As an ID proponent and creationist, the irony is that at the time in my life where I have the greatest level of faith in ID and creation, it is also the time in my life at some level I wish it were not true. I have concluded if the Christian God is the Intelligent Designer then he also makes the world a miserable place by design, that He has cursed this world because of Adam’s sin. See Malicious Intelligent Design.
Jesus prophesied of the intelligently designed outcome of humanity: “wars and rumors of wars..famines…pestilence…earthquakes.” If there is nuclear and biological weapons proliferation, overpopulation, destruction of natural resources in the next 500 years or less, things could get ugly. If such awful things are Intelligently Designed for the trajectory of planet Earth, on some level, I think it would almost be merciful if the atheists are right….
The reason I feel so much kinship with the atheists and agnostics at TSZ and elsewhere is that I share and value the skeptical mindset. Gullibility is not a virtue, skepticism is. A personal friend of Richard Dawkins was my professor and mentor who lifted me out of despair when I was about to flunk out of school. Another professor, James Trefil, who has spent some time fighting ID has been a mentor and friend. All to say, atheists and people of little religious affiliation (like Trefil) have been kind and highly positive influences on my life, and I thank God for them! Thus, though I disagree with atheists and agnostics, I find the wholesale demonization of their character highly repugnant — it’s like trash talking of my mentors, friends and family.
I have often found more wonder and solace in my science classes than I have on many Sunday mornings being screamed at by not-so-nice preachers. So despite my many disagreements with the regulars here, because I’ve enjoyed the academic climate in the sciences, I feel somewhat at home at TSZ….
Now, on to the main point of this essay! Like IDist Mike Gene, I find the atheist/agnostic viewpoint reasonable for the simple reason that most people don’t see miracles or God appearing in their every day lives if not their entire lives. It is as simple as that.
Naturalism would seem to me, given most everyone’s personal sample of events in the universe, to be a most reasonable position. The line of reasoning would be, “I don’t see miracles, I don’t see God, by way of extrapolation, I don’t think miracles and God exists. People who claim God exists must be mistaken or deluded or something else.”
The logic of such a viewpoint seems almost unassailable, and I nearly left the Christian faith 15 years ago when such simple logic was not really dealt with by my pastors and fellow parishioners. I had to re-examine such issues on my own, and the one way I found to frame the ID/Creation/Evolution issue is by arguing for the reasonableness of Black Swan events.
I will use the notion of Black Swans very loosely. The notion is stated here, and is identified with a financeer and academic by the name of Nasim Taleb. I have Taleb’s books on investing entitled Dynamic Hedging which is considered a classic monograph in mathematical finance. His math is almost impenetrable! He is something of a Super Quant. Any way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:
1.The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology.
2.The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).
3.The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event’s massive role in historical affairs.Unlike the earlier and broader “black swan problem” in philosophy (i.e. the problem of induction), Taleb’s “black swan theory” refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.[1] More technically, in the scientific monograph Silent Risk , Taleb mathematically defines the black swan problem as “stemming from the use of degenerate metaprobability”.[2]
….
The phrase “black swan” derives from a Latin expression; its oldest known occurrence is the poet Juvenal’s characterization of something being “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno” (“a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan”; 6.165).[3] When the phrase was coined, the black swan was presumed not to exist. The importance of the metaphor lies in its analogy to the fragility of any system of thought. A set of conclusions is potentially undone once any of its fundamental postulates is disproved. In this case, the observation of a single black swan would be the undoing of the logic of any system of thought, as well as any reasoning that followed from that underlying logic.Juvenal’s phrase was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement of impossibility. The London expression derives from the Old World presumption that all swans must be white because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers.[4] In that context, a black swan was impossible or at least nonexistent. After Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Western Australia in 1697,[5] the term metamorphosed to connote that a perceived impossibility might later be disproven. Taleb notes that in the 19th century John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification.[6]
The very first question I looked at when I was having bouts of agnosticism was the question of origin of life. Now looking back, the real question being asked is “was OOL a long sequence of typical events or a black swan sequence of events.” Beyond OOL, one could go on to the question of biological evolution. If we assume Common Descent or Universal Common Ancestry (UCA), would evolution, as a matter of principle, proceed by typical or black swan events or a mix of such events (the stock market follows patterns of typical events punctuated by black swan events).
