Ok, we haven't observed an eternal Universe, but astronomers have very good arguements for having observed a Universe for 13 billion years-pretty good i would say.
.....probably the most vulnerable spot in a uniformatarian/six-day argument
Quote:
DNA: The pages of science journals or filled on a daily basis with observations of how changes.....
I wouldn't go there guys, beefsteak tomatoes, viruses exchanging DNA (if I remember right) doesn't get you anywhere at all. The information is there to had, it doesn't explain how it got loaded up in the first place.
Look, I give you the starlight thing, but you guys have got to stop this crap about DNA not being a major impasse for evolution. Geez Louise, the same Human DNA gets "read in triplicate" (somebody help me out here) to produce different features. How do you "ease" into that?
What are you talking about dmz? How do genetic diseases arise? Are you saying gene replication is perfect? Did you know that the human genome has viral DNA in it?
The thought experiment is easy, if you duplicate a gene, the second copy isn't required and can be adapted. Do this for billions of years, and you have an impressive array of genes and gene products...
dmz, your final comment shows how little you know about gene regulation. proteins are modified and expressed differently in different cell types. Your liver isn't expressing the same compliment of genes as your few neurons are...
Look, I give you the starlight thing, but you guys have got to stop this crap about DNA not being a major impasse for evolution. Geez Louise, the same Human DNA gets "read in triplicate" (somebody help me out here) to produce different features. How do you "ease" into that?
Actually one of the most amazing examples of beauty and efficiency in DNA that I've heard is from viruses-HIV actually. Viruses have to keep their genomes small and compact, otherwise they can't fit the whole thing into one neat and deadly package. This puts a lot of pressure on them to use what DNA they have to its limits. There are streches of DNA that can not only make multiple gene products by reading the different streches of DNA in one direction, but it can also make a different gene product by reading the DNA in the other direction. WOW!
There is a tremendous amount of natural history written in the DNA of extant life on Earth. From the similarities scientists are trying to put together a genetic history of evolution, to be compared with the rest of the evidence. However, uncovering what the first genes were may still be difficult, as what ever life came afterward was likelly to be so much better at survival that it pretty much took over from what came before. A rough analogy would be trying to figure out what early record players were from modern CD players or the the iPod (hey, Apple content!). It has to be remembered that when people talk about primitive life forms that exist today, that these primitive life forms are still the end results of billions of years of evolution. Its humbling to think of humans as the most advanced when primates, mammals etc have been around for a very short amount of time, but the bacteria hanging around the geysers at yellowstone may have been perfecting their existence in their environment for billions of years. Most advanced is very much a a matter of definition and your point of view.
dmz. What's the point in posting if you're not going to defend your arguments? You look kinda silly. It's irritating. Engage in the debate you start or don't post at all.
What are you talking about dmz? How do genetic diseases arise? Are you saying gene replication is perfect? Did you know that the human genome has viral DNA in it?
The thought experiment is easy, if you duplicate a gene, the second copy isn't required and can be adapted. Do this for billions of years, and you have an impressive array of genes and gene products...
You are still only talking about sharing/damaging/regurgitating a fixed amount of information. You don't have a model to explain what you see, nor have you, or anyone else, witnessed an increase of information in the DNA of any organism (again barring this sharing/damaging paradigm).
Quote:
Originally posted by billybobsky
dmz, your final comment shows how little you know about gene regulation. proteins are modified and expressed differently in different cell types. Your liver isn't expressing the same compliment of genes as your few neurons are...
I must be getting closer here, you're getting more rude. Also, I never claimed to be much of a scientist. Unfortanately for your argument, there are generalities about the complexity of life that you cannot account for, except by faith alone.
Retreating to language understandable to only someone with a background in chemistry will not help here either. You can mutter "hocus-pocus" and talk down to me all you want, but the fact remains that you don't have answers for me, and you can't make those answers accessible. Until you understand that you BLINDLY believe in something you have not yet seen (in this case a mechanism that viably adds information to DNA (outside the sharing/damaging paradigm), you will continue to retreat into reciting technical theology in your rehtoric---let me save you the aggravation---and tell me what stupid heretic I am.
You are still only talking about sharing/damaging/regurgitating a fixed amount of information. You don't have a model to explain what you see, nor have you, or anyone else, witnessed an increase of information in the DNA of any organism (again barring this sharing/damaging paradigm).
Why would you bar the cloning/damaging paradigm? That is the essence of any rational mechanism and in other words you don't want a rational mechanism.
Sharing genes isn't necessary but has been observed directly.
