Darwin's theory

the_monkey

J C wrote: »

Richard does talk to Creationists ... and does respond to them

Mein God !! I'd never watched this in full , she's a complete f*cking loon !!!

You can see the self delusion there ... she would argue black is white.

Amazing how she is so critical of evidence for evolution , yet she'd take the absolute garbage that is the Bible as FACT without a 2nd thought.

kingchess

It is like debating with a 7 year old child who believes in Santa Claus ,The child keeps putting forward his evidence why Santa must exist-the presents at Christmas,the signs in the shops,the films on TV about him,his picture is everywhere- A large jolly looking man with a beard and who has magical powers and knows if you are naughty or nice, (He is like God in some ways except he will not put you in hell if you are naughty).

the_monkey

kingchess wrote: »

It is like debating with a 7 year old child who believes in Santa Claus ,The child keeps putting forward his evidence why Santa must exist-the presents at Christmas,the signs in the shops,the films on TV about him,his picture is everywhere- A large jolly looking man with a beard and who has magical powers and knows if you are naughty or nice, (He is like God in some ways except he will not put you in hell if you are naughty).

exactly !!

show me the EVIDENCE he doesn't exist !!!

SHOW ME
SHOW ME
SHOW ME
SHOW ME !!!

You see ! , you can't , therefore he exists !!!!

irish coldplayer

J C wrote: »

I am very much aware of the Multiverse Theory.
However, even if an infinite number of multiverses existed ... the inability of non-intelligently directed systems to locally (in both time and space) assemble systems with components with sequences that each occupy combinatorial spaces in excess of the UPB means that multiverse theory doesn't allow all possible things to happen (as is sometimes claimed).

There are also exponential 'run-away' issues where the more changes that are made to CFSI the worse the non-functionality becomes ... because of the great disparity in the ratio between the damaging non-functional sequences (equivalent to the UPB) and the functional sequences (which can be as little as one sequence, where it is a critical sequence for a particular function).
The putative organism must also survive when all of this is going on ... and because it only takes one critical system (or even part of a system) to be 'wrong' to kill something and literally thousands of systems must be 'right' to continue living ... the spontaneous production of CFSI would continue to be impossible, even if multiverses existed ... even an infinity of them.
This can best be summarised by the truism that an infinity of dead things will remain an infinity of dead things ... without an input of intelligence.

Sorry but you've just regurgitated (again) your inaccurate argument against it emerging in a single universe, nothing in the above addresses what would happen in a multiverse with INFINITE iterations. Each iteration and combination has to happen its not a matter of chance or probability it will happen.
In short what you've said is that because it is improbable in one universe it is the same across an infinite number of multiverse.
This is a complete fallacy and looks more like an attempt at obfuscation that actually trying to answer my question.
Anyone who has ever done basic stats can see that if you have an infinite number of something it drastically changes the probability of a single unique event occurring no matter how complex.
And thats not even taking into account that there is more than one unique sequence of events that can lead to life, and that dembskis formula only deals with the observable universe which is far smaller than the actual universe assuming an inflationary universe.

Also the premise of Dembski's equation is to do with time. Essentially he is saying that the universe is too young to have produced spontaneous evolution. If there are infinite universes then his measurement for time is wrong as you have an infinite number of concurrently existing multiverse.
his equation falls apart


Interestingly Dembski himself has no answer for the equation assuming the multiverse exists and is not a fan of the Multiverse theory, you are actually the first person I can find online anywhere who tries to do this so Kudos! but your answer is underwhelming.

I'm actually done debating with you you have been given example after example and link after link that shows the math Dembski used being ripped apart by people with no creationist or other agenda.
Several different computer programs have beaten UPB easily in simulating evolution.
yet you refuse to even try to address these probably because you cant find any answer to cut and paste in rebuttal from a creatard website.