If natural selection is the mechanism of much of evolution, does the evolution of the major forms (like prokaryote vs. eukaryote, unicellular vs. multicellular, etc.) proceed by typical or black swan events?
[As a side note, when there is a Black Swan stock market crash, it isn’t a POOF, but a sequence of small steps adding up to an atypical set of events. Black Swan doesn’t necessarily imply POOF, but it can still be viewed as a highly exceptional phenomenon.]
Without getting into the naturalism vs. supernaturalism debate, one could at least make statements whether OOL, eukaryotic evolution (eukaryogenesis), multicellular evolution, evolution of Taxonomically Restricted Features (TRFs), Taxonomically Restricted Genes (TRGs), proceeded via many many typical events happening in sequence or a few (if not one) Black Swan event.
I personally believe, outside of the naturalism supernaturalism debate, that as a matter of principle, OOL, eukaryogenesis, emergence of multicellularity (especially animal multicellularity), must have transpired via Black Swan events. Why? The proverbial Chicken and Egg paradox which has been reframed in various incarnations and supplemented with notions such as Irreducible Complexity or Integrated Complexity or whatever. Behe is not alone in his notions of this sort of complexity, Andreas Wagner and Joe Thornton use similar language even though they thing such complexity is bridgeable by typical rather than Black Swan events.
When I do a sequence lookup at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI), it is very easy to see the hierarchical patterns that would, at first glance, confirm UCA! For example look at this diagram of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP) to see the hierarchical patterns:
From such studies, one could even construct Molecular Clock Hypotheses and state hypothesized rates of molecular evolution.
The problem however is that even if some organisms share so many genes, and even if these genes can be hierarchically laid out, there are genes that are restricted only to certain groups. We might refer to them as Taxonomically Restricted Genes (TRG). I much prefer the term TRG over “orphan gene” especially since some orphan genes seem to emerge without the necessity of Black Swan events and orphan genes are not well defined and orphan genes are only a subset of TRGs. I also coin the notion of Taxonomically Restricted Feature (TRF) since I believe many heritable features of biology are not solely genetic but have heritable cytoplasmic bases (like Post Translation modifications of proteins).
TRGs and TRFs sort of just poof onto the biological scene. How would we calibrate the molecular clock for such features? It goes “from zero to sixty” in a poof.
Finally, on the question of directly observed evolution, it seems to me, that evolution in the present is mostly of the reductive and exterminating variety. Rather than Dawkins Blind Watchmaker, I see a Blind Watch Destroyer. Rather than natural selection acting in cumulative modes, I natural selection acting in reductive and exterminating modes in the present day, in the lab and field.
For those reasons, even outside the naturalism vs. supernaturalism debate, I would think a reasonable inference is that many of the most important features of biology did not emerge via large collections of small typical events but rather via some Black Swan process in the past, not by any mechanisms we see in the present. It is not an argument from incredulity so much as a proof by contradiction.
If one accepts the reasonableness of Black Swan events as the cause of the major features of biology, it becomes possible to accept that these were miracles, and if Miracles there must be a Miracle Maker (aka God). But questions of God are outside science. However, I think the inference to Black Swan events for biology may well be science.
In sum, I think atheism is a reasonable position. I also think the viewpoint that biological emergence via Black Swan events is also a highly reasonable hypothesis even though we don’t see such Black Swans in every day life. The absence of such Black Swans is not necessarily evidence against Black Swans, especially if the Black Swan will bring coherence to the trajectory of biological evolution in the present day. That is to say, it seems to me things are evolving toward simplicity and death in the present day, ergo some other mechanism than what we see with our very own eyes was the cause of OOL and bridging of major gaps in the taxonomic groupings.
Of course such a Black Swan interpretation of biology may have theological implications, but formally speaking, I think inferring Black Swan hypotheses for biology is fair game in the realm of science to the extent it brings coherence to real-time observations in the present day.
