Just Accidental?

[SkepticThinker]

The big bang theory. (The scientific one, not the show...)


That's a misnomer. Life doesn't have to come from "nothing" and, as far as we are currently aware, we're unsure as to whether or not "nothing" is even a viable concept.


All biological processes are seemingly mindless.


But what if you happen to see a random pile of rocks? To you, the random pile may have no significance, but there is a chance that this pile may actually spell out "help" in the language of the distant alien race. So, what's the difference in recognizing one or the other as inherent markers of design? Statistically, there is no difference between a royal flush and a high card in poker - any hand of five cards has just as much odds of any others. The difference is the significance we assign to certain patterns, but that doesn't mean the patterns themselves have a specific, inherent significance independent of our viewing of them. There is no difference in a pile of rocks that spells out "help" to an alien than there is in a very specific arrangement of rocks that spells out "help" to us at an intrinsic level.

That is a really good point.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Accidents, chance set the processes in motion according to many.




Accidents, chance set the process in motion according to many.

Only according to the uninformed. There is a difference between what happens to a population and what happens to an individual.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Overly broad? Take any organism you'd like and explain. Is 1 organism too broad?

Your questions need work since they are constantly poorly formed. If you ask proper questions you will get proper answers. Your question still has an unwarranted assumption in it on your part. Try to ask questions without those assumptions.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Hello, Guy, I sure enjoyed your posts!

I just wanted to mention, all these myriads of anatomy-modifying generations, had to have begun, not 3.8 billion years (as these evolutionists would have us think), but really, only 550 - 600 million years, since life was unicellular before that! About 1/7th of 3.8 billion!

That is correct, right?

Thanks Cowboy, I appreciate that- and likewise!

Yes it's a good point- we often hear 'billions of years' - But not only did life appear later, almost all the major phyla appeared in a geological blink of an eye -'as if with no evolutionary history' as Dawkins put it, during the Cambrian- limiting most of the appearances of the major body plans to <100 million years at best- and probably far shorter.

But having said that, when the mechanism doesn't work, no amount of time helps solve that anyway- that's merely a way of throwing a veil over the empirical viability of the process. A single cell would not become a human being through accidental changes given a trillion years...

 

[Jose Fly]

Oh Jose.... I'm still waiting for your substance on how this only applies to the humans you want it to rather than all humans.

Another dodge. Again, where is your evidence that "evolutionists" are being emotionally blackmailed the same as our Jehovah's Witnesses members, i.e., operating under the threat of having their family and personal friends abandon them and losing all meaning and purpose to their life?

I think this is about the third time you've made a series of unsubstantiated assertions and dodged around when I've asked you to back them up.

 

[Jose Fly]

Maybe in the circles you mix in.....but its certainly not dead in the wider community, especially among those who haven't lost faith in God, and the many who have regained it after discovering how little science actually has to support its theory.

So it enjoys the same status as young-earth creationism and geocentrism.....scientifically irrelevant and only adhered to by a minority of religious groups.

There are over 8 million JW's in the world and none of them think its dead.

So which version of ID creationism do you believe in? That of Michael Behe, who accepts universal common ancestry, humans included?

Accomplishing things "scientifically" seems to be a fixation among the members of the science community

Yeah, imagine that....scientists focus on what works. Who'da thought?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thanks Cowboy, I appreciate that- and likewise!

Yes it's a good point- we often hear 'billions of years' - But not only did life appear later, all the major phyla appeared in a geological blink of an eye -'as if with no evolutionary history' as Dawkins put it, during the Cambrian- limiting most of the appearances of the major body plans to <100 million years at best- and probably far shorter.

But having said that, when the mechanism doesn't work, no amount of time helps solve that anyway- that's merely a way of throwing a veil over the empirical viability of the process. A single cell would not become a human being through accidental changes given a trillion years...

But that is not correct. It may have seemed that way once, but we have found many more fossils since then. The Cambrian explosion alone is over 20 million years in length and there was complex life before then, just a lack of hard body parts. You are basing your argument on outdated information.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

But that is not correct. It may have seemed that way once, but we have found many more fossils since then. The Cambrian explosion alone is over 20 million years in length and there was complex life before then, just a lack of hard body parts. You are basing your argument on outdated information.

I said < 100 million, you said 20 million... so we do not disagree, your figure is probably closer to the mark than 100- but if I say 20 I'm usually accused of exaggerating!

even 20 is still a catch-all though, it is ever shrinking the more evidence comes in , like all the time scales for hypothetical transitions

 

[ArtieE]

And how could you know what is going around there, that spot was there 12 billion light years ago, can you imagine that and can you be sure that it was by an unintentional accident?

