I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Off-Topic => Off-Topic: Talk about anything you want. => Topic started by: rocker on January 16, 2010, 07:38:00 AM
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This is intended as a thread to debate evolution. All views are welcome, but this topic can and often does get heated. Please debate only facts and do not attack others personally. Conversely, do not assume that an attack on your views is an attack on you personally.
The scientific consensus is this:
The universe is about 15 billion years old. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The earliest known life appeared on Earth when it was about a billion years old - although scientists seem to be discovering earlier life forms all the time.
This story of the universe is supported by many sciences: geology, chemistry, cosmology (a type of astronomy), evolutionary science, physics, and many others.
"Evolution" is a change in the genetic makeup of a population over time. This has been observed in several species. It is clearly shown in the fossil record. It is a fact.
"Theories of evolution" are attempts to explain how that happens. The first theory of evolution, formulated by Charles Darwin, is known popularly as "survival of the fittest". At its most basic, it states that a small random change (mutation) may result in an animal being better suited for its environment (a faster predator, say). That change will help the animal live a little longer, and thus have more children to pass the trait on to. Eventually, more of the animals will be faster than the original species.
There are other theories of evolution. Most notably, Stephen Jay Gould proposed that evolution does not happen gradually, but very quickly (within a few generations).
When a population has accumulated enough new traits that members can no longer breed with members of the original population (usually because a population has become isolated - for example, they live on an island, or the two populations are separated by a mountain range or something similar), the populations are said to now be different species.
Evolution does not have a "direction". We do not evolve "from" lower animals "into" more sophisticated animals. We only change to better fit our environment.
Most people who believe in God have no problem with evolution. The Catholic Church has endorsed the the theory of evolution, and has declared it compatible with the Bible. Charles Darwin was a Christian.
A few Christians believe that evolution proves there is no God.
Let the games begin.
- rocker
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Thank You Rocker......
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thank you rocker... just marking my spot now cause I need coffee and my bananna, but I'll be back... WILL IT BE DISCUSSION AND INFORMATION AS YOUR INITIAL POST OR WILL THERE SIMPLY BE POSTINGS OF OTHER PAPERS. Speaking of staying on TOPIC...
For anyone who plays the word association game... I say God, you reply Church, I reply Baptist, you reply Jesus, I reply salvation, you replay creation, I reply divine, you reply intervention, I reply evolution, ... get my point. Staying on topic is different for each individual. You say god, I say higher power, ...
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Before the first punch is thrown...
let me please say that we should not forget Robert Chambers,
who wrote “The Vestiges...”, which is an account about Evolution,
and which was a major best-seller in the 19th century,
and it was an inspiration for Charles Darwin.
We must also take into account that both,
Chambers and Darwin never discounted the existence of a God.
On the contrary, they intimate there may be a God.
Robert Chambers was a thinker and a man of Letters,
and Charles Darwin was a scientist who observed
and tried to explain his observations.
Darwin acknowledged there were many gaps
in the notion he was putting forward.
And there were many other strange occurrences
which he similarly could not explain.
It is a misconception that Darwin, or Darwin’s opinion
were set against the notion that there is a God.
Over to everyone...
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Thank you Rocker.
Kristina you have pointed out some very important facts, as has Rocker.
We see evolution in the microscopic world all the time, resistant germs for example.
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This topic is way too big for me to have the energy to take on right now, but I think rocker did very well introducing a few points.
A few minor corrections so we don't get bogged down in fending off attacks on terms and details. Natural selection is the Darwinian term, and the measure of evolutionary success is how well an organism's genes are represented in the next generation. So, an individual lifespan is somewhat irrelevant to evolution, a human could die at twenty-five, but if he (and it would almost certainly have to be a 'he') managed to produce dozens of offspring in his brief life, he is an evolutionary success.
There is so much more to the evolution debate than the pace, and I'm not sure how it became an issue (in the other thread, and not by you, rocker) of Gould vs. Darwin, a dichotomy that I am quite sure that Gould would find both preposterous and offensive. In one of Gould's texts, he writes of "my own stubborn invocation of Darwinian evolution as a subject to fit nearly any context or controversy." (P.4, The Hedgehog, The Fox, and the Magister's Pox) He devoted his life to supporting Darwin, but came up with an alternative theory on one aspect of evolution that he felt better explained the fossil evidence that was available at the time (the mid-1970s). Gould's (and Niles Eldredge's) theory, punctuated equilibrium, says that organisms experienced long stretches of stasis with rapid bursts of evolutionary activity. (Rapid in evolutionary terms means thousands of years rather than millions.) He in no way disproved evolution, nor argued that Darwin's overarching theory was in any way unsound. Darwin came up with the four core criteria required for natural selection to drive adaptation, and those remain untouched and undisputed to this day. Find me the discipline (scientific, theological, or otherwise) that does not contain robust debate throughout and I'll show you a subject that has ceased to advance.
As an aside, Darwin was not the only person, or even necessarily the first, to develop the theory of evolution. It is often called Darwin and Wallace's theory. Typical of many major developments in history, several individuals began to notice the same evidence at the same time.
Darwin not only believed in God, he once studied to become a priest. Creationism (which I thought was now exclusively called Intelligent Design) is a belief system, evolution is a scientifically measurable event. The two can co-exist, they are not at odds with each other, but there is no sense in thinking that one can take the place of the other.
The interesting thing to me about evolution is how it does not backtrack well. Natural selection may go down a pathway, only to find the exit closed behind it and no way to go but forward. This is the theory behind why we still have an appendix (a basically useless organ that can kill you is an evolutionary oops) or why part of the eye is inside out. Interesting stuff, but I lack the energy to go into further detail. Thanks for starting this topic, rocker.
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Thank you, cariad!
I was trying to keep the introduction simple, and then elaborate as events demanded.
That is excellent further detail, and certainly squares with what I know of the topic.
I was reading the Catholic position on evolution earlier, and they trace evolutionary theory back to the writings of St Augustine. :) Everyone wants part of the credit, I guess. Which is fair, since as Newton said of his scientific predecessors: If I have seen far, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants.
I also have never been quite sure how the invocation of SJG (who was a brilliant evolutionary scientist) is supposed to be an argument against evolution. Can anyone clarify?
- rocker
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Dear Rocker, actually I believe it is not correct to state that the majority of people don't view the issue of evolution and is there a God. Here in America, most do not accept evolution as fact much to the chagrin of folks that try to speak otherwise. Here on IHD, those that believe in a God far outweigh those that don't 72% to 24%.
In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html
I suspect that the vocal minority keeps many of the gentle majority from speaking up on their views. Not easy to step into the lions den so to speak and present what is displayed in the media as a settled issue, but not in the minds of most Americans who accept the God of the Bible.
I'm transferring this from the God thread and adding this from the some website quoted above:
Researchers compared the results of past surveys of attitudes toward evolution taken in the U.S. since 1985 and similar surveys in Japan and 32 European countries.
In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea.
In European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults surveyed said they accepted the concept of evolution.
The proportion of western European adults who believed the theory "absolutely false" ranged from 7 percent in Great Britain to 15 percent in the Netherlands.
The only country included in the study where adults were more likely than Americans to reject evolution was Turkey.
But in all truth, scientific understand is not done by majority rule. Likewise the statistics of 72% God thread members who believe in god vs. 24% who don't in no way proves who is correct.
The statistics of the number of people in the US who accept the theory of evolution is most likely a result of the dismal state of science education in the US. That state is the result of a vocal minority pushing an agenda through school boards.
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This thread is way to cerebral for me. Understand my degrees are in music and then, mostly applied music. However, I'm so happy to see the intellectual elite have removed themselves from a thread that offends most every one (well, certainly 94% of Christians and then all others. Hey, I'll be reading here, but doubt I ever have anything to add.) We learned about evolution when I was a kid. So it's changing... big deal. Doesn't most things change -- many constantly and some over many centuries. It is still changes.
So hey, I'll continue to lurk in her but now go back to downloading, (stealing) music. Only an ape would do that!
May new attempt at communication from a keyboard is to italicize every thing I intend as a smartass comment. HM, second thought it might be faster to reverse and italicize for everything I'm serious about.
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The difficulty with the theory of evolution is the vast complexity that we are dealing with. Random mutations are acted upon by various evolutionary mechanisms.
Take an example of the bacteria flagellum. Here is a video showing how complex the process is:
Enjoy,
http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=6da0a25216521ee6fbe4
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If you're interested in the topic of evolution as opposed to intelligent design you should watch this Nova episode when it comes around again. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/) or check out the segments online.
To me, someone who has never doubted we live on an old earth and that man descended from a long line of amazing creatures, it is the predictions that Darwin's theory made , predictions that turn out to be true again and again, that give the the theory the strongest support.
He figured it out in the 1830s when the earth was assumed to be thousands or at the most maybe millions of years old. Darwin understood that for his theory to be true the earth would have to be much older. Today, many different scientific disciplines have shown the earth and the universe to be far older than anyone imagined in the 1800s. That's an amazing achievement of logic and human thought.
Darwin didn't know it at the time but his theory created numerous testable predictions. Hundreds really. Predictions that have now been supported by research in fields from astronomy to geology to today the human genome. This excerpt from Nova gives one very strong example of a prediction forced by Darwin's theory.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_47.html (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_47.html)
If there was not a fused chromosome then something would have been very wrong with the theory of evolution. That's science. If the evidence doesn't fit you gotta change the theory but time after time, with each more careful experiment evolution has been supported. For a theory to be taken seriously it must make testable predictions (a well know example would be Einsteins prediction for the bending of light ... it took numerous scientific expeditions to view solar eclipses but he predicted the outcome and today Einstein is correctly regarded as a genius) Darwin's theory has made hundreds of predictions and one after another as technology improved the theory is shown to be correct.
Willowtreewren's data is something that I find very difficult to understand.
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Bill,
I was simply re-posting data that Peter, aka Hemodoc, had posted in the God thread showing that more folks in the United States do not support the Theory of Evolution. The text in the quote boxes came from him.
I, on the other hand, am a strong supporter of Evolution. I helped my good friend evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci organize the first Darwin Day at the University of Tennessee back in 1997.
http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/darwin/index.htm (http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/darwin/index.htm)
I met Massimo at a lecture by Richard Dawkins here in Knoxville. Invited him to a philosophy discussion group that my husband and I had started, thus beginning a long and stimulating friendship that has survived his move to SUNY Stonybrook. But that is off topic, except that Massimo is one of the most brilliant people I know. He has written a couple of books on evolution for lay people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci)
Aleta aka Willowtreewren
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The difficulty with the theory of evolution is the vast complexity that we are dealing with. Random mutations are acted upon by various evolutionary mechanisms.
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying here. "Random mutations are acted upon by various evolutionary mechanisms."? Random mutations simply happen. They may be the result of transcription errors, or cosmic rays, or other mechanisms we're not yet aware of. Do you accept the existence of random mutations? (I really do not know.)
The vast, vast majority of random mutations are harmful, even fatal, to the organism. These mutations are selected out quite quickly. Many mutations make no difference at all. But once in a great while, a mutation may convey a slight reproductive advantage to an organism. That organism reproduces more successfully, which leads to a few more copies of that mutation in each generation, until what was once a mutation becomes a common species trait.
Take an example of the bacteria flagellum. Here is a video showing how complex the process is:
Enjoy,
http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=6da0a25216521ee6fbe4
I have never heard of tangle.com, and this video had no sound when I played it from that site. It appears to be an altered outtake from this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7Emmddf7Y
which is a molecular biology video describing the bacterial flagellum.
However, it contains no mention of evolution. Is there some argument here that I'm missing, or is it simply a statement of "I can't imagine how this could have evolved."?
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Aleta, absolutely science is not an issue of what the majority believe. :2thumbsup; Along those same lines, Internet polls are unscientific and therefore bad data. They cannot be used to prove anything.
I don't see complexity as any kind of 'difficulty' with the theory of evolution. Like rocker, I really do not understand what is being said there.
The majority of mutations actually are neutral (over 95% if memory serves), as they either occur in the vast regions of non-coding DNA or do not have an affect on the fitness of the individual. I believe positive and negative mutations occur in about equal numbers, but would have to check on that. It oversimplifies the matter (though I know the nature of this discussion demands that) to see mutations as either good or bad.
Take sickle-cell anemia, the darling of evolutionary biology. It is a recessive trait, so one needs a mutated copy from both father and mother to contract the full-blown disease. Who gets sickle-cell anemia? Black people. Why? Because black people descend from those early humans who stayed in Africa rather than migrate up into Europe and Asia. If one receives two copies of the non-mutated allele, no sickle-cell anemia, and that individual is not a carrier. If one receives one mutated allele and one non-mutated allele - and this is where natural selection is so fascinating - that individual will be resistant to the strain of malaria found in Africa and will not develop sickle-cell anemia. As we know, malaria is an old, old disease, and the African strain is the most virulent. Sickle-cell may be horrible, but it does not kill individuals early enough to stop them from reproducing. Therefore, the gene for sickle cell remains in the black population, and the carriers have an evolutionary advantage so long as they remain in the malarial zone. In Africa, sickle-cell would be under positive selection. In the African diaspora, it would be under negative selection.
To me, natural selection elegantly explains how organisms interact with one another and the environment. It tells the story of why we are the way we are, and why humans and other organisms make the choices that they do.
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Aleta, absolutely science is not an issue of what the majority believe. :2thumbsup; Along those same lines, Internet polls are unscientific and therefore bad data. They cannot be used to prove anything.
I don't see complexity as any kind of 'difficulty' with the theory of evolution. Like rocker, I really do not understand what is being said there.
The majority of mutations actually are neutral (over 95% if memory serves), as they either occur in the vast regions of non-coding DNA or do not have an affect on the fitness of the individual. I believe positive and negative mutations occur in about equal numbers, but would have to check on that. It oversimplifies the matter (though I know the nature of this discussion demands that) to see mutations as either good or bad.
cariad, this is certainly not my field of expertise. So I am curious - does that take into account embryo lossage? Some estimates are that in humans, as many as 75% of fertilized ova fail to reach the embryonic stage. I would imagine mutations play a significant role there, as well as environmental factors.
Also, I suspect that introns still hold some surprises. It's possible they are entirely non-coding, but it is also possible there is knowledge there yet to be discovered.
Take sickle-cell anemia, the darling of evolutionary biology. It is a recessive trait, so one needs a mutated copy from both father and mother to contract the full-blown disease. Who gets sickle-cell anemia? Black people. Why? Because black people descend from those early humans who stayed in Africa rather than migrate up into Europe and Asia. If one receives two copies of the non-mutated allele, no sickle-cell anemia, and that individual is not a carrier. If one receives one mutated allele and one non-mutated allele - and this is where natural selection is so fascinating - that individual will be resistant to the strain of malaria found in Africa and will not develop sickle-cell anemia. As we know, malaria is an old, old disease, and the African strain is the most virulent. Sickle-cell may be horrible, but it does not kill individuals early enough to stop them from reproducing. Therefore, the gene for sickle cell remains in the black population, and the carriers have an evolutionary advantage so long as they remain in the malarial zone. In Africa, sickle-cell would be under positive selection. In the African diaspora, it would be under negative selection.
Very true. I had forgotten about dual-use genes in my response. Thank you.
To me, natural selection elegantly explains how organisms interact with one another and the environment. It tells the story of why we are the way we are, and why humans and other organisms make the choices that they do.
Again, somewhat of an oversimplification, unless you want to move on to Dawkins' selfish genes... :)
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Here is another video on the bacterial flagellum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNi0YXYadg0&feature=related
The concept that through successive random mutations which are then acted upon by evolutionary mechanisms such as genetic drift for example, the mathematical possibility of these being by chance alone is simply beyond the realm of possibility. Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
The cell has many such machines that do all of the work inside of the cell. Ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, etc. All working together in an amazing choreography all of which are programmed by DNA. A single celled organism is much more complex than the space shuttle. Of a truth, no one would see the space shuttle and believe it was anything but complex engineering and deliberate design. Not only is the bacterial flagellum incredibly complex, but it is all regulated by information contained in the DNA. Where did that information come from? That is a very simple question that I do not is possible without an intelligent designer.
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If you're interested in the topic of evolution as opposed to intelligent design you should watch this Nova episode when it comes around again. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/) or check out the segments online.
To me, someone who has never doubted we live on an old earth and that man descended from a long line of amazing creatures, it is the predictions that Darwin's theory made , predictions that turn out to be true again and again, that give the the theory the strongest support.
He figured it out in the 1830s when the earth was assumed to be thousands or at the most maybe millions of years old. Darwin understood that for his theory to be true the earth would have to be much older. Today, many different scientific disciplines have shown the earth and the universe to be far older than anyone imagined in the 1800s. That's an amazing achievement of logic and human thought.
Darwin didn't know it at the time but his theory created numerous testable predictions. Hundreds really. Predictions that have now been supported by research in fields from astronomy to geology to today the human genome. This excerpt from Nova gives one very strong example of a prediction forced by Darwin's theory.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_47.html (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_47.html)
If there was not a fused chromosome then something would have been very wrong with the theory of evolution. That's science. If the evidence doesn't fit you gotta change the theory but time after time, with each more careful experiment evolution has been supported. For a theory to be taken seriously it must make testable predictions (a well know example would be Einsteins prediction for the bending of light ... it took numerous scientific expeditions to view solar eclipses but he predicted the outcome and today Einstein is correctly regarded as a genius) Darwin's theory has made hundreds of predictions and one after another as technology improved the theory is shown to be correct.
Willowtreewren's data is something that I find very difficult to understand.
Dear Bill, 15 years ago, I was on the same side of the equation as you and all the rest on this thread are through all of my undergrad and medical studies. Many theories over time have looked good with interlocking data that later were shown to be false. Many in this category were able to make predictions that looked good from the evidence.
There are many issues with evolution that are becoming increasingly difficult to explain by Darwinian mechanisms or those of neo-Darwinism as well. The complexity of the cell and the myriad number of molecular machines is an incredible discovery in the last few decades. In my opinion, they simply defy the possibility of coming into existence with out the design of an intelligent creator. There is much evidence to consider such a concept that many high level scientists concede after years of study trying to prove otherwise.
The issue of chromosome number two does suggest a possible fusion, but it does not tell us when or in what common ancestor, human or ape or chimp. Indeed, there are many similarities between primate chromosomal patterns beyond that of #2. Proof of fusion is not proof of common ancestry. An alternative explanation of common design is not excluded by this evidence.
It is also readily apparent that there is really no room for real debate on IHD with these issues since looking at all sides of the issue is taken too personally by too many as well as the issue of whether there is a God. In such, I will gracefully bow out of further debate with the only rejoinder that the things that most people feel are completely settled may not be in fact as settled as some feel that they are. I would only state that examining what we believe and why is a smart position to take.
Thank you all, I will simply continue my own personal search of these issues on my own. I wish you all the best.
God bless,
Peter
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I have a basic simple question certainly not on par with the enlightened discussion of this thread. I certainly have no problems with anything being said. My question is more of a “why” question.
Everything changes -- everything being both energies and matter. Whether it be water to ice in the freezer, flesh and bone to dust, amphibian to human or even three toes to four. Since time is such a nebulous thing I can’t really see the difference. Was it a divine design or random happenstance? Debatable from a religious vs. secular point of view and also from scientist to scientist theory, but doesn’t actually alter anything.
Now here is my question. Don’t expect it to be earth shaking. Remember, I am not a scholar but just a citizen with a musician/artist soul:
My question then is if the morphing of energies and matter happens, why are such enlightened and learned scholars as being quoted here spending so much time and effort? Are they looking to control change thereby becoming the greater power? Is it just intellectual curiosity? Or perhaps they are hoping their theories and discoveries with benefit humanity such as altering the environment? Perhaps it is a theological issue? In my opinion not one thing I’ve read in here would either prove or disprove the existence of God. (If this is totally stupid, just ignore it.)
No disrespect intended to anyone. For certainty I can see why people are interested in theories. Just intellectual curiosity is admirable. Obviously too, you are all having fun with it and fun is always good. And yet my question is truly serious.
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Why am I so confused by this post, maybe my hemoglobin is down :shy; but I will continue to try to get it!
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Perhaps it is too simple. Perhaps it makes no sense. Perhaps it wasn't a valid question are all. Being a simpleton perhaps all I wanted to know is "what does it matter to m?" or "how does it affect my live or my future lives"?
Don't worry. Forget it. I did.
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I am enjoying this thread, I am hearing things I have never heard before, debate is a beautiful thing- makes me think. Thinking makes me feel alive...please continue. :shy;
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Dan,
If I understand you correctly you are asking wht difference does it make in your life, one way or another? Well, Are you curious? Do you want to know how things work and why? If not then it doesn't make any difference. But I am curious and would like to know.
Hemodoc, change happens because of the influence of invoenment. Are you sayinhg tht change happens becsause of "randomness"?
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No, my question wasn't about you or the posters or about my self. It was why do these obviouslly high powered scientist devote so much effort to it. I mean what do they expect from it. It really was a serious question but perhaps I don't know how to express it. They are so intelligent then there must be something others than knowing or makes me work on these theories.
Forget it. Not a deep question .. Is it the same reason that someone writes a symphony? That's be a good answer if it is true.
Yes, its fun to know. Maybe I'm confused since I don't have the cuuriosity about scientific matters that I should. Don't try to answer as I'm not even sure what or why I am asking it.
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No, my question wasn't about you or the posters or about my self. It was why do these obviouslly high powered scientist devote so much effort to it. I mean what do they expect from it. It really was a serious question but perhaps I don't know how to express it. They are so intelligent then there must be something others than knowing or makes me work on these theories.
Forget it. Not a deep question .. Is it the same reason that someone writes a symphony? That's be a good answer if it is true.
Yes, its fun to know. Maybe I'm confused since I don't have the cuuriosity about scientific matters that I should. Don't try to answer as I'm not even sure what or why I am asking it.
It appears I misunderstood, sory.
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As I said at first, it's not an intellectual question. I think you and Kim were trying to make it something you can sink your teeth into.
If change really and truly happens because of the influence of energies on matter as dictated by the time factor, would that be "random". I doubt it but don't that question seriously either as it comes from my shallow little brain.
And I never saw you at the party last night.
In retrospect, I think my problems in the God business may have been the same... people thinking I thought of myself on an equal level intellectually as they were. Actually my comments are most often non serious unless they are of a humanitarian nature. Hell, two of my favorite musicans were Victor Borge the pianist and Jack Benny the violinist.
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Oh, was that last night? Sorry, I thought it was on for tonight. Again my error. :bow; I gues I am running behind on things. :banghead;
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Headed to the showers, this game is done for th day. Have fun folks and play nice. :2thumbsup;
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Dan.......I am just a regular person like you ........ we have different interest, you have music and I have fish aquriums, for instance, you have a certain passion for music and have spent time learning music ...... I have too with fish..... I think people learn what interest them.... and you may not care about the behavors of different types of fish in aquriums..... So those Scientist that study things that we are not interested we just dont care about what they learned....and yet they are so passionate about their subject..... Why they study it is because they like it.....Some things I just dont get while others I can not figure out why everyone doesnt like it like me......I like evolution, nature, forest, fish........ I dont care about music, fashion, and some Art....... even thow I am finding some Art very interesting as I get older........ I guess having a open mind about all kinds of things is a plus...... I am trying to do that more now in life.....
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Just saying I enjoyed the PBS special on Darwin. That somewhat simplifies what Darwin was doing and how modern science has caught up with some of the things he couldn't explain or truely grasp. Which also goes into what rocker also pointed out about the Churches belief and peoples belief through over time.
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Rocker, I honestly don't know about embryonic loss. I will pull out my genetics text and see if I can find that answer for you later. I suspect that with evolution, it would only refer to genes that make it into the pool, so to speak, and so mutations that are incompatible with life would only figure into the equation under specific circumstances. But I should probably just stop speculating and resolve to find out. :2thumbsup;
I have no doubt that introns serve a function, in fact I believe that studies done without the introns showed that the exons were not transcribed properly? Something like that. Maybe I'll just reread the whole genetics text, although I didn't understand most of it the first time, so why should now be any different? :rofl; The term "junk DNA" from the other thread is a term I have never heard, and sends up red flags of pseudoscience to my ears. The y-chromosome was once thought to be almost genetically inactive. Not surprisingly, scientists continue to find more than they bargained for in that particular DNA section, although now I am talking way over my own head.
My field of study was physical anthro "the bridge between anthropology and biology". The foundation of physical anthro is evolution, but it is a vast field that can take one in dozens of different directions. I do not see myself as an expert or even a scholar since I rarely delve into these discussions anymore thanks in large part to kidney failure (the two kids don't help, though!) I am not well-versed in Dawkins, though these discussions have inspired me to go familiarize myself with his writings. I understand the concept of the 'selfish gene', I just don't understand what the innovation is there. Is it coining the term, or am I missing something?
