The new mini-mockumentary attacking evolution by Ray Comfort has gotten a lot of promotion on this site and I thought I’d post one of my responses to the claim that no scientist in the world can give an example of one “kind” of life changing into another “kind”, and how this is such a terrible proof against evolution. I said to someone asking for such an example:
It’s a trick question. “Kind” has no biological or biblical definition and all forms of life are in some sense the same “kind”, because all “kinds” of life fit within parent or daughter groups which unify all living things – this is why universal common ancestry is so widely accepted. For instance you might say cats and dogs are different “kinds” of animals, because one is a feline (along with lions, panthers etc) and the other is a canine (along with wolves, coyotes, foxes, dingoes etc), but canines and felines are all mammals, they are all the same “kind” of animal, as opposed to reptiles, amphibians, dinosaurs, birds, etc. But then all those groups are all animals as opposed to say plants. But then plants and animals are all eukaryotes, because they have nucleic cells and various other cellular and genetic traits, and so on and so forth.
If by “kind” they mean species we’ve observed that, google “observed instances of speciation” or check out ring species (which these big creationist websites have no response to whatsoever) for examples of species splitting off to form new but similar species. In reality evolution isn’t a dog turning into a worm or whatever nonsense, it’s more like one feline species branching into two varieties of felines. Over vast stretches of time and slow, geological changes in environments the differences get more significant, but we only know this by fossil and genetic evidence. This is similar to the way we all observe the english language changing in our lifetime but we only know the extent to how much it’s changed over hundreds or thousands of years by looking at documents from different centuries. But no one would suggest that because we don’t observe in a year 500 years of change that it didn’t happen. That in shakespeare’s day they spoke the same english we do.
But I could do the same thing they’re doing and demand you show me in person an example of one “kind” of language changing into another “kind” of language and mocking or editing any answer you gave to make it sound ridiculous.
agnophilo 
Evolution is not against the one true God; it started at His command and will finish at His command.
An unjustified claim, even by theological standards.
I don’t get you; please elaborate.
Neither science nor scripture say that god caused evolution, it’s an assumption.
They even devote a “science” to this: baraminology. I’m still trying to find a book dedicated to the subject. I’ll use it to punish myself.
Ambiguity is the Creationists’ best friend. By refusing to define terms like “kind” unambiguously (“We know it when we see it!”), they assure that they can forever move the goalposts and deny that evolution between “kinds” is occurring.
Yup. God is in the gaps, so lets keep them as wide as possible.
I see your point, and am in agreement with the idea that all life is impacted to some extent by it’s environment, and under certain conditions, and in the fullness of time, can change by varying degree. The real question is,…did everything (and since your such a stickler on the English, language, by everything, I mean “everything,”) originate from one thing, or,…was all life created first, and evolved later. One must consider the likelihood of extraterrestrial races leaving their mark upon this planet also.. Meaning that there exists the possibility that not everything on Earth originated here. Which would blow out part of both the evolutionists and creationists idea about life. Believing in God does not mean you can’t recognize evolution, and believing in evolution, does not mean there is no God. Your mind seems sharp and inquiring, but are you getting caught up in the details of the little picture?
If you are a thinker, and i’ll make the assumption that you are,…then do you ever stop to think about how you think? Everyone is caught up in “What to think”, without giving much thought to “how they think.” Without consciousness, you couldn’t even entertain a single thought, and the argument about evolution or creation would be a mute point.Where does consciousness come from, where does yours come from? Everything created by man first originated with a thought,…that is how we create. If there were a God, then the possibility exists that our creative abilities are just extensions of it’s own. In my mind the key to the answer about life here and creation on a grand scale hinge on understanding consciousness.
I’ve said this before, but i’ll say it again for those who have not heard it. Those thinkers who are using their thinking faculties to deny the existence of a singular, benevolent, energetic, creative force, whom we most often refer to as God, are using their consciousness, without knowing what it is, or where it came from. They received the gift, then proceed to use it to deny the source from whence it came. Now as to your “Open a text book sometime comment,” I think I’ll just let that one slide for now my friend.
