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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
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Quiet. Too Quiet.0
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sssh. They are doing science.
MrP0 -
Maybe the Rapture finally happened.
I guess they showed us.
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Maybe the Rapture finally happened.
I guess they showed us.
Yup. But we continue to show them...
The Miller-Urey experiment created more amino acids and organics than previously realised:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081016141411.htm0 -
......anyway lads..........methinks that you have more than enough information to allow you to make your minds up about whether you are spontaneously evolved from Pondslime.....or NOT!!!!!
Here are some quotes from leading scientists and philosophers to lift your minds out of the Pondslime.......and they will hopefully 'kick-start' you into thinking about the eternal:-
Louis Agassiz (1807–73) Professor of Zoology and Geology at Harvard
Far from having been drawn to the Darwinian Theory, all my studies and all my experience thus far has led me in the opposite direction. Letter to Fritz Muller January 17, 1864
"Evolution and Permanence of Type" The Atlantic Monthly January 1874
Thomas Aquinas (1225–74)
We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. Summa Theologiae q. 2, art. 3
Augustine (354–430)
They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed. City of God 12.10
And therefore God created only one single man, not, certainly, that he might to be a solitary, bereft of all society , but that by this means the unity of society and the bond of concord might be more effectually commended to him, men being bound together not only by similarity of nature, but by family affection. And indeed He did not even create woman that was to be given him as his wife as he created the man, but created her out of the man, that the whole human race might derive from one man. City of God 12.21
For though God formed man of the dust of the earth, yet the earth itself, and every earthly material, is absolutely created out of nothing: and man’s soul, too, God created out of nothing, and joined to the body, when He made man. City of God 14.11
Whoever takes another meaning out of Scripture than the writer intended, goes astray, but not through any falsehood in Scripture. On Christian Doctrine 1.41
Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of Scripture, since greater is that authority than all the powers of the human mind. Commentary on the Book of Genesis0 -
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AtomicHorror wrote: »Yup. But we continue to show them...
The Miller-Urey experiment created more amino acids and organics than previously realised:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081016141411.htm
It would have been better to redo the experiments as well as test the 30-60 y old specimens.0 -
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.....and here are some further quotes to provide a fitful night's sleep for any Materialist who reads them......
.....go on......go on.....you will......you will......you willl....READ THEM!!!!!:D:)
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
For God, on the first day, only created light, and assigned a whole day to that work, without creating any material substance thereon. Novum Organum section 70
But any one who properly considers the subject, will find natural philosophy to be, after the word of God, the surest remedy against superstition, and the most approved support of faith. She is therefore rightly bestowed upon religion as a most faithful attendant, for the one exhibits the will and the other the power of God. Nor was he wrong who observed, "Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God;" thus uniting in one bond the revelation of his will, and the contemplation of his power. Novum Organum section 89
Let us begin from God, and show that our pursuit from its exceeding goodness clearly proceeds from him, the Author of good and Father of light. Novum Organum section 93
James Barr (1924–2006) Regius Professor of Hebrew at Christ Church, Oxford
Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. letter to David Watson April 23 1984
But the same point, the unity of the poem, could be understood, and has been understood, in the very opposite sense: namely, God makes himself known in two complementary ways, first through the great works of creation which control the world, and secondly through his special communication exemplified here by his law. The two channels of natural and revealed theology are here very properly to be seen. It is not surprising that the Psalm was seen as a fine manifestation of their complementarity, as was traditional in the older Christianity. Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (1993) Chapter 5.2 p.87
