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Wow! You don't yet comprehend metaphorical humor, do you, little one?
NO, organism do not purposefully set out to "explore alternatives" But it happens in the bio-Logical way that chance mutated DNA inadvertently offers up options to then be tested by exposure to the real world.
We know, via inescapable DNA lineage mapping, that we did indeed progress from a common proto-ancestor, a lemur by all accounts based on it's DNA.
Say, I also seem to recall asking you in the past exactly what level of biology education you achieved, even if it was only by watching Mr, ScienceMan on Sesame Street. But, from your insightful answers, it's pretty obvious that you probably turned away when they talked about "science" didn't you?
C'mon now: admit it! Be honest!
Tell you what, lw: I'll re-post the same questions I asked you months ago (you didn't answer then either. But maybe you've matured?).
You go ahead and tell the nice folks here that...
1) DNA mutation does not ever happen,
2) it does not present alternative genome sets to be trial & error tested,
3) it NEVER generates positive mutational changes, and...
4) organisms with a common ancestor don't ever branch out and co-evolve in entirely different directions? "There's absolutely NO evidence!"(blah blah blah blah...)
5) that you're obviously intensely jealous of anyone with a rifle!
...au contraire, I comprehend metaphorical humor very well. However, your version of it seems a bit arrogant. What you fail to realize is that DNA does not mutate by chance. Theres a reason why it began mutating in a degenerative way in the first place. I'm of the opinion that post flood sans a water canopy layer of terran atmosphere, ultra violet and gamma radiation are two unfortunate reasons why.
Chance mutated DNA cannot offer up unintentional options for testing...it takes someone with the intelligence that G-d in His infinite wisdom gave us to deliberate therewith to expose DNA that mutated for a real reason to a real world created by a real G-d.
You think (believe) based on your interpretation of DNA lineage mapping of a lemur that man and his kind had a proto-ancestor...let's call him metaphor man. You do not know this with any degree of certainty that it was a proto-lemur.
I've spoken honestly to you before about my education...I graduated from high school...which if my memory serves me correctly was a time when a man with a rifle was chasing me out of his house for shaggin his daughter. No, I'm not jealous...just cautious.
Anyway, let me buy you a cup of joe. I'm certain I could learn something from you...metaphorically speaking of course. The Blessings of The Eternal One still bring you joy...
Last edited by littlewitness; 10-28-2012 at 02:24 AM..
Hi again littlewits. Nice of you to present a post that did more to show how much better rational reasoning is than creationist unreasoning that all the other posts on the thread.
Since you mention Peanut Butter...
Peanut butter argument
"...the claim opens with, and relies on, the complete misrepresentation that evolution just says that "matter + energy = life". ...t. Therefore, according to this oversimplified view, a jar of peanut butter (or any foodstuff, or perhaps any stuff), which is subjected to light through the glass jar or through heating, should spontaneously generate life. To get around any statistical problems (we can already conclude that abiogenesis will probably be rare), proponents of the argument will cite that "millions of Americans will open a jar every day, performing the experiment millions of times" each with the same result; no life is formed. The idea thus concludes that evolution must be incorrect and that their worldview is correct....
Critics of the argument have pointed out that sealed jars of peanut butter are not, generally speaking, multimillion-year-old volcanic environments rich in ammonia and methane, being bombarded by high energy cosmic rays."
And..while we're about it, let's celebrate that iconic Epic Fail, the Atheists' nitemare.. (from the site of my old AN mate 'Iron Chariot').
The case from Ray Comfort who, despite this utter debacle still presents himself as some sort of Authority, let alone daring to show his face in public.
"Behold, the atheists' nightmare. Now if you study a well-made banana, you'll find, on the far side, there are 3 ridges. On the close side, two ridges. If you get your hand ready to grip a banana, you'll find on the far side there are three grooves, on the close side, two grooves. The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other. You'll find the maker of the banana, Almighty God, has made it with a non-slip surface. It has outward indicators of inward contents - green, too early - yellow, just right - black, too late. Now if you go to the top of the banana, you'll find, as with the soda can makers have placed a tab at the top, so God has placed a tab at the top. When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face. You'll find a wrapper which is biodegradable, has perforations. Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. It's just the right shape for the human mouth. It's chewy, easy to digest and its even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier..."
The short answer is that
"Bananas, along with most foods people eat, have been domesticated and bred to have the features we like. We only keep and reproduce banana trees which grow bananas exactly the size and shape that we want, and destroy the rest.... Natural bananas are much smaller and are full of cherry-pit sized seeds."
Thanks again Littlewits. for giving an excuse to post a couple of pictures of Creationist Airlines wrecks where they found they hadn't undercarriage and landed on their goolies.
