Evolution topics coming to CSICON Las Vegas

"...evolution can never win under the rules adopted by 'intelligent design.'"

Well, duhh, that WAS the point of the rules.

So ID got the rules right.

So ID wins.

"...evolution can never win under the rules adopted by 'intelligent design.'"

Well, duhh, that IS the point of the rules.

So ID gets the rules right.

So ID wins.

Dang, wouldn't post for a minute or so, then both the original and the retry show up.

Just Bob said: Dang, wouldn't post for a minute or so, then both the original and the retry show up.

I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins. The fact they try , to me, demonstrates evolutionary biology is a line of reasoning and not a investigation based on scientific methodology. Or rather doing it right and smart!
There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species)
Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

Robert Byers said: I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins. The fact they try , to me, demonstrates evolutionary biology is a line of reasoning and not a investigation based on scientific methodology. Or rather doing it right and smart! There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species) Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

wah wah wah maths is bad wah wah wah

Robert Byers said: There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species) Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

Robert Byers said: I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins. The fact they try , to me, demonstrates evolutionary biology is a line of reasoning and not a investigation based on scientific methodology. Or rather doing it right and smart! There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species) Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

phhht said:

Robert Byers said: I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins. The fact they try , to me, demonstrates evolutionary biology is a line of reasoning and not a investigation based on scientific methodology. Or rather doing it right and smart! There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species) Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

But you're a moron, Robert Byers. You don't know the first thing about mathematics, and you demonstrate that clearly with your meaningless babbling. Chance, selection, mutation, genetics, the very process of evolution itself are all described in beautiful mathematics - but you're too stupid to understand that.

At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations. Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin A. Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem. Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system―and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems―in terms of evolutionary dynamics. -- from the Amazon.com review of Evolutionary Dynamics

Robert Byers said: I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins.

Robert Byers: I’m YEC but amen to this wilson guy. Math is irrelevant to discovery and invention of cool things now and in the past just as learning latin was irrelevant to to getting out of the dark ages. Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. All the math in the world never undid evolutionary biology error or helped it. Math in fact frustrates a sharper thinking in regards to Gods nature. Imagination will be doused by mulling over number crunching. Only in probability ideas can math help debunk evolution and all that is just numerical representation of common sense.

Robert Byers said: I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins. The fact they try , to me, demonstrates evolutionary biology is a line of reasoning and not a investigation based on scientific methodology. Or rather doing it right and smart! There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species) Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance

A stochastic process (or random process) is a probability model used to describe phenomena that evolve over time or space. More specifically, in probability theory, a stochastic process is a time sequence representing the evolution of some system represented by a variable whose change is subject to a random variation

It was strongly recommended that you read an evo-devo book such as Sean B Carroll’s "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" among other publications: http://seanbcarroll.com/endless-forms-most-beautiful/ How about finally giving us a review? "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" is a popular level book for the public which is something that you stress. What were your favorite chapters (you may give specific examples from the book as to why)? You could use this book to show how evo-devo and other evidence for biological evolution depends on fossils as you routinely parrot…… unless evo-devo really doesn’t depend on fossils. We would not be surprised if you never read this and other evo-devo books, but I would not mind being proven wrong.

aNd you will watch in vein yea, thats what i dais, tHats what Byers would say isnt it dont bust an artery

booby could easily prove us all wrong here but he wont cause book learnin is his kryptonite

Scott F said:

Robert Byers said: I don't agree math can be applied to biology origins. The fact they try , to me, demonstrates evolutionary biology is a line of reasoning and not a investigation based on scientific methodology. Or rather doing it right and smart! There should be a instinct of all that math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance, selection, mutationism(of any species) Its not just Vegas that has illusions.

Are you saying that "math" is not part of the scientific methodology?

math is unlikely to be part of a system based on chance

So, you've never heard of the branch of mathematics called "Statistical Analysis". You've never heard of "Probability Theory", or "Mathematical Modeling", or "Stochastic Processes". (Note: that wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.) From the last link [emphasis added]:

A stochastic process (or random process) is a probability model used to describe phenomena that evolve over time or space. More specifically, in probability theory, a stochastic process is a time sequence representing the evolution of some system represented by a variable whose change is subject to a random variation

Math is absolutely part of a system based on chance. Just because you've never heard of it, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. How do you think the notion of "chance" is decided? Scientists use "math" to decide whether something is "random" or "not random". How do you think that casino's stay in business? Or even bother to start in business in the first place? Because of "math" applied to the laws of "chance". Even though every roll of the dice, every game of Black Jack, every game of "chance" is "random", math says that the casino is going to make money, even though the odds are very small. In the same way, even though (even if ) every mutation, every conception, every birth, every new generation is "random" and pure "chance", math says that populations of individuals will evolve. It is guaranteed, even though the odds are very small. "Math" is yet another branch of human thought which you know nothing about, and because you know nothing about it, you can so easily dismiss it based on your unfounded and uninformed "instincts" and "feelings". "Math" is not "instinct". "Math" is the language of "logic" and "reason". Three other things that you know nothing about. [And yes, I know how to count. Think about it.] The statements "the casino always wins" and "species always evolve" can both be proven using "math".

Robert Byers said: Chance in biology is based on a mutation/selection spectrum. In real math stuff there is no more creation.

Robert Byers said: chance in biology is based on a mutation/selection spectrum. Its about creation. mutationism is the source for creation in evolutionism. In real math stuff there is no more creation. math is just a language of a finished creation. its about gods measurement of the universe. Your mATH would have to predict a mutation and selection event before the event. The mutation is the chance. The selection is the chance. its not a roll of the dice. Any population, however stressed, could fail to produce a needed mutation/and then selection. Evolutionary biology itself is just a great game of chance. I don't see it as the predicable chance of real time math. Real math must obey real results from a closed system. Biology, for anyone, is not closed but has a mind of its own for creation.

Robert Byers said: Not the same thing. chance in biology is not chance in a casino.

chance in biology is based on a mutation/selection spectrum. Its about creation. mutationism is the source for creation in evolutionism.

In real math stuff there is no more creation. math is just a language of a finished creation. its about gods measurement of the universe.

Your mATH would have to predict a mutation and selection event before the event.

The mutation is the chance.

The selection is the chance.

its not a roll of the dice.

Any population, however stressed, could fail to produce a needed mutation/and then selection.

Evolutionary biology itself is just a great game of chance.

I don't see it as the predicable chance of real time math.

Real math must obey real results from a closed system.

Biology, for anyone, is not closed but has a mind of its own for creation.

Any population, however stressed, could fail to produce a needed mutation/and then selection.

Robert, just a clarification.

In your simple way, you may think that Biological mutation is about "creation". For example, you may think that the "mutation" is a longer neck that turns an okapi into a giraffe.

Mutation doesn't work like that.

The actual "mutation" is one of those "A" nucleobases turning into a "C" nucleobase (or something like that). This produces a slightly different protein in the cells of the growing animal. This protein happens to be a growth factor which gets turned on in the animal's neck region, which tells the developing muscles and bones and stuff to grow longer for a certain period of time.

In reality, it's probably a dozen different mutations that make it all happen. And no, they don't all have to happen at the same time. First one mutation happens, and the neck grows a bit. Then another happens and the neck grows a bit more. And so on.

And yes, growth regulatory genes are very powerful. Very small mutations in the DNA of these genes can lead to dramatic structural changes in an animal.

But it all comes down to existing "A"s changing into "C"s, or "T"s changing into "G"s, or some such. All from a fixed selection of 4 items. There was no magical "let's make a really long neck" mutation. That's what a God would do, not what Biological Evolution actually does.

yea sure biology has a mind of its own too bad booby doesnt what an asshole

Robert,

If you think that mutations cannot happen or that they cannot be responsible for evolution, watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8

So you see Robert you are dead wrong, just admit it. Then go take a course in math somewhere, anywhere.

DS said: Robert, If you think that mutations cannot happen or that they cannot be responsible for evolution, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8 So you see Robert you are dead wrong, just admit it. Then go take a course in math somewhere, anywhere.

Just Bob said: What an incredibly cool demonstration of evolution in action! [Byers] but there stil just bactria [/Byers]

To characterize the evolution as "they are still just bacteria" ... Well, that would be like dismissing the distinction between trees and humans as merely a difference between eukaryotes.

The string "ME-THINKS-IT-IS-LIKE-A-WEASEL" , if represented by the 20 character amino acid alphabet, would (ignoring the dashes) be one of 8.23 * 10^29 possible combinations involving 23 characters. Darwinists admit that it is near impossible to reach this by chance alone, but their alternative idea that it could be produced cumulatively/successively by selection is a nonsense. This is because each step would not be advantageous by itself, but only in combination with many other changes. Now, evolution could do something with this string, like change "ME" to "HE" or "WEASEL" to "EASEL", but it couldn't generate it from scratch since their would be nothing to select, only gibberish. Case dismissed!

"...each step would not be advantageous by itself"

Why not, Joseph (banned) Bozorgmehr? In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all?

Wait, I know, it's because you say so, and you're way smarter than all the "evolutionists", and to prove it you'd blow them all up if you had the chance.

That pretty much dismisses your case.

Just Bob said: Why not, Joseph (banned) Bozorgmehr? In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all?

Hey Joe, watch the video, then shut the fuck up.

Just Bob said: "...each step would not be advantageous by itself" Why not, Joseph (banned) Bozorgmehr? In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all? Wait, I know, it's because you say so, and you're way smarter than all the "evolutionists", and to prove it you'd blow them all up if you had the chance. That pretty much dismisses your case.

TomS said:

Just Bob said: "...each step would not be advantageous by itself" Why not, Joseph (banned) Bozorgmehr? In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all? Wait, I know, it's because you say so, and you're way smarter than all the "evolutionists", and to prove it you'd blow them all up if you had the chance. That pretty much dismisses your case.

What is his case?

In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all?

Wait, I know, it's because you say so, and you're way smarter than all the "evolutionists", and to prove it you'd blow them all up if you had the chance.

Ravi said:

In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all?

Would you be able to see with 1% of your eye? I don't think so, pal. ... The string can easily be formed by artificial selection, as Dawkins has shown, but not by natural selection.

Ravi said:

In a living thing, why isn't one hundredth of an eye better than no eye at all?

Would you be able to see with 1% of your eye? I don't think so, pal.

Ravi said: This is a tried and tired argument used by the Darwinists. They fail to realize that even the simplest eye is a complete eye and not a partial one.

The string can easily be formed by artificial selection, as Dawkins has shown, but not by natural selection.

stevaroni said:

The string can easily be formed by artificial selection, as Dawkins has shown, but not by natural selection.

So... just to be precise here, Ravi, you are saying the string can be formed by selection, right?

