Creation Vs Evolution; Exclusive Of One Another?

[ERayR]

That is a religious opinion and not a scientific fact.

You can believe that the sun revolves around the earth, about a quarter of the adult population of the US does. But that religious belief(IE; "It says so in the Bible" The Bible doesn't actually say that, but those people sure religiously believe it does)) in no way negates the fact that the earth rotates around the sun.

I don't know where you got your information that a quarter of the adult population of the US believes the sun revolves around the earth so I have to question you facts CFR. The workings of the solar system is based on more solid observations than the origins of the human species so it is not a relevent comparison.

[cinepro]

I don't know where you got your information that a quarter of the adult population of the US believes the sun revolves around the earth so I have to question you facts CFR. The workings of the solar system is based on more solid observations than the origins of the human species so it is not a relevent comparison.

This article says a fifth:

Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves Around Sun

Probing a more universal measure of knowledge, Gallup also asked the following basic science question, which has been used to indicate the level of public knowledge in two European countries in recent years: "As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth?" In the new poll, about four out of five Americans (79%) correctly respond that the earth revolves around the sun, while 18% say it is the other way around. These results are comparable to those found in Germany when a similar question was asked there in 1996; in response to that poll, 74% of Germans gave the correct answer, while 16% thought the sun revolved around the earth, and 10% said they didn't know. When the question was asked in Great Britain that same year, 67% answered correctly, 19% answered incorrectly, and 14% didn't know.

Edited January 27, 2012 by cinepro

[thesometimesaint]

ERayR:

Your wish is my command.

http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all

Rolf F. Lehming, who directs the science foundation's surveys on understanding of science, calls him "absolutely authoritative."

Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

Edited January 27, 2012 by thesometimesaint

[zerinus]

This article says a fifth:

The most interesting observation to be made from those surveys is that ignorance on that subject has nothing to do with religiosity; because whereas the US is very religious country by comparison, Europeans by comparison are not.

[thesometimesaint]

Zerinus:

I don't know if it's religiosity in general or specific Bible knowledge. Europe has a much longer experience with Christianity than we here in the US. So maybe some of those faith traditions just get passed down. Plus WW2 was devastating to Europe spiritually as well as physically "God died at Auschwitz" was said by more people than just the Jews that might explain some it.

As for the US. Survey after survey when respondents are asked what they base their belief that the sun revolves around the earth on. They say "It says so in the Bible". Even though it doesn't say that.

[Jeff K.]

The dichotomy between believing the sun revolves (or otherwise) around the earth and religion is a false one I believe since God's light is intelligence. It is only through the lens of man that we end up with such ideas.

[Mariner]

Mariner:

Your condescension is duly noted. Take it elsewhere.

First in any genetic study you need a base population. We don't know what that base population is to work from. Secondly you need a target population. Again we have no idea as to what that target population is to work towards. Your "Peer Reveiwed" studies are worthless without those two things known. It is like asking what is the genetic base of citizens of the US?

thesometimesaint,

Sorry that I missed this response from you. It turned up on the bottom of a page after I had moved on to the next page.

It is clear that you haven't read, or at least not understood, the scientific literature on this issue. So, once again, the "base population" for the pre-Columbian Amerindians that you are looking for is comprised on the four lineages that participated in the ancient Siberia to Beringia to North America migration. This base population had previously migrated across Asia.

The best evidence indicates that, starting some 30,000 years ago, this migration got held up somewhere in Siberia or Beringia for 10,000 -15,000. During this hold-up, they where they lived in the same environment, and then continued to move on into the Americas starting some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. This is what the data said when Simon Southerton published his book and subsequent high resolution mtDNA studies, such as the one I cited and others, have only reinforced this view.

So, now we have a pre-Columbian New World population whose DNA can be traced to one of the four lineages that were involved in this migration.

Regardless of haplogroup, all of the other populations on the planet, having been reproductively isolated from the pre-Columbian North American populations for at least 10,00 to 15,000 years or more, would be genetically distinct, having acquired, accumulated and passed down (for over some 500 or more generations) different mutations in their DNA than would be found in the populations in the Americas.

In an earlier post, I showed that none of the peer-reviewed papers that were cited as possible evidence against the consensus scientific view that I presented helped the LDS apologetic case on this issue whatsoever.

If you want to do anything more than to claim that I am condescending and make bald assertions, you need to provide peer reviewed scientific evidence to support your position. When selecting this evidence, please be prepared to show how it militates against the scientific consensus and make sure that the Book of Mormon narrative would provide the best and most parsimonious explanation for the existing data set and facts in evidence.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Mariner

[thesometimesaint]

Mariner.

