Let's go over this again, shall we, about chances--

[Brian2]

Doesn't follow.
As per your own acknowledgement, it IS possible to predict things and be right about it without being a god.
So predicting something and being correct about it wouldn't show "it is from god", since it could just as well be from a human being correct.

It would depend on what is being predicted.

How many times by now have you been told that the "dna is a language" and the "dna is a code" stuff are metaphors? DNA is just a molecule engaged in a giant chain reaction.

A metaphorical comparison is made with a coding language for ease of understanding and explaining. But it is just a molecule. It's not a "code". The genesequences don't actually consist of letters like CTAG. Those are just OUR labels we place on the molecules.

Nevertheless the label "code" is there for a reason, because that is what it looks like, and it does store and use information. Maybe our brains don't store knowledge, it is just chemical reactions in the brain and our "languages" are just noises which activate response sensors in someone else's brain and cause chemical reactions which lead to more noises.

More misrepresentation / intellectual dishonesty.
Nobody is saying it happened "by chance".
Evolution includes randomness (mainly in terms of input), but the evolutionary process IS NOT RANDOM.

The bottom line is that every aspect of the evolutionary process (mutation, selection, drift, etc) can be observed in reality. It includes no processes or aspects that can't be demonstrated to occur.
As such , it is sufficient as an explanation, with no need for any addition unverifiable aspects.

Your designer? Your designer is nothing BUT unverifiable aspects. Literally NONE of it can be validated in reality, verified, what-have-you.

It's just a bare claim rooted in logical fallacies like false dichotomies, ignorance, incredulity, etc.

So on the one hand we have a religious claim which has NO evidence at all.
On the other hand we have a scientific theory that accounts for ALL evidence.

Geee... let me think which one I'll pick...

It is blindness to say that scientific theory accounts for all evidence. It eliminates evidence that it cannot cope with and atheists end up saying that evidence is not real evidence.
But of course you want to make the false dichotomy of science verses religion and say that I do not believe science.
The evolutionary process is not random, being chemistry and physics, and the conclusions are a result of the methodological naturalism presumption put beside Occam's Razor and educated guesses about what might have happened, while ignoring evidence for a creator.
But of course where chemistry and physics is going to end up seems pretty random. That life came about at all was a result of millions of random flukes.
I would say that once started it could be predicted where evolution was going to end up, given the right environment and environmental twists.
So is cutting out a creator the best thing to do when humans are wondering the big questions?
Sure science has to do that because science cannot use evidence for God in science and has the naturalistic methodology, but we humans should be able to see when and if science might be leading us up a wrong path because of those thing. I can see it anyway even if you can't, but I don't ignore the evidence for a God and what He has told us about all of this.

 

[Brian2]

A positive attitude toward science is needed and not an in-depth knowledge of science. The high school level of science is sufficient. Reader's Digest knowledge of science does not work when the above bold reflects your extreme bias against science. If you read my posts I specifically described how science works concerning the knowledge of our physical existence and its limits. It is very specific and simple.

Why do you say I have a bias against science? Science cannot use the evidence for God, it being more subjective than objective, and so it keeps plodding on looking for naturalistic explanation for life and even presumes that life has a naturalistic explanation only and defines life that way. But don't get me wrong, as you usually do, I'm not saying science is wrong for doing that, in fact that is all science can do. BUT as I was saying to TagliatelliMonster we humans should be able to tell what science is doing and not let it fool us into thinking that it is always telling us the truth when it comes to whether things happened naturally of not.
You seem to go the way of thinking it is always telling us the truth about if things happened naturally or not. Maybe you have forgotten that science is not us and we can actually judge science based on the further evidence we use to tell us whether there is supernatural or not.

 

[shunyadragon]

Why do you say I have a bias against science? Science cannot use the evidence for God, it being more subjective than objective,

ok

... and so it keeps plodding on looking for a naturalistic explanation for life and even presumes that life has a naturalistic explanation only and defines life that way.

Bold more above reflects a bad attitude toward science.

Again this reflects a negative misunderstanding of science and a bias. The accusation of what science 'presumes' continues the bias and your high fog index for understanding science. Again, again and again . . . simply be definition science deals ONLY with the physical nature of our existence. Nothing less and nothing more.

