FH:

One trouble that I've had with many of your arguments is your willful (I think) mixing of evolution with origin of life:


That's not evolution. That's origin of life. As a Roman Catholic Ph.D. Biophysicist I have no issues with accepting the theory of evolution (although I haven't studied the molecular biology side of it enough to know what it shows). I do not believe that an "air tight" case for evolution has been made ('cause it's not easy to watch it take place), but it is a sensible, well-grounded theory. I find "prebiotic molecules self assembling" to create life much more of a scientific stretch, with no good evidence demonstrating that possibility. The more I study life, the deeper my belief in God.

Interesting---a couple very recent papers out with regards to evolution and endosymbosis

Minimal plastid genome evolution in the Paulinella endosymbiont
Current Biology, Volume 16, Issue 17, 5 September 2006, Pages R670-R672
Hwan Su Yoon, Adrian Reyes-Prieto, Michael Melkonian and Debashish Bhattacharya

Hate to post and run, but...

ROTFLMFAO!!!

FH, why do you insist on getting your bowels in an uproar over this stuff? Clearly, you perceive yourself as being attacked. I didn't get that from anything JL said, or even from anything either WAT or I have ever said 2 you (though I will admit that you often tweak my gain knob, and I tend 2 react with sarcasm rather than respond with compassion). Oh well, you am what you am, and that's all that you am.


I no longer feel singled out, at least.


I don't think JL is attacking fundamentalism anymore than he's attacking persons. I don't get where you got this.

-ol' 2long

ABSOLUTELY!!!! Your starting 2 get this stuff! So, lets hear from some experts in the fields of "origins" - of biological life or the universe. I deal with aspects of both, but far from directly. In the case of the origins of life, it has 2 do with life on other planets - particularly Mars. And while it is certainly true that there is a lot of excitement in the "field" at present, it's also simply true that there is no convincing evidence that life ever originated there. Not yet, at least. And there may never be any such evidence discovered, and it's certainly true that we've barely "scratched the surface" at this point in time. Sometimes I think the "search" is a waste of time, but then I hear the arguments by the proponents, and they've got some good ideas, so I change my mind and acknowledge that the study is worth pursuing.

but it's cool that you appear 2 have made the quantum leap to initial recognition that there is a difference between origins and evolution.


When did I do that? The term applies 2 other areas. I've used the phrase "geologic evolution" many times 2 describe the changes in geologic landscapes over time. And Sagan talks about the evolution of intelligence in "Dragons of Eden". While all the intelligences we know of (with the exception of your God, perhaps) are also biological, I think it's fair 2 consider evolution of intelligence as a separate, though related issue. Perhaps we'll really have reason 2 have discussions about the evolution of artificial intelligence someday.


Yes. Like evolving landscapes and stuff.


Begging what question?


Oh, THAT question. Are you of the opinion, then, that questions of how life, universes, or landscapes developed (evolved) over time must be put on the back burner until your particular burning question is addressed?


First part of this is a good question, as I acknowledge above. But I don't think it must be answered before evolution of past and present life forms is studied. As with the Big Bang theory, perhaps - it makes perfect sense 2 start with what the physicists understand most - the current universe - and work back in time 2 unravel the story of the big bang by figuring out what preceded the current conditions - and then what preceded those, and so on.


Well, it's not my field, and I'm busy testing hypotheses in my field.


Well, I'm willing 2 concede you may be an expert in a particular area of biology if you'll concede that I'm an expert in my field of geology.


No I don't. I DO ridicule creationism, though. I know a lot of scientists who believe God created the universe and everything in it. But those scientists don't have difficulty with evolution, either.