You are quote mining again.
stcordova,
Do specialists in the field also think that all other dating methods are wrong, but the carbon date accurately dates deposition?
I do wonder how equilibrium concentrations of C14 are supposed to have been arrived at so quickly in the atmosphere immediately after Creation. You can’t use C14 ratios now to date if they were not the same when laid down.
stcordova,
Why do limestones above and below coal show no C14? Indeed, this fact is a caution when dating shells of organisms in lime-rich waters – they have much less C14 than would be expected if the carbon were atmospherically sourced, and hence give wrong dates.
The bigger problem is quote mining. Sal has presented a false dichotomy. Uranium induced C14, or Jesus.
Pathetic.
Which is decoupled from the notion of functionality in the medical and engineering sense which the renders the idea of constantly increasing fitness to be decoupled from cumulative selection of more and more complexity.
Which makes it possible for Natural Selection to be a Watch Destroyer, not blind watchmaker.
Non sequitor.
Sal, What was your definition again of the cost of natural selection? Didn’t it include over-reproduction?
Have you forgotten your pseudo-Second Law argument?
How does ANNIHILATOR work in a population that is increasing?
Just curious.
From Sal’s link, where he implied that a published paper supported his YEC fantasy.
Good point, otherwise the coal dates would likely be 5,000 years not 50,000 if equilibrium had been reached. 🙂
I’m kind of curious, Sal, why you say “Lowe hits at capitulation,” when he does no such thing.
He provides a perfectly reasonable explanation, which you just happened to have omitted from your discussion.
I am not permitted to question your sincerity, but I would point out that when creationists make a cottage industry of quote mining and omitting original author’s full arguments, it looks like either dishonesty or stupidity.
It would be simpler just to present the best case made by your reference author and counter it with your best case.
Then you could avoid looking like an IDiot.
We all want that, don’t we?
And Petrushka doesn’t notice Lowe’s explanation for the anomaly suffers from 2 serious problems.
1. If the bacteria are eating the whatever is in the coal deposit, and the deposits have become C14 free, the bacteria’s carbon will be c14 free.
2. A contamination in situ by new carbon will itself be C14 free. There is a small window of time (geologically speaking) when the C14 can be a viable contaminant.
The oversight by Lowe is breath taking, but that is one that most evolutionists don’t even consider, so Lowe is not alone. You obviously didn’t see the flaw of Lowe’s logic.
For the record, I’m not saying Lowe deliberately supports YEC, I’m just showing he unwittingly supports YLC (Young Life Creation).
Lowe has his opinions, but look at the facts. The fossils themselves attest to their own recent death, not millions of years. Additionally now that we have the NIH NCBI gene banks we might be able to show the lack of INTRA-species variation is so small in certain genes presumed to show evolutionary clocks that it demonstrates all species on the planet are relatively recent in phenomenon and the phylogenetic interpretation of the hierarchies (like those in the OP with the Bone Morphogenetic Protein) are best explained by common design and are incompatible with common descent.
I provided a link.
And if I cut and pasted the whole article you’d find a way to complain about that too. I just highlight what I think are relevant sections.
C14 is there, though dilute, it is ubiquitous and where it shouldn’t be.
You are not obligated to quote the entire article, just not omit the authors conclusion.
Bless your heart, Sal, for providing a link.
But the fact that you chose to quote an irrelevant part of the article makes you look stupid.
And in your follow-up, you again ignored the relevant part of the article.
Again, stupid.
People who want a serious discussion of C14 in coal might start here.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c14.html
It does not take Lowe for granted, and it discusses more recent work.
OK, this is Lowe’s illogical conclusion:
The problem is if new carbon is introduced into the old fossil and thus adding C14, the new carbon will become C14-free in short order (geologically speaking, say 200,000 years for practical purposes). So now the contaminant adds to the mass of the fossil with even more C14-free carbon! Now it will take even more added contaminant to maintain a false age of 50,000 years. Like a compounding interest problem, the amount of necessary contaminant to maintain a false age is exponentially increasing. Oops.
