Dean Burgon's Fiery War on Modernist Science-so-called, Part 2

Continuing with some Burgon quotes from Inspiration and Interpretation:

AT THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MISCHIEF OF THESE LAST DAYS LIES DISBELIEF IN THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD. THIS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR (Preface, p. xvii).

YOU ARE NEVER TO FORGET THE GREAT FUNDAMENTAL POSITION, THAT THE BIBLE CLAIMS TO BE THE WORD OF GOD; AND THAT GOD'S WORD CAN NEVER CONTRADICT OR BE CONTRADICTED BY GOD'S WORKS (Sermon II, p. 41).

DESTROY MY CONFIDENCE IN THE BIBLE AS AN HISTORICAL RECORD, AND YOU DESTROY MY CONFIDENCE IN IT ALTOGETHER; FOR BY FAR THE LARGEST PART OF THE BIBLE IS AN HISTORICAL RECORD. If the Creation of Man, -- the longevity of the Patriarchs, -- the account of the Deluge; -- if these be not true histories, what is to be said of the lives of Abraham, of Jacob, of Joseph, of Moses, of Joshua, of David, -- of our Saviour Christ Himself? ... Will you then reject one miracle and retain another? Impossible! You can make no reservation, even in favour of the incarnation of our Lord, -- the most adorable of all miracles, as it is the very keystone of our Christian hope. EITHER, WITH THE BEST AND WISEST OF ALL AGES, YOU MUST BELIEVE THE WHOLE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE; OR, WITH THE NARROW-MINDED INFIDEL, YOU MUST DISBELIEVE THE WHOLE. THERE IS NO MIDDLE COURSE OPEN TO YOU (Sermon II, p. 46).

HE WHO SURRENDERS THE FIRST PAGE OF HIS BIBLE, SURRENDERS ALL. (Sermon II, p. 51?).

THE BIBLE (BE PERSUADED) IS THE VERY UTTERANCE OF OF THE ETERNAL; -- AS MUCH GOD'S WORD, AS IF HIGH HEAVEN WERE OPEN, AND WE HEARD GOD SPEAKING TO US WITH HUMAN VOICE. Every book of it, is inspired alike; and is inspired entirely. ... THE BIBLE IS NONE OTHER THAN THE VOICE OF HIM THAT SITTETH UPON THE THRONE! EVERY BOOK OF IT, -- EVERY CHAPTER OF IT, -- EVERY VERSE OF IT, -- EVERY WORD OF IT, -- EVERY SYLLABLE OF IT, -- (WHERE ARE WE TO STOP?) -- EVERY LETTER OF IT -- IS THE DIRECT UTTERANCE OF THE MOST HIGH! (Sermon III, p. 76?)

[The above are all copied from David Cloud's For Love of the Bible, pp. 131, 135, 136, 137. All the emphases are his. Where I've put a question mark after a page number, what I've copied is only a portion of a long segment and I don't know which of the page numbers noted refers to what I copied out.].

Cloud sums up, p. 137:

What we see in the previous excerpts [from which I've taken the few quotations above] is one of the most brilliant scholars of the nineteenth century boldly testifying of his faith in a perfect Bible before the student body of the university. We can be sure that such a testimony has not been heard at that university in many a decade, probably not in this century. Burgon's views did not prevail. His earnest pleas were ignored. The soul-destroying gloom of rationalism has long settled over Oxford.

[p. 138] Burgon was a scholar, but he refused to dance to the scholar's tunes. We will see that today's Rationalists -- Metzger, Bruce, Kenyon, Aland, and that gang -- treat Burgon as if he were some kind of tradition-bound crank. In fact, a great many who profess to be evangelical today hold rationalistic views on the Bible, denying the literalness of the first three chapters of Genesis, rejecting the absolute perfection of the inspired text, claiming that the Bible is inaccurate when it deals with "scientific matters." Burgon's defense of the verbal-plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture steps on the toes of the vast majority of today's Christian scholars and theologians.

