Posted on 09/11/2008 9:55:10 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Sept 10, 2008 — Astrobiologist David Deamer believes that life can spontaneously emerge without design, but he thinks lay people are too uneducated to understand how this is possible, so he gives them the watered-down version of Darwin’s natural selection instead, which he knows is inadequate to explain the complexity of life. That’s what he seemed to be telling reporter Susan Mazur in an interview for the Scoop (New Zealand). Is the lay public really too dense for the deeper knowledge of how evolution works?...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
I guess posting on FR is more important to you than children.
Have you seen the study of “societal indicators”? (I think that’s the term)
Someone did a study of all the societal indicators -
divorce, teen suicide, teen pregancy, cohabitation, alcoholism & drug use, STDs, violent crimes, etc -
since 1963 when prayer was removed from schools.
All of the negative indicators took a “hockey stick” exponential increase at that inflection point.
One statistic that took a reflective exponential drop was SAT scores.
It wasn’t removing prayer from schools that did that. It was another monumental undertaking unrelated to religion. You are distorting history.
1963
Jan. 14 George Wallace, sworn in as governor of Alabama, pledged, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.”
Mar 20 The 1st large “Pop art” exhibition opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, featuring such artists as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns.
Spring Civil rights campaigns throughout the South started with a voter registration drive in Greenwood, Miss., and segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala., in April; continued in May, in Birmingham, and 3 North Carolina cities, Jackson, Nashville, and Atlanta; and spread in June to 6 major cities outside the South as well as 12 more in the South. Most of the protests were against segregation, but job discrimination and police brutality were often issues as well. Several thousand blacks and their white supporters were arrested.
From May 2 to 7 in Birmingham, 2,543 demonstrators were arrested, prompting Governor Wallace to say he was “beginning to tire of agitators, integrationists and others who seek to destroy law and order in Alabama.” On May 9, black leaders and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce reached an agreement to desegregate public facilities in 90 days, hire blacks as clerks and salesmen in 60 days, and release demonstrators without bail in return for an end to the protests. Still, on May 11, 2 bombings of black organizers’ homes provoked a riot of 2,500 blacks which ended with State troopers clubbing any blacks they could catch. In Cambridge, Md., the National Guard enforced martial law from June 14 to July 11 after several shooting incidents. In Detroit a peaceful antidiscrimination march of 125,000 was held with the support of the mayor and governor.
June 9 Cleopatra, the most expensive movie ever made ($40 million) with the highest paid star, Elizabeth Taylor ($1.725 million+10% of the gross over $7.5 million), opened in New York. Though critical and public reception was lukewarm, enough people paid at least $4 so that Warner Bros. could later claim that it had made money on the film after it had sold the TV rights for a substantial amount.
June 12 Medgar Evers, Mississippi civil rights leader, was shot in the back and killed late at night.
June 17-19 A U.S.S.R. woman astronaut, Valentina Tereshkova, orbited the earth 45 times.
Aug. 5 The U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Britain signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. Later, 113 other nations cosigned, but not France or China.
Aug. 28 Over 200,000 blacks and whites marched for civil rights in Washington and 10 black leaders met with President Kennedy. In his keynote speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., proclaimed, “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.... There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.... No, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Aug. 3 A 24-hour “hot line” was installed between Washington and Moscow to insure emergency consultation which could prevent “accidental” nuclear war.
Sept. Schools peacefully integrated throughout the South, except in Alabama where President Kennedy ordered the National Guard to keep schools open after Governor Wallace sent State troopers to close them.
Sept. 15 A black church in Birmingham, Ala., was bombed, killing 4 girls. Two more blacks died in the riots that followed.
Oct. 2 Chief of Staff Taylor and Defense Secretary McNamara returned from South Vietnam and “reported in their judgment that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965,” as the U.S. stepped up military aid. At the same time, the U.S. had cut off economic aid to South Vietnam due to its government’s repression of Buddhists. On November 1, South Vietnamese President Diem, whom Secretary of State Rusk once called the “Churchill of Asia,” was killed in a military coup which had U.S. approval.
