Chat with Aron Ra

Aron: Science doesn't point to God because there is no god.
Reply: Now you are doing exactly what you accuse of us, creationists of doing: Making absolute claims. Ok. God does not exist? Prove it !!
Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.

What happens when you have a whole bunch of uncomfortable, embarrassing and annoying emotions that you don’t want to unconsciously deal with? According to famous psychologist Sigmund Freud these emotions are projected on to other people, so that other people become carriers of our own perceived flaws. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us, this form of emotional displacement makes it much easier to live with ourselves … because everyone else is responsible for our misery – not us!


Aron: Evolution is real and verifiable.
Reply: Agreed upon a certain extent.

https://******************************/t2806-main-topics-about-evolution

What is fact in regards of evolution :
1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from
a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification; chiefly pre-programmed selection acting on random variations or mutations
5. Natural selection acting up to two random mutations as shown in malaria ( See Behe's Edge of evolution )

What is not fact:
6. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
7. Blind watchmaker thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors through unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural
selection acting on random variations or mutations; the idea that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation, and other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, completely suffice to explain the origin of novel biological forms and the appearance of design in complex organisms.

Aron: Creation never happened and is a lie
Reply: Prove it !! See what you said: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact, pretending to know things no one even can know.


Aron: methodological naturalism is not a flawed framework. If there was any truth to your position, there would be some evidence of it, even if science could not explain it.
Reply: That is entirely irrelevant to the point i made. It seems you did either not read it carefully, or not comprehend it. The matter is not, if creationism is compelling or not. The problem is that it is not permitted to be proposed even as a hypothesis. This is arbitrary, and wrong. Evidence should be permitted to lead wherever it is.

Historical sciences, and methodological naturalism
https://******************************/t1692-historical-sciences-and-methodological-naturalism

Why does modern science never point to a Creator as the best explanation of origins ?



Aron: If magic were real, there would be people like Obiwan, Hermione, Spock and Gandalf who could demonstrate that reliably enough that we could at least see that there is a THERE there. But there has never been not even one tiny element of the supernatural demonstrated to be real at all.
Reply: Why it`s an irrational demand to ask proofs of God's existence

https://***************************...ational-demand-to-ask-proofs-of-his-existence

Many atheists have made a career out of making silly requirements based on ignorance, rather than first creating a solid epistemological framework of inquiry, and then asking relevant questions. Abiogenesis is how to test the materialism claim and it fails. Almost seventy years of experimental attempts of recreating life in the lab and not even the basic building blocks have been recreated. Evolution has been tested and it fails. 70,000 generations of bacteria, and all they got, are bacteria. No hint of a transition zone to a new organismal limb or improvement of complexity. Fail.
The existence of God is inferred just like all historical science is. This is basic logic and critical thinking but some atheists have a mind like a sieve.
God's existence is inferred by many criteria, like abductive reasoning, and eliminative inductions, but many persevere on nonsensical demands like asking for demonstrations of God's existence.
How does someone “test” for the widely credited multiverse? They can’t, don’t even try. Honest physicists know this.
The existence of God is as valid as multiverse, string theory, abiogenesis, macroevolution, and numerous other improvable theories.
Many atheists are like the kid stuck in high school who never grows up or moves on. Like a windup echo chamber.


Aron: very testable claim made by intelligent design "theorists" has been disproved in science and exposed as fraudulent in a court of law.
Reply: Dover, a good argument against ID ?

https://******************************/t1795-dover-a-good-argument-against-id

Whenever the teleological argument of Gods existence is brought forward by believers, it is very common that unbelievers immediately try to shift the goal posts and begin to point out that intelligent design is not science, that it was debunked at the Dover Trial, rather than stick to the issue, and actually deal with honesty in regards of the arguments brought up for debate.

Ask ANY real scientist, if he thinks the best way to proceed in scientific truth, is to have courts of law decide what scientific theories should be accepted.

https://***************************...erging-through-unguided-natural-random-events

Chance of intelligence to set up life:
100% We KNOW by repeated experience that intelligence produces all the things, as follows:
factory portals ( membrane proteins ) factory compartments ( organelles ) a library index ( chromosomes, and the gene regulatory network ) molecular computers, hardware ( DNA ) software, a language using signs and codes like the alphabet, an instructional blueprint, ( the genetic and over a dozen epigenetic codes ) information retrieval ( RNA polymerase ) transmission ( messenger RNA ) translation ( Ribosome ) signaling ( hormones ) complex machines ( proteins ) taxis ( dynein, kinesin, transport vesicles ) molecular highways ( tubulins ) tagging programs ( each protein has a tag, which is an amino acid sequence informing other molecular transport machines were to transport them.) factory assembly lines ( fatty acid synthase ) error check and repair systems ( exonucleolytic proofreading ) recycling methods ( endocytic recycling ) waste grinders and management ( Proteasome Garbage Grinders ) power generating plants ( mitochondria ) power turbines ( ATP synthase ) electric circuits ( the metabolic network ) computers ( neurons ) computer networks ( brain ) all with specific purposes.

Chance of unguided random natural events producing just a minimal functional proteome, not considering all other essential things to get a first living self-replicating cell,is:

Let's suppose, we have a fully operational raw material, and the genetic language upon which to store genetic information. Only now, we can ask: Where did the information come from to make the first living organism? Various attempts have been made to lower the minimal information content to produce a fully working operational cell. Often, Mycoplasma is mentioned as a reference to the threshold of the living from the non-living. Mycoplasma genitalium is held as the smallest possible living self-replicating cell. It is, however, a pathogen, an endosymbiont that only lives and survives within the body or cells of another organism ( humans ). As such, it IMPORTS many nutrients from the host organism. The host provides most of the nutrients such bacteria require, hence the bacteria do not need the genes for producing such compounds themselves. As such, it does not require the same complexity of biosynthesis pathways to manufacturing all nutrients as a free-living bacterium.

Mycoplasma are not primitive but instead descendants of soil-dwelling proteobacteria, quite possibly the Bacillus, which evolved into parasites. In becoming obligate parasites, the organisms were able to discard almost all biosynthetic capacity by a strategy of gaining biochemical intermediates from the host or from the growth medium in the case of laboratory culture.

The simplest free-living bacteria is Pelagibacter ubique. 13 It is known to be one of the smallest and simplest, self-replicating, and free-living cells. It has complete biosynthetic pathways for all 20 amino acids. These organisms get by with about 1,300 genes and 1,308,759 base pairs and code for 1,354 proteins. 14 That would be the size of a book with 400 pages, each page with 3000 characters. They survive without any dependence on other life forms. Incidentally, these are also the most “successful” organisms on Earth. They make up about 25% of all microbial cells. If a chain could link up, what is the probability that the code letters might by chance be in some order which would be a usable gene, usable somewhere—anywhere—in some potentially living thing? If we take a model size of 1,200,000 base pairs, the chance to get the sequence randomly would be 4^1,200,000 or 10^722,000.


Aron: But the reason we have to limit our explanations to what can be tested is because that prevents us from doing what you're doing, assuming things that are not evidently true and then asserting them as fact. In any other application, that would be considered lying.
Reply: You keep misrepresenting what i say, despite that i corrected you in my previous email. I do use abductive reasoning to the best explantion, and do not claim to know what nobody can know. You, on the other hand, are doing PRECISELY what you accuse me of doing. Stating things as a fact, which you can't, because you are not all knowing.


Aron: Creation requires a creator, but this isn't a creation. This is reality, and reality doesn't need a realtor.
Reply: I have never seen an atheist logically disproving Aquinas five ways. Try.

Gods existence can be logically proven:
1. A series of events exists. One event is added to another to get us to today. But we know that whenever we pause, we can't have an infinite number of events. This means that there is not an infinite number of events that go backward from this point in time. Adding individual events together can never get to an infinite period of time.
2. The series of events exists as caused and not as uncaused(necessary)
3. There must exist an uncaused necessary being that is the cause of all contingent being
4. Since that cause created space, time, and matter, it must be above and beyond physical reality. That cause must be timeless, uncaused, eternal, spaceless, and personal. We call it God.


Aron: There are both discoveries that can be made and experiments that can be performed to confirm events in the past just as well as in the present. We both know that there was a point when there was no life yet on this planet and then there was. So we both know life does not only come from life, but must have had a beginning.
Reply: Life from nonlife would be, if life emerged from inanimated matter. Life from life is, if God did interveen.


Aron: Scientists say it happened naturally, creationists say it happened magically.
Reply: Is the claim that it happened naturally, warranted ? If so, you must know something which i don't. Because, in my book, Abiogenesis is a FAILED hypothesis.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible
https://******************************/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible

Some of the worlds leading scientists in the field of synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, and computational biology, like James Tour, Graham Cairns-Smith, Eugene Koonin and Steve Benner have stated that solving the mystery of the origin of life is categorically not possible, that science has no clue how to solve the riddle, that abiogenesis research is a failure, and the most difficult problem that faces evolutionary biology and, arguably, biology in general.

Eugene V. Koonin: The Logic of Chance: page 351:
" Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching (or even approaching) the ultimate goal, the origin of life field is a failure—we still do not have even a plausible coherent model, let alone a validated scenario, for the emergence of life on Earth.

Steve Benner: Paradoxes in the origin of life
Discussed here is an alternative approach to guide research into the origins of life, one that focuses on “paradoxes”, pairs of statements, both grounded in theory and observation, that (taken
together) suggest that the “origins problem” cannot be solved.

Graham Cairns-Smith: Genetic takeover, page 66:
Now you may say that there are alternative ways of building up nucleotides, and perhaps there was some geochemical way on the early Earth. But what we know of the experimental difficulties in nucleotide synthesis speaks strongly against any such supposition. However it is to be put together, a nucleotide is too complex and metastable a molecule for there to be any reason to expect an easy synthesis.

Garrett: Biochemistry, 6th ed, page 665
Key compounds, such as arginine, lysine, and histidine; the straight-chain fatty acids; porphyrins; and essential coenzymes, have not been convincingly synthesized under simulated prebiotic conditions.

Robert Shapiro: A Replicator Was Not Involved in the Origin of Life
A profound difficulty exists, however, with the idea of RNA, or any other replicator, at the start of life. Existing replicators can serve as templates for the synthesis of additional copies of themselves, but this device cannot be used for the preparation of the very first such molecule, which must arise spontaneously from an unorganized mixture. The formation of an information-bearing homopolymer through undirected chemical synthesis appears very improbable.

Aron: Life is an emergent property of matter.
Reply: Prove it.


Aron:> > Aron: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact, pretending to know things no one even can know.
> Otangelo: That is the kind of generalisation which i object. Who made absolute claims?

You did. You're the one who cited yourself in defense of the erroneous notion that life has to be pre-programmed, which it obviously does not and cannot have been.
Reply: You need to argue with science then. Not with me.

https://******************************/t1281-dna-stores-literally-coded-information#8138

1. Algorithms, prescribing functional instructions, digital programming, using symbols and coding systems are abstract and non-physical, and originate always from thought—from conscious or intelligent activity.
2. Genetic and epigenetic information is characterized containing prescriptive codified information, which result in functional outcomes due to the right particular specified complex sequence of triplet codons and ultimately the translated sequencing of amino acid building blocks into protein strings. The sequencing of nucleotides in DNA also prescribes highly specific regulatory micro RNAs and other epigenetic factors.
3. Therefore, genetic and epigenetic information comes from an intelligent mind. Since there was no human mind present to create life, it must have been a supernatural agency.

Dichotomy in the definition of prescriptive information suggests both prescribed data and prescribed algorithms: biosemiotics applications in genomic systems
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319427/
Biological information frequently manifests its “meaning” through instruction or actual production of formal bio-function. Such information is called Prescriptive Information (PI). PI programs organize and execute a prescribed set of choices. Closer examination of this term in cellular systems has led to a dichotomy in its definition suggesting both prescribed data and prescribed algorithms are constituents of PI. This paper looks at this dichotomy as expressed in both the genetic code and in the central dogma of protein synthesis. An example of a genetic algorithm is modeled after the ribosome, and an examination of the protein synthesis process is used to differentiate PI data from PI algorithms.

Both the method used to combine several genes together to produce a molecular machine and the operational logic of the machine are examples of an algorithm. Molecular machines are a product of several polycodon instruction sets (genes) and may be operated upon algorithmically. But what process determines what algorithm to execute?

In addition to algorithm execution, there needs to be an assembly algorithm. Any manufacturing engineer knows that nothing (in production) is built without plans that precisely define orders of operations to properly and economically assemble components to build a machine or product. There must be by necessity, an order of operations to construct biological machines. This is because biological machines are neither chaotic nor random, but are functionally coherent assemblies of proteins/RNA elements. A set of operations that govern the construction of such assemblies may exist as an algorithm which we need to discover. It details real biological processes that are operated upon by a set of rules that define the construction of biological elements both in a temporal and physical assembly sequence manner.

Aron: In that, you also demonstrated that you don't know what microevolution is. Creationists never do, even though your lot pretend to accept it. So I'll be making a video soon to explain what microevolution really is, and how you liars don't really accept what you say you do.
Reply: I know precisely what it means. What i question imho, if the mechanisms proposed are adequate. Which i think, they are not. You don't need to make a video on the subject.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evoscales_02

Aron: You said that natural laws require a lawmaker, so you don't know what natural laws are either.
Reply: Laws of Physics, where did they come from?
https://******************************/t1336-laws-of-physics-where-did-they-come-from

Laws of Physics, where did they come from?


1. Laws and mathematical formulas objectively, exist and originate in the mind of conscious intelligent beings.
2. The physical laws that govern the physical universe therefore had to emerge from a mind.
3. We call that the mind of GOD

1. The laws of physics are immutable: absolute, eternal, perfect mathematical relationships, infinitely precise in form.
2. The laws were imprinted on the universe at the moment of creation, i.e. at the big bang, and have since remained fixed in both space and time.
3. The ultimate source of the laws transcend the universe itself, i.e. to lie beyond the physical world.
4. Laws and mathematical formulas objectively, exist, and originate in the mind of conscious intelligent beings.
5. Therefore, the physical laws that govern the universe came from God.

Aron: You believe the universe was "fine-tuned" for us, which is demonstrably false.
Reply: Fine-tuning of the universe
https://******************************/t1277-fine-tuning-of-the-universe

Fine-Tuning Argument for God? | Otangelo Vs Leophilius


The Big Bang was the most precisely planned event in all of history. Without fine-tuning, there would be no universe. The likelihood to have the right expansion rate at the Big bang is one to 10^123 ( Cosmological constant )

Steven Weinberg Department of Physics, University of Texas
There are now two cosmological constant problems. The old cosmological constant problem is to understand in a natural way why the vacuum energy density ρV is not very much larger. We can reliably calculate some contributions to ρV , like the energy density in fluctuations in the gravitational field at graviton energies nearly up to the Planck scale, which is larger than is observationally allowed by some 120 orders of magnitude. Such terms in ρV can be cancelled by other contributions that we can’t calculate, but the cancellation then has to be accurate to 120 decimal places.

rationalist said:

Aron: Science doesn't point to God because there is no god.
Reply: Now you are doing exactly what you accuse of us, creationists of doing: Making absolute claims. Ok. God does not exist? Prove it !!

Click to expand...

Why do you call yourself a rationalist when that is the very opposite of what you are?

If you google "rationalist", you'll notice the following comments:


Now let's look up what you really are:


You are an irrationalist. You are operating on religious biases that are not based on reason and you are defending them against all reason. Since you have absolutely no idea what rationalism even is, then let me share a couple of the rules with you that are specifically applicable to and relevant in science. It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact, yet that's what all religions do, pretending to know what no one even can know. In science, we call this lying. We cannot honestly say that a thing exists until or unless we have actual factual evidence to indicate that it does. We cannot even say that something is possible until we have a precedent or parallel or verified phenomenon indicating that probability. Empty, unsupported assertions without factual basis have no more credence than claims that have already been disproved. Come back when you have something to show. Until then, we have literally nothing to talk about. Until then, I am completely justified, both scientifically and philosophically to reply in the negative, "no there isn't" to your unsupported (and thus indefensible) assertion of "there is a god". Just saying that there is no evidence of a thing is effectively equivalent to saying "there is no such thing".

rationalist said:

Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.
What happens when you have a whole bunch of uncomfortable, embarrassing and annoying emotions that you don’t want to unconsciously deal with? According to famous psychologist Sigmund Freud these emotions are projected on to other people, so that other people become carriers of our own perceived flaws. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us, this form of emotional displacement makes it much easier to live with ourselves … because everyone else is responsible for our misery – not us!

Click to expand...

Your feeble accusations are unsubstantiated and Irrelevant here, as I will continue to demonstrate. They're also hypocritical, as you will continue to demonstrate.

rationalist said:

Aron: Evolution is real and verifiable.
Reply: Agreed upon a certain extent.

https://******************************/t2806-main-topics-about-evolution

What is fact in regards of evolution :
1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from
a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification; chiefly pre-programmed selection acting on random variations or mutations
5. Natural selection acting up to two random mutations as shown in malaria ( See Behe's Edge of evolution )

Click to expand...

Do not quote known frauds in defense of your position. May I remind you that Behe was reprimanded by a District Court Judge for lying in the courtroom. Judge John E Jones requested that Behe be charged with perjury for the lies he told under oath attempting to defend Intelligent Design.

I must repeat, there is no "pre-programming" evident in living cells. Unsupported assertions in science are equivalent to lies, remember? Especially when you are claiming facts that are not facts, and are instead deliberately deceptive misrepresentations.

As for the rest, let me explain what evolution really is. Unless otherwise specified, when scientists speak of evolution, they're referring to an explanation of biodiversity via population mechanics, summarily defined as ‘descent with inherent modification’: Paraphrased for clarity, it is a process of varying allele frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in the morphological or physiological composition of descendant subsets. When compiled over successive generations, these can expand biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.

rationalist said:

What is not fact:
6. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.

Click to expand...

Correct. Evolution being defined as "descent with inherent modification" follows an ancestor-descendent relationship, but much of what we know of prokaryote reproduction is that there is quite a lot of horizontal gene transfer going on; so much that we don't have a clear phylogenetic tree. Eukaryotes could arguably be from a single common ancestral species or genus, despite some horizontal gene transfer even there, but that's where a distinct lineage becomes clearly traceable, as I demonstrated in my 50-part series on the Systematic Classification of Life.

rationalist said:

7. Blind watchmaker thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors through unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; the idea that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation, and other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, completely suffice to explain the origin of novel biological forms and the appearance of design in complex organisms.

Click to expand...

What you're calling the Blind Watchmaker is the fact that we do have comprehensive explanations for these evolutionary processes, and not only do we not have to want to a magic invisible manipulator, but there is no way to squeeze one in, and no evidence to justify such an assumption to be inserted.

rationalist said:

Aron: Creation never happened and is a lie
Reply: Prove it !! See what you said: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact, pretending to know things no one even can know.

Click to expand...

Once again, positive claims require positive evidence. There is no truth to creationism whatsoever, but there are a whole lotta lies, and you're demonstrating that in this very post. If you want to counter my assertion, cough up something you can show to be true of this alternate model for the alternate reality you call "creation".

rationalist said:

Aron: methodological naturalism is not a flawed framework. If there was any truth to your position, there would be some evidence of it, even if science could not explain it.
Reply: That is entirely irrelevant to the point i made. It seems you did either not read it carefully, or not comprehend it. The matter is not, if creationism is compelling or not. The problem is that it is not permitted to be proposed even as a hypothesis. This is arbitrary, and wrong. Evidence should be permitted to lead wherever it is.

Historical sciences, and methodological naturalism
https://******************************/t1692-historical-sciences-and-methodological-naturalism

Why does modern science never point to a Creator as the best explanation of origins ?

Click to expand...

It is a lie to say that "operational science and historical science are two different "kinds" of science. As I understand it, that lie was conjured by the science denialist, Ken Ham, and the scientific community disagrees with him entirely.

We cannot use abductive reasoning to produce a supernatural explanation for a number of reasons. (1) Abduction is making probable conclusions based on what you know. You don't know anything about the supernatural. You can't even define it or show that there is such a thing. (2) Supernatural explanations cannot explain anything. Just saying "I dunno therefore magic" doesn't explain anything. In order to qualify as an explanation at all, we have to be able to objectively confirm that this can happen and that it does account for the data we're examining. Simply pretending that your dream of genie can do whatever it wants and poof things into existence just by saying "abracadabra" does not and cannot qualify as an explanation of anything.

rationalist said:

Aron: If magic were real, there would be people like Obiwan, Hermione, Spock and Gandalf who could demonstrate that reliably enough that we could at least see that there is a THERE there. But there has never been not even one tiny element of the supernatural demonstrated to be real at all.
Reply: Why it`s an irrational demand to ask proofs of God's existence

https://***************************...ational-demand-to-ask-proofs-of-his-existence

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You've got everything backwards. By definition, it is irrational to believe something without evidence. We know that Adam & Eve never existed, that both of those characters came from different myths that were originally polytheist, and that they were adopted and adapted into a new fable dedicated to a new god. Likewise, we know for absolutely certain that the Tower of Babel and the global flood of Noah's Ark never happened either, and there is a growing consensus among historians and archeologists that the Exodus never happened and that Moses never existed. If creationism was true, then we would have all the evidence we should ever need. But you can't produce a bit of it. Because I told you, creationism depends entirely on frauds, falsehoods and fallacies with no truth in it, meaning not one thing you can show to be true.

The Bible is a haphazard compilation of man-made mythology made up by ignorant and bigoted superstitious savages who obviously had no idea what they were talking about, and that's why the Bible is absolutely wrong about absolutely everything scientifically and historically, ethically and morally. The names of some (but not all) of the kings and countries may be real, as they would be in any work of fiction, but not much more than that.

rationalist said:

Many atheists have made a career out of making silly requirements based on ignorance, rather than first creating a solid epistemological framework of inquiry, and then asking relevant questions. Abiogenesis is how to test the materialism claim and it fails. Almost seventy years of experimental attempts of recreating life in the lab and not even the basic building blocks have been recreated.

Click to expand...

There is another of your lies, and I can prove it. We have discovered an awful lot about the many chemical processes involved in abiogenesis, and I'll be happy to go over them with you, just to call you out for your ignorance and dishonestly. To begin with, what we know of the early earth is that it was much warmer and more radioactive than it is today, a bubbling cauldron cooking complex chemicals. So the first thing we needed to know was how do we get to organic chemistry, specifically beginning with amino acids. Thanks to Urey-Miller and a number of other, similar experiments, we now know that water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen generate amino acids when heated and charged with electricity.
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/17/4306
The same thing happens when you change the mix to include Carbon-dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen-sulfide and sulfur-dioxide.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2011/lost_exp.html
Similarly, heating water to 70ºC in the presence of iron hydroxide (simulating geothermal vents in the anaerobic conditions of the prebiotic earth) also produced amino acids and alpha hydroxy acids in the lab.
https://www.wired.com/2008/10/forgotten-exper/

There is a whole lot more to cover that you obviously don't know anything about, but explaining it to you must be an interactive process, where you show that you've got the basics before we move on to the next level. So do you understand and accept what I've just told you so far?

rationalist said:

Evolution has been tested and it fails. 70,000 generations of bacteria, and all they got, are bacteria. No hint of a transition zone to a new organismal limb or improvement of complexity. Fail.

Click to expand...

The emergence of eukaryotes was technically not an evolutionary event but one of endosymbiosis, where a relatively large microbial species more closely-related to archaea enveloped a form of rickettsia bacteria, beginning a symbiotic relationship that continues to this day. That's why your mitochondria has different DNA than your cells do, because mitochondria is a form of bacteria. As I mentioned before, the evolution of eukaryotes begins at that point.

Evolution has withstood a more concentrated and sustained battery of critical analysis than any other scientific theory, yet it has never failed once. All evidence and experiments have always only ever lent it further support without contradiction. Thus it has come out as one of the most robust and best supported theories in all of science.

There is a vast amount of evidence giving confirmation without assumptions. You don't know how MUCH you don't know. I know it from personal experience, working both in the lab and in the field. In this video, I am on a paleontological expedition into the South African Karoo, interviewing a handful of experts from all over the world, so that each of them can explain the evidence they personally work with.


Creationists use a lot of logical fallacies trying to argue against evolution; one of them is the straw-man, misrepresenting what evolution is. For example, the notion that evolution means one thing giving birth to or turning into another fundamentally different thing. But that too is a lie. There is no part of evolutionary history where one species ever prompted another that was so different that they're not even related. That would actually violate two of the laws of evolution, being monophyly and biodiversity.