Ravi said: The string can easily be formed by artificial selection, as Dawkins has shown, but not by natural selection.

So that would be a no. The asshole won't even look at the video that proves him wrong. How typical.

Joe has been banned here. Why respond to his bullshit. He'll just end up threatening you anyway.

Ravi said:

Wait, I know, it's because you say so, and you're way smarter than all the "evolutionists", and to prove it you'd blow them all up if you had the chance.

The string can easily be formed by artificial selection, as Dawkins has shown, but not by natural selection.

phhht said: 1% of an eye provides enough benefit to favor natural selection. Instead, Bozo Joe tacitly insists that if you cannot see fully as well with a partial eye as you can with a whole one, it must be the case that there is no benefit whatsoever.

stevaroni said: Ummmm... you do realize that there are very, very many different kinds of "eye" out there, right? And they range from painfully simple, from simple light sensitive patches to exceptionally advanced eyes (as in squid and mantis shrimp, sorry to inform you, Ravi, but on the absolute scale human eyes are not particularly optimized). Some creatures, in fact, incorporate several different kinds of eyes (see: Triops longicaudatus).

Scott F said: Yes, that would be a correct statement. The "string" is not "alive". It does not bear offspring that mature and have offspring of their own; offspring that vary in small degrees from their biological parents. And so, no Evolutionary Biologist, no actual Scientist, would ever claim that it could be created through "natural" selection.

You appear to be like Robert Byers. You actually have no idea what "selection" actually is, nor why the WEASEL program (or GA algorithms in general) are of any interest to real Scientists and Engineers.

Scientists and Engineers (in particular) are interested in Genetic Algorithms (the original subject of this thread) because they actually work to successfully solve hard problems in engineering, material science, manufacturing, and many other fields. These processes work in the real world.

I've always wondered why someone would "sneak" or "front-load" an answer into a program that is designed to solve a hitherto intractable problem. Seems to me, he would get more fame and scientific glory by producing the answer himself, without a computer program as a crutch. If the GA solves the problem, or delivers a usable answer that no human has been able to do, say the most efficient design of a new airliner wing, then who remembers the aeronautical engineer who set the GA to work on it? What could possibly be the motivation for a scientist or engineer or mathematician to do such a thing?

Maybe Joe thinks it's all a fraud, perpetrated by many scientists and engineers, most of whom are not biologists at all, over many years, to "prove biological evolution".

Even though no one ever claims that it does that.

Scott F said: Robert, just a clarification. In your simple way, you may think that Biological mutation is about "creation". For example, you may think that the "mutation" is a longer neck that turns an okapi into a giraffe. Mutation doesn't work like that. The actual "mutation" is one of those "A" nucleobases turning into a "C" nucleobase (or something like that). This produces a slightly different protein in the cells of the growing animal. This protein happens to be a growth factor which gets turned on in the animal's neck region, which tells the developing muscles and bones and stuff to grow longer for a certain period of time. In reality, it's probably a dozen different mutations that make it all happen. And no, they don't all have to happen at the same time. First one mutation happens, and the neck grows a bit. Then another happens and the neck grows a bit more. And so on. And yes, growth regulatory genes are very powerful. Very small mutations in the DNA of these genes can lead to dramatic structural changes in an animal. But it all comes down to existing "A"s changing into "C"s, or "T"s changing into "G"s, or some such. All from a fixed selection of 4 items. There was no magical "let's make a really long neck" mutation. That's what a God would do, not what Biological Evolution actually does.

Robert Byers said: I think evolutionists should not be saying biology is based on math.

Ravi said:

phhht said: 1% of an eye provides enough benefit to favor natural selection. Instead, Bozo Joe tacitly insists that if you cannot see fully as well with a partial eye as you can with a whole one, it must be the case that there is no benefit whatsoever.

Sorry, pal, but 1% of a functioning eye affords no benefit whatsoever.

Well booby, since poker is so much about chance, you probably don’t see how math has any part to play in that either do you?. wah wAH waH booby

Robert Byers said:

Scott F said: Robert, just a clarification. In your simple way, you may think that Biological mutation is about "creation". For example, you may think that the "mutation" is a longer neck that turns an okapi into a giraffe. Mutation doesn't work like that. The actual "mutation" is one of those "A" nucleobases turning into a "C" nucleobase (or something like that). This produces a slightly different protein in the cells of the growing animal. This protein happens to be a growth factor which gets turned on in the animal's neck region, which tells the developing muscles and bones and stuff to grow longer for a certain period of time. In reality, it's probably a dozen different mutations that make it all happen. And no, they don't all have to happen at the same time. First one mutation happens, and the neck grows a bit. Then another happens and the neck grows a bit more. And so on. And yes, growth regulatory genes are very powerful. Very small mutations in the DNA of these genes can lead to dramatic structural changes in an animal. But it all comes down to existing "A"s changing into "C"s, or "T"s changing into "G"s, or some such. All from a fixed selection of 4 items. There was no magical "let's make a really long neck" mutation. That's what a God would do, not what Biological Evolution actually does.

On this post I'll answer your two. Yes I agree math is a human construction of a closed system. I do not agree biology is closed in its results.

Math has no evolution going on. no creation of new forms. Biology is about creation.

A fishy thing became me, says you, .

A immune system was created from not existing before.

A eye was created from not being a eye before.

Origin Biology is about going from this to that inlooks and systems of operation.

I understand you mean biology is closed in atomic details to work with.

Yet the results are the creation of the details .

THEREFORE chance in math has probability results.

Biology is not about probability.

Biology has no math behind its creation of systems/types.

The mutation, as you agree, is a chance event.

Very needed and very chancy.

selection, I say, is also chancy. it requires environment and a host of details for that mutation to be carried on to a population. I do see selection as a non predictable thing just like the mutation.

Since biology origins from evolutionary concepts is so much about chance i don't see how math has any part to play.

In fact creationism might see biology as more math like because we see a creator with a finished blueprint. Not much room for chance or diversity.

I just watched on youtube ANIMAL EYES. by William Ayeliff. A professor, evolutionist, but hje showed how all eyes were basically the same model. he invokes convergent evolution, limited options etc but the fact is that eye"evolution' is not from chance mutations but has a predictable result.

Anyways. I think evolutionists should not be saying biology is based on math. We can more but why you guys?

phhht said:

Robert Byers said: I think evolutionists should not be saying biology is based on math.

You're a moron, Robert Byers. You know nothing about either math or evolution. For example, you say "math is a human construction of a closed system." You cannot define "closed system," and if you think you are using the term in its standard definition in the physical sciences, then you are absolutely mistaken. You're babbling. You're spouting simple-minded meaningless nonsense, Robert Byers, because you are too stupid and ignorant to do anything else. You show yourself to be a fool every time you post.

To make my point more explicit, it appears that Robert's difficulties in understanding biology or logic or whatever, appear to be "structural". His language issues suggest that he does indeed have actual cognitive impairment, which might make it difficult or even physically impossible for him to reach any kind of sophisticated understanding. I could be wrong, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In contrast, Ravi, and FL, and the others have no such excuse. They are apparently "willfully" ignorant, and as such do not deserve that respect.

Robert Byers said: Biology is not about probability.

The mutation, as you agree, is a chance event. Very needed and very chancy.

DS said: In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Well guess what, in the land without eyes, the one percent eye is king. Just watch the video Joe, you'll see how it works. Even if your brain is only working at one percent.

It is amusing how the "skeptical inquirers" of CSICON are not so skeptical about the entirely speculative and unfalsifiable claims of Darwinism, preferring to have blind faith in the workings of blind causation.

Scott F said: The cornea of vertebrate eyes are reversed from those of octopuses and squid...

Ravi said:

DS said: In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Well guess what, in the land without eyes, the one percent eye is king. Just watch the video Joe, you'll see how it works. Even if your brain is only working at one percent.

FFS, there is no benefit in having 1% of an eye any more than having 1% of a camera! The real issue is not the eye itself, but rather vision/sight. Look, St. George Jackson Mivart destroyed Darwin's argument over a 100 years ago.

How (and why) do single-celled protists "know" to swim toward or away from light (whichever serves their 'purpose') if less that 100% of an eye is useless?

How about it, Ravi banned Joseph Bozorgmehr, does a protist have a fully functioning eye with all the "necessary" parts? Or a nervous system to transmit the signal to a brain where it is interpreted?

(And still useful when predators do have something better if you live on the bottom of the sea, Since it could alter you to something overhead that might eat you.)

And David Hume destroyed Ravi's argument well over 200 years ago, but who's counting.

W. H. Heydt said: So you think that a photo sensitive emulsion wrapped on opaque paper is useless? Tell that to Henri Bequerel. A light sensitive spot--pretty much the most primitive eye you can have, and probably less that "1%" of what we think of as an eye--would be very useful when nothing has anything better. (And still useful when predators do have something better if you live on the bottom of the sea, Since it could alter you to something overhead that might eat you.)

Just Bob said: Does a protist have a fully functioning eye with all the "necessary" parts? Or a nervous system to transmit the signal to a brain where it is interpreted?

Henry J said:

(And still useful when predators do have something better if you live on the bottom of the sea, Since it could alter you to something overhead that might eat you.)

How about alter alter into alert.

Ravi said:

W. H. Heydt said: So you think that a photo sensitive emulsion wrapped on opaque paper is useless? Tell that to Henri Bequerel. A light sensitive spot--pretty much the most primitive eye you can have, and probably less that "1%" of what we think of as an eye--would be very useful when nothing has anything better. (And still useful when predators do have something better if you live on the bottom of the sea, Since it could alter you to something overhead that might eat you.)

SIGH....Look, you need ALL of the following: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal tranduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Now, even the simplest eye is a complete eye involving all 3 components. The last part is really important as far as selection is concerned because the organism has to be able to tell whether the presence of light or shade is good or bad. Is it prey or a mate or a predator? You assume that it would know the difference and that it move away in response. We can play these games all day long, but they really amount to endless speculation and imagination.

Ravi said: SIGH....Look, you need ALL of the following: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal tranduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Now, even the simplest eye is a complete eye involving all 3 components. The last part is really important as far as selection is concerned because the organism has to be able to tell whether the presence of light or shade is good or bad. Is it prey or a mate or a predator? You assume that it would know the difference and that it move away in response. We can play these games all day long, but they really amount to endless speculation and imagination.

W. H. Heydt said:

Ravi said:

W. H. Heydt said: So you think that a photo sensitive emulsion wrapped on opaque paper is useless? Tell that to Henri Bequerel. A light sensitive spot--pretty much the most primitive eye you can have, and probably less that "1%" of what we think of as an eye--would be very useful when nothing has anything better. (And still useful when predators do have something better if you live on the bottom of the sea, Since it could alter you to something overhead that might eat you.)

