Unicorns and the ToE

[Dave Hawkins]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits. There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms. Have you read Chris Ashcraft's Genetic Variability by Design? This explains a lot about Homologous Recombination and it's role in adapting organisms to their environment. Mutations (the traditional definition of the word, i.e. 'copying mistake') do not suffice as a mechanism for 'progressive' evolution (to use Muller the Fruit Fly Guy's term). Mutations, taken as a whole, are destructive ... not constructive. Change occurs, yes. But the evidence is mounting that the constructive change--bigger beaks, darker colors, etc--happens under tight cellular control. Here's an excerpt from Ashcraft's article ...

It is now widely recognized that genetic editions through HR [Homologous Recombination] are part of a highly coordinated process involving a cascade of specific macromolecule interactions,7 and controlled by highly organized regulatory systems.8 In particular, the induction of recombination during meiosis is reliant upon several genes, and is regulated by a complex network of cell signaling mechanisms.9

7 Cascades of Non-covalent Protein-protein and Protein-DNA Interactions for Homologous DNA Recombination. Takehiko Shibata. RIKEN Review 46:24-28 (2002)
8 Hierarchic Regulation of Recombination. Kunihiro Ohta. RIKEN Review 41:28-29 (2001)
9 Homologous genetic recombination as an intrinsic dynamic property of a DNA structure induced by RecA/Rad51-family proteins: a possible advantage of DNA over RNA as genomic material. Shibata, T., Nishinaka, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)
http://www.nwcreation.net/articles/r...ionreview.html

[Mike PSS]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits. There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms.

HOX genes anyone?
Dave, I'll even run with this statement a little IF you concede that the speciation contained in the fossil record occurred over millions (hundreds of millions actually) years.

You have two big contradictions in your worldview here. One is the intervention of a designer into documented naturalistic pathways of evolution. The second contradiction is TIME. You have no concept of time and place for your contentions to actually occur. WAving your hands all over the place to explain all of documented history crammed into the last 4500 years is asinine in the extreme.

And the time factor has NOTHING to do with biology. NOTHING. AT ALL.

If you invoke ONE of your contradictions then I will call foul by counterring with the other one. So settle the time contradiction then maybe, just maybe, you can have a shred of honesty to discuss the other contradiction you carry of created kinds.

[Febble]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits.

"Hard to pin down" because no evidence for. Once speciation has occurred, and hybridism between the branches is effectively over, what is to stop each branch speciating again?

What you have to explain, if you want to claim that there are limits to speciation is what would stop it going on for ever.

There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms. Have you read Chris Ashcraft's Genetic Variability by Design? This explains a lot about Homologous Recombination and it's role in adapting organisms to their environment. Mutations (the traditional definition of the word, i.e. 'copying mistake')

You can call a mutation a "copying mistake" if you like - but it makes no difference to the important point about mutation, which is that the fact that the copy is not perfect (a "mistake") tells you nothing about whether the new version is going to be more or less useful than the old one. A mistake in your favor is useful to you; a mistake in the bank's favor is useful to the bank.

do not suffice as a mechanism for 'progressive' evolution (to use Muller the Fruit Fly Guy's term). Mutations, taken as a whole, are destructive ... not constructive.

"taken as a whole?" What does that mean? Sure, there are probably more neutral or deleterious mutations than beneficial ones. That's irrelevant. The point is that it's the beneficial ones that get replicated the most (that's the definition of beneficial). So there will be more copies around of the beneficial ones, even though there may be fewer beneficial types. It's not the number of types that matter, it's the number of copies. Of the photos taken of me, most are appalling. But the vast majority of the photos still in existence aren't too bad. Why? Because I duplicate the nice ones, and delete the overwhelming majority that make me look like a convicted killer.

Change occurs, yes. But the evidence is mounting that the constructive change--bigger beaks, darker colors, etc--happens under tight cellular control. Here's an excerpt from Ashcraft's article ...

