Evolution/Creation on Trial

[The Cadet]

Oh I understand that perfectly. They simply have their religion and refuse anything but their dogma, they just call their religion evolution. But I m not one to sit by and let those teaching false doctrines to those genuinely seeking answers. It is not to the close-minded ones that I argue - but to those that are genuinely seeking the truth - who I am sure can see the vast discrepancies in all their claims, being open-minded, not closed to everything not of their pre-conceived viewpoints.

I expect to convince none of the evolutionists - even if every single one of Darwin's finches interbreed and they know in their hearts they are one species. It is not to them that I speak - but to those that genuinely seek the truth so they are not fooled into following those false doctrines.

The projection at hand is phenomenal. Particularly given that I already admitted I did not know whether the finches were one species or multiples, and that there is some non-trivial debate within the scientific community on the subject. I am open to evidence. It's just that your evidence has been abysmally weak.

 

[stevevw]

"Blind chance" is a complete misrepresentation of what's going on here, and you really should know that by now

This seems to be the recognized understanding by most who disagree with evolution. So as opposed to a guided process that knows what its doing. Wouldn't that be design or intelligence. Or is it the intelligence you have when your not having an intelligent and guided process. I can never understand this. Its like something that was created out of nothing or life from non life somehow becomes its own creating factory that produces life in a directed manner pumping out complex bits of living creatures. If it were anything but evolution it would be an ingenious designed machine produced by the greatest brains in the world.

But its a blind process in that the mutations that produce one tiny part of something like a tiny bit of a complex feature or system in living things doesn't know what part is needed next to continue building that bigger thing. Natural selection can only work with what it is given. So its blind to what is needed in each step of the process for building parts. Its like a car assembly line that may mutate some wheels but doesn't know it needs a steering wheel as part of the building process. So it throws out all sorts of things that may be totally unconnected to building a car. Then one day by chance it produces a steering wheel.

It has to do this with every step of the way and sometimes needing several parts at the same time to be blindly produced so that it makes the other parts work properly as single parts are useless on their own. The chances of that happening as a chance and blind process is like throwing millions of letters up in the air to come down and write a novel.

On top of this all the time while its waiting and hoping for that one bit that will be beneficial it is having to deal with many more negative mutations that can cause it harm. Its a high price to pay. In among many damaging mutations a good one will be the savior which is suppose to create positive change for a more complex and better designed creature out of what is primarily a harmful and damaging thing in that its an error in the copying of what was already good. Using the car example again its like continually smashing your car against a tree hoping one of the hits will give it a better design.

Weeeeellll you guys have some catching up to do. Given that evolution is accepted by virtually every life scientist, that it is the basis of understanding in most of those fields, and that it has been used as a model for over a hundred years by countless studies, I'd say there's some work needed to be done. You need to present a real scientific model for the origins and diversification of life on this planet (I'm assuming you reject abiogenesis as well). You need to support that in the peer-reviewed literature. You need to offer more than blatant arguments from incredulity - "I cannot see how X could have evolved" is neither evidence nor a real argument against evolution

Scientists havnt even began to explain how abiogenesis has created life from non life. In fact its such a problem that one of the more popular theories now is that the building blocks for it to start came on the back of a meteorite. But that just acknowledges how difficult it is to explain and takes the problem to another part of the universe. Just because some may believe in evolution doesn't mean its proven beyond doubt. In fact when it gets down to the nuts and bolts as far as I understand there are very few scientists who can give a good explanation how evolution can work at the chemical and molecular level.

Let me preface this next section by pointing out that I am not an expert, and that this is some highly technical stuff that I freely admit to not totally understanding.

No matter what the sequence in a gene, if it is part of a coding region, it will code for some amino acid which will get assembled into some protein. Whether that protein actually does anything, or whether it is beneficial or deleterious, is another story altogether

Yes I understand this much so far.

The problem with this is that the rules of language are considerably more strict. They're imposed from outside, whereas what function a protein has depends largely on its chemical structure and can vary greatly with the change of one amino acid. As far as I am aware, in some cases, a small change may have no effect whatsoever, or may lead to a beneficial change, whereas if you change any one letter in "morph", you no longer have a word in the English language. The analogy is not well-structured.

