Another Discussion with an Evolutionist pt. 2

ME: The humane genome consists of a code that is 3 billion letters long. If it were to be read one later per second it would take 93 years to read. That seems a little too complex to have evolved. You take DNA, with a phosphate-sugar backbone and complexly arranged organic bases, stacked orderly on top of each other and paired together at each rung of the twisted double helix....it makes my head explode when I hear of people believing this could happen without the guidance of a master's hand. 

Hawking says, "The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications. It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."

My bottom line is this. When I was Agnostic (which I was for 25 years of my life) I said that I had trouble with God because I could not empirically prove that He did or did not exist. I used that thought to look down on others and I lived a life of debauchery and alcoholism. It was great for me, I had no hope and lived a very self-centered life. There are those who would say that I was a good friend and a good person, but I knew better then just like I know better now.

 I eventually realized that although I personally could not prove there was a God, as a supposed empiricist I could also not personally prove that evolution happened, that life sprang from nonliving matter. I could not personally do that. I prayed and I gave God a chance to prove himself to me personally.

There are many out there who would tell me that my experience with the Holy Spirit was only imagined. There are atheists and agnostics that would tell me I have lost my mind. There would be psychiatrists and psychologists who in the past would have told them that they were right, I was clinically crazy.....in the past. To them I have a reply. If you have ever been in the depths of addiction, you would not say that. I have been in the depths of my addiction. Everyone has a different rock bottom, here is mine:

1. I have shot up ice water, because the batch of meth was not ready or I was waiting on the person to get back from filling their morphine prescription.
2. I have woken up at 4 AM in a urine soaked mattress to get up and drink a couple of shots to put me back to sleep and stop the shakes.
3. I started smoking cigarettes in 6th grade and had never been able to quit.
4. I had been to county jail often enough that I would stay in for several weeks to catch up on sleep when I had the cash in my wallet to bond out.
5. I had slept with enough women that I was in the mid-triple digits. I would go to parties and sleep with 2 or 3 girls when I was a drug dealer.
6. I was drunk 30 minutes after I got out of prison, and spun out on methamphetamine that night.
7. I dealt drugs and was involved with the manufacturing of methamphetamine for over a decade.
8. I had been to rehab, but the longest stretch of sobriety I had since I was in the 7th grade was 3 months.
9. I had been diagnosed with Bi-Polar, borderline personality, antisocial personality, masochistic, generalized anxiety and major depressive disorders.
10. I used the "F" word and cussed every other word even when I was happy and in normal conversation.
11. I have been found passed out in my own blood after slashing my wrists and rushed to the ER.
12. I have totalled 5 cars drinking and driving yet continued to drink and drive every night.
13. I have overdosed on several occasions and yet used within 24 hours every time.

I had tried counselors, psychiatrists, drug rehabs, interventions and Narcotics/Alcoholics Anonymous, with no success. I had worked the 12 steps, but it was never quite enough. I had used my intellect in attempting to overcome my addiction and failed repeatedly. I have killed a lot of brain cells through my addiction, but I have had 2 psychiatrists and a psychologist score my IQ between 129-135 at different times in my life. I am by no means ignorant. I came to Him in prayer, and He gave me a second chance. That was all that I needed to do, truly turn my will and my life over to God. I had tried using a random higher power, such as the community in 12 step groups, and it was not effective. God was!

Since the night I prayed to God and asked Him to take all of this from me, I have had a complete life change. I have not used drugs or drank, I have not smoked a cigarette, I have not had premarital sex, I have not been to jail and I am on no medication for any mental illnesses. I have not cussed since I do not know when. If all of that is not proof of God, than I ask you what is?

Now I tithe 10% to my church (which supports the digging of wells for water in Africa, Convoy of Hope, and giving school supplies to children who do not have them locally) and give more money on top of that to other charities. I volunteer between 5-10 hours a week to work with helping others through various charities and resources. I now give back to others, and I am teaching my son to think of more than just himself. When I volunteered to do psychological first aid and trauma counseling in Joplin, I was Convoy of Hope and multiple churches there helping those in need. It reaffirmed my belief in Christians and the good that we do.

