Creatiolution. This could be the answer.

by Spectrum 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  seattleniceguy

  Spectrum,

  As a guy who started out suspecting evolution might have a few things on the ball but having a difficult time seeing how it could have worked to effect large-scale changes, let me assure you that any investment of time you make to do the research will be fascinating and rewarding. Looking back, I literally could not even imagine the scope and scale of the evidence that was waiting to be found. All it takes is a trip to the library and the time to read carefully. Knowledge is waiting.

  Best wishes!

  SNG
• 

  hooberus

  The reason I still have a problem with an unaided process and mechanisms is because the numbers don't stack up. When calculating probabilities for this and that to happen the numbers always indicate a requirement of nonsensical faith to continue belief in such an unaided process. Scientist consider the prob of 1 in 10 to the power of 50 as a non event. Evolutionary probabilities go astronomically beyond this number. I know you've asked me not to go down the road of is it faith or not but I can't help myself . I don't want to go down another faith based system.

  Imagine that there's a lottery in China every month. Everybody (1 billion people, or 10^9) gets entered into it and one name is drawn out of the hat each month (and presumably given some money or what would be the point?). After a year there will be 12 names. Now, for whatever list of names you have at the end of the year, it's quite obvious that the chances of getting that exact list are astronomical (10^108 which is not as you might think, around half as likely as a 10^50 event but is 10^58 times less likely). And yet, there you stand with the list in your hands. What's gone wrong here? The problem is with measuring the likelihood of a particular event after the fact. Given that an event happened, the odds of it happening after the fact are 1.

  Your point above is not nesessarily parallel with all probability calculations in the debate in which we are attemting to scientifically discern wherether or not intelligent imput was required (using mathematics) for past events unobserved by humans.
  
  
  
  (see also:http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i2/skeptics.asp)

  While the odds of evolution taking the particular path it did would have been mind-boggling if anticipated, calculating them after the fact is pointless - unless you want to deliberately deceive people, which may well be the goal of creationists who come up with such numbers. Evolution by natural selection is something that given a certain broad range of initial conditions - not only can occur, but must occur.

  I agree to an extent in that that it errant to attempt to disprove evolution by using calculations of the odds of generating exact specific sequences by chance (such as a specific tomato protein coding sequence 1,000 nucleotides long). However, it is not errant to attempt to disprove evolution by examining for example mathematically the relatively narrow range of possible functional protein sequences compared with the much larger amount of potential non-functional sequences, or to calculate the odds of getting any functional proteins, or other bio-molecules in an abiogenesis scenario with known laws of chemistry.
• 

  hooberus

  Almost Atheist said:
  
  

  without getting into who says something so wildly improbable has therefore never happened, let me instead ask about the probabilities about evolution. Which things in particular are you referring to as improbable?

  Creationists make a habit of starting with some bad assumptions, then building huge mathematical refutations based on them. For instance, they might talk about the probability of life ever starting at all. They talk about such and so chemicals needing to be in this and thus order in the presence of whatever. That life might begin in any one spot with any one shoebox of chemicals would be quite improbable. But they forget that whatever processes were involved were going on all over the planet, for a billion years. It only had to happen once to get the whole thing kicked off.

  After all, how likely is it that a lightning bolt will set a particular tree on fire? And yet forest fires start this way. How? Because there are a bazillion trees and scores of years for it to happen in.

  You are mistaken in that:

  1. The calculations done by many creationist scientists (and non-creationist scientists who have pointed out the problems as well) do in fact allow for the possibility of large areas as well as long timespans (such as a billion years).
  
  2. Due to numerous factors even if such events did somehow "happen once", this still would not at all mean that the whole thing would then still be likely to get kicked off. For example even if a primitve self-replicating entity capable of self-replication did come about once, numerous factors (e.g. rapid death from UV damage, hydrolysis by water, etc.) would still strongly weigh against its its even short term survival. Other factors would additionally factor against the survival of any potential offspring (error catastrophe, etc.).
  
  Mathematical problems not only affect abiogenesis but other following evolutionary scenarios as well: see for example: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/TJv15n3_Protein_Families.pdf http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v17n1_proteins.pdf http://evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/mutation_rate.htm
• 

  hooberus

  
  A better lottery analogy would be evey one in China (1 billion people) slecting a number between 1 and 1 trillion, and then each month comparing these numbers with 10 "winning" numbers within this range (thus no pre-necessity of a winner each month as in the previous example).
  
  

  Since a trillion is 1,000 billion and there are a billion persons in China the odds would be 1000 to 1 against any one of the numbers being hit upon in any month. However this would be offset by the fact that there are 10 possible winning numbers - hense the odds drop to 100 to 1 of there being a winner in any month (thus on average there should be 1 winner every 8.5 years ).

  However, the odds of getting 12 winners in any single year would be 1 in 10 to the 24th (100 times 100 times 100 times etc.- twelve times), which if it occured (even if within a 1,000,000 year period of lotterys) would be strong evidence of fraud .

