The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

In every case I was encouraged to look at these theories and to decide whether they were scientifically tenable.

That is commendable. I got the impression from others that they would not even bother to consider anything other than materialistic evolution.

However, when these theories are found not to fit the observed facts, and in many cases to offer conclusions or require assumptions that conflict with the evidence, we abandon them. When others support them in direct conflict with the observed facts, we shrug and say 'these people are supporting a position that is not scientifically tenable'.

Yes, my scientist friends who believe in the literal Genesis account say exactly the same thing: they just differ as to who is supporting the scientfically untenable position.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

Yes, my scientist friends who believe in the literal Genesis account say exactly the same thing: they just differ as to who is supporting the scientfically untenable position.

True. Which is the only reason for debating with YECs - although I'm afraid I have yet to see a single point of evidence in their favour.

If there were any evidence for YEC, we could not simply dismiss it by waving our hands, but you'll notice that JC, for example, simply posts things that are untrue. His questions were good (but it's easy to ask good questions), but I think Whiskey Priest's answers were pretty thorough. I read through JC's 'counter-arguments', and was entirely underwhelmed, and I'm afraid his standard of debate is pretty much the rule for YECs.

If you have YEC friends who are biologists or geologists, I'd be interested to know how they reconcile their beliefs with the science.

cordially,
Scofflaw

J C

Quote Excelsior
Bm, in the case of JC, he doubts that many of us are Christians because we don't agree with his ultra recent readings of Scripture.

I have NEVER expressed any doubts about your Christianity – and I believe you to be a sincere Brother in Jesus Christ - with whom I have occasional differences of opinion.


Quote JustHalf
You and your fellows do not just study Creation -- for that is the domain of all scientists.

Is the study of Creation actually “the domain of ALL scientists” ?

I believe that the study of Creation is the domain of Creation Scientists - and any other scientists who wish to study it or to critically evaluate the evidence for it.

Obviously scientists are quite entitled to research other areas as well, including natural expanations for the origins of life, if they so wish.


Quote JustHalf
Instead, you insist on including the Bible in your "scientific" research.

As scientists we always must base our conclusions strictly on the repeated observation of tangible phenomena.

It is therefore important to strictly differentiate between what we BELIEVE through FAITH and what we SCIENTIFICALLY UNDERSTAND from studying OBSERVABLE phenomena.

The written Word of God in the Bible can only be believed in through Faith – but the spoken Word of God in all of Creation can be repeatably observed and so it IS within the realm of Science. The Bible can provide useful ideas to be scientifically tested against tangible evidence – but it obviously is itself not part of the Scientific Method – and Creationists do not claim that it is.


Quote JustHalf
I believe that it furthers the cause of the enemy; and where it has resulted in any conversion, this is due to God turning the plans of the enemy against himself (something He has a knack for).

You are getting very ‘metaphysical’ JustHalf – who is this ‘enemy’ that you speak of – and how does the scientific study of God’s Creation further the cause of this ‘enemy’?


Quote JustHalf
You constantly mention the "muck to man" theory, and ridicule it. But never, NEVER do you describe to us or theorise about the mechanism through which God may have created a literal Adam. Surely as a scientist you are interested in this? If you assume that there was a literal Adam and Eve, then surely it is insufficient to you to hear "O, God just did it"?

Good question.

Short answer. HOW God Created life is a metaphysical question, which Science cannot answer – so there is no point in scientifically pursuing the issue.
However, science does have the POTENTIAL to answer the question “DID an ‘External Intelligence’ aka God Create life?” This is one of the questions being scientifically pursued by both Creation Science and Intelligent Design advocates at present.

Longer answer. We have two basic hypotheses in relation to the ‘origins question’ :-

1. That God Created all life through His Divine Will.
2. That all life arose spontaneously through undirected natural processes.

1. The Act of Divine Creation as described in Genesis is NOT repeatably observable, and therefore it is strictly outside of science – so IF Adam and Eve WERE created by God the question of HOW God did it is unanswerable by science and it is a question that ONLY God Himself can answer.
God has told us that He SPOKE all life into existence. I choose to believe Him – but you, of course may choose not to believe this.
That is where the question of HOW God made life must rest – because it is evidentially a matter of faith founded on the Word of God – and not of science.

However, the EVIDENCE following on from such a putative Act of Divine Creation SHOULD be repeatably observable and therefore within the competence of science to evaluate.

Evidence for such an Act would include the instantaneous emergence of all basic life-forms with significant PRE-EXISTING genetic diversity. Such genetic information should be observed to ‘run downwards or sidewards’ but never upwards. Evidence for Direct Creation would also include the observation of complex molecules such as DNA being required as a PRE-REQUISITE to the synthesis of simple bio-molecules – and not the other way around. One would also expect to see information of massive complexity and density within living systems (reflecting the infinite intelligence of the God that Created it). If it is true that God Directly Created all life we would also expect that no plausible alternative natural mechanisms for the origins of life would be repeatably observable or objectively demonstrable – and the leading contender in this regard of Materialistic Evolution HASN’T provided any such plausible evidence despite over 150 years of intensive research.