The work of Dawkins and others who examine individual choices based on genetics goes a long way, I think, to answering why we should care. Here's an unfortunate stat from the world of physical anthro: children who live with step-fathers have an alarmingly high mortality rate. The question is why, and the answer is believed to be because a step-father shares no genes with a step-child, and therefore has no evolutionary stake in this child's welfare. A step-child (from a purely evolutionary point of view) is a drain on resources while offering no evolutionary benefit to the step-father. That child cannot reproduce and pass on that man's genes to future generations. As much as we have culture to override our genetics, this data suggest that genetics and evolution continue to influence human behavior.
One central evolutionary question is "have humans stopped evolving?" Most scientists seem to believe so. We so control our environment that it has stopped influencing our genetic make-up. And if we have stopped evolving, what does that mean for our future?
I am so with you, Glitter. This thread makes me feel like I can still stay intellectually active despite kidney failure. Thanks again for starting it, rocker.
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I understand about us regular people, tye but I was asking about high leve scientist who devote so much of their live to it. I wasn't being facitious. I just am curious because I know they must have a greater purpose. Seems like I may be dropped another bomb.
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Seems like I may be dropped another bomb.
That's ok, I have Lysol spray :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :shy;
Some have explained why they do it when watching Discovery or The History Channel. Some just want to know, they feel like they are solving a puzzle. It's not an exact quote, more like two into one.
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I had a friend who was a true, honest to goodness genius and he got a phd in philosophy. He worked as a file clerk in our company library.
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But in all truth, scientific understand is not done by majority rule. Likewise the statistics of 72% God thread members who believe in god vs. 24% who don't in no way proves who is correct.
The statistics of the number of people in the US who accept the theory of evolution is most likely a result of the dismal state of science education in the US. That state is the result of a vocal minority pushing an agenda through school boards.
I completely agree. Here the state controls the curiculum. I went to a Catholic school, relgion and science were kept completely seperate. In science there was NO mention of intelligent design, creationist theory, higher power. It was straight science. For our year 12 finals (and the marks went 100% to our uni entrance marks) we had to sit 1 unti of religion and at least 2 units of science. But also at that time there was a huge push for everyone to attend uni as the Govt wanted an educated population (the result... too many IT people and NO Plumbers.... ).
I believe in God, i don't go to church and i'm one of the 72% thread members but I 100% beleive in evolution. I don't believe that Genesis is a factual account of how the world started and i don't believe people lived for 900 years. I beleive in natural selection as a mechanism of evolution. Random mutations in genes provide a specimen of a species that is better suited to its environment, that one reproduces, passes on it's unique DNA and off we go, the species evolves.
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Just a thought because I can't remember which catagory this fits under. The example is cat or dog breeding to create a new breed (since it can be done at a faster pace). This considered Mechanical selection since it is not random?
The stuff I think of at night when I have nothing to do but ponder random thoughts! :urcrazy;
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My view on all this is that religion and evolution sort of go hand in hand. I think there is a power higher than us somewhere in the universe whether it is God or some other being or alien or whatever. Maybe God (or a higher power) did create the world in the beginning but it had to start somewhere , even if it was with a big bang. There is too much scientific evidence of life on earth millions of years ago to think that the world is only a few thousand years old. We know that dinosaurs and other animals lived on earth billions of years ago. The bible is a book that was written a long time ago. Time and the calendar may have been different then. I really don't think anyone lived for 900 of what we cal years even back then!! I really enjoy watching scientic documentaries on how the earth became as it is. Just my :twocents;
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(motivation) — I was asking about high leve scientist who devote so much of their live to it. I wasn't being facitious.
Same thing that motivates everyone else in this world. Money. Perhaps Fame, since Fame = Money. That's why you also got cheats who "found" missing links etc.
You can see the same thing happening today with the current "in" science, Climate Change. There's money being pro-climate change, but rarely anything in being a CC denier. You get the CC cheats too, fiddling the temperature data and inventing melting glaciers in the Himalayas.
What was Christopher Columbus doing when he happened on America? Trying to make money by finding a cheaper route to the East of course. And so on with most others.
I suppose it's a bit cynical to say money motivates everyone. But I'm sure it's the vast majority.
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The concept that through successive random mutations which are then acted upon by evolutionary mechanisms such as genetic drift for example, the mathematical possibility of these being by chance alone is simply beyond the realm of possibility. Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
The cell has many such machines that do all of the work inside of the cell. Ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, etc. All working together in an amazing choreography all of which are programmed by DNA.
It's about time this idea, that the simplest single cell is so complex that the earth is not old enough for random mutations to have achieved its synthesis, were put to bed.
Evolution does not start with a single cell. Indeed the simplest single cell with DNA is a long way down the evolutionary road. Each step along the road was easily accomplished in the time available with evolution that favored life that best fitted the environment. The remains of the initial (and simpler) life coding is still contained within cells in the form of RNA.
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(motivation) — I was asking about high leve scientist who devote so much of their live to it. I wasn't being facitious.
Same thing that motivates everyone else in this world. Money. Perhaps Fame, since Fame = Money.
Heh, wow. I've never met a scientist who was "in it for the money". Those people usually end up on Wall St (for a while, the hottest major on Wall St was Physics....something similar in the math between calculating particle data and concocting financial scams, I guess).
As for me....as a child, I had a million questions. Why. How. When. When I got to school, I was overjoyed to find that other people had asked the same questions, and that there were answers. Someone knew why, someone knew when. And eventually, you start to ask questions, and you can't find any answers. And there's just a drive to know, and a joy in finding out.
That's why you also got cheats who "found" missing links etc.
Maybe. But you get lots of people who lie on the Internet, too, and I don't think there's a lot of money in that. It may just be an ego thing - everyone look look look at me!!!
You can see the same thing happening today with the current "in" science, Climate Change. There's money being pro-climate change, but rarely anything in being a CC denier. You get the CC cheats too, fiddling the temperature data and inventing melting glaciers in the Himalayas.
Heh. I've heard this story before, and I find it utterly baffling. No money in being a climate change denier?? That is...not the case. At all.
Who benefits from casting doubt about the overwhelming evidence for climate change? Poor, nobody companies like....Exxon. Shell. Koch Industries. Companies that make billions in profits each month. And they're too dumb to throw a few dimes at the greatest PR bonanza they've had in a long time?
I don't think they're that dumb. They didn't get where they are by being dumb.
What was Christopher Columbus doing when he happened on America? Trying to make money by finding a cheaper route to the East of course. And so on with most others.
I suppose it's a bit cynical to say money motivates everyone. But I'm sure it's the vast majority.
I would say that yes, that is cynical. And it certainly doesn't square with my own experience. Every researcher I know is motivated first by the joy of discovery. Sure, ya gotta pay the bills. But I don't know anyone who has gone into basic science because "that's where the money is."
-rocker
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I don't want people to try and answer my question anymore. Not only was it poorly phrased but it is very vague. Perhaps if we could speak in person I could get my thought accross but it really didn't worked here. heh...With all due respect I should have stayied in the "What's for Supper" thread. Certainly I'm not qualified to talk of god or evolution. No problem except I really do think both threads to stay on topic! :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl;
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The concept that through successive random mutations which are then acted upon by evolutionary mechanisms such as genetic drift for example, the mathematical possibility of these being by chance alone is simply beyond the realm of possibility. Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
The cell has many such machines that do all of the work inside of the cell. Ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, etc. All working together in an amazing choreography all of which are programmed by DNA.
It's about time this idea, that the simplest single cell is so complex that the earth is not old enough for random mutations to have achieved its synthesis, were put to bed.
Evolution does not start with a single cell. Indeed the simplest single cell with DNA is a long way down the evolutionary road. Each step along the road was easily accomplished in the time available with evolution that favored life that best fitted the environment. The remains of the initial (and simpler) life coding is still contained within cells in the form of RNA.
Dear Stoday, where were you when I was taking my undergrad and grad level courses on cell theory if it is so simple as you claim.
You state that evolution does not start with a single cell because by the time we get to a cell with DNA we are a long way down the evolutionary road. That is a contradictory statement.
Please tell us when and where evolution starts in your understanding? Not debating, simply trying to understand your concept of evolution since you continually state that I am incorrect in my understanding.
Thank you,
Peter
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I don't want people to try and answer my question anymore. Not only was it poorly phrased but it is very vague. Perhaps if we could speak in person I could get my thought accross but it really didn't worked here. heh...With all due respect I should have stayied in the "What's for Supper" thread. Certainly I'm not qualified to talk of god or evolution. No problem except I really do think both threads to stay on topic! :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl;
I get what you mean dan. It is not always easy to type what yur trying to convey unlike talking face to face where expressions can be seen.
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I really do undersand intellectual curiosity -- really I do. :thumbup; At the moment when I wrote my rather insipid question I was trying to reconcile the passion in this and your companion thread with perceived apathy about the earthquake. Time has passed (though there is still massive suffering) and it now seems so silly --- not unlike a lot of posts of mine.
This and the topic of the companion thread are both quite interesting. Hmmm, so is reincarnation. But rather than believe or not believe, I'm more interested in what I'm going to be next. :beer1; A bartender? Or maybe a glass of beer which then turns into (oh my, lets forget about that).
Gosh Rocker, you and Gail are both really smart -- for girls I mean.
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One note on the previous quotes
Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
No, "science" has not done that. Science designates anything with a chance of E-50 as having a chance of E-50. "Impossible" means the chance is 0 - and I don't know any scientist who will say that anything has a chance of 0. Other than jokingly.
Dear Stoday, where were you when I was taking my undergrad and grad level courses on cell theory if it is so simple as you claim.
That's ok, I'm sure we all had trouble with some undergraduate courses. The first time I took Differential Equations, I had a terrible teacher. It was completely baffling. When I took it again with a better teacher, it was all totally simple. I kept thinking "Why didn't the first guy just say this?"
You state that evolution does not start with a single cell because by the time we get to a cell with DNA we are a long way down the evolutionary road. That is a contradictory statement.
I don't see a contradiction there. Could you elaborate?
Please tell us when and where evolution starts in your understanding? Not debating, simply trying to understand your concept of evolution since you continually state that I am incorrect in my understanding.
Thank you,
Peter
Well, we certainly don't have space for an introductory class, but one popular hypothesis is "RNA World".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
We do know that amino acids are fairly common (they've been found in comets, for example). As I understand it, some of the early amino acids that stuck together eventually formed RNA. RNA can replicate itself, so now you have a replicating molecule. That is the first step.
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The concept that through successive random mutations which are then acted upon by evolutionary mechanisms such as genetic drift for example, the mathematical possibility of these being by chance alone is simply beyond the realm of possibility. Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
The cell has many such machines that do all of the work inside of the cell. Ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, etc. All working together in an amazing choreography all of which are programmed by DNA. A single celled organism is much more complex than the space shuttle. Of a truth, no one would see the space shuttle and believe it was anything but complex engineering and deliberate design. Not only is the bacterial flagellum incredibly complex, but it is all regulated by information contained in the DNA. Where did that information come from? That is a very simple question that I do not is possible without an intelligent designer.
I don't know where you are getting this "chance of 10 to the minus 50th" statistic from, but would be interested to see these numbers and know which statistical methods and data were used. Are you saying that this is the probability of life on earth starting up by "chance"? Chance is a misleading term here. The environment would be putting pressure on the essential elements of life (nucleotides, amino acids) and the laws of chemistry - the natural attraction between the four nucleotides (thymine, adenine, guanine, cytosine) - would facilitate early DNA synthesis. DNA is made up of only a few elements in the periodic table. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorous, and nitrogen - and these elements interact with each other in predictable ways. I have no information to judge that particular statistic by, but we are talking about a process that may well have had billions of years to develop. Given enough time, even unlikely events can take place, and it only takes one self-replicating DNA strand to kick off the process. I'm sure everyone has heard the analogy that if you put 1000 monkeys with 1000 typewriters in a room for 1000 years, one of them will write Hamlet. This is one (silly) way to illustrate a basic statistical rule.
Though this is certainly way outside of my studies of primate evolution, I believe that the theory is that DNA began outside of a cell environment, and that organelles and cell membranes were acquired over time. One extremely well-studied and oft-mentioned organelle in evolutionary study is mitochondria - the energy producers of the cell. The most commonly-accepted theory is that mitochondria were once independent organisms, but entered into a mutually-beneficial relationship with animal cells. The mitochondria provide energy to the animal cells, and the cells provide a safe environment in return (endosymbiosis). Evidence for the theory that mitochondria were once independent includes the fact that mitochondria contain their own DNA, which is double-stranded and circular like bacterial DNA.
I did say that I would further investigate my statement that the majority of DNA mutations are neutral, and I have: According to my text Human Evolutionary Genetics: Origins People and Disease by Jobling, Hurles, and Tyler-Smith (2004) 98.5% of human DNA is non-coding and only roughly 30% of our DNA is transcribed. A quote from the text: "The function of most of this nongenetic material is not known, but some of it certainly does play essential roles in cells." (p. 30) Oh, and they state very clearly that it is not possible to take out the introns and see how the exons fare, so I don't know what I was thinking with my prior speculation.
The most common type of mutation is called a base-substitution, and it means what it says - that the wrong nucleotide is placed during the copying phase. The cell also contains "proofreaders" and there is redundancy in the genetic code which allows for mistakes without affecting amino acid production. As for whether there are more positive than negative mutations in DNA, the writers state that there are more ways to ruin a gene than enhance it, but they also consider that negative mutations are much more easily spotted within populations. (We know certain diseases are genetic and we study them, but positive mutations may be overlooked or attributed to good environment.)
No real info on embryonic loss, but I think this is a difficult area to study, since I assume the stat on 75% embryonic loss includes embryos that fail to implant and other instances where the loss is so early that usable data is not generally available. Again, not my area, so this is pure conjecture. :)
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I am really enjoying this thread! :2thumbsup; :2thumbsup; Picking so much new information. :clap; :clap; Though the scientific discussion has, at times, gone beyong "my pay grade" I for one am enjoying seeing intalectual discussion. Thanks. Keep up the good work, and rember to keep playing nice. Just my :twocents; Now I'm off to the "other" thread. Afraid what I'll find there.
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One note on the previous quotes
Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
No, "science" has not done that. Science designates anything with a chance of E-50 as having a chance of E-50. "Impossible" means the chance is 0 - and I don't know any scientist who will say that anything has a chance of 0. Other than jokingly.
Dear Stoday, where were you when I was taking my undergrad and grad level courses on cell theory if it is so simple as you claim.
That's ok, I'm sure we all had trouble with some undergraduate courses. The first time I took Differential Equations, I had a terrible teacher. It was completely baffling. When I took it again with a better teacher, it was all totally simple. I kept thinking "Why didn't the first guy just say this?"
You state that evolution does not start with a single cell because by the time we get to a cell with DNA we are a long way down the evolutionary road. That is a contradictory statement.
I don't see a contradiction there. Could you elaborate?
Please tell us when and where evolution starts in your understanding? Not debating, simply trying to understand your concept of evolution since you continually state that I am incorrect in my understanding.
Thank you,
Peter
Well, we certainly don't have space for an introductory class, but one popular hypothesis is "RNA World".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
We do know that amino acids are fairly common (they've been found in comets, for example). As I understand it, some of the early amino acids that stuck together eventually formed RNA. RNA can replicate itself, so now you have a replicating molecule. That is the first step.
Dear Rocker, your statement is contradictory because of your own statements that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. I have used the current abiogenesis terms in all of my posts making note of the current political correct manner in which origins and evolutionary change are artificially separated which is a change from my training in the 1980s. Yet, when I ask you to tell us when evolution started, you go and quote theories from abiogenesis of which the RNA world is one of the theories. You also go back to amino acids.
Rocker, it is contradictory to tell me not to conflate abiogenesis with evolution, yet you went right to it as the start of your evolution beginnings. Yet, that is not surprising at all since EVERY book by evolution advocates does the same thing. So, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a new thread since it is off topic.
The RNA world hypothesis places RNA at center-stage when life originated. This has been accompanied by many studies in the last ten years demonstrating important aspects of RNA function that were not previously known, and support the idea of a critical role for RNA in the functionality of life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
"Genes first" models: the RNA world
Main article: RNA world hypothesis
The RNA world hypothesis describes an early Earth with self-replicating and catalytic RNA but no DNA or proteins. This has spurred scientists to try to determine if relatively short RNA molecules could have spontaneously formed that were capable of catalyzing their own continuing replication.[53] A number of hypotheses of modes of formation have been put forward. Early cell membranes could have formed spontaneously from proteinoids, protein-like molecules that are produced when amino acid solutions are heated–when present at the correct concentration in aqueous solution, these form microspheres which are observed to behave similarly to membrane-enclosed compartments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
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The concept that through successive random mutations which are then acted upon by evolutionary mechanisms such as genetic drift for example, the mathematical possibility of these being by chance alone is simply beyond the realm of possibility. Science has designated anything with a chance smaller than 10 to the minus 50th as impossible by convention.
The cell has many such machines that do all of the work inside of the cell. Ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, etc. All working together in an amazing choreography all of which are programmed by DNA. A single celled organism is much more complex than the space shuttle. Of a truth, no one would see the space shuttle and believe it was anything but complex engineering and deliberate design. Not only is the bacterial flagellum incredibly complex, but it is all regulated by information contained in the DNA. Where did that information come from? That is a very simple question that I do not is possible without an intelligent designer.
I don't know where you are getting this "chance of 10 to the minus 50th" statistic from, but would be interested to see these numbers and know which statistical methods and data were used. Are you saying that this is the probability of life on earth starting up by "chance"? Chance is a misleading term here. The environment would be putting pressure on the essential elements of life (nucleotides, amino acids) and the laws of chemistry - the natural attraction between the four nucleotides (thymine, adenine, guanine, cytosine) - would facilitate early DNA synthesis. DNA is made up of only a few elements in the periodic table. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorous, and nitrogen - and these elements interact with each other in predictable ways. I have no information to judge that particular statistic by, but we are talking about a process that may well have had billions of years to develop. Given enough time, even unlikely events can take place, and it only takes one self-replicating DNA strand to kick off the process. I'm sure everyone has heard the analogy that if you put 1000 monkeys with 1000 typewriters in a room for 1000 years, one of them will write Hamlet. This is one (silly) way to illustrate a basic statistical rule.
Though this is certainly way outside of my studies of primate evolution, I believe that the theory is that DNA began outside of a cell environment, and that organelles and cell membranes were acquired over time. One extremely well-studied and oft-mentioned organelle in evolutionary study is mitochondria - the energy producers of the cell. The most commonly-accepted theory is that mitochondria were once independent organisms, but entered into a mutually-beneficial relationship with animal cells. The mitochondria provide energy to the animal cells, and the cells provide a safe environment in return (endosymbiosis). Evidence for the theory that mitochondria were once independent includes the fact that mitochondria contain their own DNA, which is double-stranded and circular like bacterial DNA.
I did say that I would further investigate my statement that the majority of DNA mutations are neutral, and I have: According to my text Human Evolutionary Genetics: Origins People and Disease by Jobling, Hurles, and Tyler-Smith (2004) 98.5% of human DNA is non-coding and only roughly 30% of our DNA is transcribed. A quote from the text: "The function of most of this nongenetic material is not known, but some of it certainly does play essential roles in cells." (p. 30) Oh, and they state very clearly that it is not possible to take out the introns and see how the exons fare, so I don't know what I was thinking with my prior speculation.
The most common type of mutation is called a base-substitution, and it means what it says - that the wrong nucleotide is placed during the copying phase. The cell also contains "proofreaders" and there is redundancy in the genetic code which allows for mistakes without affecting amino acid production. As for whether there are more positive than negative mutations in DNA, the writers state that there are more ways to ruin a gene than enhance it, but they also consider that negative mutations are much more easily spotted within populations. (We know certain diseases are genetic and we study them, but positive mutations may be overlooked or attributed to good environment.)
No real info on embryonic loss, but I think this is a difficult area to study, since I assume the stat on 75% embryonic loss includes embryos that fail to implant and other instances where the loss is so early that usable data is not generally available. Again, not my area, so this is pure conjecture. :)
Dear Cariad, great post. Sir Fred Hoyle, and astronomer/mathematician who weighed in on the issue of origins which is in line with your post, as well as Rocker's shows that math involved. Take a look at one of their papers on this issue:
Evolution of Life: A Cosmic Perspective
N. Chandra Wickramasinghe and Fred Hoyle
An ActionBioscience.org original paper
12. Improbability of life’s origins: cosmic evolution
Our hypothesis is that viable bacteria are of cosmic origin. They were present already in the material from which the solar system condensed and their number was then topped up substantially by replication in cometary material. Thus the impacts of cometary material would have brought them to Earth. The interiors of large enough impactors are known to remain cool and relatively undisturbed in such impacts. The wiping out of resident cultures was then of no overall consequence because the destroyed cultures were replaced by new arrivals.
The hypothesis questions the viability of chemical processes in a warm little pond. Would these processes yield the molecular arrangements of such observed biological structures as DNA and RNA, or at the enzymes for which such structures code? A typical enzyme is a chain with about 300 links; each link being an amino acid of which there are 20 different types used in biology. Detailed work on a number of particular enzymes has shown that about a third of the links must have an explicit amino acid from the 20 possibilities, while the remaining 200 links can have any amino acid taken from a subset of about four possibilities from the bag of 20. This means that with a supply of all the amino acids supposedly given, the probability of a random linking of 300 of them yielding a particular enzyme is as little as
The bacteria present on Earth in its early days required about 2000 such enzymes, and the chance that a random shuffling of already-available amino acids happens to combine so as to yield all the required 2000 enzymes is
2000! [10-250]2000
which works out at odds of one part in about 10500,000 , with the factorial hardly making any difference, large as it might seem.
A probability as small as this cannot be contemplated. So to a believer in the paradigm of the warm little pond there has to be a mistake in the argument. So although it is known that the bacteria present on Earth, almost from the beginning, were ordinary bacteria, everyday bacteria as one might say, it is argued that the first organisms managed to be viable with considerably fewer than 2000 enzymes31.
The number has been reduced from 2000 to 256 (an amazing but illusory degree of accuracy). Additionally one can reduce the lengths of required chains of amino acids. Suppose, for example, one reduces the length as much as tenfold, to only 30 links. Then the chance of obtaining such a severely sawndown enzyme is
256! [10-25]276.
Neglecting the effect of the factorial, this amounts only to one part in 106900, still not a bet one would advise a friend to take. For comparison, there are about 1079 atoms in the whole visible universe, in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. This comparison shows in our opinion that life must be a cosmological phenomenon, not at all something which originated in a warm little terrestrial pond.
In a spatially infinite universe, a universe that ranges far beyond the largest telescopes, there is the very small chance that a replicative primitive cell will bear fruit somewhere and, when it does, replication will cause an enormous number of the first cells to be produced, as we have shown in the example of cometary interiors in section 7. It is here that the immense replicative power of biology shows to great advantage, particularly since we can distribute the products of such replication over millions of galaxies. Each minute innovative step in the development of life — every gene — can generate and disperse enough copies of itself the over a cosmic scale for a second highly improbable event to occur somewhere in one of the profusion of offspring. And so, by an extension of the argument to the third, fourth, fifth improbable events. Indeed to a whole chain of improbable occurrences, which result at last in the magnificent range and variety of genes we have today, the genes that were already present at the formation of Earth.
With the genetic components of life distributed widely throughout the universe, it is a matter for each local environment to pick out arrangements that best fit the particular circumstances. In a case like Earth, a complicated fitting together of the components occurred over the last several hundred million years, by a process which biologists refer to as evolution32.
On this view of the origin of life there would be little variation in the forms to which the process gives rise, at least so far as basic genes are concerned, over the whole of our galaxy. Or indeed, over all nearby galaxies. The rest of the story concerns the many ways in which the same basic genes can combine to produce rich varieties of living forms from one environment to another, always remembering that because of the large numbers involved — large numbers of stars, large numbers of planets and large numbers of galaxies, the system can afford many failures.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/wick_hoyle.html
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Rocker, it is contradictory to tell me not to conflate abiogenesis with evolution, yet you went right to it as the start of your evolution beginnings. Yet, that is not surprising at all since EVERY book by evolution advocates does the same thing. So, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a new thread since it is off topic.
Every book by evolution advocates? I have in front of me some of my texts from my physical anthropology masters, and they do no such thing. No mention of abiogenesis. I had never heard that term until I began reading these threads. Evolution starts with the universal common ancestor. According to the particular text I cited above (Human Evolutionary Genetics, a widely-used foundation text for graduate level study in various aspects of anthropology, biology, and genetics): "The common ancestor of humans and Escherichia coli may also be the last universal common ancestor." (Escherichia coli = E. coli, quote from p. 11)
We seem stuck on this idea of asking where that universal ancestor came from, and it is clear to me that no one here is going to be able to answer that question to your satisfaction, Hemodoc, since we are attempting (at least in my case, since I hasten to admit that this is NOT my field of study) to use science and not theology to tackle it. There are actually many fascinating debates within the field of evolution. Many. Perhaps we will work our way around to those, or perhaps not.
I actually do have a question for you, Peter, since I am hearing conflicting ideas from your posts. What exactly are your beliefs with respect to Intelligent Design? Do you believe that a "designer" created these mechanisms and evolution moves on from there, or do you literally believe that no evolution is taking place on earth? Or something else entirely?
