Does anyone believe in Evolution anymore?

[Right Divider]

Only a really dumb person can think that mistakes can make improvements! :banana:

 

[The Barbarian]

Only a really dumb person can think that mistakes can make improvements! :banana:

And yet every favorable mutation does exactly that. There's huge list of them. Would you like to learn more about that?

God turns out to be smarter than you think He is.

 

[The Barbarian]

I guess Yorzhik forgot to use Shannon's equation to find the information in that system. No doubt he'll be doing that shortly, don't you think?

 

[Stripe]

Every favorable mutation does exactly that.

I guess Barbarian got fooled by Shannon's equation regarding information in a system.

No doubt he'll do nothing to address his ignorance.

God turns out to be smarter than he thinks He is. He's a designer, not One reliant on mistakes.

There's huge list of so-called "beneficial mutations." Turns out, none of them stand up to scrutiny. Would you like to learn more about that?

 

[The Barbarian]

I guess he knows everything about Shannon's equation, except how it works...

 

[Stripe]

I guess Barbarian knows nothing about Shannon's equation.

 

[The Barbarian]

They now are coming up with another idea since they cant find ancestors for their evolution idea. Here is the idea of Darwinism "There are two phases in classic Darwinian evolution. First, there is the arising of variations from one creature to another or one individual population to another. That was thought to occur incrementally, in very slow stages, by mutations in the genome. Once there are variations among individuals, natural selection, the survival of the fittest, acts upon those variations."

Observably so. Even most creationist organizations now admit speciation and evolution of higher taxa, including new genera and families. The remaining objection is to universal common descent.

But there is no incremental evolution

Your creationist leaders disagree with you. And the fossil record clearly shows the gradual evolution of horses. And with forams, and some others. Even Stephen Gould admits it; he just argues that punctuated equilibrium is more common. Darwin pointed this out, showing that a well-fitted population would be prevented from evolving much, by natural selection.

so they now are trying to come up with another way, say it can jump from a one celled creator to whatever

Endosymbiosis. The evidence shows eukaryotes evolved by cells incorporating prokaryote cells into their own cells. Things like mitochondria and chloroplasts still reproduce separately by their own, bacterial, DNA. And endosymbiosis has been directly observed to evolve. Would you like to learn about it?

 

[The Barbarian]

I believe that Young Earthers are insane, and I believe that atheists are nuts.

They are not insane. They are merely wrong about something that has no bearing on their salvation. I have no doubt that most of them sincerely love and serve God as much as any other Christans.

Nor are atheists nuts. Most of them are no less crazy than the rest of us, even if they are entirely wrong about God.

Having argued at length against both groups, I can only say that the worst of them aren't the norm. They are, in each case, pretty good people.

 

[ok doser]

I guess Barbarian ...

Who? :idunno:

 

[Right Divider]

Who? :idunno:

I think that he's talking about The Great Equivocator.

 

[Stripe]

No idea. :idunno:

 

[The Barbarian]

Creationism Evolving:


Although religion and evolutionary theory have often been at odds, it is possible for them to coexist peacefully, and, surprisingly often, they do. Most of the major world religions accept evolution while reserving a place for a deity in the creation of the world and living things. Even some sects that interpret the Bible, and Genesis in particular, literally have been able to reconcile a supernatural creation of the world with a limited form of evolution.

As fundamentalists go, the most extreme in opposing a scientific view are those who believe that the earth is flat, or that the earth is the center of the solar system.

Only somewhat more moderate but still believing in a literal view of Genesis are creationists of the "young earth" type. They hold that the earth was created in six days some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, and they deny that evolution occurred. Many believe that God created all the species in their present form, separately. Most also claim that geological evidence can be interpreted to support the biblical story of the flood. They propose that all present species descended from ancestral types that survived the flood on Noah's ark. They call their version "creation science" in an effort to have it given equal time in schools, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is not a science.

The so-called "gap creationists" ingeniously weave the notion of an ancient earth into the Genesis creation story. God created the earth but it was destroyed, then much later God recreated it, along with Adam and Eve. Another version of creationism uses the "day-age" model. Science and religion can be made to both fit in this model, according to which each of the six biblical days of creation actually lasted for thousands or millions of years, allowing for an Earth that is ancient.

In what is known as progressive creationism, God created the animals and plants in a series of separate acts over many long epochs. The fossil record, with its succession of species, can be made to fit in with special creation here.

Another branch of creationists use the intelligent design argument to criticize evolution and propose that a supernatural designer had to be responsible for life in all its myriad complex manifestations. Intelligent design proponents hold differing views on the degree to which evolution can be attributed to natural processes or a designer.

The most scientifically influenced religious view is theistic evolution, which says that evolution is an acceptable explanation for present life, but that God was the ultimate creator, using evolution as a tool.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/08/2/l_082_03.html

 

[Stripe]

Although religion and evolutionary theory have often been at odds, it is possible for them to coexist peacefully.

