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Member (Idle past 1404 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Evolution falsifies God/s? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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I don't doubt that. I'm sure you value people, I'm sure most atheists do in fact, but you have no basis to - not from an evolutionary perspective anyways. How could natural selection account for honesty? What benefit could honesty possibly offer to be selected from the genetic herd? Or the notion of right and wrong - do you think animals care whether some other animal is honest or whether they are right or wrong? They're animals - they don't care. But animals do care, they have a sense of fairness and exhibit altruism. And they do it all without reading the Bible. If you like, I'll dig up some of the many experiments done on monkeys. As to what benefit honesty brings, try spend the next week or so being dishonest in all your interpersonal transactions and see how you get on. It won't just be God who ends up pissed at you, so will everyone you meet.
No that wouldn't matter to me. If God made us out of legos, we would still have value because we would have been made in His image. But I can account for that thinking because I believe that our value comes from God, an atheist believes we are essentially stardust - and there's no basis for any real intrinsic value there. Well, again, I don't see how things would be less valuable if they were made of stardust. Actually, it sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? What you mean by intrinsic value, and why you think this would be conferred by being made in God's image, which is an extrinsic factor, you don't explain. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Computational Evolution Experiments Reveal a Net Loss of Genetic Information Despite Selection And yet observation of the real world shows no such thing, proving that the computer model isn't any good. You may recall that scientists once modeled the flight of bees and found that their model showed that bees couldn't fly. Because people are idiots, this is generally reported as "haha, silly scientists claimed to have proved that bees can't fly". In fact, what they claimed to have proved was that there was some important factor missing from their model. The author of that "paper", however, does not exhibit the same degree of sense.
The infamous peppered moth? You offer that up as proof of Darwinian evolution? No, he offered that as a counterexample to your specific claim that "Natural selection does not clean that gene mess up." You didn't ask for a proof of macroevolution, which will be found in the fossil record, molecular phylogeny, biogeography, morphology, etc. And this is a typical creationist debating tactic. You ask a question or make a statement to which the best reply is a direct observation of microevolution, and then you say "Aha, that doesn't prove macroevolution, is that the best you've got?"
Here's what real evolution is: natural selection working with existing genetic information (no new info). No.
Your version of evolution: natural selection creating new genetic information over billions of years. No.
Wrong, it's you who conflates and obfuscates the meanings and I believe it's intentional. You know your "theory" is flawed, but without it you'll be forced to admit there is a God, so you rally the troops and circle the wagons around this beaten and dead "evolutionary" horse. And now you're being wrong with paranoia thrown in. Apart from anything else, RAZD does apparently believe in God: his sig informs you that the D in RAZD stands for "deist". And some of the evolutionists here (not to mention the real world) are not merely deists but staunch Christians, how does your hypothesis account for them? Are they just supporting evolution in order to deny the God that in fact they worship and adore? And what are you to make of atheists like me, who will insist that evolution is perfectly compatible with God, that they are separate questions, and that anyone who abandoned theism as a consequence of acknowledging evolution would be a damn fool? Clearly I don't support evolution in order to deny the existence of God, since I freely admit that it would be worthless for that purpose. Moreover, if we all "knew" that evolution was flawed, why the heck would we voluntarily participate in a forum where it comes under continual attack and scrutiny? It would be like someone who knows he's tone-deaf appearing on American Idol, or a woman who's certain that she's hideous entering a beauty pageant. One does not expect you to know much about (for example) genetics, but a little basic insight into human nature should not be too much to ask. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
faceman writes: But I can account for that thinking because I believe that our value comes from God, an atheist believes we are essentially stardust - and there's no basis for any real intrinsic value there. Your idea that value comes from God leads to only 3 options:
We can understand that you accept God's Image as having value.So... which is it? Are you a robot that discards God's greatest gift? Or are your thoughts greater than God's? Which do you think God would prefer? Of course, there's always option #3... that your idea is wrong.Maybe God gave us brains so that we could create our own value, and He just wants us to choose Him of our own conscious will, not as robots. -this requires that value does not come from God, but humans have the ability to create value on their own.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1404 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Funny, I was thinking the same about you. If you can't defend the Darwinian evolutionary model, then that can only leave one other answer. In which case all the sciences - physics, geology, cosmology and logic itself - must come from God. Curiously evolution defends itself ... with actual facts gleaned from actual studies of actual living organisms.
