Intelligent Design questions

[portisizzle]

portis, are you really gonna bring up infinity again? :sigh:

Dude, it is just my opinion. One I have thought a great deal about. I said on page one of this thread that this whole topic has been played MANY TIMES. YEt here we are.....

[CaliforniaSkin]

Well said. I think you will find my basic premise for holding this point of view is that the concept of "infinity" is flawed. That is to say nothing is truly infinite. Man made this concept in order to bridge the gap of mathematical, philosophical, and theological understanding.

The infinity regress you refer to is logically impossible in my opinion. We must open the box and recognize that their must have been a beginning. Faith does not lead me here, logic does.

And logic does not care if creation was begun by a creator or by dumb luck. The logical fact is the "this" was created.

Thanks. I do have a philosophy degree and am finishing up one in molecular biology this semester so I'm not totally coming from left field here.

There is nothing inherently illogical about an infinite regress such as Cartesian doubt leads to, I essentially share your distaste of it. It might be true in a sense, but it is certainly uninteresting.

I'm not sure I agree with you on the idea that there _must_ be a beginning though. This universe does apparently have an age. Many religons (non-Judeo-Christian-Islamic) think of life as an eternally repeating cycle and that does seem to be what the Big Bang expanding/contracting universe theory would imply. I can't understand why that view wouldn't be at least as valid. In any case, it is not something that science can really address at this point. It is primarily the realm of theologans and philosophers (though there is a school of thought in physics which is attempting to show that 'nothingness' is inherently unstable).

I also can understand what leads you to the idea that concept of infinity is flawed. I would just maintain that that belief is one of your underlying assumptions, not one that is logically neccessary.

[SnyderShrugged]

Skin-n-vegas, a good rule of debate is to phrase your arguments as articulately, as concisely, and as clearly as possible. Throwing in jargon in order to confuse your debate opponents may impress some people, but it only hampers the debate.

Let’s state clearly and in plain English what you’ve written above. In the first post, you are saying that a test of the predictions made by evolutionary theory are impossible because we cannot control for the vast array of variables in play. It is essentially a statement about repeatability. In the second post, you are making a similar claim, but you are strengthening it by saying that we cannot know, and will never know, the state of the Universe during its inception.

Both statements are false, and the second one is irrelevant. In order to test a given hypothesis, we clearly set out the predictions made by that hypothesis, and then we examine the available evidence. Evolutionary makes a number of predictions that are supported by the fossil record. The evidence is by no means rock-solid (which is why I think we should eschew the term “proof”), but it fits evolutionary theory better than anything else that we currently have.

The testing of these predictions is independent of statistical analysis because we are not conducting a controlled experiment; we are testing predictions by observation. It’s the same way that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity garnered evidence – not by any experiment, but by observing how light bends around a massive object in space. We did not control for any variables in the behavior of those astronomical bodies, and yet the testing was valid.

The same argument applies to your latter statement, but I’d like to add two more points. First, we are getting closer every day to understanding the conditions of the Universe directly after inception – specifically, through observing of distant bodies whose age-old light we are receiving only now. Second, we don’t need to understand what the Universe was like seconds after inception in order to understand what conditions were on Earth just a few million years ago – we have geological evidence for that.

responses by paragraph: thanks for the attempted insult. My "Jargon" has been used throughout this entire thread, so it was assumed that it would be understood and appropriate for the audience. I try to be respectful, so should you please.

You have either misread or misunderstood my posts. I'm not great at written debate, so I apologize for any confusion. My statement was well beyond "repeatability" (oh, so your jargon is OK, but mine isnt?). Of course replicating the events of the beginning of life is impossible. My point was more that the variables and their relationships to each other are UNKNOWN. We can guess, hypothesize, shoot, just make it up and it wouldnt amount to a hill of beans towards knowing the variables of that time. So, while your focus was the control aspect of experimentation, mine was in the knowledge.

The predictions you say that are made based on the fossil record is also suspect. Fossils are a result, and output. They are not "obserable" as Poker was speaking of. Yes, there is evidence of evolution and yes there is equal evidence of intelligent design. It depends on the bias built into yours, mine, and everyone elses personalities. None of this "evidence" is really "evidence" at all. Only possible clues(not even probable)

Lastly, If you think that by understanding the moments after the creation of the universe will allow us to understand the factors present AT THE MOMENT of the creation, then you are deluded. It's been my point all along, that the factors are, and will be forever, unknown.