I will take a look at the article that you posted.
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Rocker, it is contradictory to tell me not to conflate abiogenesis with evolution, yet you went right to it as the start of your evolution beginnings. Yet, that is not surprising at all since EVERY book by evolution advocates does the same thing. So, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a new thread since it is off topic.
Every book by evolution advocates? I have in front of me some of my texts from my physical anthropology masters, and they do no such thing. No mention of abiogenesis. I had never heard that term until I began reading these threads. Evolution starts with the universal common ancestor. According to the particular text I cited above (Human Evolutionary Genetics, a widely-used foundation text for graduate level study in various aspects of anthropology, biology, and genetics): "The common ancestor of humans and Escherichia coli may also be the last universal common ancestor." (Escherichia coli = E. coli, quote from p. 11)
We seem stuck on this idea of asking where that universal ancestor came from, and it is clear to me that no one here is going to be able to answer that question to your satisfaction, Hemodoc, since we are attempting (at least in my case, since I hasten to admit that this is NOT my field of study) to use science and not theology to tackle it. There are actually many fascinating debates within the field of evolution. Many. Perhaps we will work our way around to those, or perhaps not.
I actually do have a question for you, Peter, since I am hearing conflicting ideas from your posts. What exactly are your beliefs with respect to Intelligent Design? Do you believe that a "designer" created these mechanisms and evolution moves on from there, or do you literally believe that no evolution is taking place on earth? Or something else entirely?
I will take a look at the article that you posted.
Fair enough Cariad, I should state that every book on evolution that I have read in the last few years has this in it as a separate topic, but it is still dealt with anyway. Those books are at home, so forgive my poor memory at present, but if you will give me 3 months, I will quote those books once i get home. I should note that Sir Fred Hoyle stated is well in the title of the article I quoted above, the "Evolution of Life" My training nearly 30 years ago was in a continuum of evolution of the universe to evolution of chemicals, to evolution of life to evolution of higher orders of life. I suspect that despite the pleas to the contrary such as the example by Rocker, that that is the continuum that is still present but under the surface so to speak.
In fact, the current definition of evolution given by Rocker, "Evolution" is a change in the genetic makeup of a population over time. is only observed at the species and subspecies level. We studied population genetics by genetic drift and other evolutionary methods. These are observed to occur leading to variations within the same kinds of animals. What is not observed today or in the fossil record is animals changing from one kind of animal to another kind. Natural selection is actually not a creative force but a stabilizing force. Everyone talks about beneficial mutations, but examples are quite difficult to bring into discussion. Beneficial mutations are a fleeting part of the theory of evolution that are quite difficult to demonstrate. The real impact of natural selection is to weed out those individuals who have harmful mutations that we in the medical field called birth defects.
I believe that God spoke the creation into existence as the Bible states. We never really got very far on the issue of language in DNA, but in fact, you are what you are based on the language of your own individual DNA that determines many of your phenotypic attributes, hair color, etc. I believe that God created a perfect creation which was corrupted by the sin of man which is a literal interpretation of the Bible. We see that by some reports 99% of all creatures known to date have become extinct. We see stasis in the fossil record which lead Stephen J. Gould to his punctuated equilibrium theory based on the lack of evidence found showing it must have happened quickly. I see nothing happening with random mutations over time but corruption of the original code given leading to more diseases and impurities over time.
Many have coined microevolution which has been observed within species and macroevolution which has not been observed of changing from one species to another. Are there many varieties of the same kinds of animals? Absolutely and genetic drift and other aspects such as natural selection have been observed, but they have not been observed to change into different kinds of animals.
I come back to the issue of change in gene frequencies over time, but the issue of increasing information over time goes against many principles of science through random mutations. I just don't buy that as a plausible scientific explanation. As I joked with my sister years before I became a creationist, creationism has the best fit to what we find in the fossil record.
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So, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a new thread since it is off topic.
For once, I agree with hemodoc.
What a shame, then, that he should contradict himself in the very next post (a response to cariad) by discussing the probability of abiogenesis.
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You state that evolution does not start with a single cell because by the time we get to a cell with DNA we are a long way down the evolutionary road. That is a contradictory statement.
It’s only contradictory if you assume that a single cell with DNA is the starting point. Do you believe that to be the case?
Please tell us when and where evolution starts in your understanding? Not debating, simply trying to understand your concept of evolution since you continually state that I am incorrect in my understanding.
Evolution starts from when life starts. By life I mean an entity that is capable of self-replication.
You continue to refer to Fred Hoyle. I do not regard him as any sort of authority because he got it so spectacularly wrong by advocating the steady state universe theory. That was incompatible with the second law of thermodynamics. I therefore regard any views of Fred Hoyle to be speculation; they can’t stand by themselves ex cathedra, they need to be shown to be valid.
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Thank you for answering the question, Peter, I feel like I have a much better sense of where you are coming from now. I can honestly say that I have not heard that particular take on Christianity before, and the cultural anthropologist in me finds it interesting. I do, however, have to say that it is clear to me that we are basing our arguments on entirely different premises, and therefore I see little hope that we are going to really get anywhere with further discussion. I feel obligated to defend the science I studied for so long, especially when I see inaccurate or misleading statements, but I can assure you that I will never be converted to your belief system, and I have no desire to see you give that belief system up. Your beliefs are part of who you are, I completely respect it, but it is like we are arguing using different systems of logic. I cannot answer the endless "well, what came before that?" question any better than you can, and trying is futile.
A few clarifications from your post: evolution is an English word that is not always used in the strictly scientific sense. I could say "This conversation has evolved from a discussion on natural selection to a discussion on intelligent design" which is correct usage, but I would not be referring to changes in allelic frequency over time. And to be honest, I don't care what a particular scientist calls his paper, it doesn't make it a paper on evolution.
Beneficial mutations are a fleeting part of the theory of evolution that are quite difficult to demonstrate. The real impact of natural selection is to weed out those individuals who have harmful mutations that we in the medical field called birth defects.
I don't know how you strictly define birth defect, but if I can impart nothing else to the people of IHD, let me clarify this: the real impact of natural selection is to drive adaptation to the environment. As I said before with the malaria/sickle-cell example, one environment's negative mutation is another environment's positive one. No thinking human wants to be afflicted with sickle-cell anemia, but from an evolutionary perspective, sickle-cell is a great bargain. You will probably live into your forties, you won't die from malaria which can kill a person very early in life, and you will likely get to reproduce. There are other, less famous examples, of the same concept. The phrase "weed out" suggests that natural selection is the force that is killing individuals - natural selection is only concerned with whether or not you reproduce and pass along your genes, it is basically irrelevant to speak of one individual dying - all that matters is did that individual reproduce. What most people think of with birth defects - say missing an arm - do not necessarily decrease an individual's fitness, and may be congenital, not genetic.
As for animals "changing into" other animals, that is a gross oversimplification of the process. It is not like a lion suddenly gives birth to a house cat, animals do not change into other animals, their genes change over time and through speciation, they diverge from other descendants of the same ancestor. Beneficial mutations may be rare, but when you are talking about large populations and thousands or millions of years, they can and do accumulate. Negative mutations are also considered rare - the majority of mutations are neutral from an adaptive view.
Dating is a field that continues to advance and clarify the fossil record. No one has ever argued that it is perfect, just as texts continually emphasize that theories are hotly debated. No one is trying to hide the fact that there is still much to learn and uncover.
As for DNA being like a language, I don't see that. It is a useful heuristic device when teaching kids about DNA ("It's an instruction booklet!" "Nucleotides are the letters and codons are the words!") but from what I know of linguistics (not cultural linguistics, but straight, hard-core linguistics) it does not behave like a language.
While I enjoy talking about evolutionary theories, I have really burned out on defending its very existence. This has taken up a great deal of my time, and I think for my sanity I need to move on, at least from this particular tangent.
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Dear Cariad, there are many issues to look at in the points that you brought up, but if you have had enough, then that is fine, I will not push it.
God bless,
Peter
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Does this mean I can get caught up on these post since they are so long? Not just the responce, but all the quotes space that takes up space to go to the next thread makes me want to stop reading everyday. :urcrazy; :rant;
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So, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a new thread since it is off topic.
For once, I agree with hemodoc.
What a shame, then, that he should contradict himself in the very next post (a response to cariad) by discussing the probability of abiogenesis.
Dear Stoday, Rocker had placed the issue of abiogenesis outside of the discussion of evolution yet resorted to abiogenesis as her answer to where evolution starts. I have never made an artificial separation between abiogenesis and evolution as they are actually viewed as a continuum in my mind, and in the context of what was taught in the recent past. If people are going to deal with evolution, we do need a starting point. However, getting life from non-life has proved much more challenging to science with the gap of an acceptable explanation for this alleged event getting farther away all the time.
The second issue is that of micro-evolution vs macro-evolution. Variations within a kind vs a new kind. You can breed a dog into large dogs and small dogs, and it will still be a dog.
That is the problem that I have with evolution, it does not have a plausible starting place and it does not have a plausible mechanism for the alleged changes despite many imaginative theories. For example, the neutral theory of evolution does not have a valid explanation for the acquired genetic load of mutations and genetic errors that would far exceed the rare alleged beneficial mutations. How can you end up with the higher information in the higher orders of animals and plants from rare beneficial mutations while accumulating a large genetic load of errors at the same time?
On top of that there are so many wonders of creation that defy explanation without intelligent input and design. Arctic Terns that have a guidance system that allows travel to precise locations over thousands of miles, dolphins and bats with sonar systems more sensitive than ours, electrical sensing systems in sharks, the wonder of the eye and ear, etc. The driving force of evolution is random mutations. No mutations, no evolution by natural selection. I do not see any creative power in random mutations that could develop any of these phenomenal wonders of nature no matter how many billions or trillions of years you give the process. Genetic drift acts only on existing genes and likewise has no creative power. Those are the two greatest proposed mechanisms of evolution today. I just don't see creativity coming about by these mechanisms and being able to go from simple one celled organisms to complex higher animal forms. Yes, we do see variations in the kind, but we do not see new kinds from another, that has never been observed. Instead the fossil evidence is that of stasis, or simply staying the same despite the propaganda that they teach our kids in public school to the contrary.
I found an article today on these issues that looks at the difficulties with these theories for anyone interested in looking at the other side of the evolution issue.
Mutations: The Raw Material for Evolution?
Carl Sagan, in his Cosmos program "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue," stated that evolution was caused by "the slow accumulations of favorable mutations." While this may be the current popular theory, real science disagrees. The perpetuation of the Darwin myth clashes with reality--the God-created reality--where living things and their genomes were created "very good" and have degenerated from there. Genetic science demonstrates that the absolutely essential ingredient for the origin of life is an infinite Intelligence. Of all the origin stories, only one contains this essential ingredient--Genesis 1.
http://www.icr.org/article/3466/
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That is the problem that I have with evolution, it does not have a plausible starting place and it does not have a plausible mechanism for the alleged changes despite many imaginative theories. For example, the neutral theory of evolution does not have a valid explanation for the acquired genetic load of mutations and genetic errors that would far exceed the rare alleged beneficial mutations. How can you end up with the higher information in the higher orders of animals and plants from rare beneficial mutations while accumulating a large genetic load of errors at the same time?
The answer is very simple: in the population, the rare beneficial mutations accumulate but the adverse mutations die out.
If an individual benefits from a beneficial mutation, it spreads throughout the population from one generation to another. If an individual suffers from an adverse mutation, then the individual dies before passing the gene on or is less likely to pass it on. Whichever, the gene does not propagate through the population as it would if it were beneficial or benign.
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The driving force of evolution is random mutations. No mutations, no evolution by natural selection. I do not see any creative power in random mutations that could develop any of these phenomenal wonders of nature no matter how many billions or trillions of years you give the process.
Dear Hemodoc,
The usual claptrap regurgitated again. You have had answers to this issue but rather than say why the answers are wrong you repeat your original falsehoods. You also choose to distort what evolution says so that you can make a case against it.
The driving force of evolution is not random mutations. The driving force is the survival of the fittest for its environment. The means by which it does this is by random mutations. No one has suggested that mutations by themselves can bring about evolution.
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The driving force of evolution is random mutations. No mutations, no evolution by natural selection. I do not see any creative power in random mutations that could develop any of these phenomenal wonders of nature no matter how many billions or trillions of years you give the process.
Dear Hemodoc,
The usual claptrap regurgitated again. You have had answers to this issue but rather than say why the answers are wrong you repeat your original falsehoods. You also choose to distort what evolution says so that you can make a case against it.
The driving force of evolution is not random mutations. The driving force is the survival of the fittest for its environment. The means by which it does this is by random mutations. No one has suggested that mutations by themselves can bring about evolution.
Dear Stoday, survival of the fittest is usually not used anymore because it is difficult to prove it is not a tautology, instead natural selection is preferred. What is selected is random mutations that may be of benefit but when a creationist asks for examples of those alleged beneficial mutations, the list is quite short and not without dispute. Natural selection is dependent on these alleged beneficial mutations that then offer a survival advantage. It is a wonderful concoction of late that evolutionists do not admit that random mutations are at the heart of evolution by natural selection, but in fact, experiments have concluded that mutations are not directed.
Mutations are Random
The mechanisms of evolution—like natural selection and genetic drift—work with the random variation generated by mutation.
In addition, experiments have made it clear that many mutations are in fact "random," and did not occur because the organism was placed in a situation where the mutation would be useful. For example, if you expose bacteria to an antibiotic, you will likely observe an increased prevalence of antibiotic resistance. In 1952, Esther and Joshua Lederberg determined that many of these mutations for antibiotic resistance existed in the population even before the population was exposed to the antibiotic — and that exposure to the antibiotic did not cause those new resistant mutants to appear1.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIC1aRandom.shtml
Natural selection is not a creative force, it selects. Since most mutations are either neutral or harmful, natural selection has nothing to work with if there is no random beneficial mutation. It is dependent on random mutations that change the genetic code in one of various manners. Indeed many aspects of natural selection such as weather, earthquakes, floods, famine etc are also random, undirected events adding another layer of randomness to the equation.
All of these mechanisms can cause changes in the frequencies of genes in populations, and so all of them are mechanisms of evolutionary change. However, natural selection and genetic drift cannot operate unless there is genetic variation—that is, unless some individuals are genetically different from others. If the population of beetles were 100% green, selection and drift would not have any effect because their genetic make-up could not change.
So, what are the sources of genetic variation?
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIBMechanismsofchange.shtml
Genetic Variation
Without genetic variation, some of the basic mechanisms of evolutionary change cannot operate.
There are three primary sources of genetic variation, which we will learn more about:
Mutations are changes in the DNA. A single mutation can have a large effect, but in many cases, evolutionary change is based on the accumulation of many mutations.
Gene flow is any movement of genes from one population to another and is an important source of genetic variation.
Sex can introduce new gene combinations into a population. This genetic shuffling is another important source of genetic variation.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIICGeneticvariation.shtml
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That is the problem that I have with evolution, it does not have a plausible starting place and it does not have a plausible mechanism for the alleged changes despite many imaginative theories. For example, the neutral theory of evolution does not have a valid explanation for the acquired genetic load of mutations and genetic errors that would far exceed the rare alleged beneficial mutations. How can you end up with the higher information in the higher orders of animals and plants from rare beneficial mutations while accumulating a large genetic load of errors at the same time?
The answer is very simple: in the population, the rare beneficial mutations accumulate but the adverse mutations die out.
If an individual benefits from a beneficial mutation, it spreads throughout the population from one generation to another. If an individual suffers from an adverse mutation, then the individual dies before passing the gene on or is less likely to pass it on. Whichever, the gene does not propagate through the population as it would if it were beneficial or benign.
Actually, you are failing to address a very large and mostly unspoken problem of genetic load or acquired level of mutation over time. In fact, 99% of all species known are now extinct. In fact, many with diabetes do not die before they pass the gene on as well as many other harmful mutations. Here is an article showing that the risk of extinction is actually greater when you have new deleterious mutations.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2410240
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You state that evolution does not start with a single cell because by the time we get to a cell with DNA we are a long way down the evolutionary road. That is a contradictory statement.
It’s only contradictory if you assume that a single cell with DNA is the starting point. Do you believe that to be the case?
Please tell us when and where evolution starts in your understanding? Not debating, simply trying to understand your concept of evolution since you continually state that I am incorrect in my understanding.
Evolution starts from when life starts. By life I mean an entity that is capable of self-replication.
You continue to refer to Fred Hoyle. I do not regard him as any sort of authority because he got it so spectacularly wrong by advocating the steady state universe theory. That was incompatible with the second law of thermodynamics. I therefore regard any views of Fred Hoyle to be speculation; they can’t stand by themselves ex cathedra, they need to be shown to be valid.
Stoday, those are interesting points. First, when did life appear if you can tell me? I am unaware of any readily proven proposition on this issue. They all have fatal flaws, but we are now back to abiogenesis again.
Second, Sir Fred Hoyle correctly calculated the chances of life appearing and his math is not in question. It was the discovery of the red shift that brought an end to the steady state theory of the universe, not his calculations on the issue of spontaneous formation of life from non-life. Since the only proposed creative force of evolution is through random mutations of various types, his calculations continue to speak of the difficulty of your position. Interestingly, the first place that we heard of the expanding heavens is in the Bible where multiple verses speak of stretching out the heavens. God makes this claim for Himself.
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Sorry Chris! You still have a lot of quotes to read or pass over :rofl;
I know, I am off topic --- so now back to the subject!
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I posted on the God thread just now that the two seem to be so similar and I was under the impression that Rocker started this thead so that the God thread could stay on topic. My question was and is "can you find anything in Epoman's writing or rules about staying on topic and that, in face, if you can't then I'm sure it can be found in the bible.
All of the pasting of articles and scientific or religious papers is taking up so much space I didn't even know Chris has posted in here. There really might be some things you'd like to read if you could find it.
I recall get called down for not keeping on topic once when I posted some for another thread in the "word association". Why have the rules been so relaxed.
Is there anything in the rules about lengths of posts including the quote/cut/paste etc? I don't know. I don't read rules but try to follow them when I'm told about them. Well, sometimes.
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:waving;
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I posted on the God thread just now that the two seem to be so similar and I was under the impression that Rocker started this thead so that the God thread could stay on topic. My question was and is "can you find anything in Epoman's writing or rules about staying on topic and that, in face, if you can't then I'm sure it can be found in the bible.
All of the pasting of articles and scientific or religious papers is taking up so much space I didn't even know Chris has posted in here. There really might be some things you'd like to read if you could find it.
I recall get called down for not keeping on topic once when I posted some for another thread in the "word association". Why have the rules been so relaxed.
Is there anything in the rules about lengths of posts including the quote/cut/paste etc? I don't know. I don't read rules but try to follow them when I'm told about them. Well, sometimes.
Dear Dan, as far as copy and pasting and quoting, haven't you seen the lengthy posts that Epoman had on the other thread?
Re: Is there a GOD? - ding! ding! ding ding geeeeet reaaaaaady toooooo rummmmble!!!!
« Reply #7 on: June 10, 2006, 03:39:38 PM »
Quote from: hyperlite on June 10, 2006, 02:12:03 PM
hahahaha Catholics ARE Christians. A Christian is anyone that believes in Jesus Christ. Catholics are a type of Christian. Just like Protestants, and Orthodox Christians, and Evangelists...etc. Some of these "terms" can be broken down further too. Like Protestants can be broken down into Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Calvanists...etc
Epoman: Nobody is saying that we evolved from apes. That is a hugely common misconception. We did however evolve from a similar ancestor, that does not exist anymore. Evolution usually occurs through the splitting of species. So a common ancestor (probably way way way before humans and monkeys or gorillas or whatever) would have been divided somehow, whether it be geographically or through a disease or one of another million possibilities. This separation would have caused this common ancestor to diverge genetically. Now it doesn't work like "the trees were tall, so their babies were born taller"...its actually that due to random mutations, the babies that were born taller were able to survive and carry on their genes... so the same would have happened. Maybe in one part of the world, the smarter "ape-like creatures" survived, whereas in the other part, the more limber, and stronger ape-like creatures survived...and you have to remember this happened over millions of years. We've seen so much evolution over the past couple of hundred years, that this is not that much of a surprise. Look at how tall people are now. Look at skin colours. Look at the ability of humans to learn...
Evolution is a proven fact, through examining genetic codes, and the genomes of animals. Take the influenza virus for example. It evolves every year...
Now I don't know if God exists or not. I think thats the point. We're not supposed to know for sure, we have to have faith. That's why the notion of God is still around, and always will be. If you believe, then hes there. If you don't believe and need proof, then you'll never get it, because you shouldn't need proof to know that he's there. It's the perfect way to make people believe.
I also think that the reason humans need a God, is because it is part of our genetics. That's why everywhere in the world, each society has some sort of God or religion. It's a survival tool. The holes we can't explain, God fills those in for us. It's part of our cognitive behaviour to need a God. It hurts to try and think that out of nothingness, something was created randomly. Or even there never was nothingness, and there has always been something there. Or things like infinite. To think that the universe goes on forever. Mind boggling. But that's because I'm using a human brain to try and grasp these ideas. My brain isn't "hard-wired" to do so. I like the idea of a God starting everything, because it's simple, and it explains everything.
And if I'm going to burn in Hell for thinking this way, well then so be it. I don't believe in a Hell, so I'm not really scared. I think that when I die, theres going to be nothingness. Just like when I go to sleep and can't remember my dreams from the night before. It's as if that time between when I was awake, went to sleep, and then woke up again, never really happened. Or if I drink too much and can't remember what happened the night before ( ) there's a void...a nothingness. Is that depressing? no because I have tomorrow to look forward to. I don't need an eternal afterlife. All I need is to make the most of the time I've got here on Earth.
And as for religion, I like the idea of a church, because it is somewhere I can go, the people are nice, the message is relatively uplifting, and the morals are good. Its a good setting to raise a family, and live an honest and fulfilling life. But that doesn't mean I buy it all. In the back of my head, I try to be a good person because of the whole "heaven and hell" thing, even though I don't really believe it. But what's the harm in that? Although, the main reason I dont break the law, is because I'm afraid of the judicial system, I still have a conscious...where does that come from? probably from my Christian up-bringing. So yeah, I'll take my kids to church...But I'll also teach them the wonders of science...
And as for Jimmy Hoffa, he's probably living it up right now with Tupac, Elvis, and JFK
With the intelligence humans have and the power that our brain is capable of and the complexities of the human body, I don't see how anyone could think that we evolved.
You said:
Quote
I think that when I die, theres going to be nothingness. Just like when I go to sleep and can't remember my dreams from the night before. It's as if that time between when I was awake, went to sleep, and then woke up again, never really happened. Or if I drink too much and can't remember what happened the night before ( ) there's a void...a nothingness. Is that depressing?
Yes, I find it very depressing, when you have your first child you will understand, until then you will not, believe me your views on everything change when you become a parent. I would hate to have your beliefs and know that once I or my son dies, we will never see each other again. I like the fact that in my belief I know that even after our deaths my son and I will re-unite. With your beliefs you will NEVER know the secrets of the universe, you will not be able to ask questions that have pondered man since the the beginning of time and get factual answers. In my belief I will be able to get answers to all my questions.
With your belief you have EVERYTHING to lose. If you are wrong you will go to hell, If you are right then you have lost nothing. But in my belief I have everything to gain, If I am correct I have a paradise to look forward to when I die, if I am wrong then I have lost NOTHING, I will simple cease to exist and be void. Think about it for a second. If there is a GOD (which obviously I believe there is) then by you not having faith, and believing in evolution then you are basically denouncing GOD and therefor forsaking him. Which will not allow you to enter the kingdom of heaven.
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- Epoman
Owner/Administrator
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Dan, it looks like there is no prohibition against long posts since Epoman's posts were quite long. I thought you wanted to see people speak their mind. This subject is a very complex subject with a simplistic set of teachings to school children that does not represent the actual data in science publications today. What is taught is schools in of only historical interest but Darwin's gradualism is dead as a door knob when you look at the data. He proposed that there would be a graded series of transitional fossils found proving his theory of slow gradual accumulation of new traits. This is not what is found in the fossil record at all:
The Question of Transitional Forms and Stasis
Believing in Darwin's prophecy, evolutionary paleontologists have been digging up fossils and searching for missing links all over the world since the middle of the nineteenth century. Despite their best efforts, no transitional forms have yet been uncovered. All the fossils unearthed in excavations have shown that, contrary to the beliefs of evolutionists, life appeared on earth all of a sudden and fully-formed.
