Bacterial resistance to antibiotics- what is the Creationist explanation?

[Right Divider]

Well I did ask your opinion, and you did give an opinion in response. Does AiG speak for you on all such matters?

The AiG article is accurate and I agree with it. That is my opinion.

As an aside, I am amused that you appear to have quote-mined creationist literature. That's usually what creationists do to real science literature!

More nonsense from you.

The first point I made in #206 was about probability: the probability of a large mutation being beneficial is very low, but the smaller the mutation the closer to 50% chance it has of being beneficial. Do you/does AiG have an opinion about that?

• The VAST majority of mutations are highly destructive.
• Your "beneficial" mutations come at a high cost to the integrity of the original design.
• Mutations are NOT a pathway to design highly complex interdependent systems, like a human body.
• Even some of the foremost evolutionists have said the same.

So you can prattle on all that you want. You are not proving a thing.

 

[Right Divider]

So you observe variation in dog breeds, for example. Either the variation results from recombination of alleles through sexual reproduction and mutation, and the breeders choose the puppies that are the most like the dogs they want, and they use those to breed the next generation, or else all of the breeds of dogs are already hidden in every dog, or some earlier dog, and they do...er what?

Breeders select the traits that they like. They do NOT care about or "use" mutations.

You have to remember that dog breeds today have limited information in their genes because of the selection process of the breeder. The other traits have been removed from the breed by selecting them out of the breed.

It was the common ancestor of all dogs that had ALL of the information.

If that second one was true, and you knew how it worked, you could have saved dog breeders a great deal of work over the past 15,000 years. What would you tell a dog breeder who thinks he has been choosing from random variations all this time? Do you know a better way to expose the hidden variations? Do you believe that there is a limited number of dog breeds possible because they all exist already, but are somehow hidden? Is this knowledge you have actually useful for anything?

That's some silly talk. Clearly you need to educate yourself.

Can I ask how you know this can't be tested?

Perhaps you'd like to show the class how to use the scientific method (repeated experimentation) on one-time events in the distant past.

Off the top of your head, can you give an example of a damaging mutation?

Sure... Sickle cell anemia.

The chicken teeth thing is not about everything you list, it is specifically about the presence of suppressed genes that can be reactivated to make a feature that birds don't normally have.

And yet these suppressed genes are there and can be activated by an intelligent agent.

This is not an example of Intelligent Design, because that is a claim about irreducible complexity, which is very specifically to do with adaptive features not having precursors, a claim that has been proved wrong for every example I've heard of.

You're confused and need to learn some things. Intelligent Design is NOT just about irreducible complexity.

In another thread, we established that there is no scientific theory of chemicals becoming a living cell, not because it's impossible in principles of biochemistry, but because of a lack of evidence from the specific event.

Dude... chemicals becoming life is EXACTLY what atheist evolutionists claim happened. Where have you been?

In addition, everything that we know about biochemistry does show that it's impossible.

You appear to be criticising the aspect of this which requires intelligent intervention by scientists. That's very much like the intelligent intervention that would seem to be needed in the creationist model of variation within kinds. How are preloaded genes turned off and on?

I don't see your problem here.

You will appreciate that without an answer to the question of how, the idea that a 'kind' already contains it's variation 'in the genes' loses out to evolution by natural selection of variation caused by mutation.

Nope.

That is a complete explanation. It is contradicted by no evidence.

Nope.

And there seems to be no room in the bacterial genome for extra, unused information kept in case the environment changes.

Nope.

I have another related question for you: if the purpose of the stored variation within a kind is to help its survival in a changing environment and it was put there by an all-knowing intelligence, why then have over 99.9% of all species that ever lived gone extinct?

Made-up statistics won't help your story.

 

[Right Divider]

You are made of chemicals. How did that happen?

The Creator... God.

 

[Right Divider]

This was in another thread. Maybe it will help Stuu (but probably not).

 

[Stuu]

The Creator... God.

And how did it happen?

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

The VAST majority of mutations are highly destructive.

Most mutations will be detrimental, I agree. You can't change something that is already fit without the high risk of making it less fit. But they are not necessarily highly destructive. A large number are neutral, for example substituting a different amino acid in a length of protein with makes no difference to the shape and function of a protein.

Reading these substitution differences between species is one part of the evidence for common ancestry, by the way.

