the self replicating watch argument

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DogmaHunter

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sure. but this isnt what you said here: "Before the change, they could not digest citrate"
None of the 12 populations in the experiment could.
So that is indeed a correct statement.

The one (not the other 11!!) population that could, could only do so from generation 31.000-ish onward. And the mutations that made it possible, have been identified.

You can keep arguing about this, but it won't change the facts.

For 31.000 generations, none of the 12 populations could do it.
And then 1 of them could.


Yes.

i talking about all creatures created at once wihtout any common descent. according to your criteria even if its true evolution is still true. you dont see any problem with that situation?

Evolution is a process that factually happens. It's actually observable.
It doesn't matter how life got started. Once life exists, it evolves.

It's an inevitable process when you have systems that reproduce with modification and are in competition with one another over limited resources....
 
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DogmaHunter

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if so even if all creature were not evolved from a common descent (means human and chimp share no common descent) evolution is true.

Correct.

Off course, it is a genetic fact that humans and chimps share ancestors though...
 
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xianghua

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@xianghua , let me ask you a question.

If I was to blindfold you, and then take your hand and put it in a sunbeam on a warm day, would you be able to feel it?
sure. i already said that you can call it a light detector. but again you will need at least 2 parts: one for light detection and one part that can use it and translate it for the creature. you cant just put a light detector in a creature and it will use it.
 
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DogmaHunter

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sure. i already said that you can call it a light detector. but again you will need at least 2 parts: one for light detection and one part that can use it and translate it for the creature. you cant just put a light detector in a creature and it will use it.

You're blindfolded. Blind, if you wish. As in: no eyes. Not even primitive light detectors. The concept of "light" is, as far as blind people are concerned, non-existant.

That means that you don't see "the light". What you have here is simply being able to tell warm from cold.
 
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MyGivenNameIsKeith

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There are countless refutations of the Watchmaker argument but I like this one in particular:

c84b760b45a994aef554353940603a49.jpg


A beautiful snowflake. People have looked at this and marvelled at its symmetry. How can a water molecule in one arm know what is happening at the other side of the snowflake? What kind of long range information exchange is coordinating the freezing molecules to create such order? Again, it MUST have outside help, all part of a plan.

Our ignorance about complex natural processes led us to the conclusion that they must have been designed. But now we know that simply isn't true. The people in the past who though it was designed can be given a pass, but those people today who still think that, when the information is so readily available, cannot be excused for such blatant wilful ignorance.

We KNOW full well how amazing complexity and order can arise from simple local interactions (and no, sigh, the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not forbid it). It is not a mystery any more, it is a well-known fact. Paley didn't know that, but now we do.
Every snowflake is different. So the symmetry isn't always "symmetrical", though it forms based upon a symmetrical pattern. Sort of like a human body. We in much the same way have symmetry to us, proportions, (see Leonardo da Vinci), but each of us in unique, as in there is only one of you throughout all of time, past, present, and future. For science buffs, science can vouch for that. Some have same height as another, but different length arms, etc.. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. Here, every snowflake has different fingerprints, different length arms, etc. Shown by the picture if you look closely. Whether or not a watch replicates itself is irrelevant. One would still need to create the watch initially. The same with self-replicating bacteria or any other self-replicating organism or object. The egg never comes first. It was always the chicken. Otherwise, the egg never would have hatched. No chicken would have laid the egg. Thus, as the Bible states, God created the animals and people. All in all, it is designed, that is clear. The creator designed it and then created it. Thus a self-replicating watch, though irrelevant as to its existence, would have been made first before ever beginning the replicating process.
 
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Skreeper

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Thus, as the Bible states, God created the animals and people. All in all, it is designed, that is clear. The creator designed it and then created it.

This is something that you have to demonstrate in order to claim that it is true.
 
