What creationists need to do to win against evolution.

[Subduction Zone]

Come on SZ....
That's like asking me to prove water is wet.

BEFORE the 60's it was thought that the universe ALWAYS existed...

Then it was found that it began, due to the expanding universe.

I'm SURE you must know about this.

You are of course wrong. That is why I said "citation needed". If you claim that scientists believed something you need to be able to support that claim. Now I could prove the opposite to be the case. The Big Bang Theory had its beginnings long before then and it had already been largely accepted. You are conflating an event with when the theory had a very strong confirmation with when scientists accepted it.

Now I have given you some very strong hints on how to correct your post. Do you think that you can do it?

 

[solid_core]

Then please don't make any such claims in the future. You may have convinced yourself, but that is about as far as it goes. Also it helps to understand the difference between knowledge and belief. If one cannot support one's claims one only has beliefs. If one can support them properly then that person can claim to "know".

You do not make any claims about goal in the future. Because its only your belief and interpretation, atheistic worldview without God.

Also, I did not make any baseless claims.

 

[Jimmy D]

Can YOU explain the cambrian explostion? I've been asking for this...it seems like life just boomed all of a sudden.

I mean no disrespect, but why should I bother? Ophiolite spent time typing two lengthy replies the last time you asked and you more or less ignored them.

If you genuinely want to learn about it why not start here...

What sparked the Cambrian explosion?

 

[Speedwell]

You do not make any claims about goal in the future. Because its only your belief and interpretation.

It's not a "claim." The process of evolution is by it's nature contingent; it can have no goal. That is not the same thing as claiming that God has no goal for man which is, as you point out, a metaphysical claim that the theory of evolution does not, cannot make.

 

[Resha Caner]

But a correct one. If one's model is not based upon reality it is not of much use in the science that one is trying to apply it to. You tried to sound "sciency" in your approach to the problem but many of your basic assumptions for your model were incorrect. That is why you would have GIGO (actually there should be a better acronym in this case, the important part if the GO) into your model. No matter what data you put in a bad model will only tend to generate garbage.

You mentioned that you were told that this sort of work would be appropriate for an undergrad project? That was almost certainly a polite way to tell you that you were very wrong. It could be used as an exercise in programming a biological concept, but since it had some basic errors in it it would never make it through peer review.

When I saw this I thought, "Nah, not gonna waste my time." Then I realized: no baseball, no theatre, no restaurants, and it's Friday. So, why not? Then I thought, "Nah, I don't want to derail @pitabread 's thread." In that regard, if he doesn't want me to continue, I won't. Just say so - won't bother me.

First, science doesn't need a peer review process when it has @Subduction Zone. You managed to find an error in a paper you've never read. That's pretty amazing. I also happen to have a leak in my sump pump line that I was going to try to fix this weekend. Could you use your telepathic powers to tell me where the leak is?

I was up front with the differences between some of the thought experiments I've presented here, the full model I created, and what I actually submitted for publication. But since you don't bother to read my posts - you just reply - it seems you missed some of that.

I've been through the peer review process and published in mechanics and history. I've been through the peer review process for biology, been up front that I was not published - and for reasons I agree are legitimate. Never in any of those experiences have I worked with someone as condescending as you. The people were never unprofessional, and never lied to me about what needed to be corrected just to protect my feelings, be nice, or whatever it is you think happens in a peer review process. As I explained, the reasons for declining my paper were made clear.

The first time, the reviewer confirmed that my model was correct, but indicated the work was not novel. Given I'm not a biologist, that's not at all surprising. Given it wasn't novel, let's start there. I can post the equation I derived for my Markov chain here, and you can show me the error the reviewer missed - or declined to point out since he didn't want to hurt my feelings. Game?

 

[pitabread]

When I saw this I thought, "Nah, not gonna waste my time." Then I realized: no baseball, no theatre, no restaurants, and it's Friday. So, why not? Then I thought, "Nah, I don't want to derail @pitabread 's thread." In that regard, if he doesn't want me to continue, I won't. Just say so - won't bother me.

Oh, don't worry about thread derailment. This thread is long past that point.

