What creationists need to do to win against evolution.

[SkyWriting]

Why? Thermodynamics is why. There are no feelings involved. There does not need to be a benefit to a chemical. It only has to lower the energy available for work.

What is your source that thermodynamics is an issue?
I've asked this same question a number of times.
You are the first to propose an answer.
How does life lower the amount of energy?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'll answer you in 2 parts: 1) What I did, 2) What more would need to be done. Further, understand this was a long journey - not just days or weeks, so it's difficult to capture every facet in just a few words.

1) What I did.

I created a list of axioms for biology. I couldn't find such a list anywhere, or at least not a consistent list, so I created my own. Reason: I knew I couldn't take on all of biology at once, so I wanted to focus on just a small part. The part I chose to focus on was self-organization and replication.

I educated myself on the mathematical models used for biology. Again, there wasn't anything standard - models varied widely. I chose to use TAM (Tile Assembly Method). I programmed a TAM model that could self-organize and replicate.

I ran simulations under various conditions. I was able to create systems that demonstrated descent with modification - one commonly accept feature of evolution. One generation would mutate and pass on mutated traits to the next generation. However, under other conditions, descent with modification stopped and was replaced with emergence. New organisms would emerge directly due to transfers. In other words, in one case, through a succession of generations, the simulation produced a succession of modified descendants: A -> B -> C -> D -> E. In the other case, organisms emerged without respect to generation: A -> B, A -> C -> B, A -> D, A -> E -> A ... all kinds of combinations.

But I knew that wasn't good enough. The idea would need actual lab tests. My first thought was DNA computing. Of course DNA computing is meant to be an actual computer, not an organism. However, if the fundamental chemical building blocks of life could replicate my simulations, it would show the possibility of a biological system behaving similarly to my simulations. It would circumvent the ethics issues involved in doing such an experiment on actual life, with the main difference being a matter of complexity and boundary conditions.

If it did succeed, it would give indications of the potential, of what to look for in natural settings, and open discussions of what could possibly be done with something like bacteria or viruses in a lab.

2) What needs to be done

But the experiment never happened. I approached several journals, who confirmed that I needed lab experiments to accompany the simulations before they would publish. I approached several universities, offering to fund an experiment. They said the amount of funding I offered was only sufficient for an undergrad project, and that what I was proposing was beyond an undergrad. They declined to contribute any funding of their own, but suggested I seek to join a university research team to pursue the funding myself. I don't qualify, because I don't have a degree in biology - two master's degrees (engineering & history), but not biology. So, my only recourse was to seek a degree in biology - not a smart move for a mid-career engineer with a family.

In the end, then, it comes back to what I stated in one of my early posts. What would motivate me to pursue this further? Nothing. It remains a hypothesis. Even moreso, as I also indicated earlier, I'm less concerned with the idea being rejected or falsified than I am with the flippant shrug and the remark, "Meh. What you're describing is just another mechanism of evolution." Why? Because I would consider such a reaction either disingenuous or a failure to appreciate what I'm saying ... attitudes that seem in abundance here.

Interesting, but it appears that your model has some odd steps to it. Why have descent with modification stop? Why have "emergence" as a separate action?

 

[Resha Caner]

Interesting, but it appears that your model has some odd steps to it. Why have descent with modification stop? Why have "emergence" as a separate action?

I didn't intentionally intervene to stop descent. Rather, I tested a range of boundary conditions. The result was that some conditions produced descent, some emergence, and some a combination.

 

[Subduction Zone]

What is your source that thermodynamics is an issue?
I've asked this same question a number of times.
You are the first to propose an answer.
How does life lower the amount of energy?

Clarification, life lowers the amount of energy available for work. It does so by absorbing energy and releasing it in a more dispersed form. Energy can be stored for a while, sugar, wood, even as "meat". But when that energy is later released waste heat is a part of the process. Look at any event that occurs in life. Waste heat is always part of it. Increasing entropy is part of the universe and life by its very existence increases the entropy of a system.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I didn't intentionally intervene to stop descent. Rather, I tested a range of boundary conditions. The result was that some conditions produced descent, some emergence, and some a combination.

You didn't but according to you your model did:

"However, under other conditions, descent with modification stopped and was replaced with emergence. "

My question is why would descent with modification stop?

 

[Resha Caner]

You didn't but according to you your model did:

"However, under other conditions, descent with modification stopped and was replaced with emergence. "

My question is why would descent with modification stop?

I see. I did this years ago, so minute details are fuzzy, but if I recall correctly it came down to a matter of energy. The organism is required to do work (expend energy) in order to create the bonds of a new structure. Each structure also had different benefits, for example, more complex structures benefited from specialization. So it became a matter of an energy balance with the environment and whether that balance favored descent or emergence.

