Evolution or Creationism, Where does the evidence lead? [Archive]

UnrepentantSinner

21st March 2008, 09:57 AM

I was going to comment on the OP, Xiaan and MG's comments earlier but had something come up and now am pressed for time so I'll try and reduce it down to a two or three comment sauce than I'll expand on later.

1. Creationists and ideologically motivated IDers consider evolution, as MG noted, not as a theory within Biology that also encompasses subjects like biochemistry, geology and medicine, but as a single totally explanitory philosophy that covers issues as far ranging as Cosmology and Political Science, as smloeffelholz noted in the OP. This phantasm for them, under the umbrella appellation "Darwinism", does little more than try and dispose of methodilogical naturalism as the basis of science.

2. I have encountered a number of TE's over the years and they, like MG noted, don't "compartmentalize" or suffer from cognative dissonance, they see evolution as how God created. They understand there is a difference between "the Creation" and "the Creation narrative" in Genesis. They also accept methodilogical naturalism as the only way science can work and that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, that life shares a common ancestor and that humans evolved from our fellow apes.

3. Which brings us back to one tactic I use with Creationists who try and argue against the "Darwinist" rubric... if you want to argue against atheism, do so in an appropriate context. If you want to argue against evolutionary theory, than you must be prepared to have science on your side and not go into tangents and apologetics.

As I noted above with a clarification... if any C/IDers from the other forum are willing to join this debate and discuss the evidence and science supporting evolutionary theory - in biology, in geology, in medicine... I welcome their comments.

evolution disbeliver

21st March 2008, 10:37 AM

Ok I am here now. Sorry it took a while, but I put in 70+ hours a week.
Before I get started, thank you for the invite. Very gracious of you all.
Just so everybody knows I am only a high school graduate and have been interested in the history of the earth for quite some time. I know only what I have read from both sides of the aisle. And be forewarned, I dont know alot of big fancy science words, but I will try to learn them as we go. I am your basic "John Q Public" if you will.
I have an open mind & very honest. I used to be a staunch believer in evolution but switched to creation about 15 years ago. I believe in god and nothing or nobody will ever change that. Nor will I ever deny him. Dont worry I am not a bible thumper or really a "practicing" religion, nor will I try to persuade any who doesnt believe in him over to my side. I think pretty much everybody who has made there choice has there reasons & that is between you & god, not me. I am here to discuss the differences between evolution and creation mainly because since I have chosen the creation over evolution I have not kept up with it.

Wanna start with carbon dating?
Is it possible that something like a huge solar flare or some cosmic storm could have engulfed the planet with something that could reset or jumble the lifes & half lifes?

smloeffelholz

21st March 2008, 11:35 AM

Radiometric dating is as good a place to start as any. I do want to begin by saying that looking at carbon dating only is a big mistake when considering radiometric dating. There are over 40 dating techniques that are used and cross checked against each other. They use different radioactive isotopes with different half lives so each is accurate within different time frames. For an easy to read explanation of radiometric dating, check out the paper called "Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective". Just search google for the paper, and it should be one of the first links. Sorry I can't post the address until I make at least 15 posts.

One point that is not stressed enough is that when the age of something is given, (ie 65 million years old) a few different dating methods have given the same age (within an acceptable margin of error) for that item. A scientist does not just use several different techniques until he gets the age he wants. Also, if something has occurred to skew the decay of the radioactive compounds, and the dating methods don't match; the age of the item is said to be indeterminate.

As to resetting the nuclear clocks on Earth, I can't think of a way this could be done. Either vast but proportional amounts of radioactive material would need to be distributed over the earth and throughout the crust, or something would have to cause elements to "undecay" back into their radioactive elements. This is basically impossible and would make the Earth appear to be younger than it actually is.

When it comes to affecting the decay rate of radioactive materials, it happens in only very specific and rare circumstances, and only to a small degree. The article above describes this much better than I will be able to. If you still have questions after looking at the article, feel free to ask me and I will do my best to explain.

evolution disbeliver

21st March 2008, 12:26 PM

smloeffelholz

21st March 2008, 01:44 PM

I don't see how liquefaction could cause the current fossil record. Liquefaction causes loose saturated cohesionless soils, i.e. loose sands to act like a very heavy liquid. The bones would be much less dense than the surrounding liquid-like soil and would become buoyant. Under these circumstances, bones that were once buried in the ground would float up to the surface, not sink deeper into the Earth. As an example of this, you can find pictures of concrete sewer drains that have floated over a foot out of the ground due to soil liquefaction (I believe I saw this picture on Wikipedia).

evolution disbeliver

21st March 2008, 02:28 PM

E.J.Armstrong

21st March 2008, 05:09 PM

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

Evolution is tested every day in the oil industry because the evolution of microfossils allows geoscientists such as geologists to correlate sedimentary rocks and thereby better locate hydrocarbon bearing deposits.

Oil companies have spent millions of man hours and trillions of dollars drilling wells to search for hydrocarbons. They simply would not do so if creationism was correct. Could I suggest you invest a few hours reading about the science of geology as there is no reputable university teaching geology that agrees that dinosaurs were around at the same time as man as would have to happen if creationism is correct. A stratigraphy primer would be a good place to start. If you google 'stratigraphy primer' you will find many good books

Creationism only works if the bulk of the science used in the search for oil and the nuclear power industry is plain wrong.

Achán hiNidráne

21st March 2008, 05:16 PM

Wanna start with carbon dating?
Is it possible that something like a huge solar flare or some cosmic storm could have engulfed the planet with something that could reset or jumble the lifes & half lifes?

No, they would not.

Where is there the slightest bit of evidence that cosmic rays or neutrinos do affect decay rates? The following show the contrary:
Inside standard nuclear fission power generators, neutrino radiation is intense, but the uranium that is not fissioned decays at the usual rate.
Some spacecraft are powered by nuclear decays. Some of them fly in very intense cosmic ray fields (like near Jupiter). If cosmic rays affected decay rates, the power generated would be different from expectations.
To get unweathered rocks, rocks for radiometric dating are usually taken from some depth into an outcrop, where cosmic rays have insignificant effect.
Radiation high enough to affect nuclear decay rates by several orders of magnitude (a change great enough to allow young-earth timescales) would sterilize the planet.
Reversals of the earth's magnetic field do not produce cosmic rays or neutrinos. They may allow more cosmic rays to reach the earth's surface, but not much beyond that, and most rocks used for dating have been buried for most of their history.
Carbon-14 dating is calibrated (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011_1.html) by independent clocks.Source: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD004.html

MG1962

21st March 2008, 08:55 PM

I did read the article already, found it very interesting. It makes sense that anyone would want to test it from as many as there is. I am not familiar with them so I cant really comment on them individually. I was just wondering if it was possible that it could occur. Something known or unknown as of this current time. I will read the article again.

As far as the idea of liquefaction. Do you think that the earth can shake violently enough to mess up the fossil record? Wouldnt that explain the creationist claim?

When a fossil is discovered, the very first thing is to determine context. When I was digging last in Kansas, we came across a fish that had actually be preserved across 3 million years of strata. We left the find in place for two days while this puzzle was examined.

Investigating the matrix the fossil was found in, it was realised the orginal deposit had been shattered and then reburied by subsquent sedimentary rock and the fossil was re-fossilised if that makes sense.

Now sure there is the claim that the deposit was made to fit into current scientific findings, but a simple chemical test would have shown that the material currently holding the fossil material was not the same as the surrounding rock

smloeffelholz

21st March 2008, 09:24 PM

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

This just isn't true. At no point would an animal body, regardless of the level of decay, be more dense than a liquid-like sand. I said in my previous post that concrete sewer drains have literally floated over a foot out of the ground during liquefaction of the ground. Are you proposing that animal bodies are more dense than concrete?

For a good visual example of this, see if you can find the Mythbusters episode about killer quicksand. In a liquid mixture of sand and water, which would be less dense than sand during liquefaction, people literally pop up out of the mixture like a cork in water. This is what would happen to an animal body in the scenario you proposed.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 02:28 AM

MG1962

22nd March 2008, 02:38 AM

I do remember that episode, he wouldnt go down. I'm not proposing that a carcass is more dense, just trying to get all claims as they are argued. Sorry about the long time between posts. I had been up since 10pm Thursday and had to get some sleep.
What about the claim of non random & random mutations. If I am to believe an organism evolves into another organism over several generations, how can random mutations do that and it be a better organism? If it is survival of the fittest would there not be an abundance of evidence showing the different changes of the organism until it got it right? We really dont have very many different dinos and if they were succesfull one would think there would be alot more evidnce of transitions to birds. For example when we do cloning, isnt it a very low ratio? I know cloning and evolution are apple to oranges.
On the other hand non-random I can grasp. Because it could be pre-determined in the DNA. But say an ice age occurrs. It creeps up slowly over a couple of hundred years, how does, on a DNA level, a species know to change in oder to survive the changing enviroment? Like grow fur, slow metabolic rate, shorten legs, longer tail, etc
That would seem like a very strong case for a creator for me.

Lets tackle the fur. We have an elephant, in a cooling climate. from time to time, mutations are born, some with a little thicker hair than normal, some with out. The ones without die quicker than the ones with that little edge against the cold.

We only observe successful mutations in the fossil record because they led to better adaption, hence more organisms, hence a better chance to find them as fossils

Today we can see a comparrison between two very closely related animals, the Brown Bear and the Panda. At some stage the line that led to the panda bear found a niche of survival by specialising in eating bamboo. The Brown bear kept a more general diet.

Evironmental changes have affected both animals, because of a poor mutation, the panda is probably well on the way to extinction. For the Brown bear, its diet has helped it thrive by living of human refuse.

Now the brown bear could never anticipate its diet would mesh well with human interference with nature, nor was the panda able to anticipate the human interference that has greatly reduced the amount of bamboo

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 03:09 AM

MG1962

22nd March 2008, 03:29 AM

But how can a mutation that is random be repeated? If the parents have a baby & it was covered in fur, the chances of that offspring having identical offspring are extremely high. So high I would say it wasnt plausible. Besides if the same mutation occurred in as many generations it would take in oder to change into another organism it would then very definately become non random. This a big one for me to accept. Because if it made it past the first generation & remained a random mutation there should be millions of carcasses somewhere that have very extreme differences between them from nature trying to get it right.
Correct?

The thing to consider is just how chancy it is for a creature to fossilise, then be in a position for us to locate it. In the media we here of two headed cows lambs snakes etc. And they would appear very common. However we have never found anything remotely like it in the fossil record

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 03:45 AM

Hey ed, I'm late getting back to this thread so I hope you don't mind me covering previous territory for a bit.

Wanna start with carbon dating?
Is it possible that something like a huge solar flare or some cosmic storm could have engulfed the planet with something that could reset or jumble the lifes & half lifes?

No, because we'd see the effects of that in other areas like atmospheric carbon isotopic content 12 v. 14 in ice cores, changes in tree ring growth patterns that otherwise weren't explainible by environment and die-offs of plants/animals that similarly weren't explainable.

Nothing in the "fossil*" record, including things like animal bones which can be carbon dated, exist in a vacuum. They are found in a position in the geological record with evidences of their environment around them from which we can draw conclusions about how they lived. We can determine what an environment was like from other datable items from the same period like ice cores (back 175,000 much further than carbon dating) and tree rings (back to about 15,000 years about 1/3 the range of carbon dating).

Also Carbon dating is not the only radioisotopic method availible. Here's a list of some others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating#Types_of_radiometric_dating), the half-lives of some isotopes being in the billions of years.

* Animal bones are fossils, though they aren't what we normally think of which is skeletal and structural features that have been replaced by mineralization. I'll clarify this in a post below responding to your fossil question.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 04:16 AM

I understand about the fossilizing process. So I can accept the fact that us finding it as the proverbial needle in a haystack. Plus scavengers and such wouldnt leave much to fossilize to begin with. But if they were random should there not be evidence just from the ratio of nature getting right even just once let alone to have it pass on to the next generation. The 2 headed cows are screw ups, not a mutation for the betterment of the species. I am talking about the mutations that would have species survive. Those cannot be random. So one would conclude that it is built into the DNA. If it is, what triggers the mutation? How does it know what kind of mutation to trigger? It cannot be random if it passed from one generation to the next.

Unrepentant Sinner-thank you for that response. I like the way you worded it. Very simple.
But do we know every possible thing in the universe? If we say yes, we are arrogant as a species. The universe is so huge we cant see the end, so it would also be arrogant to say that we know the make up of it. There could be elements, chemicals, and some kind of radiation out there we havent discovered yet. So why would that not be possible?
(Not implying supernatural or god here)

MG1962

22nd March 2008, 04:37 AM

IBut do we know every possible thing in the universe? If we say yes, we are arrogant as a species. The universe is so huge we cant see the end, so it would also be arrogant to say that we know the make up of it. There could be elements, chemicals, and some kind of radiation out there we havent discovered yet. So why would that not be possible?
(Not implying supernatural or god here)

You are absolutely right. I think we have a thumbnail working model of the Universe....but there is sooooooooooo much out there - it is what makes all this so much fun, ya never know whats around the corner

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 05:34 AM

Why I never pursued it as a career I will never know. But it (science as a whole)
has had my interest since I was in high school. So I became a truck driver, talk about variables! lol
Back to the subject, I have never really considered the Gap theory much. But this is probably something somebody already noted somewhere. In Genesis day 1 "the earth was without form & void" yada, yada, yada. That is when he created the forces of nature. ie heat convection(wind), gravity, the basic stuff. Day 2 he created light, yada, yada, yada. Day 3 he created plants, yada, yada, yada. Day 4 the marine animals, the sun & moon, yad, yada, yada. Wait. He didnt create the sun & moon till day 4. So our concept of time is ruined. We cant have "days" without the rotation of the earth . Does this destroy the creation theory? Those damn parables? Not for me. But maybe for many. I would have to step into philosophy to explain myself and that wouldnt be very scientific. So I will have to go with the parable idea and say that a day to god could be a very loooong time for us. Until he created the sun & moon. But as I think more of it, he formed the earth & forces of nature including gravity. Gravity is what hold planets, stars & moons together. This is not done without rotation. So he did create time & space on day one. So it could have been a very slow rotation giving that our day is based on taking 24 hours to rotate 360 using a fixed point in the sky(sun) that wasnt there till 3 "days" later.

See, not all creationists are bad. lol I pick on my side as well. Some will say I will burn in hell. :jaw-dropp
While I do very much believe in god and will never deny him or say there is more than one, for me there is no question. Because for us (in our known "reality") to say he doesnt exist is not true. We cannot refuse the existence of something that isnt bound by "our" reality. At least until we can cross out of or it crosses into ours. Just looking at the evidence of how things change (evolution or variation) over time does not mean it doesnt exist. As far as creationists go the debate between evolution is an argument that shouldnt be. The argument should be with the big bang crowd. My reason for not believing evolution is because I havent seen enough evidence that proves to me personally that it happened that way. For instance, we evolved from monkeys, why are they still here? They should have went extinct long ago. Why are sharks still the same as millions of years ago? Why are there any species still alive today that are the same as they used to be? And if evolution is a constant where do you think we will be going to?
I am now rambling and getting off subject(too much coffee :) buzz, buzz)
Sorry lol

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 05:42 AM

Glad you appreciated it ed. I've been working the last 8 hours and haven't been able to respond further, but will after I get some groceries and go home. For now, in response to your fossil question and what I was alluding to above:

I did read the article already, found it very interesting. It makes sense that anyone would want to test it from as many as there is. I am not familiar with them so I cant really comment on them individually. I was just wondering if it was possible that it could occur. Something known or unknown as of this current time. I will read the article again.

As far as the idea of liquefaction. Do you think that the earth can shake violently enough to mess up the fossil record? Wouldnt that explain the creationist claim?

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

Trace fossils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_fossil)

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 06:35 AM

US with that link you lead me to my next question. Creationists say dino's lived with man. How does a human compression footprint happen in rock with a dino's footprint? Such as the world famous prints from Texas. Please dont give the same old answer as there must have been a dino with a human foot. That doesnt work because of simple anatomy. It couldnt stand up. Unless it looked like us. Although it would make a great movie villain.:)
I did notice that those were conveniently left out of the article.

MG1962

22nd March 2008, 07:01 AM

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 08:21 AM

Yes I do believe those were the ones. I notice that when in some creationist presentations that they say that more have been found in oters parts of the world. Never have heard where.
I am on a different puter now and some of the keys arent working right so if my posts look strange you all know why. (The joys of having a 3 year old)
Back to the DNA, how would it know what to change for te survival of the species? And I understand that we are related to the apes on the DNA level, but since we are all from earth and comprised of the same elements shouldnt we(animals) all have similar DNA?

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 08:25 AM

Again, terribly sorry for being about 12 hours out of the loop, but such is the nature of work and the World Wide Web. :)

... liquefaction.
...would come close to what we see today.

I've never seen liquefaction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology#Liquefaction) mentioned by any of the creationists I've debated over the years because most of those I have encountered argued Henry Morris' "hydrological sorting" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology#Fossils) hypothesis.

Both are terribly problematic when it comes to the fossil record. As EJArmstrong noted above, geology as a practicable science would be utterly impossible - and hydrocarbon exploration (oil, coal and natural gas) would be folly - if we could not make reliable determinations of fossil (again using the term in it's broadest sense) that we could find in certain locations in strata thought to be of a certain geological age. This applies to sandstone, dolomite, oil, coal, basalt, diamonds, chalk, salt and even special cases like the search for Tiktaalik (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik), in which case paleontologists knew to seach Ellesmere Island because it had Devonian strata and it was predicted that strata would contain fish to terrestrial tetrapod tranistionals.

That's a deathblow for liquifaction and becomes even more problematic when we move beyond microfossils into body and trace fossils when it comes to hydrological sorting. It's also an irony that most Creationists just ignore or try and excuse away that if we found fossils in strata consistent with hydrological sorting it would be the demise of evolutionary theory.

The fact is though, that we never find trouts and trilobites in the same strata. Hydrological sorting says we should. We never find crows and Confuciusornis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confuciusornis) in the same strata. Hydrological sorting says we should. We never find rabbits and Dimetrodons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon) in the same strata. We never find lobsters and Ammonites in the same strata. We never find rhinos and triceratops in the same strata. The list of potentially falsifying discoveries we could make for evolutionary theory and evidentiary for Creationism is nearly endless.

And yet, we never make those discoveries...

So here's were microfossils ties back in with hydrological sorting again - remember how I noted that fossils aren't found in vacuums? We never find pollen or fossils of pollen bearing plants in strata that predate the Devonian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen#Pollen_in_the_fossil_record). If the hydrological sorting hypothesis suggests or beings like plants that couldn't run should be all over the geological column, why isn't pollen or fossils of pollen bearing plants in all strata?

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 08:50 AM

I think it was Hovind that I heard refering to it as liquefaction.
Very good point about the plants being all over the place. That makes sense & I hadnt thought about it that way.
But their argument is that it happened all at once during the flood. If you take carbon dating out of the way it I can see where it could make sense. There is no doubt that the flood happened in my view but I do agree that wouldnt screw with the strata. Besides the flood could have erased alot of the fossil record.
I did notice a long time ago about the modern day animals are convienently left out of the strata in the creationist argument.

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 08:53 AM

What about the claim of non random & random mutations. If I am to believe an organism evolves into another organism over several generations, how can random mutations do that and it be a better organism? If it is survival of the fittest would there not be an abundance of evidence {snip}

Sorry to snip that down, but I wanted to concentrate on two issues you raised.

First off, organisms don't evolve into other organisms in the sense that a salmon has great-great-grandchilden that are frogs... or worse yet that an insect has great-great-great-grandchildren that are elephants. Phylogenies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogeny) are simultaneously one of the most difficult and easiest concepts in biology to understand. No living being is quatitatively different from it's parents or ancestry, it is merely qualitatively differently. A human is still a primate and all primates are still mammals and all mammals are still anmiotes and all amniotes are still vertebrates, etc. If you want a magnificent website showing this check out the Tree of Life (http://www.tolweb.org/tree/). In fact, don't start by clicking on the homepage links, enter a being into the search... elm, walrus, sea cucumber or shiitake and if you get a page, start using the nested hierarchical link function. Oh, and those transitions don't take several generations, they take millions to hundreds of millions of years.

Second, you seem to be conflating "more adapted to it's environment" with "better". Cockroaches aren't "better" evolved otherwise they'd know enough to run from me when I turned the lights on or got out the can of Raid instead of skittering in circles giving me enough time to smoosh or spray them? And yet they've survived 350,000,000 years and made a successful environmental transition from tropical environments to temperate.

And then there's blind cave fish. If evolutionary theory predicted they became "better" wouldn't they have evolved an organ on their forhead which painted their environment with infrared and eyes which could see in that wavelength? But evolutionary theory predicts the opposite - that fucntioning eyes come at a cost during development and of calories to maintain them during maturation and their reproductive cycle... so having eyes in a totally dark environment is not an advantage, but a disadvantage and since our genes can only work with what we have (see biological homoloy - especially the limb part (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_%28biology%29), instead of "creating" innovative things like infrared painting organs and infrared viewing eyes... it selects for shutting off unneeded or "useless" organs.

But that gets us into atavisms which, again, is ironically an evidence for evolution and against Creationism. :)

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 09:07 AM

{snip}

Unrepentant Sinner-thank you for that response. I like the way you worded it. Very simple.
But do we know every possible thing in the universe? If we say yes, we are arrogant as a species. The universe is so huge we cant see the end, so it would also be arrogant to say that we know the make up of it. There could be elements, chemicals, and some kind of radiation out there we havent discovered yet. So why would that not be possible?
(Not implying supernatural or god here)

I think I covered both the fossil issue and how mutations give rise to new species above, but if you want clarification, just ask and I'll gladly delve into more detail.

The answer to your non-snipped quote above is of course we don't. I don't understand what knowing every possible thing in the Universe has to do with us understandig the history of the Earth and how live on it came to demonstrate the diversity we find extant and in the fossil record. There could be things about the Universe that humans never understand. There could be things about how the Earth was formed we never understand. There could be things about how life first started that we never understand.

That doesn't have any effect or bearing on the fact that we've found genetic evidence in lampreys connecting them with humans evolutionarily through the study of homoglobin, that we've discovered transitional fossils like Tiktaalik or that humans and chimpanzees are undeniably linked genetically and through the fossil record.

We could still live in an Aristotelian Universe of ether and crystaline spheres, but because of evolutionary theory, we could know who we are and where we came from (obviously within a certain metaphysical context).

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 09:36 AM

Yes by betterment I meant more suited for the enviroment. Sorry, you know I'm not a scientist, just interested. :)

Why would there not be things in the universe that exist that we havent discovered yet that could have an impact on our planet? If we dont know it exists, how do we know whether it does or doesnt effect us? That might be more philosophic than scientific but it is still a factor that cant be ignored.

And yes I would like a little more clarification of how we get from a dino to a walrus to a tree to man. I can follow it backwards to a point, but then I when it becomes an entirely different organism I get lost. I can understand the human ape concept and the fish to shark, even dino to bird, but a reptile to mammal, warm blooded to cold blooded? insect to human? How does it go from a to b to c to all of a sudden x? I am checking out that tree of life site right now, maybe the answer I am looking for is there.
I understand about the Aristolian line you gave, we are all connected because we are from the same elements. What I dont understand is how the elements arranged themselves to make the organisms. I would tend to think it that lies at the DNA level. We do still consider DNA as the blueprint of life, or has there been a discovery that I missed? Not being sarcastic, just want to know?

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 09:38 AM

{snip}See, not all creationists are bad.

I've been engaging Creationists for 10 years and except for some who are probably insane or have let all rationality go to the point of intransigence, I have met few how are "bad" and the rest of those get that categorization mainly because they are/were jerks. :D Conversely, I have met few, if any Theistic Evolutionists I would not want to share a meal or enjoy some coffee or a drink with. Speaking of which, I've got 12 Nattys in me so this will have to be my last post for today... more later tonight when I'm back at work.

For instance, we evolved from monkeys, why are they still here? They should have went extinct long ago. Why are sharks still the same as millions of years ago? Why are there any species still alive today that are the same as they used to be? And if evolution is a constant where do you think we will be going to?
I am now rambling and getting off subject(too much coffee :) buzz, buzz)
Sorry lol

The simplist answer to your first query is to posit a reciprocal question - if you were born, why didn't all your grandparents die first? Humans are not evolved from some failed species or genus of monkeys... we're evolved from a successful one, otherwise we could not have evolved from their descendents nor our cousin progeny our fellow apes.

As to your second question, sharks are not the same as they were millions of years ago. "Sharks" the colloquial definition haven't changed much in 10s of millions of years, but individual species and genuses have changed. You won't find Hammerheads and Makos in the fossil records in Jurassic (IIRC). A perfect example of how beings find their niche, and change over time, but still remain within that nich is the Coelacath which you can investigate further (meaning scientific realities vs. Creationist claims) at The Dinofish.com website (http://www.dinofish.com/).

And I'm too bombed to post more, bed calls, but MG's links about the Paluxy prints effectively debunks them. The Ica stones are known frauds. Mkele Momebe remains a legend. The Loch Ness Monster and Champ remain anecdotal and questionable from the supposed photographs and here's the important thing if any dinosaur should actually still exist that Creationist sources won't tell you... a living dinosaur today would not falsify evolutionary theory (see my Coelacanth link above), while a Cambrian chicken or a Jurassic rabbit would bring evolutionary theory down like a house of cards.

Human and dino prints contemporaneously would do the same thing, but we have yet to find any that withstand study and worse yet, we have no evidence from trash middens of any human civilization hunting dinosaurs and disposing of their skins, bones, horns, etc. or using those hunting tropies as they have with every other known animal since we evolved. In this case, the archeological evidence is even more damming than the paleontological.

