Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[The Great Zaganza]

The critical part is the "testing" of a genotype through reproduction.
Chicken are the evolutionary most successful birds that ever existed and will continue until we no longer like eating them.

 

[Joe Random]

We'd all look like the past living Hapsburg.

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And to quote Tricky from way back, "you couldn't fit two of every animal on the ark if you froze and stacked them".

"Most people in his situation would be angry with his family for the centuries of inbreeding, but not Gerhardt. He's too busy trying to stave off infection." (currently re-watching the show and that episode came up two days ago)

 

[ponderingturtle]

Each day in the creation record contains the statement about a sunset and sun rise.

Weird that it does that on days before the sun was created.

 

[Foster Zygote]

"Most people in his situation would be angry with his family for the centuries of inbreeding, but not Gerhardt. He's too busy trying to stave off infection." (currently re-watching the show and that episode came up two days ago)

Oh, and that was supposed to be "last living Hapsburg".

Ducking Autocorrect!

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Evolutionary processes, as I understand it, are based on genetic modification. What you seem to be talking about is adaptatin. We didn't notice or find interesting the elephants without tusks until they were the majority of the specimens, based on culling out the ones WITH tusks.

Obviously there must have been some genetic mutation that resulted in lions without mane or elephants without tusks, I'd say. If they were genetically identical to the others, then they wouldn't be lacking those. The mutation in those alleles may or may not have already existed, but it IS a mutation.

And generally, I don't know how you could have adaptation without a genetic difference. Unless you subscribe to Lamarckism or Lyssenkoism (who thought you could teach wheat collectivism and not competing for resources by planting it closer together... with the catastrophic results you'd expect) instead of Darwinism, I guess. I mean, what adapted otherwise and how? It's not a learned behaviour. It's not like lions decided to shave their manes

 

[theprestige]

You can certainly look at domestication and husbandry and say those are somehow artificial because you have one species helping another one along for purposes that have nothing to do with survival in the wild. But you have symbiosis, domestication, and husbandry in nature that have nothing to do with smart humans doing it. So no, I don't think it's helpful to draw a bright line between natural and artificial selection.

I think there's aspects of degree and scale that set humans apart from other animals that do similar things.

---

Space aliens visit Earth for the first time. They find three tool-using civilizations. One uses twigs to fish ants out of nests. One uses rocks to break open nuts. One uses EM radiation to send complex messages and advanced metallurgy to build extremely tall structures. The space aliens are unsure of which civilization holds the most potential for engagement, because they're all tool users and it's not helpful to draw a bright line between one and the others.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I could also say that the symbiosis between fungus and photosynthesising bacteria to produce lichen far exceeds the number of humans and their domesticated animals together by orders of magnitude. Ditto for the number of aphids "farmed" by ants.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You have fun.

 

[sackett]

Hey, Rusty! Nobody asked, so i will:

Do you really and in earnest believe the Noah's Ark story?

 

[catsmate]

Have you seen this one?

<Snippage>

More of your gibberings. There was no Flood and Noah didn't exist.

 

[catsmate]

Good thing that Edison didn't give up on the light bulb.

Do you ever bother to research before posting?
He had successes and based his work on earlier designs.

 

[Olmstead]

Hey, Rusty! Nobody asked, so i will:

Do you really and in earnest believe the Noah's Ark story?

He's actually a young earth creationist in the guise of a theist asking questions, so the answer is almost definitely yes.

 

[catsmate]

I was told that they ONLY looked at the site. (no research)
Seems generous to call that research. (non-event)

Why the ◊◊◊◊ would any intelligent person listen to the rants of some idiot musician?

 

[catsmate]

That saw cuts both ways.

No. We think for ourselves. You don't.

 

[catsmate]

Is that what evolution is? Creative thinking?

Another idiotic strawman.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Do you ever bother to research before posting?
He had successes and based his work on earlier designs.

There were also several competitors working on incandescent lightning as well, and he was a shameless self promoter who often took credit for other people's work. The "Wizard of Menlo Park" was mostly marketing.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Lysenkoism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JayUtah]

There were also several competitors working on incandescent lightning as well, and he was a shameless self promoter who often took credit for other people's work. The "Wizard of Menlo Park" was mostly marketing.

That's certainly true. He was more an entrepreneur than an inventor. But the broken analogy doesn't have to touch on that.

He had successes and based his work on earlier designs.

This is what I was getting at. The prospect of an incandescent light bulb wasn't at all farfetched. Everyone knew how it would have to work. Edison just kept experimenting with different filaments until he found one that would do the job. Most of the problem was actually how to mass-manufacture it at low cost. This is something we have to think about all the time in commercial engineering. All the players knew that it was just a matter of working out the details through trial and error. Someone would eventually get there first.

In contrast, practically no one believes the Bible flood story is literally true. This includes religious people who accept Genesis as canonical holy writ. The only religion who thinks Noah existed and actually did all the things attributed to him in Genesis are American Evangelicals. Hence it's only those people who imagine there is any point to digging around Mt. Ararat thinking they will actually find an ark. It's not a matter of persistence. It's a fool's errand from the very beginning. That's why all those attempts come up with exactly nothing.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Obviously there must have been some genetic mutation that resulted in lions without mane or elephants without tusks, I'd say. If they were genetically identical to the others, then they wouldn't be lacking those. The mutation in those alleles may or may not have already existed, but it IS a mutation.

Funny how "obviously" only works if we want it to work.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Funny how "obviously" only works if we want it to work.

Huh? That has nothing to do with what I want. It's just literally how genetics work. It's like how some humans have fair skin. It's both an adaptation to lower sunlight and thus vitamin D (melanin in the skin also takes away UV from being available for vitamin D production) AND based on a mutation in genes like SLC24A5, SLC45A2, and OCA2.