[lyner]

Yahya's website is just typical ranting and every other word is loaded with 'extra meaning'.
He must make a lot of money if he manages to sell all his books . . .  Perhaps in my Xmas stocking next time.

[fbi7000]

Hello everybody,
Just want to thank this thread for forcing me to sign up to the naked science website, I simply had to post something!
Firstly, sophiecentaur. Whilst I agree with your views on evolution and for the most part agree with your points, please stop arguing with Asyncritus. Each argument you bring simply adds more fuel to the fire and alot of good points made are being swallowed up as Asyncritus simply chooses to pick apart tiny flaws in your responses. That is simply the way of creationists in my experience.
To continue, I may be off the mark here but I was of the opinion that there is no place for faith in science, science must be supported by facts otherwise it is deemed to be untrue. Anything based upon faith cannot be accepted. And so with this in mind I ask (and will ask nothing else untill I have an answer from Asyncritus):

Why do you accept the Christian explanation of the diversity of life and not the explanation of any other religion?

(I have seperated the question and put it in bold so that I am not confusing anyone, all I require is a straightforward answer to this one question.)

[Madidus_Scientia]

Welcome to the forums fbi7000, now that you've signed up, you might as well hang around

[lyner]

Hi fbi

I agree with you - and also about it being a bad thing to bother with Asyncritus! It's a moth to a flame, I'm afraid.
I was thinking about the differences between Science and Religion(s).
Science is, necessarily, conservative but quite prepared to turn totally inside out, eventually, once provided with sufficient evidence.(pragmatic)
Religion(s), on the other hand, are conservative but bend and stretch when Science gives them no alternative but to accommodate new data whilst still being convinced that they haven't changed substantially. (dogmatic)

Individuals in both camps can be as bad as each other - ultra-conservative and yet determined not to change AT ALL or even to deny that there has been any change.

Of course, many very eminent Scientists have Faith and I would say that their Religion is of the most reasonable kind. The problem is that the more we learn about the brain / mind, even the highest levels of altruism, moral behaviour etc  are being explained mechanistically. I have no problem with this but I can see how it may scare some people to death.

[Madidus_Scientia]

Indeed, I think most religious people are scared to allow themselves to be convinced by the evidence because of its implications, it may turn their whole world upside down (or the right way up, as I see it). But it is better to live in reality than an upside-down world.

I saw an excellent youtube video the other day about this;

[lyner]

I wonder if Asyncritus could get to the end of that link and actually take in what it says.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

I'm not sure that's a correct interpretation, especially as only certain characteristcs have been shown to have true, full, dominant and recessive alleles.

Let's think about the genes for scales turning into the genes for feathers.

For the feather characteristic to become universal in the new PHYLUM it has to be extraordinarily dominant and pervasive somehow.

So let's say that F (for scales) has somehow become f (for feathers).

Since F is completely uniform and dominant in the reptilia for scales, then feathers cannot become manifest in the F1 generation, since we now have:

FF x Ff ----> FF, FF, Ff and Ff the only variants possible.

In the F2 generation, ff appears in the ratio 1 feathered to 15 scaled.

The scales are dominant and remain so, and the feathered are rare birds if you pardon the pun.

So what do they breed with? Nothing, and are selected out, not only because of the genetic peculiarity, but because of Cuvier's idea - a single change REQUIRES a considerable number of consequential changes if it is going to survive.

So a reptile with an normal forelimb moving from front to back in a plane more or less parallel to the animal's body, has to generate a flapping movement AT RIGHT ANGLES TO THE ORIGINAL PLANE.

The pectoral musculature required for flight is totally different to that required for normal reptilian movement. The sternum has to change into a keel; the construction of the whole forelimb has to alter; the claws of the reptile's forelimb have to disappear; at least 3 different types of flight feather have to be produced, and that does not begin to count the down feathers, the contour feathers and the eyelashes. The eyelids have somehow to produce a nicitating membrane.

The hind limbs have to become totally modified, and a hallux produced.

Now flight has to be powered by instinct.Somehow the reptile has to know how to fly, or even glide - but I have this picture of the first bird looking at the first wings and thinking, Now what the hell do I do with these?

The instincts ruling flight are necessarily complex, and cannot be acquired by 'natural selection' - because there was nothing in the reptiles to be selected!

Somehow the leathery reptilian egg has to be converted into the hard-shelled avian egg. Somehow, the cold blooded reptile metabolism has to be converted into the highest metabolic rate in the animal kingdom, in the warmblooded birds.

Oh, I mustn't forget. The reptilian respiratory system has to be comprehensively wrecked and the one way avian system substituted.

And to add insult to already painful evolutionary injury, some birds have to learn how to fly from Goya in Argentina, to Capistrano in southern California, a distance of 7,500 miles, and arrive there on the same day every year.

