"The Science Book!"

Smidlee · #**101** 6th May 2012, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by sfs

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I am a biologist. I work with other biologists, share offices with them, chat with them in the halls, drink with them in bars, hang out with them at conferences. In many cases, I know about their political beliefs, I know about their attitudes toward religion, about their favorite sports teams. Without a single exception in my professional life, they routinely and instinctively turn to evolution as the explanatory framework for handling a variety of biological questions and for formulating research questions. .

All the Christians I "hang out with them" are creationists so all Christians are creationist (none of them drink either). Birds of the same feather flock together as the saying goes.

Originally Posted by sfs

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Airline pilots know that airplanes fly. Does suggest to you that they are some kind of cult? As an engineer, you can see and judge that engineers know what they're talking about, that there is evidence for their claims. How would you respond to someone who told you that there were serious problems with Ohm's Law, and that most electrical engineers just paid lip service to it to avoid confrontation?

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A common person can see someone fly and land an airplane. Who cares about the Ohm's Law when we have send man to the moon and have build computers, tv, etc. The "little eyeball that could" story is still sci-fi just like beating people up on the Enterprise.

sfs · #**102** 7th May 2012, 07:05 AM

Originally Posted by Smidlee

All the Christians I "hang out with them" are creationists so all Christians are creationist (none of them drink either). Birds of the same feather flock together as the saying goes.

And ten seconds of looking on the web will find you abundant evidence that millions of Christians are not creationists (heck, you see them all the time here), whereas searching high and low, the only biologists I can find who don't accept evolution continue to be the handful of religiously motivated creationists that I've mentioned.

Remember, you claimed that most biologists know about the problems with evolution and are hiding them. I've worked with, talked to and listened to hundreds of biologists. I've been to conferences on evolution, on human genetics and disease, on tropical medicine. Nobody fits your description anywhere. Just where are these guys hiding, anyway? And why do you know about them and I don't?

If I may summarize our exchange so far:

You've claimed to have read "some" scientific literature on evolution, and have not named anything that you've actually read.
You've claimed that The Plausibility of Life reveals the kind of scientific problems with evolution that you're talking about, but you won't say whether you've read the book, and can't point to a single scientific problem in it.
You've claimed that most biologists are concealing the fact that evolution has major problems, and can't point to a single piece of evidence that this is true.

Smidlee · #**103** 7th May 2012, 06:33 PM

It's been a while since I've read The Plausibility of Life. I need to find where I put it and reread it.They were basically trying to address some of the things ID pointed out a few years ago. Yes, this book was written for the layman. When they dealt with biology in the book they read like scientist but when they tried to explain how those evolved they sound like politicians. They talk in circles something about "facilitated variation".

I noticed you didn't comment on the evolutionist who stated you can't trust what you think. If he's right then it would be logical that biologist are lying to themselves without them aware of it so they would have more "evolution-believing" offspring (converts).

sfs · #**104** 8th May 2012, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Smidlee

I noticed you didn't comment on the evolutionist who stated you can't trust what you think.

It didn't seem very interesting. You don't need evolutionary biology to tell you that people deceive themselves all the time, or are more likely to accept claims from those in their "tribe" than from outsiders. As Feynman put it, the easiest person to fool is yourself. That's one reason why science works pretty well: scientists are highly competitive and, while they do form tribes, there's always someone around willing to take a shot at taking you down. I think it was the geneticist Wallace who said that the best thing to have in science is a good enemy.

If he's right then it would be logical that biologist are lying to themselves without them aware of it so they would have more "evolution-believing" offspring (converts).

That's not the kind of argument he's making.

Smidlee · #**105** 9th May 2012, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by sfs

That's not the kind of argument he's making.

How do you know? He even admit he could be deceiving himself and not aware of it. If he's right then biologist could be lying to themselves about evolution and not even know it.

sfs · #**106** 10th May 2012, 06:52 AM

Originally Posted by Smidlee

How do you know?

