How is there reality without God?

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How is there reality without God?

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Post by 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.

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #331

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #329]
You're extrapolating phenomena at the quantum level to macroscopic objects like trees falling in a forest, and assuming that a superposition of states (the condition before an observation) is not "real." In the simple coin flipping analogy, while the coin is spinning in the air it is neither heads nor tails because the conditions of headness or tailness only exist once the coin lands. But the coin still has two sides called heads and tails while it is spinning and this is the crude analogy of a superposition of states.

Arguing that reality does not exist until it is observed ignores the reality of a superposition of two or more quantum states, which is what quantum mechanics describes. Collapse of the wavefunction (which includes all of the possible superpositions, or as Feynman described all of the possible paths between one state and another exist simultaneously ... the basis of quantum computers) is the manifestation of a particular state upon observation (the coin landing on either heads or tails).

The tree falling in the forest is not in a superposition of quantum states in the same sense as a quantum object. If you tried to write down the complete wavefunction of a tree, with its zillions of atoms and possible quantum interactions, it would be untenable. You're taking the analogy too far by many orders of magnitude ... quantum effects are negligble for trees falling in forests.
I am not the one that came up with this argument. But many physicists are asking the simple question. What is reality?

"Reality Doesn't Exist Until We Measure It, Quantum Experiment Confirms" https://www.sciencealert.com/reality-do ... t-confirms

"Does reality exist when we're not looking?" https://www.livescience.com/does-realit ... um-physics

"The quantum experiment that could prove reality doesn't exist" https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... snt-exist/

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #332

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #332]
I am not the one that came up with this argument. But many physicists are asking the simple question. What is reality?
The LiveScience article ends with this:

"So does reality exist when we're not looking? The ultimate answer is that it appears to be a matter of interpretation."

And they discuss decoherence as an explanation for why macroscopic objects don't exhibit the same quantum mechanical bahavior as the very tiny. But in any case, the definition of "reality" for most people consists of the things they see around them and interact with every day, and these things most certainly exist when we're "not looking" (which itself needs to be defined). I know for certain that the cactus in my front yard exists when I'm asleep, as well as my car and my dog, etc. Applying quantum mechanical superposition and wave function collapse interpretations to things like trees just doesn't make sense, and I don't think physicists are claiming otherwise.
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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #333

Post by William »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #328]
Re the question "How is there reality without God?" are you saying that the universe was created through God observing it?
I am simply expressing what has to be according to the most popular interpretation of quantum mechanics the Copenhagen interpretation.
So you are not saying that this universe exists because GOD observed it?

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #334

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #0]
You seem to have come over to my side. Here we have a rapid spread of lactose tolerance in a much shorter time than you said was possible (in dairying cultures only, mind you).
No, it is not shorter than the time frame that I said was possible. As I have taught you multiple times now. Haldane said that ON AVERAGE a 1 mutation could become fixed in the genome every 300 generations. A human generation is 20 years so that means that one mutation could become fixed every 6000 years according to Haldane's theory. So there is really nothing rapid about 20000 years. In fact the real number is more like 3000 years.
One trait in 20,000 years is worse than Haldane's theory.
Well, that's a bad assumption.
Why is this a bad assumption because it is too much reality for you?
For example, tens of thousands of years ago, northern Europeans had dark skins. Light skins became fixed rather rapidly. But it's not hard to figure out why natural selection made that happen.
How large are you saying the population was? The observation that researchers made was the following. And you will learn how this is again evidence of the dispersion at the tower of Babel
  • When it comes to skin color, the team found a patchwork of evolution in different places, and three separate genes that produce light skin, telling a complex story for how European's skin evolved to be much lighter during the past 8000 years. The modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today.
  • But in the far north—where low light levels would favor pale skin—the team found a different picture in hunter-gatherers: Seven people from the 7700-year-old Motala archaeological site in southern Sweden had both light skin gene variants, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. They also had a third gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes and may also contribute to light skin and blond hair. Thus ancient hunter-gatherers of the far north were already pale and blue-eyed, but those of central and southern Europe had darker skin.
  • Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency.
According to the observations made all they are saying all skin colors were in existence 8,000 years ago. Hunter-gathers in the far north had light skin and blond hair. Hunter-gatherers from Africa had dark skin color and those from the near east had genes for both. This is exactly what the Bible says happened. A small group of humans from the tower of Babel went north into Europe a group went south into Africa and then some stayed where they were. All started with both. Then the small group of humans that went north where low levels of light favor light skin became light skin. Groups that went to Africa which favored darker skin became darker skinned and those that remained in the near east stayed a mixture of both light and dark.
Creationism can't even explain how Hall's bacteria evolved a new enzyme system
You mean natural theories cannot explain Hall's bacteria.
  • The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment. It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real world outside the laboratory. If it is assumed that the selection is strictly for lactose utilization, then a growth advantage exists only when all three mutations are present simultaneously. Any one of the mutations alone could well be
    neutral (it is unlikely that any would be disadvantageous); but neutral mutations do enter populations by random chance events, and are fixed by a chance process termed genetic drift https://watermark.silverchair.com/genet ... wlSj-2IE8A
You're a bit confused. Dr. Wise is not speaking of a "ladder of evolution." In fact, he cites the evidence that makes your assumption untenable. And he cites what he calls "very good evidence" for the diversification of whales.
Maybe back in 95 that was the case but not in the 2023.

