The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Sam Vimes

man of faith wrote: »

Yes they believe that the Covenant God made with Abraham was to carry on through his son Ishmael, of whom they are descendants of. The Christians and Jews recognise Isaac as the son for the Covenant of promise to be instituted. This Covenant outlined the land of Israel as the covenant land, which is why we now have Iran wanting to nuke the Jews and the Palestinians fighting the Jews. Islam will never recognise the Jewish state of Israel. They gave Borack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in trying to make the Palestinians and the Jews co-exist in the land of Israel, but the reality is that there will never be peace as long as Israel exists. Palestinians are taught from day one to never recognise the Jewish State of Israel. The Iranian's (extreme Islamics) have vowed to nuke Israel off the map, and are currently having to fess up about a 2nd hidden nuclear plant. Thank God that they are now facing sanctions. Finally, the free world is standing up and doing all that is within their power to diffuse world war 3.

Your point?

man of faith

If creation itself - all the sciences of us, our planet and our universe are not evidence of God's own fingerprint, than I am stumped to think of anything other than what is staring you in the face to convince you of a divine creator. Accepting Christianity is an act of faith. Many atheists will argue this point as one of the flaws of Christianity, saying that we can only believe what we do by faith, not fact. I don't disagree with this. Faith is a choice that I have made and it is by faith that I call myself a Christian. To me, if you are crazy enough to put your faith in man's wisdom and all of man's concocted theories, than your faith is exponentially higher than mine.

You just don't want to believe. That is your issue

man of faith

was responding to moderator who was discussing difference between Christians and Muslims.

lugha

man of faith wrote: »

You just don't want to believe. That is your issue

I’m an atheist and I do want to believe, or at least I would certainly like if the promise of eternal life were true. But God, if he exists, made me the way he did, and when I contemplate the world, I consider it utterly implausible that I might have being made by any God, Christian or otherwise. Wasn’t it rather unfair of God to make me this way if he really does want me to be saved?

Turtwig

man of faith wrote: »

If creation itself - all the sciences of us, our planet and our universe are not evidence of God's own fingerprint, than I am stumped to think of anything other than what is staring you in the face to convince you of a divine creator. Accepting Christianity is an act of faith. Many atheists will argue this point as one of the flaws of Christianity, saying that we can only believe what we do by faith, not fact. I don't disagree with this. Faith is a choice that I have made and it is by faith that I call myself a Christian. To me, if you are crazy enough to put your faith in man's wisdom and all of man's concocted theories, than your faith is exponentially higher than mine.

You just don't want to believe. That is your issue

Creation, whatever that may be, through evolution is an amazing feat! It boggles my mind everyday to think that some Christians are denying themselves the beauty of such a simple elegant process of nature (a 'law' selected by a deity if they believe in one!) that works so efficiently and so brilliantly to diversify life.
I take it that when you drive your car everyday you trust that humankind's derived laws of thermodynamics and physics won't cause the minute explosions inside your car's engine to blow the whole thing (yourself included!) to smithereens? Humankind's 'concocted' theories of science have proved themselves to us.
Christianity, may be purely faith based, but I doubt many do it as blindly as you claim they do. They still use the reasonable mind God gave them to make enquiries about His world. Christianity may claimed we're* flawed because of the 'fall' but it certainly doesn't claim we're useless.

*By 'we' I mean humanity, of course.

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

...if the rate of radioactive decay could be changed we wouldn't have any problem with radioactive waste, we'd just increase its half life and eliminate the danger. Radiometric dating is perfectly valid.

...it's Evolutionists who require that the rate changes ... the discovery of the first polystrate fossil tree should have finished all this radiometric baloney ... but Materialism and Evolutionism are very strong faiths indeed!!!:D

J C

Morbert wrote: »

You said Darwinian evolution violates laws of probability. Now you are talking about "overcoming", which is entirely different. Darwinian evolution obviously overcomes improbability through the natural selection of random genetic mutations. But it does not violate any laws of probability.

