Why do humans have genes for full body hair?

[Dan From Smithville]

Not at all. It's still chance. Just because there's parameters doesn't change that. Just like a deck of cards as a limited number of combinations, but randomly picking a card is still chance.

I love it when you guys refute yourselves.

It is very amusing to watch.

The number of cards is a parameter that selects through limitation, the available choices. Randomness does enter into it, but it is not all blind chance. The probabilities of the selected cards can be calculated. If blind chance is the ruling factor, determining those probabilities wouldn't be possible. By blind chance, Barney the Dinosaur cards could end up in the deck.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Now you are trying to redefine chance. When playing poker you are not going to get this card with a standard deck:

You beat me too it. Gotta catch em all.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know. That doesn't mean that it did not happen.

Is this your "gotcha" moment? That's too bad.

Scientists working in the field are quite a bit further along than creationists seem to think that they are. Some problems have more than one possible solution. Chirality is one of them. There is almost an embarrassment of riches. They went from "it is impossible to solve chirality" from deniers to at least three different possible solutions. It is a lot like the problem with how amino acids rose in the first place.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Scientists working in the field are quite a bit further along than creationists seem to think that they are. Some problems have more than one possible solution. Chirality is one of them. There is almost an embarrassment of riches. They went from "it is impossible to solve chirality" from deniers to at least three different possible solutions. It is a lot like the problem with how amino acids rose in the first place.

More is learned all the time.

I think the biggest impediment for creationists is that they demand a literal interpretation of Genesis. Those that have locked themselves into that box have to resort to contortions in order to wave away the evidence that leads to reasonable questions regarding the veracity of viewing that as literal. Accepting the science and the possibility of natural abiogenesis as the origin of living things has zero impact on the existence of God. In my view, there is no reason to conclude that God did not create living things through natural means from the get go. I don't know and they don't either.

 

[Subduction Zone]

More is learned all the time.

I think the biggest impediment for creationists is that they demand a literal interpretation of Genesis. Those that have locked themselves into that box have to resort to contortions in order to wave away the evidence that leads to reasonable questions regarding the veracity of viewing that as literal. Accepting the science and the possibility of natural abiogenesis as the origin of living things has zero impact on the existence of God. In my view, there is no reason to conclude that God did not create living things through natural means from the get go. I don't know and they don't either.

I agree. The story works in a way as a morality tale. As history it looks as if God is at fault.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Via a WaPo article I read this morning, I came across this paper: Complementary evolution of coding and noncoding sequence underlies mammalian hairlessness | eLife (elifesciences.org).

The gist of the paper is an exploration of the genetic basis for, and evolutionary history of, hair loss in some mammals. Now, like most scientific papers that are about prehistoric events, the paper uses words such as "likely", "possibly", "putative", etc. But I don't want this thread to turn into yet another (unsuccessful) attempt to explain to creationists that that's how science works, so let's try and avoid all that. Plus, those parts of the paper aren't relevant to the point of this thread.

As the paper describes, humans do indeed have all the genes and regulatory sequences necessary for full body hair, but due to a series of mutations, they've been disabled, which is why humans don't have full body hair (with some very rare exceptions) like most other mammals.

So the question to creationists is....why? Do you believe Adam and Eve were fully-haired and we just lost all that due to mutations that occurred after "the fall"? Do you believe God deliberately created A&E with this genetic material but also disabled it for some reason (thus A&E were not fully-haired)? Do you think this is an example of "design"? If so, how did you reach that conclusion?

As the paper describes, evolutionary theory provides an explanation. We all know creationists reject that explanation, but you can't deny that at least the explanation exists. So what's your alternative explanation?

Other than Adam was a really hairy guy, were there any other attempts at creationist explanations for why humans have the genes for fur but they are silenced? I haven't watched the thread as closely as I would have liked.

My apologies for joining on some of the conversations detracting from the topic. It is unfortunate that this is a consequence of debating creationists. There seems a propensity for taking the discussion rapidly off topic and derailing the points of a thread until we are arguing against claims that chocolate ice cream is the best lure for deep sea fishing compared to concrete blocks. Prove me wrong. Or something equally relative.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I agree. The story works in a way as a morality tale. As history it looks as if God is at fault.

That is an interpretation I have heard before.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If all you have are insults, why bother?

I didn't insult anybody.

To say you are ignorant about a scientific theory after demonstrating that you are, is not an insult but an observation.

To point out you argue strawmen and false dichotomies when you do so, is not an insult but again just an observation.

I guess the truth hurts sometimes.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Nonsense. Just because one thing is more probable than another does not make a guided system.
The whole system would have had to develop blindly, by accident. That makes everything that happens chance.

I love how you just handwave away explanations and simply repeat your claim, doubling down on a strawman.

Not really sure what you think you will accomplish this way.

Your claims wasn't convincing the first time, it's also not convincing the second time.
You're going to have to do more then just repeat it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

This demonstrates the absurdly of your argument. If the system formed by chance it could have just as likely made gravity backwards.