I do not have any starting-point within the tradition of natural theology. In principle, my starting-point is rather against it. To me the arguments of natural theology are not a congenial field. Even if natural theology should be a valid mode of procedure, I doubt if I would find it easy to practice it. In this respect, I share many of the doubts and objections that modern theologians have voiced against the whole idea of it. ... What I do find, after a long period of struggling with the problems, is that the Bible does imply something like natural theology and makes it impossible for us to avoid the issues that it involves. Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (1993) Chapter 6.1 p.102-3
The God of Israel alone had power, other gods were nonentities who could not do anything; Yahweh alone had created the world and guided what went on within it. Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (1993) Chapter 7 p.142
Some people said that the Jews were newcomers on the scene of world history and therefore had no status within civilization such as the Greeks had. Not at all, wrote the Jewish historian Josephus: the Jews have been here all the time and, unlike the Greeks, who have a lot of different and contradictory books, the Jews have one precise and unified history, one single narrative that goes back to the creation of the world about five thousand years before. The central point was the one book that gave a clear, or fairly clear, sequence in years from the absolute creation of the world down into later history. “Pre-scientific Chronology: The Bible and the Origin of the World” (1999)
Basil (329–79) Bishop of Caesarea
And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say "one day" not "the first day"? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says "one day," it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day--we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day. Homily II.8
"Let the earth bring forth." This short command was in a moment a vast nature, an elaborate system. Swifter than thought it produced the countless qualities of plants. Homily V.10
The water had been gathered into the reservoir assigned to it, the earth displayed its productions, it had caused many kinds of herbs to germinate and it was adorned with all kinds of plants. However, the sun and the moon did not yet exist, in order that those who live in ignorance of God may not consider the sun as the origin and the father of light, or as the maker of all that grows out of the earth. Homily VI.2
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Turns out J C wasn't dead, just sleeping.0
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J C,
Opinions are not science. The opinions of scientists are not science. Please provide some science. While you're at it, how about a reply to this:J C wrote:The self-repairing/healing aspect of this 'redundancy' was probably automatically switched on due to the trauma surrounding the Fall....
.....the process was probably something akin to, for example, how our skin healing/repair mechanisms are automatically switched when our skin is damaged by physical trauma!!!!
Got any science (or scripture) to back up your first statement? The second I take no issue with.J C wrote:.........organic systems were irreducibly complex BOTH before and after the Fall......with massive levels of 'redundancy' built in at Creation to cope with all future 'shocks'......including the Fall.
In that case then, humans were created imperfect. They lacked some much-needed (in the future) redundancies at the moment of creation. The creator built redundancies into some systems and not into others but did so with no regard to their relative importance. The heart is as important as the lungs (and two hearts is no challenge to an omnipotent being). The clotting cascade is as important as the chemokine system (perhaps more so) yet one is multiply redundant and the other has several critical/non-redundant points just waiting for a mutation. And underlying all of this is a brittle, error-prone inheritance system (DNA) that according to you cannot confer any advantages but which allows critical systems to fail at random. Unless the creator did not have proper fore-knowledge of the conditions after the fall, the above points constitute serious design flaws.
You did suggest previously that redundancy was lost in some cases due to The Fall, but now you seem to have realised that this is in fact equivalent to admitting that any example of "irreducible complexity" may simply be a previously-redundant system that lost its redundancy by some means. You might also suggest that redundancy might be gained post Fall, but of course this would contravene your claims that mutation can give "no new information".
So you must admit to a fallible Designer, abandon irreducible complexity as evidence of Design, or admit that mutation may confer function.
