Chance or Design (Evolution or Creation)

[User Name]

How about an entire genus such as shrub frogs. Your question WAS answered before. Genetic erosion likely plays some part in all extinctions. Google 'genetic erosion'.

According to this website, "All of these Philautus species were once native to the island of Sri Lanka, south of India, and all of them were presumably rendered defunct by a combination of urbanization and disease." It says nothing about any shrub frogs having gone extinct due to "genetic erosion," "genetic entropy," etc.

Do you have any evidence you can link to which says that a species went extinct due to what you call "genetic erosion?" If so, please post and thanks in advance.

 

[The Barbarian]

I'm not sure you are noticing... But you aren't defending the video you posted. The question I asked you was how your video guy explains the way the evidence. Geneticists are concerned about increasing genetic load, but it seems your guy waves it away somehow?

The "increasing genetic load", if real, would mean that humans have been declining in ability for hundreds of thousands of years. And yet, humans today are measurably more intelligent than humans just a century ago. We seem to be physically better than humans then, and new mutations like the HPAS gene, genes for disease resistance, stronger bones, and so on, continue to appear. Reality is better than anyone's reasoning.

Re extinctions..... About 100 species go extinct every month. Of that number 83 have gone extinct due to loss of genetic diversity.

It's the coup de grace, but usually only after humans have reduced the environment so that it can't have enough individuals for adequate genetic diversity.

In general, small, isolated populations have genomes quite different than larger populations from which they came. This is a source of speciation and greater diversity, a fact first noticed by Mayr, and incorporated into Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium.

So it's not what whoever told you that story says it is.

Genetics shows us the common ancestry system is impossible (without hypothetical, and unrealistic rescue devices).

It's noteworthy that almost everyone who actually understands genetics, disagrees with you.

I do notice that most of the people who talk about the supposed danger of genetic load, are never actually able to define the optimal genotype needed to calculate the load. It's just kind of a intuitive thing for a problem that is deeply mathematical.

So there is that. If there's an exception to this, I'd sure like someone to show me, with the data on the optimal genome compared to the genetic load.

 

[The Barbarian]

According to this website, "All of these Philautus species were once native to the island of Sri Lanka, south of India, and all of them were presumably rendered defunct by a combination of urbanization and disease." It says nothing about any shrub frogs having gone extinct due to "genetic erosion," "genetic entropy," etc.

Do you have any evidence you can link to which says that a species went extinct due to what you call "genetic erosion?" If so, please post and thanks in advance.

The problem is worldwide right now, with a fungus disease that's extremely deadly to amphibians. And extinction is the result for many of them. However, there's good news.


An epidemic that has decimated the world’s amphibians, wiping out many species altogether, could at last be coming to an end.

Since at least the 1980s, global populations of frogs and salamanders have been undergoing an “amphibian extinction crisis”.

Experts think over 100 species could be gone forever, and the populations of many more are severely depleted, thanks in large part to the spread of the deadly chytrid fungus.

However, the results of a long-term study conducted by Dr Ibanez and his colleagues in Panama suggest the worst of this disease may have passed.
...
They found that nine of the species, each of which had been driven to the brink of extinction, had shown considerable recovery in recent years.

The next step was to establish what had happened to save these amphibians from the fate that had met so many others.

The disease-causing agent neither grew more slowly than it had done at the peak of the epidemic, nor were its interactions with frog immune cells any different.

In short, the researchers concluded, what must have changed was the frogs’ ability to resist the disease. These results were published in the journal Science.

This idea was confirmed when the scientists found frogs that had been kept in captivity away from the disease since before its outbreak were more susceptible to infection than their wild counterparts.

Random mutation and natural selection strikes again. There's change in the allele frequencies of these populations. Which as you just learned, is what evolution is. What creationists label "genetic erosion" turned out to be the winning hand in this case, as in so many others.

God knew best, after all.

 

[7djengo7]

I understand why Christians wish the Earth to have been made in six days. That’s what I meant.

PS. And that I understand why Christians don’t like evolution.

Do you understand why you wish the Earth to have not been made in six days? Do you understand why you wish the Earth to have not been made at all?

When you say "Christians don't like evolution", what do you mean, if not merely that Christians don't like the word, 'evolution'? I have never heard of any Christians being averse to a mere word such as the word, 'evolution'. I, for one, don't have any animosity against the word, 'evolution'.

PS. Since you say, about Christians, "Christians don't like evolution," would you say, about yourself, "I like evolution", or, instead, "I don't like evolution"? Which one would you say about yourself?

