How is there reality without God?

[EarthScienceguy]

Neils Bohr
"No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

[Diogenes]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #203]

2nd. The cells may possess the beneficial mutation which allows them to utilize lactose, They also possess the deleterious mutation that resulted in the loss of the ability to utilize xylose or maltose.
Even if that's true, does that negate the beneficial series of mutations? "Look over there" isn't a valid argument.

As an example of evolution, this one statement most assuredly does negate the beneficial series mutations as an example. This adaptive change does not add function, it subtracts function.

You continue to demonstrate you do not understand evolution. Evolution simply describes change, how organisms change over thousands of generations. The idea of 'it' progressing is a faulty one because there is no 'purpose.' It just happens. There are billions of mutations. Most of them result in no apparent or significant change. Many result in extinction.

More than 99 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... extinction
A relative very few of these changes benefit the organism allowing it to reproduce and thrive in an ever changing environment. Some changes that would be 'good' in one environment would be 'bad' in another, in terms of helping any particular organism to survive.

BTW, posing the question, "How is there reality without God?," merely demonstrates a lack of imagination and curiosity. 'Reality,' the Earth, the universe, the animals, came about thru natural processes, many of which we understand. Assuming a 'god' did it is the lazy, unimaginative way out; a way that shows no curiosity.

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #203]

2nd. The cells may possess the beneficial mutation which allows them to utilize lactose, They also possess the deleterious mutation that resulted in the loss of the ability to utilize xylose or maltose.
Even if that's true, does that negate the beneficial series of mutations? "Look over there" isn't a valid argument.

As an example of evolution, this one statement most assuredly does negate the beneficial series mutations as an example. This adaptive change does not add function, it subtracts function.

It not only adds a new enzyme (which is a function), it adds a regulator, which did not exist before. Which is also a function.

It is not adding a new phenotype

The ability to metabolize lactose is a phenotypic example. So is the ability to produce the enzyme only when lactose is available. Remember what a phenotype is:
Phenotype refers to an individual’s observable traits
https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Phenotype

We can observe lactose utilization and enzyme regulation. So phenotypic change. Remember though, that evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population, and therefore evolution, even if the evolutionary changes do not affect phenotypes.

type it is reverting to an old phenotype type that was already contained within the genome.

No. It's a different enzyme than the one in other bacteria utilizing lactose. And the regulator did not previously exist.

But regardless this discussion really has no bearing on the discussion we were having. How long did it take to make this adaptive change?

A few months, maybe.

How many nucleotides had to change to make this change?

Quite a few. It required a series of mutations to produce this result. I can look up the details, if you like.

The problem with evolution is the number of synonymous substitutions that evolution has to produce.

Synonymous mutations are not required for evolution to proceed, although synonymous mutations are evolution. Do you see why?

Kimura estimated that 90 to 95 percent of all synonymous mutations are deleterious.

You have about 100 mutations. Not all of them are synonymous. Probably a majority are not. But still, if even a quarter of them are, you'd have about 20 genetic disorders.

I already quoted research that expressed how 75% of non-synonymous mutations were deleterious so the 90 to 95% still seems very plausible.

Reality matters. And it beats anyone's conclusions.

[The Barbarian]

BTW, posing the question, "How is there reality without God?," merely demonstrates a lack of imagination and curiosity. 'Reality,' the Earth, the universe, the animals, came about thru natural processes, many of which we understand. Assuming a 'god' did it is the lazy, unimaginative way out; a way that shows no curiosity.

I really liked your post; you very succinctly stated the facts regarding genetic change and evolution. The above paragraph, regarding how we might attribute it all to God, brings up a harder problem.

It looks like existence was nicely arranged to bring about life and even us. Which is something that science has no way of determining. St. Paul brings up the issue here:

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

But Paul depends on personal revelation, assuming God Who staged an intervention for him on his way to Damascus. Someone lacking a belief in God might not see it that way. Again, it heads off into metaphysics that science can't address.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #204]

Demonstrably so. Remember what biological evolution is. "Descent with modification." Or after the rediscover of Mendel's work in genetics, "a change in allele frequencies in a population over time."

