"Creation Science" experiments.

You are confusing "gravity" with "continuation of gravity".I don't have "faith" in gravity. Gravity exists. It's observable, testable. I can (theoretically) go to outer space and experience significantly less gravity. etc.What you are assuming is that I have faith that the laws of the natural world will not suddenly radically change.I would argue that you don't need to have faith in a negative. I don't have "faith" than things AREN'T going to radically change. My entire life experience has been that the laws have never changed. The ENTIRE human experience has been that the laws have never changed. From what we can tell of astrophysics, geology, chemistry, etc, the laws have never changed.I don't take it on "faith" that they will continue to behave as they have always behaved, it's a testable series of observations which demonstrate that this is the nature of our universe.No faith required. Right, according to the Bible, you should have "faith" in order to _earn a reward_.Sigh. Just when I think this religious is as childish as it can possibly be, some Christan comes along and provides me with a quote making the religion look even worse.

And they don't. Some bacteria haven't changed in a VERY VERY long time. You are making unfounded primary claims and then basing your conclusions upon those errors.Fix your initial claim. Let me rephrase your argument for you so that you can see what you sound like:"I know the designer exists because only a designer could design things to look like there isn't a designer."Does that REALLY sound rational to you? honestly? Well, too bad for you that what you _think_ about it doesn't matter.You are making a claim - that these mutations exist and are the result of a designer.In order to positively prove that claim, you need to measure ALL the mutations in order to determine that your claim (that a Jewish Wizard is Magically controlling the mutations) has validity. So, when asked to provide evidence in support of your claim, you tell us that you can't be bothered to, because you reject our evidence based on your beliefs.Sigh. This is why no one takes your side of the debate seriously.

That is not a fair claim. The topic of "Creation" or of "Intelligent Design" is by their very nature an "origins" topic. So when one mentions evolution in a contrasting argument to the two, one automatically assumes they are referring to evolution as it relates to abiogenesis. That is to say, the term for evolution popularized in the media which encompasses not only small changes in the population of a biological organism over time, but also the theory of how the first cell formed, and that all life today can be trace back to one universal common ancestor.To claim that I am the one who brought up origins is a very gross distortion of the truth. The very name of the entire web site implies that "origins" will be the underlying topic of discussion. Therefore when an evolutionist, in a debate on intelligent design (brings up Lenski's bacteria studies), one must assume that they are at the very least implying that this is evidence that universal common decent is plausible.If that be the case, then I again assert without hesitation, that the burden of proof falls directly upon the one using the studies in this manor.

I see that you have dispensed with the subtleties and displayed your true colors. I am sure all of your friends are charmed by your flavored words, but they hardly are of any use in a discussion among gentlemen.Just to be clear for you my linguistically challenged friend, apc and csi are for the most part the exact same concepts. With the exception that Dembski tends to promote something about irreducible bological machines under the umbrella of his csi. An argument I don't necessarily hold to. I find that using apc helps to avoid any confusion with people just aching to scratch that itch. Just look how fast you through up his name at the mere notion of similarity.I defined for you the concept, I broke down each word used in the term defining them, and I placed the term in the context of examples. If you still are having trouble getting it... I am at a loss as to how else to communicate it to you. But personally I suspect the trouble is not in my communication skills.

No. The patterns are the result of natural laws of physics at work in weather patterns. They are no different than the patterns observed in crystals. Interesting, complex, but not particularized (specific).

How do you know that those patterns aren't particularized?
What did you measure?

Sure, you defined the individual terms, but your examples don't follow. The way you are using the words all together don't work the way you want it to. Furthermore, you haven't defined it in such a way as to have anything more than word salad. You haven't given us a way to tell what IS or IS NOT "apc". I am seriously amused when you bible thumping faggots get sand in your pussies over a few words. Grow up. Now, instead of shedding tears over my particular usage of words, provide a working definition for your hokey ass term (you will notice I am not the only member who has requested this).

---

"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

You seem to have that backwards. Evolution is not a rebuttal to creationism. Creationism attempts to rebut evolution. You folks are the only ones who press on saying that "evolution HAS to involve abiogenesis". That is YOUR assumption. You will notice this in the thread The evidence for design and a designer - AS OF 10/27, SUMMARY MESSAGES ONLY. The ID/creation crowd continue to bring up evolution as if saying "if I can prove one aspect of evolution wrong, ID/creationism is right". You know this is the case. Sorry to burst your bubble, but even if the media did this, the media is not the arbiter of the facts of evolution. Scientists don't judge their findings off of what the media says. The media often times gets shit wrong and misconstrues data so that laypeople don't fully grasp the concept at hand. If you could find me an article that says "evolution is only possible with abiogenesis", that would be great. You are right on two of those counts. Evolution says diddly about how the first cell formed. It only deals with what happened AFTER life already existed. Wrong again. "EvC" is short for "Evolution vs. Creation" in that, we are here to debate the facts between the two sides. What does common descent have to do with the origin of life?