It is now widely recognized that genetic editions through HR [Homologous Recombination] are part of a highly coordinated process involving a cascade of specific macromolecule interactions,7 and controlled by highly organized regulatory systems.8 In particular, the induction of recombination during meiosis is reliant upon several genes, and is regulated by a complex network of cell signaling mechanisms.9

7 Cascades of Non-covalent Protein-protein and Protein-DNA Interactions for Homologous DNA Recombination. Takehiko Shibata. RIKEN Review 46:24-28 (2002)
8 Hierarchic Regulation of Recombination. Kunihiro Ohta. RIKEN Review 41:28-29 (2001)
9 Homologous genetic recombination as an intrinsic dynamic property of a DNA structure induced by RecA/Rad51-family proteins: a possible advantage of DNA over RNA as genomic material. Shibata, T., Nishinaka, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)
http://www.nwcreation.net/articles/r...ionreview.html

Tell me what you think Ashcraft is saying, and why you find his article convincing.

[Lucretius II]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits. There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms. Have you read Chris Ashcraft's Genetic Variability by Design? This explains a lot about Homologous Recombination and it's role in adapting organisms to their environment. Mutations (the traditional definition of the word, i.e. 'copying mistake') do not suffice as a mechanism for 'progressive' evolution (to use Muller the Fruit Fly Guy's term). Mutations, taken as a whole, are destructive ... not constructive. Change occurs, yes. But the evidence is mounting that the constructive change--bigger beaks, darker colors, etc--happens under tight cellular control. Here's an excerpt from Ashcraft's article ...

It is now widely recognized that genetic editions through HR [Homologous Recombination] are part of a highly coordinated process involving a cascade of specific macromolecule interactions,7 and controlled by highly organized regulatory systems.8 In particular, the induction of recombination during meiosis is reliant upon several genes, and is regulated by a complex network of cell signaling mechanisms.9

7 Cascades of Non-covalent Protein-protein and Protein-DNA Interactions for Homologous DNA Recombination. Takehiko Shibata. RIKEN Review 46:24-28 (2002)
8 Hierarchic Regulation of Recombination. Kunihiro Ohta. RIKEN Review 41:28-29 (2001)
9 Homologous genetic recombination as an intrinsic dynamic property of a DNA structure induced by RecA/Rad51-family proteins: a possible advantage of DNA over RNA as genomic material. Shibata, T., Nishinaka, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)
http://www.nwcreation.net/articles/r...ionreview.html

You really don't read these articles properly do you Dave ?
How about this part (non technical I may add )

Due to these findings some geneticists now believe that wolf domestication must have begun more than 100,000 years ago despite the fact that archaeological findings can not verify their existence beyond 14,000 years 2

The 2 refers to this link

http://www.mnh.si.edu/GeneticsLab/St..._Dog_Paper.pdf

How do you as a YEC explain the 14,000 years since you insist that the world /universe isn't in fact that old ?

[Tears On My Dong]

As for the Incarnation, I hope you will not give up your search for the truth about it. I believe I have found it. I believe that the evidence -- scientific, literary, historical and other -- indicates that the Incarnation was, in fact, the Creator of the Universe ... the Second Person of the Godhead ... entering a human body. Strange, yes. Why did He do it? I can't fully answer that. But I think the evidence indicates that this is actually what happened.

The same kind of evidence indicates that Gandalf's eyebrows stuck out past the brim of his hat.

[RAFH]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits. There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms. Have you read Chris Ashcraft's Genetic Variability by Design? This explains a lot about Homologous Recombination and it's role in adapting organisms to their environment. Mutations (the traditional definition of the word, i.e. 'copying mistake') do not suffice as a mechanism for 'progressive' evolution (to use Muller the Fruit Fly Guy's term). Mutations, taken as a whole, are destructive ... not constructive. Change occurs, yes. But the evidence is mounting that the constructive change--bigger beaks, darker colors, etc--happens under tight cellular control. Here's an excerpt from Ashcraft's article ...

You really don't read these articles properly do you Dave ?
How about this part (non technical I may add )

Due to these findings some geneticists now believe that wolf domestication must have begun more than 100,000 years ago despite the fact that archaeological findings can not verify their existence beyond 14,000 years 2

The 2 refers to this link

http://www.mnh.si.edu/GeneticsLab/St..._Dog_Paper.pdf

How do you as a YEC explain the 14,000 years since you insist that the world /universe isn't in fact that old ?

