Death Knell Of Creationism Or A Flawed Watchmaker?: L-Gulonolactone Oxidase

[bcuzbcuz]

If you look carefully it was done in half-lives. Does that suggest anything?

Suggest anything? I'm guessing you don't quite grasp "half-life"??

[cinepro]

On the subject of "watchmakers", I've heard it pointed out that watches "evolved" as well. No single person invented a watch. A watch is the culmination of centuries of individual improvements in metallurgy, tool making, mechanical physics, manufacturing engineering, computer technology etc.

Even more importantly, watches continue to evolve. There is no perfect "watch" towards which watch designers aspire. Each of the thousands of designers, from a tinkerer in Switzerland to one of the hundreds of engineers at Casio borrows and invents based on the technological developments that have come before them. No one knows what watches of the future will look like.

You could argue that watches were "intelligently designed" by the collective group of watchmakers over the centuries. But LDS thought doesn't even support this interpretation of "intelligent design" because we believe that the process of creation started with a concrete goal in mind: the human body had to look like God's body, with two arms, two legs, 10 fingers and toes, etc. Starting with such a goal in mind is the opposite of "evolution", regardless of how many intermediate steps and dead-ends it takes to get there.

[cdowis]

The OP give the flawed argument: "If I were God, this is how things would be done. Since it was done differently, I can assume that there is no God."

This is argument from ignorance -- I do not understand, therefore.... It really is a silly argument, and not worth the time to respond.

[ERayR]

Suggest anything? I'm guessing you don't quite grasp "half-life"??

You have a habit of making wild unsubstantiated guesses.

[blackstrap]

All man made watches were designed. They did not evolve by random mutations or the input of random energy. Take apart a fine Swiss watch into its individual components. Put the components into a bag and shake the bag vigorously. How many years before the original watch is back to full function? On the other hand,give the bag of components to a trained Swiss watchmaker. How long before the original watch is back to full function. One can do this experiment with a bacterial cell. We ,however , have yet to find a properly

trained Swiss cell maker.

[bu11fr0g]

Cdowis is EXACTLY wrong about the point. This is the way humans and chimpanzees are. Any theory of man's creation must account for it. Theories that are inconsistent with this are false. Theories that can't explain it are suspect.

A creation independent of chimpanzees is thoroughly disproven. Chimpanzees may have been evolutionary relative or template but we are fundamentally related in creation.

I dont know how God made man but it wasnt from dust while ignoring everything else. It wasnt on another planet separate from chimpanzee dna.

Going forward, every new and old theory must account for this. Just as the interpretation of the sun being held in the sky must be interpreted in the light of knowledge that the earth goes around the sun.

[Stargazer]

I have thought about it a lot for a long time. No reason other than deliberate subterfuge in anticipation of future discoveries springs to mind. I have found this answer to be increasingly inadequate. I had put this on a shelf for a long time. I now find the answer completely inadequate. How can I trust a prophet if God deliberately deceives?

I am hoping there are answers i don't know.

Jeeze, I cannot believe I just read this. Are you serious?

Ever hear of DNA? Pretty much every single form of life on this planet, from bacteria to us use the same four nucleotides, adenine, cytosine, thymine and guanine. If an organism requires a particular amino acid then it uses the exact same chemical pathway, from transcription onwards to obtain it. So what if chimps and humans share a pseudogene? You think it evidence of what? That God didn't create them? Oh, please. It's evidence of nothing. Oh, guess what, chimps and humans share 98% of the rest of their DNA, but you're all torgued around the axle over the Vitamin C thing?

Maybe humans should have a completely different system of inheritance. Not DNA but something else. Make us completely unique. Oh, wait, maybe that would mean that we wouldn't be able to exist on this planet eating the same things every other organism eats!

And maybe, just maybe, God didn't want us manufacturing our own Vitamin C! Why? I don't know, dude, but he also didn't give us wings to fly with, nor claws to scratch with, and we can't see anywhere near as well as an eagle can. Now THERE'S something to complain about.

[Stargazer]

Cdowis is EXACTLY wrong about the point. This is the way humans and chimpanzees are. Any theory of man's creation must account for it. Theories that are inconsistent with this are false. Theories that can't explain it are suspect.

A creation independent of chimpanzees is thoroughly disproven. Chimpanzees may have been evolutionary relative or template but we are fundamentally related in creation.

I dont know how God made man but it wasnt from dust while ignoring everything else. It wasnt on another planet separate from chimpanzee dna.

Going forward, every new and old theory must account for this. Just as the interpretation of the sun being held in the sky must be interpreted in the light of knowledge that the earth goes around the sun.

No it doesn't.

And the sun could be held in the sky if certain astonomical events were to occur. How do you know they didn't occur? I can advance a theory, one that has no evidence, but nevertheless I could advance one. And it would be perfectly possible -- though not provable.

