Contradictions in the Bible...

I would state that your knowledge of probabilities is a little skewed by your desire for certain opinions to be correct.

Why? It is infinitely more likely that DNA and genetic material recombine and mutate according to various random factors, than it is that an unseen God controls them or anything, for the mere fact alone that DNA exists, can be proven to exist, and can be experimented upon.

Whereas the converse has no evidence of existing whatsoever, cannot be proven to exist in any way, and no experimentation can be done upon it.

Any actually existing process, even if you think is improbable, is infinitely more likely to be true than a completely fabricated idea with no evidence to back it up. That's how probability works.

You have decided that one explanation for reality is improbable, so the explanation must be something far, far more improbable. I'm not sure what logic that follows.

Cycloptichorn

At the beginning of life on earth, the dominant forms were anaerobic single cell organisms. Those types of organisms survive to this day, but their dominance of the biosphere was ended in a period sometime between about 2.4 and 1.8 billion years ago, when free oxygen in the atmosphere had accumulated to the point of lethality for most anaerobic organisms. It was the first great "die off" or catastrophic biological event in our planet's history.

One might argue that anaerobic organisms evolving into organisms which used an oxyphotosynthesis process, thereby releasing oxygen into the atmospheres at levels which lead to accumulation faster than natural processes would remove it from the atmosphere is highly improbable.

But such an argument would show a profound failure to understand probability. Single cell organisms commonly replicate within 20 minutes. So, in a single day, a single cell would have replicated, and its replicants would have replicated, etc., etc. 72 times. Within a week, that would be 504 generations. Within a month, that would be 2,160 generations. In a year's time, that would be 26,280 generations. Over a period of hundreds of millions of years, that would be generations on the order of millions of billions of billions of generations. The most seemingly improbable result of genetic selection is actually highly probable when dealing with such orders of magnitude.

In the protracted discussion of abiogenesis which we had with the member "real life," he constantly attempted to suggest that the organization of RNA in cells which then replicated themselves was highly unlikely. But then, he was wedded to a young earth creationist point of view, and saw the earth as at most tens of thousands of years old. Even in that time scale, his understanding of probability was fatally flawed. A microorganism which replicated each 20 minutes will have undergone more than 25 million generations in a thousand years--time enough and more for any alleged genetic improbability to have established itself.

Or one might say--to be undeceived into deception and disillusioned into illusion.

Set is deceived into not being deceived and deluded into not supporting any illusions by his pride. And without ID he wouldn't have a computer to deny or possibly an existence.



That must be why he's a dog lover. Dogs always agree with their master. It's a survival technique which dogs have perfected. A keeper got killed last week in New Zealand trying to teach a lion how to do it.

Tex--you're wasting your time playing on their playing field. Sex is their weak spot. And Science. But you would risk being put on Ignore.

Nowhere in Darwin and nowhere in anthropology will you find lingerie catalouges and shops except in that very recent phenomenom known as Christianity. Or anybody going to the moon or performing Mahler's symphonies or Wagner's operas. And no rock and roll either.

It's them who haven't read the literature of the other side. And if they tried they would have to fail to understand it or eat crow and they are never going to do that I can assure you.

That's what Schopenhaeur said was the inevitable outcome for those who think the world is Will and not Idea. I think he meant that the objectification of the Will as the will to study the Will, scientifically, which is inevitable for an organism gifted with reflection, introspection and curiosity and Christian theology, leads to the funny farm. To avoid it it is best to eschew studying the Will and the Idea altogether and to Ignore anybody who has done. Old bones are safe enough. And third rate writers. And tenth rate ones as well like those in wande's quotes.

Maybe I read more into your post than you meant me to.



To ME this is not immaterial. It is important to KNOW how the experiment was conducted. There absolutely is legitimacy to the idea of contamination. Though I am not disputing the results of this articles contention of natural selection it did NOT identify any new genetic material that was not possibly already in existence in the DNA of the bacteria nor. It also does not in any way prove macro evolution. It only proves my already agreed to stance that there is natural selection. I do not deny that there can be beneficial mutations.



