Questions for Evolutionists

[Guest stray bullet]

According to Dr. Kent Hovind,( who offers 250,000 dollars to anyone that can provide scietific proof of evolution - www.drdino.com) the test of any theory is whether or not it provides answers to basic questions, Some well-meaning but misguided people think evolution is a reasonable theory to explain man's questions about the universe.  Evolution is not a good theory--it is just a pagan religion masquerading as science.  The following are some of the Basic questions Dr. Hovind asks.

Why do anyone listen to Kent Hovind when he has demonstrated over and over an complete lack of understanding when it comes to science, particularily biology?

The only thing he is good at is debating those unfamiliar with his tactics.

[Joy in the Journey]

Who is Kent Hovind

[Guest stray bullet]

Who is Kent Hovind 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A guy that got a "doctorate" in Christian Education from a degree mill and goes around pretending he's a scientist by calling himself a 'Doctor' and discussing evolution when he doesn't know the basic concepts of it.

[Bread_of_Life]

halifaxChristian

How are you? Glad to seer you back on the boards! It would seem though, that you're not at all glad to see me:

SA...stop hiding under the guise of "science".

"Guise" huh:

guise: n False appearance; pretense

Perhaps you would like to point out anything I've said (on these boards or elsewhere) that gives the false appearance of being science when it is not?

You agree that evolution has no explaination for life,

Correct, evolution is a theory about how life changed and changes - it is not a theory about how life came about. This crucial misunderstanding is one that I see you are still labouring under, despite my having made it clear in the past.

you have no explaination for the complexity and intelligence of RNA,

RNA isn't intelligent, nor have you been able to show that the evolution of intelligence is somehow similar to or related to the evolution or RNA. I did ask you to do this on another thread - and I'm afraid you were unable to do so.

and you have no explaination for the initial effect of creation.

Actually, vital difference, I don't think there is an explanation for this - therefore I am not too bothered about the fact that I lack an explanation.

Go ahead with your "attack" defense, and "straw man" defense...I see it coming.

I wasn't referring to you when I talked about strawmen, rather I was referring to Joy in the Journey. Please keep up.

But honestly, start answering legitimate questions from now on...for a change.

Psychologically, this is called "projection", a belief that others suffer from your own deficiencies.

Tim

I invite you to talk about the Bible with me- if not, then you may take up my offer ( which I once and now twice am extending to you ) to politely ignore each other until you are ready to talk Jesus- as that's all I'm concerned about

I'm happy to talk about the bible with you if you wish to start another thread. However, don't think I won't correct you on scientific matters, even if you do not specifically address me. No fossils have been found of such antiquity as you claim - and indeed nor do atheists on this board profess to believe in any scientific facts on the basis of authority, implied or explicit.

The fact that you know of some atheists that do is frankly your business - your post seemed (in fact it did) tar us all with the same brush, which was as inappropriate as your claims about fossils were inaccurate.

[Joy in the Journey]

The fact that you know of some atheists that do is frankly your business - your post seemed (in fact it did) tar us all with the same brush, which was as inappropriate as your claims about fossils were inaccurate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see...yet it's acceptable for you to tar all American Christians with the same brush of being scientifically illiterate and ignorant ? I could say the same thing to you mate- the fact that you know some American Christians who are scientifically illiterate and ignorant is frankly your business- but that too is inappropriate

I am on a crusade - to rid the world of scientific illiteracy and ignorance, one person at a time. The best and only place to start for that is an American Christian bulletin board, where scientific illiteracy, in my experience, is highest.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see where this could head- and I'm frankly not interested my friend. I really and truely have no desire to discuss science with you or anyone at this time. Thanks for the invite though

God bless you sir,

Tim

[sinnersavedbygrace]

(1)"Correct, evolution is a theory about how life changed and changes - it is not a theory about how life came about. This crucial misunderstanding is one that I see you are still labouring under, despite my having made it clear in the past."

(2)"Evolution is BIOLOGY and deals with life already being there and explains the diversity in living things."

(3)"Evolution has no explanation for the beginning of life. That is an entirely different topic, called abiogenesis. In the same way that the theory of gravity doesnt explain how the universe started, evolution doesnt explain how life started."