Dogs are still dogs and cats are still cats, and both are still Carnivorans of the Laurasiatherian clade because evolution is "descent with modification". That means that every new genus or species that ever evolved is just a modified version of whatever its ancestors were, and it still belongs to every ancestral clade that they did. You can't grow out of your ancestry. So even if dogs evolve into different breeds, like bloodhounds or pit bulls, they're still dogs. Even if they evolve into different species like raccoon dogs or Bush dogs, they're still dogs. Even if they evolve a different Genus like Lupus (wolf), Cuon (dhole) or Lycaon (African panted dog) they're still dogs and always will be; even if your Yorkie or Bergamasco shepherd doesn't look like a traditionally typical dog anymore. Even if we go back in the fossil record, if Borophagines were ever dogs, they still would be, and so would all their descendants always be, if they hadn't gone extinct.

So, do you understand and accept that it is a lie, a misrepresentation of evolution to expect one "kind" of thing to produce another "completely different kind"?

So that I don't waste all my time on dishonest trolls, I must insist that you properly address every point or query put to you. If you repeatedly ignore any direct question, I will be under no obligation to continue. Because teaching someone like yourself, whose head is full of lies and nonsense, requires an interactive step-by-step process, where we can't move on to the next level until you understand the basics first.

Evolution is based on genetic drift, a continuous accumulation of mutations which I'll explain in the next lesson. These can be further manipulated by selection. This is the process which humans harnessed to breed kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi all from the wild mustard plant.


That is also how humans bred hundreds of breeds of domestic dogs via artificial selection and this is how we have several different species of dogs via natural selection. The same goes for breeds and species of cattle, sheep, goats, and everything else.
Do you understand and accept everything I have explained so far?

rationalist said:

The existence of God is inferred just like all historical science is.

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Erroneously, without evidentiary or logical support and not for any abductive reason.

rationalist said:

This is basic logic and critical thinking but some atheists have a mind like a sieve.

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What were you saying about those who lob insults?

rationalist said:

God's existence is inferred by many criteria, like abductive reasoning, and eliminative inductions, but many persevere on nonsensical demands like asking for demonstrations of God's existence.

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Well, if you won't give me any reason to believe you, then I have no reason to believe you.

rationalist said:

How does someone “test” for the widely credited multiverse? They can’t, don’t even try. Honest physicists know this.
The existence of God is as valid as multiverse, string theory, abiogenesis, macroevolution, and numerous other improvable theories.

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These are not theories. The multiverse is, as you said, untestable speculation, and therefore of no value in science. String theory is a mathematics theory, not a scientific theory. There are different rules and what qualifies as theory in math would never make it in science. Abiogenesis is not a theory either, but it is a long series of unrelated sequential chemical processes in different environments, and I will show you several of the studies that prove what you said was unprovable. Macroevolution is not a different theory from evolution. You don't know what macroevolution is. No creationist does. But you will know soon enough, after we cover microevolution, since you don't know what that is either, even though you pretend to accept it. For the moment, let me just say that mAcroevolution has been directly observed and documented dozens of times, both in the lab and in naturally controlled conditions in the field, and there are several ways of tracing and confirming that in the distant past too.

rationalist said:

Many atheists are like the kid stuck in high school who never grows up or moves on. Like a windup echo chamber.

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More empty insults, just like you falsely accused me of doing. Your hypocrisy is showing, sir.

rationalist said:

Aron: very testable claim made by intelligent design "theorists" has been disproved in science and exposed as fraudulent in a court of law.
Reply: Dover, a good argument against ID ?

https://******************************/t1795-dover-a-good-argument-against-id

Whenever the teleological argument of Gods existence is brought forward by believers, it is very common that unbelievers immediately try to shift the goal posts and begin to point out that intelligent design is not science, that it was debunked at the Dover Trial, rather than stick to the issue, and actually deal with honesty in regards of the arguments brought up for debate.

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I am being honest with you. Intelligent Design "theory" is not a theory at all, and was in fact revealed in court to be a criminal conspiracy intended to evade the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in Edwards v Aguillard, attempting to illegally undermine science by teaching religious propaganda instead.

rationalist said:

Ask ANY real scientist, if he thinks the best way to proceed in scientific truth, is to have courts of law decide what scientific theories should be accepted.

https://***************************...erging-through-unguided-natural-random-events

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Once again, each of the claims made by Intelligent Design Creationists were already disproved in science before they were revealed to be criminally fraudulent in a court of law.

rationalist said:

Chance of intelligence to set up life:
100% We KNOW by repeated experience that intelligence produces all the things, as follows:
factory portals ( membrane proteins ) factory compartments ( organelles ) a library index ( chromosomes, and the gene regulatory network ) molecular computers, hardware ( DNA ) software, a language using signs and codes like the alphabet, an instructional blueprint, ( the genetic and over a dozen epigenetic codes ) information retrieval ( RNA polymerase ) transmission ( messenger RNA ) translation ( Ribosome ) signaling ( hormones ) complex machines ( proteins ) taxis ( dynein, kinesin, transport vesicles ) molecular highways ( tubulins ) tagging programs ( each protein has a tag, which is an amino acid sequence informing other molecular transport machines were to transport them.) factory assembly lines ( fatty acid synthase ) error check and repair systems ( exonucleolytic proofreading ) recycling methods ( endocytic recycling ) waste grinders and management ( Proteasome Garbage Grinders ) power generating plants ( mitochondria ) power turbines ( ATP synthase ) electric circuits ( the metabolic network ) computers ( neurons ) computer networks ( brain ) all with specific purposes.

Chance of unguided random natural events producing just a minimal functional proteome, not considering all other essential things to get a first living self-replicating cell,is:

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Your mislabeling of these things according to your deliberately self-imposed misunderstanding is not a valid argument. I must warn you to be careful here. Because if you keep repeating lies after being corrected on them, there will be no reason for me to continue this thread.

rationalist said:

Let's suppose, we have a fully operational raw material, and the genetic language upon which to store genetic information. Only now, we can ask: Where did the information come from to make the first living organism? Various attempts have been made to lower the minimal information content to produce a fully working operational cell. Often, Mycoplasma is mentioned as a reference to the threshold of the living from the non-living. Mycoplasma genitalium is held as the smallest possible living self-replicating cell. It is, however, a pathogen, an endosymbiont that only lives and survives within the body or cells of another organism ( humans ). As such, it IMPORTS many nutrients from the host organism. The host provides most of the nutrients such bacteria require, hence the bacteria do not need the genes for producing such compounds themselves. As such, it does not require the same complexity of biosynthesis pathways to manufacturing all nutrients as a free-living bacterium.

Mycoplasma are not primitive but instead descendants of soil-dwelling proteobacteria, quite possibly the Bacillus, which evolved into parasites. In becoming obligate parasites, the organisms were able to discard almost all biosynthetic capacity by a strategy of gaining biochemical intermediates from the host or from the growth medium in the case of laboratory culture.

The simplest free-living bacteria is Pelagibacter ubique. 13 It is known to be one of the smallest and simplest, self-replicating, and free-living cells. It has complete biosynthetic pathways for all 20 amino acids. These organisms get by with about 1,300 genes and 1,308,759 base pairs and code for 1,354 proteins. 14 That would be the size of a book with 400 pages, each page with 3000 characters. They survive without any dependence on other life forms. Incidentally, these are also the most “successful” organisms on Earth. They make up about 25% of all microbial cells. If a chain could link up, what is the probability that the code letters might by chance be in some order which would be a usable gene, usable somewhere—anywhere—in some potentially living thing? If we take a model size of 1,200,000 base pairs, the chance to get the sequence randomly would be 4^1,200,000 or 10^722,000.

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Don't copy text of someone else's argument that you don't understand yourself. I can refute all of this, but you wouldn't understand that either. So I suggest you speak for yourself as I do, so that I don't have to argue against copy-pasta.

rationalist said:

Aron: But the reason we have to limit our explanations to what can be tested is because that prevents us from doing what you're doing, assuming things that are not evidently true and then asserting them as fact. In any other application, that would be considered lying.
Reply: You keep misrepresenting what i say, despite that i corrected you in my previous email. I do use abductive reasoning to the best explantion, and do not claim to know what nobody can know. You, on the other hand, are doing PRECISELY what you accuse me of doing. Stating things as a fact, which you can't, because you are not all knowing.

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Everyone reading this can see that I am not misrepresenting you.

rationalist said:

Aron: Creation requires a creator, but this isn't a creation. This is reality, and reality doesn't need a realtor.
Reply: I have never seen an atheist logically disproving Aquinas five ways. Try.

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What does that medieval twit have to do with this?

rationalist said:

Gods existence can be logically proven:
1. A series of events exists. One event is added to another to get us to today. But we know that whenever we pause, we can't have an infinite number of events. This means that there is not an infinite number of events that go backward from this point in time. Adding individual events together can never get to an infinite period of time.
2. The series of events exists as caused and not as uncaused(necessary)
3. There must exist an uncaused necessary being that is the cause of all contingent being
4. Since that cause created space, time, and matter, it must be above and beyond physical reality. That cause must be timeless, uncaused, eternal, spaceless, and personal. We call it God.

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And string theorists call it a collision of two cosmic membranes. Whatever it is, it's not a god. Gods and magic are the most infantile excuses men ever made up to explain anything, and they don't explain anything.

Once upon a time, our ancestors believed that thunder, lightning, and volcanoes were gods in action, that comets were an omen, that the stars and planets had human characteristics, that sickness was a curse of witchcraft, and that epilepsy was demonic possession; all because that’s what religion would have us believe. In each case, the real truth might never have been discovered had we been satisfied by those lies. And in each case, the reality was a revelation of whole new fields of study previously unimagined, and vastly more complex than the simple excuses we made up in our ignorance. No doubt that pattern will continue, such that if we ever do discover the cause of the Big Bang, or some better explanation for the origin of life, the universe, and everything, it too will be a wealth of new information with practical application, and so advanced that it will render our previous belief in gods, ghosts, and magic just as laughably silly as every other field of study so far has already shown.

rationalist said:

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I'm not arguing against someone else's video. Speak for yourself. However, I will say that astro physicists Sean Carroll and Lawrence Krauss both say that an absolute nothing is not even possible. So that's one reason there is something rather than nothing, because there can't just be nothing.

rationalist said:

Aron: There are both discoveries that can be made and experiments that can be performed to confirm events in the past just as well as in the present. We both know that there was a point when there was no life yet on this planet and then there was. So we both know life does not only come from life, but must have had a beginning.
Reply: Life from nonlife would be, if life emerged from inanimated matter. Life from life is, if God did interveen.

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Wrong again, as always, and not just because God is not life.

rationalist said:

Aron: Scientists say it happened naturally, creationists say it happened magically.
Reply: Is the claim that it happened naturally, warranted ? If so, you must know something which i don't. Because, in my book, Abiogenesis is a FAILED hypothesis.

Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible
https://******************************/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible

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Your book is a literal fairy tale, complete with all the components of a fairy tale. It's a fable with a moral that includes folklorish elements such as wizards, witches, giants, dragons, magic spells and animals that talk and act like people. Even if the Bible were true, it would still be a fairy tale by definition.

But in reality, abiogenesis is a long series of successful experiments, and I will show you how as we proceed.

rationalist said:

Some of the worlds leading scientists in the field of synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, and computational biology, like James Tour, Graham Cairns-Smith, Eugene Koonin and Steve Benner have stated that solving the mystery of the origin of life is categorically not possible, that science has no clue how to solve the riddle, that abiogenesis research is a failure, and the most difficult problem that faces evolutionary biology and, arguably, biology in general.

Eugene V. Koonin: The Logic of Chance: page 351:
" Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching (or even approaching) the ultimate goal, the origin of life field is a failure—we still do not have even a plausible coherent model, let alone a validated scenario, for the emergence of life on Earth.

Steve Benner: Paradoxes in the origin of life
Discussed here is an alternative approach to guide research into the origins of life, one that focuses on “paradoxes”, pairs of statements, both grounded in theory and observation, that (taken
together) suggest that the “origins problem” cannot be solved.

Graham Cairns-Smith: Genetic takeover, page 66:
Now you may say that there are alternative ways of building up nucleotides, and perhaps there was some geochemical way on the early Earth. But what we know of the experimental difficulties in nucleotide synthesis speaks strongly against any such supposition. However it is to be put together, a nucleotide is too complex and metastable a molecule for there to be any reason to expect an easy synthesis.

Garrett: Biochemistry, 6th ed, page 665
Key compounds, such as arginine, lysine, and histidine; the straight-chain fatty acids; porphyrins; and essential coenzymes, have not been convincingly synthesized under simulated prebiotic conditions.

Robert Shapiro: A Replicator Was Not Involved in the Origin of Life
A profound difficulty exists, however, with the idea of RNA, or any other replicator, at the start of life. Existing replicators can serve as templates for the synthesis of additional copies of themselves, but this device cannot be used for the preparation of the very first such molecule, which must arise spontaneously from an unorganized mixture. The formation of an information-bearing homopolymer through undirected chemical synthesis appears very improbable.

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I don't know about all these others, but I've already seen how Tour lost all his credibility by lying about Nobel laureate Jack Szostak. Like I said, it's not possible to defend creationism honestly. At some point, professional apologists know what lies they have to tell at what cue and that there is no choice other than to lie or give up and accept the truth.

rationalist said:

Aron: Life is an emergent property of matter.
Reply: Prove it.

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I'm already on it above. But I could refer you to Jeremy England, an assistant professor at MIT who has derived a mathematical formula that explains this capacity. The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.
England, JL (2013) Statistical physics of self-replication. J. Chem. Phys. 139, 121923 (2013); doi.org/10.1063/1.4818538

rationalist said:

Aron: > > > Aron: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact, pretending to know things no one even can know.
> > Otangelo: That is the kind of generalisation which i object. Who made absolute claims?
Aron: > You did. You're the one who cited yourself in defense of the erroneous notion that life has to be pre-programmed, which it obviously does not and cannot have been.
Reply: You need to argue with science then. Not with me.

https://******************************/t1281-dna-stores-literally-coded-information#8138
1. Algorithms, prescribing functional instructions, digital programming, using symbols and coding systems are abstract and non-physical, and originate always from thought—from conscious or intelligent activity.
2. Genetic and epigenetic information is characterized containing prescriptive codified information, which result in functional outcomes due to the right particular specified complex sequence of triplet codons and ultimately the translated sequencing of amino acid building blocks into protein strings. The sequencing of nucleotides in DNA also prescribes highly specific regulatory micro RNAs and other epigenetic factors.
3. Therefore, genetic and epigenetic information comes from an intelligent mind. Since there was no human mind present to create life, it must have been a supernatural agency.

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You're citing yourself again. You are not an authority. You don't know what you're talking about. Why do you write under the name "Reason and Science" when you want nothing to do with either of those things?

rationalist said:

Dichotomy in the definition of prescriptive information suggests both prescribed data and prescribed algorithms: biosemiotics applications in genomic systems
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319427/
Biological information frequently manifests its “meaning” through instruction or actual production of formal bio-function. Such information is called Prescriptive Information (PI). PI programs organize and execute a prescribed set of choices. Closer examination of this term in cellular systems has led to a dichotomy in its definition suggesting both prescribed data and prescribed algorithms are constituents of PI. This paper looks at this dichotomy as expressed in both the genetic code and in the central dogma of protein synthesis. An example of a genetic algorithm is modeled after the ribosome, and an examination of the protein synthesis process is used to differentiate PI data from PI algorithms.

Both the method used to combine several genes together to produce a molecular machine and the operational logic of the machine are examples of an algorithm. Molecular machines are a product of several polycodon instruction sets (genes) and may be operated upon algorithmically. But what process determines what algorithm to execute?

In addition to algorithm execution, there needs to be an assembly algorithm. Any manufacturing engineer knows that nothing (in production) is built without plans that precisely define orders of operations to properly and economically assemble components to build a machine or product. There must be by necessity, an order of operations to construct biological machines. This is because biological machines are neither chaotic nor random, but are functionally coherent assemblies of proteins/RNA elements. A set of operations that govern the construction of such assemblies may exist as an algorithm which we need to discover. It details real biological processes that are operated upon by a set of rules that define the construction of biological elements both in a temporal and physical assembly sequence manner.

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Now we've come to the inevitable quote-mine, ubiquitous in all arguments with creationists. But again, I'm reasoning with you, not with copy-pasta that you yourself don't understand.

rationalist said:

Aron: In that, you also demonstrated that you don't know what microevolution is. Creationists never do, even though your lot pretend to accept it. So I'll be making a video soon to explain what microevolution really is, and how you liars don't really accept what you say you do.
Reply: I know precisely what it means. What i question imho, if the mechanisms proposed are adequate. Which i think, they are not. You don't need to make a video on the subject.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evoscales_02

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You copied a link, but that doesn't show that you read it or that you know anything about it, which you obviously don't since you think macroevolution involves different mechanisms. It doesn't. It is a continuation of the exact same mechanisms that are all already working in microevolution. So I must ask again. What do you think macroevolution is? What other mechanisms do you imagine are involved only at the macro level and/or that you think are not "adequate". Ignoring for the moment that absolutely NOTHING from your position is adequate at all.

rationalist said:

Aron: You said that natural laws require a lawmaker, so you don't know what natural laws are either.
Reply: Laws of Physics, where did they come from?
https://******************************/t1336-laws-of-physics-where-did-they-come-from

Laws of Physics, where did they come from?


1. Laws and mathematical formulas objectively, exist and originate in the mind of conscious intelligent beings.
2. The physical laws that govern the physical universe therefore had to emerge from a mind.
3. We call that the mind of GOD

1. The laws of physics are immutable: absolute, eternal, perfect mathematical relationships, infinitely precise in form.
2. The laws were imprinted on the universe at the moment of creation, i.e. at the big bang, and have since remained fixed in both space and time.
3. The ultimate source of the laws transcend the universe itself, i.e. to lie beyond the physical world.
4. Laws and mathematical formulas objectively, exist, and originate in the mind of conscious intelligent beings.
5. Therefore, the physical laws that govern the universe came from God.

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Where did the laws of physics come from? We humans made them up.

rationalist said:

Aron: You believe the universe was "fine-tuned" for us, which is demonstrably false.
Reply: Fine-tuning of the universe
https://******************************/t1277-fine-tuning-of-the-universe

Fine-Tuning Argument for God? | Otangelo Vs Leophilius


The Big Bang was the most precisely planned event in all of history. Without fine-tuning, there would be no universe. The likelihood to have the right expansion rate at the Big bang is one to 10^123 ( Cosmological constant )

Steven Weinberg Department of Physics, University of Texas
There are now two cosmological constant problems. The old cosmological constant problem is to understand in a natural way why the vacuum energy density ρV is not very much larger. We can reliably calculate some contributions to ρV , like the energy density in fluctuations in the gravitational field at graviton energies nearly up to the Planck scale, which is larger than is observationally allowed by some 120 orders of magnitude. Such terms in ρV can be cancelled by other contributions that we can’t calculate, but the cancellation then has to be accurate to 120 decimal places.

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Once again, the universe was obviously NOT "fine-tuned" for us, as we can only live on a fraction of the surface of this one tiny mote of dust in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos of wasted space where there are trillions of other worlds that are all out of reach, and we would be killed instantly on nearly all of them.

Now, it seems that your first post was an attempt to overwhelm me with more lies than I could possibly correct. Change that plan moving forward, as I will not respond to most of your nonsense; only what is directly relevant to the few challenges already initiated above.

Aron: You are an irrationalist. You are operating on religious biases that are not based on reason
Reply: We are all biased up to a certain degree. I can also say: YOu are operating on atheism biases and not based on reason.

https://******************************/t1375-the-practical-impossibility-of-atheism

The strong atheist which claims that most probably, no God(s) exists, has no rational basis to make any meaningful and trustworthy claim if his brain is developed from the mind of the lower animals, evolved from some random forces of nature, some random mutations, why should someone believe in anyone else's arguments and claims? Atheists are irrational and atheism is self-defeating.

The only way to know anything at all is to know everything.....***OR***..... have revelation from someone who does.
The atheist worldview can not account for knowledge. So as soon as he makes a knowledge claim he has already abandoned his worldview and borrowed from the theistic / judeo-christian worldview. Which means he has lost as soon as he begins to debate. Christianity is true by virtue of the impossibility of the contrary.

Aron: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact
Reply: That's precisely what you did, when you claimed that there is no God in absolute terms. Neither view, theism, nor materialism can be proven. Science will never demonstrate how reality came about. We can only look at the science available to us and find adequate philosophical explanations based on the evidence. The Scientific method nor any other will never be able to demonstrate God's existence or the claim that the material universe is all there is. Historical events cannot be repeated. From what we know, we can decide which is the bigger leap of faith - which materialism as well requires. Any view, conclusion, and position, is based on a leap of faith. It is just that - a leap of faith. Upon my understanding, there is extraordinary evidence FOR a creator, therefore, theism requires the smallest leap of faith and that points to a creator. In my view, it is the best hypothesis based on evidence. Once that happens, the truth seeker can choose to investigate which creator best fits the bill. Without God's hiddenness, we would not have any significant freedom. Even those that hate God would be unable to fully live according to their wishes; much like a criminal would find it intolerable living in the police station. God stays hidden to a degree, He gives people the free will to either respond to His tugging at their hearts or remain autonomous from Him. There is enough light for those who desire to find him, and enough darkness for those that prefer to live autonomously to HIM. If you prefer being an atheist, God values your free will more than His desires for you. If you are really after truth, then have an open mind and follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if you don’t like the conclusion.


Aron: yet that's what all religions do, pretending to know what no one even can know.
Reply: God has proven his existence to me. I cannot believe anymore, that he does not exist. To me, he DOES exist, and I am 100% certain about that. I am convinced about that fact, as much as i am convinced about the existence of the air i breath. And somebody could even torture me to death, and I COULD NOT stop to believe in his existence. His existence is overwhelmingly obvious through his creation, and direct revelation. BUT. I cannot prove you, what I am convinced of. You have to do your own work of forming an epistemological framework and then search for the truth of our existence.

Matthew 7:8
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
But when you seek, it's actually not, that you will find the truth. But the truth will find you.

Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.


Aron: In science, we call this lying. We cannot honestly say that a thing exists until or unless we have actual factual evidence to indicate that it does.
Reply: Evidence does not equal demonstration or absolute proof.
Comparing worldviews - there are basically just two

https://***************************...-are-basically-just-two-in-regards-of-origins

Claim: So we are presented with what I see as a very clear choice between the natural and the supernatural. The natural we all know exists, while the supernatural is only believed to actually exist by some who have no rational reason why they believe it exists.
Reply: Inferring that because of the fact that we have observable evidence of the existence of the natural world, therefore all reality is just natural, is a logical fallacy. The evidence points to two possible outcomes. Either the natural world is all there is and has ever been, or there is a necessary being, a creator above and beyond space-time and matter, which created all contingent beings for his own purposes. Either there is a God, a conscious intelligent mind at the bottom of all reality, or not. Based on Plato's principle of Contradiction and Excluded Middle: either that proposition is true or its negation is true, and contradictory propositions cannot both be true at the same time. The dichotomy that either there is a God, or there is not a God, are jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts.

Only one worldview can be true. If the various worldviews have mutually exclusive truth claims, only one can be true. A true system of thought must be comprehensive of thought and life. It must possess consistency and coherence in its overall claims. But most importantly, the system must correspond to reality, past, present, and future, natural and supernatural. And all major systems of thought contain key truth claims which are contrary to those of all other systems. A worldview must be consistent and explain the evidence, phenomena, and observations in the natural world adequately.

Norman Geisler:
The creation-evolution debate is not religion versus science or the Bible versus science, it's about good science versus bad science. Likewise, it's not faith versus reason, it's about reasonable faith, versus unreasonable faith.

The deepest intellectual battle is not between science and religion (which, as we have seen, can operate with a great deal of accord), but between naturalism and theism—two broad philosophical (or metaphysical) ways of looking at the world. Neither view is a scientific view; neither view is based on or inferable from empirical data. Metaphysics, like numbers and the laws of logic,
lies outside the realm of human sense experience. So the issue of naturalism versus theism must be decided on philosophical grounds

Metaphysical naturalism is the view that nothing exists but matter/energy in space-time. Naturalism denies the existence of anything beyond nature. The naturalist rejects God, and also such spooky entities as souls, angels, and demons. Metaphysical naturalism entails that there is no ultimate purpose or design in nature because there is no Purposer or Designer. On the other hand, theism is the view that the universe is created by and owes its sustained existence to a Supreme Being that exists outside the universe. These two views, by definition, contradict each other.