...you are technically correct ... Evolution doesn't violate the laws of probability - it simply cannot overcome the laws of probability!!!!:D

man of faith

If you were to become a believer, hypothetically speaking, then this is where you must conceive the possibility that perhaps another being is at work to deceive you into believing that God doesn't exist. The bible says he is like a roaming lion, seeking who he may devour. Without God, he is the owner of your soul, and he will go to great lengths to keep it that way. To me the evidence of satan is very real. A perfect explanation for the horrific atrocities that occur in our world every day. To me, it is perfectly rational to accept that extreme good can be found among a world so full of extreme evil. Budhists put it down to yin and yang, I put it down to God VS Satan - and God already won the battle 2000 years ago. Its now up to us to claim this victory that belongs to all who accept and receive.

wolfsbane

Sam Vimes said:

Firstly you are saying here that there is no satisfactory proof of evolution for you because the only proof you will accept is the act of one "type" being demonstrated to change into another which, as I explained, takes millions of years. You have deliberately defined a "proof" that it is impossible for anyone to give.

As I said, I appreciate your difficulty. With that difficulty, you should not claim that evolution has been observed.

And secondly, "God did it" is not a scientific theory.

But a recent, mature creation is. Who created is beyond science to say, just as it is beyond science to say how the universe came into being in the Big Bang model.

Fossil evidence is an unnecessary bonus in providing evidence for evolution, all we have to do is look at our DNA. To give one example, the DNA of apes is less than 2% different to our own, one of our chromosomes is identical to two of the chromosomes of apes fused together. According to yourself this 2% difference is apparently an insurmountable barrier but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that is the case. This 2% is just as susceptible to variation as any other part of our DNA.

It is the nature of the change that is the issue. Variations in humans that are beneficial/tolerable arise from the available information already there being resorted or deleted. How would one account for the 60 million base pair changes necessary for ape-to-man change? Random mutation???
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/ee/natural-selection-vs-evolution
The 2% difference actually translates into about 60 million base pair differences. The small differences in the genes are actually turned into a large difference in the proteins produced.

Evolution has withstood the rigours of scientific inquiry for 150 years whereas creationism has been debunked as junk science every single time it has tried to be taken seriously. This idea that there is some controversy over the validity of evolution is a myth propagated by creationists who simply won't accept that their "theory" has been debunked.

That's your bed-time story. Pity it keeps you asleep during the day too. :pac:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
As above, I'm not saying it is impossible to walk from Cork to Donegal because you can't do it in a few minutes. Or that you can't micro-lite to the moon because you can't do it in the time I can to the next field.

That is begging the question. You assert there is no intrinsic limit - but you do not prove it.

Can you micro-lite to the Moon, given enough time?
I don't know what micro-lite-ing is but I'm assuming it's not rocket propulsion capable of escaping the earth's gravitational pull, which would mean the two situations are different because you are comparing something that is impossible to something that is simply a continuation of a process that you accept to exist. I am not "asserting that there is no intrinsic limit", you are asserting that there is one but you do not prove it. I have seen nothing to suggest that there is such a limit other than a declaration from creationists that there is one.

The microlite (small motorized plane) overcomes earth's gravity all the time. But there is a limit beyond which it cannot do so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
It depends on the truthfulness of the Witness. There are many liars out there.

How one knows the difference has been dealt with before, but I'm happy to discuss it if you wish.
To be honest if it's going to get long-winded I'd rather not. I'll just say right now that there is no way you will convince me that one guy's eye-witness account of a supernatural event is true and all others are false. No eye-witness account will ever convince me of the existence of the supernatural because I know how flawed human perception is

I agree - you will not believe me or anyone else concerning God, until God reveals Himself to you. Your mind is darkened and your heart is hard toward God; that's how we all start out.

But it might not always be that way.

J C

Morbert wrote: »

Punctuated equilibrium is Darwinian evolution.

