Is strict atheism a barrier to knowledge and truth?

[Starboard Tack]

In Iris Fry's book The Emergence of Life on Earth, she makes a statement that demonstrates a common, and possibly defective view of knowledge. The preamble to this statement is a complaint against people she refers to as "Creationists" who, in her opinion, pervert science to further their philosophical arguments. The context to the statement is that instead of billions of years for chemicals to self organize into life on the primordial earth, research has shown that the window has shrunk to around 10 million years, prompting those pesky "Creationists" to note that this isn't enough time for a purely naturalistic explanation for life's beginnings. The statement is this:

Notice the paradox that the findings of scientific research are seen fit, under the circumstances, to serve as evidence against science (by creationists). (page 125).

What is intriguing here is that the research simply argues against a long period of time for life to appear, and says nothing about the value of science. However, by noticing it, apparently the theists are guilty of being anti-science. This is a classic illustration of the topic I'd like to explore.

By adopting the view that a belief in God's existence and his involvement in his creation is a priori off limits, Dr. Fry believes that any suggestion that naturalistic explanation may lack explanatory power and be wrong is by definition anti-science. But is it?

God either does, or does not exist. In what form he/she/it exists is another topic, but is it not a given that there is at least a possibility, even if rejected, that he/she/it does exist?

And if it is a possibility, then by excluding supernatural involvement as a matter of philosophic dogma when trying to understand intractable problems doesn't the scientist who insists on pure naturalism guarantee that he or she may never be able to find the truth? In other words, if the existence of God is even the remotest possibility, isn't the rejection of that possibility without consideration itself anti-scientific? Directed panspermia is taken as a scientific proposition for life's origins, proposed by Nobel prize winners. Is that more scientific than the belief that the causal agent who brought the universe into existence is a personal being?

I can think of examples where scientific advancement has been stultified as a result of an insistence on a purely naturalistic understanding of the world. If so, doesn't it behoove scientists to entertain the possibility of supernatural intervention, even if only to be able to rule it out when a naturalistic explanation is found?[/i]

[Starboard Tack]

[

You seem to think that if you disprove ToE (an impossible task) that somehow proves God. First, since ToE appears to be correct, your task is impossible. But if you did succeed, it would do absolutely nothing to support your argument that God exists. The argument over ToE is not an argument about whether God created all things, only about how. If God exists, He created all species via ToE. If not, then ToE works without God.

I'm sure you find it comforting to characterize an acceptance of scientific knowledge as "religion," thereby casting it into the same vat of superstition as belief in a magical invisible being. Of course, we all know it's the precise opposite.

No, I don't think that disproving the ToE proves God, or that proving it disproves God. It just happens to be science that doesn't work very well, but I acknowledge it is the only game in town from a naturalistic perspective. Perhaps that is why it is defended even when it is completely unable to provide a coherent explanation for what is observed. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that the reason it is so vigorously defended, even when the data demonstrates it must be wrong is because without evolution, atheists feel the case for God is strengthened. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but whatever that outcome, it doesn't improve evolution's capability to explain all it is asked to explain. And yes, when people hang onto beliefs in the face of contrary data, that does become a religion be it a faith in the power of evolution or a belief that the earth is flat.

One final example of the basis for rational skepticism of the power of evolution to explain what is. A couple of years ago, a team of quantum and computational chemists teamed up with protein engineers, biochemists and molecular biologists to create artificial enzymes to mimic the performance of naturally occuring enzymes that speed up certain reactions by tens of billions of times. They based their strategy on the work of generations of other scientists, used super computers for modeling, optimized their results using in vitro evolution and came up with two synthetic enzymes, one which sped up one biochemical reaction by 200 times and another that sped up a reaction by a few thousand times. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5868/1387

The PI summarized this remarkable scientific achievement in this way:

"Although our results demonstrate that novel enzyme activities can be designed from scratch and indicate the catalytic strategies that are most accessible to nascent enymes, there is still a significant gap between the activities of our designed catalysts and those of naturally occurring enzymes."

In other words, unguided processes on the early earth are exponentially more efficient in producing enzymes than what can be accomplished in advanced laboratories having access to teams of brilliant minds and the most advanced computing services possible. This may be unremarkable to some, but would seem to indicate that something more than dirty mud puddles are involved in creating the complexity we observe in biochemistry.

By way of analogy, a mind can design and construct the Pentagon. However, if bundled 2 x 4's, roofing materials, nails and sacks of concrete are dropped off in my back yard, a supporter of evolution would tell me that all I have to do is wait a long while and it will self assemble into a garden shed. Perhaps, but I suspect the wait might be quite a bit longer than the age of the universe itself.

My problem with evolution is simply that it doesn't explain a great deal of what we see in biochemistry, including where efficient enzymes critical for life came from. And no, this is not confusing abiogenesis with evolution, since by the time you have complex biochemistry, life already exists and abiogenesis has come and gone. Yes, there are conjectures that x might have happened, facilitating y resulting in z. However, when minds conspire to prove this can happen, all they actually prove is that it takes minds to make it happen and even then, can't begin to produce anything so elegant as what the ToE tells us occured all by its lonesome on the primoridal earth. The flying spaghetti monster seems more probable.

Regarding your question on what signs of life there are 3.8 billion years ago, I am referring to chemical signatures of photosynthetic life and carbon 12 enrichment. There is controversy on the data from some sites, but not all. The first true fossils are presumed to be around 3.5 billion years old and look identical to bacteria we find today. Something else evolution has a hard time explaining.

[Autodidact]

You seem to think that if you disprove ToE (an impossible task) that somehow proves God. First, since ToE appears to be correct, your task is impossible. But if you did succeed, it would do absolutely nothing to support your argument that God exists. The argument over ToE is not an argument about whether God created all things, only about how. If God exists, He created all species via ToE. If not, then ToE works without God.

I'm sure you find it comforting to characterize an acceptance of scientific knowledge as "religion," thereby casting it into the same vat of superstition as belief in a magical invisible being. Of course, we all know it's the precise opposite.

