Evidence For And Against Evolution

[ecco]

You have done the same thing that the creationists do. You have turned this from my question about your claim that atheists KNOW there is no god into an indictment of me for claims I have not made. You have not answered the question.

I know of no means or know of no person that can objectively know that any god exists or does not exist.

Since this is off topic, you are unwilling to answer my question, and it has created unnecessary tension here, I have nothing more to say on the subject. Take it as a win for the effort you put into it.

It's easier to walk away with any old excuse than to try to refute my argument.


Somewhere, down deep, you realize that your logic for disbelieving Atlas and Thor and Shiva and PsychicSnowflakes apply equally to your Methodist God. The logic part of your brain says there is no difference, the emotional part of your brain insists they are not the same.

Oh, well.

 

[gnostic]

I wonder how long @leroy will be here before hibernation. So he can return to repeat his same unsupported claims to a new audience--or mostly new--as if they are novel and have never been refuted.

Yes, that’s a common creationist tactic.

I am quite sure some one else have already explain to leroy about Natural Selection isn’t random in some other threads, thereby it should have corrected his errors.

But like every other creationists we have seen arguing the issues that Natural Selection is random as so they claimed and non-creationist others have corrected their mistakes, leroy will choose to ignore the corrections, and will continue to repeat mistakes.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes, that’s a common creationist tactic.

I am quite sure some one else have already explain to leroy about Natural Selection isn’t random in some other threads, thereby it should have corrected his errors.

But like every other creationists we have seen arguing the issues that Natural Selection is random as so they claimed and non-creationist others have corrected their mistakes, leroy will choose to ignore the corrections, and will continue to repeat mistakes.

It would be refreshing to engage a creationist that had actually turned to science for their information. Instead of using logical fallacies and the dismissal of information that crushes their straw men.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It would be refreshing to engage a creationist that had actually turned to science for their information. Instead of using logical fallacies and the dismissal of information that crushes their straw men.

All but impossible. Creationists have a term for that sort. They end up calling them "evolutionists" .

 

[YoursTrue]

Of course not, but you were expressing your new found knowledge of how science regards "the first living things." to which I was simply adding to your knowledge of science.
.

Ok, so no definition is really solid. Unless someone says it is, until it changes due to new evidence.

 

[YoursTrue]

Irreducible Complexity remained untested, leroy.

Even Behe has not tested his concept, because it is unfalsifiable. All Behe have done is make unsubstantiated assumptions about the eyes and about flagellum.

So Irreducible Complexity isn’t even science. There is no need to refute claims that re already unfalsifiable.

You really don’t understand the concepts of Falsifiability and of Scientific Method, do you?

You are making as if Behe has the fact regarding to Irreducible Complexity, and yet he has not once provided a single evidence to support his claim.

You keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, using his eye and flagellum examples, but these are his claims, which he has never been able to test and verify.

It just how very little you really understand what is and what isn’t science.

No one then really knows what the first living form was. It's all guesswork. About the first living form.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No one then really knows what the first living form was. It's all guesswork. About the first living form.

No, not really. It would be guesswork for creationists, or even pretty much for me.

Why do creationists always seem to assume that just because they cannot understand something that no one can? Then after that they try to tell their God how he made the universe. Arrogance piled on top of arrogance.

 

[leroy]

As I explained, the entropy for the early universe is determined by the number of accessible quantum states. But for a pure vacuum, there is only one such state. That means the pure vacuum has the lowest possible entropy.



Well, the point is that those constants may NOT be independent. And to assume they adjust to maximize complexity is far from being an ad hoc proposal. The point is that maximizing complexity inevitably leads to life.



But this is inherently untestable and hence non-scientific. The proposal that the constants have values that maximize complexity *is* testable.



Well, asking where the laws come from is *always* going to lead to problems. For the most fundamental laws there *cannot* be a more fundamental explanation.



But that is not *at all* what I am proposing. I am not tweaking to give something as precise as English words on a distant world. I am simply saying the constants adjust to maximize complexity. And *that* inevitably leads to enough complexity to form life.



It *isn't* a 'superlaw'. It is simply a law like every other physical law: it just describes how the constants are determined.



It is certainly *possible* for there to exist a multidimensional civilization that is able to create universes. It is also possible that our universe was created as an art project by an elementary schooler in that civilization. But I find no evidence for such and my proposal of an *extra* physical law showing how the basic constants change is far, far superior as an explanation of the observed complexity of our universe.




Perhaps. have you done the calculation? Which values for the constants allow for a type of atom that can form complex structures? And, if the constants adjust to produce complexity, why would an external agent be required to produce the observed complexity?