The highly complex, tightly specified and precisely sequenced living systems that are observed in living organisms DOES provide strong evidence for Direct Creation. Equally, the purposeful highly specified design inherent at all levels within living organisms from the ‘sub-cellular level’ to the ‘cellular level’ to the ‘organ level’ to the ‘body plan level’ also indicates that an ‘External Intelligent Agent’ of enormous power and intelligence created all life.



2. On the other hand, IF all life arose spontaneously, the putative undirected natural mechanisms that gave rise to this event should be still observable. If the spontaneous generation of life was a ‘once off fluke’ or a process so gradual as to be unobservable – then, just like the Act of Creation, it is strictly outside of science.

A coherent, EVIDENTIALLY-BASED explanation for Materialistic Evolution, which comprehensively answers my 24 questions in Post #369, would be required if Evolution is to be considered as a plausible scientific contender for the emergence of Human Life, or indeed as the originator of any life on Earth.
Such an explanation has not been forthcoming on this thread – or anywhere else that I am aware of.


Quote Scofflaw
The largest known genome so far is that of a microscopic Amoeba (Amoeba dubia), which has a genome length of 670 billion base pairs. For comparison, the human genome is 3.2 billion base pairs.

You are confusing quantity with quality – the Human Genome, which amongst other things specifies the information necessary to construct the Human Brain, is obviously of a much higher QUALITY than the genome that contains the information to construct a single-celled Amoeba.


Quote Scofflaw
Virtually no working geologists are Young Earth Creationists, because they cannot do the work.

Of course they can do the work!!

There are many CONVENTIONALLY TRAINED Geologists who also study the evidence for Creation – and this is particularly true in America, and indeed Northern Ireland. These people are as well qualified as their peers to undertake work as Geologists and indeed many are employed by various organisations to undertake such work.

J C

Quote Scofflaw
Most limestones are impure - pure limestones are sufficiently uncommon in the world to be a valuable economic resource. Most limestones are in fact contaminated with organic matter, even to the extent of constituting the mass of the rock.

There are of course some impure limestones that arose through contamination with other materials.

However, the fact remains that all economically important Limestone Quarries contain PURE Limestone. These rocks could NOT have been produced by gradual deposition or from the breakdown of animal bone, which would have produced significant contamination with organic matter and other materials.

Commercial Limestone rock was formed by the instantaneous release and deposition of massive quantities of water saturated with pure Calcium Carbonate. This is a process similar to that described as the welling up of the “fountains of the deep” during Noah’s Flood. It certainly WASN’T produced by gradualist processes or by animal bone breakdown – the fossils that are found in Limestone are generally very well preserved – and because these fossils weren’t chemically broken down, there is no reason to believe that the rest of the crystalline Calcium Carbonate found in these rocks came from chemically eroded bone or shells either.


Quote Samb
Having worked on as an assistant driller I have been fortunate to observe approximately 400m of core limestone straight out of the ground. I marvelled at many strange and wonderful organisms that lived over 300 million years ago. I'm not sure what limestone's you are refering to that have such great purity (I think it's called chalk, you will find it in France), but certainly not the thick fossil bed covering central Ireland. If you look at most large banks and other big buildings across this country you can see for yourself what it is made of.

The fossils you describe are obviously real – it is the source of the massive quantities of PURE crystalline Calcium Carbonate surrounding them, which is at issue.


Quote Samb
the Grand canyon is sand stone (a sedimentary rock). Anyway water evaborates off hot molten rock it doesn't erode it. Please read and observe some ''conventional geology''.

The Grand Canyon is evidence of the catastrophic effects of large amounts of water acting over a relatively short period of time to gouge out the Canyon before the sandstone sediment in the rock had petrified.

Similar ‘canyon formation’ processes were observed to occur in a matter of hours during a SEDIMENTATION event triggered by the overflow of ash saturated waters from Spirit Lake during the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980. The canyon was cut by the outpouring of water from Spirit Lake through a 30 metre deep layer of SEDIMENT, which had been formed earlier by volcanic ash and water movements within the lake during the volcanic explosion.


Quote Samb
Originally Posted by JC
By definition the “most recent female ancestor from whom we are all descended” has to be the first woman – who else could it logically be?

You are thinking of the LEAST RECENT female ancestor....concentrate

THE FACT IS that the common female ancestor of all of Mankind – is by definition the first woman.
The important issue here, is that science has established that we are all descended from ONE woman who lived in very recent historic time (measured in thousands and NOT millions of years).


Quote Excelsior
During the week I was having a chat with a colleague about Creation Science who works in the deepest, darkest points of the Northern Irish Bible belt and he told me that his students are all of the Creation Science camp. Even the really passionate and hungry students are lured into it and the reason is that in the culture of their kind of church, (which is very far out on the spectrum and quite rare) the only kind of "origins" discussion takes place around Ken Ham/Answers In Genesis mode.

Those writings are composed, as we can see from JC, with an allure of coherence and my colleague reckons that when an 18 or 19 year old reads them, he or she is made to feel quite clever for delving into it. Then they might choose to check out the alternative view and even Stephen Jay Gould bamboozles them,

The following quote from the said Stephen Jay Gould Late Professor of Geology and Palaeontology at Harvard University and a leading Evolutionist, may help explain WHY the young Northern Ireland Christians that you refer to above ARE listening very carefully to Creation Scientists (and indeed Professor Gould’s OWN reservations about Evolution).

“Palaeontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favoured account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study”.‘Evolution’s erratic pace’, by Prof. Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, vol. LXXXVI (5), May 1977, p14.

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Scofflaw wrote:

The largest known genome so far is that of a microscopic Amoeba (Amoeba dubia), which has a genome length of 670 billion base pairs. For comparison, the human genome is 3.2 billion base pairs.

You are confusing quantity with quality – the Human Genome, which amongst other things specifies the information necessary to construct the Human Brain, is obviously of a much higher QUALITY than the genome that contains the information to construct a single-celled Amoeba.

JC, you are (unintentionally) hilarious. Allow me to quote again your original post:

J C wrote:

In any event, God didn’t spend more time on insects and bacteria. The genetic information needed to construct an insect is significantly less than that required for a Human Being.

Base pairs are pairs of nucleic acids. There is no way for one nucleic acid to be of 'higher quality' than another - the numbers are directly comparable.

Fortunately, my genome, being of 'higher quality' than yours, allows me to see the error of your ways.

cordially,
Scofflaw

samb

J C wrote:

Commercial Limestone rock was formed by the instantaneous release and deposition of massive quantities of water saturated with pure Calcium Carbonate. This is a process similar to that described as the welling up of the “fountains of the deep” during Noah’s Flood. It certainly WASN’T produced by gradualist processes or by animal bone breakdown – the fossils that are found in Limestone are generally very well preserved – and because these fossils weren’t chemically broken down, there is no reason to believe that the rest of the crystalline Calcium Carbonate found in these rocks came from chemically eroded bone or shells either.
.

Where are you getting this nonsense? Who are these young earth geologists? Do you also reject radioisotope dating? Has North America not been moving away from Europe for the last 200 million years?

I find it hard to believe you actually believe this stuff yourself. I think you are just trying to give the impression that there is contraversy among geologists, and biologists to people with no scientific knowledge.

J C

Quote Scofflaw
At no point is it scientifically possible to say "well, lads, that's it, we've exhausted every avenue of enquiry that will ever exist, and we've found no way of these things evolving by themselves", without making a leap of faith.

Evolution must be established by objective repeatable means if it is to be a regarded as a valid scientific explanation for the presence of life on Earth – and your posting confirms that this has NOT been done.

You are correct that Evolution could remain a POSSIBILITY until every avenue of enquiry is exhausted, which as you have pointed out, would effectively take forever.

However, Evolution would effectively cease even being a POSSIBILITY if Creation by an ‘External Intelligent Agent’ were to be scientifically confirmed.

The Direct Creation of life can be scientifically validated by various means already outlined on my previous postings. This is the ‘terrible vista’ that has opened up for Evolution – and that is why evolutionists are so 'exercised' by what is being achieved by Intelligent Design and Creation Science research at present.


Quote Scofflaw
A leap of faith is not allowed as part of a scientific method, so it is not possible for science to conclude that there is an intelligence behind creation, as long as there is no positive evidence for design.

You are correct that the Scientific Method does not allow a ‘leap of faith’ in reaching a scientifically valid conclusion. ‘Muck to man Evolution’ IS a ‘leap of faith’ because it has never been repeatably observed nor indeed has any of it’s putative constituent steps ever been demonstrated.

There is NO ‘leap of faith’ involved in reaching a scientifically valid conclusion on the levels of information and the degree of purposeful design observed in living organisms.
Information and design levels are capable of objective assessment and measurement.
All life shows massive levels of information in it’s genome and amazing degrees of purposeful design in its phenome.

The level of information and the perfection of design observed in living systems approaches levels, indicative of the intense application of infinite intelligence.


Quote Scofflaw
The mere complexity of design is not evidence that something was created - it is evidence that something is complex. If you can't explain how it came to be so complex, all you've proved is that you cannot explain how it came to be so complex.

Complexity of design and large amounts of information DOES indicate that something is NOT the result of undirected random or repeating processes – and IS the result of processes directed intelligence . That is why SETI scientists would scientifically conclude that a radio broadcast of the DNA sequence for an Amoeba from some distant point in our Galaxy would be scientifically valid proof for the presence of Extra Terrestrial INTELLIGENCE. The same logic applies to the Amoeba DNA itself.


Quote Scofflaw
Short of a 'signature' in the rocks, or the DNA of some species, saying 'God did this', science is unable to positively conclude that complexity is the result of design,

Please note that SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) doesn’t demand a radio broadcast of a ‘signature’ saying ‘ET is phoning you from home’ in pristine English. Such a demand would obviously be both irrational and unreasonable.

Your demand that God should sign His name according to YOUR self-specified arbitrary requirements is equally unreasonable and scientifically invalid.

Could I suggest that DNA IS itself a ‘signature’ that unmistakably states that ‘God did this’ or in scientific terminology ‘An External Intelligent Agent of enormous power and intelligence did this’!!!!


Quote Scofflaw
His (J Cs) questions were good (but it's easy to ask good questions), but I think Whiskey Priest's answers were pretty thorough.

Whiskey Priest’s answers were the BEST that 150 years of intensive study of Evolution has come up with.
However, my observations on each and every answer shows why Evolution has never been scientifically validated.