I have no idea what you do to improve the world around you, and I hope that it is a lot because you seem to be very bright and should therefore be able to think globally and altruistically. I hope that you give 10 % of your income to others because it is the right thing to do. In fact, I hope that you give 15%. I hope that you volunteer several hundred hours a year to help those less fortunate than you. I know that what I do for a living changes lives, gives children back their parents and parents back their children. What I do in my spare time (while raising a family of my own and caring for their needs while working a full time job) feeds the hungry and helps people heal from their addictions and past hurts. I know that my son benefits as much as my wife. I love my wife and treat her with respect and I teach my son to help those less fortunate, to give of himself and not be judgmental of others.

If that is done out of ignorance, than I would rather be ignorant, filled with hope and able to give others hope while making the world a better place than trying to educate people with other people's research while having done none of my own. I know that God exists, I see Him in the beauty around me, in my changed life and in the lives of those around me. I see evil too, as well as those who would try to usurp other's work and claim wisdom from it. You can use intelligence to read other's research, I use wisdom to live my life. My life screams that God exists based on my experiences.

The scientific method is done by asking a question, gathering information, forming a hypothesis, then performing an experiment that tests your hypothesis. From that test you then interpret the data and draw conclusions that help you to form a new hypothesis. You then publish that research. I could not tell you how many people I have seen that have been to 10, 15 rehabs for addiction using psychiatrists and the most advanced techniques available return to addiction over and over again. I should know, I was one of them. I tried the established methods as an agnostic and my results were the same. I and so many others that I have worked with quit for good after they found Christ! That is the evidence that I base my theory on, and it has been tested with several hundred participants and each one only makes my faith stronger.

I am in the middle of writing the book that will allow me to share with others the final hypothesis I have come to after 10 years of research. It is based on the observations I have had while testing my theory with hundreds of test subjects. I started out biased against God and came to believe in Him through my studies and experimentation. I would love to read your article when it gets published. I am certain that it will give validation to your theory, based on your data interpretation after you tested your theory with an unbiased mind. You definitely write well enough to hold my interest. Let me know when it comes out and I will read it.

Another Discussion with an Evolutionist pt. 1

ME: Had a discussion with an atheist on youtube, and this is how it went:http://spiritualspackle.blogsp​ot.com/2011/07/atheismwhy-so-s​erious.html

HE: First, I'd like to see the video where this conversation happened. Second, and I don't mean to say this harshly, but you are clearly uneducated about how science works (and that extends to evolutionary theory).

ME:  

It was not in a video, it was comments to a video. I have never live debated evolution versus creation. I have discussions, but my forte is motivational and inspirational speech. The kind that let's drug addicts and criminals step into new ways of life through the power of the Holy Spirit. I know that power, and how a life of addiction and crime can be instantly reversed through faith. 

 

HE: 1) Chance is a part of evolution, but only in the form of mutations. You ignore natural selection, which is the exact opposite of chance. Mutations change genes and create variety. These changes are fed into the mechanism of natural selection, and those that are successful (or even neutral) get passed on, whereas those that are detrimental are weeded out and removed.

2) With an understanding of evolutionary processes I think it's easy to see how a small, simple brain can evolve into a larger, more complex one. I think you're trying to make some irreducible complexity argument, but ignoring the known and understood evolutionary history of life on earth. There's a reason why we use mice to study the human brain. It's because we share a common ancestor and most of the working parts are the same (albeit on a different scale). It's why biologists, anthropologists, and primatologists study apes and monkeys to learn about their behavior and social interactions to help figure out what makes us tick. 

