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Author | Topic: Biological classification vs 'Kind' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
articulett Member (Idle past 3393 days) Posts: 49 Joined: |
The fact that some humans contain Neanderthal DNA does not mean that humans descended from Neanderthal. It only means that there was some mating going on after the two lineages had split.
Horses and Zebras share a horse-like ancestor and can still produce offspring. (So can donkeys and zebra). But one did not descend from the other. We consider them separate species because their hybrid offspring are generally infertile and they do not mate in the wild. Dogs, however, did descend from wolves and are considered a subspecies of wolf since they can still mate with and produce viable offspring with wolves. Even though the various breeds of dog look like separate species from each other, they are the same species. There are many species that look identical to other species (especially in plants and insects), but genetics shows that they are, in fact, different species. "Kind" tends to be a term creationists play fast a loose with in order to make facts fit their predetermined conclusion. I have a Masters in Genetics, and I don't know any scientist that uses that term, nor have I ever heard of the "baramin hypothesis".
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ramoss Member (Idle past 634 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
How about camels and llamas then? They are separated by continents and millions of years, yet, the hybrids of them are viable.
Nor can they mate on their own, the size differential is too great.
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articulett Member (Idle past 3393 days) Posts: 49 Joined: |
quote: They are in the process of speciating. What happens when animals specieate is that you tend to get reduced fertility over time until the two can't produce hybrid offspring at all. You can google "Ligers" for a similar story. I don't know how biblical literalists make sense of the obvious similarities between such animals and their nonspecific word "kind".
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ramoss Member (Idle past 634 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
I was more wondering about the biblical literalists..
I think my favorite hybrid that actually lived is the sheep/goat hydrid.. one species has 54 chromosomes, the other has 60, with the hydrid having 57. It's alive, it breaths.. it is just sterile. I am just wondering if it will get put in with the sheep or the goats in judgement day.
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articulett Member (Idle past 3393 days) Posts: 49 Joined: |
I'm hoping for goats.
I always wonder how biblical literalists interpret article like discoveries of Frozen Woolly Mammoths or unearthed skeletons of such. We might asked how are Woolly Mammoths and elephants related? When did they last share a common ancestor? Are elephants descended from Woolly mammoths or a sister species? When did Woolly Mammoths walk the earth? What did they eat? Did humans hunt them? Did Neanderthals? etc. And we have tools for figuring out these answers. But YEC's don't. They just have to try to fit the facts into their ancient ark story and make up how the ancestors of these animals got from Mount Ararat to all the places they appear to be native to today. Clearly a creationist must be able to see that goat and sheep are more related than goats and dogs. And the DNA proves this as does the fact that they can create offspring with sheep but not dogs. How does a biblical literalist explain this. Did god take some sheepish goatish ancestor on board and do super fast evolution to make these two different species or did he just poof out two separate but similar-enough-to-breed species and have them board the ark in pairs? These appear to be separate "kind" to people writing the bible since they have separate names for sheep and goats. And what about Kangaroos and wallabies which they didn't even seem to know about? And how did they get to Australia from Mount Ararat? Why are there no fossils of marsupials in the middle east? I doubt that bible literalists agree on the answers to these questions. I suspect you have to kill your curiosity to be a YEC (or be satisfied with farfetched explanations that aren't supported by any evidence.)
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DrJones* Member Posts: 2285 From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
I always wonder how biblical literalists interpret article like discoveries of Frozen Woolly Mammoths
Frozen wooly mammoths were obviously flash frozen alive during the flood. It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds soon I discovered that this rock thing was true Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world And so there was only one thing I could do Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On *not an actual doctor
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2499 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
articulett writes: Why are there no fossils of marsupials in the middle east? There could well be. They could be anywhere.
Oldest marsupial fossil. Perhaps you meant to say "fossils of kangaroos in the middle east."
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BobTHJ Member (Idle past 5019 days) Posts: 119 Joined: |
Replying to all outstanding messages here, sorry for the wait.