Often we worry about how many are drawn away from the truth by the claims of science, which is what motivates many Christians to try to argue against those claims scientifically. But as I've reported recently, I've finally pulled back from that effort because no matter what one says, no matter how telling a point you make on that level, they will deny it one way or another. The evidence for the Flood is everywhere, for instance, but they are blind to it and rationalize it away. The evidence for the degeneration of life is good but they deny it and won't even consider doing what it would take to demonstrate it. They are under the spell of their theory, perhaps irrevocably doomed to delusion.

It must be God's will, then, that we simply hold up His Word to them instead of spending so much time on the scientific questions. God's Word is sharper than a two-edged sword and if they ignore it they will be finally judged by it. Burgon's defense is a wonderful model for us.

There is no doubt also a great deal of pride and fear of man that motivates those who abandon parts of the Bible to Science-so-called while claiming they can hold onto the rest. This is a great snare. We have to hold to the Bible no matter what they say against us, no matter what it does to our reputation in the eyes of the worldly. God's word is "foolishness" to fallen humanity. They lack the "ears to hear" and we can't give them that, we can only give them the Word and either they can hear it or they can't. That's just the way it is. They will call us "morons" and worse, and eventually they may even persecute us here in the Land of the Free, just as they do in the rest of the world. When we are called to Christ we are called to die to this world, and this is one way we must die to it.

What a glorious testimony Burgon has. We should all aim for that faithfulness to God's word in denial of our standing in this world.

Dean Burgon's Fiery War on Modernist Science-so-called should be our model

John William Burgon has so far figured in my blogs only on the subject of the Bible versions as an inspiring and passionate scholar and writer against the revisionist Bible put out by a cadre of modernist Anglican churchmen in the 19th century. But now I've been introduced to another of his writings through David Cloud's wonderful history of the Bible versions controversy, For Love of the Bible, in which he discusses Burgon and quotes at length from Burgon's book in response to a modernist tract of his day, which puts Science-so-called above God's word. Oh how I love Dean Burgon. The more I read of his writings the more I love the man whose mind produced them. He is, as David Cloud calls him, indeed a "warrior," a warrior for truth over lies, in this case the truth over the lies of modernism, the lies of Science-so-called. I found his book online at CCEL but I'll probably mostly be quoting from David Cloud's book.

[Sometimes I think I won't be much interested in seeing ANYONE I know from this life in heaven, not family or friends -- oh a few exceptions do come to mind (and of course we'll all be perfected and love each other completely) -- but there are plenty of people I know only through their books or books about them that I could follow around for eternity, and Burgon is one of them. If of course one can have eyes for anyone besides the Lord]

The fire with which Burgon writes offends some, though it's a quality I've always particularly enjoyed in his writings, and here he defends this style:

When a few words have been added concerning the manner in which I have executed my task, this Preface shall be brought to a close. ... A man feels strongly and warmly; writes fast and freely; is determined to be clearly understood: IS WEARY OF THE DIGNIFIED CONVENTIONALITIES UNDER WHICH SCEPTICISM LOVES TO CONCEAL ITSELF WHEN IT COMES ABROAD. ... Some respectable persons, I doubt not, will think my treatment of them harsh and uncharitable. ... If I may declare my mind freely, PUNCTILIOUS COURTESY IN DEALING WITH SUCH OPINIONS, BECOMES A SPECIES OF TREASON AGAINST HIM AFTER WHOSE NAME WE ARE CALLED, and whom we profess to serve. Seven men may combine to handle the things of God, it seems, in the most outrageous manner; while themselves are to be the objects of consideration, tenderness, respect! I cannot see their title to any consideration at all. (pp. xxiii, xxiv).[Cloud 131-2][all caps are Cloud's, large type and bolding are mine]

Right. THAT is the spirit in which we SHOULD respond in defense of the word of God against those who attack it, not against nonChristians who don't know any better, but certainly against those who call themselves Christians (or who at least know what Christianity teaches) and yet support modernist attacks on the Bible.