Also declaring yourself the winner in a debate which the vast majority of posters here disagree with you is petulant and childish.
you can repost bad math and obfuscation as many times as you want it wont make them any more valid or accurate.
I cannot find one serious scientific blog or journal that takes dembski seriously. His idea isnt really seriously debated anymore by scientists as it was ripped apart shortly after publication by several different scientists.
I can only conclude that dembski is a fraud trying to make money from the fundamentalist christian groups, I bet he gets paid a fortune to speak at religious universities.
He even admits himself that he starts at the point that God did it, and works back from there looking for ways to prove it or at least come up with enough smoke and mirrors to confuse or put a doubt in people heads.
The scary thing is to the average person who is not going to read up on this stuff, it could seem plausible and pseudo scientific. Thats exactly what they want, to muddy the waters so much that they manage to get ID into schools and universities.

Interesting thread but I cant continue to debate with someone like you JC, its just not worth my time your only intention is to try to shoehorn your religious beliefs into scientific fact. Even if your "science" is deeply flawed, but at this stage I really don't think you care how accurate the science is as long as you can say God did it!

Tordelback

J C wrote: »

... and not slow sedimentation in the bottom of a tropical lagoon over millions of years, as conventional geology would have us believe.

What's slow about sedimentation (exhibit A: Bull Island; exhibit B: the constant process of harbour/estuary dredging)? You suggested upthread that fossilisation was a rapid process because leaves and such would decay before it takes place. Generally speaking, this is completely incorrect, and thus not evidence for your position.

Have you ever looked at a sedimentary sequence, J C? Have you seen, with your own eyes, the sequence of sedimentation that varies between fine and coarse, the depositional surfaces that are gently rippled beach sands, coarse stone-strewn deserts, expanses of evaporites and cracked muds? The succession of chemical environments, of biotic environments, of lifeforms themselves?

Can you really believe that this is the product of the gradual settling of flood silts and corpses over one month?

And then the post-depositional upheavals and stresses, compressions, stretching and coolings, metemorphoses of those sediments, then their erosion, and in turn their overlaying by more deep beds of sediment with further procession of environments and stratified fossils? What's going on there, more Floods? A bit of a dry spell in the middle?

If you have looked at these things, in the flesh, and with an open mind, I simply cannot believe that an intelligent person could ascribe almost all of geology to the single instant of the Biblical Flood for which the only scrap of evidence is a short passage in a book.

floggg

J C wrote: »

Dr Jimbob ... I expected more from you than a limp statement that amounts to little better than 'oh he is ... and yes it is!!!'

Come on Jimbob ... destiny awaits ... I have given you the concise basis of ID, for you to precisely tell us where it's wrong ... and all you can manage is a handwave ... that the flaws have already been pointed out.

If they have ... I've either missed them ... or invalidated them.

You certainly didn't invalidate them, and you seem to be intentionally missing them.

Myself and others have pointed to some pretty fundamentally assumptions made in Dembski's equation - namely that matter is not randomly distributed across the universe and doesnt randomly interact either.

So any maths resulting from such a gross misunderstanding seems pretty useless to me.

And the intellectual posturing is pretty pathetic if you unwilling to even acknowledge the existence of arguments you seem unable to address.

Frank Bullitt

the_monkey wrote: »

Mein God !! I'd never watched this in full , she's a complete f*cking loon !!!

You can see the self delusion there ... she would argue black is white.

Amazing how she is so critical of evidence for evolution , yet she'd take the absolute garbage that is the Bible as FACT without a 2nd thought.

Isn't she in prison or had a restraining order put against her for doing stuff outside abortion clinics?

Why would anyone trying to build up the position of creationism show this video? This woman isn't a scientist or a very nice person for that matter.

MrPudding

Gintonious wrote: »

Isn't she in prison or had a restraining order put against her for doing stuff outside abortion clinics?

Why would anyone trying to build up the position of creationism show this video? This woman isn't a scientist or a very nice person for that matter.

Yes, it's kind of funny that one of the arguments for her wanting to promote the idea that we are created is that she wants humans to be treated with respect and dignity. Unless you are gay if in need if abortion, that is.

