Theory of Evolution Should have never been a part of this game!

[Lincoln]

"They can if there is constant pressure on them to assemble"

No, it does not matter how much pressure there is. Read the entire statement. We are talking about assembling into a complicated machine with interactive parts. Also the analogy is concerning origins so evolution is not yet in operation. A random process cannot produce an information based machine.

The definition of information is that which is used by Werner Gitt. It is based upon the information contained in DNA. It consistst of 5 levels.

1. statistics
2. syntax
3. semantics
4. pragmatics
5. apobetics

[LotC]

What I want to know is how in the hell this thread got moved to the Civ General forum. Shouldn't this be in OT, or better yet dev/null?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by LotC
What I want to know is how in the hell this thread got moved to the Civ General forum. Shouldn't this be in OT, or better yet dev/null?

You've got the order reversed. It started out in Civ General because the guy starting the thread wanted to rant about Civ 3. It got moved to OT because that's where it belonged.

[Jon Miller]

ahh

one of the few intellegent debaters on the creationist side at apolyton, Lincoln

now maybe this debate will be reasonable (the evolutionist side already has good debaters in Krazyhorse and Provost (Provost is good here despite being bad in theistic debates))

I thought this thread was going to be similair to the civnation threads

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I should point out that the evolutionist side has many more than I mentioned

I just picked two recent ones

Jon Miller

[Lincoln]

I hope you can all get along without me. It is way past my bed time. Maybe I can catch up with this thread tomorrow. In the mean time perhaps there is someone here who can refute the following information laws (as it exists in all 5 levels). DNA contains all 5 levels of information.



There can be no information without a code.

Any code is the result of a free and deliberate convention.

There can be no information without a sender.

Any given chain of information points to a mental source.

There can be no information without volition (will).

There can be no information unless all five hierarchical levels are involved:

statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics [result, purpose or goal].

Information cannot originate in statistical processes.

These seven theorems can also be formulated as impossibility therorems:

It is impossible to set up, store, or transmit information without using a code.

It is impossible to have a code apart from a free and deliberate convention.

It is impossible that information can exist without having had a mental source.

It is impossible for information to exist without having been established voluntarily by a free will.

It is impossible for information to exist without all five hierarchical levels statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics.

It is impossible that information can originate in statistical processes.

[LotC]

Ahh... I clicked on it from the General forum. i didn't see that it took me to OT.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Lincoln
I hope you can all get along without me. It is way past my bed time. Maybe I can catch up with this thread tomorrow. In the mean time perhaps there is someone here who can refute the following information laws (as it exists in all 5 levels). DNA contains all 5 levels of information.



There can be no information without a code.

Any code is the result of a free and deliberate convention.

There can be no information without a sender.

Any given chain of information points to a mental source.

There can be no information without volition (will).

There can be no information unless all five hierarchical levels are involved:

statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics [result, purpose or goal].

Information cannot originate in statistical processes.

These seven theorems can also be formulated as impossibility therorems:

It is impossible to set up, store, or transmit information without using a code.

It is impossible to have a code apart from a free and deliberate convention.

It is impossible that information can exist without having had a mental source.

It is impossible for information to exist without having been established voluntarily by a free will.

It is impossible for information to exist without all five hierarchical levels statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics.

It is impossible that information can originate in statistical processes.

Theres no need to explain, and no paradox... since we perceive a reality, we had to have an origin. Since Quantum theory states that all permutations happen, and our perception is just one of these-

A quantum event made the unlikely event happen. Whether it be RNA (subsequently developing into DNA) or one of the many hypotheses.

Everything is possible... even from seemingly random processes, which aren't actually random at all.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Lincoln
I hope you can all get along without me. It is way past my bed time. Maybe I can catch up with this thread tomorrow.

There's nothing to catch up on. Just pick it up where it is right now.

The wristwatch/mousetrap argument (that neither can exist as a result of mutations) is not entirely valid. Genetic algorithms, given a few simple rules (which are equivalent to natural selection), have been used to produce chip designs that are extremely efficient, yet which no human would never have come up with due to their extreme complexity. For example, most chips designed by humans have a global clock that keeps every chip part running synchronously--such a chip is unlikely to have been produced by a genetic algorithm, since there is no readily apparent "intermediate stage" to the chip. The chips that are produced by genetic algorithms almost always run asynchronously (I've never heard of one that doesn't, but I'm hedging my bets here ), making them difficult to design but easy to "mutate" into.

If we were to design a wristwatch using a genetic algorithm, it would almost certainly be more efficient and at the same time more complex than our current wristwatches. It would also have an intermediate form, unlike our current wristwatches. Substitute this genetic wristwatch for the engineered wristwatch, and the "wristwatch on the stump" example takes on a whole new meaning.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Better than most taking into account my educational background.

