What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[rittjc]

A most scientific test.

Remember, though, the results have to be repeatable.

The good thing evolution never being able to prove anything is that it is always fully repeatable.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I am a bass fisherman. Trust me fish are colorblind. Some say not all, but that has yet to be demonstrated. If you don't believe that there is no hope for you.

Actually, I think I'll trust the ichthyologists on this one and they say you are wrong. Your original statement was that all fish are color blind. That statement was false. I think there is plenty of hope for me if I continue to research the findings of experts on given subjects before making statements, rather than relying on someone with no education in said subject.

You haven't done anything with Thermodynamics but tap danced out of the room in a very shameful and cowardly fashion by claiming the universe is not a closed system. The Solar System is to a first approximation a closed system as far as the earth is concerned. Energy does not come from external sources. A simple tiny light beam from other galaxies is NOT influential energy on this planet what so ever. Nothing on earth has been seen to contradict this. Nothing. But your faith in evolution somehow completely defies this law and your "excuse" is to say that "the Solar System taken to the umpteenth degree is not entirely closed". This means you have faith in some kind of mythical regenerative force that comes along and changes evolution into a creative process.

You are attempting to move the goalpost. Evolution, as we know it, occurs on Earth, the solar system is irrelevant to your argument that evolution defies the laws of thermodynamics (even if there is life elsewhere in the solar system). Entropy is not a factor in said biological processes because there is a vast amount of energy being added to the Earth system from an outside source, the sun (as well as some energy from within the Earth that fuels ecosystems in the deep ocean). But if you don't believe me, ask Joobz. He's a university professor and teaches a course on thermodynamics. Ask him to evaluate your claims about thermodynamics.

This is why people say evolutionists have no evidence whatsoever.

What people say this?

It is a commonsense, science and math contradiction...

Please address the scientific and mathematical contradictions in detail.

...based entirely on a lack of observation.

Evolutionary theory is based on mountains (literally) of evidence. From the field to the laboratory it is based on, and has been refined by, a vast amount of observation. This is actually similar to your claim that Special Relativity is based on zero observation. I've provided numerous examples of observations consistent with the theory of Special Relativity in the link I earlier provided. Can you address any of them? Or were you pretending to understand SR in the same way that you pretended to be a scientist?

Any theory based completely on things unseen is no better than the theory of men from Mars and you get no more credibility for it than if you had conjectured the latter instead of the former.

Many theories are based on things unseen. Or did you mean to say "undetectable"? If so, then you are correct. But as I've already stated, evolutionary theory is based on a great many things seen.

You can't demonstrate evolution.

Incorrect. Ever wondered why your doctor warns you not to stop taking your antibiotic early? Ever wonder why there are no rabbit fossils in the Cambrian deposites, or trilobites in the Tertiary?

There is no science in evolution. It is simply a religion of the faithful that believe it will someday be shown to disprove science.

Would you recognize science if you saw it? After all, you didn't even know what a scientific theory is defined as.

For you evolutionists to keep saying "my faiths" and my philosophies are perfect scientific facts is constantly exposing how weak the position of evolution is and why it is beginning to crumble piece by peace.

I heard James Dodson say that back in the 70's. He claimed that it would only be a few short years before evolution was dead. Yet here we are, thirty some years later, watching as biologists decode the human genome and use phylogenetics to confirm the evolution of humans.

Heck you evolutionist can't even keep from fighting each other on which stupid philosophy to believe.

Please elaborate.

Again, people are in no way as stupid as you demonstrate you believe them to be. They resent the snot out of your haughty inferences.

When you're done beating up on your straw man I'll be over here.

 

[mijopaalmc]

The good thing evolution never being able to prove anything is that it is always fully repeatable.

So give us an example of "evolutionists never being able to prove anything". You can make all sorts of grandiose claim but you need to adhere to the same standard of evidence to which you hold others.

(I can hear articulett getting ready to make one her inane comments about irony.)

 

[Foster Zygote]

Random mutations are just that, random and are virtually always destructive.

Would you please address Wings' question regarding the ability of a new strain of bacteria to metabolize Nylon?

 

[VonNeumann]

Here's one, since you label "Show me God" as urneasonable, I suppose this question should be reasonable even by your standards, not to mention it's even relevant to this thread as well in a broad sense.

How does Intelligent Design account for Nylonase?