And that's what these are. Evolution does not have to improve fitness of a population. It only tends to do so. There are plenty of evolutionary dead ends, resulting in population extinction. You may be thinking of common descent, which is a consequence of evolution.

There is abundant evidence for that as well, but not all evolution is about common descent.

So how long did this laboratory "evolution" take? That is the discussion we were having. Here is a paper on the creationist position on this adaptation if you want to read about it. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings Whether or not this is an example of evolution really has no bearing on the conversation we were having. Both Kimura and Haldane believed in evolution so both of their theories would make room for evolution to take place. Again what Haldane discovered was the fact that the wheels of evolution move way too slowly to take place.

[Miles]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #204]

Demonstrably so. Remember what biological evolution is. "Descent with modification." Or after the rediscover of Mendel's work in genetics, "a change in allele frequencies in a population over time."

And that's what these are. Evolution does not have to improve fitness of a population. It only tends to do so. There are plenty of evolutionary dead ends, resulting in population extinction. You may be thinking of common descent, which is a consequence of evolution.

There is abundant evidence for that as well, but not all evolution is about common descent.

So how long did this laboratory "evolution" take? That is the discussion we were having. Here is a paper on the creationist position on this adaptation if you want to read about it. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings Whether or not this is an example of evolution really has no bearing on the conversation we were having. Both Kimura and Haldane believed in evolution so both of their theories would make room for evolution to take place. Again what Haldane discovered was the fact that the wheels of evolution move way too slowly to take place.

But what about . . . .

"Haldane's dilemma, also known as "the waiting time problem", is a limit on the speed of beneficial evolution, calculated by J. B. S. Haldane in 1957. Before the invention of DNA sequencing technologies, it was not known how much polymorphism DNA harbored, although alloenzymes (variant forms of an enzyme which differ structurally but not functionally from other alloenzymes coded for by different alleles at the same locus) were beginning to make it clear that substantial polymorphism existed. This was puzzling because the amount of polymorphism known to exist seemed to exceed the theoretical limits that Haldane calculated, that is, the limits imposed if polymorphisms present in the population generally influence an organism's fitness. Motoo Kimura's landmark paper on neutral theory in 1968 built on Haldane's work to suggest that most molecular evolution is neutral, resolving the dilemma. Although neutral evolution remains the consensus theory among modern biologists, and thus Kimura's resolution of Haldane's dilemma is widely regarded as correct, some biologists argue that adaptive evolution explains a large fraction of substitutions in protein coding sequence, and they propose alternative solutions to Haldane's dilemma."

Various models evolve at rates above Haldane's limit.

J. A. Sved showed that a threshold model of selection, where individuals with a phenotype less than the threshold die and individuals with a phenotype above the threshold are all equally fit, allows for a greater substitution rate than Haldane's model (though no obvious upper limit was found, though tentative paths to calculate one were examined e.g. the death rate). John Maynard Smith and Peter O'Donald followed on the same track.

Additionally, the effects of density-dependent processes, epistasis, and soft selective sweeps on the maximum rate of substitution have been examined.

By looking at the polymorphisms within species and divergence between species an estimate can be obtained for the fraction of substitutions that occur due to selection. This parameter is generally called alpha (hence DFE-alpha), and appears to be large in some species, although almost all approaches suggest that the human-chimp divergence was primarily neutral. However, if divergence between Drosophila species was as adaptive as the alpha parameter suggests, then it would exceed Haldane's limit.
source: Wikipedia

..............?

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #204]

Demonstrably so. Remember what biological evolution is. "Descent with modification." Or after the rediscover of Mendel's work in genetics, "a change in allele frequencies in a population over time."

