the self replicating watch argument

[MaudDib]

Can't really argue against this assertion until you tell us what scale you think the theory works at. So, what scale do you assert it works at?

Lol, ardent evolutionists go all the way back to a common ancestor, so the scale is ALL of life.

 

[bhsmte]

LOL

 

[doubtingmerle]

Lol, ardent evolutionists go all the way back to a common ancestor, so the scale is ALL of life.

Ah you have no problem knowing how far we think evolution happened. We answer questions.

How about you? How can I tell where you draw the line of blood relatives?

Can you tell me any two groups that you think are clearly two different created kinds that evolution says are closely related?

 

[doubtingmerle]

so a watch that can do any of these thing (living traits) isnt a watch but a living thing. but it make no sense.

So you would rather stick with things that make sense to you like pregnant cars?

 

[pitabread]

as i said: its not a detailed explanation since they dont give any real calculation.

You didn't read it, did you?

 

[RealityCheck01]

You are quick off the mark.

What you wrote

To extrapolate from limited evolutionary change to a wholesale thesis of common ancestry is an extrapolation of just breath-taking proportions for which we really don't have any evidence.

That was a lie because that extrapolation to common ancestry is supported by evidence of common ancestry! Thus:
13 June 2018 MaudDib: A "we really don't have any evidence" lie for common descent/ancestry.

You changed the subject to macroevolution. We have a "there is no evidence for macroevolution at the scale the theory of evolution assumes to extrapolate to" assertion that needs to supported.
14 June 2018 MaudDib: Cite your sources for the "there is no evidence for macroevolution at the scale at the scale the theory of evolution assumes to extrapolate to".
What is the scale of macroevolution that the theory of evolution "assumes".
What is the measured scale of macroevolution?

 

[doubtingmerle]

You didn't read it, did you?

He saw it was longer than a tweet.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Read my post SLOWLY. there is no evidence for macroevolution at the scale the theory of evolution assumes to extrapolate to. period.!

I read it.

And then I read it slowly.

And then I read it slooooowly.

It is still wrong.

See 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent.

 

[RealityCheck01]

I read it.

And then I read it slowly.

And then I read it slooooowly.

It is still wrong.

See 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent.

You missed that he moved the goal posts. The original post was just about evidence for common descent. He changed that to a rather incoherent statement about a "scale" of macroevolution and ignorance about this this scale of macroevolution being "assumed" in the theory of evolution.

When NASA uses Newton's law of gravitation, they do not have an "assumed" mass from the theory to plug into it. They use the measured mass. Likewise there is no "assumed" scale of macroevolution in the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution started with Darwin's evidence that new species evolved through change + selection. That is evidence that macroevolution exists. Now we have enormous evidence that macroevolution exists.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I absolutely agree with the scientific case for horse evolution.

Speciation needn't be something that creationists deny. There's no reason to think that fixity of the species is true, that there can't be descent with modification between species. The doctrine of common ancestry involves an enormous extrapolation, from observed limited cases of evolutionary adaptation to the whole of life, and very often in science these kinds of extrapolations fail.

To extrapolate from limited evolutionary change to a wholesale thesis of common ancestry is an extrapolation of just breath-taking proportions for which we really don't have any evidence. Even if you could show, for example, that birds and reptiles are evolved from a common ancestor, do you realize all of that still takes place within the Chordata, that is to say within the vertebrates, which is just a tiny segment of the diversity of life. Even having evolutionary change of that sort is almost a triviality compared to saying that a bird and sponge evolved from a common ancestor, not to mention bacteria and the Archaea and other sorts of primitive life forms.

You might want to go back to the drawing board, Mauddib.

It appears you think life and possibly thunder needs an agent, but you haven't committed either way on thunder.

You say the agent needs to be external to the universe, but it is not clear how you ruled out panspermia.

You say this external agent must be the God of the old testament, but when I read the old testament, it looks more like the boasts of one tribe about their god, not a revelation of a universal God.

You say evolution only did some recent changes, but you can't tell us when evolution started or how far back animals are related.

