Question about Old Earth

[SkyWriting]

All of those diseases would make an organism more likely to die or be handicapped before reproduction. So they would all affect reproduction.
<snip>

Sorry, the mean age of affliction is 45 for those combined conditions.

- OK, I made that up.
I concede. I don't have time to further research my point.

Nearly all do (after their last possible reproductive season - remember that many animals reproduce more than once, and as such natural selection should favor changes that help them live to mate again). What species of animals are you thinking of that lives long after losing the ability to reproduce? I can think of one, which is due to subsequent care.

You mean your mother of course. And whales.
Yeast can exibit a 10% post-reproductive lifespan.
But this guy checked on 42 species:

Although anthropologists have suggested that menopause is unique to primates [2] or even just humans [3,4], the phenomenon appears to be widespread in mammals – in a meta-analysis of 42 species, Cohen (2004) found support for post-reproductive lifespans (PRLS) in 83% of taxa. More recent studies have shown that there are a range of species with relatively little or no parental investment that also exhibit reproductive senescence and cessation, including species generally considered to be 'r-selected'. These species include guppies [5], parakeets [6], mice [7], and beetles [8].

- Why didn't Jesus tell us to kill off all the weak and let the strong and adaptable live good full lives?
​

Why would that be good in a human society?

That would be God's will for ANY species. Not just silly humans.

- Why didn't Jesus as well as the apostles have 100's of children?
Maybe because their goal was to bring us Christianity, not to maximize their own reproductive fitness?

What evolutionary advantage is that? None.

- What could be better for mankind's evolution than infusing humans with Jesus' DNA?
Not sure why that's relevant, nor sure how you know what Jesus' DNA is like.

Really?

OK. A decent father figure and role model then, for our spiritual evolution.
God loves constant change. And mutations. God loves mutations. And death to the weak. God loves to watch those weak animals and people slowly starve. Of course things are all primitive, simple minded, and expendable when ya first create stuff, but after a billion years or so ya finally end up with something worth calling your own children. Ok, I'm paraphrasing Jesus, just a bit too much.

1. Maybe you'd like to name some mutations that don't affect reproduction that you think would be relevant to natural selection?
Other than that, which assumptions did you disagree with? If they are not reasonable, we can change them.

2. Do you really think that we don't have tons of documented mutations, many beneficial and many harmful? Some studies have found that about 70% of mutations are harmful, the rest neutral or beneficial.

3. Are you saying that of the 100 (bats in your example), all of them have some noticeable mutations?
OK, are those additional cases where the bats just go extinct?4. What evidence do you have for any of those DNA assertions?

1. Mutations that would affect:
- social issues
- camouflage
- defense mechanisms

1. Endurance: We deliberately generalise endurance into one single component, whereas common fitness literature puts endurance into categories such as cardiovascular/aerobic, anaerobic, muscular/strength etc. Endurance is as much psychological as it is physical. We take endurance simply as the dictionary definition: The act, quality or power of withstanding stress or hardship. It also includes the ability of the body systems to process, deliver, store and utilise energy.

2. Strength: Strength is the ability of a muscular unit or group of muscular units to apply force at a given intensity. Personal Evolution’s approach to strength is to focus on relative strength or strength to weight ratio as opposed to simply absolute strength. That means that strength to us is measured differently and takes bodyweight into account.

3. Flexibility: Flexibility is the ability to achieve a percentage of the maximum range of motion at a given joint. We could further specify flexibility as “functional flexibility”, meaning that flexibility is always conditioned in the context of actual tasks.

4. Power: Power is the ability of a muscular unit or group of muscular units to generate maximum force in a minimum timeframe. Basically it comes down to force X velocity. Power also has a second meaning, that is the capacity for maximum output in a given period of time.

5. Speed: Speed is the ability to minimise the amount of time it takes to repeat a movement. As a sub-component of speed, it is also important to condition reaction time, which is the time between recognition of a stimulus and physical reaction to that stimulus.

6. Coordination: Coordination is the ability to combine multiple movement patterns into one movement. Coordination can also refer to the synergistic sequence of muscle contraction required to move a heavy load more efficiently, hence contributing to strength.

7. Agility: Agility is the ability to transfer mechanical energy from one movement to another in minimal time.

8. Balance: Balance is the ability to control the body through a given movement in relation to its support base.

9. Body Composition: Body composition is the percentage of bodyweight made up of each of the major tissue types. That includes fat percentage, muscle percentage, bone percentage and how much it all contributes to bodyweight and size.

