Evolution is a hoax

[BADecker]

All of your claims have been debunked badecker.

Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:

deletion of parts
addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
change of function
addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
gradual modification of parts

All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).

Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996), and the evolution of an "irreducible" system of a hormone-receptor system has been elucidated (Bridgham et al. 2006). Irreducibility is no obstacle to their formation.

Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.

Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.

Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
In spite of the complexity of Behe's protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.


http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/

Stop spreading your lies badecker.

What do you even mean, "Irreducible complexity can evolve?"

The simple words, "Irreducible complexity" means that there is nothing useful from which an irreducible complexity component can evolve from. Evolution has to have some thing that is useful in mind for it to evolve that way. Nature doesn't simply evolve a clump of useless cells, that sit there for millions of years, continually evolving from less complex useless cells to more complex useless cells, with the idea that someday there will be an eye that will be useful to the then-evolved creature. To suggest this is to suggest great inteligence and planning in nature. This doesn't fit any theory of evolution.

For example. Let's say that you have a human eye. There is simply nothing that would flow in stages from something rather simple to something as complex as the human eye. According to evolution theory, there has to be some use for every little thing that evolves. There is no evolution explantation for a jump from a clump of useless cells to an eye. But that's what they would be... useless cells. Because there is no use for them prior to becoming an eye.

However, all that talk is playing with the idea of evolution. Cause and effect show that things are programmed. Not only life things, but everything. So, whatever you want to call evolution, it was programmed through cause and effect by something that is extremely greater than the whole universe, both in ability and intelligence.

There is no evidence of random chance changes without cause and effect. Such a thing does not even fit our thinking. All science is built on cause and effect. The greater the scientist, the more he uses cause and effect. All the scietists you quoted CAUSED the happenings that they observed. None of them watched these things happen in nature without manipulation of nature in some way.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

Like intelligent design, the concept it seeks to support, irreducible complexity has failed to gain any notable acceptance within the scientific community. One science writer called it a "full-blown intellectual surrender strategy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Methods_by_which_irreducible_complexity_may_evolve

As I said, it's debunked. It's pseudoscience without any grounds.

Radioactive decay is so far true randomness

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/177872/true-randomness-via-radioactive-decay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay

Your pseudoscience cannot refute the facts, sorry. Evolution is a fact and you can't accept it because your religion has infected your brain. I'm truly sorry for you.

Regarding the eye argument which is used by many creationists:

This is the quintessential example of the argument from incredulity. The source making the claim usually quotes Darwin saying that the evolution of the eye seems "absurd in the highest degree". However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).

photosensitive cell
aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
pigment cells forming a small depression
pigment cells forming a deeper depression
the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
muscles allowing the lens to adjust

All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona's single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.

Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.


http://evolutionfaq.com/faq/eye-too-complex-have-evolved-naturally

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_eye_is_too_complex_to_have_evolved

You forgot the part where cause and effect debunks all of evolution, as well as evolution theory. No scientist has any credible explanation for cause and effect being part of evolution, especially if you add universal entropy, and complex universe to the mix.

I don't know what you mean with cause and effect, explain. I don't know what you mean by complex universe either.
Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

Complexity is poorly defined.

Regarding Universal entropy: This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

The idea of evolution is simply that random genetic mutations will occasionally occur that lead an individual organism to have some trait that is different from that of its predecessors. Now, it is true that these mutations, being random, would probably tend to increase the "entropy" of the population as a whole if they occurred in isolation (i.e., in a closed system). That is, most of the mutations will create individual organisms that are less "ordered" (i.e., less complex) and only some will create individual organisms that are more complex, so overall, the complexity goes down.

However, evolution does not take place in a closed system, but rather requires the existence of outside forces - i.e., natural selection. The idea is that there can be some environmental effect that makes organisms with a particular mutation (one that makes them more "complex") more likely to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, as generations go by, the gene pool of the species can get more and more complex, but notice that this can only occur if the gene pool interacts with the outside world. It is through the course of that interaction that some other form of entropy (or disorder) will be generated that increases the entropy of the universe as a whole.

If the above is too esoteric, consider a simple analogy: a poker tournament. In poker, good hands are less likely to be dealt than bad ones - for example, the odds of getting three of a kind are much less than the odds of getting two of a kind. So in a poker tournament, most people will be dealt bad hands and only a few will be lucky enough to be dealt good hands. But it is the people with good hands who will be more likely to win and "survive" to the next round. So the "outside forces" (in this case, the rules of poker) acting on a random distribution (all the poker hands that were dealt) will tend to select out the best, least likely ones.

Do you even do some research before posting a bunch of crap? Just google it my friend.

You might Google "cause and effect" for many explanations. Possibly the best explanation is Newton's 3rd Law.

Whatever things people include in the term "evolution," if evolution happens by cause and effect, then it might be real. If it doesn't, then it isn't.

The general understanding of "evolution" suggests randomness, of which there is none. Thus, evolution by the general understanding is wrong.

All your explanations are people playing with science fiction.

Newton 3rd law: If an object A exerts a force on object B, then object B must exert a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction back on object A. I fail to see how that disproves evolution.

Your problem is that you transposed the idea of Newton's 3rd Law incorrectly. You gotta say it right. It shows how cause and effect work.

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[ridery99]

"Evolution is a hoax" thread got to 14 pages.....There are trolls in our midst

Yeah, it's absurd how dumbed down people are these days.
Complete lies like evolution being defended with pseudo-science and many people calling it a real science.
I think it's very dangerous because it undermines the credibility of all the real scientific research.

[stats]

All of your claims have been debunked badecker.

Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:

deletion of parts
addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
change of function
addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
gradual modification of parts

All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).

Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996), and the evolution of an "irreducible" system of a hormone-receptor system has been elucidated (Bridgham et al. 2006). Irreducibility is no obstacle to their formation.

Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.

Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.

Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
In spite of the complexity of Behe's protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.


http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/

Stop spreading your lies badecker.

What do you even mean, "Irreducible complexity can evolve?"

