simple thought

[Jet Black]

I want to know what hard evidence you or someone you know and trust well has SEEN with their own eyes--not casts of or pictures of.

cool, do we get to ask for the dead body of Jesus, the holy grail and the ark of the covenant to be displayed to us as evidence for the bible then? oh, how about the tree of life with a flaming sword over it? can you tell me where it is please so I can go and have a look.

incidentally if this is blasphemous at all, I sincerely apologise, but ElElohe's demands are equivalent in a capacity. feel free to remove anything that might offend.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Well that little microbe that had a mutation that allowed its decendants to digest nylon had a pretty good mutation. Had this mutation occured 200 years ago it would have been useless (neutral). But today, with all that nylon just laying there in garbage dumps this organism can expoit a whole new resourse without competition.

Pretty benificial I would say.
http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Nobody is trying to Jolt Your Faith in God, Jesus or even Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. Evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with any of those. In fact, based on my observations, christians who accept evolution are more secure in their faith (i.e. they are not disturbed or threatened by things like scientific theories).

 

[Nathan David]

Not one good mutation? I had milk for breakfast, and, thanks to a mutation in one of my European ancestors, my digestive system handled it without any problems. Personally I would hate to have to eat my Rice Chex without milk, so I consider that a good mutation.

 

[Arikay]

Unfortunatly it seems like the "evidence" the creationist group you are getting your info from, did not do a very good job showing you evolution.

Yes there are quite a few beneficial Mutations, even in humans. Two quick examples are Sickle cell animea protecting against Malaria and a few people who are pretty much immune to AIDS.

You realize there has never been a positive mutation? how then can this be associated with evolution, which is supposedly "survival of the fittest?"

And i think i have been subjected in my 20-some years of life on this planet to enough evlotionary propaganda to know most of the evidence presented by evolutionists that it will not jolt my faith in Truth.

 

[ElElohe]

I don't disagree that what your asking for is the same as what I am asking for.

cool, do we get to ask for the dead body of Jesus, the holy grail and the ark of the covenant to be displayed to us as evidence for the bible then? oh, how about the tree of life with a flaming sword over it? can you tell me where it is please so I can go and have a look.

incidentally if this is blasphemous at all, I sincerely apologise, but ElElohe's demands are equivalent in a capacity. feel free to remove anything that might offend.

 

[lucaspa]

Is this the same intelligent God bloke who came up with quantum mechanics - a probabilistic, acausal system - and then built a deterministic, causal meta-system from it? Yeah, there's divine brilliance if I ever did see it.

I submit that it is brilliance. This is a shortened version of Kenneth Miller's argument on this in Chapter 6 of Finding Darwin's God, so you can read the fuller version there.

The reason it's brilliant is that this system gives a universe where our lives have MEANING and free-will. Any purely deterministic system means that we are simply puppets without free-will, with all of our actions determined by prior events. On the other hand, a purely acausal system is chaotic and nothing we do can influence events, so whatever choices we have will be completely without meaning.

THIS system, however, avoids both problems and gives a universe where your life has meaning. It matters that you wrote your post because 1) your post wasn't predetermined as in a totally deterministic universe and 2) is meaningful because your post can influence and cause other people to formulate thoughts similar to yours.

Can you devise another type of physical universe with both free will and meaning?

 

[lucaspa]

Arikay said: abiogenesis and Evolution can come about from natural means, thus they dont need inteligence.

I say, prove it, in the present tense.

OK.

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/
http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html

You can do abiogenesis yourself in your own kitchen. I've put Fox's protocol in layman's terms like this:

Call Sigma Chemical Co. at 800-325-3010 and order 1 bottle of catalog number M 7020 MEM amino acids solution. it will cost you $11.95 plus shipping for a 100 ml. bottle. Empty the bottle into a fying pan, turn the heat on low and heat until all the water is evaporated. Then heat for 5 more minutes. Add water. You will have protocells in the solution. They are alive. If this is too "artificial" for you, then put the solution out on a hot rock for the afternoon and let it evaporate. Then add water (rain).

As to evolution in real time, here are just 3 papers of literally hundreds where people have watched the evolution of new species.

