Atheism is a religion

[Mister Agenda]

This is the classic "gene-duplication" demonstration evolutionists refer to. But creating a duplicate is not new information.

Why not? It's a whole gene (not to mention it's often a whole chromosome) that is out there not doing anything provided it's not detrimental. Point mutations can occur on it until the cows come home until there's a harmful one to be weeded out or a useful one to conserve. Do you think a block of marble contains more information than the Pieta? If so, you'd be right, it takes more information to define the location of every atom of the block of marble the Pieta came from than it does the Pieta. But which contains more useful information? A duplicated gene is like the block of marble, the point mutations like the sculptor's hammer, carving away everything that's not the Pieta.

For macroevolution to occur, you first need this duplicate, then you need that duplicate to mutate. I'm still looking for proof of that duplicate mutating into a new tissue, and it doing so in trending fashion-- as opposed to one shot in the dark.

Mutation of the duplicate is inevitable and will occur at a predictable rate.

You don't know they are transitional fossils. Your only reason is the presumption that evolution is true and that the fossils look similar or have similar genetic codes. Of course two paws look alike-- they serve similar functions. Of course two cat types have similar genetic codes-- they're cats.

And whoever designed the cats was on a limited budget with limited time and had a limited imagination and couldn't come up with multiple ways to do the same thing, therefore had to use the same genetic sequences. If there were scientific proof of a designer, the next step would be making inferences about the designer based on the designs. And the designs say, if there was a designer, it was a committee with varying degrees of competence and little direction, including at least one guy who really liked beetles. Evolution explains why we find the same genetic information in superficially related creatures and also tells us why some superficially related creatures (like civets and cats, say) aren't as closely related as they appear to be.

Finding a fossil that is similar to a cat and, say, a wolf, does not mean it is a transition or common ancestor. It means they are alike genetically. Being alike genetically does not lead to the conclusion that they evolved, unless you have a prior wish for them to have.

Evolution could have been disproved by genetics, but it has only been supported by genetics. Evolution explains the evidence while you have to explain it away.

Who cares? Well, if all I needed was a hypothesis to have science, I could hypothesize about mice being on the moon because the moon looks like cheese. You can hypothesize about anything, but that doesn't make it true or even very supported.

Yep. Good thing evolution has been supported by every science that touches it. Remember, any of them could have falsified evolution.

I was drawing a link between the two. Evolution is scientists' explanation for the origin of life without God.

In fairness, evolution also explains the fossil record, which God didn't. Evolution explains why we have appendixes when we can apparently get on quite well without them (yes, I know they have some useful bacteria, vestigial doesn't mean 'useless'), which God didn't. It explains why men have nipples. Why elephant seal males are so much bigger than the females. Why the longer an island has been separated from a continent the more unique species you will find on it. Why the Tiktalik fossil was found where it turned up. I could go on a very long time.

You need the Big Bang (scientists' explanation for the origin of matter without God) before you have evolution. And you need 95% more matter than we see today in order for the Big Bang to be logical.

It was evidence of an expanding universe and cosmic background radiation that led to the 'Big Bang' theory. The evidence could have been different if the Big Bang didn't happen, but we follow the evidence where it leads. And if you think you understand dark matter well enough to lecture us about it, you're mistaken.

I'll repeat, DNA is supposed to be copied the same every time. When it's not, that's the organism's failure to pass clean, tested information on to its offspring.

And it happens quite a lot. Most of us have dozens of mutations in our germ line.

If the organism intended to copy the information perfectly and it instead came out imperfect... that is an error.

DNA replication doesn't involve intent.

If the intended affect of the spark-plugs was to start a car, and it instead starts a fire, is that an error or change? If the intention/goal/purpose is not fulfilled, a mistake has been made.

Only things with intentions can make mistakes.

By all demonstrations, DNA is designed/evolved to copy the same every time. Don't try and tell me gene mutations are different from everything else in the universe.

Interestingly, mutation rates tend to be faster in non-coding parts of the genome. And gene mutations are similar to every other system in the universe where a self-replicating unit is subject to fitness sorting.

If you want to make that claim, it's purely subjective. When you call something a change as opposed to a mistake, you are making the assumption that there is no intended purpose in the universe. It's true that evolution says there is no purpose, but you can't use evolution's conclusion to prove evolution-- that's a circular argument.

So you are claiming that there is a God who intends DNA to be a 100% perfect copying machine but God failed to make it so?

At some point in history, species were multiplying in number.

Lots of points in history. Whenever we're between big extinction events.

