Five questions that evolutionists can't answer

[K. A. Pital]

A creationist, no shit... It's been long since I've seen one on this board.

[Surlethe]

Wow! I wasn't aware that anything in nature wasn't a random process.

You've obviously never studied physics. Almost everything is non-random.

And yet, it remains an E. Coli! Wow! There are now new genes there. Bacteria have the ability to assimilate genes from other organisms which give them new abilities. However, there has not been one instance of these assimilated genes producing anything other than E. Coli with a new ability. Basicaly, the conclusion is that the genes that make E. Coli a distinct organism remain separate from any genes that get assimilated

You completely missed the point, which is that you falsely expect that the bacteria will suddenly, upon evolving, transmute to a completely different organism. This only happens in Pokemon; in real evolution, the organism will only be subtly different over short periods of time.

Of course, every organism is a transitional organism to you. I am, he is, my dog is. lol Lets look at dogs for a minute.

Well, yes. The reason the fossil record is so convincing is precisely because everything we've found fits in the pattern evolution predicts.

Many new dog breeds have been breed, and I'm sure when they dig up their fossils a million years from now, they'll be saying those dogs were evidence of evolution.

Darwin himself held up domesticated animals as a primary example of evolution.

The truth is, organisms have the ability to adapt to a very high degree. Nothing new is introduced into the gene pool, it is merely different characteristics within that gene pool that become more prevalant. This one is NOT RIDICULOUS, at lest not entirely.

Mm, the "information" red herring. Actually, the gene pool does undergo constant change. A human zygote, IIRC, has, on average, 64 new mutations. Most of these are benign; some are beneficial; and some are harmful. The amount of "information" (I use quotes because the term is very loosely defined) in a given gene pool is simply irrelevent to evolution, which only acts on gene configurations that are beneficial and removes gene configurations that are deleterious.

So, to recap: you agree that evolution acts only on those genes that are in the gene pool already. The only thing that stands in the way of your complete acceptance of evolution is your realization that a mechanism exists to add new genes to the pool.

[General Zod]

While we're at it, perhaps Wishful can explain why men have nipples. If he feels that creationism has explanations, I'd love to hear one for this.

Ok, I couldn't help myself:

male breastfeeding

Perhaps God meant for you guys to be up all night with the babes and not us

That's just slightly creepy, but I was aiming at getting him to explain it in purely creationist terms like he claims is possible to explain everything with. (As opposed to scientific research).

[brianeyci]

The "transitional forms" argument is pretty devious. All you have to do is point to something and obstinately declare it is not a transitional form, and shift the goalpost.

Anybody who knows a bit of Calculus would know the beauty of this grift. It's the go to a door but cut in half every step gaffe. Suppose I say that a transitional form must exist for evolution to be true. My opponent points to something with half a toe. Then I say, what the fuck about the animals with a quarter of a toe, huh? And keep going, knowing I'll "win" since I can always shift the goalpost.

It only works because some people are too stupid to understand the idea of limit. I realize I'm perverting what a limit actually is, but it's close enough. The half of a half of a half of a half of a half to all eternity idea is something mathematicians encounter to being their career, and they have no problem with the limit concept.

[Edi]

Wishful thinking seems to be just as idiotic as before.

As for your demands for an apology, go fuck yourself. You have demonstrated complete ignorance of the subject at hand, both evolution theory, general biology, basic physics and basic logic and yet you still presume to lecture everyone here on what is correct on those subjects and what is not. Even if you're not a liar, you're so stupid you SHOULD be ridiculed, harassed, mocked and made miserable until you actually go and educate yourself about the subject and render the people here an apology for wasting their time with your moronic ravings.

[Lord of the Abyss]

While we're at it, perhaps Wishful can explain why men have nipples. If he feels that creationism has explanations, I'd love to hear one for this.

Creationist explanation ? It's . . . um . . . it's because Adam sinned by taking the apple from Eve, so God cursed him with nipples ! His pure masculinity was therefore sullied with these twin marks of female shame !

And knowing this, we can can now firmly state that Jesus, being pure and sinless had no nipples. Any crucifixes or other images depicting the Nipples of Sin upon Our Lord Jesus Christ should be immediately sanded down to avoid insulting Our Lord.

[Darth Wong]

There are thousands of different genetic enhancements required by the Theory of Evolution, with a great many of them dependent on many others to provide an advantage

Show exactly how these genetic developments are "required" by the theory of evolution, as opposed to being an inevitable outcome of it.

Required vs inevitable. Basically what he has done here is instead of answering the question, or providing any argument, He is just turning the question around on me.

Once again you demonstrate your stupidity. The difference between A being a pre-requisite for B and A being a natural consequence of B is huge, and you seem to think it's just wordplay. If complex genetic changes are a result of evolution rather than a prerequisite for evolution, then their complexity and inter-relation does not have any effect whatsoever on the likelihood of evolution being true. Of course, you obviously lack the intelligence to grasp this without having it spelled out for you.

