Evolutionism's appeal to junk science

More junk.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/refuting-sg.PDF

Quote "Human lysozyme is closer to chicken lysozyme than to that of any other mammal."

Would be interesting if true.

Actually human is identical to chimpanzee lysozyme. Harder to be closer than identical.

 

Bob,

"Wonderful! Then please begin by working through the problem that Isaac Asimov has created for evolutionists in the post above."

It seems that "entropy" and "Asimov" have become buzzwords in this argument against evolution - and 99% of creationists have no concept of what they are arguing! (I'm not saying this applies to you...)

Asimov, I believe, said that the energy from the sun provided ability for increasing complexity of life. As such the earth is not a "closed system" and the argument based on (misunderstanding of) the second law of thermodynamics falls apart.

I have never claimed to be an evolutionist - but I believe in learning and inquiring. Deciding that one is against evolution or against an old earth and THEN doing the research does not produce viable arguments.

I think it would be wonderful if ALL the science pointed to a young earth - but it doesn't, no matter how much we want it to!

I also don't believe in feeding these laughable arguments to young believers, telling them to put their faith in them, knowing that any of them with intelligence or real understanding of science will see right through them!!

 

Sure it does. If the S enatniomer of a molecule rotates polarized light x degrees, then the R enantiomer will reflect polarized light -x degrees. Or am I wrong?

 

Brett,

(+) and (-) are used to describe rotation of light. This has replaced the old D and L prefix system.

R and S refer specifically to the ordering (according to the Cahn Ingold Prelog scheme) of groups about a chiral center; their relation to light rotation is random.

Your last statement however is correct. If the R enantiomer rotates light at 15 degrees then the S enantiomer will rotate light at -15 degrees. The relationship is random however. We have no idea how a particular R enantiomer of a molecule will rotate light until we determine it empirically (or use a table!).

 

And then there is the whole issue of quote mining. Maybe an example is in order.

From http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm

"Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 190-191)

Sounds bad, doesn't it. But let's give the full quote.

Changes the meaning a bit, doesn't it?

 

How about another?

http://www.evolutionisdead.com/quotes.php?QID=297&cr=58

"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)

Oh no. It sounds like there might not be the plethora of transitionals as we were led to believe. Maybe solace will be found in the full quote.

Oh, so the author was talking about a specific geographic location, and not the fossil record in general.

 

Perhaps we could cut to the chase and have Mr. Ryan tell us what process required for evolution is prohibited by the 2nd Law, and show us the required math.

I suspect that we won't see this happen, but who knows?

The floor is yours, Bob.

 

In other words, Bob can't think of a one? Not even one such process?

If you can't give us even one process required for evolution that is ruled out by the 2nd law, why should we believe that one exists?

If you every figure one out, let us know. In the meantime, we will have to conclude your assertion is false, on lack of evidence.

 

BTW, one of the founders of thermodynamics was a man named Boltzmann. He was the first to be able to actually measure entropy as a physical phenomenon.

He was a supporter of Darwin.

Do you think perhaps he knew something about entropy that Bob does not?

For one thing, he could actually calculate entropy. It appears that Bob doesn't even know what it is.

For another thing, he actually knew what processes are involved in evolution. And again, it appears that Bob does not.

 

Shannon makes a very big mistake, however. In that theory of information, it does not matter if the information has any semantic aspect, but rather significance is given to something improbably or new.

To put it simply, in shannon's theory garbage and non-sense can be given greater priority than something meaningful if it's appearance is less likely.

See the following for a proper definition of information: http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v10/i2/information.asp

Information can be loosely defined as specified complexity.

Actually, what you have described is not an increase of information. It is an increase in the quantity of THE SAME INFOMATION minus a portion.

If I write a book, make a copy of it, then tear out 2 pages (a gene duplicates itself and then one copy mutates) how much additional information has been gained? None. We simply have more of the same information.

As I have stated before, I have debated Dr. Meert before, and I wasn't the least bit convinced by his arguments. The fact remains that all radiometric dating processes rely on unprovable assumptions in order to arrive at a conclusion.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp

5,280 feet in a mile? This 120ft canyon took 6 days (now that's literal days, remember). That's 20 feet per day... so in 4,000 years (approx time since the flood) there have been 1,460,000 days... so at the rate of the Burlingame Canyon the canyon could be a theoretical maximum of almost 3 million feet deep - which is 5530 miles.

Now instead imagine the force and weight of enough water to cover the entire continent of North America running off the continent as the the sea floors lowered and the continents raised up. Imagine enough water to cover the entire continent running off in about a years time, and what kind of Canyon that much water could cut. Probably more than 20 feet per day. The Grand Canyon suddenly looks extremely possible.

Many scientists are starting to realize (even secular scientists) that such events as meanders are possible in catestrophic geologic formations.

You can see from the article from AiG I posted that the Burlingame Canyon has similar layering as does the Grand Canyon.

Also see http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i4/canyon.asp

However you must assume how much start product was there to begin with, you must assume that there has been no contamination of the rock (in an evolutionist case that would be over millions of years), and you must assume the rate of decay has always been the same.

