Give your one best shot - against evolution

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
the fact that humans havent speciated and arent beginning to. only natural selection and choice in breeding have affected the way our different cultures appear.

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There are physical and physiological differences between the
different races of humanity.Those differences are (in many instances) directly attributable to
the environments in which those races developed.Some similar environments with a geographical isolation have
developed different variants of humanity (Egypt & Australia
spring to mind).Doesn't that favour evolution rather not?And I didn't think speciation was contested anyhow ...
maybe I'm wrong there.

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Originally posted by Punisher:

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All that shows is variation within the human race. They are still human, no?

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True ... the point I was addressing was more the 'nor any sign of'
part.Also trying to point out that similar yet geographically isolated
regions have developed different types of humans... tending to
support evolution not refute it.

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Originally posted by Jonathan:
I was waiting in the doctors office one day in the exam room looking at cut away diagrams of the human body. Seeing how extreamly complex the design is and how well it works is what convinced me. I just cant possibly imagine that all of this has happened totally by chance. It just works to well to have hapened on its own with no outside help. A million engineers working a million years couldnt even come close to designing somthing as well designed as the human body. And evolutionists expect us to beleive that it created itself?

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It is harder to beleive that abiogenesis and evolution occured than it is to beleive that there is a god that has created us.

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Just my opinion.

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It may be harder to believe, but that doesn't make it false,
does it ?Someone else may point out::1) evolution doesn't depend on abiogenesis. Evolution is about
the diversity of life, and that life evolved from one or more common
ancestors over a period of approx. 3.5 billion years (is that
English or American billions ... does anyone know what the
standard is these days ?)2) Evolution is not pure chance. Evolution relys on the organism
having traits which may or may not be beneficial depending on
the environment it finds itself in. Those traits which are
beneficial help the organism survive, and increase its chance
of reproduction. Since the traits are heritable, the traits of those organisms that breed most will dominate the population.Speciation happens. Even most YEC's accept that (some even rely
on it to account for the numbers of creatures required on the
ark by Noah to be manageable).All evolution is postulating is that if, over a few thousands of
years we can go from some proto-big-cat (for example) to lions,
tigers, pumas, cougars, panthers, leopards, etc. then the accumulation of changes over millions of years could lead us from small shrew-like
mammals to the vast variety of mammals we find today ... and over
billions of years from single-celled creatures to multi-celled
creatures.Is that so hard to believe ... that over the course of several million
years, an accumulation of changes could lead to the diversity of
life we see today ?There is a wealth of evidence that can be interpreted as supporting
evolution ... and more is coming to light as we find out
more about genetics etc.

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Originally posted by Jonathan:
Sorry but I didnt mean to sound unsubjective. Its just very hard for me to accept that billions of mutations would result in anything but failure for a living organism.

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Why ?

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

For example. Lets say you have a single celled organism (one of the very first) but its immune system hasnt evolved yet. All it would take to wipe out each and every living cell would be a paper cut and then youre back to square one. There would be millions of similar "weaknesses" for the early life forms.

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But those that COULD survive would, and pass on that survival
ability to their (near) identicle offspring.

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

That being said. What percentage of the mutations are beneficial? How many mutations would it take to produce the reproductive system? Wouldnt the addition of the reproductive system cause potential harm to the mother? Then by natural selection all of those carrying the reproduction traits would die off. Now you have no reproductive system and you have to start all over. It would take billions if not trillions of organisms to allow for the process of natural selection to work without killing all of them off. There are too many processes that have to be just right.

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A reproductive system does not spring into being over-night.Aspects of it develop over time. First, perhaps, we end up
with close-knit colonies of single celled organisms, which then
become so dependent on one another that they can only
live AS a colony. Some cells develop specialised purposes ...I won't go on with the speculation, anyone can do that ... but
then your entire argument is one of incredulity ... I can imagine
many ways that even the most complex appearing 'systems' could have
come about gradually ... that's my opinion ... perhaps we could
argue data instead ?

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

The millions of steps that have to be exact for the process to function at all is the over complexity that I see. 5 billion years is not enough time.

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Not so. The steps that CAN lead down the path will, while the
others will die out.

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

I agree that it may be possible for a cat to evolve into a lion, but not for an ameba to evolve into a human. Once life has been established with a large population to work with, natural selection is feasable. But to start with the first cell and to have it grow and multiply, that is very difficult. The process of creating life would have tremendous odds aganst it.

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So what is the barrier ?What is the reproductive rate of a single celled organism ?Split once every twenty minutes for 1 billion years and what
population level do you have ?

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

Im just saying that IN MY OPINION the whole theory of abiogenesis, and to a lesser degree evolution, is at best very very difficult to naturally occur and have posotive results. Its like a plant that you dont water or fertalize or give enough sunlight to. It usually dies. Why would the very first life forms be any different?

