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Question about "Answers In Genesis", Nathaniel Jeanson, Mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome based genetic research

FollowingHim said:
@MeganC, to be clearer, looking at it from an information-science perspective:
- What is my password to this forum?
- How many times do you think you would need to type in random characters before you worked it out?
Click to expand...

Xenforo uses a SHA256 hashed password. It's not right now in my skillset but from what I am reading I can obtain the hashed passwords 1) during logon authentication and 2) by retrieving all of the hashes in use from the instance of Xenforo in use by BF.

There are about 2640 members registered on BF. If I obtain all of the hashes then there is a 1/2640 chance of my getting yours the first time I try.

If I only obtain the hashes for the active sessions then the odds are much better. Like if ten people are logged in and you're one of them my odds of getting your hash right the first time I try to use it is 1/10.

The IP address for BF is 192.254.235.41 with a network name of 192-254-235-41.unifiedlayer.com

There are several hostnames associated with that IP:
The site runs PHP and MySQL code. There are several vulnerabilities in PHP that can allow someone to obtain session passwords or hashes.

The site does not use secure protocols that would complicate exploitation of known PHP vulnerabilities. Next is to dump the website database and find the hashes in the user table.

There would be no need for me to type in random characters to obtain access to your account. I'd exploit the design of the site to obtain your hash and then use that to reset your password to something I could use.

Because that's how the site was designed.

Likewise, DNA isn't exactly random. The four nucleotides combine to create just four base pairs: AT, TA, CG, GC.

Valid sequences are composed of valid base pairs. But with the occasional flaw. Just like PHP.

And just like PHP the DNA code very much indicates the hand of a designer or creator.

Now you have me interested in learning more about Xenforo, MySQL, and PHP. :)
 
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@MeganC, you have a very frustrating habit of going into massive detail debating supportive comments rather than engaging with the central point.

For the third time, if you want to disprove what I am saying, don't nitpick my illustrations, simply:
FollowingHim said:
give just one example of a wholly new and beneficial feature being created through simple reshuffling of DNA. Don't just ridicule it. Disprove it with an example.
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I'll respond again if you have a crack at doing just that. I'm not going to get lost in the weeds on peripheral stuff.
 
FollowingHim said:
Only if the sentence has a new meaning. If it doesn't make sense, it does not contain information. Random sequences are not information.

They are programmed to do this, they are carefully coded to learn certain things and save that information in code. That's not evolution, it's their function.

Still just using pre-existing information (amoeba and bacteria). No new code. Interesting experiment but not relevant to this question.

Exactly. The end result of all of this is that life can only come from life - and ultimately life can only come from God.
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You are applying theory of information where you should't.

Here is example:
Hwo?ongl
How?ongl
How long?

Remixing letters can create something more with more sense. Random mixing is problematic (and forbidden by theory of information), not purposeful (not forbidden). And this isn't only example. How about creating new words?

All artists remix stuff from existing building block. Painting is remix of colors, music of tones. Each one is done with purpose.

All cells are able to change it own genetic material. They are not doing random change, but purposeful change. T-cells don't randomly change any part of DNA nor is any change inside "changeable" part allowed. No, T-cell is on purpose building new type of antigen receptor creating new capability which didn't exist before.

See, our bodies are capable of inventing new things. New antigen receptors, new antibodies. @FollowingHim don't try to claim this isn't invention, since artists are also working with limited amount of materials.

By the way, immune system is perfect example of evolution for multicellar organism. It is change done to be able to survive in contact with new microscospic adversaries and to keep up with new strategies of existing. Darwin's error was assuming goodness of random changes. No, evolution is purposeful change in order for life to preserve itself.

And how this buggers learned to eat plastic?

Some changes in metabolism are needed to eat previosly not existing food sources which requires new enzymes which requires new genetic material which requires capability of changing it own genetic code.

All cells are able to change it's own genetic material. And cells to it on purpose, not randomly.
 
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You make some good points @MemeFan.

