two questions about evolution as I consider leaving the church

[The_Barbarian]

Augustine, while I admire him greatly, had erroneous views in some parts of his theology. His soteriological position of limited atonement for example. He certainly is not a final authority on the days of Genesis.

The Pope also, while I too admire his work, is not the final authority on the theory of evolutionary processes.

They do, however, have considerably more credibility with most Catholics than you do. The Pope, in particular, has more credibility with me on the subject of evolution, since it is clear from his writing that he understand the theory.

Popes have been wrong in their own personal assessments on matters of great many areas throughout the church’s history.

I happen to know more about the issue of evolution than the Pope does. And what he has written about common descent and the evidence for it, is correct. The theological implications are his area of expertise, and I accept his superior wisdom in that respect.

I am neither in rebellion to the Catechism, or to Scripture;

The Church does not require you to accept evolution, even as it teaches that common descent is virtually certain. Nor does it say you must accept Genesis as it is, although the “Life ex Nihilo” doctrine of YE creationism is contradicted by Genesis.

DEFINE SPECIES. Every time I debate with a staunch evolutionist it is always reduced to my begging for a definition of species and their manufacturing diversions from an actual response.

It’s like defining “adult.” We know what adults are, but the definition depends. Jewish people say that it happens at a certain age at a rite of passage. The law says that it’s a certain age, period. As a practical matter, some never become adults.

In evolutionary theory, “species” is a group of interbreeding organisms. Putting aside asexual organisms for a moment, we get the biological species concept, which is the most practical in the real world.

All that says, is that if there are two populations, reproductively isolated from each other, then they are two species. One intuitively expects then, that speciation is not normally a sudden event, but a gradual change over time, and it usually is. In plants and some other organisms, polyploidy is a mechanism that can produce instant speciation, but it’s quite rare in mammals (only one such species is known to exist presently).

Will we then see half-species, quarter-species, etc? Of course. And often, it’s very difficult to tell exactly when the break takes place. The question of whether Albert’s and Kebab squirrels are two species, or two almost-species is difficult. It’s easier with polar bears and grizzly bears, since they’ve been two separated populations for longer. But pizzly bears are still possible, even in the wild.

For animals separated by longer periods of time, such as Okapis and Giraffes, there is no possibility of interbreeding. They have become separate genera. (rarely, interbreeding is still sometimes possible between genera)

Most such episodes of interspecies mating happen in captivity, where some of the constraints of the wild are not present.

 

[buffalo]

Is gaining information (however you might define that) a scientific requirement for evolving?

Peace

Tim

To evolve into something greater requires information gain.

Adaptations can occur without information gain.

 

[Byron_Bramwell]

In evolutionary theory, “species” is a group of interbreeding organisms. Putting aside asexual organisms for a moment, we get the biological species concept, which is the most practical in the real world.

All that says, is that if there are two populations, reproductively isolated from each other, then they are two species. One intuitively expects then, that speciation is not normally a sudden event, but a gradual change over time, and it usually is.

Barbarian,

Your intuitive expectations, or anyone else's for that matter, have little application to the basic lack of definition. One might mold this sloppy and incoherent piece of clay into any imaginable shape he wishes. 
The biological species concept creates far more complications than it does solutions; and the Genesis accounting of "kind" offers a far more superior conclusion than that of your transcendent speciation. 
Furthermore, my adherence to a literal six days does not exclude, as I have stated earlier, the framework hypothesis (a much closer view to Augustinian thought than macroevolutionary theory by the way). Regardless of the age of the earth, though I happen to believe in a young one (10,000 years roughly), it does not necessitate a single self-replicating molecule to bring forth our present condition. 
And yes, catastrophism in every way accounts more completely for the form of our natural world than does the uniformitarian model.

  Sincerely in Christ, 
       Byron

 

[The_Barbarian]

Your intuitive expectations, or anyone else’s for that matter, have little application to the basic lack of definition.

Which is why it might be useful for you to explore what biology has learned about speciation, and the way it works.