Thanks for your time

[portisizzle]

Thanks. I do have a philosophy degree and am finishing up one in molecular biology this semester so I'm not totally coming from left field here.

There is nothing inherently illogical about an infinite regress such as Cartesian doubt leads to, I essentially share your distaste of it. It might be true in a sense, but it is certainly uninteresting.

I'm not sure I agree with you on the idea that there _must_ be a beginning though. This universe does apparently have an age. Many religons (non-Judeo-Christian-Islamic) think of life as an eternally repeating cycle and that does seem to be what the Big Bang expanding/contracting universe theory would imply. I can't understand why that view wouldn't be at least as valid. In any case, it is not something that science can really address at this point. It is primarily the realm of theologans and philosophers (though there is a school of thought in physics which is attempting to show that 'nothingness' is inherently unstable).

I also can understand what leads you to the idea that concept of infinity is flawed. I would just maintain that that belief is one of your underlying assumptions, not one that is logically neccessary.

Just let me say that I see you are relatively new here. It is nice to see someone who is willing to debate and not argue with spit and drivel....

I will openly admit that my thoughts on this, if true, would render much of mathematics useless. So I do not expect many to agree simply because I say so. But I think it is fair to say that the concept of infinity is to imply guessing. I have made many here on this site angry when I call infinity sciences version of "faith".

HOF44 has given me information about the unstable nothingness. It is interesting. But I ask isn't the unstable nothingness actually "something" after all?

[CaliforniaSkin]

Of course replicating the events of the beginning of life is impossible. My point was more that the variables and their relationships to each other are UNKNOWN. We can guess, hypothesize, shoot, just make it up and it wouldnt amount to a hill of beans towards knowing the variables of that time. So, while your focus was the control aspect of experimentation, mine was in the knowledge.

First of all, and I know you weren't addressing me or precisely this point, but the theory of evolution does talk about how life initially began. It describes several processes that have brought about the great diversity in life from a single (or at least very small number of) ancestor. But the point is that there is a difference between a good scientific hypotheses and a guess. Much of science is based upon the principle of uniformitarianism first articulated in the late 1700s. Uniformitarianism is the claim that the geological (and other physical) processes taking place now operated similarly in the past. Given that, we can look at the chemicals that exist now, how the interelate, what additions have occured (through metors etc..) and other factors and predict what existed in the past. Is this 100% accurate? Of course not, but the more we understand about the way the world works, the better our predictions become.

The predictions you say that are made based on the fossil record is also suspect. Fossils are a result, and output. They are not "obserable" as Poker was speaking of. Yes, there is evidence of evolution and yes there is equal evidence of intelligent design. It depends on the bias built into yours, mine, and everyone elses personalities. None of this "evidence" is really "evidence" at all. Only possible clues(not even probable)

Fossils are obviously obsevable. And by looking at fossils we can see evidence that species changed over time. Further we can see structural homoligies between species. There is a lot of other evidence for evolution (none of which neccessarily disproves a creator at all). The molecular homologies between species, vestigal organs, pseudogenes, direct observation of change of species over time, the fact of extinction, developmental homologies all reinforce the basic idea of evolution. Much of the 'evidence' for ID simply tries to attack the theory of evolution rather than actually prove ID.

[CaliforniaSkin]

Just let me say that I see you are relatively new here. It is nice to see someone who is willing to debate and not argue with spit and drivel....

I will openly admit that my thoughts on this, if true, would render much of mathematics useless. So I do not expect many to agree simply because I say so. But I think it is fair to say that the concept of infinity is to imply guessing. I have made many here on this site angry when I call infinity sciences version of "faith".

HOF44 has given me information about the unstable nothingness. It is interesting. But I ask isn't the unstable nothingness actually "something" after all?

I don't think that the concept of infinity implies guessing at all. Quite the opposite actually. The concept of infinity is concrete.

However, I think one of the best arguments for infinity is the argument by abduction. As you have mentioned without infinity much of mathematics is false (not simply useless but meaningless). Without that mathematics our science wouldn't be true either as it depends upon mathematics (not talking about evolution here at all - can't see how it would be affected to tell the truth). But our science does work to an astonishing degree (look at all those shiny airplanes ). It is hard to see how science could be so effective at predicting the behavior of the universe if it wasn't at least largely true. Therefore therefore the infinite must exist.

