I’m not sure how knowing that there are “competing models for how that chain of events was structured” contradicts my belief that in order for life as we know it to exist a whole lot unlikely things had to happen and that it is more probably true that God made them happen than that they happened by chance. Also, I’m not sure that I made the claim that “a faith based event is scientifically supported.” I do, however, know that knowing what I do about science, I can say, “Wow, God did a reallly awesome job,” more than someone without that scientific knowledge. Sometime I’ll have to tell you about the missing oxygen in DNA and how its absence makes DNA highly stable, while its presence in RNA highly stable.
By the way, when I taught high school it was in a religious high school, so you don’t have to worry about me poisioning the minds of unsuspecting evolutionist children at taxpayer expense.
It’s been fun, but Shabbos starts in two hours, so I gotta go. I’ll be back Monday (God willing) and look forward to reading where this thread goes, if it goes anywhere.
I’m not sure how knowing that there are “competing models for how that chain of events was structured” contradicts my belief that in order for life as we know it to exist a whole lot unlikely things had to happen and that it is more probably true that God made them happen than that they happened by chance. Also, I’m not sure that I made the claim that “a faith based event is scientifically supported.” I do, however, know that knowing what I do about science, I can say, “Wow, God did a reallly awesome job,” more than someone without that scientific knowledge. Sometime I’ll have to tell you about the missing oxygen in DNA and how its absence makes DNA highly stable, while its presence in RNA highly stable.
By the way, when I taught high school it was in a religious high school, so you don’t have to worry about me poisioning the minds of unsuspecting evolutionist children at taxpayer expense.
It’s been fun, but Shabbos starts in two hours, so I gotta go. I’ll be back Monday (God willing) and look forward to reading where this thread goes, if it goes anywhere.
May I recommend The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. The link in the quote discusses his ideas of the age of the universe.
The upshot of the book (the second link) is that it is possible to reconcile science with the Bible. He is also careful to say that his explanations for the his reconciliation are only a way to explain it. He thoughtfully advocates not throwing Science/Religion (depending on your starting point) out with the bath water. He obviously sites the Copernicus situation and the Church’s reaction. Now, NOBODY (including the church) doubts that the earth revolves around the sun.
He also includes sites from Maimonides and Nachimides (sp?). One of two guys has a quote from around 500 yrs ago that discusses the meaning of the Hebrew words in Genesis 1. This quote presages the Big Bang. Interesting!
There aren’t any of those (young-Earth creationists) here. We killed them all, and ate them.
<P ALIGN=“CENTER”> Tris </P>
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Now you know what I feed Darwin. But he’s lookin’ mighty famished. Sic 'em, boy!
Tinker Grey, Schroeder’s book was reviewed by The Skeptical Inquirer and was found wanting. I read it before reading that review and I, too, was not impressed. Heck, that page in Amazon.com you linked us to had critical reviews that pointed out the elementary mistakes Schroeder made in both science and Bible interpretation. Didn’t you read any of them and ponder what they said?
As for batgirl, I may argue with her tomorrow, but the rest of you consider these two facts:
The last post of Phaedrus was on the “psychosis” thread in the Pit on January 24.
batgirl registered as a user on January 28.
“Her” profile is blank in the following important spaces: Occupation, Location, Interests and ICQ Number. Phaedrus also left those spaces blank.
Question: If you left your occupation space blank when you registered, why did you go out of your way to tell us your occupation here in this thread? Could you tell us the name of the company who emplys you? Would it bother you if I go to old issues of US News to investigate the claim you made about your superior?
Your claim to be Jewish means nothing. I’m not Jewish, but even I know that Jews are supposed to stop working at sundown every Friday.
Fact against my theory: Your writing style is vastly different from Phaedrus’s… But so was KGB’s.
Assuming you are for real, however, asnwer me this: Why do you people ALWAYS assume that if science cannot CURRENTLY explain a mystery, it will NEVER be able to do so? Why do flamingo knees bend backwards? Because they wouldn’t work any other way. And such an arrangement of bones, muscle and tissue could most certainly be found by random chance as by intelligent design, provided enough time is involved.
