A Pondering of the Peculiar (4)

bhsmte · Mar 17, 2014

genez said:
Out from nothing? NOTHING means nothing. Nothing got bored and had a fit?

Why the need for something to be so strong in order to hold it together? That was what I was getting at. Its as if what is in the center was corralled and fenced in. I know... a mindless nothing brought it about. Right...

It would be more beneficial for you, to acquire a basic understanding of the scientific principles you wish to refute, before you decide to refute them.

lesliedellow · Mar 17, 2014

genez said:
Out from nothing? NOTHING means nothing. Nothing got bored and had a fit?

From the subatomic particles which issued forth from the big bang. If you want to, you can push it back and say that God was ultimately responsible for the whole thing, and that is precisely what theistic scientists would say, but fact remains - the big bang happened.

Why the need for something to be so strong in order to hold it together? That was what I was getting at. Its as if what is in the center was corralled and fenced in.

The protons in the nucleus of an atom carry a positive charge, and like charges repel. Since the electro-magnetic force is a very strong force, it needs an even stronger force to overcome it, and keep the nucleus together.

GenemZ · Mar 17, 2014

bhsmte said:
It would be more beneficial for you, to acquire a basic understanding of the scientific principles you wish to refute, before you decide to refute them.

Nothing can not produce something. Where's your science in that?

Nucleosynthesis is the process that creates new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons!

bhsmte · Mar 17, 2014

genez said:
Nothing can not produce something. Where's your science in that?

It is quite a trick, to try to refute something you know nothing about.

It goes back to the same thing with many; I don't want to learn about it, because it will only threaten my belief and create cognitive dissonance, so I will just refute and deny and keep my defense mechanisms on overdrive.

Atheos canadensis · Mar 17, 2014

genez said:
How well do you understand God before you mock? Tell us.

And yet more evasion. I am arguing that your demonstrably poor understanding evolution fundamentals makes your criticism of the theory empty. I am not mocking God (feel free to quote to me the part of our discussion where I mocked God), I am arguing that your claims that evolution is false carry no weight if you don't understand what you're criticizing. And if you think that not knowing evolution is a population rather than individual-scale process is a minor point, it only reinforces the impression of ignorance of the subject at hand.

bhsmte · Mar 17, 2014

Atheos canadensis said:
And yet more evasion. I am arguing that your demonstrably poor understanding evolution fundamentals makes your criticism of the theory empty. I am not mocking God (feel free to quote to me the part of our discussion where I mocked God), I am arguing that your claims that evolution is false carry no weight if you don't understand what you're criticizing. And if you think that not knowing evolution is a population rather than individual-scale process is a minor point, it only reinforces the impression of ignorance of the subject at hand.

Genez fails to acknowledge, the evidence provided by science is there for all to see in the same form. The evidence for the Christian God, is a book written by men 2000 years ago and what each person perceives in their head.

Atheos canadensis · Mar 17, 2014

bhsmte said:
Genez fails to acknowledge, the evidence provided by science is there for all to see in the same form. The evidence for the Christian God, is a book written by men 2000 years ago and what each person perceives in their head.

It's pretty bizarre. I have talked to creationists who actually do have a fairly good grasp of fundamentals of evolution, but Genez is definitely not one of them. In fact reading through this thread will furnish the reader with a pretty good list of fundamental concepts in a variety of areas that Genez doesn't understand.

GenemZ · Mar 17, 2014

bhsmte said:
Genez fails to acknowledge, the evidence provided by science is there for all to see in the same form.

I acknowledge that there is data. Data that shows other entirely different lifeforms that no longer exist. It helps in explaining why the Bible had been saying there were previous creations. But, back then the scholars who read about it did not know why how that could be. The fossils confirmed it to be true.

Jewish commentators made the discovery, but their early literature (the Midrash for example) reveals that they had some intimation of an early pre-Adamic catastrophe affecting the whole earth. Similarly, clear evidence appears in the oldest extant Version of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Targum of 0nkelos) and some intimation may be seen in the "punctuation marks" of the Massoretic text of Genesis Chapter One. Early Jewish writers subsequently built up some abstruse arguments about God's dealings with Israel on the basis of this belief.

