The Utility of Evolutionary Theory Revisited
mwnow...@yahoo.com
(http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/d2d1266c5e6bd5c4/8498b305d3b02839?q=Utility&rnum=6#8498b305d3b02839)
that scientists isolated a novel appetite suppressing hormone obestatin
by comparing the evolutionary relatedness of a specific class of
receptors (GPCRs)
(http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/november16/obe-111605.html).
The immediate criticism was that the scientists could have just chosen
the related "sister" genes based on their similarity with invoking
the Theory of Evolution or Darwin. My question is, without the Theory
of Evolution and the concept of common descent, why and on what basis
would the "non-evolutionist" have chosen which genes to compare?
Let us assume for the moment that the Theory of Evolution (as we
understand it today) is not known or taught and that the
creationist's theory that God created all "kinds" (i.e. all
living creatures) at one time as we see them today is the only concept
taught to students from grade school through Ph.D.. With this
foundation, the approach the scientists' took in discovering the new
appetite suppressing hormone and its receptor would not have been used.
If one is taught that God created everything uniquely, especially Man
as a special creation, then you would not even think to compare the
genes of mankind with that of other organisms. I can even envision the
ridicule if, in the non-evolution world, one would even suggest such a
heresy: Man does not look like a FILL IN ORGANISM OF CHOICE so why do
you think Man's genes would look or function similar to that of
ORGANISM OF CHOICE? (Note: This statement is not as absurd as it might
sound. I once a heard a Christian preacher make the statement
"Scientists state that our DNA is >90% similar to that of a
chimpanzee so they conclude that we are related to monkeys. Well, man
and watermelons are composed of mostly water but do we look like
watermelons?" The crowd applauded. I fell off the couch in
disbelief.)
So, in the absence of Evolutionary Theory, on what basis would a
scientist compare a given human protein sequence to that of other
organisms in an attempt to gain insight into the protein's
function(s)? Some might state that I set up a strawman argument in the
above paragraph (a world in which creationism is only taught). Of
course, in such a world scientists could still compare genes/proteins
of Man with other organisms. A belief in biblical creation does not
prevent this from occurring. But my question still remains: What would
be the motivating reason for the comparison? Further, by doing such
comparisons (and after the 1000th comparison) isn't it possible that
one might lead to the conclusion that we are related to other organisms
(i.e. Man is not a unique creation) which would be heresy (and
therefore the science might be banned). This is leading in the
direction of the anti-intellectual nature of a sole belief in biblical
creationism (a topic for another time).
MWN
SChesher
motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
planet. Then I would look to any other organism that may have features
with similar function for comparison. In a similarly manner, when
programming a new piece of computer code or designing an electronic
circuit, I often look to similar types of projects from a wide range of
areas to get ideas on how I should proceed or solve problems. This is
common in the engineering world.
In the lab where I work there are many test rigs that I have designed.
They have some common and some unique hardware components. They use
common software libraries and also contain unique algorithms. If the
assumption was that all the rigs were descendants of a common rig
ancestor, you may overlook a particular rig as a candidate for
comparison into how to handle large arrays of data. Your initial
assumptions about rig heredity would also be wrong.
Consider this, if we where to line up a variety of industrial machines
in an appropriate order, like is done with organisms in the "tree of
life", we would not have a "tree of machines". It could be argued by
someone who didn't know any better that they form a smooth unbroken
evolutionary chain of machines, but they do not. You would not say that
to consider these machines as having a common creator, mankind, to be
anti-intellectual.
I think a similar situation exists in the "science world". The "tree
of life" has been patched together by scientists from branches of
biblical kinds that are made to connect to a common root. What really
exists is a "forest of life" made from trees of biblical kinds.
A more modern creation model has a biblical kind that is a robust
collection of genetic code that has the ability to adapt to
environmental pressures but is expressed within specific boundaries.
For example, canine DNA was originally coded with the ability to
respond to environmental pressures accounted for right upfront. Man
bred all modern dogs from an original stock, but it will always be a
dog. Likewise, when I write a software package, I take into account the
various environments that it could possibly be subject to. Upon
installation you can choose or reject certain components to get the
required functionality. Since I have never included a spell check
feature, you will never be able to choose it no matter how many times
you copy the disks. Just like in nature, we see variation in the micro
and gaps in the macro.
If the dog required a certain functional protein to perform a task in
its body, one should find a similar gene in any animal that required
the same protein. Common genes are required and not blasphemy. The
uniqueness that Man has over the animals is in his relationship with
the Creator.
Overall I think that if creationism was featured in education rather
than evolution, the field work and the bench work done in the lab would
look remarkably similar. You would see differences in the abstracts and
conclusions of scientific papers. You would see even bigger differences
in the talk in the lunchroom.
I do not share your view that creationism is a hindrance to scientific
achievement. I think it encourages the study design in biological
systems far more than the belief that they are a result of mere
happenstance.
Shawn
John Harshman
> As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
> motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
> organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
> planet.
Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
> Then I would look to any other organism that may have features
> with similar function for comparison. In a similarly manner, when
> programming a new piece of computer code or designing an electronic
> circuit, I often look to similar types of projects from a wide range of
> areas to get ideas on how I should proceed or solve problems. This is
> common in the engineering world.
>
> In the lab where I work there are many test rigs that I have designed.
> They have some common and some unique hardware components. They use
> common software libraries and also contain unique algorithms. If the
> assumption was that all the rigs were descendants of a common rig
> ancestor, you may overlook a particular rig as a candidate for
> comparison into how to handle large arrays of data. Your initial
> assumptions about rig heredity would also be wrong.
That's true. But it turns out that living species actually do have
common ancestors. This is not an assumption. It's a conclusion based on
the evidence. Your test rigs have no common ancestor, and they don't
display the evidence of common ancestry, i.e. a pattern of nested
hierarchy that's consistent across features.
> Consider this, if we where to line up a variety of industrial machines
> in an appropriate order, like is done with organisms in the "tree of
> life", we would not have a "tree of machines".
No, you wouldn't. You could make up such a tree, but it would be
arbitrary. Someone else could make up a quite different tree of the same
machines, and you would have no way to say "mine's better".
> It could be argued by
> someone who didn't know any better that they form a smooth unbroken
> evolutionary chain of machines, but they do not. You would not say that
> to consider these machines as having a common creator, mankind, to be
> anti-intellectual.
That's because the evidence, in that case, doesn't point to a tree of
descent.
> I think a similar situation exists in the "science world". The "tree
> of life" has been patched together by scientists from branches of
> biblical kinds that are made to connect to a common root. What really
> exists is a "forest of life" made from trees of biblical kinds.
Not in my experience. If you could specify what the biblical kinds are,
and where there limits are, we could explore the matter. But when I
look, I see no obvious discontinuities that tell me that this group of
species is related, but that other group isn't. They all look related in
about the same ways.
> A more modern creation model has a biblical kind that is a robust
> collection of genetic code that has the ability to adapt to
> environmental pressures but is expressed within specific boundaries.
What causes the boundaries? There seems to be no genetic mechanism.
> For example, canine DNA was originally coded with the ability to
> respond to environmental pressures accounted for right upfront. Man
> bred all modern dogs from an original stock, but it will always be a
> dog.
Are dogs related to foxes? Are dogs and foxes related to bears? Are
dogs, bears, and foxes related to weasels? I would say they are, on the
basis of the same kind of evidence that shows all dogs to be related.
And I could go on like that for a considerble time, until dogs were
related to you, to lobsters, to petunias, and so on. Where should I have
stopped? And why?
> Likewise, when I write a software package, I take into account the
> various environments that it could possibly be subject to. Upon
> installation you can choose or reject certain components to get the
> required functionality. Since I have never included a spell check
> feature, you will never be able to choose it no matter how many times
> you copy the disks. Just like in nature, we see variation in the micro
> and gaps in the macro.
Wrong. We see gaps (though many of them are filled if we count extinct
species), but this is easily explained by the nature of diversification
and extinction. It's that nested hierarchy that you need to explain.
> If the dog required a certain functional protein to perform a task in
> its body, one should find a similar gene in any animal that required
> the same protein.
That's a useless prediction. If it really was required, any animal that
lacked it would be dead. If substitutes were possible, you would
consider them different functions. You should consider, instead, the
genetic relationships among similar proteins in different species. Once
again, we see a nested hierarchy. But this one has no functional
explanation, since (in most cases) the variant proteins perform exactly
the same function.
> Common genes are required and not blasphemy. The
> uniqueness that Man has over the animals is in his relationship with
> the Creator.
What blasphemy? You think that if you are related to a dog, that
diminishes your uniqueness? Why?
> Overall I think that if creationism was featured in education rather
> than evolution, the field work and the bench work done in the lab would
> look remarkably similar. You would see differences in the abstracts and
> conclusions of scientific papers. You would see even bigger differences
> in the talk in the lunchroom.
I'm afraid that's nonsense. Creationism provides no framework at all for
understanding variation among species. It's the way it is because that's
how god created it. Nowhere to go from there.
> I do not share your view that creationism is a hindrance to scientific
> achievement. I think it encourages the study design in biological
> systems far more than the belief that they are a result of mere
> happenstance.
That's because you know very little about biology, I'm afraid, as
suggested by your strawman notion of "mere happenstance" in the last
sentence.
Deadrat
"John Harshman" <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:DT6jf.20345$BZ5....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> SChesher wrote:
>
> > As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
> > motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
> > organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
> > planet.
>
> Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
> hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
> then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
>
This is almost as good as those nature documentaries on PBS. You
know the ones, where the gazelle comes to the river to drink, and
the solemn-voiced narrator says, "The quiet surfaces of the water draws
the gazelle, which seems oblivious that her splashing will alert the
attention of the crocodile ... A snap of terrible jaws, a brief struggle,
and surface is quiet once again."
I can almost hear it:
The newsgroup draws the hapless creationist to display his ignorance
of the nested hierarchies of life. He seems oblivious that his clueless post
will draw the attention of John Harshman ... a mental snap of expertise,
a brief struggle against cogent argument, and the thread is quiet once again.
Deadrat
mwnow...@yahoo.com
John Harshman replied better than I would have to your rebuttal of my
post on the concept of nested hierchy.
I would still like you to address the following because I am trying to
understand how the Creationist mind works.
You believe that Creationism is not a hindrance to scientific
achievement. Near the end of my post I was trying to adress the issue
of how a Creationist would handle a situation where the scientific
evidence refutes their literal interpretation of the Bible. Let's
assume that a Creationist makes a sound scientific observation (after
ruling out all possible confounds and artifacts) supporting the Theory
of Evolution and that directly contradicts a literal interpretation of
the Bible. Further, what if independent experiments are performed that
confirm the original scientific finding? What would the Creationist do
with the data? Would they "reinterpret" the data such that it conforms
with their religious beliefs? Should they destroy the data so that it
can not be used to refute their religious beliefs?
While maybe not a perfect analogy, if we look back at the beginning of
man, acts of nature were attributed to Gods and Goddesses. If it
thundered the Gods were angry and hurled "fire from the sky"
(lightning). However, over time we learned the science that explains
thunder and lightning and no longer attribute these phenomena to Gods.
Now, should the people of this time have said that the science is
"wrong" and that thunder/lightning were still caused by angry Gods (who
will punish us for our insolence)?
In my opinion, Creationists have the same mentality towards modern
science as it pertains to a literal interpretation of the Bible as as
ancient man had towards thunder/lightning. Creationists do not want to
except the scientific evidence in Biology, Geology, Physics, Astronomy,
etc. because it directly refutes a literal interpretation of the Bible.
This why I made the statement that Creationism is a hindrance to
scientific discovery. The Creationist scientist is either forced to
ignore sound data or reinterpret the data using a vast amount of
"mental gymnastics" and changing the Laws of Chemistry and Physics (we
have seem numerous examples of this in Talk.Origins). Sometimes I get
the impression that Creationists will insist that "2+2 must equal 5" if
that is the only way to preserve a literal interpretation of the Bible.
MWN
John Harshman
A very gratifying description, and yet it doesn't seem to capture what
actually happens. The gazelle in question merely raises his impenetrable
teflon shield of cluelessness, and the crocodile's teeth slide
harmlessly off it. You know he's been eaten, I know he's been eaten, but
the gazelle keeps on blithely posting.
Ernest Major
Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> writes
>
>A very gratifying description, and yet it doesn't seem to capture what
>actually happens. The gazelle in question merely raises his
>impenetrable teflon shield of cluelessness, and the crocodile's teeth
>slide harmlessly off it. You know he's been eaten, I know he's been
>eaten, but the gazelle keeps on blithely posting.
>
--
alias Ernest Major
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.8/183 - Release Date: 25/11/2005
John Harshman
> In message <pokjf.26067$q%.9704@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>, John
> Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> writes
>
>>A very gratifying description, and yet it doesn't seem to capture what
>>actually happens. The gazelle in question merely raises his
>>impenetrable teflon shield of cluelessness, and the crocodile's teeth
>>slide harmlessly off it. You know he's been eaten, I know he's been
>>eaten, but the gazelle keeps on blithely posting.
>>
>
> You'll have to evolve a teflonase-containing venom.
That's the trick. If anyone knows how to do it, let me know. Forcing
clues into those with a vested interest in cluelessness is a challenge.
wade
John Harshman wrote:
> SChesher wrote:
> > As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
> > motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
> > organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
> > planet.
> Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
> hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
> then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
I'll play. The nested hierarchy is an observation. With or without a
theory to account for the observation, the observations remain.
If you have a function you want to explore in humans, you can
explore the anologous function in a model organism you can
sacrifice. The choice of model organism can be dictated by
extrapolation of observation. Back before PCR, when people
probed for clones with their gene, we had rules for the use
of long degenerate probes that would have a reasonable Tm
even with mismatches (and judicious use of Inosine).
That an understanding of evolution is not required to do the
experiments has been proven many many times by a
host of molecular biologists.
r norman
>
>That an understanding of evolution is not required to do the
>experiments has been proven many many times by a
>host of molecular biologists.
Are you subtly suggesting that most molecular biologists do not have a
good understanding of evolution? You probably are right.
John Harshman
> John Harshman wrote:
>
>>SChesher wrote:
>
>
>>>As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
>>>motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
>>>organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
>>>planet.
>
>>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
>>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
>>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
>
> I'll play. The nested hierarchy is an observation. With or without a
> theory to account for the observation, the observations remain.
We can argue about what "observation" means, but I take your point. A
creationist is free to know about, and use, the nested hierarchy. He
just isn't free to think about why it exists. But it *is* useful to try
to get him to think about that. If you can get creationists to look at
the inconsistency of their beliefs about science, they have two
recourses: reject science altogether or reject creationism.
> If you have a function you want to explore in humans, you can
> explore the anologous function in a model organism you can
> sacrifice. The choice of model organism can be dictated by
> extrapolation of observation. Back before PCR, when people
> probed for clones with their gene, we had rules for the use
> of long degenerate probes that would have a reasonable Tm
> even with mismatches (and judicious use of Inosine).
Depending on the organism, that approach can have problems. The farther
you get from close relatives (relatives?), the more likely that whatever
you are looking at works differently in the model organism than in you.
But of course you can know that without thinking about why it's true.
> That an understanding of evolution is not required to do the
> experiments has been proven many many times by a
> host of molecular biologists.
Of course. And a lot of it doesn't require thinking about evolution at
all, if you're just looking at function or physiology, if you never ask
how it got to be that way, and if you never compare two or more species.
wade
Are you familiar with the phrase "PhD by Promega".
We hereby grant a degree to Kit Dumas, for successfully
following directions and, when necessary, calling the 1-800 helpline.
wade
John Harshman wrote:
> wade wrote:
> > John Harshman wrote:
> >>SChesher wrote:
> >>>As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
> >>>motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
> >>>organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
> >>>planet.
> >>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
> >>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
> >>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
> > I'll play. The nested hierarchy is an observation. With or without a
> > theory to account for the observation, the observations remain.
>
> We can argue about what "observation" means,
no we can't.
> but I take your point. A
> creationist is free to know about, and use, the nested hierarchy. He
> just isn't free to think about why it exists.
Oh, depending on the brand of creationism they may well be allowed
to think about it. It's just that some conclusions seem to be verboten.
> But it *is* useful to try
> to get him to think about that. If you can get creationists to look at
> the inconsistency of their beliefs about science, they have two
> recourses: reject science altogether or reject creationism.
> > If you have a function you want to explore in humans, you can
> > explore the anologous function in a model organism you can
> > sacrifice. The choice of model organism can be dictated by
> > extrapolation of observation. Back before PCR, when people
> > probed for clones with their gene, we had rules for the use
> > of long degenerate probes that would have a reasonable Tm
> > even with mismatches (and judicious use of Inosine).
> Depending on the organism, that approach can have problems. The farther
> you get from close relatives (relatives?), the more likely that whatever
> you are looking at works differently in the model organism than in you.
> But of course you can know that without thinking about why it's true.
Then again, I greatly favor a reasonable percentage of ill considered
experiments --- as long as you actually follow up on them. Well
considered experiments tend to confirm what we already know while
stupid experiments can often suprise us, especially nice is when
things that weren't supposed to work actually work. But you try to
get 'em to put in a negative control and half the time they just ask
you what a negative control is.
John Harshman
> John Harshman wrote:
>
>>wade wrote:
>>
>>>John Harshman wrote:
>>>
>>>>SChesher wrote:
>
>
>
>>>>>As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
>>>>>motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
>>>>>organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
>>>>>planet.
