Neither Evolution nor Creation are

OK, if you really read my message, then why do you keep referring to me as a "he"?, when I put my name (Allison), in it?LOL!Regards,AllisonPS You still didn't answer most of my questions. Remember, this is a debate board. You posted seveal posts which had a LOT of content and made a LOT of claims. Now that we have begun to address these claims with counter evidence, you seem to be backing away. While I understand the lack of time, and there is certainly no time limit for repies, just realize that it might be a better strategy for you to bring up a single issue in a post if you cannot devote much time to the discussion.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by joz:
1)Why can`t those alleles change? Which ones are they? What evidence do you have that these "species alleles" are a) different from the plain old garden variety, and b) unable to change?

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Or is it an off shoot of some a priori notion that speciation cannot occur?

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2)Well lets define species as organisms that can breed sucsessfully to produce fertile offspring....
Are horses and donkeys the same species? they can mate to produce hybrid offspring but those offspring are sterile... Surely if they were the same species they would produce fertile offspring....

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So I`d advance the example of horses and donkeys as an example of a recently diverged (speciated) (macroevolved) line........

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Actually, very occasionally a fertile mule is produced. See more here: http://www.hamill.co.uk/british_mule_soc/fertile.htmlIf donkeys and horses were wild and shared ranges, and given the right selection pressures and a niche to fill, a new species could certainly
branch off, I should think. It is unlikely, though, because there aren't many wild horse and donkey ranges on Earth.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Inferential logic used in other fields of science?

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Yes, all fields of science, actually.Like my electron example:Nobody, anywhere, has EVER directly observed an electron. We INFER the existence of electrons by the evidence of their effects.So, if you do not accept inference as a valid part of science, then you, by logical consequence, must not accept the existence of electrons because they have never been observed.So much for physics, eh? Not a very scientific field.

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Someone here accused me of misrepresenting communism though I have never mentioned it, but applying Darwinian logic to Political Science has had a devastating effect on government. Are you claiming that Social Darwinism is valid? If so, then Hitler's references to Evolution are legitimate? As well as Stalin? Mao? and Mussolini?

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Someone using a scientific theory to attempt to justify their political or social dogma is misusing the theory. Therefore, the scientific theory is not rendered invalid because it has been ill-used. The only thing that renders a scientific theory partially or fully "invalid" is another scientific theory with supporting evidence, testable hypothese, and potential falsifications which haven't already been falsified....which explains the phenomena better than the first theory.Likewise, the KKK's use of Biblical themes and verses does not invalidate Christianity just because the KKK uses the Bible to justify it's criminal and immoral behavior. I could make the same statement about slavery, wife-beating and the view of women as chattel, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Troubles in Ireland, etc.

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Evolutionists have defined "science" within their own limited values, thus, that which criticizes or disagrees with evolution is distinctly non-scientific.

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This is a resoundingly false statement.What on Earth makes you think that the "defining of science" is limited to the field of Evolutionary Biology?Science is, pretty much, science, no matter what the field of study.The ToE follows the same rules as the Germ Theory of Disease, the Atomic Theory of Matter, and the Theory of a Heliocentric Solar System.The fact of evolution, THAT it happened, is not in dispute, because it's hypothese are testable and tested, there is copious positive evidence in support of it, and the potential falsifications of it's predictions have not been observed.There is quite a bit of contention within the scientific community about the MECHANISMS of evolution. HOW it happened, IOW.

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A noble person is one who strives for something outside of his own selfish ends. In seeking to serve God by submitting to the ridicule of their fellow scientists it seems that Creationists are serving a more noble goal.

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How is it noble to do science poorly in order to further a religious agenda?A question: Is it an acceptable tenet of science, in your opinion, to decide ahead of time what one is supposed to find in nature based upon a particular interpretation of a religious book, and disregard all contradictory evidence to this a priori notion?

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Evolutionists, on the other hand, seem only interested in defending the status quo.

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ROTFLMAO!!!!This is silly.Have you ever heard of Punctuated Equilibrium? The New Synthesis?Have you ever been to a scientific conference?Careers are MADE by upsetting the status quo! The only thing which will do so, however, is properly-gathered evidence, and a theory which explains the evidence which has also survived many tests (it's predictions have been borne out).OTOH, how has Creationism fundamentally changed in the last, say, 50 years? What discoveries have Creation "scientists" made? Through which innovations and discoveries have Creation "scientists" enabled us to better understand the mechanisms of natural phenomena? What predictions has Creation 'science' made about natural phenomena which have been borne out?

