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Author Topic:   Top Ten Signs You're a Foolish Atheist
PaulK
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Posts: 17906
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 7.2


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Message 346 of 365 (653023)
02-17-2012 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 341 by Buzsaw
02-17-2012 11:18 AM


Re: Evolution/abiogenesis
quote:
Now, regarding your message: Yes, our opponents, as usual want it both ways; They are indeed related, but dare anyone of us to try to show how they are related. They deny that life's abiogenesis, i.e. biopoesisis is a prerequisite, needful for evolution to allegedly happen.
To agree with you when you tell the truth but not agree with you when you tell falsehoods is not "trying to have it both ways", however convenient it might be for you to say otherwise.
In reality the definition of biopoesis you quoted was based on the idea that the process of evolution was an integral part of the origin of life. This clearly contradicts your claim that "biopoesisis is a prerequisite, needful for evolution to allegedly happen". If your sole support for a claim is a definition that ASSUMES THAT YOU ARE WRONG, how can you claim to have any sort of rational case ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 341 by Buzsaw, posted 02-17-2012 11:18 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Chuck77
Inactive Member


Message 347 of 365 (653103)
02-18-2012 3:23 AM
Reply to: Message 345 by Rahvin
02-17-2012 12:20 PM


Re: Evolution/abiogenesis
Rahvin writes:
Your metaphor here really just doesn't work. I understand you're going for a historical approach, that understanding the present is predicated on an understanding of the past, but you're missing the point a bit.
Evolution is an observed fact. We know that it happens. We've directly observed it. You can observe a quickie version of evolution any time yourself by observing a population of organisms with a fast reproduction rate (the "slowness" of evolution is of course because change is small and can only increment by generations, which can be bypassed somewhat through the use of fruit flies or bacteria as examples) and artificially adding some selection pressure that may duplicate a possible environment change in nature. It's not hard - it's so easy in fact that undergraduate biology students do this every semester in universities around the world.
Evolution, too, describes a great deal of the past. Your metaphor regarding family medical history actually describes evolution, not the relationship between evolution and abiogenesis. The Theory of Evolution predicts that traits are passed from parent to child with slight modification, and this means that an understanding of your family history can give a doctor an idea of what potential traits you may have inherited, and it's a lot cheaper and faster than examining your complete genome for specific risk factor genes.
As I've described to Buz, evolution is inevitable given just a few prerequisites:
1) life must exist
2) resources needed for life must be limited
3) life must reproduce such that traits are inherited from parent to child, but with slight modification.
We've run computer simulations by the hundreds feeding in just exactly those prerequisites...and lo and behold, the simulated population of organisms change over time. The mechanism is obvious - if I take a population of birds, and I kill off the least colorful 25% before they can reproduce, then obviously the 75% remaining, who are more colorful, will pass their colorful traits on to their children, and the subsequent generation will be slightly more colorful on average. If I do this for a few dozen generations, I can wind up with a population of birds significantly more colorful than my original population.
The only way the mechanism would ever not work that way is if one of the prerequisites above were taken away. If resources were completely unlimited, for example, and every individual in a population had the same ability to survive and reproduce with no fear of predators or other selective pressures, then you wouldn't tend to see a lot of change in the population of successive generations. If you remove the inheritance of traits, then "successful" traits don't get passed on. If there's no variability between generations, no mutations, then change can never happen, and the population will always be a cohesive set of clones no matter how long we breed them. And if life doesn't exist, well...what exactly would we be breeding?
Abiogenesis is one possible starting point for life on Earth. It looks the most likely to me and scientists in general, but it's not the only option. To carry your family history metaphor to a more accurate description, imagine that you had a very good knowledge of your family's genealogy back to your great great great grandfather...but you don't know who his father was. His mother had multiple husbands, you see, and you aren't certain if your branch of the family is actually descended from John Jackson, or Jack Johnson. Your great great great great grandfather's birth date is too smudged on the old birth certificate to know whether it matches up to Johnson or Jackson.
