itt: evolution and trolling

[DankNuggets]

You never answered my main point ID theory is a bad theory as it can be twisted which ever way you want it.

Your challenge is to disprove the above statement supporting evolution (one in quotes)

actually, your main point is my main point FOR the possible existance of a God, the subsequent arrival of life on earth, and then the process we call evolution.

as far as the origins of life are concerned, i find the spontaneous generation of life theory (i know that's actually a diff. one, but bear with me, idk the right name) SO improbable that i actually believe the existance of a god is MORE probable, or at the least, EQUALLY improbable.

[Zeebu]

Not really, Provided my theory is true.
Case A
If Intelligent Designer Exists
Then Theory of Evelution must be correct
Case B
Intelligent Designer Does not Exist
Then Theory of Intelligent design is therefore wrong.
Note in Case B Theory of Evolution could still be incorrect

Deduction means the only way to attack my argument is to attack the theory I have put forward.

i agree with everything you say i think. i just dont understand how you proved that there was an intelligent designer in the mix. and i also agree with what you said about the theory of evolution maybe or maybe not being correct.

who knows what the initial conditions for life's creation was? i sure dont. but, we do know that once life was in place, the plants and animals (and any other life) that mutate favorably to their surroundings are more successful.


edit: this is the spot i was looking at. can you prove one way or the other that this would be different if it got to this point by random chance or by some intelligent creator?

[milosh]

faith does not play well together with science and statistics

I agree; however, this is not science* and statistics. The definition of a theory is an agreement by scientists to not travel to the unknown and supernatural. Stepping out of the bounds of this agreement is not the same as saying 2+2=5. These ideas aren't congruent. However, it is true that by defying this agreement you are not adhering to what makes a good theory, and on that point I agree with Doc Flabby.

* - it depends on how you are defining the word in this particular instance.

[DoTheFandango]

ITT, we say that noticing a trend of thousands of species among millions of years is not science.*


*with a disclaimer!

[milosh]

ITT, we say that noticing a trend of thousands of species among millions of years is not science.*


*with a disclaimer!

Have you resorted to mocking me as well? I never said this in the slightest; rather, I admitted that my beliefs don't fit in the confines of science. If I have misinterpreted this comment and you are not attempting to make a mockery of me, I apologize.

[Epinephrine]

Well, it has been calculated that it is around a 1:10^40,000 chance that all the necessary proteins for life would spontaneously appear in the same location.

1) How was this calculated? It sounds like some number you're just throwing up in the air. And no, linking to some site by some ID guy who just claims it to be true isn't going to sway anyone either.

2) No one knows the 'starting conditions' of such a thing. You point to the fact that lightning must have struck to create the peptides and so on, but that's just your take on it. No one really knows. It could have come from comets. Maybe in space it's very easy for these things to assemble spontaneously.

3) What does 'all the necessary proteins for life' even mean?!??

4) Since life is just a continuously running chemical reaction, and evolution has shown us that extra parts can be continuously added on, there is no need for 'all the necessary proteins for life' to even have been around at the same time or the same place. All that was needed was enough to keep the reaction going, and enough energy for that to happen. For all you know, extra peptides and extra amino acids were added in as time went on. With a rich enough soup (lightning strikes often, and even in your model, amino acids are produced which eventually could have been added into this reaction), and with any advantages that adding in extra bits would have conferred, even very few such occurrences each time, would over time have magnified the differences.

Organic compounds are special in the way that they are able to link up and form large complex molecules whereas a lot of other compounds would not be able to no matter what. If linking up represents a lower energy state, things would naturally progress to this point, life or not, and as long as certain starting conditions were met, perhaps it's extremely easy for life to start.



But really, no one knows how it all began. The ID theory is that it did because someone made it that way. That's nice and all, but it doesn't address the problem of 'who made life'. Obviously since ID is created by creationists (aka Christians), the 'who' is god. But I ask you... who made god? No one knows, and thus that 'theory' just as a full of holes.

In the end, using the idea of 'intelligent designer' is just a cop out. It's a way to just give up the search for any further answers because everything has already been answered. It's the way the Western world was for 1000 years before the renaissance, and a way that assures ignorance. There have been so many myths that were once held as truth that have been revealed to be false over the years. If we just keep a static idea of 'no it can't happen, therefore someone made it end of story' then we shall never overcome our ignorance.

And hey, if in the end we can prove without a doubt that an intelligent designer made everything, then I think science would accept that too and if i'm around then, I would too because... that's how science works.

[Jerome Scuggs]

edit: you know im just not gonna get into it, but epinephrine is making some decent points. all in all, though, why does it matter? at the point where noone's arguing the existence of the biblical christian god (and all the fun things like heaven/hell, etc), then it becomes pretty pointless to wonder why we're here. you'll die before you ever get an answer, and that's just a waste of a perfectly good existence.

