The designer could describe in verifiable detail how it went about it.
And you'd think that wouldn't seem like nonsense to scientists? I don't believe this would convince anyone. People would just think the guy is a crackpot.
We could discover the complete text of Genesis encoded in the human genome.
IMO the genome should be designed to maximize survival in varying environments, not to store history texts.
A creature could be found (preferably living, but possibly fossilized) that obviously has nothing in common with other creatures.
That would only make (even more) people believe in aliens, which the creature would most likely be interpreted as. If it was living in the same environment and ecosystem as a lot of other organisms on this planet then it seems likely it should have a lot of the same building blocks as these other organisms.
We could observe the spontaneous creation of a species.
This would most likely convince only people who are inclined to believe that David Copperfield actually can produce a jet fighter out of thin air. Or are you suggesting that the creator would have some sort of "get a new species of your own for only $999"-service? (Perhaps it would be good.. actually, I've got an even better idea: Let's stop killing existing species!):-)
Demonstrate that it's impossible that they had a common ancestor and you'll have completely changed the face of modern biology.
Oh, OK, that's what you're after. OK, then you probably won't mind if we pick any two organisms, right? So, let's pick two species of which one is the hypothetical ancestor of the other, and let's pick them so that the latter has the vertebrate blood clotting cascade and the former doesn't. So, if the these two species really are related then the genetic info about said clotting system needs to have been added at some point.
Although it is not impossible for this genetic info to be added it is unclear how it might have happened. Since this is an irreducibly complex system (i.e. where natural selection is ineffective) it makes it extremely unlikely to have arised through mutations alone. OTOH it seems very much like some intelligent entity created this system, and thus the observed data is better explained with ID and/or creation theory.
This doesn't mean that we should stop searching for an alternative mechanism through which this could have happened, but at least with the data currently at hand an intelligent creator seems immensely more probable.
I'm sure that you can provide an example of the fossil record not supporting evolution
How about all the "out of place fossils"? E.g. the fossil footprints of an upright walking biped at Laetoli, which Dr R. Tuttle showed to be equivalent of, or very similar to, those of habitually barefoot humans. However, the evolutionists believe humans arrived millions of years after these prints were made, and thus regard the prints as australopithecine even though they have quite different foot bones than humans and make quite different footprints.
And how about the recent discovery of soft tissue and intact blood cells in dinosaur bones supposedly 65 Ma old? Even though this indicated that the bones couldn't be this old evolutionists didn't even consider the bones being much younger.
And how about the following quote from Gould? "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology."
Also, evolutionists claim that 95-99 % of all species have become extinct, but the data doesn't at all support this. Actually, only 250,000 fossil species have been found.
When Evolutionists can't, they throw Time at the problem.
Examples?
Pretty much each and every highly improbable genetic combination that a goo-to-you evolution would have required, such as the vertebrate blood clotting cascade.
You know what I've observed when animals must make significant adaptations in order to survive? They DIE!
What if they make the adaptations? Why wouldn't this happen?
Thanks to mutations and natural selection the population was at a local maximum of survival and reproduction. The environment changed so that this local maximum was removed, and it was way too long to another significant local maximum where natural selection would be effective.
If all of these things are true then it logically follows that a population will change over time to become more successful at reproduction.
Yes, until it hits the local maximum. However, even if you've never done any AI programming you should still realize that natural selection does its darnest to keep it at the current local maximum. Still, if the environment changes then this maximum will shift, and with mutations and natural selection and given enough time will probably cause a genetic shift. Unfortunately the local maximums are way too far apart for this to support goo-to-you evolution.
On the other hand, creationists believe that most organisms are created perfect, and that would include having the ability to adapt to various changes in the environment. The observed data fits very nice in this framework.
The human eye has a lens, a complex retina, cornea, iris, a system to maintain pressure inside the eye, to rotate fluid every four hours, tear glands clean the outside, and an eyelid keeps it moist and eyelashes keep foreign objects out. In addition, there are tuned muscles that surround the eye to help point it and to help focus.
