Viruses Disprove Intelligent Design.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Good-bye valiya.
(Y)
mankind once lived in an utopian paradise but because of sin,All disease came into the world. virus came into the world and humanity became sick.
Bullshit! You are an utter fool devout christian. Quit proselytizing.
"mankind once lived in an utopian paradise but because of sin,All disease came into the world."
No, no. First there were diseases. Then mankind evolved. We started out in a "utopia" where we were lunch for leopards and lions. And I doubt whether any of us reached three score and ten.
Did you know that capital letters come at the beginning of sentences? The end of a sentence is marked by a period (full stop), not by a comma. Since there are definitely many different types of viruses "VIruses came into the world..." would be more appropriate.
I would have thought that someone who believed so strongly in a magic book would take greater care over spelling and grammar. Why do you think we use the word "spell" for both magic incantations and orthography? You need to get the words right in order to summon up your demon. Similarly, "grammar" is thought to have the same etymology as "glamour," which originally meant to cast a spell on someone.
simply agnostic:
We humans are the latecomers! We provided a new host for the continuing evolution of bacteria and viruses which have been around for billions of years. You are just pontificating on a subject you know nothing about! Save it for the pulpit.
We used to live in paradise? Interesting assertion. Please provide proof that this wild claim / assertion is true. Ready? Go
@DC,
When and where was this "utopian paradise" before sin and disease? Please share your hard evidence.
Wikipedia - List of topics (in life sciences) characterized as pseudoscience:
Nyarlathotep:
Another excellent source from our "resident research librarian!" I hope that valiya will follow up on this material so as to understand why it is garbage.
That would be the day...
For the newer forum members, I thought I'd post this "blast from the past":
Basically yes:
Just keep rereading that statement until you head explodes!
Really? In the past you have described natural selection as random chance:
No. And here is the big difference:
Newton defined force as:
force = mass * acceleration
Therefore; when an object has non-zero mass and has a non-zero acceleration; you can safely conclude it is being acted on by a non-zero force. So the method used to make this 'deduction' is nothing more than simple math.
You will notice that since you refuse to define specific complexity in such a fashion, you can not safely make these kinds of deductions. Instead we just have you demanding that your conclusions are logical consequences of something you haven't even defined! Your conclusions could be 100% justified, but we'll never know if you don't start lifting the veil. This is why I keep asking you for it, because it is really the only way to evaluate your claims.
Now you have gone totally off the rails. Random mutations and natural selection are observed facts. Even if the theory of evolution was shown to be false tomorrow, random mutations and natural selection would still exist. (If the theory of evolution was shown to be false) it would just mean that random mutations and natural selection do not lead to speciation (and presumably a new idea would be needed to explain speciation). It seems you are now tilting at reality itself.
Design doesn't hinge on a disbelief in evolution. It hinges on a disbelief in the possibility of natural abiogenesis on Earth. Probability would dictate that this phenomenon would be impossible. The only other option would be design. Viruses aren't ignored by theists. They just aren't brought up because they aren't relevant to any design framework. Let's take Christianity for example. In the Christian worldview, humans were perfect, before the fall. After Adam and Eve's sin, they lost this perfection and God gave them up to "vile affections" as stated in Romans 1. This view could easily account for the existence of viruses by attributing it to the fall from perfection. It still seems that design is the most plausible explanation for abiogenesis.
Hi RW
Can you please give your probability numbers for:
1) Natural abiogenesis,
2) Intelligent Design (or whatever you consider the theistic opposite of natural abiogenesis)
and how your derived then both.
Thanks.
"As Coppedge (1973) notes, even 1) postulating a primordial sea with every single component necessary for life, 2) speeding up the bonding rate so as to form different chemical combinations a trillion times more rapidly than hypothesized to have occurred, 3) allowing for a 4.6 billion- year-old earth and 4) using all atoms on the earth still leaves the probability of a single protein molecule being arranged by chance is 1 in 10,261. Using the lowest estimate made before the discoveries of the past two decades raised the number several fold. Coppedge estimates the probability of 1 in 10119,879 is necessary to obtain the minimum set of the required estimate of 239 protein molecules for the smallest theoretical life form.