Robert Carroll, an expert on vertebrate paleontology and a committed evolutionist, comes to admit that the Darwinist hope has not been satisfied with fossil discoveries:
Despite more than a hundred years of intense collecting efforts since the time of Darwin's death, the fossil record still does not yield the picture of infinitely numerous transitional links that he expected.41
Another evolutionary paleontologist, K. S. Thomson, tells us that new groups of organisms appear very abruptly in the fossil record:
When a major group of organisms arises and first appears in the record, it seems to come fully equipped with a suite of new characters not seen in related, putatively ancestral groups. These radical changes in morphology and function appear to arise very quickly…42
Biologist Francis Hitching, in his book The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, states:
If we find fossils, and if Darwin's theory was right, we can predict what the rock should contain; finely graduated fossils leading from one group of creatures to another group of creatures at a higher level of complexity. The 'minor improvements' in successive generations should be as readily preserved as the species themselves. But this is hardly ever the case. In fact, the opposite holds true, as Darwin himself complained; "innumerable transitional forms must have existed, but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" Darwin felt though that the "extreme imperfection" of the fossil record was simply a matter of digging up more fossils. But as more and more fossils were dug up, it was found that almost all of them, without exception, were very close to current living animals.43
http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_species_04.html
Dan, if you also notice in the quote from hyperlite, it is the so called God thread, but what are they talking about? Yup, evolution. If anything, it is this thread that was not needed, but since it is here, Epoman would say let it stay.
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Epoman did OWN the site. He could do anything he wanted to. Epoman created this site and look how it has evolved. :2thumbsup;
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evolved, tht's it. Key word. Thngs evolve. To develop or achieve gradually.
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:clap;
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Epoman did OWN the site. He could do anything he wanted to. Epoman created this site and look how it has evolved. :2thumbsup;
:cheer: Good one, Paris.
- rocker
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Why are we aruging this issue in the other thread? Just a question. Isn't this the place?
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do you think it is possible that there are egos so big in here that they need at least two places to cut and paste?
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do you think it is possible that there are egos so big in here that they need at least two places to cut and paste?
O come on Dan, is that really necessary to this discussion? Do people really want to discuss these issues or just slap each other on the back for agreeing with each other and mock all of my responses. I have participated on other websites with very interesting discussions on both sides of this issue about the data involved avoiding such pointed comments like yours which add nothing. It is a shame that insults and personal issues keep the discussion from going forward on this thread as well as the other one in question. We have only touched on the surface of these issues of an incredibly complex and interesting topic. Much that Rocker states in her opening statement as facts are actually not supported by the evidence such as the fossil records which do not in fact show that organisms change over time, just the opposite.
In any case, still waiting for those that actually want to discuss this topic but it appears there is no great interest in a real discussion of the issues at the level of the actual data.
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do you think it is possible that there are egos so big in here that they need at least two places to cut and paste?
O come on Dan, is that really necessary to this discussion? Do people really want to discuss these issues or just slap each other on the back for agreeing with each other and mock all of my responses. I have participated on other websites with very interesting discussions on both sides of this issue about the data involved avoiding such pointed comments like yours which add nothing. It is a shame that insults and personal issues keep the discussion from going forward on this thread as well as the other one in question. We have only touched on the surface of these issues of an incredibly complex and interesting topic. Much that Rocker states in her opening statement as facts are actually not supported by the evidence such as the fossil records which do not in fact show that organisms change over time, just the opposite.
In any case, still waiting for those that actually want to discuss this topic but it appears there is no great interest in a real discussion of the issues at the level of the actual data.
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Dear Rocker, your statement is contradictory because of your own statements that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution.
Abiogenesis is a different discipline than evolution. As is chemistry, geology, etc. All of these sciences, together, give us a coherent worldview. It is that worldview that I stated in the beginning of this thread. You seem to be under the impression that if you can somehow "prove" that abiogenesis didn't happen, that brings "evolution" crashing down. It does not. Whether or not abiogenesis happened, or whether we know how it happened, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether we see a change in populations of organisms over time.
I know that you see the Bible that way (everything in it must be true), but I don't see human knowledge that way. If humans are wrong about one thing, that doesn't mean to me that we must be wrong about everything.
I have used the current abiogenesis terms in all of my posts making note of the current political correct manner
"Politically correct"?
in which origins and evolutionary change are artificially separated which is a change from my training in the 1980s. Yet, when I ask you to tell us when evolution started, you go and quote theories from abiogenesis of which the RNA world is one of the theories. You also go back to amino acids.
It was you who suggested that the first organism was an incredibly complex cell. You were corrected on that, as a cell is a long way down the evolutionary path. You expressed confusion.
Rocker, it is contradictory to tell me not to conflate abiogenesis with evolution, yet you went right to it as the start of your evolution beginnings. Yet, that is not surprising at all since EVERY book by evolution advocates does the same thing. So, if you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a new thread since it is off topic.
Abiogenesis is not evolution. Evolution does not depend on abiogenesis. If aliens came from space and dropped a truckload of cells into the primordial soup, the study of how life evolved from there would not change. If God started by dumping a handful of worms into the ocean, the study of how life evolved from there would not change.
You cannot "disprove" evolution by expressing skepticism about abiogenesis, or chemistry, or geology, or cosmology, even though all of these sciences tie into the generally accepted scenario.
If you wish to continue attacking abiogenesis, please feel free. But it says nothing about evolution.
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]"Some people say we evolved from apes, well they can bite my ass."[/b]
Yes, that is what I think. I think your attitude, your perceived superioity, you refusal to listen to other people, your need for two threads to ruin, your contant and obscessive cut and paste all combine to irritate people and they want to shut you up. I made an extra effort to talk to you but you consider yourself so far above me that you continue to bully people when you have a few folks in this discussion who are far more intelligent than you are. Yep. That's what I think.
So come on now Peter.
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Dear Cariad, great post. Sir Fred Hoyle, and astronomer/mathematician who weighed in on the issue of origins which is in line with your post, as well as Rocker's shows that math involved. Take a look at one of their papers on this issue:
Evolution of Life: A Cosmic Perspective
N. Chandra Wickramasinghe and Fred Hoyle
An ActionBioscience.org original paper
12. Improbability of life’s origins: cosmic evolution
Our hypothesis is that viable bacteria are of cosmic origin. They were present already in the material from which the solar system condensed and their number was then topped up substantially by replication in cometary material. Thus the impacts of cometary material would have brought them to Earth. The interiors of large enough impactors are known to remain cool and relatively undisturbed in such impacts. The wiping out of resident cultures was then of no overall consequence because the destroyed cultures were replaced by new arrivals.
This is the panspermia hypothesis. Is this supposed to be an argument against abiogenesis?
The hypothesis questions the viability of chemical processes in a warm little pond. Would these processes yield the molecular arrangements of such observed biological structures as DNA and RNA, or at the enzymes for which such structures code? A typical enzyme is a chain with about 300 links; each link being an amino acid of which there are 20 different types used in biology. Detailed work on a number of particular enzymes has shown that about a third of the links must have an explicit amino acid from the 20 possibilities, while the remaining 200 links can have any amino acid taken from a subset of about four possibilities from the bag of 20. This means that with a supply of all the amino acids supposedly given, the probability of a random linking of 300 of them yielding a particular enzyme is as little as
The bacteria present on Earth in its early days required about 2000 such enzymes, and the chance that a random shuffling of already-available amino acids happens to combine so as to yield all the required 2000 enzymes is
2000! [10-250]2000
which works out at odds of one part in about 10500,000 , with the factorial hardly making any difference, large as it might seem.
This is a post hoc fallacy.
The problem with this hypothesis is that it assumes that only those exact 2000 enzymes is the arrangement that would yield a living organism.
Let's see if I can make a usable parallel, without the actual math involved (I do not want to go find my Stats book, ugh). I take a bag of 100....sticky things. All are different colors. I throw them up in the air. When they land, I find one clump of 30. The odds against those exact 30 coming down together are astronomical (and yet, it happened). I could repeat that experiment thousands of times and never get that exact arrangement. However, the odds that I will get some clump of 30 in each toss may be, for example, one in three.
To make this math useful, they would pretty much have to reproduce every other possible arrangement of enzymes and show that no other arrangement is viable.
In other words, lots of things formed. Some of them were viable. The viable ones survived. What were the odds against that particular collection? Pretty high. What were the odds that one of the millions of collections would be viable? Not addressed.
A probability as small as this cannot be contemplated. So to a believer in the paradigm of the warm little pond there has to be a mistake in the argument.
Indeed there is.
So although it is known that the bacteria present on Earth, almost from the beginning, were ordinary bacteria, everyday bacteria as one might say, it is argued that the first organisms managed to be viable with considerably fewer than 2000 enzymes31.
"almost" from the beginning.
The number has been reduced from 2000 to 256
Wow, so those odds calculated above just got a whole lot different, didn't they?
(an amazing but illusory degree of accuracy).
"illusory"? How was the number determined? Experimentally? Are you saying someone just made it up? What is the evidence for that?
Additionally one can reduce the lengths of required chains of amino acids. Suppose, for example, one reduces the length as much as tenfold, to only 30 links. Then the chance of obtaining such a severely sawndown enzyme is
256! [10-25]276.
Wow, those odds keep dropping and dropping.
Neglecting the effect of the factorial, this amounts only to one part in 106900, still not a bet one would advise a friend to take.
Love the cute folksy bit, but there is information missing. The odds may be 1:106900, but the critical question is - how many tries do you get? If you get one try, pretty bad odds. Ten tries, still hang on to the mortgage. But if that is out of tens of billions of tries - bet the farm, baby!
For comparison, there are about 1079 atoms in the whole visible universe, in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. This comparison shows in our opinion that life must be a cosmological phenomenon, not at all something which originated in a warm little terrestrial pond.
This is arguing that life has arisen everywhere, an assumption which remains to be investigated.
With the genetic components of life distributed widely throughout the universe, it is a matter for each local environment to pick out arrangements that best fit the particular circumstances. In a case like Earth, a complicated fitting together of the components occurred over the last several hundred million years, by a process which biologists refer to as evolution32.
They are expanding their assumption that life is everywhere in the universe. I don't know where "several hundred million years" comes from, unless the paper is extremely old. The earliest life on earth is dated to about 3.5 billion years.
On this view of the origin of life there would be little variation in the forms to which the process gives rise, at least so far as basic genes are concerned, over the whole of our galaxy. Or indeed, over all nearby galaxies. The rest of the story concerns the many ways in which the same basic genes can combine to produce rich varieties of living forms from one environment to another, always remembering that because of the large numbers involved — large numbers of stars, large numbers of planets and large numbers of galaxies, the system can afford many failures.
However, I am now quite confused. You have thrown in the panspermia theory. This is an argument against aboigenesis occurring...on Earth. It assumes that abiogenesis happened somewhere. What point are you trying to make?
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I have neither the brain power nor the inclination to debate the details and intricacies of evolutionary processes (any more than I could be bothered trying to prove the existence of God) although I do try to follow along as best I can.
In my feeble attempts to follow along however, I find myself repeatedly thinking.....wow and whoa, any "improbability" arguments against evolution (which I understand as a scientific theory, still discovering new things, and adding to as well as refining some earlier understandings thereby building an as yet incomplete body of knowledge) certainly pale in comparison to the improbability of the biblical explanation, provided in Genesis, about how the world and life upon it came about.
Now, I think I'll go have some supper, and dream that I had the clout to convince either A. C. Grayling (I wish he'd leave his wife and marry me...I do so love the man's mind) or Richard Dawkins, or maybe both of them to get over to this thread AND the "other" one in order to really debate this stuff.
Since I probably won't be able to get them to drop in, anyone still interested in these ideas can look them up (thanks to the scientific advances of technology) via the internet and even watch them debate a variety of people on issues such as these.
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OMG, Monrien! This sounds like great fun!
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OMG, Monrien! This sounds like great fun!
That's because your ooggling the guys, for their minds :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :shy;
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OMG, Monrien! This sounds like great fun!
That's because your ooggling the guys, for their minds :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :shy;
I do love a big, throbbing...IQ.
Or was that fistula?
I always confuse those.
- rocker
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I am shocked that no one has expressed the truth, tht the world was created by the FLYING Spaghetti Monster for the inscrutable purposes of th e Flying Spaghetti Monster.. All hail the FSM!
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The answer is obvious - number 42
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The answer is obvious - number 42
From which book? Kitkatz 1000 ways to please a man or the book you read about ties versus rope? :shy; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl;
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ha ha - neither - from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe!
In the first novel and radio series, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown.
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:rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl;
and I don't need to quote what tat's for :2thumbsup; :sarcasm;
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Dear Rocker, you are the one that answered my query on where does evolution start with the RNA world which is a concept from abiogenesis. Really does not matter to me if you separate or group the two together. If you do not have abiogenesis, then you have no starting point for evolution currently defined as changes in gene frequencies. You made a very interesting statement to the effect that with or without abiogenesis it does not effect evolution. Please clarify that. If you don't have a place to start, there is nothing for evolution to work with allegedly. That sounds like magical thinking to me.
You now state that I am confused about the complexity of the cell, and my answer is not at all. You state that you have cleared up the issue, and I must have missed that. Are you continuing to state like Darwin that the cell is not complex? Please clarify again if you would. I must confess that I am astounded by how simple the process appears to be in your mindset. Once again, you have not really clarified when evolution did begin. What is your starting point?
As far as the steady state and panspermia, I obviously disagree with both from the biblical perspective, but you are missing the point of why Sir Fred Hoyle's calculations are still relevant. He supported the steady state due to his calculations that there is not enough matter in the known universe nor enough time for life to have developed on earth. Nothing at all wrong with his calculations. His solutions to this problem are quite imaginative, but I do not support them. His probabilities do remain.
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]"Some people say we evolved from apes, well they can bite my ass."[/b]
Yes, that is what I think. I think your attitude, your perceived superioity, you refusal to listen to other people, your need for two threads to ruin, your contant and obscessive cut and paste all combine to irritate people and they want to shut you up. I made an extra effort to talk to you but you consider yourself so far above me that you continue to bully people when you have a few folks in this discussion who are far more intelligent than you are. Yep. That's what I think.
So come on now Peter.
Dear Dan, I am sorry that you feel that way, but in reality, you have been about the only one here to bully people. When I decided to stop posting you even sent me a pm asking me to continue. All I have done is talk of the issues and the data in a quite patient manner. Dan, I don't back down to bullies, so it really matters little what insults you or anyone else points my way. Doesn't bother me a bit. There are many that I am sure would enjoy this thread more but for folks such as yourself that ridicule the beliefs held by a majority of people in this nation. So, I will continue to present facts and data and pretty much ignore the mocking, constant laughing symbols and all of the other ways that you try to shut down my right to express my views. Just who is being intolerant? And by the way, the owner of IHD holds many of my own views and is tolerating all of the anti-christian views you folks put forth as did Epoman before despite his belief in creation and the God of the Bible. You may want to actually consider that for a minute or two at least.
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I am so sorry. I didn't realize you had a relationship with the owners of the site. I don't even know who the owners are. I should have known there was something special about you though, as no one else has ever been given to much leeway to rant and insult the rest of the posters. I'm backing off, not by choice, but out of fear! You are scaring me know with your veiled threat of involving the owner.
I had pmed you because I saw a value to your message and wanted you to express it in such a way that it wouldn't turn people off. I mean, you say you are a Christian. The devil comes in many disguises, yes? You choose to continue to bully and now with the threat of you knowing the owner, I'm afraid of you because I don't really want to get kicked out.
HEY! But this is the thread I wanted you to post Evolution ideas in anyway! Thank you.
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I am so sorry. I didn't realize you had a relationship with the owners of the site. I don't even know who the owners are. I should have known there was something special about you though, as no one else has ever been given to much leeway to rant and insult the rest of the posters. I'm backing off, not by choice, but out of fear! You are scaring me know with your veiled threat of involving the owner.
I had pmed you because I saw a value to your message and wanted you to express it in such a way that it wouldn't turn people off. I mean, you say you are a Christian. The devil comes in many disguises, yes? You choose to continue to bully and now with the threat of you knowing the owner, I'm afraid of you because I don't really want to get kicked out.
Once again Dan, you have missed the point. I have no special relationship with the owner of IHD. It is simply a truth that they put have put up with your freedom to speak out against Christianity even though what you are stating is antithetical to their beliefs, yet you and others don't want to hear those beliefs proclaimed and are looking for anyway you can to keep me from speaking up. That is hypocrisy.
Lastly, speaking the truth is not insults, it is simply what it is, telling the truth about the Bible, about evolution theory and God.
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Once again peter, you have missed the point (for weeks now). I am not speaking out against Christianity. I am speaking out against a mortal being telling me there's is the truth and the only truth. That my friend, is hypocrisy in the highest form.
But as I said, this is the place I thought you should post about Evolution. I haven't kept up with the arguments you and not Christians are presenting through links and pasting. As I've said many time, I'm far more interested in where I'm going to be in my reincarnation life than in where I came from. Maybe I evolved from an amphibian or an ape or even a bigot. I don't really care but I do care about where I am now.
May God Bless You (pick the one of your choise),
Dan
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Once again peter, you have missed the point (for weeks now). I am not speaking out against Christianity. I am speaking out against a mortal being telling me there's is the truth and the only truth. That my friend, is hypocrisy in the highest form.
But as I said, this is the place I thought you should post about Evolution. I haven't kept up with the arguments you and not Christians are presenting through links and pasting. As I've said many time, I'm far more interested in where I'm going to be in my reincarnation life than in where I came from. Maybe I evolved from an amphibian or an ape or even a bigot. I don't really care but I do care about where I am now.
May God Bless You (pick the one of your choise),
Dan
Dan, you are speaking out against Christianity. Jesus is the one that states that there is only one way:
John 14: 1: Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2: In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4: And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5: Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
6: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Paul tells us the same thing in a different manner dealing with the creation:
Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
17: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
18: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19: Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
So, the Bible tells us not only do we know God through His creation, but it also testifies of the God of the Bible and the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost by the things that He has made. I puzzled over that statement for a long time, but indeed the Godhead is spoken of by the things that He has made. It is positively true.
So Dan, I have gone no further than showing the evidence of God by His own word, and by His own wonders of creation. Evolution is the greatest lie ever propagated about God's creation. So, yes Dan, you are speaking out against Christianity just as denying the truth of creation by this so called theory of evolution speaks against God. They are diametrically opposite views despite the many pleas stating that they are not opposed. If you really believe that they are compatible, then you must not understand either what the Bible states or what the theory of evolution states. In six days God created all things and then He rested. Despite many who contend they can find long periods of time in Genesis one, the Hebrew word for day is speaking of a 24 hour day.
So what is the evidence for both views? That is the nature of this discussion if anyone ever wants to actually discuss it on this thread or the other thread. We have so far only looked on the surface of problems with the theory of evolution.
Rocker stated that all views are welcome. Sorry, but that is not true at all as you and others demonstrate all the time.
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I will no longer post in this thread.
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I am shocked that no one has expressed the truth, tht the world was created by the FLYING Spaghetti Monster for the inscrutable purposes of th e Flying Spaghetti Monster.. All hail the FSM!
Wallyz, I was severely chastised for bring the FSM into the discussion on the God thread. I hope you avoid a similar fate! :2thumbsup;
Sorry to see your voice quieted, Rob. And everyone needs to remember to play nice. Please. :cuddle;
Aleta
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Would anyone posting here please tell me when and how I spoke out against Christianity? I'm for it. I'm for all forms of it barring the cults and charletons. And I dearly love us Jews. I did speak out against bigotry. But not sorry about that.
I mean, anybody but Hemo. I know his opinion. He expresses it well and often. All view are welcome ... as long as they are approved by hemo.
The bible said that Jonah was swallowed by a whale (according to the interpretation by sport n life). What a case of indigestion that must have brought on.
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It seems to me- an atheist most days, an agnostic on other days- that you are disrespecting Hemodocs right to have a different view then others , I do not agree with his views, but I do not have to, just respect his right to have them, and express them. There are a lot of Christains who think if your not saved your going to hell and THAT IS THEIR BELEIF- they believe their is only ONE way to salvation- and I must respect that as a fundamental part of their belief system.
I find all the information being posted to be very interesting, I am not educated enough to really participate, and I am not reading it as an argument, but as a chance to learn someone else's opinions. I wish it would stop veering off into personal attacks, & snide remarks- the purpose of which I do not understand.
Please, tell us more about the theories that are trying to disprove evolution, and the proof of God as a designer.....I am totally open to reading all of your opinions on evolution and such...
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but please don't accuse me of speaking against Christianity when you do. That is an outright
lie untruth.
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Rocker stated that all views are welcome
He also stated to .. "Please debate only facts".
Has anybody read Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show On Earth?
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It seems to me- an atheist most days, an agnostic on other days- that you are disrespecting Hemodocs right to have a different view then others , I do not agree with his views, but I do not have to, just respect his right to have them, and express them. There are a lot of Christains who think if your not saved your going to hell and THAT IS THEIR BELEIF- they believe their is only ONE way to salvation- and I must respect that as a fundamental part of their belief system.
I find all the information being posted to be very interesting, I am not educated enough to really participate, and I am not reading it as an argument, but as a chance to learn someone else's opinions. I wish it would stop veering off into personal attacks, & snide remarks- the purpose of which I do not understand.
Please, tell us more about the theories that are trying to disprove evolution, and the proof of God as a designer.....I am totally open to reading all of your opinions on evolution and such...
Dear Glitter, what a great post. I am more than happy to speak of my views on evolution and the Bible as it is my favorite source of study. Just wondering if there is any specific aspect of the Bible or evolutionary theory you are interested in.
God bless,
Peter
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Rocker stated that all views are welcome
He also stated to .. "Please debate only facts".
Has anybody read Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show On Earth?
Actually, I have not read that book, although I have read much of his other work. I would like to hear what Richard Dawkins has to say.
Thank you for the great post,
Peter
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Dear Rocker, you are the one that answered my query on where does evolution start with the RNA world which is a concept from abiogenesis.
This reminds me of the opening of Cosmos. Carl Sagan wanders out of an orchard, looks at the camera, and intones
"To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first....
create the universe."
Where does evolution "begin"? Well, the evolution of life begins with...life. The evolution of the universe begins, it is currently believed, the Big Bang. But if an alternative theory to the Big Bang arises, that says nothing about whether life evolved, even though the Big Bang is currently part of the story. So yes, evolution begins with the Big Bang.
Really does not matter to me if you separate or group the two together.
It seems to matter a great deal to you, given how often you bring up abiogenesis while discussing evolution. Is your problem with evolution, or abiogenesis?
If you do not have abiogenesis, then you have no starting point for evolution currently defined as changes in gene frequencies.
Without a Big Bang, you'll never make that apple pie from scratch. That doesn't mean that the Big Bang is critical to evolution.
You made a very interesting statement to the effect that with or without abiogenesis it does not effect evolution. Please clarify that.
I will explain again. Evolutionary science is the study of change in populations over time. You can certainly argue that without organisms, the study of their evolution is moot. But we clearly have organisms...so that line of reasoning doesn't seem to get us very far.
If you don't have a place to start, there is nothing for evolution to work with allegedly.
Correct. So if you can prove that there is no life on Earth, then the study of the evolution of that life would become much less interesting.
That sounds like magical thinking to me.
Reminds me of a quote from another comedian: "Popcorn is magic if you don't understand it."
You now state that I am confused about the complexity of the cell,
I don't recall stating that. And I cannot imagine that I would state that, given that I know nothing of your education level re. cells.
I do recall your stating that the cell is so complex, it could not have suddenly appeared from the primordial soup. I have met no one who disagrees with that statement.
and my answer is not at all. You state that you have cleared up the issue, and I must have missed that. Are you continuing to state like Darwin that the cell is not complex? Please clarify again if you would. I must confess that I am astounded by how simple the process appears to be in your mindset. Once again, you have not really clarified when evolution did begin. What is your starting point?
The beginning of life.
As far as the steady state and panspermia, I obviously disagree with both from the biblical perspective, but you are missing the point of why Sir Fred Hoyle's calculations are still relevant. He supported the steady state due to his calculations that there is not enough matter in the known universe nor enough time for life to have developed on earth.
Calculations are meaningless if they are based on incorrect or incomplete data.
Nothing at all wrong with his calculations.
But there does appear to be serious omissions in the data upon which they are based.
His solutions to this problem are quite imaginative, but I do not support them. His probabilities do remain.
So you have quoted extensively from a theory that you do not agree with, because you feel it bolsters your argument. Evolution is an integral part of the theory of panspermia.
If I may ask again, what about his evolution-dependent argument do you believe disproves evolution?
- rocker
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Dear Rocker, I am beginning to believe that you just don't understand your own statements. You have separated abiogenesis from evolution which a hundred times over I have acknowledged is the current teaching, but it was not 30 years ago when I went through my studies on evolution. In fact, before you even mentioned this, I had already acknowledged that in a prior post by using the politically correct abiogenesis term already in one of my discussions. The only issue I have placed on abiogenesis is the historical context it had with the teaching of evolution in the past a continuum from the big bang to the higher order animals.
Secondly, I have postulated that although many writers on evolution postulate this artificial separation form abiogenesis in their writings, all of the evolution books that I have read recently had an in depth chapter on abiogenesis. When I asked you where evolution starts simply for a point of reference of discussion, you came up with the RNA world as part of the evolutionary path as you so spoke prior to a cell with DNA. Do you want me to quote that post again for clarification? Your answer went back to abiogenesis. Your dissociative posts since on my alleged misunderstanding of this issue is becoming more comical all the time.