SIGH....Look, you need ALL of the following: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal tranduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Now, even the simplest eye is a complete eye involving all 3 components. The last part is really important as far as selection is concerned because the organism has to be able to tell whether the presence of light or shade is good or bad. Is it prey or a mate or a predator? You assume that it would know the difference and that it move away in response. We can play these games all day long, but they really amount to endless speculation and imagination.

Wow... Look at those goal posts gallop away!

Ravi said: FFS, there is no benefit in having 1% of an eye any more than having 1% of a camera!

phhht said:

Ravi said: FFS, there is no benefit in having 1% of an eye any more than having 1% of a camera!

More unsupported assertion. Bozo Joe cannot demonstrate that having 1% of an eye, as he puts it, is useless. More importantly, he again dodges the point: if 1% of an eye provides 1% of the benefits of full vision, then that suffices for the purposes of evolution.

TomS said: If 1% of an eye provides 1% of the benefits of full vision, then that suffices for the purposes of evolution.

eric said: Any organism with nerves already has 2 and 3, and it is easy to consider that if a nerve ending becomes sensitive to light, there is no need for some novel 2 and 3 to evolve separately before that sensitivity can influence the behavior of the organism.

Once there's a mutation for light sensitivity, that sensitivity *and* the signal transduction *and* the response capabilities can coevolve.

Oh, and 1% (or whatever % you want to call it) of a camera CAN have a benefit. Way back in Boy Scouts I made a pinhole camera out of, IIRC, a coffee can and a roll of black and white film. No lens, no shutter, no focus mechanism, no aperture control -- yet it worked. After a fashion. Better than nothing.

It can even work without film at all. To observe a partial eclipse, I had my Astronomy Club kids put simple pinholes in pieces of cardboard or suchlike. Play with its angle and distance from a surface and you can get a perfect picture of the sun's disk with the eclipsed bite taken out of it. Hell, we even saw natural pinhole camera pictures under a leafy tree that allowed tiny bits of sunlight through: a hundred miniature eclipses on the sidewalk!

Let's see if "Ravi" (AKA Joseph Bozorgmehr) will now define a "100% camera" as "a tiny hole in something".

Oh yeah, I've also learned a trick for when I forget my reading glasses (damned aging eyeballs): make a tiny hole by curling up my forefinger and peeking through. Done that more than once to read a menu. I'd hate to try to read a book that way -- but it's WAY better than nothing. What percent of a "complete camera" is a curled finger?

I do so love it when creationists try to use an analogy without thinking through the implications.

Hey Joe, enumerate for us all the parts necessary and functioning together to make a "complete camera".

Just Bob said: Oh, and 1% (or whatever % you want to call it) of a camera CAN have a benefit. Way back in Boy Scouts I made a pinhole camera out of, IIRC, a coffee can and a roll of black and white film. No lens, no shutter, no focus mechanism, no aperture control -- yet it worked. After a fashion. Better than nothing.

Oh yeah, I've also learned a trick for when I forget my reading glasses (damned aging eyeballs): make a tiny hole by curling up my forefinger and peeking through. Done that more than once to read a menu. I'd hate to try to read a book that way -- but it's WAY better than nothing. What percent of a "complete camera" is a curled finger?

1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal transduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism.

Ravi, explain to us this pathway in a prokaryote.

Ravi said:

eric said: Any organism with nerves already has 2 and 3, and it is easy to consider that if a nerve ending becomes sensitive to light, there is no need for some novel 2 and 3 to evolve separately before that sensitivity can influence the behavior of the organism.

First of all, Darwin himself admitted that a nerve cell becoming sensitive to light was as major a problem to the evolutionist as the origin of life itself.

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. (Darwin 1872, 143-144)

Once there's a mutation for light sensitivity, that sensitivity *and* the signal transduction *and* the response capabilities can coevolve.

Again, this comes down to speculation and not evidence-based demonstration.

Ravi said:

TomS said: If 1% of an eye provides 1% of the benefits of full vision, then that suffices for the purposes of evolution.

That's the whole point. It doesn't. 1% of an eye = ZERO VISION. Even if it did provide some visual information, there is no reason to suppose this would be interpreted to the benefit of the organism. You have been brainwashed by the Darwinists. It is now time to think critically and reject this pseudo-scientific ideology predicted on nothing more than imagination and speculation.

Michael Fugate said: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal transduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Ravi, explain to us this pathway in a prokaryote.

phhht said: So I should accept your religious delusions in the place of science? No thanks, I'm sane.

eric said: No not at all, and this is a very common creationist trope. Paley had earlier claimed the eye was impossible to explain. Darwin used Paley's 'common sense' conclusion just to set up his discussion, the way Galileo used Simplicio or Plato used Euthyphro.

Michael Fugate said: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal transduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Ravi, explain to us this pathway in a prokaryote.

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal transduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Ravi, explain to us this pathway in a prokaryote.

I am not the one claiming that the pathway gradually evolved.

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: 1. Light-sensitive proteins. 2. Signal transduction circuitry. 3. Interpretation/response mechanism. Ravi, explain to us this pathway in a prokaryote.

I am not the one claiming that the pathway gradually evolved.

Ravi said:

phhht said: So I should accept your religious delusions in the place of science? No thanks, I'm sane.

Nothing I have said has anything to do with religion.

DS said: No, you are the one claiming it could not have evolved, based on nothing but incredulity. The burden of proof is on you to explain how such simple pathways could be adaptive when you claimed they could not. You have failed to support your hypothesis and you have failed to explain the observed facts. You just plain failed. Now go away.

phhht said: You're a victim of religious delusional illness, Bozo Joe. You believe in the reality of creator gods, but there are none. Your illness warps your entire worldview.

Ravi said:

DS said: No, you are the one claiming it could not have evolved, based on nothing but incredulity. The burden of proof is on you to explain how such simple pathways could be adaptive when you claimed they could not. You have failed to support your hypothesis and you have failed to explain the observed facts. You just plain failed. Now go away.

I am claiming that all parts of a system need to be in place for the system to function...ergo irreducible complexity: If you want to get energy out of food, you need to be able to eat, digest and excrete. You can't get by with only one of these functions. So it is with the eye. You need to be able to receive visusal stimuli, process and relay that information, and then interpret and respond to it accordingly.

Ravi said:

phhht said: You're a victim of religious delusional illness, Bozo Joe. You believe in the reality of creator gods, but there are none. Your illness warps your entire worldview.

Extrardinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The notion that eyes can evolve from nerve cells by the accumulation of random mistakes is an extraordinary claim in need of evidence.

Ravi said:

DS said: No, you are the one claiming it could not have evolved, based on nothing but incredulity. The burden of proof is on you to explain how such simple pathways could be adaptive when you claimed they could not. You have failed to support your hypothesis and you have failed to explain the observed facts. You just plain failed. Now go away.

I am claiming that all parts of a system need to be in place for the system to function...ergo irreducible complexity: If you want to get energy out of food, you need to be able to eat, digest and excrete. You can't get by with only one of these functions. So it is with the eye. You need to be able to receive visusal stimuli, process and relay that information, and then interpret and respond to it accordingly.

Ravi said:

phhht said: You're a victim of religious delusional illness, Bozo Joe. You believe in the reality of creator gods, but there are none. Your illness warps your entire worldview.

Extrardinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The notion that eyes can evolve from nerve cells by the accumulation of random mistakes is an extraordinary claim in need of evidence.

Ravi said:

phhht said: You're a victim of religious delusional illness, Bozo Joe. You believe in the reality of creator gods, but there are none. Your illness warps your entire worldview.

Extrardinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

phhht said:

Ravi said:

phhht said: You're a victim of religious delusional illness, Bozo Joe. You believe in the reality of creator gods, but there are none. Your illness warps your entire worldview.

Extrardinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

And the claim that there are creator gods which explain reality better than physical science is exactly such a claim Not only do you not have extraordinary evidence to support your superstitious nonsense, you have no testable evidence at all. Until you present at least a shred of such evidence, you're nothing, Bozo Joe, nothing but another drooling loony.

Scott F said:

phhht said:

Robert Byers said: I think evolutionists should not be saying biology is based on math.

You're a moron, Robert Byers. You know nothing about either math or evolution. For example, you say "math is a human construction of a closed system." You cannot define "closed system," and if you think you are using the term in its standard definition in the physical sciences, then you are absolutely mistaken. You're babbling. You're spouting simple-minded meaningless nonsense, Robert Byers, because you are too stupid and ignorant to do anything else. You show yourself to be a fool every time you post.

And yet, Robert is willing to engage. He doesn't seem to learn, but he doesn't run away, and he doesn't bluster and harangue, as most of our Creationist trolls do. I've dealt with people on the Autism spectrum. Not a lot. But some. I'm no expert. Where Robert is, I don't know. As difficult as it is at times, as pointless as it seems, he still engages. And in that, I believe he deserves at least a minimum amount of human respect. Which is more than I can say about Ravi. The Dunning-Kruger effect is strong in that one.

eric said:

Robert Byers said: Biology is not about probability.

What, not even epidemiology is about probability?

The mutation, as you agree, is a chance event. Very needed and very chancy.

I don't know if this is contributing to your confusion, but when biologists say 'mutation is random' they're making a very specific (and somewhat unusual) point: that the developmental outcome from that mutation is not a causal factor in whether it happens or not. However, mutation can certainly be non-random in the more 'physics' way that sees non-quantum interactions as being largely deterministic. Take a DNA strand and combine it with the right chemicals under the right conditions, and you can predictably cause it to react just like any other chemical. Fire a photon at it, and you can predictably cause a photoreaction (in fact, this is how the structure of DNA was discovered; firing x-rays at crystallized DNA and getting a very non-random, deterministic pattern back). The statement that mutation is random is more a reference to mutation rates not being related to what those mutations do to the organism. But mutation rates are very much causally related to the physical and chemical circumstances surrounding those biomolecules.

Robert Byers said: We don't see how uncontrolled direction, THAT IS selection on mutation, is based on mathematical structure.

Robert Byers said: Your touching real time biology. Origin biology, evolutionism, is about a point in time that then will in another point in time have changed enough to be said to have evolved. Thats not based on math. Its a rolll of a unlimited marked dice. Math has nothing to do with evolutionary biology from start to a finish. All they have to do is show those blackboard full equations!!!

Robert Byers said: Our contention comes down to whether a closed system, like the universe...

Robert Byers said: Math has nothing to do with evolutionary biology from start to a finish.

Just Bob said: ...and I'm sure Joe has volumes of extraordinary evidence that "100%" eyes have appeared instantaneously, many times, via some unnamed agency (because, of course, he's not talking about anything religious).

