Always talking about micro-evolution?

It's pretty obvious, reading this post, that you've never really studied the theory of evolution. I suggest you aquaint yourself with abasic college text on the subject. In particular you might pay attention to such keywords as "population genetics", "sexual selection", "evo-devo", "Hox genes", and "neoteny", for starters.It's off-topic here to specifically address your points, but the questions you pose are kiddie stuff. Seriously. Do some homework and stop embarrasing yourself.

quote:

---

But I say unto you... whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. - Matthew 5:22

---

It's pretty clear that I have a better understanding with the Bible than you have of the modern theory of evolution, and that's not saying much.

Victory by proclamation? You HAVE been listening to crashfrog too much.
You are simply misinformed by your camp. But sorry, "if the glove doesn't fit, you must aquit." The jaw, my friend, didn't fit the skull. The EXACT same problem with Neanderthal that is so well covered up, even though it was UNCOVERED by a creationist. One day, I predict, if the pressure increases enough, the evolutionists will indeed find a way to debunk neanderthall on their own and claim credit for their good science. The evolutionists scrambled to save face with Piltdown man, and launched another strategic intitiative to cover their tracks. The initiative was nothing more than a red herring as blatant as when North Vietnam demanded that the Russians be the third party at the negotiating table (or was it North Korea? Ok, nail me on that one). Just a red herring. And I'll gladly debate you on the excellent science that goes into radiometric and other dating methods.

Yes, you and crashfrog spend far too much time together. So, when did YOU stop beating your wife?
But ok, I'll play, if you answer this question first:
"What would you consider evidence to support a common designer?"
Let me know in a seperate reply what your answer is so we can keep this one pure. Like Nebraska man, right?
Alright, lets test the prediction power of your evolution.
Could you have predicted the number of chromosomes in various forms of life as they evolved? For example:Life form - # of chromosomes
Penicillin - 2
Fruit fly - 8
Tomato - 12
House fly - 12
Peas - 14
Honey bee - 16
Lettuce - 18
Carrot - 20Strange, eh? I'm sure you've seen this before. So, what part of Darwin's OoS or DoM would have led you to predict this? Or what might come NEXT in higher life forms?:Life form # of chromosomes
Marijuana - 20
Corn - 20
Kidney bean - 22
Redwood tree - 22
Possum - 22
Frog - 26
Onion - 32
Alligator - 32
Cat - 38
Soybean - 40
Wheat - 42
Bat - 44
Human - 46
Tobacco - 48
Chimp - 48
Amoeba - 50
Dog - 78
Chicken - 78
Turkey - 82
Sweet potato - 90
Goldfish - 94
Carp - 100
White ash - 138
Fern - 480Yes, I see the pattern now, yes sir. If you lay them out in order you can certainly predict what the next higher life form might be. Evolution theory really predicted that.As for your trusty DNA evidence, chimps and humans are about 98.4% similar. You know this. The human DNA has indeed been "mapped" but take a wild guess as to what percent of DNA "FUNCTION" has been determined? (hint: 1 or 2%). But yet we make wild claims about what DNA reveals about our common ancestor from millions/billions of years ago.
The crazy thing about this whole DNA reseach is what Dr. Barney Maddox, a leading genetic genome researcher, said about the genetic difference between humans and chimps; the difference is about 1.6%, which he claims is "a gap of at least 48,000,000 nucleotides, and a change in only three (3) nucleotides is fatal to an animal." Dr. Maddox also stated that, "science has now quantitated that a genetic mutation of as little as .0000001% of an animal's genome is relentlessly fatal". I was trying to engage Mammuthus in this subject, to get another side of the story perhaps, but he apparently knew where I was going with the line of questioning, so chose to dodge me and proclaim that he's just bigger, better, smarter, and more educated that I am, and something else about a water cooler, I think. I guess that proved his point.Ok, tell me how you could use ToE to test the reliability of "horse evolution?" Specifically, lay out the fossils like you state (in chronological order), and tell me if your ToE would predict:
The early horse had 18 pairs of ribs.
The next in line had 15 pairs of ribs.
The next in line had 19 pairs of ribs.
The next horse went back to 18 pairs of ribs.Which part of ToE would have helped you predict this pattern?You do know, that we could go on for quite some time with many examples. You see, your camp just claims victory by proclamation. You claim all sorts of evidence that stands up under peer review (why of course; think about that. That's like the McCoy boys sticking up for each other) but crumbles quickly under objective (atheist scientists, there are many, many of them) review as well as opposing review (creationists). Check out "Darwin's Black Box" and we'll debate. Now who said that? And you accusing me of having a wild imagination? I'm certainly comfortable with inference. It's your unfounded assumptions that make me ask questions that you don't like. Oh, brother. The creationists used it on you first, now you think you can use it on us and make it look original. I will debate you ANY time over which of our two camps is using circular reasoning to support arguments.Let me ask one more question or so: Does your livelyhood in any way depend on your support of evolution? Or, if you were to (just hypothetically) publicly denounce evolution, would there be any possible/probable repercussion to your career or future promotions? Just a simple yes, no, or maybe would be enough on that one, unless you want to expound.[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-10-2004]