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DogmaHunter

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Every snowflake is different. So the symmetry isn't always "symmetrical", though it forms based upon a symmetrical pattern. Sort of like a human body. We in much the same way have symmetry to us, proportions, (see Leonardo da Vinci), but each of us in unique, as in there is only one of you throughout all of time, past, present, and future. For science buffs, science can vouch for that. Some have same height as another, but different length arms, etc.. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. Here, every snowflake has different fingerprints, different length arms, etc. Shown by the picture if you look closely.

Sure. Things are unique. How that actually addresses the points raised by @Skreeper isn't clear to me at all, though.


Whether or not a watch replicates itself is irrelevant.

If "self-replicating watches" are given as "evidence" against evolution, then it seems immensly relevant to point out that watches don't self-replicate though....


One would still need to create the watch initially. The same with self-replicating bacteria or any other self-replicating organism or object.

Nope. See, this is why it is important to point out the actual differences between mechanical non-living watches and biological living organisms...

They are not the same thing and aren't analogous in any way....

The egg never comes first. It was always the chicken.

No, actually.... eggs came before the chicken. As chickens are descendends of egg-laying ancestors (that weren't chickens).

As for the question "which came first: eggs or whatever organisms that hatches out of it?". Then the answer is: none. Eggs evolved and so did the creature that come out of them. Paralell to eachother.

Thus, as the Bible states, God created the animals and people.

People are animals. And animals evolved.


All in all, it is designed, that is clear. The creator designed it and then created it.

It's perhaps clearly stated in your religious book. But the actual facts of reality, tell a very different story.

Thus a self-replicating watch, though irrelevant as to its existence, would have been made first before ever beginning the replicating process.

A thing that self-replicates, would not be called a watch - because a watch is a manfucatured device that tells time and self-replication isn't one of its features.
 
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PsychoSarah

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Every snowflake is different.
Funny thing about that: it's not correct, repeats of snowflake shapes have been seen. There's just so much variation in snowflakes, and they are so small, that it's unlikely for random individuals to take notice. That is, from the scope of a light microscope. There might be a few water molecules of difference or something, but you get the gist.

Whether or not a watch replicates itself is irrelevant. One would still need to create the watch initially. The same with self-replicating bacteria or any other self-replicating organism or object. The egg never comes first. It was always the chicken. Otherwise, the egg never would have hatched.
Except snowflakes, regardless of being unique or not, form simply through chemical processes. Also, the chicken-egg thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense in a context of the first life being single celled.

No chicken would have laid the egg. Thus, as the Bible states, God created the animals and people. All in all, it is designed, that is clear. The creator designed it and then created it.
Created spiders with the defect of dying from inadequately shedding their exoskeleton and thus being strangled horribly over hours and hours? Life has so many problems that I don't think any competent creator would want to have their name associated with it.

Thus a self-replicating watch, though irrelevant as to its existence, would have been made first before ever beginning the replicating process.
-_- except abiogenesis experiments have demonstrated that simple cells do form under conditions that mimic those of the ancient Earth back in 2013.
 
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Open Heart

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I have thought for a long time that natural selection and genetic drift, although they play a part, are simply not sufficient to explain evolution. IOW, although evolution is fact, the theory of evolution (the explanation of what drives evolution) needs a lot of work.
 
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Kylie

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sure. i already said that you can call it a light detector. but again you will need at least 2 parts: one for light detection and one part that can use it and translate it for the creature. you cant just put a light detector in a creature and it will use it.

Completely irrelevant to what we are discussing. Evolution deals with modifications of what is already there. By your own admission here, any creature that has skin has a rudimentary eye.
 
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Kylie

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You're blindfolded. Blind, if you wish. As in: no eyes. Not even primitive light detectors. The concept of "light" is, as far as blind people are concerned, non-existant.

That means that you don't see "the light". What you have here is simply being able to tell warm from cold.

Technically, it's detecting infra-red radiation, which is a form of light. It's rudimentary, but it's there.
 
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Kylie

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I have thought for a long time that natural selection and genetic drift, although they play a part, are simply not sufficient to explain evolution. IOW, although evolution is fact, the theory of evolution (the explanation of what drives evolution) needs a lot of work.

What evidence have you based this conclusion on?
 
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