Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.

Kitsune, that's a fair enough post. I never said that an Oort Cloud wouldn't be discovered someday, or something resembling one, but until now, one has not been observed, only hypothesized.The absence of proof does not mean that proof does not exist somewhere. It just means we haven't found it yet OR it really doesn't exist. Like you said, time will tell.

Of course. However the problem with the creationist argument is that they turn this into a false dichotomy: "Because we haven't discovered the Oort cloud yet, God must've made the earth and everything else 6000 years ago!"I hope you see the flaw with this reasoning.

quote:

---

The absence of proof does not mean that proof does not exist somewhere. It just means we haven't found it yet OR it really doesn't exist. Like you said, time will tell.

---

In the case of the Oort Cloud there are very good reasons to think that the cloud is there but hasn't been found yet.Firstly we have solid evidence that the Earth and the Solar System really are old.Secondly, all that is being proposed is that the Solar System stretches out further than the furthest observed object. There's no good reason to suppose that there is a sudden "stop" rather than more gradual "thinning out" of material that is proposed.Thirdly we have observed objects in the Kuiper Belt (which is more important for the short period comets that the Creationist argument deals with anyway).Fourthly comet nuclei at that distance are incredibly difficult to observe. There is no good reason to think that we would have seen them yet.Because of the evidence of age we can't simply discard the idea, we must look at reconciling the evidence. The Oort Cloud is a highly plausible hypothesis given the evidence that we do have. It is not nearly so plausible that all the evidence of age just happens to be wrong (check out RAZD's thread on correlations). So the rational conclusion is that the Oort Cloud does exist. Even if it turned out that it did not then we should still have to consider alternative explanations (maybe involving the Kuiper Belt) before concluding that the Earth was young. Only someone driven by the conviction that the Earth was young, and looking for excuses to reject the evidence, could think otherwise.

Also, remember that the reason that the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt were hypothesized is that we know that new inner-solar-system comets are coming from somewhere.An astronomer explains: New comets turn up. The hypotheses of Oort and Kuiper try to explain where they come from, but the creationist argument is shot down by the fact that they do.---This was one of the first YEC arguments I came across. Short orbit comets, I was told, can only go fifty times round the Sun before evaporating completely.So I googled to find out the comet with the shortest known orbit. It's Enke's Comet, and it has a period of 3.3 years. If comets only get fifty trips round the Sun, and if you can use them to date the solar system ... then the solar system was created in 1845, tops.The alternative explanation is that it only recently became a short-orbit comet, and used to be further out. Unless you believe that the solar system was created eighteen-and-a-half centuries after Christ, you have to believe that explanation.So whether it came from the Oort cloud, from the Kuiper belt, from the depths of galactic space, or from giant space aliens having a snowball fight, is immaterial to the question of whether you can use such comets to date the solar system. Clearly, you can't.

The second law of thermodynamics clearly states that bananas are the atheist's worst nightmare. But monkeys don't believe in God, because they have no souls. So why are there still monkeys?

Given the rate at which evolution occurs, the notion that all present species were produced by evolutionary mechanisms from a common ancestor predicts that the Earth is old (and therefore that the solar system is old, and therefore that the universe is old).This prediction has been independently confirmed by geologists, physicists, and cosmologists, which is a score for Darwin.Proof that the universe is only a few thousand years old would falsify this prediction.I think this is why the vast majority of creationists are YECs. If they can manage to be wrong about the age of the Earth, they don't need to be wrong about anything else. (Of course, they are, but that would suffice.)Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But we have the evidence of comets on parabolic orbits, direct or retrograde, with every angle of inclination you can think of. That IS factual evidence - they are coming from somewhere.Does the YEC model have a place for comet storage? I know that Job mentions snow and hail storehouses....

---

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

Hi Dr, How can evolution be the producer of the information?If evolution is the result of the processing of the information that is sent to the receiver by the sender.God Bless,

---

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

If the message is the genome, then evolution is the producer because random mutations modify and add information to the message.But still, with you're view on information, there is no "receiver" of the message in DNA, so DNA cannot contain information. Who is the receiver?

Uh ... by evolution being the producer of the information? But as I understood your post, evolution is the sender.Try to be more specific.

It was inherited from the parents. If you go back far enough, then the answer becomes less known, and less about evolution and more about biochemistry.So where did the information come from in biochemistry? Presumably from the laws of chemistry and physics. Some things do some things. Some of those things might inadvertantly allow for preferential reproductive success (there doesn't need to be information in the 'genome' on how to reproduce in order to reproduce, the laws of biochemistry and physics can do that work).The answer therefore is: From the laws of physics. How did it get into the genome? Work was done. Where did the information from the laws of physics come from? Not a question for evolution.Satisfied?

The problem with your description is twofold:1. It does not tell us how to determine if information has decreased or increased. We need a way to compare the information content of two messages.2. It's not obvious how it applies to evolution. What is the sender? What is the receiver? What is the message?

Hi Dr. I am asking the questions because I don't have a clue.You are supposed to be the one with the answers according to what you put forth in Professional Debate: Scientific Evidence for/against Evolution.So let me rephrase my question.Evolution is produced by mutations, and natural selection.Without information nothing can take place.Information is contained in a cell nucleus the size of a pin point. The human genome stored on DNA in this nucleus is over six billion letters total. A copy of this information is contained in almost every cell in our body.My question was where does all this information come from?If evolution produces this information, how does it produce it?If mutations produce this information, how does it produce it?Which brings me back to my original question.DNA has a tremendous amount of information stored in it, where did all that information come from?As I understand information it has to be created.Is there anyway that information can begin to exist without being created?God Bless,

---

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

From mutations in the DNA of earlier generations of organisms, ICANT.You can point a telescope equipped with a spectrograph at a star and figure out what elements and molecules are present in the star's atmosphere, whether the star is moving towards us, how strong its surface magnetic fields are, its temperature, how fast it rotates......lots of things.Does that spectrum contain information? If not, why not? If so, where did it come from? Is there an intelligent angel on each star in the universe making up things like D-lines and Zeeman effects?

---

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

Hi Mod, No.Because there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information.God Bless,

---

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."