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Author Topic:   A Teacher on the Front Line
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 16 of 26 (480383)
09-03-2008 2:25 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by bluescat48
09-02-2008 1:00 PM


Evidence evidence....
Then show the evidence. If evidence can be found then it would change ID from pseudoscience
Why is it that nobody has ever seen me mention any evidence, no matter how many times I mention various lines of evidence?
Lets see, how about
-the fossils, sudden appearance and general stasis
-the Cambrian explosion -sudden appearance of practically all phyla
- the information rich genetic code
-the inability of ”science’ to explain how the information got there
-the lack of transitional forms (don't bother to tell me everything is transitional, that's just a dodge)
-the continually rehashed icons of evolution that despite being a collection of old worn, some fraudulent, others thoroughly discredited, most out of date somehow never seem to change in the textbooks. One would think with all the vast network of science, something more convincing would come along, but no.
-mutational load, absence of beneficial mutations being demonstrated, surplus of examples of negative effects of mutation
-the specified complexity of living things.
I suppose now I’ll be off topic so perhaps we need another thread but since adminnosy is asking the same questions perhaps off topic can be tolerated for the meantime.
Note: This message's content is now a new topic - Evidence for Intelligent Design-is there any?
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add note at bottom.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by bluescat48, posted 09-02-2008 1:00 PM bluescat48 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Granny Magda, posted 09-03-2008 9:51 AM Beretta has not replied
 Message 19 by Rrhain, posted 09-07-2008 2:28 AM Beretta has not replied

Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 17 of 26 (480402)
09-03-2008 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Beretta
09-03-2008 2:25 AM


Re: Evidence evidence....
Why is it that nobody has ever seen me mention any evidence, no matter how many times I mention various lines of evidence?
Well, this is off-topic, but I really think that you deserve an answer here.
None of the arguments you list is positive evidence for ID. Not one.
Each of the items you list is an argument against evolution (mistaken IMHO, but let's not get even more side-tracked), but that still doesn't provide positive evidence in favour of ID. Evolution could be proved completely wrong tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that ID, Biblical creationism, ID, Hindu creationism or any other explanation would automatically take it's place.
Debating as we do, it's easy to see evolution and creation as flip sides of the same coin; if one is false, the other must be true, but that's just not the case. It's an either/or fallacy.
Pull up a thread and I'll be happy to discuss this further.

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Beretta, posted 09-03-2008 2:25 AM Beretta has not replied

kuresu
Member (Idle past 2513 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 18 of 26 (480835)
09-06-2008 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Beretta
09-02-2008 10:21 AM


The Same Questions?
quote:
whoever Beretta is replying to writes:
Science and religion just ask different questions
Beretta's response writes:
Not when it comes to evolution. We ask the same questions -what are we doing here? Where did we come from? For a religious viewpoint to have any validity, it has to resonate with reality -they are not two different realities. What happened and why we are here -the answer has to be the truth not just what makes you happy.

You've got this totally wrong. Evolution and religion are not asking the same question. "What are we doing here" and "where did we come from" are each two different questions. Evolution is asking about the physical world. It answers in physical terms. Religion is asking about the spiritual world. It answers in the terms of spirituality--symbols and metaphors.
Evolution and other sciences:life is related (genetics), humans and chimps and bonobos are closely related and have a common ancestor.
Religion: all things are god's handiwork, a manifestation of his love and power. Thus are all things related.
Religion and evolution can ask "where did we come from" and answers that are different from each other because each one is asking about different parts of "reality". Evolution has nothing more to say than we come a pre-biotic system that produced organic compounds and eventually single-celled life. This life eventually took on new forms (some becoming multi-celled and that diversifying into multiple body plans), etc etc etc. Religion asks that question and wonders what God's plan was and why he made things or what is meant by his actions.
This happens when you aks "what are we doing?" Science gives you a cut-and-dried answer. We are born, we eat, we grow, we live, we reproduce, we die, we adapt, and the cycle continues. Religion is interested in what we do for God, what God put us here for, or whatever.
The conflict between religion and science isn't over facts or that they are trying to answer the same exact question (although that certainly does happen). The conflict is that certain religious people think that science conflicts, theologically, with their religion. They can't separate religion and science into the two separate categories they rightfully belong to. Religion becomes science and science religion. And when science says something different from their religion, they can't handle it because they don't see that the two are different. So just like Bryce said, proving the piece of wood did not come from the ark would not destroy his faith. Proving that the flood didn't happen, or that Genesis does not have the right order of the appearance of life doesn't matter, because faith isn't about facts. Religion isn't about scientific, isn't about physical accuracy. Religion is about the spiritual meaning that lies behind certain events, such as the creation of the world and the universe and life.
It's a shame most religious people who are stuck in this trap will never see it all for what it is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Beretta, posted 09-02-2008 10:21 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by Beretta, posted 09-07-2008 11:40 AM kuresu has not replied

Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 19 of 26 (480858)
09-07-2008 2:28 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Beretta
09-03-2008 2:25 AM


Re: Evidence evidence....
Beretta writes:
quote:
the fossils, sudden appearance and general stasis
That's evidence of evolution. You have heard of punctuated equilibrium, yes?
quote:
the Cambrian explosion -sudden appearance of practically all phyla
Again, this is evidence of evolution. You talk about "explosion" as if it happened overnight rather than over millions of years. You seem to be confused that basic bodyplans would be established early in the evolutionary history of life.
quote:
the information rich genetic code
DNA is not "information." But the way DNA works is evidence of evolution: Evolved creatures would be expected to share the same chemical makeup. "Designed" creatures are not required to do so.
quote:
the inability of ”science’ to explain how the information got there
Incorrect. It got there by evolution. Mutation and selection. We've seen it happen right in front of our eyes. Why would you have us deny this?
quote:
the lack of transitional forms
Incorrect. The fossil record is overflowing with them.
quote:
the continually rehashed icons of evolution that despite being a collection of old worn, some fraudulent, others thoroughly discredited, most out of date somehow never seem to change in the textbooks.
Huh? Ignoring the fact that public school textbooks are not written by scientists (and why are you expecting a seventh-grade textbook to be the epitome of science education?) your basic claim that the information is "fraudulent" is, well, fraudulent.
quote:
mutational load
Demonstrated via evolution. Mutations are part and parcel of evolution.
quote:
absence of beneficial mutations being demonstrated
Incorrect. The genetic record is overflowing with beneficial mutations.
quote:
surplus of examples of negative effects of mutation
There's so much wrong here that it's hard to know where to begin:
1) You ignore selection. It doesn't matter that much how many deleterious mutations there are as they will be selected against. Only neutral and positive mutations will be selected for.
2) You vastly overstate the number of deleterious mutations. The overwhelming majority of mutations are neutral.
quote:
the specified complexity of living things.
No such thing. Every example ever proferred has been shown to be not only evolvable but also the specific pathway in which it happened.
So, now that all of your claims have been refuted, perhaps we can get back to you accepting your burden of proof:
If you want "ID" to be shown, you need to show how it works. Why should we waste classtime on claims that have no evidence behind them? We can have the students run an experiment in class that shows evolution happening right in front of their eyes.
What experiment can they run that will show them "ID"?
Here's a thought: Why don't we have classtime structured as follows: Every year we'll review the published literature. However it breaks down, that's how much time we'll spend. If we can find that 80% of the articles are advocating evolution while the other 20% are advocating non-evolutionary claims, then that's how we'll teach the class.
Of course, there's a problem: There aren't any articles advocating non-evolutionary articles.
Are you about to claim it's a conspiracy?
Even though overturning the dominant paradigm of biology would win you the Nobel Prize and let you write you own ticket for the rest of your life?

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Beretta, posted 09-03-2008 2:25 AM Beretta has not replied

Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 20 of 26 (480876)
09-07-2008 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by kuresu
09-06-2008 7:31 PM