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: ...and I'm sure Joe has volumes of extraordinary evidence that "100%" eyes have appeared instantaneously, many times, via some unnamed agency (because, of course, he's not talking about anything religious).

There is growing evidence in the fossil record that complex eyes did appear relatively suddenly: Complexity and diversity of eyes in Early Cambrian ecosystems http://www.nature.com/articles/srep02751

Michael Fugate said: And yet it has happened multiple times and using phylogenetic analysis we know which parts are shared and which one arose de novo in different lineages. Your incredulity not withstanding the pattern we see in nature (of which you know next to nothing) is a hodgepodge; eyes with the same level of functionality are quite different in different lineages and yet eyes with different levels of functionality are quite similar in a single lineage. The devil is in the details and you don't know the details.

DS said: And I am saying that even simple one celled organisms get and adaptive advantage from a simple light sensing structure. It's not that complicated and could have easily evolved. You are just assuming that you have to start from scratch and get a complete vertebrate eye in one step. You're dead wrong.

Ravi said:

DS said: And I am saying that even simple one celled organisms get and adaptive advantage from a simple light sensing structure. It's not that complicated and could have easily evolved. You are just assuming that you have to start from scratch and get a complete vertebrate eye in one step. You're dead wrong.

You are welcome to speculate and imagine all you like. But can you demonstrate that your assertion, however plausible you think it is, is actually true?

Ravi said:

DS said: And I am saying that even simple one celled organisms get and adaptive advantage from a simple light sensing structure. It's not that complicated and could have easily evolved. You are just assuming that you have to start from scratch and get a complete vertebrate eye in one step. You're dead wrong.

You are welcome to speculate and imagine all you like. But can you demonstrate that your assertion, however plausible you think it is, is actually true?

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: ...and I'm sure Joe has volumes of extraordinary evidence that "100%" eyes have appeared instantaneously, many times, via some unnamed agency (because, of course, he's not talking about anything religious).

There is growing evidence in the fossil record that complex eyes did appear relatively suddenly: Complexity and diversity of eyes in Early Cambrian ecosystems http://www.nature.com/articles/srep02751

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: And yet it has happened multiple times and using phylogenetic analysis we know which parts are shared and which one arose de novo in different lineages. Your incredulity not withstanding the pattern we see in nature (of which you know next to nothing) is a hodgepodge; eyes with the same level of functionality are quite different in different lineages and yet eyes with different levels of functionality are quite similar in a single lineage. The devil is in the details and you don't know the details.

The details have never ever been elucidated by the Darwinists. Phylogenetic analysis tells us nothing, absolutely nothing, about the mechanism through which eyes appeared. Just because eyes appear in multiple lineages only tells us that eyes are found in multiple lineages.

W. H. Heydt said: Excellent analysis and deconstruction of Mr. Byers post (I was going to say "claims", but I don't think his posts really rise to that level of sophistication). Two minor nitpicks though... The first one grates even though one knows what you mean. It is the more or less consistent use of "you're" where "your" should be.

The second is a relatively minor factual issue (that is, I know what you menat, but it isn't what you said), to wit:

Scott F said: The cornea of vertebrate eyes are reversed from those of octopuses and squid...

I think you mean "retina" rather than "cornea".

Just Bob said: Oh yeah, I've also learned a trick for when I forget my reading glasses (damned aging eyeballs): make a tiny hole by curling up my forefinger and peeking through. Done that more than once to read a menu. I'd hate to try to read a book that way -- but it's WAY better than nothing. What percent of a "complete camera" is a curled finger?

Ravi said:

DS said: No, you are the one claiming it could not have evolved, based on nothing but incredulity. The burden of proof is on you to explain how such simple pathways could be adaptive when you claimed they could not. You have failed to support your hypothesis and you have failed to explain the observed facts. You just plain failed. Now go away.

I am claiming that all parts of a system need to be in place for the system to function...ergo irreducible complexity: If you want to get energy out of food, you need to be able to eat, digest and excrete. You can't get by with only one of these functions. So it is with the eye. You need to be able to receive visusal stimuli, process and relay that information, and then interpret and respond to it accordingly.

Ravi said:

phhht said: You're a victim of religious delusional illness, Bozo Joe. You believe in the reality of creator gods, but there are none. Your illness warps your entire worldview.

Extrardinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The notion that eyes can evolve from nerve cells by the accumulation of random mistakes is an extraordinary claim in need of evidence.

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Oh yeah, I've also learned a trick for when I forget my reading glasses (damned aging eyeballs): make a tiny hole by curling up my forefinger and peeking through. Done that more than once to read a menu. I'd hate to try to read a book that way -- but it's WAY better than nothing. What percent of a "complete camera" is a curled finger?

Thanks for sharing this neat trick. However, you need functioning eyes for this to be of any benefit.

Isn't the common method of problem solving by the method of "cut and try" by doing small modifications and see if they work quite analogous to evolution?

Take a look at the evolved antenna "designed" by a
Genetic algorithm

A fine example of the limitations of designers.

Rolf said: Isn't the common method of problem solving by the method of "cut and try" by doing small modifications and see if they work quite analogous to evolution? Take a look at the evolved antenna "designed" by a Genetic algorithm A fine example of the limitations of designers.

Ravi said:

DS said: And I am saying that even simple one celled organisms get and adaptive advantage from a simple light sensing structure. It's not that complicated and could have easily evolved. You are just assuming that you have to start from scratch and get a complete vertebrate eye in one step. You're dead wrong.

You are welcome to speculate and imagine all you like. But can you demonstrate that your assertion, however plausible you think it is, is actually true?

Ravi said:

DS said: And I am saying that even simple one celled organisms get and adaptive advantage from a simple light sensing structure. It's not that complicated and could have easily evolved. You are just assuming that you have to start from scratch and get a complete vertebrate eye in one step. You're dead wrong.

You are welcome to speculate and imagine all you like. But can you demonstrate that your assertion, however plausible you think it is, is actually true?

Ravi said:

DS said: And I am saying that even simple one celled organisms get and adaptive advantage from a simple light sensing structure. It's not that complicated and could have easily evolved. You are just assuming that you have to start from scratch and get a complete vertebrate eye in one step. You're dead wrong.

You are welcome to speculate and imagine all you like. But can you demonstrate that your assertion, however plausible you think it is, is actually true?

Ravi said: There is growing evidence in the fossil record that complex eyes did appear relatively suddenly: Complexity and diversity of eyes in Early Cambrian ecosystems http://www.nature.com/articles/srep02751

Sorry, I only posted once. Feel free to delete duplicates/

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: And yet it has happened multiple times and using phylogenetic analysis we know which parts are shared and which one arose de novo in different lineages. Your incredulity not withstanding the pattern we see in nature (of which you know next to nothing) is a hodgepodge; eyes with the same level of functionality are quite different in different lineages and yet eyes with different levels of functionality are quite similar in a single lineage. The devil is in the details and you don't know the details.

The details have never ever been elucidated by the Darwinists. Phylogenetic analysis tells us nothing, absolutely nothing, about the mechanism through which eyes appeared. Just because eyes appear in multiple lineages only tells us that eyes are found in multiple lineages.

Scott F said: Yet you just admitted that a pin-hole camera is a perfectly good camera, even though you earlier claimed that anything less than 100% of a camera with a functioning lens would be useless. So a fully functioning camera with a lens is not, in fact irreducibly complex. As you yourself have just stated.

In fact, you clearly stated that all that was needed was a light sensitive element, a signal transmitting element, and something to respond to the signal. Where is your eyeball? Where is your lens or the muscles to move it, to move or shape the eye, or to adjust the aperture? Seems that you've clearly admitted that 1% of an eye is perfectly good, and that the vertebrate eye is clearly not irreducibly complex.

Scott F said:

W. H. Heydt said: Excellent analysis and deconstruction of Mr. Byers post (I was going to say "claims", but I don't think his posts really rise to that level of sophistication). Two minor nitpicks though... The first one grates even though one knows what you mean. It is the more or less consistent use of "you're" where "your" should be.

Oh poop. Did I do that? I chastise others for that same thing. I need to hire a better editor.

The second is a relatively minor factual issue (that is, I know what you menat, but it isn't what you said), to wit:

Scott F said: The cornea of vertebrate eyes are reversed from those of octopuses and squid...

I think you mean "retina" rather than "cornea".

Guilty, I'm afraid. I'm also afraid that I'm playing fairly loose with the science. But I'm talking generalities, and I didn't want to get lost in the weeds, especially when I'd have to look things up to refresh my memory (I'm no expert in this), and because adding all the appropriate caveats and detailed exceptions would lose the thrust of the argument; details which Robert wouldn't understand in the first place, and which would just get in the way of the point I was trying to make.

DS said: There certainly is. And what did the authors conclude? DId they conclude that the eye could not have evolved? NO. Quite the contrary. From the discussion: This hypothesis has been tested using a conceptual model involving a linear series of eyes, arranged from simple to complex, and as mathematically predicted by Nilsson and Pelger34, a patch of light-sensitive epithelial tissue could evolve by natural selection into a camera eye within only about 364 000 generations, in other words in less than half a million years.

Ravi said:

DS said: There certainly is. And what did the authors conclude? DId they conclude that the eye could not have evolved? NO. Quite the contrary. From the discussion: This hypothesis has been tested using a conceptual model involving a linear series of eyes, arranged from simple to complex, and as mathematically predicted by Nilsson and Pelger34, a patch of light-sensitive epithelial tissue could evolve by natural selection into a camera eye within only about 364 000 generations, in other words in less than half a million years.

The authors cite a flawed piece published 20 years ago that isn't even a simulation. It is a non-biological mathematical model that makes no reference to genes, cells or anything real. The fossil record only shows us animals without eyes and with eyes, not one with half-eyes. Similarly, it shows us fish with fins and tetrapods with limbs, not fishapods with finfingers.

Scott F said:

Just Bob said: Oh yeah, I've also learned a trick for when I forget my reading glasses (damned aging eyeballs): make a tiny hole by curling up my forefinger and peeking through. Done that more than once to read a menu. I'd hate to try to read a book that way -- but it's WAY better than nothing. What percent of a "complete camera" is a curled finger?

Holy crap. That really works! That is so cool!

W. H. Heydt said:

Scott F said:

Just Bob said: Oh yeah, I've also learned a trick for when I forget my reading glasses (damned aging eyeballs): make a tiny hole by curling up my forefinger and peeking through. Done that more than once to read a menu. I'd hate to try to read a book that way -- but it's WAY better than nothing. What percent of a "complete camera" is a curled finger?

Holy crap. That really works! That is so cool!

I have been known to ask what the effective "ISO speed" of the retina is (the answer is: it varies...a lot, but I don't recall seeing a range). I also inquired, once or twice, about the effective aperture (expressed in F-stops) of human iris but I don't recall any answers to that. What the trick does is to give you a higher F-stop and one consequence of that is increased depth of field, hence a greater range of distances in acceptable focus.

