bio-engineering; synthetic DNA, that replicates - a bit scarey - Page 15

vk4,

You mention craig? who the hell craig is? genuine asking?

Why william lane craig silly. btw i apologise for calling you retarded and such. please fotgive me. i do believe you are either a troll or uneducated my opinion but there is no excuse for my name calling. in fact you have made me learn a lot about some current trends occurring. i never had a name for it but i now define myself as an anti-theist. i think you sre deluded snd i feel pity.i am commited more than ever to stand against the damage that you have been caused. i don't want to see yr type of delusion to spread. yr heroes are bad men. have enjoyed our chats and hope to have many more with no name calling from me.


cheers man.

No worries, I do get carried away myself at times but I bless you in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.


Sincerely,
Shtal.

Shtal, what a nice example of turning the other cheek! Something I have no intention of doing. LOL  

 

Thanks beetree, it wasn't easy for me either, overcoming or going against my own will, you don't want know.

God bless,
Shtal.

Quote from beetree:

I am not sure what your question has to do with my statement? The idea that there is not a corruption free profession existing, still, leaves one the option, or choice, to have one. I would say it even parallels with being given free will to not sin, when at the same time we are told, we are all sinners.

Integrity may be a universal option but I’m not so sure that money or profession doesn’t have an impact on the decisions people make as people are imperfect.  Does the money involved or someone’s profession justify a lack of integrity? No, of course not, however that doesn’t mean it might not have played a part.  I got the impression from your claim that you believed there to be a profession that is free of corruption thus making the lack of integrity from a few scientists unique.  Since you actually already agree that there is no profession that is free of corruption then a lack of integrity in any profession is not unique, just an unfortunate state of reality.  I agree that the goal of any profession as a whole should be to show complete integrity and remove all corruption however expecting such a goal to be met is likely unreasonable and unrealistic.  Humans are not perfect and as such, money, fame and power tend to corrupt.  In the case of corruption in the scientific professions, considering the small percentage of corruption and the fact that it is self correcting and corruption is found and corrupt scientists are exposed, we can see that integrity is the option being chosen.  Your additional comment that you think hundmutter’s argument needs an update isn’t applicable then as money and external influence does have varying impacts on professions.

Quote from beetree:

Any way, is there a significance to "Seven"  for you that is personal or universal? Just curious. And if you are going to be vk4's answer to be his helpmeet and champion combating the ills bestowed upon him by a rather stern and rigid parochial upbringing?

“Seven” is an online handle I’ve used since I started using it when the movie “Se7eN” came out in 1995.  As “Seven” or any variation of that is common, I added “Patch” as that is a nickname of the Marvel comics character “Wolverine” and I am a fan of comic book artwork.

Your second question seems to be a bit incoherent as it appears you’ve combined a few different thoughts into it.  I’ll try to answer it anyway by saying I’m here on my own accord because I was interested in discussing the theory of evolution and I was hoping to provide some information or clarity to any misunderstandings.  In regards to religion, I don’t have any interest in discussing religion or anything spiritual here as I don’t think these forums are the proper place for such discussions even if this is the Off Topic area.  This website is related to Canis lupus familiaris and I doubt anyone came to these forums to have serious discussions about religion, again, even in the Off Topic area.

There are plenty of other websites where a person can discuss religion, especially if they are interested in seriously discussing honest questions.  I can recommend a website if you are interested in a serious and open discussion regarding religion.

The theory of evolution however is very appropriate for these forums since when discussing dog breeding we are openly discussing artificial selection and evolution of dog breeds.

Quote from Shtal:

You see science is self-corrective,

Agreed.

Quote from Shtal:

I happened to like science but you see “creation view” does not have to be “constant corrected” because its right;

I’m sure you like science when it is convenient for you, you enjoy using your computer and posting on internet forums, perhaps you enjoy the comfort of electricity being provided to your home, running tap water, refrigeration, microwaves, automobiles, flight and if you’re smart you will take advantage of medical science in case you have serious but curable and treatable health problems.  Heaven forbid however if science discovers anything that conflicts with your preconceived beliefs, we can’t have that.  Science should conform to you and your beliefs!

Unfortunately, as we already agreed, science via the scientific method is self correcting.  Science doesn’t care what you believe or what your intuitions are.

I’m not really sure what you are referring to when you say “constant corrected”.   I would guess that you are referring to instances in physics where an unknown variable is causing a difference in expected results and actual results.  Constants are a prediction really, and that is what science does, it makes predictions, if the prediction is verified, then the hypothesis or theory remains viable.  If a prediction is falsified then the hypothesis or theory must be reviewed and corrected to account for the possible mistakes or otherwise it is no longer viable.