. . . But don't get me wrong, as you usually do, I'm not saying science is wrong for doing that, in fact that is all science can do. BUT as I was saying to TagliatelliMonster we humans should be able to tell what science is doing and not let it fool us into thinking that it is always telling us the truth when it comes to whether things happened naturally or not.

If you do 'want' me to get you wrong read my posts and respond specifically concerning science as science.

Terrible terminology, misunderstanding, and bias continue. First, science DOES NOT deal with 'truth.' Second science is very well defined as ONLY able to deal with things in terms of objectively verifiable evidence that happen naturally. IT CANNOT deal with anything other than specifically what happens naturally.

Bias, poor terminology
You seem to go the way of thinking it is always telling us the truth about if things happened naturally or not. Maybe you have forgotten that science is not us and we can actually judge science based on the further evidence we use to tell us whether there is supernatural or not.

Again science cannot deal with 'truth.

What further evidence other than objectively verifiable evidence defines science 'we can actually judge science?'

 

[syo]

Do you agree with the following: "Molecules-to-man evolution can be defined as the natural process that has produced the present-day life forms from matter, energy, chance, genetic modifications and natural selection, and changing environments over vast periods of time."?
Further, that the "random combining of basic elements with energy but without outside intelligence is the mechanism by which the first simplest cell is said to have been formed."
Yes, no? Maybe?

I didn't understand anything.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not saying that DNA has intelligence, but if information is coded into DNA then that seems to suggest an intelligence to initially set up a system of information coding.

Why? What reason do you have for this belief? So far all that I have seen at best are arguments from ignorance. This is where understanding the concept of evidence would help you immensely.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Sure that is fine to correct that idea.
But I wasn't thinking of such thing that aren't just a product of methodological naturalism.
I was thinking more of stuff like saying that life is chemistry and physics only. But then again science may not have made this claim, it might be just a claim that atheists make about science or the way science is reported to the general public.
I have heard it said that all the evidence points to life being chemistry and physics but that is not true since science knows that all life we have come across has come from previously existing life,,,,,,,,,, so the claim of chemistry and physics only is a naturalistic methodology claim and so is a religious faith claim, changing the methodology into a philosophy, either of science or of the one making that claim.

Hold it now. It appears that you are assuming that life is not just the product of physics and chemistry. It appears t hat is all that it is. We can find evidence that it is a product of those two. i do not know of any evidence supporting that it is due to something else.

And your conclusion about how it is not true does not appear to be based upon sound reasoning. Here is your problem. All present life only comes from other life. It is an unjustified conclusion to say that means all life had to come from preexisting life. You could have asked as to why we do not see abiogenesis in modern life. The number one reason is that existing life has had over three billion years of evolution behind it. Life consumes life. Modern life has all sorts of defenses that evolved over billions of years. The first life form would have had no such defenses, nor were none needed since originally there was no competition. Competition came later. Today long before a prebiotic cell can accumulate enough changes to become "life" it fits into another category. It fits in the category of "food".

What we see of life is all explainable by chemistry and physics. There does not appear to be anything else and the burden of proof is of course upon those that claim that there is something else.

One again . . . Where is your evidence? It is not that your views are refuted without evidence, your claims will only be ignored without evidence along with all sorts of other unjustified claims. Science does not need to "prove me wrong". They can and will ignore you until you prove that you are right.

 

[Jose Fly]

I said that I saw X (posters using "Quantum Mechanics" of the Gaps reasoning).

You said that you've yet to see X.

You are asking me for proof that I saw X.

Ok, well I'd like proof that you've never saw X.

Go ahead, provide proof that you've never saw X because after all, empty assertions are worthless, aren't they?

No, just like if you said the moon isn't made of cheese does not establish that the moon isn't made of cheese..

That, followed by the fact that you are drawing a false equivalency because such an analogy has no equivalence to me making a general statement about my personal experience on this forum.

Wow. Here, read this: Your logical fallacy is burden of proof

Yeah, because you cant contradict or rebuttal the actual truth.

Well, if you really think "no evidence can contradict our beliefs" = "following the evidence wherever it leads", I'll just let that speak for itself.

For?

You claimed that most paleontologists "are either naturalists, agnostics, and atheists". Let's see your evidence for that claim.

Have we seen any reptile-to-bird kind of evolving all the time (or any time)?

No, we haven't.