Taq in M340:
quote: I guess I'm not understanding how this allows selection to preserve a non-expressed gene over time. Can you explain further? or point me to some reading material? Taq in M346:
quote: Where did the retro-virus initially come from? Even in a darwinian model it is not unreasonable to suspect that the first retro-viruses were spawned by a mutated section of transposable DNA in a different organism.
quote: Please elaborate on 'EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISMS'. So called 'evolutionary distance' is primarily just a measure of genetic differences between species (part of the ontological model). Percy in M350:
quote: Borger's hypothesis (which I've since learned appears to have been put forward - at least in part - much earlier by Todd Wood) does fit the evidence we currently observe - if it does not please demonstrate how.
quote: Borger isn't arguing against selection by environment. Directed VIGE transpositions activate dormant psuedogenes causing new phenotypes - and natural selection then chooses the most fit phenotypes for the environment. Borger also hypotheses VIGEs that serve other function (modifying chromosomal configurations to prevent interbreeding and thus force speciation) but this is in addition to the first function, not in place of.
quote: Again, you are assuming that genetic similarity implies common descent. Common descent is one reasonable explanation - but common design is another.
quote: I'm not at all suggesting no commonality. I don't argue against the genetic commonality of all life - I actually find this to be rather solid evidence for common design.
quote: Agree. However, for the full traditional darwinian evolutionary process to occur - even in a rapidly reproducing organism - would still require a considerable amount of time. Consider the steps:1. Gene duplication 2. A mutation event that deactivates the duplicated gene (thus allowing it to freely mutate) 3. A series of mutation events to modify the protein coded by the gene - as well as modifications to the regulatory elements that control expression for that pseudogene. 4. A mutation event that re-activates the new gene for expression. At a minimum you must admit that the above process does not allow for the rapid evolution we have witnessed in bacterial studies. What has been observed is the activation of pre-existing dormant pseudogenes.
quote: Certainly (as stated above) environmental selection would play a major role. The flood event (and resulting continental drift) would cause some rapid environmental change. Species spreading into new areas of the now-unihabited world would also provide rapid exposure to new environments. Also please understand I'm not suggesting high-orders of evolutionary change. The primary evolutionary change I am advocating for is exactly environmental adaptation. Historians wouldn't witness dinosaurs morphing into birds in a matter of a few generations - they would be able to see some minor variations in doves/pigeons as they speciated and adapted to the various environments they expanded into. WoundedKing in M354:
quote: What I was referring to is that the study demonstrates 83% of genes to be non-essential to survival, and of those 60% have no noticeable phenotype. Now, given - phenotypes may exist for some which were not found - for the sake of argument let's assume half of those 60% of non-essential genes would have a phenotype that reduces fitness in the wild (far more than is likely). That still leaves approx. 25% of the expressed genes in Yeast that HAVE NO PHENOTYPE and thus grant no additional fitness. How does natural selection conserve genes that convey no fitness? The explanation was "those genes are the result of gene duplication", but the study shows this to be the case for less than one in ten. Granny Magda in M355:
quote: If conclusive evidence of feathered dinosaurs were shown this would not invalidate kinds. It would fit a new taxon between birds and dinosaurs - likely a separate extinct baramin (or baramins).
quote: Conclusions based on evidence are assumptive in nature - because we never have full evidence. To use our example the evidence in question is several distinct fossils. We can draw reasonable conclusions from these fossils (and maybe feathered dinosaurs is a reasonable conclusion) but that conclusion requires a certain level of assumption - because there is much that remains uncertain.
quote: As I've stated previously, I agree that the ontology based on genetic and morphological similarity models life with greater than 95% accuracy. This agreement does nothing to vindicate darwin (who made an assumption/conclusion of common ancestry based upon morphological evidence) it merely demonstrates that life shares much similarity.
quote: I agree wholeheartedly - and can state with certainty that my YEC belief is a result of the evidence (at least the evidence I have seen).