 

[Subduction Zone]

By the same population I think you mean the one celled organism in the soup primordial.

Can YOU explain the cambrian explostion? I've been asking for this...it seems like life just boomed all of a sudden.

But it did not. Depending upon the events one includes in the Cambrian explosion it is on the order of 13 to 25 million years long. That is hardly the sort of explosion that a creationist believes in. Second there was complex multicellular life before the Cambrian. The problem was that they were lacking in hard body parts so finding fossil life used to be a rarity. You have probably never heard of the Ediacaran. By naming it is a very recent "era". The name was only officially recognized in 2004. The first finds were in the Ediacara Hills of Australia. Under very specific conditions soft tissues can be preserved as body casts, imprints, etc.. And once paleontologists knew what to look for they found others elsewhere. It is hard to go from Ediacaran biota to Cambrian biota since the vast majority of Cambrian fossils are of hard body parts. If you want to see how even today there can be massive differences can you tell me what this bone is from:

Probably not. It is not actually a bone, it is a cephalopod beak. The only hard part of a squid or an octopus. One would not be able to derive the shape of the animal from that body part.

If you want to read more about the Ediacaran you can start here:

Ediacaran - Wikipedia

Science was looking for an answer as to how life began and Darwin seemed to have given the answer.
But he answered why species are different not HOW life began....he gave his theory and science just latched onto it. Some scientists have left this theory since they think it is not provable (or whatever that is called).

Correct. Darwin's theory is not about abiogenesis. So bringing it up in an evolution discussion is rather pointless.

I wonder how old you are.
I remember back in the 60's when it became apparent that the universe had a beginning, some scientists were rather alarmed because they thought that there was all eternity for species to change into something different and then realized they were not granted so much time and wondered if a few billion years would be enough since there was no life at all for the first 2 or 3 billion years (or more).

No, the age of the Earth was well known in the 60's. And since as already pointed out Darwin thought that the Earth was only hundreds of millions years old. Not billions. Time has never been a worry for evolution. I wish you would admit your error and drop this argument.

What if it's still unknowable hundreds of years from now? Will scientists still be unwilling to CONSIDER an intelligent designer?

It seems to me like this idea (theory?) will never be accepted by science and I think it should be.

Definitely not a theory. There is not even a testable hypothesis that has not been refuted. The reason that it is not given serious consideration is largely due to the very very very few scientists that believe it. In the sciences one must follow the scientific method. That means before one even presents his idea to others that scientist needs to come up with a testable hypothesis. By definition in the sciences without a testable hypothesis one does not and cannot have evidence for one's idea. One has to put one's money where his mouth is, so to speak, in the sciences and say "If this is wrong it could be shown to be wrong with this test". That in effect forces an idea to be useful since it will as a result make predictions. If the predictions fail so does the hypothesis. I seriously think that deep down IDists have a very very great fear that they are wrong and they refuse to test their ideas. Unfortunately that makes the unscientific. One cannot claim to be a scientist in an area if one refuses to tests one's ideas.

I'm a believer in God and I do believe He created everything, somehow or other. I think we can't get beyond the BB because there was NOTHING before that.

I do believe that TIME was created at the same time as the universe...so how does one go back BEFORE TIME?

It's all interesting.

Yep, many unanswered questions. And you left out one very important question:

How would one test for God's existence? The test must be based upon the ideas merit, not on the fact that no one else can make a god or other such nonsense.

 

[pitabread]

Could you please explain this better?
I don't know what you mean...
Thanks.

Biological evolution is an observable process; e.g. we observe populations of organisms changing over time.

The Theory of Evolution seeks to explain the mechanisms by which those changes over time occur.

It's like gravity. We observe that a 'force' called gravity attracts objects to one another. Theories of gravity seek to explain how that force works.

 

[MIDutch]

... claiming that any creature was not a goal of the process is also metaphysical claim.

"claiming that X, resulting in Y, is NOT a goal of the process is also a metaphysical claim"

By your logic, claiming that water running down hill to the sea is NOT a goal of the process is also a metaphysical claim.

