The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

J C

Scofflaw
The evidence for evolution is freely available in thousands of books, thousands of school courses, and thousands of websites.

All that I have ever seen in these textbooks and websites are unfounded, scientifically invalid assertions about “billions of years” and “Evolution being a fact” mixed up with scientifically valid evidence for “Natural Selection in action!!!:D


Scofflaw

You ask solely to jeer, and try to "knock holes in it", which would work better if you did try to understand it first.

No, I don’t wish to jeer – although it would make a change from Skeptics jeering at religion!!!

I do genuinely want to understand the minds of Evolutionists, who continue to believe in Evolution based upon the flimsiest possible evidence!!!!:D


Scofflaw

Mutations are perfectly capable of generating entirely new information - as per the nylon-digesting enzyme (I see you prefer to ignore it - again).

Mutations are random ‘assaults’ on the integrity of the genome – and so they invariably degrade the CSI content of the genome – and very occasionally this loss of information may result in benefit to an organism. One such example would be the LOSS of wings on insects on islands, which prevents them being blown out to sea and thereby drowned. However, such a LOSS of the ability to produce wings ISN'T the type of mutation needed to produce the wings, in the first place. It's akin to somebody claiming to create life by killing something!!!:D

……and isn’t it amazing that amongst the supposed billions upon billions of ‘positive’ mutations that supposedly produced Man from Plankton – Evolutionists can point to only ONE highly debatable mutation in a bacterium that inefficiently digests Nylon.
As I have said previously, breaking down any substance only requires general, simple systems, of which fire is the most obvious example.
Creating something requires specific systems – and therefore the fact that the Nylon Bug BREAKS DOWN Nylon isn’t very significant. If Evolutionists want to impress me, they need to find a bug that has ‘evolved’ the ability to CREATE Nylon!!!:)

In any event, such a paucity of examples of CSI generation by living systems contrasts dramatically with the BILLIONS of such mutations that SHOULD be ‘out there’ IF Evolution is true!!!
Each living cell should be turning out the equivalent of The Works of Shakespeare, in original CSI every day, for NS to select, IF Evolution was the mechanism that produced the genetic diversities and information densities that we observe in the Biosphere!!!:eek:

Instead we are continuosly presented with this ONE dubious example in ONE obscure bacterium, being repeatedly cited by Evolutionists as ‘proof’ of Evolution !!!

MUST DO BETTER!!!!:eek:


Scofflaw
Your very silly suggestion requires, as we've discussed before, all possible genetic information for an organism to be present in the genome of that organism - something that is simply observed not to be true.

Individual outbred animals DO have enormous genetic diversity. Mongrel dogs, for example will produce litters of pups with enormous genetic and phenotypic diversity – and the original Dog Kind pair had much greater diversity!!!!

Contrast such diversity, if you will, with pedigree Poodles whose inbred crosses ALWAYS produce practically identical Poodles!!!

So genomes CAN contain enormous diversity OR almost total uniformity!!!

Also please note that the creatures with the diverse genomes are found to have hybrid vigour, while the low diversity pedigree organisms suffer from inbreeding depression.
This is a further indication of the current degeneration of a once-perfect genetically diverse Creation!!!


Scofflaw
As for "Complex Specified Information" - we've been over that one for several pages too. You have never provided a definition, without which the term is just impressive-sounding snake oil.

I have ALREADY defined Complex Specified Information or CSI as "non-random independent patterns of functional information."
The topic is discussed in more detail here:-
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/designer.asp

…….and in a peer reviewed paper by Dr William Dembski here:-
http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm

As Dr. Dembskie eloquently states, “The great myth of modern evolutionary biology is that information can be gotten on the cheap without recourse to intelligence.”

Dr Dembski has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He has done post-doctoral work at MIT, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Princeton, Cambridge, and Notre Dame. He has been a National Science Foundation doctoral and post-doctoral fellow.

So he is an eminent, conventionally qualified mathematician of world status.

2Scoops

J C wrote:

If Evolutionists want to impress me, they need to find a bug that has ‘evolved’ the ability to CREATE Nylon!!!:)

All this time and all we needed to impress J C with was the humble spider!!! It even goes one better because spider silk is better than nylon!!!!

Now that J C has been impressed with evidence of evolution, and his apathetic 'perfect' posts don't seem to be getting through to people, I strongly suspect his faith is wavering and he is considering defecting to EVOLUTIONISM!!!!

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
The evidence for evolution is freely available in thousands of books, thousands of school courses, and thousands of websites.

All that I have ever seen in these textbooks and websites are unfounded, scientifically invalid assertions about “billions of years” and “Evolution being a fact” mixed up with scientifically valid evidence for “Natural Selection in action!!!:D

Really - that's all you saw? People just said "ooo...billions of years", "ooo...evolution is a fact"? That was it? Sum total of human knowledge on evolution is those two statements?

J C wrote:

Scofflaw

You ask solely to jeer, and try to "knock holes in it", which would work better if you did try to understand it first.

No, I don’t wish to jeer – although it would make a change from Skeptics jeering at religion!!!

I do genuinely want to understand the minds of Evolutionists, who continue to believe in Evolution based upon the flimsiest possible evidence!!!!:D

Hmm. You may be looking in the wrong place.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw

Mutations are perfectly capable of generating entirely new information - as per the nylon-digesting enzyme (I see you prefer to ignore it - again).

Mutations are random ‘assaults’ on the integrity of the genome – and so they invariably degrade the CSI content of the genome – and very occasionally this loss of information may result in benefit to an organism. One such example would be the LOSS of wings on insects on islands, which prevents them being blown out to sea and thereby drowned. However, such a LOSS of the ability to produce wings ISN'T the type of mutation needed to produce the wings, in the first place. It's akin to somebody claiming to create life by killing something!!!:D

……and isn’t it amazing that amongst the supposed billions upon billions of ‘positive’ mutations that supposedly produced Man from Plankton – Evolutionists can point to only ONE highly debatable mutation in a bacterium that inefficiently digests Nylon.
As I have said previously, breaking down any substance only requires general, simple systems, of which fire is the most obvious example.
Creating something requires specific systems – and therefore the fact that the Nylon Bug BREAKS DOWN Nylon isn’t very significant. If Evolutionists want to impress me, they need to find a bug that has ‘evolved’ the ability to CREATE Nylon!!!:)

That's just sad, and really indicates the level of idiocy you are capable of.

The bacterium in question makes something useful to itself out of nylon - which is useless to other bacteria. Why on earth would a bacterium need to make nylon? So that it can demonstrate to you mutation's ability to make something useful to humanity?

You don't understand, perhaps, that to a bacterium, the ability to eat things is useful? It's what might be called an evolutionary advantage - being able to eat something that other bacteria can't, and that there's plentiful supplies of.

J C wrote:

In any event, such a paucity of examples of CSI generation by living systems contrasts dramatically with the BILLIONS of such mutations that SHOULD be ‘out there’ IF Evolution is true!!!

Newsflash - everything you see is the result of millions of generations, billions of mutations.

J C wrote:

Each living cell should be turning out the equivalent of The Works of Shakespeare, in original CSI every day, for NS to select, IF Evolution was the mechanism that produced the genetic diversities and information densities that we observe in the Biosphere!!!:eek:

No. It takes only a single frame shift mutation, in this example, to produce a significant advantage.

One would be hard pushed to do it in 6000 years, I suppose, but fortunately that number is derived from the Bible rather than anything else, and bears no relation to the truth, so the problem does not really arise.

J C wrote:

Instead we are continuosly presented with this ONE dubious example in ONE obscure bacterium, being repeatedly cited by Evolutionists as ‘proof’ of Evolution !!!

MUST DO BETTER!!!!:eek:

No need. Your position requires that mutations can never add useful information to the genome - which is evidently untrue. Sorry.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
Your very silly suggestion requires, as we've discussed before, all possible genetic information for an organism to be present in the genome of that organism - something that is simply observed not to be true.

Individual outbred animals DO have enormous genetic diversity. Mongrel dogs, for example will produce litters of pups with enormous genetic and phenotypic diversity – and the original Dog Kind pair had much greater diversity!!!!

No dog contains all the necessary diversity. That's why you have to crossbreed them with other dogs to get diversity. If your silly suggestion was true, then any pair of dogs, no matter how inbred, would be able to generate all the possible diversity of dogs.

You are forgetting which explanations you have already used, JC. Let me refresh your memory:

1. You claim that any apparent new feature arising in an organism is the result of genetic information already present - not mutation - and that this is evidence for Creation.

2. You now appear to claim that hybrid vigour, and the diversity that results from cross-breeding - is evidence for Creation - although clearly it can only result from 'incomplete' genomes: genomes that do not contain all possible canine genetic information.

Which is it to be? One statement requires dogs to have "complete" genomes, the other requires them not to.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
As for "Complex Specified Information" - we've been over that one for several pages too. You have never provided a definition, without which the term is just impressive-sounding snake oil.

I have ALREADY defined Complex Specified Information or CSI as "non-random independent patterns of functional information."

Which, in turn, means nothing. Are you capable of explaining this or not?

J C wrote:

As Dr. Dembskie eloquently states, “The great myth of modern evolutionary biology is that information can be gotten on the cheap without recourse to intelligence.”

Dr Dembski has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He has done post-doctoral work at MIT, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Princeton, Cambridge, and Notre Dame. He has been a National Science Foundation doctoral and post-doctoral fellow.

So he is an eminent, conventionally qualified mathematician of world status.

