Creationist debates the entire Berkley University about evolution

[OneTruth]

[OneTruth]

These evolutionists/atheists debating Dr Hovind remind so much of my personal debate with trinitarians, They KNOW what they believe even though all the evidence points against it. They refuse to accept good reasonable factual evidence that show them the error of their paradigm.  In the light of this evidence they simply shake their heads and turn away with body language that states "this guy simply doesnt get it" even though it is they that do not "get it" because they will not yield their ego and admit the error of their ideology.

The Trinity is as wrong as evolution. It is a lie that distorts the true person of God. Evolution tries to make Him disappear and the trinity tries to make Him unknowable. Jehovah is knowable. That is why the scriptures say to search for Him with all your might - not for the reason that in the end you will find that God is unknowable but rather you will indeed come to know Him.

[Chief Joseph]

 Now when you say "good reasonable factual evidence," do you perhaps mean 'a steaming pile of bullsh*t'?

[John Galt?]

The Trinity is as wrong as evolution.

The Trinity is one single idea, one lone theory. Evolution is a word that describes dozens of mechanisms and is used in dozens of theories, postulates, and hypothesis. To say "evolution" is wrong is like saying "yellow" doesn't exist. You can say that there are only 3 primary colors in physics (red, green, blue) but when you slip and fall you can's say it was because that banana peel was invisible.

It is an observed fact that organisms do change due to changes in environment.
It is a proven fact that animals thru natural and sexual selection can have certain population groups diverge into new species.
It is a widely accepted theory, that has never been dis-proven, that many (most?) modern species evolved thru natural and sexual selection from other species.
It is now becoming more accepted that there are other mechanisms that may be involved in species change, but that is still early in the research phase.
It is postulated, but certainly not proven, that all species evolved from a very small number of primitive species.
It has been presented, with much criticism and very little support, that all life came from one source species.
It is becoming an out of date idea that life evolved spontaneously from non-living matter w/o outside influence. This idea is not even a real part of evolutionary study, but is a fringe science.

[Chief Joseph]

Outdated idea my ass. Where did this "outside influence" come from then? Please don't give me the "turtles all the way down" bit.

[John Galt?]

Outdated idea my ass. Where did this "outside influence" come from then?

The discovery of amino acids in comets and asteroids is the most popular "outside influence". The outdated idea is the idea that complete cells formed from a mix of N2, methane, CO2 (and some other "simple" molecules) and lightning. That is just too big a chemical jump. Many people took the Miller-Urey experiment and jumped to huge conclusions. And that was in 1952, ergo outdated.

[John Galt?]

My belief is that Natural (and sexual) selection can not explain all the diversity and all the different levels of evolution. Also NS/SS are very slow taking hundreds or thousands of generations to have a real effect and it seems (to my non-expert eyes) that there were times when species exploding at a very fast rate i.e Cambrian Era. So there must be other mechanisms at work.

For instance:

Toads point to new mechanism for evolution

Cane toads are shining light on a new process by which genetic traits evolve, say Australian researchers.

They say it has "revolutionary" implications for our understanding of evolution.

Professor Rick Shine of University of Sydney and colleagues report on what appears to be a parallel process to natural selection, called "spatial sorting," in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's a pretty radical concept. It's the first really new mechanism for evolutionary change for 150 years," says Shine.

"It's a very different process to anything that Darwin talked about because you're having traits evolve not because they help you survive or reproduce, but because they help you disperse faster."

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/03/22/3169531.htm

There is also Horizontal Gene Transfer which is prions or viruses transferring genes (and traits) between species or even between entire classes or orders of organisms.

IOW, as we progress in DNA research and the biochemistry involved, I think a lot of new pages will be added to the evolution book.

[Chief Joseph]

I'm not talking about any particular experiment, I'm talking about passing the buck. If life didn't evolve here but needed help, then where did that help evolve from? If you're just talking about comets and asteroids hitting Earth, those bodies formed from the same accretion disk that the Earth did. Hardly an "outside influence."

Your real error here is in setting up the false dichotomy of "life evolved when lightning struck some mud" or life didn't evolve on this planet at all. The basis of this error lies in the straight from simple chemicals to "cells" assumption, which is more than a little outlandish. It took a billion years to go from chemicals to simple cells. It took another billion and a half years to evolve into the structures we commonly refer to as "cells" today. After that, it took another billion and a half years for those cells to put enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support multicellular animal life. Not exactly "spontaneous," was it?

Everything in your last post relates to evolution, not abiogenesis. The increased oxygen levels and lots of room for colonization made the Cambrian explosion possible.