Your "beneficial" mutations come at a high cost to the integrity of the original design.

There is no evidence of design, only the illusion of it. Living species look designed because we humans are designers and so we assume that all complex things are designed with a purpose in mind. But when you look closely at life you start to see that it is not an intelligent design because there are so many dumb things built in.

Mutations are NOT a pathway to design highly complex interdependent systems, like a human body.

Mutation (and recombination through sexual reproduction) provides the variation. That is random. Mutation could not do it alone. Natural selection is the essential partner. It is obvious that mutation makes variation, whether you would judge the outcomes good or bad, and it is obvious that some of the population will be better at surviving and reproducing than others. So whose genes get passed on? The ones who reproduce more successfully. Their genes become more common. That's evolution by natural selection, and it should be obvious to anyone.

I am interested in why you flatly deny this. Is it because there is no place in your religion for non-intelligent design, even though that is obviously what is going on, or is it that the timescales required to produce this much complexity contradict your religion's ideas about the prehistory of earth?

Even some of the foremost evolutionists have said the same.

Can you name some foremost evolutionists? I can name some that have said that, and also said that mutation alone cannot produce complexity in biology. But they say it is not just mutation that does it.

As an aside, a scientist would also say that just because a scientist says it, doesn't make it so. I think you should be skeptical about all scientists, including the 'scientists' who write for AiG. I knew one of them earlier in my life. He is one of the most intellectually capable people I ever met. That hasn't stopped him from writing stuff that is obvious nonsense.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

It was the common ancestor of all dogs that had ALL of the information.

And what about dogs today? Do they still have all the information?

Perhaps you'd like to show the class how to use the scientific method (repeated experimentation) on one-time events in the distant past.

Ok. How much do you know already about molecular clocks, anatomy and comparative fossil morphology, endogenous retroviral germ line insertions, isochron isotope dating, pseudogene mutation, plate tectonics and embryology? I certainly don't claim to be an expert in any of these things, but with a bit of work I have been able to understand how evidence from completely different areas of science gives what they call a strong consilience: the patterns each discipline sees independently of the others shows common descent. So what are the chances that, say, these seven different areas would independently come up with the same, wrong idea? I hope you can see how unlikely that would be.

They all do repeatable experiments. Do you believe in forensic science?

Stuu: Off the top of your head, can you give an example of a damaging mutation?

Sure... Sickle cell anemia.

Alright, good example. Let me give you another. There are four genes needed to make the four proteins that are enzymes for the production of Vitamin C. We humans can't make our own Vitamin C because the fourth gene is broken. Animals that have easy access to Vitamin C in their diets can lose the ability to make it. There is no selection pressure to keep the ability, but of course it has been a problem for sailors who have suffered from scurvy. Sickle cell disease has its big advantage and big disadvantage, but the inability to make Vit C is detrimental but not necessarily a major problem.

Different mutations have broken the sequence of four genes at different times in different species. The mutation in the fourth gene that we inherited happened 60 million years ago, before the lemurs diverged from the monkeys. Our line is on the lemurs side and like modern lemurs we can't make Vit C. The monkeys can still make their own Vit C. That's common ancestry.

Would you like me to give you some examples of advantageous mutations?

You're confused and need to learn some things. Intelligent Design is NOT just about irreducible complexity.

Well then, please tell me what else it is about.

Dude... chemicals becoming life is EXACTLY what atheist evolutionists claim happened. Where have you been?

And none of them know how it happened. And they will tell you they don't know. But what should you think if humans are made of chemicals, and we all have common descent from single celled ancestors? Shouldn't you think that at some stage chemicals became organised together in a way that could reproduce? Are you suggesting we should instead think about breathing into dirt, or women from men's ribs?

In addition, everything that we know about biochemistry does show that it's impossible.

Please tell me what we know about biochemistry that shows it's impossible.

I don't see your problem here.

If the information of variation within a kind is present, why don't we see the traits? Why are they hidden? Chickens have information in their genes for making teeth. Why don't chickens have teeth?

Nope.Nope.Nope.

I don't feel educated by that.

Made-up statistics won't help your story.

Is your world view interested in knowing what is really going on in the universe?

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

This was in another thread. Maybe it will help Stuu (but probably not).