....so can we look forward, possibly in 30 years time, and possibly on this thread, that some Evolutionist will claim that ID was Darwinian Evolution after all??!!!:D

Sam Vimes

man of faith wrote: »

If creation itself - all the sciences of us, our planet and our universe are not evidence of God's own fingerprint, than I am stumped to think of anything other than what is staring you in the face to convince you of a divine creator.

Humans have a very long history of mistaking natural phenomena for the work of gods or other supernatural ideas, such as Thor the thunder god among many others

Also, even if I did accept the idea of a divine creator, that brings me no closer to being able to pick one religion over any others

man of faith wrote: »

Accepting Christianity is an act of faith. Many atheists will argue this point as one of the flaws of Christianity, saying that we can only believe what we do by faith, not fact. I don't disagree with this. Faith is a choice that I have made and it is by faith that I call myself a Christian. To me, if you are crazy enough to put your faith in man's wisdom and all of man's concocted theories, than your faith is exponentially higher than mine.

You just don't want to believe. That is your issue

Again your problem here is that you have begun with the assumption that the bible is the perfect word of god. Only an idiot would put faith in man's wisdom over god's but the point is that I don't think the bible is the word of god, I think it's mythology claiming to be the word of god just like all of the others. There are many religions that threaten me with eternal torture for non-belief so everyone on the planet is taking the risk that they might be wrong, including you.

Turtwig

wolfsbane wrote: »

But a recent, mature creation is. Who created is beyond science to say, just as it is beyond science to say how the universe came into being in the Big Bang model.

Just a quickie, the universe did not come into 'being' from the Big Bang model, the model merely describes its, for want of a better word, evolution of space : whatever the heck that actually means.
Explain how the universe came into being is something science is working on, and they have some dam good theories. Of course, this all depends on what you mean by being, nothing, infinity etc etc...

Turtwig

JC,

How can Evolution not overcome the laws of probability?? Still waiting to see how exactly you're gonna prove that.

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

What you are asking for takes many generations, thousands or millions of years. It's not possible to show it happening in a lab but the evidence of it happening is all around us.

if it cannot be observed then it is strictly ouside of Science!!!!

Sam Vimes wrote: »

It has been observed to have happened in the past. What you are suggesting is akin to saying that you can walk to your next door neighbour's house but it's completely impossible to walk from Cork to Donegal and you won't accept anyone claiming otherwise unless they can show you someone doing it in the same time it takes you to walk to your neighbour's.

..the analogy is more like claiming that you can walk to the Moon just because you can walk to your neighbour's house, only it will take a long time ...as in NEVER!!!!:D

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Evolution from one "type" of organism to another takes a long time but it's exactly the same process as evolution within organisms. There are not two "kinds" of DNA, one of which determines the species and is susceptible to variation and the other of which determines the "type" and is fixed and unchanging. It's all equally susceptible to variation.

...observed evolution is all about juggling and/or degrading genetic information ... and it therefore shows no potential to 'move' muck to become man ... irrespective of the time available!!!!

...its all about the TYPE of evolution we observe and not the SCALE!!!

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

Sam Vimes said:

As I said, I appreciate your difficulty. With that difficulty, you should not claim that evolution has been observed.

You misunderstand me. Evolution has been proven already, what you are asking for simply shows that you do not understand how it works. It is a deliberately impossible request that allows creationists to keep that tiny sliver of doubt where their faith lives

wolfsbane wrote: »

But a recent, mature creation is. Who created is beyond science to say, just as it is beyond science to say how the universe came into being in the Big Bang model.

Who created it or how it was created is indeed currently beyond science but that in no way suggests that anyone's old book contains the answer that science doesn't

wolfsbane wrote: »

I agree - you will not believe me or anyone else concerning God, until God reveals Himself to you. Your mind is darkened and your heart is hard toward God; that's how we all start out.