So, tell us where evolution begins as a point of reference on the issue of discussing evolution. I will grant you the beginnings of life for purposes of discussion only through one of the aspects of unproven abiogenesis but I leave it to you to state where you want to start, prokaryotic, eukaryotic, etc. Can we start somewhere with evolution please at the place of your choosing. That is all I have asked for several days. Once again, for point of reference in discussing evolution, where do you want to begin?
Thank you,
Peter
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It seems to me- an atheist most days, an agnostic on other days- that you are disrespecting Hemodocs right to have a different view then others , I do not agree with his views, but I do not have to, just respect his right to have them, and express them. There are a lot of Christains who think if your not saved your going to hell and THAT IS THEIR BELEIF- they believe their is only ONE way to salvation- and I must respect that as a fundamental part of their belief system.
I find all the information being posted to be very interesting, I am not educated enough to really participate, and I am not reading it as an argument, but as a chance to learn someone else's opinions. I wish it would stop veering off into personal attacks, & snide remarks- the purpose of which I do not understand.
Please, tell us more about the theories that are trying to disprove evolution, and the proof of God as a designer.....I am totally open to reading all of your opinions on evolution and such...
Dear Glitter, I was actually an agnostic until I was 36 years old and had completed my degree in biology, med school and my post grad training in internal medicine. Another doctor that I worked with in my first duty assignment began coming over to my quarters and all he spoke of was Bible prophecy. He was quite pleasant so to keep up with him, I began to read books on prophecy myself just to be able to keep up with him when he was talking about it. There was not much at all to do out in our desert post, so company of any kind was appreciated.
A year and half later, in a very specific manner, the Lord truly showed me the truth of His Word. The very first issue that I had to settle was that of evolution. How could the Bible be true and evolution at the same time. I read about 8 books on evolution over two months, with only one of them being from a Christian perspective. The most influential was actually Stephen J. Gould's where he defended punctuated equilibrium against other theories of evolution. If you have ever read any of his books, he has quite direct and biting comments against his detractors. The biggest issue that he went over was the fossil record and how it does not show slow gradual changes. He then went into several wonders of evolution such as fish scales, the human eye, shark sensory systems, etc. Simply looking at the incredible complexity and features quite suggestive of design is an amazing study if you wished to look at one isolated example.
Thus, having both the testimony of what the Bible says through prophecy and the amazing creatures and creations, I now see that the God of the Bible is the best explanation for these things in my mindset learned not by authority, but by study and example. I stand in awe of both the Bible and God's creation. There is much to learn in both.
May God bless,
Peter
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Rocker stated that all views are welcome
He also stated to .. "Please debate only facts".
Has anybody read Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show On Earth?
Dear Lady Noir,
Here is one quote from Dawkins on DNA. Let me know what you think?
What has happened is that genetics has become a branch of information technology. It is pure information. It's digital information. It's precisely the kind of information that can be translated digit for digit, byte for byte, into any other kind of information and then translated back again. This is a major revolution. I suppose it's probably "the" major revolution in the whole history of our understanding of ourselves. It's something would have boggled the mind of Darwin, and Darwin would have loved it, I'm absolutely sure.
-- Richard Dawkins, Life: A Gene-Centric View Craig Venter & Richard Dawkins: A Conversation in Munich (Moderator: John Brockman) "This event was a continuation of the Edge 'Life: What a Concept!' meeting in August, 2008." [sic]
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/dawkins.htm
My question to Richard Dawkins is where did all of that information come from digit by digit and byte for byte. Who wrote the code?
Take care,
Peter
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Disclaimer....I have not read this book but would like to. This is a review of the book and a response to said review.
All of the responses may be found here http://www.amazon.com/review/R1KSWPO3F506CD
"Why Evolution is True" by Dr. Jerry Coyne (biologist)
296 of 309 people found the following review helpful:
THE intro book for the evolution-curious, but uninformed!, March 14, 2009
By Esk
I was raised in a very conservative Christian environment and taught Young-Earth Creationism (anti-evolution, anti-Big Bang, etc.). I bought into it for a long time. In college, I finally began to investigate some of the claims for myself---reading what was _really_ being said by "the other side", rather than what I was being told was being said.
The disparity I discovered can hardly be exaggerated: what I had been taught bore essentially zero resemblance to the real thing. Genuine evolutionary theory was virtually unrecognizable in the creationists' caricatures of it. I learned that I had been lied to---intentionally, or not, I do not know---and that the quantity, diversity, and quality of evidence in support of evolution was simply crushing. It wasn't just that it could not be ignored or dismissed as trivial; it was that it was so cohesive and mutually supportive and overwhelmingly convincing that it simply HAD to be accepted as true. (As Gould said, it would be "perverse to withhold provisional assent.")
This discovery sparked a long (and ongoing) journey of reading books on the topic of evolution---books by authors such as Stephen Jay Gould, Sean Carroll, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Neil Shubin, and others. I was enthralled with the elegant simplicity and beauty and shear explanatory power of the ideas I was learning. They not only made sense, but had tremendous evidentiary support in nature and the lab (as well as mathematical modeling, game theory, use in other disciplines, etc.).
But, as my journey progressed, and I continued to absorb ever more information and improve my understanding, I began to realize something. As I interfaced with many of those from my upbringing (i.e., those uninformed on evolution), it dawned on me that I hadn't yet found a truly excellent "introductory book" that clearly and accessibly discussed what evolution is (and is not) while relying heavily upon concrete evidentiary examples across many different disciplines. I had read many great books specializing in this or that discipline, or focusing more on the understanding of evolutionary concepts (but with looser reliance upon examples in nature), or whatever. But, I wanted a single, superb book to provide a solid overview of evolution that was inseparably intertwined with many diverse supporting evidentiary examples.
When a curious friend actually asked, voluntarily, for such a book suggestion, and I could not provide a single title (as opposed to a long list, which is too much to ask of the casually curious), I decided my desire for such a book had transformed into a bona fide need.
"Why Evolution Is True" is that book.
It covers so much in so few pages in such an accessible way that it is difficult to capture in only a few words. Dr. Coyne eloquently writes on:
* what evolution is, and is not (specific defining features, testability, etc.; chapter 1 is all about this)
* the fossil record (including specific examples and discussion of transitional forms and lineages (dinosaur feathers, whales, etc.), stratigraphy, and more; specific predictions and their fulfillments, such as Tiktaalik's discovery and marsupial fossils in Antarctica; etc.)
* vestigial and atavistic features (e.g. human tails and appendices, and whale pelvises and dolphin legs)
* "bad design" (e.g. flat fish skulls and eyes, and the route of the vagus nerve in humans, as well as problems with both genders' reproductive systems)
* developmental oddities (e.g. dolphin embryos beginning growth of hind legs that are later changed, human embryonic growth and subsequent absorption of tails, as well as the growth and loss of a full coat of hair)
* pseudogenes (e.g. bird pseudogenes for growing teeth, pseudo-GLO for (failed) vitamin C production in humans/fruit bats/guinea pigs, substantial presence of endogenous retroviruses in our genome (and chimpanzees, in the same places), extensive olfactory receptor pseudogenes in humans (and even more so in dolphins), mammalian pseudogenes for vitellogenin production (nutritious protein filling the yolk sac in birds/reptiles/monotremes) and our embryonic growth of a yolk sac)
* biogeography (including discussion of species distributions (duh!), continental drift, and continental and oceanic islands)
* specific examples of evolution in action, both in nature and in the lab (through natural selection (e.g. different bee species, mouse and lizard coloration, etc.), genetic drift (e.g. several genetically-bottle-necked human sub-populations), and artificial selection (e.g. domestic dogs, agriculture, etc.); he writes of lab experiments, bacterial drug resistance (and even more dramatic changes), beak-length changes, and much more)
* micro- vs macro-evolution (including differences, expectations, and evidence)
* selection building complexity (including discussion of ID's claims about the bacterial flagellum and the blood clot cascade, and the eye)
* sexual selection (what it is, how it works, advantages it offers, and many examples; parthenogenesis; etc.)
* speciation (discussion and examples; allopatric and sympatric speciation; autopolyploid and allopolyploid speciation; etc.)
* human evolution (fossil and genetic evidence, along with detailed discussion; "races"; "pastoralism" coinciding with "lactose tolerance"; malarial and HIV resistance, through genetic mutations; historical advantages that now are detriments; etc.)
* the 'moral/emotional' resistance to acceptance of evolution (noting and discussing that all the evidence in the universe is still not enough if a person is staunchly ideologically opposed)
* and much, much more
Clearly, the book covers a stunning array of material in its few pages. And, due to my particular reasons for wanting such a book, I was even more pleased to discover that Dr. Coyne does not shy away from periodically pointing-out (respectfully, but matter-of-factly) that creationism simply offers no good explanation for almost everything discussed---whereas evolution beautifully explains it all. Dr. Coyne remains focused on evolution, rather than dwelling upon creationism's failures; but, I felt that the little space he did devote to explicitly noting creationism's total inability to reasonably explain the evidence was worthwhile.
The book is not the be-all, end-all of evolutionary books, of course. It can't cover absolutely everything. To learn about evolution in its full depth and breadth requires the reading of many books (several of which Dr. Coyne suggests, and many more of which can be found in his book's bibliography). But, it nearly perfectly fulfilled my personal requirements for a "suggested single title for the curious" as an introductory book on evolution---one with heavy reliance upon numerous examples of interdisciplinary, mutually-supporting evidence that still communicates many of the important evolutionary concepts in a way easily accessible to the layman.
Indeed, the book covers so much so well that even though it is targeted to be a broad overview of the evidence, and even after my having read several other more topic-specific books on evolution, I still learned quite a bit from "Why Evolution Is True". Very highly recommended, whether you're new to evolution or not.
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Showing 1-10 of 70 posts in this discussion
Initial post: Mar 15, 2009 5:23 AM PDT
Kenneth L. Carson says:
Excellent review Esk. The problem with most fundamentalist young-earth Christians is that they positively refuse to open their minds enough to investigate the "other side". I even heard a song once on the radio that in essence was praising the fact that true believers always leave those godless "evolution" books on library shelves UNREAD. Now if that attitude is not one of complete ignorance and total closed-mindedness I don't know what would be. So sadly, no matter how much you or I or any other evolutionist may recommend a book on evolution they will most probably not read it. Of course to them it is we evolutionists who are the ignorant and closed-minded ones!
But still, some of the staunchist Biblical literalists somehow muster the courage to investigate the "other side". It's tough to do this because it often entails alienating family and friends in the process. I have fundamentalist Christian relatives who would probably think I had "gone bad" and was "going to Hell" for not believing in the literal truth of the Bible. I love them but I will not renounce my reason and common sense just to stay in their good graces. I admittedly tread lightly on the subject of evolution when around them but when they say something that obviously testifies to their complete ignorance of it, such as "We know we didn't come from apes, don't we Kenneth!", I don't hesitate to try and educate them.
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20 of 21 people think this post adds to the discussion. Do you?
In reply to an earlier post on Mar 15, 2009 9:15 AM PDT
Esk says:
Yeah, Ken. You're right, of course. But, I can't completely lose hope because I myself am one of those who emerged from that world of misinformation, and I have some friends who have as well (including some who are just getting on their way).
Like you, I try not to be abrasive about it with them; but, I can't just be apathetic or silent about it either. (This is often because *they* won't let it go when they're around me, as it appears is the case for you, as well.) I still have plenty of creationist friends and family members, and they're people that I care about. But, they are abysmally uninformed/misinformed on the topic, and it can sometimes be very frustrating to get into discussions with them.
They sometimes flat-out admit that they've never learned anything about evolution (e.g. never read a single book on it, written by an evolutionary biologist), and refuse to do so, but still adamantly insist that they know what they're talking about. I think that sometimes that cognitive dissonance can be leveraged to get a person to begrudgingly consider reading something, though. So, perhaps now that I have such a great suggestion available, I can use it to prod some additional people into reading something on the topic. (And, of course, every once in awhile there is that person who's willing to read a little, anyway. And now I have a good book suggestion for her/him.)
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Dear Rocker, I am beginning to believe that you just don't understand your own statements. You have separated abiogenesis from evolution which a hundred times over I have acknowledged is the current teaching, but it was not 30 years ago when I went through my studies on evolution. In fact, before you even mentioned this, I had already acknowledged that in a prior post by using the politically correct abiogenesis term already in one of my discussions. The only issue I have placed on abiogenesis is the historical context it had with the teaching of evolution in the past a continuum from the big bang to the higher order animals.
Secondly, I have postulated that although many writers on evolution postulate this artificial separation form abiogenesis in their writings, all of the evolution books that I have read recently had an in depth chapter on abiogenesis. When I asked you where evolution starts simply for a point of reference of discussion, you came up with the RNA world as part of the evolutionary path as you so spoke prior to a cell with DNA.
Actually, as I have previously pointed out, you stated your skepticism that full-fledged cells arose spontaneously as the first life. Several people pointed out that no one claims that. You asked "where evolution started" if not cells, and I pointed to RNA as a potential candidate for an early self-replicating entity.
Do you want me to quote that post again for clarification? Your answer went back to abiogenesis.
Not if the RNA landed in the ocean from elsewhere. You post continually on panspermia, panspermia certainly allows for this possibility.
Your dissociative posts since on my alleged misunderstanding of this issue is becoming more comical all the time.
I'm glad you are enjoying yourself also, I personally am having a ball!
So, tell us where evolution begins as a point of reference on the issue of discussing evolution. I will grant you the beginnings of life for purposes of discussion only through one of the aspects of unproven abiogenesis but I leave it to you to state where you want to start, prokaryotic, eukaryotic, etc. Can we start somewhere with evolution please at the place of your choosing. That is all I have asked for several days. Once again, for point of reference in discussing evolution, where do you want to begin?
Thank you,
Peter
Well, since you admit that I have now offered you two possible answers, and you have apparently rejected both of them, I will leave this one to you.
Where do you want to begin discussing evolution?
- rocker
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Let's start with a eukaryotic single cell organism. RNA does not get you to where you want to start and once again, by your own admonition, it is a topic in abiogenesis.
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Rocker stated that all views are welcome
He also stated to .. "Please debate only facts".
Ummm I already made that mistake of thinking rocker was male in chat :shy; but if you look to the left, rocker is female.
Rocker, I like how you quote and respond to a post. It is easier for one to follow what you are debating over/ responding to
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Could use prokaryoic cells .....simplier
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I'm not sure where anyone has got the impression that Dan was anti Christianity!! I am a Christian and I certainly have never had that feeling from him. He is genuinely interested in how and why poeple think different things. Evolution - hmmm, not sure I really care how we got here - am more interested in what we do now!
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Don't know Hanify, but he thinks I don't like talking about serious things :urcrazy; :sarcasm;
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Christ, its a little ambiguous there due to immediate previous post but I hope you aren't talking about me. I respect your input on all subjects....
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Let's start with a eukaryotic single cell organism.
Can I check my understanding of this start position?
At this point the following have evolved:
1. RNA as a self-replicating enzyme
2. RNA as a gene, conveying information
3. Chromosomes, so that all genes in a cell replicate at the same time.
4. DNA and the mechanism to create proteins coded by the DNA
5. Prokaryotes, cells with no nucleus and a single chromosome (bacteria)
6. Eukaryotes single cells with a nucleus
And we discuss the evolution of the following from single cell eukaryotes
1. Intracellular structures mitochondria and, for plants, chloroplasts
2. Multicellular organisms
3. Sexual reproduction
4. Plants and animals including fish
Right?
-
Let's start with a eukaryotic single cell organism.
Can I check my understanding of this start position?
At this point the following have evolved:
1. RNA as a self-replicating enzyme
2. RNA as a gene, conveying information
3. Chromosomes, so that all genes in a cell replicate at the same time.
4. DNA and the mechanism to create proteins coded by the DNA
5. Prokaryotes, cells with no nucleus and a single chromosome (bacteria)
6. Eukaryotes single cells with a nucleus
And we discuss the evolution of the following from single cell eukaryotes
1. Intracellular structures mitochondria and, for plants, chloroplasts
2. Multicellular organisms
3. Sexual reproduction
4. Plants and animals including fish
Right?
Great start for building our cell, but we need to have complete eukaryotic cell to begin our discussion on evolution as defined as a change in gene frequencies over time.
So, we need someone to build some mitochondria, ribosomes, nucleosomes, our lipid cell membrane, our Golgi apparatus and the rest of the essentials of a single celled eukaryote that will be able to evolve. So, let's get the entire cell together to make sure it has all of the correct parts to survive.
Any volunteers to start building our cell?
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Let's start with a eukaryotic single cell organism.
Can I check my understanding of this start position?
At this point the following have evolved:
1. RNA as a self-replicating enzyme
2. RNA as a gene, conveying information
3. Chromosomes, so that all genes in a cell replicate at the same time.
4. DNA and the mechanism to create proteins coded by the DNA
5. Prokaryotes, cells with no nucleus and a single chromosome (bacteria)
6. Eukaryotes single cells with a nucleus
And we discuss the evolution of the following from single cell eukaryotes
1. Intracellular structures mitochondria and, for plants, chloroplasts
2. Multicellular organisms
3. Sexual reproduction
4. Plants and animals including fish
Right?
Dear Stoday,
Take a look at this video presentation by a medical illustrator working with Harvard to break down in animation the workings of a cell. Please note how many times he talks about the micro machines that are at the center of life and without them life is not possible. They all work independently but in synchrony with the rest of the cell. Since we are at the level of the eukaryotic cell for discussion purposes, mitochondria are already in place as well as plants since our cell will need a food source. Hope this helps to start to show the inner workings of the cell.
David Bolinsky: Fantastic voyage inside a cell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id2rZS59xSE&feature=related
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Here is the full view of the Harvard video seen above.
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife.html
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Here is an excellent video on the machines involved in a eukaryotic cell illustrating the "central dogma" of biology. By the convention of evolution, this central dogma of biology came about by only naturalistic mechanisms gathering all of the information that keeps the cell alive.
Design or random mutations acted on by selection and drift? Note the interaction of DNA, messenger RNA, transfer RNA and the ribosomal subunits. All in place in the simplest of unicellular eukaryotic organisms.
From DNA to Protein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fOXt4MrOM&feature=related
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Let's start with a eukaryotic single cell organism.
Can I check my understanding of this start position?
At this point the following have evolved:
1. RNA as a self-replicating enzyme
2. RNA as a gene, conveying information
3. Chromosomes, so that all genes in a cell replicate at the same time.
4. DNA and the mechanism to create proteins coded by the DNA
5. Prokaryotes, cells with no nucleus and a single chromosome (bacteria)
6. Eukaryotes single cells with a nucleus
And we discuss the evolution of the following from single cell eukaryotes
1. Intracellular structures mitochondria and, for plants, chloroplasts
2. Multicellular organisms
3. Sexual reproduction
4. Plants and animals including fish
Right?
Great start for building our cell, but we need to have complete eukaryotic cell to begin our discussion on evolution as defined as a change in gene frequencies over time.
This is where you said you wanted to "start" your "discussion of evolution".
So, we need someone to build some mitochondria, ribosomes, nucleosomes, our lipid cell membrane, our Golgi apparatus and the rest of the essentials of a single celled eukaryote that will be able to evolve. So, let's get the entire cell together to make sure it has all of the correct parts to survive.
So again, we are not "starting" here.
Over and over you have said you wanted to discuss evolution, but you can only go back to abiogenesis. When called on it, you claim that you're not especially interested in abiogenesis, but others keep bringing it up. When you are asked where you want to start, you name a starting point. When someone starts there, your response is AHA! We can't start there! ABIOGENESIS!!
If abiogenesis is all you want to talk about, fine. Talk about it. Don't blizzard us with posts claiming how you are a poor victim of all the other people who keep bringing it up.
Any volunteers to start building our cell?
RNA world. Discuss.
-
Dear Rocker, we agreed to start with a complete, eukaryotic, living cell capable of your alleged evolution. Further, when did I ever say that I am not interested in abiogenesis. I have said over and over again, that you really don't have any place to start with evolution since abiogenesis has so many difficulties with it.
Get a grip Rocker, look at the videos and perhaps you will hear a comment that these little machines are needed for ALL living cells. Organelles are not going to abiogenesis. If you simply don't understand what is inside of a living cell then this discussion may actually be educational to you. In fact, there may actually be people that will enjoy learning what is inside of a living eukaryotic cell and might appreciate being able to learn in peace and quiet. So, consider that you are not the only one on this site and speak quietly so that all can listen.
In fact, these videos are just the basic starting point of what is inside of a living cell.
So, quit being such a stick in the mud, look at what is inside of a living cell and behold that this has nothing to do with abiogenesis, I am simply starting the description of what life is and what is inside of a living cell allegedly capable of evolving.
So who is the one that doesn't understand these "simple" concepts. So go back, count to ten, and look at what is inside of an intact cell. So yes, we need to build it so that people have an understanding of what life is. The video on how they made the Harvard cell video says it distinctly. ALL life has these little micro machines doing the work of a living cell.
Are you done counting to ten yet? We are discussing organelles and living wonders inside of a cell, this is not at all a discussion on abiogenesis. So, if you want to talk about the RNA world, then please start a thread on abiogenesis since abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution according to you and others.
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Here is a basic video on the components of a complete living cell for any one interested in understanding the complexity of life. Once again, this is just the basics of a single eukaryotic cell. Much more to learn once we get past the basic components of a living cell. We then need to look at function of these basic parts.
How the Body Works: The Cell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiiLS_ovLwM&feature=related
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Dear Rocker, we agreed to start with a complete, eukaryotic, living cell capable of your alleged evolution.
To which you responded, we can't start there, because how did you get to that cell in the first place?
Further, when did I ever say that I am not interested in abiogenesis. I have said over and over again, that you really don't have any place to start with evolution since abiogenesis has so many difficulties with it.
So your real problem is with abiogenesis, and not evolution per se.
Which makes sense for a creationist, as "evolution" itself says nothing about the existence of a God to set it in motion. But if life can start without a god....that could be very threatening to some people.
Get a grip Rocker, look at the videos and perhaps you will hear a comment that these little machines are needed for ALL living cells.
[musings about cells deleted]
Peter, you can spend hours every day posting proof that "cells are complicated" and "cells could not have sprung whole from the primordial soup." Feel free.
What you seem to be ignoring is that no one is arguing with that. But if it makes you feel better to repeat it, that's great.
Again, you completely fail to address actual theories of abiogenesis, like RNA World.
-
This is intended as a thread to debate evolution. All views are welcome, but this topic can and often does get heated. Please debate only facts and do not attack others personally. Conversely, do not assume that an attack on your views is an attack on you personally.
The scientific consensus is this:
The universe is about 15 billion years old. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The earliest known life appeared on Earth when it was about a billion years old - although scientists seem to be discovering earlier life forms all the time.
This story of the universe is supported by many sciences: geology, chemistry, cosmology (a type of astronomy), evolutionary science, physics, and many others.
"Evolution" is a change in the genetic makeup of a population over time. This has been observed in several species. It is clearly shown in the fossil record. It is a fact.
"Theories of evolution" are attempts to explain how that happens. The first theory of evolution, formulated by Charles Darwin, is known popularly as "survival of the fittest". At its most basic, it states that a small random change (mutation) may result in an animal being better suited for its environment (a faster predator, say). That change will help the animal live a little longer, and thus have more children to pass the trait on to. Eventually, more of the animals will be faster than the original species.
There are other theories of evolution. Most notably, Stephen Jay Gould proposed that evolution does not happen gradually, but very quickly (within a few generations).
When a population has accumulated enough new traits that members can no longer breed with members of the original population (usually because a population has become isolated - for example, they live on an island, or the two populations are separated by a mountain range or something similar), the populations are said to now be different species.
Evolution does not have a "direction". We do not evolve "from" lower animals "into" more sophisticated animals. We only change to better fit our environment.
Most people who believe in God have no problem with evolution. The Catholic Church has endorsed the the theory of evolution, and has declared it compatible with the Bible. Charles Darwin was a Christian.
A few Christians believe that evolution proves there is no God.
Let the games begin.
- rocker
Dear Rocker, we agreed to start with a complete, eukaryotic, living cell capable of your alleged evolution.
To which you responded, we can't start there, because how did you get to that cell in the first place?
Further, when did I ever say that I am not interested in abiogenesis. I have said over and over again, that you really don't have any place to start with evolution since abiogenesis has so many difficulties with it.
So your real problem is with abiogenesis, and not evolution per se.
Which makes sense for a creationist, as "evolution" itself says nothing about the existence of a God to set it in motion. But if life can start without a god....that could be very threatening to some people.
Get a grip Rocker, look at the videos and perhaps you will hear a comment that these little machines are needed for ALL living cells.
[musings about cells deleted]
Peter, you can spend hours every day posting proof that "cells are complicated" and "cells could not have sprung whole from the primordial soup." Feel free.
What you seem to be ignoring is that no one is arguing with that. But if it makes you feel better to repeat it, that's great.
Again, you completely fail to address actual theories of abiogenesis, like RNA World.
