Summations Only

Yes, good point. I think this is too much for Faith to understand or accept though. I tried to address it by asking why every species has their own unique version of cytC that is only a little bit different that its closest relative. I have brought up the congruence before, but of course it is dismissed as genetics should follow form. But she's not willing to learn that is just not true.The talk-origins page on independent_congruence is excellent! Great link. Yes, I should revive that thread. I just got too busy with school this semester to do anything extra. But summer's finally here!!HBD

I'd argue that the drop of water is designed, because it's at the molecular level where design does show up in nonliving things, such as in the formation of crystals, or the atom itself. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I can't, but I have no doubt that a good understanding of what a worldwide flood would do, how it would deposit sediments, how it would sort corpses, would account for both quite well. Meanwhile there's nothing unscientific about pointing out that the evidence of water-formed strata and the fossilized remains of all the living things in the world is indeed stupendously good support for such a worldwide flood. I'm not completely oblivious to the "sedimentary record." I'm aware that the prevailing theory has to do with many transgressions and regressions of the ocean onto the land, which is constructed from clues in the sediments. It's so close to almost postulating a worldwide flood I have to suspect that the clues they are looking at could probably just as easily support such a flood. Well, the "fossil record" is a construct of the ToE, so asking a Floodist to account for it is unfair in a pretty cheeky way. A Floodist has a single catastrophic event in mind that would order things quite mechanically, according to laws of course, no doubt, but mechanical laws which render the "fossil record" just an artifact of the overactive evolutionist imagination. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It isn't a "braking system," that's somebody else's misnomer which I should have had the foresight to correct. No, the idea is very simple: isolating a smallish number from a larger population produces new gene frequencies. Over time as the smaller population breeds only within its own numbers these new frequencies bring out new phenotypes and over even more time produce a general new look to the population. I figure that's how blue wildebeests formed from black wildebeests. Some black wildebeests got geographically isolated from the herd, inbred among themselves for some number of generations until their collective new set of gene frequencies produced the blue type of wildebeest with all the characteristics that set it apart from the black population.When you have a new smaller population with new gene frequencies you can get some dramatic new traits, but at the same time you get them only by losing the genetic material for competing traits. This is how domestic breeds are formed. Truebred domestic animals may even have all fixed loci for their salient traits, meaning they DON'T have the alleles for every other trait possible to that species. This is the "braking system," the loss of genetic material, which HAS to happen to get new phenotypes. It's inevitable, it's what evolution does, it's how things evolve. It happens with any population split but the smaller the evolving population the easier it is to demonstrate the point.This can all occur in a very short period of time, a few generations if the new population is very small, just enough time to thoroughly mix the new gene frequencies, maybe up to a few hundred years -- but the Pod Mrcaru lizards evolved their new traits in less than thirty years starting from five pairs. This is way too short a time to account for the changes by mutations, which are too slow.It's the natural result of evolution itself, so it's the processes of evolution themselves that eventually bring evolutionary activity to an end. It's not a "braking system," it's the natural playing out of evolution. On any line where evolution is occurring genetic material is being lost as new traits emerge. so evolution itself brings evolution to an end, and shows the ToE to be sheer impossible fantasy. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hey, Faith, you remember how this is the exact opposite of what should happen in principle and what does happen in practice?That would be why you can't find any verifiable examples of this happening, and why people have been able to show you counterexamples of the exact opposite thing happening.

Your faith is touching and unwarranted. A good understanding shows that it can't possibly account for these things. Well, that is a little unscientific. For example, ignoring all the strata that are not water-formed is unscientific. And when you claim that the fossils are "the fossilized remains of all the living things in the world" then since that's something you made up, that's kind of unscientific too. Remember when I asked you how many transgressions and regressions you'd expect in the Flood, and you said one of each? And then things went downhill from there?And no, finding evidence for transgressions and regressions is just as far from "postulating a worldwide flood" as finding evidence for porcupines is from postulating that the entire world was once entirely covered with porcupines. No, it's a bunch of these things called fossils, you must have heard of them. No, there really are fossils. We can show you pictures.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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I can't, but I have no doubt that a good understanding of what a worldwide flood would do, how it would deposit sediments, how it would sort corpses, would account for both quite well. Meanwhile there's nothing unscientific about pointing out that the evidence of water-formed strata and the fossilized remains of all the living things in the world is indeed stupendously good support for such a worldwide flood.