Abiogenesis= The supposed development of living organisms from nonliving matter. Also called autogenesis, spontaneous generation (www.dictionary.com)

If I'm mistaken please correct me. I was led to understand that evolutionary theory states that life began with abiogenesis. Life arose from non-living chemicals, in a sort of primordial soup. If evolutionists do not answer the question "how did life come to be?" Then they are left with another unanswered question. You can't simply begin with "evolution" as you all define it without first answering the question, "how did all the required materials needed for life to evolve come to exist?" You can't simply have life that is evolving without first having an origin of life. If there was nothing...then life...that points to intelligent design, a creator, not evolutionary theory which was popularized by Darwin in that Darwin gave the concept of macro-evolution a means or mechanism by which the process could be possible. "Small gradual changes over long periods of time".

(4)"4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?

Its not organised very well."

If you think matter is not organized very well then you are calling Stephen Hawking and others either liars or stupid. The proton is 1,836 times heavier then the electron. If this ratio were different, then the life-building molecules could not form, we'd have no chemistry and no life. Physicist Stephen Hawking says this "The remarkable FACT is that the values of these numbers seem to HAVE BEEN VERY FINELY ADJUSTED to make possible the development of life" (Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time- From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p.125) (caps mine)

Also Carbon only forms if it possesses a precise level of a nuclear property called "resonance" The slightest variation of resonance energy levels would not allow carbon to form, or instantly destroy it. Conditions need to be PERFECT, FINE-TUNED in order for this basic building block to form. When considering the probability of this fine-tuning the late astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle credited for the discovery of the resonances of carbon and oxygen atoms commented that it was virtually impossible that such resonances exist by chance. He concluded atheism was greatly shaken because of this discovery. (Fred Heeren, Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God, Wheeling, Ill.:Searchlight Publications, 1995, p.179)

On top of that the strengths of natures four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces) appear to be PERFECTLY balanced to permit a life-sustaining universe. If even one had a slightly different strength, such a universe would be impossible. Scientists have concluded that this precision can be accounted only by a Designer's guidance. Physicist Edward Kolb says "It turns out that 'constants of nature', such as the strength of gravity, have EXACTLY the values that allow stars and planets to form...The universe, it seems is FINE-TUNED to let life and consciousness flower." (Heeren p.184)(caps mine)

Agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow comments on the amazing PRECISION of the universe, "Astronomers now find that they have painted themselves into a corner because they have PROVEN, by THEIR OWN METHODS, that the world BEGAN abrubtly in AN ACT OF CREATION...and they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover.(Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, New York: W. W. Norton, 1978, p.15) (caps mine) Remember this guy doesn't even believe in God! Yet he knows one cannot deny the FACT that the universe was CREATED....Genesis 1:1...interesting....Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands".

(5)"and you have no explaination for the initial effect of creation."

"Actually, vital difference, I don't think there is an explanation for this - therefore I am not too bothered about the fact that I lack an explanation. "

:whistle

It seems that you don't think there is an explanation for the effect of creation... I may be wrong but I am led to think that you agree with Carl Sagan who said "The cosmos are all there is or was or ever will be". This is the idea of the universe being eternal, without a start, needing no starter (creator)

Aside from the proof given by agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow...

The Kalam Cosmological Arguement

Premise 1) everything that begins to exist has a cause

Premise 2) the universe began

Conclusion: The universe has a cause for it's existence

Premise 1 talks about the law of cause and effect

Premise 2 talks on behalf of 2 scientific evidences and one philosophical arguement

Scientific evidence 1) 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. (the energy in a closed system is becoming more disordered or breaking/running down) If the universe is eternal (infinite) and constantly decaying then why has the universe not run down yet?

Scientific evidence 2) this pertains to the expansion of the galaxies. Scientists know that the planets orbits are not constant but that the universe is expanding from a central point. This leads one to concluded that the universe BEGAN from a single point.

Philosophical arguement:

Premise 1) If an infinite number of moments occured before today, then today would never have come because it's impossible to pass through an infinite number of moments.