How many 'mutations' do you see being needed to perform this major miracle of biological conversion? Mendel showed that there can be no halfway house, because red flowers crossed with white flowers don't produce pink flowers. They produce more red and white flowers.

So a scaled reptile, if it ever crosses with a feathered creature will not produce a half-feathered pro-avis.

The whole thing is totally absurd, and should not receive any scientific credence even in the most faithful (and I use the word advisedly).

As for Lenski. Lenski signally failed to produce a new species in 31,500 cultivated generations of E.coli. It is immaterial whether they metbolised citrate or not - they were still E. coli. Now to do the calculation:

If 31,500 generations produces no new species, how many generations does it take to produce 1 million new species?

Well, according to my calculations the answer is an infinite number i.e. it cannot happen. Now gainsay that if you can.Remember, this is based on scientifically verified evidence, published, I think - though I may be wrong here - in PNAS, a well thought of rag, I gather.

You are compelled to bother because of the simple facts that are evident to anybody who will take the blinkers off and simply look. Hasn't it occurred to you yet that Lenski has proven quite categorically that evolution cannot have occurred? When are you going to see that?

I didn't publish the paper - Lenski did. You might like to look at this criticism of the paper:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Lenski

And here's a piece of the PNAS abstract:

"No population evolved the capacity to exploit citrate for >30,000 generations, although each population tested billions of mutations. A citrate-using (Cit+) variant finally evolved in one population by 31,500 generations, causing an increase in population size and diversity."

As I said, no new species 'evolved'.

Evolution is firmly up a gum tree, and likely to stay there.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Yahya's website is just typical ranting and every other word is loaded with 'extra meaning'.
He must make a lot of money if he manages to sell all his books . . .  Perhaps in my Xmas stocking next time.

Is it just ranting? Any more than Dawkins' site where the faithful all open wide and swallow?

Have you ever looked seriously at what the man says, or are you knee-jerking again?

What, for example, do you make of his remarks about the avian lung?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Hello everybody,
Just want to thank this thread for forcing me to sign up to the naked science website, I simply had to post something!

Hi fbi - welcome to the savage world of the naked scientists! - Where they savage me, I mean!

Let me first disagree with this comment:

To continue, I may be off the mark here but I was of the opinion that there is no place for faith in science, science must be supported by facts otherwise it is deemed to be untrue.

This is an absolutely correct statement. However, evolution is based on so much fantasising it's untrue. Here's Prof WR Thompson FRS:

"Darwin did not show in the Origin that species had originated by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened,and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others."

He went on to say: "Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion."

from his Introduction to the Origin of Species.

Anything based upon faith cannot be accepted.

 

And therefore, you cannot accept evolution, which is a faith, not a provable fact.

"It is therefore a matter of faith, on the part of the biologist, that biogenesis did occur and he can choose whatever method of biogenesis happens to suit him personally; the evidence of what did happen is not available."—*G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (1960), p. 150.

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory—is it then a science or faith?"—*L.H. Matthews, "Introduction to Origin of the Species, by *Charles Darwin (1971 edition), pp. x, xi (1971 edition).

"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone . . exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion."—*Louis Trenchard More, quoted in Science and the Two-tailed Dinosaur, p. 33

"The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith."—*J.W.N. Sullivan, Limitations of Science p. 95.

"Evolution requires plenty of faith; a faith in L-proteins that defy chance formation; a faith in the formation of DNA codes which, if generated spontaneously, would spell only pandemonium; a faith in a primitive environment that, in reality, would fiendishly devour any chemical precursors to life; a faithin experiments that prove nothing but the need for intelligence in the beginning; a faith in a primitive ocean that would not thicken, but would only haplessly dilute chemicals; a faith in natural laws of thermodynamics and biogenesis that actually deny the possibility for the spontaneous generation of life; a faith in future scientific revelations that, when realized, always seem to present more dilemmas to the evolutionists; faith in improbabilities that treasonously tell two stories—one denying evolution, the other confirming the Creator; faith in transformations that remain fixed; faithin mutations and natural selection that add to a double negative for evolution; faith in fossils that embarrassingly show fixity through time, regular absence of transitional forms and striking testimony to a worldwide water deluge; a faith in time which proves to only promote degradation in the absence of mind; and faith in reductionism that ends up reducing the materialist's arguments to zero and forcing the need to invoke a supernatural Creator."—R.L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy (1981), p. 455.

Now, what say you?

And so with this in mind I ask (and will ask nothing else untill I have an answer from Asyncritus):

Why do you accept the Christian explanation of the diversity of life and not the explanation of any other religion?

This leaves the realms of science, and enters the realm of theology.

