How do you do creation science research?

[Delphiki]

It has no effect on me or anyone I've ever had contact with, is the logical answer.
Pure indifference.


- If God created man from dust, then why is there still dust?
It has multiple uses, is the logical answer.

- How can God just be created from nothing?
He wasn't created, is the logical answer.

- If you believe in God and the bible, where do you get your morals from?
"Parents" is the " "

- Why do you want to keep religion in our government when the United States was obviously founded on atheist beliefs?
Per Jefferson, our Government is "powered by the governed" and the founders are now dead.

About them dead guys:
Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence,
nearly half (24) held seminary or Bible school degrees.

John Adams - "Suppose a nation...should take the Bible for their only law Book...what a Paradise would this region be."

Thomas Jefferson - "I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."

John Hancock - "Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual...your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."

Benjamin Franklin - "Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped...As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see;



Samuel Adams-
James Madison

Roger Sherman

Benjamin Rush

John Witherspoon

Alexander Hamilton

Patrick Henry

John Jay



- Why do you want to ban atheism from schools?
A clear straw man. I can't find any general support for the idea anywhere.

- Why are you so intolerant of Judaism?
You mean like my good friends for 20 years?
Granted, I've only been to temple a couple times.
I don't call that intolerant.

You mean why doesn't the US support Israel?
Support for Israel in U.S. at 63%, Near Record High

Why did you choose to use this thread to respond to my signature? Just curious. Also... you know when a Christian asks an atheist "Why do you hate God/Jesus?" Same answer. In fact, most of the answers you gave are the answers to the equivelant questions Christians ask of atheists. The point of my sig, if you're wondering, is to basically be a mirror of the same questions we're asked... Which is probably why they sound like really stupid questions. Mine are supposed to sound as stupid as their theist equivalents:

Why do you hate God?
If man evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?
How can the universe just come from nothing?
If you don't believe in God and the bible, where do you get your morals from?
Why do you want to abolish religion from our government when the United States was obviously founded on Christian beliefs?
Why do you want to ban God from schools?
Why are you so intolerant of Christians?


I don't think you got the point... but maybe now you do.

 

[mzungu]

Fern has not changed. Even before I know anything at all, I could tell looking at a fern that it was very old compared to most everything else in the world we live in.

So tell me that part again about why some things change and some things do not change.

When there is no need for something to change then it will not change. That is why we have bacteria, jellyfish, humans, etc all at the same time.

Evolution is not an ocean liner where all the passengers travel at the same speed and have the same destination.

Some ferns have evolved traits that make them deadly to consume for almost all life forms. This trait has allowed them to exist unhampered and thus need not evolve in order to survive. Some changes however are subtle and not easily recognised. So Ferns have evolved!

A good example can be found in America. Beetle infestations are killing trees, and are causing the thinning of forests and thus creating a population bottleneck. Some trees which are more resistant to the beetle survive and germinate. Thus we have a new population of beetle resistant trees. This is a classic host-parasite conflict, which in turn is a major force in evolution.

You may think that evolution is all about Crocoducks, but if you are sincere then you should learn what evolution is before you try to dismiss it!

 

[Naraoia]

Let's start with SIFTER. This acronym stand stands for Statistical Inference of Function Through Evolutionary Relationships. It is an algorithm that incorporates evolutionary mechanisms to predict protein function based on phylogenetic relationships and amino acid sequence. From the paper:

Geez, I might actually make good use of that SIFTER thing one day! Thanks for posting!

 

[Naraoia]

So they ran tests to make sure that the differences they were seeing were due to positive selection instead of neutral selection.

Neutral selection?

CEH | How Not to Prove Positive Selection

Contrary to a widespread impression, natural selection does not leave any unambiguous “signature” on the genome, certainly not one that is still detectable after tens or hundreds of millions of years.​

Evidence?

To biologists schooled in Neo-Darwinian thought processes, it is virtually axiomatic that any adaptive change must have been fixed as a result of natural selection. But it is important to remember that reality can be more complicated than simplistic textbook scenarios.