My, you are in a bind.0 -
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.......some useful quotes that summarises the ID Position from the brilliant and insightful Michael Behe:-
Michael Behe (b. 1952) PhD Biochemistry Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University
By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modification of a precursor, system, because any precursors to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. Darwin's Black Box (1996) p.39
In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations -- that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes. Darwin's Black Box (1996) p.40
In the face of the enormous complexity that modern biochemistry has uncovered in the cell, the scientific community is paralyzed. No one at Harvard University, no on at the National Institutes of Health, no member of the National Academy of Sciences, no Nobel prize winner -- no one at all can give a detailed account of how the cilium, or vision, or blood clotting, or any complex biochemical process might have developed in a Darwinian fashion. Darwin's Black Box (1996) p.187
Some proponents see great significance in the fact that they can write short computer programs which display images on the screen that resemble biological objects such as a clam shell. The implication is that it doesn't take much to make a clam. But a biologist or biochemist would want to know, if you opened the computer clam, would you see a pearl inside? If you enlarged the image sufficiently, would you see cilia and ribosomes and mitochondria and intracellular transport systems and all the other systems that real, live organisms need? Darwin's Black Box (1996) p.191
Coyne complains the book is ‘heavily larded’ with quotations from evolutionists. This leads into his being upset with being quoted himself, as discussed above. That aside, however. I don’t know what to make of this statement. What is a book concerning evolution supposed to contain if not quotes from evolutionists? Quotes from accountants? "Reply to my critics" Boston Review November 1996
The reviewers are not rejecting design because there is scientific evidence against it, or because it violates some principle of logic. Rather, I believe they find design unacceptable because they are uncomfortable with the theological ramifications of the theory. In his essay to the Pontifical Academy of Science, Pope John Paul II noted that a theory of evolution has two parts, the mechanism and the philosophy attached to that mechanism. Putting it like that, however, makes it sound as if any philosophy can be mixed and matched with any mechanism. But the situation is not really that clear-cut. While Catholics and many other Christians could accommodate the mechanism of Darwin to their theolgy (with the reservation that the course of evolution is not truly random, but foreordained by God), materialists require something like Darwinism because, ultimately, materialism says that life and intelligence had to arise unaided from brute matter. Signs of Intelligence (2001) p.100
Although scientists would love to undertake larger, more comprehensive studies, the scale of the problem is just too big. There aren't nearly enough resources available to a laboratory to perform them.
So, in lieu of definitive laboratory tests, by default most biologists work within a Darwinian framework and simply assume what cannot be demonstrated. Unfortunately, that can lead to the understandable but nonetheless corrosive intellectual habit of forgetting the difference between what is assumed and what demonstrated. Differences between widely varying kinds of organisms are automatically chalked up to random mutation and natural selection by even the most perceptive scientists, and even the most elegant of biological features is reflexively credited to Darwin's theory. The Edge of Evolution (2007) p. 9-10
Thanks to its enormous population size, rate of reproduction, and our knowledge of the genetics, the single best test case of Darwin's theory is the history of malaria. Much of this book will center on this disease. Many parasitic diseases afflict humanity, but historically the greatest bane has been malaria, and it is among the most thoroughly studied. For ten thousand years the mosquito-borne parasite has wreaked illness and death over vast expanses of the globe. Until a century ago humanity was ignorant of the cause of malarial fever, so no conscious defense was possible. The only way to lessen the intense, unyielding selective pressure from the parasite was through the power of random mutation. Hundreds of different mutations that confer a measure of resistance to malaria cropped up in the human genome and spread through our population by natural selection. These mutations have been touted by Darwinists as among the best, clearest examples of the abilities of Darwinian evolution.
And so they are. But, as we'll see, now that the molecular changes underlying malaria resistance have been laid bare, they tell a much different tale than Darwinists expected -- a tale that highlights the incoherent flailing involved in a blind search. Malaria offers some of the best examples of Darwinian evolution, but that evidence points both to what it can, and more important what it cannot, do. Similarly, changes in the human genome, in response to malaria, also point to the radical limits of the efficacy of random mutation.