I agree that belief in a god and evolution are by no means mutually exclusive, but as far as the origins of the universe I have no idea. I don’t think invoking intelligence or a creator solves the question of existence or the origins of complexity because a creator would have to exist without being created or have an infinite series of creators itself and an intelligent designer would have to be complex without being designed. Both sorts of creators/designers defy the premise which says they must exist, and neither offers new information or explains the actual origin of existence or complexity. Explaining something isn’t the same as attributing it to something or someone. Saying “god did it” for the universe is like saying “zeus did it” for lightning. It doesn’t give us any new information and just produces more questions (where did zeus come from, how did he get the ability to make lightning, how did he actually make lightning, what is lightning etc). I am open to the idea of a god but the ones people believe in seem childish and man-made, and a “bigger than religion” type of god is purely speculative. The universe itself is the only thing that seems god-like to me. It is eternal or is so ancient/long-lived it might as well be, it is all-powerful, omni-present, vast beyond comprehension, and it is all-knowing. Not that it knows every possible piece of information but that it knows everything known by anyone or anything, because we are an extension of it.
Thank you for your intelligent response. I enjoyed it. I can only speak for myself, and i think that most people would like to know the deeper meaning and secrets to life,…but not everyone wants to do the inner work that is required to learn those secrets. We all have different life experiences which bring us to different conclusions about life, however, we also have a common experience of life, and so share that common experience. When a person says their “individual experience” is what the “shared experience” is about, or should be about, is the starting point of personal conflicts.
I personally worked as an electrician for 30 years, and spent my career, working with something i could never see,…except when i made a mistake!! Which thankfully was rare. Therefore, i am used to the idea that just because you can’t see something, does not mean it doesn’t have effects. Science knows many things i do not know, or am not that interested in, however, i know many things that science does not because of the many years of study i have devoted to the areas that science is not interested in.
I have personally seen heard and experienced things which, only the person experiencing them could believe. Even then you still have to have the foundation of knowledge to interpret correctly what you have just experienced, otherwise it all just goes over your head. I am not against science, and I am not pro religion, I am for “any’ definable and understandable source of knowledge, which leads me to a better understanding of my experience here. Science does this well to a degree, but they are to slow for me, and are to confrontational. Religion is even slower, and decidedly less interested in finding out anything except what fits in with their agenda.
The intelligent thing to do would be to blend the best of science and religion in order to utilize the strengths of both , but because this is a money driven world, people don’t want their little empire invaded, or to loose control over their project. Everybody has something to protect, and that becomes the priority, instead of the science or religion. People understand the concept that knowledge at the university level, requires a foundation which is acquired at the elementary, and high school level. What they don’t understand, is the idea that there is knowledge beyond this physical world, which can be accessed, only on a psychic level, because that is the next level of ascension for humanity. I talk in generalities on purpose, because i want to lift people up beyond their everyday mode of thinking, not get bogged down in detail, But people always want to drag the conversation down to their level of thought and understanding. People want to talk about what they can see and know and understand!
I want to talk about what you can’t see , don’t know, and is very hard to understand. That’s the difference. That is where my interests lie. And how does one know what is true without proof (because i can hear that question coming)? Well i have a good understanding of electricity, while most people don’t,…although I’ve noticed that their ignorance hasn’t seemed to have hindered their use of it!!! This tells you you don’t have to know the truth of something to make use of it.
Defining truth is a whole other topic, so i will not get into that here, lets just say that the more you explore right brain activities, the more you strengthen your psychic connection to the information that you say you are looking for. God is not left brained or right brained God is the whole package. WE need both sides of our mind fully functional her and to be heavily slanted one way or another is to be out of balance.
This was not a direct response to everything you wrote but i hope you find it at least entertaining. Thanks.