UnrepentantSinner

22nd March 2008, 09:46 AM

Yes by betterment I meant more suited for the enviroment. Sorry, you know I'm not a scientist, just interested. :)

I'm not either. I'm a guy with a BA in History and Political Science who works as a security guard and has just taken on a cause celebre. I've also been arguing with Creationists for a long time in case that wasn't totally obvious. ;) And while my typing is coherent, there's enough beer in my blood to make me sleepy after my night shift that I'll need to address the rest of your questions this evening after 11pm CDT or tomorrow morning if I'm busy. Thanks for having an open mind and reding my posts and taking my links.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 10:31 AM

I didnt mean to imply that a living dino would falsify evolution. For my own inner child would love to have a living breathing dino. As far as archaeological evidence of man and dino, what about cave drawings found with animals that can only be described as dinos. Did they dig up the fossils and put them together as we have? So they would know what they look like. Or are they all part of the mass hysteria of creationism? Continuing with the living dinos how is it that nearly every culture from all over the world have dragons or similar creatures in it's history? More mass hysteria? And sorry for being to general, if species are constantly changing over millions of years, why would 2 species still be around when one has evolved much further than the other. ie Neanderthals were around when we hit the scene yet we are the ones here. Did we commit genocide or did they simply die out? As far as human and ape do you suppose that they are still around because we are in a transitional period where the apes could be extinct in the future?
For the reciprocal question, my grand parents didnt die because a) We are the same species or what ever it is called. and b)According to evolutionary theory several generations are not enough to make the change, it would take millions of years.
Wow that tree of life site is interesting 3 pages from alligators to ants. Interesting. This may take me a while on this link :)
But I dont think it's going to answer my question of how the transitions are made. Is it something that is inherent in DNA? or do we not know?

Your talk of the drinkin is makin me thirsty. Think I'll go grab a few myself. Miller Lite (gotta watch the carbs)

Inquisitive Raven

22nd March 2008, 10:38 AM

Well, yes it does take generations, but we're talking tens of thousands of generations, not three or four. Or do you really think that if we isolated a population of oh, Norwegian rats with a generation of a year and a same size population of humans with a 20 year long generation from the rest of their species, their descendants would be recognizable as a new species at the same time? I think the rats would get there first.

Inquisitive Raven

22nd March 2008, 10:44 AM

Just as an observation, we don't go from insect to man. Arthropods had split off from the chordates by the Cambrian Era and genetic lines, once split beyond the species level don't reconnect. There's a point at which they don't reconnect at the species level as well. Ring species are on the way to finding that point.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 10:46 AM

I would think the rats would get there first also. Mainly because the humans are smarter and are able to use tools to their advantage to survive without the use of adaptation.

Inquisitive Raven

22nd March 2008, 10:52 AM

Transitions are made because populations get separated and genetic changes accumulate. The jumps in the fossil record appear abrupt because so few individuals fossilize, but if we could watch every generation, the transitions wouldn't seem abrupt at all.

RecoveringYuppy

22nd March 2008, 11:15 AM

And I understand that we are related to the apes on the DNA level, but since we are all from earth and comprised of the same elements shouldnt we(animals) all have similar DNA?
Not even close and for several reasons.

The DNA in us and the apes is a chain with billions of links. Each link comes in four different varieties. Those links are used in groups of three to code for amino acids used to build enzymes and proteins. The groups of three come in 64 varieties and are used to code for 21 different amino acids. 64 is larger than 21 so you'll note that this means the code is redundant meaning there is more than one way to do the same thing using the DNA code. In fact a LOT of ways. The number is beyond astronomical. At each and every point in your DNA there are at least two ways to change the molecule that would have absolutely no effect on you. So, no, being made of the same stuff doesn't even close to explaining our similarities. If we were each specially created from scratch the odds against us having the same code used for the same proteins would be virtually zero. Is .0000000000000000000000000000001% a small number? The number I'm talking about here would have a billion zeroes before the 1.

So, no, being made of the same stuff only suggests (it doesn't even guarantee it) that the building blocks are the same. There are a huge number of ways that DNA could have been different if we weren't related.

And not all plants and animals are equally similar or different. The pattern we find amongst all life on Earth is exactly the same as we find amongst families. You are most similar to your siblings and parents. You are then most similar to your aunts and cousins. More distant relatives are less similar. And we find that that pattern continues, without fail, between all species on Earth.

The proof of evolution begain 250 years ago with a guy named Linneaus. He was the person who started the taxonomic system we still use today (I'm talking about the system that gives us the name "homo sapiens" for example). If you're familiar with his system you'll know that it organizes all of life in to a chart that looks an awful lot like a family tree. He didn't set out with that in mind. In fact he was a Christian creationist who didn't want to believe that all life was related. But his chart sure was strong evidence for life being related. Based on a study of all traits, he found that all life on Earth fit on a family tree.

That's remarkable. You won't find that with most manufactured goods. If you look inside a Porsche you'll find parts that show up in Toyotas. Human designer mix and match components. Whatever "designed" us didn't, or couldn't mix and match. That's exactly what you'd expect if we're all related.

And the family tree that was started 250 years ago has been confirmed in many ways: It was confirmed by finding the fossils of transitional forms that agreed with the tree; It was confirmed by comparisons of proteins in the early 1900s; It was later confirmed again by DNA comparison. And BTW each of these three categories I've mentioned aren't single experiments or anything. They are typicals tens or hundreds of thousands of experiments all confirming each other.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 11:35 AM

I guess to better word my question is how do the splits in the "tree" occur? What makes it happen? I wont accept a standard answer of changes in their environment. Because that is a trigger. I am asking how does it "know" (for lack of a better term) what changes will work & what wont. There has got to be a reason for it other than randomness, the chances of a random gene being duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation are way too high for me to think it is plausible. Unless there is an unknown connection between the environment and it's inhabitants. That is the only explanation that makes sense to me. Which leads us to an unscientific discussion which we agreed not to discuss here.
But I still havent got an answer on this yet. Which is what made evolution lose it's creditability for me. Coupled with the fact that it takes tens of thousands of generations to make the changes & the lack of fossil evidence that could have been wiped out in a world wide flood or other world wide catastrophes that many evolutionists deny happening because there is no evidence or is it that might be construed as a flaw in the theory. Which there is plenty of evidence for a world wide flood. Creation is starting to lose it's grip on my belief as well, but it still does have fewer flaws that I understand and at least attempts to bridge a few gaps between philosophy and science.
There are still parts of evolution & creation that I agree with but I dont see either one as having all the answers for everything and where either one can actually say without any doubt that it is fact. Evolution has gotten much more clearer than the last I was into it. And it is even pulling ahead in my mind. But it still fails to put the gas in the car for me so to speak. At least with creation I can say I believe there is gas in the car. :)
Sorry went philosophical again but that is how I think.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 11:44 AM

You are then most similar to your aunts and cousins. More distant relatives are less similar. And we find that that pattern continues, without fail, between all species on Earth.

Thank god! I was beginning to worry that me and the wife was related! You know the whole Noah story and all. lol:D

RecoveringYuppy

22nd March 2008, 12:14 PM

There has got to be a reason for it other than randomness, the chances of a random gene being duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation are way too high for me to think it is plausible.
Mutations have been measured and found to be perfectly capable of explaining the variation we see. It's not only plausible, it's an observed fact.

Unless there is an unknown connection between the environment and it's inhabitants. That is the only explanation that makes sense to me.
The kind of connection you seem to be thinking of was proven wrong nearly two centuries ago. The environment does not control the genes, the environment selects amongst the available genes.
Which there is plenty of evidence for a world wide flood.
Not even close. The evidence is overwhelming that a world wide flood is impossible.

RecoveringYuppy

22nd March 2008, 12:15 PM

Thank god! I was beginning to worry that me and the wife was related! You know the whole Noah story and all. lol:D
And what do you think of the rest of my post?

cyborg

22nd March 2008, 12:52 PM

the chances of a random gene being duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation are way too high for me to think it is plausible.

Yet you have no problem with the notion that if nothing changes in the gene it will be duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation?

I don't quite think you grasp the notion of "copying" here: so why not give us a start-to-finish explanation of what you think happens.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 01:08 PM

I thought the rest of your post was very informative. But I still dont understand how it answers my question. But...

Mutations have been measured and found to be perfectly capable of explaining the variation we see. It's not only plausible, it's an observed fact.
Those would be non random genes. If Random was as non random as you say wouldnt there be more people winning slot machines?

The kind of connection you seem to be thinking of was proven wrong nearly two centuries ago. The environment does not control the genes, the environment selects amongst the available genes.
How then does the DNA know when & what changes are made. I do not see how randomness is passed. If a Giraffe knows the best food is on the top of the tree he keeps stretching his neck a little bit further and those stretched neck muscles get passed over to the next generation? Once one has a longer neck then it would pass it along to next? But it's random so it may not happen ever again let alone tens of thousands of generations later? No way. Unbelievable for me. What is the average life span of an organisms. I'm not talking specifics, just average of all the different animals that have been on the planet all the way back to the time evolution says it started in the soup. Now that either would cut into the blocks or sections of time when the soup was cooking, or there has got be rather small life spans or this planet was very overcrowded really quick. In my own opinion.

Not even close. The evidence is overwhelming that a world wide flood is impossible.

Why does it not appear possible? Note I did not say when. I know you already know the arguments points, why do you say that their is no evidence? I've seen lots of evidence all over the globe. While I may not subscribe to the idea that it happened in Noah's time or so recently, but it is similar to the dragons story, nearly every culture around the world has a story that is similar. All part of a global mass hysteria? A conspiracy theory that goes back to the very foundations of human history? In evolution that would be a very, very long time. Why is it so easily and quickly discarded like the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot or living dinos & dragons? Why couldnt these creatures be remnants? We find living fossils quite regularly

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 01:17 PM

Cyborg sorry I missed your post. In case you didnt know I'm not an expert or claim to be. I am asking these questions mainly for my own knowledge.
If random mutations are as random as they truly are how can they be random?
If they are repeated, even once does that not then become non random?
Second part is if they arent random how does it know what mutation to implement to ensure the continuation of life? ie the branches on the tree of life.
One would think that as many generations it would takes to duplicate it even once per species the planet would become so over populated that nothing could survive.

RecoveringYuppy

22nd March 2008, 01:21 PM

Those would be non random genes. If Random was as non random as you say wouldnt there be more people winning slot machines?
That doesn't make sense. I have no idea what a random gene would be and I didn't say anything about random being non random.

How then does the DNA know when & what changes are made.
It doesn't. As I said in other words, the idea that the organism incorporates feedback in to it's genes was ruled out as the major driver of evolution nearly two centuries ago. Mutations are random.

I do not see how randomness is passed.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean passed on to future generations? Organisms have sex and pass down their genes in the process. Hopefully you meant something else.

If a Giraffe knows the best food is on the top of the tree he keeps stretching his neck a little bit further and those stretched neck muscles get passed over to the next generation?
No, that theory was proposed around 1800 and ruled out shortly thereafter.

Once one has a longer neck then it would pass it along to next?
Yes.

But it's random so it may not happen ever again let alone tens of thousands of generations later? No way.
In the first place, why would it need to happen again later? And in the second place it happens all the time. There are very very few traits present in any population that are completely uniform over the whole population. Can you name any trait present in humans that doesn't vary?
What is the average life span of an organisms. I'm not talking specifics, just average of all the different animals that have been on the planet all the way back to the time evolution says it started in the soup. Now that either would cut into the blocks or sections of time when the soup was cooking, or there has got be rather small life spans or this planet was very overcrowded really quick. In my own opinion.
Not sure what you're getting at here but 20 minutes would be a typical lifespan. A septillion organisms on Earth at any one time would probably be a good guess for the number of organisms.

RecoveringYuppy

22nd March 2008, 01:26 PM

Why does it not appear possible?
There isn't enough water.

... nearly every culture around the world has a story that is similar. All part of a global mass hysteria? A conspiracy theory that goes back to the very foundations of human history?
How about the obvious explanation that it's just a story? People write stories. No need to imagine they were crazy or in a conspiracy.

Why is it so easily and quickly discarded like the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot or living dinos & dragons? Why couldnt these creatures be remnants? We find living fossils quite regularly
Those are all different subjects with different degrees of evidence. A global flood is discarded because it's refuted by the evidence.

cyborg

22nd March 2008, 01:28 PM

If random mutations are as random as they truly are how can they be random?

Eh?

If they are repeated, even once does that not then become non random?

If I start off with gene ATCG and copy it and get ATCC then the change from G to C represents a random error in copying.

This change only needs to occur once to be copied many times. It does not need to be repeated for every copy made - which seems to be the mistake you are making here.

Second part is if they arent random how does it know what mutation to implement to ensure the continuation of life? ie the branches on the tree of life.

There is nothing that knows in any way how to ensure the continuation life and hence implement it.

That is why extinctions occur. That is why some species fail.

Maximising the amount of life is the only sure way to mitigate the possibility of all life being destroyed. Speciation maximises the number of forms it takes on.

One would think that as many generations it would takes to duplicate it even once per species the planet would become so over populated that nothing could survive.

Eh?

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 01:50 PM

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates. If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation? Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same. I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right? or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

This one is just too funny to pass up..

Can you name any trait present in humans that doesn't vary?

Sense of humor in wives! :D

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 01:51 PM

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 01:56 PM

How the hell did I do 2 posts? That was weird.

RecoveringYuppy

22nd March 2008, 02:19 PM

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates. If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation? Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same.
Traits are passed on via sex and reproduction. Dwarfism is certainly heritable in some forms.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean?
There is a chance, only a chance, that there is enough water inside the planet to cover the mountains in water. But how exactly would you imagine all that water rushing to the surface of the Earth at the same time and then all rushing back in to the Earth at about the same time?
We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?
Further inland a bit sure. To the tops of the mountains? No.

Global warming isn't expected to affect any of the "subterranean" water I referred to earlier. If there is a lot of water inside the Earth it once survived an impact from a meteor the size of Mars. It's not going to move because of a few degrees assuming it's even there.

sts60

22nd March 2008, 02:38 PM

I thought I'd just offer an "attaboy" to everybody on this thread for conducting such a civil discussion with a lot of back-and-forth.

evolution disbeliever, I'd like to point out something I didn't see mentioned by anyone else:

...Gravity is what hold planets, stars & moons together. This is not done without rotation. ...

Gravitation does not require rotation. It's what holds the rotating bodies together, and binds moons to their primaries, and binds the planets to the Sun, etc. (Minor point in this conversation, I know.)

BTW, I am a Christian and accept that evolution occurs and that the Earth is several billion years old. God really does move in mysterious, subtle, and amazing ways; evolution is one of them, and "deep time" is an awe-inspiring and humbling concept.

cyborg

22nd March 2008, 02:48 PM

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates.

Hmm, I don't think these two statements are as compatable as you think.

If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation?

Mutation occurs to DNA. DNA is what is passed on from one generation to the other. What's not to understand?

Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same.

1) There are varieties of dwarfism which are certainly heritable
2) Being a twin (Siamese or not) is NOT heritable for reasons that are obvious if you take a second to remember what a TWIN is...
3) Not every quality of an organism is expressed in DNA. You can't inherit the fact your mother lost a leg now can you?

I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right?

That entirely depends.

or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

Er no. I'm not sure at all where you're getting this.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

This is another thread - I suggest you start one if you're interested in this. No need to derail this one.

evolution disbeliver

22nd March 2008, 03:32 PM

All excellent points cyborg. I will be more specific at a later time. Right now the kids are home & it's time for daddy to play with them.
I was referring to genetic mutations, that if evolution is based on random mutations in genes then are you saying that there are only so many mutations that can occur for all species? That would explain to me how something that is random is not actually random. And can be repeated in other species as well.
sts-60 thanks for the input. Good point as well!
RY About the flood, I did say purposely say that I didnt note when it occured. According to evolution and carbon dating the earth is very, very old. Which means that it's surface did not always look the same. With tectonic plates sliding all over the place and smashing and bumping around creating the mountains and valleys would you not think that maybe the earth was a lot flatter at some point in time? And the earth is constantly replenishing itself which is why it is able to maintain life, so would one not theorize that there is just as much water on the earth, in the earth & above the earth as there was so many millions of years ago when the earth was flatter? Would there not be sufficient water to flood the earth then? But if that is accepted then it could lend a certain realization that Noah's ark might actually be true, but in order for that to fit it would mean that man was around longer than we think. If the Gap Theory is true that could be possible.

For all the evolutionists please dont forget that the earth was very, very different than what we have today, so therefore many todays rules do not apply to millions & millions of years ago. It was a totally different environment than what it is today. Just look at your own evidence. The anatomy of a dino is a great example. Just about all of them had comparatively small nostrils when compared to the size of their bodies. Which is proof of a very different environment than todays. Even their sheer size lends one to thing something was goin on with the gravity as well. They should have been crushed under their own weight.

This is one thing that pisses me off about both sides, pick what you want to shoot down not the whole thing. No need to start another thread on the flood. We are discussing creation theory and evolution. The flood is claimed to be part of the creationists argument so therefore it does belong here. If you have read my posts both in the comments section on the corresponding skeptoid episode as well here you will see that I am trying to blow just as many holes in both theories, especially the one I so valiantly hold up!
We are doing very good by not ranting & raving like loonies, this proves we are evolving as a species. lol
:D:p
Gotta go play, back later.
Cheers

MG1962

22nd March 2008, 03:36 PM

BTW, I am a Christian and accept that evolution occurs and that the Earth is several billion years old. God really does move in mysterious, subtle, and amazing ways; evolution is one of them, and "deep time" is an awe-inspiring and humbling concept.

Thats perhaps the core of why I also dont find conflict in my faith and science. If we accept Gods involvement in the Universe, then we have accept that we are totally clueless to his great plan. I fear that for some that is too big a dent in their ego to handle.

God made us incredible curious, then gave us an amazing playground to exercise that curiosity in

cyborg

23rd March 2008, 01:10 AM

Even their sheer size lends one to thing something was goin on with the gravity as well. They should have been crushed under their own weight.

Uh, no. Not at all.

This is the sort of simplistic thinking that says that an object of iron weighing millions of tonnes cannot float because it is too heavy.

Absolute weight, you should conclude, is not the important factor as to whether or not a ship sinks. Perhaps you should reconsider your hasty conclusions?

evolution disbeliver

23rd March 2008, 02:50 AM

Uh, no. Not at all.

This is the sort of simplistic thinking that says that an object of iron weighing millions of tonnes cannot float because it is too heavy.

Absolute weight, you should conclude, is not the important factor as to whether or not a ship sinks. Perhaps you should reconsider your hasty conclusions?

You are right, I shouldnt have tried using the weight.

But I notice that nothing was pointed out about the nostrils & their breathing.
That is another trait about science & evolutionists that helped to run me off. To point out when somebody is wrong very quickly but no mention when they might be right. Their attitude is "that if you are not a scholar you are beneath me"
and yes creationists are the same way, but at least they act like they are happy that you are on their side.

I'm not trying to start a fight, thats just the way the 2 communities come across.

So what about the nostrils & breathing. With small nostrils & the possiblities of "extra" lungs or breathing organ in the larger animals. I know that we can only speculate about the extra organs because of the soft tissue issue. But can somebody point out the atmospheric conditions about that time? Perhaps the nostrils were big enough.

cyborg

23rd March 2008, 03:10 AM

But I notice that nothing was pointed out about the nostrils & their breathing.
That is another trait about science & evolutionists that helped to run me off. To point out when somebody is wrong very quickly but no mention when they might be right. Their attitude is "that if you are not a scholar you are beneath me"

I think the point here is that you seem to have picked up a multitulde of wrong ideas about these things - approaching this is a completely unstructured and ad hoc way isn't really going to get us anywhere. So can we choose one topic at a time and stick to that rather than picking things randomly from one place to another?

MG1962

23rd March 2008, 03:24 AM

So what about the nostrils & breathing. With small nostrils & the possiblities of "extra" lungs or breathing organ in the larger animals. I know that we can only speculate about the extra organs because of the soft tissue issue. But can somebody point out the atmospheric conditions about that time? Perhaps the nostrils were big enough.

Sorry I missed this in the tooing and froeing. The size of nostrils dont play that big a part in air intake, they are more about heat. If we look at humans today, we see wide flat noses on negros in Africa. This is an adaption to try and reduce heat stress for the body. Causicans however have a longer bridged nose. This is an adaption for cold. By extending the airway, the air is warmed so that the core temperatrure of the body is less vunerable

Because Dinosaurs appear to have been cold blooded, they dont need to regulate thier body heat. The hotter the better, they just become ore active

evolution disbeliver

23rd March 2008, 04:26 AM

I think the point here is that you seem to have picked up a multitulde of wrong ideas about these things - approaching this is a completely unstructured and ad hoc way isn't really going to get us anywhere. So can we choose one topic at a time and stick to that rather than picking things randomly from one place to another?

I agree. That would be a more structured way to go about this. My problem of jumping around is that I have so much intrest in all of it. Also since all of the 'ologies seem to coroborate each other I tend to jump from one to the other to validate or debunk it. Just the way my brain comprehends things for me.
I guess you can say I try to look at too big of a picture. All at once.
EDIT:I will make a concerted effort to stay with each item at the time. Below I start with dinos because that is what interests me the most of all of it.

evolution disbeliver

23rd March 2008, 04:43 AM

Sorry I missed this in the tooing and froeing. The size of nostrils dont play that big a part in air intake, they are more about heat. If we look at humans today, we see wide flat noses on negros in Africa. This is an adaption to try and reduce heat stress for the body. Causicans however have a longer bridged nose. This is an adaption for cold. By extending the airway, the air is warmed so that the core temperatrure of the body is less vunerable

Because Dinosaurs appear to have been cold blooded, they dont need to regulate thier body heat. The hotter the better, they just become ore active

That makes sense. But what of the findings that Dinos may have been warm blooded? And what about their enviroment? So from the constuction of their nostrils the climate was warmer? And inherrently wetter? & finally could a warmer wetter climate lead to an increased abundance of plant life leading to a higher content in the O2 of the atmosphere leading to an increase in the barometric pressure?
Wow that question is worded like a question at a Presidential press conference!
Sorry guys & girls. :o

UnrepentantSinner

23rd March 2008, 08:10 AM

Again, I'm terribly sorry for seeming that I'm in a time warp, but while I checked in on this thread repeatedly last night at work I was too busy to committ the time I prefer to when responding to questions (see Shermer's adage about debating Creationists).

I think it was Hovind that I heard refering to it as liquefaction.

Ah. To that I can only reply - avoid listening to Hovind for anything other than enterainment. I hate the over use of "lie" in describing someone who is merely asserting B.S., but in his case it's totally warrented because he's well aware that virtually everything out of his mouth is.. well, a lie.

Very good point about the plants being all over the place. That makes sense & I hadnt thought about it that way.
But their argument is that it happened all at once during the flood. If you take carbon dating out of the way it I can see where it could make sense. There is no doubt that the flood happened in my view but I do agree that wouldnt screw with the strata. Besides the flood could have erased alot of the fossil record.
I did notice a long time ago about the modern day animals are convienently left out of the strata in the creationist argument.

I think I made a pretty convincing case yesterday as to why neither liquifaction nor hydrological sorting explains the fossil record as satisfactorally as the standard geological/paleontological/evolutionary models do. And as I'll note below, just removing carbon dating from the process doesn't eliminate the number of other dating methods which confirm C-14 dating and the other radiometric dating methods I linked to above.

As far as the flood goes, are you familiar with the world-wide Iridium layer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Chicxulub_and_mass_extinction) that was lain down between Cretaceous and Tertiary strata? There are myriad problems with the flood narrative (where did the Native Americans, Sub-saharan Africans, East Asians and Australian Aborigines come from - they're not mentioned in Genesis, and why is there no genetic bottleneck in humans nor any other species from about 4,000 years ago?), but the fact that we have this world-wide layer of a rare element at precisely the K/T boundry is damming for the flood explaining the geological column.

Regarding Creationists and fauna in the fossil record, if you listen to some of them, there's three periods - the Pre-Cambrain, Post-Cambrian and strata where we either find "fully ape" hominids, "fully human" hominds and anomolous finds like Paluxy or a supposed trilobite that had been stepped on by booted human.

evolution disbeliver

23rd March 2008, 08:35 AM

US Yes I knew about the Iridium layer. But my question is could there not have been a world wide flood before that. I do think that a flood would be able to cause mass extinction as much as an object impacting the earth. I just think it's odd that it is so quickly thrown out as false when it seems entirely plausible. I'm not saying that it occurred during the time of humans. Why could it not have happened before or even very close to early humans?
I have heard of studies that try to explain the dragon fear as some kind of "memory" that is passed on through the generations. Those studies say that the early humans had a fear of volcanic activity and that is what shows up in our instinct as dragons. With dragons stories so prominate in our history, why couldnt the same be applied to the flood. There are countless stories of floods destroying the earth (noah, atlantis, babylon, etc) Why couldnt be an instinctive fear of drowning passed on in the genes?

But I would like to stick to one at a time, as previously requested by cyborg above.

UnrepentantSinner

23rd March 2008, 08:44 AM

Why would there not be things in the universe that exist that we havent discovered yet that could have an impact on our planet? If we dont know it exists, how do we know whether it does or doesnt effect us? That might be more philosophic than scientific but it is still a factor that cant be ignored.

Actually, what you're delving into isn't philosophy so much as ad hoc reasoning. Is I noted previously, carbon dating isn't the only method used in dating, though it's very effective for items under 50,000 years. Since that was your focus, if you're going to suggest there might be "something" that reset the clocks on the C-12/C-14 content, you're going to need to address why all the other dating methods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dating_methods) like dendrochronology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology) (tree rings), varves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varve) and ice cores (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core) all match up with other dating methods, especially the radiometric methods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Radiometric_dating) I linked to earlier.

