I thought I was YEC. What do MAC's believe?Yorzhik is a bit harder than YECs to pin down. I have concluded that he isn't a YEC nor an OAC, but a MAC (Middle Age Creationist). lain:
I thought I was YEC. What do MAC's believe?Yorzhik is a bit harder than YECs to pin down. I have concluded that he isn't a YEC nor an OAC, but a MAC (Middle Age Creationist). lain:
Laughter is often encountered from those who have no better response. Can you refer me to where the premier universities in the field of biology teach that life could not have come about naturally?
MACs are creationists who believe that there is no reason to restrict themselves to scientific or YEC timescales. They can have exactly the right amount of time as is required by whatever it is they happen to believe at the time. :think:I thought I was YEC. What do MAC's believe?
Any scientist with even a modicum of integrity will make that claim. Isn’t the real question – how to know what the “correct age” is? According to an article 6days linked to a while back, a creation scientist (R. H. Brown) seemed to have a pretty good handle on the mechanics and theory of C-14 dating, but then just assumed an initial level of C-14 in the environment that guaranteed they would get young earth dates from the equations. Assuming an initial level is fine, as long as one admits any disagreeing scientist has an equal right to assume whatever initial level he thinks was there. To move the testing away from personal preferences to actual science it takes sufficient evidence of what the initial background levels really were. That means evidence that is independent of what culture the scientist is from, independent of religious beliefs (no matter how deeply held), and independent of how the study is being funded.When it comes to radiometric dating we are interested in the process giving us the correct age.
That’s news to me. Are you seriously saying that dating labs don’t do calibration runs on their equipment?What you find is that you cannot calibrate the system.
I have seen numerous discussions about measurement discrepancies. “Samples that should be the same age” may not come out the same age for any of a variety of reasons – things like the inclusion of sand grains in mollusk shells, or contaminants in igneous rock flows, and so on. But radiological dating, when the proper precautions are taken, is reliable enough that it is widely used by geology labs all over the world. There are numerous studies published showing the measured data, outliers and all, and there most certainly are samples that show excellent data patterns within acceptable margins of error.You can also not get consistent answers from samples that should be the same age.
“Never question” is pure hyperbole. Claiming that scientists turn a blind eye to errors just to not threaten a grant is just a cheap indictment of the integrity of the scientists. If you were given a grant to do a scientific study, and you realized the answers you were getting in the study were not what had be anticipated, would you ignore the discrepancies?We also find that scientists that get the grant money to work on radiometric dating never question their assumptions when anomalies appear.
Plentiful in the same way that there are a vast number of ancient scriptural fragments that have missing words, extra text, misspellings, etc. Does that mean the text of the Bible is just an unreliable mess? No, not at all. In spite of the competing manuscripts Biblical scholars are pretty confident they know what the original text said. When someone finds a previously unknown scroll or palimpsest with variants from the accepted Bible text, do you go into a frenzy? Like you say, the anomalies are plentiful.And as just mentioned, the anomalies are plentiful.
Laughter is often encountered from those who have no better response. Can you refer me to where the premier universities in the field of biology teach that life could not have come about naturally?
Hi Duke
You directed me to the video by Dr Jack, a Harvard medical professor who gave his model for abiogenesis.
Finally, here's a very rudimentary yet insightful demonstration of simple replicators
I watched the video twice, and honestly did not think much of him
I put this video in the same category as "The four blood moons" by Hagee and "The Bible Code". Some folks are going to lap this up like a kitten laps warm milk.
I know what I write next will inadequately express how little I think of Jack's primitive "life-form", but I will do my best
1) Jack is trading on his credentials as a Harvard Professor of Medicine. Harvard sounds good. Professor sounds good. But what qualification does he have for explaining the origin of not-our-life- but one "form of life" which he invented?
I told you that people will believe anything, especially when the placebo comes from the witch-doctor/medicine-man.
So lets ignore his qualification, because when Ben Carson (a brain surgeon) talks politics, his qualification in brain surgery scores zero points in politics (and I like Ben).
2) Jack tells us that real "cell membranes are too efficient at what they do and need energy input to bring things into the cell, via special proteins" - this is a close paraphrase. And it is true. Real cells and real DNA,RNA take energy to work. To overcome this obstacle, Jack invents his own life form which consists of fatty acids which let stuff in and divides without an internal power source.
I could blow a soap bubble, or colony of soap bubbles, and one soap bubble could merge with others, and under the right conditions things could diffuse into the bubble etc. Or blowing onto the bubble, I could make one divide into two.
