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Army of GOD wrote:I joined this game because it's so similar to Call of Duty.

Viceroy63 wrote:Well there is the established fact that no code is a naturally occurring happenstance [citation needed]
Actually its not really an extablished fact. On the other hand, I would not suggest that luck had anything to do with it. The evolution of DNA to what we have in our bodies took an extreemely long time to take place. One of the interesting things about DNA is that it is designed to recreate itself and to adapt to changing situations. These situations over the course of this very long time went from a single cell, to a single cell with a nucleus to protect it from a growing oxygen rich environment, to multiple cells to plants, to animals, to us.Viceroy63 wrote:Well there is the established fact that no code is a naturally occurring happenstance. No code ever just happens by luck. All codes require an intelligence and designer or creator for it.

Twice you used the word "Designed."tzor wrote:Actually its not really an extablished fact. On the other hand, I would not suggest that luck had anything to do with it. The evolution of DNA to what we have in our bodies took an extreemely long time to take place. One of the interesting things about DNA is that it is designed to recreate itself and to adapt to changing situations. These situations over the course of this very long time went from a single cell, to a single cell with a nucleus to protect it from a growing oxygen rich environment, to multiple cells to plants, to animals, to us.Viceroy63 wrote:Well there is the established fact that no code is a naturally occurring happenstance. No code ever just happens by luck. All codes require an intelligence and designer or creator for it.
We even got to make friends along the way (Hello MDNA).
DNA itself in the way it is designed to adapt and reproduce has an intelligence of sorts; enough for it to adapt from single cell to us over time.
God does not have to "design" the complexity of DNA any more than he "designs" the thoughts of a five year old.

I'm mystified by this comment; who is it, exactly, that accepts this? There is not really any doubt in mainstream science that evolution of the genetic code to where we are today can (and did) indeed occur over billions of years.Viceroy63 wrote:But in the meantime it is generally accepted as common knowledge that no code can come together by accident no matter how many millions of years you give it.
Well, I am not a fan of the watchmaker argument (I don't think it follows) but I should point out crispy, that most Christians would say that there is a designer for the workings of the world. The analogy is begging the question, depending on your base assumptions you will either presuppose a designer/no designer.crispybits wrote:At what point was modern American society designed? Did the pilgrims on the Mayflower or whatever decide how today's America would look and work? Did George Washington sketch out the blueprint for every factory, road, railway, shop and office? Is Obama responsible, as President, for personally deciding who is employed by which companies and exactly what salary and benefits everyone should be paid, what houses they should live in, what cars they should drive, what they should eat for dinner, etc etc?
Modern American society is a hugely complicated system, with very very many interdependent factors and parts that wouldn't work without other parts, much like a single organic cell. But there was no overall designer. There was no one person who said "this is how it's all going to be". There were very many independent agents all working towards their own plans and designs, and they produced, between them all, the current complicated and interdependent system of society.
Therefore your argument fails.
Crispy; You are comparing an entity, The USA, with Life. In the case of the modern America, every building and every road had an intelligent designer behind them. A cause to the effect. None of it just came up all by itself. But in the case of the THEORY of evolution, the claim is that Life just put itself together over billions of Years by accident. If ever we find a planet, a totally dead world, where Highways, Buildings and even whole Cities just came together because the wind formed, shaped (by crashing the components together) and assembled all of the components that make up a city, complete with roads and infrastructure, by accident and blew them together over billions of Years, then I'll repent of my ways. It just will never happen.crispybits wrote:At what point was modern American society designed? Did the pilgrims on the Mayflower or whatever decide how today's America would look and work? Did George Washington sketch out the blueprint for every factory, road, railway, shop and office? Is Obama responsible, as President, for personally deciding who is employed by which companies and exactly what salary and benefits everyone should be paid, what houses they should live in, what cars they should drive, what they should eat for dinner, etc etc?
Modern American society is a hugely complicated system, with very very many interdependent factors and parts that wouldn't work without other parts, much like a single organic cell. But there was no overall designer. There was no one person who said "this is how it's all going to be". There were very many independent agents all working towards their own plans and designs, and they produced, between them all, the current complicated and interdependent system of society.
Therefore your argument fails.

Evolution did.Viceroy63 wrote: Twice you used the word "Designed."
So who designed it?
It is not. at all.Viceroy63 wrote: Maybe the words "Established fact" is the wrong use for the intended meaning. I am sure that given time I can find a quote for that. But in the meantime it is generally accepted as common knowledge that no code can come together by accident no matter how many millions of years you give it.
