Questions on Evolution and the Existence of God and...

by ILoveTTATT 130 Replies latest jw friends

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  adamah

  Apo said-

  There's a certain appeal to only believing what you can observe directly ("Show me the money").

  Perhaps scientists should start eating lead-based paint, giving themselves concussions, destroying fossils, breaking lab equipment, etc, so Perry would be more comfortable having to take scientific precepts as articles of faith? I don't get the appeal of that kind of approach to one's beliefs: it's as perverted as the rest of what Jesus passed off as ancient wisdom, but is now recognized as the thought-stopping power of logical fallacy of the paradox: goofiness that only seems wise, but on closer examination, is merely goofy. It's a rhetorical sleight of hand, linguistic prestidigitaion.

  I've asked for SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of what Jesus said that was: 1) ORIGINAL to him AND 2) gave mankind some example ofwisdom that was unknown at the time, and served as something that actually advanced human knowledge (rather than merely serving as flowery words and emotional puffery that made the audience feel good about their current situation, and appealed to their emotional needs for "more").

  And once you cut out the flowery poetical waxing responses, there's nothing left but vapid hot gases: the challenge has elicited cricket chirps.

  Adam
• 

  ILoveTTATT

  Correct me if wrong, but E.Coli now being able to consume citrate would qualify as a different "species" of E.Coli.

  This is what I thought interesting, from the Wikipedia article:

  "Wild-type E. colicannot grow on citrate when oxygen is present due to the inability during aerobic metabolism to produce an appropriate transporter protein that can bring citrate into the cell, where it could be metabolized via the citric acid cycle. The consequent lack of growth on citrate under oxic conditions, referred to as a Cit - phenotype, is considered a defining characteristic of the species that has been a valuable means of differentiating E. coli from pathogenic Salmonella."

  Hi Adamah, or anyone, can you please provide as many possible "missing links" and when they were found?

  Thanks!!
• 

  Island Man

  "Why did we develop intelligence? Intelligence is a mutation?"

  Actually, intelligence is not unique to humans - we just have more of it than all the other animals (according to what we now know). Intelligence offers an advantage to creatures otherwise physically at a disadvantage. Intelligent creatures have a greater chance at surviving and passing on their genes because they find creative ways of staying alive and impressing a mate. Why are dolphins intelligent? Why are chimpanzees intelligent? From a creation standpoint, do they really need to be?
• 

  adamah

  ILuvTTATT, there's many different definitions for species, so a change in a defining characteristic of a species may already make it a new species; however, the usual definition is based on if it's able to interbreed with descendants of the bacteria from which it was derived (the situation is complicated by the fact that bacteria reproduce asexually, or exchange plasmids, etc). I'm sure they're keeping a control of the colony as is was before they started.

  BTW, the emergence of a new species and strains is not such a trivial matter if you're a doctor treating a bacterial infection, as you need to know which antibiotic is likely going to be effective against the organism which is causing the infection. Many strains are developing drug-resistance, and the old standby therapies which worked so well in the past suddenly are no longer effective, since the critters have evolved workarounds to the metabolic pathways by which the old antibiotic caused their death. That's the whole problem with hospital-based MRSA infections that you hear about in the news, where super-bugs are evolving "in the wild" due to widespread and rampant use of antibiotics. Thousands of people die annually due to bacterial evolution, even those God-fearing believers who deny the possibility of evolution.

  ILuvTTATT asked-

  Hi Adamah, or anyone, can you please provide as many possible "missing links" and when they were found?

  The old saying in palentology is that every time a new transitional fossil is found, creationists loudly rejoice, since it means that two new gaps are created in the fossil record on either side.

  So presenting evidence that satisfies creationists is a non-willing scenario, since it's only becomes an infinite regress; believers constantly move the goalposts, since they're really not engaging in an intellectually-honest manner and not willing to examine the evidence, but only looking for reasons to demand more evidence.

  All lines of evolution contain 'missing links' (and are more accurately called transitional fossils), since not surprisingly, not all lineages of organisms have been lining up for millions of years to volunteer to become fossils, as if donating their bodies to science!

  Adam
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  "Correct me if wrong, but E.Coli now being able to consume citrate would qualify as a different "species" of E.Coli."

  Let me handle that for Perry...

  Nonsense! It's still the E.Coli 'kind', so it's not evolution! It's still the same 'kind' as God originally created it 6000 years ago and that was taken aboard the ark 4000 years ago.

  And there's one HIV 'kind' that God originally created and that was aboard the ark.

  Get over it!
• 

  Island Man

  For Perry:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7tQIB4UdiY
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  ILoveTTATT

  Do you think the Lenski experiment will have some other evolution in the next twenty years? Is there anything that can be done to "speed it up"? Or would that violate the "rules of the game" in that it wouldn't be "natural selection"?

  Also, are there different rates of evolution? Is there something that can accelerate it?

  The last I read about evolution (Biology class in High School), there was an "explosion" of new species at a certain point in time... what would explain that? Is evolution a linear process?
• 

  Apognophos

  As indicated in that E. coli article, evolution is accelerated by bottlenecks. When a population is small, individuals' mutations can affect the entire pool much more quickly. Humans may have passed through at least one major bottleneck that almost wiped us out, and the end result may have been a big improvement in our genes, but not all data agrees on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck

  The period where evolution sped up is called the Cambrian explosion, and while some scientists say that it is essentially making a mountain out of a mole hill, many do say that it represents a surprising change in the speed of evolution across more or less all life that existed at the time. Jumps in evolution may be explained by the theory of punctuated equilibrium.

  The last I read about evolution (Biology class in High School)

  I thought you said you were reading The Blind Watchmaker, or was that someone else? Well, if you're like me and don't have the ability/inclination to read e-books and can't purchase real books freely because your library is not free from prying eyes, there's plenty to read on Wikipedia and the sites linked to from the article's reference sections. Heck, between the three pages I linked above, you can learn a tremendous amount.
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  ILoveTTATT

  I thought you said you were reading The Blind Watchmaker

  I have barely started to read it...
• 

  Apognophos

  Ah, okay. You must be taking in a lot of information at once, between all your questions, research and reading