Your “creation view” however is barely a hypothesis however as it doesn’t offer any means to verifiy or falsify the hypothesis and it has no predictive power.  It is an elusive idea that hides in the corners of our imaginations pretending to be scientific in order to be taken seriously.

Quote from Shtal:

okay, and what you said of course we don’t see changes, farmers has been raising dogs, you know 4,000 thousands years and we don’t see changes because it takes too long…

Really?  You don’t see any difference between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane?  I’m not sure where you are getting your 4,000 years number from, did you just make that up?  A study from Joshua M. Akey, Alison L. Ruhe, Dayna T. Akey traced the breeding of Canis lupus familiaris to around 14,000 years ago.  Still, in a matter of 14,000 years, through artificial selection, humans have made the domestic dog one of the most genetically diverse animal species on the planet.  Even in the past few thousand years we have seen vast changes and as much has been documented thoroughly.

I suspect however that you are expecting that speciation should have occurred or that the theory of evolution would expect speciation to have occurred.  Actually that is not the case as if speciation were to occur then the new species would not have survived because that was never the goal of the artificial selection process.  The intent of dog breeding is to breed specific traits in dogs.  If you get something other than a dog, then you’ve done something wrong.  Fertility is the key to successful breeding as any line which doesn’t have healthy fertile offspring won’t survive.  Dogs and Grey Wolves are close enough genetically still that they can have fertile offspring.  Dogs and Coyote on the other hand are not close enough genetically and their offspring has decreased fertility and other genetic defects.  Dogs and Foxes however cannot interbreed as they are too genetically different.  After enough generations eventually dogs and coyote will not be able to interbreed and even dogs and wolves won’t be able to interbreed.

Quote from Shtal:

if you don’t see faith in their I can’t help you; okay, you are relying on unseen, oh yes long ago and far away, evolution is got to be biggest fairytale for an adults ever created, everything you said required faith,

I’m sure you would love nothing more than to equate evidence based conclusions that you don’t like with belief without evidence but I’m sorry, it will not work.   My faith is usually reserved for the little things in life, like if I pour a glass of milk I have faith that it hasn’t gone sour yet, sure I could check the label and smell the milk before I pour but I am pretty sure it should still be good so I’ll have faith that it is.  I’m not as careless with faith as you seem to be.  Belief without evidence can be dangerous and often can lead to the sacrifice of logic and reason based decisions.

Of course I guess the universe could have been created last Tuesday and made to look as old as it is, do I need faith to believe the universe wasn’t created last Tuesday? No, I don’t think so, I have no reason to think that the universe was created last Tuesday.   I can look at the evidence and come to a conclusion that is viable based on said evidence.

Quote from Shtal:

what we see dogs produce dog

Which is exactly what the Theory of Evolution says.  No animal will give birth or produce a different animal, if such a thing happened it would falsify the theory of evolution.  You are misrepresenting the theory of evolution.  It is time and separated populations of a species that result in both populations becoming so genetically different that they can no longer interbreed, thus becoming different species, and after even more time they will continue to change to be even more different.  This happens again, and again, and again until you get animals as different as dogs and foxes, foxes and bears, bears and cats.

One species does not produce another species.   That is not how evolution works at all.

Quote from Shtal:

but if you give them billions of years…well, okay, you just left science and went to religion and didn’t even see it. You didn’t even see what happened in your mind, you jump from “science to faith” back and forth all the time. Well we see dogs produce dogs but if we have enough time; stop, stop and stop; you are leaving science right on that moment. 

Billions of years? No.  A few million, yes.  You are very confused as you seem to be projecting your lack of understanding onto me while ignoring what I’m explaining to you.  You don’t understand the theory of evolution so you seem to think I have the same misunderstanding and thus I need to have faith in order to accept it.  How exactly do you define faith?  I personally define faith as belief or trust without supporting evidence to justify said belief or trust.  I understand the theory of evolution and am aware of the overwhelming evidence which supports it, so no, I don’t need faith to accept the theory of evolution any more than I need faith to accept that I am sitting in a chair right now pressing keys on a keyboard to write a message to you on an internet forum.  I don’t need faith to accept that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  I don’t need faith to accept if I can walk across the room it would be possible to walk a mile.  I don’t need faith to accept that after many generations of a population of animals it will become genetically incompatible with a separate population of the same animal, thus resulting in two different species which will continue to diverge genetically and branch off again and again.  I don’t need faith to accept that when a tree grows branches will diverge and continue to grow, and from those branches more branches will diverge and grow.

You incorrectly think that I expect something else to come from dogs.  I don’t and never did.  If I did, you would probably be right and that would require faith to believe something so silly.   This is not how evolution works however so why try to claim that it does?

Quote from Shtal:

What we evolved into new species?

Nope.  That is not what the theory of evolution says at all.