But thanks for trying. Please think about some of the questions we asked.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Exactly, I've asked for evidence of flagellar intermediaries and got NONE!

Case closed.

Behe in the Dover trial concedes that Irreducibly Complex systems can evolve.

Lawyer -- "You say, Even if a system is irreducibly complex
and thus could not have been produced directly, however,
one cannot definitively rule out the possibility of an
indirect, circuitous route, right?
Behe -- "Yes."
Lawyer -- "And by indirect, you mean evolution from a
pre-cursor with a different function than the system
being studied?"
Behe -- "Yes, different function, perhaps different number
of parts, and so on."

 

[DogmaHunter]

ID doesn't come with an agenda as you claim, nowhere is the definition of Intelligent or Design in ID hinged on any particular doctrine.

LOL!

You might want to google the term "cdesign proponentsists".
You also might want to read the infamous "wedge document" from the dishonesty institute, oeps - sorry, the "discovery" institute.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Correct. A tree that is not growing and no longer responding to stimuli would likely be a dead tree. And dead is the opposite of alive.

But what if it is a robotic tree that just has a flat battery????

HA! CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS!!

 

[DogmaHunter]

ID postulates agency, something observable that exists on our planet, something that you refuse to postulate which detracts from your doing objective science.

All observable agents on this planet, are exactly the agents that cdesign proponentsists are claiming were designed.

So that statement makes no sense.
Whatever the agency is that ID is asserting without evidence (cough, god, cough), it does not exist on our planet nore is it observable. On our planet or elsewhere.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Do not confuse mythological gods with the biblical God. Adults don’t come to believe in Zeus when they get older, nor the tooth fairy, they come to believe in the biblical God.

Or Allah. Or Shiva, Visjnoe, etc.
Or in immortal Thetans being trapped in our bodies.

You seem completely oblivious to the world's extant religions.

None of the above should be a show stopper when it comes to postulating agency at all though?

Can you demonstrate this supposed agency in an objective way, or can you only assert it?

Information has not been demonstrably shown anywhere to come from the bottom up, only top down(the mind).

Except through processes like evolution, of course.

Consider that in the context of the origin of biological information.

I did. So did the entire scientific community. You know... those people that actually do science. They concluded by consensus that evolution explains biological "information" really well.

ps: asserting unsupportable "designers", does not explain anything.

You even have atheists moving away from Darwinism because of its contrivances. Take THOMAS Nagel and his book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.

What now?

Nothing. He's wrong, just like you.

 

[DogmaHunter]

You can’t just blithely assert its false, demonstrate it.

But you get to simply assert its right, without demonstrating it?

 

[DogmaHunter]

(just think about the Kalam cosmological argument)

Which is a cesspool of multiple logical fallacies.
The only points it scores, are logical fallacy combo points.

We also see God working in the lives of others.

No we don't. We see people doing things.

when adults come to believe in God and we see the transformation in their lives then that counts as observation too.

That counts as observation of human behaviour.

 

[MaudDib]

You might want to go back to the drawing board, Mauddib.

It appears you think life and possibly thunder needs an agent, but you haven't committed either way on thunder.

Hi Merle,

I am keen to help. Here are my responses.

Of course life needs an agent. the difference between you and I is that I can infer design and u refuse to, when in fact you do so everyday. You don't pick up a book and infer a blind, mindless, unguided process do you?

This 'Thunder' thing, pertaining of course to greek mythology and those created gods, is an impediment to your understanding the Christian God.

Let me try to explain it a little more simply.

You stand in front of a crowd, and ask, who came to believe in Zeus or Thor as an adult?
No hands go up. What about Santa Claus?
No hands go up.

OK, you say, who came to believe in the God of the bible as an adult?
Hundreds of hands go up.

Thats because, as a said earlier, the former have theogonies, i.e. they have a genesis of the gods, whereas the latter has a cosmogony, God created the universe.

You confuse the two for some reason, as if we have been researching Zeus or Santa Claus for centuries.

Get it now? You cannot lump God and these other human created gods indiscriminately into the same basket. It is not very clever and is apparent for all to see.