That's not surprising, given the religious fanaticism of the Darwinists.

The real question is: Can they abide alongside science. You know: Evidence, reason, logic... stuff like that.

However, when we look at the Bible — God's word and an anti-religion manifest — it denies any possibility that the evolutionary model ever had a chance.

 

[ok doser]

... God was the ultimate creator, using evolution as a tool ...

God used a method that more often resulted in disease, suffering and death than improvements?

That's retarded

 

[Yorzhik]

Natural selection works in both YEC and common descent.

No, it doesn't. Because YECs are continually befuddled, trying to figure out how it can increase fitness in a population, when they are convinced that the increase information from new alleles can't be true.

Natural selection works because variation built into DNA is designed to adapt the organism to its environment. And sometimes, burning bridges will improve an orgnaisms ability to survive.

Shannon, as you just learned, demonstrated that it does.

Shannon demonstrated that information increases as noise enters the message when it is transmitted. And his work existed, according to him, to get rid of the noise. He said, "The fundamental problem of communications is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point."

Show us where the phrase "improving fitness" occurs in genetic transcription, translation, or protein synthesis, and explain how molecules have intent.

You may want to correct Ernst Mayr. And when you get him straighted out, then get the world to correct Darwin himself, who also imbued nature with "intent".

As Ernst Mayr pointed out in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, “The use of terms like purposive or goal-directed seemed to imply the transfer of human qualities, such as intent, purpose, planning, deliberation, or consciousness, to organic structures and to subhuman forms of life.”

Because you can't get a drawbridge with 1-3 changes.

Put hinges on one side of the bridge.
Attach cables to the other side
Pull them to raise the bridge.

:darwinsm:
Sure, nothing to it! Hey, putting a man on the moon is done in just 4 steps!
Build rocket
Shoot rocket to the moon
Land moon lander on moon
Bring astronauts home

And the Edge of Evolution shows this is also true in biology.

As you learned, it's directly observed.

It is directly observed that random mutation has weak explanatory power in improving fitness, and is almost always a case of improving fitness by burning bridges.

As you where shown, the system has three parts, which I showed you. No point in denying the fact. You're just trying to redefine Behe's definition.

Under your defintion, the mousetrap would include a mouse as one of its parts. You are the one changing Behe's definition.

(Yorzhik asks if writing is part of the mousetrap)

(Barbarian says he never considered it to be so, but under some circumstances, it could be)

Which proves you are changing the definition of "irreducibly complex".

As you now see, the link I gave you showed that a much simpler moustrap is possible, without all the parts you assumed to be required.

And as you were shown, every mousetrap shown had exactly the 5 parts defined by Behe.

(Barbarian notes that more and more people are accepting evolution as the evidence accumulates)

Common Descentists think popularity is evidence.

Behe argues strongly for common descent of all lifeforms on earth, including that humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor. He states that there is such overwhelming evidence for common ancestry that it should not only be obvious, but "trivial". Behe claims that the mutations required for bridging the higher levels of taxonomy are not possible without design, and that this is the "edge of evolution".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge_of_Evolution

Yes, he does, but you should understand that while he realizes common descent is a fact, and that humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor, he does not believe that God is capable of making it work, unless God steps in from time to time with a miracle.

And he supports irreducible complexity because there has been no answer to challenge.

 

[The Barbarian]

Natural selection works in both YEC and common descent.
Natural selection works because variation built into DNA is designed to adapt the organism to its environment. And sometimes, burning bridges will improve an orgnaisms ability to survive.

No. As you learned, variation is the result of mutation. Let's take Adam and Eve for example. They could have had, at most, 4 alleles for each gene locus. Yet today most human genes have dozens. All the rest evolved. No way to dodge that.

Shannon demonstrated that information increases as noise enters the message when it is transmitted. And his work existed, according to him, to get rid of the noise.

Because humans, when they signal, want the message received to be the same as the message sent. That's not what happens in biology. There, it works better, if there is a small, but consistent rate of "error" that produces new mutations. As in the humans I mentioned. Lots of good alleles evolved after those first two.

Barbarian suggests:
Show us where the phrase "improving fitness" occurs in genetic transcription, translation, or protein synthesis, and explain how molecules have intent.

You may want to correct Ernst Mayr.

You didn't link me to Mayr. You linked me to a creationist who quote-mined him make it appear that Mayr believed something he did not.

