The Theory of Evolution

[Vangelovski]

It is more rationale, considerably more rationale, to believe life comes from life

Even the scientific community makes the claim that life can only come from life, yet it takes the origin of life as a given without even attempting to explain it.

[spitfire]

Not quite Spitfire.

Intelligent design is based on the theory that information comes from a rational mind, and is not the product of unguided and undirected processes. The Intelligent Designer created biological life using sophisticated information in the form of DNA.

It is more rationale, considerably more rationale, to believe life comes from life, and that information is the product of intelligence, and that this Intelligent Designer designed DNA to be able to adapt and survive via natural selection within the framework of microevolution, than to believe that time and chance can produce sophisticated and complex information "far, far more advanced", as Bill Gates stated, than any computer program ever designed by human beings.

Ask Bill Gates on my behalf to eat his biology degree. Oh, that's right. He is not a biologist.

Another irrelevant point of view (aka dodging).

And no explanation of how the creator made it happen, or who made the creator.

[spitfire]

In other news, newer research shows that Adam denied the apple given to him by Eve and she gave it to a Gorilla instead. Thus Evolution is proven.

[Vangelovski]

In other news, newer research shows that Adam denied the apple given to him by Eve and she gave it to a Gorilla instead. Thus Evolution is proven.

I just read that Greeks invented the sun. They called over this guy called Thor to hit carbon with lightning and made hydrogen. One of the javelin throwers then hurled it into the sky. In the process they also created life and made themselves.

[spitfire]

I just read that Greeks invented the sun. They called over this guy called Thor to hit carbon with lightning and made hydrogen. One of the javelin throwers then hurled it into the sky. In the process they also created life and made themselves.

Really? I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing.

[Philosopher]

Ask Bill Gates on my behalf to eat his biology degree. Oh, that's right. He is not a biologist.

That is precisely why his statement is so pertinent. DNA is information very similar to computer programming language. Gates was comparing DNA to computer code used to produce software.

Software is a set of instructions for a new program in a computer. Likewise, DNA contains a set of instructions for the assembly of parts, namely proteins, within a cell. In the 19th century the cell was thought to be simple. Darwin and his contemporaries had no way of knowing just how complex it was. The cell today is sometimes compared to a high-tech factory. (Except it's much more complex than that -- factories can't replicate themselves.)

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/03/stephen_meyer_a057701.html

Another irrelevant point of view (aka dodging).

It is called logic Spitfire. Do you know of any other example of information, sophisticated information with codes, being the result of time and chance? If so, can you please list them?

And no explanation of how the creator made it happen, or who made the creator.

The Creator is eternal. His name means the "Existing One".

[spitfire]

[Risto the Great]

No answers and lots of ridicule. You seem to agree with Spitfire. Perhaps you can explain what Spitfire is on about? He seems to be claiming that the term assumptions when used in science is somehow different to the term assumptions when used in common English? Do you agree? If so, why? What do you think a scientific assumption is?

I think the links from those universities make it clear - that the scientific method, in order to be useful, must assume certain basic "realities", but that we have no actual way of knowing whether those realities are true or not.

While these assumptions may be reasonable, they are still assumptions and the scientific method cannot prove them, simply because it based on presupposing them.

Further, every scientific theory, in addition to these basic assumptions, uses other assumptions (assumptions that we have no way of knowing whether they are true or not) to try and explain various things about the natural world. The result is, far from being omnipotent, scientific theories are built on multiple unprovable assumptions (some more so than others).

Operational science (a systematic approach to understanding that uses observable, testable, repeatable, and falsifiable experimentation to understand how nature commonly behaves.), relies on far less assumptions which are much more reasonable (though still unprovable) than historical/origin science (interpreting evidence from past events based on a presupposed philosophical point of view, events which are not observable, measurable or reproducible) and therefore relies on many more assumptions, which are much less reasonable (and are still unprovable).

Perhaps you can contribute something of substance rather than one-line mockery, but I'm yet to see it.

Ease up champ.
I said God did it. We are one.
However, I am just curious about why theological knowledge is only partly better than scientific knowledge in terms of reliability in understanding the natural world. It sounds like you have a bet going both ways. Well done. It might even be understood as a grey instead of a black and white. Welcome to humanity (maybe).

[spitfire]

That is precisely why his statement is so pertinent. DNA is information very similar to computer programming language. Gates was comparing DNA to computer code used to produce software.

It is called logic Spitfire. Do you know of any other example of information, sophisticated information with codes, being the result of time and chance? If so, can you please list them?

The Creator is eternal. His name means the "Existing One".

Right. The creator is eternal and this is called logic.
Bill Gates designing software is Windows. No further explanation about how things work... .

Actually it does not compute.

[Vangelovski]

Ease up champ.
I said God did it. We are one.
However, I am just curious about why theological knowledge is only partly better than scientific knowledge in terms of reliability in understanding the natural world. It sounds like you have a bet going both ways. Well done. It might even be understood as a grey instead of a black and white. Welcome to humanity (maybe).

I've provided far more information than you have. Reread it and think about it. I know you know what my post is saying.

Your turn.

[Vangelovski]

One of my favourite passages by Richard Lewontin, evolutionary geneticist of Harvard University:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to naturalism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Lewontin, Richard (1997), “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review, January 9.

[Phoenix]

One of my favourite passages by Richard Lewontin, evolutionary geneticist of Harvard University:

Bullshit, it's not "one of your favourite passages"...

You scrapped it off creation.com

Anyways, Lewontin couldn't possibly be one of your faves...he's a known Marxist...

Vangelovski, I'm smelling the cold sweat of confused desperation...lol

[Risto the Great]

I've provided far more information than you have. Reread it and think about it. I know you know what my post is saying.

Your turn.

I know you think you know. But I don't know what else you rely on. Maybe you don't either. Either way, you will continue to try and have the last word.

Word.

[Vangelovski]

Bullshit, it's not "one of your favourite passages"...

You scrapped it off creation.com

Anyways, Lewontin couldn't possibly be one of your faves...he's a known Marxist...

Vangelovski, I'm smelling the cold sweat of confused desperation...lol

Actually, its from here:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=mSrxAMCUiX4C&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=Our+willingness+to+accept+scientific+claims+against+common+sense&source=bl&ots=dzR4_fnvzN&sig=tFjjhPRcTC9vrW6PruyxiR36EWU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PuZtVL_POoe0mAWblYLYCQ&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Our%20willingness%20to%20accept%20scientific%20claims%20against%20common%20sense&f=false

Does that make his comments more, less or equally valid?

Confusion? I think you're the only one that is confused (other than spitfire). Have you decided to provide any further commentary on the following:

Vangelovski,

The interesting thing that I find about science and scientists is their intestinal fortitude to question the very foundations of their 'belief system'...

Do they? Have they questioned naturalism or do they just assume it and then base their interpretations of their observations on the assumption that naturalism is true?

[spitfire]

Confusion? I think you're the only one that is confused (other than spitfire).

Really? We are confused?

Creationists believe that man was instantaneously created by God, based on an account in a book called the Bible.
Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, the stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was badly translated into several languages successively.
The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject.