The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

If DNA mutations are the result of copying errors, then we should see very few large-scale changes to the DNA.

... We do, in comparison to the literally countless numbers of small-scale changes that we see in nature, every single time a population reproduces. It's not my fault that you're unfamiliar with this.

And actually, wait: are you now disputing the mechanism behind mutations? I mean, granted, there are other mechanisms, like gene duplication, gene damage and so on, but the majority of mutations come about via transcription errors during reproduction- humans get at least sixty mutations during that time, for example, and given how evolutionary changes mainly occur over generations, it plays a large role there as well. Are you seriously suggesting something else, or just desperately scrabbling for another hole to poke?

So how would that account for the proposed evolution of thousands of wildly different organisms from the same source of primitive unicellular organisms?

Millions of years and a correspondingly large number of generations? You are aware that most organisms reproduce way faster than even humans do, and human reproduction begins occurring after less than two decades for any given human, yes? Millions of years can easily generate trillions of generations for transcription errors to occur in, expanding exponentially as populations grow and diversify. This is another one of those cases where you're unjustifiably incredulous, but an actual understanding of the scale of what we're talking about renders your reaction utterly nonsensical.

How on earth do you get from a simple bacteria with a tiny number of proteins to a human body which makes 100,000 of them, when all you are doing is copying existing DNA?

Didn't we just establish that you aren't just copying DNA, you're also introducing transcription errors caused by an imperfect copying mechanism, sometimes to the point of straight up duplicating genes? I feel like we just got there given that you yourself acknowledged we were talking about "copying errors." The fact that you're questioning this at all, the way you're doing it, hints to me that you've got no real understanding of this mechanism at all.

My figures of 1:10^500 to make a single human protein look even more remote given that the DNA is actively fighting against the formation of anything different to what is already extant. Add to this the problem that the majority of uncorrected mutations take information out of the DNA,

"By examining the homologous protein sequences, de Jong and Rydén (1981) observed that deletions of amino acids occurred about four times more frequently than insertions [5]. Deletion events also outnumbered insertions for processed pseudogenes [6-9]. Deletions are about twice as frequent as insertions for nuclear DNA, and in mitochondrial DNA, deletions occur at a slightly higher frequency than insertions [10]. Deletion events are also found more common than insertions in both mouse and rat [11-13]." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2671719/

Information is irrelevant to this, and the DNA isn't "fighting" against anything. Do your research before you make statements.

And now we're going to play a nice game of "things you conveniently omitted from your citation," which I'm sure will be fun for everyone:

The paper is nine years old. It specifically refers to Mammalian genomes and, obviously, modern Mammals alone, and is thus not something you can extrapolate back into a truism for all of history. The sample size of 18 is not high, and thus further reason not to take this as true for all of biological history, let alone to make the absurdly overreaching claim that you did with it. Actually reading the discussion of the results, instead of cherry picking a single paragraph of the introduction and going no further shows that the report's authors peg insertions and deletions both as sources of genomic divergence in evolution, meaning that they don't take their own results as evidence against evolution, but rather for it, which takes the wind completely out of your sails. And finally, just to show exactly how dishonest/ignorant you're being about this citation, this is the line directly preceding the part you quoted: "Therefore, the study of the patterns of insertion and deletion is necessary to understand the mammalian evolution."

Bolding mine. So, to recap: the people you're quoting for evidence against evolution not only accept that evolution happens, but consider the results of their work to be vital in understanding how it happens. So you need to ask yourself: is there maybe something you've missed in their paper that they understand, but you don't? I mean, you clearly consider these authors to be valid sources of truth, given that you quoted them, so what is there that you've misunderstood, in using their paper to come to the exact opposite conclusion that they did? Are we supposed to take the trained scientists who know their stuff and who you yourself want us to take seriously, seriously? Or are we just supposed to discard their conclusions wherever they disagree with yours?

Are we just supposed to follow your presuppositions, even when you evidently cannot adequately or even knowledgeably defend them?

My requirements are not unreasonably high. If you want to say something is fact, it has to be proven, otherwise call it hypothetical.

If you demand that a thing be directly observed before it can be considered a fact, and yet hold to a belief that you have never observed yourself and call it factual, then you are being unreasonable. I believe the scientific term for what you'd be there is "hypocrite".

If you look at the complex interdependent systems that occur in nature and especially the human body, it is obvious that it has been designed. DNA is a 3000,000,000 piece code that could not have formed through random processes. Complex codes do not create themselves. So if the evidence indicates design, then there must be a designer. The evidence for God is in the complex design of living things, so the more we know about the complexities of life, the more evidence there is for the existence of God.

"If I keep subtracting from zero, I'll definitely reach one eventually!"

How can a single entity be made of multiple parts? It isn't hard.

The board of a company is a single entity made up of multiple persons.

But you're not saying god is a corporation. You're saying he's his own entity, plus also two other entities, one of which is literally also a person. It's not remotely the same thing.

There's less magic in corporations, for one.

What I asked was how the application of heat and cosmic rays, plus the occasional space rock add to the pool of information within the DNA. Any answers?

Yes: information is irrelevant. It is derived from DNA after examination, not during its origins and construction. You're just stringing buzzwords together with no understanding of their usage.

The point is that somehow we got from pond slime to a brain that has the the computing power (even if not utilized) of 38 quadrillion applications per second and none of it by design! There's a LOL for you. I'm starting to think this evolution thing is some kind of magic power guiding the forces of nature to go from random lifelessness to ever increasing complexity, all along representing absurdly large reversals in local entropy.

"I don't understand it, therefore I think it's magic, therefore it's impossible!"

Are you aware of the argument from personal incredulity fallacy, by chance?

That isn't the kind of language used too often around here.

We're talking to a dullard with too high an opinion of his limited knowledge base, not writing scientific papers. I don't know if you noticed, but this isn't a science journal.