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The Problem with Christians
RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 16, 2016 at 6:27 pm)IATIA Wrote:
(March 16, 2016 at 3:47 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Isn't it interesting that, around the time I started pointing out all the ways that this guy severely misunderstands his subject matter, and cannot provide positive evidence for his god, he started ignoring my responses?  Angel

I guess he thinks he won.

Well, he has knocked over all the pieces and shit on the board. Isn't that the "win condition" for a pigeon who plays chess? Angel
Thief and assassin for hire. Member in good standing of the Rogues Guild.
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 16, 2016 at 7:01 pm)abaris Wrote: He ignores everything he doesn't have an answer for. If it's not in the manual, it goes above his head.

Well, maybe he did have some courses in anatomy - was that what he claimed? Or was it anthropology? Can't be recent though. Otherwise he would know about the fossil record. But even if it isn't recent, I'm amazed that he doesn't know about the evolutionary remnants in our bodies. The parts that serve no longer any purpose. I'm also amazed that he doesn't know that a different species of humans walked the earth only some 40.000 years ago. That's the blink of an eye as far as evolution is concerned.

Proof of a different form of humans or a conjecture?

(March 16, 2016 at 9:21 pm)Esquilax Wrote:
(March 16, 2016 at 9:00 pm)AJW333 Wrote: I said that the vast majority of mutations were negative.

And you're wrong. I proved that a few pages ago. Do you intend to answer for that, or persist with the same scientifically wrong claim?

If you consider minor variations, eg eye colour or shoe size to be mutations, then you are correct. That wasn't the kind of mutation that I was referring to. Given that the context of the discussion concerns the ever increasing complexity of life, and in particular the transition of one species into another entirely different one, the scale of mutations required to do this is massive. How does a fish turn its fins into legs? That would require a great deal of rewriting of the genes that code for that part of the body, not to mention having to create new code to produce the necessary nerve and blood supply and the requisite muscles to support walking. All of these mutations are big! And you have to have a stack of them to make the the transition successful.
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 18, 2016 at 6:27 pm)AJW333 Wrote: Proof of a different form of humans or a conjecture?

Why don't you go with Neandertals for starters? You could also have a look at the fossil records. Not that I believe, you would do that. But it would be a start.
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 18, 2016 at 6:27 pm)AJW333 Wrote: If you consider minor variations, eg eye colour or shoe size to be mutations, then you are correct.

So if I consider mutations to be what the definition of mutation states, then I'm correct? I'm very glad to be that kind of correct, and I'm a little worried that you seem to think it's okay to begin talking about evolution by redefining basic terms of the subject to better suit your rejection of it, rather than using the standard terms.

Quote:That wasn't the kind of mutation that I was referring to.

It's the kind of mutation that evolution refers to. Why are you using something different and expecting it to stick?

Quote: Given that the context of the discussion concerns the ever increasing complexity of life, and in particular the transition of one species into another entirely different one, the scale of mutations required to do this is massive.

That, or the quantity of mutations need to be large. Or hell, not even that: small mutations that intensify over time would eventually become these big, massive mutations, without ever mutating a whole lot in a single generation. Like, say you have an ancient giraffe with a short neck, and one has a minor mutation that means its neck is longer and it can feed off of higher branches. If that's a survival advantage such that it gets passed on, then the genes for that longer neck are already present, and having a slightly longer neck is also an advantage that would get passed down. But then in that second generation, the genes for the longer neck are already present and can be built on, generation by generation, inch by inch, until eventually you have a modern giraffe. At no point in that process do you have a huge mutation, you just have a series of small-yet-advantageous ones accumulating over time, but the end result is still a dramatic difference.

Evolution is a series of small steps, not singular giant ones. Stop assuming the end result is just step one.

Quote: How does a fish turn its fins into legs? That would require a great deal of rewriting of the genes that code for that part of the body, not to mention having to create new code to produce the necessary nerve and blood supply and the requisite muscles to support walking. All of these mutations are big! And you have to have a stack of them to make the the transition successful.