Re: The Same Questions?
Evolution is asking about the physical world. It answers in physical terms. Religion is asking about the spiritual world. It answers in the terms of spirituality--symbols and metaphors.
Well that's the common belief in this day and age and it sure is sinking in with so many people. Actually a religious belief that is not consonant with reality is not worth having.If your religious belief is just a myth or a legend apart from reality -why bother?
You see science should be answering questions about things that are repeatable and experimentally verifiable but they have ventured far from their turf by answering historical and religious questions and making their own religion which is then foisted on the world as fact. We came from chemicals that somehow (we really don't know how) got together and made proteins somehow and learned how to reproduce all at once (because NS and mutation can't come into play until we have a reproducing cell remember).Then somehow new information came about through random mutations and where there was no information for a functioning leg or wing, genes self-organized to make those sorts of things turning a primitive ancestor into more and more complicated forms of biological life until voila -here we are with a brain (which is definately not a random piece of equipment)and some very complex hardware which are our bodies and we know that it all happened by chance and natural law because....what else is there after all!!
Of course this is definately not provable because all that mutations do (that we can actually demonstrate) is create disorder and mutations (disorder) is accumulating in the human race but luckily we have a philosophy that says we are still evolving by natural means and getting better and better all the time but we can't see the evidence of this because it happens far too slowly, you see.
Religion and evolution can ask "where did we come from" and answers that are different from each other because each one is asking about different parts of "reality".
And this is 'science's' best shot at striking a compromise with religious believers because we are talking about 'different realms of reality;. What they actually mean is science and reality say this and religion says that and you have your happy little religion although it is certainly not true (-how could it be- only science can say what is really true) and we can all relax and have our 'own truths'.
You realize of course that the truth exists quite apart from what anyone believes and either we were created or natural law managed to throw us together into a state of order via NS and mutation or whatever other mechanism we can come up with to explain it.
Science gives you a cut-and-dried answer.
Science offers us their natural philosophy of life and expects us to accept that it is truth.Before any evidence is put together, only natural law is permissable and it is a philosophy not a fact.
Religion isn't about scientific, isn't about physical accuracy.
Well if it isn't, why bother about it all all?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by kuresu, posted 09-06-2008 7:31 PM kuresu has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Rrhain, posted 09-07-2008 7:45 PM Beretta has replied

Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 21 of 26 (480932)
09-07-2008 7:45 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Beretta
09-07-2008 11:40 AM