MrP

Vivisectus

destiny awaits ... I have given you the concise basis of ID, for you to precisely tell us where it's wrong

That is actually not that complicated. The mistake that Dembski makes is assuming that to get from one sequence to another requires the entire genome to be disassembled and then re-assembled randomly. But this is simply not what happens.

What does happen is that the original sequence is copied and multiplied, with some mistakes in it. Some of these mistakes are bad and cause death. Others cause reduced fitness, and will be selected against. Still others will be neutral and have no effect on fitness. A rare few improve fitness and get favored by selection.

Improvements that take a small amount of steps will happen earlier, and then fix themselves in the population. Bigger steps will often be dependent on neutral intermediate steps: the number of evolutionary avenues possible is not limitless.

If you model a 300 position, 20 option string of acids, and set a mutation rate of 1 in 100 and a spawn rate of 10, and then set some combinations as lethal, some as neutral, and some as beneficial, and apply selective pressure to weed out lethal ones (0 survivial chance), and increase the offspring for beneficial ones, we can see that while it takes thousands of generations and lots of organisms to get to the beneficial ones, but it DOES happen.

floggg

Vivisectus wrote: »

That is actually not that complicated. The mistake that Dembski makes is assuming that to get from one sequence to another requires the entire genome to be disassembled and then re-assembled randomly. But this is simply not what happens.

What does happen is that the original sequence is copied and multiplied, with some mistakes in it. Some of these mistakes are bad and cause death. Others cause reduced fitness, and will be selected against. Still others will be neutral and have no effect on fitness. A rare few improve fitness and get favored by selection.

Improvements that take a small amount of steps will happen earlier, and then fix themselves in the population. Bigger steps will often be dependent on neutral intermediate steps: the number of evolutionary avenues possible is not limitless.

If you model a 300 position, 20 option string of acids, and set a mutation rate of 1 in 100 and a spawn rate of 10, and then set some combinations as lethal, some as neutral, and some as beneficial, and apply selective pressure to weed out lethal ones (0 survivial chance), and increase the offspring for beneficial ones, we can see that while it takes thousands of generations and lots of organisms to get to the beneficial ones, but it DOES happen.

Surely an equally large mistake is assuming the first sequence was assembled randomly in the first place?

Are any chemical structures/compounds assembled in a truly random fashion?

Oranage2

Also another thing I don't get from this theory is why isn't there any life on planets close to us since if the big bang happened then surely planets in close proximity should have similar conditions and life forms.

floggg

Oranage2 wrote: »

Also another thing I don't get from this theory is why isn't there any life on planets close to us since if the big bang happened then surely planets in close proximity should have similar conditions and life forms.

They clearly don't have similar conditions though. And close in this context is am extremely relative term - the distances are huge.

Anything closer to the sun is too hot (and any water would be immediately evaoprayrd).

AMD anything further away would be too cold (no running water and in sure there are lots of gases that would be in a solid or liquid state).

I'm sure stuff like thr composition and mass of the planet also has a huge impact (gravity will have a differing strength, which will have an impact on how various elements interact etc).

The Corinthian

the_monkey wrote: »

show me the EVIDENCE he doesn't exist !!!

The Babelfish.

nozzferrahhtoo

Oranage2 wrote: »

Also another thing I don't get from this theory is why isn't there any life on planets close to us since if the big bang happened then surely planets in close proximity should have similar conditions and life forms.

I can understand why you would feel like that, but actually it could not be more wrong. It takes very little to change the conditions on a planet.

A tiny percentage change in position, tilt, size, composition, original parameters, and it has cascade massive effect that permeates through the entire conditions set of the planet.

Mere addition or removal of a moon for example would over night change the entire face of our planet and the experience of life on it.

However you say "This Theory" in your post and it is worth pointing out that your point has absolutely nothing to do with Evolutionary Theory. You are talking about life getting started. Evolutionary Theory is about AFTER life has gotten started.

