Re: Atheists support evolution because evolution supports their


"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uEHJk.3439$x%.1631@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pVwJk.3337$D32.3153@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:UQyIk.2144$pr6.1474@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:LnnIk.5186$YU2.4317@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FN***.4673$be.4215@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Suzanne wrote:
"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:sCSHk.2874$x%.2322@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
chris thompson wrote:
On Oct 10, 7:59 pm, "Suzanne" <shil...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Mike Painter" <mddotpain...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:qjgHk.4351$be.3532@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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.

If that's not what you were asking, I have no idea what you were asking.

Here is what I was asking. This is not a trick question.
How, in your opinion or learning, do you think that life
began on the earth? Science is supposed to work based
on evidence. What evidence do you have that life just
"evolved?" This is what evolutionists claim. I just want
to be fair and find out if you understand why that claim
is made.

If people think that species are from organisms that
have mutated, are they saying that two mutations were
produced coincidentally simultaneously and produced
a population? For sexual organisms to have evolved
into new species, and then formed a population, they
only could do that if two mutants were produced, one
being male and the other being female. Since there are so
many species, it would not be too likely that two possible
mutants of a newly formed species would exist contemporary
with each other. How else do they think they could have
reproduced?

What about plant life? Are the evolutionists claiming
that plant life and animal life began with the first life forms
on the planet, too? Or are they saying that each of those
began independently of each other.

Since we know now that all of the organisms on the planet
cannot be defined any more with just one definition of the
"species" (sexually produced populations and assexually
produced populations, etc.) why wouldn't evolutionists
think each could have "evolved" independently of one
another. Why do they all have to have branched from one
another?

At the beginning, where is the evidence that things happened
this way?

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.

I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. Can you ask your question
again in a way I can understand?

OK...here is another try...
Give a technical explanation about why you think that
humans are more closely related to man than apes are
related to man. What is the evidence that convinces you
of this? You see, you are drawing the conclusion for
the reader without presenting technically why you think
this is so, if you don't mind this observation. Don't ever
assume that someone that does not speak your lanaguage
is not intelligent. A bunch of celery could probably tell
a human a few things that they don't understand, if the
celery could talk our langauge.

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.

I make a point of it only because some other creationists have claimed
that nobody ever says that.

It might surprise you to know that I didn't comb creationist
websites to see what I am supposed to ask or say to a
person that is an evolutionist. I'm asking on my own, the
things that occur to me about the things that you are saying.

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.

I didn't say that, precisely, though it's certainly true. I merely said
that sacred books don't trump physical evidence. But that's true for books
of science too. If you found me a science text that said Mercury showed
only one face to the sun (and you could easily do that), it wouldn't trump
the evidence that Mercury isn't tidally locked. So anyway, this is an
irrelevant digression.

I was only speaking about the Bible right now.

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.

Yes, but why? Surely you're not picking questions at random. You haven't
asked if I like peanut butter. (I do.) Why those questions? And why don't
you want to tell me why?

Usually my questions are based on what someone has
said to me. Sometimes someone will answer what I
assume they would say, but I'll ask it anyway to make
sure that I understand where they are coming from.
I don't guess at what someone means as a rule. I want
to be thorough and give them the opportunity to
explain what they are basing their opinion on if I can.

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?

I'm saying that "alive" isn't a simple question when you're dealing with
the origin of life. It was probably gradual, so that whether any of the
intermediate steps could be called "alive" would be ambiguous. There are a
few examples of this in the present day. Are viruses alive? I'd have to
say that depends on what you mean by "alive".

If viruses existed in the beginning, they truly would
be wonders of intelligence, because they would have
to have calculated and predicted the billions of years
into the future occurence of the formation of a human
being, in order to be able to do what they do so well
when we contract some of them. They are rather too
sophisticated to have existed in the beginning, I would
think. But judging from the rest of your answer, I can
see that your answer is that you do not know. So, can
we conclude that you have no evidence as to how life
began on earth? Of course this could bring up the
subject of intelligent design. If early life was intelligent,
I know that some evolutionists have even considered
that intelligent beings from another planet may have
begun life on earth. If they consider that, then those that
do that must see that organisms are too complicated to
have just evolved out of nothing without there being
some external help.

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?

The answer to the first question is "no". So the second question is moot.

You don't understand. I am saying, if an organism mutated,
and a new species came into existence, where is the second
organism (in sexual organisms) of the opposite sex, that
helped produce a population. Where did that second one
come from?

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.

Again, I don't know, but it would have come from a prior population, back
to a point where the "population" is just a small area where chemical
reactions of various sorts were going on.

OK...now we are getting at something. Can you give any
evidence that life comes from a chemical reaction? Or is
that just something that someone some where has presented
as a speculation? Where is this idea coming 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.

The origin of life is irrelevant to the question of human relationships to
other apes. And we know a lot about apes, but very little about the
origins of life. I, personally, know even less about the origins of life,
but quite a bit about the origins of humans.

So if those are the basics, I really can't help you very much. But you
originally asked about humans and apes. That I can help you with.

If you say that humans and apes or chimps appear to have
come from the same root organism/or being, and then
branched in different directions, the chimp having branched
the latest and being the closest like us genetically, I have
an idea that could show how they could look like they are
all related, and yet not really be branching from the same
earlier ancestor (the root organism/being). I'm also basing
this on some recent evidence...

Most scientists assume that man is the most ultimate (so far)
form of evolution. But since recently it has been found that
chimps are more evolved, that is, they have evidence of
having more allele changes within them, that would
indicate their supposed branch is older than the branch that
humans are supposed to have come from. This presents the
possibility that the line in which humans are supposed to
have come from grew independently of the line in which
chimps are supposed to have come from. Psalm 104:29
explains that "leviathans" come from their own dust of the
earth. Man was created out of the dust of the earth, too.
That doesn't mean that one of them branched from the
other. But it might look like it in an analysis.

Suzanne

.