RBG says:

13. “You still can’t have energy/mass turn to rocks turn to dna/rna turn to cells turn to multicells to fish to monkeys to people if you tried random processes for a trillion ^ trillion years.”

You’re right. Now let’s try instead a process that is not random and see what we get.

As a model to illustrate what I am talking about, let’s try a mixture of sand & iron filings & marbles & water & beads & many tiny pieces of magnets & gravel to represent the earth or the universe. Shake it all up thoroughly. Now calculate the random chance that all the iron filings are going to connect with all the many pieces of iron filings (and nothing else). The probability must be astronomical. Yet there it is.

Now try something more chemical. Look at that same mixture and tell me the probability of that all the iron randomly finds and bonds to the oxygen present to form iron oxide or rust. Again if this was simply a random process it would never happen. Instead it is a 100% sure thing.

The reason we have so many chemical compounds in this world is because the atoms must combine together in certain ways when they come into contact. There is nothing (much) random about it all. In a laboratory, the presence of various natural chemicals can be progressively added together and eventually with the right conditions – such as a spark or lightning – eventually what they form will self-replicate. None of that is a random process. The first chemical must turn into the second which must turn into the third. Just as hydrogen and oxygen with a spark must turn into water. And water with sulphur must turn into sulphurous acid. And sulphurous acid and iron… you get the idea.

Now give all these “must turn into”s quite a number of billion years to come into contact and they will absolutely transform into other than what they started out as… Add to this a very non-random moderating and directing process like natural selection and there’s your complex forms.

So let’s both agree – there can’t be anything wholly random about life. (Setting aside uncertainty principles and such.)

RBG

JimR says:

#57- Stiffler : The problem with the tree analogy is this: we have all of the ends of the “branches”, but none of the nodes or dead ends. Suppose that we have species A evolving in to species B. Then by your analogy, the fossil record should be littered with evolutionary dead-ends and instances of species in transition, providing a steady transition over the eons of time… only we don’t.

Your statement is not true at all. Since every step of evolution is micro, there is no way to see, as you wish to, a sudden change. From fossil records we are able only to see macro evolution (jumps in evolution) because of the sparsity of fossil records. We have plenty of records to suggest macro transformations. The fossil record IS littered with dead ends. Practically every fossil found is of an animal or plant that no longer exists, dinosaurs only being some of them.

Those records long with DNA and successful microevolution duplication in labs proves evolution beyond a doubt. You are so wrapped up in what ‘could be’ spirititually, that you can’t see what IS realistically. Everything you need to educate yourself on the subject is on Google.

JimR says:

#64 Mike, LOL.
It’s called blind faith. When I was 8 (1962) I had catechism class every Sunday after church. Adam and Eve, Noah, all that hogwash was taught as the truth. Even then I thought it all improbable and was reprimanded more than once for asking the wrong questions. I was expected to believe unconditionally. Now that the other sheep are finally getting wise many christians see all the errors and incongruity of the Old Testament and have changed their stance… ie made excuses…. “it’s all symbolism so it doesn’t have to make logical sense.” The same is now happening to the New Testament. Although not as bad as the Old Testament, the same excuses are starting to appear. “oh, that part is symbolism but this part is exact meaning, etc, etc.” The New testament is faltering and soon to become obsolete, but not without a lot of teeth gnashing and obstinance.

JimR says:

#61, RGB, processes you describe are based on the laws of nature and matter as discovered by scientists. By very definition laws express consistency and repetition. To hijack evidence and suggest that there is a supreme being who created those laws is nothing but superstious and pretentious.

I also cannot believe that in this day and age that you STILL believe homosexuality is a choice. There are currently around 4,000 known genetic disorders and new ones are constantly being discovered. Because of your religious beliefs you discriminate against one of them as if it were somehow invalid.

I wonder if you think those with Cystic fibrosis, Sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs disease, Spinal muscular atrophy, Muscular dystrophy, Hemophilia A, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Color blindness are all faking it?

I challenged you before to become homosexual since you think it can be turned on and off. Did you tyr it? Change your desires towards women to men. It should be enjoyable for you because according to you it’s a choice and who would chose something distasteful over something enjoyable? … unless of course they have NO choice in the matter.

