Evidence for God from Science

Kurieuo wrote: I suppose it comes down to a definition of "natural," but I find yours inadequate for if God created everything by setting it all in motion, then by your definition is seems nothing could ever be called natural.

That is partially correct.

I think CS Lewis was correct to define "natural" as something left alone to its own state without intervention. For example, the natural state of a dog without flea powder is to have fleas. Anyway...

Well, God could have triggered the Big Bang to start life here and not care about anything else, so that doesn't necessarily contradict Lewis's definition. Does God really care if a rock ends up in Alaska as opposed to Yukon?

And then the verse just after explicitly says "God made..." This is simply a literary device being used over and over: "God said let there be something" and then directly following "God made that something." Read the whole chapter again taking note of this literary trend.

Except that saying "God did it" doesn't say jack about HOW He did it, which is the subject of our discussion.

Genesis 2:19 is the clincher for me since God fashions animals out of the ground as intimately as a potter creates his pot. It seems entirely forced to try say this represents a natural process of evolution.

Your own translation admits the word could simply be translated as "God made them". There is no potter in my interpretation because there doesn't have to be one. All you did was present your interpretation without actually saying why mine CANNOT be true. I never said you couldn't be right, I simply said my interpretation is just as valid. Now show me why it's not.

I'm only going by what you write. I early said: "If you invoke God at every step in the evolutionary molding process, then what is evolution? It wouldn't be the same thing a materialist scientist would consider evolution." to which you responded, "And this is a problem because?" I fail to see what I took wrong.

You took wrong the fact that the statement in question didn't actually have anything to do with my definition of evolution but rather with the fact that theistic and atheistic evolution would be at odds. I have already stated(rather clearly) that my definition of evolution is "That animals slowly transformed from an unicellular organism into what we see today." This is what the theory of evolution basically is. Then we have the naturalistic processes and it doesn't matter because I never even brought them up. So just deal with the part that is in the quotation marks if you want to criticize me rather than attacking standard evolution.

I am then perplexed by the faith TEs appear to have in natural processes to explain everything, that they have prepared an unfaultable position. To me, if something can be explained naturally, then it seems like folly to say God did it in a hidden way (i.e., naturally).

And that would be your opinion. But some of us believe in God because of how He manifests ourselves in our lives. As for the faith that natural processes being able to explain everything, I can't speak for others but I believe this is how God works. Have you never heard of the phrase "God works in mysterious ways?"

This is just common garbage you've brought into perhaps reading an evolution vs. creation debate or something. The fact one can explain how microevolution happens, and the mechanism by which it happens, is not something that can be extroplated to just "any" change. For microevolution is bounded by what already exists within the genetic code. For example, skin on our hands will get tougher and harder as we work with them as such is a natural adaptation within our biological code. Macroevolutionary change requires additional information not present in the genetic code. If a fish doesn't have coding for feet, how does this non-existing code get developed? Such is up to macroevolutionary theories to explain.

Macroevolution is the build up of mutations over time. Before I go on, let us clarify something. Are you saying that there is absolutely no possible way for mutations to add anythign new?

Anyway, it seems you still need more time coming off evolution so I'll leave it for now.

Kurieuo.

MM wrote:Well, God could have triggered the Big Bang to start life here and not care about anything else, so that doesn't necessarily contradict Lewis's definition. Does God really care if a rock ends up in Alaska as opposed to Yukon?

Perhaps, if that one rock would otherwise be responsible for triggering an avalanche at the right time, or if someone would otherwise pick up that rock and throw it at someone.

MM wrote:

K wrote:And then the verse just after explicitly says "God made..." This is simply a literary device being used over and over: "God said let there be something" and then directly following "God made that something." Read the whole chapter again taking note of this literary trend.

Except that saying "God did it" doesn't say jack about HOW He did it, which is the subject of our discussion.

What you mean "forming" them out of the ground in 2:19? Sounds like God followed the same process as when He created Adam.

MM wrote:

K wrote:Genesis 2:19 is the clincher for me since God fashions animals out of the ground as intimately as a potter creates his pot. It seems entirely forced to try say this represents a natural process of evolution.

Your own translation admits the word could simply be translated as "God made them". There is no potter in my interpretation because there doesn't have to be one. All you did was present your interpretation without actually saying why mine CANNOT be true. I never said you couldn't be right, I simply said my interpretation is just as valid. Now show me why it's not.

