Been watching more films than usual these days. Could write opinions on a few of them but for the moment I'm most interested in David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet.
His films do a nice job of nature photography, especially capturing animal behavior, always fun to watch. But of course he's big on evolutionary theory, explains everything in those terms, and is concerned about the human impact on the planet. He's convincing about the consequences of some thoughtless human actions such as the wanton destruction of rain forest and the poaching of animals in Africa, and the need to take measures to correct these things. I'm all for whatever can be done rationally in that direction that takes care of both man and environment, and that is also Attenborough's aim.
But what exercises me the most is the question of global warming and human contribution to it. It is demonstrable that the planet is warming, just from the melting of the Arctic ice, the disappearance of glaciers for instance. The controversy is over how much is contributed by human activity.
If you are convinced of evolutionary theory you will be thinking in terms of vast aeons of time. If the last ice age started about 2.6 million years ago, the timing accoding to current scientific theory, you think of an enormously slow process of freezing and warming, you also think of there having been many ice ages so that when this one is over another one will begin, on that very slow schedule.
The last ice age, according to science, ended 11,700 years ago, warming ever since apparently, although they also say the planet is considered to be still in that ice age. Which I suppose must mean the warming trend isn't over yet?: I don't know -- reading is hard on my eyes so I tried to get the gist and not spend more time on it -- but with the Arctic ice melting it must be close to ending.
https://www.livescience.com/40311-pleistocene-epoch.html#:~:text=The%20Pleistocene%20Epoch%20is%20typically,parts%20of%20the%20planet%20Earth.
However, it's interesting that the 11,700 years of warming is at least in the time frame ballpark of the biblical framework I think is the real timing. It's not the usual millions of years On biblical time the Flood was roughly 4500 years ago, a little less I think, and that would have to be the event that brought on the ice age. I think in terms of the way an airconditioner works, by evacuating heat, and there are many events associated with the Flood that would generate heat s well as evacuate it, including of course the splitting apart of the continents which must have happened around that time, which I've argued quite a bit at EvC Forum.
Only one ice age, somehow precipitated by the Flood, or by the climatic catastrophe of which the Flood was a part. There is evidence of glaciation that came pretty far soueeth, covering much of North America for instance, though something I read put the southernmost extent of the ice as far south as northern South America a few degrees above the Equator. Since it would have occurred after the Flood there would have been no human beings in the western hemisphere. I'm not sure how long it took the descendants of Noah to spread out over the world, but even to spread from their landing place in the Middle East into Europe and Eastern Asia and Africa would likely have taken hundreds of years at least. (No, humanity did not originate in Africa. The African races or tribes are descended from Noah just like all the rest of humanity).
There is no reason to dispute the physical observations of global warming, only the timing. What science thinks took billions or years, on biblical time only took thousands. Sure it's laughable, but only because we're so used to thinking in terms of such vast stretches of time. It certainly made me laugh when I first encountered the biblical timing. Now I just automatically think in those terms.
SO. The ice age has been retreating for a few thousand years, the planet has been warming up for that length of time. We know the glaciers have been retreating, there's evidence of how far they went and they aren't there now, so why is there such a big panic about its all finally retreating to the point that even the Arctic is melting? AND of course, what is the necessity of imputing that event to human activity? It was going to come to that point anyway, and while eleven thousand isn't four thousand it's not the huge time frame of millions in this case, it's computable on a human scale.
If there is some contribution of human activity to the process, some argue that it's very minor, a matter of two or three percent of the total effect. Stopping human activity is not the solution although we certainly need solutions, and if we had a biblical perspective we would have been thinking in those terms for a long time already how to mitigate the destructive effects of the warming trend. If we were rational we would be thinking this way I mean. Stopping SOME human activity of course, such as cutting down rainforests and doing whatever we can to replenish them and even grow a few more in other places, planning agricultural development around them, making use of new technologies that reduce the space required for agriculture, as Attenborough points out is now possible. That sort of thing, (Getting the Africans to stop poaching is another rhing.)