>
>
>>>>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
>>>>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
>>>>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
>
>
>>>I'll play. The nested hierarchy is an observation. With or without a
>>>theory to account for the observation, the observations remain.
>>
>>We can argue about what "observation" means,
>
> no we can't.
Suits me.
>>but I take your point. A
>>creationist is free to know about, and use, the nested hierarchy. He
>>just isn't free to think about why it exists.
>
> Oh, depending on the brand of creationism they may well be allowed
> to think about it. It's just that some conclusions seem to be verboten.
I see no evidence that any creationist is allowed to think about reasons
for a nested hierarchy beyond the most superficial level of "goddidit".
Look at Pitman -- he has a few mutually contradictory stock answers, but
that's it. And he's one of the best of them.
>>But it *is* useful to try
>>to get him to think about that. If you can get creationists to look at
>>the inconsistency of their beliefs about science, they have two
>>recourses: reject science altogether or reject creationism.
>
>>>If you have a function you want to explore in humans, you can
>>>explore the anologous function in a model organism you can
>>>sacrifice. The choice of model organism can be dictated by
>>>extrapolation of observation. Back before PCR, when people
>>>probed for clones with their gene, we had rules for the use
>>>of long degenerate probes that would have a reasonable Tm
>>>even with mismatches (and judicious use of Inosine).
>
>>Depending on the organism, that approach can have problems. The farther
>>you get from close relatives (relatives?), the more likely that whatever
>>you are looking at works differently in the model organism than in you.
>>But of course you can know that without thinking about why it's true.
>
> Then again, I greatly favor a reasonable percentage of ill considered
> experiments --- as long as you actually follow up on them. Well
> considered experiments tend to confirm what we already know while
> stupid experiments can often suprise us, especially nice is when
> things that weren't supposed to work actually work. But you try to
> get 'em to put in a negative control and half the time they just ask
> you what a negative control is.
Never liked negative controls myself. They can only tell you things you
don't want to know. Well, things you don't want to be true. Mind you,
when I have negative controls, the only thing they can tell you is that
your reagents are contaminated. Never anything unexpectedly interesting.
SChesher
>...
>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
I don't see why a hierarchy, spectrum of life forms, filled niches,
or a robust, vibrant biosphere should be a problem for a creationist.
If you can imagine that random copy errors are the primary source of
the complexity and diversity of life that is on this planet, why should
I have a problem with an intelligent creator designing it? What part of
the hierarchy in particular do you feel that intelligence is not
rationally able to explain?
>...
>Not in my experience. If you could specify what the biblical kinds are,
>and where there limits are, we could explore the matter. But when I
>look, I see no obvious discontinuities that tell me that this group of
>species is related, but that other group isn't. They all look related in
>about the same ways.
>...
> Wrong. We see gaps (though many of them...
???
Begin to look for the biblical kind at the genus level.
I think the following accurately depicts the fossil record from an
evolutionary viewpoint:
Kingdom
Division
Subdivision
Class
Order <-- No convincing connections below this level
Family <-- Possible in some cases
Genus <-- Many connections but not all
Species
No truly honest person can claim that there is even a single collection
of fossils that display any connection from the class down to the
kingdom.
>...
>And I could go on like that for a considerable time, until dogs were
>related to you, to lobsters, to petunias, and so on.
This is indeed a bold overstatement of the truth. If you were able to
do such a thing, you would be featured in all the evolutionary text
books.
Realize that the fossil record as well as life in general exists at the
species level. The classification system is used to group the species
together. It can be useful in grouping organisms for study or
comparison. It is also used by evolutionist to infer common decent of
all life forms back to a common ancestor somewhere below the kingdom
level. Nevertheless, there is no line of fossils that can directly
connect species that belong to different orders. If Darwinian evolution
was true, direct connections of orders would be clearly evident and
commonplace. It is this lack of connecting fossils that constitute
gaps in the record.
To the creationist the fossil record appears exactly as predicted.
There are no gaps in the fossil record because there are no connections
between orders.
>>...
>> If the dog required a certain functional protein to perform a task in
>> its body, one should find a similar gene in any animal that required
>> the same protein.
>
>That's a useless prediction. If it really was required, any animal that
>lacked it would be dead. ...
Sorry if I wasn't clear. This wasn't a prediction; it was intended
to be a direct statement. For example, the dog and human both have eyes
that transduce light. There will be commonality of structure at the
system level and similar functional proteins and genes at the DNA
level.
>...
>What causes the boundaries? There seems to be no genetic mechanism.
>...
>I'm afraid that's nonsense. Creationism provides no framework at all for
>understanding variation among species. It's the way it is because that's
>how god created it. Nowhere to go from there.
Let me briefly outline some elements of one proposal of a framework of
creationism.
1. DNA is a biological structure that is capable of coding, storing and
transmitting information. Like every other system that codifies data
that mankind has ever experienced, DNA is the result of intelligent
forethought. Other such systems include all human languages, music and
computer machine code.
2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
DNA before the creation event.
When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
complex biological, informational systems are never the result of copy
errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive adaptation of
any organism.
Note that these adaptations would be called micro-evolution in the
evolutionary paradigm.
3. The species is able to adapt to various pressures by existing
features adapting. New features at a systems level will not appear.
This means that macro-evolution does not happen. This also means that
adaptation has boundaries. These boundaries are simply the realization
that a horse for example will never sprout wings and fly. This should
be intuitive and obvious to anyone.
4. The earth has experienced catastrophic geological and environmental
events that intensify genomic pressures. The Cambrian explosion and
punctuated equilibrium are possible examples to be further explored.
I really don't see why creationism needs to be such a scary prospect
to the evolutionist. Replace the vague mechanism of mutations with a
purposeful designer and limit changes in organisms to the changes that
are actually observed in the fossil record and carry on with things.
You'll have to let go of your 1860's perspective on both Darwin and
the scriptures. You'll be surprised at what the scriptures actually
say as opposed to what other people say that they say.
Shawn
explainer
John Harshman wrote:
> I see no evidence that any creationist is allowed to think about reasons
> for a nested hierarchy beyond the most superficial level of "goddidit".
> Look at Pitman -- he has a few mutually contradictory stock answers, but
> that's it. And he's one of the best of them.
Wait a minute. Are you saying creationists can't evolve? Does this
falsify ToE? If so keep it to yourself or the creationists win and
this group is doomed.
All the best in "_ _ _" (I'm taking no chances)
AC
John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
> wade wrote:
>
>> John Harshman wrote:
>>
>>>SChesher wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
>>>>motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
>>>>organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
>>>>planet.
>>
>>>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
>>>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
>>>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
>>
>> I'll play. The nested hierarchy is an observation. With or without a
>> theory to account for the observation, the observations remain.
>
> We can argue about what "observation" means, but I take your point. A
> creationist is free to know about, and use, the nested hierarchy. He
> just isn't free to think about why it exists. But it *is* useful to try
> to get him to think about that. If you can get creationists to look at
> the inconsistency of their beliefs about science, they have two
> recourses: reject science altogether or reject creationism.
There are two possible explanations that come to mind. One is that the
poster is using some non-standard definition of "Creationist" to describe
himself (I've had the odd theistic evolutionist call themselves a
Creationist). The other is a pretty severe case of cognitive dissonance ala
"life does change over time, but evolution is false".
<snip>
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
John Harshman
>>John Harshman wrote:
>>...
>>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
>>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
>>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
>
> I don't see why a hierarchy, spectrum of life forms, filled niches,
> or a robust, vibrant biosphere should be a problem for a creationist.
Of course you don't. That's because all these are, to you, merely
buzzwords that you haven't thought about at all. If you really tried to
think of a mechanism that would actually account for the appearance of a
nested hierarchy, you would be stuck. Don't believe me? Come up with one.
For the record, here's mine: the hierarchy results from inheritance of
characteristics, with occasional inherited changes, on a branching tree.
The pattern of the hierarchy reproduces the shape of the tree.
> If you can imagine that random copy errors are the primary source of
> the complexity and diversity of life that is on this planet, why should
> I have a problem with an intelligent creator designing it? What part of
> the hierarchy in particular do you feel that intelligence is not
> rationally able to explain?
You're confused about what the hierarchy does and does not tell us. It
tells us nothing about whether the differences among species are random,
intelligently designed, or are the result of natural selection (quite a
different thing from randomness). What it tells us is that whatever the
source of differences, they appeared at various points in a branching
tree of descent. You claim that there is no such tree, and that every
"kind" (whatever that is) was separately created. Under such a
hypothesis, we do not expect to see a nested hierarchy.
>>Not in my experience. If you could specify what the biblical kinds are,
>>and where there limits are, we could explore the matter. But when I
>>look, I see no obvious discontinuities that tell me that this group of
>>species is related, but that other group isn't. They all look related in
>>about the same ways.
>>...
>>Wrong. We see gaps (though many of them...
>
> ???
There are gaps, but they are not arranged in such a way as to imply
separate kinds. Nor do the gaps appear in any consistent pattern, such
that discontinuities always happen at the same level. They are scattered
all over the map.
> Begin to look for the biblical kind at the genus level.
> I think the following accurately depicts the fossil record from an
> evolutionary viewpoint:
>
> Kingdom
> Division
> Subdivision
> Class
> Order <-- No convincing connections below this level
> Family <-- Possible in some cases
> Genus <-- Many connections but not all
> Species
>
> No truly honest person can claim that there is even a single collection
> of fossils that display any connection from the class down to the
> kingdom.
I can. You have had singular lack of success in debunking the
transitional fossils between birds and other reptiles, for example.
At any rate, the main evidence for common descent doesn't come from
fossils, but from extant species, especially DNA sequences.
>>...
>>And I could go on like that for a considerable time, until dogs were
>>related to you, to lobsters, to petunias, and so on.
>
> This is indeed a bold overstatement of the truth. If you were able to
> do such a thing, you would be featured in all the evolutionary text
> books.
Sorry. Other people got there first. I'll admit that much of the best
evidence for much of this (though by no means all) has only been
published in the last few years, and hasn't trickled down to most
textbooks yet. But if you want a quick peek at the state of the art,
check out this book: Cracraft, J., and M. J. Donaghue, eds. 2004.
Assembling the tree of life. Oxford, New York.
> Realize that the fossil record as well as life in general exists at the
> species level. The classification system is used to group the species
> together. It can be useful in grouping organisms for study or
> comparison. It is also used by evolutionist to infer common decent of
> all life forms back to a common ancestor somewhere below the kingdom
> level. Nevertheless, there is no line of fossils that can directly
> connect species that belong to different orders.
That's true only if you require that the line be continuous. That is,
for every list of fossils, you can demand that the gap between any two
of them be filled in, and when it is, you can demand that the two gaps
that creates be filled in. It's Zeno's paradox. And it's not necessary
in order to conclude relationships, even if we're limiting ourselves,
for some reason, to the fossil evidence.
> If Darwinian evolution
> was true, direct connections of orders would be clearly evident and
> commonplace. It is this lack of connecting fossils that constitute
> gaps in the record.
Creationists conveniently assume that the fossil record is perfect
whenever it suits their purposes, and as partial as you like whenever it
doesn't.
> To the creationist the fossil record appears exactly as predicted.
> There are no gaps in the fossil record because there are no connections
> between orders.
Wait a minute. I thought that most kinds were genera. Why is it orders
now? Shouldn't we see no connection between genera, but abundant
connections within genera? Yet the fossil record typically shows that
intermediates are missing between species, though you seem to agree that
species evolve within genera. Strangely (from your point of view), the
fossil record has many more intermediates between orders than it does
between species in a single genus.
>>>...
>>>If the dog required a certain functional protein to perform a task in
>>>its body, one should find a similar gene in any animal that required
>>>the same protein.
>>
>>That's a useless prediction. If it really was required, any animal that
>>lacked it would be dead. ...
>
> Sorry if I wasn't clear. This wasn't a prediction; it was intended
> to be a direct statement. For example, the dog and human both have eyes
> that transduce light. There will be commonality of structure at the
> system level and similar functional proteins and genes at the DNA
> level.
The problem with that is at least twofold. First, the differences at the
DNA or protein level among mammal eyes have nothing to do with their
structures, which are by and large the same. Yet the genes and proteins
that make up cat eyes are much more similar to those of dog eyes than
they are to human eyes, while human eyes are much more similar to
monkeys. And this pattern is repeated identically throughout the genome
and proteome. Why?
Second, eyes are found in many other sorts of organisms than
vertebrates, and they often have certain similarities (as in octopus
eyes) but they also have many differences. So functional need can't
explain the similarity of human and dog eyes; there are many other
engineering solutions to the problem. (And these similarities and
differences are themselves organized hierarchically, by the way.)
>>What causes the boundaries? There seems to be no genetic mechanism.
>>...
>>I'm afraid that's nonsense. Creationism provides no framework at all for
>>understanding variation among species. It's the way it is because that's
>>how god created it. Nowhere to go from there.
>
> Let me briefly outline some elements of one proposal of a framework of
> creationism.
>
> 1. DNA is a biological structure that is capable of coding, storing and
> transmitting information. Like every other system that codifies data
> that mankind has ever experienced, DNA is the result of intelligent
> forethought. Other such systems include all human languages, music and
> computer machine code.
That's just a "goddidit" assumption. It doesn't give us any way to proceed.
> 2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
> The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
> considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
> Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
> DNA before the creation event.
> When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
> been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
> complex biological, informational systems are never the result of copy
> errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive adaptation of
> any organism.
> Note that these adaptations would be called micro-evolution in the
> evolutionary paradigm.
Note that these adaptations happen through random mutation and natural
selection, not through any sort of pre-programming. If this
pre-programming exists, we should be able to find traces of it in the
genome. We don't. This idea that changes are pre-programmed has been
falsified many times over.
> 3. The species is able to adapt to various pressures by existing
> features adapting. New features at a systems level will not appear.
> This means that macro-evolution does not happen. This also means that
> adaptation has boundaries. These boundaries are simply the realization
> that a horse for example will never sprout wings and fly. This should
> be intuitive and obvious to anyone.
This isn't a mechanism for boundaries; it's merely a claim that they
exist. The tree of common descent shows that these boundaries do not exist.
> 4. The earth has experienced catastrophic geological and environmental
> events that intensify genomic pressures. The Cambrian explosion and
> punctuated equilibrium are possible examples to be further explored.
I don't think you have any idea what you mean by that. If we explore the
Cambrian explosion in light of the fact that you think genera (rarely,
families) are separately created, then it's just a period when god
created a few more kinds than at various other times. Almost none of
these kinds survive today. (Lingula is the only one I can think of.) And
in fact most of them died out during the Cambrian, to be replaced by
other similar kinds, every few million years until the present. If you
really think macroevolution is impossible, the Cambrian explosion can
have no significance.
> I really don't see why creationism needs to be such a scary prospect
> to the evolutionist.
It's not scary. It's just laughably wrong.
> Replace the vague mechanism of mutations with a
> purposeful designer and limit changes in organisms to the changes that
> are actually observed in the fossil record and carry on with things.
> You'll have to let go of your 1860's perspective on both Darwin and
> the scriptures. You'll be surprised at what the scriptures actually
> say as opposed to what other people say that they say.
I don't particularly care what the scriptures say. However, you are (as
I've said above) confused about the nature of the question. Common
descent doesn't assume mutation or natural selection. All it proposes is
that species are descended from common ancestors. Necessarily, this
implies changes along the various lineages. But common descent says
nothing about how those changes happened, whether through natural
processes or deliberate intervention of a deity, or some other mechanism.
You also have a peculiar idea (as I've also said above) that the
evidence for common descent comes entirely from fossils. This is just
not true. Surely you remember the nested hierarchy. Until you have a
plausible explanation for that, separate creation just can't be taken
seriously.
explainer
> As a creationist...
what is your position on the theory of evolution?
NOTE: This is not a set up. I identify myself as both a creationist
and evolutionist. When people tell me that's not possible because a
creationist is anti-evolution, I reply, "No, that's a Creationist with
a capital C." I believe there is a transcendent source of creation,
but I can't describe the essence and scientific advances make my
unknowing even greater.
Since I find no pat definition for creationist, a Google search
(define:creationist) linked to:
www.google.com/search?hs=Ktv&hl=en&lr=&client=opera&rls=en&q=define%3Acreationist&btnG=Search
I guess I'm an evolutionary creationist. All the best...
John Harshman
No, no. Creationists can evolve. But if they do, they aren't
creationists any more.
> All the best in "_ _ _" (I'm taking no chances)
>
Either that or you're playing a very short game of "Hangman". (John
Ashcroft version?)
John Harshman
> SChesher wrote:
>
>>As a creationist...
>
>
> what is your position on the theory of evolution?
That should be obvious. He's agin' it. He likes anything he can call
microevolution but denies anything he has to call macroevolution. He
thinks genera (mostly) were separately created. He thinks that all
adaptation within kinds is due to pre-programmed variability.
He also appears to be some kind of old-earth, progressive creationist.
But I'm not sure he's thought about it enough to have a consistent
position on that.
SChesher
Indeed I am amazed at and love the variety of adaptations that abound.
Yes, I believe that all adaptation within kinds is due to
pre-programmed variability. It is the only solution that makes any
sense.
But I am most definitely a YEC. And yes I have thought long and hard
about it for some 25 years now and I believe that there is a YEC model
that is consistent with scientific observation and forms a complete and
harmonious explanation everything that mankind has ever seen or
experienced.