It is an error similar to, for example, going into a discussion on ballistics and trying to make a point about the chemical processes of gun powder explosion. Chemical composition of gun powder is a presupposition of a ballistics conversation. The existence of life is a presupposition of Evolution.

Vivisectus

floggg wrote: »

Surely an equally large mistake is assuming the first sequence was assembled randomly in the first place?

Are any chemical structures/compounds assembled in a truly random fashion?

I was referring to Dembski's objection to evolution based on functionality.

But his objection to abiogenesis is also problematic, sure. It pretends that the non-creationist standpoint depends on there being some sort of amino acid soup, with the only way for life to start being a full functional sequence to magically come into existence.

It is not a position anyone actually holds, however: it is a classic ID strawman.

And it repeats that tired old mistake that conflates objections against abiogenesis with objections against evolution.

RonanP77

This is one of the most interesting threads I've seen on here. I'm a science student with the OU, I'm studying evolutionary biology but some of the answers in here are still way beyond anything I could ever hope to come up with.

All I'll say is I'm baffled by the fact that so many people still don't believe in evolution. Some people would rather believe in something which has zero evidence to support it and totally ignore the vast amounts of evidence for evolution.

floggg

Vivisectus wrote: »

I was referring to Dembski's objection to evolution based on functionality.

But his objection to abiogenesis is also problematic, sure. It pretends that the non-creationist standpoint depends on there being some sort of amino acid soup, with the only way for life to start being a full functional sequence to magically come into existence.

It is not a position anyone actually holds, however: it is a classic ID strawman.

And it repeats that tired old mistake that conflates objections against abiogenesis with objections against evolution.

It seemed so obvious to me that I was was starting to wonder out which one of was being stupid.

Knasher

Oranage2 wrote: »

Also another thing I don't get from this theory is why isn't there any life on planets close to us since if the big bang happened then surely planets in close proximity should have similar conditions and life forms.

In any case, this isn't a settled question. It is still possible that we might find evidence that life once existed on Mars, back when it had surface water. And if we do, it may be possible that we find life that survived the gradual loss of the Martian atmosphere and still exist in some form.

Venus is about the same size as us, but its atmosphere is very very different. If we found life there, it would completely change our understanding of what life could be. And even looking for it on Venus is difficult, the stuff we have landed on Venus have only ever lasted about an hour before they are destroyed by the atmosphere. So simply put, we aren't looking there because it is just too hard.

Then you have Titan, which is believed to have underground oceans warmed by the gravitational pull of Saturn. In order to decide that there isn't life there we will have to drill down beneath the surface, as well as maintaining some link back in order to transmit any results. That is something that will be part of some future mission, but it is a long way off yet.

So of the close planets Venus is too different and hard to look at, Mars we are examining, but we really are only scratching the surface. And Titan we haven't even looked at yet, though so far I'd consider it the most likely candidate. Really though we are currently operating with a sample size of one, so we really have no idea how exact the conditions needed for life to start are, or for them to continue are, and we have only barely started even looking.

Oranage2

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I can understand why you would feel like that, but actually it could not be more wrong. It takes very little to change the conditions on a planet.

A tiny percentage change in position, tilt, size, composition, original parameters, and it has cascade massive effect that permeates through the entire conditions set of the planet.

Mere addition or removal of a moon for example would over night change the entire face of our planet and the experience of life on it.

However you say "This Theory" in your post and it is worth pointing out that your point has absolutely nothing to do with Evolutionary Theory. You are talking about life getting started. Evolutionary Theory is about AFTER life has gotten started.

It is an error similar to, for example, going into a discussion on ballistics and trying to make a point about the chemical processes of gun powder explosion. Chemical composition of gun powder is a presupposition of a ballistics conversation. The existence of life is a presupposition of Evolution.

I want argue with you but doesn't earth being the perfect size, tilt, composition etc just sound to perfect to be possible?

It's arguments like yours but not specific to you, that makes God seem like a more believable possibility.

Vivisectus

I want argue with you but doesn't earth being the perfect size, tilt, composition etc just sound to perfect to be possible?

