The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Twelve years on. Still going. Answer soon.

endacl

legspin wrote: »

Not really.
J.C. is still hoisting himself with his own petard, everyone else is still facepalming at the knots he ties himself into with his answers (if you can call that gibberish answers) and I still cant believe he hasn't managed a Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent yet.

Cool. Nice one. Will check in again in a year.

Brian Shanahan

endacl wrote: »

Haven't checked this thread in ages. Probably since the days of MickRock. Anything new at all?

I believe JC has almost hit that point south of New Zealand that is his antipode, so furiously is he digging down.

Vivisectus

Where to begin? So much silliness, so little time… Let’s just pick a few of the major points.

First off, abiogenesis and evolution are two very different things. Evolution can be true with or without abiogenesis happening on earth.

Your professor Crick, for instance, was a staunch supporter of evolution even though he had some doubts about the ultimate origin of life itself. At first he favoured the panspermia hypothesis, which states that life is spread through the universe after an accidental start.

Later on he changed his mind, and decided that he had been too pessimistic about the chances of spontaneous abiogenesis following some experiments that managed to create some primitive amino acids in proposed early earth conditions.

What you quoted was him speaking about abiogenesis, not evolution. And as I already pointed out, evolution is not disproven if abiogenesis would ever end up being disproven. It merely gets a new starting point. It is a common ploy by ID proponents to pretend that evolution and abiogenesis are linked to such a degree that if you can cast doubt on one, you can cast doubt on the other, but that is simply not the case.

Then there is the other common ploy that says that mutation can never improve anything… which is clearly nonsense. We only have to look at the way bacteria have used mutations in their genetic material to develop resistance to antibiotics. How does ID explain this rather dangerous new development? Is God altering their design somehow in order to give people more bacterial infections?

72DSpecial

Vivisectus -

Thanks for adding some badly needed clarity.

Mr. CooL ICE

Vivisectus wrote: »

Is God altering their design somehow in order to give people more bacterial infections?

Well, he does work in mysterious ways...

Vivisectus

Apart from that we are still waiting to find out why a Giraffe has such a long laryngial nerve when a short one would be much more efficient. Also, why does the Loa Loa or African eye-burrowing worm exist?

Genghiz Cohen

Vivisectus wrote: »

Apart from that we are still waiting to find out why a Giraffe has such a long laryngial nerve when a short one would be much more efficient. Also, why does the Loa Loa or African eye-burrowing worm exist?

I believe the given answer was an artistic flair from a loving creator.
I may be slightly off but that was the gist of J C's answer.

robindch

A reporter visits Ken Ham's dreary, humorless world:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/the-genesis-code/379341/

mickrock

Vivisectus wrote: »

Apart from that we are still waiting to find out why a Giraffe has such a long laryngial nerve when a short one would be much more efficient. Also, why does the Loa Loa or African eye-burrowing worm exist?

Haha, you're so right! Life forms are so shoddily and haphazardly put together!

And the layout of my TV remote control isn't great. What's going on there?!

Brian Shanahan

mickrock wrote: »

Haha, you're so right! Life forms are so shoddily and haphazardly put together!

And the layout of my TV remote control isn't great. What's going on there?!

On your first sentence; glad that you finally accept evolution one of the most well evidenced and explanatory scientific theories.

On your second sentence there are a few competing hypotheses 1) you may have bought a cheap tv from lack of money, 2) you may have bought a tv without considering the remote design first, 3) your evolved hand could be a bad fit for the decently designed remote, or 4) you could be making it up as a bad analogy to show that a designer ins't perfect (it is bad because of the claim that god, the being you are baselessly asserting is real, is perfect, as laid out in the three monotheistic cults).

Vivisectus

mickrock wrote: »

Haha, you're so right! Life forms are so shoddily and haphazardly put together!

And the layout of my TV remote control isn't great. What's going on there?!

Ah, a proponent of unintelligent design! Indeed: what we see around us is compatible with that. But then again, a lot of things are. The Loch Ness monster, for instance, is perfectly compatible with what we know so far.

But intelligent, benign design we can rule out based on what we can observe, however.

mickrock

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

you could be making it up as a bad analogy to show that a designer ins't perfect (it is bad because of the claim that god, the being you are baselessly asserting is real, is perfect, as laid out in the three monotheistic cults).

I never mentioned god or a supernatural being.

