[Chemistry4me]

You asked the question "how does instinct evolve", well, you obviously don't believe in evolution so why pose the question in the first place?

Because, if it couldn't and didn't evolve, then the theory needs replacing.

I thought you believed that God created every creature as they were and are today.

[MonikaS]

MonikaS as you can probably tell, trying to reason with Asyncritus is like flogging a dead Hipparion.

Hipparion (Greek, "pony") is an extinct genus of horse.
It resembled the modern horse, but still had vestigal outer toes (in addition to its hoof). These did not touch the ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparion

Toes which "did not touch the ground": that's not an "intelligent design".

(Vestigial features and atavisms are proof that evolution has occurred)

True that, I think I'll stop abusing the poor dead horsie now. 
It's getting old fast.

[lyner]

Asyncritus
You never did reply to my question about what actually goes on in your model.
Does someone constantly tweak the situation or was it just set going at some stage?
What is your particular idea of timescale for this?
How does the clear(?) evidence of past extinctions weigh with you?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Why don't you write to the authors of that idiotic statement and ask them to account for the following:

Why don't you?[/b]

Because you need the help. I don't. 

Of course a lot is yet unknown in the world of evolutionary biology, but the keyword is yet, there is research going on to find out. With your world view all research in this area is futile. No explanation needed for multiresistant bacteria etc.

I beg to rephrase that. NOT A LOT is known in evolutionary biology. I have pointed out a multitude of extremely intractable facts, for which there is NO possible evolutionary explanation - the most recent being the migration habits of the golden plover.

If somebody has produced an explanation, I must have missed it. But the truth is that there is, and can be, none apart from divine creation and instinct implantation. Can you imagine it? Leaving the offspring to fly 2,500 miles, entirely across the ocean, without guide, experienced birds or anything to lead them, all the way back to Hawaii.

Your optimism is admirable, but your ignorance of the facts is not. Evolutionary biology is a patchwork of guesswork, misstatements, hopeful fossil diggers, and worst of all, just plain prejudice.

Have you ever read Dawkins writing on the bats' echolocation system in the 'Blind Watchmaker'? If you have, you'll know exactly what I mean by misstatements, quackwork, guesswork and worse. In fact Lewontin, a famous Harvard evolutionary geneticist had this to say, and I advise you to take him seriously:

"As to assertions without adequate evidence, the literature of science is filled with them, especially the literature of popular science writing. Carl Sagan's list of the "best contemporary science-popularizers" includes E.O. Wilson, Lewis Thomas, and Richard Dawkins, each of whom has put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market.    "Billions and Billions of Demons"

I don't know how you understand the word 'counterfactual', but I don't think that 'lies' would be too far wrong.

Yes, I am optimistic that the current puzzles in biology and other sciences will be solved, sooner or later.

You are aware that Lewontin does not believe in creationism? He strongly disagrees with the methods of Sagan, Dawkins and others; and with some of their theories too. Oh yes... scientists disagree about the details of a theory, but that doesn't mean that the theory as a whole is wrong, like so many creationists believe.

I know that Lewontin is an evolutionist (or was, if he has died). I'm not calling on him as if he was a creationist. He was smart enough to recognise Dawkins' lies and name them as such, and that is the reason for my quote.

My concern is that there are so many readers who swallow uncritically those lies and scientific untruths. Imagine, somebody constructing and peddling authoritative sounding explanations of the origin of the bats' echolocating system! And worse, people believing the garbage, or at least thinking that since it comes from THE AUTHORITY, it must be true.

I am stunned by the stupidity.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

MonikaS as you can probably tell, trying to reason with Asyncritus is like flogging a dead Hipparion.

Hipparion (Greek, "pony") is an extinct genus of horse.
It resembled the modern horse, but still had vestigal outer toes (in addition to its hoof). These did not touch the ground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparion

Toes which "did not touch the ground": that's not an "intelligent design".

(Vestigial features and atavisms are proof that evolution has occurred)

Hmmm. Try this for size:

"The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown."
152 Boyce Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, November 5, 1980, p. 15.

"There have been an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others, about what the nature of that history [of life] really is. The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that is lamentable, particularly when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff.
153 Niles Eldridge, quoted in Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland (Santee, CA, Master Books, 1988), p. 78.

.

[MonikaS]

And worse, people believing the garbage, or at least thinking that since it comes from THE AUTHORITY, it must be true.

I am stunned by the stupidity.

Says someone who wants us to believe in a divine creator, no further comment is needed.

[lyner]

Asyncritus
You never did reply to my question about what actually goes on in your model.
Does someone constantly tweak the situation or was it just set going at some stage?
What is your particular idea of timescale for this?
How does the clear(?) evidence of past extinctions weigh with you?

I really would like a short, accurate answer to this.
Is it beyond you (or 'beneath you')?
If you are trying to be scientific, then you should have a replacement for any theory which you object to.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

You asked the question "how does instinct evolve", well, you obviously don't believe in evolution so why pose the question in the first place?

