One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

[HansTrappist]

Lol. Have you even tried to look for it? Obviously not, as it is all over the front page of a google search or even a yahoo one. So much for intellectual honesty.

No, I can’t seem to find this ubiquitous study that disproved Behe’s argument decades before the data was around from which Behe made his arguments.

I’m calling your bluff…

 

[vz71]

It changes nothing, actually. Mary is the mother of God the son, not God the Father and not God the Holy Spirit. She did not carry the Father for nine months and she did not raise the Holy Spirit from infancy.

Perhaps you should focus more on the analogy itself and how it applies to the subject at hand instead of desperately trying to nitpick it apart any way you can so you don’t have to acknowledge the argument.

I did address the argument.
You missed it.

That is fine, it is a long thread.

 

[vz71]

Evolution:
Wikipedia:
The change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.

Conservapedia:
The theory of evolution is a naturalistic theory of the history of life on earth (this refers to the theory of evolution which employs methodological naturalism and is taught in schools and universities). Merriam-Webster’s dictionary gives the following definition of evolution: “a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations…”

Emphasis added by me. Note that this “encyclopedia” entry wisely distinguishes methodological naturalism from philosophical naturalism. So those that invoke atheism into the discussion need not do so. If one must do so, all you are really pointing out (but clearly do not understand) is that atheists who believe in evolution and theists who believe in evolution are espousing the same thing - but that does NOT mean the theists are espousing an atheistic idea!

Also notice the word preexisting. Stop conflating abiogenesis with evolution. If you have a problem with abiogenesis, fine. You can still fully embrace evolution without embracing abiogenesis if that’s how you want to be. I am not saying the two are not related, but please please please consider the evidence for evolution independent of abiogenesis.

So to sum up - a person who accepts the general notion of evolution as the majority of scientists/evolutionary biologists define it, is not making any statement on their belief in God one way or the other when they say they believe in evolution.

Intelligent Design:
Conservapedia:
Intelligent design (ID) is the empirically testable theory that the natural world shows signs of having been designed by a purposeful, intelligent cause.
…Intelligent causes include the actions of an intelligent agent…manipulating physics and chemistry to create something that physics and chemistry alone cannot.

Wikipedia:
Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism presented by its proponents as a theory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

These definitions are not identical in the sense that Wikipedia goes on to say ID is NOT empirically testable, but put that aside for the moment. Instead, please note the definition of theistic evolution from Wikipedia:
"the position that “evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God…[it] accepts that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God.”
As you can see, theistic evolution, which is what Farsight, Judas, and others are supporting, is not the same thing as Intelligent Design even though they are not rejecting the idea that God is intelligent or that God did not guide the process. (If I may be so bold to say that.)
In summary, it is important to note that Intelligent Design is a rejection of important aspects of evolution where as theistic evolution is an acceptance.

More to come re: creationism

Rats.
I do not appear to fit any of these definitions.

Evolution sounds like an elegant theory, but I have never seen an example of one species becoming another.
I know that many point out bacteria. But I have a hard time believing a bacterium is a proper analogy for an animal.
Bacteria does things animals cannot all of the time.
Animals do things bacteria cannot all the time.
Why would someone insist bacteria doing something means every organism can?

I know genetically speaking we are similar to other primates.
But so what? I re-use computer code all of the time.
That does not mean that my accounting program came from a computer game.

I am creationist in that I know God created everything from nothing.
But I do not take the bible literally.

I recognize a design in everything.
I recognize God is directly in control of it all.
The bible specifies that God fashioned us in the womb.
I imagine that covers the genetic makeup.
And I have to consider now that God is directly involved in genetics for all of the species.
And that means random mutation is out.

So where exactly is that? Doesn’t fir any of the prescribed definitions.

I guess I will just continue being the ambiguous one that is weighing all options.

 

[Farsight001]

There is plenty of scientific evidence for a Global Flood. Quit being silly.

Then where is it? Where is, in particular, the flood marker that should be easily found anywhere on earth?

We would defer to sacred scripture and sacred Tradition. Not everything in the bible literally happened, as you know. The bible’s purpose is to teach us theological truth, not history. Furthermore, the Church officially teaches that we are free to believe it was not literal.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Farsight001]

Without knowing what exactly the search parameters are, it would be difficult to claim dishonesty for the results of a search not showing what you anticipate.

Try something reasonable 'response to Behe mechanical limit" or similar. But really, a rather wide variety of searches produce similar results. That a person spent time looking for a response and could not find one is very doubtful.