Yes. A mathematician. I know you're impressed by any qualification, and indeed, may not be able to tell the difference between qualifications (your own, for example, which you seem to feel makes you fully qualified to comment on every scientific field - despite, apparently, never having read a biology textbook) - but I am not, and can. Dembski's arguments are full of holes, because he's not doing mathematics but pseudo-mathematics.

No matter how many qualifications someone may have, JC, they remain capable of pulling the wool over their own eyes where their religious beliefs are involved. Pulling the wool over yours I think a gnat could manage.

We've been over all this, JC. I'm not sure why you feel it is necessary to go over it again, given you claim to have won first time. Why don't you just point poeple to the various posts in which I, and Wicknight, and Son Goku, and everyone else, gave in and admitted our awe of your towering intellect?

regards,
Scofflaw

2Scoops

Scofflaw wrote:

Yes. A mathematician. I know you're impressed by any qualification, and indeed, may not be able to tell the difference between qualifications (your own, for example, which you seem to feel makes you fully qualified to comment on every scientific field - despite, apparently, never having read a biology textbook) - but I am not, and can. Dembski's arguments are full of holes, because he's not doing mathematics but pseudo-mathematics.

In fairness to J C, he's really quite talented at finding the webpages of obscure cranks.

Disregarding the very controversial definition of 'peer review' the good doctor employed for this (his only publication), can J C point us to any more conventionally peer-reviewed published articles disputing evolution or indeed old earth in publications of scientific merit?

robindch

JC wrote:

Dembski [...] is an eminent, conventionally qualified mathematician of world status.

Demski has been debunked many times and since 2005, has largely given up maths in favour of teaching religion at a minor seminary in Texas. A fifty-page, polite, debunking of some of Dembski's lousy maths lives here.

Fans of conspiracy theories will be happy to note that Dembski's blog at http://www.uncommondescent.org is heavily censored and comments which are critical of Dembski are removed. I'd be interested to hear wolfsbane say that censorship here this is fine with him, as it is with him at AiG.

When asked to say how ID worked in practice, here's what Dembski said:

Dembski wrote:

ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots.

...which doesn't suggest that Dembski is very much interested in his own work.

For the Kitzmiller v. Dover School District trial in 2005, he voiced Judge Jones at another one of his websites here, where Jones was depicted as a farting mouthpiece for Dawkins, the ACLU and others. Demsbki is also mates with somebody called Anne Coulter for whom he was technical consultant on her last book, Godless, of which around one-third is a sustained, unpelasantly vitriolic, but wildly clueless, rant on evolution.

All in all, Dembski makes Ken Ham look like a good guy to have around, even if, unlike Ham, Dembski had to go to the bother of writing a thesis to get his doctorate.

Scofflaw

2Scoops wrote:

All this time and all we needed to impress J C with was the humble spider!!! It even goes one better because spider silk is better than nylon!!!!

Now that J C has been impressed with evidence of evolution, and his apathetic 'perfect' posts don't seem to be getting through to people, I strongly suspect his faith is wavering and he is considering defecting to EVOLUTIONISM!!!!

Sadly, we both know how this actually goes. Spider silk being better than nylon is evidence for the excellence of God's creation versus the degeneracy of Man's Fall.

On the other hand, any material which is better than the natural equivalent demonstrates how the input of intelligence is necessary to design anything excellent - such as spider silk.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bonkey

wolfsbane wrote:

Yes, you wanted me to give a scientific defence of the idea that rock can be rapidly folded. You would not accept links to sites where scientists discuss such things and offer examples. Yet you know I'm not a scientist.

You're misrepresenting my position.

I asked you to explain what you understood the argument to be that you linked to. I wanted to see if you understood it.

If you don't, then you're simply putting blind belief in something. You're entitled to do that, should it be the case, but I cannot and will not argue against blind belief.

If all you're saying is "I don't understand this stuff, but someone does, so you need to explain why its wrong", then I'm taking the position that I'm not willing to act the teacher for someone who's basic position is that they're an ignoramus when it comes to science but insists on opposing a scientific theory because it offends their non-scientific belief and won't have the basic courtesy to admit clearly that their entire position is non-scientific.

So what you are really attempting to do is to stop outsiders asking embarrassing questions or pointing to scientific rebuttals of your cherished beliefs.

Again, you misrepresent or misunderstand me. There's nothing embarrassing about questions at all. What I want you to do is ask the questions, rather than point to someone else's work and say "this guy seems to ask some questions and maybe you could answer them. p.s. I don't know enough about science to ask them myself".

Either you know enough to ask the questions, or your position is based on ignorance and blind acceptance of claims that you are unable to evaluate yourself to any meaningful degree but accept as true nonetheless.

Saying you won't resond until I present the scientific defence sounds like fingers-in-ears-with-accompanying-mantra to me.

Look...wolfsbane...if I took your position, maybe it'll become clearer...

There are thousands upon thousands of volumes of scientific work which support the various scientific theories that you reject. I'd like you to explain why each and every one of them is wrong. In detail. Argument by argument.

Some of them are in fields I know nothing about, but that doesn't matter. You don't believe them, so its your job to explain to me why they're wrong even if I don't know anything about them

If you don't, then its proof that you don't really want to discuss the scientific position with me at all. That I won't take partin this discussion is irrelevant...its you versus the assembled works of modern science, or else I claim moral victory because you're just sticking your head in the sand. That you're not qualified in all of these areas of science is your problem. That I'm not qualified doesn't matter. I believe this stuff to be true and therefore you have to respond to it rather than sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la-la-la all day.

Now...seriously...does that seem like a reasonable position for me to take?

Those on this thread who have supported science have time and again answered questions regarding their understanding of the subjects at hand. They have gone out of their way to meet the burden of proof that shows they are doing more than putting ignorant (in the uneducated sense of the word), blind faith in what appeals to them as some sort of truth. They are approaching the scientific issues scientifically.

If you don't want to do that, then just admit it. If you want to take the position that you simply reject science for non-scientific reasons then say so and we'll leave it at that. I've lost track of the number of times I've made the point that I have no problem with creationist belief, but rather with creationists falsely claiming that their belief is scientific in nature.

If you're not willing to play the game scientifically, then you cannot support the claim that your belief is scientific in nature.

The more you fall back on the "but I'm not a scientist" defence, the more you're really saying "I have no clue if this creationist claim is science or not".

You're obviously accepting that others here have more scientific knowledge and training than you. Those people are telling you its not science. Where is your problem with believing them?

wolfsbane

bonkey said:

If you don't want to do that, then just admit it. If you want to take the position that you simply reject science for non-scientific reasons then say so and we'll leave it at that.

I thought I was clear on the matter. I reject evolution primarily because it contradicts the word of God. I am encouraged in my position by seeing the common sense, simple science case against it (entropy, irreducible complexity, polystrate fossils, etc.). I am further encouraged by the fact that scientists well-qualified in the relevant fields find science supports a non-evolutionary explanation of things.

You're obviously accepting that others here have more scientific knowledge and training than you. Those people are telling you its not science. Where is your problem with believing them?

See above. Even the third on its own would make me refuse to swallow the current consensus tale.

Anyway, something has come up that prevents me from posting for a while. I leave you all in JC's tender (and patient!) care.

Hope to catch you all later. Take care.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

I thought I was clear on the matter. I reject evolution primarily because it contradicts the word of God. I am encouraged in my position by seeing the common sense, simple science case against it (entropy, irreducible complexity, polystrate fossils, etc.). I am further encouraged by the fact that scientists well-qualified in the relevant fields find science supports a non-evolutionary explanation of things.

To paraphrase, then:

1. you reject the science of evolution primarily for non-scientific reasons

2. you accept the arguments against the science of evolution rather than the arguments for, and you believe these arguments are scientifically valid - even though you have no way of assessing them scientifically

3. you accept the arguments made against the science of evolution by a tiny minority of relevantly qualified scientists rather than those made by the vast majority of such scientists, and believe that the arguments made by them are scientific - even though you have no way of assessing them scientifically

It is clear, then, that any opinion you might have on the scientific worth of the arguments here cannot be of any value, since you cannot determine their validity, and only accept those that agree with your a priori position.

De credulum non disputandem est.

wolfsbane wrote:

Anyway, something has come up that prevents me from posting for a while. I leave you all in JC's tender (and patient!) care.

Hope to catch you all later. Take care.

I knew the smilies were a bad sign...the best of luck with whatever it is!

cordially,
Scofflaw

bonkey

I know wolfsbane said he won't be around for a while, but for anyone else reading....

wolfsbane wrote:

bonkey said:

I thought I was clear on the matter. I reject evolution primarily because it contradicts the word of God.

And I thought I was clear on teh matter. If evolution was thrown out as being wrong tomorrow, the scientific evidence against a young earth would still be overwhelming.

Rejecting evolution is not enough to embrace Creationism. There is literally no field of science which must not to a lesser or greater extent be rejected. It therefore, as I said, involves a rejection of science.

This is why in our recent discussion I concentrated on an entirely non-evolutionary-related field....to show that your position is not one of rejecting evolution as you claim, but rather of rejecting all science that contradicts your religious beliefs.

I am encouraged in my position by seeing the common sense, simple science case against it (entropy, irreducible complexity, polystrate fossils, etc.).

I will yet again point out that you repeatedly appeal to your ignorance in matters scientific, and that the overwhelming consensus of the scientific cmmunity is that these issues do not form a case against evolution let alone the myriad of other scientific fields you reject.

