Re: Atheists support evolution because evolution supports their


"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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chris thompson wrote:
On Oct 10, 7:59 pm, "Suzanne" <shil...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Mike Painter" <mddotpain...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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Suzanne wrote:
<snip>
If I told you about baobab trees and you had never
seen one and no one you know ever wrote about
them or photographed them or saw them but me,
you would not believe me. But if I told you now
that the baobab tree supplied us with kapok for
pillows, would you believe that if you never heard
of kapok?
True, especially if it came from you.
However it would be possible to find proof for the existence of
the tree
with little effort.
Further if you asked 10,000 people about the tree you would not
get 10,000
different descriptions and stories about it.
If you could provide any evidence for your god that was 1/10th
of the
evidence for the existence of the tree there would be no
atheists.
Evidence, evidence, evidence. You live by evidence.
Life just doesn't always give you the luxury of having
evidence. Suppose someone said to you, (perish the
thought!) "Don't move!! It's important that you listen
to me and don't bat an eyelash. There is a snake by your
foot. I'll distract it, and when I tell you to, then move."
Sometimes you have to trust people.

Suzanne
Is there any reason to think this is one of those times?
Is it too late to mention that kapok doesn't come from baobab
trees, though they're both in the same family?

No, it certainly is not too late. I hereby designate that you
should wear the true crown and hereby be knighted as the
genius of Adansonia.
...And thank you, I did not know that. : )
Suzanne
Speaking of which, how did you like my evidence for human evolution,
which you did request if you will recall?

Was this the post about humans being related to chimps?
I'm sorry if I did not post an answer. Can you show me
where it is?
Suzanne
Since Google Groups isn't currently working, I'll just paste the whole
thing here:

It's the massive amount of DNA sequence data that makes the strongest
case, though we had enough to go on long before DNA sequencing. Here's
a simple explanation.

If you compare the same DNA sequences from humans, chimps, gorillas,
orangutans, gibbons, and any monkey (pick one) using a phylogenetic
analysis program, you will find a consistent pattern: the first three
will always go together, the orangutan will be next to them, and the
gibbon will be next to the monkey. In about 60% of cases, the human
and chimp will be neighbors, but in about 20% it will be human and
gorilla, with another 20% chimp and gorilla. But the rest of the
pattern will be nearly 100%. This will be true for genes with
important functions, and for junk DNA with no function at all. And
this is the nested hierarchy I keep telling you about.

And if you count not just the arrangement of species but the distances
separating them, the monkey will be farthest from the others, then the
gibbon from the great apes, then the orangutan from the African apes,
and the chimp will be a little bit closer to us than to the gorilla.

Further, the sorts of differences that separate all these species are
exactly the same sorts we see happening all the time as mutations. We
understand the processes that make these differences happen quite
well.

In addition to the overall pattern, some of the individual genetic
differences are so strikingly inexplicable by anything other than
common descent that they are conclusive all by themselves. The biggest
of these is the fusion of two chimp (and other apes and monkeys)
chromosomes into a single chromosome in humans. This fused chromosome
has the remnants of an extra centromere just where we would expect it,
and the remnants of two telomeres just at the point of fusion.

Separate creation can't explain any of this, unless the dust of the
ground happened to contain a complete set of ape chromosomes.

I won't bother going into the anatomical and paleontological evidence.
We don't need it here.

John, thank you first of all for supplying this. It's a bit too
simplified to be believed because there is no technical
information to look at. It's just someone accepting your
word for what you are saying if someone believes this.
I would rather hear the technical aspect of it, and also
why anyone opposes it as well, along with why you think
that they are wrong.
You really aren't equipped to understand the technical aspect. But if
there's something specific you want more detail on, please tell me
exactly what.

Now why anyone opposes it is simple: they have a sacred book that they
think contradicts my evidence. I think they're wrong because sacred
books don't trump physical evidence.

You are bringing the Bible into this.

Yes, simply because you asked me why some people oppose human
relationships to other apes. I told you the reason. But it's not just the
bible. Literalist believers in the Qur'an and the Vedas also oppose
evolution.

I didn't ask you why some people oppose human relationships
to other apes. The way you have worded this it has a different
meaning. I was asking about your belief about how humans
and chimps are genetically related to one another in what you
believe. I know we earlier spoke about the creation account
and how man came to exist.

It is a book of
history, it is a book of faith, and it is a book of science.

You're saying that the bible is a science text? Paging Tony Pagano.

Yes I am saying that. In fact, I've already said it.

But the science that it uses is God's science, which he
has simplified for you since his science would be over
your head and the heads of most that read it. In the
Creation account, it says that God created light. It says
that it was good. That was on the first day. It was not
until the 4th day that God created the sun, the moon,
the stars. So the only kind of light that He created on
the first day would be all that travels at the speed of
light, all of the electromagnetic radiation photon energy.
*He*calls it light. Also, 1 Tim. 6:16 says additionally
that He, himself, dwells in "unapproachable light."

Sorry, but why has this discussion of light wandered in from some other
thread? We were talking about evolution.

Because you said that the Bible is not a book of science.

Suppose that the earth had two continents and there was
not a way to get from one to the other. Suppose that life
started on each of them, and they both had the same
climate. Do you think that both continents would have
the same animals develop?
No.

That's what I was hoping that you would say.

Why? What are you trying to get at here?

I'm not setting a trap for you, if that is what you
mean by asking that. I am wanting to hear your
answers to the simple questions that I have asked.

Do you think there would be
bears on each that are like one another? Do you think they
both would have giraffes? elephants, chimps, chickens,
humans? Or, do you think they would not be recognizable
by those familiar ones I named.
There's no need to make this a hypothetical. Real continents partake
enough of the character of your little experiment to make real
observation possible. Many continents have been isolated from the rest
for long periods of time, often 50 million years or more. And we know
that you don't get the same biota twice, though you get a number of
interesting similarities. In Australia, animals that look much like
wolves (thylacines), but on the other hand large grazers that look
nothing like cows (kangaroos). Madagascar, having no woodpeckers, has a
mammal that performs much the same tasks, but in a quite different way.
And so on. How does this relate?

You are relating just fine, and you are answering exactly
the way I hoped you would. Now I have some more
questions. Please answer all 3 of them.
1. How do you think the first organism came into being?

I don't know, but I suspect that there was a gradual transition from a
population of things you wouldn't call organisms to a population of things
you would.

All right. What are we calling life here? Are you speaking
of cells that are alive, and wouldn't that be an organism?
Such as an amoeba, or a paramecium? Something like
one-celled organisms?

2. How do you think the second one came about?

There were no "first" and "second" organisms. There would have been a
population of many individuals (or individual-like sysems).

John, you are misunderstanding my question. Do you
think that life came about on the planet because of one
single cell or lifeform that just came into existence? If so,
how did it produce a population?

3. Do you think that it is possible that more than one
organism came into being simultaneously with the first?

All these questions seem to assume that some kind of life poofed into
existence instantly; one minute nothing, the next minute a cell. That's a
silly claim.

No. I don't think any of that. You answered above
something about a population. I want to know where
the population came from.

Where is this going, and what does it conceivably have to do with whether
humans are related to the other apes?

I don't get any answers about the basics. That is what
I am asking about. Steps get skipped and people can't
explain what they believe is the origin of life.

Suzanne

.