An experiment started twenty years ago on E. Coli bacteria reveals proof of evolution. A single strain of E. Coli was divided into twelve separate containers, never again to be mixed. Each day for twenty years each strain was supplied with a limited quantity of glucose for sustenance. The population would quickly expand, metabolizing all the available glucose, then begin to starve to death. Before all starved to death, a small sample of the survivors was taken out each day and placed in a new container with the same limited supply of glucose. After twenty years of this all twelve strains became more highly adapted to efficiently metabolizing glucose in such a way as to survive longer and longer on the same limited supply as compared to the starting strain, and each strain but two adapted in completely different ways. Two strains, by chance, adapted in exactly the same way via the exact same mutation.

But here's the important part: One strain became super adapted, far surpassing the other eleven, not only by doing as the others did, but by discovering a way (also via mutation) not only to more efficiently metabolize the limited supply of glucose, but by also discovering a way (also via mutation) to metabolize citrate as well, an incidental component of the glucose feed fed to all twelve colonies from the beginning, but which E. Coli can ordinary not make use of as food. This one colony became super adapted to the conditions of the experiment via mutation by "figuring out" (in the evolutionary sense), after twenty years (about 30,000 generations, or the equivalent of one million years for humans), how to metabolize citrate.

This strain reproduced each successive day to enormous numbers, and their population growth continued far beyond the point all the glucose was gone, and other colonies had died out from starvation, due to this one adaptation.

Furthermore - and here comes the real pay off - it was not a mere single mutation which permitted it to metabolize citrate for energy, but TWO independent mutations which had to exist simultaneously for E. Coli to metabolize citrate.

Observing evolution is no big thing. Been done many a time.

There is nothing natural about that experiment.

The unique part of this one is contained in the last sentence.

Been watching devolution for years.

I remember after a failed rendezvous with a supply truck I evolved into being able to survive on a limited supply of remaining rations, augmented with reptiles, rodents, and plants. After three days, I'm guessing I was able to metabolize better, as that's when the runs stopped.

Candyazz bacteria take 20 years.

Or

"Nothing to see here! Keep Moving On Folks"

Maybe if the food supply diminishes, we can all mutate to eating liberals.

Yep, just like in nature.

Your Christian Creationist brothers are doing a Goggle Fu as we speak. They should be along shortly to blast you out of the water.

Get the pop corn folks.

Not evolution at all..Mearly, as was stated many times in the article, mutations. At the end of the experiment they were left with what they started with,,,,, e.coli.

Nature does isolate stuff, often very effectively..One only has to look at the wild life on the various remote islands to see examples. This is why scientists have studied such places as the Galapagos islands...

Ever hear of the Galapagos Islands?

It seems at least two of us have!

I put a rat in a cage with a rattlesnake. The rat changed forms, does that count.

It seems some here are more frightened of Evolution than they are of Obama!

Yes, it seems you beat me by fourteen seconds.

I'll be around to see one of those changes

Couldn't they do that themself?

This is not a "how life got started" thread.

But I thought you guys always said that all mutations are bad, and therefore that mutations could not be the mechanism by which evolution occurs.

Sounds like fewer organisms had the same amount of food as the larger colony. So is evolution the cause of expanding waistlines in better fed countries?

Just too much junk food.

PS To do an equivalent experiment with human beings would take about a million years. There were 30,000 generations of E. Coli in the experiment discussed in the starting post. The mechanism by which the one colony adapted to metabolizing citrate for survival was that two mutations occurred, both of which were required to exist simultaneously for E. Coli bacteria to metabolize citrate for energy. If only one or the other mutation had occurred, they'd have been no better adapted for survival than the other eleven colonies.

Bingo. Most people pushing the concept of evolution do not even know what it is.

The interesting part of this experiment was missed... What happened to the control sample which wasn't exposed to the extreme conditions? Did it mutate at all?? and when the mutated strains were mixed with the control strains under normal conditions, did they survive?

Two mutations under constant, extreme conditions over 20 years and how many generations?? That's pretty weak. If it mutated into something that could crawl out of the petri dish go to the fridge and make a sandwich when it was hungry, I would be impressed.

I don't suppose that they considered that the genes possibly were already there and their experiments killed off the dominant ones. It's called selective breeding.

Micro-evolution is undeniable. Macro-evolution is the theory yet to be proven.

Two very different animals.

dang i'm a slow typer... you guys beat me to it.

No one ever denied the definition of "evolution" as changes over time in populations. You still have E. Coli in the dish not fish or monkeys. Was the �mutation� available in the DNA prior to the test, probably? It is a stretch, and a slippery slope, to say because a population changes over time that must mean things can evolve into other/higher beings. This is bait and switch science.

Interesting!

E. Coli bacteria makes E. Coli bacteria!

Just as planned!

Gen 1
Bible in Basic English
:25 And God made the beast of the earth after its sort, and the cattle after their sort, and everything moving on the face of the earth after its sort: and God saw that it was good.

The only way to build a strawman argument against Creationism is to establish Evolutionism as something completely different. Evolution science dose not ever get close to the beginning on life,math proves is random improbability, and the requirement of faith to believe in it makes it another religion.

Antlers to me show how 'sorts evolved' from the creation of it's sort.

Quite an interesting experiment and obviously a difficult one to swallow for people who fear science and think that there is antinomy between evolution and God.

How can people not see that if the God they believe in exists, then evolution can be a part of His master plan???

What strange form of intellectual blindness!...

The_Real_Hawkeye, do you have references about this experiment ?

[quote=deersmellerHow can people not see that if the God they believe in exists, then evolution can be a part of His master plan???

What strange form of intellectual blindness!...

[/quote]

Could be but evolution is not part of his plan or He would have told us so in His book. He said He created everything and you can't pick and choose which parts you believe.

you think they would have believed jet aircraft or space travel had it been put in the book.....how would you have explained it to someone with no concept of a steam engine let alone jet propulsion?

lots of stuff not in the book that is true.....cant see how evolution cant fall under the heading "he created all" cause i would think you believe god is capable of isolating animal populations as in the Galapagos and send them down a different path....

"Two mutations under constant, extreme conditions over 20 years and how many generations?? That's pretty weak. If it mutated into something that could crawl out of the petri dish go to the fridge and make a sandwich when it was hungry, I would be impressed."

The principle of DNA based evolution also accounts for slow, perhaps unimpressive, change. I have not read the publication but it is a absolute certainty that many more mutations occurred in the 20 years of the experiment. The two independent and concurrent mutations that conferred to one culture of E.coli the ability to metabolize citrate are just the two mutations that were most successful under the conditions of the experiment.

The criticism the there was nothing 'natural' about how the experiment was designed and carried out is somewhat shallow and more importantly, irrelevant. The goal of the experiment was to demonstrate proof of principle. Replicating Nature in all its nuances and complications in the test tube is not required nor even wanted. Allowing too many variables would make the data uninterpretable.