The solution to the paradox is the time of death is recent, not millions of years ago.
I just provided at least 3 lines of evidence of genetic deterioration in the human line. If I’m cherry picking, at least I have cherries to pick which is apparently more than what my detractors can offer regarding human deterioration, since the cherry of “the human genome is improving” seems to be totally non-existent. So I’m left apparently with the facts being on my side for the claim of human genetic deterioration. But of course, nothing to ultimately gloat about since it’s a sad fact. As I said, on some level I wish I were wrong, but those are the facts.
Two things:
First, you dishonestly implied that Lowe offered no explanation. That is just stupid, because when you click on the link, it becomes clear that he offers an explanation.
The dishonesty and stupidity of quote mining is completely independent of whether arguments are good or not. If you want to be perceived as an honest person, don’t quote mine.
Second, Lowe’s dismissal of radiation was premature. See the link I provided.
One more thing. There are coal deposits that date older that 50,000 years. Prima facie evidence that those that date younger have something going on other than YEC.
The only relevant criterion for the viability of a species is viability of the species.
Didn’t you provide this in your pseudocode for Annihilator? Birth rate >= death rate?
You are confounding natural selection with artificial selection, in which attributes are arbitrary and may have nothing to do with reproductive fitness. Kind of Nazi, to be honest. And I don’t excuse scientists either.
stcordova,
You’d think someone would want to cross-check in some way, rather than publish 50,000 years on a constant assumption. What about the limestones? Why no C14 in them? They sit both above and below (interleaved, indeed).
I don’t it was dishonest on my part. Honestly. But to make you happy, here is the explanation Lowe offered.
There are you happy now.
The NCSE (National Center for Selling Evolution) falsely claims C14 can’t be detected in objects past 40,000-50,000 years which is measured as 0.79%-0.23% PMC (Percent Modern Carbon) by an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) machine.
half life C14 = 5,730
(1/2)40,000/5730 = 0.79%
(1/2)50,000/5730 = 0.23%
Actual AMS equipment is rated to detect 0.002% pmc which translates into about 84,000 years.
-log2(.002%)*5730 = 83,823 years
You can see for yourself a compilation of PMC levels that Dr. Giem put together from MAINSTREAM journals. http://www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm
So what is the Old-Fossilist explanation for these “anomalies”? These “anomalies” aren’t just isolated but are ubiquitous (like the entire Caboniferous “era” of supposedly 300,000,000 years ago).
Their answer is contamination. How hard is to contaminate 1 part in 1,000 (0.1%)?
Hypothetically take a 10 litre (2.6 gallon) solid chunk of coal that has hypothetically no C14 in it. Imagine having to mix 10 millilitres (about 2 teaspoons) into that chunk of coal.
Well here is the problem, if the coal is solid, it’s going to be hard to force that 2 teaspoons of contaminant into the entire 2.6 gallon coal sample.
I could smear the contaminant over the surface, but then an experimenter could simply peel away the outer layers before making a C14 test. In fact, I could throw the chunk of coal into a box with modern carbon an bury it for a year. Do you think the carbon will some how seep into the 10 litre chunk of coal? How about pouring water over the buried coal? How about throwing bacteria on the chunk of coal to boot?
After all these attempts at contamination, we take the 10 litre chunk of coal out, peel away the outer layers — in fact peel away every think except maybe the inner core of 1 litre. Do you think it will be contaminated enough to give a 50,000 year date (0.23 PMC)? I don’t. But there is one way to really find out isn’t there? Or at least one way to know which explanations are more or less likely. Run these sorts of experiments!
We could take real coal, get a highly concentrated amount of C14 and actually test how easily solid coal can be contaminated. The experiment would tell us how easily a solid piece of coal can be contaminated from the outside.
Is any one willing to do this except creationists? No. Because the world has decided the fossils must be millions of years old despite physical evidence to the contrary. The responsible thing to do would be to conduct experiments like this rather than just say, “it must be contamination.”