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If you assume that the Flood - somehow - acted against all reasonable expectation - for no scientific reason whatsoever just to lay down the strata and fossils - not to mention the numerous other problems then they cannot be considered scientific evidence of the Flood,By everything we know scientifically the strata were laid down over a long period of time - and while most were laid down by water that is explained by water being good at depositing sediments. Likewise there is absolutely no scientific reason to suppose that the fossils are remains of creatures that died in a single catastrophe, even a world wide one (especially as the evidence shows no sign of such a catastrophe)Until your wonderful explanation turns up (which is about on the same likelihood as somebody inventing a perpetual motion machine) it is unscientific to claim that the geological and fossil records are evidence of a Flood - not least because it is a ludicrous falsehood.

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I'm not completely oblivious to the "sedimentary record." I'm aware that the prevailing theory has to do with many transgressions and regressions of the ocean onto the land, which is constructed from clues in the sediments. It's so close to almost postulating a worldwide flood I have to suspect that the clues they are looking at could probably just as easily support such a flood.

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Your suggestion would be wrong. First, there are terrestrial deposits. Second the evidence does not show us any point in time where the entire land surface was supposed. Third the evidence indicates that the transgressions and regression were relatively slow events (a catastrophic flood would look quite different). In short the picture painted by the evidence is only similar at a very vague and superficial level. And relying on that frankly is a mark of desperation, obviously clutching at straws.

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Well, the "fossil record" is a construct of the ToE, so asking a Floodist to account for it is unfair in a pretty cheeky way. A Floodist has a single catastrophic event in mind that would order things quite mechanically, according to laws of course, no doubt, but mechanical laws which render the "fossil record" just an artifact of the overactive evolutionist imagination.

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The fossil record is an observed fact. And an appeal to mechanical sorting to explain the order in the fossil record is laughably absurd. So the only one with an overactive imagination here is you. Really, why should anyone accept silly things you make up as a fact ?Really, really Faith you need to think much more careful about things instead of jumping at every excuse you can to pretend that you're right and your opponents are all irrational and wrong no matter what the evidence really says. It is arrogant and insulting - and to the extent that you do get any unfair criticism you really do invite it (much of the criticism is quite fair, and often understated) Bad behaviour has consequences.

I'll tell you what. Since you are having a tough time. I'll concede. What you did was science.The science of biology.Which nobody disputes.Let me know when you have an argument about "The Science in Creationism". That's what you promised. Creationism involves creation. You have outright denied that you are talking about your designer. If you don't talk about the thing you are proposing to explain design, you haven't made any effort and you haven't proven your case that there is science in creationism. You haven't even proved there is science in Intelligent Design.You've proved there is science in biology.Congratulations on finding something nobody disagrees with, and shrouding it sufficiently in lies and misdirection that you managed to find people to disagree with you.But this is not the Science of Creationism. Oh wait. Lies and misdirection? Maybe that IS the Science of Creationism. I have been schooled. Your argument is valid, and no different than evolution's argument. Because its just biology.There's no Creator. No Intelligent Designer. None of that stuff is in your argument. Your argument is just about living things. Biology. Yay. You've had a 500 post thread.All you've said is that 'life has a design'. Your goal was to show the Science in Creationism. You failed.Here is a 37 post topic. This is my defense of evolution. I was actually told off for making too many points in my OP, and had to spread it out over several posts. Confidence in evolutionary scienceI keep referring Creationists there to tackle evolution, as they love to complain about evolution in threads about creation. As you see, not many people have taken me up. Feel free to head over there to discuss evolution, or to see what defending a position looks like for real.You have not shown the Science in Creationism.
You have shown that you can observe living things.
There's a big difference. You failed.

That wasn't my point, Faith, and I suspect you know that. No, the point is that it's absolutely not intellectually honest to whine to herebdragon (and others) that you can't understand the technical genetics/biology prose...when at the same time you're proposing an idea regarding genetics without having a grasp of genetics and molecular biology beyond a high school level.Since you don't know scratch about genetics, and you admit as much, whatever gives you the notion that your particular idea is in any way valid? Why would you even propose such an idea with nothing more than an extremely rudimentary understanding of genetics? That's not intellectually honest.To you, this is gibberish:"Why would you expect simple sequence repeats to be informative as to population structure? Why would you expect basic housekeeping genes, such as Ribosomal RNA and cytochrome C, to be highly conserved across unrelated species and yet show patterns of differences that can be grouped into a nested hierarchy - and one that largely matches predictions based on morphology (which both of the genes mentioned have little to no direct effect on morphology). Why would there not be just 1, or at least a very small number, of each of these highly conserved housekeeping genes that is used across all species? Why does each species or group of species get their own unique sequence that is just a little bit different from their closest relatives?"To people who actually freakin' know about genetics and molecular biology, this reads as easily as Dr. Seuss. So tell me: how is it intellectually honest to propose an idea about genetics without knowing a thing about genetics, based on your own admission?Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

