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Author Topic:   Biological classification vs 'Kind'
Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


Message 23 of 385 (562386)
05-28-2010 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by killinghurts
05-25-2010 9:14 PM


As far as I understand it, the 'kind' of a creature is the name of the creature on Noah's ark from which it is descended.
If we assume that none of these creatures could interbreed, it's actually a very clear definition, and clearer than the evolutionary definition of species.
Of course, it's a useless definition because it bears no relation to reality. And also because the bible does not tell us all the kinds on the ark.
But I don't think it's unclear in principle.

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Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


Message 200 of 385 (563890)
06-07-2010 8:26 AM
Reply to: Message 191 by BobTHJ
06-06-2010 7:36 PM


quote:
The origin of life comes immediately to mind (and I've mentioned this in several previous posts on this thread). The only naturalistic hypothesis I have seen put forth that is not intelligent design oriented is abiogenesis - the probability of which is astronomical.
Hi Bob,
the probability calculations I've seen used against abiogenesis are always wrong, and in very basic ways. The two biggest errors are :-
assuming that there are no intermediate steps between raw chemicals in solution and something extremely complex, such as a cell.
assuming that there is only one way to get life - the way we happen to have it
If you make these assumptions you can indeed get astrononical numbers, but scientists don't do that. Creationists do.
quote:
Laboratory experiments have consistently failed to provide even the slightest evidence for it. In a case such as this a supernatural assumption seems far more reasonable.
As others have said, that's not the case. Beyond the now ancient Miller-Urey studies, much more sophisticated work is going on to explore the intermediate steps. See for example the work of Jack Szostak and Brian Paegel. This is still at a relatively early stage of development, but they have already some interesting findings.
But even if there were no experimental evidence, a supernatural assumption is not reasonable. This is because not a single phenomenon that has been understood proves to have a supernatural explanation. The track record of naturalistic explanations is superb. The track record for the supernatural is non-existent. The supernatural has been removed from many domains by science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by BobTHJ, posted 06-06-2010 7:36 PM BobTHJ has replied

Replies to this message:
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Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


Message 238 of 385 (564238)
06-09-2010 6:48 AM
Reply to: Message 232 by BobTHJ
06-08-2010 9:35 PM


quote:
But that is exactly what has happened. Mainstream atheistic scientists have ruled out an intelligent supernatural Creator as "unevidenced" and yet advanced abiogenesis through chemical evolution - a hypothesis with striking evidence against it. The only logical explanation for such behavior is a bias toward their atheistic darwinistic 'religious' dogma.
But there is, so far as I know, no evidence against abiogenesis. The probability arguments advanced by creationists are spurious. What evidence do you have against it?
Bear in mind that that science has not ruled out other options. Just that abiogenesis is the best scientific theory currently available. It does not require new scientific laws. It does not require the existence of designers, supernatural or otherwise, for which there is no evidence. But it might not be right.
Edited by Peepul, : No reason given.

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Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


(1)
Message 239 of 385 (564251)
06-09-2010 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 156 by BobTHJ
06-04-2010 5:05 PM