  • There are significant issues with phylogenetics as a whole, and this study in its attempting to use them as supporting evidence of gene loss is simply pointless. As noted in the above phylogeny, you could argue that some of the toothed whales are more closely related to baleen whales than they are to other toothed whales. Obviously this is false since there is enough genetic and morphological data to demonstrate it to be wrong, but from a phylogenetic perspective, it is valid.

    Evolutionists acknowledge that whale phylogenies are wracked with problems.
    Evolutionists acknowledge that whale phylogenies are wracked with problems. “While the monophyly of cetaceans is widely accepted, the origin of and evolutionary relationships among the major groups of cetaceans is more problematic since morphological and molecular analyses reach very different conclusions. Indeed, based on the conventional interpretation of the morphological and behavioral data set, the echolocating toothed whales (about 67 species) and the filter-feeding baleen whales (10 species) are considered as two distinct monophyletic groups . . . On the other hand, phylogenetic analysis of DNA . . . and amino acid . . . sequences contradict this long-accepted taxonomic division. One group of toothed whales, the sperm whales, appear to be more closely related to the morphologically highly divergent baleen whales than to other odontocetes, while all other resolvable relationships are consistent with traditional groupings.”14 In other words, depending on what characters you use, you get widely differing and opposite results. https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/a ... -evolution
  • In short, despite decades of attempts, the evolutionary ancestors of whales remain elusive. What we observe are distinct types of organisms, with the several whale kinds being discontinuous from things like Pakicetus and Aegicetus. Regardless of the biased phylogenies or faulty interpretations of fossils, whales have always been whales. https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/a ... evolution/
The Hippo genome has a size of 2.43 Gb and the orca has a genome size of 2.65. That is a 92% difference.
Check your math. You've made an error
whoops! 8% difference
Very unlikely. It would be very unlikely for identical blood types to evolve independently. Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one other race of H. sapiens all evolved from a common archaic H. sapiens race. You see, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals nor did they evolve from us. (we did interbreed from time to time, however). So blood types were almost certainly evolved before the split of these different races.
They are all the same starting with modern humans.
Very unlikely. It would be very unlikely for identical blood types to evolve independently. Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one other race of H. sapiens all evolved from a common archaic H. sapiens race. You see, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals nor did they evolve from us. (we did interbreed from time to time, however). So blood types were almost certainly evolved before the split of these different races.
Yes they split at Noah's flood.
Nope. As you learned, O alleles are not fixed in any population.
Ok, Now I am quite sure that you do not have any idea what fixed in a population means.
That's a testable belief. Which of Darwin's points have been falsified? There are four of them. Tell me what you think with your evidence.
Wait, do you mean to tell me that mutation is not an essential part of evolution?
Since evolution is directly observed to happen.
You have not shown this to be true. Not in your bacteria example or in your whale example.
You already know that's wrong. Remember when I showed you that the four points of the Darwinian theory remain as solidly demonstrated as ever? But Darwin's theory has been modified by genetics, which explained how new traits can spread in a population, by punctuated equilibrium, which explains why most speciation is allopatric, and so on.
The 4 four points cannot definitely produce the life that we see on earth because mutations are not part of the 4 points. The time it takes for mutations to happen has been shown to not be possible.
Neither. You're confusing evolution with agencies of evolution. It's just a change in allele frequencies. Genetic drift can explain how this happens when there is little or no selective pressure. Natural selection explains things like the evolution of that new enzyme system in bacteria.
Not according to the Researcher that did the research. (quote above)
In evolutionary biology, it’s generally thought that mutations are “random” in two respects:

Mutations occur with equal likelihood across the entire genome.
No, that's wrong. Molecular biologists point out that not all sites are equally like to be mutated and not be repaired. Remember when I showed you the research.
Yes I modern research describes a genome in which different areas of the genome mutate at different rates.
So there’s no part of the genome that is MORE or LESS likely to experience mutations than any other part of the genome.
Some (but not all) creationists agree with you. But they are wrong.
That would actually be needed evolutionary axiom.
As I already showed you, this is incorrect. Like many creationists, you misunderstood what Luria and Delbruck meant by "random." It means that favorable mutations arrive randomly, and not in response to need. If you learn nothing else about mutations, learn this.

Mutations occur without regard to the needs of the organisms, meaning they are random and not directed for or against what the organisms needs to survive.
I wish I could say that I am tired of showing you how wrong you are but I am not.

"Groundbreaking study uncovers first evidence of long-term directionality in the origination of human mutation, fundamentally challenging Neo-Darwinism https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/941828 "
You forgot to tell the bacteria. Because no one told them it was impossible, they just went ahead and did it.
No they did not. They were a laboratory experiment.
  • The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment. It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real world outside the laboratory. If it is assumed that the selection is strictly for lactose utilization, then a growth advantage exists only when all three mutations are present simultaneously. Any one of the mutations alone could well be
    neutral (it is unlikely that any would be disadvantageous); but neutral mutations do enter populations by random chance events, and are fixed by a chance process termed genetic drift

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #335

Post by JoeyKnothead »

If the math of evolutionary theory doesn't add up, it's the math that's wrong.

Evolution's a fact, whether it upsets us or not.
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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #336

Post by Jose Fly »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 4:32 pm If the math of evolutionary theory doesn't add up, it's the math that's wrong.

Evolution's a fact, whether it upsets us or not.
Someone spouting that evolution never happens is so far out in left field it puts them in league with flat-earthers and believers in reptilian-alien-politicians. Most of the time it's best to just laugh at them and move on.
Being apathetic is great....or not. I don't really care.

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #337

Post by The Barbarian »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 4:23 pm No, it is not shorter than the time frame that I said was possible. As I have taught you multiple times now. Haldane said that ON AVERAGE a 1 mutation could become fixed in the genome every 300 generations. A human generation is 20 years so that means that one mutation could become fixed every 6000 years according to Haldane's theory. So there is really nothing rapid about 20000 years. In fact the real number is more like 3000 years.
You still don't get what "fixation" means.

For example, tens of thousands of years ago, northern Europeans had dark skins. Light skins became fixed rather rapidly. But it's not hard to figure out why natural selection made that happen.
The observation that researchers made was the following. And you will learn how this is again evidence of the dispersion at the tower of Babel
  • But in the far north—where low light levels would favor pale skin—the team found a different picture in hunter-gatherers: Seven people from the 7700-year-old Motala archaeological site in southern Sweden had both light skin gene variants, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. They also had a third gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes and may also contribute to light skin and blond hair. Thus ancient hunter-gatherers of the far north were already pale and blue-eyed, but those of central and southern Europe had darker skin.
Relatively recently. But before that, native Europeans had dark skins, even in Northern Europe:
The first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... is-reveals
According to the observations made all they are saying all skin colors were in existence 8,000 years ago. Hunter-gathers in the far north had light skin and blond hair.
Wrong. See above.