The simple words, "Irreducible complexity" means that there is nothing useful from which an irreducible complexity component can evolve from. Evolution has to have some thing that is useful in mind for it to evolve that way. Nature doesn't simply evolve a clump of useless cells, that sit there for millions of years, continually evolving from less complex useless cells to more complex useless cells, with the idea that someday there will be an eye that will be useful to the then-evolved creature. To suggest this is to suggest great inteligence and planning in nature. This doesn't fit any theory of evolution.

For example. Let's say that you have a human eye. There is simply nothing that would flow in stages from something rather simple to something as complex as the human eye. According to evolution theory, there has to be some use for every little thing that evolves. There is no evolution explantation for a jump from a clump of useless cells to an eye. But that's what they would be... useless cells. Because there is no use for them prior to becoming an eye.

However, all that talk is playing with the idea of evolution. Cause and effect show that things are programmed. Not only life things, but everything. So, whatever you want to call evolution, it was programmed through cause and effect by something that is extremely greater than the whole universe, both in ability and intelligence.

There is no evidence of random chance changes without cause and effect. Such a thing does not even fit our thinking. All science is built on cause and effect. The greater the scientist, the more he uses cause and effect. All the scietists you quoted CAUSED the happenings that they observed. None of them watched these things happen in nature without manipulation of nature in some way.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

Like intelligent design, the concept it seeks to support, irreducible complexity has failed to gain any notable acceptance within the scientific community. One science writer called it a "full-blown intellectual surrender strategy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Methods_by_which_irreducible_complexity_may_evolve

As I said, it's debunked. It's pseudoscience without any grounds.

Radioactive decay is so far true randomness

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/177872/true-randomness-via-radioactive-decay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay

Your pseudoscience cannot refute the facts, sorry. Evolution is a fact and you can't accept it because your religion has infected your brain. I'm truly sorry for you.

Regarding the eye argument which is used by many creationists:

This is the quintessential example of the argument from incredulity. The source making the claim usually quotes Darwin saying that the evolution of the eye seems "absurd in the highest degree". However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).

photosensitive cell
aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
pigment cells forming a small depression
pigment cells forming a deeper depression
the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
muscles allowing the lens to adjust

All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona's single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.

Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.


http://evolutionfaq.com/faq/eye-too-complex-have-evolved-naturally

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_eye_is_too_complex_to_have_evolved

You forgot the part where cause and effect debunks all of evolution, as well as evolution theory. No scientist has any credible explanation for cause and effect being part of evolution, especially if you add universal entropy, and complex universe to the mix.

I don't know what you mean with cause and effect, explain. I don't know what you mean by complex universe either.
Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

Complexity is poorly defined.

Regarding Universal entropy: This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

The idea of evolution is simply that random genetic mutations will occasionally occur that lead an individual organism to have some trait that is different from that of its predecessors. Now, it is true that these mutations, being random, would probably tend to increase the "entropy" of the population as a whole if they occurred in isolation (i.e., in a closed system). That is, most of the mutations will create individual organisms that are less "ordered" (i.e., less complex) and only some will create individual organisms that are more complex, so overall, the complexity goes down.

However, evolution does not take place in a closed system, but rather requires the existence of outside forces - i.e., natural selection. The idea is that there can be some environmental effect that makes organisms with a particular mutation (one that makes them more "complex") more likely to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, as generations go by, the gene pool of the species can get more and more complex, but notice that this can only occur if the gene pool interacts with the outside world. It is through the course of that interaction that some other form of entropy (or disorder) will be generated that increases the entropy of the universe as a whole.

If the above is too esoteric, consider a simple analogy: a poker tournament. In poker, good hands are less likely to be dealt than bad ones - for example, the odds of getting three of a kind are much less than the odds of getting two of a kind. So in a poker tournament, most people will be dealt bad hands and only a few will be lucky enough to be dealt good hands. But it is the people with good hands who will be more likely to win and "survive" to the next round. So the "outside forces" (in this case, the rules of poker) acting on a random distribution (all the poker hands that were dealt) will tend to select out the best, least likely ones.

Do you even do some research before posting a bunch of crap? Just google it my friend.

You might Google "cause and effect" for many explanations. Possibly the best explanation is Newton's 3rd Law.

Whatever things people include in the term "evolution," if evolution happens by cause and effect, then it might be real. If it doesn't, then it isn't.

The general understanding of "evolution" suggests randomness, of which there is none. Thus, evolution by the general understanding is wrong.

All your explanations are people playing with science fiction.

Newton 3rd law: If an object A exerts a force on object B, then object B must exert a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction back on object A. I fail to see how that disproves evolution.

Your problem is that you transposed the idea of Newton's 3rd Law incorrectly. You gotta say it right. It shows how cause and effect work.

Welcome to the world of BADecker..... he is happy to tell you what you "supposedly" did or said wrong, however, he cannot explain how he perceives it is meant to be.

He can't prove anything except say people are wrong.

His pseudo science fails him every time.

[Astargath]

All of your claims have been debunked badecker.

Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:

deletion of parts
addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
change of function
addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
gradual modification of parts

All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).

Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996), and the evolution of an "irreducible" system of a hormone-receptor system has been elucidated (Bridgham et al. 2006). Irreducibility is no obstacle to their formation.

Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.

Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.

Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
In spite of the complexity of Behe's protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.


http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/

Stop spreading your lies badecker.

What do you even mean, "Irreducible complexity can evolve?"

The simple words, "Irreducible complexity" means that there is nothing useful from which an irreducible complexity component can evolve from. Evolution has to have some thing that is useful in mind for it to evolve that way. Nature doesn't simply evolve a clump of useless cells, that sit there for millions of years, continually evolving from less complex useless cells to more complex useless cells, with the idea that someday there will be an eye that will be useful to the then-evolved creature. To suggest this is to suggest great inteligence and planning in nature. This doesn't fit any theory of evolution.

For example. Let's say that you have a human eye. There is simply nothing that would flow in stages from something rather simple to something as complex as the human eye. According to evolution theory, there has to be some use for every little thing that evolves. There is no evolution explantation for a jump from a clump of useless cells to an eye. But that's what they would be... useless cells. Because there is no use for them prior to becoming an eye.

