Any practical use for Universal Common Ancestor?

Spoken like a true atheist!"The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment ... all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event..." - Stephen J. Gould, Nature, Vol.377, 26 10/95, p.682."Thus the fossil record seems to show that most of the major animal groups appeared SIMILTANEOUSLY. In the Cambrian explosion, we find segmented worms, velvet worms, starfish ... molluscs (bivalves, snails, squid and their relatives), sponges,brachiopods and other shelled animals appearing all at once, with their basic organisation, organ systems and sensory mechanisms already operational ... This explosive evolutionary radiation of the Cambrian seems to be unique ... nor was there a similar radiation when animals invaded the land ... the colonisation of the land saw no new ways of making an animal " - S. J. Gould."the Cambrian phylum count was larger, perhaps much larger, than the contemporary count. No new phyla have appeared, and many have gone ... The history of animal life is not a history of gradually increasing differentiation. It is a history of exuberant intial proliferation, followed by much loss" - S. J. Gould"Since the so called Cambrian Explosion ... no new Phyla of animals have entered the fossil record" - S. J. Gould, Lecture at SMU, 10/2/1990Please be advised that an "explosion" of very disparate life-forms appearing "similtaneously" and in "a geological moment" contradicts your evolution model. So the Cambrian explosion doesn't look anything like evolution's single "tree of life" - rather, it looks like an orchard of unrelated trees that sprang up out of nowhere, thereby providing powerful evidence of creation and powerful evidence against evolution.Furthermore, evolution predicts diverstiy followed by disparity, which is the opposite of what the Cambrian explosion reveals, which is dispartiy and diversity appearing simitaneously ... oops! Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. More like 10 million years, actually. Are you qualified to judge how God should create?How do you know that man is the "sole point" of billions of years of creation? Haven't you heard? The creation story in the Bible is not literal - it doesn't need to be, because what happened pre-Adam is irrelevant to salvation.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Okay, I take your point, but if there is more than one common ancestor, how can one say "all life on Earth is connected ... to each other"? Tell that to Berkeley University:"Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene ” or more precisely and technically, allele ” frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species FROM A COMMON ANCESTOR over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life. Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time ... The CENTRAL IDEA of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor" - evolution.berkeley.edu, Understanding Evolution (emphasis mine).The moral of the story is, there is no definitive definition of ToE - it varies from person to person. Translation: "because we THINK life shares common ancestry we THINK we can look back in time and see how it evolved."

You obviously haven't read all my posts. Well, for starters, I accept the same time-frame for life on earth as you do and I accept same fossil record as you do - which shows that life on earth started with relatively simple forms and progressed in functional complexity over vast periods of time until we get to the present age. So I believe the history of life depicts an "evolution" of created life-forms, but it is not an evolution that is explained by a contiguous process of biological evolution. My progressive creation model also explains why all life on earth appears to be genetically related.

It is not correct to say, "The observed facts and principles of biology are the theory of evolution"; rather, it is correct to say, "the theory of evolution is based on the observed facts and principles of biology". On the other hand, when it comes to definitions of ToE, anything goes; so if someone wants to define ToE as simply the mechanisms of evolution, then who am I to judge? Not me. There is no definitive definition of the theory of evolution, so it hard to pick at a moving target So you agree with Berkeley Uni when it says "The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor"?

Please cite a scientific paper or article that specifically describes a practical use for "the theory of evolution".

Exactly. It seems most students of biology have been indoctrinated to believe mendacious nonsense like "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" and "Evolution is the unifying theory of all biology." They seem to think if we don't believe all life on earth evolved from microbes, the science of biology will be rendered useless.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Sure, but the topic originator is confused, he does not understand what the UCA or the ToE is[/qs] Here is my understanding of ToE, as described by Berkeley Universtiy:"Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene ” or more precisely and technically, allele ” frequency in a population from one generation to the next) AND LARGE-SCALE EVOLUTION (the descent of different species from A COMMON ANCESTOR over many generations) ... The CENTRAL IDEA of biological evolution is that ALL LIFE ON EARTH SHARES A COMMON ANCESTOR" - evolution.berkeley.edu, Understanding Evolution (emphasis mine).Which part of it don't I understand? So since you don't recognise any distinction between micro' an macro' evolution, to be logically consistent, neither can you recognise any distinction between ToE and the concept of UCA, becasue UCA is just ToE plus time.