Creationism can't even explain how Hall's bacteria evolved a new enzyme system
You mean natural theories cannot explain Hall's bacteria.
Turns out, they did. Random mutation and natural selection evolved a new, regulated enzyme system. As predicted.
The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment.
Nope. In fact, none of the actual mutations were predicted. Only the evolution of a new system was predicted. And Hall was completely surprised by the evolution of a regulator that was not predicted at all. But it was adaptive since the metabolic cost of the enzyme would only be incurred if there was a substrate there to be utilized.
It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real world outside the laboratory.
Wrong again. For example, the "nylon bug" evolved the same way...
In 1975, a team of Japanese scientists discovered a strain of bacterium, living in ponds containing waste water from a nylon factory, that could digest certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture, such as the linear dimer of 6-aminohexanoate. These substances are not known to have existed before the invention of nylon in 1935. It was initially named as Achromobacter guttatus.[4]

Studies in 1977 revealed that the three enzymes that the bacteria were using to digest the byproducts were significantly different from any other enzymes produced by any other bacteria, and not effective on any material other than the manmade nylon byproducts.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria

You're a bit confused. Dr. Wise is not speaking of a "ladder of evolution." In fact, he cites the evidence that makes your assumption untenable. And he cites what he calls "very good evidence" for the diversification of whales.
Maybe back in 95 that was the case but not in the 2023.
No, that's wrong, too. For example, when Dr. Wise wrote his paper, there were some issues about the evolution of baleen whales from toothed whales. But recently...
Prehistoric Whale Jaw Bone Sheds Light on the Evolution of Baleen
Hidden in a museums’ collections for years, a fossil provides a link between past and present feeding mechanisms

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180970917/

Another fossil shows that suction feeding evolved before baleen. Baleen is not required; it merely makes the process more efficient.
https://phys.org/news/2016-11-evolution ... hales.html
There are significant issues with phylogenetics as a whole, and this study in its attempting to use them as supporting evidence of gene loss is simply pointless.
That's a testable belief. We can,for example consider how many times phylogenetics predicted transitional forms later found to exist. In my lifetime in science those include fish to tetrapods, anapsids to turtles, stem amphibians to frogs, forest apes to humans, wasps to ants, cockroaches to termites, dinosaurs to birds, ... very long list. So it's been a very productive and efficient process. All those predicted forms eventually confirmed phylogenetics.
As noted in the above phylogeny, you could argue that some of the toothed whales are more closely related to baleen whales than they are to other toothed whales. Obviously this is false since there is enough genetic and morphological data to demonstrate it to be wrong, but from a phylogenetic perspective, it is valid.
You've been misled...

Nature volume 361, pages 346–348 (1993)
Revised phylogeny of whales suggested by mitochondrial ribosomal DNA sequences
Abstract
LIVING cetaceans are subdivided into two highly distinct suborders, Odontoceti (the echolocating toothed whales) and Mysticeti (the filter-feeding baleen whales), which are believed to have had a long independent history. Here we report the determination of DNA sequences from two mitochondrial ribosomal gene segments (930 base pairs per species) for 16 species of cetaceans, a perissodactyl and a sloth, and construct the first phylogeny for whales and dolphins based on explicit cladistic methods. Our data (and earlier published myoglobin sequences) confirmed that cetaceans are closely related to artiodactyls and that all families and superfamilies of cetaceans are monophyletic. A surprising finding was that one group of toothed whales, the sperm whales, is more closely related to the baleen whales than to other odontocetes. The common ancestor of baleen whales and sperm whales might have lived only 10–15 million years ago. The suggested paraphyly of toothed whales has many implications for classification, phylogeny and our understanding of the evolutionary history of cetaceans.


The fossil and genetic evidence showing toothed whales preceded baleen whales and that baleen whales evolved from toothed whales is confirmed by this research. It merely shows that baleen whales evolved from early members of the Physeteroidea.
The Hippo genome has a size of 2.43 Gb and the orca has a genome size of 2.65. That is a 92% difference.
Check your math. You've made an error
whoops! 8% difference
Hippos are gentically about as close to Orcas as chimps are to humans. Which is a remarkable finding, confirming the artiodactyl origins of whales.

Very unlikely. It would be very unlikely for identical blood types to evolve independently. Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one other race of H. sapiens all evolved from a common archaic H. sapiens race. You see, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals nor did they evolve from us. (we did interbreed from time to time, however). So blood types were almost certainly evolved before the split of these different races.
They are all the same starting with modern humans.
Today, we have no biological human races. But we did then.

