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Kids: You say that you or some friend of yours is presently undergoing the standard forced indoctrination in evolutionism in your school, and the guy teaching the class is a sort of a dork, and you'd like to see him act nervous and sweat and stutter and stammer a bit and maybe even go "Tchi-Tchi-Tchi-Tchi-Tchi-Tchi-Tchi-Tchi" like a weasel?
What you want to do is ask him one of the following questions. You might even want to ask one of these questions every couple of days until the guy finally can't handle it anymore and either leaves town or finds an honest job:
1. Evolution begins with the idea of one-celled animals somehow arising
from inert materials (abiogenesis). Nonetheless, I've read articles
indicating that the probabilistic odds against even deriving one of
the required chemical components of a one-celled animal are way
beyond what any mathematician would categorize as impossible. For
instance, the following appeared on the internet recently:
>It is estimated that the smallest possible self replicating species
>would contain 124 separate protein chains. With each made of 400
>aa-molecules. Probability of forming one protein chain of 400 links
>
>
>(all L-type) from a mixture of 50/50 D- and L-forms is 1 in 10^114.
>Probability for 124 seperate chains being created out of chance,
>each containing 400 links of L-type molecules from a mixture of D-
>
>and L- forms is 1 in 10^14,136 .
>
>Probability for 124 properly sequenced protein chains being formed
>
>by chance alone is 1 in 10^64,480 .
>
>Probability for 124 protein chains to have been formed from L-type
>
>molecules alone from a 50/50 mixture of D and L types 1 in 10^78,616
>To produce these 124-x400 L type chains would require DNA with
>148,800 nucleotides. This doesent even reflect the 124 x 6 codons
>for go/stop punctuation. Probability of forming one DNA strand of
>
>148,800 nucleotides is 1 in 10^89,280.
>
>Now....the probability for this one example of DNA amd 124 chains
>
>to have formed by chance alone simultaneously is 1 in 10^167,896.
>
>WE HAVE NOT EVEN GOTTON TO A COMPLETE PROBABILITY FOR A WHOLE CELL
>YET. AND WE HAVENT EVEN TOUCHED UPON THE PROGRAMING FOR DNA TO CARRY
>ALL THIS OUT. And the nuclutides for a human is like 3,000,000,000.
>
>Conclusion: Mathmatics do not support the theory of evolution as
>it is currently concieved. Mathmatically there is a zero probability
>for any kind of cell development by haphazzard chance alone.
The question is:
1. How does anything beat 1 to 10 raised to the 167,896 power odds?
You have to figure proteins would be destroyed faster than they could
be created by any natural, undirected process, and that that the ratio
between these rates is again some sort of astronomical number. Again
from the internet, Bill Anderson:
15) There have been many imaginative but unsuccessful attempts to
explain how just one single protein could form from any of the
assumed atmospheres of the early Earth. The necessary chemical
reactions all tend to move in the opposite direction from that
required by evolution. Furthermore, each possible energy source,
whether the Earth's heat, electrical discharges, or the sun's
radiation, would have destroyed the protein products millions of
time faster than they could be formed.
And from Tricia Borawski:
>Even the question "Given billions of tries, can a spilled
>bottle of ink ever fall into the words of Shakespeare?" has
>become obsolete as a result of modern man's understanding of
>random mutation. Till now, this question pointed out odds so
>astronomical that it rendered the event a virtual impossibility.
>Now, it's not even a question of beating ridiculous odds. Now
>we're shooting dice which deteriorate with each throw and
>eventually self destruct. That is, we're shooting dice (genetic
>"messages") which deteriorate (cause genetic diseases) with each
>throw (of random mutation) and eventually self destruct (the host
>organism). Thus, instead of, "Can you beat such ridiculous
>odds?" the question now becomes, "After relatively few tries,
>will you have any ink, paper, or dice left with which to try
>again?" Since the very life that is supposed to evolve will be
>destroyed in the process, it is impossible for the process to
>even go on for any required length of time. This makes it highly
>questionable, to say the least, that a trial-and-error method of
>genetic mutations could beat even realistic odds--forget about
>the preposterous odds proposed by evolutionists. Therefore,
>whether life could develop in an environment (of genetic
>mutations) where even fully developed biological systems cannot
>survive is really no more a question of odds than whether a cow
>could survive underwater long enough to conceive and give birth--
>it's simply impossible.
The question is:
2. How did proteins ever first evolve given all of this?
Again, Bill Anderson:
16) If, despite the virtually impossible odds, proteins arose by
chance processes, there is not the remotest reason to believe that
they could ever form a self-reproducing, membrane-encased, living
cell. There is no evidence that there are any stable states
between assumed naturalistic formation of proteins and the
formation of the first living cells. No scientist has ever
advanced a testable procedure whereby this fantastic jump in
complexity could have occurred--even if the universe were
completely filled with proteins.
17) DNA can only be produced with the help of certain enzymes. But
these enzymes can only be produced at the direction of DNA. Since
each requires the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin
of one must simultaneously explain the origin of the other. No
evidence exists for any such naturalistic explanation.
