Do you believe their was a worldwide flood?

Agreed. Luckily for the process of evolution there are billions of samples constantly replicating, thus more than enough instances of chance for the rarely beneficial mutations to arise.

I don't know, maybe there isn't one. it's just a fact that that is what has happened. Maybe its a neutral mutation. Maybe it assists in child birth because you have a smaller Jaw bone (human head size is way too big. problematic in child birth)

Just because you can't ascribe a subjective interpretation on why some biology is 'better' or not, is irrelevent when it comes to 1. Random mutation and 2. Non random Natural selection.

Ought can not be derived from is.
So if you are in fact superior in your survivability over other humans (a questionable hypothesis at best), that has no bearing on what you 'ought' to do.

Ahh, yes. This is true. Your lack of wisdom teeth is indeed an expression of genetic variation. And yes, your instance of it is indeed not an instance of new genetic code. But somewhere, somepoint in time, someone was born with the first instance of No-Wisdom-teeth-itis, and that one person was in fact born with a creation of new genetic code.
(to oversimplify what is no doubt more than just one simple change in code)

There was nothing difficult for evolution about what you just said. The only difficulty evolution has, is educating people to how it actually works. Just like this next thing you are about to say:

There is no problem with evolution, there is a problem with your understanding of evolution.
Evolution is under no requirements to perform. There are no managers demanding a productivity quota be met. Evolution is simply 1. Hereditary, 2. Variation, 3. Selection. If the selection aspect doesn't change, than the variation won't be any more successful over the normalised variability. That is, the variations within the population which cause no great difference.

The fact that there are several organisms which haven't changed means nothing. It is simply a discription of a fact: they haven't changed. Monkeys have changed. Retrospective descriptions of what has happened. And both of those descriptions are in no way contradictory with the theory of evolution.

This is easily tested by experiment. We take crocodiles into a radiation proof bunker and grow them there in conditions you believe were present before the flood. I bet they don't live longer.

In fact I bet experiments akin to this (varying environment experiments are not new) have already been done. All of these biblical explanations of water canopy, sin fulled world etc, they all fail one thing: They don't match up with any of the billions of experiments done in the last 1000 years.

Unlike creationism, Science was not invented to contradict the Bible. That is just what happened. In fact, in the beginning all philosophers (the dawn of science) were monks/fathers/preists etc. Science CAME from the churches in one way or another. And people throughout time, in the name of science, have done experiments. The current world view we have is the culmination of so many millions of experiments that it is hard to fathom. And these conclusions are not picked and chosen simply to spite the religious. They are chosen on the basis of their validity. And the experimentation all indicates that most of the stories you use to explain our current world, are all fataly flawed. There is no great radiation problem which causes us to live shorter lives, there is no difference in humidty in the air which causes us to live longer lives. Etc.

And let me make this one point: I am a navigator at www.imminst.org. My sole purpose in life (initially) is to study longevity and lifespan extension. If lifespan was as simple to extend as just reducing radiation and increasing humidty (or any other simple characteristic like that) it would be done already. The fact that there is no recorded instance of a human living longer than 120 years (other than in mythology) is further evidence that all of the best good will, all of the best living, all of the most thorough examples of theory have made no major effect on lifespan.

Why should it? You have to provide a basis for this assumption, or evidence that it should be true, because my understanding of evolution says that Evolution has no such requirement.

Nor should we expect to. Based on biology anyway.

I don't think it would have been a year though. No other reptiles or birds on earth have an incubation of anything near that.

In anycase though, if you are seriously going to entertain the thought of every creature which has ever existed, then you have more problems than you know. Because the number of creatures in the paleontological record is FAR greater, far far far greater in number than the number of organisms alive today. And the calculations done which observe the simple fact that Noah would need to be loading 1 species of animal every 36 seconds without missing a beat for the whole seven days is based on the assumptions that we are only working with extant organism (organisms alive today). If you want to include every organism ever, then you have no chance.

Very true that there is a debate over what 'Kind' is. Which makes me wonder: how did Noah know? Secondly, if you don't believe in evolution, then we know that as a bare minimum that species can be defined by availability to mate. So maybe the domestic dog could be one species, but the number of land based birds alone is quite immense, and they certainly can't mate with each other, even the ones which look the same (Emu, osterich, Rhea)

 

I think the fact that someone spent so much time and effort developing the technology, and that the technology subsequently was implemented worldwide is probably an indication of the success of it.

It wasn't developped in a vacuum. It wasn't developed for fun. It was developed because without it, people kept dying.

With is, people survived.

So no, I know nothing of these bloodless surgeries, but I'll bet one of two things about them. Either 1. They are JW hospitals, and their choice of not doing blood transfusions comes from a religious doctrine rather than from a scientific one (always a stupid move), or 2. The reason for moving away from blood transfusion has a good solid foundation in some other practical concern, and has nothing to do with the beliefs of the JW's.

 

There you go making assumptions. Not one of these hospitals have anything to do with Jehovah's Witnesses. Number 2 is correct.

Come on buddy. You say you are intelligent. Go seek and you will find out for yourself.