Without Form and Void - Chapter 1

The evidence for the Christian God, is a book written by men 2000 years ago and what each person perceives in their head.

Which makes it even more amazing that they all agreed with each other on things no one had any way to know with human certainty what would take place in the future. And, as the fossil records reveal... Things they could not have known about the past.

Long before Darwin was ever born, Bible scholars were seeing from the Hebrew text that this creation was not the first world to have been placed on the surface of the earth.

A few of the early Church Fathers accepted this interpretation and based some of their doctrines upon it. It is true that both they and their Jewish antecedents used arguments which to us seem at times to have no force whatever, but this is not the issue. The truth is, as we shall see, that the idea of a once ordered world having been brought to ruin as a consequence of divine judgment just prior to the creation of Adam, was apparently quite widespread. It was not debated: it was merely held by some and not by others. Those who held it referred to it and built up arguments upon it without apparently feeling the need to apologize for believing as they did, nor for explaining the grounds for their faith.

Without Form and Void - Chapter 1

The Gap Understanding was existing long before Darwin ever entered the ring. Young earth Creationists assume it was a devised concoction as a means to deal with the fossil evidence. Nothing of the sort. This factor had been long seen by ancient scholars. Darwin only brought about its revival. This time with an understanding as to why the Bible states another creation precede ours. Which was unlike the scholars of the past, who could only speculate as to what it really meant.

How could the Bible state prior creations?.. Destroyed creations?...Creations men had no understanding of? God ordained that Darwin be born to get lazy Christians off of their collective posteriors, making those willing to study to find the answer.

Some did find. Others crossed their arms in defiance and stuck with their man-made tradition which falls all over the place in the face of the evidence found in the data that science has been collecting and classifying for us. God ordained scientists for that reason too. Darwin and scientists have made the understanding of God's Word that much the richer for those willing to dig in and study while keeping an open mind. Sadly, young earth creationists failed that test.

.

GenemZ · Mar 17, 2014

Atheos canadensis said:
It's pretty bizarre. I have talked to creationists who actually do have a fairly good grasp of fundamentals of evolution, but Genez is definitely not one of them. In fact reading through this thread will furnish the reader with a pretty good list of fundamental concepts in a variety of areas that Genez doesn't understand.

The only reason you keep plugging my alleged ignorance of how evolution works is because you have set up the rules as to avoid having to be confronted by common sense.

Ask me some questions about what you think should understand... AND, you must also show me how its pertinent in order to understand evolution. I know you're a genius, so do not play razzle dazzle with me.

And, while you're at it? show us how evolution could have begun in emptiness that did not always contain matter.. And, more importantly how that matter came into being out from nothing. Some tried but they were not good answers. Unless you believe matter is eternal? And there never was a time that matter did not exist? You can't explain where even atoms came from. Energy can not be either created nor destroyed! Science 101.

So, if the foundation is not there? How can not make your model to stand? Yet, you keep on insisting that I study your model and become intimate with the data as to create an argument that you would accept. And, you intuitively know that it is the case. That something can not appear out from nothing producing something. Energy can not be either created nor destroyed!

GenemZ · Mar 18, 2014

lesliedellow said:
The protons in the nucleus of an atom carry a positive charge, and like charges repel. Since the electro-magnetic force is a very strong force, it needs an even stronger force to overcome it, and keep the nucleus together.

Note how the following...

He himself is before all things, and in him all things are held together

Why would any ancient in his limited way of thinking? The ancients had no idea about physics, let alone how atomic function. One can not imagine something that one does not have any frame of reference for.

PsychoSarah · Mar 18, 2014

genez said:
The only reason you keep plugging my alleged ignorance of how evolution works is because you have set up the rules as to avoid having to be confronted by common sense.

Ask me some questions about what you think should understand... AND, you must also show me how its pertinent in order to understand evolution. I know you're a genius, so do not play razzle dazzle with me.