You don't know the origin of your family tree, but you do know the rest. And the parts you do know still fit, whether you're actually descended from a Jackson or a Johnson.
Evolution has a similar relationship with abiogenesis. There are several conceivable possibilities to explain the origin of life on Earth...but the Theory of Evolution describes how life changed after that origin into the diverse biology we see today. If abiogenesis originated life, then evolution took over and the mechanism of descent with modification guided by natural selection diversified life from a single organism to all of the organisms that exist and have ever gone extinct. If YAHWEH magically Created a few original organisms out of dust, then evolution took over and the mechanism of descent with modification guided by natural selection diversified life from the original created organisms into all of the organisms that exist and have ever gone extinct. If aliens from another planet or even reality created the first Earth-bound life form, then evolution took over, etc.
Abiogenesis is a hypothesis regarding the origin of life. The Theory of Evolution is the description of the mechanism that causes life to change over time.
Imagine that I don't know the identity of the inventor of the internal combustion engine, but I do know the details of the development of all f the internal combustion engines in use today and over the last few decades. Does the identity of the first inventor potentially validate or invalidate my knowledge of engine history? No! Of course not. Regardless of the origin, my knowledge of the history of the combustion engine rests solely on the evidence I used to build that knowledge in the firt place. If the original inventor turns out to be different from the person I thought was most likely, Ford still made all of the engines I thought they made in the intervening time - the origin is nice to know but irrelevant, at least so far as confirmation or falsification of my existing knowledge.
So too with evolution and abiogenesis. If abiogenesis is confirmed to be the absolutely certain origin of life on Earth tomorrow, the Theory of Evolution would be unaffected - it would neither be additionally confirmed, nor contradicted. If conversely abiogenesis were absolutely falsified with 100% certainty tomorrow, the Theory of Evolution would not also be falsified, nor would it be confirmed. The origin is a separate issue from the mechanism that governs life after it exists.
The inventor of the internal combustion engine is a separate issue from the physics and chemistry that allow the mechanism to work once the engine is built.
If we discovered that Henry Ford was a mythical figure who never really lived, that doesn't mean the Ford Model-T sitting in the automotive museum doesn't exist.
I'm still pretty convinced that abiogenesis is by far the most likely origin of life on Earth, Chuck. Don't get me wrong. But the evolution-abiogenesis relationship is a logical non-sequitur. The veracity or falsehood of evolution does not follow from the veracity or falsehood of abiogenesis, and vice versa. They both depend on different evidence. The evidence supporting evolution is not the same as the evidence that supports abiogenesis.
Hi Rahvin, thanks for your reply. I understand what you mean yes. Although we're not going to agree I don't think. I just feel simple life forms (biological evolution?) turning into what we have today like RNA etc should be accounted for somehow and not passed off as abiogenesis and it should be also a responsibility of biologists to try and see how that journey took place and incorperate this into the TOE and not seperate them. They aren't and that is suspicious to me. To me they shouldn't be split up. Althought I agree with you with a lot of your analogies (ford T, combustion engine) I don't personally agree with it from my POV and that is where we won't be able to reconcile it.
Rahvin, if there is so much evidence for evolution and life HAD to start somewhere shouldn't that same evidence for evolution be the same for abiogenesis? To me they are connected and you can't seperate them. Just like we know where we came from - our mothers- and how we got here. We can trace everything back to our natural births. Why is this different? It's the same thing just on a smaller scale isn't it?
If people deny abiogenesis is the same as evolution yet talk about the evidence FOR evolution shouldn't that same evidence lead us to it's origins?
Was there some moment in time when there was such a huge gulf that there are records missing in between? Shouldn't there be a nice steady flow, a "trail" so to speak?
The gap between "inorganic life" and DNA is huge. Why is it thrown out the window and called abiogenesis? I think it undermines the theory and is a cop-out. Not that I agree with the theory but I think it's (again) suspicious and intentional.
Even tho everything you said makes sense in the position you're coming from and I understand what you mean do you understand what I mean?
Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.
Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 345 by Rahvin, posted 02-17-2012 12:20 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Chuck77
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 348 of 365 (653104)
02-18-2012 3:32 AM
Reply to: Message 343 by Taq
02-17-2012 11:27 AM


