I was going to write this long thing showing what a ridiculous pile of nonsense what timmy just posted is, but that would almost certainly be a waste of time. Instead I will just ask one question.

You can always figure out if a person if basing what they say on reason or indoctrination with one question.

What would it take to change your mind? What evidence or proof would actually make you think what you believe now is wrong?

@timmytom, your article is simply wrong. There are several types of gene mutations; they do not always occur by exchanging a single nucleotide for another, or several for several others, or swapping, etc. Sometimes a string of nucleotides is accidentally repeated. Sometimes information from one chromosome is accidentally inserted into another. Either of these mutations can result in a longer nucleotide chain than the original.

timmytomthegreat said: What misinformation?   I know a creationist geologist. He teaches at my university.

 How does that work, geology is directly contradictory to the biblical account of creation on way too many levels. I refuse to believe that somebody who thinks the earth is less than 10000 years old is a competent geologist.

 

Onto your last post; firstly its a bit hard to reply to an entire article - especially seeing that you had to put no effort in yourself.

However the point about there being no mechanism for increasing genetic material is flat out wrong, there is such a process and its called gene duplication, where a segment of genetic material entirely duplicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_duplication

I'm not replying to the pigs bred pigs paragraph as it seems to be entirely anecdotes and opinion.

There is no known natural process for generating new, more complex, traits. If a reptile changed into a bird, the reptile would have to, along with many other improbable changes, acquire the ability to produce feathers. To get a reptile to produce feathers requires new genes to produce the proteins necessary for the production of feathers. The chance of natural processes creating a new gene coding for a protein fundamentally different to those already present is essentially zero.

This paragraph makes the massive and misleading error of going REPTILES -> BIRDS, thats not what evolution claims as such. Evolution claims REPTILES->A->B->C->D->F->G->BIRDS. Also it gives no proof that the chances of a new protein and does not acknowledge that over enough time the probability of a small chance occuring approaches 1. 

Where does it come from? Not from mutations — they degrade information.

Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.'

ARGH. Mutations degrade information is such complete and utter bullshit, mutations change information. Positively, negatively or more often with no effect at all. Evolution essentially discards negative mutation and spreads positive mutations throughout a population, thats how it works. Also Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not exactly qualified to say that.

 researchers have found that the 'new' trait is not due to the appearance of a new protein, but the modification of an existing one

And if you modify something enough you get...? Seriously, what do they expect - a pig to suddenly give birth to a biped?

Rath said: Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' ARGH. Mutations degrade information is such complete and utter bullshit, mutations change information. Positively, negatively or more often with no effect at all. Evolution essentially discards negative mutation and spreads positive mutations throughout a population, thats how it works. Also Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not exactly qualified to say that.

I'm sure that Sagan knew what he was talking about, but like all junk-science hit jobs, was quoted out of context.  Note the use of the verb "admitted" -- was he being accused of something when he wrote it?  The answer, of course, is no:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/evolution5.htm

See how that quote sounds with a bit more context?  Yes, a mutation being advantageous is rare -- but when there is a 10 percent chance of a mutation occurring in every sperm or egg cell, and there are over one hundred million people born every year, there's an awful lot of mutation going on.

Carl Sagan may well have known what he was talking about, but if you're going to quote somebody and use them as a reputable source its probably best to quote somebody within their actual field of expertise.
If anybody quoted anything I have said and used it as evidence on its own they would simply be laughed at.

And love how badly out of context it is. Its almost as bad as the Darwin quote everyone used to use.

Rath said: timmytomthegreat said: What misinformation?   I know a creationist geologist. He teaches at my university.   How does that work, geology is directly contradictory to the biblical account of creation on way too many levels. I refuse to believe that somebody who thinks the earth is less than 10000 years old is a competent geologist.   Onto your last post; firstly its a bit hard to reply to an entire article - especially seeing that you had to put no effort in yourself. However the point about there being no mechanism for increasing genetic material is flat out wrong, there is such a process and its called gene duplication, where a segment of genetic material entirely duplicated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_duplication I'm not replying to the pigs bred pigs paragraph as it seems to be entirely anecdotes and opinion. There is no known natural process for generating new, more complex, traits. If a reptile changed into a bird, the reptile would have to, along with many other improbable changes, acquire the ability to produce feathers. To get a reptile to produce feathers requires new genes to produce the proteins necessary for the production of feathers. The chance of natural processes creating a new gene coding for a protein fundamentally different to those already present is essentially zero. This paragraph makes the massive and misleading error of going REPTILES -> BIRDS, thats not what evolution claims as such. Evolution claims REPTILES->A->B->C->D->F->G->BIRDS. Also it gives no proof that the chances of a new protein and does not acknowledge that over enough time the probability of a small chance occuring approaches 1. Where does it come from? Not from mutations — they degrade information. Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' ARGH. Mutations degrade information is such complete and utter bullshit, mutations change information. Positively, negatively or more often with no effect at all. Evolution essentially discards negative mutation and spreads positive mutations throughout a population, thats how it works. Also Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not exactly qualified to say that. researchers have found that the 'new' trait is not due to the appearance of a new protein, but the modification of an existing one And if you modify something enough you get...? Seriously, what do they expect - a pig to suddenly give birth to a biped?