You say the agent needs to be external to the universe, but it is not clear how you ruled out panspermia.

Again, ill explain it a little more simply.

When we infer design, we do not directly infer God. you are jumping the gun.
If the ID inference is successful,step1, then you still have to complete step 2, prove that the intelligence inferred is the God of the bible.
At this point, you will people inferring panspermia, to thwart step 2!

You say this external agent must be the God of the old testament, but when I read the old testament, it looks more like the boasts of one tribe about their god, not a revelation of a universal God.

Try approach this from reading the new testament and exploring the compelling evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.
All ancient historian departments on university campus (secular and not), including those of Oxford and Cambridge, believe that the disciples believed they saw the risen Christ. The explosion of Christianity also echoes this and many other items of evidence.

The difference is that the secular ancient historians pen it down to the disciples having the same hallucination, or that Jesus didn't really die but only passed out, etc etc etc... But they at least acknowledge the strong evidence.

And once you have the new testament, you get the old testament for free because Jesus confirmed it.
You can read William Lane Craig's book called On Guard for evidence for and against the hypotheses and the actual event that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You say evolution only did some recent changes, but you can't tell us when evolution started or how far back animals are related.

But thanks for trying. Please think about some of the questions we asked.

I can't tell you exactly when evolution started, except ito the biblical account, which is the 7th day.

But what I can tell you is that, because we disregard chance as a mechanism that can explain the vast, vast level of biodiversity we see today, we look elsewhere for a satisfactory answer rather than settle with a weak 'evolution of the gaps' answer. And when we assumed to look elsewhere we were lead to design.

Remember, design inference hinges on two aspects:

1. First, the event must be exceedingly improbable (so much so that it exhausts the available probabilistic resources).

2. Second, it must conform to a meaningful or independently given pattern.

Does a forensic scientist commit an “arson-of-the-gaps” fallacy in inferring that a fire was started deliberately rather than by natural causes?

Please continue to seek, I'm happy to help.

Kind regards,

T

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

Of course life needs an agent.

Which came first, an Agent or Life?

the difference between you and I is that I can infer design and u refuse to, when in fact you do so everyday.

Nope, you're just making unsupported claims of a designer when there is literally no reason to do so.

You don't pick up a book and infer a blind, mindless, unguided process do you?

Nope! and that's because we have many, many examples of people writing books, and printing books, and reading books, etc. and No examples of them coming about naturally.

This 'Thunder' thing, pertaining of course to greek mythology and those created gods, is an impediment to your understanding the Christian God.

Not at all. Zeus is a Creator God, so is Odin, Shiva, Brahma, Ra, etc. and pretty much all of them were worshipped well before monotheism was even a thing, let alone your particular God was heard of.

Let me try to explain it a little more simply.

You stand in front of a crowd, and ask, who came to believe in Zeus or Thor as an adult?
No hands go up. What about Santa Claus?
No hands go up.

OK, you say, who came to believe in the God of the bible as an adult?
Hundreds of hands go up.

That's obviously done where you live, right? Have you tried that in India? how about most of the Middle East? Africa? Asia? Any number of these places would give you any number of other Gods beside your Christian God.

Also, do you accept that the truth of something isn't indicated by the amount of people who believe it? Are you aware that the vast majority of the world's population once believed the earth was flat?

Thats because, as a said earlier, the former have theogonies, i.e. they have a genesis of the gods, whereas the latter has a cosmogony, God created the universe.

You confuse the two for some reason, as if we have been researching Zeus or Santa Claus for centuries.

Get it now? You cannot lump God and these other human created gods indiscriminately into the same basket. It is not very clever and is apparent for all to see.

You bet I can - there is no more evidence for your God than there is for any other God ever worshipped. Do you accept Allah and his final Prophet Mohammed? Do you accept Shiva and Brahma and the Hindu Gods to be the balance in this Universe? How about Bhuddism and its peaceful teachings and ethereal plains of meditation? All of these religions are currently worshipped by many, many adults, some of whom claim to have divine and pesonal experiences, some of whom have near death experiences with their religious iconography, many who claim their lives are altered for the better in a way that wouldn't be humanly possible, etc. I think you need to get out more.