Quote from Shtal:

Nothing ever evolved into any new species, I hate to use the word species, and nothing ever evolves into new kind. Nobody ever observed anything change into different kind; bacteria are still bacteria,

Exactly.  It is not possible for one species or kind to produce a different species or kind.  As I’ve already said, if this were to happen, it would falsify the theory of evolution.  Any population of a species will only produce offspring that is of the same species.  To further hammer home the point of what the theory of evolution actually says, if two populations of the same species are isolated from one another long enough, eventually after many generations, they will become genetically incompatible with each other and will no longer be able to have fertile offspring.

Quote From Shtal:

if they become resistant to a drug is because they lost the locking mechanism on the ribosomes so that about they can’t lock-on, is no different than somebody handcuff everybody and sending them off to jail to kill them - but you don’t have any arms, so they can’t handcuff you, so you survive, wow beneficial mutation, well it might be for the moment but it’s NOT any new information,

The majority of mutations are actually neutral (no loss or gain of “information”), some are harmful (loss of “information”) and some are helpful (gain of “information”) but again this happens over generations across an entire populations.  The rare helpful mutation which is a gain of “information” may be rare, but over enough generations and an entire population that rare event becomes common.  The harmful mutations often aren’t passed on because they are harmful and limit the potential for offspring, but they might, if too many harmful mutations were to be passed on though the species would go extinct.

For example, let’s say every minute of a day represents a generation of one genetic line.  For every beneficial mutation, I will give you one penny and any neutral mutation I will give you nothing.   After 24 hours (1,440 minutes) you have found I have only given you 1 penny, and this is the average.  So after a year, you will have 3 dollars and 65 cents of helpful mutations from one genetic line.  Now, if a hundred thousand people give you a penny every day for a year, now you got 36,500,000 dollars.  So, in the matter of 525,600 generations of 100,000 genetic lines we have accumulated 36,500,000 helpful mutations.  Assuming the average length of a generation being 30 years, 525,600 generations would equal 15.768 million years.  Mutations are only one of many driving forces behind evolution however

The idea that mutations don’t add information is pretty absurd though as the research and experimentation shows otherwise, for example the increased genetic variety in a population (research from Lenski), increased genetic material (research from Alves, Brown, Hughes, Friedman, Lynch, Conery and Ohta).  Novel genetic material (research from Knox and Park) and novel genetically-regulated abilities (research from Prijambada).

Quote from Shtal:

bacteria don’t evolved into something else,

As it shouldn’t.  Bacteria as we know it today reproduces asexually though, so the potential for change and genetic diversity is limited when compared to sexual reproduction.   That however doesn’t stop Bacteria from evolving to gain the ability to degrade nylon,  gain the ability to hydrolyze galactosylarabinose, gain the ability to metabolize propanediol or gain the ability to metabolize 5-carbon sugars.  So much for no new information.  There are litterally thousands of research papers on the evolution of bacteria.  Why is that?  Because the generation cycle of certain kinds of bacteria is anywhere from 15 minutes to a few hours (under optimal conditions).  Richard Lenski for example has been experimenting with E. coli for 25 years and has observed over 50,000 generations of E. coli.

Quote from Shtal:

they loose information, they are resistant to a particular drug for a short time but then when you put them back into population a regular bacteria and they are inferior. Bacteria are still bacteria for heaven sake; that is not example of evolution.

Well, it all depends on how the bacteria adapts to the antibiotics.  Different antibiotics do different things to different kinds of bacteria.  Of course the goal of researchers is to use this knowledge to our advantage as not all adaptations are beneficial to an organism under different conditions.  Your example doesn’t prove that evolution isn’t happening.  Quite the opposite actually as it is a prime example.

Your expectations are based on an incorrect idea of what the theory of evolution is, which means that the evidence you expect to be provided never will be, so you can comfortably proclaim that a theory which you don’t understand can’t be true thus your alternative preconceived belief has to be true (which is a few logical fallacies, they are called a false dichotomy and argument from ignorance). 

Obviously the 4000years is the age of the universe when god made all the animals on the same day that didn't evolve because there is no evidence for evolution and it is a religion not science.

Quote from vk4gsd:

Obviously the 4000years is the age of the universe when god made all the animals on the same day ...

I'm not so sure, typical young earth creationists believe the universe was created anywhere from 6,000 to 12,000 years ago.  I think Shtal made up the number.  Although, I could be wrong, maybe he can provide a source.

 

Well it depends on what he just cut and pasted without reading. hovind of late has extended it to around 10000 years.

when shtal accounts for the current human population he uses the more precise figure of around 4400 what yoget working backwards thru the bible people.


anyhoo doesn't. matter the calender was effictively restarted when god drowned the earth.....

hovind of late has extended it to around 10000 years

 

Lol.  ...almost sprayed my screen with a mouthful of whiskey.