I've seen you claim yourself to be a layman. For some reason, you seem to think you are receiving erudition from non-laymen? Not so. One is a high school teacher. If they claim to be experts, they lie -- no one is an expert on "origins" so don't expect that you are too far behind anyone else on this forum on this subject.

This forum is supposed to be about skepticism but I don't see enough skepticism when it comes to expectations that random mutation and natural selection are sufficient to create self-aware brains from uni-cellular life. If that fsimple formula were complete, HAL9000 would already be here.

About nylonase. Let me try a metaphor. What if SETI received a message from an alien culture (like in the story Contact by Carl Sagan). What if the message was a blueprint to make a machine that had function X. What then if we discover that if we shift the message by one symbol, we get another blueprint that describes how to make a machine that has function Y. Now suppose that function X is something like a, let's say, a vehicle. And let's say function Y is some entirely different function.

First of all, we would already suspect a message from outer space to be due to an intelligence. In the case of the enzyme, one person may think it is designed by an intelligence while another (you perhaps) would say it exists due to a sequence of natural happenings. But in the case of the SETI message, I would think that everyone would agree that the alien intelligence was really showing off, really showing us how capable they were that they could encode two very useful complex messages with the same string of symbols, one message merely shifted (frame-shifted) relative to the other. So you ask how does ID stand up in light of nylonase? I would wonder if nylonase is not an example of an incredible design, similar to if we received SETI message that had multiple uses, depending how you framed it.

 

[Hokulele]

First of all, we would already suspect a message from outer space to be due to an intelligence. In the case of the enzyme, one person may think it is designed by an intelligence while another (you perhaps) would say it exists due to a sequence of natural happenings. But in the case of the SETI message, I would think that everyone would agree that the alien intelligence was really showing off, really showing us how capable they were that they could encode two very useful complex messages with the same string of symbols, one message merely shifted (frame-shifted) relative to the other. So you ask how does ID stand up in light of nylonase? I would wonder if nylonase is not an example of an incredible design, similar to if we received SETI message that had multiple uses, depending how you framed it.

In the case of your metaphorical description of nylonase, what would you call the "frame-shift"? Something along the lines of "descent with modification" or something else?

 

[Foster Zygote]

What are far greater credentials? That is so asinine. Credentials you esteem show that you are more about name dropping and degree dropping than any ideas that are palatable. You can't be that shallow. You just can't.

You yourself claimed that Behe is "probably the world's foremost microbiologist". Are you asinine for doing so? Does your esteem for Behe's status as the "world's foremost microbiologist" show that you are more about name dropping and degree dropping than any ideas that are palatable. You can't be that shallow. You just can't.

Actually, far greater credentials refers to the contribution made by said scientist to a field on knowledge. Remember those Nobel laureates I mentioned in response to your statement that Behe was the worlds foremost microbiologist (He's a biochemist, actually)? They are what I would consider as having far greater credentials than Behe.

I don't give a crap what degrees someone has.

You seemed to give a crap when you tried to tell us that Behe is the world's foremost microbiologist (biochemist). Now that we've shown that he is very far from the world's foremost microbiologist (biochemist) and that the world's foremost microbiologists (and biochemists) have roundly criticized his work on irreducible complexity as sloppy, biased and flawed you turn around and declare that their scientific achievement and influence is meaningless.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Is the consensus with nylonase that it evolved "from scratch" (i.e., without any precursor) or from a duplicated protease/peptidase?

 

[VonNeumann]

In the case of your metaphorical description of nylonase, what would you call the "frame-shift"? Something along the lines of "descent with modification" or something else?

I don't understand your question (why would the alien's message be characterized by "descent with modification"?).

My metaphor was not a description of nylonase, it was an example of a frame of information that had more than one "meaning" or more than one "expression that is useful", where a shift of the information frame is what yields two different information strings.

Whether the information is communicated via modulated radio signals, or whether it is a sentence in a book, or whether a string of DNA that expresses into an enzyme, here is my point: to encode two different useful messages by the same string, one being frame shifted from the other, is non-trivial. If you saw it in a radio message would you not be impressed by the cleverness of the sender? Same for a sentence in a book? If you don't think it is difficult, try it.

Why not also, then, for a string of DNA? Seems to me nylonase leans towards design-like characteristics, not random mutation, for the reason that the DNA seems to have been designed in an astounding way same as my metaphorical alien message would obviously have been.

 

[rittjc]

Would you please address Wings' question regarding the ability of a new strain of bacteria to metabolize Nylon?

Who said it was new? You?