So the first video seems to simply be "DNA is complicated therefore god did it", or in other words, watchmaker argument. Do you really think this age-old argument that has been wildly refuted proves god?Viceroy63 wrote:
Ok, you've just confirmed that you know nothing about evolution. If you value knowledge at all I highly suggest picking up a couple books written by someone who isn't a "creation scientist".Crispy; You are comparing an entity, The USA, with Life. In the case of the modern America, every building and every road had an intelligent designer behind them. A cause to the effect. None of it just came up all by itself. But in the case of the THEORY of evolution, the claim is that Life just put itself together over billions of Years by accident. If ever we find a planet, a totally dead world, where Highways, Buildings and even whole Cities just came together because the wind formed, shaped (by crashing the components together) and assembled all of the components that make up a city, complete with roads and infrastructure, by accident and blew them together over billions of Years, then I'll repent of my ways. It just will never happen.
Scientist have been trying to create that Frankenstein Monster for a very long time now. One case in particular at Cornell University (Which comes to mind) where they simulated the primordial conditions of the earth in a completely isolated chamber and bombarded it with simulated Lighting to see if it would produce even the first stirrings of the formation of life. All they got was goo! And the knowledge that Dead matter can not produce life, not to mention intelligence. If it took Billions of Years to create Life through evolution then why only one intelligent dominant species on the planet. I would think that after so long a time there would be Birdmen and wolfmen and Aquamen as well. All kinds of intelligent animals building cultures and cities everywhere.
Just to clarify, in the Cornell experiment (and all of the others since the original Miller-Urey experiment) no one was expecting life to be created. The point was to show that by simulating the physical conditions we think likely existed on the early Earth, it is possible to create the right conditions for life to be spontaneously created (e.g. organic molecules). It is common scientific knowledge that the evolutionary process occurs on timescales in the millions to billions of years, so no one is expecting any life to form in these experiments. They simply succeeded in showing that if you turn on the lightning for a week and come back, you'll have basically all the right stuff you need to form life; the rest is just a matter of patience and time until it all happens to come together in the right way. It is incorrect to describe the scientists as really trying to create a "Frankenstein monster," even though I'm sure they'd all be delighted if they succeeded in doing so.Haggis_McMutton wrote:Ok, you've just confirmed that you know nothing about evolution. If you value knowledge at all I highly suggest picking up a couple books written by someone who isn't a "creation scientist".Crispy; You are comparing an entity, The USA, with Life. In the case of the modern America, every building and every road had an intelligent designer behind them. A cause to the effect. None of it just came up all by itself. But in the case of the THEORY of evolution, the claim is that Life just put itself together over billions of Years by accident. If ever we find a planet, a totally dead world, where Highways, Buildings and even whole Cities just came together because the wind formed, shaped (by crashing the components together) and assembled all of the components that make up a city, complete with roads and infrastructure, by accident and blew them together over billions of Years, then I'll repent of my ways. It just will never happen.
Scientist have been trying to create that Frankenstein Monster for a very long time now. One case in particular at Cornell University (Which comes to mind) where they simulated the primordial conditions of the earth in a completely isolated chamber and bombarded it with simulated Lighting to see if it would produce even the first stirrings of the formation of life. All they got was goo! And the knowledge that Dead matter can not produce life, not to mention intelligence. If it took Billions of Years to create Life through evolution then why only one intelligent dominant species on the planet. I would think that after so long a time there would be Birdmen and wolfmen and Aquamen as well. All kinds of intelligent animals building cultures and cities everywhere.
Point 1. Evolution is not random. See above.
Point 2. So a couple failed experiments prove that the phenomena is impossible? So when Edison failed to produce a lightbulb for the first 50 tries he should have concluded "therefore a lightbulb is impossible. q.e.d" ? Evolutoion took a couple billion years. We have been trying for how long? 50? 70?
This probably gets into philosphy/semantics of how we define "intelligence". Depending on definition you might argue it exhibits some kind of intelligence, but only on the same level as current computer programs can exhibit "intelligence" I'd say.puppydog85 wrote:Interesting train of thought Haggis, if you don't mind someone jumping into the middle here, are you saying that evolution has intelligence? Is it sentient in some form?
Wait, I'm not sure what you mean by "natural selection" here. How is it unfalsifiable? You shouldn't look too deeply into my dices example, it was just meant to convey how a random process + a non-random process results in a non-random process.puppydog85 wrote:Haggis,
So evolution has is some sense a hardwired code that advances its goals (survival of the fittest).
Is it possible to prove your point? Is not natural selection (your dice sixes example) non-falsifiable? And therefore not a "scientific" theory?
Haggis; What evidence do you present that Evolution took a couple of billion years? Were you there? Are you that old? Did you see it happen with your own eyes? And did you document it all?Haggis_McMutton wrote:Evolution did.Viceroy63 wrote: Twice you used the word "Designed."
So who designed it?
I'm sorry to say this, but it seems to me you do not know the basic facts about how evolution works.
