dano Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 I'm reading some of the literature available on the historicity of Jesus at the (pointed) suggestion of a fellow here; bright guy, wants me to do some homework before continuing a conversation on whether or not Jesus actually existed. Before stumbling on this site, I wasn't aware that there was a legitimate debate on the subject. Who was it, Dave8 or boomslang? Legitimate debate is putting it mildly. The christian theologians are being taken to task as in new assholes are being riped! Freeman! It was Jim Arvo. He got tired of Buddy's apologetic version. Buddy, not being aware that anyone had ever questioned whether Jesus was a real historical figure, or just a composite of all of the messiahs that were running around in them days. Jim told buddy that he couldn't talk to him anymore about the subject until Buddy had at least read about the basics of the argument. Did you ever notice how many Christians stumble upon this site? Dan, Agnostic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted August 6, 2007 Author Share Posted August 6, 2007 ... I think English tends to promote binary, black-and-white thinking through words such as either, neither, both, and, win, lose, good and evil, and through expressions like flip a coin, about face, on the other hand, and so on. That sort of dualism suits theology quite well. I'm not saying its always bad, for example our legal system is based on the duality of prosecution and defense. But it is also a severe limitation; there are some dualistic arguments where both sides are correct, but its difficult for most people to see that because they are conditioned to think that one side has to be the winner and the other the loser. I meant to compliment you on this perspective earlier, but I got behind the power curve answering questions and trying to keep up. Excellent point, and one I'd like to keep up front in my mind. Language leads us easily to the either/or interpretations like, "if God, then no evolution; if evolution, then no God." The validity of evolutionary process doesn't require a 'no God' conclusion. Equally, belief in God doesn't require a 'no evolution' philosophy. Conversations on either subject or both quickly move to the either/or in spite of the disassociation, perhaps because of underlying bias or fear if the door opens a little, all is lost. We're much better served dealing with information in discrete cells where relevance is legitimate and interdependence is adequately established. Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin webmdave Posted August 6, 2007 Admin Share Posted August 6, 2007 It's impossible to roll a die and get 100 straight 1's... or should I say it's a low probability, but yet possible? Well, if I have 100 dice and roll them, is it the same probability? Then if I take 1,000,000,000 dice and roll them, what are the chances I get 100 of them as 1's? HanS, You've asked the right question; now, count your dice; you need the 100 1's but you don't have 1,000,000,000 dice to make the odds work out. That's the problem. Buddy My response to this "odds are" discussion is here: LINK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Freeman! It was Jim Arvo. He got tired of Buddy's apologetic version. Buddy, not being aware that anyone had ever questioned whether Jesus was a real historical figure, or just a composite of all of the messiahs that were running around in them days. Jim told buddy that he couldn't talk to him anymore about the subject until Buddy had at least read about the basics of the argument. Did you ever notice how many Christians stumble upon this site? Dan, Agnostic Jim is the last to fuck with! Just as prolific as Dave8 with a bitting tongue of boomslang! hehe They always stumble, especially after staying awhile and going against ex-christians who lived the lie! Actually, I stumbled upon this site as well. However, I was searching out writtings by our deist/agnostic/atheist forefathers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dano Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 He can not find fault in his marriage, he must treat reason as some cheap whore in order to rationalize his marriage to Jesus. Reason MUST be at fault and not his marriage. He likes to flirt with reason even though he is a married man. Even if he could demonstrate a problem in evolutionary theory this would only be an ad hoc attempt to rationalize a belief that is based on argument from ignorance.....except that proving evolutionary theory wrong is a bungled attempt at ad hocism. hehe. Dano: Mankey' I love your metaphor about the whore. Most of those who are married to Jesus, and come here to flirt with reason, seem to just DISAPPEAR, when it appears that they have gone too far. Once the light of reason illuminates their souls, their vows sort of loose their certainty, and the thin veneer of humble, piety falls away, revealing that, in their walk with Jesus they are wearing no clothes. Dan Agnostic (Hey I think we may have something with our poetry) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 My response to this "odds are" discussion is here: LINK Damn WM, just when I was getting used to posting in the forums (reminds me of the interaction on the blogs in my early days here), I am going to have to toggle between the two! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dano Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 My response to this "odds are" discussion is here: LINK Damn Dave, Now you have made me feel guilty about those millions of little orphan sperms, whom I denied a chance to live. Maybe someone could market tiny little caskets for them. I'll bet "George" would come in on it, being that he wants little baby carriages for all those little stem cells. I have had a vasectomy, and have started to say a prayer for mine, every time my biological urges cause me to deny them their rightful place in a nice warm womb. Dan, Agnostic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin webmdave Posted August 6, 2007 Admin Share Posted August 6, 2007 As to Buddy's angel visitations, here's another: LINK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Don't dismiss the numbers in such a cavalier manner; 10^12 = the number of parasites in one infected host 10^20 = the number of parasite replications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance 10^30 = the total number of bacterial cell replications on earth in a given year 10^40 = the total number of bacterial cells produced in the history of the planet; also the total number of bacterial replications required to produce any two sequential changes of a similar complexity to chloroquine resistance. Okay, lets see. This means that there's a possibility of 10^10 mutations that would result in chloroquine resistance per year. The total number of replications per year = 10^30 The approximate number of replication before you could see one chloroquine resistance mutation = 10^20 10^30 over 10^20 = 10^10. So you're saying that 10,000,000,000 times a year isn't enough to hit one dice with a "1" on it? What we're talking about then is to roll 10,000,000,000 dice and hope that one of them will hit a "1", and you say it is completely impossible??? Explain this, I must be reading your numbers wrong... If this is what you're saying, then it is less possible to get a Yatzee than to get a genetic change in this virus. (Guys, help me out here. Did I get this wrong?) -edit- And where did you get the 10^40 from? Especially when you first had the number of 10^20 to "stumble" on a chloroquine resistance. Do you get a chloroquine resistance every 10^20 replication or every 10^40 replication? -edit- And Buddy, if the resistance didn't evolve. Where did it come from? Was it already there? If so, why didn't the resistance show up immediately when cloroquine started to be used, but later? Were the resistant bacteria hiding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 The numbers definitely do not seem right! When I go home, I will have to pull out my parasitology books and do a refresher on Malaria. However, check these numbers out! 300-500 million cases of malaria infections per year! 10^12 = the number of parasites in one infected host (Buddy's number) 300,000,000 infected host (x) 10^12 (=) 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 10^20 = the number of parasite replications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance (Buddy's number) or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 There are 3 times the number of parasites needed to reach the number of repications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance! Furthermore, the parasite undergoes at least 5 replications before symptoms even appear! (300,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 5 = 1.5 sextillion replications per year!) And then many more replications during the infection! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 I think buddy is saying God created quinine resistant malaria and anti-biotic resistant TB. GLORY!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted August 6, 2007 Author Share Posted August 6, 2007 Buddy said: ... Yep, it was Dano who challenged the math." Dano replies: No it wernt asshole. You are loosing it Buddy! Dan, Agnostic You're right. That's twice, at least. Last time, I addressed you as Dave8. OK, we've established Buddy is losing it. If you find it lying around, let him know. He'll be appreciative, but he'll forget who helped him out. BF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted August 6, 2007 Author Share Posted August 6, 2007 The numbers definitely do not seem right!When I go home, I will have to pull out my parasitology books and do a refresher on Malaria. However, check these numbers out! 300-500 million cases of malaria infections per year! 10^12 = the number of parasites in one infected host (Buddy's number) 300,000,000 infected host (x) 10^12 (=) 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 10^20 = the number of parasite replications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance (Buddy's number) or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 There are 3 times the number of parasites needed to reach the number of repications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance! Furthermore, the parasite undergoes at least 5 replications before symptoms even appear! (300,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 5 = 1.5 sextillion replications per year!) And then many more replications during the infection! Hang on a minute, I dropped my slide rule. BF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Buddy, it is I! I am challenging your math! It has been a number of years since I worked with statistical probabilities, I remember enough to know that your numbers represent an extremely naive postition. Its fuzzy math! Must leave work! Hate being here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 I wonder why it would be easier to believe that God created the viruses with all the resistance to future medications vs believing that evolution is possible? If God created all viruses and bacteria, including their resistance to future science, that would imply that God acted with intent to be evil and hurt humanity. Is that really better??? Still I haven't heard the probability argument for ERV. If mutations are so rare and the probabililty is so low, then shared ERV is even lower. But yet, we do share them with the chimps... Either God intentionally created C vitamin deficiency in chimps and humans using the same ERV (an evil God), or we evolved to the same deficiency (extremely low probability), or we are related. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Hans, You will not get a reply! I have noticed that if Buddy is stumped, then he changes the subject! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 Hans, You will not get a reply! I have noticed that if Buddy is stumped, then he changes the subject! *sigh* Yeah. You're right. I have so many questions that needs answer before I even can consider the possibility of any kind of super-being in the sky... it's quite disheartening they can't give me anything straight. (Or anyone of us) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 You'd think, since they always wail that 'you can't prove a negative' they'd be able to prove their postulated positive! BUDDY! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted August 7, 2007 Author Share Posted August 7, 2007 The numbers definitely do not seem right!When I go home, I will have to pull out my parasitology books and do a refresher on Malaria. However, check these numbers out! 300-500 million cases of malaria infections per year! 10^12 = the number of parasites in one infected host (Buddy's number) 300,000,000 infected host (x) 10^12 (=) 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 10^20 = the number of parasite replications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance (Buddy's number) or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 There are 3 times the number of parasites needed to reach the number of repications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance! Furthermore, the parasite undergoes at least 5 replications before symptoms even appear! (300,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 5 = 1.5 sextillion replications per year!) And then many more replications during the infection! Hang on a minute, I dropped my slide rule. BF Dear Freeman, et al. Although it is becoming tedious for all of us, let me see if I can help you prove me wrong. From memory, so this is just the math. There are 10^12 parasites in the typical infected host; not initially of course; they start with just a few, maybe one. I'm assuming the number is a life-cycle census or some such. In said life-cycle, 1 in 10^12 parasites will be spontaneously resistant to the hypothetical med atovaquone; survival selection will eventually result in a parasite population resistant to the drug; rate of world-wide resistance development will be based primarily on the distribution of the drug as a toxin present in the parasites environment. That's one in a trillion as the basic mutation where one amino acid mutation causes a change at one specific position nnn in one protien; about one in three sick people will carry the resistant parasite according to some study we referenced along the way. About 1 in 10^20 parasites will be spontaneously resistant to the chloroquine regimen. It's less probable/possible than the former due to requiring two specific amino acid mutations, etc. The figure comes from an extrapolation from raw data over decades. The previously mentioned White article provides this number. Resistance to chloroquine has spontaneously appeared at least four times over the last fifty years; chloroquine resistance is now present world wide; after decades of successful use, the drug is no longer considered effective. During those decades, all of the double amino acid mutations will have occurred, some of which confer some level of resistance to chloroquine, but only the one is really effective and survives in the presence of the drug in the treated host population. Around 10^30 bacterial cells will be produced on earth in a given year; some Univ. of Georgia study, if I remember correctly. Over say 3 billion years, that would amount to something less than 10^40 bacterial cells being produced in total. Now postulate a mutational change requirement that required two steps similar to the chloroquine resistance; since we're considering changes as complex as single cell to multicell to limbed and sighted creatures, it's a reasonable postulate for perhaps the first structural change in that sequence. The two-step requirement postulated requires a cumulative population of 10^40 individuals to manage the change. Fine; bacteria can do that, given the large populations and high replication rates plus the 3 billion years. It's a replication event count, actually. The larger the population, the smaller the number of generations (replications) required. Bacteria should (and do) mutate and adapt quickly, comparatively speaking. The larger, more complex creatures have smaller populations and longer replication cycles. Consider the primates leading to homo sapiens. Population estimates for the last 10 million years are 1 million or less up until around 10,000 - 20,000 years ago when the population began to move up to current numbers. So let's give the hominid ancestors a million a year for say 20 million years (I think you'll agree that is overly generous, given the period of maturation and fertility rates). Twenty million million or 2x10^13 wannabe hominids. Let's multiply times 5 on the off chance that every brood was quints, all of whom survived and replicated; 10^14 hominids. Let's add 100 billion for the hominid census covering the last 20,000 years (again, overly generous) and multiply that times 1000 to cover the higher mutation rates associated with increasing population pressure and competition for resources (generous by orders of magnitude); 10^15 hominids total. Assuming homo sapiens and the malaria bacteria are equally complex genomes (they aren't; homo is the larger problem) and that they both will spontaneously mutate along the same or similar process lines, then we can expect an effective mutation requiring just one or two particular amino acid mutations to occur about every 10^12 to 10^20 replications, approximately, along the lines of the atovaquone and chloroquine resistance development. Something more complex than just a blood chemistry change should take a proportionally