Lanski's mutations: Lenski’s experiments supposedly showing evolution being observed are an embellishment of the facts. Mutations do not add new information but corrupt existing DNA coding. And all the verbal semantics engaged in by Da...rwinians do not change this fact. The E coli bacteria remains an E coli bacteria, and everything that happened in the Lenski’s lab worked to preserve the bacteria E coli as such - end of story.
This reality is confirmed from biological studies on ancient bacteria. As stated, Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels. - The Paradox of the Ancient Bacterium Which Contains Modern Protein-Coding Genes ( Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig and Russell H. Vreeland )
Lenski’s lab achievements have been highly exaggerated, and ALL the data is not available, as he and other biologist cannot fully understand why certain things happened. There is no way of ever conclusively establishing that "new" information was generated from mutational errors, particularly when bacteria are known to have considerable abilities to metabolize. No one really understands the full metabolic resources of bacteria, Lenski included. And the ability of E coli to digest citrate was merely the reactivation of already existing machinery.
Trev, there’s a lot more going on in a cell that we know about. So to say that these random mutations can simply hang around and ultimately link up intelligently in a meaningful way is wishful thinking. Corrupted DNA code does not turn itself into Einstein, not now, not ever. Systems biology shows there are complex regulatory networks within a cell, and the ongoing quest of biologists has been to determine precisely how these biological systems and their transcriptional regulators work, particularly in relation the regulators placement in the hierarchy, and how this may relate to direct connectivity to target genes. These complex regulatory networks scream intelligent design. And cannot be the product of corrupted DNA code, born of undirected mutations and blind evolution.
Polymorphisms are normal subtle variations in DNA coding that make us all different. DNA mutations are NOT part of normal variations, but are the result of copying errors, or alternatively damage caused by the environment or disease. Germline mutations are errors or mistakes that are passed on to offspring, because every cell in the DNA passes on this error, as the original DNA information is corrupted and lost. To suggest that vastly complex biological systems and sub-systems are the cumulative result of DNA errors, corruption, genetic degeneration and increasing loss of information is unsustainable. You can continue to believe this if you want to but that’s not the way I interpret the data.
Information-losing mutations can indirectly confer resistance to certain invaders, as the damaged DNA can prevent a bacteria taking in its own executioner, but this damage also restricts the intake of needed nutrients, making it less fit. I repeat, errors and damage actually produce a loss of genetic information, not a gain. Any changes to those DNA instructions can alter the gene's meaning and change the protein that is made, or how or when a cell makes that protein, and generally results in a nonfunctional protein.
We could go on endlessly discussing this issue, but in the end you have to face the reality that the E coli remains and E coli, and that there are definite limits to the extent that any lifeform can vary and adapt, as every breeder know. Dog in, dog out, E coli in, E coli out. If it can’t happen with intensive breeder effort and manipulation, it certainly won’t happen in the wild.
The fact that scientist need to apply vast amounts of intelligence and reason to understand the natural world necessitates that the natural world must itself... be intelligent and rational. Scientist instinctively recognize design when they see computer code or an electric motor, which necessitates that the vastly complex DNA code of the cell, and the functional motor of the flagella must also be likewise designed. Indeed, it would be impossible to do science on any other principle. For no scientist operates on the principle that we live in an "unintelligent" "irrational" universe. Nor does any scientist conduct science on the premise that there is no order, regularity, structure or design in nature. This means that ALL of science functions on the foundational principle of Intelligent Design. Thus, for atheists to argue that intelligent design has no place in science is to effectively saw off the limb ALL of science is sitting on. And the fact that atheists do exactly this reveals the illogical, irrational and unscientific nature of naturalism and atheism.
Moreover, Dawkins has missed the entire point about intelligent design and Irreducible Complexity, as you have. Irreducible Complexity is NOT about whether individual parts can serve another intermediate purpose, but about the assembling of specific parts, in a specific way, to jointly serve a "specific function". And this calls for an overall perspective and intelligence that is well beyond chance mutations and blind evolutionary process. Particularly, a mindless evolutionary process that has no absolutely no overall perspective, and wouldn’t have the foggiest notion of where anything and everything is evolving to, or even why.