I realize this sounds like compete foolishness to most people. It
certainly did to me even 10 years ago. I also realize that academia and
the bombardment of pseudo-science programming by the likes of the
Discovery Channel preach the paradigm of Darwin relentlessly. This has
made dissention repulsive to most people. I believe, like you, that
most creationist models are woefully inadequate. Yet I am a proud YEC.
I love science and the Bible.
I'll certainly defend my position and answer any question posed by
anyone. (1Peter 3:15) I may not respond in as timely a manner as some
do. I don't have the time to sit around and post 250 one liners a
night people in here. In fact I've avoided these forums for years
because they seem to degrade to childish crap within 2-3 posts. I'll
try.
Shawn
APOCALYPSE
SChesher wrote:
> John,
>
> Indeed I am amazed at and love the variety of adaptations that abound.
> Yes, I believe that all adaptation within kinds is due to
> pre-programmed variability. It is the only solution that makes any
> sense.
that makes sense from a layman caveman POV.
DNA? Pre-programmed variability? Do you not know what a mutation is? It
is an error in DNA replication. A mistake. The idea that DNA has
preprogrammed variability is ludicrous. DNA is a microscopic molecule.
The idea it can actively respond to large-scale external pressures is
ridiculous. All DNA does is make RNA code the proteins it's supossed to
code for. In fact DNA has been so successful because it has
error-correction unlike RNA and undergoes fewer mutations.
> But I am most definitely a YEC. And yes I have thought long and hard
> about it for some 25 years now and I believe that there is a YEC model
> that is consistent with scientific observation and forms a complete and
> harmonious explanation everything that mankind has ever seen or
> experienced.
Any evidence for why the whole of science based on the Earth being much
older is wrong? Or why we haven't seen in our lifetimes the events that
put fossils deep within the Earth? Or better yet how oil was formed?
> I realize this sounds like compete foolishness to most people.
Well you're still a step-up from the YECers who think everyone else
complete idiots. Glad you recognize the rest of the world is not crazy,
it just disagrees with you as would be expected when there are
different viewpoints.
>>I also realize that academia and
> the bombardment of pseudo-science programming by the likes of the
> Discovery Channel preach the paradigm of Darwin relentlessly.
Be sure not to conflate over-enthusiastic science with pseudo-science.
> I'll certainly defend my position and answer any question posed by
> anyone.
We will be holding you to this. Intelligent Design proponents have a
way of starting what they never finish. But you're a creationist so
that's different.
John Harshman
> John,
>
> Indeed I am amazed at and love the variety of adaptations that abound.
> Yes, I believe that all adaptation within kinds is due to
> pre-programmed variability. It is the only solution that makes any
> sense.
But it doesn't make any sense. Natural selection is observed. Mutations
are observed. Selection among mutational variants is observed. If you
think that there is a genomic mechanism causing particular mutations,
why can't we find one?
> But I am most definitely a YEC. And yes I have thought long and hard
> about it for some 25 years now and I believe that there is a YEC model
> that is consistent with scientific observation and forms a complete and
> harmonious explanation everything that mankind has ever seen or
> experienced.
>
> I realize this sounds like compete foolishness to most people. It
> certainly did to me even 10 years ago. I also realize that academia and
> the bombardment of pseudo-science programming by the likes of the
> Discovery Channel preach the paradigm of Darwin relentlessly. This has
> made dissention repulsive to most people. I believe, like you, that
> most creationist models are woefully inadequate. Yet I am a proud YEC.
> I love science and the Bible.
>
> I'll certainly defend my position and answer any question posed by
> anyone.
You can start by explaining your YEC model that is consistent with
scientific observation. You can also explain how, if you're a YEC, you
can talk about a Cambrian explosion.
> (1Peter 3:15) I may not respond in as timely a manner as some
> do. I don't have the time to sit around and post 250 one liners a
> night people in here. In fact I've avoided these forums for years
> because they seem to degrade to childish crap within 2-3 posts. I'll
> try.
Please do. I will state at the outside that I find your claim here (or
perhaps it's a metaclaim) extremely hard to believe. Start with your
notion of the history of the universe: events and timings. You can
justify it later.
CreateThis
> Are dogs related to foxes? Are dogs and foxes related to bears? Are
> dogs, bears, and foxes related to weasels? I would say they are, on the
> basis of the same kind of evidence that shows all dogs to be related.
> And I could go on like that for a considerble time, until dogs were
> related to you, to lobsters, to petunias, and so on. Where should I have
> stopped? And why?
Right after dogs and foxes, where things stopped looking alike. The
Creationist's reasoning on 'kinds' goes like this: "I don't look like
no weasel! Yer motha's a weasel, ya damned godless pinko bastid!!"
CT
explainer
SChesher wrote:
> But I am most definitely a YEC. And yes I have thought long and hard
> about it for some 25 years...
>
> I realize this sounds like compete foolishness to most people...
>
> I'll certainly defend my position and answer any question...
Well said and not one word of foisting your beliefs on others. Bravo.
I know many Christians who say they believe the same, but they don't,
and that's okay because we can't prove our beliefs. There's plenty of
room for differing beliefs within Christianity beginning with, "In the
beginning..." (and there are some who believe there wasn't one) right
on through to the end time (and many believe there won't be one) and
countless points of differing beliefs in between.
It doesn't matter to me what you believe, but that you think. That's
the gift and you are using it.
All the best...
Codeb...@bigsecret.com
These words are "à la" and not ala
SChesher
This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
I know that the Talk Origins has covered many of the individual points
in this model, but none of the arguments are persuasive. For example
the discussions of the declining speed of light papers by Setterfield
are superficial and weak. When I actually ran the regression analysis
on the data in MINITAB, the results agreed with Setterfield with a high
degree of probability.
There are also other areas of the model that are not outlined here;
specifics of biology and evolution, information theory in regards to
DNA (huge area) and so on.
I have this in a nice table format but it can't be pasted in so I
have broken it out to a list of periods. Each period contains brief
description of parallel events.
These events fall into four categories. The points of view and
highlights are described here.
Biblical events
This category describes events as outlines in the scriptures.
Natural events
This category describes events that are what you would expect to find
in a geology text. The events themselves or their order are not
disputed. The generally accepted time frame is rejected. The commonly
accepted Uniformitarian model is replaced by a Catastrophic model.
Atomic events
This category describes events on the atomic scale. The model includes
decaying rates for atomic processes (speed of light, decay rates...) A
logarithmic scale of atomic process decay yields a universe that is in
the order of thousands of years old as opposed to the linear decay
model that has the universe at billions of years old.
Time frame
This category gives time in two frames.
Dynamic time is time measured in revolutions of the earth around the
sun. We live in this time frame.
Atomic time is time measured by atomic clocks using today's rates
applied linearly back to the beginning of time. The scientist quotes
time with this scale.
The Young Earth
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 1
Biblical events
Creation of Heavens and Earth.
Earth is covered by water for three days.
Single continent upthrusted on third day. Waters drain continent.
Life forms created.
Natural events
""Big-Bang"". Notice the quotes.
Galaxies form.
Azoic Era. Earth form, earliest rock levels are sedimentary laid over
continental plate.
Single continent; Pangea.
No fossils.
Atomic events
Vacuum with relatively low energy at sub-atomic level.
Speed of light ~ 2.5x1010c initially.
Speed of light and atomic decay rates begin to slow at logarithmic
rates because stars begin to burn feeding the vacuum of space with
energy.
Time frame
~5700 BC Creation Week in Dynamic time.
15 Billion to 4.5 Billion in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 2
Biblical events
Earth under vapor canopy.
Homogeneous environment.
No major geological activity therefore little fossilization.
Natural events
Archeozoic Era
Geological discontinuity between layers above and below.
Fossil evidence of Algae, spores and worm burrows.
Atomic events
Speed of light and atomic decays continue to slow at logarithmic rates
as stars burn feeding the vacuum with energy.
Earth's interior heats from atomic processes. Water forced towards
surface.
Inaccurate dating methodology (linear scale to a logarithmic process)
with large error and scatter, allows selective ordering .
Light spectrums shift towards blue reflecting energy level of time of
emission.
Universe static in size.
Note: this describes the general conditions through the 5th period.
Time frame
~5700 BC to ~3500 BC in Dynamic time.
4.5 Billion to 600 Million in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 3
Biblical events
Universal flood of continent
A) Fountains of deep broken up. Water from under surface blast forth.
Canopy collapses and rains begin.
B) Flood calms and waters still.
C) Waters oscillate as retreating . Dead organisms buried (coal & oil)
D) Winds aid in drying earth.
Note: the flood strata is not a thin wispy layer but it covers
geological ages.
Natural events
Paleozoic Era
A) Cambrian Period. Explosion of life forms in fossil record starting
with marine life.
B) Devonian Period. Sediment of marine origin.
C) Carboniferous Period. Coal bearing strata.
D) Permian Period. Wind deposits.
Time frame
~3500 BC to ~3250 BC in Dynamic time.
600 Million to 250 Million in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 4
Biblical events
Tower of Babel. Man spread over single continent.
Nimrod begins rebellion. Earliest civilizations as well as "cave
families."
Natural events
Mesozoic Era. Reptile dominance over drastically new environment.
Time frame
~3250 BC to ~3100 BC in Dynamic time.
250 Million to 60 Million in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 5
Biblical events
Continental division as the "earth was divided" during days of
Peleg.
Natural events
Cenozoic Era. Continental drift is a catastrophic event that causes
large cold blooded dinosaur extinction.
Atomic events
Light speed and atomic processes approach equilibrium and tend to
become asymptotic about current value.
Time frame
~3100 BC to ~2900 BC (could it be days? ) in Dynamic time.
60 Million to 1 Million in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 6
Biblical events
Ice encroachments from continental disturbances Possibilities in Job.
Natural events
Pleistocene Epoch. Ice encroachments, mammals begin to dominate.
Time frame
~2900 BC to ~2750 BC in Dynamic time.
1 Million to 10 Thousand in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Period 7
Biblical events
God calls Abraham History continues.
Natural events
Modern Era
Atomic events
Light speed and atomic processes reach equilibrium.
Time frame
~2750 BC to Present in Dynamic time.
10 Thousand to Present in Atomic time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I hope I've done this justice. At least it's a starting point.
Shawn
TomS
<1133417880.8...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, SChesher stated..."
>
>A YEC model
>
>This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
>the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
>Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
>
>I know that the Talk Origins has covered many of the individual points
>in this model, but none of the arguments are persuasive. For example
>the discussions of the declining speed of light papers by Setterfield
>are superficial and weak. When I actually ran the regression analysis
>on the data in MINITAB, the results agreed with Setterfield with a high
>degree of probability.
Which particular curve of Setterfield did you fit to the data?
Was it the one involving, as I recall, the cosecant? Did you
try varying the parameters of the function, for a "best fit"? As
I recall, the results required a splicing together of two parts:
a varying function, for the measurements before 1960, and a constant,
for the measurements after 1960, and then a cutoff at about 6000
years ago, so that it didn't go to infinity at t_0. I tried this
sort of thing some time ago, with a parameterization, something like
c = c_0 / cosec(a*(t - t_0))
to get the "best fit" for values of a and t_0, and I don't think
that t_0=-6000 was the best fit - although the calculation was
statistically crazy, in any event.
All of this is just from my memory, as I haven't looked at
this for many years. I'd like to get the details from you, as to
exactly what you did to verify Setterfield's results.
--
---Tom S. <http://talkreason.org/articles/chickegg.cfm>
"It is not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is so
much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. ... The evidences ... of
Natural Theology distinctly imply that the author of the Kosmos worked under
limitations..." John Stuart Mill, "Theism", Part II
chris.li...@gmail.com
This is a classic. Let's assume that Codebreaker here read all 16
previous posts in this thread- including the decent exchange between
Wade and John Harshman.
All he comments on is a missing space.
Teflon. Pure teflon.
Chris
Al
the related "sister" genes based on their similarity with invoking
the Theory of Evolution or Darwin. My question is, without the Theory
of Evolution and the concept of common descent, why and on what basis
would the "non-evolutionist" have chosen which genes to compare? "
The question is moot, without modern science , evolutionary biology ->
biology-> modern
medicine ....you would be back in the 12 century ....and if you are
about 35 years old you would have been dead for 5 or more years by now.
Codeb...@bigsecret.com
A missing space? Just a missing space is all what you can see?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But anyway how is this your problem?
Are you AC, acronym for Air Conditioning?
John Harshman
Not just a missing space; a space and an accent grave. Let's not
minimize the problem here.
chris.li...@gmail.com
That's all you saw, apparently. At least, it's all you commented on-
despite the fact that there is an extremely interesting discussion
going on about nested hierarchies, and the inability of creationism to
account for them.
> But anyway how is this your problem?
> Are you AC, acronym for Air Conditioning?
It is manifestly your problem, that you routinely evade meaningful
questions, never present any evidence for your assertions, and ignore
mountains of data that contradict your erroneous beliefs.
Chris
Codeb...@bigsecret.com
Just you think that your mountains of data contradicts my beliefs, it
might
be so, and therefore my beliefs in Jesus as the UNIQUE MESSIAH/CHRIST
of Israel is erreneous.
What you are saying silently is that YOU ARE INFAILLIBLE and your
knowledge of datas limiteless. I don't think so.
My beliefs is not grounded on faulty reasoning, it is grounded on
JESUS
who in one morning of February 1999 drew near above Atlanta to help
us overcome our ignorance when He disclosed the information in
Moses' 'Torah as that information was meant to be read.
Now prove that JESUS is not that Messiah/CHRIST foretold in the Torah
by Moses and I would be happy to concede my failure.
UNTIL THEN, tu es entrain de labourer en vain.
PAX AMERICANA
psych...@utanet.at
SChesher schrieb:
> A YEC model
>
<snip>
>
>
> I hope I've done this justice. At least it's a starting point.
Your model must assume that we live in orbital time, but this is
obviously false. Our biochemistry is based on electroweak interactions
(which are responsible for beta and gamma decay), and not on gravity.
Regards, HRG.
APOCALYPSE
All this is well and good but it's missing one thing: a list of
mechanisms. A list of mechanisms for how the Earth was formed, what
caused the flood, what created the continents and the mantle all in the
timespan of less than one eon.
chris.li...@gmail.com
Where did you see that in my post? I said nothing about Jesus. Anything
I might say about Jesus would be my personal opinion, and that's not
relevant here.
However, you seem to have as an integral part of your religious faith
things that ARE demonstrably false- a six-day creation that took place
a few thousand years ago, a worldwide flood that destroyed almost all
life, etc.
Those parts of your belief are wrong, and your faith will be stronger
if you discard them, and count on the real message Christianity is
supposed to convey.
> What you are saying silently is that YOU ARE INFAILLIBLE and your
> knowledge of datas limiteless. I don't think so.
I don't think so either. But you seem to think that ignoring the
evidence is the same as disproving it. Life isn't like that.
> My beliefs is not grounded on faulty reasoning, it is grounded on
> JESUS
> who in one morning of February 1999 drew near above Atlanta to help
> us overcome our ignorance when He disclosed the information in
> Moses' 'Torah as that information was meant to be read.
I wasn't there, so I will just take your word for it.
> Now prove that JESUS is not that Messiah/CHRIST foretold in the Torah
> by Moses and I would be happy to concede my failure.
Not my job, and not at all important to the question of evolution vs.
creation.
> UNTIL THEN, tu es entrain de labourer en vain.
I knew that ahead of time.
> PAX AMERICANA
Dominoes and biscuits.
John Harshman
> A YEC model
Thanks. This seems like a fairly standard YEC model except for the
logarithmic function of nuclear decay. I believe that the interesting
feature of this is that radiometric dates will be correct if you fit
them to your logarithmic function. In particular, the sequence of dates
will not change. Is that right? I wonder if you can tell me the
parameters of your function. Can you give a function that will relate
standard science dates to "real" dates?
> This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
> the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
> Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
It doesn't take all that much digestion, since it's similar to previous
YEC claims. And please don't patronize scientists by attributing their
beliefs to habit.
Your theory is wrong in so many ways that I would have to read it over
many times and think for a long time before spotting all the problems. I
will just tell you the ones that occur to me quickly. They're enough.
> I know that the Talk Origins has covered many of the individual points
> in this model, but none of the arguments are persuasive. For example
> the discussions of the declining speed of light papers by Setterfield
> are superficial and weak. When I actually ran the regression analysis
> on the data in MINITAB, the results agreed with Setterfield with a high
> degree of probability.
Not my department, so I'll ignore it.
This is wrong from the start. Pangaea is a late Paleozoic-early Mesozoic
phenomenon. There was a previous assemblage of continents, "Rodinia", in
the lat Precambrian. Before that, we lose track. But the idea of Pangaea
existing from the beginning until some final breakup is easily
falsified. Also, you end this period about the time the earth is first
coming into existence, which doesn't seem right. I don't believe there
are any rocks nearly this old, either, just zircons that first formed
then, and that have been inherited by younger rocks.
If all the "kinds" were created at this time, why do we see no fossils
of most of them until near the end, i.e. your last 3 periods? What
accounts for all the sorting in the fossil record?
Also, if kinds are only around 8000 years old, mutation rates have to be
many orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the present day
just to account for genetic differences among species within kinds.
> Period 2
>
> Biblical events
> Earth under vapor canopy.
> Homogeneous environment.
> No major geological activity therefore little fossilization.
>
> Natural events
> Archeozoic Era
> Geological discontinuity between layers above and below.
> Fossil evidence of Algae, spores and worm burrows.