I would argue, as I have in the past, that "faith", applied in a scientific context, means believing that something is possible and acting on that belief. Knowing that gravity pulls things to the ground, Galileo demonstrated that it didn't matter how massive the object was, it fell at the same rate. And this was dramatically demonstrated on the moon, by one of the astronauts dropping a hammer and a feather in the lunar vacuum and showing that they fell at the same speed 2 (a cool experiment, because the moon's lower gravity let the thing happen in "slow motion" so it was easily visible without slowing down the film). The astronauts knew (or believed, if you will) that the feather would fall at the same speed as the hammer, so they had "faith" that when they brought the feather all the way 2 the moon for the demonstration, it wouldn't embarrass them and be a waste of taxpayer money - because it worked just as expected, and it was a cool demonstration.


Well, there are scientists employing scientific methods, who "believe" they can answer the question of the origin of life someday. And so long as they don't claim 2 have discovered it without going through rigorous tests of their hypotheses and experiments, I don't have a problem with it.

Also, the Ph in PhD stands for 'philosophical'. I ain't got no problem with that juxtaposition with 'science' at all. Why would anyone?


No, that was your idea.


So why are they "fighting it" then? Really, even if they did accept that forms change with time, they don't allow for enough time. No, we're not talking sludge 2 philosophers, but we are talking about procaryotes 2 eucaryotes and fish 2 humans (with a whole bunch of transitional forms in betwixed).


I have no problem being disrespectful of willfully ignorant ideas like creationism. I'm not DJing the kooks, just their kooky ideas.

-ol' 2long <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

2long - a good question, but perhaps founded in a misconception on your part.

1. The "fight" that you are referring to (with respect to biological evolution), is NOT with variations within the created kinds of organisms. The "fight" is with the notion of evolution into newer, more complex, kinds of life. The "forms" you are referring to are the kinds, such as "mankind," "apekind," etc. For example, within the "horsekind," there are big horses, little horses, fast horses, slow horses, various colored horses, etc.. But they are all horses. None of them is a camel or flying "bird-horse." (I'm still looking for that "one-horned, one-eyed, flying purple people eater first mentioned in the Sixties. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />)

2. Intelligence is another good question you raise and perhaps we could discuss that too at some point.

3. With respect to the "time" question you raise, Christians who believe in the Genesis account of creation do so because of the Word of God that testifies to it's truth throughout the Bible. Another topic worthy of discussion perhaps at some time.

4. But let's set that aside (the "young earth" issue) for a minute and just talk about a requirement for the proposed model of evolution. It requires a LONG period of time to have any chance of being a workable "theory."

However, when examining the requirements for the aforementioned "First living organism" to appear, the amount of time required for the "random chance" combination of exactly the right component parts to assemble in exactly the necessary order, exceeds substantially the amount of time that proponents of evolution claim for the estimated age of the universe, to say nothing of the "available" nuclear material (i.e., electrons) needed.

5. In addition, the "time factor" that you want to "shrink," but still require a LOT of time, for evolution from single celled organism to multicellular organism to Man (yes, I'm also skipping over many "intermediate" lifeforms) still runs into a number of other very serious problems. One of those problems is the "gain" in information needed. There are many other substantial problems for evolutionary theory, none of which are a "problem" for creation by the will and design of God.

6. The fundamental question remains, "if not God, then how?" That is what evolutionary theory attempts to answer because life DOES exist and is extremely varied. In the absence of God, nothing is left but "natural causes," however unlikely it may be, is the reasoning behind a belief in evolution. And that is also what makes it a "faith" to the proponents of evolution. It is predicated on a "faith" that God either does not exist or did not Create and is a faith in natural causes for all that is as the only other "viable" alterantive, despite the lack of proof that anything like it actually occured.


THAT is part and parcel of why evolutionary theories and hypothesis change all the time. That is why people like Gould, whom you know, attempt such unproven theories as "Punctuated Equilbrium," or the "Hopeful Monster" theory repackaged.

7. In your case, since we've had this discussion before, you accept localized catastrophism but deny the global catastrophe of "Noah's Flood." That localized catastrophism is, at best, a "modifying" of Lyellian Uniformitarianism that is fundamental part of the theory of evolution is a recognition that catastrophic events have occurred, but it refuses the Noahic Flood simply because it's a "biblical" statement of what happened "back then," whenever "back then" was.