A biblical perspective would of course also tell us that this world is destined to end, and probably fairly soon too. Doing what we can to improve its habitability for people as well as other living things is the right thing to do in any case for as long as we have left -- that is certainly within the responsibility God gave us back in Eden before the Fall -- but it will come to an end anyway. Because the whole thing is about human sin, meaing disobedience to God's commandments. Think "Karma" if you can't wrap your head (or your prejudices anyway) around the idea of God's Law. Karma is a very flawed intuition of God's Law by fallen human beings, but it's the same basic idea: misbehavior brings negative consequences, only the Bible puts those consequences on a global as well as personal scale. That's what brought death and disease and suffering of every kind into the originally perfect Creation, that's what brought on the Flood that destroyed most of life and the physical Creation as well, and it's human sin that brings on all forms of God's judgment, which must certainly have increased in the west since the sixties. Very few of us think in such terms unfortunately, even Christians although it's the reason the Son of God became a man to live and die for us so we can be saved from our debt to God's Law On the national scale, the blood of aborted babies cries out for God's vengeance, just as the blood of Abel did, but on we go committing murder anyway, and every other kind of sin. Because as fallen creatures we are blind to God and the spiritual underpinnings of reality.
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While I'm at it I feel like sketching out my usual arguments against the Theory of Evolution. The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection was Darwin's title for his theory and although it's changed in some ways the basic theory remains mostly intact. They still don't seem to have discovered that Natural Selection CAN'T be the means of evolution from one Species to another, because selection subtracts genetic material in order to bring out the new traits/phenotypes that are considered to be the evolution that results.
Darwin didn't have the benefit of the science of genetics in his day but he did have a lot of experience with breeding, pigeons mostly, or Artificial Selection, which is what led him to his formulation of Natural Selection: by selecting traits he could create some dramatic new species of pigeons, so it made sense that Nature must do the same thing to bring about all the variety we see there.
Even his experience of breeding pigeons could have shown him that to get his elaborate new breeds required the loss of other traits than those he selected. There is a cognitive trick involved here that is easy to fall for. You are getting something new, a pigeon with enormous tail feathers perhaps, or with an enormously puffed-out chest, but you get it not by adding anything but by removing everything that doesn't contribute to that chosen trait. Since you are selecting FOR the trait you may not be aware that it requires losing all competing forms of that feature to bring it about.
Genetically this is what happens too. A pure breed is sometimes defined as having reached the condition of fixed genes for all its main characteristics, or "fixed loci" or homozygosity for those traits. This is because competing alleles for each gene have been eliminated from the breeding pool by selection and the selected alleles then reproduced over many generations. Or not as many generations in the case of a very small founding population.
A small number of cattle originally taken from a wild herd would first produce scattered observable individual differences that had been present in the original population but barely noticeable there. It would take the inbreeding of the particular genes in the daughter population to bring such traits to the point where they can be clearly seen. (Another way of saying this is that the daughter population has a new set of gene frequencies from that of the parent population and over time they bring out new phenotypes that disitnguishes it from the original wild herd) These new phenotypes now come to the fore in a few generations because there are fewer mating choices in this smaller population,
As the herd continues in domestication it grows in population and continues to elaborate and develop an emerging phenotype. It contains only the genes selected in the original isolation from the wild herd, and as long as the domesticated herd continues in reproductive isolation it will be those and only thoe genes that will contribute to the herd phenotype that will develop over time. It will go through many changes in individual animals through many generations until eventually a characteristic herd phenotype should emerge. This requires reproductive isolation so that only those original selected genes contribute to the herd phenotype. The population could grow very large and continue to display its own characteristics that distinguish it from the original wild herd. Of course animals will be sold and the population diminshed and the genetic component will lose some genetic material that way but if the growing herd is large enough such losses may not make much difference. The owner of the herd may also decide to breed chosen individuals for reasons of his own. In any case we know there are hundreds of different cattle breeds that have become purebreds over some number of generations, all most likely from the same original wild stock, all differeing from that original wild herd -- AND from other herds that were also taken from it
This is because the domestic herd does NOT have the OTHER genes, it has only those of its own set of gene frequencies shared within its own population, that produce its own particular phenotype. It has LESS ability to evolve than the original herd did, not more, and ultimately this means evolution is limited and at the extremes will become impossible. So, far from being the means of evolution from species to species, Natural Selection actually makes evolution impossible beyond the built-in genetic material of the species genome. Evolution defeats evolution. Meaning the phenotypic variations that selection and isolation bring about reduce genetic diversity within the selected population and such reduction is contrary to what would be required if the ToE were true.
