How can atheism have morality?

a reply to: cooperton

Lazy answer:

Geologists determine the initial isotopic ratio for radiometric dating techniques through various methods. One common approach is to analyze samples of rocks or minerals that are believed to have formed at the same time as the Earth or solar system. By studying these ancient materials, scientists can estimate the original isotopic composition based on the known decay rates of radioactive isotopes. Additionally, researchers may use other dating techniques or comparative analysis of multiple samples to validate their findings. It's important to note that these methods involve complex scientific processes and ongoing research to refine our understanding of isotopic ratios for radiometric dating.

So we know half-life. We know the decay rate of potassium. So if the Potassium concentration is X and argon concentration is Y, then the level of Argon can at least be drawn back to when it was all still potassium. Which still confirms a many million year timescale.

So they use multiple samples and methods (as the answer-bot said, and arrive at these ages that are WELL in excess of some puny 6k year timescale.

I mean Ar-40 only exists as decay of K-40. And if an example is 45% AR-40 you know it's 5% younger than 1.28 × 10⁹ years.

Initial concentration is a strawman to the timescale of the decay that occured. Initial concentration X + Y.

originally posted by: whereislogic
That description of evolution is misleading, just like describing evolution as merely being (biological) change over time. That does not address the main claims that those who do not believe in evolution have issues with. Those claims related to the topic of common descent. This is done over and over by dishonest propagandizers of evolutionary philosophies, leaving out exactly that part that people have issues with, point to an observed fact, and then say 'that's evolution (in action)' and 'evolution is a fact' (yeah, if you redefine it first and leave out any claims concerning common descent and the evolution of entirely new species). Then when opponents say, 'that's not evolution or evidence for evolution, we want to see an example of macroevolution, an entirely new species evolving', then they are accused of moving the goalpost. It's about as dishonest as it gets.


So, can mutations cause one species to evolve into a completely new kind of creature? The evidence answers no! Lönnig’s research has led him to the conclusion that “properly defined species have real boundaries that cannot be abolished or transgressed by accidental mutations.”22

Consider the implications of the above facts. If highly trained scientists are unable to produce new species by artificially inducing and selecting favorable mutations, is it likely that an unintelligent process would do a better job? If research shows that mutations cannot transform an original species into an entirely new one, then how, exactly, was macroevolution supposed to have taken place?
..

Turns out that Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig is a fringe pseudoscientist, who only presents 'evidence' which supports intelligent design, many of his “publications” are found in non-science based journals- can you name one peer-reviewed journal where we might find any of his papers? If anything his studies further proved evolution- throughout the paper he demonstrates repeated examples of mutations becoming more common in the species if the conditions were identical to the conditions the species were grown in- that is evolution in action.


The only reason you would not accept the theory of evolution is because you don't understand the science behind it. You cannot look at one isolated instance and claim that everything works that way, instead the best thing we can rely on are fossil records from around the world. Fossils are evidence that organisms from early history are not identical to those from today. Fossils allow us to study comparative anatomy of present-day organisms, by giving us the morphological/anatomical record of the species. Comparing the anatomies of both present-day and extinct species allows paleontologists to piece together the lineages of those species. Fossils are most successful for organisms that had calcified body parts (shells, bones or teeth) and in environments with large bodies of water or volcanic activity. Fossils are incredibly rare and precious, depending on the environment. To become a fossil requires you to die in very specific circumstances; the terrestrial environment is the least likely to preserve fossils, which is why our knowledge of vertebrates is so incomplete. The deep forests and jungles of the world don't create ideal factors for fossils to form. The first fossilized chimpanzee was discovered in 2005.

The real question you should be focusing on is- how did the very first bacteria appear on Earth? The first forms of life to exist on Earth are 2 forms of very sophisticated prokaryotes (bacteria) that appear very suddenly. We know that prokaryotes were the first forms of cellular life on Earth, and they existed for billions of years before plants and animals appeared. What we have is stratum without bacteria and then suddenly 2 forms of sophisticated prokaryotes with no traces of prokaryotic communities before it.

Quote from a random biology textbook- "Prokaryotes are ubiquitous. They cover every imaginable surface where there is sufficient moisture, and they also live on and inside virtually all other living things. In the typical human body, prokaryotic cells outnumber human body cells by about ten to one. They comprise the majority of living things in all ecosystems. Some prokaryotes thrive in environments that are inhospitable for most living things. Prokaryotes recycle nutrients—essential substances (such as carbon and nitrogen)—and they drive the evolution of new ecosystems, some of which are natural (the human body itself is an ecosystem for prokaryotes) and others man-made. Prokaryotes have been on Earth since long before multicellular life appeared."

