Posted on 05/14/2009 8:19:44 PM PDT by AngieGal
He left??
He went to prepare a place for His followers but sent The Comforter - The Holy Spirit. So He left AND stayed. He’s big enough to be able to do that.
By saying “ridiculous” or “nonsense” sounds a lot like Chris Matthews arguing and equally meaningless.
Look - the probabilities are off the charts, and it is never discussed. Be honest with yourself. It is an unproven theory that doesn’t work. It is a guess, now with an unsavory religious dogmatism attached. The probabilities of this falling into place along side “punctuated equilibrium” are completely far fetched - when things changed not over billions but only over millions of years. It is a lot of kool-aid to drink. This is so much claptrap masquerading as proven science. Reread 140, look at the odds of a single cell forming, then reproducing - that alone could take 4 billion years - if it were being directed!
Just prove it or come up with a new theory, something that makes sense. I am not buying it.
So, first you complain about "meaningless" arguments. And then what do you do? How much meaning do your arguments below have? How much supporting evidence? Are they not simply meaningless, unverified and unverifiable claims?
"the probabilities are off the charts, and it is never discussed."
So you claim, but it's only true if you make false assumptions and ignore reality.
"Be honest with yourself. It is an unproven theory that doesn’t work."
First, I'm always honest, not only with myself, but with you.
Second, as I understand scientific language, there is no such thing as a "proved theory." Instead, you have two types of scientific ideas: a hypothesis is an unconfirmed explanation for scientific observations, data or facts.
A theory is a confirmed hypothesis, meaning it has been tested and not falsified. Theories can be used to make predictions about the natural world.
Some have even argued there is no such thing as a "scientific theory" because every hypothesis could possibly someday be falsified. But a theory which has been confirmed many times in many ways will not be called a "hypothesis" just because it's remotely possible that someone someday may falsify it.
The Theory of Evolution has been confirmed scientifically many times, in many ways, and can make certain predictions.
"It is a guess, now with an unsavory religious dogmatism attached."
Not true.
"The probabilities of this falling into place along side “punctuated equilibrium” are completely far fetched - when things changed not over billions but only over millions of years. It is a lot of kool-aid to drink. This is so much claptrap masquerading as proven science."
Kool-aid?
Claptrap?
Masquerading?
And this language from someone who starts off complaining about "meaningless" arguments? My, my...
You misunderstand the argument. Fossil records show traces of life beginning nearly 4 billion years ago. They show the first large plants & animals around 500 million years ago. So for nearly 3.5 billion years, life on earth was almost entirely microscopic. And the number of microscopic critters on earth today is so huge, that any possible mutation is certain to show up from time to time.
"Reread 140, look at the odds of a single cell forming, then reproducing - that alone could take 4 billion years - if it were being directed!"
Those first "cells" were far from living "cells." They were simply chemical compounds which behaved in certain life-like manners. Over time these non-living cells became more and more complex, taking on more and more life-like features. At the same time, they left more evidence of themselves in the fossil records.
One example today of a non-living chemical compound which behaves in certain life-like manners is a virus.
Finally, of course I believe there was nothing random about long-term evolution: it was directed from the very beginning by God, in order to produce us & who can know what else? Do you ask, how can that fit with the idea of "random mutations"? Easy -- just like the random results from rolling dice. God loaded the dice.
"Just prove it or come up with a new theory, something that makes sense. I am not buying it."
Obviously, you are not required to "buy" any theory which doesn't make sense to you. But evolution does make sense to most people, including nearly every scientist who works in a related field. So you might stop to consider what it is those folks understand that you don't.
I find it interesting that you are not offering any probabilities. When non-life becomes life and you can duplicate that in a lab - maybe I’ll start believing these whacked out probabilities. Until then - it is pie in the sky with fancy degrees and terminology.
You can flip a coin and get heads 7 billion straight times - and then say, each is an independent event with a 50% probability and it may be the correct outcome and QED that’s how Michael Dukakis walked out of the primordial swamp, however I and the rest of the rational and casino owning world would throw that coin out! If you need to get heads 7 billion straight times for this to work there is most likely a different explanation. The problem with your side is that you throw 7 billion straight heads and don’t bat an idea with the smug explanation that it is the same mathematical probability as not having straight heads - that they are mathematically the same and therefore scientifically the same, but it is not the case.
The elements carve a mountain’s face into any number of possibilities - yours comes out a picture perfect Mt Rushmore with four formed presidents, and then you say that occurrence is the same probability of some indistinguishable rock face. Mathematically yes, but don’t expect me to believe it!
Random or not random, the probabilities are too great to have any confidence in this.
Is this some kind of trick question?
No, it's not a trick question, I'd just like an answer. For such a simple question, no one has provided me with an example yet. I notice that you do offer reference to bacteria, I'm asking for an example that relates to a more complex life form... like a homo sapiens. Thanks.
Neither you nor anyone else knows what the probabilities are. I'm saying, given the physical evidence, the "probabilities" are 100% that life developed on Earth. Whether it got some "help" from an outside source is neither proved nor disproved. But it is assumed, lacking solid evidence to the contrary that there was none. That could change.
