Evidence for Creationism and Against Evolution

[Rían]

Originally posted by Nariel
...Now, most mutations are negative. I'm talking about 300 BENEFICIAL mutations. These only occur very rarely (if at all).

And one of the many unrealistic things about the th. of evolution is that somehow the gazillions of negative mutations that must have occurred between the supposed beneficial mutations somehow "magically" don't carry over when it's beneficial mutation time That's what I mean by the problem of genetic load. The biggest problem is not even that a true beneficial mutation has never been seen; it's that the price of obtaining a beneficial mutation is too high in terms of the many, many NEGATIVE mutations that must have occurred while waiting for a beneficial one.

[Nariel]

Plus, I gave chance a huge probability range. Usually (this is according to evolutionists in the Harvard Genetic Research Dept.) Mutations only occur about once every 1,000,000 years, and only one in 1,000,000 is beneficial... so that would multiply the time needed for mutation like 1000-fold.

[Wayfarer]

Not to mention that, in order for any real fowards progress to be made, the mutations must occur in the same genetic line.

Even if I grant that there is a 1 in 10^12 chance of a benificial mutation occuring, that doesn't really help evolve the species as a whole if the mutations happen on opposite sides of the globe and the bloodlines never come together to form a 'final model'.

Oh, bother.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Nariel
There is far too much evidence for the coexistance of dinosaurs and humans.

uh what?

There are cave drawings as little as 3000 years old of dinosaurs attacking mammoths. Marco Polo reported seeing a dinosaur (alive and well) in one of his expeditions. Modern tribes worship giant lizards which they feed. Many of the modern (that's saying in the last 500 years) historians have reported seeing flying lizards and huge reptiles alive in their time. These are only a few examples of evidence that dinosaurs not only coexisted with humans, but were (and possible still are) alive until quite recent times.

ok not knowing you too well I don’t want to burst your bubble too violently but this reeks of YEC propaganda nonsense if I may say so. The simple and quite obvious facts are In the fossil record there are no human artifacts or remains in the same levels as dinosaur remains. NONE. In fact not even close. They are separated by AGES of time.
There are no dinosaurs depicted in cave paintings attributed to early humans. This is simply untrue. Marco Polo may have seen some weird looking animals that he had never seen before but he sure didn’t see a dinosaur since he had no idea what a dinosaur was at that point how could he say it was one. Lizards are LIZARDS. Not DINOSAURS. Completely different animals. Nothing to do with each other. Lizards are still all around us. No one mistakes them for dinosaurs however.

Also, there is simply not enough time for rodents to develop into humans in just 60 million years.

It's an established fact that the genetic difference between the most human-like ape and the most ape-like human is about 300 mutations.

oh it is? I think this is a variation of the standard “not enough time� argument that goes as follows:

Successful production of a 200-component functioning organism requires at least 200 beneficial mutations. The odds of getting that many successive beneficial mutations is r200, where r is the rate of beneficial mutations. Even if r is 0.5 (and it is really much smaller), that makes the odds worse than 1 in 1060, which is impossibly small.

the answer to both is that this calculation assumes that all the beneficial mutations must occur consecutively with no other mutations occurring in the meantime. When one allows harmful mutations which get selected out along the way, 200 (or 300) beneficial mutations would accumulate fairly quickly. They are simply playing a shell game with statistics when they argue this way.

Now, most mutations are negative.

incorrect. The vast majority of mutations are neutral. AND most SURVIVING mutations are (of course) NOT detrimental by definition. But “beneficial� simply means it happens to work well for the organism in their environment at that time. Whats beneficial today can be a problem tomorrow. But this also means whats neutral today can be a benefit tomorrow. So you need to count ALL the mutations. Not just the ones that happen and happen to be beneficial immediately.

There has never been a documented beneficial mutation actually observed.

Beneficial mutations are commonly observed. They are common enough to be problems in the cases of antibiotic resistance in disease causing organisms and pesticide resistance in agricultural pests. And they have been shown time and time again in the lab. The way the AIDS virus has adapted to its human host is just one example of a beneficial mutation. Ask any botonist if mutations happen. Ask anyone who had ever bread an animal for a purpose.