Addressed is right. But once you swing, you slice it about 3 fairways over but think you had a solid hit because of all the distance you got out of it. I haven't seen a satisfactory argument out of you yet, except when you admitted that there are plently of frauds and forgeries by evolutionists desperate for evidence. Your ToE just inadequate. Instead of researching who took credit for debunking forgeries and frauds, tell me what you think about Darwin's Black Box.[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-10-2004]

Another wild claim that I challenge you to support with evidence. A blatant falsehood transparent to anybody actually aquainted with the Piltdown story. We're getting a lot of ludicrous claims out of you, but very little - nothing, in fact - to substantiate them. Time to put up or shut up, Skeptick. You'd have to prove some kind of familiarity with the subject first. If you know as little about dating as you seem to know about evolution, we're not very keen to wade hip-deep through your ignorance.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-10-2004]

There's no evidence you'd be able to recognize one. What an imagination you must have. I never admitted any such thing. Is this what you resort to when you're on the ropes? Fabricating straw men? Hey, you were the one who brought it up. It's hardly my fault if you're going to try to debunk evolution using hisotry you've failed to do your homework on. It's one long argument from personal incredulity.Did you have evidence for some of the wild claims you've made but have yet to support with evidence? Do I need to remind you what you've abandoned/conceded in this thread again? Or can we assume that any sort of evidence is not forthcoming with you? Why should we debate with somebody who feels so unconstrained by the truth that they're free to make up whatever they please?

"Bones of contention". A book that threw the Germans into a frenzied panic.

"Evidence" would be primary sources, not popular press science-history books.

That's your method of debating. You swing, miss, then claim victory by proclamation. In this case, you quote a single Bible verse, one that has nothing to do with the one you challenged (sorry), then claim to possess some knowledge.Wait, I'll bet I can top that. Let's, I have here a copy of OoS on my desk, paperback edition 1999 by Bantam books. Uh, yes, this what I'm looking for, right on page 188, six lines down from the top:Quote:
"If a number of equal spheres be described with their centres placed in two parallel layers; with the centre of each sphere at the distance of radius X 2, or radius X 1.41421 (or at some lesser distance), from the centres of the six surrounding spheres in the same layer; and at the same distance from the centres of the adjoining scpheres in the other and parallel layer; then if planes of intersection between the several spheres in both layers be formed, there will result a double layer of hexagonal prisms united together by pyramidal bases formed of three rhombs; and the rhombs and the sides of the hexagonal prisms will have every angle identically the same with the best measurements which have been made of the cells of the hive-bee.It's pretty clear that I have a better understanding of the Origin of Species than you have of the Bible, and that's not saying much.

Is it me or does this comment strike anyone else as extremely distastefull, crass, unnecessary, disrespectfull, etc? This comment seems to me to be patently unchristianlike.I have yet to see anything of substance concerning micro-evolution from our neighborhood tick. I think the only thing he has done is been "snarky", sometimes blatantly so.

Straw man argument. I never said that my knowledge of the Bible was better than your knowledge of Darwin's Origin of Species.But the fact that you conflated the modern theory of evolution with a book Darwin wrote nearly 150 years ago is more evidence that you don't understand the theory of evolution. Did you look up those terms I gave you? I'm claiming victory by default, because you've failed to show up for the debate. Remember, in debates, evidence is presented and claims are supported. You're failing to do either, once again.You've got one more chance. One more straw man argument or unsupported claim and we're done talking. Period. I'm not going to bother debating with somebody who's not going to put a little work into it.

