Wild claims about only SDAs being young Earth Creationists in the 1800's and early 1900's.

[boughtwithaprice]

You might as well say "true plumbing can be reconciled with the miracles of God because plumbing follows the evidence wherever it leads. Science and plumbing can't say anything at all about God. But scientists and plumbers can. If this puzzles you, we've located the problem.


Newton, for example, did not include God in his theory of gravitiation, just as Darwin didn't include God in his theory of evolution. However, Newton did acknowledge God as the Creator of the Solar System, just as Darwin did acknowledge God as the Creator of living things. They just couldn't put God into a scientific theory.

In fact, Darwin's great discovery was that it isn't a random process. And the reason you think of Genesis as "myths" is because you want to make it into a science text, and it can't be that.

If you knew what a science is, you'd know better. Darwin looked at nature and asked some questions. He came up with a hypothesis and started looking to see if it was valid. The resulting theory has four points. Which of those has since been not been verified by evidence. I won't insult your intelligence by telling you what they are, I'm sure you know. Tell us which of them has been falsified and how.


God is not some little Middle Eastern deity making a tree here and bird there. He's the Creator of the universe, who made nature to bring forth life as He created it to do. Why not just accept His creation as it is?


Fortunately for you, you won't go to hell merely for being a creationist. God doesn't care what you think of evolution, any more than he cares what you think of photosynthesis. But you do put your soul at risk if you make an idol of your new beliefs and insist that others must believe them to be saved. Avoid that.


Good question. Many, if not most, creationists are no less Christian than the rest of us. The darkness is in making an idol.


Most creationists, as far as I can see, do not claim their religion is a science. There are some, but I think they are less pagan than in error. Only some of them hate us, but then Jesus said the world would hate us.

It’s amazing that you can call me nonCatholic and deny the word of God at the same time. That is really nice.

The Catholic Church was infiltrated be modernists, and I grew up listening to the same old same old. Deny the miracles, deny the teaching and tell people that they are not Catholic if they don’t believe as you do.

I have not called you pagan. The teaching of evolution is a rehash of pagan teaching. Easy to find historical fact. Some Catholics believe it, just like some Catholics practice birth control. Doesn’t make it right or Catholic. I don’t hate you, I feel sorry for you.

You can call yourself pagan if you want, but to me you are just misguided. Waste all that intellect so that, by your own words, you can cling to the pride of a degree

We are done sir, logic won’t convince you, may God rebuke you. Happy is the man whom God chastises. Do not reject the punishment of the almighty. For he wounds, but He binds up; He smites but His hands give healing. Insult has broken my heart and I am weak

 

[The Barbarian]

It’s amazing that you can call me nonCatholic

By now, it's no longer amazing that you claim I said things that I never said.

The Catholic Church was infiltrated be modernists, and I grew up listening to the same old same old. Deny the miracles, deny the teaching and tell people that they are not Catholic if they don’t believe as you do.

That doesn't sound like the Catholic Church. Every Sunday, they proclaim the Miracle of the Eucharist and cite teaching of Jesus and/or of His disciples. How could you miss that?

And notice that while the magisterium (check the Vatican website) says that evolution and common descent are "virtually certain", you don't have to accept that to be a good Catholic. So you got that wrong, too.

I have not called you pagan.

Someone said you did? I'm not easy to insult. If you want to do so, you have to be pretty direct.

The teaching of evolution is a rehash of pagan teaching.

You were badly misled there. I asked you to support that assumption, earlier:

If you knew what a science is, you'd know better. Darwin looked at nature and asked some questions. He came up with a hypothesis and started looking to see if it was valid. The resulting theory has four points. Which of those has since been not been verified by evidence. I won't insult your intelligence by telling you what they are, I'm sure you know. Tell us which of them has been falsified and how.

You declined to do so. For reasons we can only guess.

Waste all that intellect so that, by your own words, you can cling to the pride of a degree

I notice I wasn't the one to bring up degrees in this conversation... Degrees don't impress me. Being able to form a cogent argument, supported by evidence, impresses me. And maybe I'm not as smart as you seem to think I am.

Let God be God, and this kind of thing won't trouble you any further.

 

[BNR32FAN]

No, that excuse won't work, either. Luke's genealogy is also for Joseph.

Luke 3:23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,

That's not a good excuse, either. In that time, Jews did not have last names.

Actually they used the term “son of” to represent their family affiliation. The problem I often have in discussions with you is you just want to contradict everything your opponent says. You know full well that the term “son of” was used to indicate family affiliation but you won’t actually apply that knowledge because your only focus is contradicting your opponent. And if you paid any attention at all to the genealogies in Matthew and Luke you would notice that they don’t give the same name for Joseph’s father. The earliest explanation for this was that Luke was mentioning Mary’s father. So you have a choice, you can either accept the idea that this is a possibility or you can hold on to your notion that the word of God is wrong.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Nothing in science denies miracles or the supernatural in general. It just can't comment on them. This is why people of all sorts of faiths (or no faith at all) can do science.

The very definition of the word miracle means something that is unexplainable by science.

