15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

by JanH 114 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  patio34

  Hi Plmkrzy,

  You said, very reasonably:

  A better question, why do we share 98% of your DNA with Chimpanzee's? :) Explain that one.

  Can't that same comment be made about all animals?

  Actually, no. The closer the DNA and genes are (was that redundant) is a molecular clock the scientists have. It shows how recently the species separated from their common ancestors. There are excellent charts in several evolution books and probably on the net that show the relationships by their genes. Humans and chimps are very close so they only branched off from a common ancestor relatively recently. Humans and frogs do NOT have the same similarity. Unfortunately, I loaned my book that has the chart out (grrrr), so I can't make reference to it for you right now.

  Also, as JanH stated, the similarities in genes has verified that everything descended from a common ancestor about a billion years ago.

  Pat
• 

  Kenneson

  Jan H,

  Yes, I was being facetious. But could you tell us who that common ancestor that we evolved from is? Last time I delved into the matter, I read something about the lemur. Does that still hold?
• 

  Grunt

  The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

  But in the 1980s Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a computer program that generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed (in effect, selecting for phrases more like Hamlet's). On average, the program re-created the phrase in just 336 iterations, less than 90 seconds. Even more amazing, it could reconstruct Shakespeare's entire play in just four and a half days.

  In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)

  The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. Similarly, the blood-clotting system seems to involve the modification and elaboration of proteins that were originally used in digestion, according to studies by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California at San Diego. So some of the complexity that Behe calls proof of intelligent design is not irreducible at all.

  July 2002 issue
  15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
  Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
  By John Rennie

  Jan, I hope you can read the above dispassionately and see just how unscientific each seems to be. How did the needed components get here during the formation of the earth, allow me to paraphrase and extrapolate his answers, "Uh, maybe the right ones just fell out of space at just the right time. Maybe, a comet??? Yeah, yeah, that's it a COMET!"

  How about his answer to how long it would take for the right things to happen in sequence? "Hey, a guy created a computer program that wrote to be or not to be in 90 seconds, heck it could do a whole Shakespeare play in four and a half days!" Yeah, well have it write some new ones then.

  And in contrast to the idiot creationists who invoke shadowy gods that have just what is needed at the proper time, " Uh, we evolutionists have comets deliver the ingredients in the right amount at the proper time, and that would be easy to disprove now wouldn't it?

  As for the combinations of complicated systems, here is the simple answer, all they had to do was combine them. Nothing to that. "Why that involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. See nothing to it." Don't know why anyone would doubt that.

  Jan, I don't know if you have ever built anything. I don't know if you have ever tried to modify anything, never mind anything complex. I built a barn using round cedar poles I cut out of the woods and then put a tin roof on it. Plumb, square and compatible don't come easy! Neither do comets with just what you need on them. Read what that guy said with an open mind and tell me he is more believable than someone saying an intelligent being made all this complicated stuff. Everything from the magnetic poles of the earth to the mitrovalve in your heart didn't just happen. At least I don't think so, but I won't call you an idiot if you disagree.

  Grunt
• 

  JanH

  Grunt,

  Extrapolating experiences from our world to ther world of molecules will quickly lead you astray. Molecules constantly form complex chains and patterns. That is their nature. To one who is used to watching wood and stones, which stay put where they are, it sounds very strange indeed, but this is the way the universe works on the molecular level.

  The article tried to summarize encyclopedic amounts of knowledge of biochemistry into a few easy-to-read paragraphs. Of course it had to be simplistic. If you believe these ideas, including looking into the possibility of some materials coming from meteorites, are taken out of thin air, you don't know squat about how science works. Look at this page for some basic hints, and a good bibliography for further reading: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

  What is amazing in this thread is how many people are willing to jump to cock sure conclusions about evolution when they don't even have high school level knowledge about biology. I rarely hear people try to tell nuclear physicists how to control fission at their local power plant. Yet, when it comes to evolutionary biology, people who could not tell me the difference between RNA and DNA if their life depended on it feel perfectly free to wave away decades of hard research after having read a few paragraphs in a popularized form.

  - Jan
• 

  JanH

  Kenneson,

  I have not really looked into the evolution of pre-hominid primates, and the relevant textbooks are still in boxes.

  The most recent common ancestor of humans and chimps is long extinct, along with 99.9% of all other species that ever was. I am, however, quite sure that if a very close relative of it still lived, we'd classify it as a primate along with e.g. chimps and orangutans.

  It is important to note than the chimps have evolved exactly as long as we have since our lineages split apart. We aren't more evolved than anything else on this planet now, and that includes bacteria, even though bacteria as far as I know is the oldest life form we know about.

  - Jan
• 

  Gedanken

  Grunt,

  First of all the bit you quote is in response to a specific argument made by creationists, rather than being a stand-alone statement of why evolution is a fact. In other words, it isn't so much a rationale for evolution - that relies on actual hard evidence - as debunking a particular nonsensical argument against evolution by creationists. If, for example, you stated that the Moon is made of greenish-blue cheese, say gorgonzola, because both things have similar color, rather than having its known composition based on the evidence, my reply might be as follows: "Your argument doesn't hold water because, equally, the moon might be made of diced Thai lake shrimp because of their color.

