ted@imsvax.UUCP (07/05/84)
I believe that the truth regarding man's origins
and the origins of our world lie between what is being
proposed by creationists and what is taught in our
schools. The "scientific" version, with its emphasis
on uniformatarianism and natural selection over huge
expanses of time as the driving mechanism of evolution,
can be demolished by the average Baptist minister as
Evolutionists learned to their shame at Roanoke. Some
of the arguments against natural selection are as
follows:
1. The "plan" for many animal species must exist from
day one e.g. the archer-fish and the giraffe; how
did these animals survive whilst their necks and
water spitting proclivities were evolving
(presumably over millions of years) to a state at
which they could earn their livings in the manner
in which they do now?
2. The second law of thermodynamics, a scientific
rendering of the ordinary maxim that sh__ rolls
downhill, not uphill, is a perfectly good argument
against the notion of chance mutations as a
mechanism for driving evolution. Almost all
mutations are for the worse, not for the better.
Human mutations invariably take forms such as
Down's syndrome or Tay-Sachs disease or hemophilia.
Mutations other than these occur so rarely as to
render impossible the chances of like mutants
mating and forming a new species. And lastly, many
animal species will kill mutants; among humans
until just recently, this took the familiar form of
the witch-craft trial.
3. Geological evidence of entire ages opening and
closing suddenly contradict the notion of vast
expanses of time being needed for evolutionary
processes, especially as regards the extinction of
entire animal species over large land areas. Why
did the horse and camel become extinct in the
Americas a few thousand years ago while prospering
in Asia and Europe? Surely nobody can argue that
they were inferior adaptations in the Americas.
Likewise, the mammoths and mastodons which vanished
in recent ages were at least as well adapted as our
present elephants. At no time in recorded history
has disease or natural disaster ever wiped out an
entire animal species over an entire continent.
Only the machinations of man cause large scale
extinctions in our times and, in ancient times, man
was not capable of such doings; indeed, he lost a
great deal of sleep worrying about other animals
making HIM extinct.
In 1955, Imanuel Velikovsky proposed a theory of
cataclysmic evolution in which disaster and large scale
mutation caused by radiation and the unleashing of
large amounts of energy at the times of global cosmic
catastrophies replaces natural selection as the driving
mechanism of evolution. This theory may be read in
"Earth in Upheavel" which is still in print today. It
explains a great many things which Darwinism fails to
explain e.g. extinction; once you accept the notion of
global catastrophies, it is not difficult to understand
how whole species could be extirpated root and branch
from entire land masses simply by being at the wrong
place at the wrong time, particularly the largest
animals which had the hardest time trying to get to
high ground or other safety at such times.
To understand the possabilities of radiation and
energies being unleashed at the times of global
disasters, the following consideration should suffice:
twice in the story of Noah, in Genesis, the seven days
just prior to the flood are mentioned; from the King
James, Gen 7-4 'for yet seven days and I will cause it
to rain forty days and forty nights' and Gen 7-10 'and
it came to pass, after seven days, that the waters of
the flood were upon the earth'. Seven days of what?
Again, from the King James, Isiah 30-26 'Moreover, the
light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and
the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light
of the seven days'. In the typical laconic style of
the old testament, Isiah is mentioning the common
notion amongst the ancient world that a stellar blow-
out within the solar system immediately preceeded the
flood and, probably, was the causal agent of the flood.
The seven days prior to the deluge, during which this
event was visible on earth is, apparently, the basis of
the seven day light festivals of the ancient world,
including Hannukah with its seven candals. A deeper
reading of ancient lore would reveal that this nova
involved Saturn and not our present sun. Hesiod, in
"Works and Days" and Ovid in "The Metamorphoses" use
almost identical language in describing the universal
ancient belief that there had been "a golden age when
Saturn (Kronos) was the king of heaven, followed by a
silver age when Jupiter(Zeus) was the king of heaven,
followed by the deluge and the present ages". In the
same language, the sun is the "king of heaven" now.
A huge amount of radiation was unleashed upon the
earth at the time of the flood; Noah and his family
survived in the great ship and handfuls of people and
beasts survived on mountaintops in various parts of the
world. Many of the children of men and animals were
looking less like their parents than might have been
expected. Ovid, in "The Metamorphoses" wrote 'When,
therefore, the earth, covered with mud from the recent
flood became heated up by the hot and genial rays of
the sun, she brought forth innumerable forms of life,
in part of ancient shapes, and in part creatures new
and strange'. Noah's grandson, Canaan, looked quite a
bit less like his parents than most of the children of
that time. Again, from the King James, Gen 9-25
'Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be
unto his brethren'.