Nov. 19 Cambodia renounced U.S. foreign aid (it had received $365 million) and asked U.S. troops to leave. “By this measure we will be poorer but more independent.”
Nov. 22 President Kennedy was assassinated in a Dallas motorcade; Lyndon Johnson became the 36th President of the U.S. (See: Assassinations, Chap. 9.)
You still don't understand. I said the conclusions of the article are based on the fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. That does not mean that the actual science they did in identifying mutation hot spots and conserved areas was wrong, just that the conclusion that 'evolution' did this are based on a fallacy. Based on what I had already posted about methylation and error-correction schemes at the cellular-level I was only showing that mutation is not 'random'. For mutation to be 'random' and your objection to make sense, I would have to accept the fallacy of Affirming the Consequent, which I don't. Different thing altogether.
"Gene activity doesn't mean mutation."
One of the functions of methylation is to identify mutations for repair. You said this yourself and now pretend it doesn't exist so you can try to make a point.
"Constraint of expression doesn't mean constraint of mutation."
Again, you omit the role that methylation has no role in DNA repair which does relate to mutation.
To return to the initial problem. This was all done to show that your statement about mutation being 'random' was wrong. We now know that when you say 'random', you mean probabilistic.
There are times when posting is more important than children. Why bring children into a world if Obama wins? [Just as an example.]
The “work” they did to identify hot spots was an ASSUMPTION on their part that the differences in the eleven species they compared’s p53 molecule was due to MUTATION in a COMMON ANCESTOR. The “work” was a comparison of the DNA sequence AS IT EXISTS in eleven different species.
If one assumes those eleven species never HAD a common ancestor (as I assume you do) then the comparison of p53 was comparing God's design of p53 in eleven different species and figuring out which amino acids were essential to p53 function and which God would change or allow to change.
Do you FINALLY get it through your head that they didn't actually test mutation, they assumed it based upon common ancestry. They compared DNA and the resulting Amino Acid sequence of p53 in eleven species, and assumed any changes were due to mutation; they did NOT subject this DNA sequence to mutation and compare the results.
Gene activity has nothing to do with mutation repair. That is the activity of DNA repair enzymes, not gene activity. And methylation is involved only so the enzyme can tell the newly synthesized unmethylated strand (the one it assumes has the mistake) from the old methylated strand (the one it will use to repair the mistake). Not all DNA mutation is capable of being repaired this way because sometimes DNA methylase gets to the new DNA strand before the repair enzyme can do its work. DNA repair is in no way absolute, it is once more probabilistic.
Moreover DNA repair is something that a bacteria under stress DOWN regulates. Why would a bacteria under stress upregulate error prone DNA polymerase and downregulate DNA repair? For a better survival advantage of course!
Now why would upregulating mutation and downregulating repair confer a survival advantage? What is the mechanism of this survival advantage other than increased genetic variation for selection to act upon?
The definition of random INCLUDES probabilistic. A card game is random, but drawing a royal flush is not as likely a hand as any other.
Besides, what is your big bugaboo with “random” or “probabilistic” anyway. Do you think God has no power over random or probabilistic outcomes?
Not even close. You have your priorities all wrong.
Why bring children into a world if Obama wins? [Just as an example.]
Bad example. I think you should make an appointment with someone to help you with your life.
Someone thought it would really make a point to ask, “Are You Too Dumb to Understand Evolution?” The dummy is the one who asked the loaded question. That’s been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Most of us have little scientific understanding. There are, however, those who do have scientific understanding to the point that they confound others with scientific understanding, and they punch holes in Darwin’s Theory.
As for Behe and his claims, I don’t see why Coulter would have quoted him unless he pointed out some serious problems with Darwin’s Theory. Nor would evolutionists need to seek discrediting him. He’s a problem for evolution believers. Nor is Behe the only one.
Behe is a godless evolutionist! Don't you get it! He believes that we should teach our school children that God is dead! Why do you accept his authority?
I have asked you a number of times to point out one or more holes in evolution theory.
I have also pointed out that the quote you presented from Coulter is demonstrably wrong. It is simply untrue.