I have what I consider to be extremely solid grounds for believing that the Bible is the Word of God. A great deal of this hinges on the fact of the resurrection of Christ, which is the cornerstone of Christianity. Hence, I believe the biblical account of things, as best I understand it. If you wish to discuss this further, then a new thread will be in order.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Anyone who thinks Yahya has anything of value to say about science has lost all credibility as an intellectual.

Can you explain why, please?

[BenV]

If you wish to discuss this further, then a new thread will be in order.

A thread that would be entirely inappropriate on a science forum - we've already gone a long way off topic, so I don't see why you shouldn't post the evidence for your ideas here.

So we can conclude that you feel evolution is a religion, rather than a science, and you are not alone, great.  However, evolution is the current scientific explanation, regardless of whether you disagree or not - and you must accept that creation will never be a valid scientific alternative though, musn't you?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Ben

fbi asked the question. Not me. I'm merely answering as best I can.

[BenV]

No you're not, you're refusing to answer the question.  While you're at it, could you answer some of mine too?  Such as:
How can you claim to arrive at the Christian creation myth by eliminating evolution, but not any of the many other creation myths?

Do you accept that creation is a theological construct and not a scientific explanation, regardless of your opinion on evolution?

I have what I consider to be extremely solid grounds for believing that the Bible is the Word of God.

And if you're arguing that creation is to be accepted as a scientific explanation, lets see your (objective) evidence.

I also have a new question.  If an alternative biological mechanism to evolution was to be found, and very strongly scientifically evinced, but it still did not involve a god/gods - would you accept that explanation?  I suspect that anything that clashes with your creationist beliefs would be unacceptable to you, regaredless of the weight of objective evidence behind it.

[lyner]

Asyncritus
Do you acknowledge that there have been extinctions in the past and that  there is no evidence that 'modern' species existed 100 million years ago?

[Asyncritus (OP)]

There is considerable evidence that modern species existed 400 million years ago.

The coelacanth is a modern fish swimming about today in the Indian ocean and elsewhere, but it existed 400 mya. "A 400 million-year-old fossil of a coelacanth fin, the first finding of its kind.." http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/070816/coelacanth.shtml

Yes there have been extinctions galore.

So where are we going with that?

I recommend that you read yahya on living fossils:

http://www.fossil-museum.com/

[lyner]

There is considerable evidence that modern species existed 400 million years ago.

A very small proportion of the current set, though, and in 'niche' environments - which is just what evolutionary theory would predict. The word "considerable" is much too woolly: how many? Give us "considerable" examples.

So where did all the modern species, of which we can't find ancient fossils, come from? Were they 'strategically introduced' at a later date?

You are remarkably reluctant to paint any sort of detailed model of  your ideas. It would help if you were to flesh it out so that it can be compared, evidentially, with the evolutionary one. Failing that, you have no excuse for introducing your ideas into a Science forum.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

"...and that  there is no evidence that 'modern' species existed 100 million years ago?"

Wrong again, I see. Heh heh.

The reason why we don't find 'ancestors' of the modern species is simply because THERE AREN'T ANY - certainly not at family level and above.

Yahya has 83 PAGES of fossils that haven't changed one bit since forever ago.

Do have a look and let me know what you think AFTER you have had a look.

I am not painting any model because as I've said before, my function is to show that evolution cannot have occurred for any number of excellent scientific reasons.

As I said, there are only 2 possible models available to us:

1 Evolution

2 Creation.

I've never heard of any other that makes any sense at all.

The reductio ad absurdum is the type of argument I am using. I have shown that evolution is absurd at many different levels, and therefore, as Sherlock Holmes said, when we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must be the truth.

I'm sure you've felt the force of many of the facts, the evidence I have adduced, and you know that there isn't a hope of evolution ever explaining any of them.

The theory is therefore absurd and must be dismissed. The 'whatever remains' is Creation. In your collective eyes this is IMPROBABLE, but since it is the only theory left standing, then it must be the truth.

I personally see no alternative, but you clearly do not agree. Why is that, I wonder. Could blind prejudice be playing a major part here?

[BenV]

Which creation myth?  I like the aboriginal ones.  They are equally as valid as the Christian ones.

[BenV]

As I said, there are only 2 possible models available to us:

1 Evolution

2 Creation.

I've never heard of any other that makes any sense at all.

You must remember that to someone who does not believe in god, creation falls into the category of 'things that don't make any sense at all'.

Creation is not a scientific alternative, so if we are looking for a scientific explanation, then your options leave us only evolution.

Please, if you feel creation is a science, supply some positive evidence - there isn't any, of course, as it's theistic construction and not a scientific hypothesis, so I wish you luck.

[Asyncritus (OP)]

Which creation myth?  I like the aboriginal ones.  They are equally as valid as the Christian ones.

There can only be one that is correct. As you may or may not know, there is a huge array of fables and nonsense stories. Here is a collection. You're welcome to take your pick.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=collection+of+creation+myths&meta=&btnG=Google+Search