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Author | Topic: Where do Creationists think the Theory of Evolution comes from? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mark24 Member (Idle past 5195 days) Posts: 3857 From: UK Joined: |
Faith,
The reduction process cancels out any increase in variability conferred by the addition of a mutation. You get a mutation, it changes something, it's selected and that reduces the variability by eliminating other genetic possibilities in the new subspecies. Not a formula for evolution. What stops a new allele in one locus increasing the possible variability at another? In other words, one novelty allows the potential for more elsewhere. Meaning that variability, as you define it, never really gets near to zero. Mark There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Variability is the number of possible genetic expressions available -- numbers of genes, numbers of alleles, whatever. And mutation results in new alleles. Thus, it's an expansion of the number of possible genetic expressions avaliable, and thus a source of variation. It's proven.
The reduction process cancels out any increase in variability conferred by the addition of a mutation. Ah, but here's the thing. The reduction is not symmetrical. The variation expands in one direction, along one axis, but is contracted in another. Thus, the population evolves. Consider a train running on 30 feet of track. One group of workers places 10 feet of rail at the front, and another group picks up 10 feet from the back. Now, you assert that the train goes nowhere because one group cancels out the other, but that's not what happens, because the deletion of track isn't symmetrical with the addition. The result you expect is that the train only travels 30 feet, but the result that actually happens is that the trains travels an arbitrary distance, 30 feet at a time. Like I said, you don't understand what's going on. One process expands diversity, another contracts it; but they don't cancel out because they're assymetrical influences.
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Whirlwind Inactive Member |
Science is a worthless pursuit in life, with no purpose or meaning, study of a temporal world. I care about God, and destiny, not the physicalities of the earth, as a creationist. This is a bit off topic, but for the record I think you need to realise the differences between science and religion. How can you say that science is a "worthless pursuit"? You don't need to look far to see the benefits of science (you are using a computer aren't you?). Also, you can't disagree with science just because you don't like what you hear. This is a philosophical debate, but its fairly self evident that truth is not always beautiful.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yeah, Crash, I'm speaking very broadly, not from the perspective of the genetics lab and I'm sure there are many things I need correcting on, but the overall picture seems to me to hold up.
Which, firstly, isn't even true - in fact the reverse is often true, that a speciated subpopulation often has more genetic variability than its parent population, because density-dependant selection pressures are non-existent and thus aren't restricting variation. How "often?" MOST of the "evolutionary processes" reduce genetic variability. How "often" does the "reverse" occur? Please don't think only of bacteria. The cheetah continues to seem to me to be THE emblem of the direction of speciation, that is, in the direction as far from any evolutionary potential as you can get. The more a particular type is selected by whatever means, whether naturally selected for its adaptable or survival-enhancing traits, or by the accidental conditions of population bottleneck, its ability to vary genetically is reduced. The cheetah's variability is almost nil, yet it is its very reduced variability that puts it in the category of a new species. This is the case with MANY supposed incidents of speciation. A frog that can no longer breed with its parent population and has extremely reduced genetic potentials is considered to be a new species. What's the problem here, something definitional or what? And again, how "often" does the "reverse" occur, Crash? Does it occur "often" enough to be the mechanism of evolution, since the usual developments of "evolutionary processes" are in the direction of reduced variability.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: It shouldn't be, because the cheetah's problmes have got nothing to do with speciation. They are due to the species practically being wiped out.
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Whirlwind Inactive Member |
Er, getting quite a bit off topic here! I still haven't had that many views on where Creationists believe the ToE comes from. I'm all for scientific debate, but I do think the one here is guided by the wrong motives. Truly unbiased science should be in the interests of science, not religion.
This message has been edited by Whirlwind, 22-11-2005 12:26 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Er, getting quite a bit off topic here! I still haven't had that many views on where Creationists believe the ToE comes from. Sorry, you're right, we are off topic.
I'm all for scientific debate, but I do think the one here is guided by the wrong motives. Truly unbiased science should be in the interests of science, not religion. But this is in itself a biased statement and it no doubt involves a biased definition of the terms "science" and "religion." From the perspective of a believer that God is the author of it all there can be no conflict between science and "religion," you see, it must all be consistent, and if it isn't that's science's fault as it is the product of the fallible human mind, whereas God's work is perfect.
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iano Member (Idle past 1940 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Whirlwind writes: The Theory of Evolution stems from science. Perhaps. But the widespread belief that evolution happened is based more largely on faith than it is true scientific understanding. I would imagine that a fair number of even the more-informed people here would admit that their own ability to understand the minutae of the science involved is limited. They would unlikely be in a position to evaluate how well an experiment was designed and executed or to analyse (for accuracy) the conclusions drawn. What they do in fact is exercise faith in the people who hold sway over such matters to inform them correctly. Scientific Papers become the modern Holy Scripture. One has other reasons to be reminded of the great world Religions. A limited amount of people telling the rest under which general framework they should interpret the data. Folk will immediately cite "Scientific Method" and "Self-correcting tendencies" which are a supposedly surefire way prevent the espousal of incorrect doctrina. All without explaining however, how that can be established: "We can trust scientific method because...well...because scientific method tells us so" For the man in the street the situation is even worse. He knows little beyond what Discovery Channel and National Geographic and Pop Science books tell him. He doesn't question the orthodoxy. He swallows it completely on faith. True faith. Simple faith. Evolution may be science in fact. But there is so much orthodoxy and emperors-new-clothes inherent in it that one is hard pressed to decide either way. When one sees what happens to those who even scratch on the surface of the orthodoxy be it Creationist or ID-ist one is reminded again of the failings of Religion. The Inquisition anyone? People who don't truly know - for themselves - whether evolution happened turn and rip the heretic to shreds. Take ID for example. Here we have an idea in the very earliest embryonic stages and folk, rather than wonder (with genuine enquiring minds) if there is anything in it, attempt to rip it from the womb. Why is that? Why would something so feeble, when compared to the might of ToE, evoke such a disproportionate reaction. Curious...