Because it has been studied so extensively, and because of the astronomical number of organisms involved, the evolutionary struggle between humans and our ancient nemesis malaria is the best, most reliable basis we have for forming judgments about the power of random mutation and natural selection. Few other sources of information even come close. And as we'll see, the few that do tell similar tales. The Edge of Evolution (2007) p. 12-3
The defense of vertebrates from invasion by microscopic predators is the job of the immune system, yet hemoglobin is not part of the immune system. Hemoglobin's main job is a part of the respiratory system, to carry oxygen to tissues. Using hemoglobin to fight off malaria is an act of utter desperation, like using a TV set to plug a hole in the Hoover Dam. Even leaving aside the question of where the dam and TV set came from -- which is no small question -- it must be conceded that this Darwinian process is a tradeoff of least-bad alternatives. The army in its trenches is suffering loss upon loss. No matter which way it turns, in the war fought by random mutation and natural selection, it is losing function, not gaining. The Edge of Evolution (2007) p.29-30
Both sickle and HbC and quintessentially hurtful mutations because they diminish the functioning of the human body. Both induce anemia and other detrimental effects. In happier times they would never gain a foothold in human populations. But in desperate times, when an invasion threatens the city, it can be better in the short run to burn a bridge to keep the enemy out. The Edge of Evolution (2007) p.34-5
Real arms races are run by highly intelligent, bespectacled engineers in glass offices thoughtfully designing shiny weapons on modern computers. But there's no thinking in the mud and cold of nature's trenches. At best, weapons thrown together amidst the explosions and confusion of smoky battlefields are tiny variations on old ones, held together by chewing gum. If they don't work, then something else is thrown at the enemy, including the kitchen sink -- there's nothing "progressive" about that. At its usual worst, trench warfare is fought by attrition. If the enemy can be stopped or slowed by burning your own bridges and bombing your own radio towers and oil refineries, then away they go. Darwinian trench warfare does not lead to progress -- it leads back to the Stone Age. The Edge of Evolution (2007) p.42-3
Is the conclusion that the universe was designed -- and that the design extends deeply into life -- science, philosophy, religion, or what? In a sense it hardly matters. By far the most important question is not what category we place it in, but whether a conclusion is true. A true philosophical or religious conclusion is no less true than a true scientific one. Although universities might divide their faculty and courses into academic categories, reality is not obliged to respect such boundaries. The Edge of Evolution (2007) p.232
The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious. Design for Living February 7 2005
The most essential prediction of Darwinism is that, given an astronomical number of chances, unintelligent processes can make seemingly-designed systems, ones of the complexity of those found in the cell. ID specifically denies this, predicting that in the absence of intelligent input no such systems would develop. So Darwinism and ID make clear, opposite predictions of what we should find when we examine genetic results from a stupendous number of organisms that are under relentless pressure from natural selection. The recent genetic results are a stringent test. The results: 1) Darwinism’s prediction is falsified; 2) Design’s prediction is confirmed. Amazon Blog June 18, 2007
On occasion I receive astonished inquiries from Europeans asking how Americans can allow a judge to rule on what are essentially philosophical matters. Good question -- although it seems some European bureaucracies are getting in on the act now, too. Amazon Blog November 2, 2007
The importance of this discussion is that it sets the stage for the whole book by showing that random mutations much more easily debilitate genes than improve them, and that this is true even of the helpful mutations. Let me emphasize, our experience with malaria’s effects on humans (arguably our most highly studied genetic system) shows that most helpful mutations degrade genes. What’s more, as a group the mutations are incoherent, meaning that they are not adding up to some new system. They are just small changes -- mostly degradative -- in pre-existing, unrelated genes. The take-home lesson is that this is certainly not the kind of process we would expect to build the astonishingly elegant machinery of the cell. If random mutation plus selective pressure substantially trashes the human genome, why should we think that it would be a constructive force in the long term? There is no reason to think so.
No Darwinian reviewer of The Edge of Evolution has paused long to ponder the effects of malaria on the human genome. I wonder why. Amazon Blog November 2, 20070 -
.....and here are some thoughts on the mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY of Evolution....by a leading Mathematician:-
It turns out that Dawkins' phrase "Methinks it is like a weasel"-occupies an isolated point in combinatorial space of 10,000 million, million, million, million, million, million possibilities.....i.e the odds against a monkey typing this simple sentence by chance are 10,000 million, million, million, million, million, million to one!!!!
...........could I also suggest that you would end up with one very tired and 'stressed out' monkey!!!!!!:):D
David Berlinski (b. 1942) Postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University
"It is just a matter of time," one biologist wrote recently, reposing his faith in a receding hereafter, "before this fruitful concept comes to be accepted by the public as wholeheartedly as it has accepted the spherical earth and the sun-centered solar system." Time, however, is what evolutionary biologists have long had, and if general acceptance has not come by now, it is hard to know when it ever will. The Deniable Darwin Commentary June 1996
The probability that a monkey will strike a given letter is one in 26. The typewriter has 26 keys: the monkey, one working finger. But a letter is not a word. Should Dawkins demand that the monkey get two English letters right, the odds against success rise with terrible inexorability from one in 26 to one in 676. The Shakespearean target chosen by Dawkins -- "Methinks it is like a weasel"-is a six-word sentence containing 28 English letters (including the spaces). It occupies an isolated point in a space of 10,000 million, million, million, million, million, million possibilities. This is a very large number; combinatorial inflation is at work. And these are very long odds. And a six-word sentence consisting of 28 English letters is a very short, very simple English sentence.
