h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can certainly see the point of consensus. If most of the experts think one thing, that thing certainly ought to be considered, but, as your Barbera McLintock example shows, the consensus can be wrong, which is why we need other theories. Anyway, why am I telling you this? You guys already know this. Moving on...

Thanks, Madent for clearing up the bit about stars. I was not attempting to use that as evidence for creationism; I don't see anything in it. I was just curious. One could, however, argue that species of life become extinct eventually just as a stars formed from former stars eventually decay. The definition of life confuses me, I must admit. I heard another one that said life is everything that has DNA, which would classify viruses as life. I think that's the best definition I've heard.

Yes, the anthropic principle states that the universe was created for life. And if the universe does not exist, logically, it is not a good place for life. This is why the anthropic principle includes examples that seem to have nothing to do with life, such as the one I gave. I'm sure that God created the Earth with man in mind, but Earth was created to sustain all life, not just us. That's why I don't like the name "anthropic principle"

Now I'm skipping work as well!

But McLintock went through the scientific method (as described so eloquently by Madent). The data was peer reviewed and repeated by others until the evidence was so compelling that the consensus shifted. It was just such a strange concept at the time that it took a while for the consensus to allow it. The point is that it *did change* when presented with a good enough case. Science is flexible and dynamic, religion is dogmatic and unchanging. So much that some people who feel the need to justify faith with science (unnecessarily) and warp it about to their needs, as in creation-science. I feel like I'm repeating myself now...

I would consider viruses alive, but I think I would be going against the consensus here . All they are is a chunk of RNA/DNA encased in a simple protein case. And anyway, the chances are that there is life on other planets somewhere in this vast universe, and the chance are that they will not contain DNA. If they do have DNA I might start thinking about cancelling my subscription to Atheists Monthly .

As for the anthropic principle, it seems to me that it proves nothing. Actually, all it proves is that the universe exists and we knew that anyway. There is no knowing how likely or unlikely its existance is.

Ste

An interesting article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1806000/1806757.stm

Ste

I've found the full paper, I hope it works and it's not cos my work network is subscribed to nature or something:

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature716_fs.html&content_filetype=PDF

Ste

Actually, the anthropic principle states that the universe, by all probability shouldn't exist, at least not if it was created by natural causes.

I realize that Barbara McLintock went through the scientific method. I just think that creationism could also be put through the scientific method. Creationism is a working hypothesis, which comes before synthesis and peer review in Madent's list. If you deny a hypothesis because it is not peer reviewed, you have turned the scientific method backwards.

Presuppositions, such as the existence of God, are used in science all the time. For instance, the article you cited was about an expiriment where the scientists obviously used evolution as a presupposition. If we presume that life evolved through miniscule gradiations, though we have never observed it, can we not also assume that it is equally possible that life was created by a higher being?

As you have said, Science is flexible, flexible enough to incorporate the most outlandish idea, for we often find the the most outlandish explanations of the ways the universe works are often the closest to the truth.

And how are you working out those probabilities that the universe shouldn't exist? There is no way anyone can determine this. The anthropic principle is nothing more than a logical toy. The only room where God can now exist is either outside the universe (hence beyond the reach of the evil, conspiring scientists) or to a few billionths of a second after the big bang. The anthropic principle is merely an interesting logical diversion, and it is also the last stand of God as an explanatory mechanism.

Creationism falls down at the first hurdle of the scientific process. Its "evidence" is just anti-evolution propaganda sent directly from the ICR. This propaganda shows no real understanding of the current theory of evolution. How can it be taken seriously when the proponents of creation-science have not even heard of sexual selection, or think that evolution is a random process? Creationism is not objective. It does not use the current consensus to formulate hypotheses or even worse, it picks little snippets of science, quotes them out-of-context and then claims these "facts" for their own theo-political purposes, pretending they are scientific hypotheses. Creationism does not objectively experiment. Creationism is subject to faith, not science, and it is the realm of faith in which it belongs.

Josh, why do you need to justify your faith with science? Isn't that what faith is all about? I'm trying not to be rude but your faith cannot be that strong if you feel the need to look for evidence everywhere.

"Presuppositions, such as the existence of God, are used in science all the time"
Can you point me in the direction of an example? Evolution is used as a presupposition because it's a theory that is held in the same esteem as the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. We have never observed the Big Bang, does that mean it never happened? But evolution is observed all around us, read my article for more (A673319). Science moved past the debate of whether evolution happens or not about 150 years ago.