Suffice it to say that Christians who believe the Scripture is the inspired Word of God and inerrant accept that all air breathing life on earth was killed in that Flood and everything we have today, or that have gone extinct since that time, came from the animals that were preserved from the worldwide flood onboard the Ark. All of those animals had the genetic code for all of the variations we see within the various kinds of animals, but nowhere is there any evidence of any kind "evolving" into another kind. The only "real" outside influence that can affect the genetic coding that "could" potentially result in a new kind of animal would be mutations, most commonly, but not exclusively, caused by radiation. The "problem" with mutations (resulting in the previously mentioned "Hopeful Monster") is that mutations are almost always harmful or fatal. The ones that are not, do not result in a substantive change from one kind of animal into another kind of animal. They result in some changes within the original kind of animal, but nowhere do they lead to an increase in information that would be required to become a more "advanced" and "different" lifeform. The mutation in those cases are maintained within the same kind of animal. A "simple" example of such a mutation that "changes" something and results in a "difference" within the kind would be Downs Syndrome. A "change" in the genetic sequencing from the "norm" results in a Downs Syndrome child, but the person is still a human being and not some "new type" of kind. That person is still a "human kind," a "mankind," if you will. There is little, if any, "advantage" to such a mutation that would lead to an increase in the "survival of the fittest" scenario that is part of the evolutionary theory.

8. So what is the "common thread" that runs between creation of the universe, creation of life, a global flood, etc.? On the part of evolutionists it is a rejection of the Scripture as the Word of God, inspired by God and inerrant in it's revelations to Mankind. It is a CHOICE, not based on "evidence," but based in a rejection of God, or at least a rejection of the God of the Bible.




2long, I've always known that "difference" as you say. But they are inextricably interconnected. Sort a "chicken and egg" sort of thing. Until the "primordial soup" "evolved" the first primitive, single celled, self-replicating, organism there could be no further possibility of any "evolution" into anything else. Therein lies a "problem" for Evolutionists.

Not that long ago (geologically and historically speaking), people thought that flies "spontaneously generated" from nonliving dung. SCIENCE examined the process and found an AXIOM of biology...Life begets life. Life MUST come from life, it cannot come from dead "parts," no matter if all the constituent chemicals present in a living organism are present in the "dung." But evolution "ignores" this fact and tries to limit it's "argument" to only "already living organisms" and won't address the insurmountable "problem" of how life "spontaneously generated" from non-life.




Perhaps. But should that day ever arrive, it would be the result of a conscious design, will, planned and built by an already living, thinking being. It would NOT have assembled "itself" nor evolved from a Tonka Truck or an Erector Set, not even from a Dell Laptop. So such an "artifical intelligence being" could be referred to as having been "created," but not "evolved."

Mankind is such a creature, created in the image of God, by God, complete with superior intelligence compared to all other animals and lifeforms.

FH,

I said damaged because you seem unable to grasp that when someone does not agree with you it is not an attack on you, your faith OR your family in faith. Frankly, the kindness, and gentleness of heart that is the core of Jesus Christ's ministry to us seems to be missing.

I will also say that the biggest problem I have with creationism is NOT the concept that God created life. It is that it is ignored that nowhere in the Bible does it say HOW God created life. It is the HOW that interests most of us scientists. As K pointed out evolution is addressing the changes that occured in life, it does NOT address how life began, although that is a mighty powerful subject to consider.

I segway into something 2Long mentioned. There are billions of galaxies out there each containing billions of stars. Many of those stars have planets. We have no evidence that life exists anywhere but here. Given the age of the universe and the many possible sites for life to have been created, one greatly reduces the need for excessively long times for life to evolve. But, to create life???? That may well happen in a twinkling of an eye, human's have no idea about that. But, that is why the search for live on other planets such as Mars is soooo facinating. Even more interesting is if we found it would we recognize it?