  The point being not that I believe that, but that it shows the invalidity of the cheese argument. So, the experiment re: Shakespear's play is not anything like a proof of evolution, and it is not meant to be - it is just a demonstration that the argument of the creationists is invalid.

  Creationists assume that life has to take a particular form - a target - and the experiment demonstrates that if a target is known, then it can be discovered through what is called evolutionary computation much faster than people think. If Shakespeare's play is the target, then it can be found randomly very quickly. You ask for a new and original play. But that's changing the rules - the basic premise of the Creationist's argument is that only one sort of life form (let's say RNA/DNA life) is possible and it could not be found randomly. If the target is known, then it can be found quickly, thus debunking the argument. Wanting a new play, is like wanting a new sort of life - but creationists, in their assumption that God is perfect, don't usually like that possibility. Thus the argument of the creationists is demonstrably false - the means by which that argument is refuted does not in itself constitute an argument for evolution nor is it intended to be such.

  In fact, there is no reason the think that life can only be based on a single form - the multitude of past life forms to some extent demonstrate that. Why are there no longer trilobites? Of course all known life on earth, past and present, is nucleic acid based. But it's possible that evolution has found only a single solution (RNA/DNA life) out of a space that conceivably could contain many answers. There's no real way to know the answer to that and it is irrelevant anyway. The physical evidence demonstrates the fact of evolution. Hard as it may be to accept, facts are facts and the creationists have no facts to go off since they reject the facts becaus ethey fail to conform to their preconceived notions.

  The barn analogy is a bad one by the way - there are no straight lines in nature (or very few) for a reason. Life is essentially a liquid phase process and the construction of barns, watches, etc. is thus a bad analogy. A better analogy might be a slurry of inorganic molecules which can form amino acids, or even the complexity of structure that can "by accident" result from something as simple as a freezing drop of water or a pan of hot oil.

  Finally I'd ask the question, if order in the universe is evidence for a creator, then what about the disorder, including the chaotic motion of various asteroids that every now and then wallop a planet such as the Earth. What is that evidence for?

  Gedanken

  Edited by - Gedanken on 4 August 2002 23:39:14
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  pomegranate

  Certain bacteria can directly metabolize inorganic materials such as hydrogen sulfide, iron, nitrogen etc.

  All of the above mentioned componds are a direct result of DECAYING living things. Evolutionists will have one believe that these inanimate BASIC compouds popped into existence and all came together some how to form life. Yet all the while, what they see all around them is life that dies releasing these very inanimate compounds invarying amounts and degrees depending on what the life form was.
  
  Chemoautotrophic bacteria are the type of bacteria you are refering to. They can exist on crude "chemicals" and materials such as sulpher. The problem for you is, is where did the CRUDE material come from that these chemoautotrophic bacteria use as FOOD TO KEEP EXISTING? I say from preceeding life that falls into decay, which will release ALL of the crude chemicals and base materials that these microorganisms use for FOOD for THEIR continued existence.

  Fact: Bacteria are the oldest life forms on earth,

  So, are we to theorize that all life on earth has evolved from BACTERIA? That must be true if bacteria is first life. BUT, bacteria is an ARCH-ENEMY of evolution. How so? It is scientific fact that ALL bacteria BREAK DOWN matter, organic or inorganic. They are DECOMPOSERS. They DISMANTLE. Evolution is supposed to COMPOSE. Bacteria would KILL evolutionary life before it got off the ground as a COMPOSITION. WATER also is an ENEMY of evolution. Things in water BREAK DOWN. Depolymerization.

  Between bacteria, water, and of course the MIRACULOUS appearing of the PERIODIC TABLE of basic elements coming out of freekin nowhere, I'd say evolution bites.
  
  ---------------------------------------
  
  Your notion that all food, even at the molecular level is somehow alive, or is the residue of something that once lived is incorrect

  I believe I have proved you quite incorrect.

  Without life, there would be no periodic table. Without the periodic table, there would be no life.

  Edited by - pomegranate on 5 August 2002 0:19:21
• 

  Grunt

  Jan,
  I don't know squat about astrophysics, but I do know that when you are say things HINT, that unknown quantities MIGHT have come here from space and in comets, and that provides a scenario that MAY SOLVE the problem, then I'd have to say you don't know SQUAT and are just guessing. You said, "If you believe these ideas, including looking into the possibility of some materials coming from meteorites, are taken out of thin air, you don't know squat..." I know enough to know he didn't say meteorites, he said comets. Read it again:

  Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

  "Extrapolating experiences from our world to ther world of molecules will quickly lead you astray" well maybe you are comfortable in some other world, this one is all I know, it is full of molecules, I have used them to make a lot of stuff. None ever just made a complex chain of anything that I was trying to build, like a house. I had to build it and nothing just lucked into place.

  In our world, every house has its builder (sound familiar?), in some fantasy world maybe you throw boards in the air long enough it will come down as a house. In that same fantasy world maybe random chance will write a Shakespeare play, not in my world, or yours for that matter.

