What creationists need to do to win against evolution.

[GodsGrace101]

This video (the second one) features a philosopher, a mathematician, and a computer scientist. I tried watching it, but it was a bit much. None of these people have any real experience in the natural sciences which is where evolution, etc., is founded. I fail to see the relevance of these three talking about something they dislike.

A scientist is a scientist....it does not have to be a biochemist to know about Darwin's theory,,,or most theories for that matter.

I like Dr. Beher a lot too, and I also like what Dr. James Tour has to say - one of the top 10 Biochemists in the world. I was advised by someone on this thread that Dr. James Tour lies --- I guess he lies in what he has invented and the papers he has written for peer review also.

Anyway, just to show persons that I agree with.
IOW,,,,science should be open to all ideas, concepts.
It seem like most scientists are dead set against ID.
It seems to make sense to me.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Oh, I'm well familiar with the Intelligent Design movement and their various arguments. I've read a lot of their literature, including Meyer's latest book not too long ago.

However, the ID propositions for trying to detect design have not panned out. For example, Behe's formulation for irreducible complexity does not actually preclude evolution. It's possible for evolution to produce irreducibly complex biological structures.

There is a reason their ideas haven't been adopted in the biological sciences; their ideas have not been scientifically validated.

Which is the entire premise of this thread.

They seem more open minded to me.
I know one of them started a movement for support for ID....I think it's a good idea to ALSO look for that and not rule it out as some, if not most, scientists seem to be doing.

What would be the big problem if ID turned out to be true? I don't understand the stance against this.

 

[Resha Caner]

Why do you think it takes additional energy to make mistakes?

I'm not saying that explicitly. The energy involved could be more, less, or the same. When a codon is copied correctly it is different than a codon that is copied incorrectly, yes? Something different happened. There is a reason - a cause, for the difference. The energy involved in the cause of one is likely different than the energy involved in the cause of the other. It could be more, less, possibly the same, or possibly of only a trivial difference.

Are you going to answer my question from post #656? If you're leaving that to @pitabread I guess that's fine.

 

[GodsGrace101]

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.



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.

A polar bear and a grizzly bear adapted to the region they live in. I'm sure everyone can agree with this.

The problem is: Did the grizzly bear come from a fish from a pond 2 billion years ago?

The earth is about 4 billion years old. Is this enough time to go from a one cell organism to US?

Maybe when it was thought that the universe always existed there might have been enough time for evolution...is there still enough time now that we know the universe had a beginning?

And, through observation, we now know that the universe DID have a beginning....so science was wrong before .....

How could we know for sure it's not wrong now?

I just think we should look for everything and then accept the answer. If we ever get one since it seems we cannot get beyond the BB.

 

[MIDutch]

Anyway, just to show persons that I agree with.
IOW,,,,science should be open to all ideas, concepts.

For which there is irrefutable, objective, physical evidence.

 

[MIDutch]

They seem more open minded to me.
I know one of them started a movement for support for ID....I think it's a good idea to ALSO look for that and not rule it out as some, if not most, scientists seem to be doing.

What would be the big problem if ID turned out to be true? I don't understand the stance against this.

Have you ever watched the documentary 'Judgement Day: Intelligent Design On Trial'? I'm sure you can find it on Youtube.

If you do, you will understand what "Cdesign proponentsists" means and why it is significant.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Have you ever watched the documentary 'Judgement Day: Intelligent Design On Trial'? I'm sure you can find it on Youtube.

If you do, you will understand what "Cdesign proponentsists" means and why it is significant.

If I can find it,,,,I'll watch it.

 

[MIDutch]

A polar bear and a grizzly bear adapted to the region they live in. I'm sure everyone can agree with this.

The problem is: Did the grizzly bear come from a fish from a pond 2 billion years ago?

The earth is about 4 billion years old. Is this enough time to go from a one cell organism to US?

Maybe when it was thought that the universe always existed there might have been enough time for evolution...is there still enough time now that we know the universe had a beginning?

And, through observation, we now know that the universe DID have a beginning....so science was wrong before .....

How could we know for sure it's not wrong now?

I just think we should look for everything and then accept the answer. If we ever get one since it seems we cannot get beyond the BB.

So you're really arguing that 4 billion years isn't a lot of time?

 

[Subduction Zone]

A scientist is a scientist....it does not have to be a biochemist to know about Darwin's theory,,,or most theories for that matter.

I like Dr. Beher a lot too, and I also like what Dr. James Tour has to say - one of the top 10 Biochemists in the world. I was advised by someone on this thread that Dr. James Tour lies --- I guess he lies in what he has invented and the papers he has written for peer review also.

Anyway, just to show persons that I agree with.
IOW,,,,science should be open to all ideas, concepts.
It seem like most scientists are dead set against ID.
It seems to make sense to me.