"When non-life becomes life and you can duplicate that in a lab - maybe I’ll start believing these whacked out probabilities. Until then - it is pie in the sky with fancy degrees and terminology."
I first note again how quick you were to criticize me for using words like "nonsense," "baloney" and "ridiculous." You said those words were "meaningless," and yet you are just as quick to employ "whacked out," "pie in the sky," and "fancy degrees." Aren't those words equally meaningless?
So, when does "non-life" become "life"? It's a matter of definitions. We define a bacteria as "alive," but a virus as "not alive" because the virus does not do everything we expect in living cells. And there are other little critters found in nature which are even simpler and less fully "alive" than viruses.
So there is a whole category of "semi-alive" chemical compounds which both reproduce and mutate. Some of the simplest of these type compounds have been created in labs, and that is the state-of-the-art today.
"You can flip a coin and get heads 7 billion straight times..."
Do you not see the first obvious problem with this argument? We are not talking about flipping A coin 7 billion times. Seven billion is 7 times 10 to the 9th power. What we are talking about with microscopic single celled critters, by analogy, is flipping 7 times 10 to the 100th power, or the 1,000 power, so that any mutation even remotely possible is a certainty to happen.
Second, for evolution to work at the microscopic level, no single "coin" is required to get 7 billion "correct" flips. Instead, bits and pieces of useful genetic information are often exchanged amongst different species of critters. So each particular "coin" only needs to get some of the "right answer" and then find the rest of it in some other coin.
"I and the rest of the rational and casino owning world would throw that coin out!"
No you wouldn't, fool, not if it was making money for YOU!
I have no problem at all with the idea that some form of life may possibly have first arrived here on an asteroid or meteor. But so far there's no physical evidence of that, so it is assumed life started here.
I also have no problem with a suggestion that God may have "loaded the dice" "weighted the coin," or "stacked the deck" to insure the results He wanted. But again, there's no evidence for it, and also, by definition, God can't "cheat".
"The problem with your side is that you throw 7 billion straight heads..."
No we don't. We throw SOME straight heads, and then use the straight heads that were thrown on OTHER coins.
Look - you don’t know probability then you go into a dialogue about it as if you have explanation.
Create life in the lab - with non life matter, then I’ll listen to you. Up until them - just zip it, because you are postulating on things you know nothing about and too arrogant to admit it.
Obviously, time scales required for major mutations increase with larger sized critters.
Bacteria and viruses mutate in a matter of years to become resistant to our vaccines or antiseptics.
Larger life takes much longer, certainly longer than recent history. But scientists who analyze DNA from different species can point to some sequences which are unchanged, while other sequences have changed corresponding to the species differences.
If we are talking about human beings, what we have are fossil records of nearly two dozen "pre-human" species dating back over 5 million years. You could say the average pre-human lasted about 250,000 years, was slightly more human looking than the one before, slightly less human than the species which followed it.
And we even have some DNA analysis, showing the differences between modern mankind, Neanderthals and this new "Hobbit" from Indonesia. Every difference is a mutation which improved and made us more "human."
There are even many human mutations which can be tracked on historical time scales. These are the mutations which mark differences amongst human races and ethnic groups, and allow us to track, for example, the dates of Pacific Islanders moving & settling across the Pacific.
Somewhere I read that the steady rate of mutation in humans works out to about one per generation -- most entirely inconsequential, some harmful. "Beneficial" simply means better adapted to some particular environment, so I'd suppose ethnic and racial characteristics would fall into that category.
“Nothing comes from nothing and nothing ever will.”
Nonsense
Ridiculous
Baloney
You make a ludicrous argument based on "probabilities" which you totally don't understand, then tell me to "just zip it."
Just ZIP it. Your mathematical and microbiology degrees are not showing through. You admit you don’t know the probabilities, and you haven’t proved spit. So zip it. Who needs it, you are not adding anything to the debate.
You are not "debating" anything. All you are doing is stating your uninformed opinion that the "probabilities" don't add up. But you reach this opinion by ignoring the reality that we are talking about unimaginably huge numbers of micro-organisms over billions of years.
For such huge numbers, you don't NEED "probabilities." What you need is a "possibility." If it's POSSIBLE, then Murphy's Law (you remember Murphy, don't you?) says it WILL happen -- not "possibly," not "probably," but certainly.
You don't need advanced mathematics to understand that. What you need is a grasp of basic reality.
Of course, if someone ever scientifically "proves" that life could not possibly have developed on earth (like they "prove" that bumblebees can't possibly fly), then everyone will take notice, and marvel at how, once again, the "impossible" obviously happened.
See previous post.
Much more easier with valid data to prove that the DNC and RNC evolved emerged from the primordial swamps.
The beginning of life is determined by the U.S. Supreme Court and millions of leftists/liberals who define life as what they are for, such that, if they define something to not be worth living, then that something is somehow crushed by the leftists/liberals constant naggings on every stage imaginable.
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