Very unlikely. It would be very unlikely for identical blood types to evolve independently. Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one other race of H. sapiens all evolved from a common archaic H. sapiens race. You see, we didn't evolve from Neanderthals nor did they evolve from us. (we did interbreed from time to time, however). So blood types were almost certainly evolved before the split of these different races.
Yes they split at Noah's flood.
No. If Noah's flood is an actual event, the evidence shows it to have happened long after the extinction of Neanderthals. There is evidence for a great flood in the Middle East, about 7,500 years ago. But Neanderthals and Denisovans were gone long before that.

Nope. As you learned, O alleles are not fixed in any population.
Ok, Now I am quite sure that you do not have any idea what fixed in a population means.


"Fixation" means...
In population genetics, fixation is the change in a gene pool from a situation where there exists at least two variants of a particular gene (allele) in a given population to a situation where only one of the alleles remains.[
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/wha ... types.html
That's a testable belief. Which of Darwin's points have been falsified? There are four of them. Tell me what you think with your evidence.
Wait, do you mean to tell me that mutation is not an essential part of evolution?
Since evolution can proceed without it (although it usually involves mutation) right. It's not evolution; it's an agency of evolution, but not the only one. Fixation, for example, is evolution, and no mutation is necessary. Recombination is evolution, and no mutation is necessary. Hybridization is evolution and no mutation is necessary. Do you remember what the scientific definition of biological evolution is?
Since evolution is directly observed to happen.
You have not shown this to be true.
Sorry, that's wrong. You've forgotten again what biological evolution is. It's a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. Most creationist organizations have now admitted that is a fact. Some of them even admit the fact of new species and genera or even families evolveing from other organisms. They just don't want to call it evolution. But as you see, that's what it is.

You already know that's wrong. Remember when I showed you that the four points of the Darwinian theory remain as solidly demonstrated as ever? But Darwin's theory has been modified by genetics, which explained how new traits can spread in a population, by punctuated equilibrium, which explains why most speciation is allopatric, and so on.
The 4 four points cannot definitely produce the life that we see on earth because mutations are not part of the 4 points.


They are just facts. Darwin pointed them out before we know about mutations or recombination, or those other things. But that's what evolution is: "descent with modification" as Darwin put it.
The time it takes for mutations to happen has been shown to not be possible.
Hall's bacteria showed that your assumption is wrong.

Neither. You're confusing evolution with agencies of evolution. It's just a change in allele frequencies. Genetic drift can explain how this happens when there is little or no selective pressure. Natural selection explains things like the evolution of that new enzyme system in bacteria.
Not according to the Researcher that did the research. (quote above)
Too bad for him, then. Dr. Hall closely monitored the mutations and phenotypes that evolved thereby. Reality beats anyone's opinions.
In evolutionary biology, it’s generally thought that mutations are “random” in two respects:

Mutations occur with equal likelihood across the entire genome.
No, that's wrong. Molecular biologists point out that not all sites are equally like to be mutated and not be repaired. Remember when I showed you the research.

As I already showed you, this is incorrect. Like many creationists, you misunderstood what Luria and Delbruck meant by "random." It means that favorable mutations arrive randomly, and not in response to need. If you learn nothing else about mutations, learn this.

Mutations occur without regard to the needs of the organisms, meaning they are random and not directed for or against what the organisms needs to survive.
"Groundbreaking study uncovers first evidence of long-term directionality in the origination of human mutation, fundamentally challenging Neo-Darwinism https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/941828 "
You forgot to tell the bacteria. Because no one told them it was impossible, they just went ahead and did it.
No they did not.
No point in denying the fact. A new enzyme system with a regulator.
They were a laboratory experiment.
No, they were living organisms.
  • The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve[/quote]

    No. No one planned any of those mutations, which were unlike any other before. They evolved from different molecules and then a regulator evolved which no one anticipated. No point in denying the fact.
    It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real world outside the laboratory.
    Sort of like those nylon-utilizing bacteria don't have any relationship to the real world outside the waste pond in which they evolved. Remember, mutations are beneficial only with regard to specfic environments.
    If it is assumed that the selection is strictly for lactose utilization, then a growth advantage exists only when all three mutations are present simultaneously. Any one of the mutations alone could well be neutral (it is unlikely that any would be disadvantageous); but neutral mutations do enter populations by random chance events, and are fixed by a chance process termed genetic drift
    No, that's wrong. For example the newly-evolved enzyme worked fine before the regulator evolved. And a series of mutations made the enzyme more and more efficient over time. The system was only irreducibly complex after the regulator evolved. What Gould referred to as "scaffolding."

