Ye Religion Thread

[Robot]

Well, this should be fairly easy to test.  Put together a bunch of non-resistant bacteria, give it a stressful level of antibiotics (a level that's not lethal) repeatedly, test for signs of being stressed, and see how fast it develops resistance.  In any case, you still haven't proven that this "random mutation" hypothesis is the only mechanism of evolution.  And even then, if these "random mutations" occur, how do you know they aren't repaired at every instance?

[Robot]

DaHanG, and the people who consistently play semantic games need to read more articles.

[Whirlingdervish]

to answer your question with yet another question:

what would happen in the case of a mutation that changed the ability of a cell to repair itself?

[{TNP}Dukie]

science, which changes it's mind about things as soon as the textbooks are printed is no more reliable in predicting the beginning or the end of our existence as religion.

O Rly?





Science did predict the beginning of our existence, and VERIFIED the predictions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBE

"Data from COBE showed a perfect fit between the black body curve predicted by big bang theory and that observed in the microwave background."

Name any religious creation story that comes anywhere near as close to matching real world observations.

HERESY!
DO NOT ARGUE SPECIFIC POINTS WITH DRUNKARDS!
CURE MY SLICE!

[DaHanG]

There is 0 information about god, as there is for the flying spaghetti monster. This is not something to relish in.

if I consider life to genreally be good, personally I consider god to be good.  by zero information, I presume you mean you can't prove he is good or exists.  everyone can disagree on how much evidence there is for a god, I think there is enough evidence for god, that god is likely.  I know many here discount this evidence, and believe there to be none.

by zero information, i mean there is not a shred of evidence in favor of god.

you have said that we should draw a conclusion that there is a simple beginning, and not a complex entitity behind the formation of the universe.  I was saying, we are not at that point, that to make such a statement, you need to first get rid of the probability problems for life, amont other things.

Why do we need to get rid of the "probability problems" regarding life?

Maybe there are mulitple big bangs, and we know because of theory x, or y.  I think these theories should be much more convicing before we go about deciding that we know the beginning is simple.  right now, we know the numbers don't add up for life.  we do not know why, it's not likely that X theory is true, versus god existing.

You continuously prove my point. You're obsessed with probabilities, even though science itself has no problem with them. Science accepts the big bang and evolution as simply the way the universe is because the evidence is simply too strong.

In my opinion, if you're going to invoke a creator, you must have some reason for doing so (like evidence) instead of not fully understanding the birth of the universe. In the absence of evidence, you choose to invoke god because "it feels natural". Nevertheless, you're now left with the question, "Who designed the designer?" Clearly a god powerful enough to consciously and deliberately create a universe must be more complex than the universe itself. By invoking him, you've solved nothing.

[quadz]

Well, this should be fairly easy to test.

[quadz]

CURE MY SLICE!

Easy.

→

[Robot]

quadz, you don't even address much of what I say, so it's pretty obvious what's going on.

DaHanG, how do you have extremely complex functional systems (which aren't even well understood at the genetic level) from a big bang then?  We're not talking about evolution here, we're talking about primordial systems like bacteria.  How do they originate?

[quadz]

quadz, you don't even address much of what I say, so it's pretty obvious what's going on.

Excuse me?

First: My intent is to deal straight with people on this thread (except dukie ).

[Robot]

Yeah, I would hope we could stick to science instead of pretending you know what natural selection is, realizing you didn't really know what it was, and giving responses indicating some unknown relationship between "random mutations" and natural selection.

I will repeat what you have said in the past: "What I was saying was, the genetic mutation is random, but the overarching process of natural selection (of which genetic mutation is just a part) is not random."

What you have indicated is that natural selection is a process governing the mutations, which is NOT correct.  Natural selection refers to the phenomenon of organisms with favorable traits living on while organisms with unfavorable traits die off.  Please stop acting like natural selection is anything more than this.  And to add wikipedia's definition ONCE AGAIN, here it is:

"Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that are heritable become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable become less common."

[quadz]

Yeah, I would hope we could stick to science instead of pretending you know what natural selection is, realizing you didn't really know what it was, and giving responses indicating some unknown relationship between "random mutations" and natural selection.

On a meta note: As I mentioned at the start, I am a science enthusiast.

[quadz]

pretending you know what natural selection is, realizing you didn't really know what it was

As a footnote, as I've said earlier, my intent is to deal straight with people on this thread.

I can promise you, if I come to a point of realizing I was wrong about some claim I've made, I'll damn well point it out.  I'll be like WHOOPS I guess that didn't work like I thought.

So far, that hasn't happened.  I've been interested in genetic algorithms for the past decade or so.  I'm far from being an authority on the subject, but I've taken enough interest to learn the basic principles.

Anyway, hopefullly we can get our communication impedance mismatch cleared up, as other than that I'm stilll having fun.

Regards,

quadz

[DaHanG]

quadz, you don't even address much of what I say, so it's pretty obvious what's going on.

DaHanG, how do you have extremely complex functional systems (which aren't even well understood at the genetic level) from a big bang then?  We're not talking about evolution here, we're talking about primordial systems like bacteria.  How do they originate?

I extremely complex functional systems by evolution through natural selection.

As for bacteria "originating", we do not know how life itself is created from non-life. Urey and Miller performed an interesting experiment in the 50's where they simulated the Earth's early atmosphere (and used electric bolts to simulate lightning) and spontaneously organic molecules appeared. These were building blocks for life, not life itself. We do not know how life itself was created, but given the fact that the early earth conditions could have naturally created the building blocks of life, perhaps after millions or hundreds of millions of years single celled organisms emerged. Once that single-celled organism emerges, we have good science to explain pretty much everything else in biology. The only gap is the creation of life itself from non-life.

I do not know how they originate, do you?

[reaper]

I extremely complex functional systems by evolution through natural selection.

As for bacteria "originating", we do not know how life itself is created from non-life. Urey and Miller performed an interesting experiment in the 50's where they simulated the Earth's early atmosphere (and used electric bolts to simulate lightning) and spontaneously organic molecules appeared. These were building blocks for life, not life itself. We do not know how life itself was created, but given the fact that the early earth conditions could have naturally created the building blocks of life, perhaps after millions or hundreds of millions of years single celled organisms emerged. Once that single-celled organism emerges, we have good science to explain pretty much everything else in biology. The only gap is the creation of life itself from non-life.

I do not know how they originate, do you?

i would say we know how you get life, once you have a system of atoms to begin with.

[Robot]

"but given the fact that the early earth conditions could have naturally created the building blocks of life, perhaps after millions or hundreds of millions of years single celled organisms emerged." -- in other words, another magical explanation, your explanation of life emerging is no better evidence wise than reaper's explanation of the universe being created or life being created.  I hope one day you'll stop calling reaper an idiot and recognize that intelligent design is actually something you're programmed to believe.

quadz, I'm sure that most people who'd have seen your sentence would agree that you believe natural selection governs mutations, you even said mutations are a part of natural selection.  In any case, your word games are not amusing and for someone as tired as me, it seems like an enormous task to repeat all the silly word game sentences you've written so far to show how you've been doing that when it's actually very obvious.