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Author | Topic: How do you define the word Evolution? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Davidjay writes: Creationists are logical and rational, rather than believeing in magic mutations. Creationists are illogical and irrational because they deny that mutations happen even when we can observe mutations occurring both in the lab and in the wild.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Faith writes: Indeed it is bias, aimed at obscuring the point that ultimately evolution in the wild must eventually run out of genetic diversity Mutations produce new genetic diversity. For example, each human is born with about 50 new mutations. For a diploid genome of 6 billion bases and 3 possible substitutions at each position, that comes to 18 billion possible mutations. At 50 mutations per person, it only takes 360 million births to get every possible substitution mutation.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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CRR writes: Common sense is just as good, and probably better, that the evolutionary hypothesis at making testable predictions that can then be scientifically examined; which is what I said earlier. Let's see if that claim stands up. We can find fossils with a combination of dinosaur and bird features. We can find fossils with a combination of reptile and mammal features. Does common sense say that we should also find fossils with a combination of mammal and bird features? The cytochrome c gene is shared by humans, mice, and birds. The human and mouse gene differs by 10%. The human and chicken gene differs by 20%. What should the difference be between the chicken and mouse gene, and why? When we compare the same gene between a human and mouse, what does common sense say we should see when we compare exons and introns? Should we share more DNA in introns than in exons? Should the differences be the same between exons and introns? What do you say?
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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CRR writes: Consider a soap bubble and a ball of lead, both exactly the same size. Which will fall faster? In a vacuum? They will fall at the same rate, assuming the bubble doesn't pop. All objects experience the same acceleration due to gravity. This idea violates common sense which uses everyday experiences that include air resistance and density differences. The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Tanypteryx writes: I like this statement! May I use it in my signature? I humbly grant my permission.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
CRR writes: OTOH I believe in some cases an environmental stressor can trigger an increase in mutations in certain parts of the genome to help the organism to adapt. This appears to be controlled as an adaptive mechanism. I can't give you a reference off the top of my head. The examples I have seen are pretty dubious since they only increase the random mutation rate. They don't mutate a specific base in response to a specific environmental stimulus. It is equivalent to a desperate poor person buying more lottery tickets. It may increase their chances of winning, but it is still a random process.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Dr Adequate writes: And this, CRR, is why "god did it" strikes us as a cop-out. You can always imagine that God did anything, earthquakes, rainbows, giraffes, whatever. He can do anything, he's God. But you then can't explain why God did it, or why he did it that way. But science can explain why things are that way.
One of my favorite quotes: "[They say] 'We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.' You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."--William of Conches
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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CRR writes: A theory that attempts to explain the origin of species without explaining the origin of the first species is incomplete. How so? You don't need to know how the first life came about in order to determine life evolved after that point. Do we have to prove abiogenesis in order to use a DNA paternity test? Do you reject the Germ Theory of Disease because the theory does not tell us where the first germ came from? I suspect that you don't use the same argument for the theories you do accept.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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CRR writes:
Unless of course God actually did it, in which case excluding the possibility before examining the evidence is intellectual laziness and materialistic conceit.
No such thing is excluded. That isn't how science works. Please learn how to use the scientific method. There is no step in the scientific method that says to exclude unevidenced claims at the beginning. Instead, you create a hypothesis that makes positive predictions, and then you look to see if those predictions hold up. it isn't the fault of "materialists" that supernaturalists can't come up with testable hypotheses. The rules of science are known, but creationists refuse to even play the game. No one is stopping them from playing other than themselves.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Dredge writes: Nothing in applied biology depends on your useless atheist theology First, evolution is not an atheist theology. "Atheist theology" is an oxymoron to begin with. Second, evolution is used in applied biology, such as in the application of the theory to predict protein function. "We present a statistical graphical model to infer specific molecular function for unannotated protein sequences using homology. Based on phylogenomic principles, SIFTER (Statistical Inference of Function Through Evolutionary Relationships) accurately predicts molecular function for members of a protein family given a reconciled phylogenyand available function annotations, even when the data are sparse or noisy." https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bee/pubs/sifter-plos.pdf Science is defined by observation and experiments; so go away, silly atheist space cadet. Evolution is evidenced by multiple observations, such as the observed nested hierarchy.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Dredge writes: Evolutionary biologist, on the other hand, don't concern themselves with the real world; Evolutionary biologists concern themselves with the distribution of characteristics in modern species, fossils, genomes of living species, and the mechanisms of embryonic development. All of these are parts of the real world.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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CRR writes: Not only can hybrids form between recognised species, they can form cross genera, although as far as I know, only genera within the one family. First off, families and genera are human constructs and are not real things. If humans wanted to, they could put chimps and humans in the same genus or in separate orders. It is completely up to us since taxonomy is something made up by humans. Second, hybrids don't change the basic concept of the importance of speciation within the theory of evolution. The very fact that you call them hybrids between two species drives this point home. Why don't you call them the same species? The problem with semantic arguments like the one you are using is that you lose sight of the real world. The theory of evolution is trying to explain the real world, and sometimes the real world doesn't fit into nice little neat categories that humans prefer. The IMPORTANT concept is how populations diverge, not black and white definitions that have no exceptions. When there is a barrier between free gene flow between populations, what happens? What we see is that different mutations accumulate in the different populations. This causes them to diverge over time. If there is very limited gene flow between the populations, there is still divergence. This is why isolated hybrids aren't a problem for the theory or for the concept of speciation. In trying to get your "goctha" moment, you have lost sight of what theories are meant to do: explain nature.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Davidjay writes: Its a combination of luck and semantics, evolutionary mutational luck involves the supposed changes, and evolutionary semantics covers all evolutions missing links and errors. What is "supposed" about mutations? We can directly sequence the genomes of parents and their offspring, and count the number of mutations that offspring are born with. We can directly observe mutations happening. Why do you have to deny reality?
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Davidjay writes: But againthe S word could not possibly have mutated simultaneously together at the same time to produce offspring magically, waiting for a billion years of mutational change for fertility. What in the world are you talking about?
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Name one use of medical science that depends on the theory that all life on earth shares a common ancestor. Not one use of medical science depends on the theory that the Sun is fueled by a fusion reaction at its core. Does this refute the theory that the Sun is fueled by fusion power?
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