"As you have said, Science is flexible, flexible enough to incorporate the most outlandish idea, for we often find the the most outlandish explanations of the ways the universe works are often the closest to the truth."
No, on the contrary. "Occam's razor" is a clever little principle that states that the simplest explanation is the most likely. It is a principle that stands true 99% of the time and is used in evolutionary theory a lot (cladistics, phylogenetics - basically evolutionary tree building).

You said yourself that a scientific theory stands until a better one comes along. To claim that creationists need not bring up anything detrimental to evolution is like saying that Galileo should have conformed his evidence to fit the needs of the catholic church.

I am continually amazed by how people separate science and logic. You say the anthropic principle is a logical toy, which I do not understand. Has science become so reduced that you cannot incorporate logic into it?

Here you go stereotyping again. I realize that evolution is not a random process and I know what sexual selection is. Why do you feel the need to base you comments on creationism on the most ignorant of us? There are plenty of extremely knowledgible Creationists out there, and there are plenty of scientificly sound arguments for creationism.

And yes, we have used the current consensus to formulate a hypothesis. We have seen the error of the current consensus, and have provided an already widely held viewpoint that supports the facts better.

"picks little snippets of science"?
What do you mean? Can you give an example?

No, Creationism is not subject to faith. If a scientist is religious and expects the outcome of his expiriment to support his religion, how will that change the outcome of the expiriment?

"your faith cannot be that strong if you feel the need to look for evidence everywhere."
My faith is enough to convince me, but it doesn't seem to be enough to convince you or an other evolutionists. I'm not trying to justify my faith; I'm trying to convert you.

"evolution is observed all around us"
No it isn't. What we observe is genetic variation and survival of the fittest. We have never observed the creation of a new species. In fact, we have not even observed any mutations that have overtaken a species, at least not any that have lasted.

Occam's razor
yes, I see the logic in that. But often the simplest explanation is the most outlandish.

I never said that creationists need not bring up anything detrimental to evolution. All I was saying is that if you need to criticise a theory, or anything for that matter, you have to have a basic grasp of it in the first place. You can't criticise a movie without seeing it first. You can't say "that car is awful to drive" without ever being behind the wheel. You have to *know* something before criticising it. That's why people (including myself) have spent years in education trying to understand it, studying it. So they can add to the theory, modify it, contribute to understanding of life.

I was not stereotyping, I should have made it clear last time that I was citing you. You showed in your original entry and peer review that you did not know why the peacock had such an elaborate tail: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/FFM79561?thread=150675&skip=0&show=20#p1475951. You have said before that you thought evolution was a random process, though I cannot find the link to the thread on that one.

A theory is not something that says another theory is wrong. Creationism offers nothing new, it just attacks the consensus. Creationism as you have presented it is not a theory. Merely a poorly-founded critique.

God is not science's domain. You cannot prove God's existance with science. You can play logic games that result in a stalemate, citing uncomfirmable data and statistics about gravity, weak nuclear forces and electron orbits. But that is not science. I hope you now know what science is, it has been explained to you in exhaustive detail. Science is a philosophy, a way of thinking that had to be developed over centuries. Logic (look it up on http://www.dictionary.com) is reasoning. I never said logic and science are not related at all, just that they are not the same. Logic is employed in science.

Snippets of sciene:
-The moths, of course.

-"Snelling and Woodmorappe (1998, p. 531) cite Marsh (1989, p. 523-524) and note that an hypothetical magma ocean about 10 kilometers thick could solidify in only 10,000 years. However, Snelling and Woodmorappe (1998) don't mention that Marsh (1989, p. 523-524) also states that if the crust forming on top of the magma ocean is fairly stable, the cooling time would be about 500,000 years rather than only 10,000 years." - from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/henke/krh-coolmagma.html

-Human ancestor fossils. Creationists lead us to believe that there are only a few bone fragments to support this agrument. Even though there are many bones from a wide variety of sources. Not to mention the DNA evidence

-Creationism fails to mention current DNA experiments. Indeed, creationism think that you cannot experiment upon evolution at all!

How can you say that creationism is not subject to faith? That God created the heavens and the earth? That's like saying religion is not subject to faith. "If a scientist is religious and expects the outcome of his expiriment to support his religion, how will that change the outcome of the expiriment?"- That depends upon the motives for his experiment. Were they to contribute to our understanding of nature?, or are they designed with religious motivation?