10. Anaerobic Capacity: Anaerobic capacity is the ability to perform at near maximal intensity for the maximum time. It can be measured by the time it takes to reach exhaustion at a given level of output. It can also be defined as the total amount of energy obtainable from the anaerobic energy systems. That is the combined capacity of the ATP, phospho-creatine and lactic acid systems within a given timeframe.

That's 13. I could go on forever.


2. Sure. It depends on who does the classifying. Note again, there is no word for a "beneficail mutation" or "Beneficial disease". Not even in other languages as far as I know. Kind of hard for you to prove your point as there isn't really any language to cover the concept. In fact, beneficial mutation is an oxymoron. One medical definition of a mutation is a DNA error associated with a detrimental disease.

3. No. The bat illustration was just one for you to find some fault with so anyone else reading could see your (predicted) response.

4. I've researched them after being challenged. And I fine tune my comments to the results. yawn

 

[Assyrian]

You see, you are doing exactly what I didn't want to do. I wanted to let scripture speak for itself, show me its worldview, not take my knowledge of science and see how I can make scripture fit that. I had come from a traditional church background, found the Lord and was discovering his word for myself. I had enough of traditions being read into scripture, rather than looking to scripture to see what it says. I wanted to do the same with my whole worldview, not just theology but let the bible teach me about the earth the universe and science. But I wanted to see what the bible says for itself not make it fit some outside presuppositions.

I covered that situation in my answer as well:

Imagine the difficulty of Moses going up a mountain. Almost as if the earth wasn't flat for Moses. And it says Jesus went up the mountain as well. The then there is mention of valleys.

Even more conflict with the "flat earth theory" that was forming in your head. My grandchild is 4 and I think she could handle the passage without concern.
​

No I don't see how that would have made any difference. I wanted to see what the bible could teach me if I built my understanding of the universe on scripture. What you are presenting is an argument against a flat earth which mistakes the term flat earth for smooth. The term flat earth was used to distinguish its overall shape from a sphere or cube, not saying the surface is smooth. But I don't see why I should have looked for arguments against a flat earth, if I was only wanting to see what scripture taught rather trying to avoid any particular conclusion.

I imagine your concern was between a square and a circular earth:
Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
Job 26:10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters
at the boundary between light and darkness. ...

That did cross my mind as well later, a further difficulty with basing my world view on scripture. The description of the world I had problems with was God setting the earth on top of pillars. 1Sam 2:8 For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them he has set the world. It doesn't really matter too much whether it was a circular or a square earth sitting on the pillars, but the fact that my bible based world view would need to involve the earth sitting on top of all these pillars.

Or perhaps you were influenced and confused by the language of science:

- So most of the time, when the Moon is in its new phase, it does not travel across the Sun’s disk,
- the Moon’s disk almost perfectly matches the size of the Sun’s disk.
- When it is far enough from Earth, the apparent size of its disk actually is smaller than the disk of the Sun. A solar eclipse at this time is called “annular.” In an annular eclipse, a ring of the Sun is visible around the edges of the disk of the Moon.
- over the limb of the Moon on March 13, 1994 to view a distant, nearly full-disk Earth.
- This is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually shows our home as a planetary disk.

Full disk earth day/night pairs

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...P7U099Lcw&sig2=RN_o4I2G-e28rnFp8zJjww&cad=rja

No I was just looking at scripture to see what it could teach me about the world.

 

[Assyrian]

Very interesting.

The idiom I used is, in fact, a thousands years old Chinese idiom. The natural background is that there was no mountain that high in central China which would cause a problem like hypoxia. However, today, people (e.g. you) may easily link that old metaphor to updated scientific knowledge such as hypoxia.

Actually I was linking your claims plants aren't alive to problems like hypoxia

This would completely demean the metaphor. In a sense, this example could be used to effectively argue against any scientific interpretation of the Bible.

Yes, although I can adapt the language of the proverb you used to make a dig at you, it was not what the original proverb meant and would not even have made sense in the original context. It is fine in the context of you and me bouncing posts back and forth to each other, but it does not tell anything about what the original Chinese proverb meant.