Dear Rocker, this is a thread about evolution with the definition you yourself set out. If you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a thread on abiogenesis.
-
Here is another excellent video on the basic cell organelles needed for life in a eukaryotic cell.
Tour of an Animal Cell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXbv95P3uhI
-
Peter,
I am confused. You chose to to start the discussion of evolution at the eukaryotic cell. My understanding of this choice is that the discussion by your choice will be limited to the evolution of organisms from that point.
Fair enough. There is plenty to discuss. But now you are crying unfair, because you are not convinced that evolution is possible up to that point.
So, what is it that you want? If you actually wanted to discuss evolution prior to the eukaryotic cell, why did you choose that point from which to progress?
Why have you offered all sorts of creationist "evidence" that evolution could not have worked up to that point? This seems a bit disingenuous. I'm quoting something you said to Rocker, "I am beginning to believe that you just don't understand your own statements" Only I think you DO understand what you are doing, and you are throwing up a smoke screen to derail the discussion as you limited it.
Rocker has been very patient in trying to point this out to you, but you act as though she and others in the discussion are just not getting your point. It really seems to me that you do not want to discuss evolution because you aren't even willing to discuss it from the point you were given the opportunity to choose.
Could you please limit your discussion to evolution after the appearance of the eukaryotic cell as you defined the parameters of said discussion?
I am interested in following THAT discussion evolution, not the one about the origins of life, abiogenesis, that you seem so determined to discuss.
You suggested that Rocker should start a thread on abiogenisis:
Dear Rocker, this is a thread about evolution with the definition you yourself set out. If you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a thread on abiogenesis.
I contend that she was just trying to address your insistence on going back from the eukaryotic cell that prompted her comments on abiogenesis to begin with.
So, Peter, this is a thread about evolution starting at the point that you yourself set out. If you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start such a thread.
Thank you.
Aleta
-
Peter,
I am confused. You chose to to start the discussion of evolution at the eukaryotic cell. My understanding of this choice is that the discussion by your choice will be limited to the evolution of organisms from that point.
Fair enough. There is plenty to discuss. But now you are crying unfair, because you are not convinced that evolution is possible up to that point.
So, what is it that you want? If you actually wanted to discuss evolution prior to the eukaryotic cell, why did you choose that point from which to progress?
Why have you offered all sorts of creationist "evidence" that evolution could not have worked up to that point? This seems a bit disingenuous. I'm quoting something you said to Rocker, "I am beginning to believe that you just don't understand your own statements" Only I think you DO understand what you are doing, and you are throwing up a smoke screen to derail the discussion as you limited it.
Rocker has been very patient in trying to point this out to you, but you act as though she and others in the discussion are just not getting your point. It really seems to me that you do not want to discuss evolution because you aren't even willing to discuss it from the point you were given the opportunity to choose.
Could you please limit your discussion to evolution after the appearance of the eukaryotic cell as you defined the parameters of said discussion?
I am interested in following THAT discussion evolution, not the one about the origins of life, abiogenesis, that you seem so determined to discuss.
You suggested that Rocker should start she should start a thread on abiogenisis:
Dear Rocker, this is a thread about evolution with the definition you yourself set out. If you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start a thread on abiogenesis.
I contend that she was just trying to address your insistence on going back from the eukaryotic cell that prompted her comments to begin with.
So, Peter, this is a thread about evolution starting at the point that you yourself set out. If you want to talk about abiogenesis, then please start such a thread.
Thank you.
Aleta
Dear Aleta, it appears that you may indeed be confused. These are not creation videos, quite on the contrary, the first one is by an evolutionist medical illustrator talking of his project for Harvard. This is starting at a eukaryotic cell. These are the inner workings of an intact eukaryotic cell. Nothing on these videos has anything to do with abiogenesis. We are at the cell level, complete, intact and ready to go evolve. These are the basic components of a eukaryotic cell. In fact, I haven't even mentioned or not mentioned any aspect of evolution and I have especially not spoken even one word on abiogenesis in these last few posts. Both you and Rocker appear not to comprehend the basic components of a eukaryotic cell. I wonder if you even took a look at the videos to see what is on them?
Yes, abiogenesis is absolutely improbable. Yet, I have not posted any thing on abiogenesis. We are looking at living, functioning, basic cellular elements of a eukaryotic cell. Most folks don't really know what is inside of a cell. Perhaps there are some folks that may actually enjoy learning what is inside of a cell. It is made of incredible tiny molecular machines. Way past the alleged state of abiogenesis. This is the real thing, up and running. Let's all get with the program please, we are talking about the basic aspects of a cell. We are going to talk about the central dogma of biology which is at the root of all of your alleged evolution theories. If you don't understand what is going on at the cellular and molecular level, then there really is no way anyone can understand the basic let alone higher forms of evolutionary studies.
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In fact, I haven't even mentioned or not mentioned any aspect of evolution and I have especially not spoken even one word on abiogenesis in these last few posts.
I think we have all noticed that you haven't addressed any particular topic beyond "cells are complicated" in the last several posts.
This happened right after you were asked to comment on some specific theories of abiogenesis, did it not?
[deleted more repetitions of "cells are complicated!"]
We all agree. Cells are complicated.
I guess that's it, then?
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Yup, cells are complicated. Perhaps for point of discussion of evolution, you could remind all what the central dogma of biology is which is the core starting point of evolutionary theory.
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From Wikipedia:
Use of the term "dogma"
In his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit, Crick wrote about his choice of the word dogma and some of the problems it caused him:
I called this idea the central dogma, for two reasons, I suspect. I had already used the obvious word hypothesis in the sequence hypothesis, and in addition I wanted to suggest that this new assumption was more central and more powerful. ... As it turned out, the use of the word dogma caused almost more trouble than it was worth.... Many years later Jacques Monod pointed out to me that I did not appear to understand the correct use of the word dogma, which is a belief that cannot be doubted. I did apprehend this in a vague sort of way but since I thought that all religious beliefs were without foundation, I used the word the way I myself thought about it, not as most of the world does, and simply applied it to a grand hypothesis that, however plausible, had little direct experimental support.
Similarly, Horace Freeland Judson records in The Eighth Day of Creation:[6]
"My mind was, that a dogma was an idea for which there was no reasonable evidence. You see?!" And Crick gave a roar of delight. "I just didn't know what dogma meant. And I could just as well have called it the 'Central Hypothesis,' or — you know. Which is what I meant to say. Dogma was just a catch phrase."
But, I have a problem with stating that this is the starting point of evolutionary theory. For more about the core theory of evolution, the Wikipedia entry is a good starting point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_theory)
And in reference to going back from the eukaryotic cell, Peter you posted this:
Great start for building our cell, but we need to have complete eukaryotic cell to begin our discussion on evolution as defined as a change in gene frequencies over time.
So, we need someone to build some mitochondria, ribosomes, nucleosomes, our lipid cell membrane, our Golgi apparatus and the rest of the essentials of a single celled eukaryote that will be able to evolve. So, let's get the entire cell together to make sure it has all of the correct parts to survive.
Any volunteers to start building our cell?
True, the video links you posted are not from the creationist viewpoint, but I maintain that you are throwing up a smoke screen for these reasons:
1. Cells ARE complex. You intimate that there is much not known about how they developed. Possibly true, but there is also much known.
2. Even those things that may still be unknown are in no way a proof that they could not have evolved.
3. The discussion of evolution is completely different than the discussion of the origins of life. Saying that "someone" had to build the cells that are under discussion has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with creationism.
Respectfully,
Aleta
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For anyone interested in links to videos on you tube, I propose these.
Links to the other 23 videos in this series:
1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4_lVT Va6k
2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Ctl9...
3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVaCmA...
4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6_Ktv...
5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNxXlq...
6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X50lH...
7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIzaeI...
8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJa7W...
9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CCapu...
10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp7b9E...
11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzTlZo...
12: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjXYZd...
13: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ske9pw...
14: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxnJ8y...
15: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkcC8F...
16: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XDn5S...
17: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KD3XY...
18: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLOqJ...
19: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVz6se...
20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BVfP...
21: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5PNzx...
22: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrlYz0...
23: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQbv6E...
24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKhG24...
They address the evolution versus creation "debate", "controversy", whatever one wishes to call it.
At this point on the thread, #20 might be the place to begin.
Oops, problem with links. I'll try again. Sorry.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BVfPv2xNU
Here's # 20
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Please pardon my ignorance but are there still people in America who doubt any theory of evolution? I understand the debate on theories (no, I don't understand them but rather I understand why do you them) but not, in this day and age, whether? Can someone recommend a primer for me? I hate conversations that I can't understand.
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Thanks for the links, Monrien.
# 20 is already done. Will follow up on the others.
BTW, my husband was already reading the Coyne book that you posted the review on. He says it is a good one!
And Peter, I wish you wouldn't assume that I have not watched the videos you linked to.
Aleta
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From Wikipedia:
Use of the term "dogma"
In his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit, Crick wrote about his choice of the word dogma and some of the problems it caused him:
I called this idea the central dogma, for two reasons, I suspect. I had already used the obvious word hypothesis in the sequence hypothesis, and in addition I wanted to suggest that this new assumption was more central and more powerful. ... As it turned out, the use of the word dogma caused almost more trouble than it was worth.... Many years later Jacques Monod pointed out to me that I did not appear to understand the correct use of the word dogma, which is a belief that cannot be doubted. I did apprehend this in a vague sort of way but since I thought that all religious beliefs were without foundation, I used the word the way I myself thought about it, not as most of the world does, and simply applied it to a grand hypothesis that, however plausible, had little direct experimental support.
Similarly, Horace Freeland Judson records in The Eighth Day of Creation:[6]
"My mind was, that a dogma was an idea for which there was no reasonable evidence. You see?!" And Crick gave a roar of delight. "I just didn't know what dogma meant. And I could just as well have called it the 'Central Hypothesis,' or — you know. Which is what I meant to say. Dogma was just a catch phrase."
But, I have a problem with stating that this is the starting point of evolutionary theory. For more about the core theory of evolution, the Wikipedia entry is a good starting point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_theory)
And in reference to going back from the eukaryotic cell, Peter you posted this:
Great start for building our cell, but we need to have complete eukaryotic cell to begin our discussion on evolution as defined as a change in gene frequencies over time.
So, we need someone to build some mitochondria, ribosomes, nucleosomes, our lipid cell membrane, our Golgi apparatus and the rest of the essentials of a single celled eukaryote that will be able to evolve. So, let's get the entire cell together to make sure it has all of the correct parts to survive.
Any volunteers to start building our cell?
True, the video links you posted are not from the creationist viewpoint, but I maintain that you are throwing up a smoke screen for these reasons:
1. Cells ARE complex. You intimate that there is much not known about how they developed. Possibly true, but there is also much known.
2. Even those things that may still be unknown are in no way a proof that they could not have evolved.
3. The discussion of evolution is completely different than the discussion of the origins of life. Saying that "someone" had to build the cells that are under discussion has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with creationism.
Respectfully,
Aleta
No smoke screens Aleta, just simply putting forth what a eukaryotic cell is all about. That is our agreed upon starting point.
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Please pardon my ignorance but are there still people in America who doubt any theory of evolution? I understand the debate on theories (no, I don't understand them but rather I understand why do you them) but not, in this day and age, whether? Can someone recommend a primer for me? I hate conversations that I can't understand.
Dan, this looks like a good primer on evolution. Hope this helps.
Charles Darwin's Evolution 1 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiFXVzlzfI4
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I agree, Dan,
The Evolution film broadcast on PBS has a pretty good overview.
Enjoy.
Aleta
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With a eukaryotic cell, the membrane structures are quite sophisticated. Take a look at a couple of primers on the cell membrane:
Voyage inside the Cell: Membrane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW0lqf4Fqpg
Cell Biology: The Plasma Membrane (clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XclGRjnilsk
Fluid Mosaic Model
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl5EmUQdkuI&feature=related
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Eucaryotic Cells Contain Several Distinctive Organelle
Eucaryotic cells, by definition and in contrast to procaryotic cells, have a nucleus (caryon in Greek), which contains most of the cell's DNA, enclosed by a double layer of membrane (Figure 1-18). The DNA is thereby kept in a compartment separate from the rest of the contents of the cell, the cytoplasm, where most of the cell's metabolic reactions occur. In the cytoplasm, moreover, many distinctive organelles can be recognized. Prominent among these are two types of small bodies, the chloroplasts and mitochondria (Figures 1-19 and 1-20). Each of these is enclosed in its own double layer of membrane, which is chemically different from the membranes surrounding the nucleus. Mitochondria are an almost universal feature of eucaryotic cells, whereas chloroplasts are found only in those eucaryotic cells that are capable of photosynthesis - that is, in plants but not in animals or fungi. Both organelles almost certainly have a symbiotic origin.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=cell&part=A61
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Here is an excellent page on the eukaryotic cell, showing it's internal structures.
Eucaryotic Cell Interactive Animation
http://www.cellsalive.com/cells/cell_model.htm
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Perhaps the most important micro motor of life is ATP synthase. It is one of the smallest machines known with near 100% efficiency. Cyanide works against this machine and causes death within 30 seconds.
Here is an excellent presentation on this remarkable machine in eukaryotic cells.
Enjoy,
Evolution vs ATP Synthase - Molecular Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE3QJMI-ljc
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The mitochondria are the energy unit in eukaryotic cells. This is where ATP synthase works nonstop at a rapid rate of 10,000 rpm.
mitochondria ATP synthesis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgJt4KgKQJI&feature=related
However, ATP synthase is only part of the energy producing chain and how oxygen is used in the cell. If this electron chain is disrupted, life in the cell will cease. All elements of this system is specified in the genetic information contained in the cell's nucleus.
Cellular Respiration (Electron Transport Chain)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbJ0nbzt5Kw
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BVfPv2xNU
Here's # 20
Dear Monrein,
I went through the video a couple of times. He talks about his research making vesicles that self assemble. He speaks of soap bubbles that self assemble which is all about surface tension. It would be interesting to get ahold of some of his papers on his specific research, but the example that he used for our understanding is accomplished by simple surface tension factors. It does not involve information, it is a physical property of the soap solution. Without reading his papers, I assume that his direct experimentation follows all of the tenants of the experimental method.
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_scientific_method.shtml
He then goes to the ATP synthase molecule and doesn't give an real sense of the amazing complexity of this molecule. It is actually not one molecule as he kept stating but at least 31 separate proteins all working together to make a rotary engine operating at 10,000 rpm and so essential to life that it will cease immediately if these machines shut down.
He then went and implied that other people in the field of molecular biology are performing experiments on ATP synthase and showing how it evolved from less complex to more complex. Here is where the bait and switch occurred in his statement. They have actually performed no experiments at all according to the scientific method. They have instead constructed complex family trees of ATP synthase called that we refer to as phyolgeny. Quite interesting, but the difficulty is that they are constructing phyologenetic family trees based on many components of the cell such as histones, cytochrome c, ATP synthase and many other components. It all sounds good doesn't it.
The problem is, the individual component family trees to not show the same patterns of alleged similarities when matched together. He takes his experimentation on the physical properties of different compounds completely devoid of intelligent information and then implies in my opinion falsely that we have the same level of data for the evolution of ATP synthase. Not true at all.
Take a look at the write up in Wikipedia on the alleged evolution of ATP synthase:
Evolution of ATP synthase
The evolution of ATP synthase is thought to be an example of modular evolution, where two subunits with their own functions have become associated and gained new functionality.[5][6] This coupling must have occurred early in the evolution of life as evidenced by essentially the same structure and processes of ATP synthase enzymes conserved in all kingdoms of life.[5] The F-ATP synthase shows large amounts of similarity both functionally and mechanically to the V-ATPase.[7] However whilst the F-ATP synthase generates ATP by utilising a proton gradient the V-ATPase is responsible for generating a proton gradient at the expense of ATP, generating pH values as low as 1. The F1 particle also shows significant similarity to hexameric DNA helicases and the FO particle shows some similarity to H+ powered flagellar motor complexes.[7] The α3β3 hexamer of the F1 particle shows significant structural similarity to hexameric DNA helicases; both form a ring with 3 fold rotational symmetry with a central pore. Both also have roles dependent on the relative rotation of a macromolecule within the pore; the DNA helicases use the helical shape of DNA to drive their motion along the DNA molecule and to detect supercoiling whilst the α3β3 hexamer uses the conformational changes due rotation of the γ subunit to drive an enzymatic reaction.[8]
The H+ motor of the FO particle shows great functional similarity to the H+ motors seen in flagellar motors.[7] Both feature a ring of many small alpha helical proteins which rotate relative to nearby stationary proteins using a H+ potential gradient as an energy source. This is, however, a fairly tenuous link - the overall structure of flagellar motors is far more complex than the FO particle and the ring of rotating proteins is far larger, with around 30 compared to the 10, 11 or 14 known in the FO complex.
The modular evolution theory for the origin of ATP synthase suggests that two subunits with independent function, a DNA helicase with ATPase activity and a H+ motor, were able to bind, and the rotation of the motor drive the ATPase activity of the helicase in reverse.[5][8] This would then evolve to become more efficient, and eventually develop into the complex ATP synthases seen today. Alternatively the DNA helicase/H+ motor complex may have had H+ pump activity, the ATPase activity of the helicase driving the H+ motor in reverse.[5] This could later evolve to carry out the reverse reaction and act as an ATP synthase.[6]
This is not science, it is simply hypothesis and speculation that is not subject to any experiment. The video you gave is a prime example of bait and switch that we see throughout the evolution/creation debate. Experiments with soap bubbles based on surface tension and naturally occurring surfactants is not at all analogous to self assembling a micro machine giving all life the energy of life that is based on complex information that is preserved essentially unchanged between all cellular life forms. On the contrary, ATP synthase remains one of the most amazing evidences of a Creator as do all of the micro machines with in the cell.
So, great example of bait and switch but absolutely no evidence of evolution of this critical element of life.
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Here is a tutorial on aerobic and anaerobic respiration.
http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~terry/Common/respiration.swf
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Dear Peter
I wish you all the best in your quest to disprove the rather considerable body of knowledge that has accumulated to support the theory of evolution. In the interest of fair disclosure, let me be the first to point out that I am not a biologist, nor am I a chemist, a physicist, a geologist or an astronomist. What I do think I know is that the preponderance of those folks who have spent their lives pursuing scientific discoveries , including a fair number of christians, accept that this body of knowledge is important although as yet incomplete. I also find it curious that while science sets out to continuously overthrow old ideas in favour of new ones, this is after all how young scientists make a name for themselves, the theory of evolution has gained more traction, not less, in the past 150 years. This growth in knowledge and acceptance is not based on faith nor is it founded on dogma although I think I understand that in your view it is.
I wish you all the best Peter and I would respectfully suggest that you direct your energy and passion about the errors and fallacies of evolutionary science to those men and women, the practicing scientists, who would be in better positions to debate the details with you. Could you for example refute the points that you refute here and present them to scientific journals for publication. I confess that I'm gobsmacked by the young earth creationist view of the world and will continue to take my chances with the scientific method as it seems to me more likely to result in a fuller understanding of our physical selves and of our environment.
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Can we get back to the discussion of evolution instead of how a cell works?
I thought we'd agreed on a starting point of a single eukaryotic cell. How this cell arrived should be irrelevant to the discussion.
My view is that it evolved from simpler life forms; I indicated the major changes that would have to evolve to result in the cell — more changes than needed to progress from a single cell to man. Moreover the time for evolution to the eukaryote is over four times as long as from the first eukaryote to man.
On the other hand, Hemodoc would have it that the eukaryote was created, because it is so complex.
Can we keep the arguments to the development from the first eukaryote to man? There's enough there to give Hemodoc a bit of a headache to explain. The most significant difference between evolution and creation is that evolution does not have an objective whereas creation implies that the creator does. Moreover, the Bible makes man the epitome of creation, so we would expect all living things between eukaryotes and man to support the creation of man.
Viruses need explanation. Viruses have no reproduction mechanism of their own; they hijack that of other cells. Other life forms have mechanisms to kill off viruses once they have been infected (although they do not always work). So why did the creator create viruses only to have to create mechanisms to kill them off in other life forms?
Hemodoc maintains that complexity is indicative of a creator. I take the opposite view: complexity is indicative of evolution. Look at the skeleton of birds and mammals. All are nearly the same but pulled and stretched to some extent. They have the same set of bones. Bird or beast, they are basically the same but the complexity allows the differences. A designer on the other hand creates a design that is optimized to do what's intended. A designer doesn't take a railway engine and modify it to make it into an airplane. No, he designs an airplane from the start to fly.
Well, there's two issues that need explanation; I'm sure others can think of more.
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Dear Peter
I wish you all the best in your quest to disprove the rather considerable body of knowledge that has accumulated to support the theory of evolution. In the interest of fair disclosure, let me be the first to point out that I am not a biologist, nor am I a chemist, a physicist, a geologist or an astronomist. What I do think I know is that the preponderance of those folks who have spent their lives pursuing scientific discoveries , including a fair number of christians, accept that this body of knowledge is important although as yet incomplete. I also find it curious that while science sets out to continuously overthrow old ideas in favour of new ones, this is after all how young scientists make a name for themselves, the theory of evolution has gained more traction, not less, in the past 150 years. This growth in knowledge and acceptance is not based on faith nor is it founded on dogma although I think I understand that in your view it is.
I wish you all the best Peter and I would respectfully suggest that you direct your energy and passion about the errors and fallacies of evolutionary science to those men and women, the practicing scientists, who would be in better positions to debate the details with you. Could you for example refute the points that you refute here and present them to scientific journals for publication. I confess that I'm gobsmacked by the young earth creationist view of the world and will continue to take my chances with the scientific method as it seems to me more likely to result in a fuller understanding of our physical selves and of our environment.
Dear Monrein,
Thank you for a cordial disagreement. That is a breath of fresh air. I am not trying to disprove evolution, only to show it for what it really is and the limitations of the conclusions that can be drawn from the evidence available. I as well place a fair amount of trust in the scientific method which is the best that we have ,but it is not infallible. The point that I made in my post above is that the evolution studies do not follow the scientific method which is a hypothesis followed by experimentation. What the video described was experimentation on the physical properties of different organic and non organic chemical associations leading to "bubble" formation which is dependent not on coded information, but on physical properties of the chemicals involved. He then used that as an analogy to imply that we have the same type of studies with evolution "looking back into the past" to establish family trees through the study of the ATP synthase molecule, which is not actually one molecule but dozens of molecules that form a functional rotary engine operating at 10,000 rpm.
In such, it is observational with correlation based on the philosophy of evolution. I can look at the same data and draw my own conclusions based on my philosophy of creation. There is no experimentation that can lead to a cause and effect, yet the evolutionary scientists do draw cause and effect. In such, these studies do not follow the scientific method since it is not subjected to a scientific trial. I agree, the scientific method is a good, but not perfect manner in which to draw cause and effect, but I am hard placed to look at any studies where complex coded information occurs naturalistically from chemicals leading to self assembly of a near 100% efficient, rotary engine operating at 10,000 rmp. Science has never shown anything of this sort. Science has never shown life to come from non life, this was settled over a 150 years ago.
So, I am not setting out to disprove evolution, simply to show what the limits of the conclusions of the data show or don't show. You don't need to publish to be able to analyze something in that manner.
Lastly, it is interesting to look at your comment in one more manner. You are in essence stating that you place your trust in the scientific method, or simply put have faith in the evidence of evolution from all of the science. I hope you can look at what the scientific method is and isn't. Looking back into the past does not allow experimentation in the present. It is two different methods of gathering data and evidence. One is experimental, one is observational with out the ability to establish cause and effect. That is my only goal. In reality, I have faith in the God of the Bible for various data and evidence, and you have faith in the data of evolution which is not actually subject to experimentation. Belief in evolution becomes a matter of faith just as is my belief in God.
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Can we get back to the discussion of evolution instead of how a cell works?
I thought we'd agreed on a starting point of a single eukaryotic cell. How this cell arrived should be irrelevant to the discussion.
My view is that it evolved from simpler life forms; I indicated the major changes that would have to evolve to result in the cell — more changes than needed to progress from a single cell to man. Moreover the time for evolution to the eukaryote is over four times as long as from the first eukaryote to man.
On the other hand, Hemodoc would have it that the eukaryote was created, because it is so complex.
Can we keep the arguments to the development from the first eukaryote to man? There's enough there to give Hemodoc a bit of a headache to explain. The most significant difference between evolution and creation is that evolution does not have an objective whereas creation implies that the creator does. Moreover, the Bible makes man the epitome of creation, so we would expect all living things between eukaryotes and man to support the creation of man.
Viruses need explanation. Viruses have no reproduction mechanism of their own; they hijack that of other cells. Other life forms have mechanisms to kill off viruses once they have been infected (although they do not always work). So why did the creator create viruses only to have to create mechanisms to kill them off in other life forms?