It's obvious that life, nature and evolution in themselves are creative and creativity implies intelligence.

In the near future the idea that the evolutionary process is blind and dumb will be regarded as naive and childlike.

Simon G. Powell has written a book called "Darwin's Unfinished Business: The Self-Organizing Intelligence of Nature" of which Lynn Margulis said:

"Simon G. Powell forcefully but gently demonstrates that intelligence (modes of being that acquire information, learn, and meaningfully respond to larger contexts) is intrinsic to our natural world. People who deny the intelligence of the living (microbes, plants, other animals) are abysmally, indeed dangerously, ignorant."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aaq0LTqQvyc

endacl

endacl wrote: »

Haven't checked this thread in ages. Probably since the days of MickRock. Anything new at all?

Whoops. I withdraw the above.

mickrock wrote: »

Haha, you're so right! Life forms are so shoddily and haphazardly put together!

And the layout of my TV remote control isn't great. What's going on there?!

Although, there is a certain feeling of deja vu...

oscarBravo

mickrock wrote: »

It's obvious that life, nature and evolution in themselves are creative...

"It's obvious..." is hand-waving, not argument.

Brian Shanahan

mickrock wrote: »

I never mentioned god or a supernatural being.

It is painfully obvious from your posting history that you are a christian YEC. You do not have to explicitly mention it every time you post, we know that your vision has god at its centre.

It's obvious that life, nature and evolution in themselves are creative and creativity implies intelligence.

A) How is it obvious that all you say is creative?
How does creativity imply intelligence?
These two claims are so large and so extraordinary that you are obliged to provide evidence for them. Until you do, I am perfectly correct and right in dismissing them as baseless.

Thus I dismiss these two baseless assertions. Next.

In the near future the idea that the evolutionary process is blind and dumb will be regarded as naive and childlike.

Unless humanity descends into a state of theocratic luddism this isn't going to happen. We know how evolution works to a large extent (through genetics, and we're getting a good handle on non-genetic factors too), and why it works (natural selection in response to changes in environmental surroundings, both natural and man-made). So your confidence that we are going to ditch this mountain of evidence is sadly misplaced unless the world is literally turned upside down and our system of government worldwide is replaced by a monstrous regiment of priests (to misquote John Knox)

Simon G. Powell has written a book called "Darwin's Unfinished Business: The Self-Organizing Intelligence of Nature"of which Lynn Margulis said:

"Simon G. Powell forcefully but gently demonstrates that intelligence (modes of being that acquire information, learn, and meaningfully respond to larger contexts) is intrinsic to our natural world. People who deny the intelligence of the living (microbes, plants, other animals) are abysmally, indeed dangerously, ignorant."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aaq0LTqQvyc

Could you please give a synopsis of what the book is about rather than an hour long youtube video. What you have done right now is "I claim this man has proven Darwin wrong, therefore GODIDIT". That is an extremely mendacious and base tactic to use.

mickrock

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Thus I dismiss these two baseless assertions.

Yet you cling to the baseless assertions that evolution is blind and dumb.

You can't handle the truth. The notion that nature is intelligent must give you the heebie jeebies.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

What you have done right now is "I claim this man has proven Darwin wrong, therefore GODIDIT". That is an extremely mendacious and base tactic to use.

I never mentioned God. You seem to have a fixation on God and can't get it out of your mind.

In his book and in the video Simon G. Powell talks of how life and nature are intelligent in themselves, rather than as a result of supernatural intervention.

Brian Shanahan

mickrock wrote: »

Yet you cling to the baseless assertions that evolution is blind and dumb.

Evolution is one of the best evidenced theories in any branch of science. The fact that you bring up this non-argument shows the paucity of your point of view and the inability of yourself to be able to change your position on the available evidence.

To paraphrase Spock quoting Napoleon: "You would argue against evolution. I pray you excuse me, I have no time to listen to such nonsense."

mickrock

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

To paraphrase Spock quoting Napoleon: "You would argue against evolution. I pray you excuse me, I have no time to listen to such nonsense."

You seem to be a bit hard of thinking.

I'm not arguing against evolution.

oscarBravo

mickrock wrote: »

I'm not arguing against evolution.

No; you're arguing that evolution is "intelligent", your evidence for which is "it's obvious".