1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980. Got new species of fruit flies in the lab after 5 years on different diets and temperatures. Also confirmation of natural selection in the process. Lots of references to other studies that saw speciation.
2. Speciation in action Science 72:700-701, 1996 A great laboratory study of the evolution of a hybrid plant species. Scientists did it in the lab, but the genetic data says it happened the same way in nature. Follow up paper in PNAS http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/20/11757
5. Toxic Tailings and Tolerant Grass by RE Cook in Natural History, vol90(3): 28-38, 1981 discusses selection pressure of grasses growingon mine tailings that are rich in toxic heavy metals. "When wind borne pollen carrying nontolerant genes crosses the border [between prairie and tailings] and fertilizes the gametes of tolerant females, the resultant offspring show a range of tolerances. The movement of genes from the pasture to the mine would, therefore, tend to dilute the tolerance level of seedlings. Only fully tolerant individuals survive to reproduce, however. This selective mortality, which eliminates variants, counteracts the dilution and molds a toatally tolerant population. The pasture and mine populations evolve distinctive adaptations because selective factors are dominant over thehomogenizing influence of foreign genes."

 

[lucaspa]

Am I the only one floored by profound irony the whole "it takes intelligence to create intelligence" reasoning?

Before 1859, this was a valid argument. The phrase is part of the Argument from Design. This represents a philosophical system that was top-down. You have a suspended pyramid where the lower layers are dependent on the layer above it. The apex of the pyramid is God. Below that is the layer of "intelligence" where God had to create intelligence. Below Intelligence was Design. Design had to come from Intelligence -- either human manufactured artifacts or God directly manufacturing biological organisms. Below Design was Order, and below Order was Chaos.

What Darwin did with the discovery of natural selection was drop the pyramid to the ground and find a mechanism whereby Order could make Design. And, if Order can make Design, then a particular design is Intelligence. Now Design is not dependent on Intelligence but rather can be arrived at by building up from Order. Later, physicists and chemists have shown how Chaos can self-order to give Order.

So, the whole philosophical scheme pre-Darwin has been discarded. Instead of top-down, we now have bottom-up. That this new scheme has been so successful in replacing the old accounts for your amazement that anyone would still be advocating the old order.

 

[lucaspa]

JB said: well there is enough proof of evolution

Show me.

and don't give me things like transitionary fossils that have long been debunked. ie, from my homestate, the Nebraska man which evolutionists fabricated out of a PIG'S TOOTH, and a wife to go with him! etc.

I want to know what hard evidence you or someone you know and trust well has SEEN with their own eyes--not casts of or pictures of.

You can make the effort to see any of the evidence we present you with. You can get the papers for yourself at any university library and then write the authors and ask them about the original data. Also remember that before anything can be published in the scientific literature it must pass hostile inspection by peer-reviewers. People who know the field and check everything to see if it's accurate.

Now, transitional fossils. And not any that creationists sources have even discussed, much less debunked. These are transitional series of individuals linking species to species and then across species line to even higher taxa. Ready?

3. "Unscrambling Time in the Fossil Record" Science vol 274, pg 1842, Dec 13, 1996. The primary article is by GA Goodfriend and SJ Gould "Paleontolgy and Chronolgy of Two evolutionary Transitions by Hybridization in the Bahamian Land Snail Cerion", pgs 1894-1897.
Transitional individuals from one class to another
1. Principles of Paleontology by DM Raup and SM Stanley, 1971, there are transitional series between classes. (mammals and reptiles are examples of a class)
2. HK Erben, Uber den Ursprung der Ammonoidea. Biol. Rev. 41: 641-658, 1966.

Transitional individuals from one order to another
1. C Teichert "Nautiloidea-Discorsorida" and "Actinoceratoidea" in Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology ed RC Moore, 1964
2. PR Sheldon, Parallel gradualistic evolution of Ordovician trilobites. Nature 330: 561-563, 1987. Rigourous biometric study of the pygidial ribs of 3458 specimens of 8 generic lineages in 7 stratgraphic layers covering about 3 million years. Gradual evolution where at any given time the population was intermediate between the samples before it and after it.

Transitionals across genera:
1. Williamson, PG, Paleontological documentation of speciation in cenozoic molluscs from Turkana basin. Nature 293:437-443, 1981. Excellent study of "gradual" evolution is an extremely fine fossil record.

Transitional individuals in hominid lineage
1. CS Coon, The Origin of Races, 1962.
2. Wolpoff, 1984, Paleobiol., 10: 389-406

Transitional series from one family to another in foraminerfera
1. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/foram/foramintro.html
2. http://cushforams.niu.edu/Forams.htm

Reptiles to mammals
1. http://www.gcssepm.org/special/cuffey_05.htm

Speciation in the fossil record
1. McNamara KJ, Heterochrony and the evolution of echinoids. In CRC Paul and AB Smith (eds) Echinoderm Phylogeny and Evolutionary Biology, pp149-163, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988 pg 140 of Futuyma.
2. Kellogg DE and Hays JD Microevolutionary patterns in Late Cenozoic Radiolara. Paleobiology 1: 150-160, 1975.