And that's what these are. Evolution does not have to improve fitness of a population. It only tends to do so. There are plenty of evolutionary dead ends, resulting in population extinction. You may be thinking of common descent, which is a consequence of evolution.

There is abundant evidence for that as well, but not all evolution is about common descent.

So how long did this laboratory "evolution" take?

Maybe a few months. BTW, you should, by now, recognize evolution when you see it. Remember "change in allele frequency in a population." That's what this is.

That is the discussion we were having. Here is a paper on the creationist position on this adaptation if you want to read about it.

Observed evolution of a new enzyme system which also evolved a regulator is what this is. Really no point in denying the fact.

Whether or not this is an example of evolution really has no bearing on the conversation we were having. Both Kimura and Haldane believed in evolution so both of their theories would make room for evolution to take place.

As you see, beliefs are not objections to observed reality. And that's what we have here.

Again what Haldane discovered was the fact that the wheels of evolution move way too slowly to take place.

Someone neglected to tell those bacteria, who just went ahead and evolved the new enzyme system anyway.

[Diogenes]

BTW, posing the question, "How is there reality without God?," merely demonstrates a lack of imagination and curiosity. 'Reality,' the Earth, the universe, the animals, came about thru natural processes, many of which we understand. Assuming a 'god' did it is the lazy, unimaginative way out; a way that shows no curiosity.

I really liked your post; you very succinctly stated the facts regarding genetic change and evolution. The above paragraph, regarding how we might attribute it all to God, brings up a harder problem.

It looks like existence was nicely arranged to bring about life and even us. Which is something that science has no way of determining.

Thanks!
This is a common problem, and not just among creationists. One of the explanations I seldom hear... one that should get more attention is what I call 'backward logic,' for want of a better term. There must be one, but since this comes from my own analysis (I haven't seen others argue this, but that must be because I am not well enough acquainted with the literature.

Anyway, the problem is that most people look at what currently exists and ask, "How could this have happened just this special way so WE are here now?" This is the wrong question because it assumes this moment was planned billions of years ago with us in mind. In other words, the question assumes God exists. Therefore the very question involves circular logic.

This is just the way things turned out. There were trillions x trillions of other possibilities. We just happen to be in this one. This is not an argument for the multiverse (tho' some have resorted to that absurdity). As an illustration, consider the coin flipping sequence analogy. After a random series of a billion heads and tails the result will be unpredictable - mere chance. There may be long strings of one 'head' followed by one 'tail,' then 16 tails in a row followed by 5 heads, then back to 01010110010110.... for example, purely random and this would surprise no one. What the creationist does is to suggest the fact that this random pattern happened as an act of God as if the coin flipper had predicted exactly THIS random pattern.

The only difference is that the coin flip is truly random, whereas the laws of nature skew the result toward life, but not necessarily exactly THIS life. At any rate, nothing had to be 'fine tuned' or created by design. Some just assume it despite the fact it just is what it is and it could have been vastly different.

Surely there is a better, more succinct way to explain this, or a logical fallacy label to put on it, but that's the best I can do, except to use an example John Paulos does in his book "Innumeracy," 'The Birthday Paradox.*

How many people do you need to assemble in a room such that there is a 50% chance that at least two of them share a birthday - just the day and the month, not the year. If dusting those “grey brain cells” that stored your knowledge on “probability” is proving difficult at this particular time, put out a random guess.

Well, the answer is just 23 people. If you have not figured it out yet, a quick google search can give you the steps to arrive at this number. This problem is known as Birthday paradox, by the way.

Perhaps another way to put it is another Paulos quote:
“The paradoxical conclusion is that it would be very unlikely for unlikely events not to occur”

____________________
*For a more complete discussion: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/really-c ... _directory

[Purple Knight]

The idea of [evolution] progressing is a faulty one because there is no 'purpose.' It just happens. There are billions of mutations. Most of them result in no apparent or significant change. Many result in extinction.

