the self replicating watch argument

[xianghua]

Yeah, so what?



So?

so we need to believe that many different structures exist near each other in a huge sequence space. what make you believe that its possible?

 

[Meowzltov]

but again: we can see that progression in cats too (from the small to the big one).

Organizing cats from small to big does not show a progression. Progression is active. There is no action is organization by size.

whale sonar is also evidence for design. since all sonars we know about are the product of design. so what make you believe that such a complex system can evolve by a natural process?:

What makes you think that I don't believe in Design? I believe God created, and everything that is today is here today because of God. I simply believe that did this a certain way, that he created natural laws as his tools, that evolution shows the process of his handiwork. There isn't one iota of conflict between evolution and design.

 

[Meowzltov]

but its shape is very different from other organs. as we also have many shapes of proteins:

I think she was referring to muscle cells.

 

[Kylie]

so we need to believe that many different structures exist near each other in a huge sequence space. what make you believe that its possible?

Well, for a start, the fact that you don't seem to have any idea what you're talking about.

Seriously, where did you get your education about evolution?

 

[doubtingmerle]

What makes you think that I don't believe in Design? I believe God created, and everything that is today is here today because of God. I simply believe that did this a certain way, that he created natural laws as his tools, that evolution shows the process of his handiwork. There isn't one iota of conflict between evolution and design.

That is what we have been trying to explain to Xianghua. He seems to be convinced he has only two choices, creation of kinds instantly out of thin air, or atheistic evolution. We are trying to explain that there are many options in the middle that people have landed on.

BTW, do you think he is impressed with the lion in your avatar?

 

[xianghua]

Well, for a start, the fact that you don't seem to have any idea what you're talking about.

Seriously, where did you get your education about evolution?

ad hominem. please refer to the claim. i will ask it in a different way: lets say that there are about billion possibilities for a single gene. and lets say that there are only about 2 functional sequences among them. what is the chance to move from one functional sequence to the second one?

 

[Speedwell]

ad hominem. please refer to the claim. i will ask it in a different way: lets say that there are about billion possibilities for a single gene. and lets say that there are only about 2 functional sequences among them. what is the chance to move from one functional sequence to the second one?

It looks like you don't know what an ad hominem argument is either.

 

[xianghua]

We have strong evidence against animals constantly popping into existence out of thin air--the law of conservation of matter and energy.

unless we talking about design again.

And besides, you have already agreed that animals popping into existence out of thin air is not more likely than God-driven evolution.

You just lost that argument.

again: its actually less likely since we have no evidence for this evolution.

Which is a big problem for creationism. Why is it when we line up the fossils that we find in the Cambrian next to those found in the Ordivician followed by those found in the Siluran, etc., it looks like evolution?

remember again the cat\car progression. but again it doesnt prove any evolution.

Wait, so all cats come from a common ancestor because that is a narrow definition, but "mammals" is a broad definition?

What about salamanders?

What about lizards?

What about birds?

What about finches?

What about frogs?

If all animals in a narrow classification share a common ancestor, how do I tell which groups are narrow enough to share a common ancestor? Must I call you to find out?

there are several ways to find out. one way is to check for unique traits and another way is to check if they can interbreed. so or so remember that the burdon of proof is on the evolutionists side since they need to prove that one creature can evolve into another one, something that we cant realy test scientifically. so creationists dont need to prove anything here.

No matter where you draw the line, it is always arbitrary

if it was true then the whole texonomy will be useless and you can call a fish a dog.

 

[Speedwell]

if it was true then the whole texonomy will be useless and you can call a fish a dog.

you can if you like, but nobody would understand you. Taxonomies are arbitrary
classification schemes applied by mutual agreement of those who construct them. That is their only usefulness. If you ignore that mutual agreement then you cut yourself off from communication with them.

 

[xianghua]

Organizing cats from small to big does not show a progression. Progression is active. There is no action is organization by size.

what do you mean by "active"? a progression is a progression. it can be measured in many ways. in this case i used size. do you refer to adding new traits?