greater number of replications. The malarial parasite managed the adaptations due to high population, high replication rate, and the random mutation and selection processes; at least we think that's what happened. The hominids are radically changed over the time period we've considered, and the changes are greater than just minor blood chemistry modifications. It would be an understatement to say that evolutionary changes over the last 20 million years leading to the hominid line are many and extraordinarily complex. The hominids haven't had sufficient replications to account for the changes, though. At 10^15 hominid individuals (total census), the creature might have adapted to chloroquine, but an opposing thumb or even a thumbnail would have been an unreasonable expectation of the sample set. The degree of improbability is adequate to call the proposed processes into question. As we've said in various ways, should I be right on this one, it doesn't prove anything more than that we don't know what did happen. It doesn't establish a designer as a pre-requisite to our being here. If I am right, though, you'll have to forgive me if I chuckle a little. If I'm wrong, I'll grant you the same. Buddy If you'd like to correct my math, feel free; math isn't my field. The cited numbers are probably correct from the sources we've discussed; it's names I can't remember well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted August 7, 2007 Author Share Posted August 7, 2007 ... But now to change the direction just a bit, and I'll get back to your numbers later. What are the chances that two species share the same ERV? In the light of statistics, and the chance for mutations, for two different species to share the same ERV it would be impossible unless they were related. What do you think? (Sorry for my grammar and spelling... it's bad on a good day, but terrible before my first cup of coffee.) HanS! Same here; 0445 and no coffee made yet. Hadn't looked at the ERV question; interesting stuff. What are the chances? If I understand it correctly, maybe pretty good. Correct me if I'm wrong here: In the evolutionary science claims, we have: - random mutation (from a genetics point of view, that's a replication error; substitution, duplication, insertion, etc.) - natural selection (survival long enough to replicate for the ones that die least easily) - and common descent (all life descended from a single or minimal original form) ... being the major identifiable components, I think. Overly simplified, I'm sure. Although none of the three are contested (by me at least), our statistical discussion has been regarding whether the random mutation process as described in the literature could produce the physical changes observed. From the simple problem I posed, it appears inadequate. It strikes me that shared ERV would serve to support common descent, but poses less of a problem statistically than evolving a thumb; my brain is a bit recalcitrant this morning; I'll think again later. I haven't disagreed with any of the primary tenants listed above, by the way. I had a beginning grasp of those basics before I was a teen and before Watson and Crick for that matter. My Dad gave me books on the stuff. He was a college prof and used to bring me books from the college library. My question here is strictly regarding the adequacy of the model as proposed. I don't see where the variations, even with environmental stressors, accelerated mutation, mutational hot spots, etc., can be adequately numerous to accomplish the required changes. We're wearing out the subject due to my apparent inability to grasp somebody's higher math. I could use a subject change. Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dano Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 I don't have a problem with God putting all of the evidence for evolution out there to trick some of us, but how come he doesn't do something truly brilliant like announcing on the nightly news that he is henceforth going to eliminate most of the horrible diseases, birth defects, stupid and retarded people, starvation, wars, and doubt about his existence, in everyone so that we all have a chance to go to heaven, and not just the credulous, the gullible and the naive? Dan, Agnostic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution_beyond Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 Buddy, are you aware that bacteria, unlike more complex cells, can actually swap genetic code? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyFerris Posted August 7, 2007 Author Share Posted August 7, 2007 Buddy, are you aware that bacteria, unlike more complex cells, can actually swap genetic code? Yep. As soon as a paramecium swaps code and grows a thumb, that will help the discussion. Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 However, check these numbers out! 300-500 million cases of malaria infections per year! 10^12 = the number of parasites in one infected host (Buddy's number) 300,000,000 infected host (x) 10^12 (=) 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 10^20 = the number of parasite replications required to stumble upon chloroquine resistance (Buddy's number) or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Hang on a minute, I dropped my slide rule. BF These numbers still stand. That is a minimum of 3 parasites per year which are chloroquine resistant! Since you wish to change the subject, you must answer a very simple question. Did man appear out of mud in he present day form? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 Buddy, are you aware that bacteria, unlike more complex cells, can actually swap genetic code? Yep. As soon as a paramecium swaps code and grows a thumb, that will help the discussion. Buddy Strawman... WHAT DO YOU WANT HERE? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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