As long as theists can't provide any evidence that it wasn't I'll go with unintentional. Those theists who blame gods for things, like blaming Poseidon for earthquakes and Thor for thunder or some god for the universe or whatever have a miserable track record. Not once in the history of the world have they been shown right. So pardon me for believing that things have a natural explanation until theists can show beyond reasonable doubt that some god actually created anything.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I said < 100 million, you said 20 million... so we do not disagree, your figure is probably closer to the mark than 100- but if I say 20 I'm usually accused of exaggerating!

even 20 is still a catch-all though, it is ever shrinking the more evidence comes in , like all the time scales for hypothetical transitions

No, you have it backwards. The evidence is every growing that tells us that you are wrong. There was almost 100 million years of multicellular life before the Cambrian. The problem with life before the Cambrian is no hard body parts. So it takes rather special conditions to form fossils. That along with the fact that the longer a sedimentary strata has been around the more likely it will have eroded away. But rare does not mean non-existent.

The plan and simple fact is that there is no evidence for your beliefs and there are mountains for ours. You cannot honestly demand evidence when evidence is so lacking from your side.

 

[FearGod]

As long as theists can't provide any evidence that it wasn't I'll go with unintentional. Those theists who blame gods for things, like blaming Poseidon for earthquakes and Thor for thunder or some god for the universe or whatever have a miserable track record. Not once in the history of the world have they been shown right. So pardon me for believing that things have a natural explanation until theists can show beyond reasonable doubt that some god actually created anything.

What if you were wrong similar to the ones who believed in Poseidon and Thor....etc

 

[Deeje]

The big bang theory. (The scientific one, not the show...)

To even (sarcastically) call creation the "Big Bang" is suggestive of one colossal creation event. The universe did not evolve. Science knows it had a beginning. It has no clue about what was in existence before that. The Bible explains.

That's a misnomer. Life doesn't have to come from "nothing" and, as far as we are currently aware, we're unsure as to whether or not "nothing" is even a viable concept.

Shifting the goal posts now?
Can I ask you where you were before your parents conceived you? Did you exist, except as a possible combination of two living cells in two separate individuals who meet by some means and pair up? The odds against "you" being born are astronomical, yet here you are talking to me because one sperm beat all the others to the goalpost. The process of ovulation, conception and implantation are unseen 'miracles' taking place on a mass scale every day in vast numbers of creatures all over the world. Each creature has its unique way of entering the world, but the process of how it's life began is basically the same for all. None of them are a product of chance, but a product of specific design.....brilliant design that shows the intent of the designer to perpetuate all of these species by programmed responses in their genes, needing no direct intervention from himself. All brilliantly capable of adapting to new environments and food sources, yet remaining true to their "kind". No accidents there.

When something is as clearly programmed (as instinct is) then that requires a programmer.....simple logic. If there is purpose demonstrated in the design, it indicates planning and planning requires intelligence.....simple logic. Science tries to dictate that we need complicated logic to understand their ridiculous scenario.
Who could swallow that nonsense without that kind of indoctrination?

All biological processes are seemingly mindless.

That is a word favoured in scientific circles...."seemingly"...it makes conjecture "seem" like fact. Assumption is not fact and just because something "seems" to be correct, doesn't mean it is.

But what if you happen to see a random pile of rocks? To you, the random pile may have no significance, but there is a chance that this pile may actually spell out "help" in the language of the distant alien race.

Really? Alien languages now? Goalposts moved again? Special pleading? Please.....

What do you think the Creator and his angels are? If we speak of "extra-terrestrials" most people think of little green men....but seriously, the word simply means "not from the Earth". I assure you that the Creator is not from this Earth. We have no idea "what" he is.....we just know that the facts outweigh the speculation in this issue. Life did not arise by chance. It is impossible and nothing science has by provable means can alter what it knows, but has to deny to support its theory.

There is no difference in a pile of rocks that spells out "help" to an alien than there is in a very specific arrangement of rocks that spells out "help" to us at an intrinsic level

Are you serious? Sorry, but that is just pathetic.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

No, you have it backwards. The evidence is every growing that tells us that you are wrong. There was almost 100 million years of multicellular life before the Cambrian. The problem with life before the Cambrian is no hard body parts. So it takes rather special conditions to form fossils. That along with the fact that the longer a sedimentary strata has been around the more likely it will have eroded away.

That's a very good excuse, but 'the dog ate my homework' does not earn a passing grade! Where are all the intermediates originally predicted?

the Cambrian shows us a substantial number of major animal phyla already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history

The plan and simple fact is that there is no evidence for your beliefs and there are mountains for ours.

'There is nothing more deceptive as an obvious fact' as Sherlock Holmes would say!

But you just gave me an excuse for why there is NOT mountains of evidence, which is it?

