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Chance or Design (Evolution or Creation)

Stripe

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Effects can be larger than causes.

Why on Earth you would think that this is relevant is beyond me. :idunno:

For all the demands you place on others to be exact, you are hopeless with simple English. Nobody has said large effects cannot be generated from small items.

What has been said is that the effect cannot be greater than the cause. You can't expect a forest fire to produce the match that started it. You cannot expect rocks and water to produce a biosphere.

This is what we're talking about when we say entropy, but now you've drifted into the weeds thinking the issue is size.
 

Lon

Well-known member
The effect of lighting a match, i.e. the forest fire, is much greater than the cause. i.e. the match being lit.
In a sense but the forest itself is greater than the flames and the effect is much less. While you are correct about the match, it takes the forest to exist or else the effect is much less than the match and the lighting. So it isn't the match persay, but the flame. Whatever a flame touches leaves a less complex (no material is lost, but changed in the universe) material, thus the cause is greater than the effect. :e4e:
 

The Barbarian

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Which claims?

His four basic claims of Darwinian theory. Some say five, but it's really four. Which of those?

The problem with this is that there's no new information at all, only pre-existing information being brought forth into play.

Here's how we can see. The information for any specific gene in a population genome is found by multiplying the frequency of each allele times the log of the frequency of each allele, and then summing all the products and multiplying them by -1.

So if we have a gene in a specific population with two alleles, each 0.5 in frequency, then the information is a bit more than 0.30. If a new mutation occurs and eventually increases to that the frequency of each is about one-third, then the information is about 0.478.

So an increase in information, based on Shannon's equation.

Did you know that you can read DNA in multiple different directions, and get completely different information out of it?

There are only four bases in DNA, and while they are normally read only one way, reversing the code gives a different message, which is usually gibberish, but can sometimes actually get copied. There is a mechanism that usually prevents such glitches:

MIT biologists have discovered a mechanism that allows cells to read their own DNA in the correct direction and prevents them from copying most of the so-called “junk DNA” that makes up long stretches of our genome.
http://news.mit.edu/2013/reading-dna-backward-and-forward-0623

Think of DNA as a book that can be read front to back, back to front, upside down back to front, upside down front to back....

It's better than that. Sometimes we find a palimpsest in a stretch of DNA. And there are cases of palindromic DNA.

Doesn't really change the fact that every new mutation adds information to the population genome.
 

Lon

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I can only reply that I freely admit that even YE creationists who accept Jesus as Lord are no less Christian than I am, which is much better than some of them.



The big rewards in science go to the mavericks who actually can show evidence for their dissent. The operative word is "evidence." I would be surprised if there wasn't a tendency to bandwagonning in any group, anywhere. The reason science has less of it, is because of evidence.



And yet, after these became commonly used, survival of cancer patients increased markedly. There's something to be said for success. This is the key to why science is well-accepted. It works.



Besides me, who else here has said that science is limited in what it can do, and that it's good to be unscientific in many circumstances?
Well, me, but kudos. There are a few on TOL who won't agree of course. I'm sure you've met them here as well. :up:



As a member of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, why would I think so?



Can you name me one of Darwin's basic claims that has turned out to be false?
Off the top of my head, that Africans are a lesser inferior species. Descent of Man p. 201

He mistook the age of the earth, replaced common design with common descent, confused micro and macro, thought cells were simple, believed animals and humans were fundamentally indifferent, etc.






I've been very careful to show what is true and demonstrable. And I've pointed out repeatedly that the fact of evolution is not something that a Christian needs to acknowledge to be saved. I've pointed out that none of it happened or could have happened without the Creator.
Darwin didn't know his Bible, for a former theologian.

Jesus said the world would hate us. And it does. You don't seem to, and neither to many other creationists. Ironically, SDAs tend to be much more reasonable about differences than many others who have adopted this doctrine from them.
Could use a bit of elaboration here, if you've the time. Thanks.







Darwin didn't say much about life happening. He merely suggested that God created the first living things, and very little else.
He was a bit of an enigma considering he'd studied theology first. He does mention God, but his grasp of how God could have done things wasn't very clear in his mind. He didn't, by that matter, use his Bible as a roadmap and seemed to think some of the Bible wasn't inspired.





I suppose that one has to actually realize that they've made a mistake to acknowledge it. Which may be why I'm the only one who has. In these two threads.
True.


