1. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78133 by devolved on October 12, 2007 at 1:32 am

271. Comment #78119 by epeeist

If the water came "from the deeps" then it would have been hot and under pressure when it. It doesn't emerge at the temperature water from your cold tap, it appears as a cloud of superheated steam. This is not going to do Noah much good now is it?

'Deeps' would include the depths of the seas and I'm sure that God having chosen to wipe out mankind because of its sinfulness was quite capable of looking after Noah and his family. It's really pointless having arguments of this nature because the Bible records the event but many of the details are not given.

If you can't contribute on the science side,

Nice try

… there is always the morality side to consider. It only ever seems to be Noah and his goodness that are concentrated on in this myth. But will nobody think of the koala bears - what had they done that the majority of them were drowned. How moral is an entity that kills somewhere around 27 million people as well as virtually all the animal and plant life on the planet.

Noah's no moral paragon. Without a concept of God that includes his holiness it's impossible to conceive of the sinfulness of human actions. If you want to know what they'd done read the account in Genesis. Adam was warned of the consequences of his actions. It's no different today. As I write dozens of poor people are starving to death whilst a wealthy minority live in wealth almost beyond our imagination.

The blame for the death of so many rests not with God but with man.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3774/

I'm still not convinced that we can even use the word 'moral' without God as the foundation of our thinking, and if we do how can we be sure it's meaningful?

2. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78034 by devolved on October 11, 2007 at 2:47 pm

225. Comment #76981 by BaronOchs

devolved "You might like to consider that the Grand Canyon was carved out after the flood."
Has anyone worked out precisely what force would be required to carve out the Grand Canyon in just one flood, and what quantity of water this would require? And also how 40 days of indiscriminate rainfall manage to produce so precise a result?

To your first point the answer is a colossal volume of water but I doubt that anyone could work that out precisely. The answer to your second point needs more detail.

From observation we do know that canyons can be cut by water:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp

The suggestion that '40 days of indiscriminate rainfall' formed the Grand Canyon is not an idea that any creationist I have studied would ever support. Most of the flood water came not from rainfall but from the oceans and possibly subterranean sources of water. (Genesis 7:11 "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened."

The global flood did not last 40 days but just over a year. (The flood account in Genesis makes that clear). The most likely cause of the Grand Canyon was that a vast 'sea' left after the flood receded, burst through the dam holding it and cut through the newly deposited rocks. Is there anything to support this idea? Yes:
http://biblicalgeology.net/content/view/79/

247. Comment #77283 by epeeist

Well quotes from the Bible are hardly evidence are they?

Here's one that you might meditate upon: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Proverbs 1:7 (Today's New International Version)

Here is a small exercise for you:
1. Choose a particular decay used in radiometric dating, 14C is probably not a good one, try something like 40K to 40Ar. Work out how much energy is released in the decay.
2. Look up some estimates of 40K abundance and using the "old earth" age work out how much there was when the earth supposedly formed (I am not asking you to accept the "old earth" age, it is just easier to work out the values if you only need a simple first order rate equation, note that the Creation Institute accepts the decay process to the current isotopic ratios)
3. You should now be able to determine how much 40K has decayed and hence how much energy has been released
4. Now work out what happens to the temperature of the earth when you release that much energy over a 6000 year period rather than a 4.5 billion year period

I can't help but wonder why you pose that exercise. Perhaps you want to demonstrate how clever you are and show that I cannot do it. Well I've never lied on this website and I don't intend to, so well done on both counts.
However I'd suggest that it's not me that needs to reply to you, rather Dr Humphreys so either you can ask him or I will.

3. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76979 by devolved on October 8, 2007 at 2:34 am

218. Comment #76923 by Goldy

You like floods, Dev. Here...
http://geology.about.com/od/flooding/a/aa_041397jokul.htm
Just a wee idea for you. Now, you do accept the Ice Age theory? Hope so, or this reference will not work for you. Mind you, as the last major one was a few millenia before the beginning of Earth, I guess I could be wrong...

I guess you could, after all it is a question of interpretation of past events. Thanks for the link though it's very interesting.
Let me return the favour:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v11/i2/nature.asp

221. Comment #76949 by epeeist
Comment #76903 by devolved

Let's give you one to start with - have a look at Meert's site, specifically http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/northrup.htm and come back with some arguments and evidence as to why he is wrong. A citation in a non-vanity published journal or web page would be acceptable.

Why on earth would I want to defend the utterly bizarre ideas of the Rev. Bernard Northrup? His thesis was built upon the "gap theory"(a worldwide flood before the worldwide flood of the Bible). This is a straw man if ever I saw one! (A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. The position can be oversimplified, overstated, or else distorted. A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted).

I didn't ask you to not to quote the bible, I asked you for evidence that one can go and look at.

Yes you did "Quotes from the bible or AiG don't count." Remember that? And if you want evidence read up on the work of D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.
http://www.trueorigin.org/helium01.asp

214. Comment #76908 by steve99 on October 7, 2007 at 5:16 pm

Please see comment 204.

I read it. It's your opinion. That's fine but where's the evidence to support what you believe?

4. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76906 by devolved on October 7, 2007 at 5:04 pm

211. Comment #76897 by eXcommunicate

I appreciate the argument that morals might have evolved but there's nothing within the span of man's recorded history to support the idea that we have become better behaved over time.


You do understand that your understanding of the phrase "better behaved" is a product of that same evolution?

No. I understand that goo-to-you evolution is a product of faulty interpretation of past events.

5. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76903 by devolved on October 7, 2007 at 4:56 pm

209. Comment #76853 by epeeist on October 7, 2007 at 1:31 pm

"The FLOOD". I thought you didn't want to talk about that.

You thought wrong. The problem is that on previous posts you wanted me to talk about it without reference to either the Bible or creationist websites and that would be like asking me to cross a busy road blindfolded.

Just in case we can debate on a level playing field I'll suggest you look at this article:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/ch3-grand-canyon.asp

So here's a question for you. Geologists and dendrochronologicists can determine the age of all sorts of things by simple counting. Tree rings, ice cores and varves in lakes like Suigetsu. All of them are consilient.

I hate to disagree but we're back to evidence and its interpretation. Varves are given as reliable examples for establishing ages but are they?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/feedback/negative7-20-2000.asp

210. Comment #76871 by BillySands

… if evolution is false, we will find cambrian rabbits - truth is there are not even any cambrian vertebrates.

I don't pretend to understand this. Perhaps you could be a little clearer?

So lets get this right, the flood lays down all these neat sediments (with no rabbits, whales or eagles), then a deluge comes along and carves out the canyon - how? its already under water.

You might like to consider that the Grand Canyon was carved out after the flood.
If you're that interested in whales read the following:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i4/whales.asp

But given the opportunity to commit the 'perfect crime' why do we still feel guilt? . I'm guessing you interviewed exactly zero criminal masterminds here. I met quite a few folk when I did some work with homeless people, and let me tell you, guilt doesn't come in to it that often. I met people who had no problem with the use of violence or sending their girlfriend out to work as a prostitute while they went shop lifting. One of my friends who works in the Strathclyde police forensic lab can give you some even worse stories. Accuracy is not your strong point, is it?

Your comments entirely miss the point. I've had sufficient experience of life to know that people become hardened and consciences deadened. Notwithstanding that, it is still true that presented with the chance of doing wrong without being caught many people do experience a pang of conscience. My question is how does evolution explain that? Perhaps you can explain.

By contrast our moral reactions have nothing to do with our chemistry.
Really? Heard of Phineas Gague? He dammaged (sic) part of his brain and changed completely. Ther (sic) is plenty of evidence out there showing that brain lesions affect moral behaviour. Why dont you use some facts instead of making ignorant claims. Is neuroscience you specialist field? If not, why make claims that chemistry cant (sic) explain behaviour? I'm guessing it is becaus (sic) ignoring facts allows you to carry on believing your wierd (sic) views.

