the self replicating watch argument

[Meowzltov]

This would seem to make no difference. If you claim that natural selection and all that is insufficient to explain evolution, why would saying that they were made by God suddenly make them sufficient?

I'm saying two things here.
1. I'm saying that natural explanations are attributable to God. If it WERE true that natural seclection etc. were sufficient, it wouldn't threaten my spirituality one iota.
2. But I'm saying that something else is needed. It could very well be something else that we would call "natural."

How could these laws be so weak that they can have no influence on our sensors and instruments, but strong enough that they can have an effect on evolving life forms? Even if such laws DID exist, surely natural selection and all that would have a much greater influence.

How long was it before we knew of the existence of strong and weak nuclear forces? We know there is a problem with Relativity. It is quite possible there is a missing force that we have not yet discovered. Of course, I'm just brainstorming. I don't claim to be a physicist.

The above two ideas are what I gravitate to.

 

[Meowzltov]

And I think Natural Selection is enormously important. I just don't think it is sufficient.

 

[Meowzltov]

Very well. How do you justify THIS claim that natural selection etc are insufficient?

I'm not sure what you are looking for. After weighing in their incredible influence (I'm certainly not downplaying their tremendous impact) I simply don't find them sufficient to explain sentient life.

 

[MyGivenNameIsKeith]

I've read the Bible. It's incredibly dull and has some horrific stuff in it. There are more appealing books out there.

Reading bits and pieces of it doesn't qualify as "reading it". I speak from experience, where I used to claim I had "read the Bible" several times in fact. In reality, I had done no through reading of it. I hadn't really examined what I had read. Just never sank in. So I never finished it. I have since, of course. It is a long book consisting of 66 different books. Reading it does something for you. Says something about you. But for someone who doesn't really have a "spiritual life", it would make sense that it is dull to them. It is after all a spiritual book. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned after all. You can't use a natural view to attain a spiritual one. They don't mix, much like oil and water. Not reading it, one would miss the stories of love, forgiveness, real-life struggles, poverty, war, strength, persecution, creation account, saving grace, healing, miracles, and overall message which is Jesus Christ. It is in reality, far from a dull book. You would be surprised at the content if you had patience. It speaks volumes of truth. But truth is something I do not expect you prefer to hear. Otherwise, you would be more open to discussion and learning with an open mind rather than telling others what you think you know.

 

[Skreeper]

Reading bits and pieces of it doesn't qualify as "reading it". I speak from experience, where I used to claim I had "read the Bible" several times in fact. In reality, I had done no through reading of it. I hadn't really examined what I had read. Just never sank in. So I never finished it. I have since, of course. It is a long book consisting of 66 different books. Reading it does something for you. Says something about you. But for someone who doesn't really have a "spiritual life", it would make sense that it is dull to them. It is after all a spiritual book. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned after all. You can't use a natural view to attain a spiritual one. They don't mix, much like oil and water. Not reading it, one would miss the stories of love, forgiveness, real-life struggles, poverty, war, strength, persecution, creation account, saving grace, healing, miracles, and overall message which is Jesus Christ. It is in reality, far from a dull book. You would be surprised at the content if you had patience. It speaks volumes of truth. But truth is something I do not expect you prefer to hear. Otherwise, you would be more open to discussion and learning with an open mind rather than telling others what you think you know.

I've read everything up until Revelations. And just claiming that I need a "spiritual life" in order to understand the Bible is just a lame and lazy excuse for a terrible book.

I am more than open for discussions as long as you stop making bad excuses for the horribly immoral parts of your holy book.

 

[DogmaHunter]

not realy.

Yes really.

It's what the genetic algorithm is.
Have systems that reproduce with modification compete for limited resources and then those systems evolving is the inevitable result.

Just like how 1+1+1+1+1+....+1+1 will inevitably add up to a big number.

if we had a self replicating matter it will never evolve into something like a walking robot.

Because robots don't reproduce and neither are they in competition with peers over limited resources.