No, I don't think that disproving the ToE proves God, or that proving it disproves God. It just happens to be science that doesn't work very well, but I acknowledge it is the only game in town from a naturalistic perspective. Perhaps that is why it is defended even when it is completely unable to provide a coherent explanation for what is observed. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that the reason it is so vigorously defended, even when the data demonstrates it must be wrong is because without evolution, atheists feel the case for God is strengthened. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but whatever that outcome, it doesn't improve evolution's capability to explain all it is asked to explain. And yes, when people hang onto beliefs in the face of contrary data, that does become a religion be it a faith in the power of evolution or a belief that the earth is flat.

You keep asserting this. What you fail to do is demonstrate that it is true. That is our custom here at Debating Religion.

One final example of the basis for rational skepticism of the power of evolution to explain what is. A couple of years ago, a team of quantum and computational chemists teamed up with protein engineers, biochemists and molecular biologists to create artificial enzymes to mimic the performance of naturally occuring enzymes that speed up certain reactions by tens of billions of times. They based their strategy on the work of generations of other scientists, used super computers for modeling, optimized their results using in vitro evolution and came up with two synthetic enzymes, one which sped up one biochemical reaction by 200 times and another that sped up a reaction by a few thousand times. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5868/1387

The PI summarized this remarkable scientific achievement in this way:

"Although our results demonstrate that novel enzyme activities can be designed from scratch and indicate the catalytic strategies that are most accessible to nascent enymes, there is still a significant gap between the activities of our designed catalysts and those of naturally occurring enzymes."

In other words, unguided processes on the early earth are exponentially more efficient in producing enzymes than what can be accomplished in advanced laboratories having access to teams of brilliant minds and the most advanced computing services possible. This may be unremarkable to some, but would seem to indicate that something more than dirty mud puddles are involved in creating the complexity we observe in biochemistry.

(1) Evolution doesn't create enzymes. It creates new species.
(2) The inability of human beings to mimic a natural process tells us nothing about the ability of nature to do the same, and in no way falsifies that natural process.

So far you have produced exactly zero reasons to doubt ToE. That may be why it is one of the most robust, well-supported, widely accepted theories in the history of science.

By way of analogy, a mind can design and construct the Pentagon. However, if bundled 2 x 4's, roofing materials, nails and sacks of concrete are dropped off in my back yard, a supporter of evolution would tell me that all I have to do is wait a long while and it will self assemble into a garden shed. Perhaps, but I suspect the wait might be quite a bit longer than the age of the universe itself.

Once again, rather than setting up straw men to knock down, I suggest you ask "supporters of Evolution" (otherwise known as Biologists and people who accept science) what they believe.

My problem with evolution is simply that it doesn't explain a great deal of what we see in biochemistry, including where efficient enzymes critical for life came from. And no, this is not confusing abiogenesis with evolution, since by the time you have complex biochemistry, life already exists and abiogenesis has come and gone. Yes, there are conjectures that x might have happened, facilitating y resulting in z. However, when minds conspire to prove this can happen, all they actually prove is that it takes minds to make it happen and even then, can't begin to produce anything so elegant as what the ToE tells us occured all by its lonesome on the primoridal earth. The flying spaghetti monster seems more probable.

You can say this as many times as you like. Until you support it, it is just a hollow claim.

So what do you think is going on with all those Biologists: a bunch of morons, evil atheists, or what?

Regarding your question on what signs of life there are 3.8 billion years ago, I am referring to chemical signatures of photosynthetic life and carbon 12 enrichment. There is controversy on the data from some sites, but not all. The first true fossils are presumed to be around 3.5 billion years old and look identical to bacteria we find today. Something else evolution has a hard time explaining.

No, it doesn't. See, I can make unsupported assertions too.

[Starboard Tack]

You seem to think that if you disprove ToE (an impossible task) that somehow proves God. First, since ToE appears to be correct, your task is impossible. But if you did succeed, it would do absolutely nothing to support your argument that God exists. The argument over ToE is not an argument about whether God created all things, only about how. If God exists, He created all species via ToE. If not, then ToE works without God.

I'm sure you find it comforting to characterize an acceptance of scientific knowledge as "religion," thereby casting it into the same vat of superstition as belief in a magical invisible being. Of course, we all know it's the precise opposite.

No, I don't think that disproving the ToE proves God, or that proving it disproves God. It just happens to be science that doesn't work very well, but I acknowledge it is the only game in town from a naturalistic perspective. Perhaps that is why it is defended even when it is completely unable to provide a coherent explanation for what is observed. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that the reason it is so vigorously defended, even when the data demonstrates it must be wrong is because without evolution, atheists feel the case for God is strengthened. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but whatever that outcome, it doesn't improve evolution's capability to explain all it is asked to explain. And yes, when people hang onto beliefs in the face of contrary data, that does become a religion be it a faith in the power of evolution or a belief that the earth is flat.

You keep asserting this. What you fail to do is demonstrate that it is true. That is our custom here at Debating Religion.

Ok, then explain your faith in the power of evolution in the face of a long list of things it cannot explain. I believe that providing evidence of belief is a custom at Debating Religion, or do you feel that asserting your position makes it valid?

One final example of the basis for rational skepticism of the power of evolution to explain what is. A couple of years ago, a team of quantum and computational chemists teamed up with protein engineers, biochemists and molecular biologists to create artificial enzymes to mimic the performance of naturally occuring enzymes that speed up certain reactions by tens of billions of times. They based their strategy on the work of generations of other scientists, used super computers for modeling, optimized their results using in vitro evolution and came up with two synthetic enzymes, one which sped up one biochemical reaction by 200 times and another that sped up a reaction by a few thousand times. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5868/1387

The PI summarized this remarkable scientific achievement in this way:

"Although our results demonstrate that novel enzyme activities can be designed from scratch and indicate the catalytic strategies that are most accessible to nascent enymes, there is still a significant gap between the activities of our designed catalysts and those of naturally occurring enzymes."

In other words, unguided processes on the early earth are exponentially more efficient in producing enzymes than what can be accomplished in advanced laboratories having access to teams of brilliant minds and the most advanced computing services possible. This may be unremarkable to some, but would seem to indicate that something more than dirty mud puddles are involved in creating the complexity we observe in biochemistry.

