firedragon
Veteran Member
See Dan. I value well known people. I honestly do. But I value those who I can interact with personally more. I dont need to know you personally, but see, its an honour to have chatted with you. Cheers.
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Science Babble vs Truth
- Thread starter nPeace
- Start date
See Dan. I value well known people. I honestly do. But I value those who I can interact with personally more. I dont need to know you personally, but see, its an honour to have chatted with you. Cheers.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Consilience is one of the strongest forms of evidence for evolution. For those that do not know, consilience occurs when unrelated sciences all point to the same answer:
In science and history, consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence is significantly so on its own. Most established scientific knowledge is supported by a convergence of evidence: if not, the evidence is comparatively weak, and there will not likely be a strong scientific consensus.
And consilience in evolution is not based upon weak evidence. It is based upon independent sources of strong evidence. That is why there is such a strong consensus about evolution in the sciences. The last that I heard was that it was upwards of 99% of all scientists that accepted evolution. Yes, there will be disagreement about the details. But that is how science advances. Competing ideas are presented and eventually one tends to win out based upon the strength of evidence that supports it. This is why we are very very sure that creationists are wrong. They could put their ideas into the form of testable hypotheses, but they have been shown to be wrong far too many times to do that. They appear to know that they are wrong.
Followers of creationism should ask themselves "If our scientists are so sure of themselves why can't they follow the scientific method to support our beliefs. Creationist sites employ the opposite of the scientific method. They require their workers to swear that creationism is true, even if they know that they are wrong. One never gets to assume the answer ahead of time in the sciences.
Yes I think so, the design in natural systems, and the balance that is maintained. Naturalism can’t accomplish such a feat. Attraction of molecules may be claimed, but attraction is a far cry from complex arrangement!
What’s your take on symbiosis? How would an intangible connection, like between clown fish and anemones, emerge from NS. a tangible process? (Does it produce some unknown frequency?)
How did male-and-female sexuality arise from asexual reproduction? Why would it?
Suppositions like “probably“ & “more than likely” don’t cut it. That’s philosophy... and faith.
As someone who believes in God, I don’t understand why you want to put faith in a system that’s dedicated to naturalism, I.e., excluding God. I’m not talking about about individual scientists, I’m talking about the system.
Yes, evolution occurs; God has endowed the genome with a remarkable morphological ability. But it has its limits. The *first* complex features, probably the unique features found within each Family taxa, were designed and created by God. That’s still a lot of evolving! And I applaud it!
(But here is a point I’ve been meaning to bring up to you for a long time.... Why would our Creator design life this way? I’ll tell you. Because we were *supposed* to be His children, ‘made in His image’. And as part of His family, humans weren’t originally created to die. We were designed to live forever. Now, ever hear that phrase, “variety is the spice of life”? Jehovah God gave us “spice,” you could say. He loves us (John 3:16). Living forever as humans will never get boring, as some claim; there will always be new species emerging somewhere, waiting for us to find them! If God’s purpose for mankind was not to live forever, such diversity would have no purpose. We can discuss any aspect of this further, if you’d like.)
But evolutionary processes have no foresight to “create” these novel features and still maintain the balance we see within and between natural systems. ‘Selfish genes’ wouldn’t result in the balance and harmony that we observe.
Take care.
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Not really. As more study & testing continues, junk DNA is not junk...as it was predicted to be.
As predicted per evolutionary processes.... the obvious precursors to the Cambrian strata, are not there.
Dr. Feduccia said regarding bird evolution that paleontologists are trying to put “square pegs into round holes.”
I think that goes for a lot of biology.
“We’ll make it fit!”
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Agreed. And see how this whole idea of 'God's word' being against modern research, medicine and other scientific work has turned so many extreme Christians in to 'anti-science' nuts. Covid vaccination is a typical example.
The Rev Robert Enyart of the Denver Bible Church has spoken out against evolution, vaccinations and much else from his radio station, promoting a new country where biblical flogging, public executions for adultery and homosexual practices etc are the norm ...and for creationism. Sadly he died last month from Covid.
That's just one of so many.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
What have fossils got to do with it? This just underlines your lack of knowledge. The evidence is present in the current genomes of living species.
Somehow I thought the relationship between chimpanzees, gorillas, humans, and orangutans might be something you were interested in. Maybe you accept that they all had a common ancestor? But regardless, there is much wider evidence than that available from genetics. "Fossil" or pseudo-genes, and other genetic evidence, provide more evidence for evolution than literal fossils from the ground. It's next to impossible to explain what we see in genetics by individual design (even using common design elements), unless the designer is basically a liar who wanted us to think that it had happened by evolution.