What occurred was that one culture of E.coli acquired two random mutations that modified a pre-existing metabolic pathway in the progeny bacteria and conferred to them the ability to live on a nutrient that the original culture could not. Exactly what the evolutionary process is proposed to do.

Designing a selection procedure for a frig raiding, sandwich making bacteria is just plain scary.

irreverent? More like irrelevant. And I doubt seriously that the issue was to prove proof of evolution via mutation and selection. That is so old hat as to be not worth the time. More likely the study was to look at HOW evolution was happening. That some strains got to the same place by the same mutations is pretty interesting to me. And I would guess guess that these lines were started from a plated culture such that all strains would date back to a single cell at the start of the experiment. So, no, the mutations did not pre-exist in the strains.

Bacteria raid my fridge all the time.

Brent

"Bacteria raid my fridge all the time."

I like it!!!!!!!!!!

Yep. Irrelevant. Thanks for the correction.

Yeah....but do they make BLTs and eat them?

"That some strains got to the same place by the same mutations is pretty interesting to me."
---------

Me too. That's awesome. 20 samples isn't very many, for two to experiment in the same direction, each taking 2 seperate steps in that direction and ending up in the same place is really an astonishing thing to me. I'd have never expected that in billions of years and by then I'd be some other species that wouldn't care anyway

I'm no evulophobe (is that a word?) Well, I don't think I am anyway, at least my penis didn't enlarge in circumference while reading. lol.

If nothing else this experiment proves that life will always find a way to survive. It says God IS life. So it makes perfect sense to me. Go ahead, try to kill Him off The individual or isolated colony may not survive and adapt to new surroundings but odds are pretty good the species will survive, and thrive. If evolution of species is truth it's nothing more than long term adaptation seeing to it that the strong survive. (Also brings to mind, liberals are doomed. That's inevitable) If adaptations in particular species are given enough time, who knows what could happen? Wait, I don't have to ask that... I know who knows....

It has been hypothesized that most important adaptations/speciesizations were two or more mutations occuring in the same individual, and that the two or more mutations were all beneficial--even one beneficial mutation is rare to begin with.

But heck, some strains of bacteria can mutate in 20 minutes.......at least in the lab they can.....


Casey

TRH, is it that you are bored or perhaps, -- troubled?

+1

I read the account in The Greatest Show On Earth, by Richard Dawkins (his most recent book), but here's one place on the Internet where you can read about the experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

Actually, God said that he commanded the earth and waters to bring fourth all living things. Didn't say how long it took for the earth and the waters to fully accomplish this.

For the putative creator of infinity, 4.54 billion years would have zero meaning.

Exactly.

Sorry, but you are wrong on several points :

- "Evolution not part of his plan"??? How can you possibly affirm this? Because it is not said explicitly in the Bible? Obviously God did not say everything about His creations : Genesis would have taken millions of pages filled with words without any meaning for the early readers and those to follow.

For example it says "First God made heaven & earth. ... And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light." that is pretty brief and does not contain any information about the structure of matter, nor about the structure of light.

Does that make you refute the scientific discoveries about the structure of matter (molecules, atoms, neutrons, protons, electrons, ...) and the physics of light (waves and photons)???

- The Bible also says "And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth". Nevertheless nothing is said about the structure of stars and the thermonuclear reactions that allow them to shine for billions of years.

Does that mean that you refute the discoveries of astronomy and thermonuclear science???

- The Bible also says : "And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind." However, the Bible does not say how He went about it and whether the creation of all animals was instantaneous or whether it would be an ongoing process, nor what this process would be.

Does that lead you to refute everything that is not stipulated in details in the Bible???

- You say I cannot "can't pick and choose which parts you believe." I do not "pick and chose" and I do not have to, because I believe in everything the Bible says. However believing does not mean having blinkers and the narrowest of visions.

Because God is so much bigger than we are, how can one possibly want to reduce Him and His works to what you can literally read in the Bible???

I do not intend to give you lessons and I am not really concerned about what you believe or not, but I suggest you read the Bible with a greater trust in God's creativity and imagination. Any other intellectual attitude is an insult to His greatness and to the brains and intelligence he created and gave us.

I'm biting my tongue but I have my post for this saved in My Documents just in case I wake up tomorrow wanting to eat nails.

In a hundred years - when we discover 20 more fossils that lie in between homo habilis and homo sapiens - the history deniers will still be asking "But can you show me one INTERMEDIATE fossil!"

And on the seventh day - because he had a sense of humour - God scattered fossils all over the world!

I might add - he put all of them into rocks that are the appropriate age too...

It would only take ONE - out of the MILLIONS of fossils found - in the wrong age of rock - to disprove evolution.

ONE!

One mammal in Pre-Cambrian or Cambrian rock - would throw evolution the way of the Dodo.

But - that ONE fossil will never be found...

The reason why is obvious.

How do you know in 100,000 years, your skull won't be found, and identified as the "missing link"?

I see you're currently reading the same book I am.

Deersmeller, very well put. I've thought along those lines for years, but never found a way to say it all so well.

Wake me up when a monkey leaps out of the dish.

20 years is nothing; and one colony of bacteria is nothing. Imagine all the E. Coli out there, adapting for xxxxxxx's of years! The mind boggles.

Just making conversation here; I know not much about genetics. But... Those calling for the E. Coli to have mutated into something else are missing the point of an evolutionary niche... E. Coli is a "highest and best" use of that niche... Right?

I have no problem with the idea of a Creator (Johnny Lifeseed) or even a Steerer (something that nudged life here into a new direction at crucial times). However, I see both more as aliens than gods, though.

I think there was also a case studied in England where butterflies had been observed to evolve over a fairly short period of time. Seems at the start of the Industrial Revolution one factory put out quite a bit of soot from its coal fired boilers, which collected on nearby trees. The native butterflies were mostly white, and they stood out sharply. Over time, more and more of the butterflies were observed to have darker colors. The speculation was, the white flutterbys were easier for predators to see and catch, and contributed less and less to the gene pool. The darker ones had an advantage, and passed it on to their offspring.

Secondly, look at any whale skeleton, and it will still have vestiges of hind limbs. It's pretty clear they either once had them, or are growing them. My money is on "had".

And the manatee has elephant style toe nails on its flippers, and has exactly zero use for them. They are vestiges of when it was a land mammal. Another one is the python that has a pelvis bone. Pelvis bones are for supporting hind legs. Most snakes have no trace of a pelvis bone, indicating that they transitioned into snakes much longer ago.

One of the many and infallible arguments against Darwinism is the reality of Entropy in our solar system versus the mega-time voodoo that entropy-reversalist-darwinists have to hide behind.

"mega-time voodoo that entropy-reversalist-darwinists have to hide behind."

Please elaborate this point.

A few points here :

- contrary to what you say, entropy applies throughout the universe and not just to the solar system

- you can't employ the concept of entropy to life in the way you apply it to matter

Deersmeller, actually, you can. Dan Brooks and Ed Wiley did just that in a book, "Evolution As Entropy," published in 1988 of the 1980s. But contrary to Dix, they argued, quite reasonably, that entropy leads to greater diversification via evolution.