If I suspected that some idea or feeling in my head came from somewhere outside of myself or was me accessing cosmic consciousness or talking to god or receiving messages from aliens or being psychic etc etc, I would want to find a way to test it. And these claims often can be tested, mainly by establishing that the person is accessing information they could not have in and of themselves and at a rate higher than one could expect from blind chance. I’ve never heard of an example of someone passing the test, and believers in these types of phenomenon often want to believe and are resistant to tests or openly hostile to questioning, suggesting that the belief is what matters, not truth seeking. I don’t know if that’s you but it’s pretty common in my experience. I think it’s part of human nature to need to feel connected to something outside of ourselves the same way a fish needs to be a part of a school, it’s an ingrained social instinct and is very powerful. I think that feeling of connectedness can be fulfilled by many things, love, physical intimacy, many philosophies, many religious beliefs (which usually involve being connected to god or communing with nature etc) the same way that an instinct like fear can be evoked by not just one thing but many things, both abstract and concrete.
You make some valid points which i would have to agree with. There are scammers out there, as well as authentic people. In fact there is every kind of person and activity imaginable going on at any given time. My opinion about consciousness at our level, meaning here on Earth is that it is progressive. Proof is a basic requirement needed at the physical level to compensate for the human limitations, imposed by the limited range of our senses, the limitations of our intellect, and the tendency to over utilize one side of our brain. Nobody could run the four minute mile, and it was considered impossible until roger Bannister did it. Now if he did it, then it should be possible for others to do it also, yet if you took a large cross section of humanity, how many people could duplicate that feat? Does this mean it didn’t happen?
I am not against proof, all i am saying is that proof is a lower vibration requirement, and not needed as you move up the ladder in consciousness. Take autistic children, some of whom can take hugely complex mathematical calculations and go directly to the answer in a heart beat, off the top of their head. I would need a calculator, and even then i might screw the answer up, but they have the answer immediately. This says something about where information exists, to those who are open to new ideas. Otherwise they just write the kid off as anomaly.
My whole philosophy now, is just to be open, don’t make certain moves without proof, yes, but if your always waiting for proof, you’ll always be at the mercy of the people you hired to provide that proof. And what proof do you personally have that their proof is correct? Do you get and read the final laboratory analysis on every experiment? Do you subscribe to every scientific journal? Do you attend all the latest conventions and listen to all the new cutting edge discoveries being made? Or because it falls under the banner of science,…just take it as gospel also?
The bulk of people who site science as the cutting edge source of credible information have no idea how any of this stuff works anyway! Talk about taking stuff on faith! People outside religion are as guilty of having and using faith, as those inside of it.
I’m going to do you a favor, and you can do your own research, just like i had to do, or totally ignore what i am about to say. It won’t make any difference to my life , but it might shake yours up big time.
Science is being used against you, in an “intentionally lethal,” but not so obvious way. Not across the board, but in certain sectors of science and technology, by covert operations, undisclosed to the public, and there are many of them. Science to a certain extent has been hijacked, just as religion has been, and is now serving the powerful agenda of a few elite people at the top of the socio-economic pyramid. The difference between science and getting knowledge on a psychic level is that, science is easy to control, and manipulate, and the results can be disclosed, or kept secret. Psychic information can not be accessed by those who have not developed the ability, and the information is always available to everyone, so it can’t be controlled or manipulated,…only “discredited,” by those who lack that ability.