That part of the paper is wrong, but all the other parts are correct, except those that disagree with davey's worldview. They are also wrong. Also, any you might come up with later, they're wrong too.

[Zadok001]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits.

I'd discuss the rest of your post, but this is the only part that matters. Limits that are both definite AND hard to pin down. How does that work, exactly? Traditionally, definite limits are easy as pie to pin down. Could it be that these limits are only "definite" because you need them to be, and are only "hard to pin down" because they don't ACTUALLY exist?

Look, if you have a system, and that system stops functioning at a DEFINITE point, it's very easy to test - Just run the system, and find where it stops. If you don't have time to do that, just look at the results it spews out - The definite stopping point should be obvious to even an untrained eye. Of course, no one's hit this hypothetical limit in experimentation. And when we look at the results of the system, we don't see any definite stopping point.

But the stopping point MUST exist, because YEC requires it. Even though you have no reason to believe it exists.

This demonstrates the nature of creationism as a bullshit, ad-hoc explanation for selected evidence. You think there's a definite limit on evolution, in fact, you're SURE of it. But you cannot, and will not, *EVER* produce a shred of evidence to that effect. You believe it to be true because it necessary to prop up your execrable worldview. You believe it because it would be TOO DIFFICULT to NOT believe. You're a goddamn coward.

[ericmurphy]

Darwin did not do this.

He absolutely did. He showed how random variation within a population coupled with selection pressures were sufficient to generate diversity of species. You don't accept this, for religious reasons. That's your problem, not Darwin's.

Darwin proposed a non-ID hypothesis for the Origin of Species. I don't think even evolutionary biologists pretend to assert that Darwin came up with a mechanism for how this actually occurred.

He came up with several mechanisms. You keep leaving important mechanisms out, pretending they don't exist.

Geneticists have been trying to come up with a mechanism ever since Darwin, but they have failed. This is why MacNeill says the "modern synthesis is dead." It didn't work. He's not giving up, though, which is why he goes on to say "long live the evolving synthesis" but is that any better? It is not as you will see from my upcoming posts. (Don't know exactly when I will get around to this topic. I have many urgent topics I want to discuss.)

You never will, because you have nothing to say on the topic. All you've managed to do over the past year and a half is come up with quote-mines of legitimate scientists who completely disagree with the point you're trying to make.

[ericmurphy]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits.

You have zero evidence for this, Dave. All you have is your belief that macroevolution is impossible. Meanwhile, the evidence supporting the reality of macroevolution is overwhelming, and you don't have the balls to deal with that evidence.

In the meantime, your own belief system cannot even explain the most obvious thing about life, objective nested hierarchies. Your own belief system cannot even answer the original question Darwin set out to answer over 150 years ago.

There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms. Have you read Chris Ashcraft's Genetic Variability by Design?

Yes, Dave, we've read it, and read the dissections of it, in almost as much detail as VoxRat's dissections of Bergman's article.

This explains a lot about Homologous Recombination and it's role in adapting organisms to their environment. Mutations (the traditional definition of the word, i.e. 'copying mistake') do not suffice as a mechanism for 'progressive' evolution (to use Muller the Fruit Fly Guy's term). Mutations, taken as a whole, are destructive ... not constructive.

This is the same crap you've been posting for almost a year now, to little effect. You've never even addressed the evidence for macroevolution, let alone refuted it. You're afraid to even try.

[Febble]

Yes, Dave, we've read it, and read the dissections of it, in almost as much detail as VoxRat's dissections of Bergman's article.

Do you have a link to a dissection? I started to do one, then lost heart. The whole thing was too dispiriting.

[Serafina Pekkala]

This is Darwin's proposed mechanism for the Origin of Species:

Organisms are replicated with modification; those modifications that happen to be able to replicate more are replicated more.

It's so simple, it fits into a single sentence. And it works. You can even set up toy systems on a computer, and see it in action - speciation occurring before your very eyes.