If you understand genetics and if you realize that there is genetic variation out there, the question is not, does evolution happen? But rather, how can it possibly NOT happen. As soon as you understand the first thing about genetic variation, then you really cannot rationally deny evolution happens. Irrationally, you can do anything. But that's old news around here.

Note that both the light and dark moths existed BEFORE the soot existed. Nothing changed except the percentage of light and dark. There was NO evolution, NO change at all.

My perspective is that I grew up into manhood in a Navy engine-room 600 pound steam plant as an electrician. The boiler depends on the fuel feed pump and condensate return pump. These pumps require electricity. The generators prime mover is a steam turbine that depends on the boiler. The boiler depends on the generator but the generator depends on the boiler. Interdependent complex machines are tuned together to create a functioning complex system. Behe.

How did that happen in nature to bring about one living cell, twenty thousand times more complex than a steam plant? Accident. How could that be??? Time! LOTS of time!

How much time??

Billions of years.

Awwwww horseshit.

The earths window of opportunity to have conditions conducive to life is limited as its orbit around the sun decays, (entropy in our specific solar system)

You only have these billions and billions of years in a fantasy world, not the real world of entropy.

I understood the quoted statement to claim that Darwin's theory of Natural Selection denies entropy for which elaboration was requested.

It is not obvious to me that the requested task has been accomplished by a description of the complexities of a steam plant.

The Paletine Uvula convinces me of intelligent design. It is a dangerous mutation that increases the risk to the organizm, yet is absolutely necessary for the evolution of speech. It can be argued many times over that everything in nature is absolutely accidental; that we have arrived at where we are today through mere chance. If this gives comfort to some, I say, enjoy your belief system. We will all have an opportunity to, at some as of yet undetermined moment to know the truth.

For me, it came to me one day while I was hunting, that I was part of a plan. In my small way, a designer had anticipated everything. The rest is just a board game.

Dan

Exactly righ RockChuck. With the moths it was just natural selection. Whatever mutation caused some white and some black had occured long before. The white ones were less likely to survive and reproduce in that particular environment so the black ones quickly became more common. Just natural selection helping the species adapt to changing environment. No big deal. Makes perfect sense.

This article is talking about mutation. Two of them in fact. The E Coli adapted to a reduced food supply by mutations that allowed for additional food stuffs to be consumed. New food stuffs that were before unusable. At the same time it retained the ability to continue obtaining sustenence as it always had. It's absolutely fascinating. And even moreso that the same 2 mutations occured in 2 seperate colonies.

The ability of a species to adapt and survive, up to and including mutation at the genetic level, does not suggest chaos and chance, it suggests design. Design infinitely deeper and more complex than we're able to comprehend, at this particular moment. Nature (physical life) is always trying out new combinations. Always testing to see what works best in the surrounding environment. What worked best sometime in the past is not discarded as new developments and resulting changes are made. Recesive genes are still in there, in case they're needed again in the future. Even the ones that failed in the past are there to pop up again if needed. Always seeking new solutions for survival and always retaining old attempts that failed. Just in case. Without these abilities I believe species would be going extinct at a much faster pace than what we see and have seen.

A surprising percentage of the DNA of all species is virul. Viruses do one thing, mutate. Their goal is survival of the species. They don't care which way they have to go to keep with that goal, they jsut go, test driving new appearances, new behaviors, new anytihng and everything. With the very building blocks the species is made up of able to mutate and cause changes in the species, over long term or very rapidly if needs be, it's always a surprise to me people are willing to throw out the theory of evolution as bunk. Seems to me that is keeping God in a box. A very small one at that. A box that is limited by our understanding and completely ignores that His understanding just might happen to be a little fuller and deeper than ours. Limit God to human understanding and He laughs at you. And cries for you... because you limit your own gain in the area of understanding.

The only part of the theory of evolution commonly promoted by secular science worth discarding is the part that leaves out God. You don't have to be an athiest to keep an eye on, and an open mind towards, the possibility that more than a theory exists. Obviously creation occured, it's all around us and cannot be denied. How it occured and the timeframe in which it occured may take a few weeks or a few years to fully understand... That it was set in motion by somebody bigger than us and more smarter than us is obvious to only some of us. I have no problem with that.

What evidence do they have that this is a mutation at all and not just an expression of a rare recessive trait that multiplied when the food supply was reduced? I'm guessing that they didn't test the entire population for the gene in question. Just because they haven't seen it before doesn't mean it wasn't there. It would be impossible to recognize until the dominant ones were removed.

Very true, RockChuck.

With God all things are possible.

We'll probably never know.

Rockchuck,
Do you deny that mutations happen? That would be a ridiculous stance in the extreme, but it appears to be what you are saying.

Mapping DNA is pretty common nowadays, it should be fairly easy to tell if this was genetic "mutation" or "recessive gene" that was already present before the experiment started.

Of course mutations happen, but if you call it one, prove it.

How do you map the DNA of the individuals in a population of billions to try to locate a handful with a recessive trait?

I'm not saying this isn't a mutation. I'm saying that they're saying more than they know.

For the original experiment to proceed without the possibility that RC raised, the initial population must have been from a single bacterium whose genome had been sequenced. Experiment would have been much harder, unnecessary and probably impossible with a random starting population. The mutations were documented by comparing the sequence of the DNA of the progenitor and progeny. Mismatches between the two sequences could only arise from mutations.

No, Carbon, the genome of that single organism did not have to be sequenced. You just need to start from one bacterium. Not a difficult task at all.

But I wholly agree with this statement, yet also accept the obvious fact of evolution as completely noncontradictory. God can easily manifest his will out of what we term randomness.

Agreed. Not difficult at all when starting with a clonal population. But DNA sequences of both progenitor and progeny had to be obtained for the comparison.

If the trait is recessive, which is highly likely, you'd have to verify that the single bacterium didn't carry it. Since reproduction is asexual, it could take many generations before gene transfer put 2 of the recessive genes in the same organism.

A quick google search leads me to believe that the DNA of all twelve strains of E. Coli have sequenced for quite a while now.

Bacteria do not have duplicate sets of chromosomes. They are not diploid.

BTW, evolution certainly includes changes in frequencies of existing alleles. Any biologist or educated person should realize that. Mutations are only required to create variation for selection to act upon. Which happened in this case. But change in gene (allele) frequencies is the definition of evolution.

Great post. Well said.

"It is a dangerous mutation that increases the risk to the organizm...."

Evolution is not really about the danger to individual organisms. That is to say, there are no dangerous mutations. Nonviable perhaps, but not dangerous. Evolution is more about survival of the population. The more diverse a population, the less risk of being totally wiped out due to selective environmental conditions. What would be dangerous is to have no mutations. Some would argue that allowances for mutations to occur in biological systems is pretty clever.

Carbon, I am afraid that is, in most circumstances, in correct. Evolution is all about the organism, not the population (with very specific exceptions).

