Always talking about micro-evolution?

Well that shows a willingness to help.Tell me.
What percentage of DNA is "non-coding"?
What percentage of DNA has been identified as "functional"?

Ah, yes. You seem to have run into some difficulty, eh? We must play a game which deals in drawings that the average person can't make heads or tails of, but must be reviewed by "by other scientists", as you say? And to play the "childish" (your word) "I asked first" card, is indeed, as you say, childish.But since I have now been brilliantly discredited, and proven to lack knowledge, let's score points for you (as many points as you'd like) so you have an extremely comfortable lead in this discussion. Now that I admit that I can't make heads or tails out of your "jaw drawings" (that help prove a common ancestor), will you please help my pitiful existence and answer just a couple of questions? I've already asked them, in post # 116 in this topic. You ignored them once, but now I understand that you did so rightfully, but I had no idea it was because of my abysmal level of knowledge that you were so disgusted.For your convenience, here are the questions once more:I wrote:
While we're looking at processes of evolution, could you take a look at these three creatures that appear to have been handpainted by a master artist: And explain to me what processes of evolution were at work to develop these color schemes? My imperceptible level of knowledge and understanding in this topic just made it seem to me that Darwininan evolution would be more likely to produce something like this: Please, oh, please help with my difficulty in understanding evolution. Feel free to use any level of imagination that you'd like; I don't need fossil evidence. Just a quick theoretical explanation. Of course, if these questions are too lowly and simple for someone of your intellect, please feel free to delegate to someone else in your camp so you're not overburdened. Thank you for taking time out of your day to help me with my problem.[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-10-2004]

Thank you so much. I feel so excited with this increased knowledge. I must have totally misunderstood this in the past, because I thought natural selection was more of a "the strong" versus "the weak". Thank you for clearing this up for me.But help me more:
How long do you think it took before the evolutionary process was able to devolep and arrange the colors of, say just the woodduck's HEAD and NECK, before the female woodducks would have noticed and started selecting the more handsome wooducks?Also, what dynamics of natural selection were at work to help the woodduck survive until this beautiful color scheme was able to arrange itself?Thank you so much for your time.

I'm just not nearly as smart as you Ned. I'm just so easily confused, as you've already pointed out.The questions may not make sense to you, but it would help me if you answered them, pretty please?

Had to edit this post because I incorrectly added code for images that wound up causing and "infinite copy" function. Sorry about that. But noseyned says that crashfrog just answered my question, before I asked it, so I won't ask it again here. I'll go on to the next post.[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-11-2004]

Yes, please send the award to my office address so I can display it proudly. It's taken about 30 minutes to fix it because it took so long for the edit screen to finally display, after the system reached its copy limit. I was afraid it would crash the system, but luckily not. Wow. I came close to going down in history.

Yes. Now I understand. Except that I knew a guy once, who tried that very same thing. Just before our lady's man could get down to actual business, some big ugly lookin' character came over and beat the tar out him, decisively eliminating his chances of passing on his good looks. I once thought that natural selection was a "stronger" overpowers the "weaker", and the weaker ones don't get to pass on genes. I'm glad you've cleared up the confusion. "Agreement". Negotiating. Intelligence. Yes, I never would have thought of that.So, help me again.
You have demonstrated that the colored feathers of the woodduck are a simple mathematical inevitability. How long would it take natural selection to develop these colors and then arrange each feather as they are on the woodduck's skin?Also, how did natural selection keep the good lookin' ducks from getting beat up by the ugly ducks while they were waiting on a satisfactory arrangement of their feathers?And one other question that my pitiful existence can't figure out. Please help me. If the good lookin' guys were better able to convince the ladies, why is the rock pigeon's color scheme so haphazard? Or maybe I understand now; the rock pigeon hasn't been evolving as long as the woodduck, and there's a secret society of good lookin' rock pigeons out there somehwhere hiding from the rough, tough, big and ugly ones until they one day look good enough to reveal themselves and take on the ladies. I'm trying real hard to learn this material.

I repeat my questions because you maneuver around them and don't answer.
In another post, someone from your camp claimed that life was a mathematical inevitability, as any gambler could explain.But I'm NOT asking about what the "odds" are of life evolving from non-life through random processes because my little brain (as you continue to point out directly or indirectly) can't comprehend numbers that large.But I'm still struggling to formulate a question that you can't dodge, and just give me the numbers that show the probability of random processes (mutations are random, right?) arranging something as simple as feathers on a woodduck's skin, in a way that seems peculiarly as if it had been done by intelligence of some kind. I'm trying hard to come up with something simple for you, but you keep cutting-and-pasting sound bites like "it doesn't show", etc., rather than spending your time calculating or finding someone in your camp to calculate the odds. Your camp refers to creationists as "nitwits" (earlier post) so I wouldn't think of looking to my camp for any realistic numbers.Just give me the odds of it happening the way the feather sequencing turned out on the woodduck's skin. Certainly someone in your camp is sharp enough to figure out the odds of something so inevitable.But your pattern of behavior predicts that you'll once again resort to pasting sounds bites and commenting on those, than just focusing in on the question. Could you please make an effort to break your pattern of behavior just once. For me?

I asked: You responded: I asked: You responded: The remaining 97% that is non-functional, does that mean it has no function, or that we perhaps need a different "de-coder" ring? Sorry for the term, my vocabulary is quite limited.