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #338

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #332]
And they discuss decoherence as an explanation for why macroscopic objects don't exhibit the same quantum mechanical bahavior as the very tiny. But in any case, the definition of "reality" for most people consists of the things they see around them and interact with every day, and these things most certainly exist when we're "not looking" (which itself needs to be defined). I know for certain that the cactus in my front yard exists when I'm asleep, as well as my car and my dog, etc. Applying quantum mechanical superposition and wave function collapse interpretations to things like trees just doesn't make sense, and I don't think physicists are claiming otherwise.
But does not seem like decoherence is a solution to the measurement problem.

One often hears the claim that decoherence solves the measurement problem of quantum mechanics (see the entry on philosophical issues in quantum theory). Physicists who work on decoherence generally know better, but it is important to see why even in the presence of decoherence phenomena, the measurement problem remains or in fact gets even worse. (from part 2. Decoherence and the measurement problem https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/ )

This is actually one the main reasons why materialists have such crazy theories like we are holograms inside a black hole, we are in a simulation game, multiverse because all possibilities in the quantum wave function do happen. So yes theoretical physicists do think about these things. Chemists, engineers, and other technology-driven fields do not have to interact with quantum mechanics in this manner. They can simply "Shut up and calculate" to put it in Richard Feynman terms. But those theoretical physicists and cosmologists who are dealing with the beginnings of the universe do have to account for this quantum mystery.

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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #339

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #339]
So yes theoretical physicists do think about these things.
Sure, but their efforts are mainly towards unsolved problems so they are free to initiate and investigate all kinds of hypotheses regarding these open problems. Multiverses, string theory, etc. are things that fall out from various ideas or mathematical exercises, but it is observation and experiment that ultimately weeds out the good ideas from the bad (or wrong) ones. Observation says that macroscopic objects like trees do not behave the same way as microscopic objects like atoms and subatomic particles and fields (or rather, their quantum mechanical aspects are so many orders of magnitude below their macroscopic aspects that the quantum effects are entirely negligible for the general characteristics and behavior of trees).

Origin of the universe ideas are still hypotheses and people are trying to figure it out. We may never get there, but a creator god hypothesis has yet to be shown any more valid than the various scientific hypotheses. Yet many creationists default to the creator god explanation simply because the various scientific explanations have yet to converge on a solutiion, despite the god hypothesis also (so far) failing to be shown correct (ie. no gods, of the thousands humans have invented, have ever been demonstrated to exist).
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Re: How is there reality without God?

Post #340

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #0]
For example, tens of thousands of years ago, northern Europeans had dark skins. Light skins became fixed rather rapidly. But it's not hard to figure out why natural selection made that happen.
The observation that researchers made was the following. And you will learn how this is again evidence of the dispersion at the tower of Babel
But in the far north—where low light levels would favor pale skin—the team found a different picture in hunter-gatherers: Seven people from the 7700-year-old Motala archaeological site in southern Sweden had both light skin gene variants, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. They also had a third gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes and may also contribute to light skin and blond hair. Thus ancient hunter-gatherers of the far north were already pale and blue-eyed, but those of central and southern Europe had darker skin.


Relatively recently. But before that, native Europeans had dark skins, even in Northern Europe:
The first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... is-reveals
Again there is nothing rapid about 10,000 years according to Haldane's theory. It is right in line with Haldane's theory if you count the mutation as 2 mutations it is way slower than Haldane's theory if you are talking about one mutation.