It is not my fault you continue hiding behind a translation. Get e-Sword and take a look at the word translated "formed" (yatsar), or look it up in a dictionary or something. While we may not have the exact specifics of how God formed them, what is revealed as being a direct creation rules out evolution as the natural method. Now you can still hold onto your beliefs, it really doesn't matter to me, but Scripture clearly doesn't support Theistic Evolution.

MM wrote:

Kurieuo wrote:I am then perplexed by the faith TEs appear to have in natural processes to explain everything, that they have prepared an unfaultable position. To me, if something can be explained naturally, then it seems like folly to say God did it in a hidden way (i.e., naturally).

And that would be your opinion. But some of us believe in God because of how He manifests ourselves in our lives. As for the faith that natural processes being able to explain everything, I can't speak for others but I believe this is how God works. Have you never heard of the phrase "God works in mysterious ways?"

Have you not heard:

• Romans 1:20—
  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

and

• Psalm 19:1-4—
  1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
  the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
  2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
  night after night they display knowledge.
  3 There is no speech or language
  where their voice is not heard.
  4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
  their words to the ends of the world.

MM wrote:Macroevolution is the build up of mutations over time. Before I go on, let us clarify something. Are you saying that there is absolutely no possible way for mutations to add anythign new?

Mutations do not create new information, but work with existing information which they virtually always destroy. Take a mutation that allows bacteria to resist antibiotics, which might pass the trait onto its descendents. Does not this add new information to the genome? No, it simply alters the function of particular genes. This is a physical change, not a change in information content. And new information is necessary for macroevolution.

Now it is logically conceivable that nature via mutations or other could produce new information. Yet then there is another hurdle of nature producing "useful" new information. It seems impossible to me that nature could produce complex specified information, not just once, but over and over again. To highlight what I mean, imagine emptying a box of Scrabble tiles onto the ground. What you have in the arrangement of letters on the ground could be classified as unspecified information—the arrangement contains no meaning. On the other hand if you came along and saw the Scrabble tiles neatly arranged to form a sentence, you'd recognise the information was specified. Now imagine encyclopedias full of specified information. This is what nature needs to produce in order to have macroevolution, not just once, but hundreds of times over.

Kurieuo.

MM wrote: What you mean "forming" them out of the ground in 2:19? Sounds like God followed the same process as when He created Adam.

Assumption. From an ancient hebrew perspective, forming animals out of the dirt is exactly what evolution would be like.

K wrote: It is not my fault you continue hiding behind a translation. Get e-Sword and take a look at the word translated "formed" (yatsar), or look it up in a dictionary or something. While we may not have the exact specifics of how God formed them, what is revealed as being a direct creation rules out evolution as the natural method. Now you can still hold onto your beliefs, it really doesn't matter to me, but Scripture clearly doesn't support Theistic Evolution.

HOW does it rule out evolution? Where does it say God made them DIRECTLY from the dirt in EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE TRANSLATION? I guarantee to you that it doesn't.

yatsar - probably identical with H3334 (through the squeezing into shape); (compare H3331); to mould into a form; especially as a potter; figuratively to determine (that is, form a resolution): - X earthen, fashion, form, frame, make (-r), potter, purpose.


I have already explained to you that this is not a contradiction of evolution. I haven't heard any reason as to why it HAS to be your interpretation in EVERY SINGLE CASE otherwise you can't exclude my position as viable. In this case, if we take the translation "make" your entire case drops. I'm not even sure why I'm going over this again as it's already been addressed and I don't see any new information being brought to the table.

Have you not heard:

• Romans 1:20—
  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

and

• Psalm 19:1-4—
  1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
  the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
  2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
  night after night they display knowledge.
  3 There is no speech or language
  where their voice is not heard.
  4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
  their words to the ends of the world.

And the relevance of this to our topic is? Let me guess, you somehow concluded that everything God does should be obvious to us when what it actually says is that you can see God in everything. That doesn't mean you can figure out HOW God works. I highly doubt humans have the ability to understand most of what God does in this universe.

Mutations do not create new information, but work with existing information which they virtually always destroy. Take a mutation that allows bacteria to resist antibiotics, which might pass the trait onto its descendents. Does not this add new information to the genome? No, it simply alters the function of particular genes. This is a physical change, not a change in information content. And new information is necessary for macroevolution.

All dna is made out of 4 base pairings. If a mutation occurs and they are rearranged, you can get new information. Would this qualify as an acceptable mechanism for macroevolution?