Re: Evolution/abiogenesis
Taq writes:
Let's say that God created a simple RNA replicator 4 billion years ago on Earth
Well did He? If He did wouldn't there be evidence for it? Why can't it be traced back? Why is it passed off as "origins"? Why is it not connected if it's indeed true?
The reason I think people seperate them is because it isn't true. The "soup" and the TOE. I don't think you can reconcile the two because there isn't evidence for it. "Inorganic life" to RNA/DNA. You can't just say "what if". And what IF God didn't create a simple RNA replicater? Then what did? That's my point. That's what people can't answer, and that's why they are seperated.
That's why the TOE only deals with "existing life", because it doesn't have an answer for how that existing life came to be.
So that's why only existing life is dealt with from a theory that incorporated millions of years in it for the gaps that need to be filled where they have no idea what happened.
If thoeries deal with predictions why aren't we seeing any today? Did evolution stop? Was it a one time thing that can't be explained how it came to be?
Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.
Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 343 by Taq, posted 02-17-2012 11:27 AM Taq has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 350 by Tangle, posted 02-18-2012 4:17 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Chuck77
Inactive Member


Message 349 of 365 (653105)
02-18-2012 3:52 AM
Reply to: Message 337 by Percy
02-17-2012 9:01 AM


Re: Evolution/abiogenesis
Percy writes:
Abiogenesis is a non-biologic origin of life
How can the existing life that evolution studies which is biological not be biological in it's origins?
We certainly don't know much about itt
Isn't that the same as us saying we don't know much about how we got here from birth? Maybe this had been answered. I just can't seem to reconcile the two being different.
No one's trying to pull a shell game on you. We're merely explaining the science.
I don't think anyone here is no. I think you believe the TOE and abiogenesis are different and that the TOE is the best explanation for how existing life works and you don't have an answer for how it all started. You are just relaying to me what current mainstream science teaches. I personally don't believe what it is they are saying.
Is there no position so untenable you won't argue for it?
Would you like my reasons for calling Christianity a relationship and not a religion?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 337 by Percy, posted 02-17-2012 9:01 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 7.0


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Message 350 of 365 (653106)
02-18-2012 4:17 AM
Reply to: Message 348 by Chuck77
02-18-2012 3:32 AM


Re: Evolution/abiogenesis
Chuck77 writes:
The reason I think people seperate them is because it isn't true. The "soup" and the TOE. I don't think you can reconcile the two because there isn't evidence for it. Soup to RNA/DNA. You can't just say "what if". And what IF God didn't create a simple RNA replicater? Then what did? That's my point. That's what people can't answer, and that's why they are seperated.
We don't know how life started, that's completly accurate. But you must understand that how it started simply doesn't matter to ToE because the ToE works no matter what caused life.
You've been asked several times to tell us how the ToE would be affected if a pair of replicating molecules got here by the different what ifs that we can think of:
1. God did it
2. A meteor brought it
3. Aliens planted it
4. Alphabet primordial soup cooked it up
5. ano
Put your mind to answering that as a simple task.
(You'll have to put your beliefs that evolution isn't true anyway aside for a minute or two because I think that's why you're having a problem with something that we all think is simple and obvious.)
Hopefully, if you can just think it as simple logic and not a great conspiracy on behalf of science you'll at least understand our position and agree that it's sensible. You don't have to believe any of it, you just have to understand that seperating abigenesis from evolution is rational.
(At least at the simple level we are talking at. I suspect that once we have solved the problem of abiogenesis, it will be a lot more complicated than this and it may be that the ToE Will extend backwards some way into it.)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 348 by Chuck77, posted 02-18-2012 3:32 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Panda
Member (Idle past 3961 days)
Posts: 2688
From: UK
Joined: 10-04-2010


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Message 351 of 365 (653107)
02-18-2012 5:29 AM


Stupid and wrong
The list is stupid and wrong.
The people supporting it are stupid and wrong.