18) The simplest form of life consists of 600 different protein
molecules. The mathematical probability that just one molecule
could form by the chance arrangement of the proper amino acids is
far less than 1 in 10^527. The magnitude of the number 10^527 can
begin to be appreciated by realizing that the visible universe is
about 10^28 inches in diameter.
The question is:
3. How did the first one-celled animals ever evolve against all of that?
Suppose that God or some other creator created the first one-celled animals,
or that we simply split up abiogenesis and evolution into separate topics,
and allow evolutionists to defend evolutionism, and criminals to defend
abiogenesis (as punishment for their crimes), as a number of the t.o.
howler monkeys insist upon; can we get to humans, given the one-celled
animals?
Millions of steps appear to be required to get from a one-celled
animal to a human, and yet we know that even one of the smaller
steps, such as between two different humanoid ancestors, involves
odds which begin to sound like those in question 1. Again from the
internet:
>There is 1,000's if not million's of nucleotides that must be
>directed to line up in a specific sequence. There is enormous
>alignments as well as additions to the genetic code from
>Gigantopithecus to Australopithecus for example. If there was a
>1% diffrence in the genetic bases of man and ape, that comes out
>to about 30,000,000 bases. With such enormous numbers of bases
>involved, mathematics become very relevent. Why? Becuse there is
>well accepted laws in mathematics that say if you want to talk
>about such feats, don't use "chance", "time","mutations" or any
>other defined event that must act in some random way to bring it
>about.
The question is:
4. While one might believe that one such step against those kinds of odds
had taken place in all the history of the world, how is anybody supposed
to believe that millions of such steps did??
Aside from the problems involving genetics and probability, there are
problems with what you might term programmatics.
Consider the "proto-bird" (TM), a favorite amongst evolutionists, even
as Porky Pig and Lambchop are favored by children. This poor little
creature is supposed to have somehow survived a thousand generation
process during which it had neither functional arms, nor functional
wings, during which it had enough flight feathers to look weird and be
laughed at, but not enough to fly, a light enough bone structure to be
kicked around on beaches, but not light enough to fly, and was generally
an outcast, pariah, ugly duckling, and effortlessly free meal for every
predator which ever saw it for 1000+ generations before it ever succeeded
and flew.
An idea of how hard it would truly be for "proto-bird" (TM) to make it
to flying-bird status can be gotten from the case of the escaped
chicken.
Consider that man raises chickens in gigantic abundance, and that
on many farms, these are not even caged. Consider the numbers of such
chickens which must have escaped in all of recorded history; look in
the sky overhead: where are all of their wild-living descendants??
Why are there no wild chickens in the skies above us???
A flying bird requires a baker's dozen highly specialized systems,
including flight feathers, wings, a special light bone structure,
specialized flow-through design hearts and lungs vastly more efficient
than ours, specialized tails and balance parameters, and a number of other
things. Now, you can imagine the difficulty involved for something like
a dinosaur which did not have any of these things to evolve them all,
but the feral chicken
ALREADY HAS ALL OF THESE THINGS!!!!!
In other words, if there's any chance whatsoever of a non-flying creature
evolving into a flying bird, then surely, surely the feral chicken, close
as it is, could RE-EVOLVE back into being a flying bird. They're only missing
the tiniest fraction of whatever is involved.
They've got wings, tails, and flight feathers, and the whold nine yards.
In their domestic state, they can fly albeit badly; they are entirely
similar to what you might expect of an evolutionist's proto-bird, in the
final stage of evolving into a flight-worthy condition.
According to evolutionist dogma, at least a few of these should very quickly
finish evolving back into something like a normal flying bird, once having
escaped, and then the progeny of those few should very quickly fill the
skies.
But the sky holds no wild chickens. In real life, against real settings,
real predators, real conditions, the imperfect flight features do not
suffice to save them. In real life, if you ever lose the tiniest bit of some
complex trait or capability, you will never get it back. Ever.
Thus we see that "proto-bird" (TM) not only couldn't make it the entire
journey which he is supposed to have, he couldn't even make it the last
yard if we spotted him the thousand miles minus the yard.
The basic question is:
5. How in hell is some velociraptor supposed to make it the thousand miles,
if history proves that a creature which amounts to the final stage of such
a development cannot make it the final yard of such a process?
In similar vein, Bill Anderson notes:
20) Detailed studies of various animals have revealed certain
physical equipment and capabilities that cannot be duplicated by
the world's best designers using the most sophisticated
technologies. A few examples include: the miniature and reliable
sonar systems of the dolphins, porpoises, and whales; the
frequency-modulated radar and discrimination system of the bat; the
efficiency and aerodynamic capabilities of the hummingbird; the
control systems, internal ballistics, and combustion chambers of
the bombadier beetle, and the precise and redundant navigational
systems of many birds and fish. The many components of these
complex systems could not have evolved in stages without placing a
selective disadvantage on the animal.
