Re: Atheists are the biggest fools on Earth


John Harshman wrote:
> widsith wrote:
>
> > John Harshman wrote:
> >
> >>widsith wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>John Harshman wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Jim Spaza wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>>and that there
> >>>>>are genetic barriers or "islands" at the order or family level between
> >>>>>which no evolution is naturally possible.
> >>>>
> >>>>That's what this newsgroup is really for. You seem to shrink from
> >>>>thinking about the evidence that those barriers either don't exist or
> >>>>have been breached. While there is no way to show that they have been
> >>>>breached *naturally*, it's certainly easy to show that they have been
> >>>>breached routinely through the history of the earth. I.e., all
> >>>>eukaryotes at least are descended from a single common ancestral
> >>>>species, and humans in particular are related to all other animals,
> >>>>including, most recently, the other apes.
> >>>
> >>>I dont believe in such genetic barriers, but allow me to play devil's
> >>>advocate for the moment. If we assume, axiomatically (as it appears
> >>>Jim does), the existence of such barriers, does not this affect how we
> >>>interpret the evidence? We interpret the evidence, namely the
> >>>distribution of species in the space of possible genomes, to indicate
> >>>common descent, which we claim is incompatible with such genetic
> >>>islands. But if we have assumed genetic islands, would we still
> >>>interpret the evidence to indicate common descent?
> >>>
> >>>IOW, assuming the existence of genetic islands, and interpreting the
> >>>evidence in that light, how can we conclude that the assumption is
> >>>invalid?
> >>
> >>That's not "in other words". Those are two quite different questions. We
> >
> > Perhaps you could be more specific as to how those questions differ. I
> > thought that the third was a reasonable combination of the two earlier
> > questions.
>
> Sorry, I misinterpreted what you meant by "we have assumed". I thought
> you meant "what if they really existed".
>
> >>don't have genetic islands, so it's pointless to imagine what we would
> >>think if they existed. It's fairly easy to show that they don't exist,
> >
> > I disagree. As the inhabitants of T.O. argue daily with people who
> > believe they exist, it seems quite worthwhile to try to imagine what
> > such people think.
>
> I had thought you were talking about actual scientific reasoning, not
> just beliefs. Creationists can interpret anything in any way they
> choose, and frequently do. But this has little to do with reason, even
> with reasoning in conjunction with unusual axioms. The only way to make
> the genetic island axiom fit the data is to ignore the inconvenient
> data. Some people do this explicitly, like Kurt Wise and his group at
> Bryan College. Their explicit assumption is that Genesis is literally
> true, and anything that seems to contradict that view is wrongly
> interpreted by definition. There is literally no way that data could
> alter that view. I'm hoping that Jim is not in that position, and is in
> fact amenable to reason.

Yes, sir. My beliefs in God have everything to do with reason,
inference, and logic.

I don't know about Kurt Wise, Bryan College, or any other group. All I
know is what I myself believe and why. If these people believe that
Genesis describes a literal 7-day (24 hour) creation period, then they
are wrong. Science has shown that this is not the case. It's not a
question, in this instance, of either believing the Bible or believing
in science. The creation account uses the Hebrew word "Yom" which does
mean "day" and is never used in the Bible for anything other than a
literal "day". Yet, how can there be a day before there was a Earth
completely formed and rotating on its axis with a star 93 million miles
away for reference?

Anyway, it seems that science allows for many possible explanations of
how life occured and evolved. Some of these explanations don't mesh
with the Bible. Some do. The ones that don't mesh tend to be the ones
that some scientists prefer. And the religious interpretations of the
Bible that don't mesh with some scientific conclusions tend to be the
ones that some Chistians adhere to. Hence, the supposed conflict
between science and religion.

I have yet to encounter a rock solid scientific conclusion that
contradicts the Bible. Nor have I ever encountered a rock solid
Biblical interpretation which contradicts rock solid science.

>
> >>too. If there were such islands, they would not be connected by ancestry
> >>and descent, and we would not expect them to fit together into a
> >>consistent, nested hierarchy with members of other islands. The fact
> >>that we can easily do this tells us there are no such things.
> >
> > One, who assumes axiomatically, as it appears the OP does, that there
> > exist such islands, would be inclined not to interpret the available
> > evidence to indicate ancestry and descent. He will claim that we only
> > see descent and ancestry because we must to support our theories, and
> > that the nested hierarchy is a result of a nested heirarchy of the
> > families which is a result of their creation process.
>
> He could claim that, but it doesn't make sense. There is nothing in the
> separate creation process that implies such a hierarchy ought to exist.
> That's merely an ad hoc explanation. X data appear because the creation
> process resulted in X data appearing.

Maybe. I agree with the fact that much evolution is real. I disgree
with the conclusions of scientists that evolution is wholly extensive
to all life and explains everything. For example, if God created and
placed various life forms throughout history on the earth and allowed
them to partially evolve to some extents, then what scientific
discovery would contradict this? There is none.

The fact that God used the same genetic replication system and
carbon-based cellular systems just means that God likes to use the same
materials. That's all.

