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.

[Purple Knight]

Interesting. I will give creationists the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not being consciously dishonest in how they marshal their data and arguments to support their absurd belief, but the quote mining, the cherry-picking, the false attributions and persistent use of discredited sources make a strong argument for a kindly response seem naive.

I usually pose it as a choice between them being dishonest or incompetent. Take your pick I guess.

Or they just don't trust the experts. It's fine not to trust people who have not earned that trust. I hope William is right and we can perceive other universes, because somewhere out there, there's a universe where creationism never fell out of favour and scientists are all politically motivated to defend it and I'm arguing against it... and all I'm asking is the same: Freedom to just... not trust the experts. Not to have the conversation shut down by, "The experts say," or, "That's been discredited."

Trust is earned.

And frankly we live in a nasty competitive world where consensus is bought and sold, because that's the motivation. Just trusting that all scientists are innately angels who would wave those bribes away because it's the right thing to do is the bigger reach. Even if there are some of these angels mixed in, the market will favour those who are not. Even if you start with 99% angels, and 1% cheaters, guess who wins over time. Yeah, natural selection. It's a dirty business. Another reason why consensus being for sale should be the default assumption.

I believe strongly in evolution now because I'm an animal breeder and I have direct experience with genetic change. I know that selection can make a better cat out of a regular cat because I have my hands in it. Being honest though, I believed it before but I had not too terribly strong evidence. I was just told. And it sounded reasonable and I believed it and there wasn't a lot more to it. Things like seeing the hand bones of land animals and lobe-finned fish and whales. Seeing monkeys and apes that look like hunched, hairy people, and not really believing that God is that lazy.

And here's the truth: I can't make a blue cat unless you give me a blue cat to start with. (Not grey, which in cat breeding is called blue, I mean actually, really blue.) All I can do is find a dingy blue cat that has just a modicum of this new pigment, and over dozens or maybe even hundreds of generations, refine for more of that pigment and less of others, and eventually give you a striking and pure one. I do not light the match. But if you give me the spark I can get a fire going.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #0]

If the difference is 1%, then you need to consider how long it takes for 0.5% to happen. Do you see why?

How long are you saying that 0.5% takes? The problem with your theory in Haldane's dilemma was not the dominant genes. Dominate genes have a relatively low cost. It is the cost of the recessive genes that is the problem in Haldane's dilemma. Haldane found that most of the population that does not have the recessive gene must die in order for the recessive gene to become predominate in the population. But now there is also new evidence that shows that there are parts of the genome that have very low mutation rates and it is in these areas that essential genes reside.

• Instead of randomness they found patches of the genome with low mutation rates. In those patches, they were surprised to discover an over-representation of essential genes, such as those involved in cell growth and gene expression.
  
  “These are the really important regions of the genome,” Monroe said. “The areas that are the most biologically important are the ones being protected from mutation.”
  
  The areas are also sensitive to the harmful effects of new mutations. “DNA damage repair seems therefore to be particularly effective in these regions,” Weigel added.https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study ... are-random

So there are parts of the genome where mutation happens very rarely if at all.

There are also areas in the genome where mutations are common and even seem to be directed toward survival.

So now Haldane's dilemma is even more of a dilemma because of the length of time it would take to have a nonlethal mutation in one of these areas. This discovery alone makes evolution very, very unlikely if not impossible.

It would seem to me that variation of 2.1E11 years to 200 years is so expansive as to be effectively meaningless.

Not at all, the differences between costs can vary by up to 6 orders of magnitude in his theory.

Mostly for reasons I've already explained. A well-fitted population in a constant environment will evolve very little. A relatively unfit population in an new environment will evolve a lot. Usually going extinct thereby, but also frequently speciating.

Are you sure you read Haldane's theory? Haldane believed in the religion of evolution. What he said took so long was when the population formed a bottleneck like this it would take many generations before the population was large enough to have another speciation event like this. That was the cost.

Now in these regions that are sensitive to harmful effects mutation in these areas would cause mostly genetic death if not 100% of the time. This is what creationists have been saying all along. Animals were created according to their own kind.

Neanderthal DNA is about 99.7 similar to the DNA of anatomically modern humans. (most of us carry a 1%-3% Neanderthal DNA). So the differences evolved over something like 100,000 years. Again, reality.