Specifically, evolution is not random. Mutations are random, natural selection is the opposite of random, therefore evolution is kinda like rolling 10 dices and then keeping only those that fall with the 6 face up and re-rolling the others.
It won't be exactly incomprehensible for this method to give me 10 sixes in a little while, will it?
It is not. at all.Viceroy63 wrote: Maybe the words "Established fact" is the wrong use for the intended meaning. I am sure that given time I can find a quote for that. But in the meantime it is generally accepted as common knowledge that no code can come together by accident no matter how many millions of years you give it.
I don't know of a single respectable scientist who believes such a thing. I have no idea where you got this notion from. There is nothing magical about "codes". Evolution can create them just like anything else.
[Please do not remove the Url's. Not everyone can see the Youtubes because of some missing program script.]
So the first video seems to simply be "DNA is complicated therefore god did it", or in other words, watchmaker argument. Do you really think this age-old argument that has been wildly refuted proves god?
Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker ... #Criticism and http://www.stonemakerargument.com/1.html
Also, love how the guy finds two scientists misrepresents what they said(the guy was claiming god cannot be a scientific hypothesis because an omnipotent god is necessarily outside the purview of empiricism) and uses this to reach the conclusion that scientists are brainwashed, then goes around to claim "isn't it obvious that god did this".
"Obvious" is not how stuff works in science. Is germ theory "obvious" ? Is the shape of the earth "obvious"? Is relativity "obvious"? No, before discovering all of those things we used to believe the "obvious" thing, which just so happened to be wrong.
fastposted:Ok, you've just confirmed that you know nothing about evolution. If you value knowledge at all I highly suggest picking up a couple books written by someone who isn't a "creation scientist".Crispy; You are comparing an entity, The USA, with Life. In the case of the modern America, every building and every road had an intelligent designer behind them. A cause to the effect. None of it just came up all by itself. But in the case of the THEORY of evolution, the claim is that Life just put itself together over billions of Years by accident. If ever we find a planet, a totally dead world, where Highways, Buildings and even whole Cities just came together because the wind formed, shaped (by crashing the components together) and assembled all of the components that make up a city, complete with roads and infrastructure, by accident and blew them together over billions of Years, then I'll repent of my ways. It just will never happen.
Scientist have been trying to create that Frankenstein Monster for a very long time now. One case in particular at Cornell University (Which comes to mind) where they simulated the primordial conditions of the earth in a completely isolated chamber and bombarded it with simulated Lighting to see if it would produce even the first stirrings of the formation of life. All they got was goo! And the knowledge that Dead matter can not produce life, not to mention intelligence. If it took Billions of Years to create Life through evolution then why only one intelligent dominant species on the planet. I would think that after so long a time there would be Birdmen and wolfmen and Aquamen as well. All kinds of intelligent animals building cultures and cities everywhere.
Point 1. Evolution is not random. See above.
Point 2. So a couple failed experiments prove that the phenomena is impossible? So when Edison failed to produce a lightbulb for the first 50 tries he should have concluded "therefore a lightbulb is impossible. q.e.d." ? Evolutoion took a couple billion years. We have been trying for how long? 50? 70?
Also, there are all kinds of intelligent animals building cultures and cities everywhere. Are you aware of the complex social dynamics in everything from monkeys to bees? Are you aware of ant colonies with millions of individuals cooperating. Are you aware of complex interdependencies in the parasite-host relationships?
Wait, lemme guess, now you're gonna go around and say "aha, you admited complexity exists therefore god did it". No he didn't, evolution did. It seems to be very good at filling every available ecological niche with life.
Also, the video claims there can be no experimental proof for evolution. Nope, false: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_lo ... experiment

A scientific theory is not the same thing as an unsubstantiated hypothesis. It is a coherent framework that makes sense out of disparate pieces of evidence. Disagreeing with evolution does not remove all of the various pieces of evidence that led us to this conclusion; it just means you need a different theory that collates all the information into one logical point of view.Viceroy63 wrote: The reason why Evolution is a Theory is because it has no foundation of evidence to support it. In fact it takes more of a leap of faith to believe in Evolution than to believe in a Creator God.
Do you have a source where somebody came up with these numbers, or does the video cite this source?The odds are just too great that Life could have happen by accident. You have better odds of winning the Lottery every single week for 50 years straight than Life being produced from dead matter by accident.
My evidence for evolution is the work carried out by hundreds of scientists over the past 150 years that have shown, beyond any reasonable doubt, through predictions that have later been verified and through empirical observations, that evolution is true.Viceroy63 wrote: Haggis; What evidence do you present that Evolution took a couple of billion years? Were you there? Are you that old? Did you see it happen with your own eyes? And did you document it all?