For that matter, your point fails if someone challenges you to explain the claim that is implicit in your question and you can't. Yet more basic logic of which you are apparently unaware.

Creationists rely on an often long-winded but quite predictable tactic of assuming that evolution theory leads to certain conclusions when in fact it does not, and then refusing to ever show how it leads to those conclusions.

Three phrases here are of note. long-winded, predictable, and assuming. What are you trying to say? I'm still waiting for the answer the question.

If it can be shown that the question is based on unjustified assumptions about what evolution theory actually says, then by triumphantly saying I didn't answer it as-is, you only prove that you didn't understand my point at all. This is likely to be the case with virtually all science-related arguments since it's painfully obvious that you have zero scientific education (by quoting the idiotic "second law of thermodynamics" argument which is a red-flag for scientific illiteracy), but you have demonstrated that it is also true with simple logic.

[Darth Wong]

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at his bullshit. His posting history starts in Arkansas, then moves to Ohio. We're talking about bastions of fundie stupidity here. What the fuck kind of town is "Ashtabula" anyway?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Starglider and I were talking in the chat about the feasibility of making a creationist-droid he believes can be made to 98% accuracy to Coberst or Wishful here. That goes to show that he's a waste of meat worthy only of being fed to the Strogg.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at his bullshit. His posting history starts in Arkansas, then moves to Ohio. We're talking about bastions of fundie stupidity here. What the fuck kind of town is "Ashtabula" anyway?

Probably something like Denham Springs, Louisiana?

While we're at it, perhaps Wishful can explain why men have nipples. If he feels that creationism has explanations, I'd love to hear one for this.

Creationist explanation ? It's . . . um . . . it's because Adam sinned by taking the apple from Eve, so God cursed him with nipples ! His pure masculinity was therefore sullied with these twin marks of female shame !

And knowing this, we can can now firmly state that Jesus, being pure and sinless had no nipples. Any crucifixes or other images depicting the Nipples of Sin upon Our Lord Jesus Christ should be immediately sanded down to avoid insulting Our Lord.

OWWW! /me reflexively covers own nipples with hands...

[Starglider]

Starglider and I were talking in the chat about the feasibility of making a creationist-droid he believes can be made to 98% accuracy to Coberst or Wishful here.

I'm usually wary of posting IM logs, but that claim could really use a little clarification to avoid seeming stupid:

***: and wishful proves he's an even bigger dipshit than before. yay.
einhandersn0m4n: just saw it
starglider: Ha, it was only a matter of time really.
starglider: He was following a very standard pattern.
einhandersn0m4n: great, a bot then?
starglider: Hmm, that would be an interesting challenge.
starglider: Bet I could make a 98% accurate coberst bot out of a web crawler and the ELIZA codebase in a couple of days or so.
einhandersn0m4n: making a bot that can autonomously impersonate a creationist? LOL
starglider: I'm not sure you'd need the chatbot part for that even.
starglider: There are millions of posts of this stuff on creationist boards.
starglider: You could probably write a little script that does some targetted googling and cut-and-paste, and hey presto, creationist-bot.
einhandersn0m4n: yummy
starglider: In fact maybe when I stop wasting all my free time on STGOD, I will do that
***: it requires a little bit more intelligence than a google bot to distinguish between the forums like wishful is. but eh
starglider: The key part is selective replying.
starglider: You'd take advantage of the fact that when they get dogpiled, they only tend to reply to one or two of the 20 people taking the piss out of them.
einhandersn0m4n: lol
***: there's the little problem of registering to the forums and figuring out which one to post in
starglider: You'd abstract out the usernames into tokens and match on that basis for posts across all known creationist forums, selecting on keywords and style heuristics to maximise the 'fit'.
einhandersn0m4n: and they'll be good target drones for SDNers too
starglider: Maybe I'll do it for next year's april fools
starglider: Creationist arguments are almost always repackaged dogma anyway, so having a really dumb bot do the repackaging is really just streamlining the process a little
einhandersn0m4n: LOL
einhandersn0m4n: hmm, methinks this in reverse: a bot that attacks creationist boards with SDN-type logic
einhandersn0m4n: it'll make sure to conform to the letter of the ToS too
starglider: That would require near-general AI. SDN-type logic requires actual intelligence.
einhandersn0m4n: oh, point
starglider: Unless you just want to spam them with canned rebuttals to blatant idiocies.
einhandersn0m4n: when it gets dogpiled, it'll EVISCERATE every detectable point of every attack it draws
einhandersn0m4n: ok, conceded on all counts
blackberet006: I'm just thinking of it as a decoy
einhandersn0m4n: need actual good meatware for that then

[Cairber]

While we're at it, perhaps Wishful can explain why men have nipples. If he feels that creationism has explanations, I'd love to hear one for this.