These days if you dare to call a heretic a heretic you may be denounced as harsh and unloving by the heretics who call themselves Christians, and the heretic will even be supported by people you know to be Christians, very weak Christians, who think Christian love is a flabby thing that amounts to always being nice to everybody. No, Burgon is right. We are NOT to be nice to people who claim to be Christian but attack God's word and allow dangerous lies to go unchallenged. Yet, even when one attacks only the lies and not the person today's shrinking "Christians" may find that too "harsh." No wonder the church is so weak.

He goes on:

This is no literary misunderstanding, or I could have been amicable enough ... No other than an attempt to destroy Man's dearest hopes, is this infamous book: no other than an insult, the grossest imaginable, offered to the Majesty of Heaven; an attack, the more foul because it is so insidious, against the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. IN SUCH A CAUSE I WILL NOT SO FAR GIVE IN TO THE SMOOTH FASHION OF A SUPPLE AND INDIFFERENT AGE, AS TO PAY THESE SEVEN WRITERS A SINGLE COMPLIMENT WHICH THEY WILL CARE TO ACCEPT (Preface, pp. xxvi, xxvii). [Cloud, 132][all caps are Cloud's, bolding is mine]

And then he goes on to defend the Book of Genesis -- THE BOOK OF GENESIS, THE VERY FIRST VERSES OF GENESIS -- against the claims of "Science." Oh happy day, he makes me weep for joy at his bold defense of truth, at the same time weep in mourning over the lies that have taken over our formerly Christian civilization ever since Darwin.

The arguments he is answering are the same arguments we are called upon to answer now -- the insertion of thousands, millions of years into the Creation Week for instance.

I want to post this now as I need a break, although I may want to come back later and add more as he gets into the meat of the argument.

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But here I want to quote his own motto at the beginning of his book because it is so apt and so true to his character:

I CANNOT HOLD MY PEACE, BECAUSE THOU HAST HEARD, O MY SOUL,
THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, THE ALARM OF WAR.

{That's from Jeremiah somewhere]. How I wish there were more true Christians now with his spirit. How I wish he had won the war, for the sake of the Church which is now laboring under a miserable load of modernist garbage, in the form of the modernist Bibles at least, and under a spell of some kind of mealy-mouthed nicey-niceness too. But he didn't win -- except I know he won the praise of our Lord and will enjoy it for eternity and that makes me happy.

He didn't win. The idiots won. The unbelieving modernists won. They took over the Anglican church for one thing. They are behind all the modern Bibles for another.

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Later. As I've come back to this after my break, reading along in the Preface at CCEL, I just want to report again how happy Burgon makes me. And his writing has almost the same effect as Scripture itself on me, obviously because he is so utterly devoted to God's word -- the peace that passes understanding comes over me at times as I read him, just as it does as I read Scripture, undoing knots in my muscles, even putting me in a state of worship.

But also sometimes I burst into laughter at his ability to capture the sheer evil stupidities of his opponents, as here:

There is a certain form of fallacy of statement in which this Gentleman’s writings abound, which calls aloud for notice and signal reprobation. He has a marvellous aptitude, (one would fain hope through some intellectual infirmity,) of connecting together in the same sentence two or three clauses; one or two of which shall be true as Heaven, while the other XXIXis false as Hell. The reply to such a sentence is impossible, without many words,—far more than Mr. Jowett’s sentences commonly deserve.—Sometimes he strings together several heads of thought; of which enumeration the kindest thing which can be said is that it betrays an utter want of intellectual perspective. To unravel even a part of this tangled web so as to expose its argumentative worthlessness, soon fills a page. . . . . But there is another kind of fallacy which the same gentleman wields with immense effect, and in the use of which he is a great master; which, because it was absolutely impossible to handle it fitly in the proper place, shall be briefly adverted to, here. I proceed to describe it not without indignation; for I am profoundly struck by the intellectual perversity, not to say the moral obliquity, which has so entirely made this vile instrument its own.

