"1,000 Scientists Sign Up to Dissent from Darwin"

[BilliardsBall]

According to Oldest Fossil of Ape Discovered , the oldest known fossil of an ape is 25.2 million years old (late Oligocene), and the divergence between apes and Old World monkeys occurred about 26 to 27 million years ago.

I said 60 because if I said 20 or 10 I would be accused of cherry picking. I'll be accused anyway--you can bet on it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Typing your word "new" at random" n (1 of 26) times e (1 of 26) times w (1 of 26) on my generous keyboard (26 characters and not 50 or more).

= 1:26^3

30-plus million bases = "only 1% " difference between chimps and people in 10-60 million years . . .

Each base = 1 of X

Each mutation = Y bases

Each negative mutation = decreased odds of success

Each animal inheriting correct mutation that dies before breeding = decreased odds of success

Each recessive mutation = delayed time for correction = decreased odds of success

Don't be so wise, be an infant.

Most of this post seems to be random noise with some cryptic purpose that either eludes me or is not delivered very well to be understood.

There are a bunch of bases in our DNA. Sure.

A mutation can be a single base or numerous bases, either added or deleted.

Mutations that are deleterious decrease fitness. Sure. Is this a point you think is in contention?

What is a correct mutation? If the mutation is lethal the individual with that mutation is removed from the population before it can pass the mutation on. The fitness of the population is preserved.

Recessive mutations do not equal negative mutations. The mutations that convey insecticidal resistance are a beneficial mutation in an insect population that increases fitness in the presence of insecticide and many are recessive.

We are half way to your last point from the looks of it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I KNOW why you haven't claimed any established hypothesis of abiogenesis. It's because science has none after a century of avid, extensive, peer-reviewed research. That's one of several reasons.

You moved the goal posts. Now it is not "establishing abiogenesis, but claiming there are no valid hypotheses for abiogenesis. Two different things and you are wrong again. There are a number of valid hypotheses for abiogenesis. There are several reasons I have not demonstrated abiogenesis. The biggest reason though, is I am not researching, experimenting with and testing hypotheses about abiogenesis. Are you suggesting that the validation of abiogenesis rests on my direct and active participation in researching abiogenesis? No such qualification exists or is required.

I believe in Bible inerrancy based on cosmology, teleology, anthropology, ontology, biology, life changes, the words of Christ, human history, etc. and I know you don't want to hear anything I have to say here to explain any of these areas to you.

It is not that I do not want to hear what you have to say. I have heard much of the justification and rationalization that people use to support their belief in biblical inerrancy before. I believe you when you say it supports your personal belief. That is not a question I have. You can believe that the Bible is inerrant because you had brown acid in the 60's. It hardly matters what your reasons are. The fact is that none of your reasons--not one of them--can provide objective support for your *claim* that the Bible is inerrant. I do not consider it infallible for many reasons too and those reasons not only support my belief but my claim to it as well. I do not even have to go to far reaching corners of the galaxy to support my views with cosmology. My reasons are right there in the Bible.

I KNOW God wants you to use your intellect, if you want verses on this principle. I quoted "hidden from [overly, pridefully] wise and revealed to [humble, childlike in obedience] infants for a reason.

I believe it too. You seem stuck on this. A slogan or mantra can be useful, but repetition and random insertion can kill that value when it begins to stretch it beyond its scope or any positive position.

I believe I have an open mind. An open mind does not mean that one does not evaluate the information that goes into it. One does not just accept any information as valid because somebody really, really, really, really likes that information and would find it just ever so peachy keen if you would just go with it without question.

In order to establish that the Bible is infallible, you would have to explain all the errors and inconsistencies in the Bible sufficiently to explain and dismiss previous conclusions regarding those errors and inconsistencies. You would have to establish the validity of all the historic references in the Bible and explain any valid conclusions that some of them are fictional. You would have to explain and demonstrate how things do not evolve and have not evolved. You would have to explain and demonstrate that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, while explaining how an entire body of science is wrong. You would have to explain away all the evidence of biology regarding human origins and explain how all life was just created one day as it is and has not changed since. You would have to explain fossils and the failure to include reference in the Bible, to the millions and millions of species that are represented by those fossils. You would have to demonstrate God. You would have to demonstrate that God wrote the Bible even as a ghost writer. You would have to demonstrate that one needs to hold a view of inerrancy to be a true believer. Most important, you would have to get around the prohibition on creating false idols.