When it comes to plastic-digesting enzymes, do we have any evidence that bacteria have recently evolved this ability? Or has it only been recently discovered, but actually always existed? The link you provided is not working. I found this study which:
found 30,000 different enzymes that could degrade 10 different types of plastic.
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Have all 30,000 of those enzymes evolved in the last few years? The articles about this study claim "bugs are evolving to eat plastic". But nowhere does anyone that I could see present any evidence of this evolution. They are just discovering these enzymes, and assuming they have evolved recently without evidence. But they could equally well have existed for thousands of years, and be multi-purpose enzymes that just happen to also have value in digesting plastic, nothing new at all.

Can you think of any actual evidence for the assertion that "bugs are evolving to eat plastic", as opposed to "some bugs have always been able to digest plastic"?
 
Just spitballing here
Haven’t some microbes always eaten oil?
Plastic made from oil……nothing new?
 
FollowingHim said:
@MeganC, you have a very frustrating habit of going into massive detail debating supportive comments rather than engaging with the central point.

For the third time, if you want to disprove what I am saying, don't nitpick my illustrations, simply:

I'll respond again if you have a crack at doing just that. I'm not going to get lost in the weeds on peripheral stuff.
Click to expand...

Just to remind where YOU went with this topic:

FollowingHim said:
@MeganC, to be clearer, looking at it from an information-science perspective:
- What is my password to this forum?
- How many times do you think you would need to type in random characters before you worked it out?
Click to expand...

You're trying to use your password as an example of something random when in fact it is not random at all.

Instead of typing random characters in a futile attempt to obtain your password I responded with a scientific approach. I studied this site, obtained information about how it was constructed, I studied ways to obtain what your actual password hash is, and I presented the information showing that your password is 1) obtainable and 2) there is nothing at all random about my approach to securing it.

Your assumption that an attempt to secure your password would necessarily have a random element to it was wrong.

And this is yet another instance of you asking me questions and then using my answers to YOUR questions to claim that I am the one going off topic.

Going back to your original question I can indeed give you an example of how genetic diversity can provide a positive outcome for a population.

COVID-19.

Most people can survive the infection without any significant medical interference because due to genetic diversity they are naturally immune to the disease or they are immune to its worst effects.

Others who are not immune to the disease are dying or have died. Their genetic information dies with them because much like the coding on this website it had flaws that could be exploited.

The DNA of the survivors does not carry the flawed code so that DNA does not "lose" information as you errantly insist, no, their DNA never had the flaw in the first place. The flawed DNA dies out of the population and the population is then stronger.
 
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steve said:
Just spitballing here
Haven’t some microbes always eaten oil?
Plastic made from oil……nothing new?
Click to expand...
FollowingHim said:
When it comes to plastic-digesting enzymes, do we have any evidence that bacteria have recently evolved this ability? Or has it only been recently discovered, but actually always existed? The link you provided is not working. I found this study which:

Have all 30,000 of those enzymes evolved in the last few years? The articles about this study claim "bugs are evolving to eat plastic". But nowhere does anyone that I could see present any evidence of this evolution. They are just discovering these enzymes, and assuming they have evolved recently without evidence. But they could equally well have existed for thousands of years, and be multi-purpose enzymes that just happen to also have value in digesting plastic, nothing new at all.

Can you think of any actual evidence for the assertion that "bugs are evolving to eat plastic", as opposed to "some bugs have always been able to digest plastic"?
Click to expand...
Plastic is organic chemistry so some enzymes could have headstart. But plastics is unnatural, therefore bacteria had to choose to consume plastics in recent times. Favoring more efficient and creating new enzymes would be right move for survival.

Consider case of nylon-eating bacteria:

Nylon-eating bacteria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

Article claims that Pseudomonas aeruginosa has developed nylon eating capability after being forced to live off nylon.

I remember reading on Twitter how consenquences of food eating habits of ancestors can be seen in today's humans.
If my memory is correct some human groups weren't exposed to dairy and/or grains. Their descendants do have problem digesting such food. Descendants whose ancestors have eaten such foods are better able to digest.

This would imply that, for example, lactose intolerance is very much genetic in origin.
 
