Science IS religion

[ratiocinator]

This means that the decay we now see happening is used to assign ages from the deep past to ratios. You do understand this?? Lurkers, in common language, this means that the current processes of decay going on now in this nature, are believed to represent what happened in the past and that the past nature was the same.

Assigning ages based on the present forces and laws does not mean the laws and forces in the past was the same! That means that you proceed as if they were and simply believe it.

- sigh -

You keep on banging on about this, like it's a comforting mantra or something, no matter how many times I point I that it isn't in dispute and it isn't the point. The point is the consistency between all the different ways we find out the age of stuff and, in particular, the age of the earth and universe. A consistency that isn't explained by the past just being different.

Easy to test. Post evidence for man descending from animals!

Name any genetics evidence that is not based on the belief genetics in the past worked exactly as now in THIS present nature? Ha. Same old belief system applied to all things.

OK - I've posted this a lot recently but it's a really neat article that provides some compelling evidence. Oddly, no creationist has ever said anything sensible about it, or even, for that matter, shown any indication that they've even read it. I don't expect better from you - but here it is

Genesis and the Genome (pdf)

And before you mindlessly repeat your empty mantra about assuming the same nature in the past to get to ages, this is about evidence of relatedness, not age, or how long ago things happened. This is even more in need of an explanation than the consistency between ages deduced from different processes. You need to explain why we have broken genes in our genome that show clear evidence of our relationships with other apes and even further back than that.

Once again, we have two options: humans have evolved from other animals or, the last Thursdayism, trickster god who has planted false evidence in the genome to make it look as if we did.

The ONLY consistency is in your head and belief system.

Untrue.

'Oh, look, we used 2 different same state past belief based methods, and sure enough, the fantasy dates that cannot be proven seem to meet in an imaginary deep past'!!!

You really aren't thinking are you? If they are different processes that were both different in the past, why would they give the same age unless the age were correct or both processes were different in just the right, matching, way to make them consistent?

In the confused minds of people who reject God, maybe.

So, despite you endless demands for evidence, that you then ignore, you can provide no evidence whatsoever for the veracity of your book of inconsistent myths? Nothing at all, not even an attempt? Just this empty bluster?

 

[dad]

The point is the consistency between all the different ways we find out the age of stuff and, in particular, the age of the earth and universe. A consistency that isn't explained by the past just being different.

If fantasy dates meet in fantasy la la land, that is not consistency. No dates meet where the rubber meets the road. Young earth dates meet!

OK - I've posted this a lot recently but it's a really neat article that provides some compelling evidence. Oddly, no creationist has ever said anything sensible about it, or even, for that matter, shown any indication that they've even read it. I don't expect better from you - but here it is

Genesis and the Genome (pdf)

Easy peasy.

From your link we see this summary.

"In summary, the expectation that the Genesis narratives provide scientific biological details of human ancestry fails in light of human genomics evidence on two fronts: humans share ancestry with other forms of life; and our speciation was through an interbreeding population, not an ancestral pair. "

We have no idea how genetics worked in the former nature actually. That means how animals used to speciate or how traits are now passed down via reproduction, (ancestry) is not known. If man was created, then obviously he was not a result of interbreeding!

In all ways your article is foolishness and truly religious twaddle.

And before you mindlessly repeat your empty mantra about assuming the same nature in the past to get to ages, this is about evidence of relatedness, not age,

False again. The things that make you think animals are related have to do with present nature genetics.

This is even more in need of an explanation than the consistency between ages deduced from different processes. You need to explain why we have broken genes in our genome that show clear evidence of our relationships with other apes and even further back than that.

Easy. The way transfer occurred in the former nature need not be limited to how genes are shared now, such as strictly by reproduction, etc. For all we know evolving took place in living creatures! (as opposed to only changes to offspring) There also may have been other ways ERVs transferred between species. Your constant mistake is to believe that only the present nature existed and all things in the past must conform to it.