If I were you
And I wish that I were you
All the things I'd do
To make myself turn blue

  
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3954 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


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Message 352 of 365 (653109)
02-18-2012 5:52 AM


Summary
I gave an opinion on this thread a few posts ago which summed up the progress made (or lack thereof).
I think that, given the way this thread developed, it would have been better named "Top Ten Fallacies used by YECs, OECs and IDists which makes them appear foolish".
Attempts at supporting the first two on the list effectively stalled this thread as it became clear that the main supporter didn't have a clue what he was talking about and the originator seemed to hide behind him. We've had arguments about A-biogenesis which used the term biogenesis, thinking they were synonymous. We've had blanket statements made which are wrong by supporters who later denied having made them and then went on to supporting their denied statements! All this done using words which don't mean what they think they mean, so they're saying stuff that they don't even know they're saying. God help us if we'd ever got onto the remaining points. One poster, even after accepting that point 10 was wrong, went on to deny having accepted that point 10 was wrong and accused others of misrepresenting him. In the face of behaviour such as this it is very difficult to make headway.
We all get impatient and annoyed when faced with tactics such as these, but this thread has served a very useful purpose. While there was never any chance of getting a coherent argument from Buz, it demonstrated in all it's awful clarity the depths that some will go to in a failed attempt to make their case. Any lurkers who read this thread will be struck by the astonishingly blatant lies which some will use in support of their God.
By the end of the thread we have still been unable to get them to understand that how life arose has nothing to do with how evolution acted on that life. Time and again requests were made for explanations of how the origin would affect subequent evolution. There has not been a single post attempting to answer this, yet it goes to the very heart of their assertion.
I think a new thread to discuss the remaining points would be valuable, not because we're in any danger of changing the minds of Buz and Chuck, but to demonstrate the idiocy of the original list for lurkers.

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22929
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.2


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Message 353 of 365 (653112)
02-18-2012 8:22 AM


Summation
Chuck's last three posts lapsed into rationality, so it would not be entirely accurate to say that Chuck and Buz were bat-shit crazy, irrational and contradictory in this thread, but I'll say it anyway. Later Buz will post his summary confirming this characterization, and we'll just have to see which Chuck shows up when he posts his.
I do think a followup thread in the science forum about why abiogenesis and evolution are separate concepts would be a good idea.
--Percy

  
jar
Member
Posts: 34140
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


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Message 354 of 365 (653120)
02-18-2012 9:52 AM


Summary
I found both lists funny but for different reasons. That anyone over about the age of ten could ever take the list in the OP seriously though is simply pitiful and that person deserves care and instruction.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18631
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 4.4


Message 355 of 365 (653121)
02-18-2012 10:36 AM


Summary
I think that the phrase on our website says it best: Understanding through Discussion.
This has been yet another thread where by reading what is said, a rough understanding of various participants can be made.
Be careful what you write...it will get critiqued.
Edited by Phat, : admin mode by mistake

  
subbie
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


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Message 356 of 365 (653128)
02-18-2012 11:33 AM


I can't say it any better than Forest's mother did:
Stupid is as stupid does.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It 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
...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6484
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 9.1


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Message 357 of 365 (653137)
02-18-2012 1:12 PM


A great humor thread
This thread should be read mainly as humor. That the OP took his top ten list as serious is already humorous.
If you want to get the most out of the humor of this thread, then pay particular attention to the posts by Chuck77 and those by Buzsaw. They are great (and often amusing) examples of the absurdities emitted by people who take their faith with too little skepticism.

