| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
| Date: |
16 Jan 2005 11:34:03 AM |
| Object: |
Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
alt.atheism.holysmoke,alt.atheism,talk.origins
http://www.gogreenbay.com/page.html?article=129535
Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses'
'Answers in Genesis' speaker Budy Davis says animals are specially
designed to protect themselves (photo by Tina M. Gohr).
By Carli Allen
For The News-Chronicle
Consider the formation of the Grand Canyon.
Would you say it was created with a lot of water over a short
amount of time or with a little water over a long period of time?
Astrophysicist Jason Lisle posed that question with kids and
adults gathered at Green Bay's Bethel Baptist Church on Saturday.
Evolutionists are thinking in terms of millions of years, said
Lisle, so they believe the second question to be true.
Creationists are thinking along the lines of a Biblical worldwide
flood, which would make the first question true.
Both groups of people see the same evidence, but have different
interpretations, Lisle explained.
"That's what we're going to see on any subject. You can take a
look at the evidence through Biblical glasses or evolutionized
glasses. I'm going to show you that if you look at it through
Biblical glasses it makes a lot of sense."
Lisle is a speaker with a worldwide ministry called "Answers in
Genesis." The organization started about 20 years ago in
Australia, when people saw their churches struggling and often
compromising their biblical integrity in the face of the
ever-increasing attacks from those hostile to Christianity.
They realized that most Christians were not equipped to provide
answers to a doubting world in a so-called age of science. In
response, they began speaking on creation/evolution issues to help
equip the church to answer the skeptics, and encouraging
Christians to trust God's word.
As a scientist, Lisle uses his expertise to make try to defend the
idea of creation. One of the simplest defenses he offered Saturday
was what he described as information science, the idea that
information always goes back to an intelligent source.
"There's no known law of nature that can cause information to
originate by itself," said Lisle. "In the beginning, God created
the DNA. That's what the Bible says."
And he went on to use genetics, which is how he says an organism
changes with time, to argue the idea of evolution.
"If evolution is true," said Lisle, "then we're descended from
microbes, like an amoeba, a single-cell organism. At some point,
the information in our DNA had to increase. Evolution is about the
increase of information."
Lisle said all processes in nature reduce information in DNA. He
gave the example of having two dogs, one with long fur and one
with short hair. The offspring of those dogs could have short fur,
long fur, or medium fur.
"Now suppose there's an ice age. The dogs with the short fur will
tend to be eliminated because they're not as insulated, and the
dogs with the medium fur, likewise," explained Lisle. "The dogs
best able to survive in the environment will be the dogs with the
long fur."
Before long, said Lisle, the only dogs left would have long hair
and their offspring also would have long hair.
"This is a great example of survival of the fittest or natural
selection. It's not evolution because have we gained information?"
asked Lisle. "Not at all. In fact, we've lost information. If
there's a heat wave, are these dogs going to go back to having
short hair? Not at all because they've lost the gene for short
hair."
Evolutionists, said Lisle, might question this idea pointing out
that a mutation, or a copying mistake with the DNA could cause a
case like this, which he said is a valid point. In this case, DNA
information doesn't die off, but isn't properly copied.
"Suppose you have two dogs with the information for long legs,"
said Lisle, "and there's a mutation that occurs and you end up
with a dog that has short legs."
This isn't a case of evolution, the doctor argued. Though there
are people who breed dogs with qualities such as these, a dog like
that would likely not do as well in nature.
"Mutations don't help evolution," said Lisle. "They remove
information just as natural selection does. It's the opposite of
evolution. Information is being reduced."
This process, he explained, also couldn't change a dog into a cat.
"A cat has different information, you can't change the information
by deleting it," he said.
While there are many other example out there as to why the idea of
evolution doesn't work, Lisle said what's most important is the
one found in Exodus 20:11, which says, "For in six days the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in
them..."
