Apr 7, 2012 -- 8:02PM, iamachildofhis wrote:

iama:  Yes, certainly!  But what has happened to the term 'species' which is Latin for 'kind,' since pre-Darwin's book was published?

What the Christian meant by 'species' / 'kind' and what is meant, today, by 'species' has evolved!

'Species' as used by the evolutionists does not mean 'kind' as it originally did.

It means pretty much the same thing as it did when Linnaeus used it a hundred years before Darwin.  It is arrived at by examining the creatures themselves without regard to their origins.

Iam,

I point you at two fatal failures in your arguments:

1.) You posted: "The basic difference between evolution and creation regarding life-forms, is the barrier which The Bible states exists between kinds of life-forms. "  No scientist has ever found any such barrier or any evidence of its existence.  Either produce links to the scientific literature detailing the evidential basis of this claim or let's just add it to the long list of horrible mistakes, uneducated guesses and outright lies produced by the YEC movement.

2.) You also posted: "Mutations are not the mechanism which is responsible for 'variation within kind,' but genetic mechanisms created at the time of The Creation."  This ones is biologically impossible: the 8 people on the ark could only contribute a maximum of 16 alleles for any given gene, but some human genes have hundreds of alleles.  Either produce links to the scientific literature detailing how 16 alleles morphed to hundreds without mutations or let's all agree that this is just another unbased flight of nonsensical YEC fantasy.

So, can you back up your claims with actual science, Iam?  If not, then non-existent YEC paradigm is dead in the equally non-existent flood water.

As usual, YECism fails.

Apr 8, 2012 -- 12:09AM, Rgurley4 wrote:

5. increased frequency of civil stife and wars / conflicts

Except that the real world evidence clearly says otherwise. Typical of a creationist, caught once again making claims of fact where there is clear evidence to the contrary. Couldn't live in a more dream world than that, can you, Rgurley.

Is Violence History?

Steven Pinker’s [book] “Better Angels of Our Nature” tells us … why violence has declined. …  Has the past century witnessed moral progress or a moral collapse?

… our era is less violent, less cruel and more peaceful than any previous period of human existence. The decline in violence holds for violence in the family, in neighborhoods, between tribes and between states. People living now are less likely to meet a violent death, or to suffer from violence or cruelty at the hands of others, than people living in any previous century.

Pinker assumes that many of his readers will be skeptical of this claim, so he spends six substantial chapters documenting it.

It’s not only deaths in war, but murder, too, that is declining over the long term. … your chance of being murdered is now less than one-tenth, and in some countries only one-fiftieth, of what it would have been if you had lived 500 years ago.

Pinker admits that followers of our news media will have particular difficulty in believing this, but as always, he produces statistics to back up his assertions.

… Pinker discusses … the “rights revolution,” the revulsion against violence inflicted on ethnic minorities, women, children, homosexuals and animals that has developed over the past half-century. Pinker is not, of course, arguing that these movements have achieved their goals, but he reminds us how far we have come in a relatively short time from the days when lynchings were commonplace in the South; domestic violence was tolerated to such a degree that a 1950s ad could show a husband with his wife over his knees, spanking her for failing to buy the right brand of coffee;

What caused these beneficial trends? … Pinker has argued that evolution shaped the basic design of our brain, and hence our cognitive and emotional faculties. This process has given us propensities to violence — our “inner demons” as well as “the better angels of our nature” (Abraham Lincoln’s words) — that incline us to be peaceful and cooperative. Our material circumstances, along with cultural inputs, determine whether the demons or the angels have the upper hand.

Pinker argues that enhanced powers of reasoning give us the ability to detach ourselves from our immediate experience and from our personal or parochial perspective, and frame our ideas in more abstract, universal terms. This in turn leads to better moral commitments, including avoiding violence. It is just this kind of reasoning ability that has improved during the 20th century. He therefore suggests that the 20th century has seen … an accelerating escalator of reason carried us away from impulses that lead to violence” and that this lies behind the long peace, the new peace, and the rights revolution.

Reason also … moves us away from forms of morality more likely to lead to violence, and toward moral advances that, while not eschewing the use of force altogether, restrict it to the uses necessary to improve social welfare, like utilitarian reforms of the savage punishments given to criminals in earlier times. For reason does, Pinker holds, point to a particular kind of morality. We prefer life to death, and happiness to suffering, and we understand that we live in a world in which others can make a difference to whether we live well or die miserably. Therefore we will want to tell others that they should not hurt us, and in doing so we commit ourselves to the idea that we should not hurt them.

“The Better Angels of Our Nature” is a supremely important book. To have command of so much research, spread across so many different fields, is a masterly achievement. Pinker convincingly demonstrates that there has been a dramatic decline in violence, and he is persuasive about the causes of that decline. But what of the future? Our improved understanding of violence, of which Pinker’s book is an example, can be a valuable tool to maintain peace and reduce crime, but other factors are in play.

www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/...