(1) Evolution doesn't create enzymes. It creates new species.
(2) The inability of human beings to mimic a natural process tells us nothing about the ability of nature to do the same, and in no way falsifies that natural process.

So far you have produced exactly zero reasons to doubt ToE. That may be why it is one of the most robust, well-supported, widely accepted theories in the history of science.

I see. Apparently, you do not understand what the theory you apparently hold to describes. I would be curious if anyone, and I mean anyone, would second your observation that evolution doesn't explain the creatation of new proteins, enzymes and biochemical functionality. Where on earth does your model describe them coming form if not from the evolution of biochemistry. Do you understand even the basics of the theory you assert describes reality?

By way of analogy, a mind can design and construct the Pentagon. However, if bundled 2 x 4's, roofing materials, nails and sacks of concrete are dropped off in my back yard, a supporter of evolution would tell me that all I have to do is wait a long while and it will self assemble into a garden shed. Perhaps, but I suspect the wait might be quite a bit longer than the age of the universe itself.

Once again, rather than setting up straw men to knock down, I suggest you ask "supporters of Evolution" (otherwise known as Biologists and people who accept science) what they believe.

Again, I assume you do not understand what the paper I referenced describes and concludes. Intelligent design conducted by human minds is apparently incapable of producing what supporters of evolution would contend are created by unguided, non-intelligent processes. At your suggestion, I herewith ask all evolutionists to explain how the efficiency of enzymes observed in the world came about through these unguided processes when intelligent human design is not up to the task. I await their answer, and suspect I will wait as long as it would take for that garden shed to self-assemble for that answer.

My problem with evolution is simply that it doesn't explain a great deal of what we see in biochemistry, including where efficient enzymes critical for life came from. And no, this is not confusing abiogenesis with evolution, since by the time you have complex biochemistry, life already exists and abiogenesis has come and gone. Yes, there are conjectures that x might have happened, facilitating y resulting in z. However, when minds conspire to prove this can happen, all they actually prove is that it takes minds to make it happen and even then, can't begin to produce anything so elegant as what the ToE tells us occured all by its lonesome on the primoridal earth. The flying spaghetti monster seems more probable.

You can say this as many times as you like. Until you support it, it is just a hollow claim.

It is supported by the work of Hubert Yockey, which I have cited, as well as the writings of Francis Crick that I have cited, as well as the work of Robert Schopf, which I have cited. The fact that you do not read, or apparently understand the evidence doesn't change the nature of that evidence, or diminish how it invalidates your presumptions.

So what do you think is going on with all those Biologists: a bunch of morons, evil atheists, or what?

No, simply scientists dedicated as they should be to the discovery of naturalistic explanations.

Regarding your question on what signs of life there are 3.8 billion years ago, I am referring to chemical signatures of photosynthetic life and carbon 12 enrichment. There is controversy on the data from some sites, but not all. The first true fossils are presumed to be around 3.5 billion years old and look identical to bacteria we find today. Something else evolution has a hard time explaining.

No, it doesn't. See, I can make unsupported assertions too.

That is itself an assertion. Please provide the evidence for your claim that the rapid origin of life on earth has an explanation in evolutionary theory, or any scientific theory you wish to cite.

[Starboard Tack]

You must not be reading my posts. I point to the LTEE as an example of mutation and natural selection that teaches us a lot about the power of the evolutionary paradigm to generate change. In this case quadrillions of individuals had to live and die under conditions encouraging a very specific mutation set before that mutation set appeared.

And this is where the problem, as outlined before, lies. You talk about a "specific mutation" as if that was the goal of evolution. As I described, and as natural selection predicts, it is about traits that increase fitness. That whole time before the specific citrate mutation, we were seeing varying increases in fitness without that specific mutation. Why do you focus on this one mutation, yet ignore the other changes which increased their fitness? You are comparing the probability like you would for winning the lotto. You have your specific number and you try to predict the probability of THOSE specific numbers coming up. Instead, you need to look at it like the probability of anyone winning the lotto. People win the lotto all the time. Why dont you see this as impossible?

Lies? Is that really what you meant to say? I have noted that the LTEE documents that pinpoint pressure on a population brought out the ability to pass citrate throug the cell wall of e coli. The data from the paper indicates that quadrillions of inviduals were needed to power this adaptation. I have also pointed out that far fewer individuals are available to bring about the change from Home erectus to Homo sapiens sapiens and simply commented on that simple reality. Please provide an example of where I have "lied" or retract that statement.

Apply those numbers to the populations available for other species with far more radical change claimed by the ToE and you can begin to understand why many find the model unpersuasive.

Except that the number are flawed, as is the science. There are varying selection pressures, mutation rates, etc... so to try to extrapolate is irrational.

The LTEE applied specific pressure to produce a specific result. How is pointing to the number of individuals needed to bring about this adaptation 'flawed'?

Regarding probability calculations, let's start with something that all life is based on - the universal genetic code. According to agnostic biophysicist Hubert Yockey, to produce the code as we find it would have required that natural selection explore 1.4 x 10^70 different genetic codes to hit on the universal code. Since there are 6.3 x 10^15 seconds since the big bang, natural selection would have had to act on 10^55 codes per second if the process began the instant of creation.

First, you should know I dont address something like this without a source.

Read Yockey's book. If your standard for persuasion is that you have to have evidence read to you, I'm not up to that challenge.

However, I can spot the flaw and it is obvious. It is just as I explained earlier. What makes the one we have, the necessary result? This is the same lotto argument.

Is this a mystery flaw, or can you identify it? If you are arguing that once something happens the odds against it happening are no longer relevant to a discussion on the likelihood of the occurence, then I will leave you to that interpretation, which is profundly ignorant of basic statistics, never mind common sense.

The evolutionary paradigm answers these challenges by saying, "well since we have the code, it must have evolved very quickly" without providing the slightest scientific basis for such an assertion. While it is typical for skeptics of evolution to be portrayed as being in the unbelievable, overcoming the data and holding the view most evolutionists hold seems to me to require nearly boundless faith with scant grounding in reality.