Aron: We cannot even say that something is possible until we have a precedent or parallel or verified phenomenon indicating that such probability exists.
Reply: There is no logical reason to believe that God's existence is not possible. What can be said with certainty is, that was never a state o absolute nothingness ( in a philosophical sense), since otherwise, there would still be absolutely nothing. An eternal universe is not plausible based on scientific and philosophical reasons. The Big bang theory points to the origin and beginning of the universe. The second law of thermodynamics refutes an eternal universe or Cosmos ( Multiverses, Bubble universes, etc. ), and we cannot traverse an infinite period of time in the past.

Aron: Empty, unsupported assertions without factual basis have no more credence than claims that have already been disproved.
Reply:

- Multiverse: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Virtual particles causing the universe: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Accretion theory: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Abiogenesis: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Chance producing blueprints, and upon them the make of machines, computers, energy plants, energy turbines, transistors, outboard motors, production lines, factories: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Common ancestry: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Common ancestry & primary speciation/macroevolution: unsupported assertions without factual basis


Aron: Come back when you have something to show. Until then, we have literally nothing to talk about.
Reply: Come back when you have something to show. Until then, we have literally nothing to talk about. See? It goes both ways. You cannot show that the natural world is all there is.
How long are you a militant atheist? And you still fail on this VERY BASIC epistemological fact ? We cannot prove which ultimate reality is true. The one where the physical world is all there is, or if there is a necessary creator at the bottom of reality.


Aron: Until then, I am completely justified, both scientifically and philosophically to reply in the negative, "no there isn't" to your unsupported (and thus indefensible) assertion of "there is a god". Just saying that there is no evidence of a thing is effectively equivalent to saying "there is no such thing".
Reply: The Bible presupposes God’s existence. To deny God’s existence is to deny the obvious. God made Himself known. When he says that the universe is designed, but it’s not.” the unbeliever is rejecting the obvious. To deny God’s existence means to reject that the evidence points evidently to God.

Being cannot come from non-being. Contingent existence is evidence of a necessary Creator. But not everybody ( is willing ) to see it.
Romans 1.19 - 23 What may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour if we will only tune in.”
George Washington Carver

If God is not the metaphysical, supernatural, primary ultimate essential eternal necessary irreducible personal being upon which all other temporal natural things, humans with personality, consciousness, and rationality causally derive and depend, what is, and why? If there was not an eternal being, an agency with a will, that caused all physical and contingent mental conscient beings, the cosmos and/or our universe into existence, how could an alternative substance without qualia be an explanation, and on top of that, a better explanation? That, in special, in light of the fact that consciousness, an irreducible, fundamental property of mind cannot, even in principle, be reduced to known physical principles? To ascribe to the electrons in our brain the property to generate consciousness, and not to ascribe the same property to the electrons moving in a bulb, is in contradiction with quantum physics, which establishes that all electrons are equal and indistinguishable, that is they have all exactly the same properties.

Aron: Do not quote known frauds in defense of your position. May I remind you that Behe was reprimanded by a District Court Judge for lying in the courtroom. Judge John E Jones requested that Behe be charged with perjury for the lies he told under oath attempting to defend Intelligent Design.

I must repeat, there is no "pre-programming" evident in living cells.
Reply: Science does LITERALLY PROVE you wrong.

1. The cell has a sophisticated information-processing system. It is not only analogous to a man-made computer but operates literally as a computer.
2. Computer programs require programmers, conscious agents with knowledge and foresight who can code the needed instructions, in the right sequence, to generate a functioning and information-rich program.
3. Since cells contain an information storage system (DNA), a code language (the genetic code), and instructions encoded through the genetic code stored in DNA, and an information transmission system, that is 1. Encoding ( transcription into messenger RNA (mRNA) through RNA polymerase enzyme catalysts (transcription), 2. Sending (mRNA), and 3. Translation (mRNA to amino acids through the Ribosome), all this requires a programmer. The programmer is with high probability an intelligent designer (God).

Dynamic changes of genome, pre-programmed or in response to the changing environment.
In the last decade or so, however, it has been revealed that genetic material is not stable or static but a dynamic one, changing incessantly and rapidly, the changes being either pre-programmed or in response to the changing environment.
https://agris.fao.org/agris-search/...cString=&advQuery=&centerString=&enableField=

These alterations in the genome size occurred right at the first generation of amphidiploids, revealing the rapidity of the event. They suggest that these alterations, observed after allopolyploidization and without additive effect on the genome size, represent a pre-programmed adaptive response to the genomic stress caused by hybridization, which might have the function of stabilizing the genome of the new cell.
https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1413-70542003000100003&script=sci_arttext

Early pre-programming of genes
Special proteins are pre-programming genes which later regulate fetal development. This pre-programming occurs at an earlier stage than previously known.
https://partner.sciencenorway.no/dna-forskningno-norway/early-pre-programming-of-genes/1403186

[Pre-programmed genes]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28823208/

The evolution of the temporal program of genome replication
In yeast, active origins are distributed throughout the genome at non-transcribed and nucleosome-depleted sequences and comprise a specific DNA motif called ARS consensus sequence which is bound by the Origin Recognition Complex throughout the cell cycle 4–6. Despite of this partially pre-programmed replication activity, different cells in a population may use different subsets of active origins.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/210252v1.full

Learn about behaviors that are pre-programmed into an animal's genes, including reflexes and fixed action patterns.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science...sponses-to-the-environment/a/innate-behaviors

A number of theories have been generated to account for this spatial heterogeneity, including a zonated response to spatial gradients, or an internal clock where epithelial cells are pre-programmed to express different functional genes.
https://www.epistem.co.uk/spotlight/Lgr5-telocytes-signalling-source

The cells of the human body are governed by a set of pre-programmed processes, known as the cell cycle, which determines how cells progress and divide.
https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/The-Role-of-Cell-Division-in-Tumor-Formation.aspx

CRISPR (again, shorthand for CRISPR-Cas9), utilizes the Cas9 enzyme, a naturally produced protein in cell types built for DNA splicing, to “unzip” these chained nucleotides at a specific spot and then replace the nucleotide chain with the one attached. The location is based on pre-programmed information in the enzyme—essentially it floats around inside the nucleus until it finds the correct spot, then gets to work.
https://nanocellect.com/blog/using-crispr-technology-to-engineer-genetically-modified-cell-lines/

What are telomeres?
Are our cells just following a pre-programmed biological timetable regardless of any other factors? Most likely it’s a combination of all of these, plus some other causes we haven’t yet discovered.
https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/what-are-telomeres



Aron: As for the rest, let me explain what evolution really is. Unless otherwise specified, when scientists speak of evolution, they're referring to an explanation of biodiversity via population mechanics, summarily defined as ‘descent with inherent modification’: Paraphrased for clarity, it is a process of varying allele frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in the morphological or physiological composition of descendant subsets. When compiled over successive generations, these can expand biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.
Reply: Correct. And - your point is ??

Aron: Correct. Evolution being defined as "descent with inherent modification" follows an ancestor-descendent relationship, but much of what we know of prokaryote reproduction is that there is quite a lot of horizontal gene transfer going on; so much that we don't have a clear phylogenetic tree. Eukaryotes could arguably be from a single common ancestor, despite some horizontal gene transfer even there, but that's where a distinct lineage becomes clearly traceable, as I demonstrated in my 50-part series on the Systematic Classification of Life.
Reply: Common descent, the tree of life, a failed hypothesis

https://***************************...-descent-the-tree-of-life-a-failed-hypothesis

1. The DNA replication machinery is not homologous in the 3 domains of life. The bacterial core replisome enzymes do not share a common ancestor with the analogous components in eukaryotes and archaea.
2. Bacteria and Archaea differ strikingly in the chemistry of their membrane lipids. Cell membrane phospholipids are synthesized by different, unrelated enzymes in bacteria and archaea, and yield chemically distinct membranes.
3. Sequences of glycolytic enzymes differ between Archaea and Bacteria/Eukaryotes. There is no evidence of a common ancestor for any of the four glycolytic kinases or of the seven enzymes that bind nucleotides.
4. There are at least six distinct autotrophic carbon fixation pathways. If common ancestry were true, an ancestral Wood–Ljungdahl pathway should have become life's one and only principle for biomass production.
5. There is a sharp divide in the organizational complexity of the cell between eukaryotes, which have complex intracellular compartmentalization, and even the most sophisticated prokaryotes (archaea and bacteria), which do not.
6. A typical eukaryotic cell is about 1,000-fold bigger by volume than a typical bacterium or archaeon, and functions under different physical principles: free diffusion has little role in eukaryotic cells but is crucial in prokaryotes
7. Subsequent massive sequencing of numerous, complete microbial genomes have revealed novel evolutionary phenomena, the most fundamental of these being: pervasive horizontal gene transfer (HGT), in large part mediated by viruses and plasmids, that shapes the genomes of archaea and bacteria and call for a radical revision (if not abandonment) of the Tree of Life concept
8. RNA Polymerase differences: Prokaryotes only contain three different promoter elements: -10, -35 promoters, and upstream elements. Eukaryotes contain many different promoter elements
9. Ribosome and ribosome biogenesis differences: Although we could identify E. coli counterparts with comparable biochemical activity for 12 yeast ribosome biogenesis factors (RBFs), only 2 are known to participate in bacterial ribosome assembly. This indicates that the recruitment of individual proteins to this pathway has been largely independent in the bacterial and eukaryotic lineages. 22

Aron: hat you're calling the Blind Watchmaker is the fact that we do have comprehensive explanations for these evolutionary processes, and not only do we not have to want to a magic invisible manipulator, but there is no way to squeeze one in and no evidence to justify such an assumption to be inserted.
Reply: Where Do Complex Organisms Come From?

https://******************************/t2316-evolution-where-do-complex-organisms-come-from

How does biological multicellular complexity and a spatially organized body plan emerge?
https://***************************...ty-and-a-spatially-organized-body-plan-emerge

The findings show a clear Lamarckian epigenetic contribution to gene network evolution and the classic Darwinian interpretation of evolution alone cannot explain our observations. “The findings support the idea that both genetic and epigenetic mechanisms need to be combined in a ‘grand unified theory of evolution,’”
https://news.yale.edu/2020/10/27/yeast-study-yields-insights-longstanding-evolution-debate

Aron:Aron: Creation never happened and is a lie
Reply: Prove it !! See what you said: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact, pretending to know things no one even can know.
Once again, positive claims require positive evidence.
Reply: Creation never happened and is a lie /// So then. You made a positive claim. Prove that the natural world is all there is.

Aron: cough up something you can show to be true
Reply: Many atheists have made a career out of making silly requirements based on ignorance, rather than first creating a solid epistemological framework of inquiry, and then asking relevant questions. Abiogenesis is how to test the materialism claim and it fails. Almost seventy years of experimental attempts of recreating life in the lab and not even the basic building blocks have been recreated. Evolution has been tested and it fails. 70,000 generations of bacteria, and all they got, are bacteria. No hint of a transition zone to a new organismal limb or improvement of complexity. Fail. The existence of God is inferred just like all historical science is. This is basic logic and critical thinking but some atheists have a mind like a sieve.
God's existence is inferred by many criteria, like abductive reasoning, and eliminative inductions, but many persevere on nonsensical demands like asking for demonstrations of God's existence.
How does someone “test” for the widely credited multiverse? They can’t, don’t even try. Honest physicists know this.
The existence of God is as valid as multiverse, string theory, abiogenesis, macroevolution, and numerous other improvable theories.
Many atheists are like the kid stuck in high school who never grows up or moves on. Like a windup echo chamber.


https://***************************...ational-demand-to-ask-proofs-of-his-existence

Aron: It is a lie to say that "operational science and historical science are two different "kinds" of science.
Reply: You demonstrate that you did not read the information of the link given in my previous reply.

Historical science, experimental science, and the scientific method
Historical research is sometimes said to be inferior to experimental research. Using examples from diverse historical disciplines, this paper demonstrates that such claims are misguided.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/81ca/78baf41581a70ddf0af3115ea8255aace4fb.pdf

International Committee of Historical Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_Historical_Sciences
The International Committee of Historical Sciences / Comité international des Sciences historiques (ICHS / CISH) is the international association of historical scholarship. It was established as a non-governmental organization in Geneva on May 14, 1926.[1] It is composed of national committees and international affiliated organizations devoted to research and to scholarly publication in all areas of historical study. There are currently 51 national committees and 30 international associations members of the CISH.

So, its NOT a lie.

Aron: (1) Abduction is making probable conclusions based on what you know. You don't know anything about the supernatural.
Reply: We do not need to know anything in absolute terms. But we can search for signs of ( past ) intelligent action in the natural world.

How to recognize the signature of (past) intelligent actions
https://***************************...nize-the-signature-of-past-intelligent-action

Once we have detected that an intelligent designer most likely created the world, we can use philosophy and theology to try to identify the designer:

125 reasons to believe in God
https://******************************/t1276-125-reasons-to-believe-in-god

Aron: You can't even define it or show that there is such a thing.
Reply: Aquinas showed us that the attributes of a true God are logically deduced. Properties of the first cause:

1. Supernatural in nature, (As it exists outside and beyond of the natural physical universe),
2. Uncaused, beginningless, and eternal (self-existent, as it exists without a cause, outside of time and space, besides the fact that infinite regress of causes is impossible. ),
3. Omnipresent & all-knowing (It created space and is not limited by it),
4. Changeless ( Change depends on physical being )
5. Timeless ( Without physical events, there can be no time, and time began with the Big Bang )
6. Immaterial (Because He transcends space and created matter),
7. Spaceless ( Since it created space)
8. Personal (The impersonal can’t create personality, and only a personal, free agent can cause a change from a changeless state )
9. Enormously Powerful ( Since it brought the entire universe, space-time and matter into existence )
10. Necessary (As everything else depends on it),
11. Absolutely independent and self-existent ( It does not depend on a higher causal agency to exist otherwise there would be infinite regress which is impossible )
12. Infinite and singular (As you cannot have two infinities),
13. Diverse yet has unity (As all multiplicity implies a prior singularity),
14. Intelligent (Supremely, to create everything, in special language, complexity, factories and machines),
15. Purposeful (As it deliberately created everything with goals in mind),

An agent endowed with free will can have a determination in a timeless dimension to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect

1. God is supernatural in nature Acts 17:24-25
2. God is uncaused, beginningless, and eternal 1 Timothy 1:17
3. God is omnipresent & all-knowing Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:24
4. God is unchanging Malachi 3:6
5. God is immaterial (spirit) John 4:24
6. God is personal John 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Isaiah 25:1, Isaiah 63:7, Psalm 78:1, 1 Chronicles 16:8, Micah 4:12, Job 29:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14
7. God is enormously Powerful Genesis 17:1
8. God is timeless Revelation 1:8
9. God is necessary Genesis 1:1
10. God is omniscient ( All-knowing ) Psalm 147:4-5
11. God is absolutely independent and self-existent Isaiah 46:9
12. God is One, yet He exists in three persons Matthew 3:16-17
13. God is extraordinarily intelligent Jeremiah 32:17
14. God is all-understanding Psalm 147:5
15. God is purposeful

The Kalam leads to the God of the Bible
https://******************************/t2877-the-kalaam-leads-to-the-god-of-the-bible

Aron: In order to qualify as an explanation at all, we have to be able to objectively confirm that this can happen and that it does account for the data we're examining.
Reply: Can you objectively confirm the alternative explanations, like that the universe can be eternal, or pop up out of absolutely nothing? You make evidently silly requirements at the one side, and do not apply them to your preferred worldview. That's epistemological incompetence in square.

Aron: We have discovered an awful lot about the many chemical processes involved in abiogenesis,
Reply: Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

https://******************************/t1279-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible Some of the worlds leading scientists in the field of synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, and computational biology, like James Tour, Graham Cairns-Smith, Eugene Koonin and Steve Benner have stated that solving the mystery of the origin of life is categorically not possible, that science has no clue how to solve the riddle, that abiogenesis research is a failure, and the most difficult problem that faces evolutionary biology and, arguably, biology in general.

Eugene V. Koonin: The Logic of Chance: page 351:
" Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching (or even approaching) the ultimate goal, the origin of life field is a failure—we still do not have even a plausible coherent model, let alone a validated scenario, for the emergence of life on Earth.

Steve Benner: Paradoxes in the origin of life
Discussed here is an alternative approach to guide research into the origins of life, one that focuses on “paradoxes”, pairs of statements, both grounded in theory and observation, that (taken
together) suggest that the “origins problem” cannot be solved.

Graham Cairns-Smith: Genetic takeover, page 66:
Now you may say that there are alternative ways of building up nucleotides, and perhaps there was some geochemical way on the early Earth. But what we know of the experimental difficulties in nucleotide synthesis speaks strongly against any such supposition. However it is to be put together, a nucleotide is too complex and metastable a molecule for there to be any reason to expect an easy synthesis.

Garrett: Biochemistry, 6th ed, page 665
Key compounds, such as arginine, lysine, and histidine; the straight-chain fatty acids; porphyrins; and essential coenzymes, have not been convincingly synthesized under simulated prebiotic conditions.

Robert Shapiro: A Replicator Was Not Involved in the Origin of Life
A profound difficulty exists, however, with the idea of RNA, or any other replicator, at the start of life. Existing replicators can serve as templates for the synthesis of additional copies of themselves, but this device cannot be used for the preparation of the very first such molecule, which must arise spontaneously from an unorganized mixture. The formation of an information-bearing homopolymer through undirected chemical synthesis appears very improbable.

Aron: So the first thing we needed to know was how do we get to organic chemistry, specifically beginning with amino acids.
Reply: Amino acids

Chemical evolution of amino acids and proteins ? Impossible !!


How could ammonia (NH3), the precursor for amino acid synthesis, have accumulated on prebiotic earth, if the lifetime of ammonia would be short because of its photochemical dissociation?
How could prebiotic events have delivered organosulfur compounds required in a few amino acids used in life, if in nature sulfur exists only in its most oxidized form (sulfate or SO4), and only some unique groups of procaryotes mediate the reduction of SO4 to its most reduced state (sulfide or H2S)?
How did unguided stochastic coincidence select the right amongst over 500 that occur naturally on earth?
How was the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products avoided?
How were bifunctional monomers, that is, molecules with two functional groups so they combine with two others selected, and unifunctional monomers (with only one functional group) sorted out?
How did prebiotic events produce the twenty amino acids used in life? Eight proteinogenic amino acids were never abiotically synthesized under prebiotic conditions.
How did a prebiotic synthesis of biological amino acids avoid the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products?
How could achiral precursors of amino acids have produced and concentrated only left-handed amino acids? ( The homochirality problem )
How did the transition from prebiotic enantiomer selection to the enzymatic reaction of transamination occur that had to be extant when cellular self-replication and life began?
How would natural causes have selected twenty, and not more or less amino acids to make proteins?
How did natural events have foreknowledge that the selected amino acids are best suited to enable the formation of soluble structures with close-packed cores, allowing the presence of ordered binding pockets inside proteins?
How did nature "know" that the set of amino acids selected appears to be near ideal and optimal?
How did Amino acid synthesis regulation emerge? Biosynthetic pathways are often highly regulated such that building blocks are synthesized only when supplies are low.
How did the transition from prebiotic synthesis to cell synthesis of amino acids occur? A minimum of 112 enzymes is required to synthesize the 20 (+2) amino acids used in proteins.

Aron: The emergence of eukaryotes was technically not an evolutionary event but one of endosymbiosis,
Reply: On the Origin of Mitochondria: Reasons for Skepticism on the Endosymbiotic Story 4

https://******************************/t1303-challenges-to-endosymbiotic-theory

The origin of eukaryotes is one of the hardest and most intriguing problems in the study of the evolution of life, and arguably, in the whole of biology. On average, the volume of eukaryotic cells is about 15,000 times larger than that of prokaryotic cells. 4 A major problem faced by this scenario (and symbiogenetic scenarios in general) is the mechanistic difficulty of the engulfment of one prokaryotic cell by another. The origin of eukaryotes is a fundamental, forbidding evolutionary puzzle. The scenario of eukaryogenesis, and in particular the relationship between endosymbiosis and the origin of eukaryotes, is far from being clear. Compared to archaea and bacteria (collectively, prokaryotes), eukaryotic cells are three to four orders of magnitude larger in volume and display a qualitatively higher level of complexity of intracellular organization. Eukaryotic cells function on different physical principles compared to prokaryotic cells, which is directly due to their (comparatively) enormous size. The gulf between the cellular organizations of eukaryotes and prokaryotes is all the more striking because no intermediates have been found. So intimidating is the challenge of eukaryogenesis that the infamous notion of irreducible complexity’ has sneaked into serious scientific debate 2 . The diversity of the outcomes of phylogenetic analysis, with the origin of eukaryotes scattered around the archaeal diversity, has led to considerable frustration and suggested that a ‘phylogenomic impasse’ has been reached, owing to the inadequacy of the available phylogenetic methods for disambiguating deep relationships. The evolutionary trajectory of modern eukaryotes is distinct from that of prokaryotes. Data from many sources give no direct evidence that eukaryotes evolved by genome fusion between archaea and bacteria. Nuclei, nucleoli, Golgi apparatus, centrioles, and endoplasmic reticulum are examples of cellular signature structures (CSSs) that distinguish eukaryote cells from archaea and bacteria.

Aron: Evolution has withstood a more concentrated and sustained battery of critical analysis than any other scientific theory, yet it has never failed once.
Reply: Why Darwins theory of evolution does not explain biodiversity

https://***************************...ry-of-evolution-does-not-explain-biodiversity

Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila.
2010 Sep 15
"Genomic changes caused by epigenetic mechanisms tend to fail to fixate in the population, which reverts back to its initial pattern." That's not all that doesn't fixate. Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles. This is notable because in wild populations we expect the strength of natural selection to be less intense and the environment unlikely to remain constant for ~600 generations. Consequently, the probability of fixation in wild populations should be even lower than its likelihood in these experiments. 6

Evolution by epigenesis: farewell to Darwinism, neo- and otherwise
2004 May-Aug
In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable. 7
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15612191

Dissecting Darwinism
2012 Jan; 25
regarding the origin of the species and life (DNA), even Darwin commented, “If it could be shown that complex systems could not arise by small sequential steps, then my theory would completely break down.” Irreducibly complex systems involving thousands of interrelated specifically coded enzymes do exist in every organ of the human body. At an absolute minimum, the inconceivable self-formation of DNA and the inability to explain the incredible information contained in DNA represent fatal defects in the concept of mutation and natural selection to account for the origin of life and the origin of DNA. As new theories emerge that explain the origin of life, the inevitable emotional accusations of heresy and ignorance are not surprising in a period of scientific revolution. It is therefore time to sharpen the minds of students, biologists, and physicians for the possibility of a new paradigm. 8
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3246854/

Werner Arber Nobel Prize in 1978, Physiology or Medicine (sharing the honor with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith) for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to molecular genetics.
The deeper we penetrate in the studies of genetic exchange the more we discover a multitude of mechanisms" involved in human genetics that falsify the mutation plus natural selection core of macroevolution.
Arber, W, D. Nathans, and H. O. Smith. 1992. 1978 Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980, 469-492.

James Shapiro Microbiologistof the University of Chicago :
There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations” (Shapiro 1996).

Lynn Margulis:
Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.
The accumulation of genetic mutations were touted to be enough to change one species to another….No. It wasn’t dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact.
I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change - led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.
biology is opening the black box, and demonstrating how organisms develop. We are slowly getting out of a state of ignorance in regard of what mechanisms determines cell shape, assignment of their planes of division, tendencies to move, directions and rates of movement, modes of differentiation into particular cell types, and cell death (apoptosis).
The process of morphogenesis, which can be defined as an evolution of the form of an organism, is one of the most intriguing mysteries in the life sciences. The discovery and description of the spatial– temporal distribution of the gene expression pattern during morphogenesis, together with its key regulators, is one of the main recent achievements in developmental biology. Nevertheless, gene expression patterns cannot explain the development of the precise geometry of an organism and its parts in space. 1

Consider the University of California at Berkeley’s “Understanding Evolution” website which informs the student that “natural selection can produce amazing adaptations.” This hilariously appears on a page entitled “Misconceptions about natural selection.”