Beretta writes:
quote:
If your religious belief is just a myth or a legend apart from reality -why bother?
Because there are things that cannot be objectively answered. Science can tell you an awful lot about an acoustic wave form: Its frequency, wavelength, energy, how far it will travel in various media, etc.
What it cannot tell you, and doesn't even try to tell you, is whether or not it is music.
quote:
You see science should be answering questions about things that are repeatable and experimentally verifiable but they have ventured far from their turf by answering historical and religious questions and making their own religion which is then foisted on the world as fact.
We're still waiting for you to give an example of such. It's all well and good to assert that such has happened, but you need to actually show it if you wish to have anybody believe it.
quote:
We came from chemicals that somehow (we really don't know how) got together
Since when did we have a theory of abiogenesis? That'd be Nobel Prize-winning news. We don't have any idea how life started and evolution doesn't tell us how nor can it ever. Evolution is consistent with every method of biogenesis you care to name: Chemically through abiogenesis, supernaturally through god zap-poofing it into existence, extraterrestrially from alien seeding or panspermia, interdimensionally through a rift in space-time, or any other method you care to imagine. Since evolution only tells us about what happened to life after it came into existence, one wonders why you seem to want to hang the question of biogenesis on evolution.
Certainly the fact of evolution gives us interesting questions to ask regarding biogenesis since however life started, it needs to be consistent with the evolutionary record that we see. But that's all it can provide for us: Interesting questions. Evolution isn't going to answer them for us because evolution isn't about how life begins.
quote:
and made proteins somehow
What do you mean "somehow"? Protein synthesis isn't exactly a mystery. We already can create self-replicating, auto-catalysing, homochrial proteins from non-biotic reagents. Why would you have us deny this?
quote:
and learned how to reproduce all at once (because NS and mutation can't come into play until we have a reproducing cell remember).
And what's the problem? Those self-replicating, auto-catalysing, homochrial proteins we can already create from non-biotic reagents?
They evolve. They mutate and selection works upon them.
So since we know that it can happen, why would you have us deny it?
quote:
Then somehow new information came about through random mutations and where there was no information for a functioning leg or wing, genes self-organized to make those sorts of things turning a primitive ancestor into more and more complicated forms of biological life
What do you mean "somehow"? Mutation is the exact thing that makes it happen. We can watch it happen right in front of our eyes. Of course genes self-organize. That's part of the very chemistry of genetics. What else is going on inside of the cell other than chemistry?
quote:
here we are with a brain (which is definately not a random piece of equipment)
Why is this surprising? Evolution is not random. Evolution includes selection and selection is not random.
quote:
and some very complex hardware which are our bodies and we know that it all happened by chance and natural law because
No, not "by chance." Evolution is not "chance." Evolution includes selection and selection is not "chance."
And with regard to "natural law," are you saying that there is something else going on inside of a cell other than chemistry? Do you have evidence of such? When we can see the evolution organisms happening right in front of our eyes, why would you have us deny it? Do you have evidence of external action?
quote:
Of course this is definately not provable because all that mutations do (that we can actually demonstrate) is create disorder
Incorrect. The overwhelming majority of all mutations are neutral.
Plus, you are ignoring selection, again. Any deleterious mutations are selected against. Neutral and advantageous mutations are selected for.
So since we can prove it actually happens because we can do the genetic tests, why would you have us deny it?
quote:
mutations (disorder) is accumulating in the human race
Indeed. You have, on average, 3-6 mutations when compared to your parents. So why is it that humans aren't quivering piles of gelatin on the floor?
Oh...that's right: Mutations are rarely deleterious and those that are get selected against so they don't become prominent. The people that you see are all mutants whose mutations are either neutral or advantageous.
That's what selection does.
quote:
luckily we have a philosophy that says we are still evolving by natural means
"Philosophy"? Well, at one point science was called "natural philosophy," but the word "philosophy" didn't mean the same thing then as it does today. We don't have a "philosophy" that says we are evolving. Instead, we have a "theory."
That theory that we are still evolving is based upon the fact that we are. We can see it happen right in front of our eyes.
Why would you have us deny that?
quote:
What they actually mean is science and reality say this and religion says that and you have your happy little religion although it is certainly not true
As you say, "a religious belief that is not consonant with reality is not worth having."
Have you considered the possibility that god does exist, but not in the way you think? And since science cannot tell us everything about everything, why would religion be unable to look at those things?
quote:
only science can say what is really true
Incorrect. Science can only tell you what has been observed. Since it is impossible to ever observe everything, all science can tell you is that certain things have been consistently observed under certain circumstances. It may be that such results are "the truth," but science will never know. All it takes is one observation to change our understanding and we will never be able to observe everything.
quote:
You realize of course that the truth exists quite apart from what anyone believes
Indeed. That's the beauty of science: It doesn't require you to believe in it in order for it to work. In fact, modern science depends upon that. The review process requires that you submit your work to others, others who will do everything they can to show that you made a mistake, and see if they can reproduce your results. Science works specifically and because of skepticism, specifically and because of people who don't believe you.
quote:
either we were created or natural law managed to throw us together into a state of order via NS and mutation or whatever other mechanism we can come up with to explain it.
And that's why we examine the world around us to determine. So far, we haven't found any evidence of anything other than evolution being the source of the diversification of life on this planet.
You're not about to confuse evolution with biogenesis again, are you?
quote:
Science offers us their natural philosophy of life
Incorrect. Science cannot tell you how to think and feel. It has no way to tell you what is right or wrong because such concepts have no meaning in science. Science can tell you that if you take a piece of metal of a certain alloy, grind it at certain angles, and then apply a certain amount of pressure against human skin while moving it in a certain way, it will cut the skin.
It can't tell you if you're engaged in surgery or murder by doing so.
quote:
Before any evidence is put together, only natural law is permissable
You are confusing methodological naturalism with a philosophical statement. The reason science requires methodological naturalism is because that is the only thing it can examine. Science not only refused to consider the handiwork of god, it also refuses to deny the handiwork of you.
If I mix two moles of hydrogen gas with a mole of oxygen gas, put it into a container at STP, and then leave it under the hood while I go to lunch for an hour, I don't get to say that this process makes water appear in the container when I come back and find there's water in it. It's quite possible that my assistant did something to the container while I was away. We need to remove him from the equation so that we can examine what happens to the gas when it acts on its own. This hardly means that my assistant doesn't exist. It simply means that his actions are to be ignored.
quote:
Well if it isn't, why bother about it all all?
Because not everything is amenable to scientific inquiry.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Beretta, posted 09-07-2008 11:40 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by Beretta, posted 09-09-2008 10:11 AM Rrhain has not replied

Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 22 of 26 (481090)
09-09-2008 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Rrhain
09-07-2008 7:45 PM


Philosophy
Hello Rrhain - sorry - been struggling with the connection.
Rrhain writes:
Beretta writes:
If your religious belief is just a myth or a legend apart from reality -why bother?
Because there are things that cannot be objectively answered. Science can tell you an awful lot about an acoustic wave form: Its frequency, wavelength, energy, how far it will travel in various media, etc.
What it cannot tell you, and doesn't even try to tell you, is whether or not it is music.
The problem is I'm not talking about the non-objective stuff; what I'm saying is that if I believe that my God created all kinds of biological creatures spearately in the beginning and specified that they would create after their own kind, then that is an objective claim that has nothing to do with pie in the sky differing descriptions of the same thing -like wavelength etc vs music.
I'm also saying that if that is a fact then evolution is not a fact no matter how many Christians try to marry the two and compromise.
The question is not whether or not an explanation is based on a personal belief, but is it true?
An explanation may be based on a personal belief and true.
Personal beliefs are rarely based on nothing.
We have a book that says this is what happened and these are the first two people and they gave birth to this one who lived this many years and gave rise to that one who did this and that and then died -the whole history of the planet supposedly by the ONE who did it, who was there and who knows what happened.
Now either that book is true or it is false and how can anyone be bothered to put the two, evolution and creation into the same box and change the story to suit themselves? If I can't even believe the first chapter of the history of life given by the creator to the people who were there in the beginning , then why should I believe any of it? Why bother with a myth when the truth would be so much better even if it was a hard and hopeless truth to swallow.
Science should be answering questions about light and gravity and things that they can test, experiment with and duplicate and use for the advancement of mankind. Those are the sorts of things that they can answer. What happened in the beginning may make for some interesting possibilities but they can't be known and tested, they can only be assumed and guessed at. What science has done is they have said lets see how far we can go with the hypothesis that only natural causes can account for what we have on this planet and the stories they come up with on this imaginary starting point may be complete and utter fabrications because they have started with a philosophical assumption that there is no creator who plays any part in it. The most amazing part for me is that they write out intelligence as a possible starting point totally arbitrarily despite the complexity of what exists and our inability to say anything at all about how life got started.
Even people like Francis Crick has basically said that DNA formation by chance is undoutably impossible so he hypothesizes about seeding of life from another planet which only pushes the problem back a step rather than allowing the possibility of an intelligent agent, like God.It's amazing what people will do to keep even the possibility of God out of the picture.
Rrhain writes:
beretta writes:
making their own religion which is then foisted on the world as fact.
We're still waiting for you to give an example of such.
Billions of years ago, there was nothing, absolutely nothing and nothing exploded out of nowhere and gave rise to everything, planets, stars etc. Life began somehow in a dark warm pond when amino acids formed spontaneously and ignored the right handed AA's in the process of self assembling themselves into a chain that somehow learned how to replicate itself so that mutation and natural selection could begin to play a part in the organizing of new forms of life - and whether this or some other story is true, we comfort ourselves that thereafter only natural processes account for everything that exists because that is our arbitrary non-objective starting point from which we proceed to explain everything.Since we are scientists no matter what actually did happen we must limit ourselves to natural explanations (whether true or not) or it would not be science.
This is the alternate religion you see - no creator, no intelligent ordering just natural processes that somehow existed after the big bang and could be used to explain everything thereafter.
Now whether your story or mine is closest to the correct one, lets just say that something is true and did happen and all the other stories are not true by the law of non-contradiction but truth is out there.
Since when did we have a theory of abiogenesis? That'd be Nobel Prize-winning news. We don't have any idea how life started and evolution doesn't tell us how nor can it ever.