I dont see anyone answering the challenges by saying it arose quickly. Where is the evidence for this?

Kindly note Iris Fry's quotation at the beginning of this thread for someone who is "saying it arose quickly". We now know that life arose in 10 to a maximum of 50 million years. If you are arguing that the universal genetic code evolved after the life it makes possible, then that would be an interesting theory deserving of data. If you are arguing that 10, 50 or 500 million years is enough time for DNA to evolve, then I suggest you read up a bit on the subject. Start with Yockey's work. Or Crick's. Or Eigen's.

You feel this position is nonsensical. However, according to Francis Crick, ( http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/C/C/B/_/scbccb.pdf ) the universal genetic code cannot have evolved since any change will result in a massive loss of function, yet you believe this must be true since the code must be the process of evolutionary change. How nonsensical is that?... Happy to. From the paper: It might be argued that the primitive code was not a triplet code but that originally the bases were read one at a time (giving 4 coao~), then two at a time (giving 16 codons) and only later evolved to the present triplet code. This seems highly unlikely, since it violates the Principle of Continuity. A change in codon size necessarily makes nonsense of all previous messages and would almost certainly be lethal. If you can explain how codon size changes can be almost certainly lethal to the organism within a model that posits that the code evolved over time, I would love to hear the explanation.

Ok, I get it now. Your statement is absolutely unrelated to the paper. It is a strawman argument. He is saying that organisms didnt evolve to have one or two bases code for an amino acid and he explain why. Your argument only supports the notion that we couldnt have evolved a one or two base system for each amino acid as opposed to a triplet. He then even goes on to explain all of this. Im not sure how you made this error.

What Crick is saying is what he is saying. The universal code cannot change without devastating consequences to protein coding, lethal to life. Evolution states that the DNA code must have evolved, Crick says that is impossible. Here is what he wrote in 1981: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going." Are you an honest man?

Restriction endonucleases are used to disassemble alien DNA. Methylation of the restriction sites is how the cell prevents the endonucleases from disassembling its own DNA. You can't have one without the other if the cell is going to live, so they must have evolved simultaneously. This is another chicken and egg problem, which has no explanation for solution within an unguided process.

Multiple papers have shown that the mechanisms are/can be independent, and can evolve from other existing precursors. This is another example of not having enough background in the science and trying to argue a point.

If there are many, cite one that states that restriction endonucleases can evolve with function for cellular biochemistry without a companion methylase appearing at the same time. If there are "many" you can surely cite one.

Wonderful! Then please provide the in depth explanation of the origin of the universal genetic code, since it has been studied so thoroughly.

That is what university is for. It would be like me asking a doctor how to know how to diagnose and treat a patient. At some point, a person needs to acknowledge their ignorance and realize the professionals most likely know what they are doing and me, reading a few things here and there online doesnt give me the knowledge to think they are all delusional.

Ah, the appeal to authority. Expected. Unconvincing, since the authorities also stated that the universe was eternal a scant few decades ago. Back to school, unless like Bishop Berkeley you feel we already know everything....

[nygreenguy]

And this is where the problem, as outlined before, lies.

Lies? Is that really what you meant to say?

Is "lays" the proper grammar? I mean the location of the problem, not an intentional falsehood. I apoligize.

I have noted that the LTEE documents that pinpoint pressure on a population brought out the ability to pass citrate throug the cell wall of e coli.

False. The pressure is reduced source of energy. There are many mechanisms which one can adapt to this and that was represented in the data.

The data from the paper indicates that quadrillions of inviduals were needed to power this adaptation.

This is only true if THAT was the goal, which it was not.

The LTEE applied specific pressure to produce a specific result. How is pointing to the number of individuals needed to bring about this adaptation 'flawed'?

there work was one more of observation, not necessarily a specific result. It is flawed in that you keep presuming works towards a goal.

Read Yockey's book. If your standard for persuasion is that you have to have evidence read to you, I'm not up to that challenge.

I have to have evidence presented, in context. Thats a pretty standard request. Remember the incident with the Hawking mix up? Although unintentional, had I only went by what you said, I would be going on something incorrect.

Is this a mystery flaw, or can you identify it? If you are arguing that once something happens the odds against it happening are no longer relevant to a discussion on the likelihood of the occurence, then I will leave you to that interpretation, which is profundly ignorant of basic statistics, never mind common sense.

Im far from ignorant of statistics, and I would be willing to bet I have taken more statistics than just about anyone on this board (ecology is highly statistics based). The problem is how you are calculating these odds and the lottery example is a perfect one. You see each trait as being equivalent to YOU winning the lottery, when it is more like ANYONE winning the lottery.

What Crick is saying is what he is saying. The universal code cannot change without devastating consequences to protein coding, lethal to life. Evolution states that the DNA code must have evolved, Crick says that is impossible. Here is what he wrote in 1981: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going." Are you an honest man?

Im not arguing with saying it DID evolve, Crick was arguing on HOW it evolved. His comments were regarding the fact that DNA couldnt have evolved using a 1 or 2 base pair/amino acid system. DNA doesnt REQUIRE it be evolved from a one or two base pair per amino acid system. Im not sure you understand the underlying genetics here.

[Starboard Tack]

And this is where the problem, as outlined before, lies.

Lies? Is that really what you meant to say?

Is "lays" the proper grammar? I mean the location of the problem, not an intentional falsehood. I apoligize.

No, I think it was me not reading with my glasses on. You are gracious to apologize when it is pretty clear you meant nothing of the conclusion I jumped to, so please accept my apology.

I have noted that the LTEE documents that pinpoint pressure on a population brought out the ability to pass citrate throug the cell wall of e coli.

False. The pressure is reduced source of energy. There are many mechanisms which one can adapt to this and that was represented in the data.

How can that statement possibly be false? Subjecting the bacteria to an abundant food source while denying more than a bit of the required food source seems like pinpoing pressure to develop the ability to pass citrate. After all, that was the whole point of the experiment - subject the population to conditions that would elicit the eventual mutation.

The data from the paper indicates that quadrillions of inviduals were needed to power this adaptation.

This is only true if THAT was the goal, which it was not.