Natural selection is a process that optimizes among tradeoffs. Almost any adaptation that has a benefit can also have a cost associated with it. Being bright red as a male cardinal may attract more opportunities with the ladies, leading to more offspring, but it may also attract more sharpshinned hawks leading to less offspring. For the trait, redness, to be adaptive, the NET effect needs to be positive. So a little increase in risk of being killed by predators can be outweighed by the advantage with the girls. But it is all about the individual, not the population.

They tested for this. They discovered that only specimens (from the line that produced citrate metabolizing E. Coli) existing after a certain generation (I think it was like generation 20,000) contained the necessary mutations, and were only put together in such a way as to allow for citrate metabolism about at generation 32,000. They saved "fossils" of generations from the beginning (at regular intervals) by freezing for later examination and comparison. These frozen "fossils" could also be fully resuscitated by thawing.

"to be adaptive, the NET effect needs to be positive"

Would not the definition of "NET effect" include summation of more than one event or one red hued Cardinal evading being lunch long enough to dance with the ladies?

I must be missing your point.

The net effect has to be measured at the level of the individual. Not the population. So, suppose that being red had a net BAD effect for the individual, but somehow a good effect for the population. After a few generations what red genes would be left to carry on this trait that has served the population so well? The nonred genes would have completely replaced the red genes. Evolution for the good of the population while to the detriment of the individual is called "group selection" which cannot work except in very limited circumstances (typically where individuals in a population are very closely related, such as honeybees, we call this "kin selection" in contrast to individual selection).

The point is that a given trait or mutation can have many effects, not just one. And it is the net effect of that trait that matters.

Although recessive genes do not formally exist in single genome bacteria, there are plenty of genes in bacteria that are not always expressed. It would be extremely wasteful for a bacterium to be making all the enzymes of all the metabolic pathways that it is capable of when they are not needed. So it does not. There are biological switches that turn metabolic pathways on and off depending on environmental cues.

However, a quiescent pre-existing gene was not responsible for the acquired citrate metabolism in this experiment.

Ahhhhh....I think I get your point. You are talking about individual net effects. Being mucho attractive to the hot-to-go ladies because of a red plumage did the potential progeny no good because being red got you eaten before you could make any.


Would not the red plumage trait have a different individual net effects in a different locale. For example, the brothers of the first red Cardinal fly to farms in the next county (could happen) where the chicken farmers indiscriminately killed all the sharp shin hawks on sight. Now the red trait was good for the individual and it was good for the population for all the reason previously mentioned.

Would not the resulting total population (frequency of red plumage genes) of red male Cardinals be more accurately explained by the summation of the net effects (plural)of all the red male Cardinals in the example?

Evolution works in many ways, not just natural selection. Evolution is simply a change in the gene frequency in a population over time. It can be small changes or big changes. A new species does not have to arise for evolution to have occurred. ( The concept of species is an artificial human concept that has very little basis in reality if you look at it very closely. The only really accurate definition of species is that it is whatever an eminent taxonomist says it is.) It can occur quickly or it can occur slowly. It can be caused by new mutations, natural selection, genetic drift, immigration, emigration, and a few other factors. It does not always lead to better adaptation to the environment but usually does. It can be quite random (genetic drift) or quite nonrandom (natural selection). Natural selection acts on the individual but the effects are realized in the population. Individuals do not evolve, populations do. An individual cannot evolve into something else. The term fitness is greatly misused and misunderstood. Animal A is more fit than animal B if animal A has more reproductively successful offspring than does animal B. That does not mean more children, but rather more children who also have children. Natural selection does not choose the best possible solution to a problem but rather the best available solution. It is a passive process that can not actively design a new gizmo but rather must try to maximize fitness with the gizmos that are already available or that are made available by new mutations or immigration. There are several assumptions Darwin used to explain his concept of natural selection.

1. Organisms produce more offspring than survive to reproduce.

2. Which individuals survive to reproduce depends somewhat on genetically based traits possessed by the individuals.

3. Those that do survive to reproduce will pass on some of those genetically based traits to their offspring.

4. Over time the population will retain more of the successful traits than of the unsuccessful traits.

There will be, therefore, a change in the genetic makeup of a population. That is what evolution is.

Genetic drift, unlike natural selection, can be quite random. A portion of the population may be eliminated by some factor that has nothing to do with the genetic makeup of individuals in the population or the population can get so small (population bottleneck) that only a small amount of the genetic variation of the population remains. (Just think what the human population of the future would be like if a bomb wiped out everybody except the seven castaways on Gilligan's Island.)

Immigration or emigration can change the genetic makeup of a population. That is also evolution. We humans here in the USA are experiencing that right now with the massive immigration we are experiencing from other populations. The genetic makeup of our population is changing very rapidly because of this. Refugees take their genes with them and change the genetic makeup of the population they left ans well as the population they entered.

Basically, evolution is a quite complex subject. It does not have one cause or one effect. It has its own set of terms that must be understood if discussions are to be worthwhile. It is, indeed, an interesting topic.

Nice synopsis even if by a fish.

carbon, even in your example, evolution works through the individual's fitness. So, the population would change but only because the adaptation was to the advantage of the individuals.

That said, sometimes the individual is hard to define. Take your brothers for example, being a diploid species, the brothers are related by a factor of 1/2 (for comparison, identical twins would be related by a factor of 1.0 and you and I are related by a factor that is indistinguishable from zero).

So, while the dead red cardinal no longer has any direct fitness by virtue of being dead, he does have a measure of indirect (or more properly called "inclusive" fitness) via his brothers. BUT, because he is related to his brothers by only 1/2, he needs at least two brother to be successful to make up for himself (this is a bit super simplified since no one is paying tuition). So, if the red bird dies, for his trait, BUT at least 2 brothers, or 4 nephews, etc etc live because of that trait, it can go on via natural selection.

I would agree with everything Notropis said except that species are artificial. They can be problematic to define and somewhat arbitrary, but then so can individuals and populations and damn near everything else. That said, they are not completely anthropogenic figments of imagination.

carbon, when you start imagining lots of different scenarios it all gets pretty interesting how special conditions can make really weird things happen. Natural selection as defined by the Minnow (Notropis) points 1-4, can actually lead to species extinction in some cases. Some of which are not so crazy weird (and some that are). Evolution is a cool thing. How it goes down and what can happen is really interesting to puzzle out.

Exactly, and that's a huge stumbling block for a lot of evolution deniers. It's even true for zoological classes. For example, there is no logical reason to consider birds to be of a different class than reptiles, but we arbitrarily do so. Birds look quite a bit different from other reptiles only because the vast majority of their closest reptile cousins were wiped out by a global catastrophe at the end of the Cretaceous period, so they seem to stand quite a bit apart from their nearest surviving non-bird reptile brethren.

Ah, there are HUMONGOUS reasons to think that birds are of a different genus than reptiles. Absolutely monstrous! It has nothing to do with flight. I think you are confusing a whole mess of issues.

Even though I paid no tuition, I appreciate the effort made towards a worthwhile discussion.

Perhaps I should have said class instead of genus. Rusty on my taxonomy.

