Creationist argument about DNA and information

[marplots]

So we are left with just two logical conclusions: that willful deceit is a core element of Danielscience; or that for all the blather about Fallacy this, and Fallacy that, Danielscience, is at its core, nothing but a set of logical inconsistencies.

I wouldn't go that far - as far as "nothing but."

Consider his problem. If I know for a fact ("know" being a feeling localized to my own brain) that God did it along the lines of Genesis, then everything else has to meet that standard. Where evidence doesn't support that conclusion, the evidence must be wrong in some way.

It reminds me of a differential equations class I took long ago - a class where just about every student was befuddled by the material. In study groups, we'd look up the right answer in the back of the book and then spend all our time trying to figure out some path through the equations that would give us that answer. Anything we tried which seemed promising but didn't lead to the answer in the back of the book was judged erroneous, because the book was the unyielding authority. And the error had to be our approach - that's the only place error could possibly emerge.

Sound familiar? Different book, same obeisance to textual authority.

It's an interesting and fun game to wear his shoes. I've done it, but I can't sustain it. The challenge is to come up with some minimal set of axioms which give the biblical literalist answer while keeping as much of our current scientific worldview as possible - and to do it without having a series of mini-strokes. When the blood starts leaking out of your nose, take a break.

 

[JeanTate]

I'll respond in more than one part, Minoosh; this is part 1.

This "for example" referred to accepting strange things about the universe. It's been agreed upon by many that QM is strange. Perhaps a synonym could be "counterintuitive." The "spooky action at a distance" of entangled photon pairs might be a good example.

Have you heard of "lies to children" (WP)?

Briefly, it's the idea that when we try to explain something to children, we tend to be very brief, and omit some key aspects. As you go through school, college, and university, you realize that a great many of the things your parents, teachers, and lecturers told you were not entirely correct, and some even "lies".

QM is both the most successful of modern physics ideas (in many respects), and the most difficult to grasp, intuitively. And perhaps nothing in QM is harder to grock than the so-called "'spooky action at a distance' of entangled photon pairs".

You can see, in this thread and the other, the willful deceit of Danielscience in action, on this (and some broader aspects). But even the very popular Dr Nye, the Science Guy gets it wrong (see Backreaction's "Hey Bill Nye, Please stop talking nonsense about quantum mechanics." link).

In high school physics I got a decent grounding in Newton's laws. Given an ellipse I could derive the formula and given the formula I could plot an elliptical orbit that corresponded with what I knew about the inverse-square property of gravitational attraction. But I knew that didn't scale down to the size of an atom; electrons do not orbit the proton as the Earth orbits the sun. Do they?

Correct.

The 'solar system model of the atom' is an excellent example of a lie to children.

Once you learn that accelerating charges emit electromagnetic energy (Maxwell's equations), you realize that this model cannot possibly be correct (if it were, every electron in every atom would spiral into the nucleus in less than a nanosecond) (FWIW, the internet is drenched with woo like the Electric Universe, and apparently many of their hard core believers are unaware of this, despite 'electricity' being at the core of their beliefs ).

I've watched the BBT too and "the whole universe was in a hot dense state" doesn't begin to capture the WOOOMPPHHH! that must have been required to blow something the size of a pinhead (if that; a cosmologist once told me "smaller than a proton") into this universe.

Sadly, this is yet another 'lie to children'. Several actually.

The "Big Bang" was not an explosion in the sense that we are familiar with (i.e. an explosion in space); rather it was a rapid expansion of space (to be as brief as I can). This confusion may be partly responsible for the ridiculous Danielscience argument against it, i.e. that even primary schoolkids can refute GR (a crucial element of the BBT) by pointing out that "time cannot bend".

Second, it isn't "the whole universe" that was the size of a pinhead (or a proton), it's the observable universe. Again, this is not easy to grasp, but the BBT leaves quite open what's 'beyond' the observable universe, including whether it's infinite. Beyond the Universe is a good, recent blog post on this.

Third, the BBT ends with the mutual incompatibility of QM and GR being so severe that models break down.

And since the thing had a beginning I'm still stuck on the question: "What about before the beginning?"

Indeed.