I again see no science DISPROVING 1 or 2. The whole premise of evolution requires both!!!...

Are you saying the science has PROVEN that Random Natural Processes are NOT required for evolution to occur? If it is not random then it is ordered and designed! If it is not natural then how? Supernaturally. Please show me this evidence cause that would seem to prove my point without any doubt.



There may be fewer over all but the truth is there are many who are silent out of fear for their jobs.

And like I said before Scientific consensus has been wrong on many other issues in the past. Shouldn't all alternatives to scientific consensus be examined? I mean come on. We have a huge growth in Scientists and climatologists who are saying that the consensus on "man caused global warming" are wrong. Should we strip them of their intellectual credentials simply because they support scientific theory that opposes the consensus.
True science would NEVER accept a theory as established FACT just because the consensus said so. It has been those who have dared to go against the consensus that have changed science forever.
ie:
There are 9 planets.
Neanderthals were our direct ancestors.
The existence of phlogiston.
The atom was the smallest particle in the universe.
Tectonic plates were the idea of a bunch of loons.

I fully agree that there are changes within species. One human couple has the genetic ability to create over a trillion completely unique offspring. But not one of them will ever be spider monkey. NEVER. Nor will any of the offspring ever "evolve" genetic material to become a spider monkey.

If you want to be technical every species is transitional within itself. Americans tend to be taller than Americans 200 years ago, but none of us are evolving into. I agree with natural selection. The larger stronger healthier Americans are living and the smaller weaker die out. Thats logic. But there are no interspecies transitions that as far as I have seen are absolutely declaratively interspecies. Most if not all can be explained as extinct species of their own.

You guys can theorize that reptiles became birds and humans were apes all you want but to this date you have not proven it.




I don't think you have the authority to tell me that I "will stop". I will do as I please. Your comment was about applying scientific standards to Religion. That is very different from Intelligent design. Intelligent design does not declare anything more than life on this planet appears to have purpose and design and therefore must have a designer. If that designer was a scientist from the planet Kolob who seeded this planet with life forms then so be it. But I reject the probability and liklihood of such complexity and design occurring from random natural processes.

Even many scientists who support evolution admit that the statistical probabilities of the creation of even the first living cell are so astronomical it is beyond miracle status.

examples:
H.S. Lipson, a Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester (UK):
"In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it."

Prominent scientists have attempted to calculate the odds that a free-living, single-celled organism, such as a bacterium, might result by the chance combining of pre-existent building blocks. Harold Morowitz calculated the odds as one chance in 10 to the 100,000,000,000 power.

Sir Fred Hoyle calculated the odds of only the proteins of an amoebae arising by chance as one chance in 10 to the 40,000 power.

Mathematicians tell us that any event with an improbability greater than one chance in 10 to the 50th power is in the realm of metaphysics.

Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology for his work with the DNA molecule, stated:

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. "

I. L. Cohen is a mathematician, researcher and author -- a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and officer of the Archaeological Institute of America.
"...In the final analysis, objective scientific logic has to prevail -- no matter what the final result is - no matter how many time-honored idols have to be discarded in the process.

...after all, it is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the bitter end -- no matter what illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers... if in the process of impartial scientific logic, they find that creation by outside superintelligence is the solution to our quandary, then let's cut the umbilical cord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back."
"...every single concept advanced by the theory of evolution (and amended thereafter) is imaginary and it is not supported by the scientifically established facts of microbiology, fossils, and mathematical probability concepts. Darwin was wrong. "
"...The theory of evolution may be the worst mistake made in science."

I agree with these men on these points.

The scientific community has made Evolution its religion and Darwin its god. It opposes any criticism of its theory and quickly hushes any who point out its weaknesses.



It is not a mistake nor untrue. Even among your bacteria experiment article you support that only one strain of Ecoli developed the new ability. I claim that should I spray generation 20,000 with Lysol that would never occur. The supposed time of life creation on this earth was not very hospitable. Absolute perfect balances had to be in place and just ONE bad day one bad Season and the whole process COULD have been ruined. Then you apply that possibility to every mutation, going forward and the statistical improbability rises higher and higher.