The questions are:
6. How are we supposed to believe that all of these animals survived
prolonged periods of profound disadvantage during the lengthy times
required to develop such specialized capabilities which would be
worthless very late in the process of development?
and
7. How is natural selection supposed to thus select on the basis of a
hoped-for functionality, rather than simply do a random walk around
some starting point for such a potential?
Again, from Bill Anderson:
2) Mendel's laws of genetics explain almost all of the physical
variations that are observed within life categories such as the dog
family. A logical consequence of these laws and their modern day
refinements is that there are limits to such variation. Breeding
experiments have also confirmed that these boundaries exist.
5) Mutations are the only proposed mechanism by which genetic
material becomes available for evolution. However all (perhaps
all) observable mutations are harmful; many are lethal.
6) No know mutation has ever produced a form of life having both
greater complexity and greater viability than its ancestors.
7) Over seventy years of fruit-fly experiments, equivalent to 2700
consecutive human generations, give no basis for believing that any
natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity
and viability. No clear genetic improvement has ever been observed
despite the many unnatural efforts to increase mutation rates.
The question is:
8. How is a process which is invariably destructive in common
experience supposed to drive evolution?
Aside from being unable to develop new kinds of animals, we observe that
breeding cannot produce antediluvian sizes amongst present animals.
For instance, the Argentinian teratorn, a type of eagle, had a 25'
wingspan, and weighed around 170 - 250 lbs. Nonetheless, we know that
Central Asians have been breeding hunting eagles for size and strength
for 2000 years, and cannot get them past 25 lbs; at that point, they
start having too many problems taking off and landing.
9. Why is that?
Similarly, enormous sizes were part and parcel of the game plan for a
number of animals which are supposed to have dominated the Earth for
hundreds of millions of years.
10. If 70,000+ lb sizes were such a winning ticket back then, why has
nothing ever RE-EVOLVED into such sizes, given the tens of millions
of years which are supposed to have passed between then and now.
Given evolution, you have to assume that human culture and language
evolved with man as man was evolving; you have to figure that man was
speech-capable hundreds of thousands of years ago. Thus, since the
Indo-European and Semitic groups show no racial differences and cannot
have separated from eachother more than a few thousand years ago, their
languages should be very strongly related, nearly as much so as the
individual languages of the Indo-European groups are to eachother.
11. How do you explain the fact that they are not?
12. How do you explain the fact that Indo-European languages appear to
have been simplified grammatically since the first records we have
of them; that they appear to DEVOLVE rather than evolve?
I've been looking at the official U.S. Government photographs of that
funny region on Mars called Cydonia, and you can get those images from:
NASA's own site, or on numerous other sites such as the Metaresearch site maintained by Tom Van Flandern.
Tom, a former head of the Naval Observatory, and other competent astrophysicists maintain that the NASA is hiding information from the public on the question of the controversial
"face on Mars", and that this is due to considerations similar to and related to
the controversies involving the theory of evolution. Basically, there is no
way to build something like the Cydonia complex with spacesuits on; the planet would
have to have been habitable, and the current paradigm of a history for our solar
system does not allow for Mars ever having been habitable. At least one of the other
recent Cydonia images shows a nearly perfect four-sided pyramid.
Now, normally, what scientists would try to do is use time like a magic wand again (like with evolution) and try to claim that somehow or other Mars was habitable 200 million years ago, and that might be possible if the face on that pedestal base were that of some total space alien. The problem is, that the face, while not exactly one of us, resembles some human ancestor, either a neanderthal or hominid or something like that or some kind of a monkey, and the odds against monkeys or anything like that developing separately on Mars is clearly astronomical.
Now, I've watched monkeys a lot and they're not really terribly smart or anything, at least by human standards, and so, the final series of questions for our evolutionism teacher are:
13. How did those monkeys or Neanderthals or whatever they were get to
Mars?
14. If monkeys were organized enough to do that in the past, how did
they get to be like they are now?
15. Why do we not find any evidence of a past simian or neanderthal
culture sophisticated enough to get to Mars, or any of the
infrastructure which such a feat would entail (particularly if the
story of the global flood in Genesis is a fairytale as scientists
claim it is)?
16. If we're supposed to be descended from monkeys, apes, neanderthals etc.,
how did they beat us to something like that?
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To: medved
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what have you done??!!
FMCDH
He forgot < /pre >
FMCDH? Sorry, you'll have to enlighten me; that's one I haven't seen before.
FMCDH?
From My Cold Dead Hands...credit C. Heston
FMCDH
From my cold dead hands. Search for Lexicon of FreeRepublic, or check my profile page. I think I have it bookmarked.
I read in a book that there was a greater probability that a monkey sitting at a typewriter could type all the works of Shakepeare without a spelling error, than for evolution to take place.
Great profile page, sirgawain...
FMCDH
From my cold dead hands. Search for Lexicon of FreeRepublic, or check my profile page. I think I have it bookmarked.