They aren't big mutations if they happen gradually. If you've got a fish whose fins slightly mutate to better allow it to propel along the bottom of its body of water, then you've got a fish better capable of catching food, and better capable of surviving. So say the next generation modulates the fin just a little more to go along the lakebed even faster. And the third generation does so too. Each mutation is advantageous, but they aren't enormous either, they're just small changes accumulating, one atop the other. The nerves and blood supply don't have to mutate instantaneously for walking, they only need to add a little here and a little there to supply the slightly different fin structure, until, one generation, what you have is a fish with fins that can allow it to traverse the land. Maybe there's better food up there, and so its little forays to the surface serve it well, and that trait passes down. The next generation can better travel on the shore, and oh, maybe one of the spawn can gain a minute amount of oxygen from air rather than water, so it can stay up there a bit longer. And that mutation is advantageous too, so it and the walking fin can be passed down through that fish, little by little, gradually increasing in function, until you have an amphibious fish, many generations out from its initial ancestor, who can walk on land.

Big changes are the result, but results don't always come from single steps.

So how much research into evolution did you do before you decided it was wrong?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 17, 2016 at 12:29 am)Esquilax Wrote:
(March 16, 2016 at 10:22 pm)AJW333 Wrote: Odds always matter. If the chances of something happening are extremely remote, why would that not matter?

Because if you happen upon any given phenomena, crying "that's so improbable!" doesn't actually make the phenomena not be happening. The odds don't exert any influence over events that have already occurred. You pointing out the improbability of an event will not cause that event to cease to exist: if the evidence for a given conclusion points one way, then that is where your conclusion should lie, no matter how improbable. Did you forget that "improbable" is still a positive probability? We live in a vast universe: there is enough chance for every improbable thing to happen.

... Not that you've bothered to demonstrate how you determined the odds in this case, anyway. You've made a claim that you seem content to provide no justification for, like you somehow suspect we'll just take your unqualified assertion as fact. Can you actually justify your conclusion?
OK let's talk numbers. Changes to the DNA code are brought about by random mutations - they are not a result of the organism's ability to consciously change its DNA. Epigenetics allows for variation in expression of the genes but when it comes to evolving into a different species, the requisite major changes to the code are randomly generated mutations.

Haemaglobin did not exist in primitive life. At some point, there was a genetic mutation that gave rise to its existence. This would have been random and at the time, pointless. Haemaglobin has no use without a myriad of supporting systems, eg the respiratory system and the circulatory system (and interestingly,  neither of these systems can function without haemaglobin).  

So what are the chances that haemaglobin randomly generated itself in a precise, usable form? The body uses 20 amino acids and so it would be one in twenty, multiplied by one in twenty, 574 times. So the likelihood of randomly producing the correct sequence is about 10 to the power of 650. Bear in mind that 10 to the power of 50 is considered absurd. Now the human body produces around 100,000 proteins. Some more complex than haemaglobin and some less so. So what are the chances of randomly generating the DNA code to produce all of these proteins that work together to make human life possible? Well that would be an even more absurd figure than 10 to the power of 650.

To give you an idea as to how unlikely this is, there are only 10 to the power of 90 atoms in the universe and it is only 10 to the power of 10 years old. So is the progressive mutation of the DNA from pond slime to humanity even possible? The numbers say no.
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 18, 2016 at 8:37 pm)AJW333 Wrote: OK let's talk numbers. Changes to the DNA code are brought about by random mutations - they are not a result of the organism's ability to consciously change its DNA. Epigenetics allows for variation in expression of the genes but when it comes to evolving into a different species, the requisite major changes to the code are randomly generated mutations.

Haemaglobin did not exist in primitive life. At some point, there was a genetic mutation that gave rise to its existence. This would have been random and at the time, pointless. Haemaglobin has no use without a myriad of supporting systems, eg the respiratory system and the circulatory system (and interestingly,  neither of these systems can function without haemaglobin).  

