The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

I'm not arguing against the mechanisms behind DNA mutations. I am wondering how you change from one species into another when you only have small changes to existing DNA to choose from. I understand that you believe you just need lots of generations, but to create new proteins you need new code, which is why higher order animals like humans have so many more genes than simple organisms that we are supposed to have evolved from.

Are you familiar with frame-shift mutations? Gene duplication? Insertions and deletions? All of these, in addition to regular mutations during transcription, fully account for the addition of new genes. Modern biologists fully understand this, and I'm wondering why you think that you know more about this than they do?

No real point arguing with you on this. The chances of creating new, usable protein from random changes to the AA sequences is still way way beyond the trillions, it is in another dimension of implausibility, beyond 1:10^500. You don't accept this, so I will quit repeating it.

So what are the odds of magic eternal god man? You're so hot on the odds when you think you can bend them to fit your presuppositions, but you refuse to even consider them when it comes to your sorcerous alternative. Double standards, much?

Of course the DNA is fighting! It deliberately and intelligently corrects errors in AA sequencing.

How did you determine that this was deliberate and intelligent, rather than just a mechanism that obviously, those organisms that survived would have, because the alternative would pose a significant risk of fatality? You're just slipping your conclusion in there without justifying it.

No dishonesty or slight of hand here. I took their stats on insertion and deletion and interpreted them as harmful to the cause of evolution. I ignored their claims that it was good for evolution because it makes no sense.

So, to be clear: where the report agrees with what you already believe, the information is viable and worth taking seriously. Where the report disagrees with what you already believe, it shouldn't be taken seriously. So the factor determining whether the information is good or not isn't the evidence or a thorough understanding of the subject by trained individuals, it's how much the conclusions being reached aligns with what you, personally, want to be true.

Do I have that about right?

Evolution requires that information is added to the DNA library and this isn't going to happen if the majority of mutations delete base pairs and AAs.

There is no description of evolution in any mainstream scientific source that has that requirement, nor talks about information in the sense that you're talking about at all. You are simply straight up wrong here.

The complex interactions in nature and the human body are observed and are "factual." Because the chances of these advanced living systems evolving from non-life is ludicrous, I can consider their existence as proof of the existence of God.

You don't really understand how evidence works, do you? That, and you're also deliberately ignoring anyone who tries to correct you on your misconceptions. Why should anyone take you seriously on this, considering those two facts?

A very convenient answer. So I presume you believe that the earliest DNA didn't have any of the necessary proteins and enzymes to repair itself until some random mutations created them? That they are completely there as a result of pot luck and no design is present?

I don't know. That's the honest answer to give when you don't have sufficient evidence; I'm not actually bound to accept your alternative merely because you keep proposing it and attempting to poke holes in the other. See, when you don't have any positive evidence for a claim- say, the god claim- then it doesn't matter how improbable you make a single competing conclusion, you aren't rationally justified in accepting the alternative based on nothing. If you have no positive evidence for evolution, then you still have no positive evidence for god: it's not a zero-sum game, here. You don't know, at that point.

I've explained all this to you before, as have several of my colleagues here. So I guess we can add basic epistemology to the list of things you're willfully ignorant of.