RH, the taxonomic system may be somewhat arbitrary but only somewhat. That birds should be ranked with reptiles on the basis of flight, however, is well, let's say, just not copasetic. Birds have some dinosaurian ancestors to be sure, but they are quite distinct from reptiles now. And if flight were your criteria, Mammals and all manner of other things would be in there as well.

The levels of classification follow a general concept of phylogenetic relatedness. Everyone in a particular category (class, genus, whatever) should have a common ancestry that is distinctly different than everyone else in the other categories at that same level. In that way, birds are a pretty good monophyletic group relative to reptiles (or mammals for that matter). That there are errors in the taxonomy is no secret, but like all errors they are corrected when ferreted out. That said, there are no birds mistakenly lost in the reptilian part of the evolutionary tree or vise versa.

No problem! Always good to find an opportunity for rational discussion. That isn't often when it comes to this topic.

Brent
"That there are errors in the taxonomy is no secret, but like all errors they are corrected when ferreted out."

So why are mule deer still the species and blacktials subspecies thereof? Thought it was fairly clearly shown the mule deer resulted from a cross between WT and BT...

Can think of a number of other cases where unusual decisions have been made... Moving rainbow trout to Onchorhynchos, but leaving fish morphologically extremely close in Salmo, for example...
art

+1

Kudos to all for keeping this thread civilized.

Nice to see you posting again Brent.

Cheers from a fellow ecologist (who also cannot understand the recent Salmo revision!)

John

John,
The Salmo revision more or less separates the species that evolved around the North Atlantic Rim from those that evolved around the South Pacific Rim. At least that is how I understand it.

But that is not to say it is BECAUSE of this geography that they were put into these two groups but rather that because species in each of these areas are more related to others in the same region than they are to species in the other region = that is why they are in these two groups. boy that was lousy sentence structure.

Don't quote me on that explanation. It is my interpretation given next to no real familiarity with that literature. I am NOT a systematist nor a phylogenticist, and only most vaguely a true evolutionary biologist. I am an ecologist of some selection of flavors (behavior, populations, communities, landscapes - take your pick) that uses evolutionary principles to make sense of what is out there in the real world.

Brent, regarding reptiles and birds, is it not the case that, while crocodiles and tortoises are both classified as reptiles, the crocodile is actually more closely related to any bird species than it is to any tortoise species? This is what the science of genetics tells us about them, i.e., that the common ancestor of both crocodiles and birds was more recent in time than that between tortoises and crocodiles. It would seem only reasonable, therefore, that if crocodiles and tortoises are categorized in the same zoological class, then certainly birds and crocodiles should be as well.

That makes three of us

TRH,
Birds are more closely related to crocs than they are to other reptiles. After that, I'm uncertain about the degrees of relatedness among other herps, but I think your speculation may be wrong. I just can't say for sure. Cold blood critters leave me cold. Sad sad pun.

As you work back into the basic framework of the phylogenetic tree, you will find that the relationships among groups is more and more difficult to discern. In some ways that makes sense because they diverged long ago. On the other hand, this seems singularly odd since the differences between some groups seem so fundamental (warm vs. cold blooded for instance) and thus the separations should be easy to locate. But when you get back a good long ways, where you attach, for instance those crazy sponges, is not obvious. One of my colleagues however, is puzzling that out right now (among many other things).

I am lucky to be in a place where folks are working on such strange and seemingly esoteric issues. But in the end, the answers they come back with provide, in combinations with others, provide the essential understandings of how life works and how it got to this point, and where it is going. Damn cool. Another friend works in the developmental, evolutionary genetics of vision in mollusks. Both of these research programs require a solid understanding of who is related to what. And that doesn't exist for their study organisms. So that has to be developed along the way. I never thought something like that could be so interesting but it is.

Meanwhile I work on some crazy mice that do really bizarre stuff, both evolutionarily and ecologically. Life is cool.

Yes. It sure is.

Brent, do me a favor and go to the book store or library and read pages 159 and 160 of Richard Dawkins' most recent book, The Greatest Show On Earth, and tell me what you think. One sentence from that reference reads, "Reptiles, then, is an artificial class, because birds are artificially excluded."

I can't do that anytime soon. I'm headed to a rifle match in Phoenix in the morning. It will be a while before I get back and longer before I get to the library. But, that you are reading Dawkins tells me that you are looking at one person who is singularly off the wagon so to speak. He is not a vertebrate phylogeneticist and he is trying to sell a book to the general public. So, you have to read with care. Stephen J. Gould was that way too. I loved his stuff until he hit on something I knew about first hand. And then I realized I am a sucker for a well turned phrase. Dawkins has written neat stuff, but he is far from the last word. He might also be right.

As Hawkeye said - I'm reading Dawkins latest "The Greatest Show on Earth" and loving it!

But then again - I loved "The God Delusion" too.

A million years ago, I read Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". I remember it to be an interesting book that was fun to read and very thought provoking. But it was also controversial at the time. And that was as important to its popularity as the style of writing. It is the only Dawkins book I have read.

Evolutions as a process is a fact. How evolution occurs is covered in the Theory of Evolution. Please note that a scientific theory is not the same as a conversational theory. There's the Theory of Gravity, i.e. how gravity works. Gravity itself is fact - just like evolution.

Great point - you explained that well.

Evolution is not "just a theory" - any more than plate tectonics is "just a theory".

I have text books that I still use in my Geography class that still talk about the "Theory of Plate Tectonics". But, no one is now debating - that continents actually move.

Yep. A theory, in scientific lingo, means "a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experimentation, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts." This is how it's used in the theory of evolution.

Some taxonomists are thinking of a major revision based on cladistics. I had a hard time getting my teeth around it because of some of the rather interesting statements made about the approach. One statement says that something can not be descended from a group to which it does not belong. There can be branches of that group that are still part of the group. This place mammals in the same large group as fish. They would be particular types of fish but still fish. Birds would be placed in a branch of fish that also includes reptiles. Such ideas as these seem strange and need a little getting used to but do have advantages when trying to place organisms into realistic categories.

The bit I said about species is based on the observation that it is frequently very difficult to tell where one species starts and another ends. How different is different? Where do we draw the line? The lumpers and splitters are constantly bickering over this. Rana pipiens, a common frog, formerly was one species throughout a large range. It was then divided into IIRC about seven different species. The poor old frogs could not care less what we humans call it, but we humans have a need to hang a name on about everything. Species designations change all the time. Someone mentioned the rainbow trout as an example. That changed not only the species name but also the name of the genus. That is just one of many examples. My ichthyology professor wrote a very nice book about the fish of Tennessee that came out in about 1991. Many of the names in it were quite different from the names he taught me in his class back in 1973. I took a class that spent almost half the quarter discussing the different definitions of species. None of the commonly accepted definitions worked all the time for all organisms. This is not to say that the concept of species is not useful. It is quite useful. Just don't try to force it beyond its ability to reflect reality. Some people, unfortunately, try to do just that, especially when they are talking about evolution.