Now it is logically conceivable that nature via mutations or other could produce new information. Yet then there is another hurdle of nature producing "useful" new information. It seems impossible to me that nature could produce complex specified information, not just once, but over and over again. To highlight what I mean, imagine emptying a box of Scrabble tiles onto the ground. What you have in the arrangement of letters on the ground could be classified as unspecified information—the arrangement contains no meaning. On the other hand if you came along and saw the Scrabble tiles neatly arranged to form a sentence, you'd recognise the information was specified. Now imagine encyclopedias full of specified information. This is what nature needs to produce in order to have macroevolution, not just once, but hundreds of times over.

Yep, and it's had plenty of time to do it. And nature really doesn't need to produce it more than once for it to start getting passed on. If it's a useful trait, it will increase the carrier's chance to survive.

Mastermind wrote:

Mutations do not create new information, but work with existing information which they virtually always destroy. Take a mutation that allows bacteria to resist antibiotics, which might pass the trait onto its descendents. Does not this add new information to the genome? No, it simply alters the function of particular genes. This is a physical change, not a change in information content. And new information is necessary for macroevolution.

All dna is made out of 4 base pairings. If a mutation occurs and they are rearranged, you can get new information. Would this qualify as an acceptable mechanism for macroevolution?

What you're talking about is not an increase in new information, but rather mutations taking current information away, or at best changing it. Macroevolution needs a mechanism to account for the rise of massive amounts of new information. Dawkin's (I can't provide the link right now) who got himself into a pickle over this question even agrees that mutations are not able to increase true information content, and that they do the reverse. He does think mutations with natural selection as a filter can increase information, but examples of increases in information via mutations is unforthcoming. If anything, there appears no reason to assume that natural selection wouldn't just help prune of the once beneficial code that was rendered unbeneficial by a mutation. Such does still not account for an increase in information content.

MM wrote:

K wrote:Now it is logically conceivable that nature via mutations or other could produce new information. Yet then there is another hurdle of nature producing "useful" new information. It seems impossible to me that nature could produce complex specified information, not just once, but over and over again. To highlight what I mean, imagine emptying a box of Scrabble tiles onto the ground. What you have in the arrangement of letters on the ground could be classified as unspecified information—the arrangement contains no meaning. On the other hand if you came along and saw the Scrabble tiles neatly arranged to form a sentence, you'd recognise the information was specified. Now imagine encyclopedias full of specified information. This is what nature needs to produce in order to have macroevolution, not just once, but hundreds of times over.

Yep, and it's had plenty of time to do it. And nature really doesn't need to produce it more than once for it to start getting passed on. If it's a useful trait, it will increase the carrier's chance to survive.

Sorry but 4 billion years is hardly plenty of time for "new" and "specified" information content to increase as required by macroevolution. At the time of their article Reasons to Believe estimates, "According to our current understanding of the complexities of organic matter, at least 10 to the power of 100,000,000,000 years would be needed for even one virus to evolve from inorganic molecules" (When Did God Create the Heavens and the Earth?).

Additionally, I never said it needs to be reproduced more than once, although I think you're overlooking convergence here. However, new and specified information needs to be accrued a great deal many times within the steps required by macroevolution.

Kurieuo.

Kurieuo wrote: What you're talking about is not an increase in new information, but rather mutations taking current information away, or at best changing it.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. DNA CAN have new information added to it (for example, there is a disease in humans that adds an extra chromosome, usually fatal within about 6 months of being born), and if information can slowly change, the sky's the limit.

Macroevolution needs a mechanism to account for the rise of massive amounts of new information. Dawkin's (I can't provide the link right now) who got himself into a pickle over this question even agrees that mutations are not able to increase true information content, and that they do the reverse. He does think mutations with natural selection as a filter can increase information, but examples of increases in information via mutations is unforthcoming. If anything, there appears no reason to assume that natural selection wouldn't just help prune of the once beneficial code that was rendered unbeneficial by a mutation. Such does still not account for an increase in information content.

Ignoring the fact that Dawkins is an idiot who can't argue his way out of a paper bag, I need to know something. What exactly do you mean by adding "information"? Are you referring to adding new traits that were never before seen in a particular type of animal?

Sorry but 4 billion years is hardly plenty of time for "new" and "specified" information content to increase as required by macroevolution. At the time of their article Reasons to Believe estimates, "According to our current understanding of the complexities of organic matter, at least 10 to the power of 100,000,000,000 years would be needed for even one virus to evolve from inorganic molecules" (When Did God Create the Heavens and the Earth?).