If god revealed himself to me I would go to a doctor to see if I was ill in some way. With the knowledge that human perception is extremely flawed, that perception alone will never be enough to convince me of the supernatural. For every person who thinks the christian god has revealed himself there is one who thinks that allah has done the same

man of faith wrote: »

If you were to become a believer, hypothetically speaking, then this is where you must conceive the possibility that perhaps another being is at work to deceive you into believing that God doesn't exist. The bible says he is like a roaming lion, seeking who he may devour. Without God, he is the owner of your soul, and he will go to great lengths to keep it that way. To me the evidence of satan is very real. A perfect explanation for the horrific atrocities that occur in our world every day. To me, it is perfectly rational to accept that extreme good can be found among a world so full of extreme evil. Budhists put it down to yin and yang, I put it down to God VS Satan - and God already won the battle 2000 years ago. Its now up to us to claim this victory that belongs to all who accept and receive.

Perhaps another being is at work to deceive you into believing that Allah doesn't exist.

wolfsbane

The nature of actual variation and the nature of the barrier to fish-to-philosopher evolution:

The concept of information
The letters on this [printed] page—that is, the matter making up the ink and paper—all obey the laws of physics and chemistry, but these laws are not responsible for the information they carry. Information may depend on matter for its storage, transmission and retrieval, but is not a property of it. The ideas expressed in this article, for instance, originated in mind and were imposed on the matter. Living things also carry tremendous volumes of information on their biological molecules—again, this information is not a property of their chemistry, not a part of matter and the physical laws per se. It results from the order—from the way in which the letters of the cell’s genetic ‘alphabet’ are arranged. This order has to be imposed on these molecules from outside their own properties. Living things pass this information on from generation to generation. The base sequences of the DNA molecule effectively spell out a genetic ‘blue-print’ which determines the ultimate properties of the organism. In the final analysis, inherited biological variations are expressions of the variations in this information. Genes can be regarded as ‘sentences’ of hereditary information written in the DNA ‘language’.

Imagine now the first population of living things on the evolutionist’s ‘primitive earth’. This so-called ‘simple cell’ would, of course, have a lot of genetic information, but vastly less than the information in only one of its present-day descendant gene pools, e.g., man. The evolutionist proposes that this ‘telegram’ has given rise to ‘encyclopedias’ of meaningful, useful genetic sentences. (See later for discussion of ‘meaning’ and ‘usefulness’ in a biological sense.) Thus he must account for the origin with time of these new and meaningful sentences. His only ultimate source for these is mutation.3

Going back to the analogy of the printed page, the information in a living creature’s genes is copied during reproduction, analogous to the way in which an automatic typewriter reproduces information over and over. A mutation is an accident, a mistake, a ‘typing error’. Although most such changes are acknowledged to be harmful or meaningless, evolutionists propose that occasionally one is useful in a particular environmental context and hence its possessor has a better chance of survival/reproduction. By looking now at the informational basis for other mechanisms of biological variation, it will be seen why these are not the source of new sentences and therefore why the evolutionist generally relies on mutation of one sort or another in his scheme of things.

1. Mendelian variation
This is the mechanism responsible for most of the new varieties which we see from breeding experiments and from reasonable inferences in nature. Sexual reproduction allows packets of information to be combined in many different ways, but will not produce any new packets or sentences. For example, when the many varieties of dog were bred from a ‘mongrel’ stock, this was achieved by selecting desired traits in successive generations, such that the genes or sentences for these traits became isolated into certain lines. Although some of these sentences may have been ‘hidden from view’ in the original stock, they were already present in that population. (We are disregarding mutation for the moment, since such new varieties may arise independently of any new mutations in the gene pool. Some dogs undoubtedly have mutant characteristics.)

This sort of variation can only occur if there is a storehouse of such sentences available to choose from. Natural (or artificial) selection can explain the survival of the fittest but not the arrival of the fittest, which is the real question. These Mendelian variations tell us nothing about how the genetic information in the present stock arose. Hence, it is not the sort of change required to demonstrate ‘upward’ evolution—there has been no addition of new and useful ‘sentences’. And this is in spite of the fact that it is possible to observe many new varieties in this way—even new species. If you define a species as a freely interbreeding natural unit, it is easy to see how new species could arise without any ‘uphill’ change. That is, without the addition of any new information coding for any new functional complexity. For example, mutation could introduce a defect which served as a genetic barrier, or simple physical differences, such as the sizes of Great Dane and Chihuahua, could make interbreeding impossible in nature.

