*new to the forum and not sure where to post, Coffee House maybe?
I'd like to gather a list of online resources for evolution and common ancestry of humans. I need to convince a professor of clinical lab science, who is also a Catholic, that evolution is a fact (or a theory composed of many observable and tested facts). This person seems to know with certainty that the concept of humans evolving from a common ancestor is a fictitious and ridiculous concept and believe 100% in their religion despite my moral arguments against. They want to see evidence but don't have time to research themselves. I'm hoping that by gathering some intro video's along with plethora of academic resources to back up the information it will help me greatly in my uphill battle to promote reason and common sense. The following are current proposed resources for this conversion attempt. I thought some here may have some resources to add. If anything in this first video has been proven false I'd also like to know (this person knows more about DNA than I do, although I'm learning, I don't teach the stuff like they do).
Intro video - Cassiopeia Project Facts of Evolution
... This person seems to know with certainty that the concept of humans evolving from a common ancestor is a fictitious and ridiculous concept and believe 100% in their religion despite my moral arguments against. ...
Good luck with that. At best you may convince secondary observers (or at least lead them to ask questions) while delivering the information that is available, but I doubt that your teacher will be able to consider the evidence with an open mind.
I need to convince a professor of clinical lab science, who is also a Catholic, that evolution is a fact (or a theory composed of many observable and tested facts).
You might be better off presenting the Catholic Church's position on evolution.
But if your professor is a true Creationist, no amount of scientific evidence is going to make any impression. He is likely already aware of much of the available evidence and has decided the evolutionists are deluded, or liars,or both. Showing him more of their work is likely a waste of time. He's not going to admit to being an ape.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison
So this person told me to look at http://www.godandscience.org for more information on why common ancestry is false. Anyone familiar with the content here?
I just took a quick look at the site - The is A LOT there (which isn't to say good or bad).
So this person told me to look at http://www.godandscience.org for more information on why common ancestry is false.
I think, at the minimum, "this person" needs to give you link(s) to specific page(s). At evcforum.net, we would call for specific relevant text to be brought to the forum. Here we don't do "Well, godandscience.org says you're wrong", "Well, talkorigins.org says you're wrong" styled debates.
To be sure, some of the material there is interesting from a biological perspective, but the implications of a number of the studies that site reports are kinda exaggerated IMHO.
I was going to tack this onto my previous message, but saw that you replied. So I'll put it in a new message.
I skimmed a few topics at their debate board. From what little I saw, it looked pretty high quality - It wasn't just a creationist echo chamber. So, members may want to look at that board.
I haven't looked at your most recent link yet, but I will.
Those of you who are familiar with me know that I am an intelligent design proponent. However, I also accept common descent, and this acceptance of universal common ancestry is based on the overwhelming data in support of it - from paleontology to geographical distribution to (what I think is the most significant) the molecular evidence. When it comes to molecular nanotechnology that may have been present in the LUCA my views are different, but that's kinda off-topic (and, again, when it comes to the evolution of molecular machinery, it is my conviction that the first genomes were loaded with the necessary information to front-load various molecular machines, an ID hypothesis which isn't accepted by the current biological paradigm - and I just went off-topic again).
Anyways, there's a bunch of evidence in favor of human evolution, and I'll summarize the molecular evidence here:
1. Endogenous retroviruses. These little virus guys insert themselves into the host's genome, and if they happen to be inserted into a germ cell, their genomic sequences can be carried onto the host's offspring. So, if humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, we'd expect these two species to share a number of ERV insertion sites that are exactly in the same location. And this is indeed what we find. For more information on ERVs, look here (and as usual, look at everything as objectively as possible - go where the evidence leads): 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 4
Dr. Sean Pitman over at DetectingDesign.com argues against the ERV evidence as follows:
"Another interesting aspect of ERVs is that they do not always show the expected evolutionary pattern of "inheritance". According to the proposed phylogenetic tree...chimps are closer to humans than to gorillas. Given this scenario, gorillas and chimps would only be expected to share an ERV if this same ERV were also present in humans. However there are some ERVs that don't seem to fit this pattern. For example, the K family of ERVs (HERV-K provirus) is present in chimps and gorillas, but not in humans. Also, portions of ERVs known as CERV 2 and CERV 1 elements are present in chimpanzee, bonobo and gorilla (non-orthologous) but are absent in human, orangutan, old world monkeys, new world monkeys.
The usual explanation for such findings, of course, is that humans lost this or that particular ERV along the way."
Actually, this isn't the explanation. This observation can be readily explained as anyone acquainted with population genetics knows: incomplete lineage sorting.
However, if we found that dogs and humans shared the same ERV insertion site, while other taxa did not have this insertion site, we'd have a very hard time explaining this. That we don't see anything like this is evidence for common ancestry.
2. Then there's transposon, intron, and pseudogene phylogenies which all point to common descent of humans.
Anyhew, I was just informed that supper is ready so I'll add to this later
Actually, this isn't the explanation. This observation can be readily explained as anyone acquainted with population genetics knows: incomplete lineage sorting.
I don't know what "incomplete lineage sorting" means, perhaps you could expand on that.
What I do know is that whenever I've seen creationists come up with this blather, the species which possess the ERVs in common but don't form a clade don't have the ERVs at homologous sites, meaning that they tell us nothing about evolution one way or the other.
So this person told me to look at http://www.godandscience.org for more information on why common ancestry is false. Anyone familiar with the content here?
It looks like the usual rubbish. Perhaps this person could point out some particular bit that he thinks is both true and relevant.
To be sure, some of the material there is interesting from a biological perspective, but the implications of a number of the studies that site reports are kinda exaggerated IMHO.
Well said. A lot of quality evolution talking points from quality sources (Science (journal) etc.) even if the conclusions may be a little bent. Maybe PRATTS, but high quality PRATTS. Evcforum.net should be so lucky to get such arguments brought here.
The site seems extremely well done. There is also some interesting geology reading available, and I note that the place is very strongly anti-young Earth.
From my limited reading there, I'm not even sure they're anti-evolution. Maybe more of a theistic evolution (intelligent design) site.
My judgement - Worth paying some serious attention.
I have to say there's a lot of well written content on that site. They want me to review these arguments against evolution of humans so I can "see the way". http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/index.html
In reading through some of the articles (most of which are over my head science literacy wise), it seems most of their rebuttals mainly come down to complexity.
Incomplete lineage sorting basically has to do with the fact that founding populations of new species are not always representative of the entire common ancestor population in that they do not have all the alleles of the common ancestor population.
Remember that almost all the major recognized chapters of Club Christian have absolutely no problem with either the fact of Evolution or that the Theory of Evolution is the only model that explains the life we see today and in the past.
quote:We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as one theory among others is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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