I am not familiar with this ladder of consciousness stuff and it seems oversimplified. For instance the autistic kids you refer to are not climbing a ladder of consciousness, what happens is when one area of the brain is damaged it sometimes cannot use all of the connectivity of that area and so it gets absorbed into the adjacent area, super-charging it’s function. So you have people who are handicapped in one area but super-human in another. This is mechanical, not metaphysical. As for science being “gospel”, while I don’t perform every experiment myself science as an institution is built on peer review, meaning people much more qualified than me are criticizing the techniques and methods of scientists who publish their findings and unlike religious claims scientific claims can be tested over and over again by anybody, so errors and fabrications are bound to be discovered. And of course the gospel never cured a disease or put a man on the moon – theories in science have real world applications. Aerodynamics isn’t a claim, it’s what keeps airplanes from falling out of the sky. The two are not comparable. Yes science can be perverted but usually only if freedom of speech is compromised. As for bad technology there is a difference between pure and applied science. I am talking about pure science which I think is purely good, as opposed to applied science which is good or bad depending on the user. It’s like a knife, it can be used for a thousand constructive or destructive purposes.
You know, i am not familiar with this “over-charging of one area of the brain, It seems over simplified.” Sound familiar,…and so applicable to either your, or my information,…is it not?
I detect within the threads of your dialogue,, a genuine curiosity for life. A desire to know and find the truth about life, and behind it a rather warm personality with some good people skills and some tolerance, Otherwise, you would have gone ballistic by now, and the thread of this conversation would have degraded below an acceptable level. I can accept that you may be heavily invested in areas that i am not, and for that reason i will say thank you to science for all the good it has accomplished to date, and the good work it continues to do on peoples behalf. However, while i won’t add to what i have already said, i do stand by it.
Once again, i will say that you appear to have a fine mind, aren’t you the least bit curious as to whose consciousness it is your using?. You didn’t create it, and it wasn’t issued by the university, or lab. Your mother didn’t give you hers, and you didn’t buy it on e-bay! If you have not thought about consciousness, or are not familiar with what i am talking about, then ask a person in a coma to assist you in some manner in one of your next labs. See how far you get.. Take a good look at them ,because while they may be in a coma due to brain damage, they represent the exact same physical state of a person, were they loose their consciousness, that’s why they call them “unconscious!” You seem to have side stepped that question before, however, i give you the opportunity to address the question again. The more you ponder the idea of consciousness, the more you’ll realize you probably have no idea what i’m talking about.
If you did know what i’m talking about, we would not be so far apart on certain ideas about life. Consciousness is not a philosophy, it is a reality, just as high technology was a reality in medieval times. Things are not invented, things are not discovered, that knowledge already exists in the ethereal realms, it just waits for human consciousness to catch up to the point where people can understand the technology that already exists. There is no new knowledge in all of creation my friend. All the knowledge that ever has, or ever will exist, exists right now, waiting to be revealed. The trick is that you have to ask the right questions, and then you have to be able to understand the answers.
You draw knowledge and answers to you by the intent and focus you place on any particular line of thinking and activity, thus over time, with dedication and persistence, and a positive attitude, your activities yield results. As for “real world” applications,… i think your choice of words speaks volumes about what you consider the real world to be. A deep sea fish would consider the real world to be the ocean, while whales would acknowledge the existence of a greater reality. Your limitations are mental only, and if you define this as being the “real world,” then it is,….for you!
“Once again, i will say that you appear to have a fine mind, aren’t you the least bit curious as to whose consciousness it is your using?. You didn’t create it, and it wasn’t issued by the university, or lab. Your mother didn’t give you hers, and you didn’t buy it on e-bay!”
Consciousness is a by-product of a physical brain which is based on DNA which I inherited from my parents who inherited it from their parents and so on going back through around 4 billion years of natural selection.
“Things are not invented, things are not discovered, that knowledge already exists in the ethereal realms, it just waits for human consciousness to catch up to the point where people can understand the technology that already exists. There is no new knowledge in all of creation my friend. ”
And you know this how?
By the way not to be rude but are you on anything? You sound like you might be.
Okay my friend, i guess we have pushed the envelope of your social skills, patience and mental abilities about as far as they can go. Thanks for the interaction, and should you have a change of mind, caused by looking outside yourself at what is really going on in the world, feel free to contact me again.
I don’t know what your problem is, I just asked a question.