Teleological language is frequently used in biology in order to make statements about the functions of organs, about physiological processes, and about the behavior and actions of species and individuals. Such language is characterized by the use of the words ‘function’, ‘purpose’, and ‘goal’, as well as by statements that something exists or is done ‘in order to’. Typical statements of this sort are ‘It is one of the functions of the kidneys to eliminate the end products of protein metabolism’, or ‘Birds migrate to warm climates in order to escape the low temperatures and food shortages of winter’. In spite of the long-standing misgivings of physical scientists, philosophers, and logicians, many biologists have continued to insist not only that such teleological statements are objective and free of metaphysical content, but also that they express something important which is lost when teleological language is eliminated from such statements. Recent reviews of the problem in the philosophical literature (Nagel, 1961; Beckner, 1969; Hull, 1973; to cite only a few of a large selection of such publications), concede the legitimacy of some teleological statements but still display considerable divergence of opinion as to the actual meaning of the word ‘teleological’ and the relations between teleology and causality.
Mayr E. (1974) Teleological and Teleonomic, a New Analysis. In: Cohen R.S., Wartofsky M.W. (eds) A Portrait of Twenty-five Years. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Springer, Dordrecht

They correctly guess that you wouldn't check to see if that was actually Mayr's opinion,and so they reeled you in.

The existence of complex codes of information in the DNA of the germ plasm permits teleonomic purposiveness. On the other hand, evolutionary research has found no evidence whatsoever for a "goal-seeking" of evolutionary lines, as postulated in that kind of teleology which sees "plan and design" in nature. The harmony of the living universe, so far as it exists, is an a posteriori product of natural selection.
Ernst Mayr, Cause and effect in biology In Cause and effect New York: Free Press. pp. 33–50.

Now that you're straightened out, then show us where Darwin imputed "intention" to nature. Don't bother telling me what other people told you about Darwin; show us what Darwin actually said. Checkable link to his actual work, will be required.

It is directly observed that random mutation has weak explanatory power in improving fitness, and is almost always a case of improving fitness by burning bridges.

Since you failed to document your assertion... well, you know...

Under your defintion, the mousetrap would include a mouse as one of its parts.

Nope. For example, a finger would work. Or a piece of bark falling off a tree. Or oxidation of the metal or metal fatigue. In any of those cases, the trap would function. Moreover, Behe assumed a mouse for his supposedly irredcuibly complex mousetrap. Nice try.

Your attempt to change Behe's definition will always fail; there's no way to dodge it. If it's any consolation, most IDers now accept the fact that irreducible complexity can evolve. They just don't think it happens much.

 

[JudgeRightly]

For example, a finger would work.

A finger is extremely complex on it's own, and typically is grown on a hand, which requires a living organism that has hands.

In other words, you're introducing greater complexity to solve less complexity.

Or a piece of bark falling off a tree.

Bark off a tree requires a tree, a complex organism.

Again, adding complexity to solve lesser complexity.

Or oxidation of the metal or metal fatigue. In any of those cases, the trap would function.

Would the mousetrap be reusable if that were so?

If not, it's not a very good mousetrap.

And even then, it requires someone or something to put the mousetrap together. In other words, a designer.

 

[The Barbarian]

A finger is extremely complex on it's own, and typically is grown on a hand, which requires a living organism that has hands.

As is a biological molecule. You seem to have made my point for me.

In other words, you're introducing greater complexity to solve less complexity.

Nope. As you now realize, Behe assumed a mouse to actuate his trap. So you're right back at square one. You're trying to redefine Behe's term.

Barbarian notes that oxidation or metal fatigue would do.

Would the mousetrap be reusable if that were so?

And again, you're trying to redefine "irreducible complexity" to make it different than Behe's definition.

If not, it's not a very good mousetrap.

And Behe said that it wouldn't be irreducibly complex, if it didn't work "very well?" You're trying yet another redefinition.

And even then, it requires someone or something to put the mousetrap together.

So youi're telling me that Behe thinks mousetraps happen without someone or something putting it together? Let's see... that's um...five attempts to redefine Behe's idea of "irreducible complexity." Could be a record.

In other words, a designer.

And we finish up with an attempted goalpost shift. Well done.

 

[ok doser]

I left an empty garbage can in the shop over the winter

Mice got in

Mice couldn't get out

No moving parts except for the mice, and they weren't moving in the spring

 

[The Barbarian]

Does anyone believe in creationism anymore? Fewer and fewer:

According to a Gallup poll conducted in May, the portion of the American public taking this position now stands at 38%, a new low in Gallup’s periodic surveys. Fifty-seven percent accept the validity of the scientific consensus that human beings evolved from less advanced forms of life over millions of years.

Has atheism taken over so thoroughly? No, and that’s why this apparent break in the creationism-vs.-evolution stalemate is significant and even instructive to those in search of creative solutions to our other intractable public arguments.

As the poll reveals, the biggest factor in the shift is a jump in the number of Christians who are reconciling faith and evolution. They are coming to see evolution as their God’s way of creating life on Earth and continuing to shape it today.

"Science doesn't have to drive people away from faith,” says Deborah Haarsma, president of an organization called BioLogos that promotes harmony between science and Christian faith.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...-divisions-tom-krattenmaker-column/467800001/

This is why the OP is such a loser; even evangelicals are starting to walk away from creationism.