[Insidious Rex]

I love it when I make a reply to a post and it debunks the posts made in the mean time.

[Nariel]

In response to IR:

I don't know what YEC is... but I've seen the cave drawings. I'll scan the pictures if you want. I've read Marco Polo's account. I've read Alexander the Great's account. And besides... where do you draw the line between Lizards and dinoaurs? I don't see a very distint one.


I'm going to address the dinosaur thing later... I have to dig out my books which are all boxed up right now. But I will say that the fossil record is one of the least reliable sources of information we have as far as ages go. There are too many jumbled spots.

But let's keep talking about mutation...
And just for clarification: We're not talking about adaptation within a genus or species. We're talking about genus- and species-spanning mutations which assist in the evolution from one species to another. Also, we're talking about natural selection, not human-assisted, or forced mutation (which would not have occured millions of years ago). That would imply direction in a theory governed purely by chance.

I did allow for other mutations along the way. But the negative mutations, which harm the process of evolution (or the neutral ones, which don't help it out at all) greatly outnumber the beneficial ones. I don't see how other mutations in between decrease the amount of time needed for a noticeable change. Wouldn't it increase it? Using uniformitarian ideas (which Evolutionists adhere to) we would conclude that mutations occur in generally even amounts of time. So if we say that for every thousand negative or neutral mutations, one beneficial mutation occurs, that is indeed allowing for others in between.

Natural selection is a process which selects out the best survivors to go on. If there is a neutral mutation, which does not give an organism the "edge" that mutation will be selected out. Natural selection is a gory, bloody process in which only the strongest survive. Only the ones with the 'good' mutations. Neutrality is not allowed. It doesn't give you the edge.

[LutraMage]

Er...there isn't any?

[Rían]

OK, IRex, I'm gonna call you on trying to have things both ways

You've said things like this: "its an illusion that we are somehow distinct and seperate at all."

and also that we can't know whether or not there is a God.

Next, you turn around and say this: "Words like “communicate� and “smart� and “desire� are useless in this discussion. When you bring them in you are talking about something else then what I am talking about. "

and this: "I think its silly to approach the concept of an all powerful universe creating force from the point of view of “hes just like us!!�. "

and this: "Describing said creative force with simple pathetic human emotions and convincing ourselves that this creative force thinks we are super special and the most important things in the universe is an error on so many levels in my opinion. But its understandable for limited humans considering their biases to make such errors. "


NOW - which is it? First, you say that it's an illusion that we're distinct and separate - how is it that we're disagreeing, then? Why does conversation even matter if things are an illusion? If there's no God (much less no US), then why are you claiming certain characteristics for Him and denying others?

But my biggest objection is that you claim that we can't know if there's a God - then you say MY characterization of Him is WRONG, and then turn around and give your OWN views on what He's like, and claim to be right!?!?!

This seems very inconsistent, and like trying to have things both ways (which I will object to because I think discussions should be fair)

Could you please explain this?

[Nurvingiel]

Whoops, I posted at the same time as Nariel.

In response to: er, there isn't any [evidence for Creationism]?

Maybe that's why we started talking about other theories. The person I know who at least partly believes in Creationism (he believes the world is 6000 years old anyway) just believes it. He doesn't have a specific reason besides the Bible for believing some things.

I don't know very much about Creationism, but the only supporting evidence I can think about it is a lack of evidence in other places.

You could argue (somewhat weakly perhaps) that Creationism cannot be disproved because of the fossil record, because it has gaps and mistakes in it. (I'm not saying you can completely discount the fossil record, just that it isn't perfect.)

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Nariel
where do you draw the line between Lizards and dinoaurs? I don't see a very distint one.

don’t be fooled by looks. Or should I say artists renditions. Remember no one has ever actually SEEN a dinosaur before. Lizards (reptiles) are fundamentally different animals from dinosaurs with different internal and external structures and a fundamentally different life cycle. Reptiles are cold blooded animals for one. Dinosaurs were not apparently. The level of activity they had shows us they were perhaps somewhere between full warm blooded and cold blooded. A reptile could never behave in the way that many dinosaurs did. What we DO see however is a direct parallel to avarian species when we look at dinosaurs. Their physiology reflects this. Their breeding habits and herding behavior reflects this. And this is why many paleontologists believe birds are the modern day descendents of dinosaurs. Not reptiles. Reptiles already existed when dinosaurs existed. They didn’t COME from dinosaurs. They branched off from each other millions of years before.

