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Tricks Theists Play (Part 1)


Uber Genius

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59 minutes ago, Tristen said:

We appear to be departing from courteous debate to the 'you don't know what you are talking about' phase of our discussion.

The reason why I find this particular argument so odd is that you do normally exhibit a high degree of knowledge about a variety of scientific topics.

59 minutes ago, Tristen said:

But because of the potential for genetic recombination (a non-mutational process operating on existing genetic information), there is enough information in those four genes to generate perhaps hundreds or more different versions of that same gene.

Are you claiming that the genetic diversity displayed in modern canids is due almost exclusively to recombination?

Also, you’ll need to explain why a crossover within a coding region would not be considered a “heritable change in DNA sequence” - ie, mutation.

Incidentally, when calculating mutation rates, scientists look at any changes within certain selected genes. The origin of the genetic change is irrelevant - it could be polymerase error, inversion, indel, or recombination product.

It is also worth remembering that recombination occurs roughly 2-3 times per mammalian chromosome, a rate much lower than other sources of mutation.

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4 hours ago, one.opinion said:

The reason why I find this particular argument so odd is ...

The reason why I find this particular argument so odd is that you do normally exhibit a high degree of knowledge about a variety of scientific topics

This statement again is pure innuendo. I've answered all your questions and objections. You haven't established that I've been wrong about anything I've said. So your insinuation about my supposed lack of knowledge has no rational basis. You've just arbitrarily assumed to adopt for yourself a superior posture in the conversation. You may imagine yourself that way, but it means nothing to me.

 

Are you claiming that the genetic diversity displayed in modern canids is due almost exclusively to recombination?

For the sake of argument, we have been dealing with a very simplistic genetic model. We have only touched on some of the complexities of the system contributing to phenotypic diversity. I haven't specifically looked at any dog genes so I'm not going to make claims about how the diversity was carried in the ancestors. But I know that the rate at which new traits appeared in dog breeds means that most, if not all, of that diversity was present in their ancestors only two hundred years ago. And that is sufficient to demonstrate that highly diverse ancestor groups can quickly differentiate into diverse sub-groups without the necessary involvement of mutations.

 

Also, you’ll need to explain why a crossover within a coding region would not be considered a “heritable change in DNA sequence” - ie, mutation

The word “mutation” refers to and error occurring in the reproduction of a DNA sequence – such that the information contained in the sequence has been corrupted from its initial state. Recombination is the clean exchange between homologous sequences in chromosomes. No information has been lost or damaged. It's a mechanism built into the system for direct information exchange. Mutations represent unintentional errors, recombinations are part of the cell-cycle process.

So short answer – they are different kind of “changes”.

Crossing over is not considered a “mutation” unless it doesn't work properly (i.e. unless it damages the sequence in an unclean exchange).

 

 

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3 hours ago, Tristen said:

This statement again is pure innuendo. I've answered all your questions and objections. You haven't established that I've been wrong about anything I've said.

You take it as innuendo for me to point out that you are flat wrong in your thinking about genetic diversity and how it arises. But I assure you, I am not belittling or denigrating you at all, merely attempting to correct error. I will be dropping this conversation since you are beginning to take it personally. Since you do not trust my scientific knowledge on this subject, let me share a quote from an AiG article.

Quote

As an additional point of clarification, our CHNP model does not reject the operation of mutations, transposition events, or the like. Instead, we propose that 'kinds' started with heterozygous genomes and that the genetic variety in these genomes was modified not only by recombination and other reshuffling processes but also by mutation processes - only at rates consistent with documented genetic processes and parameters.

(emphasis mine)

https://assets.answersingenesis.org/doc/articles/pdf-versions/arj/v9/genetics-heterozygosity-molecular-clock.pdf

Their CHNP model is "created heterozygosity plus natural processes". You seem to have a very similar model of your own, but lack the realization that mutation would be necessary to a feasible model.