In fact natural selection, even at its best, does not “produce” anything. Natural selection does not and cannot influence the construction of any adaptations, amazing or not. If a mutation occurs which improves differential reproduction, then it propagates into future generations. Natural selection is simply the name given to that process. It selects for survival of that which already exists. Natural selection has no role in the mutation event. It does not induce mutations, helpful or otherwise, to occur. According to evolutionary theory every single mutation, leading to every single species, is a random event with respect to need.


Aron: So, do you understand and accept that it is a lie, a misrepresentation of evolution to expect one "kind" of thing to produce another "completely different kind"?
Reply: Have i EVER claimed that this is how evolution works ?

Aron: This is the process by which humans harnessed to breed kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi all from the wild mustard plant.
Reply: Macroevolution. Fact, or fantasy ?
https://******************************/t1390-macroevolution-fact-or-fantasy

Macro-Evolution, is an atheistic, secular-humanistic, philosophical worldview that requires:
(1) massive/infinite amounts of “natural” small changes;
(2) many beneficial/magical, random genetic mutations, producing novel, more complex structures over eons of time, from a “simple” virus or amoeba, to man; and
(3) Natural Selection – the continued survival (of fittest) of these different/new living Species (cf. speciation) & Families.

NEVER, in in over 150 years, since Darwins book " On the origin of species " was published, has even ONE, amongst hundreds or thousands, if not millions of science papers, provided ONE DEMONSTRATION, and empirical verifiable replicable evidence, that any of the evolutionary mechanisms proposed, could produce a primary macroevolutionary transition zone of speciation and population differentiation.

Microevolution and secondary speciation is a fact. The macro change however from one organism into another in long periods of time, the change of body plans and evolutionary novelties, phenotypic complexity, and phenotypic novelty is not a fact, not even a theory, or even a hypothesis. Its just fantasy without a shred of evidence. It's not possible. Show me some examples of observed facts; please provide and give me empirical data of an unorganized undirected unguided Neo-Darwinian accidental random macro-evolutionary event.

What is a macroevolutionary novelty?

The change/transition, where one "kind" can evolve into another beyond the species level (i.e. primary speciation), like an organism, randomly changing/transition into a whole entire different organism with new fully functioning biological features, the emergence of new complex functions, a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy. The origin of new body plans, forms, and architecture. The origins of novel branches of the tree of life at levels above that of primary speciation. The origin and diversification of higher taxa. Of new phyla. From the supposed Last Universal Common Ancestor to unicellular eukaryotic cells. From unicellular to multicellular life. There Are Six Important Patterns of Macroevolution: Mass Extinctions. Adaptive Radiation. Convergent Evolution.

A list of most-often cited examples include the shell of turtles (Cebra-Thomas et al. 2005), flight (Prum 2005), flowers (Albert, Oppenheimer, and Lindqvist 2002), the ability of great tits to open bottles of milk (Kothbauerhellmann 1990), the transition from the jaw to the ear of some bones during the evolution of mammals from reptiles (Brazeau and Ahlberg 2006), eyes (Fernald 2006), hearts (Olson 2006), bipedalism (Richmond and Strait 2000), and the origin of Hox genes (Wagner, Amemiya, and Ruddle 2003); The evolution of sirenians, Ernst Mayr, a major figure of the MS, defined novelties as “any newly acquired structure or property that permits the performance of a new function, which, in turn, will open a new adaptive zone” (Mayr 1963, 602). Coevolution. Punctuated Equilibrium. Developmental Gene Changes.

something that we merely don't have to just put blind faith in?

Robert Shapiro:
Darwin “ignored the inconvenient fact that human selection for altered traits has never generated a truly new organismal feature (e.g., a limb or an organ) or formed a new species. Selection only modifies existing characters.“

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15612191
In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable.


Aron: let me just say that mAcroevolution has been directly observed and documented dozens of times
Reply: Primary, and secondary speciation

https://******************************/t2360-evolution-speciation-primary-and-secondary-speciation

There are observed instances of secondary speciation -- which is not what Darwinism needs -- but no observed instances of primary speciation, not even in bacteria.

primary speciation
The splitting of one species into two, usually resulting from natural selection favoring different gene complexes in geographically isolated populations.

secondary speciation
the fusion through hybridization of two species that were formerly geographically isolated, followed by the establishment of a new adaptive norm ...

Secondary speciation in the genus level is possible, but at the family level and beyond is not. Organisms can evolve only up to different genera, but not different families.

British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001: "None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another.

Observed cases of speciation by polyploidy are limited to flowering plants. 2 Furthermore, according to American evolutionary biologist Douglas J. Futuyma, polyploidy — known as “ secondary speciation ” — “ does not confer major new morphological characteristics” and does not cause the evolution of higher levels in the biological hierarchy. Darwinism depends on the splitting of one species into two, which then diverge and split and diverge and split, over and over again — a process known as “primary speciation”—to produce the branching-tree pattern required by Darwin’s theory.

Allopolyploidy, i.e. hybridization followed by chromosome doubling, is a frequent mode of secondary speciation in vascular plants (Leitch and Bennett 1997; Haufler 2008). 3The occurrence of diploids and their derived polyploids in the same area provides an excellent natural experiment to test the unique environmental responses that may exist across ploidy levels.

primary speciation : The splitting of one species into two, usually resulting from natural selection favoring different gene complexes in geographically isolated populations. 4

Aron: Don't copy text of someone else's argument that you don't understand yourself. I can refute all of this, but you wouldn't understand that either.
Reply: Nice dodge. That is MY ARGUMENT. Search the entire web, and show me if you can find a place where i supposedly copied the information from.
And your problem is: Your world view ends right here. Against facts, there are no arguments. Abiogenesis is impossible by all means. If you are so keen about honesty, its time to admit that your worldview is bunk.

Aron: However, I will say that astro physicists Sean Carroll and Lawrence Krauss both say that an absolute nothing is not even possible. So that's one reason there is something rather than nothing, because there can't just be nothing.
Reply: It doesnt take Carroll nor Krauss to say this. Logic is enough.

1. The physical universe exists.
2. Existence cannot come from non-existence.
3. Since we exist, then being has always been in one form or another.
4. The universe had a beginning. It cannot be the product of an infinite serie of regress, nor be caused by nothing.
5. Therefore, a non-physical being must have existed beyond the universe, causing the universe into existence.
6. That being is God.

Aron: abiogenesis is a long series of successful experiments, and I will show you how as we proceed.
Reply: Open questions in prebiotic chemistry to explain the origin of the four basic building blocks of life
https://******************************/t1279p75-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible#7759

What successful experiment are you talking about? No scientific experiment has been able to come even close to synthesize the basic building blocks of life, and reproduce a self-replicating Cell in the Laboratory through self-assembly and autonomous organization.

The total lack of any kind of experimental evidence leading to the re-creation of life; not to mention the spontaneous emergence of life… is the most humiliating embarrassment to the proponents of naturalism and the whole so-called “scientific establishment” around it… because it undermines the worldview of who wants naturalism to be true.

Aron: I'm already on it above. But I could refer you to Jeremy England, an assistant professor at MIT who has derived a mathematical formula that explains this capacity.
On the Origin of Life, Here Is My Response to Jeremy England
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/05/on-the-origin-of-life-here-is-my-response-to-jeremy-england/

Aron: You're citing yourself again. You are not an authority. //// Now we've come to the inevitable quote-mine, ubiquitous in all arguments with creationists./// Where did the laws of physics come from? We humans made them up.
Reply: LOL....

Aron: Once again, the universe was obviously NOT "fine-tuned" for us, as we can only live on a fraction of the surface of this one tiny mote of dust in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos of wasted space where there are trillions of other worlds that are all out of reach, and we would be killed instantly on nearly all of them.
Reply: Is the universe hostile to life?

https://******************************/t1896-is-the-universe-hostile-to-life?highlight=hostile

The fact to be explained is why the universe is life-permitting rather than life-prohibiting. That is to say, scientists have been surprised to discover that in order for embodied, interactive life to evolve anywhere at all in the universe, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature have to be fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision. Were even one of these constants or quantities to be slightly altered, the universe would not permit the existence of embodied, interactive life anywhere in the cosmos. These finely-tuned conditions are necessary conditions of life in a universe governed by the present laws of nature. it would be obtuse to think that the universe is not life-permitting because regions of the universe are not life-permitting! 1

Aron,

do you know how i gauge the honesty of an atheist ?

With this argument:

The simplest free-living bacteria is Pelagibacter ubique. 13 It is known to be one of the smallest and simplest, self-replicating, and free-living cells. It has complete biosynthetic pathways for all 20 amino acids. These organisms get by with about 1,300 genes and 1,308,759 base pairs and code for 1,354 proteins. 14 That would be the size of a book with 400 pages, each page with 3000 characters. They survive without any dependence on other life forms. Incidentally, these are also the most “successful” organisms on Earth. They make up about 25% of all microbial cells. If a chain could link up, what is the probability that the code letters might by chance be in some order which would be a usable gene, usable somewhere—anywhere—in some potentially living thing? If we take a model size of 1,200,000 base pairs, the chance to get the sequence randomly would be 4^1,200,000 or 10^722,000.

You dodged it, and Matt Dillahunty dodged it as well.


Your case is DEBUNKED.

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity​

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

All your constant rants about dishonesty of Creationists is just a sign, that YOU, Sir, are dishonest.

Who is Angelmou ?

In my last post, I said that it seems that your first post was an attempt to overwhelm me with more lies than I could possibly correct. So I asked you to change that plan moving forward, as I will not respond to most of your nonsense; only what is directly relevant to the few challenges already initiated above. Your reply to that request was a barrage of a half-dozen posts at once, mostly full of false and bigoted generalizations, shallow attempted insults, baseless assumptions asserted as fact, straw-men and other flawed arguments off-topic, and irrelevant preaching, I do not appreciate you dragging this out like that, as if I'm supposed to dedicate my schedule to arguing with your cut-and-pastings? I will not. So let's see if we delete all the empty inflammatory bullshit and stick to the relevant bits.

rationalist said:

Aron: You are an irrationalist. You are operating on religious biases that are not based on reason
Reply: We are all biased up to a certain degree. I can also say: YOu are operating on atheism biases and not based on reason.

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You could say that, but you'd be lying again. R4elgion is a bias by definition, but science seeks to minimize or eliminate bias however it can. We don't care what you believe, only why you believe it. All that matters is what is evidently true, and we should have no passionate attachment otherwise.

rationalist said:

The only way to know anything at all is to know everything.....***OR***..... have revelation from someone who does.

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I heard Sye Ten Bruggencate say that if you don't know everything, you don't know anything, and that the only way to anything is to know everything, or know someone who knows everything. But if you don't everything yourself, and you have to know everything to know anything, then how would you know if you knew someone who knew everything? Because by that logic, you couldn't even know even that!

Revelation is not a way of knowing things. Case in point, Sir Isaac Newton (possibly the most brilliant man who ever lived) was, embarrassingly enough, a deeply religious Christian and a creationist even by the modern definition. Newton declared that he had been specially chosen by God to receive a personal revelation leading to a greater understanding of the scriptures than that of any other man. By your logic, that means that he actually knows what he says he knows, even though he can't demonstrate that knowledge in any way. You just have to take his word for it, same as you expect me to take yours. Do you agree with that? That Sir Isaac Newton must have understood the scriptures better than you or anyone else; not because he is the smartest man in all of history, but because of his claim to divine revelation?

rationalist said:

Aron: It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact
Reply: That's precisely what you did, when you claimed that there is no God in absolute terms. Neither view, theism, nor materialism can be proven.

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Once again, I repeat, Hitchens' razor allows that what is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. Unsupported assertions have no more credence than claims that been disproved. So I am justified both scientifically and philosophically to reply "no there isn't" to your unsupported (and thus indefensible) empty assertion that there is a god.

rationalist said:

Aron: yet that's what all religions do, pretending to know what no one even can know.
Reply: God has proven his existence to me. I cannot believe anymore, that he does not exist. To me, he DOES exist, and I am 100% certain about that. I am convinced about that fact, as much as i am convinced about the existence of the air i breath. And somebody could even torture me to death, and I COULD NOT stop to believe in his existence. His existence is overwhelmingly obvious through his creation, and direct revelation. BUT. I cannot prove you, what I am convinced of. You have to do your own work of forming an epistemological framework and then search for the truth of our existence.

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The 4th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism is confusing conviction with knowledge.

rationalist said:

Matthew 7:8
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
But when you seek, it's actually not, that you will find the truth. But the truth will find you.

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Yet look at all the people who really tried to believe and just couldn't, who are atheist now, disproving yet another of your scriptures.

rationalist said:

Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

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George Harrison, guitarist for the Beatles famously said:
So George Harrison actually met his god in person, face to face. How do you explain that, Otangelo?

rationalist said:

Aron: In science, we call this lying. We cannot honestly say that a thing exists until or unless we have actual factual evidence to indicate that it does.
Reply: Evidence does not equal demonstration or absolute proof.
Comparing worldviews - there are basically just two

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Nor are we talking about absolutes. But you don't get to call it truth until you show the truth of it, to show that there is some truth to it, at least some basis in fact to what you're trying to sell. Then we have something to test to determine how true it is.

rationalist said:

Metaphysical naturalism is the view that nothing exists but matter/energy in space-time. Naturalism denies the existence of anything beyond nature.

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Correction: We are neither foolish nor dishonest enough to assert anything as fact that is not evidently true, and we do not want to be fooled into believing things that have not been established or demonstrated, especially when there is literally not even a possibility to consider.

rationalist said:

Aron: We cannot even say that something is possible until we have a precedent or parallel or verified phenomenon indicating that such probability exists.
Reply: There is no logical reason to believe that God's existence is not possible.

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Wrong. The logic is, as I just said, that we cannot honestly say that a god is possible until we have a precedent or parallel or verified phenomenon indicating such a possibility. If you can't show that possibility, then we would by lying to say there is one.

rationalist said:

What can be said with certainty is, that was never a state o absolute nothingness ( in a philosophical sense), since otherwise, there would still be absolutely nothing. An eternal universe is not plausible based on scientific and philosophical reasons.

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On that we agree, which is one of the reasons why atheists do not believe that everything came from nothing.

rationalist said:

The Big bang theory points to the origin and beginning of the universe. The second law of thermodynamics refutes an eternal universe or Cosmos ( Multiverses, Bubble universes, etc. ), and we cannot traverse an infinite period of time in the past.

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The 2LoT does not refute any of the cosmological models I am aware of, none of which have the universe being created.

rationalist said:

Aron: Empty, unsupported assertions without factual basis have no more credence than claims that have already been disproved.
Reply:

- Multiverse: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Virtual particles causing the universe: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Accretion theory: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Abiogenesis: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Chance producing blueprints, and upon them the make of machines, computers, energy plants, energy turbines, transistors, outboard motors, production lines, factories: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Common ancestry: unsupported assertions without factual basis
- Common ancestry & primary speciation/macroevolution: unsupported assertions without factual basis

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The multiverse is hypothetical speculation, and as such of no value. If it can't be indicated or vindicated, verified or falsified, then it is meaningless. The only value information has in how accurate we can show it to be. If we can't show that it is accurate at all, then it has no value at all. And that's why sermons are worthless.

However, theoretical explanations like accretion are testable and potentially falsifiable, and based on evidence. Likewise, virtual particles have been documented popping in and out of existence in a vacuum. So that's supportive evidence. Abiogenesis has buckets of evidence, as we will see as we progress, and common ancestry is easy enough to prove with multiple independent lines of evidence.

rationalist said:

Aron: Come back when you have something to show. Until then, we have literally nothing to talk about.
Reply: Come back when you have something to show. Until then, we have literally nothing to talk about. See? It goes both ways. You cannot show that the natural world is all there is.

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Then it is up to you to show that there is another world besides this one. Until you do, then we cannot honestly say that any supernatural other-world exists.

rationalist said:

How long are you a militant atheist? And you still fail on this VERY BASIC epistemological fact ? We cannot prove which ultimate reality is true. The one where the physical world is all there is, or if there is a necessary creator at the bottom of reality.

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Yes, we can. I get at least a few emails every week from former believers thanking me for leading them out the delusion you're still in. This has been going on for at least a decade or so. Many of them were just as certain as you are, until they began to see around wool over their eyes.

rationalist said:

I must repeat, there is no "pre-programming" evident in living cells.
Reply: Science does LITERALLY PROVE you wrong.

1. The cell has a sophisticated information-processing system. It is not only analogous to a man-made computer but operates literally as a computer.
2. Computer programs require programmers, conscious agents with knowledge and foresight who can code the needed instructions, in the right sequence, to generate a functioning and information-rich program.
3. Since cells contain an information storage system (DNA), a code language (the genetic code), and instructions encoded through the genetic code stored in DNA, and an information transmission system, that is 1. Encoding ( transcription into messenger RNA (mRNA) through RNA polymerase enzyme catalysts (transcription), 2. Sending (mRNA), and 3. Translation (mRNA to amino acids through the Ribosome), all this requires a programmer. The programmer is with high probability an intelligent designer (God).

Dynamic changes of genome, pre-programmed or in response to the changing environment.
In the last decade or so, however, it has been revealed that genetic material is not stable or static but a dynamic one, changing incessantly and rapidly, the changes being either pre-programmed or in response to the changing environment.
https://agris.fao.org/agris-search/...cString=&advQuery=&centerString=&enableField=

These alterations in the genome size occurred right at the first generation of amphidiploids, revealing the rapidity of the event. They suggest that these alterations, observed after allopolyploidization and without additive effect on the genome size, represent a pre-programmed adaptive response to the genomic stress caused by hybridization, which might have the function of stabilizing the genome of the new cell.
https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1413-70542003000100003&script=sci_arttext

Early pre-programming of genes
Special proteins are pre-programming genes which later regulate fetal development. This pre-programming occurs at an earlier stage than previously known.
https://partner.sciencenorway.no/dna-forskningno-norway/early-pre-programming-of-genes/1403186

[Pre-programmed genes]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28823208/

The evolution of the temporal program of genome replication
In yeast, active origins are distributed throughout the genome at non-transcribed and nucleosome-depleted sequences and comprise a specific DNA motif called ARS consensus sequence which is bound by the Origin Recognition Complex throughout the cell cycle 4–6. Despite of this partially pre-programmed replication activity, different cells in a population may use different subsets of active origins.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/210252v1.full

Learn about behaviors that are pre-programmed into an animal's genes, including reflexes and fixed action patterns.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science...sponses-to-the-environment/a/innate-behaviors

A number of theories have been generated to account for this spatial heterogeneity, including a zonated response to spatial gradients, or an internal clock where epithelial cells are pre-programmed to express different functional genes.
https://www.epistem.co.uk/spotlight/Lgr5-telocytes-signalling-source

The cells of the human body are governed by a set of pre-programmed processes, known as the cell cycle, which determines how cells progress and divide.
https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/The-Role-of-Cell-Division-in-Tumor-Formation.aspx

CRISPR (again, shorthand for CRISPR-Cas9), utilizes the Cas9 enzyme, a naturally produced protein in cell types built for DNA splicing, to “unzip” these chained nucleotides at a specific spot and then replace the nucleotide chain with the one attached. The location is based on pre-programmed information in the enzyme—essentially it floats around inside the nucleus until it finds the correct spot, then gets to work.
https://nanocellect.com/blog/using-crispr-technology-to-engineer-genetically-modified-cell-lines/

What are telomeres?
Are our cells just following a pre-programmed biological timetable regardless of any other factors? Most likely it’s a combination of all of these, plus some other causes we haven’t yet discovered.
https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/what-are-telomeres

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You are mixing contexts here, the fallacy of equivocation. Analogous doesn't mean homologous. The citations you show now are talking about developmental biology, being pre-programed by heredity, literally by evolution in some cases, but not by a god, and not before evolution began. You said before, in email, that you were talking about "Algorithms, prescribing functional instructions, digital programming, using symbols and coding systems are abstract and non-physical, and originate always from thought—from conscious or intelligent activity". Specifically, you said you were defending the claim that "the mechanisms which allow life to adapt do not require "programming" by some external agent". Then you referred me to to that liar under oath, Michael Behe. None of these citations you show now support the sort of programming that you're asserting, and none of them relate to life being pre-programed to "allow life to adapt" before evolution and heredity did the programing.
https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/what-are-telomeres

rationalist said:

Aron: As for the rest, let me explain what evolution really is. Unless otherwise specified, when scientists speak of evolution, they're referring to an explanation of biodiversity via population mechanics, summarily defined as ‘descent with inherent modification’: Paraphrased for clarity, it is a process of varying allele frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in the morphological or physiological composition of descendant subsets. When compiled over successive generations, these can expand biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.
Reply: Correct. And - your point is ??

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It's important that we be sure you understand what evolution really is, so that I don't have to argue against a straw-man, and so that we have a proper foundation to build on as we proceed.

rationalist said:

Aron: Correct. Evolution being defined as "descent with inherent modification" follows an ancestor-descendent relationship, but much of what we know of prokaryote reproduction is that there is quite a lot of horizontal gene transfer going on; so much that we don't have a clear phylogenetic tree. Eukaryotes could arguably be from a single common ancestor, despite some horizontal gene transfer even there, but that's where a distinct lineage becomes clearly traceable, as I demonstrated in my 50-part series on the Systematic Classification of Life.
Reply: Common descent, the tree of life, a failed hypothesis

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Common descent is not a hypothesis. It is confirmed. As I said, there are many ways to test it, and it's time to get into that. If you want to contest the concept of common ancestry from a creationist standpoint, then you will have to take the Phylogeny Challenge.



As I explained in the video above, creationists usually accept that taxonomy is superficially accurate, but they’ll only concede that to a degree, because they insist that their god miraculously conjured a series of definitely different kinds of animals, which were each specially created separate from one another. Creationists allow that each of these kinds have since diversified—but only within mysterious limits that they refuse to rigidly define—and they say that no lineage can be traced beyond their alleged original archetypes. However, they’re unable to identify what those kinds are, how many there are, or how they could be recognized.
I would challenge them to show me their mystic divisions among the following taxa.
• Are mallards related to pochards, wood ducks, and muscovies?
• Are all ducks also related to geese and all other anseriformes?
• Are anseriformes related to galliformes and other neognathes?
• Are neognathes related to paleognathes?
• Are any extant birds related to hesperornis, ichthyornis, enantiornis, or other euornithes?
• Are euorniths related to confuciusornis or archaeopteryx?
• Are all early aves related to microraptor, velociraptor, or other nonavian dinosaurs?
• Are dinosaurs related to pterosaurs, phytosaurs, and other archosaurs?

If evolution from common ancestry is not true and some flavor of special creation of as-yet unidentified kinds is true, then there would be some surface levels in a cladogram where you would accept an actual evolutionary ancestry, but there must also be subsequent levels in that twin-nested hierarchy where life-forms would no longer be the same kind and wouldn’t be biologically related anymore. At that point, they would be magically created separate kinds, and distinctly unique from those listed around it as well as those apparently ancestral to it. So . . .
• Are Bengal tigers related to Burmese tigers and all other tiger species?
• Are all known species of tiger related to each other and all other panthers?
• Are all panthers related to felines and scimitar cats?
• Are all felids related to nimvarids or viverrids? And how could we tell?
• Are all of Feloidea related to any or all other members of the order Carnivora?

Those who promote creationism’s bewildering inanity should be able to show exactly where and why uniquely created kinds could not be grouped together with any parent clades that would otherwise only imply an evolutionary ancestry. Throw away any other argument you might be thinking about; none of them compare to this! If creationism is true of anything more than a single ancestor of all animal forms (if not the entire eukaryote collective), or if the concept of common ancestry is fundamentally mistaken, then there must be a point in the tree where taxonomy falls apart—where what we thought was related to everything is really unrelated to anything else; and unless you’re a scientologist or a Raelian, that criteria must apply to other animals besides ourselves. So . . .
• Is the short-tailed goanna related to the perentie and all other Australian goannas?
• Are all Australian goannas related to each other and the African and Indonesian monitors?
• Are today’s terrestrial varanids related to Cretaceous mosasaurs?
• Are varanids related to any other anguimorphs including snakes?
• Are anguimorphs also related to scincomorphs and geckos?
• Are all scleroglossa related to iguanids and other squamates?
• Are all of squamata related to each other and all other lepidosaurs?
• Are lepidosaurs related to placodonts and plesiosaurs?
• Are lepidosauromorphs related to archosaurs and other diapsids?
• Are all diapsids related to anapsids or synapsid “reptiles” like dimetrodon?
• Are all reptiles related to each other and all other amniotes?
• Are all amniotes related to each other and all other tetrapods?
• Are all tetrapods related to each other and all other vertebrates?