You confuse morality and behaviour.

6. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76823 by devolved on October 7, 2007 at 11:40 am

Comment #76688 by Robert Maynard

devolved It's not a question of whether you believe in an absolute standard; rather does one exist (because it exists regardless of our beliefs).
EDIT: I took this as you saying "by the way, it totally does exist", but I see what you're saying now, and yes, an absolute standard either does exist or it doesn't. How do we answer that question, in your opinion?

The answer is that none of us can be certain at this point in history. There is no scientific way of proving or disproving God's existence and his existence (or non-existence) is independent of our beliefs or scientific methodology.

It's hard to know why anyone should dogmatically claim that our ability to have moral thoughts must have evolved or must have been given us by God. Either view is an expression of faith.

I can understand why cooperation with others would have survival value and therefore becomes a repeated pattern of behaviour. But given the opportunity to commit the 'perfect crime' why do we still feel guilt? Why do we even regard it as a crime? If survival is the driving force doesn't it make sense to cooperate when its expedient and look after #1 when it isn't.

jbblack The sweetness of sugar is a chemical property, so it wasn't the best example to use.

Of course it's possible to construct a scenario in which sugar isn't perceived as sweet but that entirely misses the point. The reaction we normally have to sugar is a chemical reaction to the chemicals in glucose or sucrose.

By contrast our moral reactions have nothing to do with our chemistry. I appreciate the argument that morals might have evolved but there's nothing within the span of man's recorded history to support the idea that we have become better behaved over time.

Comment #76609 by Dr Benway

The distinction between scientific and non-scientific methods of discovery is not useful.

Really!

Misunderstanding of science is widespread and will throw a spanner in the works everytime (I've heard this notion that science can't study the past; someone ought to alert the cosmologists, geologists, and paleontologists).

I think you should talk about scientists studying the past (or not). When scientists do examine rocks, fossils etc they are working in the present and interpreting data according their framework of beliefs. One geologist looking at the Grand Canyon may conclude that it was the result of water erosion over a very long period of time, and another that it was created over a very short time span by water (of a different magnitude). Both will be looking at the same evidence but drawing quite different conclusions.

184. Comment #76635 by BillySands on October 6, 2007 at 2:06 pm

Take some syrup and saturate it with sugar, then eat it and wash it down with mars bar ice cream, then drink a cup of tea with two sugars. Suddenly that sugar does not taste so sweet

Billy you strain at gnats and swallow a camel. God bless you.

7. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76588 by devolved on October 6, 2007 at 11:33 am

Comment #76145 by Robert Maynard

For instance, when someone asks "How can you talk about what's right or wrong without believing in an absolute standard?" perhaps one could counter "How have we all agreed that sugar tastes good, or that excrement smells bad, when they lack an 'absolute' smell or taste?"

It's not a question of whether you believe in an absolute standard; rather does one exist (because it exists regardless of our beliefs).
I'm not sure that we do all agree that sugar tastes good – put it into my coffee and I think it tastes disgusting. However there is something about the chemistry of sugar that would lead all of us to say that it is sweet.

Sugar's sweetness is not an innate property of its ingredients.

Can you have un-sweet sugar?

Human excrement is not objectively repulsive. (Why do you suppose flies like it so much?

Presumably because they're not human and because they're part of an amazingly complex ecological system.

I would hope that a religious person would recognise that this garbage-eating parallel is an absurd scenario…

It's also an absurd parallel, or rather no parallel at all.

Comment #76451 by Shuggy

102. Comment #76446 by devolved on October 5, 2007
I've just heard RD say that people do terrible things "in the name of religion". I agree. But they do terrible things in the name of all sorts of causes including patriotism and science. Religion isn't the problem, people are.
But not all people do terrible things. When they do terrible things in the name of science, that can be shown to be a misuse of science, because science says nothing about what people ought to do. And I tend to agree with Samuel Johnson that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel", but I'm lucky to live on an island.

Of course not all people do terrible things. RD's claim is that there is something unique about 'religion' that leads some people to do terrible things in its "name". If a Christian flew a jet aircraft into a building in the name of Jesus do you think he would be acting in manner consistent with his Lord's teaching or contrary to it?

Robert Maynard again

The claim that people with reading glasses pose a threat to the species can be investigated and found (I would predict) to be incorrect. If someone making this claim is presented with clear and unambiguous information that people with reading glasses are ordinary people, and refuses to amend their opinions and stop making threats - we can definitively call them out as irrational and dangerous to people with glasses, and we are ethically compelled to take measures to limit their power to act on their beliefs.

But without absolute standards you have a problem. Darwinian biologist Bill Hamilton apparently argued for infanticide, eugenics and euthanasia to 'save the world'. How do you decide whether it's right to take the life on another person? Majority opinion? What if the majority of people decided that something previously regarded as unacceptable was now acceptable? Or suppose infanticide was deemed illegal in country A but legal in country B.

Further I would suggest that a little research into the threat posed by most religious people would show that the overwhelming majority have no more desire to cause violence than non-religious people. Perhaps an analysis of warfare in the 20th century would help determine that.

Comment #76486 by stevencarrwork

DEVOLVED -You will rationally do terrible things because of your beliefs religious or not. CARR Yes, but Christians will claim that their Holy Book means that people can be killed , man, woman and child because they are 'termites'

Do you think that anyone who does terrible things does them rationally? Christians would never make such a claim. I am saddened that you either know so little about Christianity or chose to misrepresent it so grossly.

8. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76446 by devolved on October 5, 2007 at 11:14 pm

I've just heard RD say that people do terrible things "in the name of religion". I agree. But they do terrible things in the name of all sorts of causes including patriotism and science. Religion isn't the problem, people are. If you really, really, really believe that people who wear reading glasses ought to be eliminated to protect the integrity of the species it follows logically that you will act on your belief. You will rationally do terrible things because of your beliefs religious or not.

9. Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

Comment #75412 by devolved on October 2, 2007 at 2:54 pm

There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds.

The claim makes no attempt to distinguish between religions. If your leader teaches you to love your neighbour as yourself and to love your enemy then it's hard to see any logical path.

10. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73594 by devolved on September 25, 2007 at 11:46 am

Comment #73246 by Goldy
"So where's the evidence from real science for increased complexity. I'm still waiting."

Here's a start. Remember PubMed?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17494748&ordinalpos=13&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
I always laugh at the aptness of your name here :-)

Here's what the links says:

"Individuality is a complex trait, yet a series of stages each advantageous in itself can be shown to exist allowing evolution to get from unicellular individuals to multicellular individuals. We consider several of the key stages involved in this transition: the initial advantage of group formation, the origin of reproductive altruism within the group, and the further specialization of cell types as groups increase in size. How do groups become individuals? This is the central question we address. Our hypothesis is that fitness tradeoffs drive the transition of a cell group into a multicellular individual through the evolution of cells specialized at reproductive and vegetative functions of the group. We have modeled this hypothesis and have tested our models in two ways. We have studied the origin of the genetic basis for reproductive altruism (somatic cells specialized at vegetative functions) in the multicellular Volvox carteri by showing how an altruistic gene may have originated through cooption of a life-history tradeoff gene present in a unicellular ancestor. Second, we ask why reproductive altruism and individuality arise only in the larger members of the volvocine group (recognizing that high levels of kinship are present in all volvocine algae groups). Our answer is that the selective pressures leading to reproductive altruism stem from the increasing cost of reproduction with increasing group size. Concepts from population genetics and evolutionary biology appear to be sufficient to explain complexity, at least as it relates to the problem of the major transitions between the different kinds of evolutionary individuals."

As ever this is an hypothesis about what may have originated and leads to the inference that appear to be sufficient…… Well at least you tried Goldy so thank you for that.

It seems that in the absence of evidence from the rest of the posting team they resort to mudslinging and abuse. Why am I not surprised?