I'm afraid it is true. Read the paper. What you will find is that Lenski and his group grew the e coli in a glucose starved environment and used citrate, which e coli can't utilize as an indication of contamination of other bacteria, since virtually all other bacteria can use citrate as a carbon source:

From one summary: Lenski and his team have taken advantage of E. colis deficiency to monitor for contamination in their experiment. They added citrate at relatively high levels to the growth media. Since other microbes can typically make use of citrate, any contaminating microbe accidently introduced during the transfer steps will grow to greater cell densities than E. coli, causing the media to turn cloudy. As I said, glucose poor, citrate rich environment and quadrillions of individuals before evolution presented a solution.

The LTEE applied specific pressure to produce a specific result. How is pointing to the number of individuals needed to bring about this adaptation 'flawed'? there work was one more of observation, not necessarily a specific result. It is flawed in that you keep presuming works towards a goal.

The purpose of the experiement was to subject e coli to stress, hence the starvation glucose diet, then look for evolutionary responses, which they got. You are arguing for a distinction without a difference. E coli with lots of citrate and not much glucose grew in stravation mode through quadriallions of individuals, proving that micro-evolutionary change works (it does) while demonstrating how inadequate evolutionary theory is in explaining the large scale changes attributed to it.

This illustrates the basic point of my original post. Atheism hampers scientist's ability to advance science. The data from Lenski is there. You can read it, you can note the number of bacteria required to produce the noted change and you can apply those numbers to other critters and see how much you are attributing to evolution's power in one place, while glancing over what the data is telling you in an empirical experiment. You quibble over whether the purpose of the experiment was for e coli to mutate so as to use citrate. O.k., fine. Let's re-state it. The purpose of the experiment was to observe evolutionary change in a population subjected to continuous stress. One significant mutation first observed was the ability of the e coli to utilize abundant citrate in the absence of their usual food source. Does that re-stating change my point in the slightest?

One can observe the same blind spot in origin of life research. Setting aside the silly notion that how life could have first evolved on the earth is not a problem of evolution, what we see is that as available primordial chemistry more and more eliminates a naturalistic cause for life, scientists are spending huge amounts of money with elaborate equipment and brilliant minds creating chemistry in the lab that doesn't match the available chemistry on earth. Instead of noting the obvious - that it takes intelligence and controlled conditions to create life's building block now, therefore it probably took the same resources billions of years ago to creeate life - they never mention that as an obvious conclusion. Wonder why?

Read Yockey's book. If your standard for persuasion is that you have to have evidence read to you, I'm not up to that challenge.

I have to have evidence presented, in context. Thats a pretty standard request. Remember the incident with the Hawking mix up? Although unintentional, had I only went by what you said, I would be going on something incorrect.

The Hawking 'mixup' was simply attributing an accurate summary of his conclusion to him, rather than to someone else. The accuracy of the conclusion was the same regardless. Truth is truth, whoever's mouth it comes from. You can find the data on page 183 and 203 to 204 in Yockey's book Information Theory and Molecular Biology.

Is this a mystery flaw, or can you identify it? If you are arguing that once something happens the odds against it happening are no longer relevant to a discussion on the likelihood of the occurence, then I will leave you to that interpretation, which is profundly ignorant of basic statistics, never mind common sense.

Im far from ignorant of statistics, and I would be willing to bet I have taken more statistics than just about anyone on this board (ecology is highly statistics based). The problem is how you are calculating these odds and the lottery example is a perfect one. You see each trait as being equivalent to YOU winning the lottery, when it is more like ANYONE winning the lottery.

I am sure you do know a lot about statistics, and your point that some fine tuning elements of the universe for life are dependent. However, you are simply incorrect that they are all dependent and therefore can be jiggered and the fine tuning argument nullified. I'll give you one example. The mass density of the universe must be fine tuned to 1 in 10^60, given the expansion rate that is itself fine tune to 1 in 10^120. You could jigger the mass density as long as you jiggered the expansion rate, but you are still stuck with fine tuning in excess of 1 in 10^60. See the problem? Now regardless of what the mass density or explansion rate of the universe is, for us to observe life on earth, you have to have plate tectonics working over 4 billion years so that water can be retained on the planet. Earth tectonics are a function of how much radioactive uranium and thorium we have in the asthenosphere which is a function of having a type I, type II and rare type II supernovae occur at just the right distance and time from the primoridal sun as well as an impact with a mars sized planet with earth to transfer its load of these elements to the early earth while creating a massive mood that could slow down our rotation rate. Is the mass density related to these fine tuned elements that are essential for life? You really can't dodge fine tuning, which is why no one, including atheist astro physicists deny it exists, while at the same time proposing unprovable reasons why it doesn't, like the multiverse.

What Crick is saying is what he is saying. The universal code cannot change without devastating consequences to protein coding, lethal to life. Evolution states that the DNA code must have evolved, Crick says that is impossible. Here is what he wrote in 1981: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going." Are you an honest man?

Im not arguing with saying it DID evolve, Crick was arguing on HOW it evolved. His comments were regarding the fact that DNA couldnt have evolved using a 1 or 2 base pair/amino acid system. DNA doesnt REQUIRE it be evolved from a one or two base pair per amino acid system. Im not sure you understand the underlying genetics here

. I think I do. Crick is saying that once the current code came into being through evolution, it cannot have changed at all. Since it came into being from evolutionary processes a minimum of 3.5 billion years ago, why have the unguided processes that created it in the first place suddenly disappeared? One possibility is that they were never there in the first place.

[nygreenguy]

No, I think it was me not reading with my glasses on. You are gracious to apologize when it is pretty clear you meant nothing of the conclusion I jumped to, so please accept my apology.

Hey no problem. I would also be upset if someone accused me of lying! I try not to ever speculate on peoples motives ESPECIALLY on the internet because I find it to be far too easy to think the worst and never give anyone the benefit of the doubt. As awesome as the internet is in allowing people from all over the world to communicate, it is an often an abused and misused form of communication and it just really takes a lot of the "humanity" out of communication. However, that is a bit of the purpose of this board, to try to make the discourse a bit more civil.

