Increases in Genetic Information

Such as the theory of evolution, for example? Oh, you had me going for a minute there--I thought you were talking about the theory of evolution. Evolution is a theory that has been studied for over 150 years by people from all over the world and in multiple fields of science, including some such as genetics that didn't exist 150 years ago. It is now considered one of the most solidly established scientific theories we have. It doesn't fit your comment at all! I agree with this entirely; the problem is that it does not apply to the science that we see practiced today but rather to various fringe studies and most particularly to creationists and other religious apologists. They fit your definition of a problem, while mainstream science does not. That is exactly wrong; the more obscure the scientific study the less likely it is for common sense to provide accurate answers. And those obscure scientific studies are almost always conducted by experts with decades of training and research, and who know more about their particular fields than anyone else. Yet, we still see amateurs untrained in those fields, and often untrained in any science, telling them they are wrong. That strikes me as rather silly, and I'm sure you'll agree.

Hi, Jbozz.Welcome to EvC!You bring back memories of when I first started posting on EvC from the PCs at the information commons in the Harold B. Lee library, during my breaks between classes. It was my last semester at BYU, and I was still stressing out about whether or not it was okay for a Mormon to accept evolution. I don't know: can they? To your knowledge, has this ever been subjected to any scientific study at all? In your first 9 posts here at EvC, you've made a big deal about how you won't accept scientific conclusions that aren't verified by multiple, independent research studies. Yet, you didn't even make it through those 9 posts without violating those standards yourself.I submit that the actual criterion you're using to determine the validity of ideas is the degree to which they conform to your pre-existing beliefs. Reproductive isolation between humans and apes works well for your beliefs, so you accept it without looking for scientific verification; but, macroevolution doesn't square with your pre-existing beliefs, so you demand all kinds of scientific rigor there.Maybe I've misjudged you (in which case, I'm terribly sorry), but that's the impression you've given me so far. That's one definition of "species." It isn't perfect. But, it doesn't need to be: classification is really just for our convenience as researchers. There are enough differences between lions and tigers to justify a cataloging system that distinguishes them.If you would be more comfortable thinking of them as subspecies, then go ahead and do so. It wouldn't really change anything, would it? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to confirm that two populations CANNOT interbreed? Think your way through the studies you would conduct to determine that they CANNOT physically or genetically interbreed with each other.Would you put them together in a cage and wait to see if they would mate?
What if their mating seasons don't align? They wouldn't be ready to mate at the same time, so, even if there are no genetic barriers to interbreeding, they wouldn't interbreed.
So, what then? I guess you'd have to collect some sperm and use artificial insemination.
Sometimes, female animals don't take to artificial insemination unless they actually copulate with a male. So, you need a sterile male of her own species to mate with her.
But, you have to check and make sure your sterile male is actually just shooting blanks, so you know that he isn't actually getting her pregnant.
Then, you get to see if any eggs are laid or babies are birthed. And, then, you get to monitor the offspring for any major health problems or infertility issues.
Or, you could develop a "paternity test" to determine that the offspring is, indeed, a hybrid.Good data is hard to come by, and scientific rigor exhausts lots of resources and takes lots of time. In the meantime, science exists precisely so we don't have to wait until we know everything before we can start reasoning, learning and using our data. It's only logical to base our worldview on the little, imperfect evidence that we have.

So what you are saying is that we are approximately 50% more complicated than an amoeba? What does that say about the water flea Daphnia pulex which has 31,000 genes?

Since no one has cited any obscure scientific studies that stand completely alone with no correspondence to the rest of science, and since it's very likely that no one intends to or would even see any reason to, I'm sure your intention to ignore such studies is just fine with everyone and will have no impact on this discussion. Actually, the truth is that there is bias everywhere, which is why science demands evidence, replication and consensus, as opposed to the many religious faiths which see little problem in such a huge panoply since they just declare all faiths but their own wrong because the other's tenets do not align with their own. The above is your response to Dr Adequate's complaints about your approach in the Can the standard "Young Earth Creationist" model be falsified by genetics alone? thread. After reading your four posts in that thread I can see that his complaints were pretty much right on the money. You know what you believe, which has no science behind it at all, and you're not willing to invest the time and effort to understand the research behind what science believes. Even worse, you're apparently willing to level unsubstantiated accusations against the research, calling it obscure and unreplicated. We *do* have the entire human genome, you know. It's not like analyses of the Y-chromosome can be flights of fancy without it being transparently obvious. Well, that's quite complicated. Someone who can't even muster the effort to wade through a couple technical papers would likely be unable to ever master such a thing. Whatever you do, be sure to avoid the "help" link about dBCodes that appears to the left of message box where you enter your message. If you think those technical papers were over your head, well, I just shudder to think...--Percy