(hint: it's not. It's just the result of the properties of water and gravity at work)

By your logic, claiming that the fusion of hydrogen into helium in the sun is specifically meant to warm our faces is NOT a goal of the process is also a metaphysical claim.

(hint: it's not. It's just atomic physics and gravity)

By your logic, claiming that the moon orbiting the sun is merely there so that we humans can make poems about it is NOT a goal of the process is also a metaphysical claim.

(hint: it's not. It's just the result of planetary formation, planetary motion and gravity)

What always surprises me (not really) is that creationists are generally willing to accept that other aspects of the Cosmos are the results of purely natural processes, even to the point of accepting many biological processes as purely natural, but as soon as humans are brought into the discussion they completely abandon any of their concessions about natural processes and science.

Why is that?

 

[Subduction Zone]

When I saw this I thought, "Nah, not gonna waste my time." Then I realized: no baseball, no theatre, no restaurants, and it's Friday. So, why not? Then I thought, "Nah, I don't want to derail @pitabread 's thread." In that regard, if he doesn't want me to continue, I won't. Just say so - won't bother me.

First, science doesn't need a peer review process when it has @Subduction Zone. You managed to find an error in a paper you've never read. That's pretty amazing. I also happen to have a leak in my sump pump line that I was going to try to fix this weekend. Could you use your telepathic powers to tell me where the leak is?

You presented your basic model. You had some errors in it. So let's drop the false charges.

I was up front with the differences between some of the thought experiments I've presented here, the full model I created, and what I actually submitted for publication. But since you don't bother to read my posts - you just reply - it seems you missed some of that.[/quoite]

I read your posts. Once again your model has some basic flaws in it.

I've been through the peer review process and published in mechanics and history. I've been through the peer review process for biology, been up front that I was not published - and for reasons I agree are legitimate. Never in any of those experiences have I worked with someone as condescending as you. The people were never unprofessional, and never lied to me about what needed to be corrected just to protect my feelings, be nice, or whatever it is you think happens in a peer review process. As I explained, the reasons for declining my paper were made clear.

Really? Weren't you the one that claimed a short synopsis often accompanies such papers? You were corrected by another that said that is not the norm and I too have never seen anything beyond a title, an abstract and the paper. If you were the one that made such a claim then your claim of peer reviewed engineering becomes dubious. And how have I been condescending? Corrections of obvious errors is not condescension. You appear to be projecting again since you were guilty of that in spades earlier in this post.

The first time, the reviewer confirmed that my model was correct, but indicated the work was not novel. Given I'm not a biologist, that's not at all surprising. Given it wasn't novel, let's start there. I can post the equation I derived for my Markov chain here, and you can show me the error the reviewer missed - or declined to point out since he didn't want to hurt my feelings. Game?

Then since it has been years perhaps you misremember your own model. All I had to go on was what you posted here and those errors were explained to you. Or have you forgotten how you claimed in your model that at times variation stopped? That is the same as claiming that reproduction stopped. Or in other words, you indirectly claimed that everything died without leaving descendants. At least that is the implication of variation stopping in the real world.

 

[MIDutch]

Christian belief is very well justified.

Not to a Buddhist, or a Hindu, or a Sikh, or a Jainist, or an Zoroastrian, or a Daoist, or a Confucianist, or a Pagan, or a Wiccan, or even to some Jews and Muslims.

 

[Subduction Zone]

All is good. No problem.

I don't even know why I participate (at times) in these discussions. I find it all very fascinating...but most are very scientifically inclined and I'm not, so I can understand how it must be difficult to read what I say.

I understand about the fossil record....I just don't see one animal becoming a different animal.

Look at the first skeletal elements...550 million yrs ago.

Then all of a sudden you see something that looks like fish...500 million yrs ago.

So, where are the skeletal bones of something in between? It seems like the Cambrian explosian just happened.

Then it says "reptiles diversifed"....do YOU know for sure that some kind of links of something inbetween were found? IOW,,, I'd like to see that.

and look at when man shows up...at the very end.

To me man is a special creature....
I do believe a superior and spiritual being must have had to plan all this.

