The Truth About Evolution and Religion

Why, dkroemer, don't you ever post the rest of the paragraph? I bet you copied this off of some creationist source, rather than actually reading the book. Can you tell me if your source is the 7th edition or the 8th? The 7th was published 2004, the 8th was published 2007, and your website says the version you quoted from was published in 2008.http://www.dkroemer.com/page4/page4.htmlNow see p15 of chapter 5
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PRIMARY STRUCTURE The primary structure of a protein is its unique sequence of amino acids. As an example, let’s consider transthyretin, a globular protein found in the blood that transports vitamin A and a particular thyroid hormone throughout the body. Each of the four identical polypeptide chains that, together, make up transthyretin is composed of 127 amino acids. Shown here is one of these chains unraveled for a closer look at its primary structure. A specific one of the 20 amino acids, indicated here by its three-letter abbreviation, occupies each of the 127 positions along the chain. The primary structure is like the order of letters in a very long word. If left to chance, there would be 20¹²⁷ different ways of making a polypeptide chain 127 amino acids long. However, the precise primary structure of a protein is determined not by the random linking of amino acids, but by inherited genetic information.

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(color bold and underline for emphasis)Because it is NOT left to chance (and Campbell and Reece know this), the calculation is acknowledged as bogus.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : subtitleEdited by RAZD, : No reason given.

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I wonder if it is this distortion of data that got him fired from NYC schools for being incompetent. If he was a teacher of my kid I certainly would be raising holy hell and complaining about his incompetence.The disconnect from reality is amazing. It seems every time he quotes something it is easily shown that what he quotes is taken out of context.His behavior has now become troll like.Edited by Theodoric, : spelling

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I'm telling you, he's channeling John A. Davison.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- PhatIt has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

The point is that it is a standard part of biology to do probability calculations of this sort. Here is another two:"By comparison, if we question how long it would take a high-speed computer to write randomly a specific Shakespearean sonnet, we are asking that all the letters of the words of the sonnet will come up simultaneously in the correct order. It is an impossible task, even if all the computers in the world today had been working from the time of the big bang to the present. Even to compose the phrase, To be or not to be, letter by letter, would take a typical computer millions of years." ( page 32, The Plausibility of Life)Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene (Nature, Vol. 224, 1969, p. 342):Subtitle: Conflict between the idea of natural selection and the idea of uniqueness of the gene does not seem to be near a solution yet.First paragraph: Modern biology is faced with two ideas which seem to me to be quite incompatible with each other. One is the concept of evolution by natural selection of adaptive genes that are originally produced by random mutations. The other is the concept of the gene as part of a molecule of DNA, each gene being unique in the order of arrangement of its nucleotides. If life really depends on each gene being as unique as it appears to be, the it is too unique to come into being by chance mutations. There will be nothing for natural selection to act upon.

A classic example of creationist quote mining.Is it any wonder that we have to check on every quote they use?And why is it that so many are deliberate attempts, on someone's part, to deceive the reader?My thought is that they don't have any empirical evidence or data that they can use. They have to misrepresent and distort what real scientists say in order to pretend that they have a scientific case for their religious beliefs.But what is amazing is that they are so transparent in their attempts! It takes very little effort to find them out. And scientists are the exact types who will check the original quote to see whether they have manipulated it in some way.But I guess creationists who are their normal audience are the exact types who will not check the quotes, but will accept whatever the authority figure says scientists said as long as it confirms their a priori beliefs.This seems to illustrate the difference between science and apologetics (aka creation "science")?

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Save us, dear Lord, from those who would save us.

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Art Hoppe, On the Death of Robert Kennedy

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San Francisco Chronicle, 1968

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

Given the inordinate and egregious errors you make in your claimed field of expertise, why in the world should anyone care how something "seems to [you]" in a field in which you are not educated? Of course, the fact that it appears that way to you is of little interest and even less evidentiary value. Apparently you didn't learn in your claimed years of education that science doesn't rest on assumptions but on evidence. You are chock full of the former but bereft of the latter. Usage fail.I'm not normally a grammar Nazi, I make my own share of mistakes. But this particular one is a pet peeve of mine, and the staggering depth of your misinformation inspired me to go ahead and pile on. This, of course, assumes that natural selection acts only upon genes. I'd ask for evidence to support this assumption, but given your near perfect track record of failing to respond to requests for evidence, instead I'll just draw a pretty picture of a flower. @-----`---,-----------It's a rose.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- PhatIt has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

Hi dkroemer, more misrepresentations? Actually all you have shown is that it is a standard part of biology to compare the results of evolution to random chance to emphasis the effect of selection.Because chemistry limits molecular reactions and because selection filters results, probability calculations are useless.It's a simple concept.Enjoy.

