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Author | Topic: Evolution is not science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
For example, mutations cannot produce new structures (livers, hearts, legs, arms, fingers, etc.) if they did not already exist. In fact, they can and often do. The classic experiment is the mutative creation of a replacement lac operon in E. coli culture. The thing is, though, the history of living things is not really a story of "new structures." What we find throughout the world of living things is that, largely, organisms all have the same structures. I mean, consider how universal the tetrapod body plan is among the vertebrates. At no point since the Devonian period have we really needed large novel structures to evolve. There's not really a lot of novelty in evolutionary history. We really don't need to prove that mutations can create a human heart in one mutational event, because that didn't happen. Humans have the hearts they do because they inherited them, through slight modification, from the hearts that other primates have.
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City_on_a_Hill Junior Member (Idle past 6192 days) Posts: 15 Joined: |
Not for scientific reasons, though. You'll find that all of your "scientists" (almost none of which are biologists, btw) question evolution because it conflicts with the Bible, which they hold to be inerrant. ABC.net.au: Page Not Foundhttp://www.reviewevolution.com/...sRelease_100Scientists.php Quantity isn't complexity. Not necessarily. However, the misspelling of just one letter out of three billion in the entire human genome can lead to a disease. In this case, the massive amount of information combined with the fact that even a single error out of 3 billion can be devastating, there obviously IS complexity.
Except that errors are common. It's those errors, in fact, that create variation within populations and allows evolution to act. Nevertheless, that mechanism still has to be there in the first place for DNA to be copied.
This doesn't make any sense at all. It's not like you can interpret the evidence in an infinite number of ways. The simplest, most parsimonious interpretation of those areas of evidence is the scientific theory of evolution. Of course there are not infinite ways to interpret evidence. All i'm saying is the theory of evolution is not even kind of close to the best explanation.
You're going to have a hard time providing concrete examples - which I'm asking you to do - because that simply isn't so. What about transitional fossils? There should be many transitional, yet out of the hundreds of millions found, there's only a few DEBATABLE ones.
In fact, they can and often do. The classic experiment is the mutative creation of a replacement lac operon in E. coli culture. Article? Edited by City_on_a_Hill, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
This isn't a link to a scientist questioning evolution on scientific grounds. This is a link to a television story that misrepresents the science.
This is not a link to scientific concerns about evolution, either. This is a link to Discovery Institute hucksters asserting that there are scientific concerns without saying what they are. Moreover:
quote: This isn't "questioning evolution." This is the Discovery Institute misrepresenting standard scientific tentativity - which is embraced by the most ardent evolutionist - as a basis to undermine evolution. More of their old tricks, I guess. Most of your 100 scientists, later, were quite dismayed to see how they had been represented by DI.
However, the misspelling of just one letter out of three billion in the entire human genome can lead to a disease. Or prevent one. (Where are you getting your numbers? The human genome is something like 5.6 billion base pairs long, which would be 11.2 "letters.")
In this case, the massive amount of information combined with the fact that even a single error out of 3 billion can be devastating, there obviously IS complexity. Pull one stone out of an arch and the whole thing falls apart. Is an arch complex? I would say that an arch is very simple. So simple, in fact, that they're often created in nature:
Natural arch - Wikipedia All i'm saying is the theory of evolution is not even kind of close to the best explanation. Yeah, I hear you saying it, but you're not proving it, which is why I don't believe you. "Alternatives" to evolution have failed in every regard. Creationism is just religious nonsense dressed poorly in science. Intelligent Design is just an attempt to dress it up better. What are you suggesting as an alternative? Lamarkianism? Discredited. Lysenkoism? The only reason anybody ever believed that was because the Soviet Union would kill you otherwise. Evolution has been responsible for almost every advance in biology in the past 50 years. It's the unifying theory of biology, and the extent to which it has expanded our knowledge about life on Earth is immeasurable. It's been subjected to experimental verification on every level; and on every level it has emerged vindicated.
What about transitional fossils? There are millions. A short list encompassing vertebrate evolution can be reviewed here. Nearly every fossil found has revealed to be transitional in some aspect. (It may be that you don't know what a transitional fossil would actually be.)
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Article? Hall, B. G. 1981. Changes in the substrate specificities of an enzyme during directed evolution of new functions. Biochemistry 20: 4042-4049. Hall, B. G. and T. Zuzel. 1980. Evolution of a new enzymatic function by recombination within a gene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 77(6): 3529-33.