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Whirlwind Inactive Member |
I know this is off topic, but I like this debate!
From the perspective of a believer that God is the author of it all.. That is a "belief". What has that perspective got to do with science?
it is the product of the fallible human mind, whereas God's work is perfect All aspects of life must be dealt with by the fallible human mind. How can we know the true word of God when all our senses are fallible? For example, when you read the Bible, your fallible human eyes might not read the words correctly. Your fallible brain might not interperet the words as God intended. The fallibility of the translator might mean that the meaning of God's words are lost when translated into your language etc. I don't see how you can say the word of God is perfect, when by your logic no-one knows what the word of God is! Science does realise that humans are fallible and can make mistakes, hence debate. edit - Oops! Misread "works" as "words". Arguement is essentially the same though. This message has been edited by Whirlwind, 22-11-2005 01:39 PM
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Yaro Member (Idle past 6495 days) Posts: 1797 Joined: |
...within their given genetic potentials. See Faith, it's cool and all that you don't agree with the ToE, and you believe the bible is the word of god. But blanket statements like the one I just quoted just make you look foolish. Stay out of the ToE if you don't like it, but if you are going to step into the scientific realm, you gotta PROVE that there is even such a thing as "within their given genetic potential." So far there is no proof of such a thing it all. It seems to be an ad hoc argument dreamed up by creationists with no basis in actual reality.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yeah, I know that current genetics is so open-ended you can't say anything about "given genetic potentials" any more. I'm sure we'll get back to it though. It remains true that genetic variability IS reduced by all the "mechanisms of evolution" such as natural selection, bottleneck and so on, which also happen to be the supposed routes to speciation, which in itself shows the impossibility of evolution despite mutation and any other contrary trends, and although I don't know enough about the genetics involved to argue it, somebody does and will eventually.
But this is off topic for this thread.
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8upwidit2 Member (Idle past 4445 days) Posts: 88 From: Katrinaville USA Joined: |
I shake my head also when I pass churches because everyone who attends has, in some way, taken an ignorance vow. If not, then how do we explain intelligent people outside the church house becoming numb skulls after they enter it?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
The cheetah continues to seem to me to be THE emblem of the direction of speciation, that is, in the direction as far from any evolutionary potential as you can get. I don't see how the cheetah is emblematic of speciation. There's only one living species in its genus. If you want to talk about speciation, let's consider prolific speciators, like rats, bats, or antelope.
The more a particular type is selected by whatever means, whether naturally selected for its adaptable or survival-enhancing traits, or by the accidental conditions of population bottleneck, its ability to vary genetically is reduced. You keep confusing actual variation with "potential" variation, and there's absolutely no reason to do so. Consider the gene pool of a population of any organism you choose. The actual variability is the number of different alleles per gene in that population. That waxes and wanes over time; mutation adds new alleles, and selection changes their relative frequency in the population, sometimes eliminating alleles altogether. That's how actual variation works in a population. Now, potential variability? The potential for new alleles is always there; the rate of mutation per billion base pairs - which is how mutation rates are measured - doesn't change depending on how many alleles are in the population, or how loarge the population is. The individuals in a population are all mutating at the same rate no matter the size or genetics of the population, so potential variability doesn't change. The cheetah has no less potential variability now than it did before the bottleneck event, even though its actual genetic variability now is much reduced. Following me, so far?
Does it occur "often" enough to be the mechanism of evolution, since the usual developments of "evolutionary processes" are in the direction of reduced variability. I never said it was a mechanism, the mechanisms of evolution are still the same - random mutation, differential reproduction, heredity. What I've described is a result. How often does it happen? I couldn't say. I don't think you can say either.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It remains true that genetic variability IS reduced by all the "mechanisms of evolution" such as natural selection, bottleneck and so on Except for mutation. Mutation increases the number of variants in a population - it expands the variability of a population's gene pool. And with somewhere between 5 and 500 new mutations per individual, depending on the species, that's a considerable influx of variation.
although I don't know enough about the genetics involved to argue it, somebody does and will eventually. Nobody has. Does that maybe tell you something?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Here we have an idea in the very earliest embryonic stages and folk, rather than wonder (with genuine enquiring minds) if there is anything in it, attempt to rip it from the womb. Why is that? Because they did wonder if there was anything in it, with a genuine open mind, took a look, and found that there wasn't anything there. And, yet, people who openly assert their ulterior motive promulgate the idea as though its real science. That's why the reaction is so strong. If ID proponents would behave honestly, they wouldn't be so personally crucified for their erroneous conjecture.
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