The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

I never understood Irreducible Complexity meant the IC-less-a-crucial-part thing was useless for everything. Perhaps you can point to a quote that shows that?

If it doesn't mean that then it doesn't disprove evolution. What it's said to mean tends to change because they're just making it up as they go along but any definition other than "any component missing=no function whatsoever" just shows that they don't understand the theory they.re trying to disprove

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

Depends on what you mean by excellent scientist.

Hoyle seemed to have little issue bringing his own philosophical pondering of how the universe should be into his scientific work, even before he embraced the ideal of alien intelligent design.

His steady state theory is a good example of this, a theory he held on to long after the evidence contradicted it. According to Wikipedia he was still trying to explain it as late as the mid-1990s.

I watched Dawkins give an interview in which he accepted the possibility that aliens had seeded life on earth.

He accepted that life could have been intelligently designed, but would allow only one sort of designer. The designer had to be himself a product of purely material forces. No God/gods allowed.

Aliens welcomed. No gods need apply. :pac:

Ahh, the dispassionate scientist following after truth. Evolutionary heroes protecting the masses from religion. Hilarious, until one recognised they really believed it.

wolfsbane

Sam Vimes wrote: »

If it doesn't mean that then it doesn't disprove evolution. What it's said to mean tends to change because they're just making it up as they go along but any definition other than "any component missing=no function whatsoever" just shows that they don't understand the theory they.re trying to disprove

I think the issue might be this:
My car without its engine, gearbox and wheels would make a fair chicken coup. So with an organism, or part of one. It may have a function if you remove many features essential to its present function. But for evolution to be true, it has to be viable in every stage between.

Sounds possible for one or two missing components - but in biology how many bits are missing from one functionality to another?

For example, the basal body of the flagella has been found to be similar to the Type III secretion system (TTSS), a needle-like structure that pathogenic germs such as Salmonella and Yersinia pestis use to inject toxins into living eucaryote cells. The needle's base has ten elements in common with the flagellum, but it is missing forty of the proteins that make a flagellum work.

How does one get from the toxin-injector to flagellum? How many missing bits of information are needed to put the forty proteins in place? And the thing to have some selective value at each stage?

If the process is beyond real possibility, then the functioning reality is IC.

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

I think the issue might be this:
My car without its engine, gearbox and wheels would make a fair chicken coup. So with an organism, or part of one. It may have a function if you remove many features essential to its present function. But for evolution to be true, it has to be viable in every stage between.

Actually no it doesn't. We have lots of things in our bodies that are leftovers and now perform no useful function. As long as something is not seriously detrimental to survival it can live on in our genome

wolfsbane wrote: »

Sounds possible for one or two missing components - but in biology how many bits are missing from one functionality to another?

For example, the basal body of the flagella has been found to be similar to the Type III secretion system (TTSS), a needle-like structure that pathogenic germs such as Salmonella and Yersinia pestis use to inject toxins into living eucaryote cells. The needle's base has ten elements in common with the flagellum, but it is missing forty of the proteins that make a flagellum work.

How does one get from the toxin-injector to flagellum? How many missing bits of information are needed to put the forty proteins in place? And the thing to have some selective value at each stage?

If the process is beyond real possibility, then the functioning reality is IC.

Actually no it's not. If the process was beyond real possibility the functioning reality would disprove evolution but it would not be IC. IC is a very specific claim that is proven false by the existence of the type 3 secretory system but creationists keep repeating it anyway because they're dishonest

I don't have all of the details of how the type 3 secretory system turned into the flagellum. I don't even know if it actually did. What I do know is that creationist claims about the flagellum are demonstrably false.

You say that if certain components are missing a part will not function and an organism will die and you're right but a lineage of bacteria on it's way to forming a flagellum will have billions and billions of offspring so even if the odds are billions to one, it becomes very likely for it to happen. If things must form spontaneously as creationists say then evolution is all but impossible but if they can form in a step wise way it's merely unlikely and over 4 billion years anything, no matter how unlikely, becomes very very likely. As something becomes more complex the possibility of it forming spontaneously increases exponentially as J C attempts to show with his CSI maths but the possibility of it forming in a stepwise fashion does not

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

I watched Dawkins give an interview in which he accepted the possibility that aliens had seeded life on earth.

He accepted that life could have been intelligently designed, but would allow only one sort of designer. The designer had to be himself a product of purely material forces. No God/gods allowed.

Aliens welcomed. No gods need apply. :pac:

Ahh, the dispassionate scientist following after truth. Evolutionary heroes protecting the masses from religion. Hilarious, until one recognised they really believed it.

