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Author | Topic: Should we teach both evolution and religion in school? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Objectively, then, if my beliefs indicate that we should expect to find fossil victims of catastrophes I should not be required to argue that a fossil is not a victim of a catastrophe to support my beliefs. Because objectively it would not. Its existence is evidence for my views. the absence of any such fossils would be evidence against my views. In reality, if the geological and fossil records did not exist, the case for YEC would be storer, not weaker. Eliminating significant evidence for an old Earth and for evolution would hardly cause you a problem. It would be a problem for those who wished to argue for an old Earth and for evolution. You could even, as I said to Faith, argue for a miraculous clean up of the mess left by the Flood - and the absence of evidence to the contrary would make that more plausible, not less.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
Not so long ago I put down my expectation of what we should see if the Flood really occurred. I'll try to find it this evening.
But try this thought, Mike. If the geological and fossil records contain features strongly inconsistent with being produced by a single flood, lasting only a year, how can they be said to be evidence for such a flood ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6
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Here's some stuff I came up with earlier:
Personally I'd expect to see the following if almost all rocks were deposited by a world-wide flood. 1) Evaporites and lava flows which cooled under air would only be seen at the top or the bottom of the column. Neither could form underwater. Undisturbed surface features, coral reefs and developed paleosols would only be found at the bottom. Likewise angular unconformities. 2) There would be an upward-fining layer, perhaps a several yards thick containing a large majority of fossils, all sorted hydrodnamically. There would be no unconformities of any sort within this layer. 3) If the majority of geological features were formed by a flood all mountains should be clearly pre-flood structures, excepting volcanoes. 4) Geological evidence of continental drift would be absent. There's no time for significant drift. Any strata matched between continents would simply continue across the seabed, except where they have been pushed apart by rifts, and that for only a few kilometers at most. In a more realistic old-Earth scenario I'd expect the Flood layer to be a relatively small part of the geological record. And here are some thoughts on evidence: To get a murder conviction you have to show that there was a murder. But suppose that the prosecution stopped there. If the defendant's lawyer claimed "there is no evidence that my client is guilty of this crime" would you say that he didn't understand evidence ? Or would you think his comment reasonable, given that the prosecution presented no evidence that the defendant was the one who did it ? Can you call a cemetery "a record of mass death" just because a lot of bodies are buried there ? Wouldn't you need more evidence to conclude that ? And what if the evidence showed that the bodies accumulated relatively slowly over a long period of time ? Wouldn't it be wrong to say that the cemetery was a "record of mass death" ? Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: That doesn't address the inconsistency I raised at all. And I'd argue that her interpretative methods go against the principle of considering the Bible the final authority, also.
quote: That is obviously untrue. She complains bitterly and insultingly about the fact that we find her arguments unconvincing.
quote: I think that you will find that there are people who disagree.
quote: That's so wrong. The point is to avoid judging what she actually believes. Because there is no way to know that.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6
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quote: It is apparent that you believe that the Earth is about 6000 years old and that there was a global flood in that period - and I don't think that it's a coincidence that such beliefs agree with a literalistic reading of Genesis. You have said: "Genuine Biblical studies are not philosophical, but the beginning of faith..." Your objections to evolution are not even the main reason you are considered to be religious.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6
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Miller is also the coauthor of a Biology text (Miller and Levine).
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6
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quote: Schools shouldn’t censor science just because it contradicts some religious belief. That would lead to all sorts of problems.
quote: You don’t know much about, science, do you? Evolution is certainly science. And it is certainly possible to replicate the experimental work, and to repeat many relevant observations.Fossils don’t generally disappear, to use just one example. Astronomy has it harder. Supernovas don’t happen to order and the event itself is soon over - to use just one example.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Just as evolutionary theory says! (Humans are apes so obviously humans give birth to apes).
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
So you claim you aren’t human, and that you’re better than human.