quote: I'm not contradicting myself here - let me see if I can explain more fully: A hypothesis that isn't falsifiable isn't necessarily incorrect. It is however of limited use to objective science until a method of falsification is devised. Specific baraminological hypothesis are falsifiable. The science as a whole would also be falsified if humans and chimps (or some other primate) were shown to have common ancestry. Dr. Adequate in M358:
quote: This, of course, is not what I said. Thanks to our Creator we do have a tremendous capability to use our senses to acquire knowledge (which in itself is powerful argument against non-intelligent design). We can learn about what we observe. This however does not mean we ever fully understand anything - we only understand that which we have observed about it. Just to set the record straight: I am not in any way suggesting that a spiritual enemy 'fixed' our observations (Though Granny's new avatar is cute) - evidence is evidence. I am suggesting that a spiritual enemy might influence the conclusions drawn from those observations. This is of course opinion on my part and should in no way be construed to be anything else. articulett in M359:
quote: Scientific theories are the best explanation for the observed facts in the opinion of the one adhering to the theory.
quote: I falsify this hypothesis. Percy in M360:
quote: Two means led to this prediciton. First, neanderthal fossils have been found with evidence of civilized society. Since baraminology dictates that only humans are sentient and capable of this level of societal organization, then neanderthal must be human. Secondly, baraminological distances were compared between neanderthal and human fossils indicating a close correlation between the two. Sorry, I can't give great detail on this process as I don't clearly understand it yet.
quote: As mentioned in other posts YEC baraminology predicts much faster 'evolution' (adaptation and speciation) than would be found under a darwinian model. No doubt the 500k year estimate you refer to was based on the darwinian timescale and derived either from radio-isotope dating of fossils or from genetic differences and assumed mutation rates.
quote: Yes...sorry if I wasn't more clear. The homo genus is roughly equivalent to the YEC human holobaramin - ie 100% human 0% ape from a YEC perspective. articulett in M361:
quote: I wasn't implying neanderthal were human ancestors - an extinct species of the human baramin is more accurate. However, you give some good examples and thus allow me to state the following falsifiable hypothesis (which I've been considering and did not originate with me):
Interbreeding (even under laboratory conditions) can be used as an inclusive test to determine if an organism lies within a certain baramin. Note that when interbreeding was discussed at the beginning of this thread by those attempting to characterize baraminology it was done so in an exclusive manner: "if two organisms can't interbreed then they are in separate baramins". This does not hold true however due to speciation (organisms that were once able to interbreed may no longer be able to due to chromosomal reconfiguration or phenotopic incompatibility). However, if two organisms CAN interbreed then the baraminologist can reasonably conclude that they ARE in the same baramin. This includes interbreeding under laboratory conditions (up to but not exceeding manual alignment of chromosomes for meosis) and is valid even if offspring do not remain viable until maturity. This hypothesis can be falsified if a human/chimp interbreeding could be accomplished in the laboratory. According to this hypothesis (and using your examples) horses and zebras are part of the same baramin. Dogs and wolves also share a baramin. Finally humans and neanderthal's share a baramin. I'm trying to get as far away from 'fast and loose' here as I can... articulett in M365:
quote: You're not asking any tough questions here... rapid speciation from a sheep/goat common ancestor is certainly possible - and I've demonstrated the means (VIGEs - see the baranome hypothesis I posted about here and on the genetic redundancy thread). A global flood event as hypothesized by YEC would generate the continental drift from pangaea to (almost) present form thus allowing for rapid re-population of the planet and explaining how specific kinds may be found all or only certain continents.
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Taq Member Posts: 10044 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
I guess I'm not understanding how this allows selection to preserve a non-expressed gene over time. Can you explain further? or point me to some reading material? Because selection is able to restore the function of the gene faster than genetic drift (aka no selection) is able to take the function away. To use a rough analogy, it is a bit like a dog on a leash. The dog slowly starts to wander off, but a well directed tug brings them back to your side in a jiffy. The wandering is analogous to unselected genetic drift while the tug is positive selection.