One might mold this sloppy and incoherent piece of clay into any imaginable shape he wishes.
The biological species concept creates far more complications than it does solutions;

Reality has a way of doing that. It’s not simple and neat, but it has the virtue of being true.

and the Genesis accounting of “kind” offers a far more superior conclusion than that of your transcendent speciation.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. For example, there is no distinction between the “bear kind” and the “dog kind” when you consider all living things. The “kind” notion can’t explain transitionals. Even worse from the creationist point of view, the “kind” notion puts humans and apes in the same “kind.”

Furthermore, my adherence to a literal six days does not exclude, as I have stated earlier, the framework hypothesis (a much closer view to Augustinian thought than macroevolutionary theory by the way). Regardless of the age of the earth, though I happen to believe in a young one (10,000 years roughly), it does not necessitate a single self-replicating molecule to bring forth our present condition.

That’s another problem for creationism. Evidence counts. And there’s no evidence for a world merely 10,000 years old.

And yes, catastrophism in every way accounts more completely for the form of our natural world than does the uniformitarian model.

That’s another misconception. Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same rules have applied since the beginning. It does not rule out catastrophes, although it still expects one to have evidence for them.

And that’s a huge problem for YE creationism.

 

[The_Barbarian]

To evolve into something greater requires information gain.

Adaptations can occur without information gain.

Actually, any mutation in a population produces a gain in information. Would you like to see the numbers?

I would be pleased to see an adaptation that does not produce new information.

Please show your math.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Yes. I only mean to say that we should read Scripture the way the church has always read it, interpreting each passage as a straightforward statement of what is meant.

The Church has acknowledged that much of it is not literal history, but is figurative or allegorical. It has never been the Church’s position that Genesis is a literal six-day affair.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Sorry for sticking my nose in, but i can’t help it.

Species is a variation of a biological construct. Mutant. Small changes over millions of years can lead to completely different constructs; some of them useful; some of them not.
To me, there is only the “biological system”; and all the different shapes, sizes and constructs, in terms of biology, ultimately owe their biological existence to the first replicating system and the predetermined qualities which arise according to its biological matrix.

What’s the problem with that?

Why do people have a problem with the Theory of evolution? The militant atheist has been looking for an excuse to spread disbelief, and we are giving them one on a silver platter by making evolution an enemy of faith. In other words, we are doing a good job at making them look intelligent. That’s the Christians fault. I bet, if evolution was not promoted as a disproof of God, people would not be so negative about it. I for one think that evolution works in favor of God.

Take emergent qualities such as “mind” for instance; they seem to pop out of nowhere according to patterns imbedded in nature, waiting to become actual according to the evolutionary processes of nature. We can certainly see that there is a consistent connection between these events, but only so far as one comes after the other. There are some qualities, like the mind, that do not have any deep logical connection, but only shallow ones. For example, 1+1 =2, and one can clearly see why a cog wheel will turn another cog wheel in contact; and this is because there is a necessary consequential connection between the two concepts and their fundamental nature of being. However there is no clear reason why a mind ought to emerge according to spin, charge, shape, or pattern; the two have vastly different natures so far as a mind perceives objects, rather then just being an object itself. Something else seems to be present that cannot be measured.
In other words, the idea that ideas our ultimately caused by electrochemical stimulus, doesn’t add up. Something is being ignored or at least taken for granted.

What i mean to say is, a natural process gives us a sort of canvas background upon which reason can discern the creative hand of God. Our minds can see the need for a transcendent explanation, because we know that it is way beyond the explanatory power of nature to account for the intelligible qualities that arise from the background of its unintelligent inert system of being. Evolution just doesn’t explain it. There must be a super reality that gives the universe its nature of being. We can also know from our own nature, that such things are more likley to arise as a product of purpose, simply because nature cannot create its own quality of nature. It needs to have a nature of being in the first place in order for it to be of any practical use so far as providing a reasonable explanation for something. Therefore there must be a transcendent reality which explains itself and the universe.

Whether God uses evolution or not, I see no problem until you decide that the bible is an authority on “how” the world factually came to be. As others have written, the bible is not an authority on the natural order. God gave us the word in order to understand spiritual truths, and God gave us reason to understand Natural truths. When you read the gospel, it is presented as truth, and the style of writing suggests that that is in fact what the gospels are trying to purvey. Genesis is not presented as historical truth or revelation, and neither is it necessary to view it as anything more then a faith inspired story about God creating the world and our relationship to God. Genesis from this perspective makes more sense to me.