No those differences would be in areas that are prone to mutations. Haldane was correct he knew that there were some mutations that would become fixed quickly and others that were very slowly he just did not have the full picture.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Tcg in post #240]

Jeremy L. Walter, Mechanical Engineering

A mechanical engineer is not a geneticist, a population geneticist, nor an evolutionary biologist. There are plenty others on the list who also fail to qualify for your claim.

But what about the geneticists and biologists that are on that list?

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #236]

Funny how not a single geneticist, population geneticist, or evolutionary biologist agrees with that. But I suppose you expect folks to instead go with your hilariously erroneous estimates and conclusions, eh?

Yes there are.

Here are 50 and why they believe in 6 day creation. https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/in-six-days/

https://answersingenesis.org/bios/nathaniel-jeanson/

https://answersingenesis.org/bios/georgia-purdom/

https://creation.com/james-s-allan-genetics-in-six-days

Ben Carson

There are more like most of the professors at Liberty University and Cedarville University.

We've been over this before. AiG makes all their employees sign the Statement of Faith that includes this requirement: "No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field of study, including science, history, and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture obtained by historical-grammatical interpretation".

That's the exact opposite of science and anyone who agrees to work under that rule cannot be referred to as a scientist.

[Jose Fly]

Or they just don't trust the experts. It's fine not to trust people who have not earned that trust.

We've done this before (damn but these conversations have grown incredibly stale).

Creationists don't trust the experts because the experts reach conclusions that conflict with their beliefs.
Creationists don't trust science because science produces conclusions that conflict with their beliefs.
Creationists don't trust peer review because it produces conclusions that conflict with their beliefs.
Creationists don't trust consensus because it represents conclusions that conflict with their beliefs.

Notice the common denominator....creationists automatically reject everything that conflicts with their beliefs (as represented by the AiG Statement of Faith I just posted to ESG).

There really is nothing more to it than that. I mean, they even tell us right up front, so it's not like this is some secret or anything.

[Tcg]

[Replying to Tcg in post #240]

Jeremy L. Walter, Mechanical Engineering

A mechanical engineer is not a geneticist, a population geneticist, nor an evolutionary biologist. There are plenty others on the list who also fail to qualify for your claim.

But what about the geneticists and biologists that are on that list?

They don't add up to 50 as you falsely claimed.


Tcg

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #0]

If the difference is 1%, then you need to consider how long it takes for 0.5% to happen. Do you see why?

How long are you saying that 0.5% takes?

As I showed you, that would depend on many different things. It's like asking how long it would take water to run down a mountain. But do you see why a 1% difference would require you to determine how long 0.5% change takes? This is important. Think about it.

The problem with your theory in Haldane's dilemma was not the dominant genes. Dominate genes have a relatively low cost. It is the cost of the recessive genes that is the problem in Haldane's dilemma.

This is why outmating is the most common practice for animals. But consider that there are a good number of species (e.g. naked mole rats) that practice inbreeding. Which should never be, according to your reading of Haldane's dilemma.

Haldane found that most of the population that does not have the recessive gene must die in order for the recessive gene to become predominate in the population.

Well, yes. If you thought about it, you'd see why this must be so.

But now there is also new evidence that shows that there are parts of the genome that have very low mutation rates and it is in these areas that essential genes reside.

It would be difficult to apply that to all species. Even within a class of animals, mutation rates vary greatly from species to species.

nature 4 Oct 2011
Variation in the mutation rate across mammalian genomes
ABSTRACT
It has been known for many years that the mutation rate varies across the genome. However, only with the advent of large genomic data sets is the full extent of this variation becoming apparent. The mutation rate varies over many different scales, from adjacent sites to whole chromosomes, with the strongest variation seen at the smallest scales. Some of these patterns have clear mechanistic bases, but much of the rate variation remains unexplained, and some of it is deeply perplexing. Variation in the mutation rate has important implications in evolutionary biology and underexplored implications for our understanding of hereditary disease and cancer.

Instead of randomness they found patches of the genome with low mutation rates. In those patches, they were surprised to discover an over-representation of essential genes, such as those involved in cell growth and gene expression.

“These are the really important regions of the genome,” Monroe said. “The areas that are the most biologically important are the ones being protected from mutation.”