Hemodoc maintains that complexity is indicative of a creator. I take the opposite view: complexity is indicative of evolution. Look at the skeleton of birds and mammals. All are nearly the same but pulled and stretched to some extent. They have the same set of bones. Bird or beast, they are basically the same but the complexity allows the differences. A designer on the other hand creates a design that is optimized to do what's intended. A designer doesn't take a railway engine and modify it to make it into an airplane. No, he designs an airplane from the start to fly.
Well, there's two issues that need explanation; I'm sure others can think of more.
Dear Stoday, this site is for debating our points of view on this issue. I postulate that these mechanisms of cell function are the central issue of the creation/evolution debate, so you may not agree with my view, it is still my right to speak my view and the evidence for that view. That is what a debate is after all. So, my educational posts on the basic function and components of a eukaryotic cell is absolutely relevant to the discussion at hand. It is in fact the basic essence of this entire debate, if in fact you folks really want to look at the real issues at hand.
It is a quite simple fact that most do not have a science background and understanding of what a eukaryotic cell involves. You are quite mistaken that I have talked about how these elements were formed, since no one at all has any clue to how they were formed by naturalistic processes. All we have is speculative propositions, or hypotheses on how it COULD have occurred, but not experimental trials of those hypotheses that I am aware. Observational data is hypothesis creating, it is not able to show cause and effect. If you know of any, I would be quite interested to reading about them. Remember observations are not the same as experiments. If we do not have a basic understanding of what is inside of eukaryotic cells and what constitutes life in a single celled eukaryotic organism, there is absolutely no room for understanding the basic principles of evolution which are based on the central dogma of biology which you have yet to explain although I did invite you and others to do that. To understand the central dogma of biology, you need to understand the support system of a "simple" cell. The elements of the central dogma of biology are all carried out by complex molecular machines. It is essential to understanding the coming elements of evolution to grasp this most amazing concept. Take a look at another animation of this central fact. You will see all steps of DNA copying and functional use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkdRdik73kU
How shall we gain an understanding of what the theory of evolution claims for complex higher order organisms if there is no foundation of the "simple" unicellular organism. In fact, go and take a course on evolution and you will study all of these issues that I have laid out with these incredible animations that we have available today. I didn't have the benefit of these animations when I took my studies on these issues and simply looking at a two to 5 minute animation gives the information that I had to accrue through many days and hours of studying.
On the other hand, yes of course, I do not believe that these things occurred by chance alone, but I have chosen instead of postulating that, I will simply put forth for all to see the complexity for themselves. If you choose to believe that these things self assembled after seeing how simply incredible that they are, go for it. But to state that I shouldn't describe and educate on what is the basic components of a cell is simply foolish since it is the central aspect of the biology of evolution. What else are we going to talk about but cell systems, organelles, functions and the aquisician of more complex cellular and organismal systems and features. I will not assume that all have the same understanding of these systems that I do after literally decades of study. The availability of incredible animations makes it quite possible for a complete lay person with no science background to easily understand the complex issues involved in this discussion on evolution without any undo time and study.
In fact, I have put forth all of the basic structures that I had planned to do for the purposes of common understanding for all to be able to participate in this discussion on evolution. In fact, it will not be necessary for me to mention special creation at for me to put across my point of view of the incredible evidence of an intelligent creator in any of my discussions. The evidence of the biology and increasing complexity of the systems and functions will be my only voice in this discussion that I will center completely on the topic of evolution. So, let the games begin, Stoday, go evolve all you want, but please tell us facts, not conjecture and speculation if you can on where we go from here. The only caveat is that the videos that I selected should give anyone interested in this study a basic understanding and I would recommend all to look at each of them.
If anyone has any questions on the technical aspects of the eukaryotic cell, please do not hesitate to ask and I will do my best to find easy to understand sources that will help direct your learning of this. So, please, go evolve Stoday and please do it through facts and data and not philosophical speculation on how it "may" have occurred. Just scientific facts that we have had subjected to the complete scientific method as Monrein has asked.
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Oh, I see. I think.
You didn't want to start with the Eukaryote after all. You want to start with the RNA world from which prokaryotes, mitochondria, chloroplasts etc evolved eventually to form the first eukaryotes. That is, the eukaryote is the end of the discussion about evolution, not the start. Am I right this time?
I take it you don't want to explain the existance of viruses eh?
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Oh, I see. I think.
You didn't want to start with the Eukaryote after all. You want to start with the RNA world from which prokaryotes, mitochondria, chloroplasts etc evolved eventually to form the first eukaryotes. That is, the eukaryote is the end of the discussion about evolution, not the start. Am I right this time?
I take it you don't want to explain the existance of viruses eh?
I have already put down the basics of a eukaryotic cell to give the other people on this thread that read but do not post a background to the discussion. Please, give us your best evidence of evolution from the unicellular, eukaryotic state to the next stage in the Precambrian era.
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Here is a creation overview of the issue of evolution up to the point of a eukaryotic cell. It has an excellent overview of what the eukaryotic cell entails, and problems with some of the theories of evolution of the eukaryotic cell based on known observations. It also has a short comment on viruses as well.
SIMPLE CELLS PAGE OF WAS DARWIN RIGHT?
http://www.wasdarwinright.com/simplecells.htm
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In addition to the structure of eukaryotic cells, you will need to understand the concept of the geologic column. Eukaryotes are believed to have developed in the precambrian era.
Geologic time scale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
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Here is a peer reviewed science paper showing that the proposed transition from prokaryote to eukaryote is more problematic than thought before:
Eukaryotic evolution, changes and challenges
T. Martin Embley1 & William Martin2
Top of pageAbstract
The idea that some eukaryotes primitively lacked mitochondria and were true intermediates in the prokaryote-to-eukaryote transition was an exciting prospect. It spawned major advances in understanding anaerobic and parasitic eukaryotes and those with previously overlooked mitochondria. But the evolutionary gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is now deeper, and the nature of the host that acquired the mitochondrion more obscure, than ever before.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7084/full/nature04546.html
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Here is a book calling for the top scientists to "speculate" on the origins of eukaryotic cell membranes. Speculation is not completed evidence through the scientific method. We do not have the facts and data that most people believe we do.
Eukaryotic Membranes and Cytoskeleton: Origins and Evolution
This book discusses the evolutionary origin and diversification of eukaryotic endomembranes and cytoskeleton from a cell biological and comparative genomic perspective. The premise of this book is that convincing experimental cell biologists to speculate about the evolutionary origin of the cell biological processes they are working on, the scientific community will gain fresh insight into the problem of eukaryote origins from scientists who possess intimate knowledge of how eukaryotic cells function. Thankfully, many cell biologists have accepted the challenge and provided in-depth cell evolutionary analyses, or have teamed up with bioinformaticians in order to carry out comparative genomic surveys. Their contributions, together with the contributions of paleontologists and evolutionary biologists, have provided a diversity of viewpoints and a fresh perspective on many aspects of eukaryote evolution.
http://www.landesbioscience.com/books/iu/id/811/?nocache=384948675
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Inspired Guesses, Creative Imagination, and Science
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.
The first point to make about Darwin's theory is that it is no longer a theory, but a fact" (Julian Huxley, Issues in Evolution, p. 41).
Although the evolutionary community would have the public believe the above statement, there is "a great gulf fixed" between evolution and the facts of science. How could such a wide chasm be spanned? Only by using one's imagination. More and more, macroevolution is seen as Dryden pens in the Dedication of King Arthur, "that fairy kind of writing which depends only upon the force of imagination."
Real science " ... is an interconnected series of concepts and conceptual schemes that have developed as a result of experimentation and observations" (Dr. James B. Conant, former president of Harvard). The Harper Encyclopedia of Science describes the scientific method as " ... techniques of controlled observation employed in the search for knowledge." In other words, science is knowledge obtained primarily through observation, not speculation or imagination.
http://www.icr.org/article/inspired-guesses-creative-imagination-science/
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For those who are not located in North America and come to this thread a bit of background:
The creation–evolution controversy (also termed the creation vs. evolution debate or the origins debate) is a recurring theological and cultural-political dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe, between those who espouse the validity and/or superiority of literal interpretations of a creation myth, and the proponents of evolution, backed by scientific consensus. The dispute particularly involves the field of evolutionary biology, but also the fields of geology, palaeontology, thermodynamics, nuclear physics and cosmology. Though also present in Europe and elsewhere,and often portrayed as part of the culture wars, this debate is most prevalent in the United States.
While the controversy has a long history, today it is mainly over what constitutes good science, with the politics of creationism primarily focusing on the teaching of creation and evolution in public education.
The debate also focuses on issues such as the definition of science (and of what constitutes scientific research and evidence), science education (and whether the teaching of the scientific consensus view should be 'balanced' by also teaching fringe theories), free speech, separation of Church and State, and theology (particularly how different Christians and Christian denominations interpret the Book of Genesis).
Please resume fighting, folks.
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After studying this issue for several years, I have concluded that very little can be gained by debating evolution vs. creationism. Two of the biggest obstacles to effective debate on the topic are: 1) the lack of conclusive scientific evidence to forever resolve the issue; and 2) the lack of openmindedness on the part of both camps.
Our limited understanding of the historical record and the workings of the universe makes it difficult for any side to get an advantage over the other. Until the day comes when God supernaturally reveals himself, both sides will still be entangled in this endless battle.
Christian endeavors need to be productive in the area of winning people for the Kingdom of God. When it comes to soul winning, arguing about creationism simply does not carry any weight. Because of the combative nature of this conflict, the salvation message always seems to be lost in the struggle.
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And faith unlike science can NEVER be scientifically proven. Therefore creationist theory can never be proven or disproven........
In OZ there is no real serious debate, evolution is taught in schools regardless of the type of school (public, private or religious). Evolution is taught as fact. The only way religion enters into a class room is if a) you attend a religious school (therefore it's a given) b) if you attend a public or selective non religious school you have the option of taking scripture class once a week based on your faith.
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And faith unlike science can NEVER be scientifically proven. Therefore creationist theory can never be proven or disproven........
I agree.
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Dear Rob,
Thank you for the good review of what is mainly an American debate, but it certainly is not limited to only America on creation vs evolution. The most important aspect to understand is that both sides argue from a religious point of view. It is actually quite easy to show what evolution science does or does not say. Such as the post above looking at the widening gap on the origin of mitochondrial acquisition. Already on this thread, it is spoken of as an established fact when the scientific evidence for that is actually getting weaker, not stronger. The use of the word speculation instead of established fact in the book review should be a red flag to people about the true state of evolutionary theory.
On the other hand, we can see the inner workings of a cell with the myriad of molecular machines that make life happen. I studied the physiology of life starting 30 years ago but really had no concept that these cycles and physiologic equations don't just happen spontaneously, they are brought about by these complex micro machines. We called them enzymatic reactions when I studied them, but not being able to visualize what is really going on I didn't grasp the wonder of these enzymes until you can see that yes they are enzymes but in reality we are looking at tiny, incredibly complex machines.
I will take one exception to your comments and jennyc that creationist theory can never be proven. You made an interesting statement:
Our limited understanding of the historical record and the workings of the universe makes it difficult for any side to get an advantage over the other. Until the day comes when God supernaturally reveals himself, both sides will still be entangled in this endless battle.
First, God has already revealed Himself to us supernaturally and naturally during His first coming yet who has believed His report.
Secondly, I would like to set a verse before us that actually challenges the notion that God can't be found in the things that He has created:
Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
17: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
18: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19: Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
The Bible states that all are without excuse based only on the things that He has created. I puzzled as a medical doctor and as a born again Christian over this verse for years on how His creation not only is self evident of God, but the God of the Bible as the Godhead of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I am now completely satisfied personally on how the creation does exactly fulfill this verse. Indeed, Paul spoke on Mars Hill and preached a message on creation to bring the gospel message:
Acts 17:19: And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20: For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
21: (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22: Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23: For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24: God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25: Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26: And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27: That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29: Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30: And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32: And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
The single biggest detriment to belief in the gospel of Christ is the theory of evolution. Most believe that it is a proven fact when it is not at all proven. Most believe that it is the result of the scientific method when in fact it does not get beyond the hypothesis state. Looking into the past through many scientific techniques that are quite sophisticated is not experimenting in the present which is the integral component of the scientific method. Instead, speculation, imagination and conjecture is what supports the foundation of most evolutionary theories. Dawkins climbing mount improbable is just one such example.
On the side of the Bible, we have hundreds of specific prophecies that prove it's reliability. Given the state of affairs with where evolutionary theory and evidence is today, I believe it takes more faith to believe in evolution than the faith I have to believe in the God of the Bible. I believe that the creation message from God is an important message to hear especially today.
Peter is one of the few people where God the Father actually spoke to Him and revealed supernaturally that Jesus is the Son of God on the mount of transfiguration. But Peter does not use that as the most reliable evidence of God. He goes right to the Bible as the most important evidence of the truth of God:
II Peter 1:15: Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
16: For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17: For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18: And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19: We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21: For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Rob, it is interesting that many wish that God would speak directly to us so that we could believe. Peter did have that experience not only through Jesus but directly from the Father above. Yet he placed the evidence of the Bible even above a supernatural event of hearing God the Father speak directly to him.
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I found this article to be interesting and representative of what my views are on the topic of evolutionary theory and the importance of this body of knowledge. There are also, to my way of thinking at any rate, some additional points of interest to be found in the "Objections" and other links included in the essay.
I am also posting the original link from Google for those who like to assess sources as well as the information or ideas presented.
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/essays/courtenay1.htm
The Short Proof of Evolution
by
Ian Johnston
Malaspina University-College
Nanaimo, BC
[This document is in the public domain and may be used, in whole or in part, without charge and without permission, by anyone, provided the source is acknowledged. Last revised in March 2005]
We live, we are constantly told, in a scientific age. We look to science to help us achieve the good life, to solve our problems (especially our medical aches and pains), and to tell us about the world. A great deal of our education system, particularly the post-secondary curriculum, is organized as science or social science. And yet, curiously enough, there is one major scientific truth which vast numbers of people refuse to accept (by some news accounts a majority of people in North America)--the fact of evolution. Yet it is as plain as plain can be that the scientific truth of evolution is so overwhelmingly established, that it is virtually impossible to refute within the bounds of reason. No major scientific truth, in fact, is easier to present, explain, and defend.
Before demonstrating this claim, let me make it clear what I mean by evolution, since there often is some confusion about the term. By evolution I mean, very simply, the development of animal and plant species out of other species not at all like them, for example, the process by which, say, a species of fish gets transformed (or evolves) through various stages into a cow, a kangaroo, or an eagle. This definition, it should be noted, makes no claims about how the process might occur, and thus it certainly does not equate the concept of evolution with Darwinian Natural Selection, as so many people seem to do. It simply defines the term by its effects (not by how those effects are produced, which could well be the subject of another argument).
The first step in demonstrating the truth of evolution is to make the claim that all living creatures must have a living parent. This point has been overwhelmingly established in the past century and a half, ever since the French scientist Louis Pasteur demonstrated how fermentation took place and thus laid to rest centuries of stories about beetles arising spontaneously out of dung or gut worms being miraculously produced from non-living material. There is absolutely no evidence for this ancient belief. Living creatures must come from other living creatures. It does no damage to this point to claim that life must have had some origin way back in time, perhaps in a chemical reaction of inorganic materials (in some primordial soup) or in some invasion from outer space. That may well be true. But what is clear is that any such origin for living things or living material must result in a very simple organism. There is no evidence whatsoever (except in science fiction like Frankenstein) that inorganic chemical processes can produce complex, multi-cellular living creatures (the recent experiments cloning sheep, of course, are based on living tissue from other sheep).
The second important point in the case for evolution is that some living creatures are very different from some others. This, I take it, is self-evident. Let me cite a common example: many animals have what we call an internal skeletal structure featuring a backbone and skull. We call these animals vertebrates. Most animals do not have these features (we call them invertebrates). The distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates is something no one who cares to look at samples of both can reasonably deny, and, so far as I am aware, no one hostile to evolution has ever denied a fact so apparent to anyone who observes the world for a few moments.
The final point in the case for evolution is this: simple animals and plants existed on earth long before more complex ones (invertebrate animals, for example, were around for a very long time before there were any vertebrates). Here again, the evidence from fossils is overwhelming. In the deepest rock layers, there are no signs of life. The first fossil remains are of very simple living things. As the strata get more recent, the variety and complexity of life increase (although not at a uniform rate). And no human fossils have ever been found except in the most superficial layers of the earth (e.g., battlefields, graveyards, flood deposits, and so on). In all the countless geological excavations and inspections (for example, of the Grand Canyon), no one has ever come up with a genuine fossil remnant which goes against this general principle (and it would only take one genuine find to overturn this principle).
Well, if we put these three points together, the rational case for evolution is air tight. If all living creatures must have a living parent, if living creatures are different, and if simpler forms were around before the more complex forms, then the more complex forms must have come from the simpler forms (e.g., vertebrates from invertebrates). There is simply no other way of dealing reasonably with the evidence we have. Of course, one might deny (as some do) that the layers of the earth represent a succession of very lengthy epochs and claim, for example, that the Grand Canyon was created in a matter of days, but this surely violates scientific observation and all known scientific processes as much as does the claim that, say, vertebrates just, well, appeared one day out of a spontaneous combination of chemicals.
To make the claim for the scientific truth of evolution in this way is to assert nothing about how it might occur. Darwin provides one answer (through natural selection), but others have been suggested, too (including some which see a divine agency at work in the transforming process). The above argument is intended, however, to demonstrate that the general principle of evolution is, given the scientific evidence, logically unassailable and that, thus, the concept is a law of nature as truly established as is, say, gravitation. That scientific certainty makes the widespread rejection of evolution in our modern age something of a puzzle (but that's a subject for another essay). In a modern liberal democracy, of course, one is perfectly free to reject that conclusion, but one is not legitimately able to claim that such a rejection is a reasonable scientific stance.
[Those who wish to communicate a criticism of the above article to the author should first read a quick survey of some common objections and responses to them at the following link: Objections] http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/essays/courtenay2.htm
[For a more detailed treatment of the same issue, please see the following article "Creationism in the Science Curriculum?"] http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/essays/creationism.htm
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There are, of course, degrees of proof. Civil law (at least, in the UK) requires proof on the balance of probabilities; criminal law as proof beyond reasonable doubt. What I have looked for on the issue of evolution vs intelligent design is for something more likely than on the balance of probabilities. I found the case for evolution to be beyond reasonable doubt. It's not just one thing that makes up my mind but a number, each more likely than not to support evolution and taken together the total puts the answer beyond reasonable doubt.
I have already spoken of one problem for ID, that of the existence of viruses. Why should a designer create viruses after he's created eukaryotes? The former cannot replicate unless they have infected a eukaryote to steal its replication machinery, so must have been designed/evolved after eukaryotes.
My next problem is the mixture of life over the earth. All the same families of life exist in America, Europe, Africa and Asia BUT NOT in Australia or Madagascar. Why are these different? Evolution has the complete answer — Australia and Madagascar became isolated so that evolution continued along a different tree from the main continents. On the other hand, it's a pointless complication for intelligent design. A designer always seeks to make a design more elegant, not unnecessarily more complicated.
To be going on with I've now I've suggested two problem areas that support evolution and tend to suggest that intelligent design did not happen.
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There are, of course, degrees of proof. Civil law (at least, in the UK) requires proof on the balance of probabilities; criminal law as proof beyond reasonable doubt. What I have looked for on the issue of evolution vs intelligent design is for something more likely than on the balance of probabilities. I found the case for evolution to be beyond reasonable doubt. It's not just one thing that makes up my mind but a number, each more likely than not to support evolution and taken together the total puts the answer beyond reasonable doubt.
I have already spoken of one problem for ID, that of the existence of viruses. Why should a designer create viruses after he's created eukaryotes? The former cannot replicate unless they have infected a eukaryote to steal its replication machinery, so must have been designed/evolved after eukaryotes.
My next problem is the mixture of life over the earth. All the same families of life exist in America, Europe, Africa and Asia BUT NOT in Australia or Madagascar. Why are these different? Evolution has the complete answer — Australia and Madagascar became isolated so that evolution continued along a different tree from the main continents. On the other hand, it's a pointless complication for intelligent design. A designer always seeks to make a design more elegant, not unnecessarily more complicated.
To be going on with I've now I've suggested two problem areas that support evolution and tend to suggest that intelligent design did not happen.
Dear Stoday,
The issue of a virus as a difficulty for the God of creation is not at all a difficulty. Viruses actually are not all pathogenic and carry plamids that help exchange genetic information between bacteria. After the fall of man, all of nature changed under the curse where animals had been vegetarian before that time and a lion and lamb would lie together. That does not happen today but under unusual circumstances. So, what we see today is not the original version of what God created perfect in the first six days before He rested. This is not a theological problem at all.
Second, the issue of the variety of life is also not a problem from a creation stand point. The Bible teaches that God not only created all things, but also destroyed this creation when the wickedness of man became overwhelming. After the flood, we have the first mention of snow in the book of Job. After the flood, the conditions on earth led to the ice age. During this time, if you look at the continental shelf, you can walk across all continents if the waters are only a hundred feet lower. As the ice age abated, the seas rose breaking the land bridges in Alaska and in Australia leaving it a separated place where unusual species flourished only there. This is not a problem from the creationist standpoint.
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Dear Monrein,
I am not sure how his major evidences of evolution are proof that it occurred and that creation did not occur.
The Strong Case for Evolution
On the basis of the above definitions, it is possible to make a very strong case for the scientific validity of evolution. Consider the following facts, all of which have been confirmed overwhelmingly by the established processes of science:
1. There is enormous variety in the plant and animal kingdoms. Some species of plants and animals have much more complex organic structures than other species.
2. All living things must come from at least one living parent (i.e., life does not arise spontaneously out of non-life).
3. The simplest forms of plant and animal life were on earth long before the more complex forms (as confirmed by the geological succession of fossils).
I am not sure how he believes that this is proof of evolution. In addition, his comment to origins was essentially, why do we have to have beginning?
Those who wish to focus on this point might also like to consider the following questions: Why does life have to have an origin? Could it not have always existed somewhere in this universe or a parallel one? Why does there have to be a "first cause" at all?
I will pass on trying to refute his arguments that he made. They really are not based on testable scientific principles.
On the other hand, he did enter into an area of great interest to me, that of the Grand Canyon. How old is the grand canyon? That is a wonderful issue to explore with much information that can be confirmed objectively. It also ties into the next step in the alleged evolution from eukaryotes during the Cambrian explosion. Understanding geologic time scale and how it was derived and its limitations is actually one of the next areas I wanted to look at.
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Here is a little bit lengthy video on stratigraphy based on actual experimentation. This is one of the few aspects of geology that has actually been subjected to the full testing by the scientific method which again involves experimentation. The usual interpretation of stratigraphy is that the bottom layers are older than the layers on top placed bottom to top. However, in the lab, in moving water, they are laid in a completely different manner laterally with several layers all the same age. It is important evidence found in the laboratory that must be considered when you look at pictures of the Grand Canyon.
It is not the most exciting video you will ever see, but the information is quite interesting and of great importance to understanding how the layers seen in the Grand Canyon were formed.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6969084415434797659&ei=rIJeS4BGpKCpA-Kdra8H&q=geologic+column+grand+canyon&hl=en&client=safari#
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Experiments In Stratification
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6969084415434797659&ei=rIJeS4BGpKCpA-Kdra8H&q=geologic+column+grand+canyon&hl=en&client=safari#
35:38 - 10 months ago
One of my favorite short documentaries about Geology. Guy Berthault discusses some evidences from deep sea drilling, deposits at the mouths of rivers, and work done in concert with hydrologists at the Colorado State University hydraulics laboratory laboratory at Fort Collins. I suggest buying this DVD and giving it to the local professor at the closest community college with a note, thought you should see. The site where the DVD is available, is: http://creationresearch.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=DVD-EXP1&Category_Code= Description from site: "Guy Berthault uses laboratory and sediment flume experiments to test accepted principles for the formation of strata. He shows, using easy to follow computer animation, that in moving currents several of the basic principles of stratigraphy do not apply. These principles, including the principles of superposition and continuity, are applicable only in calm water. He applies flume experiments to the real world of strata, mainly the formation of the layers in the Grand Canyon. Long periods of time are not required to deposit a sequence of strata in a moving current, and multiple beds can be deposited simultaneously, especially as a result of changing current speeds. His results have profound implications for the geological column and the interpretation of fossil sequences." Best article on this work:
http://www.icr.org/article/experiments-stratification/
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Highlighted facts
It was discovered that where there is a current:
1. Strata can form laterally and vertically at the same time;
2. Strata can form in the same way as sequences of facies;
3. Strata are not always a measure of chronology.
http://www.icr.org/article/experiments-stratification/
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Moving on from a eukaryotic cell to the Cambrian explosion, we have a question and answer session with a top rated scientist that became a Christian in part based on the findings of his research on the Cambrian explosion. We started with over 50 phyla of life forms and have had no new life forms added since then contrary to that predicted by the theory of evolution. Take a look:
Explosion of Life: A scientist reveals details of the Cambrian explosion
Dr. Paul Chien, chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco, recently accepted a unique invitation to travel to China to study fossils of the Cambrian era. What Chien found at the Chengjiang site, and what he has since learned about the Cambrian fauna, has changed the focus of his career. Today, Chien concentrates on further exploring and promoting the mysteries of the Cambrian explosion of life. Subsequently, Chien possesses the largest collection of Chinese Cambrian fossils in North America. . .