JimR says:

RGB, sorry ’bout the clarity. I read your post thoroughly and it was your concluding statement that i responded to:
Add to this a very non-random moderating and directing process like natural selection and there’s your complex forms.

I disagree with your conclusion that the process of evolution is non random. Chemistry is used in evolution but your oversimplification of the process does not hold water. How many organic compounds can you make from hydrogen and carbon for instance? How about 5.9 million.
those 5.9 million (known) variations a chemical reaction is dictated by pure chance. What reactive elements near, temperature, water, pressure… all random. Soulld any of the chemical soups produce a self replicating molecule, survival itself is based partly on compatibility with life and partly on adaptability to the environment of which there is no formula or set rules. The environment itself is random and subject to change from the random forces of nature.

Sy stating that your non-randomness is ‘directed’ implies an intelligent force. Since evolution is random and since randomness and being directed are contradicting, your implication falls flat. and is inconsistent with intelligent design.

As in any genetic mistakes there are variations as they are part of evolution. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize there are varying degrees of homosexuality, and that it is possible for some to swing both ways. You have also failed to demonstrate that you yourself can become homosexual at will.

joewo says:

A 4 word sentence can prove that dinosaurs and humans lived together in relative peace.

Fred Flintstone had Dino.

I saw it on TV so it must be true! Game set and match!

RBG says:

72. No disagreement on such things as 5.9 million compounds, etc. But of those 5.9 million, there are quite a number of them that figure very importantly in the evolution of life. What are the chances that you are going to have 5.9 million of those different compounds but be MINUS the ones important to life. Zero chance. That’s my point. Ten billion years of physical processes on Earth ensures they will be there with the others (disregarding the ones only created in the laboratory).

Certainly I should have quotes around the word “directing.” By “directing processes” I am really talking about the process of natural selection with its “ability” to transform complex molecules and organisms from what they once were into something quite different. Often something with even more complexity as a response to its environment. There is zero chance of this not happening.

Technically I can become a homosexual at will by practicing and preferring only homosexual acts. I could physically do that, but it would cost someone quite a bit of money. But I would be motivated.

I’m not ready to defend this aspect – or my more qualified, more comprehensive, and surprising – feelings about this subject right now out of respect for the above topic, other than to note the fact that most people know that people can be convinced about anything; that the human psyche in the face of emotional dispair or pressure and certain environmental pressures is really quite something to behold; and cite similar paradoxes such as the Stockholm Syndrome.

To relate all this back to the above subject matter, again, people will believe anything if they disregard facts, give credence to hypothesis only, accept what influential advisers proclaim as “right” and put their trust in faith alone.

RBG

Angel H. Wong says:

On the bright side, they’re not saying that Satan planted those “fake” bones to confuse people.

Stiffler says:

#63-“Since every step of evolution is micro, there is no way to see, as you wish to, a sudden change. From fossil records we are able only to see macro evolution (jumps in evolution) because of the sparsity of fossil records. ”

The fossil records are anything but sparse; especially in the Cambrian age. They are littered with various species. Even from the sheer number of generations required to produce changes from one species to the other, there should be numerous intermediary fossils of one species changing into another. Instead we simply have different species.

“We have plenty of records to suggest macro transformations.”

Exactly; key word being “SUGGEST”; this is nothing more than looking at a series of organisms and ordering them in order of complexity and then ASSUMING that they transitioned from one into the other, with only the beginning and end results preserved in the fossil record (by sheer coincidence), and none of the numerous in-transition forms being preserved, despite having 50 million years in order to do so.

JimR; don’t be deluded here; the fifty major phyla in the cambrian age aren’t the only problems that evolution has. Bats just suddenly burst on the scene in the Oligocene era, and turtles appear in the Triasic age, with the full characteristics, without any other fossils even remotely close them morphologicly, I won’t even go into the problem of fish appearing in the Cambrian age without any transitional forms.

“Everything you need to educate yourself on the subject is on Google.”

And everything that you still need to explain exists in the fossil record; except for those blasted transitional fossils (billions of them claimed); that just, for whatever reason, didn’t fossilize. JimR, your faith is incredible; many would be inspired by your blind belief in chance!

bac says:

I am not sure it takes blind faith to acknowledge that chemical reactions have occurred in the past. But it does take blind faith to believe in an imaginary being to be real.