However, all that talk is playing with the idea of evolution. Cause and effect show that things are programmed. Not only life things, but everything. So, whatever you want to call evolution, it was programmed through cause and effect by something that is extremely greater than the whole universe, both in ability and intelligence.

There is no evidence of random chance changes without cause and effect. Such a thing does not even fit our thinking. All science is built on cause and effect. The greater the scientist, the more he uses cause and effect. All the scietists you quoted CAUSED the happenings that they observed. None of them watched these things happen in nature without manipulation of nature in some way.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

Like intelligent design, the concept it seeks to support, irreducible complexity has failed to gain any notable acceptance within the scientific community. One science writer called it a "full-blown intellectual surrender strategy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Methods_by_which_irreducible_complexity_may_evolve

As I said, it's debunked. It's pseudoscience without any grounds.

Radioactive decay is so far true randomness

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/177872/true-randomness-via-radioactive-decay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay

Your pseudoscience cannot refute the facts, sorry. Evolution is a fact and you can't accept it because your religion has infected your brain. I'm truly sorry for you.

Regarding the eye argument which is used by many creationists:

This is the quintessential example of the argument from incredulity. The source making the claim usually quotes Darwin saying that the evolution of the eye seems "absurd in the highest degree". However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).

photosensitive cell
aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
pigment cells forming a small depression
pigment cells forming a deeper depression
the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
muscles allowing the lens to adjust

All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona's single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.

Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.


http://evolutionfaq.com/faq/eye-too-complex-have-evolved-naturally

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_eye_is_too_complex_to_have_evolved

You forgot the part where cause and effect debunks all of evolution, as well as evolution theory. No scientist has any credible explanation for cause and effect being part of evolution, especially if you add universal entropy, and complex universe to the mix.

I don't know what you mean with cause and effect, explain. I don't know what you mean by complex universe either.
Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

Complexity is poorly defined.

Regarding Universal entropy: This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

The idea of evolution is simply that random genetic mutations will occasionally occur that lead an individual organism to have some trait that is different from that of its predecessors. Now, it is true that these mutations, being random, would probably tend to increase the "entropy" of the population as a whole if they occurred in isolation (i.e., in a closed system). That is, most of the mutations will create individual organisms that are less "ordered" (i.e., less complex) and only some will create individual organisms that are more complex, so overall, the complexity goes down.

However, evolution does not take place in a closed system, but rather requires the existence of outside forces - i.e., natural selection. The idea is that there can be some environmental effect that makes organisms with a particular mutation (one that makes them more "complex") more likely to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, as generations go by, the gene pool of the species can get more and more complex, but notice that this can only occur if the gene pool interacts with the outside world. It is through the course of that interaction that some other form of entropy (or disorder) will be generated that increases the entropy of the universe as a whole.

If the above is too esoteric, consider a simple analogy: a poker tournament. In poker, good hands are less likely to be dealt than bad ones - for example, the odds of getting three of a kind are much less than the odds of getting two of a kind. So in a poker tournament, most people will be dealt bad hands and only a few will be lucky enough to be dealt good hands. But it is the people with good hands who will be more likely to win and "survive" to the next round. So the "outside forces" (in this case, the rules of poker) acting on a random distribution (all the poker hands that were dealt) will tend to select out the best, least likely ones.

Do you even do some research before posting a bunch of crap? Just google it my friend.

You might Google "cause and effect" for many explanations. Possibly the best explanation is Newton's 3rd Law.

Whatever things people include in the term "evolution," if evolution happens by cause and effect, then it might be real. If it doesn't, then it isn't.

The general understanding of "evolution" suggests randomness, of which there is none. Thus, evolution by the general understanding is wrong.

All your explanations are people playing with science fiction.

Newton 3rd law: If an object A exerts a force on object B, then object B must exert a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction back on object A. I fail to see how that disproves evolution.

Your problem is that you transposed the idea of Newton's 3rd Law incorrectly. You gotta say it right. It shows how cause and effect work.

Welcome to the world of BADecker..... he is happy to tell you what you "supposedly" did or said wrong, however, he cannot explain how he perceives it is meant to be.

He can't prove anything except say people are wrong.

His pseudo science fails him every time.

I know, he keeps mentioning cause and effect and that is newton's 3rd law but he can't explain what it means. As far as I understand it, he means that everything has a cause which wouldn't, by any means, make evolution impossible. He just can't really refute anything I said so he just simply says im wrong without explaining why.

[livingfree]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

Yes, Charles Darwin's theory is a hoax. Monkeys are still in our planet because they are part of the ecosystem. As we all know, the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin was not totally proven. Just come to think of it, if humans evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys? It's just a manifestation that there's a supreme God who created all things.

[ridery99]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

Yes, Charles Darwin's theory is a hoax. Monkeys are still in our planet because they are part of the ecosystem. As we all know, the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin was not totally proven. Just think of it, if humans evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys? It's just a manifestation that there's a supreme God who created all things.

Exactly. Rational scientific thinking is not present in the evolution theory, because it's a belief system rather than any scientific theory and is basically defended with arguments like 'I want it to be true so that I can do what ever I want' and 'I'm more intelligent than you because I believe in evolution', which doesn't mean anything.

[Astargath]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

Yes, Charles Darwin's theory is a hoax. Monkeys are still in our planet because they are part of the ecosystem. As we all know, the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin was not totally proven. Just think of it, if humans evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys? It's just a manifestation that there's a supreme God who created all things.

Exactly. Rational scientific thinking is not present in the evolution theory, because it's a belief system rather than any scientific theory and is basically defended with arguments like 'I want it to be true so that I can do what ever I want' and 'I'm more intelligent than you because I believe in evolution', which doesn't mean anything.

Are you shitting me? The evolution theory is a belief system? You obviously are trolling or very ignorant. The evidence for the evolution is overwhelming, in fact scientists have been able to apply evolution to numerous things including computer science. Anyone who says evolution is a hoax or not true, clearly does not understand evolution, is trolling or is delusional.