As always I continue to grow and learn. And I look forward to scientific studies such as those going on with RNA right now. However I see no quality issues with my point of view. I have not expectation that your mind will change. But your arguments are not convincing me any more than mine do you.

G'day all! I'm out.

Well; it is clear that you are not approaching this argument from base principles and working your way up, but instead, casting about for proof of a previously-held theory. Your arguments are literally copied from modern Intelligent Design websites and represent long-standing misconceptions about the science in question. Two points -



You are quite wrong. This is an assertion on your part which is unsupported by any evidence at all. In fact, we have evidence showing that species do have the ability to evolve over time into divergent models, and even today children are born with genetic 'throwbacks' and vestigial organs from an earlier evolutionary era. If one of these mutated children was successful enough and bred true, a new species could quickly arise.

There are also several logical holes in your theory; for example, if one species is never able to evolve into another over time, then where did species which formerly did not exist come from? Did they appear out of thin air? Unless you have some sort of explanation for why species exist today that did not in the past, you don't have much of a theory.



Of course; but then you will continue to be incorrect every time you do. Verily, the scientific terms you throw around so casually mean something more than you seem to think they do, and their misuse is not a strong element of your argument.



This is 100% false. The scientific community instead rejects criticisms of its' theories which are not based in science. Your arguments are not based in science but assertion (It's too unlikely for life to have evolved... etc).

I think you have a really difficult time understanding the time frames involved. We're talking about billions of years. That's a lot of time for variations to work themselves out. That's enough time for life to be almost completely wiped out (which we think happened several times) and restart again from a much earlier point.

When block quoting stuff from ID websites, you need to be careful; much of what you wrote has been clearly disproven by other scientists. For example, you quote Sir Hoyle (a fave of IDer's), yet (From Hoyle's wikipedia article)-



You can set up any ridiculous scenario and then claim the odds are tremendously against it, but that doesn't provide actual evidence against something.

I will also re-iterate that you cannot logically reject something you consider improbable (spontaneous evolution) and replace it with something even more improbable (evidence-less belief in an invisible 'being' which acts in a god-like manner). It just doesn't follow.

Cycloptichorn

Please , bring one or more forward so that we may discuss them in leisure. I assume that self published "science" from places like the Discovery Institute or Inst of Creation SCience is ok with you.



The fact that geneticists run little experiments to DUPLICATE nature, isnt a lab formulation. If you read Fairbanks you will understand that the nay forms and functions of the HOX gene isnt man made.Neither is chromosome 2, which, in humans , corresponds to chromosomes 2a and 2b from a chimpanzee genome. In that structure, our chromosome 2 has embedded the telomeres and the centromeres of both chimpa chromosomes as the chromosomes fused (apparently AFTER) the Homo split from its Pan common ancestor. No humans were around to create anything when that chromosomal dance took place.

Im wondering, are you a high school student or later? Its not easy discerning from your writing. If youre a HS student, we owe you some slack in our discussions and Ill try not to be too abrasive. In either case, I think that you can absorb some verbal illustrations from the scientific literature. If you will please, when you say youve "tead something that supports a theorem", please be so kind as to give us a reference to the document. I dont care if you dont punch up any links, I just want to make sure that your references are as real as can be.

The search for certainty effemm is a long, fruitless and some say dangerous quest.

Natural selection is not random, it is a self limiting focused phenotypic response to environmental changes, populational dynamics, or sexual selection. The responses are pretty much predictable for selected genotypic expressions. For example, the HOX gene , can be turned off or on by several other collateral functional groups, consequently the gene group acts as a master functional plan for any manifestation of an organisms thoracic section.

