Evolution just doesn't make sense

[James Madison]

Whoa whoa whoa. What is the evidence of textual corruption?

What is the evidence that the Bible is the word of God?

Textual corruption is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Wouldn't you say the Constitution has been corrupted: meanings changed, sematical arguments over words, additional amendments that go against the original document?

 

[Sola_Fide]

What is the evidence that the Bible is the word of God?

Textual corruption is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Wouldn't you say the Constitution has been corrupted: meanings changed, sematical arguments over words, additional amendments that go against the original document?

Ah...so there we go. We get to the root of your apostacy. You need to go to the Did The Bible Misquote Jesus thread, listen to the videos, and respond to the arguments. Lets get to the root of your unbelief.

 

[georgiaboy]

....
As a start, here is a video that demonstrates my point:

Ok, I had heard about some of this stuff but have never seen this video (gotta watch all 12 clips to get the whole video).

Truly fascinating, logical, and affirming! Thanks! Gives "the Information Age" a whole new meaning.

 

[mczerone]

But if the change is a series of very small ones,how can a minor change really help survivability to be much of an advantage compared to the other offspring? also,why would the unchanged animal be able to survive long enough to pass on its genes prior too its mutated offspring but all of the sudden when one offspring is different the others now have issues with being able to survive long enough to pass on its genes to another generation?

To take a salient example: There are distributions of humans with a peculiar mutation that doesn't really convey an advantage, but exists just because it doesn't harm the carrier, namely "blue eyes".

This mutation can exist forever, or can disappear. But if we assume that there's some kind of fictional "solar disruption" or atmospheric change that later give blue eyes and advantage, then all those mutants with a current harmless mutation will then be granted a huge advantage.

There's many ways for speciation to occur. There's also sexual selection: aesthetics might choose blue eyes until they become the norm. There's also bottleneck effects: 90% of humans might die for some reason (e.g. meteor strike), and it just happens by chance that most of the survivors have blue eyes. There's also "Founder's effects": A small group of humans move to a new continent, and it just happens that most of the few founders have blue eyes, and therefore blue eyes become the common type in the new population - and they might have a better environment to grow a large population than the people who didn't move - eventually the blue-eyed people could become the dominant form of "human" on the Earth.

It's not always that mutations that survive are because they confer an immediate benefit. Mutations simply survive as long as they are not fatally detrimental. And then something else might happen that makes one group of mutations more fit for survival than others (sometimes directly related to the form of the mutations, sometimes by pure happenstance). Sometimes mutations are directly beneficial, though; a mutation that allows for a higher rate of oxygen absorption from the lungs might allow an individual to run faster and either hunt better or evade predators better, even slightly, than their non-mutated neighbors - this would be an immediately selected mutation.

 

[Theocrat]

Evolution Cannot Be Observed

...There is observable evolution happening all the time. You dismiss this as merely "micro-evolution" which cannot possibly result in macro-evolution in the long run. There are examples where species evolved into distinct other species (http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/21/macro-evolution-observed-in-the-laboratory/). Although normally you couldn't possibly point to any generation as being a "new and distinct species" from it's parent generation. Requiring that is accepting the Sorites paradox, stating that one grain of sand is a heap, since you can always take away one grain from a heap without it ceasing to be a heap, unless you make arbitrary distinctions. Such arbitrary distinctions like "species".

Evolution is not observable. There is no way one can observe "millions of years" of gradual changes in an organism by means of natural selection in a laboratory. That is a historical claim, and therefore, it is a claim full of assumptions about the past and based on faith. Variations in kinds of animals occurs in nature, whereby, we can see that some insects become resistant to pesticides (for instance), while other insects don't. The insects who are resistant to pesticides live on to pass those traits to their offspring, but they still remain an insect. They don't evolve into something that is non-insectlike, such as a frog or a wolf or a buffalo. Their genetic information has limits. That has been proven scientifically over and over again. So, you are obviously wrong about evolution being observable. The only way it's observable if someone imagines that it could have happen that way, and that's exactly the language that evolutionists use.

 

[mczerone]

Evolution is not observable. There is no way one can observe "millions of years" of gradual changes in an organism by means of natural selection in a laboratory. That is a historical claim, and therefore, it is a claim full of assumptions about the past and based on faith. Variations in kinds of animals occurs in nature, whereby, we can see that some insects become resistant to pesticides (for instance), while other insects don't. The insects who are resistant to pesticides live on to pass those traits to their offspring, but they still remain an insect. They don't evolve into something that is non-insectlike, such as a frog or a wolf or a buffalo. Their genetic information has limits. That has been proven scientifically over and over again. So, you are obviously wrong about evolution being observable. The only way it's observable if someone imagines that it could have happen that way, and that's exactly the language that evolutionists use.

An ant can't turn into a buffalo in 10 generations, therefore science proves God did it?

You've really taken the creationist arguments off the deep end.