Thanks. Heston sure has got that one right.
Did I mention that I was interviewed at CPAC by the lady that produces the NRA infomercials. She wanted to know what I thought of Wayne LaPierre's speech.
He talked about the UN and how they are trying to ban "small arms." At the end of the interview, she asked me if I had anything to say to the U.N. I looked at the camera and said, "From my cold dead hands." Maybe it'll be on an infomercial someday? :)
kjgojdfphkrhsha:lkoruakv.z . modhjqrweyih;h
How's that?...heh heh heh.
FMCDH
If I was the teacher, I'd send the little freak to the office for disrupting the class. Evolution is the scientific orthodoxy, and orthodox science is what is taught in elementary and public schools. Many of the above question are legitimate areas for further research. Omniscient, omnipotent and undetectable supernatural influences are not an acceptable scientific explanation for anything.
the UN and how they are trying to ban "small arms."
I'm a dead man,...with small arms.
FMCDH
I liked the main part of the article, especially the mathematics, which is the primary argument I have used in arguing aginst the hypothesis of evolutionism -- but what is this stuff about Mars and pyramids? I think he damages his case (such as the inability of chickens to re-evolve back to fly freely) by dragging in extraneous matter. You might just as well get someone to think about evolution from this standpoint and then suddenly bring in a hot-spot issue like "was the atom bomb justified?"
Says who?
FMCDH
He talked about the UN and how they are trying to ban "small arms." At the end of the interview, she asked me if I had anything to say to the U.N. I looked at the camera and said, "From my cold dead hands." Maybe it'll be on an infomercial someday? :)
Hope somebody told them there were 160 million other hands which would have to be made cold and dead in the same process.
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I would request that you refrain from misuing the work "orthodox" (as in 'evolutionism is orthodox science'). The word Orthodox is from Greek words "ortho" (right,proper) and "doxa" (glorification), and was specifically derived about 300 AD to refer precisely to Christians who believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and thus "properly glorify" the Holy Trinity by their faith.
To misuse our name as you do, by twisting it to means the eact OPPOSITE (so that according to you 'orthodox science' would deny the very existence of God Whom the Orthodox Church glorifies) is absurd and insulting.
not an acceptable scientific explanation for anything.
Wierd Science.
FMCDH
The question of Cydonia is strongly related to evolutionary questions. It indicates the existence a biplanetary (at least) society back in antediluvian times, which is clearly at odds with the entire current paradigm of uniformitarianism and evolution.
Omniscient, omnipotent and undetectable supernatural influences are not an acceptable scientific explanation for anything.
You must not think the truth, because the truth is unthinkable.
huh?....BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
FMCDH
You must not think the truth, because the truth is unthinkable.
Some things are true, whether we believe them or not.
FMCDH
There's something deeply ironic about someone who ignores hundreds of thousands of fossils, observed changes occuring RIGHT NOW in finches in the Galapagos, analysis of DNA, regarding evolution, but is totally credulous of a handfull of Cydonia freaks talking about assorted random mounds on Mars looking like they were constructed.(albeit some of whom used to be legitimately employed scientists).
The human mind is designed to see faces and patterns; in fact the FIRST thing we can recognize as infants is a face.
Take any totally unihabited region of the Earth, for example, and stare at satellites long enough, and you'll find plenty of natural features that you'll convince yourself were built by someone.
Mars is a big place, and a lot of pictures have been taken of it. It would be a surprise if there WEREN'T natural features that looked a little artificial.
There's about a million times more hard evidence for evolution than there is for large-scale intelligent-being built structures on Mars.
The number of mis-statements and outright lies in the original post are so numerous I could take an afternoon and destroy them all one by one, but I do have better things to do :-)
For one thing, "and the current paradigm of a history for our solar system does not allow for Mars ever having been habitable." is a total fabrication. It's the growing consensus among legitimate planetary scientists that it once was far more habitable than it was today. Perhaps not habitable for humans as currently exist here, but it had water and far more of an atmosphere.
The rants about proto-birds is hilariously stupid.
The reality is, there are a wide variety of flightless birds happily living and surviving all over the world, which essentially blows up the entire rant. Well, actually, some of the more obscure species only living on isolated islands are in big trouble because of human-introduced predators, and some are already extinct. (and many of those, isolated on small islands, are VERY closely related to, and obviously evolved from, "flighted" birds; they arrived at the island, found there were no dangerous ground predators, and thus the wings were unecessary; they evolved rather "quickly" (but still over millions of years) into flightless birds.
What would you do as a sunday school teacher if a youngster said: "OK, the odds of evolution taking place are quite extreme, but what are the odds that the first creation ever was a god with infinite complexity in comparison to man. Furthermore, you want me to behave in a certain manner for the rest of my life so that I may reap the benefits AFTER I have died."
There's something deeply ironic about someone who ignores hundreds of thousands of fossils, observed changes occuring RIGHT NOW in finches in the Galapagos, analysis of DNA, regarding evolution, but is totally credulous of a handfull of Cydonia freaks talking about assorted random mounds on Mars looking like they were constructed.(albeit some of whom used to be legitimately employed scientists).