Having said all that, I think you can make a good argument that much of science is based on 'faith' Faith meaning an improbable hypothesis. The faith of science is that of rationalism. Science believes that rationalism leads to truth. In fact, science defines truth in terms of rationalism. Other systems can define truth differently. Truth could be defined based on moral rather than physical criteria. I, obviously, subscribe to the scientific definition of truth. I think we all primarily do. Which is not to say that I don't have a strong moral code. However, I'm not sure of the relationship between truth and morality. I honestly believe that the objections to evolution are moral objections (and not just religous ones nor as simple as contradicting the bible).

[SnyderShrugged]

First of all, and I know you weren't addressing me or precisely this point, but the theory of evolution does talk about how life initially began. It describes several processes that have brought about the great diversity in life from a single (or at least very small number of) ancestor. But the point is that there is a difference between a good scientific hypotheses and a guess. Much of science is based upon the principle of uniformitarianism first articulated in the late 1700s. Uniformitarianism is the claim that the geological (and other physical) processes taking place now operated similarly in the past. Given that, we can look at the chemicals that exist now, how the interelate, what additions have occured (through metors etc..) and other factors and predict what existed in the past. Is this 100% accurate? Of course not, but the more we understand about the way the world works, the better our predictions become.

The predictions you say that are made based on the fossil record is also suspect. Fossils are a result, and output. They are not "obserable" as Poker was speaking of. Yes, there is evidence of evolution and yes there is equal evidence of intelligent design. It depends on the bias built into yours, mine, and everyone elses personalities. None of this "evidence" is really "evidence" at all. Only possible clues(not even probable)

Fossils are obviously obsevable. And by looking at fossils we can see evidence that species changed over time. Further we can see structural homoligies between species. There is a lot of other evidence for evolution (none of which neccessarily disproves a creator at all). The molecular homologies between species, vestigal organs, pseudogenes, direct observation of change of species over time, the fact of extinction, developmental homologies all reinforce the basic idea of evolution. Much of the 'evidence' for ID simply tries to attack the theory of evolution rather than actually prove ID.

I guess I'm not getting my point through. At no point did i say that evolution is not evidenced by the gradual mutations found in fossils. I fully believe that species mutate gradually over time.

I just don't think there is evidence that evolutionary theory negates intelligent design theory.

I was debating the fact that either theory can be subject of a hypothesis test to any degree of statistical validity due to the unknown factors.

Now, I'm not saying this about you, but why are some of the others getting so durned hot over that simple point?

[Ancalagon the Black]

responses by paragraph: thanks for the attempted insult. My "Jargon" has been used throughout this entire thread, so it was assumed that it would be understood and appropriate for the audience. I try to be respectful, so should you please.

I didn't mean to insult you and I sincerely apologize if you felt slighted. I believed that your bringing up of alpha and beta risk was tangential to the debate.

My statement was well beyond "repeatability" (oh, so your jargon is OK, but mine isnt?). Of course replicating the events of the beginning of life is impossible. My point was more that the variables and their relationships to each other are UNKNOWN. We can guess, hypothesize, shoot, just make it up and it wouldnt amount to a hill of beans towards knowing the variables of that time. So, while your focus was the control aspect of experimentation, mine was in the knowledge.

I apologize again on "repeatability"; that term was used a lot initially in the thread, so I considered it fair game. I'll elaborate on what I meant: by "repeatability," I refer to the ability to duplicate the initial conditions of the experiment and achieve the same result.

I have to admit that I'm unclear on why certain variables being known or not is a factor unless you're trying to duplicate those variables in a controlled experiment. Given your talk about risk factors, I could only assume that you were talking about statistical significance of a given experiment. I may have misunderstood you.

Lastly, If you think that by understanding the moments after the creation of the universe will allow us to understand the factors present AT THE MOMENT of the creation, then you are deluded. It's been my point all along, that the factors are, and will be forever, unknown.

I suppose. As far as I know, our ability to describe things really breaks down at the moment of creation/inception, so I guess I agree with you here. I don't see how that's relevant for a discussion on intelligent design/evolution, though.

[Prosperity]

Just let me say that I see you are relatively new here. It is nice to see someone who is willing to debate and not argue with spit and drivel....

I will openly admit that my thoughts on this, if true, would render much of mathematics useless. So I do not expect many to agree simply because I say so. But I think it is fair to say that the concept of infinity is to imply guessing. I have made many here on this site angry when I call infinity sciences version of "faith".

HOF44 has given me information about the unstable nothingness. It is interesting. But I ask isn't the unstable nothingness actually "something" after all?

you really know how to hold a grudge...dude I am sincerely sorry I insulted you in the past.

