the self replicating watch argument

[dad]

Proteins aren’t genes



We know that otherwise creationists wouldn’t dare to say anything about baramins

Baramins smarimins.

 

[pitabread]

think the reason many creation believers have attributed so much to the flood, is because that is the only thing they can think of that seems to explain it in some way, they think.

I do not think the flood was when the big continental movement, uplift, mountain building, volcanic activity, etc happened. I suspect it was 106 years after the flood.

Given how contradictory different creationist views of this supposed "flood" are, perhaps you guys should talk amongst yourselves first and figure all this out.

False. It can't be tested.

Within the context of scientific inquiry it most certainly can. But since you've thrown that out in favor of a non-objective view of the past where one can't know anything, then it's irrelevant.

There's no point in making any claims about anything scientific (one way or the other) since you've already decided the universe is not objective. All you have is an untestable, unfalsifiable philosophical position about the nature of reality.

You're welcome to it, but you're on your own with that.

 

[hecd2]

I do not think the flood was when the big continental movement, uplift, mountain building, volcanic activity, etc happened.

Really? Why do you think that? What is your rationale for that belief?

I suspect it was 106 years after the flood.

106 years? Not 105 or 107? And your reason for that belief is...?

 

[dad]

Given how contradictory different creationist views of this supposed "flood" are, perhaps you guys should talk amongst yourselves first and figure all this out.

Science hasn't figured it out. They do not even so much know there was one. There is noting to figure out, we believe or not. The confusion in creationist positions stems from trying to align with confused science!

Within the context of scientific inquiry it most certainly can. But since you've thrown that out in favor of a non-objective view of the past where one can't know anything, then it's irrelevant.

I suppose those who believe in Santa can test their beliefs within the context of Santa believing. The problem for you is that neither God nor creation fall under the context of present state, physical only science!

There's no point in making any claims about anything scientific (one way or the other) since you've already decided the universe is not objective.

There is no point pretending you COULD make any claims using science that could be supported about origins and creation. All you have is an untestable, unfalsifiable philosophical position about the nature of reality that has been wrongly called science. You cannot falsify your same state past. We cannot test it.

 

[dad]

Really? Why do you think that? What is your rationale for that belief? 106 years? Not 105 or 107? And your reason for that belief is...?

My reason for deducing that the change in nature according to the bible was post flood was that that is when we see the big changes. In the days of Peleg. He was born they say 101 years after the flood. I have heard from a secular source that He was 5 years old when Babel happened. That happens to be when I suspect the nature change also happened.

In fact one of the traits of the nature change seems to be that the spiritual world was somewhat more separated from our physical world at the same time! Notice the folks at Babel actually believed so much that a real spiritual level was just above the clouds, that they built a huge structure trying to get up there! Today we have no such spiritual level there.

Angels also married women pre flood, and dwelled with man and had babies. Today we do not see that.

 

[pitabread]

There is no point pretending you COULD make any claims using science that could be supported about origins and creation. All you have is an untestable, unfalsifiable philosophical position about the nature of reality that has been wrongly called science. You cannot falsify your same state past. We cannot test it.

Yes. I get it, you've thrown out believe in an objective universe as a basis for scientific knowledge. You don't need to keep repeating yourself.

So what is your epistemological basis then? How do you test ideas?

 

[dad]

Yes. I get it, you've thrown out believe in an objective universe as a basis for scientific knowledge.

objective

(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

‘historians try to be objective and impartial’

1. 1.1 Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual.
   ‘a matter of objective fact’

Cosmology is influenced by opinions. Origin science are also. Heavily influenced. One cannot say science is objective on any origin issue. So there is nothing to throw out that is objective. The basis for scientific claims is NOT knowledge. The things that are known in science have zero to do with origin issues.

 

[pitabread]

The basis for scientific claims is NOT knowledge. The things that are known in science have zero to do with origin issues.

Like I said, what is your epistemological basis then? How do you test ideas?

 

[doubtingmerle]

So, that leaves just the flood that left remains at the KT. If iridium came with the water (space and under the earth) then we would see a layer of it. We do. So I am not sure what geological remains you are talking about.

False. It can't be tested.

And did Noah take a pair of self-replicating watches on the ark also?

At this point this thread about self-replicating watches has become so monstrous that throwing in a new discussion of the flood hardly seems wise. So I will be brief: We know what flood deposits look like. Heavy debris falls out first, then larger grains of dirt, and then progressively smaller grains producing a distinct layering. We find no sign of a global layering like that, certainly not at the KT boundary.