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Radically change the environment and the critter will most likely die,
like the dinosaurs, but the same change may not be so radical
for other critters.

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

When I referred to evolution as chance I mean chance mutations that ultimately result in progress. Like chance when throwing dice. Have you ever been to Las Vegas? Did you go home with more money or less?

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Evolution isn't progress, it's just change.We only view it as progress so we can think of ourselves as
special

OK, so what do YOU mean by information ?

The probability value of 1/10^65 is to make a
PARTICULAR 100 amino-acid chain isn't it ?How many 100 amino-acid chains are there ?How many tries can there have been in the billion years
prior to the first cited modern-like cell ?Who says that the origin of life had to start with a cell
as we know them today, 3.5 billion years later ?What about the virus example is it that suggests design ?Incredulity ? That's hardly a good argument is it ?The whole concept of using probabilities to verify an event
for which we don't actually know the conditions or raw
materials or time scales seems a little contrived to me.

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Originally posted by Fred Williams:
Gitt information demands that a programmer is required for any new information (considering some of the advances in gene therapy, I suppose you can get new information in the genome this way). There certainly is a barrier, as you can fit only so much sequence data on the chromosomes.

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Oh dear ... doesn't that mean you now have to proove that there
is a programmer of the genetic code to make any claims that
it is information at all ?I thought people were arguing that the information contect
prooved it was created/designed, but now you are using a
definition of information that requires knowledge of the programmer. [b] [QUOTE] Here would be acceptable examples of new information:1) A new program installed on your computer (such as WordPerfect), where it did not previously exist2) A new gene (likely set of genes) that produce sonar, where sonar did not previously exist in the genome.[/b][/QUOTE]1) does not refer to information ar all, it's just data.2) has new data (the gene) introducing new information (the sonar).Change to the gene is not a change in information, but data.So the EXPRESSION of the gene is the INFORMATION.So shrimp leg supression consititutes new information.Whether a change is negative or positive it is new information
if it changes an expressed trait.No amount of dictionaries handed to you give you information,
only data. If you read and interpret that dictionary you
have gained information from it.Change the data in an interpretable way, and you have new
information. In your dictionary example, instead of a typo
change a crucial word within a definition (or introduce a typo
that is still a valid word). The information conveyed is
different, and since it wasn't there before, is new.In genetic terms if you were to accept that the expression of
the gene is the information/interpreted data then any change that
changes the expression is new information.

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Originally posted by peter borger:

The final devastating blow, that actually shattered the remaining pillar of theory of evolution (natural selection) was the recent discovery that the major part of genetic information seems to be redundant. Most genes can be knocked out without killing the organism, and a lot of genes have been demonstrated not to affect the fitness of the organism at all. These data demonstrate the irrelevance of natural selection in the maintenance of these genes (There has to be only one such gene and the concept of Natural selection has been falsified).

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Surely that is what is required for natural selection ?Genes which, in the current circumstances do not effect the
fitness of an organism, but which might if there was a change
in the current situation.... already asked if by knocked out you mean in isolation (i.e.
just one) what if you knock out three at the same time ? maybe
they interact in an unexpected/unobserved way ... is that tested
too ?

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Originally posted by peter borger:

The first pillar of the theory (i.e. random mutations as driving force of evolution) is in conflict with another discipline of established science: information theory.

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No its not.Unless you can show why information theory is relevent.

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Originally posted by peter borger:

You are free to believe whatever you like but don't tell me that evolution is supported by science, because it is just the opposite.
The only reason to stick to the old --falsified-- theory is because there is nothing (scientific) to replace it.

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OK. You are free to believe whatever you like, and you can run any
claim you like by me.

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Originally posted by peter borger:

So, in contrast to what most evolutionists still believe (recall: slow matter), there is currently no evolution theory that is backed up by hard science. If you have any question about the demise of the NDT, do not hesitate to ask. I will provide you with scientific evidence that falsifies the hypothesis of evolution (on whatever level you like).

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Please do, it's much easier to debate evidence than opinion.

Isn't the use of information theory in the context
of the genetic component of organisms the exact kind
of false analogy that you have just out-right rejected
(without argument I might add).The purpose of analogy is clarification, by changing the
subject matter to something more mundane. As such, to
argue against an analogy requires a comment on why it is
not approriate, rather than just saying 'That's an
analogy so I won't listen to it.'For me, for example, applying information theory to biological
systems is problematic. Just because we view the genome as a
genetic code, doesn't mean it is actually a code in the technical
sense of the word. The term 'genetic code' is itself an
analogy, and not a technical description.