Umm, what does evolving from inorganic molecules have to do with this? That's abiogenesis not the evolution definition we settled on (from one cell to the animals we have today). Unicellular organisms have turned into multicellular organisms under the microscope, so we know that is possible, for example. In fact, I think we even discussed that particular example a long time ago on these boards. I'll see if I can find it again.

Additionally, I never said it needs to be reproduced more than once, although I think you're overlooking convergence here. However, new and specified information needs to be accrued 100's of times in the many in the many steps required by macroevolution.

Kurieuo.

Let me ask you a question. Where do you draw the line between "microevolution" and "macroevolution"? Can you give me an example of a case of microevolution and macroevolution that are close to each other but have one distinct factor that requires a different mechanism?

Mastermind wrote:

Kurieuo wrote: What you're talking about is not an increase in new information, but rather mutations taking current information away, or at best changing it.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. DNA CAN have new information added to it (for example, there is a disease in humans that adds an extra chromosome, usually fatal within about 6 months of being born), and if information can slowly change, the sky's the limit.
...
What exactly do you mean by adding "information"? Are you referring to adding new traits that were never before seen in a particular type of animal?

Such a disease would likely be some kind of mutation which perhaps affected the regulatory network of a cell. This would not necessarily be added information, but rather the destruction of important information required to produce a fit human being. Something which often happens with mutations which I believe have never been seen as beneficial, although they can be neutral.

So what do I mean by new information? Well I'll use an analogy of sentences to explain. "You have won" reveals information to you. Additionally "U have won" though simpler reveals the same information to you. This information could also be tranmitted digitally in binary format (1s and 0s), but it is still the same information. But lets say mutations happen which changes the sentence to read, "Yyy won." New information hasn't been added, but rather a mutation destroyed the first piece of information "You" and a second deleted the word "have." Sure you have a change in information, but certainly not "new" information. For new information to be added you would require something like "You have won a million dollars." Now this is new information.

If you can imagine a fish's genetic code consisting of "You have won" and additional genetic code for legs which are said to have evolved on fish is "a million dollars," then it needs to be explained how this new and specific information arose. Mutations do not explain the addition of such information, and natural selection only explains how garbage mutations are filtered. There appears to be no natural mechanism for how new information is aquired as required by macroevolution.

MM wrote:

K wrote:Sorry but 4 billion years is hardly plenty of time for "new" and "specified" information content to increase as required by macroevolution. At the time of their article Reasons to Believe estimates, "According to our current understanding of the complexities of organic matter, at least 10 to the power of 100,000,000,000 years would be needed for even one virus to evolve from inorganic molecules" (When Did God Create the Heavens and the Earth?).

Umm, what does evolving from inorganic molecules have to do with this? That's abiogenesis not the evolution definition we settled on (from one cell to the animals we have today).

You got me—I was just giving you an opportunity to return the favour of pulling me up, since I pulled you up on bringing abiogenesis into the topic earlier. Yet, then there are events such as the Cambrian explosion, but to give a specific example it is believed that giant carnivorous dinosaurs had to arise within a period of less than 30,000 years after a mass exinction event. (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... s=12016313) Is this plenty of time? I don't consider it so.

MM wrote:Unicellular organisms have turned into multicellular organisms under the microscope, so we know that is possible, for example. In fact, I think we even discussed that particular example a long time ago on these boards. I'll see if I can find it again.

I believe I also responded and explained the differences between micro and macroevolution there also. However, unicellular organisms such as viruses and bacteria are far more simple, and therefore have less limits and are able to evolve more rapidly than larger multicellular organisms where changes are limited. How is it reasonable to extropolate simple unicellular viruses and bacteria, to unbounded changes in more complex multicellular organisms such as reptiles, mammels and so forth?

Breeders understand no matter what traits they try to breed into or out of their dogs, that they will never produce a horse or cat. And the finches on the Galapagos Islands still remained finches with their beaks returning back to normal when the rains returned. This demonstrates that there are limits within the biological information of complex organisms, and such limits can't be gotten beyond unless new amounts of biological information are somehow inserted. So it seems to me unreasonable to extropolate changes of simple unicellular viruses to assume that evolution has no boundaries so that "the sky's the limit." There is no reason to think evolution is unbounded, and such an extropolation appears to have little basis in fact.

