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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/9/2008 10:28:20 PM
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drmark
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quote:
What do you want him to do produce a live animal....fossil record is not enough for them Raptorman they want the live animal......... What's the matter, AFI? Isn't six thousand years of recorded human history enough for someone somewhere to have found just one mutation adding useful information to the gene pool?
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 4:44:39 AM
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Real_Solitude
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quote:
ORIGINAL: drmark
quote:
What do you want him to do produce a live animal....fossil record is not enough for them Raptorman they want the live animal......... What's the matter, AFI? Isn't six thousand years of recorded human history enough for someone somewhere to have found just one mutation adding useful information to the gene pool?
Not really, since genes have only been speculated about for around 200 years, and known to exist for about 100.
Not that the question was direct towards me, but what do you mean, specifically, 'useful information'?
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 8:35:09 AM
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Agahnim
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quote:
Not that the question was direct towards me, but what do you mean, specifically, 'useful information'?
There’s an essay at Christian Forums here that I think you and Drmark should read. The author determines exactly what’s meant by creationists when they refer to “information” in this way, and then explains how mutations have been observed to increase it. Two examples he provides have the effects of giving a species of bacteria the ability to digest nylon, and reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke in the people who have it, so these increases of genetic information are definitely “useful” also.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 12:17:06 PM
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drmark
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But they're only useful in the context and environment specific to digesting nylon and eating certain dietary fats. These are not useful mutations for wild-type organisms and they certainly do not result in more complex tissues, organs, or structures enhancing overall survivability. The bottom line is that bacterial species remain the same species and H sapiens remains H sapiens. There is no evolution!
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 12:54:51 PM
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Agahnim
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quote:
But they're only useful in the context and environment specific to digesting nylon and eating certain dietary fats. These are not useful mutations for wild-type organisms and they certainly do not result in more complex tissues, organs, or structures enhancing overall survivability. The bottom line is that bacterial species remain the same species and H sapiens remains H sapiens. There is no evolution!
You seem to be making two different points here, both of which are incorrect.
1: That there are no mutations that make it easier for the organism which has them to survive. That one is so obviously wrong that Answers in Genesis has it on their list of arguments creationists should not use.
2: That there are no mutations that increase the information content of the genome. That’s the point of Caravelair’s essay: it determines what creationists mean by “information” in this context, which is basically a combination of specificity and function, and then provides examples of how mutations can increase it.
Is there another point here you’re trying to make here? If there is, you’ll need to be more specific with it.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 2:29:51 PM
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drmark
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I'm really not interested in arguments creationists should not use, Agahnim. I'm interested in someone showing me just one single mutation that has led to a new, more complex tissue, organ, or structural component conferring improved survivability on the offspring. Do you have something specific to offer?
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 2:57:04 PM
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unclemonkey
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ORIGINAL:drmarkquote:
I'm really not interested in arguments creationists should not use, Agahnim. I'm interested in someone showing me just one single mutation that has led to a new, more complex tissue, organ, or structural component conferring improved survivability on the offspring. Do you have something specific to offer?
I have run into this anti-creationist LIE before. I call it a lie because they distort (lie about) what you stated.
You said:” These are not useful mutations for wild-type organisms and they certainly do not result in more complex tissues, organs, or structures enhancing overall survivability.
The LIE is that they distort your statement to “there are no beneficial mutations”. Below is what Answers in Genesis actually says in their “Arguments Creationists Shouldn’t Use article.
quote:
“There are no beneficial mutations.”
This is not true, since some changes do confer an advantage in some situations. Rather, we should say, “We have yet to find a mutation that increases genetic information, even in those rare instances where the mutation confers an advantage.” For examples of information loss being advantageous, see Q&A: Mutations” - http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp
Anti-creationists can’t refute your argument so they lie about it. It is a common tactic. I know I will be chided for being so blunt, but when confronted with a lie I call it a lie.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 3:24:40 PM
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drmark
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Thanks, uncle, I appreciate the vote of confidence. I guess I'm still naively optimistic that many of the "anti-creationists" posting here do not deliberately lie to avoid supporting their side. Rather, I'd like to think that some really do not understand the error of their ways and appear blinded by scientism. 1 Cor 3:18-20
Actually , I feel the need to apologize to Raptorman for getting off topic on this thread. Perhaps someone will start a new thread on genetic information theory if so inclined.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 6:12:33 PM
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AllForIsrael
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quote:
Anti-creationists can’t refute your argument so they lie about it. It is a common tactic. I know I will be chided for being so blunt, but when confronted with a lie I call it a lie.
Naughty, naughty..................
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/10/2008 7:15:06 PM
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Agahnim
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quote:
I'm really not interested in arguments creationists should not use, Agahnim. I'm interested in someone showing me just one single mutation that has led to a new, more complex tissue, organ, or structural component conferring improved survivability on the offspring. Do you have something specific to offer?