Dawkins said that aliens could have seeded life. What then followed would still be 4 billion years of evolution directed by natural selection because the possibility that life (the kind of life J C calls pond slime) was kicked off by aliens does not negate the irrefutable evidence for evolution

doctoremma

wolfsbane wrote: »

I never understood Irreducible Complexity meant the IC-less-a-crucial-part thing was useless for everything. Perhaps you can point to a quote that shows that?

Michael Behe:
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 modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.

It would be difficult for you to claim that he was somehow misunderstood because when confronted by someone who demonstrated the mousetrap-paperweight trick, he tried to argue against it rather than say "Oh sorry, that's what I meant, maybe I didn't explain it very well".

Biology does not proceed on a step-by-step upward trend. The structures or pathways we can observe today are highly unlikely to represent the maximal (or maybe even the optimal). Sometimes biology proceeds step-by-step upwards, but sometimes it goes downwards, quite a lot of the time it goes sideways and sometimes it fuses. And just because we can't lose something now, doesn't mean that was always the case.

Behe's theory fails to account for any "non-upwards" movement and how functionality of any structure can change over time (exaptation).

You are worshipping the god gaps by asking how many parts of a system you have to remove/add to get to the next functionality. And what anyone defines as functionality is likely pretty subjective. Eyes didn't evolve by adding one structure to another in a step-wise fashion. There's absolutely no reason to imagine biochemical pathways did. And just because we can't lose something now, doesn't mean that was always the case.

liamw

Hey J.C looks like science is discovering that the universe is even older than we thought. The 6-10,000 years old theory you have is just a little bit off.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/nasa-wmap-universe-age/

Using data from WMAP along with studies of distant supernovas and other phenomena, the team finds that the universe is 13.75 billion years old, give or take 0.11 billion. (By comparison, the team’s previous calculation, which used the same method but included only five years of satellite observations, had pegged the universe at 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 0.12 billion.)

oceanclub

Galvasean wrote: »

Anyway, the human eye does not provide perfect sight. Our vision is quite poor compared to owls and eagles.

I'm sitting here with two pieces of very thick, unnatural concave plastic lenses in front of my God-given so-called "perfect eyes", and have done since I was a small child, else I can't see anything 2 feet in front of my nose. Yeah, that God dude is a great designer alright.

P.

Turtwig

oceanclub wrote: »

I'm sitting here with two pieces of very thick, unnatural concave plastic lenses in front of my God-given so-called "perfect eyes", and have done since I was a small child, else I can't see anything 2 feet in front of my nose. Yeah, that God dude is a great designer alright.

P.

Two feet!
Try ten centimetres.:o

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

I watched Dawkins give an interview in which he accepted the possibility that aliens had seeded life on earth.

He accepted that life could have been intelligently designed, but would allow only one sort of designer. The designer had to be himself a product of purely material forces. No God/gods allowed.

Aliens welcomed. No gods need apply. :pac:

Ahh, the dispassionate scientist following after truth. Evolutionary heroes protecting the masses from religion. Hilarious, until one recognised they really believed it.

If Dawkins said that then he is wrong.

See, the joys of not basing your entire belief system around faith in the infallibility of a small group of people who share the same out look as you.

You should give it a try some time.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

If the process is beyond real possibility, then the functioning reality is IC.

Can you point out a scientist who has demonstrated an example of this.

Like so much in Creationism you are confusing ignorance with insight. The fact that a Creationist can't figure out an alternative function for something "missing" parts is rather neither here nor there unless they can demonstrate it can't have an alternative function.

If they can't then it is simply their ignorance that is the issue, nothing to do with the thing itself.

2Scoops

wolfsbane wrote: »

Now to having a creationist-tending articles published by the establishment journals:
Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/538.asp

That's the same link, of course. So, which ones are the cleverly disguised creation science? Is it the 1976 paper about genetics of the fruitfly or the series of unreferenced studies on turtle blood? Which is the most compelling evidence of YEC, in your opinion? :pac:

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

Here's the context:


The bolded bits show Sam's assertion and my reply to it. It dealt with them being published at all.

Now to having a creationist-tending articles published by the establishment journals:
Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/538.asp

This shows what has been done, but I'm not sure how much would escape the evolutionary scientific inquisition today, now that Creationism has made such a big impact. The hornet's nest has been well and truly stirred.

FYP. That "inquisition" is called peer review. It's how science is done.

I see they talk about people who write papers on "problems" with evolution but leave the conclusion to the reader. the reason they have to do that is because "I don't know so it must be god" is not a scientific position. No amount of pointing out things we don't know or can't explain is evidence for god. By their reasoning lightning was "a brilliant argument for design" a few hundreds years ago before we understood electricity

Galvasean

You know what? Let's scrap the peer review system. It's too biased against unpopular science. Now to publish my theory about how I created the universe. Prove me wrong folks.