MM wrote:Let me ask you a question. Where do you draw the line between "microevolution" and "macroevolution"?

In one answer: Additional specific and complex biological information being required for a change, especially the kind that needs to arise all at once in order not to be filtered out as unfit by natural selection. Such to me hints of a coder, rather than chance guided by natural laws which for a Naturalist would have had to also evolve naturally themselves.

MM wrote:Can you give me an example of a case of microevolution and macroevolution that are close to each other but have one distinct factor that requires a different mechanism?

I don't understand what you mean by cases that are close to each other? However, I think it should hopefully now be apparent what I see the differences are between to two.

Kurieuo.

Such a disease would likely be some kind of mutation which perhaps affected the regulatory network of a cell. This would not necessarily be added information, but rather the destruction of important information required to produce a fit human being. Something which often happens with mutations which I believe have never been seen as beneficial, although they can be neutral.

Umm, how would a mutation know if it's beneficial? And for the record, there ARE beneficial mutations and appearances of new traits that never existed. For example, the nylon bug:

http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

So what do I mean by new information? Well I'll use an analogy of sentences to explain. "You have won" reveals information to you. Additionally "U have won" though simpler reveals the same information to you. This information could also be tranmitted digitally in binary format (1s and 0s), but it is still the same information. But lets say mutations happen which changes the sentence to read, "Yyy won." New information hasn't been added, but rather a mutation destroyed the first piece of information "You" and a second deleted the word "have." Sure you have a change in information, but certainly not "new" information. For new information to be added you would require something like "You have won a million dollars." Now this is new information.

The case of an added cromosome applies here. You get new extra information that is usually fatal but may end up beneficial (very rare). Duplicating and adding new strands to dna is not that rare. For example you have "You have won". There is an error when copying dna and you end up with "You have won have won have won". This could, slowly, turn into "You have won a million dollars", provided the organism survives an original mutation. Of course, it's not as drastic. But if one letter can be added then it's enough.

If you can imagine a fish's genetic code consisting of "You have won" and additional genetic code for legs which are said to have evolved on fish is "a million dollars," then it needs to be explained how this new and specific information arose. Mutations do not explain the addition of such information, and natural selection only explains how garbage mutations are filtered. There appears to be no natural mechanism for how new information is aquired as required by macroevolution.

As far as I can tell, mutations are more than capable of providing us with such a mechanism.

You got me—I was just giving you an opportunity to return the favour of pulling me up, since I pulled you up on bringing abiogenesis into the topic earlier. Yet, then there are events such as the Cambrian explosion, but to give a specific example it is believed that giant carnivorous dinosaurs had to arise within a period of less than 30,000 years after a mass exinction event. (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... s=12016313) Is this plenty of time? I don't consider it so.

K, statistics like these do not disprove evolution. Yes, it is unlikely that something can evolve so fast (barring outside interference or, durr durr, divine intervention :p). However, this does not mean it couldn't have happened or that it didn't happen. It means it is unlikely to have happened.

I believe I also responded and explained the differences between micro and macroevolution there also. However, unicellular organisms such as viruses and bacteria are far more simple, and therefore have less limits and are able to evolve more rapidly than larger multicellular organisms where changes are limited. How is it reasonable to extropolate simple unicellular viruses and bacteria, to unbounded changes in more complex multicellular organisms such as reptiles, mammels and so forth?

How is having a unicellular organism turn into a multicellular one "microevolution"?

Breeders understand no matter what traits they try to breed into or out of their dogs, that they will never produce a horse or cat. And the finches on the Galapagos Islands still remained finches with their beaks returning back to normal when the rains returned. This demonstrates that there are limits within the biological information of complex organisms, and such limits can't be gotten beyond unless new amounts of biological information are somehow inserted. Additionally, this makes it unreasonable to extropolate changes of simple unicellular viruses to assume that evolution has no boundaries and as you say, that "the sky is the limit." There is no reason to think evolution is unbounded, and such an extropolation appears to have little basis in fact.

Damn, you sound as if I'm suggesting evolution might turn us into the Xmen. Your examples don't really demonstrate anything to me, simply because it's too long a time for us to observe. From a biological point of view, it can happen.

One answer... Additional specific and complex biological information being required for a change, especially the kind that needs to arise all at once in order not to be filtered out as unfit by natural selection. Such to me hints of a coder, rather than chance guided by natural laws.

Like what? And don't even tell me "the eye".

