Just a few questions...

That was not an analogy, it was a statement. Recombining ENGLISH letters WILL NEVER produce a CHINESE book. Now, when you begin to move around genetic code. The basic structure stays the same. All that will change is the variations in height, weight, muscle biuld, etc.. All that comes from the recombination is mutation not new creation. The monkey will stay a monkey and the man will stay a man.

why does the number of "letters" (bases) invalidate the analogy?There are many coding systems with varying numbers of symbols. Computer machine language uses only two: 0 and 1. Yet, eventually, all computer programs -- no matter the logic, thought, complexity, intelligence, and meaning of the programs -- get reduced to series of 0s and 1s.I really dont see how the number of coding objects (symbols, electrical impulses/non-impulses, bases, etc.) in any particular coding system prevents comparison among coding systems.--Jason

You're thinking about this wrong.There are two ways to answer this question:1) English letters represent sounds. When you read the letters, you are decoding them into sounds. Chinese characters are also representation of sounds. You could write a book in English letters which when read outloud sounds Chinese and vice versa. The different symbols we use for the sounds aren't important, only the sound.2) Both English letters and Chinese characters are made up of parts. These parts are short lines and curves. Every english letter contains one or more of these pieces in different combinations. The same is true for Chinese characters. The lines and curves are the "DNA" of the writing.

This is a really good point and an interest analogy.For example, Enuf's argument is that the characters are not interchangable.However, as Literalist points out, computer language is compiled on strictly 1s and 0s.Now, you are all reading this on your computer screens, therefore proving that 1s and 0s can certainly be translated into English letters

You seem to be confused about your own analogy. ALL the "books" ARE written in the same language. If the genetic language of humans is "chinese" then so is that of chimps, and mice, and dragonflies and ...Your point about the characters of the code not changing is correct however it is since all the living "books" are written with the same characters and with the same rules of grammer and with many words identical and with many whole sentences and even paragraphs identical. The problem you appear to be alluding to(unless I don't get the point at all) is not there in living things.

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Of course if a deity had magiced things into existance and wanted to keep different sorts clearly separated one way it could have done that is to write the genetic codes of men and mice with different characters. That is NOT what is there.

hi nwr, Okay. Okay. I've got a book on lawn care. It's got a paragraph or two on grasses evolving over millions of years (sigh). But it doesn't support that assertion at all. Just states it like we've all seen grasses evolving over millions of years.But can you point to some authoritative information that supports the assertion that gymnosperms are older than angiosperms? It's a conclusion -- not something we can directly observe. How was the conclusion reached?The fact that lots of books about plants make the assertion is not particularly convincing to a skeptic like me.

Ned, I hope Enuf understands this point. Almost ALL creatures have DNA codes based on the same "language"...i.e., combinations of the four bases.Therefore, the "grammar" or whatever is the same, creature to creature.Mutation is NOT changing the kinds of letters or the grammar. It is changing the ORDER of the letters (the four bases, which are in any DNA code)...to make different meanings (body structures) or nonsense (useless/lethal mutations). OTOH, He most certainly could use the same language.AbE: For instance, all different kinds of software are compiled into the same binary format.--JasonThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 09-19-2005 01:31 AM

Actually, we do have a rather large number of plant fossils.If you look at the geological strata, you'll find areas where there are no records of seeds, flowing plants, pollinating insects, etc. But there are tons of huge tree like ferns.As you proceed up the strata the ferns diversify, but still no flowering plants.Until you get to the first seed plants.
Fossil Record of the Seed PlantsFrom there, there's a virtual explosion of biodiversity (again, in geological time thousands of years are a blink) as flowering plants and pollinating insects start to conquire.The ferns, in turn, take a back seat at that point, and while we have ferns today, I don't think there are any giant fern forests.Incidentally, climate change probably played a big roll in flowering plants taking over for the ferns.

Cuz I said so, and we all know that I am omnicient! Yes, but things like chinese characters and roman letters can't be broken down to something universally basic. There are subtle differences between coding systems that are ultimately based on some kind of a universal base code. In the case of computers, 0 and 1 are universal. In the case of DNA, GCAD are the basis.But Chinese and the Romance languages do not share anything in common. They can't be broken down to something that both are based on.This is why using differences in chinese and Latin and DNA is a false analogy.