Evolution says life started with one (or a couple) and now the earth has millions of species. It's up to science to prove this tendency for procreation and diversity, when today all we see are species going extinct and converging.

We're currently experiencing an extinction event.

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Let me endeavor to explain what evolution really is—what scientists don’t tell you:

Evolution hinges on mutations’ ability to increase genetic info—on the tendency for the smallest gases to evolve into other elements, become living things, and work together in complex organisms that accidentally become more complex.

How are we supposed to take your claim about what evolution hinges on when you can't even make it to the end of the sentence without straying into completely different topics?

But not only has increasing genetic info never been observed, tested or demonstrated, its logic is questionable at best.

If you can define 'increasing genetic info' in a way that can be falsified one way or the other, I'll eat my hat.

To assume complexity should increase when all we’ve seen is destruction, entropy decreasing, and extinction is to ignore the evidence.

The easily-observed evidence is that local entropy can decrease given an external power source. Which is, not coincidentally, the kind of open system in which we find ourselves.

‘Hypothetically’ is not a science. Understanding this, you, the atheist, bypass evolution’s driving points and focus instead on the physical evidence: dating.

Actually, those of us most familiar with evolution focus on its driving points and regard dating as a nice bit of confirmation.

Dating is based on assumption and therefore not reliable. If you assume the earth is old, you date with K-Ar and get billions of years; if you assume the earth is young, you date life forms with C-14 and get 6,000-10,000 years. Both are supported. Then you point to the fossil record. Well, without dating you have nothing but “it seems to me” arguments, observing strictly their looks and hypothesizing correlations.

And then there's rates of sedimentation, the 'molecular clock', the speed of light, and so forth that support each other. The reason different methods of atomic dating are used for different things is that they are more or less accurate depending on what you use them on. Using carbon-dating has nothing to do with how old the person doing the procedure thinks the earth is, it has to do with what it is you are trying to date. Good for bones or wood, not good for granite, and decreasingly accurate past sixty thousand years.

Scientist: "The whale pectoral fin and human hand look alike, so they must be related."

So they MAY be related. If scientists stopped at MUST be, they would never have gotten around to the genetic research that confirms that humans, whales, and all mammals are genetically related.

‘Hypothesizing’ is not objective science either.

Hypothesizing is an essential part of the scientific method. Science never stops there when it is possible to proceed.

When a creationist points out the missing transitional fossils you inevitably reply, “We’re lucky to get the fossils we have now.”

That's because geology tells us so. All that is informing the Creationist is the desire that it not be so.

But holding onto a theory until you see a contradiction is exactly the fallacious thinking science is not supposed to operate by.

One certainly doesn't abandon a theory without contradiction to embrace one without evidence.

No decisive evidence exists,

Just because you don't believe it's decisive doesn't mean it isn't. Unsupported assertion.

yet evolution remains prominent as long as there are not multitudes of discrepancies. Lack of evidence should inspire action—one must be skeptic before accepting, not after. One should not believe a theory in spite of deficient evidence.

The evidence for evolution is astonishingly abundant. No other theory of the natural world has had confirming evidence from so many different fields, some of which didn't exist when the theory was first formulated.

If one wishes to be objective, one should wait until the evidence is filled.

The evidence is filled. There is no evidence lacking. Evolution is the best supported explanation for the origin of species. No credible alternative exists.

A true scientist should entertain all possible alternatives including, yes, young earth theory, which is also supported by dating. To assume, it is said, is to make an ass out of science—you can pin whatever you like on it.

Yes, but only the possible alternatives. The earth isn't young. It definitely isn't young. The evidence against it being young is overwhelming and the evidence for it is based on wishful thinking. A true scientist follows the evidence rather than organizing the evidence to support his or her preconceptions. This scientific sin is the essence of what is wrong with so-called 'Creation Science'. Rather than starting with the evidence and following it to a conclusion, it starts with the conclusion and searches for evidence to support it. This method will always lead you to what you thought in the first place.

Yet science must operate by a number of assumptions. First, that God does not exist.

This is not an assumption of science. If it really must operate under the assumption that God does not exist...that is, if the scientific method doesn't work unless we assume God does not exist...then that would be proof there is no God.

If we cannot see, touch or hear Him this assumption must be made--even though it is directly within God's nature not to be seen, touch or heard.

He didn't seem to have much of a problem making his presence known according to Biblical texts, so you must not be talking about the Christian God. And if you're not, how did you come by your information about God's nature?

Second, since God does not exist, a theory for how the universe came to be without Him must be made.