You would laugh me to scorn for saying I had invented a cell membrane, but Jacks fatty-acid vesicles are only slightly better than my bubbles.
I dare folks to read how complicated real cell membranes are. This site is a good place to start ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_membrane
To code for a yeast cell's membrane takes 1/3 of the yeast cell's genes. The membrane selectively lets in what is needed for life, and lets out what is not needed. It also acts like a sense organ etc. It creates a tiny pond with just the right conditions for life inside the cell. This is no mean feat. All this is ignored by Jack.
3) Jack has his fatty vesicles (bubbles) sitting by an underwater hot vent, the heat of which softens the vesicle to let substances in. So Jack needs an external energy source unlike cells with an internal, autonomous supply. So his life would have limited distribution.
I don't think his vesicles would actually function as he says they do. Fat floats. Fatty acids, the longer chains, are insoluble. I don't see how his vesicles would not float to the surface of the water and away from the vent. This kind of impracticality makes me believe he has not actually tried this out, nor can demonstrate it. It's all hypothetical.
Also, fatty acids have a water-loving (hydrophilic) end, and a fatty (hydrophobic) end. In his demonstration he had the water-hating ends on the inside of the vesicle. I really doubt you could get this kind of vesicle filled with water, since the water inside would repel the fatty ends of the fatty acids inside the vesicle. In summary, where is his proof that such vesicles exist and behave as he says they do?
4) Next Jack admits that real cells DNA requires energy to replicate/ transcribe so he chooses another nucleotide which he says does not need energy. He gets strings of this nucleotide to replicate, mutate etc.
As Shania Twain sang "That don't impress me much"....
...for the following reasons...
a) does this nucleotide actually do so?
b) so what if it does so, since your phoney "DNA" cannot transcribe and make proteins/enzymes - so it is effectively totally useless.
c) All the things Jack says his cell can do, I bet a million non-existent $$ that he has no demonstration of it ever having happened - this phoney DNA inside its phoney cell membrane. He has combined a whole lot of who-knows-how-possible chemical processes together.
5) Even if his "proto-cell" behaved exactly as he says, he still has a big fat ZERO. This is not life, though it imitates a few of life's processes such as growth, feeding, competition etc.
6) Like I said before, only something demonstrating how REAL life structures and processes could spontaneously come together and propagate will satisfy me. If there is some other form of life possible, God alone would be smart enough to have thought of it, not Jack. Nobody in any lab has created life. I am not holding my breath for scientists to discover life anywhere else in the cosmos. Life exists on earth because only God is smart enough to have created it, and put it here. Read how complicated the cell membrane alone is. Hundreds of researchers could spend all of their lives studying the cell membrane alone, and still not understand it. And I marvel at how much they do understand, as the wiki article shows.
Only those who don't understand biology think that life inside a single cell is simple. To date, no computer can simulate or understand how the genes of the simplest cell translate into that cells functioning. To simplify it down to a show-and-tell style soap-bubble demonstration may fool a class of 9 year olds, but it just irks me. It irks me because it takes much longer to refute a nutty idea than to generate one. Thus, nutty ideas always outnumber refutations, and there are not enough lifetimes to shut down every loopy idea out there.
But I do thank you Duke for pointing me to the video because it is really interesting to know the kinds of arguments out there.
We have moved away from abiogenesis to variations anyway, have we not? I feel any discussion has to be rooted in real cell structures, not hypothetical, alternative ones.
We also find that scientists that get the grant money to work on radiometric dating never question their assumptions when anomalies appear. And as just mentioned, the anomalies are plentiful.
Do you always offer a few rambling incomplete sentences which fail to make a clearly defined point?
Dear iouae,
Thanks so very much for all of the hard work, the insightful words, and all of the time it took you to put this post together. I've got to run for now!! God Bless You Tons!!
Michael
Dear Michael,Dear DavisBJ,
You make me laugh! Do you actually think life has come about naturally {by nature}? Do you think that the Earth came by itself naturally? And the Universe is nature? What to you is nature? Any means of being besides believing it all has a Master over it? All of these MARVELOUS things have come about 'Naturally!!' ROTFL!!! I'm sorry I can't answer more of these posts, but I have to get up to go to radiation treatments and am very busy with other appts., etc. 2morrow, I won't be burdened in that respect. If what we have said here on this Thread, DavisBJ, hasn't gotten through to you yet, then I really doubt anything will. But you never know. The Lord works in mysterious ways!!