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7 hours ago, one.opinion said:

You take it as innuendo for me to point out that you are flat wrong in your thinking ...

You take it as innuendo for me to point out that you are flat wrong in your thinking about genetic diversity and how it arises. But I assure you, I am not belittling or denigrating you at all, merely attempting to correct error

I understand that you think I'm “wrong”, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. But for you to simply claim my “error”, then presume you are right to the point of insinuating I lack knowledge, is fallacy. If I lack knowledge, then provide that knowledge in a context of argument and evidence. We were exchanging arguments in a courteous conversation. You don't get to suddenly switch it up and assume a posture of intellectual superiority – just because you think you're right.

 

I will be dropping this conversation since you are beginning to take it personally

Have you ever had someone tell you you were upset when you weren't? - it's frustrating. All that happened is I noticed the conversation starting to descend into fallacy and called you on it. If you want to drop the conversation, then that's on you. But don't pretend you are adopting some kind of moral high ground to protect my feelings.

 

Since you do not trust my scientific knowledge on this subject

You mean - since I disagree with you and can argue my position?

 

let me share a quote from an AiG article

I have no technical disagreement with anything in the quote.

 

You seem to have a very similar model of your own, but lack the realization that mutation would be necessary to a feasible model

The quote didn't say that “mutation would be necessary to a feasible model”. They simply acknowledged that mutations likely did contribute – which I have also done – on several occasions. I didn't look at the context, but it seems that the whole point of that quote was to head off the same kind of issue you have with my claims about mutation being logically unnecessary for diversity. Obviously, I am not the first creationist to encounter this confusion between statements of potential, and truth statements.

 

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Even in the face of quote from a paper from Jeanson and Lisle that includes mutation into their model, you insist that mutation isn’t necessary. If the model is heterozygosity + recombination + mutation = current diversity, then what would you expect if a critical component of their model is subtracted? Please just give it some thought instead of dismissing it out of hand.

7 hours ago, Tristen said:

You mean - since I disagree with you and can argue my position?

You haven’t argued your position with data or facts, only a hodgepodge  of guesses.

7 hours ago, Tristen said:

But don't pretend you are adopting some kind of moral high ground to protect my feelings.

The reason why I will be dropping this conversation after this post is not because I am “adopting some kind of moral high ground”, it is because you are increasingly reacting as though I am personally attacking you, rather than your argument. If your feelings are hurt, it is not through a fault of mine.

 

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3 hours ago, one.opinion said:

Even in the face of quote from a paper from Jeanson and Lisle ...

 

Even in the face of quote from a paper from Jeanson and Lisle that includes mutation into their model, you insist that mutation isn’t necessary. If the model is heterozygosity + recombination + mutation = current diversity, then what would you expect if a critical component of their model is subtracted? Please just give it some thought instead of dismissing it out of hand

I didn't dismiss anything. I explicitly agreed with everything in the provided quote (though I was not obligated to do so). For some reason, you are having trouble distinguishing between claims about what is logically required, and claims about what actually happened.

 

You haven’t argued your position with data or facts, only a hodgepodge of guesses

This is just more meaningless innuendo. You haven't delved any deeper into the “data or facts” than I have.

 

The reason why I will be dropping this conversation after this post is not because I am “adopting some kind of moral high ground”, it is because you are increasingly reacting as though I am personally attacking you, rather than your argument. If your feelings are hurt, it is not through a fault of mine

Agreed – if my feelings were hurt, it would be completely on me – even if I did think you were attacking me. But that's all in your head. All I did was call you on fallacy.

 

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11 hours ago, Tristen said:

For some reason, you are having trouble distinguishing between claims about what is logically required, and claims about what actually happened.

I guess I just prefer a model based on what actually happened. Why not use a model that includes the mutations that you admit have happened? If you do respond to this question, I solemnly swear to THEN drop my participation that I seem to be unable to make myself drop. ?