4:33 'Beneficial mutations still lead to degradation of information...genetically they are deleting information.' In whose opinion is a change degradation? If the change in information is an improvement then why would you think it is degraded? Many mutations are not deletions of information but multiplications of the same information.

4:59 'The ratio of beneficial mutations to damaging mutations is a million to one.' Who was it talking about made-up statistics a few posts ago?

5:25 'Let's say [in one mutation] you get from scales to feathers...instantaneously' Who ever claimed that would be possible? That's exactly what I have posted against three or four times in this thread: the probability of a large mutation being beneficial is very low. And it depends what you mean by scales and feathers. What about scales with feathery edges? Neo-Darwinian evolution would say that scales to feathers is essential an impossible change in one step: these presenters don't even know the thing they oppose.

5:40 'You've got a million bad mutations to come after that that destroy every cell in the body'. That's a creationist jumping of the shark if ever I heard one. This is an entertainment show, right? It's not science.

6:26 'All human geneticists acknowledge that we are degenerating at present' (Let's not forget that this scientist is an expert in plant genetics, although he conveniently knows little about plate tectonics, isochron dating or molecular clocks). What do these geneticists mean by degenerating? Is that how all of them have expressed it? Do they mean to say that the number of mutations in our exponentially expanding population is increasing? That's exactly what you get with exponentially expanding populations. Does that mean we will go extinct? No, because the number of new mutations would go down if the population decreased. More mutation means more variation, means a more robust population. The word degradation is only an opinion about individuals' genomes, it has nothing to do with the viability or robustness of our species.

6:50 'We're not evolving, we're devolving I guess you could say' What the heck is devolving? What does it mean?

7:19 This is lethal to the neo-Darwinian point of view' He is talking about natural processes, and it will always be the fittest who survive and reproduce. So it's no problem at all.

7:35 'We can't select away mutations as fast as they accumulate... we've got this trade secret amongst evolutionists...mutations are causing things to go to extinction, not evolution.'. Why can't they be balanced and explain what the mechanisms are for removal of deleterious mutations? That's the problem with getting all your 'science' from AiG. They won't tell you the full story.

For example, I'm guessing they are probably against abortion, so it would be inconvenient for their argument to discuss the fact that five in every six human conceptions never makes it to developing foetus. But there's one massive effect that removes genetic problems. There's also a standard misconception that evolution is some kind of direction of progress, for which there is a wrong direction, that there are species that are 'more evolved' than others. Actually, there is no direction, just fitness for survival and reproduction. All species are equally well evolved if they are surviving and reproducing in their environments. Far from it being danger of extinction from genetic degradation, it's extinction because humans have changed the environment too fast for mutation and natural selection to keep up.

If we should be dead 100 times over in our time as humans, well obviously our existence disproves the idea that we are being mutated to extinction. You won't have heard them talk about the relationship between numbers of mutations and population size, because that explains their mystery.

It was discovered a few years ago in a species of beetle that there are 'helper' proteins which can hold other proteins in the right shape even if a mutation has changed the natural shape of the protein. These helpers are the most vulnerable to being selected against in a changing environment, and they will fail first, suddenly unleashing a range of variation in the environmentally stressed beetle population. If anything, populations in trouble need more mutation, not less.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

If we should be dead 100 times over in our time as humans, well obviously our existence disproves the idea that we are being mutated to extinction. You won't have heard them talk about the relationship between numbers of mutations and population size, because that explains their mystery.

Your inability to understand what is being said makes it virtually impossible to communicate with you.

It was discovered a few years ago in a species of beetle that there are 'helper' proteins which can hold other proteins in the right shape even if a mutation has changed the natural shape of the protein. These helpers are the most vulnerable to being selected against in a changing environment, and they will fail first, suddenly unleashing a range of variation in the environmentally stressed beetle population. If anything, populations in trouble need more mutation, not less.

The VAST majority of mutations are HIGHLY damaging to the organism that has them. Your "facts" are anti-facts.

 

[Right Divider]

And how did it happen?

Stuart

Get a Bible and find out.

 

[Stuu]

Your "facts" are anti-facts.

You have correctly identified the problem right there. I don't think you are really interested in knowing what is actually going on in the world, whatever it is.

With science no one gets to have their own facts, but what you really want is your own set of facts, the alt-facts for the alt-worldview.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

Most mutations will be detrimental, I agree.

Those that work in the field say that the ratio is about a million to one.