I watched a very interesting video on YouTube this morning. It was about the :

How could something like this have happened on its own? It looks like a motor that man makes on a larger scale.

I'm not here to argue....we can all believe what we wish to....I can't believe this all happened by chance.

That is an example of Behe's greatest failure. It is a very pretty video, but it was refuted years ago. His argument amounts to "You cannot explain this, therefore God". The process was well understood over 15 years ago. Here is a rather old video that shows the evolution of the flagellum. The YouTube info has a link to a much much more detailed paper on it and that paper has links to over 200 different peer reviewed articles that support it:

This is why scientists do not respect Behe at all. His problems have been solved and he will not admit it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You do not make any claims about goal in the future. Because its only your belief and interpretation, atheistic worldview without God.

Also, I did not make any baseless claims.

Actually you did make baseless claims. You made claims that you cannot support with any other argument than "I believe". And no my worldview is not "atheistic", at least not any more so than any other scientist. There are countless Christian scientists that accept reality too. One does not need to believe in things that we know did not happen to be a Christian. One does not need to believe in anywhere near a literal Genesis account to be a Christian or the Noah's Ark story or even the Exodus, though now we are far afield from evolution. When I was a Christian I accepted the theory of evolution and could see that creationists were harming the religion. They were saying that people had to believe demonstrably incorrect things to be a Christian. They were in effect attempting to refute Christianity. As a Christian at that time I did not appreciate that.

 

[46AND2]

Generally speaking, yes. However, your examples would be more radical than anything I've proposed. Starting at the extreme end of the spectrum is a sure way to be ridiculed and rejected. I always knew that if I hoped to publish, the new content would need to be modest. That's my experience and observation with a number of different fields, not just biology.

As such, I planned a series of papers that gradually progressed toward my idea. However, I expected if I were to post the claims of my first paper here, people would be even more confused than they are now. It was far more technical and far less Internet-trolling-flame worthy than the typical dross posted at CF. I've already been asked several times, "How is this an alternative to evolution?", and what I've been talking about here is far more extreme than anything I ever actually put in my paper.

But, while I offered to post a claim and tests here, I've decided it's best if I pull back. So, I'll just post a brief summary (ha!) of my first paper and leave it at that. As to how that might apply to the further extrapolations you mention above, I'll leave to the imagination.

As I've been indicating, one of my exercises was to create axioms for biology. The reason for doing so was to establish a mathematical basis for certain biological concepts. As I said, when I first did this, I was not able to find such a mathematical basis. Biology does use mathematical models, but they vary widely in terms of fidelity and scope, and are rarely rooted in axioms of the type envied in physics. So, the intent of my first paper was to establish a mathematical basis for a few of these axioms.

My first attempt was to establish a formulation for the probabilities of the self-assembly of a chain of entities (the entities could be any biological unit - nucleotides, codons, proteins, cells, etc.). I derived a formula for a Markov chain where, given a set of rules for combination, one could calculate the probability of chains forming from those rules. Taking the G,C,A,T of DNA as an example, one can then calculate the probability of different codons forming from them. While this doesn't demonstrate any optimal state for 4 nucleotides, it does show that if a 5th nucleotide were available for creating codons, the likelihood of producing unique codons that differ from just using 4 is exponentially small.

The journal I was working with told me this derivation was not novel enough to warrant publication. I then turned to larger biological units and showed that, while you never achieve a probability of zero, the likelihood of such systems self-organizing is ridiculously tiny. What I further showed is that this difficulty could be overcome with nested hierarchies. I mathematically formulated a system that had the capability to self-organize via nested hierarchies, and showed the probability of this occurring was much higher than without nested hierarchies. The journal said that was an interesting result that had some merit, but that's where the conversation turned toward testing in a lab - something I related earlier.

I wish everyone well.

Ok, well then I'm also a bit confused how this is an alternative to evolution. It is already well understood that horizontal gene transfer was prevalent in unicellular organisms (and still is in bacteria). However, once organisms become more complex, and particularly upon the development of sexual reproduction, horizontal gene transfer becomes quite rare, and is mostly limited to the mechanism of hybridization.