This is one of the most widespread lie to children, re the BBT. The physical regime in which QM and GR are severely mutually incompatible is called the Planck regime. With some perhaps unwarranted extrapolations, models of the universe can 'go back' to a hot dense state that is just outside this regime. No model can 'go further', unless it incorporates a model of quantum gravity. There are several such, in the physics/cosmology literature (i.e. journal papers), but none has yet been adequately tested.

So, in the BBT there is no "beginning", nor any statement whatsoever about an origin; rather an honest "no one knows, yet".

Ned Wright has a good Cosmology Tutorial that might be at a level suitable for you; it tries to avoid any lies to children.

For this reason I have some patience with creationists.

I guess I might have some too ... but for the obvious willful deceit, the arrogance, and so on. I mean, isn't the book they seem to like so much replete with exhortations to be humble? to not willfully lie? Did they not read this book?

(more later)

 

[JeanTate]

I wouldn't go that far - as far as "nothing but."

Consider his problem. If I know for a fact ("know" being a feeling localized to my own brain) that God did it along the lines of Genesis, then everything else has to meet that standard. Where evidence doesn't support that conclusion, the evidence must be wrong in some way.

It reminds me of a differential equations class I took long ago - a class where just about every student was befuddled by the material. In study groups, we'd look up the right answer in the back of the book and then spend all our time trying to figure out some path through the equations that would give us that answer. Anything we tried which seemed promising but didn't lead to the answer in the back of the book was judged erroneous, because the book was the unyielding authority. And the error had to be our approach - that's the only place error could possibly emerge.

Sound familiar? Different book, same obeisance to textual authority.

It's an interesting and fun game to wear his shoes. I've done it, but I can't sustain it. The challenge is to come up with some minimal set of axioms which give the biblical literalist answer while keeping as much of our current scientific worldview as possible - and to do it without having a series of mini-strokes. When the blood starts leaking out of your nose, take a break.

Interesting perspective, thank you.

Given all that, why state, as a postulate (or whatever it's called, in Danielscience) something which is logically impossible, but call it physically/chemically impossible? Why try to hide, if not to intentionally deceive?

Oh, and yes, there were certainly some classes I took in which the approach you describe was one almost all us students took For me, however, differential equations were more about proceeding logically, and weren't all that hard (only when I had finished an exercise did I look up 'the answer'; I was rarely wrong). One of my classmates rarely came to class, she'd read the textbook cover to cover in the first week (or so I recall), and could do each of the exercises in about as much time as it would take most of us to divide a ten digit number by a three digit one, with just pencil and paper. I guess there is such a thing as mathematical intelligence (but don't tell annnnoid ).

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Another thing in Danielscience is that it is forbidden to draw conclusions about chemical reactions happening in the past by doing experiments in the present.
The only experiments he will accept are those that he can physically see happening outside of a lab.
Nor is it acceptable to partition something extremely complex into simpler steps in order to compress time.

For the rest of the world, who do NOT adhere to Danielscience, this is allowable and that immediately invalidates his main point.
Nucleotides, lipids AND aminoacids have been experimentally proven to form via simple chemical reactions requiring no intelligent guidance.
And similarly, all three have been shown to quite easily polymerize and interact with each other in a large series of experiments, again requiring no guidance.

But what Daniel, and the while ID/creationist field with him, do is claim that because the setup for these experiments requires a lab to simulate pre-biotic earth and selection methods to actually find the results of experiments in order to not have to wait 100 million years on the results, intelligence is required.

For those not familiar with how such experiments work it might even sound compelling.
An analogy would be claiming that, because I carried a bucket of water to the top of a hill, and set up a camera to observe and analyse what happens when I let it flow down, intelligence is needed to guide water from the top to the bottom, so water can NEVER do that without intelligence.

 

[marplots]

Interesting perspective, thank you.

Given all that, why state, as a postulate (or whatever it's called, in Danielscience) something which is logically impossible, but call it physically/chemically impossible? Why try to hide, if not to intentionally deceive?

Well, I obviously can't know his motivations, but I can guess, based on similar conversations with other YEC folks and evolution deniers. (There's even an ex-YEC posting who can give a first-hand account.)

The first thing I'd point out is there is a culture (sub-culture, I guess) holding views similar to Daniel's, and unless there's a Poe on offer, what's been posted aligns with that sub-culture's position. They do all the same kind of things - quote mining, redefining, and such like - to make the answer come out "right." In that case, the deception is pointed inward as much as outward.

