After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

[EarthScienceguy]

After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered the most basic questions of theist?

Charles Hodge Systematic theology copywrite 1870.

Although Strauss greatly exaggerates when he says that men of science in our day are unanimous
in supporting the doctrine of spontaneous generation, it is undoubtedly true that a large class of
naturalists, especially on the continent of Europe, are in favour of that doctrine. Professor Huxley,
in his discourse on the “Physical Basis of Life,� lends to it the whole weight of his authority. He
does not indeed expressly teach that dead matter becomes active without being subject to the
influence of previous living matter; but his whole paper is designed to show that life is the result
of the peculiar arrangement of the molecules of matter. His doctrine is that “the matter of life is
composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms are
aggregated.�2 “If the properties of water,� he says, “may be properly said to result from the nature
and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say
that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.�3 In his
address before the British Association, he says that if he could look back far enough into the past
he should expect to see “the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.� And although
that address is devoted to showing that spontaneous generation, or Abiogenesis, as it is called, has
never been proved, he says, “I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to
suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis has ever taken place in the past or ever will take place
in the future. With organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and
every day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height of presumption for any man to
say that the conditions under which matter assumes the properties we call ‘vital,’ may not some
day be artificially brought together.�4 All this supposes that life is the product of physical causes;
that all that is requisite for its production is “to bring together� the necessary conditions.

The theist argument has not changed in 150 years.

In 1870, the full problem in the fossil record of the Cambrian explosion had still not been fully realized.

In 1870 an equation to calculate rate of beneficial mutations in organisms, which makes it impossible for the cambrian explosion to happen through naturalistic means.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 87 by EarthScienceguy]

If the human race was bottlenecked down to one male then all males after the bottleneck should have the same y chromosome. Because only males pass on the y chromosome. This is called the scientific method the cornerstone of science.

Are you saying that all men have exactly the same Y-chromosome? If not, exactly what point are you trying to make?

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 87 by EarthScienceguy]

Behemoth is a dinosaur.

There were many different dinosaurs from very big to very small. There were carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. The Bible verses referring to behemoth hardly indicate any of that and actually seem to refer to a single animal.

Accumulated evidence has led scientists to conclude that a massive asteroid/meteor/comet collided with Earth around 65 million years ago and that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The collision site has been determined to be the Chicxulub crater, an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Do you believe that such a collision occurred? If not, how do you refute the evidence that leads to that conclusion?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 88 by EarthScienceguy]

You never proved this prediction to be incorrect. You simply said that he had a lucky guess. How is a lucky guess even possible? You may not like the assumptions that he started with but you never explained how if those assumptions were false produced correct predictions.

This is just more confirmation of your fundamental misunderstanding of how real science works. Humphrey pulled two key assumptions in his planetary magnetic field "theory" from thin air without any demonstration that they were valid. First, that the planets started out as balls of H2O, and second that a god swooped in and aligned the nuclear spins of all the H atoms. He didn't even make an effort to support these wild assumptions or show why they were legitimate. He just completely made them up. THEREFORE, nothing he derives from those unfounded assumptions has any scientific validity of any kind. It is pure coincidence that his "working backwards" numbers happen to come close in a few cases (but not in others).

What he did is clear, and representative of all of these creationist attempts to fool people. Since he's a creationist, whatever conclusion he arrives at has to, by definition, be consistent with the bible. He punched a few numbers and realized that a simple, single exponential decay of a magnetic field could be made to produce today's magnetic field on Earth over about 6000 years if he could only find a way to create an initial magnetic field of the correct strength (easy enough to work the exponential to get that number). Then he's thinking ... how can I create this initial magnetic field? So he has an outrageous idea to use some bible verse stating that there is water in the heavens, and from that goes straight to assumption #1 (the planets all started as balls of H2O). So far so good ... he's fabricated a big ball of H2O. Now he needs to create a magnetic field since this ball of H2O alone doesn't cut it. So he introduces the "now a miracle happens" like in the famous cartoon, and has his favorite god swoop in to align all the H atom nuclear spins. Presto ... he has a starting magnetic field of the correct order of magnitude, and he publishes this (in a creationists journal of course, because no legitimate science journal would even send such garbage out for review). And you have defended this nonsense from day one as if it were real science, and legitimate. That speaks for itself.

... then there has to be a reason why he is getting correct predictions.

Yes ... its called pure coincidence because his initial assumptions are unsupported and known to be dead wrong, therefore anything he derives from them is complete nonsense.

Science is based on predetermined conclusions it is called a hypothesis.