Because I read what he said, and what you said (about converts) had nothing to do with what he said.

He even admit he could be deceiving himself and not aware of it. If he's right then biologist could be lying to themselves about evolution and not even know it.

Obviously. So what? If he's right, you could also be deceiving yourself and not be aware of it. But if he's wrong, he could still be deceiving himself, and you could still be deceiving yourself. Surely you knew without this guy's theory (or "theory" -- it seems pretty much empty speculation to me) that we all could be deceiving ourselves. Or did you think that you were somehow immune from the human condition?

mark kennedy · #**107** 12th May 2012, 12:49 AM

Hey Steve,

I was wondering, I lost track of the 1.000 genome project. How's that coming? Anything of interest emerging from the research?

mark kennedy · #**108** 12th May 2012, 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by Smidlee

It's been a while since I've read The Plausibility of Life. I need to find where I put it and reread it.They were basically trying to address some of the things ID pointed out a few years ago. Yes, this book was written for the layman. When they dealt with biology in the book they read like scientist but when they tried to explain how those evolved they sound like politicians. They talk in circles something about "facilitated variation".

I noticed you didn't comment on the evolutionist who stated you can't trust what you think. If he's right then it would be logical that biologist are lying to themselves without them aware of it so they would have more "evolution-believing" offspring (converts).

Never let Darwinians make you think your anti-evolution, it's a lie. To be a Creationist is pretty much to take the Bible literally right? Well, when did Noah's Ark touch down on Ararat? How many creatures emerge and how many of their descendents exist today. The only real difference between the Darwinian and the Creationist is that we credit God with the original creation and the timeline. All creationists are radical evolutionists and that is the dirty little secret no one will tell you in these debates.

Grace and peace,
Mark

sfs · #**109** 13th May 2012, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by mark kennedy

I was wondering, I lost track of the 1.000 genome project. How's that coming? Anything of interest emerging from the research?

1000 Genomes is doing fine -- still adding more samples and more populations, but basically in cruise mode now. The project itself is designed to be a resource, so it's not focusing on using the data to make discoveries, but many groups are using it for many purposes. For example, on the last day of the conference I just attended, several studies used 1kG data. One dissected mutations. One result was that deletions (and leaving out slippage deletions) are more likely to be 4 base pairs long; this because the enzyme that trims back the ends of broken chromosomes in double-stranded break repair removes 4 bases.

Another study identified genes that have probably been under long-term balancing selection in apes and humans, and found an enrichment for genes involved in immune function. A third study surveyed likely sites of recent positive selection in humans and found various things that I won't repeat because they haven't been published yet.

Papias · #**110** 14th May 2012, 10:46 AM

mark wrote:

All creationists are radical evolutionists and that is the dirty little secret no one will tell you in these debates.

Really, mark? I've often pointed out that many creationists believe in hyper-evolution, both in real-life conversations and on these boards. I can show you the posts if you like. It's hardly a "dirty little secret" if it's being told left and right by both myself and others.

The fact that so many creationists support the rapid evolution (hyper evolution) from the hundreds of animals on an "ark" to the literally millions of species today require evolution hundreds of times faster than usually observed in the geologic record, in just 4,500 years since the mythical "flood" certainly doesn't help the creationist position.

mark himself is a great example here. mark says that the evolution of the human brain over the ~3 million years since ancestors like Lucy is "too fast", but then turns around to claim that the evolution of millions of new species in 0.0045 million years is just fine.

Doing a little math.

Human brain evolution from 400 to 1200 cc in 3 million years:

1200-400 = 800 = 270 cc per million years, mark says "too fast"
3 my . . . . 3 my

compare with marks hyper evolution of chimps from homo habilis:

600-400 = . 200 = 44,000 cc per million years, mark says "hey, no problem!"
0.0045 my . 0.0045 my

270 >> 44,000?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg in thinking that the mythical global flood was real.

Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

Papias