It is a little surprising to still see the occasional creationist literature clinging to the concept that no new species have ever been observed. Even if this were true, and there is some suggestion that it has actually been observed, there are instances of ‘clines’ in field observations which make it virtually certain that two now-isolated (reproductively) species have arisen from the same ancestral gene pool. Yet the very same creationists who seem reluctant to make that sort of admission would be quite happy to agree with the rest of us that the various species within what may be regarded as the ‘dog’ kind, including perhaps wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes and the domestic dog, have arisen from a single ancestral kind. So why may this no longer be permitted to be happening under present-day observations? It is not only biblically and scientifically unnecessary, but it sets up a ‘straw man’ in the sense that any definite observation of a new species arising is used as a further lever with which to criticize creationists.

What we see in the process of artificial selection or breeding giving rise to new varieties, is a thinning-out of the information in the parent stock, a reduction in the genetic potential for further variation. If you try and breed a Chihuahua from a Great Dane population or vice versa, you will find that your population lacks the necessary ‘sentences’. This is because, as each variety was selected out, the genes it carried were not representative of the entire gene pool.

What appeared to be a dramatic example of change with the appearance of apparently new traits thus turns out, when its genetic basis is understood, to be an overall downward movement in informational terms. The number of sentences carried by each subgroup is reduced thus making it less likely to survive future environmental changes. Extrapolating that sort of process forward in time does not lead to upwards evolution, but ultimately to extinction with the appearance of evermore-informationally-depleted populations.

2. Polyploidy
Again, no sentences appear which did not previously exist. This is the multiplication (‘photocopying’) of information already present.

3. Hybridizatlon
Again, no new sentences. This is the mingling of two sets of information already present.

4. Mutation
Since mutations are basically accidents, it is not surprising that they are observed to be largely harmful, lethal or meaningless to the function or survival of an organism. Random changes in a highly ordered code introduce ‘noise’ and chaos, not meaning, function and complexity, which tend to be lost. However, it is conceivable that in a complex world, occasionally a ‘destructive’ change will have a limited usefulness. For example, if we knock out a sentence such that there is a decrease in leg length in sheep (and there is such a mutation), this is useful to stop them jumping over the farmer’s fence. A beetle on a lonely, wind-swept island may have a mutation which causes it to lose or corrupt the information coding for wing manufacture; hence its wingless successors will not be so easily blown out to sea and will thus have a selective advantage. Eyeless fish in caves, some cases of antibiotic resistance—the handful of cases of mutations which are quite ‘beneficial’—do not involve the sort of increase in functional complexity which evolutionary theory demands. Nor would one expect this to be possible from a random change.

At this point some will argue that the terms ‘useful’, ‘meaningful’, ‘functional’, etc. are misused. They claim that if some change gives survival value then by definition it has biological ‘meaning’ and usefulness. But this assumes that living systems do nothing but survive—when in fact they and their subsystems carry out projects and have specific functions. That is, they carry teleonomic information. This is one of the essential differences between living objects and non-living ones (apart from machines). These projects do not always give rise to survival/reproductive advantages—in fact, they may have very little to do with survival, but are carried out very efficiently. The Darwinian assumption is always made, of course, that at some time in the organism’s evolutionary history, the project had survival/reproductive value. (For example, the archer-fish with its highly-skilled ‘hobby’ of shooting down bugs which it does not require for survival at the present time.) However, since these are nontestable assumptions, it is legitimate to talk about genetic information in a teleonomic sense, in isolation from any possible survival value.

The gene pools of today carry vast quantities of information coding for the performance of projects and functions which do not exist in the theoretical ‘primeval cell’. Hence, in order to support protozoon-to-man evolution, one must be able to point to instances where mutation has added a new ‘sentence’ or gene coding for a new project or function. This is so regardless of one’s assumptions on the survival value of any project or function.

