one.opinion

That might be a good idea since you seem unable to react appropriately to scrutiny of your claims.

If reasoned conversation and biological fact are exasperating to you, then that might be a good indication that your hypothesis isn't a good one. Which do you think has more order - phosphates, nitrates, and hydrocarbon or DNA? And God made His living creatures with the capability for natural selection, countering the deleterious effects of mutations. Propose a mechanism for this. If there is a reduction in fitness, it is because of altered phenotype. Ok, but if it eventually manifests in phenotype, that's when natural selection acts to reduce the impact on the gene pool. So what you are proposing is just a population-wide deterioration in fitness without altered phenotype. How do you suppose that would actually work? This is an interesting thought experiment, but there is no physical explanation for how this would happen. This is why this research is so heavily dependent on Mendel's Accountant and not real world effects. First, I mentioned that the potential for mutation is limited in human oocytes, I did not say they were absent. Second, birth defects are clearly not genetic entropy, according to your explanation. Birth defects obviously result in lost potential for procreation. Now your argument is changing. Last post, viruses and bacteria were immune from genetic entropy due to short life span, now they have suffered significant genetic entropy. These two explanations are mutually exclusive. Which one do you prefer? Cool, then let's take a look. Show me something other than a computer simulation. Remember, your argument is that genetic entropy shows that life on earth can't be older than 6,000 years old. As far as I have seen, there is no solid evidence that genetic entropy is anything other than a thought experiment, let alone proof of the larger claim.

David, I prefer to discuss these things in a civil manner with you, but I am not above responding in kind when your arguments turn catty. Since I really don't want to get catty with you yet, please don't stoop to that level so I'm not tempted to follow you there. Now back to entropy. It is readily observable that an input of energy can increase order in living systems, so this argument really doesn't hold water. The sum of chemical reactions will indeed lead to overall entropy, but that principle doesn't apply directly to genes. To your credit, you have acknowledged the role of natural selection, but you are not fully acknowledging the importance of natural selection in countering any negative effects of mutations. Not at all. If you claim that a mutation is going to have a negative impact, that can only be through an altered phenotype. If you think the introduction of phenotype into the discussion, please explain how a mutation that doesn't alter phenotype might lead to loss of fitness. Think about this in practical terms instead of "natural selection." If negative mutations accumulate, they will naturally lead to decreased ability of any organism with those mutations to procreate. Other members of the population without those negative mutations are left to proliferate. This is not relevant beyond the age an organisms is capable of procreating. In fact, human oocytes become singled out in the fetus with no further replication of the DNA, limiting the opportunity for mutation. A short lifespan doesn't change the principles that genetic entropy would hypothetically be built upon. The idea is that mutations inevitably lead to entropy. Mutations are abundant in bacteria and even more pronounced in viruses. The length of a lifespan is irrelevant to the basic premise. If there is no evidence to support the hypothesis, that is a pretty good indication that common sense doesn't actually support it.

I know you are talking about the theological principles of primary import, I just don’t know why you consider those too vague. I think they are completely accurate. I suspect you are only claiming they are too vague rather than actually showing any errors because you know I have a point.

Yes, mutations are essential for evolution. That doesn’t mean the genetic entropy is a viable hypothesis. This is not correct. A vast majority of mutations are neutral. A very small proportion of mutations impact phenotype. Those that affect phenotype more frequently have a negative influence on fitness than positive, but those mutations that reduce fitness are removed from gene pools by natural selection. No, because natural selection works to remove those mutations that reduce fitness. This is speculation that contradicts evidence. If genetic entropy leads inevitably to extinction, then viruses and bacteria would have died out long ago. I’m the appropriate environments these can double in number in roughly 30 minutes. The genetic entropy hypothesis needs more than Mendel’s Accountant to support it. It needs real evidence.

Central tenets of theology are too vague? Really?

That's not evidence, David. You know this. The hypothesis that genomes are slowly eroding and leading to extinction is not supported by evidence.

Your claim that hotspots preclude common ancestry is not shared by the authors. That is not only untrue, but reveals your lack of understanding of this topic. Your new argument is completely inconsistent with your old one. ERVs cannot both show extreme identity in location and sequence due to hotspots AND simultaneously not show extreme identity and location. It is also physically impossible for 4 sequence to share a location with 14 sequences, yet you claim that I am bad at math. Further, you continue to ignore additional points I raised. This conversation takes too much time and is too frustrating for me to continue. I really don’t care enough about what you think to try to change your mind any longer.

The authors never made the claim you are making. You are misunderstanding, and therefore misinterpreting, the evidence. You don’t understand point 1 and won’t even touch point 2 or 3, yet you are going to ignore all of it and proclaim all of the evidence debunked.

