Christians are easily startled, but they'll soon be back. And in greater numbers 36:11

[Gethelred]

Welcome to the Ask an Atheist thread II.

Previous part:

Win Prizes - Ask an Atheist - Shoe's on the other foot now!

Alright, we're going to have a change of tack. As I'm sure you can see, the thread title has been changed to Ask an Atheist. People who have a question to ask of the atheists who populate this thread - more than the christians do - should feel free to ask questions of them. If you've still got...

www.bigfooty.com

Standard board rules apply.

 

[sdfc]

The probablity that ToE is wrong is very very small hence, this is a scientific fact, hence 97% of the biologists believe in it. I personally don't think you are looking at the evidence, cause there's no micro or macro evolution, theres only evolution and even a stronger evidence that we come from one common ancestor. DNA/Fossil records and experimentation through plants prove this. Protein formation is not rocket science either.

I think we have to agree to disagree then. The potential falsifications have not been proven for you to be correct, the theory stands tall even after all the criticisms against it.

I have provided enough evidence, even DNA evidence, but nothing satisfies you. The domestication of dogs from wolves, one of the best documented evidence of hybrid species and evolution, i mean there's trillions of DNA evidence and records relating to that.

Your criteria, that 'i wanna see a fish grow a leg in a lab' within 50 years, is not really practical, not this is what the theory claims. Hence your demands are unscientific.

Didn't see this. Agree to disagree is fine. You can have the last word.

 

[Total Power]

You've never addressed the enormous odds against a long series of genetic errors very fortuitously appearing in exactly the right place over and over again. Even a very conservative 200 amino acid protein chain has 20^200 possible combinations.

I have addressed this in a long (previous) post, where your response to that was in 3 lines basically. Fred Hyoles argument has been debunked.

Not having the last word, i am saying you are not being convinced it doesn't mean the evidence isn't here. Creationists are convinced Genesis is a historical and scientific fact. Just read the last few pages. There is consensus in this field on what i am saying, although science doesn't do proofs, it stands unless proven otherwise.

 

[evolved2]

Didn't see this. Agree to disagree is fine. You can have the last word.

What are you proposing as an alternative explanation to evolution for the diversity of life on Earth?

 

[carltonchelsea]

What are you proposing as an alternative explanation to evolution for the diversity of life on Earth?

Stockholm awaits thee!

 

[Total Power]

What are you proposing as an alternative explanation to evolution for the diversity of life on Earth?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

View attachment 2259320

Very good cartoon.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a third frame for “intelligent design”:

Here are the facts. What conclusion can we postpone from them?

 

[Rusty Brookes]

Your criteria, that 'i wanna see a fish grow a leg in a lab' within 50 years, is not really practical, not this is what the theory claims. Hence your demands are unscientific.

You can introduce mutations into Drosophila (fruit fly) in a short amount of time - any first year biology/genetics student would have experimented with them (I know I did 33 years ago when I obtained my science degree). Fruit fly reproduce at an incredibly quick rate so you can follow generations of mutation over the space of a couple of months. It's well established science.

As for the "odds are too low for me to believe" argument, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the laws of probability work. The assumption is that there is only chance at the code working. People who make this argument don't take into account there may have been millions upon millions of random parings of nucleotides that went nowhere. You only need abiogenesis to occur once. The n in the calculation needs to take into account time (the universe is currently estimated to be 13.7 billion years old) and the size of the universe (current estimation is that there are 200 billion trillion stars). That's a hell of a lot, lets call them, random experiments occurring. That one of them lead to self replicating life doesn't seem so fanciful when you take that into account. Life is exceeding complex, so if abiogenesis and evolution are supported, it would need to be rare (it is - as far as we know life only exists on one small planet) and there would have to be a huge amount of time for the process to occur in order for more complex forms to come about (and there is - nearly 14 billion years). This is a classic example of the convergence of disciplines - evolution is supported by cosmology and cosmology is supported by evolution.

 

[Total Power]

You can introduce mutations into Drosophila (fruit fly) in a short amount of time - any first year biology/genetics student would have experimented with them (I know I did 33 years ago when I obtained my science degree). Fruit fly reproduce at an incredibly quick rate so you can follow generations of mutation over the space of a couple of months. It's well established science.

As for the "odds are too low for me to believe" argument, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the laws of probability work. The assumption is that there is only chance at the code working. People who make this argument don't take into account there may have been millions upon millions of random parings of nucleotides that went nowhere. You only need abiogenesis to occur once. The n in the calculation needs to take into account time (the universe is currently estimated to be 13.7 billion years old) and the size of the universe (current estimation is that there are 200 billion trillion stars). That's a hell of a lot, lets call them, random experiments occurring. That one of them lead to self replicating life doesn't seem so fanciful when you take that into account. Life is exceeding complex, so if abiogenesis and evolution are supported, it would need to be rare (it is - as far as we know life only exists on one small planet) and there would have to be a huge amount of time for the process to occur in order for more complex forms to come about (and there is - nearly 14 billion years). This is a classic example of the convergence of disciplines - evolution is supported by cosmology and cosmology is supported by evolution.

Great example.

Another example:

we've even been able to get yeast to evolve into a very crude multicellular colony.

Article

The origin of multicellular life, one of the most important developments in Earth’s history, could have occurred with surprising speed, US researchers have shown. In the lab, a single-celled yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) took less than 60 days to evolve into many-celled clusters that behaved as individuals. The clusters even developed a primitive division of labour, with some cells dying so that others could grow and reproduce.

bUt ThE oDdS ArE tOo LoW


But i always give the example of plants.

https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/8/6/5974989/kale-cauliflower-cabbage-broccoli-same-plant

If all these different plants can arise from one single plant using the same process which is universal to evolution, why not animals?

 

[evolved2]

Great example.

Another example:

we've even been able to get yeast to evolve into a very crude multicellular colony.

Article




bUt ThE oDdS ArE tOo LoW


But i always give the example of plants.

https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/8/6/5974989/kale-cauliflower-cabbage-broccoli-same-plant

If all these different plants can arise from one single plant using the same process which is universal to evolution, why not animals?

If you give 7 billion people a ticket in a worldwide lottery that there can be only one winner for, is the resulting winning ticket too improbable to happen by chance?

Every possible result is highly improbable. There's no alternative to an improbable result, which makes the improbable a formality.

 

[Total Power]

If you give 7 billion people a ticket in a worldwide lottery that there can be only one winner for, is the resulting winning ticket too improbable to happen by chance?

Every possible result is highly improbable. There's no alternative to an improbable result, which makes the improbable a formality.

The reason Fred Hoyles 20^200 argument is dumb is because it assumes a single organism must obtain 200 successful mutations in a row. This isn't how it happens in nature. It completely ignores the idea that success mutations must benefit fitness therefore propagate within any singular population.

Every single probability argument I have seen against evolution has tragically wrong premises (usually based on “odds of this exact arrangement” rather than odds that something, anything that does something).