Still a little hazy ...
Posted on 02/26/2006 9:12:24 PM PST by ibme
The Official Death of the Theory of Evolution – 2/25/2006
Theorem Name: The Illusion of Evolution DOA Theorem Note: This Theorem looks at the Theory of Evolution from a completely abstract point of view. The formulas and discussion are presented from an Evolutionist point of view. This doesn’t necessarily represent the view of the author. AoU – age of the Universe. (1) AoU = 10 billion = 10,000,000,000 years In the whole age of the Universe, there are only about 1 Trillion opportunities for something to evolve to a different state – eventually Man. (this is very generous)(3) MM - Mega Millions Jackpot Odds In order to believe the Theory of Evolution, you have to believe the odds of going from Rock to Man are only 5,691 times greater than winning the Mega Millions Jackpot.
Note: If something is wrong with the math, please show me. The numbers are not presumed to be absolutely correct. You can play with the numbers. Throw in a few million here and there. No matter what numbers you consider, there aren’t enough reproductive life cycles in the projected age of the Universe to produce the simplest form of life.
Theorem: There are not enough reproductive life cycle generations available in the projected age of the Universe to allow even the most basic form of evolution.
AvRpdCyc - average reproductive life cycle generation (2)(3)
TotalRpdCyc – total reproductive cycles in the age of the Universe.
AvRpdCyc = 100 per year (2)(3)
TotalRpdCyc = AoU * AvRpdCyc = 1,000,000,000,000 = 1 Trillion
MM = 175,711,536
TotalRpdCyc / MM = 1,000,000,000,000/175,711,536 = 5,691
I’m taking into consideration that the Theory of Evolution is based on things moving from simple states to more complex. Some cells reproduce quickly. Mankind would be around 12 years at the best. (3)
"As far as Dr. Morris, wow dead by 5 days. Like Maxwell Smart used to say 'missed it by that much'"
Well said sir and God Bless. I thought the Henry Morris crack you responded to was in bad taste. Thankfully, Dr. Morris is now with the Lord. He "kept the faith, and fought the good fight." I can hear God telling him, "Well done thou good and faithful servant."
I fear, and I say this sincerely and not with rancor, that many posting are only ever going to hear from God, "I never knew you." The one phraise that strikes terror in my heart for myself or anyone. May God be gracious to ALL here with His wisdom and the faith only He can provide.
There's hardly anything more selfless than than the behavior of birds and mother cats toward their offspring. I had a cat that had an abcess in her mouth that prevented her from eating. Before we discovered the problem she had nearly starved herself to death trying to feed her kittens.
As far as I can see, morality is the formalzation of tendencies most people have anyway. I say most, because there are people who lack empathy altogether, and the trait seems to vary in strength, like all other traits.
Be specific.
I will assume you meant to ask, "What of those who have recognized that they were lost in sin, understood that God loved them before the foundation of the world, believed the fact that Christ died in their place, and then trusted Him as their Savior - and now they believe in evolution."
Is that pretty accurate?
"The Scientific method as defined by webster "The rules and methods for the pursuit of knowledge involving the finding and stating of a problem, the collection of facts through observation and experiment, and the making and testing of ideas that need to be proved right or wrong."
This is an overly simplistic definition at best, as are most dictionary definitions. If you want a definition of science get it from a person who practices it, a scientist. Dictionaries reflect the language they do not define it.
"By your statement you are admitting that Evolution is not science since nobody has been around to observe or test the scope of "Evolution" throughout the supposed Billions and Billions of years that this is supposed to have been going on.
The requirement of direct observation for science to really be science is false. Many if not most sciences, including physics, do not make direct observations but rely on indirect observation.
In the case of the ToE, hypotheses are developed to explain an observation, such as the change in frequency of a specific allele in a population.
eg. We directly observe that a specific feature such as tusks is common among elephants but not among a specific group where the number of elephants without tusks is increasing. We suspect that some mechanism affects the number of tuskless members of a population. In this case we hypothesize that tusks are being selected against, animals with tusks are being weeded out. We can then test that hypothesis.
It would however be rather quite undesirable and time consuming to take a population of elephants, kill a few with tusks, let them breed and then repeat the sequence through a significant number of generations.
Because we have witnessed, during other tests, that organisms are very similar and respond in a similar manner to external events we conclude that a smaller, more numerous and faster reproducing organism will respond, if not identically, similarly enough to elephants to verify the hypothetical mechanism. If during the testing of this mechanism it is shown to be correct we can safely conclude that it will produce the same results with the elephants.
This is the way the ToE is tested (necessary in science), predictions are made (necessary in science) and theories developed (necessary in science).