You can't change something that is already fit without the high risk of making it less fit.

And that is EXACTLY what happens with mutations. They lead to extinction.

But they are not necessarily highly destructive. A large number are neutral, for example substituting a different amino acid in a length of protein with makes no difference to the shape and function of a protein.

It only takes one highly damaging mutation to ruin the whole party.

Reading these substitution differences between species is one part of the evidence for common ancestry, by the way.

Only up to a point (limited by the original kinds, if it could be followed that far back).

There is no evidence of design, only the illusion of it.

Saying it does not make it true. Many prominent evolutionists admit that life appears to have been designed. The most reasonable explanation for that is that life IS DESIGNED.

Living species look designed because we humans are designers and so we assume that all complex things are designed with a purpose in mind.

A most valid and most reasonable assumption.

But when you look closely at life you start to see that it is not an intelligent design because there are so many dumb things built in.

Ah... the continued arrogance of the evolutionists is a thing of massive proportions.

Mutation (and recombination through sexual reproduction) provides the variation.

There is inherent variability in the genes. That does not require magic mutations.

That is random. Mutation could not do it alone.

It is literally so hilarious to hear you guys repeating that nonsense.

Natural selection is the essential partner. It is obvious that mutation makes variation, whether you would judge the outcomes good or bad, and it is obvious that some of the population will be better at surviving and reproducing than others. So whose genes get passed on? The ones who reproduce more successfully. Their genes become more common. That's evolution by natural selection, and it should be obvious to anyone.

Mutations are damage... plain and simple.

I am interested in why you flatly deny this. Is it because there is no place in your religion for non-intelligent design, even though that is obviously what is going on, or is it that the timescales required to produce this much complexity contradict your religion's ideas about the prehistory of earth?

I flatly deny things that are patently false. Your "timescales" are another myth to help your support faulty system.

 

[Right Divider]

And what about dogs today? Do they still have all the information?

You're not even reading my posts. The answer to your question was in the preceding two sentences.

You have to remember that dog breeds today have limited information in their genes because of the selection process of the breeder. The other traits have been removed from the breed by selecting them out of the breed.

It was the common ancestor of all dogs that had ALL of the information.

Since you're not even reading my posts, I'm done with you.

 

[Stuu]

Those that work in the field say that the ratio is about a million to one.

And how do they know that? In what paper is it published?

And that is EXACTLY what happens with mutations. They lead to extinction.

Viruses are quite vulnerable to error catastrophe because they have small genomes and are good at mutating because it helps them to evade host immune systems. Whether viruses are living species is a moot point. Very small populations, of say less than 1000 sexually reproducing individuals are at risk of mutational meltdown. Larger populations of asexual reproducers are also at risk. Can you name a large, sexually reproducing, non-viral species that has gone extinct because of mutation? Surely there should be many given that it is true that over 99.9% of all species that ever lived have gone extinct. I'd agree that a population which decreased to a few hundreds may succumb to extinction by mutational meltdown, but that wouldn't be the reason the population began to decline.

It only takes one highly damaging mutation to ruin the whole party.

What has that got to do with what I posted?

Only up to a point (limited by the original kinds, if it could be followed that far back).

There is no reason to believe that's true. Can you show me where it even says that in scripture?

Saying it does not make it true.

If you believe that then why did you start your post with 'Those that work in the field say...?

Many prominent evolutionists admit that life appears to have been designed.

Richard Dawkins, for example. But you are effectively quote-mining by not also telling us that these scientists go on to explain why it is an illusion and not really design at all.

The most reasonable explanation for that is that life IS DESIGNED.

An alt-explanation for an alt-concept. Not really an explanation though, is it.

[Design is] a most valid and most reasonable assumption.

Humans observed that the sun and moon and planets all go round us, so it was most reasonable to assume that the earth is at the centre of the solar system, but it was completely wrong. Look closer, and the orbit of Mars is retrograde, meaning that both Mars and the earth are orbiting something else at the centre.

Look closer at the concept of design in animals. The recurrent laryngeal nerve is an exquisite detail. The nerve runs from its connection with the spinal column in the neck, down into the chest, around the aorta on top of the heart, then back up into the neck to the laryngeal tissues which it connects. In fish the nerve takes a pretty direct path. In us it might add a foot or two, but in giraffes it is hilariously 15 extra feet of nerve tissue.