 

[Hans Blaster]

It's called a summary. Have you never seen an executive statement for a scientific paper? They're usually pretty short, 25 words or less. That is often followed by an abstract, and then the full paper. Or do you consider all that introductory material handwaving?

Nope, not once, ever. I've read hundreds (thousands?) of scientific papers and written a few dozen.

Title

Authors

Abstract

Main Text

References

That's it. No 20ish word "summaries" (abstracts are rarely that short).

 

[Resha Caner]

Nope, not once, ever. I've read hundreds (thousands?) of scientific papers and written a few dozen.

Title

Authors

Abstract

Main Text

References

That's it. No 20ish word "summaries" (abstracts are rarely that short).

Then I suppose I've been savaged by my industry. Executive summaries are a common thing where I work, and there is an insistence on keeping descriptions to a few sentences along with other details like budget and timeline.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I see. I did this years ago, so minute details are fuzzy, but if I recall correctly it came down to a matter of energy. The organism is required to do work (expend energy) in order to create the bonds of a new structure. Each structure also had different benefits, for example, more complex structures benefited from specialization. So it became a matter of an energy balance with the environment and whether that balance favored descent or emergence.

This is an incorrect version of how new forms arise. And variation occurs automatically. It would take more energy for there to be no variations than it would take for there to be none. It would help if you understood the concept of "vestigial organs". Creationists such as Kent Hovind get the definition of vestigial organs almost 100% wrong. They are not only organs that no longer have any function. You would be hard pressed to find one that does that. They are organs that no longer do the job that they used to do. For example your ear bones are technically "vestigial organs". In our ancient ancestors they were function bones in the jaw. The evolution of the inner ear is well traced in the fossil record and was the basis of when people tried to say when the "first mammal" arose.

Your version of evolution is a bit of a creationist strawman. I think that they may have been merely humoring you at the university that you talked to.

 

[Resha Caner]

This is an incorrect version of how new forms arise. And variation occurs automatically. It would take more energy for there to be no variations than it would take for there to be none. It would help if you understood the concept of "vestigial organs". Creationists such as Kent Hovind get the definition of vestigial organs almost 100% wrong. They are not only organs that no longer have any function. You would be hard pressed to find one that does that. They are organs that no longer do the job that they used to do. For example your ear bones are technically "vestigial organs". In our ancient ancestors they were function bones in the jaw. The evolution of the inner ear is well traced in the fossil record and was the basis of when people tried to say when the "first mammal" arose.

Your version of evolution is a bit of a creationist strawman. I think that they may have been merely humoring you at the university that you talked to.

Mmm. Well, they were awfully accommodating as they patronized me. One of them helped me fix an error in the Markov chain I was using in my model. That's typically my approach as well when I'm at work. I don't play armchair quarterback to other people's work. If I suspect an error, I ask to see the calculations and review them. It's only when I can actually pinpoint the error that I offer correction.

Nothing in my model came from a creationist source. All of it came from peer-reviewed biology journals, including the energy balance. Could I have misinterpreted? Or made an error? Sure. But I'll leave it to those who've actually seen the model to point that out.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Mmm. Well, they were awfully accommodating as they patronized me. One of them helped me fix an error in the Markov chain I was using in my model. That's typically my approach as well when I'm at work. I don't play armchair quarterback to other people's work. If I suspect an error, I ask to see the calculations and review them. It's only when I can actually pinpoint the error that I offer correction.

Nothing in my model came from a creationist source. All of it came from peer-reviewed biology journals, including the energy balance. Could I have misinterpreted? Or made an error? Sure. But I'll leave it to those who've actually seen the model to point that out.

Hard to say. I don't know your sources. I would ask for more details from biologists here, but even I as a non-biologist saw those errors.

 

[pitabread]

However, under other conditions, descent with modification stopped and was replaced with emergence. New organisms would emerge directly due to transfers. In other words, in one case, through a succession of generations, the simulation produced a succession of modified descendants: A -> B -> C -> D -> E. In the other case, organisms emerged without respect to generation: A -> B, A -> C -> B, A -> D, A -> E -> A ... all kinds of combinations.

When you say transfers are you referring to horizontal DNA transfer? E.g. organisms swapping DNA between them?

 

[Resha Caner]

Hard to say. I don't know your sources. I would ask for more details from biologists here, but even I as a non-biologist saw those errors.

I'm not sure what you think you saw. But you gave your opinion, so, OK.

 

[Resha Caner]

When you say transfers are you referring to horizontal DNA transfer? E.g. organisms swapping DNA between them?

Essentially, yes.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not sure what you think you saw. But you gave your opinion, so, OK.

I explained your errors. At least in regards to evolution. Changes do not arise in the method that you described in your model.

 

[Shemjaza]

The theory of relativity is accepted and more theories have come from that and more undersanding.

Macro evolution: one life form changes and becomes a different life form.
Micro evolution: one life form adapts and uses Darwin's theory to survive and become better.