I don't understand what you mean by cases that are close to each other? However, I think it should hopefully now be apparent what I see the differences are between to two.

Kurieuo.

Yes. We shall see.

I'll get back to you with more stuff later, I need to check something out.

Mastermind wrote:

Such a disease would likely be some kind of mutation which perhaps affected the regulatory network of a cell. This would not necessarily be added information, but rather the destruction of important information required to produce a fit human being. Something which often happens with mutations which I believe have never been seen as beneficial, although they can be neutral.

Umm, how would a mutation know if it's beneficial? And for the record, there ARE beneficial mutations and appearances of new traits that never existed.

Isn't this first question one you should be answering, since this is something that has to be accounted for by evolutionists? Yet, the answer usually is that what is harmful to an organism, or that which natural selection filters out, is non-beneficial. Anything that remains isn't harmful.

Also forgive me if I disagree with the authors conclusion of the page you provided, that a frame shift mutation counts as "new" information—for the amount of information in the genetic code does not change. All that happens is there is a shift in the genetic code sequence by a nucleotide or two. Yet, I don't see the author as being entirely wrong for his binary example was very helpful, as it is true a mutation shift on binary could produce a "new" meaningful word. This is in a sense new information, but it is not because new information was added, it is because the existing information was executed differently (by a frame shift). Therefore the outcome is technically new, although the information content is still the same!

MM wrote:

K wrote:So what do I mean by new information? Well I'll use an analogy of sentences to explain. "You have won" reveals information to you. Additionally "U have won" though simpler reveals the same information to you. This information could also be tranmitted digitally in binary format (1s and 0s), but it is still the same information. But lets say mutations happen which changes the sentence to read, "Yyy won." New information hasn't been added, but rather a mutation destroyed the first piece of information "You" and a second deleted the word "have." Sure you have a change in information, but certainly not "new" information. For new information to be added you would require something like "You have won a million dollars." Now this is new information.

The case of an added cromosome applies here. You get new extra information that is usually fatal but may end up beneficial (very rare). Duplicating and adding new strands to dna is not that rare. For example you have "You have won". There is an error when copying dna and you end up with "You have won have won have won". This could, slowly, turn into "You have won a million dollars", provided the organism survives an original mutation. Of course, it's not as drastic. But if one letter can be added then it's enough.

Yes, duplication of existing information will add redundant content but not new information. For example, I believe the sequence for fly legs can be duplicated to appear elsewhere on its body in a lab, but this is not new information. You also did not explain how the duplicatation of "have won have won" could turn into "a million dollars." It is not enough to just say it can happen—it needs to be explained how it can happen. What about a frame shift—could this account for such a change?

Let us say fly legs are "you have legs" and a mutation causes a duplication of two fly legs ("you have legs") to appear on its back. A frame shift mutation then happens which reads the information differently... and wella... we have "a new pair of wings." Sounds good doesn't it? Only problem I see is that "a new pair of wings" is significantly different in information "content" than "you have legs." We would expect to see the same information content for fly legs, as we would for wings, and their only difference would be in the way they deciphered. Now is this the case in reality? Do legs possess the same information content as gills or fins? Is the code really only being deciphered differently?

MM wrote:

K wrote:Yet, then there are events such as the Cambrian explosion, but to give a specific example it is believed that giant carnivorous dinosaurs had to arise within a period of less than 30,000 years after a mass exinction event. (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... s=12016313) Is this plenty of time? I don't consider it so.

K, statistics like these do not disprove evolution. Yes, it is unlikely that something can evolve so fast (barring outside interference or, durr durr, divine intervention :p). However, this does not mean it couldn't have happened or that it didn't happen. It means it is unlikely to have happened.

Is it possible for us to have a 100% certainty on any belief that isn't subjective? You are logically correct of course, but macroevolution being unlikely to have happened is more than most will admit when they attempt to smuggle it in under the more ambiguous and less restrictive title of "evolution." Infact why would you wager your life here (i.e., time) away on macroevolution being truth if the winnings of being right are unlikely?

MM wrote:

K wrote:I believe I also responded and explained the differences between micro and macroevolution there also. However, unicellular organisms such as viruses and bacteria are far more simple, and therefore have less limits and are able to evolve more rapidly than larger multicellular organisms where changes are limited. How is it reasonable to extropolate simple unicellular viruses and bacteria, to unbounded changes in more complex multicellular organisms such as reptiles, mammels and so forth?