We do not know of a single mutation giving such an increase in functional complexity. Probabilistic considerations would seem to preclude this in any case, or at least make it an exceedingly rare event, far too rare to salvage evolution even over the assumed multibillion year time span.

To illustrate further—the molecule haemoglobin in man carries out its project of transporting and delivering oxygen in red cells in a functionally efficient manner. A gene or ‘sentence’ exists which codes for the production of haemoglobin. There is a known mutation (actually three separate ones, giving the same result) in which only one letter in the sentence has been accidentally replaced by another. If you inherit this change from both parents, you will be seriously ill with a disease called sickle cell anaemia and will not survive for very long. Yet evolutionists frequently use this as an example of a ‘beneficial mutation’. This is because if you inherit it from only one parent, your red cells will be affected, but not seriously enough to affect your survival—just enough to prevent the malaria parasite from using them as an effective host. Hence, you will be more immune to malaria and better able to survive in malaria-infested areas. This shows us how a functionally efficient haemoglobin molecule became a functionally crippled haemoglobin molecule. The mutation-caused gene for this disease is maintained at high levels in malaria-endemic regions by this incidental phenomenon of heterozygote superiority. Its damaging effect in a proportion of offspring is balanced by the protection it gives against malaria. It is decidedly not an ‘upward’ change. We have not seen a new, efficient oxygen transport mechanism or its beginnings evolve. We have not seen the haemoglobin transport mechanism improved.

One more loose but possibly useful analogy. Let us say an undercover agent is engaged in sending a daily reassuring telegram from enemy territory. The text says ‘the enemy is not attacking today’. One day an accident occurs in transmission and the word ‘not’ is lost. This is very likely going to be a harmful change, perhaps even triggering a nuclear war by mistake. But perhaps, in a freak situation, it could turn out to be useful (for example, by testing the fail-safe mechanisms involved). But this does not mean that it is the sort of change required to begin to convert the telegram into an encyclopedia.

The very small number of ‘beneficial’ mutations actually observed are simply the wrong kind of change for evolution—we do not see the addition of new sentences which carry meaning and information. Again surprisingly, one often reads creationist works which insist that there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation. If benefit is defined purely in survival terms, then we would not expect this to be true in all instances, and in fact it is not—that is, there are indeed ‘beneficial’ mutations in that sense only.

Information depends on order, and since all of our observations and our understanding of entropy tells us that in a natural, spontaneous, unguided and unprogrammed process order will decrease, the same will be true of information. The physicist and communications engineer should not be surprised at the realisation that biological processes involve no increases in useful or functional (teleonomic) information and complexity. In fact, the net result of any biological process involving transmission of information (i.e., all hereditary variation) is conservation or loss of that genetic information.

This points back directly to the creation of the information, supernaturally, in the beginning. It is completely in harmony with the biblical concept of a world made ‘very good’ as a balanced, functioning whole, with decay only subsequent to the Fall. This is the reason why there are inevitable limits to variation, why the creationist does not have to worry about how many new ‘species’ the future may bring—because there is a limit to the amount of functionally efficient genetic information present, and natural processes such as mutation cannot add to this original storehouse.

Notice that since organisms were created to migrate out from a central point at least once and fill empty ecological niches, as well as having to cope with a decaying and changing environment, they would require considerable variation potential. Without this built-in genetic flexibility, most populations would not be present today. Hence the concept of biological change is in a sense predicted by the biblical model, not something forced upon it only because such change has occurred.

Flamed Diving

wolfsbane wrote: »

No, that is still a creationist understanding of speciation. This, from an article on rapid speciation, for example [emphasis mine]:
Informed creationists have long stressed that natural selection can easily cause major variation in short time periods, by acting on the created genetic information already present. But this does not support the idea of evolution in the molecules-to-man sense, because no new information has been added.