The fallacy of this "Science saved my Soul" notion is that the Judeo-Christian God is NOT created by man, but comes as a result ...of SPECIAL REVELATION. And that is why I repeatedly challenge you to check out the historical, philosophical, scientific, existential and prophetic evidence supporting this revelation. Judaism and Christianity are the only religions on the planet that are founded on "verifiable historical facts", and Christianity "rises or falls" on the historical authenticity of the New Testament reports. In contrast, ALL other religions in the world start from a "limited finite" human perspective, and as such, their gods are indeed created by men, just as you say. The only alternative supposed ‘divine’ revelation is the Koran. However, as I repeatedly demonstrated to students, including a body of International Moslems students at the Australian National University, the Koran is so lacking in evidence it would not be technically admissible as legal evidence even in an Islamic court. In comparison, I show that the Bible represents the best possible historical, legal, and documentary evidence, and has no equal.
we live in the real world and know this has got absolutely nothing to do with evidence. It’s about what scientists call the priority of the paradigm. More correctly called science by mob rule, just as
Open Letter on Cosmology spells out. To which we can add the Darwinian Inquisition inspired by the vast Humanist global network (which I wrote my MA thesis on). This activism amounts to hunting down and banishing any scientists who departs from the evolutionary party line, together with taking legal action against any public education institution that seeks to teach anything other than evolution in science classes. Most people instinctively follow the mob and go with the majority, It’s called HEARD instinct or LEMMINGS syndrome, where people like yourself and others just go along with the flow, and can’t think outside the square. This is also true of most scientists who are generally up to their ears in philosophical naturalism and scientism. Sort of a safety in numbers mindset supporting the prevailing paradigm, as most scientists are reluctant to destabilize the established order " which is fully entrenched in philosophical naturalism and materialism.
I will finish off by giving you a few basic lessons in logic, reason and real sustainable science - for free:
Lesson 1: A universe that is "dependent" in nature and doesn't have the capacity to prevent itself from running down towards heat death and maximum entropy, is in fact a "dying deity" and could never have brought itself into existence, but necessitates an outside first cause, namely God..
Lesson 2: If God or any preceding cause is likewise dependent and dying, and not self-existing, than we have an infinite "dependent" regression , where "nothing" is ever capable of bringing itself into existence, not ever. And, gentleman, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Lesson 3: If you hold that the first cause is outside time and space, and therefore timeless and self-existing, then you have just defined theism (and can no longer be an atheist). In fact, you have just discovered an inescapable reality. Namely, that in order to explain why anything exists there needs to be a non-dependent, self-existing first cause - God.
Lesson 4: A universe that finally runs down towards maximum entropy and heat death, will ultimately have no usable energy to do anything, let alone wind itself up again to a minimum entropy state of Maximum order, information, and usable energy. - That necessitates the above "self-existing" cause outside the universe.
Lesson 5: (I repeat) There exists absolutely no "verifiable naturalistic answer" as to how the universe came into existence; nor what energy and matter ultimately is; nor the origin natural laws; nor the origin of the mathematical regularity of the universe; nor the origin of the "precisely" balanced sub atomic particles; nor the fine-tuned cosmological constants (which even Hitchens and Dawkins have conceded is unsettling); nor the origin of the DNA Helix; nor the origin of life and consciousness. Of course, I could go on and on, but if you haven't detected the existence of a rational intelligent cause of the universe by now you never will. This makes you all the product of an unbalanced, unintelligent, irrational and mindless cause.
Lesson 6: This means that ALL of science is based on realities for which there is absolutely no "verifiable naturalistic answer", which of course makes the atheistic notion they only accept verifiable naturalistic scientific answers utterly useless nonsense.