At this rate he estimates it would require 10119,831 years on the average to obtain a set of these proteins by naturalistic evolution (1973, pp. 110, 114). The number he obtained is 10119,831 greater than the current estimate for the age of the earth (4.6 billion years). In other words, this event is outside the range of probability. Natural selection cannot occur until an organism exists and is able to reproduce which requires that the first complex life form first exist as a functioning unit."
Source: https://www.trueorigin.org/abio.php
"the estimated number of elementary particles in the universe is 10^80. The most rapid events occur at an amazing 10^45 per second. Thirty billion years contains only 10^18 seconds. By totaling those, we find that the maximum elementary particle events in 30 billion years could only be 10^143. Yet, the simplest known free-living organism, Mycoplasma genitalium, has 470 genes that code for 470 proteins that average 347 amino acids in length. The odds against just one specified protein of that length are 1:10^451."
Source: http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1279-abiogenesis-is-impossible
RadicalWhiggery:
Missed your last post! These probability arguments make various simplistic assumptions about how life arose, the type of chemical reactions that are possible, and they often assume a randomness that is wholly unjustified. Nobody knows how many pathways might lead to life, let along the details for any of those possible pathways. Nobody has anything close to a good understanding of all the possible reactions. We also need to know more about the ancient environments of the time, a critical piece to the puzzle. In short, such calculations are creationist productions of imagination. Notice that they are pitched to the scientifically illiterate public rather than presented in respectable scientific journals that are peer reviewed.
RadicalWhiggery:
I disagree with your claim that the odds are impossible for abiogenesis. How can such odds even be calculated if we don't understand the possible ways that life might arise? You have to have a credible model to do a serious calculation, or at least prove the existence of a credible, prohibitive bottleneck. Just because we presently don't know how it happened doesn't mean that it is impossible. Abiogenesis has difficult scientific questions to resolve; God-belief (the real reason for advocating ID) simply ignores the laws of nature. If one faults the former on scientific grounds, one should positively throw out the latter!
It is biological evolution that creates the illusion of intelligent design, and evolution is just as true whether the first life arose from nature or some group of deities. It is the plants and animals that IDers claim to be evidence of real design, so the fact of evolution is central to ID thinking.
They can not be calculated. Anyone who claims they have calculated it is a charlatan.
For example:
That is false.
I agree with you now actually. I should've seen the similarities to the Drake equation.
I'd say these aren't presented in scientific journals because of the politics of the issue. But they certainly are presented by many scientists that are cited in the link I gave. How does belief in a deity ignore the laws of nature?
@RW: "How does belief in a deity ignore the laws of nature?"
A deity is defined as an entity that can bend or suspend the laws of nature to perform miracles. Every time people pray they are asking god to suspend the laws of nature so they can win the lottery, etc. Do you have a different definition?
I don't think praying implies they're asking for a violation of the laws of nature. But saying that the laws of nature could be violated by the one who created them is not ignoring them.
RW: "But saying that the laws of nature could be violated by the one who created them is not ignoring them. "
If there is something that can violate the laws of nature at will, they are no longer laws in the true sense of the word. Belief in such a being is therefore tantamount to negating or ignoring the laws of nature.
RadicalWhiggery:
The laws of nature are not things that can be created independently of anything else. They are part and parcel of the universe. You can't separate the two! More importantly, on what grounds do you conclude that God is above the laws of nature? Aren't you just begging the question! You assume the existence of God (and his powers) to get around a fatal difficulty (laws of nature) in order to assure us that God's existence is reasonable. Sound reasoning means starting with what we actually know best (laws of nature) and seeing if God (your conclusion) fits in. That doesn't work very well. (See my thread "Science Gives God the Bump!" 08/07/2016 18:47)
Pages