Where did the retro-virus initially come from? Even in a darwinian model it is not unreasonable to suspect that the first retro-viruses were spawned by a mutated section of transposable DNA in a different organism. Where viruses came from is still a hotly debated topic. IMHO, the best candidate is an ancient unicellular obligate parasite not too different from the ubiquitous chlamydia species that we see today. In fact, there are lifeforms such as mimiviruses which carry very large genomes (for a virus) that may demonstrate a link between the small genomes of retroviruses and the larger genomes of bacteria. I would suspect that viruses have been around for almost the entire history of life. They are the epitome of selfish DNA.
Borger's hypothesis (which I've since learned appears to have been put forward - at least in part - much earlier by Todd Wood) does fit the evidence we currently observe - if it does not please demonstrate how. What potential observation would Borger's hypothesis not fit? How does Borger's hypothesis explain LTR divergence? How does it explain overall ERV divergence? To be more specific, why do ERV's that are shared by orangutans and humans at orthologous positions have a higher LTR divergence than orhtologous ERV's shared by just chimps and humans? Why does the overall ERV divergence fit the same pattern? How does Borger's hypothesis explain this? How does Borger explain how a whole family of viruses can be found in chimps and gorillas but not in orangutans and humans, and at the same time why don't we find any of these ERV's at orthologous positions in chimps and gorillas (see this paper)? If you are going to claim that Borger's hypothesis explains the observations then it MUST explain these observations. Common descent with modification (i.e. evolution) DOES explain these observations. In fact, if common ancestry and evolution are true then we SHOULD observe these relationships.
Please elaborate on 'EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISMS'. So called 'evolutionary distance' is primarily just a measure of genetic differences between species (part of the ontological model) It is also established by the fossil record which the ontological model can not explain.
Borger isn't arguing against selection by environment. Directed VIGE transpositions activate dormant psuedogenes causing new phenotypes - and natural selection then chooses the most fit phenotypes for the environment. Borger also hypotheses VIGEs that serve other function (modifying chromosomal configurations to prevent interbreeding and thus force speciation) but this is in addition to the first function, not in place of. Can you please show where Borger explains why humans need reverse trascriptase and viral capsid proteins.
Again, you are assuming that genetic similarity implies common descent. Common descent is one reasonable explanation - but common design is another. Then please list the similarities that the phonograph and light bulb share. Please show how Stephen King's novels fall into a nested hierarchy. Please show how airbags are only found in a single lineage of cars, the lineage of cars that airbags were first observed. Please explain why the similarities you share with your siblings is not due to common descent, but due to magical poofing (I am sure that your parents would be really interested in this one).
The flood event (and resulting continental drift) would cause some rapid environmental change. So would a major meteor impact 200 years ago, but there is no evidence that either happened.
If conclusive evidence of feathered dinosaurs were shown this would not invalidate kinds. What would? Anything? If any possible evidence fits with baraminology then how can you claim that the evidence convinced you?
Conclusions based on evidence are assumptive in nature - because we never have full evidence. So you accept creationism with zero evidence, but you reject evolution because we don't have complete knowledge of everything that has ever happened in the entire universe. Color me surprised.
Finally humans and neanderthal's share a baramin. How did you establish this?
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
What I was referring to is that the study demonstrates 83% of genes to be non-essential to survival, and of those 60% have no noticeable phenotype. Now, given - phenotypes may exist for some which were not found - for the sake of argument let's assume half of those 60% of non-essential genes would have a phenotype that reduces fitness in the wild (far more than is likely). That still leaves approx. 25% of the expressed genes in Yeast that HAVE NO PHENOTYPE and thus grant no additional fitness. Well if you wan't to just keep making things up that is fine. But in fact there is no basis for your 25% figure. To say that they 'HAVE NO PHENOTYPE' is simply a baseless assumption, and all caps doesn't make it any less so. All you can actually say is that they don't have any phenotype which produces quantitative growth defects in either rich or minimal medium, since that was the only phenotype that was being assayed.