Because, if it couldn't and didn't evolve, then the theory needs replacing.

I thought you believed that God created every creature as they were and are today.

I think that is in the main correct. I believe that each species has a considerable, but limited amount of variability built into its genome, and that has accounted for the variations we've seen, and the extinctions that have occurred.

The fact that there are explosive bursts of creative activity is proven by the palaeontologists, who simply cannot account for the vast numbers of organisms without ancestors appearing in the Cambrian layers.

As you may be unaware of the problems, here are a couple of links to have a look at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html

http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/explo/explo.htm

[BenV]

Asyncritus, once again, you've missed the point.  It doesn't matter if we don't currently have an evolutionary explanation for something - divine creation is not a scientific explanation - it's not a valid alternative.  Instinct, as folks have said before on this forum, is chemically and biologically controlled, and so under genetic control and natural selection.  I don't know exactly how migration evolved, or how echolocation evolved, but I'm open minded enough to not assume that a deity must, therefore, have done it.

I've got to agree with Monika:

And worse, people believing the garbage, or at least thinking that since it comes from THE AUTHORITY, it must be true.

I am stunned by the stupidity.

Says someone who wants us to believe in a divine creator, no further comment is needed.

All of your beliefs come from one religion, and in particular, one book - your entire mode of thought is based on the authority of an old, often contradictory, book of parables - there is no, and can never be any scientific evidence for your god, you merely chose to believe in him - why do you think you have the right to question what other people think?

[lyner]

Asyncritus
You never did reply to my question about what actually goes on in your model.
Does someone constantly tweak the situation or was it just set going at some stage?
What is your particular idea of timescale for this?
How does the clear(?) evidence of past extinctions weigh with you?

I really would like a short, accurate answer to this.
Is it beyond you (or 'beneath you')?
If you are trying to be scientific, then you should have a replacement for any theory which you object to.

Are you opting out of this one, Asyncritus?
If you can't talk Science then why come on a Science Forum?

[lyner]

A
Can you argue, mathematically, against what the following link is saying?
http://www.creationtheory.org/Probability/Home.xhtml

You say you can do maths - force yourself to read the details; it may do you good.

[RD]

Below left: 12 million year old fossil of horse foot with obvious toes, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse).

Below right: X-ray of the foot of a modern (race) horse with rare atavistic "extra" toes,(http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/ponyexpress/pony11_1/Pe111.html#Atavisms)

 This atavism is proof modern horses have evolved from prehistoric horses.
 
 [ Invalid Attachment ]

[lyner]

You could be more generous and reasonable and say that it is a very strong indication - rather than absolute proof. Evolution is the most likely explanation; much more likely than some bloke tweaking controls.

But I would like asyncritus's answer to my question about how his system actually works. It seems that he is limited to saying that evolution is wrong and giving specious reasons.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Asyncritus
You never did reply to my question about what actually goes on in your model.
Does someone constantly tweak the situation or was it just set going at some stage?
What is your particular idea of timescale for this?
How does the clear(?) evidence of past extinctions weigh with you?

I really would like a short, accurate answer to this.
Is it beyond you (or 'beneath you')?
If you are trying to be scientific, then you should have a replacement for any theory which you object to.

Are you opting out of this one, Asyncritus?
If you can't talk Science then why come on a Science Forum?

Sorry Sophie, I thought I had answered the questions in my previous post, though not directly to you. As that didn't get through here are the answers again:

1 I believe that the world was created in great bursts of creative activity at unspecified times in the past, but in accordance with the Genesis 1 and 2 records. I am an Old Earth Creationist by persuasion.

2 The timescale is enormous

3 The created 'kinds' (I read our modern taxon 'families' for 'kinds') had considerable but limited amounts of variability built in, as we see today.

4 Because I can't or won't produce a good egg is no reason for me to eat your bad one, if you can grasp the meaning of that little parable.

.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Atavisms prove nothing. Here's a most unpleasant one - what do you think it proves?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7791321.stm

[Asyncritus (OP)]

A
Can you argue, mathematically, against what the following link is saying?
http://www.creationtheory.org/Probability/Home.xhtml

You say you can do maths - force yourself to read the details; it may do you good.

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe (both reasonably good mathematicians) said:

"an enzyme consisting of 300 residues could be formed by random shuffling of residues, and calculate a value of 10^250, which becomes 10^500000 if one takes account of the need for 2000 different enzymes in a bacterial cell. Comparing this calculation with the total of 10^79 atoms in the observable universe, they conclude that life must be a cosmological phenomenon."

Whoever wrote your little article should have his calculator taken away if he's trying to somehow diminish the probabilities given above.

[RD]

Atavisms prove nothing. Here's a most unpleasant one - what do you think it proves?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7791321.stm

That's not an atavism, it's either "foetus in foetu" or a teratoma.

A structure can only be described as an atavism if there was an ancestor with the same feature...

atavism (plural atavisms) The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atavism

So unless you have evidence of numerous human fossils with feet growing out of their head, then the case you sited is not an atavism.