Quote Scofflaw
I read through JC's 'counter-arguments', and was entirely underwhelmed, and I'm afraid his standard of debate is pretty much the rule for YECs.

If you were “underwhelmed” by my observations – you haven’t made any substantive rebuttals – and so the case AGAINST Evolution remains substantial and devastating.
The SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for Creation remains overwhelming.


Quote Scofflaw
Base pairs are pairs of nucleic acids. There is no way for one nucleic acid to be of 'higher quality' than another - the numbers are directly comparable.

This statement is similar to arguing that because the plastic polymer in a blank DVD is the same as the plastic polymer in an Encyclopaedia Britannica DVD, that the INFORMATION on the Encyclopedia DVD is not of a higher quality than the blank DVD.

The genetic INFORMATION required to produce a Human Being when compared with that required to produce a one-celled Amoeba is objectively enormously greater in terms of both quantity and quality.

DNA and its constituent Nucleic Acids are primarily an information storage system and their chemistry is incidental to their main function. The absolute number of base pairs is not the critical point – it is their PRECISE arrangement to store very complex INFORMATION that is the most important.


Quote Samb
Do you also reject radioisotope dating?

In a word, yes.

These dating methods are based on unproven assumptions about the radioactive content of the rock when it was formed, the belief that no radioactivity was added/subtracted externally throughout the period that that rock has existed and the assumption that the rate of change in the radioactivity has remained constant. These unproven assumptions prevent any reliable dating conclusions being drawn – and there are many examples of known recently formed rocks being dated at millions of years old.


Quote Samb
Has North America not been moving away from Europe for the last 200 million years?

In a word no.

Plate tectonics only explains the CURRENTLY observed phenomenon of LOCALISED subduction of rock from one plate UNDER another plate, the frictional movement of plates at their margins as well as the creation of new rock at mid-ocean ridges and other volcanically active areas.

The idea that the Brazilian area of South America originally fitted like a jigsaw into the west coast area of Africa with North America squeezed up against Europe has no evidential basis.

The current shape of the continental landmasses is primarily due to sea levels and localised land up-thrusts and down-thrusts.

There is no objective evidence that these processes have been ongoing for significant periods of time nor is there any evidence that the plates themselves have moved significantly from their current locations.

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

This statement is similar to arguing that because the plastic polymer in a blank DVD is the same as the plastic polymer in an Encyclopaedia Britannica DVD, that the INFORMATION on the Encyclopedia DVD is not of a higher quality than the blank DVD.

The genetic INFORMATION required to produce a Human Being when compared with that required to produce a one-celled Amoeba is objectively enormously greater in terms of both quantity and quality.

DNA and its constituent Nucleic Acids are primarily an information storage system and their chemistry is incidental to their main function. The absolute number of base pairs is therefore NOT the critical point – it is their PRECISE arrangement as stores of very complex critical INFORMATION that is their most important attribute.

I'll briefly note that this is not what you originally claimed (the posts are above), and we can move on. I think that what you're actually doing here is arguing in a circle (human is better than amoeba, so if the amoeba has more DNA that can't be the measure of better, since it gives a patently absurd result). I'll examine two other possibilities.

It could be generously interpreted that you are, in short, claiming that the exact arrangement of the 4 (total number of types ATGC) nucleic acids in the human genome are what is important, rather than the number of base pairs? While this is a better argument than the circular one, it falls down in the face of the evidence, which is that one of the major reasons for sexual reproduction is to mess up the arrangement of DNA. There are also stretches of DNA call 'transposons', which move around the genome - about 45% of the human genome is composed of transposons and their defunct remnants. So, alas, we can't use the arrangement of genetic information as a measure of 'better quality'.

Approximately 98.5% of the human genome is what is called 'non-coding' DNA - that is, it does not code for proteins. There are only about 20-25,000 human genes, using about 1.5% of the genome. There is another 1.5% 'structural' DNA. There is then 97% of the genome, which is sometimes called 'junk' DNA, which appears to consist of old bits and pieces that have yet to disappear, plus a lot of stuff that has no known function (like the transposons referred to above). 25,000 genes turns out to be a pretty mid-range number - some plants have more than twice that number of genes. So, again, we can't use number of genes as a measure of 'better quality'.

In brief, there is no 'objective' measure of 'better quality' in genomes by which humans do come out on top. Your reasoning is circular - you assume what you want to 'prove', and try to bend the world to fit.

The human genome is not the tidy result of 'intelligent design' at all. Like all genomes, it is a lumber room of undiscarded bits and pieces, quite clearly in a state of change. If intelligent design makes any testable predictions at all, it is that things should be perfect, because they are designed that way. They are far from it, and intelligent design is thus disproved. Not only is it not a scientific theory, it is not even a tenable theory.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

By the way, JC, you keep hammering at the point that to be 'scientific', something must be observed.

This is not accurate. We start with an observation (South America and Africa fit neatly together), and we try to find an explanation. When someone comes up with an explanation (they were once joined together), we look at the theory, and see whether it offers any testable predictions. That is the essence of scientific enquiry. Observation and experimentation offer data to work with, but science is about 'falsifiability' - that is, that a theory can offer some predictions that can be tested, and found to be true or not.

