Aldy, you still haven’t given a source to the MIT experiment.  Why change subjects when you haven’t even shown sources for where you got the “facts” you stated.  Give a link or something to this supposed experiment.

Dave, yes proteins and amino acids are specific.  Like the probability example yes specific combinations of random items are unlikely however you must know from probability that an outcome had to happen. Just because the lottery is unlikely it doesn’t mean that it is impossible that somebody won the lottery last month.  By saying that my argument got weaker when I stated that amino acids in humans only come in 22 varieties is ignorant.  That is like saying that if I draw a card out of a deck with all 52 cards in the deck that it is more likely that I will pick a specific card, say the 4 of hearts, than if I had a deck with only hearts in it.

Yes, as far as proteins being encoded by DNA, and DNA being made up of specific proteins.  You are forgetting one thing.  DNA encodes for proteins through RNA.  The before there was DNA, there was RNA which could have encoded for the proteins before DNA existed.

Your experience has nothing to do with how fossils actually form. No one said that the organism gets crushed by tons of rock. once again, your counter-argument has nothing to do with what evolution says.

Not that evolution has anything to do with fossil formation in the first place, of course. That would be geology, which you also apparently disagree with. Do you object to geology being taught in schools also?

My experience with tons of rock on top of an animal, large or small, the rock will crush the animal, there is no cavity over the bones.
Since the vast majority of fossils are found in sedimentary material, how do you think they got there? and all at the same time?
As far as Christianity goes, I have an experience, you have an argument. The two will never agree, it’s time to part company.

Aldy,

One more thing regarding your MIT experiment. Even if it tested something that actually had something to do with evolution (which it didn’t based on your description), if it was done in the 70s don’t you think its possible that we might know a bit more about the subject now, nearly 40 years later?

By the way, the arguments from probability ignore the fact that evolution does not require a simple protein to form all by itself. There are many simpler stages that could easily have led to what we consider a simple protein.

So I agree that it would take a lot of faith to believe that a simple protein just formed at random. Fortunately, the theory of evolution does not require anything like that. I would have thought a college professor would have known that.

Aldy,

Look up the number of registered denominations. I don�t expect you to take my word for it. There are that many Protestant Christian denominations, the number doesn�t even include Catholicism and certainly not Islam.

As for the �experiment� that MIT supposedly did, it�s a good thing that evolution doesn�t say the human body evolved one cell per second, isn�t it? If you were right about this, the it would be impossible for a human to grow to adult hood also. You just disproved the existence of every human being on earth. Congratulations!

What is your source that �fossils form quickly�? In general, the decayed and buried tissue leaves behind a cavity in the shape of the original object which is gradually filled in by minerals. And you can�t date fossils directly. You can date igneous rocks above and below the layer in which the fossils are found, and estimate further by how close the layer is to one side or the other.

The experiment was done in the early 70s, I read about it and it was in my memory. Back then, I thought nothing about evolution, now evolution is being shoved down everybodys throats whether they want to hear it or not.
The environmentalists have lived off gov’t grants for so long, that they made a play to control the worlds finances and gain more gov’t control as well. We had ‘climate gate’, and it seems the evolutionists might be trying to get in on like action.
What we don’t need is another scam that might be called, ‘fossil gate’, those of us who aren’t scientists are getting tired of intellectuals working to pull the wool over our eyes.
Indoctrinating children is an easy way to gain all the control desired, not allowing them to be able to choose what they want to think is evidence of such indoctrination. Denying those choices seems to be an overall liberal agenda.
If DNA code is not real, then why do scientists refer to it as code?

Thanks for helping make the point. Yes, proteins are basically strings of amino acids. They are are specific, meaning they need the right combination of amino acids to function correctly. Granted, these amino acids have certain properties which make it so that they can only combine in certain ways with others. I say, your position got weaker when you have to factor that in.

By the way, what tells which amino acid to combine to which other one. DNA codes to make the protein. Yet it takes about 70 specific proteins to make DNA. All of a sudden, the plot thickens and we find it takes a great deal more faith on top of the other faith to assume that it all fell together at the beginning.

I will be gone for awhile and will not likely be able to carry this on.