It's known from the fossil record. The gymnosperms are present in earlier (lower) layers, before the angiosperm fossils show up.I seen that nuggin has given some details in Message 38 (my thanks to nuggin).

I misunderstood your point, Lam.Yes, Enuf's example regarding English and Chinese or whatever has no bearing on any of the discussion. I'm not really sure what he was trying to get across with that, but whatever the point was...the English vs. Chinese example is probably improper.AbE: I think I thought you were saying that comparing DNA to a languae, like English, is faulty because English has 26 letters in its code system while DNA has only 4.--JasonThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 09-19-2005 03:54 AM

Of course It could. This is why the deity idea is not falsifiable. Our deity could have done anything in any way It pleased, pretty much by definition. However, it would be a crippling falsification for the ToE if every 'kind' was written in a different language.

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How did the flagella know to do specifically what it does? Wouldn't evolution require lots of trial and error? How would the species survive long enough to learn how to perform the said work?

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First, it's 'flagellate' not 'flagella'.I assume the flagellate just happens to produce enzymes that break down cellulose. A possible scenario is that they were originally found in rotting plant matter, and then got incorporated into the guts of insects that feed on that plant matter.By the way, somewhere along termite evolution, the flagellates got kicked out. The gut flora of largest family, Termitidae, only consist of bacteria.I can show you references if you are interested in pursuing this matter further.As for your other questions I think the others have answered them. Just bear in mind that with a microbe like the flagellate symbiont, their eproductive capacity is enormous so you get lots of trials and lots of chance for errors.

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All that will change is the variations in height, weight, muscle biuld, etc.. All that comes from the recombination is mutation not new creation. The monkey will stay a monkey and the man will stay a man.

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Okay so you begin to show creationist colours. No probs. Let's see, does it take more than variations in height, weight, muscle build to transform a monkey (or a typical ape, if you like) to a man?Let's see...I'll use the gibbon as my starting point and to change it to a modern man:
-Increase overall body size.
-Increase brain volume
-Shorten body hair
-Make face flatter
-Make canine teeth smaller
-Change proportion of arm & leg length
-Shorter toes, wider feet
-Change lower-body musculature
-And finally, enlarge penis or breasts.There. From gibbon to human, nothing new needed, just variations. We can bring this to the Human Origins forum if you like.

I know this has been stressed in several ways now but let me try yet another way. Your statement is correct. However, you were attempting to compare recombining English letters into a Chinese book with recombining DNA letters to create new varieties. You were saying that English letters->Chinese was analogous to DNA->new varieties. It was an analogy. If it wasn't meant as an analogy then your statement is irrelevant, so I assume it was.If we look at a cat or a dog, the DNA letters 'CGA' will be translated into the amino acid Alanine, these amino acids are combined to form protiens - which are used to build organisms.One protein is called 'cytochrome c'. You can see one DNA string that will make cytochrome c here (that is only a partial string, but it is mostly complete).We can jumble this up, take some away, add some and we can get this , which I believe is called kinase.Don't let me confuse you though, nobody is suggesting that cytochrome evolved into kinase, but I'm sure you can see that a bunch of letters like the first lot can be jumbled to say something very different which in turn has a massively different affect on the organism which undergoes this mutation. Imagine an organism which had a string of letters which was the same as the one for kinase, but the last letter was a 'G' rather than an 'A', and for illustrative purposes let us assume that this means absolutely nothing so the DNA doesn't get translated. All it would take would be one mutation (chaging the 'G' into an 'A') and the code goes from meaning nothing to meaning 'build kinase'.Evolving a whole new character set (like from English to Chinese) is so unbelievably unbelievable we don't see it happen. Maybe one day it will, I don't know, but that the same language is used universally in all organsisms is good evidence of common descent. However, we can see new protien building carried out through mutations.Some interesting reading.This message has been edited by Modulous, Mon, 19-September-2005 02:17 PM