Since you say, about Christians, "Christians don't like evolution", would you also say, "Christians should like evolution", or, "Everyone should like evolution", or "I, Guyver, should like evolution"?

PPS. Since you say, "Christians don't like evolution", at least you are, thereby, admitting that The Barbarian is no Christian.

 

[7djengo7]

I don’t think Darwinists hate the Bible. I think you’re making that up.

Christians don’t like evolution.

You say "Christians don't like evolution"; would you say "Darwinists like the Bible"? If you would, why would you say "Darwinists like the Bible"?

Why, exactly, is it offensive to you to hear the truth, that Darwinists hate the Bible? It is obviously offensive enough to you that it triggered you into reacting by calling Stripe a liar.

 

[7djengo7]

Augustine did think the world was young, because he had no evidence to the contrary

And, nothing, whatsoever, has changed since Augustine's day: there's still no evidence to the contrary. Never has been, never shall be.

 

[7djengo7]

God says the earth and air and waters produced life.

Since you despise God's word, the Bible, and demand that everything God says ought to NOT be taken literally (nay, ought to be taken non-literally), we're curious as to which verse(s) you're referring to, here. As an anti-literalist, you are telling us, here, that you have arrived at claiming, "God says the earth and air and waters produced life", by your having taken some Bible verse(s) non-literally. Which verse(s) do you imagine you're getting that from, then?

Would you say that the earth "evolved into" life? That the air "evolved into" life? That the waters "evolved into" life?

Which life would you say the earth "evolved into"? Which life would you say the air "evolved into"? Which life would you say the waters "evolved into"?

 

[Guyver]

PPS. Since you say, "Christians don't like evolution", at least you are, thereby, admitting that The Barbarian is no Christian.

Do you know how a person can click a "thanks" button to show appreciation for a post here? It's too bad they don't have a dislike or no thanks button on there because that's what I would have selected for your post.

I mean....you just make stuff up for yourself and pretend it's true. Then, you have the nerve to repeat it by writing it down here in the forum.

I have no clue whether Barbarian is a Christian or not, and I couldn't care less. His personal religion and belief system are his own, and that's his business unless he wants to share it here. Unlike you, I don't believe people go to hell for not being a Christian.

PS. Maybe you should think about not judging people so much?

PSS. I said Christians don't like evolution because many of them believe the bible literally. The bible describes a "special creation" whereby God specifically intervened in the creation of man, and did not allow man to evolve. In other words, if God did not come down from heaven and make man on Earth....then the bible story is not literally true. Right?

In any event, there are plenty of Christians (many of them Catholic) who actually accept science and evolution....so I wasn't speaking for everyone, just in general.

 

[Guyver]

Since you despise God's word, the Bible, and demand that everything God says ought to NOT be taken literally (nay, ought to be taken non-literally), we're curious as to which verse(s) you're referring to, here.

Trolling flame bait. Wow. You just revealed yourself. Now you're dismissed. You may go.

 

[7djengo7]

People who don’t like evolution are often the kind of people who like to take the Bible literally.

Would you not say, then, "People who DO like evolution are often the kind of people who DO NOT like to take the Bible literally"?

If you take the Bible literally, you believe that...

Here is what The Barbarian, your fellow Bible-despising anti-literalist, says:

God says the earth and air and waters produced life.

Would you say that The Barbarian believes "God says the earth and air and waters produced life" BECAUSE of taking some Bible verse(s) literally, or, instead, BECAUSE of taking some Bible verse(s) non-literally? Which would you say is the case? And, from which verse(s) (whether taken literally, or non-literally) would you say The Barbarian must have arrived at his belief that "God says the earth and air and waters produced life"?

If you take the Bible literally, you believe that God made the entire universe in six days and specifically created all life, but especially people. Adam and Eve in the garden, giving birth to the entire worlds population.

What Bible verse(s), when taken literally, do you imagine tell(s) us that Adam "[gave] birth to the entire worlds [sic] population"? Adam was literally not a woman; Adam literally never gave birth to anybody. Eve literally gave birth to sons and daughters, though.

But it wasn’t even really Adam and Eve, because God wiped all those people out.

What "wasn't really Adam and Eve"?? Are you just talking to yourself?
God "wiped all" of which "people out"?

It was Noah and his companions on the ark that created the worlds population but I never hear Bible literalists discussing this point.

What Bible verse(s) do you imagine, when taken literally, tell us that "Noah and his companions on the ark created the worlds [sic] population"?