‎3) The watch argument fails on several levels. First, the watch is not living. That's all there is to it. You cannot try to apply biological processes to inanimate objects. Second, it fails a reduction test. If a complex watch required an intelligence to make, then whatever made the watch must also be complex. So, what made the maker of the watch?

ME: ‎1) Natural selection is tautology at its finest. Some dwindle and die out while others multiply because some multiply while others dwindle and die out. When have we ever been able to breed and form a whole new species, though? And that would be on purpose, yet you believe that natural selection could do that? There is a limit due to the DNA barrier that insures only so much change can occur. How did natural selection create life out of non-living material? When have we ever created or observed living matter from nonliving matter? When have we ever seen offspring from the animal kingdom create new species? Changes within species happen all of the time, that is observable. 

2) Since when is there a known and understood evolutionary process? It has never been observed. I fall back to my last answer. Since when has a rabbit been observed to become a mountain lion? A rose turning another color or a variation in brain sizes is simply that, a variation in the species. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, teaches that those changes will cross from one species to another and produce new and different species. Since it has never been observed, an evolutionist must rest on his belief that it is true.

3) In the watchmaker analogy, you say that a reduction test states that it takes something complex in order to make something complex, yet you believe in evolution? Where is the reduction test for an atheist when it comes to the universe, let alone mankind? Or is neither man or the universe complex? If they are complex and based on your reduction test they had to have a creator, who was that creator of the universe and of man?

HE: In most cases, speciation over time can be represented by a gradient. I hate using analogies, but here goes: If you look at a rainbow, where does red stop and yellow begin? By your argument, you would say there is only red and only yellow...there is no orange, and that is nonsensical. Orange clearly exists, we can see it with our eyes. We can see these gradients not only in the fossil record, but with living organisms. We can measure these gradients through measurements, statistics, and DNA. Your fixation and insistence that new species suddenly appear shows your limited knowledge and/or understanding. Bluntly, you're doing yourself (and your readers) a disservice by making an argument against a topic you don't have a solid grasp on. That, and your toolkit of arguments are old-hat and have been debunked and explained-away by many people who are a lot more eloquent than I, and I recommend you do some Googling. Generally speaking, your arguments will work on people who are less-educated than you, but will be found as straw-men to anyone who has greater understanding. If you find people getting angry or frustrated with you, it's probably because you are re-hashing these old anti-evolution arguments. Some just handle it better than others. I personally love educating people and would be happy to provide you with some book recommendations and other reading if you would like.

And somewhat of a thought exercise, how would you explain ring species? http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Ring_species an example: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ev​olution/library/05/2/l_052​_05.html

ME: The amazing thing is that if you look at the strata you will find that species suddenly exist. Why has the coelacanth, once thought to been a missing link for fish becoming amphibians that lived 380 million years ago based on fossil records, now been found still living off the coast of Indonesia. Why has it not evolved in 380 million years! Or is 380 million years not gradual enough for change. We have never truly evolved. At our simplest, we are still made up of DNA, which is both sophisticated and complex. How did that evolve?

Secondly, microevolution does occur, but what we need to see is macroevolution for evolution to have occurred. If we all came from one set of parents, then how are we all so different? That is microevolution, or adaptation. Macroevolution is one cell evolving to man over time. That is not based on the scientific method at all. Scientific method involves:

Define a question
Gather information and resources (observe)
Form an explanatory hypothesis
Perform an experiment and collect data, testing the hypothesis
Analyze the data
Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results
Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

Since evolution has yet to be duplicated no matter how hard evolutionists have tried, there is no true scientific method at use. It is based on untestable science. Do evolutionists come to their conclusions with an open mind? No, so instead they make proclamations based on faith and belief!

HE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/E._coli_long-term_evolu​tion_experiment

ME: That is a great argument for adaptation, not evolution. Is it still E. coli? 50,000 generations in and it has yet to become a completely different organism. I said that micro does occur, this is an experiment that proves that. Where is macro change in this experiment?