That sounds like "a tree falls in the forest" logic. Because I discover it, it is therefore new. Brilliant!

So the evolution has a new theory "Things evolve only when I discover them". What a stupid claim. I am shocked you would float that one. That takes balls. We have discovered Nylonase and therefore it has suddenly evolved.

No telling what else it also consumes. Only Nylon? Were the Japanese swamps always filled with nylon? I thought it was a Dupont creation. I gotta get out more.

But let's play your little evolution game. What did Nylonase come from? A bacteria that has the information in it that allows it to consume matter and that matter set happens to include Nylon as one of the many compounds it consumes? How is that evolving in your usage of the term? Bacteria is the ultimate symbiosis. It ought to have had you saying "whoops!". Better not float that one. The creationists and IDer will rip me a new one for that.

All bacteria is a consumer of matter. You have bacteria throughout the entire digestive system that if you didn't have it you would die. How much of that can consume Nylon?

But even if only Nylonase were the only bacteria in existence that could do this, you still didn't prove that the information to create a bacteria is not in its parent bacterium. This is not evolution. This is a transfer of preexisting genetic material. it is ALWAYS preexisting. Evolution says it didn't exist and genetic transfer/mutation created this information. This is what is NEVER seen.

Nylonase indicts evolution too! You are exposed even by the most recently discovered bacteria! This is just a statement of how much more complex existing life is than you evolutionists and your religion were ready to believe.

Just because you go to the bottom of the ocean and spot a new creature does not mean that creature evolved for your lights and camera. It was there all the time. Hello people. It did not "evolve" for the purpose of being seen for you...

The more skeets you evolutionists pull, the more clay debris you have scattered all over your yard. Amazing what your minds think is some kind of new self-guided contrivance.

NEXT!

 

[Wings]

I find your attitude rather disheartening, I assure you I have no motives other than to understand the Intelligent Design model and how it relates to our knowledge of Science. I'm trying to practice good faith with you, can you not do the same for me?

At the moment, I probably won't be involved for a while. I'm trying to take in all points of view, so I'll stick back as an observer and see what I can pick up from the discussion.

 

[rittjc]

You yourself claimed that Behe is "probably the world's foremost microbiologist". Are you asinine for doing so? Does your esteem for Behe's status as the "world's foremost microbiologist" show that you are more about name dropping and degree dropping than any ideas that are palatable. You can't be that shallow. You just can't.

I said "one of the the most". Please quit misquoting me you deceiver, or is deceiver redundant when referring to an evolutionist?

Actually, far greater credentials refers to the contribution made by said scientist to a field on knowledge. Remember those Nobel laureates I mentioned in response to your statement that Behe was the worlds foremost microbiologist (He's a biochemist, actually)? They are what I would consider as having far greater credentials than Behe.

Rush Limbaugh and Al Gore may become Nobel laureates. Yassir Arafat and Kofi "oil for food" Annan were Nobel Laureates. Whats your point? Give it a rest you man worshiper.

You seemed to give a crap when you tried to tell us that Behe is the world's foremost microbiologist (biochemist). Now that we've shown that he is very far from the world's foremost microbiologist (biochemist) and that the world's foremost microbiologists (and biochemists) have roundly criticized his work on irreducible complexity as sloppy, biased and flawed you turn around and declare that their scientific achievement and influence is meaningless.

I can consider ideas without worshiping diplomas or lack thereof by the originator of the idea. You make the dumbest arguments. So your words are meaningless. You are more interested in shooting them down on technicalities or typos than addressing the fact they pull the shorts of foolishness down around the ankles of the evolutionist.

 

[rittjc]

I find your attitude rather disheartening, I assure you I have no motives other than to understand the Intelligent Design model and how it relates to our knowledge of Science. I'm trying to practice good faith with you, can you not do the same for me?

At the moment, I probably won't be involved for a while. I'm trying to take in all points of view, so I'll stick back as an observer and see what I can pick up from the discussion.

Fair enough. If more evolutionists would take your approach, there would not be many evolutionists. You have to realize, these are predominately evolutionist waters. They chase off most creationists and IDers in order to monopolize the discussions and guide them away from the manifold weaknesses of the evolutionist's religion.

 

[rittjc]

I've seen you claim yourself to be a layman. For some reason, you seem to think you are receiving erudition from non-laymen? Not so. One is a high school teacher. If they claim to be experts, they lie -- no one is an expert on "origins" so don't expect that you are too far behind anyone else on this forum on this subject.