It wasn’t an argument....Did you see an argument in there?
It was a couple questions.
You mean with a random amount of “yes” and “no”? Well, if that is the case you can pray to your car and have the same expected return.That's funny. Seems my prayers being answered, were all coincidences... according to viole.
I hope not, and I will assume that with “answer” you mean “grant”. Cool. Could you please pray that children leukemia disappears for good. I guess God will have no moral issue to grant that.
By the way, My Muslim friend claims the same when he prays to Allah. All his prayers are answered. Coincidences?
ciao
- viole
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Do you think you can extract genetic material from our supposed ancestral fossils? Genes play no part in deciphering relationship of fossils.
. Feeble, dude.If you understood my stance on the subject, you’d appreciate how valueless these words are.
But I’m not gonna repeat myself anymore.
@nPeace, nice thread but I’m through with most of it.
Those “rightly disposed”, know what I’m sayin?
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
I didn't say either of those things. What we can do, however, is use genetic evidence to decipher the relationship between species and then compare it with what has been deduced from fossil evidence and get confirmation.
I can't help your lack of knowledge unless you want to learn. I notice that you simply edited out and ignored my explanation of why not being able to get DNA from fossils was irrelevant.
I also notice that you asked for evidence, I gave some, and you haven't addressed any of it. Typical creationist tactic.
There are no guarantees. But if it has been extensively tested and attempts have been made to show it *wrong*, and it remains valid in spite of those tests, you can rely on it to the extent it has been tested (and usually a lot more).
Yes, it is. The difference is that science is *public*: anyone can look at the tests and/or conduct them themselves. And if the same results are not obtained, then there is a problem. Sometimes the conclusion is wrong, sometimes the methods wasn't done properly, sometimes a person isn't competent.
But, for religion, there is ONLY the internal feeling of validity. If someone else disagrees, there is no way to test to see who is *wrong*. So, if you choose the Bible and someone else chooses the Koran, there is no way to tell who is wrong (or if both are wrong).
In science, the two sides agree to a test and then conduct the observations for the test. They both make a specific prediction and whoever makes the prediction that isn't supported by the test loses. And the conditions are agree to ahead of time.
Nothing like that happens in religion.
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oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
So what evidence do you have to conclude that, say, disciple John was the person who wrote the gospel of John?.........
Before I start, I want to be sure we have the same understanding of evidence, since it seems apparent to me that skeptics here, want to equate evidence to conclusions.
"Evidence is not a conclusion"
Segev Moran
Well-Known Member
Junk DNA was not a prediction but an assumption, and the fact it is not junk only strengthen the evolution theory as it proves gene heritage is even more broad than we thought.
[/QUOTE]
I think not.
Sometimes.
Yet when studies and experiments prove otherwise, science quickly "says", nope.. we got it wrong.
tas8831
Well-Known Member
Well, I know that both of them, in essence, lied about their poor treatment at the hands of the Darwinian police.
Crocker was an adjunct - meaning that she either never applied for or was not considered for a full-time position. Being an adjunct is not a "stellar career" for a person with a doctorate, unless that is their goal. Adjunct contracts are per semester, or per academic year. They are not tenured positions. They are largely premised on student numbers. An uptick in students? A good time for adjuncts. Students numbers dip - a bad time. I know - when I was department chair I had to tell many adjuncts - even after they had signed contracts - they we could not justify keeping them on. It is sad, but it happens.
Now when an adjunct is hired to teach a class, they are hired to teach the class they are given to teach. They do NOT have the "right" to distort the information in the class they are assigned to prop up their religious fantasies, which is what Crocker did. The fact that students complained about her anti-evolution lies was almost certainly part of the decision not to re-hire her as an adjunct. We have taken people off of our possible adjunct list because of things they had stated in their assigned labs/classes. Those people did not run to creationist organizations whining about their fake martyrdom.
Crocker foolishly made the slides she used in the class she was teaching available online for a time, and many people had archived them. I have a few of them. Like every creationist I have encountered, she presented irrelevant claims (like that Darwin was a 'rich kid that liked to drink and gamble') and outright lies (like that Eohippus is just a hyrax and that Archaeopteryx is in the same fossils strata as modern birds).