I've never claimed to be a genetist, but I can read. Further your mocking of my science background is condescending.

Again, and for the last time, then it's time to move on. We don't know the base population. Lehis' group was of unknown genetic origins. We have Scripture that says he was somehow(It could be by adoption in the religious sense, or genetic in a biological sense) connected to the House of Joseph(The one sold into Egypt), by way of the House of Benjamin. No one knows what those humans' DNA would look like.

Again, and for the last time, then it's time to move on. We don't know the target population. It is largely assumed to be Mesoamerican. But you know as well as I do what making assumptions does. We don't have any Doctrine as to where the events of most of the BoM happened other than in the Americas. We have at most is a small goup of less than 20 individuals of unknown genetic origins quickly intermarrying with a much larger population. Add in that at times it was a political differentiation, and not genetic one, and add in that throughout the BoM it was a religious differentiation not genetics, and towards the end of the account any that were for the Nephites were called Nephites and any that were against them were called Lamanites. It is a far more complex picture than simple genetics.

You are focusing on mass migrations. I quite agree that there were people already here when the Lehites landed.

But that is not what we're dealing with in Scripture. Just the opposite. IE; My genetics say I'm from Ireland, and England, with some French and maybe some Viking thrown in. We loose my fathers line about 1300. But I 'm personally am 100% American.with no political ties to the Old World. It would be the same with the Lehites. Only instead of about 400 years for me when my ancestors came to America, it would be 2600 years for the Lamanites. A LOT longer time.

Of what relevence does a "Peer Reviewed" scientific treatice have to do with a religious document? I'm not trying to prove there is a God, or that JS was a prophet of that God. What I claiming is that the BoM is a plausible explanation for relativelly small group of peoples' religious beliefs, and that that group were all killed off some 1600 years ago.

Edited January 28, 2012 by thesometimesaint

[thesometimesaint]

Back to OP.

A museum I actually can support, and it's not in Kentucky. Warning: May be scary to small children.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/27/animatronic-dinosaurs-roam-museum-halls/

[altersteve]

Back to OP.

A museum I actually can support, and it's not in Kentucky. Warning: May be scary to small children.

http://www.rawstory....m-museum-halls/

I have now entered a new item on my bucket list: GO TO THAT MUSEUM.

[Mariner]

Mariner.

I've never claimed to be a genetist, but I can read. Further your mocking of my science background is condescending.

Again, and for the last time, then it's time to move on. We don't know the base population. Lehis' group was of unknown genetic origins. We have Scripture that says he was somehow(It could be by adoption in the religious sense, or genetic in a biological sense) connected to the House of Joseph(The one sold into Egypt), by way of the House of Benjamin. No one knows what those humans' DNA would look like.

Again, and for the last time, then it's time to move on. We don't know the target population. It is largely assumed to be Mesoamerican. But you know as well as I do what making assumptions does. We don't have any Doctrine as to where the events of most of the BoM happened other than in the Americas. We have at most is a small goup of less than 20 individuals of unknown genetic origins quickly intermarrying with a much larger population. Add in that at times it was a political differentiation, and not genetic one, and add in that throughout the BoM it was a religious differentiation not genetics, and towards the end of the account any that were for the Nephites were called Nephites and any that were against them were called Lamanites. It is a far more complex picture than simple genetics.

You are focusing on mass migrations. I quite agree that there were people already here when the Lehites landed.

But that is not what we're dealing with in Scripture. Just the opposite. IE; My genetics say I'm from Ireland, and England, with some French and maybe some Viking thrown in. We loose my fathers line about 1300. But I 'm personally am 100% American.with no political ties to the Old World. It would be the same with the Lehites. Only instead of about 400 years for me when my ancestors came to America, it would be 2600 years for the Lamanites. A LOT longer time.

Of what relevence does a "Peer Reviewed" scientific treatice have to do with a religious document? I'm not trying to prove there is a God, or that JS was a prophet of that God. What I claiming is that the BoM is a plausible explanation for relativelly small group of peoples' religious beliefs, and that that group were all killed off some 1600 years ago.

thesometimesaint,

You say that you want to move on, but then continue to make unjustified rationalizations in an attempt to support your position.

Just some final questions.

Do you realize that mainstream science has made a specific determination that the Book of Mormon narrative simply cannot be valid based on a massive amounts of genetic evidence and that this evidence has only been reinforced since?