The real question is; where did these cells come from or how did they form? The Earth's strata record shows this bacteria appearing about 4 billion years ago; the Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old so the bacteria some how got here when the Earth was still a relatively young planet.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

The only inherent action I would say is crying, everything else is learned including laughter, now talking about morals, boy that is so many levels above laughter it's crazy.

You forgot pooping and urinating. I remember a psychology teacher of mine used to say that pooping feels good because it's the first thing we ever figure out on our own. (IDK if that's true or not, lol)

originally posted by: cooperton
It is not that humans are hundreds of millions of years old, or that soft tissue somehow preserves for hundreds of millions of years, it's that dinosaurs lived in the more recent past. If soft tissue in dinosaur bones doesn't prove to you the evolutionary timeline is wrong, then nothing will.

So you admit it is evident that dinosaurs lived along humans in the recent past?

Ahh yes, all dissenting data MUST be a hoax. Brilliant defense. And no don't say I reject evolutionary data, I reject no empirical data, the thing is, there is no empirical data that shows abiogenesis or evolution actually happens. Just extrapolative speculation.

Ken Ham? Is that you? 0_o

originally posted by: cooperton
No data came back with a >50,000 year old result (which it would if it was millions of years old)

Because carbon dating is all they did and that is where it taps out. They know this, why do you think that is all they did?

Of course they are not going to find soft tissue from the 100 M year old bones, but this doesn't disprove that they are that old.

I'm going to say it one more time, they could have existed 100M through 40K. Not saying only in one or only the other.

Mainstream science does this too

So, they still were not talking about you.

originally posted by: cooperton

Humans depicting them and soft tissue found in the remains show it is much more recent though. Samples were from 4000-40000 years old from the carbon dating data. Carbon dating isn't super precise, but it's enough to show they aren't millions of years old. No data came back with a >50,000 year old result (which it would if it was millions of years old)

Do you have a link to the specific study you're siting? If they were real fossils I'd first have to wonder if there was some way the fossils could have been frozen for a period of time.

a reply to: NovemberHemisphere
They are talking about this
Dinosaur bones have been dated by radiocarbon (Carbon-14) Opens a PDF.

Here is a reddit discussion pointing out some flaws
Everything wrong with Miller's dino carbon-14 dates

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: NovemberHemisphere
They are talking about this
Dinosaur bones have been dated by radiocarbon (Carbon-14)

Here is a reddit discussion pointing out some flaws
Everything wrong with Miller's dino carbon-14 dates

Thanks.

originally posted by: daskakik
Of course they are not going to find soft tissue from the 100 M year old bones, but this doesn't disprove that they are that old.

Guess I was wrong about this. The inspiration for the soft tissue in bones seems to be one Mary Schweitzer
Dinosaur Shocker

Probing a 68-million-year-old T. rex, Mary Schweitzer stumbled upon astonishing signs of life that may radically change our view of the ancient beasts

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years.

Sounds familiar.

What she found instead was evidence of heme in the bones—additional support for the idea that they were red blood cells. Heme is a part of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood and gives red blood cells their color. “It got me real curious as to exceptional preservation,” she says.

originally posted by: daskakik
Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years...

Sounds familar...

You didn't include the part where she was hounded by the evolutionists who claimed she must have been making up the data. Then when it turns out she wasn't making up the data, they had to move the goal posts: "now soft tissue can last for millions and millions of years without special preservation."

originally posted by: Degradation33
Geologists determine the initial isotopic ratio for radiometric dating techniques through various methods. One common approach is to analyze samples of rocks or minerals that are believed to have formed at the same time as the Earth or solar system. By studying these ancient materials, scientists can estimate the original isotopic composition based on the known decay rates of radioactive isotopes. Additionally, researchers may use other dating techniques or comparative analysis of multiple samples to validate their findings. It's important to note that these methods involve complex scientific processes and ongoing research to refine our understanding of isotopic ratios for radiometric dating.

Notice they are calibrating it by assuming a believed time thatit formed and estimating it accordingly? That's fancy words for saying "we made it up". There's no way to know the initial concentration, they're just calibrating it to the date ranges they want. But if there's fossils in these geological strata that have soft tissue, then clearly the rock isn't that old either haha

So we know half-life. We know the decay rate of potassium. So if the Potassium concentration is X and argon concentration is Y, then the level of Argon can at least be drawn back to when it was all still potassium.

Why would we assume the initial concentration was all potassium? We never see 100% pure samples of anything in nature, not even gold. Yet we're supposed to believe isotopes are magically the only exception in order to maintain that everything is super old?

a reply to: cooperton

Can you not see that creationism via intelligent design requires plenty of faith in the supernatural world as there is no evidence to support the claim made by creationists.