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As I understand it there are many objections to evolution in the biological sciences, but many of these scientists are too afraid of being labelled "creationists" or "non-scientists" by their peers.

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Ah, more conspiracy theory.Unless you have evidence of this, it isn't your "understanding".It's your wishful thinking.Look, if these closeted creationists were real scientists with real evidence which severely undermined the ToE, then they would publish their real evidence in a real scientific journal to be dissected and criticized just like every other real scientific article. If it had merit, it would be devastating to the ToE, but the scientist who uncovers this evidence would have the scientific world at her/his feet!Then other scientists would amend their views in light of this new, amazing evidence. This is exactly what happened with Einstein.I wonder why this hasn't happened in 140 years?Regards,Allison------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-26-2002]

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[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-26-2002]

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Originally posted by Robert:
Greetings:

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Do we now have a new species of mules who can reproduce on their own? Your example does not fit your assertions concerning evolution.

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As to the other part I will look up my references and get back to you.

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Thanks again

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Robert

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Please see my message #32 in this thread. There are rare cases of fertile mules which have given birth to foals, sometimes multiple times.Actually, if you look to plants, you will find hybridizing leading to new species quite frequently. Here is one example: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html"Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century.
Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved."------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

quote:

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
Actually, very occasionally a fertile mule is produced.

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Yeah but aren`t they always female?So you can`t breed mules with mules to set up a new (sub?)species....And don`t the fertile mules have to be bred to horses or donkeys?So all you can get out is a horse, donkey or (most of the time sterile) mule...

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Originally posted by joz:
Yeah but aren`t they always female?

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So you can`t breed mules with mules to set up a new (sub?)species....

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And don`t the fertile mules have to be bred to horses or donkeys?

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So all you can get out is a horse, donkey or (most of the time sterile) mule...

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From the link I posted, but I don't know if it is verified:"In the 1980s, there were cases of a fertile mule and a fertile hinny in China and mules in the USA and Brazil who produced more than one foal!"Another quote from: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/scienceqa/archive/950523a.html"And one male foal produced by breeding a mare mule and a stallion was later able to sire some colts." http://www.murphymules.com/page553827.htm"Although not fully understood, from 1527 to 1990 approximately 60 live births of foals to mules had been reported in Europe, the U.S., South America, North Africa and China. Quite a bit of study has gone into
the infertility of mules and the few reported live foal births from mules, but until a modern birth is fully investigated and found to be substantiated through science, it would definitely be safe to say that mules are an infertile hybrid. Even if you consider some or all reported live foal births to mules to be true, it would represent a very small fraction that, while significant to the scientific aspect of mules, would still only warrant an asterisk beside the word fertile."

Greetings:A definition of evolution might clear the air a bit:Evolution is a process whereby life arose from non-living matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.You may agree/disagree with this definition but try to tell me why you disagree so we can have a decent dialog on the matter?As I have been taught by evolutionists in High School and College: this non-living matter (the primordial goo) created the first living cell(s). Somehow, from these first cells came the first multi-celled living organisms. That is the basis of my question: How did the first cells form multi-celled living organisms?Schrafinator claims that I do not answer all of her questions so I will endeavour to answer her questions first (sorry for the references to "he" please forgive my oversight!)Physicists did not lose their jobs because of Einstein? That is because Einstein's theory did not completely debunk Newtonian physics, but simply led it in a different direction. If someone came along and showed that Newton and Einstein were both wrong and that physics cannot explain the basic properties of the physical universe, then a lot of physicists would loose their jobs? No? I think that your naive views of human nature would break down at this point and the "scientists" would act in self-preservation. An example of this would be the recent PBS miniseries on Evolution. The highly-biased views of the producers and scientists involved were evident in the way they mangled the creationist arguments.Do most Biologists make a lot of money? Well, $50,000 to $80,000 a year is considered middle-class to upper middle-class. So, yes I think that they are very well-paid considering the work they do. By the way, Robert Schuler is a modernist and would hold to theistic evolution. He does not see a conflict between evolution and Christianity.I did not comment on your allegation that I have misrepresented evolution. I believe if you read the top part of this post that you will see that Evolution does "predict" or say that life began with single-celled animals "creating" or "giving birth" or whatever the process is to multi-celled animals.If you want me to reply to this then you will have to tell me why you think that, "Evolutionary theory does not predict that single celled organisms would give birth to a multi-celled animals." Are you stumbling over the word "birth"?You then say that I have not answered the following claim, "Now, considering that the ToE has (copious) positive evidence to support it..."The problem, Allison, is that I see no (copious) evidence for the Theory of Evolution. I am asking you for evidence which you are steadfastly denying me! So, I did not answer this because your very next statement actually gave me what I was looking for: you provided two websites that gave "evidence" for single-cell to multi-cell development. The first site you gave me provided no "evidence" but simply made a series of self-serving statements. The second was also responsibly replied to by creationists. Still, I am looking for evidence from you, and it seems you are evading the issue.Finally, Your quotation of Steve Allen is not very appropriate. There have been many scientists both Evolutionists and non-Evolutionist who are not creationists - as well as scientists who are creationists - who have harshly criticized evolutionary theory. Since I am going to quote many others later on I will give you one as an example:Evolutionary biologist Frank Salisbury writes:Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls. A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 4E1000 different forms. Using a little algebra we can see that 4E1000 = 10E600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure "1" followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.-Article entitled, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher.His point is that life is far too complex to be explained by the overly simplistic model that synthetic evolution provides.Here are facts, Allison, disproving Evolution! Where are all your high-minded scientists jumping around and congratulating him on his proof?Since Darwin many scientists have remained skeptical about the validity of evolution, and they have even occasionally voiced their opinions aloud. Your quotation of Steve Allen, Allison, could legitimately be applied to you - because you refuse to hear their voices!Now, I think I have answered all of your questions. If I have missed one, then kindly remind me and I will respond. Since I have done this curtesy for you would you please now answer my question?Robert