None of these have a distinct advantage without the others being present.
That's not true. Remove the eyelashes and it'd be worse, but still good. Then remove the tear glands and it'd be even worse, but still quite OK. Then remove the eyelids and it'd be much worse, but still much better than nothing. And so on. Now do the above in reverse and you see how the eye gets gradually better for each component that is added.
That said, although each component in the eye might seem simple to the ignorant, that isn't necessarily the case. Many of them are quite complex in and of themselves, and may need large genetic "jumps" (i.e. several mutations have to occur without having the benefit of natural selection as a filter to keep the "good" ones from vanishing, i.e. there is irreducible complexity, as defined by M. Behe).
No. If you have only ten coins then you have to put each coin back after you draw it. (You want to simulate a sea of the coins... yadda yadda... "all atoms on earth"... blah blah.) Thus you won't get "10!" but "10^10", and that would make your result about 15,800 years. However, that assumes that you'd need to start each count on a try-# whose modulus 10 is 0, but that seems unreasonable. If you can start a count anytime then you're down to 1,580 years, if I'm not mistaken.
In the case of the moths, random mutations cause some to be darker and some to be lighter. As has always been the case and is still the case today. That's mutation.
Since darker moths hide better, they got eaten by birds less, and so they survived and procreated more than their lighter cousins. And so today, gypsy moths are darker than they were 100 years ago. That's natural selection.
AFAIK there has always been genetic information for both dark and light moths. Natural selection causing gene frequencies to shift one way or the other is in no way "evolution in action". This is also what the famous L. Harrison Matthews pointed out in the foreword of Darwin's Origin of Species.
Us humans still have vestigal tails, and while in the womb briefly have primitive gills.
Those misconceptions have been refuted a long, long time ago. (Heackel's recapitulation theory, to which your gill comment borders, was refuted over a hundred years ago.)
That's not evolution theory in action, that's just natural selection in action.
Evolution is defined as a change in alelle frequency over time. If alelle frequencies change, evolution occurs.
Yes, but that is not the part of the evolution theory that creationists have a problem with. The disputed thing is whether goo-to-you evolution is possible. Everybody agrees on the fact that changes occur, but creationists say that these changes won't create new traits (at least not in the proposed time frames), whereas evolutionists say that they do.
Natural selection is part of both the evolution theory and creation theory.
What is "creation theory"? What does it predict, how can these predictions be tested and what hypothetical observation would falsify it?
By "creation theory" I meant what creationists believe, and by "evolution theory" I meant what the evolutionists believe. (Yes, I know, that's simplifying it a lot, but you probably get the point.)
It predicts a lot of things. There are obvious predictions, such as there having been a global flood in the last 6,000 years, humans having been around for less than 10,000 years, that organisms degrade over time and generations, that life doesn't arise spontaneously, etc. Then there are less obvious predictions, such as the strenght of the magnetic field of planets.
So, what observation would falsify the creation theory? I'm not sure. What observation would falsify the evolution theory?
evolution can even be seen in action; in the 1800s biologists in England noticed that gypsy moths were becoming darker and darker. This was due to selective pressure; the increasing pollution made the trees darker, making it better camoflage for the moths to be darker.
That's not evolution theory in action, that's just natural selection in action. Natural selection is part of both the evolution theory and creation theory.
Creationists believe in mutations and natural selection just as much as evolutionists do. The difference is that creationists think that mutations and natural selection has a degenerating effect (i.e. removes functionality) whereas evolutionists believe the opposite.
These people actually have the nerve to tell you the blatant lie that the DRM incorporated into Jackito is a good thing.
E.g.: "A major advantage of this chip is that software can be freely copied." - link
Hah! That actually means that you can't copy software freely. That's right, they're actually saying the exact opposite of the truth.
