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Author Topic:   What is the basis for a Creationist argument against Evolution?
hitchy
Member (Idle past 5117 days)
Posts: 215
From: Southern Maryland via Pittsburgh
Joined: 01-05-2004


Message 91 of 96 (81515)
01-29-2004 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Stephen ben Yeshua
01-24-2004 11:55 AM


Re: Did you read the whole Newsweek article?
one more thing: scientific theories are tenative, not inconclusive. they can be 99.9999999% correct, but we always leave a little space just in case. the results of their studies were inconclusive. saying science is inconclusive doesn't hold much water. think about how inconclusive science is the next time you are flying in an airplane or simply drinking some pathogen-free water.
almost forgot...saying that you know the truth, 100% truth, automatically tells me that you do not have a scientific mindset. also, god doing a lot of undetectable and untestable things makes no difference. if i am wrong and burn in hell for it later, fine. i hate the cold

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 01-24-2004 11:55 AM Stephen ben Yeshua has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by Brad McFall, posted 01-29-2004 3:19 PM hitchy has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 92 of 96 (81518)
01-29-2004 3:19 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by hitchy
01-29-2004 3:10 PM


Re: Did you read the whole Newsweek article?
When I read my Grandfather's PHD thesis from the 1930s genetics literature or in his own non-published version I find that "science" THEN was 'conclusive'. At least in genetics then onw wrote the paper and then listed as a "conclusion" a summary of all that could be understood from the data collected and analyzed. When I got to Cornell science was "inconclusive" in the sense that is is not done at the end of papers any more but is presumed in the actual content itself and the only summary was the "take home" part of the lecture which could ALWAYS be something that was needed to be explained if the reader or listener "didnt get it". The problem with the word "inconclusive" is that we DO NOT provide these Summaries any more and assume that someone is just not understanding science if the require not the explanation but the summary instead. However I guess that inconclusive was meant to mean tentative and that is the way i think you both meant it. This should be clear in the c/e context else I will be taken as being incomprehensible which was not my intent. So if you are reading this -- last sentence than disregardreading this particular post (of mine).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by hitchy, posted 01-29-2004 3:10 PM hitchy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by hitchy, posted 01-29-2004 3:40 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
hitchy
Member (Idle past 5117 days)
Posts: 215
From: Southern Maryland via Pittsburgh
Joined: 01-05-2004


Message 93 of 96 (81520)
01-29-2004 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by Brad McFall
01-29-2004 3:19 PM


Re: Did you read the whole Newsweek article?
when i was speaking of the results being inconclusive, i meant that no conclusion could be reached from the evidences gathered. the two positions in the article were prayer helps and pray has no affect. we could discuss prayer having a negative affect, but that was not the crux of the article. the conclusion, then, that you would reach would either be prayer has no affect or prayer has a positive affect. the evidence provided pointed to "prayer a little positive" in some cases and "prayer having no affect" in others. therefore, according to the study on which the article was based, no conclusion could be reached--the study was inconclusive.
tentative works on conclusions. no conclusion was reached. the evidences were not tentative, they were the results. more evidence would have to be gathered to draw a conclusion from this study. then we could say that we hold that conclusion to be tentative. sorry if that bored anyone...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Brad McFall, posted 01-29-2004 3:19 PM Brad McFall has replied

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 Message 94 by Brad McFall, posted 01-30-2004 12:50 PM hitchy has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 94 of 96 (81667)
01-30-2004 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by hitchy
01-29-2004 3:40 PM


Re: Did you read the whole Newsweek article?
right, In high school biology class I actually was given the ability to do an experiment where I prayed to some plants and did not pray to others to see if it effected growth rates. I did not notice any but as you suggested this might still be the negative result in Faraday's xcriticism of the "contact" theory for which he had scales falling off material in a solution while I may not have had good enough experimental error control. Point well taken. Thanks for the feed forward. Best. Brad.