Not at all. Again, if the constants adjust to maximize complexity, we would expect atoms like carbon to form allowing for complex structures. And, again, we would expect, if complexity is maximized, to see such structures develop into life. There is only *one* problem: the amount of complexity. And that problem is solved by the proposed law that the constants maximize complexity.



On the contrary, design is typically the *worst* explanation unless we know there is an intelligent agent ahead of time and what the capabilities of that agent are. I am NOT making an arbitrary exception: I am proposing another natural law that shows why the observed complexity is what it is.



Nope. For the Rosetta Stone, we already know there are humans that have the capabilities of making that stone, that they existed in the area, that Egyptian and Greek were already known to be languages of that area, etc.



But if those laws are untestable, they should be thrown out immediately. Which is one reason ID is not even under consideration.



I strongly disagree. A simple law stating that the constants are such to maximize complexity is in line with all sorts of other optimization laws we already use in physics. For example, all of the laws we currently see as fundamental involve maximizing a Lagrangian. All that happens with my proposal is that the constants are* also* subject to an optimization for complexity. Again, it is NOT a 'superlaw', but merely another proposed ordinary law that affects the constants as parameters.

It would be convinient to ask, what do you mean by complexity? Can you define it?

 

[leroy]

leroy doesn’t understand that.

He keep repeating the same ignorant claims about Evolution being random.

He has been corrected about this before, so it is highly unlikely that he doesn’t know others have told him that Natural Selection isn’t random.

So he is being deliberately dishonest in repeating this strawman argument.

Yes natural selection is not random.... This thread is 153+ pages long, I challenge you to find a single comment where I said/implied that NS is random

 

[Skwim]

Ok, so no definition is really solid. Unless someone says it is, until it changes due to new evidence.

That's science in a nut shell: aside from the absolutes defined by math or logic, everything is, in a sense, provisional.

.

.

 

[leroy]

Given the number of different types of functionality that could potentially exist, the chances of having *something* functional are much higher than 1 in 10^77.

Ok if not 10^77 then what is the correct probability based on the reaserch that you made?

You misunderstood what the article said. it said that for some previously given protein, there is a 1 in 10^77 chance that a random pattern will match that protein's functionality.

Yes agree..... But what is your point?

 

[gnostic]

Yes natural selection is not random.... This thread is 153+ pages long, I challenge you to find a single comment where I said/implied that NS is random

Really?

You keep talking about “Darwinism” mechanism.

Yes I belive in the darwinian mechanism (random variation + natural selection) and I accept that somethings can be explained by this mechanism. The claim is not that Darwinism doesn't explain anything, but rather that Darwinism can't explain everything

What do you think Darwinism refer to?

Seriously, any creationists talking about Darwinism, would be talking about the mechanism that Charles Darwin have proposed as Natural Selection.

That’s the real name of the mechanism, “Natural Selection”, not “Darwinism mechanism”.

Darwin never named his theory “Darwinism”, it was always Natural Selection.

In any case, the 20th century brought together both Natural Selection and Genetics (of Gregor Mendel), and referred them as Neo-Darwinism or though other people call it the Modern Synthesis.

But whether you call it Darwinian mechanism or Natural Selection, it isn’t random.

Even mutations aren’t random.

 

[leroy]

What the first living things were depends on how you define "living." I wouldn't consider a self replicating molecule alive.
Many components of life are observed to form naturally, and some have been seen to combine. At what point such a combination would be considered alive is anyone's call.

I still don't understand what you mean by specified complexity. Complexity arises from natural mechanisms all the time. Where does specification fit in?

"specified" simply means" a pattern" for example a bunch of random letters would be complex but not specified... A bunch of meaningful words and sentences (pattern) would be both complex and specified.

You can have complexity by chance, but specified complexity can only come from a mind.

 

[Polymath257]

It would be convinient to ask, what do you mean by complexity? Can you define it?

Yes, that is a tricky issue. Kolmogorov complexity won't do since any values of the constants would give the same value for that. Information is, in essence, equivalent to entropy, so that is already covered.

On the other hand, it is clear that there is something similar to a p*log(p) thing going on as in entropy, but that considers the network of interactions allowed.

Looks like a good research project!

On the other hand, you have given NO details for any intelligence that you are proposing to be acting. You give nothing on where that intelligence arose nor of what laws it obeys. So I already have far more detail in my proposal than you do in yours. And mine actually explains rather than being 'just so'.

 

[Polymath257]

"specified" simply means" a pattern" for example a bunch of random letters would be complex but not specified... A bunch of meaningful words and sentences (pattern) would be both complex and specified.