One doesn't need to know everything about a field to know enough to make a particular limited point. That's all I've ever claimed. HBD's paragraph is about aspects of genetics that have nothing to do with the point I'm making (he was talking about nested hierarchies anyway, which I never address at all). What happened to the Pod Mrcaru lizards is very easy to grasp without understanding all the mechanisms of genetics What happens in breeding animals is very easy to grasp with the most rudimentary understanding of genetics. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Within reason, yes.But when experts in the field say that your particular limited point is wrong - and moreover give detailed reasons for saying so - then most non-experts would reassess their position.

The fossil record is not an observed fact, it is an interpretation of the facts.There were no terrestrial deposits. That's a misreading of the evidence. All the strata are absolutely identical as to their basic form. It took five months for the flood to rise to its greatest height. While no doubt there were violent events during the Flood the overall rising of the water was not necessarily violent. There would probably have been temporary shorelines created during its rise and fall, there would have been shallow water at its encroaching edge, deeper water behind it. In other words the conditions that are the evidence for the many transgressions would likely do just as well for the one worldwide transgression and regression.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That sounds reasonable but it isn't. They are mad first of all that a nonscientist would dare to say anything at all, which colors their thinking to begin with, and when you get into the argument it's usually a straw man. Always really.I just dealt with Dr. A's post about the Nobel Prize winners. No matter how many times I've said creationists do not reject science it never gets through. He's upbraiding me severely for supposedly demeaning working scientists or their scientific work. I don't do that, I argue against the THEORY of evolution and the old earth and I do ridicule THAT thinking, and naturally all that is mixed up with true scientific work so it's hard to sort it all out. Evolutionistic explanations are given by true working scientists who do good work, I don't doubt that. I'm trying to attack particular ideas on the ground that they aren't really scientific, and I really don't think these unscientific ideas have anything to do with the real scientific work that is done, though those who do the work think it does just because it's so interwoven with everything they do. I think it's just a piece of unnecessary baggage they haul around with them that has nothing to do with the true work.While I like to do my own thinking I'm not alone in these views you know, most of it is represented on the creationist sites in various versions.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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The fossil record is not an observed fact, it is an interpretation of the facts.

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Again, it is an observed fact. Fossils, and the places they are found are observed facts. I cannot understand what you are disputing here.

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There were no terrestrial deposits. That's a misreading of the evidence.

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The opinion of someone who has not examined the evidence, and often refuses to consider the evidence is worthless. And that is all you are offering.

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It took five months for the flood to rise to its greatest height. While no doubt there were violent events during the Flood the overall rising of the water was not necessarily violent.

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No. After 5 months the Ark is grounded (Genesis 7:11, Genesis 8:4), so obviously the waters are subsiding by then. In fact it seems that the high point is reached after the forty days and nights.

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There would probably have been temporary shorelines created during its rise and fall, there would have been shallow areas at its foremost edge, deeper water behind it. In other words the conditions that are the evidence for the many transgressions would likely do just as well for the one worldwide transgression and regression.

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Obviously it would not show multiple transgressions - and even if it were gentle, a very short single transgression is the most that could show. Which is not at all what you claim.Edited by PaulK, : Faith added another point.

All of the Creationists fantasies about a global flood during the period of time humans have existed is simply Dead on Arrival until one of them can present the model, mechanism, method, process, procedure or thingamajig that can explain anything as well as the old earth and no global flood theory.No creationist has ever been able to explain sorting of geology or biology.We are now over 500 posts into this thread and still not one person has presented any evidence of "The Science in Creationism".AbE:In addition both Dawn and Faith have posted statements that would absolutely preclude whatever they are doing from being Science.In Message 180 Dawn posts "You Dr A. What your Mug factory does for you, specific revelation in the form of the word of God does for us. It supports our existing indirect evidence" ...and in Message 431 Faith posts " But I will put the witness of the Bible above any manmade evidence of anything where I think there is a contradiction."Edited by jar, : see AbE:Edited by jar, : fix sub-title