I have asked twice now if you can find me some of the peer reviewed scientific papers on creationism. I suppose you are aware of my question but I can't see your answer. Initially you made a claim there are as many online articles on creationism as in evolution but that's something different from a peer reviewed paper. Anyone can write anything and posted online, from creationists to conspiracy theorists to people who have strong convictions for their beliefs.

originally posted by: Phantom42338
a reply to: Venkuish1

No he can't. Never could. There are over 500 peer-reviewed journals with thousands of articles on the topic of evolution.
There isn't a single peer-reviewed journal or article on Creationism.

It's a money scam which attracts the lame, lazy and the crazy who are susceptible to fall into the trap. Everything becomes very easy when you ignore the real science.

Of course he can't because there are no peer reviewed papers in creationism. The subject can only be taught in the context of religion and mythology as there is no basis in science or reality for the belief the universe was created by an intelligent designer.

These kind of explanations for the origins of the the universe will always attract the lazy and those who are not willing to challenge their religious beliefs.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: cooperton
It's proof of dinosaurs living recently rather than millions of years ago.

You really don't see the flaw in your logic, do you?

Hominids dated millions of years ago. If they walked with dinos, that is still millions of years ago.

And here is the ringer, even if there was proof that 40,000 years ago some large dino survived, that doesn't mean they didn't also exist 50 million years ago.

You are bringing logic to the discussion. Are you sure about this?!

originally posted by: Venkuish1
a reply to: cooperton

Can you not see that creationism via intelligent design requires plenty of faith in the supernatural world as there is no evidence to support the claim made by creationists.

Intelligent design actually requires less faith than unintelligent design. It makes sense that a conscious intelligent being could create intelligible laws and organisms, rather than intelligible laws and organisms coming into being by unintelligence. You all claim to be so logical, yet you deprive your own origin mythos of all logic.

originally posted by: Venkuish1
You are bringing logic to the discussion. Are you sure about this?!

No you guys are trying to remove logic from the equation, supposing that biological beings came to be without logic. I am bringing logic into it, by saying logic must have been involved in its origin.

I have asked twice now if you can find me some of the peer reviewed scientific papers on creationism.

Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Vol. 117(2):213-239 (2004)

Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations, and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution,’” The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4):1-27 (December 2010).

Douglas D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341:1295–1315 (2004).

Michael Behe and David W. Snoke, “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues,” Protein Science, Vol. 13 (2004).

William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Vol. 14 (5):475-486 (2010).

Ann K. Gauger and Douglas D. Axe, “The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzyme Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway,” BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2011(1) (2011).

Ann K. Gauger, Stephanie Ebnet, Pamela F. Fahey, and Ralph Seelke, “Reductive Evolution Can Prevent Populations from Taking Simple Adaptive Paths to High Fitness,” BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2010 (2) (2010).

Vladimir I. shCherbak and Maxim A. Makukov, “The ‘Wow! Signal’ of the terrestrial genetic code,” Icarus, Vol. 224 (1): 228-242 (May, 2013).

Joseph A. Kuhn, “Dissecting Darwinism,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Vol. 25(1): 41-47 (2012).

Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, and Robert J. Marks II, “Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism,” Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pp. 3047-3053 (October, 2009).

Douglas D. Axe, Brendan W. Dixon, Philip Lu, “Stylus: A System for Evolutionary Experimentation Based on a Protein/Proteome Model with Non-Arbitrary Functional Constraints,” PLoS One, Vol. 3(6):e2246 (June 2008).

Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, “Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins,” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007).

David L. Abel and Jack T. Trevors, “Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models,” Physics of Life Reviews, Vol. 3:211–228 (2006).

Frank J. Tipler, “Intelligent Life in Cosmology,” International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2(2): 141-148 (2003).

Michael J. Denton, Craig J. Marshall, and Michael Legge, “The Protein Folds as Platonic Forms: New Support for the pre-Darwinian Conception of Evolution by Natural Law,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 219: 325-342 (2002).

Stanley L. Jaki, “Teaching of Transcendence in Physics,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 55(10):884-888 (October 1987).

Granville Sewell, “Postscript,” in Analysis of a Finite Element Method: PDE/PROTRAN(New York: Springer Verlag, 1985).

A.C. McIntosh, “Evidence of design in bird feathers and avian respiration,”International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, Vol. 4(2):154–169 (2009).

Richard v. Sternberg, “DNA Codes and Information: Formal Structures and Relational Causes,” Acta Biotheoretica, Vol. 56(3):205-232 (September, 2008).

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig and Heinz Saedler, “Chromosome Rearrangement and Transposable Elements,” Annual Review of Genetics, Vol. 36:389–410 (2002).

Douglas D. Axe, “Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301:585-595 (2000).

William A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

a reply to: cooperton
I only read that one article. Didn't see what you are talking about in it. That preservation thing is in her own words.

Also, she is quoted as saying:

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”

Seems to me that the only real beef she has is with the creationists.

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: cooperton
I only read that one article. Didn't see what you are talking about in it. That preservation thing is in her own words.

