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  #21  
Old 10-11-2011, 10:31 PM
tragblack
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I avoid duality on this matter. I feel that "God" and "evolution" could both exist and support each ither.
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  #22  
Old 11-11-2011, 02:03 AM
pre-dawn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mattie
Change is a constant in the Universe.

So, being constant, change is God. I can prove scientifically that things change, therefore God exists.
The question remaining: is there one or many Gods?
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  #23  
Old 11-11-2011, 03:27 AM
mickiel mickiel is offline
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Can science reveal God? It most certainly can. Science can be used without prejudice or religion , Two things you don't need to prove God exist. And I will be going into a lot of science in this thread; factual Science that reveals God.
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  #24  
Old 11-11-2011, 03:31 AM
nightowl
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God is a scientist!
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  #25  
Old 11-11-2011, 06:28 AM
Topology
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mickiel
Is there such thing as using Science to help us, in essence " Prove God exist?" An interesting question, it is commonly believed that there is no proof of God. I myself, tend to disagree with that; I think God most certainly can be proven, and the way to do it, is to first prove it to yourself! And there are many ways to do that; Using Archaeology, using Romance, using a study of Consciousness, a study of human nature, a study of history; and a study of " Science."

Science can most defintely reveal God; it helped do it for me. Because I have always wanted to know; wondered if God existed. And let me share with you how Science helped me to see God exist much more clearly.

The " Law of Biogenesis", which is composed of two parts; The first part states that living things only come from other living things, and not from non-living matter. Life only comes from Life. The second part of this states that when living things procreate, their offspring are the same type of organism they are. This is consistent with the biblical account in Genesis, which says all living things reproduce after their own kind. And this is a sure science.

When science has ventured into " Crossbreeding", and abnormal lines are crossed, " Sterility" is always the result. For example; a horse and a donkey can mate and produce a Mule, but the Mule is always sterile and unable to procreate. The fact that hybrid offspring do not have the ability to reproduce is strong evidence against evolutiuon and for creation. And this science can reveal God.

Mickiel, are you a professional biologist? Do you have a graduate degree in cellular physiology and chemistry?

I ask because your position and the ideas you are proposing are simplistic to the point of being flat out wrong. I'm not arguing with the fact that mules are sterile, I'm arguing with your proposal that the sterility of mules is enough evidence to base a universal law off of. If you want to talk about the genesis of life (not the biblical book, but the origins of life) and talk about the laws governing life then we must look at the behavior of the smallest forms of life, single celled organisms.

There's a reason mules are sterile and that has to do with genes. The biological definition of a species is that they are genetically compatible within the group (the offspring are not sterile) and they are genetically incompatible outside of the group (no offspring are generated, or they are sterile). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species...ons_of_species

Speciation is the process of what was one species splitting into two species. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation This is most commonly done through separation of one interbreeding community into two separate interbreeding communities. As time passes and genetic mutation occurs, the communities genetically drift apart from each other until they are no longer sexually compatible to generate offspring. This phenomenon is real.

What most people think of as evolution is macroscopic morphological change, which does not necessarily require a severe change in genetic material and could be a result of shifts in chemical equilibrium within the cell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution

Mickiel, it takes YEARS of study to master an understanding of what we now know is going on at a cellular level. My wife is a Biology major studying pre-med, I've had about 2 years of college level biology, and let me tell you this subject cannot, absolutely cannot, be simplified into a few trite "laws" or "principles". There is far too much complexity and too much that we don't know or don't understand. Presenting simplifications and generalizations not only trivializes the material, but spreads misinformation and misunderstanding.

Biogenesis is not a law, it is simply what happens for most life. We are currently studying how cells are decomposed into functional units and playing around with re-purposing cell functionality much in the way we re-program computers. There are two major criteria to life: 1 self-replication (allowing errors in copying that don't stop replication) and 2 a cellular envelope. It is not necessary that the cellular envelope be similar to what we have now, but it is necessary that there be some sort of envelope that allows the customization of an internal environment separate from the ambient environment.