And yes I would like a little more clarification of how we get from a dino to a walrus to a tree to man. I can follow it backwards to a point, but then I when it becomes an entirely different organism I get lost. I can understand the human ape concept and the fish to shark, even dino to bird, but a reptile to mammal, warm blooded to cold blooded? insect to human? How does it go from a to b to c to all of a sudden x? I am checking out that tree of life site right now, maybe the answer I am looking for is there.

Dig around more on the TOLweb site, but don't forget... you're not going backwards per se, as much at watching a film in reverse. The key to phylogenies (see the previous link) is not that we can trace back x became y became z, but that all z's are y's and all y's are x's. All turtles must be reptiles (otherwise evolution is false) and all reptiles must be vertebrates (otherwise evolution is false). In Creationism, there is no requirement that that be so.

A quick primer into how phylogenetics work or are falsified. If beings exhibit certain characteristics, they belong to a group. The more characteristics they share, the more closely they are grouped together. These characteristics are then effected by homology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_%28biology%29). For example, a bat and a bird both have wings and fly, but the bat is covered in fur, has mammary glands and is viviparous, while at bird is covered in feathers, lacks mammary glands and is oviparous. Thus, while bats and birds share wings and flight, it is their differences that place them in the mammal and bird phyogenies, not the similarity.

I understand about the Aristolian line you gave, we are all connected because we are from the same elements. What I dont understand is how the elements arranged themselves to make the organisms. I would tend to think it that lies at the DNA level. We do still consider DNA as the blueprint of life, or has there been a discovery that I missed? Not being sarcastic, just want to know?

You're delving into abiogenesis with this paragraph. Life didn't suddenly go from random elements to fish. In the abiogenetic model, first there elements that self-organized into molecules (think Water, Carbon Dioxide or Methane). Those molecules self-organized into self-replicating precursors of "life". Eventually those self-replicating chemicals (there are examples in polymer chains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_polymerization) evolved into what we know as "life". Once "life" developed as a method of biochemicals to reproduce themselves... imperfectly... evolution was inevitable.

As far as the blueprint of life goes, are you familiar with HOX genes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOX#Hox_genes)? They explain why a fish develops a fin, a frog develops a forelimb, a bird develops a wing and a human develops an arm.

RecoveringYuppy

23rd March 2008, 08:55 AM

Why couldnt be an instinctive fear of drowning passed on in the genes?
Who said it couldn't? There very likely is an instinctive fear of drowning and there are very definitely reflexive protections against drowning. But what does that have to do with a worldwide flood? It doesn't take 10 mile deep water to put you in danger of drowning.

UnrepentantSinner

23rd March 2008, 09:20 AM

I didnt mean to imply that a living dino would falsify evolution. For my own inner child would love to have a living breathing dino.

Me too. :) But as I noted, a living dinosaur today would be much less prolematic for evolutionary theory than a Devonian rabbit or Permain chicken.

As far as archaeological evidence of man and dino, what about cave drawings found with animals that can only be described as dinos. Did they dig up the fossils and put them together as we have? So they would know what they look like. Or are they all part of the mass hysteria of creationism?

Well, here's the problem with that assertion by Creationists. None of the supposed dinosaur glyphs have the context that I mentioned previously. There are no evidences of spearpoint nicks on any dinosaur bone ever found (and to toss archeology into to mix, since humans supposedly had, according to Genesis, agriculture and animal husbandry from day 1, why were there any hunter-gatherer societies on the Earth at all... we simply don't tend to lose technologies we develop... especially simply things like harvesting and rasing livestock) or any horns, bones or hides taken from human settlements or trash middens. Why is that?

Also, we have a number of cross cultural fantastical creatures that show up in mythology like Shedu and Centaurs (half man, half horse), Garuda and Harpys (half human, half bird), Nagas and Questalcoatl (half man, half snake). And I'm not even mentioning the numerous examples of petroglyphs that look like aliens in spacesuits. Are all those glyphs, cultural references and protrayals of actual beings, or the imagination of the artist?

Continuing with the living dinos how is it that nearly every culture from all over the world have dragons or similar creatures in it's history? More mass hysteria?

I have a TE friend of mine who is of Chinese extraction and he is continually bemused by Creationists who assert that European dragon tales are evidence of dinosaurs because in Chinese mythology dragons are serpentine, but tetrapodal and fly not with wings, but with spiritual power and are good omens, not harbingers of doom. I hate to be so harsh, but that blows your "similar" assertion out of the water huh?

And sorry for being to general, if species are constantly changing over millions of years, why would 2 species still be around when one has evolved much further than the other. ie Neanderthals were around when we hit the scene yet we are the ones here. Did we commit genocide or did they simply die out? As far as human and ape do you suppose that they are still around because we are in a transitional period where the apes could be extinct in the future?

The last question first. We're in a period where our fellow great apes are going extinct, but not because of any (technically) naturally selective pressure. The pressure for their extinction is us. We're destroying the Orang environment in Indonesia. We're doing the same with gorillas and chimps in Africa, but the added pressure of "bush meat" and trophy hunting makes their situations all the more precarious. Ultimately, the survival of our fellow great apes might not come down to environment (technically), but our intervention.

Back to your question of why 2 species would continue to be around... why wouldn't they? Unless, as you noted, one actively tried to eradicate the other, they would just continue to exist. And therein lies the environmental aspect of natural selection. It's entirely possible that Neanderthals existed in ever smaller populations after their Pleistocene hayday had passed, but that competition with Sapiens, combined with their specialization (very small clan social structure) sealed their doom. Back to the possible, there might have been a time when Earth was populated with Erectus/Ergaster, Neanderthal and Sapiens simultaneously... and back to your living dino issue - I would love for us to find (at least in the "enlightened" time of 2008) a living Erectus or Neanderthal, if anything for the DNA they could provide us.

For the reciprocal question, my grand parents didnt die because a) We are the same species or what ever it is called. and b)According to evolutionary theory several generations are not enough to make the change, it would take millions of years.
Wow that tree of life site is interesting 3 pages from alligators to ants. Interesting. This may take me a while on this link :)
But I dont think it's going to answer my question of how the transitions are made. Is it something that is inherent in DNA? or do we not know?

Again, refer back to what I mentioned about how somthing that is X will only give birth to an X that might also be a Y, but never a B. And how that Y might give birth to something that might also be a Z, but will never be a C. Ugh, which reminds me of a note about falsifications of evolution I forgot to mention earlier.

If a trout was found with fur, evolution is done.
If an iguana was found with boobies, evolution is done.
If a sea cucumber was found with a vertbrate brain, evolution is done.
If a bird was found with arms as well as wings, evolution is done.
If a human was found with a chitenous exoskeleton, evolution is done.

All of those things would be undersandible within Creationism, but would utterly falsify evolutionary theory... and yet we never find anything that doesn't fit.

UnrepentantSinner

23rd March 2008, 09:22 AM

But I would like to stick to one at a time, as previously requested by cyborg above.

No problem. It's my bedtime and I'm still 18-24 hours behind reality on this thread. I'll try and address some more one to one's tonight since I'm off. Thank you for putting up with my lateness.

kev

23rd March 2008, 10:10 AM

[quote=evolution disbeliver;3554463] I just think it's odd that it is so quickly thrown out as false when it seems entirely plausible.

Who said it was "quickly thrown out as false?" Unless I am missing something, it was believed as true for thousands of years. It has only been over the past 100-200 years that it has been PROVEN false. Is it "plausible" that a great, world wide flood could cause a mass extinction? Certainly. But, it is also plausible that a great, worldwide "anything" could cause mass extinction. The flood idea was not "quickly" thrown out. It took a long time to throw it out. But, now that it has been thrown out, it should not need to be "rethrown out" every week.

There are countless stories of floods destroying the earth (noah, atlantis, babylon, etc)?

You are right, but there are also countless stories as to what causes lightning, how the stars were placed in the sky, why the sun rises and sets, where the seasons come from, where you go when you die, how babies are made . . . . .The key here is that they are STORIES. Humans have always sought to explain that which they do not understand with stories. Over the years, those stories have helped to create comfort about ideas that we did not have the technology to explain. Different cultures make up different stories and explain the unexplainable by introducing the supernatural. And, each culture affixes itself in the center of its particular supernatural story, because they are the ones writing it (or telling it).

The funny thing though, about these stories, is that everyone else's version is always a "story" - but your own version, is somehow the inerrant word of the almighty creator (of choice).

Which is more likely?

A.) There are 1000 fictional stories about the creation, told and changed throughout history, to explain what science could not explain at the time. And, there is one story that is actually the recorded word of an almighty creator - looking out for you, and those like you. And this one account, just so happens to be the one you believe in.

Or,

B.) There are 1001 fictional stories about creation.

The major problem you are having with trying to wade through your curiosity about evolution is your lack of understanding about evolution. Your references to mutations resulting in one animal "turning into" another animal, and your references to "How does it KNOW what genes to pick" are misconceptions that make it impossible to comprehend how evolution works. So many of your questions are based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of evolution.

evolution disbeliver

23rd March 2008, 10:27 AM

US I understand your schedule totally, my days start at 10pm.

I have a TE friend of mine who is of Chinese extraction and he is continually bemused by Creationists who assert that European dragon tales are evidence of dinosaurs because in Chinese mythology dragons are serpentine, but tetrapodal and fly not with wings, but with spiritual power and are good omens, not harbingers of doom. I hate to be so harsh, but that blows your "similar" assertion out of the water huh?
Not necessarily, what one culture derives about something another could get something entirely different. I was meaning them as a whole.
Again, refer back to what I mentioned about how somthing that is X will only give birth to an X that might also be a Y, but never a B. And how that Y might give birth to something that might also be a Z, but will never be a C.
In other words T might give birth to an U while it is not another T it is still closer to a T than a D, but it is still related to the D & T
Right? I am still looking at that site, alot of work has gone into that.

If an iguana was found with boobies, evolution is done.
Boobies are the greatest feature in nature. lol

Actually, what you're delving into isn't philosophy so much as ad hoc reasoning. Is I noted previously, carbon dating isn't the only method used in dating, though it's very effective for items under 50,000 years. Since that was your focus, if you're going to suggest there might be "something" that reset the clocks on the C-12/C-14 content, you're going to need to address why all the other dating methods like dendrochronology (tree rings), varves and ice cores all match up with other dating methods, especially the radiometric methods I linked to earlier.
Exactly why I was said philosphy, I was implying all dating methods. Giving that we really only know the tip of the ice burgh about the universe.

Touch on the rest of yours later tonite.
Now to RY...
Who said it couldn't? There very likely is an instinctive fear of drowning and there are very definitely reflexive protections against drowning. But what does that have to do with a worldwide flood? It doesn't take 10 mile deep water to put you in danger of drowning.
NO it doesnt and it wouldnt take 10 mile deep water to flood the earth. If evolution is corroborated by other sciences then wouldnt Pangaea be rather flat considering it is the only continent on the planet at the time? The highest point being volcanoes? The lower elevations created by erosion? There could technically be no mountain ranges because there is no tectonic plates.
or am I wrong?

kev

23rd March 2008, 10:40 AM

If evolution is corroborated by other sciences then wouldnt Pangaea be rather flat considering it is the only continent on the planet at the time? The highest point being volcanoes? The lower elevations created by erosion? There could technically be no mountain ranges because there is no tectonic plates.
or am I wrong?

I think you are wrong. Where did you come up with the fact that there were no tectonic plates? Just because they were in a different place, does not mean there were no plates. There are also plates that do not correspond to any continents at all - oceanic plates. The continental plates being in close proximity to each other does not make them, and the oceanic plates, disappear.

UnrepentantSinner

23rd March 2008, 10:37 PM

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates.

In an utterly reductionist context you do understand. DNA is composed of 4 amino acids which are, basically, the letters that compose the language of life. If you want more details read here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dna). Bascially what happens is there is a change in either individual amino acids, or in whole groups of them due to imperfect replication. Those changes can have a negative effect (as some do), a neutral effect (as most do) or, depending on the environment a positive effect.

If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation?

Forget radical changes in morphology because those rarely convey a survival/reproductive advantage. Think in more subtle terms. The answer to your question is simple... if a mutation confers a survival advantage to an individual, that individual is obviously more likely to survive to maturity, to mate and to have not only offspring, but more offspring than others without the survival advantage. The genes of that parent are then passed on to the offspring who, sharing that survival advantage in their DNA, will continue to thrive and reproduce in that environment.

Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves.

Dwarfism is a recessive gene and is detrimental to human populations (though not in some populations where it might be selected for due to limited resources) because of skeletal issues and potential reproductive problems for dwarf females who mate with "normal" males (all of this supposes a pre-surgical C-section world). An interesting case of dwarfism is the Roloff family who can be seen in the delightful series Little People, Big World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_People_Big_World). Amy and Matt are both dwarves but three of their four children are "normal". They are an example of how recessive the dwarfism gene is.

Or Siamese twins producing the same.

Conjoined twins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins) are not a genetic condition or mutation. They are the result of identical twins who fail to complete their developmental separation in utero. Chang and Eng Bunker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_and_Eng_Bunker) had 22 children between them, and none of them were Conjoined twins because it was a fluke of development in the womb, not a genetic condition.

I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right? or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

See my link earlier about homology. There isn't much difference between a walrus and an alligator since both of them evolved from a reptilian concestor. Alligators developed scales, a three piece jawbone, wide stance and are cold blooded while Walruses developed fur, their reptilian jawbones became their (and our) ear bones, a tripod stance and are warm blooded. And no, they weren't "pre-programmed", they were selected for in populations which, over millions of years led to the diversity of life we see today and in the fossil record.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

Taking the flood narrative literally, there simply is not enough water to cover the mountaintops we know of today (and historically), nor even the mountaintops that were known historically without crazy geological upheaval that we just don't see evidence for in the geological record. To put it simply, the "water" issue is the least of the problems Creationists have regarding taking the Flood narrative literally.

evolution disbeliver

24th March 2008, 12:07 AM

evolution disbeliver

24th March 2008, 12:17 AM

US,
Taking the flood narrative literally, there simply is not enough water to cover the mountaintops we know of today (and historically), nor even the mountaintops that were known historically without crazy geological upheaval that we just don't see evidence for in the geological record. To put it simply, the "water" issue is the least of the problems Creationists have regarding taking the Flood narrative literally.

Not taking it literally as it is written, would there be enough to flood the land high enough it could cause something like a mini-mass extinction? Perhaps hundred or so feet in elevation above sea level? I just cant see a large land animal scrambling up the side of a mountain or herds of animals (or humans) trying to out run fast aproaching flood waters to higher ground.

evolution disbeliver

24th March 2008, 12:22 AM

I think you are wrong. Where did you come up with the fact that there were no tectonic plates? Just because they were in a different place, does not mean there were no plates. There are also plates that do not correspond to any continents at all - oceanic plates. The continental plates being in close proximity to each other does not make them, and the oceanic plates, disappear.

That was my understanding of the theory. If all the continents were connected why would there be any plates? I never really studied it in depth. I was a very bad slacker in school unless something interested me. And that was one of them. I would sit and stare at the dino fossils and pics & try to imagine the size and strength that they must have had. I could've cared less about there enviroment at that time. Ahhh, I miss the teen years.:)

cyborg

24th March 2008, 03:37 AM

Because of the shear odds that evolution would continue let alone get started by itself are astronomical.

They are? Since when? Who presented these odds? Based on what?

And since it's already happened it hardly seems to make sense to talk about the odds of it not happening.

dahduh

24th March 2008, 06:36 AM

I am begining to think the argument is flawed and not the two theories.
It should be about the way it begins not the way it changed. While one theory is based on evidence and follows a logical train of thought, the other is based on what is observed but not tested. The argument has over the years turned into destructive attacks from both sides trying to defend themselves. When it should be used to ensure the betterment of our society and ensure our survival. Creationists seem to be upset more because they think it destroys God, when it should increase their faith in him. Because of the shear odds that evolution would continue let alone get started by itself are astronomical. So I guess that maybe I'm not an evoluton disbeliever totally, I wouldnt say I am a creationist either. I must be a ID'er, but I still subscribe to events in the bible. Some as they are stated, some not. Some are a little far fetched. Some absolutely make sense to me. Some will probably say that I am trying to ride the fence on this, some may say I am afraid too choose a side. But I honestly dont care. I know there is a god, the evidence for that is overwhelming, none of it testable....yet.

I must say this is one of the most honest and thoughtful comments I've encountered for a while. But if the OP will permit a slight philosophical digression, it seems to me your main point of difficulty is deciding what is 'truth'. Science relies upon evidence that is readily accessible to physical inquiry. Gold-plated evidence is repeatable, the same no matter who looks at it, and no matter when someone looks at it.

On the subject of evolution, evidence is often fragmentary and controversial. We are like detectives going in after murder and trying to piece together what actually happened. There may be dozens of hypotheses that fit the evidence, and if there is not enough evidence if may never be possible to eliminate all but one.

Here we have two hypotheses: one, life evolves by a process of natural selection, and two, life was created by an act of God.

Good hypotheses are economical and restrictive, and the theory of evolution is a good example. In the case of evolution, the idea is very simple and can easily be simulated in the laboratory or even a computer. And it is very restrictive: for example in biological systems, statistical probability demands that evolution occur by a very gradual process, and that (unless there were do distinct acts of abiogenesis) all living things must be related and organized into an evolutionary tree. This means if we find a single example of a 'jump' in evolution, or a tree that folds back on itself (like a bunny in the Precambrian), then evolution is disproved. Conversely, if we do find evidence for a 'tree of life' and that over time organisms have only changed slowly, then this is good evidence that evolution is a good hypothesis (although it is not positive proof). Here are some examples of observations that are very suggestive indeed:

1. Morphologically dinosaurs appear to have evolved into birds. So there _has_ to be a series of links somewhere, from creatures that don't have feathers, to creatures that do; and they must be found in geological strata of a very specific age. As indeed they are.

2. Bats have a unique echolocation feature, so there must be intermediate forms from something that doesn't have this ability, to something that does. Indeed, there are.

3. We now understand how DNA works, and that copies of the genome get passed down from generation to generation. So if something 'scars' that DNA in some way, then if it is not harmful and not subject to evolutionary pressures (like in an area of 'junk' DNA), then copies of that scar will be visible thousands of generations later. Indeed, we do find such evidence in quite distinct organism like gorillas and man, indicating that there was a common ancestor to each. It's always very satisfying when a theory predicts something about which nothing was known at the time the theory was postulated.

This is just a tiny sample of examples; there are thousands more. And while no single example is absolute proof that the evolution hypothesis is correct, taken together they are pretty damn convincing. For further information you can't do better than the talkorigins faq page (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html).

Now look at the alternative hypothesis: we are a product of divine creation. Unfortunately this is not a restrictive hypothesis, because no matter what we observe you can always say "well, God made it that way". So God could have created the world 6,000 years ago and planted all the evidence of evolution just to make it look like evolution occurred. Possible, but why would God do that? From there you have to delve into the mind of God, and always the answer is "The mind of God is inscrutable". Because the hypothesis is totally unrestrictive, it also has zero predictive power, and is therefore not useful. But in addition, the God hypothesis is also very uneconomical. It posits the existence of a highly intelligent being to explain our existence; but it provides no explanation for the origins of God. So in the end it doesn't really explain anything at all.

You do mention that "the evidence for that [God] is overwhelming", and if this is true then that might be one avenue of supporting the God hypothesis. It would be very interesting to hear what evidence you have to offer, but I think for that you would have to start another thread.

I do know that there is only one thing left for me to ask..........

are we able to change our board name without joining again? :blush::boggled::D

Don't; you already have a reputation to keep! Rather try think of a really clever avatar that will make it all look intelligently designed!

Wowbagger

24th March 2008, 08:46 AM

It seems to me, that most of the time, when one does not believe in evolution, it stems from a distorted understanding of the process. As a result, they tend to ask naive questions.

There is no shame in that. Evolution is not intuitive. But, understanding the basics is something everyone can do, without too much effort.

Before fighting against the theory, I suggest you read up on a good introductory course on it. The following site should suffice for now:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

Be sure to read through all the pages. Most of them are not terribly long.

I will talk more specifically about the lines of evidence, later.

evolution disbeliver

24th March 2008, 09:36 AM

Cyborg

They are? Since when? Who presented these odds? Based on what?

And since it's already happened it hardly seems to make sense to talk about the odds of it not happening.
Can you show me anywhere else in the universe that the same process has repeated?
I just presented them into the argument, but they have been presented to everybody by the creationist for what they say is roughly 6000 years.
For the creationists it is a big part of their argument.
And NO, I havent got the slightest idea of where to find any "scientific evidence for it. Other than simple observation.
dah duh

Quote:
I do know that there is only one thing left for me to ask..........

are we able to change our board name without joining again?
Don't; you already have a reputation to keep! Rather try think of a really clever avatar that will make it all look intelligently designed!
I was actually trying to make light of my situation. I already stated that I am not a bible thumping creationist, I just tended to agree with them. I'm not an intellectual by any means. Which leads to
wowbagger
It seems to me, that most of the time, when one does not believe in evolution, it stems from a distorted understanding of the process. As a result, they tend to ask naive questions.
I think I might be coming out of the closet so to speak.

cyborg

24th March 2008, 10:36 AM

Can you show me anywhere else in the universe that the same process has repeated?

Until fairly recently we couldn't even detect extra-solar systems. I think that may be setting the bar a little high yes?

I just presented them into the argument, but they have been presented to everybody by the creationist for what they say is roughly 6000 years.

Based on what though?

Anyone can present any argument with any premises they want. That doesn't mean that the argument's premises aren't just pulled out of thin air.

For the creationists it is a big part of their argument.

The Modus Operandi of the creationist is to use as many arguments as possible and hope some stick. Whether or not they are valid is neither here nor there from their perspective.

And NO, I havent got the slightest idea of where to find any "scientific evidence for it. Other than simple observation.

So you do or you don't?

What is this "simple observation" of which you speak?

evolution disbeliver

25th March 2008, 12:17 AM

The simple observation I speak of is looking at our planet, ecosystem as a whole from an un-scientific eye. The big part of their argument is the begining of life. Since evolution is not found in the bible and it has a different start that doesnt include a diety, it leans towards the destruction of their theory.
Can you show me anywhere else in the universe that the same process has repeated?
Until fairly recently we couldn't even detect extra-solar systems. I think that may be setting the bar a little high yes?
Not necessarily, since we can only show that the theory works on earth, we can only assume it would be the same on other planets. Would it not be arrogant of us as a species to think that is the definitive way it works every where? There may be other variables to consider in other places in the universe that are not known by us. But I do agree that we can say it would be similar to what we have here. There may or may not be some other way it gets started. I know that dips into philosophy but to be scentific we must still diligent in observation.
Anyone can present any argument with any premises they want. That doesn't mean that the argument's premises aren't just pulled out of thin air.
Creationists say that this is precisely what evolution does. By saying that there must be a "missing link" between A & C, we havent found a B but we know it is there. I (myself) agree after looking at the evidence that there must be a B somewhere. But the hard core creationist doesnt think it will ever be found because they take the bible literally. Which is where they get their theory from. That is why I cannot provide you with scientific evidence of their theory. There is a plethura of philoshophical evidence, but nothing scientific.

cyborg

25th March 2008, 01:52 AM

Not necessarily, since we can only show that the theory works on earth, we can only assume it would be the same on other planets. Would it not be arrogant of us as a species to think that is the definitive way it works every where?

I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything.

There is a plethura of philoshophical evidence, but nothing scientific.

So, in other words, just pulling stuff out of thin air?

UnrepentantSinner

25th March 2008, 02:24 AM

RY About the flood, I did say purposely say that I didnt note when it occured. According to evolution and carbon dating the earth is very, very old. Which means that it's surface did not always look the same. With tectonic plates sliding all over the place and smashing and bumping around creating the mountains and valleys would you not think that maybe the earth was a lot flatter at some point in time? And the earth is constantly replenishing itself which is why it is able to maintain life, so would one not theorize that there is just as much water on the earth, in the earth & above the earth as there was so many millions of years ago when the earth was flatter? Would there not be sufficient water to flood the earth then? But if that is accepted then it could lend a certain realization that Noah's ark might actually be true, but in order for that to fit it would mean that man was around longer than we think. If the Gap Theory is true that could be possible.

At what point would the Earth have been flatter? The Flinders Ranges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinders_Ranges#Geology) is 540 million years old. The Appalachian's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains#Geology) are 300 million years old. The Himalayas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalaya#Origins_and_growth) are 50 million years old and still growing. The geological evidence does not show a time frame when the Earth was flatter. An ad hoc "what if" suggestion doesn't jive with the evidence as much as the Flood narrative, was a moral metaphor about obeying God - just as much of Genesis is from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, to Lot's wife looking back at Sodom.
If you want one of the best resources on plate tectonics and the geological history of the world, check out Your tax dollars at work (http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html).

For all the evolutionists please dont forget that the earth was very, very different than what we have today, so therefore many todays rules do not apply to millions & millions of years ago.

Which ones? Chemistry and physics certainly haven't changed. Geology wasn't any different back then. There were periods and locations of increased activity such as the Siberian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps) and Deccan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_traps) Traps. There were periods and locations of decreased activity. Probably the only two major changes between the Earth we know now and what it was like before was plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants#Ordovician_flora) and animals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapod#Devonian_tetrapods) colonizing the land in the Ordovician and Devonian respectively.

It was a totally different environment than what it is today. Just look at your own evidence. The anatomy of a dino is a great example. Just about all of them had comparatively small nostrils when compared to the size of their bodies. Which is proof of a very different environment than todays. Even their sheer size lends one to thing something was goin on with the gravity as well. They should have been crushed under their own weight.

Do you have citations for these?