It's arguments like yours but not specific to you, that makes God seem like a more believable possibility.

Forget about the earth! You are totally forgetting how well-suited water is for being propelled by fins: clearly the oceans are designed by a god for the specific use of fish!

And have you ever noticed how ideally suited air is for generating lift? Obviously air was designed for birds!

Knasher

Oranage2 wrote: »

I want argue with you but doesn't earth being the perfect size, tilt, composition etc just sound to perfect to be possible?

It's arguments like yours but not specific to you, that makes God seem like a more believable possibility.

There is an old anecdote about a (somehow sentient) puddle of water which, on finding that it fits the pothole it exits in so perfectly, it concludes that the pothole must have been created for it. The reality is that the pothole exists and the water conforms to the pothole, not the other way around.

So no, it isn't too perfect to be possible, we evolved to exist here and so we fit the conditions here rather nicely. If the conditions where slightly different, then we would have evolved slightly differently, and if the conditions were completely different, perhaps no life would have evolved at all.

Oranage2

Knasher wrote: »

There is an old anecdote about a (somehow sentiept) puddle of watertwhich, on finding that it fits the pothole it exits in so perfectly, it concludes that the pothole must have been created for it. The reality is that the pothole exists and the water conforms to the pothole, not the other way around.

So no, it isn't too perfect to be possible, we evolved to exist here and so we fit the conditions here rather nicely. If the conditions where slightly different, then we would have evolved slightly differently, and if the conditions were completely different, perhaps no life would have evolved at all.

It's interesting stuff alright but probably a little to complex for me, so for all we know there could be life on say Uranus or Saturn.

What about the idea that God made the big bang, has science ruled that out yet?

PopePalpatine

Technically speaking, the idea that God started the Big Bang hasn't been ruled out because we don't have the capabilities to test it yet.

Knasher

Oranage2 wrote: »

It's interesting stuff alright but probably a little to complex for me, so for all we know there could be life on say Uranus or Saturn.

Well it is possible, but it wouldn't be life as we know it. The only life we know of so far pretty much revolves around water, so the only places we look at for life at the moment, are places that have, or have had water.

Oranage2 wrote: »

What about the idea that God made the big bang, has science ruled that out yet?

No, and that isn't even a question that science touches upon. Really the most that science will ever say is that god isn't necessary to explain the existence of the universe. Science will certainly continue to strip the explanatory power of religion that some people use to justify their faith, but I don't think it will ever tell people that they can't have faith.

Dan_Solo

Oranage2 wrote: »

I want argue with you but doesn't earth being the perfect size, tilt, composition etc just sound to perfect to be possible?

It's arguments like yours but not specific to you, that makes God seem like a more believable possibility.

There's countless billions of planets in the universe. The likelihood of one of them somewhere being suitable for what we perceive as life is fairly certain I'd imagine.

floggg

Oranage2 wrote: »

It's interesting stuff alright but probably a little to complex for me, so for all we know there could be life on say Uranus or Saturn.

What about the idea that God made the big bang, has science ruled that out yet?

Your focus might be a bit too local I think.

There may well not be any other life in our immediate solar system, but our solar system is just a small part of a much larger galaxy, which is itself just a small part of a much larger universe.

So there are probably hundreds of planets in other galaxies and solar systems just as capable of supporting life in some form. Its just we haven't been able to find or discover them yet.

Vivisectus

depressingly, if you consider the limitations of light-speed and the large amounts of time available, we may well never see another species / civilization

Even if you consider the invention of radio as the starting point of us broadcasting anything aliens could receive, then it has only been around for a measly 100 - 150 years or so. This means that it has only reached a depressingly small globe around us... IF they can still make it out from other background radiation at all.

The Corinthian

Vivisectus wrote: »

depressingly, if you consider the limitations of light-speed and the large amounts of time available, we may well never see another species / civilization

Why is speed an issue if the distance between two points is zero, after all?

nozzferrahhtoo

Oranage2 wrote: »

It's interesting stuff alright but probably a little to complex for me

Don't sell yourself short on this. It is daunting to the lay man, yes, but it actually does not take the application of THAT much thought to break the seal on it.