And so on. Which of these are related? Which of these are created? Remember, if there is any validity to creationism whatsoever, or if there is some critical flaw in the overall theory of evolution from common ancestry, that flaw must be found here or it simply can’t be anywhere else.

rationalist said:

Aron: hat you're calling the Blind Watchmaker is the fact that we do have comprehensive explanations for these evolutionary processes, and not only do we not have to want to a magic invisible manipulator, but there is no way to squeeze one in and no evidence to justify such an assumption to be inserted.
Reply: Where Do Complex Organisms Come From?

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That depends on the organ. The evolutionary histories and pathways will likely be different for each one.

rationalist said:

How does biological multicellular complexity and a spatially organized body plan emerge?

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I think that answer would be different depending on the organism too. We have observed the change from unicellular to multicellular organisms in the lab, and there are organisms that alternate between the two states, and I'm sure their organization is not all the same. As I show in my series on the Systematic Classification of Life, the earliest and most primitive animals didn't have any body plan at all. Later organisms adopted different bauplans of body organization differently between bilaterally symmetrical and radiata.

rationalist said:

The findings show a clear Lamarckian epigenetic contribution to gene network evolution and the classic Darwinian interpretation of evolution alone cannot explain our observations. “The findings support the idea that both genetic and epigenetic mechanisms need to be combined in a ‘grand unified theory of evolution,’”
https://news.yale.edu/2020/10/27/yeast-study-yields-insights-longstanding-evolution-debate

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When American scientists refer to Darwinian mechanisms, they're probably referring to natural and sexual selection, the mechanisms Darwin deduced himself. In the 19th century, that was "Darwinism". Then in the 20th century, they added the mechanism of genetic drift for "the modern synthesis of Mendelo-Darwinian evolution, also known as "neo-Darwinism". Now in the 21st century, they added a couple more mechanisms, epigenetics and endosymbiosis, and it is now the "modern evolutionary synthesis".

rationalist said:

Aron:Aron: Creation never happened and is a lie
Reply: Prove it !!

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In this case, you were once again expected to produce some truth to your position, which you simply refused to do.

rationalist said:

Aron: It is a lie to say that "operational science and historical science are two different "kinds" of science.
Reply: You demonstrate that you did not read the information of the link given in my previous reply.

Historical science, experimental science, and the scientific method
Historical research is sometimes said to be inferior to experimental research. Using examples from diverse historical disciplines, this paper demonstrates that such claims are misguided.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/81ca/78baf41581a70ddf0af3115ea8255aace4fb.pdf

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If you're going to cite a source to prove me wrong, make sure you read it first, so that you don't prove me right. You didn't read this article, nor my citation from the NCSE either, because they agree. Here is the full quote from NCSE:


You citation agreed with this, listing one and only one scientific method, and then explained how that one method is applicable to both current or historical applications.

rationalist said:

International Committee of Historical Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_Historical_Sciences
The International Committee of Historical Sciences / Comité international des Sciences historiques (ICHS / CISH) is the international association of historical scholarship. It was established as a non-governmental organization in Geneva on May 14, 1926.[1] It is composed of national committees and international affiliated organizations devoted to research and to scholarly publication in all areas of historical study. There are currently 51 national committees and 30 international associations members of the CISH.

So, its NOT a lie.

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I never said there are not historical sciences. I/m about to begin my very last class before my Bachelor of Science degree in anthropology from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU's Institute of Human Origins. I'm specifically looking at Physical Anthropology, and that means Paleontology. That is a historical science, obviously. But it's not a different "kind" of science. As I said, and as your citation said too, we can apply the same methods, especially in phylogenetics, which is my passion.

rationalist said:

Aron: (1) Abduction is making probable conclusions based on what you know. You don't know anything about the supernatural.
Reply: We do not need to know anything in absolute terms. But we can search for signs of ( past ) intelligent action in the natural world.

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If you're going to use abduction, which you said you were, then you would need to know something about the supernatural. And you don't. You don't even know if there is such a thing.

rationalist said:

Once we have detected that an intelligent designer most likely created the world, we can use philosophy and theology to try to identify the designer:

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If we detected that an intelligent designer was involved, we would use science, not theology.

rationalist said:

Aron: You can't even define it or show that there is such a thing.
Reply: Aquinas showed us that the attributes of a true God are logically deduced. Properties of the first cause:

1. Supernatural in nature, (As it exists outside and beyond of the natural physical universe),
2. Uncaused, beginningless, and eternal (self-existent, as it exists without a cause, outside of time and space, besides the fact that infinite regress of causes is impossible. ),
3. Omnipresent & all-knowing (It created space and is not limited by it),
4. Changeless ( Change depends on physical being )
5. Timeless ( Without physical events, there can be no time, and time began with the Big Bang )
6. Immaterial (Because He transcends space and created matter),
7. Spaceless ( Since it created space)
8. Personal (The impersonal can’t create personality, and only a personal, free agent can cause a change from a changeless state )
9. Enormously Powerful ( Since it brought the entire universe, space-time and matter into existence )
10. Necessary (As everything else depends on it),
11. Absolutely independent and self-existent ( It does not depend on a higher causal agency to exist otherwise there would be infinite regress which is impossible )
12. Infinite and singular (As you cannot have two infinities),
13. Diverse yet has unity (As all multiplicity implies a prior singularity),
14. Intelligent (Supremely, to create everything, in special language, complexity, factories and machines),
15. Purposeful (As it deliberately created everything with goals in mind),

An agent endowed with free will can have a determination in a timeless dimension to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect

1. God is supernatural in nature Acts 17:24-25
2. God is uncaused, beginningless, and eternal 1 Timothy 1:17
3. God is omnipresent & all-knowing Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:24
4. God is unchanging Malachi 3:6
5. God is immaterial (spirit) John 4:24
6. God is personal John 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Isaiah 25:1, Isaiah 63:7, Psalm 78:1, 1 Chronicles 16:8, Micah 4:12, Job 29:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14
7. God is enormously Powerful Genesis 17:1
8. God is timeless Revelation 1:8
9. God is necessary Genesis 1:1
10. God is omniscient ( All-knowing ) Psalm 147:4-5
11. God is absolutely independent and self-existent Isaiah 46:9
12. God is One, yet He exists in three persons Matthew 3:16-17
13. God is extraordinarily intelligent Jeremiah 32:17
14. God is all-understanding Psalm 147:5
15. God is purposeful

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Of course the challenge was to define the supernatural, which you failed to do. You didn't even properly define what a god is. You can't simply eliminate hundreds of gods worshiped by millions of people for thousands of years out of definitional fiat or the special pleading fallacy. More importantly, you still haven't shown any indication whatever that this supernatural realm exists, or that any part of it is real.

rationalist said:

Aron: In order to qualify as an explanation at all, we have to be able to objectively confirm that this can happen and that it does account for the data we're examining.
Reply: Can you objectively confirm the alternative explanations, like that the universe can be eternal, or pop up out of absolutely nothing? You make evidently silly requirements at the one side, and do not apply them to your preferred worldview. That's epistemological incompetence in square.

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I am not a fan of Big Bang cosmology and don't have any interest in defending that. We're talking about evolution right now. It doesn't make any difference how the universe began or if it did. It doesn't change our evolutionary phylogeny in any case.

rationalist said:

Aron: We have discovered an awful lot about the many chemical processes involved in abiogenesis,
Reply: Abiogenesis is mathematically impossible

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We've already heard your assertion and the religious objections from that liar, Tour. Try to follow along now.

rationalist said:

Aron: So the first thing we needed to know was how do we get to organic chemistry, specifically beginning with amino acids.
Reply: Amino acids

Chemical evolution of amino acids and proteins ? Impossible !!

, if the lifetime of ammonia would be short because of its photochemical dissociation?
How could prebiotic events have delivered organosulfur compounds required in a few amino acids used in life, if in nature sulfur exists only in its most oxidized form (sulfate or SO4), and only some unique groups of procaryotes mediate the reduction of SO4 to its most reduced state (sulfide or H2S)?
How did unguided stochastic coincidence select the right amongst over 500 that occur naturally on earth?
How was the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products avoided?
How were bifunctional monomers, that is, molecules with two functional groups so they combine with two others selected, and unifunctional monomers (with only one functional group) sorted out?
How did prebiotic events produce the twenty amino acids used in life? Eight proteinogenic amino acids were never abiotically synthesized under prebiotic conditions.
How did a prebiotic synthesis of biological amino acids avoid the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products?
How could achiral precursors of amino acids have produced and concentrated only left-handed amino acids? ( The homochirality problem )
How did the transition from prebiotic enantiomer selection to the enzymatic reaction of transamination occur that had to be extant when cellular self-replication and life began?
How would natural causes have selected twenty, and not more or less amino acids to make proteins?
How did natural events have foreknowledge that the selected amino acids are best suited to enable the formation of soluble structures with close-packed cores, allowing the presence of ordered binding pockets inside proteins?
How did nature "know" that the set of amino acids selected appears to be near ideal and optimal?
How did Amino acid synthesis regulation emerge? Biosynthetic pathways are often highly regulated such that building blocks are synthesized only when supplies are low.
How did the transition from prebiotic synthesis to cell synthesis of amino acids occur? A minimum of 112 enzymes is required to synthesize the 20 (+2) amino acids used in proteins.

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You have a problem staying focused, don't you. Save your objections until after I've presented what I have, because it will address a lot of what you're bitching about here.

rationalist said:

Aron: The emergence of eukaryotes was technically not an evolutionary event but one of endosymbiosis,
Reply: On the Origin of Mitochondria: Reasons for Skepticism on the Endosymbiotic Story 4

https://******************************/t1303-challenges-to-endosymbiotic-theory

The origin of eukaryotes is one of the hardest and most intriguing problems in the study of the evolution of life, and arguably, in the whole of biology. On average, the volume of eukaryotic cells is about 15,000 times larger than that of prokaryotic cells. 4 A major problem faced by this scenario (and symbiogenetic scenarios in general) is the mechanistic difficulty of the engulfment of one prokaryotic cell by another. The origin of eukaryotes is a fundamental, forbidding evolutionary puzzle. The scenario of eukaryogenesis, and in particular the relationship between endosymbiosis and the origin of eukaryotes, is far from being clear. Compared to archaea and bacteria (collectively, prokaryotes), eukaryotic cells are three to four orders of magnitude larger in volume and display a qualitatively higher level of complexity of intracellular organization. Eukaryotic cells function on different physical principles compared to prokaryotic cells, which is directly due to their (comparatively) enormous size. The gulf between the cellular organizations of eukaryotes and prokaryotes is all the more striking because no intermediates have been found. So intimidating is the challenge of eukaryogenesis that the infamous notion of irreducible complexity’ has sneaked into serious scientific debate 2 . The diversity of the outcomes of phylogenetic analysis, with the origin of eukaryotes scattered around the archaeal diversity, has led to considerable frustration and suggested that a ‘phylogenomic impasse’ has been reached, owing to the inadequacy of the available phylogenetic methods for disambiguating deep relationships. The evolutionary trajectory of modern eukaryotes is distinct from that of prokaryotes. Data from many sources give no direct evidence that eukaryotes evolved by genome fusion between archaea and bacteria. Nuclei, nucleoli, Golgi apparatus, centrioles, and endoplasmic reticulum are examples of cellular signature structures (CSSs) that distinguish eukaryote cells from archaea and bacteria.

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There is no point in posting another wall of text if all you're doing is agreeing with what I said. Try to whittle all your copy-pasta back down to an intelligible discussion, if you're capable of that.

rationalist said:

Aron: Evolution has withstood a more concentrated and sustained battery of critical analysis than any other scientific theory, yet it has never failed once.
Reply: Why Darwins theory of evolution does not explain biodiversity

https://***************************...ry-of-evolution-does-not-explain-biodiversity

Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila.
2010 Sep 15
"Genomic changes caused by epigenetic mechanisms tend to fail to fixate in the population, which reverts back to its initial pattern." That's not all that doesn't fixate. Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles. This is notable because in wild populations we expect the strength of natural selection to be less intense and the environment unlikely to remain constant for ~600 generations. Consequently, the probability of fixation in wild populations should be even lower than its likelihood in these experiments. 6

Evolution by epigenesis: farewell to Darwinism, neo- and otherwise
2004 May-Aug
In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable. 7
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15612191

Dissecting Darwinism
2012 Jan; 25
regarding the origin of the species and life (DNA), even Darwin commented, “If it could be shown that complex systems could not arise by small sequential steps, then my theory would completely break down.” Irreducibly complex systems involving thousands of interrelated specifically coded enzymes do exist in every organ of the human body. At an absolute minimum, the inconceivable self-formation of DNA and the inability to explain the incredible information contained in DNA represent fatal defects in the concept of mutation and natural selection to account for the origin of life and the origin of DNA. As new theories emerge that explain the origin of life, the inevitable emotional accusations of heresy and ignorance are not surprising in a period of scientific revolution. It is therefore time to sharpen the minds of students, biologists, and physicians for the possibility of a new paradigm. 8
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3246854/

Werner Arber Nobel Prize in 1978, Physiology or Medicine (sharing the honor with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith) for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to molecular genetics.
The deeper we penetrate in the studies of genetic exchange the more we discover a multitude of mechanisms" involved in human genetics that falsify the mutation plus natural selection core of macroevolution.
Arber, W, D. Nathans, and H. O. Smith. 1992. 1978 Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980, 469-492.

James Shapiro Microbiologistof the University of Chicago :
There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations” (Shapiro 1996).

Lynn Margulis:
Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.
The accumulation of genetic mutations were touted to be enough to change one species to another….No. It wasn’t dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact.
I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change - led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.
biology is opening the black box, and demonstrating how organisms develop. We are slowly getting out of a state of ignorance in regard of what mechanisms determines cell shape, assignment of their planes of division, tendencies to move, directions and rates of movement, modes of differentiation into particular cell types, and cell death (apoptosis).
The process of morphogenesis, which can be defined as an evolution of the form of an organism, is one of the most intriguing mysteries in the life sciences. The discovery and description of the spatial– temporal distribution of the gene expression pattern during morphogenesis, together with its key regulators, is one of the main recent achievements in developmental biology. Nevertheless, gene expression patterns cannot explain the development of the precise geometry of an organism and its parts in space. 1

Consider the University of California at Berkeley’s “Understanding Evolution” website which informs the student that “natural selection can produce amazing adaptations.” This hilariously appears on a page entitled “Misconceptions about natural selection.”

In fact natural selection, even at its best, does not “produce” anything. Natural selection does not and cannot influence the construction of any adaptations, amazing or not. If a mutation occurs which improves differential reproduction, then it propagates into future generations. Natural selection is simply the name given to that process. It selects for survival of that which already exists. Natural selection has no role in the mutation event. It does not induce mutations, helpful or otherwise, to occur. According to evolutionary theory every single mutation, leading to every single species, is a random event with respect to need.

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More quote-mining. It is deliberately dishonest and misleading, but as I said, it is ubiquitous among creationists. And as I said earlier, some of the above links don't say what you think they do. Nearly all of these scientist fully accept evolution and common ancestry. At least three of them are arguing for inclusion of new mechanisms. Lynn Margulus for example argued strenuously that her concept of endosymbiosis could replace much of what was attributed to Darwinian mechanisms, natural & sexual selection. Rather than replace the Darwinian mechanisms, endosymbiosis became incorporated in the extended evolutionary synthesis.

One of your citations however does say what you think. It struck me reading the quote from "Dissecting Darwinism" that this guy is using language scientists don't use. It was clear that I was reading creationist propaganda published to an actual science archive. So I googled his name and immediately happened across another anthropologist, Dr Gary Hurd tearing into that article. In Part 2 of his critique, he says, "Kuhn makes various errors of fact and logic throughout his introductory pages. Mostly the result of sloppy thinking, and ignorance."

Paleontologist, Jerry Coyne had a similar reaction. "Kuhn’s article, “Dissecting Darwinism” (free at the link), is merely a cobbled-together list of canards from the Discovery Institute (DI). It’s poorly written, dreadful, full of scientific errors, and the journal should not only be ashamed of it, but retract it."

rationalist said:

Aron: So, do you understand and accept that it is a lie, a misrepresentation of evolution to expect one "kind" of thing to produce another "completely different kind"?
Reply: Have i EVER claimed that this is how evolution works ?

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Every creationist so far has asserted that straw-man. You did too when you said "Evolution has been tested and it fails. 70,000 generations of bacteria, and all they got, are bacteria. No hint of a transition zone to a new organismal limb or improvement of complexity. Fail." Now you know better. Evolution is a theory of biodiversity wherein one cannot grow out of one's ancestry. So of course all those new species of bacteria are still bacteria for the same reason that we are still apes.

rationalist said:

Aron: This is the process by which humans harnessed to breed kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi all from the wild mustard plant.
Reply: Macroevolution. Fact, or fantasy ?
https://******************************/t1390-macroevolution-fact-or-fantasy

Macro-Evolution, is an atheistic, secular-humanistic, philosophical worldview that requires:
(1) massive/infinite amounts of “natural” small changes;
(2) many beneficial/magical, random genetic mutations, producing novel, more complex structures over eons of time, from a “simple” virus or amoeba, to man; and
(3) Natural Selection – the continued survival (of fittest) of these different/new living Species (cf. speciation) & Families.

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That's a lie. Let me prove it. Just look it up.

“Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population.”
—Wikipedia

“[M]ajor evolutionary transition from one type of organism to another occurring at the level of the species and higher taxa.”
—Dictionary.com

“[E]volution that results in relatively large and complex changes (as in species formation)”
—Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Even though each of the above is reasonably accurate, you can’t always trust common dictionaries for laypeople when they’re trying to talk science. So sticking with scientific sources, let’s start with the University of California–Berkeley’s online primer called “Evolution 101”: “Macroevolution refers to evolution of groups larger than an individual species.”

We get the same definition from Duke University: “Evolutionary patterns and processes at and above the species level”

And from University of South Carolina–Beaufort: “Macroevolutionists study the processes that cause the origination and extinction of species”

And from Stanford University: “Microevolution is defined as changes within a species that aren’t drastic enough to create an entirely new species. Changes that result in a new species are part of macroevolution.”

Now let’s look at the reference website Biology Online: “Macroevolution involves variation of allele frequencies at or above the level of a species.”

Remember that Russian Entomologist Yuri Filipchenko first defined the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" in 1927, and those terms were brought to the English-speaking world by Filipchenko's student, the pioneer geneticist, Theodosius Dobzhansky in his book, "Genetics and the Origin of Species". He also published a paper titled "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in Light of Evolution".

Importantly, Dobzhansky was also a Russian Orthodox Christian. Several of the pioneers and champions of evolutionary theory have been and are Christian. That means that macroevolution is NOT "an atheistic, secular-humanistic or philosophical worldview. It's none of those things. Nor does it require "massive/infinite amounts of “natural” small changes", nor "many beneficial/magical, random genetic mutations, producing novel, more complex structures over eons of time, from a “simple” virus or amoeba, to man." All that is wrong.

Microevolution is “Small scale” evolution within a single species / interbreeding population.
Macroevolution is “Large scale” evolution between different species / populations: The emergence of new taxa at or above the species level.

See? I told you didn't know what macroevoluiton is. So that you do know, do you understand and accept that these are the actual definitions of those terms?

rationalist said:

NEVER, in in over 150 years, since Darwins book " On the origin of species " was published, has even ONE, amongst hundreds or thousands, if not millions of science papers, provided ONE DEMONSTRATION, and empirical verifiable replicable evidence, that any of the evolutionary mechanisms proposed, could produce a primary macroevolutionary transition zone of speciation and population differentiation.

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In addition to the documented development of new enzymes and chromosomes, novel synthesis abilities, denovo genes, and retroviral resistance, notable examples include the evolution of a new multicellular species arising from unicellular algae under direct observation in the lab.

rationalist said:

Microevolution and secondary speciation is a fact. The macro change however from one organism into another in long periods of time, the change of body plans and evolutionary novelties, phenotypic complexity, and phenotypic novelty is not a fact, not even a theory, or even a hypothesis. Its just fantasy without a shred of evidence. It's not possible. Show me some examples of observed facts; please provide and give me empirical data of an unorganized undirected unguided Neo-Darwinian accidental random macro-evolutionary event.

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Wait, you still think macroevolution requires a change in body plans? I thought we went over this, and you assured me that you never said anything so stupid.

rationalist said:

What is a macroevolutionary novelty?

The change/transition, where one "kind" can evolve into another beyond the species level (i.e. primary speciation), like an organism, randomly changing/transition into a whole entire different organism with new fully functioning biological features, the emergence of new complex functions, a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy. The origin of new body plans, forms, and architecture. The origins of novel branches of the tree of life at levels above that of primary speciation. The origin and diversification of higher taxa. Of new phyla. From the supposed Last Universal Common Ancestor to unicellular eukaryotic cells. From unicellular to multicellular life. There Are Six Important Patterns of Macroevolution: Mass Extinctions. Adaptive Radiation. Convergent Evolution.

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See, this is why you should speak for yourself and not cut-and-paste some other yahoo's nonsense. Earlier, I asked you, "Do you understand and accept that it is a lie, a misrepresentation of evolution to expect one "kind" of thing to produce another "completely different kind"? I notice you didn't answer yes or no. Instead you said, "Have i EVER claimed that this is how evolution works?" Well, yes, you have, right here.

I am not going to argue your straw-man distortion after correcting you on this very point. Correct this mistake you made or this discussion will not continue.

rationalist said:

A list of most-often cited examples include the shell of turtles (Cebra-Thomas et al. 2005), flight (Prum 2005), flowers (Albert, Oppenheimer, and Lindqvist 2002), the ability of great tits to open bottles of milk (Kothbauerhellmann 1990), the transition from the jaw to the ear of some bones during the evolution of mammals from reptiles (Brazeau and Ahlberg 2006), eyes (Fernald 2006), hearts (Olson 2006), bipedalism (Richmond and Strait 2000), and the origin of Hox genes (Wagner, Amemiya, and Ruddle 2003); The evolution of sirenians, Ernst Mayr, a major figure of the MS, defined novelties as “any newly acquired structure or property that permits the performance of a new function, which, in turn, will open a new adaptive zone” (Mayr 1963, 602). Coevolution. Punctuated Equilibrium. Developmental Gene Changes.

something that we merely don't have to just put blind faith in?

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I did some work on turtle evolution myself. In fact, on my paleontological expedition into the South African Karoo, I saw first-hand (literally held in my hand) a freshly discovered fossil of Eunotosaurus, the transitional species that settled that whole controversy.

rationalist said:

Robert Shapiro:
Darwin “ignored the inconvenient fact that human selection for altered traits has never generated a truly new organismal feature (e.g., a limb or an organ) or formed a new species. Selection only modifies existing characters.“

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There it is again, that gross distortion of what evolution isn't. If all you can do is quote liars proposing straw-men, we're not going to go any further.

rationalist said:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15612191
In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable.

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If all you can do is quote liars, why should I continue?

rationalist said:

Aron: let me just say that mAcroevolution has been directly observed and documented dozens of times
Reply: Primary, and secondary speciation

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And now you know that speciation is part of macroevolution.

rationalist said:

There are observed instances of secondary speciation -- which is not what Darwinism needs -- but no observed instances of primary speciation, not even in bacteria.

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You should also know that Theodosius Dobzhansky was the first to document direct observation of a speciation event in the lab, a new species of bacteria, and that macroevolution includes the emergence of new species, variation at or above the species level.

rationalist said:

primary speciation
The splitting of one species into two, usually resulting from natural selection favoring different gene complexes in geographically isolated populations.

secondary speciation
the fusion through hybridization of two species that were formerly geographically isolated, followed by the establishment of a new adaptive norm ...

Secondary speciation in the genus level is possible, but at the family level and beyond is not. Organisms can evolve only up to different genera, but not different families.