How does natural selection conserve genes that convey no fitness? The explanation was "those genes are the result of gene duplication", but the study shows this to be the case for less than one in ten. That isn't the explanation at all, and it certainly isn't what we have been discussing. What the differences in gene duplication between the essential and non-essential genes is used to show is that there are a larger number of duplicates in the non-essential set, making genetic redundancy one possible explanation for the non-essential nature of those particular genes. That has always been the position, that gene duplication produces gentic redundancy making that particular genetic pathway element more robust. This has nothing to do with conveying 'no fitness', and the study would have no basis to make such a claim. Of course the study doesn't claim this, you do. It has long been regarded as the case that most unicellular organisms have a much wider metabolic flexibility then metazoa, and yeast is no exception. One screen looked at deletions under a combination of various growth conditions including aerobic and anaerobic as well as using a variety of growth media (Gu et al., 2003). This showed that ... 'there is a significantly higher probability of functional compensation for a duplicate gene than for a singleton, a high correlation between the frequency of compensation and the sequence similarity of two duplicates, and a higher probability of a severe fitness effect when the duplicate copy that is more highly expressed is deleted.' Those results seem to fairly conclusively argue for a role for duplicated genes in genetic redundancy. TTFN, WK
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Peepul Member (Idle past 5040 days) Posts: 206 Joined: |
quote: Hi Bob, the fact that we get consistent nested hierarchies using different methods demonstrates much more than life sharing similairities. Life could share similarities without falling naturally into a nested hierarchy. Cars do not fall naturally into a nested hierarchy, for example, because innovations are taken up in many 'lineages' - an analogue of horizontal gene transmission. As you probably know, when building these nested trees, it's possible to estimate how 'genuine' the tree is - ie how strong is the signal that it really is nested. So the strength of the nestedness can be estimated statistically. The results show that life's trees are significant. A designer would not be constrained in this way, evolution has to be (assuming that HGT is not significant). This is why it's such strong evidence for evolution.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
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Hi Bob, glad you decided to stick around.
First, we have conclusive evidence that birds are dinosaurs; dozens of examples of feathered dinosaurs, birds with teeth, and a whole raft of morphological intermediates between birds and maniraptorans. Given this, it is hard to visualise what you might think was conclusive evidence. Care to help me out? What would you consider suitable evidence? Second, I disagree that the "kinds" model is not falsified by this observation. One of the central planks of baraminology is that the baramins cannot interbreed or mix. Here we have birds and dinosaurs, two groups of animals that no baraminologist would place together, actually evolving from one state to the other. This is the exact opposite of what baramin enthusiasts say is going on. Also, why would it be a separate baramin? Why not simply incorporate feathered dinosaurs into a dinosaur baramin? Why not include birds in the dinosaur baramin? What objective reasons can you give for claiming feathered dinosaurs belong to their own baramin as opposed to any other? Because if you have none, I am forced to conclude that the term "baramin" is so infinitely flexible that it has no meaning.
I think the word you are reaching for is "tentativity". Yes, all scientific conclusions are tentative, but this does not make them assumptions. Tentativity is good practise. You should try applying it to your religious beliefs some day. Using the principle of tentativity to damn a particular paper is childish and self-defeating. You can complain all you like that Xu et al 's conclusions are tentative, but you show no concern that the practise of baraminology is also tentative - unless you have mistaken the baraminologists for gods.
Deluded nonsense. Darwin predicted that life would display nested similarities. And that is exactly what we see. Every time a new species is discovered, whether living or fossilised, it fits into the nested hierarchy predicted by Darwin's theory. That is a vindication of the prediction. Further, these similarities fit into an evolutionary framework - every single time. There are no exceptions. If the ToE were false, there would be no reason for this pattern to emerge, but it does. Exactly as predicted. I have no idea what planet you come from where the repeated confirmation of a theory's predictions, based upon millions of observations, does not constitute evidence for that theory. Your own pet theory, the baramin, predicts absolutely nothing of course and so could never have any supporting evidence, no matter what was observed.
