Evolution v Creationism: A Dead Issue

[Jose Fly]

As someone who spent a lot of time on the evolution v creationism battles over the last 20 years, I've noticed that in the last 5 years or so the issue seems to have largely gone off the radar. In the message boards that are still around (both Christian and secular) it's barely debated, if at all. Websites specifically dedicated to countering creationist talking points such as talkorigins and pandasthumb have gone silent, seemingly because there just isn't much to talk about.

Surveys have shown that younger Americans accept the reality of evolution at pretty much the same rate as the rest of the developed world. Thanks to national focus on science education by organizations like the NCSE, evolution is more widely taught than ever, even in the deep south. The Discovery Institute (the main "intelligent design" organization) stopped advocating for ID creationism to be taught in schools years ago, and they closed their alleged "research arm" last year.

On the science front, creationism remains as it has for over a century....100% scientifically irrelevant.

So for all practical intents and purposes, this debate is over. There isn't any sort of public debate over teaching creationism, nor is there any real debate about whether evolution should be taught. For sure there's still work to do in some parts of the country (mostly the south and interior west) where even though evolution is officially required, teachers don't teach it either because it's "too controversial" or they don't believe it themselves, but big picture-wise, "evolution v creationism" is in about the same state as "spherical v flat earth"....nothing more than something a handful of people argue about on the internet, but outside of that has little to no significance. And even on that front it's kinda dead....most forums where it's openly debated have a very skewed ratio where there's like 10 "evolutionists" for every 1 creationist.

Glad to see it!

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to alexxcJRO in post #55]

I just read through the paper and you seem unaware of what it actually says.

It assumes evolution is true - period. Then assuming that it shows that if evolution be true then common descent is a more probable cause for sequence similarity than say functional constraints.

It is contrasting common descent with other potential causes for sequence similarity.

IT DOES NOT PROVE COMMON DESCENT!

You can only claim common descent IF evolution is known to have occurred you cannot assume evolution did occur then claim common descent from that to then prove evolution did occur!

The paper is fine but your interpretation of its meaning is wrong.

See? see what happens when you grab and clutch at documents too hastily? In your eagerness to undermine me you shoot yourself in the foot.

Oh good grief SH, how many times do you need to be reminded......evolution is reality, it happens right before our eyes, all the time.

You saying "they assume evolution is true" is no different than if you'd read a geology paper and said "they assume erosion is true".

Let me translate "Holmes, repeat after me 'evolution is true, I shall not question, I shall not doubt' and do this ten times a day until you're cured of this wickedness".

[Jose Fly]

Oh good grief SH, how many times do you need to be reminded......evolution is reality, it happens right before our eyes, all the time.

You saying "they assume evolution is true" is no different than if you'd read a geology paper and said "they assume erosion is true".

Let me translate "Holmes, repeat after me 'evolution is true, I shall not question, I shall not doubt' and do this ten times a day until you're cured of this wickedness".

Unbelievable. You actually deny a reality that is so common and trivially easy to observe that it's regularly demonstrated in undergrad BIO classes. Now that I understand just how deep your denialism goes, I'll try and keep that in mind for future reference.

Utterly bizarre.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Oh good grief SH, how many times do you need to be reminded......evolution is reality, it happens right before our eyes, all the time.

You saying "they assume evolution is true" is no different than if you'd read a geology paper and said "they assume erosion is true".

Let me translate "Holmes, repeat after me 'evolution is true, I shall not question, I shall not doubt' and do this ten times a day until you're cured of this wickedness".

Unbelievable. You actually deny a reality that is so common and trivially easy to observe that it's regularly demonstrated in undergrad BIO classes. Now that I understand just how deep your denialism goes, I'll try and keep that in mind for future reference.

Utterly bizarre.

Jose, I suggest you go to the OP that you wrote at the start of this thread and recap, my position within this thread is represented by my responses.

That disagreeing with some of your unsupported claims is regarded by you as "denialism" makes me wonder just how much of your argument is emotional rather than rational.

[Jose Fly]

That disagreeing with some of your unsupported claims is regarded by you as "denialism" makes me wonder just how much of your argument is emotional rather than rational.

That evolution occurs is not an unsupported claim. I've posted documented examples of the observed evolution of new species for example (and you subsequently ignored all of them).

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #53]

Sir I recommend you familiarize yourself with basic notions of the scientific evolutionary theory.
Like the fact that all great apes shared a common ancestor.
Humans did not evolve from chimps, gorillas or orangutan.

Wow, you missed the whole tenor of that argument. If you are saying that we evolved from great apes 7 million years ago then you have made the problem worse, not better. How would 400 genetic changes come together in every generation?

[Sherlock Holmes]

That disagreeing with some of your unsupported claims is regarded by you as "denialism" makes me wonder just how much of your argument is emotional rather than rational.

That evolution occurs is not an unsupported claim. I've posted documented examples of the observed evolution of new species for example (and you subsequently ignored all of them).

Jose, as I said several times given a colony of replicating organisms with sufficient resources these are the possible long term scenarios that can arise with respect to the genome:

1. Extinction. Mutations and external environment pressure lead to a gradual degradation in the fitness for purpose, eventually the colony dies.
2. Stasis. Mutations and external environment pressure are not sufficient to lead to extinction, successive generation may differ but the genome changes little over successive generation, generation 1,000, 50,000 or 250,000 are likely indistinguishable, examination of the genome could not be used to infer if it was an early or late generation.
3. Evolution. Mutations and external environment pressure induce changes that accumulate over time, the later the generation the more the genome differs and the more sophistication the organism has. Examination of the genome can be used to infer if it was an early or late generation.

You repeatedly imply that 3. is inevitable yet all we see experimentally is 1. or 2.

I question that assumed inevitability, on what basis this purported inevitability is based.

I ask for proof that given some starting state (genome) then is 3. impossible or possible? The first few billion years show that 2. was in fact the case (prokaryotic life).

So, support 3., can you? what test/experiment can you cite that offer the best example of 3.? (and please don't try to pass off a colony of flies becoming two colonies of, erm, flies - as an example).

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #0]

I guess you're not aware that in his book Nature's Destiny, he concedes that evolution is valid. He now argues for the "fine-tuning of the universe" view.

I am saying it really doesn't matter because of most of his arguments in his two previous books are still valid. He also admits that he was never really a Christian but an agnostic. Because everyone comes to a point in which they must decide what they believe. they must decide for themselves if really is a God that created everything which would then make Him the great lawgiver. It is the lawgiver part that people do not want to accept. There is a sin in their life that they do not want to change. It has nothing to do with evidence but everything to do with the nature of man and his desire to sin.

Especially in his case because most of his arguments are still valid today. Same reason why you fine pastors clergy commit horrendous sin. Because they never really believed that there was a God. They may like the idea but they really did not believe it. In the case of scientific theory, Denton's books actually did bring some to faith.

Tesla believed a lot of weird things at the end of his life. But his electric motor still works.

Humans didn't evolve from chimps, they share a common ancestor that was neither chimp nor human. So your "estimates" are fundamentally flawed at the outset.

If that is the argument you are using then yes my estimates are fundamentally flawed because the starting point that you are proposing makes the time problem at least 4 times worse.

The rest of the above is even worse, and quite frankly I'm not all that interested in arguing decades-old creationist talking points for the umpteenth time. If the above is an accurate reflection of your knowledge of the subject, I strongly urge you to stop trying to debate it and take the time to actually learn it.....even at a basic level.

There is no answer to this problem that is why it is called Haldane's Dilemma. I actually simplified his theory to make it more understandable. Haldane actually calculated that it would take 300 generations for each codon change to become fixed in the species. This is a serious challenge to evolutionary theory.

Haldane was not or is not a Christian he was just an honest researcher that saw the current theory of evolution not possible.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #0]

I guess you're not aware that in his book Nature's Destiny, he concedes that evolution is valid. He now argues for the "fine-tuning of the universe" view.

I am saying it really doesn't matter because of most of his arguments in his two previous books are still valid. He also admits that he was never really a Christian but an agnostic. Because everyone comes to a point in which they must decide what they believe. they must decide for themselves if really is a God that created everything which would then make Him the great lawgiver. It is the lawgiver part that people do not want to accept. There is a sin in their life that they do not want to change. It has nothing to do with evidence but everything to do with the nature of man and his desire to sin.

Especially in his case because most of his arguments are still valid today. Same reason why you fine pastors clergy commit horrendous sin. Because they never really believed that there was a God. They may like the idea but they really did not believe it. In the case of scientific theory, Denton's books actually did bring some to faith.

Tesla believed a lot of weird things at the end of his life. But his electric motor still works.

Humans didn't evolve from chimps, they share a common ancestor that was neither chimp nor human. So your "estimates" are fundamentally flawed at the outset.

If that is the argument you are using then yes my estimates are fundamentally flawed because the starting point that you are proposing makes the time problem at least 4 times worse.

The rest of the above is even worse, and quite frankly I'm not all that interested in arguing decades-old creationist talking points for the umpteenth time. If the above is an accurate reflection of your knowledge of the subject, I strongly urge you to stop trying to debate it and take the time to actually learn it.....even at a basic level.

There is no answer to this problem that is why it is called Haldane's Dilemma. I actually simplified his theory to make it more understandable. Haldane actually calculated that it would take 300 generations for each codon change to become fixed in the species. This is a serious challenge to evolutionary theory.

Haldane was not or is not a Christian he was just an honest researcher that saw the current theory of evolution not possible.

I'd not heard of Haldane, rather interesting stuff. I just found this too:

It is easy to see why Haldane’s conclusions posed a dilemma for biologists interested in mammalian evolution. Human and chimpanzee species diverged from a common ancestor approximately 4.5 to 13 million years ago.34 Humans currently have an average generation time of 30 years, chimpanzees 20 years.35 At most, 500,000 generations have elapsed. Given Haldane’s limit, this makes for 3333.3 adaptive differences.36

Can roughly 3000 changes explain all of the complex adaptive differences between humans and chimpanzees?

