What I have noticed about these debates...

QuetzalThe point is that it is up to the reader to distinguish between the idiot YECs, the misinformed YECs and the well informed and honest YECs. We can't control what uneducated YECs will post on websites!YECS have to put up with uneducated and completely biased evolutionists just as much as you guys have to put up with misinformed, uneducated and biased YECs.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-01-2002]

PercyOne thing that that hasn't been taken into account is asking people who are about to get a science degree. Could it be that people doing that already think naturalistically more then the average? Of course.I still admitt that more education tends to increase eovluitonary thinking but but not to the extent that you think (due to my first sentence) and not for the reason you suspect. It is becasue most universities teach evoluttion only and ridicule creation of course!

Direct ridiculing is pretty rare in universities I agree but I've seen it and definitely in research seminars.

MammuthusIn a research seminar in Australia we recently (this year) had 'Of course some people don't believe in evoltuion but here is the sequence alignment' (as if that proved anything) with associated giggles from the audience. I'm not claiming any worse than that.Of course at the departmental coffee table admision of creationism is about equal to admitting belief in a flat earth. Evolution has been accepted mainstream as fact. Anything else is treated as pseudo-science and thus, understandably, ridicule. I hate seudo-science myself of course. Some creatinists are scientifically complete crackpots (I wont comment on their spiritual state). You can judge me yourselves.

Mammuthus I do see these as different. Gravity can be tested across huge ranges of scale. Evolution can not. You cannot prove how any actual organ arrived, or any subsystem for that matter. All of the lab and field experiments on evolution show are allelic and gene loss effects. After milions of generations of flies and bacteria noeone has shown new subsystems arriving. We agree with all of the evolution you can show. All yo are left with is anatomies and genomes which you think evovled from each other. We only disagree on the part you haven't yet proved. Are we just stubborn or are we right? I believe the latter. I am not arguing simply against abiogenesis. I am arguing about all the gene families that arose since the first prokaryote. The gene families that arose to make the first eukaryote . . . vertebrate . . . mammal . . . primate. It's not all abiogenesis. Any evolution that requires non-allelic or non-gene loss modifications I will disagrewe with you on becasue there is no evidence for that. I thouroughly agree that is partially creationist expectation but there are hints of it that I think are better than your hints of non-allelic macroevolution.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-09-2002]

SchrafI don't consider any of the AIG, ICR or CRS creationists as crackpots. In the past I have had some disagreements with them on issues but there are very few areas I disagree with them on currently.Those I would label scientific crackpots are the creation groupies that uncritically accept everything they read forever and think that evolutionists are idiots. Some of them have been mislead, others should know better. Most of them do it for the right reason (their faith) but some are seeking to 'prove' creation becasue of a lack of faith I suspect. I really can't think of anyone I would put in that category. No one is perfect but I could not put anyone from AIG,ICR or CRS in that category. On the contrary, I am very impressed with these career creationists.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-09-2002]

SchrafI'll admitt that that evidence is suggestive that Gish ignored facts. I'd like to hear his side of it. Has he commented on this accusation? Have you looked for it?Many of your so called 'got yas' turn out to be very hollow. You accuse us of misusing extracts from Riley, Ethridge, Patterson and Gould. I have tracked down the original material in many of these instances in our library and I still agree with the creationist use of this material in almost every case.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-10-2002]

Mammuthus Demonstrate a non-allelic example of macroevolution.If you think that evoltuion has reached the same state as the X-ray structure of hemoglobin you are seriously deluded Mammuthus. In any normal sense of the word the structure of hemoglobin is undoubtedly a fact. The status of macroevolution is not comparable since all the data is compatible with creation + diversification via allelic evolution. Duplication and mutaiton is allelic. Te results are differnetiated by an allelic difference. The proteins have the same fold and biochemical function. Show me the origin of a novel gene family and a novel subsystem. But this is simply reuse of existing gene families. God could have done the reuse. Why is it automatically natural for you? That is only your assumption. When you mutate a hox gene and get extra body segments or legs don't you realise that not a sinlge new gene family has been evolved? Regardless of how gravity works it is an epirical fact except in the most convoluted sense fo the word. You have not proven evolution. You have simply shown that life is made from reused pieces and at each level of complexity, brand new pieces. In additon you have shown that a given genome can be fine-tuned fro an envornment. We love this stuff as much as you do but it doesn't prove macroevolution. I think your seriously overating your rebuttals Mammuthus. All you ever found was that some of the components in a new sytem are reused. that is equally compatible with God or evolution. We are talking about the origin of life. God is one possibility. I'm sorry you can't see the difference between the historical origin of life and the origin of a conformational change.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-10-2002]