You literally don't have anything more than any of these other religions in practice today.

Again, ill explain it a little more simply.

When we infer design, we do not directly infer God. you are jumping the gun.
If the ID inference is successful,step1, then you still have to complete step 2, prove that the intelligence inferred is the God of the bible.
At this point, you will people inferring panspermia, to thwart step 2!

I still don't see how you've inferred design in the first place.

Try approach this from reading the new testament and exploring the compelling evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.

..."compelling evidence"? as far as we know, there isn't any evidence besides the exclusive claim of Christians, and that's not even evidence. it's still a Claim.

All ancient historian departments on university campus (secular and not), including those of Oxford and Cambridge, believe that the disciples believed they saw the risen Christ. The explosion of Christianity also echoes this and many other items of evidence.

The difference is that the secular ancient historians pen it down to the disciples having the same hallucination, or that Jesus didn't really die but only passed out, etc etc etc... But they at least acknowledge the strong evidence.

Have you looked into the equally similar explosion of Islam, and the many other items of 'evidence' they claim too?

I'm sure Christian theologians 'believe that the disciples believed they saw the risen Christ' but if your claim that non-Christians thought this was 'evidence' for your religion, then why aren't they Christians? Also, there's plenty of notable scholars who hold a mythicist position on Jesus too. not sure how you feel about that? Then, there's any number of other religions all having their own scriptural confirmations for their religious beliefs, are they evidence for their religions? the Hindus come to mind, and I've given examples of their recorded miracles and divine interventions here before... they're very convincing if you think Christian miracles and divine interventions are convincing...

And once you have the new testament, you get the old testament for free because Jesus confirmed it.
You can read William Lane Craig's book called On Guard for evidence for and against the hypotheses and the actual event that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You know most of the Jews didn't see Jesus as their savior, right? apparently they think he didn't fit any of the prophetic conditions.

I can't tell you exactly when evolution started, except ito the biblical account, which is the 7th day.

But what I can tell you is that, because we disregard chance as a mechanism that can explain the vast, vast level of biodiversity we see today, we look elsewhere for a satisfactory answer rather than settle with a weak 'evolution of the gaps' answer.

How is it weak? Whenever we measure the genetic difference between species, their differences fall into an expected prediction for their diversity - that is, they have the expected amount of deviations in their genetic makeup that we would expect them to have if they were part of a branching divergent tree of life with every other life form on the planet. Can you explain how the natural rate of mutation that we know occurs coupled with natural selection that weeds out bad/non-functioning organism designs that we see in operation, couldn't create the biodiversity we see?

And when we assumed to look elsewhere we were lead to design.

No we're not, if we had to look elsewhere (and we don't), then we would be led to "I don't know" pending more evidence.

Remember, design inference hinges on two aspects:

1. First, the event must be exceedingly improbable (so much so that it exhausts the available probabilistic resources).

How have you decided the above processes we've observed repeatedly are 'exceedingly improbable' when we can see these processes in operation both in the lab and in the field?

2. Second, it must conform to a meaningful or independently given pattern.

...do you mean 'predictive'?

Does a forensic scientist commit an “arson-of-the-gaps” fallacy in inferring that a fire was started deliberately rather than by natural causes?

Nope, because a forensic scientist would have Evidence that draws them to an inescapable conclusion. Do you have any evidence of a designer besides us designing anything in life forms?

 

[doubtingmerle]

MaudDib,

I am still waiting for your answer as to whether an agent is required to explain thunder. You say an agent is required to explain the diversity of life, but when I ask if you think an agent is required to explain thunder, you evade the question. Can you make an attempt to answer, please?

Of course life needs an agent. the difference between you and I is that I can infer design and u refuse to, when in fact you do so everyday. You don't pick up a book and infer a blind, mindless, unguided process do you?

I am curious why you turn to an attack on my thinking process rather than address the issue.