Many scientists dismiss intelligent design as offering no predictions, and therefore not being a theory that can be scientifically tested. I would not agree - I think ID does offer one major prediction, which is that things will be perfect, for all time, because they were designed that way by a perfect and omniscient God. That is, I think, something about which most people will be able to draw their own conclusions.

YEC, on the other hand, offers a very large number of testable predictions about geology, all of which turn out to be false (although since you continue to claim they are true in defiance of the facts, perhaps fake is more appropriate).

People should not be fooled by the claims of those like JC - there is a depth and breadth of scientific knowledge, and observed facts, of which he remains purposefully ignorant.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

> [JC] The idea that the Brazilian area of South America originally fitted like a jigsaw
> into the west coast area of Africa with North America squeezed up against
> Europe has no evidential basis.

Haven't seen you post this one before, so I'll helpfully point you towards the useful http://www.talkorigins.org, and their debunking of this piece of nonsense:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD740.html

Scofflaw - talkorigins.org has a useful index to creationist claims and rebuttals, which will save you a lot of typing. It's at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html and you should be able to find answers to most things there without too much trouble.

> [Scofflaw] People should not be fooled by the claims of those like JC

Between here and the skeptics bbs, JC's been bubbling away for almost a year and nobody seems to have shifted position by so much as half an inch, either on JC's side, or on anybody else's (which makes me wonder what the whole point of it is really; oh, well :rolleyes:)

> there is a depth and breadth of scientific knowledge, and
> observed facts, of which he remains purposefully ignorant.

I think you're being excessively generous here. If you take a look at the thread where JC first popped up, you'll see that he's been posting the same questions and receiving the same answers, time after time after time (eg, see here and here). Personally, I'd say that this sails some way past purposful ignorance, and into the murkier waters of purposeful misrepresentation intended to deceive the unwary.

BTW, you will find the same deceptions/wilful ignorance in busy use by most other creationists too, as a quick read of any of the huge number of creationist websites will unhappily show you (try here for one of the best-funded ones).

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

Scofflaw - talkorigins.org has a useful index to creationist claims and rebuttals, which will save you a lot of typing. It's at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html and you should be able to find answers to most things there without too much trouble.

Between here and the skeptics bbs, JC's been bubbling away for almost a year and nobody seems to have shifted position by so much as half an inch, either on JC's side, or on anybody else's (which makes me wonder what the whole point of it is really; oh, well :rolleyes:)

I think I do it for the mental exercise. Also, I like to know that I haven't had to shift position, rather than just not shifting position out of laziness.

robindch wrote:

I think you're being excessively generous here. If you take a look at the thread where JC first popped up, you'll see that he's been posting the same questions and receiving the same answers, time after time after time (eg, see here and here). Personally, I'd say that this sails some way past purposful ignorance, and into the murkier waters of purposeful misrepresentation intended to deceive the unwary.

BTW, you will find the same deceptions/wilful ignorance in busy use by most other creationists too, as a quick read of any of the huge number of creationist websites will unhappily show you (try here for one of the best-funded ones).

To a fair extent, I post as JC does - one eye on the audience. YECs and IDs mostly stalk the boards to propagandise, same as the Creationist roadshows I used to go to at College. A lot of what they say sounds plausible in a vacuum, so it's best not to provide them one. You could think of it like weeding - no-one enjoys it, it's never finished, but it has to be done or the weeds will strangle the crops.

I do occasionally read Creationist sites for fun, when I'm not marvelling anew at Jack Chick.

samb

robindch wrote:

>
I think you're being excessively generous here. If you take a look at the thread where JC first popped up, you'll see that he's been posting the same questions and receiving the same answers, time after time after time (eg, see here and here). Personally, I'd say that this sails some way past purposful ignorance, and into the murkier waters of purposeful misrepresentation intended to deceive the unwary.
.

Yes, I think you are right. I think it is wise to leave J C to his small world and debate people who are able to observe the world without prejudice, people who do not dismiss ''what science tells us''. Goodbye

samb

Scofflaw wrote:

You could think of it like weeding - no-one enjoys it, it's never finished, but it has to be done or the weeds will strangle the crops.
.

Pest control, I like it.:) ..I think in time natural selection will weed out these pests eventually.

Scofflaw

Also, some of you might enjoy this - an Old Earth Creationist site.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

> I think I do it for the mental exercise.

Interesting -- I find the same thing, that it's an interesting exercise to try to summarize something for a non-technical reader. Makes one think about it from the ground up, which is always good.

> To a fair extent, I post as JC does - one eye on the audience.

I'm never sure about the ratio of posters to readers. Over in the skeptics, while the thread was going on, we had an average of around fifteen thread views per post (with time, after the thread was locked, that increased slightly as bots pass by). Whereas in this thread, it's eleven per post which makes me suspect that there isn't a huge audience. Perhaps it's worth holding a quick poll, to see if we can work out whether people have been swayed one way or the other?

> [...] marvelling anew at Jack Chick.

He's a sad case, and perhaps a cautionary one. (http://www.chick.com)

Has anybody else here come across him, and if so, what's your opinion?

hairyheretic

robindch wrote:

He's a sad case, and perhaps a cautionary one. (http://www.chick.com)

Has anybody else here come across him, and if so, what's your opinion?

Hilarious. The guy is so far round the bend he's got to be coming up on himself from behind.