[lyner]

Asyncritus

1 I believe that the world was created in great bursts of creative activity at unspecified times in the past, but in accordance with the Genesis 1 and 2 records. I am an Old Earth Creationist by persuasion.

So, basically, you accept all the Science which you can grasp, at the moment, as real Science but, when you come across something too hard to grasp, you say that God stepped in.
That, presumably means that, had you lived 200 years ago, you would have believed a lot more of what we now call Science as totally down to God. You most certainly wouldn't have accepted Genetics as even a wild possibility; it would have had to be divine.
It also implies that you would put a bit less down to God if you were to live 500 years in the future.
You offer no positive proof for your ideas- just attempts to refute other people's scientific ideas. Be honest. If that's what you believe then just say it's faith and not grounded on any evidence.
I did ask you to go over that link in detail; you clearly didn't because you made no comment on the details on probabilities and how it is so easy to do inappropriate calculations. It is the details which count, you know. I thought you were supposed to have studied statistics. Perhaps you are the one who needs a calculator; you could repeat the calculations and see that they work rather than just quoting someone else's view based on an unspecified calculation.

Why are you involving yourself with people who favour Science? Are you after converting us all?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

 
Asyncritus

1 I believe that the world was created in great bursts of creative activity at unspecified times in the past, but in accordance with the Genesis 1 and 2 records. I am an Old Earth Creationist by persuasion.

So, basically, you accept all the Science which you can grasp, at the moment, as real Science but, when you come across something too hard to grasp, you say that God stepped in.

I accept all science which is provable - at least in my own field of |Biology. I have an acute sense and ability to recognise nonsense when I read it - and evolutionary Biology is loaded to the gunwales with such material.

I may also point out that the half-baked, nonsensical 'replies' to the biological FACTS which I have presented are typical of the lousy quality of evolutionary biological thought exhibited in the textbooks. Your fanciful hypotheses are presented as 'facts' and 'explanations' and 'refutations'. It is as GG Simpson said:

"It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything — or at least they are not science."—*George G. Simpson

Your collective efforts are merely examples of the above and stand roundly condemned as non-science: which sounds alarmingly similar to non-sense.

Now notice how irrelevant to the facts that I am presenting is the following personal attack. You have nothing to say about instinct, but are descending to your imaginative reconstruction of what 'I would have thought' 200 years ago.

Why not stick to the scientific facts I have brought forward, and give up with the personalities? The answer, of course, is that there IS no science which supports the evolutionary nonsense you all espouse.

That, presumably means that, had you lived 200 years ago, you would have believed a lot more of what we now call Science as totally down to God. You most certainly wouldn't have accepted Genetics as even a wild possibility; it would have had to be divine.
It also implies that you would put a bit less down to God if you were to live 500 years in the future.
You offer no positive proof for your ideas- just attempts to refute other people's scientific ideas. Be honest. If that's what you believe then just say it's faith and not grounded on any evidence.

This is a pure lie, and you should know that it is. If I did not believe in God, I still would not believe in evolution - it is such trashy nonsense. Are you aware of the fact that the rejectors of Darwin's theory when it was published did not reject it on religious grounds, but on purely scientific ones? Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz and Lyell to name but 4, wanted nothing to do with it, and they were not religious men. For a fuller discussion of that fact, read Denton's 'Evolution: A Theory In Crisis' and wake up to the truth that it is the facts that destroy the theory, not religious preconceptions.

I did ask you to go over that link in detail; you clearly didn't because you made no comment on the details on probabilities and how it is so easy to do inappropriate calculations. It is the details which count, you know. I thought you were supposed to have studied statistics. Perhaps you are the one who needs a calculator; you could repeat the calculations and see that they work rather than just quoting someone else's view based on an unspecified calculation.

I am far inferior to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe as far as statistics are concerned. They knew exactly what they were doing, and showed just how foolish the whole idea of abiogenesis and evolution really are.

You, I take it, have no statistical training, and yet you are trying to tell me that this gentleman knows enough to challenge Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's points. On what basis have you formed that judgment? It certainly wasn't an informed judgment.

Why are you involving yourself with people who favour Science? Are you after converting us all?

I am not writing for you supporters of evolution. Nothing will change a view that is set in concrete. I am writing for the benefit and information of the 8,000 or so viewers who have visited this particular topic. If they are uncommitted, maybe they will at least see the sense of what I'm saying, even if you can't.

[lyner]

Having rejected evolution as being unscientific on what you call 'scientific' grounds, have you any 'scientific' grounds, whatsoever for your version of what happened?
If you did not believe in a God then (you introduced that idea) what evidence would you have for ANY other explanation of  what you see around you?
It seems that you want it both ways. We are stupid to accept evolution and yet you need give no evidence for an alternative explanation.

People frequently follow 'loony' threads; they can be entertaining.  Don't kid yourself that you are gaining any converts, though. How many supporting posts have you had?