[CaliforniaSkin]

I guess I'm not getting my point through. At no point did i say that evolution is not evidenced by the gradual mutations found in fossils. I fully believe that species mutate gradually over time.

I just don't think there is evidence that evolutionary theory negates intelligent design theory.

I was debating the fact that either theory can be subject of a hypothesis test to any degree of statistical validity due to the unknown factors.

Now, I'm not saying this about you, but why are some of the others getting so durned hot over that simple point?

OK, I think I misunderstood you. Well, in a sense, OF COURSE evolution cannot disprove intelligent design in the sense that there might be a creator, nor does it seek to. However, ID states that the current diversity of life COULD NOT have come about without a creator. Evolution states that it could.

However, evolution can be subject to a number of tests. It is however a theory. Like gravity, you can only look at its predictions and see if the world is similar. In this case evolution has been remarkably successful. ID does not make predictions so it is not a true theory in the same sense.

[SnyderShrugged]

I didn't mean to insult you and I sincerely apologize if you felt slighted. I believed that your bringing up of alpha and beta risk was tangential to the debate.

I apologize again on "repeatability"; that term was used a lot initially in the thread, so I considered it fair game. I'll elaborate on what I meant: by "repeatability," I refer to the ability to duplicate the initial conditions of the experiment and achieve the same result.

I have to admit that I'm unclear on why certain variables being known or not is a factor unless you're trying to duplicate those variables in a controlled experiment. Given your talk about risk factors, I could only assume that you were talking about statistical significance of a given experiment. I may have misunderstood you.

I suppose. As far as I know, our ability to describe things really breaks down at the moment of creation/inception, so I guess I agree with you here. I don't see how that's relevant for a discussion on intelligent design/evolution, though.

thanks for the nice response ATB. I think that you are pretty darned smart and it shows in your posts. That's why I was a little surprised at what felt like a mildly agressive post towards me.

I actually was speaking of alpha and beta risk as you described. That probably was a bit high on the jargon scale, but it was meant to add to the discussion of Liberty's hypothesis test reference.

In terms of the "risks" though, I was trying to point out that the risk factors of misinterpreting results would be way too high for legitimate analysis and to consider that before actually test theories. Unfortunately, it looks like it was semi-offensive to a few of ya'll. There was no intention to spark a fight, only sound debate.

[SnyderShrugged]

OK, I think I misunderstood you. Well, in a sense, OF COURSE evolution cannot disprove intelligent design in the sense that there might be a creator, nor does it seek to. However, ID states that the current diversity of life COULD NOT have come about without a creator. Evolution states that it could.

However, evolution can be subject to a number of tests. It is however a theory. Like gravity, you can only look at its predictions and see if the world is similar. In this case evolution has been remarkably successful. ID does not make predictions so it is not a true theory in the same sense.

Actually both are legitimate theories and both have equal pros and cons in terms of proving them.

However, I'd like you to at least consider (not asking you to change your mind) if there is a great deal of bias in evolutionary and intelligent design studies simply by the nature of their respective cores.

I say this because it seems as though each theory was approached with an underlying agenda. I don't think it can be helped when studying these types of topics.

[Prosperity]

In terms of the "risks" though, I was trying to point out that the risk factors of misinterpreting results would be way too high for legitimate analysis and to consider that before actually test theories. Unfortunately, it looks like it was semi-offensive to a few of ya'll. There was no intention to spark a fight, only sound debate.

No one was offended (I wasn't atleast) it was just that the risk factors don't appear to be related to the type of tests we are talking about.

[SnyderShrugged]

No one was offended (I wasn't atleast) it was just that the risk factors don't appear to be related to the type of tests we are talking about.

Risk factors must always be considered in any scientific test. If not considered and understood, your results can never be validated.

I'm not trying to get all "teacher' on anyone here. But I think an understanding of the high probablity that your tests may indicate a false result is needed for ths discussion

[Prosperity]

Summary:

-science is the methodology of making theories by forming hypotheses and testing their predictions

-ID can never be tested

-ID is not consistent with the scientific method

-the theory of evolution or atleast the different hypotheses that make it up can be tested

-the theory of evolution is consistent with the scientific method

does anyone disagree with any of my conclusions?

[SnyderShrugged]

Summary:

-science is the methodology of making theories by forming hypotheses and testing their predictions

-ID can never be tested

-ID is not consistent with the scientific method

-the theory of evolution or atleast the different hypotheses that make it up can be tested

-the theory of evolution is consistent with the scientific method

does anyone disagree with any of my conclusions?