The fallacy then is of this nature. When Professor Jowett would put forth something especially deserving of reprehension,—some sentiment or opinion which he either knows, or ought to know, that the whole Church will resent with unqualified abhorrence,—he assumes a plaintive manner, and puts himself into an interesting attitude; sometimes even folds his hands, as if in prayer. He then begins by (1) throwing out a remark of real beauty, and so conciliating for himself an indulgent hearing; or (2) he goes off on some Moral question, and so defeats attention; or (3) he delivers himself of some undeniable truth, and so disarms censure; or (4) he says something of an entirely equivocal kind, and so leaves his reader at fault. Candour, of course, gives him the benefit of the doubt. XXXIt is not till the sentence is well advanced, or till it is examined by the fatal light of its context, that one is shewn what the ambiguous writer really was intending. A cloven foot appears at last; but it is instantly withdrawn, with a shuffle; and you experience a scowl or a sneer, as the case may be, for your extreme unkindness in inquiring whether it was not a cloven foot you saw? . . . . Meanwhile, the learned Professor has gone off in alia omnia, with a look of earnestness which challenges respect, and a vagueness of diction which at once discourages pursuit and defeats inquiry. The fish invariably ends by disappearing in a cloud of his own ink.

What a satisfying description of the methods of such sanctimonious liars. The devil certainly does know how to guide his captives into such mind-twisting exercises.

This is almost at the end of his Preface. The end goes:

It shall suffice to have said thus much. These pages must now be suffered to go forth; not without a hearty aspiration that a blessing may attend them from Him sine Quo nihil est validum, nilil sanctum; and that what was intended for the strength and help of those who want helping and strengthening, (I am thinking particularly of what has been offered on the subject of Inspiration,) may not prove misleading or perplexing to any.

Science rejects THE source of truth and prides itself on its trek down the primrose path.

At EvC today,

Percy writes:

Dembski writes:
As a biblical inerrantist, I believe that what the Bible teaches is true and bow to the text, including its teaching about the Flood and its universality.

An inerrantist of any type, whether Newtonian, Darwinian, Einsteinian or Biblical, cannot be considered a scientist.

This is of course a foundational principle at EvC, though to one who knows the Bible as the Word of God, very odd, as if Science had consciously chosen to be misled. Consciously or not, of course, they ARE misled.

The thread to this point has questioned whether Dembski is really true to the Bible, but I don't have an opinion about that and it doesn't make a difference on this particular point. Dembski claims to believe that the Bible is inerrant and Biblical inerrancy is the point in question.

Percy doesn't seem even to recognize that his statement is based on nothing but a raw assumption, the assumption that the Bible is on the same level as the writings of Newton, Darwin and Einstein, a mere human work. But of course to a believer the Bible is truly the word of God, and as the word of God it can instruct us in EVERYTHING as whatever God says is foundational to ALL truth, including science. It's not a scientific text but it says just enough to make science a liar if it ignores it.

If you start with the Bible you can't go wrong, scientifically or any other way, as long as you recognize that your take on what the Bible implies on scientific questions may not be right. But if you make your own fallible intellect your foundation you will forever be finding what seem to you to be contradictions with the Bible. The problem with scientific thought over the last oh 150 years or so, particularly about origins -- origin of the cosmos, origin of the planet, origin of life -- is that it has progressively rejected God's word because fallible intellect is unable to reconcile its own impressions with the Bible's often veiled hints.

Early scientists had some strange ideas about what sort of evidence the Biblical Flood would have left, for instance (and science is stuck still with those strange ideas), so when science pointed out a fact or two that did not square with their strange ideas they jettisoned not just the strange ideas but the Bible itself, as if those strange ideas came from the Bible, which they didn't.