 

[The Barbarian]

The very definition of the word miracle means something that is unexplainable by science.

Yep.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Yep.

So then miracles and science are contradictory to one another. Miracles are specifically designed to defy the laws of science as a testimony to God’s glory and power.

 

[sfs]

Your claim was this: "When I read evolutionary literature it’s like a lawyer’s nightmare. Objection, assumes facts not in evidence and then the assumption is presented as evidence. The only tactic used is to ridicule the skeptics rather than revise their presentation. Try this in a PhD defense and you alienate your examiners and you will not get your degree. I know no panel that would put up with that behavior. Try it and see how long it takes to get a degree or even a PI that would retain you to continue your work."

Now, however, you write this:

My claim is that it is not real science. [...] Today over 90% of the NAS are committed atheists. They will not allow any possibility of God into scientific research, so they search for naturalistic solutions no matter how fanciful to prove their point. It’s like saying, well it could have happened that way, so it did. That is not scientific. People today are getting PhDs today, not from scientists, rather committed naturalists.

"No PhD committee would accept evolutionary arguments" is a different claim than the one you're making now, which is that PhD committees do accept evolution, but only because almost all scientists aren't real scientists. Are you not aware that these are very different statements? Which do you want to defend? (You might note, by the way, that even among biologists who aren't atheists -- including me -- acceptance of common descent is nearly universal.)

That article is a case in point. The results are not surprising given that there are only 4 bases and only two different base pairs to choose from. The article does not answer the question of common descent. If I was your examiner, I would tell you that you made an interesting hypothesis, but you have no proof. What do your findings mean? To you they imply descent, but do they really? If so, then the genetic code would be consistent across species, so that an accidental mutation in one would have no problem translating into the other. A consistent genetic code would go a long way in proving your hypothesis, but you have not demonstrated it here. Can you show a consistent genetic code?
No PhD today, please get more data.

If the genetic code is not consistent, the odds of your hypothesis being true increase dramatically. Instead of one or two base pair mutations, your theory would involve a rewriting of the genetic code with each species descended. The odds of that happening reach absurdity.

Nothing in your response here seems to have anything to do with my article. Nothing in the article addressed the genetic code (which is the mapping of nucleotide codons to amino acids) at all. I'll repeat my point: common descent predicted a certain pattern in genetic data. Genetic data confirmed that prediction. No other hypothesis has been offered to explain that pattern. Why is this not evidence for common descent. Address the pattern in question, please.

The DNA and chimps are supposedly 98% identical. Ok
What about the code? Experiments so far have shown that chimps and humans only have 20% of proteins in common. What? 98% identical DNA only makes 20% similar proteins? What’s going on?

What's going on is that you're very confused about your facts here. Where on earth did you get the (wholly incorrect) idea that humans and chimps only have 20% of their proteins that are similar?

Really, if you're going to proclaim that nearly all scientists are wrong about their science, it would be helpful to have a least a minimal grasp yourself of the science in question. You don't.

 

[The Barbarian]

So then miracles and science are contradictory to one another.

No. Science, like plumbing, is a methodology that cannot support or deny the supernatural. Scientists and plumbers can, though. Because we aren't limited to science or plumbing. And because science and plumbing are not in any way contradictory to the supernatural, it's not a problem. It's O.K. to be unscientific when the circumstances call for it.

 

[The Barbarian]

What's going on is that you're very confused about your facts here. Where on earth did you get the (wholly incorrect) idea that humans and chimps only have 20% of their proteins that are similar?

I suspect he means that only about 20% of the proteins are identical or maybe nearly so.

 

[The Barbarian]

Actually they used the term “son of” to represent their family affiliation. The problem I often have in discussions with you is you just want to contradict everything your opponent says. You know full well that the term “son of” was used to indicate family affiliation but you won’t actually apply that knowledge because your only focus is contradicting your opponent.

It's not a family name, nor did Mary's father "adopt" Joseph. That would have made the marriage very problematic.

And if you paid any attention at all to the genealogies in Matthew and Luke you would notice that they don’t give the same name for Joseph’s father.

They contradict each other, yes. That's how we know they aren't literally true.

So you have a choice, you can either accept the idea that this is a possibility or you can hold on to your notion that the word of God is wrong.

Or I can conclude that you are wrong, and God is right.

And that seems to fit the evidence, nicely.

 

[sfs]

I suspect he means that only about 20% of the proteins are identical or maybe nearly so.

He did say 'similar' rather than identical -- and 80% of human genes differ in amino acid sequence when compared to other humans.

 

[The Barbarian]

He did say 'similar' rather than identical -- and 80% of human genes differ in amino acid sequence when compared to other humans.

Yes. I think he got the information garbled a bit. But there are proteins in humans and chimps that are identical.

 

[sfs]

Yes. I think he got the information garbled a bit. But there are proteins in humans and chimps that are identical.

From the chimp genome paper: 'Orthologous proteins in human and chimpanzee are extremely similar, with 29% being identical and the typical orthologue differing by only two amino acids, one per lineage.'