The "impossible chemistry" bit flows from a misunderstanding of both chemistry and probability. You aren't going to find any sophisticated understanding of reaction rates, how extremely low yields are still yields, local energy minimums, or processes available far from equilibrium. (And p-chem is right out the window.) On the probability front, they don't even understand the essential idea of a Markov chain.

But then again, why would they be interested? Science isn't the goal, unless some tasty morsel appears which can be read in a way that supports the "right" answer.

The disappointing thing, well, one of the disappointing things, is that we never get to actually talk about new ideas in evolution. For example, Jeremy England has a nice talk about energy dissipation in driven systems - a physicist suggesting the emergence of organization in inanimate systems which are not subject to natural selection and don't require differential reproduction to ride the entropy train. A parallel, non-Darwinian track. (What is Life - lecture Jeremy England: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91D5UAz-f4)

Although the ideas are based on physics and the natural laws creationists accept, I fear the bit of math and the few diagrams make it inaccessible. England directly proposes that life, DNA, or anything like it isn't needed - cyclically-driven oscillations (day-night-cycle) is enough to get the very organization Daniel claims only comes from an intelligent author. So there are answers to be had, but those answers aren't reachable (nor teachable).

ETA: Other sources for England's idea for those who "don't do Youtube"
Article with the general ideas: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
A paper of his describing the same ideas (in the Journal of Chemical Physics): http://www.englandlab.com/uploads/7/8/0/3/7803054/2013jcpsrep.pdf

 

[MikeG]

...........You (or anyone for that matter) will NEVER EVER be able to reconcile this. "Information"/CODE is only ever ever ever created/reconciled by Intelligent Agency, without Exception. Hard Stop!............

This is the bollocks on which you base your baseless arguments. You can dress it all up in as many bits of obfuscation and invective as you like, but this crap is all you've got. And it's crap.

 

[steenkh]

1. There is no Flaw.
2. There is no Fallacy.

My Argument is GOD; Intelligent Agency is the Necessary Condition for the Existence of Life and The Universe.

Your Argument is: "Nature"/Natural Law is the Necessary Condition for the Existence of Life and The Universe.


Following? Ya see the 2 choices?

Your fallacious reasoning is not getting better by declaring there is no fallacy, and your argument is just a baseless claim. And on top of it you present a straw man claim that is supposed to be my position.

I have already stated that my position is based on Occam's Razor: I see no reason to introduce extra supernatural entities as long as the laws of physics as we presently know them seem adequate.

My Claim is...

A. "Functional" DNA/RNA/Proteins NEVER spontaneously form "naturally", outside already existing cells, from Sugars, Bases, Phosphates, and Aminos, respectively.
It's Physically and Chemically IMPOSSIBLE.
That's just the Hardware!

Yes, it is just a claim, and I do not have to disprove it as long Occam is doing the job nicely. Do not mistake my position: I do not claim that it absolutely certain that your God is behind everything, it is just extremely unlikely. This is based on the fact that there is nothing we know of that needs your God. There is much that we do not know, but based on experience, the god-of-the-gaps is not a likely explanation.

Conclusion from the Grand Poobah's of OOL Research...

"We conclude that the direct synthesis of the nucleosides or nucleotides from prebiotic precursors in reasonable yield and unaccompanied by larger amounts of related molecules could not be achieved by presently known chemical reactions."
Gerald F. Joyce, and Leslie E. Orgel, "Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World," p. 18 The RNA World, R.F. Gesteland and J.F. Atkins, eds. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1993.

Knowing your unethical use of sources, I assume that Orgel meant the exact opposite, and I notice his phrase "direct synthesis", so he probably meant to say that synthesis is possible indirectly.

Then the WOOLLY Mammoth in the Room...

B. How Did Stupid Atoms Write Their Own Software....? In other words, show how Ink/Paper/Glue Molecules can Author Technical Instruction Manuals/Blueprints...?

We have pointed out many times that this silly analogy is just an argument from incredulity. Do try to avoid making yourself look like a fool.

My goodness gracious. How on Earth can I show you evidence of the Absence of Something??

Exactly. Why do you use arguments that you cannot defend?

Isn't the Absence of " IT "....The Evidence of ABSENCE !!!