The_Real_Hawkeye,

I saw this thread and figured I better post something. There is no way I'm gonna read over ten pages before I post, though. This thread title is misleading. Edward Blythe, a creationistm, wrote about it in the 1840's. It is called adaptation.

The E.Coli didn't turn into parimiseums or amiebas or even some kind of alge. They started as E.Coli and ended as E.Coli. Evolution is an encrease in information to a higher order. Not horizontal change within a species. But it is fun info.

+1

This is an example of using the terms inappropriately. Evolution, by whatever means, is simply a change in the relative frequency of genes in a population. It can increase or decrease the information available to a population. It does not have to cause a new species to emerge. It does not even necessarily make the population better adapted to the environment. It can even lead to extinction. Up, down, or sideways, it is all evolution if the relative gene frequencies in a population change.

Adaptation has several meanings. Individuals can adapt to changing conditions such as increases in altitude. This does not involve a genetic change and is not evolution. Adaptation to environmental changes that involves genetic changes can occur in a population. This is evolution.

Notropis,

In the animal kingdom we believe domestic dogs, wolves, dingos, coyotes, etc all came from the origianl dog kind. And yet the dog will never be a wolf again. They have lost information. Some of the genes are no longer available.

This holds true with the animal kingdom. To go from the origianl deer kind to a blacktail is a net lose of genetic potiential.

When you use the word "evolution" so loosely it looses its meaning. The vast majority of educated folks think of ameba to man as evolution, not E.Coli to E.Coli as evolution. Fruit flies have been worked on to proove evolution for about a century. At the end, what do we have? A bunch of mutated, less fit fruit flies.

Doesn't matter what "most people" think. Evolution includes the steady transformation into what we (largely artificially) designate as distinct species, but it also includes more subtle changes and adaptations on the path to this. Going from what we call one species to what we call another is the mere accumulation of a sufficient number of changes that we wish to find a new name to describe them.

Hawkeye, I don't really care what many other people think either. Most are not very familiar with the intricacies of evolutionary theory. Evolution, as said before, does not have to produce new species and can even lead to the extinction of species. Most of the species ever present have become extinct through no fault of humans. E. coli population to slightly different E. coli population is certainly evolution. Extinction is a natural part of the evolutionary process. Evolution includes all changes in the genetics of a population, large changes, small changes, random changes, nonrandom changes, or any other type of change.

Lets look at another example from another field of science that demonstrates why I don't really pay much attention to what many other people think. I wonder what answer most people would choose for this question.

Acceleration is
A. an increase in speed
B. a decrease in speed
C. a change in direction
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

Most would probably say answer A is the only right answer. They would be wrong. The answer is D. Acceleration is any change in speed or direction. Just because many people, even educated people, think acceleration occurs only when you increase speed does not make it so.

Well, gentlemen, then according to what you are saying the difference breeds of dogs are evolving?

Just curious if you are headed down there to get an asswhoopin' by none other than MLV?

You can have them.....Yuk!

I think for all of them, their vet bills are increasing

Seriously I think modern dog breeds have probably taken advantage of the occasional mutation, along with selective breeding. Poodles, and now Laberdoodles, usually don't shed, while most other dogs do shed.

When I owned a German Shepherd, I looked up the history of the breed, and the authors I read suggested that some of the dogs owned by Captain Max von Stephanitz may well have been mutations, that added to the beauty of the breed. I guess today white GSD are considered mutations, and scorned by some of the breeders. I read just now there is also a "silver mutation" which is a striking dog, from the one photo I've seen.

They are evolving if the genetic makeup of the population changes. The changes may be caused by human-directed selective breeding, but the dogs are still evolving. The factors affecting evolutionary changes in many organisms are influenced by human activity.

Keep in mind that we can not produce on demand a new trait that we might like to see in a dog (a lab with camo fur) but we can control breeding in domestic animals so that a desired trait that does appear shows up in a large number of individuals in the future generations of that population. You have to use what you have rather than what you would like to have.

Keep in mind also that the different breeds of dogs are generally still able to breed with each other. If they do so the distinct characteristics of the two breeds get mixed together in the offspring and muts are produced.


Edit: I am afraid liberals would taste like what they are full of and would be rather poor eating.

Sure. We directed their selection. One species often "breeds" for specific characteristics in another.

How do you think we got flowers with segments near their sex organs that look like female wasps, for example? The wasp species bred for this characteristic gradually over millions of years.

Those flowers that produce segments near their reproductive organs looking most like a female wasp tended to get a horny male wasp to mount it, thus getting pollen on himself, which is transferred to another flower that looks the same and, presto, the flowers with segments near their reproductive organs that look most like a female wasp tend most to reproduce and pass on that characteristic to the next generation.

We call flowers with this particular characteristic a different species from its close cousins lacking this particular characteristic.

The idea of any change being called evolution means the word no longer communicates to the vast majority of people.

From where did the horny male wasp come?

Most young males are that way. Don't need a lot of prompting to get horny.

But in all seriousness, males are horny because in nature the horniest males tend most to pass on that horny male characteristic to the next generation much more so than non-horny males. The reason for this should be obvious.

Your "vast majority of people" needs to learn what science really says about evolution instead of being upset about what they incorrectly think science says about evolution. They might come to the realization that it is not the big deal they thought it was.
Shaping ideas around incorrect meanings of words produces incorrect ideas.

I agree. The first proponent of evolution was a Presbyterian minister who convinced Darwin to look into it. Most people don't know that Darwin was a serious Christian.

Actually, the early Christian Fathers beat them both to the idea. Both St. Augustine (353-430) and Saint Gregory of Nyssa (331-396) proposed that God created the order and building blocks of the universe then commanded those building blocks to bring forth all living creatures through a gradual process. They didn't go into the detail of the method of this process (they were not scientific naturalists, after all), as Darwin did with his theory of natural selection, but the idea of evolution is very old, and considered perfectly acceptable, and in no way in conflict with the Bible, by the early Church Fathers.

Ringman,

"The idea of any change being called evolution means the word no longer communicates to the vast majority of people."

Definitions of words evolve too. Not in the genetic sense but in the cultural sense.

Popular culture is most familiar with taxonomy in the same way Carl Linne' developed the system for classifying biological organisms but that too is changing.

Pretty much a slam dunk to declare that a beetle is different from a human and genetics does not have to be part of the description. Still routine but not quite as easy when dealing with similar bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella, clearly an important distinction and one that begins to includes genetic terms.

We don't live in the 1700s anymore and molecular genetics is the current state of the art. No one would disagree that it is critical to be able to tell the difference between E. coli 0157:H7 and the wildtype E. coli that are now partying in your gut.

How 0157:H7 acquired the trait of producing a compound that just so happens to be a toxin, more specifically, a toxin that has killed humans, is something that even popular culture has develop a keen interest in.

It is unavoidable that the precise meanings of 'adaption' and 'evolution' become part of the discussion such as the one that is ongoing here.

Or am I being too naive?

Can't disagree with you, bet you just fell off your stool.