So? What does that have to do with the fact that we do see populations evolving all the time?

Yet, you do not have one complete transitional fossil record, do you?

No, you don't.

Do you mean that we don't have a fossil record of every organism that's ever existed?

So it is reasonable to conclude that all of the fossils that are discovered are the remains of full, in-it's-final-and-only-form, organisms.

And we found that because of the Cambrian explosion, which is a slap in the face of the this phantom, one hundred million year fossil record that evolutionists accept by faith and put all of their hopes and dreams into so much.

The moon is made of cheese.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The alternative translation is legitimate. If you think that the flood story can only mean one world wide flood covering all the high mountains in the world, that says it all.

No, we are being forced to do your homework for you since you refuse to give us your supposed correct interpretation of those verses. It is pretty hard to (in fact let's just say "it ain't gonna happen") for the "high mountains" to be covered anywhere on the Earth if a flood is not going to be worldwide. You can't stack water up the way that you could stack up a pile of dirt. It is a liquid. It tends to flow. You do know what "flow" means I hope. It moves very easily under the force of gravity. You could not even have high hill covered if it was not a global flood.


The problem with a local flood is that Noah could have left a long long time ago. The people that it was supposed to kill could have walked uphill. There would have been no need at all to bring animals onto the Ark. It would not have lasted a year. The simple fact that water has a tendency to flow would make you have to change the Ark story so much that it would be unrecognizable.

A worldwide flood would tell us that God is not only evil, vain, and incompetent, he would also have to be a liar. And a local flood would not do the job that the Bible claims that the flood did.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You claimed that most paleontologists "are either naturalists, agnostics, and atheists". Let's see your evidence for that claim.

That actually may be true now. But it was not true in the past. The flood myth was originally refuted by early Christian geologists.

 

[Jose Fly]

That actually may be true now. But it was not true in the past. The flood myth was originally refuted by early Christian geologists.

Hard to say, and I doubt anyone has specifically polled paleontologists on their religious beliefs.

But as I'm sure you're aware, this is just projection from creationists. Their religious beliefs make them extremely biased with evolution, so they figure the same must be true for everyone else.

 

[shunyadragon]

Oh, really? Have you ever observed any reptile-to-bird transformation in nature?

If yes, explain.

The process takes millions of years, and millions of years ago. In terms of 'real' science yes, we have genetic and extensive fossil evidence of many intermediate species in the proper order in the stratigraphic record.

Those paleontologists have never observe macroevolution, either.



My observation of canines produce canines is not an opinion..it is a fact that has nothing to do with religion.

It has to do with your ignorance of science and a religious agenda.

Or, atheists who hold to science-fiction even at the risk of losing rational credibility.

Atheism has nothing to do with science.

 

[shunyadragon]

Why do you say I have a bias against science? Science cannot use the evidence for God, it being more subjective than objective, and so it keeps plodding on looking for naturalistic explanation for life and even presumes that life has a naturalistic explanation only and defines life that way. But don't get me wrong, as you usually do, I'm not saying science is wrong for doing that, in fact that is all science can do. BUT as I was saying to TagliatelliMonster we humans should be able to tell what science is doing and not let it fool us into thinking that it is always telling us the truth when it comes to whether things happened naturally of not.
You seem to go the way of thinking it is always telling us the truth about if things happened naturally or not. Maybe you have forgotten that science is not us and we can actually judge science based on the further evidence we use to tell us whether there is supernatural or not.

One note a contradiction in the bold above and your other post when you assert that the evidence supports Intelligent Design therefore God. It does not, because of what you state above.

 

[YoursTrue]

I didn't understand anything.

Gotta say at least you're honest. Thanks!

 

[YoursTrue]

The process takes millions of years, and millions of years ago. In terms of 'real' science yes, we have genetic and extensive fossil evidence of many intermediate species in the proper order in the stratigraphic record.

There are specimens that scientists claim are intermediate species, but there is no evidence that they evolved. Anything claiming otherwise is a conflagrated lie.

It has to do with your ignorance of science and a religious agenda.

Your usual, standard response. You give no backup other than your conflagrated estimation of yourself and those whom you believe, no evidence beyond what you and others claim to be fossils of "Intermediate" species, without any demonstrable proof. Just conjecture.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The alternative translation is legitimate. If you think that the flood story can only mean one world wide flood covering all the high mountains in the world, that says it all.