Then the potato appears to be more complex than humans. There are about 40,000 genes in the tuber genome:"Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the world’s most important non-grain food crop and is central to global food security. It is clonally propagated, highly heterozygous, autotetraploid, and suffers acute inbreeding depression. Here we use a homozygous doubled-monoploid potato clone to sequence and assemble 86% of the 844-megabase genome. We predict 39,031 protein-coding genes and present evidence for at least two genome duplication events indicative of a palaeopolyploid origin."
Genome sequence and analysis of the tuber crop potato | Nature

You have the cart in front of the horse.Life can evolve from common ancestors even if there is limited genetic flow between lineages. That's the point being made. You are requiring evolution to do something it doesn't need to do. The real question is do they have children? The answer is no. There is no genetic flow between the two populations which allows for different mutations to accumulate in each population which, over time, results in divergence (i.e. macroevolution).Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Hi Jbozz, good question. Be cautious. They will try and trip you up by claiming "macro" evolution can occur also by deletions, repeated copy etc... But your right, and none of their examples explain how we go from primitive organisms to the complex ones we see today. Somewhere along the evolutionary path their had to be a whole lot of added new never before existed information to the chromosomal DNA of all multi-celled organisms. The only evidence in biology that can demonstrate this has possibly happened would be at least one observation of the above occuring. To my knowledge to date no such observation has ever been made.Also, watch out for the "bacteria" trap. They will try and slip examples of observed new information in bacteria. Failing to realize that bacteria are almost completely different from all other forms of life. Most of the changes they observe occur in the plasmids, something most multi-celled organisms don't have. Plus there is good reason to suggest that they were "designed" to cope with a variet of extreme situations where normal food supplies become scarce. This is why only examples of multi-celled organisms will really sufficiently aid us here.

I've always wondered why you guys don't show more solidarity. I gave your message a cheer just because I applaud the idea of creationists backing each other up.Now that you've given jbozz21 your moral support, how about giving him some real support by rescuing his argument from the manure pile?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I didn't notice that it had. Care to point out where? :0)

Why would that be the only evidence? On another thread, you argue that you can infer the intelligent design of a creator god by indirect evidence, rather than by directly observing him creating, for example, complex multicellular eukaryotes. So, why would it be necessary to directly observe demonstrably real processes like mutation, selection and drift adding "new never before existed information", as you put it, to the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes? Surely we can indirectly observe the results of established processes if, according to you, we can indirectly observe the results of an unestablished process, like a god creating something. What would "new never before existing information" arriving in a multicellular organism look like? Are you suggesting that bacteria are designed to accumulate new information, and multicellular eukaryotes aren't? What about single celled eukaryotes? Have you observed a god designing bacteria? If not, why is there "good reason" to think that they were so designed? Indirect evidence? Can we look at the genomes of multicellular organisms in the present and find evidence of past events on them? If not, why not? Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

Easily answered.Real biology is secular and has no Genesis support. Accordingly it is subject to a much higher standard of review than is the Torah. ID on the other hand is a not so subtle mix of the Bible and 'reasoning'. ID is true, inerrantly, so even circular arguments are legitimate.

Taq, are you trying to tell me that all life on earth evolved from a potatoe? Last time I checked the current Threory is that all life on earth evolved from a single micro-organism.

And if you LOOK, you will note that I am only asking for indirect evidence for evolution. I am not asking that we observe one major kind evolve into another. I am only asking for an observation of an important part of the process ie a reason to believe universal common decent is possible. Here’s the basic facts that we know, life exists and it does so by use of high amounts of incredibly specified information. More specified than our most advanced computer programs. The question then is, where did the code found in DNA come from? Did it form naturally over time as evolutionists claim, or is it the product of a supreme designer as the IDists claim? Well since we have observed the process of specified information forming from intelligence, in all other areas, then the scale of logic swings hard towards the ID theory. In order for it to swing back in favor of evolution we need to observe at least one process in which specified information forms by purely natural unguided processes. This is why we would need at least one case in which new never before existed information was observed being added to the chromosomal DNA of a multi-celled organism via random mutation, which gave that organism a selective advantage over its relatives.Then you might ask, well why can’t we just logically conclude this happened because we observe a close similarity of the code between two different species? The reason we cannot just make that assumption is because IDists predict that many similarities would exist between many of the kinds, because they all have a common designer. Sort of like if you asked one engineer to design 1,000 completely different forms of transportation. You would find that many of them possessed similar features simply because the designer found that those features worked best in solving similar problems that each form of transport would encounter. Therefore to be certain DNA code formed by evolutionary processes rather than a designer, we have to observe at least one case of the process at work.

No, the question is can they...This is the second definition from Species Definition and Examples - Biology Online Dictionary Can they have fertile offspring? For example Mules and Horses cannot have fertile offspring. They are different species.If they can have fertile offspring then there is always chance that their populations can recombine and become one single population again thus immobilizing divergent evolution.I understand now why it is so difficult to actually resolve this whole evolution/creationism debate. No one will even agree on a simple definition. I feel like you people are just beating around the bush to avoid the real point, that there is no evidence to support the idea of macro-evolution. So you have to change the definitions to suite your theory.

And we went from Australopithecus to modern humans, how?Sounds like macro-evolution to me.