[BADecker]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

Yes, Charles Darwin's theory is a hoax. Monkeys are still in our planet because they are part of the ecosystem. As we all know, the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin was not totally proven. Just think of it, if humans evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys? It's just a manifestation that there's a supreme God who created all things.

Exactly. Rational scientific thinking is not present in the evolution theory, because it's a belief system rather than any scientific theory and is basically defended with arguments like 'I want it to be true so that I can do what ever I want' and 'I'm more intelligent than you because I believe in evolution', which doesn't mean anything.

Are you shitting me? The evolution theory is a belief system? You obviously are trolling or very ignorant. The evidence for the evolution is overwhelming, in fact scientists have been able to apply evolution to numerous things including computer science. Anyone who says evolution is a hoax or not true, clearly does not understand evolution, is trolling or is delusional.

Evolution IS a belief system because it has been proven impossible by probability math, Irreducible Complexity, no missing links ever having been found, and loads of other reasons. Google "proofs against evolution" to see many more.

You will see that all the proofs in favor of evolution, and all the evolutionist rebuttals against creationist anti-evolution proofs, are filled with circular ideas and many words, but no proof, rather than things that have a solid foundation with points in simple, short paragraphs, like anti-evolution points.



EDIT: Notice the language in the post by Astargath. It isn't designed so much to bring out evolution points. Rather, it is designed to humiliate the ridery99. Look at the language. Astargath has to resort to this language, because evolution doesn't have any proof. If he didn't, he would be in danger of being shown to support a false religion, just like all the evolutionists are doing.

[protokol]

I don't know what you mean with cause and effect, explain. I don't know what you mean by complex universe either.
Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

Complexity is poorly defined.

Regarding Universal entropy: This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

The idea of evolution is simply that random genetic mutations will occasionally occur that lead an individual organism to have some trait that is different from that of its predecessors. Now, it is true that these mutations, being random, would probably tend to increase the "entropy" of the population as a whole if they occurred in isolation (i.e., in a closed system). That is, most of the mutations will create individual organisms that are less "ordered" (i.e., less complex) and only some will create individual organisms that are more complex, so overall, the complexity goes down.

However, evolution does not take place in a closed system, but rather requires the existence of outside forces - i.e., natural selection. The idea is that there can be some environmental effect that makes organisms with a particular mutation (one that makes them more "complex") more likely to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, as generations go by, the gene pool of the species can get more and more complex, but notice that this can only occur if the gene pool interacts with the outside world. It is through the course of that interaction that some other form of entropy (or disorder) will be generated that increases the entropy of the universe as a whole.

If the above is too esoteric, consider a simple analogy: a poker tournament. In poker, good hands are less likely to be dealt than bad ones - for example, the odds of getting three of a kind are much less than the odds of getting two of a kind. So in a poker tournament, most people will be dealt bad hands and only a few will be lucky enough to be dealt good hands. But it is the people with good hands who will be more likely to win and "survive" to the next round. So the "outside forces" (in this case, the rules of poker) acting on a random distribution (all the poker hands that were dealt) will tend to select out the best, least likely ones.

Do you even do some research before posting a bunch of crap? Just google it my friend.

Great post here.

As Astargath says, none of these "mathematical" or "irreducible complexity" arguments make any sense.

You might believe that they somehow disprove evolution, but actual physicists and mathematicians disagree with you. That is because your arguments are flawed.

There is no physical, mathematical or biological reason why a single common ancestor (LUCA), couldn't have spawned all life on Earth. You might believe it not to be so, and no-one knows exactly how it happened... BUT there is no scientific reason that it is not possible. And don't forget, we are debating the evolution of LUCA, not it's origin.

Your evidence to the contrary is flawed, and every biologist, physicist and mathematician knows it.

I myself study biology, and your arguments are flawed on a basic level. Not only that, when you are challenged, you resort to saying "well we don't know for sure that the laws of physics were the same then..." or something similar. This is not how science works - we don't just disregard results because we think that physics might have been different at a certain time. Assuming such changes, makes all results erroneous, and therefore makes the scientific method erroneous. So if you want to put your faith in such speculation, you cannot by definition make any argument relying on the scientific method.

To do so would be a logical fallacy.

[Lancusters]

The theory of evolution is very controversial, but we can't deny obvious things. I do not believe that man evolved from apes, but there are other aspects. More close to our reality. Look for example at women. The bulk of them takes the forms of which are fashionable at this time. Isn't this evolution? Viruses adapting to antibiotics. I believe in evolution, but I don't believe in Darwin's theory.

[BADecker]

I don't know what you mean with cause and effect, explain. I don't know what you mean by complex universe either.
Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

Complexity is poorly defined.

Regarding Universal entropy: This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

The idea of evolution is simply that random genetic mutations will occasionally occur that lead an individual organism to have some trait that is different from that of its predecessors. Now, it is true that these mutations, being random, would probably tend to increase the "entropy" of the population as a whole if they occurred in isolation (i.e., in a closed system). That is, most of the mutations will create individual organisms that are less "ordered" (i.e., less complex) and only some will create individual organisms that are more complex, so overall, the complexity goes down.

However, evolution does not take place in a closed system, but rather requires the existence of outside forces - i.e., natural selection. The idea is that there can be some environmental effect that makes organisms with a particular mutation (one that makes them more "complex") more likely to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, as generations go by, the gene pool of the species can get more and more complex, but notice that this can only occur if the gene pool interacts with the outside world. It is through the course of that interaction that some other form of entropy (or disorder) will be generated that increases the entropy of the universe as a whole.

If the above is too esoteric, consider a simple analogy: a poker tournament. In poker, good hands are less likely to be dealt than bad ones - for example, the odds of getting three of a kind are much less than the odds of getting two of a kind. So in a poker tournament, most people will be dealt bad hands and only a few will be lucky enough to be dealt good hands. But it is the people with good hands who will be more likely to win and "survive" to the next round. So the "outside forces" (in this case, the rules of poker) acting on a random distribution (all the poker hands that were dealt) will tend to select out the best, least likely ones.