If we conducted experiments like these we could validate the lab protocols required to date materials. And I suspect the protocols already in practice are valid, and they show the fossils are young, not old. But the mainstream is determined to perpetuate their claims and unwilling to even consider that they could be completely wrong.
Instead hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on perpetuating evolutionary ideas that may actually be false. Experiments like these wouldn’t cost all that much relatively speaking, but it won’t likely be done by the mainstream, because the mainstream has already decreed what is supposed to be true, despite the physical forensic evidence to the contrary.
Sea Shells and some Marbles can have a biological origin since they have Calcite (calcium carbonate). I inferred that by reading this:
http://www.sandatlas.org/2012/10/limestone/
Such hardened material, after getting retrieved from the field and then subject to laboratory examination would seem difficult to contaminate if the proper protocols were established.
Washing would be a pretty good start, but peeling off outer layers ought to give a quality sample. If I had a block of marble or other hard substance, I’d think peeling of the surface layers would prevent any appreciable level of contamination.
In the case of the marble at the top of Dr. Giem’s list, that is 0.71% pmc or 1 part in 142. That would be like forcing 14 teaspoons of contaminant into a 2.6 galloon chunk of solid marble. That doesn’t seem believable.
stcordova,
That’s because it is a straw cherry. Improving/deteriorating by what standard? You have offered unrealistic imaginary competitions between non-contemporary organisms. Even if they took place, and had some effect on offspring numbers (athletes always gets the girls, and breed true for athleticism?), they would demonstrate only the ‘inferiority’ of certain alleles in a selective milieu in which they do not operate.
Well Sal, considering that some anthracite, and correctly prepared diamonds, register near background levels of C14, it seems likely that softer coals are not really solid.
stcordova,
I can’t help but feel that Dr Giem’s list is somewhat … selective. Where are the additional data points, for any given material? The highs, the lows, the standard deviation across multiple samples? I could publish a list consisting solely of anomalies, if I really really wanted to ‘prove’ something. I would like to see some evidence that they are not anomalous. It’s no good scattergunning materials, and ignoring all other dating methods into the bargain (not just microfossils).
Pick a marble or a limestone in his list from a given stratum, and compare global instances of that layer. Do the dates agree? I’m betting they don’t. I’m betting far the greater portion is marked by zero or trace C14.
Medical standards, functional standards. Evolution claims to evolve function, and now that I showed function is deteriorating in humans, you want to redefine the meaning of deterioration to exclude the functional perspective?
We could be stronger and smarter, so why aren’t we. We’re not even talking adding new function, just keep the good stuff we had.
If real evolution can’t maintain the good baselines, why even think of cumulative selection of function?
Oh, that’s the other thing, how can you model cumulative selection of function if you decouple function from the notion of fitness as you are suggesting. By decoupling, you’ve turned the blind watchmaker into a blind wanderer in functional space.
So my point stands we’re deteriorating, and that fact can only be ignored by redefining physical fitness such that being dumber and weaker is a substantial evolutionary improvement. Don’t you see this way of redefining “improvement” for the sake of preserving the evolutionary narrative is a rather twisted view of reality?
“Wow the beetle went became wingless, the cave fish became blind, the human race became dumber and waker. Isn’t evolution clever?”
No, evolution is about differential reproduction.
Even neutral evolution is about differential reproduction.
The average human life span has gone from 30 years to over 80 years in the last 2 millennia. The human population in that time has gone from approx. 5 million to over 7.2 billion. I’d say evolution is working exactly as expected given the changes in the environment.
Evolution doesn’t have priorities and doesn’t try to make things, Sal.
In our current environment those attributes are no longer critical for survival like they were 2000 years ago.
Real evolution doesn’t maintain baselines. Real evolution is constantly changing the baseline to whatever works good enough in the changing current environment.
How long will Sal keep playing YEC whack-a-mole and running from all the evidence that refutes his YECkery?
The trouble with Sal’s approach is that he really seems to buy into the “worldviews” claims of creationists. Sometimes he says things like, “If I were an evolutionist,” this, but “since I’m a creationist,” that.
