Aethiest sister vs intellectually lazy relgious sister

[Ser King]

[quote name='TerraPrime' post='1655913' date='Jan 20 2009, 18.29']So it's been over 3 days since I posted the questions. I will now provide the answers in spoiler text, for those interested in the topics.

I've been participating in threads on evolution since I joined the board. This is the first time I threw questions like these up. I usually don't throw these questions out there because I recognize that these are appropriate only for biology majors. But more importantly, I don't think full understanding of these questions are critical to someone if they already accept the theory.

However, in cases like SWK who wishes to claim that he found the evolutionary theory incapable of explaining the natural phenomenon and that he had found other sources that debunk it, I think it's appropriate to ask them just how well they know the theory that they are rejecting. It seems to me that there is a higher bar for rejecting something than it is to accepting the collective consensus by specialists in the field. I don't know enough physics to know the ins and outs of red-shift and space-time measurement, but I take it that the astrophysicists have worked it out. My incomplete understanding of the math and physics behind it do not hinder my understanding of the world. If, on the other hand, I want to criticize the measurement of the size and age of the universe because I think the red shift calculations are wrong, then I should be able to provide some proof that I understand the math and physics behind it well enough to support my claim.

So yeah, it was a bit of a showmanship thing to challenge SWK on these points, but I do think that it's worth pointing out that most, if not all, of these people who reject evolution in favor of creationism don't actually have a firm grasp of the thing they rejected. I think that rather calls the validity of their rejection into question. After all, how can you reject and challenge something when you don't even have mastery over the subject?

SPOILER: Answer to Question 1

Codons are triplets of DNA that can eventually lead to the addition of a single amino acid to a chain to form proteins. They are the basic coding units of DNA.

The degeneracy of codons refers to the fact that some amino acids are encoded by more than 1 codon. If we do the math, we will see that given 3 different positions with 4 possible bases, the total number of different amino acids that can be encoded would be 4^3, which is 64. In reality, we have only about 22 amino acids. Add to that 3 special codons used for stopping, i.e., not coding for any amino acids, and we have about 39 codons that are "left over." So for example, the amino acid alanine is encoded by GCT, GCC, GCA, and GCG, while the amino acid histidine is encoded by CAT and CAC. This is what we call the codon degeneracy.

What this means for mutation is that sometimes, a mutation can lead to no change in proteins. Since proteins are the functional units, this means that many mutations are effectively "silent." For instance, if within a gene there is a codon for alanine using GCC, and the GCC codon is mutated into GCA, the effect is invisible. Yet, this GCA codon is now one step closer to being glutamate, which is GAA. While switching GCC to GAA requires two mutations, the codon degeneracy allows for stepwise incremental changes, from GCC (alanine) to GCA (alanine) to GAA (valine). This goes to address one of the fundamental tenets of irreducible complexity, which argues that intermediates cannot exist without the full function of the eventual outcome in place, i.e. one component of an eye, say, the iris, cannot exist on its own and still works as an eye. The molecular event of mutation and codon degeneracy offers a mechanistic explanation of how changes can accumulate without the fully functional organ all at once.

SPOILER: Answer to Question 2

For dominant mutations, this is most likely due to the survival of the carrier until after s/he has reproduced. This is in fact the case for Huntington's Disease, since most people do not develop the symptoms until they are past reproductive age.

Another part of the answer is the way selection work on dominant and recessive traits. The dominantly lethal traits will be selected against very rapidly, leading to the dying out, because every individual with the trait will die (except for the case above). The recessive lethal mutations, on the other hand, can "hide" in the heterozygous condition. If aa is lethal, and neither AA nor Aa are lethal, then we will always see "a" in our population because the decrease of the frequency of "a" approaches an asymptope.

This again addresses the issue of irreducible complexity because even if a mutation that creates an insipient organ (say, a proto-eye) is lethal, it can persist in the population quite handily, so that when a second mutation occurs that now renders this first mutation useful, they will both be selected for.

SPOILER: Answer to Question 3

The Joshua Lederberg replicate plate experiment was designed to answer the question of whether mutations arise in response to the environment or whether mutations exist without any selective pressure being applied. The answer to this question addresses whether organisms "evolve towards" something or whether Darwin's idea of selection pressure being a non-directed force is true.