Notice how this article you quoted uses the term "evolutionary theory" and never the term "the theory of evolution". That's because "evolutionary theory" (sometimes referred to as "evolutionary principles" in other articles) in this context is a subset of "the theory of evolution" - ToE includes all the principles of evolution (some of which can be useful) plus the concept of UCA (which is useless), whereas "evolutionary theory/principles" need not include the concept of UCA.Thus, it is easy to find articles or papers that detail practical uses for "evolutionary theory/principles", but as I've already pointed out, articles or papers detailing practical uses for "the theory of evolution" don't exist - ie, the concept of UCA can't b separated from ToE.

The P. ralstoni clade includes another genus? I wouldnt consider a different genus the same "kind" at all.So where does the P. ralstoni clade end? I've got a better idea - science should dump its present terminology and adopt my mine. Here is my latest brilliant idea: The evolution that is practically useful is the stuff that can be directly observed and should be referred to as "empirical evolution", not "microevolution". This will differentiate it from useless theoretical evolution.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

You are confusing my fragile, eggshell mind. Are you saying the principles are part of the theory (in which case they are not the same thing, as the principles are a subset of the theory), or are you saying the principles and the theory are the same thing?If the latter, then you have company: Douglas J. Futuyma says, "The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution." The Wiki article says, "Creationists often claim that THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION lacks any practical applications; however, this claim has been refuted by scientists."Okay. Thanks for that. I can no longer say articles that detail practical uses for ToE can't be found.But on the other hand, this bloke would seem to disagee: "evolutionism would appear as a theory without value, is confirmed also pragmatically ... none of the progress in biology depends even slightly on a theory" - Louis Bouroune (Professor of Biology, University of Strasbourg), Determinism and Finality, 1957, p.79.So no wonder scientists can't agree on a definitive definition of the theory of evolution - it seems they can't even agree on what a theory is. I know - I've understood the basics of ToE since it was taught to me when I was thirteen Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

In that case, Berkeley has decided that their sound bite should present the concept of UCA as the "CENTRAL IDEA OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION".This is very different to your approach - you don't include UCA in your definition at all. Interesting.None of these definitions make any difference to me or to biological science; I just find it a bit odd that a definitive definitiion for ToE doesn't exist and that opinions vary so much.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Progressive creation or PC (which is not the same as theistic evolution, btw) actually has a lot in common with Darwinian evolution:
- PC accepts that the history of life on earth is one of profound changes that could be loosely described as evolution.
- it accepts the same sequence of organisms found in the fossil record as Darwinism does
- it accepts that life on earth could be billions of years old.
- PC also accepts that evolution at the species level ("empirical evolution") can be explained by natural processes (ToE).But here is where PC departs from Darwinism - it doesn't accept that ToE (or any form of science, for that matter) can explain the history of life on earth.Whales may well have descended from some kind of rodent, for example, but the large morphological changes involved were not the result of natural processes, but of divine creation.The genetic similarities evident across all organisms can be explained thusly: The Bible says God made all creatures from "the earth" - ie, inanimate matter. After the first organisms (bacteria) were made, their DNA (inanimate matter) was used to create the next creatures in the "evolutionary" sequence (above the level of species, that is) ... and so on, all the way down the line until the present age. Thus, all organisms are genetically related.There are slightly different versions of progressive creation, but this is mine. Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Except that is not my claim. Read the OP. Sorry, I somehow missed those bits. My fragile, eggshell mind does have its limitations. But please be aware that my IQ has been evaluated at 11 (ie, a double figure, which is not too shabby).Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

I find the theory of creation useful in explaining the data I see in the geological record, but that means exactly nothing to edge. Not just to Dredge ... it means exactly nothing to applied science as well. Someone might find the theory of alien experiments on various organisms useful in explaining the data they see in the geological record, but that means exactly nothing to nearly everyone. What am I denying? I've forgotten.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

No, that's an anachronism. Don't you remember explaining to me that a definiton of a theory is a merely a simple and concise outline of a theory that doesn't include all the details of the theory?