Cap'n Refsmmat

Could you link to that 2004 poll? The only 2004 poll I could find was this one: http://www.gallup.com/poll/14107/Third-Americans-Say-Evidence-Has-Supported-Darwins-Evolution-Theory.aspx which shows postgraduates of any degree field having a 65% rate of acceptance of evolution.

I'd imagine that being omnipotent requires being able to create true free will. However, omniscience may confound things. Right, but Jesus was also wholly human (while being wholly God) and so Jesus's sacrifice was from a human, not from God. While also being entirely from God. Again, you have to be capable of the logical contortions that make the Trinity possible before this works...

I suppose "You guys have really screwed up, but hey, I forgive it all," without any drama, would be sending the wrong message to all the Earthly troublemakers.

The theological view is that God did not create sin; rather, he created us with free will, and we chose to disobey. That's the trick of the Incarnation. Because Jesus was human, he was paying the debt rather than God just forgiving; because he was simultaneously God, he was actually capable of paying back the debt. The Trinity (or at least a man-God duality) is required for the doctrine of the incarnation to succeed.

There's finer theology to it than that. Here's the breakdown we got in my philosophy of religion course: Because God created us, we owe Him our absolute obedience. Sin is the act of being disobedient to God. If we sin, we now have a debt toward God. There is no Earthly thing we can give God, because God is the Creator, and anything we give Him is something He already made. Thus, the only way for our sins to be repaid is for God Himself to repay them as a human. Thus, God must be incarnated as a man, who then repays our sins. Pretty neat explanation, actually.

Claiming there is no evidence is a de facto admission that all evidence so far provided is unconvincing. Or, in other words, the atheists in this discussion are aware of supposed evidence for a creator, but they deny that it is convincing. This is apparent from their posts. Furthermore, I have every reason to believe that iNow has already explained to you his positions at great length. Nobody makes 1200 posts on a science forum visited by iNow, many of those posts arguing that their is evidence of a designer, without getting very long and detailed explanations of his views. Finally, I'd like to request that you stay on topic; this discussion is about why people chose atheism, not why they shouldn't. If you would like to convince them, do it in the appropriate venue.

Prove it.

I split this into your own topic for you.

Because, by your own admission, your source for the 10,000 alterations figure may have. If it did, your point about evolution not matching the expected rate would be unfounded, because evolution could easily account for 10,000 neutral alterations.

The correct way to complain about staff behavior is to report the post using the Report button. Since your thread is still open and going, I'll call "no harm, no foul." If you have further complaints, bring them up the proper way. Private messages to administrators are also acceptable. (Click "Send me a message" on their profile, rather than leaving a public comment.)

Did you expect that I wouldn't notice that you and Undeniable are exactly the same person? Sockpuppet accounts are against rule 9 of the forum rules.

"New form and function is the focus because it is easiest to identify but one could easily include all modifications in that statement." If one includes all modifications, one is not constrained by any information theory rules. And Lenski showed that modifications happened at a much greater rate than 1 per 20,000 generations. Furthermore, your accounting distinction is moot; what should matter is the information per organism, which does not change with a modification. (An old method is destroyed and a new method appears.) That this changes the information level of the entire population is unimportant; the processes occurring inside that one organism will happen if there's one organism or ten million.

So... where's he pretending to be objective, then? He says exactly what he does.

I dunno. Assange's agenda is to ruin government secrecy, publish secret documents, and make sure the world knows about them. (He stated in an interview that they promise their sources wide media exposure.) And that's exactly what he pretends to do, too. Where's the disconnect?

So... if an alteration spreads through the entire population, the net functional information does not increase, because the old gene no longer exists. If the alteration exists in one particular subgroup, but another group retains the old gene, the net functional information increases. Somehow, the second option cannot be easily done via mutation and natural selection, because of the information increase. Is that what you are implying?

