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Author Topic:   Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.
shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 511 of 752 (598920)
01-03-2011 7:13 PM
Reply to: Message 506 by New Cat's Eye
01-03-2011 11:26 AM


From your later posts, its seems like you think that L&M are saying that the prokaryote evolved one time in one single organism. Yeah?
This is the source of your confusion, me thinks.
I belive that is what they are saying. A unique event that happened only once in four billion years.
If you read the post in reply to Dr. Adequate, Carl Woese seems to be saying the same thing.
It appears there was a saltation, a unique jump, from simple life to complex life that the scientists cannot explain. A translation that is not accountable by Darwin's or neo-Darwinian theory.
I believe this supports my theory of planned transition from original life to evolution and gradual changes in life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 506 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-03-2011 11:26 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 512 by jar, posted 01-03-2011 7:19 PM shadow71 has replied
 Message 513 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-04-2011 10:08 AM shadow71 has not replied
 Message 514 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-04-2011 10:18 AM shadow71 has replied
 Message 515 by Blue Jay, posted 01-04-2011 10:23 AM shadow71 has replied
 Message 516 by Percy, posted 01-04-2011 10:33 AM shadow71 has not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 512 of 752 (598921)
01-03-2011 7:19 PM
Reply to: Message 511 by shadow71
01-03-2011 7:13 PM


I believe this supports my theory of planned transition from original life to evolution and gradual changes in life.
HUH!!!!!
Where is there ANY evidence of ANYTHING planned?

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 511 by shadow71, posted 01-03-2011 7:13 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 518 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 1:55 PM jar has replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 513 of 752 (598931)
01-04-2011 10:08 AM
Reply to: Message 511 by shadow71
01-03-2011 7:13 PM


problems with evolution != design
I belive that is what they are saying. A unique event that happened only once in four billion years.
Well, I still don't think they're saying it was one organism, but whatever...
It appears there was a saltation, a unique jump, from simple life to complex life that the scientists cannot explain. A translation that is not accountable by Darwin's or neo-Darwinian theory.
I believe this supports my theory of planned transition from original life to evolution and gradual changes in life.
I see three problems here.
First:
It appears there was a saltation, a unique jump, from simple life to complex life that the scientists cannot explain.
The inability of science to explain something is not evidence for something else. You are making a God of the Gaps argument and those are not good ideas.
Science cannot explain what causes one particular atom to go through radioactive decay, so would you say that God is picking and choosing which ones will?
Second:
A translation that is not accountable by Darwin's or neo-Darwinian theory.
Not being accountable by neo-Darwinian theory is not positive evidence for design. We see the ID crowd making this same mistake over and over where instead of finding evidence to support their position, they try to discredit the opposing position as if theirs will be left by default. This is incorrect.
Assuming this "jump" cannot be explained by the current Theory of Evolution, when we do find out how this "jump" happened, the scientific explanation will still be that of naturalistic phenomenon and it might even be just an addition to the current theory.
Third:
I believe this supports my theory of planned transition from original life to evolution and gradual changes in life.
Positive evidence supports theories. Showing how another theory cannot explain something is not providing positive evidence for your theory.
What you need to do, is come up with a mechanism for how the transition was planned and how it was employed and then find the evidence that supports that theory.
Saying "I believe it was planned" is not a theory and saying "look, evolution can't explain this" is not providing support for that non-theory.

The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false. - St. Thomas Aquinas

This message is a reply to:
 Message 511 by shadow71, posted 01-03-2011 7:13 PM shadow71 has not replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 514 of 752 (598932)
01-04-2011 10:18 AM
Reply to: Message 511 by shadow71
01-03-2011 7:13 PM


It appears there was a saltation, a unique jump, from simple life to complex life that the scientists cannot explain. A translation that is not accountable by Darwin's or neo-Darwinian theory.
Saltations by HGT may not be Darwinian; but they are certainly neo-Darwinian; and clearly Woese thinks he can explain the saltations that he thinks occurred --- he thinks they happened by HGT.
I believe this supports my theory of planned transition from original life to evolution and gradual changes in life.
In order to commit the God-of-the-Gaps fallacy, it is first necessary to find some gaps. What we have here are transitions that scientists say are explicable by endosymbiosis and HGT respectively. You have quoted them doing so.
These mechanisms would doubtless have briefly surprised (and then continually delighted) Mr Charles Darwin, but that doesn't somehow render them inutile as explanations.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 511 by shadow71, posted 01-03-2011 7:13 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 521 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 2:14 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 515 of 752 (598934)
01-04-2011 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 511 by shadow71
01-03-2011 7:13 PM