And I've already demonstrated how a mutation in a population produces new information. If you missed it, I can do the numbers for you.
Yes. Please.



Not sure what you mean, but a new mutation increases information in a population. That was Shannon's discovery.
It is rather the combination. Inter-breeding breaks it down, but a bit more of the specifics is always appreciated.



But it has. There are muscles in your dog's face that don't exist in wolves. It's why he can make that face that says "I'm paying attention to you", or gives you that wide-eyed puppy expression that gets him attention.

New mutations. In fact, the evidence indicates that wolves and dogs evolved from a common ancestor that was significantly different from both. Hence, domestication of wolves is almost impossible, and dog/wolf hybrids require special training and knowledgeable owners.



One percent difference. Which is a huge difference for animals that have diverged within (the longest estimate) 100,000 years. Humans and chimps, according to the same criteria differ by three percent for millions of years of divergence. Remember,humans, wolves and dogs (all animals) differ by only about 60 percent from a banana.
0.1% It is very small. From what I understand (your input appreciated) the DNA strand doesn't lose information per say, but rather shows dominant and lesser traits. IOW, as I grasp, the genes are all carried, just differences in what becomes a trait. It is why, again as I understand, my eyes are brown, my wife's are green, and my daughter's are blue: No 'new' traits, simply another already there, becoming dominant.
"New" here not meaning never being seen in the gene pool. This is where language needs to be very certain and careful.
Edited here. I'd looked up "Gene Pool" and here is what I understand briefly:

Characteristics of a gene pool
♦ The concept of a gene pool is only used for sexually-reproducing organisms (because asexual reproduction produces clones).


♦ It includes all the variants or alleles of every gene.


♦ It includes all the genes present in the population.


♦ In most cases, the population includes individuals of the same species only.


♦ A gene pool includes even those genes whose effects are not visible in an individual.
Other reading gives actual change over great periods of time (macro-evolution and genetic introduction of change).
From what I'm reading, when someone says, for example that the sun changes my dna skin tones, it isn't really that it is new information, but rather a way my skin already acts. Thus 'change' is (for me) a poor descriptor because it is merely a difference in the SAME DNA code. It is difficult to describe, but I think, essentially, these poor descriptors are always the problem. We just are not communicating effectively/creating misunderstood concepts such that another rightly 'should' question what we are saying. In essence, I've always tried to answer questions but it does often put me on a fence for not being as definitive as I think science education needs to be. It needs a better described conveyance.

Would you agree that a majority of evolution/creation discussion on TOL is largely over term disagreement?
Common descent would not be possible if God had not created a universe in the way He did.



It's perfectly possible to imagine a world where Lamarckist evolution is possible. In fact, we see a few cases where it works in this world. If that were even slightly common, the tree of life would be very different.
Well, tree is different and it comes back to 'kinds.' If by kinds, we see God separating or recreating, then we can make some connections, but we have to be careful when doing so. The next line of scripture is that God formed man from the dust and breathed into him. Literal breath of God? Something of, but not from human lungs or a physical necessity. It is beyond the ability of science to grasp.

Barbarian observes:
So was Darwin. His great discovery was that it's not random.



I haven't read everything he's written, but I've read a lot. Never read anything questioning his theory of natural selection. Time and chance happen to all, but in the end, selection means that it's not random.



Which of his basic premises turned out to be wrong? His biggest error was accepting the notion of inheritance as like mixing paint. Which was the standard model in his time. And his agreement that acquired characteristics might be inherited.

Barbarian observes:
As I've mentioned repeatedly in these threads. Would you consider counting my posts and showing us the percentage in which I acknowledge God? That might be instructive for both of us.



Just use this thread. I'd expect you to find even in a thread on evolution it's very common.



Aquinas specifically limited his statement to divine providence. So it couldn't mean "interference."



That's another issue. But I see no reason why God can't grant man his free will and still use contingency in nature.

There is no scriptural support whatever for the idea that God changed His creation to harm other animals.
Well, you have to deal with Romans 8:20 in order to say that. What does it mean?



That doesn't say He did. It specifically says that humans were cursed worse than any animal. Why would a just God curse innocent animals?