Continuued…

 

[MindOverMatter]

Continuued…

Some people use chance as an explanation for everything, but this doesn’t make sense to me. In order for there to be chance there has to be something in existence that is not itself the product of chance; for instance, existence cannot be a product of natural random processes, because there has to be such a thing as existence in order for there to be a random event. Therefore “Order” is the foundation of physical reality, not chance. The processes of nature can be called random to a certain degree; that’s true. But the existence of a rational mind that can understand events which are then committed to memory, cannot reasonably be called an accident. Rather, the behavior and qualities of things are as such because ultimately “existence” made them that way; not chance. You need a brain to think, because existence has determined that reality, not the brain itself. Chance is merely one part of a process. An atom has the nature of an atom not because of an accident; it didn’t just pop out of nowhere; Shakespeare’s plays didn’t pop out of nothing. The behavior, meaning and qualities of things cannot be attributed to events in time; they only accompany events in time. The reality of the universe does not exist by chance, but instead because of something else that transcends chance.
Neither is love, nor the experience of it, a produce of random processes, even though they evidently have a relationship with natural events. So, we have to ask ourselves,

“What is it that ultimately determines the laws of nature?”

“What determined the laws of function?”

Organisms obviously work toward ends, in a meaningful manner, this points to “design & evolution” not atheism. Nature points beyond itself, so far as it is incapable of pointing to itself as an eternal absolute.

Evolution does not remove the need for an intelligent cause. What evolution disproves is that nature is just a static object which doesn’t change. This needn’t be a fret to faith. On the flip side, evolution gives us proof that, instead of there just being static eternal forms in the universe, there is an “evolution of forms” which is made possible through the interplay of atomic patterns; and this in turn give rise to the union of animated geometry and qualities according to their emergent properties. This is a wonderful expression of creativity, which makes our world very beautiful despite the potential horrors that could result.

 

[buffalo]

Actually, any mutation in a population produces a gain in information. Would you like to see the numbers?

I would be pleased to see an adaptation that does not produce new information.

Please show your math.

The Richard Dawkins Mutation Challenge

You will have to show that beneficial mutations outweigh negative ones over time. One mutation per 10,000 negative ones result in a more sophisticated language?

 

[rossum]

You will have to show that beneficial mutations outweigh negative ones over time. One mutation per 10,000 negative ones result in a more sophisticated language?

You are correct that deleterious mutations outweigh beneficial ones. You also need to consider the effects of natural selection, since evolution involves both random mutation and natural selection.

Take a population of ten million organisms. One of them has a beneficial mutation giving a 1% advantage in reproduction; while all the others in the population reproduce an average of 1.00 offspring the mutant has 1.01 offspring on average. Initially the number of organisms with the beneficial mutation will increase from the original single individual as the powers of 1.01. After 1551 generations they will form half of the population, about 5 million (1.01 ^ 1551 = 5,040,234). From this point they will be the normal population while those without the mutation will be the minority. The minority will decrease as the powers of 0.99. After a further 1604 generations those without the mutation will be extinct, less than half an individual in the population: 5,000,000 x (0.99 ^ 1604) = 0.4986802).

This means that it will take natural selection about 1551 + 1604 = 3155 generations to spread the beneficial mutation through the entire population of ten million organisms.

What about a deleterious mutation? Obviously a lethal mutation disappears after one generation. A non-lethel mutation will also disappear but more slowly. A mutation with a 1% disadvantage in reproduction has an average of 0.99 offspring in the next generation. Such a deleterious mutation will decrease as powers of 0.99. From an initial population of one single individual it will fall below 0.5 in 69 generations (1 x 0.99 ^ 69 = 0.499837). The deleterious mutation will be eliminated by natural selection in less than 70 generations.

Natural selection amplifies beneficial mutations by spreading them through the population while diminishing deleterious mutations by eliminating them from the gene pool. Any model of evolution that does not include the effects of natural selection is not a correct model of evolution.

rossum

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:
I would be pleased to see an adaptation that does not produce new information.

Please show your math.

(Buffalo declines to do so)

No one else can find one, either. I don’t see how that could happen. If anyone else can do it, I sure would like to see it.