How is having a unicellular organism turn into a multicellular one "microevolution"?

Because we rig the definitions of course. You do have a good point though that needs clarification. By "macroevolution" I personally see it as an unbounded change, which when faced with reality where we see boundaries, seems far from true. Therefore good reasons need to be provided for why the boundaries we often see are passable to the extent modern humans can come from an ape ancestor, let alone from algae.

Now technically microevolution is evolutionary change on the micro levels. This could be evolution within unicellular organisms such as viruses and bacteria due to their size and simplicity, or represent small physical changes due to an adaptation inherent within the workings of our genetic code.

MM wrote:

K wrote:Breeders understand no matter what traits they try to breed into or out of their dogs, that they will never produce a horse or cat. And the finches on the Galapagos Islands still remained finches with their beaks returning back to normal when the rains returned. This demonstrates that there are limits within the biological information of complex organisms, and such limits can't be gotten beyond unless new amounts of biological information are somehow inserted. Additionally, this makes it unreasonable to extropolate changes of simple unicellular viruses to assume that evolution has no boundaries and as you say, that "the sky is the limit." There is no reason to think evolution is unbounded, and such an extropolation appears to have little basis in fact.

Damn, you sound as if I'm suggesting evolution might turn us into the Xmen. Your examples don't really demonstrate anything to me, simply because it's too long a time for us to observe. From a biological point of view, it can happen.

Well when compared to an algae to human evolution, I'd say us evolving into Xmen is a far more plausible scenario. It also seems like a copout to say we couldn't observe evolution if it happened, and I'd say the fossil record provides us with enough data to indirectly observe whether any gradual evolution at least would have happened.

Kurieuo

Isn't this first question one you should be answering,

No, that's what you should be answering as you are the one that suggests mutations somehow know how to only pick the bad ones.

since this is something that has to be accounted for by evolutionists?

Nope. Evolutionists believe both good and bad mutations can happen, and they have happened.

Yet, the answer usually is that what is harmful to an organism, or that which natural selection filters out, is non-beneficial. Anything that remains isn't harmful.

Or is beneficial.

Also forgive me if I disagree with the authors conclusion of the page you provided, that a frame shift mutation counts as "new" information—for the amount of information in the genetic code does not change. All that happens is there is a shift in the genetic code sequence by a nucleotide or two. Yet, I don't see the author as being entirely wrong for his binary example was very helpful, as it is true a mutation shift on binary could produce a "new" meaningful word. This is in a sense new information, but it is not because new information was added, it is because the existing information was executed differently (by a frame shift). Therefore the outcome is technically new, although the information content is still the same!

Yes, I know, however I only put it there as an example to show that new things can arise.

Yes, duplication of existing information will add redundant content but not new information. For example, I believe the sequence for fly legs can be duplicated to appear elsewhere on its body in a lab, but this is not new information. You also did not explain how the duplicatation of "have won have won" could turn into "a million dollars." It is not enough to just say it can happen—it needs to be explained how it can happen. What about a frame shift—could this account for such a change?

Ok, let me go in a bit more detail. Say we have the sequence AABBCCDD

and the "target sequence" is AABBCCDDEEFF

We get an error in duplication that creates the sequence AABBCCDDDD

The mutation is not fatal and eventually the organism develops two more mutations:

AABBCCDDDE
AABBCCDDEE

Repeat again to get the last two digits.

AABBCCDDEEEE
AABBCCDDEEFE
AABBCCDDEEFF

Since DNA for all lifeforms is made out of 4 basic chemiccals whose names escape me, pretty much anything is possible.

Let us say
fly legs are "you have legs" and a mutation causes a duplication of two fly legs ("you have legs") to appear on its back. A frame shift mutation then happens which reads the information differently... and wella... we have "a new pair of wings." Sounds good doesn't it? Only problem I see is that "a new pair of wings" is significantly different in information "content" than "you have legs." We would expect to see the same information content for fly legs, as we would for wings, and their only difference would be in the way they deciphered. Now is this the case in reality? Do legs possess the same information content as gills or fins? Is the code really only being deciphered differently?

Well, there isn't much difference in the function that wings and legs have, which is locomotion. Hell, walking and swimming motions aren't that different either. And if I remember correctly, we didn't evolve from fish anyway. You're right about the legs and gills but legs to fins and vice versa seem plausible to me. Like I said, they both serve the function of locomotion and the motion they make to move the animal.