UnrepentantSinner

25th March 2008, 02:34 AM

That makes sense. But what of the findings that Dinos may have been warm blooded? And what about their enviroment? So from the constuction of their nostrils the climate was warmer? And inherrently wetter? & finally could a warmer wetter climate lead to an increased abundance of plant life leading to a higher content in the O2 of the atmosphere leading to an increase in the barometric pressure?
Wow that question is worded like a question at a Presidential press conference!
Sorry guys & girls. :o

It's possible that saurian dinosaurs were cold blooded and theropod dinosaurs were warm blooded. I'm not sure and a Google search for dinosaur+nostrils only brings up hits of stories about how paleontologists had misplaced them in earlier recreations (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dinosaur+nostrils). Did you have a specific source to which you're referring?

UnrepentantSinner

25th March 2008, 03:03 AM

US Yes I knew about the Iridium layer. But my question is could there not have been a world wide flood before that. I do think that a flood would be able to cause mass extinction as much as an object impacting the earth.

Again, we can't look at things in a vacuum. There wasn't just a mass extinction, there were geological events going on in some periods (the Siberian Traps I linked to above are the most likely smoking gun for the Permian extinction), impacts like the K-T extinctions (iridium layer and Chicxulub crator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater), along with the Deccan Traps) and climatalogical events like the extinction of late-Pleistocene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna) (along with human hunting and disease). And as you see by my parenthetical comments, even when there's one primary factor, there often were a number of others. Add to that the lack of evidence for a single world-wide flood in the geological record and there just isn't any support for The Flood.

I just think it's odd that it is so quickly thrown out as false when it seems entirely plausible. I'm not saying that it occurred during the time of humans. Why could it not have happened before or even very close to early humans?

Possible is not the same as plausible and neither means likely. Also see my comment about things occuring in a vacuum again. We have no evidence of a Flood being the cause of the major extinctions, but we do have a number of other evidences I just listed. Also rejecting the Flood isn't something done recently or willy nilly. Two centuries ago, there were people who advocated the Flood called Neptunists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunism). Pioneering geologist James Hutton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton) argued against this by advocating Uniformitarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism_%28science%29) and his view won out.

I

MG1962

25th March 2008, 03:57 AM

Possible is not the same as plausible and neither means likely. Also see my comment about things occuring in a vacuum again. We have no evidence of a Flood being the cause of the major extinctions, but we do have a number of other evidences I just listed. Also rejecting the Flood isn't something done recently or willy nilly. Two centuries ago, there were people who advocated the Flood called Neptunists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunism). Pioneering geologist James Hutton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton) argued against this by advocating Uniformitarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism_%28science%29) and his view won out.I

The thing is flood events are very heavily studied. The nature and rates of sedimentation are extremely important to paleontologist and geologist because they are one of the few time measures we have of geologic events. So any catacysmic event is well studied.

Below is an image of North Head, at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Over half this formation was formed in one gigantic flood. The effects of this flood covered the area from Sydney to Newcastle, over 200 miles. But the boundry edge and timing of this flood is very precisely known. If a world wide connected flood had occured on this planet. We would see something similar on a world wide basis. Simply we dont

http://www.harbourtrust.gov.au/images/photographic/nh09.jpg

UnrepentantSinner

25th March 2008, 05:19 AM

ed, I might actually finally get caught up today. :)

The thing is flood events are very heavily studied. The nature and rates of sedimentation are extremely important to paleontologist and geologist because they are one of the few time measures we have of geologic events. So any catacysmic event is well studied.

Below is an image of North Head, at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Over half this formation was formed in one gigantic flood. The effects of this flood covered the area from Sydney to Newcastle, over 200 miles. But the boundry edge and timing of this flood is very precisely known. If a world wide connected flood had occured on this planet. We would see something similar on a world wide basis. Simply we dont.

That superfluous I above should have been a continuation differentiating between Unformitarianism and the Creationist straw man which says it means there are never any catastrophic events. Of course there are and I listed a couple, but I you're right, none of them were floods.

An historic example here in North America is the Missoula Floods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods) which were glacial lake outburst floods that lasted for 2000 years. These were massive catastrophic floods, but they weren't global. So, ed, yes we do have evidence of huge, regional, highly destructive floods... but we simply don't have any evidence of a world-wide one.

UnrepentantSinner

25th March 2008, 10:02 AM

US I understand your schedule totally, my days start at 10pm.

Then I hope you'll accept my apology for replying to posts you have made that others have because I want to put my own spin on it and between work duties and bandwidth, I'm not sure I'll ever catch up. :D

Not necessarily, what one culture derives about something another could get something entirely different. I was meaning them as a whole.

This is more ad hoc argumentation. We still don't have any of the normal archeological or even paleontoligical evidence that humans and dinosaurs - which might or might not be the inspiration for dragon tales - living contemporaneously. We don't find dragon middens where the remains of consumed modern humans exist. We don't find any trophy remains of dragons or dinosaurs in human archeological sites. We don't find any dragon or dinosaur bones in human trash middens. We also don't find any minotaurs, shedu, centaurs, harpies, nagas, pegasi, unicorns, etc. etc. What is the more likely conclusion then - that dragons were dinosaurs and existed until the 14th Century or that they, like the other fantastic beings existed only in the minds of the people who wrote about them?

In other words T might give birth to an U while it is not another T it is still closer to a T than a D, but it is still related to the D & T
Right? I am still looking at that site, alot of work has gone into that.

Exactly. Keep digging around the TOL site.

Boobies are the greatest feature in nature. lol

They make me happy I was born a mammal! :D

Exactly why I was said philosphy, I was implying all dating methods. Giving that we really only know the tip of the ice burgh about the universe.

I think at this point I've given you enough links to show you that geology isn't based on philosophy, but on science and in almost every case very hard sciences like physics and chemistry and even the areas where geology and paleontology overlaps into the "merely" hard sciences, the conclusions geologists have made about index fossils, microfossils, sedimentary layers like chalk, salt and limestone aren't ad hoc rationializations, but are based on solid scientific observations, theories and conclusions.

NO it doesnt and it wouldnt take 10 mile deep water to flood the earth. If evolution is corroborated by other sciences then wouldnt Pangaea be rather flat considering it is the only continent on the planet at the time? The highest point being volcanoes? The lower elevations created by erosion? There could technically be no mountain ranges because there is no tectonic plates.
or am I wrong?

I hate to reply to your question with a question, but why would Pangea be rather flat? If it was the result of plate tectonics, wouldn't it inherently have high mountains just as we see today? Also, as I noted above, both the Flinders Ranges and Appalacians predate Pangea and the Himalayas started forming shortly after it broke up. And no, volcanos don't tend to be the highest mountains, those are created by the tectonic plates crashing into each other (see the Rockies, Andes and Himalayas {which continue to grow as we speak}) are. Erosion is why the Appalachians are lower than the Rockies/Andes and Himalayas, but that has occured over the 100 million years since they stopped "growing". As far as Pangea goes, check it this Wiki page along with that USGS publication I recommended, see especially the animation of how Pangea broke apart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangea

godless dave

25th March 2008, 12:02 PM

And yes I would like a little more clarification of how we get from a dino to a walrus to a tree to man. I can follow it backwards to a point, but then I when it becomes an entirely different organism I get lost. I can understand the human ape concept and the fish to shark, even dino to bird, but a reptile to mammal, warm blooded to cold blooded? insect to human? How does it go from a to b to c to all of a sudden x?

It doesn't. It goes through d, e, f, g, etc. before it gets to x.

UnrepentantSinner

26th March 2008, 09:37 AM

UnrepentantSinner

17th April 2008, 03:44 AM

Has ed stopped posting here or did he change his user ID?

smloeffelholz

17th April 2008, 01:45 PM

He didn't change his user ID, he just posted on another thread. From his last post it seems that everyone changed his views on evolution though. All with me barely having to lift a finger. The responses came so fast I could barely keep up. Nice work people.

evolution disbeliver

17th April 2008, 07:04 PM

I'm still here, just finding time to post is getting hard lately. Between the day job and doing my first love & family stuff it's hard to be on different forums all the time.
I guess I wasnt a true creationist in the sense of the word. I will still believe there is a God and never will deny that. Because for us (humans) to continue to advance our civilization further we must have an underlying belief that there is something more than death at the end. Otherwise we will never achieve any more than we now know and more than likely revert back to a barbaric society.

Wowbagger

17th April 2008, 07:20 PM

Because for us (humans) to continue to advance our civilization further we must have an underlying belief that there is something more than death at the end. Otherwise we will never achieve any more than we now know and more than likely revert back to a barbaric society.That's a very nice way of thinking, I guess.

Though. secular humanists will disagree. Most of them are not prone to believe in anything beyond death, and they're not going to allow anyone to revert to barbaric society. But, that's just them.

And, that's no reason not to accept the scientific progress that theories such as Evolution bring to the world. Especially since that progress drives us ever further from our ancient barbaric roots.

cyborg

19th April 2008, 12:36 AM

I guess I wasnt a true creationist in the sense of the word. I will still believe there is a God and never will deny that. Because for us (humans) to continue to advance our civilization further we must have an underlying belief that there is something more than death at the end. Otherwise we will never achieve any more than we now know and more than likely revert back to a barbaric society.

We will?

Alternatively we won't advance civilization at all. What's the point? We might as well all give up on this annoyingly problematic world and go enter the afterlife.

Doesn't your love for your family provide a better motivator since your children are going to have to live with the world you help to shape?

H3LL

19th April 2008, 02:58 AM

EB, I would be curious as to what you consider to be reliable evidence as well as how you judge the source of that evidence.

I always find this a difficult subject with a believer because, for me, any believer in any god will accept very poor standards of evidence, such as "Someone I don't know says so. So it must be true."

You have already stated very clearly your belief in a god and that is your choice and we won't go there in this thread.

I would appreciate you letting us know what constituted good evidence and how you judge the source.

For example, I would take Darwin and Hovind to help.

Darwin's theory of evolution required initial assumptions that then needed to be supported by evidence. Those assumptions and evidence then require checking, confirming and repeating by others. Many, many others. All the information gathered is available both from Darwin and the myriad of people in the years after him for you to check and see the inescapable conclusions.

Hovind also makes assumption in a manner no different than Darwin. So far this is fine. Then there is a problem. There is no evidence. None. Just more assumptions. If there was any reliable evidence for Hovind's ideas, they would be checked, confirmed and repeated. This doesn't happen. This cannot happen. There is no reliable evidence to support what he says.

Added to this, we have a further problem. Hovind is a proven liar, fraud and peddler of disinformation who is know to associate with people that have been called liars by a judge and is a man that has been shown to have little grasp of even basic scientific concepts. This should make one suspicious of his motives.

However, lets pretend for a moment that Darwin is the known liar, fraud and peddler of disinformation and Hovind is as honest as the day is long.

Darwin still has evidence that supports what he says that can be checked and checked carefully as he is a known liar and fraud. Evolution is still valid.

Hovind still has nothing. ID/Creationism is still invalid.

Finally, I would like you to consider, what to me, is a vital question:

Assuming evolution is wrong and ID/Creationism (or its various flavours) is correct (it isn't). What possible, practical use does it have in any scientific field? Biology, geology, medicine, physics, whatever? You choose.

Try to think of any technology that can be developed from the "science" of ID/Creationism.

My conclusion would be that even if right, ID does not work and evolution, even if wrong - works.

Having theories that work is what science is about.

ID/Creationism isn't science.

.

godless dave

19th April 2008, 06:47 AM

I guess I wasnt a true creationist in the sense of the word. I will still believe there is a God and never will deny that.

No one is asking you to. The idea that accepting evolution means giving up a belief in god is a flat-out lie told by unscrupulous preachers.

Because for us (humans) to continue to advance our civilization further we must have an underlying belief that there is something more than death at the end. Otherwise we will never achieve any more than we now know and more than likely revert back to a barbaric society.

I couldn't disagree more, and I'm curious how you came up with such a bizarre idea, especially since almost all barbaric societies believed in gods and life after death. But that doesn't have anything to do with evolution.

Consider what cyborg said:

Doesn't your love for your family provide a better motivator since your children are going to have to live with the world you help to shape?

UnrepentantSinner

19th April 2008, 08:36 AM

EB...

It's "ED" (or "ed" as I use it since he used lower case for his ID), and it seems to me like you were replying to his first post. Did you read the 100ish since then? He's pretty much given up on Creationism and appears to be taking a TE approch to ID (assuming he's even familiar with their "arguments") if one at all.

smloeffelholz

23rd February 2009, 04:31 PM

I am attempting to reopen this thread and get another YEC from the Skeptoid website to come debate on this forum. I am not sure if he will show up, but if he does, I would appreciate any and all help. Below are the general rules I set when this thread began.

This thread is intended to be used by those discussing this topic on the skeptoid website. This will hopefully allow a more in depth discussion by avoiding the 1500 character limit that is enforced at skeptoid. Anyone who wishes to post is more than welcome, but please keep your comments directed at the subject and not at the posters.

I do have a couple of requests for those who wish to post on this thread. First, please keep the argument on topic. This is not a debate on the big bang, or abiogenesis, or god. This is intended to discuss the science behind evolution and creationism. Second, try to refrain from using the shotgun method of debating. Do not simply post 20 broad questions or speculations at once and expect someone to write an entire novel for you. If possible, stick to discussing only a few key topics per post so the thread remains readable. Third, if you are going to use quotes or studies, please do your best to cite them in their full context and where the information was found. Too often, people pull quotes out of text in order to prove a point the quote was never meant to make.

This being said, I look forward to this discussion and hope that everyone involved keeps it civil and informational.

UnrepentantSinner

24th February 2009, 11:02 PM

I hope he or she shows up.

smloeffelholz

25th February 2009, 01:07 PM

I hope so too. This guy has been trolling the Skeptoid website where the 1500 character limit has made a cohesive rebuttal nearly impossible. You cannot answer a single question adequately with that limit, much less if he asks two or three in one post. Currently he is claiming that he cannot join JREF because of an anti-virus configuration problem. If he does end up coming, your help will be much appreciated.

Garry Webb

5th March 2009, 09:32 PM

Since I am no longer bound by a word limit, please allow me a few lines to set up my proposed query. When I use the term "evolution" I am referring to the Darwinian ideology of special evolution from one organism to another, and not simply "change" as the true definition of evolution suggests. One of the problems in debating the modern theory labeled as "evolution" is that the molecules-to-men adherents have high jacked the term. Most creationists will readily confess that living things change, only that the change is limited to within any given species. Genetic variation is a fact of nature and not automatically Darwinian ideology. Modern evolutionists have attempted to make arguing against Darwin as hard as possible by changing the theory from its original doctrines. An example: "Myth #1- Men evolved from apes. This is the oldest and wrongest misconception about evolution. Nobody has ever suggested that one living species changes into a different living species. Some criticisms of evolution show illustrations that fraudulently purport to show what evolutionists claim: that a salmon changed into a turtle, which changed into an alligator, which changed into a hippo, which changed into a lion, and then into a monkey, and then into a human being. Of course such a theory would seem ludicrous. But it's pure fantasy and has nothing in common with real evolution." Now, everyone is well aware that evolutionists believe that men evolved from apes and every "evolutionary tree of life" shows that is exactly what is being displayed. That’s the bad thing about the Internet; you cannot hide history, only try to change it. The only thing that is disputable is whether or not you are going to be honest enough to call your transitional, intermediate "missing links", apes or humans! Is a branch, twig, bud, or leaf of an oak tree ever a maple or sycamore? Once an oak, always an oak! Unless of course, an avid arborist grafts in some other type of tree; but that would then be intelligent design, not evolution. This new version has been formulated in an attempt to justify the reality of what is witnessed against scientific facts. Nothing more! If Darwinian evolution is true, it has always been true. Some that hold to the "proven" theory of Darwinian evolution also claim a belief in a divine being or "god". Arguably, this belief is almost un-avoidable when considering the beginning of "natural life"; especially when you attempt to explain a process of animate life from a previously un-living something, and totally driven by chance and random occurrences. I realize that this leads away from this topic and will not pursue it here, but if the evolutionary process is the standard by which life has come to be, it should be open for the debate. And tell me why creationists are chided to “prove a God” and evolutionists get a free ride, not having to explain the foundational origin to their theory? What did the first organism evolve from? What did those chemicals evolve from? What did those gases evolve from? What did that matter evolve from? I do not expect to get an answer; I do not believe that there is one for evolutionists. Even Charles Darwin wrestled with this mountain sized speedbump! In his introduction to "The Origin of Species", Darwin declared that "When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers." It is an injustice that Darwin never tried to explain this "mystery of mysteries", or any origin of any species; I believe, because he knew where it always leads and as one of your own has stated “that is unthinkable”! While insisting that "It is, therefore, of the highest importance to gain a clear insight into the means of modification and coadaptation", Chucky D stated that "the most apparent and gravest difficulties on the theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or understanding how a simple being or a simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or elaborately constructed organ…"; and that from nothing, if I may intone! Those of us that refuse to accept Darwinian Theory as an acceptable scientific probability are disallowed from questioning the very first processes; those that would be necessary for Darwinian evolution to establish itself and then become the "natural" process in which all life has been established and developed. In the final chapter, "Recapitulation and Conclusion", Darwin stated that "Glancing at instincts, marvellous as some are, they offer no greater difficulty than does corporeal structure on the theory of the natural selection of successive, slight, but profitable modifications." It was in this light that Darwin (again in “The Origin”) demanded “ that if it could be shown that any system or organ could not be produced by many small steps, continuously improving the system at each step, then my system would absolutely fall apart.” My question is grounded in that challenge. How about the first organism? According to the standards by which the evolutionary process has been applied to the creationists resistance of Darwinian proposed evolutionary theory, has the system of chemical animation that is needed to produce life in its simplest form now been scientifically documented and accepted as fact within the scientific community? Is Miller/Urey the answer? They were so unsuccessful, that the very environment that “created” their little Frankenstein had to be isolated to keep it from killing it! Let's look at what the real evidence shows, and remeber, let's try to stay on topic!

UnrepentantSinner

6th March 2009, 03:37 AM

Since I am no longer bound by a word limit, please allow me a few lines to set up my proposed query.

First off, feel free to blather on as much as you want here, but please please break your posts up into paragraphs so your ideas will at least have the appearance of cogency.

When I use the term "evolution" I am referring to the Darwinian ideology...

If you want to be taken seriously around her you won't use loaded verbiage like "ideology" or nicknames like "Chucky D"...

...of special evolution from one organism to another, and not simply "change" as the true definition of evolution suggests.

Then let me correct you so that you can use the term evolution properly. It refers to the change in genetic makeup of populations in response to their environment. This manisfests in small morphological changes which, over long periods of time, can result in speciation.

One of the problems in debating the modern theory labeled as "evolution" is that the molecules-to-men* adherents have high jacked the term.

* See my second reply above.
And actually, no. Science did not hijack the term. Darwin proposed a theory of evolution and, except for some additions (like genetics - which verified his predictions), it's the same theory scientists refer to today. Creationists have tried to hijack the term and make it mean something that it does not. That's their problem, not one for science.

Most creationists will readily confess that living things change, only that the change is limited to within any given species.

What do you mean by species? Are you literally referring to species (in which case I'll have an interesting teaching moment about descent and phylogenetic trees for you) or are you referring to "kinds" or "baramins"? You need to be specific.

Genetic variation is a fact of nature and not automatically Darwinian ideology. Modern evolutionists have attempted to make arguing against Darwin as hard as possible by changing the theory from its original doctrines.

Everything in these two sentences is backwards. Darwin understood traits were passed with modification, so didn't Mendel. Once Watson and Crick discovered DNA we were off to the races in figuring out how traits were passed on and how they could change. A great example of this is the Hox gene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hox_genes) that determines body plans. It's the same gene in insects, fish and mammals, but expresses itself differently in each. Also the theory hasn't had to be changed much such Darwin wrote Origin. In fact Douglas Theobald cites him directly and extensively in his 29 Evidences for Macroevolution (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) essays.

An example: "Myth #1- Men evolved from apes. This is the oldest and wrongest misconception about evolution.

Not a myth. Humans are apes that descended from an ape like common ancestor that we share with our fellow apes.

Nobody has ever suggested that one living species changes into a different living species.

That's half, and I bet inadvertently, correct. Populations, over time, build up mutations which, if not spread amonst the entire population, can result in subspeciation. Further, over longer periods of time, those new subspecies populations can lead to new taxonomic relationships between those subspecies. I refer back to my teaching moment comment on descent and phylogenetic relationships. It's a pretty long discussion that will warrent its own separate post.

Some criticisms of evolution show illustrations that fraudulently purport to show what evolutionists claim: that a salmon changed into a turtle, which changed into an alligator, which changed into a hippo, which changed into a lion, and then into a monkey, and then into a human being. Of course such a theory would seem ludicrous. But it's pure fantasy and has nothing in common with real evolution."

Huh? Yes there are such incorrect claims made by Creationists. Are you trying to suggest they don't because I can point you towards Kirk Cameron and his Crocoduck fiasco? Apart from that and the superfluous quotation mark I can't see what point you're trying to make.

Now, everyone is well aware that evolutionists believe that men evolved from apes and every "evolutionary tree of life" shows that is exactly what is being displayed.

I pointed out where "humans evolved from apes" is a gross oversimplification above. Humans are part of the Hominoidea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominoidea) that includes all living apes (including us) and our extinct common ancestors and cousin species. As far as the tree of life goes, here's the Hominidae (http://www.tolweb.org/Hominidae/16299) (just great apes) page on the Tree of Life webproject. You can spend hours clicking on the taxonomic links to see how humans fit into the tree.

That’s the bad thing about the Internet; you cannot hide history, only try to change it.

Ask Kent Hovind about the Darwinism Disproved website. :D

The only thing that is disputable is whether or not you are going to be honest enough to call your transitional, intermediate "missing links", apes or humans!

Really? You must not know much about the debate or the actual science then because as my two links above show there are a number of taxonomic levels within "apes" that have been applied and we where to group living or fossil finds within those groups. As far as the hominid fossils (direct human ancestors or extinct cousins), you do realize that all of them (chronologically speaking) from Australopithicenes forward have their foramen magnum located at the bottom of their skull meaning they walked upright and there are no other upright walking apes than hominids right? Taung child (http://anthropology.si.edu/HumanOrigins/ha/taung1.html)

I'd also note that Creationists themselves cannot even decide which fossils are "ape" and which are "human" (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html). If you think you can step up to the plate, check out the this image below and draw the line between ape and human. A is a chimpanzee. N is a modern human.
http://forums.randi.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=7739&d=1185236157

Klimax

6th March 2009, 04:51 AM

Since I am no longer bound by a word limit, please allow me a few lines to set up my proposed query.
Huge snipage done...

Wall of text.Bad idea.Structure it into paragraphs and please,take a look at Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=5),where you'll find some discussion regarding evolution.(among other things)

UnrepentantSinner

6th March 2009, 05:12 AM

Wall of text.Bad idea.

So is quoting a giant post in its entirety. :p

- me too, thanks for snipping it down.

Klimax

6th March 2009, 05:31 AM

So is quoting a giant post in its entirety. :p

Sigh.At least I did not parcel it to one line text,one line empty...
Still got edit-window...

UnrepentantSinner

6th March 2009, 05:38 AM

So. Where was I. Ah, yes...

Once an oak, always an oak!

I do hope you'll take me up on my offer to help you understand speciation, descent and phylogenetic relationships.

Unless of course, an avid arborist grafts in some other type of tree; but that would then be intelligent design, not evolution.

Right. Of course such things aren't included in evolutionary theory so I don't know why you mention them. Cows with spider DNA in their milk or fish with phosphorescent diatom DNA are lab creations, not what we find in nature nor what evolution deals with.

This new version has been formulated in an attempt to justify the reality of what is witnessed against scientific facts. Nothing more! If Darwinian evolution is true, it has always been true.

Huh? The theory of evolution has yet to be falsified and every observation made so far has verified its predictions.

Some that hold to the "proven" theory of Darwinian evolution also claim a belief in a divine being or "god".

Those would be called Theistic Evolutionists for the purpose of the discussion and there are a large portion of the planets population.

Arguably, this belief is almost un-avoidable when considering the beginning of "natural life"; especially when you attempt to explain a process of animate life from a previously un-living something, and totally driven by chance and random occurrences. I realize that this leads away from this topic and will not pursue it here, but if the evolutionary process is the standard by which life has come to be, it should be open for the debate. And tell me why creationists are chided to “prove a God” and evolutionists get a free ride, not having to explain the foundational origin to their theory? What did the first organism evolve from? What did those chemicals evolve from? What did those gases evolve from? What did that matter evolve from?

You're all over the place here, but abiogenesis, big bang, etc. is another topic and smloeffelholz asked:
I do have a couple of requests for those who wish to post on this thread. First, please keep the argument on topic. This is not a debate on the big bang, or abiogenesis, or god. This is intended to discuss the science behind evolution and creationism.

I do not expect to get an answer; I do not believe that there is one for evolutionists.

First, if you conflate "evolutionists" with "atheists" you're incorrect. Second, you can get an answer but, third, this thread is not the place for that discussion. Please stick to the topic which is the science behind Creationism and evolution.

Even Charles Darwin wrestled with this mountain sized speedbump! In his introduction to "The Origin of Species", Darwin declared that "When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers." It is an injustice that Darwin never tried to explain this "mystery of mysteries", or any origin of any species;

Apart from the fact that you don't seem to understand what "mystery of mysteries" he was referring to, he spent the rest of Origin explaining it.

I believe, because he knew where it always leads and as one of your own has stated “that is unthinkable”!

Are you talking about the Collin Patterson misquote/quote mine?

While insisting that "It is, therefore, of the highest importance to gain a clear insight into the means of modification and coadaptation", Chucky D stated that "the most apparent and gravest difficulties on the theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or understanding how a simple being or a simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or elaborately constructed organ…"; and that from nothing, if I may intone!