Indeed, some of the very arguments you embrace in order to undermine evolution exist only in a scientific framework which contradicts the Genesis account of creation. Sure, you can say that they're not inimical to Genesis Creation, but only by relying on the fallback position of "God made the universe some thousands of years ago, to look just as it would have, were it to be 14-ish billion years old".

Given that science is fuindamentally based on observation - on what things look like, this is basically saying "yes, the scientific model for an old universe is right, but the universe isn't actually that old".

I am further encouraged by the fact that scientists well-qualified in the relevant fields find science supports a non-evolutionary explanation of things.

The validity of that claim has been repeatedly challenged here.

Regardless, as I've said before, time and time again, your position is a rejection of science, not of evolution. If evolution were to fall scientifically, your position is still wrong according to science.

Furthermore, while you put yoru faith in these people, you repeatedly have shown that you will not (or can not) actually stand by their arguments, typically pleading a lack of knowledge in the field as a reason.

In other words, you choose to believe that these individuals are being honest because they say something that appeals to you, despite the scientific community at large saying that their claims do not have scientific validity.

As a result you have decided that your personal belief should carry greater weight than the scientific community's and then try to use this to support your personal belief!!!

Even the third on its own would make me refuse to swallow the current consensus tale.

Its not a tale. No-one has suggested that consensus was unanimous. What they have said is that there is a consensus that spans religious divides with the exception of fringe-beliefs like creationism which require a religious rejection of the position thus making them biased. There is a consensus that the arguments posed by creationists are flawed.

However, having said all of that, I'm still cognisant of Einstein when asked about the multitudes who opposed his theory (prior to its initial validation through observation). He said one would be enough, were he right.

The validity of the creationist argument can be ascertained by the nature of its challenge. All it need do is show that falsifiable predictions of evolution have been falsified and that those falsifications do not necessitate a modification/refinement of the theory, but rather render it completely impossible.

This has not been done.

All other arguments are spurious. They hold no scientific weight.

JCs repeated argument that its mathematically impossible is not falsifiable test.

We see that its occurred. Thus, either its not impossible, or it is impossible and something overcame that impossibility.

But we have no mechanism by which to determine which. So we see which model the remaining evidence corroborates. We see evolution today matching the behaviour that the so-called impossible model says should happen, and see that the other model says either nothing, or suggests that it should still be impossible.

JC argues that 99.999% or somesuch amount of all genetic possibilities are fatal. And yet we can see that 99.999% (or whatever it is) of all reproduction does not fail. Thus his assertion is insufficient. He says that it "proves" God, but all it does is prove that his assertion is somehow inapplicable or wrong as it does not match observation.

It is JC's assertion which has been falsified by his own evidence, not evolution.

This sleight of hand, however, is tupical of the snake-oil which wolfsbane has been fooled by. This is why those who support science repeatedly take the position that to be a skeptic of science, you must learn how science works. If you don't know how it works, you can be fooled by those who wish to subvert science to their own ends. Once you do know how science - as a discipline - functions, you are far harder to be fooled.

At the end of the day, thats what it boils down to.

One side appear to be saying "trust us, because we believe these other guys and its in agreement with our interpretation of the bible".

The other side is saying "educate yourself and you can figure out if we're telling the truth about the strengths of our argument and the weaknesses of theirs."

J C

2Scoops
All this time and all we needed to impress J C with was the humble spider!!! It even goes one better because spider silk is better than nylon!!!!

Where is your proof that the spider itself, or it’s silk-making ability, evolved????

The spider (and it’s silk glands) appear in the Fossil Record fully formed - and with no intermediaries!!!!:cool:


Scofflaw
Really - that's all you saw? People just said "ooo...billions of years", "ooo...evolution is a fact"? That was it? Sum total of human knowledge on evolution is those two statements?

Pretty well sums it up, don’t you think???!!

That certainly is just about the sum total of the evidence presented on this thread for ‘Big Picture Evolution’ !!!!:)


Scofflaw
You don't understand, perhaps, that to a bacterium, the ability to eat things is useful? It's what might be called an evolutionary advantage - being able to eat something that other bacteria can't, and that there's plentiful supplies of.

…..of course I understand the NS advantage to organisms of niche nutrition – as well as it’s disadvantages!!!!

Anyway, there appears to be sufficient PRE-EXISTING genetic diversity amongst bacteria to enable them to ‘eat’ almost ANYTHING from plastics to mineral oil to Aluminimum!!!!
However, none of this proves Evolution to be true – only the amazing diversity of the original Creation!!!:D


Scofflaw
It takes only a single frame shift mutation, in this example, to produce a significant advantage

A ‘single frame shift’ is the equivalent of a gear change in a car – i.e. a complex integrated re-ordering of pre-existing structures to yield a functionally useful result.
Your idea that random mutation achieved this frame shift is about as logical as changing the gears in a car by whacking the gearbox with a sledgehammer - and hoping to drive the car afterwards!!!:D


Scofflaw
One would be hard pushed to do it in 6000 years, I suppose, but fortunately that number is derived from the Bible rather than anything else, and bears no relation to the truth, so the problem does not really arise.

One would be hard-pushed to do it in an ETERNITY!!!

Please remember that even if we accept, for the sake of argument that ALL 1E+130 sequences COULD potentially produce a 'functional protein' of 100 Amino Acid chain length, it would be impossible for an undirected system to 'discover' a 'functional DNA sequence' like the ‘frame shift’ WHEN IT NEEDED IT because nearly all of the 1E +130 of the DNA sequences 'out there' would be in the 'useless combinatorial space' for functional frame shifts - so 'finding' the ACTUAL DNA sequence to produce the frame shift at a specific point in time and space would defeat any 'blind' system like Macro-Evolution.
It would be like a spare parts company, randomly searching it's enormous warehouse of 1E+130 spare parts for a particular spare part for your car. You would end up with a pile of useless supplied spare parts the size of the Universe - and still no statistical chance of ever getting the spark plug (or the ‘frame shift’) that you required!!!


Scofflaw
No dog contains all the necessary diversity. That's why you have to crossbreed them with other dogs to get diversity.

It is true that no individual dog TODAY contains ALL of the genetic diversity in the original pair of the Dog Kind.
However, you DON’T need to crossbreed mongrels to get diversity – genetic diversity is already present in their genomes.
You DO need to outbreed pedigree 'pooches' to obtain diversity – because practically all genetic diversity has been eliminated from pedigree animals due to Artificial Selection.
Natural Selection is also capable of eliminating genetic diversity – and isolation with high section pressures is one of the major reasons for threatened species becoming extinct due to inbreeding depression.


Scofflaw
1. You claim that any apparent new feature arising in an organism is the result of genetic information already present - not mutation - and that this is evidence for Creation.

2. You now appear to claim that hybrid vigour, and the diversity that results from cross-breeding - is evidence for Creation - although clearly it can only result from 'incomplete' genomes: genomes that do not contain all possible canine genetic information.

Which is it to be? One statement requires dogs to have "complete" genomes, the other requires them not to.

They are BOTH correct.

1. Recombination during sexual reproduction of outbred organisms, allows new traits to emerge from the pre-existing genetic diversity in both parents

2. Hybrid vigour is one of the effects of the emergence of new traits in outbred organisms – and it occurs in direct correlation to the degree of genetic diversity between both parents!!

Neither case requires ALL possible canine genetic information to be present – just significant genetic diversity between both parents!!!:cool:


Originally Posted by J C
I have ALREADY defined Complex Specified Information or CSI as "non-random independent patterns of functional information."

Scofflaw
Which, in turn, means nothing. Are you capable of explaining this or not

You asked for a DEFINITION – and I provided it above!!!

Now you want an explanation, and I will gladly also provide it.

Complex Specified Information (CSI) consists of informational units exhibiting Specified Complexity (SC).
The presence of CSI in a system reliably indicates that the system was designed by an intelligent agent..
According to Dembeski, Specified Complexity (SC) is "a dual-pronged criterion for objectively detecting the effects of certain types of intelligent activity without first hand evidence of the cause of the event in question. It consists of two important components, both of which are essential for inferring design reliably.
The first component is the criterion of complexity or improbability. The second is the criterion of specificity, which is an independently given, detachable pattern."

And you can read all about SC here:-
http://www.researchintelligentdesign.org/wiki/Defining_Specified_Complexity

The concept of CSI has a whole host of uses outside of ID research.
It is used, for example by Astronomers as the test for Alien radio transmission, by the SETI group of researchers. It is also used by Archaeologists in assessing whether some artefacts discovered during excavations are of Human or natural origins – and it is used in setting tests for measuring animal behaviour and learning abilities.
It can also be used for more mundane applications like detecting cheating at cards in casinos.

Complex Specified Information is the ‘signature’ of the appliance of Intelligence. It is a pattern of information that produces a functional result. It is also non-random and independent of it’s result.
For example, writing is a pattern of information that produces a functional result in a person with the ability to read it. Writing is a non-random arrangement of alphanumeric characters and each character has meaning independent of the final arrangement chosen by the author to express their idea.
If letters meant different things to different people, and so weren’t independent of the author, no useful CSI would result. Equally, if an author were to use a random pattern of letters to express themselves, no useful CSI would be produced either.

In the case of DNA, it contains non-random patterns of functional information that is independent of it’s result – and so it is CSI, and therefore an unmistakable ‘signature’ of applied intelligence.

As I have said before, the presence of CSI doesn’t identify the author – but it does definitively prove that there WAS an author (or authors).