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter5.asp

 

The_vagabond7 said: I was going to write this long thing showing what a ridiculous pile of nonsense what timmy just posted is, but that would almost certainly be a waste of time. Instead I will just ask one question. You can always figure out if a person if basing what they say on reason or indoctrination with one question. What would it take to change your mind? What evidence or proof would actually make you think what you believe now is wrong?

 Those are two good questions.  I want proof that natural selection adds new information.

Entroper said: @timmytom, your article is simply wrong. There are several types of gene mutations; they do not always occur by exchanging a single nucleotide for another, or several for several others, or swapping, etc. Sometimes a string of nucleotides is accidentally repeated. Sometimes information from one chromosome is accidentally inserted into another. Either of these mutations can result in a longer nucleotide chain than the original.

How does that make new genetic information?

 

timmytomthegreat said: Rath said: timmytomthegreat said: What misinformation?   I know a creationist geologist. He teaches at my university.   How does that work, geology is directly contradictory to the biblical account of creation on way too many levels. I refuse to believe that somebody who thinks the earth is less than 10000 years old is a competent geologist.   Onto your last post; firstly its a bit hard to reply to an entire article - especially seeing that you had to put no effort in yourself. However the point about there being no mechanism for increasing genetic material is flat out wrong, there is such a process and its called gene duplication, where a segment of genetic material entirely duplicated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_duplication I'm not replying to the pigs bred pigs paragraph as it seems to be entirely anecdotes and opinion. There is no known natural process for generating new, more complex, traits. If a reptile changed into a bird, the reptile would have to, along with many other improbable changes, acquire the ability to produce feathers. To get a reptile to produce feathers requires new genes to produce the proteins necessary for the production of feathers. The chance of natural processes creating a new gene coding for a protein fundamentally different to those already present is essentially zero. This paragraph makes the massive and misleading error of going REPTILES -> BIRDS, thats not what evolution claims as such. Evolution claims REPTILES->A->B->C->D->F->G->BIRDS. Also it gives no proof that the chances of a new protein and does not acknowledge that over enough time the probability of a small chance occuring approaches 1. Where does it come from? Not from mutations — they degrade information. Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' ARGH. Mutations degrade information is such complete and utter bullshit, mutations change information. Positively, negatively or more often with no effect at all. Evolution essentially discards negative mutation and spreads positive mutations throughout a population, thats how it works. Also Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not exactly qualified to say that. researchers have found that the 'new' trait is not due to the appearance of a new protein, but the modification of an existing one And if you modify something enough you get...? Seriously, what do they expect - a pig to suddenly give birth to a biped? http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter5.asp

This post is about my professor.

Do you want a list of papers and research he has done? 

He is a member of the Affiliation of Christian Geologists

timmytomthegreat said: Final-Fan said: timmytomthegreat said: An interesting read. Can creationists be “real” scientists? http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/can-creationists-be-real-scientists heh. Ahah. AHAHAHAHAHAHA That site is a mass of misinformation and proselytizing.  "Ultimately, biblical creationists accept the recorded history of the Bible as their starting point. Evolutionists reject recorded history, and have effectively made up their own pseudo-history, which they use as a starting point for interpreting evidence. Both are using their beliefs about the past to interpret the evidence in the present." So, evolutionists begin with what they can demonstrate with evidence, and creationists begin with what a self-contradicting* book meant to teach about religion says, and they're "both" basing their research on "belief"? *If interpreted literally, which, of course, is precisely what AiG does. That road leads to research papers that go, "Well, there are two hypotheses we have that come close to explaining this, but Hypothesis #2 contradicts Genesis 3:10*, so we can throw that out.  Hypothesis #1 is therefore the best explanation."  Whereas Hypothesis #2 might actually be a somewhat better fit for the facts. *Made up those numbers, it could read "and then they went into the valley" for all I know. What I'm saying is that unquestionable dogma of any kind restricts scientific inquiry; holy scripture is nothing BUT such dogma whereas theories based on evidence are, by nature, not -- in fact they are the opposite since the way a theory is accepted is by testing it (i.e. questioning it) and the way it gets to be an important part of science is by people doing tests of theories based on that theory (i.e. indirectly questioning it). In fact, that's why creationism is so at odds with science -- it makes assertions about properties of the world that science also deals with, only you can't question the creationist assertions the way you can in science.  So I would say that a creationist scientist either isn't a very good creationist or isn't a very good scientist -- unless he chooses to be a scientist in areas of science that creationism doesn't have much to say.  That's why there aren't a lot of creationist geologists.  Science and religion get along fine when science doesn't make claims about e.g. the afterlife and religion doesn't make claims about e.g. the Grand Canyon and dinosaurs. Sorry to shoot you down so brutally in the first part of my post but Answers in Genesis is a complete joke from a scientific standpoint (and I don't think most theologians look on it very kindly either).  The sooner you stop taking anything on that website without a mountain of salt, the better -- for your sake. What misinformation? I know a creationist geologist. He teaches at my university.

You do realize, don't you, that you ignored the entire substance of my post?  Every single argument I advanced went unchallenged.  All you did was question my opening statement (and if you want an example of misinformation, try "the Flood carved the Grand Canyon" or perhaps even the two paragraphs right after the quote explaining why I think it is misinformation, and the two following paragraphs explaining why I think creationism is incompatible with science) and validate the reason I said that few creationist geologists exist, not "none".

Why don't you try answering those four paragraphs?  And don't you dare answer this post with a spammed AiG article.