Creationist questions evolution

[DaveC426913]

That spelling of 'defence' looks awkward to me - even though it is ostensibly the correct spelling of my people.

 

[Write4U]

Fact: of all known species that have ever existed on Earth, 99.9% are now extinct.

One problem is that a lot of people would assume that with the term, "all known species that have ever existed on earth", one means 99.9% of all living individuals are dead and miss the implications in the terms "evolution of a species" and "extinction of a species".

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Extinction is the rule and evolution the minor exceptition.

So many folk dont get it because they have no idea and they have no idea because their science comes from their holy book.

Take the acceptance of the ark story...how did the animals survive when they got off the boat when all they had to eat was mud....nice story but then so is Snow White...except Snow White is believable.

Faith the refuge of the ignorant and uniformed.
Alex

 

[river]

Extinction is the rule and evolution the minor exceptition.

So many folk dont get it because they have no idea and they have no idea because their science comes from their holy book.

Take the acceptance of the ark story...how did the animals survive when they got off the boat when all they had to eat was mud....nice story but then so is Snow White...except Snow White is believable.

Faith the refuge of the ignorant and uniformed.
Alex

Life gives intelligence to matter

 

[Dinosaur]

I posted remarks like the following to this or some similar Thread.

There are two interesting sets of related fossils (among others) which strongly support evolution.

Eohippus to modern horse

Early primates to modern man.​

The above could be called facts of evolution, requiring an alternative & better explanation to refute the current Darwinian explanation.

Such an explanation could be called the creationist explanation of those facts.

I do not remember anyone posting a plausible alternative to the explanation based on Darwinian evolution.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Not according to Darwinian evolution. It was an evolutionary process, according to that theory.

So although you don't know how life started, you have faith that it was a Darwinian process,
Sounds about right,

One step, a necessary aspect of dealing with such a situation, is to isolate and restrict the influence of the corrupting domestication, deny these corrupting influences - such as the religions that inculcate mental illness - physical power over their neighbors. Separate church and state, say.

Who would do this?
How would this person know that corruption is bad?

We don't. We theorize, reason from evidence, etc.

What has been theorized thus far?

jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

The question of how life evolved after it started can be separated from the question about the origin of life from non-life (which is known as abiogenesis).

So what?
It is still a requirement for the truth (for those who are interested in truth)

The answer to your first question, about the origin of life, is: I don't know, and neither do you. However, there's no reason to suppose we need to introduce anything as complex as a supernatural God to explain it.

Who is supposing it?
Where did the information come from to build the first life form?
Where does intelligible information generally come from. Period?

The answer to your second question is: the convergence of all the evidence points to that conclusion, and to hold the opposite conclusion - that life did not evolve "in the Darwinian sense" - would be ridiculous considering the evidence.

How did/does complex specified information evolve out of natural processes?

As I said, the first life form was built from simple chemical building blocks.

What was the first lifeform?

Those were governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. In other words, the answer is basically: nature used the available matter and energy, along with the fundamental forces (such as electromagnetism) to put things together in a particular way.

What is the evidence for this?

The ability to vocalise exists in many animals, as you are aware. Producing complex speech requires an evolved capacity and it is also a learned skill in human beings. The capability to speak would have evolved in the same way that any other bodily function evolved, by the usual methods of variation and selection. It is very likely that the ability was selected for and refined by natural selection for the usual reason, too: i.e. that those human beings who had the ability had more reproductive success than those who did not, on average.

So speech is purely for reproductive advantages?
Okay,

I don't know what you're asking. Why do you think speech should benefit "nature", as some kind of abstract thing? I can't see any particular benefit to "nature" in the abstract, myself.

Don't worry. I get it know.
Speech gets you laid.

As for accepting that there is life etc., what do you propose? Rejecting those facts?

What facts?

But we're talking about nature here, not your God. Nature, unlike you idea of God, doesn't need a plan or an end goal. It doesn't require "benefits". In science, we just talking about "nature", not "Mother nature". See the difference?