Seems to me that the only real beef she has is with the creationists.

She mentioned how everyone was at her throat claiming she was a creationist She had to let everyone know she wasn't a heretic, and still vehemently believed in unintelligent design mythos. She gets bullied by the establishment for exposing evidence against evolution lol, it's pathetic.

a reply to: cooperton
She doesn't mention it in that article but she does say:

...she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I think you had a bit too much kool-aid.

originally posted by: cooperton


Intelligent design actually requires less faith than unintelligent design. It makes sense that a conscious intelligent being could create intelligible laws and organisms, rather than intelligible laws and organisms coming into being by unintelligence

Woah, how do you reason that? You still have to explain how the 'conscious intelligent being' came into existence or explain how it can exist perpetually without a beginning. Most apologists concede and just say something along the lines of "humans can't fathom something without a beginning". In the end it creates more questions than answers and is along a completely illogical line of reasoning. Trying to explain the source of rudimentary elements of life vs. explaining a fully fledged conscious intelligence that transcends time, space and the entire universe that some how always existed.... one is obviously more reasonable than the other.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: Venkuish1
a reply to: cooperton

Can you not see that creationism via intelligent design requires plenty of faith in the supernatural world as there is no evidence to support the claim made by creationists.

Intelligent design actually requires less faith than unintelligent design. It makes sense that a conscious intelligent being could create intelligible laws and organisms, rather than intelligible laws and organisms coming into being by unintelligence

originally posted by: Venkuish1
You are bringing logic to the discussion. Are you sure about this?!

No you guys are trying to remove logic from the equation, supposing that biological beings came to be without logic. I am bringing logic into it, by saying logic must have been involved in its origin.

I have asked twice now if you can find me some of the peer reviewed scientific papers on creationism.

Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Vol. 117(2):213-239 (2004)

Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations, and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution,’” The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4):1-27 (December 2010).

Douglas D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341:1295–1315 (2004).

Michael Behe and David W. Snoke, “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues,” Protein Science, Vol. 13 (2004).

William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Vol. 14 (5):475-486 (2010).

Ann K. Gauger and Douglas D. Axe, “The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzyme Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway,” BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2011(1) (2011).

Ann K. Gauger, Stephanie Ebnet, Pamela F. Fahey, and Ralph Seelke, “Reductive Evolution Can Prevent Populations from Taking Simple Adaptive Paths to High Fitness,” BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2010 (2) (2010).

Vladimir I. shCherbak and Maxim A. Makukov, “The ‘Wow! Signal’ of the terrestrial genetic code,” Icarus, Vol. 224 (1): 228-242 (May, 2013).

Joseph A. Kuhn, “Dissecting Darwinism,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Vol. 25(1): 41-47 (2012).

Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, and Robert J. Marks II, “Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism,” Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pp. 3047-3053 (October, 2009).

Douglas D. Axe, Brendan W. Dixon, Philip Lu, “Stylus: A System for Evolutionary Experimentation Based on a Protein/Proteome Model with Non-Arbitrary Functional Constraints,” PLoS One, Vol. 3(6):e2246 (June 2008).

Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, “Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins,” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007).

David L. Abel and Jack T. Trevors, “Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models,” Physics of Life Reviews, Vol. 3:211–228 (2006).

Frank J. Tipler, “Intelligent Life in Cosmology,” International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2(2): 141-148 (2003).

Michael J. Denton, Craig J. Marshall, and Michael Legge, “The Protein Folds as Platonic Forms: New Support for the pre-Darwinian Conception of Evolution by Natural Law,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 219: 325-342 (2002).

Stanley L. Jaki, “Teaching of Transcendence in Physics,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 55(10):884-888 (October 1987).

Granville Sewell, “Postscript,” in Analysis of a Finite Element Method: PDE/PROTRAN(New York: Springer Verlag, 1985).

A.C. McIntosh, “Evidence of design in bird feathers and avian respiration,”International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, Vol. 4(2):154–169 (2009).

Richard v. Sternberg, “DNA Codes and Information: Formal Structures and Relational Causes,” Acta Biotheoretica, Vol. 56(3):205-232 (September, 2008).

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig and Heinz Saedler, “Chromosome Rearrangement and Transposable Elements,” Annual Review of Genetics, Vol. 36:389–410 (2002).

Douglas D. Axe, “Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301:585-595 (2000).

William A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

For intelligent design you need plenty of faith.
For evolution you need no faith and no belief in the supernatural world. You seem to be very confused when you argue that evolution is somehow based on faith.

The above publications don't show anything about creationism. I wonder if there is anything that supports creationism and has found strong evidence for it rather than arguing on occasions that the probability of some of the random mutations to create some new genetic functions is very low.

Again, I am asking you the same question. There is nothing that points to intelligent design in the articles you have linked.