You cannot honestly demand evidence when evidence is so lacking from your side.

So now I'm dishonest as well as stupid? That's okay I've been called worse! But for the record let me tell you what I think of you!!

I think you seem like a perfectly honest, intelligent person, at the very least this makes for a more interesting substantive discussion than ad hominem,

what is it exactly that you find so convincing about your belief?

 

[Jose Fly]

Where are all the intermediates originally predicted?

It's already been posted.

Every single creationist here ignored it, as expected.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Maybe in the circles you mix in.....but its certainly not dead in the wider community, especially among those who haven't lost faith in God, and the many who have regained it after discovering how little science actually has to support its theory.
There are over 8 million JW's in the world and none of them think its dead.

A tenth of a percent of the world is not the wider community. Creationists are a minority even in the Christian community.

You guys treat science as if it were your religion.

Nope. You treat the Jehovah's Witnesses as if they were your religion. The atheist has no need for gods or religious rituals.

• "Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anybody who doubts it is invited to jump out of a tenth-floor window." -Richard Dawkins

• "Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." -Dan Barker

no one seems to mention all the harm that science has accomplished

Science has done no harm. It just provides information.

Religion does tremendous harm.

It isn't ID creationism that is dead....its science being responsible for most of the unnecessary deaths on this planet.

If you consider some deaths unnecessary and believe that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god, blame it for them. Anybody who sits idly by watching somebody die that could have been saved is as guilty as the killer.

And still after all the prompting, there is still no evidence forthcoming from you to support your theory.

The theory is so well established that it can't be toppled. The most possible are tweaks. It shares this with the germ theory of (infectious) disease and the heliocentric theory. There is zero hope that those will ever be toppled, either. And good luck with unseating any other scientific theory.

It's religion that lacks evidentiary support. Are you aware of the degree that the American church is hemorrhaging respect, numbers and social clout? You might not be.

There is a way to settle this argument once and for all.....will the scientists here please present to the readers here substantiated evidence for macro-evolution that does not rely on inference, suggestion of belief. It cannot be based on adaptation unless you have proof that macro-evolution can be demonstrated beyond what is observable in a lab.

Review the thread. I think that people are losing interest in the creationist two-step - asking for evidence as if such a thing would matter to you, ignoring it, claiming none has been presented, then asking for it again.

I'm pretty sure that that's why when I asked you to describe any of the evidence you had seen here, you were mute. You didn't say that this finding or that didn't rise to the level of evidence. You couldn't even name such a finding.You never even looked, did you?

Nobody can teach a thing to a person with a stake in not learning it.

You also failed to provided a barrier between what you call micro- and macroevolution, nor explained why we should. All you've said is that one can't become the other, and your evidence is that we haven observed a new biological family evolve despite a 150 years of looking. We've also never seen Pluto complete an orbit, but we know that there is no barrier to the third of an orbit or so that it has traversed since we began watching isn't one of hundreds of millions of orbits. That's how weak that argument is.

You've also still never offered a reason why we should toss out a scientific theory that unifies and accounts for the available fossil, biological, and biogeographical evidence, includes a mechanism to account for the diversity and commonality of all life on earth, is falsifiable by virtue of predicting what kinds of things can and cannot be found in nature but has never been falsified, and has led to technological advances that have improved the human condition, for an idea that can do none of that.

This is probably what Jose and Sapiens mean when they tell you that creationism is dead. It died in court in America in a few landmark court cases, and it died on this thread when you and all other creationists failed to meet any of those challenges. It really can only be found among a small enclave of faith based thinkers. That's also true for the flat earth advocates.

Reason and evidence based thinkers aren't interested in what faith based thinkers believe, just what they can demonstrate or argue effectively. It's not enough to just claim that "macro-evolution" cannot occur - demonstrate or explain why.

It is one of the few scientific facts that is provable. Life does not pop into existence all by itself.....life on earth comes from a source of pre-existing life.

That's a religious belief, not science.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's a very good excuse, but 'the dog ate my homework' does not earn a passing grade! Where are all the intermediates originally predicted?

Need I remind you that you were the one that made an ignorant error and now you are running away from it. This is massive projection on your part.

the Cambrian shows us a substantial number of major animal phyla already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history

So what? I already explained this to you. You were the one that tried to falsely claim that multicelular life appeared in the Cambrian. Once again your information is at least 50 years out of date.

'There is nothing more deceptive as an obvious fact' as Sherlock Holmes would say!

And more projection.

But you just gave me an excuse for why there is NOT mountains of evidence, which is it?

There are mountains of evidence. You do not seem to be paying attention.

So now I'm dishonest as well as stupid? That's okay I've been called worse! But for the record let me tell you what I think of you!!