In any event, I think smart believers

Believers of what? You're a Bible-despiser; you're not a Bible-believer.

should be praising God for evolution

Unlike yourself--an enemy of God, and no praiser of God, whatsoever--Bible-believers praise God for His creation.

considering that it’s obvious everything is constantly in a state of change anyway,

"constantly in a state of change"

Hehehe. Nice oxymoron!

if [evolution?] was the mechanism that God used to create life, it certainly does not diminish him, in my mind it exalts him.

Did you not even take time to read the title of this thread: "Evolution OR Creation"?? You really cannot see the disjunction, there, between "evolution" and "creation"? Perhaps you should start your own thread: "Evolution IS Creation", or "Creation IS Evolution".

It's remarkable just how confused you, a proud anti-creationist, must be, in order to say that God "create[d] life"!!

 

[7djengo7]

Do you know how a person can click a "thanks" button to show appreciation for a post here? It's too bad they don't have a dislike or no thanks button on there because that's what I would have selected for your post.

Oh, I don't doubt it.

I mean....you just make stuff up for yourself and pretend it's true. Then, you have the nerve to repeat it by writing it down here in the forum.

Translation: "<Gnashes teeth, having abjectly failed to deal with 7djengo7's rational criticism of Guyver's rank hypocrisies>"

I have no clue whether Barbarian is a Christian or not,

If what you say is true ("Christians don't like evolution"), and, if The Barbarian "likes evolution", then, by your own criterion ("Christians don't like evolution"), you've necessarily entailed that The Barbarian is excluded from being a Christian. It's only because you refuse to think rationally--that is, deductively--that you can so ignorantly sit there and say "I have no clue whether Barbarian is a Christian or not".

and I couldn't care less.

I'm not surprised, for nihlism very often goes hand-in-hand with irrational thinking.

His personal religion and belief system are his own, and that's his business unless he wants to share it here.

But, you've made it your personal business by sharing one of your criteria for whether or not he, or anybody else, is a Christian: "Christians don't like evolution".

Unlike you, I don't believe people go to hell for not being a Christian.

For what, then, do you believe people go to hell? From where do you derive your doctrine on hell?

PS. Maybe you should think about not judging people so much?

Maybe you should think about retracting that hypocritical judgment against me?

PSS.

What does "PSS" stand for?

I said Christians don't like evolution because many of them believe the bible literally.

Oh, so, when you said "Christians don't like evolution", you meant merely, "SOME Christians don't like evolution", rather than, "ALL Christians don't like evolution"? How cagey of you to not have said what you meant. Of course, it's plain as the noon sun on a cloudless day that someone in your position (being an enemy of the Bible, of Christianity, of Christians) is not going to want to choose to say "SOME Christians don't like evolution" over saying "Christians don't like evolution". The former just doesn't seem to have the effect you want, does it? That adjective, 'some', just has a blunting effect against the brash edginess you're going for. Whereas, the latter, sans the 'some'...now there's something that really conveys your animus against Christianity.

Your aversion to quantifiers is, also, bound up with your hatred of logic.

....then the bible story is not literally true. Right?

Everything God has affirmed in the Bible is true. Your attempt to modify the word 'true' by the word 'literally' is meaningless. What (if anything) would you say it is for something that is true to be "non-literally true"?

In any event, there are plenty of Christians (many of them Catholic) who actually accept science and evolution....so I wasn't speaking for everyone, just in general.

Why, then, you did a really, really lousy job trying to express what you "really" meant!

Besides, you already said, above: "I have no clue whether Barbarian is a Christian or not, and I couldn't care less." How is it, then, that you, now, suddenly wish to portray yourself as though you really "could care less" and as though you do "have a clue" that "there are plenty of Christians who [blah, blah, blah]"?? If you can't even say whether or not one, particular person is a Christian, you make a clown of yourself by venturing to call numerous persons "Christians" ("just in general").

 

[Stripe]

The "increasing genetic load", if real, would mean that humans have been declining in ability for hundreds of thousands of years.

Nope. That's just you assuming the truth of your Darwinism, a common trap for religious fanatics.

Humans today are measurably more intelligent than humans just a century ago.

Not with you dragging the average down.

We seem to be physically better than humans then, and new mutations like the HPAS gene, genes for disease resistance, stronger bones, and so on, continue to appear. Reality is better than anyone's reasoning.

Notice how when Darwinists are pushed, they run away from their key metric: Reproduction.

The global birthrate is plummeting. Nothing else matters in the face of the plunge toward extinction, especially a few cherry-picked factors that probably hide much greater decay.

It's the coup de grace, but usually only after humans have reduced the environment so that it can't have enough individuals for adequate genetic diversity.