Do you even do some research before posting a bunch of crap? Just google it my friend.

Great post here.

As Astargath says, none of these "mathematical" or "irreducible complexity" arguments make any sense.

You might believe that they somehow disprove evolution, but actual physicists and mathematicians disagree with you. That is because your arguments are flawed.

There is no physical, mathematical or biological reason why a single common ancestor (LUCA), couldn't have spawned all life on Earth. You might believe it not to be so, and no-one knows exactly how it happened... BUT there is no scientific reason that it is not possible. And don't forget, we are debating the evolution of LUCA, not it's origin.

Your evidence to the contrary is flawed, and every biologist, physicist and mathematician knows it.

I myself study biology, and your arguments are flawed on a basic level. Not only that, when you are challenged, you resort to saying "well we don't know for sure that the laws of physics were the same then..." or something similar. This is not how science works - we don't just disregard results because we think that physics might have been different at a certain time. Assuming such changes, makes all results erroneous, and therefore makes the scientific method erroneous. So if you want to put your faith in such speculation, you cannot by definition make any argument relying on the scientific method.

To do so would be a logical fallacy.

Most of us have heard of rust. The longer something sits out in nature, the more it corrodes. Iron gets rustier the longer it sits out.

Most of us have heard of decay. A chunk of cheese gets moldy. A piece of meat gets rotten. The longer it sits out, the more it decays.

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

If the chemicals came together over a period of time, they would corrode just like iron rusts. The longer it took for them to come together into the right places by chance, the more corrosion there would be.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Because of all this, there is no logical reason to believe in any evolution without guidance from intelligence. And, that intelligence would have to be a lot greater and more capable than ours is.

Scientists can talk all kinds of stuff. But they can't talk away the impossibility of nature to created a living cell by random chance. Probability math won't allow it. And, in the same way, probability math won't allow the changes in a living thing/cell that it would be required for it to mutate in a beneficial way.

Evolution is a religion, and a sorry one. It's almost as bad of a religion as atheism.

[killyou73]

~edited

Great post here.

As Astargath says, none of these "mathematical" or "irreducible complexity" arguments make any sense.

You might believe that they somehow disprove evolution, but actual physicists and mathematicians disagree with you. That is because your arguments are flawed.

There is no physical, mathematical or biological reason why a single common ancestor (LUCA), couldn't have spawned all life on Earth. You might believe it not to be so, and no-one knows exactly how it happened... BUT there is no scientific reason that it is not possible. And don't forget, we are debating the evolution of LUCA, not it's origin.

Your evidence to the contrary is flawed, and every biologist, physicist and mathematician knows it.

I myself study biology, and your arguments are flawed on a basic level. Not only that, when you are challenged, you resort to saying "well we don't know for sure that the laws of physics were the same then..." or something similar. This is not how science works - we don't just disregard results because we think that physics might have been different at a certain time. Assuming such changes, makes all results erroneous, and therefore makes the scientific method erroneous. So if you want to put your faith in such speculation, you cannot by definition make any argument relying on the scientific method.

To do so would be a logical fallacy.

Saying a single common ancestor could have spawned all life on Earth, what do you consider an ancestor? At what point do we come from something that is not an ancestor such as the atoms. Are we considering plants being our possible ancestors? What about dolphins?

If we cannot disagree with what we know about science now, what about the science that existed in the past that does not today; such as, the building of the pyramids or finding the creation for beer?

[joebrook]

You know it's really funny how atheist denounce creation and site their support for Science whiles they haven't given us any definite proof about evolution, Do we catch monkeys and study them for a billions years to see if they will evolve into something else, they have watched too much movies.

[protokol]

I don't know what you mean with cause and effect, explain. I don't know what you mean by complex universe either.
Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

Complexity is poorly defined.

Regarding Universal entropy: This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe.

Or, if you prefer an example that doesn't require conscious human intervention, consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside. Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more "ordered" because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else, the second law of thermodynamics has not been violated.

That's the general picture - nature is capable of generating order out of disorder on a local level without violating the second law of thermodynamics, and that is all that evolution requires.

The idea of evolution is simply that random genetic mutations will occasionally occur that lead an individual organism to have some trait that is different from that of its predecessors. Now, it is true that these mutations, being random, would probably tend to increase the "entropy" of the population as a whole if they occurred in isolation (i.e., in a closed system). That is, most of the mutations will create individual organisms that are less "ordered" (i.e., less complex) and only some will create individual organisms that are more complex, so overall, the complexity goes down.

However, evolution does not take place in a closed system, but rather requires the existence of outside forces - i.e., natural selection. The idea is that there can be some environmental effect that makes organisms with a particular mutation (one that makes them more "complex") more likely to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, as generations go by, the gene pool of the species can get more and more complex, but notice that this can only occur if the gene pool interacts with the outside world. It is through the course of that interaction that some other form of entropy (or disorder) will be generated that increases the entropy of the universe as a whole.

If the above is too esoteric, consider a simple analogy: a poker tournament. In poker, good hands are less likely to be dealt than bad ones - for example, the odds of getting three of a kind are much less than the odds of getting two of a kind. So in a poker tournament, most people will be dealt bad hands and only a few will be lucky enough to be dealt good hands. But it is the people with good hands who will be more likely to win and "survive" to the next round. So the "outside forces" (in this case, the rules of poker) acting on a random distribution (all the poker hands that were dealt) will tend to select out the best, least likely ones.

Do you even do some research before posting a bunch of crap? Just google it my friend.

Great post here.

As Astargath says, none of these "mathematical" or "irreducible complexity" arguments make any sense.

You might believe that they somehow disprove evolution, but actual physicists and mathematicians disagree with you. That is because your arguments are flawed.

There is no physical, mathematical or biological reason why a single common ancestor (LUCA), couldn't have spawned all life on Earth. You might believe it not to be so, and no-one knows exactly how it happened... BUT there is no scientific reason that it is not possible. And don't forget, we are debating the evolution of LUCA, not it's origin.