Damn, this is almost fun to watch if the match is not so one-sided.

Better informed creationists had fled the scene unceremoniously

[Lung]

I know you're just trolling, but in the absence of Ethelred who obviously hasn't seen this new thread yet, i'll humour you with a few facts which perpetually shoot your stupid young-earth theories down in flames.

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
OK if we are going to get technical, obviously im not going to get anywhere with just my opinoin.

Numerous methods have been used to determine the earths true age. Taken as a whole, they give a more reliable indication. Consider some of them:

Magnetic Feild Intensity
The earths magnetic field is rapidly decreasing in strength. Assessing the rate of decrease tells us about the planets age. Dr. Thomas Barnes, one of the most respected magnetic field physicists in the world , explains:

If we went back about ten thousand years, the earth;s magnetic field would have been as strong as the field in a magnetic star. A magnetic star is like our sun; it has a nuclear power sourse. Surely our earth never had a magnetic feild stronger than that of a star. That would limit the age of the earth to ten thousand years (taken from william JJ Glashouwer and taylor, "the earth, a young planet?" quoting Thomas Barnes)

To quote from http://www.vuletic.com/hume/cefec/ (i know i'm being lazy, but these stupid claims have been rebuked so many times i don't feel it necessary to find multiple sources);

There are two components to the magnetic field of the Earth: a dipole field and a non-dipole field. According to Ronald Ecker,

only the dipole-field strength has been 'decaying' for a century and a half...the strength of the nondipole field (about 15 percent of the total field) has increased over the same time span, so that the total field has remained almost constant. [The] assumption of a steady decrease in the field's strength throughout history is also irreconcilable, of course, with the paleomagnetic evidence of fluctuation and reversals [in the geomagnetic field]. (Ecker 1990:105)

Evidence of the reversals Ecker mentions have been found in the magnetic orientation of rock on the sea floor.

Concentration of Ocean salt
The concentration of salt in the oceans is steadily growing. Yet the oceans are not nearly salty enoughh to have existed for billions of years. even with generous allowances, the salt concentration suggests they could be no more than 62 million years old at the most.

I couldn't see a counter to this argument, so i'll do so myself. I fail to see what evidence there is to support this claim. If all the world's salt was on the surface, perhaps it would only take 62 million years, but salt doesn't reach the ocean until it comes to the surface. Considering that salinisation of arable land is predominantly a result of human activities (e.g irrigation), i can see where the calculations used have been skewed by recent events.

Preserved red blood cells
Preserved red blood cells and hemoglobin have been discoverd in unfossilized dinosaur bones. Evolutionists dated the dinosaur as living 65 million years ago. However, Research shows that such cells could not survive more than a few thousand years. The dinosaur must have.

Do you mean such cells as the fossilised ones, or cells subject to decay, unlike fossolised cells. Show us the "research" that you mention

Absent Supernova
Supernova is the name given for the tremendous explosion of a star. It creates a brief light far briger than any other object in a galaxy. Calculations show that the remains of supernovas continue shining for hundreds of thousands of years. yet oservations of our own milky way galaxy do not show any old supernova. This fact suggests the galaxy has not exixted long enough for these to have occurred.

Obviously they weren't looking for the remnants of supernovae or the results of such. More evidence, please.

Helium concentration
Helium concentration in our atmosphere is gradually increasing. Yet the current amount is only about 1/2000 of what we'd expect if the atmosphere were billions of years old. The helium concentration suggests a younger atmosphere.

I love it how creationists over-simplify things by extrapolating current trends to infinity. Whoops! You forgot to consider the scientific maxim of "cause and effect"!! Concentrations of gases change over time, and not always in the same direction. These arguments are getting stupider by the minute

World population growth
World population growth is esimated by many population experts to be an average of about 2 percent per year. To be very conservative, if the population only increased one half percent per year (allowing generously for plagues, wars, starvation, etc ), in one million years ( the evolutionists gereral estimate of the age of man on planet earth) there would have been 10 to the 2100 power people somehow stacked on earth. (that number of people would actually fill countless trillions of entire universes.) even if an almost zero growth rate of population were assumed, in a million years the earth would have housed 3000000000000 people up until the present age. There is no cultural or fossil evidence for numbers anywhere near that level.
At the one have percent growth rate. it would take about 4000 years to produce today's population from a single couple.

What, are you assuming that no one dies? This ridiculous assumption would have the world with trillions upon trillions of every species on earth. In any case, the variety of human beings currently in existence has been shown to require hundereds of thousands of years as a minimum.