"I'm not trying to justify my faith; I'm trying to convert you." You are? Why? I'm trying to make you see the light of reason.

Creation of a new species. See my evolution entry, the bit about the apple maggot fly and host mating preference.

"In fact, we have not even observed any mutations that have overtaken a species, at least not any that have lasted."
Where on Earth did you read that? Have you not heard of genetic drift?

"What we observe is genetic variation and survival of the fittest"
Good to see I'm making progress, you're agreeing with Darwin nowadays. We actually observe far, far more phenomena than that, I've been through them before, so I'll keep on referring you to my entry - A673319 (which has nothing to do with religion by the way, and should be read as such).

I have to go, work n stuff

Ste

Calm down, lads.

Okay, Josh, in a way Ste has thrown down the gauntlet but we have to be fair and open minded.

Ste raises legitimate questions regarding the authenticity of some creationist "scientific" evidence, and presents some evidence for evolution through the link to his article.

Now it's your turn Josh. I think you need to present some evidence from your own sources for us to have a look at.

I must confess that at the moment Josh, I think Ste's evidence is strong and soundly based. I'm not familiar with all of the detail presented, but I have studied the sciences and engineering for many years. The case for evolution and all that goes with it is strong. Not necessarily irrefutable, after all science is fluid, but they are very good theories, with strong evidence to back them up.

Please accept if you will, that I have no axe to grind either way. You see I also believe that there is a god. I also believe that around 2,000 years ago someone was crucified for his radical teachings. (Now that is a privileged admission from me, since I don't like talking about what I believe.)

The ball is very firmly in your court, Josh. But please remember, BOTH of you, this isn't an a**e-kicking contest.

Thanks for stepping in as a chairman there Madent. Although I wasn't meaning for the debate to get heated, after reading back over the last few posts I can see that it was.



Ste

Sorry I haven't replied in so long. I've been horridly busy with the holidays and all.

Ste, it would be dishonest of me to say that I fully grasped the idea of evolution when I wrote my first article, but since then, through my research and my conversations with you and others, I think I have a very good understanding of it.

The day I think I fully understood evolutionary theory was during my third year at college whilst reading "The Blind Watchmaker". It suddenly clicked and I went "OOOooohhhh, riiiiiight, I see!" If you fully grasp all the consequences and factors in evolution after a couple of months browsing the internet then you really are a genius

Either that or my entry is really *that* good .

Anyway, what do you think of Madent's last post? Could you adress some of the points he made there please? I agree with him that the ball is in your court.



Ste

the peacock
I understood why the peacock has a big tail. My question was, and still is because no one has answered me, what defines criteria for sexual selection? Why do animals look for seemingly useless characteristics in a mate?

The fact is, it doesn't matter whether we can expiriment upon God. If every other theory explaining existence is flawed, God ends up being the best explanation.

Besides having all the problems that I've talked about before, evolution has all sorts of other problems. I am not "attacking the consensus" as you say, I am merely questioning the consensus, which seems to be an awful crime in the world today.

-Consciousness Evolution has a hard time explaining how humans are even capable of thought. True, thought could be reduced to mere chemical reactions in the brain, but that doesn't explain why these chemical reactions produce a level of consciousness in the human mind.

-Macromutation Every example of observable evolution that anyone has ever shown me is bigger or stronger or more fur or more disease resistance or something like that. That explains nothing. Take the mousetrap example. We see that a mousetrap, like any organism or ecosystem, is irreducibly complex. To catch mice, one must have a whole, fully functional mousetrap. Now suppose we improve on this mousetrap. We use a tighter spring. We make it bigger. We get smellier cheese. While the mousetrap has adapted to it's surroundings and has apparently evolved, we still have not explained how the moustrap got there in the first place. The obvious answer is that it was made in a factory with a bunch of humans and human-made machines doing the work. Even the changes to the mousetrap that we made are not examples of evolution because there was a purposefulness behind it. It is well to remember the words of Francis Shaffer: "What happens to a fish when it evolves lungs? It drowns."

-Human ancestors I have no problem believing that Homo erectus or astralopithecine apes once existed. But to say that because they exist, the prove human evolution is just wrong. There are four legitimate "human ancestors" two of whom were no more intelligent than today's apes. They are labeled "human ancestors" because they were thought to have walked upright, but the evidence now shows otherwise. The other two do not appear to have evolved from each other. Your scores of human ancestors are just a bunch of apes subjectively chosen by scientist who want the satisfaction of holding their several-great grandmother's bones and getting a citation in some museum.