 

[Farsight001]

No, I can’t seem to find this ubiquitous study that disproved Behe’s argument decades before the data was around from which Behe made his arguments.

I’m calling your bluff…

Who said it was a study? Behe didn’t perform a study. Why should we have to? Again, you should actually look for the response before you suggest no one has responded.

 

[Farsight001]

I did address the argument.
You missed it.

That is fine, it is a long thread.

Really? And what was your response to it? Frankly, I don’t believe you produced a response. It is a long thread, but the argument made was relatively recent. I can see pretty quickly you did not respond to it.

 

[Crossbones]

You originally answered you didn’t agree with the idea. Now you are using a number. Has your position changed and now we just have to come to a number we agree with?

The idea doesn’t work because 10^45 is pretty much pulled out of the air. There isn’t a bound if one of the numbers you use is boundless.

 

[Farsight001]

Rats.
I know that many point out bacteria. But I have a hard time believing a bacterium is a proper analogy for an animal.
Bacteria does things animals cannot all of the time.
Animals do things bacteria cannot all the time.
Why would someone insist bacteria doing something means every organism can?

notice the logic here. You have a hard time believing that bacteria evolution would support animal evolution because “Bacteria does things animals cannot and animals do things bacteria cannot.” By that logic, you can reject any and everything that displays evolution as lacking enough proof. If I proved that housecats came from sabertooth tigers, you could suggest that this was not proof that apes evolved because cats can do things apes cannot and apes can do things cats cannot. Since when was having any ability something else does not have a reason to doubt their relation?

So where exactly is that? Doesn’t fir any of the prescribed definitions.

You haven’t elaborated on your beliefs enough to provide a distinction. Do you believe the earth is old or young? Are you ambiguous on the truth of evolution vs. direct creation? In all your posts here, you sound like either a young or old earth creationist.

I guess I will just continue being the ambiguous one that is weighing all options.

Ask yourself this question - if you really want to weigh all options, why are you not arguing against the creationists as well?

 

[Crossbones]

The idea doesn’t work because 10^45 is pretty much pulled out of the air. There isn’t a bound if one of the numbers used is boundless.

 

[HansTrappist]

Who said it was a study?

You did. And you said it was “all over the front page of a google search or even a yahoo one” and then you accused me of being intellectually dishonest.

So, once again, I ask you to provide me with a link to this study that you claim disproves Behe.

Behe didn’t perform a study. Why should we have to? Again, you should actually look for the response before you suggest no one has responded.

Yeah, I looked. Can’t find “it.” Whatever “it” really is. Since you brought “it” up I thought you might be able to to point me in the right direction. Perhaps I am asking too much.

And yes, Behe crafted a powerful argument against Darwinian Evolution based on the observational data available from the studies of HIV, Malaria and E.Coli.

For example, Behe did not study E.Coli directly. Richard Lenski did. But Behe, who is a biochemist, was able to see the obvious negative implications Lenski’s study has for Darwinian Evolution:

"The studies of malaria and HIV provide by far the best direct evidence of what evolution can do. The reason is simple: numbers. The greater the number of organisms, the greater the chance that a lucky mutation will come along, to be grabbed by natural selection. But other results with other organisms can help us find the edge of evolution, especially laboratory results where evolutionary changes can be followed closely. The largest, most ambitious, controlled laboratory evolutionary study was begun more than a decade ago in the laboratory of Professor Richard Lenski at Michigan State University. Lenski wanted to follow evolution in real time. He started a project to watch the unfolding of cultures of the common gut bacterium Escherichia coli. E. coli is a favorite laboratory organism that has been studied by many scientists for more than a century. The bug is easy to grow and has a very short generation span of as little as twenty minutes under favorable conditions. Like those of P. falciparum, H. sapiens, and HIV, the entire genome of E. coli has been sequenced.

Unlike malaria and HIV, which both have to fend for themselves in the wild and fight tooth and claw with the human immune system, the E. coli in Lenski’s lab were coddled. They had a stable environment, daily food, and no predators. But doesn’t evolution need a change in the environment to spur it on? Shouldn’t we expect little evolution of E. coli in the lab, where its environment is tightly controlled? No and no. One of the most important factors in an organism’s environment is the presence of other organisms. Even in a controlled lab culture where bacteria are warm and well fed, the bug that reproduces fastest or outcompetes others will dominate the population. Like gravity, Darwinian evolution never stops.