Premise 2) Today has come

Conclusion: Only a finite number of moments occured before today thus showing that the universe is not eternal, but began.

(5) "Actually, they won't. The oldest fossils ever found are 3.7 billion years old. The author here is mixing up the age of the earth with the age of life on earth. This is quite typical of creationists."

3.7 billion years old...

Is that enough time?

If I am not mistaken, I was told by several atheist evolutionsists who tried to convice me of evolutions validity said evolutionists rely upon a naturalistic mechanistic view for the origin of life. The mechanistic arguemenent goes like this: "So that if we had amino acids, we then would have proteins, and if we had proteins we would be well along the road to life. Given trillions upon trillions of possibilites for chemical combinations, given a few million years for it all to happen, the components of life would have appeared. And once that had been accomplished, once the bricks and the stones and the lumber for the building of life were present, then all that would have been required were a few more million years for life to actually appear" (Clifford D Sirnak, Trilobites, Dinosaurs and Man, New York: St. Martins Press, 1966, p.54)

The current most widely accepted age of the universe is 10 billion years old, with the earth being approx 4-5 billion years old. (Frank Wilczek, "The Comsic Assymetry between Matter and Antimatter," Scientific American, Dec.1980, p.83) Is that enough time for useful proteins to have formed? When it comes to insulin, Asimov estimates that there are 8x10^27 different possible combinations of an insulin-like protiein. (Isaac Asimov, The Genetic Code, New York: The New American Library, 1962, p.92) For the sake of the evolutionist lets assume that each second the universe existed a different combination of an insulin-like protein is produced. After 10 billion years we would have approx. 3x10^17 different combinations, about one ten-billionth of all the possible combinations. To be positive that we have the one combination the body uses we need to wait 10 billion times the presently supposed age of the universe. In other words, we need another one hundred quintillion years for all insulin-like combinations to be produced. When it comes to hemoglobin the chance formation is even less likely. Asimov estimates 135 followed by 165 zeroes as the different combinations of hemoglobin. Once again only a limited number of combinations are useful. Again for the evolutionist' sake lets assume that 10^100 different combinations are produced each second the universe existed. In reality this is impossible, because the total number of atoms in the observable universe is only 10^78. Thus our hemoglobin factory would comsume 10 sextillion universes every second simply to maintain that rate of production. Nevertheless, it would take 10 trillion trillion years for all the different combinations of hemoglobin to be produced. (P.C.W. Davis, "Dirac Completes His Theory of Large Numbers," Nature 250:460, 1974, cited in Mysterious Universe: A Handbook of Astronomical Anamalies, compiled by William R. Corliss, published 1979 by the Source Book Project) (Mcdowell & Stewart, Reasons,Wheaton Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 1981)

I hope this helps... By the way just for logic's sake...let me add Pascals Wager in here.

If you believe in God and He exists=you win everything

If you believe in God and He doesn't exist= you lose nothing

If you don't believe in God and He exists=you lose everything

If you don't believe in God and He doesn't exist= you win nothing

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in God.

I heard it said like this before

"I'd rather live my life as if there were a god, only to die and find out there is no god, rather then live my life as if there is no god, only to die and find out there is a god."

In other words...if you don't believe in God. YOU BETTER BE RIGHT!

Edited August 30, 2005 by sinnersavedbygrace

[sinnersavedbygrace]