I'd a quick look on the site, but he doesn't seem to have his Dark Dungeons comic up there any longer. That one's been providing plenty of humour to gamers for years.

robindch

> been providing plenty of humour to gamers for years.

Hmm... maybe that's all that he's been doing? He's been a running joke on http://www.fark.com since it started

J C

Quote Scofflaw
I think that what you're actually doing here is arguing in a circle (human is better than amoeba, so if the amoeba has more DNA that can't be the measure of better, since it gives a patently absurd result).

This argument ISN’T circular but is a logical deduction based on the facts – and it results in the conclusion that the quantity and/or quality of information present in DNA isn’t always directly correlated with the number of base pairs present in the cell.


Quote Scofflaw
one of the major reasons for sexual reproduction is to mess up the arrangement of DNA

The basic sexual reproduction processes of meiosis and fertilization are observed to be precise ordered phenomena – as one would expect from systems handling enormous quantities of tightly specified critical information at ‘microdot’ levels of resolution.

When these precision processes actually DO get messed up (by critical mutations, for example) severe deformities or embryonic death normally results.

Sexual reproduction does allow RECOMBINATION of genetic material – but such recombination is observed to be tightly constrained within very defined limits – you may get a black-haired cat or a white-haired cat – but it is always a cat.
These constraints also cause the so-called ‘genetic selection wall’ that animal and plant breeders rapidly come up against when intensively selecting for single traits.


Quote Scofflaw
There are also stretches of DNA call 'transposons', which move around the genome - about 45% of the human genome is composed of transposons and their defunct remnants

And there are frame shifts that have dramatic phenome effects with little apparent change in the genome and indeed the same applies to small changes in critical amino acid sequences on the proteins they produce. Equally, the same genetic sequences are observed to produce completely different proteins in different organisms.

There are also apparent ‘auto-repair’ systems and the entire DNA replication process is physically assisted and chemically catalysed by a whole host of other ‘molecular machines’.

All of these information-packed systems indicate the appliance of enormous levels external intelligence.


Quote Scofflaw
Approximately 98.5% of the human genome is what is called 'non-coding' DNA - that is, it does not code for proteins. There are only about 20-25,000 human genes, using about 1.5% of the genome. There is another 1.5% 'structural' DNA. There is then 97% of the genome, which is sometimes called 'junk' DNA, which appears to consist of old bits and pieces that have yet to disappear, plus a lot of stuff that has no known function (like the transposons referred to above).

Just when Evolution ran out of ‘vestigial organs’ because Medical Science has discovered their actual functions – along comes a whole new range of ‘vestigial DNA’!!!!

I can assure you that 97% of the Human Genome is NOT ‘junk’ – but has important purposes yet to be discovered by science. Even the Theory of Natural Selection would rule out such a putative waste.


Quote Scofflaw
25,000 genes turns out to be a pretty mid-range number - some plants have more than twice that number of genes. So, again, we can't use number of genes as a measure of 'better quality'.

I have already said that it is not solely ‘a numbers game’ but it is also objectively a quality of information phenomenon as well.

If I were to give you a disc the size of a Euro coin with all of the books ever written stored on it, I’m sure that you wouldn’t accept that such a technological marvel was invented by a Horse and you would be even more incredulous of any claim by me that it was just a ‘fluke of nature’.
The 3D information storage capacity of DNA leaves such a device ‘ at the starting blocks’ so to speak.


Quote Scofflaw
In brief, there is no 'objective' measure of 'better quality' in genomes by which humans do come out on top.

You could have a point that the quality and quantity of genetic information required to produce a single celled creature, may actually be surprisingly high (when compared with multi-cellular organisms). This could be because an independent-living, single-celled organism, such as an Amoeba, has to carry out all of its vital functions itself and the organelles that perform these functions are incredibly miniaturised.

Either way, the quality of information observed in all of life from the so-called ‘simple cell’ (that isn’t simple at all) to the Human Being is such as to be only derivable from an infinitely intelligent source.


Quote Scofflaw
If intelligent design makes any testable predictions at all, it is that things should be perfect, because they are designed that way.

If God created all of life you would expect it to be perfect at the moment of Creation – but there is no reason to believe that such a perfect state would continue indefinitely.
Creation Science maintains that all of life was Created perfectly – but it has since begun to drift downwards and sideways from it’s original perfect state. This prediction is observed in the real World.

Evolutionary Science maintains that all of life is struggling ‘upwards and onwards’ from simple origins to Human Beings and other creatures at the top of the ‘Evolutionary Tree’ so to speak. This implies massive INCREASES in complexity and genetic INFORMATION – and the only mechanism alleged to have provided this information (genetic mutation) is invariably observed to REDUCE information.


Quote Scofflaw
We start with an observation (South America and Africa fit neatly together), and we try to find an explanation. When someone comes up with an explanation (they were once joined together), we look at the theory, and see whether it offers any testable predictions.

South America and Africa DON’T actually fit NEATLY together, and certainly North and Central America have no resemblance to any part of Northern Africa or Western Europe.

Could I also ask you what testable predictions (that cannot be explained by equally valid alternatives) flow from the idea that the outline of the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Brazil has a vague resemblance to the outline of the Atlantic Ocean along Central Africa?