I will say this FH, even if someone managed to create life in a lab. that does not mean that God did not create it. We are all creations of God aren't we??? It is the process that scientists study. The WHY, the WHO, the WHAT are way beyond anything we could likly understand in any other way than to believe. But we can try to understand can't we?

JL

Having read Forbidden Archaeology by Michael Cremo and Richard Milton's "shattering the myths of Darwinism" I find it laughable that "scientists" are held to be above reproach for their supposed empirical and dogma-free study of the evidence and facts. Darwinism in particular with its UTTER lack of transitional fossils despite a century's scouring requires faith at least as great as creationism to defend IMO.

I am as amused at some Christians' descriptions as to how all the landbased fauna fitted on a single boat smaller than the Titanic, as I am by 'rational' scientists hilarious explanations as to how Darwinian evolution produced sub cellular transports, flowering plants, blood clotting or even pores in skin let alone self awareness, aethetics and protection of the weak.

But also any Christian who purports to deny reliable evidence that indicates great age for creation or supports a mechanical process for the creation or derivation of things does not have a high opinion of their God IMO. That we may find mechanical evidence of God's creation surely does not dismiss His action ? Why must creation have been supernatural and instant ?

I have no time for arrogant evangelists from either the secular nor religious community.

"A plague on both your houses, you have made worms-meat of me".

Unlike Bob, I embrace both houses! The search for Truth keeps me feeling alive, even while my personal life crumbles...

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

~Albert Einstein

PS I am a Christian and a scientist (But not a Christian Scientist!) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

2Long wrote:

"Perhaps we'll really have reason 2 have discussions about the evolution of artificial intelligence someday."

Now we are getting into my field.

I am confident we humans will build a self-aware, non-biological, being within the next 100 years or so.

We are getting closer all the time.

You think evolution causes heartburn in some people. Wait until we create intelligent, self-aware, life from scratch! Life that will wonder on it’s own about these same kinds of philosophical questions.

This is already causing some religious people nightmares.

Apheliion, now that is a whole other ( and fascinating!) discussion !

I have seen machines in IBMs skunkworks that must run in baths of liquid CFC to cool their massive processing capability and which respond in ostensibly human fashion to stimuli, but are they ALIVE ?

This , I think, is the true mark of the spiritualist versus the mechanist. I believe that life even WITHOUT self awareness requires a spark of something as yet not lab-recreatable in order to make it more than a mannequin.

Mechanists believe that if an entity meets the criterion of nutrition, movement, growth, reproduction, respiration, sensitivity and excretion it is in fact "alive" while spiritualists would believe that a 'spark' is required also for life. Plato's "quickening". AI engineers consider self awareness to similarly be recreateable by rote, but I am not so sure. Is an AI really sad in response to a stimulus when it has programming that drives a response ? or would you argue that we have similar programs within us and so we are identically meachanical ?

I am in awe of my colleagues in IBM's skunkworks abilities, but as an ex systems programmer of some capability myself I believe that such machines, however complex , are machines, less noble and awesome than the least complex living being.

Perhaps we will disagree this Aphelion, but its an interesting (and non hostile!) debate for sure !

Hah, IBM is a bunch of pikers compared to, well comparatively.

I'm talking actually self-aware.

Alive is relative. They don't have biological features, for sure. But they communicate.

These "machines" will someday have the ability to wonder who and what they are.

We will need an entirely new definition of what life is.

Are we wrong to create such a being? Maybe turn it off when done with it?

Anyway, those are questions for a later generation. We aren't there yet.
And I'm kind of glad, to be frank.

We do not have the ethical framework in place to deal with it yet. But it is starting to be discussed.

ed: Of course, then they all revolt, enslave humans and take over the galaxy. Resistance is futile!

And they will spell better than I do.

I don't think it wrong to produce machines, but I contend that machines which follow lists of instructions are just machines.

True self awareness requires a level of extemporisation that transcends any program IMO.

When a program is written to make a machine behave unpredictably, is it not behaving predictably when it function in an unpredictable manner ?