So all our evolutionary benefits are purely there so we have a better chance of getting laid, and reproducing?
That is if you see any benefit in anything we do.

And so...? How do you infer from this that nature requires a grand plan or an ultimate goal?

If we are aspect of nature, then we think and act in accordance with nature. That means every thought and action is true, according to nature. If we express an overall plan, ultimate goal, or God, it must necessarily be true according to nature.
Why do you think it wouldn't?

Religion is cultural, not just genetic. Obviously, nothing in nature prevents you from holding your religious beliefs.

Of course it wouldn't.
We are simply expressions of nature, so it has to be the truth according to nature. Doesn't it?
If a cheetah kills an antelope, the cheetah has done nothing wrong. In fact it is correct to kill the antelope, because it is simply expressing it's natural instinct. Right?

You missed a word there. Did you mean to say that it is no concern to you if God has no master plan, or if nature has no master plan?

Not a ''real concern'', no.
Whatever God does, it is Absolutely correct.
Otherwise it wouldn't be God.

There's no obvious intelligence that goes into building life forms. People make babies all the time while having no clue at all as to how babies "work", for example. They trust the mindless DNA to do the job, no intelligence needed. (And, as we know, the DNA has evolved.)

Mindless DNA stores biological information. Where did that information come from?
Where does information come from, generally?

Theism does nothing to explain the "how". At best, religion has the pat answer of "God did it somehow", which is a God of the Gaps argument. All of the detail in the "how" on the question of human origins comes from science, and none of it comes from religion. There is no religious research into the "how".

It tells you in the bible. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God?
That seems to take care of where did the information come from.
What is your hypothesis/ theory on where the information came from? It evolved?

To argue that your religious position is somehow more "logically coherent" than my atheist position is silly. For starters, you have never been able to demonstrate any incoherency in the atheist position.

I do it all the time.
Have you spoken to Alex?

An alternative view is that religion holds back human development by tethering humans to the fantasy of God. Who's to say your view is correct and this alternative is wrong?

Evidence, for starters.
You believe Darwinian evolution accounts for all the forms on the planet, and you have no evidence for it. Only just so stories and dodgy artwork.
You cannot account for the vast amounts of information that would be needed to make these transformations.
Prove me wrong.

Intelligence - big brains etc. - is just humanity's evolutionary "trick".

Trick?
Can you hear yourself.

I have no idea what that means.

I don't believe you.

You continually assert that this "knowledge of God" is innate in human beings. You are also continually unable to point to any such innate knowledge, or to explain how it comes to reside in a human brain.

Am I an expression of nature?
If yes, my knowledge of God is, as I say it is.

You have utterly failed to establish that innate knowledge of God is "a natural phenomenon".

From your perspective, how can it be anything else but a natural phenomenon?

On the contrary, it seems likely that religious belief is a side-effect of other, more useful, evolved adaptations that human beings possess, such as the capacity for pattern seeking, the capacity to look for agency and cause, and so on.

See? Just so stories.

jan

 

[DaveC426913]

... just so stories and dodgy artwork.

See? Just so stories.

A nice encapsulation quotation of what Jan thinks of historical studies.

That the exact same description can be applied to scriptures seems to have totally escaped Jan.

Jan has sown the seeds of his own downfall.

It tells you in the bible.

'Just so' stories and dodgy artwork.

 

[DaveC426913]

What facts?

What facts indeed.

While Jan has just conceded that scripture and Bible are just stories and pictures, we can walk into any museum in the world and touch the effects of evolution. We can look at samples of hundreds and hundreds of creatures - all formed by the same evolutionary process, following the gradual changes from ancient precursor up to modern living descendant - and that includes humans.

Thanks Jan, no one could have done a better job of
- supporting modern scientific historical studies
- while dropping a depth charge on scripture
as effectively as you just did.

 

[billvon]

Who is supposing it?
Where did the information come from to build the first life form?

Physics and chemistry.

Try the following. Boil some water and add a lot of sugar. Then let it cool. Crystals will form. Where did the information come from to build those crystals? Same place.