This forum is supposed to be about skepticism but I don't see enough skepticism when it comes to expectations that random mutation and natural selection are sufficient to create self-aware brains from uni-cellular life. If that fsimple formula were complete, HAL9000 would already be here.

About nylonase. Let me try a metaphor. What if SETI received a message from an alien culture (like in the story Contact by Carl Sagan). What if the message was a blueprint to make a machine that had function X. What then if we discover that if we shift the message by one symbol, we get another blueprint that describes how to make a machine that has function Y. Now suppose that function X is something like a, let's say, a vehicle. And let's say function Y is some entirely different function.

First of all, we would already suspect a message from outer space to be due to an intelligence. In the case of the enzyme, one person may think it is designed by an intelligence while another (you perhaps) would say it exists due to a sequence of natural happenings. But in the case of the SETI message, I would think that everyone would agree that the alien intelligence was really showing off, really showing us how capable they were that they could encode two very useful complex messages with the same string of symbols, one message merely shifted (frame-shifted) relative to the other. So you ask how does ID stand up in light of nylonase? I would wonder if nylonase is not an example of an incredible design, similar to if we received SETI message that had multiple uses, depending how you framed it.

Excellent point.

 

[Hokulele]

I don't understand your question (why would the alien's message be characterized by "descent with modification"?).

My metaphor was not a description of nylonase, it was an example of a frame of information that had more than one "meaning" or more than one "expression that is useful", where a shift of the information frame is what yields two different information strings.

Whether the information is communicated via modulated radio signals, or whether it is a sentence in a book, or whether a string of DNA that expresses into an enzyme, here is my point: to encode two different useful messages by the same string, one being frame shifted from the other, is non-trivial. If you saw it in a radio message would you not be impressed by the cleverness of the sender? Same for a sentence in a book? If you don't think it is difficult, try it.

Why not also, then, for a string of DNA? Seems to me nylonase leans towards design-like characteristics, not random mutation, for the reason that the DNA seems to have been designed in an astounding way same as my metaphorical alien message would obviously have been.

The bold is the key to my question. To uncover the second message, the frame has to be shifted. I am assuming that in your metaphor, the receiver is doing the shifting. To make this an analogy to nylonase, a similar shift has to occur. How could this shift happen, and what would you call that mechanism? If this shift cannot happen on its own, then your alien metaphor doesn't apply at all to nylonase.

 

[rittjc]

Actually, I think I'll trust the ichthyologists on this one and they say you are wrong. Your original statement was that all fish are color blind. That statement was false. I think there is plenty of hope for me if I continue to research the findings of experts on given subjects before making statements, rather than relying on someone with no education in said subject.

There you go. Because someone is an ichthyologist he can jump into the fish and come back and tell us if he saw color through the eyes of the fish. Again, with the man worship. No one, not even ichthyologists are able to demonstrate color in the fish. I don't care what their philosophies are. They don't mean squat. Science is about proving. Why can't you Evos get that through your heads? Claims and degrees prove nothing! But you put your faith in the unseen and philosophies of men. Why should the subject of ichthyology be any exception?

You are attempting to move the goalpost. Evolution, as we know it, occurs on Earth, the solar system is irrelevant to your argument that evolution defies the laws of thermodynamics (even if there is life elsewhere in the solar system). Entropy is not a factor in said biological processes because there is a vast amount of energy being added to the Earth system from an outside source, the sun (as well as some energy from within the Earth that fuels ecosystems in the deep ocean). But if you don't believe me, ask Joobz. He's a university professor and teaches a course on thermodynamics. Ask him to evaluate your claims about thermodynamics.

You move the goalpost. Entropy is the goal post that every aspect of science uses. Evolution is the only one that wants the goal post moved because they can't hit it though everything else can.

What people say this?

Those that don't worship at the altar of evolution.

Please address the scientific and mathematical contradictions in detail.

That's like saying "address the light from the stars". The law of compound probabilities beat evolutionists senseless. But the evolution says "somehow it happens if you merely throw in millions and millions of years". Yeah, right buddy.

Evolutionary theory is based on mountains (literally) of evidence. From the field to the laboratory it is based on, and has been refined by, a vast amount of observation. This is actually similar to your claim that Special Relativity is based on zero observation. I've provided numerous examples of observations consistent with the theory of Special Relativity in the link I earlier provided. Can you address any of them? Or were you pretending to understand SR in the same way that you pretended to be a scientist?