[dads revenge]

You earthlings are soo silly.:grin:

[milosh]

1) How was this calculated? It sounds like some number you're just throwing up in the air. And no, linking to some site by some ID guy who just claims it to be true isn't going to sway anyone either.

Well, this particular calculation was taken from the book Evolution from Space written by this man. He is indeed a creationist; however he also has awards from the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and several medals. In addition, he has a degree in mathematics from a constituent of the University of Cambridge and served as a director at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. I am by no means attempting to prove that he is not biased, but if your argument is that every Creationist is biased then why can I not call every Evolutionist biased? Let's just do away with this reasoning all together.

If you don't like this particular calculation you can try out one of the numerous others that I've provided. "In calculating the probability of evolution based on mutation and natural selection, Marcel P. Schutzenberger of the University of Paris concluded that "there is no chance (<10^-1000) to see this mechanism appear spontaneously and if it did, even less for it to remain." This is quoted from Algorithms and Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution in the John Ankerberg and John Weldon chapter "Rational Inquiry & the Force of Scientific Data: Are New Horizons Emerging?" There are many more calculations, and I do apologize that I am a poor journalist and have failed to used citations on most of my examples.

In attempting to make a case for the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, Carl Sagan and Francis Crick estimated that the difficulty of evolving a human by chance processes alone is one in 10^2,000,000,000. Francis Crick is one of the Nobel Laureates that helped discover the structure of DNA and an evolutionist.

2) No one knows the 'starting conditions' of such a thing. You point to the fact that lightning must have struck to create the peptides and so on, but that's just your take on it. No one really knows. It could have come from comets. Maybe in space it's very easy for these things to assemble spontaneously.

Granted; No one does know the 'starting conditions' of such a thing. I am only stating what it cannot be.

3) What does 'all the necessary proteins for life' even mean?!??

Proteins are required for metabolism, reproduction, and any kind of intracellular movement. It's the same as asking what the basic components of a working computer are. A computer can operate without a monitor just like a human can operate without a limb. 238 is just an estimated value of the bare minimum needed for life to sustain itself.

4) Since life is just a continuously running chemical reaction, and evolution has shown us that extra parts can be continuously added on, there is no need for 'all the necessary proteins for life' to even have been around at the same time or the same place. All that was needed was enough to keep the reaction going, and enough energy for that to happen. For all you know, extra peptides and extra amino acids were added in as time went on. With a rich enough soup (lightning strikes often, and even in your model, amino acids are produced which eventually could have been added into this reaction), and with any advantages that adding in extra bits would have conferred, even very few such occurrences each time, would over time have magnified the differences.

This only makes the probability more complicated. Certain proteins, enzymes, and nucleotides aren't optional for the reactions needed for life. The more proteins we take out of the equation the more improbable it becomes as on the atomic level things would just have to "work out" in the right circumstances.

"Using information theory, astrophysicist Edward Argyle calculated the probability that a single organism arose on the early Earth by chance. Argyle concluded: “It would seem impossible for the prebiotic Earth to have generated more than about 200 bits of information, an amount that falls short of the 6 million bits in E. coli by a factor of 30,000.”

Edward Argyle
“Chance and the Origin of Life”
Extraterrestrials – Where Are They?
Cambridge University Press, 1995
p. 131

[Money]

seriously milosh, give google a break

[DoTheFandango]

If I have misinterpreted this comment and you are not attempting to make a mockery of me, I apologize.

No, I'm mocking you. Good call.

I just don't see a way this thread will be resolved. You will refute our thinking with cracks and questions we cant answer, we will respond with similar questions that you can't answer, but will try, and no one gets anywhere.

You have your theory and we have ours. That's it.

Now, back to MBV.

Only Shallow -- Greatest Intro Track ever?

[DoTheFandango]

Double post, but I think Milosh needs to read this, then we can peace out.

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.

But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

that's all i got.

[Stormwick]

i like this.

[Fluffz]

1:10^40,000

it does not matter what number come up with because you dont exist. 1 ejaculation has around 100 million semen it it. The chance of exactly you being born is 1:100 million. Lets go 1000 generations back and assume everyone only had sex once. Your chance of being borne is reduced dramatically to lousy 1:10^8000. Even if sex did only take one second with 10^17 seconds elapsed in this Universe you can not be borne yet.

OH SNAP!

[milosh]

But really, no one knows how it all began. The ID theory is that it did because someone made it that way. That's nice and all, but it doesn't address the problem of 'who made life'. Obviously since ID is created by creationists (aka Christians), the 'who' is god. But I ask you... who made god? No one knows, and thus that 'theory' just as a full of holes.

This is the same as asking me how God made matter. I have no idea! We've established that I have crossed the boundaries of science and so outside of it how can one attempt to explain it? If God created matter and time then He is not bound by it; The necessary understanding we have that in time everything is based on cause and effect does not apply. It isn't a hole in the theory; the theory is one giant hole.