I think most evolutionary biologists are far more aware of that than most creationists

All genes are deemed positively selected in Darwinism. That's why they are there according to the paradigm.

Too bad this "Darwinism" hasn't been "the paradigm" in evolutionary biology for decades.

I recall that you've been informed about that roughly twelve bazillion times.

By the way, most genes are NOT deemed positively selected. Most genes most of the time are under purifying selection, as far as I'm aware. As Loudmouth explained, they may initially have got there by positive selection OR neutral drift. See subfunctionalisation following gene duplication in particular. You can tell me what positive selection has to do with that one.

(A little terminology:

Neutral evolution means that most mutations don't matter.

Positive selection means that certain mutations are encouraged in the gene.

Purifying selection means that mutations are strongly discouraged.

Note that different parts of a single gene can experience different selective pressures or lack thereof.)

Let's go back 150 years and see how this idea works. At the time, Lamarckian evolution was quite popular. However, experiments disproved Lamarckian evolution.

Amazingly enough, there are some surprisingly Lamarckian things going on in genomes. Like the CRISPR system, which I'd never even heard of until last year...

Also, shouldn't we really classify various forms of HGT - especially adaptive ones - as Lamarckian? Wouldn't things like picking up antibiotic resistance on a plasmid qualify?

Evolutionists are biologists, not geologists.

And poor palaeontologists are just mongrels

 

[Naraoia]

Many people said now that Darwinism is wrong. I believe they are right. And I don't think it is hard to argue against any specific case about Darwinism. It is possible that even I can do some.

Evolutionary theory is not Darwinism. Hasn't been for a long time. Update your information, please.

I've always relied on regular Science journals to tell me that all the "kinds" of life on the earth have always existed from the beginning. And Science has never disappointed me. Species are found "Much older than assumed", are found to "evolve faster than anyone imagined they could", are found Ancient and unchanged, are found "co-existing", when thought to be ancestors....on and on.

Two of those three quotes are typical sensationalist, dumbed down press release/news article wording, not something I would expect in any "regular science journal".

As for ancestors and descendants coexisting, a couple of points for critical minds to ponder:

(1) Palaeontology can very rarely tell a true ancestor from something that is just very similar to the ancestor. The only way to infer an ancestor-descendant relationship between two fossil species with any confidence is to have a fine-resolution record of the transition. Because of the nature of the fossil record, that is a rare and precious occurrence. (Nevertheless, it's not unheard of. See here for examples.)

(2) Ancestors can coexist with their descendants. Many if not most domesticated species still coexist with their wild ancestors, for one. The evolution of dogs didn't automatically make wolves disappear. Dogs are the descendants of some wolves. Other wolves went on to beget more wolves.

Name one modern species that is found unchanged in rock that is 500 million years old.

I was going to predict a mention of Lingula, but maybe that's assuming too much knowledge of "living fossils".

Only Igneous and some metamorphic rocks can be dated. (Lava)
There are no species in Lava.

Stratigraphy 101...

Fortunately for us, scientists have no bias when seeking the truth:

"We came into the project extremely biased against the idea of gene flow," said Harvard Medical School's David Reich, one of the study's authors, who specializes in examining the relationship between human populations using genomic data.

Why do I have the suspicion that this is a prelude to "but the data proved stronger than our biases"?

Fern has not changed. Even before I know anything at all, I could tell looking at a fern that it was very old compared to most everything else in the world we live in.

Do tell how you'd know. I'm curious.

And, um, "fern" is not a species. In fact, it's about twelve thousand living species, including a wide variety of forms. I don't think any of them were alive 200, let alone 500 million years ago.

Saying "ferns" are old makes about as much sense as saying "vertebrates" are old. Old, yes. Unchanged, hardly.

