Posts by hooberus

87

How To Construct a Creationist/Theistic Argument

by darkl1ght3r in

how to construct a creationist/theistic argument - by ben spencer.

step 1. come up with a supposed self-apparent, universal, unbreakable, and yet ultimately unprovable "law".. for example:.

all effects require a cause.

hooberus

hooberus: With all respect, i feel there is a tendency to shift the burden of evidence to us poor atheists :-) . Quite frankly i dont have an honest clue about what such things as 'eternal', 'infinite', 'God', 'cause', 'effect' (my two dear chestnuts!) mean in this discussion, and therefore it is hard to make statements about what is special pleading and what is not.

It is the atheists here who charge that it is "special pleading" for theists to not also include God in specific written arguments about things like "effects" , etc. Hense they need to demonstrate that God should also logically be included under such categories [i.e., "an effect"] in order to substantiate their charge of special pleading.

If I make an argument specifically about Toyota Camrys and runaway acceleration caused by their throttle design, it is not necessarily special pleading to not include Hondas in the same argument, since Hondas do not share all of the characteristics of Toyotas. If you charge that it "special pleading" for me to not include Hondas in the same argument, then you need to demonstrate that Hondas necessarily have these same chracteristics (e.g. same throttle design), and should also be included. If you can't then you shouldn't charge special pleading.

87

How To Construct a Creationist/Theistic Argument

by darkl1ght3r in

how to construct a creationist/theistic argument - by ben spencer.

step 1. come up with a supposed self-apparent, universal, unbreakable, and yet ultimately unprovable "law".. for example:.

all effects require a cause.

hooberus

BTS said:

And no, no special pleading here. If an uncaused cause did not begin to exist (i.e. is eternal) then it doesn't need a cause; and exactly the same applies for the Universe. If the Universe is eternal, then it doesn't need a cause either. This is why the argument is actually not special pleading for "God", because this reasoning has been used by many atheists for the natural Universe itself.

Darkl then responded:

Ok, you are actually partially right on this one. One may apply the argument to God or to the universe. However, there's one HUGE difference between God and the universe: We know the universe exists. You're making an equivocation fallacy. Simply because the atheistic argument involves a similar facet, doesn't mean the theistic application is not special pleading. It is special pleading only in the theistic argument because "all things must have a cause" is NOT a necessary premise in the atheistic argument. You've created a "law" and then defined your God to be immune to that law. That is the definition of special pleading.

Special pleading involves making an argument about items with specific characteristics [e.g., an "effect"], and then (without proper justification) exempting something with those same characteristics from that same argument. For example a person tries to exempt an "effect" simply because it is blue in colour.

However it is not "special pleading" to point out that something not believed to have the specific characteristic/s [i.e. not an effect] need not be included in the same argument.

The problem with Darkl's response is that the "theistic argument" in the OP was not that "all things must have a cause", but instead more specifically that "all effects" must have a cause.

In order to demonstrate "special pleading" he needs to show that God himself would have to be be an "effect", and that he is therefore being unjustly excluded by the theist from a comprehensive argument specifically about effects, such as the one in the OP that "all effects require a cause".

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

The problem with Sandford

Hello! I have read a couple of papers on Sanfords model of evolution (Mendels Accountant) where he test his hypothesis that darwins first axiom is wrong. . .

Why this is bullshit:

One can make many theoretical objections to Sanfords model, or indeed just show him examples that the very ting he says his program show is impossible, that positive mutations are selected for, actually happends in nature. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v413/n6855/full/413514a0.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6909/full/nature01140.html

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030170

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/full/nature04072.html

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040072

http://scienceblogs.com/evolgen/2006/03/detecting_natural_selection_pa.php

Actually his program allows for the selection of positive mutations. As far as the links that you provided, the main problem with them is that they often start with the assumption that humans, chimps, and other apes share a common ancestor to begin with, and that humans evolved from this ape like ancestor over million of years. (the assumption of the evolution in question), Then based on this primary assumption and other secondary evolutionary assumptions attempt to detect “positive selection”. Even these secondary assumptions are questionable.