I can understand this as well. I have also heard that some mutations can be so small that they may go un noticed whether they are positive , neutral or negative. But there is evidence that small negative mutations are too small to be weeded out and therefore will build up in the genomes. Overall we are now accumulating a lot of deleterious mutations. It also takes more than one mutations most of the time to make a change in function. Those mutations need to happen together and the chances of that happening from a chance and blind process is "well" impossible as far as I have read in tests done. Or as someone said there wouldn't be enough time in the whole of the history of the earth for it to happen.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I saw this and decided nothing else in your post is worth responding to, because if you don't get this, you're simply not worth debating. Every single book in the English language is some combination of 26 letters, 10 numerical characters, and a handful of other special characters. In essence, by your argumentation, there is essentially no difference in information between "The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 ;: () ' -" and the complete works of Shakespeare or your bible! There is no difference between "01" and the Skyrim Binary.

One more time. Here's a hypothetical genome.

GACTTACTGAGA

Then it mutates like this:

GACTTACTGAGA -> GACTTACTTACTGAGA -> GACTTACTTACGGAGA

Has information been added?

What, no magically added letters that did not exist before this time??????

So since life started out simple with less chromosomes than we now observe - let's go back to CAT, how do you propose we ever got G through duplication of what already exists? Remember - what we see now in the genome did not exist before according to evolution theory. You know - simple to complex.

No, new information has not been added that did not already exist. Those T's, A's, C's and G's "already existed," you simply create variation within the species - i.e. new breeds - just as with real life. A new dominant or recessive trait, not a new genome from simpler makeup to more complex makeup - from CAT to CATG.

I'll say it once again since you still refuse to see. If you start with CAT - all you can ever end up with is combinations of CAT, you never get a G popping up out of nowhere. In not a single solitary experiment has this ever been seen to happen - so why propose what apparently laboratory experimentation has shown to be not a viable option?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

The projection at hand is phenomenal. Particularly given that I already admitted I did not know whether the finches were one species or multiples, and that there is some non-trivial debate within the scientific community on the subject. I am open to evidence. It's just that your evidence has been abysmally weak.

Abysmally weak? You call direct evidence of birds interbreeding as weak? No wonder you are confused about what a species is - you won't even admit to yourself that it's primary definition is interbreeding animals that produce fertile offspring. There is no ambiguity - no weakness except what you tell yourself so you feel better about ignoring direct emperical evidence.

A few posts ago the evidence was enough to make you doubt they are different species - despite your experts claims - now suddenly it is abysmally weak? If that is your scapegoat - so be it. I won't waste my time debating with someone that refuses to accept the evidence right before his very eyes to preserve his own pre-concieved beliefs contrary to that direct empirical evidence. You have just shown it's useless to provide evidence at all, because you won't even accept what is right before your eyes.

You all have fun - this thread has become useless as no empirical evidence matters anymore.

 

[pshun2404]

Dead matter does not possess the innate information necessary to produce the array of organized information packed structural and functional variation of the simplest life forms

Dead matter is not autocatalytic (it does not start doing things on its own, it MUST BE acted upon)

The principle of causality states that you can't get more in the effect than you had in the cause.

Dead matter never organizes itself under its own power.

Dead matter does not produce living things (it can do nothing on its own)

It is logical therefore to infer some past action by an intelligent cause simply because of the presence of such an information packed effect… (an info packed and regulating effect necessitates an info packed and regulating cause)

Information does not create itself…and blind chance has zero information. The Universe we see is very lawful and in many ways and places guided by reliable principles. Laws govern they do not make or form or create anything. Laws exist. Their cause therefore must also be lawful.

Information theorists are more and more moving toward intelligence in design (explore the Pre-Coded Equilibrium model) because whenever probabilities are configured (even using the most liberally defined conditions and factors) the probabilities against a Universe (especially life) evolving by chance is beyond zero probability mathematically in a 20 billion year old Universe.

Question: “Well then why then does the atheist insist on such an incredibly improbable explanation for the universe?

Answer: Because without it they cannot remain an atheist!

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Dead matter does not possess the innate information necessary to produce the array of organized information packed structural and functional variation of the simplest life forms

Dead matter is not autocatalytic (it does not start doing things on its own, it MUST BE acted upon)

The principle of causality states that you can't get more in the effect than you had in the cause.

Dead matter never organizes itself under its own power.

Dead matter does not produce living things (it can do nothing on its own)

It is logical therefore to infer some past action by an intelligent cause simply because of the presence of such an information packed effect… (an info packed and regulating effect necessitates an info packed and regulating cause)

Information does not create itself…and blind chance has zero information. The Universe we see is very lawful and in many ways and places guided by reliable principles. Laws govern they do not make or form or create anything. Laws exist. Their cause therefore must also be lawful.