How can that statement possibly be false? Subjecting the bacteria to an abundant food source while denying more than a bit of the required food source seems like pinpoing pressure to develop the ability to pass citrate. After all, that was the whole point of the experiment - subject the population to conditions that would elicit the eventual mutation.

Yes and no. This is the aspect that I described before is hard to get into detail about. See, you are looking at citrate as a possible food source. And under the right conditions, for complex physiological reasons, it is. In these conditions, the bacteria do no recognize it as food so there is essentially zero pressure to take in the citrate. It is like asking people to eat tree bark.

The initial pressure on the bacteria is to survive and out-compete others for the resources available. Let me use another human analogy. When people first started traveling along as hunters and gatherers we didnt need a LOT of food. Some fruits here, some rodents and occasional big game there was enough to allow the population to survive and grow just fine. Why didnt they start agriculture? Well, for 2 reasons. First, they didnt have the knowledge yet. Secondly, they didnt need to. There wasnt even anything driving them to need the technology. It is like the saying "necessity is the mother of invention".

Same goes for the bacteria. If you read their whole papers (multiples papers) you will see the bacteria initially did fine, in fact they saw an increase in their fitness over time. It is like if the hunters and gathers were able to hunt and gather more effectively. There would be no need for agriculture because they are getting better at what they do.

Now eventually a hunter/gatherer would notice the very same fruits they ate were growing out of their feces and make the connection that seeds=food and we would have agriculture.

So while the citrate was there, there wasnt immediate directed pressure to use it because the bacteria didnt need it and they were naive to it.

Now, what eventually DID happen was a series of small mutations which opened that door and allowed them to take it up which benefited them greatly.

now, you talk about the mind blowing generational time this one small mutation took.

Well, it wasnt just one, but several. Now, comparing these to human mutations isnt good science/logic for several reasons.Additionally, bacterial generation time is WAY faster than a persons. The double in something like every half an hour. So if we want to talk about speed of evolution, bacteria are pretty good at it. In only a few yers they got the bacteria to do something VERY novel. Imagine what they could do over a hundred or thousand years.

What makes higher organisms different? Well, for one, we are diploid. We have multiple copies of our DNA. We can have genes duplicate themselves or delete themselves with no ill effects. This makes us more resilient to harmful mutations. This also allows evolutionary "tinkering" with redundant genes. If we have multiple copies, we can have extra copies changed and altered with no negative fitness loss.

Additionally, we live much longer. We accumulate more mutations over a lifetime than a bacteria. Every person born has around 130 new mutations from their parents. That means with a population of 7 billion, we get 910 BILLION mutations in the population every generation. That is enough to mutate every nucleotide in the genome every 20 years. this is why the generational comparison with bacteria is not accurate.

This illustrates the basic point of my original post. Atheism hampers scientist's ability to advance science. The data from Lenski is there. You can read it, you can note the number of bacteria required to produce the noted change and you can apply those numbers to other critters and see how much you are attributing to evolution's power in one place, while glancing over what the data is telling you in an empirical experiment. You quibble over whether the purpose of the experiment was for e coli to mutate so as to use citrate. O.k., fine. Let's re-state it. The purpose of the experiment was to observe evolutionary change in a population subjected to continuous stress. One significant mutation first observed was the ability of the e coli to utilize abundant citrate in the absence of their usual food source. Does that re-stating change my point in the slightest?

Actually it does change your point! It means you MUST consider all the OTHER data in the paper as well. Remember, they have population fitness data for the whole experiment. The explicitly talk about it several times and talk about the OTHER adaptations the bacteria made.

I think I do. Crick is saying that once the current code came into being through evolution, it cannot have changed at all. Since it came into being from evolutionary processes a minimum of 3.5 billion years ago, why have the unguided processes that created it in the first place suddenly disappeared? One possibility is that they were never there in the first place.

No, that is not what he is saying. His is ONLY talking about how it could have evolved, and just this one particular mechanism. It can still change, and indeed it has, but he was only giving a particular case which ruled out a path of evolution for protein synthesis some people (at the time) were arguing for. All the other stuff above is extraneous extrapolation from you (I presume intended to be our opinion and not an interpretation of his?)

Ill hit the fine tuning stuff later. Got a(n) (ironically) stats paper to write. Im still not even sure why we have to write 10 page reports for stats anyhow.... ugh....

[Starboard Tack]

How can that statement possibly be false? Subjecting the bacteria to an abundant food source while denying more than a bit of the required food source seems like pinpoing pressure to develop the ability to pass citrate. After all, that was the whole point of the experiment - subject the population to conditions that would elicit the eventual mutation.

Yes and no. This is the aspect that I described before is hard to get into detail about. See, you are looking at citrate as a possible food source. And under the right conditions, for complex physiological reasons, it is. In these conditions, the bacteria do no recognize it as food so there is essentially zero pressure to take in the citrate. It is like asking people to eat tree bark.

The initial pressure on the bacteria is to survive and out-compete others for the resources available. Let me use another human analogy. When people first started traveling along as hunters and gatherers we didnt need a LOT of food. Some fruits here, some rodents and occasional big game there was enough to allow the population to survive and grow just fine. Why didnt they start agriculture? Well, for 2 reasons. First, they didnt have the knowledge yet. Secondly, they didnt need to. There wasnt even anything driving them to need the technology. It is like the saying "necessity is the mother of invention".

Same goes for the bacteria. If you read their whole papers (multiples papers) you will see the bacteria initially did fine, in fact they saw an increase in their fitness over time. It is like if the hunters and gathers were able to hunt and gather more effectively. There would be no need for agriculture because they are getting better at what they do.

Now eventually a hunter/gatherer would notice the very same fruits they ate were growing out of their feces and make the connection that seeds=food and we would have agriculture.

So while the citrate was there, there wasnt immediate directed pressure to use it because the bacteria didnt need it and they were naive to it.

Now, what eventually DID happen was a series of small mutations which opened that door and allowed them to take it up which benefited them greatly.

