Devolution (from The Fall) and "No New Information"

After a discussion with Smooth Operator on another thread, I would like to propose a new thread dealing with the concepts of "The Fall" and "No New Information."Some folks here are firm believers in "Devolution" and the concept that no new information can be created; everything can and must go downhill because of "The Fall."A few deny that their belief in devolution is related to The Fall. In response to my post in the What is an ID proponent's basis of comparison? (edited) thread, Smooth Operator responds to my post: In another post on that thread, Smooth Operator wrote: "New genes do not equal new information."Because this would be off topic on that thread, I would like to propose a thread to explore how one could come to the belief in devolution/no new information without a religious, and in particular a biblical, background.I see no convincing evidence in the scientific or popular scientific literature for this position. Mainstream science has, in fact, concluded just the opposite. On the other hand, a number of people and denominations interpret the bible in such a way as to support this belief.But if one does not acquire this devolution/no new information belief through religion, as Smooth Operator attests, or from mainstream science, from where does it come?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You haven't told us how you came to this conclusion originally. That is the topic.The "devolution" position is not supported by mainstream science, but is supported by some religions.Where did your belief come from? Who told you about this, or where did you first encounter it? And why do you so vehemently support this belief in the face of so much contrary evidence?That's the topic I had in mind, not the evidence itself.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Bump for an answer to message 8.No evidence, please. We've seen all that before.I am interested in your response to the questions in message 8. That's the topic of this thread, not any particular bit of evidence.Edited by Coyote, : Correct message number. It should be message 8, not 7.Edited by Coyote, : No reason given.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

On another thread Smooth Operator wrote: I started this thread to explore why you choose to believe in such things as this.The overwhelming mass of evidence against this view is such that it is about as far out on the fringe as you can get without falling off the edge of a flat earth.Now I don't want a bunch of your evidence in reply. I didn't start this thread to explore evidence. I am asking why you choose to follow such a fringe idea when science discarded it centuries ago. What's in it for you to be so far out on the fringe? You clearly relish that position. Tell me why.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I would like to keep the topic to how someone could accept the geocentric belief in spite of the immense scientific evidence to the contrary.The details of geocentrism--pro and con--should be dealt with on other threads, of which there are several.What I want to explore is what makes someone choose a belief system akin to flat earth and time cube in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.You don't come up with this belief by reading the scientific literature, or even the general pseudo-scientific popular literature. If you are not coming from a religious perspective, to arrive at a belief in geocentrism you have to go way out to the fringe, and then some.I still want to know why and how this occurs.What makes someone choose such a fringe position, and argue it all over the web? I can see where religious belief would foster this, but Smooth Operator denies this. So, where does this belief originate?SO claims it is a search for the truth, but what makes him reject 99.999% of science and cling to such a fringe position as "the truth?"Religious belief is well known for having "The TRVTH" (they all do, even when they contradict one another).But if it is not from religion, where does SO really come by this belief?And why?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Thank you for reopening the thread. I appreciate it very much.In the opening post I specified The Fall and a belief in biological devolution as being religiously motivated. Since SO denied any religious connection, I wanted to explore the origin of this extreme fringe belief--how and why would someone come up with such a belief other than religion?The topic drifted into geocentrism, as that is the subject of other threads. However, the two beliefs are analogous: if the belief in geocentrism is not religiously motivated, from whence did it come?In both cases we have extreme fringe beliefs for which there really is no scientific evidence, yet a small number of folks are pushing these beliefs and claiming they have a scientific--but not religious--basis.I find that unbelievable, and that is what I wanted to discuss--how and why such beliefs came about.Again, thank you for reopening the thread.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.