Information theorists are more and more moving toward intelligence in design (explore the Pre-Coded Equilibrium model) because whenever probabilities are configured (even using the most liberally defined conditions and factors) the probabilities against a Universe (especially life) evolving by chance is beyond zero probability mathematically in a 20 billion year old Universe.

Question: “Well then why then does the atheist insist on such an incredibly improbable explanation for the universe?

Answer: Because without it they cannot remain an atheist!

A universe in whose explanation (right or wrong) was attempted by a priest that they give no credit to, but give credit to Hubble instead, because then one might rightly assume creation is being discussed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître

"was a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven. He proposed (independently of Russian physicist Alexander Friedman) the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg".

Simply because they do not want to admit to the fact that the math breaks down and declares the mathematical improbability of it all and points to what is hidden in the beginning.

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/cosmic/p_lemaitre.html

"“As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God… It is consonant with Isaiah speaking of the hidden God, hidden even in the beginning of the universe.”

Hidden in the very matter of life and the beginning of time.

Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

But of course free will allows them to be free to deny any transcendental Being. Again, right or wrong.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Just a thought from outside the box…

David Pilbeam, (Pro-Evolution, Vol. 14, p.127), says “...in my own subject of Paleo-anthropology the “theory” heavily influenced by implicit ideas, almost always dominates data...ideas that are totally unrelated to the actual fossils have dominated theory building, which in turn strongly influences the way fossils are interpreted ”.

(Pilbeam is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, and curator of Paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was a graduate of Yale and his specialty if Hominid Evolution.)

This problem with some of his colleagues conclusions is reflective of the Geobbels principle in promoting successful propaganda. The Geobbels principle (adapted from the observations of Psychologist William James) states that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the…consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Now just replace the word “State” with any mandated insisted upon belief among the pedagoguery of our (or any past) time. Just because a majority accepts something as true and have been convinced of it, does not necessarily make it correct or right or true. The Geobbels principle works the best if you can get a group of people that appear to have the authority to know to come out publically espousing the view. The masses almost always fall for the “Argument from Authority” logic fallacy. Let me give you an example….

A while back, the pedagogues insisted on the accepted Clovis People theory so adamantly that science historian Josh Clark in Were the Clovis the first Americans tells us “they jealously guarded their ideas and evidence. A "Clovis barrier" shielded by the scientists who formed a sort of "Clovis police" discounted any other theory that placed other cultures in the Americas earlier than the Clovis.” We know from history that scientists and professors who saw and expressed other possibilities were often discredited and sometimes removed from positions of authority, denied funding for further research, and their papers were sometimes "selectively excluded" from peer reviewed journals.

Now after decades of enlightenment to the role other source peoples played (especially now through DNA studies) we have revised the “theory” according to the facts….now it is called “The Clovis-First” theory. The genetic markers sought out from North American tribal peoples appear to confirm this, and then we add slightly later (from around 10,000 years ago) a Mesopotamian influence (blended in) among some north eastern tribes (Cherokee and Iroquois) and among some of those related to the ancient Toltecs, plus more recently (5,000 to 4,000 years ago) some European influences (backed up from tools and weapon archaeology that finds similar items in France), and so on.

SO now it is not assumed the sole source for all indigenous Native Americans are Asian (though this is apparently the first wave) but later others made their way here and some blending occurred. This to me is great science….it allows the facts to shape or create the theory.

In fact some latest studies indicate there were already people indigenous to South America over a millennia before any of these influences (see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070223-first-americans.html

So we all should always step back and ask “though the possible conclusions fit the theory nicely are we just letting what we can know and then the data we later collect, shape or form the theory, or are we letting the theory shape and form how we interpret the data?”

IMHO the first approach is the only valid science ….

Paul

So established paradigms such as the "Clovis People were First" do get overturned by evidence, when enough evidence accumulates to overturn it. That's what you show us here. Perhaps it takes a little longer than what it should take if humans were perfectly logical, but it does happen.