Quote Scofflaw
I think ID does offer one major prediction, which is that things will be perfect, for all time, because they were designed that way by a perfect and omniscient God.

You are forgetting that this perfect and omniscient God endowed part of His Creation with free will – and some of the angels chose rebellion against Him.

This has led to ‘Paradise Lost’ for the fallen angels and indeed Mankind – but the good news for every person is that they can still be saved, if they place their faith in Jesus Christ.

BrianCalgary

JC I hate to say it, but you are preaching to a crowd that are blind to truth. I find it always interesting that the argument becomes character assassination, as has happened in the previuos four or five posts to yours. I am enjoying what you have to say, not being as educated in the level in which you are speaking.

In Canada now we are in th emiddle of an election campaign, our incumbent PM when asked a question regarding his scandals he goes off on a tangent and never really answers the question. I feel the same way with the evolution crowd, you give your questions that never really get answered. I have gone to one of Robins sites that is pretty extensive, but no answers.

The questions being:

Where did the matter come from to form everything?
How did life come about, as it has been proven that life begets life, it can not come from non living matter?
It is observable that everything around us is deteriorating, but evolution says that the world evolves into higher forms and improves?
Evolution predicted that there would be fossils found to support the teory, but after a hundred years of searching, not 1; there is a new explanation for that?
They can't explain how marvels of creation such as the sea slug, bombardier beetle, and the giraffe as examples could have evolved under the theories premises?

Science has been so wrong in the past. Scientists spent years trying to create gold. It is now known that it can't be done. The scientists who wre trying came up with some weird and wonderful theories that they could explain. Is evolution the new alchemy? I know alchemy involves more that creating gold.

Science has told us the following that we now laugh at:
Earth is flat
The earth is the centre of the universe.
Tainted meat turns into maggots.
Man will never fly.
The human sperm and egg are gelatous blobs.
To name but a few. The bible has been consistent in its teachings for close to 4,000 years. Why should I believe science now?

Another question I have is: prove to me that there is no God?

pH

BrianCalgary wrote:

Science has told us the following that we now laugh at:
Earth is flat
The earth is the centre of the universe.
Tainted meat turns into maggots.
Man will never fly.
The human sperm and egg are gelatous blobs.

Hmmm, I didn't realise that, let me lookup Science in the dictionary real quick ....

Yes you appear indeed to be correct, I found it on Websters

Main Entry: Science
Pronunciation: sü-p&r-'sti-sh&n
Function: noun
1 a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b : an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2 : a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

BrianCalgary

pH wrote:

Hmmm, I didn't realise that, let me lookup Science in the dictionary real quick ....

Yes you appear indeed to be correct, I found it on Websters

Main Entry: Science
Pronunciation: sü-p&r-'sti-sh&n
Function: noun
1 a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b : an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2 : a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

What's your point?

bmoferrall

BrianCalgary wrote:

I find it always interesting that the argument becomes character assassination, as has happened in the previuos four or five posts to yours.

Indeed, the constant ridiculing from the evolutionists' side is disappointing and, for me, makes their arguments less persuasive (witness the fundamentalist fervour of Richard Dawkins). Maybe it stems from a frustration that definitive proof may never emerge from all this.

What annoys me is the way evolution has been swallowed by the great unwashed as a fait accompli, when, at best, it's clearly a work in progress, still unproven.

From a Christian (and biblical) perspective, I could never accept a marriage between divine creation and evolution. For me, it has to be one or the other. If the latter were to prevail, I'd have no choice but to re-evaluate the bible's authenticity; and, no, I wouldn't be looking to buddhism/hinduism/whateverism, more likely hedonism .

While respectful of past and current scientific research in this field, I remain unconvinced by the theory of evolution.
Is there enough time left for my brain to evolve enough to understand it ?

Son Goku

BrianCalgary wrote:

Another question I have is: prove to me that there is no God?

Are you addressing this question to science?, because science can't prove or disprove God and isn't concerned with doing so either.

Indeed, the constant ridiculing from the evolutionists' side is disappointing and, for me, makes their arguments less persuasive (witness the fundamentalist fervour of Richard Dawkins). Maybe it stems from a frustration that definitive proof may never emerge from all this.

Evolution is a political opinion or an ideology. The word evolutionist makes no sense. Just like the phrase a "Quantum Chromodynamicist".

BrianCalgary

bmoferrall wrote:

Indeed, the constant ridiculing from the evolutionists' side is disappointing and, for me, makes their arguments less persuasive (witness the fundamentalist fervour of Richard Dawkins). Maybe it stems from a frustration that definitive proof may never emerge from all this.

What annoys me is the way evolution has been swallowed by the great unwashed as a fait accompli, when, at best, it's clearly a work in progress, still unproven.

From a Christian (and biblical) perspective, I could never accept a marriage between divine creation and evolution. For me, it has to be one or the other. If the latter were to prevail, I'd have no choice but to re-evaluate the bible's authenticity; and, no, I wouldn't be looking to buddhism/hinduism/whateverism, more likely hedonism .

While respectful of past and current scientific research in this field, I remain unconvinced by the theory of evolution.
Is there enough time left for my brain to evolve enough to understand it ?

I agree. Witness ph's reply. From a theological standpoint I can't reconcile the two (divine creation and evolution) because that would mean that death occured before the fall. I can accept someone who does as a Christian, like my geologist friend.