I'll sign off with a quote too,

"Note that we are not saying that mutations and natural selection cannot generate information (see Spetner's book, Not by Chance for example). It's just that with real world generation times, real-world sized genomes and real-world organisms which have to survive through multi-dimensional adaptive traits, there has not been enough time to generate even a tiny amount of the biological information seen in living things. As Spetner says, look, if mutations and natural selection have generated all the information we see, then we should be able to easily find some examples of some new information (i.e. increase in specified complexity) arising today. No one has yet found one. The best that anyone has come up with is a GA, which does not simulate real world evolution, for the reasons outlined above."

The link for it is: http://www.trueorigin.org/

I'm glad you appreciate the humor of my name.

11. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73194 by devolved on September 24, 2007 at 12:04 pm

82. Comment #73068 by Roger Stanyard

Even the dumbest of creationists knows that the fossil record and the genome are evidence for evolution. You might want to interpret it different, but evidence it is.

Of course every creationist knows that the fossil record and the genome are presented as evidence for evolution. But you make my point for me, the evidence is interpreted, that's the whole basis of the difference between creationists and evolutionist; they have differing world views.

Or are you so moronically stupid to not realise that even creation scienctists (sic) believe in evolution, albeit micro-evolution (and some believe in macro-evolution, see Michael Behe)

I wonder how well you understand the creationist position. They make a very clear distinction between natural selection (which they argue can be shown to be scientifically validated by operational science) and evolution (which they are adamant is a belief system rooted in historical science an incapable of being validated).
As you don't appear to understand these fundamental creationist positions I'll give you them.
Natural selection involves merely the shuffling, rearrangement and degeneration of existing genetic information, whereas evolution requires encyclopaedic quantities of new information to be produced by unintelligent, natural processes—information coding for new types of organs, limbs, physiologies, etc.
Operational science involves discovering how things operate in today's creation—repeatable and observable phenomena in the present. Historical science deals with the origin of things in the past—unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events. There is a fundamental difference between how the two work.

How do you think creationsist (sic) explain how "kinds" on the ark became species we know today?

Creationists believe that the created kind possessed at creation all genetic information for rapid speciation to take place. The global flood created an 'empty' world where rapid speciation could take place as isolated communities lost genetic information, lost the ability to breed with other members of their kinds and developed into new species. Further creationists point to operational science to support their views as rapid speciation is observable. This is natural selection.

Comment #73107 by fin

Isn't "increase/decrease in genetic information" a creationist straw man?

If you are unable to provide examples of increases in genetic information then the entire evolutionary argument falls over. I presume you do believe that the original life forms was/were relatively simple and that over time became more complex.

Antibiotic resistance is an example of a trait resulting from the loss of genetic information. The accidental duplication of genes doesn't help either. The accidental duplication of genes doesn't help either. Get the point? More of the same doesn't mean new it means more of the same. Hox genes don't help either. All the experiments on fruit flies have produced harmful mutations – a second pair of wings for examples without muscles.

Comment #73065 by scottishgeologist

The YEC / ID proponents make an assumption. That their "intelligent design" comes from the god of the bible. Underpinning everythin (sic) is this tacit assumption. It is axiomatic to them

You're at least half right YEC yes, ID not necessarily. But what's axiomatic to you? Atheism. Self creating matter. Information systems that appear by luck. Increasing complex genomes with no supportable evidence in operational science.

So where's the evidence from real science for increased complexity. I'm still waiting.

12. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73036 by devolved on September 23, 2007 at 11:26 pm

Comment #72926 by Goldy on September

We scientists… pick other references

Ok so you're a scientist. Using the scientific method - observation >induction >hypothesis >test hypothesis by experiment >proof/disproof >knowledge – please provide me with evidence for evolution. I'd appreciate your references.
(I tried this question recently and got suggestions from people about how they believed mutations increased genetic information but no evidence.)


Comment #72945 by aitchkay

Devolved - your last post seems to suggest that you are willing to consider the possibility that God does not exist. I think this is a step in the right direction: perhaps your visits here have not after all been a waste of time.

Thank you. May I ask if you are willing to consider the possibility that he does exist?

13. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #72921 by devolved on September 23, 2007 at 2:16 pm

63. Comment #72873 by captain underpants

You can start by explaining to us, in your own words, why we should believe that a man was fathered by a supernatural being without the aid of sexual intercourse and that this man possessed magical abilities. Can you do that? Note that quoting the Bible does not constitute an argument, that much at least ought to be clear to you.

1. Jesus did not possess magical abilities. (The Bible claims that he had supernatural power but you'd like me to argue wearing a blindfold and both hands tied behind my back so I can't mention that).
2. I believe that science is a fantastic tool and that in combination with technology it has delivered countless benefits to mankind. But it has limitations.

The exclusion of supernatural phenomena from historical science cannot be justified on scientific grounds as it is an expression of a particular (naturalistic) paradigm. To amplify this let me postulate two contradictory positions:
A God does not exist
B God does exist

If A is true there is no value in examining supernatural explanations BUT if B is true there is significant value in examining supernatural explanations.

3. If B is true and God exists we have no grounds for denying his ability to act supernaturally.

14. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #72883 by devolved on September 23, 2007 at 10:21 am

Comment #72873 by captain underpants on September 23, 2007 at 9:45 am

It seems I spoke too soon. Devolved, when are you going to understand that posting a link to a web page does not constitute a rebuttal of somebody's argument?

The article is perfectly adequate. I wonder why you are reluctant to read it?

Comment #72871 by epeeist

…you still haven't answered my questions on the Flood.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to reinvent the bicycle. If you really want to understand a creationist perspective on flood geology have a look as Tas Walker's website.
http://www.biblicalgeology.net/

15. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #72858 by devolved on September 23, 2007 at 9:07 am

38. Comment #72682 by TheCelestialTeapot

I am not sure whether or not you are deliberately blurring the lines between those scientists who are creationists and those who are evolutionists or not. It all comes down to testing really. Evolution can be tested. Countless examples. Microbial mutation in regards to antibiotics testing.

Try reading this article (yes its by a creation scientist) and it might just show you why I struggle with the whole idea of evolution.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3268/

16. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #72609 by devolved on September 21, 2007 at 10:57 pm

Comment #72595 by JamesDB

Creationism isn't science so where are they getting the idea that it is.

No it isn't, but creation scientists do science just as well as evolutionary scientists (and that can be proven). Neither belief system (in evolution or in special creation) is science; they're both beliefs about what happened in the past and scientists of both persuasions look at exactly the same evidence and same facts and draw different conclusions.
Science as such supports neither an atheistic or religious view of the world. It's no more rational to believe that life started as a result of luck than that it was the result of a supernatural act of God.

Comment #72597 by liberalartist

The irony in denying evolution is that most people don't realize they are dependent on that knowledge daily for the medicines that have been developed, vaccines, cures, etc.

So if that is true provide some proof. Louis Pasteur was both a Christian and an opponent of evolution yet his scientific work has been of immense benefit to mankind and many lives have been saved. What basis do you have for claiming that vaccines and cures are in any way dependent on a belief in evolution.

17. Is 'Do Unto Others' Written Into Our Genes?

Comment #72524 by devolved on September 21, 2007 at 12:49 pm

scooternyc comments

I will be glad when we move past the concepts of "right" and "wrong" at some point in our evolution

So what would you replace the concepts with?
And how would you distinguish between cutting your neighbour's lawn when he's in bed with a bad back and taking his car without his permission?

18. How the Public Resolves Conflicts Between Faith and Science

Comment #70991 by devolved on September 17, 2007 at 12:18 pm

discipline wrote

Funny how reality often gets in the way of what we'd like to believe.

Absolutely right! And as ever not a shred of science to refute the post. Why am I not surprised.