Sternberg engaged in a rather sleazy act - one of this last acts as head editor of a small journal whose focus is taxonomy/systematics, he allowed a dopey screed by Meyer about the Cambrian - a non-taxonomy paper of dubious veracity and which was apparently reviewed by a fellow creationist - to be published in the journal, prompting pushback from other editors and subscribers. He then lied about his keys being taken away and other supposed mean things that were done to him.
But sure, they are just like many other phony martyrs of the YEC cause. They do things that earn them scorn, then whine about the scorn they receive. Like a plan.
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tas8831
Well-Known Member
You keep flogging this dead horse. You must just keep reading the same creationist tripe about it or something, and never once bothering to check on the veracity of their claims..
And you clearly ignore what you are shown on here.
RE: the predictions of function in junkDNA
I won't bother with the history of the name 'junkDNA' - suffice it to say that the term originally referred to a specific subset of noncoding DNA.
As best I can determine, creationists claim that people like Dembski and Forrest Mims "predicted" function in junkDNA in the early 1990s.
This despite the fact that actual researchers had been predicting - and finding - function in some types of noncoding DNA 15 years earlier:
Cell. 1975
Feb;4(2):107-11
…. We propose that "junk" DNA in eucaryotes functions to maintain total DNA at an optimum concentration.
Feb;4(2):107-11
…. We propose that "junk" DNA in eucaryotes functions to maintain total DNA at an optimum concentration.
Or Zuckerkandl from 1981:
A general function of noncoding polynucleotide sequences
Abstract
It is proposed that a general function of noncoding DNA and RNA sequences in higher organisms (intergenic and intervening sequences) is to provide multiple binding sites over long stretches of polynucleotide for certain types of regulatory proteins. Through the building up or abolishing of high-order structures, these proteins either sequester sites for the control of, e.g., transcription or make the sites available to local molecular signals. If this is to take place, the existence of a 'c-value paradox' becomes a requirement. Multiple binding sites for a given protein may recur in the form of a sequence 'motif' that is variable within certain limits. Noncoding sequences of the chickens ovalbumin gene furnish an appropriate example of a sequence motif. GAAAATT. Its improbably high frequency and significant periodicity are both absent from the coding sequences of the same gene and from the noncoding sequences of a differently controlled gene in the same organisms, the preproinsulin gene. This distribution of a sequence motif is in keeping with the concepts outlined. Low specificity of sequences that bind protein is likely to be compatible with highly specific conformational changes.
Abstract
It is proposed that a general function of noncoding DNA and RNA sequences in higher organisms (intergenic and intervening sequences) is to provide multiple binding sites over long stretches of polynucleotide for certain types of regulatory proteins. Through the building up or abolishing of high-order structures, these proteins either sequester sites for the control of, e.g., transcription or make the sites available to local molecular signals. If this is to take place, the existence of a 'c-value paradox' becomes a requirement. Multiple binding sites for a given protein may recur in the form of a sequence 'motif' that is variable within certain limits. Noncoding sequences of the chickens ovalbumin gene furnish an appropriate example of a sequence motif. GAAAATT. Its improbably high frequency and significant periodicity are both absent from the coding sequences of the same gene and from the noncoding sequences of a differently controlled gene in the same organisms, the preproinsulin gene. This distribution of a sequence motif is in keeping with the concepts outlined. Low specificity of sequences that bind protein is likely to be compatible with highly specific conformational changes.
But sure, creationists 'predicted' it.
And regarding the 'As more study & testing continues, junk DNA is not junk' assertion, I suppose you are still clinging to that early ENCODE paper, the one in which many co-authors distanced themselves and/or complained that Birney had dreamed up the 80% figure for no good reason...
This is from Ewen Birney's blog. He pretends to interview himself, in a sneaky attempt to admit that they were wrong in their claims by not totally admitting it.
ENCODE: My own thoughts - Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large
Q. Hmmm. Let’s move onto the science. I don’t buy that 80% of the genome is functional.
A. It’s clear that 80% of the genome has a specific biochemical activity – whatever that might be. This question hinges on the word “functional” so let’s try to tackle this first. Like many English language words, “functional” is a very useful but context-dependent word. Does a “functional element” in the genome mean something that changes a biochemical property of the cell (i.e, if the sequence was not here, the biochemistry would be different) or is it something that changes a phenotypically observable trait that affects the whole organism? At their limits (considering all the biochemical activities being a phenotype), these two definitions merge. Having spent a long time thinking about and discussing this, not a single definition of “functional” works for all conversations. We have to be precise about the context. Pragmatically, in ENCODE we define our criteria as “specific biochemical activity” – for example, an assay that identifies a series of bases. This is not the entire genome (so, for example, things like “having a phosphodiester bond” would not qualify). We then subset this into different classes of assay; in decreasing order of coverage these are: RNA, “broad” histone modifications, “narrow” histone modifications, DNaseI hypersensitive sites, Transcription Factor ChIP-seq peaks, DNaseI Footprints, Transcription Factor bound motifs, and finally Exons.
