How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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Purple Knight
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How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1

Post by Purple Knight »

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.

Image

Image

This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1331

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:30 pm ...
Furthermore, God has intervened in the status quo numerous times so clearly can and will take actions that would not occur unless he took said action.
...
I challenge you to show this claim is true, in the thread created for it...

here.
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1332

Post by JoeyKnothead »

brunumb wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 7:22 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 2:13 pm Lego structures are made from bricks that bond in various way, but those structures require human intelligence, they never, ever, ever, ever form unaided nor does any scientist ever think they could, do you? if not why not?
Are you suggesting that the trillions of chemical reactions that occur in all living things every day require the constant personal intervention of God and could not happen through natural biochemistry?
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1333

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:37 pm ...
...the belief that all these things can "just happen" is just a belief and we never see these things emerge in nature or even in a well equipped lab manned by teams of experts, they don't happen.
Yet we're to believe, here in Science & Religion, that a god "just happened".
The laws of materials and mechanics is what enables a car to exist and operate but that does not mean that it could just arise all by itself.
Yet we're to believe, here in Science & Religion, that a god arose all by itself. (Even if through always having existed.)

We see it quite often - stuff comes together to form new stuff, that new stuff comes together to form newer stuff, all the way up to the latest stuff setting in to debate all the other stuff.

Even if we concede a god's creation, to deny evolution occurs is to deny we have a nose.
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1334

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

brunumb wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 7:22 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 2:13 pm Lego structures are made from bricks that bond in various way, but those structures require human intelligence, they never, ever, ever, ever form unaided nor does any scientist ever think they could, do you? if not why not?
Are you suggesting that the trillions of chemical reactions that occur in all living things every day require the constant personal intervention of God and could not happen through natural biochemistry?
No I am not saying that. I'm saying that what is known about the natural world shows that structures as complex as cells cannot spontaneously form over time. This is the thrust of Tour's lectures. Once a mechanism has been assembled it will run unaided, but that assembly process always requires information that is not present in the initial system. The provision of information with high specificity is called "design".

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1335

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

I have no idea if anyone here ever actually watched and listened to Tour's lecture in its entirety, but that's each person's choice. He does talk about highly specific information being needed and applied from the external environment.

For example, humans attempting to achieve certain chemical outcomes must control many parameters like temperature, waste removal, purity, ordering of reactions, adjustment of conditions in between the various steps, concentrations and so on. This is required for even rudimentary chemistry, everyday things we buy and use.

Even with humans controlling all these many variables we cannot build a cell, in nature none of that information and external control and sequential steps is present. This is a serious problem for abiogenesis, Tour is being very scientific, these are absolutely relevant objections supported by real world examples, reasonable scientific objections, he shouldn't be dismissed just because we might not like where his reasoning leads.

The man leads a team that's world renowned for knowing how to build nanoscale chemical mechanisms, this is his field, if someone of this stature and obvious demonstrable experience talks about this we should listen, not dismiss, reject, ridicule.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1336

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 9:24 am No I am not saying that. I'm saying that what is known about the natural world shows that structures as complex as cells cannot spontaneously form over time. This is the thrust of Tour's lectures. Once a mechanism has been assembled it will run unaided, but that assembly process always requires information that is not present in the initial system. The provision of information with high specificity is called "design".
The problem here is seeing "information" as a part of the process.

Stuff doesn't come together through information, but by such things as chemical bonds, and other natural processes. Things act according to their properties.

Ever see a cell with a diy book? Ever see a cell with a degree in cellular biology? No. They go about being cells as a product of their properties.

Then here we come along, and we begin to study these things, and accuse these things of using "information" to inform their dealings. This is merely a confusion of how we use language. Yet the theist seems honor bound to use such a term, so they can then infer a God's creating that information.

