Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site imsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Darwinism vs catastrophic evolution Message-ID: <364@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 2-Aug-85 16:46:52 EDT Article-I.D.: imsvax.364 Posted: Fri Aug 2 16:46:52 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Aug-85 05:50:13 EDT Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 137 As I understand it, net.origins is primarily concerned with evolution. I feel that a discussion Immanuel Velikovsky's works is appropriate for net.origins simply because Velikovsky's theory regarding evolution (catastrophic evolution) is the only one which is logical or comes close to working. Darwinism clearly isn't logical and doesn't work, and that fact represents the most major failure of modern science. Bad laws such as prohibition or the 55 mph speed limit destroy respect for the law; a bad major theory such as Darwinism destroys respect for science. Darwinian evolution, i.e. slow and imperceptible evolution, represents a major investment in time and energy on the part of the scientific community. However, after one hundred years of indoctrination in the schools, the American people have never bought the idea. Polls on the subject repeatedly show this. The American public, by and large, is as fair and well educated a jury you could hope for in the world. Four or five years ago, in Roanoke, Va., a debate took place between creationists and evolutionists. By all accounts, the debate was conducted fairly, the Christians in the audience behaving themselves in exemplary fashion. And by all accounts, including those of reporters from the Washington Post, Richmond Times, and Norfolk papers, the creationists won the debate going away. The evolutionists haven't managed to work up the guts for a return match since or, at least if they have, I've not heard about it. This makes me wonder if any of our so called "scientists" ever feel shame. I mean, if I'd ever lost a debate to Falwell and his minions, I'd still be out in the forrest somewhere hiding underneath a rock. Any competant Baptist minister could destroy Darwinism in 15 minutes; a really dedicated creationist like Ron Kukuk (whom I enjoy reading) can apparently destroy Darwinism in 116 ways. That's really heavy. Even in the most one-sided contests I've ever seen or read about, Sitting Bull vs Custer, Genghis Khan vs Persia, Duran-DeJesus III, Oklahoma vs Kansas State 1971, nobody ever got demolished 116 ways. Maybe 112 max. Most of Ron's arguments seem logical enough to me. However, he doesn't even need most of his arguments. It should be obvious even to evolutionists (so simple even they could understand it), that if even five of his 116 points are valid, Darwinism along with the notion of uniformitarianism in geology and astronomy are untenable. ALSO UNTENABLE WOULD BE THE NOTION OF THE HUGE TIME FRAMES WHICH NATURAL SCIENTISTS ARE SO FOND OF. What are the odds against Ron being correct on fewer than five of 116 counts? If Ron's 116 aren't good enough, I've got several more. The one that really kills Darwinism as far as I'm concerned goes as follows: chance mutations are mostly harmful or fatal and even these are rare. The ones which aren't harmful are extremely rare and are isolated in time and local e.g. a child with six fingers may be born in Paris in 1725 A.D. and the next such child in Chicago in 1912 A.D. What are the chances of these two marrying and having six-fingered children? Further, many higher animals will simply kill mutants. Amongst humans, in every century prior to this one, this phenomenon took the form of the witchcraft trial. Picture walking around with six fingers in medieval France? The same argument cannot be used against the notion of catastrophic evolution. Apparently, during the Noachian deluge and also at the times of the disasters described in Worlds in Collision, as well as during earlier catastrophies which lie outside of human memory, huge amounts of energy and radiation were unleashed upon this planet. Mutations abounded, most of which were detrimental and short-lived, but some of which were useful; like mutants were able to form new species fairly quickly. Survivors of old species were too occupied saving themselves to worry about killing off mutants. Finally, each of these disasters ruined the world for a period of years afterwards. Heightened competition for survival between old and new species in a ruined world did actually insure the survival of the fittest OF THOSE WHOM THE DISASTER ITSELF HADN'T EXTIRPATED ROOT AND BRANCH. In recorded history, no entire species has ever perished from a major continent other than at the hand of man. Ancient man was not capable of this, especially not against sabre-tooths, super-lions, Pterotorns etc. ONLY VELIKOVSKIAN EVOLUTION CAN EXPLAIN EXTINCTION. Whole species became extinct not from being unfit, but from being at the wrong place at the wrong time as tidal waves rolled over whole continents and other unhealthy events occurred. The largest animals were particularly susceptible to extinction since they had the hardest time getting to high ground or cover. That is, of the large animals which perished long after the flood. Others, including a few left-over large dinosaurs, perished when the force of gravity itself changed on the earth, shortly after the flood. The pteratorn was basically a 250 lb golden eagle with a thirty foot wingspan. Considering that 20 lb Berkut eagles (found in Khirgiz country in the USSR) can kill wolves and deer and pop NFL footballs in their talons, a pteratorn could probably have killed about anything which ever walked this earth. Man certainly didn't cause his extinction. His whole body was made for aerial maneuver and for killing creatures our size and carrying them off into the sky. His range of operations might have been the entire world. But the biggest birds which fly today are less than 30 lbs and they can barely take off. A pteratorn couldn't fly today for the same reason that 250 lb athletes don't compete in gymnastics. But he flew then. He was a creature flawlessly adapted to a world in which the force of gravity itself was a fraction of what it is now, a world which Noah and his sons actually lived in. In reality, it is the world which Darwinists invented, the world in which only the slowest and most inperceptible changes ever take place in biological and in geological forms, which is the fairy tale world. Velikovskian evolution can easily explain the transmutation of species which is so clearly evident in the fossil record, as well as the extinction of so many ancient life forms. That puts Immanuel Velikovsky way the hell in front of Charles Darwin. Darwinism can explain Down's syndrom, Tay-Sachs disease, sickle-cell anemia etc. and that's about it, period. Can Velikovskian evolution explain the rise of complicated life forms from one celled animals? The answer to that question is unknowable. It is possible, but I doubt it. The weight of evidence seems to show that the earth is far younger than natural scientists like to believe (several evidences of this are cited by the afore-mentioned Kukuk). I think it more likely that life as we know it was either transported to or created on this planet, and has evolved since. There are all kinds of possibilities. The only possibility I rule out altogether is Darwinism and the uniformitarian rubbish which is taught in our schools. Even Jerry Falwell's notion of an omnipotent Deity with a Hart Schafner and Marx suit on and a "honk if you love Jesus" sticker on the bumper of his El Dorado makes more sense than that.