Barbarian observes:
Thanks for your reasoned and civil post.
Rather, I think animals are subject to the curse as are plants etc. How? I'm not sure, just seeing Romans 8:20 saying all of creation groans. If you look at Genesis 3, man's curse was fallow ground, weeds, thorns, etc. If the wolf will one day lay down with the lamb, something, it would seem, must necessarily be out of order. Carnivores may have 1) been more of omnivores and 2) may have only eaten deceased creatures. Wild speculation? Yes, I'm left only guessing. Science observation 'could' shed light, perhaps. :think:
 
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The Barbarian

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Barbarian asks which of Darwin's basic claims did he get wrong?

Off the top of my head, that Africans are a lesser inferior species. Descent of Man p. 201

That's not one of his basic claims. In fact, he differed from most people of the time by claiming that if Africans lived for a few generations in England, they'd be a capable as Englishmen, and by insisting that they were entitled to the same rights and freedoms as any other person.

He mistook the age of the earth,

Oddly enough, he won an argument with Lord Kelvin over that issue. Kelvin,based on heat transfer, found that the Earth could be at most, about ten million years old. Darwin pointed out that his discoveries,like evolution by natural selection, and the mechanism for Pacific atolls required much more time.

But Kelvin was the outstanding physicist of his time, and most went with Kelvin. Until Rutherford discovered radioactivity, and the source of all that heat became apparent. Kelvin grudgingly agreed that Darwin was right.

replaced common design with common descent

By Darwin's time, anatomy had completely discredited "common design." Analogous organs were shown to be the result of modification over time, with evolutionary homologies explaining why bat wings were not a "common design" with birds, but rather common descent from a mammalian ancestor accounting for horses legs, whale flippers, mole diggers, and human hands.

confused micro and macro

No. He spent quite a bit of time discussing the differences.

thought cells were simple

As did other scientists of the time. Ironically, if he had known about DNA and how complex heredity is, it would have cleared up a major problem with his theory. Would you like to know how?

believed animals and humans were fundamentally indifferent, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean here.
 

The Barbarian

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Recent DNA analysis doesn't seem to suggest a evolution anywhere in the past several hundred thousand years.

Except dogs, anatomically modern humans, polar bears, lots of plants and insects. There's a large number of observed speciations. Such as insect D. miranda, about 50 years, O. lamarckana, plant, about 100 years and so on.

Tibetans evolved their high-altitude compatibility in the past few thousand years. Polar bears no older than 150,000 years. Dogs on the outside, 50,000 years. Tuataras, about 200,000,000 years ago. Horseshoe crab, 445 million years old. Martialis huereka ant, 120 million years old. Apple maggot fly 200 years.

The analysis tends more to implicate that most of today's species appeared within the past 200,000 years then they have been there till now.

About 200,000 years was the onset of a severe glacial period. So that makes sense. Obviously, there are lots of exceptions, but they seem to be either marine or from environments less vulnerable to colder climate.
 

Guyver

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Sounds like you just responded sensibly to me Barbarian. Looks like you have a false accuser in the house.
 

Stripe

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Except dogs, anatomically modern humans, polar bears, lots of plants and insects. There's a large number of observed speciations. Such as insect D. miranda, about 50 years, O. lamarckana, plant, about 100 years and so on.

Given that Darwinists jump on things like bird songs or dog eyes as examples of speciation — a term so malleable as to be next to useless in a scientific discussion — it's not surprising that you can find something, anything, to talk about to avoid the challenge.
 

The Barbarian

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Well, me, but kudos. There are a few on TOL who won't agree of course. I'm sure you've met them here as well. :up:

Yeah, takes all kinds, um?

Off the top of my head, that Africans are a lesser inferior species. Descent of Man p. 201

That wasn't one of his points. Turns out, his four points remain as well-documented as ever. Darwin differed from his fellows mainly in arguing that Africans, after a few generations in England, would be as capable intellectually as Englishmen. And of course, in asserting that all humans deserved liberty and the right to their own labor.

Could use a bit of elaboration here, if you've the time. Thanks.

SDAs, who invented YE creationism have, in my experience, been less angry and dismissive of Christians who don't believe their version of Genesis, than are many non-SDA creationists.

(Darwin)was a bit of an enigma considering he'd studied theology first. He does mention God, but his grasp of how God could have done things wasn't very clear in his mind. He didn't, by that matter, use his Bible as a roadmap and seemed to think some of the Bible wasn't inspired.

He changed over a lifetime. When he was formulating his theory, he mentions how his Anglican orthodoxy was a source of amusement for the officers of the Beagle. Late in life, he said he was leaning toward agnosticism. So it matters what time in his life he wrote things.