Have you never heard the phrase that 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'?

Judge: Present your Case....

This is not a court of law. In science (i.e. real science, not Danielscience) it is possible to conclude that we don't know

Well there professor, to accomplish this (Show you "The How" Mechanism/Process...a Scientific Theory) can you please provide me a Time Machine...?

So you do not expect a formal proof of creationism, but you were quick to demand it of abiogenesis.

[snipped some more repetitions of arguments from incredulity or ignorance, take your pick]

 

[RussDill]

Knowing your unethical use of sources, I assume that Orgel meant the exact opposite, and I notice his phrase "direct synthesis", so he probably meant to say that synthesis is possible indirectly.

The paper in fact says directly that, and even goes as far to discuss possible synthesis paths. I already pointed this out to Daniel, which he has completely ignored. I also posted another much more recent paper that found a way to chemically work around the problems presented in the earlier paper. It presents a directly pathway to RNA molecules. Of course, I could be on ignore and he would have kindly stopped using the citation if he only knew the actual contents of the paper.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

A while ago I posted: "Am I the only one here who finds this sort of undergraduate, 3am, pot-fuelled solipsistic, shadows-on-the-walls-of-the-cave intellectual meandering both boring and pointless?" is that what you remember?

I don't think it's pot.

I have encountered more substantive reasoning in a turtle.

More like acid or mushrooms.

 

[jimbob]

Daniel,

Do you think the Earth is: thousands, millions, or billions of years old? Or some other age?

I think it's 7,000 - 10,000. But it's all quite irrelevant to me as long as there was NO: Death/Disease/Suffering/Thorns before Adam.

I'm going for 4.5-billion years, which is a lot of time for evolution to work.

Blind Conjecture. And...

"evolution"...what's that?? Post the Scientific Theory of evolution...?

Even if it took several hundred million years for life to form.

Blind Conjecture with additional Scientific Law Violating garnish.

No offense but this is a Fairytale "Just So" Story telling Dreamland Claim.

regards

Thanks for the straightforward answer.

I strongly recommend that you read up on 19th Century geology, which, being an infant science is understandable to laypeople.

William Buckland
was a Young Earth Creationist (as was everyone) and a theologian who became Dean of Westminster.


He initially tried to reconcile his observations with flood geology but eventually realised it couldn't.

Similarly, its pretty difficult to reconcile the Grand Canyon strata with a flood event lasting 40, or 150 days.

 

[MikeG]

I think it's 7,000 - 10,000.......

You haven't got any evidence for this, but let's have a giggle anyway......

Where's your evidence for this baseless guess, Danielscience?

 

[Sideroxylon]

I think it's 7,000 - 10,000. But it's all quite irrelevant to me as long as there was NO: Death/Disease/Suffering/Thorns before Adam

Which you take on faith despite evidence that demostrates a young earth, no pre fall carnivores, a recent massive global extinction event and subsequent repopulation of all land animals in the Middle East is utter absurdity.

Yet you come on here and pontificate on what is science and what isn't. Large scale evolution and abiogenesis may be hard to grasp and easy to dismiss but all those other myths are patent absurdity. I dare you to start a thread to discuss it. You won't because you know it's indefensible.

 

[JeanTate]

<snip>

My Claim is...

A. "Functional" DNA/RNA/Proteins NEVER spontaneously form "naturally", outside already existing cells, from Sugars, Bases, Phosphates, and Aminos, respectively.
It's Physically and Chemically IMPOSSIBLE.
That's just the Hardware!

Yes, it is just a claim, and I do not have to disprove it as long Occam is doing the job nicely. Do not mistake my position: I do not claim that it absolutely certain that your God is behind everything, it is just extremely unlikely. This is based on the fact that there is nothing we know of that needs your God. There is much that we do not know, but based on experience, the god-of-the-gaps is not a likely explanation.

<snip>

As you can see in the series of posts by me and marplots, Daniel's "claim" seems to be a willful deceit (though there's a possibility that, as he has not adequately defined the terms he uses, it may be "merely" yet more word games; also, he may be truly ignorant): as stated, the claim is not so much "Physically" or "Chemically IMPOSSIBLE" as it is logically impossible. In context, this is indistinguishable from willful deceit, whatever the underlying motivations may be.

