quote:

Originally posted by .montecarlo. if i've misinterpreted you please let me know...

You've taken me out of context.

My first statement is in relation to stating that we make assumptions on what we THINK happened in the past (mainly referring to geological dating methods).

The other statements are merely my belief. While I believe they are true, I do not preach them as "fact", as evolution does.

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Originally posted by Seventil My first statement is in relation to stating that we make assumptions on what we THINK happened in the past (mainly referring to geological dating methods).

so it applies only to premises of evolutionary theory, and not to the teachings of the bible?

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The other statements are merely my belief. While I believe they are true, I do not preach them as "fact", as evolution does.

whether you preach it as a fact or believe in it quietly, is immaterial, it's still the stumbling block to critical thought and evaluation. i'd expect most evolutionist to revise their beliefs if a more credible and useful theory was presented...

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Originally posted by .montecarlo. so it applies only to premises of evolutionary theory, and not to the teachings of the bible?

I have never once stated that the Bible is scientifically true, or you should believe it based on anything other than faith.

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whether you preach it as a fact or believe in it quietly, is immaterial, it's still the stumbling block to critical thought and evaluation. i'd expect most evolutionist to revise their beliefs if a more credible and useful theory was presented...

I agree with you that evolutionists would revise their beliefs.

Would you agree then, from you above statements, that "believing" in evolutionary theory is a matter of faith, at least somewhat?

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Originally posted by Seventil Since your argument that the earth is an open system - since the earth is receiving energy from an outside source - what makes life on earth possible?

Life on earth is possible from the energy derived from the sun. I outlined that "mechanism" earlier, and I'll repost it:

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2. The mechanism was explained previously – the environment which was derived by the energy from the sun. Surely you’re not arguing that the sun does not give free energy for sustaining life to the environment? Atoms routinely convert between light energy, thermal energy, and chemical potential energy. The energy conversion mechanism is ubiquitous and quite obvious within our life cells. Again, photosynthesis, catalytic conversions, Kreb’s cycle, the Electron Transport System, etc. etc. are all examples of storing and converting energy that has been originally derived from the sun (of course when we’re talking about non-plant life, the process is a little more complicated, but it follows the basic rule of ecological food chains – plants, bugs eat plants, birds eat bugs, we eat birds, pretty elementary example but I think you get the idea). A lack of an energy conversion system would not only invalidate evolution, but would invalidate life itself.

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As I stated before, and I'm sure you and all evolutionists would agree, that the organized complexity in biological systems requires two factors besides an available energy supply: 1. Information (DNA) 2. Energy conversion mechanism With this said, tell, and prove to me: How life originated from non-life - and how did this remarkable random act of self-transformation take place in violation to the second law, and, while we're on the subject, where is the biological self-assembly process and self-gathered material resources from which the first living organism built itself?

You are referring to abiogenesis here Seventil. Again, evolutionary theory does not involve how life originated from non-life, only how life moved forward from that point.

Abiogenesis is a pretty fascinating topic on its own - there's a great deal of research involved with this, and I'm certainly not completely familiar with it all. I did run across a couple of papers that described certain chemical reactions that demonstrated non-life to life in the relative sense - if I find them I'll post them here. But overall, I simply cannot argue abiogenesis based on a lack of sufficient evidence to support it. We are literally talking about goo and strange cells with some profound implications of symbiotic relationships of early organelles (cellular pieces) occurring, things that are not readily available in the fossil record to observe (actually, none of it is). Nevertheless, there is some interesting evidence (oceanic hydrothermal vents, for ex.), but it is certainly not substantive nor is it well-supported enough to make reliable conclusions.

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Also, how does a simple living organism produce new additional DNA information?

Well we have to be careful here when we are using descriptives such as "additional information", because it is a relative term and must be taken in its context. If we are referring to the sequencing pattern of DNA, a simple mutated event can produce produce an added segment of the nucleotides. Conversely, it could also produce a deleted segment. Other types of mutations can occur, such as crossovers, points, and the really interesting stuff from retroviruses. More can be read about this here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html#types

If you're going to ask the "how" or the "why" question about mutations, the short answer is we know that there are some definite causes, such as carcinogens (smoking). Other causes are simply unknown, but this is a deeply researched area here.

Added in edit - this is a misleading statement on my part. As it is known now, mutation is a completely random event. We may know certain causes to the contribution of the likelihood of a mutated event (such as carcinogens for ex.), but other contributions are not known. Sorry, not quite sure what I was saying here.