---
http://lastliberal.org
"What this is coming down to is who runs the country. It's us against
them. It's the good guys versus the bad guys. It's the God-fearing
people against the pagans, and some of the pagans are going to church."
--Randall Terry, Operation Rescue, speech in Jackson, Miss., 4/92,
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| User: "Bobby D. Bryant" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
17 Jan 2005 09:02:01 PM |
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On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, (The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile) wrote:
Behe's argument is "I do not know how it happened therefore
the gods dun it."
Actually, it's "I know evolution didn't do it, therefore goddidit".
His bad inference is based on a bad precondition as well as the bad logic.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
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| User: "Marc Satterwhite" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
18 Jan 2005 11:28:34 AM |
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The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 10:56:51 -0500, Marc Satterwhite
<mtsatt01@athena.louisville.edu> wrote:
The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
http://www.gogreenbay.com/page.html?article=129535
Check out http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/designed_organisms/index.htm
for a different take on this.
Sorry: no difference. It's the same old *****, only from a
different *****. I heard and rejected this nonsense 30 years ago---
it was false then and it is false now. Behe's argument is "I do
not know how it happened therefore the gods dun it."
Please tell us--- just how does one know that something is
"unevolvable?" What mechanisms are in place to prevent a trait
from evolving, and how do you know?
---
Read a little further into the site. It's satire.
Best, Marc
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| User: "Ash" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
17 Jan 2005 01:12:55 PM |
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The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
Whilst I think that "There's no known law of nature that can cause
information to originate by itself," is just trying to muddy the waters
with essentially meaningless words and phrases, there does seem to be
something to the argument that mutations are all loss/decrease of
function mutations. Not much though as there are mutaions claimed to be
gain of function. nor can I see any scientific reason why mutations
would have to reslut in a loss of function
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| User: "Fredric L. Rice" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
18 Jan 2005 02:32:45 AM |
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Ash <ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
Whilst I think that "There's no known law of nature that can cause
information to originate by itself," is just trying to muddy the waters
with essentially meaningless words and phrases, there does seem to be
something to the argument that mutations are all loss/decrease of
function mutations.
There's no information lost; a gene is modified and whether it assists
the organism to survive or whether it inhibits it doesn't matter: a gene
that's been smashed by a cosmic ray has simply been modified, no
information has been lost or gained.
One of the more interesting things about "information loss" is how a
smooth beach of sand can be considered both "information rich" and
"information poor" depending on how one decides what information
consists of. Along comes waves which can deposit evenly-spaced peaks
of sand on the previously blank beach. Has information been lost?
Has information been gained? And for that matter, has order been
created out of chaos? Or has chaos ensued?
Creationists who want to pretend evolution doesn't happen some how at
times try to claim that all mutations (which don't happen) would be
negative since "information is lost." That's bunkum.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
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| User: "The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
17 Jan 2005 05:38:36 PM |
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On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 19:12:55 +0000, Ash
<ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
Whilst I think that "There's no known law of nature that can cause
information to originate by itself," is just trying to muddy the waters
with essentially meaningless words and phrases, there does seem to be
something to the argument that mutations are all loss/decrease of
function mutations. Not much though as there are mutaions claimed to be
gain of function. nor can I see any scientific reason why mutations
would have to reslut in a loss of function
Almost all mutations are neutral; the majority of the remainder
are desultory; a tiny fraction are beneficial. Given how fast many
communicable diseases evolve via beneficial mutation, one would
expect Creationists to abandon their absurd and observationally
false claims and beliefs that there are no beneficial mutations.
---
http://lastliberal.org
"Well, that is my fate: and it is as natural for us Flatlanders to lock up a
Square for preaching the Third Dimension, as it is for you Spacelanders
to lock up a Cube for preaching the Fourth." -- A. Square (Christianity
in two dimentions)
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
17 Jan 2005 08:19:43 PM |
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On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 23:38:36 GMT, (The Last
Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile) said in alt.atheism:
Almost all mutations are neutral; the majority of the remainder
are desultory; a tiny fraction are beneficial. Given how fast many
communicable diseases evolve via beneficial mutation, one would
expect Creationists to abandon their absurd and observationally
false claims and beliefs that there are no beneficial mutations.