But living things do.

and about the e.coli- it already had the proteins to digest citrate

Yet it couldn't do it in that particular environment without additional changes. And it took some 31.000 generations before those changes took place.

You should get your head out of the sand.

. so its just a variation of the regulation.

Yes, descent with modification / variation. It's an evolutionary process.

 

[AV1611VET]

I am more than open for discussions as long as you stop making bad excuses for the horribly immoral parts of your holy book.

What are your excuses for FIGHT OR FLIGHT and SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST?

 

[Skreeper]

What are your excuses for FIGHT OR FLIGHT and SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST?

I don't know what you're on about AV. Do I also have to have an excuse for why water is wet?

 

[AV1611VET]

I don't know what you're on about AV. Do I also have to have an excuse for why water is wet?

Why don't you give me a reason you guys take Genesis 1 as myth, but then take Numbers 33 literally?

After all, Israel could simply be antibodies attacking disease in the human body.

What a lovely picture of how God made us!

 

[stevevw]

No. Selection actually helps remove harmful mutations while keeping the beneficial ones in most cases. Oh, and most systems in living beings are not fine tuned. They're jury rigged.

When it comes to genetic complexity it is finely tuned. The genetic networks need to remain the same to continue to function properly. That is why there are mechanisms to correct mistakes (mutations) and restore things back to how they were. The problem with neo darwinism is that it is not just about selection but also random mutations which can imtroduce harmful mutations that can threaten the finely tuned networks. So to create something even better than what is already good any new change has to go through a process of of damaging that which is good to make better which doesnt make sense. Even if it is selected out it will do harm first plus not all deleterous mutations are weeded out as they are too small. But the accumulated effect will damage things in the end. Even if a very rare beneficial mutation does slip through it will end up contributing to a fitness loss because mutations do not work in isolation. They will be affected by other mutations and when combined the end result is always a fitness cost not an improvement.


Stability effects of mutations and protein evolvability. October 2009
Excerpt: The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability,,
Stability effects of mutations and protein evolvability. - PubMed - NCBI

Negative Epistasis Between Beneficial Mutations in an Evolving Bacterial Population
We analyzed the effects of epistasis on fitness for the first five mutations to fix in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Epistasis depended on the effects of the combined mutations—the larger the expected benefit, the more negative the epistatic effect. Epistasis thus tended to produce diminishing returns with genotype fitness,
Negative Epistasis Between Beneficial Mutations in an Evolving Bacterial Population

What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full[/QUOTE] Not sure what happen here, I must have clicked the wrong button. Anyway I fixed it.

 

[Skreeper]

Why don't you give me a reason you guys take Genesis 1 as myth, but then take Numbers 33 literally?

After all, Israel could be simply be antibodies attacking disease in the human body.

What a lovely picture of how God made us!

I take most of the stuff in the Bible as myth exept a few instances like locations. I am just wondering what kind of silly excuses you believers have for the numerous parts that are simply horrifying if it were true.

 

[AV1611VET]

I take most of the stuff in the Bible as myth exept a few instances like locations.

Right.

And I'm Genghis Khan.

Didn't you say this?

I am more than open for discussions as long as you stop making bad excuses for the horribly immoral parts of your holy book.

The 'horribly immoral parts of your holy book' sounds to me like your assessment, not ours.

(Actually, it sounds like academia's assessment of them.)

And if you don't believe they are immoral, mind if we don't either?

 

[Kylie]

When it comes to genetic complexity it is finely tuned. The genetic networks need to remain the same to continue to function properly. That is why there are mechanisms to correct mistakes (mutations) and restore things back to how they were. The problem with neo darwinism is that it is not just about selection but also random mutations which can imtroduce harmful mutations that can threaten the finely tuned networks.

But any organism which doesn't have such a mechanism wouldn't survive to pass on the genes for the lack of such a mechanism.

