Zero probability for Evolution

[ratiocinator]

Yes time! The magic wand in the ToE!
Throw in enough time and people will believe anything is possible.

Time is necessary because individual changes are small, but there's nothing magic about it at all. What is needed is replication with variation and inheritance, time, and limited resources. Evolution follows logically and naturally from that.

 

[Wildswanderer]

So it is fine to make god claims with no explanation but atheists are to explain everything?
Are you seriously that proud of your double standards?

It's not a double standard. The atheists pretend they have superior knowledge.
They pretend to have an explanation for everything.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Time is necessary because individual changes are small, but there's nothing magic about it at all. What is needed is replication with variation and inheritance, time, and limited resources. Evolution follows logically and naturally from that.

Funny, I don't see anything like that happening now. All I see are minor adaptations.

 

[McBell]

It's not a double standard. The atheists pretend they have superior knowledge.
They pretend to have an explanation for everything.

Which you whine about ad nauseum whilst claiming yours is the superior knowledge because....God

But then you do not explain anything at all because.... God

So it is a rather slippery slope your snowball is on...

 

[Wildswanderer]

Which you whine about ad nauseum whilst claiming yours is the superior knowledge because....God

But then you do not explain anything at all because.... God

So it is a rather slippery slope your snowball is on...

It's a level playing field. If you all don't have an explanation just say so, instead of mocking those who propose that the explanation is bigger than science.

 

[McBell]

It's a level playing field. If you all don't have an explanation just say so, instead of mocking those who propose that the explanation is bigger than science.

It is not a level playing field.
Not by a long shot.

And your "proposal" is nothing more than a series of bold empty claims in a vain attempt at convincing those not in your choir that your choir beliefs are at least as good as science.

 

[ratiocinator]

They pretend to have an explanation for everything.

I don't. There are plenty of things nobody has the answer to.

Funny, I don't see anything like that happening now. All I see are minor adaptations.

Which is exactly what we'd expect you to see. However, the evidence for large changes over time is overwhelming. The entire case could be made from genetics alone, regardless of all the other types of evidence.

 

[Wildswanderer]

It is not a level playing field.
Not by a long shot.

And your "proposal" is nothing more than a series of bold empty claims in a vain attempt at convincing those not in your choir that your choir beliefs are at least as good as science.

You have no explanation for the universe, but you call my claims empty? What does that make yours?

 

[Revoltingest]

But we don't pretend that we can explain God.
Athiests in particular, scoff at God, when they have no explanation for why they even exist.

None of us has an explanation.
But atheists tend to not claim having one.

Sometimes ya just gotta admit ya don't know.
Inadequacy of science doesn't mean "God did it".

 

[Polymath257]

Thanks for proving my point. The fact that the universe has laws and order proves it was designed that way.

No, it does not. To have an intelligence requires laws of nature to allow it to function.

 

[Polymath257]

Micro changes are often actually losses of information, gene switches turned off. That doesn't get us from one life form to another. You can't add on what isn't there. It's like saying you can make a jet from a unicycle if you just rearrange the parts enough.

.
But genes duplicate, allowing the two copies to change in different ways. And that *is* an increase of information

 

[Wildswanderer]

None of us has an explanation.
But atheists tend to not claim having one.

Sometimes ya just gotta admit ya don't know.
Inadequacy of science doesn't mean "God did it".

It just means science will never answer the most important question.

No, it does not. To have an intelligence requires laws of nature to allow it to function.

That backward. Why should there be order instead of total chaos?
Why should there be any scientific laws at all?

 

[Polymath257]

Uh huh. The strong mutations win, right?
Only it doesn't actually work that way. Even a beneficial mutation can be lost due to random events, the animal gets taken out by predator, that mutation doesn't get passed on to anyone. Besides which, these are just adaptations within the DNA, they aren't new information. They can not magically transform the host into a new kind of animal.

An adaptation in the DNA is new information.

A 'new kind of animal' isn't made in a single generation, or even in a hundred generations. The small changes add up to produce big changes.

 

[Polymath257]

The information to adapt to their environment was already encoded in their DNA. I know a little about fur primeness. It's not what I would call evolution at all. Fur doesn't just change because of a colder environment, it's a result of photosynthesis. It changes as the days get shorter and darker.
Also body mass, etc, will change due to environmental conditions. No creationists are denying adaptation. So you're just throwing out a straw man.

Adaptation of an individual is not evolution. A genetic change allowing for fuller fur would be.

And yes, that can and does happen.

And no, fur changes in an individual are NOT due to photosynthesis. Wow.

 

[Polymath257]

That backward. Why should there be order instead of total chaos?
Why should there be any scientific laws at all?

A good question. But postulating an intelligence doesn't help to answer that. That intelligence also relies on the orderliness of the laws to which it is subject (otherwise it would also be chaotic).

The natural laws have to be first. THNE and only then is it possible for intelligences to arise through some process.

 

[Polymath257]

You have no explanation for the universe, but you call my claims empty? What does that make yours?

Why do you think the universe needs an explanation but your pre-existing intelligence does not?

 

[Polymath257]

Yes time! The magic wand in the ToE!
Throw in enough time and people will believe anything is possible.

Nope, not true. But time along with natural selection makes it possible to find close to optimal solutions to certain types of problems living things encounter.

 

[Wildswanderer]

.
But genes duplicate, allowing the two copies to change in different ways. And that *is* an increase of information

Epulopiscium fishelsoni carries 25 times as much DNA as a human cell, and one of its genes has been duplicated 85,000 times yet it is still a
bacterium.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Why do you think the universe needs an explanation but your pre-existing intelligence does not?

That doesn't make sense. If the universe is explained, would I not be included?

 

[Polymath257]

Epulopiscium fishelsoni carries 25 times as much DNA as a human cell, and one of its genes has been duplicated 85,000 times yet it is still a
bacterium.

And? What were the selection pressures from the environment to force it to become something else?

Those duplicated genes are, at the very least, an increase of information. Especially if they also mutated away from their original sequences.