Now contrast that with the theory of evolution. Ever since Darwin, nothing has overturned it, even though many have tried and tried. The reason is, of course, all the attempts to overturn evolution are based on religious instead of scientific grounds.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

OK, so we hear a lot on this forum that masses of evidence overwhelmingly confirms evolution to the extent that for all intents and purposes it can be regarded as fact. In that case, can someone please present a non-scientist like myself with perhaps half a dozen pieces of evidence that if presented in a court of law, would be sufficient to convince a jury that evolution were true beyond all reasonable doubt. At least one of these should directly relate to the claim that one type of creature (e.g., a reptile) can turn into a bird, with some examples of actual creatures where this has happened or is happening.

The evidences for evolution are many and varied. For example, the vestiges of former species are seen in our bodies and in the bodies of every animal. We have a vestigial tail, we have multiple toes on our feet of which we only use the one for pushing off in our stride; we have ear wiggling muscles; we have erector muscles on the hairs of our arms; there are more. Whales have vestiges of hind limbs in their bodies. Horses have vestiges of fully toed feet in the form of shin spints on their legs.

We have a vast fossil record showing progression of species with regard to time, including major extinctions.

We have genetic analysis, showing shared flaws such as the broken vitamin c gene in lots of primates.

We have the slam dunk evidence of retroviral inserts which act as mute testimony of shared inheritance across many species, as sure a bit of proof as any DNA evidence used to prove who the father or mother is in court.

Let’s flip the coin now. Can someone also present a similar amount of ideas presented by creation scientists that can be shown to be false, again using the above court room scenario.

I think you will find that creationists basically quote scripture and attempt to say the scientists are telling lies.

Finally, could someone answer the question about how the first life could have got started all on its own without any divine intervention. In particular, where all the information came from to start life and build the first self-reproducing cell and how the problem of chirality could have been overcome in such a process.

How life got started is not presently known to science. But we all know life did, in fact, get started somehow. To me, the interesting question is, what are the odds in favor of life getting started in a given solar system? Because if life getting started is very, very improbable, well, it will still get started somewhere in the vastness of infinity, and of course here we are. But if life is actually pretty certain to come along, then life will get started in a lot more places in the vastness of infinity and of course here we are. Which is it? We can find out by researching possible means to the starting of life and searching other places for the existence of life. Hey, aren't both those things happening? So we follow those quests with great interest.

But if life cannot get started unless God directly intervenes, well then clearly God directly intervened. I know God has directly intervened in MY life from time to time, so I could accept that.

Since you would be presenting these ideas to non-scientists, could you for each piece of evidence you present, indicate what the specialism of any scientist working in that field would need to have.

Science is not judged by the credentials of the scientists, science is judged by the soundness of the actual science work.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

We would expect the fly to evolve into a different sort of insect. A dragonfly or something. Yet you start with a fly and you end up with a fly. Lots of evidence for micro evolution, no evidence for macro evolution.

Give it a hundred thousand years, please.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Give it a hundred thousand years, please.

Even two hundred million years when teeth first began to evolve so that dinosaurs began to devour each other.

 

[pshun2404]

A universe in whose explanation (right or wrong) was attempted by a priest that they give no credit to, but give credit to Hubble instead, because then one might rightly assume creation is being discussed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître

"was a Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven. He proposed (independently of Russian physicist Alexander Friedman) the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg".

Simply because they do not want to admit to the fact that the math breaks down and declares the mathematical improbability of it all and points to what is hidden in the beginning.

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/cosmic/p_lemaitre.html

"“As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God… It is consonant with Isaiah speaking of the hidden God, hidden even in the beginning of the universe.”

Hidden in the very matter of life and the beginning of time.

Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

But of course free will allows them to be free to deny any transcendental Being. Again, right or wrong.

Good post..thanks

 

[pshun2404]

So established paradigms such as the "Clovis People were First" do get overturned by evidence, when enough evidence accumulates to overturn it. That's what you show us here. Perhaps it takes a little longer than what it should take if humans were perfectly logical, but it does happen.

Now contrast that with the theory of evolution. Ever since Darwin, nothing has overturned it, even though many have tried and tried. The reason is, of course, all the attempts to overturn evolution are based on religious instead of scientific grounds.

Hi Paul, good to have you on board....

What you say is true until recently when scientists have been coming up with many facts, arguments, and experiments that refute the Darwinian model, but even if scientific in nature they are automatically rejected as religious when they are not. For example, religion, the Bible, Christianity, Buddhism, whatever, says nothing about this undeniable truth (yet denied by scientists, not by science)....many things if looked at together do overturn Darwin...

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Hi Paul, good to have you on board....