Note:The ToE is a synthesis of a number of theories (each tested and verified) that is generally spoken of as a single theory.
There is no need to reproduce an entire lineage of organisms to verify the mechanisms of change from one 'kind' to another 'kind' in the lab. All that is necessary is to test the mechanisms and with the foreknowledge of existing physical laws, extrapolate our findings to the larger application.
By the way, argument by dictionary is an informal logical fallacy. (I believe a form of the genetic fallacy).
"Note: The definition of species is fluid not because taxonomists can't make up their mind (which is sometimes the case) but because in many cases the differences between real live animals are difficult to categorize (think platypus)"
"This statement is an admission of a key flaw in the so called "Science" of Evolution. What determines what animal belongs to what species. The answer? We do! I know there is a lot of study and comparison on the genetic level that are used to classify these animals but species when you get down to it is nothing more than a name given by a white coated person in a lab to life forms of similar makeup.
Species can be difficult to place in the sense that a group of organisms may constitute a genus, may constitute a species or a even group of subspecies, however being unsure of placing a specific organism in a specific spot is not a 'flaw' in the science of evolution, it is part of the process and is to be expected. Corrections to conclusions as new techniques develop is a vital part of all science. It is how science progresses. These corrections guarantee that our knowledge is becoming more and more precise.
Only in religions can there be the expectation of surety and stability of knowledge.
"I challenge you to prove it could not and has not happened."
"First of all it is not my burden to prove that evolution is not science based on observation and testing.
My comment was about macro-evolution, otherwise known as the accumulation of smaller micro-changes compiled into a larger macro-change. You are changing the subject.
Science has required the development of theories that are testable and make predictions. All of the sciences behind the ToE are individually and cumulatively practicing science. Science is a process, not a dictionary definition. This is not something new, it has been this way since before Newton formalized the process. Observe a phenomenon, develop as many hypotheses as possible to explain the observation, then one by one eliminate the hypotheses through testing until just one is considered to be the best explanation. This is science at its core. In evolution the observation is the variation in allele frequencies within a population. In evolution the observation is the fossil record. In evolution the observation is the shared ERVs in the genome of related organisms. In evolution the observation is a myriad of features, functions and processes expressed by the millions of extant and extinct species.
Contrary to what you have been told, evolution has many observations, including but not limited to variation in nature and variation in the lab.
"The burden is yours to prove that it is a "Science" since the final thrust of all your arguments when questioned by those of us who believe in intelligent design is that "Evolution is science". "You're just a religious nut." "Nyanya Nyanya Nya Nya" Again I challenge you. Show me a "Scientist" who has ever tested or observed an instance where one type of animal ever became another.
What you mean to say is that no one has ever observed an organism give birth to an organism we would classify as belonging to a different taxa higher than species. This will not happen nor does the ToE ever state that it will. What the ToE does state is that over time a species will change through numerous additive stepwise changes to a point where were the two species alive at the same time we would consider them to belong to different taxa above the species level.
We can show in the lab that species change through genetic mutation. We have witnessed beneficial germ cell mutations in the wild. We have shown, in the lab, that selection can result in a mutation becoming fixed within a population. We have shown, in the lab, that mutations can be accumulated in an organism.
If you accumulate mutations through selection over time what to you end up with? Logically you end up with an organism that is highly dissimilar to its original ancestor.
"If you can not do so, the claim that Evolution is Science falls flat on it's face.
As explained above, evolution is very much science, theories are developed, tested, and verified all the time.
I have a question for you. What advantage does ID gain if evolution is not science? Does this elevate ID to science?
"It is up to you to provide the mechanism that prevents accumulated 'micro' changes from becoming large 'macro' changes. The transitional sequences in the fossil record spanning the large jumps in time we are too transitory to witness, tell us that the small changes we see in extant species (and we do have examples of new species) do indeed accumulate and result in huge change. What we find in DNA verifies this accumulation of change and the relationship of apparently morphologically disparate extant species. (eg. artiodactyls and cetaceans)."
"I can't help but note that you neglected my question about the second law of thermo dynamics which states in a nut shell that all matter is breaking down and tending toward chaos. This is my answer to your challenge above. The Second Law of Thermo Dynamics blows away any chance that increasing complexity is possible. The idea that a single celled organism some how gathered enough new genetic data to become a fish is laughable. The Second Law of Thermo Dynamics and evolution are absolutely incompatible.