Speciation occurs, yes. But within very definite (although hard to pin down) limits. There is a growing body of evidence that the variability that gives rise to speciation was pre-programmed into organisms. Have you read Chris Ashcraft's Genetic Variability by Design? This explains a lot about Homologous Recombination and it's role in adapting organisms to their environment. Mutations (the traditional definition of the word, i.e. 'copying mistake') do not suffice as a mechanism for 'progressive' evolution (to use Muller the Fruit Fly Guy's term). Mutations, taken as a whole, are destructive ... not constructive. Change occurs, yes. But the evidence is mounting that the constructive change--bigger beaks, darker colors, etc--happens under tight cellular control. Here's an excerpt from Ashcraft's article ...

It is now widely recognized that genetic editions through HR [Homologous Recombination] are part of a highly coordinated process involving a cascade of specific macromolecule interactions,7 and controlled by highly organized regulatory systems.8 In particular, the induction of recombination during meiosis is reliant upon several genes, and is regulated by a complex network of cell signaling mechanisms.9

7 Cascades of Non-covalent Protein-protein and Protein-DNA Interactions for Homologous DNA Recombination. Takehiko Shibata. RIKEN Review 46:24-28 (2002)
8 Hierarchic Regulation of Recombination. Kunihiro Ohta. RIKEN Review 41:28-29 (2001)
9 Homologous genetic recombination as an intrinsic dynamic property of a DNA structure induced by RecA/Rad51-family proteins: a possible advantage of DNA over RNA as genomic material. Shibata, T., Nishinaka, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)
http://www.nwcreation.net/articles/r...ionreview.html

Hiya, David. Im not sure I see what the issue is. Cellular control mechanisms are as evolvable as anything else, right? For example

Decades of research has together with the availability of whole genomes made it clear that many of the core components involved in the cell cycle are conserved across eukaryotes, both functionally and structurally. These proteins are organized in complexes and modules that are activated or deactivated at specific stages during the cell cycle through a wide variety of mechanisms including transcriptional regulation, phosphorylation, subcellular translocation and targeted degradation. In a series of integrative analyses of different genome-scale data sets, we have studied how these different layers of regulation together control the activity of cell cycle complexes and how this regulation has evolved. The results show surprisingly poor conservation of both the transcriptional and the post-translation regulation of individual genes and proteins; however, the changes in one layer of regulation are often mirrored by changes in other layers, implying that independent layers of control coevolve. By taking a bird's eye view of the cell cycle, we demonstrate how the modular organization of cellular systems possesses a built-in flexibility, which allows evolution to find many different solutions for assembling the same molecular machines just in time for action.

from this paper. If the limits of evolution are so imprecisely defined, how do we even know they are there? And if we tentatively accept a YEC timeframe, then massive macroevolution must have occurred to produce the diversity we see both today and in the fossil record.

Sari

[Febble]

Hiya, David. Im not sure I see what the issue is. Cellular control mechanisms are as evolvable as anything else, right?

Well, from the quote at the end of the Ashcraft article that Dave links to:

"The ability to induce homologous recombination in response to unfavorable environmental changes would be adaptive for each species, as it would increase genetic diversity and would help to avoid species' extinction. Homologous recombination would be more efficient for evolution than random mutagenesis or nonhomologous recombination. Although the latter two will mostly disrupt previously existing genes rather than creating new ones, homologous recombination can use previously existing genes as building blocks, thus enabling the creation of new proteins with more complex functions in a step-by-step manner." 13 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)

(my bold)

[Serafina Pekkala]

Hiya, David. Im not sure I see what the issue is. Cellular control mechanisms are as evolvable as anything else, right?

Well, from the quote at the end of the Ashcraft article that Dave links to:

"The ability to induce homologous recombination in response to unfavorable environmental changes would be adaptive for each species, as it would increase genetic diversity and would help to avoid species' extinction. Homologous recombination would be more efficient for evolution than random mutagenesis or nonhomologous recombination. Although the latter two will mostly disrupt previously existing genes rather than creating new ones, homologous recombination can use previously existing genes as building blocks, thus enabling the creation of new proteins with more complex functions in a step-by-step manner." 13 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)

(my bold)

Thanks! I havent finished reading it yet. So Ashcraft explicitly endorses evolution as the mechanism to produce cellular control.