The areas are also sensitive to the harmful effects of new mutations. “DNA damage repair seems therefore to be particularly effective in these regions,” Weigel added.https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study ... are-random

From your link:
“At first glance, what we found seemed to contradict established theory that initial mutations are entirely random and that only natural selection determines which mutations are observed in organisms,” said Detlef Weigel, scientific director at Max Planck Institute and senior author on the study.

Delef is mistaken there. Natural selection does not cause mutations:

The Luria–Delbrück experiment (1943) (also called the Fluctuation Test) demonstrated that in bacteria, genetic mutations arise in the absence of selective pressure rather than being a response to it. Thus, it concluded Darwin's theory of natural selection acting on random mutations applies to bacteria as well as to more complex organisms. Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in part for this work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luria%E2% ... experiment

Genetics, Volume 136, Issue 3, 1 March 1994
Luria-Delbrück fluctuation experiments: design and analysis.
Abstract
Luria and Delbrück, in a seminal paper, introduced fluctuation analysis primarily as a means to elucidate the timing of mutation in relation to the imposition of selective conditions. Their work, and subsequently that of LEA and COULSON, established also a basis for measuring the frequency of mutational events.

So there are parts of the genome where mutation happens very rarely if at all.

Well, let's take a look...

There are three alleles for the human ABO gene. There are many different versions (alleles) of the hemoglobin gene, each coding for a slightly different beta-globin protein. Not sure if anyone has published a definitive list of the known alleles. I assume we can agree that hemoglobin is an essential molecule, right? This alone is devastating for YE beliefs. As you know, if we all descended from one pair of humans 10,000 years ago, this would be a lot of mutation for an essential gene. If you rely on scientific data, the last common ancestor of all humans living today, lived about 150,000 years ago. Still, that would be a mutation which survived to spread in the population every 3,000 years. Lots of other genes are like that. Most of our genes have dozens of alleles. We have about 30,000 functional genes, so do the math. If the average number of alleles is as little as 10, we are left with about 2 a year that end up spreading through the population.

There are also areas in the genome where mutations are common and even seem to be directed toward survival.

This is mostly a function of non-coding DNA. Some of what creationist call "junk DNA" has other functions including enhancing or inhibiting repair of mutation.

So now Haldane's dilemma is even more of a dilemma because of the length of time it would take to have a nonlethal mutation in one of these areas.

See above. Reality, again.

This discovery alone makes evolution very, very unlikely if not impossible.

That's the rub, isn't it. As you learned from Dr. Hall's experiment, the ignorant bacteria were unaware that they couldn't evolve a new enzyme system, and so went and evolved one. And your assumption again has a head-on collision with reality.

It would seem to me that variation of 2.1E11 years to 200 years is so expansive as to be effectively meaningless.

Not at all, the differences between costs can vary by up to 6 orders of magnitude in his theory.

That's 9 orders of magnitude. Off by a factor of 1,000. Not so good, um?

Mostly for reasons I've already explained. A well-fitted population in a constant environment will evolve very little. A relatively unfit population in an new environment will evolve a lot. Usually going extinct thereby, but also frequently speciating.

Are you sure you read Haldane's theory?

I took my first course in biological evolution in 1967. And yes, even then, people were realizing that Haldane was correct in assuming that his numbers need revision.

The American Naturalist
Volume 102, Number 925May - Jun., 1968
Possible Rates of Gene Substitution in Evolution
Abstract
Maximum rates of gene substitution are calculated, showing that Haldane's estimate (1957) of one completed gene substitution per 300 generations may be much too low. The approach differs conceptually from Haldane's in postulating that the mean fitness of the population is not affected by its genotype. The rate of death is assumed to be set by density-dependent factors, and rates of substitution and selective intensities consistent with this death rate are calculated. This formulation leads to no obvious upper limit for the rate of substitution. Rates of one completed substitution per generation or more are by no means excluded. The selective value consistent with a given death rate or set of fitness differentals is not independent of the rate of substitution but is approximately inversely proportional to it. The result is little affected by the degree of dominance or by the initial gene frequency.

Haldane believed in the religion of evolution.

I'm always surprised that creationists have so little confidence in religion, that they use it as a pejorative. You might as well speak of a religion of gravity. Actually, gravity is less certain than evolution. We can observe both gravity and evolution, but we know why evolution works. We still aren't exactly sure why gravity works.

What he said took so long was when the population formed a bottleneck like this it would take many generations before the population was large enough to have another speciation event like this. That was the cost.