And the nested hierarchies are interesting, but I wonder if what you are suggesting is that nested hierarchies are not due to inheritance as is currently accepted?

 

[Resha Caner]

You presented your basic model. You had some errors in it. So let's drop the false charges.

I did not. I talked about it, summarized it, and frequently tried to help clear up your conflations. I'm now offering to provide you an actual equation so you can point out the error. Shall I do that?

[edit] I missed the rest of your post because it was hidden by a formatting typo.

Really? Weren't you the one that claimed a short synopsis often accompanies such papers? You were corrected by another that said that is not the norm and I too have never seen anything beyond a title, an abstract and the paper.

Interesting. You quote what supports you but left out that someone else did say they too have been asked for brief executive summaries.

If you were the one that made such a claim then your claim of peer reviewed engineering becomes dubious.

Ah, so now I'm lying. It seems to me, then, you'd be rather anxious to call me on it - challenge me to actually post the equation.

Or have you forgotten how you claimed in your model that at times variation stopped?

Have you forgotten that I clarified my statement and noted that specific simulation was never submitted for publication? As such, I acknowledged that since it was never fully vetted, it could have errors (post #614). I also acknowledged your point and said it would need to be checked (post #652), but as best I recall, I don't think it would be pertinent.

Yet, in spite of all that, you're certain that what I actually did submit also contains errors - errors never shown to me because I wasn't worth the reviewers' time.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I did not. I talked about it, summarized it, and frequently tried to help clear up your conflations. I'm now offering to provide you an actual equation so you can point out the error. Shall I do that?

More false accusations. Okay, let's go back to an error that you never fully admitted and is a rather key one:

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

Is this or is this not part of your model?

 

[Resha Caner]

More false accusations. Okay, let's go back to an error that you never fully admitted and is a rather key one:

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

Is this or is this not part of your model?

I had to edit my post, so you may want to go back and read so you can change your accusations as needed.

 

[Hans Blaster]

My first attempt was to establish a formulation for the probabilities of the self-assembly of a chain of entities (the entities could be any biological unit - nucleotides, codons, proteins, cells, etc.). I derived a formula for a Markov chain where, given a set of rules for combination, one could calculate the probability of chains forming from those rules. Taking the G,C,A,T of DNA as an example, one can then calculate the probability of different codons forming from them. While this doesn't demonstrate any optimal state for 4 nucleotides, it does show that if a 5th nucleotide were available for creating codons, the likelihood of producing unique codons that differ from just using 4 is exponentially small.

The journal I was working with told me this derivation was not novel enough to warrant publication.

I think some of us would be interested in discussing this with you (probably in a new thread) with a bit more detail needed. For example, I'm a bit confused by your nucleotide calculation...

There actually is a 5th nucleotide (U) that replaces (T) in RNA. Because of the base pairing in DNA/RNA there needs to be a matching, G to C, A to T (or to U in RNA). A 5th DNA base would only be useful if there was a 6th.

(At first I thought you were talking about the length of codons, because changing the number of nucleotides would change the number of combinations available. Length 3 codons with 4 nucleotides have 64 combinations, while a length 2 codon would only have 16, which is not enough to code for all of the 20 amino acids + the stop codon. With 5 nucleotides, length 2 codons giving 25 combinations would be mathematically possible to provide enough coverage.)

 

[Hans Blaster]

You can't expect a scientist that states he is atheist to believe that God created everything.

Do you realize how silly the O.T. sounds to those that do not believe?

FYI, unlike CF, scientific journals do not list "faith labels" for authors, so when one is reading science the faith, or lack there of, of the authors is unstated, and likely unknown.

I'm a non-believer and the OP seemed reasonable to me.

Come up with a scientific theory that has equivalent or better explanatory* power for the origin and diversity of species on Earth, and equivalent or better application in fields of applied biology.

Until creationists can do that, everything else is irrelevant.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I had to edit my post, so you may want to go back and read so you can change your accusations as needed.

I would prefer to work on one error at a time. You do have a bit of a tendency to Gish Gallop. Conversations get a bit uncontrolled when responding to those sorts of posts. It would also help if you understood the difference between accusations and corrections.