Oranage2 wrote: »

so for all we know there could be life on say Uranus or Saturn.

Actually I think the Moon Titan is a possible place to look, there is reason to think there is water there and the possibility of life. But by life we are not expecting a fish to swim up and lick the first camera we send up there. We are more talking bacterial and the like.

While the possibility is there of finding life in our solar system however, it is not one people are likely to stake their earnings on. But we are compelled to look!

Oranage2 wrote: »

What about the idea that God made the big bang, has science ruled that out yet?

Science does not rule out that kind of idea because the idea is neither "testable" or "falsifiable". And if an idea is neither of these things, then science simply can not touch it.

What science HAS done at this point is two things:

1) It has entirely failed to present a single SHRED of argument, evidence, data or reasoning to suggest a non human intelligence is responsible for the creation and/or subsequent maintenance of our universe and

2) It has shown in many many cases that the universe operates perfectly well without the assumption there is a god. It operates exactly as you would expect it to without one.

nozzferrahhtoo

Oranage2 wrote: »

I want argue with you but doesn't earth being the perfect size, tilt, composition etc just sound to perfect to be possible?

Not really. I will present two different paragraphs of analogies, one mathematical (my own) and one more intuitive (plazarized) to illustrate........ before I get into the meats of why not......... and then I will end with another analogy to the Lotto (my own) so apologies for how long this will get. And it will:

First you are falling for what I like to call the "52 card deck illusion". If you deal out the 52 card deck in a random order, the result will seem unremarkable to you. However I challenge you to randomly mix and deal card decks for the rest of your life and get that same sequence again. Not only will you likely not achieve it, if several generations of your progeny for millennia take up the mantel of doing it too, they likely will not either.

Douglas Adams put it better in a more accessible way. Imagine a puddle of water that becomes conscious. The puddle would look at the hole it is in and think "My god, is it not amazing that the hole in which I find myself just HAPPENS to be PERFECT for my exact shape? I fit it to perfectly for this to be just coincidence and chance!!!!".

The core of your error should be clear I think. The hole was not formed for the puddle. The puddle formed to fit the whole. The sequence of the 52 cards is not remarkable UNTIL you attempt to imagine attaining that sequence a second time.

So in short, life on this planet arose to fit the conditions it found itself in. There may be any number of other conditions (sequence of 52 cards) that seem equally unlikely in retrospect, but could just as easily have formed "life".

The problem when we imagine the likelihood of life on THIS planet is we look at life on THIS planet as being the only sequence of 52 cards that matters. When in fact there could be any number of them. And given an ENTIRELY different hole, with an ENTIRELY different shape..... a puddle would still have formed, become conscious, and wondered at the remarkable perfection of the hole to fit it's form.

But remember we are not just dealing the 52 card decks one after another in our universe. We have billions of galaxies, with billions of start systems, each with billions of stars, each with their own planetary systems. So we are running that experiment countless times with countless initial starting parameters. In other words we are not just dealing the deck, we are dealing MANY times more decks than there are possible sequences of the deck!

And when you get into numbers THAT big, then even the most improbable event is going to happen. You quickly get to the point where "It is very improbable X will happen" to "It is very improbably X will NOT happen" when you go up to numbers of that magnitude.

Just like it is improbable you will win the lotto.... but if you get 100 billion people to play it.... it is improbable that SOMEONE wont win it.

Oranage2 wrote: »

It's arguments like yours but not specific to you, that makes God seem like a more believable possibility.

I hope I have illustrated above with my 2 analogies and appended explanation, why this is simply not so.

But to ADD to it.... if one is going to assign probabilities and possibilities to it..... one has to acknowledge that whatever the probability of life arising on Earth is..... by a slow incremental process of evolution..... it is remarkably more likely than an all powerful, all intelligent, all knowing being simply existing out of nothing for no reason whatsoever.