Mammuthus Care to give a one line sumamry of these examples? Regardless of what crystal form is found, the eelctron density yields the same backbone fold for hemoglobin and it is differnt to that found for any other protein. NMR, a completely independent method finds eactly the same 3D structre from non-crystalized samples in solution.What pop-genetisists do is very good science. But it is all allelic as you know. A genomics researcher does very good work too (I am one) but all it proves is that comparing any two genomes one finds reused genes and brand new taxa-specific genes. You can interperet that as macroevoltuion but the data is completely consistent with the creaiton of genomes followed by allelic plasticity and gene losses and duplicaitons. But you have simply assumed that these organisms have evolved! I don't believe those Hox genes evolved from each other. You have not shown that! We have no probelm with horizontal transfer. But that does not mena that is how most funcitonal genes ended up in each organism. I'm sure you are aware that there are theories and theories. But all of your evidences are for allelic evolution. 99% of the human genome has appeared 'poof' from nowhere along your suppossed evolutionary tree. Simple bacteria only have about 100 gene families. The evidence very well supports the idea that funcitonal sub-networks of genes are conserved together. There is a logical reason for the reuse becasue they are parts of subsystems. What evidence can any of us provide but the genomes and today's processes? Together these support the idea of kinds that vary within allelic limits. Your idea that all of the gene families arose is the fairy tale Mammuthus. Our idea arises naturally, yours needs the shoe-horn.We do plenty of 1-4, you just view the data with blinkers I'm afraid.

MammuthusOK, let's look at these one at a time (I'm about to decorate our tree so I've only got a couple of minutes):Your Mazumder et al example: These proteins form a 'super family'. As such they share the same fold and the same chemical funciton. It wouldn't even surprise me for these proteins to have drifted away from a common anscestor if indeed (i) sufficent time had occurred or (ii) these organisms were related by evolution.But you have simply assumed both (i) and (ii), not shown them. So your evidence is neither non-allelic (these could be heavily mutated alleles!) and only proves evolution if you already believe it.The data is perfectly compatible with separate creation. The distant 'profile similarity' (let me know if you want me to explain that bioinforamtics to you), even from an evolutionary point of view, could be physico-chemical (ie convergent or separately created) rather than divergent evolution. Two proteins with the same fold can have totoally different sequences but the same 'profile' and catalytic residues without being related by evolution. Go look up the definition of a superfamily to prove it to yourself.Mammuthus, unless I have missed something, this ref has zero relevance to proving that evolution is capable of generating gene types that are non-allelically related. It would help the discussion if you at least explained what you think its relevance is rather than simply pasting abstacts.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-14-2002]

Mammuthus This is precisely where you do the jumping to conclusions. You simply have blinkers on. The data is equally conmpatible with God reusing a design. Correct. If I had my way I would call these protein supergroups or something lke that. Anything that categorizes could be either a 'family' or a 'group'. Semantics cannot help anyone here.'Superfamily' is an evolutionary misnomer anyway. Members of a superfamily are not necessarily related via divergent evolution even by the evolutionary definiton of superfamily. The term 'family' here simply means 'group'. Why do you insist that God could not reuse designs just as a human engineer would? Could you explain what you're getting at here? What's your point precisely? My point is simply that protein superfamilies have certain vauge 'profile' similarities that could be any of:(i) Convergent evolution
(ii) Divergent evolution
(iii) Creation I haveb't addressed your KRAB stuff. I'm talking it one abstract at a time and your first abstract was compeletley irrelevant. On the surface it kindo f sounds relevant, but in the end it has no relevance as I have explained. Guess what, I agree! If genomes arrived by evoltuion then one mechanism is shuffling, duplication etc. But the evidence that exists only demonstrates allelic examples. No-one has shown where distinct protein families come from. All you guys ever whow is that if evoltuion aoccurred it must have had such and such features. We agree! What we point out is that your mistake is your initial assumption that macroevolution has occurred. But that's simply your assumption. God could have inserted the gene in the genomes of all sorts of organisms of course as he could have for the entire proteomes. EDIT: see below, now that I have read the remainder of your post. Yes it's consistent. It's also consistent with God creating kinds and then letting them go for it within allelic boundaries as one would expect from an engineering point of view.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-16-2002]