Individual transitional fossils linking major taxonomic groups:
2. J A Clack, A new early Carboniferous tetrapod with a melange of crown-group characters Nature 394, 66: 1998 (July 2).
3. R Motani, N Minoura & T Ando, Ichthyosaurian relationships illuminated by new primitive skeletons from Japan, Nature 393, 255: 1998 (May 21).
4. H Gee, Relics: The creature from the black lagoon
http://www.nature.com/Nature2/serve?SID=64824792&CAT=Corner&PG=Update/update662.html Transitional fossil between amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.
5. WL Crepet, The abominable mystery. Science 282: 1653-1654, Nov. 27, 1998. Primary article is G sun, DL Dilcher, S Zheng, and Z Zhou, In search of the first flower: a Jurassic angiosperm, Archaefructus, from Northeast China. Science 282: 1692-1695, Nov. 27, 1998. Have intermediate and first angiosperm from the Jurassic.

11. Human transitionals http://www.jestercourt.com/~capella/aguide/transfos.htm
12. Dino to bird transitionals http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html
13. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/link/ transitionals for quite a few transitions, mostly evolution of tetrapods.
14. Earliest known primitive foot to walk on land http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2089000/2089873.stm
http://www.discover.com/science_news/newsflash/gthere.html?article=news_fish.html Perderpes finneyae -- intermediate between fish and amphibians

Have fun!

 

[lucaspa]

i read this in a book and i laughed because it is very true.
"if we were to receive a very complex coded message from space that would mean that their is intelligent life because this complex coded message could not have formed by itself"
"these strings of amino acids are very complex and coded. however no one created them they just evolved on their own."
just mad me laugh. GOD BLESS

What this book is doing is getting only HALF the reason we conclude that something is a manufactured artifact by intelligence. They are getting complexity. That is part of how we conclude that something is manufactured.

However, what they are missing is the other half: NOTHING IN THE ENVIRONMENT CAN PRODUCE THE CODE.

Remember the movie Contact? Well, the reason they concluded the radio message was from an intelligence was that there isn't anything in nature that will produce a sequence of beeps corresponding to prime numbers. After all, they were discarding plenty of complex signals, but ones that could be produced by pulsars or interaction of radio waves as they traveled thru space.

However, between chemistry and natural selection, there is a process in nature that will produce the proteins we see in living organisms. Since there is a process, we cannot conclude that the proteins are manufactured by an intelligence.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Excellent illustration Lucaspa. I think the bottom up concept makes the concept of God much more awe inspiring as opposed to then some workshop tinkerer .

 

[Philosoft]

I submit that it is brilliance. This is a shortened version of Kenneth Miller's argument on this in Chapter 6 of Finding Darwin's God, so you can read the fuller version there.

Well, my post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but I'll play along.

The reason it's brilliant is that this system gives a universe where our lives have MEANING and free-will. Any purely deterministic system means that we are simply puppets without free-will, with all of our actions determined by prior events. On the other hand, a purely acausal system is chaotic and nothing we do can influence events, so whatever choices we have will be completely without meaning.

But the system is not purely acausal. The macro world is deterministic to an absurd degree. There may be a vanishingly small probability that my pen will spontaneously disappear, but I don't see how that benefits free will.

THIS system, however, avoids both problems and gives a universe where your life has meaning. It matters that you wrote your post because 1) your post wasn't predetermined as in a totally deterministic universe

Oops. Better give that another look. "Determined" and "predetermined" are not equivalent, nor does one necessarily follow from the other.

and 2) is meaningful because your post can influence and cause other people to formulate thoughts similar to yours.

Double oops. If my post causes someone to do something, whence free will?

Can you devise another type of physical universe with both free will and meaning?

No, but that's okay. It's a logical necessity that, if it can be done, an omnipotent, omniscient being could do it. Besides, I think you are begging the question by presuming that acausality = meaning.

 

[wonderingman16]

sorry i haven't visited in a while i totally forgot about this post. i did not want this to turn into a big debate just asking a question. has anyone ever heard of all the evidence against spontaneous generation? yet all u have done is changed the name and given old arguments. the one about buying a solution is wrong because it ignores it is not closed and can be affected by outside forces. i have also noticed that abortion, murder, teen pregnacy, divorce, and other things have increased since the introduction of evolution in public schools. here is the simple reason why. lets say that there was a set of rules in a playground with a playground teacher named sally. now when ever a fight or something happens sally steps in and stops it. then one day sally isn't there. chaos happens. no rules are folowed who ever is biggest and strongest are in control. soon the kids tear down the rules. with no set of morals u are told u do what u think is right. i will stop ranting just something i thought had to be said. peace and God bless

 

[Arikay]

Abiogenesis is Not Spontaneous Generation.
Nor is abiogenesis part of evolution.