Regardless, I can make a bunch of random sequences of DNA in a test tube, throw in some activated monomers of DNA, and find after some time sequences of DNA I didn't put into the tube. What this shows is that information increases on its own in all systems. In fact a discussion of this has been had in recent weeks on this board no less. Don't believe me, look up Entropy AND information on google.
It is foolish to say information cannot arise on its own.
Also of note is that there have been observations of clonal populations of bacteria spontaneously generating resistance to antibiotics. So direct observation of "information" increase has been observed.
dmz. What's the point in posting if you're not going to defend your arguments? You look kinda silly. It's irritating. Engage in the debate you start or don't post at all.
I'm going to leave the science to the scientists and address, with little hope of any reply, dmz.
Originally posted by dmz: Christianity is in a unique postion, metaphysically. It makes claims that no other systems of belief make (One/many issues, etc.)
I'd like to contest this and I'd be grateful if you'd expand. All religions make unique claims, so this can't really be used as evidence that Christianity is uniquely 'right' where Santeria, say, is 'wrong', surely? If you could tell me something more about these 'unique claims' then maybe we could get going.
The one thing you do mention are 'one/many issues'. 'One/many issues' are something of a speciality of Hinduism and religions of West African origin. Do you know anything about Hinduism and the way Hindus believe that God has been made flesh in many 'avatars' like Krishna and Visnu, whose feats and sacrifices mark them out as aspects of a supreme Godhead? They've been addressing this 'issue' for as many as 3,000 years before the birth of Christ and they've got the written texts to prove it.
Originally posted by dmz
Christianity is rooted in the Old Covenent, which in and of itself bears the essential elements of Christianity---salvation by Faith, order dictated by God, and so on.
But this is only important if you believe that we must be saved in the first place. Hinduism puts its emphasis on action instead of faith as an end in itself. There's no eternal damnation in Hindu scriptures. Problem solved. Hindusim makes assertions that Christianity doesn't. That doesn't make it any 'righter'.
Originally posted by dmz
The story of reconcilation of man to original theism is a target often aimed at in other religions, but in the end they miss the mark.
Explain why and how they 'miss the mark'. Explain also why 'the reconciliation of man to original theism' is important at all, and please explain it without a final recourse to 'because that's what it says in my Book'.
Originally posted by dmz
Christianity is sold as just another "religion" by its critics, but in the end, the doctrine of the Trinity, closely studied, reveals a scope that other relgions cop out of.
Christianity has no equivalent to the Hindu principles of ahimsa, sadhana or tattva. Further, it doesn't have the terms to allow its adherents to understand the transient, illusory nature of what-it-is-to-be-alive or the idea of tapas, or 'warmth'. The carrier signal of creation, sounded at the moment all became, the syllable 'aum', is even detectable as background radiation.
Clearly, Christianity is a 'cop out' and an inferior religion to Hinduism.
Why can I not make this claim just as fairly as you make yours?
Retreating to language understandable to only someone with a background in chemistry will not help here either. You can mutter "hocus-pocus" and talk down to me all you want, but the fact remains that you don't have answers for me, and you can't make those answers accessible. Until you understand that you BLINDLY believe in something you have not yet seen (in this case a mechanism that viably adds information to DNA (outside the sharing/damaging paradigm), you will continue to retreat into reciting technical theology in your rehtoric---let me save you the aggravation---and tell me what stupid heretic I am.
I am pretty sure most people with college biology would understand what I wrote. I cannot make it any more simple. I can define my terms, or you can look them up, in either case I wasn't talking down to you. In this case I can however suggest that before you begin to attack science as something that has blind faith, that you actually learn some science.
Heretics only exist when there exists a system of faith, you aren't a heretic, you are obviously simply ilinformed.
I will also make note that since dmz doesn't have the vocab or purpose to understand the science that is in question this discussion should end here (unless he responds by some miracle to Hassan's posts).
I will also make note that since dmz doesn't have the vocab or purpose to understand the science that is in question this discussion should end here (unless he responds by some miracle to Hassan's posts).
Retreating to language understandable to only someone with a background in chemistry will not help here either. You can mutter "hocus-pocus" and talk down to me all you want, but the fact remains that you don't have answers for me, and you can't make those answers accessible. Until you understand that you BLINDLY believe in something you have not yet seen (in this case a mechanism that viably adds information to DNA (outside the sharing/damaging paradigm), you will continue to retreat into reciting technical theology in your rehtoric. [/B]
I get the feeling that we could show you all of the biology textbooks and scientific papers written since Crick and Watson (or we could even go back to Darwin and Mendel) and you still would refuse to budge from your position. You keep on shouting out for "proof", but what good is that if you don't even want to take an impartial look at it?