Col

 

Ahhh...so I was right?

Why do I feel like you are saying I was wrong?

Intelligence and knowledge are two separate fields. Intelligence can be applied universally, knowledge is specific to the facts learnt. While I am semi-interested in this topic, I am not interested enough to dedicate any time to learning about it (increasing my knowledge of those particular facts).

And in anycase, my own egoism is my problem. You are the one who is saying you think I consider myself intelligent. What I consider myself is still irrelevent to any conversation. Accept the arguments as they are, not on the basis of who says them.

 

Pre-flood our DNA was a lot better and there was a lot less disease in the world.

If things got better as we evolved then why is it that the x chomosome is starting to lose a limb?

Is it any surprise that house cats live longer than outdoor cats?

Animals that live sheltered lives away from all the diseases in the world and who eat better do in fact live longer. It is a fact that people who live in harsher areas of the world have shorter lives. Americans used to have a much shorter expected life span. Modern medicine has managed to curb the effects of our environment and biological makeup.

There you go, making things up again. One of these days a post of yours is going to contain facts instead of made up assumptions.

 

Spoken like a true philosopher....hehehehe

Col

 

You were almost worth replying to, until you said this:

Particularly considering you opened with this:

and also considering your praise of the medical industry:

despite the fact that the medical industry is 100% supported and based upon the very science you deny.



You make thiings up from nothing and state them as if they are absolute truths "Pre-flood our DNA was a lot better". I make statements which are extrapolations from actual experiments and understandings. AND I say them as 'bets' as 'I think' and so forth, I don't even pretend to know something I don't know. All I do is take advantage of what knowledge I do have, and 'predict' consequences. Go and test my predictions, I'll bet most of them aren't far of, if not dead on.

While you do that, why don't you give me some 'predictions' that are the consequence of your 'beliefs', and I'll go test them. For instance, I'll create a self contained environment where there is less humidty or more humidty, and there is no radiation. If I understand correctly, you beleive that these conditions allow humans to live hundreds of years...???

I don't believe you could actually believe that, and not then build an enclosure which recreates that environment. But then, experimenting, and 'testing' is not conducive with Faith is it?

 

It's a scientific fact that our DNA is deteriorating.

You can't go back in time to when our DNA was in a perfect (or close to perfect) state.

It's also a fact that when man takes care of animals they live longer. It's a fact that watching our environment (or taking medicine to undo the damage of the environment) helps us live longer.

So really, I have no idea what you're going on about.

The experiment has been done. Cancer is cells that won't die. The cure for cancer is death. The trick is getting our DNA fixed so that cells live longer but don't turn into cancer.

You're using words while at the same time not saying anything. It's amazing.

 

I'd like to see you "create" an environment....LOL

How about you start with the soil.....how are you going to create that?

Col

 

...he says to the molecular biologist.

Tell me more about how the cells work Kalvin. Please. It is so enlightening.

You can't? Does the bible forbid time travel too? Damnit!

Not some of the people I know and Gold Fish.... very unfortunate.

Unless your watching it from the middle of a freeway. Not so good for the ol longevity.

Unless it invovles blood transfusions according to our good friends the JW's. Apparently thats bad for you.

That was apparent to me a long time ago. But upon trying to help you through this problem, I have realised it goes far deeper than just a problem with communication.

What, the humidty radiation enclosure one?

Huh? The experiment gave the subjects cancer!??!

Ohhhh, I get it.... Thats why God made the flood? because the early environment caused cancer, and the only way to cure that cancerous blight was to kill everything. LOL! Silly God. He should have known that would happen when he made everything!

Well obviously! So is God working on that now? 'Cause I'm dead keen to live forever.

It comes from years of practice of talking to creationists

 

I won't have soil in MY environment. One of the great aspects of being the 'Creator' .. You can make it however you want!

 

Please tell me the environment you will create then?

Col

 

A normalised one so that the control is under identical conditions to the experimental one, aside from the changes which are necessary to the test.

 

So, a theoretic environment? Or does this environment have specific ingredients?

Col

 

It probably would, but I'm no ecologist, and I'm not really going to run the experiment. If creationists can't run their own experiments to support their own ridiculous stories, then I don't see why I should have to think up all of the variables for them.

 

But the experiment was already done and published in the most popular book in mankind's history. Oh yes...That's right..It's the same book you deny is true

Col

 

Yeah, haha, funny. "published" yet no peer reviews. "Published" yet no introduction, no methodology, no results, no discussion. "Published" but so to was Aesops Fables, yet you don't see anyone quoting scientific theories from that.

Besides, incase you were actually serious for one second, doing an experiment isn't enough. Lets say its true, that the experiment was done. Science is about reproducability. Its been done, now it needs to be reproduced, otherwise it was probably just an error, or a mistake, or outright untrue.

This science stuff is pretty easy.

 

Only problem with that is we can't do it. We can only reproduce through using the inbuilt reproduction systems or by manipulation of those systems. We can't create a reproduction system no matter how hard we try.

Col

 

Huh? When did we start talking about reproduction systems?

 

Oh! I dunno. Maybe it was when you mentioned it:

here.

Col