J C

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

We know how evolution works to a large extent (through genetics, and we're getting a good handle on non-genetic factors too), and why it works (natural selection in response to changes in environmental surroundings, both natural and man-made).

That's fine ... Natural Selection is a fact ... but it's the source of the genetic diversity upon which NS acts, that is the issue.
... and no, taking a proverbial 'mutagenic sledgehammer' to the finely tuned and irreducibly complex systems observed in living processes won't do it.

Here is what an Agnostic had to say about the dilemma he found himself with, as a scientist:-

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie within the boundaries of natural law."

Dr Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, (1981), p. 19.

This is what Wikipedia says about him.
Dr. Jastrow went to Columbia University for college and graduate school, where he received his A.B., A.M. and PhD in theoretical physics, in 1948. Afterwards he joined NASA when it was formed in 1958.

He was the first chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, which established the scientific goals for the exploration of the moon during the Apollo lunar landings. At the same time he was also the Chief of the Theoretical Division at NASA (1958–61). He became the founding director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1961, and served until his retirement from NASA in 1981. Concurrently he was also a Professor of Geophysics at Columbia University.

After his NASA career he became a Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College (1979–1992), and was a Member of the NASA Alumni Association. Jastrow was also a Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the George C. Marshall Institute, and Director Emeritus of Mount Wilson Observatory and Hale Solar Laboratory.

oscarBravo

J C wrote: »

This is what Wikipedia says about him.
Dr. Jastrow went to Columbia University for college and graduate school, where he received his A.B., A.M. and PhD in theoretical physics, in 1948. Afterwards he joined NASA when it was formed in 1958.

He was the first chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, which established the scientific goals for the exploration of the moon during the Apollo lunar landings. At the same time he was also the Chief of the Theoretical Division at NASA (1958–61). He became the founding director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1961, and served until his retirement from NASA in 1981. Concurrently he was also a Professor of Geophysics at Columbia University.

After his NASA career he became a Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College (1979–1992), and was a Member of the NASA Alumni Association. Jastrow was also a Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the George C. Marshall Institute, and Director Emeritus of Mount Wilson Observatory and Hale Solar Laboratory.

You missed a bit:

Jastrow together with Fred Seitz and William Nierenberg established the George C. Marshall Institute to counter the scientists who were arguing against Reagan's Starwars Initiative, arguing for equal time in the media. This institute later took the view that tobacco was having no effect, that Acid Rain was not caused by human emissions, that ozone was not depleted by CFCs, that pesticides were not environmentally harmful and it was also critical of the consensus view of anthropogenic global warming. Jastrow acknowledged the earth was experiencing a warming trend, but claimed that the cause was likely to be natural variation.

Vivisectus

J C wrote:

That's fine ... Natural Selection is a fact ... but it's the source of the genetic diversity upon which NS acts, that is the issue.
... and no, taking a proverbial 'mutagenic sledgehammer' to the finely tuned and irreducibly complex systems observed in living processes won't do it.

Ok – but then we face a completely different issue. What you are unconvinced by is not natural selection or evolution at all: if natural selection is a fact, then evolution must necessarily follow. You merely do not believe that life originated spontaneously on earth.

No-one is claiming to have the final answer to that one: apart from the supernatural explanation, we currently have a small handful of competing scientific ones. There is no current consensus.

However the fossil record suggests extremely strongly that if you go back in time very far indeed, then life-forms become increasingly simple. The earliest examples we have found seem to be about 3.7 billion years old. At that stage all we can find is mats of extremely simple microbes.

The amazing thing is that these seem to originally not have depended on photosynthesis, but on thermal vents for energy, like some extremophile life that still exists around deep-sea vents today. It is not until later that we can see clear evidence for the start of the light-based economy of life that we take for granted today: the earliest strong evidence we can find for photosynthesis is roughly a billion years later, although some researchers have pointed out that some of the microbial fossils that we can see as early as 3 billion years ago have a striking similarity to cyano-bacteria, so it is not impossible that light as the basis of our economy of life goes back further.

Be that as it may: from about 2700 million years ago we see more and more evidence of atmospheric oxygen, and fewer and fewer anaerobic organisms.

Around the 1800 million year mark we start to see eukaryotes – organisms with complex cells. This is a vast leap ahead, and one that is of great interest to biologists: even the earliest known example of eukaryotic life is a LOT more complex (and a lot bigger!) than even the most sophisticated prokaryotic life-forms. On top of that, all eukaryotic life from that time onwards shares major features of cellular organization.