The essay I linked to at CF describes two of them. Here’s one other: http://yalemedicine.yale.edu/ym_au02/findings.html
This is a mutation that improves the strength of bones in people who have it. Since it makes their bones more resistant to fractures and osteoporosis, it confers a definite improvement in survivability. If you’re looking for something that involves an increase in complexity and information content, look at the examples described in Carevalair’s essay.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/11/2008 9:49:51 PM
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Agahnim
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I hope you’re still going to answer what I asked you in my post about Archaeopteryx, Raptorman. I’d like to see your idea about how these sorts of similarities between animals (when they aren’t related) can be explained from a YEC perspective.
I’ll be going out of town for around a week starting tomorrow, and I’m not sure whether I’ll have an internet connection where I’m going. But even if I don’t, I’ll get back to you and what you have to say about this topic after I get back.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/11/2008 9:58:43 PM
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drmark
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quote:
I’d like to see your idea about how these sorts of similarities between animals (when they aren’t related) can be explained from a YEC perspective. Conservation of design by Creator God is the first explanation I would consider from the YEC perspective.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/11/2008 10:37:06 PM
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Raptorman
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Okay, sorry about the procrastination. Been very busy, and I still need to study for a couple of mid-terms. But here's my little thought. Not sure how compelling it is or how well it can answer you. It's just a thought I had, and pretty tentative at the moment. Still, here goes.
I guess it would be more or less a matter of context. If the YEC account is true, when God finished creating the world people would know that animals would be separated into various groups, and that their shared similarities would be the product of a common creator, rather than a common ancestor. Much like a ceramic artist creates bowls or cups that share many identical patterns, shapes, sizes or adornments, God would place similarities in dinosaurs and birds, but still with a "boundary," of sorts, between them. Afterward, mutation and both groups having such a vivid diversity may have contributed to the "blurring of the lines" between the avians and the dinosauria. Now even with the limited fossil record, we are finding lots of "transitions" between dinos and birds thanks to a strong incentive to find dinosaur-to-bird links, and the huge public interest in the matter (compared to most paleontological debates, at any rate). The creatures which look like they are halfway between the groups get a lot of publicity in favor of evolutionary theory these days, when they were actually the end result of God's capacity for staggering diversity in both birds and dinosaurs (which included a few animals that looked like each other).
I guess that's about it. I'm not sure about it, myself. But there it is. It's more of an attempt to establish internal consistency in the YEC model, rather than a compelling and evidence-based argument. Maybe it's true, or perhaps it's just the product of my fertile imagination.
Thanks for your time, Agahnim. Have a great time!  I'm grateful for the stimulating dialogue. It's really gotten me to thinking deeper. I look forward to anything else you'd like to talk about. Take care and God bless, brother!
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/24/2008 2:19:19 PM
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Agahnim
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I’m back from my trip now, so I’m ready to continue this discussion. I actually got back a few days ago, but I was busy with other things before now; I hope you don’t mind.
Jordan Mallon, a theistic evolutionist I know who’s probably even more knowledgeable about dinosaurs than I am, has an interesting thread here about the idea of these similarities being due to a “common designer”. If two structures being designed by the same individual really does cause them to share these sorts of patterns, it should be possible to identify the same thing for human inventions also. Nobody who replied to Mallon’s thread was able to come up with anything like this for things created by human designers, though.
I actually am aware of a type of similarity that can exist between two works as a result of them having the same designer, but it’s very different from the sort of similarity that exists between these animals. What I’m thinking of is something I’ve experienced as a gamer, after having played games whose lead designer was Shigeru Miyamoto ever since I received the original Super Mario Bros. along with an NES for Christmas in 1988. After playing Miyamoto’s games for more than 19 years, I’m familiar enough with his design style that in most cases I can tell whether he was in charge of designing a game just by playing it, without having to look at the credits. But the way I can tell that he designed a game isn’t because of any sort of similarity in structure; it’s something much more subtle than that. After playing Miyamoto’s games for most of my life, I think I’m able to identify the fundamental design philosophy that underlies them.
The reason I think this point is relevant is because I’ve never seen Shigeru Miyamoto re-use a specific design element that he had also used in one of his earlier games, unless it was an obvious reference for nostalgia’s sake. If this were something he did, I wouldn’t respect him nearly as much as I do, since in most areas of design re-using ideas like this is considered a type of laziness. Among humans, the only reason why anyone does this is because they don’t feel like taking the time to design something completely new, and most of the time the old design isn’t optimal for the place where it’s being re-used. The same principle would definitely be true if God was doing this while designing animals, since in a lot of cases the “re-used” structures in animals also aren’t optimal for them design-wise. One example of this I’ve already mentioned is the shoulder joint of Archaeopteryx, in which its similarity to the shoulders of theropod dinosaurs is a disadvantage—the lack of a triosseal canal would have made it very difficult for Archaeopteryx to take off from the ground.