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This has been documented too, as I mentioned earlier. We have derived hundreds of different breeds of dogs from Asiatic wolves, but there are also several distinct species of dogs that were never wolves. I said, "even if dogs evolve into different breeds, like bloodhounds or pit bulls, they're still dogs. Even if they evolve into different species like raccoon dogs or Bush dogs, they're still dogs. Even if they evolve a different Genus like Lupus (wolf), Cuon (dhole) or Lycaon (African panted dog) they're still dogs and always will be. But they're not just a different species, they're a different genus! And there are multiple whole-genomic studies to prove their relationship. Here is one of them:
Mitogenomic analyses of Caniform relationships
And here is a broader one connecting Caniformes with Feliformes.
Molecular Phylogeny of the Carnivora (Mammalia): Assessing the Impact of Increased
Sampling on Resolving Enigmatic Relationships

rationalist said:

British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001: "None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another.

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In fact, they’ve seen this so many times they’ve had to categorize recurrent types of macroevolution they’ve seen so often repeated.

Allopatric speciation is what I’ve mostly described so far, where a given population is simply divided into genetically separate groups, usually by geographic barriers, and experience genetic drift. For example, compare the North American raccoon to the South American coatamundi, or the American cougar and the African caracal.

Peripatric speciation is when a tiny group is completely isolated and experiences a genetic bottleneck (founder’s effect), often producing much faster or more dramatic evolution. The mice of Madeira are a good example of this.

Parapatric speciation is similar to peripatric, except that it’s not a complete isolation, but a limited connection to a sister group. Over time, genetic dissimilarity leads to behaviors or mechanisms that prevent interbreeding. Tigers and Indian lions are a good example of this, as are wolves and dogs.

Sympatric speciation is when a new species emerges within or among the parent group, often by exploring a different food source in the same area. The best example of this are the cichlid fish of the Rift Valley. These are also often good examples of how vertebrate species can switch back and forth from sexual to asexual reproduction, again under direct observation, as a reaction to a dynamic environment.

rationalist said:

Observed cases of speciation by polyploidy are limited to flowering plants. 2 Furthermore, according to American evolutionary biologist Douglas J. Futuyma, polyploidy — known as “ secondary speciation ” — “ does not confer major new morphological characteristics” and does not cause the evolution of higher levels in the biological hierarchy. Darwinism depends on the splitting of one species into two, which then diverge and split and diverge and split, over and over again — a process known as “primary speciation”—to produce the branching-tree pattern required by Darwin’s theory.

Allopolyploidy, i.e. hybridization followed by chromosome doubling, is a frequent mode of secondary speciation in vascular plants (Leitch and Bennett 1997; Haufler 2008). 3The occurrence of diploids and their derived polyploids in the same area provides an excellent natural experiment to test the unique environmental responses that may exist across ploidy levels.

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Nor does it have to confer major new morphological characteristics. Most examples of even secondary speciation don't.

rationalist said:

primary speciation : The splitting of one species into two, usually resulting from natural selection favoring different gene complexes in geographically isolated populations. 4

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At least you admit that speciation happens, and thus that macroevolution has been observed.

rationalist said:

Aron: Don't copy text of someone else's argument that you don't understand yourself. I can refute all of this, but you wouldn't understand that either.
Reply: Nice dodge. That is MY ARGUMENT. Search the entire web, and show me if you can find a place where i supposedly copied the information from.
And your problem is: Your world view ends right here. Against facts, there are no arguments. Abiogenesis is impossible by all means. If you are so keen about honesty, its time to admit that your worldview is bunk.

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My problem with your "worldview" is that it's all lies and needs to be corrected.

rationalist said:

Aron: However, I will say that astro physicists Sean Carroll and Lawrence Krauss both say that an absolute nothing is not even possible. So that's one reason there is something rather than nothing, because there can't just be nothing.
Reply: It doesnt take Carroll nor Krauss to say this. Logic is enough.

1. The physical universe exists.
2. Existence cannot come from non-existence.
3. Since we exist, then being has always been in one form or another.
4. The universe had a beginning. It cannot be the product of an infinite serie of regress, nor be caused by nothing.
5. Therefore, a non-physical being must have existed beyond the universe, causing the universe into existence.
6. That being is God.

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Creationists are the ones who pretend that everything was poofed out of nothing by god-magic. We don't believe we came from "non-existence", nor that the universe necessarily had a beginning either. But if it did, it wouldn't be due to a god!

rationalist said:

Aron: abiogenesis is a long series of successful experiments, and I will show you how as we proceed.
Reply: Open questions in prebiotic chemistry to explain the origin of the four basic building blocks of life
https://******************************/t1279p75-abiogenesis-is-mathematically-impossible#7759

What successful experiment are you talking about? No scientific experiment has been able to come even close to synthesize the basic building blocks of life, and reproduce a self-replicating Cell in the Laboratory through self-assembly and autonomous organization.
The total lack of any kind of experimental evidence leading to the re-creation of life; not to mention the spontaneous emergence of life… is the most humiliating embarrassment to the proponents of naturalism and the whole so-called “scientific establishment” around it… because it undermines the worldview of who wants naturalism to be true.

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We have to get past the first step before we make it to the second.
The successful experiments I was talking about are the ones I mentioned before, and that you ignored. So I will post that again.

We have discovered an awful lot about the many chemical processes involved in abiogenesis, and I'll be happy to go over them with you, just to call you out for your ignorance and dishonestly. To begin with, what we know of the early earth is that it was much warmer and more radioactive than it is today, a bubbling cauldron cooking complex chemicals. So the first thing we needed to know was how do we get to organic chemistry, specifically beginning with amino acids. Thanks to Urey-Miller and a number of other, similar experiments, we now know that water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen generate amino acids when heated and charged with electricity.
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/17/4306
The same thing happens when you change the mix to include Carbon-dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen-sulfide and sulfur-dioxide.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2011/lost_exp.html
Similarly, heating water to 70ºC in the presence of iron hydroxide (simulating geothermal vents in the anaerobic conditions of the prebiotic earth) also produced amino acids and alpha hydroxy acids in the lab.
https://www.wired.com/2008/10/forgotten-exper/

There is a whole lot more to cover that you obviously don't know anything about, but explaining it to you must be an interactive process, where you show that you've got the basics before we move on to the next level. So do you understand and accept what I've just told you so far? You didn't answer me last time.

rationalist said:

Aron: You're citing yourself again. You are not an authority. //// Now we've come to the inevitable quote-mine, ubiquitous in all arguments with creationists./// Where did the laws of physics come from? We humans made them up.
Reply: LOL....

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Name a single natural law that was not devised by people. Who do you thing came up with Newton's laws of motion? Or Boyle's gas law? Lord Kelvin is credited with the Laws of Thermodynamics.

rationalist said:

Aron: Once again, the universe was obviously NOT "fine-tuned" for us, as we can only live on a fraction of the surface of this one tiny mote of dust in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos of wasted space where there are trillions of other worlds that are all out of reach, and we would be killed instantly on nearly all of them.
Reply: Is the universe hostile to life?

https://******************************/t1896-is-the-universe-hostile-to-life?highlight=hostile

The fact to be explained is why the universe is life-permitting rather than life-prohibiting. That is to say, scientists have been surprised to discover that in order for embodied, interactive life to evolve anywhere at all in the universe, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature have to be fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision. Were even one of these constants or quantities to be slightly altered, the universe would not permit the existence of embodied, interactive life anywhere in the cosmos. These finely-tuned conditions are necessary conditions of life in a universe governed by the present laws of nature. it would be obtuse to think that the universe is not life-permitting because regions of the universe are not life-permitting! 1

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So again we agree, the universe is not fine-tuned for life, certainly not for human life.

rationalist said:

Aron,

do you know how i gauge the honesty of an atheist ?

With this argument:

The simplest free-living bacteria is Pelagibacter ubique. 13 It is known to be one of the smallest and simplest, self-replicating, and free-living cells. It has complete biosynthetic pathways for all 20 amino acids. These organisms get by with about 1,300 genes and 1,308,759 base pairs and code for 1,354 proteins. 14 That would be the size of a book with 400 pages, each page with 3000 characters. They survive without any dependence on other life forms. Incidentally, these are also the most “successful” organisms on Earth. They make up about 25% of all microbial cells. If a chain could link up, what is the probability that the code letters might by chance be in some order which would be a usable gene, usable somewhere—anywhere—in some potentially living thing? If we take a model size of 1,200,000 base pairs, the chance to get the sequence randomly would be 4^1,200,000 or 10^722,000.

You dodged it, and Matt Dillahunty dodged it as well.

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I'm not a fan of the argument from improbability fallacy, nor of the fallacy that complexity should indicate a divine designer. No, an efficient simplicity would be the hallmark of intelligent design, not the unnecessarily excessive complexity we get with biochemistry. The only way that makes sense is if it is a haphazard pattern of emergence, which I know creationists never understand.

rationalist said:

https://******************************/t2829-the-dillahunty-case

Your case is DEBUNKED.

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Obviously not. You still have no idea what you're talking about. Nor do I think you will correct your errors here. I think you're just going to keep on lying and misrepresenting the facts.

rationalist said:

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity​

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

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Irrelevant meaningless conjecture.

rationalist said:

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

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I think we all commonly understand a fool to be one who too readily believes improbable claims from questionable sources on insufficient evidence. So it is no surprise that the Bible and the Qur'an both use the opposite definition from common parlance, as if suddenly the fool is the one who does NOT believe impossible nonsense for no good reason.

rationalist said:

All your constant rants about dishonesty of Creationists is just a sign, that YOU, Sir, are dishonest.

Click to expand...

I haven't lied yet, but you have repeatedly.

rationalist said:

Who is Angelmou ?

Click to expand...

I have no idea. The only time I've ever seen that name was in emails from you.

My god, Otangelo really likes to spam by copy pasting practically everything from his blog, flooding the thread with dozens of different topics all at once in an incoherent Gish-Gallop (or in his case, I like to call it the Otangelo Tango).

Just to pick one random thing I noticed

Evolution by epigenesis: farewell to Darwinism, neo- and otherwise
2004 May-Aug
In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable. 7
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15612191

Click to expand...

This is from Eugene K. Balon, who has criticized "(Neo)Darwinism" in favor of other mechanisms such as "saltation". However, his work has received criticism from scientists and he apparently became really frustrated with that as this particular paper shows. It's essentially a shit post published in the pseudo-journal Rivista di Biologia wherein he proclaims that there is a conspiracy among academia that prevents his ideas to be realized as a paradigm shift.

Nevertheless, some forms of saltational evolution have been accepted, such as whole genome duplication, hybridization, symbiosis, homeotic mutations, heterochrony, etc. And examples of this include the number of vertebrae/segments in snakes/centipedes and the Mexican axolotl.

Also Balon himself did not deny evolution. He just thought that there were other mechanisms that were overlooked in favor of only the "Neo-Darwinian" ones. So even if Balon was right, this is in no way an attack on evolution as a whole.

His use of this quote only reveals a fundemental problem that Otangelo has. He can not to see the difference betwee the outdated "neodarwinism" and the modern evolutionary theory of today that has incorporated these other principles. It's like attacking modern physics by going all out on the out dated Newtonian mechanics. It only makes you look like an utter fool who didn't keep up with the science for the last few decades.

Lastly, while I was writting this comment, I got a notification of a response from Otangelo to my response to a comment where he also copy pasted a whole list of nonsense from his blog. One of which included this gem about Marco polo having described a T-Rex.




I don't want to go into the T-rex thing, I just want to point out that when you are mindlessly copy pasting stuff from your blog, apparently not being fully aware of all the things that you are putting up as response, it makes it clear that you are not trying to engage in an actual conversation. You are just someone who likes to spam shit.

Aron: You could say that, but you'd be lying again. R4elgion is a bias by definition, but science seeks to minimize or eliminate bias however it can.
Reply: The creation-evolution debate is not religion versus science or the Bible versus science, it's about case-adequate accurate interpretation and inferences based on the scientific evidence versus inadequate interpretations. As pointed out previously, applying methodological naturalism to historical sciences is arbitrary and unjustified. Inquiry of origins should permit the evidence to lead wherever it is, and not exclude any possible explanation a priori. The fact that science papers do not point to God, does not mean that the evidence unraveled by science does not point to God. Likewise, it's not faith versus reason, it's about reasonable faith, versus unreasonable faith.

Aron: I heard Sye Ten Bruggencate say that if you don't know everything, you don't know anything, and that the only way to anything is to know everything, or know someone who knows everything. But if you don't everything yourself, and you have to know everything to know anything, then how would you know if you knew someone who knew everything? Because by that logic, you couldn't even know even that!
Reply: If our biological features, and more importantly our cognitive machinery evolved from some random forces of nature can we trust our brain and our thinking? the very thinking, belief or trust in naturalism which are the products of blind or random forces of nature?? If we are just an evolved, ape-like being, the result of random mutations, why should someone believe in someone else's arguments? How could I trust that our rationale makes actually any sense?

“But then with me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
[ Charles Darwin To William Graham 3 July 1881]”

https://***************************...-impossibility-of-atheism?highlight=schaeffer

Aron: You just have to take his word for it, same as you expect me to take yours.
Reply: I am not suggesting that you use blind faith, but Believing in something BECAUSE of the evidence. We hold a reasonable faith when we believe in something because it is the most reasonable conclusion from the evidence that exists. The Bible repeatedly makes evidential claims. It offers eyewitness accounts of historical events that can be verified archeologically, prophetically and even scientifically. We, as Christians are called to hold a REASONABLE FAITH that is grounded in this evidence.

Unreasonable, blind and reasonable faith:
https://******************************/t1840-unreasonable-blind-and-reasonable-faith

Aron: Once again, I repeat, Hitchens' razor allows that what is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. Unsupported assertions have no more credence than claims that been disproved. So I am justified both scientifically and philosophically to reply "no there isn't" to your unsupported (and thus indefensible) empty assertion that there is a god.
Reply: You dodged my point. You accuse creationists to make absolute claims, but that's PRECISELY what YOU do !!

No-one asserts the truth of Christianity without evidence - there is a huge amount of evidence, for those willing to consider it. You ask me to provide you evidence, but it doesn't matter what evidence I provide because you will dismiss it automatically--an action consistent with your belief that "there has never been a shred of evidence" for God's existence.

Asking for 100 percent, to truly know what occurred in the past is unrealistic. We believe in lots of things with confidence even though we do not have absolute certainty. It is up to logic and the factors of different lines of evidence to determine what causes best to explain our origins. Every worldview, without exception, is a faith-based belief system, consisting of a set of statements the holder adopts as being true. Starting from this view, we can dispense with the foolish notion of "proof," as some are so quick to require. Instead of "proof" in the absolute sense, we proceed with examining the available evidence, which should point with confidence to the worldview that best accounts for that evidence.

Science provides us with evidence. Based on it, we can make post-dictions in regard to the past. Historical sciences cannot go back with a time-machine and observe what happened back in the past. As such, abiogenesis, and macroevolution ( primary speciation ) cannot be demonstrated in as much as ID/creationism. This is not a dispute between religion and science, but good interpretations of the scientific evidence, and inadequate interpretations, which do eventually not fit well the data.

BAYESIAN PROBABILITY AND SCIENCE
https://******************************/t2721-bayesian-probability-and-science

Aron: So George Harrison actually met his god in person, face to face. How do you explain that, Otangelo?
Reply:........ where you can actually obtain God perception.” Having a perception is not meeting God face to face.

Aron: Nor are we talking about absolutes. But you don't get to call it truth until you show the truth of it, to show that there is some truth to it, at least some basis in fact to what you're trying to sell. Then we have something to test to determine how true it is.
Reply: … we can never have perfectly clean-cut knowledge of anything. It is a general consequence of the approximate character of all measurement that no empirical science can ever make exact statements.
P. W. Bridgman; (1882-1961); The Logic of Modern Physics; 1927/1951; p33, 34

A typical epistemological lack of understanding common to atheists is how to setup a correct methodology to find the best answers in regards to origins and reality, and to assume that given further investigations, science will or can discover with absolute certainty and tell us what has happened in the past. The truth is, science is limited in that it does not grant absolute truth, but only yields degrees of probability or likelihood. Asking theists to prove that there is a God is silly.

Science isn’t in the business of proving things. Rather, science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data.

Science observes the Universe, records evidence, and strives to draw conclusions about what has happened in the past, is happening now, and what will potentially happen in the future, given the current state of scientific knowledge—which is often times woefully incomplete, and even inaccurate. The late, prominent evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson discussed the nature of science and probability several years ago in the classic textbook, Life: An Introduction to Biology, stating:

We speak in terms of “acceptance,” “confidence,” and “probability,” not “proof.” If by proof is meant the establishment of eternal and absolute truth, open to no possible exception or modification, then proof has no place in the natural sciences.

Aron: Correction: We are neither foolish nor dishonest enough to assert anything as fact that is not evidently true, and we do not want to be fooled into believing things that have not been established or demonstrated, especially when there is literally not even a possibility to consider.
Reply: Has it been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt, that the natural world is all there is, and that there is nothing beyond it?

Aron: Wrong. The logic is, as I just said, that we cannot honestly say that a god is possible until we have a precedent or parallel or verified phenomenon indicating such a possibility. If you can't show that possibility, then we would by lying to say there is one.
Reply: I disagree. As long as there is no logical contradiction, the God claim is a possibility and should be taken into consideration as a possible explanation of origins.

Aron: On that we agree, which is one of the reasons why atheists do not believe that everything came from nothing.
Reply: Krauss actually does.

Krauss claims that ABSOLUTELY nothing could have created our universe !!


The universe had a beginning
https://******************************/t1297-beginning-the-universe-had-a-beginning

1. The universe cannot be past eternal.
2. Neither could it be self-caused.
3. Therefore, it must have been caused by something else.
4. Since that cause created space, time, and matter, it must be above and beyond physical reality.
5. That cause must be timeless, spaceless, and personal.
6. We call it God.

Carroll: "In my favorite cosmological model, which again is always subject to updating when new ideas or data come in, the universe doesn't have a beginning. It doesn't come into existence at a moment in time. It always existed.
Reply:

The universe and/or quantum effect potentials cannot be past eternal
https://***************************...cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124

Infinite regress (a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator - ad infinitum), like an infinite chain of toppling dominoes, is an IMPOSSIBILITY. Because you can’t have a chain of only “needy” finite effects. There must be a “non-needy” prime mover to start the chain of creator/created – cause and effect.

If we are starting to count from now. Whenever we stop counting and look back, there is always a finite number that was counted. If we stop counting after one million, it is a finite number. A trillion. Finite. it is impossible to complete an infinite series by addition. The series of past events is complete.

The Second Law points to: (1) a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and (2) an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”), thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal.

Aron: Then it is up to you to show that there is another world besides this one. Until you do, then we cannot honestly say that any supernatural other-world exists.
Reply: Burden of Proof : Are Theists the Only People Who Have it ?
https://******************************/t1873-burden-of-proof-are-theists-the-only-people-who-have-it
Atheists demand constantly for evidence of Gods existence, but never apply the same burden of proof to materialism.

21:03 Burden of proof
Common atheist fallacies: exposed !!


The position of weak atheists is nothing more than a complaint about what other people believe in, referencing God. I don't believe in UFOS, but I do not go around wearing a label pin or flag to identify as one who does not believe in UFOS. So there is a problem in the logic of this issue. If you do not believe in God, big deal, but what is it that you proactively believe in, what is your positive worldview that influences your moral values, your daily behavior, your motivations, your family life, your vote, in short: that regulates or laws your own personal life? A person ought to be identified by what they believe in , not by what they do not believe in. So this is a shell game, a parlor trick. ...

We totally understand why atheists avoid the burden of proof. We all know that atheists are the very definition of a "WIMP" and why? Because they always scream about "burden of proof" We both KNOW that if the burden of proof was placed on their tiny narrow shoulders, they will IMMEDIATELY COLLAPSE!! Their worldview is irrational and pathetic We don't mind to demonstrate why intelligence is an infinitely more adequate potent cause in comparison to - wait - what exactly ?!! There is NO ALTERNATIVE to an eternal necessary powerful Creator; Maybe rub that in the face will help to wake-up their brains and start thinking ?

rationalist said:

1. The universe cannot be past eternal.
2. Neither could it be self-caused.
3. Therefore, it must have been caused by something else.
4. Since that cause created space, time, and matter, it must be above and beyond physical reality.
5. That cause must be timeless, spaceless, and personal.
6. We call it God.

Click to expand...

1. There are scientists that say the universe all ways existed.
2. Yes it can be self-caused just as the Big Bang tells us, but it could have outside assistance in the 4th dimension.
3. See 2
4. No the Big Bang could create space time and all matter. Space time is still being created its x km per second.
5. Outside our universe there is nothing well not what we understand and we can’t go outside our universe because of the natural laws we have.
6. So now explain where God comes from. For arguments sacks God exists so by definition it would be a alien life form now where did it come from. Also the more power you give to your God the less lickly it exists.

Aron: Yes, we can. I get at least a few emails every week from former believers thanking me for leading them out the delusion you're still in. This has been going on for at least a decade or so. Many of them were just as certain as you are, until they began to see around wool over their eyes.
Reply: Nice dodge. You are good at it. They will not thank you anymore, once they realize they were blind, following a blind.

Aron: The citations you show now are talking about developmental biology, being pre-programed by heredity, literally by evolution in some cases, but not by a god.
Reply: Your alternative is chance to pre-program the minimal genome to have life a first get-go. You believe in the magical powers of chance, don't you?

Aron Common descent is not a hypothesis. It is confirmed.
Reply: Well, then why do science papers disagree with you? Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things
The concept of a tree of life is prevalent in the evolutionary literature. It stems from attempting to obtain a grand unified natural system that reflects a recurrent process of species and lineage splittings for all forms of life. Traditionally, the discipline of systematics operates in a similar hierarchy of bifurcating (sometimes multifurcating) categories. The assumption of a universal tree of life hinges upon the process of evolution being tree-like throughout all forms of life and all of biological time. In prokaryotes, they do not. Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things, and we need to treat them as such, rather than extrapolating from macroscopic life to prokaryotes. In the following we will consider this circumstance from philosophical, scientific, and epistemological perspectives, surmising that phylogeny opted for a single model as a holdover from the Modern Synthesis of evolution.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2761302/

And i am wondering if you know something about the 9 points i mention demonstrating why common ancestry is bunk, that i don't know?
https://***************************...-descent-the-tree-of-life-a-failed-hypothesis

Aron: We have observed the change from unicellular to multicellular organisms in the lab,
Reply: Did cell-cell adhesion proteins, and signaling evolve in parallel ? If so, based on what evolutionary pressures ?

Aron: Now in the 21st century, they added a couple more mechanisms, epigenetics and endosymbiosis, and it is now the "modern evolutionary synthesis".
Reply: Yes, of course, easy deal. What evolved first: The histone code, readers, erasers, or writers?

Post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs) of histones affect gene transcription
https://***************************...ns-ptms-of-histones-affect-gene-transcription

Aron: In this case, you were once again expected to produce some truth to your position, which you simply refused to do.
Reply: That would actually have to be your job. Once you prove that natural mechanisms suffice to explain all phenomena in the natural world, you can categorically accuse creationists to be liars. Then we are on the same level as flat earthers. I have not yet seen that day come. And until then, you are doing what you accuse us of doing. Making unsupported claims.

Aron: You citation agreed with this, listing one and only one scientific method, and then explained how that one method is applicable to both current or historical applications. But it's not a different "kind" of science.
Reply: Koonin disagrees with you. And so do i. They are different disciplines because they answer different questions. The origin of life is the most difficult problem that faces evolutionary biology and, arguably, biology in general. Indeed, the problem is so hard and the current state of the art seems so frustrating that some researchers prefer to dismiss the entire issue as being outside the scientific domain altogether, on the grounds that unique events are not conducive to scientific study.

Aron: If you're going to use abduction, which you said you were, then you would need to know something about the supernatural. And you don't.
Reply: We know what signs of intelligent actions are. We can distinguish it from what unguided random mechanisms can't.

How to recognize the signature of (past) intelligent actions
https://***************************...nize-the-signature-of-past-intelligent-action

Aron: If we detected that an intelligent designer was involved, we would use science, not theology.
Reply: We use science to understand how the world works. That gives us hints and direction if intelligene was more likely involved or not to create it. The identity is a quest of philosophy and theology, since God is not demonstrating himself to us.

Aron:You didn't even properly define what a god is.
Reply: A personal agent, endowed with power, and intelligence, existing above the natural world, without a beginning, and without an end.

Aron: You can't simply eliminate hundreds of gods worshiped by millions of people for thousands of years
Reply: The identity of God is a follow up, after the first ladder in a cumulative has been answered: If there rather IS a God(s) rather than not.