Re: Getting down to details
quote:
The supposed age of the fossil is based on scientifically irresponsible dating techniques. You prove my point here that darwinists were unable to come to the reasonable conclusion (a young fossil) since they were unwilling to question their base-assumption of the accuracy of radio-isotope dating methods.
I followed the link you attached here to One Reason I Am Skeptical of an Ancient Earth : Proslogion
Dr Wile is saying that it is wrong to extrapolate our knowledge of radioactive decay rates from 100 years to billions of years.
He would have a point if there were no evidence about radioactive decay rates in the past - but there is a lot of evidence of this. For example, correlations with other dating methods, the Oklo nuclear reactor, astronomical observations, lack of other effects correlating with changes in radioactive decay rates.
Plus Dr Wile engages in very questionable reasoning:-
quote:
I would think that if there were overwhelming evidence that radioactive processes are outstandingly stable, perhaps such an extrapolation could be made. However, what we have observed so far does not give such overwhelming evidence. Indeed, not only has Otto Reifenschweiler shown that the half-life of tritium can change significantly depending on the chemical environment and temperature (Reduced radioactivity of tritium in small titanium particles, Phys Lett A184:149-153, 1994), but there is now strong evidence that small changes in half-life occur when the distance between the earth and sun changes! (Davide Castelvecchi, Science News 174:20, 2008).
There is of course overwhelming evidence that rates are stable across a wide range of pressures, temperatures and environments. There are huge numbers of experiments that show this. As a nuclear chemist, Dr Wile must know this. But he does not reference any of them.
Instead he references just two papers that he believes support his view. This cherry picking is sufficient in itself to show that he is not a trustworthy source on this issue.
His two quoted papers are interesting. The first shows a reduced decay rate for tritium in particular circumstances. However, there is no suggestion of time variation here - there is no relevance to his argument about stability.
The second is revealing. He quotes a paper that claims a small variation in decay rates (< 0.1%) with distance from the sun. What he does not mention is that subsequent experimenters repeated this kind of experiment and disagree with this conclusion :-
quote:
In conclusion, we find no evidence for correlations between the
rates for the decays of 22Na, 44Ti, 108Agm, 121Snm, 133Ba, and 241Am
and the Earth—Sun distance. We set limits on the possible amplitudes
of such correlations (2.5—37) times smaller than those observed
in previous experiments [1—3]. Our results strongly
disfavor the suggestions by Jenkins et al. [4] of an annual variation
based on a previously unobserved field produced by the Sun or the
annual variation in the flux of solar neutrinos reaching the Earth.
Recently, Cooper [8] performed a very clever analysis of decay
power data obtained from the 238Pu thermoelectric generator
aboard the Cassini spacecraft. The results of this analysis also
strongly disagree with the hypothesis of a correlation between nuclear
decay rates and the distance of the source to the Sun.
from http://donuts.berkeley.edu/papers/EarthSun.pdf
So, there is hardly 'strong evidence' in favour of this, as Dr Wile claims. This rebuttal was published before Dr Wile wrote his piece.
Bob, this is typical creationist material. When it's examined carefully, it leaves a bad taste. Dr Wile represents himself as an expert ('earned PhD in nuclear chemistry') and yet does not honestly present the balance of the evidence. This is almost universal behaviour among creationists and it means that you cannot trust what creationists tell you . Read the original science and draw your own conclusions.

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Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


Message 244 of 385 (564277)
06-09-2010 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 241 by BobTHJ
06-09-2010 12:05 PM


quote:
Glad to have this discussion! Courage is not required - I have nothing to fear. Either my beliefs are correct or they are in error and need to be corrected.
Great attitude!
Have a look at some of the work of Szostak and Paegel - they have gone beyond Miller / Urey.
Szostak Lab: Home#
Darwinian Evolution On A Chip by Brian M. Paegel and Gerald F. Joyce, Public Library of Science Biology, 6(4): e85 (April 2008)

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 Message 241 by BobTHJ, posted 06-09-2010 12:05 PM BobTHJ has replied

Replies to this message:
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Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


Message 258 of 385 (564373)
06-10-2010 7:17 AM
Reply to: Message 256 by Otto Tellick
06-10-2010 3:52 AM


Re: Getting down to details
quote:
All People Descended Recently from a Single Family
Mitochondria are organelles in the cells of every human that carry a small amount of DNA. Mitochondria are inherited solely through the egg from the mother, allowing the identification of descendants from any female lineage. Variations in mitochondrial DNA between people have conclusively shown that all people have descended from one female, just as it is stated in Scripture.
The instability of the mitochondrial genome and computer simulations modeling mutation load in humans indicate that the human mitochondrial genome is very young, which fits within a biblical time frame.
Y chromosomes are passed on to sons from their father, and just as mitochondrial DNA shows that all have descended from one female, Y chromosome analysis suggests that all men have descended from one common ancestor.
Otto, Bob, this is very off-topic, but its another ICR article linked to on the page that displays the ICR article you referred to.
I think it's an even more blatant example of dishonesty or stupidity in the ICR - quite breathtaking! Paras 1 and 3 could be down to stupidity, para 2 looks very much like dishonesty.
Edited by Peepul, : No reason given.

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Peepul
Member (Idle past 5008 days)
Posts: 206
Joined: 03-13-2009


Message 371 of 385 (567257)
06-30-2010 10:27 AM
Reply to: Message 368 by BobTHJ
06-29-2010 7:32 PM


quote:
As I've stated previously, I agree that the ontology based on genetic and morphological similarity models life with greater than 95% accuracy. This agreement does nothing to vindicate darwin (who made an assumption/conclusion of common ancestry based upon morphological evidence) it merely demonstrates that life shares much similarity.
Hi Bob,
the fact that we get consistent nested hierarchies using different methods demonstrates much more than life sharing similairities.
Life could share similarities without falling naturally into a nested hierarchy. Cars do not fall naturally into a nested hierarchy, for example, because innovations are taken up in many 'lineages' - an analogue of horizontal gene transmission.
As you probably know, when building these nested trees, it's possible to estimate how 'genuine' the tree is - ie how strong is the signal that it really is nested. So the strength of the nestedness can be estimated statistically. The results show that life's trees are significant.
A designer would not be constrained in this way, evolution has to be (assuming that HGT is not significant). This is why it's such strong evidence for evolution.

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