In addition to the objections raised by Jordan Mallon in the thread I linked to, about how in most cases a common designer can’t be identified on the basis of these sorts of similarities, I think the idea of the similarities existing for this reason does God almost as much of a disservice as claiming that he created this evidence with the intention to deceive us. If God was re-using certain design elements in areas where they were less than optimal, such as Archaeopteryx’s shoulder joint, he was showing a type of laziness that’s absent in the most skilled human designers. In other words, if that’s the reason why these similarities exist, it means there are areas in which human designers such as Shigeru Miyamoto are superior to God.
When I was a creationist (which I was until around 1996), my attitude about how people can learn things from God was that he teaches us things in two ways: via what we can see of his words in the Bible, and via what we can see of his actions in the physical world. I think most people would probably agree with this idea, so the only real question is what to do in areas such as paleontology where the two appear to contradict one another. Multiple interpretations obviously exist for both the physical evidence and for the Bible, but I always found that interpreting the physical evidence in ways that lined up with a literal reading of Genesis always led to unsatisfactory conclusions like the two I’ve mentioned in this thread. Interpreting Genesis in a way that’s consistent with evolution seemed to be less of a problem, though. You might be aware of this already, but this is the point of view promoted by Benjamin B. Warfield, who’s widely considered the greatest Christian theologian of the past 150 years and the founder of the modern understanding of Biblical inerrancy.
Objectively speaking, I don’t think there’s really much choice about which can be considered a more reliable authority in situations like this. Not only is the Bible subject to interpretation, but that interpretation often needs to consider literary trends that aren’t necessarily going to be remembered after over a thousand years. For example, the three genealogies from the Bible compared here have several differences between them—the most common explanation for this seems to be that in at least one of them, the author was intentionally altering it in order to make a literary point with a specific audience, but nobody knows for sure. Then there’s also the question of whether this information has been accurately re-recorded and translated during all of the time since then. And for that matter, what guarantee do we have that the Bible is the word of God, when there are at least a dozen other religious texts that claim this? The only way we can answer any of these questions is based on physical evidence, because physical evidence doesn’t involve any of these uncertainties.
I think the question that needs to be considered here isn’t so much whether it’s possible to interpret the physical evidence in a way that’s consistent with a literal reading of Genesis, since as you’ve sort of acknowledged yourself, it’s always possible to come up with ad-hoc explanations just for the sake of maintaining consistency. The real question is which presents more problems: interpreting the physical evidence in a way that’s consistent with creationism, or interpreting the Bible in a way that’s consistent with evolution? And either way, can we trust our interpretation of the Bible more than we can trust what this evidence seems to suggest?
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 3/31/2008 2:32:09 PM
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Agahnim
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Raptorman, even if you end up accepting evolution, I hope you still continue posting here.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/4/2008 2:13:07 PM
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PromiseLander
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I fail to see how a dinosaur with feathers somehow links them to birds in support or evolution?
I have a butt. So does an elephant. (Yeah, yeah, I know, mine's bigger) But does that mean I'm related to an elephant?
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/4/2008 2:14:41 PM
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drmark
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Sure, PL, elephants and humans were both created on the sixth day!
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/4/2008 2:40:44 PM
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PromiseLander
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So when was flatulation created? If so, did Adam have a contest with an elephant? And if fire was used at that time, did they try to light them? (Come on, Adam was a guy, you can't tell me he didn't think about it!)
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/4/2008 5:37:58 PM
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Agahnim
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PromiseLander, please don’t get involved in my discussion with Raptorman if you don’t have anything useful to add. The point you’re making (apart from the flatulence, I mean) is something that he and I have discussed at length in this thread. The only way you could be unaware of what we’ve said here is if you haven’t read our discussion, in which case you have no business getting involved in it like this.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/5/2008 1:40:55 PM
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Bettawrekonize
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Agahnim
If two structures being designed by the same individual really does cause them to share these sorts of patterns, it should be possible to identify the same thing for human inventions also.
It's possible for a human to deliberately change the structure in a way that would make it more difficult to identify him/her. However, it's unlikely that someone would make a painting or write a story using the style of another author unless s/he was already familiar with that author's style. I had to do a project on Picasso a long time ago in a Spanish class I once took and I became familiar with his paintings to the point where I could identify a painting by him even if I never seen it before. It would be highly unlikely that someone else would coincidently make a painting using his style unless they were already familiar with his paintings. The patterns that different designers tend to use may vary. Different designs by different designers may share different sorts of patterns among the designs by those who share the same designer.
quote:
The reason I think this point is relevant is because I’ve never seen Shigeru Miyamoto re-use a specific design element that he had also used in one of his earlier games, unless it was an obvious reference for nostalgia’s sake.