...listen red coat, go back in the closet with your banana and count to 65 million.
...au contraire, I comprehend metaphorical humor very well. However, your version of it seems a bit arrogant. What you fail to realize is that DNA does not mutate by chance. Theres a reason why it began mutating in a degenerative way in the first place. I'm of the opinion that post flood sans a water canopy layer of terran atmosphere, ultra violet and gamma radiation are two unfortunate reasons why.
Chance mutated DNA cannot offer up unintentional options for testing...it takes someone with the intelligence that G-d in His infinite wisdom gave us to deliberate therewith to expose DNA that mutated for a real reason to a real world created by a real G-d.
You think (believe) based on your interpretation of DNA lineage mapping of a lemur that man and his kind had a proto-ancestor...let's call him metaphor man. You do not know this with any degree of certainty that it was a proto-lemur.
I've spoken honestly to you before about my education...I graduated from high school...which if my memory serves me correctly was a time when a man with a rifle was chasing me out of his house for shaggin his daughter. No, I'm not jealous...just cautious.
Anyway, let me buy you a cup of joe. I'm certain I could learn something from you...metaphorically speaking of course. The Blessings of The Eternal One still bring you joy...
Hint: Read Richard Lenski, 2008, on the occurrence of a new species during his 22 year long test (when he started it he had no idea that the inarguable science of DNA genome mapping would appear, but nonetheless, he dutifully kept samples of the DSA from each generation. Wow, huh? A very careful and thorough scientist indeed! (and... it's precisely why he's an evolutionary Doctor of science and you are not!) Anyhow, all fully documented, then, @ about gen # 32,000, a chance mutation (versus all the hundreds of thousands of non-functioning, non-improving mutations, many quite lethal..) tripped a series of previous also chance mutations, (in my research on the subject, I labelled it Evolutionary Vectoring), to produce, purely by chance...
Voila!, an all-new species, capable of some entirely new "tricks" and enhanced survival abilities. (that one particularly ket mutation then facilitated several others, that had been silently waiting in the genetic wings to be exactly that: facilitated. My Evo. Vectoring™ concept at work. Detectable in all reviews of any species' lineage, btw. Not uncommon.)
That organistic branch then set out, quite apart from it's remnant original population, to "go it's merry way". Metaphorically speaking, of course...
(picture of an ape looking in on some captive homind test animals... Note the thoughtful look on the ape's sincere face. He only wants the truth after all... It's lemurs all the way down, he realizes, not being as stubbornly smugly illiterate as those whining, drooling humans behind that safety glass. (You never know what they might do, after all. They might even throw poop!)
I'll take it then that you do not accept that DNA mutates on it's own, and produces genetic map sets that are for the most part lethal or inoperative but harmless: some of the so-called junk DNA? And that it also NEVER produces a positive new genome that then materially affects the organism's functionality or appearance? Never happens, huh? Except when God wants it to mutate?
We genetic scientists have apparently NEVER documented DNA mutations and their outcomes. And no new species has appeared since Noah's Ark's climatically shocking and very difficult disembarkation, right? The T-Rexs etc. (well over 3000 kinds & species of dinos, times however many a successful reproductive "pod" would be, even if you didn't drop them off at the 13,000 foot frozen 13,000 level just the sort of environment a T-Rex would enjoy, or an Amazonian parrot or a king cobra. And so on. Let's say, minimally, about 2000 each. Hmmm. I wonder which stateroom(s) or decks he comfortably (!) kept and fed them in. Alongside the 100 or so elephants, hypos , crocs and cape buffalo. Wanna let us in out of the dark know? Please?
Utter scientific balderdash, and worthy of at least a little snide commentary, would you not agree, lw? .
Best Answer: Oh My God! The Sci-Illit are still in the room, making outrageous claims that contradict simple common sense! They must be truly frightened of there absolutely being no afterlife! (which ,btw, there ain't...)
Mutation (an excellent primer on all the typical types of mutations which out hero here claims do not happen randomly! or even perhaps at all, without God's Heroic Intervention.
I suppose it all must have been a large accumulation of silly-stupid on my eyeglasses & central cortex then, when I witnessed such results of DNA mutation myself!
Well then, thanks for clearing all this up for me, lw! I'm deeply indebted to you for retrograding my nawh-ludg in this specialized area of my professional education! I feel so stupitt now!)
...listen red coat, go back in the closet with your banana and count to 65 million.
Nothing better than that to say? I shall leave if to the better - informed Rifleman to counter your nonsense about the common ancestor (which was evidently lemur -like as indicated by the evolutionary paths even if we can't seize on the exact missing link with glad cries - and, let's not call it proto -man. 'Primate common ancestor' is too good to replaced by any off the top of your head term you might come up with) and DNA mutation not testing for a desired outcome, which means that God (the 'o' on your keyboard is evidently malfunctioning) has to be doing it.