But your beliefs are often in direct contradiction to easily observed and very clear evidence. Take your comments on the fossil record for instance, where you say in one message;
Now that is not what the fossil record shows, It just isn't. There are many bottom dwellers above trilobites in the fossil record. There are complex, free swimming organisms above. There are simple bottom dwelling organisms right through the record, not just near the bottom. The picture you paint here is so astonishingly removed from reality that it bears no resemblance at all. You cannot possibly have based this view upon the evidence, It's simply too obviously wrong. Instead you based your view on something you read somewhere, probably some creationist lie-site. The evidence is not biased. Sometimes it is ambiguous, hard to read. Sometimes however it is not. Sometimes the evidence is very clear indeed and the conclusions it gives us are near inescapable. The idea that birds evolved from a reptilian ancestor is one such idea, as is the common ancestry of humans and chimps.
Agreed. An unfalsifiable theory might be correct, but it is no use to science.
Interesting that you say that, given that you have already claimed that evidence for bird/dinosaur transition would not falsify the baramin. What is it about humans and chimps that is so special? What would constitute good evidence for human/chimp common ancestry in your view?
So, to be clear, your theory, the one you find so much more convincing than the ToE, requires not one invisible, undetectable supernatural entity, but two? Wow. And you actually have the gall to attack Xu et al for making "assumptions". Stunning. Mutate and Survive Edited by Granny Magda, : Removed a question answered elsewhere in Bob's reply. "A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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CosmicChimp Member Posts: 311 From: Muenchen Bayern Deutschland Joined: |
Granny you're awesome. But I gotta ask you to elaborate on this part (especially as I am going through some specific review of this point on another site):
... If the ToE were false, there would be no reason for this pattern to emerge, but it does. ...
You are essentially saying, "Ignoring the obvious cause for this pattern, there is no currently known reason for it." To me nested hierarchy implies imperfect inheritance or incomplete duplication. But how is it to be distinguished from a deity poofing a series of creatures into existence based upon what they say is common design or modular design or whatever else they say it is. My problem is that I do not see the difference between poofology which produces incomplete duplication, or ToE which does it equally indistinguishably. The discovery institute evidently did a good job of expressing that "god did it" because I can't find the seems anywhere. Occam's razor is to me the only way I've been able to discern. Essentially their argument is common design implies common designer, which is itself an explanation for nested hierarchy. There must be a foolproof rebuttal. My mind keeps trying to copy itself. Try as I might to stop it, almost everything I do seems to be some sort of a crude attempt at making copies. Gawd, what an egomaniac.
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Huntard Member (Idle past 2317 days) Posts: 2870 From: Limburg, The Netherlands Joined: |
CosmicChimp writes:
I don't know about foolproof, but I always liked this video by CDK007: To me nested hierarchy implies imperfect inheritance or incomplete duplication. But how is it to be distinguished from a deity poofing a series of creatures into existence based upon what they say is common design or modular design or whatever else they say it is. My problem is that I do not see the difference between poofology which produces incomplete duplication, or ToE which does it equally indistinguishably. The discovery institute evidently did a good job of expressing that "god did it" because I can't find the seems anywhere. Occam's razor is to me the only way I've been able to discern. Essentially their argument is common design implies common designer, which is itself an explanation for nested hierarchy. There must be a foolproof rebuttal.
Linky
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
My problem is that I do not see the difference between poofology which produces incomplete duplication, or ToE which does it equally indistinguishably. Traditionally we call this philosophical view "Last Thursdayism", since the reducto ad absurdum of your view is that God not only specially created all living organisms in such a way that they bear a (false) appearance of common descent, but that he also created fossils in the ground, the light of distant stars in mid-route to Earth, and indeed your very body and (false) memories, all at approximately 3 o'clock last Thursday. Truly, there's probably no experiment we can make that can distinguish between a universe actually as old as it appears to be and a universe created last Thursday with an apparent age of 14 billion years. Traditionally the Last Thursdayism view is rejected on grounds that are either largely aesthetic (people just don't like the idea of a God engaged in a colossal deception) or on the basis of an a priori rejection of the existence of God. The seam in the argument, in other words, is that it's too strong - it proves way more about God than the Discovery Institute is prepared to accept.
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