Sari

[improvius]

Perhaps Dave believes there is something magical about recombination that somehow makes it more beneficial than other types of mutation.

[Febble]

Hiya, David. Im not sure I see what the issue is. Cellular control mechanisms are as evolvable as anything else, right?

Well, from the quote at the end of the Ashcraft article that Dave links to:

"The ability to induce homologous recombination in response to unfavorable environmental changes would be adaptive for each species, as it would increase genetic diversity and would help to avoid species' extinction. Homologous recombination would be more efficient for evolution than random mutagenesis or nonhomologous recombination. Although the latter two will mostly disrupt previously existing genes rather than creating new ones, homologous recombination can use previously existing genes as building blocks, thus enabling the creation of new proteins with more complex functions in a step-by-step manner." 13 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)

(my bold)

Thanks! I havent finished reading it yet. So Ashcraft explicitly endorses evolution as the mechanism to produce cellular control.

Sari

No, he doesn't argue anything at all. It's just a skillful bit of word salad used to create the impression that creation and evolution are equivalently sciencey. That's why I asked Dave to tell us what he thought that Ashcraft was saying. AFAICT he isn't saying anything at all, merely citing peer-reviewed literature in the hope that his readers will think that they support creationism.

[Susannah]

Of the photos taken of me, most are appalling. But the vast majority of the photos still in existence aren't too bad. Why? Because I duplicate the nice ones, and delete the overwhelming majority that make me look like a convicted killer.

:NOTWORTHY:Great analogy!

And that is why photos of me are an endangered species.

[Steviepinhead]

Duboius Davey Hawkins:

I have many urgent topics I want to discuss.

And many more that you urgently don't want to discuss.

[RAFH]

Duboius Davey Hawkins:

I have many urgent topics I want to discuss.

And many more that you urgently don't want to discuss.

You mean like these:

BIBLICAL INERRANCY (B)

1. Having admitted that you’ve never seen the supposedly “inerrant” originals of the Bible, how do you know they’re inerrant? If it’s because the admittedly flawed copies tell you so, why do you believe them?
2. You claim that humans have been literate since the Flood. Why did none of them have anything to say about an ice age that froze most of the planet solid? Why is there no evidence of it in written history?
3. You claim that humans have been literate since Adam. If Adam and the universe both came to exist about 6,000 years ago, then why don’t we have any written records dating back 6,000 years?
4. You claim that Adam had “secretaries” who followed him around with stone tablets, taking dictation. Whatever became of those tablets?

CREATOR GOD HYPOTHESIS (C)

1. Why are you unable to provide a means of falsifying your “hypothesis?”
2. . . . . . . .

(There’s not much point in a second question in this category until the first is answered, is there?)

STANDARD DATING TECHNIQUES (D)

1. Given your stated position that scientists in general are, as a whole, neither incompetent nor dishonest, how do you explain the conscilience in dating methods that shows the Earth to be many orders of magnitude older than 6,000 years?
2. For that matter, how do you explain even a single dating result in excess of 6,000 years?
3. Are discordant dates published, or is the conscilience obtained by hiding all the discordant dates? If the latter, how come the program managers and accountants haven’t noticed?
4. Is Snelling’s inclusion of xenoliths in his Ngauruhoe dating study fraud? If not, would it have been fraud to inject argon into the samples? What difference exists between the two scenarioes?
5. An Earth that is 5 billion years old, or 10 billion, or 50 billion, or a trillion years old, presents no problem to advocates of what you call the “deep time” theory, and yet no object native to the Earth has ever been dated beyond 4.55 billion years. Why do you suppose that is?
6. Given your stated position that isochrons are meaningless and invalid, what is your estimate of the probabilities that they would ever converge on any particular values?
7. What, specifically, are the problems with Mike PSS’s Isochron Summary?
8. What, specifically, are the problems with the dendrochronology for Catal Huyuk?
9. Given your stated position that only three layers have been dated, are you willing to admit, both on the Internet and at your church, that you are wrong if you are given links to more than three layer dating results? If not, why not?
10. What are the “bad assumptions” used during C14 calibration, and how do those “bad assumptions” cause all the independent C14 calibration curves to agree?
11. Have you finished reading Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective yet? When can we expect you to actually discuss it?