Buffalo suggests:
The Richard Dawkins Mutation Challenge

Nothing at all about information there. I’m guessing you don’t even know how to calculate the total information in a genome. Am I right?

You will have to show that beneficial mutations outweigh negative ones over time.

No. You’ve confused “useful” with “information.” But yes, we can do that, too.

Here’s a way for you to prove it to yourself:

Roll a six-sided die ten time, generating a ten-digit string of numbers. Do this five times.

Now evaluate the fitness of each string by these rules:

1. one point for each odd number
2. three points for each odd number next to an even number
3. four points for each 4.

Calculate the average fitness, and record it.

Now, pick the two most fit strings, and allow them to each reproduce five new ones, using this rule:

Each new one will be an exact copy of the old, with one mutation. Roll two six-sided dice. The first die shows which digit is mutated, and the second die shows what the new digit will be.

Again, calculate the fitness of each string, and record the average fitness. Pick the two most fit strings and again let them reproduce as above. Do this about 20 times.

Graph the average fitness. It will be a revelation. How on earth can a random process pick out the mutations that are favorable? You will notice that as the population gets more and more fit, it is increasingly likely that a new mutation will be harmful rather than beneficial. At some point, unless the environment changes, very little evolution will occur. This is actually observed in real life, and is the reason for evolutionary stasis and punctuated equilibrium.

One mutation per 10,000 negative ones result in a more sophisticated language?

If the 10,000 don’t survive, and the one useful one does? Of course. That’s what natural selection is all about. Would you like to see how “information” works with this?

 

[The_Barbarian]

Evolution does not remove the need for an intelligent cause. What evolution disproves is that nature is just a static object which doesn’t change. This needn’t be a fret to faith. On the flip side, evolution gives us proof that, instead of there just being static eternal forms in the universe, there is an “evolution of forms” which is made possible through the interplay of atomic patterns; and this in turn give rise to the union of animated geometry and qualities according to their emergent properties. This is a wonderful expression of creativity, which makes our world very beautiful despite the potential horrors that could result.

Pretty good. Wish I had said that.

 

[buffalo]

You are correct that deleterious mutations outweigh beneficial ones. You also need to consider the effects of natural selection, since evolution involves both random mutation and natural selection.

Take a population of ten million organisms. One of them has a beneficial mutation giving a 1% advantage in reproduction; while all the others in the population reproduce an average of 1.00 offspring the mutant has 1.01 offspring on average. Initially the number of organisms with the beneficial mutation will increase from the original single individual as the powers of 1.01. After 1551 generations they will form half of the population, about 5 million (1.01 ^ 1551 = 5,040,234). From this point they will be the normal population while those without the mutation will be the minority. The minority will decrease as the powers of 0.99. After a further 1604 generations those without the mutation will be extinct, less than half an individual in the population: 5,000,000 x (0.99 ^ 1604) = 0.4986802).

This means that it will take natural selection about 1551 + 1604 = 3155 generations to spread the beneficial mutation through the entire population of ten million organisms.

What about a deleterious mutation? Obviously a lethal mutation disappears after one generation. A non-lethel mutation will also disappear but more slowly. A mutation with a 1% disadvantage in reproduction has an average of 0.99 offspring in the next generation. Such a deleterious mutation will decrease as powers of 0.99. From an initial population of one single individual it will fall below 0.5 in 69 generations (1 x 0.99 ^ 69 = 0.499837). The deleterious mutation will be eliminated by natural selection in less than 70 generations.

Natural selection amplifies beneficial mutations by spreading them through the population while diminishing deleterious mutations by eliminating them from the gene pool. Any model of evolution that does not include the effects of natural selection is not a correct model of evolution.

rossum

1
11
111
1111
11111
111111

The last one contains more information than the first.

All the information possibilities are present in the genome at the beginning. Are there now more information possibilites than at the outset, or are more simply realized?

The mutation calculator shows just how difficult a “positive” mutation is. Even the recent constructs on how more information gain can be achieved are admittedly really really rare.

Why haven’t the deleterious disease mutations been erased from the human population?

The definition of information is the issue here. What is information?

I approach it from the “force” if you will, the language of DNA not the information contained in the DNA. The “force” or the language has to become greater than the possibilities at the beginning. We need to get a good agreed to definition of information.

