Can you really say Evolution has no Meaning ?

NOVA

EVOLUTIONEvolution

Defending Intelligent Design

"Phillip Johnson is known as the father of intelligent design. The idea in its current form appeared in the 1980s, and Johnson adopted and developed it after Darwinian evolution came up short, in his view, in explaining how all organisms, including humans, came into being. Johnson taught law for over 30 years at the University of California at Berkeley and is the author of the book Darwin on Trial, in which he argues that empirical evidence in support of Darwin's theory is lacking. In this interview, hear why he feels that such evidence is "somewhere between weak and nonexistent," why he feels intelligent design is a testable science, and why he thought the Dover trial was a train wreck waiting to happen........."


www.pbs.org...


See, I only have two simple, and yet basic problems. If one cell [the first cell] formed by an accidental combination of the orginal chemical stew in the beginning and even if the agency of life started accidentally - What made that cell, or others like it split, breed, or reproduce itself - I can not imagine such an accidental event - It had to be by design !

Therefor Evolution, if you believe in it, is programed right from the beginning by Design, intelligent design.
- regardless of the source [ie. A creator, gods, or another advanced life form, say 'aliens']

Second problem, except maybe for mental exercise, why would otherwise intelligent beings continue to debate two concepts, neither of which can be proven, ad infinitum, when the two concepts [ID and Evolution] seem to require each other as a YIN/YANG symbiosis. Maybe only a well advanced Taoist could answer that question ???

What does meaning really mean.
It seems to be different to static information, in that is a function not only of time, but also the purpose of the process.
Evolution seems to come from much larger processes,
Solar system formation etc.
Seems like information over time produces 'meaning' even for inanimate systems.

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: cooperton

You are such a liar. That paper is a quality control experiment:

pre-treatment protocols = how to deal with shellac contamination. Just settle down you're losing your mind trying to kill moby dick. The point is, they know how to deal with shellac. Both lab techs told me personally it would not be a problem if there were shellac on the sample. You simply can't believe anything that I say because I say the truth, and you are coerced by lies.

You're such a fraud. I don't know how you live with yourself.

I go to bed happy every night knowing that my ancestors were not mutant pond goo spawn.

a reply to: dragonridr

Cooperton lie?? Outrageous!!

The paper he cited was essentially a calibration protocol to make sure the instruments were calibrated to the known standards. Has absolutely nothing to do with dinosaur bones. As you know, dinosaur fossils are primarily hydroxyapatite.

3D Maps of Mineral Composition and Hydroxyapatite Orientation in Fossil Bone Samples Obtained by X-ray Diffraction Computed Tomography
Fredrik K. Mürer, Sophie Sanchez, Michelle Álvarez-Murga, Marco Di Michiel, Franz Pfeiffer, Martin Bech & Dag W. Breiby
Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 10052 (2018) Cite this article

Abstract

Whether hydroxyapatite (HA) orientation in fossilised bone samples can be non-destructively retrieved and used to determine the arrangement of the bone matrix and the location of muscle attachments (entheses), is a question of high relevance to palaeontology, as it facilitates a detailed understanding of the (micro-)anatomy of extinct species with no damage to the precious fossil specimens. Here, we report studies of two fossil bone samples, specifically the tibia of a 300-million-year-old tetrapod, Discosauriscus austriacus, and the humerus of a 370-million-year-old lobe-finned fish, Eusthenopteron foordi, using XRD-CT – a combination of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and computed tomography (CT). Reconstructed 3D images showing the spatial mineral distributions and the local orientation of HA were obtained. For Discosauriscus austriacus, details of the muscle attachments could be discerned. For Eusthenopteron foordi, the gross details of the preferred orientation of HA were deduced using three tomographic datasets obtained with orthogonally oriented rotation axes. For both samples, the HA in the bone matrix exhibited preferred orientation, with the unit cell c-axis of the HA crystallites tending to be parallel with the bone surface. In summary, we have demonstrated that XRD-CT combined with an intuitive reconstruction procedure is becoming a powerful tool for studying palaeontological samples.

www.nature.com...

In addition, there are a number of factors that contribute to the presence of C14 in hydroxyapatite which cause a misinterpretation of its origin:

RESEARCH ARTICLE| FEBRUARY 01 2020
Radiocarbon in Dinosaur Fossils: Compatibility with an Age of Millions of Years 
Philip J. Senter
The American Biology Teacher (2020) 82 (2): 72–79.
doi.org...