EVOLUTION AND MISC. BIOLOGY (E)

1. Given your stated position that there is zero evidence for macroevolution, what, in your opinion, do these graduate and undergraduate courses teach for 13 weeks?
2. How, exactly, was macroevolution falsified? Please include your definition of macroevolution when answering this question.
3. How does the human coccyx not constitute evidence for macroevolution?
4. What observable aspect of the coccyx would make it incompatible with special creation?
5. What part of Theobald’s sentence “The coccyx is a developmental remnant of the embryonic tail that forms in humans and then is degraded and eaten by our immune system (for more detail see the sections on the embryonic human tail and the atavistic human tail)” did you not understand?
6. What reproductive advantage does tree-climbing afford to humans?
7. Are humans mammals?
8. How can you claim to be fairly teaching evolution to kids, when you omit any mention of selection? Is your only justification still just a single mined quote from a guy who was complaining about that very same practice?
9. In February of ‘07, you claimed that you were going to “take on” nested hierarchies soon. When can we expect that to actually happen?
10. What were the names of the “leading evolutionists” who predicted that there would be living societies of “ape-men” on Earth today, and in which works did they make this prediction? Moreover, how would this constitute a prediction made by the theory of evolution as a whole?
11. Which skulls in this chart are fully ape, and which are fully human?
12. Given that your position on macroevolution being impossible is based on your alleged knowledge of genetics, what is the precise genetic mechanism, or barrier, that prevents macroevolution from occurring?

GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC FLOOD HYPOTHESIS (F)

1. What, precisely, was the source for the “waters of the deep?”
2. How much water was involved in the flood?
3. How much of that water was underground, and how deep? Was it uniformly spread, or localized in reservoirs?
4. Where did all that sediment come from? (Hint: it didn’t wash down from the mountains.)
5. Where did all that water in your “global flood run-off” run off to?
6. How does a 5,000-foot deep flood produce over 8,500 feet of sediment?
7. How do you date the Grand Canyon, and is there any independent corroboration of its age other than the assumption that it was formed during the Flood?
8. Since the Bible makes no mention of the Grand Canyon (or any canyon), what is your justification for saying it was formed during the Flood?
9. Which sediment layers were laid before the Flood, which were laid during the Flood, and which were laid afterwards? Or do you still maintain that all sedimentary layers worldwide were laid during the Flood?
10. Since sandstone can’t dry out in the middle of a flood, nor can the animals in question survive underwater, nor would their tracks survive the pressure of the layers above . . . how did those tracks get in the coconino sandstone?
11. How do you explain the presence of eolian and evaporite deposits between fluvial or marine deposits?
12. How do you explain coal?
13. Why are there clear cycles of regression and transgression present in the rock record?
14. Why are large shale formations consistently oxidized and red, while others are consistently black and unoxidized?
15. How did the mile-high cliffs of the Grand Canyon harden enough in a single year so that they didn’t slump under the weight of the deposits over them?
16. If there was extensive volcanic activity following the flood, why are there no large ash layers or igneous layers in the upper Canyon stratigraphy showing it?
17. What is the scientific methodology and evidnece that lets you date Flood sediment to 2500 BCE?
18. How did the Flood produce vertical folded sediment layers?

GENETIC INFORMATION (G)

1. Which has more information content, a 100kb digital recording of broadband white noise, or a 100kb encrypted file containing the text of a Winston Churchill speech?
2. Does an amoeba genome of 670 billion base pairs have hundreds of times the “genetic information” of a human genome of 3 billion base pairs?
3. How much genetic information is contained in 600 tandem repeats of the nucleotide sequence CATG?