Rolling the dice to evolve does not seem to me to be a force with purpose.

 

[Byron_Bramwell]

Barbarian,

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. For example, there is no distinction between the “bear kind” and the “dog kind” when you consider all living things.

Bears bring forth after their kind.
Dogs bring forth after their kind.
Dogs and bears do not bring forth anything.
Hmmmm…I may not be a biologist, but this appears to be a significant distinction.

The “kind” notion can’t explain transitionals.

“. . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else.”

“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . .I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument.”

-Dr. Colin Paterson of the British Museum of Natural History

Even worse from the creationist point of view, the “kind” notion puts humans and apes in the same “kind.”

1. A kind brings forth offspring after its own kind (dogs produce dogs; bears produce bears).
2. An ape and a human cannot bring forth offspring.
3. Therefore, they are not of the same “kind”.

That’s another misconception. Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same rules have applied since the beginning. It does not rule out catastrophes, although it still expects one to have evidence for them.

It is to my astonishment that you have stated the incompatibility of a literal six days with Scripture, when it says explicitly that it was created in six days. Also, you deny the universality of the flood as compatible with Scripture when Genesis states that the waters covered the whole earth. On what basis are these claims made?

Evidence for a universal flood:
billions of fossils buried in stratified layers throughout the earth (all living things were destroyed in the waters of the flood).
The fault lines in the earth’s crust (the fountains of the deep broke open).
The presence of dead clams in the closed position (very odd since they typically open upon death, signifying a violent death) on the tops of mountains (the mountains arose).
The Grand Canyon (formed quickly with a great deal of water; Mt. St. Helens best exemplifies this as a miniaturesque Grand Canyon was formed from its eruption).
Petrified trees connecting numerous layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old, etc.

Byron

 

[rossum]

Bears bring forth after their kind.
Dogs bring forth after their kind.
Dogs and bears do not bring forth anything.
Hmmmm…I may not be a biologist, but this appears to be a significant distinction.

Primates bring forth after their kind.
Mammals bring forth after their kind.
Tetrapods bring forth after their kind.
Vertebrates bring forth after their kind.
Eukaryotes bring forth after their kind.
Until creationists can give us a workable definition of what does, and what does not, constitute a created kind then the concept is useless.

“. . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else.”

Correct, which is why you will never see a scientific paper claiming that a fossil is a direct ancestor of any living species - it will be described as “close relative”, “cousin” or similar. Articles in newspapers are not always so careful.

1. An ape and a human cannot bring forth offspring.

In scientific terms humans are apes, Hominidae. So two humans mating are an ape and a human mating.

It is to my astonishment that you have stated the incompatibility of a literal six days with Scripture, when it says explicitly that it was created in six days.

The world, which you say God made, is incompatible with a six day creation. Unless that is you want to believe in a Loki/Trickster god who deliberately planted misleading evidence of the age of the world.

Also, you deny the universality of the flood as compatible with Scripture when Genesis states that the waters covered the whole earth. On what basis are these claims made?

Again, do you believe in a lying god who planted false evidence as to what happened in the past. There was no universal flood in the last 10,000 years. All the evidence from geology and biology is against it. Your interpretation of God’s word is inconsistent with the world that you believe God made.

Evidence for a universal flood:
billions of fossils buried in stratified layers throughout the earth (all living things were destroyed in the waters of the flood).

But some of those fossils are sub-aerial, that is they were buried in sandstorms on dry land. Hardly good evidence of a flood. There are also fossils of footprints from land animals. Do land animals walk underwater during a flood?

The fault lines in the earth’s crust (the fountains of the deep broke open).

The great majority of which show no evidence of large scale flows of water, so the fountains were obviously dry.

The presence of dead clams in the closed position (very odd since they typically open upon death, signifying a violent death) on the tops of mountains (the mountains arose).

Local floods and plate tectonics. A quote from Leonardo da Vinci:“If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together; but even at such distances from the sea we see the oysters all together and also the shellfish and the cuttlefish and all the other shells which congregate together, found all together dead; and the solitary shells are found apart from one another as we see them every day on the sea-shores.”

