In Six Days (A Biology PHD looks at Evolution)

In Six Days ^ | 02/17/05 | Timothy G. Standish, PHD biology

[jhassle]

"As for this "intelligent design" concept, it's just a cop-out. It finds God to be wherever you can't explain, and conversely finds him in nothing that you can explain. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean that there isn't a natural reason why it works."

Or

"As for this "evolution" concept, it's just a cop-out. It finds evolution to be wherever you can't explain, and conversely finds it in nothing that you can explain. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean that there isn't a Supernatural reason why it works."

[Joe Bonforte]

The evolution of a functional protein would presumably start out as a random series of amino acids one or two of which would be in the right position to do the function the protein is designed to do. According to Dawkins’ theory, those amino acids in the right location in the protein would be fixed by natural selection, while those that needed to be modified would continue to change until they were correct, and a functional protein was produced in relatively short order.

I'm sorry, but you presume incorrectly. How could anybody get a PhD in biology when they are capable of committing a howler like this?

This is not what evolution says happens for proteins, and I defy any creationist to find a serious biologist that would support this guy's version of evolution of proteins.

This is standard creationist rhetoric - putting up a fraudulent strawman, and claiming that's what evolution means.

[jonno]

bump

[Moral Hazard]

"As for this "evolution" concept, it's just a cop-out. It finds evolution to be wherever you can't explain, and conversely finds it in nothing that you can explain. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean that there isn't a Supernatural reason why it works."

Umm, evolution is found everywhere we can't explain? Evolution is science. It is a theory meant to explain. Your statement makes no sense.

[KC_for_Freedom]

It has to assume that once you flip heads 10 times in a row, it will now always be heads on any flip

Not so, but a "fake coin" would have this property, but a real coin can "randomly" create any pattern.

Take 10 identical coins and mark them 1 to 10. Place them in your pocket. Now take one out...there is one chance in 10 that you will get the number 1.

Agreed

Now put it back in your pocket. Pull a coin. The chances that 2 will follow 1 are not 1 in 10 , but 1 in a hundred

I don't understand here, are you trying for a two on a single draw? Or are you now trying for a 1 - 2 draw in sequence. If the latter I agree it will be 1/100 to have this occur. But if you are trying for a 2 (ignoring the first draw) then the odds are one in ten just like they were for drawing a one. The coins have no idea what you drew the time before.

[Havoc]

I'm not a scientist who works in this field, but I just can't believe that the thousands of people who do this science every day (and the thousands who have done it in the past) can all be wrong.

Yeah, everyone once thought for long periods due to deep science that the earth was flat. I just can't imagine how they could be wrong.

[jwalsh07]

Evolution is science

Sure, but Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker is right from the flim flam man. It deserves all the approbation it gets.

[Jeff Gordon]

Do you plan to turn FR into DU?

Confessions of a Trueborn Liberal

By Timothy G. Standish

I'm a liberal. I realize that publicly "outing" myself like this could mean that I will be labeled and marginalized by conservatives, but I can't help it-I was born this way. I'm incapable of leaving the prevailing dogma unquestioned; I'm skeptical of the pronouncements of leaders and, frankly, hope that they are wrong.

Being a true liberal means that I am frustrated by conservatives who masquerade as liberals, I call them pseudo-liberals. These pseudo-liberals give us real liberals a bad name. The problem with pseudo-liberals is that they live in very small ponds. Within the pond, a different orthodoxy may be held than in the big bad ocean. Pseudo-liberals think they are being true liberals when questioning the orthodoxy in the little pond by simply presenting the orthodoxy out in the "ocean." In other words, they are not questioning the real orthodoxy; they are piling on against the unorthodox little pond view. A true liberal honors little-pond views. That does not mean accepting every detail, but it does mean embracing the fact that differing views exist and should be respected as a challenge to any hegemony of the real majority. Pseudo-liberals are simply devious bullies when they cloak themselves in the garment of a minority while fighting to impose the majority view on real minorities.

While proudly wearing the liberal badge, pseudo-liberals may argue enthusiastically, and sometimes incoherently, for trendy ideas in both science and theology. How is this liberal? In the context of science, there is little doubt that evolution is the prevailing orthodoxy. In addition, the minority who question this orthodoxy out in the "ocean" may be subject to withering hyperbole, find their employment and social status threatened and-even worse-they may be labeled as conservatives! It seems strange to hear people calling themselves "liberals" while kowtowing to the majority and attacking free thinking about evolution.

I am a scientist who is open to questioning current scientific dogma; thus I am a true liberal. The same would be true of liberal theologians; they would be willing to question popular ideas in theology: things like the higher critical approach to understanding scripture or the flawed idea of theistic evolution. It is pseudo-liberal theologians who simply embrace these currently popular views and act as if they are introducing new ideas for those of us in the little pond of Seventh-day Adventism to embrace. It is embarrassing to see pseudo-liberal theologians join hands with their close cousins, the pseudo-intellectuals, contorting their theology in an effort to cloak fuzzy thinking in the weighty mantle of modern science. This wholesale surrender of one academic discipline, theology, to another, science, is both humiliating and unwarranted.

The Adventist Church needs more liberals like me and you--if you are willing to join me-- liberals who embrace different ideas because they are better; liberals who reject conservative pseudo-liberal parroting of old ideas trawled from the great big intellectual ocean. Those ideas were long ago evaluated and rejected. Imagine the positive change our church would see if there were more real liberals, people with the intellectual confidence to question prevailing ideas in the fallen world where we live and work. I believe that it will be a fully liberal church that sees the ultimate liberal, Jesus Christ, returning in clouds of glory.

Dr. Timothy Standish is a research scientist at the Geoscience Research Institute.