BROWN’S HYDROPLATE THEORY AND THE SOLAR SYSTEM (H)

1. How could the earth have stored and thereafter released enough energy — in any form whatsoever – to launch the asteroids into space without annihilating all life on the planet?
2. Why does this “theory” require that all water in the solar system come from Earth?
3. Do you really believe that no water beyond the solar system exists?
4. How does it make logical sense that, via isotropic differences, terrestrial water could not have come from comets but the reverse is not true?
5. Most comets are 20,000 to 50,000 away from the Sun. How did they get there within five thousand years?
6. Of all the water in the solar system, which do you think has been reliably detected, which do you think is speculative, and what’s the difference?

NOAH’S ARK (N)

1. How did a maximum of 35,000 “kinds” on the Ark end up proliferating into over ten million species in the space of 4,500 years? How does this differ from super-ultra-mega-stupendo-fantastico-enormo-macroevolution?
2. For that matter, exactly how many “kinds” were on the Ark, and how do you know which modern-day species came from which “kind?”
3. Who on the Ark had syphilis?
4. How does the destruction of a single mating pair of unclean animals, seven mating pairs of clean animals, and four mating pairs of humans not cause an almost complete loss of genetic diversity in these organisms?
5. If Noah, his wife, sons and daughters-in-law were the only huamns left, how many children, on average, would each female have to have in order to achieve a global population of 6 billion, in less than 4,500 years.
6. If only eight humans were left after the Flood, how do you account for the large numbers of human genes that have many more than 10 alleles in the current population?
7. How did 10 alleles of the HLA gene become 500 alleles in only 13 generations?
8. How did animals that can only live within a very narrow temperature range get from Palestine to, say, Antarctica?
9. Why, in the entire history of the world, is there no record of an explosive increase in biodiversity?
10. Why on Earth do you insist on having living dinosaurs at the end of the Flood?
11. How is it that each “kind” on the Ark radiated into, on average, a thousand species living today, but humans haven’t radiated into any new species at all? What makes our genome so much more resistant to mutation?

RELIGION (R)

1. Would another god have to demonstrate itself physically to you in order for you to consider abandoning belief in the Christian god?

YOUNG EARTH THEORY (Y)

1. How many companies in the Fortune 1000 use the 6,000 year old Earth paradigm as the basis for a business case? How many use the old Earth paradigm?
2. How do we see light from stars up to 14 billion light years away?
3. How did a solar system, much less a galaxy or a galactic supercluster, manage to form in 6,000 years?
4. The half-life of Uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years, meaning virtually none would decay in 6,000 years. Why are there so many decay produces of it, then, scattered over the Earth?
5. How do you explain the Oklo natural nuclear reactor?
6. How does the surface of an iron sphere massing over 1024 kg cool to room temperature in less than 6,000 years?
7. How could there be a 24,000 year long gorge cutting event occurring between 31,000 and 7,000 years before you contend there was an earth to be cut?

MISCELLANEOUS (Z)

1. If you answer any of the above questions by appealing to the miraculous, then what makes science so useful that you pretend to appreciate it so much?
2. Do you honestly believe that your actions are serving the cause of Jesus Christ, rather than your own vanity?
3. Why did you claim to read “ALL of Popper” (caps yours, not mine) when, in fact, you only read two of his books at the most?
4. Given your definition of “machine,” can you name any object in the universe that is neither a machine nor part of one?
5. Charles Darwin : Evolution :: ____________ : Modern Geology?
6. Why do you think that science’s “materialistic bias” is unwarranted, given its incredible success over the centuries and millennia?
7. Using your intuition, which you say is reliable in detecting design, can you spot the created tool in this picture?
8. From what polls did you, through Wilson, take the statistics that evolution-doubters have risen eight percent in the 13 years since AIG came into existence?

and others listed here: http://www.rantsnraves.org/showthread.php?t=4661

[Dlx2]

You should add a section for Tower of Babel, because.....ohboy....that one is fucked.

[Steviepinhead]

And don't forget Teh Burrows!

Dave's got a whole 'nother geological column worth of questions piled up just on that TheoWeb thread alone.