Selection by itself gets rid of information, and of all observed mutations which have some effect on survival or function,15 so far even the rare ‘beneficial’ ones are also losses of information. The late-maturing, larger guppies resulted simply from a re-shuffling of existing genetic material.16 Such variation can even be sufficient to prevent two groups from interbreeding with each other any more, thus forming new ‘species’ by definition, without involving any new information.
http://creation.com/speedy-species-surprise

Ok, assuming that rapid speciation exists...

Rapid Speciation = Quicky Evolution

If one species splits into two groups that can no longer reproduce; that's evolution.

Your new information problem has already been demonstrated in the lab.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

At one point, one of the populations demonstrated a dramatic change, and evolved to become capable of utilizing citrate, a carbon source in their flasks that E. coli cannot normally use. Thus, evolution had been visibly observed, with an exquisite amount of evidence establishing the timeline along the way. The paper also highlighted the role of historical contingency in evolution and the role of potentiating mutations.

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Lenski_affair

Very, very simple to understand.

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

What is the nature of this barrier? Can you point to a part of the DNA strand in every species that's "fixed"? You say that the burden of proof is on us but you are now stating that there is a barrier, presumably within our DNA, that prevents changing from one "kind" to another so the burden of proof is now on you. Please present your evidence for this barrier. I have seen nothing in the field of genetics to suggest that any such barrier exists.

....this 'barrier' is found rapidly with severe selective breeding and it is well known to animal and plant breeders.

... and the 'barrier' is also found instantaneously with lethal mutations!!!:)

Sam Vimes

Wolfsbane, I think we've got our wires crossed here. To read the text that you have just pasted in would require more time than I am willing to give to any "theory" put forward by a creationist. As I said earlier, creationism was debunked 150 years ago and anyone who suggests otherwise is either deliberately misrepresenting science like those people who wouldn't defend intelligent design under oath, extremely incompetent in their pseudo-scientific endeavours or someone such as yourself, who has unfortunately been taken in my the first two groups

wolfsbane

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Wolfsbane, I think we've got our wires crossed here. To read the text that you have just parted in would require more time than I am willing to give to any "theory" put forward by a creationist. As I said earlier, creationism was debunked 150 years ago and anyone who suggests otherwise is either deliberately misrepresenting science like those people who wouldn't defend intelligent design under oath, extremely incompetent in their pseudo-scientific endeavours or someone such as yourself, who has unfortunately been taken in my the first two groups

Your security blanket won't keep out the cold.

Turtwig

wolfsbane wrote: »

The microlite (small motorized plane) overcomes earth's gravity all the time. But there is a limit beyond which it cannot do so.

Technically, the earth's gravity extends all the way to the edge of the universe, so um, it's not the law of gravity that is creating the limit. The plane requires the flow of a fluid such as the atmosphere so that it can fly in. Evolution is seemingly limited by the duration of a habitable environment. Good look proving though that there is a finite limit to evolution.

There ya go, these are the laws of nature that you were looking for that limits the size or shape of any creature : you've got to prove that these equations are wrong, and don't fit to observations in nature. Which, thus far, they do to a bizarre degree of accuracy.:)

J C

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes but you have to have an observed phenomena. No one has ever observed an evolving species stopping at some unexplained "barrier". And the fossil record contradicts the idea that species stop evolving at some point.

....plant and animal breeders encounter this 'barrier' all the time ... and both the fossil record and the biosphere shows no intermediate forms!!!

...you would think that such overwhelming physical evidence would convince somebody claiming to be a MATERIALIST that 'molecules to man' Evolution could NEVER and did NEVER happen ... but you would be wrong ... they still keep arguing that the unobserved happened and the impossible is possible ... and they call it 'SCIENCE' !!!!

...and they are in such depths of denial that they refuse to believe their own eyes when they see quotes from Evolutionists like Prof Gould highlighting the fact that “The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organ design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.” !!!!

..and rather than taking it at face value, they then start with their very own conspiracy theory ... that the quote doesn't actually mean what it OBVIOUSLY STATES and MEANS!!!:D

J C

monosharp wrote: »

Your been completely dishonest and disrespectful of Prof Gould JC.