This is Haldane’s dilemma.

It is a dilemma that has been exacerbated by genome sequencing. Humans and chimpanzees both have genome sizes of roughly 3 billion nucleotides. Yet these species differ by some 30 million fixed nucleotide differences. If these differences were fixed individually by positive selection, then the substitution rate would have been 1.5 substitutions per year in each line of descent, or 30 per generation—a biological impossibility.

From a paper by Chase Nelson.

One explanation is that Nelson and Haldane are both pseudoscientists, yes!!! that must be it...nothing to worry about, lets sweep this one under the carpet like all the other pseudoscience, then we can happily continue telling everyone this is a dead issue...right Jose?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #50]

So you believe "the intelligent" are conspiring to teach evolution to "the ignorant", in order to.......what?

No, I am saying that the ignorant are easily manipulated by ignorant ideas.


But the debate is not over it has actually expanded into an actual theoretical debate of experimentation based on the different worldviews. Like the RATE project.

"Thought I’d give you a update on the Bozeman, Montana, RATE
conference held this past weekend. The ‘science’ talks by Russell
Humphreys, Andrew Snelling, and John Baumgardner contained
the standard RATE mantras on He diffusion, Po radiohaloes, and
14C. There was nothing new and which has not already been
debunked..."

1st these arguments have not been debunked. There is Carbon 14 in diamond samples, and in coal samples, there is helium in zircon crystals. In regards to the carbon 14 in coal. The contamination argument has given way to the neutrons from radioactive elements nearby. I do not think anyone is saying it is contamination any longer. There is helium in zircon crystals.

Now what ever rescue device you want to employ is up to you.

have an interesting conversation saturday morning with RATE
coordinator, Larry Vardiman, who seems like a pretty decent guy.
I asked why no recognized experts on radiometric dating were
invited to participate in the conference, given that none of the
speakers had any training or experience in experimental
geochronology. He was candid enough to admit that they would
have liked to included one on the team, but there are no young-
earth geochronologists in the world. He also agreed that the
mechanism for accelerating radioactivity by nearly a billion-fold
during a single year (the flood year) was a major problem for the
group that in the end will probably only be resolved by invoking a
“cosmic-scale event” or miracle. He further conceded that at
this point they have no physical evidence for this miracle.
Apparently, dissipation of the heat produced during the event is,
in the end, going to require yet an additional miracle."

Yea, I do not like their theory. I prefer Brown's theory. Both theories do employ runaway plate tectonics.

Did they ever figure that out? I'm betting no.
Creationist has their own publications and peer review process.
Yep, because they can't meet the standards of the actual science journals.

A different view of the world definitely.

You creationists need to make up your minds. Some of you (e.g. Sherlock Holmes) complain about schools allegedly teaching evolution as a fact, yet here you're saying they teach that there are no facts.

That is post-modern thought. We are actually saying the same thing because evolution is not based on logical progression observations.

So what are you trying to say that the National Science foundation finally dumbed down the curriculum enough to convince those that do not know science a scientific lie that does not need to have a logical connection between its points.
So I suppose you were expecting everyone here to just take those claims as true, simply because you say they are? Who exactly are you such that we should take your assertions as unquestioned gospel?

No I did not expect everyone to take what I said was true. That is why I linked an article to my post that showed everyone that it was true.

[Jose Fly]

Jose, as I said several times given a colony of replicating organisms with sufficient resources these are the possible long term scenarios that can arise with respect to the genome:

1. Extinction. Mutations and external environment pressure lead to a gradual degradation in the fitness for purpose, eventually the colony dies.
2. Stasis. Mutations and external environment pressure are not sufficient to lead to extinction, successive generation may differ but the genome changes little over successive generation, generation 1,000, 50,000 or 250,000 are likely indistinguishable, examination of the genome could not be used to infer if it was an early or late generation.
3. Evolution. Mutations and external environment pressure induce changes that accumulate over time, the later the generation the more the genome differs and the more sophistication the organism has. Examination of the genome can be used to infer if it was an early or late generation.

You repeatedly imply that 3. is inevitable yet all we see experimentally is 1. or 2.

What in th.......?

Again, evolution is directly and repeatedly observed reality. We see populations evolve new traits, abilities, genetic sequences, and species. You stamping your little feet and shouting "Nuh uh" over and over will never change that.

If your position really is that no population has ever evolved in the entire history of life on earth, including today, then we're in flat-earth level denialism here. Like I said before, you may as well be denying that erosion happens.

I ask for proof that given some starting state (genome) then is 3. impossible or possible? The first few billion years show that 2. was in fact the case (prokaryotic life).

So, support 3., can you? what test/experiment can you cite that offer the best example of 3.? (and please don't try to pass off a colony of flies becoming two colonies of, erm, flies - as an example).

Seriously? The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet creationists I've encountered over the years. Now it's "But they're still flies" nonsense. So I'll try yet again (you ignored this last time I asked).....

What do you mean by "sophistication"? How are you quantifying it such that if given two populations, we can tell which one has more of it?