Hi, Shadow.
shadow71 writes:
It appears there was a saltation, a unique jump, from simple life to complex life that the scientists cannot explain. A translation that is not accountable by Darwin's or neo-Darwinian theory.
You're reading too much into this. When Woese and Lane & Martin say, "major change," you inexplicably interpret this as, "major change that can't be explained by any natural processes."
Neither of these papers is suggesting anything like this. In fact, surely you noticed that Woese even referred to these "major changes" as "Darwinian transitions"?
While I agree that these observations are compatible with your views, they are not, in any way indicative of them, and so, don't even remotely serve as support or evidence for them.
If you want to advance an Intelligent Design hypothesis, what you need is evidence that clearly points toward the correctness of your hypothesis, not evidence that just fails to directly contradict it.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 511 by shadow71, posted 01-03-2011 7:13 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 519 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 2:10 PM Blue Jay has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22393
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 516 of 752 (598938)
01-04-2011 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 511 by shadow71
01-03-2011 7:13 PM


shadow71 writes:
Catholic Scientist writes:
From your later posts, its seems like you think that L&M are saying that the prokaryote evolved one time in one single organism. Yeah?
This is the source of your confusion, me thinks.
I belive that is what they are saying. A unique event that happened only once in four billion years.
If you read the post in reply to Dr. Adequate, Carl Woese seems to be saying the same thing.
The specific portion of the Woese paper (Molecular signatures of ribosomal evolution) you're probably thinking of regarding saltation is this one that mentions "major evolutionary saltations:"
Woese et. al. writes:
It would seem to be some distributed universal ancestral state from which the (three) primary organismal lineages materialized via one or a brief series of major evolutionary saltations in which the state of the evolving cellular organization and the accompanying evolutionary dynamic underwent dramatic change.
Those who are disagreeing with you about Woese advocating "major evolutionary saltations" will have to deal with this quote.
--Percy

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 Message 511 by shadow71, posted 01-03-2011 7:13 PM shadow71 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 517 by Blue Jay, posted 01-04-2011 1:46 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 517 of 752 (598964)
01-04-2011 1:46 PM
Reply to: Message 516 by Percy
01-04-2011 10:33 AM


Hi, Percy.
Percy writes:
quote:
It would seem to be some distributed universal ancestral state from which the (three) primary organismal lineages materialized via one or a brief series of major evolutionary saltations in which the state of the evolving cellular organization and the accompanying evolutionary dynamic underwent dramatic change.
Those who are disagreeing with you about Woese advocating "major evolutionary saltations" will have to deal with this quote.
I'm not sure anybody actually disagreed with him about Woese advocating major evolutionary saltations. Maybe I did inadvertently in my last post by being a bit cryptic, but, if so, I assure you that it was unintentional.
I think everybody's comfortable accepting that Woese advocated major evolutionary saltations, and perhaps even accepting that such saltations are factual (I'm good with it, personally). I've seen everybody's arguments so far as going only against the claim that saltations like this don't fit into a neo-Darwinian explanatory model.
Also, the URL in your link has an extra "http" in it.
Edited by Bluejay, : "My" is not actually shorthand for "Maybe."

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 516 by Percy, posted 01-04-2011 10:33 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 518 of 752 (598966)
01-04-2011 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 512 by jar
01-03-2011 7:19 PM