>
> Atomic events
> Speed of light and atomic decays continue to slow at logarithmic rates
> as stars burn feeding the vacuum with energy.
> Earth's interior heats from atomic processes. Water forced towards
> surface.
> Inaccurate dating methodology (linear scale to a logarithmic process)
> with large error and scatter, allows selective ordering .
> Light spectrums shift towards blue reflecting energy level of time of
> emission.
> Universe static in size.
> Note: this describes the general conditions through the 5th period.
>
> Time frame
> ~5700 BC to ~3500 BC in Dynamic time.
> 4.5 Billion to 600 Million in Atomic time.
The vapor canopy is physically impossible and would have resulted in an
earth whose surface conditions resembled Venus. Now would be a good time
to talk about decay. What was the decay rate when life was created? Why
wouldn't it cause all life to simultaneously broil and be microwaved,
just from the level of surface background radiation?
The environment wasn't homogeneous, and in fact changed radically from
the start to the end of this period, geologically, atmospherically, and
biologically. Note for the first half billion years there was no life at
all. Then for the next 2 billion years or so we get only prokaryotes,
and then single-celled eukaryotes, and then the very beginnings of
multicellular eukaryotes. Further, during the last 3 billion years
geological processes (except oxidation, which is more recent) have been
operating pretty much at modern levels. Sediments are common and amount
to thousands of feet. Mountain ranges formed and were eroded. Plates
moved thousands of miles. If you condense all that into a couple of
thousand years, it would be continuous catastrophe, not "no major
geological activity".
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Period 3
>
> Biblical events
> Universal flood of continent
> A) Fountains of deep broken up. Water from under surface blast forth.
> Canopy collapses and rains begin.
> B) Flood calms and waters still.
> C) Waters oscillate as retreating . Dead organisms buried (coal & oil)
> D) Winds aid in drying earth.
> Note: the flood strata is not a thin wispy layer but it covers
> geological ages.
>
> Natural events
> Paleozoic Era
> A) Cambrian Period. Explosion of life forms in fossil record starting
> with marine life.
> B) Devonian Period. Sediment of marine origin.
> C) Carboniferous Period. Coal bearing strata.
> D) Permian Period. Wind deposits.
>
> Time frame
> ~3500 BC to ~3250 BC in Dynamic time.
> 600 Million to 250 Million in Atomic time.
Better break this down a bit more. When during this was the flood? Which
portions of the rock record in this period are due to the flood, which
are before it, and which are after it?
You have many problems here. First, I note that time has not
significantly slowed down from the previous period. The previous period
had a time ratio of 3.9e9/1.8e3 or about 2e6; this period has a ratio of
3.5e8/2.5e2, or 1.4e6. That hardly sounds like a logarithmic function
that's going to reach a value close to 1 by the present day. And if the
flood strata are only 1 year in duration but cover geological ages, that
part of the record would require an *increase* in the ratio.
Second, you have the same problems as any flood apologist accounting for
the sorting of the fossil record. None of the methods proposed
(hydrologic, ecological, or behavioral) can actually account for this.
Your problem is worse, because you apparently accept radiometric dating
as being a valid indicator of time if corrected by your logarithmic
function. Thus the Paleozoic must have been laid down in sequence, over
a period of years. There is no sudden bump of sedimentation to indicate
a flood. By the way, there are terrestrial sediments all through the
Paleozoic, including the Cambrian, and before. There is no change in
this through the Paleozoic.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Period 4
>
> Biblical events
> Tower of Babel. Man spread over single continent.
> Nimrod begins rebellion. Earliest civilizations as well as "cave
> families."
>
> Natural events
> Mesozoic Era. Reptile dominance over drastically new environment.
>
> Time frame
> ~3250 BC to ~3100 BC in Dynamic time.
> 250 Million to 60 Million in Atomic time.
You will have to explain why no traces of human existence, or in fact of
any modern species, appear in this record. You will have to explain why
we get well-dated strata here that also would require catastrophes, if
you wanted to fit them into 150 years, that would have wiped out all
life many times over. Time ratio: 1.9e8/1.5e2, or 1.3e6. Hey, it doesn't
look as if the ratio is changing at all here.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Period 5
>
> Biblical events
> Continental division as the "earth was divided" during days of
> Peleg.
>
> Natural events
> Cenozoic Era. Continental drift is a catastrophic event that causes
> large cold blooded dinosaur extinction.
>
> Atomic events
> Light speed and atomic processes approach equilibrium and tend to
> become asymptotic about current value.
>
> Time frame
> ~3100 BC to ~2900 BC (could it be days? ) in Dynamic time.
> 60 Million to 1 Million in Atomic time.
The problem with this is that the breakup of Pangaea began in the
Jurassic and was completed (i.e. the modern Atlantic had formed from
north to south) by mid-Cretaceous. It has become a bit wider in the last
60 million years, but the supercontinent was long gone, long before
this. Further, the pace of the continents can be measured using that
radiometric dating. It experienced no particular speedup at 60 million
years, and no particular slowdown since. In your time frame, that means
that continental drift increases steadily as you go back in time,
reaching a maximum rate as far back as we can see. No sudden
catastrophe, but a continuous catastrophe from the beginning, gradually
slowing to present rates.
Still no fossils of modern species here except in the last layers. No
Homo sapiens, ever. And of course we have sorting of fossils, without
any flood to provide even the least justification. Time ratio: 5.9e7/2e2
= 3e5; well, at least we're slowing. But this sudden jerk doesn't seem
like a logarithmic function to me.
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Period 6
>
> Biblical events
> Ice encroachments from continental disturbances Possibilities in Job.
>
> Natural events
> Pleistocene Epoch. Ice encroachments, mammals begin to dominate.
>
> Time frame
> ~2900 BC to ~2750 BC in Dynamic time.
> 1 Million to 10 Thousand in Atomic time.
Sorry, but mammals have been dominating all through the last period.
Note that we still have no archeological record of civilization, at a
time when there should have been big cities all over according to your
theory. Well, at least we get Homo sapiens toward the end. But why none
earlier, when other hominid species are fairly common?
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Period 7
>
> Biblical events
> God calls Abraham History continues.
>
> Natural events
> Modern Era
>
> Atomic events
> Light speed and atomic processes reach equilibrium.
>
> Time frame
> ~2750 BC to Present in Dynamic time.
> 10 Thousand to Present in Atomic time.
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Again, through most of this period, we have no evidence of civilization,
including the biblical "Ur of the Chaldees", which dates from only
around 3000 BC (standard dating).
> I hope I've done this justice. At least it's a starting point.
It is. But it goes nowhere. Your scenario is contradicted by everything
we know about...well, about everything.
Mark Isaak
>A YEC model
Thank you. Few creationists are willing to let their ideas out where
they can collide with reality. You are probably beginning to see why.
:-)
>This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
>the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
That is your first error. Creationism is the dominant belief in the
United State, and it was nigh universal among the people who first
developed and tested the theory of evolution.
>These events fall into four categories. The points of view and
>highlights are described here.
>
> Biblical events
>This category describes events as outlines in the scriptures.
Does this include Vedic scriptures? If not, how do you justify,
morally and scientifically, making bigotry one of the foundational
categories of your model?
> Natural events
>This category describes events that are what you would expect to find
>in a geology text. The events themselves or their order are not
>disputed. The generally accepted time frame is rejected. The commonly
>accepted Uniformitarian model is replaced by a Catastrophic model.
Creationists rejected catastrophism once already, when they saw that
the evidence was against it. Does the evidence matter to your model?
> Atomic events
>This category describes events on the atomic scale. The model includes
>decaying rates for atomic processes (speed of light, decay rates...) A
>logarithmic scale of atomic process decay yields a universe that is in
>the order of thousands of years old as opposed to the linear decay
>model that has the universe at billions of years old.
But raises all sorts of other difficulties. How do you explain the
fact that the earth is not incandescent vapor?
> Time frame
>This category gives time in two frames.
>Dynamic time is time measured in revolutions of the earth around the
>sun. We live in this time frame.
>Atomic time is time measured by atomic clocks using today's rates
>applied linearly back to the beginning of time. The scientist quotes
>time with this scale.
Both of these are the same time frame. Atomic time is used for fine
adjustments to the yearly calendar.
>The Young Earth
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Period 1
>
> Biblical events
>Creation of Heavens and Earth.
>Earth is covered by water for three days.
>Single continent upthrusted on third day. Waters drain continent.
>Life forms created.
When was death created, and by whom? Who created malaria and why?
> Natural events
>""Big-Bang"". Notice the quotes.
>Galaxies form.
>Azoic Era. Earth form, earliest rock levels are sedimentary laid over
>continental plate.
>Single continent; Pangea.
>No fossils.
Fossils pre-date Pangaea by a long ways.
> Atomic events
>Vacuum with relatively low energy at sub-atomic level.
>Speed of light ~ 2.5x1010c initially.
>Speed of light and atomic decay rates begin to slow at logarithmic
>rates because stars begin to burn feeding the vacuum of space with
>energy.
How do you know?
> Time frame
>~5700 BC Creation Week in Dynamic time.
>15 Billion to 4.5 Billion in Atomic time.
>
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Period 2
>
> Biblical events
>Earth under vapor canopy.
>Homogeneous environment.
>No major geological activity therefore little fossilization.
How is any of that possible?
> Natural events
>Archeozoic Era
>Geological discontinuity between layers above and below.
>Fossil evidence of Algae, spores and worm burrows.
What geological discontinuity?
Why is there so much evidence against a global flood and no evidence
at all to support it? Those strata you mention were not deposited in
a single catastrophe.
C'mon, admit it. You just made all that up. That's fine for fun, but
it is not how science works.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Tracy Hamilton
> A YEC model
>
> This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
> the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
> Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
[snip]
> Atomic events
> This category describes events on the atomic scale. The model includes
> decaying rates for atomic processes (speed of light, decay rates...) A
> logarithmic scale of atomic process decay yields a universe that is in
> the order of thousands of years old as opposed to the linear decay
> model that has the universe at billions of years old.
>
> Time frame
> This category gives time in two frames.
> Dynamic time is time measured in revolutions of the earth around the
> sun. We live in this time frame.
> Atomic time is time measured by atomic clocks using today's rates
> applied linearly back to the beginning of time. The scientist quotes
> time with this scale.
I am afraid you have bought into a facile argument about different
"kinds" of time.
I have a series of questions, which anybody with a high school level
of understanding of physics should be able to answer:
1) If the earth were to double its rate of orbiting about the
sun, would "dynamic time" change?
2) If the earth were to double its rate of spinning about its axis,
would "dynamic time" change?
If dynamic time depend on one of the above, the experiment would
be quite simple to do. Send a person to Mars. Assume it is your
twin brother, and he was sent to Mars as a baby.
3) Would you EXPECT him (on average) to
A) die at the same time as you
B) die before you do
C) die after you do
[snip]
Tracy P. Hamilton
John Harshman
> SChesher wrote:
>
>>A YEC model
>>
>>This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
>>the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
>>Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
>
>
> [snip]
>
>
>> Atomic events
>>This category describes events on the atomic scale. The model includes
>>decaying rates for atomic processes (speed of light, decay rates...) A
>>logarithmic scale of atomic process decay yields a universe that is in
>>the order of thousands of years old as opposed to the linear decay
>>model that has the universe at billions of years old.
>>
>> Time frame
>>This category gives time in two frames.
>>Dynamic time is time measured in revolutions of the earth around the
>>sun. We live in this time frame.
>>Atomic time is time measured by atomic clocks using today's rates
>>applied linearly back to the beginning of time. The scientist quotes
>>time with this scale.
>
>
> I am afraid you have bought into a facile argument about different
> "kinds" of time.
I think you are misconstruing his argument here. He really thinks
there's only one kind of time. He just thinks that the speed of light
and of radioactive decay have been slowing from an original high value
since the creation, so that radiometric and astronomical dates for
events are way off.
Of course, this leads to contradictions of all sorts. But not the sorts
you are imagining here.
[snip]
Deadrat
"SChesher" <bche...@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:1133417880.8...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> A YEC model
>
> This will seem really wild to most people.
Not so much wild, as ignorant and incompetent.
> They have been raised with
> the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
Your second sentence and you're already projecting your own
intellectually straightjacketed thinking onto others. Who preaches
the gospel? Scientists or fundamentalists? Are you aware that some
of Darwin's ideas have been replaced by evidence he didn't consider?
Does that sound like gospel to you?
> Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
>
> I know that the Talk Origins has covered many of the individual points
> in this model, but none of the arguments are persuasive. For example
> the discussions of the declining speed of light papers by Setterfield
> are superficial and weak.
A brief review. Setterfield has "fitted" a curve to data points of the
measured speed of light starting with results from 1675. I put the
word fitted in quotes because "pieced" would really be a better word.
Setterfield has to prevent the speed of light from going infinite in the
past, and he has to account for the fact that measurements haven't
changed much since the 1960s, around the time that we started getting
accurate modern instrumentation.
You say that the counterarguments are "superficial and weak." Before
we even get to that, let's note the following:
1. Your opinions of the counterarguments notwithstanding, it is
Setterfield's job to provide in-depth and strong arguments *for*
his position. Is there some mechanism that accounts for the speed
of light slowing down? Is there some reason that the decay stopped
around the time we got good instruments? Does Setterfield have
any discussion of the physical implications of his theory? After all,
c appears in a lot of places in physics. Should anyone use data points
without taking into account the error bars around them?
Do you understand that the answer to these questions is no?
Now the next point:
2. It isn't enough to criticize counterarguments as weak; you have to
demonstrate that they're inapt. For instance, Setterfield takes the
high end of the error interval around the 1675 measurement.
(Roemer's and Picard's observations of the moons of Jupiter). Why
do that, except that Setterfield needs the high end for a faster speed
of light in the past? This is not a superficial argument and goes to the
heart of Setterfield's methods. Do you have some reason why we
shouldn't expect that the speed of light to have been the same in 1675,
given that today's measurements fall within the error interval around the
1675 measurement?
> When I actually ran the regression analysis
> on the data in MINITAB, the results agreed with Setterfield with a high
> degree of probability.
3. Of course they did. Setterfield engineered his curve to fit the data.
So you plugged his data into some statistical software package and got
his results back. Please tell us your background in statistics that enables
you to validate Setterfield's *methods* of picking his data. And then
let's hear those arguments.
Deadrat
>
<snip>
> Shawn
>
Stuart
SChesher wrote:
> A YEC model
>
> This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
> the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
> Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
>
> I know that the Talk Origins has covered many of the individual points
> in this model, but none of the arguments are persuasive. For example
> the discussions of the declining speed of light papers by Setterfield
> are superficial and weak. When I actually ran the regression analysis
> on the data in MINITAB, the results agreed with Setterfield with a high
> degree of probability.
It is Setterfiled's analysis that is weak. Especially so by cherry
picking data.
This is reprinted from my undergraduate Physics text. Obviously, there
have been more SOL measurments since then.
1675 Roemer 200,000 Jovian moon eclipse
1729 Bradley 304,000 Stellar aberration
1849 Fizeau 313,300 Toothed wheel
1862 Foucalt 298,000 Rotating Mirror
1876 Cormu 299,990 Toothed Wheel
1880 Michelson 299,910 Rotating Mirror
1883 Newcomb 298,860 "
1906 Rosa and Dorsey 299,781 EM theory
1923 Mercier 299,782 Standing waves on wires
1926 Michelson 299,796 Rotating mirror
1928 Karolus and Mittelstaedt 299,778 Kerr Cell
1932 Michelson 299,774 Rotating Mirror
1941 Anderson 299,776 Kerr Cell
1950 Bergstarnd 299,792.7 Geodimeter
1950 Essen 299,792.5 Microwave cavity
1950 Bol and Hansen 299,789.3 "
1951 Aslakson 299,794.2 Shoran radar
1952 Rank et al., 299,776 Molecular spectra
1952 Froome 299,792.6 Microwave interferm.
1954 Florman 299,795.1 "
1957 Bergstrand 299,792.85 Geodimeter
1958 Froome 299,792.5 Microwave Interf.
1965 Kolibayev 299,792.6 Geodimeter
1967 Grosse 299,792.5 "
1973 Evenson 299,792.4574 Laser technique
First thing that is obvious, is that the trend is not monotonic.
Second thing that is obious is the influence of technology.
Stuart
John Harshman
Third thing is that any curve fitting will depend almost entirely on the
first three points, because the rest of them are pretty much a
horizontal line with very little scatter.
SChesher
I'll do my best to answer all the questions posted. I'll say you guys
are a tough, harsh bunch, but I'm still confident. I've seen all of
the objections before and defended against them, at least to my
personal satisfaction. Many people won't be satisfied because they are
highly confident about events that happened in the first 10e-43 of a
seconds of time some 10e9 years ago.
>John Harshman wrote:
>... And please don't patronize scientists by attributing their
> beliefs to habit.
Sorry If I come off a little harsh myself.
What I mean to say is that the paradigm of Darwinian evolution has
deeply permeated the fabric of our society. It is taught from grade
school to the highest levels of academia. Television programming, books
and magazines, news, social icons and authorities... I don't' need
to tell anyone how deeply entrenched it has become.
The result is that a person can apply this like a filter to their
thinking. It can lead to inflexibility, short-sightedness, or "in the
box thinking."
I've found that many of the arguments against ID/YEC are arguments
from the "box." What I mean is the argument is based on the fact
that some particular point of ID/YEC doesn't follow the guidelines or
doesn't fit the model of Darwinian evolution. To point this out
doesn't prove much.