Their claim is usually that, even if a germ changes, it's still a
germ.
That's the equivalent of "even if a cat gives birth to puppies,
they're still animals", but they're too ignorant to understand the
difference between "species" and "kingdom".
--
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the
one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
-- H. L. Mencken
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at verizon dot net
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| User: "Ash" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
19 Jan 2005 05:10:21 AM |
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The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
Almost all mutations are neutral; the majority of the remainder
are desultory; a tiny fraction are beneficial. Given how fast many
communicable diseases evolve via beneficial mutation, one would
expect Creationists to abandon their absurd and observationally
false claims and beliefs that there are no beneficial mutations.
That has largely been abandoned by the more advance Creationists, to be
replaced by a claim that mutations "do not generate information" or some
such, ie that "all mutations involve a loss or no change in
information" though information is vaguely defined
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/spetner.html)
A quick search shows this is better supported - most mutations are
indeed loss of function, but there do seem to be a very small number of
papers in which some sort of gain of function is reported. I'm not sure
how they deal with these, but one of the classic examples is dismissed
(Apolipoprotein
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/apolipoprotein.html). The
difficulty with such a search is that most mutations reported as gain of
function are those that override previous mutations
What would be needed to stop this argument would be various mutations
showing increases in enzyme efficiency, increases in substrate
specificity, decreases in substrate specificity (both I think as
otherwise the "this is actually a loss of information" claim would come
in) and a change in substrate specificity - a change in the substrate of
an enzyme.
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| User: "The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
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| Title: Re: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses' |
19 Jan 2005 10:42:56 AM |
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On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 11:10:21 +0000, Ash
<ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile wrote:
Almost all mutations are neutral; the majority of the remainder
are desultory; a tiny fraction are beneficial. Given how fast many
communicable diseases evolve via beneficial mutation, one would
expect Creationists to abandon their absurd and observationally
false claims and beliefs that there are no beneficial mutations.
That has largely been abandoned by the more advance Creationists, to be
replaced by a claim that mutations "do not generate information" or some
such, ie that "all mutations involve a loss or no change in
information" though information is vaguely defined
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/spetner.html)
Thank you very much for the URL. While reading the corrospondance,
I got the impression that Mr. Spetner was kind of "making it up as
he went along:" his opinions on "information theory" as relating
to evolution. Mr. Spetner redefined evolution, then insisted that
evolution has never been observed based upon his redeffinition:
his honesty is therefore suspect.
I asked Mr. Kent Hovind what he meant by "information" once, and
he muttered something about heat loss and chaos. Clearly he had no
idea about what he was talking about either.
A quick search shows this is better supported - most mutations are
indeed loss of function, but there do seem to be a very small number of
papers in which some sort of gain of function is reported. I'm not sure
how they deal with these, but one of the classic examples is dismissed
(Apolipoprotein
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/apolipoprotein.html).
It seems to be that no one can argue that mutation is not now and
then beneficial. The HIV mutation from SIV, where six billion new
hosts became available to the virus, certainly seems like a
beneficial mutation to me.
The difficulty with such a search is that most mutations reported as
gain of function are those that override previous mutations
What about mutations that increase expression (in new bodies) via
jumping species boundries, such as a virus? The parent virus still
exists in the parent host.
What would be needed to stop this argument would be various mutations
showing increases in enzyme efficiency, increases in substrate
specificity, decreases in substrate specificity (both I think as
otherwise the "this is actually a loss of information" claim would come
in) and a change in substrate specificity - a change in the substrate of
an enzyme.
Alas, I know nothing on that subject.
---
http://lastliberal.org
Guns don't kill people: Republicans kill people.
"Myths have their place. Starting one is something else. Believing in
those myths is the culmination of stupidity." --- God Dan
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