Such are the fatal facts. The problem confronting the monkeys is, of course, a double one: they must, to be sure, find the right letters, but they cannot lose the right letters once they have found them. A random search in a space of this size is an exercise in irrelevance. This is something the monkeys appear to know...The entire exercise is, however, an achievement in self-deception. A target phrase? Iterations that most resemble the target? A Head Monkey that measures the distance between failure and success? If things are sightless, how is the target represented, and how is the distance between randomly generated phrases and the targets assessed? And by whom? And the Head Monkey? What of him? The mechanism of deliberate design, purged by Darwinian theory on the level of the organism, has reappeared in the description of natural selection itself, a vivid example of what Freud meant by the return of the repressed. The Deniable Darwin Commentary June 1996
Curiously enough, for all that science may be very good thing, members of the scientific community are often dismayed to discover, like policemen, that they are not better loved. Indeed, they are widely considered self-righteous, vain, politically immature, and arrogant. This last is considered a special injustice. "Contrary to what many anti-intellectuals maintain," the biologist Massimo Pigliucci has written, science is "a much more humble enterprise than any religion or other ideology." Yet despite the outstanding humility of the scientific community, anti-intellectuals persist in their sullen suspicions. Scientists are hardly helped when one of their champions immerses himself in the emollient of his own enthusiasm. Thus Richard Dawkins recounts the story of his professor of zoology at Oxford, a man who had "for years... passionately believed that the Golgi apparatus was not real." On hearing during a lecture by a visiting American that his views were in error, "he strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand, and said -- with passion -- 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.'" The story, Dawkins avows, still has the power "to bring a lump to my throat."
It could not have been a very considerable lump. No similar story has ever been recounted about Richard Dawkins. Quite the contrary. He is as responsive to criticism as a black hole in space. "It is absolutely safe to say," he has remarked, "that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution that person is ignorant, stupid or insane." The Devil's Delusion (2008) p.6-7
Within mathematical physics, there is no concept of the evidence that is divorced from the theories that it is evidence for, because it is the theory that determines what counts as the evidence. What sense could one make of the claim that top quarks exist in the absence of the Standard Model or particle physics? A thirteenth-century cleric unaccountably persuaded of their existence and babbling rapturously of quark confinement would have faced then the question that all religious believers now face: Show me the evidence. Lacking the access to the very considerable apparatus needed to test theories in particle physics, it is a demand he could not have met. The Devil's Delusion (2008) p.500 -
.......turns our you are BOTH right....I was sleeping and praying (though not simultaneously)......I was also reading up on some very profound thoughts by other people on the topic of this debate. I always like to open my mind to other people's views and ideas ......and I would also highly recommend that all Evolutionists open their minds to alternative opinions:-Originally Posted by Galvasean
Turns out J C wasn't dead, just sleeping.
AtomicHorror
My guess would be praying.
Graham Cairns-Smith (b. 1931) Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of Glasgow
Biology has become, quite simply, the study of the causes and effects of evolution, and the question of the origin of life is, first, the question of the origin of evolution. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.1
The optimism persists in many elementary textbooks. There is even, sometimes, a certain boredom with the question; as if it was now merely difficult because of an obscurity of view, a difficulty of knowing now the details of distant historical events.