The human mind is designed to see faces and patterns; in fact the FIRST thing we can recognize as infants is a face....
Did you even look at the link to images of the main Cydonia pyramid which I provided? My honest opinion is that anybody who can look at that and claim it's a natural formation either has serious eyesight problems or has brainwashed himself. What I hear is that JPL is now about evenly divided, about half the people believe the entire Cydonia complex is artificial. Fractal indices indicate the entire complex is artificial, and the analysis provided by Van Flandern is unanswerable. Flandern at a recent meeting in Portland was asked what level of certainty he had in the artificiality of the complex, and said it was 100 percent, i.e. in his estimation, there was no room for question.
The number of mis-statements and outright lies in the original post are so numerous I could take an afternoon and destroy them all one by one, but I do have better things to do...
Such as educating yourself...
What would you do as a sunday school teacher if a youngster said: "OK, the odds of evolution taking place are quite extreme, but what are the odds that the first creation ever was a god with infinite complexity in comparison to man. Furthermore, you want me to behave in a certain manner for the rest of my life so that I may reap the benefits AFTER I have died."
I would tell the kid that in any reasonable scheme of things, intelligence has to arise first and create the biology. Having the biology arise first, via random processes which are all there would be in a universe devoid of intelligence, and then create the intelligence, is called evolutionism, and evolutionism is incompatible with everything we know about mathematics and probability.
I would also tell the kid that he was only going to live in this world for sixty or eighty some years, but that whatever was going to be going on after he died, would be going on forever.
Please don't try to engage medved in a rational conversation. this is the poster who has cluttered up FR with rants about the Earth orbiting Saturn in historical times.
Did you ever bother looking at the most recent pictures from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)? NASA specifically included the Cydonia region in an early pass just to see if there was anything to the face on Mars. For the most recent images of this location, follow this link. Takes a few minutes to load, but it's worth the wait, since it clearly shows that the "face" is in fact just a hill when viewed at high resolution.
Of course, this could just be another NASA cover-up! Like the moonlandings!
LTS
Says who?
FMCDH
About which part of what I said, exactly? About the supernatural not being a scientific explanation. About evolution being the mainstream science? As to the latter, that's self evident. As to the former, it is pretty much axiomatic that science does not appeal to the supernatural, which by definition is outside the realm of science.
Yeah, I've seen the NASA image. Did you even bother to check out Tom Van Flandern's critique of the manner in which those images were produced and released to the public?
You can use the word "orthodox" any way you like, I'll use it how I like. From the dictionary:
Orthodox: 4. Adhering to what is commonly accepted, customary, or traditional: an orthodox view of world affairs. n.
That's how I meant it. I'm pretty sure nobody thought I was talking about the Greek, Russian, or any other orthodox church.
If you're offended, that's your problem.
Wierd Science.
FMCDH
Do you always speak in non-sequitors? In any case, what does "FMCDH" stand for?
Some things are true, whether we believe them or not.
And some things are untrue, whether we believe them or not.
Cool. I want to join a religion that claims common words as their own private property.
Cool. I want to join a religion that claims common words as their own private property.
There may be better reasons for joining the Orthodox (pravoslavnij) church than that. The Orthodox church, for some reason or other, is particularly hateful to the clintonistas and nwo types. That almost puts it into the same category as gunshows, i.e. something everybody needs to find out more about....
(Your haphazard use of HTML seems to have brought
out the flaws in the freerepublic format, But I'll try
to make my reply legible.)
1. Evolution begins with the idea of one-celled animals
somehow arising from inert materials (abiogenesis).
No, evolution "begins" within a living ecology; it does
not conern itself with the origin of life on this
planet. Evolution and abiogenesis are two different
things (with, admittedly, some overlap).
I've read articles indicating that the probabilistic
odds against even deriving one of the required chemical
components of a one-celled animal are way beyond what
any mathematician would categorize as impossible.
Water is one of the required chemical components of a
one-celled animal (at least, I know of no animal that
can function without it), and it's quite easy to derive:
just heat a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. But if one
were to try "deriving" a mere thousand water molecules
by assembling random atomic triplets of H and O, the
probability of success would be (3/8)^1000, which is
far less than one in a hundred billion quadrillion.
(Actually it's far, FAR less, but why belabor the
point?) This is what I call the fallacy of incompetence:
you assume that the odds of something happening are no
better than the odds of your successfully bringing it
about by the stupidest method imaginable. Much of what
you write below is based on this fallacy.
For instance, the following appeared on the internet
In other words, you don't know where it came from and
you won't defend it. Skimming over it, I see that much
of it is groundless or simply false. There may be a
sound argument in there somewhere; if you want to put
it foreward, you dig it out.
2. How did proteins ever first evolve given all of this?
Do you mean, how do proteins evolve? Or how did the
first protein come about? Crude proteins can form
without the help of preexisting proteins: amino acids
tend to stick to each other.