I disagree with your last 2. But, to each his own belief system.

[Prosperity]

I disagree with your last 2. But, to each his own belief system.

12 pages and back to square one, we will never learn, well atleast we agree that ID isn't science. That is a good step I guess. Time to move on.

Peace

[SnyderShrugged]

12 pages and back to square one, we will never learn, well atleast we agree that ID isn't science. That is a good step I guess. Time to move on.

Peace

But you know? That 12 pages kept me thinking the whole time. They say it keeps senility away!

[MisterPinstripe]

If you really want to read about examples of beneficial mutation I can help.

Go to the following US Government National Institutes of Health website http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed. Type "beneficial mutations" in the query and read some of the more than a thousand scientific (peer-reviewed) results you get. Not all are directly about beneficial mutation, but many are. If you want a specific example, try:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15611159

In response to above: There are instances of reshuffled genes. Some of which include popular things such as better varieties of grapes, apples, and roses. But those were normal changes within species. (They were still grapes, apples, and roses.) None of these are mutations.

There is one mutation that evolutionists cite as proof that positive, helpful mutations do occasionally occur. It is sickle-cell anemia, which is a mutation which occurred in someone in Africa centuries ago. Was that mutation beneficial? Far from it; it damaged the red blood cells so they became quarter-moon shaped instead of round. This produced a special type of anemia. The person with sickle-cell anemia cannot properly absorb food and oxygen.

How then can anyone call that mutation beneficial?

Well, the evolutionists do it—on the basis of the fact that people with sickle-cell anemia are less likely to contract malaria from mosquitoes!

Really now, that is begging the question! If I had bulbar polio, I would be less likely to be killed in an auto accident—because I would be paralyzed on a bed and less likely to be riding in a car. But one would not say that polio was, for that reason, beneficial!

In return for the advantage of being 25 percent less likely to contract malaria, 25 percent of the children of people, in Africa, with sickle-cell anemia—will die! What advantage is that?

But a major breakthrough came in 1928, when *Muller discovered that X rays could speed up mutations. Whereas, in nature, there might be one mutation, now the number could be increased a millionfold—and focused on just one organism!

How wonderful, the evolutionists thought! Now we shall be able to create new species!

Instead, they damaged, mutilated, and killed experimental insects, animals, and birds for decades—without accomplishing anything worthwhile

Here are six interesting thoughts about evolution.

1 - Evolution Always Operates Upward, Not Downward - In other words, evolution always has positive effects. Yet, because it is supposedly totally random, half its effects would have to be negative

2 - Evolution Operates Irreversibly - But scientists well-know that actions in nature can reverse and go in either direction

3 - Evolution Operates Only from Smaller to Bigger - This is another fantasy, which does not agree with nature

4 - Evolution Operates from Less Complex to More Complex - Random actions tear down and destroy at least as often as they build

5 - Evolution Operates from Less Perfect to More Perfect - How can random chance ever operate solely toward greater perfectness?

6 - Evolution Is Not Repeatable - According to the theory, the same change could never happen twice. Evolution requires that changes be made which make brand new species that have never existed before

"Based on probability factors . . any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 1050. Such a number, if written out, would read 480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 1050 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence."—I.L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong (1984), p. 205

"No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution."—*Pierre-Paul de Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms (1977), p. 88.

"It is true that nobody thus far has produced a new species or genus, etc., by macromutation [a combination of many mutations]; it is equally true that nobody has produced even a species by the selection of micromutation [one or only a few mutations]."—*Richard Goldschmidt, "Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist," American Scientist, January 1952, p. 94.

"My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed. At least I should hardly be accused of having started from any preconceived anti-evolutionary standpoint."—*H. Nilsson, Synthetic Speciation, (1953), p. 31.

"Just as pre-Darwinian biology was carried out by people whose faith was in the Creator and His plan, post-Darwinian biology is being carried out by people whose faith is in, almost, the deity of Darwin. They've seen their task as to elaborate his theory and to fill the gaps in it, to fill the trunk and twigs of the tree. But it seems to me that the theoretical framework has very little impact on the actual progress of the work in biological research. In a way some aspects of Darwinism and of neo-Darwinism seem to me to have held back the progress of science."—*Colin Patterson [senior paleontologist at the British museum of Natural History, London], The Listener.