Ok, I couldn't help myself:

male breastfeeding

Perhaps God meant for you guys to be up all night with the babes and not us

That's just slightly creepy, but I was aiming at getting him to explain it in purely creationist terms like he claims is possible to explain everything with. (As opposed to scientific research).

Oh i know. But I remember back when my son was a newborn and had his nights and days mixed up, I use to sit there, half conscious with the babe on my boob, wondering (sarcastically) if "In God's Image" could possibly mean men were suppose to participate in this job.

[Darth Servo]

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at his bullshit. His posting history starts in Arkansas, then moves to Ohio. We're talking about bastions of fundie stupidity here. What the fuck kind of town is "Ashtabula" anyway?

An itty bitty one about 1/3 of the way from Cleveland to Buffalo.

[Lord Zentei]

You might as well have said, "Wishful, you are a long winded liar, who is unaware of being spoonfed lies and propaganda, and you know nothing about thermodynamics." BLA BLA

But you DO know nothing about thermodynamics, fool. You have demonstrated that quite clearly by making an argument based on the widespread but completely false assumption that entropy is disordered physical structure rather than disordered energy. This widespread assumption is based on the idiotic notion that one of Dr. Stephen Hawking's analogies to help describe the concept of entropy was actually a literal description.

Nitpick: while you are, of course, correct, one should note that the distribution of energy vis-a-vis entropy can also have a physical manifestation regarding the possible arrangements and states that the constituent particles can occupy. A configuration of particles that allows fewer states has in general a lower entropy.

Of course there are situations where organic reactions can decrease local entropy. For instance, if you place single strands of DNA in a solution of DNA bases, a set of double helix molecules will form, but this is an exothermic reaction: the entropy of the universe increases to compensate for the increased order. Which leads to another rebuttal: all of this invoking of the Second Law is pretty much a red herring since no living system is a closed system anyway.



As an aside, a couple of points I thought of (some time after our last thread on the matter) that should be mentioned in discussions such as these: as far as entropy in information theory is concerned, information content is not the same as the amount of useful information (and entropy in information theory and thermodynamics are, after all, related...).

For instance, a grainy image may have a high level of information content even though the object it is meant to depict is indecypherable: if one tries to compress such an image, one might well manage to do so less than the non-grainy image. Moreover, compressability is related to information content, which in turn is related to information-entropy. So while useful genetic information may be increased in a system that does not neccesarily mean that total information does.

The second point touches upon what you mentioned above: it seems that part of this problem is that there is also the idea that order and information content are somehow equivalent. Only this is dead wrong.

Consider a 100x100 pixel image consisting of two simple coloured areas, the top half half black and the other half white. This image is obviously highly ordered. However, the information content is very low, since it can be described in a simple way: "50 rows of 100 black pixels, 50 rows of 100 white pixels". This simple description coveres the whole image completely; it has a low information content.

Now consider another black and white 100x100 pixel image where the distribution is randomized: a highly disordered state. The description becomes much longer, for instance it might begin with: "first row: one black pixel, three white, four black, one white, two black, one white, one black, six white, one black...... " and so on. This description included only 20 pixels, or 0.2% of the total, even though it was more wordy than the description of the entire ordered image! Simply equating "order" (while meaning "structure" or "neatness" or whatever) and information content is misleading.

[Darth Wong]

Nitpick: while you are, of course, correct, one should note that the distribution of energy vis-a-vis entropy can also have a physical manifestation regarding the possible arrangements and states that the constituent particles can occupy. A configuration of particles that allows fewer states has in general a lower entropy.

Isn't that the same thing as an object with lower internal energy? Given any particular object, if you remove entropy from it, you're going to be cooling it down, not making it more physically complicated.

[Lord Zentei]

Nitpick: while you are, of course, correct, one should note that the distribution of energy vis-a-vis entropy can also have a physical manifestation regarding the possible arrangements and states that the constituent particles can occupy. A configuration of particles that allows fewer states has in general a lower entropy.

Isn't that the same thing as an object with lower internal energy? Given any particular object, if you remove entropy from it, you're going to be cooling it down, not making it more physically complicated.

Yes, though to arrange the object's particles into a less probable state you need to do work on the system.

As for whether it is more physically complicated -- it's a bit subjective what that means as was my point above.

[wishful]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory. It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about. That is impossible to do now. I'm not saying that mutations don't happen, but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about. Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

[SirNitram]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory. It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about. That is impossible to do now. I'm not saying that mutations don't happen, but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about. Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

Hey retard. Evolution is not only the only theory even considered by the scientific community, it's not got a thing to do with the origin of life. But we realize you're a moron who doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Batman]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory.