  "To one who is used to watching wood and stones, which stay put where they are, it sounds very strange indeed, but this is the way the universe works on the molecular level."

  Jan, I imagine if you took the wood and stones out of your world you'd be sitting on your ass in mud and sardines. What I was trying to point out to you was that even getting a simple problem like keeping a barn made of non-uniform, round poles plumb and square is difficult. If you haven't done something of the sort, then maybe you didn't get my drift. Ask anyone who builds anything from barns to boats how hard it is to get it all right and what the results would be if they relied on chance or trial and error and they will tell you it won't happen. Ever try putting spark plug wires on a car when you didn't know the order? You won't guess it.

  Jan, I did manage to make it through high school biology. You tend to want to get personal Jan, and to judge others as being ignorant or uninformed just because they disagree. The point I am making is that those encyclopedic amounts of knowledge of biochemistry you mentioned are summarised from nature. The rules are there, we work to understand the rules, very complicated rules, that we discover. I don't believe and my life experiences don't support a belief that complicated events occur in the right order at the right time in the right place. Murphy's Law has been my experience. Maybe you know of some enormous cache of materials from comets, enough to influence the evolution of life all over the planet, maybe comets were hitting everywhere at just the right speed and of the right size to make it all work out. In my experience, the damned comet would have destroyed the earth, not helped build it. Try to avoid being condescending, you have had to apologise to me before for errors you stated as facts.

  Grunt
• 

  Grunt

  Gedanken,
  You failed to grasp MY point. My point was that we live in a comples world that was much harder to build than my barn. I had to intelligently overcome and allow for all kinds of problems from the inequality of the surface I was building on to the different sizes of the cedar trees I could find to cut and use. It took intelligence to solve that problem. No random events in a million years would have made my barn without an intelligence directing them. That is why for me, my barn was a great analogy. As for stright lines occuring in nature, doesn't light usually travel in straight lines? If you drop something it will fall straight down, that is how a plumb bob works.

  In regards to your statement, "it isn't so much a rationale for evolution - that relies on actual hard evidence - as debunking a particular nonsensical argument against evolution by creationists." You think his answer was adequate and a good reply???

  What it comes down to is that WE DON'T KNOW. You can throw verbal circles all around it but that is your answer. We can only guess. I guess GOD did it. You guess what you want, but don't act like it is anything other than a guess.

  Grunt
• 

  NewWay

  I'd like to post a few responses to the text of the article that appeared in Jan's first post. I hope Jan won't mind, as there is no debate without opposing views! Obviously it would take a huge amount of time to comment on everything that was said, so here are some comments on the first few paragraphs. "...but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination."
  Okay, well if this is so, then those who make documentaries and other educational resources have not done a very good job with the general public in showing how this is so. In fact, at least here in the UK, the only information we get on the subject assumes that the audience already accepts evolution as a fact. I'm still waiting to see all this evidence that has "established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt". "Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage."
  One may ask that since, "evolution's truth" is "beyond reasonable doubt", then why would teachers feel besieged? Considering all this 'evidence' for evolution refuting 'creationism' should be a doddle! Could it be that children are becoming more demanding in wanting proof? That meekly accepting what is taught as 'fact' is no longer an option?
  
  "In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling."
  
  That the fossil record provides abundant evidence for evolution, is purely a matter of interpretation, therefore it is not a fact, and should be treated with the same amount of caution as those interpretations that assert that species were created individually at specific intervals by God. Really, it is a matter of faith. "All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain."
  The point is that the 'proof of the pudding is in the eating'. If it has not been proved, then it is still a theory. No doubt those who believed that the earth was a sphere before it was proved by circumnavigation and satellite pictures from outer space, had indirect evidence. But the burden of proof rested upon those who made the assertion. Although most of us today have never been high enough above the earth's atmosphere to see earth as a sphere, nevertheless we are convinced that it is a fact, because the assertion can be 'measured' from a host of different human experiences, but more to the point it rests on tangible evidence that we see today, not what we interpret as having been the case millions of years ago. We have no tangible evidence that one species evolved into another. If we had then we have indirect credible evidence as a basis for asserting that life evolved in the past, even though we could not prove that this is actually the way life in general came about.
  
  The example of the finches only provides evidence that this type of bird is capable of 'adapt' the shape of its beak, but it is not evidence for the transformation of major body parts into completely different ones, such as a wing changing to an arm. We know from what we observe in the present that it is possible for members of the same species to differ in size, shape, and colour. Noses, for instance, can be long or short, thin or fat, straight or curved, but that doesn't prove that humans are or were capable of adapting it to a non-human type proboscis.
  
  On the interesting comment about chimpanzee's made by Trauma_Hound:
  
  It seems that in order for animals to share very close physical features with a human beings, it is necessary for their DNA to be very close to that of human beings. That is something that obviously can be proved via what is known about DNA. Any argument beyond that is still a matter of interpretation.
  
  P.S. It is an assumption that all species have common linking ancestors, so all the charts in the world is not proof of that interpretation.
  
  (Edited for typos, and to include the P.S.)
  
  

  Edited by - NewWay on 5 August 2002 10:51:3