3. How did the first one-celled animals ever evolve?
This is similar to 2. Without going into detail about
lipid films and least-energy surfaces, I'll just say
that these questions are not well-formed.
4. While one might believe that one such step against
those kinds of odds had taken place in all the history
of the world, how is anybody supposed to believe that
millions of such steps did??
See above. You do not understand probability.
6. How are we supposed to believe that all of these
animals survived prolonged periods of profound
disadvantage during the lengthy times required to
develop such specialized capabilities which would be
worthless very late in the process of development?
This question makes reference to a long passage
attributed to "the internet" which I deleted. If you
want to review that passage, remove the faulty
reasoning, clean up the factual errors and stand by
the result, go right ahead.
7. How is natural selection supposed to thus select on
the basis of a hoped-for functionality?
It isn't. (The second part of your question looked liked
gibberish, so I omitted it.)
8. How is a process which is invariably destructive in
common experience supposed to drive evolution?
Do you mean death? It makes room.
9. Why is that?
10. If 70,000+ lb sizes were such a winning ticket back
then, why has nothing ever RE-EVOLVED into such sizes,
given the tens of millions of years which are supposed
to have passed between then and now.
Two words: blue whale. Now you are probably tempted to
rephrase the question. Let me save you some time: nobody
claims that the dinosaurs will re-evolve.
11. How do you explain the fact that they are not?
12. How do you explain the fact that Indo-European
languages appear to have been simplified grammatically
since the first records we have of them; that they
appear to DEVOLVE rather than evolve?
I though we were talking about BIOLOGICAL evolution, but
in any case evolution does not mean becoming more complex.
13. How did those monkeys or Neanderthals or whatever
they were get to Mars?
There is no evidence that any complex organism has ever
been on Mars.
14. If monkeys were organized enough to do that in the
past, how did they get to be like they are now?
See 13. Same answer for 15 and 16.
There are no dinosaurs and the earth is flat isn't it?
Your haphazard use of HTML seems to have brought out the flaws in the freerepublic format, But I'll try to make my reply legible.)
Let me guess: You've managed to save lots of money by converting your grandpa's 1947 TV set (6"x6" screen) into a computer monitor, yes?
Your claim that:
No, evolution "begins" within a living ecology; it does
not conern itself with the origin of life on this
planet. Evolution and abiogenesis are two different
things (with, admittedly, some overlap).
basically just translates into
"Gee, why should I want to defend two unsupportable ideological doctrines; one is hard enough?"
The rest of your "analysis" just sort of runs downhill from there.
I would tell the kid that in any reasonable scheme of things, intelligence has to arise first and create the biology.
I would assume from this statement that you believe it is possible for an intelligence to exist devoid of any biology (body) to house or support it...is this your position? In other words, if intelligence existed prior to biology - where did it exist? Is there any evidence of intelligence existing anywhere devoid of biology? Why do you believe in this as a potential occurance if there is NO evidence of it ever happening? Just curious...
I would assume from this statement that you believe it is possible for an intelligence to exist devoid of any biology (body) to house or support it...is this your position? In other words, if intelligence existed prior to biology - where did it exist? Is there any evidence of intelligence existing anywhere devoid of biology? Why do you believe in this as a potential occurance if there is NO evidence of it ever happening? Just curious...
There's no perfect answer to that one. The only thing for certain, is that there are only the two choices, and the one, evolution, has basically been disproven as of now, leaving only the other.
It is possible that intelligence could arise in complex electrical and electrostatic phenomena. Oracles such as those at Delphi were associated with areas of concentrated electrostatic charge, and the celebrated arc of the covenant was, in all probability, a Leyden bottle or some similar kind of electrical device.
The electrostatic nature of the Earth was much greater than it is now in recent prehistoric times. The Greek word "pyramid" is based on the same root (pyr) as pyrotechnics and pyromaniac. The things had reflective facing stones and golden (conductive) domes which were permanently lit up, i.e. they were basically huge lightning rods for religious purposes.
A number of DeGrazia/Crossthwaite works which I have made available at Bearfabrique describe the relationship between static electrical phenomena and ancient religious practices.
There's no perfect answer to that one. The only thing for certain, is that there are only the two choices, and the one, evolution, has basically been disproven as of now, leaving only the other. It is possible that intelligence could arise in complex electrical and electrostatic phenomena.
I must have slept through the day evolution was "disproved", when did this occur?
Our discussion is regarding intelligence and whether there can be intelligence without biology, for if there cannot be intelligence without a biology to house it, the "chicken or the egg" debate regarding what came first, intelligence of biology is over, this does great damage to your attempt to disprove evolution does it not?
You have done a very clever albeit common thing here. You seem to assert (without actually saying it) that these phenomenonas
- Electrostatic charges
- Arc of the coveneant (?)