Why are you even on this forum? You have so little time and so much to do.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I said 60 because if I said 20 or 10 I would be accused of cherry picking. I'll be accused anyway--you can bet on it.

So you cherry picked an answer that is not even valid? I do not know if I would call that picking a cherry. It sounds like you picked something else from somewhere else.

The question that I must continue to stress, is, regardless of 10 or 20 or 60 million years, what is the basis for your claim that evolution in even 10 million years is rapid evolution? You have yet to establish that claim as valid. You keep repeating that. You must have some reason besides repetition of an assertion makes it come true even without evidence.

If it is because you find it incredible that all the difference between humans and chimpanzees could take place in a few million years, then I would say that you need to regress to your infancy and learn the subject.

You have a demand for science that you do not have for your own religious views and claims. This double standard is damaging your position.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You need me to explain it to you, how chirality decreases the odds of certain vital things from forming easily, spontaneously, even in an open system, that are vital to abiogenesis?

I don't believe you!

What is chirality? Can you explain an entire body of chemistry to me in a couple of sentences on here so that I can understand it and see what you see. Why is it important to abiogenesis and how is it a barrier. Can you explain years of research by numerous workers in one or two sentences?

Can you explain the BilliardBall Belief Barrier and how it is applied to questions of science so that we can dismiss those that are behind the 8 ball. What are the basic criteria for meeting this standard? Maybe we should look to your biblical model, since that one does not seem to have many barriers in getting to a preferred conclusion. That would not be a scientific way to get there, but maybe we need to open our minds to new ideas here.

 

[tas8831]

Typing your word "new" at random" n (1 of 26) times e (1 of 26) times w (1 of 26) on my generous keyboard (26 characters and not 50 or more).

= 1:26^3

30-plus million bases = "only 1% " difference between chimps and people in 10-60 million years . . .

Each base = 1 of X

Each mutation = Y bases

Each negative mutation = decreased odds of success

Each animal inheriting correct mutation that dies before breeding = decreased odds of success

Each recessive mutation = delayed time for correction = decreased odds of success

Don't be so wise, be an infant.

Cool how you had to use an analogy ( a bad one) instead of using actual, you know, genetics stuff.

Tells us all a lot about where you are coming from.

 

[tas8831]

I KNOW why you haven't claimed any established hypothesis of abiogenesis. It's because science has none after a century of avid, extensive, peer-reviewed research. That's one of several reasons.

Does science have ANY evidence-backed hypotheses re: ANY of the miraculous and uncorroborated events depicted in the ancient numerologist scrolls that make up the bible?

I believe in Bible inerrancy based on cosmology, teleology, anthropology, ontology, biology, life changes, the words of Christ, human history, etc. and I know you don't want to hear anything I have to say here to explain any of these areas to you.

Nice cop-out.

 

[tas8831]

You need me to explain it to you, how chirality decreases the odds of certain vital things from forming easily, spontaneously, even in an open system, that are vital to abiogenesis?

I don't believe you!

More cop-outs from the cop-out king.

Your students must love your 'classes.'

 

[Tiberius]

This has always puzzled me. Why should a God who wants a life-bearing universe create a universe in which the laws of physics make abiogenesis impossible?

*Shrugs*

 

[Tiberius]

You need me to explain it to you, how chirality decreases the odds of certain vital things from forming easily, spontaneously, even in an open system, that are vital to abiogenesis?

I don't believe you!

Just want to hear your specific objections so we can discuss them. Or would you prefer I just assumed what your objections were so we can waste time trying to get on the same page when you disagree with my assumptions about your point of view?

 

[gnostic]

Then based on all you've written to date, you should establish it, abiogenesis, to assist me from my delusions. Go ahead, I'm listening, sincerely!

No one here is telling you to believe in God, in Jesus, in the Bible, in the church you belonged to.

What you choose to believe, is yours, and no one can take away your choice of what you want to believe in.

But if you are choosing to argue with other members about science or how you are trying to mix your religious belief with science, then you should be prepared to put your belief in god, Jesus and religion in the spotlight, be prepared to accept not only criticism, but that you are wrong about your religion, and wrong your misinformation in science.