[nyg4168]

Yeah, everyone once thought for long periods due to deep science that the earth was flat. I just can't imagine how they could be wrong.

Yes, rational people once thought the world was flat, in large part due to the influence of religion, but also due to their limited scientific capabilities. Then they figured out that in truth the earth is a sphere.

Similarly, rational people once belived that God created the universe in just six days some 6,000 years ago, in large part due to the influence of religion, but also due to their limited scientific capabilities. Then they figured out that in truth the universe has taken billions of years to reach its present state, and it continues to change and evolve every second.

So, no, we don't know everything, but we know a lot more than people did 1,000 years ago when they thought the world was flat and even more than people did 3,000 years ago when Genesis was written.

[SalukiLawyer]

Would you agree that the explanatory value of evolution has been, on occasion, overstated in an effort to cow believers with science? "Sparky" the self-replicating amino acid is a conjecture that may or may not be a fact, but the complexities that we see in biology, many of which required parallel evolution of system components that make no sense by themselves leave leave some honest, not-too-stupid laymen suspicious about evolution as the ultimate answer. I am not saying the world was created in six 24 hour periods. Nor am I saying that if all the apparent deficiencies in the theory were convincingly resolved in favor of evolution my faith would be crushed. What I am saying is that I am neither convinced nor satisfied by the theory, so I don't feel like drying up and blowing away when someone with a different post-graduate degree than mine shakes the voodoo mask of Science in my direction while making spooky noises.

Like I always tell people when I am preparing them for cross-examination. There's nothing wrong with saying "I don't know" if that's the honest answer.

[Just mythoughts]

"That's not the only religious response. I think we have misinterpreted the data and when rightly understood it won't show billions of years old at all."

The E's are correct and it is Biblical that this earth and universe are millions upon millions of years old, how old no man knows.

However, flesh man at most is around 12,000 years old. There was an earth and heaven age before 'flesh' was created. Had man evolved out of pond scum there would be a continuous phase of evolution going on and there would be heaps and heaps of skeletal remains to give evidence. There is no such evidence only goood art work picturing what these nonbelievers promote.

Got to know why man in the flesh was created to understand that first earth age. When do you suppose the souls were created that are placed in the flesh at conception.

Do you think the Heavenly Father is running a 'soul' manufacturing facility for souls. Paul speaks of some who were predestined before the foundations of this earth age.

So what did these that were predestined do to qualify for this status?

[RadioAstronomer]

Other than by the copious radio frequency emissions, but even that method is only possible out to less than 100 light years, since we've not been putting out much of that stuff any longer than that.

Only in the microwave band. TV and other stuff at the lower frequencies get attenuated pretty quickly. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you see it) "I Love Lucy" is not going to the stars.

[farmfriend]

It was.

[WhiteGuy]

I don't know that days have always been limited to 24 hours, or that an hour has always been limited to 60 minutes. God may have changed all that when He created life.

Indeed.

One earth day is 24 hours, one day for the almighty could be 10 million earth years.

[Havoc]

I was kinda trying to note that the argument you presented was
one of the standard fallacies of argumentation by example.. lol. A bazillion of them could have an opinion and all be wrong - which is continuously what history has shown us. It's rare that someone finds the truth and they're usually considered insane for opening their mouths and daring to dissent with the truth.. Majority opinion on such things is largely worthless.

[RadioAstronomer]

But I don't know that days have always been limited to 24 hours

Actually due to tidal action, the Earth's rotation is slowing down. Has been for millions of years.

[DannyTN]

"Do you plan to turn FR into DU?"

Aagggh!

No, that's not my intent. Had I seen this article or realized he was seventh day adventist, I probably wouldn't have posted his article even though I agree with much of it.

Fortunately, I don't think there's a whole lot of liberal Creationists.

[VadeRetro]

In this case, the overwhelming evidnce (and lack of evidence to the contrary) would lead any rational person to believe" that there is no MISSING link, as one has never been found despite the many fraudulent attempts.

Would one of you ignorant yahoos just once explain what is supposedly missing from the fossil record? This "missing link" thing someone taught you parrots to squawk for? Why isn't anything out of all the predicted intermediate forms we have found "the missing link?"

Why, for instance, isn't any of this stuff "the missing link?" There's something I want you to keep in mind while you're tediously going through all those things and waving them away one by one. (Remember, the Lord needs you to do it!) If it turns out that no fossil or fossil series that we could ever find can ever be "the missing link," then the lack of "the missing link" in the fossil record doesn't prove squat, does it?

[VadeRetro]

Timothy Standish is onto something. A liberal is someone who happily pretends to believe that all ideas deserve respect even if they aren't true. So is a creationist.

Neither is telling the truth, of course, but that's just another thing they have in common.

[antihannityguy]

Would one of you ignorant yahoos just once explain what is supposedly missing from the fossil record? This "missing link" thing someone taught you parrots to squawk for? Why isn't anything out of all the predicted intermediate forms we have found "the missing link?"

Why, for instance, isn't any of this stuff "the missing link?" There's something I want you to keep in mind while you're tediously going through all those things and waving them away one by one. (Remember, the Lord needs you to do it!) If it turns out that no fossil or fossil series that we could ever find can ever be "the missing link," then the lack of "the missing link" in the fossil record doesn't prove squat, does it?


Actually you are the www.yahoo.com. YOu have no idea what you are talking about. The missing link is a transitional form of a species, a mouse with wings that is turing into a bat for example. It is some species that is supposedly mutating into another species. If as you believe that evolution took place over millions of years and things evolve there should be millions of fossils of transitional species. However there has not be one fossil found of the millions and millions discovered and dont think that evolutionists have not been looking. Every fossil today appears as a distinct species because thats all that was around during the flood