You really aren't thinking are you? If they are different processes that were both different in the past, why would they give the same age unless the age were correct or both processes were different in just the right, matching, way to make them consistent?

Talk about not thinking, a different past would have different processes across the board. Tree rings would represent hours or days for example in many cases. The relationship of isotopes in ratios would not be one of decay perhaps. etc. You are using the present nature as the way to interpret all we see. So tree rings from several thousand years ago would seem old to you. Carbon in a ratio would seem to represent a decay relationship, and therefore a long period of time to you. Both mistakes in the different area would of course render old ages. The issue is not whether they yield old ages using your beliefs, but whether the ages have any bearing on reality of the past. The only place imaginary old ages meet is in your imaginary past.

 

[ratiocinator]

If fantasy dates meet in fantasy la la land, that is not consistency. No dates meet where the rubber meets the road. Young earth dates meet!

Empty bluster.

We have no idea how genetics worked in the former nature actually. That means how animals used to speciate or how traits are now passed down via reproduction, (ancestry) is not known. If man was created, then obviously he was not a result of interbreeding!

Easy. The way transfer occurred in the former nature need not be limited to how genes are shared now, such as strictly by reproduction, etc. For all we know evolving took place in living creatures! (as opposed to only changes to offspring) There also may have been other ways ERVs transferred between species. Your constant mistake is to believe that only the present nature existed and all things in the past must conform to it.

Talk about bizarre hand-waving waffle and fantasy!

How would any of this nonsense, for example, explain why humans and other apes have mutated olfactory receptor genes, that work in other animals but not in great apes (including humans)? Further, why would the disabling mutations in those genes enable us to see the same relationships between humans, chimpanzees and orangutans that is consistent with other genetic and non-genetic evidence for their relatedness, if humans are not related to these other animals at all but were god-magicked out of dust in the magic garden, with the talking snake? Why would humans have a broken gene for making egg yoke in exactly the same place as in chicken genes?

Once again - it's either that all the science is right or we have last Thursdayism and your god is a liar.

Talk about not thinking, a different past would have different processes across the board. Tree rings would represent hours or days for example in many cases. The relationship of isotopes in ratios would not be one of decay perhaps. etc. You are using the present nature as the way to interpret all we see. So tree rings from several thousand years ago would seem old to you. Carbon in a ratio would seem to represent a decay relationship, and therefore a long period of time to you. Both mistakes in the different area would of course render old ages.

But there is no reason to think they would give the same old ages (other than last Thursdayism or that the dates are correct). Think about it!

Still no hint of a morsel of a scintilla of any evidence for your inconsistent book of myths? Why the blatant double standards?

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

Here are the rules to the discussion:

• "dad" need not provide any evidence to support his claims, but everyone else does.
• "dad" is right and the thousands of people who have invested entire lifetimes in studies of a given topic are wrong.

And there we have it. "dad" wins.

I also notice that "dad" speaks of things "fast evolving", yet denies the very principles of ToE.

 

[dad]

How would any of this nonsense, for example, explain why humans and other apes have mutated olfactory receptor genes, that work in other animals but not in great apes (including humans)?

If nature changed, one supposes that genes would respond to this. What you consider damaged, might just be maladjusted! Ha.

Looking at the following article, I see that it is not so cut and dry as you would suggest.

"This is a popular argument amongst evolutionists and Venema uses as his example the olfactory receptor genes. The idea here is that, in different species (such as the human and chimpanzee), the same damaging mutation can be found in the same pseudogenes. When we find the same strange spelling mistake in the homework of different students we conclude that plagiarism occurred. It is more likely that the mistake had one source, rather than occurred twice, independently.

Likewise, the same mutation in different species points to a single source in a common ancestor — common descent. Furthermore, we don’t see mutations that violate the expected pattern. Clearly common descent is the obvious, most parsimonious explanation. As Venema concludes, common descent is “overwhelmingly supported.”

This is a powerful argument for evolution that has influenced many people. There’s only one problem: It fails historically, philosophically, and scientifically.

