Is there a scientific alternative to evolution?

Originally posted by Delmer
Perhaps I'm wrong but it looks to me like the speculative exists in the word "hypothesis".

Reading the claim, I can't help but think that Morris calibrated the growth rate in the following manner:

1) Assume the initial population is 2.
2) Use current data for final world population
3) Let the time that has elasped since date 0 be about 4000 years.
4) Solve for the growth rate.

So of course, the model implies a young earth. It was designed to do so.

I think one of the biggest problems for the model is that if you assume a constant .5% growth rate, it takes many many years for the population to reach 3. Here I'll post the text from that talkorigins link since I doubt any of our YEC friends will bother going to the site.


"This claim assumes that the population growth rate was always constant, which is a false assumption. Wars and plagues would have caused populations to drop from time to time. In particular, population sizes before agriculture would have been severely limited and would have had an average population growth of zero for any number of years.


There is no particular reason to choose a population growth rate of 0.5 percent for the calculation. The population growth from 1900 to 2000 has been closer to 0.132 percent per year (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1984; Martin 1999). At that rate, the population would have grown to its present size from the eight Flood survivors in 15,500 years. And recent population growth has been historically high.


The population growth rate proposed by the claim would imply unreasonable populations early in history. We will be more generous in our calculations and start with eight people in 2350 B.C.E. (a traditional date for the Flood). Then, assuming a growth rate of 0.5 percent per year, the population after N years is given by

P(N) = 8 × (1.005)N

The Pyramids of Giza were constructed before 2490 B.C.E., even before the proposed Flood date. Even if we assume they were built 100 years after the flood, then the world population for their construction was 13 people. In 1446 B.C.E., when Moses was said to be leading 600,000 men (plus women and children) on the Exodus, this model of population growth gives 726 people in the world. In 481 B.C.E., Xerxes gathered an army of 2,641,000 (according to Herodotus) when the world population, according to the model, was 89,425. Even allowing for exaggerated numbers, the population model makes no sense."

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html

Originally posted by nickybutt
hypothesis (heye-poth-uh-sis)
plur. hypotheses (heye-poth-uh-seez)
In science, a statement of a possible explanation for some natural phenomenon. A hypothesis is tested by drawing conclusions from it; if observation and experimentation ...[text shortened]... com/topic/hypothesis?method=6

Nope, nothing speculative here...

Originally posted by Delmer
Okay, now we know how to grow eyes, or at least how eyes grow. Which have existed longer, animals or plants?

Originally posted by nickybutt
It looks like you have an ulterior motive for asking that question. But I'll go out on a limb and answer: I don't know.
Why do you want to know, what relevance has this to the discussion about alternatives to the TOE?

Originally posted by telerion
Reading the claim, I can't help but think that Morris calibrated the growth rate in the following manner:

1) Assume the initial population is 2.
2) Use current data for final world population
3) [b]Let the time that has elasped since date 0 be about 4000 years.
4) Solve for the growth rate.

So of course, the model implies a young earth. It ...[text shortened]... ers, the population model makes no sense."

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html[/b]

Originally posted by telerion
I have an idea Bloop. Before you post another idea taken straight from that pseudo-scientist Henry Morris, go to the link below and see if "evolutionists" haven't already answered the question.

http://www.talkorigins.org/

For example, here is an excellent response to Morris' silly population growth question.

http://www.talkorigins.org/index ...[text shortened]... www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_1.html

I encourage you to find the answer next time.

I've never heard of Henry Morris... so it looks like I've just refuted ANOTHER one of your theories 🙂

So you heard it through the grape vine. You chose not only the exact same argument as Morris, but also the exact same growth rate. I really doubt that you came up with all of this yourself. It doesn't mean you shouldn't make the argument, but you should be careful to find out where this "silver bullet" came from.

Let me introduce the man who came up with the "Bunny Blunder." Morris is one of the original figures in the Creationism movement that has swept the US in the last 30 years. He has written many propaganda books attacking evolution and founded the Institute for Creation Research.

He developed the population growth argument with exactly that growth rate and basically the same Flood date in 1975. http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-021.htm

btw, what's your definition of "pseudo-science?" wait, I think I know... any presentment of ideas which are contrary to the theory of evolution... how's that for a definition? Pretty good, eh?

Actually I prefer this one from WordNet (on www.dictionary.com),
"pseudoscience n : an activity resembling science but based on fallacious assumptions."

btw, just for my info, if I present an idea that's "taken straight from" something, does that disqualify that argument because it did not necessarily originate with me? Does every argument I present have to be my own original thoughts?

Certainly not! You should be careful though about tossing out mathematical arguments that you don't understand. I feel confident that once you realize the assumptions behind and implications from the Bunny Blunder, you will discard it.