Not to pick on you John, I like you, but here's a good example of
what I mean. You wrote:
> Also, if kinds are only around 8000 years old, mutation rates have to be
> many orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the present day
> just to account for genetic differences among species within kinds.
You'll recall that the in model I presented included the following:
>> 2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
>> The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
>> considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
>> Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
>> DNA before the creation event.
>> When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
>> been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
>>complex biological, informational systems are never the result
>> of copy errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive
>> adaptation of any organism. Note that these adaptations would be
>> called micro-evolution in the evolutionary paradigm.
Your statement about the need for drastically higher mutation rates is
true from a Darwinian point of view. In the creation model a mutation
is a degradation of DNA and plays no role in the adaptations of life.
The argument jumps models and only proves that Creationists and
Darwinists are at odds. Check back and see how many objections fall
into this category.
Now I anticipate that some will completely miss the point of the above
and fire off a one liner like "Where's the mechanism?" I will
certainly address that issue.
I'll also get to all the other issues form the other posts. Sorry I
can't offer more tonight, but right now I'm going to go be with my
kids and play my guitar.
Shawn
Deadrat
> John and all,
>
> I'll do my best to answer all the questions posted. I'll say you guys
> are a tough, harsh bunch, but I'm still confident. I've seen all of
> the objections before and defended against them, at least to my
> personal satisfaction. Many people won't be satisfied because they are
> highly confident about events that happened in the first 10e-43 of a
> seconds of time some 10e9 years ago.
Not a promising rhetorical start. 10e-43 is close to the Planck time.
And nobody is sure what happened in that first interval.
>
> >John Harshman wrote:
> >... And please don't patronize scientists by attributing their
> > beliefs to habit.
>
> Sorry If I come off a little harsh myself.
>
> What I mean to say is that the paradigm of Darwinian evolution has
> deeply permeated the fabric of our society. It is taught from grade
> school to the highest levels of academia. Television programming, books
> and magazines, news, social icons and authorities... I don't' need
> to tell anyone how deeply entrenched it has become.
Yeah, kind of like the rest of science.
>
> The result is that a person can apply this like a filter to their
> thinking. It can lead to inflexibility, short-sightedness, or "in the
> box thinking."
I'm gonna guess that this is pure projection. As we watch your
arguments, I'm willing to bet that we see you put all the evidence
through the filter of your religious beliefs.
>
> I've found that many of the arguments against ID/YEC are arguments
> from the "box." What I mean is the argument is based on the fact
> that some particular point of ID/YEC doesn't follow the guidelines or
> doesn't fit the model of Darwinian evolution. To point this out
> doesn't prove much.
No, you'll find that arguments against IDiocy/Creationism are arguments
from evidence and mathematics. Setterfield's c decay, for instance.
If the earth weren't billions of years old, then the theory of evolution
would have a problem. But that's not the reason to discard Setterfield.
The reason is that his statistics are faulty. Scientific arguments are
bounded by the box of evidence. The box of faith admittedly holds more.
>
> Not to pick on you John, I like you, but here's a good example of
> what I mean. You wrote:
>
> > Also, if kinds are only around 8000 years old, mutation rates have to be
> > many orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the present day
> > just to account for genetic differences among species within kinds.
>
> You'll recall that the in model I presented included the following:
>
> >> 2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
> >> The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
> >> considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
> >> Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
> >> DNA before the creation event.
> >> When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
> >> been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
> >>complex biological, informational systems are never the result
> >> of copy errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive
> >> adaptation of any organism. Note that these adaptations would be
> >> called micro-evolution in the evolutionary paradigm.
Unfortunately, genetic sequencing provides the evidence that this is just
wrong. We can actually trace the genetic changes. Does the biblical "kind"
have such a "high degree of robustness" that bacteria can adapt to ingest
man-made chemicals? Can you provide us with the genetic mechanism
that provides for this?
>
> Your statement about the need for drastically higher mutation rates is
> true from a Darwinian point of view. In the creation model a mutation
> is a degradation of DNA and plays no role in the adaptations of life.
That may be true, but that just means the creation model has been
falsified. Most mutations don't do anything at all, let alone "degrade"
DNA.
> The argument jumps models and only proves that Creationists and
> Darwinists are at odds.
Well, it certainly proves that, but jumping models isn't an end in itself.
You have to look where you land.
> Check back and see how many objections fall into this category.
>
> Now I anticipate that some will completely miss the point of the above
> and fire off a one liner like "Where's the mechanism?" I will
> certainly address that issue.
I, for one, can hardly wait. But no one gets the free pass of assuming
some "model," and making arguments from it. The model has to survive
comparison against the evidence.
wade
SChesher wrote:
> John and all,
> >John Harshman wrote:
. . .
> > Also, if kinds are only around 8000 years old, mutation rates have to be
> > many orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the present day
> > just to account for genetic differences among species within kinds.
> You'll recall that the in model I presented included the following:
> >> 2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
> >> The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
> >> considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
> >> Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
> >> DNA before the creation event.
> >> When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
> >> been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
> >>complex biological, informational systems are never the result
> >> of copy errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive
> >> adaptation of any organism. Note that these adaptations would be
> >> called micro-evolution in the evolutionary paradigm.
> Your statement about the need for drastically higher mutation rates is
> true from a Darwinian point of view. In the creation model a mutation
> is a degradation of DNA and plays no role in the adaptations of life.
> The argument jumps models and only proves that Creationists and
> Darwinists are at odds. Check back and see how many objections fall
> into this category.
> Now I anticipate that some will completely miss the point of the above
> and fire off a one liner like "Where's the mechanism?" I will
> certainly address that issue.
I'm afraid with the broad front in play the required details are being
lost. I suggest you stick to this point and get to specifics.
Not included in John's post but hopefully obvious is that the
YEC model requires kinds to have population bottlenecks
of either 2 or 7 breading pairs about 6000 years ago. That
allows us to calculate mutation rates based on observed
populations of today. I'm specifically talking about the frequencies
of specific alleles.
Now when you get to mechanism, please note that we have
studied DNA replication extensively and understand the
thermodynamics of polymerases well enough to know quite
a bit about mutation rates. We've also measured effective
mutation rates and whatever mechanism you propose will
have to face up to these hard cruel observations.
Of course, at the same time, it would be nice to know if
you are proposing that black bears, brown bears, polar
bears and sun bears are all the "bear kind". At the
same time, is rhino a kind? big cat (lepard, lion, tiger,
cheatah, puma)?
chris.li...@gmail.com
If I am reading this correctly, SChesher has said that all genetic
variation is already built into the kinds- his "robustness".
Presumably this dates from the Flood. Now, I believe I have read that
there are more possible human HLA genotypes than there people on the
planet (I doubt this maps precisely onto serotypes though). Is that the
case? How would it be possible to cram that much diversity into
the--what, seven humans aboard the ark at the time?
I just read the HLA group is estimated to be over 500 million years old
(here: http://depts.washington.edu/rhwlab/dq/intro.html). Another
problem here is that they specifically mention that there is an
extremely low recombination rate within the MHC region. That being the
case, the high evolution rate theory (HERT, for what it does to your
brain) pretty much falls apart.
Chris
>
> Of course, at the same time, it would be nice to know if
> you are proposing that black bears, brown bears, polar
> bears and sun bears are all the "bear kind". At the
> same time, is rhino a kind? big cat (lepard, lion, tiger,
> cheatah, puma)?
SChesher has made some vague comment about kinds mapping onto genera.
It really burns me when creationists attempt to coopt standard
nomenclature for some whacky manipulation. If a kind is something
unique, then make it unique. Leave our terms alone, dammit.
Oh, and all of those above fall into the "big cat" kind except the
lepard. Lepards are in the "ones' associates in a bad western with
phony French accents" kind.
Tracy Hamilton
> Tracy Hamilton wrote:
>
>
>>SChesher wrote:
>>
>>
>>>A YEC model
>>>
>>>This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
>>>the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
>>>Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
>>
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>
>>> Atomic events
>>>This category describes events on the atomic scale. The model includes
>>>decaying rates for atomic processes (speed of light, decay rates...) A
>>>logarithmic scale of atomic process decay yields a universe that is in
>>>the order of thousands of years old as opposed to the linear decay
>>>model that has the universe at billions of years old.
>>>
>>> Time frame
>>>This category gives time in two frames.
>>>Dynamic time is time measured in revolutions of the earth around the
>>>sun. We live in this time frame.
>>>Atomic time is time measured by atomic clocks using today's rates
>>>applied linearly back to the beginning of time. The scientist quotes
>>>time with this scale.
>>
>>
>>I am afraid you have bought into a facile argument about different
>>"kinds" of time.
>
>
> I think you are misconstruing his argument here.
If there are not two different kinds of time, then why have two
categories of time? I.e. two different "time frames" even though
the times elapsed are in the SAME INERTIAL FRAME! I searched the
original post for inertial frame and guess how many hits I got?
Even Humphries realized the problem, which is why he invented
the patently absurd scenario with a white hole near the earth.
Someone who uses Satterfield as an authority is prima facie going
to be confused.
These are simple, basic questions, that somebody should be able to
answer, and it will reveal exactly what "time frame" SChester
KNOWS we live in.
Tracy P. Hamilton
John Harshman
I deny your entire claim. Evolution is entrenched in science for the
same reason that quantum mechanics is: it works. I have yet to see a
single example of "inside the box" limitation on anyone's thinking
(including what you say below), and I have yet to see an example of your
"outside the box" thinking that makes any sense. Doubtless this is
purely because my evolutionary blinders don't allow me to see how right
you are.
> Not to pick on you John, I like you, but here's a good example of
> what I mean. You wrote:
>
>>Also, if kinds are only around 8000 years old, mutation rates have to be
>>many orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the present day
>>just to account for genetic differences among species within kinds.
>
> You'll recall that the in model I presented included the following:
>
>>>2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
>>>The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
>>>considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
>>>Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
>>>DNA before the creation event.
>>>When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
>>>been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
>>>complex biological, informational systems are never the result
>>>of copy errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive
>>>adaptation of any organism. Note that these adaptations would be
>>>called micro-evolution in the evolutionary paradigm.
>
> Your statement about the need for drastically higher mutation rates is
> true from a Darwinian point of view. In the creation model a mutation
> is a degradation of DNA and plays no role in the adaptations of life.
> The argument jumps models and only proves that Creationists and
> Darwinists are at odds. Check back and see how many objections fall
> into this category.
I don't know what your suggested mechanism is, but if you want to define
it and mutation in such a way that they are mutually exclusive, fine.
I'm just using "mutation" as a shorthand for whatever changes produced
the differences between species. But the objection stands even if we
assume your unknown mechanism: there must have been a period of
amazingly rapid change in the genomes of all species (if only a
reshuffling of some sort), which coincidentally has entirely ceased just
as we became able to notice it. This is not a limitation in my thinking,
but a consequence of your theory.
> Now I anticipate that some will completely miss the point of the above
> and fire off a one liner like "Where's the mechanism?" I will
> certainly address that issue.
Fee free. Here's some ammunition. The problem with this is that under
your theory, the genome would have to produce all these differences
somehow, and we have no hint of a mechanism. Are there variant sequences
lying in wait to be subsituted? Not that anyone can find in any genome.
Are there secret pools of information on how to transform a fox into a
dog, or vice versa? Not that anyone can recognize. In fact, the
differences among species look exactly like the sort of thing you get
from random mutation, as do the polymorphisms within species.
By the way, mutations have been shown to account for adaptations many,
many times in the lab, mostly in viruses and bacteria. There is no room
in these organisms for unknown libraries of information or sequences in
waiting, since the entire genomes are taken up by functional genes.
Ordinary genetic variation of the sort produced by mutation has been
shown to be under selection, i.e. also accounting for adaptation, many
times in the lab and field, in plants and animals. This variation could
conceivably have been produced by some magic unknown process, though it
looks just like variation produced by mutation.
> I'll also get to all the other issues form the other posts. Sorry I
> can't offer more tonight, but right now I'm going to go be with my
> kids and play my guitar.
I'll be here.
john.1...@gmail.com
SChesher wrote:
> A YEC model
>
> This will seem really wild to most people. They have been raised with
> the uniformitarian/Darwinian model preached as gospel all their lives.
> Read it over carefully and digest it a while before you respond.
>
> I know that the Talk Origins has covered many of the individual points
> in this model, but none of the arguments are persuasive. For example
> the discussions of the declining speed of light papers by Setterfield
> are superficial and weak. When I actually ran the regression analysis
> on the data in MINITAB, the results agreed with Setterfield with a high
> degree of probability.
I have to laugh at this. Setterfield very carefully selected the points
he
applied his fit to. Also, I would suggest that there is a simpler
explanation
to the apparent decline in the speed of light that Setterfield is
claiming
happened. Here is something I have posted before:
Setterfield and Significant figures by John Stockwell
The biggest issue is that Setterfield's claimed variation in the
speed of light disappears coincidentally at the same rate as
measurement quality
improves (this is also true of his other examples in which he claims
that other
physical quantities are also varying). Indeed, if you throw out all of
his data prior
to about 1860, you don't really see any change in the speed of light.
Now, if c were to start changing tomorrow, Setterfield is sitting
pretty. He got
there first. (A new episode of c change would be compelling evidence.)
After the
fact, there would then be reason to claim that the speed of light can
change. As it
stands today, the argument that the speed of light is constant is much
stronger than
any arguments in favor of a varying speed of light.
Setterfield is not correct to say that his data show "strong" or
"convincing"
evidence of an exponential change in c. At best we can say that we can
hide
a change in c of the size Setterfield proposes in the historical data.
Indeed,
Setterfield's phenomenon is a very fragile one, and not a strongly
represented one at all.
Indeed, the primary flaw in Setterfield's approach is that he is
combining data of
wildly different precisions.
We can further see this, in terms of a concept that should be familiar
to anybody
who took a science class at the college level----significant figures.
If we write
the modern value of the speed of light, 2.99792458x10^5 km/s as it
appears for
different numbers of significant figures we have:
1 sig fig -> 3x10^5 km/s
2 sig figs -> 3.0x10^5 km/s
3 sig figs -> 3.00x10^5 km/s
4 sig figs -> 2.998x10^5 km/s
5 sig figs -> 2.9979x10^5 km/s
6 sig figs -> 2.99792x10^5 km/s
.
So, from merely increasing the number of significant figures in the
measurement we
can apparently "lower" the speed of light by the same amount that
Setterfield is claiming has
actually happened.
Anyone familiar with significant figures knows that we must have the
same number
of significant figures in the quantities that we input into the
calculation as we expect
for the output of those computations.
If we go through Setterfields' tabulated data at:
http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html
we can then apply this reasoning to his data.
1) Roemer-type measurments.
Even if we have infinite precision for the distance
across the Earth's orbit, the number of significant figures in the
time measurement
will govern the number of significant figures in the caculated values
of c. It's
likely that these data can never be considered to be better than to 1
significant
figure.
2) Bradley (aberration) measurments.
Fortunately, Setterfield lists plenty of these measurements. While the
data are presented
as if they were good to 4 or even 5 significant figures, it is
apparent from the scatter of
the data, particularly that in data collected in relatively small time
intervals (compare
the measurments of 1889-1898 for example) o f years, that the
abberation parameter
could actually be determined to 3 but only rarely to 4 significant
figures. All of
these measurments of the speed of light agree with the modern value to
3 significant
figures solidly. and many agree with the today's figure to 4
significant figures.
3) toothed wheel experiments.
These data suggest that the number of significant figures avialable
is more likely
related to the baseline length of the experiment, than with time.
After 1855 most of the
measurements agree to 4 significant figures with today's values.
4) Rotating mirror experiments. Interestingly, all of the values listed
agree to within 4
significant figures, and within the stated error bars, with the
modern value of the speed
of light.
All more modern results Setterfield presents show orders of
magnitudes of refinement
those of past methods.
So, basically, Setterfield's stuff is interesting, but
inconclusive. The fact that
we can make his phenomenon go away by simply considering the
significant figures
in the data shows that his results are not "strong" results of
anything.
[.. creationist fantasy science deleted..]
> I hope I've done this justice. At least it's a starting point.
>
> Shawn
John Stockwell | jo...@dix.Mines.EDU
Center for Wave Phenomena (The Home of Seismic Un*x)
Colorado School of Mines
Golden, CO 80401 | http://www.cwp.mines.edu/cwpcodes
voice: (303) 273-3049
Our book:
Norman Bleistein, Jack K. Cohen, John W. Stockwell Jr., [2001],
Mathematics of multidimensional seismic imaging, migration, and
inversion,
(Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, V. 13.), Springer-Verlag, New
York.
John Harshman
His response would be that most differences among species are not the
result of mutations. The mutation rate could be as we suppose, but
within 6000 years would only have produced a few differences. Most of
the differences are produced by SChesher's unspecified mechanism, which
is not mutation. The fact that it looks just like mutation as far as we
can tell is irrelevant. The fact that most differences among species are
neutral is irrelevant. Facts are irrelevant.
> If I am reading this correctly, SChesher has said that all genetic
> variation is already built into the kinds- his "robustness".
> Presumably this dates from the Flood. Now, I believe I have read that
> there are more possible human HLA genotypes than there people on the
> planet (I doubt this maps precisely onto serotypes though). Is that the
> case? How would it be possible to cram that much diversity into
> the--what, seven humans aboard the ark at the time?