I am curious as to why some Christians adamantly oppose evolution. Evolution doesn't deny creation as such.

"I am curious as to why some Christians adamantly oppose evolution. Evolution doesn't deny creation as such."


Some Christians say that .284 cal is superior to .308 cal whereas other Christians say the opposite. Just something to get in a pissing match and claim superiority over the other.

Because when they read the Genesis account, they visualize in their minds God creating all animals that now exist instantaneously in the blink of an eye. They then conflate what they visualized in their minds while reading with what the Bible actually says, and when they defend what they visualized while reading, they think they are defending the word of God, and all who oppose them on this point they see as the enemies of God.

WOW, that's interesting. I tend to look at all ancient stories Christian or other wise as stories written by the ancients based on the information they had at the time. Information like everything else evolves over time and new stories have to be written based on that new information.

If you are a Christian, you believe that God directed each word, sentence, and book. Man's thoughts and opinions rarely had a hand in the scripture except as Jesus stated that Moses allowed people to divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. Moses was so high up on the ladder with God in esteem and faith that he meant with him face to face and thus, Moses was allowed to dictate to the heathens what they could and could not do within limited parameters.

Species appeared suddenly en masse and disappeared just as suddenly en masse. God's just messing with peanut brains. Micro is acceptable to me while macro is not.

The Genome project raised more questions than it answered. The combinations of amino acids and proteins somewhat blew away all randomness, most selective theories, and has them still scratching heads.

Ya'll seen any half man half dogs and a group of seals singing Amazing Grace yet? You won't either.

You prove TRH's point.

Who is TRH and what point?

Are you now going to demonstrate that fairies are in charge.

You ever heard of the Human Genome Project?

The Real Hawkeye and you quoted his response to me which prove the point about visualizing Genesis.

I have difficulty finding a Christian who believes the earth is only 6000 years old. We believe in dinosaurs.

Most of us believe the universe is billions of years old and still expanding.

We believe in science and don't see the conflict.

Many of us won't go with the discoveries of hominid fossils and bones to demonstrate a progression to me and you.

Okay, so humanoid fossils is out but everything else is in?

Anything in the fossil record is in.
We have extinct and extant.

Okay, so you believe that some humanoid types became extinct while a new type came about approximately 6,000 years ago which is the present humanoid type? That humanoid type just came into existence all at once?

Got to go study some taxes, will get back to you later.

When did man as we know him appear in history?

The question can be your coup de grace with Christians if you wish it to be.

We don't know exactly. Organically, it was a gradual development into man. Interestingly, our ancestors were physically pretty much the way we are now for about the last two hundred thousand years, but intellectually, technologically, and culturally they were not much more advanced than Neanderthals for most of that time period. Then, seemingly like magic, the full flower of humanity suddenly appeared on the scene about twenty thousand years ago, including artistic and symbolic communication, society, religion, etc. I would estimate, therefore, that it was shortly before we observe this that God separated Adam from the homo sapien line he came from (which sprang "from the muck of the earth") and breathed into him a soul made in His image and likeness, and from his rib created his female clone, Eve.

For the last seventy-five years, I have watched myself evolve from a baby to an old goat. Does that count?

Not quite, but your ontological development in the womb is a good model of evolution. We go through all the stages from single cell, to fish, amphibian, mammal, human, in that developmental process. The old saying in biology is ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

I really don't have a problem with the above. Cain married into these established groups of modern humans.

Hmmm, all interesting. It always amazes me how we humans attempt to blend our religious books with science. As all religious books are mythology it is even more interesting.

No offense intended, even Pagans do that.

I must have bypassed the fish part. Heck, I can't even swim and sure don't like worms!

Good observation.

I read several hundred pages, sometimes thousands, each month in medical journals. As our understanding of the human body increases, my belief in God only gets stronger. We are amazing creatures. We have free will and the capacity to do good and/or evil. It separates us from the other creatures.

[bleep] excluded.

I don't think, myself, that complexity proves a Creator.

Complexity proves time (billions of years), and motivation (survival).

The human mind does not do well with time on a geological scale. Nor with complexity. The temptation is to think that if we find something beyond our comprehension (like compexity, infinity, time), then there must be a God to explain our lack of ability to get a brain around it <g>.

On the other hand as I've said before, a "2001- A Space Odyssy" -esque manipulation of life here on Earth is very plausible to me. Remember that obelisk at the beginning? That's not God, that's a meddling alien....

Those are logical thoughts concerning man's ability to deal with billions of years and complexities of events over such a time period. We can't grasp it. It's simply too much for the typical man. It's why I earlier referred to men's brains as "peanut brains" in this thread when they attempt to deal with this subject.

However, as in the Human Genome project I alluded to earlier, and in our quantum leaps in nano science research regarding the human body alone now, which I could write for hours upon such, grand design and a creator are becoming apparent to the more jaded of scientists. Just typing one sentence, my brain processed one billion bits of info to keep me up and running.

The smartest among us as some of the Manhattan Project scientists demonstrated, actually do grasp concepts as this, and one even said he understood how everything works. Obviously he didn't but he made ordinary people look like dolts in comparison.

Sure. The science of physics, at the most advanced levels, tends to get a lot of converts to the existence of God. Existence itself, the more deeply it is delved into, seems to require a creator, without even coming to the question of the existence of life or consciousness.

That's what Deism is all about, a belief in a Deity (God/Goddess) based on observation of nature and scientific study.

This was proven a fraud while the good professor was still a professor. He lost his job over it. That was about 125 years ago and you still beleive in that?!

It was not proven a fraud. It's a fact. His illustrations and his obsolete understanding of the evolution process was challenged, not the biological fact that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. His basic observation that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny has not been in any sense reversed by science. It means merely that a series of developments take place during ontogeny (development in the womb) in approximately the same order that they took place during phylogeny, i.e., during the evolutionary process.

Your enthusiasm is to be commended. But it is misplaced.

It went to court during the 1930's, I beleive is the time period, and again it was proven that his drawings were fraudulent. In the 1950's it was discovered he had set back embreology several dacades. I think you need to look at some photos of human embreos at very early developement. At twelve days they already have a human beating heart.

The initial post described an incident of micro-evolution. Utterly non-controversial and irrelevant to the real issue. Its proof of macro-evolution we need to see and micro-evolution is not macro.

We do not have to reject completely a concept just because one fraud promoted it. I would also not want to judge the merits of a scientific concept based on the decisions of a court of law with a jury of people who know little about science.

That being said, I don't assign too much importance to the ORP concept as a cornerstone of evolutionary research. It is a little too bumper sticker and detracts from more important information gained by looking at development. Embryology is a fascinating and rather complex topic that certainly does show that there are patterns of development that seem to follow taxonomic lines quite nicely. We can see that human embryos have notochords, pharyngeal gill slits, and tails that are not very evident in the adults. These structures frequently remain functional in "lower" animals but develop into quite different structures or almost disappear in the more advanced animals.
We also see that patterns such as spiral cleavage and radial cleavage (I suppose I will get some interesting comments about these terms) can be quite useful when trying to work out taxonomic relationships.