Your evidence to the contrary is flawed, and every biologist, physicist and mathematician knows it.

I myself study biology, and your arguments are flawed on a basic level. Not only that, when you are challenged, you resort to saying "well we don't know for sure that the laws of physics were the same then..." or something similar. This is not how science works - we don't just disregard results because we think that physics might have been different at a certain time. Assuming such changes, makes all results erroneous, and therefore makes the scientific method erroneous. So if you want to put your faith in such speculation, you cannot by definition make any argument relying on the scientific method.

To do so would be a logical fallacy.

Most of us have heard of rust. The longer something sits out in nature, the more it corrodes. Iron gets rustier the longer it sits out.

Most of us have heard of decay. A chunk of cheese gets moldy. A piece of meat gets rotten. The longer it sits out, the more it decays.

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

If the chemicals came together over a period of time, they would corrode just like iron rusts. The longer it took for them to come together into the right places by chance, the more corrosion there would be.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Because of all this, there is no logical reason to believe in any evolution without guidance from intelligence. And, that intelligence would have to be a lot greater and more capable than ours is.

Scientists can talk all kinds of stuff. But they can't talk away the impossibility of nature to created a living cell by random chance. Probability math won't allow it. And, in the same way, probability math won't allow the changes in a living thing/cell that it would be required for it to mutate in a beneficial way.

Evolution is a religion, and a sorry one. It's almost as bad of a religion as atheism.

You first speak of rusting. This is a basic oxidation chemical reaction, which occurs whenever certain elements are in contact with oxygen. This is chemistry at its most basic level - electrons being passed from one atom to another.

You then speak of "decay". Now this is a very different process than oxidation, as it involves microbes such as bacteria and mould. Whole living cells which multiply on the surface of the cheese/meat.

Then you say this:

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

Absolutely false. There is no law in physics or chemistry which states that chemicals will "immediately corrode" before they happen to come together into a certain configuration. Only certain chemicals change state, when they are introduced to other chemicals. Many are inert, and are extremely hard to get to react with others.

It's all to do with the electron shells of the atoms in the chemicals, and whether those electrons are readily absorbed by other atoms.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Again, your reasoning is flawed. Even if you knew how to create a living cell from its constituents (which no scientist does), your argument that "if we can't do it in a lab, then nature couldn't do it" is ridiculous. Nature had 1 billion years, and a metric fuckton of molecules.

Like, loads and loads of chemicals and molecules, spread over the whole Earth, for 10 million lifetimes of a human. That is a seriously long time, with a seriously large amount of chemicals. Is it that crazy to think that it happened, just by chance? Don't forget that as soon as a self replicating cell existed, it might quickly reproduce.

As for your point about "probability math", well, probabilities are just that - chances of things happening. And it doesn't matter how small the chance is, if there is a chance then something CAN happen. And what we're describing certainly COULD happen, it is within the laws of physics.

And it obviously did, because I'm here typing this now.

[protokol]

^^ Here is an article about an experiment which hypothesised exactly what I was talking about - specifically the random organisation of nucleotides into RNA strands with catalytic functions.

http://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance

[BADecker]

Most of us have heard of rust. The longer something sits out in nature, the more it corrodes. Iron gets rustier the longer it sits out.

Most of us have heard of decay. A chunk of cheese gets moldy. A piece of meat gets rotten. The longer it sits out, the more it decays.

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

If the chemicals came together over a period of time, they would corrode just like iron rusts. The longer it took for them to come together into the right places by chance, the more corrosion there would be.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Because of all this, there is no logical reason to believe in any evolution without guidance from intelligence. And, that intelligence would have to be a lot greater and more capable than ours is.

Scientists can talk all kinds of stuff. But they can't talk away the impossibility of nature to created a living cell by random chance. Probability math won't allow it. And, in the same way, probability math won't allow the changes in a living thing/cell that it would be required for it to mutate in a beneficial way.

Evolution is a religion, and a sorry one. It's almost as bad of a religion as atheism.

You first speak of rusting. This is a basic oxidation chemical reaction, which occurs whenever certain elements are in contact with oxygen. This is chemistry at its most basic level - electrons being passed from one atom to another.

You then speak of "decay". Now this is a very different process than oxidation, as it involves microbes such as bacteria and mould. Whole living cells which multiply on the surface of the cheese/meat.

Then you say this:

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

Absolutely false. There is no law in physics or chemistry which states that chemicals will "immediately corrode" before they happen to come together into a certain configuration. Only certain chemicals change state, when they are introduced to other chemicals. Many are inert, and are extremely hard to get to react with others.

I don't know that there is a law, either, that states that chemicals immediately corrode. However, it is common knowledge that they start to do so whenever they are in the presence of other chemicals that can change them.

This indicates that there was no primordial soup. Why not? Because the chemicals necessary for life will corrode each other, and the resulting chemicals will continue the "corrosion." Rust is an example of simple corrosion. Decay is an example of complex corrosion on many levels. Without life, there is nothing that can control the internal corrosion of a batch of inanimate material in cell form, to make it alive. Rather, the cell form is destroyed by it's own internal corrosion, and the corrosion outside of it.

This is the common everywhere. Dump a bunch of the basic molecules and atoms of a cell together in a vat, toss in a dead or living cell, and the whole thing corrodes because of all kinds of actions of the chemicals on each other. The living cell dies.

It's all to do with the electron shells of the atoms in the chemicals, and whether those electrons are readily absorbed by other atoms.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Again, your reasoning is flawed. Even if you knew how to create a living cell from its constituents (which no scientist does), your argument that "if we can't do it in a lab, then nature couldn't do it" is ridiculous. Nature had 1 billion years, and a metric fuckton of molecules.

Nature also has corrosion. Such corrosion, as has already been stated, destroys any potential cell formation. Check the vat point, directly above.

The longer that a piece of iron has to rust, the rustier it gets. Evolution has it backward. Any billions of years that might have existed, would only serve to corrode any cell formation beyond the point of it ever being able to be alive.