I never said that you were stupid. Now believing in Santa Claus after the sources of presents is explained to one may make that person desperate it does not necessarily make the person stupid. You keep making gross errors due to your rejection of reality. You may realize that is not very wise, but it does not necessarily make you stupid.

Now you can be honest if you try. You probably are fighting yourself here. Would you like to learn? People here will gladly help you.

I think you seem like a perfectly honest, intelligent person, at the very least this makes for a more interesting substantive discussion than ad hominem,

what is it exactly that you find so convincing about your belief?

Now please, I did not use ad hominem. Creationists far too often make that false claim when they are shown to be wrong. And I do not have mere belief, all of the scientific evidence is on my side. But then you probably do not understand the concept of evidence. Creationists as a rule do not understand the concept. They tend to keep themselves unaware of what is and what is not evidence as a self defense technique.

Now your belief in a worldwide flood was shown to be wrong long before Darwin came along. You should be trying to learn how we know that is the case rather than grasping at straws as you did with the article about water in the mantle. A single photo can refute the worldwide flood myth. If you understand some very basic concepts.

 

[Deeje]

At this juncture I will again point out that the "evidence" that was asked for 3 pages and 63 responses ago......to produce substantiated studies that prove that the process of macro-evolution is true.....is still very evidently missing.

Nothing provided so far has been anything but supposition masquerading as facts.....try again.

Asking the evolutionists to produce something that does not rely on adaptation, jargon, supposition, faith or belief must be really difficult. ....or it would have been presented to knock this question right on the head. Instead, what do we see? The same tired old protestations that proves nothing except that we have two competing "belief" systems. Neither can "scientifically prove" what they believe.

If there is nothing to substantiate this theory except educated guesswork, then my point is made. Where is this "mountain" of evidence? Surely we would have seen it clearly presented by now? What has been presented that wasn't shown up to be pure speculation and a biased interpretation of "evidence"...particularly of the fossil kind?

The silence is only disturbed by empty protests.....is this all you evolutionists have?

I can only thank you all for proving the point....

 

[Jose Fly]

And again @Deeje tries to taunt and goad people into responding to her.

It's weird to watch.

 

[Subduction Zone]

At this juncture I will again point out that the "evidence" that was asked for 3 pages and 63 responses ago......to produce substantiated studies that prove that the process of macro-evolution is true.....is still very evidently missing.

Others have provided you with some of that information. I observed that you do not understand the nature of evidence and offered to help you with that lack. You ignored that offer.

If someone insists on not understanding what he demands it would be a waste of time to give him what he asks for.

Nothing provided so far has been anything but supposition masquerading as facts.....try again.

This is not true and as Christian you should not make such a statement.

Asking the evolutionists to produce something that does not rely on adaptation, jargon, supposition, faith or belief must be really difficult. ....or it would have been presented to knock this question right on the head. Instead, what do we see? The same tired old protestations that proves nothing except that we have two competing "belief" systems. Neither can "scientifically prove" what they believe.

"Adaptation" as you call it is evolution. And no, you are the one that relies on faith. Instead of repeating your errors and false claims against others why not learn what is and what is not evidence? If you think that you do it would do you no harm to discuss the topic. Until then you are the one that is running away.

If there is nothing to substantiate this theory except educated guesswork, then my point is made. Where is this "mountain" of evidence? Surely we would have seen it clearly presented by now? What has been presented that wasn't shown up to be pure speculation and a biased interpretation of "evidence"...particularly of the fossil kind?

The silence is only disturbed by empty protests.....is this all you evolutionists have?

I can only thank you all for proving the point....

More of the same. False claims against others that you are not ready to defend.

Once again, if you do not understand what evidence is you will never be able to recognize it when it is presented to you.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Make sure you let us know when they have accomplished the production of life from something non-living though, won't you?

Are you implying that that would matter to you? Creationists already have their answer ready. First, we'll hear that although it has been shown that life can assemble itself spontaneously under thermodynamically favorable conditions, nobody can prove that that is how it happened, and of course, intelligent design was proved since it didn't happen spontaneously over a few days or months.

The gaps lessens, but there is always a place for this god to hide. Christians will just change the argument. That's the nature of faith.

Incidentally, you misrepresented Pasteur and those speaking about the kind of spontaneous generation he and Redi studied. From Louis Pasteur himself: "No, there is now no circumstance known in which it can be affirmed that microscopic beings came into the world without germs, without parents similar to themselves."

What Pasteur said was correct - that no such process was known - but that is not what you claimed. You wanted to put words in his mouth to the effect that it cannot happen, and of course, for the same reason you continue to give for why things that can't be reproduced, haven't been reproduced, or haven't been observed are impossible despite you having observed virtually nothing that can be called creationism. This is another example of your double standard that you seem to think makes a valid argument.