And alas with the mountains (literally) of evidence it can't even produce a molehill for anyone to see without having to accept the conclusion before you address the explanation. Religion is so self-exposing when it tries to define itself in science.

Your lose and dynamically subjective usage of the word "change" or evolution is no where in the ball park of offering evidence. There is no evidence anywhere that complexity comes from lower complexity. This you would never try to prove.

Many theories are based on things unseen. Or did you mean to say "undetectable"? If so, then you are correct. But as I've already stated, evolutionary theory is based on a great many things seen.

Yes, and they are based on blind faith and relegated as religion. But evolution goes beyond and contradicts science an this is why it stands alone as a "special type" of religion.

Incorrect. Ever wondered why your doctor warns you not to stop taking your antibiotic early? Ever wonder why there are no rabbit fossils in the Cambrian deposites, or trilobites in the Tertiary?

I never have had a doctor tell me to stop early. So much for that argument.

But it is true that antibiotics do kill some internal bacteria. But not all or they would be a death sentence and there would only be a need for one.

You arbitrary layers are descriptions of floods that you people are too uneducated to know are required to produce fossils. Of course tar pits can do the same thing but you have to isolate these from the bacteria you think support your evolution.

But polystrate fossils show you how stupid naming the layers are. Fossils transcending layers that are supposed to be millions of years apart? Right. Don't even pull that skeet.

Would you recognize science if you saw it? After all, you didn't even know what a scientific theory is defined as.

A scientific theory seeks verification. Evolution doesn't do this. It can't even define its own basis or even demonstrate areas where it is happening in the aspect of information creation. It as a "take my word for it" philosophy. Evolution does not the definition of a scientific theory any more than any religion or philosophy.

I heard James Dodson say that back in the 70's. He claimed that it would only be a few short years before evolution was dead. Yet here we are, thirty some years later, watching as biologists decode the human genome and use phylogenetics to confirm the evolution of humans.

What is he to me? He is a religious man not a scientist. So he guessed wrong on the passion of competing religions to force themselves into public schools. Take it up with him.

Jeffrey Dahmer said people were tasty. You want to defend that as a fellow Atheist?




When you're done beating up on your straw man I'll be over here.

 

[Hokulele]

There you go. Because someone is an ichthyologist he can jump into the fish and come back and tell us if he saw color through the eyes of the fish. Again, with the man worship. No one, not even ichthyologists are able to demonstrate color in the fish. I don't care what their philosophies are. They don't mean squat. Science is about proving. Why can't you Evos get that through your heads? Claims and degrees prove nothing! But you put your faith in the unseen and philosophies of men. Why should the subject of ichthyology be any exception?

Since you do not seem to trust ichthyologists, try trout-fishing some time on hand tied lures. If you do not get the colors just so, you are not catching fish.

 

[Schneibster]

Hey Schneibster, if you want some truly spectacular fireworks, ask rittjc what he thinks about Special Relativity. Go ahead, ask him.

That's pretty much like, I dunno, "pull my finger," or "click this link," or whatnot, eh?

My first guess would be that we shuoldnt be lanching spice shuttles because we might breke teh glass and let teh atmusfear out. My second guess would break Rule 8. My third would probably get me indicted in at least thirty states.

 

[Hokulele]

That's pretty much like, I dunno, "pull my finger," or "click this link," or whatnot, eh?

My first guess would be that we shuoldnt be lanching spice shuttles because we might breke teh glass and let teh atmusfear out. My second guess would break Rule 8. My third would probably get me indicted in at least thirty states.

Heh. It's even more entertaining. Linky.

 

[Schneibster]

Evolutionary theory is based on mountains (literally) of evidence. From the field to the laboratory it is based on, and has been refined by, a vast amount of observation. This is actually similar to your claim that Special Relativity is based on zero observation. I've provided numerous examples of observations consistent with the theory of Special Relativity in the link I earlier provided. Can you address any of them?

Bold mine. I was right; I don't want to know.

Or were you pretending to understand SR in the same way that you pretended to be a scientist?

LOLOLOL Unbelievable, I HAVE to see that. What thread was it in, Foster? I'll even take it off ignore- I bet I get a quote at least as good as the one at the end of my sig.

Would you recognize science if you saw it? After all, you didn't even know what a scientific theory is defined as.

I ain't holdin' my breath- my assessment is, it wouldn't know a science if it walked up and bit it on the... nether regions.