I assure you, if our most powerful telescopes showed a giant hand cradling the early universe, that hand would become the focus of a lot of scientific attention. We have to come up with a theory for how the universe came to be without him because we can't find any evidence such a being was involved and we find lots of evidence of natural causes.

This is built on the first assumption, rendering it unreliable.

That science can only study things for which there is evidence is not an assumption, it is tautologically true.

Finally, using the assumption of evolution, scientists endeavor to prove evolution with dating.

Biological evolution is an explanation for the diversity of life that requires a lot of time. Evidence that the earth is too young for evolution to have happened would have falsified the theory. You understand that, which is why you want the earth not to be old. The evidence that it is incredibly old is undeniable to anyone whose mind isn't already made up. I didn't believe in evolution at first either, because I had been fed so much misinformation about it. When I actually studied it, I found that I was incredibly ignorant about it, and about science in general. I know you can get past your conditioning if you continue to investigate.

Since evolution requires many many years (concluded by our inability to witness it in the last 500 years), scientists take on the assumption that the earth must be old.

The conclusion that the earth is extremely old was arrived at independently of evolution. By the early 1800s (decades before Origin of Species), geologists were already estimating the age of the earth at tens of millions of years. In 1862, physicist William Thomson estimated the age of the earth at up to 400 million years, not taking into account the heat produced by radioactive elements, a process unknown to him. The current estimate of over 4 billion years is based on advances in dating techniques, not a requirement that the earth must be old.

Consequently, they date with a technique designed for older dates.

You have no real understanding of the scientific method as applied to dating at all.

Since evolution is assumed before dating, dating cannot be used to support evolution or it would be a circular argument.

If dating contradicted evolution you would be first on board the 'it isn't a circular argument' train. Please don't be disengenuous if you can help it.

Therefore a fossil tree with dates has no evidence at all. Without proper dating, you cannot put one organism definitively before another.

Good thing we have proper dating, and multiple methods of dating that confirm each other.

Let’s dig into the tendency of mutations.

Finally! I was beginning to think you're being paid by the number of unrelated topics you can put in a single post.

By definition, they are errors in copying genetic code. Mistakes most often bring disorder. They are easily 99.99% harmful or neutral, as evidenced by scientists' continued failure to introduce beneficial ones in labs.

Actually only about 70% harmful (mostly neutral), and there is a small industry based on taking advantage of mutations produced in plants by irradiating them.

The possibility of receiving a helpful mutation is there, but the chance of the same organisms being wiped out by a harmful mutation is much greater. An analogy: Say you won a million dollar lottery. You then stake all your winnings as well as your life savings on one game of blackjack. The odds are always in favor of the house, so chances are you'll lose everything. You may survive the gamble, but probability says the next dozen lottery winners attempting the same feat won't be so lucky. Multiply this by billions of years, and time is not your friend. Time is evolution's enemy.

If only there were a natural process that would conserve useful mutations while weeding out harmful ones. That's what evolution needs to work, some way of selecting against unfavorable mutations and selecting for favorable ones. Like playing a card game where you can discard what doesn't help you and keep what does until you have a winning hand. In that situation, time would be evolution's friend. A force that naturally selects useful mutations should have a snappy name, maybe some day someone will discover it.

Evolution is based on mutations’ ability to increase complexity, which has not been proven or even witnessed.

Or even defined in a way that can be tested. Strangely, I can't recall the biology text that states that evolution depends on mutations increasing complexity; but I suspect you're getting your information elsewhere anyway.

If the core element of a theory has no backing, your theory is subjective. Therefore evolution does not abide by the scientific method, as much as you would like it to.

There are two core elements to the theory of biological evolution: first, organism vary. Second, those variations which tend to reduce reproductive success are selected against, and those which increase reproductive success are selected for by some mechanism of heredity (genes were unknown to Darwin).

I described earlier how difficult gradual evolution can be. The giraffe was my example. A giraffe neck has to receive a mutation to elongate at the exact same moment the mutations to absorb the blood pressure (the “wonder net”), for a stronger heart, and to make thicker blood vessels arrive. And this has to happen dozens if not hundreds of times as the neck gradually becomes longer. You cannot have one without the others or the creature dies.

Splendid, you understand why evolution takes a long time.

Evolutionists like Dawkins explain this by saying mutated genes could stay dormant until the cooperating genes come along. But the clear rebuttal to this is theory is the fact that we see no dormant genes today.

I have very strong reservations about your ability to report or understand what 'evolutionists' have to say accurately or to be a good source of information about the current state of genetic science.