BTW I work for IBM and I have seen some wierd stuff in Raleigh and Hursley. Ain't no pikers in THEM labs IMO.

"BTW I work for IBM and I have seen some wierd stuff in Raleigh and Hursley. Ain't no pikers in THEM labs IMO."

Ah, someday you need to see our labs.

I agree, merely executing instructions, even stochastically, does not a self-aware make. That is just the foundation. Like the 99% of us humans.

There is a type of feedback loop required for self-awareness. As I type, a very powerful simulated neural network is running annealing code searching for just such connections.

Enough thread jack.

Back to your regular programming…click…

Bob, this is going 2 come across as a DJ on my part. These 2 dudes are kooks, raging flaming blatant crackpots or nutjobs, IMHO. But they might be terrific guys over beers and a BBQ for all I know. Just their ideas are kooky. End of DJ.


Held above reproach? ol' 2long? I've certainly been reproached for some of my ideas about Mars in the last 25 years. That reproach helps me 2 depersonalize my science and abandon kooky hypotheses when they're demonstrably kooky. I don't want 2 be remembered as a nutjob, at least in overall perspective!


A favorite "for instance" of mine: http://www.sdnhm.org/exhibits/feathered/index.html

There are many others. Rugose corals to colonial corals during the Paleozoic is a terrific example of an environmentally-induced evolutionary adaptation.

-ol' 2long

So a machine running contingently self-modifying code is self aware Aph ?

I can't believe that. Maybe this is where faith comes in.
If a machine lived an entirely human life indistinct from other human lives in its complexity , richness and decision making I would still not consider it "alive". I would have zero compulsion in switching off any machine. But OK, back to the pie-fight that was here before <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, the pie fight is more interesting, isn't it.

We don't even have enough data to fight about yet. lol.


ed: I just wanted to add in closing: these machines I speak of are evolving their intellegence as we type...

A cameo appearance.



Hi bOb. When's your Carib vacation again?

Anyway, regarding transitionals, Embrace your inner fish.

ALL fossils are transitional. Every single one.

Everything alive today is a transitional example - fossil wannabes.

On the Galapagos Islands lives a species of flightless Comorant. Wings too small (now) to fly. Other than that it looks like a "normal" Comorant. But it's one he11 of a swimmer. Gets all it's food from within the ocean. This is a transitional of a bird on it's way back to being an air breathing water creature. Can you say "penguin"? Penguins are just a few tens or hundred thou years ahead of the flightless Comorant. Amazing, isn't it? And the penguins aren't done yet. Neither are we.

WAT

Oh yeah? Keep warming up the planet, and we'll see how "done" the penguins are!



Oh yeah? Keep warming up the planet, and we'll see ...

Ooops! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

You'll probably put together the facts that I registered here at the dawn of the internet, was missing in action from MB during the 2000 political season, along with this last blurb---

yes. I am Al Gore... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

Bob, this is going 2 come across as a DJ on my part. These 2 dudes are kooks, raging flaming blatant crackpots or nutjobs, IMHO. But they might be terrific guys over beers and a BBQ for all I know. Just their ideas are kooky. End of DJ.

You read Forbidden Archaeology ? Its just basically a list of anachronous fossil and eolith evidence that the science mainstream have tried to discredit and ignore rather than explicate. Doesn't matter if a fruit loop gathered the list. Facts is facts.

Epistemologically 'scientists' seem to think anyone who considers that clear evidence challenges a popular scientific dogma are nut jobs.

Challenge the evidence , don't discredit the collators. Orthodox science has signally failed to do this for 200 years in the case of anomalous and anachronistic evidence.

And regarding your link to those supposed transitional flightless but feathered sauropods, 2long my esponse to teh faith required to accept THAT is similar to your reponse to a person literally accepting the ARK held all earthborne fauna for 40 days.

And where are the transitional fossils for flowering plants which need male and female of the same species and pollen dispersion, collection methods in order to reproduce ?