There are a host of problems with the concept of a global flood. See Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition . If you wish to discuss, perhaps we could start another thread.

 

[xianghua]

Uh, there is a huge convergence problem. The surrey has a roof, 4 wheels, steering linkage, etc. And you have that design developing twice, once from motorcycles to cars, and once from bikes to surreys. That is a lot of convergence.

And your order is not unique. Someone else could easily switch your mopeds/motorcycles with surreys. Now vehicles split first on number of wheels, and then both paths independently split with a convergence on engines. So which split is first? The number of wheels or the presence of an engine? This one fact ruins the coherence of your tree.

You may argue that the same thing happens with animals, that if you look at bats, dogs, birds, and snakes, for instance, one needs to decide which split is first: a) mammals first split with reptiles, followed by another convergent split where some got wings in both clades or b) wings split from unwinged, followed by another split where some winged and some unwinged animals both converged on mammalness. But in this case the order is clear. Mammals and reptiles are so strongly different, it is obvious this is a more fundamental difference. Wings obviously came later, with bats and birds developing totally different wing structures, which is exactly what one might expect if two different animals converged on flight. Not so with bikes and surreys where multiple features would favor number of wheels as more fundamental, and multiple features favor the motor as the more fundamental split.

The problem gets much worse when you start trying to classify all the different kinds of cars and trucks out there. Lets list some of the ways where these vehicles differ:

1) Car or truck.
2) Ford or Chevy.
3) 2 Door or 4 Door.
4) Air conditioned or not
5) 4 wheel drive or 2 wheel drive.

Now we find all 32 combinations are possible. So suppose you have one vehicle of each possible combination. 32 vehicles. How would you form a tree for these?

You could start by putting cars and trucks in two different branches, and then next divide each branch into Fords and Chevys. But you have a convergence problem--Fords had to change into Chevys two different times, once in cars and once in trucks. Your next branch might be on the drive train. Now you have convergence occurring four times, with each of the four groups above converging on the design of 4 wheel drive. Your next branch might be on number of doors. Now you need to account for 8 convergencies, with two doors converging 8 times to four doors. Finally each branch splits in two based on AC. Now you have AC developing in 16 different convergencies. Add in anti-lock brakes, number of cylinders, type of fuel, grade of steel, etc., and the number of convergencies you need to deal with skyrockets.

Is your classification order correct? I might want to group first on car vs truck, then on drive train, then on number of doors, then on make, then on AC. I end up with a totally different tree, with equal validity in classifying those 32 vehicles. So we are not seeing a unique consistent nested hierarchy.

Not so with animals. Take categories like:

1) chordata or not
2) backbone or not
3) hair or not
4) mammary glands or not
5) rodent incisors or not

And suddenly you find that nature does not mix and match like human designers did. Animals without a backbone don't have the option of hair or mammary glands. Those things were only available to some vertebrates. Yes there are convergencies, but they are far less frequent then with human designs. This has been verified statistically.

I conclude that life yields a unique, consistent tree, because things evolved. Vehicles do not, because they did not evolve.

wait a minute. we already seen that we can arrange some vehicles in order so now we come back to creatures again? i already asked: do you think that in general a bicycle is more similar to another bicylce than to a car, and in general do you also think that a car is more similar to another car than to a truck? if so it means that we can find such a tree in vehicles too, and therefore the claim that a tree prove evolution is wrong. now, if disagree with a specific point in this comment say what and we will focus on that point.

 

[xianghua]

Exactly. This is the fundamental point that creationists gloss over when arguing for "design". A designer could mix 'n match and humans in fact do just with lifeforms that via genetic engineering. Yet the supposed designer is still apparently constrained by evolution.

read this again:

The universal ancestor

"No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves."

 

[hecd2]

My reason for deducing that the change in nature according to the bible was post flood was that that is when we see the big changes. In the days of Peleg. He was born they say 101 years after the flood. I have heard from a secular source that He was 5 years old when Babel happened. That happens to be when I suspect the nature change also happened.

In fact one of the traits of the nature change seems to be that the spiritual world was somewhat more separated from our physical world at the same time! Notice the folks at Babel actually believed so much that a real spiritual level was just above the clouds, that they built a huge structure trying to get up there! Today we have no such spiritual level there.

Angels also married women pre flood, and dwelled with man and had babies. Today we do not see that.