EITHER:
1. The designer is an incompetent, wasteful engineer, or it lazily applied the same development pattern to all tetrapod species without looking at the details.

OR:
2. The laryngeal nerve was fine in our fish ancestors but with necks getting longer in descendent species the nerve was caught on the wrong side of the aorta with no way for the blind process of natural selection to fix it (there are people with hearts that develop in different ways that don't have long laryngeal nerves).

Which explanation do you prefer? It has to be one of the two, right? Maybe your god is not perfect, since humans are not perfect, and Genesis 9:6...

Further, here are some more bizarre examples of 'design':

1. Why do male mammals have nipples? Male rats, mice and horses don't have them. So much for common design.
2. (My favourite): do you have a plantaris muscle running from your knee to under your foot? About 10% of people don't have them. What were they designed for?
3. Why do you have an appendix?
4. Why can't marine mammals get their oxygen from seawater? It is a major cause of calf death that they can't get to oxygen in time when they are born.
5. Why do testes have to descent from inside the abdomen to the scrotum, leaving a permanent weakness in the abdominal wall that can lead to the very common inguinal hernia?
6. Why do humans have narrow hips and large skulls, making human childbirth particularly hazardous? Isn't there a safer way?
7. Why is the human back so poor? Why does it so easily trap its sciatic nerves, and cause herniated discs?
8. Why does the urethra pass through the middle of the prostate gland, prone as the prostate is to enlargement and blocking of the urinary flow?
9. Why do foetuses die of being strangled by their very long umbilical cords?

That's 10 examples of stupid design that could easily have been fixed. But we know that natural selection is blind and dumb. Sure, there's some astounding biochemistry, but then evolution has had longer to optimise that. We expect dumb engineering from natural selection, and we have lots of it.

There is inherent variability in the genes. That does not require magic mutations.

Can you explain how your claim relates to meiosis and sexual recombination?

You have to remember that dog breeds today have limited information in their genes because of the selection process of the breeder. The other traits have been removed from the breed by selecting them out of the breed. It was the common ancestor of all dogs that had ALL of the information.

So how long will it be before they're all sprung out of the kind variation jail? How many breeds are there still to be produced, do you think?

Since you're not even reading my posts, I'm done with you.

Bye then.

Stuart

 

[JudgeRightly]

Look closer at the concept of design in animals. The recurrent laryngeal nerve is an exquisite detail. The nerve runs from its connection with the spinal column in the neck, down into the chest, around the aorta on top of the heart, then back up into the neck to the laryngeal tissues which it connects. In fish the nerve takes a pretty direct path. In us it might add a foot or two, but in giraffes it is hilariously 15 extra feet of nerve tissue.

EITHER:
1. The designer is an incompetent, wasteful engineer, or it lazily applied the same development pattern to all tetrapod species without looking at the details.

OR:
2. The laryngeal nerve was fine in our fish ancestors but with necks getting longer in descendent species the nerve was caught on the wrong side of the aorta with no way for the blind process of natural selection to fix it (there are people with hearts that develop in different ways that don't have long laryngeal nerves).

OR:

3. The Designer, being competent, frugal, and efficient, applied similar features to tetrapods because they work, and why reinvent the wheel when you've made a working one already in use?

You seem to forget that even software engineers reuse code not because they're incompetent, but because copy/pasting is simply more efficient. It's why we find similar (if not exact) strings of genetic code in animals that, according to evolutionists, are completely unrelated, like bats and dolphins.

And God is much greater than a human engineer.

Which explanation do you prefer? It has to be one of the two, right?

Nope.

Maybe your god is not perfect,

God is perfect.

since humans are not perfect,

God made man perfect. Then man sinned, and fell from perfection.

and Genesis 9:6...

Supra.

Further, here are some more bizarre examples of 'design':

Is this an attempt at a gish gallop?

1. Why do male mammals have nipples? Male rats, mice and horses don't have them.

No idea. Never really thought about it.

So much for common design.

Apparently, Stuu thinks God couldn't make different things different while still using his toolbox full of features that are used in many different creatures.

2. (My favourite): do you have a plantaris muscle running from your knee to under your foot? About 10% of people don't have them. What were they designed for?

Which is perfectly inline with a perfect creation subject to a few thousand years of mutations causing loss of or damage to information in the genes, which may or may not result in features being missing or deformed.