Those are fundamentally the same thing... just a variation of scale. Every little variation and adaption leaves the population a little different. On a long enough time scale you can have so many little adaptions that you'd consider it a different species.

And if one population get separated into two groups that can lead to two separate, but very similar species.

Two good examples are Homo sapiens and Nenanderthals; or Grizzly bears and Polar bears.

They are multitudes of examples with both fossil and genetic evidence that line up as evidence.

If you want to discuss the situation in normal conversational language... there is plenty of "proof" of evolution.

I know we can't make a star in a lab and no one is trying to.

But scientists ARE TRYING to create life in a lab.
Just 4 chemicals, if I remember correctly,,,and yet it cannot be done..BUT ....PER CHANCE...it just kind of happened!

I don't think so,,,but I'm waiting on the results.

Creating a simple form of life from the same kind of stuff that existed on the early Earth would be interesting, but is hardly relevant to the theory of evolution.

No one currently has a scientific theory of abiogenesis.

If life did develop naturally, as I assume, then it came about from a petri dish the size of a planet and millions of years of chemical reactions. The power of life, is that if it gets started in a situation it keeps expanding till it has filled the environment for as long as there is fuel.

 

[Resha Caner]

I explained your errors.

You might have summarized what you think the errors are, but explaining them is something quite different. As it stands, statements like "variation occurs automatically" don't make sense to me. It sounds as if you are saying a system can change it's state without any energy transfer, which would be nonsense - magic. It also sounds as if you're saying no state change would produce a larger energy transfer than any possible state change - also nonsense.

 

[Ophiolite]

Nope, not once, ever. I've read hundreds (thousands?) of scientific papers and written a few dozen.
Title
Authors
Abstract
Introduction
Main Text
Discussion/Conclusion
References

That's it. No 20ish word "summaries" (abstracts are rarely that short).

Something of an aside, but I've amended your list through additions. Longer papers often have an Introduction in which the state of knowledge in the field is extensively reviewed to provide a foundation for the findings presented in the paper.

For my purposes I rarely read a full paper. A well-written abstract, introduction (if present) and discussion/conclusion provide the meat of research. I dip into the rest of it to clarify points that arise in those elements. I offer that as a tip to anyone who is discouraged by the wealth of information in a full paper, but wants to learn more than is to be found in popular reports in the main-stream media.

Then I suppose I've been savaged by my industry. Executive summaries are a common thing where I work, and there is an insistence on keeping descriptions to a few sentences along with other details like budget and timeline.

You appear to be talking about engineering proposals, or requests for research grants, or projects, and organisation changes within business, not scientific papers.

Five tales on the importance of tight editing, a vital partner to Executive Summaries.

• I had a boss who would read no document longer than one page.
• A colleague submitted her first engineering report to her boss who read it then said, "That's good, now say the same thing in half the number of words." She wrestled with the document and eventually returned with it halved. "That's good, now go away and write it in half the number of words." That was also achieved, though the third attempt didn't quite hit target. The final product was less than 20% of the original and nothing of importance was lost.
• Mark Twain famously apologised to a friend for writing an eight page letter. "I intended to write you a two page letter, but I didn't have time."
• The best book review I ever read was this. The Art of Brevity. "Excellent".
• Another of my bosses asked me for a summary of a course I had developed on rock mechanics in the drilling industry. "Rocks are hard and when you hit them they break."

 

[Lee Stuvmen]

I don't believe in the literal creation week. But scientifically speaking, God is the obvious answer to the Cosmos existing for us to be astounded by.

Psalm 19:1-14

Romans 1:20

Genesis 1:1

Romans 1:19

Amos 5:8

Isaiah 40:26

Psalm 8:3

Psalm 8:1

My brother, I only write this for cause for reflection for all that read this.

IF we cannot believe what is written at the very beginning of the story as irrefutable truth, how can we accept anything that is written thereafter throughout the rest of the story as absolute truth?

If what is written in the very beginning is not 100% incontestable truth, then NONE of the words written after can be quoted OR TRUSTED as absolute truth.

Either the Scriptures are 100% truth, or they simply constitute a mixture of fairy tales.

Truth is not ala carte.

In the love that is God, and truth, which is Christ,
Lee

 

[Speedwell]

My brother, I only write this for cause for reflection for all that read this.

IF we cannot believe what is written at the very beginning of the story as irrefutable truth, how can we accept anything that is written thereafter throughout the rest of the story as absolute truth?

If what is written in the very beginning is not 100% incontestable truth, then NONE of the words written after can be quoted OR TRUSTED as absolute truth.

Either the Scriptures are 100% truth, or they simply constitute a mixture of fairy tales.

Truth is not ala carte.

In the love that is God, and truth, which is Christ,
Lee

What story? What are you talking about? The Bible? The Bible is a collection stories. The very word we call it by, "Bible," means "library."