 

[Theocrat]

Strawman Much?

An ant can't turn into a buffalo in 10 generations, therefore science proves God did it?

You've really taken the creationist arguments off the deep end.

Where in any of my posts did I offer that argument, mczerone?

 

[erowe1]

An ant can't turn into a buffalo in 10 generations.

Let's change that just a little.

Hypothesis:

An ant can't spawn an elephant in X generations, no matter how great X is.

Do you honestly believe science has disproved that hypothesis?

 

[mczerone]

Where in any of my posts did I offer that argument, mczerone?

The one I quoted...

Variations in kinds of animals occurs in nature, whereby, we can see that some insects become resistant to pesticides (for instance), while other insects don't. The insects who are resistant to pesticides live on to pass those traits to their offspring, but they still remain an insect. They don't evolve into something that is non-insectlike, such as a frog or a wolf or a buffalo. Their genetic information has limits. That has been proven scientifically over and over again. So, you are obviously wrong about evolution being observable. The only way it's observable if someone imagines that it could have happen that way, and that's exactly the language that evolutionists use.

You asked for evidence, received it, then moved the goalposts to demand impossible evidence.

 

[mczerone]

Let's change that just a little.

Hypothesis:


Do you honestly believe science has disproved that hypothesis?

I'd say that science has "disproved that hypothesis." An ant can't spawn an elephant.

An ant's progeny, however, might be SO VASTLY DIFFERENT from the ancestral ant that it would not be sexually compatible, and therefore a different species. That progeny might evolve gigantism, an external skin organ, a long nasal appendage, and large "ears" so as to resemble a modern elephant.

 

[erowe1]

I'd say that science has "disproved that hypothesis." An ant can't spawn an elephant.

An ant's progeny, however, might be SO VASTLY DIFFERENT from the ancestral ant that it would not be sexually compatible, and therefore a different species. That progeny might evolve gigantism, an external skin organ, a long nasal appendage, and large "ears" so as to resemble a modern elephant.

When I said spawn, I meant to include what you described. I'm not sure what the right word is.

I'd like to see this proof.

 

[mczerone]

When I said spawn, I meant to include what you described. I'm not sure what the right word is.

I'd like to see this proof.

Proof of WHAT?

Assuming you are asking for a proof of "an ant could do such an "evolution" to a non-sexually compatible "eleph-ANT"" - what evidence would you require to prove such a statement?

A "proof" is technically only valid in the "ideal" sciences like mathematics and logic; subjects that are reducible to ideal forms that are only symbolic of the observable world. I can prove that the sum of the first N cubes is the square of the sum of the first N numbers. I can't "prove" anything from physics or biology objectively. I can only provide compelling evidence that a hypothesis is generally acceptable.

 

[erowe1]

All this means is that we haven't discovered an explanation.. That's all.

What you said right here, Kotin, illustrates a major problem with trusting science to explain origins. It all becomes a big game, rather than a search for truth.

You start with the challenge of trying to explain everything by way of regular processes that we can observe and systematize. You rule out from the starting point that the right explanation for anything could ever be something outside these regular processes we observe (i.e. a miracle). And you never ever arrive at a final coherent grand unified system for your explanations. They're always being challenged, and revised, and supposedly getting closer to the truth without ever getting there. And then, whenever they fail to explain anything, you can just say, "Well, that's just one of the parts we don't have the explanation for yet." There will never come a day when science will be done getting refined, at which that line will no longer be useful.

So it boils down to uniformitarians having their own "God of the gaps." And at no point can this approach ever establish the truthfulness of its own axiom that no miracle has ever happened.

 

[erowe1]

Proof of WHAT?

You said science had disproved the hypothesis I presented.

That means that you (or someone) have proof that the hypothesis is false.

I'd like to see that proof.

 

[erowe1]

A "proof" is technically only valid in the "ideal" sciences like mathematics and logic;

So you don't believe that the physical sciences involve falsifying theories? Because to falsify something necessarily includes proving something.

I've encountered others who raise as a major objection against the claim that God created things miraculously that it's unfalsifiable.

 

[mczerone]

So you don't believe that the physical sciences involve falsifying theories? Because to falsify something necessarily includes proving something.

I've encountered others who raise as a major objection against the claim that God created things miraculously that it's unfalsifiable.

Let's say you have a bag with 3 apples and 4 oranges in it.

I have a theory that says that any bag containing 7 fruits in it must contain 2 apples, 2 oranges, and 3 pears.

I inspect your bag, testing my hypothesis, and discover 3 apples and 4 oranges.

One could claim that I should keep my theory and disregard my observation, obviously one of those apples and 2 of those oranges were really pears. But if I can't trust my observations, then making predictions about my observations becomes meaningless.

Therefore, to be consistent and trust my observations, I must say that my theory was DISPROVED THROUGH OBSERVATION.