And, while you're at it? show us how evolution could have begun in emptiness that did not always contain matter.. And, more importantly how that matter came into being out from nothing. Some tried but they were not good answers. Unless you believe matter is eternal? And there never was a time that matter did not exist? You can't explain where even atoms came from. Energy can not be either created nor destroyed! Science 101.

So, if the foundation is not there? How can not make your model to stand? Yet, you keep on insisting that I study your model and become intimate with the data as to create an argument that you would accept. And, you intuitively know that it is the case. That something can not appear out from nothing producing something. Energy can not be either created nor destroyed!

Well, I will ask some questions, let's see if you can answer stuff I learned about evolution in 8th grade to high school, each question will get a little harder as you continue.

1. Individual creatures evolve, true or false?

2. If two populations of the same species become separated, can they evolve in different ways?

3. Define "fitness" in evolutionary terms.

4. Define sexual selection.

5. Explain why no situation exists in which natural selection (and thus evolution) will cease to occur.

I do ask that you try to answer those without looking them up and using copy and paste.

Atheos canadensis · Mar 18, 2014

genez said:
The only reason you keep plugging my alleged ignorance of how evolution works is because you have set up the rules as to avoid having to be confronted by common sense.

Ask me some questions about what you think should understand... AND, you must also show me how its pertinent in order to understand evolution. I know you're a genius, so do not play razzle dazzle with me.

I see Sarah has already given you some homework. But the example I saw was pretty egregious. You think (or hopefully used to think, having now been corrected) that evolution occurs in individuals. The fact that evolution occurs on a population scale is a fundamental part of the theory. I don't have to be a genius to know this, it's incredibly basic. Not knowing this proves that at a fundamental level you don't understand the theory you are vainly attempting to criticize.

GenemZ · Mar 18, 2014

PsychoSarah said:
1. Individual creatures evolve, true or false?

Individual creatures can experience minor physical changes. If that is evolution you you? Then, yes.

2. If two populations of the same species become separated, can they evolve in different ways?

They can experience different changes. Yes.

3. Define "fitness" in evolutionary terms.

I would imagine, fitness would deem a creature more suitable to survive in a given set of changed environmental settings. Say if darkness became predominant like never before, their eyes may no longer be as functional, but abilities of the nose and ears may begin to change towards greater sensitivities. Like with blind people who's other senses have been known to become enhanced because of the lack of sight.

4. Define sexual selection.

Never seen the term before.

5. Explain why no situation exists in which natural selection (and thus evolution) will cease to occur.

I would suspect, because the environment does not cease to experience changes. In eternity there will be no type of evolutionary changes. When one has an absolutely refreshed, invigorated, healthy and tireless body that can not die? And, the environment is never threatening to anyone's survival?... Unspeakable happiness will be constant and like the air we breath. Phenomenal happiness will be normality. Joy will simply be sharing one's experience with another. Beyond what I said, its something we can not truly picture, nor imagine. Such perfection is foreign to us.

I do ask that you try to answer those without looking them up and using copy and paste.

Done.

GenemZ · Mar 18, 2014

I've noticed how the evolutionists are steering clear of this...

bhsmte said:
Genez fails to acknowledge, the evidence provided by science is there for all to see in the same form.

I acknowledge that there is data. Data that shows other entirely different lifeforms that no longer exist. It helps in explaining why the Bible had been saying there were previous creations. But, back then the scholars who read about it did not know why how that could be. The fossils confirmed it to be true.

Jewish commentators made the discovery, but their early literature (the Midrash for example) reveals that they had some intimation of an early pre-Adamic catastrophe affecting the whole earth. Similarly, clear evidence appears in the oldest extant Version of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Targum of 0nkelos) and some intimation may be seen in the "punctuation marks" of the Massoretic text of Genesis Chapter One. Early Jewish writers subsequently built up some abstruse arguments about God's dealings with Israel on the basis of this belief.

Without Form and Void - Chapter 1

The evidence for the Christian God, is a book written by men 2000 years ago and what each person perceives in their head.