A cumulative case for the God of the Bible
https://******************************/t1753-a-cumulative-case-for-the-god-of-the-bible

Aron: It doesn't make any difference how the universe began or if it did.
Reply: If your aim is to defend naturalism as a consistent worldview, the origin of the universe, and why there is something rather than nothing, is a central issue.

Aron: More quote-mining. It is deliberately dishonest and misleading, but as I said, it is ubiquitous among creationists.
Reply: Nice doge. Do you expect me to provide an answer that comes from experimental evidence that has grown out of my own crap in the backyards ?

Nonrandom mutations : How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome
https://***************************...-life-changes-itself-the-read-write-rw-genome

Werner Arber Nobel Prize in 1978, Physiology or Medicine (sharing the honor with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith) for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to molecular genetics.
The deeper we penetrate in the studies of genetic exchange the more we discover a multitude of mechanisms" involved in human genetics that falsify the mutation plus natural selection core of macroevolution.
Arber, W, D. Nathans, and H. O. Smith. 1992. 1978 Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980, 469-492.

-Mutation - the vast majority are negative.
Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Keightley & Lynch, 2003, Evolution, 57:683 {685, 2003) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.../j.0014-3820.2003... "...THE VAST MAJORITY OF MUTATIONS ARE DELETERIOUS. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL-ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES OF EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS, SUPPORTED BY BOTH MOLECULAR AND QUANTITATIVE-GENETIC DATA."
"...a great deal of evidence from several sources strongly suggests that the overall effects of mutations are to REDUCE FITNESS."

"All of these experiments detected DOWNWARD trends in MA (mutation accumulation) line population mean fitness relative to control populations as generations accrued. As far as we know, there is NO CASE of even a single MA line maintained by bottle-necking that showed significantly higher fitness than its contemporary control populations."
"Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis experiments, in which controls are given identical treatment to mutagenized lines, other than a dose of mutagen, have also shown consistently strongly NEGATIVE EFFECTS on fitness traits in Drosophila."

"Similarly, transposable element insertional mutagenesis leads to REDUCED fitness in Drosophila."
"Although the above studies have focused on the fitness effects of mutations in the context of laboratory environments, substantial indirect evidence derived from molecular studies supports the contention that MOST MUTATIONS IN NATURAL POPULATIONS ARE DELETERIOUS."

"If mutations are neutral on average, C, the proportion of ‘missing’ amino-acid substitutions, would have an expected value of 0.0. However, IN ALL TAXA EXAMINED SO FAR, average values of C are in excess of 0.7, implying that the MAJORITY of amino-acid altering mutations are deleterious."

"The 214 generation experiment of Vassilieva et al. (2000) clarifies the slowly emerging pattern — as the period of MA (mutation accumulation) extended, PROGRESSIVELY LOWER FITNESS CLASSES ACCUMULATED, whereas the frequencies of the highest fitness classes observed in the controls PROGRESSIVELY DIMINISHED. Contrary to the suggestions of Shaw et al. (2002), there is NO EVIDENCE for improved fitness IN ANY periodically bottlenecked C. elegans line." (all emphasis added)

-Selection - has absolutely no ability to generate anything in order to add complexity... it's nothing more than what is already available.
-Sexual intercourse - actually constrains major change...

From the article below...
Heng and fellow researcher Root Gorelick, Ph.D., associate professor at Carleton University in Canada, propose that although diversity may result from a combination of genes, the primary function of sex is NOT about promoting diversity. Rather, it’s about keeping the genome context — an organism’s complete collection of genes arranged by chromosome composition and topology — as UNCHANGED as possible, thereby maintaining a species’ identity. This surprising analysis has been published as a cover article in a recent issue of the journal Evolution.

“If sex was merely for increasing genetic diversity, it would NOT have evolved in the first place,” said Heng. This is because asexual reproduction — in which only one parent is needed to procreate — leads to HIGHER rates of genetic diversity than sex.
In fact, two billion years ago in Earth’s biosphere, life relied exclusively on asexual reproduction, and every organism was capable of bearing young without costly competition to mate. With asexual species’ faster and more efficient mode of reproduction, the origin and maintenance of sex — not exactly the fittest means of reproduction — puzzles scientists, who for decades have been asking, Why has sex evolved and survived?
According to Heng, the hidden advantage sex has over asexual reproduction is that it CONSTRAINS MACROEVOLUTION — evolution at the genome level — to allow a species’ identity to survive. In other words, it PREVENTS “Species A” from morphing into “Species B.” Meanwhile, it also allows for microevolution — evolution at the gene level — to allow members of the species to adapt to the environment.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/rel.../2011/07/110707161037.htm

Aron: Now you know better. Evolution is a theory of biodiversity wherein one cannot grow out of one's ancestry.
Reply: Each branching point in the tree of life would therefore not be possible. You refute your own phylogeny claim, LOL.

Aron: See? I told you didn't know what macroevoluiton is. So that you do know, do you understand and accept that these are the actual definitions of those terms?
Reply: Did you just ignore the follow up at the link, just to make a point and attempt to portray me as ignorant? yes, i agree with your decription. But you are not telling me anything new that i have to be educated with. I continue:

https://******************************/t1390-macroevolution-fact-or-fantasy

What is a macroevolutionary novelty?
The change/transition, where one "kind" can evolve into another beyond the species level (i.e. primary speciation), like an organism, randomly changing/transition into a whole entire different organism with new fully functioning biological features, the emergence of new complex functions, a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy. The origin of new body plans, forms, and architecture. The origins of novel branches of the tree of life at levels above that of primary speciation. The origin and diversification of higher taxa. Of new phyla. From the supposed Last Universal Common Ancestor to unicellular eukaryotic cells. From unicellular to multicellular life. There Are Six Important Patterns of Macroevolution: Mass Extinctions. Adaptive Radiation. Convergent Evolution.

Aron: In addition to the documented development of new enzymes and chromosomes, novel synthesis abilities, denovo genes, and retroviral resistance, notable examples include the evolution of a new multicellular species arising from unicellular algae under direct observation in the lab.
Reply: Volvox is not helping you.

Unicellular and multicellular Organisms are best explained through design
https://***************************...r-organisms-are-best-explained-through-design

The situation in Pleodorina and Volvox is different. In these organisms, some of the cells of the colony (most in Volvox) are not able to live independently. If a nonreproductive cell is isolated from a Volvox colony, it will fail to reproduce itself by mitosis and eventually will die. What has happened? In some way, as yet unclear, Volvox has crossed the line separating simple colonial organisms from truly multicellular ones. Unlike Gonium, Volvox cannot be considered simply a colony of individual cells. It is a single organism whose cells have lost their ability to live independently. If a sufficient number of them become damaged, the entire sphere of cells will die.

Nesslig20 said:

My god, Otangelo really likes to spam by copy pasting practically everything from his blog, flooding the thread with dozens of different topics all at once in an incoherent Gish-Gallop (or in his case, I like to call it the Otangelo Tango).

Click to expand...

Indeed. This is all he ever does, he's a well known troll. I'm not entirely sure why anyone affords him the oxygen of attention, much less why this forum should platform his blatant dishonesty.

Aron: Wait, you still think macroevolution requires a change in body plans? I thought we went over this, and you assured me that you never said anything so stupid.
Reply: I replied already: The crux and issue in question is not macroevolution in a general sense, but macroevolution/primary speciation.

Primary, and secondary speciation
https://******************************/t2360-evolution-speciation-primary-and-secondary-speciation

Primary speciation
has been used to encompass the most basic and commonly recognized ways of initiating new species, the divergence of diploid populations to the level of species. Having a clear and well-supported phylogeny for the group of taxa being studied is particularly important in developing hypotheses about primary speciation. Unless sister taxa are compared, erroneous conclusions about the processes involved will be obtained. Within this major mode are more specific categories including allopatric speciation, the divergence of populations to the species level through isolation by geographic separation, parapatric speciation, divergence of popUlations to the species level even though populations maintain contiguous but nonoverlapping geographic distributions, and sympatric speciation, divergence of populations to the species level even though the populations occupy the same geographic region. Given the complex biotic and behavioral interactions that have been associated with sympatric speciation and the high probability that simple isolating mechanisms characterize pteridophytes, it seems unlikely that they speciate sympatrically at the diploid level.

Secondary Speciation
When it can be demonstrated that the speciation under investigation involved genomic-level changes, such as hybridization or polyploidy, a separate mode is proposed. The magnitude of genetic modification in secondary speciation often can be characterized, and it appears to be qualitatively different from that caused by the more incremental changes that are typical of primary speciation. Further, secondary speciation usually involves interactions between distinct and separate lineages that remain intact (autopolyploidy is the exception). These interactions result in the production of a new lineage that is reproductively isolated from its progenitors, shares significant portions of its genome with them, and is usually intermediate in morphology between them. Thus, instead of a single lineage evolving into two new lineages (as in primary speciation), two lineages interact to yield a third lineage, and all three lineages persist. Characterization of a variety of patterns provides circumstantial evidence of different kinds of secondary speciation. When different ploidy levels are detected among individuals that are morphologically uniform, autopolyploidy is suspected. Some summaries of speciation have used autopolyploidy as an example of "sympatric" speciation. However, autopolyploidy involves genome duplication, a mechanism that is quite different from those leading to the origin of diploid lineages. As reviewed by Gastony [34], speciation by chromosome doubling within pteridophyte species has been largely overlooked as a significant mechanism. In some groups, however, especially when accompanied by apomixis, autopolyploidy may occur frequently.

Aron: >> Nice dodge. That is MY ARGUMENT. Search the entire web, and show me if you can find a place where i supposedly copied the information from.
And your problem is: Your world view ends right here. Against facts, there are no arguments. Abiogenesis is impossible by all means. If you are so keen about honesty, its time to admit that your worldview is bunk.
My problem with your "worldview" is that it's all lies and needs to be corrected.
Reply: Then for sake, do it. Try to explain how EVEN ONE protein could have emerged prebiotically. I predict, you can't. Forget, the entire proteome for LUCA.


Proteins and Protein synthesis
https://******************************/t2706-main-topics-on-proteins-and-protein-synthesis

Proteins are structures of complex semantophoretic macromolecules that carry genetic information.

How Did Protein Synthesis Evolve?
The molecular processes underlying protein synthesis in present-day cells seem inextricably complex. Although we understand most of them, they do not make conceptual sense in the way that DNA transcription, DNA repair, and DNA replication do. It is especially difficult to imagine how protein synthesis evolved because it is now performed by a complex interlocking system of protein and RNA molecules; obviously the proteins could not have existed until an early version of the translation apparatus was already in place. As attractive as the RNA world idea is for envisioning early life, it does not explain how the modern-day system of protein synthesis arose.
Molecular biology of the cell, 6th ed. pg. 365

If you keep dodging this most crucial point, upon which your worldview either stands or falls, I will call you out, and call you a liar, as you call me ( unjustified)...

Aron: Creationists are the ones who pretend that everything was poofed out of nothing by god-magic.
Reply: Eliminative inductions argue for the truth of a proposition by arguing that competitors to that proposition are false. Provided the proposition, together with its competitors, form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive class, eliminating all the competitors entails that the proposition is true. Since either there is a God, or not, either one or the other is true. As Sherlock Holmes famous dictum says: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however not fully comprehensible, but logically possible, must be the truth. Eliminative inductions, in fact, become deductions.

But maybe you should get familiar with quantum mechanics.

Decoding reality - Information is fundamental
https://******************************/t3035-decoding-reality-information-is-fundamental
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"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force that brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
“Das Wesen der Materie” (The Nature of Matter), speech at Florence, Italy, 1944 (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)

Aron: Thanks to Urey-Miller and a number of other, similar experiments, we now know that water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen generate amino acids when heated and charged with electricity.
Reply: So let me be clear. Success would be, if an experiment would provide evidence how the 20 amino acids could have originated prebiotically on early earth. That has NOT been done.
In one of your videos, you even falsely claimed that the 20 amino acids used in life were produced in a follow-up Urey Miller experiment in 2008. The volcano in a bottle, I guess. They produced some DIFFERENT amino acids, but not all those used in life.

The Miller Urey experiment
https://******************************/t2170-abiogenesis-the-miller-urey-experiment

If you can't make a brick, you can't make a house. Naturalistic scenarios are all based on ad-hoc anecdotal pseudo-scientific claims. In the Urey - Miller experiment, none of the following amino-acids were produced, all life essential: Cysteine Histidine Lysine Asparagine Pyrrolysine Proline Glutamine Arginine Threonine Selenocysteine Tryptophan Tyrosine

Never, in any simulated OOL experiment, the amino acid Tryptophan was synthesized. Why? The biosynthesis pathway to make tryptophan is the most biochemically expensive and most complicated process of all life essential amino acid pathways, and tightly regulated. Glucose feeds the Glycolysis pathway, which utilizes nine enzymatic steps and enzymes to produce phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) and erythrose- 4-phosphate, which enter the Shikimake pathway, which uses another seven enzymes, to make chorismate, which enters the Tryptophan biosynthesis pathway, and after another five steps and enzymes, finally produces Tryptophan. So, in total, 21 enzymes.

But not any kind of enzyme. Some are highly sophisticated, veritable multienzyme nanomachines, like a paper called the bacterial tryptophan synthase, which channels the substrates through a long interconnecting tunnel with a clear logic: the substrate is not lost from the enzyme complex and diluted in the surrounding milieu. This phenomenon of direct transfer of enzyme-bound metabolic intermediates, or tunneling, increases the efficiency of the overall pathway by preventing loss and dilution of the intermediate. Smart, hah ??!!

You can have a closer look at the entire pathway to make tryptophan here:
https://***************************...cal-twenty-amino-acids-required-for-life#5939

Aron: Similarly, heating water to 70ºC in the presence of iron hydroxide (simulating geothermal vents in the anaerobic conditions of the prebiotic earth) also produced amino acids and alpha hydroxy acids in the lab.
https://www.wired.com/2008/10/forgotten-exper/
Reply: The hydrothermal-vent hypothesis , and why it fails
https://***************************...hesis-and-why-it-fails?highlight=hydrothermal

Dr. Stanley L. Miller, University of California San Diego 14
What about submarine vents as a source of prebiotic compounds?
I have a very simple response to that . Submarine vents don't make organic compounds, they decompose them. Indeed, these vents are one of the limiting factors on what organic compounds you are going to have in the primitive oceans. At the present time, the entire ocean goes through those vents in 10 million years. So all of the organic compounds get zapped every ten million years. That places a constraint on how much organic material you can get. Furthermore, it gives you a time scale for the origin of life. If all the polymers and other goodies that you make get destroyed, it means life has to start early and rapidly. If you look at the process in detail, it seems that long periods of time are detrimental, rather than helpful.

https://***************************...lution-of-amino-acids-and-proteins-impossible

The problem of getting nitrogen to make amino acids and DNA on early earth 2:41
The problem of getting all amino acids used in llife by origin of life experiments 4:20
The problem of selecting 20 amino acids prebiotically out of hundreds supposedly existing on early earth. 6:08
The problem of concentrating the amino acids used in life at one assembly site. 7:15
The problem of understanding why life uses 20 amino acids, and not more or less. 9:00
The problem of homochirality 12:23
The problem of amino acid synthesis regulation 13:43
The problem of peptide bonding of amino acids to form proteins 14:12
The problem of linking the right amino acid side sequence together 17:15
The problem of getting the right forces to stabilize proteins - essential for their correct folding 19:32
The problem of hierarchical structures of proteins 19:50

In order to have a functional protein, you need to have amino acids.

In order to have the amino acids used in life, you have to select the right ones amongst over 500 that occur naturally on earth.

To get functional ones, you need to sort them out between left-handed and right-handed ones ( the homochirality problem). Only left-handed amino acids are used in cells.

There is no selection process known besides the one used in cells by sophisticated enzymes, which produce only left-handed amino acids.

Amino acids used for life have amino groups and carboxyl groups. To form a chain, it is necessary to have the reaction of bifunctional monomers, that is, molecules with two functional groups so they combine with two others. If a unifunctional monomer (with only one functional group) reacts with the end of the chain, the chain can grow no further at this end. If only a small fraction of unifunctional molecules were present, long polymers could not form. But all ‘prebiotic simulation’ experiments produce at least three times more unifunctional molecules than bifunctional molecules.

The useful amino acids would have to be joined and brought together at the same assembly site in enough quantity.

There are four different ways to bond them together by the side chains. if bonded to the wrong side chain, no deal.

The formation of amide bonds without the assistance of enzymes poses a major challenge for theories of the origin of life.

Instructional/specified complex information is required to get the right amino acid sequence which is essential to get the functionality in a vast sequence space ( amongst trillions os possible sequences, rare are the ones that provide function )

Before amino acids would join into a sequence providing functional folding, it would disintegrate if hit by UV radiation.

But even IF that would not be the case, most proteins become only functional, if they are joined into holo-enzymes, where various amino acid chains come together like lock and key.

If that would occur, the tertiary or quaternary structure in most cases would bear no function without the insertion of a co-factor inside the pocket, like retinal in the opsin pocket, forming rhodopsin.

But even IF there would emerge a functional protein on the early earth, by itself, it would be like a piston outside the engine block of an automobile. Many proteins bear only function once they are integrated in an assembly line, producing sophisticated molecular products used in life.

But even IF we had an assembly line of enzymes producing a functional product, what good would there be for that product, if the cell would not know where that product is required in the Cell?

For example, chlorophyll requires the complex biosynthesis process of 17 enzymes, lined up in the right order, each producing the substrate used by the next enzyme. But chlorophyll has no function unless inserted in the light-harvesting antenna complex used in photosynthesis to capture light and funnel it to the reaction center.

But even if that complex, chlorophyll and the LHC would be fully set up, they have no function without all over 30 protein complexes forming photosynthesis, used to make hydrocarbons, essential for all advanced life forms.

Now, let's suppose all this would assemble by a freaky random accident on early earth, there would still be no mechanisms of transition from a prebiotic assembly, to Cell factory synthesis.

Aron: Name a single natural law that was not devised by people. Who do you thing came up with Newton's laws of motion? Or Boyle's gas law? Lord Kelvin is credited with the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Reply: Yes, Laws are discovered and described. But before that happens, they had to be there....

Laws of Physics, where did they come from?
https://******************************/t1336-laws-of-physics-where-did-they-come-from

Our universe is indeed orderly, and in precisely the way necessary for it to serve as a suitable habitat for life. The wonderful internal ordering of the cosmos is matched only by its extraordinary economy. Each one of the fundamental laws of nature is essential to life itself. A universe lacking any of the laws would almost certainly be a universe without life.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110805203154/http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html

Paul Davies: The universe obeys mathematical laws; they are like a hidden subtext in nature. Science reveals that there is a coherent scheme of things, but scientists do not necessarily interpret that as evidence for meaning or purpose in the universe.

The only rational explanation is however that God created this coherent scheme of things since there is no other alternative explanation. That's why atheists rather than admit that, prefer to argue of " not knowing " of its cause.

Aron: So again we agree, the universe is not fine-tuned for life, certainly not for human life.
Reply: No. We disagree, of course.

Fine-tuning of the universe
https://******************************/t1277-fine-tuning-of-the-universe

1. The initial conditions of the universe, subatomic particles, the Big Bang, the fundamental forces of the universe, the Solar System, the earth and the moon, are finely tuned to permit life. Over 150 fine-tuning parameters are known.
2. Finetuning is either due to chance, necessity, or design.
3. Finetuning is extremely unlikely due to chance or necessity. Therefore, it is most probably due to a powerful creator which did set up the universe in the most precise exact fashion to permit life on earth.

Fine-tuning of the Laws of physics
Fine-tuning of the Big Bang
Fine-tuning of the cosmological constant
Fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe
Fine-tuning of the fundamental forces of the universe
Fine-tuning of the subatomic particles
Fine-tuning of the Milky Way Galaxy
Fine-tuning of the Solar System
Fine-tuning of the sun
Fine-tuning of the earth
Fine-tuning of the moon
Fine-tuning of the electromagnetic spectrum
Fine-tuning in biochemistry

Aron: I'm not a fan of the argument from improbability fallacy, nor of the fallacy that complexity should indicate a divine designer. No, an efficient simplicity would be the hallmark of intelligent design, not the unnecessarily excessive complexity we get with biochemistry. The only way that makes sense is if it is a haphazard pattern of emergence, which I know creationists never understand.
Reply: I could not CARE LESS if you are a fan of the argument or not. Actually, it is quite obvious why you are not a fan of it. That's because you are biased, and are unwilling to permit God to put the foot into your door. This is probably one of the greatest SMACKDOWN and KNOCK-OUT arguments against naturalism because we KNOW by experience that intelligence CAN make complex machines for specific purposes, while unguided random forces can't.
The lack of acknowledging this, puts you in the camp with Matt, and you both deserve the medal for ostrich behavior !!

Occams Razor
https://******************************/t2409-occams-razor?highlight=occams
Well, echoing Einstein, the answer is very easy: nothing is really simple if it does not work. Occam’s Razor is certainly not intended to promote false – thus, simplistic — theories in the name of their supposed “simplicity.” We should prefer a working explanation to one that does not, without arguing about “simplicity”. Such claims are really pointless, more philosophy than science. The only important scientific point is: what gives us an empirically well-supported, “best explanation”?

https://***************************...ods-existence-based-on-positive-evidence#8181

1. On the one side, we have the putative prebiotic soup with the random chaotic floating around of the basic building blocks of life, and on the other side, the first living self-replicating cell ( LUCA ), a supposed fully operational minimal self-replicating cell, using the highly specific and sophisticated molecular milieu with a large team of enzymes which catalyze the reactions to produce the four basic building blocks of life in a cooperative manner, and furthermore, able to maintain intracellular homeostasis, reproduce, obtaining energy and converting it into a usable form, getting rid of toxic waste, protecting itself from dangers of the environment, doing the cellular repair, and communicate.
2. The science paper: Structural analyses of a hypothetical minimal metabolism proposes a minimal number of 50 enzymatic steps catalyzed by the associated encoded proteins. They don't, however, include the steps to synthesize the 20 amino acids required in life. Including those, the minimal metabolome would consist of 221 enzymes & proteins. A large number of molecular machines, co-factors, scaffold proteins, and chaperones are not included, required to build this highly sophisticated chemical factory.
3. There simply no feasible viable prebiotic route to go from a random prebiotic soup to this minimal proteome to kick-start metabolism by unguided means. This is not a conclusion by ignorance & incredulity, but it is reasonable to be skeptic, that this irreducibly complex biological system, entire factory complexes composed of myriads of interconnected highly optimized production lines, full of computers and robots could emerge naturally defying known and reasonable principles of the limited range of random unguided events and physical necessity. Comparing the two competing hypotheses, chance vs intelligent design, the second is simply by far the more case-adequate & reasonable explanation.

We are Borg said:

2. Yes it can be self-caused just as the Big Bang tells us,

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Does it? LOL

Nesslig20 said:

His use of this quote only reveals a fundemental problem that Otangelo has. He can not to see the difference betwee the outdated "neodarwinism" and the modern evolutionary theory of today that has incorporated these other principles.

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Yes, but the principles which have been incorporated are not going far enough.

Where Do Complex Organisms Come From?

https://******************************/t2316-evolution-where-do-complex-organisms-come-from

How does biological multicellular complexity and a spatially organized body plan emerge?
https://***************************...ty-and-a-spatially-organized-body-plan-emerge

1. Biological sciences have come to discover in the last decades that major morphological innovation, development and body form are based on at least 16 different, but integrative mechanisms, the interplay of genes with the gene regulatory network, Trans and Retrotransposons, so-called Junk DNA, gene splicing and recombination, and at least two dozen epigenetic informational code systems, some, like the glycan ( sugar) code, far more complex than the genetic code, on the membrane - exterior side of cells, Post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs) of histones, hormones, Ion Channels and Electromagnetic Fields that are not specified by nuclear DNA, Membrane targets and patterns, Cytoskeletal arrays, Centrosomes, and inheritance by cell memory which is not defined through DNA sequences alone.