I think these aspects of Danielscience should be clearly labeled for what they are, and robustly addressed. In much the same way that Danielscience's use of quote mining has been.

It is one thing to attempt to engage in a science-based discussion of what seem at first glance to be preposterous ideas; it is another thing entirely to pretend that Danielscience is (largely) intellectually honest.

Note: I am certainly not the first ISF member to try to make this clear, but I have been rather slow to realize just how extensive this dishonesty is, in Danielscience.

 

[JeanTate]

Well, I obviously can't know his motivations, but I can guess, based on similar conversations with other YEC folks and evolution deniers. (There's even an ex-YEC posting who can give a first-hand account.)

The first thing I'd point out is there is a culture (sub-culture, I guess) holding views similar to Daniel's, and unless there's a Poe on offer, what's been posted aligns with that sub-culture's position. They do all the same kind of things - quote mining, redefining, and such like - to make the answer come out "right." In that case, the deception is pointed inward as much as outward.

The "impossible chemistry" bit flows from a misunderstanding of both chemistry and probability. You aren't going to find any sophisticated understanding of reaction rates, how extremely low yields are still yields, local energy minimums, or processes available far from equilibrium. (And p-chem is right out the window.) On the probability front, they don't even understand the essential idea of a Markov chain.

But then again, why would they be interested? Science isn't the goal, unless some tasty morsel appears which can be read in a way that supports the "right" answer.

Thanks again; this is a perspective I hadn't - and still to some extent haven't - appreciated.

Among other things, it helps explain why Daniel seems quite OK with the multiple inconsistencies in Danielscience, inconsistencies which can be found in many of its "fields", and at many levels.

A particularly good example is Danielscience's rejection of relativity: by rejecting one (or both) of its postulates, Danielscience permits "physical laws" to vary, both in time and place. If you also drop a requirement for consistency, then the Earth may indeed by a mere 6,000 years' old (the dials on the parameter values in any "law of physics" can be tweaked by any arbitrary amount), and the Grand Canyon created by a worldwide flood.

A perhaps unintended consequence of these parts of Danielscience is that abiogenesis becomes possible (chemistry was different back then), and that there's nothing in Danielscience which can be used to produce evidence inconsistent with it.

Petard, meet hoist.

The disappointing thing, well, one of the disappointing things, is that we never get to actually talk about new ideas in evolution. For example, Jeremy England has a nice talk about energy dissipation in driven systems - a physicist suggesting the emergence of organization in inanimate systems which are not subject to natural selection and don't require differential reproduction to ride the entropy train. A parallel, non-Darwinian track. (What is Life - lecture Jeremy England: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91D5UAz-f4)

Although the ideas are based on physics and the natural laws creationists accept, I fear the bit of math and the few diagrams make it inaccessible. England directly proposes that life, DNA, or anything like it isn't needed - cyclically-driven oscillations (day-night-cycle) is enough to get the very organization Daniel claims only comes from an intelligent author. So there are answers to be had, but those answers aren't reachable (nor teachable).

ETA: Other sources for England's idea for those who "don't do Youtube"
Article with the general ideas: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
A paper of his describing the same ideas (in the Journal of Chemical Physics): http://www.englandlab.com/uploads/7/8/0/3/7803054/2013jcpsrep.pdf

This is pretty cool; thanks for providing some "E" in JREF!

And in this regard, I should also thank both Daniel and Minoosh; as I went hunting for stuff on GR, I came across some fascinating work, which may be of interest to one of my ISF heros, W.D.Clinger (among others). I'll post this later.

 

[JeanTate]

Light Years is not a measure of "Time", it's one of "Distance".

For you to be able to ascertain the "Time" component, you MUST know the "One-Way" Speed of Light. Unfortunately, you can never know that because it's a Begging The Question Fallacy...In TOTO, resulting from the inability to Synchronize 2 'clocks' by some distance. (i.e., the error correction factor needed to synchronize the moving of one of those clocks is the... "One-Way" Speed of Light).

This is certainly true if you accept relativity (per Einstein); however, as Danielscience explicitly rejects that theory (model? law?), you are free to propose an experiment to determine the one-way speed of light. Over to you ...

The speed of light (average "Two-Way" Speed) is merely a 'Convention' that we've agreed upon.