And here's the kicker. You say "I dont know how God made man but it wasnt from dust while ignoring everything else." Where'd you get this idea anyway? You think that it is a gospel truth that God swept together a bunch of dirt, formed it into a column, and shaped it to look like Adam? Then breathed on it and boom there he was?

I have been convinced for a really long time that God made it look very much like we descended from primordial ooze originally. And for all that goes, perhaps we did. Our bodies at any rate. Genesis is not an astrophysics textbook. God said let there be light. The fact that the sun glows because it is a ball of hydrogen that is large enough for its own gravity to ignite the hydrogen at its center into an sustained fusion reaction does not preclude God's command that it do so. And there are quadrillions of very similar self-susstaining fusion reactions in the visible universe. Does this mean that God can't exist because there's more than one?

Doesn't affect me in the slightest that we share something with chimps. I don't know why its so important to you.

Edited March 31, 2013 by Stargazer

[bu11fr0g]

@stargazer

Not evidence that God did not create man but distinct evidence that the creation of man and chimpanzees is much more closely related than the conjectured method of creation of BRM, BY and JFS would allow. Not to mention the theories of several board members.

[bu11fr0g]

It is not atheistic but bashes the idea of a perfect independent creation of man unless deliberate deception is postulated.

[sunstoned]

@stargazer

Not evidence that God did not create man but distinct evidence that the creation of man and chimpanzees is much more closely related than the conjectured method of creation of BRM, BY and JFS would allow. Not to mention the theories of several board members.

As science advances, it replaces myths.

[Stargazer]

@stargazer

Not evidence that God did not create man but distinct evidence that the creation of man and chimpanzees is much more closely related than the conjectured method of creation of BRM, BY and JFS would allow. Not to mention the theories of several board members.

I notice that the proton-proton chain reaction is not referenced in any book of scripture, nor any pronouncement from the pulpit in General Conference. All we got is "Let there be light". I am very offended that there is not the slightest whiff of advanced physics anywhere in church literature.

I am impressed with the testimony of BRM which he bore of Jesus Christ. I am completely unimpressed and am uninterested in his conjectures vis-a-vis creation. God made us. That's the only thing that interests me. If JFS thinks that all those dinosaur fossils are not evidence of dinosaurs, that's fine, he's entitled to his opinion. If he had said "Thus saith the Lord" in reference to those fossils, I might have a problem, but he didn't. He had an opinion. And it is claimed that BY thought that the sun was inhabited. Is it? I have no idea. But it wouldn't surprise me.

Not that I think the sun is inhabited by mortal humans. One of my favorite science-fiction authors, David Brin, wrote a novel, Sundiver, about an expedition aboard the eponymous spaceship into the Sun's photosphere. One of the things they observed were apparent life-forms which existed in the burning. An LDS science-fiction writer named Eric James Stone wrote an LDS-themed novelette about a human base inside the sun, and communications with beings of great power and age which dwelt there and could move between suns (interesting, it won the Nebula award for best novelette in 2010): "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made".

Well, anyway, I don't believe God created Man independent of the rest of the Universe. We are all part and parcel of it, and it surpises me when people think otherwise.

[thesometimesaint]

On the subject of "watchmakers", I've heard it pointed out that watches "evolved" as well. No single person invented a watch. A watch is the culmination of centuries of individual improvements in metallurgy, tool making, mechanical physics, manufacturing engineering, computer technology etc.

Even more importantly, watches continue to evolve. There is no perfect "watch" towards which watch designers aspire. Each of the thousands of designers, from a tinkerer in Switzerland to one of the hundreds of engineers at Casio borrows and invents based on the technological developments that have come before them. No one knows what watches of the future will look like.

You could argue that watches were "intelligently designed" by the collective group of watchmakers over the centuries. But LDS thought doesn't even support this interpretation of "intelligent design" because we believe that the process of creation started with a concrete goal in mind: the human body had to look like God's body, with two arms, two legs, 10 fingers and toes, etc. Starting with such a goal in mind is the opposite of "evolution", regardless of how many intermediate steps and dead-ends it takes to get there.

Evolution occurs with or without a intelligent designer.

SEE

[Rob Osborn]

All man made watches were designed. They did not evolve by random mutations or the input of random energy. Take apart a fine Swiss watch into its individual components. Put the components into a bag and shake the bag vigorously. How many years before the original watch is back to full function? On the other hand,give the bag of components to a trained Swiss watchmaker. How long before the original watch is back to full function. One can do this experiment with a bacterial cell. We ,however , have yet to find a properly

trained Swiss cell maker.