And if they don’t work too well backwards, isn’t that an argument against intelligent design?
Geez, I actually do work at work for one day and look what happens.
Okay, batgirl believes the odds against abiogenesis supports a young Earth and a literal reading of Genesis. Fine.
So far, we know of life existing on one small planet of one common type star in one undistinguished galaxy. If you deal enough hands of cards you are going to deal a royal flush. The holder of that hand COULD consider it a miracle, but then he would not be taking into account all the millions of non-“winning” hands that were dealt at the same time.
Given enough time and enough space, the most improbable things are inevitable.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.”
Since batgirl has graciously offered to provide more details, I’m going to ask some questions about her explanation of protein homology. Let me also explain, batgirl, that the reason I asked whether you are a scientist is because if you are, then you must use protein homology frequently in your work, and therefore must have some sort of framework for understanding it. I am, therefore, interested in finding out what that framework is.
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Not entirely correct. Protein homology is a measure of the similarity between two proteins (or, more broadly, one could compare a protein to a non-gene DNA sequence, like a pseudogene.) The proteins don’t have to have the same function, and could come from the same species. Why do you define homology so narrowly? It would seem to me that cross-species comparisons of, say, hemoglobin is the aspect of protein homology which is of the least interest in molecular biology.
**
Yes, but you have not explained why this is the case. Why didn’t God just use the same working hemoglobin for all of them?
Then why are there proteins with similar sequence but different functions, and proteins with different sequence and similar functions? And why did God “reinvent” some proteins? For example, why do molluscan and vertebrate lens crystallins share no homology with each other? Or vertebrate and insect odorant binding proteins?
-Ben
If God created a trillion stars ex nihilo, why did he give them angular momentum and arrange them in a spiral pattern which would imply that they had condensed over trillions of years from a cloud of gas?
I’m puzzled - please help me understand some things.
As an earth scientist, I am all too painfully aware of the general public’s lack of knowledge about the specifics of radiometric dating, etc., because earth science is usually taught as an elective rather than as a requirement. I also don’t expect fellow scientists from other fields to automatically understand the particulars of mine, and vice versa; after all, we can’t all be experts on everything.
But I am absolutely stunned to find that you made it through a Ph.D. program in molecular biology with NO (and I mean zip, zero, zilch) understanding of the scientific method.
Good grief! How did you arrive at the notion that scientific discovery is a one-step process? That if a hypothesis for phenomenon X is later shown to be incorrect (through new data or insights), you may as well just throw out any reasoned consideration of the phenomenon and ascribe everything to God? What do you do when you discover that a hypothesis that you’re testing in your own research doesn’t hold water?
Forgive me for being just a little bit skeptical, but I just had to check on the personal info you described. Yes, I found a thesis in the Dissertation Index with the title you gave, but that degree was granted in 1998, not in 1996. Furthermore, I note that your title in the Washington Univ. Med School directory is given as Senior Research Technician… a little bit different for post-Doctoral Fellow (BTW, these folk are listed as such, so why not you?).
At the present time, the explanations by astrophysicists for the formation of the Sun contain too manny variables and happenstances. What are the odds that those particular molecules of dust would be in just the right position to collapse into a star the size of the Sun? Astronomical, literally.
Therefore, I believe that the Sun is in truth the chariot of Apollo.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.”
Who cares? If she can politely provide an intelligent rationale for protein homology within a creationist framework, then it doesn’t matter if she’s Phaedrus. If she can’t, then it doesn’t matter if she isn’t. Give her a break!
As for “proving” God, you can’t prove He doesn’t exist anymore than I can prove He does. Unless of course you let me use the Bible, which Dr. J has stated is not scientific evidence although no one has told me why not.
Because to my knowledge, no proof exists for any of the events in it. And blind faith isn’t proof by any stretch of the imagination.
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.