I also forgot to add in my long post, that if you measure the rate at which the sun is shrinking and go back several billion years, you have the size of the sun engulfing the earth....oh and also...When we went to land on the moon, evolutionists were all excited because the moon is an undisturbed environment (no lightening, floods, earthquakes, lava etc) So they figured the best way to get an accurate age of the universe would be to measure the depth of the space dust on the surface of the moon. They knew a certain amount of spaced dust fell on the surface each year (I don't know the number) but they also assumed it would be some billions of years of space dust pilled up there, so they had NASA put on those big flat landing pads on the legs of the lunar-lander, so that the landing-pod would not sink in the deep dust. However when we landed on the moon they found only a small amount of space dust...suggesting the age of the moon to be only around 6,000 years old! Um...that disproves the theory of an old universe..NO IT DOESN'T! Ok well it at least disproves the theory I was taught in school and by some show on the National Geographic Channel...The theory that a huge meteor crashed into earth and killed the dinosaurs while chuncking a big chunk of earth into space, which is our moon. Because life couldn't have evolved from the dinosaur catastrophe to what we have now in 6,000 years...actually we have civilizations that date back 6,000 years...primarily Mesopotamia also Egypt dates to about 5,000-5,200 years ago. India civilizations date to 4,500 years ago and Chinese civilization dates to 4,100 years ago...and historians believe there were people much longer before that, it's just not until then that civilized peoples arose in that area, with the ability to write, build cities etc....And going back to the moon now...we know the moon is slowly moving away from earth...if you calculate the rate of moving away, then go back several billion years ago, you have the moon orbiting the earth at some 15-ish feet...big problem for tall dinosaurs and trees.

Edited August 30, 2005 by sinnersavedbygrace

[Bread_of_Life]

Joy in the Journey,

I see...yet it's acceptable for you to tar all American Christians with the same brush of being scientifically illiterate and ignorant ?

Firstly, I didn't. I said that the prevalence of scientific illiteracy amongst American Christians was, in my experience, is highest (it is lower among British Christians, or Atheists in either country imho).

Secondly, this was only in response to a direct question I was asked about why I was on these boards, as an atheist. The reason is, I want to combat scientific illiteracy, and I believe that is particularly high here. Every days sees more evidence that this is true.

I see where this could head- and I'm frankly not interested my friend. I really and truely have no desire to discuss science with you or anyone at this time. Thanks for the invite though

Then I would thank you for not making statements about science - for example, stating that there exist 4.6 billion year old fossils.

[fenwar]

The current most widely accepted age of the universe is 10 billion years old, with the earth being approx 4-5 billion years old. (Frank Wilczek, "The Comsic Assymetry between Matter and Antimatter," Scientific American, Dec.1980, p.83) Is that enough time for useful proteins to have formed? When it comes to insulin, Asimov estimates that there are 8x10^27 different possible combinations of an insulin-like protiein. (Isaac Asimov, The Genetic Code, New York: The New American Library, 1962, p.92) For the sake of the evolutionist lets assume that each second the universe existed a different combination of an insulin-like protein is produced. After 10 billion years we would have approx. 3x10^17 different combinations, about one ten-billionth of all the possible combinations. To be positive that we have the one combination the body uses we need to wait 10 billion times the presently supposed age of the universe. In other words, we need another one hundred quintillion years for all insulin-like combinations to be produced. When it comes to hemoglobin the chance formation is even less likely. Asimov estimates 135 followed by 165 zeroes as the different combinations of hemoglobin. Once again only a limited number of combinations are useful. Again for the evolutionist' sake lets assume that 10^100 different combinations are produced each second the universe existed. In reality this is impossible, because the total number of atoms in the observable universe is only 10^78. Thus our hemoglobin factory would comsume 10 sextillion universes every second simply to maintain that rate of production. Nevertheless, it would take 10 trillion trillion years for all the different combinations of hemoglobin to be produced. (P.C.W. Davis, "Dirac Completes His Theory of Large Numbers," Nature 250:460, 1974, cited in Mysterious Universe: A Handbook of Astronomical Anamalies, compiled by William R. Corliss, published 1979 by the Source Book Project) (Mcdowell & Stewart, Reasons,Wheaton Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 1981)

Arguments based on odds are deeply flawed. We're not talking about whether something might happen - either it did or it didn't.

The odds of winning the UK National Lottery jackpot are around 14 million to one. Does that mean you have to play the lottery 14 million times in order to win? Obviously not.

if you measure the rate at which...

And you can prove that that process always happened at the same rate...

With regards to the possibility of abiogenesis, you might want to read this article which describes a hypothetical process by which abiogenesis may have taken place.

Hope that helps,

Fenwar

[artsylady]

All scientific theories are falsifiable, and open themselves to scrutiny, or else they are ignored.

falsifiable

adj : capable of being tested (verified or falsified) by experiment or observation

From dictionary.com

How is the dinos to birds theory falsifiable?