http://www.discovery.org/a/14251

Biologist Austin Hughes warns that most inferences of positive selection are based upon questionable statistical analyses of genes:

A major hindrance to progress has been confusion regarding the role of positive (Darwinian) selection, i.e., natural selection favoring adaptive mutations . In particular, problems have arisen from the widespread use of certain poorly conceived statistical methods to test for positive selection. Thousands of papers are published every year claiming evidence of adaptive evolution on the basis of computational analyses alone, with no evidence whatsoever regarding the phenotypic effects of allegedly adaptive mutations. … Contrary to a widespread impression, natural selection does not leave any unambiguous ‘‘signature’’ on the genome, certainly not one that is still detectable after tens or hundreds of millions of years. To biologists schooled in Neo-Darwinian thought processes, it is virtually axiomatic that any adaptive change must have been fixed as a result of natural selection. But it is important to remember that reality can be more complicated than simplistic textbook scenarios. … In recent years the literature of evolutionary biology has been glutted with extravagant claims of positive selection on the basis of computational analyses alone ... This vast outpouring of pseudo-Darwinian hype has been genuinely harmful to the credibility of evolutionary biology as a science. 19

Austin L. Hughes, "The origin of adaptive phenotypes," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 105(36):13193–13194 (Sept. 9, 2008) (internal citations removed).

Regardless of the above, as I stated earlier the main problem with citing these sources for this issue is that they often automatically assume that human evolved from ape-like creatures over millions of years, to begin with. Hence, while they may be useful within the evolutuionary paradigm, they are essentially useless as evidence against arguments designed to test the validity of the evolution story to begin with.

I can easily make a program that validate evolution, heck, lets write it right now:

1) Initialize a population of 1000 individuals, each with a fitness of 1.

2) (mutation) Add a number uniformly distributed from (-1, 1) to each individuals fitness.

3) (replication) Delete the 500 individuals with lowest fitness. Copy them to get to 1000 again. Go to 2).

but that does not prove jack shit because i have not validated it against reality.

Interesting, since this is actually similar to the operation of the pro-evolution computer simulation that you recommended on this forum (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/183269/2/Mitochondrial-Eve-for-dummies )

“The organisms are subjected to rounds of selection and mutation.First, the number of mistakes made by each organism in the populationis determined. Then the half of the population making the leastmistakes is allowed to replicate by having their genomes replace(‘kill’) the ones making more mistakes.” http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/28/14/2794

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

As I said perhaps you could try doing the research and explaining your objections in your own words.

I have done "research". In addition to other materials, I have actually read the books listed in the O.P. (unlike evolutionist "book reviewers" on this forum), Furthermore some (most) of the summaries in the O.P. are my own words such as:

"showing that the deleterious mutation rates are vastly higher than evolution can allow for. Evolutionists admit that the deleterious mutation rate needs to be less (much less in reality) then 1 deleterious mutation on average per individual per generation - otherwise genetic degradation and extinction is inevitable."

"why evolutionists came up with the (now falsified) claim that 99% of DNA is “junk”. (This was not based on observation, but instead on what would be needed to “save” evolution in light of the high observed rates of mutation). Other evolutionists (possibly unaware) later parroted this “ 99% junk” DNA claim as “evidence” against a designer, when in reality it was a figure calculated to bring the effective deleterious mutation rate down by a factor of a hundred to push it to less then one per individual per generation to “save” evolution.

"regardless of the deleterious mutation rates, that the substitution rate of beneficial mutations into a population with long generation times i.e. humans, is so vastly slow that only a negligible amount of beneficial evolution (only a few hundred nucleotides) could occur even over the evolutionists own time frame ."

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

Tuesday said:

Ugn, these articles are great at ignorning VAST amounts of information.

Could you please explain why we only have 22 pairs of chromosomes and primates have 24? . . . This is just one small example of things that are left out in articles like these.

Nothing addressing the merger of chromosome 2 eh? Big shock. That's because all creationists ever do is address straw men that have nothing to do with evolution.

cofty said:

Here is a very simple snippet of evidence that I personally find very convincing....