Evolution doesn't progress in a forward line like that but it's natural to think about it progressing like that, because, from the perspective of each extant species about how it came to be, it did progress linearly. Because it is right for its environment, every adaptation it has looks like an objective improvement, and it looks like evolution went forward. The side-ways that didn't go anywhere or petered out aren't as important as how a cat came to be a cat.

But that's also where the flaw in thinking comes in because this thing that happened is apparently so amazing that even I think it's incredibly doubtable. We look at a cat in front of us and it looks perfect, mainly because it is. It's unfathomable that it got that way randomly. If we could see all those side-ways more clearly, if every possible result were alive and in front of us, the perfect thing would be as rare as our intuition would make it and we wouldn't have this intuition-breaking claim that perfection came out of randomness when the randomness is largely hidden and the perfection isn't.

It looks like existence was nicely arranged to bring about life and even us. Which is something that science has no way of determining.

Right. You can't determine that with science or even observation without more information.

This is very related to me having a problem with the atheist side of the suffering argument against god but not being able to succinctly state it. I had the exact same problem with the theist side of the argument from design.

It's because there's not enough data. We see the universe and say order, therefore probably design, but we don't know anything about what lack of order would be like, or if it's even possible. We see suffering, and say therefore probably not a loving and fair god, but we don't know what lack of suffering would be like, or if it is even possible.

viewtopic.php?t=40204

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #208]

I think that how some folk see and hear things that most other folk do not, allows me to also understand how there may be an infinity of universes all superimposed upon each other and it depends upon what outfit consciousness wears as to what experiences said consciousness will have.
Such things as hallucinations, hearing voices, seeing colors, having drug trips, fasting in the desert, et al could all be ways in which the body-set which enables us to experience this universe, is tampered with in some way - the brain of the body-set then engages with alternat realities normally hidden from said brains and accompanying consciousnesses detection...

[William]

The idea of [evolution] progressing is a faulty one because there is no 'purpose.' It just happens. There are billions of mutations. Most of them result in no apparent or significant change. Many result in extinction.

Evolution doesn't progress in a forward line like that but it's natural to think about it progressing like that, because, from the perspective of each extant species about how it came to be, it did progress linearly. Because it is right for its environment, every adaptation it has looks like an objective improvement, and it looks like evolution went forward. The side-ways that didn't go anywhere or petered out aren't as important as how a cat came to be a cat.

But that's also where the flaw in thinking comes in because this thing that happened is apparently so amazing that even I think it's incredibly doubtable. We look at a cat in front of us and it looks perfect, mainly because it is. It's unfathomable that it got that way randomly. If we could see all those side-ways more clearly, if every possible result were alive and in front of us, the perfect thing would be as rare as our intuition would make it and we wouldn't have this intuition-breaking claim that perfection came out of randomness when the randomness is largely hidden and the perfection isn't.

It looks like existence was nicely arranged to bring about life and even us. Which is something that science has no way of determining.

Right. You can't determine that with science or even observation without more information.

This is very related to me having a problem with the atheist side of the suffering argument against god but not being able to succinctly state it. I had the exact same problem with the theist side of the argument from design.

It's because there's not enough data. We see the universe and say order, therefore probably design, but we don't know anything about what lack of order would be like, or if it's even possible. We see suffering, and say therefore probably not a loving and fair god, but we don't know what lack of suffering would be like, or if it is even possible.

viewtopic.php?t=40204

This relates to what I am calling "The Problem of GOD" - an idea I ran by another, the conversation can be read here

Essentially there are two paths one can go by - one of which dissolves the problem of GOD by saying everything was just a kinda, nice kinda weird and a touch of the cruel accident... and when we die it'll all be over with while at the same time, knowing that it won't - only one's own conscious existence will end...

While the other has to show why the problem of GOD isn't a problem, any more than humankind propagating consciousness into existence and wanting that consciousness to spread out into the Galaxy, is a problem.