Its a miserable dirty little tactic that anyone should be ashamed of.

...like I have said the quote is valid and true quote from the man and it highlights the CONTINUING controversy within Evolution over the absence of intermediates !!!!

....GET OVER IT ... and become a Creationist!!!

Flamed Diving

wolfsbane wrote: »

The nature of actual variation and the nature of the barrier to fish-to-philosopher evolution:

The concept of information
The letters on this [printed] page—that is, the matter making up the ink and paper—all obey the laws of physics and chemistry, but these laws are not responsible for the information they carry. Information may depend on matter for its storage, transmission and retrieval, but is not a property of it. The ideas expressed in this article, for instance, originated in mind and were imposed on the matter. Living things also carry tremendous volumes of information on their biological molecules—again, this information is not a property of their chemistry, not a part of matter and the physical laws per se. It results from the order—from the way in which the letters of the cell’s genetic ‘alphabet’ are arranged. This order has to be imposed on these molecules from outside their own properties. Living things pass this information on from generation to generation. The base sequences of the DNA molecule effectively spell out a genetic ‘blue-print’ which determines the ultimate properties of the organism. In the final analysis, inherited biological variations are expressions of the variations in this information. Genes can be regarded as ‘sentences’ of hereditary information written in the DNA ‘language’.

Imagine now the first population of living things on the evolutionist’s ‘primitive earth’. This so-called ‘simple cell’ would, of course, have a lot of genetic information, but vastly less than the information in only one of its present-day descendant gene pools, e.g., man. The evolutionist proposes that this ‘telegram’ has given rise to ‘encyclopedias’ of meaningful, useful genetic sentences. (See later for discussion of ‘meaning’ and ‘usefulness’ in a biological sense.) Thus he must account for the origin with time of these new and meaningful sentences. His only ultimate source for these is mutation.3

I stopped reading here. Can anyone notice the glaring error?

J C

MrPudding wrote: »

I really don't think he was trying to make you look like an idiot. Patterns are every where and they don't always mean something.
MrP

...patterns don't always mean something ... but if they contain Complex Specified Information then they are the result of the appliance of intelligence!!

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

If god revealed himself to me I would go to a doctor to see if I was ill in some way. With the knowledge that human perception is extremely flawed, that perception alone will never be enough to convince me of the supernatural.

...and you may be interested to hear that the Word of God also agrees that hardness of heart towards God, cannot be overcome even by a miracle, just like you have confirmed!!!!

... I saw this and I thought of you :-

Lu 16:19 ¶ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

J C

wolfsbane wrote: »

Your security blanket won't keep out the cold.

...it also won't keep out the HEAT either!!!!:eek::eek:

...and Hell is a very HOT place!!!!

robindch

Malty_T wrote: »

Pop over to the Islam forum and ask them, I have no doubt they'll be a little ticked off that you think so poorly of them.

Not sure if that would be wise -- the Islamic forum doesn't tolerate people which suggest that their worldview is, or could be, wrong. See their charter.

Soul Winner

Just as an aside, (and apologies if if has been mentioned before) there is a very interesting debate coming up on November 5.

"Intelligent Design: Is it viable?" William Lane Craig versus Francisco Ayala. For once Craig has got his work cut out.

Moderated by Bradley Morton who although being an atheist has written a new book defending the merits of ID entitled: "Seeking God in Science: An atheist defends ID." More here

Should be good - Ayala looks formidable to say the least.

Turtwig

Soul Winner wrote: »

Just as an aside, (and apologies if if has been mentioned before) there is a very interesting debate coming up on November 5.

"Intelligent Design: Is it viable?" William Lane Craig versus Francisco Ayala. For once Craig has got his work cut out.

Moderated by Bradley Morton who although being an atheist has written a new book defending the merits of ID entitled: "Seeking God in Science: An atheist defends ID." More here

Should be good - Ayala looks formidable to say the least.

Craigs a creationist???
I thought he was an agnostic, in this regard

Edit : That would explain his blatant and frequent misrepresentation of evolution and cosmology though