[Elká]

And don't forget Teh Burrows!

Dave's got a whole 'nother geological column worth of questions piled up just on that TheoWeb thread alone.

Yeah well, davey's taking it to a whole nutha level, he just doesn't realize he keeps going down. davey's demon is an 800 lb. gorilla of a demon and he's been carrying it so long he doesn't realize it's there.

Elká

[Asha'man]

Don't forget to add the question about how 'flood sorting' managed to place all angiosperms at the top of the pile, meaning that fruit trees were able to outrun aquatic reptiles during the rising flood waters. (Raised in this very thread)

[Dave Hawkins]

From Sari's abstract ...

By taking a bird's eye view of the cell cycle, we demonstrate how the modular organization of cellular systems possesses a built-in flexibility, which allows evolution to find many different solutions for assembling the same molecular machines just in time for action.

Please notice the two highlighted words. I agree that "evolution" operates very well. Creationists understand that microevolution works great. But we assert that this "microevolution" is designed adaptability, programmed into the originally created kind by the Creator, not mindless increase in technological sophistication due to random process. Those two words "built in" are very important. Note that no attempt is made by these authors to explain how this flexibility became built in. Why don't they attempt to explain this? Well because they can't. And this makes sense. If an Intelligent Designer is truly responsible for the intelligent programming of organisms, how in the world will we find out HOW He did it unless He speaks to us and informs us? The only way is to examine the artifact itself and do the best we can. This is just what we do in archaeology. We cannot speak to the ancient Mayans, for example, and they cannot speak to us. We can only examine their artifacts and make reasonable inferences about why they did the things that they did. It is becoming increasingly clear that THE LIVING WORLD IS AN ARTIFACT OF AN ALIEN INTELLIGENCE.

Sari ...

Originally Posted by quoted by Ashcraft
"The ability to induce homologous recombination in response to unfavorable environmental changes would be adaptive for each species, as it would increase genetic diversity and would help to avoid species' extinction. Homologous recombination would be more efficient for evolution than random mutagenesis or nonhomologous recombination. Although the latter two will mostly disrupt previously existing genes rather than creating new ones, homologous recombination can use previously existing genes as building blocks, thus enabling the creation of new proteins with more complex functions in a step-by-step manner." 13 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98(15):8425-8432 (2001)

(my bold)
Thanks! I havent finished reading it yet. So Ashcraft explicitly endorses evolution as the mechanism to produce cellular control.

Note that no one really understands yet how "creation of new proteins with more complex functions in a step-by-step manner" happens. Did "built in intelligence" facilitate this ability? I believe so. All our experience indicates that sophisticated intelligent robotic devices, programmed with the ability to create new materials on-the-fly (which is what living organisms are) require intelligent designers. To suggest otherwise is to ignore everything we know about high tech machines and how they are created.

The emerging picture of the machines of life is that they are highly sophisticated "intelligent" machines which have somehow been programmed with some incredible software enabling them to do some pretty amazing things.

The question is HOW did this intelligence arise?

I say it arose from the place intelligence ALWAYS arises ... HIGHER INTELLIGENCE.

[Pappy Jack]

........The question is HOW did this intelligence arise?

I say it arose from the place intelligence ALWAYS arises ... HIGHER INTELLIGENCE.

And from whence did that (enter all-caps mode for dramatic impact) HIGHER INTELLIGENCE (end all-caps mode) arise? An (enter high-caps mode for dramatic impact again) EVEN HIGHER INTELLIGENCE (end all-caps mode)?

[ericmurphy]

Nothing new here, Dave. You've been making the same evidence-free assertions for going on two years now.

Since you think macroevolution is impossible, then how many "kinds" were on the ark? Milions? Tens of millions? Was this ark the size of Belgium?

And where are those "well-defined, but hard-to-pin-down" barriers to macroevolution, Dave? You're pretty sure they're there, even though you've never seen them and have no idea how they could work.

And if macroevolution doesn't happen, therefore common descent doesn't either. What is your explanation for objective nested hierarchies (the subject of this thread) that does not involve common descent?

Oh, right. You already admitted you don't have one.