What you say is true until recently when scientists have been coming up with many facts, arguments, and experiments that refute the Darwinian model, but even if scientific in nature they are automatically rejected as religious when they are not. For example, religion, the Bible, Christianity, Buddhism, whatever, says nothing about this undeniable truth (yet denied by scientists, not by science)....many things if looked at together do overturn Darwin...

Well we just don't take a statement like that at face value. Trot out your facts, arguments, and experiments that refute the Darwinian model and lets have a look at them. I hope you aren't going to merely say things look designed and therefore they are designed.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Give it a hundred thousand years, please.

I'll give it a billion mutations and generations - and it'll still be a fly as those E coli are still E coli.

http://www.livescience.com/44998-ancient-assassin-flies-found-in-amber.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asilidae

The only thing they got wrong is that they are not an extinct species of fly - but an extinct breed of fly. Just as if the Husky were to go extinct - it would just be an extinct breed of dog. Just as if all Chinese people went extinct - they would simply be an extinct race (breed) of humans.

Those flies have always been flies and were never anything other than flies, and will never be anything but flies.

 

[stevevw]

Give it a hundred thousand years, please.

Why a 100 thousand years. The fly was chosen because it can multiply faster and they can observe many thousands of generations. Bacteria is even faster so they have evolved the equivalence of that time period anyway if it were humans. But even so when we are talking about eventually evolving into a completely different creature it has to start somewhere. So if it is morphing a set of wings a new body part that the animal never had then we should at least start to see the beginnings of this.

So in the case of the fly we should begin to see something different that the fly has never had. But we dont. All we see is another set of the same wings being produced. Another set of the same legs growing out of its head. Another set of the same eyes or a changed feature in the existing features it already had. Evolutionists cite this as proof. But all this is doing is playing around with the existing genetic instructions of whats already there. There are no genetic instructions created to build new things the fly never had.

 

[Loudmouth]

Thats the point. Didn't Darwin say that all animals should look like they blended into each other. Not well defined animals that look completely formed with their own separate shapes.

What animals look like "completely formed from their own separate shapes"? Humans and chimps share the same ape shape. Humans and baboons share the same primate shape. Humans and bears share the same mammal shape. Humans and fish share the same jawed vertebrate shape. What exactly are you referring to?

 

[Loudmouth]

Stasis is exactly what you expect if they are created. Darwin was hoping stasis would not be the case.

What features would a fossil need in order to disprove stasis in apes and hominids?

 

[Loudmouth]

Why a 100 thousand years. The fly was chosen because it can multiply faster and they can observe many thousands of generations.

Why would you expect that much change in 100,000 years when there has been little change in the genus for tens of millions of years with the same generation times?

"Genomic mutation clock–based timings of the landmark speciation events leading to the evolution of D. melanogaster show that it shared most recent common ancestry 5.4 MYA with D. simulans, 12.6 MYA with D. erecta+D. orena, 12.8 MYA with D. yakuba+D. teisseri, 35.6 MYA with the takahashii subgroup, 41.3 MYA with the montium subgroup, 44.2 MYA with the ananassae subgroup, 54.9 MYA with the obscura group, 62.2 MYA with the willistoni group, and 62.9 MYA with the subgenus Drosophila."
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/1/36.short

Bacteria is even faster so they have evolved the equivalence of that time period anyway if it were humans.

The genomes are very, very different. Bacteria do not have the same mutation rates or the same HOX genes that allow for morphological plasticity in animals.

But even so when we are talking about eventually evolving into a completely different creature it has to start somewhere.

If evolution is true, then no animal should evolve into a completely different animal. Fish and humans share a common vertebrate ancestor, and we are both still vertebrates. You stay on your branch of the tree of life.

So if it is morphing a set of wings a new body part that the animal never had then we should at least start to see the beginnings of this.

Wings are not a new body part. They are a modification of already existing body parts.

So in the case of the fly we should begin to see something different that the fly has never had.

The Drosophila genus began to diverge 60 million years ago. Why would you expect anything more dramatic than the current variation of fruit flies in a time period of just 100 years?

 

[Loudmouth]

I'll give it a billion mutations and generations - and it'll still be a fly as those E coli are still E coli.

Just as humans and fish are still vertebrates, as was their common ancestor.

Do you still not understand how evolution works?

 

[Smidlee]

Just as humans and fish are still vertebrates, as was their common ancestor.

Do you still not understand how evolution works?

Explain how evolution can turn an animal into a scientist.