What a pity if the problem had really become like that! Fortunately it hasn't. It remains a singular case (Sherlock Holmes' favourite kind): far from there being a million ways in detail in which evolution could have got under way, there seems now to have been no obvious way at all. The singular feature is in the gap between the simplest conceivable version of organisms as we know them, and components that the Earth might reasonably have been able to generate. This gap can be seen more clearly now. It is enormous. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.4
Now I cannot deny all these possibilities: life on the Earth may be a miracle, or a freak, or an alien infection. And I agree that the confidence was misplaced that supposed in the fifties that the answer to the origin of life would appear in some footnote to the answer to the question of how organisms work. Something much more will be needed. Something odd. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.8
It may seem hardly surprising that no one has ever actually made a self-reproducing machine, even though Von Neumann laid down the design principles more than 40 years ago. You can imagine a clanking robot moving around a stock-room of raw components (wire, metal plates, blank tapes and so on) choosing the pieces to make another robot like itself. You can show that there is nothing logically impossible about such an idea: that tomorrow morning there could be two clanking robots in the stock-room...(I leave it as a reader' home project to make the detailed engineering drawings.)
There is nothing clanking about E. coli; yet it is such a robot, and it can operate in a stock-room that is furnished with only the simples raw components. Is it any wonder that E. coli's message tape is long? (If you remember the paper equivalent would be about 10 kilometres long.)
Is it any wonder that no free-living organisms have been discovered with message tapes below '2 kilometres'? Is it any wonder that Von Neumann himself, and many others, have found the origin of life to be utterly perplexing?' Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.14-50 -
Please stop spamming us with opinion pieces. You have still not responded to my comments. Are you just trying to fill up pages in the hopes I'll forget?0
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AtomicHorror wrote: »Please stop spamming us with opinion pieces. You have still not responded to my comments. Are you just trying to fill up pages in the hopes I'll forget?
I think you've broken her.
She's clearly stuck between an immoveable fact and an irreconcilable opinion, and it looks like her panic response has been to go quote-mining.
Edit: And now I'm worried that this post will get lost in the muddle...0 -
The Mad Hatter wrote: »I think you've broken her.
She's clearly stuck between an immoveable fact and an irreconcilable opinion, and it looks like her panic response has been to go quote-mining.
Edit: And now I'm worried that this post will get lost in the muddle...
More likely buying time until he can launch a semantic attack on one of the three options and thus break back into FantasyLand. How many times can I repost the same statement before I get a slap on the wrist for spamming? How many times can J C post a sea of green copypaste text before the same happens?0 -
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.....I reserve the right to not respond to 'smartypants' comments!!!!Originally Posted by The Mad Hatter
I think you've broken her.
AtomicHorror
You have still not responded to my comments. Are you just trying to fill up pages in the hopes I'll forget?
......anyway, you DON'T value my opinion .....so why should I continue to waste my time giving it????
.......you don't accept my scientific credentials....and some of ye don't even accept my gender.....so I think that it is valid, in the circumstances to present the opinions of other leading scientists and philosophers......that you CANNOT reject on the grounds that you don't accept their qualifications!!!!!:pac::):D
Here are some more very profound comments from the great Graham Cairns-Smith (b. 1931) Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of Glasgow:-
......it is not just the sheer size of even the smallest Libraries (of genetic information in living cells); it is not just that nucleotide units are rather complex in themselves, and rather difficult to join together (because Nature is on the side of keeping them apart); it is not just the need for enzymes, here, there and everywhere; it is not just that enzymes are of little use unless they have been made properly; it is not just that ribosomes are so very sophisticated -- and look as though they would have to be to do their job; it is not just such questions relating to the particular kind of life that we are familiar with. There seems also to be a more fundamental difficulty. Any conceivable kind of organism would have to contain messages of some sort and equipment for reading and reprinting the messages: any conceivable organism would thus seem to have to be packed with machinery and as such need a miracle (or something) for the first of its kind to have appeared. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.30
There are many thoughtful and knowledgeable people, nowadays, who don't understand the origin of life. This is in spite of a 'big picture' provided by a theory known as 'chemical evolution'. Like the phlogiston theory, 'chemical evolution' looks good from a distance, and there is a common-sense about it. But, to my mind, like the phlogiston theory, it fails to carry through an initial promise: it fails at the more detailed explanations. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.340 -
.....and to further your education.......here was where the great Graham Cairns-Smith came up against 'Mount Improbable'.....and found it to be 'Mount Impossible'!!!!!!:pac::):D
I will grant that the path of chemical evolution seems sensible and in the right direction. There are a few obvious puddles to be avoided and some of the flagstones are a bit uneven, perhaps. but there is the promise of an easy walk up to the foothills of the mountain that we can see straight ahead of us. It is a promise that is unfulfilled. The trouble with this path is that it leads us toward, but it does not lead us to expect, a sudden near-vertical cliff-face. Suddenly in our thinking we are faced with the seemingly unequivocal need for a fully working machine of incredible complexity: a machine that has to be complex, it seems, not just to work well but to work at all. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.37
But if we take this as the kind of chance that we are talking about, then we can say that the odds against a successful unguided synthesis of a batch of primed nucleotide on the primitive Earth are similar to the odds against a six coming up every time with 140 throws of a dice. Is that sort of thing too much of a coincidence or not?