The recent discovery of radiocarbon in dinosaur bones at first seems incompatible with an age of millions of years, due to the short half-life of radiocarbon. However, evidence from isotopes other than radiocarbon shows that dinosaur fossils are indeed millions of years old. Fossil bone incorporates new radiocarbon by means of recrystallization and, in some cases, bacterial activity and uranium decay. Because of this, bone mineral – fossil or otherwise – is a material that cannot yield an accurate radiocarbon date except under extraordinary circumstances. Mesozoic bone consistently yields a falsely young radiocarbon “date” of a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of years, despite the fact that it is millions of years old. Science educators need to be aware of the details of these phenomena, to be able to advise students whose acceptance of biological evolution has been challenged by young-Earth creationist arguments that are based on radiocarbon in dinosaur fossils.

Radiocarbon
Radiocarbon Dating & Confounding Factors

Most science textbooks explain radiocarbon dating in no further detail than that (e.g., Campbell et al., 2009; Bergstrom & Dugatkin, 2016; Urry et al., 2017), because their goal is to provide only a general overview of it. However, the reality of radiocarbon dating is more complicated. There are several factors that can add 14C to samples so that they yield falsely young ages (e.g., nuclear fallout, bacterial contamination, and contamination with coal), and there are other factors that add 14C-depleted carbon to samples so that they yield falsely old ages (e.g., volcanic gases, industrial emissions, and the reservoir effect) (Table 1). However, corrective calibration techniques and other procedures can correct for all these confounding factors (Pasquier-Cardin et al., 1999; Goslar et al., 2000; Nadeau et al., 2001; McGee et al., 2004; Mihara et al., 2004; Quarta et al., 2007; Nakanishi et al., 2015; Tankersley et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2017). Once corrective calibrations and other corrective procedures are implemented, radiocarbon measurements yield correct dates, as has been demonstrated with radiocarbon dating of samples of known ages (e.g., Jull et al., 2018). However, as explained below, bone mineral is an exception to the rule, and there are no corrective measures that can get fossil bone mineral to generate a correct radiocarbon date.

online.ucpress.edu...

originally posted by: Phantom423

The paper he cited was essentially a calibration protocol to make sure the instruments were calibrated to the known standards. Has absolutely nothing to do with dinosaur bones.

I never said it had anything to do with dinosaur bones. In your blind rage you have built many strawmen. Again, it was the paper that the lab tech sent me regarding their pre-treatment protocol to ensure shellac contamination would not be a problem.

As you know, dinosaur fossils are primarily hydroxyapatite.

Dont forget the soft tissue. Dinosaur bones have soft tissue which proves they are not millions of years old

a reply to: cooperton

I go to bed happy every night knowing that my ancestors were not mutant pond goo spawn.

You still have not cited a research paper or biology textbook that describes evolution per your description. The best you can come up with is "It". So much for evidence of your crackpot "science". You're about as reliable as a rattlesnake in heat.

a reply to: cooperton

Why don't you shut up and just read the papers that I posted. Would save a lot of time. Then you can write a letter to the authors telling them
that they're all washed up and should quit science.

originally posted by: Phantom423

You still have not cited a research paper or biology textbook that describes evolution per your description. The best you can come up with is "It". So much for evidence of your crackpot "science". You're about as reliable as a rattlesnake in heat.

Maybe go for a walk? Cool down a little bit. Your convictions about being the ancestor of a mutant ape is making you go crazy.

a reply to: cooperton

Poor excuse for not citing a research article or textbook which describes evolution per your definition. That just means it doesn't exist, doesn't it. Liar.

originally posted by: Phantom423

online.ucpress.edu...

Sure, they can desperately try to explain this away and essentially delegitimize all of radiocarbon dating (while ironically hailing uranium lead dating as an effective reliable method), but my argument is not contingent on the bones alone. Dinosaurs have soft-tissue remains. That proves they are not millions of years old. This isn't a fluke either, they are finding it in many dinosaur remains.

This ruins the timeframe of evolutionary theory and proves we are not ancestors of mutant apes. This is good news phantom. Open your heart and accept it.

a reply to: cooperton




You have no credibility. Write the authors a letter.

originally posted by: whereislogic

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: whereislogic

Well given enough time anything is possible.