And to be a scientist one must follow the scientific method. Creation "scientists" do not tend to do this. In fact many creationist sites require their workers or writers to swear not to follow the scientific method. That means in that context that they are not scientists. They may be able to follow the scientific method in other areas of their work, but they seem incapable of doing so in regards to creation and evolution.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not saying that explicitly. The energy involved could be more, less, or the same. When a codon is copied correctly it is different than a codon that is copied incorrectly, yes? Something different happened. There is a reason - a cause, for the difference. The energy involved in the cause of one is likely different than the energy involved in the cause of the other. It could be more, less, possibly the same, or possibly of only a trivial difference.

Are you going to answer my question from post #656? If you're leaving that to @pitabread I guess that's fine.

There may be a cause for it, but that does not necessarily mean it has to affect the energy budget of the species being discussed. In fact that appears not to be the case. There does not appear to be any reason to think that the energy budget of a creature would be affected by a mutation in its gametes. I don't know how you would show that it would affect that organism.

 

[Subduction Zone]

They seem more open minded to me.
I know one of them started a movement for support for ID....I think it's a good idea to ALSO look for that and not rule it out as some, if not most, scientists seem to be doing.

What would be the big problem if ID turned out to be true? I don't understand the stance against this.

The stance against ID is because the proponents for it only seem to have ad hoc explanations and no evidence. In the sciences to even begin to have evidence on must first have a testable hypothesis. When they did have a testable hypothesis it was refuted, Behe's Irreducible Complexity for example. His argument was essentially an argument from ignorance. It amounted to "you can't explain this, therefore God". He also had a bit of strawmanning thrown in for good measure. He chose problems on the cutting edge of science that he thought could not be answered. But guess what happens to problems on the cutting edge of science? They are frequently solved. I do believe by now that all of his unexplanable problems have been explained. His argument fails on several levels.

And that brings us back to the OP. To be taken seriously creationists need to come up with a testable hypothesis. Real scientists do this all of the time. They value knowing the truth more than "being right". They not only have to devise a hypothesis that explains all of the evidence, they also have to have a way to test it. In other words, if your idea was wrong how would you show that? If one cannot do that one is not following the scientific method and one is not doing science.

 

[Resha Caner]

When they did have a testable [ID] hypothesis it was refuted ...

I'm glad you acknowledge at least this much. I've been bludgeoned multiple times by non-Christians for daring to make such a statement. In certain covens ID seems to be considered the worst possible evil humanity could ever produce - something only rapists, murderers, and Yankee fans would ever consider.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm glad you acknowledge at least this much. I've been bludgeoned multiple times by non-Christians for daring to make such a statement. In certain covens ID seems to be considered the worst possible evil humanity could ever produce.

Most creationists do not even understand what ID is. They think that it supports traditional creationism when in actuality the scientists behind it still accept common descent. It supports evolution but adds "God did it" to the equation. It is a rather inelegant attempt to shoehorn God into evolution and is another example of the proponents following their beliefs rather than the evidence.

I am not saying that it is impossible to put God into evolution, I am merely pointing out that no one has demonstrated a need for God in evolution yet.

And from a Christian perspective I don't see why anyone would want to shoehorn God into evolution. If God is omnipotent and omniscient then why couldn't he set up the system the way that he wanted from the start? I know the Bible has a creation account but for more reasons than just evolution it should be viewed as a morality tale and not historical. But that is more of an apologetics topic.

Back to the OP, what would your hypothesis show and how is it falsifiable?

 

[Resha Caner]

Back to the OP, what would your hypothesis show and how is it falsifiable?

I can get to that, but is there a reason you're not answering the question at the end of #656?

 

[pitabread]

Yes, I know. I never said evolution has a goal. Nor did I say the outcome was necessary. Yet evolution is claiming a specific descent. So what I did say (or meant to say) is that the simulation indicated the chain of descent proposed by evolution could instead be a population containing some unrelated species - species that didn't descend one from the other as the evolutionary chain proposes.

If I am understanding what you're trying to get at, it's that the phylogeny* of human descent is incorrect.

(*It's also worth pointing out that phylogenetic reconstruction is not specific. Rather, it's a best estimate based on the availability of data at a given point in time. Phylogenies are subject to change as newer data and methodologies are found.)

With the first appearance of a homosapiens organism, whenever and however that occurred, was a new species invented that never existed and was never possible before? Or, had the homosapiens DNA sequence always been a viable organism, it just needed the right time and place?

There are a few things to unpack here:

What exactly does "never existed and was never possible before" actually mean in this context?