Same with Galileo. The Roman Church was enamored with the teachings of Aristotle through Aquinas, mixing pagan belief with God's word (just as they do with their worship of the "saints" and the "Queen of Heaven" and relics and indulgences and all that pagan superstition along with their lavish pagan paraphernalia and unholy wealth), and Aristotle's pagan religion put the earth at the center of the cosmos. So it was Aristotle, not the Bible, that Galileo's findings contradicted, but people still have the mistaken impression, since the Roman church taught that mistaken impression, that it was the Bible he contradicted. Now they have accepted Galileo and rejected the Bible, although there is no contradiction, and they have accepted evolution and rejected the Bible, although it should be the other way around.

The early geologist Hutton took a look at a formation on the coast of Scotland and declared off the top of his own fallible head that it proved that the earth was ancient, far more ancient than the age determinable from the Bible, and scientists ever after have accepted that declaration from his fallible head and added their own fallible conjectures to it, declaring it all fact as they went, as well as their conjectures about some supposedly objective scientific procedures they believe confirm it.

God will laugh in the end.

Evolutionist bias lurches on

I suppose Coyote might be offended that I'm going to call his example of skulls arranged in a subjectively graded series supposedly representing various types of human beings an abuse of intelligence, but that's what I'm going to call it.

To know whether some of the less human-looking skulls really are human or not I'd have to see their possessors walking around. Human beings come with quite a wide range of skull shapes and sizes but I don't trust paleontologists to be able to distinguish a human skull from a "hominid" or an ape skull. There is no such thing as a hominid, so it's either an ape or a human and since they have that fantasy category mixed in there I don't trust any of it.

So his question to ICANT is meaningless:

OK, if changes at the species level are "still mice" then what do you make of the six figures in the upper left half of the figure below? They are a similar level of change to the "mice" you are so fond of.

And how exactly have you determined that they represent this similar level of change? These are SKULLs, not living creatures. You can't look at their DNA, you can't decide anything really. Some of the flatter skulls don't look very human to me, you just put them in a series that fits your belief that human beings evolved from something apish and got yourself convinced that you can treat this as evidence. You are blowing smoke. Those who arranged those skulls are blowing smoke.

Do you agree that they are all the same?

By which I have to suppose he means Are they all human beings? Well, the answer is that IF they are all human beings, then yes they ARE "all the same" in the sense ICANT meant that the mice are still mice. But again, I don't know if those are all human skulls or not. Sorry.

Then Theodoric accuses creationist Dawn Bertot:

ICANT has ignored this question from frako. It seems you are too. Is this part of your vaunted debating skills? Ignoring the difficult questions.

Frako writes:
How much of a difference in your mind must 2 species have to be called 2 species and not the same species? The minimum difference please

How is a creationist supposed to answer such a question since we don't think in terms of differences the way evolutionists do? Nobody's evading anything, it's just that the question is meaningless. It's an artifact of the evolution fantasy.

However, I did answer in an earlier post today that perhaps Macroevolution should be defined as occurring WHEN SANE PEOPLE (INTUITIVELY AND SPONTANEOUSLY) RECOGNIZE THAT A NEW "SPECIES"/VARIETY NEEDS TO BE CALLED BY A NEW NAME. If it's still a mouse or a horse or a fruitfly then it's a mouse or a horse or a fruitfly no matter how many Latin subtitles you string after it -- and that's microevolution, not macroevolution (which of course doesn't exist).

Wit ought to be acknowledged I suppose

Dr. Adequate is of course on the wrong side of this debate as are the vast majority at EvC but you do have to admit he has a knack for well-wrought zingers as here .

That was incoherent, but I believe you intended to be insulting.

You're not very good at that, either, are you?

I wonder what you are good at? I suppose with the right armature a taxidermist might make you into a passable hatstand.

Hate to have to appreciate the nasty mean wit but he forced it out of me. Too funny.

Unfortunately too many of the creationists at EvC ARE frequently incoherent, or get their terminology mixed up or just don't understand the issues. When they do make a good point I'd at least like to acknowledge it myself, but I have to wonder why it is that the quality of creationist argument has been declining there over the years.

