Evolution works in mysterious ways

[Matthew Faithfull]

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

how would that agree with the Bible?

In a word, completely. Of course you'd have to read quite a bit of the Bible to see that. For example the biblical perspective is that nature itself, i.e. physics, biology the whole works, was corrupted from its previous perfection at the fall, tainted with sin. The wages of sin, i.e. its long term outcome, is death. The working out of this principle can be seen in the laws of thermodynamics. The universe itself is running down to an end point already determined, the appointed day or 'the great and terrible day of the Lord' as it is described. The Bible is not a science text book but there is nothing false in it as there is nothing false in its author and therefore no disagreement with reality or with any honest scientific observation. To me de-evolution seems to fit entirely with what it says but if it turns out not be so then my de-evolutionary theory is flawed not Bible. The author of the universe knows best how it works and how to live in it.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Matthew Faithfull]

73Zeppelin wrote:

Forget it, it's not important.

I'd be happy to. I did cehck carefully that his post was in reply to you rather than me as it was otherwise ambiguous.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Lost User]

Oakman wrote:

Are you trying to confuse them with FACTS?

Yeah, shame on me, huh? :rolleyes: Maybe if I do this enough he'll switch to Ilion's new tactic and just claim I lie about everything.

- F

[leckey 0]

Can you really believe in an idea that resulted in a band calling themselves Devo? (You're young so I don't know if you have heard them.)

CP Offenders: Over 50 offenders and growing! Current rant: "Me thinks CP needs an application process!" http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]

[Matthew Faithfull]

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

Pathogens evolve a resistance to antibiotics.

No, even evolutionists don't claim that. The pathogens already have within their populations a proportion that are immune due to genetic variations. When you look into how these immunities actually work you find they usually fall into the catagery of de-evolutionary specialisations, for example having damaged protiens causing slower metabolism making them more tolerant of toxins. On the scale of microbes the functioanlities are simple enough and the information density of the genomes low enough that an occassional functional novelty can appear, some of these have been documented. This however doesn't change the fact that a bacteria remains a bacteria and can't ever become anything else. It can't grow legs because the set of information required for legs is too large complex and interrelated to come about through truly random changes. Survival of the fitest doesn't help because having half the genes for a leg doesn't make you any fitter than having none of them and in a small genome has a very high probability of meaning something else gets damaged or lost that you do need to survive. As I've said many times, in practice, the mechanisms proposed by biologists to cause evolution, don't. They cause de-evolution.

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

Evolution is very scientific. How isn't it?

It does not follow the scientific method of proposing an idea, attempting to falsify it and on succeeding replacing it with a better idea. It rather follows the path of false religions everywhere, propose an idea, reinterpret everything in relation to that idea ( hence evolutionary biology ), especially any contrary evidence and when the idea is still clearly nonsense replace it on the quiet with another while denying having done so, hence Stan's pathetic attempt to define evolution as anything that happens to genes. :doh:

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[leckey 0]

I would maybe listen to someone who claims evolution never happened if they were atheist.

CP Offenders: Over 50 offenders and growing! Current rant: "Me thinks CP needs an application process!" http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]

[Matthew Faithfull]

The Central Limit theorum contradicts basic arithmetic, it's a fudge invented by an alchemist who couldn't fully express his own insight. Also as a theorum it proves nothing but you already knew that being so smart. The Law of Large Numbers is a new one on me, is that like large numbers follow exactly the same rules as small numbers because size is a matter of human perception and has no relevance in mathematics? Maybe if you give a reasonable answer I'll let you into the secret of how to count the Real numbers :laugh:

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Stan Shannon]

You're absolutely correct. However, just because evolution provides a better explanation of certain observable phenomenon, doesn't actually make it correct. It just makes it a better explanation. And it certainly does not imbue science with a more reasonable means for social order.

Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization

[73Zeppelin]

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

The Central Limit theorum contradicts basic arithmetic

No it doesn't. But it's not surpise to me that you're in denial of reality[^]. Law of large numbers[^]. Why do you make these discussions like pulling teeth?

[Haydn Chapman]

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

As I've said many times, in practice, the mechanisms proposed by biologists to cause evolution, don't. They cause de-evolution.

So are you saying that everything started of as being Perfect? Every organism at the beginning of time (whenever that is supposed to be), was as good as it could possibly be? Other that God putting them there, how did they all start off? And does that mean we are getting more and more sickly, unhealthy, weaker etc.... as the years go on because we lose certain parts of our dna making us less human so to speak? I just want to know what the theory of de-evolution actually is, because I'm not too familiar with it and it doesn't seem to be as intuitive to understand as evolution.

[Matthew Faithfull]

Fisticuffs wrote:

Point mutation - change of one nucleotide to another

Can constitute information loss, has a high probability of disrupting any exisitng gene function.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Insertion - insertion of 1+ nucleotides

Has a high probability of disrupting any exisiting gene function. This along with the above is the 'traditional' model of gene mutation driven evolution which has been shown to be inadequate to explain observation.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Deletion - removal of 1+ nucleotides

Information loss, has a high probability of disrupting any exisitng gene function.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Translocation - a gene can be placed under the control of another promoter

Information neutral. All necessary information gain must already have occured to form the potentially useful gene.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Inversion - can have weird and interesting effects, but does appear to occur regularly

Information neutral over a population as nothing is added or removed, will be destructive or neutral in the majority of cases where a gene is functional.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Transformation/Conjugation

Information neutral?