‎"However, although this mutation increased fitness under these conditions, it also increased the bacteria's sensitivity to osmotic stress and decreased their ability to survive long periods in stationary phase cultures, so the phenotype of this adaptation depends on the environment of the cells."

So we can cause change in a controlled, scientific environment.....survival of the fittest is not shown here. The bacteria has become more sensitive to stress as well as developed a decreased ability to survive! Thanks for backing my point up.

HE: Coelocanths were once a wide-spread and highly-varied group of fish. The group Coelocanth is a taxonomic Order (Order->Family->Genus->Spe​cies) Last I heard, there have been three different Coelocanth species discovered in the past century.

"adaptation" is evolution :/

Check this out, a pretty big list of observed speciation: http://www.scienceforums.n​et/topic/13511-observed-sp​eciation/

ME: Adaptation is microevolution. Adaptation is not change from one species to another. If corn adapts to where it lives, does that make it no longer corn? Of course not. It is genetic variety, or genetic drift. How about a dog, when it breeds over and over again to create different breeds, does it change species? A hound and a labrador and a beagle are still dogs.

HE: Drosophila paulistorum and Brassica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Brassica) are the classical examples of observed speciation, as are ring species.

Sorry about link bombs, haha. Here's another:http://evolutionwiki.org/w​iki/Observed_speciation

ME: http://creation.com/refuti​ng-evolution-2-chapter-4-a​rgument-natural-selection-​leads-to-speciation:

"The biblical creation/Fall/Flood/migrat​ion model would also predict rapid formation of new varieties and even species. This is because all the modern varieties of land vertebrates must have descended from comparatively few animals that disembarked from the ark only around 4,500 years ago. In contrast, Darwin thought that this process would normally take eons. It turns out that the very evidence claimed by evolutionists to support their theory supports the biblical model.

Biologists have identified several instances of rapid adaptation, including guppies on Trinidad, lizards in the Bahamas, daisies on the islands of British Columbia, and house mice on Madeira.6 Another good example is a new ‘species’ of mosquito that can’t interbreed with the parent population, arising in the London Underground train system (the ‘Tube’) in only 100 years. The rapid change has ‘astonished’ evolutionists, but should delight creationists.7 Scientific American admits as much.

These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in Grant’s studies of evolving beak shapes among Galápagos finches)

Again, do these profound changes increase information? No populations are seen losing information, and adapting within the constraints of the information they already have. In contrast, goo-to-you evolution requires something quite different—the progressive addition of massive amounts of genetic information that is novel not only to that population, but to the entire biosphere."

HE: The creationist "information" argument makes my head explode. It's just another argument built upon not understanding what evolution is. The argument is only really ever discussed between Creationists. DNA is not information, it is a molecule with chemical properties that follow the laws of chemistry and physics. If you hear a biologist use the word 'information' in reference to DNA, it is being used as an easy way to describe what's contained in it. It's not being treated as a book. Sometimes scientific terminologies are misunderstood and used improperly, and it causes conflict. Think about the colloquial use of the word 'theory' vs what scientists mean it to be.

Gene and/or chromosomal duplication kinda nullifies the ID "information" argument, as well.

 

As for science, other than a meager education with Chemistry and Biology that I got at MSU, you are probably correct. Unfortunately, I did not go to a top tier college. I only have 3 degrees, and none of them are terminal degrees.

I have however read the presumptions that are made in evolutionary theory, like a bird came from a reptile. Yet how did 100 million minute hooks evolve and from where? Furthermore, how can you mathematically explain our brain with 100 billion neurons. If each neuron were to be placed end to end the line would be 600 miles wide, yet they all fit inside of our head. Or the 1 quadrillion synapses (that is a 1 followed by 15 zeros) or 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries in our body.

Sorry, I just cannot leave that to chance. A watch is so much less complex than we are, but when you find one on the ground do you wonder who made it or do you wonder what it evolved from?