Look at a genetic code for any living organism, and there are no hundreds or thousands of dormant mutated genes waiting in the wings.

I expect defining any gene with no known function as 'no known function yet' helps you arrive at that conclusion.

Not only that, if one accidentally emerged, natural selection would extinguish it immediately. Why keep around a useless organ for millions of years until its accessories evolve to make it useful?

Nearly 30% of mutations are neutral. That means the organism that has them is no more or less likely to reproduce than one without them. Under those circumstances, genes that are not currently useful but cause no harm can be preserved many generations by sheer chance or by being 'attached' to genes that are useful.

Once again, scientists ignore logic in hopes of there being additional evidence for them further down the line.

That must be it. It certainly can't you that's wrong.

By increasing complexity, I mean never-existing-before genetic info. Scientists have tested on mice, but all they get is old info--an extra eye, bent up arm, misplaced ear. What evolution needs is who new tissues. One mutation is not enough. You need a series of improbably beneficial mutations that build on one another (dormant mutations which should not stick around) in order to get a new tissue. Otherwise, you may get a leg out of the forehead, but that’s on old leg you already had the genetic information for—not new, more complex information. The only alternative to the clear backward trend is for every single mutation to have a function, in turn, that keeps benefiting organisms alive while all other organisms die. That’s a leap of faith.

About a 1% differential reproduction rate will do it. It's odd you need so much evidence to believe something plausible and so little to believe something implausible.

To say every one of the hundred mutations helped an organism survive along the path of ninety cataclysmic disasters borders on sheer fantasy. When we see a species go extinct, it goes extinct—no straggling members with just the right mutation for the event.

Yes, about 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct, exactly what you have just said we would expect if evolution were true.

And once again, there are no fossils to document this. There are no eyes even close to the human eye. Several pieces inside the eye are completely dependent on one another, and there is no reason to suspect they once had been otherwise.

This is sad. In nature, right now, there are eyes in every stage of development from the most primitive to the most complex. Every example, from eyespots on tapeworms to the eyes of an eagle with every step in between, exampled in current species. Eyes that are just pits with photosensitive cells, eyes that have no lenses, and eyes superior to ours. There is no mystery to the evolution of the human eye. Read something besides Creationist crap, please. It distresses me that in this day and age this canard is still being erected.

The arrival of new tissues is vital to evolution, yet we have no documented accounts of it happening. Take the transition from fish to land animal. To develop lungs, the organism would need information it would not have. It's like growing an iron bar off my arm. There may be iron in my system, but that doesn't mean it can arrange into a functional organ.

Some fish had swim bladders, which got co-opted into lungs. Have you never heard of lungfish? Can you guess what they have instead of a swim bladder?

Some scientists get around this by suggesting organisms can pick up pieces of their surroundings, like leaves or feces.

You can't possibly have this right.

But let's be real. Where is a fish going to get lung tissue and have the random mutation at the exact right moment for it to become part of their DNA so they can pass it on?

You don't even know why what you're saying doesn't make sense and you want to be real? Fish don't and never did 'get' lung tissue from their surroundings and no one is claiming they did. The timing of the mutation determined when they would expand into the new environment, without it they would have remained shallow water dwellers or gone to deeper water or gone extinct like every other species of fish except the ones that led to tetrapods did.

If you jabbed an iron bar in my arm, how likely is it that it will fuse to my body and my daughter will have the very same chunk of metal when she's born?

Impossible. Getting jabbed with an iron bar is not an inheritable trait.

Evidence is not in favor of evolution.

Analogies that prove you know nothing about how evolution is actually supposed to work don't support the notion that you know what you're talking about.

In fact, logical interpretation of the evidence is against it. Yet scientists believe anyway. Why? Because they don’t want accountability, meaning, or a God in the universe. In an article titled "Confession of a Professed Atheist," Aldous Huxley wrote:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption... For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality.

Well, Aldous Huxley speaks for all scientists who have ever lived or will ever live, so I guess ya got me.

Conclusion: There are a lot of strong theories in science, but evolution isn’t one of them.

Name a stronger one.

Please don't respond unless you have scientific refutations for my claims.

I'm afraid you're unqualified to evaluate whether a refutation is scientific. In other words, after the 'iron bar in my arm' analogy, and the claim that scientists think fish get their genes from eating feces, you really have no room to cast stones about the 'sciencey-ness' of other people's responses.

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The answer is 24... 24 million generations to go from really tiny to really big. *Goes searching for Science News article..brb

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/0...on-of-big/

Thanks!