Evolution and Darwin against Religion and God

[Lion_IRC]

It’s funny how when we theists talk about fine tuning and design in nature, atheists like Braskii give us the lecture about how our primitive pattern-seeking brains are tricked by the illusion of intentional causation.

Then, in a feat of amazing mental gymnastics they perform the backwards somersault of denying their own pattern-seeking behaviour when it comes to what evolution entails.

Evolution and natural selection are a process of unguided unpredictable chance. It is purely materialistic, blind, relies on spontaneous mutation, and mindlessly unintentional outcomes. It is the epitome of purposelessness - thus, it is arguably an atheistic alternative to teleology.

How do I come to this view? I’m not making this up myself.

Seriously. Read Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Douglas Futuyma, Francis Crick.

 

[Lion_IRC]

@rossum

You didn’t answer my point.

Here it is again - simplified.

Event #1.
Random (unpredictable) mutation confers (unexpected) survival advantage (immunity) on certain hosts in a species. Sick people die. Healthy people make babies. The mutation chalks up a temporary victory.

Unrelated Event #2
Pathogen is on the verge of extinction because, for some inexplicable reason, its host population has unexpectedly (randomly) mutated and become immune. But in an amazing stroke of good fortune, that same pathogen undergoes a freakishly unexpected mutation of its own and is now able to thrive and multiply in that previously inhospitable host.

Now, how on earth do you get any useful predictive power from anything described above when the chance event #1 is nullified by the chance event #2 ?

 

[Lion_IRC]

Five times evolution (unexpectedly) ran in ‘reverse’

https://news.nationalgeographic.com...on-explained-hagfish-penguins-snakes-science/

Of course a blind, unguided process doesn’t know what direction it’s going. But the point is that there is no theoretical obstacle (according to atheistic evolution) to the earth returning to a primordial state of lifelessness as the result of random, unpredictable evolutionary chance/change.

 

[rossum]

Now, how on earth do you get any useful predictive power from anything described above when the chance event #1 is nullified by the chance event #2 ?

Chances can be calculated. Roulette is a game of chance, yet the odds are calculated and known. Good poker players know the odds of improving any particular hand.

Here is a specific prediction from a scientific paper on the HbC malaria resistance mutation:

These findings, together with the limited pathology of HbAC and HbCC compared to the severely disadvantaged HbSS and HbSC genotypes and the low betaS gene frequency in the geographic epicentre of betaC, support the hypothesis that, in the long term and in the absence of malaria control, HbC would replace HbS in central West Africa.

Source: Haemoglobin C protects against clinical Plasmodium falciparum malaria.

 

[Lion_IRC]

You mean that if I know facts a, b and c, with certainty, then I can predict that ‘d’ is a likely outcome. (Note - likely outcome. Tentative. Not certain.)

Is that what you mean by “predictable”?
Cos you didn’t qualify the necessity to have evolution under control in a test tube in order to ‘predict’ that some mutations are beneficial - in the absence of all other confounding variables.

 

[o_mlly]

Is that what you mean by “predictable”?
Cos you didn’t qualify the necessity to have evolution under control in a test tube in order to ‘predict’ that some mutations are beneficial - in the absence of all other confounding variables.

Proponents of evolution would like to dismiss the math that shows random mutation and natural selection are extremely improbable as the sole causes of the diversity of life on the planet.

In order to sustain the theory that evolution could explain the complexity and diversity of life, they dropped the bar of proof from probable to merely plausible. In doing so, they moved their theory out of the realm of science and into metaphysics.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Atheistic, Communistic, Marxist agenda

You must live in N. Korea. I can’t think of anywhere else that would teach this…

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Proponents of evolution would like to dismiss the math that shows random mutation and natural selection are extremely improbable as the sole causes of the diversity of life on the planet.

Not me. I love math! Lets’ do some (based on “How Life Began” by Alexandre Meinesz, a French biologist, 2008)

Time involved: “Life began on earth at least 3.5 billion years ago.” (p. 30)

Size of “life”: “…smallest diameter of living organisms is 0.0002 millimeters” [.2 microns] (p. 31)

Amount of “life”: For about 1.2 billion years, the only life forms were bacteria. (p. 53) Chemobacteria have been found up to 10 km. underground. (p. 54). The volume of chemobacteria [and of course there are other kinds…] could form a layer 1.5 meters thick over the entire surface of the earth. (p. 54)

So take 3.5 billion years x .2 microns per bacterium x 1.5 meters of one type (!) of bacteria spread over the earth’s surface = a number my calculator can’t deal with. But that’s the number evolution has to work with.