……..and that is why Atheist Evolutionists are ‘freaking out’ about the implications of the latest ID research which is objectively proving that life could ONLY originate via a (massive) input of intelligence!!!:eek:

BTW Evolutionary Biologists were the first to identify and describe genetic CSI. At the time they thought that they could identify materialistic mechanisms by which the CSI arose – but they went ‘rapidly into reverse’ away from CSI when they discovered that CSI could only be generated by intelligence.:D
Further reading on the topic of Evolutionists and CSI can be done here:-
http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/specifiedcomplexity.php

….and if you’re still finding it difficult to understand CSI look here:-
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/complex-specified-information-its-not-that-hard-to-understand/

and here is an interesting paper on the inherent CSI in Evolutionary algorithms:-
http://metanexus.net/Magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/3428/Default.aspx

………and the following quote from the above article indicates that God’s original Creation Design synergistically included provision for future evolutionary changes within the original created CSI !!!!:cool:

“for evolutionary algorithms to output complex specified information they had first to receive a prior input of complex specified information. And since complex specified information is reliably linked to intelligence [cf. my The Design Inference], evolutionary algorithms, insofar as they output complex specified information, do so on account of a guiding intelligence. The lesson, then, for evolution is that any intelligence evolutionary processes display is never autonomous but always derived. On the other hand, evolutionary algorithms do produce remarkable solutions to problems -- solutions that in many cases we would never have imagined on our own. Having been given some initial input of complex specified information, evolutionary algorithms as it were mine that complex specified information and extract every iota of value from it. The lesson, then, for design is that natural causes can synergize with intelligent causes to produce results far exceeding what intelligent causes left to their own abstractions might ever accomplish.”

Scofflaw
Why don't you just point poeple to the various posts in which I, and Wicknight, and Son Goku, and everyone else, gave in and admitted our awe of your towering intellect?

Does this mean that you are conceding the debate????


Robin
All in all, Dembski makes Ken Ham look like a good guy to have around

You don’t appear to like Dembski, do you????!!:D


Originally Posted by 2Scoops
All this time and all we needed to impress J C with was the humble spider!!! It even goes one better because spider silk is better than nylon!!!!

Now that J C has been impressed with evidence of evolution, and his apathetic 'perfect' posts don't seem to be getting through to people, I strongly suspect his faith is wavering and he is considering defecting to EVOLUTIONISM!!!!

Scofflaw
Sadly, we both know how this actually goes. Spider silk being better than nylon is evidence for the excellence of God's creation versus the degeneracy of Man's Fall.

On the other hand, any material which is better than the natural equivalent demonstrates how the input of intelligence is necessary to design anything excellent - such as spider silk.

You ARE becoming a first rate Creation Scientist, Scofflaw.:D

I am going on holidays next week ……..will you take over for me on the thread while I’m away????:D

Fallen Seraph

J C wrote:

Anyway, there appears to be sufficient PRE-EXISTING genetic diversity amongst bacteria to enable them to ‘eat’ almost ANYTHING from plastics to mineral oil to Aluminimum!!!!
However, none of this proves Evolution to be true – only the amazing diversity of the original Creation!!!:D

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that we know that this genetic diversity is pre-existing becuase we've observed the bacteria eating this "almost ANYTHING" that you speak of...


I believe that Aristotle argued that the circle was a perfect shape. Therefore, it follows logically that the only kind of arguement which can be used to justify the existance of a perfect being must be circular.

robindch

wolfsbane wrote:

I reject evolution primarily because it contradicts the word of God. I am encouraged in my position by seeing the common sense, simple science case against it [...] I am further encouraged by the fact that scientists well-qualified in the relevant fields find science supports a non-evolutionary explanation of things

Paraphrasing it differently:

You reject the conclusions of 150 years or so of modern biology primarily because you believe that the first page or so of an old book is true. And you are reinforced in your belief because some people -- a minority of considerably less than one percent of qualified professionals, but who all have identical views to yours about the same old book -- provide you with information which you find convincing. You do not seek information from anybody outside that 1%, nor do you try to understand any of it when it's given to you.

Sic dixit Scofflaw, one can't really argue with that.

The best of luck with your endeavors.

robindch

JC wrote:

You don’t appear to like Dembski, do you?

Glad you noticed.

No, I like neither Dembski nor what he does because, like you, Ham and other creationists, he chooses to masquerade as an honest purveyor of facts, when he is nothing of the kind. And as somebody with views which are broadly humanist, I have a problem with dishonest people.

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

2Scoops
All this time and all we needed to impress J C with was the humble spider!!! It even goes one better because spider silk is better than nylon!!!!

Where is your proof that the spider itself, or it’s silk-making ability, evolved????

The spider (and it’s silk glands) appear in the Fossil Record fully formed - and with no intermediaries!!!!:cool:

Er, no, not quite. There are a group of prior proto-spiders called the Mesothelae, and they are definitely genetically and morphologically related to the other chelicerates.

Still, don't let me disturb you.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
Really - that's all you saw? People just said "ooo...billions of years", "ooo...evolution is a fact"? That was it? Sum total of human knowledge on evolution is those two statements?

Pretty well sums it up, don’t you think???!!

That certainly is just about the sum total of the evidence presented on this thread for ‘Big Picture Evolution’ !!!!:)

I think even a casual reader of this thread can easily prove that false. You may disagree that what has been put forward as evidence proves evolution, but to claim that all we have done is what you say? Perhaps it's all that went in - oh well.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
You don't understand, perhaps, that to a bacterium, the ability to eat things is useful? It's what might be called an evolutionary advantage - being able to eat something that other bacteria can't, and that there's plentiful supplies of.

…..of course I understand the NS advantage to organisms of niche nutrition – as well as it’s disadvantages!!!!

Anyway, there appears to be sufficient PRE-EXISTING genetic diversity amongst bacteria to enable them to ‘eat’ almost ANYTHING from plastics to mineral oil to Aluminimum!!!!

But not nylon - until this mutation.

J C wrote:

However, none of this proves Evolution to be true – only the amazing diversity of the original Creation!!!:D

Or it shows how successful evolution has been in producing diversity. If God designed bacteria to eat everything right back at the moment of Creation, then there should be no gap of time between humanity inventing something (nylon, plastic, etc etc) and bacteria being able to eat it. Alas for you, there is - plastic bags still don't biodegrade, because nothing has yet evolved to eat them, and there is no 'pre-existing' plastic-eating gene.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
It takes only a single frame shift mutation, in this example, to produce a significant advantage

A ‘single frame shift’ is the equivalent of a gear change in a car – i.e. a complex integrated re-ordering of pre-existing structures to yield a functionally useful result.
Your idea that random mutation achieved this frame shift is about as logical as changing the gears in a car by whacking the gearbox with a sledgehammer - and hoping to drive the car afterwards!!!:D

And now you are working your way up the claim that frame shift mutations aren't really mutations. Let's be clear - they are mutations. They are not merely a reordering of genetic material - they are the insertion or deletion of nucleotides, which then shifts the other 'letters' of the code to spell something entirely new.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
One would be hard pushed to do it in 6000 years, I suppose, but fortunately that number is derived from the Bible rather than anything else, and bears no relation to the truth, so the problem does not really arise.

One would be hard-pushed to do it in infinty!!!

Please remember that even if we accept, for the sake of argument that ALL 1E+130 sequences COULD potentially produce a 'functional protein' of 100 Amino Acid chain length, it would be impossible for an undirected system to 'discover' a 'functional DNA sequence' like the ‘frame shift’ WHEN IT NEEDED IT because nearly all of the 1E +130 of the DNA sequences 'out there' would be in the 'useless combinatorial space' for functional frame shifts - so 'finding' the ACTUAL DNA sequence to produce the frame shift at a specific point in time and space would defeat any 'blind' system like Macro-Evolution.
It would be like a spare parts company, randomly searching it's enormous warehouse of 1E+130 spare parts for a particular spare part for your car. You would end up with a pile of useless supplied spare parts the size of the Universe - and still no statistical chance of ever getting the spark plug (or the ‘frame shift’) that you required!!!

You are assuming that the nylon-digesting enzyme was specified in advance, which it wasn't. Nothing was specified in advance.

Your maths works for lottery numbers, where one is trying to guess a pre-specified sequence of numbers. Mutation simply generates numbers, which are then matched against the world - if they do something useful, they are useful.

I'll give you a simple analogy. Your maths is done as if we were trying to randomly guess the phone number of a specific person, specified in advance. we are not - we are dialling random numbers, and if someone answers, then we see what use they are to us. We may sell them something, or ask them something, or whatever.

Your fallacy is called the teleological fallacy, and is common in those ignorant of biology.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
No dog contains all the necessary diversity. That's why you have to crossbreed them with other dogs to get diversity.

It is true that no individual dog TODAY contains ALL of the genetic diversity in the original pair of the Dog Kind.
However, you DON’T need to crossbreed mongrels to get diversity – genetic diversity is already present in their genomes.

Oh for crying out loud! That's because they're already cross-bred!

J C wrote:

You DO need to outbreed pedigree 'pooches' to obtain diversity – because practically all genetic diversity has been eliminated from pedigree animals due to Artificial Selection.
Natural Selection is also capable of eliminating genetic diversity – and isolation with high section pressures is one of the major reasons for threatened species becoming extinct due to inbreeding depression.