I would reconsider my position seriously if any example of such quality were presented to argue against any idea of creation science. The format has to be:

1. A Bible verse which gives a meaning according to the historical and anthropological background.

2. Modern science add additional meaning to that verse.

3. And, most importantly, the scientific interpretation invalidates the historical meaning of the verse.

I think 3 can work in two different ways, you can have your modern reading contradicting the original meaning, or simply saying something completely different that wasn't originally meant. My hypoxia reading does not contradict or invalidate the original meaning, it is completely unrelated to the original meaning and simply isn't what the phrase means in its original context. This isn't an additional meaning to the proverb, because it simply isn't what the proverb meant.

You do get additional layers of understanding, though not of meaning, in passages like Jesus talking about how a red sky at night means there will be good weather in the morning. Meteorologists will explain why this works, but at the same time, Jesus wasn't teaching about light scattering. It is not the meaning of the verse, he was referring to the fact this happens, not explaining it.

Item 3 is the most difficult one. So far, I haven't yet seen any successful example. The modern scientific interpretation always "enhances" the meaning of a Bible verse.

I think the best examples are the geocentric passages where the modern creationist attempts to reconcile the verses to modern science end up saying the opposite of what writer original understood them to mean.

 

[juvenissun]

Actually I was linking your claims plants aren't alive to problems like hypoxia

Yes, although I can adapt the language of the proverb you used to make a dig at you, it was not what the original proverb meant and would not even have made sense in the original context. It is fine in the context of you and me bouncing posts back and forth to each other, but it does not tell anything about what the original Chinese proverb meant.

I think 3 can work in two different ways, you can have your modern reading contradicting the original meaning, or simply saying something completely different that wasn't originally meant. My hypoxia reading does not contradict or invalidate the original meaning, it is completely unrelated to the original meaning and simply isn't what the phrase means in its original context. This isn't an additional meaning to the proverb, because it simply isn't what the proverb meant.

You do get additional layers of understanding, though not of meaning, in passages like Jesus talking about how a red sky at night means there will be good weather in the morning. Meteorologists will explain why this works, but at the same time, Jesus wasn't teaching about light scattering. It is not the meaning of the verse, he was referring to the fact this happens, not explaining it.

I think the best examples are the geocentric passages where the modern creationist attempts to reconcile the verses to modern science end up saying the opposite of what writer original understood them to mean.

You are right about that (the blue quote).
I need to cool my head down a little bit on this line of thought.
Thanks.

 

[Assyrian]

You are right about that (the blue quote).
I need to cool my head down a little bit on this line of thought.
Thanks.

Cheers Juv

 

[Mallon]

Odd that anyone would rest their hope on a 1% chance event.

It has nothing to do with hope. If only 1% of mutations are beneficial, they will still come to dominate in an evolving population, as gluadys pointed out. Think about it -- deleterious mutations are by definition weeded out of the population, allowing those individuals with beneficial mutations to form a greater and greater proportion of the population. Thus, regardless of how frequent beneficial mutations are, they will still come to dominate in a population. It's just a matter of time. That's why I was surprised that HHC said mutations were "either deleterious or benign more than 99% of the time" as though that somehow negates the evolution of beneficial structures. It doesn't. Mutations would have to be deleterious 100% of the time for that to be true.

 

[Papias]

SW wrote:

- OK, I made that up.
I concede. I don't have time to further research my point.

OK, we'll drop those.

Yeast can exibit a 10% post-reproductive lifespan.
But this guy checked on 42 species:

Animals die over a range of times, so of course they will evolve to have the minimum be at least as long as their reproductive time. For instance, if an animal is fertile up to age 24 to 26, and the young are not cared for after 6-8 years, then the end of "reproductive ages" is 30 to 44, and an animal so that animal could be expected to die around the range of 46 to 54 to fit that. Thus, the 10% extension in yeast is likely simply the bell curve. The other 42 "that guy" checked may be that, or not. Maybe link to the journal publication so we can discuss it?

You mean your mother of course. And whales.

Yes, humans was the animal I was referring to. An extended age there evolved because grandparents help care for grandkids, making them valuable to child rearing well past their own reproductive years. This fits the predictions of evolution.

If you have a reference for a species of whale living well beyond reproductive years (such that the minimum lifespan is well beyond the end of child rearing), then please post it for us to discuss. Thanks.