That may be true in science, but it is not necessarily true in Danielscience.

More strikingly, according to Quantum Mechanics... Independent of measurement/ observation/ 'which-path' information, Photons (including ...Elementary Particles/Atoms/Molecules) have no defined properties or location. They exist in a state of a Wave Function which is a series of Potentialities rather than actual objects. That is, Matter/Photons don't exist as a Wave of Energy prior to observation but as a Wave of Potentialities. Therefore...

Unless you can explicitly identify "a Knower" @ the source of this Light (Photons)....who also "observed" it's entire 'path', AND the "observer" who first identified it here on Earth and recorded it (Date and Time stamped) THEN, you're gonna have to provide....

The Speed for a Wave of Potentialities! Go ahead...?

Leave aside the fact that this is (willfully?) mis-characterized, it is irrelevant.

You see, QM incorporates relativity. That's what makes QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) the best theory of physics, today (in this respect at least: its predictions match experimental results to ~14 significant places); without relativity, QM is quite inconsistent with a huge range of experimental results.

So, by rejecting relativity, Danielscience also rejects QM. And so you cannot use even the gross mis-characterization to support anything about "Potentialities" or "real objects".

But this doesn't really matter, in Danielscience, even allowing for the fact that Danielscience also rejects internal consistency.

Why?

Because in rejecting relativity, Danielscience rejects one of its postulates, to the effect that "the laws of physics" are the same to every observer, everywhere and everywhen.

A corollary: in Danielscience, one can create a "law of physics", for any time in the past, one in which the speed of light one way is drastically different from that the other way; or that water was a million times denser back then than it is today; or that the entire universe came into existence last Wednesday (annnnoid would love that!)

 

[jimbob]

This is certainly true if you accept relativity (per Einstein); however, as Danielscience explicitly rejects that theory (model? law?), you are free to propose an experiment to determine the one-way speed of light. Over to you ...



That may be true in science, but it is not necessarily true in Danielscience.



Leave aside the fact that this is (willfully?) mis-characterized, it is irrelevant.

You see, QM incorporates relativity. That's what makes QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) the best theory of physics, today (in this respect at least: its predictions match experimental results to ~14 significant places); without relativity, QM is quite inconsistent with a huge range of experimental results.

So, by rejecting relativity, Danielscience also rejects QM. And so you cannot use even the gross mis-characterization to support anything about "Potentialities" or "real objects".

But this doesn't really matter, in Danielscience, even allowing for the fact that Danielscience also rejects internal consistency.

Why?

Because in rejecting relativity, Danielscience rejects one of its postulates, to the effect that "the laws of physics" are the same to every observer, everywhere and everywhen.

A corollary: in Danielscience, one can create a "law of physics", for any time in the past, one in which the speed of light one way is drastically different from that the other way; or that water was a million times denser back then than it is today; or that the entire universe came into existence last Wednesday (annnnoid would love that!)

By definition, an omniscient and omnipotent creator could do that - the question is why such a being would give us the gifts of reason and observation and leave the evidence in the rocks and starlight that would lead one to the conclusion that the universe is 15-billion years old and the Earth is 4.5-billion years old. I'd say that would be pretty incompatible with such a being as being benign.

 

[Daniel]

The way you define it, sure.

The way I define it How do you define it....?

OK, who is "they"?

You said: "....a vast egghead conspiracy to hoodwink schoolchildren by showing them fossils and going on field trips to the Grand Canyon."

"They" is whoever is showing them in your conjured anecdote here.

I've never said there wasn't a worldwide flood - why do you think one is necessary for fossils to form?

Because "Water" is a principle ingredient in the Fossilization Process.

According to you, as far as I can tell, the soft tissue is maybe 4,000 years old?

Huh? Please Quote the post specifically where I said this...?

If you allow for it to remain after thousands of years, why do you draw the line at millions?