Amusingly I figured you would go in this direction, given your fondness for programming comments. A mathematical model, where the abstract actually says that " ... By contrast, experiments using the program Avida have suggested that purifying selection is extremely effective and that novel genetic information can arise via selection for high-impact beneficial mutations ... " and that by altering the input you can get a range of results from survival to extinction. They then proceed to use ones that end up with extinctions. Sadly, for you, mathematical models are only as good as their usage to model reality, and when they end up with results that don't reflect reality it is not reality that is at fault. Surely you know the story of the aeronautical engineer that "proved" that bumble bees can't fly? If the model gives you wrong results there is a flaw in the model or the input -- this is basic logic yes? So in spite of this (pretend? -- see Message 38) paper producing results you claim, I did not find in it any attempt to model an actual known population with actual known measured parameters ... just gabflab about "under biologically relevant conditions" which we are expected to just swallow. They go on to mention " ... potentially prohibitive barriers to the evolution of novel genetic information:"
Curiously I did a google scholar search on these terms So we basically have two types of results (I) your paper plus one other by the same author ... and (II) many papers that discuss beneficial and deleterious effects both resulting from the processes involved. Conclusion: the paper is bogus, built on the models intentionally set to produce wanted results rather than real ones, throwing around terminology in a misleading manner, and not really supporting your claim
It doesn't change the fact, however, that natural selection of beneficial genes also includes the vastly greater number of deleterious genes. Mutations are almost always harmful and they are cumulative (i.e. the ratio of bad genes to good genes grows with every generation). Natural selection does not clean that gene mess up. Care to show us your calculations used to come to that conclusion? Computational Evolution Experiments Reveal a Net Loss of Genetic Information Despite Selection So you have not shown your calculations that validate your claim, but referenced a "bumblebees can't fly" kind of paper without any attempt to model an actual known population with actual known measured parameters ... what a real scientist would do before making your claim.
The infamous peppered moth? You offer that up as proof of Darwinian evolution? ... Yes, I picked it because I figured you would be familiar with it and how it demonstrated natural selection (as is agreed by Dr. John Morris, President of ICR ...). The point made is simple: if there is a real problem with surviving deleterious mutations then we should see extinctions in populations under high selective pressure with a known major deleterious mutation. Extinction was not observed, ergo the impact of selection to remove deleterious mutations in individuals on the survival of the whole population is not as you claim ... and would be even less applicable for population with less selection pressure or less deleterious mutations (ie almost all other populations in the world).
... The reason you keep hearing us say things like "a finch is still a finch" or "a dog is still a dog" is because you and your ilk have failed once again to produce any example of a creature developing new information. The peppered moth is an example of classic evolution - where natural selection takes what genetic info it already has available to it and merely rearranges the deck chairs a bit. Ultimately though, that Titanic is going to sink (genetic collapse). Rearranging already existing genetic information does not create new information. Now you are moving the goal posts, typical. First you were talking about natural selection and now you are talking about the "creation" of new "information" ... another PRATT Obviously natural selection does not "create new information" - so your implication that it should is logically invalid. Mutations are the source of new information -- information that did not exist before the mutations. Curiously whether the mutation is beneficial, neutral or deleterious it is still new information ... whatever "information" means in this context (you should define it). Also see Irreducible Complexity, Information Loss and Barry Hall's experiments ...