In fact, there have been studies to show that billion fild rates of decay above what we normally see is possible. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0321acc_beta_decay.asp

Funny how evolutionist dating always seems to give the exact dates the pre-suppositions going into the calculations predict.

I especially enjoyed this telling statement:

"We nailed the date to five percent on our first attempt, so we could probably get the error down to one percent or less," Renne says.

The result is so amazing because every dating technique invokes assumptions or involves uncertainties that limit its ability to pinpoint dates with extreme precision. With carbon-14, for example, the changing ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the atmosphere over time puts a limitation on how precise a date can be established."

Clearly, it is uncommon to find the 'date you are looking for' on the first try with radiometric dating. But, as any good evoltionist/old earther does, they try try again until the numbers they were looking for are found.

Also telling is the admission that all dating methods are based on assumptions.

Another telling sentence is ""Dating things that are really young has always been the Holy Grail of potassium-argon and argon-argon dating," Renne says". Clearly, there have been no reliable methods for dating young rocks, and as I said... if all rocks are young rocks (as the Bible asserts), there is no reliable way to date them. Surely, once they finally develope a way of reliabel dating young rocks, all rocks (including those already tested and dated to millions of years) would have to be re-tested with a reliable, provable method.


As to the question of Entropy - I do have a question. Most of the time many argue that the earth is an open system (due to the SUN) therefore biological systems are not quite as effected by entropy. However, from the perspective that we are all christians - the Bible says that the first life on earth (plants) formed before the Sun was created. Is there any scenario in evolutionary science where life can perpetuate or decrease in entropy (aka 'evolve') on earth without our Sun?

 

This is not an increase in information .... this is an increase in the quantity of the same information.

Regarding serine proteases and hemoglobin. These are parts of extremely complex multi-part sytems. The information for the whole system would have needed to arise at once for there to be function. This is a statistical impossibility. Evolution says that vestigial systems use up resources in the stages of having no function. In order for the creatures to have survived, they would have needed to mutate slowly, building mutation upon mutation. By the very definition of natural selection, those with unuseful systems would be more succeptable to demise. Until the 'full multi-part system' arose, that creature would likely be at a disadvantage and be selected out.

Or simply that they all had the same designer. If I look at the range of the SAAB automobile line, I see many similarities as well, but that is not evidence that one car can magically morph into another.


Regarding your example of the Hemoglobin C, I would imagine that this is the same as most other high tolerances to disease. Usually, it is the destruction of receptors or mechanisms for contracting illness. For example, in many cases of anti-biotic strains of bacteria this novel ability to resist the anti-biotic stems from the loss of the ability to properly absorb nutrients, thereby causing the organism to be unabel to take in the poison that would kill it. In the same mannor I suppose (without further detailed information in this specific case) a loss of information has lead to this appearant novel ability. Most genetic mutations that cause a seemingly positive effect can be seen to follow this pattern... a loss of information leads to the inability of the host to function normally, thereby protecting them from harm. However, the important thing is that is is a loss of specified complexity, not a gain. This is in essence de-evolution, not evolution.

This is another perfect example of what I was just talking about. People with this mutated gene have essentially lost the receptor cells that HIV attack. While it does have the benefit of protecting them from HIV, it is a loss of information and de-evolution. It's like taking 3 steps back in order to take one step forward.

 

Barbarian observes:
Sounds fishy to me. Shannon (the person who established information theory) was an evolutionist.

I'd be pleased to see the numbers on your theory of information, and a demonstration of why it's more accuratet than Shannon's.

Show your work.

Define "specified complexity" and show us how to measure it. If you use a personal definition of "information" like "specified complexity", you'll have to give us a good demonstration of how you apply it.

Barbarian on the way information increase happens in geneomes:
Sure you do. Happens all the time. All that's needed is a duplicate copy of a gene, and one mutates. Presto. Increase in information.

Wrong. If you have two copies of the same gene, you have only the information for one enzyme. If one mutates, then you have information for two.

Two is, last time I checked, more than one.

That's not what happens in such cases. It would be like a printer that accidentally set up one page twice, and then changed the words on one of the pages. That would be an increase in information. Two identical genes... one enzyme. One normal, and one mutated gene, two enzymes. Increase in information.

Barbarian observes:
Easiest is radiometric testing. It can very accurately show that the earth is very ancient. One of the people who's done a great deal of work on the age of the Earth. He debunks some creationist myths, here
http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/credocs.htm

Imagine that. However, everyone who wonders what science has to say about the age of the Earth would profit from checking out the link. Dr. Meert has set up a very readable and complete explanation of what geologists have discovered about the Earth and its history.

No, that's wrong, too. Isochrons elminate the need for such assumptions.

Barbarian observes:
I would like to see any evidence for a mile-deep canyon dug out of soft sediment like sand dunes in less than a million years.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp

120 feet is not even close to a mile. Sorry.