Q. So remind me which one do you think is “functional”?
A. Back to that word “functional”: There is no easy answer to this. In ENCODE we present this hierarchy of assays with cumulative coverage percentages, ending up with 80%. As I’ve pointed out in presentations, you shouldn’t be surprised by the 80% figure. After all, 60% of the genome with the new detailed manually reviewed (GenCode) annotation is either exonic or intronic, and a number of our assays (such as PolyA- RNA, and H3K36me3/H3K79me2) are expected to mark all active transcription. So seeing an additional 20% over this expected 60% is not so surprising.
However, on the other end of the scale – using very strict, classical definitions of “functional” like bound motifs and DNaseI footprints; places where we are very confident that there is a specific DNA-protein contact, such as a transcription factor binding site to the actual bases – we see a cumulative occupation of 8% of the genome. With the exons (which most people would always classify as “functional” by intuition) that number goes up to 9%. Given what most people thought earlier this decade, that the regulatory elements might account for perhaps a similar amount of bases as exons, this is surprisingly high for many people – certainly it was to me!
In addition, in this phase of ENCODE we did sample broadly but nowhere near completely in terms of cell types or transcription factors. We estimated how well we have sampled, and our most generous view of our sampling is that we’ve seen around 50% of the elements. There are lots of reasons to think we have sampled less than this (e.g., the inability to sample developmental cell types; classes of transcription factors which we have not seen). A conservative estimate of our expected coverage of exons + specific DNA-protein contacts gives us 18%, easily further justified (given our sampling) to 20%
Wow - 20% is totally most of the genome! 20% = 80% via magic (to justify the billion-dollar price tag of the ENCODE project!).
But sure Hockey, you go on spouting about junkDNA function.... what with your amazing genetics background and all...
tas8831
Well-Known Member
Definitely a classic creationist tactic. What they do not respond to is often more informative than what they do.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
No it's not. Quote mines are a misrepresentation of a person's words, which is inherently dishonest.
How has this changed or differed from the definition in the OP?
Did the definition say direct evidence must be inferred? Where?
nPeace
Veteran Member
Looks stupid but works... you mean?
That would mean the beholder is just ignorant, of the purpose, because they are looking at the object to have particular features for the purpose of entertaining them... missing the purpose of the design.
Some look at entropy and complain about the design too.
For example, someone may look at a rusty car, and ask the question, why did the designer make this stupid object... without giving consideration to the fact of cause and effect. The effect has a cause yes, but the designer is not the cause.
So if you give some examples, I might be able to show you that what you at focusing on, is the end product or result of interference with the design. Rather than it being the original design.
Try me.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
They could very well be coincidences or just plain old confirmation bias.That's funny. Seems my prayers being answered, were all coincidences... according to viole.
Did you weight them out in comparison to all the times your prayers weren't answered?
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Let's not pretend the Bible contains any prophecies as specific as that.Quite interesting.
You know, I was reading what scientists were saying about man's involvement in the problems we now face with "extreme whether", diseases, etc. etc., and I commented on the fact that we know - not feel, believe, think, but know, it's going to get worst, as many scientists fear.
How do we know? The Bible says it will happen.
Can we be sure? Why yes. It never failed in anything it prophesied... Not once. Never.
So contrary to your claims, the Bible provides useful answers... which, by the way helps, and continue to help millions. It's very useful.
They explain why observable phenomena occur.
Knowing how something happens when you are powerless against it, either because of greed, selfishness, pride, or plain inability doesn't seem very useful to me.
Knowing why, puts one in a better position to avoid the effects that many experience, and does a lot more for one's mind.
Yes, the knowledge from the Bible does deal with reality, and though quite old, has much practical value.
In fact, it's so practical, the very attitudes we see on display right now, is documented as a factual occurances.
I'm sure if you had someone tell you where you would be April 22nd 2022, and you found yourself there, you would think that person was very useful.
They likely would have to disguise themselves to get away from you visiting them everyday.