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Nuggin Member (Idle past 2492 days) Posts: 2965 From: Los Angeles, CA USA Joined: |
What about transitional fossils? There should be many transitional, yet out of the hundreds of millions found, there's only a few DEBATABLE ones. They are all transitional. So, the only thing you could be saying here is that there is some debate over whether or not they are fossils. Can you either a) demonstrate that there is in fact a debate over whether or not they are fossils? or b) Can you provide a list of the finds which you think are not fossils (or at least an explaination as to what they are if they are not fossils)? As for the off chance that you meant that they are not transitional, there are only three posibilities.1) You are extremely ignorant of the topic in which you are trying to hold a discussion 2) You are not ignorant, but are deliberately pretending to be in order to try and score some unfathomable point. 3) You are not ignorant, but are deliberately pretnending to be because you have some sort of bizarre sense of humor which is going over all of our heads. Is it 3? Please say it's 3
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
There are many scientists who question the theory of evolution. Of course, with any anti-evolutionary ideas censored from classrooms and from well-known "scientific" journals such as Nature and Science, and the "fact" that evolution has "mountains of evidence", it's amazing that there are any creationists out there. Putting scare quotes around the facts doesn't make them go away. Science and Nature, for example, are scientific journals. They are the world's most prestigious scientific journals. Calling them "scientific" journals doesn't magically abolish that fact.
Even the most simplest organism have hundreds of thousands of "letters" and hundreds of genes. The amount of information stored in DNA is millions times larger than the most advanced computer can hold. Oh dear oh dear. I'm afraid someone's been pulling your leg. I just looked up the figures, and I could store the human genome eight times over on my C drive. And my computer is hardly the world's most sophisticated. Before you posted rubbish like this, why didn't you spend one moment trying to find out if it was true? Don't you think you have a moral responsibility to find out whether something is true before you declare it in public as fact.
Furthermore, cells must have an incredibly sophisticated editing process to ensure that each gene is reproduced error-free. Let me guess. You call it "incredibly sophisticated" because you have absolutely no idea how it works.
The fossils simply does not support the theory of evolution. Neither does genetics or the experiments. They are just interpreted so they fit into the evolutionary model. I'm afraid someone's been lying to you again. I would suggest once more that before you recite stuff like this in public, you have a moral responsibility to find out whether it's true.
That's simply not true. Many atheists question evolution because it just doesn't add up. More made-up stuff. Which is why you can't name a single one of these "many" atheists.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: This is interesting. Many Bible literalists claim that atheists must believe in evolution in order to justify their atheism. May I quote you when I run into this argument again? Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. -- Charley the Australopithecine
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Of course there are not infinite ways to interpret evidence. All i'm saying is the theory of evolution is not even kind of close to the best explanation ... What about transitional fossils? There should be many transitional, yet out of the hundreds of millions found, there's only a few DEBATABLE ones. Your comment about transitional fossils shows that you've never bothered to find out what the evidence is. So on what basis can you say that evolution is not the best explanation for it? --- Actually, we may be going off topic. The purpose of this thread, if I recall, was not for an all-round display of creationist ignorance, but to tackle the old "you-can't-know-anything-about-the-past-without-a-time-machine" chestnut.
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City_on_a_Hill Junior Member (Idle past 6192 days) Posts: 15 Joined: |
And this is true from the most primitive in time earliest known form of life to all of life as we know it. Thank you for demonstrating that this concept of "information" is absolutely useless, because it has absolutely no effect on whether evolution occurs or not. Of course genetic information is relevant to the theory of evolution. How else can you explain the difference in genetic information between bacteria and people?
Now if you could prove that instead of just assert it you MIGHT have an argument. First you have to define what you mean by "new traits" ... one that you will stick to. A trait is a characteristic of a population. Mutations cannot produce new traits if the genetic information needed for those traits did not already exist.
And you still have not shown that evolution lacks the elements of science -- your title thesis -- so either you are equivocating on that claim or are content to let the evidence show that it is science. Evolution cannot be observed, tested or repeated. Claims that we can observe evidence for the theory of evolution are completely unfounded.
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City_on_a_Hill Junior Member (Idle past 6192 days) Posts: 15 Joined: |
They are all transitional. So, the only thing you could be saying here is that there is some debate over whether or not they are fossils. Can you either a) demonstrate that there is in fact a debate over whether or not they are fossils? or b) Can you provide a list of the finds which you think are not fossils (or at least an explaination as to what they are if they are not fossils)? You have a different idea of what a transitional fossil should be. Just because an animal has characteristics of two or more different organisms does not make it transitional. A transitional fossil should have transtional forms (partly formed legs, teeth, eyes, etc.)