Calling bullshit till you show supporting evidence for this rather extraordinary claim.Viceroy63 wrote: Scientist today pick and choose tid bits of what they call evidence to support their theories and discard any real evidence to the contrary.
As mets pointed out, you don't know what a "theory" is in scientific terms. Gravity is a theory, Relativity is a theory, Germ theory is a ... theory.Viceroy63 wrote: The reason why Evolution is a Theory is because it has no foundation of evidence to support it. In fact it takes more of a leap of faith to believe in Evolution than to believe in a Creator God.
No. No. No.Viceroy63 wrote: The evolutionist's argument: It must be true because here we are!
which is not an argument at all. Rather a cop-out.Viceroy63 wrote: My Argument: God must be real because here we are!
Once more, you are applying bad analogies and appealing to some kind of common sense argument. "C'mon it is highly against my common sense that this happened so it didn't happen". I repeat, is germ theory common sense? Is relativity common sense? Is quantum mechanics common sense?Viceroy63 wrote: I am talking about codes and codes do not write themselves and especially not by accident. You can compare a watch to a complicated tree construct or ecosystem and say that since everything is complicated then the watch fits right in. But if you found the blueprints on how to make a watch on top of that rock then it's a whole different story. Who made that blueprint on how to make a watch? Did it write itself? How did it write itself? These are the questions and evidence that point right back to a Writer. So that whole bit about finding a watch on top of a stone in the jungle is ludicrous also because Lava or some other seismic occurrence created that rock. And the sun and the earth created that tree, but a watch? Come on now????
The stuff that is better equipped to survive does not thrive "by chance" it thrives because it is better equipped to survive. This means evolution is not random or accidental. You do not seem to grasp this point. It is exaclty like my previous example comparing simply throwing 10 dices and hoping to get 10 sixes vs. keeping the sixes you get so far and only throwing the rest.Viceroy63 wrote: And I do understand how evolution and natural selection work. Nature throws out a lot of stuff by accident. By chance those "stuff" that are more or better equipped to survive do so and replicate itself making better stuff more able to survive. But the main point is that it is all by Chance.
More "common sense" arguing?And the chances are, that Life can never be anything that nature throws out there in the first place. That is the whole point of the video. The odds are just too great that Life could have happen by accident. You have better odds of winning the Lottery every single week for 50 years straight than Life being produced from dead matter by accident.
Viceroy63 wrote: And by the way, the word "Design" presupposes intelligence. So nothing that happens by accident is also by design. It is either one way or the other but evolution does not design anything because evolution is by accident.
So no, a creator is not a prerequisite for design. Evolution designs organism to be better equiped at surviving in their environment. That's what it does. (also it isn't an accident, the selection component means we should expect organisms to get ever better at making use of their environment. You need to get this. It isn't a fluke that organism get better and in some cases more complex. it's what's to be expected.)webster wrote: Desing =
1
: to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan : devise, contrive
2
a : to conceive and plan out in the mind <he designed the perfect crime>
b : to have as a purpose : intend <she designed to excel in her studies>
c : to devise for a specific function or end <a book designed primarily as a college textbook>
Haggis_McMutton wrote: How is it unfalsifiable?
Natural selection is not a statement of evolution. It's just a self-evident description of nature: those who are most adapted to their environment, survive. The theory of evolution is the assertion that natural selection is responsible for a gradual change in the makeup of a population over time. That is most surely a falsifiable statement. All we need to do is look at older populations and see if they are the same as the current populations. If they are, evolution has been disproved.puppydog85 wrote: Only the Fittest Survive
How do we know who the fittest are?
Those who survive.
Who are the weakest?
Those who don't survive.
Obviously a fail there. Unless I am understanding natural selection wrong. I don't really go in for biology, more of the philosopher.
That is the way science works. There are facts, and there are theories. Natural selection is a fact; it is widely observed (and logically obvious anyway) that animals that are not well-adapted to their environment will die quicker and more often than those that are better adapted. It doesn't need to have a reason; it just is.puppydog85 wrote:yeah, no offense, but when someone starts talking about self evident things, I take that to mean that they really don't have a good reason for it, that it is just they way they want it to be.
Sure. What I was saying is that that tautology is not itself a description of the theory of evolution. It does point out that there's no way a priori to figure out which animals are ill-adapted; you have to use careful observation to figure that out. But, in the simplest possible manner, evolution can be described as a theory that says that natural selection (a fact of nature) will change the makeup of a species if left to operate over long time periods. Natural selection is not up for debate. What is up for debate is whether natural selection is responsible for the types of species that are alive today.But you do seem to try to answer it with that last statement, but it made no sense to me, so perhaps I was not clear in my attack. Perhaps this will make more sense: the above formula was a tautology.