Michael
Well for starters he's actually a professor of genetics with a background similar to yours in biochemistry and just a few more awards throughout his career including a Nobel. Furthermore I really don't think that ad-hominems are appropriate on our level of discussion.1) Jack is trading on his credentials as a Harvard Professor of Medicine. But what qualification does he have for explaining the origin of not-our-life- but one "form of life" which he invented?
Not much more that I can do right now (click)2) I could blow a soap bubble, or colony of soap bubbles, and one soap bubble could merge with others, and under the right conditions things could diffuse into the bubble etc. Or blowing onto the bubble, I could make one divide into two.
You would laugh me to scorn for saying I had invented a cell membrane, but Jacks fatty-acid vesicles are only slightly better than my bubbles.
That's a very good point. Of course much more has to be done, but this is an area of active research. Don't forget the animation was just a short summary, you can search the literature to find out more....This kind of impracticality makes me believe he has not actually tried this out, nor can demonstrate it. It's all hypothetical.
In summary, where is his proof that such vesicles exist and behave as he says they do?
See previous statement. If you paid attention, you'd know that the purpose of the RNA strands is to serve as enzymes as well. This was clearly mentioned in the animation.4) Next Jack admits that real cells DNA requires energy to replicate/ transcribe so he chooses another nucleotide which he says does not need energy.
a) does this nucleotide actually do so?
b) so what if it does so, since your phoney "DNA" cannot transcribe and make proteins/enzymes - so it is effectively totally useless.
Patience. Life in the lab is a very big task. This is merely the beginning.....5) Even if his "proto-cell" behaved exactly as he says, he still has a big fat ZERO. This is not life, though it imitates a few of life's processes such as growth, feeding, competition etc.
Now this final statement is a bit disappointing. It's like YECs wanting to see a crocoduck. Pay attention, spontaneous generation of complex life forms is NEVER going to happen. If this is the only evidence you'd ever accept, then you'd be chasing ghosts forever.6) Like I said before, only something demonstrating how REAL life structures and processes could spontaneously come together and propagate will satisfy me.
Hi everyone,
And I do mean everyone.
The following is a huge video that I stumbled onto and I thought was worth sharing.
It is a compassionate personal story about the search for truth and spirituality that covers too numerous topics to mention (it's also quite long)
IMO there's a lot here that both theist and atheist can profit from.
An unexpected journey
I do recommend to take the time and watch all of it
Dear TheDuke,
There is NO WAY I am investing two hours of my time watching a video recommended by you, much less 5 mins. I haven't asked you to watch any movies, either.
Michael
We could also post you tube videos of atheist to theist. That would be fun eh? Sort of like an old west gun fight but we use competing videos instead of bullets. Less mess that way.I'm heartbroken!
Dearest Michael, no one is forcing you to do something against your will. This video is meant for everyone else just as much as it is meant for you.
Here's a tip: you can start watching and if you don't like what you see or you feel threatened - just stop and hide under the blanket. It's OK.
I think you get offended a bit too easily. The word evolutionist is an accurate word and distinguishes evolutionists from creationists. (Not all astronomers or astrophysicists are evolutionists.)I see that once again you have succumbed to your addiction of using the word “evolutionist” as a pejorative to be applied to those you disagree with.
True...Back just a couple dozen posts you quoted from a BBC program on the subject of how the universe came to be. The program drew on views expressed by some of the most highly recognized scientists in the field.
Uh... not exactly true.There, as here you chose to label them as evolutionists, yet nowhere in the extensive quotes you included is there any reference to evolution.
Haha... (Yes that's funny)Who are these scientists that actually look in depth at these questions in cosmology and what are there qualifications? According to you, “Dr Andrei Linde, Professor of Physics at Stanford University … Dr Singh, Theoretical Physics … Dr Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physics … Prof. Smolin, researcher … Dr Neil Turok, Executive Director of the Perimeter Institute … Sir Roger Penrose, Mathematics prof at Oxford,” - these are “evolutionists” who can’t see the obvious answer to what to 6 terms a “simple logical question.” Notice how trivially 6days ridicules world-leading scientists.
We could also post you tube videos of atheist to theist. That would be fun eh? Sort of like an old west gun fight but we use competing videos instead of bullets. Less mess that way.
If you want to take sides on what is true, it is best if you do more than just cast your vote. Specific evidence is always nice.6 Days always speaks the truth
Laughter is often encountered from those who have no better response. Can you refer me to where the premier universities in the field of biology teach that life could not have come about naturally?