What makes you think that I don't believe in Design? I believe God created, and everything that is today is here today because of God. I simply believe that did this a certain way, that he created natural laws as his tools, that evolution shows the process of his handiwork. There isn't one iota of conflict between evolution and design.

fair enough. but my main objection to evolution is the lack of a real evidence. so why should we believe in something without any evidence to support it? if we already discuss about progression what about all the examples of non progression? for instance: the first animal in the fossil record is no less complex then modern ones:

Demosponge EST Sequencing Reveals a Complex Genetic Toolkit of the Simplest Metazoans

"Sponges (Porifera) are among the simplest living and the earliest branching metazoans. We show that even the earliest metazoan species already have strikingly complex genomes in terms of gene content and functional repertoire and that the rich gene repertoire existed even before the emergence of true tissues, therefore further emphasizing the importance of gene loss and spatio-temporal changes in regulation of gene expression in shaping the metazoan genomes. Our findings further indicate that sponge and human genes generally show similarity levels higher than expected from their respective positions in metazoan phylogeny"

"Our findings also raise many questions about the roles of numerous genes/proteins in the life of such a simple animal"

this is also true for the first trees:

Oldest Trees Appear To Be The Most Complex That Ever Existed

"
The fossilized remains of a tree that lived 374 million years ago suggest that the earliest trees we know of might also have been the ones with the most complex internal structure in the history of our planet."

“There is no other tree that I know of in the history of the Earth that has ever done anything as complicated as this,"

"This raises a provoking question: why are the very oldest trees the most complicated?”


evolution didnt predict this at all and i can give you many more examples.

 

[gaara4158]

what do you mean by "active"? a progression is a progression. it can be measured in many ways. in this case i used size. do you refer to adding new traits?




fair enough. but my main objection to evolution is the lack of a real evidence. so why should we believe in something without any evidence to support it? if we already discuss about progression what about all the examples of non progression? for instance: the first animal in the fossil record is no less complex then modern ones:

Demosponge EST Sequencing Reveals a Complex Genetic Toolkit of the Simplest Metazoans

"Sponges (Porifera) are among the simplest living and the earliest branching metazoans. We show that even the earliest metazoan species already have strikingly complex genomes in terms of gene content and functional repertoire and that the rich gene repertoire existed even before the emergence of true tissues, therefore further emphasizing the importance of gene loss and spatio-temporal changes in regulation of gene expression in shaping the metazoan genomes. Our findings further indicate that sponge and human genes generally show similarity levels higher than expected from their respective positions in metazoan phylogeny"

"Our findings also raise many questions about the roles of numerous genes/proteins in the life of such a simple animal"

this is also true for the first trees:

Oldest Trees Appear To Be The Most Complex That Ever Existed

"
The fossilized remains of a tree that lived 374 million years ago suggest that the earliest trees we know of might also have been the ones with the most complex internal structure in the history of our planet."

“There is no other tree that I know of in the history of the Earth that has ever done anything as complicated as this,"

"This raises a provoking question: why are the very oldest trees the most complicated?”


evolution didnt predict this at all and i can give you many more examples.

There's no rule in evolution that says biological complexity must always increase over time. Simplicity precedes complexity, but complexity can increase or decrease over time depending on environmental pressures. These questions about the oldest trees being the most complicated are indeed thought-provoking, but they're only questions. They're not evidence against evolution or for intelligent design. They're just questions. Can you find an answer, or are you just giving up because it's too hard?

 

[pitabread]

but my main objection to evolution is the lack of a real evidence.

I would think your main objection is more couched in your lack of understanding of the theory of evolution than lack of evidence for it. If you don't understand what the ToE says or how it works, then you will never understand what constitutes evidence for it.

This is a common theme among creationists.

 

[Kylie]

ad hominem. please refer to the claim. i will ask it in a different way: lets say that there are about billion possibilities for a single gene. and lets say that there are only about 2 functional sequences among them. what is the chance to move from one functional sequence to the second one?

I fail to see what this has to do with what we were talking about. The genes for two different traits do not need to be next to each other in the genome. Their location on the genome is, as far as I am aware, unimportant. Why would you need to move genes from one location to the other?

 

[doubtingmerle]

unless we talking about design again.

Excuse me but I told you repeatedly that I am asking you about evolution by a designer vs creation out of nothing by a designer. If you can claim a miracle for instantaneous creation, why can't another claim a miracle for a few proteins?

again: its actually less likely

That is exactly what I had said you say, that creation out of nothing is more likely than God arranging a few proteins, but you denied that you say that. So I repeated your claim about God driving evolution being just as likely as instantaneous creation and now you deny that! Are you just going to switch from one view to another and then deny it when I echo it back?