I understand the point you are making, but I am not sure you are see mine. You are correct that the point of the experiment was not to force a mutation that allowed the passing of abundant citrate through the cell wall. And you are correct that over time, the bacteria produced many mutations that helped the population survive under stressful conditions. It is the purposeful stressful conditions that you aren't giving appropriate consideration to. Evolutionary theory states that species will change faster under stressful conditions than benign conditions simply because beneficial mutations will have greater impact on survivability when there is stress on the population than when there is not. That is the whole point of the investigators to stressing the population by starving it - to see what happened. The importance of the experiment from the standpoint of an evolutionary skeptic is that it shows what the limitations of evolutionary theory are. Here is a population that is under stress, yet takes a fantastic number of individuals to come up with a beneficial mutation that can be rapidly acted upon by natural selection. This makes the presumption that homo sapiens idaltu came to be homo sapiens sapiens because they were bothered by a volcanic eruption 8,000 miles away somewhat weak, especially given the number of individuals homo idaltu had to generate the vast number of mutations needed to be acted upon by natural selection to produce us.

now, you talk about the mind blowing generational time this one small mutation took.

Well, it wasnt just one, but several. Now, comparing these to human mutations isnt good science/logic for several reasons.Additionally, bacterial generation time is WAY faster than a persons. The double in something like every half an hour. So if we want to talk about speed of evolution, bacteria are pretty good at it. In only a few yers they got the bacteria to do something VERY novel. Imagine what they could do over a hundred or thousand years.

That observation conforms to my own. Bacteria should be very good at evolution. Therefore, if evolution has the power attributed to it, why doesn't cyanobacteria look any different today than 3.5 billion years ago? Surely if a wolf like critter can become a whale in 50 million years, a bacteria producing quintillions of individuals can become something other than a bacteria over a vastly greater period of time? Over 3.5 billion years, surely there should be some stresses put on the population, so where is the cyanobacteria that tastes lousy to jawed fishes so it can beaver away making stromotolites on Malibu beach? Or better yet, grow some big teeth to bite back? You see, evolution explains the wolf to whale, and also explains 3.5 billion years of stasis. Does that make any sense at all?

What makes higher organisms different? Well, for one, we are diploid. We have multiple copies of our DNA. We can have genes duplicate themselves or delete themselves with no ill effects. This makes us more resilient to harmful mutations. This also allows evolutionary "tinkering" with redundant genes. If we have multiple copies, we can have extra copies changed and altered with no negative fitness loss.

What you are describing is why complex entities are less likely to change from mutations than simple creatures - because our bio chemistry is better at neutralizing any genomic changes, whether good or bad. Therefore, complex creatures should be less likely to evolve than simple creatures. Yet what are the icons of evolution held up to prove evolution? Very large, slow breeding critters likes whales and horses. Again, if bacteria have lower levels of error protection guarding their bio chemistry, where is the evidence of large scale changes in bacteria? Resistance to anti-bodies? You bet. Incredible ability to adapt to novel environments? Sure. Macro evolutionary change? Non-existent, yet it is macro evolution that the theory must account for to be valid.

Additionally, we live much longer. We accumulate more mutations over a lifetime than a bacteria. Every person born has around 130 new mutations from their parents. That means with a population of 7 billion, we get 910 BILLION mutations in the population every generation. That is enough to mutate every nucleotide in the genome every 20 years. this is why the generational comparison with bacteria is not accurate.

Interesting point, however, your reference doesn't seem to support your point. It states:

(Ochman et al., 1999) have estimated that the mutation rate in bacteria is close to 10^-10 assuming that bacteria divide infrequently.

The mutation rate in eukaryotes should be about the same since the properties of the DNA replication machinery are similar to those in eukaryotes. Measured values of mutation rates in yeast, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, mouse and humans are all close to 10^-10 (Drake et al., 1998).

Humans and bacteria seem to have the same mutation rate. Given the simple fact that there are vastly more bacteria than humans, where are the advanced bacteria? Not bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, or that figure out how to digest nylon. I mean the kind of big changes that would be explified by moving from a monkey to a human. See the problem?

This illustrates the basic point of my original post. Atheism hampers scientist's ability to advance science. The data from Lenski is there. You can read it, you can note the number of bacteria required to produce the noted change and you can apply those numbers to other critters and see how much you are attributing to evolution's power in one place, while glancing over what the data is telling you in an empirical experiment. You quibble over whether the purpose of the experiment was for e coli to mutate so as to use citrate. O.k., fine. Let's re-state it. The purpose of the experiment was to observe evolutionary change in a population subjected to continuous stress. One significant mutation first observed was the ability of the e coli to utilize abundant citrate in the absence of their usual food source. Does that re-stating change my point in the slightest?

Actually it does change your point! It means you MUST consider all the OTHER data in the paper as well. Remember, they have population fitness data for the whole experiment. The explicitly talk about it several times and talk about the OTHER adaptations the bacteria made.

Yes, but under any definition, all those changes can be accurately described as micro, not macro evlolutionary changes.

I think I do. Crick is saying that once the current code came into being through evolution, it cannot have changed at all. Since it came into being from evolutionary processes a minimum of 3.5 billion years ago, why have the unguided processes that created it in the first place suddenly disappeared? One possibility is that they were never there in the first place.

No, that is not what he is saying. His is ONLY talking about how it could have evolved, and just this one particular mechanism. It can still change, and indeed it has, but he was only giving a particular case which ruled out a path of evolution for protein synthesis some people (at the time) were arguing for. All the other stuff above is extraneous extrapolation from you (I presume intended to be our opinion and not an interpretation of his?)

No, it isn't just my opinion that Crick's work states quite clearly that he believes that DNA evolved to what it is today, but then ceased evolving and in fact could not evolve at all for life to exist. The question remains, what is the unguided mechanism that causes DNA to evolve, then stop evolving and remain in stasis for billions of years?

Ill hit the fine tuning stuff later. Got a(n) (ironically) stats paper to write. Im still not even sure why we have to write 10 page reports for stats anyhow.... ugh....

Good luck, and thank you!

