I have personally witnessed countless "Christians" enter medical or legal schooling only to be vividly atheist at the end of it all. It really gives pause. I'm not certain it isn't because they literally have discovered they are (G)gods or they have stumbled upon what most of us can't. The debate is endless and fruitless. Once you have seen, you can not unsee. Unfortunately,it works both ways.
Evolution is a Fact - Index of Parts 1 - 40
by cofty 191 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Giles Gray
Perry:-" Sorry guys, my challenges & questions are directed toward Cofty, the author of this thread. Still waiting Cofty"
I think you have a long wait ahead of you Perry, as i don't suppose Cofty relishes the thought of demeaning himself by condescending to your level of childish antics.
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cofty
Cofty you need to provide backup evidence for your claims - research papers and links. - Ruby
No I don't.
Every statement I have made in this series of 40 threads is based on personal research in a wide range of popular science books and articles. It is aimed at helping people with little or no science background to get a glimpse of the evidence for biological evolution.
If anybody is interested in learning more then they can do their own reading and research. I have frequently suggested a reading list.
If anybody wishes to object to any of the evidence I have presented, then the onus is on them to provide evidence that they have researched and to present it in their own words. Copy-paste and videos are not admissible.
So far no such evidence has been forthcoming. Hundreds of insults and personal attacks do not count as evidence. Arguments from personal incredulity are also excluded.
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cofty
Perry - Recovering gave you a link to an excellent article on metamorphosis.
Does is answer your question? Have you even read it?
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Perry
Cofty you need to provide backup evidence for your claims - research papers and links. - Ruby
No I don't. - Cofty
I think that sums up Cofty's series on evolution.
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cofty
I think your disgraceful misquote sums you up Perry.
Does your blatant dishonesty not make you feel embarrassed?
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Perry
Now that we have the small detail of EVIDENCE out of the way, we can really start to get somewhere with Cofty's thread.
Let's see if we can invent a story that applies Cofty's evolutionary principles to the caterpillar:
Once, there was nothing. Then nothing happened to the nothing and everything appeared. But the everything was a mess and disorganized. Then, two rocks bumping together in water produced a chemical reaction at the same time that lightning struck it. For no apparent reason, the chemical reaction was agreeable to itself and it decided to do it again and again. The principle of replication was thus introduced to the primordial soup and after billions of years and trillions of attempts, the first replicating cell was formed that required thousands of interdependent parts and chemical reactions to accidentally appear at the exact same time, at the molecular level for no reason.
Likewise, the first cell also found itself agreeable to it's own existence and so it decided to replicate itself in accordance with the principle of self-replication long established in the chemical laden primordial soup. In order to do this, an information containment system was needed to contain the information required to accomplish such a feat for the thousands of interdependent parts and processes needed for the cell to function. So a double helix protein was invented to hold such information. Then a four letter coding system was selected among thousands of candidates to efficiently carry the information, that if stacked like the pages of a book, would reach more than 3/4 to the moon.
Eventually after eons of time and "millions of years", the cells themselves realized that if they worked together they could assimilate themselves into complex organisms that could better compete for limited resources.
After many more millions of years, the caterpillar appeared. It fed off the rich vegetation of a primitive landscape. Time after time the caterpillar tried to reach too far from the branch only to fall to the ground in defeat. Eventually, it learned that if it made itself gooey and sticky it could travel farther out on a branch without falling. Yet, eventually it ran out of leaves to eat once they were gone.
Already existing in a semi gooey state, the caterpillar increased this process until it digested nearly all of itself with enzymes. Yet part of the original caterpillar remained in the goo. The part that remained, "remembered" how it felt to be so far out on a limb that all resources had been exhausted.
Seeking to move away from this discomfort, and toward a place of stasis - the coding began to organize itself over millions of years to include the ability of flight. This allowed the organism, when it found itself too far out on a limb, to simply fly away to live another day - just like Cofty.
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cofty
Have you read the article Recovering linked for you? Did it answer your questions?
To get more of an appreciation for how this works you need to read an introduction to evolutionary developmental biology - often shortened to "evo devo".
One of the most accessible books on that is "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean B. Carroll although I warn you it's not an easy read. The detail of how genes control the development of anatomical features is brilliant.
Edited to add - your sophomoric attitude makes conversation very difficult Perry.
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cofty
Perry - On the subject of "EVIDENCE" I can provide abundant evidence for every statement in every one of my 40 threads - that's 40 so far, plenty more to come!
I explained to Ruby that I don't need to quote academic papers in a post - on a non-science forum - that is designed to be a bite-sized introduction to the topic. But you already know that.
There are literally thousands of peer-reviewed papers supporting this entire series of threads. Go to Google Scholar and they are only a click away.
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LoveUniHateExams
The debate is endless and fruitless. Once you have seen, you can not unsee. Unfortunately,it works both ways - Christians who study biology or medicine and become evolutionists have seen lots of things.
They've discovered that humans and chimps are 98.8% similar in non-coding DNA.
With humans and gorillas, it's 98.4%.
Humans and orangs, it's 96.9%.
Dogs are less similar to us than are orangs, and oak trees are less similar to us than are dogs.
They've seen evidence for fossil humans, such as Homo ergaster and Homo neanderthalensis.
Re scientists who are Christians or convert to Christianity - what have they seen?
They're entitled to their beliefs but they haven't seen God, they haven't seen Christ, they haven't shown that the Bible is true.
Perry's challenge to Cofty was about how metamorphosis happens and how it evolved. It's a good question but there's no reason to assume that the changes animals undergo in metamorphosis are miraculous. So, no need for a designer ...