After a year of arguing you have not presented one piece of evidence that instantaneous creation is more likely than God-driven evolution.

How do you know that it is more likely that thousands of genes to form the first cat all burst out of midair simultaneously, as opposed to a few genes forming to make the next step.

Could not a God create by any method he wants?

By the way, how did he create you? Did you pop into existence out of nothing or did you slowly change from a spec to an adult?

remember again the cat\car progression.

Excuse me I told you I was taking the fossils in the order of the dates. You are taking randem cats and arranging them in a made-up order by size. The order of the fossils down there--with nobody manipulating them--looks like evolution.

there are several ways to find out. one way is to check for unique traits and another way is to check if they can interbreed.

I got news for you lions and house cats do not interbreed , and yet you admit they came from a common ancestor.

if it was true then the whole texonomy will be useless and you can call a fish a dog.

it's true. As we have explained many times, there is a nested hierarchy all the way back.

And yes you can call a fish anything you want. You can call it a dog if you want, but most of us like it better if we give different things different names.

 

[Meowzltov]

what do you mean by "active"? a progression is a progression. it can be measured in many ways. in this case i used size. do you refer to adding new traits?

Sometimes things are active and sometime they are not. Active means you are moving from one state or place to another. "I am running down the street" is active. "I am getting more knowledgeable every day" is active. "I am warming up" is active. On the other hand, "This dog is small and that dog is big" is not active, it is comparative. "This house is at one end of the street and that house is at the other" is comparative. "Tom struggles to understand things, Sally is average, and Jim is very bright" is comparative.

fair enough. but my main objection to evolution is the lack of a real evidence. so why should we believe in something without any evidence to support it?

That would be a fair objection if it were true, but it is not.

if we already discuss about progression what about all the examples of non progression? for instance: the first animal in the fossil record is no less complex then modern ones:

Now THIS is a really excellent question and I'm glad you asked it!

The answer is that life doesn't always demand evolution/progression. Evolution happens *IF* adaptation is demanded by environmental changes.

So let's say that you have a very large lake in which fishes live. Over time, the geography changes where the water level drops. The first thing that happens is that the sea gets divided into two smaller lakes. Each continue to get smaller. One in particular gets so small that it becomes more of a marshland than a lake. Now what happens to the fish over this process, which takes ages? Once the two lakes have divided, we have the potential for evolution to develop species that are different in the two separate lakes. As one lake moves to becoming a marshland, those mutations which are accommodating towards marshland habitat will have a greater probability of surviving and therefore procreating and passing on their genes to the next generation, making the mutation more common. Thus over time, life becomes adapted to the change in environment. You will end up with lake fish in the lake, and marsh life in the marshlands. BUT there will be SOME life forms that will find a niche in both places. Because they find a niche in the marshlands, they have no need to evolve.

Niche is THE word to remember. Every life form has their niche. Every one celled bacteria, which is why even after 5 billion years we still have bacteria.

Think of a factory. There are all different jobs in the factory. Some have 500 positions to fill. Others, like the CEO, have just one. You have to find your niche. Then something happens, like they bring in an automated something or other. Some jobs are eliminated. Others, like people who service the automated whatsit, are created. Those whose jobs are eliminated must adapt or they are out of work. But there are others whose jobs are unaffected.

I suspect that cockroaches will ALWAYS be with us, they are so dang adaptable. Nothing kills those buggers.

 

[xianghua]

I fail to see what this has to do with what we were talking about. The genes for two different traits do not need to be next to each other in the genome. Their location on the genome is, as far as I am aware, unimportant. Why would you need to move genes from one location to the other?

i dont talk about position in the genome but about the sequence space. according to evolution a tipical gene suppose to evolved from other gene by mutations. so since the sequence space is huge (means the number of possible combinations per gene is huge (4^1000). what is the chance that every functional sequence will exist near other functional (and completely different) sequence?

 

[xianghua]

That is exactly what I had said you say, that creation out of nothing is more likely than God arranging a few proteins, but you denied that you say that. So I repeated your claim about God driving evolution being just as likely as instantaneous creation and now you deny that! Are you just going to switch from one view to another and then deny it when I echo it back?

incorrect. in this case its less likely because we dont have any evidence for stepwise creation. see the difference?