[nygreenguy]

I understand the point you are making, but I am not sure you are see mine. You are correct that the point of the experiment was not to force a mutation that allowed the passing of abundant citrate through the cell wall. And you are correct that over time, the bacteria produced many mutations that helped the population survive under stressful conditions. It is the purposeful stressful conditions that you aren't giving appropriate consideration to. Evolutionary theory states that species will change faster under stressful conditions than benign conditions simply because beneficial mutations will have greater impact on survivability when there is stress on the population than when there is not. That is the whole point of the investigators to stressing the population by starving it - to see what happened. The importance of the experiment from the standpoint of an evolutionary skeptic is that it shows what the limitations of evolutionary theory are. Here is a population that is under stress, yet takes a fantastic number of individuals to come up with a beneficial mutation that can be rapidly acted upon by natural selection.

1) Remember the number of individuals is not relevant in your comparisons for the many reasons I listed before. The bacteria made a giant change in just a handfull of years.
2) You keep ignoring all the OTHER changes the bacteria made. I keep saying it, but I dont know why you overlook this point. The bacteria found OTHER ways to deal with the stress before the citrate mutation.

This makes the presumption that homo sapiens idaltu came to be homo sapiens sapiens because they were bothered by a volcanic eruption 8,000 miles away somewhat weak, especially given the number of individuals homo idaltu had to generate the vast number of mutations needed to be acted upon by natural selection to produce us.

1) You are comparing apples and oranges again when it comes to the genetics.
2) idaltu is not a direct ancestor

That observation conforms to my own. Bacteria should be very good at evolution. Therefore, if evolution has the power attributed to it, why doesn't cyanobacteria look any different today than 3.5 billion years ago?

Once again, remember the claim about stress? If something is already really good and under little selective pressure, there is nothing to drive the change.

What about plants? Plants are evidence of cyanobacteria diversification. Chloroplasts ARE cyanobacteria.

Also, the bacteria HAVE changed, perhaps not so much in appearance, but we see their diversification.

Surely if a wolf like critter can become a whale in 50 million years, a bacteria producing quintillions of individuals can become something other than a bacteria over a vastly greater period of time?

And some have. Other have not. There are pros and cons to evolution depending on your own niche, the available niches, selective pressure, etc....

As for your claim of bacteria not becoming something other than a bacteria....look around you. Life HAS gone from simple to complex. Just because the "simple" stick around doesnt mean evolution didnt or does not happen.

Over 3.5 billion years, surely there should be some stresses put on the population, so where is the cyanobacteria that tastes lousy to jawed fishes so it can beaver away making stromotolites on Malibu beach? Or better yet, grow some big teeth to bite back? You see, evolution explains the wolf to whale, and also explains 3.5 billion years of stasis. Does that make any sense at all?

I get your argument, but it is based on incredulity.

I think you overestimate the stability of these organisms, and your rationale of how natural selection works is flawed. You seem to assume things must ALWAYS change and they must always change dramatically. I dont know where this is coming from.

What you are describing is why complex entities are less likely to change from mutations than simple creatures - because our bio chemistry is better at neutralizing any genomic changes, whether good or bad.

Absolutely not. We can be buffered from bad, but we will still experience a gain in fitness from positive mutations. The "neutralizing" comes from redundancy of some genes. It is like having 2 batteries in your car. If one dies, you still have the other. For positive mutations, you will still benefit. There would be no "neutralization".

Again, if bacteria have lower levels of error protection guarding their bio chemistry, where is the evidence of large scale changes in bacteria? Resistance to anti-bodies? You bet. Incredible ability to adapt to novel environments? Sure. Macro evolutionary change? Non-existent, yet it is macro evolution that the theory must account for to be valid.

As stated before, this is more due to incredulity. The fossil record shows these simple, single celled organisms evolving into more complex organisms.

Interesting point, however, your reference doesn't seem to support your point. It states:

(Ochman et al., 1999) have estimated that the mutation rate in bacteria is close to 10^-10 assuming that bacteria divide infrequently.

The mutation rate in eukaryotes should be about the same since the properties of the DNA replication machinery are similar to those in eukaryotes. Measured values of mutation rates in yeast, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, mouse and humans are all close to 10^-10 (Drake et al., 1998).

Humans and bacteria seem to have the same mutation rate. Given the simple fact that there are vastly more bacteria than humans, where are the advanced bacteria? Not bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, or that figure out how to digest nylon. I mean the kind of big changes that would be explified by moving from a monkey to a human. See the problem?

you are looking at it the wrong way. Remember, ever time a bacteria divides, it is a new generation. For a human, we have billions of divisions before a new generation. So the "rate" is the same on the cellular level, but not on an organismal generational level. The source explain this.

Yes, but under any definition, all those changes can be accurately described as micro, not macro evlolutionary changes.

Macro has no real scientific definition and is generally useless because of this. Alleged macro changes are nothing more than an accumulation of micro changes. There is plenty of research looking into the origins of features like feathers, wings, eyes, etc...

No, it isn't just my opinion that Crick's work states quite clearly that he believes that DNA evolved to what it is today, but then ceased evolving and in fact could not evolve at all for life to exist. The question remains, what is the unguided mechanism that causes DNA to evolve, then stop evolving and remain in stasis for billions of years?

Ive read the paper several times, and I have a pretty good background in genetics and I do not read that in this paper at all. Ill say it one more time, he ONLY said that the genetic code had to evolve from a triplet codon form, and it couldnt have come from a single or double codon. That is all. You are creating an argument he doesnt make.

[Clownboat]

That observation conforms to my own. Bacteria should be very good at evolution. Therefore, if evolution has the power attributed to it, why doesn't cyanobacteria look any different today than 3.5 billion years ago? Surely if a wolf like critter can become a whale in 50 million years, a bacteria producing quintillions of individuals can become something other than a bacteria over a vastly greater period of time? Over 3.5 billion years, surely there should be some stresses put on the population, so where is the cyanobacteria that tastes lousy to jawed fishes so it can beaver away making stromotolites on Malibu beach? Or better yet, grow some big teeth to bite back? You see, evolution explains the wolf to whale, and also explains 3.5 billion years of stasis. Does that make any sense at all?

I'll see if I can help you to answer your own question.

Since America is populated by people that came from Europe, why are there still Europeans?