Basically we leap from simple and small single-celled organisms to much more complex ones with internal compartmentalization, where different parts of the cell have different functions.

One thing that may help explain this is that almost all eukaryotic cells have mitochondria and those that do not have them still have structures that are usually associated with them, suggesting that their ancestors may have had them in the past.

Mitochondria are amazing things. They look like tiny little prokaryotes living inside eukaryotic cells. Their main function seems to be the generation of energy, but it does some other key things as well. They have their own DNA, which is completely different from the DNA is the rest of the cell and strongly resembles bacterial DNA.

It may be that the leap we see is not necessarily a leap in mutative evolution at all, but one of symbiotic evolution. The fact that Mitochondria have their own distinct DNA which is very similar to bacterial DNA seems to support this idea, as does the fact that there are striking similarities between cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen as a by-product, and the chloroplasts that fulfill a similar function in plant cells.

In the last years more and more information about the genome sequences of simple eukaryotes, archaea and bacteria has started increasing exponentially, and some tantalising hints have been found: some primitive prokaryotes have structures that are strikingly similar to those found in some eukaryote organelles.

All things considered, then, it is not unreasonable to propose the theory that eukaryotes evolved because prokaryotes that already lived in close symbiotic relationships in microbial mats merged into larger, more complex cells, most likely by merging their dna in most cases, but retaining it in the case of mitochondrial dna and synchronising their reproduction cycles. This is something that is henceforth found in all complex eukaryotes… including us!

At this stage our brief overview of the history of life is already about 2 billion years into a 3.7 billion year story, past the half-way mark. We are still some way away from the first multi-cellular organisms, and sexual reproduction has not appeared yet.

If we review all this, and just stick to the things we are reasonably certain of, such as the rough timeline for the appearance of the first anaerobic life-forms, aerobic single-celled organisms, and then the more complex eukaryotes, where exactly does divine intervention fit in?

Are we to assume a creator started with some ultra-simple anaerobic archaea as a method of creating the kind of life that exists today over a 4 billion year period? If we do, then we must let go of some of the more common objections against evolution, such as a perceived inability to drive complexity and drastic changes in body plans. We cannot make any appeal to irreducible complexity: we are still relying on evolution to do the actual work. And if we do that, then Occam’s razor looms ahead of us: no deity is required in that explanation. And we certainly have no explanation that gives us “genetic diversity” for evolution to work on that has a divine origin.

If we place creation at the appearance of eukaryotes, then why do we see all those prokaryotes and archaea first? How come they seem to be built on a very similar plan, with common structures, and how come that some of that much earlier life ends up inside the later life in the form of mytochondria? Why are eukaryotes basically large cells that seem to have inside them structures from different archaea and prokaryotes?

Are there then multiple acts of creation? Is there a deity tinkering with creation all the time, adding bits and bobs on as we go along? Using old designs? But that is just tacking a deity on to the theory of evolution for no discernible reason: again Occams Razor rears its ugly head. We have observed bacteria create entirely new breeds by merging DNA from two completely different types, so we know that that can happen.

We could just deny the validity of the evidence we have outright – but then where do all these pesky fossils come from? On what basis do we rule out the evidence, and what justification can we possibly supply for cherry-picking only what we like?

If we go further down the timeline we see the next steps: first multi-cellular life appears, followed by a radical new method for encouraging evolution: sexual reproduction. This radical new way of reproducing seems to throw evolution into overdrive: no longer do we see a slow and stately progression over billions of years: now, new forms can emerge much, much faster. The resulting explosion in different shapes and body plans is called the Cambrian Explosion. It started around 500 million years ago, and it is an amazing epoch in the history of life. During it we start to see some basic body plans that we would recognize today… and some truly bizarre ones that we would not. Some of the latter will die out and are never seen again.

If you want, we can discuss some of the implications for ID that this brings along with it later on, but I think you have enough on your plate for now: if evolution works with irreducibly complex basic material that must have been created, where do we draw the line?

How come that the eukaryotic cell can be reduced, and plausibly so, into functions that pre-existed in prokaryotes and archaea?

Why do we see Prokaryotic and Archaean life before we see Eukaryotic life if Eukariotic cells are irreducible?