First, the olfactory system is profoundly complex. Odors entering the nose interact with finely tuned receptor proteins (created from the olfactory receptor genes), setting off an incredible cascade of events in the cell, resulting in an electrical signal sent to the brain. Studies have found that each cell expresses only a single olfactory receptor gene, and so is sensitive to a particular odor. At the brain, the signals are grouped and organized by odor. In other words, for all the cells in the nose expressing the same olfactory receptor gene (and thus sensitive to the same odor), their signals spatially converge as they feed into the brain area.

And of course, as with all the senses, these incoming signals are providing mere electrical information. There is no odor, or light, or sound entering the brain via these nerve cells. Instead, a bunch of electrical signals are entering the brain via these nerve cells. The brain, by itself, has no way of knowing what these electrical signals mean. It must somehow be given the source and meaning of these incoming signals. It then processes and interprets these signals and the end result is that we are conscious of images reported by our eyes, sounds reported by our ears, smells reported by our nose, and so forth. All of this defies evolution, and should give us pause.

Second, the evolutionist’s contention that common descent is needed to explain those shared mutations in different species contradicts the most basic biology. Simply put, similarities across species that cannot be explained by common descent are rampant in biology. The olfactory system is no exception. Its several fundamental components, if evolution is true, must have evolved several times independently. The level of independent origin that evolutionists must admit to (variously referred to as convergent evolution, parallel evolution, recurrent evolution, cascades of convergence, and so forth depending on the pattern) is staggering and dwarfs the levels of similarities in the olfactory receptor genes. To cast those relatively few similarities as mandates for common descent, while ignoring the volumes of similarities that violate common descent, constitutes the mother of all confirmation biases.

Third, the strength of this evolution argument is lack of function, but that renders it fallacious. As lawyers know, if you can’t convict the defendant on the facts, you decry how horrifying the crime is. In this case, the entire argument hinges on the utter uselessness of the broken genes. As Venema explains, they are “damaged,” “defective,” “mess[ed] up,” “wrong,” and “ruin[ed].” Clearly, according to Venema, these genes are useless — that’s why they are called pseudogenes. This is crucial because, for evolutionists, it means they would only arise by chance (what designer would implement useless designs?).

All of which means that evolutionists have a very simple formulation: Either those crippling mutations arose once in a common ancestor, or they just happened to arise by chance, coincidentally, multiple times. Clearly the former is much more likely, and this points to common descent. It is, as Venema concludes, “overwhelmingly supported.”

However, this powerful argument comes at a cost. There is no free lunch.

The conclusion that common descent is “overwhelmingly supported” utterly depends on our knowing the pseudogenes are useless. Disutility underwrites the assumption of chance as the only alternative to common descent. And chance as the only alternative is crucial. It is why the argument is so powerful, because the chance hypothesis is so unlikely.

Restricting the problem to a contest between evolution and chance makes evolution the obvious winner, but amidst the celebration we forget the weak link. We forget that the entire edifice resides on our certainty of disutility. This, it turns out, is a very weak link.

The history of evolutionary thought, going back to the Epicureans, is full of predictions of disutility gone wrong. It is, quite literally, a theory of gaps. When gaps in our scientific knowledge leave us with ignorance about function, evolutionists routinely assume there is no function. After all, if the world arose by chance, it should be full of aimless, useless “designs,” if they can even be called that.

But as those gaps close with the inexorable march of scientific progress, it seems we inevitably learn of function. Evolutionists claim disutility at brand new findings, only to be proved wrong, again and again. Look no further than the seemingly endless parade of “We thought it was junk, but now…” stories.

Ultimately, the long history of disutility claims is informed by the theory rather than the evidence. This is a classic example of what philosophers refer to as theory-laden observations.

None of this means there are no truly useless structures in biology. There may well be plenty of them. But the supposition has a terrible history.

Furthermore, regardless of the history, disutility is very difficult to know. As with the proverbial “proving a negative,” proving that a pseudogene, or anything else in biology for that matter, actually is useless, is a very difficult undertaking.