Inbreeding is not caused by "high selection pressures" - it is caused by small isolated populations.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
1. You claim that any apparent new feature arising in an organism is the result of genetic information already present - not mutation - and that this is evidence for Creation.

2. You now appear to claim that hybrid vigour, and the diversity that results from cross-breeding - is evidence for Creation - although clearly it can only result from 'incomplete' genomes: genomes that do not contain all possible canine genetic information.

Which is it to be? One statement requires dogs to have "complete" genomes, the other requires them not to.

They are BOTH correct.

1. Recombination during sexual reproduction of outbred organisms, allows new traits to emerge from the pre-existing genetic diversity in both parents

2. Hybrid vigour is one of the effects of the emergence of new traits in outbred organisms – and it occurs in direct correlation to the degree of genetic diversity between both parents!!

Neither case requires ALL possible canine genetic information to be present – just significant genetic diversity between both parents!!!:cool:

This is the kind of thing that makes me suspect you of being an animal breeding technician. You show sudden tiny islands of actual knowledge amidst the dark heaving sea of your ignorance, but only in relation to animal breeding.

J C wrote:

Complex Specified Information (CSI) consists of informational units exhibiting Specified Complexity (SC).

I invite readers to admire this sentence. Equally awe-inspiring is that JC actually thinks he's explaining something here.

J C wrote:

The concept of CSI has a whole host of uses outside of ID research.
It is used, for example by Astronomers as the test for Alien radio transmission, by the SETI group of researchers. It is also used by Archaeologists in assessing whether some artefacts discovered during excavations are of Human or natural origins – and it is used in setting tests for measuring animal behaviour and learning abilities.
It can also be used for more mundane applications like detecting cheating at cards in casinos.

Complex Specified Information is the ‘signature’ of the appliance of Intelligence. It is a pattern of information that produces a functional result. It is also non-random and independent of it’s result.
For example, writing is a pattern of information that produces a functional result in a person with the ability to read it. Writing is a non-random arrangement of alphanumeric characters and each character has meaning independent of the final arrangement chosen by the author to express their idea.
If letters meant different things to different people, and so weren’t independent of the author, no useful CSI would result. Equally, if an author were to use a random pattern of letters to express themselves, no useful CSI would be produced either.

What you are saying here is that CSI is non-random patterns. Non-random patterns certainly are used in the ways you indicate, but only Creationists use the term CSI.

J C wrote:

In the case of DNA, it contains non-random patterns of functional information that is independent of it’s result – and so it is CSI, and therefore an unmistakable ‘signature’ of applied intelligence.

Gosh - a bit of detail! Now I can see why you don't normally provide it.

DNA consists of chains of 4 molecules. The sequences specify proteins - but different sequences can specify the same protein, and the same sequence can specify different proteins.

Since you have stated that something of which that is true is not CSI ("if letters meant different things to different people, and so weren’t independent of the author, no useful CSI would result" - above), your claim that DNA is CSI is obviously false.

Perhaps you should go back behind the curtain?

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
Why don't you just point people to the various posts in which I, and Wicknight, and Son Goku, and everyone else, gave in and admitted our awe of your towering intellect?

Does this mean that you are conceding the debate????

Do you understand anything?

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by 2Scoops
All this time and all we needed to impress J C with was the humble spider!!! It even goes one better because spider silk is better than nylon!!!!

Now that J C has been impressed with evidence of evolution, and his apathetic 'perfect' posts don't seem to be getting through to people, I strongly suspect his faith is wavering and he is considering defecting to EVOLUTIONISM!!!!

Scofflaw
Sadly, we both know how this actually goes. Spider silk being better than nylon is evidence for the excellence of God's creation versus the degeneracy of Man's Fall.

On the other hand, any material which is better than the natural equivalent demonstrates how the input of intelligence is necessary to design anything excellent - such as spider silk.

My, My …..you are becoming a first rate Creation Scientist, Scofflaw.

I am going on holidays next week ……..will you take over for me on the thread while I’m away????:D

Sure. I've done it before, after all. That's the great thing about "Creation Science" - anyone can do it.

regards,
Scofflaw

bonkey

robind wrote:

And you are reinforced in your belief because some people -- a minority of considerably less than one percent of qualified professionals,

To be fair, its a minority best represented as "approximately 0%".

To also be fair, one individual would be enough, were they correct. Unfortunately, they're apparently not interested in being correct...only in convincing the non-scientific that their non-scientific objections are scientifically valid.

You do not seek information from anybody outside that 1%, nor do you try to understand any of it when it's given to you.

More accurately, wolfsbane rejects any information which contradicts that from the approximately 0% whilst admitting that he is ignorant of the details necessary to determine whether it is the approximately 100%, the approximately 0%, or both who are engaging in actual science.

He also argues that the approximately 0% are presenting a scientific argument, and that while he doesn't have the learning to argue why that is so, he rejects (on grounds of conspiracy or whatever) the claims of the approximately 100% who say not only that this is not so but why it is not so.

J C

Fallen Seraph
I believe that Aristotle argued that the circle was a perfect shape. Therefore, it follows logically that the only kind of argument which can be used to justify the existence of a perfect being must be circular.

Very deep!!!
.....and very CIRCULAR!!!:D

Robin
You reject the conclusions of 150 years or so of modern biology primarily because you believe that the first page or so of an old book is true.

I know the Bible to be true.

......and as a scientist, I reject Evolution primarily because of the lack of evidential support for the hypotehesis!!!:eek:


Robin
You do not seek information from anybody outside that 1%, nor do you try to understand any of it when it's given to you.

I have repeatedly asked for evidence for Evolution from Evolutionists on this thread – but NONE has been forthcoming!!:eek:


Robin
No, I like neither Dembski nor what he does because, like you, Ham and other creationists, he chooses to masquerade as an honest purveyor of facts, when he is nothing of the kind. And as somebody with views which are broadly humanist, I have a problem with dishonest people.

Could I say that as a Christian, I reject dishonesty too.
However, I try love all people, even in their Human failings…..
……….and one of the reasons I have come onto this thread and suffer insults, like the ones you have just ‘dished up’ to me, is because I am concerned for your eternal well-being.


Scofflaw
But not nylon - until this mutation.

….but not Nylon until it was produced!!!!:eek:


Scofflaw
plastic bags still don't biodegrade, because nothing has yet evolved to eat them, and there is no 'pre-existing' plastic-eating gene.

Plastic bags degrade with UV light and the degraded plastic IS biodegradable!!!:D


Scofflaw
Your maths is done as if we were trying to randomly guess the phone number of a specific person, specified in advance. we are not - we are dialling random numbers, and if someone answers, then we see what use they are to us. We may sell them something, or ask them something, or whatever.

Not quite. The length of phone numbers tend to match the population served by the numbers. For example the Dublin area has 7 digit numbers (or 10 million number permutations) serving a population of about 1 million phones.
So if I randomly dial a 7 digit number in Dublin it will be an active number in about one in ten attempts - which is a reasonable hit rate.

However, the ‘numbers’ that we are ‘dialling’ in the case of even simple proteins are hundreds of digits long (with permutations in excess of the number of electrons in the Universe) – and the population of specific proteins required to perform a necessary function in a particular time and space can be as little as ONE.
So if random processes are used to generate the sequences for these proteins they will NEVER be produced.

Intelligent Design CAN do it however, and here is an article on intelligent design written from an ‘Old Earth’ perspective.
http://www.y-origins.com/article2.htm
and here
http://www.y-origins.com/article8.htm

The following quote from the above article is a good summary of what most scientists who objectively look at the evidence conclude:-
“Theoretical astrophysicist George Greenstein, in his book, Symbiotic Universe, asks, “Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon the scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?

Greenstein is a luminary in his field, being a professor of astronomy at Amherst College and a recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. This isn’t Forrest Gump here, scratching his head at the complexity of it all or attributing to God what he simply can’t grasp. Neither are other scientists who, like Greenstein, are looking at the scientific evidence and pondering the reality of God.”

……and Dr. Greenstein is NEITHER a Christian nor a Creationist – but he DOES see overwhelming evidence for the appliance of intelligence in the Universe around him!!!!


Originally Posted by J C
However, you DON’T need to crossbreed mongrels to get diversity – genetic diversity is already present in their genomes.

Scofflaw
Oh for crying out loud! That's because they're already cross-bred!

……and the original Dog Kind was ALSO outbred – only to a far greater degree than any of today’s mongrels – and that WAS where all of the amazing dog diversity originated!!!!:cool:


Scofflaw
Inbreeding is not caused by "high selection pressures" - it is caused by small isolated populations.

A small isolated population of mongrels and cross-breeds will NOT suffer inbreeding depression…….
…….while a big population of one pedigree breed COULD suffer inbreeding depression!!!!!

High selection pressure AND isolation are both required to produce inbreeding depression.:)


Scofflaw
This is the kind of thing that makes me suspect you of being an animal breeding technician.

….an animal breeding technician Eh…… my mind boggles at the thought of it!!!.:)


Scofflaw
DNA consists of chains of 4 molecules. The sequences specify proteins - but different sequences can specify the same protein, and the same sequence can specify different proteins.

DNA is a language – and like any language, different words may mean the same thing, while identical words can mean different things, depending on context and the words accompanying them.
All languages are Intelligently Designed and consist of CSI and so too is DNA.


Scofflaw
That's the great thing about "Creation Science" - anyone can do it.

Yes, it's a bit like being saved actually – anybody can trust in Jesus Christ – and they WILL be saved!!!