If you want to see evolution at work, look at dogs, modern crops and yourself. Humans change from one generation to the next. I am not a clone of my mom or my dad. I have genetic bits from both parents. My genome sequence is slightly different from any other person on this planet. I am in some ways, a missing link.

People today have genetics that helps them fight off infections that would have kill a human 6000 years back. So modern humans are slightly different than humans 6000 years back. Even today, one person might survive an infection where as another person might not survive the same infection.

Give this ever changing process five million years and you will see quite a few changes in humans. Some of those changes may be visible but some will not be visible.

Evolution is quite real unlike imaginary beings.

RBG says:

80. And there are only about 90 naturally occurring elements that make up everything on earth. What’s your point? I think you know the difference between an element and a compound. And we have been talking compound up until now.

Is this a trick question? 5.9 million is your number. Biochemistry is my number. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochemistry

I honestly think you and I are arguing the same thing, but you don’t realize it yet.

“Life isn’t so astronomically improbable after all. Quite the opposite it seems.” I’m arguing that there was zero chance that these organic molecules would not have arisen on Earth. As for other planets – on a lot of them, probably the same.

While a person can will themselves to do homosexual acts, I would say it would be difficult or impossible to be truly homosexual for a day , in the sense you are looking for. Just as it would be impossible to have, say, obsessive-compulsive or anorexic or attachment disorders for a day.

RBG

Mr. Fusion says:

#84, JimR

You have made very good points and provided a good argument. I am impressed.

Stiffler says:

#81 – bac – “If you want to see evolution at work, look at dogs, modern crops and yourself. Humans change from one generation to the next. I am not a clone of my mom or my dad. I have genetic bits from both parents. My genome sequence is slightly different from any other person on this planet. I am in some ways, a missing link…So modern humans are slightly different than humans 6000 years back. Even today, one person might survive an infection where as another person might not survive the same infection.”

What you have described is genetic variance; you haven’t “evolved”, nor has any of your other examples. They may have undergone selective breeding to enhance specific traits; especially for domestication, but even after all of those thousands of years, they are still the same species.

Moral Volcano says:

From a review by Ram Swarup in The Statesman of Seven Hundred Plans To Evangelize The World: The Rise of a Global Evangelization Movement, by David Barrett and James W. Reapsome:

The authors give us some very interesting figures. They have no use for the traditional biblical chronology, which allows man a bare 4000 years of sojourn on earth (According to a 17th century computation3, Man appeared on the earth on October 23 of BC 4004 and the apostles were already getting ready for the end of the world in their times). Our authors however take a long stride, back and forth, go back to 5.5 million years when Homo appeared on the scene and they traverse 4 billion years in future. Undeterred by the fact that the new perspective involves grave theological problems, they boldly audit for us the missionary activity for all this era.

By the time Jesus came, 5.5 million years had already elapsed and 118 billion men and women had already lived and died, all ipso facto destined for hell as they did not know Christ. But new prospects opened for mankind after AD 33 when the Kingdom of Heaven was announced and inaugurated. Heaven, empty until then, began to be populated though rather unexpectedly slowly in the beginning. But by 1990, there are already 8 billion dead believers (Church Triumphant), all qualifying for habitation in the new region. They are however still only 5.68% of unbelievers destined for hell, quarters across the street. But the demographic composition continues to improve in their favour. By AD 2100, they are 8.57%, and at the end of 4 billion years, they are fully 99.90%, the Christian heaven holding 9 decillion (one decillion is ten followed by 33 zeros) believers.

In AD 1,00,000, believers are still only 85% of the total living population. But by AD 4 billion, the gap practically closes and almost all are believers. The Great commission is fulfilled and missionaries are freed from their obligation to God and His Son.

The population figures given here take into account men whose longevity after AD 2500 turns gradually into immortality, and new men and human species artificially created by mass cloning and genetic engineering (Missionaries of the future believing, brave new world will have a different role; they will increasingly be able to raise their own crop of believers through genetic technology); they take into account humans increasingly living on off-earth space colonies, then across other galaxies and universes. In AD 4 billion, the “ultimate size of the Church of Jesus Christ,” the authors estimate, will be “1 decillion believers,” not counting 9 decillion dead by then….