"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

Still ignoring me mickrock?

Improbable wrote: »

mickrock, you still haven't given me an answer as to how you explain homology of genes between species and your evidence against the specific example I have provided of human chromosome 2 being a fusion of 2 separate ancestral chromosomes that are present in chimpanzees and gorillas.

mickrock wrote: »

Hmm, that's a turn up for the books!

How so?

Ziphius wrote: »

How so?

When you said it wasn't Darwinian's province how genetic changes got there.

4th and last attempt to get you to respond to this.

Improbable wrote: »

mickrock, you still haven't given me an answer as to how you explain homology of genes between species and your evidence against the specific example I have provided of human chromosome 2 being a fusion of 2 separate ancestral chromosomes that are present in chimpanzees and gorillas.

nagirrac wrote: »

Why are atheists so interested in Evolutionay Biology (will this thread get to a million comments)? Is it because it is the one theory that can be used to convince yourself there is no God? Is the thinking along the lines of "how could we possibly be made from God stuff if we are only a short head past an ape"?

The thinking cannot reasonably be because of how life emerged because we do not know at all how life emerged. Evolutionary Biology is hard, not as hard as Quantum Mechanics, but hard enough. Most people do not understand evolution and have no interest in it, regardless of beliefs.

The basic concept of evolution is quite simple. Lots of people understand it. It's (literally) leaving cert level biology. Anyone who has done leaving cert biology should understand it to some degree.

The most recent census showed a skew in the atheist population toward higher degrees.

This forum has a lot of people with an interest in science, many general, some specific.

It's therefore more likely to be because there are a number of people who frequent this board with a high level of biology.

What surprises me is their patience with this thread.

It is also, as robindichs posts over the last few pages demonstrate, a topic which is often brought up by non-atheists. Mostly because they seem to think evolution is as controversial and lacking in support as ,say, psychics.

So most atheists will pick up an introduction to the topic of evolution by hanging around long enough.

Evolution itself says nothing about the existence or non-existence of gods though. It just explains biodiversity without need for constant direct modification in a way which is consistent with what we know about the physical age of the universe, and what we know about the chemical processes which make up of life. What creationists seem to have a problem with is that it contradicts certain biblical stories, such as the flood, the direct creation of man, and the age of the world.

It doesn't (can't) disprove the possibility of god or gods, but it is incompatible with a few specific flavours, including many fundamentalist abrahamic religions.

nagirrac wrote: »

Is it because it is the one theory that can be used to convince yourself there is no God? Is the thinking along the lines of "how could we possibly be made from God stuff if we are only a short head past an ape"?

I don't think evolution negates the existence of god/s (and nor do those religious people who accept evolution). If they want to speculate that it's a god-driven process, a tool of his creation, blah blah whatever.

What evolution DOES do, and what I think presents a key problem for believers, is negate important parts of the Bible. Most obviously, with evolution, there would be no Adam and Eve. Without Adam and Eve, you have no "fall of man" and no need for humanity to be saved by Jesus (although I have heard arguments to work evolution into this, usually suggesting that Adam and Eve were the first humans to demonstrate selfishness and vanity instead of goodness and cooperation in earlier humans).

Thus, evolution undermines the very premise on which Christianity is built. That's why, IMO, creationists spend so much effort refuting it, and don't invest equal time arguing over the other challenges to creationism (geology, astronomy and so forth). I don't see (although happy to have it pointed out to me) how astronomical findings to support an old earth cut straight through a major world religion in the same way that evolution does.

mickrock wrote: »

I've noted the mod's warning, so at least for now I'll bow out and end with this post.

Let's liken the genetic information in the first unicellular life form to a computer program (which somehow has formed by chance). The role of natural selection is played by a person familiar with programming. Random changes are made to the program which he can either accept or reject.

Almost all the changes he'll reject because they'll corrupt the program and he'll let the beneficial ones be incorporated. Since each change is random it is unrelated to the one that preceeded it and to the one that will follow.

If this process is allowed to continue for a long time will we end up with a far more sophisticated program with new functions and applications? By a similar process, can the genetic code in a single cell evolve into the genetic code of a horse?

I don't think so. A far more reasonable explanation would be that intelligence was involved. I'm not religious but don't see how intelligence cannot be the cause.

Farewell.

This computer programmer story is not analogous to the theory of natural selection either. It implies some sort of higher, intelligent forcing of your initial life-form. As such it once again shows your lack of understanding of evolution, despite the myriad ways in which it has been illustrated (and re-illustrated) quite elegantly in this thread.

i.e. FFS :rolleyes:

mickrock wrote: »

A far more reasonable explanation would be that intelligence was involved

Whoever or whatever it was, it's a bit of stretch to call it "intelligent", given the vast numbers of instances of "unintelligent" design in the living world.

I could design an eye better.

nagirrac wrote: »

Why are atheists so interested in Evolutionay Biology (will this thread get to a million comments)? Is it because it is the one theory that can be used to convince yourself there is no God? Is the thinking along the lines of "how could we possibly be made from God stuff if we are only a short head past an ape"?