Natural selection does not occur at the molecular level, where mutations occur, but rather on the entire organism as a whole. Please explain how selection could remove only the deleterious mutations. You are correct that natural selection only operates on the phenotype ... but the question you need to ask is "what makes a mutation deleterious" ... and the answer is when the mutation is expressed in the phenotype and causes reduced fitness to survive and reproduce. Thus the black allele is deleterious in non-soot covered ecologies inhabited by the peppered moth but beneficial in the soot covered ecologies. Many mutations are lethal during the development of a fetus, and that certainly means they fail to survive and reproduce and thus are negatively selected in the population. This usually results in early miscarriages that then allow further reproduction to occur. You can also have mutations that are neutral in one ecology, beneficial in another, and deleterious in a third.
Wrong, it's you who conflates and obfuscates the meanings and I believe it's intentional. You know your "theory" is flawed, but without it you'll be forced to admit there is a God, so you rally the troops and circle the wagons around this beaten and dead "evolutionary" horse. Getting a little testy? No, it is not intentional, it probably comes from your only having a cursory introduction to the science and perhaps from not paying attention (and I am not aware of any biologist who refers to the ToE (theory of evolution) with just the word evolution). Notice that I pointed out the equivocation in terminology to you and that I am very careful to talk about the process of evolution and the theoryt of evolution as two different things ... just as the process of gravitational attraction and the theory of gravitational attraction are two different things. Context can also tell when one is talking about the process of gravity or the theory of gravity ...
Here's what real evolution is: natural selection working with existing genetic information (no new info). Your version of evolution: natural selection creating new genetic information over billions of years. Nope. Typical creationist pap, but demonstrably wrong on both counts. See I knew you had a poor understanding of actual evolutionary science. Curiously the information is readily and easily available for anyone that truly wants to learn it ... An introduction to evolution - Understanding Evolution - a good resource for remedial study ... also, you could have referred back to Message 1 quote: The process of evolution is sometimes called microevolution, however this is the process through which all species evolve and all evolution occurs at the breeding population level. The process of phyletic speciation, the process of divergent speciation and the process of forming nested clades\hierarchies all occur through the process of evolution, and these are what is usually referred to as macroevolution in evolutionary biology. Mutations to existing hereditary traits (ie for eyes and ears) can cause changes in the composition of hereditary traits for individuals in a breeding population, but not all mutations are expressed (and many are in non-hereditary areas). In addition there are many different kinds of mutations and they have different effects (from small to large), especially if they affect the developmental process of an organism. Natural Selection and Neutral Drift can cause changes in the frequency distribution of hereditary traits within a breeding population, but they are not the only mechanisms known that does so. Selection processes act on the expressed genes of individual organisms, so bundles of genetic mutations are selected rather than individual genes, and this means that non-lethal mutations can be preserved. The more an individual organism reproduces the more it is likely to pass on bundles of genes and mutations to the next generation, increasing the selection of those genes. The ecological challenges and opportunities change when the environment changes, when the breeding population evolves, when other organisms within the ecology evolve, when migrations change the mixture of organisms within the ecology, and when a breeding population immigrates into a new ecology. These changes can result in different survival and reproductive challenges and opportunities, affecting selection pressure, perhaps causing speciation, perhaps causing extinction. For instance there are two (2) populations of black pocket mice in the southwest, each has evolved separately from the parent population of tan pocket mice that live in the desert areas, where tan provides protective coloration. The two black populations have different mutations causing black fur, and this mutation enables these individuals to take advantage of black lava beds in the area -- one at great distance from the other. Those mutations provided the information necessary for survival and breeding within the lava bed ecologies, and is information not existing in the tan mice population.