As you learned, genetic diversity is a bad thing. A population that splinters and specializes is observably, demonstrably "less fit" than its parent population.

Evidence.

So it's not what whoever told you that story says it is.

It's noteworthy that almost everyone who actually understands genetics, disagrees with you.

No, it's not.

Darwinists love talking about the popularity of an idea. They think it's evidence.

I do notice that most of the people who talk about the supposed danger of genetic load, are never actually able to define the optimal genotype needed to calculate the load. It's just kind of a intuitive thing for a problem that is deeply mathematical.

I do notice that Darwinists never define their terms, preferring equivocation and nonsense.

So there is that. If there's an exception to this, I'd sure like someone to show me.

 

[The Barbarian]

Trolling flame bait. Wow. You just revealed yourself. Now you're dismissed. You may go.

When it became clear that he was just trolling, I tossed him into the "ignore" bin with the other trolls. Give it a try.

 

[6days]

According to this website, "All of these Philautus species were once native to the island of Sri Lanka, south of India, and all of them were presumably rendered defunct by a combination of urbanization and disease." It says nothing about any shrub frogs having gone extinct due to "genetic erosion," "genetic entropy," etc.

Do you have any evidence you can link to which says that a species went extinct due to what you call "genetic erosion?" If so, please post and thanks in advance.

You still are avoiding the main point... Have you watched the video YOU posted, and how is the conclusion reached that differs from geneticists who consider genetic load a problem?

And, yes of course there is evidence that extinctions are linked to genetic erosion. "By definition, endangered species suffer varying degrees of genetic erosion."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_erosion

"Our hypothesis that the onset of extinction is marked by excessive lethal mutations has experimental support in viruses." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410861/

Adaptation and speciation results from mutations and selection. The speciated population has less genetic diversity than parent populations. Island and coral populations are highly adapted but often unable to survive environmental change. Mutations can lead to speciation and speciation can lead to extinction. "Extinction can threaten species evolved to specific ecologies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

 

[6days]

The "increasing genetic load", if real, would mean that humans have been declining in ability for hundreds of thousands of years.

Humans have been declining genetically since Adam and Eve sinned. Even secular genecists admit our Stone age ancestors were genetically superior... Exactly as we would expect in the biblical creation model.

As geneticist J.F. Crow says, he estimates a decrease in viability from mutation accumulation somewhere between 1 and 2% every generation. He says "if war and famine were to force our descendants to a stone-age life, they will have to be content with all the problems their stone age ancestors had, plus mutations that have accumulated in the meantime". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9237985/

 

[6days]

In any event, there are plenty of Christians (many of them Catholic) who actually accept science and evolution....so I wasn't speaking for everyone, just in general.

You seem to be confusing common ancestry beliefs with science. All Christians embrace science... after all, science improves our lives through new technologies and advancements in medicine.

Science often helps confirm the truth of Scripture... and science often exposes shoddy conclusions and false beliefs in the common ancestry belief system.

 

[Guyver]

You seem to be confusing common ancestry beliefs with science. All Christians embrace science... after all, science improves our lives through new technologies and advancements in medicine.

Science often helps confirm the truth of Scripture... and science often exposes shoddy conclusions and false beliefs in the common ancestry belief system.

I accept that common ancestry is not proven. If that helps.

 

[Guyver]

When it became clear that he was just trolling, I tossed him into the "ignore" bin with the other trolls. Give it a try.

I am willing to ignore him now. But, I don’t like to use the ignore function. FWIW. I have to listen to these folks if I want to have them listen to me.

 

[Stripe]

According to this website, "All of these Philautus species were once native to the island of Sri Lanka, south of India, and all of them were presumably rendered defunct by a combination of urbanization and disease." It says nothing about any shrub frogs having gone extinct due to "genetic erosion," "genetic entropy," etc. Do you have any evidence you can link to which says that a species went extinct due to what you call "genetic erosion?" If so, please post and thanks in advance.

Did it ever occur to you that genetic load would cause disease?

 

[The Barbarian]

I am willing to ignore him now. But, I don’t like to use the ignore function. FWIW. I have to listen to these folks if I want to have them listen to me.

By definition, trolls are not here to listen. More power to you, if you want to put up with them, in the hope that they might actually gain something from your interaction, or maybe even communicate honestly with you. It does happen. Years ago,one of the worst of them happened to a moment of self-disclosure here, that was both illuminating and sad. I sent him a PM, empathizing. He got much worse after that.

But your experience might be different. I'm just pleased that it's so much more pleasant to be here without them.