19. How the Public Resolves Conflicts Between Faith and Science

Comment #70648 by devolved on September 16, 2007 at 12:55 pm

Comment #70390 by thirdchimpanzee

I propose that we change tack in the US and invite ID and Creationism into High School Biology classes, and proceed to demonstrate how these "ideas" are empty of any scientific value, and provide no predictive ability whatsoever. This won't be hard to do - any lessons in comparative anatomy would do to begin with.

Heres an idea you could start with:

'A cell needs over 75 "helper molecules", all working together in harmony, to make one protein (R-group series) as instructed by one DNA base series. A few of these molecules are RNA (messenger, transfer, and ribosomal RNA); most are highly specific proteins.

'When it comes to "translating" DNA's instructions for making proteins, the real "heroes" are the activating enzymes. Enzymes are proteins with special slots for selecting and holding other molecules for speedy reaction. Each activating enzyme has five slots: two for chemical coupling, one for energy (ATP), and most importantly, two to establish a non-chemical three-base "code name" for each different amino acid R-group. You may find that awe-inspiring, and so do my cell-biology students! [Even more awe-inspiring, since the more recent discovery that some of the activating enzymes have editing machinery to remove errant products, including an ingenious "double sieve" system.[2],[3]]

'And that's not the end of the story. The living cell requires at least 20 of these activating enzymes I call "translases," one for each of the specific R-group/code name (amino acid/tRNA) pairs. Even so, the whole set of translases (100 specific active sites) would be (1) worthless without ribosomes (50 proteins plus rRNA) to break the base-coded message of heredity into three-letter code names; (2) destructive without a continuously renewed supply of ATP energy [as recently shown, this is produced by ATP synthase, an enzyme containing a miniature motor, F1-ATPase.[4],[5],[6],[7]] to keep the translases from tearing up the pairs they are supposed to form; and (3) vanishing if it weren't for having translases and other specific proteins to re-make the translase proteins that are continuously and rapidly wearing out because of the destructive effects of time and chance on protein structure! [8]

One can give such descriptions some serious thought, or repeat the evolutionist's mantra, 'But with enough time anything is possible' and change the topic real fast!

Here's the full scientific article

http://www.trueorigin.org/dawkinfo.asp

20. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #68263 by devolved on September 6, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Comment #68014 by aitchkay

OK so my last comment on this. I asked for "one piece of evidence to support your belief in evolution as a process that increases the genetic information content of a living organism" and instead of that I was given the means by which biologists believe increases in genetic information occur. I was also given a link to a PDF 6 page paper that did exactly the same thing. So no evidence provided.

You only want to read peer reviewed papers. Scientists who do not subscribe to the evolutionary paradigm are systematically denied access to the papers you want to read them in. Catch 22.

I have better things to spend my time on than ill-concieved, (sic) semi-literate, unsubstantiated, intellectually dishonest fantasies about a psychopathic sky fairy.

So have I, but you seem equally unwilling to read anything unless it accords with your own presuppositions. I call that regrettable.

What argument? Without evidence, you don't have one.

All scientists have exactly the same evidence. All scientists interpret evidence according to their beliefs.

I suspect, if push came to shove, you would choose the power of antibiotics over the power of prayer.

And I suspect that if push came to shove and the antibiotics didn't work you'd end up praying.

I'll leave you with a question. If the evolution by gene duplication theory is correct then the DNA content and gene number should increase proportionately with organism complexity, but it doesn't. Why not?

21. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #68009 by devolved on September 5, 2007 at 3:09 pm

aichkay claims

Although it is true that gene duplication and exon shuffling are processes that are not *fully* understood in *all* of their finer details (is anything?), no serious biologist doubts that they are real processes which generate new genetic information.

There are serious biologists who profoundly disagree with you and if you want evidence I'm happy to provide it. But perhaps you only want to hear arguments you agree with? So much for science being about the pursuit of true knowledge!

22. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #67686 by devolved on September 4, 2007 at 10:57 am

Particular thanks to Goldy for posting the link.

Dr Benway makes my point admirably, "...if some of our ancestors were single-celled organisms..."

Gene duplication and exon shuffling are hotly debated. For those of you interested in debate rather than abuse you might want to follow the attached link:

http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

As for believing in things for which there is no evidence we're all 'guilty'. No-one has the slightest idea how matter was organised into information systems or how life originated.

23. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #67482 by devolved on September 3, 2007 at 3:03 pm

aitchkay wrote

Yes. Try looking up gene duplication and exon shuffling.

Thank you. It would be really helpful if you could be more specific.

24. In God we doubt

Comment #67349 by devolved on September 3, 2007 at 5:13 am

Comment #67318 by Ian

As humans began to understand and unify phenomena in terms of impersonal forces and processes, many small gods gave way to one big one; that is how most people dealt with growing knowledge.

Is that an opinion that you can support with evidence? If the latter I'd like to see it.

25. In God we doubt

Comment #67286 by devolved on September 3, 2007 at 2:46 am

Well if an interested but unconvinced reader came to the site, saw a comment like "what a fuckwit" and came to the conclusion that atheists/secularists are "arrogant, rude, simplistic", then that person is making the terrible mistake of taking the impulsive action of an individual and applying it to the whole population.

It's no different than coming to the ridiculous conclusion that all women are not to be trusted simply because your first girlfriend cheated on you.

And not really that much different from saying that all religions are evil because extremists use them as power bases to bomb and murder.

Foul language is not a rare occurence on this website, its endemic. I'm surprised Richard Dawkins doesn't complain.

26. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #67239 by devolved on September 2, 2007 at 11:53 pm

Comment #67127 by Bertybob

The laws of gravity and motion did not just pop into Newton's head when he was hit on the head by an apple. He saw the apple fall which gave him the idea (if you believe the story), then the hard work starts to show by evidence (some only found after his death) that what he supposed to be true actually was.

OK let's run with that. Newton saw something happen and presumably he climbed a few apple trees and gave them a good shake to see if any more apples would fall down.

Sir Francis Bacon came up with a useful definition of science: "observation > induction > hypothesis > test hypothesis by experiment > proof/disproof > knowledge"

So using the criterion of seeing something happen; that is a process taking place now, can you please give me one piece of evidence to support your belief in evolution as a process that increases the genetic information content of a living organism?

(I appreciate that 'evolution' is capable of being defined in more than one way. I am proposing that we use it in the sense of the development of all life from a putative primitive source rather than simply change within a population).

27. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #67103 by devolved on September 2, 2007 at 12:37 am

devolved, science is concerned with finding evidence that we would not expect to find if our hypotheses are correct. This is how science moves forward. There's no progress in finding only that which you expect.

Your point being? I fail to see how your comment relates to my first post.

I'm not even sure that you're right. Here's what one science writer said:

"At this point, it is necessary to reveal a little inside information about how scientists work, something the textbooks don't usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals, they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position."
Source: Boyce Rensberger, How the World Works (NY: William Morrow 1986), p. 17–18.

28. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #67102 by devolved on September 2, 2007 at 12:29 am

1. Some scientists start with the belief that only the natural world exists.


No scientist does that.

How could you possibly make such an assertion about the beliefs of all scientists? It's patently wrong.

For example look at this admission:

'We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Source: Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.

29. Polling Data on Science and Religion

Comment #67049 by devolved on September 1, 2007 at 2:39 pm

The conflict isn't between science and religion but between two differing interpretations of past events.

1. Some scientists start with the belief that only the natural world exists.
2. Anything that appears to contradict that belief (e.g., supports an historical record that indicates the reality of the supernatural) therefore must be false.
3. Therefore, any facts supporting creation (especially biblical creation) must logically be dismissed.

1. Other scientists start with the belief that the Bible is literally true...
2. Anything that appears to contradict the Word of God therefore must be false.
3. Therefore, any facts supporting evolution must be logically dismissed...

30. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50234 by devolved on June 15, 2007 at 11:50 pm

After all the rain and floods of the last few days I thought I'd leave you with a rainbow reflection before going on holiday.

Rainbow problem?

During the last supper God took two commonplace things, bread and wine and gave them new symbolic meaning. "And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me." And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood." [Luke 22:19-21 NASB]

God acted in a similar way when he established a covenant with Noah.
The first reference to 'rain' comes in Genesis 2 on day 6 of creation where it says: "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground."
[Gen 2:5]

The next mention of 'rain' comes in Gen 7:4 when God tells Noah that he is about to flood the earth, "For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made."

The Bible doesn't tell when it first rained or when the first rainbow appeared. God wouldn't have warned Noah about 40 days of rain if Noah had never experienced it.

After the flood God spoke with Noah, ""I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth." God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth." [Gen 9:11-13 NASB]

It's important to read what is actually written in scripture and not to read into it what isn't there (eisegesis). Claiming that v13 is the first rainbow is not supported by the text.

God bless you all.

31. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49676 by devolved on June 12, 2007 at 11:14 pm

This is an interesting comment from Zaphod "To say it must have bee (sic) a law giver(we know you mean god)is a massive presupposition without any evidence. We have found evidence for most of the scientific questions we pose and found them to be natural in origin.

1 The argument is not that there must be a law giver (God) but that by analogy it is reasonable to look at the available evidence (and that evidence is the same for everyone) and make inferences from it.

2 You have 'found them to be natural in origin' is a comment on the interpretation you make of the evidence. I look at the same evidence and my interpretation based on different presuppostions leads me to a belief in a creator God.

Amongst the common evidence we have that makes me believe that God is the creator of our universe (and the only universe available for us to examine) is the following:

• The electromagnetic coupling constant binds electrons to protons in atoms. If it was smaller, fewer electrons could be held. If it was larger, electrons would be held too tightly to bond with other atoms.
• Ratio of electron to proton mass (1:1836). Again, if this was larger or smaller, molecules could not form.
• Carbon and oxygen nuclei have finely tuned energy levels.
• Electromagnetic and gravitational forces are finely tuned, so the right kind of star can be stable.
• Our sun is the right colour. If it was redder or bluer, photosynthetic response would be weaker.
• Our sun is also the right mass. If it was larger, its brightness would change too quickly and there would be too much high energy radiation. If it was smaller, the range of planetary distances able to support life would be too narrow; the right distance would be so close to the star that tidal forces would disrupt the planet's rotational period. UV radiation would also be inadequate for photosynthesis.
• The earth's distance from the sun is crucial for a stable water cycle. Too far away, and most water would freeze; too close and most water would boil.
• The earth's gravity, axial tilt, rotation period, magnetic field, crust thickness, oxygen/nitrogen ratio, carbon dioxide, water vapour and ozone levels are just right.

Of course you can invoke the god of luck justified by the anthropic principle.

32. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49535 by devolved on June 12, 2007 at 9:55 am

Billy writes "Devolved, it was rather rude of you not to read Roberts lengthy rebuttal of that trash you posted on dating. A lot of time clearly went into it."

I missed it first time around and again offer my apology. Now I have it I will respond.

33. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49284 by devolved on June 11, 2007 at 11:24 am

I've been accused of not responding to comments made to me. I'm responding here to Tim Marsh's comment # 35812 on 29 April.

First I need to make some more general comments.
1. I cannot physically respond to every single challenge. There have been dozens if not hundreds of questions and I do not have the time to deal with every one.
2. The nature of this site mitigates against ongoing dialogue.
3. I have already said that I don't plan to reinvent the bicycle. Where I find a web link that I believe supports a particular idea I post a link. You're free to follow it.
4. I have attempted to keep my focus on a particular aspect of the evolutionary hypothesis, namely the questions of mutations and information increases.
5. Many of the responses to me have gone much wider. I make no secret of the fact that I frequently refer to creationist websites. Many of the answers to your questions can easily be found on those websites if you are interested in answers.
6. If you read an article I've posted and critiqued it I am grateful although I obviously missed some and apologise for that.
7. I am not a liar.

Now to Tim's comments. (I've put his in CAPS)

1. YOU'RE CONVINCED THAT THE FACT THAT THE SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM AND A THEISTIC PARADIGM BOTH RELY ON 'DIFFERENT PRESUPPOSITIONS', IMPLIES THAT THE SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM AND THE THEISTIC PARADIGM BOTH RELY ON 'DIFFERENT AND EQUAL' PRESUPPOSITIONS. .
a. I would largely agree with you if you were to delete the word 'theistic' and insert 'religious' instead.
2. THIS IS YOUR FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE, AS IT IS DESPERATELY UNTRUE.
a. I accept that there is an inequality between
3. THINGS THAT ARE IMMATERIAL, INCORPOREAL, 'IMPOSSIBLE' BY THE APPARENT MECHANISMS OF PHYSICS, DO NOT EXIST, AT LEAST NOT IN A TESTABLE SENSE USEFUL FOR MAKING EXPLANATIONS
a. I agree with your qualification. That of course does not mean that they do not exist.
4. THEISTIC PARADIGMS - EVENTS, INTERVENTIONS, AND AGENTS, THAT ARE SUPERNATURAL, ENTIRELY SPECULATIVE, UNTESTABLE AND IMPOSSIBLE BY THE APPARENT MECHANISMS OF PHYSICS, DO POTENTIALLY EXIST AND CAN BE USED IN FORMING EXPLANATIONS.
a. Again I think the word 'theistic' should be replaced with 'religious'.
b. There is an obvious issue around the definition of religion. Buddhism for example is widely viewed as a religion but has no 'god' hence my preference for 'religious' over 'theistic'.
5. [SCIENCE] …FORMS THE BASIS OF PROBLEM-SOLVING INQUIRIES, DEALING EXCLUSIVELY IN THE OBSERVABLE, CONSERVATIVELY CONSCIOUS OF THEIR OWN ABILITY TO BE DISPROVED. ESSENTIALLY EVERY USEFUL TECHNOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH IN HISTORY IS THE RESULT OF THIS METHOD.
a. I agree although I suspect that 'every' is an exaggeration.
6. AS SOON AS ONE ACCEPTS THAT SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION IS ACCEPTABLE IN THE EXPLANATION OF SOMETHING'S ORIGINS OR FUNCTION, ONE DOES NOT NEED TO GO ANY FURTHER.
a. Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Kelvin, Boyle, Dalton, Ramsay, Ray, Linnaeus, Mendel, and Pasteur and many more would profoundly disagree with you.
b. A belief in God does not remove the necessity of exploring the functions of 'something'.
c. Why is God less acceptable to you than luck? Richard Dawkins writes, "Maybe a few gaps later in the evolutionary story also needs major infusions of luck, with anthropic justification" [God Delusion p141]
How does science deal with major infusions of luck?
7. AS SOON AS THE SUPERNATURAL IS INVOKED, EXPLAINING STOPS.
a. See my response at 6a.
b. This contradicts what you said at 4 above
8. AND THIS IN AND OF ITSELF SHOULD MAKE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT SUPERNATURAL 'EXPLANATIONS' DO NOT, IN FACT, EXPLAIN ANYTHING.
a. They explain a great deal. Again you contradict yourself as above.
9. THEY JUST 'HAPPEN', APPARENTLY, THROUGH A PROCESS THAT WE HAVE NO ACCESS TO, AND SHOULD STOP LOOKING FOR.
a. Why should we stop looking for evidence of the supernatural just because operational science can't measure it?
b. What access do we have to 'luck, with anthropic justification'?
10. THERE IS AN UNDENIABLE HISTORICAL TREND OF THEISTIC EXPLANATIONS TAKING PLACE ONLY IN TIMES OF IGNORANCE, TO LATER BE FOUND INCORRECT AND REPLACED BY MATERIAL EXPLANATIONS.
a. I challenge you to support this claim with evidence.
b. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. [Proverbs 1:7]
11. Nowadays, in defence of personal stakes in theistic beliefs, 'explanations' dependant on supernatural agents reappear at any point where doubt or incredulity can be inserted into existing scientific accounts. It is not only bad science, but simple intellectual dishonesty.
a. Again this is an opinion unsupported by evidence.
b. I am sceptical about evolution for the following reason
"The main scientific objection to the GTE is not that changes occur through time, and neither is it about the size of the change (so we would discourage use of the terms micro- and macro-evolution). The key issue is the type of change required—to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content. The three billion DNA 'letters' stored in each human cell nucleus convey a great deal more information (specified complexity) than the over half a million DNA 'letters' of the 'simplest' self-reproducing organism. The DNA sequences in a 'higher' organism such as a human being, or a horse, for instance, code for structures and functions unknown in the sort of 'primitive first cell' from which all other organisms are said to have evolved. As will be shown, none of the alleged proofs of 'evolution in action' adduced in this series provide a single example of functional new information being added. Rather, they all involve sorting and loss of information. To claim that mere change proves that information-increasing change can occur is like saying that because a merchant can sell goods, he can sell them for a profit.
[http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2891]


