biblical support because...

1. You don’t respect it, and

2. I don’t even need it.

Your own people usually get around to hanging themselves if you just give them enough rope. Oops, I hope I didn’t just slip into the fallacy of too much rope-ism. Oh well, what’s done is done.) “most species do not exhibit directional change during their tenure on earth.” And, “…a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed.”

Well, Stephen, it’s a good thing you’re dead b/c you’ll surely be drummed out of the militant atheist club now. And, had you survived (via morphing into a sea turtle or something [they have a longer life span you know.] ) you almost certainly would have lost all the benefits that go along with membership such as;

1. living without a purpose
2. resigning yourself to believing you are nothing more than an evolved piece of highly sophisticated cellular plasma
3. And believing there is no God yet living as though you are Him

Ok Gents (and I use that term…never mind), I must be going. I’m going to refrain from responding for a few days. I have some catching up to do with my real job. Besides, even if you refuse to acknowledge it, you need [and will undoubtedly take] the opportunity to rethink these things.