Equally, Creation Science welcomes honest endeavour from ALL qualified scientists – and we believe that our conclusions should be understandable by non-scientists as well.:cool:

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Robin
You reject the conclusions of 150 years or so of modern biology primarily because you believe that the first page or so of an old book is true.

I know the Bible to be true.

......and as a scientist, I reject Evolution primarily because of the lack of evidential support for the hypotehesis!!!:eek:

There's that "as a scientist" again. You still haven't told us what kind of degree it is, and you have yet to demonstrate even a basic understanding of science.

J C wrote:

Robin
You do not seek information from anybody outside that 1%, nor do you try to understand any of it when it's given to you.

I have repeatedly asked for evidence for Evolution on this thread – but NONE has been forthcoming!!:eek:

None that you were capable of understanding, perhaps. You still don't seem to be able to offer any Creationist explanation of the nylon-digesting enzyme mutation, except the usual asinine jeering and meaningless 'repartee'.

J C wrote:

Robin
No, I like neither Dembski nor what he does because, like you, Ham and other creationists, he chooses to masquerade as an honest purveyor of facts, when he is nothing of the kind. And as somebody with views which are broadly humanist, I have a problem with dishonest people.

Could I say that as a Christian, I reject dishonesty too.
However, I try love all people, even in their Human failings…..
……….and one of the reasons I have come onto this thread and suffer insults, like the ones you have just ‘dished up’ to me, is because I am concerned for your eternal well-being.

Frankly, PDN, who doesn't even try to persuade, is a thousand times more persuasive. You, on the other hand, are exactly what Augustine was thinking of.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
But not nylon - until this mutation.

….but not Nylon until it was produced!!!!:eek:

Now, you see, that's an incredibly silly comment, which doesn't deal with the question. Until nylon was produced, a nylon-digesting enzyme is impossible to spot, because no-one would have any nylon for the enzyme to digest, so they could have no idea of what it did.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
plastic bags still don't biodegrade, because nothing has yet evolved to eat them, and there is no 'pre-existing' plastic-eating gene.

Plastic bags degrade with UV light and the degraded plastic IS biodegradable!!!:D

That's right JC - nothing eats plastic, but some things can eat what plastic breaks down into. Plastic is not biodegradable - see the "bio" bit?

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
Your maths is done as if we were trying to randomly guess the phone number of a specific person, specified in advance. we are not - we are dialling random numbers, and if someone answers, then we see what use they are to us. We may sell them something, or ask them something, or whatever.

Not quite. The length of phone numbers tend to match the population served by the numbers. For example the Dublin area has 7 digit numbers (or 10 million number permutations) serving a population of about 1 million phones.
So if I randomly dial a 7 digit number in Dublin it will be an active number in about one in ten attempts - which is a reasonable hit rate.

However, the ‘numbers’ that we are ‘dialling’ in the case of even simple proteins are hundreds of digits long (with permutations in excess of the number of electrons in the Universe) – and the population of specific proteins required to perform a necessary function in a particular time and space can be as little as ONE.
So if random processes are used to generate the sequences for these proteins they will NEVER be produced.

Sigh. You really didn't understand that, did you? The maths you use is inapplicable, no matter how much it impresses you.

J C wrote:

The following quote from the above article is a good summary of what most scientists who objectively look at the evidence conclude:-
“Theoretical astrophysicist George Greenstein, in his book, Symbiotic Universe, asks, “Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon the scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?

Greenstein is a luminary in his field, being a professor of astronomy at Amherst College and a recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. This isn’t Forrest Gump here, scratching his head at the complexity of it all or attributing to God what he simply can’t grasp. Neither are other scientists who, like Greenstein, are looking at the scientific evidence and pondering the reality of God.”

No, he's simply unrepresentative. JC, there's no point in trotting out these 'luminaries', because for every 1 Creationist luminary, there are 10,000 equally luminous non-Creationists. That you wish to ignore the vast majority in favour of the tiny handful who you agree with indicates only that you cannot be looking at the evidence objectively.

There are more non-Creationist scientists called 'Stephen' (or variant thereof, like Stephanie) than there are Creationist scientists full stop.

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
However, you DON’T need to crossbreed mongrels to get diversity – genetic diversity is already present in their genomes.

Scofflaw
Oh for crying out loud! That's because they're already cross-bred!

……and the original Dog Kind was ALSO outbred – only to a far greater degree than any of today’s mongrels – and that WAS where all of the amazing dog diversity originated!!!!:cool:

Except that, again, your story requires that we should see genomes entirely different from what is actually observed - and that ancient dog genomes should be massively larger than modern ones - again, not observed.

Really, JC, when you're simply making stuff up (which, let's face it, you are, since neither science nor the Bible contains any evidence of this silly story), you should make up something more credible and less self-contradictory.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
Inbreeding is not caused by "high selection pressures" - it is caused by small isolated populations.

A small population of mongrels and cross-breeds will NOT suffer inbreeding depression…….
…….and a big population of one pedigree breed can suffer inbreeding depression!!!!!

High selection pressure AND isolation are required to produce inbreeding depression.:)

According to your hypothesis, all populations, no matter how large, are inbred, since no new genetic information has ever been added. Since sequencing of ancient DNA has never yet shown larger genomes than for modern descendants, we're clearly talking about a pretty bad situation here, because your "genomes containing all the diversity of the species" have been missing for thousands of years.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
This is the kind of thing that makes me suspect you of being an animal breeding technician.

….an animal breeding technician Eh…… my mind boggles at the thought of it!!!.:)

Alas, that proves nothing.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
DNA consists of chains of 4 molecules. The sequences specify proteins - but different sequences can specify the same protein, and the same sequence can specify different proteins.

DNA is a language – and like any language, different words may mean the same thing, while identical words can mean different things, depending on context and the words accompanying them.
All languages are Intelligently Designed and consist of CSI and so too is DNA.

The problem is that there are only 4 'letters', and that every life form uses them - as if every language in the world was written with a, c, g, and t, and the same word in different languages was both pronounced differently, and the word itself meant something entirely different.

By the way, you're aware that no-one designs languages (with a couple of exceptions, say, Esperanto and Klingon)? They, er, evolve.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
That's the great thing about "Creation Science" - anyone can do it.

Yes, it's a bit like being saved actually – anybody can trust in Jesus Christ – and they WILL be saved!!!

Equally, Creation Science welcome honest endeavour from ALL qualified scientists – and we believe that our conclusions should be understandable by non-scientists as well.:cool:

Mmm. The problem is that your 'conclusions' are only believable by non-scientists.

Scofflaw

robindch

JC wrote:

I reject dishonesty too.

Good, that's possibly the first thing that you've posted here that's worth repeating.

So, given that you say you reject dishonesty, why do you say that no evidence has been produced for evolution on this thread, when it has been produced in quantity? Why do you say that Dembski is a mathematician of "world status", when his work is repeatedly shown by better mathematicians than him to have more holes than a swiss cheese? Why do you continue to claim to be a scientist when you are clearly unable to grasp even the most basic scientific concepts and are unaware of its basic principles?

One could answer these by suggesting that you are delusional, but I would like to think that the inhabitants of this thread are at least partially sane.

Zombrex

J C wrote:

In Rom 8:22 St Paul confirms that the WHOLE CREATION i.e. all living creatures (including Pond Slime and all Humans), have become imperfect and are groaning under the burden of disease and death.

He does nothing of the sort. Read the whole passage again JC :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Even today, immune systems respond to disease challenges – and they stay dormant in the absence of disease challenges.

There is no such thing as "absence of disease" All life is under constant battle with other life that can lead to disease. Your immune system is constantly working.

You have not answered my question. Before the Fall, before any disease was supposed to exist (I assume that the people who wrote the Bible did not actually understand that disease is simply competition between organisms) why did any of these systems exist. If they didn't exist how did the life forms that cause disease interact with each other?

J C wrote:

The pre-Fall creatures therefore may have had immune systems – but they didn’t need to use them – and so their immune systems probably remained dormant, until they were needed after the Fall!!!

So pre-Fall all life looked exactly like they do now, they had all the systems that they would need after the fall they just weren't using them.

So the Fall didn't actually change the life forms.

So why are all these systems badly designed if they existed before the fall?

Well done JC you have just removed the only excuse you had for systems in biology that work in a less that perfect fashion.

Do you actually consider what you post or does it just fall out of your head?:rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Eyes ARE a facial feature!!!!

Groan ... go look up the definition of physiognomy

You and dictionaries don't seem to really like each other ....

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
I’m still waiting for any suggested improvements from you to the Sight Biochemical Cascade……

I just gave you it. The process wastes blood and causes slow damage to the systems involved. The improvement to this would be to not waste blood and not damage the systems involved

J C wrote:

Could I gently point out that you HAVEN’T made any suggested improvements to the Sight Biochemical Cascade……other than pointing out some of the degenerative effects of the Fall!!!

Nothing degenerated due to the Fall JC, you just said that. All these systems were in place before the Fall

J C wrote:

It is actually, a perfectly designed system - that has been corrupted by the Fall!!!!!

Except nothing was corrupted by the Fall. The Fall simply made conditions that these life forms were already designed for.

J C wrote:

This is an effect of the ageing process – which is a direct result of the Fall!!

It is an effect of a badly designed system that attempts to manage (badly) the aging of a human or ape. Its a bad system. It was in place before the Fall just not used.

J C wrote:

Adam and Eve thought that they were smarter than God too……..