Fisticuffs wrote:

Infection/Transduction

Do non destrcutive casses occur in nature? If so could they ever occur to any effect in a multi cellular organism. Not a lot of information increase there. Granted we probably have different concepts of information. None of the mechanisms you mention is capable of producing the observed species even given the unrealistic time frames usually quoted. You might also want to note that these are the ways we know of that a genome can change. Especially as you're going to need to find some new ones to hold on to your evolutionary delusion. :)

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Matthew Faithfull]

I feel much the same about you.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Matthew Faithfull]

Oakman wrote:

Hard to think of Adam and Eve with single eyebrows, unbridged noses, and weak chins.

You've been talking to the wrong neanderthals my friend. I guess even you'd swap a bridged nose for a larger brain and a 1000 year life span. :laugh:

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Lost User]

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

he pathogens already have within their populations a proportion that are immune due to genetic variations.

Wrong. De novo mutations conferring resistance over time and appropriate exposure has been demonstrated in the lab.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

When you look into how these immunities actually work you find they usually fall into the catagery of de-evolutionary specialisations, for example having damaged protiens causing slower metabolism making them more tolerant of toxins.

Wrong. In certain cases, the mutations confer a higher growth rate and stability to the organism. This would also be true by definition - mutations that enable an organism to survive in a stressor (artificial or not) still means they survive, even if there is a cost.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

This however doesn't change the fact that a bacteria remains a bacteria and can't ever become anything else. It can't grow legs because the set of information required for legs is too large complex and interrelated to come about through truly random changes.

Misrepresentation of evolutionary theory. Bacteria do not become horses, bacteria and horses share a common ancestor. The distinction is critical.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

s I've said many times, in practice, the mechanisms proposed by biologists to cause evolution, don't. They cause de-evolution.

As Ravel has pointed out, your semantic distinction between evolution and "deevolution" is nothing but rhetoric, devoid of meaning.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

It does not follow the scientific method of proposing an idea, attempting to falsify it and on succeeding replacing it with a better idea.

Untrue. Evolution could be falsified easily by never finding any fossil variation, never seeing any extinct species, finding an ancestral species and a modern species in the same dated strata, not seeing any variation in population genomes that are differentially selected on, not being able to demonstrate the development of new features under selective pressures in a lab in the expected timeframe, etc etc etc. So far, evolution has not been falsified, despite best efforts.

- F

[Matthew Faithfull]

I can believe in what the evidence shows, is consistent with the rest of science and makes logical sense. If some 70's band members can do the same then good for them. :cool:

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Matthew Faithfull]

If you really want to understand information theory I suggest you look at this guys[^] books. You will definitely learn something, probably more than me with your mathematical bent.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Lost User]

That's kind of disingenuous, don't you think? Ignore the one absolutely clear event that causes information gain? The one that happens all the time, as I said? Which you ignored?

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Do non destrcutive casses occur in nature? If so could they ever occur to any effect in a multi cellular organism.

Yes. As I said, look how ERVs have been adapted to new functions in the human genome. Look it up.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Fisticuffs wrote: Transformation/Conjugation Information neutral?

No. Bacteria A shares features with bacteria B. Bacteria B now has both A and B's gene. Those genes are then adapted to new function. Information gain. Also, while most mutations may be deleterious over enough time (as has been demonstrated) beneficial mutations can occur and accumulate after selection. So basically, you ignored most of what I said. Well, this has been productive. :rolleyes:

- F

[Lost User]

That makes sense. :rolleyes:

- F

[Matthew Faithfull]

John Davids wrote:

So are you saying that everything started of as being Perfect?

Yes.

John Davids wrote:

Every organism at the beginning of time (whenever that is supposed to be), was as good as it could possibly be?

Yes, God, who's standard is perfection, examined what he had made and declared that it was good.

John Davids wrote:

Other that God putting them there,

There is no other.

John Davids wrote:

And does that mean we are getting more and more sickly, unhealthy, weaker etc.... as the years go on because we lose certain parts of our dna making us less human so to speak?

Yes. We are less than our ancestors and if we were to continue as a species for a very long time we would be much less. The diminishing is mitigated to an extent by massive population growth preserving genetic information by duplication but in the end entropy will have its way.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

[Matthew Faithfull]

Fisticuffs wrote:

Wrong. De novo mutations conferring resistance over time and appropriate exposure has been demonstrated in the lab.

In bacteria as I freely conceeded.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Wrong. In certain cases, the mutations confer a higher growth rate and stability to the organism. This would also be true by definition - mutations that enable an organism to survive in a stressor (artificial or not) still means they survive, even if there is a cost.

If the cost makes the species more prone to extinction then there is no species evolution only specialisation towards a dead end.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Bacteria do not become horses, bacteria and horses share a common ancestor. The distinction is critical.

Drivel, the distinction is an irrelevance unless the ancestors of the bacteria contained the information necessary to grow a horse, i.e. an extreme de-evolutionary scenario.

Fisticuffs wrote:

As Ravel has pointed out, your semantic distinction between evolution and "deevolution" is nothing but rhetoric, devoid of meaning.

And he was wrong just as you are, de-evolution is unidirectional, to derive a mouse it requires a better mouse, evolution cannot create the better mouse or the mouse without having a mouse, it is nodirectional. :)

Fisticuffs wrote:

Evolution could be falsified easily by never finding any fossil variation

Double negative, is gravity falsifiable by never finding anything falling, no.

Fisticuffs wrote:

never seeing any extinct species

Extinct species are evidence of de-evolution.

Fisticuffs wrote:

finding an ancestral species and a modern species in the same dated strata

Happens frequently usually followed by a redating of the strata, ancestoral speicies is of course a derivative concept and cannot be used as evidence for evolution, that would be a circular argument. :laugh:

Fisticuffs wrote:

not seeing any variation in population genomes that are differentially selected on

Another, proof by blindness, double negative.

Fisticuffs wrote:

not being able to