On religious scientists
"That depends upon the motives for his experiment. Were they to contribute to our understanding of nature?, or are they designed with religious motivation?"

Why are his motives important? It is more important that he must make sure that his analysis is not subjective. Others will make sure of the same thing through peer review. That's the beauty of science. Most of the time, you need more that a motive to get something established.

DNA I have an article on subjectivity in DNA evolutionary expirimentation. I'll read it tonight and see if it has any merit. Once again, my ignorance shows through. If you say that you can expirment on evolution through DNA, there is nothing I can say contrary to that unless I find out otherwise, which I hope to do tonight.

Josh, you haven't answered. This is dodging the issue.

I don't object to your raising questions about the validity of the science behind say evolution. Science is all about questioning current knowledge and thus searching for new knowledge. All scientific theories are under constant review, this is accepted. However all scientific theories also have a firm basis in evidence.

You raise an interesting point on sexual selection. I must admit that my knowledge of this is limited, however can I suggest an experiment for you to consider?

On what basis do you (or will you) select your mate/car/bicycle?

Exactly how do the criteria that you use (or will use) for your INITIAL selection compare against the actual fitness (genetic or otherwise) of your choice?

Just taking the car, I put it to you that one of the most important INITIAL criteria for selection will be appearance. Yet this criteria has NOTHING to do with whether you can afford it, afford to run it, afford to insure it, whether it has enough seats, luggage space, drives well, etc.

It is my understanding that sexual selection is basically just saying that there is a pre-programmed tendency in any species to make an INITIAL selection based on criteria that have nothing to do with the successfulness of that particular species. However because the INITIAL selection process depends on that criteria or attribute it in turn becomes critical to the successfulness of that species.

An ugly car will not sell, irrespective of whether it is cheap, luxurious, a great drive, economical to run, etc, but this is an attribute that is essential to the success of the product.

You ask "what defines the criteria for sexual selection? Why do animals look for seemingly useless characteristics in a mate?"

These are valid questions and worthy of further study, however posing these questions does not invalidate the theory of sexual selection. These questions should lead on to study in a new area, an extension to the theory of sexual selection.

Peahens chose their mates based on a display of feathers. The theory of sexual selection explains this behaviour elegantly and is applicable (as far as I am aware) to the mating rituals of all species. The reason why a particular trait is the basis for a particular ritual is an entirely different question.

If evolution and sexual selection are considered valid theories then taken as a whole, the diversity of species of birds and the wide variety in mating rituals employed by different types of birds all with common ancestors is immediately explained.

"The fact is, it doesn't matter whether we can expiriment upon God. If every other theory explaining existence is flawed, God ends up being the best explanation."

We have already accepted that science is fluid and that the body of knowledge is constantly growing. Some theories are well tested an widely applicable. Other theories are still developing and constantly being refined.

To paraphrase you define the gaps in our knowledege as being God, ie if it is currently inexplicable to science, then it is God?

To quickly run through the other points:

Conciousness - "Science" as a whole has a big problem with conciousness, let's face it science still has a big problem with life let alone thought. But just because it is currently inexplicable should not be a reason to justify God.

Macromutation - The mousetrap is not irreducibly complex. You have chosen an artifact to illustrate your choice so I will chose another. The automobile. By the definition you use a modern automobile is irreducibly complex.

Yet I could present you with no more than a series of pictures, taken one every five years for the last two hundred years showing the origins and path of development of the automobile. From the humble horse drawn cart through to the vast diversity of: Motorbikes, sedans, station wagons, Indy cars, stock cars, buses, trucks, tanks, Greyhounds, trains, aeroplanes and space rockets.

If I then took half or more of the pictures away, you would be unable to trace the development of any of these from the horse and cart.

I can't dispute that there is man-made purposefulness behind the development of the automobile and everything that goes with it. But these are inanimate objects. Living organisms have their own purposes, do they not?

I hope that I have directly and unequivocably addressed some of the points you have raised. I'm sure Ste could add more, but what we really want is for you to have a good think Josh.

I can accept that science doesn't have all the answers ... yet. I can also accept that science may never have all the answers. It's only by asking the right questions that science moves on and grows.

Please give us something to read through that provides real evidence for the creation.