Your source for the 10,000 alterations figure may use a different definition than you do. I am just trying to determine what definition that source uses. On the other hand, your definition includes "function and form modifications," which means that "substantive alterations" encompasses mutations that do not introduce new information but merely alter existing functions. For example, changing size without introducing novel mechanisms would be a "function and form modification," but it would not be constrained by your information-theoretic concerns. If that is the case, the figure of 10,000 is attainable, because the information theory constraint does not apply. We are not limited by the amount of information that must be generated, because 10,000 "significant alterations" do not imply 10,000 cases of new "information" being introduced.

Function and form modifications do not seem to be constrained by the same information-generation limitations you are so fond of, when compared with new functions and subcomponents. My original request to see how your source defines "substantive difference" still stands.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/15159555/page/2/ Planes aren't the infection risk everyone makes them out to be, although of course if the guy next to you sneezes on you, the air filters don't matter. But that could happen anywhere.

This is not a "side issue." If "substantive differences" just means "difference in genome, whether good, bad, or neutral," your figure no longer supports your claim. 10,000 genetic changes could easily be accumulated over thousands of years, even if you argue that 10,000 significant beneficial adaptations could not be. Could you stop dodging the question and just answer it? It'd be much easier than continued quibbling.

It's very much the key. If your "substantive differences" mean "significant alterations in genome," regardless of what functional advantage or disadvantage they bring, or whether they're neutral mutations, then the objection that major adaptations do not occur fast enough doesn't fly. All one needs is a mutation of any kind, not just a beneficial adaptation. And I think you'd agree that it takes many mutations to generate one beneficial mutation.

You don't have to see them to know that the Times has seen them and may have leverage over Assange to get him to withhold sensitive documents.

The newspapers he allowed to see the documents before public release stated that they convinced him to withhold some documents. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/26editors-note.htm Apparently at the request of the government, actually... What reasons do we have to distrust everything Assange says?

Did he? They actively tried to hide the 15,000 still-sensitive documents. Is there evidence that he knew of the named informants and decided in advance to name them anyway?

He doesn't actually intend to kill people, for one thing. Being a "terrorist" requires intentionally causing terror in your victims.

And the adaptations I listed outperformed and out-reproduced the others, since they became the dominant traits. The entire average population size, shape, and growth rate changed. These adaptations were found to be beneficial when compared against pre-mutation cells. Additionally, Lenski noted beneficial alterations such as the loss of the ability to grow on ribose, as a result of a gene deletion, and mutations in the spoT gene, which provided a significant advantage to 8 of the populations. Extensive phenotypic evolution has occurred, including substantial gains in competitive fitness. After 20,000 generations, the evolved bacteria on average gro about 70% faster than the ancestor when they compete in the same environment. Average cell size also dramatically increased in the evolving populations. This specialization reflects pleiotropic tradeoffs of mutations that are beneficial in glucose medium, much more than it does drift accumulation of neutral mutations in unused genes. http://myxo.css.msu....s,%20Lenski.pdf Hardly "one significant alteration." We observe mutation rates changing. Because mutation rates change, assuming that they have stayed the same in the past is naive. Lenski in particular observed that adaptation rates slowed after thousands of generations, likely because the bacteria were becoming well-suited to their environments. If you are going to discount several key predictions of evolutionary theory -- punctuated equilibrium, variable adaptation rates, and so on -- and then complain that it doesn't work anymore, well, that's your problem. Also, your definition of "science" is inaccurate. Science merely requires testable hypotheses. "Mutation rates change" is testable. Most creationist speculations cannot be tested by definition -- an omniscient designer or god can not be tested for in an experiment. I suggest The Logic of Scientific Discovery for a further explanation of this topic. The key is what you mean by "substantive alteration." It could mean "mutation in genome of any kind," it could mean "added feature," it could mean "beneficial adaptation of any kind," it could mean "only added features of a certain size," or just about anything else. The veracity of your claim depends on your definition of "substantive alteration." The mutator cell lines are not significantly better or worse off, as Lenski notes, likely because the increased mutation piggybacks on a beneficial change that "cancels" it out. It would be interesting if he subjected these mutator cells to high selection pressures (completely new environment and competitors) to see what happens.