You clearly don’t understand evolution and abiogenesis half as well as you believe you do, and yet you feel the needs to challenge everyone with something you don’t understand.

Delusional? No.

Foolhardy? Yes.

You are being terribly reckless, as your next paragraph shows:

By the way, I take the Bible as inerrant based on a variety of proofs ranging from the teleological and ontological to life changes, the excellencies of Christ, and yes, biology.

You are claiming the Bible to be inerrant, and yet there are many errors and inconsistencies found in many places, both in the OT & NT, discrepancies that even amateur scholar like me can find if I closely examine the texts.

You can like, others before you, claimed that the issues (eg errors) were a matter of translation errors, but that would only work, if you have the original sources, to compare it against, but no such originals exist.

All we have to go on, are extant copies being used as the sources, eg the Septuagint, Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Note that we don’t even have the complete and original LXX Septuagint. We have extant copies of the Septuagint, like the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus: these are dated between 4th and 5th centuries CE. These are where modern translations, if the Septuagint is used as a source, but they are not original Septuagint.

So what we have is not the original Septuagint, so technically you only have Septuagint manuscripts that DON’T predate the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Masoretic Text, likewise don’t predate the Dead Sea Scrolls, because they were originally composed after the fall of Jerusalem, but the original Masoretic Text don’t exist anymore. What we have are 2 main copies from 10th century CE: Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex. These are what modern translators may use.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Most of this post seems to be random noise with some cryptic purpose that either eludes me or is not delivered very well to be understood.

There are a bunch of bases in our DNA. Sure.

A mutation can be a single base or numerous bases, either added or deleted.

Mutations that are deleterious decrease fitness. Sure. Is this a point you think is in contention?

What is a correct mutation? If the mutation is lethal the individual with that mutation is removed from the population before it can pass the mutation on. The fitness of the population is preserved.

Recessive mutations do not equal negative mutations. The mutations that convey insecticidal resistance are a beneficial mutation in an insect population that increases fitness in the presence of insecticide and many are recessive.

We are half way to your last point from the looks of it.

I can simplify:

I have not rejected the Infinite Monkey Theorem as it applies to evolution, sampled as simply getting "new" in sequence = 1*26^3 (!), since people studying the IMT used it to measure that if every atom in the universe were a typing monkey since Planck time, they still wouldn't have written Hamlet--and "simple, easy" evolutionary change like chimps or other apes to men (32 million base pairs) is immensely more complex than the letters which string together to make the Hamlet play. Oh, and my comments are conservative in numbers:

"The probability that monkeys filling the observable universe would type a complete work such as Shakespeare's Hamlet is so tiny that the chance of it occurring during a period of time hundreds of thousands of orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe is extremely low (but technically not zero)." Source: Infinite monkey theorem - Wikipedia

You know these facts of statistics and numbers, and I believe you have grappled with them, regarding evolution, yet the difference between us here is also simple--I'm certain natural selection and the other proposed/theorized mechanisms explaining how abiogenesis and evolution decreases the immense, near-infinite odds, lack much explanatory power. For example, your statement above:

"There are a bunch of bases in our DNA. Sure."

...respectfully, very respectfully, it sounds like you are hand-waving to explain away--without actually explaining, really--32 million base pair differences achieved, as I put it based on the odds--as relatively rapid (generations over 10 to 60 million years, apes to men).

 

[BilliardsBall]

So you cherry picked an answer that is not even valid? I do not know if I would call that picking a cherry. It sounds like you picked something else from somewhere else.

The question that I must continue to stress, is, regardless of 10 or 20 or 60 million years, what is the basis for your claim that evolution in even 10 million years is rapid evolution? You have yet to establish that claim as valid. You keep repeating that. You must have some reason besides repetition of an assertion makes it come true even without evidence.

If it is because you find it incredible that all the difference between humans and chimpanzees could take place in a few million years, then I would say that you need to regress to your infancy and learn the subject.

You have a demand for science that you do not have for your own religious views and claims. This double standard is damaging your position.

I've replied to you elsewhere regarding this concept I've offered of apes-to-men being "rapid" evolution.

Thank you.

 

[BilliardsBall]

What is chirality? Can you explain an entire body of chemistry to me in a couple of sentences on here so that I can understand it and see what you see. Why is it important to abiogenesis and how is it a barrier. Can you explain years of research by numerous workers in one or two sentences?