1. Common Sense.

2. "I mean can you imagine pulling a bone out the ground after 68 million years and then getting intact protein sequences?" said lead author John Asara of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. "That's just mind boggling how much preservation there is in these bones."---LiveScience Interview

"In particular, it has long been accepted that protein molecules decay in relatively short periods of time and cannot be preserved for longer than 4 million years..Therefore, even in cases where organic material is preserved, it is generally accepted that only parts of original proteins are preserved and that the full tertiary or quaternary structure has been lost."
Bertazzo, S et al; Fibres and cellular structures preserved in 75-million–year-old dinosaur specimens; Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7352, doi:10.1038/ncomms8352; 09 June 2015

In 2011, UK archaeologists and experts on bone collagen decay wrote that “it will take between 0.2 and 0.7 Ma [million years] at 10°C for levels of collagen to fall to 1% in an optimal burial environment.”
Buckley, M. and Collins, M., Collagen survival and its use for species identification in Holocene-lower Pleistocene bone fragments from British archaeological and paleontological sites. Antiqua 1(e1):1–7, 20 September 2011

"maximal DNA survival of 50 thousand (Kyr) to 1 million (Myr) years."
Martin B. Hebsgaard, Matthew J. Phillip and Eske Willerslev, "Geologically ancient DNA: fact or artefact?" TRENDS in Microbiology, Vol.13 No.5, May 2005

"As arguably the most labile and easily degraded of the structures we observed, the presence of soft vessels is enigmatic." {emphasis mine}
Schweitzer, M., et al: Soft tissue and cellular preservation in vertebrate skeletal elements from the Cretaceous to the present; Proc Biol Sci. 2007 Jan 22; 274(1607): 183–197.

This lady describes herself as a Christian though I don't know if she would pass muster with you.

Mary is a Theistic evolutionist (aka: Married Bachelor)

You are asking how fossils explain the formation of the Grand Canyon?

No, I'm asking what "They" tell the school children for how it was formed.

ETA: Doesn't the phrase "160 million years of missing strata" imply that the strata under the gap are older than 160 million years?

Yea, but of course that's Begging The Question. Show the Scientific Validation of it being older 160 million years old in the first place.


regards

 

[annnnoid]

Having tried, and failed, to master Danielscience, I'm going to see if I can successfully use anol (see one of my earlier posts).

Here's a first draft of a high level use of anol:

The 'laws of physics' INDISPUTABLY have a causal connection with so-called civilizations dominated by white men (Newton, the Renaissance; Heisenberg, pre-war Germany; that sort of thing. No laws of physics from any Stone Age tribe, nor the Incas; that sort of thing).

Therefore it is civilizations dominated by white men which create the laws of physics, not pace annnnoid, intelligence. Go ahead, list books of physics which contain the first publications of any law of physics which are NOT causally derived from such!

Clearly, I need to study the actual words (and WORDS) anol uses; equally clearly I must understand the role of "....", how to correctly use verbs like "create", "generate", "produce", with the idiosyncratic meanings they have in anol. Also, I have to learn how to write so as to cause confusion in the minds of the ISF readers who bother to read the lengthy screeds anol demands.

I think, though, I'll draw the line at the anol use of put-downs, etc.

Should be fun.

No "put-downs". How thoughtful. But condescending, patronizing, ridicule, pedantry, and insults are still on the table.


Look at this picture and explain how there is ZERO evidence of design in nature (your argument).

Look at this picture and explain how the relevant math is a meaningless coincidence (your argument).

Look at this picture and explain how the math has no relationship to what it describes…beyond the poetically metaphorical (your argument).

https://deae89a72d2f97fc67dc-851283...d24bf&theme=Five Seven Five&imageFilter=false

Edited by jsfisher: 

Hot-linked image changed to URL tags.

…in fact this picture is not the exception, it is the rule. There does not exist anywhere (literally) that does NOT exhibit explicit evidence of design / laws.

I have already stated that my position is based on Occam's Razor: I see no reason to introduce extra supernatural entities as long as the laws of physics as we presently know them seem adequate.

…but the laws of physics as we presently know them are indisputably NOT adequate. No physicist would ever agree that they are. There is much that remains inexplicable (a primary example of which would be the vast range of anomalous psychological experiences that get dumped under the category: supernatural) (...and when they're explained...then it's not 'supernatural' anymore).

For one thing…the laws of physics do not explain the laws of physics. This may sound like a category error…but ‘consciousness’ has some manner of phenomenology (presumably…no one knows whether or not even this much is accurate). If it has some manner of phenomenology…then that phenomenology must be describable by the laws of physics.

So far…nada!