You flip a coin that many times, and you’ll get heads 100 times in a row quite a few times. “Random mutation” and “natural selection” “improbable”? Not with those numbers. The most improbable outcomes would become probable.

 

[buffalo]

This is nothing new. It’s been known since the 1970s that SOME mutations are due to some sort of feedback loop with the environment. It’s not clear what causes them.

There were at least two deniers here.

 

[Bradskii]

But you either didn’t read or were unable to rebut the factual point I raised about the consequences of one unpredictable, spontaneous mutation being nullified by the consequences of another random mutation - resulting in the opposite effect.

Answer my point then we will talk.

Maybe you didn’t know - well, actually I’m pretty certain that you didn’t know otherwise you would have realised the question is nonsensical, that the vast majority of mutations are in any case neutral or deleterious.

If an organism had a mutation that was beneficial and passed that on to the next generation and by an astronomically small chance that exact organism had a mutation that exactly cancelled out the benefits passed on by its parent, then…nothing would happen.

Just as when a mutation is entirely neutral.

The sound you hear in the background is me scratching my head trying to determine exactly what point it was you were trying to make. That some mutaitions are deleterious? Who woukd have known…?

Well, anyone with a basic knowledge of the subject.

 

[buffalo]

Is that all you know how to do?
Accuse people who disagree with your opinions of not understanding the topic? Lame.

That is his mo. Rarely does one actually see a scientific backed rebuttal. It is always you just don’t understand. Then they go to rule #1.

 

[Bradskii]

Here’s a novel suggestion Bradskii
Use the quote function and show where I have stated something factually false.
You and your evo pals have done nothing but gainsay other peoples opinions while simply asserting your own contrary opinions.

I did. But here it is again to save you scrolling up…

There’s nothing to criticise about ‘evolution’.
It’s a blind, random, involuntary process.

See if you can spot the bit that’s false.

 

[buffalo]

That allows some prediction for evolution overall.

Indeed, it comes at a genetic cost that makes the organism less adaptable. We also know now, bacteria will actually jettison their propulsion tail for a short term survival advantage.

A temporary mutational benefit comes at the long term cost of extinction.

 

[buffalo]

In order to sustain the theory that evolution could explain the complexity and diversity of life, they dropped the bar of proof from probable to merely plausible. In doing so, they moved their theory out of the realm of science and into metaphysics.

It is worse than that. If it is possible, it happened. It is quite amazing that is how low the bar is set.

Yet, they do not consider the odds of design.

 

[Gorgias]

IF you claim that someone can’t posit a scientific opinion unless they are formally trained in that discipline, then YOU can’t dispute that position unless YOU are formally trained in that discipline.

That’s not at all what I’m claiming: what I’m claiming is that a person can’t present themselves as a credentialed authority unless he is a credentialed authority. If Brown were making claims about mechanical engineering, and backing them up with his degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, then that’d be one thing. He isn’t, though: he’s making claims in other fields, and holding up his engineering degree and saying “see! I’m an MIT grad! I know what I’m talking about!”

Don’t make an ad hominem attack on Dr. Brown.

I’m not. I’m sure he’s a wonderful man. He’s just not a biologist or a physicist.

As for your statement about how he should list what he is self-taught about in his qualifications, nobody I know ever does that.

Precisely. Cause we’d get laughed out of the room.

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

Then there should be billions of incremental transitional fossils to prove it [= great variety of species].

With a few rare exceptions, fossils are bones only. They would show internal organs, skin, etc. So changes in these simply wouldn’t show up in the fossil record.

I guess Stephen Jay Gould should have realized this before he came up with the idea of punctuated equilibrium.

 

[John121]

All I have noticed is people who don’t believe in the Catholic Church and atheists on the side of evolution and this is why it’s a lie spread by the Demons of the world to help there agenda spread disinformation about the creation of life and then people just use scientific jargon to try back up the claims that it’s real and these same people will complain that faith is blind when they have no proof for the theory hence the word theory !

 

[rossum]

A temporary mutational benefit comes at the long term cost of extinction.

Every species will go extinct eventually. The average mammal species lasts about 500,000 years before going extinct. Your “temporary” benefit can last for a long time.

 

[Rabbi]

Judaism has never rejected evolution, if anything, the rabbis of the Middle Ages spoke of it.

 

[rossum]

Yet, they do not consider the odds of design.

OK, what are the odds of an intelligent designer appearing. Show us your calculations please. Remember, that if the odds are low, then the odds of intelligent humans are similarly low.

If you want an omniscient intelligent designer then you will need to factor that into the odds calculation as well.