No, just no. An utterly baseless statement. There is no evidence to support this fantasy. However, there is lots of evidence that refutes said claim. It's usually used as some agnostic mantra, the proponents of this notion don't even bother to provide evidence supporting this view other than some lame philosophical argumentation and utter nonsense or sophisticated nonsense (as in well hidden that it is nonsensical by means of sophisticated language and elaborately constructed arguments to distract from the real issues with their reasoning and to confuse the listener). Common sense should tell a person that not just "anything is possible", no matter how much time you give it to happen (which you are limited with anyway, the universe is only so old; please spare me the fantasies and baseless speculation about pre-existing universes or the multiverse).

Nucleotides were easy enough to make on the early earth,

Nope. Not easy at all. And...:

Shapiro says that “no nucleotides of any kind have been reported as products of spark-discharge experiments or in studies of meteorites.”(3) He further states that the probability of a self-replicating RNA molecule randomly assembling from a pool of chemical building blocks “is so vanishingly small that its happening even once anywhere in the visible universe would count as a piece of exceptional good luck.”(4)

Source: How Did Life Begin? (The Origin of Life—Five Questions Worth Asking)

While you're certainly correct that some things are not possible, I think dragonridr wasn't using that phrase literally.
Regarding what "Shapiro said," he may have said that but things turn out differently sometimes, since nucleotides have been created in laboratories.

Now, a team led by Nicholas V. Hud of Georgia Institute of Technology has identified nitrogen-containing heterocycles that spontaneously react with the sugar ribose-5-phosphate in water to form nucleotides (Nat. Commun. 2016, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11328).

These nucleotides are capable of forming hydrogen-bonded base pairs similar to the Watson-Crick base pairs formed by modern nucleic acids. Furthermore, the newly created building blocks can self-assemble into large, stacked, noncovalent complexes, which could eventually facilitate the formation of RNA-like molecules.

Hud’s team made the nucleotides with the heterocycles barbituric acid and melamine, both of which have been observed in model prebiotic reactions in the past. Both of them reacted spontaneously with ribose with yields greater than 50%. The bases in modern nucleic acids don’t combine with ribose under the same conditions.

“We think we can consider these bases to be very plausibly prebiotic,” Hud says. “They’re doing things that look like they could get us on the road to making an RNA-like molecule.” Such a molecule could have later evolved to incorporate the bases now found in RNA, he contends.

One of many links to this result

Harte

originally posted by: Phantom423

You have no credibility. Write the authors a letter.

Soft tissue doesn't preserve for millions of years. Therefore these dinosaur samples are not millions of years old. Stop appealing to authority and think for your self.

a reply to: cooperton

Wrong. Soft tissue is derived from DEMINERALIZED bone structures. The dating of the dinosaur remains the same.

originally posted by: AlienView

See, I only have two simple, and yet basic problems. If one cell [the first cell] formed by an accidental combination of the orginal chemical stew in the beginning and even if the agency of life started accidentally - What made that cell, or others like it split, breed, or reproduce itself - I can not imagine such an accidental event - It had to be by design !

Exactly. Prokaryotes, which are the most rudimentary independent organisms, have 1500-7500 genes in order to allow them to have proper biological function and replication. The idea that 1500 genes were coded through random chance is absolutely absurd. Remember each gene has 100s or 1000s of nucleotides in its sequence

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: cooperton

Wrong. Soft tissue is derived from DEMINERALIZED bone structures. The dating of the dinosaur remains the same.

No they even found a fragment of a red blood cell. That is not demineralized bone. Dinosaurs are not millions of years old

a reply to: cooperton

No they even found a fragment of a red blood cell. That is not demineralized bone. Dinosaurs are not millions of years old

Yes, remnants of hemoglobin and red cells were found - after demineralization - and the dating remained the same using isotopic ratio techniques. Dinosaurs are millions of years old.

a reply to: cooperton

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? They did not find red blood cells they found was glucose or lipid molecules. They were no longer soft tissue made up of original proteins but instead had been chemically transformed into polymer compounds known as advanced glycoxidation end products (AGEs) and advanced lipoxidation end products (ALEs).They retain the shape of the soft tissue but are in itself a fosil. Soft tissue has never been found on a dinosaur bone and it will never be unless it was somehow frozen and even then i have my doubts.

a reply to: cooperton

No they even found a fragment of a red blood cell. That is not demineralized bone. Dinosaurs are not millions of years old

Patterns of soft tissue and cellular preservation in relation to fossil bone tissue structure and overburden depth at the Standing Rock Hadrosaur Site, Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation, South Dakota, USA

•
Demineralization of Edmontosaurus bones released osteocytes and soft tissues.
•
First recovery of soft tissue and cellular components from fossil ossified tendons.