Maybe this is true in the case of Shigeru Miyamoto but that's not to say all designers would do the same.
quote:
If this were something he did, I wouldn’t respect him nearly as much as I do, since in most areas of design re-using ideas like this is considered a type of laziness.
I could see how this could be true in the case of art and entertainment (ie: video games) but perhaps art and beauty were only part of the purpose behind why whoever (might have) designed life did so. Perhaps the designer intended for the organisms to survive and similar designs maybe useful in similar situations.
quote:
In addition to the objections raised by Jordan Mallon in the thread I linked to, about how in most cases a common designer can’t be identified on the basis of these sorts of similarities
Every case is different. In different cases different characteristics can be associated with different designers. In many cases it is difficult to identify any designer based on any specific characteristic, one would have to find which characteristics are unique to that specific designer.
In conclusion, it is reasonable to conclude that life shares various similarities because it would either imply that a single designer designed it or a group of designers working together designed it. It is unlikely that various different designers working independently of one another (who were never exposed to one another's work) would create designs that share the same exact similarities unless they were all seeking perfection (ie: typed papers are closer to perfection with respect to fonts while handwriting is imperfect because it is generally more difficult to read. It is because everyone is imperfect in a different manner that makes it such that we can identify someone based on their handwriting unless someone intentionally tried to disguise their handwriting or unless they intentionally tried to manipulate the handwriting of another. It is often much more difficult to identify someone based on which font they used because the purpose of typing papers is often to get closer to perfection with respect to legibility). The fact that life isn't perfect resists the notion that these similarities are due to perfection. People can often be identified by their imperfections/mistakes.
[added in edit]
Plus, if organisms were perfect, evolutionists can then claim that natural selection has brought them to perfection and it maintains their perfection. They can then argue that if organisms were created, they would be expected to break down over time since the fact that they were created would imply that nature will not create living organisms and natural selection would not bring them to perfection and if nature will not create such organisms and bring them to perfection, this implies that nature will not maintain their perfection.
Also, I don't see how homology is evidence for UCD. How different does an organism have to be in order to falsify UCD and why that different? All cars have tires, this doesn't mean they share a common ancestor. Bikes have tires as well and those tires share similarities with car tires but were designed for a different purpose (hence their design is different). That's not to say bikes and cars share a common ancestor. If evolution is able to produce the huge morphological differences among different organisms, I see no reason why it would be unable to produce differences among the similarities we do see among various organisms. One could argue for the lack of observable mechanism, but no one has ever observed a mechanism by which a molecule has evolved into a man (and I am not referring to human development) or a bacterial flagellum evolved via RM + NS (though RS sounds more accurate, random selection) and lack of observable mechanisms hasn't refuted UCD in other respects. Likewise, the lack of observable mechanisms to go from an organism that uses DNA into one that uses something else won't likely falsify UCD either.
More on that here
http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Talkorigins_refutation
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 4/5/2008 10:33:35 PM >
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/5/2008 1:48:00 PM
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Bettawrekonize
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Agahnim
Raptorman, even if you end up accepting evolution, I hope you still continue posting here.
Is this statement true if he doesn't end up accepting evolution?
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/5/2008 2:38:31 PM
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Agahnim
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Bettawrekonize, if you’re expecting me to reply to any of your posts, don’t. I already gave you your last chance about this here. Unless you think Raptorman has something to gain from what you’re saying, you’re wasting your time by posting in this thread.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/5/2008 2:45:38 PM
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Bettawrekonize
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Agahnim
Bettawrekonize, if you’re expecting me to reply to any of your posts, don’t. I already gave you your last chance about this here. Unless you think Raptorman has something to gain from what you’re saying, you’re wasting your time by posting in this thread.
I don't care if you reply or not. Even if Raptorman gains nothing, maybe someone else could gain.
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RE: Microraptor: We have to admit it, folks - 4/7/2008 8:15:28 AM
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PromiseLander
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I realize that my response was soaked with a bit of sarcasm, but there's also truth in it. Nope, I didn't read the whole discussion - it's 4 pages, I'm at work, and I don't have a whole lot of time.
My point is, and you can offer any amount of physical proof or disproof you want to, but the Word of God says:
(Genesis 1:20) - Day 5 - Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”
AND
(Genesis 1:24-25) - Day 6 - Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
The Word of God states two VERY important truths in these verses:
#1) Birds were created as a separate living entity BEFORE any "beasts of the earth"
#2) All creatures on earth were created "according to their kind"
Now, you can do one of two things here. You can accept this as the inerrant Word of God, and forget about evolution and dinosaurs to birds theory, OR, you can choose to call God a liar and read into the story things that are not so simply because you observe a few things on earth that you cannot explain. Your choice. Oh, by the way, your eternity depends upon your answer. Have a nice day! 
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