DARWIN's DOUBT - The End of Darwinistic Materialism

[cafolini]

RNA molecules have been shown to be capable of forming spontaneously in reducing conditions, so it simply isn't true that nucleic acid codes are not analogous to other spontaneously forming ordered structures. The rest of your post is confused gibberish that doesn't really make any sense. "Transformational mutations," assuming you mean some sort of mutation that results in a phenotypic change, have been observed with relative frequency. Your statement about "mistakes that get caught" is just false, given that rates of mutation and repair vary radically between different organisms, with viruses having highly error prone replication, which is why viruses like HIV strains are able to evolve drug resistance relatively quickly to AZT. I don't know what you mean about DNA not being highly transmutable, the actual DNA molecule undergoes frequent chemical modification, depending on the organism the DNA can be snipped, silenced, up or down regulated, etc. The biochemistry of DNA is certainly complex but this has little to do with the fact that evolution is an observable phenomena.

Now you did it. LOL Now they are going to start again with fluked Aristotle and Turberville Needham spontaneous flies.

But you are correct in the context of the science, where appearance, meaning fact, and truth are the same.

I liked Loka's ring.

[cafolini]

RNA molecules have been shown to be capable of forming spontaneously in reducing conditions, so it simply isn't true that nucleic acid codes are not analogous to other spontaneously forming ordered structures. The rest of your post is confused gibberish that doesn't really make any sense. "Transformational mutations," assuming you mean some sort of mutation that results in a phenotypic change, have been observed with relative frequency. Your statement about "mistakes that get caught" is just false, given that rates of mutation and repair vary radically between different organisms, with viruses having highly error prone replication, which is why viruses like HIV strains are able to evolve drug resistance relatively quickly to AZT. I don't know what you mean about DNA not being highly transmutable, the actual DNA molecule undergoes frequent chemical modification, depending on the organism the DNA can be snipped, silenced, up or down regulated, etc. The biochemistry of DNA is certainly complex but this has little to do with the fact that evolution is an observable phenomena.

LOL Now you did it. Now they are going to start with fluked Aristotle and Turberville Needham spontaneous flies.

But you are correct in the context of the science, where appearance, meaning fact, and truth are the same.

I liked Loka's ring.

[Darcy88]

It takes much more faith to believe that matter came from nothing, and evolved into a complex form, than to believe an intelligent person designed it. Think about your experience in the material world that you live in. Does any complex construct come into being without a designer?

No. It takes the greatest leap of faith to assume the existence of an eternal being with the powers to bring matter into existence and later on ignite the spark of life. What created the creator? The creator simply was just always there? That makes no sense, none at all. It is an article of faith and cannot be the legitimate beginning or end point of rational discussion.

[Ecurb]

No. It takes the greatest leap of faith to assume the existence of an eternal being with the powers to bring matter into existence and later on ignite the spark of life. What created the creator? The creator simply was just always there? That makes no sense, none at all. It is an article of faith and cannot be the legitimate beginning or end point of rational discussion.

Why not? For centuries, it was the "beginning" of many rational discussions (admittedly, not those in this thread).

[virtuoso]

Contrary to biological evolutionists dogma, mutations are more harmful than good. Alex Williams remarked, "directly contradicting mutations central role in life's diversity, we have seen growing experimental evidence that mutations destroy life". In the medical field, most physicians reguard mutations as deletrious. Mutations can effect reproductive cells as well as other types of cells. Also, mutations can cause: cancer, aging, and infectious diseases. The amazing evolution scale relies on selective variation to bring about positive, utilitarian changes in the gradual formation of species. If mutations generally produce more harmful effects than good ones, then evolutionists must rely on fortuitous circumstances whiich would allow a long, productive, sustained pattern of upward mobility. The best that current evolutionary apologists can do is to cite damaging mutations that have beneficial side effects. Is this enough to put together a biological chain of species' development? I think not!

[virtuoso]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Common sense tells you that something cannot come from nothing. Inferior beings presuppose a greater supernatural force, being. Evolutionists really do not believe in a cause. They believe that the effect is married to the cause.

[virtuoso]

Humans live in a finite sphere, and even a genius uses an infinitesimal portion of his brain capacity. We are imperfect beings in an imperfect world thinking that we can solve the mysteries that are not discernible.