The only possible solution that I can see is to push the boundary of irreducability back to the simplest of archaea and prokaryots... but then we are faced with the problem that we have pushed it back so far that the difference between a created and spontaneously generated proto-life is so small that we have to wonder why we feel the need to bring creation into it in the first place?

Vivisectus

mickrock wrote: »

Yet you cling to the baseless assertions that evolution is blind and dumb.

You can't handle the truth. The notion that nature is intelligent must give you the heebie jeebies.




I never mentioned God. You seem to have a fixation on God and can't get it out of your mind.

In his book and in the video Simon G. Powell talks of how life and nature are intelligent in themselves, rather than as a result of supernatural intervention.

I suffer from no such heebie jeebies, but neither have I ever seen evidence for something which we can call "nature" and that we can see as intelligent. Would you care to present some?

J C

oscarBravo wrote: »

You missed a bit:

He was certainly a man who approached research subjects with critical thinking!!!

... and nothing you say can take away from the fact that he was an eminently qualified scientist who was the first chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, which established the scientific goals for the exploration of the moon during the Apollo lunar landings.
At the same time he was also the Chief of the Theoretical Division at NASA (1958–61). He became the founding director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1961, and served until his retirement from NASA in 1981. Concurrently he was also a Professor of Geophysics at Columbia University.

After his NASA career he became a Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College (1979–1992), and was a Member of the NASA Alumni Association. Jastrow was also a Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the George C. Marshall Institute, and Director Emeritus of Mount Wilson Observatory and Hale Solar Laboratory

oscarBravo

J C wrote: »

... and nothing you say can take away from the fact that he was an eminently qualified scientist...

There are many, many eminently qualified scientists who accept that the universe is more than a few thousand years old. Their eminent qualifications don't convince you that they are right, so why do you expect me to accept the word of someone you were able to quote-mine just because of his qualifications?

Your belief is that they are wrong, despite their qualifications - so why the argument from authority in this case?

You quoted him as saying "Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation..." - this is true. What's equally true is that theists have no proof that life was the result of an act of creation. The difference between them is that scientists say "we don't know how life came to be", whereas theists say "we do know how life came to be". Only one of these groups is being honest.

J C

Vivisectus wrote: »

Ok – but then we face a completely different issue. What you are unconvinced by is not natural selection or evolution at all: if natural selection is a fact, then evolution must necessarily follow. You merely do not believe that life originated spontaneously on earth.

No-one is claiming to have the final answer to that one: apart from the supernatural explanation, we currently have a small handful of competing scientific ones. There is no current consensus.

Not only is there no possibility that life arose spontaneously ... there is also no possibility that any of the Complex Functional Specified Genetic Information found in living organisms arose by non-intelligently directed means either.

Vivisectus wrote: »

However the fossil record suggests extremely strongly that if you go back in time very far indeed, then life-forms become increasingly simple. The earliest examples we have found seem to be about 3.7 billion years old. At that stage all we can find is mats of extremely simple microbes.

The Fossil Record is a record of dead things killed catastrophically and buried in cemented rock by world-wide water-based processes.
The theory that each rock layer represents millions of years of time is disproven by polystrate fossils, the fact that fossils of current living animals are found to be exactly the same as the current animals are themselves and the fact that they were obviously laid down catastrophically (over weeks/months) rather than gradually (over millions of years).

Vivisectus wrote: »

The amazing thing is that these seem to originally not have depended on photosynthesis, but on thermal vents for energy, like some extremophile life that still exists around deep-sea vents today. It is not until later that we can see clear evidence for the start of the light-based economy of life that we take for granted today: the earliest strong evidence we can find for photosynthesis is roughly a billion years later, although some researchers have pointed out that some of the microbial fossils that we can see as early as 3 billion years ago have a striking similarity to cyano-bacteria, so it is not impossible that light as the basis of our economy of life goes back further.

All these creatures were contemporaneous ... and not separated by millions of years ... just like extremophiles, cyano-bacteria and Man are contemporaneous today.
... and the reason that we see supposed 3 billion year old fossils that "have a striking similarity to cyano-bacteria" ... is that they were cyano-bacteria ... and they were fossilised thousands of years ago - and not billions of years ago.

Vivisectus wrote: »

Be that as it may: from about 2700 million years ago we see more and more evidence of atmospheric oxygen, and fewer and fewer anaerobic organisms.