And just for clarification: We're not talking about adaptation within a genus or species. We're talking about genus- and species-spanning mutations which assist in the evolution from one species to another.

Im not really sure if I get you here. What does “species spanning mutations� mean? A mutation is simply a change in an allele. Its not some massive multi-phenotypic change if that’s what you meant.

Also, we're talking about natural selection, not human-assisted, or forced mutation (which would not have occured millions of years ago).

you wanted examples of mutations. So I gave you a bunch. Your argument was that WE had never observed a beneficial mutation. Well how convenient of you to say it doesn’t count if it happens while man is around. You have to show me one that happened before we existed. Do you have a time machine? But if you really want to see a mutation right before your eyes then keep a culture of microbes in a dish and monitor their gene sequence once an hour for several weeks and you will see mutations. Do you disagree with this simple fact?

I did allow for other mutations along the way. But the negative mutations, which harm the process of evolution (or the neutral ones, which don't help it out at all) greatly outnumber the beneficial ones. I don't see how other mutations in between decrease the amount of time needed for a noticeable change. Wouldn't it increase it?

the “negative� mutations tend to kill off the host. So they aren’t passed on. This leaves the neutral mutations which can remain in the breeding population simply based on the fact that they are not detrimental to the host. They may however BECOME beneficial at any given time. That’s what you aren’t taking into account. Just because its “neutral� at any given moment doesn’t mean its always useless. A mutation that took place 100 generations ago may become a serious advantage to the small group of individuals who carry this mutation. At this point it becomes a BENEFICIAL mutation. See? You cant say that ONLY mutations that help you out at THAT PARTICULAR time are beneficial and no others are or will be. You could have dozens of beneficial mutations going on you just don’t know about yet.

Think of it this way: you have two lottery tickets that are good for a certain period of time (not just once). On one theres one number. On the other theres dozens of numbers including the one on the first. Now lets say both lottery tickets win the prize on the first day. In other words the one number from the first ticket is picked and the second ticket has this number too so both tickets win. The next day it happens again. And both tickets win again. Eventually however that number is not going to get picked. In fact its very unlikely it will get picked many times in a row if at all. Now, all those numbers on the second ticket that didn’t matter (WERE NUETRAL) the first time can STILL help you hit the lottery in other rounds. They don’t go away. They don’t interfere. They just sit there. On the ticket. Waiting their turn. So if yer still hanging on to that ticket (because in bad environments tickets can get lost you know) when another number on it comes around then guess what, yer a winner.

Natural selection is a process which selects out the best survivors to go on. If there is a neutral mutation, which does not give an organism the "edge" that mutation will be selected out.

Ah see. Let me correct you there as well. Neutral mutations are NOT selected against. Detrimental mutations are selected against. Which is why detrimental (immediately detrimental) mutations don’t last long in living organisms. So you can have multi faceted mutations going on ALL at the same time which broadens the arsenal of a given organism by being able to have a whole bunch of options in reserve when they are needed. Evolution is like one big giant craps game. You can bet on one number and youll almost always lose. Or you can bet on an entire color and you are a lot more likely to win no matter which number of that color it lands on.

Neutrality is not allowed. It doesn't give you the edge.

of course neutrality is allowed. It doesn’t NEED to give you the edge TODAY. Whether a mutation is beneficial or not depends on environment.