Ravi said:

Scott F said: Yet you just admitted that a pin-hole camera is a perfectly good camera, even though you earlier claimed that anything less than 100% of a camera with a functioning lens would be useless. So a fully functioning camera with a lens is not, in fact irreducibly complex. As you yourself have just stated.

Er....wtf...no. I said that a pinhole camera was a complete, but relatively simple, camera. I said that 1% of any camera, be it a pinhole camera or a digital camera, would be useless for the purposes of vision.

In fact, you clearly stated that all that was needed was a light sensitive element, a signal transmitting element, and something to respond to the signal. Where is your eyeball? Where is your lens or the muscles to move it, to move or shape the eye, or to adjust the aperture? Seems that you've clearly admitted that 1% of an eye is perfectly good, and that the vertebrate eye is clearly not irreducibly complex.

The Nautilus is a squid-like cephalopod that has an eye like a pinhole camera and lacks a lens and a cornea. However, it is still a complete visual system even if it doesn't have complex parts used in the octopus and vertebrate eye. The eye of the Nautilus is 100% of an eye, not 50% or 5%. It still has photorecepors, signal transductors and response mechanisms.

So, Joseph Bozorgmehr... your contention is not just that the eye (presumably all eyes in the natural world) is designed, but that it has to have been designed. It could not possibly be undesigned. Correct so far?

Now, can you definitively name something which is NOT designed? Which could not possibly have been designed?

Michael Fugate said: I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, but any part of the pin-hole camera could have a function - just not as a camera - something completely different. Those functioning parts can be repurposed as a camera. This is how evolution works - it doesn't work like you state creating functioning systems de novo.

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, but any part of the pin-hole camera could have a function - just not as a camera - something completely different. Those functioning parts can be repurposed as a camera. This is how evolution works - it doesn't work like you state creating functioning systems de novo.

I am aware of this flawed Darwinist idea of exaptation. The trouble is that if any part of the camera is used for a purpose other than for capturing visual information, then it will remain in that particular capacity. I could use the hairspring of a mechanical watch to floss my teeth with, but it won't help in making Paley's device work.

Michael Fugate said:

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, but any part of the pin-hole camera could have a function - just not as a camera - something completely different. Those functioning parts can be repurposed as a camera. This is how evolution works - it doesn't work like you state creating functioning systems de novo.

I am aware of this flawed Darwinist idea of exaptation. The trouble is that if any part of the camera is used for a purpose other than for capturing visual information, then it will remain in that particular capacity. I could use the hairspring of a mechanical watch to floss my teeth with, but it won't help in making Paley's device work.

No you aren't - you don't have the least understanding of anything relating to evolution and how it works.

Ravi said: I am aware of this flawed Darwinist idea of exaptation. The trouble is that if any part of the camera is used for a purpose other than for capturing visual information, then it will remain in that particular capacity. I could use the hairspring of a mechanical watch to floss my teeth with, but it won't help in making Paley's device work.

All one need to see how ignorant Ravi's view is to take his 3 parts of a visual system and see if they could function without each other for different purposes.

Light sensitive proteins - ever hear of chlorophyll? ever hear of a molecule absorbing energy and changing shape?

Signal transduction circuitry - doesn't need light sensitive proteins to work - many different signal-transduction systems in cells.

Interpretation/response mechanism - can a blind cave-fish respond to stimuli other than visual? How do organisms without nervous systems and brains do it?

And Ravi, if you had taken the time to learn how a light-gathering system works in a single-celled organism, then you wouldn't look quite so silly. But the choice was yours and you opted to read AiG and ICR and use their talking points rather than making the effort to understand basic biology.

Michael Fugate said: All one need to see how ignorant Ravi's view is to take his 3 parts of a visual system and see if they could function without each other for different purposes. Light sensitive proteins - ever hear of chlorophyll? ever hear of a molecule absorbing energy and changing shape? Signal transduction circuitry - doesn't need light sensitive proteins to work - many different signal-transduction systems in cells. Interpretation/response mechanism - can a blind cave-fish respond to stimuli other than visual? How do organisms without nervous systems and brains do it? And Ravi, if you had taken the time to learn how a light-gathering system works in a single-celled organism, then you wouldn't look quite so silly. But the choice was yours and you opted to read AiG and ICR and use their talking points rather than making the effort to understand basic biology.

Michael Fugate said: I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, but any part of the pin-hole camera could have a function - just not as a camera - something completely different. Those functioning parts can be repurposed as a camera.

I used to hit the sack before dark and had tinfoil on my bedroom window. One night I noticed there was a tear in the foil, and on the opposite wall was an inverted image of the tress across the street.

Ravi said: I am aware of this flawed Darwinist idea of exaptation. The trouble is that if any part of the camera is used for a purpose other than for capturing visual information, then it will remain in that particular capacity.

Don't forget Eric, this is the same guy who claimed that duplicated genes could not take on new functions. It seems that he is willing to deny just about anything, just as long as it means that he doesn't have to admit that evolution happened.

So, Joseph Bozorgmehr… your contention is not just that the eye (presumably all eyes in the natural world) is designed, but that it has to have been designed. It could not possibly be undesigned. Correct so far? Now, can you definitively name something which is NOT designed? Which could not possibly have been designed?

Just Bob said: One more try, but I predict prophesy no answer will be forthcoming:

So, Joseph Bozorgmehr… your contention is not just that the eye (presumably all eyes in the natural world) is designed, but that it has to have been designed. It could not possibly be undesigned. Correct so far? Now, can you definitively name something which is NOT designed? Which could not possibly have been designed?

W. H. Heydt said: I also inquired, once or twice, about the effective aperture (expressed in F-stops) of human iris but I don't recall any answers to that.

fnxtr said: I used to hit the sack before dark and had tinfoil on my bedroom window. One night I noticed there was a tear in the foil, and on the opposite wall was an inverted image of the tress across the street.

fnxtr said: I used to hit the sack before dark and had tinfoil on my bedroom window. One night I noticed there was a tear in the foil, and on the opposite wall was an inverted image of the tress across the street.

What, was I jumping to confusions when I just assumed he meant "trees"?

eric said: You seem to be implying that a skin cell can't become sensitive to light while still being sensitive to heat, cold and providing a chemical barrier. That as it grows more sensitive to light it must 'remain in the capturing visual information capacity' and be incapable of doing anything else. Do you understand just how idiotic that implication is? The ignorance is giving me goosebumps. Which, evidently, is impossible under the Ravi understanding of biology because that implies it has multiple simultaneous capacities.

Very clearly, cells can do more than one thing. Also very clearly, a mutation that makes a cell more sensitive to some environmental condition does not necessarily and immediately cause it to lose all other capabilities. A mutation might do that, but it also might not. And when we're talking about an incremental change in the sensitivity to photons (by, say, more of some photosensitive chemical being produced), its not really hard to see how a nerve cell might continue to send its normal chemical signals along with the new photon-induced ones. Well, its not difficult for non-creationists to see that, at least...perhaps the problem is your brain is remaining in the theological capacity, and thus unable to be used for other capacities.

Dave Lovell said:

W. H. Heydt said: I also inquired, once or twice, about the effective aperture (expressed in F-stops) of human iris but I don't recall any answers to that.

From Wikipedia "Entrance pupil" The entrance pupil of the human eye, which is not quite the same as the physical pupil, is typically about 4 mm in diameter. It can range from 2 mm (f/8.3) in a very brightly lit place to 8 mm (f/2.1) in the dark.[7] 7. Hecht, Eugene (1987). Optics (2nd ed.). Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-11609-X.

DS said: Don't forget Eric, this is the same guy who claimed that duplicated genes could not take on new functions. It seems that he is willing to deny just about anything, just as long as it means that he doesn't have to admit that evolution happened.

Ravi said:

DS said: Don't forget Eric, this is the same guy who claimed that duplicated genes could not take on new functions. It seems that he is willing to deny just about anything, just as long as it means that he doesn't have to admit that evolution happened.

Duplicate genes do not take on new functions, only variations on the same theme.

Ravi said: My penis can be used to ejaculate semen or to excrete urine.

Ravi said: Many biological features have dual functionality. That does not mean that they have been repurposed for another end at some point. Rather, they were well designed to serve multiple biological roles.

Photoreceptors are highly specialized cells which send only optical information to the brain for further processing. There is no evidence that they have been involved in anything else. Sorry.

Y'know, wasn't it Joseph Bozorgmehr (back when he called himself 'Atheistoclast', before he got banned for proposing violence against evolutionary biologists, so he started to use 'Ravi', thinking we wouldn't notice) who in a similar discussion maintained that the only function of bricks was to form part of a brick wall, and that a loose brick was otherwise useless?

You know, like the parts of a camera can only be used to make a camera. And the parts of an eye could never do anything but form a sophisticated visual system. Ergo Jesus.

Not sure why he abandoned Behe's mousetrap for a brick wall or a camera. Maybe he's trying to be "original".

Ravi said: My penis can be used to ejaculate semen or to excrete urine. It is bifunctional and belongs to both the urinary and reproductive systems.

Come to think of it, maybe he's right about the Design of the penis.

Let's see, besides the "functions" he mentions (neither of which require a penis) it also "functions" as the instrument of masturbation. And as a convenient channel for a number of well-Designed microbes to enter the body: syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, etc. And it's eminently well-Designed to help a good Christian husband transmit human papillomavirus to his good Christian wife's cervix, thus helping her to the Blessing of Cervical Cancer. Add to that the extension of the urethra, which can become inflamed from various causes, creating that divine burning sensation when you piss. And let us not forget the extra few inches added to the urinary tract (especially noteworthy when attempting to pass a kidney stone).

I'm sure others can add to this list of less-than-wonderful "functions" Designed into the penis.

Not to mention "if you get an erection lasting more than 4 hours to call your doctor immediately" or "a sudden loss of vision or hearing"...

eric said: No, that is absolutely not what you said before. You said "if any part of the camera is used for a purpose other than for capturing visual information, then it will remain in that particular capacity." You clearly stated that "capturing visual information" did not allow for any other capacity. Are you taking that back?

Oh really? So you don't feel the sun's heat through your eyeballs? They don't prevent germs and microorganisms from entering your body?

Just Bob said: Come to think of it, maybe he's right about the Design of the penis. Let's see, besides the "functions" he mentions (neither of which require a penis) it also "functions" as the instrument of masturbation. And as a convenient channel for a number of well-Designed microbes to enter the body: syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, etc. And it's eminently well-Designed to help a good Christian husband transmit human papillomavirus to his good Christian wife's cervix, thus helping her to the Blessing of Cervical Cancer. Add to that the extension of the urethra, which can become inflamed from various causes, creating that divine burning sensation when you piss. And let us not forget the extra few inches added to the urinary tract (especially noteworthy when attempting to pass a kidney stone). I'm sure others can add to this list of less-than-wonderful "functions" Designed into the penis.