The real question is, what if you were simply open to the evidence and to ideas based upon that evidence? Would anyone churn on and on about genetic decay (or whatever) and anomalous dates, or would one base one’s ideas on what the vast proportion of evidence shows?
We don’t believe things “because we’re evolutionists,” we’re “evolutionists” because we’re not setting our beliefs in front of the evidence and caring only about what evidence supposedly confirms our beliefs. This is contrary to the bias-confirming propaganda of the creationists of various kinds (IDists, for example), but it’s still the case for many of us (to be sure, not all of us). There wouldn’t be an old age of the earth except for the evidence, and there wouldn’t be an evolutionary theory except for the evidence. Neither is the sort of story that humans typically spin (Hindus had an old cosmology, yes, but that was due to highly developed theology, not some sort of simple myth).
I don’t see that Sal at all gets what it means to just care about what all of the evidence shows, rather than only using what gets him the results his prior beliefs need.
Glen Davidson
Glen,
Exactly. It’s clear that Sal wants YEC to be true, and that this desire is grotesquely warping his approach to the evidence.
I’m a bit baffled by his attachment to YEC. His Christianity is at least understandable; he’s been forthright about the fact that he is making a bet based on expected payoff. I think his reasoning is poor, but it’s at least understandable.
But why the YECophilia?
Sal, is it because the credibility of Christianity depends on the Bible, and the credibility of the Bible depends, in your view, on the historical accuracy of the creation story, the Flood story, the Tower of Babel, etc.?
I think his reasoning is fine. It is, after all, based on the thoughts of a very smart man.
I disagree about his estimated cost of playing at that table. He seems to have thrown his life away. I think the Parable of the Talents applies. Out of fear, Sal has hoarded his intellect rather than investing it in something productive. He’s marking time until the payout.
This seems to be a common theme among believers.
petrushka,
That cost estimate is part of his poor reasoning.
He also constructs his payoff matrix incorrectly, failing to account for all the possible Gods who might exist.
I’m not sure we should be trying to psychoanalyze Sal on the meagre evidence of blog comments. But I have to agree that it seems bizarre to start with a motley assembly of Biblical assertions and try and fit the facts around them. What has Jesus to say (as far as the New Testament can be relied on as evidence of reported speech) about science, testability and the precise details of human origins? Surely the message of universal love, acceptance and support for our fellow human beings is the point. Apart from spurious genealogy (if Jesus is the son of God, why do we need to worry if David gets involved) what relevance has the Old Testament* to Jesus’ message. Help me out here Sal. I’d really like to know.
*Song of Songs excepted.
I’m not analyzing Sal. I’m just making an observation regarding his bet.
He has given up everything that makes a person a person, spent all his intellectual capital on lottery tickets.
Rather than use his obvious intelligence to add to the sum of human knowledge, he is subtracting it from the kids he teaches.
Fair enough. I’m somewhat insulated from this issue of indoctrination living where I do.
keiths,
We can all learn from the master: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNpIxi20tmA
That’s mostly correct, but if I can amend a few things. I think if YEC is true, it would make the Bible more believable for me personally. I self-identified as a Christian before identifying as a YEC, in fact I was an Christian evolutionist in high school. When I had bouts of agnosticism, I self identified as an Old Earth Creationist/ID in the 2001-2003 time frame because I found James Coppedge (David’s dad), Thaxton Bradley Olsen, and Michael Denton and Fred Hoyle’s writings convincing. I was not that enamored with 2nd law and CSI arguments back then and I’m still not and probably never will be, And that is reflected especially now as I’ve posted criticisms of them here at TSZ.
By 2004-2005 I was starting to think YEC was possible and promoted it after interacting with Walter Brown, but many reservations which I still articulate today. I even posted a retraction at UD regarding decaying speed of light theory which I once supported, but now mostly reject.
By 2013 I was professing YEC, but I have no axe to grind with OEC and not so much with TE’s like Francis “language of God” Collins.
With respect to YEC, even though I score faded_glory’s views of Old Earth as more evidentially sound at this time then mine, and I’d score the physicists views of an Old Universe very very much more evidentially sound than mine, the Young Life Creation view (Young Life, not necessarily Young Earth or Young Universe) looks reasonably sound to me.