Greetings:In response to Gene I will reiterate the definition of evolution that I have given before:Evolution is a process whereby life arose from non-living matter, and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.I believe this is how Darwin used the word and it certainly agrees with what I was taught about evolution. If you would like to debate this definition, then I would be most happy to hear your counter-definition of evolution.As far as I am concerned I am interested in exactly how "evolution" would work to create multi-celled animals out of single-celled animals. Can you show me how this is done without waving the "magic-wand" of "Millions of years and natural selection"(what I call the "time" argument)?The Time argument from evolutionists sounds very much the equivalent of the creationist "in the beginning God". Whenever they are pressed to give evidence they hide behind the time argument: "Millions of years and Natural Selection..."Thanks!Robert

Greetings:In answer to your first point as to why these alleles cannot change I found the argument against change in the following article:John F. McDonald writes:The results of the last 20 years of research on the genetic basis of adaptation has led us to a great Darwinian paradox. Those (genes) that are obviously variable within natural populations do not seem to lie at the basis of many major adaptive changes, while those (genes) that seemingly do constitute the foundation of many, if not most, major adaptive changes apparently are not variable within natural populations.article found in "The Molecular Basis of Adaptation," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics Vol. 14, pg. 93.Insofar as your number 2 is concerned I would seriously suggest that a large amount of success is necessary for you to claim that horses and donkeys produce a new species. Since you point out that mules are not a species according to Darwinism, then I do not believe that your example proves your point.Also, horses and donkeys are put together by artificial selection not natural selection: they do not willingly mate. This fact also seems to be a flaw in your reasoning since Darwinism is concerned with natural selection.I am all eyes to read your replyRobert

Greetings:My last post was a reply to joz.Mark:I am glad to receive your kind response, and I can say that I mean no deliberate dishonesty in using the definition that I have used. However, I must disagree slightly with your post on the following ground.Given as a hypothesis to the scientific method I would heartily agree with you that the theory of evolution can be considered scientific. But, is that how the theory is treated by most scientists? The American Association for the Advancement of Science has come out and said that evolution is a fact. Such a statement has put it beyond the realm of a simple hypothesis. The PBS series that I have referred to before has also made such a statement. Dawkins and Gould - the men at the highest pinnacle of evolutionary thought - have also stated that evolution is a fact.In light of all of this I believe that the definition I use is not out of context, but a necessary test of evolutionary thought. In examining evolution from both "sides" (I think there are actually about 3 or 4 sides if you include non-creationists and theistic evolutionists as well) I have found evolution neither scientific nor factual.This conclusion comes from a former evolutionist who has unbiasedly read the arguments from all of the sides involved.Thank you for the clarification of your point. I hope I was as clear as you were.Robert

Greetings:Mark again!I am skeptical that macroevolution can be proved either by observation or demonstration in my lifetime since I have often been told that it takes millions of years for it to happen. However, I am openminded on this issue and would entertain any such proof you have to offer me.What I am really looking for is the actual process that a single-celled animal undergoes in order for it to "transmogrify" (if I can use a Calvin and Hobbes reference) into a multi-celled animal.I am looking forward to reading your replyRobert

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Originally posted by Robert:
Insofar as your number 2 is concerned I would seriously suggest that a large amount of success is necessary for you to claim that horses and donkeys produce a new species. Since you point out that mules are not a species according to Darwinism, then I do not believe that your example proves your point.