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Even with the filtering, there is no explanation for the increase in the complexity of life. The relevance of this is that you are being deceived by atheistic humanists. Atheistic humanists are people who think they are more rational and enlightened than those who believe in God.One of the reasons to believe in God is the big bang. The Bible says God created the universe from nothing. The big bang is a sign that God inspired the human authors of the Bible. To a lesser extent, there is no explanation for the origin of life 3.5 billion years ago. However, there is speculation about the origin of life. There is more than speculation about the cause of evolution because Darwinism explains the adaptation of species to their environment.

Of course there is an explanation for the complexity of life, it's called the theory of evolution. Ask any biologist, they'll confirm it. There are many religious biologists, Kenneth Miller being perhaps the most prominent one. He'll tell you exactly the same thing, that the theory of evolution explains the complexity of life. No it isn't. There are numerous other religoious texts that say that. The Quran comes to mind as one. So, they're all true as well? There are several explanations, we just haven't figured out the correct one yet. There is no speculation about the cause of evolution. The cause of evolution is explained by the theory of evolution.Will you finally take all this to heart, or will you simply go along and in a hundered posts or so will again say exactly the same false things?

Hi dk,
I'm not defending Dawkins, nor do I espouse his militantly atheistic views, so it's no use your quoting him at me. What I am challenging is your statement in post 322: where, whatever the rest of his arguments may be, he is completely correct. Being a physicist myself, I dislike the misuse of physics in support of agendas, regardless of how valid those agendas may be - and when this misuse comes from someone purporting know what he is talking about, it is doubly reprehensible.What I have been trying to do is split up the problem into two parts:(1) is it possible for entropy to locally decrease? I have been trying to get you to say "yes" to this and for some reason you have so far refused to do so. Your statement in message 350 seems to indicate you know that this is so, once the evident typo is corrected - at least, I hope it is a typo (see what happens when one points out the motes in other people's eyes?)(2) Once it is agreed that entropy can locally decrease, we can go on to examine if it can do so by a sufficient quantity to give us the results we observe. But it is pointless to do so until point (1) is established.Just to get this straight, I want to have your confirmation of this. Once we are agreed that the problem is solely one of magnitude, we can proceed.Edited by fizz57102, : Fixed typo inj (2)Edited by fizz57102, : sh*t, I can't fix the typo in my comment about fixing a typo

You might be being generous on the typo, but one does hope so!dk seems to have some serious comprehension problems in other areas, as well. When I pointed out that mistake, he ignored my comment. Had it been a typo, wouldn't we expect an "oops! sorry! I'll correct that" type of post?Welcome to EvC, BTW.

Hey fizz57102 Welcome to EvC! I think you made a typo yourself. But at least with you it is clearer that it is a typo. Edited by Huntard, : I also made a typo! Typos for teh win!

Not necessarily. The point (2) is not necessarily referring to point (1), but to the local increase in the sun, which is why Fizz ends with the point about whether or not it is sufficient to account for the local decrease here.I agree that it's slightly confusing, though.

Perhaps, but the second sentence of his first point alludes to him wanting dkroemer to agree with him on the point that entropy can decrease locally.I just found it a bit weird that he would then say that once they agree it can increase, they can continue.Like you said, it's a bit confusing.But of course, if he didn't make a typo, I'm sure he'll explain that to me.

Actually, the whole damned thread's confusing, because it's hard to figure what its author is actually trying to say! He repeatedly refers to one book by "neo-Darwinist" authors which is actually meant to be, at least partially, an explanation of how mutations and selection can and do increase complexity!Kirschner & Gerhart use the phrase "facilitated variation" in much the same way that I would use the phrase "evolved evolvability". They are saying that early natural selection has favoured a system which can make it easy to produce variations which enable modern organisms to adapt and produce novel features by conserving the essentials and randomly varying in productive areas, particularly regulatory genes.Why the author of the O.P. rambles on about this, and how he connects it to his comments on his god is a mystery.It's actually interesting biology!