But what does it yield? In the early 1990s Lenski and coworkers began to grow E. coli in flasks; the flasks reached their capacity of bacteria after about six or seven doublings. Every day he transferred a portion of the bugs to a fresh flask. By now over thirty thousand generations of E. coli, roughly the equivalent of a million years in the history of humans, have been born and died in Lenski’s lab. In each flask the bacteria would grow to a population size of about five hundred million. Over the whole course of the experiment, perhaps ten trillion, 1013, E. coli have been produced. Although ten trillion sounds like a lot (it’s probably more than the number of primates on the line from chimp to human), it’s virtually nothing compared to the number of malaria cells that have infested the earth. In the past fifty years there have been about a billion times as many of those as E. coli in the Michigan lab, which makes the study less valuable than our data on malaria.

Nonetheless, the E. coli work has pointed in the same general direction. The lab bacteria performed much like the wild pathogens: A host of incoherent changes have slightly altered pre-existing systems. Nothing fundamentally new has been produced. 25 No new protein-protein interactions, no new molecular machines. As with thalassemia in humans, some large evolutionary advantages have been conferred by breaking things. Several populations of bacteria lost their ability to repair DNA. One of the most beneficial mutations, seen repeatedly in separate cultures, was the bacterium’s loss of the ability to make a sugar called ribose, which is a component of RNA. Another was a change in a regulatory gene called spoT, which affected en masse how fifty-nine other genes work, either increasing or decreasing their activity. One likely explanation for the net good effect of this very blunt mutation is that it turned off the energetically costly genes that make the bacterial flagellum, saving the cell some energy. Breaking some genes and turning others off, however, won’t make much of anything. After a while, beneficial changes from the experiment petered out. 26 The fact that malaria, with a billion fold more chances, gave a pattern very similar to the more modest studies on E. coli strongly suggests that that’s all Darwinism can do."

 

[buffalo]

Alrighty then, let’s try the Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html
How has my position changed?

I don’t think you did ask, but let’s answer: God knew, God knows everything, God may
have even guided evolution (not that you accept that) to make man the way he wanted.

The link is not convincing. One could simply substitute the word evolution for ID in their statements.

Are they unaware that the modern synthesis is being replaced by self-organization as we speak.

An Atheist defends intelligent design

“FAQ: Does intelligent design theory implement the scientific method?”

“A Positive, Testable Case for Intelligent Design”

“The Positive Case for Design”

“Intelligent design (ID) has scientific merit because it uses the scientific method to make its claims and infers design by testing its positive predictions”

“How Do We Know Intelligent Design Is a Scientific “Theory”?”

“Does Intelligent Design Help Science Generate New Knowledge?”

• See more at: evolutionnews.org/2012/11/why_intelligent1066741.html#sthash.iDol2D3N.dpuf

%between%

 

[Farsight001]

You did. And you said it was “all over the front page of a google search or even a yahoo one” and then you accused me of being intellectually dishonest.

I did not call it a study, and I said the refutation of Behe was easily found. Now how about you actually LOOK for it instead of playing word games?

And yes, Behe crafted a powerful argument against Darwinian Evolution based on the observational data available from the studies of HIV, Malaria and E.Coli.

Looking at bacteria and musing about how they might have gotten that way is not a “study” by ANY stretch of the word.

For example, Behe did not study E.Coli directly. Richard Lenski did. But Behe, who is a biochemist, was able to see the obvious negative implications Lenski’s study has for Darwinian Evolution:

So I never said there was a study that refuted Behe, and you suggest I am lying, you DO say there was a study produced by Behe, and now you admit he didn’t do one. Wouldn’t that, by your logic, make you the liar?

Again, you really should look for the response before simply claiming that it does not exist. I’m not just trying to show you that Behe is wrong. I’m trying to get you to learn how to look for contrary evidence too, which you can’t learn if I just always do it for you.

 

[Farsight001]

The link is not convincing. One could simply substitute the word evolution for ID in their statements.

Are they unaware that the modern synthesis is being replaced by self-organization as we speak.

An Atheist defends intelligent design

“FAQ: Does intelligent design theory implement the scientific method?”

“A Positive, Testable Case for Intelligent Design”

“The Positive Case for Design”

“Intelligent design (ID) has scientific merit because it uses the scientific method to make its claims and infers design by testing its positive predictions”

“How Do We Know Intelligent Design Is a Scientific “Theory”?”

“Does Intelligent Design Help Science Generate New Knowledge?”

• See more at: evolutionnews.org/2012/11/why_intelligent1066741.html#sthash.iDol2D3N.dpuf

%between%

Seriously? You have a link to a credible source? Or perhaps an argument to make? Throwing out as many links as you can to overwhelm your opponent is disingenuous at worst, and just plain unhelpful at the very least.