After a year of arguing you have not presented one piece of evidence that instantaneous creation is more likely than God-driven evolution.

again incorrect. since all evidence point out that creatures didnt evolved from other different creatures the best explanation is instantaneous creation.

Excuse me I told you I was taking the fossils in the order of the dates. You are taking randem cats and arranging them in a made-up order by size. The order of the fossils down there--with nobody manipulating them--looks like evolution.

not realy. as you can see in this image from wikimedia we can arrange some of them even by the date and get the same hierarchy (i deleted the rest of them). so i can say that they evolved from each other:

I got news for you lions and house cats do not interbreed , and yet you admit they came from a common ancestor.

have you heard about the rare pumapard? its an hybrid of two subfamilies:

Pumapard - Wikipedia

the fact that we never seen such a thing doesnt prove that its impossible.

 

[Kylie]

i dont talk about position in the genome but about the sequence space. according to evolution a tipical gene suppose to evolved from other gene by mutations. so since the sequence space is huge (means the number of possible combinations per gene is huge (4^1000). what is the chance that every functional sequence will exist near other functional (and completely different) sequence?

Tell me, in your own words, what do you mean by a "sequence space"?

 

[xianghua]

Sometimes things are active and sometime they are not. Active means you are moving from one state or place to another. "I am running down the street" is active. "I am getting more knowledgeable every day" is active. "I am warming up" is active. On the other hand, "This dog is small and that dog is big" is not active, it is comparative. "This house is at one end of the street and that house is at the other" is comparative. "Tom struggles to understand things, Sally is average, and Jim is very bright" is comparative.

and what is the connection to the fossils we discussed about?

That would be a fair objection if it were true, but it is not.

so far you gave the fossils and i showed why fossils cant prove evolution. here is again:

Now THIS is a really excellent question and I'm glad you asked it!

The answer is that life doesn't always demand evolution/progression. Evolution happens *IF* adaptation is demanded by environmental changes.

So let's say that you have a very large lake in which fishes live. Over time, the geography changes where the water level drops. The first thing that happens is that the sea gets divided into two smaller lakes. Each continue to get smaller. One in particular gets so small that it becomes more of a marshland than a lake. Now what happens to the fish over this process, which takes ages? Once the two lakes have divided, we have the potential for evolution to develop species that are different in the two separate lakes. As one lake moves to becoming a marshland, those mutations which are accommodating towards marshland habitat will have a greater probability of surviving and therefore procreating and passing on their genes to the next generation, making the mutation more common. Thus over time, life becomes adapted to the change in environment. You will end up with lake fish in the lake, and marsh life in the marshlands. BUT there will be SOME life forms that will find a niche in both places. Because they find a niche in the marshlands, they have no need to evolve.

Niche is THE word to remember. Every life form has their niche. Every one celled bacteria, which is why even after 5 billion years we still have bacteria.

Think of a factory. There are all different jobs in the factory. Some have 500 positions to fill. Others, like the CEO, have just one. You have to find your niche. Then something happens, like they bring in an automated something or other. Some jobs are eliminated. Others, like people who service the automated whatsit, are created. Those whose jobs are eliminated must adapt or they are out of work. But there are others whose jobs are unaffected.

I suspect that cockroaches will ALWAYS be with us, they are so dang adaptable. Nothing kills those buggers.

ok. and still, evolution require many small steps at the fossil level. for instance: the oldest myriapod already contain many legs similar to a modern one:

were are all the missing links between say 2 pairs of legs and 20-30? by the way english isnt my native so i may not undnerstand some words here and there...

(image from Introduction to the Myriapoda)

 

[xianghua]

Tell me, in your own words, what do you mean by a "sequence space"?

sequence space is the number of possible genetic combinations. a single nucleotide has about 4 possible combinations. so for 2 nt there are about 4^2 and for 3 there are about 4^3 and for 1000 there are about 4^1000 possible combinations. according to evolution a gene suppose to evolve into another gene. so we need to believe that there are so many functional combinations that we can move from one to another one in about few million years. the problem is that this space is so huge that even if the number of functional sequences is about more then the number of sand grains in the entire universe is still be very small compare to the whole sequence space. so what make you believe that there are indeed so many functional sequences?