[Darcy88]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Common sense tells you that something cannot come from nothing. Inferior beings presuppose a greater supernatural force, being. Evolutionists really do not believe in a cause. They believe that the effect is married to the cause.

Perhaps the world's leading cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, has declared God's existence unnecessary to the universe's beginning. You say "something cannot come from nothing." So again I ask - from whence God?

[virtuoso]

You obviously do not believe there is a plausible cause for the origination of matter. A finite, imperfect human being, Stephen Hawkins, declares God does not exist, and you believe him. You will believe there is no substantive answer, because you do not believe in a higher power.

[virtuoso]

Ecurb, any rational discussion that begins with God is anathema to most neoevolutionists. If their is purposeful design, then their whole theory is baseless.

[virtuoso]

Cafolini, a reputable evolutionist, Leslie Oregel, said, " It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it is also seems impossible to have one without the other And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means". You see, Calfolini that spontaneity and complex developments or evolutionary sequences are not that easy! Michael Denton, a famous Australian Biologist, wrote, "To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process, is simply an affront to reason. But to Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt--the paradigm takes precedence". Complex structures bespeak a designer. Please do not belittle yourself and use the "snowflake" example again.

[virtuoso]

Orphan and Calidore, reputable evolutionist, Steven Stanley, writes, "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that a gradualistic model can be valid". E R Leach further opined, "Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt for sure that they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing, and seem likely to remain so". The gaps in the fossil record will never be filled in, and will never prove evolution!

[OrphanPip]

Contrary to biological evolutionists dogma, mutations are more harmful than good. Alex Williams remarked, "directly contradicting mutations central role in life's diversity, we have seen growing experimental evidence that mutations destroy life". In the medical field, most physicians reguard mutations as deletrious. Mutations can effect reproductive cells as well as other types of cells. Also, mutations can cause: cancer, aging, and infectious diseases. The amazing evolution scale relies on selective variation to bring about positive, utilitarian changes in the gradual formation of species. If mutations generally produce more harmful effects than good ones, then evolutionists must rely on fortuitous circumstances whiich would allow a long, productive, sustained pattern of upward mobility. The best that current evolutionary apologists can do is to cite damaging mutations that have beneficial side effects. Is this enough to put together a biological chain of species' development? I think not!

Simply false, even some of the most radical mutations, like those which cause a frame shift (a complete deletion of a bp rather than a substitution of one nucleotide for another) have been shown to be able to produce beneficial mutations. The famous case of the nylon digesting Flavobacterium strain discovered in Japan was the result of a gene duplication, which caused a redundant copy of a gene to be in the bacterium's genome, followed by a radical frameshift mutation which created a brand new, never before seen enzyme which allowed this bacterium to thrive in the unique niche of a pool of water next to a nylon factory.

Cafolini, a reputable evolutionist, Leslie Oregel, said, " It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it is also seems impossible to have one without the other And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means".

Again this is a matter of abiogenesis that has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. Nonetheless, quote mining a biochemist like Orgel in this fashion is also intellectually dishonest. The sentences immediately following the one you quote goes on to explain that this initial impression is faulty because RNA could have been self-catalytic and capable of producing proteins without help of other proteins, two predictions that have been corroborated in recent studies of self-replicating ribozymes. Orgel was quite astute in that he was able to recognize the necessary conditions required for RNA to arise before proteins.

Michael Denton, a famous Australian Biologist, wrote, "To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process, is simply an affront to reason. But to Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt--the paradigm takes precedence". Complex structures bespeak a designer. Please do not belittle yourself and use the "snowflake" example again.

Denton is perhaps a famous biologist, but not a reputable one. He is another shill for the Discovery Institute. Also, I'm not exactly sure what you think this quote demonstrates, other than the fact that a famous ID proponent thinks evolution is improbable, quite the revelation. The ID concept of "information" is so muddled and full of **** that it doesn't impress anyone other than the scientifically ignorant like yourself.

Orphan and Calidore, reputable evolutionist, Steven Stanley, writes, "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that a gradualistic model can be valid".