Also, before we understood the structure and funtions of DNA, we understood the mathematical expressions of genes and inherited traits. We also unerstood the statistical break points that populational alleles would predict in an expansion of possible trait outcome (eg Hardy Weinberg distribution). We understood te traits and we understood the outcomes, we merely needed a mechanism.
If an experiment duplicates nature, you seem to want to be able to negate the experiments significance. That is very close to waht creationists do for an act. The fact that IDers do accept natural selection, common ancestry, and the age of the planet, merely makes it a search for an interim mechanism for when every time the earths environment changes and there are massive dieoffs of species. The fossil evidence clearly shows that several species "make it through" while most are wiped out. These remaining few become the "seedstock" of all new species that then derive.

OUR earliest ancestors appear to be insectivores, living species of which, today still show that we have a common genetic compement tahts about 25% common. AS time went on, and several other classes and oders appear, (most of which have living descendent forms today) we see that the genomes become closer and closer to us.

DFurther, we see that massive adaptation to changing environments or environmental isolation events (like an erosion surface that separates several species from each other,) the rootstock organism is more closely genetically aligned with the derived species than they are to other similar species in other parts of the wold. For example, the iguanas of galapogos are genetically more similar to those of the Peruvian mainland than they are with iguanas from Mid America. OR, species from caves (frogs, insects , fish) are quite similar genetically to the species from just outside the cave and they are less similar to similar species from elsewhere in the country. The implications are very hard to dispute. IN FACT, no one has been able to successfully dispute or refute the significance of these data.

As Darwin stated when responding to Hooker re: the Grand Designer .'He had to be a rather incompetent tinkerer... unable to arrive at a correct design in the first case"

That just a datum effemm. How does it work?

I will admit I copied the quotes only from an ID site. As did you to produce quotes. Nothing else was copied but my own discussion.


You can say I am wrong but you have not proven I am wrong. In all your argument you have proved nothing. All you have done is try to advance your theory as fact. The fact is that evolution is a theory and remains a theory.
You can no more absolutely prove it to be true than I can prove ID.
I believe that ID is the answer. Until more convincing evidence comes along I reject macroevolutionary theory.



I agree. My point there was say that there has been a strong opposition to teaching the weaknesses of Darwinism. There are many weaknesses. Even your own scientist admit there are gaps and unanswerable questions. I think that these should be clearly taught. They even vehemently refuse to allow text books to be labeled stating that "Evolution is a theory" WHY? what are they so scared of. Why must it be taught as absolute fact? To my knowledge not one person has proven how life was created. Why because no one knows. NO ONE was there. Not you , not I.

I base much on Statistical analysis this is true. I think this is one of the greatest liklihoods. I understand billions of years and I understand that the universe has a beginning. In my mind if there is a beginning there is something that set off that beginning. I have no issues with changes with in species. But you cannot prove your point on interspecies macro evolution.

I believe that All we need is one pair of one species each with the genetic code to produce a trillion different offspring and so on can produce Trillions of variations of the species. I believe that God created those species. And I believe there is evidence for the spontaneous appearance of species. (precambrian explosion... etc.)

As for your comments about clearly disproven, I disagree. I think they have clearly REFUTED the claims but not absolutely disproven.

I reject that the existence of a God is more improbable than your theory. I simply reject that the two can be compared. I believe in God. You cannot prove otherwise.

I want to commend you though on your demeanor and very well worded discussion (for the most part). I do feel like I am not making myself clear on some points because you seem to be going back to points I have addressed or agree with.

Unfortunately I need to run I have a business trip to San Francisco to get ready for. Thanks for great discussion and I will check out some of your information.

Here, Tex, you must have missed this, so i thought i'd just bring it to your attention, so you can answer a completely reasonable question.



A clever, well-informed man such as yourself should have the answer at his fingertips, no?

Thats right, and why not? he earned every penny of it .!!


Unless your main goal in life is to merely ignore input, you must understand that the components of your worldview have been dusted by science.

Evidence clearly shows the relationship between the species and their genetic components. These components contain "NEW genetic material (ya merely has to look at the genome projects and compare a chimp to a human to see). And the genic components of humans retain the "fossil DNA' just as if the genetics of the two species were linked via a third species common to both. NO CREATIONIST BELIEF CAN EXPLAIN AWAY THAT PHENOM.