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MeganC said:
But I do believe that the Ten Commandments are the literal Word of God written in stone by God Himself.
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That's great and the Ten Commandments reinforces the need to take God at His word regarding how He created this world and everything in it. Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
God created this world and all forms of life in six days and rested the seventh day. Those must be literal days, or the Commandment makes no sense.
MeganC said:
I also believe in what Jesus said according to the testimonies of the people who knew Him and heard Him speak.
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Excellent because Jesus affirmed the historicity of the creation account when He answered the question posed by the Pharisees. He said, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (Matthew 19:4-5).
Since Jesus is God, He knows how everything was made and He takes the Genesis record of creation literally - as we should. Shalom
 
frederick said:
That's great and the Ten Commandments reinforces the need to take God at His word regarding how He created this world and everything in it. Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
God created this world and all forms of life in six days and rested the seventh day. Those must be literal days, or the Commandment makes no sense.
Click to expand...

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

2 Peter 3:8
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MeganC said:
I've referenced it on this forum in the past.



That's for European and Northern African (Arab/Carthaginian) men. Australian natives (Aborigines) are such a distinct group of people that some geneticists have made the case that they are a separate species of humanity. Same genus, but a different species. After Australia allowed interracial marriages this became more apparent when mixed couples who were both fertile could not conceive or their offspring could not conceive...both hallmarks of divergent evolution.

It's wildly politically incorrect to even mention this in Australia and I'm sure some twit down there will want to put me in jail for mentioning it yet all the same it remains a fact.

Aborigines in Australia are estimated to have been isolated from the rest of humanity for as much as 65,000 years. In that amount of time European homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals and there are no Neanderthal markers in the Aborigine population.

Anders Bergström wrote extensively about the genetic divergence of the Aborigines and he danced around the topic as much as he could while still publishing the facts he found that their Y chromosomes demonstrate the population was isolated from other human populations for at least 30,000 years.
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@MeganC you might find this article of interest as it references work done by a Winston Churchill Fellow, Australian Aboriginal woman, Susie Betts.
creation.com

Seven Sisters similarities point to Babel

Australian Aboriginal groups and other cultures across the globe regard the stars in the Pleiades constellation as ‘Seven Sisters’.
creation.com creation.com
 
MeganC said:
@All

This is the post I responded to. The fact is that Australian Aborigines would not have a common ancestor with Europeans from just 4500 years ago. And they don't.

The Bible and Scripture do not explicitly state the age of the Earth anywhere and the people who read all sorts of things into the Bible that aren't there are welcome to their beliefs.

Myself, I don't feel obligated to constrain myself to the exact same set of beliefs that were held as accepted knowledge by Moses or any of his contemporaries or any of the other people mentioned in Scripture.

For instance:

  • I do not believe the world is flat.
  • I do not believe the sun revolves around the Earth every 24 hours.
  • I do not believe the stars are windows in the firmament (solid sky) above the Earth.
  • I do not believe in sea monsters.
  • I do not believe that men cannot fly.
  • I do not believe that God created the moon to be a perfect and unblemished sphere.
  • I do not believe that the moon is itself a source of light.
  • I do not believe that there are only four elements being earth, wind, fire, and water and that everything else is composed of these four elements.
  • I do not believe that illness is a punishment from God for our sins.
  • I do not believe that illnesses can be treated by bleeding someone to remove their ill humors.
  • I do not believe that medicine is an expression of witchcraft that defies the Will of God.
  • I do not believe that the known world is confined only the to understanding of peoples living in the Mediterranean prior to 1492 and I do not believe it is a heresy to acknowledge that the Pope was never informed of the existence of the Americas prior to 1492.
  • I do not believe it is an affront to God to set foot on the moon.
  • I do not believe that the brain is just an organ that makes snot.
  • I do not believe that blood does not circulate in the body.

But I do believe that the Ten Commandments are the literal Word of God written in stone by God Himself. I also believe in what Jesus said according to the testimonies of the people who knew Him and heard Him speak.

There's no end to the things that all of us accept as common knowledge that the people of the Bible would have considered heretical.

And none of these things matter to the core truths of Scripture that prove themselves true every single day.
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Have you read anything from the Hydroplate Theory? There are some good YouTube videos out there as well. Also, I highly recommend watching some of Barry Setterfield's videos, to address the distant starlight argument that Dr. Ross likes to bring up all the time.
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
Have you read anything from the Hydroplate Theory? There are some good YouTube videos out there as well. Also, I highly recommend watching some of Barry Setterfield's videos, to address the distant starlight argument that Dr. Ross likes to bring up all the time.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I do not go for convoluted explanations of anything including distant starlight.