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6 hours ago, one.opinion said:

I guess I just prefer a model based on what actually happened. Why not use a model that includes the mutations that you admit have happened? If you do respond to this question, I solemnly swear to THEN drop my participation that I seem to be unable to make myself drop. ?

I guess I just prefer a model based on what actually happened. Why not use a model that includes the mutations that you admit have happened?

That is my model. But “what actually happened” was not the point we were discussing. We were discussing the theoretical limits of genetic diversity from a starting population of two, and thereby, whether or not diversity was logically reliant on mutations - and specific estimations of mutation rates.

I stated several times that I acknowledge the reality of mutations occurring and contributing to diversity – but the question we were dealing with was 'can significant diversity arise by mechanisms other than mutations?'. The answer is 'yes it can', which is a logically different claim to 'yes is did'. Since diversity can arise by mechanisms other than mutations, you can't ascribe to my model mutation rate estimates from models that assume practically all diversity arose ultimately by mutations.

 

If you do respond to this question, I solemnly swear to THEN drop my participation that I seem to be unable to make myself drop. ?

I'm happy to keep going if you have more questions or comments.

 

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On 1/1/2019 at 11:32 PM, Tristen said:

Ayoung earth creation model” doesn't “require” mutations at all.

But if you admit that mutation took place, I do not understand why you believe the observed diversity could have occurred without it. As I asked earlier:

If the model is heterozygosity + recombination + mutation = current diversity, then what would you expect if a critical component of their model is subtracted?

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On 12/4/2018 at 11:44 AM, Uber Genius said:

In 2001 or 2002 I was invited by a Christian friend to see a presentation by an Aussie named Ken Ham. It was not just eye-opening, but a jaw-dropping experience.

I listened for an hour to claims about scripture which were not supported historically or from scripture. But more disturbing was the misrepresentation about scientific claims, scientific knowledge, and how one should approach these discussions with "skeptics."

Now I have no intention of being drawn into debates about young-earth vs. old-earth theories, or detailed entailment so of "How God created." My primary concern is to highlight bad arguments coming from Ham and his ministry. My hope is that I can dissuade theists from using such constructions in favor of sound and compelling rational arguments. 

Now Ham has changed some of his approach in the last 15 years so my notes may no longer be representative of his views.

1 - Evolution and the Big Bang Model of cosmology are just "Theories!"

Now if you have read some of my other, "Tricks," treads you will be familiar with this informal fallacy...equivocation.

The Oxford dictionary defines the word "Equivocation," as, "The use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself."

This equivocation is always meant to deceive. But it only deceives the uneducated and those to lazy to do the research.

"Theory" in scientific parlance means an inductive inference about the data that has withstood the test of time, hundreds or thousands of confirmatory experiments, and is accepted by all the experts as knowledge.

In common usage it is equivocal to a hypothesis. That is a inference that explains data.

The trick Ham wants you to miss is he is substituting common usage for scientific usage. Just the way new atheists often want to misrepresent atheism as lack of belief or faith as a way of knowing. If we doesn't pay attention to the fact that "atheism" and "faith" have specific meanings in the fields of philosophy and theology respectively, we can be dragged into equivocations meant to misguide and conflate, with statements like, "common usage is ..."

2 - "Where you there?"

Here we find the most damning argument against Ham and his methodology. After Ham's presentation a student asked the question, "How do you account for all the dinosaur fossils that are millions of years old." Without missing a beat Ham responded, "We're you there?" 

His point was to create skepticism about scientific findings unless we had first-hand knowledge of the events.

I decided not to embarrass the fellow. But I did ask him after the talk how he demonstrated the validity of the historical info about Jesus' death and resurrection. He blurted out a bunch of one-liners, to which I responded, "Where you there?" Puzzled, he hesitated and then kept giving me evidence as if he had deleted the cognitively dissonant revelation altogether.