I believe that you fundamentally fail to distinguish between operational and historical science. Operational science involves discovering how things operate in today's creation—repeatable and observable phenomena in the present. Historical science deals with the origin of things in the past—unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events. There is a fundamental difference between how the two work.

Operational science involves experimentation in the here and now. Historical science deals with how something came into existence in the past and so is not open to experimental verification / observation (unless someone invents a 'time machine' to travel back into the past to observe). Studying how an organism operates (DNA, mutations, reproduction, natural selection etc.) does not tell us how it came into existence in the first place. Equally you are guilty (perhaps unwittingly) of equivocation over the meaning of evolution.

34. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49186 by devolved on June 10, 2007 at 11:47 pm

Thank you Robert.

35. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49178 by devolved on June 10, 2007 at 11:01 pm

Robert Maynard, "Your claim that laws may, by definition, require some kind of lawgiver, is little more than an argument based on the connections drawn on a social level between 'laws' and their authoring by intelligent agents. It's pure wordplay."

I wrote, "The universe operates according to orderly laws and yet some scientists claim that it functions without a law giver."

The word play is on your part Robert. It is a perfectively reasonable inference on my part to claim that the laws of the universe have been given by God. My inference is drawn from what I observe. Your belief is not supported by science, it is simply philosophic.

36. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49133 by devolved on June 10, 2007 at 2:46 pm

Robert Maynard, "I myself am still awaiting either a rebuttal or an apology, in response to my critique on that idiotic, 20-year old Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter piece on radiometric dating. "

I haven't seen your critique so if you want one you'd better post it again.

37. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48897 by devolved on June 9, 2007 at 12:03 pm

So if RD says "I'm an atheist, not because people do bad things in God's name but because I don't think he exists." why isn't he an agnostic?

After all Richard has acknowledged that his beliefs cannot be proven:
"I believe, but cannot prove that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection."
[Dawkins, R., quoted in: Roger Highfield, Science's scourge of believers declares his faith in Darwin, Daily Telegraph, 5 January, 2005, p.10.]

The universe operates according to orderly laws and yet some scientists claim that it functions without a law giver. How can they be so sure as to call themselves atheists?

38. Atheism is the absence of belief

Comment #48580 by devolved on June 8, 2007 at 1:05 pm

A man came to me after a seminar and said, 'Actually, I'm an atheist. Because I don't believe in God, I don't believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can't even be sure of reality.' I responded, 'Then how do you know you're really here making this statement?' 'Good point,' he replied. 'What point?' I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, 'Maybe I should go home.' I stated, 'Maybe it won't be there.' 'Good point,' the man said. 'What point?' I replied.

39. Atheism is the absence of belief

Comment #48564 by devolved on June 8, 2007 at 11:56 am

'If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.'

C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), The Business of Heaven, Fount Paperbacks, U.K., p. 97, 1984.

40. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #47174 by devolved on June 3, 2007 at 10:15 am

Robert Maynard claims, "You didn't address Nail's point, devolved. You could have at least made your next tiresome link have something to do with haemoglobin."
It did on the 4th page (20)1 2006.

Then Robert says, "…gene duplication that only "rare cases" are beneficial, even though this is exactly - EXACTLY - what evolutionists say is the case."

But fails to complete Jerry Bergman's point, "These langurs have two copies of an RNA-degrading enzyme gene, while other monkeys have only one copy. The extra copy aids the langur in digesting its specialized diet of leaves. Pseudogenes are considered by some to be damaged genes, and by others a source of new genes, and recent work suggests that they may be functional."
Two copies are definitely helpful but that does not demonstrate new information.

And then he asks me to comment on a Review 'The origin of new genes…' from the Dept of Ecology & Evolution, University of Chicago.

I will spend some time reading the paper and so can only make preliminary observations.

1. The first sentence of the article contains the usual evolutionist equivocation: "Genome data have revealed great variation in the numbers of genes in different organisms, which indicates that there is a fundamental process of genome evolution: the origin of new genes."
What's being claimed here? Support for the GTE or a feature of natural selection? The flag waving at the end appears to favour the GTE ("…the heroic endeavours of generations of evolutionary and molecular biologists…")
2. How is the age of the 'new genes' known?
3. The newest 'new' gene is 100,000 years old.
4. The article concludes, "Nonetheless, little is known about the genomic process of new gene evolution because of the challenge of identifying an adequate number of young genes with identified new functions."
(So little is known and there aren't many).
5. An 'evolutionary feature' of ArticAFPG is described as 'Convergent evolution'. This belief, that similarities between animals can only be understood in terms of an evolutionary relationship, is the most fundamental axiom of evolution—almost all arguments for evolution depend upon it. My car has similarities to my neighbour's.
6. Gene duplication, polyploidy, insertions, etc., do not help explain evolution. They represent an increase in amount of DNA, but not an increase in the amount of functional genetic information—these mechanisms create nothing new.
7. Gene fusions occur but that doesn't prove the existence of new information.

I'll end with an analogy. There are four bikes in my garage. One of them is new (my wife bought it yesterday). If tomorrow I built another 'new' bike by taking bits from the four already there it would be 'new' in a different way to my wife's. A 'new' bike assembled from existing bits of others. What is not immediately clear to me from the article is in what sense 'newness' is being defined.

41. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #46953 by devolved on June 2, 2007 at 11:25 am

Nails, "… gene duplication.
We have multiple redundant copies of Haemoglobin genes as well as 3 major versions of the 'working' gene - obviously a consequence of the original gene being copied and then mutated and hence made available for the purpose of natural selection.
So we have alpha and beta chains to make our standard oxygen-carrying haemoglobin. Yet this is also irrelevant in his eyes, nothing new or interesting even though it answers his questions completely."

Nails try following this link:
Does gene duplication provide the engine for evolution?

http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j20_1/j20_1_99-104.pdf

As ever I refuse to re-invent the bicycle and the ostriches can bury their heads.

42. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #46864 by devolved on June 2, 2007 at 1:57 am

Down's Syndrome

Most people have 22 pairs of ordinary chromosomes plus the pair of sex chromosomes (XX or XY). Down's Syndrome people have instead of a pair at 21, a triple, hence the term trisomy 21. But there is no new information, any more than two copies of an encyclopedia contain twice as much information.

Here this results in an imbalance. Note that many reactions in the body require a precise sequence of enzymes — Down's Syndrome people have an extra copy of the superoxide dismutase gene which breaks down the very reactive superoxide ion (O2–). Its product is peroxide (O22–), which is normally broken down by the next enzyme. But in this case, with the extra production, there is too much to cope with.

43. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #46773 by devolved on June 1, 2007 at 2:06 pm

"Quotes from the bible or AiG don't count." says epeeist. I bet you didn't bother to read either link. There's an open mind for you. If you did why can't you find fault with them?

44. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #46766 by devolved on June 1, 2007 at 12:51 pm

BaronOchs I fully understand that you don't believe in God. One of the reasons I do is that the scientific evidence betters fits a Biblical framework. I can direct you to hundreds of articles in support of my claim but I'll suggest just two:
http://trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp

The first chapter of the Bible describes God creating 'kinds' of living things including fish kinds, beetle kinds, tree kinds and humankind. The reason creationists separate natural selection from evolution is that the former is observable, testable and falsifiable.

If the created kinds started with all the genetic information needed for the development of millions of species in a short time span of a few thousand years then we can look at natural selection at work and see that by the shuffling and removal of information from genomes produces exactly that.

You need to find a mechanism that massively increases genetic information if you believe 'the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.' [Kerkut, G.A., Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, p. 157, 1960.]

I appreciate that evolutionists are now trying to disentangle the creation of life from what followed after and it's hardly surprising as life is now supposed to have started by luck on one of billions of universes. Well that's the stuff of science fiction perhaps but not real science.

So who is right about mutations? I think there's irrefutable evidence that mutations cannot help you:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/are-mutations-the-engine

45. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #46753 by devolved on June 1, 2007 at 12:03 pm

Why do I think you are all wrong? This sums it up:
"The problem is, all observed examples of natural selection involve sorting or loss of pre-existing information; evolution requires new genes with new information. Neo-Darwinism requires that mutations can generate this new information, but observed mutations have never been shown to do so. Sometimes a loss of information can help an organism so is 'beneficial', e.g. beetles born without wings are less likely to be blown into the sea. But loss of wings is the opposite sort of change to what evolution needs."
Here's the link:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/improbable.asp

Interesting post from Nails:
"The word of my god is the true word and yours is a lie. I have a book that proves it. If you do not believe in what I say you must be evil and I will send out the armies of my followers to smite you down".

Looks like RD is being deified. That the claim of 'The God Delusion' Ch9 isn't it – "…you do not believe in what I say you must be evil." We've been here before Nails:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i4/nazi.asp

"Almost all people that follow a particular brand of faith do so, not because they have thought about it rationally, but because they have been indotrinated (sic) by the adults around them since birth. Where you are born and what faith your parents are will almost certainly determine which religous (sic) doctrine you believe in."

I was atheist or agnostic most of my life and neither of my parents were Christian. My acceptance of Christianity was a step of faith but had also led me to read 100's of books for and against Christianity.

You are no less religious than me. You just believe that you exist without any supernatural means of support.

Nails I'm waiting for you to find fault with this. You said you would.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf

Epeesit "Devolved mentions the flood. If there was a mantle of water deep enough to cover Everest then where is it now?" You wrongly presume that Everest was there before the flood. Read on:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter12.pdf

Coral reefs are known to grow quickly:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1872

"The bible tells us that rainbows only existed after the flood. As a physicist, could you give us some information on what that would mean for the universe?"
The Bible tells us no such thing. You have misread it.

Linda "One last thing. If the dinosaurs were killed in Noah's flood, what about the swimming dinosaurs? They obviously didn't drown."
There is no claim that all the dinosaurs were killed in Noah's flood. It's quite possible that some survived but became extinct post-flood. (Don't you believe in mass extinctions?)

46. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #46193 by devolved on May 30, 2007 at 2:05 pm

My last post here so read carefully please and catch up with you guys soon

epeeist is evolving a sense of humour (belatedly) and writes:
"Tell us where all the water came from and where it went?
Genesis 7:11(ESV) "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened."

Geological support for a global catastrophe includes:
1. Thick sedimentary rock formations that span many thousands of square kilometres, implying mind-bogglingly powerful catastrophic flood conditions of global dimensions not paralleled by anything seen today.
2. Huge coal seams stacked on top of one another with a regular repeating sequence of rock layers in-between. These indicate large-scale destruction of vegetation under catastrophic conditions, with rapidly alternating currents depositing varying loads within a short time-frame.
3. Features in coal deposits such as sorting of vegetation material, huge bands of pollen, trees penetrating vertically through multiple layers, Z-shaped and forked seams.
4. Sedimentary layers which require extremely strong water currents (i.e. flood conditions) for their formation, such as conglomerate beds composed of enormous boulders transported great distances and cemented together. These may extend over huge areas of a continent, demonstrating that the flood conditions were unimaginably vast.

And a big problem for uniformitarian geologists who say that the vegetation for coal grew in swamps, but this explanation does not make sense. For example, why do coal seams contain vegetation (like pine trees) that does not grow in swamps? How could the fragile swamp conditions required for prolific growth exist over such large areas of the continents for millions of years? Why did the huge swamps sink over their entire area at a rate that exactly matched the rate of growth so that the vegetation could accumulate? How could the enormous swamps be suddenly covered evenly with layers of mud and sand over their entire area? How could these precise conditions be repeated over and over again hundreds of times in the same place over millions of years?

And here's more evidence, beautifully mined for you:

Notice, for example, this description of one outcropping at Agate Springs in northwestern Nebraska: "What remains of the hill covers about ten acres. This bone bed was accidentally discovered in 1876. It contains the bones of rhinoceroses, camels, giant wild boars, and other animals, buried together in a confused mass as only water would deposit them.

"It is estimated that the bones of about nine thousand complete animals are buried on this one hill . . . Hence, it is likely that many times that number of animals were brought together at this hill and buried there by the action of water . . . This is a fact that is most important. Animals of every kind died in great numbers and were buried almost instantly" (Alfred Rehwinkel, The Flood, 1951, p. 183, emphasis added). The important fact is that this massive deposit of many kinds of animals was obviously made by a huge amount of water.

• "Why, if there was a single flood, isn't there a common stratification in all the sedimentary rock formations across the earth?"
There wasn't one single flood. Try reading the Bible from Genesis 1 - 8

• "How did Noah get however many species of beetles there are, besides everything else into the ark?"
It doesn't matter how many there are NOW. He had a huge ship with plenty of space for the estimated 7,000 pairs of living creatures on board.

• "What about the swimming dinosaurs?"
That sounds like a Silly Billy question to me.

• "What I don't understand is why the creationists never seem to ask themselves the most obvious question of all. If god has already told us that he created the universe 6000 years ago, why did he go to all the trouble of making it seem as if he didn't?"

God didn't, people like you did.

• Rapid speciation is not only possible but an observed fact of Natural Selection: "Not long ago, evolutionists were astonished to find that bird-biting mosquitoes, which moved into the London Underground train network (and are now biting humans and rats instead), have already become a separate species." [Creation 21(2):41, 1999.]

Plant and animal breeders have a long well documented history of developing new species in short periods of time. The post-flood world would have been an ideal environment for very rapid speciation. Of course evolutionists like epeeist are guilty of equivocation when they deliberately use the words evolution and natural selection without making the difference clear.

For Billy Sands:

Sickle-cell anaemia is caused by an inherited defect in the instructions which code for the production of haemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying pigment in red blood cells. You will only develop the full-blown, serious disease if both of your parents have the defective gene. If you inherit the defect from only one parent, the healthy gene from the other one will largely enable you to escape the effects of this serious condition.
However, this means you are capable of transmitting the defective gene to your offspring, and it also happens that such carriers are less likely to develop malaria, which is often fatal. Being a carrier of sickle-cell disease without suffering it (heterozygosity is the technical term) is far more common in those areas of the world which are high-risk malaria areas, especially Africa.
This is good evidence that natural selection plays a part in maintaining a higher frequency of this carrier state. If you are resistant to malaria, you are more likely to survive to pass on your genes. Nevertheless, it is a defect, not an increase in complexity or an improvement in function which is being selected for, and having more carriers in the population means that there will be more people suffering from this terrible disease. Demonstrating natural selection does not demonstrate that 'upward evolution' is a fact, yet many schoolchildren are taught this as a 'proof' of evolution.