Occasionally a virus will infect an animal and get its DNA implanted in its host genome, HIV is an example of such an infection. Most infections are of soma (body) cells and end with the death of the hapless victim. Very occasionally a virus will infect a germ (sex) cell of its host and will then become part of the genome of all of its victims descendants.

These kind of infections, known as "endogenous retroviruses", . . .

We see again, and again, that evolutionists here obviously don't even bother to read creationists posts. From the opening post: Some responses to Evolutionists claims on things like junk DNA, Endogenous Retroviruses, Chromosome fusion, etc.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

Recent articles poining out that even most "beneficial" mutations involve deleterious (information loosing) processes.

Is Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics an Appropriate Example of Evolutionary Change?

http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/41/41_4/2005v41n4p318.pdf

Darwinism and the Deterioration of the Genome

http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

bohm said:

hooberus: I cannot speak of all the resources you posted since i have not read many of them. HOWEVER:...

Dr. Sanford base many on his claims on a particular simulation he wrote.

The primary documentation for the main claims in his book are taken from printed [evolutionary] genetics sources. His simulation (which came later) is additional evidence. Hence, his claims can be examined regardless of his simulation.

WHENEVER you write a simulation, you want to VALIDATE it to make sure you didnt make a mistake. To my knowledge Dr. Sanford never validate his model. Speaking as someone who has read countless papers on various simulations this is a giant red flag. Its like saying a particular type of drug works without testing it. Sanford appears to do it for good reasons - his simulation is not compatible with the real world, and make some unphysical assumptions about evolution so that it HAVE to give poor results. Furthermore, when i examined the simulation, it contained a rather grave bug in the code that controlled how surviving species was selected.

Interested readers can compare with the following:

http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Mendels-Accountant.pdf

"Verification and Validation"

"Most features on Mendel have been tested for correctness in implementation as well as for agreement with theoretical predictions (Sanford, Baumgardner, Gibson, Brewer, & Remine, 2007a). Simulation results compare very well with the theoretical expectations for situations where mathematical predictions are available. In cases where we could not make specific mathematical predictions, results still matched what general population genetic theory and logic would predict. Altering input parameters consistently resulted in expected effects. Although further validations are under way, current results indicate that Mendel produces reliable results for a wide range of parameter values."

16

What is the greatest act of love God has done? Interresting question for non-trinitarians

by teel in

currently i am not taking any of sides, but here's an interresting topic, i would be interrested what can an anti-trinitarian answer to this.. i found this article here: has the jehovah's witness' god performed the greatest act of love?.

in a nutshell: john 15:3 "greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends".

jesus laid down his life.

hooberus

bttt

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

hooberus

This is the best recent book for “extincting” neo-Darwinian theory by showing that the deleterious mutation rates are vastly higher than evolution can allow for.

This book is another pseudo-scientific junk publication stunt by creationists.

Here we see Gerard dismissing yet another book without having read it. This is similar to what he perviously said about another book that he hadn't read either (but only the preface that was posted). see: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/148600/2714534/post.ashx#2714534

Remember my warning in the O.P.

All living things undergo mutations during their lifetime; some are benign, some are not and some are apparently irrelevant. If the individuals monitored live in a green valey, they will have less mutations than those next to a toxic waste dump site; no secret about poison being bad for you. So for the 100000th time, those mutations helpful to better adapt to the environment are most likely to be passed on to future generations.

If you would actually read the book, you would see that the author wouldn't necessarily disagree with the above statements.

And someone put in this guy's religious head that evolution happens at the level of species over a time period of millions of years.

Lets see, the author has a P.h. D. in genetics and is the (among other things) the:

Primary inventor of the biolistic (gene gun) process
Co-inventor of the Pathogen-derived Resistance (PDR) process
Co-inventor of the Genetic Vaccination process
Primary inventor of numerous conventionally-bred fruit varieties
Most of the world's transgenic crop acreage were transformed via my biolistic process

http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hort/faculty/sanford/

So I think that even his now"religious" (former atheist) mind might understand that "evolution" supposedly "happens at the level of species over a time period of millions of years".

A rouge writer will never "debunk" evolution while mixing fantasy with facts.

And a post writer here will never "debunk" a book while mixing fantasy with facts either.