Which makes it even more amazing that they all agreed with each other on things no one had any way to know with human certainty what would take place in the future. And, as the fossil records reveal... Things they could not have known about the past.

Long before Darwin was ever born, Bible scholars were seeing from the Hebrew text that this creation was not the first world to have been placed on the surface of the earth.

A few of the early Church Fathers accepted this interpretation and based some of their doctrines upon it. It is true that both they and their Jewish antecedents used arguments which to us seem at times to have no force whatever, but this is not the issue. The truth is, as we shall see, that the idea of a once ordered world having been brought to ruin as a consequence of divine judgment just prior to the creation of Adam, was apparently quite widespread. It was not debated: it was merely held by some and not by others. Those who held it referred to it and built up arguments upon it without apparently feeling the need to apologize for believing as they did, nor for explaining the grounds for their faith.

Without Form and Void - Chapter 1

The Gap Understanding was existing long before Darwin ever entered the ring. Young earth Creationists assume it was a devised concoction as a means to deal with the fossil evidence. Nothing of the sort. This factor had been long seen by ancient scholars. Darwin only brought about its revival. This time with an understanding as to why the Bible states another creation precede ours. Which was unlike the scholars of the past, who could only speculate as to what it really meant.

How could the Bible state prior creations?.. Destroyed creations?...Creations men had no understanding of? God ordained that Darwin be born to get lazy Christians off of their collective posteriors, making those willing to study to find the answer.

Some did find. Others crossed their arms in defiance and stuck with their man-made tradition which falls all over the place in the face of the evidence found in the data that science has been collecting and classifying for us. God ordained scientists for that reason too. Darwin and scientists have made the understanding of God's Word that much the richer for those willing to dig in and study while keeping an open mind. Sadly, young earth creationists failed that test.

.

You always do steer clear of something that smacks of possibly being a good answer. Divert away as quickly as possible. Our theory must *survive.*

Wiccan_Child · Mar 18, 2014

genez said:
They can experience different changes. Yes.

Could they change so much they can no longer interbreed?

genez said:
I would imagine, fitness would deem a creature more suitable to survive in a given set of changed environmental settings. Say if darkness became predominant like never before, their eyes may no longer be as functional, but abilities of the nose and ears may begin to change towards greater sensitivities. Like with blind people who's other senses have been known to become enhanced because of the lack of sight.

Those processes are different - the blind person has an elastic brain that rewires the visual cortex to handle other sensory data. Creatures that live in darkness adapt via the mechanism of evolution.

As well, within evolution, the emphasis isn't so much on individual survival as it is on gene reproduction - in principle, a creature that is less likely to survive but more likely to pass on its genes is evolutionarily more fit. For instance, someone who lives half as long but can pop out four times as many babies, might be more fit, evolutionarily.

So you were close with your defintion 'fitness', but it's a tad more nuanced.

genez said:
Never seen the term before.

Sexual selection is where creatures with 'better' sexual characteristics are selected, and thus those 'better' characteristics become the norm for future generations. Antlers on deer or stag beetles, a peacock's tail, a bird's song, all are sexually selected. In the case of the peacock, they make it harder to run and easier to spot, lowering survival odds - but it is more attractive to mates, improving reproductive odds. Hence, more fit.

PsychoSarah · Mar 18, 2014

Genez, you got 1, 3, and 4 wrong. The majority of 5 doesn't address the question, but the first statement gets close enough that I will let it slide.

Fitness is actually a measure of reproductive success, not of how suitable a creature is to its environment (although the two often, but not always, correlate). A person with a disease that kills them at age 40 having 8 kids makes them more "fit" than an Olympic champion who has no children.

Individual animals do have their own gene mutations, but evolution only occurs on the scale of a population, never on the scale of the individual.

Wiccan Child already explained sexual selection.

Atheos canadensis · Mar 18, 2014

PsychoSarah said:
Genez, you got 1, 3, and 4 wrong. The majority of 5 doesn't address the question, but the first statement gets close enough that I will let it slide.