Rifleman can show in his powerful way that the process doesn't need any direction apart from evolutionary niches but I can at least mention that you are making the classic Creationist fallacy ("This is the conclusion; what evidence can we find - or in your case fabricate - to support it?"). Goddunnit, and the proof is that it cannot work without God having dunnit. Wrong. Even if we couldn't show that natural selection through mutation works fine without divine input, it would still be a false argument to say that 'because we can't explain it, God mustha dunnit'.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-28-2012 at 04:20 AM..
I was partially addressing your post, Mystic old pal. But... FYI, as regards all future posts o'mine, anything about Evolution and the origins of our cousin animalia and even, [i]heck, the plants; that stuff is ALL aimed at the scientifically illiterate moron-set out there, not you.
That presents a problem, old friend . . . because you then muddle science fact with your preferences about our ignorance, mention my name . . . and then proceed to misrepresent my views in with the fundies et al. IF you want me to treat your posts as addressed ONLY to the fundies, fine . . . but leave me out of it. I enjoy your rants . . . but NOT your presumptions about our ignorance presented as science fact.
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Now, where, IMESHO, ("ever so humble"....) you do need some tutelage, old pal, is in realizing that our relatively recent logical observations & conclusions regarding "reality" are exactly that: we did not create reality by observing and discussing it.
If you have not yet gleaned the fact that I need no tutelage, my friend . . . I will have to reassess my evaluation of your intellect.
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Rather, it was of course there all along ( by some mysterious process), and through the ongoing and ever-more advanced processes of observation, speculation, hypothesis, logical investigation and reality tests, we've been more than able to simply confirm all that. And we ain't even got started yet, as you well understand, M!
I simply wonder why we'd have to have some super-intelligent all-capable entity-force if it's all so (relatively) simple? It begs my usual question, Wh.... well , you know that one.
It'd sort of be like having the entire Apple Mac engineering & design team getting together for an intensive 30-day 10 hour per day, 7 days a week conference on how to move the headphone jack to the side of the iPad. Not necessary.
I have attempted to explain this misconception of infinite control of all the details using my "existential imperative" and the analogy of our Godhood to our own cells (and assorted lifeforms) in the mini-universe of our body/brain complex. Like our mini-universe . . . the existence of God and the mandates for maintaining that existence are the source of the details.
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And I do not agree that the "turtles all the way down!" (phunny, btw...) argument is immaterial & specious! If we have to have a Creator General, because you make your point that the utterly awesome and hugely complex (upon which I disagree, but that's another thread...) Universe can't possibly have gotten here without such an entity, why then does the need for His/Her/It's formative years or Genesis fall entirely by the wayside? Because you can't possibly begin to explain it? Or because that alone renders the Awesome Universe requirements pointless and illogical on their face?
I'd say so. You simply have to fess up, Mystic, that neither you nor I have the slightest idea how the universe got here. My only point is that I'm betting it's spectacularly consistent when a good cross-section of all of it's physicality is examined.
Of course, rifle . . . anything about a pre-universe reality is completely inaccessible to us. That is why we accept it as "It just is." The real issues are WHAT "it just is" based on its KNOWN attributes and what, if any, other attributes does it have.
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As in: lots of very similar, very consistent (both physically and behaviorally, all orbiting around and ramming into each other an'stuff!), and similarly constructed planets, moons, suns, et al out there, simply responding to Element A interacting, via gravity, etc. with Element B, C, D and so on. In highly predictable ways that absolutely do not require Creatorial Intervention.
You keep saying this and completely ignoring that the "in highly predictable ways" has to have a Source of its predictability. THAT is what my "existential imperative" provides.
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Well, I'm exhausted! Have a good one, folks! I'm going to dream about random number series. Wanna join me?
Sleep well and easy, my old friend. I will leave your posts to demolish the ignorance of fundies if you leave me out of them . . . and stop pretending your preferences and presumptions about science's ignorance are science fact.
If you have not yet gleaned the fact that I need no tutelage, my friend . . . I will have to reassess my evaluation of your intellect.
Sleep well and easy, my old friend. I will leave your posts to demolish the ignorance of fundies if you leave me out of them . . . and stop pretending your preferences and presumptions about science's ignorance are science fact.
Well let's see... in the bright clear morning light, I can now see:
1) We could, all of us, even you, Mystic, use some occasional tutelage. (Tho' apparently you think not... hmmm what does that tell all of us?)
No-one is immune to new-found knowledge, unless you are indeed the God of whom you speak, in the buff, so to speak?