•
Overburden depth at discovery did not influence soft tissue or cellular recovery.

•
Cellular and soft tissue recovery was not correlated with bone tissue structure.


Abstract
Recovery of soft tissues and cells from fossil bones is becoming increasingly common, with structures morphologically consistent with vertebrate osteocytes, blood vessels, fibrous/collagenous matrix, and potential intravascular contents now recognized from specimens dating back to the Permian. However, it largely remains unclear how bone tissue structure, early diagenetic regimes, and many other taphonomic variables influence or control the preservation potential of soft tissues in vertebrate fossils. To explore the influence of a few of these factors, we tested a suite of fossils from the Standing Rock Hadrosaur Site, a vast Edmontosaurus annectens bonebed in the Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota, for preservation of cellular and tissue components.Demineralization of bone samples from each specimen yielded abundant microstructures morphologically consistent with vertebrate osteocytes, blood vessels, and collagenous matrix. This includes the first recovery of osteocytes and vessels from a fossil vertebral centrum and ossified tendons. Perhaps surprisingly, no correlation was found between soft tissue/cellular recovery and either bone tissue structure type (cortical vs. cancellous) or overburden depth at the time of discovery. A traditional taphonomic survey of the site, conducted in parallel and reported previously, affords a clear and detailed history of these remains, both pre- and postburial. Cumulative taphonomic evidence indicates the Edmontosaurus individuals died in a mass mortality event and their disarticulated remains were buried rapidly in a shallow floodplain pond during a crevasse splay event. Oxygenated flood waters and/or groundwater oxidized initially sideritic concretions to goethite during early diagenesis, facilitating rapid cementation of portions of the sediment that likely aided stabilization of soft tissues by shielding regions of the bones from prolonged exposure to pore fluids. Our findings support cancellous bone as a viable target for cellular analyses, corroborate previous propositions that iron-rich environments and rapid burial facilitate soft tissue preservation, and provide new details into early diagenetic environments conducive to such preservation.

And radioisotope dating confirmed the samples were millions of years old. You're DOA again.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: cooperton

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? They did not find red blood cells they found was glucose or lipid molecules.

Stop the libelous accusations. You cry wolf so often it is clear that you are the one mistaken. Surely enough you're wrong again. They did find red blood cell fragments in dinosaur remains:

red blood cell fragments in dinosaur bones

Now you'll go back to the sidelines and never admit you were wrong, waiting to come back in with more of your incorrect condescending remarks that only expose how ill-willed of a person you are.

"The structures appear to be genuine remnants of soft tissue; they are not fossilised."

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: Phantom423

The paper he cited was essentially a calibration protocol to make sure the instruments were calibrated to the known standards. Has absolutely nothing to do with dinosaur bones.

I never said it had anything to do with dinosaur bones. In your blind rage you have built many strawmen. Again, it was the paper that the lab tech sent me regarding their pre-treatment protocol to ensure shellac contamination would not be a problem.

As you know, dinosaur fossils are primarily hydroxyapatite.

Dont forget the soft tissue. Dinosaur bones have soft tissue which proves they are not millions of years old

The samples in that picture are from Mary Schweitzer's work. The fossils were soaked in ACID, demineralizing the samples. Here's how she obtained the samples:

Schweitzer did the opposite of what most paleontologists do with their specimens. Instead of preserving and protecting it, she destroyed it by soaking it in a weak acid. If the entire fossil had been made of rock, it would have dissolved completely. But in the terms used in Schweitzer's paper -- co-authored by Jennifer L. Whittmeyer, John R. Horner and Jan K. Toporski -- the acid demineralized the specimen. After seven days, the demineralization process revealed several unexpected tissues, including:

Blood vessels
Bone matrix
Small objects that appeared to be osteocytes, the cells that build bone

Just like the blood vessels in your body, the ones Schweitzer discovered in the fossil were hollow, flexible and branched. They were also transparent and full of "small round microstructures" [source: Schweitzer, 3/25/2005]. These microstructures visually resembled red blood cells, but their precise nature is still unclear. The tissue Schweitzer found was fibrous, stretchy and resilient --after being stretched, it returned to its normal shape.

You can't lie your way through the facts. You'll always be caught.