The Grand Canyon (formed quickly with a great deal of water; Mt. St. Helens best exemplifies this as a miniaturesque Grand Canyon was formed from its eruption).

The rocks of the Grand Canyon show evidence of burrows - what sort of animal digs burrows in the middle of a great flood? Some of the GC rocks are lava erupted under air, not water. How can that be in the middle of a global flood? There are footprints in the rocks of the Grand Canyon, how can that be in the middle of a global flood - do drowned animals walk on the sea floor?

Petrified trees connecting numerous layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old

Not a problem - the layers are 1,000,000, 1,000,001 and 1,000,002 years old. A tree can stand for three years after it dies easily enough. Geologists have known that rock layers can form quickly ever since the time of the Romans - remember Vesuvius? Some rock layers do form quickly, others do not. A geologist can tell one from the other, can you?

rossum

 

[rossum]

The last one contains more information than the first.

I am glad that you agree mutations can increase information in the genome.

All the information possibilities are present in the genome at the beginning. Are there now more information possibilites than at the outset, or are more simply realized?

How do you measure “information possibilities” as distinct from plain “information”? Without a measure I cannot evaluate your statement.

The mutation calculator shows just how difficult a “positive” mutation is. Even the recent constructs on how more information gain can be achieved are admittedly really really rare.

Nobody disputes the rarity of good mutations. When they do happen they are amplified by natural selection and spread through the population.

Why haven’t the deleterious disease mutations been erased from the human population?

Two main reasons, firstly new deleterious mutations are happening all the time and secondly we are a relatively slow breeding species so natural selection is slow in humans.

The definition of information is the issue here. What is information?

I tend to prefer the Kolmogorov measure of information, though others prefer Shannon information.

I approach it from the “force” if you will, the language of DNA not the information contained in the DNA. The “force” or the language has to become greater than the possibilities at the beginning. We need to get a good agreed to definition of information.

You need a quantifiable measure of information; both Shannon and Kolmogorov information are quantifiable.

Rolling the dice to evolve does not seem to me to be a force with purpose.

Rolling dice and then applying natural selection will impart a direction to the randomness by increasing the frequency of good mutations and decreasing the frequency of bad mutations.

rossum

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
That’s another misconception. Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same rules have applied since the beginning. It does not rule out catastrophes, although it still expects one to have evidence for them.

It is to my astonishment that you have stated the incompatibility of a literal six days with Scripture, when it says explicitly that it was created in six days.

That has never been the Christian position. St. Augustine, for example, pointed out that one could not find a way to logically show a literal six days.

Also, you deny the universality of the flood as compatible with Scripture when Genesis states that the waters covered the whole earth.

That’s not what it says. The term “eretz” can mean “this place”, a specific nation, “the land hereabouts”, or “all the land we know about.” So no, it doesn’t mean the whole world was flooded, and the Church does not teach that it was.

Evidence for a universal flood:
billions of fossils buried in stratified layers throughout the earth

In between these layers are layers showing forests and deserts that somehow had time to appear and be buried in the middle of the supposed global flood. That’s a huge and insoluble problem for a global flood.

The fault lines in the earth’s crust (the fountains of the deep broke open).

And yet, no fountains, even though the cracks remain. And no place for all that water to go.

The presence of dead clams in the closed position (very odd since they typically open upon death, signifying a violent death) on the tops of mountains (the mountains arose).

That’s an even bigger problem for creationists. Mt. Everest is not covered with fossils of mollusks; it is made of the fossils of mollusks. And it rises about 5 centimeters a year. Has been, since India encountered Asia millions of years ago. It was sea bottom, and those organisms died and were buried in shallow seas.

The Grand Canyon (formed quickly with a great deal of water;

Really? Tell me what kind of sudden flooding could produce this:
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect6/Goosenecks.JPG

Mt. St. Helens best exemplifies this as a miniaturesque Grand Canyon was formed from its eruption).

I’ve been there twice since the eruption, and there’s nothing remotely like the Grand Canyon there.

photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=915132&size=lg
(big photo, click to see)

As you can see, the gullies get a few meters high, and then slump as the soft material collapses. Nothing at all like the Grand Canyon. And certainly no entrenched meanders. You’ve never compared the two, um?

Petrified trees connecting numerous layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old, etc.