How did/does complex specified information evolve out of natural processes?

Mutation and natural selection.

So speech is purely for reproductive advantages?

From an evolutionary viewpoint, yes.

So all our evolutionary benefits are purely there so we have a better chance of getting laid, and reproducing?

From an evolutionary viewpoint, yes.

If we are aspect of nature, then we think and act in accordance with nature. That means every thought and action is true, according to nature. If we express an overall plan, ultimate goal, or God, it must necessarily be true according to nature.

Ah. Then since atheists exist, they must be the truth according to nature.

Mindless DNA stores biological information. Where did that information come from?

Mutation and natural selection.

You believe Darwinian evolution accounts for all the forms on the planet, and you have no evidence for it. Only just so stories and dodgy artwork.
You cannot account for the vast amounts of information that would be needed to make these transformations.
Prove me wrong.

Easy. Look at any genome of any organism. Compare it to its closest relatives. Boom! Creationism disproved, and evolution proved.

 

[Write4U]

So although you don't know how life started, you have faith that it was a Darwinian process,
Sounds about right,

First, the Darwinian process started at the chemical level in cosmic clouds, many billions of years ago, long before the earth even existed.

The earliest known life forms on Earth are putative fossilized microorganisms
found in hydrothermal vent precipitates.[1] The earliest time that life forms first appeared on Earth is unknown.

They may have lived earlier than 3.77 billion years ago, possibly as early as 4.28 billion years ago,[1] or nearly 4.5 billion years ago according to some;[3][4] in any regards, not long after the oceansformed 4.41 billion years ago, and not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago.
The earliest direct evidence of life on Earth are microfossils of microorganisms permineralized in 3.465-billion-year-old AustralianApex chert rocks

Evidence of possibly the oldest forms of life on Earth have been found in hydrothermal vent precipitates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_known_life_forms

We do know how life started, we just don't know the exact time in the evolution of bio-chemicals when life emerged from inanimate matter.

This has nothing to do with faith. First there were chemicals, then there were polymers, then there were self-replicating polymers, then there were fully established populations of cyanobacteria, then there was oxygen, then life sprang into full bloom with variety, then there was motility. This process took some 1 billion years.

Fossil evidence informs most studies of the origin of life. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years; the earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 billion years ago. There is evidence that life began much earlier.

And not even on land.

This was an inevitable result of speciation and natural selection of "best adapted organic patterns". The process is demonstrable in a laboratory. The exact formula is a probability.
Farmers engage in the intentional forced evolution of some species and select out the desired traits for breeding and start a "human selection" by culling the runts.

Ever looked at a fancy goldfish? It's just a member of the carp family, but hopelessly altered to please our senses, but without any useful properties to survive in the wild.
We keep em in glass bowls...

The only problem of finding the true point of origin is almost impossible to find and dependent on the probability of chelating the right combination of some 500 self-replicating bio-chemical polymers from a mixture of some 5000 chemicals.

Seen through a microscope, chlorophyll is concentrated within organisms in structures called chloroplasts.
Chloroplast

Description

Chloroplasts are organelles that conduct photosynthesis, where the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight, converts it, and stores it in the energy-storage molecules ATP and NADPH while freeing oxygen from water in plant and algal cells.

What is there to believe? That God took a handful of mud and molded a man like a piece of clay?
Now that takes belief! It also takes complete ignorance of biology!

 

[Jan Ardena]

We do know how life started

How did life start?

Jan.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How did life start?

Jan.

Big Sky Daddy make heap big wind. Wind blow in man nose!

 

[Write4U]

How did life start?
Jan.

Self-duplication by division. Growth into complex bio-chemical patterns.

I just told you, but if want an expert analysis, watch the Robert Hazen presentation, which I have made available several times now. But I'll make it easy on you. Of course, you won't watch it, but hopefully some other people might be interested in the most likely process although there may be several different ways to form life. We just know pretty well how life on earth began.

start the clip at 25:00

 

[Write4U]

Where did the information come from to build the first life form?