Point is Ham's epistemic approach destroys all scientific and historical knowledge. In fact legal knowledge is greatly injured as well as no one on a jury could every "know' something based on eye-witness testimony.


Ham is perhaps the Christian equivalent of the plethora of Internet infidels found out on places like YouTube. This is a step below the new atheists in that they are unaware of historic claims, and philosophical claims, and logic in general. Both appeal to a poorly educated audiences focusing on rhetorical flourish alone. (P.S. I have relatives that fall for this Answers in Genesis propaganda)

Please share other theistic tricks you have run into.

However, beware not to regurgitate internet infidel propaganda mindlessly. They create straw men of theistic arguments and attack those as "fallacious." 

Straw arguments always make poor substitutes for real ones.

:24:

Poor Brother Ken

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2 Timothy 4:2

Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago. https://intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/

~

Did Bill Nye

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. Psalms 14:1

When attacking opponents, Darwin lobbyists typically define “theory” as “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, and tested hypotheses” (National Academy of Sciences, 1999) or “a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence” (National Academy of Sciences, 2008). Using such definitions, saying the “theory of evolution” now necessarily implies an idea that is “well-substantiated” and “supported by a vast body of evidence.” Darwin lobbyists then scold those who say that “evolution is just a theory” as misunderstanding the definition of the term “theory” and also mock them for unwittingly implying that evolution is well-supported. But is that what “theory” really means?

Kosso observes that in practice, the term “theory” says little about the degree of certainty that characterizes an idea. As he notes “neither ‘theoretical’ nor ‘law’ is about being true or false, or about being well-tested or speculative.”

How does Kosso define theory? He writes that “all theories describe objects or events that are not directly observable. This is the core concept of theory. A theory describes aspects of nature that are beyond (or beneath) what we can observe, aspects that can be used to explain what we observe.” He continues:

Germs, atoms, caloric, curved spacetime, and elemental strings are all, to one degree or another, unobservable. That’s what makes them theoretical. But that doesn’t make them unreal.

Kosso goes on to explain that saying something is a “theory” doesn’t necessarily imply it is a “fact,” or even that it is well-supported by the evidence: https://evolutionnews.org/2011/08/evolution_as_both_theory_and_f/

That Shameless Militant Guy

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Proverbs 30:5-6
Ever Show Jesus A Thing Or Two Or Three

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:  Ephesians 3:5

On the Steady State Theory published in 1948 by Fred Hoyle: 

The steady state was extremely unpopular because by then people liked the idea of a beginning. They liked it for religious reasons because it smells of the Old Testament. And the West likes the idea; after all, the pope endorsed it among other people. But Fred gave an infamous lecture to the Royal Society in 1968 called ‘Eight Crises,’ where he showed that one observation after another, observations with which big bang proponents claimed to shoot down the steady state, did not shoot it down. So people did not like the theory, but it was an alternative to the big bang. 

There are lots of things we don’t understand. Really what has happened over the years is that people have just made mistakes. Einstein made a mistake by assuming that we live in a static universe; Gamow made a mistake by originally underestimating the age of the universe—even aged 10x his ideas can’t be made to work.

Nowadays, people are invoking all kinds of things to make galaxies in the early universe, and they can’t do that without invoking the presence of nonbaryonic or dark matter. There is no evidence for this at all. It is like the ether of the old days, but they can’t make galaxies without it because they need extra gravity without other interactions. They also want an inflation period—which they don’t understand.” http://www.vision.org/burbidge-interview-big-bang-probably-not-correct-1248

~

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10

:emot-heartbeat:

Be Blessed Beloved Of The KING

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them. Numbers 6:24-27

Love, Your Brother Joe

~

 

Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. Psalms 119:160

 

 

 

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable.

Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword and the Christian’s charter. Here too, Heaven is opened and the gates of Hell disclosed.

Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently and prayerfully.  It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure.

It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

From The Inside Of My Gideon New Testament

Edited by FresnoJoe
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