Well origin of life researchers are working on it actually and there's only one problem with what they're doing and that is that they assume that life is possible from natural law alone so they may never get anywhere because of that one big naturalistic assumption.
Since evolution only tells us about what happened to life after it came into existence, one wonders why you seem to want to hang the question of biogenesis on evolution.
Actually evolution only tells us what they think happened -all they have to do is supply the details and make the creation story hang together on some sort of plausible beginnning.God may have had something to do with it but that would not be 'science' so we have to exclude that from consideration.
Certainly the fact of evolution gives us interesting questions to ask regarding biogenesis since however life started, it needs to be consistent with the evolutionary record that we see.
In other words natural processes -no God required.
What do you mean "somehow"? Protein synthesis isn't exactly a mystery. We already can create self-replicating, auto-catalysing, homochrial proteins from non-biotic reagents.
Really. But that would be intelligent design, wouldn't it. We need them to do this by themselves so lets not complicate the issue with intelligence shall we?
What do you mean "somehow"? Mutation is the exact thing that makes it happen. We can watch it happen right in front of our eyes.
How do we know that mutation is the exact thing that makes it happen? Well we're here aren't we so even if the probability of making one protein by chance is completely off the scale we comfort ourselves that it must have happened like we say it does. That is 'science!'.
We can watch it happen right in front of our eyes.
Well we can watch finch beaks showing oscillating variation but that says absolutely nothing about how the finches got there in the first place. Remember years and years of mutating bacteria and fruitflies only ever produced mutated bacteria and fruitflies and saying that we haven't had enough time is as good as saying we do not actually know for sure, we have no evidence for what we contend did in fact happen.
Of course genes self-organize.
Yes but that does not mean they self-create -where do they come from?
That's part of the very chemistry of genetics. What else is going on inside of the cell other than chemistry?
Information.
The overwhelming majority of all mutations are neutral.
And you think that somehow these neutral mutations slowly but surely put things like legs and wings together? No plan, just random errors and no morphological change obviously because they are neutral.
Evolution is not random. Evolution includes selection and selection is not random.
Natural selection can only preserve what is already created.Actually NS can only "preserve" by destroying what is not preserved, and, therefore has no power to create.
No, not "by chance." Evolution is not "chance." Evolution includes selection and selection is not "chance."
So if there's a chance element in there -then chance really is the vital ingredient.
You have, on average, 3-6 mutations when compared to your parents. So why is it that humans aren't quivering piles of gelatin on the floor?
Because nature seems to choose to reject what is not right by NS rather than making something new.
The people that you see are all mutants whose mutations are either neutral or advantageous.
But experimentally the only advantageous mutations that have ever been demonstrated were ones that showed a loss of information; for example bacterial resistance where something missing in the bacteria happens to turn out to be an advantage in a particular circumstance.
Nobody has ever demonstrated morohological change due to new information being generated and we need lots of that if the theory is to be remotely feasible. We can't just assume it happens because we believe that the fossil record shows it.
Can you give me one example of an information increase that demonstrably occurred due to mutation?
It doesn't require you to believe in it in order for it to work.
Actually it does require that you believe in evolution in order to make up the story of how it all happened by natural processes.
And since science cannot tell us everything about everything, why would religion be unable to look at those things?
You mean all the mythical stuff that science can't deal with by virtue of its lack of fact.
Science works specifically and because of skepticism, specifically and because of people who don't believe you.
And luckily because most of them seem to believe in evolution, you should be just fine if you stick with the acceptable party line.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Rrhain, posted 09-07-2008 7:45 PM Rrhain has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Coyote, posted 09-09-2008 11:27 AM Beretta has not replied
 Message 24 by kuresu, posted 09-09-2008 11:38 AM Beretta has not replied
 Message 25 by Wounded King, posted 09-09-2008 11:43 AM Beretta has not replied

Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 23 of 26 (481101)
09-09-2008 11:27 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Beretta
09-09-2008 10:11 AM


Re: Mutations
Can you give me one example of an information increase that demonstrably occurred due to mutation?
Blue eyes and light colored skin.
There, you have two examples for the price of one.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Beretta, posted 09-09-2008 10:11 AM Beretta has not replied

kuresu
Member (Idle past 2513 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 24 of 26 (481102)
09-09-2008 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Beretta
09-09-2008 10:11 AM


weak faith
If I can't even believe the first chapter of the history of life given by the creator to the people who were there in the beginning , then why should I believe any of it?
I assume you speak of genesis. Let's see. We have a problem with the very first sentences.
KJB writes:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
Well, if 'earth' is the planet we live on, this is false. Not only did the sun come first, there are about 10 billion years of astronomical history to account for before our planet shows up. If you want to stretch 'heaven' to mean that, fine.
Fortunately for you, the KJB gets the next few lines barely right (and only by stretching). Light didn't exactly come first, but it's not like anything recognizable existed, so you're off the hook. Oh, but wait. Before light existed water was around. At least, if you ask Genesis. According to astronomical history, light was around well before water. That's because the big bang only made hydrogen, dueterium (an isotope of hydrogen), and some helium. Oxygen is made by nuclear fusion, which after the big bang requires stars. Stars generate light. So as we can see, Genesis is already wrong by well accepted astronomical theory. But let's continue.
Genesis then paints a very screwy picture. Apparently, after heaven was created, you have water above and below heaven. So much for being able to stretch 'heaven' to be all astronomical history. There is no 'above' or 'below' space.
Next up we have the creation of earth, which apparently results from water being collected into one place. Well, this is wrong. The Earth existed well before there was water on Earth. Note that I'm saying water ON earth. Water did exist before our planet existed. I suggest you read a book about the early geological history of the earth. It'll set you straight. And keep in mind, this is pretty well accepted (as in, refused only by YEC-nuts).
What's next:
KJB writes:
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Now we havea major problem (no surprise). The record of life is clear. Plants first appeared around the Cambrian period, so plants first appeared around 540 million years ago. And these plants were naught but algae. This means that plants appear after not only animals, but bacteria and archae, which first appeared about 3.7 billion years ago. Even if you dispute the actual dates, plants are relative newcomers in the life system. Further, as previosly said, the first plants are algae, not grasses, herbs, and fruit trees. Further, since fruit trees are flowering plants, fruit trees would have only started appearing during the Cretacious period, or 150 million years ago. Where are the non-flowering plants (that aren't grasses or herbs) in genesis? Nowhere in the creation story.
KJB writes:
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Here we see that the earth and the plants exist before the sun and the moon. Three problems here. First problem: The sun is older than the earth. The earth is older than the moon. By genesis, the earth is older than both. Second problem: plants need light to make energy. Starlight is insufficient for plants (nevermind that they didn't exist until the sun and moon came into being according to genesis). And while there was light, God apparently had to make it twice, because the first light for some reason doesn't exist on earth. He made them to separate day and night. Since the sun provides all the light during the day (and our temperature, which means the earth must have been extremely cold--a good guess would be as cold as the dark side of the moon--there would be no liquid water, only ice), those plants he made would have died. Now for the third problem:the moon is not a separate source of light. It is a rocky body which reflects the light of the sun. Genesis claims, in effect, that is generates its own light, which would require the moon to be a star, and we would now no longer exist because our two-star system would have consumed us (keep in mind, we're only 200,000 miles from the moon, nothing compared to the size of even a sun.
I'm not going to continue because I've made my point abudnantly clear by now. Genesis is wrong! Even by basic scientific knowledge that is non-controversial it is wrong! Which means your faith is based on non-reality based beliefs. Your faith, by your very statements, is worthless.
But I'm sure you'll find away around the facts, especially by pulling the oldest trick in the book--if it disagrees with the bible, the item in disagreement is wrong, not the bible. What a pathetic, weak faith you have, to worship a God who cannot even survive his own creation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Beretta, posted 09-09-2008 10:11 AM Beretta has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 25 of 26 (481103)
09-09-2008 11:43 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Beretta
09-09-2008 10:11 AM


Re: Philosophy
Can you give me one example of an information increase that demonstrably occurred due to mutation?
Almost certainly, if you can give me a coherent and usable measure of information. I can give you plenty that I think constitute increases in information but I've found that creationists/IDists sometimes have a rather unique conception of how to measure information.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Beretta, posted 09-09-2008 10:11 AM Beretta has not replied

AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 26 of 26 (481112)
09-09-2008 12:37 PM


Topic!
It's not clear that this thread has had any coherent topic for days.
Please take anything that is not directly about classroom teaching to other threads.
In order to encourage this I'll close this until someone asks to open it for an on topic post.

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