I would say, read about spontaneous generation. From what I understand an example of spontaneous generation would be that if I set out some premade cookie mix, it would spontaneously generate these little black bugs. The cookie mix (non life) would generate these bugs (life).

This is Not the same as abiogenesis.

Also, maybe you could give us some information about how Evolution (and not something else) created all these problems in school, as currently you are blaming evolution based on assumptions and possiblly missconceptions.

I dont think evolution is responsible and its pretty easy to show why. However first I would like to see if you have any evidence that suggests that it is.

sorry i haven't visited in a while i totally forgot about this post. i did not want this to turn into a big debate just asking a question. has anyone ever heard of all the evidence against spontaneous generation? yet all u have done is changed the name and given old arguments. the one about buying a solution is wrong because it ignores it is not closed and can be affected by outside forces. i have also noticed that abortion, murder, teen pregnacy, divorce, and other things have increased since the introduction of evolution in public schools. here is the simple reason why. lets say that there was a set of rules in a playground with a playground teacher named sally. now when ever a fight or something happens sally steps in and stops it. then one day sally isn't there. chaos happens. no rules are folowed who ever is biggest and strongest are in control. soon the kids tear down the rules. with no set of morals u are told u do what u think is right. i will stop ranting just something i thought had to be said. peace and God bless

 

[ifriit]

sorry i haven't visited in a while i totally forgot about this post. i did not want this to turn into a big debate just asking a question. has anyone ever heard of all the evidence against spontaneous generation? yet all u have done is changed the name and given old arguments. the one about buying a solution is wrong because it ignores it is not closed and can be affected by outside forces.

Spontaneous generation is only vaguely semantically related to abiogenesis, and not at all to evolutionary theory. Please try to stay on topic.

i have also noticed that abortion, murder, teen pregnacy, divorce, and other things have increased since the introduction of evolution in public schools.

You are largely incorrect. Murder is about at its lowest point in human history in most western countries. Abortion is untraceable since most abortions were labelled miscarriages until relatively recently, being done in secret. Teen pregnancy is doubtful, since until relatively recently most mothers were teenagers. It is only in modern society in industrialized nations that it is even considered an issue.

Divorce, on the other hand, is possible, though I doubt you'll find a strong correlation with evolution.

here is the simple reason why. lets say that there was a set of rules in a playground with a playground teacher named sally. now when ever a fight or something happens sally steps in and stops it. then one day sally isn't there. chaos happens. no rules are folowed who ever is biggest and strongest are in control. soon the kids tear down the rules. with no set of morals u are told u do what u think is right. i will stop ranting just something i thought had to be said. peace and God bless

Considering your facts are wrong, it must be the case that your argument is wrong. Sorry.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

" have also noticed that abortion, murder, teen pregnacy, divorce, and other things have increased since the introduction of evolution in public schools."

Wow. Did you know that since the zipper was invented the life expectancy of people has increased dramatically? Hail to the zipper!!!

 

[lucaspa]

No, but that's okay. It's a logical necessity that, if it can be done, an omnipotent, omniscient being could do it. Besides, I think you are begging the question by presuming that acausality = meaning.

It's not a presumption, it's a conclusion. This seems to be a common mistake on these boards. Maybe everyone took the same debate class and this is a common debate tactic. Can't deal with the conclusion, then try to downgrade it by calling it an "assumption" or "presuming".

But the system is not purely acausal. The macro world is deterministic to an absurd degree. There may be a vanishingly small probability that my pen will spontaneously disappear, but I don't see how that benefits free will.

First, I said that a PURELY acausal world would also be without meaning. Meaning can only happen in a universe that is partly causal and partly acausal.

The macro world is not as deterministic as you make it out. The macro world is based on the quantum world. Mostly, the macro world only APPEARS deterministic because events at the quantum level follow probability in large numbers of events. However, the quantum world can be linked to the macro. In fact, mutations do this very well. Mutations are acausal quantum events, but because of development, they manifest themselves at the macro level of the morphology of the individual organism. Fun, huh?

[QUOTE} "Determined" and "predetermined" are not equivalent, nor does one necessarily follow from the other.[/QUOTE]

Nice rhetoric. We are using scientific terms here. A DETERMINISTIC universe would have EVERY event predetermined by previous states of the universe. That is, know the initial conditions at the Big Bang, and then everything that would ever happen after that could be determined from those initial conditions. That is purely deterministic. A result of a purely deterministic universe is that events are predetermined by the previous conditions.