Can you explain the BilliardBall Belief Barrier and how it is applied to questions of science so that we can dismiss those that are behind the 8 ball. What are the basic criteria for meeting this standard? Maybe we should look to your biblical model, since that one does not seem to have many barriers in getting to a preferred conclusion. That would not be a scientific way to get there, but maybe we need to open our minds to new ideas here.

Chirality represents a challenge to random mechanisms forming the building blocks of life, but even the apes-to-men evolution is fraught with statistical difficulties, please see my reply elsewhere today.

Thank you.

 

[BilliardsBall]

You moved the goal posts. Now it is not "establishing abiogenesis, but claiming there are no valid hypotheses for abiogenesis. Two different things and you are wrong again. There are a number of valid hypotheses for abiogenesis. There are several reasons I have not demonstrated abiogenesis. The biggest reason though, is I am not researching, experimenting with and testing hypotheses about abiogenesis. Are you suggesting that the validation of abiogenesis rests on my direct and active participation in researching abiogenesis? No such qualification exists or is required.

It is not that I do not want to hear what you have to say. I have heard much of the justification and rationalization that people use to support their belief in biblical inerrancy before. I believe you when you say it supports your personal belief. That is not a question I have. You can believe that the Bible is inerrant because you had brown acid in the 60's. It hardly matters what your reasons are. The fact is that none of your reasons--not one of them--can provide objective support for your *claim* that the Bible is inerrant. I do not consider it infallible for many reasons too and those reasons not only support my belief but my claim to it as well. I do not even have to go to far reaching corners of the galaxy to support my views with cosmology. My reasons are right there in the Bible.

I believe it too. You seem stuck on this. A slogan or mantra can be useful, but repetition and random insertion can kill that value when it begins to stretch it beyond its scope or any positive position.

I believe I have an open mind. An open mind does not mean that one does not evaluate the information that goes into it. One does not just accept any information as valid because somebody really, really, really, really likes that information and would find it just ever so peachy keen if you would just go with it without question.

In order to establish that the Bible is infallible, you would have to explain all the errors and inconsistencies in the Bible sufficiently to explain and dismiss previous conclusions regarding those errors and inconsistencies. You would have to establish the validity of all the historic references in the Bible and explain any valid conclusions that some of them are fictional. You would have to explain and demonstrate how things do not evolve and have not evolved. You would have to explain and demonstrate that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, while explaining how an entire body of science is wrong. You would have to explain away all the evidence of biology regarding human origins and explain how all life was just created one day as it is and has not changed since. You would have to explain fossils and the failure to include reference in the Bible, to the millions and millions of species that are represented by those fossils. You would have to demonstrate God. You would have to demonstrate that God wrote the Bible even as a ghost writer. You would have to demonstrate that one needs to hold a view of inerrancy to be a true believer. Most important, you would have to get around the prohibition on creating false idols.

Why are you even on this forum? You have so little time and so much to do.

I see two things above raised, if you'll allow me to redact your thoughtful post above, to simplify it, if I may:

1) You feel I moved the goalposts to abiogenesis when a) I'd prior discussed it on this thread b) I'd replied to SOMEONE ELSE that I mistakenly put "evolution" instead of abiogenesis in a prior post c) you and I as Christians can believe in evolution past "kinds" or "families" etc. without damaging faith, I don't think abiogenesis is in the same category and deserves careful evaluation d) you are clearly comfortable defending evolution but for some reason, brought up abiogenesis, which I was discussing with SOMEONE ELSE, yet we BOTH KNOW it remains unproven conjecture as far as evidence/forensics/laboratory work (by intelligent designer scientists, too) is concerned!

2) You are using a circular argument (abiogenesis and evolution are proven--even though they technically may not be inductively observed now--so the Bible is false) and you are making an extraordinary, reaching claim--"I don't need to go outside the Bible to disprove the Bible" even as I offer you evidence OUTSIDE the Bible to prove the Bible, which you further dismiss by 1) comparing it to drug addiction 2) saying the common canard of those who are closed-minded--and I believe better of you!--that "you've already heard all there is to claim here".

REALLY?! You've heard EVERY argument for Bible truth that exists? I'm still wading through true and false claims re: the Bible, decades after making an initial choice for inerrancy.