If you buy DRMed software for Jackito then this software will only play on one particular Jackito. So, what if your Jackito breaks down? Well, I guess you just have to buy all your software again. How great is that?
From everything I've read, NT has a good security model, under the covers - even better than most Unix variants. (like Linux) It's just that they don't use it effectively.
No, NT doesn't have a good security model. It might be better than that of the popular unices, but it's still very bad. Check out capability-based security and POLA for a decent security model.
The nice thing about condorcet is that it can emulate a plethora of other voting methods. So, if you have a condorcet system in place the voter could be allowed to choose which voting system he wants to use. They would essentially all be the same, only the interface would be different. So, some voter could vote for "candidate X" while another voter could order all candidates by preference, and some third voter could vote for "candidate Y and party Z".
The guy was wandering the campus with a digital camera taking pictures of non-public areas. Wouldn't that make you a bit suspicious if you were in corporate security? Wouldn't you wonder how many other pictures he had taken and who he had given them to? Why should Microsoft take a chance on some temp when there are hundreds of others lined up at their doors begging for jobs?
The guy was wandering the campus with a cell phone making a phone call to his mom and telling her he was looking at a truck with Macs. Wouldn't that make you a bit suspicious if you were in corporate security? Wouldn't you wonder how many other phone calls he had made and what he had told to whom? Why should Microsoft take a chance on some temp when there are hundreds of others lined up at their doors begging for jobs?
Couldn't the system be changed so that the party that loses a case in court has to pay the legal expenses of the other party, too? That would keep people from suing if there's a high chance they might lose, and also encourage people to defend their rights without needing a shitload of money.
Yes, sorry, I didn't mean the title bar but the menu bar (which I thought the original poster also meant). And your comment about being able to close a window without the risk of overshooting: it's pretty much the only thing you can do without the risk of overshooting in windows. All menus are off the edge. So are the window buttons in the task bar. You can't even press the Start button without the risk of overshooting!
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And you'd think that wouldn't seem like nonsense to scientists? I don't believe this would convince anyone. People would just think the guy is a crackpot.
We could discover the complete text of Genesis encoded in the human genome.
IMO the genome should be designed to maximize survival in varying environments, not to store history texts.
A creature could be found (preferably living, but possibly fossilized) that obviously has nothing in common with other creatures.
That would only make (even more) people believe in aliens, which the creature would most likely be interpreted as. If it was living in the same environment and ecosystem as a lot of other organisms on this planet then it seems likely it should have a lot of the same building blocks as these other organisms.
We could observe the spontaneous creation of a species.
This would most likely convince only people who are inclined to believe that David Copperfield actually can produce a jet fighter out of thin air. Or are you suggesting that the creator would have some sort of "get a new species of your own for only $999"-service? (Perhaps it would be good.. actually, I've got an even better idea: Let's stop killing existing species!) :-)
Although it is not impossible for this genetic info to be added it is unclear how it might have happened. Since this is an irreducibly complex system (i.e. where natural selection is ineffective) it makes it extremely unlikely to have arised through mutations alone. OTOH it seems very much like some intelligent entity created this system, and thus the observed data is better explained with ID and/or creation theory.
This doesn't mean that we should stop searching for an alternative mechanism through which this could have happened, but at least with the data currently at hand an intelligent creator seems immensely more probable.
And how about the recent discovery of soft tissue and intact blood cells in dinosaur bones supposedly 65 Ma old? Even though this indicated that the bones couldn't be this old evolutionists didn't even consider the bones being much younger.
And how about the following quote from Gould? "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology."
Also, evolutionists claim that 95-99 % of all species have become extinct, but the data doesn't at all support this. Actually, only 250,000 fossil species have been found. Pretty much each and every highly improbable genetic combination that a goo-to-you evolution would have required, such as the vertebrate blood clotting cascade. Thanks to mutations and natural selection the population was at a local maximum of survival and reproduction. The environment changed so that this local maximum was removed, and it was way too long to another significant local maximum where natural selection would be effective.
