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The Deluge

Simon39759 said:
And that technology was state of the art and not accessible to Hebrews that never were a very maritime people...
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I'm pretty sure that flood believers think that everything in the historical record is post-deluge, don't they? If not, how would they explain multiple languages in the pre-Babel period?

Of course, there's that 900 year old man on a big boat who releases kangaroos in Turkey that end up in Australia, so I suppose they could believe anything, but somehow that seems more plausible than a bunch of Chinese people drowning,, then the descendants of Noah breeding a bunch of Chinese people, in China, speaking the same language as the antedeluvian dwellers of that land.
 
I think we can conclude that a belief in the Noah flood indicates there is something wrong with the believer, mentally, and emotionally.
 
I'm confused. Thread title refers to the deluge. Since 'the deluge' is a reliable scat-mark that religious types have been around and since no one around here would fall into that disreputable category, I'm sure that its use must be some sort of mistake.
 
Ladewig said:
You are correct in assuming that the thread was started by a religious type (in fact, a literalist) who wanted to discuss Noah's Flood. I still don't understand the point of asking "which deluge."
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Perhaps as a snarky protest against the presumption typical of the religious (e.g. the bible, the deluge).

Very surprised to find this myth being seriously discussed.
 
Complexity said:
Very surprised to find this myth being seriously discussed.
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The thread did turn out to be a very useful place to marshall evidence against the Flood from a wide variety of fields. There are Americans who do believe in a literal Flood. Knowing how to debunk that belief is a useful activity for JREF posters.
 
Complexity said:
Perhaps as a snarky protest against the presumption typical of the religious (e.g. the bible, the deluge).
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You were able to quote me before I deleted the post. I realized that I did not feel the need to belabor the point. I concede the issue.
 
David Henson said:
G. Ledyard Stebbins observed: "After a greater or lesser number of generations the mutants are eliminated."

This could indicate to me that mutations are useless - harmful. Or that they are as was what I learned in 'school,' the basis for evolution. In that they are eliminated.

The problem I have with that is that if they are eliminated why would they have evolved through mutations in the first place? I could think along the lines that they need to be eliminated.
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This quotation, often cited by creationists, comes from G. Ledyard Stebbins’s book “Processes of Organic Evolution” (1st ed. 1966, 2nd ed. 1971) pages 24-25.

Rather than base our knowledge and beliefs on a “sound-bite” quotation presented out of context, let’s do a little book learning and see what Stebbins was actually saying:

G. Ledyard Stebbins said:
THE ADAPTIVENESS OF MUTATIONS

Perhaps the most important fact for students of evolution to realize about mutations is that all modern species and races of organisms have existed as successful populations, well adjusted to their environment, for thousands or millions of generations. We would expect, therefore, that all of the potentially useful mutations would have occurred at least once during the evolutionary history of the species and have been incorporated by natural selection into the gene pool. Consequently, the theoretical expectation would be that all or nearly all of the mutations occurring in a successful population would lower its adaptation to its accustomed environment, and so would be rejected by natural selection unless the environment were changing relative to the needs of the organism. This is, in fact, what has been found in actual experiments.

In Drosophila, hundreds of mutations have been observed by looking for those which occur spontaneously in laboratory cultures as well as by subjecting the flies to radiations and chemical substances which have specific effects on the DNA of the chromosomes. Scores of these mutant flies have been placed in competition with their wild-type alleles in laboratory bottles under standard conditions with nearly always the same result. After a greater or lesser number of generations the mutants are eliminated by the corresponding wild-type alleles. There are, however, a few experiments in which flies bearing mutant and wild-type alleles have been made to compete with each other under conditions different from those under which the fly is usually raised.
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Stebbins then gives examples where flies with certain mutations have proven less successful than the wild-types at normal conditions, but more successful at slightly different temperatures or in the presence of poisons. He then addresses the same issue with barley. Barley taken from the wild and planted in agricultural fields, and therefore in a slightly different environment, naturally rejects most mutations but does accept some into the gene pool that assist adaptation to the field, but may not necessarily be beneficial to survival in the wild or under other conditions.

So, Stebbins is clearly not saying that ALL mutations are eliminated. He is speaking about a specific situation where evolution is expected to be stalled: a successful species in an unchanging environment.

The evidence Stebbins presents here is in support of evolution by natural selection. A successful species evolves to adapt to its environment though many generations of natural selection of mutations. Through this process, the species has adapted to its environment by selecting out the mutations that are not beneficial, and selected in the ones that are. Mutations continue to occur. However, because the species has already selected most of the beneficial mutations, most of the new mutations are not beneficial (and have probably been selected out before) and are therefore naturally selected out of the gene pool. However, if the environment changes, the mutations beneficial to the new environment are not eliminated but are incorporated into the gene pool.

The mutations that exist within a species are not guided by the force of God or any other force, but simply though natural selection. In his book, Stebbins later explains how accumulations of mutations and gene combinations gradually result in improved structures that can provide an overall benefit to a species to complete in any or multiple environments.
 