Self replication can be observed in nature, emergent out of the principle of self-organization and the previous generation of structure aiding in the establishment of the new generation of structure. This can be witnessed in crystal lattice growth. There are clays which have a quasi crystalline structure and the characteristics of the crystal get replicated. For Abiogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis) to occur the most likely path way was for an inorganic structure like a clay or crystal to provide a surface which facilitated the alignment of organic molecules to bond into larger molecules. The next stage would be for the larger molecules to replace the clay/crystal as being the lattice against which other new composite molecules emerged. The next stage would be some sort of envelope which creates an environment which facilitates the replication. The envelope has to be composed of the replicating material and the envelope itself may have been the initial structure against which the molecules organized themselves.

Once life gets started with a cellular envelope and self-replication, the explosion in life is to be expected. Failure to make faithful copies in the replication process is essential for life. Some mistakes will hamper replication, some mistakes will enable more efficient replication. Anything that replicates survives provided it can acquire enough resources to replicate again. The more efficient an organism is at resource consumption and replication, the more progeny is produced. Speed this process up millions of years and the machinery that is replicated is going to be far more efficient, complex, and prolific. The complexity is going to included cells cooperating together to ensure mutual survival. Once you have cell colonies, then cells can begin to specialize and become optimal at performing certain tasks. Alone these cells would die, but the emergent orchestration from the cooperative specialization is more efficient and more stable. This is the basis of single celled organisms moving to multicellular structures. NOTE that some cells moving to multicellular structure does not imply all cells do.

Armchair philosophy might have a foothold, but there is no such thing as arm-chair biology. You have to become an expert to understand the nuance and complexity.

I'm asking everyone, please take 2 or more years of collegiate level biology from reputable sources, or at least read the text books and understand the material. If you're commenting without mastery of the material, most likely what you are saying is WRONG and does more to mislead and confuse others.

The simplification of life to some whimsical notions doesn't work. Life is complex and you have to put some serious time, energy and mentation to understand the processes going on.

Last edited by Topology : 11-11-2011 at 07:29 AM.
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  #26  
Old 11-11-2011, 06:39 AM
Topology
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mickiel
Can science reveal God? Well consider the " Anthropic Principles." Anthropic means relating to human beings and their existence. Its well known that our existence in this universe depends on numerous cosmological constants and parameters whose numerical values must fall within a very narrow range of values. If even a single varible were off, in some cases even slightly, we wouldnot exist.

The extreme improbability that so many varibles would align so auspiciously in our favor merely by chance has led some scientist and philosophers to propose instead that it was God who providentially engineered the universe to suit our specific needs. This is the Anthropic principle; that the universe appears to have been " Fine-tuned for our existence."

Even the co-founder of the theory of evolution," Alfred Russell Wallace", begin to see this before he died.


This is a logical fallacy as hybrid pointed out. If the abiogenesis of life has a chance of 1 in a million and there are a billion random chances, the probability of life occurring is a 1000 to 1 in favor. The fact that life occurred and we don't know how many chances occurred before our emergence doesn't mean it had to have been God.
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  #27  
Old 11-11-2011, 07:12 AM
Topology
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mickiel
I have never been comfortable with the idea that " Nature eventually will get ir right over the years", and all things just fall into order. Even the simple things in science shows me design from inception. Like the simple color of the Sun. If the Sun were much Redder, on the one hand, or Bluer on the other, " Photosynthesis" would be impeded, which is a natural biochemical process crucial to life on earth.

This brings us into the area of " Irreducible Complexity." Many things in our Universe do not change; cannot change without dire consequences; AND, couldnot have evolved from a " Lesser state of being, into a more complex state of being." Which part of a mousetrap could you remove and still have it work? Not one. Certain living organisms also cannot be simplified or reduced in complexity, and survive. The removal of any single part causes the system to cease functioning.

Irreducible complex systems cannot be produced gradually, by slight successive modifications from a less complicated pre-condition. They must exist exactly as they are; whole- complette, or they cannot exist at all. This science is a stunning case for " Creation as is from conception"; which is a revelation that God could well exist!