Thanks for the support.

bmoferrall

bmoferrall wrote:

Indeed, the constant ridiculing from the evolutionists' side is disappointing and, for me, makes their arguments less persuasive (witness the fundamentalist fervour of Richard Dawkins). Maybe it stems from a frustration that definitive proof may never emerge from all this.

What annoys me is the way evolution has been swallowed by the great unwashed as a fait accompli, when, at best, it's clearly a work in progress, still unproven.

From a Christian (and biblical) perspective, I could never accept a marriage between divine creation and evolution. For me, it has to be one or the other. If the latter were to prevail, I'd have no choice but to re-evaluate the bible's authenticity; and, no, I wouldn't be looking to buddhism/hinduism/whateverism, more likely hedonism .

While respectful of past and current scientific research in this field, I remain unconvinced by the theory of evolution.
Is there enough time left for my brain to evolve enough to understand it ?

Something light, which I hope will also help make a point:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/blueywolf/db051218.gif

I would mention the "evolutionist" bit but I think son goku has that covered.

BrianCalgary

Son Goku wrote:

Are you addressing this question to science?, because science can't prove or disprove God and isn't concerned with doing so either.

I'm not asking science to prove or disprove God. As a Christian I have come to the conclusion that God does exist and am asked to prove it. Those that say there is no God, I would ask them the question to prove it. When I do the response I get are: questioning His existence and then the refusal to consider the answers.

Son Goku wrote:

Evolution is a political opinion or an ideology. The word evolutionist makes no sense. Just like the phrase a "Quantum Chromodynamicist".

The word evolutionist does make sense. One who believes in Evolution.
from dictionary.com:

Main Entry: evo·lu·tion·ist
Pronunciation: -sh(&-)n&st
Function: noun
: a student of or adherent to a theory of evolution

pH

BrianCalgary wrote:

What's your point?

What's yours?

JC wrote:

Sexual reproduction does allow RECOMBINATION of genetic material – but such recombination is observed to be tightly constrained within very defined limits – you may get a black-haired cat or a white-haired cat – but it is always a cat.
These constraints also cause the so-called ‘genetic selection wall’ that animal and plant breeders rapidly come up against when intensively selecting for single traits.

Do you accept evolution by directed selection?
Do you accept that all our dogs have been bred from wolves?

If in 100,000 years time we found that the pekinese could no longer interbreed with the Great Dane would that be a huge surprise to you?

Oh and the "so-called" phrase 'genetic selection wall' which you mentioned returns ZERO google matches. Maybe it's so called because it's never been used before?

BrianCalgary

BrianCalgary wrote:

I'm not asking science to prove or disprove God. As a Christian I have come to the conclusion that God does exist and am asked to prove it. Those that say there is no God, I would ask them the question to prove it. When I do the response I get are: questioning His existence and then the refusal to consider the answers.

Generally one who makes such a claim, e.g. the positive existence of god, has the burden of proof on them, not the other way around...
*shrug*

Son Goku

BrianCalgary wrote:

The word evolutionist does make sense. One who believes in Evolution.
from dictionary.com:

Main Entry: evo·lu·tion·ist
Pronunciation: -sh(&-)n&st
Function: noun
: a student of or adherent to a theory of evolution

I suggest you read the full Oxford English dictionary, it has an interesting comment on the term. Its a neologism, so it does have a definition, but that isn't what I'm getting at.

A word can have a definition, but that still doesn't make it an accepted term or a logically consistent one.

robindch

Brian -

I've read your most recent post and am in two minds about how to answer it. Past experience has shown that you generally ignore any answers (ie, you asked a couple of times for a defintion of evolution; I gave one; you continued to ask; likewise with biogenesis, where my answers were simply discarded). And so with your latest round of questions:

> Where did the matter come from to form everything?
Answer in this previous post.

> How did life come about, as it has been proven that life begets life, it can not come from non living matter?
False. Rebutted and answer provided in this previous post.

> It is observable that everything around us is deteriorating, but evolution says that the world evolves into higher forms and improves?
False. Rebutted and answer provided in this previous post.

> Evolution predicted that there would be fossils found to support the teory, but after a hundred years of searching, not 1
False. Rebutted and answer provided in this previous post.

> Scientists spent years trying to create gold.
False. Scientists didn't spend years doing this -- alchemists did. Alchemists are not chemists in the same way that astrologers are not astronomers in the same way that creationists are not biologists.

> It is now known that it can't be done.
False. Creation of elements is done routinely in particle accelerators and other nuclear devices.

> Science has told us [...] The earth is the centre of the universe.
Good heavens, man, don't you even know the history of your own religion? Have you never heard of a guy called Galileo Galilei who was convicted of heresy by Christians, and almost burnt at the stake by them, for saying that the earth is not the center of the universe? If you haven't come across this guy, here's a quick summary of his indictment and abjuration documents.

So, given that you discard answers as freely as JC does, and are as unfamilar with the physical world and how it works as he is, can I ask *you* two simple questions to which I'd like honest answers:

1. What is your purpose in posting questions here?
2. What are your criteria for an answer to be accepted to one of your questions?

I am interested in finding out, because your understanding of what constitutes a question (and a corresponding answer) is quite different from mine.