Topsoil depth
there is an average of seven or eight inches of topsoil that sustains all of life on earth, while the earth beneath the topsoil is as dead as rock. Scientists tell us that the combination of plants, bacterial decay and erosion will produce six inches of topsoil in 5000 to 20000 years. IF the earth had been here for 5 billion years, we should have much more topsoil than the seven or eight inches; more on the order of 56 miles thick!

This has also been answered, but the pressure of 56 miles of earth doesn't allow for 56 miles of topsoil.

Earth-moon distance
Measurements show that the moon is slowly withdrawing from the earth. Each year, the distance increases by about 1 and half inches, though the rate was likly greater in the past. Calculations show that even if the moon had been in contact with the earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance. This gives a maximum possible age of the moon, not the actual age. This maximum age is still far to young for evolution to have had time to occur, and much younger than the radiomentric "dates" assigned to moon rocks. Since the precise distance of the moon from the earth is critical for regulating ocean tides, the age must be a fraction of that amount of time.

What moron calculated that? My calculator gives 9 billion years, so 1.37 billion is not even close.

Absent Meteorites
Where are the meeorites in the multi billion year old geological column? While most meteors burn up before they reach the earths surface, many (up to 60 tons each day) land on earth. If the supposed geological layers were laid down over millions of years, where are the meteorites in the layers? no such meteors ahve been found in the geological layers.

This has been answered too. Answer? Erosion.

Short Period comets
Our solar system has an abundance of short period comets, that is, comets whose life span averages only 1 500 to 10000 years. yet if the universe is billions of years old, these comets would have disintegrated long ago. evolutions have had to scramble to try and explain their existance.

Are you sure about that? Are the ages of meteorites found on earth all younger than 10000 years old?

Our shrinking, self consuming sun
It just makes sense to suspect that as the sun burns its fuel, the sun gets smaller. This can give us clues about its true age. Dr. Join A. Eddy, an astrophysisct at the harvard smithsonian high altitud observatory in boulder, colorado, observes:




Dozons of independent studies from the Royal Greenwich Observatory and studies done independently at the US Naval Observatory suggest that the suns diameter is shrinking at the rate of six feet per hour, DR eddy's Studies suggest a solar diameter shrinkage of approximately ten miles per year.

Dennis Peterson applies this information to its logical conclusion:


How does one reconcile the earth being billions of years old, and yet the sun being in contact with the earth only 20 million years ago? whats more, over 99.8 percent of the earths supposed multi billion year history, the earth would have been exponentially to hot to support any hope for life.

You call that a logical conclusion?? Again, you extrapolate a single measurement to infinity.

The fact remains is that creation "scientists" make it up using dubious science to push their own agenda. Either you are a fool, or a liar like the others.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Evolution vs. beautiful wrist watch

Originally posted by danimal
I want you to imagine that you are walking through the woods and you stumble across a Wrist Watch lying on a tree stump. Would you choose to believe that the watch was a product of evolution..that everything in the universe just lined up correctly and fell into place...and voila...the Wrist watch evolved. Or would you chose to believe somewhere was a watchmaker that made the watch? I think you would believe the latter.

Oh, this one. Seen it, rebunked it.

The fundamental flaw is civilised humans have the prior knowledge of wrist watches (that they are manufactured), while we have no such knowledge of organisms or this universe.

Ask an African Bushman about the wristwatch. Go ahead. See if he knows that there is a type of professions called watchmakers.

Therefore, this so called "analogy" completely breaks down.

Why do creationists keep throwing the same old broken things at us? As ususal, creationists cheat, lie, and use unstated assumptions.

Bah, I say to them. Bah!

[Urban Ranger]

Stumper question for a creationist

Lincoln,

If new information cannot arise by random chances as per your assertion, what is the mechanism by which microbes acquire drug resistance?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Lung
I know you're just trolling, but in the absence of Ethelred who obviously hasn't seen this new thread yet

I assumed he just didn't care.

[Urban Ranger]

On a shrinking Sun

Lung,

The Web is your friend. Google is your friend. When it comes to debunking creationists, your work has been done for you, probably hundreds of times over.

One quick search on the Web using Google with the keywords "Royal Greenwich Observatory Eddy sun" yields a large number of webpages debunking creationist nonsense.

Some of the top links are:

Is the Earth Young?

A recent study out of the Observatoire de Paris reached back and re-analyzed 300 years of eclipse and solar diameter observations. But this time a careful study of the instruments used was carried out, in order to determine the true instrumental errors. The corrected re-analysis removes all doubt: the reported shrinking was spurious, the result of unanticipated instrumental uncertainties.

Sun Shrinking

Thomas Barnes, Walter Brown, and Henry Morris used the argument for several years after the original report by Eddy and Boornazian was discredited (Till, 1986). I guess a lot of creationists still haven't gotten the word.

The Legend of the Shrinking Sun (This is the Van Till article that others referred to)