The Theory of Evolution (ToE), stated in simple terms, is that the process of evolution over generations (phyletic speciation), and the process of divergent speciation (formation of nested hierarchies), are sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from the fossil record, from the genetic record, from the historic record, and from everyday record of the life we observe in the world all around us. Simple, observed, validated and not contradicted by any known scientific data yet. Hardly a "flawed" theory, unlike your straw man misconceptions. If I was going to argue about the bible interpretations, should I study the bible or the "wizard of oz" ? If you are going to argue about evolution it behooves you to learn about the science from scientific sources rather than "wizard of oz" sources. What's your next dance? Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : clrty Edited by RAZD, : clrty Edited by RAZD, : ...by our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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To clarify my previous remarks, let's think about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic value. Consider an object such as a pen. Its intrinsic value is that one can write with it. But it can also have an extrinsic value --- it could, for example, have been made by Leonardo Da Vinci, or used by Benjamin Franklin to sign the Declaration of Independence. That would make it worth millions, even if it was busted and couldn't write, in which case it would have no intrinsic value.
(We can easily discern the difference by noting that a pen that was exactly identical, even molecule for molecule, to Da Vinci's pen, but which wasn't his, would have the same intrinsic value but no extrinsic value.) So likewise the intrinsic value of a man is what he's like as a man, what he says and does, thinks and feels. When you suggest that the same man would have a different value according to whether he was made by God in his image or formed by natural processes out of stardust, you are necessarily talking about extrinsic value, just as you would be if you said that the same pen would have a different value according to whether it was made by Da Vinci or someone else. And when you imply that a man would have no value without this extrinsic value of being made by God, this necessarily implies that humans have no intrinsic value. I'm not sure that that's where you wanted to go with this. But if you will admit that humans have an intrinsic value, then obviously I can value them for that.
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2578 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.8
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Pressie observes:
Your response to my post doesn't make any sense at all. But seeing the return of good old usenet ASCII Art technique does have a nice nostalgic ring! - xongsmith, 5.7d
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2578 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.8
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Awesome post. Even if he is my brother....
- xongsmith, 5.7d
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2578 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.8
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About the only thing we could argue that the Theory of Evolution disproves are the poorly remembered and transcribed versions written down in various religious tomes, regarding how we got to the variety of life we see on planet Earth today. It does not falsify any god or gods. Just the stories about them.
One could argue that Abiogenesis, when it is fleshed out, would falsify the main thesis of all these Genesis stories in all religious documents - that God created life. Astronomy, geology and chemistry falsify other parts of Genesis, like the 6 day nonsense. And the Flood nonsense. The only thing here that's taking a beating is the loosely organized and politically revised collection of hand-me-down stories repeated by tribal elders. This is no big loss. Who could blame these early elders for coming up with these ideas in the day & age they lived in? No.Let's blame the political power structures over the centuries including today, for perpetuating these myths, creating such an environment of Fear to keep the masses under check. - xongsmith, 5.7d |
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ramoss Member (Idle past 611 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Pardon, but not all people who identify as Christians interpret the bible as 'The Bible reveals Jesus as God'.
And not every, or even most Christians insist that Genesis is literal. It would be better to say that 'Evolution falsifies the fundamentalist view of Christianity. (not even viewpoints of Christianity.
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faceman Member (Idle past 3385 days) Posts: 149 From: MN, USA Joined: |
Then why identify as Christians?
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faceman Member (Idle past 3385 days) Posts: 149 From: MN, USA Joined: |
But animals do care, they have a sense of fairness and exhibit altruism. And they do it all without reading the Bible. If you like, I'll dig up some of the many experiments done on monkeys. Yes please do, just not the "contagious yawning" study - it makes me yawn.
Well, again, I don't see how things would be less valuable if they were made of stardust. Actually, it sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? I admit, I did used to think it sounded cool, back in my non-believing days. It's not about the material we're made of though, but about how we were made (i.e. Creator or not). Things would be less valuable without God, because stardust is not created in God's image. Does modern evolved dust hold any special meaning for you today? From your point of view, at what point did ancient stardust finally gain any significant value? Whatever point you cite, will simply be arbitrary. Just like morality in a truly atheistic world - it becomes arbitrary.
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faceman Member (Idle past 3385 days) Posts: 149 From: MN, USA Joined: |
We might also note that being Christian does not stop the ministers of super churches from sleeping with teen age boys or prostitutes. Agreed and that's a problem. Those leaders are doing much more damage than they realize.