That (kill off all the weak and let the strong and adaptable live good full lives?) would be God's will for ANY species. Not just silly humans.

I'm still not sure what you are claiming, much less what the point is. Could you please make that more clear?
​

- Why didn't Jesus as well as the apostles have 100's of children?

Maybe because their goal was to bring us Christianity, not to maximize their own reproductive fitness?

What evolutionary advantage is that? None.

Many of the things people do are not to their evolutionary advantage. Celibate priests and drug abuse are two simple examples. I'm again not sure what your point is.

OK. A decent father figure and role model then, for our spiritual evolution.
God loves constant change. And mutations. God loves mutations. And death to the weak. God loves to watch those weak animals and people slowly starve. Of course things are all primitive, simple minded, and expendable when ya first create stuff, but after a billion years or so ya finally end up with something worth calling your own children. Ok, I'm paraphrasing Jesus, just a bit too much.

Is your point here that Jesus didn't describe evolution, just as he didn't describe the periodic table of the elements and rocket propulsion? If so, I don't see the relevance.

Papias wrote:
​

1. Maybe you'd like to name some mutations that don't affect reproduction that you think would be relevant to natural selection?
Other than that, which assumptions did you disagree with? If they are not reasonable, we can change them.

2. Do you really think that we don't have tons of documented mutations, many beneficial and many harmful? Some studies have found that about 70% of mutations are harmful, the rest neutral or beneficial.

3. Are you saying that of the 100 (bats in your example), all of them have some noticeable mutations?
OK, are those additional cases where the bats just go extinct?4. What evidence do you have for any of those DNA assertions?

SW wrote:

1. Mutations that would affect:
- social issues
- camouflage
- defense mechanisms

(you are proposing those as "mutations that don't affect reproduction", right?) Those do affect reproduction. An increase in one's social status allows for many more matings, better camoflage helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce, as do defense mechanisms.

1. Endurance: We deliberately generalise endurance into one single component, whereas common fitness literature puts endurance into categories such as...... It also includes the ability of the body systems to process, deliver, store and utilise energy.

That too also affects reproduction. More endurance helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

2. Strength: Strength is the ability of a muscular unit or group of muscular units to apply force at a given intensity. Personal Evolution’s approach to strength is to focus on relative strength or strength to weight ratio as opposed to simply absolute strength. That means that strength to us is measured differently and takes bodyweight into account.

That too also affects reproduction. More strength helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

And what is "Personal Evolution"? Evolution happens over successive generations, not in one individual. That's Larmarkian evolution, shown in the 1800s to be pretty much wrong, though new agers do make plenty of money off from it today.

3. Flexibility: Flexibility is the ability to achieve a percentage of the maximum range of motion at a given joint. We could further specify flexibility as “functional flexibility”, meaning that flexibility is always conditioned in the context of actual tasks.

That too also affects reproduction. More flexibility helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce, especially in the context of actual tasks.

4. Power: Power is the ability of a muscular unit or group of muscular units to generate maximum force in a minimum timeframe. Basically it comes down to force X velocity. Power also has a second meaning, that is the capacity for maximum output in a given period of time.

That too also affects reproduction. More power helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

5. Speed: Speed is the ability to minimise the amount of time it takes to repeat a movement. As a sub-component of speed, it is also important to condition reaction time, which is the time between recognition of a stimulus and physical reaction to that stimulus.

That too also affects reproduction. More speed helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

6. Coordination: Coordination is the ability to combine multiple movement patterns into one movement. Coordination can also refer to the synergistic sequence of muscle contraction required to move a heavy load more efficiently, hence contributing to strength.

That too also affects reproduction. More coordination helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

7. Agility: Agility is the ability to transfer mechanical energy from one movement to another in minimal time.

8. Balance: Balance is the ability to control the body through a given movement in relation to its support base.

That too also affects reproduction. More agility and balance help survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

9. Body Composition: Body composition is the percentage of bodyweight made up of each of the major tissue types. That includes fat percentage, muscle percentage, bone percentage and how much it all contributes to bodyweight and size.

That too also affects reproduction. Different body compositions helps survival in different environments, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce. For instance, in areas prone to famines, saving more fat is selected for.

