Upside-down Day

An observed mechanism? "Read his book" is not an acceptable answer for this forum. Can you explain why these parts could not have had an independent function prior to coming together in the form we see today.In order for Behe's claim to stick, it should be inconceivable that the component parts could arise from serving a previous function, but in fact evolutionists have been working on this issue for quite some time and can definitely conceive of how it could have evolved. Evolution of flagella - WikipediaKeep in mind that all one has to do to refute Behe is to show that it is possible for the components to have arisen separately. The irreducible complexity argument is thus a dead-end. It is pure speculation that somehow a system cannot arise via natural selection and gradual change.

Let's cut to the chase. You admit: So you admit some species can mate and produce offspring with differing chromosome numbers. That shoots your whole argument down without even the need to use a link. And the significance of this is? My take would be that species that settle into more stasis are more likely to have more stasis in fixed chromosomal numbers, and thus this fact is wholly consistent with ToE.Personally, I see no relevance to the points you are making about chromosomal mutations. Species can mutate and thrive. Are you claiming all chromosomal mutations die with the first generation and are not passed on? Surely you do not beleive that to be the case. Prove it.

Define the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Is speciation macro-evolution?Why should we not consider it all the same? Small changes add up to large changes and thus what you call micro-evolution is just the bits adding up to macro-evolution.What's there to limit the process? Yawn. Are you that ignorant of the facts and can do no better? This is silly. Gould claims the transitional forms in whale species to be as good as could be, that if he were to draw an ideal transitional line of development, it could not be more ideal.As far as shells on top of mountains, that is evidence of tectonic lift of the mountain ranges. Your claim would be that water was over Mount Everist, and if that is the case, where is all that water.

Of course design is an observed mechanism. We're surrounded by designed objects - or are you claiming that your computer evolved ?And scientists have shown that the Type III secretion system has evolved from the flagellum, not vice versa. (Nguyen L, Paulsen IT, Tchieu J, Hueck CJ, Saier MH Jr. Phylogenetic analyses of the constituents of Type III protein secretion systems, J Mol Microbiol Biotechnol 2000 Apr;2(2):125-44)ANd no it isn't enough to show how the components might arise individually. Just-so stories won't do. You need to produce a detailed Darwinian description as to how it happened. Without that design is the only logical explanation.

So your argument is one of incredulity. Every area not fully known is evidence for design, but when we can show that evolution produced a system and how it occurred, I suspect that won't satisfy you.It is up to you to show it could not have evolved. That is your claim. An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence necessarily. We're surrounded by human design. Can you show or demonstrate where or how God or Whatever designed the world? Natural mechanisms can produce design because the governing factor of natural selection acts to create an order. It's as simple as that.Let's take a human being. We know how babies are produced. There is a natural process that produces design, intelligence, etc,...in the baby. We don't see God doing anything at all.

Macro evolution is evolution across kinds, nort just variation within a kind which is all you can show.And of course Gould had to change his tune - can you imagine the pressure he would have been under.But here's what he really said:

quote:

---

Yawn. Are you that ignorant of the facts and can do no better? This is silly.

---

You see ? Like a typical evolutionist you resort to insults because you can't refute the facts. Gould said that there were no transitional fossils.

quote:

---

As far as shells on top of mountains, that is evidence of tectonic lift of the mountain ranges. Your claim would be that water was over Mount Everist, and if that is the case, where is all that water.

---

That Flood accomplished abundant geologic work. Eroding sediments here, redepositing them there, pushing up continents, elevating plateaus, denuding terrains, etc., so that the earth today is quite different from before. Today even mountain ranges rise high above the sea.Mt. Everest and the Himalayan range, along with the Alps, the Rockies, the Appalachians, the Andes, and most of the world's other mountains are composed of ocean-bottom sediments, full of marine fossils laid down by the Flood. Mt. Everest itself has clam fossils at its summit. These rock layers cover an extensive area, including much of Asia. They give every indication of resulting from cataclysmic water processes. These are the kinds of deposits we would expect to result from the worldwide, world-destroying Flood of Noah's day.At the end of the Flood, after thick sequences of sediments had accumulated, the Indian subcontinent evidently collided with Asia, crumpling the sediments into mountains. Today they stand as giantsfolded and fractured layers of ocean-bottom sediments at high elevations. No, Noah's Flood didn't cover the Himalayas, it formed them!

Partial duplicate - see next post (sorry)This message has been edited by PaulK, 08-23-2005 04:26 PM

Evolution is a naturalistic theory whuich purports to explain systems like the flagellum. If it can't do that then it should be rejected. This is just one example of the pervasive failure of Darwinian evolution - and evidnece that it has failed and will soon be replaced by ID.And look how you ignore the evidence. You ignore the fact that the Type III secreton system evolved form the flagellum. You can't even show that your natural bridges are irreducibly complex like you claimed.