If I didn't know any better, I would assume this post to be satire.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Not at all. It's still chance. Just because there's parameters doesn't change that. Just like a deck of cards as a limited number of combinations, but randomly picking a card is still chance.

Good job missing the point.

It's not about the amount of possible combinations.
It's about processes that make certain outcomes more likely then others.

The card is only random if the deck is stacked randomly.
If the process of shuffling, for some reason, has a bias for putting red cards first and the picking of the card is always the top one, then chances are higher to pick a red card then it is to pick a black card.

Here's an easy example I like to use to make this silly point of "random chance" clear to creationists:

Here's a coin sorter.

It gets random input of different coins.
A process pushes them through a tube with holes of different sizes.
The output is a sorted version of the set of random coins.

Is it "blind random chance" that the result is sorted?
It's blind. But it is not random.

Whether or not the outcome of a process is random completely depends on the process itself.

As you can see, you can perfectly have non-random outcomes, while the input is random.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How did abiogenesis happen?

Presumably by some bio-chemical process.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Good job missing the point.

It's not about the amount of possible combinations.
It's about processes that make certain outcomes more likely then others.

The card is only random if the deck is stacked randomly.
If the process of shuffling, for some reason, has a bias for putting red cards first and the picking of the card is always the top one, then chances are higher to pick a red card then it is to pick a black card.

Here's an easy example I like to use to make this silly point of "random chance" clear to creationists:

View attachment 71474

Here's a coin sorter.

It gets random input of different coins.
A process pushes them through a tube with holes of different sizes.
The output is a sorted version of the set of random coins.

Is it "blind random chance" that the result is sorted?
It's blind. But it is not random.

Whether or not the outcome of a process is random completely depends on the process itself.

As you can see, you can perfectly have non-random outcomes, while the input is random.

That's much better said than the way I have been expressing it.

However, you know the next point is likely to be made that the coin sorter had a coin sorter maker. But that is only because random input is filtered through a non-random process to be poorly organized on the bias of the sorter and not on unbiased understanding of the facts.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That's much better said than the way I have been expressing it.

tnx

However, you know the next point is likely to be made that the coin sorter had a coin sorter maker. But that is only because random input is filtered through a non-random process to be poorly organized on the bias of the sorter and not on unbiased understanding of the facts.

Uhu.........

Creationists are quite predictable.
They are kings at missing (or deliberately ignoring) the actual point made.

In this case though... if that is the "rebuttal", then it backfires even if I were to bend over backwards and play along.

Because the analogy here is that the process of the machine = evolution.

So by accepting the coin sorter analogy and then saying "but a maker made the sorter", they are effectively acknowledging that evolution happens and DOES NOT require any intervention.

The coin sorter has a maker, but that maker does not need to "intervene" to make the process sort coins properly.

Once it's up and running, it functions on its own, no "makers" required.
Pour in random coins and none-random coins will be coming out at the other end.

Without any intervention from anyone.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I don't know. That doesn't mean that it did not happen.

Is this your "gotcha" moment? That's too bad.

No answer as usual. So why should I listen to your nonsense? If you don't know how it started, the rest really doesn't matter.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I love it when you guys refute yourselves.

It is very amusing to watch.

The number of cards is a parameter that selects through limitation, the available choices. Randomness does enter into it, but it is not all blind chance. The probabilities of the selected cards can be calculated. If blind chance is the ruling factor, determining those probabilities wouldn't be possible. By blind chance, Barney the Dinosaur cards could end up in the deck.

That makes no sense whatsoever. If I have a bag of pebbles, and mark one of the 1,000 that's there, my randomly picking that particular pebble out is based on chance. It doesn't matter if you calculate the odds, it's still chance. It's not guided by anything.

 

[Wildswanderer]

By complex chemicals forming by the laws, oh wait a second by the laws of chemistry and physics.

There were no laws. And there can't be any laws without an intelligent being creating them.
Did the chemicals and rules create themselves?

 

[Subduction Zone]

No answer as usual. So why should I listen to your nonsense? If you don't know how it started, the rest really doesn't matter.

If you were more polite, instead of making rude false statements, perhaps people would be more willing to answer your questions.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There were no laws. And there can't be any laws without an intelligent being creating them.
Did the chemicals and rules create themselves?

What do you mean " there were no laws"? How are you going to prove that?

And you still don't seem to understand what physical laws are. They are merely observations of how matter reacts in specific conditions. Why would na intelligent being be needed? Your claim, your burden of proof.

And yes, complex chemicals are regularly self forming.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Well there is no detailed way given that God did it. Science keeps changing it's collective mind and when it says X religious people say, OK that could fit. Then it changes it's mind and says not X, Y. So we look at it and says, yes that could fit also. The goal posts keep moving with science and each generation has a different science myth that it believes. The religious myth does not change however, just the science myth. And the amazing thing is that it does not matter what science finds, the religious myth can still fit.

So then "God did it" is a useless "explanation" because it explains exactly nothing.
Also, it isn't required to understand the natural processes involved, because they work just fine without the assumption.