The thinking cannot reasonably be because of how life emerged because we do not know at all how life emerged. Evolutionary Biology is hard, not as hard as Quantum Mechanics, but hard enough. Most people do not understand evolution and have no interest in it, regardless of beliefs.

The reason atheists are so interested in evolution is because religious people and christians in particular fight against evolution because of their religious beliefs. They think that evolution is incompatible with the belief that god created humans as they are as opposed to evolution which says that humans are evolved from earlier species. Groups in the US are fighting tooth and nail against evolution and trying to distort science and legislation in order to get their religious beliefs into science classrooms even though they are not scientific ideas at all. If christians didn't constantly try to tear evolution down in the name of their faith, atheists wouldn't have any reason to defend it and the only people who would be interested in it would be people who were interested in it for it's own sake.

The origin of life is not something that evolution deals with. What evolution is all about is the change over time of self replicating mechanisms. You're quite correct in saying that most people don't know the really nitty gritty details about evolution. That's exactly the problem. Religious people who know next to nothing about how evolution works feel that they can distort the science because it conflicts with their religious belief. From my own personal observation on these forums and in other places and in debates that I've participated in, atheists tend to have a better handle on how evolution works. I've had to correct people on both sides about the minutiae with regards to the exact mechanisms of some aspects of it, but most atheists seem to have a better grasp of the broad concept while christians tend to just not "get it".

I say all this as an atheist and as someone who has a formal education in biochemistry and evolutionary biology.

nagirrac wrote: »

Jesus was quite critical of the difference between the true meaning and a literal meaning of scripture (Sermon on the Mount for example). Most rational Christians and all theologians would say that a literal reading of the bible misses the deeper meaning of the text, the meaning that the writers intended. I think this is the major cause of difference between some scientists and some religious, the irrational literal interpretation of the bible on both sides.

I would replace the word scientists with skeptics because there is nothing in the bible that is really under the purview of science. There are a few major problems that skeptics have with religion. There are contradictions, in the form of what people said, in the form of what people did and in the form of what actually happened at certain events.

There is the fact that the bible was not written as the events it describes were happening. The actual writing down of the bible spanned around a hundred years iirc. People were writing about things that they had seen or that someone else had seen and told them about years or even decades ago. Needless to say, this can easily result in the contradictions mentioned earlier.

There is the fact that the bible has gone through a lot of translations, which opens up the door on mistranslations and is something that biblical scholars still struggle with.

All of this plus a lot of other things that I haven't mentioned leads to rational people concluding that the bible cannot be considered an entirely accurate account of historical events. There certainly may be parts that are accurate but how do you determine what is fact and what is not?

Also, as you yourself stated, there are parts of the bible that many christians interpret as metaphor and others interpret as literal. I haven't done as much research on this particular area as I would like to, but my guess would be that in a pre-scientific age, more people accepted the bible as literal. The metaphorical side seems to be gaining ground as science not exactly invalidates the bible but makes the events in it less amenable to literal interpretation. One example of this would be the story of Adam and Eve. I'm guessing that the majority of the people in the past would have believed in a literal interpretation of that story and it was only after science showed that humans arose much earlier in the timeline that there was a surge in the amount of people who adopted a more metaphorical approach. The same concept applies to the creation of the universe by god versus the big bang and god becomes credited for causing the big bang, the story of Noah and the flood versus the size of an ark you'd need to be able to store so many species (and forgetting the damn unicorns in the process. Noah was a douche) etc.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

This:

Question Evolution - 15 Questions for evolutionists

I like how the very first question on their list has nothing to do with evolution.

Warning: This document contains monumental stupidity and reading it may cause your eyes to bleed.

dlofnep wrote: »

Let's analyse another mutation then, shall we - to see how a new function arise, benefiting the clade Eudromaeosauria. Earlier members of this clade through mutations had spawned feathers. Initially, these feathers were for little more than display and preserving heat - visible in some members such as Epidexipteryx. Epidexipteryx was feathered, but did not have remiges (wing feathers), and thus - did not have the ability to fly.



Different members had varying levels of feathers, some containing very basic remiges, some more fully developed.

Sinornithosaurus and Microraptor are two examples of dinosaurs which contained remiges. Now while it's doubtful that they had the ability to actually fly under power, it's most likely that they had the ability to glide extremely well.



It is speculated that this transition occurred not once, but actually twice during the history of Eudromaeosauria. Firstly in the Jurassic, where we see the primitive Epidexipteryx about 160-170 million years ago, followed by the more featured Archaeopteryx around 148 million years ago.

The second transition is seen in the Cretaceous, where the likes of Microraptor and others delved more towards gliding/flight, while others remained ground hunters eventually evolving into the highly successful Velociraptor and Deinonychus (Who also had feathers, but not the ability of flight).

There are countless cases of these beneficial mutations seen in countless different species.

Why a you no post in Palaeontology so much?!?!?