---

"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

HI JBR, No, not as you were applying it. I cited Lenski, you challenged my conclusions. Lenski did not create E. coli. There was already E. coli in existence, Lenski simply observed it evolving new traits.We are talking about the origins of those specific traits, not the origins of life itself. Why? I did not mention abiogenesis, I mentioned Lenski's E.coli experiments, which do not address origin of life. They address the origin of a specific trait; citrate metabolism.If, when I talk about the origin of a specific trait in an existing organism, you assume that I am talking about abiogenesis, I have to wonder if we are speaking the same language. The media? Screw the media. I'm not talking about the piss-poor representations of the ToE expounded in the popular press. I'm talking about the actual ToE, as defined, not by humanities-educated media know-nothings, but by actual biologists.Who do you think has a better grasp on the terminology? Journalists? Or biologists?I'm talking about the ongoing process of evolution, in the present day. The ability of E. coli to evolve new traits demonstrates the reality of evolution and its ability to originate new features. Nonsense. Not every discussion here is about abiogenesis, quite obviously. The site is called "Evolution vs Creation", not "Abiogenesis vs Creation". There is room here for discussions of both abiogenesis and evolution.The only imaginable reason to discuss Lenski is that his experiments demonstrate the ongoing process of new traits evolving. You seem to doubt this. I fail to see why. That you doubt that naturalistic abiogenesis could occur is completely irrelevant to this. Let me be clear. We can consider multiple first origin scenarios;1) Naturalistic Abiogenesis. After which life continues to evolve, develop new traits and diversify.2) Divine Fiat Creation. After which life continues to evolve, develop new traits and diversify.3) Creation by Unidentified Designer. After which life continues to evolve, develop new traits and diversify.Do you see what I'm getting at? Any of those origins could be true without it affecting Lenski's data at all. In all of those scenarios, evolution is capable of originating novel biology. Well it is, if only indirectly, but that wasn't what I was getting at (nor need universal common ancestry be incompatible with divine creation; UCA and naturalistic abiogenesis are very far from being the same thing). I was pointing out to you that it has been clearly demonstrated that life itself is capable of originating novel traits, completely unguided and unsupervised. That observation totally undermines your claim that a designer is necessary for new traits to emerge.Maybe I misunderstood you. Do you accept that already existing organisms can evolve new traits? Do you insist that a designer is needed for a new functional trait to emerge? Or are you merely claiming that a designer is needed for life itself to emerge?I have to say that the idea of a designer jump-starting the first origin of life is considerably more plausible than the idea of a magic designer sneaking in during the night and tinkering with the DNA of existing organisms. Well that would not be me, because that was never my point.I notice incidentally, that you have not expanded upon what you meant by "directed" evolution. Are you planning on clarifying this? You do realise that the term "directed" does not, in this context, mean what you would like it to mean?Mutate and Survive

---

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Your both right and wrong here. You are right that evolution only applies to things that satisfy certain criteria of imperfect replication and heritability of traits, which may be termed 'life'. You are, I think, wrong to suggest that 'life' necessarily arose with the event of the first cellular lifeforms.TTFN,WK

Thank you for pointing that out. However, I was not trying to imply that life arose with the first cell. I suppose my word usage could have been more clear.{abe}
Looking back at my comment, I can see just how the confusion arose and it is due to the fact that I SUCK at writing. I never segue and often just throw two thoughts out right after one another.Edited by hooah212002, : attempted humility?

---

"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

Why aren't they particularized?Would a novel protein that arises from observed random mutations be considered particularized?

Because the information in the article on the phenomenon tells us that they are formed by a process of water collection, freeze, and thaw in a natural cyclic weather pattern. But suppose we were observers with no knowledge of the natural cycle? How would we determine if they were formed by apc or not? Recall that I defined specificity (aka particularization) as any event or object which exhibits a pattern that matches a foreknown pattern that was completely interdependent of the first.That means that for an observer to tell if it is particularized, he must be able to recognize it from a completely independent experience. If he does not recognize it from a prior experience this does not of itself mean it is not particularized. It simply means the observer does not have enough data to make a determination. However if he does recognize it from a prior experience then he can say with good certainty that it is particularized.Just looking at the circles we see a complex pattern, but we do not recognize the pattern as fulfilling any specific purpose. Therefore we would not be able to make a determination. Neither would my five year old. However if we panned out to a wide scale shot and saw that the circles form the pores in a colossal drawing of Sponge Bob Square pants, then that would change. That would be because he would then recognize it from a previous experience.

Lets look at how the conversation went. It started with hooradmouth claiming that brainless tobacco plants displayed intelligence by adjusting their flowering times to twort catipllar attacks. (See post 270) And thereby threw a wrench in my whole apc concept. To which I pointed out that the changes did not take place within the same generation, but through the natural selection process of choosing alleles that probably already existed in the population but were just not dominant. (See post 278)My comment was that creationists argue that these alleles were likely designed into the species for just such a purpose, from creation (their origins). To that you commented: You were obviously referring to Lenski's studies here because that was what you brought up when you were challenged. And you are also clearly using them as evidence to suggest that evolution is the explanation for the "origins" of these alleles. So again, the burden of proof falls directly upon the one using the studies in this manor.That means it would be on the shoulders of the person using this as "evidence," to prove that the mutations did not occur at a rate that was too high for random mutations to produce.

How did he know during that prior experience that it was (or was not) particularized?