Nor can the laws of physics, as they currently exist, describe whatever it is that everything actually is. We get down to QM…and then stuff just vanishes into a puff of something that nobody knows either the something of or the origins of.

…and then there is the insignificant issue of where everything originally came from (including the laws of physics themselves)…and what the explicit relationship is between the laws of physics and that which they describe (see picture above).

Ultimately…the gaps encompass everything.

Yes, it is just a claim, and I do not have to disprove it as long Occam is doing the job nicely. Do not mistake my position: I do not claim that it absolutely certain that your God is behind everything, it is just extremely unlikely. This is based on the fact that there is nothing we know of that needs your God. There is much that we do not know, but based on experience, the god-of-the-gaps is not a likely explanation.

I think you meant to say…”I do not claim that it is absolutely certain that your God is NOT behind everything, it is just extremely unlikely.”

....but this is an utterly meaningless statement cause you do not define the word ‘God’. Daniel does a little better...but he doesn't ‘have’ a God. There is just something that is referenced by that word.

But if ‘God’ is defined as some manner of universal intelligence (whatever that might possibly mean)…that which is the origin of ‘the laws of nature’ (cause there sure as hell seem to be laws of nature…according to a whole whack of your fellow skeptics)…then ‘God’ IS, in fact, behind everything.

IOW….if the gap in question is: Are there laws of nature (as most of you argue) and what is their origin…then underlying-intelligence IS a likely explanation. If for no other reason than that every variety of normative paradigm of logic and reason that human beings practice equates design / laws with intelligence.

…and as that picture amply demonstrate…if there is one thing that oozes out of every nook and cranny of this universe, it is design / laws.

It’s not an empirical proof…but it is very substantially circumstantial...and is easily sufficient to form the basis of some variety of philosophy of life (which, though again not an empirically verifiable phenomena, certainly has massive normative legitimacy).

 

[tsig]

The FSM is the one that has the fewest contradictions with current scientific knowledge.

If you believe in the FSM and are wrong, no harm, no foul but it you don't believe then there's no strippers and beer volcano for you. Looks like the FSM is the best bet.

 

[Daniel]

The "impossible chemistry" bit flows from a misunderstanding of both chemistry and probability. You aren't going to find any sophisticated understanding of reaction rates, how extremely low yields are still yields, local energy minimums, or processes available far from equilibrium. (And p-chem is right out the window.) On the probability front, they don't even understand the essential idea of a Markov chain.

blah blah blah. It's REAL EASY TO REFUTE, so you can table all the: juvenile theatrics, metric tons of utter Baseless Assertions (and every other Fallacy in the catalog), ad hominems direct and implied, the fairytale pretending you (and your cohorts) have the first clue of what you're talking about (lol, btw and Thanks )...

To refute, simply: SHOW ONE!! Show a Functional 30 mer- RNA or Protein (most are 250 AA or larger) that formed spontaneously "Outside" a Cell/Living Organism, CITE SOURCE! The smallest "Functional" DNA (Genome) is a little over 100,000 Nucleotides... so that ain't happenin !

GO.....?


Ahhh yes, the Jeremy England appeal, (boy, I never heard that before ) is he gonna SHOW ONE!!! (Not Bloody Likely) ...

The disappointing thing, well, one of the disappointing things, is that we never get to actually talk about new ideas in evolution. For example, Jeremy England has a nice talk about energy dissipation in driven systems - a physicist suggesting the emergence of organization in inanimate systems which are not subject to natural selection and don't require differential reproduction to ride the entropy train. A parallel, non-Darwinian track. (What is Life - lecture Jeremy England: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91D5UAz-f4)
Although the ideas are based on physics and the natural laws creationists accept, I fear the bit of math and the few diagrams make it inaccessible. England directly proposes that life, DNA, or anything like it isn't needed - cyclically-driven oscillations (day-night-cycle) is enough to get the very organization Daniel claims only comes from an intelligent author. So there are answers to be had, but those answers aren't reachable (nor teachable).

"Others, such as Eugene Shakhnovich, a professor of chemistry, chemical biology and biophysics at Harvard University, are not convinced. “Jeremy’s ideas are interesting and potentially promising, but at this point are extremely speculative, especially as applied to life phenomena,” Shakhnovich said. {emphasis mine}
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/

Do you have a substantive cogent argument by chance?


regards