Then they're either lying or stupid (and most likely not actually scientists, or at least not REAL scientists) assuming they actually exist in the first place. Evolution has been seen in action countless times.

It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about.

It ever has been from what I know. Evolution is what life did once it existed.

That is impossible to do now.

No it's not. At worst, it would simply be wrong.

I'm not saying that mutations don't happen, but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about.

I must have missed the part where anybody said it was. Evolution isn't about the origin of life, you moron. It's about the development of life.

Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa.

Bzzzt. Wrong. The Bible has been shown to be incorrect about just about everything important. Evolution hasn't, and has in fact been observed in action time and again.

I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

Except evolution has been observed in operation, whereas the Bible has been shown to be flat out WRONG time and again...

[Surlethe]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory. It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about. That is impossible to do now. I'm not saying that mutations don't happen,

Do you understand how mutations can change the composition of the gene pool? If so, do you understand how natural selection acts on a gene pool? If so, then why are you so incredulous?

but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about. Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

Wishful, wishful, wishful. Answer me this: are you willing to learn about evolution? Are you willing to demonstrate that you have made an informed choice in choosing to reject evolution?

[Civil War Man]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory.

Here's your homework assignment:
Find one of these scientists who isn't open about the fact that they are devoutly religious and went through the motions in college so they could get their science degree, then state their preconceived notions about whatever science they have a particular beef with (typically evolution) simply so they can be quoted as a "scientist who thinks evolution is bunk"

It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about.

It's not. You're thinking abiogenesis. Evolution is the accepted explanation for how higher life forms came into being.

Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

Except we have observed evolution in action. We've actually been causing it for thousands of years. For a long time we've done it by hunting animals until they go extinct, eradicating their genetic material as a consequence. Of course, now we cause it through genetic engineering and selective breeding, along with efforts to prevent species extinction.

[Darth Servo]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory. It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about. That is impossible to do now. I'm not saying that mutations don't happen, but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about. Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

More black and white from the creationist idiot.

Plain English translation: evolution isn't absolutely flawless, therefore my alternative which has jack shit by way of support is just as good.

We don't have absolute proof of every step in evolution but we DO have proof that most of the historical claims made by the bible are complete BS.

Here's a dollar, go buy a clue. Evolution may be a jizsaw puzzle with some pieces missing but biblical creationism is a completely empty picture frame. Only a completely brainwashed fool would declare those two things are equally valid, equally descriptive, equally accurate.

[Darth Wong]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory. It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about. That is impossible to do now. I'm not saying that mutations don't happen, but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about. Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

Answer the points raised previously against your position, asshole. I'm growing tired of the way you simply ignore everything that we say to you.

[bilateralrope]

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory.

How many of them actually hold degrees in biology ?
And when are we going to see an alternative to evolution that actually qualifies as a theory and is thus published in one of the respected peer reviewed journals ?

As for the rest of your points, I'll just be me-tooing if I try to answer them.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, though to arrange the object's particles into a less probable state you need to do work on the system.

A lower-entropy state is not necessarily a less probable state. Cooling down a piece of ice reduces its entropy, but there is nothing improbable about its microstructure after cooling. It simply loses internal energy.

As for whether it is more physically complicated -- it's a bit subjective what that means as was my point above.

Well obviously, when creationists use the term, they are referring to simple number of gross physical features. In other words, a creature with six legs is more complicated than a creature with none. And of course, they stupidly assume that the six-legged creature must have less entropy in its body, even though it would probably have more.

[Lord Zentei]

Yes, though to arrange the object's particles into a less probable state you need to do work on the system.

A lower-entropy state is not necessarily a less probable state. Cooling down a piece of ice reduces its entropy, but there is nothing improbable about its microstructure after cooling. It simply loses internal energy.

That is true, of course.

As for whether it is more physically complicated -- it's a bit subjective what that means as was my point above.

Well obviously, when creationists use the term, they are referring to simple number of gross physical features. In other words, a creature with six legs is more complicated than a creature with none. And of course, they stupidly assume that the six-legged creature must have less entropy in its body, even though it would probably have more.

Ugh, I've seen quite a bit of bad uses of entropy, though that's a new one.

And yet, there are many many scientist who will state that evolution remains an unproven theory. It can not be stated that evolution is the way life came about. That is impossible to do now. I'm not saying that mutations don't happen, but I am saying that evolution is so far from being THE explanation for the origins of life that is is ridiculous to say evolution is the gospel of how life came about. Evolution is no more fact than the bible and vice versa. I understand that a belief in God is founded upon faith, and if only the evolutionists realized the same thing about their belief...

Who wants to bet that he'll trot out "Creation Scientists" or some asshole or other from Liberty College? And as ever, there is the black and white fallacy of "if you don't know something 100%, then it is faith-based". Only we have in fact observed evolution in action...