Are You Too Dumb to Understand Evolution?

CreationEvolutionHeadlines ^ | September 10, 2008

[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?...

[Elsie]

again I say....Bible verses don’t count

 

Do not read the following text...

 

 

 

 

Job 38

 

 1.  Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
 2.  "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
 3.  Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
 4.  "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
 5.  Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
 6.  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone--
 7.  while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
 8.  "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
 9.  when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
 10.  when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
 11.  when I said, `This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?
 12.  "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,
 13.  that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
 14.  The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.
 15.  The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.
 16.  "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
 17.  Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death ?
 18.  Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
 19.  "What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
 20.  Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
 21.  Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
 22.  "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail,
 23.  which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?
 24.  What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
 25.  Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm,
 26.  to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it,
 27.  to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
 28.  Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?
 29.  From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
 30.  when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
 31.  "Can you bind the beautiful  Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?
 32.  Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear  with its cubs?
 33.  Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up [God's ] dominion over the earth?
 34.  "Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?
 35.  Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, `Here we are'?
 36.  Who endowed the heart  with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind ?
 37.  Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
 38.  when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?
 39.  "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions
 40.  when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? 
 41.  Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

 

 

[Elsie]

That “The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule if any Christian, not blessed with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma that which scientific scrutiny shows to be false” Thomas Aquinas

There is a big difference between showing and claiming.

[Elsie]

And if they don't tame down and join the church their education is pitiful for the modern world.

AMISH?

Are you confusing them with products of our inner city schools?

[MrB]

yeah... but given enough time.... /sarc

or

life was planted here by highly evolved aliens
(that put microbes on the planet instead of stocking it with fully “evolved” animals from their own)

[LeGrande]

We are discussing SCIENCE!
Why do you insist on bringing up RELIGION?

Because you seem to think that the Bible is a scientific textbook. That is the whole premise behind creationism, you think that it should be taught next to real science.

I happen to think that it should be taught next to Greek Mythology.

Do you want to become a Christian?

Your cognitive dissonance must be working overtime. What in the world gave you the idea that I might want to be a Christian? Especially a Christian as you would define it.

[LeGrande]

I would agree that the perspective of the prophets was ancient. They could see an airplane in a vision and think it was a flying beast. But that doesn’t discredit the Bible. It adds to the great Book’s wonder.

Except for the drug induced visions (and some other stuff) in the Bible I will agree that it is a remarkable work. It probably wasn't bettered until Newton wrote Principia Mathematica.

[allmendream]

You were more ignorant after reading Coulter/Behe’s piece on evolution than before. Please pay attention to her last line of the chapter, paraphrased ‘If evolution is true (and it is) then it was the means God used to create us’.

[allmendream]

You do not seem to have shown any credible scientific evidence to the contrary.

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule if any Christian, not blessed with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma that which scientific scrutiny shows to be false” Thomas Aquinas

[js1138]

The insult game works both ways. Slander is slander.

I continue to ask for problems and weaknesses in the theory of evolution, and you continue to evade the question or offer obsolete arguments.

You offer Ann Coulter, a political writer, channelling Behe.

Behe is a qualified scientist, but he has had two opportunities to defend his ideas in court under oath and has succeeded only in making it clear that his criticisms don't hold up to scrutiny. Irreducible complexity isn't irreducible. The structures Behe claimed wouldn't work if simplified do work in simpler forms, and do so in living things.

Three step mutations do occur and have been observed in controlled experiments. they do not require zillions of years.

[js1138]

Quote: Hoyle ran the numbers to determine the mathematical probability of the basic enzymes of life arising by random processes.

The number crunching is fine, but it's the wrong problem. Evolution isn't random and proteins don't assemble by random processes.

Evolution is equivalent to playing in a casino where you collect your winnings but don't have to pay your losses. The roll of the dice may remain random, but the outcome is not.

[LeGrande]

I told you in the begining that I've never been to school and that I grew up getting up in the morning to milk the family cow and feed the chickens. But when you mentioned the 150 miles an hour I went and check up on it and why shouldn't I be able to calculate the angular displacement? It's just light-time correction. (there may be some stellar aberration in there too but I didn't bother with that.)

LOL What you mean is that you cut and pasted a quote from somewhere on line. You don't have to keep repeating that you never went to school, stating the obvious is redundant.

Furthermore, I have not been able to find a single scientific report from anyone else that says there is a 2.1 degree apparent angular displacement of the suns position. So either you're making it up or you are the only person who knows about it. If you were the only scientist who know it, you'd say so -- and that way I would know why I couldn't find anyone else backing it up. But I think the answer is obvious: You made a claim in the beginning which was not true and you haven't the integrity to admit that you were wrong.

What was my untrue claim? I simply claimed that apparent position does not equal actual position. You are the one that tried to precisely determine how big the discrepancy was after you reluctantly agreed that there was a difference. I simply asked you to tell me 'when', admittedly it was a trick question : )

Am I wrong?

Yes. Why don't you do yourself a favor and pick up a good college level physics text book and study it. I promise you that it will change the way you see the world. Much of what 'appears' to be simply isn't that way at all : )

I have another dilemma for you. Lets say that you have two masses, each weighing a pound at rest. Now lets say that you accelerate them up to something approaching the speed of light and then slam them together in an inelastic collision so that they are now one mass at rest. How much does that mass weigh? -----Weighty pause---- If you think 2 pounds you would be wrong : ) It now weighs more than 2 pounds.

And no I am not going to do the math to show that either. I am simply trying to goad you into getting an education : )

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I thoguht our debate was turning civil. I should have known that an evolutionist would be too fanatical for that. I had already responded directly to your claim about Behe and gave you the benefit of the doubt. I already warned you that I’m no scientist. Nor do I have a sharp interest in the evolution debate.

My sharp interest is in freedom — period.

As for my slander claim, your post might accidentally trick people into thinking I said Behe was slandered. That was not what I posted, just to clear up your confusing post.

Now if you really want to keep spoiling for a debate, start sourcing your claims the way I do. And I’ll likely spend little time reading them. Just not that interested. I mentioned other intelligent points which you ignored. I understand that. People have to ignore some things in the information age.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

“You were more ignorant after reading Coulter/Behe’s piece on evolution than before.”

Ah, reading brings ignorance. I’ll try to remember that.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

“Evolution isn’t random and proteins don’t assemble by random processes.”

Evolution isn’t random selection? Now I’m curious. [I didn’t see this post earlier. I thought you were obsessed over Behe, so I’ll offer you a partial apology.]

[allmendream]

If you complete the course of education and are near or at the top of your class in almost any inner city school you will receive a better and more relevant education (if your goal is a University level education) than being near or at the top of your class in any Amish school. One might make you better prepared to build a barn and drive a buggy and speak archaic German. The Amish don't educate beyond about 8-10th grade.

Maybe if you actually knew something about the subject people might take your opinion seriously.

[allmendream]

Reading propaganda increases ignorance, because some of the things one might then think are true simply are not. What is with Creationists getting their science “education” from lawyers anyway?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

“Reading propaganda increases ignorance”

OK, sorry for my earlier snideness. I’m just getting a little defensive. Be back tomorrow. FRegards ....

[js1138]

Evolution isn’t random selection? Now I’m curious.

Good.

Now all you need to do is think about the fact that casinos don't need to cheat in order to make money. Once you understand that even random processes can have non-random effects, you will be on the road to understanding evolution.

Think, perhaps, of Boyle's law -- you can look it up on wikipedia or any of hundreds of other sites. Random movements of molecules can have a unified effect.

Hint: no biologist of biochemist has ever asserted that proteins assemble in a single jump. Hoyle's calculations may be without mathematical error, but they do not describe any historical event.

[GodGunsGuts]

==If I ever need more ammo, I’ll check it out

Please do...It is cutting-edge stuff, and one of the most significant Creationist papers to appear in years IMHO.

All the best—GGG

[js1138]

I thoguht our debate was turning civil.

Ann Coulter is a political writer. She is not a source for information about biochemistry.

The transcript of the Dover trial is a good place to see Behe's thoughts in his own words. It is also a good place to see what happens to his claims of irreducible complexity when they are examined carefully.