From introns to transposons, initial claims of uselessness have given way to a steady stream of findings of function. And, yes, the olfactory receptor “pseudo”-genes are no exception. They are now being called pseudo-pseudogenes because all those evolutionary claims of uselessness are rapidly fading. As one recent paper concluded, “such ‘pseudo-pseudogenes’ could represent a widespread phenomenon.”

This is yet another example in a long history of failed disutility predictions. Clearly, the assumption that we know that olfactory receptor pseudogenes are useless is unfounded. Even the name (pseudogenes) will serve future generations of scientists as a constant reminder of this evolutionary foible.

The story does not end here, though, for even if something like pseudogenes could somehow be proven useless, this would not justify the evolutionary formulation of random chance origin as the only other alternative.

Evolution fails to explain how even a single gene could evolve, let alone the entire olfactory system. In fact the presence of supposedly useless structures, such as pseudogenes, is hardly a plus for evolution. As Elliott Sober has pointed out, there is nothing about this story that provides a positivistic argument for evolution."

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/04/s...lfactory-receptor-genes-prove-common-descent/

Further, why would the disabling mutations in those genes enable us to see the same relationships between humans, chimpanzees and orangutans that is consistent with other genetic and non-genetic evidence for their relatedness, if humans are not related to these other animals at all but were god-magicked out of dust in the magic garden, with the talking snake? Why would humans have a broken gene for making egg yoke in exactly the same place as in chicken genes?

If a 'disabled mutation' was a result of a new nature with new forces and laws and realities to cope with, then many creatures would have similar struggles!

But there is no reason to think they would give the same old ages

Whether they claim a zillion imaginary years or a billion etc etc who cares? The issue is whether the ages are real and verifiable, not whether applying beliefs to different evidences yields similar fantasy ages! Remember that they used tree rings to adjust radioactive dating. When things don't jive, simply make them fit by any means needed seems to be the motto of science.

The issue if you claim, for example 60,000 years age from 2 or three different lines of evidences is whether we can verify the time independently of any same state past belief! NOT whether we can weld a few same nature in the past based interpretations together so there is some internal imaginary unprovable fit!

 

[dad]

Here are the rules to the discussion:

• "dad" need not provide any evidence to support his claims, but everyone else does.
• "dad" is right and the thousands of people who have invested entire lifetimes in studies of a given topic are wrong.

And there we have it. "dad" wins.

I also notice that "dad" speaks of things "fast evolving", yet denies the very principles of ToE.

Yes, if the kinds all started on an ark 4500 years ago and speciated and evolved into all the millions of sorts of animals we have today, evolving had to be fast!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes, if the kinds all started on an ark 4500 years ago and speciated and evolved into all the millions of sorts of animals we have today, evolving had to be fast!

Yet there is no more evidence for this than there is for pink pixelated pixies. In other words, only the crazy would tend to believe in either one.

dad, rest assured, the odds of you ending up in a cheap hotel bathtub filled with ice missing a kidney is practically zero. And you can thank the fact that Noah's Ark is a myth for that small favor.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

Yes, if the kinds all started on an ark 4500 years ago and speciated and evolved into all the millions of sorts of animals we have today, evolving had to be fast!

Yet we find no evidence for this "fast evolving" anywhere.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

If nature changed, one supposes that genes would respond to this. What you consider damaged, might just be maladjusted! Ha.

Ha!

I love that.

Maybe next time, replace "Ha" with "Nanny nanny boo boo!"

 

[dad]

Yet we find no evidence for this "fast evolving" anywhere.

Excellent, since we are in THIS nature now, we would not expect to!

 

[dad]

Ha!

I love that.

Maybe next time, replace "Ha" with "Nanny nanny boo boo!"

Sorry, but I can't deny that genes function according to the forces of nature.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

Sorry, but I can't deny that genes function according to the forces of nature.