And a bit about natural selection: Remember that a mutation which helps an organism in one circumstance could harm it in another. When the environment changes, variations which once were counteradaptive suddenly become favored. Since environments are constantly changing, variation helps populations survive, even if some of those variations don't do as well as others. When beneficial mutations occur in a changed environment, they generally sweep through the population rapidly.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
NOW - which is it? First, you say that it's an illusion that we're distinct and separate - how is it that we're disagreeing, then? Why does conversation even matter if things are an illusion? If there's no God (much less no US), then why are you claiming certain characteristics for Him and denying others?[/b]

no no no. yer mixing apples and oranges here. Whats an illusion is that we are somehow permenantly distinct and wholly separate entities. We are in fact all part of the same mash. Most people are fooled by this illusion because “people� are so short lived and so microscopic in relation to the flow of the whole mash that we cant see anything beyond ourselves. We cant see the forest for the trees if you will. We cant see galactic time unfolding making pretty patterns through the vacuum just like dyes in water. If you speed it up millions of times that’s JUST what it looks like. But not from our perspective. Everything is frozen in place and enormous from where we stand. Imagine being a million times smaller then the head of a pin and living in the intestine of a dog. 100 generations of your kind are born and die between heart beats of that dog. To you the WHOLE universe is that speck of tendril sticking up on the inside of that intestine. Because of your size you cant EVER know the intestine as a whole let alone the dog or the house the dog is in. forget it. But pull away and pull away and what do you know? Theres that dog. So what you have to do is close your eyes and think about the math involved. Then and only then can you see reality for what it truly is.

Now… the fact that we both argue about stuff is in no way a contradiction of what I just said there. Just because we are all part of the same big chemical reaction doesn’t mean the elements involved in said reaction cant interact with each other. Violently even. What does that matter?

But my biggest objection is that you claim that we can't know if there's a God - then you say MY characterization of Him is WRONG, and then turn around and give your OWN views on what He's like, and claim to be right!?!?!

And I wasn’t picking and choosing characteristics for “Him� (how ironic I have to use your humanistic approach to the divine to explain to you this concept that the divine isn’t at all human-like). I was leaving the door quite wide open. You are the one that has a check list of things any creative force must satisfy to be acceptable. For you it’s the Christian god of the bible. and theres simply no room for any deviation from there. That’s the given and everything else flows from there. And as I said before that’s fine. But we cant really argue then because you cant approach what Im talking about because its outside your acceptance criteria for god and I cant really say anything about your concepts because its irrelevant to what I see as a creative force. BUT what you SHOULD see from this is what I see as the possibility for a creative force can ecompass your god.

[Nurvingiel]

I asked my roommate about Creationism, and she says there's some people who have a very absolute view of the world and how it was created. But she also says some people are more moderate, and believe that God intended the world to exist as it does right now, and has a plan for our future.

It's the moderate Creationism, along with Darwinian theories, that I'm incorporated into my (and 18th century person's) theory.

[Rían]

Nurvi - if you go to the very first post of this thread, you'll see a post from me and at the bottom, I added a link to where I posted a multi-post summary of some of the major evidences for creationism, if you're interested.

[Nariel]

this is really frustrating. I just wrote a whole lot and my comp wiped out on me and reloaded the page. Now I have to remember everything I said.... This might take a while.

[brownjenkins]

i think the main problem is that people get hung up on which theory is right and which theory is wrong... by definition, creationism, evolutionism or divine mistake are all theories, and as such are unprovable... some accept this but like to say, "yes, but there is more evidence for...", but the fact is, it doesn't matter how many theories you have to support your theory... it's still a theory

what does matter is what you can do with theories and imply from them... creationism is all fine and well, but it is somewhat of a deadend... if you buy the fact that an all-powerful being created the universe, anything goes... he may have started the big bang and then moved on to other things... or maybe he created the earth and everything in it 6000 years ago and it is now the focus of all his attention... or maybe he created the world last tuesday and all our memories were just created at the same time

evolutionism, by contrast, tries to understand how everything got to where it is today without having to throw in the divine element, and as such has lead to theories that let us predict what may happen given certain conditions... this does not mean that it is 100% correct, or even 50% correct... but it is the best model we have to date

there is still that "unknown area" that we attribute to the divine, how this universe came about for instance... but this "unknown element" exists in the creationist POV also, after all, how did god come about... and if the creationist can say "god was always there", so the evolutionist can say "the universe was always there"

there's nothing wrong with believing in creationism, but it has no place in scientific theory

[Nariel]

True, creationism and evolutionism are both theories. Neither can be proven or disproven. That's why I think they should be taught together.

BUT

I have a problem with you saying that creationism has no place in modern science.