You could, but you'd be entirely incorrect since homology shows that structures and organs in descendant species evolve from existing or simpler but similar structures and organs in ancestral species. You'd also be ignoring the 150 years of evidence collected since the writing of Origin and the bounty of discoveries made in the 50 years since we unlocked DNA - see the Hox gene link in my earlier post.

Those of us that refuse to accept Darwinian Theory as an acceptable scientific probability are disallowed from questioning the very first processes; those that would be necessary for Darwinian evolution to establish itself and then become the "natural" process in which all life has been established and developed.

No you're allowed to ask any question about evolutionary theory you want. You just need to have some basic understanding of what it is and what it is not.

In the final chapter, "Recapitulation and Conclusion", Darwin stated that "Glancing at instincts, marvellous as some are, they offer no greater difficulty than does corporeal structure on the theory of the natural selection of successive, slight, but profitable modifications." It was in this light that Darwin (again in “The Origin”) demanded “ that if it could be shown that any system or organ could not be produced by many small steps, continuously improving the system at each step, then my system would absolutely fall apart.” My question is grounded in that challenge.

No it is not. You question appears to be a myopic focus on abiogenesis, but you may ask any question you want about evolution which, as Darwin knew, applied to extant life.

How about the first organism? According to the standards by which the evolutionary process has been applied to the creationists resistance of Darwinian proposed evolutionary theory, has the system of chemical animation that is needed to produce life in its simplest form now been scientifically documented and accepted as fact within the scientific community? Is Miller/Urey the answer? They were so unsuccessful, that the very environment that “created” their little Frankenstein had to be isolated to keep it from killing it! Let's look at what the real evidence shows, and...

If you want to discuss abiogenesis, go to the Science subforum. If you want to discuss evolution, then let's get started and...

...remeber, let's try to stay on topic!

... you might want to turn on your irony meter.

Garry Webb

6th March 2009, 01:44 PM

I had to double check the topic! Let's see. It's: Evolution or Creationism, Where does the evidence lead? Creationism has a beginning; didn't evolutionary life?

So, you have chosen the old "argument from grammatical correction" approach, I see. And thank you for setting me straight and demonstrating the correct way to blather! I had no idea that cogency meant using twice the space of the post that you are attacking and retort on every sentence. I do stand corrected. Why waste time blathering, I will get to the topic that you clearly avoided in your wordy bloviation.

Why did you bring up abiogenesis or Big Bang? Did I? No! Abiogenesis does not even exist in the real world, but here we are. You do not believe that everything came from nothing do you? It must have come from something, and if evolution, as you believe it to be is the natural processes of life and insist that science proves it to be, surely you can explain the first process. You insist that Darwinian evolution is science, then I will insist that since science is a means to discover and increase human understanding of how the physical world actually works, why set limits to how much of the physical world can be debated.

Obeying your command to "Please stick to the topic which is the science behind Creationism and evolution", and in the spirit in which it is offered, I again ask the question proposed in my first post: How about the first organism? According to the standards by which the evolutionary process has been applied to the creationists resistance of Darwinian proposed evolutionary theory, has the system of chemical animation that is needed to produce life in its simplest form now been scientifically documented and accepted as fact within the scientific community? Remember, "Where does the evidence lead?"

Did you notice? I used paragraphs!

smloeffelholz

6th March 2009, 05:36 PM

Garry, if you are going to quote something, please quote it accurately. The myth listed on the Skeptoid site is "Men evolved from modern apes." The word modern makes that sentence completely different, and correctly points out a common creationist myth. Brian was trying to make the point that humans did not evolve from the apes that you can see in a zoo today. The truth is that humans and the modern great apes all share a recent common ancestor and exist in a similar portion of the nested hierarchy that is the evolutionary tree.

Also, when Brian was talking about an animal not changing into another animal, I am almost positive that was just terrible wording to make his point (keeping an episode about evolution around 10min is a chore and it seems he missed his mark on this point). I believe that the point he was trying to make is that no organism, in its own lifetime, will change into a different organism, or that no organism will ever produce progeny completely unlike itself (ie a rat never gave birth to a bat). These are both important points to make because these are myths that some creationists (Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort were mentioned earlier) use to argue against evolution.

When you are asking for explanations about how life formed from non-living materials, or how space-time came to be, you are asking questions about abiogenesis and the big bang respectively, regardless of whether you use those words or not. The reason I do not want those topics discussed in this thread is because they are completely different disciplines than evolution. Evolution deals with changes in existing living organisms (the origins of species), not the steps required to create a cell from non-living matter (the origins of life). Though I would gladly discuss those topics with you, this is not the right place to do it. UrS mentioned a thread on these topics, so perhaps he could post a link to them. That way we can keep this thread on topic, and still discuss the theories you are interested in.

I would appreciate it if you would read (or reread) the first post in this thread. The requests that I made in that post are to keep the thread readable, to avoid the good ole' Gish Gallop (your first post was on the edge of being one), and to prevent ad hominem attacks (which your second post flirted with).

Garry Webb

6th March 2009, 07:23 PM

I have been familiarizing myself with what evolutionists insist is the evidence that most proves evolution and I came across and began to read the article
“15 Evolutionary Gems”, so I decided to study each “Gem” (cubic zirconium, actually) one at a time.

On the “Stand Up For Real Science” website, a pro-Darwinian blog, I found an article entitled “Indohyus: Yet Another Piece of the Puzzle”. I can't help but snicker at the "evidence" that was posited to be "proof" that this little gem was the ancestor of whales.

As I am prone to do on occasion, I first attempted to Google an actual picture of a skeletal fossil by which I could compare the similarities and descriptions. But, alas, as is usual in the world of Darwinian ideology, a few small fragments, nothing complete, and then cartoons and drawings. If you would be so kind, please visit blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk to confirm that what I am saying is true.

The article says that "This little animal has been named Indohyus, although the skeleton is not complete the skull has been found and the preserved middle ear structure is identical to that found in the cetacean group. (No complete skeleton but they know every detail about it.) Isotope analysis of the teeth is a little "ambiguous", but has led to "speculation" that this animal was "probably" a herbivore and that it "may have" fed in water, although another "interpretation of this data" would conclude that Indohyus "probably" fed on land but spent a lot of time in an aquatic environment." In this article it is admitted that “Indohyus was clearly not a cetacean, but “it may have been” a close cousin to the ancestors of cetaceans. Indeed…there is very little resemblance between Indohyus and modern cetaceans.”

Further investigation reveals that there is a living creature that resembles the little cartoon Indohyus, called the African mousedeer, or chevrotain, which lives on the forest floor but hides in the water to take cover from predators. And surprisingly, the drawing of the Indohyus has feet that are not anatomically familiar to a chevrotain or the drawing of the skeleton. Oops! “Ironically”, Hans Thewissen professes that the common ancestor of whales and Indohyus “may have been” a herbivore plant-eater that took to water to hide out, but eventually switched to a swimming, meat-eating lifestyle, which it passed down to modern cetaceans.”

In another article @ "The Scientific American", entitled "Closest Whale Cousin—A Fox-Size Deer?" I read that the actual evidentiary fossil was discovered 30 years ago in Kashmir, and was dated at least two million years younger than the earliest known cetacean fossils. Oops! The feature considered the link to cetaceans is “a thickened medial lip of its auditory bulla, the involucrum, a feature previously thought to be present exclusively in cetaceans. Involucrum size varies among cetaceans, but the relative thickness of medial and lateral walls of the tympanic of Indohyus is clearly within the range of that of cetaceans and is well outside the range of other cetartiodactyls.” But through a thorough investigation of "involucrum", it is discovered that it can be formed in any creature through injury, disease, or at the time of death. In the real world of science, involucrum is defined as a sheath that covers or envelopes, especially one that forms around the sequestrum of new bone. A sequestrum being any fragment of bone or other dead tissue that has separated during necrosis, which is the localized death of cells or tissues through injury or disease.

The story closes with this statement: "The new analysis does not yet unseat the hippo as cetaceans' kissing cousin, because it only takes into account anatomical features, not molecular ones, says Maureen O'Leary, a professor in the department of anatomical sciences at Stony Brook University on Long Island, N.Y. She says that her own categorization of artiodactyls supports the hippo as the closest relative to cetaceans, but notes that it did not include the features uncovered by the Ohio team."

This argument could be settled very easily by doing DNA comparisons of modern whales, hippos, and mousedeer. I venture to bet that we will never hear the results! Gotta go for now, I have 14 more gems to study.

Klimax

6th March 2009, 10:57 PM

UnrepentantSinner

7th March 2009, 02:48 AM

Garry, try chilling out a bit and let's have a discussion rather than a debate.

I had to double check the topic! Let's see. It's: Evolution or Creationism, Where does the evidence lead? Creationism has a beginning; didn't evolutionary life?

It was noted above, "This is intended to discuss the science behind evolution and creationism", so lets stick to the science. And you question doesn't make any sense. There is no "evolutionary life". There is life which, after it got started, evolved. Evolutionary theory doesn't really care whether life on Earth got started through abiogenesis, panspermia, an act of fiat creation by God or is a science experiment of hyperdimensional high schoolers. Evolution only addresses life that exists. If there is no life, there is no evolution. Once there is life, evolution cannot - from what we've determined - be stopped.

So, you have chosen the old "argument from grammatical correction" approach, I see. And thank you for setting me straight and demonstrating the correct way to blather! I had no idea that cogency meant using twice the space of the post that you are attacking and retort on every sentence. I do stand corrected. Why waste time blathering, I will get to the topic that you clearly avoided in your wordy bloviation.

Instead of diversions like this, how about you stick to the topic and discuss the content that I presented above? I gave you plenty of subjects and areas for us to get into in response to subjects and areas you raised.

Why did you bring up abiogenesis or Big Bang? Did I? No!

Actually you did here:
And tell me why creationists are chided to “prove a God” and evolutionists get a free ride, not having to explain the foundational origin to their theory? What did the first organism evolve from? What did those chemicals evolve from? What did those gases evolve from? What did that matter evolve from?
particularly the bolded part. Abiogenesis was also the gist the last couple column inches of your post.

Abiogenesis does not even exist in the real world, but here we are.

I don't really know what you mean by this, but since abiogenesis is a separate topic from evolution I'll move on.

You do not believe that everything came from nothing do you?

Evolutionary theory isn't about "everything" coming from "nothing" and neither is abiogenesis for that matter. But since this isn't about evolution I'll move on.

It must have come from something, and if evolution, as you believe it to be is the natural processes of life and insist that science proves it to be, surely you can explain the first process. You insist that Darwinian evolution is science, then I will insist that since science is a means to discover and increase human understanding of how the physical world actually works, why set limits to how much of the physical world can be debated.

I already explained above that evolution doesn't care where life came from. It is an explanation of what happens to life that exists. Would you like to discuss evolution?

Obeying your command to "Please stick to the topic which is the science behind Creationism and evolution", and in the spirit in which it is offered, I again ask the question proposed in my first post: How about the first organism? According to the standards by which the evolutionary process has been applied to the creationists resistance of Darwinian proposed evolutionary theory, has the system of chemical animation that is needed to produce life in its simplest form now been scientifically documented and accepted as fact within the scientific community? Remember, "Where does the evidence lead?"

You use the bold part to set up a framework for your question then immediately toss it aside and ask a question outside of that framework. Evolution is about life that already exists. Would you like to discuss evolution or not?

Did you notice? I used paragraphs!

Yes, and seriously, thanks. We don't have the same constrains here as Skeptiod (though I think there is a 15,000 character limit).

UnrepentantSinner

7th March 2009, 04:16 AM

UrS mentioned a thread on these topics, so perhaps he could post a link to them.

Here's a recent, though dormant one on abiogenesis with a lot of interesting stuff and Garry is free and welcome to bump it with his questions.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=72638

UnrepentantSinner

7th March 2009, 04:50 AM

I have been familiarizing myself with what evolutionists insist is the evidence that most proves evolution and I came across and began to read the article
“15 Evolutionary Gems”, so I decided to study each “Gem” (cubic zirconium, actually) one at a time.

You do realize that those articles reference other articles that appeared in Nature and you're going to need to read those articles to get the full data set on the gems right?

On the “Stand Up For Real Science” website, a pro-Darwinian blog, I found an article entitled “Indohyus: Yet Another Piece of the Puzzle”. I can't help but snicker at the "evidence" that was posited to be "proof" that this little gem was the ancestor of whales.

As I am prone to do on occasion, I first attempted to Google an actual picture of a skeletal fossil by which I could compare the similarities and descriptions. But, alas, as is usual in the world of Darwinian ideology, a few small fragments, nothing complete, and then cartoons and drawings. If you would be so kind, please visit blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk to confirm that what I am saying is true.

I always wonder why Creationists seem to think that viewing the fossil itself will somehow be more telling than a drawing or mock-up. Garry, are you a paleontologist, anatomist or an expert in mammal physiology? What do you think you'll be able to discern from a photograph that paleontologists and experts on mammal physiology were unable to from direct study of the specimine?

And the photo in the Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=closest-whale-cousin) article shows a very substantial piece of maxillary (if not all of it) and a number of cranial bones. The article cites the middle ear bones being part of the find and it looks like that part of the skull is preserved in the part supported by the holders little finger. I also found the original Nature article (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7173/full/nature06343.html) which has a photo of all the bones found.

The article says...

Leaving aside for a minute the numerous caveats that are offered in the news articles and the fact that the Scientific American title had a question mark in it showing the conclusions of Thewissen were still up for further investigation. Why don't you read the Nature article and critique to content there instead of secondary sources.

This argument could be settled very easily by doing DNA comparisons of modern whales, hippos, and mousedeer. I venture to bet that we will never hear the results!

I'll take that bet. Much work is being done on genetic phylogenies and the relationship of whales to artiodactyls is a question that generates a lot of interest and funding.

Interesting that you'd spend so much time on one inconclusive fossil while ignoring the much larger body of evidence for whale evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans).

Garry Webb

7th March 2009, 04:58 AM

I continually hear the argument that the 98% DNA similarity between chimps and humans absolutely proves that, like Mr. Sinner has so aptly stated above, "Myth #1- Men evolved from apes…Not a myth. Humans are apes that descended from an ape like common ancestor that we share with our fellow apes." Not only are we descended from apes, we are still apes.

When I use Brian's quote "Nobody has ever suggested that one living species changes into a different living species", Mr. Sinner confirms that "That's half, and I bet inadvertently, correct. Populations, over time, build up mutations which, if not spread amonst the entire population, can result in subspeciation. Further, over longer periods of time, those new subspecies populations can lead to new taxonomic relationships between those subspecies." Again Mr. Sinner; "I pointed out where "humans evolved from apes" is a gross oversimplification above. Humans are part of the Hominoidea that includes all living apes (including us) and our extinct common ancestors and cousin species." We are living apes!

So I did a little research on the vaunted fruit fly experiments to recall what I thought evolutionists have insisted was evolution in action and witnessed. In my search, I came across the neatest little machine called The Random Mutation Generator. (If you want to really see evolution in action, check it out. It is a real eye opener.) But that's off topic.

That aside, I found an article that clearly contradicts what Steve has argued. An article titled "Fruit Fly Genetics" from guardian.co.uk insists that Theodosius Dobzhansky's experiments prove that new species through evolution has now been witnessed.

And I quote: "Because Darwinian natural selection had traditionally been considered a slow paced affair that was difficult - if not impossible - to test experimentally, critics had often dismissed the subject as unscientific. But here was a perfect demonstration of evolution in action. This was no million-year wait for a two millimetre increase in the length of a leg bone. This was evolutionary change in front of your very eyes…In accumulating genetic differences, Dobzhansky saw how two populations might also accumulate differences in body size, colour, genital architecture, behavioural idiosyncrasies, and a thousand other characteristics that could eventually make them reluctant or unable to mate with one another. In these distinct genetic profiles, Dobzhansky believed he was seeing the origin of species in its infancy." Evolution in action! One living species becoming a different living species.

paximperium

7th March 2009, 05:17 AM

One only has to read this to see that Garry has absolutely no rational retort to anything UnrepentantSinner has posted.

Not only are we descended from apes, we are still apes. Yes...and your point?

We are living apes!
Yes we are. Your point?

So I did a little research on the vaunted fruit fly experiments to recall what I thought evolutionists have insisted was evolution in action and witnessed. And? Did you have any opinion of the research?

In my search, I came across the neatest little machine called The Random Mutation Generator. (If you want to really see evolution in action, check it out. It is a real eye opener.) In what way is it an eye opener?

That aside, I found an article that clearly contradicts what Steve has argued. An article titled "Fruit Fly Genetics" from guardian.co.uk insists that Theodosius Dobzhansky's experiments prove that new species through evolution has now been witnessed.
<snip>
Evolution in action! One living species becoming a different living species. Yeah. What about it?

politas

7th March 2009, 06:35 AM

In my search, I came across the neatest little machine called The Random Mutation Generator. (If you want to really see evolution in action, check it out. It is a real eye opener.) But that's off topic.
It isn't actually off-topic at all, apart from the fact that the [url=http://www.randommutation.com/]Random Mutation Generator[/quote] is not in any way a reasonable simulation of evolution. It mimics a single organism replacing itself by non-sexual reproduction and dying in the process. With no population to operate on, it cannot simulate evolution, which, as has been mentioned, is a change in the frequency of heritable characteristics in populations of organisms over time.

As such, The Random Mutation Generator does not demonstrate evolution in action at all.

UnrepentantSinner

7th March 2009, 09:42 AM

I'm sorry, but my Internet connection is giving me guff this morning, but I'm stubborn enough to try and address at least a few things before going to bed (Garry, I work nights.) Sorry for not providing links now, but I will tonight when I'm back at work.

I continually hear the argument that the 98% DNA similarity between chimps and humans absolutely proves that...

Actually no. First, science doesn't "absolutely prove" anything. Proof is the perview of math and alcohol, and colloquially in law. All science must allow for falsification. Just because apples always fall from a tree doesn't mean at some point they might flitter upwards. Second, there are multiple lines of genetic evidence that humans share a common ancestor with our fellow apes. Endogenous retroviruses, pseudogenes, and most tellingly the telomeres and centomeres on human chromosome 2. Thirdly, the fossil evidence seems to correlate with humans and chimps sharing a common ancestor - I not you didn't respond to the skull question I posted earlier. Finally, while some comparisons of the human and chimp genome have found differences as high as 5%, the active genes... that is those most responsible for making chimps chimps and humans humans have shown around a 99% match.

The totality of the genetic evidence, combined with the fossil evidence, including historical biogeography makes human/chimp common ancestry, not "absolutely proven" but virtually assured.

...like Mr. Sinner has so aptly stated above, "Myth #1- Men evolved from apes…Not a myth. Humans are apes that descended from an ape like common ancestor that we share with our fellow apes." Not only are we descended from apes, we are still apes.

I refer you to the Wiki and ToL links I posted above.

When I use Brian's quote "Nobody has ever suggested that one living species changes into a different living species", Mr. Sinner confirms that "That's half, and I bet inadvertently, correct. Populations, over time, build up mutations which, if not spread amonst the entire population, can result in subspeciation. Further, over longer periods of time, those new subspecies populations can lead to new taxonomic relationships between those subspecies." Again Mr. Sinner; "I pointed out where "humans evolved from apes" is a gross oversimplification above. Humans are part of the Hominoidea that includes all living apes (including us) and our extinct common ancestors and cousin species." We are living apes!

I don't mean to be rude, but you're talking in circles here. Brian's quote and my clarifications of it based on your misunderstaning are basically the same thing. And my offer to explain to you how species relate to taxonomy/the phylogenetic tree still stands.

So I did a little research on the vaunted fruit fly experiments.{snip}

How about before we get into fruit fly experiments (did you take my link on HOX genes and how they effect body development and how they are present in beings as different as flies, fish and wombats?), how about we stick with hominid evolution for now and you address speciation within evolutionary theory or creationism? This topic is not a Rohrsach test where you can see and describe whatever you want at any given moment. There are specifics that must be addressed before we can move on to other topics.

I said it earlier tonight. I've given you plenty of stuff in response to issues you have raised for you to respond to. How about you respond to it before moving on to other topics?

smloeffelholz

7th March 2009, 09:59 AM

Garry Webb

7th March 2009, 10:25 AM

Sinner Man, I studied an article on HOX genes and found some very interesting facts; although I am not sure they are what you had in mind.

Firstly, the many similar building blocks of carbon based lifeforms is what should be expected in a common creation. No new news there.

This statement is very enlightening though: “Homeotic genes set up the basic regional layout of an organism, so that eyes form on the head and not on the abdomen, and limbs form at the sides and not on the head. Even a single mutation in the DNA of these genes can have drastic effects on the organism (see Homeotic Mutants, below), and so these genes have changed relatively little over time.” What does that mean; “these genes have changed relatively little over time”? And what happens when they do change?

The “see Homeotic Mutants, below” section, redirected me to where the answer to that question was.That very question was answered by Edward B. Lewis in 1995, winning him the Nobel Peace Prize. The story of his research can be found on the nobelprize.org website and it details his discoveries. Alongside a picture of the fly research is this caption: “A normal adult fruit fly, enlarged 40 times. To the right the fly's ill-fated cousin, a mutant with 4 wings but no balance organs. This now famous little "monster" was a starting point for Lewis in his research on homeotic transformations. Lewis found that the extra pair of wings was due to a duplication of an entire body segment, the 2nd thoracic segment. Inactivity of the first gene of the bithorax-complex in the appropriate larval segment caused other homeotic genes to respecify the 3rd thoracic segment into one that forms wings instead of halteres.” In other words, “mutation almost always very bad!”

Is this one of your evidences of evolution?

In closing, I have some young students that are curious as to what is up with you guys repeating every sentence that I post? Are you trying to avoid the actual issues that have been raised, and…..”what is the point?”

Garry Webb

7th March 2009, 10:55 AM

Steve, I understand the problem that you face in now trying to disassociate your ideology with what I say that evolutionists must believe. In order for Darwinian evolution to be true, every organism that is capable of passing on inheritable traits to successive generations must, within its own genetic coding, evolve the genetic information which it then passes on. The general definition of speciation as that which occurs when members of a species mutate to the point where they are no longer able to breed with other members of the same species. The new population becomes a reproductively isolated community that is unable to breed with its former community. Through speciation, the genes of the new population become isolated from the previous group.

The article of Fruit Fly Genetics from guardian.co.uk affirms that this is what Dobzhansky observed with his own eyes. If they did not change, why were they not able to mate with their own species? Twist it any way you can, but this is the basis for Darwinian evolution. An example of this belief is listed as Sympatric speciation which refers to the formation of two or more descendant species from a single ancestral species all occupying the same geographic location. How do non-existent species inhabit the same geographic location?

UrS proposes that we are apes not me. He’s the evolutionist; he should know!

RecoveringYuppy

7th March 2009, 11:09 AM

In closing, I have some young students that are curious as to what is up with you guys repeating every sentence that I post? Are you trying to avoid the actual issues that have been raised, and…..”what is the point?”
It's so that people reading the conversation can tell what point from earlier in the conversation is being addressed.
Steve, I understand the problem that you face in now trying to disassociate your ideology with what I say that evolutionists must believe.
Here's a spot where you should quote because it's hard to tell who Steve is in this conversation. It also indicates you should refrain from telling other what they must believe.
In order for Darwinian evolution to be true, every organism that is capable of passing on inheritable traits to successive generations must, within its own genetic coding, evolve the genetic information which it then passes on.
No. For Darwinian evolution there has to be descent with modification. Actual mechanism wasn't specified. However we now know that what you describe is wrong. Modification happens at reproduction amongst sexually reproducing life forms.

UrS proposes that we are apes not me. He’s the evolutionist; he should know!
Yes, apes. Not modern apes.

smloeffelholz

7th March 2009, 04:31 PM

This now famous little "monster" was a starting point for Lewis in his research on homeotic transformations. Lewis found that the extra pair of wings was due to a duplication of an entire body segment, the 2nd thoracic segment. Inactivity of the first gene of the bithorax-complex in the appropriate larval segment caused other homeotic genes to respecify the 3rd thoracic segment into one that forms wings instead of halteres.” In other words, “mutation almost always very bad!”

I would have to say that your last statement is not true. Many mutations are silent, and cause no change in a protein whatsoever. A mutation that changed a CUU codon into a CUA codon would not change the protein at all. A leucine amino acid would still be correctly placed in the protein and it would function normally. Further, if the mutation switched one non-polar amino acid for another similarly sized non-polar amino acid, there is a good chance that the protein, though slightly altered, would still function normally. When the mutation does significantly change the protein (by causing a frame shift, premature stop codon, or replacing an amino acid critical for correct folding and therefore function), it is true that usually this change is not beneficial. But since it is usually not beneficial, that means that some are beneficial and can increase the fitness of the organism. For an example of one such beneficial mutation, look into the CCR-5 gene and its link to HIV immunity. A person with this mutation is seemingly unaffected except that they are immune to HIV infection.

In order for Darwinian evolution to be true, every organism that is capable of passing on inheritable traits to successive generations must, within its own genetic coding, evolve the genetic information which it then passes on.

This is also not true. If I understand correctly (and someone please correct me if I am wrong), the random mutations that drive the process of evolution are almost exclusively produced during the process of meiosis and appear in the gametes. A mutation within a somatic cell (the cells with the genetic coding for the organism itself) does not have the potential to spread throughout an entire organism. This means that the mutation will not be passed on to future generations. A mutation in a gamete (the cells that carry the genetic information for the organisms potential offspring) will automatically be present in every cell of the offspring.

The general definition of speciation is ...[snip]

The article of Fruit Fly Genetics from guardian.co.uk affirms that this is what Dobzhansky observed with his own eyes. If they did not change, why were they not able to mate with their own species?