Do you realize that BYU sponsored the analysis of some Nat 6,000 ive American DNA samples in an attempt to refute these findings and found no evidence for a pre-Columbian trans-oceanic migration in any of these samples?

Do you understand that the geneticists who have done and re-done this work have repeatedly stated that there were no pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contributions to the overall New World genome? What is it that is so difficult to understand about this simple, evidence-based scientific consensus?

All of your excuses, rationalizations, and application of what you think you know about population genetics, does not alter this simple fact. The DNA evidence against the Book of Mormon narrative is strong, mutually supporting, internally consistent, backed by archeology, and is continually reinforced by ever better and more precise analyses of Amerindian DNA, especially Amerindian mtDNA.

Given that highly credible professional geneticists have stated that there is no genetic evidence for pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contribution to the Amerindian genome, and given that such statements are made based on analyses that would certainly show such a contribution if it existed, and given that these statements have been made in peer reviewed papers on the subject, and that the results that these statements are based upon continue to be strengthened as new data are generated, anyone who is a scientist should realize that, unless credible contrary evidence can be found, there is no basis on which to deny the scientific consensus.

If you continue to tell yourself that the genetic case against the Book of Mormon narrative has not been made, then you should at least admit to yourself that you are a science denier. If such is the case, it might be a good idea to simply bear your testimony to yourself as to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and not look at any of these data ever again.

Edited January 29, 2012 by Mariner

[Franktalk]

Do you realize that BYU sponsored the analysis of some Nat 6,000 ive American DNA samples in an attempt to refute these findings and found no evidence for a pre-Columbian trans-oceanic migration in any of these samples?

Do you understand that the geneticists who have done and re-done this work have repeatedly stated that there were no pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contributions to the overall New World genome? What is it that is so difficult to understand about this simple, evidence-based scientific consensus?

I am sure that many assumptions were made before this consensus. Like I would like to know what DNA was used for the trans-oceanic contribution? If this is unknown then how can anyone make a definite statement? It sounds like you have faith in the results but I think the data is lacking to make a for sure determination. There is also an assumption that the currently held data and processes can tell us what we are told they do. I am not so sure that backward projections in time are that accurate.

[cdowis]

thesometimesaint,

Do you realize that mainstream science has made a specific determination that the Book of Mormon narrative simply cannot be valid based on a massive amounts of genetic evidence and that this evidence has only been reinforced since?

This is a formal request == CFR.

"Mainstream science" has made no such "determination", only a determination of a lack of evidence. For example,

1. Sampling error. Most, if not all, of the samples are taken from ***contemporary** Amerindians. Most of the genetic evidence is missing from modern samples because of the extinction of a large number of the Amerindians.

2. Your statement is factually incorrect. A documentary on the Discovery Channel mentions that a sample from a pure Amerindian and a Greek woman showed that they had a common ancestor.

3. The DNA characteristics of Jews do not represent all of the DNA from ancient Israel, primarily from the tribe of Judah. Apparently you are unaware of the Babylonian captivity and the effect that would have on modern "Jewish" DNA, specifically Lehi, Zoram, etc.

4. The rare occurance of Haplogroup X has not been explained. There is some evidence of it among the Siberians, but there are characteristics of the American Haplogroup X which is unique and missing from the Siberians. The authors of the article that you are about to cite admit that their reseach is incomplete and only leads in the direction of the Siberians, but no conclusive.

snip

If you continue to tell yourself that the genetic case against the Book of Mormon narrative has not been made, then you should at least admit to yourself that you are a science denier. If such is the case, it might be a good idea to simply bear your testimony to yourself as to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and not look at any of these data ever again.

This is not a matter of testimony, but of facts. You have given us your testimony, so let's see the facts. Give us those missing DNA samples of those extinct Amerindians, give us definitive samples of the dysporia Israelites (not just contemporary Jews), give us the specific DNA characteristics of Lehi, tell us about the definitive source of the Haplogroup X. Not your faith, not your opinion, not the consensus opinon of scientists, but hard data and facts.

Edited January 30, 2012 by cdowis

[Mariner]

This is not a matter of testimony, but of facts. You have given us your testimony, so let's see the facts. Give us those missing DNA samples of those extinct Amerindians, give us definitive samples of the dysporia Israelites (not just contemporary Jews), give us the specific DNA characteristics of Lehi, tell us about the definitive source of the Haplogroup X. Not your faith, not your opinion, not the consensus opinon of scientists, but hard data and facts.

cdowis,

The scientific consensus is built on facts. It is the distillation of thousands of facts. The facts are that A, B, C, D and X haplogroups were all represented in the pre-Columbian Amerindian founding lineages prior to their migrations through Beringia from Siberia to the New World. Due to the period of reproductive isolation from the sister clades of this group, (an isolation of at least 10,000 years), by the time the New World Amerindians finally arrived in North America and started expanding south and east, they were genetically distinct from their Old World ancestors, regardless of haplogroup.