Got it. You base your beliefs about the timing for your hypothesised "change of nature" on the unverifiable legends and myths of a bronze-age nomadic tribe combined with what some unidentified "they" say and the assertions of an unidentified "secular source". Plus your idiosyncratic and unsupported beliefs about angels and women having babies. And you have the gall to criticise scientists for using self-consistent observations to infer facts about the universe. In other words you deliberately subscribe to a solipsistic epistemology to try to protect the "history" your imagination has created.

 

[pitabread]

read this again:

The universal ancestor

"No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves."

You might want to read it again yourself, since this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Which for the record is the creation of blatant chimeric organisms; such as these glow-in-the-dark rabbits.

Show me a world filled with blatant chimeric organisms and we can talk about a designer.

 

[pitabread]

since in general a bicylce is more similar to other bicylce than we do have here statistically significant.

Determining statistical significance involves mathematical calculations. You'd don't merely assert it.

Read this: Statistical hypothesis testing - Wikipedia

actually even evolutionists admit it:

The universal ancestor

"No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves."

so its not so clear as you think.

First, you keep flip flopping arguments here. One minute you're arguing in favor of statistically significant phylogenies and claiming that artificial objects can produce them similar to what we see with phylogenies of living things. Then you turn around and appear to be arguing that opposite. I suggest taking some time to figure out what you are trying to argue for here, because all this flip-flopping is getting confusing.

Second, the paper you linked is not in contradiction of that prior Talk.Origins paper you quoted. So I'm not sure why you're linking it. The paper in question specifically deals with the very early formation of life, lateral gene transfer, and fact that tracing a "singular" universal ancestor for all of life isn't strictly possible. Lateral gene transfers are a known thing and there are known limitations of reconstructing phylogenies for these reasons (among others). This doesn't explicitly invalidate convergence of phylogenies, however, particularly as life become more complex and multicellular organisms evolved.

I suggest going back and re-reading that paper, or heck even just the abstract as it makes it abundantly clear what that paper is about.

 

[pitabread]

in general do you also think that a car is more similar to another car than to a truck? if so it means that we can find such a tree in vehicles too, and therefore the claim that a tree prove evolution is wrong.

Based on my testing, I found this claim not to be true as it entirely depends on which cars and which trucks you are comparing. There is a lot of overlap between different characteristics of trucks and cars.

Unless you are going to proved otherwise, repeating a claim that has already been demonstrated not to be true is just dishonest.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

No man has seen God and lived. No observers as to what He is like. So we cannot draw conclusions about Him being just another watch.

He not only created the heavens and life and earth, but time itself. A watch keeps time, not creates it. It is a false comparison to call Him a watch.

But, this is not just any watch. This is an omniscient and omnipotent watch that created the universe. Though, Xinghua also wants to add the eternal designer spatula.

You describe God as being 'No man has seen God and lived'. How do you know that there isn't an omniscient and omnipotent watch? It could be that no-one has seen it, let alone worn it on his/her wrist, and lived to tell us about it.

 

[doubtingmerle]

i already asked: do you think that in general a bicycle is more similar to another bicylce than to a car, and in general do you also think that a car is more similar to another car than to a truck? if so it means that we can find such a tree in vehicles too, and therefore the claim that a tree prove evolution is wrong. now, if disagree with a specific point in this comment say what and we will focus on that point.

As I explained to you many times, dividing things into four groups is not the same things as building a unique, consistent, well-defined nested hierarchy. With animals we have a unique, consistent, well-defined nested hierarchy. For some reason you think that dividing things into four groups is just as impressive. It is not.

First, your four groups, bicycles, cars, trucks and planes, ignores all the vehicles that are hard to fit. You would never accept it if we intentionally left dolphins out to make our point stronger. Why do you let things out? Let's list some of the intermediates you left out.

Between bicycles and cars: Mopeds, motorcycles, surreys, ATVs, golf carts.

Between bicycles and trucks: Rickshaws, oxcarts.

Between bicycles and planes: hang gliders, human powered flying machines.

Between cars and trucks: station wagons, minivans, passenger vans, cargo vans, SUVS

Between cars and airplanes: Hovercraft, Flying cars (see Missionary builds flying car, FAA certifies it )

Between trucks and airplanes: Cargo helicopters

So try to build an evolutionary tree that accounts for all these. You cannot. You could not even do a unique, well defined tree for bicycles, mopeds, surreys, and cars.

Second, even if you could fit this all into four well-defined groups, you must continue to subdivide and subdivide groups until you reach the "species" level. Each branch in your tree must lead to a unique consistent tree, and each branch of those trees must lead to a unique consistent tree, and so on.