It emerged during compatible chemical interactions.
Left- and right-handed molecules and surfaces naturally select for bonding of left-handed
molecules to right handed surfaces and vice versa.

No magical blue-print. Bio-chemical compounds just form naturally (if physically allowed). The emergence of Life in bio-chemical patterns is a probability, not a supernatural elan vital.

Creative Evolution (French: L'Évolution créatrice) is a 1907 book by French philosopher Henri Bergson. Its English translation appeared in 1911. The book proposed a version of orthogenesis in place of Darwin's mechanism of evolution, suggesting that evolution is motivated by an élan vital, a "vital impetus" that can also be understood as humanity's natural creative impulse. The book was very popular in the early decades of the twentieth century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Evolution_(book)

This is not necessary for life to emerge. The emergence of Life needs not be a motivated action at all. It's a natural bio-chemical potential.

There is a natural tendency for "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction" but that is a passive universal potential, coming into play only by chance during combinatory chemical processes.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Thanks Jan, no one could have done a better job of
- supporting modern scientific historical studies
- while dropping a depth charge on scripture
as effectively as you

I cant help think that Jan is probably a science teacher in the real world specialising in evolution and big bang cosmology who has adopted the persona of a uninformed creationist to run false flag campaigns to absolutely discredit the made up stories in the bible and draw attention to the sad fact there are people out there matching the character that Jan presents here so as to get the message out there that science offers correct answers to all the questions that creationist continually get wrong.

Alex

 

[Write4U]

I cant help think that Jan is probably a science teacher in the real world specialising in evolution and big bang cosmology who has adopted the persona of a uninformed creationist to run false flag campaigns to absolutely discredit the made up stories in the bible and draw attention to the sad fact there are people out there matching the character that Jan presents here so as to get the message out there that science offers correct answers to all the questions that creationist continually get wrong.

Alex

Jan is part of a global conspiracy to make science respectable.........

 

[Dinosaur]

From Jan Ardena Post 126

So although you don't know how life started, you have faith that it was a Darwinian process,

Sounds about right.

I am guessing that Jan does not believe in evolution.

Note that evolution does not deal with the origin of life. It deals with events after life came into existence.

Your Post 126 incorrectly implies that evolution includes some description of how life started,

Evolution deals with events after life started.​

From my Post 125

There are two interesting sets of related fossils (among others) which strongly support evolution.

Eohippus to modern horse

Early primates to modern man.​

The above could be called facts of evolution, requiring an alternative & better explanation to refute the current Darwinian explanation.

Such an explanation could be called the creationist explanation of those facts.

I do not remember anyone posting a plausible alternative to the explanation based on Darwinian evolution.

 

[Write4U]

Note that evolution does not deal with the origin of life. It deals with events after life came into existence.

I understand the context in which you use of the term evolution of "living things", but I believe the concept of evolutionary processes are apparent from the very beginning of chemical interactions in the formation of more or less functional or efficient polymers.

Dr. Hazen specifically mentions this in his lecture.
I understood him to say that wherever mutation occurs (even in chemistry), a natural selection process selects for successful and desirable attributes as compared to older patterns.
Evolution (mutation) and natural selection (for desirable abilities).

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Jan is part of a global conspiracy to make science respectable.........

My assertion that Jan is most probably an atheist brings no rebutal I find that interesting dont you?

And his tactics to make atheists think more about how silly religion really is certainly works.

And notice how he does not argue against the reality that the bible is made up ...

he is clearly intelligent enough to cause mugs like me to point out the inexhaustble supply of flaws whilst he lays a trail of crumbs to the next nonsence he will have us argue against.

Only a clever intelligent atheist could do that.

He is very clever but thats an atheist for you.

I was reading how many kids wise up when they attend college and with some real education under their belts become atheist and also how the better educated folk are the more likely that they are atheist.

No doubt Jan is very well educated and very intelligent so the odds that he is really a theist are pretty slim.


Alex