jar writes,
HUH!!!!!
Where is there ANY evidence of ANYTHING planned?
"The origin of the translation system is, arguably, the central and hardest problem in the study of the origin of life, and one of the hardest in all evolutionary biology. The problem has a clear catch-22 aspect: high translation fidelity hardly can be achieved without a complex, highly evolved set of RNAs and proteins but an elaborate protein machinery could not evolve without an accurate translation system.,,
"Here we combine the results of comparative genomics of translation system components, data on interaction of amino acids with their cognate codons and anticodons, and data on catalytic activities of ribozymes to develop conceptual models for the orgin of the translation system and genetic code"
Here is the conclusion:
"The scenarios for the origin of the translation system and the genetic code outlined here are both sketchy and highly speculative. Why, then bother building such conceptual qualitative models at all? The justification for this kind of theorizing can be succinctly put in the short phrase: we have to get from there to here..."
UltraDNS Client Redirection Service
There are just some things science will not be able to solve. The intricate initial cells to what we have today, I accept came from some form of evolution. However I do not see how science can find the beginning of a naturally cause life.
Just as the "Big Bang" angered many scientists, especially those of athestic beliefs, so the translation system cannot be solved w/o a Planned beginning.
Can I prove this no. But one at some point must logically look at all the circumstantial evidence and form an opinion. My opinion and belief is that God created life. How and in what manner I don't know.
As for the "God of the Gaps" argument. I am not saying God fills in the gaps, He created life in some form and the rest is evolving.
Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.
Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 512 by jar, posted 01-03-2011 7:19 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 520 by Taq, posted 01-04-2011 2:11 PM shadow71 has not replied
 Message 522 by jar, posted 01-04-2011 2:16 PM shadow71 has replied

shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 519 of 752 (598967)
01-04-2011 2:10 PM
Reply to: Message 515 by Blue Jay
01-04-2011 10:23 AM


If you want to advance an Intelligent Design hypothesis, what you need is evidence that clearly points toward the correctness of your hypothesis, not evidence that just fails to directly contradict it.
See my post 588 in answer to jar.
I am not advancing an intelligent design hypothesis, I am advancing a God created life hyothesis, that I know I cannot prove. But as Wolf et. al state, we can't prove the orgin of life but we have to get from here to there.
I believe Science & theology can co-exist, but as long as science insists that it will always find all the answers there is a problem.
I am of the opinion that science must say, we may never know the answer to this issue.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 515 by Blue Jay, posted 01-04-2011 10:23 AM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 524 by Blue Jay, posted 01-04-2011 3:37 PM shadow71 has not replied

Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 520 of 752 (598968)
01-04-2011 2:11 PM
Reply to: Message 518 by shadow71
01-04-2011 1:55 PM


There are just some things science will not be able to solve. The intricate initial cells to what we have today, I accept came from some form of evolution. However I do not see how science can find the beginning of a naturally cause life.
Evolution is not meant to answer questions as to the origin of life, only the origin of biodiversity. This would be a problem for Abiogenesis, not Evolution (per the title of the thread).
Furthermore, the answer to the question of how the translation system came about may very well be answered by research into the RNA World hypothesis. Proteins are produced by RNA (ribosomal RNA) from RNA (mRNA) using RNA (tRNA). Therefore, RNA can be both a genetic molecule and an enzyme.
But one at some point must logically look at all the circumstantial evidence and form an opinion. My opinion and belief is that God created life.
So what is the positive evidence that you used to conclude that God made the first life?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 518 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 1:55 PM shadow71 has not replied

shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 521 of 752 (598969)
01-04-2011 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 514 by Dr Adequate
01-04-2011 10:18 AM


In order to commit the God-of-the-Gaps fallacy, it is first necessary to find some gaps. What we have here are transitions that scientists say are explicable by endosymbiosis and HGT respectively. You have quoted them doing so.
I do not argue God of the Gaps. I argue God created it and it is evolving.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 514 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-04-2011 10:18 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 522 of 752 (598972)
01-04-2011 2:16 PM
Reply to: Message 518 by shadow71
01-04-2011 1:55 PM


Nonsense.
Things not yet explained are ... things not yet explained.
Pretending there was some intervention is simply silly until you present the model of exactly how the intervention was done.
Just as the "Big Bang" angered many scientists, especially those of athestic beliefs, so the translation system cannot be solved w/o a Planned beginning.
Yet more utter nonsense. Monseigneur Lematre himself berated the Pope for thinking that it implied anything beyond a natural event.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 518 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 1:55 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 523 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 2:43 PM jar has replied

shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 523 of 752 (598974)
01-04-2011 2:43 PM
Reply to: Message 522 by jar
01-04-2011 2:16 PM