Fitness is actually a measure of reproductive success, not of how suitable a creature is to its environment (although the two often, but not always, correlate). A person with a disease that kills them at age 40 having 8 kids makes them more "fit" than an Olympic champion who has no children.

Individual animals do have their own gene mutations, but evolution only occurs on the scale of a population, never on the scale of the individual.

Wiccan Child already explained sexual selection.

So he failed that test (40% is a fail, I would think). In fact he got number 1 wrong despite the fact that I've told him repeatedly that evolution occurs in populations not individuals. The impression I get is that his grasp of evolutionary theory is tenuous at best. He is aware that change is involved somehow, that natural selection happens and that he doesn't believe any of it. He doesn't know what sexual selection is, he doesn't understand the scale at which evolution operates and he doesn't especially understand fitness. Do you think he understands genetic drift or gene flow? I don't. Your response is a generous attempt to educate him, which is a good attitude to have. I find it galling that he claims that evolution is false and unsupported by evidence when he hasn't bothered to learn the basics of the theory though. I'm all for learning through discussion; that's why this forum is cool. But from what he's said he has no intention of absorbing any more information. I guess we can be hopeful anyway.

PsychoSarah · Mar 18, 2014

Atheos canadensis said:
So he failed that test (40% is a fail, I would think). In fact he got number 1 wrong despite the fact that I've told him repeatedly that evolution occurs in populations not individuals. The impression I get is that his grasp of evolutionary theory is tenuous at best. He is aware that change is involved somehow, that natural selection happens and that he doesn't believe any of it. He doesn't know what sexual selection is, he doesn't understand the scale at which evolution operates and he doesn't especially understand fitness. Do you think he understands genetic drift or gene flow? I don't. Your response is a generous attempt to educate him, which is a good attitude to have. I find it galling that he claims that evolution is false and unsupported by evidence when he hasn't bothered to learn the basics of the theory though. I'm all for learning through discussion; that's why this forum is cool. But from what he's said he has no intention of absorbing any more information. I guess we can be hopeful anyway.

Yeah, I try to avoid debating issues I don't know very well, such as physics based stuff. In those subjects I might question some evidence or justifications, but I will not solidly pick a side and I try to learn stuff (though I fact check all you biased people ).

GenemZ · Mar 18, 2014

not here....

GenemZ · Mar 18, 2014

Here!

This is all very interesting and informative. But not one of you can begin to explain the ORIGIN of LIFE! Its not something that could have begun in a vacuum without intelligence behind it. Here's why.

You folks always tell me that I do not understand evolution, because I cite that a car can not appear out from matter on its own. You tell me that it is a mechanical device which is not alive, so it can not have had the potential to have evolved like a living organism allegedly does.

Yet? What you folks are telling me? (You do not realize it of course..) Is that something built a car. And, then it became ALIVE! Why not possible? For, biological life, even in its simplest form? Is much more complex than a car!

If a car can not form on its own?.. And, it can not. But? You are telling me that ... somehow... a something more complex than a car appeared, and was somehow made alive, and all by random chance! And, from there we got the equivalent of the evolving living car - which evolved into living trucks, living SUVs, living Beetles, living Mini Coopers, and living BMW's!

Its totally illogical to think something living would be easier to randomly assemble than a simpler mechanical car is to be assembled. And how a living machine come about? BY RANDOM CHANCE!? Totally illogical! Plain and simple. Biological organisms are living machines!

For if a car can not appear assembled by exposing some matter to energy that were coming together? And, without intelligent thinking behind its manufacture? Yet, you will to are willing to tell me? An even more complex mechanism - Biological life? Was able to do so - and was made to be alive! Biological organisms are machines! Living machines!

What you tell me about the origin of life is like saying lightning hit a pile of materials and out from it cam a LIVING motorcycle! In spite of the fact that biological life is much more complex than any mechanical devise in existence? You say it just happened by a series of random chances all lining up just right. Biological organisms are machines! Living machines!

You are not being honest with the facts. And, you play those who do not share in your area of expertise as always being too stupid to understand. Its all a game. An atheist's chess board.

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