3. Why do you have an appendix?

The appendix is not a vestigial organ, and has function, despite the darwinists' claim otherwise.

The appendix (in addition to tonsils) helps the immune system.

4. Why can't marine mammals get their oxygen from seawater?

Which, specifically?

It is a major cause of calf death that they can't get to oxygen in time when they are born.

...

5. Why do testes have to descent from inside the abdomen to the scrotum, leaving a permanent weakness in the abdominal wall that can lead to the very common inguinal hernia?

I'm just going to leave this here. First paragraph.

https://www.urologyhealth.org/urologic-conditions/cryptorchidism

6. Why do humans have narrow hips and large skulls, making human childbirth particularly hazardous? Isn't there a safer way?

The answer to this lies in Genesis 3, specifically verse 16.

7. Why is the human back so poor?

You have a better solution that allows a nervous system trunk to remain protected, while still allowing the creature to which it belongs to be flexible, rather than rigid?

Why does it so easily trap its sciatic nerves, and cause herniated discs?

Perfect design subjected to decay.

8. Why does the urethra pass through the middle of the prostate gland,

No idea. However...

prone as the prostate is to enlargement and blocking of the urinary flow?

Which would be the result of disease, which is the natural consequence of man's fall.

9. Why do foetuses die of being strangled by their very long umbilical cords?

See answer to 6.

That's 10 examples of stupid design that could easily have been fixed.

Rather, that's 10 examples of what used to be perfect design but has been subjected to degradation.

But we know that natural selection is blind and dumb. Sure, there's some astounding biochemistry, but then evolution has had longer to optimise that.

Not as long as needed. Only a few billion years, tops. Nowhere near enough time.

We expect dumb engineering from natural selection, and we have lots of it.

If you don't have a theory for the origin of something, you don't have a theory at all.

 

[7djengo7]

Is it because there is no place in your religion for non-intelligent design, even though that is obviously what is going on, or is it that the timescales required to produce this much complexity contradict your religion's ideas about the prehistory of earth?

Really, the phrase, 'intelligent design', is redundant, since all design is intelligent--that is, since no design is non-intelligent. Your phrase, "non-intelligent design", is oxymoronic, and thus, meaningless, like the phrase, "non-rectilinear, non-rectangular square", and the phrase, "five-sided circle".

Obviously what is going on is that your mind has been seriously damaged, somehow, somewhere along the line, enabling you, here--without even batting an eye--to shamelessly try to palm off on others your phrase, "non-intelligent design", as though you imagine it is somehow meaningful, or somehow logically legitimate.

Living species look designed because we humans are designers and so we assume that all complex things are designed with a purpose in mind.

There's another redundancy: your phrase, "designed with a purpose in mind". To design is, without exception, to purpose--that is (borrowing your phrase) to have a purpose in mind; whatever is mindless does not design.

There is no evidence of design, only the illusion of it.

Watch yourself demolish your own stupidity:

There is no evidence of [non-intelligent design], only the illusion of it.

 

[Stuu]

OR:

3. The Designer, being competent, frugal, and efficient, applied similar features to tetrapods because they work, and why reinvent the wheel when you've made a working one already in use?

If it looks like design to you then you have already made a judgement about how good it is as biological engineering. It's not the optimum design if even us mere humans can see how it could have been done better. In fact corrective surgery is commonplace, right?

You seem to forget that even software engineers reuse code not because they're incompetent, but because copy/pasting is simply more efficient. It's why we find similar (if not exact) strings of genetic code in animals that, according to evolutionists, are completely unrelated, like bats and dolphins.

I'm sure you understand that Leviticus 11:13-19 is wrong: bats are not birds. Bats and dolphins are quite closely related. As mammals they share a common ancestor about 80 million years ago, which is towards the very last stages of the time of the dinosaurs.

Dolphins don't have legs. Why did your designer give them hip bones?

Bats don't have bird wings, they fly using adapted hands with skin webbing between the fingers. Why didn't your god reuse the bird wing code for bats?

Our eyes are wired with the light-sensitive retina cells facing the back of the eye, with the blood supply running across the front side, where the light is coming through. If you stare at a bright cloud long enough you can even see the individual blood cells moving in little arcs in time with your heart beat. Octopus eyes are wired the 'right way' round. The blood supply comes into the cells at the back. Why didn't your god use octopus eye wiring in mammals?