……and we all know what happened to them - as a result of that particular piece of 'wishful thinking'!!!:D

They lived to 900 years old and had a happy and productive life producing a large family that all decided to inbreed ... ??

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

Wicknight said:
I'm amazed by this piece of history. NO atheists before 1850?

Very few, and certainly not in scientific community (religion was a major part of eduction until the early 20th century)

wolfsbane wrote:

All the scientists were believers?

The vast majority were (they still are by the way)

wolfsbane wrote:

No ready acceptance in the scientific community of Darwin's ideas?

No, the exact opposite.

Darwin in fact waited nearly 20 years to publish his work because he wanted to really consider it and get it right as he knew it would be such a fundamental shift in how people, scientists included, viewed the natural world.

Up until that point evolution or natural change as an explanation of life was a fringe theory as few could work out how it could possibly happen. Direct creation was seen as the only plausible explanation at that time and the vast majority of scientists worked off that assumption. Even if they didn't think much of the idea of direct creation they couldn't figure out an alternative.

wolfsbane wrote:

Just a reluctant, gradual shift?

Well it wasn't that reluctant because Darwin's explanation was so good.

No offence Wolfsbane but if you want to continue with the "grand atheists conspiracy" (TM) theory you would really take some time to research how things like Darwinism comes about.

wolfsbane wrote:

Satan was its first practioner:
Genesis 3:4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Last part, true. First part, a lie.

Step 2 - Convince a person that something terrible will happen if they do not accept the religion, and they should not question the religion. Silence doubt by incorporating doubt as a negative aspect of not following the religion. Hence the concept of Satan.

The Scientologists do exactly the same thing. People are are "negative" towards Scientology and its methods are suppressing negative mental impulses. Scientologists can give you a long and detailed explanation as to why people object to Scientology (needless to say it doesn't include the phrases "brainwash" or "cult"). A Scientologist will often comment on the "tone" of a person criticising the religion.

You yourself do with with your various theories as to why scientists no longer accept direct Biblical creation. Instead of them not accepting it because it is nonsense since it must be because they are rejecting the glory of the truth, or scared of having to follow God's commandments, or being manipulated by Satan's whispers.

All western religions incorporate these explanations as to why everyone isn't rushing to join the religion, mostly to explain away criticism of the religion or the religious doctrine.

wolfsbane wrote:

It may be that one religion rightly advances the truths abused here.

It maybe. But then I doubt it.

If 10 religions act like this and 9 of them are definitely phoney I think it is safe to assume the 10th one is also phoney.

Of course the people in the 10th religion, what ever one it is, will always think that their religion is the correct one, even if they recognise that all the other 9 are complete nonsense. They will find an excuse as to why their religion can act in the exact same way but yet not be phoney (such as the concept of Satan, or The Fall etc if they are Christian, or Xenu if they are Scientologists).

One would think that if a religion was the "true" religion it would not need to act like this in the first place. The very fact that they all do would strongly suggest that they are all products of the same thing, human imagination and manipulation.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a phoney religion.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Very few, and certainly not in scientific community (religion was a major part of eduction until the early 20th century)

The vast majority were [theists](they still are by the way)

No, the exact opposite.

Darwin in fact waited nearly 20 years to publish his work because he wanted to really consider it and get it right as he knew it would be such a fundamental shift in how people, scientists included, viewed the natural world.

Indeed, he only published when he did because he discovered Alfred Wallace (of the 'Wallace Line') was about to publish his very similar theory. A little slower, and Wolfsbane would be calling us 'Wallacites' rather than Darwinists.

Wicknight wrote:

Up until that point evolution or natural change as an explanation of life was a fringe theory as few could work out how it could possibly happen. Direct creation was seen as the only plausible explanation at that time and the vast majority of scientists worked off that assumption. Even if they didn't think much of the idea of direct creation they couldn't figure out an alternative.

Well it wasn't that reluctant because Darwin's explanation was so good.

It was pretty reluctant. The theory was published first in 1859, but was not fully accepted by the scientific community until the 1930's. I'd call that a 'reluctant, gradual sift'.

Wicknight wrote:

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a phoney religion.

More likely to be a duck, I would say. Either that or I spend a lot of time feeding bread to phoney religions in Stephen's Green.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Akrasia

Wicknight wrote:

Very few, and certainly not in scientific community (religion was a major part of eduction until the early 20th century)


The vast majority were (they still are by the way)


No, the exact opposite.

Darwin in fact waited nearly 20 years to publish his work because he wanted to really consider it and get it right as he knew it would be such a fundamental shift in how people, scientists included, viewed the natural world.

A lot of the scientists who proclaimed religion were probably doing so out of fear of the consequences of being declared heretics (The roman inquisition was still actively pursuing people well into the 18th century) But even if they were not afraid of the violent arms of the church, rejecting god would have had severe social and political consequences that would have had a big effect on the lives and careers of these men.

Just because scientists were professing a faith by no means is proof that they were religious. (And just because scientists professed a faith in the supernatural, does not make the supernatural scientific which is the real nub of this particular portion of the debate)

Scofflaw

Akrasia wrote:

A lot of the scientists who proclaimed religion were probably doing so out of fear of the consequences of being declared heretics (The roman inquisition was still actively pursuing people well into the 18th century) But even if they were not afraid of the violent arms of the church, rejecting god would have had severe social and political consequences that would have had a big effect on the lives and careers of these men.

Just because scientists were professing a faith by no means is proof that they were religious. (And just because scientists professed a faith in the supernatural, does not make the supernatural scientific which is the real nub of this particular portion of the debate)

You are correct, of course, that a scientist believing in the supernatural does not make the supernatural scientific, any more than a scientist believing that Chelsea are the best football team in the world makes that a scientific proposition.

However, I don't think there's any evidence that scientists who professed to be Christians, either then or now, were acting out of fear. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that they were entirely sincere in their beliefs.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bonkey

Akrasia wrote:

A lot of the scientists who proclaimed religion were probably doing so out of fear of the consequences of being declared heretics

Supposition. Is it founded, or unfounded supposition, I wonder?

But even if they were not afraid of the violent arms of the church, rejecting god would have had severe social and political consequences that would have had a big effect on the lives and careers of these men.

Even if this argument were to hold true then the inescapable conclusion would also be that such people would not put forward scientific theories at odds with the same forces that were making them claim Christianity.

It makes no odds whether the scientist claimed to be Christian out of belief or of fear. The reality is that in either case, modern science is marked by a progression away from a position of almost-unfaltering religious adherence to one of allowing the modern scientific method to solidify.

Whether the likes of Darwin became convinced that the inferences drawn from Genesis could simply not be correct or became convinced that his work was important enough that inferences he never believed in could no longer go unchallenged through fear of the church is ultimately irrelevant.

Darwin professed religion, yet eventually concluded that its stance on the sciences must be incorrect.

philologos

Do you guys not get the point You are never going to find a definitive argument that will either prove or disprove Creationism. So leave it be. I find it a pity that prophecy or the Bible didn't get discussed much in this thread

bonkey

Well, the OP may have been referring to prophecy in terms of where we are going, so lets look at that....

Prophecy is almost always retroactively applied. We hear sel-called prophecy and determine either :

- It refers to an event already in the past.
- It refers to an event yet to come.

In this latter case, we can't say when that event will be, what it will be, where it will be, or generally anything of the sort. We just know "it will come".

Then, at some point, people start going "you know...if you look at <events> of <past timeframe>, they match that prohpecy". Eventually, if sufficient consensus is achieved amongst those who believe, the prophecy is adjudged to have been fulfilled.

By this standard, it is shockingly easy to become a prophet. You can never be disproven (unless you're sloppy) as you have an open-ended timeframe. And when you deal in timespans of lifetimes, then you won't even have to confirm if your prophecy ever was fulfilled...you just let future scholars argue over it.

I don't see how biblical prophecy seperates itself from any other prophecy in this nature. It doesn't strike me as any more propehtic than, say, the likes of Nostradamus, or the classic "experts have predicted 11 of the last 3 recessions".

The only circumstance I can think of where prophecy is arguably not retroactive is, interesstingly, the field of science!

One could say, for example, that evolutionary Theory prophesied the discovery of DNA long before DNA was found to exist. Indeed, it went into far greater detail of DNA must be than your typical prophecy does in predicting events. In this sense, science is arguably prophetic, although I would see a distinction between predictive and prophetic myself.

Zombrex

good post bonkey

Scofflaw

Jakkass wrote:

Do you guys not get the point You are never going to find a definitive argument that will either prove or disprove Creationism. So leave it be. I find it a pity that prophecy or the Bible didn't get discussed much in this thread

The point is not to "prove or disprove Creationism" - Creationists can never prove Creation to the satisfaction of science, and a scientist can never disprove Creation to the satisfaction of a Creationist. Certainly I don't find JC or wolfsbane convincing in the slightest, and clearly they don't find me convincing either.

The apparently interminable argument in this thread allows Creationists to put forward their attacks on evolution, and scientists to offer a defence - and vice-versa. While these arguments do not convince any of the principals, they are useful to show the debate in action, as it were, for anyone who is interested - to demonstrate the nature of the arguments used by either side, and occasionally to provide light relief, of course.

cordially,
Scofflaw

J C

Scofflaw
There's that "as a scientist" again. You still haven't told us what kind of degree it is, and you have yet to demonstrate even a basic understanding of science.

Your gratuitous Ad Hominem remarks are the weakest form of debate – by (erroneously, in this case) attacking the personal attributes of your opponent and NOT their arguments – you betray your inability to actually address the arguments!!!