Around the 1800 million year mark we start to see eukaryotes – organisms with complex cells. This is a vast leap ahead, and one that is of great interest to biologists: even the earliest known example of eukaryotic life is a LOT more complex (and a lot bigger!) than even the most sophisticated prokaryotic life-forms. On top of that, all eukaryotic life from that time onwards shares major features of cellular organization.

More unexplained 'jumps' in CFSI without any intermediaries (as gradual evolution would predict).
The enormous evolutionist timescale is merely the product of wishful thinking ... that ignores the evidence of catastrophism and rapid fossilisation.

Vivisectus wrote: »

Basically we leap from simple and small single-celled organisms to much more complex ones with internal compartmentalization, where different parts of the cell have different functions.

One thing that may help explain this is that almost all eukaryotic cells have mitochondria and those that do not have them still have structures that are usually associated with them, suggesting that their ancestors may have had them in the past.

Basically we leap from primitive 'bottom dwelling' organisms that were the first to succumb to burial in Noah's Flood to organisms further up the oceanic ecological niches that were buried later.

Vivisectus wrote: »

Mitochondria are amazing things. They look like tiny little prokaryotes living inside eukaryotic cells. Their main function seems to be the generation of energy, but it does some other key things as well. They have their own DNA, which is completely different from the DNA is the rest of the cell and strongly resembles bacterial DNA.

All indicative of a common designer of enormous creative capacity.

Vivisectus wrote: »

It may be that the leap we see is not necessarily a leap in mutative evolution at all, but one of symbiotic evolution. The fact that Mitochondria have their own distinct DNA which is very similar to bacterial DNA seems to support this idea, as does the fact that there are striking similarities between cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen as a by-product, and the chloroplasts that fulfill a similar function in plant cells.

Clutching at straws ... to try an defend the indefensible ... the idea that blind chance and a selecting process could produce anything ... when we observe such combinations to be disastrous to existing functionality of all CFSI.

Vivisectus wrote: »

In the last years more and more information about the genome sequences of simple eukaryotes, archaea and bacteria has started increasing exponentially, and some tantalising hints have been found: some primitive prokaryotes have structures that are strikingly similar to those found in some eukaryote organelles.

... and the more we have learned, the greater the impossibility that evolution could be responsible for anything except marginal selection of minor pre-existing traits in organisms.

Vivisectus wrote: »

All things considered, then, it is not unreasonable to propose the theory that eukaryotes evolved because prokaryotes that already lived in close symbiotic relationships in microbial mats merged into larger, more complex cells, most likely by merging their dna in most cases, but retaining it in the case of mitochondrial dna and synchronising their reproduction cycles. This is something that is henceforth found in all complex eukaryotes… including us!

It is the logical equivalent of sticking a feather in the ground and proclaiming that it will 'grow' a hen ... none of these organelles have the capacity to do what Evolutionists wish they could do.

Vivisectus wrote: »

At this stage our brief overview of the history of life is already about 2 billion years into a 3.7 billion year story, past the half-way mark. We are still some way away from the first multi-cellular organisms, and sexual reproduction has not appeared yet.

It's all a lovely story (and one I too believed in, hook, line and sinker) ... but for all its superficial plausibility ... it completely falls apart upon even a cursory examination and comparison with the evidence, that it was all intelligently designed.

Vivisectus wrote: »

If we review all this, and just stick to the things we are reasonably certain of, such as the rough timeline for the appearance of the first anaerobic life-forms, aerobic single-celled organisms, and then the more complex eukaryotes, where exactly does divine intervention fit in?

Assumptions and unfounded conjectures don't provide evidence.

Vivisectus wrote: »

Are we to assume a creator started with some ultra-simple anaerobic archaea as a method of creating the kind of life that exists today over a 4 billion year period? If we do, then we must let go of some of the more common objections against evolution, such as a perceived inability to drive complexity and drastic changes in body plans. We cannot make any appeal to irreducible complexity: we are still relying on evolution to do the actual work. And if we do that, then Occam’s razor looms ahead of us: no deity is required in that explanation. And we certainly have no explanation that gives us “genetic diversity” for evolution to work on that has a divine origin.

You will get no disagreement from me on that ... Theistic Evolution is just as scientifically challenged, as its secular counterpart ... and with serious theological issues to boot.