2Scoops

Galvasean wrote: »

You know what? Let's scrap the peer review system. It's too biased against unpopular science. Now to publish my theory about how I created the universe. Prove me wrong folks.

I am actually a conventionally qualified Galvasean scientist. I analyzed some turtle blood back in the 1960s and this supports the Galvasean theory of creation. Praise him. :pac:

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

I defend the theology of YEC. JC is alone in debating the science.

You seem to have plenty to say about the science despite claiming you aren't qualified to debate it. Sure, it's mostly limited to pointing at vast chunks of copy and saying "that's what's true", but you're still making a judgement on it. The basis of that seems to be that you believe the "science" because you trust the sources. It appears that you trust the sources because their religious convictions are in line with yours. Doesn't that seem a little circular to you? J C is not alone because you agree with him.

There's science I don't understand in the same manner as I understand biology, or worse that I cannot understand at all. But I can infer that it is scientific and trustworthy, though of course not automatically correct, because I can observe that it adheres to the same methods as the science that I do understand and do know to be convincing. I place no faith in the people who present the science, I have no interest in whether they share my values or beliefs, I merely make an inference that the methodology works for biology and chemistry. From what understanding can you infer that the science that J C presents is indeed scientific, trustworthy, convincing?

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror said:

You seem to have plenty to say about the science despite claiming you aren't qualified to debate it. Sure, it's mostly limited to pointing at vast chunks of copy and saying "that's what's true", but you're still making a judgement on it. The basis of that seems to be that you believe the "science" because you trust the sources. It appears that you trust the sources because their religious convictions are in line with yours. Doesn't that seem a little circular to you? J C is not alone because you agree with him.

Nothing circular about it. I trust the science because I trust both the competency and integrity of the scientist. But he may be mistaken in the science - as all scientists can be - so if my belief in creationism were based on science alone, I would not be too sure.

My belief that the world, at least the biosphere, was formed about 6000 years ago is religious in nature. It is supported by the science, but the science is not the foundation.

There's science I don't understand in the same manner as I understand biology, or worse that I cannot understand at all. But I can infer that it is scientific and trustworthy, though of course not automatically correct, because I can observe that it adheres to the same methods as the science that I do understand and do know to be convincing. I place no faith in the people who present the science, I have no interest in whether they share my values or beliefs, I merely make an inference that the methodology works for biology and chemistry. From what understanding can you infer that the science that J C presents is indeed scientific, trustworthy, convincing?

As far as the science is concerned, I see no difference in JC's scientific method and the standard one. I see big differences in the conclusions, of course. That applies not only to JC but to creationist science in general.

I have found that the evolutionists here have trouble in separating a scientist's religious beliefs from his scientific work. It is as if the one disqualifies you from the other. An atheist presupposition that is essential for valid scientific research.

All we ask is that people examine, when engaged in scientific debate, the science of our arguments.

When we address believers or evangelise the lost, we offer religious arguments and back them up with the science.

Is it too difficult for you guys to remember the difference?

wolfsbane

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Dawkins said that aliens could have seeded life. What then followed would still be 4 billion years of evolution directed by natural selection because the possibility that life (the kind of life J C calls pond slime) was kicked off by aliens does not negate the irrefutable evidence for evolution

I didn't say it did. Just pointed out Dawkins is willing to accept ID, as long as the Designer is not God. Anything but that!

So I'm suggesting his scientific objection to Creation is not really objective after all. All the hoo-ha is driven by a guilty conscience and the evolutionist's desperation to silence it.

wolfsbane

liamw wrote: »

Hey J.C looks like science is discovering that the universe is even older than we thought. The 6-10,000 years old theory you have is just a little bit off.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/nasa-wmap-universe-age/

What do you think would happen to time in a universe that was spread out in a day? Do you think it would be the same at the centre as at the rest?

Or do you assert faster-than-light travel is impossible?

wolfsbane

oceanclub wrote: »

I'm sitting here with two pieces of very thick, unnatural concave plastic lenses in front of my God-given so-called "perfect eyes", and have done since I was a small child, else I can't see anything 2 feet in front of my nose. Yeah, that God dude is a great designer alright.

P.

You sit there a sinner, one not now possessing the perfect eyes once enjoyed by Man. Sin has had its effects on us all, and will claim its ultimate prize when we breath our last.