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Come to think of it, maybe he's right about the Design of the penis. Let's see, besides the "functions" he mentions (neither of which require a penis) it also "functions" as the instrument of masturbation. And as a convenient channel for a number of well-Designed microbes to enter the body: syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, etc. And it's eminently well-Designed to help a good Christian husband transmit human papillomavirus to his good Christian wife's cervix, thus helping her to the Blessing of Cervical Cancer. Add to that the extension of the urethra, which can become inflamed from various causes, creating that divine burning sensation when you piss. And let us not forget the extra few inches added to the urinary tract (especially noteworthy when attempting to pass a kidney stone). I'm sure others can add to this list of less-than-wonderful "functions" Designed into the penis.

If you don't like the design of your penis, you are quite free to reject and remove it. Could you come up with a better design?

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Come to think of it, maybe he's right about the Design of the penis. Let's see, besides the "functions" he mentions (neither of which require a penis) it also "functions" as the instrument of masturbation. And as a convenient channel for a number of well-Designed microbes to enter the body: syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, etc. And it's eminently well-Designed to help a good Christian husband transmit human papillomavirus to his good Christian wife's cervix, thus helping her to the Blessing of Cervical Cancer. Add to that the extension of the urethra, which can become inflamed from various causes, creating that divine burning sensation when you piss. And let us not forget the extra few inches added to the urinary tract (especially noteworthy when attempting to pass a kidney stone). I'm sure others can add to this list of less-than-wonderful "functions" Designed into the penis.

If you don't like the design of your penis, you are quite free to reject and remove it. Could you come up with a better design?

Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Just Bob said: Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Coca-cola tastes great but is not good for your health. Sensual pleasures were created to tempt evil men like yourself.

phhht said:

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Coca-cola tastes great but is not good for your health. Sensual pleasures were created to tempt evil men like yourself.

So it's your monster god who made sensual pleasures to tempt men? What a hideous being you worship, stupid!

Animals have sensual pleasures. Without such motivations, they would not survive.

Ravi said: Coca-cola tastes great but is not good for your health. Sensual pleasures were created to tempt evil men like yourself.

BTW, where exactly in the Bible is masturbation forbidden? Or even mentioned? (You know that's not what Onan did, so don't bother trotting that out.)

Does God masturbate? From our own anatomy we must assume that the god in whose image we're supposedly created, has genitals. There's no Mrs God. Or Mr God, for that matter.

What sensual pleasure is there in accepting that birds are related to dinosaurs? Where in the Bible is it forbidden to think that? Compare and contrast that the Earth is a planet of the Sun.

Ravi said:

eric said: Oh really? So you don't feel the sun's heat through your eyeballs? They don't prevent germs and microorganisms from entering your body?

That is incidental. My feet are used for locomotion, but they can also be used -incidentally - to kick people with.

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Coca-cola tastes great but is not good for your health. Sensual pleasures were created to tempt evil men like yourself.

DanHolme said:

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Coca-cola tastes great but is not good for your health. Sensual pleasures were created to tempt evil men like yourself.

What's the point of tempting evil men? Wouldn't it make more sense to tempt good men and make them evil? Evil men are already on a downward trajectory, in your worldview, I assume. I also assume you mean that some being other than your God created 'sensual pleasures', a being you no doubt imagine as red and horny. Though not horny in the sense of Just Bob's quote.

eric said: In any event, I love how your defense of design is that some things can be used imperfectly for other things. That doesn't seem so perfect to me. Maybe a slob, lazybones, or ignoramus would design that way, but wouldn't a perfect engineer give you feet and a self-defense mechanism, rather than requiring that you break toe bones to defend yourself?

TomS said: BTW God also enjoys sensual pleasure. He enjoys the sweet smell of burnt meat, and it seems that he likes to walk in the garden in the cool of the day.

DS: "Evolution is limited in that it can only change what is already there, an omnipotent designer is not limited in this way. "

Hmm... Is there any structure in any extant living thing for which we have no trace of an evolutionary precursor? Something that, as far as we can tell, could have arisen de novo?

At the risk of sounding like a creationist, is there anything that "evolution has no explanation for"? (So far, anyway.)

DS said:

eric said: In any event, I love how your defense of design is that some things can be used imperfectly for other things. That doesn't seem so perfect to me. Maybe a slob, lazybones, or ignoramus would design that way, but wouldn't a perfect engineer give you feet and a self-defense mechanism, rather than requiring that you break toe bones to defend yourself?

This is exactly the point. An omnipotent designer wouldn't have to make eye lenses out of heat shock proteins. She wouldn't have to make feathers out of scales. She could just poof perfect structures into existence. Then maybe they would work a little better and not break down so much. If the three bones of your inner ear were properly designed, instead of being co-opted from jaw bones, maybe the ear would work better. Evolution is limited in that it can only change what is already there, an omnipotent designer is not limited in this way. When we look at nature, we see these limitations and their effects on living things. It is obvious that living things have evolved and that they were not designed by anything other than natural selection. To deny this obvious fact in order to cling to religious delusions is perverse in more ways than one, as Joe has so abundantly illustrated. Oh well, at least he didn't show up at the convention in Las Vegas and start blasting away with an assault rifle, like he threatened to do. PS Posted this an hour ago. Never showed up. Hope it doesn't post twice.

One question may possibly have dwelt in the reader's mind during the perusal of these observations, namely, Why should not the Deity have given to the animal the faculty of vision at once? ... Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power. ... amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.

TomS said: From William Paley's Natural Theology chapter 3:

... amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.

(I included that last sentence because I didn't want to give the false impression of Paley's opinion. But ISTM that his solution is weak, for it assumes that the Deity could not do otherwise.)

TomS said:

DanHolme said:

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Oh, and if your Designer doesn't want us to masturbate, why did he design it to feel so good? Vagina feels great... hand (or anything besides a vagina) feels awful. Or was all he could manage any not-too-hard rubbing, with almost anything, leads to erection and ejaculation?

Coca-cola tastes great but is not good for your health. Sensual pleasures were created to tempt evil men like yourself.

What's the point of tempting evil men? Wouldn't it make more sense to tempt good men and make them evil? Evil men are already on a downward trajectory, in your worldview, I assume. I also assume you mean that some being other than your God created 'sensual pleasures', a being you no doubt imagine as red and horny. Though not horny in the sense of Just Bob's quote.

All men are evil, since the apple. BTW God also enjoys sensual pleasure. He enjoys the sweet smell of burnt meat, and it seems that he likes to walk in the garden in the cool of the day.

eric said: Yep. An omnipotent deity could 'testify to his rational creatures' through direct, telepathic messaging if he really wanted to. The communication strategy of "I'll build lenses out of heat shock proteins, then they'll know it must've been me" (to use DS' example) seems a bit roundabout.

DanHolme said: What's the point of tempting evil men? Wouldn't it make more sense to tempt good men and make them evil? Evil men are already on a downward trajectory, in your worldview, I assume. I also assume you mean that some being other than your God created 'sensual pleasures', a being you no doubt imagine as red and horny. Though not horny in the sense of Just Bob's quote.

I should also point out that those of us who are voluntarily celibate prove that Evolutionism is false since we should all be programmed by our genes to reproduce.

Ravi said:

DanHolme said: What's the point of tempting evil men? Wouldn't it make more sense to tempt good men and make them evil? Evil men are already on a downward trajectory, in your worldview, I assume. I also assume you mean that some being other than your God created 'sensual pleasures', a being you no doubt imagine as red and horny. Though not horny in the sense of Just Bob's quote.

You have been given genitals for the purpose of procreation, not for self-gratification. Those of us who give in to temptation lose themselves whereas those who resist it become gods.

He's now retreating into FL-isms.

"Become gods"? Really?

You mean "have an immortal soul and live in Heaven"? But wait... if we're "evil" then we're going to be tormented eternally in Hell, right? That's also immortality: eternal life. Are souls in Hell also "gods"? Is it just your eternal address that makes you a "god"?

I don't think any reasonable definition of "god" would be limited to just "living forever but not on Earth". Or do your evil-resisting and non-masturbating "gods" have other godlike powers that justify the title "gods"?

BTW, how many "gods" do you reckon there might be by now? A very rough estimate would be interesting. A within-an-order-of-magnitude estimate. And is there an already established limit to the number of "gods" that there will ultimately be, or can the Heavenly Host expand infinitely?

Ravi said: The Bible teaches us that God took a rib from Adam to make Eve. He didn't create her from scratch. He simply used existing parts and repurposed them.

He created gestation and assigned women with the task of bearing children as their key biological function. God works in mysterious - but also mysterious ways.

Well you can claim that your "god" made your eye lens out of heat shock proteins if you want to. I choose not to worship such a "god".

And as for Joe being "voluntary celibate", sure, let's call voluntary if it makes you feel better. All I know is that that makes him Joe an evolutionary dead end. Great. The gene poo, just got a little bit cleaner.

Ravi said: I should also point out that those of us who are voluntarily celibate prove that Evolutionism is false since we should all be programmed by our genes to reproduce.

There are many humans who choose to limit the number of their offspring, even to the minimum of zero. It is common for juveniles in the world of life to suffer major reductions before reaching maturity. There are sterile castes in many eusocial animals. Every biologist knows these facts.

The Bible tells us that plants and animals, and in particular, Adam, came from the water or the ground. Where do you get the idea that there is creation from nothing?

What's the matter with this God? He can create the entire biosphere from scratch just saying 'let there be' and yet he needs at least a rib to create a woman? Is he disabled?

I can see them before me, sheepherders at the campfire, exchanging stories about a world they haven't a clue about so they just let their fantasy run wild.

Ravi said: The Bible teaches us that God took a rib from Adam to make Eve. He didn't create her from scratch. He simply used existing parts and repurposed them. Likewise, God doesn't create all of us from scratch as he did with Adam. He created gestation and assigned women with the task of bearing children as their key biological function. God works in mysterious - but also mysterious ways.

Ravi said: You have been given genitals for the purpose of procreation, not for self-gratification.

Thou shalt not ask somebody to think before posting.

DS said: Well you can claim that your "god" made your eye lens out of heat shock proteins if you want to. I choose not to worship such a "god".

Ravi said:

DS said: Well you can claim that your "god" made your eye lens out of heat shock proteins if you want to. I choose not to worship such a "god".

I am fairly sure that the Designer made our eyes from collagens, opsins, laminins, crystallins and other proteins - some of which are used to make other structures. Unfortunately, the prevalence of pleiotropy is one of main problems for Darwinian evolutionism because if you tweak something one way, it may have adverse consequences elsewhre. Sorry, pal.