- Electrostatic nature of the earth
Somehow have intellligence, I assume you did not actually say this because you know it sounds rediculous, as if when I shuffle my feet on carpet and touch a light fixture this in some way releases an "intelligence" devoid of any biology...is this what you offer to disprove evolution?
A number of DeGrazia/Crossthwaite works which I have made available at Bearfabrique describe the relationship between static electrical phenomena and ancient religious practices.
What in the world does this have to do with whether there can be intelligence without biology? Clearly this was an ineffective "smoke-screen" for the lack of ANY evidence for the assertion you made earlier.
I'll ask it again... is there any evidence that intelligence has existed without biology? Please respond just to this issue - this is a no "smoke-screen" zone!!
By the way...if evolution has been disproven as you say, why do you continue to attempt proof here?
Cheers!!
I'll ask it again... is there any evidence that intelligence has existed without biology? Please respond just to this issue - this is a no "smoke-screen" zone!!
Probably no evidence which would hold up in a court of law, at least not yet. My guess is that intelligence could arise in the complex electrical phenomena of the cosmos, but that's just a guess.
In our present life, we know the spirit real only through faith. Many sources in ancient literature indicate that this was not always the case. DeGrazia and Crossthwaite note the associatiation between ancient religious practices, and the formerly stronger electrostatic nature of the Earth; there is reason to think that, when the electrostatic fields broke down, that communication with the spirit realm, prophecy, oracles etc., were lost of a moment. Jews claim that the Jewish council at the time of Zechariah asked the Lord to remove the curse of idolatry from the world and that he did, but that they lost prophecy at the same time.
Julian Jaynes wrote of the oracle at Delphi:
The replies to questions were given at once, without any reflection, and uninterruptedly. The exact manner of her announcements is still debated, whether she was seated on a tripod, regarded as Apollo's ritual seat, or simply stood at an entrance to a cave. But the archaic references to her, from the fifth century on, all agree with the statement of Heraclitus that she spoke "from her frenzied mouth and with various contortions of her body." She was entheos, plena deo. Speaking through his priestess, but always in the first person, answering king or freeman, 'Apollo' commanded sites for new colonies (as he did for presentday Istanbul), decreed which nations were fiiends, which rulers best, which laws to enact, the causes of plagues or famines, the best trade routes, which of the proliferation of new cults, or music, or art should be recognized as agreeable to Apollo - all decided by these girls with their frenzied mouths.Truly, this is astonishing! We have known of the Delphic Oracle so long from school texts that we coat it over with a shrugging usualness when we should not. How is it conceivable that simple rural girls could be trained to put themselves into a psychological state such that they could make decisions at once that ruled the world?
The obdurate rationalist simply scoffs plena deo indeed! Just as the mediums of our own times have always been exposed as frauds, so these so-called oracles were really performances manipulated by others in front of an illiterate peasantry for political or monetary ends.
But such a realpolitik attitude is doctrinaire at best. Possibly there was some chicanery in the oracle's last days, perhaps some bribery of the prophetes, those subsidiary priests or priestesses who interpreted what the oracle meant. But earlier, to sustain so massive a fraud for an entire millennium through the most brilliant intellectual civilization the world had yet known is impossible, just impossible. Nor can it gibe with the complete absence of criticism of the oracle until the Roman period. Nor with the politically wise and often cynical Plato reverently calling Delphi "the interpreter of religion to all mankind."
Here, Jaynes stops just short of the real $64,000 question:
How could anybody sustain so massive an institution for an entire millennium through the most brilliant intellectual civilization the world had yet known,
That's a hell of a thought, isn't it?
Could somebody like Joan of Arc possibly be receiving real information from her "voices"? I would only be guessing, but my guess would be as follows: that unlike our own age in which we know the spiritual realm only through faith, the true antediluvian age was one in which real lines of communication existed. I would also guess that, in our age (i.e. during the last 2600 years or so) if somebody on the other side with sufficient authorization to try such a thing wished badly enough to provide a French maiden with the information needed to confound the English or some other group of malefactors, he/she might attempt it, but there is no guarantee that it would work, or that it would keep on working if it worked once or twice; it would be like trying to communicate over an unreliable telephone connection (which might finally break down altogether).
Like I say, I don't have anything which would stand up in a court of law just yet; whatever or whoever Joan was communicating with would be about as close as anybody could come to demonstrating that anything with intelligence and no biology existed. The Catholic church is nothing if not thorough, and they just took nearly five hundred years in determining that Joan was actually doing things which required information which she had no Earthly way of having other than through her "voices", when they canonized Joan in the early part of the last century.
You guys in the mood to tack ol' Teddy?
Not like it does any good is it? One of the worst of the BADAAS (Back Again Dumb As A Stump) boys. How many times have I refuted his bird stuff?
I'm still waiting for him to explain how the Earth escaped being an irradiated snow ball while orbiting Saturn and Jupiter ...
The one about the instantaneous light is always good for a laugh, too. Or the microwave for cooking off nuclear wastes.