After a greater or lesser number of generations the mutants are eliminated by the corresponding wild-type alleles. There are, however, a few experiments in which flies bearing mutant and wild-type alleles have been made to compete with each other under conditions different from those under which the fly is usually raised.
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Wow; creationist clearly cut out the very next sentence that completely demolish the point they are atempting to make!
Talk about dishonest quote mining! This is nothing short of an outright lie!
 
Simon39759 said:
Wow; creationist clearly cut out the very next sentence that completely demolish the point they are atempting to make!
Talk about dishonest quote mining! This is nothing short of an outright lie!
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Yet not really surprising enough to warrant an exclamation mark.
 
Simon39759 said:
Wow; creationist clearly cut out the very next sentence that completely demolish the point they are atempting to make!
Talk about dishonest quote mining! This is nothing short of an outright lie!
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Creationist (at least the US breed) are literally known to be expert at quote mining and cutting excerpt at the "wrong place" (or right one from their POV).

If you say "quote mining" I literally answer "creationist" by reflex.

On the deluge, wasn't there on atheist.org (or the bible quote web page) a compendium of all actually stuff which are wrong in the bible on that story ? Would not that be a good start ?
 
Simon39759 said:
Wow; creationist clearly cut out the very next sentence that completely demolish the point they are attempting to make!
Talk about dishonest quote mining! This is nothing short of an outright lie!
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Yes. But even if that sentence was not there, the quote is out of context.

Stebbins is making a strong case for evolution. Mutations do not carry on willy-nilly or by a pattern of some unknown force or God. Mutations are carried on by natural selection to conform to adaptability to an environment.

If there were some outside guiding force to the process of evolution or the selection of mutations, then when the species became successful and the environment ceased to change, then we would expect to see that mutations either stop (because the driving force has reached its conclusion) or continue to generate better mutations ((because the driving force is continuing progress). But this does not happen.

What happens is what would be expected from the theory of evolution. The species continues to create mutations. Because the mutations incorporated into the gene pool by evolution through natural selection, and not by an outside force or God directing the selection, the majority of mutations, having already been rejected by the gene pool by natural selection, are again naturally selected out of the gene pool.

Therefore, when artificial mutations that are not beneficial to the species are introduced, we do not see them compete, or the hand of God influence them, or any or force act upon them. The wild-type alleles that already have the most beneficial mutations survive the best, and natural selection, over time, eliminates the unnecessary and possibly detrimental mutations.

The fact the mutants are eliminated in a situation where there is a successful species in an unchanging environment, is evidence for evolution. If changes to species were caused by God or some other force, we would expect to continue to see changes when there is not any evolutionary (survival o the fittest, natural selection) need for a change. This does not occur. Changes in mutations happen again, and again, and again, and again, and again in accordance with the theory of evolution by natural selection.

So when Stebbins says that the mutants are eliminated, he is providing evidence that EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION eliminates those mutations in the same way that evolution carries on some mutations. He is demonstrating that evolution by natural selection MUST be true, because it works not only in cases where a species changes, but also in cases where species DOES NOT change. ;)
 
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Darth Rotor said:
Good point. Perhaps some hard work at bailing could mitigate the usual leakage into the bilges. We don't know what sort of caulk, pitch, what have you Noah used, the blueprints do not appear to have been included in the Pentatuch :D so a great deal of "how did the Ark work" from a Naval Architecture PoV remains unknown.

That said, the keel for a ship that size, given the materials we assume were used, would need to be progressively thicker as it went from either end to the middle, over lapping beams/logs, or the keel would fail to achieve the stiffness required to keep the Ark together during normal harmonic motion, in even calm seas.

Far better Naval Architects than I (I am not one) have done analysis on how to build such an Ark.

Float on that bad boy for 40 days? Well, if it that or drown, OK, I'm game, but not if I don't have to.

DR
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Then they have all been wasting their time! The ark was not a ship, it was a wooden box, as for the caulking and pitching - god did it, he sealed the ark up after everyone had boarded.

Not being facetious that is simply what Genesis says the ark was and what happened.
 
Simon39759 said:
True, very true.



Certainly; I guess I am still impressed at the outright dishonesty of the creationists...
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You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

I guess mis-quoting someone's writings doesn't come under this commandment for them.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
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Nah; it only applies in court. After all, if lying for Jesus was good enough for Calvin... ([url='http://www.fortifyingthefamily.com/Righteous_Lying.html"]Here[/url] is a particularly egregious example...)
 
Going past the usual "flooder" nonsense (the continents were different, the earth was smaller, water in low orbit, etc...) I was curious to "see" the sea level rise on a world map, using all the water available on earth.

So here it is, current sea level and current sea level +80 meters, which seems to be the most generous rise estimation with all the ice on earth melted.

90031854.gif

Credit goes to Mr. Sébastien Merkel, whose java applet I used to generate the 2 images.
 
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