For the record, my thinking process is not one that refuses to infer design. I am a former creationist. I used to argue for creationism on the Internet. I have personally given hundreds of dollars to creationist organizations. I came to evolution kicking and screaming, first admitting there may be some microevolution, then admitting some macroevolution, then standing firm on origin of life, then backing down to at least the first proteins needing to be created, and then finally, what the heck, I can't keep backing down all my life, it was time for me to take a break from the debate and regroup. I tell the story at Did We Evolve? .

So no, I did not arrive at my position by refusing to consider the possiblity of design. When you demand that this is true about me, against all facts, it weakens your case.

This 'Thunder' thing, pertaining of course to greek mythology and those created gods, is an impediment to your understanding the Christian God.

Let me try to explain it a little more simply.

You stand in front of a crowd, and ask, who came to believe in Zeus or Thor as an adult?
No hands go up. What about Santa Claus?
No hands go up.

OK, you say, who came to believe in the God of the bible as an adult?
Hundreds of hands go up.

Thats because, as a said earlier, the former have theogonies, i.e. they have a genesis of the gods, whereas the latter has a cosmogony, God created the universe.

You confuse the two for some reason, as if we have been researching Zeus or Santa Claus for centuries.

Which is one lengthy evasion of a simple question. Do you think thunder requires an agent?

Get it now? You cannot lump God and these other human created gods indiscriminately into the same basket. It is not very clever and is apparent for all to see.

BINGO!

And that is exactly what ID tries to do. It tries to combine gods and aliens and anything else as intelligence, when we know they really don't mean it. They are talking about the Old Testament God.

If you use confusing language as though you are talking about one of many possible intelligences, don't be surprised if people respond as though you are talking about one of many possible intelligences.

Again, ill explain it a little more simply.

When we infer design, we do not directly infer God. you are jumping the gun.
If the ID inference is successful,step1, then you still have to complete step 2, prove that the intelligence inferred is the God of the bible.
At this point, you will people inferring panspermia, to thwart step 2!

In other words, the way I characterize your views is exactly correct. You first try to infer an intelligent designer, then explain it was God. That is exactly what I said you said. So why do you act like you disagree with what I said about your position?

Try approach this from reading the new testament and exploring the compelling evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.

Uh, that was a quick switch. I was talking about the God of the Old Testament.

Regarding the resurrection, I discuss my views elsewhere: Are There Credible Witnesses to the Resurrection, Part II

And once you have the new testament, you get the old testament for free because Jesus confirmed it.

BINGO!

So after that short diversion into the New Testament, we are back at the Old Testament. You can't get away from it that easy.

Again, when I read the Old Testament, it looks like the locker room boast, "My dad can beat up your Dad". It looks like one tribe claiming their god can beat up other tribal gods. It does not look like a discussion of a universal God.

I can't tell you exactly when evolution started, except ito the biblical account, which is the 7th day.

I wasn't asking for an exact date. I was asking for an order of magnitude for when you thought evolution started. And I gave you four choices and asked you which is the closest to when you thought evolution started:

a) 6000 years ago
b) 600,000 years ago
c) 60 million years ago
d) 4.5 billion years ago.

I note that you refuse to answer this question.

If you cannot even address such basic questions, it seems like you need to put some more thought into this.

But what I can tell you is that, because we disregard chance as a mechanism that can explain the vast, vast level of biodiversity we see today, we look elsewhere for a satisfactory answer rather than settle with a weak 'evolution of the gaps' answer.

Remember, we think evolution started some 4 billion years ago so there was plenty of time for evolution to happen.

Life began simple, probably as single cells, with some cells finding an advantage to grouping together, and eventually folding over into a cup shape and then later stretching that cup out into a tube with a second opening appearing at the other end. It became an advantage to force water to flow through the tube. Some forced water out the second hole that formed, making that end their anus, and they are known as protosomes. Others decided that "anus" would make a better mouth, and they forced water the other way, and became the deuterosomes. And as you can see from the chart you posted, protosomes and deuterosomes led to huge families of animals that are very different. But at the start they were not that different. They were simple tubes of cells deciding which end to use as a mouth. But the difference magnified over hundreds of millions of years, became huge.