So the question may then become, well how does that effect the organism? When you affect the genotype through these types of mutations, you may or may not be affecting the phenotype (i.e. physical and physiological characteristics of that organism). What is known is that most mutations are actually neutral to the phenotype. Some, however, are harmful. Others are actually "beneficial" in the sense that it may give that particular organism a distinct survival advantage (say a longer beak for a bird to get to bug critters in the crevices of a tree). Within a given population there are mutations in multiple generations that occur all the time. The ones that benefit the organism, however, and provided that organism passes on that particular "beneficial" trait to its offspring, that particular population will eventually change over time and have a selective advantage of the rest of the members in that population that DID NOT obtain that mutation or have it passed down to them from their ancestors. Hence, natural selection has been observed.

With the two examples I have given earlier (bacterial culture and polychaete worms), this is exactly what we see.

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And, on a side note - the "open system" argument against the 2LOT is generally denounced by evolutionists. I can post links if needbe, but I think we've had enough link wars.

I'm not sure what you mean here. The sun gives us energy, therefore we cannot be a closed system here on earth. We have a penetrable boundary because we receive energy from the sun to obtain life. What more is there?

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Can, and has it ever been observed, for an organism to add DNA (information) to itself or it's offspring? (You might have answered this above).

Through mutation, which I described above, yes.


I hope that clarifies things a little better.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

Last edited by MisterOpus1 on Jul-31-2004 at 00:58

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Originally posted by Seventil I have not once, debated the fact of variation (or "micro-evolution").

Now that we're clear on this point, that's fine.

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The theory of gravity is not comparable to the theory of evolution. It's like apples and oranges. You are comparing an empirical, testable and obserable theory with one that is none of the above. While I will give evolution it's respect as a valid "theory", as in it's an idea that does explain some things, it does not, in mine and many people's opinion, explain the origins of life on this planet well at all. And before you go out the roof because I said evolution doesn't have valid evidence, see my comment below.

I know I've stated this in my most recent reply, but I want to make sure you do not use this argument again - how life arose from non-life is not a part of evolutionary theory. Abiogenesis has interesting, and there's a great field of research involved with it, but evolution is only concerned with how life moved forward/sideways/etc. after that point.

There are a good healthy number of deists that believe in God intervention at some point, whether it be the start of the Big Bang, the start of our Galaxy, our SS, our sun, earth, or even the start of life from non-life. You choose your flavor, it doesn't really matter because it does not pertain to biological evolution.

Agreed?

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As for your "proofs" for evolution, I'd have to say they've all been clearly debunked by the small Creationist populous out there. If you wish to discuss "Germ Theory" more (which seems to be your area of expertise), I would do it with some qualified people (which I'm definately not). However, from my "laymen" standpoint on it, I think that it (and every other evolutionary "fact") has been debunked to the point of stalemate.

I really don't know what you are referring to with your 1st sentence (I haven't seen any debunking on creationist part), but I think it's immaterial unless you wish to present those arguments forward.

As to Germ Theory, 2 microbiol. classes and a class in virology certainly doesn't give me very much expertise, but the problem with the alternative theory presented (information theory) is that there is absolutely no evidence to support it. Germs can and do evolve as a direct result of mutation and natural selection - this is the very act of what creationists agree to on microevolution. Stegner's ideas that there is some information somewhere (though he certainly can't say where) located within DNA that somehow (though he certainly can't say how) allows germs to act and survive the way they do is so farfetched that it really didn't need another response by Max or anyone else. Everything we know about DNA, RNA, or any types of replication proteins and their agents clearly shows otherwise. Again, most creationists really don't have too much trouble with this basic tenet of microevolution. And as you have stated that you agree to microevolutionary processes (because they are readily observed), you apparently do not have much disagreeance with it either.

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Hark you say! How dare I! Us Creationists have a... .14% of the scientific population and still they've debunked ANY evidence for neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. I'm not saying that some parts of evolution are not valid - variation, DNA testing, and many of it's scientific attributes ARE valid - but when it comes to explaining why and how life originated and evolved on this planet - it's just plain fantasy.

We'll be discussing the evidence on a grander scale later.

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Simply stated, micro-evolution is variation within the "kind". Kind, from what I know at least, is defined as species that can interbreed together. Unfortunately, a full list of every species hasn't even been published, and the sexual reproduction experimentation to get a full list of "kinds" is probably far off in the future. The whole "Noah's Ark" argument.

Okay, so kind = species?