The (revised) statement that "A colony of ants will not produce an elephant" is not a theory that can be tested: the only way to KNOW would be to run every possible scenario for an infinite amount of time.

I'm not going to get into a BASIC lecture on the theory of the scientific method with you. You're not interested in it, or you could go to youtube and find a much better lecture than I could provide here.

 

[Theocrat]

Wrong

The one I quoted...



You asked for evidence, received it, then moved the goalposts to demand impossible evidence.

The evidence presented showed micro-evolution, which creationists affirm because it can be demonstrated. The evidence did not prove that macro-evolution is observable. I haven't "moved any goalposts." I'm asking for empirical evidence that shows (based on observation, which is the first step of the scientific method) that living organisms evolve over millions of years by means of natural selection, and show how that can be demonstrated and repeated in a laboratory or in nature. That is how the methodologies of the natural sciences work. If evolutionists cannot meet that criterion, then they cannot call their assertion "science." In fact, it is nothing but faith in an impersonal process, believing that it can increase complexity of living organisms, which, of course, is never shown in nature.

 

[erowe1]

Let's say you have a bag with 3 apples and 4 oranges in it.

I have a theory that says that any bag containing 7 fruits in it must contain 2 apples, 2 oranges, and 3 pears.

I inspect your bag, testing my hypothesis, and discover 3 apples and 4 oranges.

One could claim that I should keep my theory and disregard my observation, obviously one of those apples and 2 of those oranges were really pears. But if I can't trust my observations, then making predictions about my observations becomes meaningless.

Therefore, to be consistent and trust my observations, I must say that my theory was DISPROVED THROUGH OBSERVATION.

So, now you're saying that you can have proofs in the physical sciences?

The (revised) statement that "A colony of ants will not produce an elephant" is not a theory that can be tested: the only way to KNOW would be to run every possible scenario for an infinite amount of time.

That's not true. You would only have to run tests until a single one produced an elephant. This would disprove it by observation, just like what you described above.

I agree with you though, that as a matter of fact, you would need an infinite amount of time. I think the fact that you said that reveals that you secretly know that in no finite amount of time would an elephant ever be descended from an ant. Reflecting on the ramifications of that conviction would do you well.

At any rate, you are the one who said that science had disproved the hypothesis. Are you now taking that back and saying that it hasn't?

 

[robert9712000]

Whats interesting is according to this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution ,it took 2.6 billion years to go from a single cell organisms too the first multi celled organism,which according to one site i read it takes some single cell bacteria 20 minutes to reproduce,So reproducing every 20 minutes it still took 2.6 billion years for the first multi celled organism.Now assuming theres billions and billions of reproductions happening every 20 minutes thats a unfathomable number of times for a mutation too become a multi celled organism by chance.

Yet i am to believe that even though it took that many changes to go from a single celled organism to the first multi celled one,that in the last 1 billion years ,life went from the basic multi celled creature to humans?Even though its one third the time span and the reproduction rate is now years instead of minutes.So the number of times for possible change to even be able to happen is greatly reduced, yet the complexity has increased by a unfathomable amount from basic multi celled creatures to humans.At the rate it took just to make the leap from single cell to multi celled,the complexity of a human should have taken trillions and trillions of years if left only too chance.

Sorry that takes some faith there.

 

[mczerone]

So, now you're saying that you can have proofs in the physical sciences?


That's not true. You would only have to run tests until a single one produced an elephant. This would disprove it by observation, just like what you described above.

I agree with you though, that as a matter of fact, you would need an infinite amount of time. I think the fact that you said that reveals that you secretly know that in no finite amount of time would an elephant ever be descended from an ant. Reflecting on the ramifications of that conviction would do you well.

At any rate, you are the one who said that science had disproved the hypothesis. Are you now taking that back and saying that it hasn't?

Science: (1) The offspring of an animal has a combination of it's mother's and father's genetic code. (2) Ants have a specific genetic code. (3) Elephants have a distinct genetic code that evolved in a separate lineage from the ant, at least for the last 600 million years or so. (4) there's a vanishingly small probability that the lineage of some ant alive today will evolve to have the same genetic code as a modern elephant, but the time required for that suite of genes to be selected, and the ant's current genes to be de-selected would be many trillions of times longer than the current age of the universe.

Look, no one can prove that bigfoot doesn't exist. All we can do is say that it's increasingly unlikely as more and more land is explored and more and more people have more sophisticated cameras. Bigfoot could just be hiding behind that next oak tree. Or maybe bigfoot is a trans-dimensional being and disappears when anyone living on our astral wavelength tries to observe him. And maybe an ant's grand-kid could be an elephant. And maybe some supernatural force created life 6000 years ago and threw a bunch of fossils in the ground to test our faith.

It all could happen. If you ignore all the evidence telling you that it couldn't or change the definitions of what you're looking for as the original claims get ruled out.