As for the off chance that you meant that they are not transitional, there are only three posibilities. 1) You are extremely ignorant of the topic in which you are trying to hold a discussion 2) You are not ignorant, but are deliberately pretending to be in order to try and score some unfathomable point. 3) You are not ignorant, but are deliberately pretnending to be because you have some sort of bizarre sense of humor which is going over all of our heads. really mature... ...and such...
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JonF Member (Idle past 167 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
Just because an animal has characteristics of two or more different organisms does not make it transitional. ROFL! "Having characteristics of two or more different organisms" is a pretty accurate definition of "transitional" in paleontology. E.g. Transitional Fossil.
A transitional fossil should have transtional forms (partly formed legs, teeth, eyes, etc.) Actually, lots of them do. Partially formed but, of course, fully fuctional.
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City_on_a_Hill Junior Member (Idle past 6192 days) Posts: 15 Joined: |
This is not a link to scientific concerns about evolution, either. This is a link to Discovery Institute hucksters asserting that there are scientific concerns without saying what they are. You asked for proof that scientists question evolution. If you wanted scientific evidence against evolution, you should've said so.
Moreover: quote:"I am skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." This isn't "questioning evolution." This is the Discovery Institute misrepresenting standard scientific tentativity - which is embraced by the most ardent evolutionist - as a basis to undermine evolution. More of their old tricks, I guess. Most of your 100 scientists, later, were quite dismayed to see how they had been represented by DI. How is being skeptical about evolution not questioning it? The claim that the debate among scientists doesn't exist is unfounded.
Or prevent one. (Where are you getting your numbers? The human genome is something like 5.6 billion base pairs long, which would be 11.2 "letters." When I'm talking about letters, I mean, ACTG, the letters that make up the human genome. Page not found | Transfer and Reentry Center
Pull one stone out of an arch and the whole thing falls apart. Is an arch complex? I would say that an arch is very simple. So simple, in fact, that they're often created in nature: Natural arch - Wikipedia That's a fallacious argument and you know it. Genetic sequences have to be precise. Each of the three billion "letters" has to be right. You can't take one part of the genetic sequences and put it somewhere else. Natural arches themselves contain small amounts of information.
Hall, B. G. 1981. Changes in the substrate specificities of an enzyme during directed evolution of new functions. Biochemistry 20: 4042-4049.
CB101.2: Mutations and new features. Hall, B. G. and T. Zuzel. 1980. Evolution of a new enzymatic function by recombination within a gene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 77(6): 3529-33. Mutations don't produce new features (Talk.Origins) - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science Edited by City_on_a_Hill, : No reason given.
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City_on_a_Hill Junior Member (Idle past 6192 days) Posts: 15 Joined: |
ROFL! "Having characteristics of two or more different organisms" is a pretty accurate definition of "transitional" in paleontology. E.g. Transitional Fossil. I'm sure you've heard of homology. Many animals share common characteristics. They're only transitional if you've already assumed the theory of evolution to be correct.
Actually, lots of them do. Partially formed but, of course, fully fuctional. Article? You're just making an assertion without using any support.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 2512 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
Each of the three billion "letters" has to be right. You can't take one part of the genetic sequences and put it somewhere else. really? Then please explain why I don't look exactly like my mother, and why she does not look like her mother, ad infinitum. Face it, we all have mutations. and not just single base mutations either. I am a mix of my mother and father's chromosomes. You are too (except that it would be from your father and mother, not mine). Organisms do not replicate their DNA flawlessly. That's a fact. if they did, we'd still all be single-celled organisms. Or in your case (seeing as how you think god created everything and one), you would like exactly like your parents, they exactly like theirs, etc. You could not have all those dog and cat and horse breeds. The variation we see in life is highly dependent upon mistakes when DNA/RNA is replicated.
Natural arches themselves contain small amounts of information you apparently are not a geologist. Or have studied geology.
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nator Member (Idle past 2169 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
I know you've got a lot on your plate at the moment, but I'd love a reply to my posts in this thread, message #43 and message #44
The first, if you answer it, will save everybody a lot of time and effort discussing details. It cuts to the chase. The second is regarding your posting of a Gould misquote. I'd like you to explain how you feel about the website that you got it from. Do you think they might have misquoted Gould on purpose in order to misrepresent what he said to fool the gullible, or do you think it is mere sloppiness on their part? Either way, I'd like an acknowledgement on your part that the quote you posted isn't accurate.
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