Once again your paraphrasing is completely inaccurate. The article says, "In accumulating genetic differences, Dobzhansky saw how two populations might also accumulate differences in body size, colour, genital architecture, behavioural idiosyncrasies, and a thousand other characteristics that could eventually make them reluctant or unable to mate with one another. In these distinct genetic profiles, Dobzhansky believed he was seeing the origin of species in its infancy."

In other words, he witnessed how quickly genetic changes could occur in the fruit fly population and realized that these changes could accumulate over time in two different populations until one population became reproductively isolated from the other. It does not say that he witnessed the origin of a new species. Instead, it says he hypothesized that he was watching the very beginning of the process and saw how it could eventually lead to a speciation event. The article also doesn't say that he witnessed two populations become reproductively isolate without changing. It just says that he saw how genetic differences, accumulated over time, could lead to problematic mating between the two populations. Neither of these observations is contrary to current evolutionary theory. Perhaps you should read more carefully, and try to put aside your biases when interpreting literature.

Finally, I have to agree with UrS that you are jumping all over the place. Once someone brings up several points to counter one of your arguments, you switch topics without ever addressing their points. Are we to assume that you are admitting to your argument being flawed, or is there another reason for your sporadic topic choices?

Garry Webb

7th March 2009, 08:39 PM

Steve, in your last post, on the topic of beneficial mutations, you offered this statement: “For an example of one such beneficial mutation, look into the CCR-5 gene and its link to HIV immunity. A person with this mutation is seemingly unaffected except that they are immune to HIV infection”, actually, people with this mutation, including AIDS patients that may be treated with Chemokine Receptor 5 (CCR5) inhibitors, are in fact susceptible to several very serious maladies including encephalitis, West Nile Virus, schizophrenia, meningitis, and aseptic meningoencephalitis.

In a study documented @ www .liu.se /content /1/c6/11/88/57/2008/Malin_Eriksson.pdf entitled “Potential Risks Associated with the Introduction of CCR5 Antagonists as HIV-1Treatment” it is also been found that both the natural mutation and therapy treatments may actually cause longer reaching adverse affects including drug resistance. Apparently, the mutation can provide measured resistance to the AIDS virus, but one researcher warned that “Unfortunately, there are serious side effects to the treatment and viral resistance is an increasing problem.” Humans do not even synthesise amino acids such as Leucines, which contain the CUU and CUA codons. Please explain this inference of molecular evolution, as I do not get this connection.

Since you have invited us to correct you if you are wrong, when you infer that “…the random mutations that drive the process of evolution are almost exclusively produced during the process of meiosis and appear in the gametes”, where do the Gametes get their genetic information? If I am not mistaken, before meiosis begins, the DNA in the original cell is replicated. Unless there is a mutation of sorts, the information is copied. It does not just make something up.

Also, meiosis does not occur in bacteria and other prokaryotes. If I am not mistaken, you do believe that these organisms have evolved do you not?

RecoveringYuppy

7th March 2009, 09:21 PM

Humans do not even synthesise amino acids such as Leucines, which contain the CUU and CUA codons. Please explain this inference of molecular evolution, as I do not get this connection.
He was giving an example of a mutation which has no effect.

You seem a bit confused in the quote above. No, leucine is not sunthesized by humans, it is used by humans in protein building. Proteins do not contains codons at all. Codons are the code in the DNA that specify an amino acid.

RecoveringYuppy

7th March 2009, 09:26 PM

Since you have invited us to correct you if you are wrong, when you infer that “…the random mutations that drive the process of evolution are almost exclusively produced during the process of meiosis and appear in the gametes”, where do the Gametes get their genetic information? If I am not mistaken, before meiosis begins, the DNA in the original cell is replicated. Unless there is a mutation of sorts, the information is copied. It does not just make something up.
What exactly do you think was wrong in the post you are replying to?

Yes, gametes get their original DNA from their host. They copy half of it and there are usually mutations (which is "making something up) during the copying. This is the source of variation that drives evolution.

UnrepentantSinner

7th March 2009, 09:49 PM

In closing, I have some young students that are curious as to what is up with you guys repeating every sentence that I post? Are you trying to avoid the actual issues that have been raised, and…..”what is the point?”

It's a courtesy I picked up when I first started using the web so the person I'm responding to knows exactly what I'm responding to. I'd note that paximperium chose selected sentences and that I {snipped} a few portions of your post this morning.

Speaking of responding, I'll get to what was posted today while I slept as down time at work permits.

smloeffelholz

8th March 2009, 12:58 AM

...actually, people with this mutation, including AIDS patients that may be treated with Chemokine Receptor 5 (CCR5) inhibitors, are in fact susceptible to several very serious maladies including encephalitis, West Nile Virus, schizophrenia, meningitis, and aseptic meningoencephalitis.

When you make comments like this, are you just hoping that no one is going to check your sources? First, everyone is susceptible to these diseases. What the paper says is that, "...results suggest that the deletion causes an increased risk for symptomatic West Nile virus infection, symptomatic tick-borne encephalitis and late-onset schizophrenia..." This means that some research (which I have not yet been able to find) suggests that this mutation could cause a higher chance of contracting one of these rare diseases. On top of being very rare (the ones I could find had incidence rates around 10k per 150 mil annually), your description of these diseases as very serious is misleading considering that their mortality rates are around 1-2%. When these cons are weighed against the benefit of being immune to a disease with a 100% mortality rate and higher incidence, it is still safe to say that this is a beneficial mutation.

Humans do not even synthesise amino acids such as Leucines, which contain the CUU and CUA codons. Please explain this inference of molecular evolution, as I do not get this connection.

I am not saying this as an insult, but this statement highlights your lack of general science understanding. Although it is true that humans cannot synthesize the amino acid leucine (it is an essential amino acid and must be ingested), this molecule is commonly found in human proteins. Leucine itself does not contain codons. The mRNA that codes for protein synthesis is made up of codons, some of which code for the amino acid leucine. I was making the point that not only are the vast majority of mutations not harmful, but that many of them are silent and cause no change whatsoever. To better understand how amino acids, proteins, DNA, mRNA, and codons are related, you should look into the processes of transcription and translation.

Since you have invited us to correct you if you are wrong, when you infer that “…the random mutations that drive the process of evolution are almost exclusively produced during the process of meiosis and appear in the gametes”, where do the Gametes get their genetic information? If I am not mistaken, before meiosis begins, the DNA in the original cell is replicated. Unless there is a mutation of sorts, the information is copied. It does not just make something up.

If you read what you wrote, you prove my point. The DNA for meiosis comes from the parent organism. When this DNA is copied to start the process of meiosis, occasionally mistakes are made called mutations. Mutations can also occur through other means, such as mistakes that can happen during crossover events. These mutations can be passed on to the progeny, even though these mutations were never present in the parent organism. This is scientific fact and directly disputes your comment, "...every organism that is capable of passing on inheritable traits to successive generations must, within its own genetic coding, evolve the genetic information which it then passes on."

Also, meiosis does not occur in bacteria and other prokaryotes. If I am not mistaken, you do believe that these organisms have evolved do you not?

I apologize because I was not specific enough when I made my earlier comment about where random mutations occur. I was referring to sexually reproducing organisms, and I am sorry if this caused any confusion. Still, your logic does not hold up even in the world of bacteria and prokaryotes. When a bacteria reproduces asexually, it must duplicate its entire genome. This second copy of the genome then migrates away from the original copy of the genome, and the cell splits in two. This usually creates an identical organism, but occasionally a mistake is made when the genome is being duplicated, and this mutation is passed on to the daughter cell while not affecting the parent cell. Once again, the parent cell does not need that mutation to be present for it to occur in the daughter cell. This allows for these organisms to evolve, and recently some excellent examples of bacteria evolution have been demonstrated.

UnrepentantSinner

8th March 2009, 12:34 PM

I hate to do this, but in response to your question about using quote tags, I have to ask what's up with repeatedly using the Trinitarian Troll post title? We really don't need them to keep track of who is responding to whom here and it just adds fuel to the fire that has me thinking you want to argue against atheism, not the science supporting Creationism or evolution.

Just to be clear, I'm only interested in arguing the science behind Creationism and evolution.

Also I'm sorry that I didn't provide links for the pseudogene, ERV and human chomosome 2 comments I made above and I'm not going to be able to until late Tue. night. I was busy at work and with the daylight savings time simply didn't have the time. I'll be at home on dial-up for the next two days so any responses I made over that time will have to be sans links. The evidence is out there and if no one else covers for me, I'll make sure and provide it for you when time and bandwidth allows.

Sinner Man, I studied an article on HOX genes and found some very interesting facts; although I am not sure they are what you had in mind.

Firstly, the many similar building blocks of carbon based lifeforms is what should be expected in a common creation. No new news there.

Two incorrect assertions. First, you're right that that it would be expected that carbon based life would all have, axiomatically, life based on carbon. But that's not what the HOX genes represent. They are genes, made of protiens and that's much more of an evidence than merely having the same components. I mean rust has iron in it and blood has iron in it, but you're not going to suggest life is the same as a sunken ship are you?

Second, you're incorrect by using the phrase "common creation". There is utterly no reason for a fiat creation to exhibit the same genes being used in insects, fish and humans to create body sections or appendages. A fiat creator could use any genes or any combination of protiens or, well, anything to create, well anything. Starfish could use silica to create their skins, Placoderms could have used cobalt to armor their heads, mammals could have used fructose in their milk instead of lactose.

The phrase you were looking for was "common design" and we don't see that either. Cephalapods have complex eyes like tetrapods do, but they're inverted. Humans have the same number of vertebra as giraffes, but they don't appear to have back problems like we do. Some mammals can digest plants with great efficiency (over the course of time in their guts) and some can only eat meat. Terrestrail tetrapods can choke on their food because the top end of our digestive system is merely a modification of what it was when our ancestors were fish. If one wants to make the "common design" argument, one is talking about a tinkerer or an incompitant.

This statement is very enlightening though: “Homeotic genes set up the basic regional layout of an organism, so that eyes form on the head and not on the abdomen, and limbs form at the sides and not on the head. Even a single mutation in the DNA of these genes can have drastic effects on the organism (see Homeotic Mutants, below), and so these genes have changed relatively little over time.” What does that mean; “these genes have changed relatively little over time”? And what happens when they do change?

What it means is that they are highly preserved. Some genes don't mutate for a very long time and then their areas can exhibit huge amounts of mutation in a geologically short amount of time. One example would be the HAR1 genes which effect brain devolopment. Most of the genes in that region (Human Accellerated Region 1) were preserved for 300+ million years. Then, about 7 million years ago there was a lot of mutations that stuck. That's just how mutation works.

Another part of preservation is that certain genes have been locked as master body planners over time. HOX genes are clearly ancient while genes that effect the expression of body parts has changed over time resulting in such divergency as salamanders, whales, birds, cats and dogs, lizards and humans.

The “see Homeotic Mutants, below” section,{snip} ...In other words, “mutation almost always very bad!”

Is this one of your evidences of evolution?

I'm snipping this so I can ask you a question via sports analogy. If we know, after studying hundreds of baseball players that a handful will hit well above average, the majority will hit within the range of average and another handful will hit poorly... is it honest on your part to focus on the handful that hit poorly while ignoring the vast majority that hit average and the handful that hit above average?

That said, see my comment above about how body plans don't manifest willy nilly, but are observably the result of common ancestry. That alone makes it an evidence for evolutionary theory.

UnrepentantSinner

8th March 2009, 12:54 PM

Steve, I understand the problem that you face in now trying to disassociate your ideology with what I say that evolutionists must believe.

Everything Steve has said so far in this thread is correct. Perhaps not correct within your straw man and distorted understanding of evolutionary theory, but correct none the less. And this is just me talking but, wouldn't it be better for you to try to grasp what science advocates accept than insisting you know what they "believe" (see I can use scare quotes too)?

In order for Darwinian evolution to be true, every organism that is capable of passing on inheritable traits to successive generations must, within its own genetic coding, evolve the genetic information which it then passes on.

Kind of. To phrase it more economically, "organisms that reproduce pass on their genes to their offspring". That's Mendel 101 and Darwin 101 summed up in less than you find in most sylliby.

The general definition of speciation as that which occurs when members of a species mutate to the point where they are no longer able to breed with other members of the same species. The new population becomes a reproductively isolated community that is unable to breed with its former community. Through speciation, the genes of the new population become isolated from the previous group.

I think you've got it. Would this be an appropriate place for me to offer up my lesson on speciation, taxons and phylogenetic trees?

The article of Fruit Fly Genetics from guardian.co.uk affirms that this is what Dobzhansky observed with his own eyes. If they did not change, why were they not able to mate with their own species? Twist it any way you can, but this is the basis for Darwinian evolution. An example of this belief is listed as Sympatric speciation which refers to the formation of two or more descendant species from a single ancestral species all occupying the same geographic location. How do non-existent species inhabit the same geographic location?

Sexual selection for one. Some species of insects that would otherwise be interfertile won't mate because the songs of one species don't attract mates of the other species.

And don't discount the impact of geography. Ring species are a great example. There are tern species that circle the globe which are interfertile but if you took those at the "ends" of the geographic ranges they are not. The same is true of salamanders in California where every species is interfertile with the one next to it, but those on the "ends" while geographically proximate, are not.

UrS proposes that we are apes not me. He’s the evolutionist; he should know!

Sigh... I'm hoping Steve, et. al. will at least get this joke.

Humans are apes in that we are Hominidae in the same way we are fish in that we are Sarcopterygii.

Garry Webb

8th March 2009, 03:04 PM

Just a few quick responses in the order of the posts since my last one. Got church tonight!

“Proteins do not contains codons at all.” Really? How then are they coded? The sequence by which they are structured is a codon. Specifically, Leucine codons are UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, and CUG. What do you mean no codons? And it all depends upon whether the coding is canonical or simple genetic code, as the canonical genetic code is not universal. There is clear prolixity but no equivocation; thus the substitutions.

Steve, your original statement was “For an example of one such beneficial mutation, look into the CCR-5 gene and its link to HIV immunity. A person with this mutation is seemingly unaffected except that they are immune to HIV infection.” I was attempting to show that though appearing to be “seemingly unaffected” there are probable affects elsewhere. As with sickle cell and the malarial virus! The host is actually so ill from sickle cell that malaria cannot survive. Would you rather have sickle cell or malaria? I am not sure that intentionally causing the mutation is the answer to the AIDS problem, which is what the study discussed. Besides, HIV could be wiped off the face of the earth is humans would simply change their lifestyles; i.e. intravenous drug use and unprotected sex.

Biological evolution is commonly defined as change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. The three main processes causing changes are variation, reproduction, and natural selection or any combination of the three. By far, mutations are passed on hereditarily, and then, those caused by environmental means are far more random and deleterious.

In Darwinian evolution, natural selection is thought to cause many more heritable traits that are beneficial for survival and reproduction and would then cause harmful traits to become rarer; whereas, in genetic drift, produces random changes in the frequency of traits in any given population. It is defined as a result of the role probability plays in whether a given trait will be passed on as individuals survive and reproduce. Changes produced in any one generation by drift and beneficial selections are thought to be much smaller. These differences are believed to add up following each new generation and be the cause of enough changes in the organisms, even to the production and emergence of new species.

If heredity is the main vehicle by which mutations are successfully passed on, then it is rational to consider that each previous generation had indeed, evolved genetically.

RecoveringYuppy

8th March 2009, 03:15 PM

“Proteins do not contains codons at all.” Really? How then are they coded?The sequence by which they are structured is a codon. Specifically, Leucine codons are UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, and CUG. What do you mean no codons?
Codons are contained in the DNA and RNA sequences which describe the proteins, not in the proteins.

Steve, your original statement was “For an example of one such beneficial mutation, look into the CCR-5 gene and its link to HIV immunity. A person with this mutation is seemingly unaffected except that they are immune to HIV infection.” I was attempting to show that though appearing to be “seemingly unaffected” there are probable affects elsewhere. As with sickle cell and the malarial virus! The host is actually so ill from sickle cell that malaria cannot survive. Would you rather have sickle cell or malaria?
Doesn't matter which you'd rather have. It's the overall survival rate of the species that determines if a mutation is beneficial or not. If a traits benefits outweigh it's drawbacks it's still benefical. And "benefit" is measured species wide in nature.

TX50

8th March 2009, 05:02 PM

[...] DNA is composed of 4 amino acids which are, basically, the letters that compose the language of life [...]

[...]They are genes, made of protiens [...]

I think you need to brush up on your biochemistry a bit. DNA is
not "composed of 4 amino acids", nor are genes "made of proteins".

smloeffelholz

8th March 2009, 05:04 PM

“Proteins do not contains codons at all.” Really? How then are they coded? The sequence by which they are structured is a codon. Specifically, Leucine codons are UUA, UUG, CUU, CUC, CUA, and CUG. What do you mean no codons? And it all depends upon whether the coding is canonical or simple genetic code, as the canonical genetic code is not universal. There is clear prolixity but no equivocation; thus the substitutions.

No, no, no. Since you didn't take my advice and look into transcription and translation, I guess I will have to give you a whirlwind tour through the process. Proteins are large molecules made up of smaller subunits called amino acids. Amino acids are molecules consisting of an amine group, a carboxyl group, and a side chain that differs in each of the different amino acids. Certain parts of the DNA called genes contain a code that instructs the cell on how to make a certain protein. When that protein is needed, a single stranded copy of the gene is made that is called mRNA (transcription). On the mRNA strand, each three nucleotide sequence (beginning after the first AUG sequence) is called a codon. These codons each code for the addition of a specific amino acid. A cellular organelle called a ribosome reads this code and assembles amino acids in order to produce the protein coded for on the mRNA (translation). Proteins do not contain codons, the mRNA does. The codons that you listed above instruct the ribosome to add a leucine amino acid to the protein under construction. Therefore a mutation that changes one of those codons, into another one of those codons (ie CUU -> CUA) would be a mutation in the genetic code that is not harmful, and is completely silent.

I was attempting to show that though appearing to be “seemingly unaffected” there are probable affects elsewhere.

And I was pointing out that the affects elsewhere are extremely minor compared to the advantages of the mutation. This was to show that the mutation is beneficial even though there are some very minor side effects.

As with sickle cell and the malarial virus! The host is actually so ill from sickle cell that malaria cannot survive. Would you rather have sickle cell or malaria?

This is a perfect example of the logical fallacy of the excluded middle. You are claiming that you are either extremely sick and immune to malaria or perfectly healthy and susceptible to malaria when that is not the case. It is possible to have a single sickle cell mutation (instead of a mutation on both chromosomes). This type of mutation grants you limited resistance to malaria while avoiding many of the harmful and painful effects of full blown sickle cell anemia. In an area of the world where the threat from malaria is considerably large (such as parts of Africa), this mutation can confer a net benefit for a population even when factoring in those who end up with sickle cell anemia. In parts of the world where the risk of malaria is much lower (Europe and America), the disadvantages of the mutation outweigh the advantages and it is selected against. This is why we see such a high prevalence of the sickle cell mutation in African Americans while European Americans have a much much lower prevalence. Depending on the environment, the factor that drives natural selection, mutations can be selected for or against.

I am not sure that intentionally causing the mutation is the answer to the AIDS problem, which is what the study discussed.

Intentionally causing the mutation would be a form of gene therapy and that is not what was discussed in the paper you linked to. They were discussing using a CCR-5 antagonist (a molecule that would effectively block the activity of the CCR-5 protein, thus not allowing the HIV virus to use this protein to gain entrance to the cell). This treatment should be reversible (if you stopped taking the antagonist, your body could once again synthesize viable CCR-5) so the exact risk of the diseases mentioned in the paper need to be studied carefully. If they find that they have a 50% chance to halt the progression of HIV and only a 2% chance of contracting one of these diseases, then the treatment would be worth the risk. If they find that a 10% chance to halt the progression of HIV comes at the cost of a 20% chance of contracting these diseases, then the benefit is too low to justify the risk. Though more study is needed before these drugs are prescribed to the public, the idea should not be written off just because of some possible side effects.

In Darwinian evolution, natural selection is thought to cause many more heritable traits that are beneficial for survival and reproduction and would then cause harmful traits to become rarer; whereas, in genetic drift, produces random changes in the frequency of traits in any given population... (snip)

Natural selection does not cause mutations or beneficial traits. Natural selection can only select the most beneficial genes that already exist in the population. This selection is driven by the fitness of the organisms (survivability, reproduction rate, etc) which is dependent on the environmental conditions the organism exists in. This may seem like a nit-picky point, but it is very important to understand this. New mutations and gene variations are produced by random processes and duplication errors. Natural selection is the process that determines if the mutations and gene variations are beneficial or harmful depending on the environment that they exist in.

If heredity is the main vehicle by which mutations are successfully passed on, then it is rational to consider that each previous generation had indeed, evolved genetically.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Heredity is how beneficial mutations are passed on, but those beneficial mutations had to manifest at some point. In other words, at some point an organisms progeny had to have a beneficial mutation not present in the parent generation.

UnrepentantSinner

8th March 2009, 08:53 PM

I think you need to brush up on your biochemistry a bit. DNA is
not "composed of 4 amino acids", nor are genes "made of proteins".

Ugh. Incorrect and poorly stated on my part. Thank you for reminding me to do a bit of a refresher before I write things like that. :thumbsup:

Garry Webb

9th March 2009, 08:11 PM

Steve, in your last post you said that you believe that "Natural selection does not cause mutations or beneficial traits. Natural selection can only select the most beneficial genes that already exist in the population. This selection is driven by the fitness of the organisms (survivability, reproduction rate, etc) which is dependent on the environmental conditions the organism exists in. This may seem like a nit-picky point, but it is very important to understand this. New mutations and gene variations are produced by random processes and duplication errors. Natural selection is the process that determines if the mutations and gene variations are beneficial or harmful depending on the environment that they exist in."

If an impersonal, random natural selection can select the most beneficial genes already existing in a given population, then it should be very easy to produce evolved organisms in a laboratory environment, even by forcing manufactured mutations. All of the traits contingent upon the variables such as fitness, survivability, reproduction, and environment would be easily controlled. Evolutionist writers have openly claimed that mutations are very easily induced by radiation, chemicals, temperature, food, etc. Are you willing to cite any evidence of a prepared and artificial environment, wherein these processes have been found to produce viable new organisms known to evolve through an induced natural selection? Please cite research location for perusal. Thanks.

Wowbagger

9th March 2009, 08:33 PM

Has anyone pointed out the obvious fact that it was evolutionary biologists who are making all of these discoveries about genes and codons and such?

That it is evolutionary biologists who are figuring out more refined details about their own theories, through this information. And, I might add, most of it predicted by the evolutionary biologists, through their own studies?

I don't see Intelligent Design proponents making any new discoveries. All they seem to do is post-hoc analysis: Grab what the real scientists are discovering, and shoe-horn them into their own ideas.

The result is that Evolution, through its own changes and discoveries, has been powerful enough to change the ideas of I.D. proponents, but I.D. has not been able change the course of Evolution.

For example, "Front-Loading Evolution" is basically accepting most (if not all) the findings of Evo/Devo, and adding its own superfluous detail. "Well, okay, we now accept that multiple functions could emerge from various structures, etc. But, we insist it was front-loaded, by design to do so!" Does the insistence of a Designer help us make any new discoveries about the life form? If not, how could one claim there really is scientific evidence for a Designer?

Does this help anyone figure out who is doing the real science? And, where the evidence is actually leading?

godless dave

9th March 2009, 09:29 PM

The article says that "This little animal has been named Indohyus, although the skeleton is not complete the skull has been found and the preserved middle ear structure is identical to that found in the cetacean group. (No complete skeleton but they know every detail about it.)

Inner ear bones are in the skull.

smloeffelholz

9th March 2009, 10:56 PM

If an impersonal, random natural selection

Natural selection is not random, it is unguided, and this is a very important point to remember. The processes that create mutations are random.

If an impersonal, random natural selection can select the most beneficial genes already existing in a given population, then it should be very easy to produce evolved organisms in a laboratory environment, even by forcing manufactured mutations. All of the traits contingent upon the variables such as fitness, survivability, reproduction, and environment would be easily controlled. Evolutionist writers have openly claimed that mutations are very easily induced by radiation, chemicals, temperature, food, etc. Are you willing to cite any evidence of a prepared and artificial environment, wherein these processes have been found to produce viable new organisms known to evolve through an induced natural selection? Please cite research location for perusal. Thanks.

I can do you one better than that. Recently, an amazing study was released by Richard Lenski. Twenty years ago he took a single E-coli bacterium and allowed it to reproduce. He split the one bacterial colony into several lines and allowed them all to reproduce. Every so many generations (several hundred I think) he would freeze a sample of the population and dilute them back down.

He never induced mutations in any of the populations. At first he saw similar changes in all colonies. Since the bacteria were growing unimpeded in an enriched environment, they evolved larger cell sizes. Then something amazing happened. One colony, from only one of the twelve strains was suddenly able to metabolize citrate, something present in the auger that could not be metabolized by the original E-coli. Because of his meticulous cataloging of the cell lines, he was able to rewind the experiment to before the bacteria could metabolize citrate, and let them start growing again. Once again the same cell line, and none of the others, evolved the ability to metabolize citrate. This drastic change took only 20 years and about 40,000 generations.

A unique set of mutations accumulated in this cell line that eventually created a means to access a previously untapped food source. He originally noticed something was different because the colonies of that line were growing so much faster than the other lines. This shows that random mutations can eventually allow an organism to acquire a unique and beneficial trait.

I cannot post links yet, but if you do a Google search for "bacteria evolve citrate" you will find several science articles about this research. I am almost positive that a few of them link to the actual study. If you are still having trouble finding the study, I should be able to post links soon, so just ask and I will link to it.

MG1962

9th March 2009, 11:10 PM

Natural selection is not random, it is unguided, and this is a very important point to remember. The processes that create mutations are random.

