How Quantum Physics Can Teach Biologists About Evolution

That works both ways.

People who write off religious faith as unscientific usually make their argument on a moral or ethical basis rather than a scientific one. Or they say it does not fit within their preferred scientific theory - a requirement which they would obviously not demand from any other competing theory.

Let's just have a level playing field.

I will admit that my side of this argument is far behind in developing a cohesive viewpoint that can be expressed scientifically. But at least we should have the opportunity to do so without unscientific bias.

One other thing. I do not consider religious faith to be science, just not unscientific. Religious faith encompasses more than just science, it also pursues TRUTH which science cannot attain by itself. This notwithstanding, because religious faith is not unscientific, it should be possible to express it in scientific terms.

"That depends. Have you decided that it is true? Are the people who argue that He is coercive wrong?"

They are "wrong" in the sense that saying one plus one equals three is "wrong" within a particular mathematical theory. Certainly you would not say a math teacher is unscientific for grading his students' homework.

Obviously religious faith involves morality. Science also involves moral judgments. Science can describe the impact of excessive alcohol consumption on the ability to drive safely. The moral judgment based on this information is not science, but is not unscientific.

All I am asking is to judge theology on the same basis. So, I conclude that whether a person who views God as coercive is "right" or "wrong", in the moral sense, is irrelevant here.

Religious faith encompasses more than just science, it also pursues TRUTH which science cannot attain by itself. This notwithstanding, because religious faith is not unscientific, it should be possible to express it in scientific terms.

Further, would you make the same demand of an evolutionist? In other words, if a person believes the common ancestry of man and apes is TRUE, then is he no longer qualified to be a science teacher?

So, for the sake of argument, let's describe the tenet as more useful.

Lateral transfer is a scientific fact and renders the idea of universal common descent clearly false

As long as vertical transfer still exists, the existance of horizontal transfer does not render common descent false.

Even absent this fact, the vast lack of evidence about the path by which early life developed should preclude any consensus about the existence or not of a common ancestor of all present life

I think this is a seperate question from whether common descent is a fact. Common descent of all life is just an extrapolation made from the evidence of common descent of some species. Noone can be certain that every species alive today is due to common descent.

Then again universal gravitation is an extrapolation made from the evidence of the law of gravity in some areas of the universe. Noone can be sure that all the universe acts under the law of gravity.

Diamonds aren't billions of years old? They were found at the bottom of the geologic column.

Well I was talking about the coal and the otherone really.

Likewise, every fossil ever found has had measurable amounts of C14 in them. Likewise every coal deposit.

It is very easy for minute contamination to occur.

Just because T.O calls something a myth does not make it so.

Well T.O has a good track record in calling myths, wheras the Creationists tend to be the ones generating them. And my point with posting T.O was mainly to show that these zircom measurements are disputed. I also think there are easier ways to show the world is not 6000 years old.

"It is not the same species as the one in the past, not even in the same family. It is a different family of Coelacanth."

True, but largely irrelevant. And actually they are the same family but different genuses:

http://www.marinebio.com/species.asp?id=54

The point being that NONE of these have been in the fossil record for 70-80 million years. If we found a living T-Rex would you complain because it was slightly different and needed to be in a different genus?

"Well T.O has a good track record in calling myths, wheras the Creationists tend to be the ones generating them."

I'd disagree here. Especially if you classify statements which have simply been falsified by later research as myths, evolution would qualify as a major myth-generator here as well.

For reference, some creationists are working on a rebuttal page to T.O's pages, using T.O's numbering system for convenience:

http://www.nwcreation.net/wiki/index.php?title=Creationist_claims

Here is one which addresses T.O's Helium/Zyrcon response on it's index to Creationist Claims (though not directly some of the things on the FAQ page):

http://www.nwcreation.net/wiki/index.php?title=CD015

True, but largely irrelevant. And actually they are the same family but different genuses:
http://www.marinebio.com/species.asp?id=54

The point being that NONE of these have been in the fossil record for 70-80 million years. If we found a living T-Rex would you complain because it was slightly different and needed to be in a different genus?

No I wouldn't complain. It is not common descent that says T-Rex became extinct 65 million years ago. Common Descent is fully compatible with finding a living T-Rex.

For reference, some creationists are working on a rebuttal page to T.O's pages, using T.O's numbering system for convenience:

Thanks. I had a laugh at their attempts to defend the claim that the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution.

As long as vertical transfer still exists, the existance of horizontal transfer does not render common descent false.

If genetic material is swapped freely between species, there need not be a single founding species to all present life.

I think [uncertainty about biogenesis] is a seperate question from whether common descent is a fact.

It bears on bearing on the question directly. Suppose that life arose twice or more independently and that these several populations could swap genetic material. Now one can conceive of a tracing the ancestry of all present species and never finding a single common ancestor.

Noone can be certain that every species alive today is due to common descent.

I thought it wasn't a question of certainty but rather the perversity of doubting, that this is a difference between absolute and scientific fact.

"No I wouldn't complain. It is not common descent that says T-Rex became extinct 65 million years ago. Common Descent is fully compatible with finding a living T-Rex."

I didn't say that it wasn't. I said that it indicates that the fossil record is not reliable on the scale of hundreds of millions of years. This has two possible ramifications:

1) inferring any sequencing from the fossil record is dubious unless it is given a large (on the order of nearly 100 million years) range of possibility. Or
2) the process that ordered the fossil record was based on a physical sorting, not a chronological sorting.

"Thanks. I had a laugh at their attempts to defend the claim that the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution."

For reference for those Freepers here it is this:

http://www.nwcreation.net/wiki/index.php?title=CF001

If genetic material is swapped freely between species, there need not be a single founding species to all present life.

Even if this wasn't the case there still need not be a single founding species to all present life.

Common Ancestory itself isn't banked on all species having one single ancestor. Even if we find out that there is no universal common ancestor, that doesn't cancel out the common ancestories that are known.

The idea of a universal common ancestor is an extrapolation of the data. It could be more complex than one single common ancestor, but at this time there is no evidence to suggest this and so I think it is a matter of defaulting for the simpler explaination rather than a more complex one.

I didn't say that it wasn't. I said that it indicates that the fossil record is not reliable on the scale of hundreds of millions of years.

I have to agree with you. It would be odd how there was a 60 million year gap without any trace of fossil T-Rexs.

Even if this wasn't the case there still need not be a single founding species to all present life.

Agreed. There may be other mechanisms like endosymbiosis that confound universal common descent.

Common Ancestory itself isn't banked on all species having one single ancestor.

I think the theory of universal common descent makes exactly that claim. I thought this is what we were talking about.

Even if we find out that there is no universal common ancestor, that doesn't cancel out the common ancestories that are known.

Agreed. Given the evidence, it is perverse to doubt the common ancestry of humans and chimps as one example. It is when you start going really far back and there isn't much evidence that you get into trouble - is there really a common ancestor for eukaryotes and prokaryotes or is the relationship more complex?

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