Your request to see the "missing DNA samples of the extinct Amerindians" and for me to tell you the sources of the X haplogroup indicates that you do not have a sufficient understanding of the science involved here to even ask relevant questions. What extinct Amerindians would you be referring to, for example? And why would their DNA be important if we supposedly have Lamanite DNA in American Indians and Polynesian populations that are alive today?

Again, it simply does not matter what Lehite DNA (mtDNA) might have looked like (had it ever existed). Any insertion of Old World mtDNA from trans-oceanic migration into the pre-Columbian New World genome would be detectable. No matter where in the Old World that DNA came from, if it did not enter the New World during the migration from Siberia across Beringia that started some 30,000 years ago (in other words if it did not enter with the founding lineages from Asia that were held up in Beringia) then it would be detectable against the background of the founding lineages that did.

As reported in National Geographic (here) , even Ugo Perego of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City and the University of Pavia in Italy eventually agreed with the mainstream scientific consensus regarding the fact that the the lineages I have been describing in this thread developed in Beringia during the migration delay or hold-up period. As you may know, the Perego study was to be the BYU/LDS response to the Southerton book. In the end, results from this study supported Southerton and are also in agreement with the peer reviewed studies that I cited earlier, which were published since the Perego study appeared.

As I asked altersteve, what is it that you cannot understand about this simple and elegant result, which is consistent with, or directly supported by, every credible and relevant study done to date, including a large study that was initiated with the intent of disproving this result?

Edited January 31, 2012 by Mariner

[altersteve]

...including a large study that was initiated with the intent of disproving this result?

CFR

[Thinking]

"Our families may be corrupted by worldly trends and teachings unless we know how to use the [book of Mormon] to expose and combat the falsehoods in socialism, organic evolution, rationalism, humanism, and so forth." (Ezra Taft Benson, A Witness and a Warning, p. 6)

[Mariner]

CFR

.

Read the National Geographic article cited.

Note the US institutional affiliation of the main author of the work cited.

If you are not familiar with the relationship between BYU, the LDS Church, and the Salt Lake City based organization, look it up.

Perhaps if you did a little more reading on your own you would be a little better prepared for these discussions.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Mariner

[zerinus]

"Our families may be corrupted by worldly trends and teachings unless we know how to use the [book of Mormon] to expose and combat the falsehoods in socialism, organic evolution, rationalism, humanism, and so forth." (Ezra Taft Benson, A Witness and a Warning, p. 6)

Thank you; that is a lovely quote. I am going to copy it if you don't mind, and repeat it often. Perhaps I will put it in my signature! That would be a good solution!

[thesometimesaint]

Mr. Benson, as we all are, was entitled to his personal opinions on any subject he wants. However I give his personal opinions no more weight than I do to OT Prophets who thought that Pi was equal to exactly 3.

Edited January 31, 2012 by thesometimesaint

[zerinus]

Mr. Benson, as we all are, was entitled to his personal opinions on any subject he wants. However I give his personal opinions no more weight than I do to OT Prophets who thought that Pi was equal to exactly 3.

I give all the weight possible to any quote that is given by the power of the Holy Ghost, and this one is!

[thesometimesaint]

Zerinus:

NO Pi does not nor has it ever equalled exactly 3.

[zerinus]

Zerinus:

NO Pi does not nor has it ever equalled exactly 3.

Don't talk so much bull. No scripture says it is.

[thesometimesaint]

Facts say otherwise.

"Prove all things" Now you prove that Pi is equal to exactly 3.

[zerinus]

Facts say otherwise.

"Prove all things" Now you prove that Pi is equal to exactly 3.

What "facts"? Provide evidence for your statement or retract. It is a violation of board rules otherwise.

[LeSellers]

OT Prophets who thought that Pi was equal to exactly 3.

What "facts"? Provide evidence for your statement or retract. It is a violation of board rules otherwise.

And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick....

π = circumference/diameter = (according to the scripture above) 30 cubits/10 cubits = 3. See also 2 Chron 7:2~5.

Lehi

Edited January 31, 2012 by LeSellers