To do this experiment, you grow a batch of bacteria from a uniform single source. Once they grow up to a large number, you then sample them and put them under different nutrient restriction or antibiotic selections. Replicate plating comes in handy because you can create 1 master plate, then use the replicate plating technique to "copy and paste" the master plate onto different plates. Each of these plates will contain different selection force, but they will all be started by the same source. The subtlety that may not seem apparent on first glance is that when one spreads a homogenous bacterial culture onto a growth agar plate, one cannot get the same bacterium twice. This is the same concept as being unable to step into the same moving stream twice. With replicate plating, we can now circumvent this and test whether the same colony exhibit different traits.

The result of the experiment was in line with the second hypothesis. In other words, even when the bacterial culture was not subjected to a specific selective pressure, we can still find mutants capable of circumventing that pressure. That is, if you culture and plate out a master plate containing no antibiotic selection, and then replicate plate it onto a different plate containing penicillin, you will find, at the end, some small number of penicillin-resistant bacteria.

The result here addressed the frequent misconception about evolution having a goal, that humans are the "ultimately evolved" organism. This misconception is often seen in arguments by those who wish to debunk evolution, claiming that the hands of a sentient being must be at work in order for the changes to take place because the organisms are "directed." This experiment showed that the presence of mutations are not directed, and that they arise spontaneously. Their persistence and dominance in the population are subject to selective pressure, as enunciated in other parts of the evolutionary theory. The hands of a Designer are not needed as an explanation.

I welcome any critique on the answers if someone thinks I'm wrong on these.


Edited for some typos.[/quote]


Williams isn’t trying to falsify science, he is falsifying materialist evolution. And if you are ruling out deductive reasoning with respect to historical inference, you have just ruled out Darwinian evolution.

[Guest thebadlady]

[quote name='Ser Wolf King' post='1656393' date='Jan 20 2009, 23.39']Williams isn’t trying to falsify science, he is falsifying materialist evolution. And if you are ruling out deductive reasoning with respect to historical inference, you have just ruled out Darwinian evolution.[/quote]


Know what sucks? When someone hits reply instead of add reply or intentionally quotes a huge post.

[Ser King]

[quote name='the silent speaker' post='1653679' date='Jan 19 2009, 01.52']Guys, I think you're all missing Wolf King's point. He doesn't actually believe as a proposition the things he's saying. What he's actually doing is brilliantly satirizing thebadlady's position on religion, arguing that it is in fact based on misunderstanding and oversimplification of the beliefs she holds in contempt, much as creationists hold evolution in contempt primarily because what they take the theory to be is in fact a misunderstood and oversimplified version of the contentions made by the theory.

Oh, and Joanna, what's the big deal if someone wants to club baby seals? I'm sure someone on this board has spade baby cats and no one says a word.[/quote]


That's partly true.

[DrownedCrow]

[quote]You're a genius, you now that?[/quote]

I love ironic spelling mistakes.

[the silent speaker]

[quote]Many (if not most? or all?) of us atheists had at least a cursory religious upbringing, and it would be very difficult to exist in this society without getting a pretty damn good idea of what this Religion thing is all about,[/quote]
:huh: You think a cursory upbringing is enough to dismiss all of religion as a crutch, anti-intellectual, incapable of subtlety of thought? Seriously? How is that any different from what Wolf King is doing? I don't see how this comment does anything other than confirm my point.

[Dornish]

[quote name='the silent speaker' post='1656401' date='Jan 21 2009, 00.55']:huh: You think a cursory upbringing is enough to dismiss all of religion as a crutch, anti-intellectual, incapable of subtlety of thought? Seriously? How is that any different from what Wolf King is doing? I don't see how this comment does anything other than confirm my point.[/quote]Well I can't speak for anyone else but my "cursory upbringing" consisted of 12 years of Catholic school, hours of discussion, bible studies, etc. I was a true believer up until about seven years ago. That good enough to make a few comments?

[Vendetto]

[quote name='Dornish' post='1656418' date='Jan 20 2009, 23.30']Well I can't speak for anyone else but my "cursory upbringing" consisted of 12 years of Catholic school, hours of discussion, bible studies, etc. I was a true believer up until about seven years ago. That good enough to make a few comments?[/quote]

Mind if I ask what changed your mind?