I am not sure I totally agree with that. In some circumstances it seems that creatures can undergo a very fast series of mutations. Whales for instance jumped through a remarkable number of evolutionary hoops in a very short period of time to get to be whales.

Wowbagger

9th March 2009, 11:21 PM

MG1962

9th March 2009, 11:32 PM

For all intents and purposes we could consider mutations "random". Technically, they do have causes. And, yes, the rate of mutation, itself, could be adjusted through evolution.

But, when demonstrating the basics of the power of natural selection, none of that matters so much. The core component: the selection process, itself, is non-random. And, that is sufficient to dismiss the argument that "Evolution is random".

We can say evoluion is "unguided" to mean there is no higher intelligence involved in guiding it. But, in another context, evolution is kinda-sorta "guided" through an unintelligent, natural algorithmic process.

No worries, I wasn't alluding to some guiding mechanism, but I recall many years ago reading a concept that suggested that somewhere in the genetic coding there is pre-dispostion for increased mutations as a life form becomes stressed within its environment.

It was trying explain why we seem to see explosions of evolutionary processes in the fossil record rather than the steady progression would expect from pure drift

smloeffelholz

10th March 2009, 09:25 AM

I owe a thanks to Wow and Mg. I was trying to stress that evolution as a whole is not a completely random process, but that only certain parts of it are. I was unsure of how to word this, and I obviously came up short. Thanks guys for the clarification.

Wowbagger

10th March 2009, 09:56 AM

You can summarize what I said by saying: "Evolution is neither chance nor design. It is an algorithm".

politas

10th March 2009, 08:15 PM

If an impersonal, random natural selection can select the most beneficial genes already existing in a given population, then it should be very easy to produce evolved organisms in a laboratory environment, even by forcing manufactured mutations. All of the traits contingent upon the variables such as fitness, survivability, reproduction, and environment would be easily controlled. Evolutionist writers have openly claimed that mutations are very easily induced by radiation, chemicals, temperature, food, etc. Are you willing to cite any evidence of a prepared and artificial environment, wherein these processes have been found to produce viable new organisms known to evolve through an induced natural selection? Please cite research location for perusal. Thanks.

Nylonase is a perfect example. After being found in the wild, an experiment was set up with a different bacteria to see if they could evolve the ability to digest nylon. And they did, though in a slightly different way to the original.

This article on Talk.Origins describes it much better (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr04.html), and has all the reference citations you need to look further.

UnrepentantSinner

10th March 2009, 11:41 PM

I cannot post links yet, but if you do a Google search for "bacteria evolve citrate" you will find several science articles about this research. I am almost positive that a few of them link to the actual study. If you are still having trouble finding the study, I should be able to post links soon, so just ask and I will link to it.

Here's the full paper from PNAS (http://www.pnas.org/content/105/23/7899.long).

Garry Webb

13th March 2009, 07:41 PM

This is the perfect example of the impossibility of evolutionary development in living organisms driving the creation and progression of any living species, which you are forced to contend with if you adhere to a Darwinian worldview. It is likened to baking powder being mixed with water as opposed to vinegar. The baking powder does not choose to react differently from one to the other. It simply is forced to.

In an attempt to insist that the E. coli evolved the ability to metabolize citrate, whereas it supposedly could not do so before, this is clearly not the case. Because the natural cycle of TCA generates and utilizes citrate in a normal metabolism of carbohydrates, the existence of the TCA cycle in all non-dependant living things is very complex, involving many different enzymes and cofactors that are needed in the biochemistry of a cell. Chemical reaction is not Darwinian evolution!

As I have stated previously, the Internet disallows the claims of "so-called science" to go uninvestigated. Would you dispute this quote? "Never mind that E. coli can normally digest citrate in anaerobic conditions and that being able to digest citrate in aerobic conditions is a very common ability in many different bacterial species. Also never mind that aerobic citrate metabolism has been reported in E. coli before so this wasn’t the first time it “evolved”. Ignore the fact that E. coli already has a suite of enzymes to metabolize citrate and all its missing is a way of getting citrate molecules across its cell membrane in the presence of oxygen."

When Richard Lenski began to breed his bacteria he had hopes of getting a random and unguided increase in complexity, or, a real observable evolution in a laboratory setting. Doing so for more than 40,000 generations, with all sorts of selective environments, he clearly failed to demonstrate the emergence of a new species or even a truly spontaneous complexity. He showed that the bacteria did adapt to their environment, but all of the bacteria were not only still bacteria, they clearly remained the same type of bacteria.

And quite obviously, this is not at all what Darwinian Theory proposes. This sort of variation is what we witness everyday as exemplified in hair color, flower color, dog breeds, and finch beaks. No one disputes these sorts of genetic variations. But they do not change the sort of thing the organism is: the human remains a human, the rose a flower, the dog, a canine, and the finch a bird and more specifically, still a finch bird.

As I read the PNSA article, I noted various contradictory statements that I found therein. Such as: "The long-delayed and unique evolution of this function might indicate the involvement of some extremely rare mutation. Alternately, it may involve an ordinary mutation, but one whose physical occurrence or phenotypic expression is contingent on prior mutations in that population."

I am curious to know what is considered a rare mutation as opposed to an ordinary mutation. And if the environment remained the same, would not all of the mutations have been "contingent on prior mutations in that population"? Admittedly, there were no mutations prior to gen. #30,000. By their own definition, "selection requires heritable variation generated by random mutation, and even beneficial mutations may be lost by random drift." Heritable variation is passed down and not random.

What is witnessed by this type of research proves what Michael Behe called "The Edge of Evolution", a limit. In what is commonly espoused in Darwinian evolution, much more than these results are proposed. It declares that there must be enough directional change, one after another through many successive generations, to change what was once a unicellular organism into the various life forms witnessed today. This example of "evolution" does not display a viable mechanism and this mutation does not display special change.

This is what Michael Behe likens to "trench warfare, wherein the role of mutations in antibiotic resistance and pathogen resistance, destroys some of the functionality of the target or host to overcome susceptibility. It’s like putting chewing gum in a mechanical watch; it’s not the way the watch could have been created." Through single mutations, such as malarial resistance, as stated previously, which in its homozygous form, confers the sickle cell disease, in antibiotic resistance and so forth, we do not see mutations accumulating to produce a new species, in neither form nor function. As a matter of fact, we witness that the majority of mutations we do see are quite negative, and overwhelmingly deleterious to the organism involved.

Time after time, what is realized within the confines of a laboratory setting is later found to be inviable when the environment is not so favorable. Such is the case of antibiotic resistance changes. Those that seemingly may not harm the organism, in fact weakens the organism in any other environment except the specific one in which that change helped it survive. The article closes with this as part of a summation of the research: "If the Cit+ lineage is indeed evolving into a new species, then we expect, with time, that more and more of the beneficial mutations substituted in that lineage would be detrimental in the ecological and genetic context of its Cit− progenitor."

It is interesting that on the PBS program "NOW" in December of 2004, Richard Dawkins said that "Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening." I could not find a response from him on what he thinks of this specific research. It is very recent and there is not much on it yet.

The moral of this story? After many thousands of generations, the E.coli bacteria remain E.coli. Fruit flies forced into mutating remain fruit flies. The edge of evolution has a name: biological stasis. It will go this far and no further. I am waiting for the research about the research that we all know will be coming. Let's look at all the evidence in an unbiased light and see the truth.

Does the scientific consensus overwhelmingly support evolution? Yes, it does. They are overwhelmingly of a Darwinian worldview. They must accept evolution!

Wowbagger

13th March 2009, 08:01 PM

Garry, I won't get into details, just yet, but your last post sounds like an Argument from Ignorance. Just because a bunch of people (you, Behe, etc.) can't figure out how something evolved, does NOT mean someone else won't eventually figure it out.

Behe's "Edge of Evolution" limit is not a law of physics. There is no reason to think life could not find a creative way around the "limit". We just need to find it....

....And (more importantly) we make new discoveries as we do. Behe's arguments do not seem to lead to new discoveries: Nothing profound or insightful in understanding how life works.
Although Evolutions does not have an answer to all its questions, yet, it can be used as a framework for doing science. It can be used to inform us of how to solve problems.

Can you prove me wrong? Can you demonstrate how Behe's limits are not just a dead-end and a waste of time?

Wowbagger

13th March 2009, 08:10 PM

And quite obviously, this is not at all what Darwinian Theory proposes.
And, for the record, you are wrong, here. That is everything Darwinian Theory proposes!! Nothing much more. Certainly nothing less.

But, I think I see what the problem might be. You've been mislead. You've probably been taught that there is some sort-of empirical difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, and all that. If that is the case, you've been taught wrong. What you might call "macro-evolution" is simply the result of a lot of "micro-evolutions". It creates the illusion of "big changes", from our point of view. But, in reality, it was all a bunch of small ones.

UnrepentantSinner

14th March 2009, 01:39 AM

This is the perfect example of the impossibility of evolutionary development in living organisms driving the creation and progression of any living species, which you are forced to contend with if you adhere to a Darwinian worldview.

Huh? Try to make scientifically precise statements rather than emotionally laden but otherwise empty pronouncements.

It is likened to baking powder being mixed with water as opposed to vinegar. The baking powder does not choose* to react differently from one to the other. It simply is forced to.

Poor analogy since water, baking powder nor vinegar is alive. Better analogies might be taking a fish out of water and forcing it to absorb oxygen directly from the air through its gills or forcing a lion to eat only grass and leaves. *Also, are you really suggesting that baking powder has free will?

In an attempt to insist that the E. coli evolved the ability to metabolize citrate, whereas it supposedly could not do so before, this is clearly not the case. Because the natural cycle of TCA generates and utilizes citrate in a normal metabolism of carbohydrates, the existence of the TCA cycle in all non-dependant living things is very complex, involving many different enzymes and cofactors that are needed in the biochemistry of a cell. Chemical reaction is not Darwinian evolution!

Bolded - Nope. From here (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html)
But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations - the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

As I have stated previously, the Internet disallows the claims of "so-called science" to go uninvestigated.

What is "so-called-science" and who is preventing it from going investigated? The Internet allows people to post that the Holocaust never happened or that George Bush remotely piloted the planes into the WTC. How exactly are the investigations into E. coli experiments supposedly being quashed?

Would you dispute this quote? "Never mind that E. coli can normally digest citrate in anaerobic conditions and that being able to digest citrate in aerobic conditions is a very common ability in many different bacterial species. Also never mind that aerobic citrate metabolism has been reported in E. coli before so this wasn’t the first time it “evolved”. Ignore the fact that E. coli already has a suite of enzymes to metabolize citrate and all its missing is a way of getting citrate molecules across its cell membrane in the presence of oxygen."

I would.
1. Do you have any citations to go with that quote?
2. You didn't cite it, but a Google search showed it's from Uncommon Descent (http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/new-scientist-the-first-time-evolution-has-been-caught-in-the-act/) an ID blog.
3. It's a blog post by Dave Scot (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dave+scot&aq=f&oq=) who I wouldn't trust to get the weather correct if he opened the door and walked outside.

When Richard Lenski began to breed his bacteria he had hopes of getting a random and unguided increase in complexity, or, a real observable evolution in a laboratory setting. Doing so for more than 40,000 generations, with all sorts of selective environments, he clearly failed to demonstrate the emergence of a new species or even a truly spontaneous complexity. He showed that the bacteria did adapt to their environment, but all of the bacteria were not only still bacteria, they clearly remained the same type of bacteria.

Tell me. Do you know how many species of bacteria there are? Saying "it's still a bacteria" is like saying "it's still a beetle" only more vacuous.

- I have to break this up and get some work done. More later.

paximperium

14th March 2009, 03:04 AM

"Never mind that E. coli can normally digest citrate in anaerobic conditions and that being able to digest citrate in aerobic conditions is a very common ability in many different bacterial species. Yes it can. So? Anaerobic and Aerobic metabolism are vastly different processes.

Also never mind that aerobic citrate metabolism has been reported in E. coli before so this wasn’t the first time it “evolved”. So what? This strain did not have this ability and it formed entirely new genes to do so that was different from the other strains.

Ignore the fact that E. coli already has a suite of enzymes to metabolize citrate and all its missing is a way of getting citrate molecules across its cell membrane in the presence of oxygen."
Which is as stupid as statement as saying that that, "a car has an engine, all that was missing is the fuel line, fuel pump and fuel tank." The generation of the genes and the insuing change in phenotype that led to the citrate transport is evolution in action.

This continues to be Creationists moving the goalpost and franticly working on their denialism.

UnrepentantSinner

14th March 2009, 06:00 AM

continuing...

...they clearly remained the same type of bacteria.

And quite obviously, this is not at all what Darwinian Theory proposes. This sort of variation is what we witness everyday as exemplified in hair color, flower color, dog breeds, and finch beaks. No one disputes these sorts of genetic variations. But they do not change the sort of thing the organism is: the human remains a human, the rose a flower, the dog, a canine, and the finch a bird and more specifically, still a finch bird.

I already pointed out the poverty of your baking powder analogy above and this one is just as bad for the same reason. E coli evolving the ability to metabolize citrate in an oxic environment is more analgous to the fish breathing air with its gills or the lion living off grass and leaves mentioned above.

Also the assertion that "a rose is still a flower" or "a finch is still a bird" can only be due to a profound ignorance of how phylogenetic relationships are determined and the phylogenetic tree built. The Tree of Life web project (http://www.tolweb.org/tree/) is a fascinating and informative resource for learning how taxonomic groups and their relationships have been established and what sort of evidence supports them.

As I read the PNSA article, I noted various contradictory statements that I found therein. Such as: "The long-delayed and unique evolution of this function might indicate the involvement of some extremely rare mutation. Alternately, it may involve an ordinary mutation, but one whose physical occurrence or phenotypic expression is contingent on prior mutations in that population."

I am curious to know what is considered a rare mutation as opposed to an ordinary mutation. And if the environment remained the same, would not all of the mutations have been "contingent on prior mutations in that population"? Admittedly, there were no mutations prior to gen. #30,000. By their own definition, "selection requires heritable variation generated by random mutation, and even beneficial mutations may be lost by random drift." Heritable variation is passed down and not random.

Google is your friend. I typed in Lenski's name and found his Michigan State home page (http://myxo.css.msu.edu/index.html) with his e-mail address. I'm sure if you send him a polite e-mail asking him to clarify what was meant in the paper.

Or, you could have read more of the paper than just the abstract and the first paragraph of the introduction. Under the historical contingency section it explains a rare mutation within the context of the experiment.
Historical Contingency in the Evolution of Cit+. We performed three experiments to test whether the evolution of the Cit+ function required an unusually rare mutation or, alternatively, was historically contingent and depended on the prior evolution of a certain genetic background. All three experiments used clones sampled from many generations of population Ara-3 to replay evolution starting from different genetic backgrounds. The two hypotheses make distinct predictions about the propensity of these backgrounds to re-evolve the Cit+ phenotype (Fig. 3). According to the rare-mutation hypothesis, Cit+ variants should evolve at the same low rate regardless of the generation of origin of the clone with which a replay started. By contrast, the historical-contingency hypothesis predicts that the mutation rate to Cit+ should increase after some potentiating genetic background has evolved. Thus, Cit+ variants should re-evolve more often in the replays using clones sampled from later generations of the Ara-3 population.

What is witnessed by this type of research proves what Michael Behe called "The Edge of Evolution", a limit. In what is commonly espoused in Darwinian evolution, much more than these results are proposed. It declares that there must be enough directional change, one after another through many successive generations, to change what was once a unicellular organism into the various life forms witnessed today. This example of "evolution" does not display a viable mechanism and this mutation does not display special change.

Since the experiment was designed to see what role previous mutations would play in successive generations and whether E coli could evolve to metabolize citrate - not to turn it into a nematode or diatom as you seem to expect it to have - it was a spectacular sucess, despite what you or Behe or any other critic says.

This is what Michael Behe likens to "trench warfare, wherein the role of mutations in antibiotic resistance and pathogen resistance, destroys some of the functionality of the target or host to overcome susceptibility. It’s like putting chewing gum in a mechanical watch; it’s not the way the watch could have been created." Through single mutations, such as malarial resistance, as stated previously, which in its homozygous form, confers the sickle cell disease, in antibiotic resistance and so forth, we do not see mutations accumulating to produce a new species, in neither form nor function. As a matter of fact, we witness that the majority of mutations we do see are quite negative, and overwhelmingly deleterious to the organism involved.

And yet when you step out of the microbiology box that Behe would like us to stay in, and return to the whale evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Cetaceans) page I linked to above, you can see that we have genetically determined a relationship between whales and artiodactyls and that we really don't see that much novelty. The nasal cavity has moved to the dorsal. Forelimbs have the same bones terrestrial mammals have. Hindlimbs have disappeared and the tail has elongated. About the only real innovation is the sonar melon found in toothed whales. The same is true for many other taxons and the advent of new species. The wheel wasn't reinvented every time.

ime after time, what is realized within the confines of a laboratory setting is later found to be inviable when the environment is not so favorable. Such is the case of antibiotic resistance changes. Those that seemingly may not harm the organism, in fact weakens the organism in any other environment except the specific one in which that change helped it survive. The article closes with this as part of a summation of the research: "If the Cit+ lineage is indeed evolving into a new species, then we expect, with time, that more and more of the beneficial mutations substituted in that lineage would be detrimental in the ecological and genetic context of its Cit− progenitor."

Ummm, you do know why the Mammoth and Mastadon went extinct right? It wasn't just human predation. They were overspecialized. Now imagine the specialization that occurs in bateria where you might have one species that only resides in the intestines of only one species of mouse. The predictions about Cit+ aren't entirely surprising. The environment selects for mutations beneficial within it, not any possible environment.

It is interesting that on the PBS program "NOW" in December of 2004, Richard Dawkins said that "Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening." I could not find a response from him on what he thinks of this specific research. It is very recent and there is not much on it yet.

I'm sure he's weighed in on it and I think what he's referring to is large scale speciation, not just the advent of new species, which has been observed.
Interview (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/dawkins_print.html)
Observed speciation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html)
Some more observed speciation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html)

The moral of this story? After many thousands of generations, the E.coli bacteria remain E.coli. Fruit flies forced into mutating remain fruit flies. The edge of evolution has a name: biological stasis. It will go this far and no further. I am waiting for the research about the research that we all know will be coming. Let's look at all the evidence in an unbiased light and see the truth.

Does the scientific consensus overwhelmingly support evolution? Yes, it does. They are overwhelmingly of a Darwinian worldview. They must accept evolution!

You might want to save the triumphalism until after you've read some of the stuff I've linked to...

Garry Webb

14th March 2009, 12:37 PM

I just skimmed some of the most recent responses and cannot commit to an in depth reply right away, but I would like to make a few observations in comment.

SinnerMan highlighted this quote of mine: “It is likened to baking powder being mixed with water as opposed to vinegar. The baking powder does not choose to react differently from one to the other. It simply is forced to.” And then retorted “Poor analogy since water, baking powder nor vinegar is alive.” But, isn’t this how life began according to evolutionists? Sorry, the dreaded “C” word!

When you make a comparison such as this: “Tell me. Do you know how many species of bacteria there are? Saying "it's still a bacteria" is like saying "it's still a beetle" only more vacuous.” I would respond by saying that what is being posited by Lenski is like putting a moon roof on a Cadillac and calling it a space shuttle!

Admittedly, I baited you guys into committing yourselves to this medal winning example of Darwinism when I asked: “Are you willing to cite any evidence of a prepared and artificial environment, wherein these processes have been found to produce viable new organisms known to evolve through an induced natural selection

Not surprisingly, you immediately cited one of the most recently released documents in defense of “the proof of evolution”. And why? Because it has not yet been studied in depth and there are few opposing views thus far. Your greatest problem now becomes: What will present and future research prove that Lenski actually accomplished? Another “Haeckel’s embryos” I would venture to say.

I cannot help but be amused by the willingness of Darwinites that so eagerly accept human experimentation within the confines of a controlled laboratory setting, and gloat that “naturalistic evolution” has been witnessed. Does natural selection change the environment every time an organism reaches any given point in its evolutionary progression? Does it re-supply the food source? Does it save the ancestoral organisms for another chance at a later time? Does Intelligent Design ring a bell? Evolutionists are so predictable!

paximperium

14th March 2009, 02:17 PM

But, isn’t this how life began according to evolutionists? Sorry, the dreaded “C” word!
It is isn't.

Abiogenesis is NOT evolution. Are you sure you know what you are talking about?

I would respond by saying that what is being posited by Lenski is like putting a moon roof on a Cadillac and calling it a space shuttle!
And you would be completely and utterly wrong. It is an additional major function that an organism did not previously have.

It would be equivalent to a car being able to burn hydrogen instead of gasoline.To an ignorant layperson, the car sure looks the same but just about everything internally is new.

What will present and future research prove that Lenski actually accomplished? We don't know. Unlike ID-iots and Creationists, scientists will attempt to reproduce the results and continue to study this instead of attacking someone's work based solely on their dogmatic bias and ignorance on what they are attacking.

Another “Haeckel’s embryos” I would venture to say.
While possible, it is very unlikely since all the samples are actually open for anyone doing research to examine themselves. Oh, was that a pathetic attempt to attack someone's reputation because you don't like the results?

I cannot help but be amused by the willingness of Darwinites that so eagerly accept human experimentation within the confines of a controlled laboratory setting, and gloat that “naturalistic evolution” has been witnessed.
Be as amused as you want since all you are doing to waving away evidence without any justification but your own ignorance and dogma. Science will march on as the Dark Age, stone age morons sit in the caves gloating that magic man gives them magic power while laughing at those people developing modern medicine, cures for diseases and genetic engineering.

Does natural selection change the environment every time an organism reaches any given point in its evolutionary progression?
It actually may. It depends entirely on the organism and environment.

Does it re-supply the food source?
Does what re-supply food sources?

Does it save the ancestoral organisms for another chance at a later time? Doubtful.
Does Intelligent Design ring a bell? Evolutionists are so predictable! That was not a coherent thought process. While not very surprising for an ID-iot, please attempt again to sound less ignorant about something you are attacking.

Wowbagger

14th March 2009, 04:47 PM

So, Garry, I have a simple question:

If evolution is so utterly flawed and laughable, then what alternative would you propose, that fits all the evidence better, and also helps us continue to make new discoveries?

Please answer the question in a manner that would appeal to professional scientists, who are very interested in making new discoveries about life.

Thanks!

smloeffelholz

14th March 2009, 04:50 PM

When you called evolutionists predictable, that was the pot calling the kettle black. The instant I posted about the Cit+ bacteria I knew exactly how you were going to refute it. The same way that every creationist, and coincidentally the same way that every major creationist website, tries to refute it. Simply claim that the mutation was a very minor change and point out that the bacteria is still bacteria. Despite the fact that the first statement is false and the second statement is not only obvious but expected by the researchers themselves, it sounds good and can make the uneducated nod their heads.

First, I have to point out (even though others already did) that the E-coli bacteria used in the experiment could not metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions at the beginning of the experiment. This point cannot be emphasized enough because that shows that the Cit+ bacteria developed a unique, beneficial mutation. It doesn't matter that other strains of bacteria already had that ability, this particular strain didn't. Using this logic, if a child who has never spoken before speaks, it is no big deal because other children can do it (not the greatest example because it does not involve generations and evolution but I hope you understand my point).

The second statement from above is just moving the goal posts. Creationists love to do this and have been for as long as evolution has been around. First they wanted proof that random mutation and natural selection could produce beneficial changes in an organism. Once this was displayed many times, they wanted evidence that these traits could accumulate and cause speciation events. Then several examples of this were found. Now creationists have resorted to asking to see the impossible. Even though evolution has only been studied for about 150 years, they want to see changes that should take hundreds of thousand to millions of years. This is akin to not believing in erosion because no scientist has been able to reproduce the Grand Canyon in 20 years. The real kicker here is that the only way this evidence could be obtained in our lifetime, is by experimentally speeding up mutations and selection using non-natural means. Then even if a scientist succeeds at this monumental feat, creationists will claim that intelligence was involved and evolution was not the driving force. Each time a scientist completes a challenge set forth by creationists, they try to explain away the research and put forth a new, much more difficult, challenge.

Interestingly enough, after you gave your predictable reply to the Cit+ study, I was going to mention the nylon bacteria, but someone beat me to it. You have not addressed this topic, and it is much harder to explain away than the Cit+ bacteria. These organisms are able to digest molecules that did not exist 100 years ago. Either the bacteria always had the ability to digest a substance that never existed (something that makes no sense at all), or they developed this novel trait through random mutations such as gene duplications. If you concede that the latter is true, this obliterates the claim that useful additions to the genome cannot come about through random mutation, and that the probabilities involved in developing novel proteins is prohibitively high.

Finally, I would like to address the point you keep making about beneficial mutations making something less fit in a different environment. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. An animal cannot be perfectly adapted to every conceivable environment, and any trait that is beneficial in one environment will be detrimental in another. Evolutionary processes do not have foresight and cannot possibly plan for the future. Pandas are an excellent example of this. They are animals that are perfectly suited to occupy a very specific niche in the environment (the ability to digest a rapidly growing and bountiful plant is obviously beneficial). Now that their niche is all but gone, they are all but extinct. This doesn't mean that they were poorly evolved, it just means that the environment they had evolved to live in is now basically destroyed. I doubt that anyone would claim that arctic wolves or scorpions are poorly adapted to their environments, yet place a scorpion in the arctic and an arctic wolf in the desert and see how well they do. Becoming more highly adapted, and therefore more evolved, to an environment requires that you are more poorly adapted for other environments.

Garry Webb

15th March 2009, 02:09 AM

Excuse me, paximperium, just for clarification, are you calling me an idiot? (ID-iots and creationists) Your quote: “It would be equivalent to a car being able to burn hydrogen instead of gasoline. To an ignorant layperson, the car sure looks the same but just about everything internally is new.” You really should be more cautious when posting responses before actually doing a little research on a given topic. Do you think that a car cannot burn hydrogen?