Personally, I don't care at all.
However you wish to "interpret" it, it is and stays a fantastical magical story.
I give it as much attention as the tales of Ragnarok, Thor slaying the ice giants or Zeus completing his 12 works. Very interesting stories from a historical and cultural perspective.

But with no bearing on actual reality obviously.

It has also always kind of mystified me why people so desperately seek to and try to interpret it in such a way that they can find an event, any event, in world history that sort of matches that specific interpretation to then claim "see!!! it's all true!!!".

I wasn't raised religious and held a bible for the first time when I was like 16 or 17.
And when I realized there are people that insist it's all actually / literally true, I was flabbergasted.

To me it was obvious that if it's going to be any kind of "true", it was going to be "true" like ancient tales of greek gods. Which are really stories about courage, love, hate, patience, altruism, etc.
It speaks of the human condition in metaphorical and poetic form.
And you can agree or disagree with that ancient "wisdom" and debate and discuss it.

To that extent, I think religion is interesting as it tells us how ancient man looked at things.

When one is going to go the more fundamentalist route and insist that all those stories refer to real events and history... then I'm afraid that I must tell you that I think you are seriously missing the point of them.

 

[shunyadragon]

There are specimens that scientists claim are intermediate species, but there is no evidence that they evolved. Anything claiming otherwise is a conflagrated lie.

Your usual, standard response. You give no backup other than your conflagrated estimation of yourself and those whom you believe, no evidence beyond what you and others claim to be fossils of "Intermediate" species, without any demonstrable proof. Just conjecture.

The standard response on my part is based on the actual content of your posts,

Again . . . It has to do with your ignorance of science and a religious agenda. The evidence in your posts is abundantly clear when you cite the Bible to justify your agenda and ignorance of science.

 

[shunyadragon]

Gotta say at least you're honest. Thanks!

His response was genuine reflecting your inability to communicate coherently in science and the English language.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No it is sad that people only accept scientific evidence as real evidence.

This comment does not address the point.

We can see God through His actions,

Then this God is not undetectable, as you've claimed.
What are these actions and how can we identify them? How do we demonstrate that they were performed by God(s) and how do you demonstrate they were performed by the very specific go you believe in?

so we can see God in nature for example and in the events in the Bible and we can see more definite evidence in Biblical prophecies.

Seeing God in nature (whatever that means) isn't evidence either. It's a claim.

Prophecies are also claims. They are not evidence.

In both cases, you are just looking at something and declaring "God did it" without any demonstration of such at all.

And of course none of this addresses the point about how if we don't know something, we just don't know it and we aren't warranted in attributing things to Gods without demonstration.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If there were no difference in the genetics between gorilla's and humans, they wouldn't be seperate species.

What is it about the differences that you think somehow poses a problem for evolution and why?

I find it interesting that the poster focuses in on the small differences between humans, chimps and gorillas while completely overlooking and ignorning the vast, vast majority of similarities between them.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It would depend on what is being predicted.



Nevertheless the label "code" is there for a reason, because that is what it looks like, and it does store and use information. Maybe our brains don't store knowledge, it is just chemical reactions in the brain and our "languages" are just noises which activate response sensors in someone else's brain and cause chemical reactions which lead to more noises.



It is blindness to say that scientific theory accounts for all evidence. It eliminates evidence that it cannot cope with and atheists end up saying that evidence is not real evidence.
But of course you want to make the false dichotomy of science verses religion and say that I do not believe science.
The evolutionary process is not random, being chemistry and physics, and the conclusions are a result of the methodological naturalism presumption put beside Occam's Razor and educated guesses about what might have happened, while ignoring evidence for a creator.
But of course where chemistry and physics is going to end up seems pretty random. That life came about at all was a result of millions of random flukes.
I would say that once started it could be predicted where evolution was going to end up, given the right environment and environmental twists.
So is cutting out a creator the best thing to do when humans are wondering the big questions?
Sure science has to do that because science cannot use evidence for God in science and has the naturalistic methodology, but we humans should be able to see when and if science might be leading us up a wrong path because of those thing. I can see it anyway even if you can't, but I don't ignore the evidence for a God and what He has told us about all of this.

What "evidences" do you think science "cannot cope with?"