Of COURSE not.That would be irrational.

 

[ratiocinator]

f nature changed, one supposes that genes would respond to this. What you consider damaged, might just be maladjusted! Ha.

More hand-waving and waffle. The point of the matter is that any individual piece of evidence can be dismissed if invoke hand-waveing, waffle and god-magic to change nature - but when we have multiple different lines of evidence, from completely unrelated physical systems, all telling us the same story of the past, then it's either accurate or has been made to look like that (last Thursdayism, trickster god).

Looking at the following article, I see that it is not so cut and dry as you would suggest.

So you had to copy and paste the hand-waving waffle on this occasion. I note that a whole lot of words are taken up with distraction. How complex the system is and the fact that it's all electrical signals is irrelevant and looks like it's there just to distract the reader from the fact that they have no credible alternative explanation for the observations.

Even if the genes actually serve some function after all, it doesn't make the evidence for common decent go away.

If a 'disabled mutation' was a result of a new nature with new forces and laws and realities to cope with, then many creatures would have similar struggles!

Hand-wave, waffle, waffle, hand-wave...

Whether they claim a zillion imaginary years or a billion etc etc who cares?

You should, because...

The issue is whether the ages are real and verifiable, not whether applying beliefs to different evidences yields similar fantasy ages!

No, the issue is that, if lost of different ways of measuring age agree, there needs to be an explanation for that agreement.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

HUH?? cool story bro but completely irrelevant. Just FYI, i am a secularist not a creationist.

Newsflash: secularism and creationism are not mutually exclusive, as they deal with different topics.
You can be a secular creationist, a secular theist, a secular atheist, a secular democrat, a secular communist, a secular republican, a secular hindu, a secular satanist, a secular guitar player,....

Oh and people that believe in evolution and want to call it "evidence" why ignoring all of its glaring and gaping holes are worst and more intellectually dishonest than theists.

What "glaring and gaping holes"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

God is the null hypothesis,

"god" isn't any more the "null hypothesis" for anything then undetactable pink graviton pixies are the null hypothesis for gravity.

The belief/fantasy of so called science is a false and unsupportable claim.

Falsifiability and testability is requirement number one for any scientific hypothesis.

It's your last thursdayism-style belief which, off course, isn't falsifiable or testable.
Serious case of projecting.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There is no evidence DNA worked the same way in the former nature

What "former nature"?

So we cannot use modern DNA to trace back!

yeah, because we can't travel back in time to last thursday to double check our results.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I can't prove it was the same because I do not think it was...science does!

Science cannot say either way, same or different, it is a matter of belief only! Furthermore, history and Scripture tell us of life spans many many centuries long, so obviously things worked differently.

If you assume that DNA worked the same yesterday as it does today, then the data we observe today makes sense.

If you assume that DNA worked differently, no data makes any sense.

(here's where you invoke magic to pretend that magically the nonsensical is sensible anyway)

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes, if the kinds all started on an ark 4500 years ago and speciated and evolved into all the millions of sorts of animals we have today, evolving had to be fast!

So instead of denying evolution, you actually believe in a HYPER evolution ON STEROIDS within which upto 20 speciation events per day had to occur till today.

You're a weird guy.

 

[Earthtank]

Newsflash: secularism and creationism are not mutually exclusive, as they deal with different topics.
You can be a secular creationist, a secular theist, a secular atheist, a secular democrat, a secular communist, a secular republican, a secular hindu, a secular satanist, a secular guitar player,....





What "glaring and gaping holes"?

No you can't be a secular theist, they contradict each other. anyway, as i have stated before, i am a secularist.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No you can't be a secular theist

In a nutshell, secularism is the idea that government should stay out of church affairs and churches should stay out of politics.

If you agree with that, you are a secularist - regardless of if you believe in a god or not

, they contradict each other

They don't, as they deal with entirely different subjects.

. anyway, as i have stated before, i am a secularist.

So am I.
So is the pope.
So are the vast majority of theists in western secular democracies.