So you see you can't have it both ways. Is it a principle that the code was copied for the same purpose in different species, or was it just sometimes?

God is perfect.

Would you say this god the highest ideal in anything, the most impressive possible? If so then I recommend the amusing philosophy of the Australian Douglas Gasking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontolo...ouglas_Gasking

Gasking asserted that the creation of the world is the most marvellous achievement imaginable. The merit of such an achievement is the product of its quality and the creator's disability: the greater the disability of the creator, the more impressive the achievement. Non-existence, Gasking asserts, would be the greatest handicap. Therefore, if the universe is the product of an existent creator, we could conceive of a greater being—one which does not exist. A non-existent creator is greater than one which exists, so God does not exist.

God made man perfect. Then man sinned, and fell from perfection.

Off topic question, but what was the flood all about then? Did that not fix the problem? I'd question this engineer, or at least think twice about hiring it in the future.

Is this an attempt at a gish gallop?

Yes, it is. And I acknowledge your criticism of the Gish Gallop. But the difference is that I would accept you taking them one at a time. Or even just pick one to criticise.

[On male nipples] No idea. Never really thought about it. Apparently, Stuu thinks God couldn't make different things different while still using his toolbox full of features that are used in many different creatures.

Stuu believes that 'no idea' is a completely acceptable answer, with no judgement to be made on a person answering that way. Stuu also believes that good explanations make testable predictions. Therefore Stuu thinks that the above statement is actually saying maybe this god did use the same code or it didn't, which is an attempt to have things both ways.

I don't mind if you address me in the second person. Call me 'you', unless you feel you are in preaching mode to the gathered brethren, in which case preach away!

[On the plantaris muscle]Which is perfectly inline with a perfect creation subject to a few thousand years of mutations causing loss of or damage to information in the genes, which may or may not result in features being missing or deformed.

I acknowledge your acceptance of the Gish Gallop challenge, unreasonable though it always was!

Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated with the plantaris muscle because it does have an important function in the other apes and in monkeys to aid in the grasping of tree branches. Since it was a long time ago that our ancestors lived in trees, it has been a long time since we needed to grasp branches in the same way. Humans who have them can very weakly achieve a kind of grasping of the feet by it, but it's essentially useless. To be honest, I don't actually know whether I have plantaris muscles or not; I don't know how much of a difference it makes to have them.

Natural selection is in the last stages of eliminating this tissue as an unnecessary waste of energy, er...I mean because a human female ate literal or metaphorical taboo fruit a few thousand years ago somehow that means genetic information has been changed in a way that has atrophied the plantaris.

But whichever it is, maybe there is a further part to your answer that explains why a perfectly engineering god would give us a muscle that never did anything useful.

The appendix is not a vestigial organ, and has function, despite the darwinists' claim otherwise. The appendix (in addition to tonsils) helps the immune system.

I think it is important to appreciate the definition of the term vestigial. Vestigial does not necessarily mean the part has no function, it can mean that the part has a changed function.

It is the tissue that performs the immune function. Why would the tissue need to be a little bag, shaped like a finger? Other species have finger-shaped bags that perform a different function, and it has been retained in us because it was adapted to a different function. But, again, it is not necessary because you can live without it, and indeed there are perfectly healthy people born without appendices.

Meantime, since the little bag can get dangerously infected, you would have to question an engineer that put a biological time bomb in your abdomen.

[On dangerous childbirth]The answer to this lies in Genesis 3, specifically verse 16.

So it's not all beneficial engineering by a loving god. Some of it is about altering the common code so it makes medieval-style torture devices. Would that cover the appendix time-bomb as well?

[Human back]You have a better solution that allows a nervous system trunk to remain protected, while still allowing the creature to which it belongs to be flexible, rather than rigid? ...Perfect design subjected to decay.

It works very well in animals that don't walk upright. It is curved like a bow to suspend the internal organs below it. It is poor engineering to bend it in reverse in the lower half without changing the geometry of the vertibrae and strengthening it against the more direct weight force. Up to 80% of humans get lower back pain, not to mention the curvature of the spine in scoliosis.

The 'design' had the wrong-sized nerve holes for the material used for the discs. We have synthetic materials that would make much better discs. Were those things beyond this designer? Of course if you look at the real reason, it is that walking upright is relatively recent and natural selection is still working on it. Back problems hit people more after reproductive age so there might not be as much selection pressure to fix it.