In the early days of the world, when life was very much simpler, life (or the precursor to life) could have gotten by without such a complex mechanisms.

 

[Kylie]

I tend to look towards the experts who know about how the eye works for example and not someone who suppoerts evolution and assumes it must be able to do all things because that is what they have been told from the simplistic explanations given. When you see what is actually involved in the eye you begin to see that there are many more steps to how an eye may be made and many of these need to be present at the same time.

Can you show me someone who is qualified to make such a judgement about the evolution of the eye and claims evolution can't produce it?

That means a random mutation needs to pop up several correct mutations at the same time and blind selection needs to know they are needed ahead of time and select them . If only one part is presented then the whole thing will not work. For example the Iris controls the shape and size of the pupil. There are two seperate functions that cause the iris to expand or contract the pupil. Both are needed for the eye to function properly yet both are seperate mechanisms that are connected in seperate ways and also connected seperately to the brain so that it will be singled when to contract the pupli in high light situtaions and when to dilate the pupil in darker situations.

So this would require multiple mutations to evolve both and both would have to be evolved at the same time. As some say if evolution relied on one mutation at a time to evolve big steps then this may be concievable. But that is not the case.

Yeah, this isn't how evolution works.

Different traits evolve alongside each other. It's not one trait evolving completely, and then the other one comes after.

 

[Kylie]

it will not work since there is no advantage in a single part out of the two.

Who says a single trait evolves at a time?

Why not multiple traits evolving simultaneously?

 

[Skreeper]

And if you don't believe they are immoral, mind if we don't either?

As always you're missing the point. I can say that Sauron is a immoral monster without taking LotR literal. Same goes for the Bible.

 

[Kylie]

I'm saying two things here.
1. I'm saying that natural explanations are attributable to God. If it WERE true that natural seclection etc. were sufficient, it wouldn't threaten my spirituality one iota.

If it is a natural explanation, why does it need God in order for it to happen? Is God making all natural things happen? Is he controlling the flow of every atom of air over the wings of every bird on the planet so they can fly? Sounds rather inefficient.

2. But I'm saying that something else is needed. It could very well be something else that we would call "natural."

But this is just speculation on your part. So far, you haven't given me anything at all to show that your claim that natural selection is insufficient is anything more than speculation.

How long was it before we knew of the existence of strong and weak nuclear forces?

The nuclear forces act on very small scales and thus were unable to be detected until we could make such small measurements.

But if there is some force which can influence evolution, it must be of a kind that we can detect. Our current sensors are capable of detecting things that are too small to influence evolution - how could they miss something very much larger?

We know there is a problem with Relativity.

Source please?

It is quite possible there is a missing force that we have not yet discovered.

Possible, but this so far undetected force must be sufficiently powerful to affect evolution. Such a large force would have been detected by now.

Of course, I'm just brainstorming. I don't claim to be a physicist.

That's why I listen to the physicists and other scientists who have actually studied this stuff and are in a position to know what they are talking about.

 

[AV1611VET]

As always you're missing the point. I can say that Sauron is a immoral monster without taking LotR literal. Same goes for the Bible.

Let's get off this tilt-a-whirl, shall we?

You have just read Genesis 1.

Is it literal to you or an allegory?

You have just read Numbers 33.

Is it literal to you or an allegory?

(Don't worry. I won't ask you what they are an allegory of. Just what you think of them.)

 

[Kylie]

I'm not sure what you are looking for. After weighing in their incredible influence (I'm certainly not downplaying their tremendous impact) I simply don't find them sufficient to explain sentient life.

I'm looking for the evidence you have to support your claim that natural selection is insufficient.

 

[Skreeper]

Let's get off this tilt-a-whirl, shall we?

You have just read Genesis 1.

Is it literal to you or an allegory?

You have just read Numbers 33.

Is it literal to you or an allegory?

(Don't worry. I won't ask you what they are an allegory of. Just what you think of them.)

I am really not in the mood for you games today. Maybe you can find someone else to bother.