I have taken that analogy one step further-

We are told that life evolved in some swampy mud goup. Slowly, over time, there was the right amount of ingredients that came to be and "poof" life regeneration began. So, what happens if we were to take already advanced pieces of organs and all kinds of cell material and throw it all in the goup? Wouldnt it be drastically so much easier for life to come drag itself from the goup? The mafia and countless other evil groups have indeed dumped this material in the form of bodies into swamps all over the world. But, science shows us that all that advanced biologic material just ends up decomposing and that no life evolves from that material. Evolutionists seem to believe if there was just the right chemical material in the goup that life must naturally arise from it. Yet, scientists know that biologic advanced material, even broken down into individual cells, has no regenerative power without it being first "alive". Evolutionists first have to explain the phenomenon of life before they can assume random chemical interactions brought it intoexistance.

[thesometimesaint]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

[Rob Osborn]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

So why then if you throw all of this biologic material in the goup that new life doesnt evolve from it?

[MormonMason]

...

This is the question of how does God create? and does God deliberately hide his method of creation or properties of the Universe?

God speaks to prophets according to their ability to understand. If he had spoken in detail of the specifics of creation, it is highly likely Moses would have been stoned. Quarks, gluons, genetic manipulation, virii, bacteria, etc.--none of these things were comprehensible or believable to those who lived in those days. It was all magic and curses in those times.

ETA: There could also be other potential reasons/purposes for this gene knockout and another, related one, that occurred. It appears that it might have increased survivability in those who inherited the knockout gene. I can think of potential benefits in such a loss in a creation scenario.

For further information, see:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917125/

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-mystery-of-vitamin-c-14167861

Edited March 31, 2013 by MormonMason

[thesometimesaint]

So why then if you throw all of this biologic material in the goup that new life doesnt evolve from it?

For two very good reasons.

1. Time

2. Whatever crawled out wouldn't have much connection to life as it has evolved on this planet. IOW. How would we keep it alive, and what would be the consequences if we did?

[Rob Osborn]

For two very good reasons.

1. Time

2. Whatever crawled out wouldn't have much connection to life as it has evolved on this planet. IOW. How would we keep it alive, and what would be the consequences if we did?

So basically you are saying there is no proof life can evolve from the goup.....nice!

[thesometimesaint]

So basically you are saying there is no proof life can evolve from the goup.....nice!

That isn't what I said. Nice right back at you. Scientific proof isn't quantified that way.

What we do have is a scientific theory that meets all its objectives so far.

IE. To me you're just a bunch of electronic dots on my computer screen. But I assume that you are a real live human being responding to just a bunch of electronic dots on your computer screen.

Edited March 31, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[blackstrap]

If life came from the premordial soup ,then it came in the same way that maggots come from raw meat left outside,some other life form deposited it there. Personally,the Cambrian Explosion problem combined with the 500 million year (?) fossil record of creatures virtually unchanged over that time period tell me that science needs a new theory. Evolution says that creatures change over great lengths of time,unless they change quickly,or unless they don't change at all. It's all part of the game.

[MormonMason]

So basically you are saying there is no proof life can evolve from the goup.....nice!

Life doesn't just evolve from "goop". You also need varying kinds of clays for complex life to evolve. It is interesting in this light when we consider that man is said to dwell in a tabernacle of clay in the scriptures (and in the Dead Sea Scrolls).

[Rob Osborn]

That isn't what I said. Nice right back at you. Scientific proof isn't quantified that way.

What we do have is a scientific theory that meets all its objectives so far.

IE. To me you're just a bunch of electronic dots on my computer screen. But I assume that you are a real live human being responding to just a bunch of electronic dots on your computer screen.

Nice objectives then, let me summarize it then-

Objective #1. Water, dirt, chemical, planet

Objective #2. Myriads of time so we dont have to actually prove theory

Objective #3. Thus, evolution must be true

[Rob Osborn]

Life doesn't just evolve from "goop". You also need varying kinds of clays for complex life to evolve. It is interesting in this light when we consider that man is said to dwell in a tabernacle of clay in the scriptures (and in the Dead Sea Scrolls).

Yeah, and when you combine this nonintelligent clay with Gods DNA you get intelligent life formed in his image.

[thesometimesaint]

If life came from the premordial soup ,then it came in the same way that maggots come from raw meat left outside,some other life form deposited it there. Personally,the Cambrian Explosion problem combined with the 500 million year (?) fossil record of creatures virtually unchanged over that time period tell me that science needs a new theory. Evolution says that creatures change over great lengths of time,unless they change quickly,or unless they don't change at all. It's all part of the game.

Not that big of a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian

Living creatures evolve to fill an ecological niche. Separate the parent population from a descendent population the parent population will reproduce offspring like the them, and the separate descendent population will produce differing offspring from the parent population. Over time those differences accumulate till it is a different species.