I'm afraid you misunderstand the 2LoT. Increasing complexity is not only possible within the 2LoT but requires the 2LoT. All it takes (over simplification alert) for complex molecules to form is the application of enough energy to overcome the 'activation energy' of chemical bonds. Take two simple hydrogen atoms, apply energy and you end up with a single, more complex helium atom, plus a little energy diffused as entropy. The helium atom, during its formation, accepted and stored some of the applied energy in its structure.
Biological systems do this as well. They accept energy, store some during the formation of complex molecules, and diffuse the rest as thermodynamic entropy - not once going against the 2LoT. At death, many of those complex molecules break down releasing their stored energy as entropy. This is why fossil fuels can be used to propel machines.
The post I responded to did not say anything about the 2LoT, so I did not 'neglect' the question.
"Let me ask you this as you are obviously more well versed in genetics than I am but I think I know the answer to this. Isn't it true that as genes are transfered from one generation to the next that there is a loss of data? Has anyone ever observed an infusion of new data to one generation that didn't already exist in the generation that preceded it? Is it really possible to make something out of nothing?
During the time the germ cells are being produced, genetic material can be added, subtracted or changed. A simple change, not necessarily an addition, to a gene can produce new segments to an organism. This is because some genes are control genes which determine the number or type of features produced during the development stage. The 'amount' of DNA is not as important as the availability of material and energy and the type of DNA, during the development stage. In fact the organism with the most DNA is the simple Amoeba dubia with 670,000,000,000 base pairs.
In some cases a nucleotide can be added. In some cases a codon can be added. In some instances an entire gene can be duplicated. In some cases an entire chromosome is added. In some cases an entire set of chromosomes can be added. Yes, through simple mistakes during meiosis genetic material can be added.
A point that should be made is that all that is necessary for an additional feature to be added to an organism is a point mutation - a change in a single nucleotide (which can result in a different codon (amino acid) (which can result in a new protein (which can result in a new feature ...))). Even when using K-C information theory, the change in a single nucleotide can increase the complexity of the gene, thus adding information.
"Is it really possible for EVERYTHING to spring from NOTHING as the Big Bang would have us believe.
You are again changing the subject. The BB is Cosmology not evolution. Let's stick with the subject at hand.
BTW, the BB has massive amounts of evidence for it.
Actually the study wasn't found to be bogus, the moths were in fact selected. What was found to be artificial was a number of the photos taken of the moths.
What the heck is random selection?
Is there any other way?
ah-h-h-h...
Well, I'd let them know more details about sin. First I'd show them that they came into the world already condemned. What separated them from God before their salvation wasn't what they had done, it was their sin nature. Their acts of sin were the natural response to what they were.
I'd show them that they inherited their sin nature from their father. I would show them that the world that now is, is under the condemnation of sin and has been that way since Adam. Adam's sin (rebellion and disobedience) resulted in God's condemnation of the world. I'd explain that Cain, Abel, Seth... all inherited their sin nature from their father.
I'd show them (in God's Holy Word) that ever since the condemnation, God has had a salvation plan that can reconcile man to Himself (at the time of their act of faith and trust in the completed work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection from the dead.)
I'd let them know that without Adam, the entire picture of original sin would be unalterably flawed.
I'd tell this Christian brother (or sister) that before I understood these facts, I too was saved but believed in evolution. I'd let them know that my trust in Christ (who was with the Father at the creation of the world) is more reliable than even what I see. And that God says that trusting Him is better than trusting my own natural senses.
God works miracles. My salvation is a miracle. My faith is a miracle. My life is a miracle.
"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. 13:11
Discipleship brings maturity and growth. I thank God for His Word because it is able to pierce "even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit" it can effectually produce rest for the inner man." (Hebrews 4:12)
I would then trust God in the matter - realizing that the battle is His, not mine.
Thanks. Which part?
the whole enchilada
Sorry, but neither of you have the first clue about how we actually have acquired knowledge of biology and have validated it against the real world, so you'd be wise to refrain from posting baseless slanders born of your own ignorance and amounting to nothing but your own "many words". I'm getting tired of having frequent lies told about me and others I know well, frankly.
They are pitiful souls because of their hatred of God, denial of His power, and worst, their inevitable accountability to Him. This is their sin: They have heard the Truth and have denied it.
See, there you go, posting *more* blatant falsehoods. Bearing false witness is forbidden by one of the Ten Commandments, by the way, so I wouldn't go around acting all holier-than-thou if I were you.
Mexican food eh.
Well the wife just asked me to pop out to the local Taco Time for some soft tacos.
Gotta go.
I'll be back later.
No, she doesn't, which is why she inevitably engages in bitterly snotty ad hominems instead of a discussion of the evidence and the research. It's like listening to a spoiled child.
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