Good news is that God has made a way back for us. Those who go that Way will ultimately experience perfection of body and soul:
Revelation 21:God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Turtwig

wolfsbane wrote: »

Or do you assert faster-than-light travel is impossible?

Expansion of a universe faster than light is allowed by general relativity.

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

If Dawkins said that then he is wrong.

See, the joys of not basing your entire belief system around faith in the infallibility of a small group of people who share the same out look as you.

You should give it a try some time.

Now, now - you must know that creationist scientists too have their internal disagreements.

Science is a discovery process. Only God's word is absolutely true.

wolfsbane

Malty_T wrote: »

Expansion of a universe faster than light is allowed by general relativity.

Excellent!

Any idea how that would manifest itself time-wise?

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

Can you point out a scientist who has demonstrated an example of this.

Like so much in Creationism you are confusing ignorance with insight. The fact that a Creationist can't figure out an alternative function for something "missing" parts is rather neither here nor there unless they can demonstrate it can't have an alternative function.

If they can't then it is simply their ignorance that is the issue, nothing to do with the thing itself.

Yes, you have a point. There could be a natural process by which an engine-less car gets an engine.

But if I'm depending on the car for transport, I think I would be wiser getting one fitted by the garage. If those of you with insight still need a lift, just let me know.

Genghiz Cohen

wolfsbane wrote: »

You sit there a sinner, one not now possessing the perfect eyes once enjoyed by Man. Sin has had its effects on us all, and will claim its ultimate prize when we breath our last.

Who first said that mans condition has been deteriorating?
J C and yourself make references to it but I've never known the source of this assertment.

wolfsbane

2Scoops wrote: »

That's the same link, of course. So, which ones are the cleverly disguised creation science? Is it the 1976 paper about genetics of the fruitfly or the series of unreferenced studies on turtle blood? Which is the most compelling evidence of YEC, in your opinion? :pac:

Since it was in answer to: Niles Eldredge wrote that no author who published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly ‘has contributed a single article to any reputable scientific journal’ (p.83). no claim was made that they were making creationist points, only that they were the work of creationists published in reputable scientific journals.

But for those that do, maybe this:
Would Scott and Cole have turned up ‘Enzymic Editing Mechanisms and the Origin of Biological Information Transfer’, by the creationist biochemist Grant Lambert (Journal of Theoretical Biology, 107:387–403, 1984)? Lambert argues that without editing enzymes, primitive DNA replication, transcription, and translation would have been swamped by extremely high error rates. But the editing enzymes are themselves produced by DNA.
It’s a brilliant argument for design. Lambert understandably counts on some subtlety and insight from his readers, however. Lambert doesn’t ‘explicitly’ wave his creationist banner, leaving the dilemma as ‘an unresolved problem in theoretical biology’ (p.401).

wolfsbane

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Who first said that mans condition has been deteriorating?
J C and yourself make references to it but I've never known the source of this assertment.

The basic idea that we are not as good as the original model is given in the Bible - Man created perfect; man's fall into sin and God's punishment of that, as recorded in Genesis. The NT also references the Fall to our present condition.

The idea that we progressively deteriorate is more of a scientific argument based on the Fall presupposition: our knowledge of genetics and entropy suggest our weight of our flaws is getting slowly greater. That the genetic defence mechanisms do not overcome all the damage, and the damage is overwhelmingly detrimental.

So our generation, given equal circumstances, is less physically and mentally capable than that of those several thousands of years ago.

wolfsbane

Sam Vimes wrote: »

FYP. That "inquisition" is called peer review. It's how science is done.

I see they talk about people who write papers on "problems" with evolution but leave the conclusion to the reader. the reason they have to do that is because "I don't know so it must be god" is not a scientific position. No amount of pointing out things we don't know or can't explain is evidence for god. By their reasoning lightning was "a brilliant argument for design" a few hundreds years ago before we understood electricity

Indeed, pointing out problems with evolution is not proof of God. Nor is it intended to be. It is intended to prove evolution is not the 'fact' it is claimed to be.

Once one has that liberating thought, what one does with it is another matter.

It demands a Designer, of course, but does not suggest their identity.

wolfsbane

Galvasean wrote: »

You know what? Let's scrap the peer review system. It's too biased against unpopular science. Now to publish my theory about how I created the universe. Prove me wrong folks.

If you can back your claims with science, as the creationists do, you deserve to have them peer-reviewed.

But I suspect they will just say it can't be true so no review is needed.

Science, popular or unpopular, ought to be held up to the light. Those who have something to hide don't like that.

iUseVi

wolfsbane wrote: »

Those who have something to hide don't like that.

Wait a minute, are you seriously implying that evolution is not in the public spotlight?