Help in teaching 11-12 Year olds (RE (Religious Education) in the UK)

identicle wasnt the right word, you are right.

the DNA can tell you what type an animal you are examining...whether its human whether its horse or cow or pelican is what I meant.

why can the DNA do that if there is not a similar pattern to be found in the various species?

the very earliest lifeforms were far from simple, so there goes your first point

chemicals do not come to life, there goes your second.

DNA prevents species jumping the very real barrier that keeps them replicating in the manner of their parents.... so none of what you've said has any founding.

the fact that all creatures have dna does not mean they are related.

Isnt it sterility that determines what species are related and what are not?
And isnt it true that breeding experiments have shown that appearance and similarity in genes (ie ape and man) is no basis to determine who is related?

again, its not the issue.

because the cambrian period shows a burst of life in great variety as opposed to a slow gradual increase

because the genetic code stops a plant or animal from moving too far from its parents appearance. There is great variety i agree(eg humans, cats, dogs) but not so much that one living thing could change into another...genetics and dna determine what a creature will look like, not random mutations.

because what we actually see in living things is stability and a limited range of variation

so you believe there is a chemical out there that has the ability to come to life?
I wouldnt know, but im not going to base my world view on something that could be out there. I cant prove that its not out there...perhaps if scientists find it we will have the answer to abiogenesis.

sterility

im not using the right word here and im not sure what you call it...im talking about 'sterility' in the sense that a cat and dog cannot produce offspring. I thought it was called sterility but obviously any individual can be sterile.
So if a cat and dog cannot produce offspring its because they are a different species and therefore they are not related. What do you call that?

the breeding experiments im talking about are the ones where scientists have tried to keep changing various animals and plants to try and develop new forms of life.

Here is a paper entitled 'Some biological proglems associated with natural selection' by Gerry Bergman

his paper is talking about the issue of species not crossing over to change into new species...here is an excerpt:

I agree that in some respects genetics can prove relatedness. But man and ape are said to be related and yet they cannot produce offspring...not even hybrids.... so how are they related?

not at all

we know what guides variation - genetics. We can see it and test it.

No i dont because its been proven over and over again as impossible.
Darwin did believe that animals could go in any direction and he believed that new species could be created by selective breeding.

but centuries of cross breeding have not produced any new species...none whatso ever. If we cant do it deliberately, what makes you think nature can do it accidently?

because there is a species barrier....an internal law that stops a cat breeding with a dog or an ape breeding with a man

and as this papershows, breeding experiments bring animals to definite limits of improvement but no further.

also the fossil record shows animals unchanged for millions of years, and a sudden appearance of life in many forms in the cambrian period.

Yes, i do get the point. Evolution is the development of the species after life somehow appeared on earth.

But do you also understand that life must have begun on the molecular level before natural selection could have selected any animals to survive and reproduce offspring?

isnt a natural origin what evolution is all about? Isnt that why evolution is so fiercly contested by creationists?

Yes i can.

And if, by evolution, you are refering to the 'variations' found within a species, then i dont have a problem with it. I know species of animals develop over time and show different features.

But if your version of evolution includes the idea that species can develop so much change that they become a new species, then i dont believe that there is any evidence for that.

I agree that many creation storys are rediculous...but not so with the bibles creation account which is why I accept it over other stories such as Brahman for instance.

The bible creation account shows animals created according to their 'kinds' and going forth to multiply. this is in perfect harmony with what breeding projects have found with regard to species. Species reproduce according their parents.

that is not only what evolution says

it also says that the offspring will continue to go thru changes until it is so different from its parents that it becomes a new species

Darwin said "favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species."

and that is Not what we see.

no i dont.

chemical compounds do not produce life.

no, living things contain chemicals, but chemicals to not produce living things.

the reproductive ability is not contingent on chemicals alone but on existing life. An organism can die and still contain all the chemicals that it had while it was alive...but those chemicals do not keep it alive nor do they work to bring the dead to life.

i did look up some sites about these sorts of hybrids and found it quite intersting.
One site did say that in the wild, lions and tigers would not normally breed though...this only happens because man interferes with them. Also, the offspring are infertile so it kind of backs up the point i made about the species barrier...they can only go so far.

to be honest, i havent read a great deal about ring species. What is known about the genetics of the various ring species?

that is pure speculation

No one had been around long enough to see an entirely new species develop. Everything we have today is the same as it was millions of years ago.

perhaps the evidence you have has been fitted into the existing theory.

with all the billions of people who have ever lived on this earth, we still all look the same. We have not changed our physical form, we still have 1 head on our sholders and 2 legs beneath our torso and 2 arms with 10 fingers on each hand.

show me where we have changed dramatically? (and dont show me an ape)

no it can't. The bible is the communication from the one who created the man and woman in his image, and all the animals 'according to their kinds'

he does not say that the put molecular life on the earth and allowed it time to evolve. He says he created each kind of animal and finally created the human man and woman as separate creations.

This is exactly why christians contest evolution.

Jesus christ spoke about A&E as real people. They are even listed in his geneolgy...so if they are not real, then nor is Jesus.

Not all christians think that. The reason why some might is because most christians dont study their own religion. They should know that he was not a caucasian because caucasian people are decended from Noahs son Japheth who was the progenitor of the Aryan or Indo-European (Indo-Germanic) branch of the human family. The son Shem gave the line of Jews/Cannanites/Assyrians/Aramaeans etc.

It is pretty funny though to see a picture of Jesus with blonde hair...makes me cringe lol

I know about speciation...there was a discussion on it here recently where I pointed out that the Golapogas finches were said to have developed into new species...but the facts are that the finch's are still finch's

Each 'kind' of animal has the genetic potential for great variety, thats why there are more then 400 different breeds of dogs. You might call it speciation, but the reality is that they are all still dogs.

so a skull with a thick brow means a different species?

Im sure you could still find some people with very thick brows

this is a good question in light of 'speciation' and im not sure what the answer is

Lets say, for arguments sake, that the bible account is accurate with regard to the existence of life.

A Genesis 'Kind' refers to life-forms with the ability for cross-fertility within its limits. We've seen how a lion and a Tiger can reproduce, but they go no further. This would make the lion and tiger the same kind...they belong to the same family and can breed to a point. The boundary between 'kinds' then should be drawn at the point where fertilization does not occur.

So when God instructed Noah to collect two of each animal together to put on the ark, it was animals according to their “kinds” that were collected. With the above description of “kind” in mind, and with the fact that there is a huge potential for great variety in one such 'kind', then Noah need only have one representative from each family group on the ark....and from them, all the cats we have today are possible thru genetics.... perhaps what you call 'speciation'

This guy has a thick forebrow

These guys are completely different but still the same species

And the different shapes of these three are testament to just how much variety there is in the human frame

no because they are all types of cats...what i'm saying is there is no reason why the two cats taken on board the ark, could not have speciated to become all the many kinds of cat we see today.

leopards and juguars have been cross bred to produce whats called a Jaglion. Actually, while looking into this, i never realized just how much cross breeding has been experimented with. Here is a site with links to many hybrid cats.