2. These varied mechanisms orchestrate gene expression, generate Cell types and patterns, perform various tasks essential to cell structure and development, are responsible for important tasks of organismal development, affect gene transcription, switch protein-coding genes on or off, determine the shape of the body, regulate genes, provide critical structural information and spatial coordinates for embryological development, influence the form of a developing organism and the arrangement of different cell types during embryological development, organize the axes, and act as chemical messengers for development

3. Neo-Darwinism and the Modern Synthesis have proposed traditionally a gene-centric view, a scientific metabiological proposal going back to Darwin's " On the origin of species ", where first natural selection was proposed as the mechanism of biodiversity, and later, gene variation defining how bodies are built and organized. Not even recently proposed alternatives, like the third way, neutral theory, inclusive fitness theory, Saltationism, Saltatory ontogeny, mutationism, Genetic drift, or combined theories, do full justice by taking into account all organizational physiological hierarchy and complexity which empirical science has come to discover.

4. Only a holistic view, namely structuralism and systems biology, take into account all influences that form cell form and size, body development and growth, providing adequate descriptions of the scientific evidence.

The BIG ( umbrella ) contributor to explain organismal complexity and biodiversity which falsifies and replaces unguided evolutionary mechanisms is preprogrammed prescribed instructional complex information encoded through various codes and biosemiotics. Besides the universal genetic code, there are ( at least ) 31 variations of genetic codes, and 30 epigenetic codes. Complex communication networks use signalling that act on a structural level in an integrated interlocked fashion, which are pre-programmed do direct growth and development, respond to nutrition demands, environmental cues, control reproduction, homeostasis, metabolism, defense systems, and cell death.

1. Pre-programming and prescription of instructional complex codified information to get an intended purposeful outcome requires foresight.
2. Foresight comes always from an intelligent agent.
3. Therefore, biodiversity is the result rather of divine intelligent design, than unguided evolution.

1. The Gene regulation network orchestrates gene expression

EVOLUTIONARY BIOSCIENCE AS REGULATORY SYSTEMS BIOLOGY
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135751/

2. Various signalling pathways generate Cell types and patterns

- Hedgehog (Hh)
Erica Yao, Pao Tien Chuang, Hedgehog signalling: From basic research to clinical applications
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929664615000340

- Wingless related (Wnt)
Katrin E. Wiese, Roel Nusse, Renée van Amerongen, Wnt signalling: conquering complexity
http://dev.biologists.org/content/145/12/dev165902

- Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β)
D A Clark, R Coker Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9611771

- Receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)
Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (RTK) Signaling Transduction
https://www.sinobiological.com/receptor-tyrosine-kinase-rtk-signaling-transduction.html

- Notch
Emma R. Andersson, Rickard Sandberg, Urban Lendahl Notch signalling: simplicity in design, versatility in function
http://dev.biologists.org/content/138/17/3593

- Janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducer
David W. Dodington Harsh R. Desai Minna Woo JAK/STAT – Emerging Players in Metabolism
https://www.cell.com/trends/endocrinology-metabolism/pdf/S1043-2760(17)30150-9.pdf

- Activators of transcription (STAT) protein kinases
Robert A Ortmann,1 Tammy Cheng,1 Roberta Visconti,1 David M Frucht ,1 and John J O'Shea1 Janus kinases and signal transducers and activators of transcription: their roles in cytokine signaling, development and immunoregulation
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC129988/

- Nuclear hormone pathways
Maria Sirakov, Amina Boussouar, Elsa Kress, Carla Frau, Imtiaz Nisar Lone, Julien Nadjar, Dimitar Angelov, Michelina Plateroti The thyroid hormone nuclear receptor TRα1 controls the Notch signaling pathway and cell fate in murine intestine
http://dev.biologists.org/content/142/16/2764

- Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP)
Richard N Wang 1, Jordan Green 1, Zhongliang Wang Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling in development and human diseases
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25401122

- Epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/epidermal-growth-factor-receptor

- Fibroblast growth factors (FGF)
Nobuyuki Itoh, David M. Ornitz Fibroblast growth factors: from molecular evolution to roles in development, metabolism and disease
https://academic.oup.com/jb/article/149/2/121/837258

- DNA methylation
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23877618

- Histone modification and incorporation of histone variants
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270654681_Histone_Variants_and_Epigenetics

- Chromatin remodelling in Eukaryotic Cells
https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/Chromatin-Remodeling-Mechanisms-and-Importance.aspx

- Non-coding RNA-mediated epigenetic regulation

3. Epigenetic Codes perform various tasks essential to cell structure and development

1. The Over 30 different genetic Codes
2. The Adhesion code
3. The Apoptosis Code
4. The Bioelectric code
5. The Biophoton code
6. The Calcium Code
7. The Coactivator/corepressor/epigenetic code
8. The DNA methylation Code
9. The Domain substrate specificity code of Nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS)
10. The error correcting code
11. The Genomic regulatory Code
12. The Glycomic Code
13. The Histone Code
14. The HOX Code
15. The Metabolic Code
16. The Myelin Code
17. The Neuronal spike-rate Code
18. The Non-ribosomal code
19. The Nucleosome Code
20. The Phosphorylation code
21. The Post-translational modification code for transcription factors
22. The RNA code
23. The Splicing Codes
24. The Signal Transduction Codes
25. The Signal Integration Codes
26. The Sugar Code
27. The Synaptic Adhesive Code
28. The Transcription factor code
29. The Transcriptional cis-regulatory code
30. The Tubulin Code
31. The Ubiquitin Code

4. Cell-Cell communication in various forms, especially important for animal development
Genes involved in Cell-Cell communication and transcriptional control are especially important for animal development
Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th Ed, 2008: page 1308

5. Chromatin dance in the nucleus through extensile motors affect transcription and gene regulation
Transcription and gene regulation Genome topology has emerged as a key player in all genome functions.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5837811/

6. Post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs) of histones affect gene transcription
Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of histones provide a fine-tuned mechanism for regulating chromatin structure and dynamics.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4099259/

7. The DNA methylation code is like a barcode or marker, the methyl group indicates, for instance, which genes in the DNA are to be turned on.
DNA methylation has several uses in the vertebrate cell. A very important role is to work in conjunction with other gene expression control mechanisms to establish a particularly efficient form of gene repression.
Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th Ed, 2008: Cell, page 467

8. Homeobox and Hox genes determine the shape of the body
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24996862.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

9. Noncoding DNA ( Junk DNA ) is transcribed into functional non-coding RNA molecules and switches protein-coding genes on or off.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4394429/

10. Transposons and Retrotransposons regulate genes
http://dev.biologists.org/content/143/22/4101

11. Centrosomes play a central role in development
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2734160/

12. The precise arrangement of Cytoskeletal arrays provides critical structural information.
The three major cytoskeletal filaments are responsible for different aspects of the cell’s spatial organization and mechanical properties.
Molecular Biology of the Cell By Bruce Alberts 6th. ed. page 889

13. Membrane targets provide crucial information—spatial coordinates—for embryological development.
Preexisting membrane targets, already positioned on the inside surface of the egg cell, determine where these molecules will attach and how they will function. These membrane targets provide crucial information—spatial coordinates—for embryological development.

14. Ion Channels and Electromagnetic Fields influence the form of a developing organism
https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/10243383/20151217_CO_Vanegas.pdf

15. The Sugar Code forms information-rich structures which influence the arrangement of different cell types during embryological development.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15174156

16. Egg-polarity genes encode macromolecules deposited in the egg to organize the axes
http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/alternative-rna-splicing-in-evolution

17. Hormones are special chemical messengers for development
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Human_Physiology/The_endocrine_system

rationalist said:

Aron: You could say that, but you'd be lying again. R4elgion is a bias by definition, but science seeks to minimize or eliminate bias however it can.
Reply: The creation-evolution debate is not religion versus science or the Bible versus science, it's about case-adequate accurate interpretation and inferences based on the scientific evidence versus inadequate interpretations. As pointed out previously, applying methodological naturalism to historical sciences is arbitrary and unjustified.

Click to expand...

Your own citation said otherwise!

rationalist said:

Inquiry of origins should permit the evidence to lead wherever it is, and not exclude any possible explanation a priori. The fact that science papers do not point to God, does not mean that the evidence unraveled by science does not point to God. Likewise, it's not faith versus reason, it's about reasonable faith, versus unreasonable faith.

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If there was evidence that pointed to God, you would have shown it by now. Instead you lie about science excluding the mysterious evidence you would not show, while at the same time saying that it is absurd and somehow unfair for us to even ask for evidence. You want special privilege for special pleading.

rationalist said:

Aron: I heard Sye Ten Bruggencate say that if you don't know everything, you don't know anything, and that the only way to anything is to know everything, or know someone who knows everything. But if you don't everything yourself, and you have to know everything to know anything, then how would you know if you knew someone who knew everything? Because by that logic, you couldn't even know even that!
Reply: If our biological features, and more importantly our cognitive machinery evolved from some random forces of nature can we trust our brain and our thinking? the very thinking, belief or trust in naturalism which are the products of blind or random forces of nature?? If we are just an evolved, ape-like being, the result of random mutations, why should someone believe in someone else's arguments? How could I trust that our rationale makes actually any sense?

“But then with me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
[ Charles Darwin To William Graham 3 July 1881]”

Click to expand...

There is another deceptive and misleading quote-mine. It is not surprising to hear a 19th century naturalist ponder questions this way, without going into depth in a letter to a friend about how the mind has been molded by our evolution, causing both our cognitive skill and our potential for self delusion. Conversely, if you're just the product of a golem spell, magically animated mud, AND you're required to believe impossible absurdities for no good reason, how could you trust anything? How could trust that reality is even real? A lot of you believers have a problem with that.

But what makes this mined-quote so deceptive is that you left out or ignored the main point in that letter, which came just before the part you snipped. Wherein Darwin said:


Darwin was, it seems, on the verge of pantheism, the worship of nature as a higher power. He never identified as atheist but rather agnostic, and he held that the universe and even evolution itself seemed to have purpose. Perhaps he had read Spinoza? Though he said he couldn't be sure of even that.

rationalist said:

Aron: You just have to take his word for it, same as you expect me to take yours.
Reply: I am not suggesting that you use blind faith, but Believing in something BECAUSE of the evidence. We hold a reasonable faith when we believe in something because it is the most reasonable conclusion from the evidence that exists. The Bible repeatedly makes evidential claims. It offers eyewitness accounts of historical events that can be verified archeologically, prophetically and even scientifically. We, as Christians are called to hold a REASONABLE FAITH that is grounded in this evidence.

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Yours is NOT a reasonable position. It is blind faith because there is no evidence. There is not one objectively verifiable fact that is either positively indicative or, or exclusively concordant with your god hypothesis. Just empty assertions of fables and folklore. The Bible makes evidential claims but can't back up those claims with evidence. You don't have "eyewitness accounts". You have unsupported and indefensible claims that many witnesses saw allegedly witnessed undead saints wandering the streets of Judea, but we don't have testimony from any of them, not even from the other gospels. Nor are there any historical events that can be verified. Because, as I said, we know that Adam & Eve are just a fairy tale, as are the Tower of Babel and the global flood of Noah's ark. We know that Jacob didn't really wrestle God, and that Jonah didn't really live three days inside a fish, and the sun was never stopped in the sky, and that Moses never parted the Red Sea. Egyptian folklore already included a tale about a Pharaoh folding a lake over like a black to retrieve things from the bottom. There is a growing consensus among historians that Moses was fictitious and an apparent compilation of at least four other characters.


So you can't verify the Bible archaeologically, nor scientifically since everything the Bible says about science is laughably wrong. Nor could you verify anything prophetically; especially all your prophesies have failed.

More importantly, you snipped and ignored evade my question, which was relevant and important. So here it is again:

Revelation is not a way of knowing things. Case in point, Sir Isaac Newton (possibly the most brilliant man who ever lived) was, embarrassingly enough, a deeply religious Christian and a creationist even by the modern definition. Newton declared that he had been specially chosen by God to receive a personal revelation leading to a greater understanding of the scriptures than that of any other man. By your logic, that means that he actually knows what he says he knows, even though he can't demonstrate that knowledge in any way. You just have to take his word for it, same as you expect me to take yours. Do you agree with that? That Sir Isaac Newton must have understood the scriptures better than you or anyone else; not because he is the smartest man in all of history, but because of his claim to divine revelation?

rationalist said:

Aron: Once again, I repeat, Hitchens' razor allows that what is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. Unsupported assertions have no more credence than claims that been disproved. So I am justified both scientifically and philosophically to reply "no there isn't" to your unsupported (and thus indefensible) empty assertion that there is a god.
Reply: You dodged my point. You accuse creationists to make absolute claims, but that's PRECISELY what YOU do !!

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I didn't dodge your point. I twice explained why I am scientifically and philosophically justified in saying there is no god and why you are not justified for saying there is one.

rationalist said:

No-one asserts the truth of Christianity without evidence - there is a huge amount of evidence, for those willing to consider it. You ask me to provide you evidence, but it doesn't matter what evidence I provide because you will dismiss it automatically--an action consistent with your belief that "there has never been a shred of evidence" for God's existence.

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Don't lie about me. You know as well as I do that you cannot produce scientific evidence in a discussion of science. Instead, you admitted (unwittingly) that your "evidence" was no more than the question-begging fallacy of circular reasoning routing back to the assumed conclusion, and that even that required a "leap of faith". You believe the claims in the Bible because the Bible says so, and you think the claim IS the evidence.

rationalist said:

Asking for 100 percent, to truly know what occurred in the past is unrealistic. We believe in lots of things with confidence even though we do not have absolute certainty. It is up to logic and the factors of different lines of evidence to determine what causes best to explain our origins. Every worldview, without exception, is a faith-based belief system, consisting of a set of statements the holder adopts as being true. Starting from this view, we can dispense with the foolish notion of "proof," as some are so quick to require. Instead of "proof" in the absolute sense, we proceed with examining the available evidence, which should point with confidence to the worldview that best accounts for that evidence.

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What you said above is actually true! I agree with this. Science is an investigation, not a "story" as you alleged earlier. Which means you contradicted yourself and employed another fallacy of the double-standard when you admitted that evidence of your position takes a "leap of faith" but that evidence of my position must be in the form of absolute proof.

rationalist said:

Science provides us with evidence. Based on it, we can make post-dictions in regard to the past. Historical sciences cannot go back with a time-machine and observe what happened back in the past. As such, abiogenesis, and macroevolution ( primary speciation ) cannot be demonstrated in as much as ID/creationism. This is not a dispute between religion and science, but good interpretations of the scientific evidence, and inadequate interpretations, which do eventually not fit well the data.

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While we don't have a time machine, we don't really need one either to disprove creationist claims nor to discover and trace certain developments in the history of life on earth. If you were capable of actual discussion, I could show you everything you really need to see. Because we really do have almost all the evidence you said did not exist.

rationalist said:

Aron: So George Harrison actually met his god in person, face to face. How do you explain that, Otangelo?
Reply:........ where you can actually obtain God perception.” Having a perception is not meeting God face to face.

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It is in this case, because you are ignoring what Harrison said "god perception" meant that: "You can actually see God, and Hear Him, play with Him. It might sound crazy, but He is actually there, actually with you." So Harrison said that he actually met his god in person, face to face. So I have to ask again, how do you explain that, Otangelo?

rationalist said:

Aron: Nor are we talking about absolutes. But you don't get to call it truth until you show the truth of it, to show that there is some truth to it, at least some basis in fact to what you're trying to sell. Then we have something to test to determine how true it is.
Reply: … we can never have perfectly clean-cut knowledge of anything. It is a general consequence of the approximate character of all measurement that no empirical science can ever make exact statements.
P. W. Bridgman; (1882-1961); The Logic of Modern Physics; 1927/1951; p33, 34

A typical epistemological lack of understanding common to atheists is how to setup a correct methodology to find the best answers in regards to origins and reality, and to assume that given further investigations, science will or can discover with absolute certainty and tell us what has happened in the past. The truth is, science is limited in that it does not grant absolute truth, but only yields degrees of probability or likelihood. Asking theists to prove that there is a God is silly.

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Here is that double-standard again. Where evidence of your position is a logically fallaceous leap of fiath in circular assumptions, but evidence of my position must be nothing short of "absolute truth", which I must interpret as absolute fact. OK. Let's look at that shall we?

Understand that a fact is a point of objectively erifiable data. Evidence is a body of facts that are positively indicative of and/or exclusively concordant with one available position or hypothesis over any other. By definition, the same fact cannot be evidence of two different mutually exclusive conclusions at the same time. That fact only becomes evidence once it indicates one or excludes the other.

Now, here are a list of such facts in evidence for evolution:

It is a fact that evolution happens, that biodiversity and complexity does increase, and that both occur naturally only by evolutionary means.

It is a fact that alleles vary with increasing distinction in reproductive populations, and that these are accelerated in genetically isolated groups.

It is a fact that natural selection, sexual selection, and genetic drift have all been proven to have predictable effect in guiding this variance.

It is a fact that significant beneficial mutations do occur and are inherited by descendant groups, and that multiple independent sets of biological markers exist to trace these lineages backward over many generations.

It is a fact that birds are a subset of dinosaurs the same way humans are a subset of apes, primates, eutherian mammals, and vertebrate deuterostome animals.

It is a fact that the collective genome of all animals has been traced to its most basal form, and that those forms are also indicated by comparative morphology, physiology, and embryological development.

It is a fact that every species on earth has definite relatives either living nearby or evident in the fossil record.

It is a fact that the fossil record holds hundreds of transitional species even according to its strictest definition, and that both microevolution and macroevolution have been directly observed.

Each of these are both positively indicative of evolution and each of them contradicts creationism.

Taking all of this into account, and remembering that we've been using evolutionary mechanisms through agricultural history as well livestock breeding, medicine, toxicology and now expanded applications in tracing genomic markers, it is fair and completely justified to say that evolution is a fact!

rationalist said:

Science isn’t in the business of proving things. Rather, science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data.

Science observes the Universe, records evidence, and strives to draw conclusions about what has happened in the past, is happening now, and what will potentially happen in the future, given the current state of scientific knowledge—which is often times woefully incomplete, and even inaccurate. The late, prominent evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson discussed the nature of science and probability several years ago in the classic textbook, Life: An Introduction to Biology, stating:

We speak in terms of “acceptance,” “confidence,” and “probability,” not “proof.” If by proof is meant the establishment of eternal and absolute truth, open to no possible exception or modification, then proof has no place in the natural sciences.

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When I say that I can prove evolution, I am using proof in the sense that a lawyer would, that proof is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn't have to go beyond UNreasonable doubt.

rationalist said:

Aron: Correction: We are neither foolish nor dishonest enough to assert anything as fact that is not evidently true, and we do not want to be fooled into believing things that have not been established or demonstrated, especially when there is literally not even a possibility to consider.
Reply: Has it been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt, that the natural world is all there is, and that there is nothing beyond it?

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You're also committing the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof when you say that atheists can't prove materialism, that the material world is all there is. You're forgetting that we're not saying that. You're the one saying there is a supernatural world too, and then demanding that we disprove your assertion, to prove a negative. No, positive claims require positive evidence. The truth is what the facts are, what we can show to be true, NOT whatever else we imagine or assume beyond that. So show me there is some truth to your claim, because if you can't, then there is no truth to it.

rationalist said:

Aron: Wrong. The logic is, as I just said, that we cannot honestly say that a god is possible until we have a precedent or parallel or verified phenomenon indicating such a possibility. If you can't show that possibility, then we would by lying to say there is one.
Reply: I disagree. As long as there is no logical contradiction, the God claim is a possibility and should be taken into consideration as a possible explanation of origins.

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You don't get to assert baseless speculation as though it was a matter of fact, for the same reason you can't just make up your own statistics either. Even if by sheer coincidence you're right, you'd still be lying. You have to SHOW that you're how and how we can know that.

rationalist said:

Aron: On that we agree, which is one of the reasons why atheists do not believe that everything came from nothing.
Reply: Krauss actually does.
Krauss claims that ABSOLUTELY nothing could have created our universe !!

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I know Krauss, and no he doesn't. If you read his book beyond just the title, you'd see he was being tongue in cheek with it. He had to redefine nothing as something. Even in the video you showed, (in which your misunderstanding was painfully childish) he talks about the fact that subatomic particles have been detected popping in and out of existence in a quantum vacuum. Thus, it is plausible. But that is not what he nor any other living physicist believes actually happened.

rationalist said:

1. The universe cannot be past eternal.
2. Neither could it be self-caused.
3. Therefore, it must have been caused by something else.
4. Since that cause created space, time, and matter, it must be above and beyond physical reality.
5. That cause must be timeless, spaceless, and personal.
6. We call it God.

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There is no such thing as "past eternal", and no one ever proposed such a thing. Nor was there necessarily a cause for something that was never caused, being as material energy is eternal even if time is not. If there was a cause, say for the inflation of the hypothesized singularity (if there was one) or for the acceleration of time from stasis, that cause might be the collision of cosmic membranes or a rupture in the space-time continuum into which material energy and space time flood in, initially as a singularity. It wouldn't necessarily have to be either spaceless or timeless, and certainly wouldn't and couldn't be "personal". Whatever it is, it will not be the Jewish tribal war god of Abraham who thought that the world was flat and that the sun orbits the earth inside a firmament.

rationalist said:

Carroll: "In my favorite cosmological model, which again is always subject to updating when new ideas or data come in, the universe doesn't have a beginning. It doesn't come into existence at a moment in time. It always existed.
Reply:

The universe and/or quantum effect potentials cannot be past eternal
https://***************************...cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124

Infinite regress (a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator - ad infinitum), like an infinite chain of toppling dominoes, is an IMPOSSIBILITY. Because you can’t have a chain of only “needy” finite effects. There must be a “non-needy” prime mover to start the chain of creator/created – cause and effect.

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rationalist said:

If we are starting to count from now. Whenever we stop counting and look back, there is always a finite number that was counted. If we stop counting after one million, it is a finite number. A trillion. Finite. it is impossible to complete an infinite series by addition. The series of past events is complete.

The Second Law points to: (1) a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and (2) an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”), thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal.

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Not necessarily for multiple reasons. Though I don't want to get into it because I'm not interested in theoretical physics, and most of what you bring up is completely irrelevant to the topic, which was supposed to be evolution.

rationalist said:

Aron: Then it is up to you to show that there is another world besides this one. Until you do, then we cannot honestly say that any supernatural other-world exists.
Reply: Burden of Proof : Are Theists the Only People Who Have it ?
https://******************************/t1873-burden-of-proof-are-theists-the-only-people-who-have-it
Atheists demand constantly for evidence of Gods existence, but never apply the same burden of proof to materialism.

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Once again, what you're calling materialism is the lack of any reason to believe in the supernatural world that you're claiming exists. The only way to prove materialism would be to prove that your imaginary alternative doesn't exist. You're asking us to prove a negative, which in this case is impossible. When really, we're not the ones asserting the negative, except in response to your unsupported and thus indefensible positive assertion that there is a supernatural. So meet your burden and prove it.

rationalist said:

21:03 Burden of proof
Common atheist fallacies: exposed !!


The position of weak atheists is nothing more than a complaint about what other people believe in, referencing God. I don't believe in UFOS, but I do not go around wearing a label pin or flag to identify as one who does not believe in UFOS. So there is a problem in the logic of this issue. If you do not believe in God, big deal, but what is it that you proactively believe in, what is your positive worldview that influences your moral values, your daily behavior, your motivations, your family life, your vote, in short: that regulates or laws your own personal life? A person ought to be identified by what they believe in , not by what they do not believe in. So this is a shell game, a parlor trick. ...

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We don't care what you believe, except when people who believe as you do are in charge of everything at every level of State and Federal government, and you are imposing your falsehoods onto sequestered students and enforcing your religious bigotry against our Constitutional rights.

rationalist said:

We totally understand why atheists avoid the burden of proof. We all know that atheists are the very definition of a "WIMP" and why? Because they always scream about "burden of proof" We both KNOW that if the burden of proof was placed on their tiny narrow shoulders, they will IMMEDIATELY COLLAPSE!! Their worldview is irrational and pathetic We don't mind to demonstrate why intelligence is an infinitely more adequate potent cause in comparison to - wait - what exactly ?!! There is NO ALTERNATIVE to an eternal necessary powerful Creator; Maybe rub that in the face will help to wake-up their brains and start thinking ?

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You're shifting the burden of proof again. That is another logical fallacy. You really can't think logically or rationally, can you? You're so tedious. All you do is make false claims of bigoted prejudice, and repeat them even after they've been repeatedly disproved. Then, after I requested that we whittle this down to the relevant material and stay on topic, you again inundate the thread with as much copy-pasta as you can, such that replying to you at all because a full-time job in which you never actually engage. You are, as others have observed an overtly dishonest and pointless troll.