TTFN

I feel like I should take a step back, the more I read what I posted above, the more I feel that is a bit of a rant. Sorry.

Still the essential point is that science and scientists accept that there are gaps in the body of knowledge and that as the body of knowledge increases sometime an older theory can be found to be inaccurate or incorrect However equally and in some cases, usually, the growing body of knowledge reinforces an older theory

Take evolution and sexual selection. Increasingly new evidence validates these theories. There are still gaps, for example we don't have a complete fossil record, nor can we fully identify and present examples that illustrate the evolution of man from apes, but the evidence grows almost daily. You see, science worries at these gaps and increasingly uncovers new evidence to support these basic theories. This is the questioning nature of science.

To refute a hypothesis, such as evolution, needs an equally good alternative hypothesis and equally good evidence, which may be the same evidence as was used to support the first hypothesis.

Science has presented and accepted theories and evidence for evolution, sexual selection, the big bang, etc. and many christian scientists accept this as scientific fact. Their belief (in many ways as strong, if not stronger than your own Josh) is that God or his agency has directed or steered life along the path that leads to humanity.

As far as I am aware, the only creationist "hypothesis and evidence" that is contrary to this is the Bible. And as far as I can tell, so far you have not added anything to this.

Most (if not all) christian scientists realise that there are many contradictions between their professed beliefs and their knowledge. The answers to these contradictions are not difficult to grasp for a questioning mind.

The first question is usually the hardest. I shan't ask it, Josh, because it is heresy.

Ah well, I suppose I should try to do some work today after all.

I look forward to reading your replies guys.

I'll give an example of sexual selection. It's in the North American Barn Swallow. I had trouble remembering the details so I did a quick google search under the search terms: "sexual selection swallow tail length", and found a lot of stuff that jogged my memory. Try the search for yourself.

It goes like this: Parasites on swallows are, unsuprisingly, undesirable. They decrease the chances that the females offspring will survive. Swallow have long tails, known as an "ornament" (the peacock's tail is also an ornament) and females preferentially mate with males with long tails. Why?

It turns out that parasite resistance is heritable. Any males that have a parasite infection have a visibly smaller ornament (see, size does matter), they're bodies are too busy fighting off infection to be able to grow a decent size tail. Therefore, females are indirectly choosing males that are advertising their clean bill of health.

In an experiment (yes, experimentation upon an evolutionary theory) a bloke called who I think is called Zahavi trimmed healthy swallows tails to see if they would be selected. They were not. He then glued on long tails to shorter-tailed males. These lucky fellers won with the ladies as expected.

Zahavi did a lot of work on sexual selection: http://evo1.unibe.ch/EvolEcol2ndyear/classV.pdf

"But why don't tails just get longer and long due to competition?", you may ask. There comes a point where a huge tail becomes a survival burden and natural selection starts to pick off the cumbersome individuals. As with everything in nature, there is a balance . It just happens that the peacock was allowed to get away with the frankly ridiculous thing because there was obviously nothing stopping it getting too carried away. Either that or it evolved some kind of mechanism that allowed it to store it's display feathers neatly so that it could whim em out just when it needs to. Like it actually does.

Hope this helps

Ste

First, I think it is well estabished in science that God does indeed exist. The preciseness of the big bang, as I have mentioned before is one example. Also, the planets are placed in unbelievably intelligent locations. There was a guy named Johannes Kepler that I've been reading about who discovered all sorts of ratios and proportions among planets that match up exactly. He also found that the positioning of stars in our galaxy corresponded with musical ideas. I wish I had a URL for you on this guy, but I've been studying his work through books. Perhaps you can find something on him in a Google search.

Carbon, which is the basis for all life on Earth goes through an interesting process of creation. I read about this in a magazine called the WEEKLY STANDARD, whose website will only allow subscribers on. A beryllium must undergo fusion with a helium atom, which should be extremely difficult to do. But in fact there is a presise harmonic nuclear resonance between these two atoms, as if someone had intended to create carbon. This might be seen as proof that God had life in mind, but on the other hand, God might just as well have made a hobby of nuclear harmonics. Regardless of His motive, this is another striking point in favor of God.