======

Sir, you have just ignored all that I said in the last post about intermediates between the groups.

And you just ignored everything that I told you about subdividing cars and trucks for all features without a ridiculous number of convergences.

And you just ignored all the excellent analysis that Pitabread did, which showed conclusively that the trees built for vehicles vary all over the place based on parameters selected, and show statistically to be nothing more than chance arrangements.

We have provided links multiple times on this. You just ignore it. I linked to a thread with detailed discussion. (Nested Hierarchy: Evidence for Evolution ) You just ignore it. We have shown you references to more literature at the link we published. You just ignore it. When we have shown you this over and over, and you just ignore, and then come back pretending like you are innocently asking for information to people who have no answers, that is pathetic.

I repeat, that is pathetic.

 

[bhsmte]

As I explained to you many times, dividing things into four groups is not the same things as building a unique, consistent, well-defined nested hierarchy. With animals we have a unique, consistent, well-defined nested hierarchy. For some reason you think that dividing things into four groups is just as impressive. It is not.

First, your four groups, bicycles, cars, trucks and planes, ignores all the vehicles that are hard to fit. You would never accept it if we intentionally left dolphins out to make our point stronger. Why do you let things out? Let's list some of the intermediates you left out.

Between bicycles and cars: Mopeds, motorcycles, surreys, ATVs, golf carts.

Between bicycles and trucks: Rickshaws, oxcarts.

Between bicycles and planes: hang gliders, human powered flying machines.

Between cars and trucks: station wagons, minivans, passenger vans, cargo vans, SUVS

Between cars and airplanes: Hovercraft, Flying cars (see Missionary builds flying car, FAA certifies it )

Between trucks and airplanes: Cargo helicopters

So try to build an evolutionary tree that accounts for all these. You cannot. You could not even do a unique, well defined tree for bicycles, mopeds, surreys, and cars.

Second, even if you could fit this all into four well-defined groups, you must continue to subdivide and subdivide groups until you reach the "species" level. Each branch in your tree must lead to a unique consistent tree, and each branch of those trees must lead to a unique consistent tree, and so on.

======

Sir, you have just ignored all that I said in the last post about intermediates between the groups.

And you just ignored everything that I told you about subdividing cars and trucks for all features without a ridiculous number of convergences.

And you just ignored all the excellent analysis that Pitabread did, which showed conclusively that the trees built for vehicles vary all over the place based on parameters selected, and show statistically to be nothing more than chance arrangements.

We have provided links multiple times on this. You just ignore it. I linked to a thread with detailed discussion. (Nested Hierarchy: Evidence for Evolution ) You just ignore it. We have shown you references to more literature at the link we published. You just ignore it. When we have shown you this over and over, and you just ignore, and then come back pretending like you are innocently asking for information to people who have no answers, that is pathetic.

I repeat, that is pathetic.

Explaining things to him, is a total waste of time.

 

[dad]

Like I said, what is your epistemological basis then? How do you test ideas?

I asked the same thing, how do you test what the nature and laws on earth used to be like now? How do you test what time is like in the unknown far universe?

Science can't do it. So, there remains two options. Take God's word for it, or remain ignorant. Science is in a box it can't get out of.

 

[dad]

And did Noah take a pair of self-replicating watches on the ark also?

Yes. God's creations are commanded and designed to reproduce. His machines are far above man's machines.

At this point this thread about self-replicating watches has become so monstrous that throwing in a new discussion of the flood hardly seems wise. So I will be brief: We know what flood deposits look like. Heavy debris falls out first, then larger grains of dirt, and then progressively smaller grains producing a distinct layering. We find no sign of a global layering like that, certainly not at the KT boundary.

That is not what the Noah flood should do. The water tap was turned on from above, and the water filled the planet. The flood you describe is a lake flood or something. With hundreds of millions of cubic miles of water poured on earth, we would hardly expect to see the pattern you suggest. Not only that, but there was also an event at the end of the flood year that took water away from earth.

We do see that on one side of that KT layer we have dinos, and not on the other. There was a great change in life on earth.

"One of the mysteries of the history of the Earth is the layer of clay that was deposited around the entire globe 65 million years ago. The layer marks the K-T boundary .."
Disaster From Space

There is probably no need to remind you what clay is.

"The formation and alteration of clay minerals and their accumulation as clay materials can occur by a very wide range of processes. In one way or another, however, most of these processes and the environments in which they operate involve the chemical actions and physical movement of water.."

3. Formation and alteration of clay materials

A world wide physical movement of water!