Then, as to point 2): You still left the Cheloniidae-forever argument to wander about, untethered. Nice try, but you cannot selectively and partially apply your pre-determined outcome brand of logic to this very real problem, M. Obviously, when we very limited hominids run outa intellectual talent (the "Duhhhh!" moment, to quote Homer S.) we have nowhere to run.
The earlier testimonies, via the ever-hungry prophets, leaves a gaping hole, except they sort of filled it by telling the restless peons the sky was just a large dome with tiny holes in it, or with angels leaving bits of glowing heavenly fluff here and there.
("But.... but... why do the bright points of light move as we watch them tonight, oh great prophet? And those shooting arcs of light, what do those mean? And what's beyo... {cue the slightly gooey/slithery sounds of a dagger plunged into questioner from behind, by assistant prophet-in-training...}
Now, everyone's attention is raptly returned to the muttering prophet yet again, esp. his requirement that we do not EVER question such things, since they are beyond our "ken". They rightfully belong in another world that we'll assume was also God-formed.
Well let's see... in the bright clear morning light, I can now see:
1) We could, all of us, even you, Mystic, use some occasional tutelage. (Tho' apparently you think not... hmmm what does that tell all of us?)
No-one is immune to new-found knowledge, unless you are indeed the God of whom you speak, in the buff, so to speak?
Shall I assume that we do not have an agreement, then rifle? The issue was whether or not I require tutelage about evolution . . . NOT about everything, and you know it. I do not . . . because I accept it and keep up with the latest findings looking for any reason whatsoever to credit your presumptions as science fact. They remain NOT fact.
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Then, as to point 2): You still left the Cheloniidae-forever argument to wander about, untethered. Nice try, but you cannot selectively and partially apply your pre-determined outcome brand of logic to this very real problem, M. Obviously, when we very limited hominids run outa intellectual talent (the "Duhhhh!" moment, to quote Homer S.) we have nowhere to run.
I addressed the pointless nature of any infinite regress speculation, rifle. We have no basis upon which to determine the truth or falsity of ANYTHING pre-universe, period. Sorry, but we are stuck with explaining what exists . . . but not asserting euphemisms for our ignorance as science fact.
<snip> (rant directed at the fundies.)
They seem to come out nowhere at least.
"I addressed the pointless nature of any infinite regress speculation, rifle. We have no basis upon which to determine the truth or falsity of ANYTHING pre-universe, period. Sorry, but we are stuck with explaining what exists . . . but not asserting euphemisms for our ignorance as science fact."
In an odd way the evolution back to and including abiogenesis it seems -and hinting at infinite regression back to 'who made everything then, eh?' seems to parallel the debate on Cosmic origins. While Rifleman has done sterling work on countering any attempts to find spoor of God in evolutionary processes by playing the unknowns for all they are worth, we are left with explaining what exists.
Exactly where we ended up and finding only physical, natural, materialistic, physical and biological evolutionary processes. Those are the scientific fact and that is all. The unknowns are unknowns, but, given that all we have is materialistic naturalism as scientific fact, that is all we have to go on. That is why it is the logical default and, just as in the other argument, it is for anyone else with an alternative theory to produce some evidence for it - not for science to prove and explain every darn thing up to the hilt before you, Mystic mate, will accept it.
Not only because of the burden of proof, which you seem to deny in on you, but because of this odd "asserting euphemisms for our ignorance" when it is clearly you who are trying to exploit our 'ignorance' by applying to the unknowns and unexplaineds the various euphemistic labels you use to try to slip God in there somewhere and deny that is what you are doing.
In an odd way the evolution back to and including abiogenesis it seems -and hinting at infinite regression back to 'who made everything then, eh?' seems to parallel the debate on Cosmic origins. While Rifleman has done sterling work on countering any attempts to find spoor of God in evolutionary processes by playing the unknowns for all they are worth, we are left with explaining what exists.
Exactly where we ended up and finding only physical, natural, materialistic, physical and biological evolutionary processes. Those are the scientific fact and that is all. The unknowns are unknowns, but, given that all we have is materialistic naturalism as scientific fact, that is all we have to go on. That is why it is the logical default and, just as in the other argument, it is for anyone else with an alternative theory to produce some evidence for it - not for science to prove and explain every darn thing up to the hilt before you, Mystic mate, will accept it.
But you keep Leaving out the existence of life and consciousness as part of what you want to call the naturalistic materialist reality . . . unfortunately they cannot be accounted for by the premise of the initial state in naturalism. Much as you refuse to acknowledge it . . . we just can't get from that initial state to here, period.
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Nice of you to present a post that did more to show how much better rational reasoning is than creationist unreasoning that all the other posts on the thread. 
or even perhaps at all, without God's Heroic Intervention.