Probability math shows that the chemicals couldn't come together in the first place, because of their variety, and a cells structural complexity.

No chance for evolution. And the greater the length of time, the less the chance.

Like, loads and loads of chemicals and molecules, spread over the whole Earth, for 10 million lifetimes of a human. That is a seriously long time, with a seriously large amount of chemicals. Is it that crazy to think that it happened, just by chance? Don't forget that as soon as a self replicating cell existed, it might quickly reproduce.

As for your point about "probability math", well, probabilities are just that - chances of things happening. And it doesn't matter how small the chance is, if there is a chance then something CAN happen. And what we're describing certainly COULD happen, it is within the laws of physics.

And it obviously did, because I'm here typing this now.

You are typing because a Super Intelligence that we often call "God" created this whole thing... and set in motion the things that it would take to produce you.

As far as a small chance in probability, scientists have a limit regarding how small of a chance there might be before they call it impossible. The chance against life happening by any logical means we can even guess at, is so great that it literally takes the impossibility factor that scientists have suggested, and increases it exponentially. Evolution is super impossible to have happened.

[Tyrantt]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

Here's a tip for you, don't ever, EVER say this infront of a biologist because you'd be in fora  wild ride and also, before you start bashing something, make sure you've unleast read a little about it. Humans didn't evolve from apes, we just share the ancestors. 

[ridery99]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

Here's a tip for you, don't ever, EVER say this infront of a biologist because you'd be in fora  wild ride and also, before you start bashing something, make sure you've unleast read a little about it. Humans didn't evolve from apes, we just share the ancestors.  

Nice manifesto, but where's the evidence? I don't need your advice, my cousin is a biochemist and when I speak about evolution with him, he says that he just believes it's true  

'Didn't evolve, we just share..' What?   'Rock is not a stone, it's a stone'... Just the kind of logic to expect from an evolution believer.

[matchi2011]

Why there are still monkeys around if they were part of our evolutionary beginnings ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0gFarCfBE

I can quite get your logic here but if you think about it, there are several species of apes same with other animals and evolution could've taken place with one of these species. Evolution is still the most logical theory of how we came to be.

[Astargath]

Most of us have heard of rust. The longer something sits out in nature, the more it corrodes. Iron gets rustier the longer it sits out.

Most of us have heard of decay. A chunk of cheese gets moldy. A piece of meat gets rotten. The longer it sits out, the more it decays.

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

If the chemicals came together over a period of time, they would corrode just like iron rusts. The longer it took for them to come together into the right places by chance, the more corrosion there would be.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Because of all this, there is no logical reason to believe in any evolution without guidance from intelligence. And, that intelligence would have to be a lot greater and more capable than ours is.

Scientists can talk all kinds of stuff. But they can't talk away the impossibility of nature to created a living cell by random chance. Probability math won't allow it. And, in the same way, probability math won't allow the changes in a living thing/cell that it would be required for it to mutate in a beneficial way.

Evolution is a religion, and a sorry one. It's almost as bad of a religion as atheism.

You first speak of rusting. This is a basic oxidation chemical reaction, which occurs whenever certain elements are in contact with oxygen. This is chemistry at its most basic level - electrons being passed from one atom to another.

You then speak of "decay". Now this is a very different process than oxidation, as it involves microbes such as bacteria and mould. Whole living cells which multiply on the surface of the cheese/meat.

Then you say this:

If the chemicals that make up a living cell (except that it isn't living, yet), happened to come together in the correct positions to form a living cell, the chemical soup that allowed this to happen would immediately corrode the potential cell before it had the chance to form life.

Absolutely false. There is no law in physics or chemistry which states that chemicals will "immediately corrode" before they happen to come together into a certain configuration. Only certain chemicals change state, when they are introduced to other chemicals. Many are inert, and are extremely hard to get to react with others.

I don't know that there is a law, either, that states that chemicals immediately corrode. However, it is common knowledge that they start to do so whenever they are in the presence of other chemicals that can change them.

This indicates that there was no primordial soup. Why not? Because the chemicals necessary for life will corrode each other, and the resulting chemicals will continue the "corrosion." Rust is an example of simple corrosion. Decay is an example of complex corrosion on many levels. Without life, there is nothing that can control the internal corrosion of a batch of inanimate material in cell form, to make it alive. Rather, the cell form is destroyed by it's own internal corrosion, and the corrosion outside of it.

This is the common everywhere. Dump a bunch of the basic molecules and atoms of a cell together in a vat, toss in a dead or living cell, and the whole thing corrodes because of all kinds of actions of the chemicals on each other. The living cell dies.

It's all to do with the electron shells of the atoms in the chemicals, and whether those electrons are readily absorbed by other atoms.

Either way, probability math in any form that we can come up with doesn't allow for a formation of cell chemicals, by chance, in nature. But, even if it did, then the chemicals would all have to be pushed into motion, in just the right places, at just the right time, with exactly the right "zap" of electricity, for the potential cell to come to life.

By any understanding of nature that we can envision, this is impossible. If it were possible for nature to do it by chance, we would be able to do it in the lab. We aren't really even close to doing this from scratch, even though we have many cells available to use as patterns. Dumb nature certainly isn't going to do it.

Again, your reasoning is flawed. Even if you knew how to create a living cell from its constituents (which no scientist does), your argument that "if we can't do it in a lab, then nature couldn't do it" is ridiculous. Nature had 1 billion years, and a metric fuckton of molecules.

Nature also has corrosion. Such corrosion, as has already been stated, destroys any potential cell formation. Check the vat point, directly above.

The longer that a piece of iron has to rust, the rustier it gets. Evolution has it backward. Any billions of years that might have existed, would only serve to corrode any cell formation beyond the point of it ever being able to be alive.

Probability math shows that the chemicals couldn't come together in the first place, because of their variety, and a cells structural complexity.

No chance for evolution. And the greater the length of time, the less the chance.

Like, loads and loads of chemicals and molecules, spread over the whole Earth, for 10 million lifetimes of a human. That is a seriously long time, with a seriously large amount of chemicals. Is it that crazy to think that it happened, just by chance? Don't forget that as soon as a self replicating cell existed, it might quickly reproduce.