So, if I can build a 3 foot house of cards in two hours, I can build a 300 foot one in 200 hours? No, that's wrong. You see, soft sediment can only erode so far with steep walls before it slumps. I've see some of those small canyons at Mt. St. Helens and others, and none of it looks remotely like the Grand Canyon. And they only get a few tens of meters high, before they slump and are destroyed. You've been taken for a ride.

If you're right, there should be Canyons like the Grand Canyon everywhere. But it only happens in places where there is gradual uplift over many millions of years. There is no way for a sudden rush of water to make an entrenched meander. It's physically impossible.

A lot more than that, if it was soft flood sediment. But that wouldn't explain how a desert or forests had time to form between the layers that were supposedly laid down by a single flood. Nor does it explain how meanders could have suddenly formed, nor does it explain how such canyons are only found in places that are undergoing uplift, and not in others.

It has a probability of 1.0. But as the evdidence shows, it formed extremely slowly.

Barbarian observes:
They did entrenched meanders in underwater lab experiements? I'd like to see that one.

I've see a few of those "sudden canyons", and none of them look anything like the features found in the Grand Canyon. That's because they can't form in a brief time.

Tell me about the sudden canyons, and we'll see how they stack up.

I'd sure like to see one. Show me one of your sudden canyons with an entrenched meander.

No entrenched meanders? No deserts or forests, in the middle of the depostits? Imagine that.

Barbarian on radiometric dating:
No, that's wrong. It uses evidence. We know, for example, precise half-lives for varous isotopes, and we can test for diffusion, existing daughter elements and so on, by using various methods. Do you understand why isochrons make assumptions about the original rock unnecessary?

Nope. You've been misled.
http://www.onafarawayday.com/Radiogenic/Ch5/Ch5-1.htm

That's testable. We can measure diffusion rates.

Physicists can test that, too. And if the rock get hot enough to almost melt, the rate can sometimes change by a tiny fraction. Not enough to affect the results for many billions of years.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0321acc_beta_decay.asp

That would be rather odd. You see, if that happened, billions of years of radioactivity would have been released in a f

[ July 25, 2004, 02:13 AM: Message edited by: The Galatian ]

 

So, Gup20, if one discovers that he must retreat three steps and go one step in another direction, has that one learned something new?

( ) yes

( ) no

Its a rhetorical question. The answer is yes of course. The one new step is new information even if it involves giving up other, bad information.

For that matter, learning that a step was bad and you must take it back is information all by itself, isn't it?

If not, you are perversly describing information.

 

Hell's canyon on the border of Oregon and Idaho is an excellent example of a canyon formed by a rapid runoff in the past. The Grand Canyon is an excellent example of a canyon formed by gradual erosion over eons of time.

They are very different. I have visited them both. Hell's Canyon has straighter runs and wider cuts for their depth. The difference is striking and obvious to the layman viewing the scene.

 

Here is a link to a Sattelite image of the Grand Canyon from space:

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/earth/grandcan.gif

Note the feathery details at the various tributaries. The erosion of the canyon has a fractal nature; the same patterns are repeated at finer and finer detail, which makes this canyon so fascinatingly beautiful and spectacular.

This is not the pattern created by a sudden one time runoff of water.

 

"Hmmm. EVOLUTIONISTS THEMSELVES claim that "Archeopteryx is a TRUE BIRD".

AND they claim that this TRUE BIRD is a perfect example of their TRANSITION between reptiles and birds!!!

This is "Junk Science exhibit 3""

Oh Bob, thank you for giving me another opportunity to show the "junk" that passes for "creation science."

We have been through this meany times before, so you know what I am talking about. Archy has dozens of features that it shares with the theropod dinosaurs yet which no extant bird has. YECers must dismiss all of these traits that show a clear connection to the theropod dinosaurs to maintain their denial. How about a few of these?

No bill. This "true bird" does not have a bill.

The trunk vertebra are free while they are fused in biirds.

The pubic shaft is like some theropod dinosaurs but like no birds.

In birds the neck attaches to the skull from the bottom while in Archy and reptiles it attaches from the rear.

The center of it cervical vertebra have simple concave articular facets like some theropods while in birds it is saddle shaped.

Archy has a long tail with many of the vertebra free while birds have short, fused tails.

Oh there is no sense going through all this with you. I have done it several times in the past to no avail. The reader should be able to see the duplicity. Besides, I have one more item to make two more points. YECers are fond of making the following quote from Alan Feduccia, a bird evolution expert. "Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that."

They think this shows that Archaeopteryx is a "true bird." What they fail to give you is the context. In this case, the question was not "is Archy an intermediate?" as they would like you to think. This was a counter to an assertion about 30 years ago that it was nothing more than a flightless reptile. See the difference? If not, let me give one more quote from Feduccia. Below the quote is where AIG continues to use the original quote.

"The creature thus memorialized was Archaeopteryx lithographica, and, though indisputably birdlike, it could with equal truth be called reptilian.... The Archaeopteryx fossil is, in fact, the most superb example of a specimen perfectly intermediate between two higher groups of living organisms--what has come to be called a "missing link," a Rosetta stone of evolution..."

Just more quote mining. And "junk."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4254news3-24-2000.asp