Re: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html
I never said that population growth was constant...nobody in their right mind would argue that... all I said was that this is what population growth would be IF WE ASSUME a rate of x% per year.... the rate represents an average, and you can plug in whatever #s you want...

The assumption is that the rate is constant. That's what makes the math work out. The model takes a hypothetical average and asks what the world population be today if this growth rate were constant.
It does not allow for fluctuations in the growth rate over time. If the growth rate fluctuated about an average of .5%, the model would almost never get the same final population as it does with a constant average rate. It's just a property of averages and exponents.

re:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_1.html

The eye objection doesn't explain how it's possible for the eye to be formed in the first place... all it says is that some animals see better and can see more things than people can (which, if we evolved from these animals, shouldn't our eyes be better, not worse? I wish some evolutionist would 'splain THAT to me)

Sorry. How about this one then?
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921.html
Ironically, it also traces the argument back to Henry Morris.
As for why some animals have better eyes, the answer is that we did not evolve from animals in the way that you speak. Actually, we are animals, and all animals evolved from a common ancestor or group of ancestors in the past. We are not the pinnacle of a process that is guiding us to perfection or something. We are just one organism that has adapted to its unique environment.

Seriously, I appreciate your pointing out that site...I have it bookmarked, it seems to have a lot of links/subjects...but I'll definitely go thru it...thanks

No problem. It is my opinion that if you want to get answers about evolution, you should "ask" biological scientists. That's what makes talkorigins.org useful.

btw, are you familiar wiith the "Nebraska Man" and the "Piltdown Man"?... both were presented as "proof" that evolution was a "scientific fact"... Nebraksa man was built entirely from a tooth that was found...that's all they had.... turns out the tooth belonged to an extinct species of pig... and Piltdown man... turns out that the jawbone belonged to an ape that had died only 50 years before this "find" was presented as the latest "proof" of evolutionary fact... of course, anyone who questioned the "scientists" of those days was ridiculed... sound familiar?

Yes, I have heard of both. Much of my early education was polluted with the same propaganda. Of course the evil evolutionists were the ones that showed them for hoaxes (not YEC's who wouldn't have the first clue how to begin). How did they do it? Well over the years that Piltdown was "accepted," the evolutionary picture of hominids expanded as more evidence was discovered. With each new piece PM made less and less sense. He was an anomoly. Eventually the weight of evidence was just too strong and PM was unmasked.

Nebraska man was never accepted by scientific community as a human ancestor. That's just Creationist spin. Again check out talkorigins. There have some wonderful information on both matters.

Originally posted by Delmer
LOL! No relevance to the thread title but that seems to have been exhausted since I haven't seen anyone offer a scientific alternative to TOE. I assume plants, as we commonly define them, have been around much longer than animals. What's the scientific explanation for why at least some plants have not developed eyes? Or perhaps they have and I'm just not aware of it. No sarcasm intended. I'm being serious here.

Originally posted by nickybutt
One of the cornerstomes of the TOE is this: What you don't need you don't have. Plants don't need eyes therefor they don't have eyes. Just like our common ancestors didn't need to see in the dark therefor we and other Primates don't have night vision.

Originally posted by TheBloop
btw, are you familiar wiith the "Nebraska Man" and the "Piltdown Man"?... both were presented as "proof" that evolution was a "scientific fact"... Nebraksa man was built entirely from a tooth that was found...that's all they had. ...[text shortened]... in Science textbooks for decades before the hoaxes were exposed).

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Textbooks are usually crap, that 's why Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and all their disciples (even those who do not know their father) attack those, instead of taking issue with scholarly articles. Nevertheless, they mostly attack out-of-date textbooks that contain "information" scientists rejected long before the creationists began their assault.

Pseudo- ...[text shortened]... scientific method, which they neither represent accurately, nor employ in their own researches.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Wow, scholarly articles and textbooks seem to be an issue with you.
How old are most of hese scholarly articles, and how old are the
textbooks?
Kelly

Originally posted by Wulebgr
The textbooks cited earlier were abandoned long before I atrated high school. Scholarly articles supporting evolution are published weekly.

I teach, and I try to avoid textbooks. However, avoiding textbooks is much easier in literature and history than math and science, and I don't teach math and science. Textbooks offer simplistic syntheses, and if they ...[text shortened]... rel (calling these threads "debate" stretches the meaning of that term to the breaking point).

Originally posted by Wulebgr
The textbooks cited earlier were abandoned long before I atrated high school. Scholarly articles supporting evolution are published weekly.

I teach, and I try to avoid textbooks. However, avoiding textbooks is much easier in literature a ...[text shortened]... ebate" stretches the meaning of that term to the breaking point).