Effectively, five humans: Noah, his wife, and their sons' wives. The
sons are just additional samples of Noah's and his wife's genomes. This
allows for a maximum of 10 alleles of anything. Unclean animals get a
maximum of 4 alleles, clean ones get 28 alleles. If we ever figure out
the mysterious mechanism that produces genetic change in SChesher's
world, perhaps it would resolve this conundrum.
> I just read the HLA group is estimated to be over 500 million years old
> (here: http://depts.washington.edu/rhwlab/dq/intro.html). Another
> problem here is that they specifically mention that there is an
> extremely low recombination rate within the MHC region. That being the
> case, the high evolution rate theory (HERT, for what it does to your
> brain) pretty much falls apart.
>
> Chris
>
>
>>Of course, at the same time, it would be nice to know if
>>you are proposing that black bears, brown bears, polar
>>bears and sun bears are all the "bear kind". At the
>>same time, is rhino a kind? big cat (lepard, lion, tiger,
>>cheatah, puma)?
>
> SChesher has made some vague comment about kinds mapping onto genera.
> It really burns me when creationists attempt to coopt standard
> nomenclature for some whacky manipulation. If a kind is something
> unique, then make it unique. Leave our terms alone, dammit.
He's saying that kinds are only roughly genera. This allows wiggle room
for anything. The only real way to do this is to exactly detail specific
kinds, which so far he hasn't done. It also seems to me that if there
were such things as kinds, it should be easy to develop objective
criteria for telling if two species are in the same or different kinds.
So far, creationists have no such criteria. They often bring up
hybridization, but they never really test that hypothesis.
John Harshman
Because it's irrelevant. This is not relativity. This is time as
estimated by radiometric dating, under the assumption of constant decay
rates, vs. real time, in which decay rates are declining
logarithmically. One is wrong, the other is right. The use of two sorts
of time is just a figure of speech. (By the way, he seems to think that
atomic clocks have something to do with decay.)
> Even Humphries realized the problem, which is why he invented
> the patently absurd scenario with a white hole near the earth.
And SChesher's theory has nothing to do with Humphreys.
> Someone who uses Satterfield as an authority is prima facie going
> to be confused.
Of course he's confused. Apparently, the only physical properties
affected by light speed decline are nuclear reactions. Everything else,
including time, is just the same as today. Now, this should have the
effect that all stars exploded in supernovae as soon as they formed,
back when nuclear reactions were billions of times faster than they are
now. But he's not thinking about that either.
> These are simple, basic questions, that somebody should be able to
> answer, and it will reveal exactly what "time frame" SChester
> KNOWS we live in.
That's obvious from what he's told us. We live in a time frame in which
the universe is a little less than 8000 years old, and the earth is a
few days younger than the universe. I repeat, his claims have nothing to
do with relativity.
wade
chris.li...@gmail.com wrote:
> wade wrote:
> > Of course, at the same time, it would be nice to know if
> > you are proposing that black bears, brown bears, polar
> > bears and sun bears are all the "bear kind". At the
> > same time, is rhino a kind? big cat (lepard, lion, tiger,
> > cheatah, puma)?
...
> Oh, and all of those above fall into the "big cat" kind except the
> lepard. Lepards are in the "ones' associates in a bad western with
> phony French accents" kind.
If I'm allowed to correct spelling, in addition to leopards, I want
jaguars too. And I want to know why there is more variation found
in different types of leopards than there is between tigers
and lions.
While I'm at it, given the fossils for various forms of big cats,
including saber tooth cats and care lions and fun guys like that,
(all the fossils formed during the flood no doubt) we are going
to have to get that large variability preflood which is even less time
than post-flood if I've got their timeline correct.
Stuart
SChesher wrote:
> John and all,
>
> I'll do my best to answer all the questions posted. I'll say you guys
> are a tough, harsh bunch, but I'm still confident.
If your gibberish regarding Setterfields SOL study is any indication,
your confidence is mere puffery on your part.
I've seen all of
> the objections before and defended against them, at least to my
> personal satisfaction
Bawahaha.
Many people won't be satisfied because they are
> highly confident about events that happened in the first 10e-43 of a
> seconds of time some 10e9 years ago.
>
> >John Harshman wrote:
> >... And please don't patronize scientists by attributing their
> > beliefs to habit.
>
> Sorry If I come off a little harsh myself.
>
> What I mean to say is that the paradigm of Darwinian evolution has
> deeply permeated the fabric of our society. It is taught from grade
> school to the highest levels of academia. Television programming, books
> and magazines, news, social icons and authorities... I don't' need
> to tell anyone how deeply entrenched it has become.
As well it should. Why its almost as entrenched as gravity.
>
> The result is that a person can apply this like a filter to their
> thinking. It can lead to inflexibility, short-sightedness, or "in the
> box thinking."
THat can happen. On the other hand Darwinian mechanisms are now
commonly used by mathematicians. I'd say you're much more likey to come
with something useful applying Darwinism dogmatically, then ignoring it
altogethar because it contradicts a literal reading of Genesis.
>
> I've found that many of the arguments against ID/YEC are arguments
> from the "box." What I mean is the argument is based on the fact
> that some particular point of ID/YEC doesn't follow the guidelines or
> doesn't fit the model of Darwinian evolution. To point this out
> doesn't prove much.
Can you give an example? Certainly ID must explain the same dataset
that evolution explains, as well as provide tests which can be
performed in conjucntion with that dataset.
>
> Not to pick on you John, I like you, but here's a good example of
> what I mean. You wrote:
>
> > Also, if kinds are only around 8000 years old, mutation rates have to be
> > many orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the present day
> > just to account for genetic differences among species within kinds.
>
> You'll recall that the in model I presented included the following:
>
> >> 2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
> >> The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
> >> considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
> >> Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
> >> DNA before the creation event.
> >> When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
> >> been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
> >>complex biological, informational systems are never the result
> >> of copy errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive
> >> adaptation of any organism. Note that these adaptations would be
> >> called micro-evolution in the evolutionary paradigm.
>
> Your statement about the need for drastically higher mutation rates is
> true from a Darwinian point of view. In the creation model a mutation
> is a degradation of DNA and plays no role in the adaptations of life.
But this is false. You can make up any model you want. You can't make
up any reality you want, and models must be comapred to reality. Second
this doesn't address Harshman's concerns regarding variability. If the
human race went through a bottleneck during the Noachian deluge, that
variability has to be generated by mutations since then, at a rate for
greater than observed today.
THe only other possibility is that Noah's family had thousands of more
genes then do contemporary humans. In which case they weren't humans.
You have to explain how variability can be front loaded.
> The argument jumps models and only proves that Creationists and
> Darwinists are at odds. Check back and see how many objections fall
> into this category.
No it proves that creationism is at war with reality and the only way
to avoid the obvious problems is to invoke miracle after miracle.
>
> Now I anticipate that some will completely miss the point of the above
> and fire off a one liner like "Where's the mechanism?" I will
> certainly address that issue.
That would be a start. You also ahve to explain how the observed
variability can be front loaded into a human sized genome.
>
> I'll also get to all the other issues form the other posts. Sorry I
> can't offer more tonight, but right now I'm going to go be with my
> kids and play my guitar.
A much more worthwhile activity than t.o.
Stuart
Noone Inparticular
Yes it is.
Due to the combinatorial nature of HLA gene rearrangements from the
three to six HLA type I and at least as many Type IIs the potential
number of HLA haplotypes exceeds 10^12.
More than 2000 human HLA alleles are known.
Tracy Hamilton
They call it Atomic Time. If somebody are not saying something
is a time, then they should not NAME it a "time".
Note that SChester said we LIVE in ONE of the time frames.
Actually we live in both, because there is only one kind of time,
not two.
It is a very basic distinction to make - between the variable itself,
and how to measure it. Think of it this way:
Suppose I want to measure distance, using a wooden meter stick, and one
made from a material that shrinks. Would I talk about Wooden Length,
and Shrinky-Dink Length, when discussing how far it is down to
the grocery store?
[snip]
> Of course he's confused. Apparently, the only physical properties
> affected by light speed decline are nuclear reactions. Everything else,
> including time, is just the same as today. Now, this should have the
> effect that all stars exploded in supernovae as soon as they formed,
> back when nuclear reactions were billions of times faster than they are
> now. But he's not thinking about that either.
Nor the fact that the speed of light is the ratio of distance to time,
and if that changes, then what is changing? - the meter or the second,
or both?
[snip]
Tracy P. Hamilton
John Harshman
That would be a good idea. It decreases clarity to do that. But if you
read closely, SChesher's position is quite clear. He's just expressing
it a bit poorly (and pretentiously).
> Note that SChester said we LIVE in ONE of the time frames.
> Actually we live in both, because there is only one kind of time,
> not two.
Yes. What he obviously means is that one frame is true, while the other
is illusory.
> It is a very basic distinction to make - between the variable itself,
> and how to measure it. Think of it this way:
>
> Suppose I want to measure distance, using a wooden meter stick, and one
> made from a material that shrinks. Would I talk about Wooden Length,
> and Shrinky-Dink Length, when discussing how far it is down to
> the grocery store?
You could. What you are doing here is supposing that SChesher is
expressing himself clearly, and holding him to the literal sense of a
few isolated bits of his statement. You have apparently not noticed that
if you do that, the great bulk of what he says becomes uninterpretable.
Try looking at the whole, rather than a few poorly chosen words.
> [snip]
>
>>Of course he's confused. Apparently, the only physical properties
>>affected by light speed decline are nuclear reactions. Everything else,
>>including time, is just the same as today. Now, this should have the
>>effect that all stars exploded in supernovae as soon as they formed,
>>back when nuclear reactions were billions of times faster than they are
>>now. But he's not thinking about that either.
>
> Nor the fact that the speed of light is the ratio of distance to time,
> and if that changes, then what is changing? - the meter or the second,
> or both?
Neither. Why should it? My speed in driving from Chicago to New York
would be a ratio of distance to time too. If I drive faster, does that
change the meter or the second? Or are you being a lawyer and using the
current official definition of a meter, which is defined in terms of the
distance light travels in some short period? In your own way, you are
being as stranges as SChesher here.
carlip...@physics.ucdavis.edu
> A YEC model
[...]
> Time frame
> This category gives time in two frames.
> Dynamic time is time measured in revolutions of the earth around the
> sun. We live in this time frame.
So, physically, this is determined by gravity and the mass of the Sun,
since the determine the orbit of the Earth. Right?
> Atomic time is time measured by atomic clocks using today's rates
> applied linearly back to the beginning of time. The scientist quotes
> time with this scale.
> The Young Earth
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Period 1
> Biblical events
> Creation of Heavens and Earth.
> Earth is covered by water for three days.
> Single continent upthrusted on third day. Waters drain continent.
> Life forms created.
> Natural events
> ""Big-Bang"". Notice the quotes.
> Galaxies form.
> Azoic Era. Earth form, earliest rock levels are sedimentary laid over
> continental plate.
> Single continent; Pangea.
> No fossils.
> Atomic events
> Vacuum with relatively low energy at sub-atomic level.
> Speed of light ~ 2.5x1010c initially.
> Speed of light and atomic decay rates begin to slow at logarithmic
> rates because stars begin to burn feeding the vacuum of space with
> energy.
> Time frame
> ~5700 BC Creation Week in Dynamic time.
> 15 Billion to 4.5 Billion in Atomic time.
Let me pick out one obvious problem with this. A star exists
because of a balance between atomic and nuclear processes,
which produce energy and make the gas of a star expand, and
gravity, which makes the gas contract. If atomic process are
stronger (or faster), you just don't get stars.
Your proposal seems close to Setterfield's, which -- at least
to the extent I can determine from his Web site -- includes
the following. (If one of these assumptions is wrong in your
model, please tell me which one, and exactly how it should be
changed; we can then go through the same exercise.)
1. The dimensionless coupling constants associated with non-
gravitational interactions -- in particular, the fine
structure constant a, the electroweak coupling g, and
the ``strong interaction fine structure constant'' a_s
-- do not change with time. The combination hc, where h
is Planck's constant, also does not change with time.
2. ``Atomic'' quantities with dimensions of time vary inversely
with c. In particular, lifetimes of radioactive elements
go as 1/c, so decay rates go as c.
3. Elementary particle masses vary inversely with c^2.
4. Newton's constant G varies proportionally to c^2, so, for
example, Gm_p remains constant (where m_p is the mass of
the proton). Combining this with (3), the ``gravitational
fine structure constant'' a_G = G(M_p)^2/hc varies inversely
with c^2. This is the single dimensionless constant that
changes with time.
These assumptions mean that any process that takes place at a
fixed time and depend only on electromagnetism and atomic and
subatomic physics cannot be used to detect any change. Neither
can any purely gravitational process. One way around this is
to look at processes in distant galaxies -- because of the
finite speed of light, we see these as they were in the past,
and can compare them to the corresponding processes now. But
Setterfield's proposal is cooked up to make c so much greater
that we're not looking very far back in time, and while he ends
up with inconsistencies, the analysis can get complicated.
The alternative is to look at processes that involve both gravity
and some other physical interaction. These *are* highly sensitive
to the changes Setterfield proposals.
Unfortunately for Setterfield, stars involve such a balance, and
can be used as tests. Stars are (approximately) stable because
they balance gravitational attraction with gas pressure, which
depends on atomic processes, and they produce energy because
of nuclear processes. Equilibrium is determined by requiring
that the pressure just balance the gravitational attraction.
This fixes the central temperature; if it is hot enough to start
fusion, you'll have a star. The principal barrier to fusion is
actually not nuclear, but electromagnetic -- protons repel each
other, and the central pressure and temperature have to be high
enough to overcome this ``Coulomb barrier'' to get nuclei close
enough to fuse. By looking at the balance, you can get remarkably
accurate predictions/explanations of the size and temperature of
stars.
This kind of argument leads to some straighforward limits on the
fundamental constants and their rate of change. A good introduction
to this type of analysis, requiring only some fairly elementary
physics, is a beautiful article by Victor Weisskopf, ``Of Atoms,
Mountains, and Stars: A Study in Qualitative Physics,'' Science 187
(1975) 605. Many more details can be found in Barrow and Tipler's
book, _The Anthropic Cosmological Principle_, especially chapter 5.
One may argue with these authors' philosophical conclusions -- many
have, including me -- but they are good physicists, and their
descriptions of basic physics are correct and clearly explained.
Here's the upshot. The minimum number N of nucleons (protons
and neutrons) needed for a star to ``ignite'' goes as (a/a_G)^{3/2}.
From point (1), Setterfield's a is constant; from point (4), his
a_G goes as 1/c^2. Hence his N goes as c^3. The present value
of N is a few percent of the number of nucleons in the Sun. Thus
in Setterfield's model, an increase in c by a factor of a little
more than 2 will turn off the Sun. Setterfield has various
``fits'' of the rate of change of c, but by my reading this
would have been about 1000 years ago. I think it would have
been noticed.
You get a similar dependence on c if you ask about the energy
output, or luminosity, of a star. This goes as (a_G)^4/h (see
Barrow and Tipler, section 5.6), or, in Setterfield's model, as
c^{-7}. To put some numbers in this, remember that the mean
temperature of the Earth goes as (L/sR^2)^{1/4}, where L is
the luminosity of the Sun, R is the radius of the Earth's orbit,
and s is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. s is proportional to
1/(h^3c^2), so in Setterfield's proposal it varies as c (since
hc is supposed to be constant), while R is supposed to be constant.
Combining this with the results for L, we find that the Earth's
mean temperature should vary as c^{-2}.
The current mean temperature of the Earth is about 288 K. A
5% increase in c would, in Setterfield's proposal, mean about a 9%
decrease in temperature, to 261 K, or -12 C. A 10% increase in c
would lower the Earth's mean temperature to -35C. Similarly, a
5% decrease in c would increase the Earth's mean temperature to
about 46 C, and a 10% decrease would increase the temperature
to 83 C. In one of his papers, Setterfield proposes that the
speed of light was about 11% lower at 1000 BC than it is now.
That would give the Earth a temperature of 91 C; the oceans
wouldn't quite be boiling, but I'd hate to see the air conditioning
bills.
You run into the same sort of problem if you look at the sizes of
planets. A planet is in equilibrium when gravitational attraction,
which changes in time according to Setterfield, balances repulsive
forces, which don't. The radius of a planet depends on quantities
that vary, in Setterfield's model, as (a_G)^{-1/2}(m_e)^{-1},
where m_e is the mass of an electron (see Barrow and Tipler,
section 5.3). This varies, according to Setterfield, as c^3. Thus
a 10% decrease in the speed of light -- in the past 700 years! --
would have meant about a 25% decrease in the radius of the Earth,
and a 43% decrease in its surface area. Again, this would have been
noticed.
Now, Setterfield proposes a bunch of different possible curves for
c against time, and the dates I've cited are based on a one of them.
But if you want to fit the history of the Universe into 10,000 years,
you're stuck -- you *need* to have a speed of light that was, in
historical times, much, much larger than it is now. You thus need
to explain why nobody noticed the huge earthquakes as the Earth
shrunk, why nobody pointed out how cold it was with such a dim Sun,
and why nobody wrote down a startled account of the Sun first igniting.
And you have to explain why we see so many Sun-like stars, when at
the time the light we see left them c was too high for such stars
to exist.
Steve Carlip
AC
> minimize the problem here.
Yóù ãrë quìtê côrrèct. Thïs îs sôméthìng Í mûst tënd tõ.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Codeb...@bigsecret.com
chris.li...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > But anyway how is this your problem?
> > > > Are you AC, acronym for Air Conditioning?