You’ve been misled about the “supposedly millions of years old” part. Polystrate trees are being produced near my home, as a flooded reservoir is rapidly laying down sediment around drowned trees. If things go right, there will be new polystrate trees in a few more decades.

These are pretty old stories, all of them easily refuted. Might be good to do a little research on the next batch before presenting them.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. For example, there is no distinction between the “bear kind” and the “dog kind” when you consider all living things.

Bears bring forth after their kind.
Dogs bring forth after their kind.
Dogs and bears do not bring forth anything.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t account for Ursavus elmensis which is precisely between dogs and bears. True dogs and bears gradually evolved from animals like that. Recently, a fossil in Malaysia was found, which has many features of the present sun bear, but with a doglike head and dentition, and was unable to stand on two legs as a bear can. So we have to accept that the distinction of common ancestry is well-documented.

Hmmmm…I may not be a biologist, but this appears to be a significant distinction.

Barbarian observes:
The “kind” notion can’t explain transitionals.

“. . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else.”

Indeed, we would be astoundingly lucky if the very animal that gave rise to both dogs and bears was fossilized and we found it. But that’s not necessary, of course. We only need to show that transitional organisms existed, without making claims that the transitional we found was the very one that was the splitting point. Because “kinds” can’t explain the existence of these transitionals, which were predicted by evolutionary theory, few scientists doubt evolution, and all those who do, do so for a religious reason.

“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . .I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument.”

-Dr. Colin Paterson of the British Museum of Natural History

Here’s a note form Patterson on that quote-mining attempt:
**
Sorry to have taken so long to answer your letter of July 9th. I was away for a while, and then infernally busy. I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues "… a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question…

…I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists’ is false…But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else. **
talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html

So he wasn’t even talking about evolutionary theory. But creationists often string together quotes to make it appear that scientists believe things they don’t. I’m not blaming you, BTW. That one is quite common on the “handy quotes to use in refuting evolution” lists so common on the net.

Barbarian observes:
Even worse from the creationist point of view, the “kind” notion puts humans and apes in the same “kind.”

1. A kind brings forth offspring after its own kind (dogs produce dogs; bears produce bears).

1. An ape and a human cannot bring forth offspring.
2. Therefore, they are not of the same “kind”.

Actually, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than dogs are to foxes or jackels. A lot closer. So the “kinds” belief puts humans and apes in the same “kind.”

 

[The_Barbarian]

The mutation calculator shows just how difficult a “positive” mutation is. Even the recent constructs on how more information gain can be achieved are admittedly really really rare.

And yet they happen. Would you like to learn about them?

Why haven’t the deleterious disease mutations been erased from the human population?

Because most of them are harmful recessives, which will persist for a long time at very low levels. Would you like to do a simulation that explains why?

The definition of information is the issue here. What is information?

It is a measure of uncertainty in a message. That is, if you can anticipate what is in the message with complete certainty, it has no information. There is a specific way to calculate the genetic information in a population. Would you like to learn about it?

Rolling the dice to evolve does not seem to me to be a force with purpose.

Neither is a thunderstorm, and yet, it serves a purpose. God is a lot more capable and intelligent than ID/creationists are willing to let Him be.

 

[Leela]

Rolling the dice to evolve does not seem to me to be a force with purpose.

Hi Buffalo, all,

To say that chance is part of a scientific theory is a mistake? How can a scientists explanation be that something is random? How is saying something is random different from saying “I don’t know”?

Evolution is explained through genetic mutations and natural selection? The part about random mutations is just to say that mutations occur but we don’t know how to predict them. For evolutionary theory, it’s enough to know that they occur.

Natural selection: survival of the fittest. Fittest for what? Survival, of course! That’s circular, and it seems to me it is a way for scientists to dodge the fact that they are dealing with values. Science seeks to be value-free, but what they are really claiming is freedom from social values, while the intellectual values of truth, intellectual honesty, and parsimony are held to be sacred. (Science is free to study values and needs to study them to discover objective verifiable moral truths about human flourishing.)

The creative force of the universe is at work in natural selection rather than chance, but evolution is not explained based on a personal God, just a principle of “betterness.” Values are real, and science needs to acknowledge and study values.

Best,
Leela