 

[HansTrappist]

Not everything in the bible literally happened, as you know. The bible’s purpose is to teach us theological truth, not history. Furthermore, the Church officially teaches that we are free to believe it was not literal.

A lot of things in the Bible literally happened.

For example:

Adam and Eve were the first human beings and were real people.

Noah was real. Noah’s Ark was real and the Deluge was real. How do we know? God said so, that’s how:

"God said to Noah, 'The end has come for all things of flesh; I have decided this, because the earth is full of violence of man’s making, and I will efface them from the earth. Make yourself an ark out of resinous wood. Make it with reeds and line it with pitch inside and out. This is how to make it: the length of the ark is to be three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark…put the door of the ark high up in the side, and make a first, second and third deck.

For my part I mean to bring a flood, and send the waters over the earth, to destroy all flesh on it, every living creature under heaven;** everything on earth shall perish**. But I will establish my Covenant with you…" (Genesis 6:13-18)

Moses was also real and he really parted the Red Sea and really called down real supernatural Plagues upon the Egyptians.

Jesus was also real and really rose from the dead.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

The link is not convincing. One could simply substitute the word evolution for ID in their statements.

Are they unaware that the modern synthesis is being replaced by self-organization as we speak.

They wouldn’t, however, “substitute the word evolution for ID in their statements” be-
cause they are scientists, not FUNDAMENTAL Christians motivated to do anything
and everything to protect a literal interpretation of the Bible.

I’m sorry you didn’t accept that link, and you can manipulate sentences any way you’d like, but it doesn’t make any of your points valid.

Just because you can say “oh we can drop this word and put
this one here instead…”, it doesn’t make a great argument.

 

[vz71]

notice the logic here. You have a hard time believing that bacteria evolution would support animal evolution because “Bacteria does things animals cannot and animals do things bacteria cannot.” By that logic, you can reject any and everything that displays evolution as lacking enough proof.

Perhaps I was not clear.
I do not see things bacteria does as indicative of what every other organism can do.
Just because bacteria can do something does not necessarily mean higher organisms can or do.

If I proved that housecats came from sabertooth tigers, you could suggest that this was not proof that apes evolved because cats can do things apes cannot and apes can do things cats cannot. Since when was having any ability something else does not have a reason to doubt their relation?

Because cats are a much higher organism, and share so much more traits and abilities to human, I would have a much less difficult to believe that if a cat gave birth to a different species humans could to.

You haven’t elaborated on your beliefs enough to provide a distinction. Do you believe the earth is old or young? Are you ambiguous on the truth of evolution vs. direct creation? In all your posts here, you sound like either a young or old earth creationist.

Well how old or young would I have to believe the earth to be?

Ask yourself this question - if you really want to weigh all options, why are you not arguing against the creationists as well?

Logic of a scientific theory can be readily scrutinized.
Faith cannot.

 

[HansTrappist]

I did not call it a study, and I said the refutation of Behe was easily found. Now how about you actually LOOK for it instead of playing word games?

The only one playing games on this thread is you.

YOU first mentioned this as yet unknown “refutation” of Behe’s arguments.

But YOU have yet to introduce to the class here the “refutation” that** YOU** first mentioned.

Tick, tock…

So I never said there was a study that refuted Behe, and you suggest I am lying

Aw, you poor baby…no one is suggesting you are lying. Quit trying to derail this thread.

And yes, a couple of lines above in your own post you did suggest that there is something readily available on “google and yahoo” (your words) that “refutes” (your word) Behe. You then berated me for not being able to find this grand refutation and yet over numerous postings here you refuse to provide a link or citation to this refutation.

You are fast losing all credibility and throwing tantrums is not going to help your purpose here.

 

[Farsight001]

A lot of things in the Bible literally happened.

For example:

Adam and Eve were the first human beings and were real people.

Noah was real. Noah’s Ark was real and the Deluge was real. How do we know? God said so, that’s how:

You can believe it was real all you want. That’s fine. As I said, just don’t try and tell me the science supports it. Also don’t try to tell me I must believe it all literally happened. Unless the Church dictates that I believe it, I have no need to do so. Repeat yourself all you want, but without a doctrinal declaration from the Church, you’re just wasting your breath.

 

[Farsight001]

Perhaps I was not clear.
I do not see things bacteria does as indicative of what every other organism can do.
Just because bacteria can do something does not necessarily mean higher organisms can or do.

Because cats are a much higher organism, and share so much more traits and abilities to human, I would have a much less difficult to believe that if a cat gave birth to a different species humans could to.