Human beings certainly a biologically viable organism, so in that sense the existence of humans is definitely possible. Likewise, there was a time when humans didn't exist; their appearance though likely cannot be defined at a singular point. The transition between species is typically fuzzy; defining the first homo sapiens is going to be somewhat subjective.

In the context of the specific organism as defined by its DNA, again, that's a result of the specific series of events leading to this point. If you change the events along the way, you won't necessarily wind up at the same outcome.

It's certainly possible through convergent evolution that in an alternative universe with slightly different events, you could still wind up with the evolution of some sort of bipedal hominid. It just wouldn't necessarily be the same exact species we call homo sapiens.

 

[GodsGrace101]

So you're really arguing that 4 billion years isn't a lot of time?

Well, before the 60's, the experts thought they had an eternity to work with.

 

[pitabread]

They seem more open minded to me.

That's the ID movement's marketing at work. ID proponents have positioned themselves as by challenging the status quo, they are the open-minded ones fighting against the close-minded mainstream.

In reality, when you examine their individual works and in particular their responses to criticisms of their own ideas, they seem anything but open-minded.

I know one of them started a movement for support for ID....I think it's a good idea to ALSO look for that and not rule it out as some, if not most, scientists seem to be doing.

What would be the big problem if ID turned out to be true? I don't understand the stance against this.

You need to understand that the ID movement carries a lot of political baggage with it, primarily from historical creationist activities in the U.S.

For a long time, creationists have sought to usurp the teaching of evolution in science classrooms, either removing it from the classroom and/or teaching Biblical creationism in its place. In 1987, there was a landmark ruling by the U.S. supreme court that declared that creationism was religious in nature and therefore could not be taught in public schools as per the U.S. Constitution (Edwards v. Aguillard - Wikipedia).

When Intelligent Design came along, creationists started pushing for it an alternative to evolution in the classroom, while at the same time avoiding references to creationism. This in turn led to more contentious issues within both the ID movement (not all of whom are traditional creationists) and of course between science and ID.

One of the largest ID organizations, the Discovery Institute, was revealed to be pushing for things far beyond just ID as a science; they have been pushing for cultural change in favor of Christian theocracy. This came out in the Dover trial of 2005 and the infamous "wedge document". You can read it here: The Wedge Document | National Center for Science Education

Just this line, "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" suggests their motivation is about far more than mere science.

Insofar as ID just as a science, they haven't really done anything worthwhile. There have been a couple proposed methods for detecting design in biological organisms that have been received, examined and ultimately rejected because they don't pass scientific muster.

So it's not so much a case of scientists rejecting ID for ID's sake. ID has been rejected because there is no real science to support it. If ID proponents want to change that, the onus is on them to bring something real to the table.

Which again goes back to the original premise in this thread.

 

[Resha Caner]

It's certainly possible through convergent evolution that in an alternative universe with slightly different events, you could still wind up with the evolution of some sort of bipedal hominid. It just wouldn't necessarily be the same exact species we call homo sapiens.

But it's not as if my DNA sequence is an impossibility as a viable organism in that alternate universe. My DNA sequence has always, from the beginning of time, been a viable sequence for an organism, and always will be until the end of time. Yes?

 

[pitabread]

But it's not as if my DNA sequence is an impossibility as a viable organism in that alternate universe. My DNA sequence has always, from the beginning of time, been a viable sequence for an organism, and always will be until the end of time. Yes?

In terms of your specific DNA sequence being a potentially viable organism, obviously it is.

At to whether that specific DNA sequence would exist in an alternative universe of alternative evolutionary events, who knows? Statistically speaking, probably not.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not saying that explicitly. The energy involved could be more, less, or the same. When a codon is copied correctly it is different than a codon that is copied incorrectly, yes? Something different happened. There is a reason - a cause, for the difference. The energy involved in the cause of one is likely different than the energy involved in the cause of the other. It could be more, less, possibly the same, or possibly of only a trivial difference.

Are you going to answer my question from post #656? If you're leaving that to @pitabread I guess that's fine.

It was a rather strange question, let me look at it again:

"With the first appearance of a homosapiens organism, whenever and however that occurred, was a new species invented that never existed and was never possible before? Or, had the homosapiens DNA sequence always been a viable organism, it just needed the right time and place?"

First off species are not "invented". Speciation occurs quite often. When two populations are separated from another they will follow different evolutionary pathways. And there may not even have been a physical separation. A separation in time is also a separation. There may have simply been an accumulation of changes in an existing population great enough to make it possible for later descendants to be identified separately from older members of the population. Genomes are constantly changing. "New information" is constantly being added by variation and then the examples that are selected for can become part of the genome of the population.

So no, I would not say that the DNA for Homo sapiens was there from the start. In fact geneticists can sometimes tell you roughly when a specific mutation entered the genome, such as blue eyes or the mutation for lactose tolerance.