Alright, could you give me a simple linean classification of any organism, based on this definition? You can use any organism you wish.

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While I agree the term brainwash may be a little harsh, do you really believe they provide an objectional, non-biased point of view on the evolution/creation argument?

They have to - their research and reputation absolutely depend on it. Of course there's experimental bias - that's simply human nature. But this is where reliability of the experiment and repeatability come into play, thus eliminating as much human subjectivity as possible.

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Explain this to me - why would a biologist, working with theories that rely on empirical and falsifiable evidence (like variation, micro-evolution) - need to believe that life originated 3 billion years ago?

Directly, they wouldn't necessarily requireit for their particular research. Indirectly there could very well be some implications in examining the lineage of a particular organism, as well as that relationship of that organism in the geneological sense towards another organism. The noticeable changes in morphological features over time and the comparison of those changes with related organisms within a genus, order, class, etc. etc. could very well be of importance to observing and understanding certain characteristics of the particular organism in question at present. This is a pretty general explanation, and admittedly I'd have to examine some specific references on this to explain it in more detail. If you would like for this, give me a little bit of time and I'll do a little digging.

For paleontologists, however, that is a completely different story, as it is directly related to their research.

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dog·mat·ic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dôg-mtk, dg-) adj. 1. Relating to, characteristic of, or resulting from dogma. 2. Characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles. Ahh, my new definition for evolutionists.

Explain.

Actually, don't bother, you'll just be repeating yourself. We really need to move forward and start examining your evidence against evolution.

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I have a theory - it's called don't believe in something just because there isn't an acceptable alternative.

Even if I or anyone did not observe the evidence for evolution on a broader scale (which I'll discuss later), why would you allow anyone to believe your alternative if it's not deemed acceptable?

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However, for you to truly believe that evolutionists don't do the same thing is reason for me to believe that you are so stuck in your belief that you would do anything to prove that it's right.

Because you say so?

Where has evolutionists distorted evidence or misquoted citations?

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Every single "evidence" for evolution has been refuted - and when it has, your huge populous of evolutionary scientists twist and distort said refute so out of context it isn't even funny.

Because you say so?

Show me where and how the evidence for evolution has been refuted. Because up to now you haven't presented any.

This will likely lead to the bigger "macroevolutionary" question. So let's examine the evidence you have against macroevolution and go from there.

FYI, I will not have access to my CPU this weekend, so whatever questions you have will not be attended to until Monday.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

Last edited by MisterOpus1 on Jul-30-2004 at 21:18

In response to the life from non-life thing:

I believe it to be along the same lines as the big bang theory. What they do is say "ok there is nothing right? and then *Coughcoughcoughcough* ok so now you have stuff and it goes from there"

Im fulyl aware that they have this all timed out where you start with radiation and it begets photons and photons beget into particles ad infinitum until you have the 100 billion or so galaxies containing millions of stars with blackholes that have around 1 billion time the mass of the sun in a singularity etc...

it still all comes down to: At one point, something had to come from nothing, and thats where science fails.

lol

so where did god come from? i wonder how big her belly button is

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Originally posted by Orbax it still all comes down to: At one point, something had to come from nothing, and thats where science fails.

We do not have a sufficient technological level to explain those things completely.

I believe, that there was no beginning. In my opinion, universe existed infinitively many years ago.

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Blip, blip, blip...

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Originally posted by tathi lol so where did god come from? i wonder how big her belly button is

Somebody was coughing when they explained that part so I missed it. I'm sure it was a good explanation though.

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Retro ...

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Originally posted by Orbax In response to the life from non-life thing: I believe it to be along the same lines as the big bang theory. What they do is say "ok there is nothing right? and then *Coughcoughcoughcough* ok so now you have stuff and it goes from there" Im fulyl aware that they have this all timed out where you start with radiation and it begets photons and photons beget into particles ad infinitum until you have the 100 billion or so galaxies containing millions of stars with blackholes that have around 1 billion time the mass of the sun in a singularity etc... it still all comes down to: At one point, something had to come from nothing, and thats where science fails.

The difference between the origin of universe and the origin of life is that the origin of universe is really completely unknown at the moment, while the origin of life is pretty much understood and all that is missing are exact specifications of the event. Noone really knows what exactly to look for, so it's difficult to reproduce the required conditions. Basically, all that is needed is to make a self-reproducing molecule, but the exact specifications of the molecule are unknown. What is required to make a universe is a totally different story though, and I agree that there is not yet a good scientific explanation for that.

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1+1=10