Daniel said: The why did god gave Adam genitals BEFORE Eve was created? I guess you will say that god always knew from the begining that he was gonna make a man and a woman, but the bible surely makes it seem like god thought about it for a time because he saw Adam lonely. Why not create them both at the same time? Why did it require the removal of a rib? Couldn't god simply have created them both at the same time while giving Adam one less rib to start with? What was the purpose of Adam's testicles before Eve?

And if, to make Eve, god removed one of Adam's ribs... why wasn't Adam created with no genitals at all in the first place? After all, god could have added the testicles at the same time he was removing the rib, right? I guess the answer is that god made Adam in his image and likeness, right? But doesn't that mean that god has a penis and testicles too? Why does god have testicles? Does he ever get blue balls? Can you incapacitate him with a well placed punch?While this questions may seem to mock you Ravi, I assure you, I am 100% serious.

TomS said: There are many humans who choose to limit the number of their offspring, even to the minimum of zero. It is common for juveniles in the world of life to suffer major reductions before reaching maturity. There are sterile castes in many eusocial animals. Every biologist knows these facts.

Ravi said: God works in mysterious ways.

phhht said: But there are no designer gods, Bozo Joe. You are a victim of religious delusional disorder. It makes you believe things that are not true, it makes you try to defend your silly convictions without any evidence or logic.What a helpless loony you are. Pal.

eric said: Ah yes, sexism in the bible. While you might consider it a feature, the rest of us recognize it as a bug.

Ravi said:

phhht said: But there are no designer gods, Bozo Joe. You are a victim of religious delusional disorder. It makes you believe things that are not true, it makes you try to defend your silly convictions without any evidence or logic.What a helpless loony you are. Pal.

The genetic code is proof positive of a superintelligent mathematical designer endowed with foreknowledge. Atheists like you are in complete denial. Feel so sorry for you, pal.

Rolf said: What's the matter with this God? He can create the entire biosphere from scratch just saying 'let there be' and yet he needs at least a rib to create a woman? Is he disabled? I can see them before me, sheepherders at the campfire, exchanging stories about a world they haven't a clue about so they just let their fantasy run wild.

Daniel said: The why did god gave Adam genitals BEFORE Eve was created? I guess you will say that god always knew from the begining that he was gonna make a man and a woman...

Ravi said:

Rolf said: What's the matter with this God? He can create the entire biosphere from scratch just saying 'let there be' and yet he needs at least a rib to create a woman? Is he disabled? I can see them before me, sheepherders at the campfire, exchanging stories about a world they haven't a clue about so they just let their fantasy run wild.

It serves to remind women that there is a large bit of a man in her..

Ravi said: The genetic code is proof positive of a superintelligent mathematical designer endowed with foreknowledge.

Ravi said: It serves to remind women that there is a large bit of a man in her..

Please show us where in the Bible it says masturbation is bad. Or anything about it at all.

This cracks me up about the fundy male mind and its authoritarian streak; female anatomy is default. If you forget to apply androgens you get female morphology. Look up testicular feminization. Any male would share many, many more alleles with his mom or sisters, then he would with any other male besides his father. Anyone who would use Bible stories to justify his self-worth, well what can I say - loser?

Barry Switzer once quipped, “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” This applies to many males - I am sorry, but the silly Bible stories notwithstanding, being male doesn't make one better. Nor does being born in the US, nor white, nor rich, nor....

Michael Fugate said: This cracks me up about the fundy male mind and its authoritarian streak; female anatomy is default. If you forget to apply androgens you get female morphology. Look up testicular feminization. Any male would share many, many more alleles with his mom or sisters, then he would with any other male besides his father. Anyone who would use Bible stories to justify his self-worth, well what can I say - loser?

Ravi said:

Michael Fugate said: This cracks me up about the fundy male mind and its authoritarian streak; female anatomy is default. If you forget to apply androgens you get female morphology. Look up testicular feminization. Any male would share many, many more alleles with his mom or sisters, then he would with any other male besides his father. Anyone who would use Bible stories to justify his self-worth, well what can I say - loser?

That is extremely sexist to claim that females are the default type, and males the more highly evolved.

As I stated, God works in mysterious ways.

The point is that he didn’t have to create Eve from slime as he did with Adam, but simply clothed one of the man’s ribs to save production costs.

Note that testicles produce testosterone which promotes muscle growth in men.

Daniel said: So, again, why did Adam have testicles, if the original plan did not include women? Is it because we are made in God's image and likeness, and he has testicles? If so, why does god have testicles? He certainly doesn't need either sperm nor testosterone, right?

Ravi said:

eric said: Yep. An omnipotent deity could 'testify to his rational creatures' through direct, telepathic messaging if he really wanted to. The communication strategy of "I'll build lenses out of heat shock proteins, then they'll know it must've been me" (to use DS' example) seems a bit roundabout.

The Bible teaches us that God took a rib from Adam to make Eve. He didn't create her from scratch. He simply used existing parts and repurposed them. Likewise, God doesn't create all of us from scratch as he did with Adam. He created gestation and assigned women with the task of bearing children as their key biological function. God works in mysterious - but also mysterious ways.

W. H. Heydt said: That's one story... According to the other creation story in the Bible, both were created at the same time. Still...if one examines this story as you've presented it, you still have to explain why men and women have the same number of ribs (there are poeple, who even when shown this to be true, don't believe it). Unless, of course, the story is a "just so" story, much like Kipling, using "rib" as a euphemism, to explain why humans lack a baculum...

Just Bob said: Now, since there are no goddesses (right, Joe?), and God has properly-functioning -- probably uber-functioning -- male anatomy, then what do you reckon he does all by himself when the situation arises?

Just Bob said: Please show us where in the Bible it says masturbation is bad. Or anything about it at all.

Ravi said:

W. H. Heydt said: That's one story... According to the other creation story in the Bible, both were created at the same time. Still...if one examines this story as you've presented it, you still have to explain why men and women have the same number of ribs (there are poeple, who even when shown this to be true, don't believe it). Unless, of course, the story is a "just so" story, much like Kipling, using "rib" as a euphemism, to explain why humans lack a baculum...

If I remove a rib from you, will any future offpsring of yours also be missing a rib?

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Please show us where in the Bible it says masturbation is bad. Or anything about it at all.

Genesis 38:8-10: " Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also."

fnxtr said:

Ravi said:

Just Bob said: Please show us where in the Bible it says masturbation is bad. Or anything about it at all.

Genesis 38:8-10: " Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also."

That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

Daniel said:

The point is that he didn’t have to create Eve from slime as he did with Adam, but simply clothed one of the man’s ribs to save production costs.

But there are no production costs. He is GOD, after all. He can afford production costs to create a universe with trillions of galaxies, stars and planets, but can't spare a woman? You haven't thought this throu, right? I have to say, I don't know if you were half-joking or not, but that is the worst argument I've ever heard defending the need for a rib.

Note that testicles produce testosterone which promotes muscle growth in men.

I'm gonna really hit you on this one. If you notice, women also have muscles and can also "grow" them. The testosterone production of testicles is, like you say, "incidental". You can very much function without much testosterone, and you can get it from other sources.

So, again, why did Adam have testicles, if the original plan did not include women? Is it because we are made in God's image and likeness, and he has testicles? If so, why does god have testicles? He certainly doesn't need either sperm nor testosterone, right?

Should somebody point out that men and women are of the same species, and get their DNA from the same gene pool?

Ravi said:

DS said: Well you can claim that your "god" made your eye lens out of heat shock proteins if you want to. I choose not to worship such a "god".

I am fairly sure that the Designer made our eyes from collagens, opsins, laminins, crystallins and other proteins - some of which are used to make other structures. Unfortunately, the prevalence of pleiotropy is one of main problems for Darwinian evolutionism because if you tweak something one way, it may have adverse consequences elsewhre. Sorry, pal.

Onan's sin, for the weak readers, was that he refused to impregnate his brother's widow, not that he "spilled his seed". That was merely the action required to avoid impregnating her.

And it's clear to all but those who will not see that he did NOT masturbate, but practiced coitus interruptus. He didn't "spill his seed" alone, or before he was expected to make whoopie with her, but "whenever he slept with his brother’s wife". IOW, during the act of coitus he "spilled his seed" on the ground rather than where he was supposed to.

[My prophecy is fulfilled! Joe fell right into the old Onan trap, even after I warned him not to. But if you just know masturbation is a sin, then you have to go with the only bible verse that offers the chance of convincing the illiterate that it's about masturbation. Problem is, nobody here is illiterate, Joe.]

Oh, and in all the 613 rules and prohibitions in Leviticus and thereabouts, many of which are quite specific about who and what you can have sex with and when, not a one even mentions masturbation, let alone forbids it.

If what Onan did was masturbation (it wasn't), and that was a sin (it wasn't), and that act could be referred to openly in Genesis, then why was no commandment given against it?

DS said:

Ravi said:

DS said: Well you can claim that your "god" made your eye lens out of heat shock proteins if you want to. I choose not to worship such a "god".

I am fairly sure that the Designer made our eyes from collagens, opsins, laminins, crystallins and other proteins - some of which are used to make other structures. Unfortunately, the prevalence of pleiotropy is one of main problems for Darwinian evolutionism because if you tweak something one way, it may have adverse consequences elsewhre. Sorry, pal.

Irrelevant. Your supposed god could only make crystallins that got cloudy and messed up the lens. She did it in the exact same way that mindless evolution would have. Not very smart. In fact, really stupid. You can worship an idiot god if you want, but why would you? And of course, pleiotropy is not at all a problem for evolution. It might impose some limitations on selection. but that's really not a problem either as we have already seen. Joe is just spewing out nonsense now. I guess he's getting desperate. What an asshole.

Ravi said:

Rolf said: What's the matter with this God? He can create the entire biosphere from scratch just saying 'let there be' and yet he needs at least a rib to create a woman? Is he disabled? I can see them before me, sheepherders at the campfire, exchanging stories about a world they haven't a clue about so they just let their fantasy run wild.

It serves to remind women that there is a large bit of a man in her..

DanHolme said: That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

DS said: And of course, pleiotropy is not at all a problem for evolution. It might impose some limitations on selection. but that's really not a problem either as we have already seen. Joe is just spewing out nonsense now. I guess he's getting desperate. What an asshole.

TomS said: Omnipotent agents don't have to design. They just act. They don't have to depend on the properties of the material, the environment, the laws of physics and chemistry, and the desired goals. After all, weren't they responsible for the material, the environment, the laws, and the goals?

Ravi said:

DanHolme said: That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

It amounts to the same thing....a waste of semen and sperm. Jerking off is hateful in God's eyes.