Double oops. If my post causes someone to do something, whence free will?

Nice try. The free will comes in that your post isn't guaranteed to cause the behavior in someone else. IOW, the behavior is not totally determined by pre-existent states. Your post CAN cause someone to CHOOSE a particular behavior. Still free will. However, if their behavior and your posting are both determined solely by previous states of the universe, there is no meaning. You are determined to write the post and the person is determined to respond. No meaning. You are simply a puppet of a deterministic universe.

 

[lucaspa]

has anyone ever heard of all the evidence against spontaneous generation?

Spontaneous generation, in case you didn't notice, was that MODERN ORGANISMS sprang directly from non-living matter. That is, flies, maggots, frogs, etc. were supposed to spontaneously generate from non-living matter. Notice that these are all multicellular. That was shown to be false.

But abiogenesis doesn't say that modern organisms come from non-life. Instead, it says that PRIMITIVE life comes from non-life. Different theory.

i have also noticed that abortion, murder, teen pregnacy, divorce, and other things have increased since the introduction of evolution in public schools.

Data? If you look thru the Bible, you find higher levels of all of these in ancient times without any idea of evolution.

lets say that there was a set of rules in a playground with a playground teacher named sally. now when ever a fight or something happens sally steps in and stops it. then one day sally isn't there. chaos happens. no rules are folowed who ever is biggest and strongest are in control. soon the kids tear down the rules. with no set of morals u are told u do what u think is right. i will stop ranting just something i thought had to be said. peace and God bless

This is supposed to mean that if God is removed, then morals are removed. But instead what you have shown is that crime increases when the police force is removed. Because that is what the teacher Sally is: the cops. The rules are independent of Sally, aren't they?

What you have just shown is that morals and ethics are INDEPENDENT of God. After all, is something good ONLY because God commands it or does God command it because it is good?

 

[Philosoft]

It's not a presumption, it's a conclusion. This seems to be a common mistake on these boards. Maybe everyone took the same debate class and this is a common debate tactic. Can't deal with the conclusion, then try to downgrade it by calling it an "assumption" or "presuming".

Per your argument, this is what I see:
1. The universe is fundamentally acausal.
2. Therefore, meaning.

Now, I know there's some stuff that goes in the middle, but I either I've forgotten it or I haven't yet seen it.

First, I said that a PURELY acausal world would also be without meaning. Meaning can only happen in a universe that is partly causal and partly acausal.

You might be right, but I still don't know why.

The macro world is not as deterministic as you make it out. The macro world is based on the quantum world. Mostly, the macro world only APPEARS deterministic because events at the quantum level follow probability in large numbers of events.

Well, yes. Thing is, because each macro event is made up of millions of quantum events, the probability that any macro event will manifest quantum behavior (i.e., all inclusive simultaneous quantum events are identical) might as well be zero.

However, the quantum world can be linked to the macro. In fact, mutations do this very well. Mutations are acausal quantum events, but because of development, they manifest themselves at the macro level of the morphology of the individual organism. Fun, huh?

Yeah, except there are proximal causes for at least some mutations. Try shooting some alpha particles at DNA, see what you get.

Nice rhetoric. We are using scientific terms here. A DETERMINISTIC universe would have EVERY event predetermined by previous states of the universe. That is, know the initial conditions at the Big Bang, and then everything that would ever happen after that could be determined from those initial conditions. That is purely deterministic. A result of a purely deterministic universe is that events are predetermined by the previous conditions.

I disagree. A determined event requires only a logical relationship with an event or events. A predetermined event necessarily has a temporal component. Consider two statements:

1. The sex of a zygote is determined by the sex-chromosomes present.
2. The sex of a zygote is predetermined by the sex-chromosomes present.

(1) implies that maleness logically follows given the presence of X-Y.
(2) implies that it was true at some point before fertilization that the sex-chromosomes would be X-Y.

Nice try. The free will comes in that your post isn't guaranteed to cause the behavior in someone else. IOW, the behavior is not totally determined by pre-existent states. Your post CAN cause someone to CHOOSE a particular behavior. Still free will.

No, it isn't, as long as you keep using the word "cause" to refer to what my post does. Causation: A --> B; right? The essence of free will is that decisions are ultimately free of external causes.

However, if their behavior and your posting are both determined solely by previous states of the universe, there is no meaning. You are determined to write the post and the person is determined to respond. No meaning. You are simply a puppet of a deterministic universe.

Suppose the universe is fully deterministic save for the initial uncaused state. Now, we have a determined, but not predetermined universe. What then?