There are 6 possible outcomes from throwing a dice once; 6 x 6 from a double throw; 6 x 6 x 6 from a triple throw; and 6 multiplied by itself 140 times from 140 throws. This is a huge number, represented approximately by a 1 followed by 109 zeros (i.e. ~ 10^109). This is the sort of number of trials that you would have to make to have a reasonable chance of hitting on the one outcome that represents success. Throwing one dice once a second for the period of the Earth's history would only let you get through about 10^15 trials: so you would need about 10^94 dice. That is far more than the number of electrons in the observed Universe (estimated at around 10^80).0 -
.....I reserve the right to not respond to 'smartypants' comments!!!!
Ah yes, how dare I use my book-learnin' words to bamboozle people. Please.......anyway, you DON'T value my opinion .....so why should I continue to waste my time giving it????
You don't value our opinions. We'll continue to give them because we are refuting the nonsense you post........ye don't even accept my gender.....
Ye? I accept your gender as male. I have never implied you were otherwise.so I think it is valid to present the opinions of other leading scientists and philosophers......that you CANNOT reject on the grounds that you don't accept their qualifications!!!!!:pac::):D
Qualification is not, and never was, a relevant point in this debate. Both sides have PhDs. Both sides are multipiciplinary. Only one side is using science, and it is not the creationists. That is, and has been, our core point. This spamming business is just a distraction.Here are some more very profound comments from t-
Will you please stop spamming?0 -
.....I do value your opinions.....only I find them to be WRONG!!!!:eek:AtomicHorror wrote: »You don't value our opinions.
.....I said some of ye!!!!Originally Posted by J C
....and some of ye don't even accept my gender
AtomicHorror
Ye? I accept your gender as male. I have never implied you were otherwise.
Originally Posted by The Mad Hatter
I think you've broken her.
.....so you accept that Creation Scientists ARE conventionally qualified in Science.....and they ARE eminently qualified in Science.....BUT you still don't accept that they are scientists........what totally bizzarre reasoning!!!!:):eek:AtomicHorror
Qualification is not, and never was, a relevant point in this debate. Both sides have PhDs. Both sides are multipiciplinary. Only one side is using science, and it is not the creationists. That is, and has been, our core point.
...I'm NOT spamming.....I am quoting eminent scientists opinions on the topic of Evolution......because you don't accept my scientific opinion......AtomicHorror
Will you please stop spamming?
....and here is some further 'mind expanding' information on irreducible complexity from the great Graham Cairns-Smith :-
Of course you might argue that in practice a synthesis might be carried through in different ways, and that is true, but remember what generous allowances we made in cutting down the actual amount of sheer skill that organic synthesis requires. And remember too that a manufacturing procedure is not usually very forgiving about arbitrary modifications: it all too easily goes off the rails never to recover. This is especially true of chemical processes, where it is usually not good enough to add the acid at the wrong time or throw away the wrong solution, or even use an ultraviolet lamp of the wrong sort. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.47-8
The bit that is not so clear about the eye -and a favourite challenge to Darwin - is how its components evolved when the whole machine will only work when all the components are there in place and working.