[Dornish]

[quote name='Vendetto' post='1656421' date='Jan 21 2009, 01.35']Mind if I ask what changed your mind?[/quote]I'd love to be able to say it was one thing, that there was a definitive moment, but there wasn't. The biggest instigator was going away to college.

I have nothing but respect for Catholic education. If there's one thing the Church can do right it's teach but it doesn't tend to expose you to many outside ideas. Before college I'd never once had a philosophical discussion in which the existence of god and acceptance of the Bible were up for debate. I've always loved arguing so I got into it with the people on my floor right away.

I quickly realized that I was only Catholic by chance, because I was born into a Catholic family and from there I accepted that no one faith had all the answers.
I examined Catholicism more critically than before and disagreed with much of it.
I stopped attending church and found that my life was not significantly different without it.
I stopped praying without even noticing at first and found I worried less.
I stopped being depressed, not even sure if this is related but I had struggled with clinical depression in high school and during my deconversion it went away completely and never came back.
I moved in with an atheist roomate and we debated philosophy endlessly.

My faith eroded away bit by bit until I was a Christian in name only and one day I finally admitted to myself that I just didn't buy it anymore. It was never a conscious decision, more like a realization.

Sorry bout the excess of detail didn't mean to talk so much.

[MinDonner]

[quote name='the silent speaker' post='1656401' date='Jan 21 2009, 05.55']:huh: You think a cursory upbringing is enough to dismiss all of religion as a crutch, anti-intellectual, incapable of subtlety of thought? Seriously? How is that any different from what Wolf King is doing? I don't see how this comment does anything other than confirm my point.[/quote]

:rofl:

Oh my goodness. When I reread your post the first time, I thought you were being brilliantly sarcastic about SWK's debating tactic, and that I'd missed the point by giving a proper answer. You were serious?*

Well, first up, I said nothing about religion being "a crutch, anti-intellectual, incapable of subtlety of thought", so let's leave that straw man right there (though, in fact, I believe the first two are true - but that's another story). But do you really, honestly think that it's even possible to exist in Western society without accumulating plenty of information about the merits and basic tenets of Christianity (even without the years of religious assemblies foisted onto all us British kids)? And that the concept is so hard to grasp that you'd need to spend years of study in order to genuinely reject it? It's not like it's rocket science. Plus, as I said in the part of my post that you ignored, most atheists are extremely well-versed in the religion that they are rejecting, generally more so than their religious counterparts, whereas creationists don't have the first clue about the ideas they are rejecting, and more importantly, [b]have no interest in finding out[/b].




*(unless this post is more brilliant sarcasm, in which case :bow:)

[The Anti-Targ]

[quote name='MinDonner' post='1656492' date='Jan 21 2009, 21.21']Plus, as I said in the part of my post that you ignored, most atheists are extremely [b]well-versed in the religion that they are rejecting[/b], generally more so than their religious counterparts, whereas creationists don't have the first clue about the ideas they are rejecting, and more importantly, [b]have no interest in finding out[/b].[/quote]

Baaaaaarrrrr ha ha ha ha ha. That's the funniest thing I've read in a while.

No wait "God probably doesn't exists" as a sales pitch wins that award.

Lets see, a probability of something being true means something less than 1 (certainty) which in this case is as yet unquantified. This means the probability of the converse being true is an similarly unquantified probability greater than 0. Therefore Atheism.org is affirming there is a non-zero, unquantified probability that God exists.

They have just introduced uncertainty into the atheist concept, yet they suggest one should embrace atheism with unwavering certitude ("stop worrying"; of course I'd suggest theists are not particularly worried: while many of those who reject the notion of God are wondering if humanity will survive the next 100 years or so, I have it on good authority that our species will continue at least another 500,000 years. This means we'll probably (oops uncertainty again) last a heck of a lot longer than that, and we are certain to get through our current collective tribulations to achieve a sustainable and stable civilisation. Though I freely acknowledge that the authority from which I derive this assurance requires an article of faith).

Does it not behove the atheist to examine this essential uncertainty, which has been openly proclaimed by it's self-appointed spokes-people? Doesn't embracing something as truth in the absence of absolute, objective certainty essentially meet the definition of faith? Odd then that so many of the adherents of the atheist faith should deride the term with such scorn when applying it to religion. Hypocrisy I name thee atheism.