If I am designed, does that mean that my body did not arise by processes which can be investigated by reproductive biology?

As long as you admit that some features of the world of life can be studied by natural sciences, where does God tell us that birds are not descended from dinosaurs?

Ravi said:

DS said: And of course, pleiotropy is not at all a problem for evolution. It might impose some limitations on selection. but that's really not a problem either as we have already seen. Joe is just spewing out nonsense now. I guess he's getting desperate. What an asshole.

Pleitropy and Epistasis represent a HUGE PROBLEM for evolutionism, so much so that the likes of JOE FELSENSTEIN don't bother to factor them into their pop genetics models.

Ravi said:

TomS said: Omnipotent agents don't have to design. They just act. They don't have to depend on the properties of the material, the environment, the laws of physics and chemistry, and the desired goals. After all, weren't they responsible for the material, the environment, the laws, and the goals?

So you speak for God, do you? We are designed and designs require a designer. This doesn't mean, however, that every single feature of biology is designed....the spherical shape of an egg can be explained in terms of pressure, for example.

Ravi said:

DanHolme said: That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

It amounts to the same thing....a waste of semen and sperm. Jerking off is hateful in God's eyes.

Michael Fugate said:

Ravi said:

DanHolme said: That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

It amounts to the same thing....a waste of semen and sperm. Jerking off is hateful in God's eyes.

No it doesn't. Gods you know nothing about biology. Please look up sperm production - sperm is made continuously and is reabsorbed - makes no difference if you ejaculate or not. The Bible has no clue about facts - please stop acting as if it does.

Ravi said:

DanHolme said: That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

It amounts to the same thing....a waste of semen and sperm. Jerking off is hateful in God's eyes.

While we're wasting sperm here... Who Designed the system that requires the utter wastage of
200,000,000 or more sperm cells per ejaculation when only one is needed for fertilization? And even then, most copulatory acts, even when done in hopes of a pregnancy, fail at fertilization. And even if fertilized, the ovum often fails to implant or is spontaneously aborted.

What a godawful wasteful system!

I wonder if anyone has ever estimated how many sperm it takes, on average, including all the copulations that don't 'take', to 'make a baby' when the couple is actually trying.

Joe, do we have a fixed number of sperm that are available over our lives, so that if we "waste" a bunch profligately we will run out?

What does "wasting" even mean when new ones are produced by the millions each day?

Oh, and if the nature of the "sin" in masturbation is wasting sperm... then there is no sin in female masturbation!

Is getting a vasectomy a sin? Doesn't that "waste" all those sperm that can't make it past the roadblock?

Ravi said:

W. H. Heydt said: That's one story... According to the other creation story in the Bible, both were created at the same time. Still...if one examines this story as you've presented it, you still have to explain why men and women have the same number of ribs (there are poeple, who even when shown this to be true, don't believe it). Unless, of course, the story is a "just so" story, much like Kipling, using "rib" as a euphemism, to explain why humans lack a baculum...

If I remove a rib from you, will any future offpsring of yours also be missing a rib?

Hey! Since I have had a vasectomy, then I'm not wasting any sperm by masturbation, and therefore not sinning! Thanks, Joe!

Ravi said: Jerking off is hateful in God's eyes.

Ravi said:

DanHolme said: That's pulling out, not beating off. Gods you're an idiot, JoBo.

It amounts to the same thing....a waste of semen and sperm. Jerking off is hateful in God's eyes.

Maybe it's in the margins of his copy?

W. H. Heydt said: So where is the verse that actually *says* that?

WHOOHOO! Mike Pence - a creationist who wants ID taught - is now the VP-elect! Finally, we can have someone stand up to the NCSE, the ACLU and the NABT. U-S-A! U-S-A ! U-S-A! God Bless America!

Ravi said: WHOOHOO! Mike Pence - a creationist who wants ID taught - is now the VP-elect! Finally, we can have someone stand up to the NCSE, the ACLU and the NABT. U-S-A! U-S-A ! U-S-A! God Bless America!

Ravi said: WHOOHOO! Mike Pence - a creationist who wants ID taught - is now the VP-elect! Finally, we can have someone stand up to the NCSE, the ACLU and the NABT. U-S-A! U-S-A ! U-S-A! God Bless America!

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said:

Ravi said: WHOOHOO! Mike Pence - a creationist who wants ID taught - is now the VP-elect! Finally, we can have someone stand up to the NCSE, the ACLU and the NABT. U-S-A! U-S-A ! U-S-A! God Bless America!

Enough of this reality nonsense. Maybe Pence can abolish it. Glen Davidson

Oops, mid editing click. That should read "...(or two - Ginsberg is 83) will be..."

Joe Berserkmore said: WHOOHOO! Mike Pence - a creationist who wants ID taught - is now the VP-elect! Finally, we can have someone stand up to the NCSE, the ACLU and the NABT. U-S-A! U-S-A ! U-S-A! God Bless America!

Ravi said: Mike Pence - a creationist who wants ID taught ... God Bless America!

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: Enough of this reality nonsense. Maybe Pence can abolish it. Glen Davidson

eric said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: Enough of this reality nonsense. Maybe Pence can abolish it. Glen Davidson

Not sure how much Trump will pay attention to Pence, but there's at least one such issue on which they agree. The US is likely to become the "climate change? What climate change?" nation for the next four years.

eric said: Not sure how much Trump will pay attention to Pence, but there's at least one such issue on which they agree. The US is likely to become the "climate change? What climate change?" nation for the next four years.

Ravi said:

eric said: Not sure how much Trump will pay attention to Pence, but there's at least one such issue on which they agree. The US is likely to become the "climate change? What climate change?" nation for the next four years.

Trump would probably invest in creationism, like Ken Ham's Ark Park, if it could make him a ton of money. Pence, on the other hand, is a vehement anti-evolutionist by ideology who wants to repeal the Johnson Amendment and all obstacles in the way of religious freedom. If Trump appoints a creationist justice to the Supreme Court, as is likely, then we could have creatonism/ID back in schools before the end of next year. I am VERY VERY excited!

DS said:

eric said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: Enough of this reality nonsense. Maybe Pence can abolish it. Glen Davidson

Not sure how much Trump will pay attention to Pence, but there's at least one such issue on which they agree. The US is likely to become the "climate change? What climate change?" nation for the next four years.

Well President Obama has already signed the Paris agreement. President Trump (man it hurts to even write that) should be legally bound to honor the agreement. Then again, President Obama already started Obama Care and Trump has vowed to demolish it. I guess we are about to move backwards on every major issue of our times.

W. H. Heydt said: Refer to "That Man in the White House".

phhht said:

W. H. Heydt said: Refer to "That Man in the White House".

Or join me in referring to him as President Pussygrabber and the Cabinet of Deplorables.

I congratulate the Republican party - most especially its far-right, plutocrat rump - on a brilliantly successful political campaign, and a demonstration of pragmatic savvy that went far beyond one campaign. I don't really understand how it was done, but the achievement is masterful: they managed to persuade a large and important demographic of the US electorate to vote directly against its own interests. They managed to convince that demographic that it was the other party that was elitist - a stunning accomplishment in the face of the palpable fact that they are themselves almost exclusively rich, white and entrenched in privilege. You can only admire it.

Well, the American people have chosen. May they not regret their choice. Or if they do, may it be no more than regret, for regret can be assuaged, but catastrophe can only be suffered through.

I looked at the list of possible candidates for Trump's cabinet. He owes nothing whatsoever to moderate Republicans. Pence, of course. Rudy Giuliani! Ben Carson! Cristie! Gringich! Lucas!

Dear God. Yes, yes. I know. Pace to atheists. It's a traditional invocation, expressive of dismay and fear.

W. H. Heydt said:

phhht said:

W. H. Heydt said: Refer to "That Man in the White House".

Or join me in referring to him as President Pussygrabber and the Cabinet of Deplorables.

"President Pussygrabber and the Deplorables" sounds like some sort of rock band. Punk rock, perhaps? Not sure, since rock is a music style I pay zero attention to. At a gaming coonvention I help run, we usually have a guy in our dealers room with a machine for cutting plastic badges. I need to get one that says "Nasty but not Deplorable".

Dave Luckett said: I looked at the list of possible candidates for Trump's cabinet. He owes nothing whatsoever to moderate Republicans. Pence, of course. Rudy Giuliani! Ben Carson! Cristie! Gringich! Lucas! Dear God. Yes, yes. I know. Pace to atheists. It's a traditional invocation, expressive of dismay and fear.

I see that in my distress I misspelled the names of some of the possibilities for a Trump cabinet. Forgive me. Aversion avoidance; I can't bear to look at them.

Dave Luckett said: I see that in my distress I misspelled the names of some of the possibilities for a Trump cabinet. Forgive me. Aversion avoidance; I can't bear to look at them.

DS said: Well President Obama has already signed the Paris agreement. President Trump (man it hurts to even write that) should be legally bound to honor the agreement.

Then again, President Obama already started Obama Care and Trump has vowed to demolish it. I guess we are about to move backwards on every major issue of our times.

Dave Luckett said: I see that in my distress I misspelled the names of some of the possibilities for a Trump cabinet. Forgive me. Aversion avoidance; I can't bear to look at them.

Ravi said: I hope he makes Stephen Meyer his science advisor. I will lobby the new administration to fund the Discovery Institute.

Ravi said:

Dave Luckett said: I see that in my distress I misspelled the names of some of the possibilities for a Trump cabinet. Forgive me. Aversion avoidance; I can't bear to look at them.

I hope he makes Stephen Meyer his science advisor. I will lobby the new administration to fund the Discovery Institute.

Joe loves those who treat their semen with more care.

Dave Luckett said: I congratulate the Republican party - most especially its far-right, plutocrat rump - on a brilliantly successful political campaign, and a demonstration of pragmatic savvy that went far beyond one campaign. I don't really understand how it was done, but the achievement is masterful: they managed to persuade a large and important demographic of the US electorate to vote directly against its own interests. They managed to convince that demographic that it was the other party that was elitist - a stunning accomplishment in the face of the palpable fact that they are themselves almost exclusively rich, white and entrenched in privilege. You can only admire it. Well, the American people have chosen. May they not regret their choice. Or if they do, may it be no more than regret, for regret can be assuaged, but catastrophe can only be suffered through.

Joe Berserkmore said: Trump would probably invest in creationism, like Ken Ham's Ark Park, if it could make him a ton of money. Pence, on the other hand, is a vehement anti-evolutionist by ideology who wants to repeal the Johnson Amendment and all obstacles in the way of religious freedom. If Trump appoints a creationist justice to the Supreme Court, as is likely, then we could have creatonism/ID back in schools before the end of next year. I am VERY VERY excited!