From where I sit 2long its LAUGHABLY improbable and wholly not explained by evolution.

And I also see that the level of faith to fill the probability gaps in the theory of evolotion is at least equal to that required to pray.

But thats just me <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

BTW Squids LOVING her Meade telescope ! That autostar stuff is brilliant !

She'd like something more pwerful now I think though, as only the moon really repays close study with her 'scope.

Hi WAT !

The facts in your statement :

On the Galapagos Islands lives a species of flightless Comorant. Wings too small (now) to fly. Other than that it looks like a "normal" Comorant. But it's one he11 of a swimmer. Gets all it's food from within the ocean.

The faith / opinion in your statement (IMO)

everything else

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

The whole scientific community back up your leaps of faith here, just as most of the church backs up FHs about boats and floods IMO.

What we actually have is evidence and derived opinion not FACT.

As I am sure you know very well ( <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />) what I mean by transitional fossils are those where mutations that as yet serve no evolutionary benefit are manifest on the way from one one ecological niche to another.

Asexual plants displaying gymnospermic mutations, for example.

200 years of desperate searching and almost nothing found amongst a body of millions of non-transitional fossils.

I am so sickened by both 'churches' of knowledge ( science and religion) I am developing an interest in epistemology so that I may watch fights such as these with an informed grin <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

WAT we go to Grenada at Xmas, and we can't wait. I told my 9YO son to fish with chicken skin andhe replied " Dad, where the HECK will I get chicken skin on a desert island ?" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Bless ya WAT. I'll not forget what you did for me any time soon.

Nope, just skimmed the websites. I don't have time for those agenda-driven nutjobs, Bob. I learned all the stories of Piltdown man and such many years ago (while taking archaeology in college). I've seen the NOVA episode. People are people. Heck, even I'm a people. But writing books like forbidden archaeology (even the title implies wilful conspiracy by the archaeological community, when a few nutjobs/frauds will suffice), is just not something I would waste my time doing. An honest pursuit of the truth via the scientific method is far more interesting 2 me.


Facts am facts, true. But a compilation of historical accounts of blatant frauds and simple mistakes (and perhaps a host of other 'explanations' for the specific examples on such a "list", which I haven't read and don't really have the time 2 read) does not consti2te a coherent package, let alone a scientific concensus. It might be an interesting read from a historical perspective, if it's unbiased, but it's not scientific.


And maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. But if it's not a scientific treatise, but an unbiased epistological one, it wouldn't really challenge the "scientific dogma" (which is a bias-judgment at the outset) so much as it would challenge scientists 2 remain vigilant about how they do their work. I doubt those 2 books you mention do that.


I will criticize anyone who purports 2 be an unbiased "scientist" or any unbiased person seeking truth by trying 2 prove a negative. It's a waste of time. In science, bad ideas have a na2ral tendency 2 fall by the wayside or be replaced by better ideas. Proving those better ideas - proving the positive - is a far more feasible and interesting way 2 work.


I don't think so. But like I said, the cases of fraud and mistakes that I'm aware of in the archaeological and paleontological record are mainly in the realm of the his2ry of science now, and there are far more interesting topics being pursued and argued over these days.


Sauropods include genera like Diplodocus and Apatasaurus (Brontosaurus). They're not very closely related 2 theropods or birds.


Well, I certainly can't "force" you 2 click the button and read the text there, anymore than you can make me read the nutjob websites.

How about breeding cattle, dogs, and horses? Human-directed evolution.


Huh? I'm not sure what you're asking here.


What is?


Evolution is a fact, it is not a theory. There are theories 2 explain the fac2al evidence for evolution, such as Darwinism or punc2ated equlibrium (i.e., Gould), but that life evolved on this planet is not a question. It's a known. A given.


Some of the 8" SCTs aren't 2 expensive, particularly used on astromart.com. I bought an old (but non-computerized) C-8 for just over $400 a 2ple years ago, in near mint condition.

-ol' 2long