And what does that mean? Define kinds so we can submit your hypothesis to testing? Like a typical Bible-thumper, you cannot understand scientific dialogue because you have so little understanding of it. Oh well.Gould DID NOT say "there were no transitionals." He mentioned " extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record." In other words, fossilization is so extremely rare that we don't see as many transitionals compared to how many must have existed, but we do see them.Just because fossilization is rare is not evidence the transitionals did not exist because, in fact, we know from genetics, homology, the geologic appearance of fossils, observed evolution (speciation), that these transitional forms did occur.Gould just took ToE to the next level in refinement in explaining how species could exhibit stasis until ecological or other changes forced a fairly rapid evolution or extinction. This is fully consistent with the facts, which you would know if you were not so ignorant of them.But in typical Bible-thumping fashion, you take a quote out of context and misrepresent Gould's point. I admire your tenacity here, but honestly. Well, I can tell you are sincere, but where to begin. First off, where did all the water come from?No, let's stick to something simpler, the Grand Canyon. We see meandering eddies in the Grand Canyon. If the Grand Canyon was the result of a massive flood cutting into rock or even softer sediment, the results of such a catastrophic flood would cut a straighter path, not an eddy.Moreover, if the Flood were true, we would see all of the different species more jumbled up. Dinosaurs would be mixed with people mixed with other mammals, etc,....but we don't see that.Case closed.

No taxonomic rank has a clear definition. We can know if two species belong to the same kind if they can interbreed. Unfortunately loss of information means that some species within a kind can no longer interbreed.And it's easy to explain where the water came from. We now know, of course, that the earth has plenty of water to launch a global flood. It has been calculated that if the earth's surface were completely flat, with no high mountains and no deep ocean basins, that water would cover the earth to a depth of about 8,000 feet. But is there enough water to cover a 29,035 foot mountain?The key is to remember that the Flood didn't have to cover the present Earth, but it did have to cover the pre-Flood Earth, and the Bible teaches that the Flood fully restructured the earth. "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:6). It is gone forever. The earth of today was radically altered by that global event.As for fossils, first note that very few fossils are forming today and then only in the case of rapid burial by water. For instance what happens to a fish when it dies? It either floats to the surface or sinks to the bottom where it decays and is eaten by scavengers. Yet many fish fossils are so exquisitely preserved that even the scales and organs are preserved. Obviously there was no time for decay and bacterial action. We can certainly say that something extraordinary happened to form the fossils.Furthermore, most fossils occur in huge fossil graveyards where things from different habitats are mixed together in a watery grave. The predominant type of fossil is that of marine invertebrates but these are found on the continents within catastrophically deposited rock units.Fossils require extraordinary circumstances of a rapid and catastrophic nature. The great Flood of Noah’s day which destroyed a world full of life is the best explanation.

There is a lot I could respond to, and may do so later, but for now, can you go back and answer the prior points?1. "Moreover, if the Flood were true, we would see all of the different species more jumbled up. Dinosaurs would be mixed with people mixed with other mammals, etc,....but we don't see that. "2. The obvious meandering effect in the Grand Canyon. Rapid Flood erosion would not create a meandering effect, would it?Also, when the Bible speaks of "the world" that was destroyed, it is talking about the world of men. Certainly, the earth was not destroyed.Of course, the Bible is neither here nor there as far as science.This message has been edited by randman, 08-23-2005 05:21 PM

What we see is partitioning based on habitat and ecology. Just as we see differnet habitats with differnet lifeforms in them today so it was in the flood world. So if we have dinosaurs living on one place and mammals living in another they would be found sperately, not together.And the Grand Canyon ? Let me introduce you to Burlingame Canyon near Walla Walla, Washington. It measures 1500 feet long, up to 120 feet deep, and 120 feet wide, winding through a hillside. A small-scale analogy to Grand Canyon it was observed to form in less than six days.In 1904 the Gardena Farming District constructed a series of irrigation canals to provide water to this normally rather arid high desert area. In March, 1926, winds collected tumbleweeds at a concrete constriction along one of the canals situated on an elevated mesa, choking the flow of water, which at 80 cubic feet per second was unusually high due to spring rains. In order to clean out the obstruction, engineers diverted the flow into a diversion ditch leading to nearby Pine Creek. Prior to this time the ditch was rather small, at no location greater than 10-feet-deep and six-feet-wide, and often with no water in it at all.

Yes, but the heart of the problem is how matter can produce mind. I concede that babies have or develop minds. But how does this happen?Can you explain this, from the standpoint of evolution?I don't think the first living forms had minds. How is it that we do?

I have to work a lot today, but will get to this later. If Faith or another "evolutionist" want to answer, they are welcome, but regardless, I'll be back.

First off, not having a full explanation for exactly how something occurred is no basis to throw out an entire theory. The work is on-going, and some explanations of how it might have occurred are offered here.http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html
Evolving ImmunityThere is therefore no reason to invoke design as the system is not incapable of arising via natural evolution.But since you are claiming ID will replace ToE, can you show us some ways that ID offers a testable mechanism or is testable at all as a hypothesis. Is ID science or philosophy?