Well, I joined this forum thinking I knew at least a little bit, but the wisdom and intelligence that flowed from your camp just debunked virtually everything that I brought up, so it appears that I was terribly mis-informed before I arrived here. I've already been lambasted for everything that you've referenced in your post #168, so I don't know why I'm being lambasted again for it. Is your purpose to just beat up on intellectual "little guys", or to help elighten us so we can make a better decision about what to believe? Please don't be so upset with me.Also, your quote is now # 168, but you reach all the way back to my quote 104 where I wrote: Which is a while back. I have learned so much since then. I guess I didn't get out much before now.But since you seem intent on embarassing me further, I will attempt to answer your question: Um, I guess, the same kind of information that you would probably require of me to indicate a common designer. That's my best guess. Or am I incorrect?[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-12-2004]

Um, entrap you? Why would you be concerned about being entrapped when your scientific position is so solid, and laden with an overwhelming amount of evidence? No matter how hard I try, I can't do anything right for some of you guys.But, tell me this: Have you admonished those folks who have called me various names on this forum (folks from your camp), like buffoon and lunatic, as well as those folks who have used vulgar language directed toward my posts and others? I'm certain you know, that "points" are generally "deducted" from debate team scores when they become personal in their arguments? But yet I go through the stages that you just listed, and you make a big deal out of it somehow. Are you concerned about stages past, or stage present (supercilious deference)? Just simple questions are what I'm down to, not much more. Tell me, which stage should I now evolve into, that would be acceptable to you so we can continue with this topic?

Wow. Pretty amazing stuff, that DNA. VERY amazing. Must have taken a pretty sharp guy to design it.[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-14-2004]

So, you believe "random processes" can produce more complex things than an intelligent designer (whether you believe in God, aliens, or ghosts is not my concern at the moment)? Can you mathematically or scientifically substantiate that? Hmm. Reminds me of many businesses of today. For example, a company like Federal Express; the CEO (Fred Smith) invented door-to-door overnight express package delivery and founded the named company. As you know, Fred Smith doesn't deliver the packages to anyone's door. Instead, he initially designed and "commanded" (to use your word). He built an entire system of Planes, trucks, hubs, metroplexes, sorting facilities, customer facilities, drop boxes, information systems, and tens of thousands of employees to perform the task of picking up and delivering millions of packages each day. Fred Smith does NOT sit around handling packages each day to keep his business going. He created a SYSTEM that functions each and every day whether he is there or not. When Fred retires and disappears to his own island somewhere, his overnight delivery business will continue running each day without him.
This is like the system God has put into place, and he designed it so it would run on it's own. He gave man dominion (just like Fred Smith gave authority to his management team) and man has invented things, etc, etc, etc. However, Fred Smith can reach into his business and make minor or major changes if he sees a certain business unit is in need of it, like firing the management team of a customer location that persistently produces a high number of customer complaints. God does the same thing as he sees the need (like destroying sodom and gomorrah).
But few customers have ever met Fred Smith, and certainly weren't on hand as witnesses when he designed his business, so anyone could easily say Fred had nothing to do with designing anything. Planes were flying, trucks were rolling, packages were being delivered by USPS (please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery), and people were handling packages long before Fred ever showed up on the scene. But to deny Fred the credit for designing a brilliant world-altering system that runs by itself today, would take a blind fool.
Of course, as many of you know, Fred's college professor gave Fred only a "C" on his college project because Fred's Federal Express "idea" wasn't feasible. Smart people, those highly trained college professors are, yes sir.However, in the case of God, he even built the foundations of the universe, including the so many of the unchangeable laws that govern things. He created everything from nothing, and hung it all in place, ready to roll immediately.Who told you God is just a "manipulator"? A "small God"?

Yes, a problem, as you say, most certainly. But probability is certainly part of evolution theory, isn't it?

Really? So, if a bookie would tell you that you can comfortably put your money on the Falcons beating the 49ers in next year's superbowl, you wouldn't ask for the odds and how he arrived at those odds?
What your camp is telling me is that finding two people with a DNA match is about 1 in 2 billion (although more knowledgable sources say it's more like 1 trillion to one), and you call those odds "virtually impossible".
But yet when it comes to turning a frog into a prince over millions of years, you say the odds are "mathematically inevitable".What you must certainly mean is, evolutionists hope they're not asked about probability. The scenarios that evolution describes is one that would create a statisical monstrosity if you were to try to calculate the odds of creating the order that we see in just one living cell (of your choice), much less the countless mutations required to turn your frog into a prince.You know exactly where this is going. For a frog to evolve into a human is simply ludicrous. Anyone should be able to see that the color scheme on a woodduck's head is so precise and orderly that it couldn't have happened via random processes even in 100 billion years. Despite the gargantuan numbers required to demonstrate the probability of one DNA strand assembling itself, you cannot avoid the reality of it as a reasonable person.Let's make it a little simpler. Forget the woodduck for now (we'll perhaps come back to it later).Let's say you go for a walk in the park and come across a huge oak tree. You notice on the ground that there are 20 oak leaves that seem to have fallen from the tree. Yes, you know exactly where I'm going with this, don't you. You cannot escape it. Let's continue; these 20 oaks leaves are arranged in a straight line, 12 inches apart, and facing the same direction. Would you think these leaves arranged themselves in this manner? Or that they simply fell off the tree and landed that way through random processes involving all sorts of environmental forces like wind, gravity, etc? Or would you suspect that an intelligent being arranged them that way? Of course, as evolutionists always say, it's just a mathematical inevitability for 20 leaves to one day be found in that position. Can you calculate those odds? I'm sure their must be someone in your camp with the statisical training and ability needed to calculate those odds. And we're only talking 20 oak leaves; not the uh, "numerous" bits of information that you find in a strand of DNA.Yes, just as Thomas Huxley's epic simile that an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters could, in an infinite amount of time, type all the works of Shakespeare. Your problem though, my friend, is that you don't have an infinite amount of time to work with to turn your frog into a prince.

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Even the devils believe; and they tremble....