As for your point about "probability math", well, probabilities are just that - chances of things happening. And it doesn't matter how small the chance is, if there is a chance then something CAN happen. And what we're describing certainly COULD happen, it is within the laws of physics.

And it obviously did, because I'm here typing this now.

You are typing because a Super Intelligence that we often call "God" created this whole thing... and set in motion the things that it would take to produce you.

As far as a small chance in probability, scientists have a limit regarding how small of a chance there might be before they call it impossible. The chance against life happening by any logical means we can even guess at, is so great that it literally takes the impossibility factor that scientists have suggested, and increases it exponentially. Evolution is super impossible to have happened.

When are you going to stop embarrassing yourself badecker. You still keep talking about chance and math when I already showed you that those things are false. Evolution is not random and no one claims that but you seem to think scientists claim that evolution is random, it is not. To conceive of evolution as nothing more than blind chance and randomness is the most serious conceptual mistake one can make. Evolution does contain a component of chance, but there is far more to the process than that, and it is precisely the existence of the non-chance components that allows evolution to work. The process of evolution is driven by the engine of natural selection, a filter that extracts order out of chaos according to a fixed and non-random set of rules. It is for this reason that many of the most common creationist caricatures of evolution fail. Evolution is not like an explosion in a print shop producing a dictionary, a tornado in a junkyard producing a 747, or DNA in a blender producing a human being, because all of these lack a component of non-random selection.
Described in its simplest terms, evolution is easy to understand. Due to mutation, organisms undergo random changes, some of which are beneficial, while others are not. The organisms with beneficial changes enjoy a competitive advantage, and these changes are passed on throughout the population and become common; those with deleterious changes are at a disadvantage, are less likely to reproduce, and do not pass these changes on, causing them to disappear out of the population. This is natural selection in a nutshell. Within the scientific community, there are debates about topics such as the level at which selection operates or the relative rate of evolutionary change, but the simple principles outlined above lie at the heart of all versions of evolutionary theory.
It is clear to see that natural selection, which is not chance but the opposite of chance, is what makes evolution work. If there were no selection, change in living things would follow a pattern called a “random walk” – sometimes the changes would be beneficial, sometimes not, and the population as a whole would wander back and forth across the fitness “landscape” but, on average, never get anywhere. That would be an example of random change, and it is absolutely correct to say that such a process could never produce all the intricate diversity and marvelous adaptations that living things possess.
Natural selection changes all that, by preferentially preserving the good variations and eliminating the bad ones. It is like a ratchet, allowing a population to move only in one direction – the direction of greater fitness. And the changes that natural selection favors are not random, but are determined by the characteristics of the environment. This is why, for example, both fish and aquatic mammals such as whales and dolphins have the same streamlined body shape – because this is the shape that is most efficient for moving through the water in which they live. This shape has evolved separately in the fish and cetacean lineages, in an example of an evolutionary phenomenon called convergence, precisely because it is the best shape for that environment regardless of what kind of creature has it. If evolution were random, we would not see this kind of predictable pattern.
Like all natural processes, evolution is guided by laws that do not change. If you throw a rock up in the air, its path is not governed by pure chance, but by the law of gravity. It cannot fly off randomly in any direction, but will travel in a parabolic arc and land at a predictable point. If you put a hot object next to a cold one, the transfer of heat is not governed by pure chance, but by the laws of thermodynamics. Heat cannot flow randomly in either direction; it will move consistently from the hotter object to the colder one. And if you set a population of randomly mutating organisms in an environment, their future is not drifting at the whim of chance, but is directed by the law of natural selection. Their evolution will not proceed in just any direction, but only in those that make them better adapted to their surroundings.
Granted, the mutations that provide the raw material for selection to operate on are random, in the sense that they are not predisposed to increase fitness. Beneficial mutations are not preferentially more likely than deleterious ones, and organisms do not “know” how they “need” to mutate in order to survive. It is merely that the ones that do mutate in helpful ways survive better and reproduce more abundantly than those that do not.
This has led to creationists charging that evolution is random in another sense, that it did not require humans to evolve; that is, there is no inevitability to it. And as far as science can determine, this is an accurate statement. Although we can confidently predict that there will be mutations that increase fitness, we cannot predict exactly what mutations they will be or what form they will take. The evolution of Homo sapiens was the result of a long chain of contingencies, and if any event in our evolutionary past had turned out slightly differently, we might exist in a dramatically altered way, or we might not exist at all. There is no scientific evidence that humans’ existence was inevitable or that evolution in general has any predetermined goals.
But these things are true only as far as science can determine. If one’s personal convictions are such that God intended for humanity to develop all along and guided the course of evolution appropriately, that is not a belief that science can speak to. (That God was working behind the scenes to guide the course of events, despite a lack of any obvious sign of this, is of course a belief common to many religions.) For this reason, the theory of evolution has nothing to say about whether God exists or whether there was a deeper plan to life, though of course, individual scientists are free to take a position on either side of that issue.
But evolution itself is a science, and like all sciences, it tells us only what is, not what should be. It is a description of one particular aspect of reality, and that is all it is. It would be foolish to use it in an attempt to derive a moral code, a purpose for our lives, a meaning to life, or any such thing. Those things do not fall within the realm of science, and science will not give us answers to them; it is up to us as individuals to decide that for ourselves. Some people seek answers to these questions through religion, while others find them through other paths.
When creationists say that one who accepts evolution must believe that life is nothing but the result of random chance, they are abusing the theory. In the scientific sense, this conclusion leaves out the most important part of the entire theory, and in the metaphysical sense, this is a deceptive attempt to derive from the theory an explanation of something it was never meant to explain. Evolution does not tell us that our life is the purposeless result of chance; it does not say anything on the topic at all. Either way, the creationists’ conclusion is flatly inaccurate. Their strategy is to tar evolution with offensive-sounding implications and turn people away from it regardless of the evidence, but this fallacious attack will always wither before the truth.