> > >
> > > It is manifestly your problem, that you routinely evade meaningful
> > > questions, never present any evidence for your assertions, and ignore
> > > mountains of data that contradict your erroneous beliefs.
> >
> >
> > Just you think that your mountains of data contradicts my beliefs, it
> > might
> > be so, and therefore my beliefs in Jesus as the UNIQUE MESSIAH/CHRIST
> > of Israel is erreneous.
>
> Where did you see that in my post? I said nothing about Jesus. Anything
> I might say about Jesus would be my personal opinion, and that's not
> relevant here.
>
> However, you seem to have as an integral part of your religious faith
> things that ARE demonstrably false- a six-day creation that took place
> a few thousand years ago, a worldwide flood that destroyed almost all
> life, etc.
>
> Those parts of your belief are wrong, and your faith will be stronger
> if you discard them, and count on the real message Christianity is
> supposed to convey.
This is what we have been saying.
Now what problem do you have with that?
chris.li...@gmail.com
> chris.li...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > But anyway how is this your problem?
> > > > > Are you AC, acronym for Air Conditioning?
> > > >
> > > > It is manifestly your problem, that you routinely evade meaningful
> > > > questions, never present any evidence for your assertions, and ignore
> > > > mountains of data that contradict your erroneous beliefs.
> > >
> > >
> > > Just you think that your mountains of data contradicts my beliefs, it
> > > might
> > > be so, and therefore my beliefs in Jesus as the UNIQUE MESSIAH/CHRIST
> > > of Israel is erreneous.
> >
> > Where did you see that in my post? I said nothing about Jesus. Anything
> > I might say about Jesus would be my personal opinion, and that's not
> > relevant here.
> >
> > However, you seem to have as an integral part of your religious faith
> > things that ARE demonstrably false- a six-day creation that took place
> > a few thousand years ago, a worldwide flood that destroyed almost all
> > life, etc.
> >
> > Those parts of your belief are wrong, and your faith will be stronger
> > if you discard them, and count on the real message Christianity is
> > supposed to convey.
>
> This is what we have been saying.
> Now what problem do you have with that?
Um, you better clarify that.
You have been arguing against a 6-day creation and a worldwide flood?
Chris
AC
> Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> But anyway how is this your problem?
> Are you AC, acronym for Air Conditioning?
I'm sorry, only one of us is a metaphorical breaker of wind around here.
But it does seem interesting that you are incapable of commenting on the
substance of anything in this thread.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
John Harshman
> chris.li...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>wade wrote:
>
>
>>>Of course, at the same time, it would be nice to know if
>>>you are proposing that black bears, brown bears, polar
>>>bears and sun bears are all the "bear kind". At the
>>>same time, is rhino a kind? big cat (lepard, lion, tiger,
>>>cheatah, puma)?
>
> ...
>
>>Oh, and all of those above fall into the "big cat" kind except the
>>lepard. Lepards are in the "ones' associates in a bad western with
>>phony French accents" kind.
>
>
> If I'm allowed to correct spelling, in addition to leopards, I want
> jaguars too. And I want to know why there is more variation found
> in different types of leopards than there is between tigers
> and lions.
>
> While I'm at it, given the fossils for various forms of big cats,
> including saber tooth cats and care lions
The latter are more closely related to care bears than to lions, I believe.
> and fun guys like that,
> (all the fossils formed during the flood no doubt)
Not according to SChesher. The flood encompasses the Paleozoic only. All
mammal fossils are (for some reason) post-flood.
> we are going
> to have to get that large variability preflood which is even less time
> than post-flood if I've got their timeline correct.
You haven't, at least not SChesher's timeline. Post-flood is Mesozoic
and above. Now of course this means that there is a huge fossil gap,
because all kinds were created in the first week, yet none of the mammal
kinds are recorded in any flood sediments, and no modern families until
hundreds of years post-flood. Pre-flood sediments are claimed to be rare
and non-fossiliferous, which isn't true either.
Tohu...@hotmail.com
Exactly. As it is written one day is like 1000 years and 1000 years
like
one day before the Lord. As for the flood I know that God is able to
do anything he wants and makes it look like something different.
No one knows for sure His ways except for what is revealed.
No one knows before that and Moses and Jesus shares Deut 18:15
and Islam too was grounded on the same verse.
Jesus had to draw near to reveal it.
SChesher
Struggling to get up,... having trouble... responding...
Just kidding. Hope you guys have a sense of humor. I judge by the
"witty" one-liners that most of you do. I've been busy this
weekend and haven't been around much to respond.
John and all,
You asked me to throw the IDYEC model that I believe to be true out
there and justify later. I see that this will be a little different
process than I though. The volume of questions/attacks from various
angles will take me some time to respond to. First of all the chaff
"You're a big dummy head" type responses have to be filtered out
to get to the sincere ones. Then I tend to labor over my replies,
wanting to word things carefully and cover the associated and
anticipated rebuttals without sound like too big of a jerk. I'd be
sitting at this computer for 12 hours a day. I don't know how you do
it. Just curious; how long do you spend posting daily?
I think what I'll do is write a number of more full bodied
discussions concerning the major areas and start new threads for each.
Here's an outline to get you thinking.
The first one I'll call "Mutations, a straw man wearing a
Tuxedo." In it I will discuss mechanisms and explore how
"mutations did it" is different from "God did it." How can I
distinguish a mutated gene from a tuned gene? This will lead to
questioning the circular reasoning behind calculations of mutation
rates. How can I justify the role of a mutation in a highly complex,
coded, ordered, informational system? For mwnowak1 I'll propose that
the utility of evolution is futility if ID is reality because
scientific method has ruled out ID in its very definition and forbids
such inquiries as heresy. I think someone mentioned the human leukocyte
antigen complex, this could be a good area to begin searching given the
dynamic nature of immune defense systems.
I would like to dedicate a thread to DNA and biological systems in the
light of information theory. This will include a discussion of the
uniqueness of the gene even with tuning differences (or mutations for
you guys).
A thread for cDK also since I feel it is so elegant and intuitive. Here
I'll give an outline of the theory those unfamiliar and point out how
it dissolves issues such as missing and dark matter, redshift patterns.
Don't get too caught up on Setterfield's extrapolation of the speed
of light data. I am comfortable with c being asymptotic for many more
years than is covered by the data set. Do brush up on his cDK model. He
does answer all the none data set related questions I've seen posed
about the model as well (for john 19071 and carlip-nos.)
One topic that has to be covered is why the God of Abraham is the only
contender for the position of the Intelligent Designer. How the Sabbath
day is His mark of authorship as designer.
I will take me a little while to get started; a week or two.
Talk soon,
Shawn
Tracy Hamilton
Allow me to quote Setterfield, and see if Setterfield believes it is
illusory:
http://setterfield.org/report/report.html (under "atomic time")
"For the atom, light has always traveled the same distance in one of its
seconds, its light emitting frequency has always been constant, Planck's
constant never varies and radioactive decay rates remain unchanged."
If c is constant and distance traveled is constant, then time elapsed is
CONSTANT.
Time itself IS different at the microscopic and macroscopic
level, according to Setterfield.
"The change observed in c macroscopically is thus an indication of a
variation occurring on the atomic level, with the run rate of the atomic
clock being affected."
Particularly if you note that distance according to Setterfield is
one of the three fundamental units (why? He doesn't say!)
>>It is a very basic distinction to make - between the variable itself,
>>and how to measure it. Think of it this way:
>>
>>Suppose I want to measure distance, using a wooden meter stick, and one
>>made from a material that shrinks. Would I talk about Wooden Length,
>>and Shrinky-Dink Length, when discussing how far it is down to
>>the grocery store?
>
>
> You could. What you are doing here is supposing that SChesher is
> expressing himself clearly, and holding him to the literal sense of a
> few isolated bits of his statement. You have apparently not noticed that
> if you do that, the great bulk of what he says becomes uninterpretable.
> Try looking at the whole, rather than a few poorly chosen words.
I don't think the problem resides with SChester, but his source.
SChester may disagree with Setterfield, or misunderstand him,
or may not be able to tell the difference between what he claims and
what Setterfield claims.
>>>Of course he's confused. Apparently, the only physical properties
>>>affected by light speed decline are nuclear reactions. Everything else,
>>>including time, is just the same as today. Now, this should have the
>>>effect that all stars exploded in supernovae as soon as they formed,
>>>back when nuclear reactions were billions of times faster than they are
>>>now. But he's not thinking about that either.
>>
>>Nor the fact that the speed of light is the ratio of distance to time,
>>and if that changes, then what is changing? - the meter or the second,
>>or both?
>
>
> Neither. Why should it? My speed in driving from Chicago to New York
> would be a ratio of distance to time too. If I drive faster, does that
> change the meter or the second?
You and your car have a rest mass, and not the same velocity
in different inertial frames. That is NOT the case for the
speed of light in a vacuum. Light can only go at c.
But the answer to your question about your driving, is that if you are
moving at a velocity relative to me, your meter is shorter than mine.
> Or are you being a lawyer and using the
> current official definition of a meter, which is defined in terms of the
> distance light travels in some short period? In your own way, you are
> being as stranges as SChesher here.
Tracy P. Hamilton
Tracy Hamilton
[snip]
> I think what I'll do is write a number of more full bodied
> discussions concerning the major areas and start new threads for each.
> Here's an outline to get you thinking.
[snip]
> A thread for cDK also since I feel it is so elegant and intuitive. Here
> I'll give an outline of the theory those unfamiliar and point out how
> it dissolves issues such as missing and dark matter, redshift patterns.
Will it account for the fact that there is no quantized redshift?
Have you built your foundation on shifting sand?
[snip]
Tracy P. Hamilton
John Harshman
I have no idea what Setterfield is talking about there. But when he says
"atomic clock" he means nuclear decay rates, not the things that the
USNO uses to set your watch, right?
>>>It is a very basic distinction to make - between the variable itself,
>>>and how to measure it. Think of it this way:
>>>
>>>Suppose I want to measure distance, using a wooden meter stick, and one
>>>made from a material that shrinks. Would I talk about Wooden Length,
>>>and Shrinky-Dink Length, when discussing how far it is down to
>>>the grocery store?
>>
>>
>>You could. What you are doing here is supposing that SChesher is
>>expressing himself clearly, and holding him to the literal sense of a
>>few isolated bits of his statement. You have apparently not noticed that
>>if you do that, the great bulk of what he says becomes uninterpretable.
>>Try looking at the whole, rather than a few poorly chosen words.
>
>
> I don't think the problem resides with SChester, but his source.
>
> SChester may disagree with Setterfield, or misunderstand him,
> or may not be able to tell the difference between what he claims and
> what Setterfield claims.
Quite possibly. I think SChesher (not the spelling, by the way) is not
interested in anything other than explaining how the universe can be
only a few thousand years old and created in a week. That's the time
he's interested in. Any other "times" are technical fixes to fit his
scenario, and their reality or lack thereof are uninteresting to him.
>>>>Of course he's confused. Apparently, the only physical properties
>>>>affected by light speed decline are nuclear reactions. Everything else,
>>>>including time, is just the same as today. Now, this should have the
>>>>effect that all stars exploded in supernovae as soon as they formed,
>>>>back when nuclear reactions were billions of times faster than they are
>>>>now. But he's not thinking about that either.
>>>
>>>Nor the fact that the speed of light is the ratio of distance to time,
>>>and if that changes, then what is changing? - the meter or the second,
>>>or both?
>>
>>Neither. Why should it? My speed in driving from Chicago to New York
>>would be a ratio of distance to time too. If I drive faster, does that
>>change the meter or the second?
>
> You and your car have a rest mass, and not the same velocity
> in different inertial frames. That is NOT the case for the
> speed of light in a vacuum. Light can only go at c.
>
> But the answer to your question about your driving, is that if you are
> moving at a velocity relative to me, your meter is shorter than mine.
No, your meter is shorter than mine. And you are moving at a velocity
relative to me. At any rate, the difference isn't significant. Why is it
that a change in the speed of light requires a change in the meter or
the second?
>>Or are you being a lawyer and using the
SChesher
>SChester may disagree with Setterfield, or misunderstand him,
>or may not be able to tell the difference between what he claims and
>what Setterfield claims.
Half of the one, half of the other and half of the third!
I believe you also are guilty of the accusation. If you notice the
sentences just prior to your quote:
“Summarizing the above approach, we may say that the atom sees no
change in c! Atomic time is based on the time an electron takes to
travel its orbit once. Seen dynamically then, atomic time intervals,
d, vary as 1/c.”
> "For the atom, light has always traveled the same distance in one of its
> seconds, its light emitting frequency has always been constant, Planck's
> constant never varies and radioactive decay rates remain unchanged.
The above paragraph is from the atoms point of view. Internally it’s
time reference is fixed to the time of an electron’s orbit.
Internally it “sees” no changes according to the fixed distance
definition of atomic time.
> "The change observed in c macroscopically is thus an indication of a
> variation occurring on the atomic level, with the run rate of the atomic
> clock being affected."
> Particularly if you note that distance according to Setterfield is
> one of the three fundamental units (why? He doesn't say!)
Yes, the run rate of the atomic clock in the theory has varied
according to the dynamic clock. Therefore atomic time does not equal
dynamic time.
Note that this is developed further to show that all atomic processes
internal to the atom do not change from the atoms perspective and it
explains many other things like why everything didn’t just melt down
at the beginning.
See http://setterfield.org/vacuum.html for a good overview. Read it
over. I’ll post a discussion of my IDYEC model and cDK sometime in
the next few weeks. I’d really appreciate your input.
A recap for all:
My position is that when one reports that a rock has been dated to X
billions of years he has made physical measurements of isotope ratios
and then applied a decay rate formula which is a function of atomic
events running at atomic clock rates which have not remained constant
in dynamic time and then reported the resulting age in units of dynamic
time. Two time frames mixed together. The X billion years age is based
on the assumption of constant linear decay rates. I believe that atomic
processes have slowed at logarithmic rates and as a result isotope
ratios should translate to logarithmically younger ages.
John,
>Any other "times" are technical fixes to fit his
>scenario, and their reality or lack thereof are uninteresting to him.
I'm interested in all time frames. Particularly the eternal!
Hope you seen my Dec 4th post in this tread, it's mostly for you.
Shawn
John Harshman
[snip]
> Note that this is developed further to show that all atomic processes
> internal to the atom do not change from the atoms perspective and it
> explains many other things like why everything didn’t just melt down
> at the beginning.
Can you explain why? After all, melting down doesn't happen from the
atom's perspective, but from ours, i.e. in dynamic time.
> See http://setterfield.org/vacuum.html for a good overview. Read it
> over. I’ll post a discussion of my IDYEC model and cDK sometime in
> the next few weeks. I’d really appreciate your input.
>
> A recap for all:
> My position is that when one reports that a rock has been dated to X
> billions of years he has made physical measurements of isotope ratios
> and then applied a decay rate formula which is a function of atomic
> events running at atomic clock rates which have not remained constant
> in dynamic time and then reported the resulting age in units of dynamic
> time. Two time frames mixed together. The X billion years age is based
> on the assumption of constant linear decay rates. I believe that atomic
> processes have slowed at logarithmic rates and as a result isotope
> ratios should translate to logarithmically younger ages.
Is there any evidence for this claim?
>>Any other "times" are technical fixes to fit his
>>scenario, and their reality or lack thereof are uninteresting to him.
>
>
> I'm interested in all time frames. Particularly the eternal!
> Hope you seen my Dec 4th post in this tread, it's mostly for you.
I saw it. But all it said was that you would be saying something later.
You have not responded to any of my objections to your ideas or time
scale. I was hoping that you would.
David Holland
all of physics, biology, and presumably geology (you don't mention it
above but if you are supporting YEC you will have to get to it
eventually). Good luck.
I hate to pile another task on but you seem like the kind of creationist
that would actually try to come up with a reasonable answer. I want to
know how a creationist explains things like penguins. They live like sea
lions but are built more like eagles or ostriches. Everything from
respiratory system, digestive system, sensory system, musculature places
them with the other birds. Common descent explains this. How does design
or creationism explain it?
SChesher
You're right, huge task. That's why it will take me some time to
complete it. See my post in this tread, Nov 30, 10:18 pm, for an
outline of the model. John Harshman asked me to get the model out there
and justify it later. I want the justification to be in the form of a
complete discussion rather than 100 small posts so it will come in a
few weeks.
I haven't seen any objections posted here that I haven't seen before.
But in reality I doubt that many will be swayed if I read the
scriptures correctly.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Shawn
John Harshman
You have to give him high marks for confidence.
Tracy Hamilton
> Tracy,
>
>
>>SChester may disagree with Setterfield, or misunderstand him,
>>or may not be able to tell the difference between what he claims and
>>what Setterfield claims.
>
>
> Half of the one, half of the other and half of the third!
> I believe you also are guilty of the accusation. If you notice the
> sentences just prior to your quote:
>
> “Summarizing the above approach, we may say that the atom sees no
> change in c! Atomic time is based on the time an electron takes to
> travel its orbit once. Seen dynamically then, atomic time intervals,
> d, vary as 1/c.”
In other words there are two "kinds" of time.
That is nonsense, plain and simple. Have you ever taken a course
in modern physics (generally junior level) or read up on relativity?
>>"For the atom, light has always traveled the same distance in one of its
>>seconds, its light emitting frequency has always been constant, Planck's
>>constant never varies and radioactive decay rates remain unchanged.
>
>
> The above paragraph is from the atoms point of view. Internally it’s
> time reference is fixed to the time of an electron’s orbit.