Same with Behe's latest book. He asserts that adaptations that take two or three steps are statistically impossible, and yet several instances have been observed, some in HIV in the last few decades, and some in carefully controlled laboratory experiments.
Some of these instances were in the literature before Behe wrote his book.
I don't know how you reason, but for me it's kind of silly to start with a premise that is known to be untrue.
Never mind. I see that I posted to you yesterday Behe’s exact words where he calls the ToE an “Elegant Design” and says that man evolved with animals from common descent.
“Not even close. You have your priorities all wrong.”
What a prime example of someone who thinks he knows better than everyone else. How on earth do you know what my priorities should be?
As a writer, I seek to better understand how the world works. Until then, what’s the point in being a writer? As a writer, I plan to make enough money to raise a family. But I don’t want to be some idiot writer who doesn’t know a thing about the world. I suppose you’ll find fault with that. Once again, you don’t know much about me, and yet you think you know what’s best. Is this is how you came to form conclusions about evolution? I’m not in this world to be mediocre. I’m here to reach for something, and if I fail, I will be in good company.
Maybe those who raise children in third world countries rather than fight for freedom — maybe they have their priorities wrong. I’m not saying that all of them do, but our Founding Fathers had a different set of priorities, and thank God they did. Perhaps I admire them.
One thing I learned in the 90s is that we are on the verge of losing our freedom. I’ve been dropping by here less. I also spend long periods of time away from here. You have no idea what kind of people benefit from my posts. Nor am I going to share who does with you.
But you are possibly right in one respect — perhaps I waste time with people who are too quick to form opinions about things.
You would do better to refocus. At least go out and work against Obama rather than wasting your time here. Defeating Obama would allow you to set your priorities in the right direction. These creationist threads are mostly just a few guys and you will never change the mind of either. Where you would have real influence is hitting the streets for McCain/Palin and for a better America.
Why do you want to drag me into scientific discussion? Do you think I’m a scientist?
I guess Coulter was just trying to fool everyone about Behe. / sarc
I don’t understand the disconnect you have here. (It would serve your argument better to leave Coulter out of it; as her chapter on evolution was just embarrassing on many levels.)
I guess Ann Coulter is getting under your skin. She’s certainly not ‘too dumn to understand evolution’. She’s another shining example of how idiotic this headline is.
This is, or should be a scientific discussion. At the very least it is a discussion of a scientific topic, and you have several times made rather bold claims that there is something wrong with the opinions of tens of thousands of scientists. You have advocated changing the way science is taught based on the opinions of one or two outlier scientists.
I'd say you dragged yourself into this discussion, and I'm just trying to see if you are willing to be held accountable for your opinions, considering you are advocating political change based on them.
I just said that if you put posting here ahead of children then you have your priorties wrong.
As a writer, I seek to better understand how the world works. Until then, what’s the point in being a writer? As a writer, I plan to make enough money to raise a family. But I don’t want to be some idiot writer who doesn’t know a thing about the world. I suppose you’ll find fault with that. Once again, you don’t know much about me, and yet you think you know what’s best. Is this is how you came to form conclusions about evolution? I’m not in this world to be mediocre. I’m here to reach for something, and if I fail, I will be in good company.
You would be better off going out into the real world to learn how it works than spending time bickering back and forth with a couple of guys over the internet.
Maybe those who raise children in third world countries rather than fight for freedom — maybe they have their priorities wrong. I’m not saying that all of them do, but our Founding Fathers had a different set of priorities, and thank God they did. Perhaps I admire them.
You should go to some third world countries before you speak of their priorities.
One thing I learned in the 90s is that we are on the verge of losing our freedom. I’ve been dropping by here less. I also spend long periods of time away from here. You have no idea what kind of people benefit from my posts. Nor am I going to share who does with you.
The 90s? If you were born in the 80s that would be a reasonable statement but we have been on the verge of losing our freedom for much longer than that.
But you are possibly right in one respect — perhaps I waste time with people who are too quick to form opinions about things.
I agree with one part of the; you are wasting your time here. I probably am also but then again I have already raised my family.
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