And I've already demonstrated how a mutation in a population produces new information. If you missed it, I can do the numbers for you.

Yes. Please.

O.K. Shannon showed information in a message is related to the uncertainty of the next bit coming in a message. So for a population genome, that means for any particular gene, the information is found by Summing the product of the frequency of each allele(version of a gene) by the log of the frequency of that allele, and multiplying it by -1.

Shannon%2BWiener%2BDiversity%2BIndex%2BEquation.jpg


So, for a gene with two alleles, each 0.5 frequency, the information would be -(0.5 X log(0.5) + 0.5 X log(0.5)) or about 0.301. The more alleles, the greater the uncertainty of the genome of the next individual, and therefore, the greater the information in the genome itself.


0.1% It is very small. From what I understand (your input appreciated) the DNA strand doesn't lose information per say, but rather shows dominant and lesser traits.

There are dominant alleles, where only one has to be present to be expressed in the phenotype, and recessive alleles, where two have to be present to be expressed. Brown eyes are dominant, and blue are recessive, so a person with blue eyes has two alleles for blue. A person with brown eyes might have either one or two alleles for brown. It's not quite that simple, but that's how it works. There is also mixed dominance. Best example I know of is a white horse with two alleles for a "cream gene", and a reddish horse with two alleles for reddish, will produce only palominos. Hence, palominos can't "breed true." They are heterozygotes, with two different alleles for color.

IOW, as I grasp, the genes are all carried, just differences in what becomes a trait. It is why, again as I understand, my eyes are brown, my wife's are green, and my daughter's are blue: No 'new' traits, simply another already there, becoming dominant.

New alleles only happen by mutation. This is fairly common; all of us have dozens of mutations not found in either of our parents. Most of them don't do anything measurable.

"New" here not meaning never being seen in the gene pool. This is where language needs to be very certain and careful.

It means an allele not previously present in the gene pool. This could happen by immigration of a new individual with that allele, or by mutation. It's a major issue, since most speciations happen in small populations, with less diversity than normal.


From what I'm reading, when someone says, for example that the sun changes my dna skin tones, it isn't really that it is new information, but rather a way my skin already acts.

Yes. It's not a genetic change. The sun's rays merely induce melanocytes to move melanin from the center of the cell, to a wider distribution,thus darkening skin.
MITF-actively-controls-the-differentiation-program-The-scheme-displays-the-different.png


Thus 'change' is (for me) a poor descriptor because it is merely a difference in the SAME DNA code. It is difficult to describe, but I think, essentially, these poor descriptors are always the problem. We just are not communicating effectively/creating misunderstood concepts such that another rightly 'should' question what we are saying. In essence, I've always tried to answer questions but it does often put me on a fence for not being as definitive as I think science education needs to be. It needs a better described conveyance.

Yes, and biologists often assume a good understanding of high school biology on the part of laymen. Which is not a good assumption.

Would you agree that a majority of evolution/creation discussion on TOL is largely over term disagreement?

A great deal of it is.

Well, tree is different and it comes back to 'kinds.' If by kinds, we see God separating or recreating, then we can make some connections, but we have to be careful when doing so. The next line of scripture is that God formed man from the dust and breathed into him. Literal breath of God? Something of, but not from human lungs or a physical necessity. It is beyond the ability of science to grasp.

Yes. Our bodies are formed naturally, like other living things, but an immortal soul is given directly by God, which is beyond anything science can analyze.

Well, you have to deal with Romans 8:20 in order to say that. What does it mean?

Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

Clearly, relates to humans, not other creatures, who are not cursed by Adam's sin.

Rather, I think animals are subject to the curse as are plants etc. How? I'm not sure, just seeing Romans 8:20 saying all of creation groans. If you look at Genesis 3, man's curse was fallow ground, weeds, thorns, etc.

What other creature must till the soil to live? Weeds are of no concern to them.

If the wolf will one day lay down with the lamb, something, it would seem, must necessarily be out of order. Carnivores may have 1) been more of omnivores and 2) may have only eaten deceased creatures. Wild speculation? Yes, I'm left only guessing. Science observation 'could' shed light, perhaps. :think:

Cats can't live without meat. They just can't get essential amino acids without it.

What Exactly is an 'Obligate Carnivore?'
https://feline-nutrition.org/answers/answers-what-exactly-is-an-obligate-carnivore
 

Hawkins

Active member
Except dogs, anatomically modern humans, polar bears, lots of plants and insects. There's a large number of observed speciations. Such as insect D. miranda, about 50 years, O. lamarckana, plant, about 100 years and so on.