Vivisectus wrote: »

If we place creation at the appearance of eukaryotes, then why do we see all those prokaryotes and archaea first? How come they seem to be built on a very similar plan, with common structures, and how come that some of that much earlier life ends up inside the later life in the form of mytochondria? Why are eukaryotes basically large cells that seem to have inside them structures from different archaea and prokaryotes?

All evidence of a common designer ... and eukaryotes are much more than 'large cells with structures from archaea and prokaryotes within them'.

Vivisectus wrote: »

Are there then multiple acts of creation? Is there a deity tinkering with creation all the time, adding bits and bobs on as we go along? Using old designs? But that is just tacking a deity on to the theory of evolution for no discernible reason: again Occams Razor rears its ugly head. We have observed bacteria create entirely new breeds by merging DNA from two completely different types, so we know that that can happen.

One enormous act of Creation (and no tinkering) ... and the bacteria are observed to still be bacteria ... that have re-combined (in a tightly pre-programmed manner) pre-existing genetic information.

Vivisectus wrote: »

We could just deny the validity of the evidence we have outright – but then where do all these pesky fossils come from? On what basis do we rule out the evidence, and what justification can we possibly supply for cherry-picking only what we like?

I'm not the one cherry-picking or trying to 'shoe-horn' the evidence to meet my theory ... rather than following the evidence to where it logically leads.

Vivisectus wrote: »

If we go further down the timeline we see the next steps: first multi-cellular life appears, followed by a radical new method for encouraging evolution: sexual reproduction. This radical new way of reproducing seems to throw evolution into overdrive: no longer do we see a slow and stately progression over billions of years: now, new forms can emerge much, much faster. The resulting explosion in different shapes and body plans is called the Cambrian Explosion. It started around 500 million years ago, and it is an amazing epoch in the history of life. During it we start to see some basic body plans that we would recognize today… and some truly bizarre ones that we would not. Some of the latter will die out and are never seen again.

Like I say, the fossil record isn't a multi-billion year record of life ... it is patently a contemporaneous record of death in a world-wide water-based catastrophe.

Vivisectus wrote: »

If you want, we can discuss some of the implications for ID that this brings along with it later on, but I think you have enough on your plate for now: if evolution works with irreducibly complex basic material that must have been created, where do we draw the line?

The lines are drawn at the selection 'walls' that appear quite rapidly when artificial or natural selection are applied to existing genetic diversity.

Vivisectus wrote: »

How come that the eukaryotic cell can be reduced, and plausibly so, into functions that pre-existed in prokaryotes and archaea?

Just for the sake of argument, accepting that such a 'reduction' ever took place ... the prokaryote would be the irreducibly complex component in such a scenario ... and what an irreducibly complex component it is!!!

Vivisectus wrote: »

Why do we see Prokaryotic and Archaean life before we see Eukaryotic life if Eukariotic cells are irreducible?

I don't accept that we do see this ... what we see today is contemporaneous Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic life.

Vivisectus wrote: »

The only possible solution that I can see is to push the boundary of irreducability back to the simplest of archaea and prokaryots... but then we are faced with the problem that we have pushed it back so far that the difference between a created and spontaneously generated proto-life is so small that we have to wonder why we feel the need to bring creation into it in the first place?

Irreducibly complex phenomena and systems in living organisms number into the billions ... and every one of them have probabilities against their non-intelligently directed production that are vastly greater than the Universal Probability Bound ... and therefore are mathematically impossible.

Delirium

CFSI isn't a recognised scientific term, it's not an argument against evolution.

J C

SW wrote: »

CFSI isn't a recognised scientific term, it's not an argument against evolution.

CFSI is a mathematically sound argument against the non-intelligently directed production of life and observed genetic diversity.
If you wish to argue that maths isn't science, I'll grant you that Pyrrhic 'victory'!!!:)

Delirium

J C wrote: »

CFSI is a mathematically sound argument against the non-intelligently directed production of life and observed genetic diversity.
If you wish to argue that maths isn't science, I'll grant you that Pyrrhic 'victory'!!!:)

Never suggested anything of the sort.

If CFSI was sound, then why hasn't a creationist accepted a nobel prize for science considering it claims to disprove evolution?

obplayer

J C wrote: »

CFSI is a mathematically sound argument against the non-intelligently directed production of life and observed genetic diversity.
If you wish to argue that maths isn't science, I'll grant you that Pyrrhic 'victory'!!!:)

References to peer reviewed papers on CFSI please.