  Furthermore, if in the resulting fraud trial an indicted lottery officials defense was that: "Unprobable things happen all the time judge !- why take this deck of cards judge and randonly shuffle it. Now that you are done here is the sequence (7of clubs, 6 of diamond, etc.). Do you know judge that the odds of getting the specific combination of playing cards that you just got from random shuffling?- Why it is less than 1 in 10 to the 67th! yet it still happened! and there certainly was no fraud on your part in such an unlikely event occurring. Therfore, why should anyone be charged with fraud in the lottery case of 12 winners in the past year with its much more likely odds of occurring!"

  Of course a wise judge would recognize the fallacy in the mans defense argument, in that (similar to as Dr. Batten wrote in another AiG arcticle) that any arrangement of cards is as ‘good’ as any other and there will be of necessity (with 100% probability) an arrangement of cards within the period of time that the judge shuffled them. However, within the time period of the lottery (even if 1,000,000 years) the odds against twelve winners in any year are in contrast a very low probability (so low that intelligently directed fraud within that year would be very well substantiated).
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orangutan was reading two books-- the Bible and Darwin's Origin of Species. In surprise, he asked the ape, "Why are you reading both those books"? "Well," said the orangutan, "I just wanted to know if I was my brother's keeper, or my keeper's brother."
• 

  hooberus
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  brother hooberus,

  you leave out the fact that a scientist who could pull the carpet out from under evolution, would have a huge career boost. it's in the professional interest of scientists to one up their peers.

  and the interesting thing about you bringing up this counter-argument, is that you obviously do not apply it to your own belief systems, or the people you reference in support of them. remember that conversation we had about the rafter in your own eye? ya. that one.

  ts ps: you teach me the valuable lesson to always quote what you say when i reply, before you remove it. jeez hoob. what's wrong with just making a post offline, and then just freaking posting it online in one shot?
• 

  hooberus

  you leave out the fact that a scientist who could pull the carpet out from under evolution, would have a huge career boost. it's in the professional interest of scientists to one up their peers.

  
  

  
  Given the philosophical worldviews accompanying evolution (materialism/naturalism)*, as well as the evolutionary theorists ability to adapt evolution to virtually any data, it would be a daunting task to come up with any way to "pull the carpet out" that would convince the theorists/ materialists.

  Furthermore, any scientist that even attempts to openly "pull the carpet out from under evolution" also faces the possibility of an attempt to "pull the carpet out out from under" his career, once the entrenched evolutionary establishment turns on him and labeles him a "creationist".

  *Those who only consider only considering "naturalistic" (materialistic) explanations for all phenomena (see below quotes) including origins (before looking at and regardless of the data) are virtually bound to be limited to some sort of evolutionary scenario.

  "[W]e have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations…that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” (Lewontin, Richard [evolutionist scientist], Billions and Billions of Demons, New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28., emphasis added)
  
  "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic." Scott C. Todd
  Department of Biology, Kansas State University, 18 Ackert Hall, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA Nature 401, 423 (30 September 1999); doi:10.1038/46661 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v401/n6752/full/401423b0_fs.html
  
  
  Many evolutionists (including the NAS and teachers groups) even go so far as to require that "science" itself be defined as being limited to only "naturalistic" explanations:

  "The NAS defines science as a search for purely natural explanations for all phenomena. Under this definition, science is bound to oppose any theory of intelligent design, no matter how compelling the evidence. That is fine, but the NAS should admit that this definition is a philosophic choice, and a statement of faith that natural explanations indeed exist for all things, and indeed are true." (A Critical Analysis of Science and Creationism A view from the National Academy of Sciences In relation to Intelligent Design Theory By Casey Luskin)

  “If there is one rule, one criterion that makes an idea scientific, it is that it must invoke naturalistic explanations for phenomena … it’s simply a matter of definition—of what is science, and what is not.”
  
  (Eldredge, Niles, 1982, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism, Washington Square Press)

  and the interesting thing about you bringing up this counter-argument, is that you obviously do not apply it to your own belief systems, or the people you reference in support of them. remember that conversation we had about the rafter in your own eye? ya. that one.

  
  My previous comment (which I decided to remove before any comments were posted because I decided that I did't want to take the time to now to get into another subject). applied my comments to "all" scientists, not just evolutionts- hense there was no rafter in my eye (as there wasn't in my eye in the previous conversation either).
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  UNDER CONSTRUCTION

  true hoob, so true what you say. evolution is not aiming at anything. it's always under construction. glad we finally agree on something.

  TS
• 

  hooberus

  UNDER CONSTRUCTION

  true hoob, so true what you say. evolution is not aiming at anything. it's always under construction. glad we finally agree on something.

  TS

  I agree that evolution is always "under construction" -however many evolutionists are aiming at something-that is for non-designer explanations for the world around us.