……a bit like a bad footballer attacking the man and not the ball!!!!:D

…….and still NO evidence proffered for ‘big picture’ Evolution!!!:eek:


Originally Posted by J C
The length of phone numbers tend to match the population served by the numbers. For example the Dublin area has 7 digit numbers (or 10 million number permutations) serving a population of about 1 million phones.
So if I randomly dial a 7 digit number in Dublin it will be an active number in about one in ten attempts - which is a reasonable 'hit rate'.

However, the ‘numbers’ that we are ‘dialling’ in the case of even simple proteins are hundreds of digits long (with permutations in excess of the number of electrons in the Universe) – and the population of specific proteins required to perform a necessary function in a particular time and space can be as little as ONE.
So if random processes are used to generate the sequences for these proteins they will NEVER be produced.

Scofflaw
Sigh. You really didn't understand that, did you? The maths you use is inapplicable, no matter how much it impresses you.

Sigh, but YOU don’t appear to understand that randomly dialling a number in the Dublin area will meet with ‘success’ i.e. an active number ringing out, in about one in 10 attempts – which is a reasonable ‘hit rate’.

The DNA in a cell supposedly ‘searching’ it’s combinatorial space (by using mutations and NS) will meet with ‘success’ i.e will produce a particular necessary protein for a specific cellular task in about one in ten to the power of 130 attempts – which is more than the number of electrons in the entire Universe AGAINST doing so - which is an IMPOSSIBLE ‘hit rate’!!!:eek:


Originally Posted by J C
The following quote from the above article is a good summary of what most scientists who objectively look at the evidence conclude:-
“Theoretical astrophysicist George Greenstein, in his book, Symbiotic Universe, asks, “Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon the scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?

Greenstein is a luminary in his field, being a professor of astronomy at Amherst College and a recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. This isn’t Forrest Gump here, scratching his head at the complexity of it all or attributing to God what he simply can’t grasp. Neither are other scientists who, like Greenstein, are looking at the scientific evidence and pondering the reality of God.”

Scofflaw
No, he's simply unrepresentative. JC, there's no point in trotting out these 'luminaries', because for every 1 Creationist luminary, there are 10,000 equally luminous non-Creationists. That you wish to ignore the vast majority in favour of the tiny handful who you agree with indicates only that you cannot be looking at the evidence objectively.

….but the point is that Dr Greenstein ISN’T a Creationist – and yet he appreciates the scientific validity of Intelligent Design - and it's ability to provide objective PROOF for the existence of God.

Even Professor Richard Dawkins, concedes that “life has the appearance of design” ........

.........just like living creatures 'have the appearance' of being alive .........
.........and scientifically qualified Evolutionists 'have the appearance' of being scientists, I suppose!!!!:D


Scofflaw
There are more non-Creationist scientists called 'Stephen' (or variant thereof, like Stephanie) than there are Creationist scientists full stop.

……and most of them are ‘running with the herd’ on Evolution – and that is why Skepics are so fearful of any in-depth examination of the non-existent evidence for Evolution!!!:eek:


Scofflaw
your story requires that we should see genomes entirely different from what is actually observed - and that ancient dog genomes should be massively larger than modern ones - again, not observed.

Genetic diversity is a qualitative (and NOT a quantitative) issue.
So, there is no difference in the SIZE of a mongrel’s genome or a pedigree dog's genome – but the mongrel’s genome is much more diverse ……
……ditto for the original Dog Kind!!!:D


Scofflaw
According to your hypothesis, all populations, no matter how large, are inbred, since no new genetic information has ever been added.

Only inbred/isolated/pedigree populations are significantly inbred.
Hybridised/outbred/mongel populations are genetically diverse!!!!


Scofflaw
The problem is that there are only 4 'letters', and that every life form uses them - as if every language in the world was written with a, c, g, and t, and the same word in different languages was both pronounced differently, and the word itself meant something entirely different.

The language of DNA is the SAME universal genetic language Created by God for ALL life.
Interestingly, the original Human spoken language was ALSO one universal language created by God – who subsequently Created a multitude of languages at Babel to confound the scheming of Nimrod and his buddies!!!!:)


Scofflaw
By the way, you're aware that no-one designs languages (with a couple of exceptions, say, Esperanto and Klingon)? They, er, evolve.

All of the original languages of the Nations of Mankind, were CREATED at Babel.
These languages have since ‘evolved’ via the appliance of Human Intelligence and DESIGN!!!!!:D


Robin
So, given that you say you reject dishonesty, why do you say that no evidence has been produced for evolution on this thread, when it has been produced in quantity?

Firstly, evidence for Evolution HASN’T been produced in any substantial quantity. Indeed, there is a considerable reluctance to proffer ANY scientific evidence for Macro-Evolution.

Secondly, the few bits of evidence which have been produced, are either evidence for Micro-Evolution within Kinds (which Creationists accept as scientifically valid) and/or the evidence proffered is better explained by a Creation Model!!!


Robin
Why do you say that Dembski is a mathematician of "world status", when his work is repeatedly shown by better mathematicians than him to have more holes than a swiss cheese?

Dr Dembski has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. Bill has done post-doctoral work at MIT, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Princeton, Cambridge, and Notre Dame. He has been a National Science Foundation doctoral and post-doctoral fellow.

So, as the leading mathematical expert on Intelligent Design, Dr. Dembski IS an eminent, conventionally qualified mathematician of world status.:D


Robin
Why do you continue to claim to be a scientist when you are clearly unable to grasp even the most basic scientific concepts and are unaware of its basic principles?

One could answer these by suggesting that you are delusional, but I would like to think that the inhabitants of this thread are at least partially sane

Once again another example of a gratuitous Ad Hominem remark !!!

Could I remind you that Ad Hominem attacks are the weakest form of debate……..
…..and by attacking the person of your opponent and NOT their arguments – you also betray your own inability to address the arguments!!!

…….and still NO valid evidence proffered for ‘big picture’ Evolution!!!:D


Originally Posted by J C
In Rom 8:22 St Paul confirms that the WHOLE CREATION i.e. all living creatures (including Pond Slime and all Humans), have become imperfect and are groaning under the burden of disease and death

Wicknight
He does nothing of the sort. Read the whole passage again JC

Always nice to see a self-professed Atheist firmly focussed on the detail of the Word of God.:D

Anyway, here is the particular passage of Scripture AGAIN:-

Rom 8:22-23 “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. "

A plain reading of the words “the whole creation” implies that Paul WAS saying that ALL living organisms are groaning under the effects of the Fall, namely pain, disease and death.

This is also patently obvious from even a cursory examination of the World around us, where death and disease apply equally to ALL living organisms as well as Humans!!!:D


Wicknight
There is no such thing as "absence of disease" All life is under constant battle with other life that can lead to disease. Your immune system is constantly working.

In our Fallen World, this is largely the case – but our Immune System is still RESPONDING to the challenges of disease – and if those challenges are reduced the response is reduced – and if those challenges didn’t exist (as in the Pre-Fall World) the response would be absent!!!
So, our Immune Systems were Created by God as a contingency for our subsequent Fall!!!


Wicknight
You have not answered my question. Before the Fall, before any disease was supposed to exist ………………. why did any of these systems exist. If they didn't exist how did the life forms that cause disease interact with each other?

…..but I have answered your question (repeatedly at this stage)!!!!

The systems existed in a dormant state Pre-Fall.

.......... and life-forms that now cause disease would have had ‘beneficial’ interactions with their current hosts.

Indeed even today, there are many bacteria, for example, which continue to have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with other organisms!!!


Wicknight

So pre-Fall all life looked exactly like they do now, they had all the systems that they would need after the fall they just weren't using them.

So the Fall didn't actually change the life forms.

So why are all these systems badly designed if they existed before the fall?
The Immune Systems were perfectly designed - but inoperative Pre-Fall……..

……and now they have some imperfections - but they are operative Post-Fall!!!!:cool:


Originally Posted by J C
I’m still waiting for any suggested improvements from you to the Sight Biochemical Cascade……

Wicknight
I just gave you it. The process wastes blood and causes slow damage to the systems involved. The improvement to this would be to not waste blood and not damage the systems involved

I haven’t heard of anybody approaching the Blood Bank for a donation to replace the blood supposedly ‘wasted’ by their eyes.

Equally, you have only given a symptom of some of the results of the Fall (weakened eyesight) ……

……but you haven’t made any suggestion about how the BIOCHEMICAL process of the Sight Cascade ITSELF could be improved upon…….

……..and so you expect us to believe that blind chance was able to achieve, a biochemical cascade that is so perfectly synchronised and complex that you can’t even begin to describe how it might be improved upon!!!!!!

…….such great faith in the ‘blind forces of nature’ and such determined resistance to acknowledging the Sovereign God that created it all!!


Originally Posted by J C
Adam and Eve thought that they were smarter than God too……..

……and we all know what happened to them - as a result of that particular piece of 'wishful thinking'!!!

Wicknight
They lived to 900 years old and had a happy and productive life producing a large family that all decided to inbreed ... ??

They had indeed very long and productive lives – but they still died as a result of their disobedience ……………

…….and the genetic diversity of all of Mankind resulted from your so-called ‘inbreeding’ of their children!!!!!:D


Wicknight
religion was a major part of eduction until the early 20th century

Religion still is a major part of education – only now the Religion increasingly takes the form of promoting Atheism, Materialism and Humanism.:D