The issue here, however, is the question, did God create life. He might just as well have wound up Newton's clock and let it run. As for myself, I find there are far to many coincidences in my own life, far too much apparent planning that I had nothing to do with, and far too many answered prayers for me to not believe in God and it has also made me believe that God, since He has a hand in my existence, also had a hand in my creation. If indeed God created life, we can assume he would look after it afterwards. This is why, unlike evolution, creationism examines history. Historically, Christianity is very verifiable. The Bible is the only religious text that does not contradict itself. It is also the only religious text that is verified by history.

Hi Josh,

You still haven't adressed any points that Madent and I bought up. Just avoided it some more with baseless examples.

The bible doesn't contradict itself? Are you sure about that one? What the bible does contain is some very good advice. "The foolish believeth every word" (Proverbs 14:15) being one piece of advice that christian fundamentalists everywhere seem to ignore.

It is *not* established whatsoever in science that God exists. Science has nothing to do with God's existance. Try theology or other branches of philosophy.

If one goes looking for the existance of God by concocting all sorts of ratios, for the sole reason of proving him, of course you're going to find something, ratios happen everywhere in the natural world.

How are the planets in "unbelievably intelligent locations"? This makes little sense.

Carbon - This is the kind of backwards reasoning that plagues the intelligent design/anthropic principle. If you fuse Be with He it creates Carbon. That is not proof, it's merely fusion, it happens, so what's the fuss? Elements fuse with lots of other elements to create others all the time. I'm certain that there are other reactions with "precise harmonic nuclear resonance". Isn't it more likely that carbon is the main constituent of life for the simple fact that it happened to be abundant on the early Earth in a reducing, methane atmosphere?

Coincidences happen all the time, to say "there are too many coincidences" proves nothing. In fact, I would be prepared to believe in a God if there were absolutely no coincidences *whatsoever*, now *that* would be strange. The only reason we notice them is that as intelligent creatures, we tend to notice two things that are alike. Singing a song in your head, turning on the radio to hear the same song suprises you, but it happens. That, like other coincidences proves nothing.

I'm sorry if this post sounds a little harsh Josh, I don't mean to be rude. But the burden of proof is certainly on your side, and you haven't come up with anything half-convincing so far. Saying "but what if..." and "if this was just a little bit different it wouldn't be like this..." is not proof.

I think you keep repeating intelligent design/anthropic principle examples because there is *not one bit* of empirical evidence to support God. Which in itself is not a bad thing, as religion is not subject to such things.

Looking forward to your response,

Ste

Strange, my conversation list is saying that I didn't respond when i did.

*boots h2g2*

There.

Ste

Josh

In many ways the Bible is an excellent historical record and in some respects I believe it to be more accurate than it is given credit for. However there are still many problems with the Bible.

First language. The Bible was written over many years in a variety of languages, translated and transcribed and further translated. Translation is an inexact process. Try it. Translate a phrase in to French and back into English. Now imagine the difficulty of translating an already translated text, centuries after the original language ceased to be used.

The earliest manuscripts of the Gospels for instance are still many years after the death of Christ and written in Greek (not their original language). Later works were translated into Latin. However it wasn't until over a 1,000 years later that the first English translation appeared. Since when English as a language has also changed to the extent that you would probably find the King James version of the Bible a difficult read.

Second editting, The Bible is a heavily editted text, compiled by the Catholic church, in some respects to suit the needs and purposes of the early Catholic church. For instance the Nag Hammadi codices are probably something of which you have never heard. How about the Gospel of Mary or the Gospel of Thomas? There are many other documents as well all with a provenance at least as good as those of the New Testament.

Why aren't these documents in the Bible? Because the ideas and messages they contain fly in the face of accepted Catholic dogma.

Furthermore many changes have been made as part of the translation process. One well known change in some versions of the Bible is the name of the Pharoh at the time of the Exodus.

Lastly interpretation. The Bible must be the most interpreted work in the history of man. Which version of the Bible do you use Josh? Gidoen, NIV, Good News, Revised Standard, King James, etc. No two versions are the same and in addition to both changes in place names and the names of important characters, different versions of the Bible place very different interpretations on certain passages.

For example, I understand that Chapter 1 of Genesis was written after the remainder of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Chapter 2 of Genesis contains an alternative "creation" account that directly contradicts Chapter 1 regarding the sequence of creation. The Chapter 2 account of creation is also more consistent with scientific theories.

So you see Josh, your reference work, the evidence you use to support your argument, is worthless as scientific evidence. The Bible you hold in your hand was written by the established Church, not God. The original Bible, which may be divinely inspired, is a subtly different thing.

TTFN