This is a report regarding a couple of computer programs that Dr. Sanford believes show that genetic entropy proves that large-scale evolution is not possible. Computer programs are not evidence. What evidence do you have that supports the hypothesis of genetic entropy?

All you have demonstrated is a misunderstanding of the evidence. Look back at the first point I gave you.

That’s hardly a fair criticism when you don’t know what my claim is. From my perspective, there are several theological first order points. What you have listed are second or third order. First order points include: 1. God is creator of the universe and all things in it. 2. God created humans special and capable of communion with Him. 3. Humans rebelled and chose their own way rather than obedience to God. 4. The choice of disobedience broke the relationship between humans and God. 5. God foretold of an eventual way for that relationship to be restored.

Here are three main reasons why your explanation is insufficient. 1. You are mistaking a preference for an insertion site with a requirement. 2. You have not explained the identical outcomes of genetic decomposition in two separate species over tens of thousands of samples. 3. You have not explained how these tens of thousands of sequences have become fixated in the human genome in roughly 6,000 years. Fixated means that a sequence has increased in prevalence to the point that virtually all members of a population have the same feature. “It was debunked 23 years ago” is simply false.

Ah gotcha, thanks for the clarification. My scientific argument can be summed up as this - the evidence God had left us in His creation support an ancient universe, an ancient earth, and common descent of biological organisms. No one - Kent or otherwise - has destroyed this. My theological argument can be summed up as this - regardless of the time frame with which we view Genesis 1-3, the points of theological import are shared. For that reason, fighting, “destroying”, and demonizing the “other side” is pointless at best, and potentially harmful to our witness. Kent can do what he wants, it is just silly and false to claim he has “destroyed” anything. That would be ideal for such a debate, but they are all functionally just show - like the Gish gallop. This is not accurate. Molecular evolution (heritable change over time) is directly observable. The supporting evidence for larger scale change over time is abundant. Large scale evolution is supported by paleontology, biogeography, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and genetics. Hovind can believe what he wants. I don’t really care what he thinks. I’m not a natural thespian. I have a life. Those are several reasons I have zero interest in debating him. You won’t engage in ERV discussion. You metaphorically plug your ears and claim “debunked!” as if I haven’t countered your claim. Why would I put any effort into a different form of evidence when you won’t address ERVs? Of course He can, the evidence He left us simply suggests otherwise.

Yes, it's been my experience that whenever I see a YouTube video of a debate where someone "destroys" someone else (regardless of topic and/or viewpoint), it is almost certainly a matter of theater and not substance.

It seems that you are missing the point the retracted story you are referring to was retracted. An ivermectin study was also retracted because it was "full of lies". Somehow, I don't see that pop up in many of your arguments. Ah ok, just tossing out random aspersions instead of actually making a point. That's a pretty good strategy when you have nothing meaningful to build an argument upon. You claim you "already did" give an example of me "running to a liberal media". You certainly didn't "already do" this in this thread. I don't use "liberal media" as an argumentation source. The source is the Lancet article itself, quite obviously. Yamamoto claims that the article shows immune suppression, but it doesn't. Go back, look at the actual article. Show me where immune suppression is indicated. Here is the Yamamoto letter: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35659687/ Here is the Lancet article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8816388/pdf/main.pdf

You said earlier that Hovind "destroyed my argument", whatever that means. That's an empty boast since I've never debated him, nor ever plan to. I have no idea if I can "beat" him in a debate. I'm not interested in "beating" anyone. These "debates" usually boil down to who can talk the fastest and loudest and look the most proud while doing it.

As always, I'm happy to look at evidence with you. Let's have an evidence-based conversation about this.

This is an empty boast, with nothing to back it up.

This is often the case. However, the CDC is collecting information from hospitals and hospitals are not finding the need to correct their published numbers. Academic silo-ing has been significantly reduced with COVID. There are multitudes of researchers that have other areas of specialty that jumped in to help with COVID research. The collaboration has been unprecedented. If you are accusing COVID researchers of lying, you should probably have some sort of evidence ready. You showed me one individual working in an area that very few people were working on that was able to get away with repeatedly publishing false evidence. The situation is very different from what we see currently with COVID. Maybe you could provide an example rather than making vague derogatory statements. Agreed. That's why we have things like Dr. Yamamoto writing letters that get published even when he is misrepresenting his sources.

Hmmm… yet somehow, despite all the Kent Hovinds out there, the molecular basis for evolution remains a fact and evidence for broader evolution only strengthens with time.

No reason it couldn’t be both…

A bit of a tangential question, but should there really be a requirement for someone to share their “conversion experience” for us to accept that they believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?

I get information from peer-reviewed journals and government agencies that collect information from hospitals. I know some people don’t like that, but they really are better resources for accurate information than fringe websites and social media.

I stand corrected. You get your misinformed drivel from Libertarian websites. Thank you for the clarification.