Occam's Razor is always where I start with anything: The simpler explanation is to be preferred.
 
MeganC said:
Occam's Razor is always where I start with anything: The simpler explanation is to be preferred.
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If that is indeed the case, then this is where we part company because I start with the Truth. Psalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth. Shalom
 
MeganC said:
Maybe God did.

Also, is the Apostle Peter wrong with what he wrote? Which is it?
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I note with interest Peter is writing about scoffers and false teachers in his second epistle and it is the scoffers who are uniformitarians who believe everything continues as it always has. He isn't writing about a method for interpreting the timeframe of the Creation account at all. It is the scoffers who willfully forget God's past judgements. Although it has been nearly two thousand years since Jesus told the disciples He will come again, He is functioning according to the divine timeframe (c.f. v:8). Jesus is God, so He does what He wants, how He wants and when He wants, including when He will return, and it's not according to the dictates and the times of mortal men (or women). Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night.
 
frederick said:
If that is indeed the case, then this is where we part company because I start with the Truth. Psalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth. Shalom
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He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

Psalm 104:5
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Yet the Earth has no foundations. It floats in space. It also orbits around the sun which in turn orbits the center of our galaxy and our galaxy is itself moving through space.

This is repeated here:

Tremble before him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

1 Chronicles 16:30
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Yet here is what can be seen from space:
earth.jpg

The point being that there are things in the Bible that are undoubtedly the inspired Word of God but as interpreted by people whose understandings were limited compared to ours.

Which means that I am not going to try to explain what people have seen from space and try to argue foundations into existence for an immovable earth when that's simply not evident.

None of which challenges or diminishes my faith.

Likewise I am not trying to explain away the vast distances of space with convoluted arguments to make reality fit into a predetermined paradigm.

To the contrary, I've long objected to the Big Bang theory's proposal that the first thing the universe did was to violate its own laws by expanding instantly. Which is why the more recent theory of an eternal universe makes much more sense.

It also squares with the recurring Biblical proposal of God being eternal.

I guess the bottom line is that science does not challenge my faith. No, all too often it reaffirms my faith.
 
MeganC said:
Yet the Earth has no foundations. It floats in space. It also orbits around the sun which in turn orbits the center of our galaxy and our galaxy is itself moving through space.
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You quoted Psalm 104:5. The Psalms are part of Israel’s collection of hymns of praise and worship and have the distinctive mode of Hebrew poetry. The writers of the Psalms wrote using poetic expression. Look at Psalm 19 where the writer metaphorically describes the sun as coming forth from a tent in the heavens, and also personifies the sun both as a bridegroom and as a strong man running a race. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof (Ps. 19:4-6). Another example of poetic expression is found in Psalm 98:7-8; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together. Read Hebrew poetry with the same understanding you read poetry in any other language.
MeganC said:
The point being that there are things in the Bible that are undoubtedly the inspired Word of God but as interpreted by people whose understandings were limited compared to ours.
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How about we look at the book of Job where we read, He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing (Job 26:7). Or how about Isaiah 40:22; It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. The writers understood that the earth floats in space and is circular, or spherical as the Hebrew word conveys. If you would like to read more about the understanding of Isaiah 40:22, check out this article; https://creation.com/isaiah-40-22-circle-sphere

It has taken scientists a long time to catch up with what God tells us in the Bible, but they still have a long way to go. The more scientists learn, the more they discover it conforms to what God has always said. Shalom
 
frederick said:
If that is indeed the case, then this is where we part company because I start with the Truth. Psalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth. Shalom
Click to expand...

frederick said:
You quoted Psalm 104:5. The Psalms are part of Israel’s collection of hymns of praise and worship and have the distinctive mode of Hebrew poetry. The writers of the Psalms wrote using poetic expression. Look at Psalm 19 where the writer metaphorically describes the sun as coming forth from a tent in the heavens, and also personifies the sun both as a bridegroom and as a strong man running a race. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof (Ps. 19:4-6). Another example of poetic expression is found in Psalm 98:7-8; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together. Read Hebrew poetry with the same understanding you read poetry in any other language.
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These two statements are at odds with each other.

If there are instances of poetic license in Scripture then they cannot be a literal truth. They are an interpretation and one that must be seen through the lens of the author's understandings and not our own.
 
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