Where did I say that observations can be changed? I simply questioned your statement which implied that changing a theory to incorporate observations is unacceptable.
"No problem on agreeing that evolution is directionless. It means nothing except 'change' and that is perfectly consistent w/ creation. That's the point.
Your previous statements disagree with this one.
The 'evolution has no direction' claim is a compromise to get the theory to match the evidence. This allows 'loss of function' (which is easily observed) to be passed off as 'evolution' instead of the decline that it actually represents. The little evos never know the difference.[Emphasis mine]
You will note that in the above quote you explicitly state that 'loss of function' is not part of evolution but is instead 'decline'. For this statement to be logically true then you must implicitly declare evolution to have a direction which does not include 'loss of function'.
As for your point that directionless change supports special creation I have too little information about the Bible to agree or disagree. That said, Evolution is much more than just directionless change, that change is determined by the impact the environment has on the cost/benefit ratio. How the Biblical 'kinds' can be incorporated into this is questionable. It appears to me that the Biblical Noachian flood produced a rate of change that is far higher than anything Evolution would predict. This raise a question: during this extremely rapid evolution, what were the mechanisms that prevented organisms from stepping over the putative 'kind' barrier?
"Variation of allele frequencies is consistent with a population that accumulating deleterious mutations to the point of extinction. While evolution was forced to accomodate that position because that is the evidence, the fact that it still claims a 'goo to you' result is inconsistent with that evidence. Unless you think that the goo had all the necessary information to form you.
It appears you want to include Abiogenesis in Evolution. That is an error. The SToE contains specific mechanisms that apply and are limited to living organisms.
Your question is inappropriate, Evolution does not imply that the original life forms had the 'information' to produce organisms as complex as modern apes; it was simply unnecessary. The human genome is the result of progressive addition of nucleotides.
Your attempt to paint all mutations, the source of allelic variation, as primarily deleterious does not agree with the evidence. The evidence is that the vast majority of mutations are neutral in the given environment, a small portion are deleterious, and an even smaller portion are beneficial. Those that are deleterious seldom fix in a population, instead they are weeded out by selection. By definition those mutations that reduce the number of successful offspring are deleterious. Those that are beneficial are by definition mutations that increase the number of successful offspring.
The amount of 'information' has little to do with it, a loss of 'information' such as a deleted based or a switched off gene can be beneficial. As I showed in a previous post, the number of bases, the number of chromosomes or the number of genes do not provide a one to one correlation between amount of information and complexity. In fact the whole reification of 'information' theory presents nothing but a red herring.
Whether you use Shannon IT or K-C IT, information can be introduced through the simple addition or modification of a single base. Codons, genes, even entire chromosomes have been duplicated.
There have been observed many instances of added 'information' by just about any definition of information that can be remotely applied to biology. However as explained above, an increase in information is not necessary to increase an organism's ability to produce successful offspring.
"Course, the theory doesn't really mean anything anyway. No direction, incorporates decline just fine, que sera sera.
Your definition of 'decline' in this context is spurious. In fact you use it as a strawman. What is important is the affect change has on the number of successful offspring.
"The appeal to 'benefit' is common, yet it is also not unique to evolution. Why would a designer create a biology that did not 'benefit' itself in different environments? No problem and no uniqueness for evolution.
If the cost/benefit ratio was all that supported Evolution I would agree, ID explains it equally as well, however Evolution has more than just the cost/benefit ratio. There are indicators in the genome and during ontogeny that a competent designer would not produce. There are viral 'markers' that indicate relationship between extant organisms. There are modified genes that indicate relationship between organisms. There are genomic errors that indicate relationship between organisms. Any one of them is good evidence of a common heritage, taken together they are quite conclusive.
"Again, you *assume* that the loss of legs has allowed snakes to survive for 'millions of years'. If YEC is not falsified, then you can't bring that claim in as evidence. It isn't, it is a deduction. You catchin on here?
If the evidence against YEC consisted solely of a legged snake I would agree with you. As it stands the evidence against YEC comes from Geology, Geophysics, Astronomy, Physics, Cosmology, Archeology, Genomics and Biology. YEC *has* been soundly falsified.
"Fine, we agree that the genome does not control. Do we also agree that the genome is constrained? Degenerative? Do you understand what that means?
The genome is constrained by physics and contingency. The genome is not exclusively degenerative, observations of genome/chromosome/gene/codon/nucleotide duplication show that it is also generative.
"And while feedback systems are ubiquitous in the natural world, that does *not* mean that they 'evolved'. You merely *assume* that they evolved because they exist. You gettin a clue here?
Feedback systems occur whenever a complex system approaches chaos, they aren't exclusive to biology. Unless you are suggesting that all feedback systems are the result of ID or that biological feedback systems are in some way different, we can safely conclude that feedback systems can occur in biological systems independently of any ID.
"Computer models are intelligently-designed. You want to use intelligently-designed systems to model life, great. You merely support my position.
Computer models are intelligently designed to test evolutionary mechanisms and processes through the use of rather large dollops of random numbers. What is important are the affects evolutionary algorithms have within the program, what is not important is the manner of its design. Part of our superior intelligence is the ability to design tests that emulate natural processes with few artifacts. If this wasn't so you would have to claim that all lab tests are not tests of the tested processes but of our ability as designers. Evolutionary algorithms have often produced results that were completely unexpected. If the 'designer' was as influential in the outcome as you seem to be claiming, those results would have been quite expected.
"And no, your learning is not based on incredulity, it is based on credulity. You will accept anything as long as it denies creation.
The evidence from a fair number of sciences provides evidence counter to special creation. My acceptance of evolution is based on science, your denial of evolution is not, it is based on a religious text and the mutterings of a few who desperately desire to see God in everything.
Be careful, b_sharp. GourmetDan may next say the universe was created with the appearance of the age we see so you haven't falsified YEC. I can't make this stuff up.