Unfortunately I'm sure I know why. For all the wit and IQ points on the other side their arguments ARE spun out of cobwebs and word fraud enforced by ridicule and put-downs, and serious creationists won't stick that out forever. In fact there have been a few pretty good ones there in the last few months but I haven't seen them there for some time.

Evolution has been killed dead a zillion times but they keep following its ghost around pretending it's alive

Oh BROTHER. This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Now they are accusing ICANT and other creationists on the thread "Can I disprove Macro-evolution" of being off topic. Hoo boy, what will they think of next? But then it turns out it's not that they're off topic, it's that they haven't disproved Macroevolution, which is what the title of the thread supposedly demands of them, which of course the evos wouldn't recognize if it bit them, and they have teeth marks all over them but don't seem to notice. Case of genetic entropy perhaps -- nerve degeneration radiating out from the gluteus maximus?

The problem is that Dawn Bertot and JRTjr and ICANT are happily leading you and others down those oh so attractive rabbit holes.

The topic is NOT whether Macro-Evolution happened, it is an assertion that they can disprove Macro-evolution.

It is their assertion that it did not happen, and until they provide a model that better explains what is seen than the current model, they have failed.

Stop letting them change the subject and lead you guys astray.

It is up to them to provide convincing evidence that Macro-Evolution did not happen.

Nothing would qualify as convincing evidence for them, obviously. They are just wilfully blind to the good evidence that HAS been provided. There's nothing wrong with ICANT's evidence.

And the latest in this string of nonsense posts on that thread:

i know i would poste the latin name of that new mouse and the house mouse but he would still say they are still mice

Of course he would because that IS the evidence against Macroevolution and he has fulfilled the requirement of the title of the thread with a resounding Yes he CAN disprove Macroevolution and he did. Because you can't just redefine reality and call it science, folks, if mice are still mice no matter what new Latinized characteristics a particular strain of them may have you have not achieved Macroevolution. AND again, they will have reduced genetic diversity TOO, which is THE real-world actual-fact killer of evolution.

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I guess this is a place to tack on a reaction to a later post by ICANT: This is a post where he and I disagree:

I also understand that there will be sub-species that will arise due to malfunctions in errors in DNA information resulting in mutations.

Sub-species arise from the simple shuffling of the genetic possibilities that God built into the DNA, a very abundant array of possible variations, far MORE abundant in past generations and extravagantly abundant in the pre-Flood world, losing diversity over time thanks to the Fall and the Flood.

The reason offspring are different from parents is not mutations, it's the shuffling of the alleles for the various characteristics in the parents' DNA and this is how new varieties get formed too, as limited populations become isolated from the greater population and their smaller gene pool is the source of their own characteristics.

I'm sure science is right that we do all have mutations, even our own unique mutations, but I can't think that is a good thing since there are thousands of genetic diseases in the human genome, no doubt caused by mutations, and I'm also convinced that "junk DNA" is -- mostly -- the result of mutations, basically a killing off of formerly functioning genes.

Evolutionsts ASSUME that all the DNA was the result of mutations but that's just an article of faith; there is no evidence that that is so. Mutations are errors in the DNA and must be a consequence of the Fall. Of course evolutionists aren't going to do the necessary tests to really pin it down and I don't know how many creationists are looking in this direction either.

Mutations are not necessary, and I personally doubt that they ever contribute anything positive to the development of varieties or sub-species.

Word Magic, Definitional Abracadabra is how evolutionism wins the Micro/Macro-evolution Debate

This is HILARIOUS. Oh Crashie, you've outdone yourself. Post of the Month material here.

Creationist ICANT (whose posts I have to admit to not being able to follow much of the time, and I think he and I disagree on some major points as well, but I've lost track) has been hitting the theme of microevolution as the limit of evolution pretty well lately in my opinion, emphasizing how inability to interbreed is an arbitrary definition of Species, with some good examples from his own experience with animals. He's been holding up tenaciously (he doesn't lose his temper the way I do, forgive me Lord), against the evos for some time at EvC.