10. Anaerobic Capacity: Anaerobic capacity is the ability to perform at near maximal intensity for the maximum time. It can be measured by the time it takes to reach exhaustion at a given level of output. It can also be defined as the total amount of energy obtainable from the anaerobic energy systems. That is the combined capacity of the ATP, phospho-creatine and lactic acid systems within a given timeframe.

That too also affects reproduction. More anaerobic capacity helps survival, thus helping you survive long enough to reproduce.

That's 13. I could go on forever.

I don't see how any of those that you mentioned are things that won't affect reproductive success. It seems they all will affect reproductive success,and hence be subject to natural selection.

Evolution balances them against each other when they conflict with those and other factors to maximize reproductive success. That's why they can't all be maxed out. For instance, the highest strength could be obtained by massive muscles, but massive muscles would require massive food, which would put one at risk for starvation in a famine, hence favoring fattyness instead.

2. Sure. It depends on who does the classifying.

No, it doesn't. Some mutations cause more successful offspring (beneficial mutations), some cause less (harmful mutations). It's not subjective any more than whether or not a reaction is endothermic or exothermic is subjective.

Note again, there is no word for a "beneficail mutation" or "Beneficial disease". Not even in other languages as far as I know.

Who cares? There is no single word for "endothermic chemical reaction", but that doesn't mean they have ceased to exist. I guess I don't see your point. Reality doesn't care what our words are.

3. No. The bat illustration was just one for you to find some fault with so anyone else reading could see your (predicted) response.

That's a very odd thing for you to do, then.

Papias wrote:

What evidence do you have for any of those DNA assertions?

SW's reply:

4. I've researched them after being challenged. And I fine tune my comments to the results. yawn

OK, then, could you post your sources for this "research", so we can discuss your bare assertions? Again, is there any evidence for them?

I didn't see a response to this:

Remember, the whole context of this recent topic is your assertion that beneficial mutations get "overwhelmed" by harmful mutations. I gave a numerical example to show how natural selection renders the harmful mutations irrelevant, regardless of whether or not there are more of them. Are there specific parts of that or of the example that you see as unrealistic?

Have a good day-

Papias

 

[juvenissun]

I think the best examples are the geocentric passages where the modern creationist attempts to reconcile the verses to modern science end up saying the opposite of what writer original understood them to mean.

All right. It does not take long for me to come back.

So, there are verses that seeming say that the earth is flat.
Creationist use modern science to argue that they don't really mean that. Further, they argued that these verses actually suggest a spherical earth.

Now, why is what creationist said against the original understanding, or even divert, or mislead the original understanding? What is the original understanding?

One answer could be this: the original meaning says nothing about the shape of the earth.

That is fine. If so, where did the "flat earth" idea come from? What I mean is, if there were no flat earth accusation, then there will be no spherical earth defense either. The flat earth accusation was brought up to discredit the Scripture based on modern scientific understanding (because we know better now, so that old book is all wrong). That is how did the creation/evolution debate start.

Another argument is made in a separate post.

 

[juvenissun]

Ancient Chinese said: the higher, the colder.
It is a metaphoric description of achievement versus loneliness.
But you reply: Aha, hypoxia !

Your reply is based on modern science but it goes complete off the original meaning.

Fine. Now the question is:

Is your reply against what the idiom said? I say no. The two are not related.
Does your reply alter the meaning of the idiom? I say no. What you said simply add a modern meaning to the idiom.
Does your idea actually enhance the original meaning of the idiom? I would say: YES.

 

[SkyWriting]

No I don't see how that would have made any difference. I wanted to see what the bible could teach me if I built my understanding of the universe on scripture. What you are presenting is an argument against a flat earth which mistakes the term flat earth for smooth. The term flat earth was used to distinguish its overall shape from a sphere or cube, not saying the surface is smooth. But I don't see why I should have looked for arguments against a flat earth, if I was only wanting to see what scripture taught rather trying to avoid any particular conclusion.


That did cross my mind as well later, a further difficulty with basing my world view on scripture. The description of the world I had problems with was God setting the earth on top of pillars. 1Sam 2:8For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them he has set the world. It doesn't really matter too much whether it was a circular or a square earth sitting on the pillars, but the fact that my bible based world view would need to involve the earth sitting on top of all these pillars.


No I was just looking at scripture to see what it could teach me about the world.

Sure.
I can see from how you phrase your answer just exactly how confusing it all was for you.
I've seen this deceptive, insincere style of argument many, many times.