[On routing the plumbing through the prostate] No idea. However...[enlargement blocking the flow] would be the result of disease, which is the natural consequence of man's fall.

...if in doubt, blame Eve. I would have accepted 'no idea'. Of course, as you know I'll say, it's exactly the kind of thing natural selection would do: without any ability to plan it uses whatever 'design' it stumbles upon that will just do the job of allowing survival as far as successful reproduction, and that's it. I know some of the solutions look genius, but it's not genius it's just an inconceivably vast amount of accumulated trial and error, with mutation and sexual recombination providing the slightly altered options from which to select. Route the plumbing through the playground? No problem, it'll get us through somehow. The result? A profession called consulting urologist.

[Foetuses die of being strangled by their very long umbilical cords because] See answer to 6.

More medieval torture. Eve's fault again. Why are other mammals punished as well?

Stuu: That's 10 examples of stupid design that could easily have been fixed.

Rather, that's 10 examples of what used to be perfect design but has been subjected to degradation.

That's not what you said in each case. You gave several different answers, from functional tissue to the utility of the design, all the way to intentionally malicious engineering blamed on a mythical event involving a mythical snake (some of which, by the way, also have hip bones, but at least that one is actually described in Genesis even if it is another example of attempted cruelty.). The Judeo-christian scriptures don't mention genetics so I don't know how you can claim that degraded genomes and so forth is scriptural. It is all vague speculation.

You have honestly, and most respectably claimed in some cases you don't know. But on the other hand, with this wild level of speculation I'm afraid I won't be able to take from you any accusation of wild speculation on abiogenesis, what you call 'molecules to man', should you wish to lay that on me!

Not as long as needed. Only a few billion years, tops. Nowhere near enough time.

Well I admire your bullishness, but while I know at least one person who has lived over 100 years, I know no one who really comprehends what 10,000 years means, let alone a billion. If you could please lay out your working for how long biochemical evolution takes, that would be very interesting for many I'm sure. I recommend not forgetting to include the accumulating power of natural selection, which is like the difference between saving with simple interest and saving with compounding interest. Compounding interest could make you rich but simple interest never will.

If you don't have a theory for the origin of something, you don't have a theory at all.

If you don't have an explanation for how a human accepting knowledge from a serpent causes genetic degradation and decay then you don't have an explanation at all.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

Really, the phrase, 'intelligent design', is redundant, since all design is intelligent--that is, since no design is non-intelligent. Your phrase, "non-intelligent design", is oxymoronic, and thus, meaningless, like the phrase, "non-rectilinear, non-rectangular square", and the phrase, "five-sided circle".

Obviously what is going on is that your mind has been seriously damaged, somehow, somewhere along the line, enabling you, here--without even batting an eye--to shamelessly try to palm off on others your phrase, "non-intelligent design", as though you imagine it is somehow meaningful, or somehow logically legitimate.

Since Stuu believes that everything is just chemistry and physics in action, there is no actual "thinking" going on in his mind. It's just random chance electrical impulses in his head obeying the laws of the universe that nobody created. So don't expect too much from him.

 

[Right Divider]

This section of Dr. Walt Brown's book In the Beginning explains it very well.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences8.html

Notice, natural selection cannot produce new genes; it “selects” only among preexisting characteristics. As the word “selection” implies, variations are reduced, not increased.^b

For example, many mistakenly believe that insect or bacterial resistances evolved in response to pesticides and antibiotics. Instead,

• a lost capability was reestablished, making it appear that something evolved,^c or

• a mutation reduced the ability of certain pesticides or antibiotics to bind to an organism’s proteins, or

• a mutation reduced the regulatory function or transport capacity of certain proteins, or

• a damaging bacterial mutation or variation reduced the antibiotic’s effectiveness even more,^d or

• a few resistant insects and bacteria were already present when the pesticides and antibiotics were first applied. When the vulnerable insects and bacteria were killed, resistant varieties had less competition and, therefore, proliferated.^e

While natural selection occurred, nothing evolved; in fact, some biological diversity was lost.

 

[7djengo7]

There is no evidence of design

Would you say there is evidence for your claim that "there is no evidence of design", or are you just claiming it without having evidence for it?