The ironic thing is, bottlenecks often lead to speciation. That is, when a small population is isolated from the others of its species, speciation happens much more frequently. Partially, this is due to "founder effect"; any deviations from the norm in the founders is magnified in the new population.

Now in these regions that are sensitive to harmful effects mutation in these areas would cause mostly genetic death if not 100% of the time.

Your assumption is incorrect. There are many alleles for hemoglobin, for example. Most make no measurable difference, and some of them are actually beneficial in some environments.

This is what creationists have been saying all along. Animals were created according to their own kind.

Yes, they will admit that much. The problem is, they don't approve of the way He did it.

Neanderthal DNA is about 99.7 similar to the DNA of anatomically modern humans. (most of us carry a 1%-3% Neanderthal DNA). So the differences evolved over something like 100,000 years. Again, reality.

No those differences would be in areas that are prone to mutations.

Like hemoglobin. On the other hand, there are no alleles for cytochrome C in humans. Because the molecule is very specific in binding in the Krebs Cycle. But it's not because mutations aren't happening; it's because those mutations are lethal, often in utero and we don't see them in living humans.

Haldane was correct he knew that there were some mutations that would become fixed quickly and others that were very slowly he just did not have the full picture.

And he knew it. As you know, he admitted that his numbers likely would be revised when people took a closer look. And they were.

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to Tcg in post #240]

Jeremy L. Walter, Mechanical Engineering

A mechanical engineer is not a geneticist, a population geneticist, nor an evolutionary biologist. There are plenty others on the list who also fail to qualify for your claim.

But what about the geneticists and biologists that are on that list?

I wonder what Jeremy would think of a geneticist declaring that iron is stronger than steel. My guess is that he'd be telling him that he should stick to things he actually understands. I expect he'd also lose confidence in any mechanical engineer who sided with the geneticist. And with good reason.

[The Barbarian]

"Rosenhouse theorizes that creationists are fond of deploying mathematical proofs against evolution because they believe would exonerate them from a responsibility of dealing with the copious and multiple evidences for evolution. While this is possible, I wonder if they attracted to them because of their black-and-white, absolutist thinking and tendencies. It doesn’t get any surer than mathematical proof, or so the creationist thinks.

What they do not realize but Rosenhouse points out, is that real world applications of mathematics are far from absolute: it was once “proved” impossible for anyone to run a four minute mile, but when it happened the mathematics had to be re-examined, and of course, turned out to be premised on false assumptions about human physiology. In like manner, mathematical disproofs of evolution (of which all known attempts have unsalvagable problems) are poor disproofs anyway, since it is more likely that back of the envelope calculations are wrong than it is that sturdy evidence from biogeography, fossils, comparative anatomy and genomics, etc. is wrong."
https://skepticink.com/humesapprentice/ ... lutionism/

An engineer once "proved" that bumblebees can't fly; the energetics were just impossible. What the engineer didn't know was that under the levers that make the wings go, there are tiny pads of resylin, the closest thing to a perfectly elastic rubber ever found. And so the bee flies on, like Hall's bacteria, blissfully unaware that a creationist has "proven" it can't do what it does.

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #236]

Funny how not a single geneticist, population geneticist, or evolutionary biologist agrees with that. But I suppose you expect folks to instead go with your hilariously erroneous estimates and conclusions, eh?

Yes there are.

Here are 50 and why they believe in 6 day creation. https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/in-six-days/

The very first example from your source is a failure:

Jeremy L. Walter, Mechanical Engineering

A mechanical engineer is not a geneticist, a population geneticist, nor an evolutionary biologist. There are plenty others on the list who also fail to qualify for your claim.


Tcg

In fact, about half of them actually have degrees in subjects that would qualify them to consider the evidence as an expert.

There is a much larger list from the Discovery Institute, of "Scientists who Doubt Darwin." Not surprisingly, a very larger percentage of them are not biologists. On the other hand, "Project Steve" is a list of people who accept evolutionary theory, have doctorates in biology or a related field, and are named "Steve" or some variant like "Stephany." The list is now approaching 1500 Steves. (about 1% of Americans are named "Steve" or some variant)
https://ncse.ngo/project-steve-frequent ... -questions

The AIG list has (drum roll) ... one Steve. Kinda puts it all in perspective, doesn't it?