No evidence of the Michael Behe arena has withstood even minor scrutiny. EVERY peice of the Irreducible Complexity (so vital to Intelligent Design) has been disproved.EVERY ONE.

Many of us applaud your beliefs and will defend your rights to believe so. However, when your kind starts pushing these beliefs into a supposedly dispassionate science curriculum, we will push you back into the Middle Ages where you belong. YOU shall not be allowed to teach religion in science class. Thats a simple challenge which ultimately, youre gonna lose.

As far as theory v fact, Ive lost patience with your practiced density. A theory is fact in science. It can only be toppled if some new facts can displace its entire components of facts. Youve tried and have been quite unsuccessful. I must say that the Creationist and ID "scientists" have been using fraud and deception to try to emphasize their beliefs. Nothing has stuck and youre becoming more and more irrelevant. The only annoyances are that your side keeps trying to invade our science classes with your bullshit "equivalent theory crap".
As Set has issued tha challenge, I too would love to see your piles of steaming evidence that supports your worldview. Pewrhaps we can discuss it.

I dont believe that youll comply because its not the style of ID arguments to get cornered in a fact for fact discussion. Youd look like creamed corn.

There is no need to explain it away. It is as pointless as explaining the link between a hammer and the forest from which the handle came and the mountain from which the head came.



So what? Mr Behe, and his arena, is a trivial incident in the history of our world. He is merely another amateur sophist who plays with a taste of fame and the avoidance of undignified work using a quasi-scientific language which he has found impresses a certain type of trivial mind.



That is taking liberties with the language. As I have often explained, seemingly to no effect on you effemm, the removal of religion from science classes is impossible unless religion is removed from society. You seek to bamboozle your audience with your over-simplified use of the word "teach". In the sense of the word as I take it you are using it there is no intention on the part of your serious opponents to "teach" religion in science classes. You have consistently ignored input of that nature to the extent that I have to wonder what your motives are. And the science class itself is a small part of the school and an even smaller part of the community which, one assumes, appoints the science teachers. It is a very small part of that input to which young people are exposed all day long and every day. You are magnifying its input out of your own subjectivities.

I have no objection to ignorance. Even the wisest person is ignorant of many things. Ignorance is associated with innocence.

But stubborn ignorance is something else. When it is deliberate as well: putting posts on Ignore, flouncing off the threads, it cannot be excused. It cannot be allowed in any classroom. How can any "new facts" topple something of that nature which shuts them off from the cocoon it has woven around itself?



And it was ridiculous. Void of intellectual content.

But you like Tex don't you effemm? He provides you with a platform to spout the same drivel you have been spouting for years without the slightest inclination to push it forward from whence it began. Some disappointment at the doings of priestcraft I would guess. Or some youthful desire to challenge your superiors as Mathew Arnold explained.

You're just corn. The cream was left off.

Oh good, now that we have the feel good words from our local homeless person, we can all move on with our days.

It's the same hypocrisy over and over -- teach religion in science classes, but don't be teaching any science in church sermons or Sunday School. A nun teaching evolution in a Catholic school does not amount to the same thing. It's not church and is a private school. It's public schools that are in question in Texas and the few others states where they want to start the Monkey trial all over again.

Nobody asked you to stop by. Some of us hope you'll move on permanently like those religious people insisted you did when you gratuitously invaded their meeting hall for the purpose of making a fuss and indulging your need to insult somebody.

You are miles behind Bradlaugh anyway. And much less well read.

Quote- Nobody asked you to stop by. Some of us hope you'll move on permanently like those religious people insisted you did when you gratuitously invaded their meeting hall for the purpose of making a fuss and indulging your need to insult somebody.

You are miles behind Bradlaugh anyway. And much less well read.- Unquote.


Good to see that you making the usual intelligent religiose replies that one has come to expect from you... spendiouse.

You really should learn to use the quote function. It really isn't very difficult at at. Just click on quote. Even you should be able to do it.

You have a problem with homeless people? You are hitting a new low.