Everybody always wants to add in mutations at this point as if that would defeat my argument. But all mutations do is what any genetic addition does -- it interferes with the reproductive isolation that brings about new phenotypes. Any kind of addition such as resumed gene flow between populationjs will have the same effect. Supposedly a mutation would bring about something truly new but this is unlikely. All it can do is change the trait coded by a particular allele, and it will only vary whatever that gene already does. If it's eye color it will change the eye color, it can't do anything else. If it's fur texture it will change the fur texture, it can't do anything else. And if you do get a viable mutation that also gets selected, for it to become characteristic of the population requires that it continue to be selected and reproduced and the same genetic situation of loss of genetic diversity is the result in any case. So you get a new eye color. That's about it. And my guess would be it's not new anyway, it's probably only the reemergence of an eye color that was lost to the species a long time ago. Genes are just strings of chemicals.
I always forget how long it takes to make any part of this argument. I could go on to the Pod Mrcaru lizards and the Jutland cattler, which demonstrate that evolution, which is really microevolution or built-in variation, can occur in a very short period of time, thirty years in the case of the lizards, something less I think in the case of the cattle. All it takes is reproducrtive isolation of a daughter poulation breeding among themselves for enough generations to bring out all the possibiities of the new set of gene frequencies and blend them together. No millions of years are required. Darwin's Galapagos turtles were the result of separation from the mainland turtle population, whose new gene frequencies produced a new general phenotype over generations of breeding in isolation. Probably only took a couple of decades, depending on how many founding turtles there were. The Pod Mrcaru lizards started from ten individuals.
Another argument I like is the fossil trilobite argument but I didn't intend this to become my definitive statement.
And then there are the Geological arguments, since the ToE is considered to be shown in the fossil record which is contained in layers of sedimentary rock. There is a seeming progression up through the Linnaean taxonomy that seems convincing, and I certainly can't explain that apparent sequence. But the strata are explain in terms of tens of millions of years to define a specific time period -- Cambrian, Devonian, Mississippian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic etc etc etc -- that all together from primordial to recent time add up to billions of years. On this time scale a particular creature, say reptiles, show up within one period of tens of millions of years, and the next period up, meaning the next layer of sedimentary rock above it, contains mammals which are then taken to have evolved from the reptiles. this is impossible for many reasons but I'm too tired to try to argue it out again here.
And besides, the mere equation of a slab of sedimentary rock with a time period is just plain ludicrous. And don't tell me that equation isn't made. There is a model of the strata at the Grand Canyon that makes it very clear that is how it is understood. No, such strata of different kinds of sediments could not possibly have occurred so regularly over tens of millions of years per layer, neatly changing from one sediment to another so abruptly and completely. Obviously the best explanation for the strata is the Flood of Noah. Worldwide. Chock full of fossils of all the dead things the Flood was intended to bring about. Water in many forms causes layering of sediments. It even occurs with the rising of sea water. Walther's Law I think. I forget so much of this because I haven't argued it in so long. It should all be at EvC Forum though unless Percy decided to censor it all. Some of it is on my other blog here but not as much as is at EvC.
Wish some evolutionary biologist might come along who has the honesty and integrity as well as the IQ to get my point. Not that I have such a great IQ I hasten to add. Mine is only middling, but perseverance and prayer can accomplish a lot. Nevertheless it takes a lot of thought and a lot of time and it's counterintuitive in many ways, as well as fraught with all the baggage of the ToE that is being challenged. If I die soon I'd like to think somebody appreciated it all though.