The old testament is laconic; it is meant only as
an index of sorts to the full body of rabbinical lore
called Midrashim. It is not meant to be terribly
readable in and of itself. To further complicate
matters, its authors lived in a world in which our
notion of objectivity or of things happening by chance
were inconcievable. To them, nothing just happened;
rather, the Lord caused something to happen for a
reason. The notion that two cities luck might just run
out one night as they lay in the path of a meteorite
storm was, again, inconcievable. Rather, Sodom and
Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone from
heaven as punishment for their sins. The story of
Canaan was assumed to be widely known by the authors of
the old testament and hence drew only a one line
reference. A modern person reading it might not
understand what was meant.
The only really large body of Midrashim which has
ever been translated into English is Louis Ginzberg's
seven volumn "Legends of the Jews", copyright 1907,
1937 available from the Jewish Publication Society of
America in Philadelphia. Volumn 1, pages 168-169
describe the curse of Canaan in more detail, again in
language indicating that the original authors had no
comprehension of random events or genetic mutation etc.
" the descendants of Ham through Canaan therefore have
red eyes, because Ham looked upon the nakedness of his
father; they have twisted curly hair because Ham turned
and twisted his head around to see the nakedness of his
father; and they go about naked, because Ham did not
cover the nakedness of his father".
Prior to the flood, conditions had been such that
man had no need for either technology or the
institution of slavery. There had been no seasons,
food grew unaided, and the force of gravity itself had
been significantly less, allowing animals to grow to
sizes at which they couldn't function in todays world,
also allowing work which seems heavy to us to be done
easily by the people of the time. In those days, even
as in the middle ages four or five hundred years ago, a
genetic mutant like Canaan would have been burnt at the
stake. After the flood, however, there weren't enough
people of any variety around for anyone to feel good
about killing someone for being different and, since
life in general had just become much more difficult,
and the idea of owning slaves was just starting to
occur to people, who better to make slaves out of than
someone who had just been punished by the lord,
obviously for some grandiose sin. Thus did the black
race, rather than originating in Africa as is commonly
taught, escape to various parts of the world, only to
survive in Africa and India and a few places in which
they were better adapted than and were left unmolested
by other groups. Again, from the King James Gen 10-18
'and afterwards were the families of the Canaanites
spread abroad'.
Arguments from the realm of radio-carbon dating
purporting to show that Africa was inhabited tens of
thousands or millions of years ago are simply invalid;
they are based on the assumption that our present
ratios of carbon types held good in all ages, an
assumption that goes out the window with catastrophism.
Likewise the notion that Neanderthals and other
primitive types disappeared tens of thousands of years
ago rather than just recently.
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) (07/09/84)
Doesn't this belong in net.jokes? Or at least in net.religion?
(Apologies in advance to the readers of both other groups.)
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPAdubois@uwmacc.UUCP (07/10/84)
>[Steve Dyer] >Doesn't this belong in net.jokes? Or at least in net.religion? >(Apologies in advance to the readers of both other groups.) Perhaps a clue as to the source of your merriment? Your comments are unnecessarily obscure. -- Paul DuBois Univ. of Wis.-Madison {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois UW Regional Primate Center And he is before all things, and by him all things consist... Colossians 1:17
wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (07/12/84)
Perhaps this should go into net.fairy-tales, net.wild-assumptions, net.science-is-all-wet, or net.tub-thumping-fundamentalist. I could not believe what I was reading. Velikofsky(sp)? That old reprobate was debunked years ago. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a good story line for a new sf movie. T. C. Wheeler
dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (07/14/84)
Of course, the issue is NOT "cataclysmic evolution" per se which deserves mention in net.fairy-tales, but the treatment of it in the referenced article. Have you noticed the reports in recent months that iridium, presumably from a comet or meteor, has been found in certain strata dated around the time of one of the great extinctions? -- /Steve Dyer decvax!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbncca.ARPA
steven@qubix.UUCP (07/16/84)
>> >[Steve Dyer] >> >Doesn't this belong in net.jokes? Or at least in net.religion? >> >(Apologies in advance to the readers of both other groups.) >> >> Perhaps a clue as to the source of your merriment? Your comments are >> unnecessarily obscure. Considering that the article consisted of a rehash of 50's pseudo-science debunked, I think that Mr Dyer might well think of it as a joke. Among other things it contained refrences to "Worlds In Collision", the most infamous book of scientific charlatinry (sp?) ever written in america. Steven Maurer