Interesting. So what are you?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: And yet here you are attacking science teaching.
quote: Where prove means test - and you’re supposed to hold on to the good, not the bad.
quote: More accurately it’s frauds and their dupes versus the science of evolution,
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: No, you can’t. Models are only as good as their assumptions, and I think you’d be hard pressed to show that your assumptions are correct - with empirical certainty.
quote: Really? I think you’ve made a basic error.
quote: Funny how so many scientists disagree with you then.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Oh, that’s simple. We aren’t talking about any of those, we’re talking about the evolution of - for example - birds from dinosaurs. You cannot conclude that the conditions in the experiments match those closely enough to come to the conclusions you do. And by the way, being correct when you agree with evolutionary theory doesn’t mean that you are correct when you disagree. That’s another false assumption.
quote: You’ve ignored the basic fact that DNA evolution is driven by neutral drift, not selection. Neutral drift does not obey your equations.
quote: I have taken classes in probability theory, and I think you misunderstand the application in at least one important way. And you haven’t shown that biologists make any important mistakes either.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: The point you are missing is that much of the DNA differences are neutral. Also, I suspect that you miss the fact that evolutionary trajectories are defined with hindsight, so the assumption that a specific beneficial mutation is required is questionable indeed. I will also point out that pneumatic bones - like feathers - evolved in dinosaurs before there were any birds. So I think you underestimate the number of transitional quite considerably.
quote: That is what you claim. However showing that you are correct when you agree with evolutionary science does nothing to support such an assertion. Yet that is what you try to do.
quote: Maybe they do, but that isn’t what you are talking about. Neutral drift, for instance, does not have to wait for a beneficial mutation so any calculation if that factor is utterly irrelevant. Note also that you hold that these models don’t work anyway.
quote: Which of these papers provides the probability argument that humans and chimps cannot share a common ancestor ?
quote: Please explain this alleged blunder - because I believe that the error is yours.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Does that mean that you think that neutral drift does have to wait for a beneficial mutation? Because in that respect it certainly does matter. Drift, since it is not selection at all, can also work in parallel, unlike the strong negative selection you favour. So there’s another relevant difference.
quote: I am not going to make claims where I lack information, but it is certainly likely that some of them did in part, perhaps in whole. Feathers certainly did, so did pneumatised bones. And of course, the fossil record is not very good at preserving many of these features so working out when they occurred is necessarily a difficult task.
quote: The basis of my claim is that you underestimated the time available, since traits started to appear earlier than you imagined. The basis of your claim is unclear.
quote: It takes a billion replications to get a neutral mutation? Really? I thought you’d typically get more than one in a single replication (at least in humans.
quote: In other words all your current publications are irrelevant,
quote: You’ve published plenty of stuff that doesn’t address the issue where I think you are wrong. I’m not fooled by this tactic, Kleinman.
quote: And what makes you think that probability is relevant?
quote: And since most of the change is drift, and isn’t a response to selection pressures at all you aren’t going to account for it with just those models.
quote: I am certainly not denying that there are selective differences, but obviously they are not even most of the differences. I am not personally going to try to account for the differences. I don’t claim the expertise and really there is no need. If your calculations missed out a major factor Accounting for even a large part of the differences then they’re wrong, and that’s enough.
quote: I note that you fail to explain the alleged blunder. Instead of citing things I already know please explain how you conclude that biologists ignore this fact.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: So the mathematics being the same is nothing to do with your assertions that neutral drift needs to wait for a beneficial mutation or that it takes a billion replications to get a neutral mutation. It’s funny how often your correct statements have little to do with the actual arguments.
quote: Which has nothing to do with the question of when the differences would have started to evolve.
quote: Obviously the dievergence between separated populations will grow by drift while those connected by gene flow will remain more similar. Also, there is at least one significant bottleneck in relatively recent human ancestry - which is why humans have a relatively low genetic diversity.
quote: Will it? If it does it is certainly not because it would take a billion replications to get a particular mutation. Anyone who claims that fails to understand probability theory.
quote: But we aren’t disputing your claims about that. We are talking about your assertions regarding common ancestry. And there you are making plenty of mistakes.
quote: Of course that’s just your usual diversionary tactic. I never claimed that there were errors in those papers - and from what I have seen they are in agreement with evolutionary theory anyway. So no, I won’t be diverted from attacking the errors I can identify. So, can you please stop trying to use this trick? It’s getting boring.
quote: No, I just think that the correct mathematics would do stuff like account for the number of changes introduced by drift.
quote: I’m waiting for you to show that magic would be needed. So far you’ve only managed to illustrate the limits of your understanding. Neutral drift doesn’t have to wait for a beneficial mutation, or does it take a billion replications to get a neutral mutation. Somebody must have fooled you very badly to make you think that,
quote: And how many other neutral differences will accumulate? That’s the real issue. But you somehow miss that. I guess you just don’t understand.
quote: And the reason you resort to this condescending diversion is that you can’t answer my point. I’m sure it works sometimes but it doesn’t work on me.
quote: In other words you can’t explain this alleged blunder. Fine by me. I’m happy to win a point be default.
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