Comments
Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
Ok, we haven't observed an eternal Universe, but astronomers have very good arguements for having observed a Universe for 13 billion years-pretty good i would say.
.....probably the most vulnerable spot in a uniformatarian/six-day argument
Quote:
DNA: The pages of science journals or filled on a daily basis with observations of how changes.....
I wouldn't go there guys, beefsteak tomatoes, viruses exchanging DNA (if I remember right) doesn't get you anywhere at all. The information is there to had, it doesn't explain how it got loaded up in the first place.
Look, I give you the starlight thing, but you guys have got to stop this crap about DNA not being a major impasse for evolution. Geez Louise, the same Human DNA gets "read in triplicate" (somebody help me out here) to produce different features. How do you "ease" into that?
The thought experiment is easy, if you duplicate a gene, the second copy isn't required and can be adapted. Do this for billions of years, and you have an impressive array of genes and gene products...
Originally posted by dmz
Look, I give you the starlight thing, but you guys have got to stop this crap about DNA not being a major impasse for evolution. Geez Louise, the same Human DNA gets "read in triplicate" (somebody help me out here) to produce different features. How do you "ease" into that?
Actually one of the most amazing examples of beauty and efficiency in DNA that I've heard is from viruses-HIV actually. Viruses have to keep their genomes small and compact, otherwise they can't fit the whole thing into one neat and deadly package. This puts a lot of pressure on them to use what DNA they have to its limits. There are streches of DNA that can not only make multiple gene products by reading the different streches of DNA in one direction, but it can also make a different gene product by reading the DNA in the other direction. WOW!
There is a tremendous amount of natural history written in the DNA of extant life on Earth. From the similarities scientists are trying to put together a genetic history of evolution, to be compared with the rest of the evidence. However, uncovering what the first genes were may still be difficult, as what ever life came afterward was likelly to be so much better at survival that it pretty much took over from what came before. A rough analogy would be trying to figure out what early record players were from modern CD players or the the iPod (hey, Apple content!). It has to be remembered that when people talk about primitive life forms that exist today, that these primitive life forms are still the end results of billions of years of evolution. Its humbling to think of humans as the most advanced when primates, mammals etc have been around for a very short amount of time, but the bacteria hanging around the geysers at yellowstone may have been perfecting their existence in their environment for billions of years. Most advanced is very much a a matter of definition and your point of view.
Originally posted by billybobsky
What are you talking about dmz? How do genetic diseases arise? Are you saying gene replication is perfect? Did you know that the human genome has viral DNA in it?
The thought experiment is easy, if you duplicate a gene, the second copy isn't required and can be adapted. Do this for billions of years, and you have an impressive array of genes and gene products...
You are still only talking about sharing/damaging/regurgitating a fixed amount of information. You don't have a model to explain what you see, nor have you, or anyone else, witnessed an increase of information in the DNA of any organism (again barring this sharing/damaging paradigm).
Originally posted by billybobsky
dmz, your final comment shows how little you know about gene regulation. proteins are modified and expressed differently in different cell types. Your liver isn't expressing the same compliment of genes as your few neurons are...
I must be getting closer here, you're getting more rude. Also, I never claimed to be much of a scientist. Unfortanately for your argument, there are generalities about the complexity of life that you cannot account for, except by faith alone.
Retreating to language understandable to only someone with a background in chemistry will not help here either. You can mutter "hocus-pocus" and talk down to me all you want, but the fact remains that you don't have answers for me, and you can't make those answers accessible. Until you understand that you BLINDLY believe in something you have not yet seen (in this case a mechanism that viably adds information to DNA (outside the sharing/damaging paradigm), you will continue to retreat into reciting technical theology in your rehtoric---let me save you the aggravation---and tell me what stupid heretic I am.
I am out if time again.
Originally posted by dmz
You are still only talking about sharing/damaging/regurgitating a fixed amount of information. You don't have a model to explain what you see, nor have you, or anyone else, witnessed an increase of information in the DNA of any organism (again barring this sharing/damaging paradigm).
Why would you bar the cloning/damaging paradigm? That is the essence of any rational mechanism and in other words you don't want a rational mechanism.
Sharing genes isn't necessary but has been observed directly.
Regardless, I can make a bunch of random sequences of DNA in a test tube, throw in some activated monomers of DNA, and find after some time sequences of DNA I didn't put into the tube. What this shows is that information increases on its own in all systems. In fact a discussion of this has been had in recent weeks on this board no less. Don't believe me, look up Entropy AND information on google.
It is foolish to say information cannot arise on its own.