Things not yet explained are ... things not yet explained.
Pretending there was some intervention is simply silly until you present the model of exactly how the intervention was done.
There are some things that do not have natural models.
As Anthony Flew wrote:
"It's time for me to lay my cards on the table, to set out my own views and the reasons that support them. I now beleive that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence. I belive that this universe's intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source.
Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half centrury? The short anwser is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensiions of nature that point go God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature. But it is not science alone that has guided me. I have also been helped by a renewed study of the classical philosophical arguments.
My departure from atheism was not occasioned by any new phenomenon or argument. Over the last two decades, my whole framework of thought has been in a state of migration. This was a consequence of my continuing assessment of the evidence of nature. When I finally came to recognize the existence of a God, it was not a paradigm shift, because my paradigm remains, as Plato in his REPUBLIC scripted his Socrates to insist: 'We must follow the argument wherever it leads"
From "There is a God" by Anthony Flew pp. 88,89.
Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.
Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 522 by jar, posted 01-04-2011 2:16 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 525 by jar, posted 01-04-2011 4:33 PM shadow71 has replied
 Message 526 by Taq, posted 01-04-2011 6:16 PM shadow71 has replied

Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 524 of 752 (598989)
01-04-2011 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 519 by shadow71
01-04-2011 2:10 PM


Hi, Shadow.
shadow71 writes:
I am not advancing an intelligent design hypothesis, I am advancing a God created life hypothesis...
"Intelligent design" is a catch-all phrase for any hypothesis involving direction of life's formation by an intelligent agent: I didn't mean to stigmatize you or shoehorn your opinions into a specific position.
-----
shadow71 writes:
But as Wolf et. al state, we can't prove the orgin of life but we have to get from here to there.
Wolf et al. didn't say that. What they said, in essence, was, "we have a question to answer, and the answer we're proposing here is fraught with problems, but we have to start somewhere."
-----
shadow71 writes:
I believe Science & theology can co-exist, but as long as science insists that it will always find all the answers there is a problem.
Science doesn't insist that it will always find all the answers. Science insists that, of all the methods we have available to us, it is the most likely to find the most accurate answers, and it has the track record to back it up.
-----
shadow71 writes:
I am of the opinion that science must say, we may never know the answer to this issue.
I agree with you. And my experience, after about four years in the scientific community, is that science says this very frequently. The problem is that, when a scientist states a conclusion, he is often taken as meaning, "this is how it is and there is no possibility that I am wrong," when, in reality, we all acknowledge that all of our conclusions are at least somewhat tentative.
-----
shadow71 writes:
But one at some point must logically look at all the circumstantial evidence and form an opinion.
You really don't have to form an opinion. But, if you choose to, the best way to go about it is to not insert new things when you reach the edge of the evidence.
You've gone from, "there's something that seems to be a major problem for current scientific explanations," to "there must be an intelligent overseer who made things this way, who must coincide with the God of my lifetime religion."
In reality, there's not yet any reason to believe that the action of an intelligence is required to explain what is currently without explanation, and there's also not yet any reason to believe that whatever intelligence there might be is the God we were raised to believe in. You didn't take these details from the evidence (not even the circumstantial evidence): you filled them in on your own.
This is a "God of the gaps" argument: you've resorted to a divine explanation, along with a lot of theological "baggage" (please forgive the disparaging term: insult isn't my intention here), simply because science has encountered a knot that it still hasn't been able to untangle.
The best course of action is to simply let it rest at, "we don't know the answer," and not try to force an answer on it.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 519 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 2:10 PM shadow71 has not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 525 of 752 (598998)
01-04-2011 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 523 by shadow71
01-04-2011 2:43 PM


Which, of course, is simply word salad and utterly irrelevant to this issue.
If you wish to present some problem with evolution, doing a copy-n-paste of some philosophic ramblings about an old man's opinions carries no weight.
If you wish to claim that there was some planning or intervention in this specific incident then you need to bring the planner in and sit him on the table to be examined and for him to demonstrate the method used to intervene.
Until then you have nothing of any value or worth related to this topic.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 523 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 2:43 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 531 by shadow71, posted 01-04-2011 7:17 PM jar has replied

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