A tiny palaeobotany lesson for you (and it's telling that *I* should teach palaeobotany to anyone...): the earliest evidence of land plants is 470 My old spores. Of liverworts or something similar, most likely. It's another hundred million years, give or take, to ferns from that point. No land plant, never mind fern (which are quite derived land plants!) is known from 500 million years ago.

So tell me that part again about why some things change and some things do not change.

Some things need to change and some do not?

Besides, no morphological chance =/= no change. Genomes evolve, you know...

 

[Loudmouth]

So you do not agree with my definition.

You have yet to support it. You claim it is science, but you admit that the scientific method can not be used. No scientific method = no science.

That is fine. We just have a different definition on the same term. That is OK. This is a simple and fundamental difference, why would it take you so much trouble to argue on things that have different definition to begin with? That is not very scientific. Is it?

Science is a method, not a comparison of definitions. As it turns out, we are using different languages which would be more of a topic in English class.

Creationists interfere the school teaching on science because they think that science education should include more than just science, it should include God in addition to science.

Right, they want to push religion into the science class because they feel threatened by scientific explanations. This has been found unconstitutational multiple times now.

The reason is simple: science can answer very few questions. It is not good enough for science education.

Science is not good enough for science education? Really?

No one is saying that students should ONLY take science. Of course they should take other classes. Even as an atheist I think a philosophy and an objective world religions course would be very nice additions to every high school students curriculum. However, that does not give christians the right to force religion into the science classroom. Rather, these subjects should be taught in the appropriate context. History is also a very important topic to cover, but do you see anyone forcing ancient greek hisstory into science class?

 

[Loudmouth]

Originally Posted by SkyWriting I've always relied on regular Science journals to tell me that all the "kinds" of life on the earth have always existed from the beginning. And Science has never disappointed me.

Then show me a mammal in Cambrian strata.

On the following diagram, a "Creationist Tree" would have some minor branches and no major ones. Support for the "Creation Tree" is any pushing of branches to the left, plus co-existing species.

What evidence do you have to support the claim that these branches do not share a common ancestor?

Only Igneous and some metamorphic rocks can be dated.

Therefore, igneous rocks that bracket a sedimentary layer can give us a date range for the sedimentary rock. Why is this a problem.

(Lava)
There are no species in Lava. I'm not saying that the dating is accurate. Just that true believers, like yourself, place much faith in their guesstimates.Fortunately for us, scientists have no bias when seeking the truth:

"We came into the project extremely biased against the idea of gene flow," said Harvard Medical School's David Reich, one of the study's authors, who specializes in examining the relationship between human populations using genomic data.

Read more: Study: Neanderthal DNA Lives On in Modern Humans - TIME​

How is this a problem?

Your cousins are not your direct ancestors, but does this mean that you and your cousins do not share a common ancestor?

 

[Loudmouth]

Amazingly enough, there are some surprisingly Lamarckian things going on in genomes. Like the CRISPR system, which I'd never even heard of until last year...

They are the exceptions that prove the rule. Yes, there are a few examples here and there that could be considered Lamarckian, but they make up a very, very tiny percentage of the overall differences between species.

Also, shouldn't we really classify various forms of HGT - especially adaptive ones - as Lamarckian? Wouldn't things like picking up antibiotic resistance on a plasmid qualify?

I don't consider it to be Lamarckian. Bacteria are picking up new DNA from the environment all of the time. These sections of DNA still have to pass through selection when they move into a new host. Bacteria do not screen DNA before acquiring it to make sure that it will be adaptive.

 

[Naraoia]

They are the exceptions that prove the rule. Yes, there are a few examples here and there that could be considered Lamarckian, but they make up a very, very tiny percentage of the overall differences between species.

I don't consider it to be Lamarckian. Bacteria are picking up new DNA from the environment all of the time. These sections of DNA still have to pass through selection when they move into a new host. Bacteria do not screen DNA before acquiring it to make sure that it will be adaptive.

Fair enough.

... maybe it's Lamarcko-Darwinian Then again, Darwin himself had no problem with the inheritance of acquired traits.

Ah, those pesky French lose again