Irreducible complexity is also a fallacy which fails to take into account the difference between genetic expression and morphological expression and how genetic expression participates in the process of morphological expression. Single genes can participate in many different morphological expressions.

Here is the mathematical model which explains how something which is "irreducibly complex" may have emerged through evolution. I'm going to use some symbolic notation. Capitol letters represent morphological expressions. lowercase letters represent genes being expressed. I'm going to use the symbol => to represent the creation of morphology. Example: a,b,c => A means that genes a, b and c create the expression of the morphology A. I'm going to use the notation -> to indicate genetic mutation. Example: a->b means gene a is changed to gene b through mutation. I'm going to use the ----------- line to segment between genetic expression in different contexts. Genes are turned on and off due to contextual signals and I am simply going to create separate spaces separate by a line to indicate different contexts. NOTE contexts can merge causing expression to occur simultaneously or diverge, separating the expression of two morphologies.


These are the relevant patterns for this scenario, this is a mapping between genetic expression to morphological expression.

a,b => A
c,d => B
e,f => C
a,g => D
g,f,d => E


Starting Condition:

a,b => A
---------
c,d => B
---------
e,f => C

This says that the morphologies A, B, C are expressed in different contexts, the contexts are no co-occurring. I'm going to introduce a sequence of changes.

change1: merge the top two contexts so that A and B are expressed at the same time/space

a,b => A
c,d => B
---------
e,f => C


change2: mutate b->g

a,g => D
c,d => B
---------
e,f => C

change3: merge contexts, notice because g,f,d are all expressed in the same context, E is also expressed.

a,g => D
c,d => B
e,f => C
f,d,g => E

change4: mutate a -> h, D stops being expressed.

c,d => B
e,f => C
f,d,g => E

change5: mutate c->i, B stops being expressed.

e,f => C
f,d,g => E

change6: mutate e -> j, C stops being expressed.

f,d,g => E

And here we have the expression of a morphological trait E which appears to be irreducibly complex. Removing any of the genes turns off E. It could be the case that E more efficiently performs the functions of A,B,C and these morphological traits atrophy or "devolve" because of mutation.

This is a mathematical model for how what appears to be irreducibly complex can emerge. The underlying genes serve a dual purpose for other morphological traits and mutation brings them together to form the complex morphology and further mutation turns off the original morphologies those genes were contributing to.
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  #28  
Old 11-11-2011, 07:24 AM
Topology
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mickiel
I disagree with you there; I think science most defintely reveals God. And I could use a little know instrument called the " Astrailian Termite" to show that. One need only to scientifically examine this creature and we can see both the Anthropic principle, and irreducible complexity. This Termite is actually 4 creatures in one, each depends on the other for its existence. This termite represents the case of " You cannot have one without the other", and creation " As is."

Mixotricha Paradoxa lives in the gut of the termite. They are covered with hairy like creatures called Spirochetes, a totally different type of microorganism. On the mixotricha , there are bumps where the spirochetes are attached, and Bacillus are lodged on the other side of the bump. 3 totally different germs that decided to live together in a community?

An interdependance between a large microorganism, a spirochete, a bacillus, an Austrailian termite, AND even the trees the termite feeds on. I suppose if one is an evolutionist, they would believe that all these different creatures just randomly overtime, just happened to have met and formed a committee and decided to work together, the mixotricha " Developing bumps" where the spirochetes could bury their heads , behind which the bacillus could hide. All of whom " Decided" to live in the gut of a termite.

Obviously this scientific look inside of this termite illustrates the case for special creation of all of these creatures at " The same time." They couldnot have developed seperately and ever made it to the point where they could " Rendezvou" and forever spend their existence interdependant and together.

My illustration of how something that is irreducibly complex can emerge also works for explaining "irreducibly complex" symbiotic behavior. What was separate contexts merged into a single context and then through mutation over time the systems became inter-dependent to the point that it created a single complex system where the removal of a single part stops everything. Evolution can indeed be the culprit of these scenarios.