 

[The Barbarian]

From the chimp genome paper: 'Orthologous proteins in human and chimpanzee are extremely similar, with 29% being identical and the typical orthologue differing by only two amino acids, one per lineage.'

Clears things up, doesn't it?

 

[BNR32FAN]

It's not a family name, nor did Mary's father "adopt" Joseph. That would have made the marriage very problematic.


They contradict each other, yes. That's how we know they aren't literally true.

Or I can conclude that you are wrong, and God is right.

And that seems to fit the evidence, nicely.

Yeah go ahead and pretend that you don’t already know that Jews used the name of their father to indicate their family association. There are numerous examples of this throughout the Bible. You know this is true but winning the argument is more important, isn’t it?

 

[The Barbarian]

Yeah go ahead and pretend that you don’t already know that Jews used the name of their father to indicate their family association. There are numerous examples of this throughout the Bible. You know this is true but winning the argument is more important, isn’t it?

I think if you were less concerned about winning and more concerned about the truth, this wouldn't be such a big deal for you.

 

[boughtwithaprice]

Your claim was this: "When I read evolutionary literature it’s like a lawyer’s nightmare. Objection, assumes facts not in evidence and then the assumption is presented as evidence. The only tactic used is to ridicule the skeptics rather than revise their presentation. Try this in a PhD defense and you alienate your examiners and you will not get your degree. I know no panel that would put up with that behavior. Try it and see how long it takes to get a degree or even a PI that would retain you to continue your work."

Now, however, you write this:

"No PhD committee would accept evolutionary arguments" is a different claim than the one you're making now, which is that PhD committees do accept evolution, but only because almost all scientists aren't real scientists. Are you not aware that these are very different statements? Which do you want to defend? (You might note, by the way, that even among biologists who aren't atheists -- including me -- acceptance of common descent is nearly universal.)

Nothing in your response here seems to have anything to do with my article. Nothing in the article addressed the genetic code (which is the mapping of nucleotide codons to amino acids) at all. I'll repeat my point: common descent predicted a certain pattern in genetic data. Genetic data confirmed that prediction. No other hypothesis has been offered to explain that pattern. Why is this not evidence for common descent. Address the pattern in question, please.

What's going on is that you're very confused about your facts here. Where on earth did you get the (wholly incorrect) idea that humans and chimps only have 20% of their proteins that are similar?

Really, if you're going to proclaim that nearly all scientists are wrong about their science, it would be helpful to have a least a minimal grasp yourself of the science in question. You don't.

Ok if that is your position. I did not come to my position on my own, but found it here

The scientific journal Gene volume 346 14February2005 pages 215-219
Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees.

Follow the logic. If humans and chimpanzees share 98% identical DNA but have only 20% the same proteins, then their genetic code is different
The triplet codes of DNA that are used to make proteins in chimps and humans are different.
This is why your PhD thesis fails. You have not answered why this is happening. It’s not just small changes in DNA that make different species but how that DNA is translated.
If two species do not even use the same language to translate the DNA, then how can you claim common descent? It’s not just a simple matter of moving a few base pairs around as once thought. It involves writing a whole new gentic code between species.

You still have a hypothesis of common decent which you have not proved and you have not even proposed a mechanism to account for the changes. In a computer, you put the same date in you get the same data out. In chimps and humans you put nearly the same data in and get vastly different data out. That tells me that there is more than mutation going on here.

If you still insist that the original article you showed me proves common descent, then I am afraid I will have to go Billy Madison on you. I hope you are familiar with the movie. Imagine I am one of your PhD examiners. The relevant line is

“What you just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point during your rambling incoherent response did you come close to anything which could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. You are awarded no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

The differences between Genesis and evolution appear to be philosophical and not scientific

 

[BNR32FAN]

I think if you were less concerned about winning and more concerned about the truth, this wouldn't be such a big deal for you.

I’m not the one pretending to be ignorant here.

 

[sfs]

Ok if that is your position. I did not come to my position on my own, but found it here

The scientific journal Gene volume 346 14February2005 pages 215-219
Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees.

You said 'similar', not 'identical'. Of course most genes aren't identical between humans and chimpanzees. Most genes aren't identical across all humans, either. The great majority of the differences in both cases don't have any meaningful effect on the traits of the creatures in question -- something the authors of that paper conclude.

Follow the logic. If humans and chimpanzees share 98% identical DNA but have only 20% the same proteins, then their genetic code is different

No, that's not correct. More than 98% of the DNA of genes is also the same between humans and chimpanzees. The relatively small number of DNA differences that there are entirely explain the differences in their proteins, which is typically only 2 different amino acids per protein. We know perfectly well that humans and chimpanzees share the same genetic code.

The triplet codes of DNA that are used to make proteins in chimps and humans are different.

That is simply wrong.

Once again, you complain about how bad the science of evolution is, but when examined, your complaints turn out to be based entirely on a misunderstanding of facts.

 

[The Barbarian]

The differences between Genesis and evolution appear to be philosophical and not scientific

In the sense, I suppose, that non-existent things can be philosophical, but cannot be scientific.