RI: As you became more interested in this and discovered more about it, did you find it really was an "explosion of life"?
Chien: Yes. A simple way of putting it is that currently we have about 38 phyla of different groups of animals, but the total number of phyla discovered during that period of time (including those in China, Canada, and elsewhere) adds up to over 50 phyla. That means [there are] more phyla in the very, very beginning, where we found the first fossils [of animal life], than exist now. . .
Since the Cambrian period, we have only die-off and no new groups coming about, ever. There's only one little exception citedthe group known as bryozoans, which are found in the fossil record a little later. However, most people think we just haven't found it yet; that group was probably also present in the Cambrian explosion.
Also, the animal explosion caught people's attention when the Chinese confirmed they found a genus now called Yunnanzoon that was present in the very beginning. This genus is considered a chordate, and the phylum Chordata includes fish, mammals and man. An evolutionist would say the ancestor of humans was present then. Looked at more objectively, you could say the most complex animal group, the chordates, were represented at the beginning, and they did not go through a slow gradual evolution to become a chordate.
http://www.origins.org/articles/chien_explosionoflife.html
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Explosion of Life: A scientist reveals details of the Cambrian explosion
RI: What information is the public hearing or not hearing about the Cambrian explosion?
Chien: The general impression people get is that we began with micro-organisms, then came lowly animals that don't amount to much, and then came the birds, mammals and man. Scientists were looking at a very small branch of the whole animal kingdom, and they saw more complexity and advanced features in that group. But it turns out that this concept does not apply to the entire spectrum of animals or to the appearance or creation of different groups. Take all the different body plans of roundworms, flatworms, coral, jellyfish and whateverall those appeared at the very first instant.
Most textbooks will show a live tree of evolution with the groups evolving through a long period of time. If you take that tree and chop off 99 percent of it, [what is left] is closer to reality; it's the true beginning of every group of animals, all represented at the very beginning.
http://www.origins.org/articles/chien_explosionoflife.html
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Hemodoc, I did not say God can not be found in the things he has created. In fact I have continuely stressed that a study of science will lead you to the conculsion there is order in things that prove that point. You insult me sir!
I don't think you understood my point.
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After studying this issue for several years, I have concluded that very little can be gained by debating evolution vs. creationism. Two of the biggest obstacles to effective debate on the topic are: 1) the lack of conclusive scientific evidence to forever resolve the issue; and 2) the lack of openmindedness on the part of both camps.
Our limited understanding of the historical record and the workings of the universe makes it difficult for any side to get an advantage over the other. Until the day comes when God supernaturally reveals himself, both sides will still be entangled in this endless battle.
Christian endeavors need to be productive in the area of winning people for the Kingdom of God. When it comes to soul winning, arguing about creationism simply does not carry any weight. Because of the combative nature of this conflict, the salvation message always seems to be lost in the struggle.
Hemodoc, I did not say God can not be found in the things he has created. In fact I have continuely stressed that a study of science will lead you to the conculsion there is order in things that prove that point. You insult me sir!
I don't think you understood my point.
Dear Rob,
Absolutely no insult at all intended towards your comments, I just didn't agree with the supposition that creation is not important to the gospel of Christ especially since the Bible states several times over that He created all things.
John 1: 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2: The same was in the beginning with God.
3: All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Colossians 1:12: Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
14: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
15: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
16: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18: And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19: For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell;
20: And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
I would hope that we do agree that evolution is one of the biggest detriments to people being able to accept the creation story which also is a major reason why people don't get saved. This is actually even more true since science is actually on the side of creation. It is only the philosophy of evolution that keeps this theory alive. Evolution is absolutely devoid of the evidence that everyone is told it possesses. If people are going to accept the Bible as the basis of their belief, then creation, evolution and the gospel are intertwined in a dance of death so to speak as our eternal soul depends on what we believe according to the Bible. God has already revealed Himself supernaturally and my son in law became a believer through the evolution creation debate.
I simply respectfully disagree that this debate is not important to the gospel of Christ otherwise I wouldn't bother to engage in the debate.
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After the flood, the conditions on earth led to the ice age. During this time, if you look at the continental shelf, you can walk across all continents if the waters are only a hundred feet lower. As the ice age abated, the seas rose breaking the land bridges in Alaska and in Australia leaving it a separated place where unusual species flourished only there. This is not a problem from the creationist standpoint.
Dear Hemodoc,
Not a problem? Then how do you account for the existence of marsupials in Australia and nowhere else?
The evolutionary case is that there was a land bridge at one epoch which allowed the migration of animals that existed at that time; they evolved and marsupials were one of the products of evolution. They only evolved in Australia because the environment was different from the rest of the world.
On the other hand, if they were created, they had to roam the world otherwise they would not have been saved in the ark. They left no fossils other than in Australia. After the flood, all the marsupials in the world would have had to go to Australia and get there before the end of the ice age, when the land bridge disappeared.
You have mentioned another fact, which I perceive as difficulty with the creation theory, several times. The extinction of a greater number of species than currently exist is a fact. Evolution provides an explanation for it. I cannot think of how creation can explain that fact other than that the creator made mistakes.
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Dear Stoday,
Marsupial fossils have been found not only in Australia, but Asian up to China as well as in North America. There are apparently some found in Indonesia still today.
Though most marsupials are restricted to Australia today, all early fossil ancestors of the mammalian group are known from Asia and North America. The previous oldest known marsupial skeleton was unearthed from 75-million-year-old Mongolian deposits (though jaw fragments and teeth up to 105 million years of age have also been documented). The discovery of Sinodelphys follows the uncovering by the same research team, of the world's oldest placental mammal Eomaia scansoria last year. The discovery of both fossils was part funded by grants from the National Geographic Society.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1215_031215_oldestmarsupial.html
Marsupials are not the only unusual creatures that we have that only exist within a small region. Lack of predators in Australia may be part of the reason that they still survive in Australia where as in the other areas, these docile animals may not have been able to compete against more aggressive animals in other areas. The natural land bridge between asia and Australia is quite easy to see when looking at the map of the continental shelf around Australia.
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After the flood, the conditions on earth led to the ice age. During this time, if you look at the continental shelf, you can walk across all continents if the waters are only a hundred feet lower. As the ice age abated, the seas rose breaking the land bridges in Alaska and in Australia leaving it a separated place where unusual species flourished only there. This is not a problem from the creationist standpoint.
Dear Hemodoc,
Not a problem? Then how do you account for the existence of marsupials in Australia and nowhere else?
The evolutionary case is that there was a land bridge at one epoch which allowed the migration of animals that existed at that time; they evolved and marsupials were one of the products of evolution. They only evolved in Australia because the environment was different from the rest of the world.
On the other hand, if they were created, they had to roam the world otherwise they would not have been saved in the ark. They left no fossils other than in Australia. After the flood, all the marsupials in the world would have had to go to Australia and get there before the end of the ice age, when the land bridge disappeared.
You have mentioned another fact, which I perceive as difficulty with the creation theory, several times. The extinction of a greater number of species than currently exist is a fact. Evolution provides an explanation for it. I cannot think of how creation can explain that fact other than that the creator made mistakes.
Dear Stoday, the issue of extinctions are not a problem with the God of the Bible that records that all creation groans under the burden and curse of our sins because God gave dominion to man before the fall. However, the Cambrian explosion is not explained by slow gradualism. Instead we see the most complex life forms at the start now we are at a reduced level of complexity. This goes against the principles of evolution, but is in agreement with creation.
RI: In the December 1995 issue of Time magazine in the article "When Life Exploded" the writer implied that there was nothing to get worked up aboutthe theory of evolution was not in any danger.
Chien: The scientists come out and say, "Oh yes, we've heard this before and it's very similar to the Burgess Shale," and so forth, but the Burgess Shale story was not told for many years. The Burgess Shale was first found by Charles Walcott in 1909why was the story not reported to the public until the late 1980's?
At the very beginning I thought it was a problem for them; they couldn't figure out what was going on because they found something that bears no resemblance to the present animal groups and phyla. Walcott originally tried to shoehorn those groups into existing ones, but [his attempt] was never satisfactory.
It was puzzling for a while because they refused to see that in the beginning there could be more complexity than we have now. What they are seeing are phyla that do not exist nowthat's more than 50 phyla compared to the 38 we have now. (Actually the number 50 was first quoted as over 100 for a while, but then the consensus became 50-plus.) But the point is, they saw something they didn't know what to do with; that's the scientifically honest position they're placed in. Later on, as they began to understand things are not the same as Darwinian expectations, they started shutting up.[/i]
http://www.origins.org/articles/chien_explosionoflife.html
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One day everyone will be on dialysis and several medications to stay alive. Just as we evolved to not have thick fur and to make clothes and require shelter. One day people will require all sorts of machines and drugs as a result of congenital problems resulting from widespread experimentation with genetic engineering. I am kidding. It probably won't happen, but if it was a scifi movie, I'd go see it.
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SO, Peter- what are the ethical and moral conclusions of the Intentional Creation theory that you have defended so voluminously?
How do they differ from those of Evolutionary theory?
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Not sure I want to dive into this again, but you asked a fair question, I will bite, here is a fair answer from the Bible. I am sure that the book of frog folks will have a feast on Tyefly's doodoo over my answer, but so be it.
The ethical conclusions of the gospel are of a loving God and loving Creator who wishes all to be saved from this fallen world and enter into eternal life. Yet He will not force Himself upon anyone. We all have the free will to choose what we will believe. It is not God's will that any should perish, but that all should be saved. Neither was it His will that man should fall to sin, but so is the temptation of free will and free choice, in fact it was simply a responsibility of man to avoid this temptation. Love cannot be love if it is forced, you must be free not to love to be able to love. Love and free will go hand in hand. Man must choose between good and evil, between eternal life or eternal death. From your question, I assume there is an issue perhaps of good and evil and why suffering is allowed by a loving God when you ask a out the ethical and moral conclusions of the Creation theory. For myself, suffering in many ways led me to repentance. Paul has much to say on these issues in several of his epistles for anyone that wishes to explore the morality and ethics of Creation, the Creator and Salvation. I may be making an assumption not present in your question, but that is a common argument against the God of the Bible. Once again, Paul speaks on this in many places. I believe it all ties in to the simple fact that love cannot be coerced. That in itself shows the free will that we have. There are many ways to exercise free will. I believe that the reason that God gave us free will is to be able to choose to love the God that Created us and spend all eternity with Him in heaven.
II Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Revelation 13:7: And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8: And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelatoin 17:8: The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
The message of the Bible is that of eternal life to those that call upon His name. Just as love is a choice we make, eternal life is based on love through free will as a choice to be made as well. Salvation is open to all through this choice. The story of the gospel was written before the foundations of the world. What did it cost? The life of God's only begotten Son as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. The gospel precedes the Creation. The greatest act of love ever was when the Son of God gave His soul an offering for our sin. That is the story of the gospel that the Bible records was written down before the foundations of the world, in other words, God knew what would happen once He created the heavens and the earth and then put man in charge of this creation. What we see now on earth is not the entire show. Folks have a choice to make. God made that choice before the foundations of the world with all things made by the Lamb that was slain before the foundations of the world. According to the Bible, Jesus knew what the Creation would cost Him personally before He created anything. People may not wish to believe that, but that is what is recorded in the Bible. In the garden of Gethsemane He asked His Holy Father in Heaven if there was any other way to save man. "Take this cup from me." He answered His own question with not my will but thine be done. The crucifixion is written over a thousand years before it happened. That is one of the reasons that I believe that there is a God, the God of the Bible.
God tells us that He has shown us even His eternal power and Godhead through that which He created. The Creator, the Creation and Salvation are a continuum of the same story. What is truth? Creation or Evolution? It is not just a philosophical issue to ponder, eternal placement is at stake. If the Bible is not true, then we will all just be worm food according to the theory of evolution. If the Bible is correct, then we have an eternal soul that will spend eternity somewhere. I believe that is a question that we should all consider no matter what our religious or philosophical perspectives.
If the science of evolution is so proven as not to be questioned, then show us that proof. Unfortunately, when you look at what is supposed to be overwhelming evidence, it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. That is all that I have placed in my prior posts, looking at the evidence directly such as the evidence for all of the layers of sedimentary rock that we see across the whole world. I would offer to anyone to simply look at the actually testing of the geological layers and how they were actually formed by direct laboratory experimentation at the University of Colorado by Guy Berthault. These amazing experiments must lead us to question the entire geologic column on which evolution and the age of the earth are based.
If folks wish to believe in evolution, so be it. i don't buy it and looking at the evidence of stratigraphy, the language of DNA, and many other evidences from science, to me the conclusion of an all loving Creator who wishes to fellowship with us in His love through His Son is a much easier thing to believe in than the theory of evolution and the theories of abiogenesis on how non life became life. If nothing else, folks should simply listen to the video by Guy Berthault and the evidence of how the geologic layers were formed. It is completely different than what folks are taught as the "gospel truth" from early childhood. Is evolution science or brainwashing? Let the evidence speak starting right here from experiments in stratigraphy. How did we get all of those layers world wide? Was there a flood? I believe that the Bible is correct that there was a world wide flood to remove evil from the earth. It is a powerful message of how much God hates sin.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6969084415434797659&ei=a5B_S_6jGJe0rAOds5CfBw&q=Guy+Berthault&hl=en&client=safari#
The message of evolution is that we will all go back and be recycled as worm food. You can look at the many philosophers of the last few hundred years to gain an understanding of what logic and reason say about morality and ethics without God at the center. Many conclude that we are the god of our own universe and we make up our own rules as we go along. So be it. To each his own, just make sure you are really right since the issue of what lies beyond this world and whether there is life after death may be the single most important issue that anyone of us ever ponders about.
I believe that there is a God and He wishes to save all men everywhere through the gospel. That is a condensed version of the Creation, the Creator and Salvation and how morality and ethics ties in to the Bible. The issues of morality, ethics I would assume is in the realm of good, evil and suffering. I focus on the suffering that God's Son suffered for my sins. It stops me cold in my tracks when I want to complain about any evil or suffering that is in my own life. He knows our fears, our hurts, our sufferings and He promises to wipe away all of our tears in heaven one day. I believe and trust in that promise.
Once again, I'm not really interested in another food fight so to speak with this issue, but you asked a simple question and I assume you wanted a real answer from the biblical perspective I have looked at in my other posts and tie together the Creation, the Creator and the morality and ethics of such. If this is not what you had in mind, please clarify.
Thank you.
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:bump;
No need to start a new Evolution thread - this one has it all and can be an avatar for how any thread on IHD can devolve into an endurance contest. See if you can read to the end
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Well, it is a very complex subject scientifically and theologically. This prior debate only went 7 pages, only a minor discussion compared to some on IHD.
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Well, it is a very complex subject scientifically and theologically. This prior debate only went 7 pages, only a minor discussion compared to some on IHD.
You certainly did your part Peter - I think I counted two seven post runs and at least one six ;D and only four pages if you're logged in
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Well, it is a very complex subject scientifically and theologically. This prior debate only went 7 pages, only a minor discussion compared to some on IHD.
You certainly did your part Peter - I think I counted two seven post runs and at least one six ;D and only four pages if you're logged in
True Bill, it is my favorite topic, much more so than dialysis and I have gone on ad nauseum on many dialysis issues as well. Not many take the opposing side of the issue as well so there are usually several posts to reply to at one time.
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Dear Monrein,
I am not sure how his major evidences of evolution are proof that it occurred and that creation did not occur.
The Strong Case for Evolution
On the basis of the above definitions, it is possible to make a very strong case for the scientific validity of evolution. Consider the following facts, all of which have been confirmed overwhelmingly by the established processes of science:
1. There is enormous variety in the plant and animal kingdoms. Some species of plants and animals have much more complex organic structures than other species.
2. All living things must come from at least one living parent (i.e., life does not arise spontaneously out of non-life).
3. The simplest forms of plant and animal life were on earth long before the more complex forms (as confirmed by the geological succession of fossils).
If they were the simplest forms, how the hell are we here today? They evolved into creatures of today. Dinosaurs into crocodiles, lizards, amphibians of the world, etc, Pterodactyls into birds, and Megazostrodons into house cats and rodents.
I am not sure how he believes that this is proof of evolution. In addition, his comment to origins was essentially, why do we have to have beginning?
Those who wish to focus on this point might also like to consider the following questions: Why does life have to have an origin? Could it not have always existed somewhere in this universe or a parallel one? Why does there have to be a "first cause" at all?
All things should have an origin. You just can't accept ours.
I will pass on trying to refute his arguments that he made. They really are not based on testable scientific principles.
On the other hand, he did enter into an area of great interest to me, that of the Grand Canyon. How old is the grand canyon? That is a wonderful issue to explore with much information that can be confirmed objectively. It also ties into the next step in the alleged evolution from eukaryotes during the Cambrian explosion. Understanding geologic time scale and how it was derived and its limitations is actually one of the next areas I wanted to look at.
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iKAZ3D, the excessive font and color sizes are against the site rules. Stop using them for every comment, please.
jbeany, Moderator
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iKAZ3D, the excessive font and color sizes are against the site rules. Stop using them for every comment, please.
jbeany, Moderator
Sorry, I only saw color, and that says avoid as much as possible. I use the red to highlight a specific point in a quote to respond to.
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There's a reason for the rules, really. A lot of members are visually impaired, and the colors and drastic changes in font size can play havoc on what they are seeing when they use software that enlarges the entire screen. It's fine to use them occasionally, to emphasize a point, or to bold out a reply in a quote, but keep the uses to a minimum, please, and thanks.
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There's a reason for the rules, really. A lot of members are visually impaired, and the colors and drastic changes in font size can play havoc on what they are seeing when they use software that enlarges the entire screen. It's fine to use them occasionally, to emphasize a point, or to bold out a reply in a quote, but keep the uses to a minimum, please, and thanks.
Oki :P :thx;
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Dear Monrein,
I am not sure how his major evidences of evolution are proof that it occurred and that creation did not occur.
The Strong Case for Evolution
On the basis of the above definitions, it is possible to make a very strong case for the scientific validity of evolution. Consider the following facts, all of which have been confirmed overwhelmingly by the established processes of science:
1. There is enormous variety in the plant and animal kingdoms. Some species of plants and animals have much more complex organic structures than other species.
2. All living things must come from at least one living parent (i.e., life does not arise spontaneously out of non-life).
3. The simplest forms of plant and animal life were on earth long before the more complex forms (as confirmed by the geological succession of fossils).
If they were the simplest forms, how the hell are we here today? They evolved into creatures of today. Dinosaurs into crocodiles, lizards, amphibians of the world, etc, Pterodactyls into birds, and Megazostrodons into house cats and rodents.
I am not sure how he believes that this is proof of evolution. In addition, his comment to origins was essentially, why do we have to have beginning?
Those who wish to focus on this point might also like to consider the following questions: Why does life have to have an origin? Could it not have always existed somewhere in this universe or a parallel one? Why does there have to be a "first cause" at all?
All things should have an origin. You just can't accept ours.
I will pass on trying to refute his arguments that he made. They really are not based on testable scientific principles.
On the other hand, he did enter into an area of great interest to me, that of the Grand Canyon. How old is the grand canyon? That is a wonderful issue to explore with much information that can be confirmed objectively. It also ties into the next step in the alleged evolution from eukaryotes during the Cambrian explosion. Understanding geologic time scale and how it was derived and its limitations is actually one of the next areas I wanted to look at.
Actually, you were criticizing the bolded comments of someone else who wrote The Strong Case for Evolution. My comments were below the bolded areas.
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No, my question wasn't about you or the posters or about my self. It was why do these obviouslly high powered scientist devote so much effort to it. I mean what do they expect from it. It really was a serious question but perhaps I don't know how to express it. They are so intelligent then there must be something others than knowing or makes me work on these theories.
Forget it. Not a deep question .. Is it the same reason that someone writes a symphony? That's be a good answer if it is true.
Yes, its fun to know. Maybe I'm confused since I don't have the cuuriosity about scientific matters that I should. Don't try to answer as I'm not even sure what or why I am asking it.
Actually, I think it's a great question and very deep. And I like your suggestion - that it is the same reason someone writes a symphony.
But I don't think it is Just a question for "high powered scientists" - I think it is a meaningful question for anyone.
So, I'll answer for myself. I'm driven to understand things, to take things apart to see what makes them tick - sometimes to fix something, other times to create something new that was based on or inspired by something I've learned about. WRT evolution, I've spent a fair amount of time looking into evolutionary programming. A program simulates a process which mimics natural selection with some sort of "fitness" test to see what elements are propagated to the next generation. Such programs can be used to solve all sorts of design problems. Incredibly complex solutions can arise from simple representations "evolved" over many generations. It's also called evolutionary algorithms or genetic programming.
Among other things, such work demonstrates how powerful evolutionary processes can be.
cheers,
skg
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No, my question wasn't about you or the posters or about my self. It was why do these obviouslly high powered scientist devote so much effort to it. I mean what do they expect from it. It really was a serious question but perhaps I don't know how to express it. They are so intelligent then there must be something others than knowing or makes me work on these theories.
Forget it. Not a deep question .. Is it the same reason that someone writes a symphony? That's be a good answer if it is true.
Yes, its fun to know. Maybe I'm confused since I don't have the cuuriosity about scientific matters that I should. Don't try to answer as I'm not even sure what or why I am asking it.
Actually, I think it's a great question and very deep. And I like your suggestion - that it is the same reason someone writes a symphony.
But I don't think it is Just a question for "high powered scientists" - I think it is a meaningful question for anyone.
So, I'll answer for myself. I'm driven to understand things, to take things apart to see what makes them tick - sometimes to fix something, other times to create something new that was based on or inspired by something I've learned about. WRT evolution, I've spent a fair amount of time looking into evolutionary programming. A program simulates a process which mimics natural selection with some sort of "fitness" test to see what elements are propagated to the next generation. Such programs can be used to solve all sorts of design problems. Incredibly complex solutions can arise from simple representations "evolved" over many generations. It's also called evolutionary algorithms or genetic programming.
Among other things, such work demonstrates how powerful evolutionary processes can be.
cheers,
skg
Well evolutionary program is beyond my pay grade, but let's take a look at the issue of mutations and natural selection. Mutations are the backbone of evolutionary theory on which natural selection is supposed to operate. The problem is two-fold.
First, evolutionists have a great deal of trouble describing actual positive mutations. The Hemoglobin mutations are often used as an illustration of a beneficial mutation, but anyone who has taken care of patients with sickle cell disease understands the terrible consequences of this so called beneficial mutation. This would have to include the number of children die in utero from sickle cell as well.
Today, with effective treatments that have evolved for malaria, it is even less impressive.
Secondly, the issue of natural selection leads to stasis and preservation of species and goes against preserving change in a breeding population. This goes back once again to the issue of the lack of transitional fossils found in paleontology. If evolution theories are going to represent accurately the evidence, then stasis of species, lack of beneficial mutation examples, lack of fossil records and transitional species must be accounted for.
Stephen J. Gould attempted this, but one issue he does not address well is the mechanism of his Punctuated Equilibrium theories. Rapid changes of DNA leading to a beneficial mutation that is then preserved in the breeding population leading to macroevolutionary changes involves quite a bit of speculation.
Here is a Christian view of the difficulties of Punctuated Equilibrium.
http://www.gotquestions.org/punctuated-equilibrium.html
I will give one of the most recent "examples" of a beneficial mutation dealing with the AIDS virus. Interestingly, one of the main authors is Stephen J. Obrien who I know personally. He is an alumni from my undergrad college and I worked with him as a summer intern at his viral genetics lab a LOOONG time ago. I have kept in touch with Dr. Obrien over the years from time to time since his mentoring was very important in my final career choice.
In any case, here is his discovery of a gene mutation that may improve survival with HIV. Yet, he classifies it as a "neutral" mutation believed to be present for 5000 years. Even if it does give a survival advantage today for HIV, it does not explain the persistence of this gene in the time before HIV came into the human population.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1275522/pdf/pbio.0030378.pdf
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As Joseph Campbell said, there is no conflict between religion and science; the conflict is between the science of today vs. the science of four thousand years ago. Religion which refuses to accept the science of the day is dead, because it no longer reflects an accurate picture of the world as it is. The symbols no longer click, and one then concretizes the symbols and interprets them as historical events which a person must either "believe" or reject; in either case, the spiritual component is lost.
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As Joseph Campbell said, there is no conflict between religion and science; the conflict is between the science of today vs. the science of four thousand years ago. Religion which refuses to accept the science of the day is dead, because it no longer reflects an accurate picture of the world as it is. The symbols no longer click, and one then concretizes the symbols and interprets them as historical events which a person must either "believe" or reject; in either case, the spiritual component is lost.
Hmmm, you don't speak well of either true science or true religion. I assure you the Bible is not at all outdated, but I suspect I will never convince you of that fact. Have a great day, probably not much to debate.