Meaningful to whom?

You can have complexity by chance, but specified complexity can only come from a mind.

How do you know this? For example, information (negative entropy) arises whenever there is a deterministic law. The random collection of letters has low (Shannon) information, while the 'meaningful' string has high information.

The problem is that high information situations can arise naturally and situations that seem to be low information (say, an encrypted file) can actually have high information content.

One big issue in all of this is the concept of 'meaningful'. To be specified is even defined in terms of that. But,humns are very good at finding meaning where there is none (faces in clouds, for example).

 

[leroy]

Really?

You keep talking about “Darwinism” mechanism.



What do you think Darwinism refer to?

Seriously, any creationists talking about Darwinism, would be talking about the mechanism that Charles Darwin have proposed as Natural Selection.

That’s the real name of the mechanism, “Natural Selection”, not “Darwinism mechanism”.

Darwin never named his theory “Darwinism”, it was always Natural Selection.

In any case, the 20th century brought together both Natural Selection and Genetics (of Gregor Mendel), and referred them as Neo-Darwinism or though other people call it the Modern Synthesis.

But whether you call it Darwinian mechanism or Natural Selection, it isn’t random.

Yes with Darwinism I simply mean the claim that organisms evolve mainly by a procees of random variation + natural selection.

But whether you call it Darwinian mechanism or Natural Selection, it isn’t random.

Agree, what makes you think that I would claim otherwise.?

If not "Darwinian mechanism" how should I call the mechanism of random variation + natural selection? But sure the process as a whole us not random.

Even mutations aren’t random

.

In this context random simply means that mutations happen independently if an organisms needs that mutation or not..... Mutations do not try to supply the needs of an organism....

 

[gnostic]

No one then really knows what the first living form was. It's all guesswork. About the first living form.

The first life form were prokaryotic organisms - such as primitive unicellular bacteria.

Evidence of bacteria possibly go as far back as 3.8 billion years.

How the earliest bacteria form, is what remain a mystery.

And it is not simply guesswork.

 

[Polymath257]

Ok if not 10^77 then what is the correct probability based on the reaserch that you made?

Well, a naive approach would be to multiple that 1/10^77 by the possible number of useful jobs. How to estimate that numbe ris anyone's guess.

Yes agree..... But what is your point?

That the correct thing to look for is a protein that can function in some capacity, not one that matches a previously specified protein. For example, how many different arrangements could carry oxygen? Well, the active site in the globin molecules is certainly *one* way of doing it, but are there others? Almost certainly, but this is the one that appeared first and was subsequently used. How many different ways are there to cut a protein? Well, we already know of several different families of proteins that do that job, so it is clear that demanding agreement with any specific one is the wrong question.

How many different ways are there to split a glucose molecule? How many different ways to do *any* of the jobs done by proteins? To ask how many have exactly the same active site and folding as a previously specified protein is dramatically underestimating the probabilities.

Again, to even intelligently guess the probabilities of functionality, you would have to know *all* the different ways of doing *some* job.

 

[gnostic]

Yes with Darwinism I simply mean the claim that organisms evolve mainly by a procees of random variation + natural selection.



Agree, what makes you think that I would claim otherwise.?

If not "Darwinian mechanism" how should I call the mechanism of random variation + natural selection? But sure the process as a whole us not random.

.

In this context random simply means that mutations happen independently if an organisms needs that mutation or not..... Mutations do not try to supply the needs of an organism....

Good grief.

Every single evolutionary mechanisms are studies of variations to life, and that include Natural Selection. They all deal with “variations”.

The other mechanisms include Genetic Drift, Mutation, Gene Flow and Genetic Hitchhiking.

None of the mechanisms are random, not even Mutation.

Darwinism is just another name for Natural Selection. Neo-Darwinism and Modern Synthesis referred to both Natural Selection and Genetics.

Can you be more specific as to which mechanism you are talking about, when you talking about variation?

 

[leroy]

You probably believe that all gods, except the one you happen to believe in, are nothing more than the creations of man's imaginings.

In the same way I belive that no woman is my wife, except for the one woman that I call wife.

Hindus believe the same way you do.

No they don't, there are significant differences between hindu gods and the Christian God.

There are arguments for the existance of God that I consider valid, that would not apply to the hindu Gods , like the kalam cosmological argument, the fine tuning argument or the argument for the
resurrection.

And I belive in "my God" on the basis of those arguments.


What you are saying is like saying, "because you reject other models of the cosmos, like the gocentric model or the Flatt earth model, you should also reject the heliocentric model.