So what are the chances that haemaglobin randomly generated itself in a precise, usable form? The body uses 20 amino acids and so it would be one in twenty, multiplied by one in twenty, 574 times. So the likelihood of randomly producing the correct sequence is about 10 to the power of 650. Bear in mind that 10 to the power of 50 is considered absurd. Now the human body produces around 100,000 proteins. Some more complex than haemaglobin and some less so. So what are the chances of randomly generating the DNA code to produce all of these proteins that work together to make human life possible? Well that would be an even more absurd figure than 10 to the power of 650.

To give you an idea as to how unlikely this is, there are only 10 to the power of 90 atoms in the universe and it is only 10 to the power of 10 years old. So is the progressive mutation of the DNA from pond slime to humanity even possible? The numbers say no.

Can I just ask- in a question that I'm literally asking off the top of my head and yet blows your contention out of the water anyway- why you're assuming that Hemoglobin came out in "a precise, usable form"? Rather than, say, being derived from an earlier, simpler compound? Or from one or more neutral mutations that were still not sufficiently harmful to have been selected out of the population?

... You are aware that pointless or useless mutations can persist in a population simply by dint of not being actively harmful to the point of being fatal, right?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 18, 2016 at 8:17 pm)abaris Wrote:
(March 18, 2016 at 6:27 pm)AJW333 Wrote: Proof of a different form of humans or a conjecture?

Why don't you go with Neandertals for starters? You could also have a look at the fossil records. Not that I believe, you would do that. But it would be a start.
The Neanderthal narrative has changed a lot over the years. Initially he was very ape-like and couldn't speak since he didn't have the necessary physical attributes. That's all changed and it is now considered that Neanderthals were able to speak and in many other ways were much closer to humans than previously considered. So is it correct to consider them a different species to human beings? Probably not.
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(February 27, 2016 at 3:31 am)Kitan Wrote: They ignore logic.  Not only that, they ignore it to the detriment of reason so that they can create these silly counter arguments that are not even logical.  

Oh, forgive me, their arguments are logical to them and their perpetually damaging delusion.

Christians only create, as they did their imaginary friend since the beginning of time, apologetics because they know they are on the loosing end, and they think they can somehow cling to something meaningful if more idiots follow their brand of idiocy.

My advice is to ignore them,

Because even the Fundamentalist "Bible Believing" Christians are generally self righteous pacifists and therefore mostly harmless. This is no small thanks to the Enlightenment which damped down religious fanaticism and injected a lot of rationality in the Western world. The same cannot be said for many "Quran Believing" Muslims Sad
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 19, 2016 at 1:16 am)AJW333 Wrote:
(March 18, 2016 at 8:17 pm)abaris Wrote: Why don't you go with Neandertals for starters? You could also have a look at the fossil records. Not that I believe, you would do that. But it would be a start.
The Neanderthal narrative has changed a lot over the years. Initially he was very ape-like and couldn't speak since he didn't have the necessary physical attributes. That's all changed and it is now considered that Neanderthals were able to speak and in many other ways were much closer to humans than previously considered. So is it correct to consider them a different species to human beings? Probably not.

Yes, the narrative changed. We discovered new things, and we changed to fit that new knowledge. That's called "learning," and it's what rational people do when confronted with new evidence.

Are you seriously suggesting that learning is a weakness?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
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RE: The Problem with Christians
(March 18, 2016 at 6:27 pm)AJW333 Wrote: How does a fish turn its fins into legs? That would require a great deal of rewriting of the genes that code for that part of the body, not to mention having to create new code to produce the necessary nerve and blood supply and the requisite muscles to support walking. All of these mutations are big! And you have to have a stack of them to make the the transition successful.

Um, the muscles, bones, blood and nerve supply are already in place, they simply need minute adjustments over time. Many small adjustments equals a big change. Look at Tiktaalik for example. Only modest changes from precursor species, and the species which followed also displayed minor changes to the limbs in question. For someone who studied anatomy, you sure don't know much biology.
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