MammuthusLet's now move to your Looman et al ref: Much of this is again simply assumed. On the other hand I agree that genes can duplicate and mutate. Some of the members of this family probably have their origin in duplicaiton. But they are all still transcription factors and the protein folds are still the same.You also said: I am quite prepared to agree with you that this sort of 'non-homologous replacement' as it is called has occurred in nature. It's clear that this is simply an example of horizontal transfer and that it does not explain how the gene itself arose.Did it create a novel subsystem? No the system was working nicely. Then the gene hoped into the genome from elswhere and was able to funciton in parallele with the existing gene yielding redundancy. Then one or other gene, in this case the one that had been arond longer, mutated and becomae non-funtional. I agree that that is what may have occurred in this case. But the funciton already pre-existed as did the non-homologous, but similarly functioning, genes.So that is definitely non-allelic, I'll grant that. But it does not represent the origin of a new gene family or new subsytem. Both were pre-exisiting.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-16-2002]

Mammuthus There's nothing wrong with your POV except that it is only one interpretation, hence the blinkers. If God created the genomes the sequence homology could be presnet due to creative reuse. And superfamily simlarity is not necessarily at the sequence level (see next). The proteins are related by 3D structure, that's why they have the same seqweunce profile. A superfmaly is a structural family that does not need to be related deivergenetly. Trust me on this one will you. It's a mainstream definition! I teach it in my lectures. Nature does obey the rules of genetics. But if God created kinds the rules of genetics have been only in action since the gneomes were created. You see tantalizing evidence of common descent in the homologous genes but it never bnothers you that tens of thousands of new unrealted genes have appeared since the simplest bacteria.All you are doing is putting a slant on reuse. I am putting the other slant on it. Over time one or other of our viewpoints may be ruled out or become hard to justify (as future genomes turn up). Currently both are compatible with the data. Divergent evoltuion is evolution that leaves undoubted signatures of common descent. For us it is simply reuse of a gene. As you probably know, convergent evolution is a stumbling upon a similar feature without evidence of common descent (for that feature). For us it is resuse of a protein fold without the sme sequence. I get all of that. What you keep forgeting is that in additon to the generation of new paralogs new taxa systematically discover new protein families and systems that did not exist before. I have no problem with horizontal transfer as I have said on many occasions. It does not account fo the origin of any gene family. The genomes are undoubtedly consistent wiht God creating x thousand gneomes and letting them evolve since then via all the mechanisms of plasticity that you believe in. God created fully working genomes that have evolved allelically and via horizontal transfer and via gene loss. It is perfectly conpatibel with thegenome projects. You just don't like it. You insist on reading the reuse as common descent over time. It could simply be reuse by God.Experiments? The data comes from the genome projects. If the idea of kinds is true we should be able to catalog life into kinds from genomes. The members of each kind will be distinguished by allelic differences and relative losses. Kinds will be differentiable by relative gene family and paralog gains. Because gene losses vs gains aren't always distinguishable it may not always be possible to identify kinds in this way. Hence it may be difficult to objectively distinguish between the creation and evolution models, as we are finding, becasue the actions of history are not always carefully recoded for us in the genomes.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-16-2002]

I think AIGs article of faith is a 'necessary evil'. There are so many flavours of OEC and YEC that they want to beable to state how many 'real' YECs they have on the books.That does not stop a non-member from publishing in the journal however. All it does is stop someone being a member. If I were running the society I would also create an 'observer' membership for the 'unsure', OEC and atheist categories.

They are not just doing science Schraf. I'll agree with that. But an organization that does things other than science can also do science.