Yea, well about the dark-skinned Briton; are you tired of being continually wrong yet?
Ancient 'dark-skinned' Briton Cheddar Man find may not be true

A Briton who lived 10,000 years ago had dark brown skin and blue eyes. At least, that’s what dozens of news stories published this month – including our own – stated as fact. But one of the geneticists who performed the research says the conclusion is less certain, and according to others, we are not even close to knowing the skin color of any ancient human. https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... t-be-true/
The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment.
Nope. In fact, none of the actual mutations were predicted. Only the evolution of a new system was predicted. And Hall was completely surprised by the evolution of a regulator that was not predicted at all. But it was adaptive since the metabolic cost of the enzyme would only be incurred if there was a substrate there to be utilized.
Dude just stop and admit defeat. The above is a direct quote from his 1984 paper!! found here (https://academic.oup.com/genetics/artic ... ogin=false) page 343 last paragraph (so you can find it)
It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real world outside the laboratory.
Wrong again. For example, the "nylon bug" evolved the same way...
Again, the above is a direct quote from his 1984 paper!!! Same spot as above
No, that's wrong, too. For example, when Dr. Wise wrote his paper, there were some issues about the evolution of baleen whales from toothed whales. But recently...
Prehistoric Whale Jaw Bone Sheds Light on the Evolution of Baleen
Hidden in a museums’ collections for years, a fossil provides a link between past and present feeding mechanisms
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180970917/

Another fossil shows that suction feeding evolved before baleen. Baleen is not required; it merely makes the process more efficient.
https://phys.org/news/2016-11-evolution ... hales.html
Why do you keep bringing Dr. Wise up? He does not believe in whale evolution. Not that I really care because this line of argumentation has no bearing on my original argument of Haldane's dilemma. Which you have only strengthened with many of the articles that you have cited. So thank you.

But go ahead and knock yourself out with this other line of argumentation. I am simply responding for my amusement.
That's a testable belief. We can,for example consider how many times phylogenetics predicted transitional forms later found to exist. In my lifetime in science those include fish to tetrapods, anapsids to turtles, stem amphibians to frogs, forest apes to humans, wasps to ants, cockroaches to termites, dinosaurs to birds, ... very long list. So it's been a very productive and efficient process. All those predicted forms eventually confirmed phylogenetics.
Not in the case of whales. Wrong AGAIN!!
“While the monophyly of cetaceans is widely accepted, the origin of and evolutionary relationships among the major groups of cetaceans is more problematic since morphological and molecular analyses reach very different conclusions. Indeed, based on the conventional interpretation of the morphological and behavioral data set, the echolocating toothed whales (about 67 species) and the filter-feeding baleen whales (10 species) are considered as two distinct monophyletic groups . . . On the other hand, phylogenetic analysis of DNA . . . and amino acid . . . sequences contradict this long-accepted taxonomic division. Michel C. Milinkovitch, “Molecular phylogeny of cetaceans prompts revision of morphological transformations” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 10, no. 6 (1995): 328–334,
Nope. As you learned, O alleles are not fixed in any population.
No, I did not learn that, and if you did learn that we are off the reservation.
Since evolution can proceed without it (although it usually involves mutation) right. It's not evolution; it's an agency of evolution, but not the only one. Fixation, for example, is evolution, and no mutation is necessary. Recombination is evolution, and no mutation is necessary. Hybridization is evolution and no mutation is necessary. Do you remember what the scientific definition of biological evolution is?
NO, it cannot. Speciation cannot happen without mutation.
Some authors emphasized the importance of natural selection to speed up speciation, but the mutation is crucial in speciation because reproductive barriers cannot be generated without mutations.https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/do ... 028/580171
Sorry, that's wrong. You've forgotten again what biological evolution is. It's a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. Most creationist organizations have now admitted that is a fact. Some of them even admit the fact of new species and genera or even families evolving from other organisms. They just don't want to call it evolution. But as you see, that's what it is.

You already know that's wrong. Remember when I showed you that the four points of the Darwinian theory remain as solidly demonstrated as ever? But Darwin's theory has been modified by genetics, which explained how new traits can spread in a population, by punctuated equilibrium, which explains why most speciation is allopatric, and so on.
And that brings us back to Haldane's Dilemma which proves that evolution cannot happen. Along with the difference large difference between morphological and DNA sequences in family trees.
  • In 1965 one of the most important scientists of the last century, Linus Pauling, and biologist Emil Zuckerkandl, considered by some as the father of molecular biology, suggested a way that macroevolution could be tested and proved: If the comparison of anatomical and DNA sequences led to the same family tree of organisms, this would be strong evidence for macroevolution. (Emil Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling, “Evolutionary Divergence and Convergence in Proteins,” in Evolving Genes and Proteins: A Symposium, ed. Vernon Bryson and Henry J. Vogel (Academic Press, 1965), 101.) According to them, only evolution would explain the convergence of these two independent chains of evidence. By implication, the opposite finding would count against macroevolution.