What? A hypothesis is not a conclusion. It is a proposed explanation of something that then has to be confirmed by observation, measurement, various experiments, etc. What Humphreys' and his like do is backwards from actual science. They start with a conclusion (whatever the bible says), then try to find some way to manipulate things to get that answer while looking scientific if they can. There is no hypothesis stage. Humphreys never justified his two primary assumptions ... he just stated them as fact and left it at that. No telling how many other scenarios he came up with before landing on the hilarious balls of H2O scheme. This is not science by any stretch of the imagination. Why people fall for this kind of nonsense is beyond me.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 91 by brunumb]

Accumulated evidence has led scientists to conclude that a massive asteroid/meteor/comet collided with Earth around 65 million years ago and that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The collision site has been determined to be the Chicxulub crater, an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Do you believe that such a collision occurred? If not, how do you refute the evidence that leads to that conclusion?

Oh my goodness!!! The death of the dinosaurs is not a settled scientific question in secular circles. https://www.history.com/topics/pre-hist ... -die-out-1.

One of the problems of this theory is that "birds" came from dinosaurs or at least that is the "theory". I am not sure how birds could have come from dinosaurs if there are bird fossils that predate the supposed age the dinosaurs that they came from.

But this is a perfect example of "misrepresenting observations, and intentionally misinterpreting them to try and support a predetermined conclusion"

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 91 by brunumb]

Accumulated evidence has led scientists to conclude that a massive asteroid/meteor/comet collided with Earth around 65 million years ago and that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The collision site has been determined to be the Chicxulub crater, an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Do you believe that such a collision occurred? If not, how do you refute the evidence that leads to that conclusion?

Oh my goodness!!! The death of the dinosaurs is not a settled scientific question in secular circles. https://www.history.com/topics/pre-hist ... -die-out-1.

One of the problems of this theory is that "birds" came from dinosaurs or at least that is the "theory". I am not sure how birds could have come from dinosaurs if there are bird fossils that predate the supposed age the dinosaurs that they came from.

But this is a perfect example of "misrepresenting observations, and intentionally misinterpreting them to try and support a predetermined conclusion"

I bolded what you were asked to respond to.
I know it is much easier to complain about other theories in place of answering debate questions, but would you be so kind as to at least try?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods]

What? A hypothesis is not a conclusion.

A hypothesis is a conclusion!!! It is the experimenter's conclusion as to why the independent variable changed the dependent variable.

It is a proposed explanation of something that then has to be confirmed by observation, measurement, various experiments, etc. What Humphreys' and his like do is backward from actual science. They start with a conclusion (whatever the bible says), then try to find some way to manipulate things to get that answer while looking scientific if they can. There is no hypothesis stage. Humphreys never justified his two primary assumptions ... he just stated them as fact and left it at that. No telling how many other scenarios he came up with before landing on the hilarious balls of H2O scheme. This is not science by any stretch of the imagination. Why people fall for this kind of nonsense is beyond me.

A naturalist that does not know how the universe was created so they would have nothing to base an evaluation of Humphrey's theory on. Naturalist might say that God creating a ball of water is hilarious but the naturalist does not even offer an alternative, especially naturalists that claim they do not know how the universe was created.

One prediction can be called a coincidence multiple correct predictions in including a prediction on the rate of decline of the magnetic fields needs an explanation, his theory defies a naturalist ability to explain because there are not any workable naturalistic theories in cosmology regarding the creation of the universe that make accurate prediction unless it aligns with creation theory.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 94 by Clownboat]

I bolded what you were asked to respond to.
I know it is much easier to complain about other theories in place of answering debate questions, but would you be so kind as to at least try?

An asteroid impact killing the dinosaurs is not a settled scientific theory. Not even all naturalists believe that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

And I did respond to this question. Birds become a huge problem for the asteroid theory without dinosaurs according to naturalist theory there can be no birds.

[Diagoras]

Birds become a huge problem for the asteroid theory without dinosaurs according to naturalist theory there can be no birds.

What? “There can be no birds�? How did you leap to that conclusion?

Here are some interesting recent articles relating to the evolution of birds. Anyone studying the field would know that many anatomical features unique to modern birds (including, but not limited to, feathers) were shared by some species of dinosaurs, but not always by the same species at the same time. Thus, there are examples of feathered dinosaurs that we’d definitely not class as birds, as well as later ‘birds’ exhibiting teeth (not a feature of modern birds).

https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... e.research

https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... e.research

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -evolution

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... t-science/

This common tactic of simply stating ‘this could not have happened’ is just an argument from ignorance, and easily refuted.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 95 by EarthScienceguy]

A hypothesis is a conclusion!!! It is the experimenter's conclusion as to why the independent variable changed the dependent variable.

Where on earth did you get that? It could be the single most outrageous thing you have ever posted here, and that is saying something. If you so misunderstand what a hypothesis is that you think it is a conclusion, it is easy to see then how you can buy into something like Humphreys' planetary magnetic field nonsense and think it is legitimate science. Surely you are joking?

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 94 by Clownboat]

I bolded what you were asked to respond to.
I know it is much easier to complain about other theories in place of answering debate questions, but would you be so kind as to at least try?

And I did respond to this question.

Please read the question again and try responding to what was asked.

Do you believe that such a collision occurred? If not, how do you refute the evidence that leads to that conclusion?