Tibetans evolved their high-altitude compatibility in the past few thousand years. Polar bears no older than 150,000 years. Dogs on the outside, 50,000 years. Tuataras, about 200,000,000 years ago. Horseshoe crab, 445 million years old. Martialis huereka ant, 120 million years old. Apple maggot fly 200 years.



About 200,000 years was the onset of a severe glacial period. So that makes sense. Obviously, there are lots of exceptions, but they seem to be either marine or from environments less vulnerable to colder climate.

No, the research actually implies that dogs or humans are nothing special. Humans are in the midst of all research targets that their DNA spectrum has nothing special.

To put it in another term, there's no trail implying that dogs or humans have evolved into something else in the past 200,000 years. By applying the same token, not only dogs and humans, it's not a particular known species existing today have ever evolved into anything else in the past 200,000 years. That's the implication of the result.

It seems to me that they tried to come up with an explanation compatible with ToE. That is, all species today had experienced a nearly extinction status some 200,000 ago that today's living organisms are all repopulated from that extremely small number of each species. That is, no evolution in the past 200,000, but evolution was still possible before 200,000, that is before the nearly extinction occurred.
 

The Barbarian

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Yes. As you see, humans have evolved markedly in the past few thousand years. Tibetans, for example, can now thrive at altitudes where just a few thousand years ago, humans could not. They were originally indistinguishable from Han Chinese, but now they are something else. Dogs are not wolves. Indeed, the wolves you see today are as different from the common ancestor as dogs are. Each of them are now something else, not that common ancestor. Would you like to learn how we know this?

the research actually implies that dogs or humans are nothing special.

True. As I showed you, there are many, many other organisms with similar genetic histories. It's the nature of evolution. Some are very much older than our species; some are very much younger. But we're about average; our history seems to be concurrent with an ice age about 100,000 years ago, as are many other animals. That's not surprising; major climate changes often lead to numerous extinctions and speciations.

To put it in another term, there's no trail implying that dogs or humans have evolved into something else in the past 200,000 years.

No,l that's wrong. Dogs, for example, Diverged with wolves from a common ancestor that was neither a dog nor a wolf of the sort we know today. Neither of them is the same thing as that common ancestor.

A new genetic analysis of modern dogs and wolves suggests that man's best friend was domesticated before agriculture.

But the origin of this domestication remains stubbornly mysterious. Researchers analyzed the genomes of wolves from three likely sites of domestication (the Middle East, Asia and eastern Europe), and found that modern dogs were not more closely related to any of the three. In fact, it seems that the closest wolf ancestors of today's dogs may have gone extinct, leaving no wild descendants.

"The dogs all form one group, and the wolves all form one group, and there's no wolf that these dogs are more closely related to of the three that we sampled," said study researcher John Novembre, a professor of genetics at the University of Chicago. "That's the big surprise of the study." [10 Things You Didn't Know About Dogs]

https://www.livescience.com/42649-dogs-closest-wolf-ancestors-extinct.html

By applying the same token, not only dogs and humans, it's not a particular known species existing today have ever evolved into anything else in the past 200,000 years. That's the implication of the result.

See above. It's just what the evidence shows. The common ancestor of dogs and wolves is extinct. On one side of the evolutionary trail, there's just dogs. On the other is only wolves. And that common ancestor that was neither of these was something else.

It seems to me that they tried to come up with an explanation compatible with ToE. That is, all species today had experienced a nearly extinction status some 200,000 ago that today's living organisms are all repopulated from that extremely small number of each species.

Many of them, particularly in the temperate zones, where ice ages would have the most effect, do show that. But as you just learned, there are many, many exceptions, which are either much older, or much younger than that.

Even in humans, significant adaptive evolution has preceded in the past 100,000 years, sometimes just in the last few thousand years.
 

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Yes. As you see, humans have evolved markedly in the past few thousand years. Tibetans, for example, can now thrive at altitudes where just a few thousand years ago, humans could not. They were originally indistinguishable from Han Chinese, but now they are something else. Dogs are not wolves. Indeed, the wolves you see today are as different from the common ancestor as dogs are. Each of them are now something else, not that common ancestor. Would you like to learn how we know this?
Because the created kinds have a great deal of variability in their genomes... not because they are all descended from a single common ancestor.
 
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