Like I say, I don't have anything which would stand up in a court of law just yet;
I have not asked you to prove anything in a court of law, this is not that complicated. I simply asked you to show me intelligence without biology, no court necessary. A simple example will surfice. Can I show you bilogy without intelligence would have been your proper logical retort, not some "farcical tale of a watery tart lobbing a semitar(credit-Monty Python). I offer as my proof to your un-asked question...the beloved Amoeba - biology without intelligence.
whatever or whoever Joan was communicating with would be about as close as anybody could come to demonstrating that anything with intelligence and no biology existed. The Catholic church is nothing if not thorough, and they just took nearly five hundred years in determining that Joan was actually doing things which required information which she had no Earthly way of having other than through her "voices", when they canonized Joan in the early part of the last century.
EEEEGADS, how did we get from a simple question to Joan of Arc?? I must admit I am unfarmiliar with Joans doings. Other than being an influencial leader and quite brave, what things did dear Joan do that were beyond her knowledge, and required her to speak with the again undefineable "intelligance without biology"? Please enlighten me. By the way...the resorting to Joan of Arc broke our "smoke-screen free zone" rule, as did the ever popular "I cannot offer any evidence/proof of what I believe that would stand-up in a court of law...but I believe it anyway. I've always failed to see how this phrase supports the position of the person who utters it, logic would seem to say it does just the opposite. "Blank Out"
Be the Ball Danny
The article's first statement about abiogenesis is wrong. I assume Mr Holden is now arguing against himself.
The first computational example is wrong about L and D type molecules. One might look up the term "conditional probablility." I assume Mr Holden is incorrectly computing the probabilities of his original artument.
The article's first statement about abiogenesis is wrong. I assume Mr Holden is now arguing against himself. The first computational example is wrong about L and D type molecules. One might look up the term "conditional probablility." I assume Mr Holden is incorrectly computing the probabilities of his original artument.
Huh...got any gum.
I am not nearly as smart as you guys, I just like to look at things simply and logically. If someone will stay with me along the logical path (which they rarely if ever do) I can usually point out the flaw in their, I use this term loosely..."thinking". I think you support my view but unfortunatley I am to simple to get your drift...sorry!!
Be the Ball
You guys in the mood to tack ol' Teddy?
Thanks! You and a couple of your pals have more or less answered a question which I'd wondered about occasionally, i.e.:
What exactly happens to class clowns after they start to get old, and the bloom is off the poison ivy bush, so to speak?
EEEEGADS, how did we get from a simple question to Joan of Arc?? I must admit I am unfarmiliar with Joans doings. Other than being an influencial leader and quite brave, what things did dear Joan do that were beyond her knowledge, and required her to speak with the again undefineable "intelligance without biology"? Please enlighten me. By the way...
Sorry, I mistook you for somebody who wanted to learn something. I won't bother you anymore.
How, pray tell, does intelligence arrive first, then the biology? How does this solve the little puzzle about the unlikelihood of evolution? Doesn't the creation of a disembodied intelligence (GOD) require more unlikely odds than creation of a single-celled amoeba (biology)? How can you argue GOD's existence scientifically? Feel free to ask your sunday school teacher.
You guys in the mood to tack ol' Teddy?
Nah! He's no fun. I get a brain-ache trying to read his stuff. I'm outta this thread.
Sorry, I mistook you for somebody who wanted to learn something. I won't bother you anymore.
I am somebody who wants to learn something, if there is something tangable to learn.
It was not my intention to anger you, just to engage you in a rational debate which centered on one issue devoid of mystical "smoke-screens". You see, I have a GREAT deal of experience with these type of debates, I have been at it a very long time. I do get irritated when an honest issue is raised, it is addressed and then other obscure, unrelated issues are entered into the mix. To me, this indicates that one of the debaters has hit a wall and must change or obscure the issue to save face. If this is not the case I apologize in advance.
Back to the original question. I have offered as proof an Amoeba as an example of "biology without intelligence". Do you dispute this assertion?
As near as I can tell you have offered as your proof of "intelligence without biology" electro-static energy and Joan of Arc. I contend your proof is devoid of any resemblence to a logical argument for your position, on the contrary it is an attempt to redefine the debate to that of "unknowns" and "mysticism".
The redefinition is unnecessary. Lets just discuss, rationally the question of "intelligence without biology", for if this cannot be supported with evidence, you ask your student to offer as evidence against evolution an example which can easily and quickly be refuted, this is a disservice to the student.
Cheers
ps - Did you enjoy the Python reference? Judging from your response I would guess not!! Sorry if I offended you.
Nah! He's no fun. I get a brain-ache trying to read his stuff. I'm outta this thread.
Is a debate with Medved one worth having? I'm kinda new on this forum.
Thanks,
Wierd Science.
FMCDH
what does "FMCDH" stand for?
You're a "scientist"...figure it out.
FMCDH
If you want to post an evolution QUESTION(?)...., at least get the HTML right...
FMCDH
And some things are untrue, whether we believe them or not.
TRUE...
FMCDH