[MisterPinstripe]

Also here are some sites I recommend people looking at. They are rather interesting to read.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/genetic-mutations.html

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/10mut02.htm

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/10mut03.htm

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/10mut16.htm

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/10mut05.htm

[HOF44]

12 pages and back to square one, we will never learn, well atleast we agree that ID isn't science. That is a good step I guess. Time to move on.

Its not over till I say its over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor????

[Ancalagon the Black]

The person with sickle-cell anemia cannot properly absorb food and oxygen.

How then can anyone call that mutation beneficial?

Well, the evolutionists do it—on the basis of the fact that people with sickle-cell anemia are less likely to contract malaria from mosquitoes!

Really now, that is begging the question!

I think that's a bit of a mischaracterization. It's not that people with sickle-cell anemia are less likely to cause malaria. It's a bit more complicated.

The gene that produces sickle-cell anemia (SCA) does so only when it's paired with an identical gene. You could say that SCA is a recessive trait, like blond hair. If two people with recessive SCA genes had a child, and that child inherited the SCA gene from both parents, the child would have SCA.

However, if the SCA gene is paired with a non-SCA gene (which would be dominant), the person would not have SCA. Instead, they would have a far greater resistance to malaria.

How is this beneficial? Let's look at the potential pairings:

non-SCA gene paired with non-SCA gene (unaffected person)

SCA gene paired with non-SCA gene (malaria-resistant person)

non-SCA gene paired with SCA gene (malaria-resistant person)

SVA gene paired with SCA gene (sickle-cell anemic)

We can see that 50% of the time, the organism derives benefit from the gene, while 25% of the time, the organism is harmed by the gene.

[Ancalagon the Black]

At the risk of spamming, I'd like to post separately my responses to the questions that follow.

1 - Evolution Always Operates Upward, Not Downward - In other words, evolution always has positive effects. Yet, because it is supposedly totally random, half its effects would have to be negative

This is true. In fact, many more than half of mutations are negative. These organisms are selected against and do not survive.

2 - Evolution Operates Irreversibly - But scientists well-know that actions in nature can reverse and go in either direction

Because of the probabilities involved, it's extremely unlikely for the same pathway to be traversed twice. Similarly, a glass that falls off a table and breaks into a thousand pieces might spontaneously reassemble. The probability of this is not 0%, but it is very small.

3 - Evolution Operates Only from Smaller to Bigger - This is another fantasy, which does not agree with nature

Who makes this claim? The dinosaurs provide a counterexample.

4 - Evolution Operates from Less Complex to More Complex - Random actions tear down and destroy at least as often as they build

I don't know who makes this claim either.

5 - Evolution Operates from Less Perfect to More Perfect - How can random chance ever operate solely toward greater perfectness?

No evolutionary scientist would make this claim. Evolutionarily speaking, there's no such thing as "less perfect" and "more perfect."

6 - Evolution Is Not Repeatable - According to the theory, the same change could never happen twice. Evolution requires that changes be made which make brand new species that have never existed before

My response to post #2 applies here.

[PokerPacker]

There is one mutation that evolutionists cite as proof that positive, helpful mutations do occasionally occur. It is sickle-cell anemia, which is a mutation which occurred in someone in Africa centuries ago. Was that mutation beneficial? Far from it; it damaged the red blood cells so they became quarter-moon shaped instead of round. This produced a special type of anemia. The person with sickle-cell anemia cannot properly absorb food and oxygen.

How then can anyone call that mutation beneficial?

Well, the evolutionists do it—on the basis of the fact that people with sickle-cell anemia are less likely to contract malaria from mosquitoes!

Really now, that is begging the question! If I had bulbar polio, I would be less likely to be killed in an auto accident—because I would be paralyzed on a bed and less likely to be riding in a car. But one would not say that polio was, for that reason, beneficial!

In return for the advantage of being 25 percent less likely to contract malaria, 25 percent of the children of people, in Africa, with sickle-cell anemia—will die! What advantage is that?

[/i]

obviously, you don't know all the facts. sickle-cell anemia is a recessive trait. if you have one gene with it, you do not have sickle-cell anemia and don't dontract malaria. if you have none of those genes you can contract malaria, and if you have both, you have sickle-cell anemia. those who are most likly to survive have one of each gene--the best of both worlds.

[MisterPinstripe]

I must say, I really am enjoying these conversations.

I am headed off to bed now, but I will be back tomorrow to hopefully continue this. cheers all.