The age old question: Which came first: the chick or the egg? It's a paradox because it fails to take into account the process of evolution over generations where the current chicken-egg cycle grew out of a pattern where colonies of lightly specialized cells would create germ-cells (eggs) within their interior which would get expunged into the environment to spawn a new colony. This pattern emerged from single-cell splitting + forming colonies + specialization of cells. Once the pattern exists, the pattern evolves with the increase of cell specialization and interdependence. Millions of years later, one mutational branch lead to the creation of the chicken-egg cycle.
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  #29  
Old 11-11-2011, 09:42 AM
mickiel mickiel is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Topology
My illustration of how something that is irreducibly complex can emerge also works for explaining "irreducibly complex" symbiotic behavior. What was separate contexts merged into a single context and then through mutation over time the systems became inter-dependent to the point that it created a single complex system where the removal of a single part stops everything. Evolution can indeed be the culprit of these scenarios.

The age old question: Which came first: the chick or the egg? It's a paradox because it fails to take into account the process of evolution over generations where the current chicken-egg cycle grew out of a pattern where colonies of lightly specialized cells would create germ-cells (eggs) within their interior which would get expunged into the environment to spawn a new colony. This pattern emerged from single-cell splitting + forming colonies + specialization of cells. Once the pattern exists, the pattern evolves with the increase of cell specialization and interdependence. Millions of years later, one mutational branch lead to the creation of the chicken-egg cycle.


I read all your post Topology and you bring up good points, and I am not presenting myself as an expert on this subject , I only am presenting the facts as I understand them. And how the science of them reveals a God to me. The subject of replication is interesting, but I have questions; How could DNA and RNA evolve from something very rudimentary into their present day intricacy when the organism containing the basic genome would require the more complex, present day DNA and RNA to replicate? According to evolution, something like the genome could only achieve its utter complexity through replication, cumulative selection and mutation.

I personally have seen no evidence of a credible, verifiable and reproductive explination of the orgin of life. Neither has the " Gene Emergence Project", which has sponsored an event called " The Orgin of Life Prize", currently offering any scientist or group of scientist 1.35 million dollars to anyone who can produce a credible lab result of spontaneously forming complexity of inanimate systems of self organization and reproducing life.

There has been no one to yet claim that prize.
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  #30  
Old 11-11-2011, 10:01 AM
mickiel mickiel is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Topology
Mickiel, are you a professional biologist? Do you have a graduate degree in cellular physiology and chemistry?

I ask because your position and the ideas you are proposing are simplistic to the point of being flat out wrong. I'm not arguing with the fact that mules are sterile, I'm arguing with your proposal that the sterility of mules is enough evidence to base a universal law off of. If you want to talk about the genesis of life (not the biblical book, but the origins of life) and talk about the laws governing life then we must look at the behavior of the smallest forms of life, single celled organisms.

There's a reason mules are sterile and that has to do with genes. The biological definition of a species is that they are genetically compatible within the group (the offspring are not sterile) and they are genetically incompatible outside of the group (no offspring are generated, or they are sterile). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species...ons_of_species

Speciation is the process of what was one species splitting into two species. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation This is most commonly done through separation of one interbreeding community into two separate interbreeding communities. As time passes and genetic mutation occurs, the communities genetically drift apart from each other until they are no longer sexually compatible to generate offspring. This phenomenon is real.

.

I take issue with how some scientist explain " Crossbreeding and Mutations." No one dispites the fact that " Horizontal Variation" ( Microevolution) exist. All species have a certain range of differences. But " Vertical Transformation" ( Macroevolution) , where one kind of species transforms into another, is not allowed and does not occur. One can go to the cellular, and still I find it hard to imagine an Amoeba turning into a whole different species of Amoeba. Boundries between kinds are proven biological facts. Even in mutations, the more Macro a mutation is, the more likely it is to be deleterious, and the less likely it is to be incorporated in the evolution of the species. As a matter of fact, virtually all the mutations studied in genetic laboratories, are deleterious to the animals possessing with them. And this is a quote from Dawkins " The Blind Watchmaker" found on page 233.
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