Jesus was a liberal hippie

  
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


(3)
Message 358 of 365 (653138)
02-18-2012 1:13 PM


Buz Summary:
Regardless of all of ever on going criticism, meanspirited demeaning of creationists by our opponents, this has been one of the most interesting, edifying and desirable kind of threads which liven up the EvC debates.
Our adversaries, including Admin, do not like them, blaming their creationist counterparts for the red hot intensity and length of them. We are essentially falsely charged as being trollish. We are being banned from most active forums and restricted to the coffee house whereas their own and non-effective creationists who they are able to refute are allowed into the important forums. Percy/Admin makes my point in his last message that abiogenesis, etc debate should be continued in the science forums where Buzsaw et al will not be allowed to butt-kick evolutionist arguments.
My position that a valid scientifically supportive abiogenesis, i.e. biopoesis is a needful prerequisite to the alleged ToE remains effectively unrefuted by evolutionists who have participated in this thread.
It is likely that the reason astute, knowledgeable and professional physicists like Son Goku and Cavediver have not responded to my request for their opinion they are aware that my position cannot be refuted by conventional scientists.
I would feel confident in a Great Debate with either of these gentlemen on whether my summarized position is scientific. I'm not saying that I would win such a debate but it would to the point and fairly balanced, void of evolutionist thread trolls and personal attack by Admin et al.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
Someone wisely said something ;ike, "Before fooling with a fool, make sure the fool is a fool."

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9580
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 7.0


(1)
Message 359 of 365 (653140)
02-18-2012 1:41 PM


The main outcome of this thread is the demonstration of irrationality repeatedly shown by creationists.
The abiogenesis debate - or actually, lack of debate - was particularly illustrative, culminating in this massively delusional statement
My position that a valid scientifically supportive abiogenesis, i.e. biopoesis is a needful prerequisite to the alleged ToE remains effectively unrefuted by evolutionists who have participated in this thread.
Despite being asked many times how the ToE would change if any of the differing ideas of 'genesis' occurred - which would prove conclusively that it was only life that mattered and not where it came from - an answer wasn't even once attempted.
The evolutionists position is that it wouldn't change in any significant way at all so all the creos had to do was show how we are wrong. But we had not one single comment.
And yet Buzz crosses the line last, claiming a win despite foul play. Astonishing.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(3)
Message 360 of 365 (653141)
02-18-2012 2:07 PM


Idiocy on Display
I found this entire thread completely enervating from start to finish.
Chuck77 posts a top ten list that was obviously intended by its authors to be humorous satire, and then commences with Buz's help to defend said list as being literally true. Eventually Buz is forced to admit that some things weren't quite literally true, but the whole exercise of getting the admission is like pulling hen's teeth. (Yeah, I see the mixed metaphor. I admit that I am not so great a writer)
Then Buzsaw claims to have won the debate because the board's resident physicists have elected not to weigh in on abiogenesis. Well, why the hell should they? Other than that they happen to be smart dudes, why should their opinions on how life began be considered essential in any way?
At least Chuck77 did admit that he has no intention of debating here anymore. As if anyone hadn't already figured that out. As if he ever did debate. At least now I can add 77 to the plonk list without feeling guilty
Surely somewhere on earth, there are Creationists and ID proponents that have something thought provoking and scientific to say about their beliefs. But such discussion happens so seldom here as to make me question the time I spend on EvC. I find my own snark quotient increasing with each visit, and I fully expect that at some point Dr. A will be forced to ask me to tone it down a bit.
If it wasn't for the fact that there are real physicists and biologists here, from whom I can learn something, and some non evo/creo subjects to participate in, I think I'd be spending more of my own line time elsewhere discussing programming or comics or physics.
Edited by NoNukes, : Delete some duplicated words.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

  
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