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Also, horses and donkeys are put together by artificial selection not natural selection: they do not willingly mate. This fact also seems to be a flaw in your reasoning since Darwinism is concerned with natural selection.

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I am all eyes to read your reply
Robert

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Insofar as No.2 is concerned you should go back and read my post again, upon close examination you will find...-That I never said mules were a species...-That I said horses and donkeys were species....-More than that the fact that horses and donkeys can mate to produce (apart from rare exceptions) sterile offspring (this is where mules come in) shows that these two species diverged very recently....-And no donkeys and horses are not the same species...IOW species A and species B mate to produce a sterile hybrid C. A and B are not the same species as is evidenced by the infertility of C. From this we conclude that A and B ancestry diverged recently, what we are basically seeing is a speciation in its end stages, as more changes are accumulated we expect that after some time A and B will no longer be able to produce C. We infer this because other obviously recently divergent species have lost the ability to interbreed, i.e Chimps and Gorillas...Does that help explain?

I`ll make it easy for you to find...Here is the original post:

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2)Well lets define species as organisms that can breed sucsessfully to produce fertile offspring....
Are horses and donkeys the same species? they can mate to produce hybrid offspring but those offspring are sterile... Surely if they were the same species they would produce fertile offspring....

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So I`d advance the example of horses and donkeys as an example of a recently diverged (speciated) (macroevolved) line........

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And here is where I answered your misunderstanding the first time round:

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1)Are you being deliberately obtuse? First as I pointed out in my post mules are sterile hence not a new species. Secondly mules are not a species they are a hybrid, the species involved are horses and donkeys....

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Now if you still can`t get what I mean all I can offer is to mentor you for reading comprehension 101.......

Greetings:Hello Mr. Pamboli!Yes, any abuse of power: government, religious, or in the fields of science is wrong and tyrannical. I fully agree with you.I may be missing a bit about how you define "relationship of species": I do not think that such could be a demonstrated truth of evolution. A demonstrated truth, in my opinion, would be an actual showing of how the evolutionary process works without recourse to "millions of years and natural selection."I also agree with you that identifying the relationships between species in the fossil record is the issue. Since Apes, for example, hold a 97% similarity to humans it could follow that an evolutionist might uncover a fossilized ape and think he has found a pre-human transitional form. Nebraska Man, who was entered into the record as proof of evolution in the Scopes trial, was found to have been conjured up from a 20 year old dead pig!Much of the debate over the fossil record that I have read is based entirely on the subjective view of the scientist who is examining the evidence. The debate over Ambulocetus, for example, is characteristic of this inane arguing about something that existed long ago, cannot be observed swimming or walking about now, but is "obvious proof" of a transitional form. It is all in the interpretation, and interpretation is heavily influenced by one's own presuppositions.As I told Mark above: I do not have a problem if you consider evolution simply as a hypothesis to be proved. I have a problem when people try to shove it down my throat without providing proper reasons for doing such an act.I retract my statements concerning social darwinism and humbly beg your forgiveness.I would not say that they think their opponents "less than human" but to criticize someone as "non-scientific" simply because he/she disagrees with your theory is a part of the fundamentalistic mindset. I believe that evolutionists have shown such a mindset - including all the other characteristics I have pointed out earlier concerning fundamentalism - and I beleive that there is a form of evolutionary fundamentalism as well as religious fundamentalism.Alot of the arguing between evolutionists and creationists can be boiled down to this:Evolutionist: You are non-scientific
Creationist: You are an atheistThe difference is only in the phraseology.Thank youRobert

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Originally posted by Robert:
I would not say that they think their opponents "less than human" but to criticize someone as "non-scientific" simply because he/she disagrees with your theory is a part of the fundamentalistic mindset.

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Not really I don`t really care if someone is scientific or not provided that if they involve themselves science they switch on their "scientific" side.....If they don`t want to be scientific they shouldn`t be involved in science...If they want to be non scientific playing sports, painting pictures, selling things etc fine but if science is the subject a scientific approach is necessary.....