Not that this problem is peculiar to the eye. Organisms are full of such machinery, and it is a widely held view that this appearance of having been designed is the key feature of living things. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life (1985) p.580 -
......and here is a real thought-provoking 'gem' of wisdom from Jun-Yuan Chen Research Professor Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology:-
In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin. The Wall Street Journal August 16, 1999 .......strange.....but TRUE!!!!!!:pac::):D:eek:
......I guess every culture has it's own particular 'sacred cows'......that nobody can dare question!!!!!:D
....and here is an EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST'S true.....and damning opinion of Evolution:-
Jerry Coyne Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago
In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture. Of Vice and Men The New Republic April 3 2000 p.27
.....and here is more frank admissions by the great Jerry Coyne....about how USELESS Evolution.....as both a Theory and a Concept.....actually is!!!!
Truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all. Nature August 31 2006 p.9840 -
....in this quote Professor Paul Campos confirms what I have always maintained.....that Atheistic Materialism (and it's pet Theory of Spontaneous Evolution) is a religious FAITH!!!!!
Paul Campos Professor of Law at the University of Colorado
Materialism is the view that at bottom reality consists of nothing but particles in fields of force, and that all events are caused solely by the operation of mindless physical laws. Several things should be noted about this belief. First, believing in materialism is an act of faith like any other. The ultimate nature of reality isn't a scientific question, and anyone who expects science to provide answers regarding such matters doesn't understand either science or religion.
Second, the debate about whether the world is ultimately a meaningless flux or something more has been going on for thousands of years. The belief that materialism is a product of post-Enlightenment thought in general and modern science in particular is itself a product of historical ignorance. Materialism's Leap of Faith Rocky Mountain News November 29, 20050 -
All irrelevant to the debate at hand. The utility of evolution is irrelevant to it's veracity. As are the various opinions of ID proponents and some confused mainstream scientists out of their fields and depths.
Show us the evidence, not sound bites. You are spamming this thread so that you have something, anything to say. I suspect you're also trying to bury the tough questions we've been asking you.0 -
.....so you accept that Creation Scientists ARE conventionally qualified in Science.....and they ARE eminently qualified in Science.....BUT you still don't accept that they are scientists........what totally bizzarre reasoning!!!!:):eek:
Some scientists are creationists, that is not in dispute. However, there is no such thing as a 'creation scientist' - not even you can provide a single example of one! :pac:0 -
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Let's try again. And my apologies to anyone sick of seeing this post.
J C,
Opinions are not science. The opinions of scientists are not science. Please provide some science. While you're at it, how about a reply to this:J C wrote:The self-repairing/healing aspect of this 'redundancy' was probably automatically switched on due to the trauma surrounding the Fall....
.....the process was probably something akin to, for example, how our skin healing/repair mechanisms are automatically switched when our skin is damaged by physical trauma!!!!
Got any science (or scripture) to back up your first statement? The second I take no issue with.J C wrote:.........organic systems were irreducibly complex BOTH before and after the Fall......with massive levels of 'redundancy' built in at Creation to cope with all future 'shocks'......including the Fall.
In that case then, humans were created imperfect. They lacked some much-needed (in the future) redundancies at the moment of creation. The creator built redundancies into some systems and not into others but did so with no regard to their relative importance. The heart is as important as the lungs (and two hearts is no challenge to an omnipotent being). The clotting cascade is as important as the chemokine system (perhaps more so) yet one is multiply redundant and the other has several critical/non-redundant points just waiting for a mutation. And underlying all of this is a brittle, error-prone inheritance system (DNA) that according to you cannot confer any advantages but which allows critical systems to fail at random. Unless the creator did not have proper fore-knowledge of the conditions after the fall, the above points constitute serious design flaws.
You did suggest previously that redundancy was lost in some cases due to The Fall, but now you seem to have realised that this is in fact equivalent to admitting that any example of "irreducible complexity" may simply be a previously-redundant system that lost its redundancy by some means. You might also suggest that redundancy might be gained post Fall, but of course this would contravene your claims that mutation can give "no new information".
So you must admit to a fallible Designer, abandon irreducible complexity as evidence of Design, or admit that mutation may confer function.0
This discussion has been closed.
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