Try Googling “Running a gasoline engine on hydrogen”. To an ignorant layperson, the ability of an internal combustion gas engine to be converted to burn hydrogen might seem like a great undertaking, but to an educated person, it can actually be accomplished in less than an hour with a very few converted parts. The ability has been there all the time. The biggest problem is delivering the fuel to the carburetor. And converting it over is not, evolution, but design. Like the E. coli in Lenski’s research, the “hydrogen”, or citrate, provided in the medium in which the bacteria were grown, was provided by the researchers. And the ability to convert is already designed into the cell’s information, as accomplished in wild strains.

WoWBagger stated that “Behe, etc… can't figure out how something evolved, does NOT mean someone else won't eventually figure it out.” And “If evolution is so utterly flawed and laughable, then what alternative would you propose, that fits all the evidence better, and also helps us continue to make new discoveries?” How about science!

Steve, just for the record, if a mutation in Lenski’s E. coli occurred, please tell us what is was and how it occurred. What was the mutation? I cannot seem to find it in any documentation, but as Mr. Maxipad has suggested, I may not have the ability to comprehend it. But, neither did Lenski and friends!

As to your first point above: “the E-coli bacteria used in the experiment could not metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions at the beginning of the experiment. This point cannot be emphasized enough because that shows that the Cit+ bacteria developed a unique, beneficial mutation. It doesn't matter that other strains of bacteria already had that ability, this particular strain didn't. Using this logic, if a child who has never spoken before speaks, it is no big deal because other children can do it (not the greatest example because it does not involve generations and evolution but I hope you understand my point).” What kind of logic is this? Has it been shown that a normal child has the ability to speak? Yes. Has it been shown that E. coli can metabolise citrate? Yes.

As to the second: “First they (creationists) wanted proof that random mutation and natural selection could produce beneficial changes in an organism. Once this was displayed many times, they wanted evidence that these traits could accumulate and cause speciation events. Then several examples of this were found. Now creationists have resorted to asking to see the impossible.”

You admit that “…about beneficial mutations making something less fit in a different environment. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. An animal cannot be perfectly adapted to every conceivable environment, and any trait that is beneficial in one environment will be detrimental in another.”

Random mutation and natural selection cannot and never have produced changes in any organism. An organism simply reacts to the environment in which it exists. Mutation is a natural event in biological organisms and have no goal one way or the other. If the environment in which an organism resides is “user friendly” the organism can be “selected” to survive. If the environment is deleterious, the organism can be equally “selected” to perish, ending all possibility of further survival. So much for an accumulation of causal speciation events! (You did not cite what these were)

When organisms are given continual un-natural selective opportunities at success within an artificial controlled environment, I would not be too excited about making a claim as to what is actually being witnesssed. “Beneficial changes” are guaranteed within a protected environment but not in the real world.

You state that “I doubt that anyone would claim that arctic wolves or scorpions are poorly adapted to their environments, yet place a scorpion in the arctic and an arctic wolf in the desert and see how well they do.” I guarantee that I could keep an arctic wolf alive in the desert and a scorpion alive in the arctic with air conditioning and heat!

paximperium

15th March 2009, 03:31 AM

You really should be more cautious when posting responses before actually doing a little research on a given topic. Coming from you, it is not only ironic but hypocritical.

Do you think that a car cannot burn hydrogen?
Did I say that? No, looks like you're talking to yourself.

Try Googling “Running a gasoline engine on hydrogen”. To an ignorant layperson, the ability of an internal combustion gas engine to be converted to burn hydrogen might seem like a great undertaking, but to an educated person, it can actually be accomplished in less than an hour with a very few converted parts.
I love the backtracking and moving of the goapost.

To someone attempting to make false analogies, claiming that a car's ability to burn hydrogen via some significant internal changes is miraculously the same as the original false analogy of claiming that the mutation of e.coli to metabolize citrate it similar to adding a moonroof is exceedingly dishonest.

The ability has been there all the time. The biggest problem is delivering the fuel to the carburetor. And converting it over is not, evolution, but design. Like the E. coli in Lenski’s research, the “hydrogen”, or citrate, provided in the medium in which the bacteria were grown, was provided by the researchers. And the ability to convert is already designed into the cell’s information, as accomplished in wild strains.
Nice handwaving and ignoring of evidence as usual. And where did the ability to transport the citrate come from?

Using you silly car analogy, the car which used to run of gas has suddenly developed the ability to electrolyze hydrogen, compress it into a new hydrogen tank and then transport it into the carborator. Wow, what a small change :rolleyes:

You claim it is a tiny little change which is as disingenous as any Creationists and ID-iot claim.

paximperium

15th March 2009, 04:26 AM

Steve, just for the record, if a mutation in Lenski’s E. coli occurred, please tell us what is was and how it occurred. What was the mutation? Don't know. They are working on it. Scientists don't make up answers.

I cannot seem to find it in any documentation, but as Mr. Maxipad has suggested, I may not have the ability to comprehend it.
That is blatantly obvious.

But, neither did Lenski and friends! That's because unlike people who attack science based on dogma, Lenski and scientists do not pretend to have answers they don't have. He is working on it.

What kind of logic is this? Has it been shown that a normal child has the ability to speak? Yes. Has it been shown that E. coli can metabolise citrate? Yes.
You must have missed the entire major section in the paper where they test and explain their hypothesis to determine if the phenotypic change is due to preexisting genes or a new mutation.

Not surprising at all.

Random mutation and natural selection cannot and never have produced changes in any organism.
Which is a complete and utter lie.

An organism simply reacts to the environment in which it exists. Mutation is a natural event in biological organisms and have no goal one way or the other. If the environment in which an organism resides is “user friendly” the organism can be “selected” to survive. If the environment is deleterious, the organism can be equally “selected” to perish, ending all possibility of further survival. So much for an accumulation of causal speciation events!
I no follow. Me dumb or more likely you're making a giant leap off the precipice of ignorance as example of the the use of an Argument from Ignorance and Non-Sequitur again.

When organisms are given continual un-natural selective opportunities at success within an artificial controlled environment, I would not be too excited about making a claim as to what is actually being witnesssed. “Beneficial changes” are guaranteed within a protected environment but not in the real world. Would you care to tell us the difference? What about the "real" world would prevent beneficial changes or are you making things up again?

I guarantee that I could keep an arctic wolf alive in the desert and a scorpion alive in the arctic with air conditioning and heat! Which has nothing to do with the research in question. Are you sure you know what you're talking about or are you making another nonsensical analogy?

UnrepentantSinner

15th March 2009, 04:58 AM

Garry, let me make a double play here. Could you start using some of the quote/multiquote functions of this forum? It will make it a lot easier to reply to you. For instance, here's your quote from above that I have chopped down to the one part I want to reply to with tags turned off.

Steve, just for the record, if a mutation in Lenski’s E. coli occurred, please tell us what is was and how it occurred. What was the mutation? I cannot seem to find it in any documentation, but as Mr. Maxipad has suggested, I may not have the ability to comprehend it. But, neither did Lenski and friends!

With the tags tuned on it looks like this:
Steve, just for the record, if a mutation in Lenski’s E. coli occurred, please tell us what is was and how it occurred. What was the mutation? I cannot seem to find it in any documentation, but as Mr. Maxipad has suggested, I may not have the ability to comprehend it. But, neither did Lenski and friends!

I think I asked earlier in the thread why you want to know the specific loci of the mutation. Are you a microbiologist or a geneticist? Will that information mean anything to you?

Well, I couldn't find anything in the paper that stuck out, but I did find something on the Supporting Information (http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/06/02/0803151105.DCSupplemental/0803151105SI.pdf) supplement.
Confirmation of Cit+ Variants. Each putative Cit+ variant was streaked on MC agar and Christensen’s citrate agar to confirm its phenotype. One colony was then selected from the MC plate, and its Ara marker status, sensitivity to phage T5, and resistance to phage T6 were checked to confirmthat it was derived from the ancestral E. coli B strain (1). We also sequenced the pykF and nadR loci of Cit+ variants and their parental Cit+ clones to confirm single base pair substitutions that uniquely identify the Ara-3 population (5).

To me this reads that the pykF and nadR genes were the areas effected by the mutation. I don't know though since I'm not a microbiologist or geneticist. Perhaps it will mean more to you.

paximperium

15th March 2009, 05:40 AM

To me this reads that the pykF and nadR genes were the areas effected by the mutation. I don't know though since I'm not a microbiologist or geneticist. Perhaps it will mean more to you.
No it isn't. These are genetic markers to determine if the e.coli that developed the Cit+ is from the original e.coli line(Ara-3) or a contaminant. These markers show that these Cit+ e.coli are from the original lineage.

The specific mutations leading to citrate transport are unknown as of yet but they are likely being studied. There is also a significant write-up in the paper to determine if the new phenotype is an entirely new mutation or a preexisting gene. They show that it is a new mutation.

It will be interesting to see if the mutation is similar to other e.coli cit+ cell lines or an entirey new mutation. But then scientists find new discoveries interesting while Creationists and ID-iots just deny and lie.

UnrepentantSinner

15th March 2009, 08:40 AM

No it isn't.

Thankee Doc. Perhaps that data will mean something to Garry since he seems to be so insistant on knowing the specifics which he has yet to show why he needs or what he plans on doing with it.

paximperium

15th March 2009, 08:48 AM

Thankee Doc. Perhaps that data will mean something to Garry since he seems to be so insistant on knowing the specifics which he has yet to show why he needs or what he plans on doing with it.
I have little doubt he will claim that we cannot "prove" that the Cit+ phenotype is due to mutation since we do not know the exact genotypical changes involved therefore this experiment cannot be used as evidence for evolution. It is more god of the gaps and argument from ignorance but I have little doubt he will try. He will then will move the goalpost once the specific genes are found.

It is as amusing as watching a high school dropout criticize a neurosurgeon for not doing a brain surgery like how he heard it was suppose to be done by his witch doctor.

UnrepentantSinner

15th March 2009, 09:10 AM

SinnerMan highlighted this quote of mine: “It is likened to baking powder being mixed with water as opposed to vinegar. The baking powder does not choose to react differently from one to the other. It simply is forced to.” And then retorted “Poor analogy since water, baking powder nor vinegar is alive.” But, isn’t this how life began according to evolutionists? Sorry, the dreaded “C” word!

That's quite a Gish Gallop in one paragraph so let's break it down.

1. Your baking powder and water/vingear analogy was poor since we weren't talking about a chemical reaction, we were talking about metablization and thus my analogies of a fish "breathing" directly through it's gills, a lion eating grass and leaves and Pax's example of a car running on hydrogen were more salient. If you want to stretch analogies, Lenski's experiment was more an example of a plant evolving the ability to live off Pepto Bismol rather than nitrogen based fertilizers.
2. "Isn't this how life began according to evolutionists"? Instead of giving you a lecture I'm sure you won't pay any attention to, how about you just explain to me where anyone who advocates abiogenesis thinks life sprang from a 5th grade science fair simulated volcano?
3. What the heck is the "dreaded C word"?
4. I'm sorry for not holding my tongue in the patronizing department as much as I've tried to in this discussion, but given the areas of evolution you seem utterly unfamiliar with thus far, I'm not sure a tangent into abiogenesis would serve any other purpose than you attempting to avoid answers to questions you have previously asked and avoided.

When you make a comparison such as this: “Tell me. Do you know how many species of bacteria there are? Saying "it's still a bacteria" is like saying "it's still a beetle" only more vacuous.” I would respond by saying that what is being posited by Lenski is like putting a moon roof on a Cadillac and calling it a space shuttle!

Really? Does an organism that cannot eat something that evolves the ability to eat said something seem that extreme a change to you? I stand by my original analogy of a fish absorbig oxygen from the air through its gills or a lion eating vegetation only and Pax's car on hydrogen rebuttals. You have yet to explain why this is such an insurmoutable mutation apart from your own incrdulity.

Admittedly, I baited you guys into committing yourselves to this medal winning example of Darwinism when I asked: “Are you willing to cite any evidence of a prepared and artificial environment, wherein these processes have been found to produce viable new organisms known to evolve through an induced natural selection

As long as you're admitting things, how about admitting you totally ingored my links to examples of observed speciation to myopically focus on Lenski's experiment so you could use ad hoc objections like "where did the mutations occur" as if it would have any effect on your understanding of the experiment or mutations in general.

Not surprisingly, you immediately cited one of the most recently released documents in defense of “the proof of evolution”. And why? Because it has not yet been studied in depth and there are few opposing views thus far. Your greatest problem now becomes: What will present and future research prove that Lenski actually accomplished?

You certainly love to adopt a triumphal tone when you're on the ropes don't you? Steve has already noted your myopia on Lenski's experiment and you have had ample opportunity to address his citation of the nylonase bacteria, but you've apparently got your talking points from C/ID websites and you're going to stick with them instead of where the actual evidence leads it seems.

Another “Haeckel’s embryos” I would venture to say.

Oh please. Two points. Haeckel fudging his embryo drawings doesn't change the fact that embryology is an important evidence for evolution. That and I'm calling you out. Since you've baught into the C/IDer urban legend that biology textbooks are still using Haeckel's drawings as evidence of evolution instead of as a teaching point, how about you cite the textbook in question and provide a scanned page? I've checked IDer websites and have yet to see any scanned page evidencing their claim about this.

I cannot help but be amused by the willingness of Darwinites that so eagerly accept human experimentation within the confines of a controlled laboratory setting, and gloat that “naturalistic evolution” has been witnessed. Does natural selection change the environment every time an organism reaches any given point in its evolutionary progression? Does it re-supply the food source? Does it save the ancestoral organisms for another chance at a later time? Does Intelligent Design ring a bell? Evolutionists are so predictable!

What is it like to go through life without a sense of irony?

And I hope you're not still letting your students read this discussion. Just my $.02.

paximperium

15th March 2009, 09:32 AM

3. What the heck is the "dreaded C word"?
Creation...I consider it as dreaded as any mindset that makes humanity exceedingly stupid.

You certainly love to adopt a triumphal tone when you're on the ropes don't you? Smug ignorance is a hallmark sign of a Creationist/ID-iot.

Wowbagger

15th March 2009, 09:39 AM

WoWBagger stated that “Behe, etc… can't figure out how something evolved, does NOT mean someone else won't eventually figure it out.” And “If evolution is so utterly flawed and laughable, then what alternative would you propose, that fits all the evidence better, and also helps us continue to make new discoveries?” How about science!

That is not answering my question. What scientific concept would help us make new discoveries about life, better than evolution has, so far?

Wowbagger

15th March 2009, 10:21 AM

Perhaps it might help if we came up with a fictional scenario we can play with.

Pretend that I am a materials scientist, who is interested in developing new technologies and materials out of microbial components. For example, I might be interested in researching possible ways to build roll-up video displays, that use a sheet of biological elements that light up different color under different stimuli. Or, alternatively, I could be interested in breeding bacterial agents that can be used to clean up certain pollutants my previous material products seem to cough up.

Now, in order to research and develop these technologies, as effectively and as efficiently as possible, I am going to need to work with any scientific framework that helps me understand all of the nitty-gritty biochemical details of all these microbes.

Let us assume, for argument sake, that I already have been using the Theory of Evolution, with great success, so far. I have subjected microbes to certain conditions, and found often surprising ways they could adapt to them.
For example, I have identified specific sets of chemicals configurations microbes are prone to fall into, when selecting and breeding ones that reflect certain colors, over many generations. Or, alternatively, I have discovered a few different ways the bacteria could be adapted to "digest" certain polluting elements.

But, my work is not yet complete, of course. There are still a few details to be investigated ironed out, before I can confidently sell the product. Perhaps the reliability of the adaptations is not yet 100%, and I would like to know what are the driving forces behind some of the failures.

It is now your turn, Garry, to tell me what I am missing. I would like to know what concepts and frameworks are going to help me iron those last details. Is there an alternative that would work better than Evolution?
Is it Intelligent Design? If so, please tell me how inserting the idea of an Intelligent Designer is going to help me understand my microbes to an even greater degree of detail!

(And, to be clear, claiming that I am acting as an Intelligent Designer is a cop out. I am not interested in how I am behaving. I am interested in understanding how and why my microbes are behaving the way they are, and I want that understanding to be as specific and as detailed as possible!)

paximperium

15th March 2009, 10:24 AM

Wow...will we actually see an ID-iot actually propose an actual working ID model that can actually be useful and testable?

This will be a first in history.

TraneWreck

15th March 2009, 10:31 AM

I was surprised this made it past one posted reply.

Wowbagger

15th March 2009, 12:32 PM

ID-iotName calling is counter-productive. I am trying to encourage him to respond to my questions in this thread. You're only going to drive him away, thinking we're all a bunch of snot-heads or something.

Garry Webb

16th March 2009, 05:25 AM

I was assured that this website would provide an atmosphere in which honest debate would be made available. Attacking the argument is one thing, but the personal attacks are uncalled for. Four times in the last several posts I was called an idiot and will not stand for it. Several of you need to go back and read the rules for posting as I did. I was told that this would not happen here. Several of these posters' tones are exactly like those on the skeptoid website, and if they are not the same individuals, I would be surprised. I will not be posting here again . I can post where this type of response is not allowed.

paximperium

16th March 2009, 05:35 AM

UnrepentantSinner

16th March 2009, 05:38 AM

I'm not surprised by a Creationists playing the martyr and running away like they usually do when backed into a corner and shown to be a complete and utter liar.

Seriously. I concur with Wowbagger. You're not helping. Garry clearly came here with a chip on his shoulder (hence the "trinitarian troll" post title), but that's no reason we shouldn't be, well, not abusive if not entirely cordial.

paximperium

16th March 2009, 05:59 AM

Seriously. I concur with Wowbagger. You're not helping. Garry clearly came here with a chip on his shoulder (hence the "trinitarian troll" post title), but that's no reason we shouldn't be, well, not abusive if not entirely cordial.
I have little inclination or interest to be polite to blatant liars.

They are Creationists who are actively ignorant and can be educated. I've had much success with a bunch of them who after being educated will actually accept evolution or realize that not all the crap they are being told by their fellow fundementalists is true. These guys are honest if ignorant.

Garry is an apologists. He has no interest in learning anything at all. He is trying out his little pile of apolegetics and seeing what lies and disinformation he can get away with before using it on his flock. Using the nice guy approach does not accomplish anything except to drag out his nonsense into ten pages before he leaves in a huff and cries about the evil Darwinists.

I apologize if I find smugly ignorant people who are liars to be exceedingly vile.

dafydd

16th March 2009, 06:07 AM

Evolution

dafydd

16th March 2009, 06:23 AM

dafydd

16th March 2009, 06:28 AM

[QUOTE=MG1962;3552997]Thats perhaps the core of why I also dont find conflict in my faith and science. If we accept Gods involvement in the Universe, then we have accept that we are totally clueless to his great plan. I fear that for some that is too big a dent in their ego to handle.

God made us incredible curious, then gave us an amazing playground to exercise that curiosity in
Does giving innocent children terminal cancer have any part in "god's great plan"?

UnrepentantSinner

16th March 2009, 09:42 AM

God made us incredible curious, then gave us an amazing playground to exercise that curiosity in
Does giving innocent children terminal cancer have any part in "god's great plan"?

Ummm, the R&P subforum is over there. MG1962 is a Christian who accepts evolution and this thread is about the scientific evidence for Evolution or Creationism, so your "why is God evil" B.S. gambit is totally misplaced.

I'd also note that you should pay more attention to when messages were posted since your reply to evolutiondisbeliever was to one a year old or so.

Knee jerk reactions don't help.

UnrepentantSinner

16th March 2009, 09:54 AM

I have little inclination or interest to be polite to blatant liars.

I really don't give a **** about your opinion of Creationists or Garry in particular. Whether they are blatant liars or not doesn't mean you need to jump all over them and attack them personally. Remember this forum has Rule 12 that you agreed to abide by when you signed up for it.

They are Creationists who are actively ignorant and can be educated. I've had much success with a bunch of them who after being educated will actually accept evolution or realize that not all the crap they are being told by their fellow fundementalists is true. These guys are honest if ignorant.

I've encountered a number of them during my years on-line debating Crevo. I've also encountered a number of Creationist intransigents. How is personally attacking the latter going to make even the slightest chink in their intellectual armor? Additionally, Garry was invited to discuss/debate here by Steve/smloeffelholz. If anything it was owed to him by us as hosts to challenge him politely rather than attack him with ad hominems.

Garry is an apologists. He has no interest in learning anything at all. He is trying out his little pile of apolegetics and seeing what lies and disinformation he can get away with before using it on his flock.

1. So you're claiming to be psychic now and able to read his mind?
2. You don't see any value to this discussion for lurkers? Did you miss where Garry mentioned students were reading this thread?

Using the nice guy approach does not accomplish anything except to drag out his nonsense into ten pages before he leaves in a huff and cries about the evil Darwinists.

Spare me the Articulette drama. He just didn't like you calling him an idiot.

I apologize if I find smugly ignorant people who are liars to be exceedingly vile.

Well forgive me if I find evolution advocates who go for the jugular and make personal attacks on YECs not helpful in encouraging dialogue and discussion.

smloeffelholz

16th March 2009, 10:27 AM

Pax, I have to agree with UrS here, and I wish that I wasn't so busy lately. When I invited Garry to this forum, it was to avoid the character limit on the Skeptoid website and to get assistance from members who had previously contributed to the forum. It was not my intention to have him insulted until he got offended and left. This is laid out in the very first post of this thread, and although I admire your enthusiasm, your attitude is less than helpful. All you do is play right into the hand of creationists. By being insulting, rude, and arrogant you portray exactly what they think all evolutionists are.

If you cannot adhere to the rules of this thread and this forum, then I would ask you to please stop posting. I understand that it is frustrating when someone refuses to listen or admit mistakes, but getting angry and condescending is only hurting your cause. I am going to try to speak with Garry and bring him back to the forum. If Garry is reading this, this post applies equally to you. Names like Mr. SinnerMan and especially Mr. Maxipad are not appropriate. I would ask you to follow the rules that you expect others to follow.

paximperium

16th March 2009, 10:36 AM

My apologies. I will attempt to be civil or keep my trap shut.

smloeffelholz

16th March 2009, 11:25 AM

Steve, just for the record, if a mutation in Lenski’s E. coli occurred, please tell us what is was and how it occurred. What was the mutation? I cannot seem to find it in any documentation, but as Mr. Maxipad has suggested, I may not have the ability to comprehend it. But, neither did Lenski and friends!

This has been stated in previous replies, and I will say it again. They are currently working on that information. Even though they don't yet have the answer for this particular mutation, papers have been published that explain and give evidence supporting the creation of novel proteins. The paper linked below is a great example of this, and even briefly mentions the nylonase bacteria I previously spoke of.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WG1-4KJV32X-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8cbcef5e1865ac2864bf746e692fc4f7

As to your first point above: “the E-coli bacteria used in the experiment could not metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions at the beginning of the experiment. This point cannot be emphasized enough because that shows that the Cit+ bacteria developed a unique, beneficial mutation. It doesn't matter that other strains of bacteria already had that ability, this particular strain didn't. Using this logic, if a child who has never spoken before speaks, it is no big deal because other children can do it (not the greatest example because it does not involve generations and evolution but I hope you understand my point).” What kind of logic is this? Has it been shown that a normal child has the ability to speak? Yes. Has it been shown that E. coli can metabolise citrate? Yes.

Upon rereading my example, I didn't include a detail that is critical to the example. This is the problem with proofreading your own work. I meant to say, "if a 12 year old child who has never spoken before, finally speaks..." I hope that this clears up the message I was trying to make. In the example of the 12 year old child, people would think it was amazing (religious people would probably consider it a miracle) if the child suddenly began speaking. It would be hard to argue that an occurrence like that is mundane. Even though other children have the ability to speak, this specific child could not speak, and suddenly gained the ability to do so. Even though other bacteria can aerobically metabolize citrate, this bacteria could not, and suddenly gained the ability to do so.

Random mutation and natural selection cannot and never have produced changes in any organism. An organism simply reacts to the environment in which it exists. Mutation is a natural event in biological organisms and have no goal one way or the other. If the environment in which an organism resides is “user friendly” the organism can be “selected” to survive. If the environment is deleterious, the organism can be equally “selected” to perish, ending all possibility of further survival. So much for an accumulation of causal speciation events! (You did not cite what these were)

In response to the first statement, see the study linked to above, the Cit+ bacteria, or the nylonase bacteria. In response to the lack of speciation events, UrS provided a link to several examples of these several posts ago. The middle of that paragraph is a description of the very process that you said could not happen in the opening sentence. Was that juxtaposition meant to be ironic, or was it an accident?

When organisms are given continual un-natural selective opportunities at success within an artificial controlled environment, I would not be too excited about making a claim as to what is actually being witnesssed. “Beneficial changes” are guaranteed within a protected environment but not in the real world.

Both the Cit+ and especially the nylonase bacteria occurred in an environment without unnatural selection. The only thing out of the ordinary in both examples is the environment itself, but that is the point of evolution. Evolution works to change organisms so that they are more suited for life in a given environment.

You state that “I doubt that anyone would claim that arctic wolves or scorpions are poorly adapted to their environments, yet place a scorpion in the arctic and an arctic wolf in the desert and see how well they do.” I guarantee that I could keep an arctic wolf alive in the desert and a scorpion alive in the arctic with air conditioning and heat!

I hope you see why that makes no sense at all. You are using technological advances to give the animals an advantage that they wouldn't normally have. A man can be kept alive even though he is completely brain-dead, but that is hardly natural. The point that I made stands. Any trait that increases an animals fitness in one environment will decrease its fitness in some other environment. Come up with an example that contradicts that statement, and we have something to talk about.