This is a hilarious quote because clearly you don't know what a gradualistic model is in comparison to punctuated equilibrium. The fact that you think Stanley is criticizing the fossil record is another striking example of your ignorance on this subject.

E R Leach further opined, "Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt for sure that they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing, and seem likely to remain so". The gaps in the fossil record will never be filled in, and will never prove evolution!

Yes, there are gaps in the fossil record but that's not really a problem for evolutionary theory as even with those gaps there are still massive amounts of evidence. Say you set up a camera to take pictures of a stone falling at set increments (say every 20 milliseconds), would you say it would be unreasonable to take the data from that camera and chart the likely path of that falling stone even with those thousands of gaps in your picture album?

[KillCarneyKlans]

Perhaps the world's leading cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, has declared God's existence unnecessary to the universe's beginning. You say "something cannot come from nothing." So again I ask - from whence God?

Yes, Hawking said we got 1000 years to get off this planet ... too recently ... the same time as the milenium ... its already been proved something comes from nothing. Or what the Bible or any reasoning average man would call nothing.

Unless you can tell me why, if we could travel at or near light speed, the mass and energy to move an object becomes more difficult and eventually impossible to achieve, the mass becomes so heavy the universe reaches a 99.99 mass value and space = a NULL value. This Null space is the space they are refering to.

Not all forms of God are measured by your limited standards ... in hebrew, God was merely the catalyst that brings order to chaos ... To the Jews and gentiles he was Alpha and Omega ... most cultures have a creator God ... Shang Di has many spookily similar facets similar to Yahweh or Jehovah, etc ...

You can't measure PI you can only approximate it ... If we know stars can collapse into black holes why can we see them? Do you know gravity can drag space, time and matter into and out of existance? Not really a good question.

[MorpheusSandman]

Common sense tells you that something cannot come from nothing. Inferior beings presuppose a greater supernatural force, being.

Modern science (quantum physics, cosmology, biology, neuroscience, even mathematics) has definitively demolished the reliability of our common sense. From neuroscience you can learn how our brains come equipped with millions of reality-distorting biases that innately prevent us from understanding how reality actually works (we are innately illogical). From quantum physics you can learn the counter-intuitive nature of how particles behave; either they randomly collapse into one world because we observe them, or they deterministically decohere into multiple worlds that we can't access. From mathematics you can learn how bad humans are at cognitively producing probabilistic formulas that best model reality (eg, Bayes Theorem). From cosmology you can, indeed, learn how the universe can indeed come from nothing; in fact, Krauss shows that not only can a universe come from nothing, but because nothing (meaning the absence of matter, space, time, and gravity) is so unstable, it will inevitably produce universes, and probably lots more than just ours. Another thing you can learn from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology is that, because of how our brains evolve, we constantly produce false positives with regards to assuming agency behind unexplained phenomena; this means that we are programmed to innately assume that something conscious/willful is behind everything we don't understand, whether it be the universe, or, back in the day, more common things like wind, lightning, rain, etc.

To conclude, our common sense and intuition are just about the worst things you can rely on if what you're after are truths and facts about reality. It has been proven wrong time and again, especially so within the 20th century when our knowledge of the natural world and ourselves has exploded. To sit back and rely on the same thing that people hundreds of years relied on is just willfully ignorant and foolish.

It takes much more faith to believe that matter came from nothing, and evolved into a complex form, than to believe an intelligent person designed it. Think about your experience in the material world that you live in. Does any complex construct come into being without a designer?

It takes more faith if you are completely ignorant of the science; if you aren't ignorant of the science then it takes no faith whatsoever. Your claim about our experience in the natural world is simply false (there are plenty of complex structures that arise naturally as has been pointed out to you); but even if it were true, you can't extrapolate our experiences from the natural world and apply it to the universe. Why? Because we live in a universe where matter is governed by the laws of spacetime and gravity, and when you're talking about how the universe came into being you're talking about a point where such laws don't exist. It's a bit like trying to apply the rules of basketball to explain baseball, they're two completely different games. If you're looking to explain the origin of matter and the universe, then you need to find something that isn't governed by the laws of gravity or spacetime, but could actually create them as well as matter. Guess what? We actually have such a thing, and it's called the quantum field.