Domain: trueorigins.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to trueorigins.org.
Comments · 7
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Re:Why this is important
EVEN IF you choose some arbitrary definition that allows you to measure the "semantic characteristics" in a sample or instance of DNA
Now you're confused again (or maybe I should say "still"). "Semantic characteristics" of information is not something that can be measured (in much the same way you can't measure "MP3" in "MP3 player"). It just denotes that information is measured as specified complexity instead of the more commonly (at least in comp.sci.) used definition of complexity by improbability (by Claude Shannon).If you want to know how to measure the amount of specified complexity I suggest you go to that library of yours and look for some books on information theory. Or if you want a short introduction you could read the discussion under "Information Content of Proteins" here.
And then you could start providing something to back up your claims that all the arguments I've told I.D.ers have are invalid. Or perhaps you'd like to comment my original comment that AeroIllini was talking out of his ass when he claimed that irreducible complexity doesn't exist?
And then you could read a few books on I.D. so that you would actually know what you're talking about. And if you read those I.D. books, and still think NDT (=neo-darwinian theory) has something meaningful to say, you just haven't understood I.D., or you just want to believe in the NDT because I.D. bothers you in some psychological way.
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Re:Very common questions: FAQs of answers
Some people may want to hear from the other side:
http://www.trueorigins.org/ -
Re:Call the editor!
No, he posted a link to trueorigins.org.
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Re:Yay Creationism!
Found this too, a reply to your nice page.
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Re:Yay Creationism!A common textbook definition of it is: Evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.
Here is a simplified version of it: Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.
I thought I should retouch this after coming across another website I had heretofore been unaware of. He talks about the definition given by talkorigins of evolution, and makes precisely the same statement I did:
Talk.Origins is very hard to targetâ"a fact that may be so by design. For example, if a person disagrees with TO on the âfact of evolutionâ(TM), these people will employ a definition of evolution [âoeBiological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over timeâ] that makes it impossible to disagree and, if one does argue, then that person comes across as being uninformed or irrational or fanatical. This might be acceptable if only it remained right there.
I wish and hope you can understand this - that we don't disagree with that plain defintion - but that this definition does not necessarily lead to what talkorigins was designed to defend. I don't appreciate this kind of deception, not in the slightest. You may read the full article here.
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Re:Sorry, not interested
I'm responding to you on
/. and in email, since this then satisfies both any lurkers and your questions...
The post that I was commenting on was the one you figured, by ianscott who made the very sweeping statement about Behe and Darwin (as quoted above repeatedly).
I understand your frustration in cr-ev discussions; I have seen the things that frustrate you about some creationists in many evolution defenders as well. They seem to start from an assumption that everything can be explained in a purely humanistic, materialistic, naturalistic way, and absolutely deny any possibility of God. Pitting advocacy sites against each other is kind of debate by proxy, and it's never very effective unless all the parties have an actual understanding of the topic involved.
The book I mentioned by Gentry is not about redshift (the link you provided is about his redshift theory), the book is about pleochroic halos caused by Po-218. I have not researched the redshift theory of Gentry's sufficiently to comment on it myself. Talkorigins has also addressed the topic of Gentry's book, but Jeff Brawley (who did an awesome job of amateur scientist in his field work) apparently missed some key papers by Gentry in Nature and Science in the 60s and 70s. These papers (published in the book too) show Gentry designing and conducting experiments to see if the possible cause of the halos was Rn gas seepage. He comprehensively proved it was not and could not have been caused by Rn seepage, and Brawley ignores that fact for whatever reason. Unfortunately talkorigins has left his post up for a long time, even though it was disproved decades ago.
And please do at least check out an overall review of the inaccuracies in the talkorigins site. -
Re:Bible belt evolution
The fact that living "fossils" have pretty much no change says something important.
It does indeed. It shows that a species may be able to fill it's ecological niche so well as to prevent competition significant enough to make it change. Evolutionary theory doesn't state that species will change at some rate over time but that they change in response to selective pressure. There are other examples of "living fossils" amongst certain species of sharks. The explanation is that they haven't had to change in order to survive so they haven't. At least beyond the standard genetic drift. There are small differences. The presumed extinction was ~70 million years ago, btw.
We are the same the whole world over. Where is the evolution in progress?
We lack the isolation we once did in order to speciate and our brains have allowed us to relieve ourselves of many if not most of the selective pressures faced by our ancient ancestors. Now let there be a world war that sends us back to the stone age and have 9/10'ths of the world's population die and you might see some movement. But maybe not even then. It could be the mere existence of our higher reasoning allows us to alleviate the majority of the selective pressures on our species. I predict we'll be evolving ourselves with genetic engineering long before we significantly change due to 'mere' genetic drift.
How is that possible if recessive traits don't express themselves until the point when a host of harmful mutations have the chance to express themselves?
I'm not sure I understand your question. Why does the expression of a recessive have to wait for a mutation? If the recessive exists in population it just has to wait for two organisms with the same recessive to breed.
I'm sorry, have you looked at all the date samples done by creation scientists (sent off to official, well respected laboratories for testing) and the samples show wildly innacurate dates? I have read many examples of this.
Care to share a few? Something other than this one?
As for using outdated arguments, from what I can see creationists have rejected the idea of the speed of light slowing.
Those were just a few of many and not all creationists have given up the changing speed of light argument. Many Young-Earth Creationists still cling to it in some form or fashion.
I don't know what the moon dust argument is, could you please tell me? I think I can guess.
That the cosmic dust accumulation on the moon should have built up into a layer 20 feet deep (or whatever) if the moon were really 5 billion years old. Long and short, the calculation was based on erroneous suppositions.
Creationists are nowhere near as bad as evolutionary textbooks publishing information long ago demonstrated to be false or a hoax. The peppermoths is a great example.
I beg to differ. Creationists are called to the carpet on a daily basis for some of the things they try to get away with. Peppermoths should have only ever been used as an example of natural selection. If there ever was a textbook that said it was proof of macroevolution, it was wrong. All 3 textbooks I've seen and all I've ever heard of use it as an example of natural selection. Unless you can come up with scores more examples, you don't have a leg to stand on by saying creationists are nowhere near as bad.
If you'd like some reading material, check some of these out. A couple of visits to the ICR museum and some of the inaccuracies and falsehoods contained therein. Take a look at the Creation Research Society's creed that members must adhere to. A list of "distortions" of truth by ICR founder Duane Gish.
I am going along, aren't I? :)
Btw, Kent Hovind still sports the light speed decay theory. You might want to check out Answers in Genesis and TrueOrigins and see if you can spot more errors on your own ... I'd help but it's really getting late and it's not as fun as it was when I started ... :)