Dave, why don’t you just state what you mean instead of stating numbers that have nothing to do with what you are talk about.  Once again you are talking randomness where randomness doesn’t apply.  You state that if you took “every amino acid in the universe tried to get together a billion times per second for 30 billion years, there is still not enough time to produce the right protein.” There are only 22 different amino acids in the human body, those amino acids are not randomly put together, in fact chemically they can arrange themselves only into specific combinations.  You still confuse this as randomness although these interactions happen based on chemistry.  The amino acids can’t arrange themselves into any possible combination since the covalent bonds have specific conditions that must be met to happen.  For example, it is no accident or random event that makes 2 Hydrogen atoms bond to 1 Oxygen atom, it is a natural bonding that occurs based on the structure of the atoms

You missed my point. I am not talking about randomness in an atom at all. There is an order to the atom (although a statistical one). That’s not what we are talking about. I am referring to the idea that if every amino acid in the universe tried to get together a billion times per second for 30 billion years, there is still not enough time to produce the right protein. This is because the number of trials fall way short of the needed trials. I chose to say electrons in the calculation since their number are orders of magnitude greater than the number of amino acids we would have available. Therefore we would have a greater hope for YOUR FAITH. I used the most advantageous numbers conceivable to help YOUR case to show that even then you don’t have a snowball’s chance to acheive what you need random processes to acheive. I say random at this point since their is nothing for “natural selection” to act on at this point in the history of the origin of life to be of any help to you.

Dave, you state that you are not pulling these numbers out of thin air, but you don’t state where they do come from…

Do you really think that electons position themselves randomly to create elements?  To say for example that the electrons will randomly “orbit” around the nucleus of an atom may make a bit of since, but for the arrangement of electrons to randomly arrange in a certain way to create a hydrogen atom as you suggest makes absolutely no sense based on what we know about the elements that exist.  Electrons are not arranged randomly as you state, therefore you can not put odds on how unlikely it is that they would arrange how they do.  Once again you have very little knowledge of science.  And yes, I probably do come off this condescending in real life…

Oh Dave, I don’t mean to be condescending, but it is hard not to be when one claims to use science when ALL the science goes against what you are saying.  What University/ College did you teach at?  Evolution is the unifying theory of Biology and yet you deny it while claiming to have taught in a University.  If it is true, it is sad.  You know nothing about science.  You taught math, then you should know that multiplying terms together to get odds is not at all correct.  What level courses did you teach?  You state that my card example has worse odds than that of the odds you assign for a protein!!!  This would prove my point even more.  Worse odds and it happens everytime???  So how did you calculate those odds?  By reading the creationists that proposed them and assuming they are correct?  And you accuse me of taking info from Atheist sites....  You can’t assign odds to something that is not random.  Evolution builds off of prior models to add complexity and variability.

It seems like your answer to anything that has to do with probability is �given enough time, anything can happen.� After all, if you try often enough, even with the slim chance, it is bound to happen in billions of years. That sounds like a great answer, but doesn�t work. In order to be reasonably confident it can happen, the number of possible trials has to equal the probability. So how many trials can we anticipate say in 30 billion years (twice the assumed age of the universe)?  Let�s also be quite generous and assume that even every electron (cells have huge numbers of electrons.) contained in all the matter in the universe (about 1 followed by 80 zeros) tries to get together in the right order a billion times per second. The total number of trials is only 1 followed by only 107 zeros. Way short by a factor of 1 followed by 153 zeros! Not enough time! Check out the math--numbers not pulled out of thin air!

Aldy, first of all, can you reference the experiment.  Where is it documented?  So I can see what they are talking about. 

However I can tell you this, like I said before, evolution is not chance.  You act like something improbably will never happen with out looking at the billions of cells that are all evolving at the same time.  Put all of these cells together it is easy to see the wide diversity you will get over time.  Just look at the human body, it starts as a single cell, a fertilized egg.  This then divided and became two cells.  By the time you were born your body went from 1 cell to being a fully developed baby with trillions of cells.  This shows you how fast cells divide.  So looking back at the experiment you stated.  It shows that one cell can not become a human in 4.5 billion years, however life itself does it in less around 10 months… Ironic don’t you think.  I think they need a better mathematical model…

By the way if you use the larger protein, you have just decreased your odds of evolution by a factor of 10 followed by 5204 zeros. Do the calculations if you want to check me out. NOT pulled out of the air!

That’s just proteins. Can you imagine the chance of a cell happening?

As far as your deck of cards argument, you are looking at a lot worse odds than that for the origin of proteins. And no, I did just pull the numbers out of thin air ( I’m not threatened, so I don’t have to resort to vulgarity!)
All the numbers I used can be substantiated from known scientific concepts. For instance for a small protein of only 200 amino acids---not some in your body having 4000 amino acids.

Oh, my, Kakuni! How belittling you can be! You are also quick to pass judgments and jump to conclusions. Are you like that in real life? FYI I have taught both college/university mathematics and geology and have been a chairman of the math and science division at one of the four colleges I have taught at. It is science that convinced me that evolution doesn�t work. I have also taught courses in teacher education where I taught students that logic and reason are good scientific tools. Perhaps you don�t employ them? I also taught my students to think for themselves, not just parrot what they have heard. You can do your own research and noy just pick up info off the atheist sites. Recommended.