I want to believe you are open-minded, but my faith is waning here. Please help me.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Typing your word "new" at random" n (1 of 26) times e (1 of 26) times w (1 of 26) on my generous keyboard (26 characters and not 50 or more).

= 1:26^3

30-plus million bases = "only 1% " difference between chimps and people in 10-60 million years . . .

Each base = 1 of X

Each mutation = Y bases

Each negative mutation = decreased odds of success

Each animal inheriting correct mutation that dies before breeding = decreased odds of success

Each recessive mutation = delayed time for correction = decreased odds of success

Don't be so wise, be an infant.

See my detailed response, please, to Dan from Smithville, elsewhere on this thread.

 

[BilliardsBall]

More cop-outs from the cop-out king.

Your students must love your 'classes.'

What's a respectful way for me to say, do you think, "As my fellow instructor, please stop behaving like a degenerate (if you'll pardon my using a Darwinian term of evolution to describe your present demeaning behavior to our profession)".

 

[BilliardsBall]

No one here is telling you to believe in God, in Jesus, in the Bible, in the church you belonged to.

What you choose to believe, is yours, and no one can take away your choice of what you want to believe in.

But if you are choosing to argue with other members about science or how you are trying to mix your religious belief with science, then you should be prepared to put your belief in god, Jesus and religion in the spotlight, be prepared to accept not only criticism, but that you are wrong about your religion, and wrong your misinformation in science.

You clearly don’t understand evolution and abiogenesis half as well as you believe you do, and yet you feel the needs to challenge everyone with something you don’t understand.

Delusional? No.

Foolhardy? Yes.

You are being terribly reckless, as your next paragraph shows:



You are claiming the Bible to be inerrant, and yet there are many errors and inconsistencies found in many places, both in the OT & NT, discrepancies that even amateur scholar like me can find if I closely examine the texts.

You can like, others before you, claimed that the issues (eg errors) were a matter of translation errors, but that would only work, if you have the original sources, to compare it against, but no such originals exist.

All we have to go on, are extant copies being used as the sources, eg the Septuagint, Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Note that we don’t even have the complete and original LXX Septuagint. We have extant copies of the Septuagint, like the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus: these are dated between 4th and 5th centuries CE. These are where modern translations, if the Septuagint is used as a source, but they are not original Septuagint.

So what we have is not the original Septuagint, so technically you only have Septuagint manuscripts that DON’T predate the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Masoretic Text, likewise don’t predate the Dead Sea Scrolls, because they were originally composed after the fall of Jerusalem, but the original Masoretic Text don’t exist anymore. What we have are 2 main copies from 10th century CE: Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex. These are what modern translators may use.

1) See my replies to Dan from Smithville, regarding specific issues that crop up with abiogenesis and rapid evolution.

2) You are doing me, and as important, you, a great disservice by claiming I cannot overcome Bible issues to prove the Bible, but then pushing more rhetoric to disallow me from even attempting to answer--so I won't.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Just want to hear your specific objections so we can discuss them. Or would you prefer I just assumed what your objections were so we can waste time trying to get on the same page when you disagree with my assumptions about your point of view?

I've address chirality, abiogenesis, and problems I perceive with them and with "rapid" evolution elsewhere, with Dan from Smithville. Have a look.

 

[tas8831]

... they still wouldn't have written Hamlet--and "simple, easy" evolutionary change like chimps or other apes to men (32 million base pairs) is immensely more complex than the letters which string together to make the Hamlet play. Oh, and my comments are conservative in numbers:

LOL!

So, this college professor (LOL) with no biology background actually thinks that every nucleotide substitution, every deletion, every insertion, every genome-rearrangement, every transposition, every DIFFERENCE between any two taxa etc., are all NECESSARY for evolution and must be accounted for in such a way as to defy the laughably inept means of deducing their 'probability' in a post-hoc fashion...

And these people wonder why we laugh at them?

WHY are '32 million base pairs' (where ever that number came from) complex at all?
MOST of the differences between any two taxa are not relevant to evolution!

Does this genius realize that any 2 human genomes differ by as much as ~51 MILLION bases? That is... let me check my cac-a-later -
19 million MORE than the number you claim to exist between humans and chimps that is, darn it, just too complex to have occurred via evolution!!

Your 'math' and thus your argument is a JOKE.