This "time reference" idea is also nonsense Setterfield just made up.
See Einstein's Special Relativity theory for a simple, yet amazing
idea, that is reality-based.
> Internally it “sees” no changes according to the fixed distance
> definition of atomic time.
>>"The change observed in c macroscopically is thus an indication of a
>>variation occurring on the atomic level, with the run rate of the atomic
>>clock being affected."
>>Particularly if you note that distance according to Setterfield is
>>one of the three fundamental units (why? He doesn't say!)
[snip - no explanation of why distance should be fundamental]
> I’d really appreciate your input.
Well, a justification for the "time frame" idea would be a nice start,
without the dubious assertion you are using to justify two kinds of
"time frames".
Steve Carlip asked an excellent question which is that stars are an
excellent test of consistency between a gravitation only system
(not dependent in changes in c), and a nuclear interaction only system
(reportedly dependent on c). A star's size is a balance of radiation
pressure from nuclear fusion, and gravitational attraction.
[snip]
Tracy P. Hamilton
carlip...@physics.ucdavis.edu
[...]
I've done so. I'm a professional physicist (professor of physics;
Ph.D. from UT Austin, postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study;
about 65 published papers, averaging 34 citations each; Fellow of
the Institute of Physics; etc.), and a good deal of what's discussed
there overlaps with my research. To put it bluntly, it's awful.
Here's a short list of problems -- I don't have time for a detailed
critique, but these should clearly be enough to kill the idea.
1. Setterfield claims that there is a real vacuum energy density from
zero-point fluctuations of at least 10^{44} erg/cm^3. This is grotesquely
in disagreement with observation, which places a limit of approximately
10^{-8} erg/cm^3. The number Setterfield quotes is the naive estimate
of vacuum energy from quantum mechanics. We don't know why it is so
wrong -- this is the "cosmological constant problem," one of the main
unsolved questions in modern physics -- but there is no doubt at all
that it is wrong. For Setterfield, starting off with an error of more
than 50 orders of magnitude is not a good sign.
2. Setterfield goes on to say that "the physical vacuum of space therefore
appears to be made up of an all-pervasive sea of Planck particles whose
density is an unbelievable 3.6x10^{93} g/cm^3." This is indeed unbelievable
-- it's an elementary misunderstanding of what we know about quantum gravity.
It's true that we expect large fluctuations in the structure of spacetime
at the Planck scale (though it's not certain; it depends in part on the
technical question of whether quantum gravity is "asymptotically free").
But the net mass, and energy, of these fluctuations is zero.
3. Setterfield makes a fairly big deal of stochastic electrodynamics (SED)
as an alternative to quantum electrodynamics (QED). SED is an interesting
proposal, and (unlike some of Setterfield's other claims) it is serious
physics. But the idea that SED and QED "give the same answers mathematically"
is at best incredibly optimistic. There's a nice book, _The Quantum Dice:
An Introduction to Stochastic Electrodynamics_, by de la Pena and Cetto,
two of the main researchers in this field. While they are hopeful, they
freely admit that SED is very far from being a serious competitor to QED
yet. Among the problems they point out is the instability of the hydrogen
atom (the standard version of SED predicts spontaneous ionization) and
potential problems with Bell's inequalities (as a local, realistic theory,
SED disagrees with quantum mechanical predictions for Bell's inequalities;
de la Pena and Cetto point out some loopholes, including the standard
arguments that existing tests are not yet conclusive, but I think there may
be trouble here).
4. Setterfield relies heavily on Tifft's claim to have found quantized red
shifts. There is a good deal of evidence that this effect simply does not
exist -- see, for example, Chengalur et al., Astrophysical Journal 419 (1993)
30; Charleton and Salpeter, Astrophysical Journal 375 (1991) 517; Schneider
and Salpeter, Astrophysical Journal 385 (1992) 32; and Newman et al.,
Astrophysical Journal 431 (1994) 147.
5. After a rather bizarre "derivation" of a quantization of red shift (which
mixes random elements of SED, ordinary quantum mechanics, and the "old quantum
mechanics" of the Bohr atom), Setterfield concludes that red shifts should
come in intervals of 2.671 km/sec. He concludes that because he can match
Tifft's claimed quantization by choosing n=27 (that is, a jump of 27 times
his basic unit), this provides evidence for his model. Regardless of what
you think about anything else here, pause for a second to consider how
bizarre this is. By choosing different values of n, Setterfield could
reproduce *any* claimed quantization of red shift to within 1.4 km/sec.
The fact that he would present this as "evidence" shows either a gross
misunderstanding of elementary statistics or an attempt to deceive readers.
6. Setterfield cites, among others, Albrecht and Magueijo for support of the
idea that the speed of light has changes. Andy Albrecht is a colleague of
mine, and I've talked to him about this. SEtterfield is *grotesquely*
distorting his work, which has nothing at all in common with Setterfield's.
He and Magueijo proposed, as a deliberately highly speculative idea, that c
might have been greater in the *very* early Universe, long before the first
formation of stars. They looked at this possibility because they are quite
familiar with the overwhelming evidence that c has *not* changed significantly
in the past 13 billion years.
7. Setterfield claims that "On the SED approach, even the Newtonian
gravitational constant 'G' is a ZPE phenomenon." He gives no reference,
and this claim most certainly does not appear in the standard SED
literature. My guess is that he is referring to a completely discredited
paper of Puthoff's.
8. Setterfield's conclusions from his model are in obvious disagreement with
observation. Among others:
-- He claims that his model can explain "missing mass" without dark matter.
To do so, he starts with the half-truth that " The relative velocities
of individual galaxies within clusters of galaxies are measured by
their redshift. From this redshift measurement, it has been concluded
that the velocities of galaxies are too high for them to remain within
the cluster for the assumed age of the universe." In fact, red shift
observations are only one of many different ways to determine "missing
mass"; others include weak and strong gravitational lensing and X-ray
temperature measurements. He then claims that since red shift doesn't
measure velocity, the problem disappears. But if that were right (and
all the other pieces of evidence for missing mass were wrong), he
should expect more mistaken claims of missing mass at higher red shift
clusters than at lower ones. That isn't what happens.
-- He claims that his model explains the uniform cosmic microwave
background radiation (CMBR). But the big news about the CMBR is not
its smoothness, but the observed *deviations* from smoothness, the
"acoustic peaks" that can be explained by, and are used to test,
standard cosmology. Why does he ignore these?
9. Finally, there is nothing in here that addresses my earlier objection, that
a changing ratio of "atomic time" and "dynamical time" would drastically
destabilize stars and planets. The only reference I can find is in
http://www.setterfield.org/stellarhist.html, where Setterfield cites a
"paper undergoing review" (in 2002!) to make some claims that are in complete
disagreement with standard stellar physics.
If this is what you are basing your model on, you are in trouble...
Steve Carlip
Stuart
SChesher wrote:
> Tracy,
>
>
> A recap for all:
> My position is that when one reports that a rock has been dated to X
> billions of years he has made physical measurements of isotope ratios
> and then applied a decay rate formula which is a function of atomic
> events running at atomic clock rates which have not remained constant
> in dynamic time and then reported the resulting age in units of dynamic
> time.
THis really makes no sense. Second, other measurements made using
radioiostopes generated in distant supernovas, among many others,
suggest that any changes in the fundamental constants of nature during
the course of Earth history are unimportant as far as geology is
concerned.
Two time frames mixed together. The X billion years age is based
> on the assumption of constant linear decay rates.
An assumption justified by different lines of inquiry, including that
many igneous rocks can be dated by different isotopes found in the same
rock. That alone argues for small changes in the fundamental constants.
I believe that atomic
> processes have slowed at logarithmic rates and as a result isotope
> ratios should translate to logarithmically younger ages.
Your beliefs are irrelevant.
Nature says otherwise.
Stuart
Stuart
carlip...@physics.ucdavis.edu wrote:
> SChesher <bche...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>
> [...]
> > See http://setterfield.org/vacuum.html for a good overview. Read it
> > over.
>
> I've done so. I'm a professional physicist (professor of physics;
> Ph.D. from UT Austin, postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study;
> about 65 published papers, averaging 34 citations each; Fellow of
> the Institute of Physics; etc
Jiminey Cricket Steve..
you need a vacation :-)
Stuart
BruceW
carlip...@physics.ucdavis.edu wrote:
> I've done so. I'm a professional physicist (professor of physics;
> Ph.D. from UT Austin, postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study;
> about 65 published papers, averaging 34 citations each; Fellow of
> the Institute of Physics; etc.)
> ...
Pardon me for butting in, but . .
I was reading Peter Woit's "Not Even Wrong" bong the other day:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=307
which contained a long-ish review of Leonard Susskind’s "The Cosmic
Landscape". After reading the review, the comments, and some related
links, I came away with the impression that string theory is in
trouble, that physicists are questioning its value in much the same way
as anti-Darwinists like to imagine that biologists are questioning the
value of the ToE.
I'd be curious to hear your ideas: is Susskind's book mostly fluff? is
ST in trouble? or is Woit just a malcontent, whining complainer? ;-)
Thanks -
-BruceW
carlip...@physics.ucdavis.edu
> Pardon me for butting in, but . .
> I was reading Peter Woit's "Not Even Wrong" bong the other day:
> http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=307
> which contained a long-ish review of Leonard Susskind's "The Cosmic
> Landscape". After reading the review, the comments, and some related
> links, I came away with the impression that string theory is in
> trouble, that physicists are questioning its value in much the same way
> as anti-Darwinists like to imagine that biologists are questioning the
> value of the ToE.
> I'd be curious to hear your ideas: is Susskind's book mostly fluff? is
> ST in trouble? or is Woit just a malcontent, whining complainer? ;-)
This is a personal take on the matter -- you'll get different answers
from others. I haven't read Susskind's book, but I've heard him give
talks about this.
String theory is probably better thought of as a research program rather
than a theory. We don't know the underlying structure (this, by the
way, is not controversial, even among the strongest proponents of string
theory). Instead, we have various pieces -- approximations when certain
couplings are weak, perhaps exact descriptions when certain rather strong
boundary conditions hold, etc. There is very strong evidence that these
pieces really fit together into a single whole, but no one knows what
that "whole" is.
From the pieces we understand, we know that there are a number of important
ways that string theory matches the real universe. In particular, string
theory is a quantum theory that contains gravity, and as such is one of
very few ways we know to quantize gravity. (Some would claim it's the
only way we know; opinions differ.) String theory can successfully
explain the thermodynamic properties of a large class of black holes,
a basic test that any putative quantum theory of gravity must pass. And
string theory also has room for other fundamental interactions, and really
is the only candidate we have, at least for now, for a unified theory of
fundamental physics.
None of this means that string theory is really the right description of
our universe, though. I think almost all physicists agree that we should
continue to investigate string theory in the hope that it's right, and for
the things we'll learn along the way -- there are a number of important
"string-inspired" models around now that may ultimately have nothing to
do with "real" string theory, but that wouldn't have been thought of if
it weren't for string theory. But there's been a controversy for at
least 20 years over whether string theory is getting too much attention,
with some very good physicists charging that it's diverting research from
other promising directions. I think there's less of a case for this now
than there was at some times in the past, though; if you look at the ads
for new physics faculty positions this year, for instance, relatively few
are in string theory per se.
The issue Susskind and Woit are talking about is this. In the past, there
was a widespread hope that string theory was basically unique, and that if
we really understood it, we could predict such fundamental quantities as
the charge of the electron, masses of quarks, etc. Technically, these
quantities are (probably) determined by the "ground state" or "vacuum state"
of string theory, and the hope was that this state was unique. If true,
this would give a very direct set of observational tests of string theory
-- if someone could show that string theory really did predict the values
of the fundamental constants, there would be very little doubt about its
validity. A unique string vacuum would even do more -- it would determine
the numbers and types of elementary particles and their interactions.
There is evidence now, although it is not conclusive, that string theory
actually has an enormous number of ground states. (Te buzzword is the
"string theory landscape.") If this is right, string theory becomes more
like "field theory," a framework in which many different models can be
built rather than a unique, predictive theory. A number of people are
trying to make statistical predictions from the "landscape" -- it may be
possible to say that "most" ground states have certain properties, or
that there are strong correlations between, for example, the value of the
cosmological constant and the charge of the electron. If this is the case,
we still have interesting possibilities for observational tests, but they
are less conclusive.
Susskind also argues that the "landscape" picture also allows room for the
anthropic principle, in a somewhat more physical way than it is usually
presented. One might easily have regions of a large universe that are in
different string ground states, in which case it would make sense to say
that the region we live in is one that allows life, and ask whether the
correlations among other properties are strong enough to allow predictions.
You don't really even need an anthropic argument for this; you can ask,
"Given that we observe (say) a cosmological constant with value x, what
is the probability that the charge of an electron is in range y?"
Even if such a scenario is possible, though -- that is, even if it proves
to be possible to do a statistical analysis of string ground states, and
we really do find strong correlations among various properties -- this is
a let-down from the earlier claims that string theory could predict a
unique universe. On the other hand, though, the "landscape" picture is
not at all a proven fact. While it seems to be correct in some corners
of string theory, as I said, we don't know the underlying structure, and
it could still be that string theory has a unique vacuum state. There
are certainly a lot of very good string theorists who are not satisfied
with the landscape picture.
So the answer, as usual in string theory, is that we don't yet know enough
to say...
Steve Carlip
BruceW
Thank you for taking the time Steve -- I appreciate it.
-BruceW
bob
>As a creationist, I would use similarity of form and function to be the
>motivating basis for comparison of genes. I would look to other
>organisms that are close to Man in the hierarchy of life on this
>planet. Then I would look to any other organism that may have features
>with similar function for comparison. In a similarly manner, when
>programming a new piece of computer code or designing an electronic
>circuit, I often look to similar types of projects from a wide range of
>areas to get ideas on how I should proceed or solve problems. This is
>common in the engineering world.
the question is, of course, why would you do this? since god could do
anything he wanted, no matter what you found, it would prove nothing.
>
>
>Overall I think that if creationism was featured in education rather
>than evolution
we KNOW historically this is not true. god did it WAS the explanation
for 2000 years of western civilization. it led nowhere. creationists
often ignore the fact that we HAVE experience with creationism and it
was/is a dead end.
bob
>>John Harshman wrote:
>>...
>>Wait a minute. If you're a creationist, why would you imagine that any
>>hierarchy of life exists? If you're talking about the nested hierarchy,
>>then common descent is the only rational explanation for its existence.
>
>I don't see why a hierarchy, spectrum of life forms, filled niches,
>or a robust, vibrant biosphere should be a problem for a creationist.
well that's true. since god can do anything, no matter WHAT kind of
world we see, god could do it. ]
>
>Realize that the fossil record as well as life in general exists at the
>species level. The classification system is used to group the species
>together. It can be useful in grouping organisms for study or
>comparison. It is also used by evolutionist to infer common decent of
>all life forms back to a common ancestor somewhere below the kingdom
>level. Nevertheless, there is no line of fossils that can directly
>connect species that belong to different orders. If Darwinian evolution
>was true, direct connections of orders would be clearly evident and
>commonplace. It is this lack of connecting fossils that constitute
>gaps in the record.
but speciation is observed. and, as you pointed out, this is
life...and evolution
>
>To the creationist the fossil record appears exactly as predicted.
?? since god can do anything, creationism has no predictive power at
all.
>There are no gaps in the fossil record because there are no connections
>between orders.
?? we see connections between species, as we see speciation events
occurring today.
>
>
>
>Let me briefly outline some elements of one proposal of a framework of
>creationism.
>
>1. DNA is a biological structure that is capable of coding, storing and
>transmitting information. Like every other system that codifies data
>that mankind has ever experienced, DNA is the result of intelligent
>forethought. Other such systems include all human languages, music and
>computer machine code.
meaningless assertion. how do you know this? human languages use vocal
cords and sounds as well as mental processes mediated by physical
brain processes.
are you saying god is a physical process?
>
>2. The biblical kind is engineered with a high degree of robustness.
>The consequences of geologic and environmental pressures have been
>considered by a creator who is intimately familiar with his creation.
>Reactions to these pressures and adaptations are programmed into the
>DNA before the creation event.
>When a minor change to a species occurs, it is solely because it has
>been accounted for in the code initially. Beneficial adaptations to
>complex biological, informational systems are never the result of copy
>errors. There is no place for mutations in the positive adaptation of
>any organism.
>Note that these adaptations would be called micro-evolution in the
>evolutionary paradigm.
?? being heterozygous for sickle cell anemia confers no advantage?
really? that will come as news to the world's scientists.
>
>3. The species is able to adapt to various pressures by existing
>features adapting. New features at a systems level will not appear.
whatever this means. we see speciation happen. it's a fact.
>This means that macro-evolution does not happen.
plainly wrong.
This also means that
>adaptation has boundaries. These boundaries are simply the realization
>that a horse for example will never sprout wings and fly. This should
>be intuitive and obvious to anyone.
the argument from incredulity.
>
>
>I really don't see why creationism needs to be such a scary prospect
>to the evolutionist.
it's not. no moreso than any other superstition like astrology,
necromancy, etc.
Replace the vague mechanism of mutations with a
>purposeful designer and limit changes in organisms to the changes that
>are actually observed in the fossil record and carry on with things.
>You'll have to let go of your 1860's perspective on both Darwin and
>the scriptures. You'll be surprised at what the scriptures actually
>say as opposed to what other people say that they say.
>\
gee. seems creationists think scientists have never read the bible...
a common creationist misconception.