Ok, first of all, as a former “evolutionist” you should know that natural selection is not an “accident” it is a non-random selection of random changes in gene frequency....  Sure mutations are going to be random, but the selection mechanism is far from random.  First of all the numbers you give are just pulled out of somebody’s butt and have no real value to them.

Your argument rest on the idea that if something is improbable, than it can’t happen.  Based on this idea nobody will ever win the lottery because the odds are too high against it.  This is a statistical flaw.  Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean that with enough events happening, in the long run they become inevitable.  For example if you dealt out 10 cards in a deck of cards, what is the probability that drawing a specified set of cards.  The answer is 1/52 * 1/51 * 1/50 ...  * 1/43 = 1/57407703889536000.  These odds are astounding.  If you try it you will always get a set just as improbable.

Oh Dave, if you really were a college professor and you really believed that evolution was true and changed your mind, than you have been duped… You obviously was not a math or science professor because either one would correct you as far as your lack of science and your lack of probability and statistics…

First of all, there is no science that backs up creation.  And there is no evidence at all that goes against evolution.  The artificial selection examples I used are small examples of evolution.  They don’t prove evolution, they add to the evidence of evolution.  There is other evidence as well, like the fact that chicken have DNA in their bodies for teeth they don’t have which shows that they once had teeth evolutionarily speaking.  As far as no information being added, look at viruses they have new “information” added to their DNA all the time.  You can also see effects on insects due to pesticides developing immunity as well.  I will talk about probability next…

Scott, would you name those thirty thousand denominations for me? Or are they made up in your mind?
Islam is not a derivative of Christianity, I thought you would know that.
In the scientific experiment MIT did, they put the age of the earth at 4.5 billion years, then the makeup of the human body by the estimated number of cells, then calculated the time it would take for the body to evolve together at the rate of one cell per second. The answer was that the human body was not yet evolved. It was a mathematicle experiment, but in 4.5 billion years you would think it would be enough time for all those cells to form the same body we have today wouldnt you?
Fossils form quickly after all tissue has disolved, so, if you use radiometric dating on fossilised bones would you get a correct date? or would you have to use carbon 14 dating, or do bones ‘evolve’ into stone? what information would be needed for that transformation?

The common chant heard at schools and universities is that evolution is science whereas creation is faith. This is pure smokescreen used to keep the actual evidence for creation out of the hands of students.  Evolution relies heavily on FAITH. It is not science!
How much FAITH does evolution rest on? Consider the unlikely probability of accidentally making a �simple� protein. Uusing very conservative figures. The chance is 1 chance out of 1 followed by 260 zeros. That�s a huge number considering it would take considerable less marbles (only 1 followed by 84 zeros) to fill the entire known universe.  So, the probability of making a simple protein is like finding a lone red marble in the universe filled with blue marbles.  If you are very lucky and find it 3 times in a row (blindfolded), that would be 100 million times more likely than accidentally making that simple protein.  To believe that chance produced it (let alone the whole cell) requires much more faith than I have!

I noticed your discourse on Creation vs. Evolution. I am a former college instructor and former evolutionist who switched to creation mostly due to the sheer weight of the scientific evidence against evolution and for creation. The comment below that giant rabbits and foxes prove evolution is certainly weak.  Selective breeding is not the type of evolution that is being talked about. It is merely the shuffling of genetic material that is already present in the population. There is no new information, just recombining what is already there in the genetic pool. You will need to show how you got all the genes in the rabbit or fox genetic pool in the first place! That�s one place evolution fails—information from no information.

Great post Scott, pretty much what I was going to say…

Aldy, as far as Gnosticism goes, it can mean very many things based on what context you look at it. You stated, “There�s that cultic mysticism about great knowledge, legends become truth, and vice versa.”

“Legends become truth"… How is Christianity not Gnosticism based on your own definition?

So because I don’t believe in your god, I HAVE to think of myself as a god? You really don’t understand what atheism is, do you?

Yes, the bible makes God so visible that there are over thirty thousand different denominations who each think they know the REAL one. And this is supposed to be convincing why?

Was 9/11 committed by creationists? It wouldn’t surprise me. Islam has their own version of the creation myth, and the fundamentalist Muslims attack evolution every bit as voraciously as they do here. More so, in fact because that brand of Islam tends to exist in countries where the religious leaders are the political leaders as well, making teaching evolution blasphemy and treason. So I think it is quite likely that the perpetrators of 9/11 were creationists. I’ll bet you didn;t even know there were Muslim creationists, did you?

Gee, a computer said evolution is impossible. Garbage in, garbage out. Are you tired of these appeals to authority yet?