And yet atheists manage to enjoy the company of their fellow humans just as you do. Is that really so hard to fathom? No not at all, I know atheists are just as capable as I am - since they're made in God's image. An atheist is being disingenuous though, when he/she acts in this manner, because their worldview doesn't allow for it. Atheism doesn't provide for an absolute authority for right and wrong. The best it can do is offer up some evolutionary/cultural tale, but it's all hat and no cattle.
Fortunately your position, like most of the stuff you've posted here, is just not very well thought out. You'll need to push deeper, I'm kind of thick skinned.
Even here on this site we find that people earn reputations for telling lies, for being logical, for presenting sound arguments. You are earning a reputation right now with every post you make. That's fine, I'm not concerned with that. I've found this site to be a bit slanted towards the atheistic/evolutionary argument, so I'm not expecting to find much agreement here.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Yes please do, just not the "contagious yawning" study - it makes me yawn. I don't think yawning is altruistic anyway. You might start here. I don't think much of the morality of the researchers, but the rhesus monkeys demonstrated altruism to the point of heroic fortitude.
Things would be less valuable without God, because stardust is not created in God's image. Well, that seems like a very arbitrary declaration. If someone else were to say to me "Things would be less valuable without nucleosynthesis, because then we wouldn't be made of stardust" how would I choose between you?
Does modern evolved dust hold any special meaning for you today? Some of it does, because it's people. I'm especially fond of the bit that's me ...
From your point of view, at what point did ancient stardust finally gain any significant value? When it started thinking and feeling, I guess.
Whatever point you cite, will simply be arbitrary. I don't think that's particularly arbitrary. It would be silly, after all, to be concerned about the feelings of a rock, because it doesn't have any. And I don't see that it's more arbitrary than the criterion of whose image something is made in. If someone went around saying that the best teapots are those which are the same shape as fire hydrants, wouldn't you regard that as rather arbitrary? Surely a less arbitrary criterion would involve how good they are at making tea, not whether they bear a superficial resemblance to something else. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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faceman Member (Idle past 3385 days) Posts: 149 From: MN, USA Joined: |
RAZD does apparently believe in God: his sig informs you that the D in RAZD stands for "deist". I hadn't noticed that, but if he does, then it's most likely not the same God I believe in. As I've stated early, evolution is a major problem for a belief in the Christian God, because it makes the rest of the Bible questionable. If you can't believe in the first chapter, then how can you be sure of the rest? An evolutionary Christian dances a very fine line - and more than likely will begin to question whether or not a man can actually rise from the dead, though oddly enough they'll have no problem believing in abiogenesis.
And what are you to make of atheists like me, who will insist that evolution is perfectly compatible with God, that they are separate questions, and that anyone who abandoned theism as a consequence of acknowledging evolution would be a damn fool? I would take you for an agnostic, because that viewpoint doesn't suggest a world without a God, rather a world where we just don't know (so you'll save room for Him in the evolution paradigm, just in case). What would you say to an atheist who abandoned atheism due to an unexplained personal conviction?
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3977 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3
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faceman writes: NoNukes writes: And yet atheists manage to enjoy the company of their fellow humans just as you do. Is that really so hard to fathom? No not at all, I know atheists are just as capable as I am - since they're made in God's image. An atheist is being disingenuous though, when he/she acts in this manner, because their worldview doesn't allow for it. Atheism doesn't provide for an absolute authority for right and wrong. The best it can do is offer up some evolutionary/cultural tale, but it's all hat and no cattle. What an odd and offensive thing to say. You are claiming that when an atheist loves someone, displays kindness, or sacrifices his or her life for another, it is in reality a conscious lie. Does that truly make sense to you? This is, of course, a variant of the claim that, if there were no God, one would feel free to kill, rape, steal from and torture other human beings. Both of these claims tell a great deal more about the claimant than they do about atheists. You are apparently one crisis of faith away from revealing your intrinsic psychopathic nature."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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