But there is a wager also associated with YEC being true.
The principle difficulties with YEC are the long-term radioisotopes (like Uranium), the absence of intermediate radiosotopes, and the big daddy of them all, the distant starlight problem. But when I began to hear stuff in the academic rumor mill in physics departments, I began to think not just YLC but YEC had a chance and I’m now wagering on them being true — maybe if only to have the thrill of just seeing if my hunch is right, not so much my soul going to heaven. The EV for me for YEC being true is just for the fun of it and personal satisfaction of finding confirmation I was right.
The reason I began to profess YEC in 2013 was that I finally had access and could understand the C14 issues as well as publication showing DNA half-lives in the ballpark of 521 years (give or take) and amino acid and protein half lives as well that conflicted with the existence of such materials in fossils. I also then started seeing stuff in bioinformatics and population genetics.
Additionally there were more and more anomalies popping up in the physics and cosmology literature. I’m personally tracking and trying to duplicate an interferometry experiment. I started on it last week. I may post results here if I get positive result. I won’t disclose yet whose experiment I’m duplicating, but it’s an experiment by a physicist who is not a creationist, but one I learned of through the net. He teaches at a secular university, and by God’s grace so many of the parts of the inteferometry experiment are off the shelf. 🙂
PS
I was sincere when I said I think athesim/agnosticism is a reasonable position. I empathize with many of the reasons for not believing.
Barry hated the fact I didn’t share in his crusade to demonize all non-believers. I was disgusted with the way he treated Elizabeth and Mark Frank and others all the while promoting himself as some example of moral virtue.
I may have trashed talked promoters of evolutionary theory, but I don’t recall that I ever demonized someone merely for not having faith in God. As I said in my OP:
No, no, no! These are the masters:
http://www.holyrollersthemovie.com/
Ok, maybe I’m biased, my name is listed in the credits of the DVD. 🙂
keiths,
re blockquote
Thanks Keith. Will use it next time.
stcordova,
Regarding your point that the genome is deteriorating, can you cite evidence? I am skeptical that with the current level of understanding its contents and workings that this knowable at this point.
What do you mean? Is there something you think is true that you currently believe then?
Someone else relay this kindly ;P
Flint,
Can you cite evidence for this argument? I am skeptical that this can be well understood at this point.
Sal seem to be on a journey of discovery. The light is slow in his region of reality, and the Great A’Tuin needs time to ponder.
petrushka,
Yes. The fuse of cognitive dissonance has been lit. Let’s hope it doesn’t fizzle out.
colewd,
The second blockquote tag — the one at the end of the quote — needs to have a slash in front of the ‘b’, like this:
</blockquote>
cubist,
Thanks for the thoughtful response. My tentative thoughts here are that the difficulty in finding cause in biology is due the fact that we are not dealing with change (genomic) that has repeatable cause and effect. By identifying creatures as different you have surfaced the issue. The challenge is, to develop a real theory you need to be able to predict and this is very difficult without repeatability. The color of the swan is correlated with repeatability. In Sal’s case he is saying repeatability (predictable cause and effect) in the case of genome change is a miracle. This is because it is a sequence.
keiths,
Thanks
stcordova,
Waffle. How do you measure it? You’ve cited some suppositions that we’d lose races against some long-dead ancestors. We may or may not be smarter or longer-lived. Not evidence
No, I simply don’t see any evidence that we as a species are ‘deteriorating functionally’. We are, of course, through medical advances, health plans and society, helping weaker individuals to survive and reproduce. But if their genes are in any way less fit, in an evolutionary sense, they remain very unlikely to fix in the species. We have elevated their frequency. You can’t just ignore the evolutionary perspective; your argument (or Sanford’s at least) depends upon it.
Yeah, God, why aren’t we … ?
What have we lost? What caveman function is ‘better’ than the modern equivalent? Apart from 900 year lifespans, obviously. That were more like 30-50.
Humans really bad example to extrapolate to entirety of life. Can’t say it enough. It seems.