Lesson 7: (I repeat) The fact that scientists need to apply vast amounts of intelligence and reason to understand the natural world necessitates that the natural world must itself be intelligent and rational. Scientist instinctively recognize design when they see computer code or an electric motor, which necessitates that the vastly complex DNA code of the cell, and the functional motor of the flagella must also be likewise designed. Indeed, it would be impossible to do science on any other principle. For no scientist operates on the principle that we live in an "unintelligent" "irrational" universe. Nor does any scientist conduct science on the premise that there is no order, regularity, structure or design in nature. This means that ALL of science functions on the foundational principle of Intelligent Design. Thus, for atheists to argue that intelligent design has no place in science is to effectively saw off the limb ALL of science is sitting on. And the fact that atheists do exactly this reveals the illogical, irrational and unscientific nature of naturalism and atheism.
Lesson 8: There is a vast difference between verifiable EMPIRICAL BASED SCIENCE and HISTORICAL BASED THEORIES (i.e. evolution, uniformitarianism, theories on cosmic origins). The Empirical & Scientific Method is based on testable, repeatable, verifiable, and publicly observable science, which people are universally forced to accept IN SPITE of their religious or philosophical beliefs, because refusing to do so would have life threatening consequences. In contrast, historical based theories relate to unobserved and unrepeatable past events that happened over time, ensuring no observers. Such theories are subjective and not objectively based and can never be conclusively proved, which is why the Nobel Committee does not regard historical theories as the real thing (New scientist). Thus, the atheist Darwinian paradigm has its feet planted firmly in mid air, being ultimately based on nothing more than unverifiable SUBJECTIVE beliefs, presuppositions, assumptions, and conjecture. In short, its explanations and speculations based scientism about unobserved and unrepeatable past events. So you can continue believing in your highly improbable Trinitarian delusion: Namely, that mindless Father Time, Lady Luck, and Mother Nature turned goo into you; earth into Einstein; and a frog into Prince Phillip.
Lesson 9: Atheism turns science and reality on its head, being based on the unsustainable delusions of Naturalism. Naturalism is the metaphysical belief that "nature is all there is and all basic truths are truths of nature. This in turn is grounded in the metaphysical claim of scientism: The precept that science is the foundation of ALL knowledge and that ALL truth can be arrived at by the empirical method and science alone. Both of which are unsustainable.
In reality, metaphysical naturalism turns science on its head. The scientific method operates on the principle that everything in science is tentative and not necessarily the final word. This is because scientific understanding and ins...ights will be forever finite and limited. Philosophical Naturalism however asserts that science is not limited or tentative and is the final word, allowing no alternative, particularly God. Creationist scientists of today, like all the pioneers modern science such as Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Kepler, etc., rightly saw naturalism as an unsustainable delusion, having no sustainable basis in either science, or reality. For in order to establish that matter in motion is all that exists, or can ever exist, one would need to be God, which no atheist could ever claim. And being finite creatures with limited insights and knowledge there is no way the Austin could ever really know, that he really knows, that he knows. As such, the unverifiable dogma of atheism, metaphysical naturalism and scientism is utterly absurd and based on an unsustainable delusion.
Lesson 10: Atheists are always going on about the evil, morality, injustice, especially in regard to the Church, Christians, and, yes, God. However, in the godless atheistic wilderness where all reality is nothing more than matter in motion there is absolutely no basis for calling anything evil or unjust’, moral or immoral, good or bad. In the atheistic world of raw materialism there is nothing in existence to provide any basis for anything. What is, simply is — end of story. The atheist’s universe is a place where everything is solely the result of impersonal, mindless, uncaring, unfeeling, ruthless cosmic events. Combined with mindless, uncaring chance mutations and blind, unfeeling, ruthless natural selection. None of which provides any basis for realities such as evil, bad, injustice, hate, good, , , or any personal characteristics such as conscience, love, mercy, caring, altruism,
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