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 Message 93 by hitchy, posted 01-29-2004 3:40 PM hitchy has not replied

  
q3psycho
Inactive Member


Message 95 of 96 (82497)
02-03-2004 5:28 AM


Well I read through this quickly. So I'm sure I missed some things. But there really are two reasosn for doubting evolution. The first is that it isn't inthe Bible. But the second thing is that its never happened yet as far as anyone can see. Maybe some of those petri dishes made a bacteria into a frog or something?
Someone here said the earth was billions of years old. But how can that be? If we've only been around since Adam, then the earth can't be older than that. If you start doubting that then there is a lot more at stake. next thing you'll be telling me tha Jesus is a lie!!

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by crashfrog, posted 02-03-2004 5:41 AM q3psycho has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 96 of 96 (82499)
02-03-2004 5:41 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by q3psycho
02-03-2004 5:28 AM


The first is that it isn't inthe Bible.
Well, neither is the metal mercury, which was avaliable to the ancients. Do you doubt that thermometers exist? Somehow I doubt the Bible is supposed to be an exhaustive catalogue of All That Exists.
But the second thing is that its never happened yet as far as anyone can see.
Sure it has. In fact you can do it in your own bio lab:
quote:
Here's an experiment you can do in the privacy of your own bio lab. It doesn't cost very much and the materials can be acquired from any decent biological supply house.
Take a single E. coli bacterium of K-type. This means the bacterium is susceptible to T4 phage. Let this bacterium reproduce until it forms a lawn. Then, infect the lawn with T4 phage.
What do we expect to happen? That's right, plaques should start to form and, eventually, the entire lawn will die. After all, every single bacterium in the lawn is descended from a single ancestor, so if the ancestor is susceptible, then all the offspring should be susceptible, too.
But what we actually see is that some colonies of bacteria in the lawn are not affected by the phage.
How can this be? Again, the entire lawn is descended from a single ancestor. They should all behave identically. If one is susceptible, then they're all susceptible. If one is immune, then they're all immune. This can't be an example of "adaptation" because if one could do it, they all could do it.
But since there is a discrepancy, we are left with only one conclusion: The bacteria evolved. There must be a genetic difference between the bacteria that are surviving and those that died.
Indeed, we call the new bacteria K-4 because they are immune to T4 phage.
But we're not done. Take a single K-4 bacterium and repeat the process: Let it reproduce to form a lawn and then infect the lawn with T4 phage.
What do we expect to happen? That's right: Absolutely nothing. All of the bacteria are descended from a single ancestor that is immune to T4 phage. Therefore, they all should survive and we shouldn't see any plaques form.
But we do. Plaques do, indeed start to form. How can this be? Again, all the bacteria in the lawn are descended from a single ancestor that was immune to T4 phage, so they shold all behave identically. If one is immune, then all are immune. There must be something else going on.
Something evolved, but the question is what. What evolved? Could it be the bacteria experiencing a reversion mutation back to K-type? No, that can't be it. Suppose any given bacteria did revert back to wild. It is surrounded by K-4 type who are immune to T4 phage. As soon as the lawn is infected, those few bacteria will die and immediately be replaced by the offspring of the immune K-4 bacteria. We would never see any plaques forming because the immune bacteria keep filling in any holes that appear.
So if it isn't the bacteria that evolved, it must be the phage. And, indeed, we call the new phage T4h as it has evolved a new host specificity.
Thanks to Rrhain for introducing this to me - I've shamelessly quoted him here.
Maybe some of those petri dishes made a bacteria into a frog or something?
Why would they have to, to prove evolution true? That's not what evolution says happened.
Someone here said the earth was billions of years old.
Yeah, four billion. The universe is about 13 billion years old.
But how can that be? If we've only been around since Adam, then the earth can't be older than that.
Or, alternatively, the Bible and/or your interpretation of it are in error.
If you start doubting that then there is a lot more at stake.
The Bible doesn't have to be 100% true for the important parts to still be true. In fact not a single thing in the Bible has to actually have happened for it to have meaning in your life. It's sad that someone's faith could be so deficient, really.
You've really proved the point of this thread: That the basis for the creationist argument is not a desire to find out the truth but rather a desparate need, as a result of a lack of faith, to "scientifically" confirm the inerrancy of the Bible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by q3psycho, posted 02-03-2004 5:28 AM q3psycho has not replied

  
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