    So what were the results? Over the past twenty-eight years, experimental evidence has revealed that family trees based on anatomical features contradict family trees based on molecular similarities, and at many points. They do not converge. Just as troubling for the idea of macroevolution, family trees based on different molecules yield conflicting and contradictory family trees. As a 2012 paper published in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society reported, “Incongruence between phylogenies derived from morphological versus molecular analyses, and between trees based on different subsets of molecular sequences has become pervasive as datasets have expanded rapidly in both characters and species”. (Liliana Dávalos et. al, “Understanding Phylogenetic Incongruence: Lessons from Phyllostomid Bats,” Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 87 (2012), 991–1024, doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2012.00240.x.)

    Another paper, published the following year in the journal Nature, highlighted the extent of the problem. (Leonidas Salichos and Antonis Rokas, “Inferring Ancient Divergences Require Genes with Strong Phylogenetic Signals,” Nature 497 (May 16, 2013), 327–331.) The authors compared 1,070 genes in twenty different yeasts and got 1,070 different trees. (Matti Leisola and Jonathan Witt, Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design (Discovery Institute Press, 2018), 84.)
They are just facts. Darwin pointed them out before we know about mutations or recombination, or those other things. But that's what evolution is: "descent with modification" as Darwin put it.
Not without mutation it isn't

Not according to the Researcher that did the research. (quote above)
Too bad for him, then. Dr. Hall closely monitored the mutations and phenotypes that evolved thereby. Reality beats anyone's opinions.


I agree that Reality beats anyone's opinions. The researcher above was Dr. Hall.


Do you want to read it again?
  • The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are
    appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment. It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real
    world outside the laboratory.
Yea it hurts when reality smacks you in the face.
As I already showed you, this is incorrect. Like many creationists, you misunderstood what Luria and Delbruck meant by "random." It means that favorable mutations arrive randomly, and not in response to need. If you learn nothing else about mutations, learn this.

Mutations occur without regard to the needs of the organisms, meaning they are random and not directed for or against what the organisms needs to survive.
Wrong AGAIN!!! Are you ever going to get tired of being incorrect?
  • “Mutations defy traditional thinking. The results suggest that complex information that is accumulated in the genome through the generations impacts mutation, and therefore mutation-specific origination rates can respond in the long-term to specific environmental pressures,” said Prof. Livnat. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/941828
You forgot to tell the bacteria. Because no one told them it was impossible, they just went ahead and did it.
No, I don't think so. You might want to actually read the paper you are trying to quote.
  • The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are
    appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment. It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real
    world outside the laboratory.
The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve
No. No one planned any of those mutations, which were unlike any other before. They evolved from different molecules and then a regulator evolved which no one anticipated. No point in denying the fact.[/quote]

Wrong, Wrong Wrong do you want to read Dr. Hall again
  • The mutations described above have been deliberately selected in the laboratory as a model for the way biochemical pathways might evolve so that they are
    appropriately organized with respect to both the cell and its environment. It is reasonable to ask whether this model might have any relationship to the real
    world outside the laboratory.
If it is assumed that the selection is strictly for lactose utilization, then a growth advantage exists only when all three mutations are present simultaneously. Any one of the mutations alone could well be neutral (it is unlikely that any would be disadvantageous); but neutral mutations do enter populations by random chance events, and are fixed by a chance process termed genetic drift

No, that's wrong. For example the newly-evolved enzyme worked fine before the regulator evolved. And a series of mutations made the enzyme more and more efficient over time. The system was only irreducibly complex after the regulator evolved. What Gould referred to as "scaffolding."
Do you want to read Dr. Hall again?
  • If it is assumed that the selection is strictly for lactose utilization, then a growth advantage exists only when all three mutations are present simultaneously. Any one of the mutations alone could well be
    neutral (it is unlikely that any would be disadvantageous); but neutral mutations do enter populations by random chance events, and are fixed by a chance process termed genetic drift.
Reality does beat anyone's opinions that much is true.

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