Also of note is that there have been observations of clonal populations of bacteria spontaneously generating resistance to antibiotics. So direct observation of "information" increase has been observed.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
dmz. What's the point in posting if you're not going to defend your arguments? You look kinda silly. It's irritating. Engage in the debate you start or don't post at all.
Certainly will Hassan...
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
What a great thread this has turned into, no?
I'm going to leave the science to the scientists and address, with little hope of any reply, dmz.
Originally posted by dmz: Christianity is in a unique postion, metaphysically. It makes claims that no other systems of belief make (One/many issues, etc.)
I'd like to contest this and I'd be grateful if you'd expand. All religions make unique claims, so this can't really be used as evidence that Christianity is uniquely 'right' where Santeria, say, is 'wrong', surely? If you could tell me something more about these 'unique claims' then maybe we could get going.
The one thing you do mention are 'one/many issues'. 'One/many issues' are something of a speciality of Hinduism and religions of West African origin. Do you know anything about Hinduism and the way Hindus believe that God has been made flesh in many 'avatars' like Krishna and Visnu, whose feats and sacrifices mark them out as aspects of a supreme Godhead? They've been addressing this 'issue' for as many as 3,000 years before the birth of Christ and they've got the written texts to prove it.
Originally posted by dmz
Christianity is rooted in the Old Covenent, which in and of itself bears the essential elements of Christianity---salvation by Faith, order dictated by God, and so on.
But this is only important if you believe that we must be saved in the first place. Hinduism puts its emphasis on action instead of faith as an end in itself. There's no eternal damnation in Hindu scriptures. Problem solved. Hindusim makes assertions that Christianity doesn't. That doesn't make it any 'righter'.
Originally posted by dmz
The story of reconcilation of man to original theism is a target often aimed at in other religions, but in the end they miss the mark.
Explain why and how they 'miss the mark'. Explain also why 'the reconciliation of man to original theism' is important at all, and please explain it without a final recourse to 'because that's what it says in my Book'.
Originally posted by dmz
Christianity is sold as just another "religion" by its critics, but in the end, the doctrine of the Trinity, closely studied, reveals a scope that other relgions cop out of.
Christianity has no equivalent to the Hindu principles of ahimsa, sadhana or tattva. Further, it doesn't have the terms to allow its adherents to understand the transient, illusory nature of what-it-is-to-be-alive or the idea of tapas, or 'warmth'. The carrier signal of creation, sounded at the moment all became, the syllable 'aum', is even detectable as background radiation.
Clearly, Christianity is a 'cop out' and an inferior religion to Hinduism.
Why can I not make this claim just as fairly as you make yours?
Originally posted by dmz
Retreating to language understandable to only someone with a background in chemistry will not help here either. You can mutter "hocus-pocus" and talk down to me all you want, but the fact remains that you don't have answers for me, and you can't make those answers accessible. Until you understand that you BLINDLY believe in something you have not yet seen (in this case a mechanism that viably adds information to DNA (outside the sharing/damaging paradigm), you will continue to retreat into reciting technical theology in your rehtoric---let me save you the aggravation---and tell me what stupid heretic I am.
I am pretty sure most people with college biology would understand what I wrote. I cannot make it any more simple. I can define my terms, or you can look them up, in either case I wasn't talking down to you. In this case I can however suggest that before you begin to attack science as something that has blind faith, that you actually learn some science.
Heretics only exist when there exists a system of faith, you aren't a heretic, you are obviously simply ilinformed.
I have a feeling dmz is an alaska native...
Originally posted by billybobsky
I will also make note that since dmz doesn't have the vocab or purpose to understand the science that is in question this discussion should end here (unless he responds by some miracle to Hassan's posts).
I have a feeling dmz is an alaska native...
Well i guess not ... Alaska is a very cold place
Originally posted by billybobsky
Certainly will Hassan...
You're a gentleman.
It's not going away!
Engage in the debate you started, dmz, and the embarrassment stops. How's that?
Originally posted by dmz
Retreating to language understandable to only someone with a background in chemistry will not help here either. You can mutter "hocus-pocus" and talk down to me all you want, but the fact remains that you don't have answers for me, and you can't make those answers accessible. Until you understand that you BLINDLY believe in something you have not yet seen (in this case a mechanism that viably adds information to DNA (outside the sharing/damaging paradigm), you will continue to retreat into reciting technical theology in your rehtoric. [/B]
I get the feeling that we could show you all of the biology textbooks and scientific papers written since Crick and Watson (or we could even go back to Darwin and Mendel) and you still would refuse to budge from your position. You keep on shouting out for "proof", but what good is that if you don't even want to take an impartial look at it?