If God really did this, then we could still map the now-thousands of
common descents and create many evolutionary trees, not just one. The
only reason to combine everything into one evolutionary tree with a
supposed single common ancestor is to promote a purely natural cause
(abiogenesis) of all life on this planet. Now, if scientists wish to
promote such a thing, then they should describe it as just one theory
assuming abiogenesis, not as a historic fact.

>
> > I fully agree that the traditional explanation is more parsimonious and
> > more accurate. Frankly, I think the above explanation is a bit loony,
> > but I also think there are quite a few people who hold to it and it is
> > therefore worth while to find a way to disabuse them of such notions.
>
> Some people can indeed be disabused. Some can't. For those that can,
> demonstrating that the data do not fit their assumptions is the only way
> I know. Perhaps you have another notion.

I would rethink my position if the data showed conclusively that
abiogenesis occured and the tree of common descent DEMANDS that there
be only one common ancestor. Really, I would.

>
> >>You can intrepret any data in any light you want, but some data fit one
> >>set of assumptions much better than they fit another. When that happens,
> >>we suppose that the second set of assumptions (or theory, if you prefer)
> >>has been falsified. You can keep trying to stuff the data into that
> >
> > I would disagree. We only conclude that a set of assumptions has been
> > falsified when we gather data incompatible with that set of
> > assumptions, not merely that the data fits another set better. The
> > latter causes us to favor the set that the data fits better, but doesnt
> > falsify the the other.
>
> I really don't want to get into heavy philosophy of science, but
> black/white falsification doesn't fit the nature of science very well.
> Data can show that theory X is more likely to be true than theory Y, and
> statistical tests can quantify "more" for you. In the current case, the
> data fit common descent quite well, and separate creation very poorly,
> enough so that we can easily choose between them. If there's a third
> hypothesis you want to advance, let's take a look at it in comparison
> with common descent, because separate creation has already lost.

No problem. I agree with the black/*** falsification aspect.
Inference, however reliable, leads more to best guesses than conclusive
facts. Actually, while I am not the scientist that some of you are, I
disagree that the data fits creationism very poorly. I say this from a
purely scientific standpoint.

We know what? Maybe 50,000 points of data for the evolutionary tree,
most of which is morphological, not genetic (which is highly more
accurate). Given that there have been untold billions if not trillions
of greater-than-microscopic life forms since abiogenesis is thought to
have occured about 2 billion years ago, data filling in only %0.0005 of
the gaps is nowhere near enough to state that the data supports a
single common ancestor rather than creationism.

>
> >>worldview, but you will have trouble, increasingly so as you gather more
> >>data.
> >
> > My question was meant to ask what are the problems/trouble that would
> > occur as we try to stuff tthe data into the OP's worldview. Where is
> > the data incompatible with that view, not merely favoring another view.
>
> It's the same thing. Since common descent and separate creation are (in
> particular instances) mutually exclusive, data that support one refute
> the other and vice versa. In this context, that's what support means.

If you mean common descent as in a SINGLE common ancestor, then you're
correct that descent and creation are at odds. But, you can have
common descent from thousands of original life forms, can't you?

There is another problem which I asked about but never got a solid
answer. Who says that there was only one instance of abiogenesis?
Creationism aside, why not a thousand cases of abiogenesis? Because
each instance would result in life forms each with a slightly different
DNA replication system? Hmmm...maybe the present DNA replication
system is the only one that works on this planet.

>
> Now there are many ways in which separate creation doesn't work as an
> explanation, but the best single source for this would be the genetic
> data. We would not expect any nested hierarchy to emerge between
> "islands" under separate creation. At least nobody has every articulated
> a reason for such an expectation other than the lame "shows God's plan"
> (lame because any pattern at all would show God's plan, but nested
> hierarchy specifically shows common descent, and the coincidence would
> be ver odd).

Interesting. Do we have any examples of nested hierachies between
birds and amphibians? What about horses and something different? What
about chimpanzees and something else?

>
> >>In the words of Johnny Cochran, if the data don't fit, you have to quit.
> >
> > But all you have offered is that the data fits something else better.
> > To someone who understands science, thats sufficient. To the OP and
> > many like him, it is not, you still need to show the data doesnt fit
> > his "theory".
>
> "Doesn't fit" is not an all or nothing criterion. The data fit poorly.
> They always fit in some fashion. Or to put it in a statistical
> framework, P is never 1 or 0, but can approach arbitrarily close to either.

Well, to me, having the data somewhat fit when there is no other
information to consider to good enough for a best guess. However, in
my case, when I consider the Biblical accounts at the same time, having
scientific data come closer to X (contradicting the Bible) than Y (more
in line with the Bible) is not enough for me to dismiss the Bible in
favor of science's best guess.

Why do I not think that the Genesis accounts really happened in seven
literal days? Because the scientific evidence shows conclusively that
the earth is older than 6,000 years. Thus, whether the data supports a
4 billion year versus a 6 billion year birth date for the planet is
irrelevant. There is zero data that supports a 6,000 year birth date.
And the Biblical account does not DEMAND a 6,000 year date. The Bible
allows it. Science points to it. Thus, I believe the earth is about 4
billion years old.

Common descent from a single instance of abiogenesis alone? This is
where I have a problem.

Thanks. This is very interesting.

.

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