 " My belief is that Natural (and sexual) selection can not explain all the diversity and all the different levels of evolution. Also NS/SS are very slow taking hundreds or thousands of generations to have a real effect"

This is an erroneous belief. The evidence at Ash Falls, NE, directly contradicts this.

[John Galt?]

I'm not talking about any particular experiment, I'm talking about passing the buck. If life didn't evolve here but needed help, then where did that help evolve from? If you're just talking about comets and asteroids hitting Earth, those bodies formed from the same accretion disk that the Earth did. Hardly an "outside influence."

They were from outside the Earth?? Outside our biosphere??

And we don't know if ALL the asteroids and comets were from the same accretion disk. There might have been some rogues captured by the sun's gravity or it might have stolen some in a close pass by another system a few billion yrs ago.

Your real error here is in setting up the false dichotomy of "life evolved when lightning struck some mud" or life didn't evolve on this planet at all.

I didn't set up that dichotomy, or at least I didn't intend to. My intention was that life didn't start when lightning hit some mud but that there was lots and lots of very complex steps inbetween and that we may not have discovered all the possible steps yet.

 " My belief is that Natural (and sexual) selection can not explain all the diversity and all the different levels of evolution. Also NS/SS are very slow taking hundreds or thousands of generations to have a real effect"

This is an erroneous belief. The evidence at Ash Falls, NE, directly contradicts this.

If erroneous then do you completely dismiss Horizontal Gene Transfer and the Cane Toads article??

Again my point is that Natural and Sexual selection are certain and explain a lot of the evolutionary record BUT there are other mechanisms (viral, or predators absorbing genetic material/traits from prey, or other yet discovered mechanisms) that may be involved. The study of genetics and gene chemistry is really still in an early stage with most developments occurring in the last few decades.
It is a lot more complicated IMO than just NS and SS.


Or maybe some idiot in another dimension got half way stuck creating our universe and now we must all bow down and worship the Great Azathoth- The Blind Idiot God at the center of the Universe.

[Chief Joseph]

 " If erroneous then do you completely dismiss Horizontal Gene Transfer and the Cane Toads article??"

Why would I? The point was that selection doesn't always take thousands of generations to produce significant changes. Why would this be interpreted as "no other mechanisms are available"?

Horizontal Gene Transfer was discovered in the early fifties. Doesn't that make it an "outdated" idea? And here's one most people don't know about Darwin, one of his original mechanisms was later dismissed as an error. It was the idea that parents could transfer genetic material to their offspring after they were already born. Of course Darwin didn't know about genes, and phrased it as being able to pass on traits acquired after the offspring was born. This is similar to HGT.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangenesis

[OneTruth]

micro-evolution is a verifiable FACT.

All other types are a belief system (ergo: religion). In my opinion Christianity makes the most sense given all the verifiable criteria in the known humanity (history, science, archaeology, etc.) That is my unbiased objective opinion - from a man who was not always a Christian.

[OneTruth]

ps the gene transfer you are talking about is brought up by a student in the video

[dalbuc]

I assume this is older since Kent is now in jail for not delivering unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Other than that he's trying to push YEC which means he has to defeat not just evolution/biology but chemistry, physics, archaeology, art history, astronomy and pretty much every other known form of science that says we're a lot older.

Hovind is also the creator of the lame "kind" argument that says that Noah took 2 of each kind of animals. Hovid being at least smart enough to know that there is no way the ark under any measure could take 2 of each species argues that it took two of each kind. Kind not being a biological construct so for him Noah took 2 cats and from those 2 cats we have all the lions, tigers, pumas, leopards and house cats today. The fun thing there is that you have to ask Ken how the Noah Cats turned into (dare we say evolved into) all the cats today.

[dalbuc]

My belief is that Natural (and sexual) selection can not explain all the diversity and all the different levels of evolution. Also NS/SS are very slow taking hundreds or thousands of generations to have a real effect and it seems (to my non-expert eyes) that there were times when species exploding at a very fast rate i.e Cambrian Era. So there must be other mechanisms at work.

We know that NS/SS don't need that long a time to create new features.  The Cambrian explosion is an explosion in a very slow moving sense. The explosion takes place over millions of years (5 being the lowest estimate and 40 being a credible estimate). We've seen plenty of evolutionary changes in existing animals over the same 5-40 million year time frame - heck 5m years for example takes us back in time to when the Hominidae are begining to split from other primates...and that is the low end.

[Dolorous Jason]

I firmly believe the human race is devolving.