Creationism has little or no effect on the scientific method. And, it does not impede us from making predictions as to what will happen in the future (I think we're talking about weather, global catastrophes, that sort of thing, right?). A creationist can scientifically explain how things occur. But there are some things (like theories of origins) which step outside the realm of science.

Evolutionism is based on uniformitarian principles. It says that everything occurs at the same rate all the time. It doesn't allow for major worldwide catastrophes (with the exception of a few meteors here and there). So if we say that things all happened the same way all the time, we can pretty closely say that they will continue occurring the same way.

But what if things didn't always happen the same way? What if a giant meteor struck and wiped out most life millions of years ago? We would expect to see evidence of this in the world today. What if a giant flood killed everything except a select few? We would still expect evidences of this. Everywhere we look, we see evidences for catastrophism (major events that significantly affect the way things run on earth). But catastrophism does little to affect the scientific method, because that's based on what we observe occurring NOW, not millions of years ago when no one was really there to observe it.

[brownjenkins]

catastrophes are a major part of evolution in my view... they can lead mutations that might take ages to develop to take hold much more quickly... either through things like radiation that directly cause more mutations, or through massive climate change that can lead to certain mutations being weeded out

dinosaurs, for instance, are believed to have been well adapted to a tropical environment... if this never changed, they would probably still be the dominant species on the earth... they might be slightly different than those of a 100 million years ago... but probably not extinct

most evolutionary scientists take this into account, as opposed to the laboratory controlled type of evolution you seem to be talking about

uniformity is also a matter of scale... if you look at the average winter temperature in new england over the past 100 years it appears fairly uniform... but if you zoom in on any particular 5-year period, the relative year-to-year changes can be dramatic... if you zoom out on the earth time-scale enough, even asteroid collisions become somewhat uniform

as far keeping creationism and science separate... i think religion should be taught in school too (all of them, not just christianity), because religion plays a major part in the world around us... i just think religion should be taught on it's own, like philosophy... as should science... since are both entirely different ways to view the world and rarely compliment one another... you can have a third course that compares the two, but having to bring in religious views at every point in a science class would be just as counterproductive as the reverse

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Nariel

But what if things didn't always happen the same way? What if a giant meteor struck and wiped out most life millions of years ago? We would expect to see evidence of this in the world today. What if a giant flood killed everything except a select few? We would still expect evidences of this. Everywhere we look, we see evidences for catastrophism (major events that significantly affect the way things run on earth). But catastrophism does little to affect the scientific method, because that's based on what we observe occurring NOW, not millions of years ago when no one was really there to observe it.

yes we see plenty of evidence for different catastrophies throughout the history of the earth. catastrophies are part of the way things work here. we can see half a dozen mass extinction events or so through out the course of life on earth. and we know all about floods and weather changes leading to ice ages, and yes even big rocks hitting us from space. but what are you getting at by pointing that out exactly?

[Nariel]

I was simply trying to show how creationism is not just a religious belief: that it can be used just as well as evolution in application to Science

As far as the distinction between religion and science goes, BJ, I have to point out that evolution is based on just as much faith and conjecture as creation. This is called evidentialism. You start out with a belief or bias (a bias is NOT a bad thing) and you view the evidence to see if it supports your particular belief. Yes, science can, to an extent, prove or disprove either theory, but there's a point where you have to stop proving and just start believing.

[Earniel]

Originally posted by brownjenkins
as far keeping creationism and science separate... i think religion should be taught in school too (all of them, not just christianity), because religion plays a major part in the world around us... i just think religion should be taught on it's own, like philosophy... as should science... since are both entirely different ways to view the world and rarely compliment one another... you can have a third course that compares the two, but having to bring in religious views at every point in a science class would be just as counterproductive as the reverse

I agree. I think this third course you speak of might be very interesting indeed.

Originally posted by Nariel
You start out with a belief or bias (a bias is NOT a bad thing) and you view the evidence to see if it supports your particular belief. Yes, science can, to an extent, prove or disprove either theory, but there's a point where you have to stop proving and just start believing.

I disagree. Science should be based on facts and and data (and I think the evolution-science is just that for parts that I know of or read about) on which changeable theories are based and devised to explain connections between the data. People had dinosaurbones before they started thinking (and proving) that these were fossils of animals that lived a long time before us.