So here's crashfrog showing how evolutionists think , and it ain't pretty:

[ICANT} You can call it anything you want to call it. But if you start with two mice and a billion years later you got trillions of mice and billions of them can not breed with each other because of changes or habits you still got trillions of mice, whether they can breed with each other or not.

[crash] Right. And again - macroevolution is not the prediction that mice will ever stop being mice; it's that the group called "mice" will come to refer to more and more different species.

"Ape" referred, once, to only a single species. Now it refers to dozens, including hominids like us. "Hominid" once referred to a single species; now, it refers to dozens, including Homo hablis, Homo neandertalis, and Homo sapiens.

Do you understand, yet? Mice will still be mice, apes will still be apes, tetrapods will still be tetrapods, birds will still be birds - yet, macroevolution will still be occurring, species will still be changing, and new species will still be emerging from old ones. Mice will never turn into birds - but evolution doesn't say that they ever did.

Do you understand that?

So what he's doing here is trying to pull the rug out from under all attempts to make the point ICANT has been making by simply redefining his point out of the contest. Definitional abracadabra. WORD MAGIC. I dunno, what's the very best analogy? Shell and pea game maybe?

Oh yes macroevolution IS exactly what he says it is not: ...macroevolution is not the prediction that mice will ever stop being mice. It most certainly IS, Crash, and that should be the definition of macroevolution.

What crash is saying amounts to total denial that the Theory of Evolution says all living things came from OTHER living things with OTHER NAMES. We don't dispute that microeveolution occurs, many varieties of the same species, some of which cannot interbreed with one another, which is ICANT's point. But MACROevolution begins where the NAMES CHANGE. Come ON crash, this is word games you are playing here. Or really it's Evolutionism that's playing the word games. You are FORCING your view of things on us this way rather than making a rational case for it.

We know the difference between a mouse and a marmot, between a lizard and a bird, crash, AND SO DO YOU! The words clearly designate an objective reality that all recognize, so don't tell us about 5000 species of mice or lizards when the question at hand is whether the processes of variation could ever produce something that we would no longer CALL by the name of its originating species, something we'd no longer call a mouse or a lizard. THAT's WHAT THE QUESTION IS, CRASH, AND YOU KNOW IT.

We even concede the term "species" to you all, and why not? since all those words are synonyms -- Kind, Species, Class, Variety, etc. Clarity depends on having a fixed meaning for their specific uses but unfortunately Evolutionism has co-opted the terms to their own meanings, which they designate as Correct of course, leaving Creationists to make awkward convoluted efforts to distinguish one meaning from another, which evos can then pounce on with their trimphalist denunciations. We try to use the terms to convey the reality we have in mind and it's hard under the best of circumstances to be clear in that effort, but you and your evo friends seem to want to go out of your way to be as unclear as possible. There is no honest effort at debate here. Or, to be fairer than is warranted, at the very least you are so completely bamboozled by your own paradigm you can't think any other way and won't give the benefit of the doubt to so many who are trying to make the opposite case, just because it doesn't fit into your terminological and conceptual system. Of course it doesn't, it is a DIFFERENT MODEL COMPLETELY from evolution's. PARADIGM conflict, Crash.

Yes, WORD MAGIC. That's most of what Evolutionism is and Crashie has demonstrated it here. The Geology wing labels the strata in ways guaranteed to mystify anyone just starting out trying to understand some of these things, and more knowledgeable people as well who memorize it all as if it meant something. The labels serve only to obscure the reality the inquirer is looking for. What we have is slabs of rock but since they've been given fancy names to designate them as Time Periods it's very hard even to remember that they are just slabs of rock. This bit of word magic prevails despite the fact that over the decades since these labels came into fashion their boundaries have been pushed around quite a bit, mostly back and back -- as if nobody has a clue what they're talking about, which they don't.

