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| Author | Topic: Evolutionary Theory Explains Diversity | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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LucyTheApe Inactive Member |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days)  Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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LucyTheApe Inactive Member |
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Alan Clarke Junior Member (Idle past 5375 days)  Posts: 4 From: Evansville, IN, USA Joined: |
Coyote wrote:
Macro-evolution is denied by fundamentalists on religious grounds, but accepted by biologists and other scientists most familiar with the field.
For me, the rejection of macro-evolution has nothing to do with religion but everything to do with science. First of all, the majority of macro-evolution proponents also believe life formed spontaneously in a primordial soup. Some try to dress it up and say on a crystalline substrate. This belief provides insight into the failed foundational mindset which extends beyond the origins of life and into the origins of species. There is a continuum in the philosophy which stretches in all directions to include star and planet formation. (i.e. hydrogen gas evolves into heavier elements which evolve into stars and planets) All of the mechanisms of evolution, whether they are chemical, biological, or cosmological, have the same foundation: time + chance = increase in order But science tells us just the opposite: time + chance = decrease in order The DNA inside of a cell is information. Such an occurrence begs the question, What is the source of this information? Energy from the Sun is not information nor is gravity. The Earth is virtually a closed system, so what do you attribute to the source for this highly complex information? Natural selection reduces information. Every time something is picked, that selection process narrows the field of variability. Another way of looking at it is like a quality-control worker on an assembly-line who inspects transistor radios. If a radio has a resistor that deviates too much from a particular value, the radio will not play and be rejected. By some chance, an out-of-tolerance resistor may cause the radio to play louder or quieter than normal, but this attribute is not an increase in information, but a difference in magnitude. If the worker retains such a unit, the variability increases in the radio population, but the complexity is not changed. For macro-evolution to work, the radio must gain a new feature that is useful to the consumer like a headphone jack or a digital tuner instead of a manual dial. I contend that without a deliberate, focused, and inventive engineering department, these features will never be realized by the quality-control worker. If you think they can, then perhaps your idea may find usefulness in the real world where corporations can increase their competiveness by eliminating their engineering departments. As you can see, I’ve not resorted to religion in articulating my response. Why should I? Your idea is destined to fail because it violates what we see in the natural world.
If fundamentalists want to show that micro-evolution can't add up, over time, to macro-evolution they need to show a mechanism that prevents such change. I have yet to see such a mechanism proposed and withstand scientific testing. How about the mechanism in a cell that corrects copy errors? This will resist your mechanism.
But what’s worse, you have a more fundamental problem: studies on human mtDNA and mutation rates indicate that the first man lived about 6000 years ago. You simply don’t have enough time for your mechanism to perform its magic.
And your analogy, like the tornado in a junkyard, fails because living organisms don't react in the same way as do manufactured items. Living organisms DO react in many ways as manufactured items. Living cells react adversely to too much heat just as does a spring which looses its temper to too much heat. Light can burn the phosphorous on a CRT screen just like it can destroy a retina. Water can reverse the compaction of beach sand just like it can reverse the formation of proteins. Gravity can wear out the shock absorbers and rubber tires on a car just as it does the knee joints and skin on the feet. Those who have studied physical chemistry know that there is an inextricable link between living organisms and physical components such as atoms, molecules, compounds, and manufactured items. Your living organism will have to overcome the ill effects of entropy just as will your automobile if you want to continue driving it. You’ll have to take your automobile to a knowledgeable repairman unless of course some genius designed it to repair itself.
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LucyTheApe Inactive Member |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4662 days)  Posts: 1456 Joined: |
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4662 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4662 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4662 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
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