Of course we humans, as a collection of cells, are capable of gleaning information from em. But that information ain't so much a product of cells, but of our attempts to understand em.
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1337

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 9:35 am ...
Even with humans controlling all these many variables we cannot build a cell, in nature none of that information and external control and sequential steps is present. This is a serious problem for abiogenesis,
...
So we toss aside everything we think we know about abiogenesis. Up to and including the goofy, unproven claim a god we can't show exists was involved in it.

That still leaves us with all we know about evolution, the topic of this OP.

Notice here the theist carries on about how life may or may not have come to be, but fails miserably to discount the fact that critters evolve.
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
-Punkinhead Martin

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1338

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 9:54 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 9:24 am No I am not saying that. I'm saying that what is known about the natural world shows that structures as complex as cells cannot spontaneously form over time. This is the thrust of Tour's lectures. Once a mechanism has been assembled it will run unaided, but that assembly process always requires information that is not present in the initial system. The provision of information with high specificity is called "design".
The problem here is seeing "information" as a part of the process.

Stuff doesn't come together through information, but by such things as chemical bonds, and other natural processes. Things act according to their properties.

Ever see a cell with a diy book? Ever see a cell with a degree in cellular biology? No. They go about being cells as a product of their properties.

Then here we come along, and we begin to study these things, and accuse these things of using "information" to inform their dealings. This is merely a confusion of how we use language. Yet the theist seems honor bound to use such a term, so they can then infer a God's creating that information.

Of course we humans, as a collection of cells, are capable of gleaning information from em. But that information ain't so much a product of cells, but of our attempts to understand em.
As Tour goes to some length explaining, the ordering of steps is critical, the removal of undesired by products is essential, the purity of the inputs must be very high, the control and adjustment of temperatures is critical, the isolation from external disruption is essential. That is information, it must be written down in great detail if one chemist wants to enable some other chemist to repeat the synthesis.

This information is not present in nature. You think something a million times more complex than the most complex chemistry we humans can achieve can just happen without any of the necessary information or control of parameters?

Given all I know about building complex things, the heartfelt sincere belief that this can happen naturally with none of the requisite information, that's believing in magic right there.
Last edited by Sherlock Holmes on Sun May 22, 2022 10:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1339

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 10:02 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 9:35 am ...
Even with humans controlling all these many variables we cannot build a cell, in nature none of that information and external control and sequential steps is present. This is a serious problem for abiogenesis,
...
So we toss aside everything we think we know about abiogenesis. Up to and including the goofy, unproven claim a god we can't show exists was involved in it.

That still leaves us with all we know about evolution, the topic of this OP.

Notice here the theist carries on about how life may or may not have come to be, but fails miserably to discount the fact that critters evolve.
Joey I explained recently that I reject evolution as the explanation for life we see around us because the arguments do not convince me. The arguments that the fossil record supports evolution for example. I've read and studied these arguments in some detail and they do not convince me. The arguments always involve human interpretation of data and I don't interpret it as others might do.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1340

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 10:15 am
JoeyKnothead wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 10:02 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 9:35 am ...
Even with humans controlling all these many variables we cannot build a cell, in nature none of that information and external control and sequential steps is present. This is a serious problem for abiogenesis,
...
So we toss aside everything we think we know about abiogenesis. Up to and including the goofy, unproven claim a god we can't show exists was involved in it.

That still leaves us with all we know about evolution, the topic of this OP.

Notice here the theist carries on about how life may or may not have come to be, but fails miserably to discount the fact that critters evolve.
Joey I explained recently that I reject evolution as the explanation for life we see around us because the arguments do not convince me.
I'm fully aware many theists reject science when it bumps agin their religious beliefs.
The arguments that the fossil record supports evolution for example.
Was them rabbits in the Cambrian that turned ya away
I've read and studied these arguments in some detail and they do not convince me. The arguments always involve human interpretation of data and I don't interpret it as others might do.
Yet you're perfectly content with the human produced, and human interpreted bible.

I would agree you hold your position honestly, and do your best to present the truth as you see it.
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
-Punkinhead Martin

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