Then the Biology wing pulls this kind of trick described by crashfrog. And the Paleontology wing does it by making sure the latest fossil discovery is carefully defined by supposed age and supposed evolutionary lineage so you can't get a clear picture of exactly what it is they found, thus begging the very question creationists are trying to address, co-opting the facts for the ToE, making it as hard as possible to think outside their carefully constructed theoretical box.

Yeah, shell and pea game, you can't lose if you keep shifting the definitions -- surreptitiously moving the pea from one shell to another. If you get all the definitions completely blurred together in the service of Evolution eventually we won't be able to think at all and we'll all just nod and smile and lockstep along with whatever you say.

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Postscript: The thread continues:

[ICANT] At no time did the piney-woods-rooter cease to be the same creature that I started with.

Well, it's not the same creature you started with. The creature you started with, presumably, died long ago, and the piney-woods rooters you have now are his descendants.

And, again - if "piney-woods rooter", as a term, can now encompass two species where before it encompassed one, why can't that be happening in nature? Why can't that have happened in the past?

Why can't "mammal", for instance, at one time have encompassed only a single kind of creature, and then over time come to have encompassed a large number of related creatures?

At least you need to begin to become aware of something you are just blithely skipping over here, Crashfrog, which is that there is a real problem with thinking you can prove evolution by definitional changes.

Consider this: Children are all different from their parents and from each other in describable ways. Are they separate species from their parents?

This is what you are implying when you say that the descendants of wild hogs selected by ICANT are a different species because they weigh much more than their ancestors, which he described here in Message 136 :

I am a farm raised person who has taken wild hogs we called piney-woods rooters that could survive on little food and water who weighed less than a hundred pounds. Through selective, breeding produced animals that weighed over 700 pounds that could survive on small amounts of food and water.

Where are you going to draw the line? Or are you going to refuse to draw one at all, and make every individual human or ape or horse into a separate species? Perhaps you want to eliminate the entire concept of Species altogether so that we'll have no names for anything any more and can go back to living in caves.

I know, you draw the line at inability to interbreed any more. But again, sorry, I've already shown that that one is just as arbitrary and meaningless. "Species" always meant creatures with different names. That's what it meant in Darwin's day and up until recently, at least until all this definitional hooha started taking over.

Let's stick to that definition. We'll have macroevolution when ALL SANE PEOPLE AGREE to call ICANT's new hog something other than a hog or a pig, not until. Meanwhile the changes within a species that lead to differentiating a new population from an old population, including inability to interbreed, are still only microevolution. Otherwise the debate is meaningless, words mean nothing, and we might as well all check into the loony bin.

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Yet later:
And now Dr. Adequate chimes in.

[ICANT] I don't see how the big stallion and the little mare in my avatar can breed and produce an offspring.

They are both classified as horses.

So where is the difference other than size?

[Dr. A] The difference other than the very obvious difference? Well, if they can't breed, the other difference is species.

WRONG! You've just shown your adherence to the definitional destruction of truth, the Word Magic corruption of Reality, to mystification, to obfuscation. It's only macroevolution because you say it is, not because it is.

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Friday note:
Can't believe I left out the usual word on what the real reality actually IS. It's the fact that all new "species" that are highly specialized -- of mice, of hogs, of horses -- OUGHT to have the ability to further "evolve" into new varieties and "species" IF EVOLUTION IS TRUE, but the FACT is that in order to get such variations or "species" their genetic potentials must be REDUCED as those for their peculiar characteristics are refined and elaborated. It's what MUST happen when you (or Nature) isolate a small number from the greater population in order to develop a new variety, and you MUST reduce the numbers to get such new species so there's no way to avoid the genetic reduction. It does not happen any other way. I've made this point over and over and over. You can't get from any new highly "evolved" or specialized species to further species, whether this is brought about by domestic breeding or by the various forms of selection and isolation that operate in the wild, and that is the end of Evolution right there.

Ta-DA!!!
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Yeah, you CAN wait around until Judgment Day if you MUST to find this out if you don't want to acknowledge it now.