Since you specifically asked for a response to this post...I will first off say, I think your arguementation is rather odd. On the one hand you are somehow in awe of scientists but at the same time, without a background in science you claim that everything we study is false. A word of caution, science unlike religion does not use argument from authority. Loudmouth could very well be more experienced in DNA forensic research than myself as I have specialized in a different field. However, I have followed the development of the field. Your chances of matching someone at the 10 STRs most commonly used will not give you a nice fixed number with a lot of zeroes behind it as you wish. The chances of a false positive are dependent on the genetics of the population i.e. the level of inbreeding.From the actual criteria that are used by forensics scientists"From 2,701,834 pairs of profiles in the FBI data involving blacks, whites, eastern Hispanics, and western Hispanics, they calculated an expected total of 95.3 two-locus matches, whereas 104 were observednot a statistically significant difference.12 Only one three-locus match was found among 7,628,360 pairs of profiles; curiously, it was between a white and an eastern Hispanic. There were no four- or five-locus matches (see also Herrin 1993)."Note this is from the early 90's..now ten loci are used per test.Furthermore"Regardless of whether the population is exactly in LE, the rarity of multilocus matches is evident even in large data bases. As mentioned earlier, Risch and Devlin (1992) found no four- or five-locus matches among 7,628,360 pairs of profiles. The much larger composite database recorded by TWGDAM (Chakraborty, personal communication) comprises 7,201 whites, 4,378 blacks, and 1,243 Hispanics. Among 58 million pairwise comparisons with four, five, or six loci within racial groups, two matches were found for four loci and none for five or six. "Again, even though no matches are found with 5 or six loci..the panel has expanded to 10. And this is with VNTRs instead of STRs which are now more commonly used which have almost no chance of a false match"Assuming HW proportions and LE and using the data in Table 4.10, the probability that two randomly selected individuals would have the same profile is about 10-10 for the five VNTR loci, about 10-6 for the six STR loci (using the 12 STRs mentioned in the paragraph above would lower the probability to about 10-12), and about 10-4for the six Polymarker loci."This basically means there is no chance under the current procedures used to get a false positive. Loudmouth gave an estimate that 2-3 people on the planet might have the same STR profile as you. This is many orders of magnitude better than any other form of forensic evidence. The only hole in the armour is that DNA evidence is prone to contamination, degradation over time, and in extreme cases, to inbreeding effects. However, inbreeding effects are mitigated by population genetic based studies for every single locus that enters forensic research before such a marker can be used widely.So what exactly am I supposedly afraid of regarding where this topic will lead?If you want to read more
here
Not Found |The National Academies Press

Not afraid; it's just that drawings from the evolutionist camp have been suspicious in the past, and I don't have the experience to interpret them. Guess what, neither do you. I could say anything, and you wouldn't know the difference. I have other another source that speaks AGAINST what you think you see on your drawings, but I can't make heads or tails out of why two experts have different opinions of the same data. Instead of you and I arguing over what two experts can't resolve in their own fields, let's throw off the chains and be free to discuss for a moment.
YOU won't address the example I gave YOU. You whine that I picked something that's not shown in the fossil record, when its actually a a windfall for you since I'm just asking your to use your imagination! But you can't even approach it intellectually, much less with hard evidence of any kind (but I'm not asking for hard evidence). Just tell me how in the WORLD you could explain how the evolutionary process could have developed a complex eye from a simple eye? Or the digestive system? Or the reproductive system? Just use your imagination. YOU are the one avoiding the questions.

Does "10-10" mean "1 in 10^10"?

quote:

---

As for your trusty DNA evidence, chimps and humans are about 98.4% similar. You know this. The human DNA has indeed been "mapped" but take a wild guess as to what percent of DNA "FUNCTION" has been determined? (hint: 1 or 2%). But yet we make wild claims about what DNA reveals about our common ancestor from millions/billions of years ago.

---

It appears you need to be spoon fed even more basic biology. Most of the genome is composed of repetitive DNA which are relic proviruses such as HERVs (human endogenous retroviruses) and non-LTR retrotransposons such as LINE-1 elements. Such sequences tell us a lot about common ancestry because they are under little selective constraint and are free to vary in sequence over time i.e. accumulating random mutations.

quote:

---

The crazy thing about this whole DNA reseach is what Dr. Barney Maddox, a leading genetic genome researcher, said about the genetic difference between humans and chimps; the difference is about 1.6%, which he claims is "a gap of at least 48,000,000 nucleotides, and a change in only three (3) nucleotides is fatal to an animal." Dr. Maddox also stated that, "science has now quantitated that a genetic mutation of as little as .0000001% of an animal's genome is relentlessly fatal".

---

A single base change in a critical amino acid can cripple a protein. A mutation in a piece of non-coding DNA is irrelevant phenotypically. Why is this concept over your head...oh wait..forgot who I was talking to

quote:

---

I was trying to engage Mammuthus in this subject, to get another side of the story perhaps, but he apparently knew where I was going with the line of questioning, so chose to dodge me and proclaim that he's just bigger, better, smarter, and more educated that I am, and something else about a water cooler, I think. I guess that proved his point.

---

Still not clear what topic you were trying to engage me in or what I dodged. The only thing I can see you attempting to do with you line of questioning is to avoid all scientific evidence that supports genetics, forensics, and evolution and try to equate your assertions with facts and scientific theory. Or are you just trying to convince me that you are a mere troll rather than an uninformed religious fanatic?I noticed you claim you have a deadline on this board. When the clock strikes twelve do you put on your magic slippers and suddenly have an arguement?