Is it possible for us to have a 100% certainty on any belief that isn't subjective? You are logically correct of course, but macroevolution being unlikely to have happened is more than most will admit when they attempt to smuggle it in under the more ambiguous and less restrictive title of "evolution." Infact why would you wager your life here (i.e., time) away on macroevolution being truth if the winnings of being right are unlikely?

Because all the signs point that it DID happen. When you roll a dice a hundred times and get 6 every time, do you accept the fact that you did indeed get 6 100 times or do you go around claiming it never happened because the chance to get 6 100 times is absurd?

Because we rig the definitions of course. You do have a good point though that needs clarification. By "macroevolution" I personally see it as an unbounded change, which when faced with reality where we see boundaries, seems far from true. Therefore good reasons need to be provided for why the boundaries we often see are passable to the extent modern humans can come from an ape ancestor, let alone from algae.

I highly doubt anybody is suggesting we came from algae. That aside, I really don't think organisms function all that differently. in my opinion, the biggest mystery lies in early life and how cells became specialized.

Well when compared to an algae to human evolution, I'd say us evolving into Xmen is a far more plausible scenario. It also seems like a copout to say we couldn't observe evolution if it happened, and I'd say the fossil record provides us with enough data to indirectly observe whether any gradual evolution at least would have happened.

Kurieuo

And I find that the fossil record does indeed show that it happened. I'm not quite sure what problems you have with it.

Mastermind wrote:Because all the signs point that it DID happen. When you roll a dice a hundred times and get 6 every time, do you accept the fact that you did indeed get 6 100 times or do you go around claiming it never happened because the chance to get 6 100 times is absurd?

I'd look for some cause beyond chance. A loaded dice is far more probable than random chance in this case. I've seen atheists claim this very logic I'm using here is invalid, but their case seems quite weak.

Let me propose an alternate story. Suppose you teach high school physics, and you have a student ("Joe") who just isn't getting it. He's failing all his homework assignments and can't answer any of your questions. But he aces all five of his 75-question multiple choice tests. Would you suspect Joe of cheating? I think so. If he claimed he was randomly guessing and made this dice case, it wouldn't convince you at all.

Really, though, with your particular point this might be a red herring. I would say that, if you did get 100 6's, the dice was probably loaded. I wouldn't deny what it had done. Likewise, if the fossil record does show evolution, I would still say that there must be a Designer behind the evolution. Would you agree with me here? Nonetheless, I'm not convinced the fossil record really does show evolution.

jerickson314 wrote:

Mastermind wrote:Because all the signs point that it DID happen. When you roll a dice a hundred times and get 6 every time, do you accept the fact that you did indeed get 6 100 times or do you go around claiming it never happened because the chance to get 6 100 times is absurd?

I'd look for some cause beyond chance. A loaded dice is far more probable than random chance in this case. I've seen atheists claim this very logic I'm using here is invalid, but their case seems quite weak.

Let me propose an alternate story. Suppose you teach high school physics, and you have a student ("Joe") who just isn't getting it. He's failing all his homework assignments and can't answer any of your questions. But he aces all five of his 75-question multiple choice tests. Would you suspect Joe of cheating? I think so. If he claimed he was randomly guessing and made this dice case, it wouldn't convince you at all.

Really, though, with your particular point this might be a red herring. I would say that, if you did get 100 6's, the dice was probably loaded. I wouldn't deny what it had done. Likewise, if the fossil record does show evolution, I would still say that there must be a Designer behind the evolution. Would you agree with me here? Nonetheless, I'm not convinced the fossil record really does show evolution.

I'm not an atheist so your entire post doean't really have a purpose.

Mastermind wrote:I'm not an atheist so your entire post doean't really have a purpose.

I guess what I am trying to get at is this: Is your view of evolution really theistic or deistic? As in, did God directly influence evolution or did he just start it off and let it run on its own?

I know you aren't an atheist, that's why I asked, "Would you agree with me here?" and pointed out, referring to something else, "this might be a red herring."

Plus any atheists who do read my post can still see my arguments .

jerickson314 wrote:

Mastermind wrote:I'm not an atheist so your entire post doean't really have a purpose.

I guess what I am trying to get at is this: Is your view of evolution really theistic or deistic? As in, did God directly influence evolution or did he just start it off and let it run on its own?

I don't know, nor is it really important to me. What difference does it made if God interfered at every step or set it up in such a way that He didn't need to interfere with it all the time?