Sickle-cell anaemia is an example of Natural Selection. "Natural selection involves merely the shuffling, rearrangement and degeneration of existing genetic information, whereas evolution requires encyclopaedic quantities of new information to be produced by unintelligent, natural processes—information coding for new types of organs, limbs, physiologies, etc."

To get from a 'simple single-celled organism' to human beings requires vast increases in the information of the genome.

Billy I suggest you read the following
http://trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp

47. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #45856 by devolved on May 29, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Billy Sands is not remotely interested in the genealogy of Christ but he chooses to lob it in as red herring to divert the argument away from the fact that he asked me about sickle cell anaemia and I pointed out that it is not a proof of evolution. To support my claim I referred him to the work of Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu a world expert on sickle cell anaemia. The doctor is a former evolutionist who when confronted with the scientific evidence became a creationist. Billy is silent on that. I suggested to Billy that if he disagrees with the doctor that he posts a comment into the doctor's website so we can all benefit from the exchange.

Haemoglobin (a molecule found in blood) has over 300 known mutants, yet not one has turned out to be helpful for human survival. This includes the haemoglobin mutation associated with sickle cell anaemia. Despite the fact that sickle cell anaemia sufferers are more resistant to malaria, they are also subject to 'growth impairment, susceptibility to infection, and chronic organ damage due to repeated vaso-occlusive episodes.

Sickle cell anaemia is one example of a loss of genetic information conferring an advantage (resistance to malaria) at a cost. It is an example of devolution (losing information) not evolution (gaining information).

I believe that there are now about 3500 mutational disorders affecting human beings. That would work out on average at around one mutation every two years since the creation of Adam around 6000 years ago. Of course most of you will instantly reject such an idea as ridiculous. Well here is a paper giving reasons why a young universe and earth are feasible. If you reject it without first engaging with it that's a comment on your unwillingness to consider ideas contrary to your own (a charge frequently levelled at me).

http://www.icr.org/pdf/imp/imp-384.pdf

As the number of mutational disorders in a species increases it is subject to increased 'genetic burden'. So how often does a mutation confer an advantage and at the same time how does a species cope with the vast majority of harmful mutations that confer no advantage at all? How often and in what way do mutations demonstrate increases in genetic information?

Jerry Bergman writes: "It is also widely known that beneficial mutations are extremely rare. Some workers have estimated that far less than .01 percent of all expressed mutations are helpful to the organism. As Francisco Ayala (1978) noted "mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation," but useful genetic variation "is a relatively rare event...." (p.63). Dobzhansky (1957) likewise concluded that "the mutants which arise are, with rare exceptions, deleterious to their carriers, at least in the environments which the species normally encounters" (p. 385). The conclusion that very few beneficial mutations occur in nature is still held by many today. In Strickberger's words "new mutations that have an immediate beneficial effect on the organism seem generally to be quite rare" (2000, p. 227).
In order to locate all alleged examples of beneficial mutations, I carried out a computer search of the literature. My review covered all published scientific studies that dealt with beneficial mutations. The definition of beneficial mutation used was a mutation that was regarded as beneficial by the authors surveyed. Key words used in the computer search included synonyms of beneficial, such as "favorable, helpful, usable, valuable, adaptive, good, advantageous, supportive, positive," etc. The search of two data bases totaling 18.8 million records found that, of all articles discussing mutations, only 0.04 percent, or 4 in 10,000 articles on mutations, were located that discussed beneficial or favorable mutations. Some overlap exists in the data bases searched, consequently the actual total number of records searched was less than 18.8 million. The overlap in the search was estimated by extrapolating from the records found. Assuming that the same level of overlap exists in the entire database, a total of approximately 16 million records was searched. These searches may have missed some relevant articles but are useful to indicate trends.
All of the 126 examples located were then reviewed, focusing on evidence for information-gaining beneficial mutations. It was found that none of them contained clear, empirically supported examples of information-gaining, beneficial mutations. Most "examples" of actual, beneficial mutations were loss mutations in which a gene was disabled or damaged, all of which were beneficial only in a limited situation."
Who is right? Are we looking at evolution or devolution?
"'We take the side of science… in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment… to materialism… We are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.' Prof. Richard Lewontin, Harvard Geneticist (1997)
Arguments about the genealogy of Christ do not disprove the Bible. The Bible is a collection of 66 books written over 1500 years by 40 different authors using three different languages. It's hardly surprising that parts are unclear and are subject to ongoing debate.
The theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form (Kerkut, G.A., Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, p. 157, 1960.) needs a workable mechanism that demonstrates how organisms have become more complex.

The creationists by contrast argue that God created several thousand kinds each having all the genetic information necessary for millions of species to be created by natural selection over a few thousand years.

We all look at the same evidence. Who is right? It won't be decided by trading abusive comments.

48. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #45741 by devolved on May 29, 2007 at 5:28 am

Nails claims: "By the way, your link is tragically flawed in more ways than I could fit into a lunchtimes post - I will have to have a good look tonight and get back to you with some detail."

http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf

So you haven't read then? I'll be interested to know what you make of it and look forward to seeing the 'tragically flawed' bits.

And as for me 'mining' the internet I resolutely refuse to re-invent the bicycle. So for Billy's benefit here's an interesting article on limestone formation too:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/721/

I'm looking forward to your considerable wisdom on this Billy.
But spare me waffle like this, "I find that hard to believe since you dont know how it works. I was once as convinced as you are about god, but I was deluded too. I find it absurd that you find no evidence. You have constantly been challenged on the fossil record. You are just in denial. As for just so stories, they have been succesfully tested. Compare that to the just so story of god did it."

And my interpretation of Isaiah 40:21-26 is supported by many Bible scholars including, for example, Derek Kidner M.A, A.R.C.M who writes, "The gigantic similes continue and should be taken as poetry, not science…" [p656 New Bible Commentary, IVP, 9780851106489]. But I shouldn't be too surprised by your contempt for scripture as you seem to think that the 'Jesus Seminar' is a reliable source.

49. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #45711 by devolved on May 29, 2007 at 3:46 am

Billy asks me if I "…remember scickle (sic) cell haemoglobin for example."

I don't claim to be a world class expert on this but I can refer you to someone who is: Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu is one of the world's leading experts in sickle-cell anemia. He is the author of a major 643-page text, The Sickle Cell Disease Patient (Macmillan, 1991, ISBN 0333-39239-6; Tetteh-A'Domeno Co., Watford, UK, ISBN 0-9515442-2-5, 1996).

Here is his website:
http://www.sicklecell.md/

He has written a fascinating response to 'The God Delusion':
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4682

Follow the links Billy. If you disagree with Dr Konotey-Ahulu post a response to him and see what you get. I'd love to see it!

50. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #45698 by devolved on May 29, 2007 at 2:21 am

Nails asks:

"And how is geology related to evolution? The earth (and indeed the solar system) has been aged using a variety of techniques, various geological features and isotope dating to name but two. Even if your report is correct, I don't have the time to analyse it right now but it would only be a minor blip compared to the mounting evidence supporting 4.5billion years."

1. I can't open your link
2. All dating methods rest upon entirely unprovable assumptions. We have no way of knowing if decay rates have been constant over long periods, or how much of the original element was there in the first place, and a global flood and associated upheavals (massive volcanic disruptions etc) 4500 years ago would have wrecked the measurements. (p7 on the link below is a very simple representation of the problem)
If you want more info follow this link:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf
3. The whole goo-to-you story of evolution is contingent upon the earth and universe being billions of years old
4. I do not accept that there is mounting evidence. The same methods keep producing the same results. One million forged banknotes have no more value at the bank than one hundred.