On the other hand, creationists believe that most organisms are created perfect, and that would include having the ability to adapt to various changes in the environment. The observed data fits very nice in this framework.
That said, although each component in the eye might seem simple to the ignorant, that isn't necessarily the case. Many of them are quite complex in and of themselves, and may need large genetic "jumps" (i.e. several mutations have to occur without having the benefit of natural selection as a filter to keep the "good" ones from vanishing, i.e. there is irreducible complexity, as defined by M. Behe).
Would it do you any good to know whether there is some or not?
No. If you have only ten coins then you have to put each coin back after you draw it. (You want to simulate a sea of the coins ... yadda yadda ... "all atoms on earth" ... blah blah.) Thus you won't get "10!" but "10^10", and that would make your result about 15,800 years. However, that assumes that you'd need to start each count on a try-# whose modulus 10 is 0, but that seems unreasonable. If you can start a count anytime then you're down to 1,580 years, if I'm not mistaken.
By "creation theory" I meant what creationists believe, and by "evolution theory" I meant what the evolutionists believe. (Yes, I know, that's simplifying it a lot, but you probably get the point.)
It predicts a lot of things. There are obvious predictions, such as there having been a global flood in the last 6,000 years, humans having been around for less than 10,000 years, that organisms degrade over time and generations, that life doesn't arise spontaneously, etc. Then there are less obvious predictions, such as the strenght of the magnetic field of planets.
So, what observation would falsify the creation theory? I'm not sure. What observation would falsify the evolution theory?
Creationists believe in mutations and natural selection just as much as evolutionists do. The difference is that creationists think that mutations and natural selection has a degenerating effect (i.e. removes functionality) whereas evolutionists believe the opposite.
These people actually have the nerve to tell you the blatant lie that the DRM incorporated into Jackito is a good thing.
E.g.: "A major advantage of this chip is that software can be freely copied." - link
Hah! That actually means that you can't copy software freely. That's right, they're actually saying the exact opposite of the truth.
If you buy DRMed software for Jackito then this software will only play on one particular Jackito. So, what if your Jackito breaks down? Well, I guess you just have to buy all your software again. How great is that?
The nice thing about condorcet is that it can emulate a plethora of other voting methods. So, if you have a condorcet system in place the voter could be allowed to choose which voting system he wants to use. They would essentially all be the same, only the interface would be different. So, some voter could vote for "candidate X" while another voter could order all candidates by preference, and some third voter could vote for "candidate Y and party Z".
The guy was wandering the campus with a digital camera taking pictures of non-public areas. Wouldn't that make you a bit suspicious if you were in corporate security? Wouldn't you wonder how many other pictures he had taken and who he had given them to? Why should Microsoft take a chance on some temp when there are hundreds of others lined up at their doors begging for jobs?
The guy was wandering the campus with a cell phone making a phone call to his mom and telling her he was looking at a truck with Macs. Wouldn't that make you a bit suspicious if you were in corporate security? Wouldn't you wonder how many other phone calls he had made and what he had told to whom? Why should Microsoft take a chance on some temp when there are hundreds of others lined up at their doors begging for jobs?
I have yet to find a better sci-fi author than Vernor Vinge. His novels and short stories are simply amazing.
I agree. You can't beat Realsoft3D's price/value ratio.
Couldn't the system be changed so that the party that loses a case in court has to pay the legal expenses of the other party, too? That would keep people from suing if there's a high chance they might lose, and also encourage people to defend their rights without needing a shitload of money.
Yes, sorry, I didn't mean the title bar but the menu bar (which I thought the original poster also meant).
And your comment about being able to close a window without the risk of overshooting: it's pretty much the only thing you can do without the risk of overshooting in windows. All menus are off the edge. So are the window buttons in the task bar. You can't even press the Start button without the risk of overshooting!