The macro/micro discussion is just one of scale. It brings us back to the question of how different is different. When are two populations different enough to be considered different species. As far as intermediate specimens are concerned, we are all intermediate specimens that are not exactly the same as our ancestors and that will have descendants that are not exactly the same as we are. The fossil record may not include all the intermediate specimens, but that does not invalidate the patterns we see from the specimens we have. New specimens just help us refine or modify our understanding of the patterns.

Keep in mind several things. First: This is science. Science is constantly changing as new information appears. We try to do the best we can with what we have but realize we may not yet have all the information. Second: You don't have to agree with something in order to understand it. I understand how the Druids worshiped but have quite different views of the Almighty. Whether I think evolutionary theory is right or not matters only to me and I am not telling. I do think that people should try to understand it before passing judgment on it.

"Its proof of macro-evolution we need to see and micro-evolution is not macro."

What exactly distinguishes macro-evolution from micro-evolution?

Someone in a previous post mentioned a creature that is 1/2 dog and 1/2 man or some such combo are not out and about because macro-evolution does not exist. Would finding such creatures be evidence of 'macro-evolution'?

Maybe not quite as dramatic as a dog-man chimera, but consider that the human genome and the [bleep] genome are more than 98% identical in sequence. In essence, humans carry the evidence of [bleep] within every one of their cells.

Disregarding the moral, ethical and practical issues, and they would be considerable, is there any doubt in your mind that if the remaining 2% of the differences were changed, step wise, via laboratory gene transfer techniques, that what was originally fully human could become fully [bleep] or vice versa?

As I said above, it was his drawings that were fraudulent, and his obsolete understanding of the evolutionary process. The concept embodied in ORP was not fraudulent.

This number has been revised with newer information down to 93% and may go even lower. Don't forget, all animals and plants share the same "letters" in thier DNA. It's like all the messages on this site share the same letters. But you will be hard pressed to find two evolving into a different post.

But let's go with your 98% theory. That 2% difference is equivelant to over 500 books of 1000 pages each. If the increased information did not come from benificaial mutations, then from where?

Let's say it took 100,000,000 years to evolve from [bleep] to man. Do a little math. How many benificial mutations would have to occur each generation? And don't forget most mutations are harmful or leathal.

Can you say, "Ain't happenin'" or "No way Jose"?

First, let's see your source for that change to 93%. Seems that the experts in the field have yet to be informed of this change.

Secondly, humans did not evolve from [bleep]. No scientist says they did. We shared a common ancestor a few million years ago.

Ringman,

Before taking the train of thought that you have hopped on too far, The gedanken experiment was not to replicate the time line of evolution to prove that it exist. What was proposed was to step-wise change out genes from the human genome with those of the [bleep] (or vice versa) via in vitro gene transfer techniques and imagine what would be the result.

I suppose the real point was that even though the called for 1/2 dog-1/2 man chimeras are not obvious, ~90%-10% [bleep]-human chimeras exists and they post on this forum.

Why do [bleep] not breed with humans ? Two reasons. 1. No selfrespecting [bleep] would be caught dead breeding with humans. There are some things even [bleep] are too ashamed to do. 2. [bleep] have one more set of chromosomes than do humans.

Funny thing about chromosome numbers. Butterflies frequently have chromosome fragmentation that results in new a species in a very short time.

Bump.

"1. No selfrespecting [bleep] would be caught dead breeding with humans."

Even the slutty Bonobos after a few fermented banana daiquiris?

.

Have come into this conversation late.

Has anyone counted the number of petri dishes required for this experiment and figured out who paid for them ?

.

It's a university study.

Here' how much they cost: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...IKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0DA8P9VPGPT6ZZ0FFCXG

That's about the cost of one Whopper per day of the experiment. Grad students carry out the day to day activities for professors for school credit.

Carbon12, The alcohol may work if enough is consumed. It certainly works on humans.

The_Real_Hawkeye,

If you go back and read the post, you will notice I was speculating. It makes no difference if we are talking [bleep] dogs or a common ancestor. Do the math; and use only 2% differnce. There ain't no way Poncho.

The original study you are siting as I also sited for the 98% was when the scientists excpected to find close matches. Therefore they looked in the places they thought they would find matches: viola 98%. Then as they continued to map the DNA, they discovered lots of irregularities. This revised the number to 97%.

Assuming your numbers correct, how close are we to dogs? Iguanas? Lung Fish? Lobsters? Slugs? Bacteria? I imagine the number declines accordingly, depending on how distant our common ancestor with each of these species.

Well, he is not exactly asswhooping, he is currently in second or third Master (that would be 3rd or 4th overall), I am one behind at this point. Ted cleaned up in the scope class on Friday. He is tied with MLV in animal count (I think Ted shot more da dancing chickens)


Skimming through this thread since it has grown while I've been shooting is interesting, but there is a lot of mistaken ideas about what is evolution and what micro and macro evolution means.

As Real Hawkeye said, evolution is genetic change over time. That is the only definition that is recognized. Anyone that claims otherwise is simply wrong, regardless of public opinion. I can only hope that the general public of the USA is better educated than this.

the micro-macro thing is pretty odd. Most evolutionary biologists don't see micro and macro evolution as being substantially different or even a real dichotomy. Micro-macro is like small and large people. They exist but they are still people and they function in all the same ways. And there is an entire continuum between whatever you call "small" evolution and whatever you call "big" evolution. Making a big deal out of micro and macro evolution is a pretty hopeless position.

Brent

The bit about Gould rings true in many areas. It is easy to think that someone writing about something has all the right answers until that person writes something you know for certain to be wrong. You then wonder whether he is just as wrong about the other stuff he wrote. The mainstream media do not have a monopoly on spin. Algore is a classic example.

The general U.S. public is, unfortunately, not very well schooled in many of the sciences. High school and general college classes generally do not spend as much time on evolution as is really needed to give the students a reasonably good understanding of it. Even Biology majors often get only a moderate amount of exposure to it unless that is their area of concentration.

Well, not as we teach around here. That said, how much some of them absorb is always a bit problematic.

Our premed and prenursing types don't get all that much evolutionary theory. Our Zoology, Botany, Microbiology, and Ecology people get enough that they should be quite familiar with most aspects of the theory. How much they absorb is, as you say, somewhat problematic.

I've been fascinated by the subject since I was a kid. Never formally studied it, however.

I grew up in Tennessee under the Scopes law that did not allow the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. I went to a private high school and was exposed to it rather early. It is a fascinating subject. The more I learn about it the more fascinating it becomes. I used aquatic invertebrates (Cladocera) in my graduate school research of evolutionary theory and ecology. They were not all warm and fuzzy and were not very good to eat, but nobody gave me grief when I killed several thousand of them every day. I think I had over 9 million just for my Master's thesis, and that was only the beginning. PETA would have had hissy fits if they only knew.

That's odd because I have been discussing micro and macro with Creationist and Evolutionists for 21 plus years.

Creationists are fond of stating that the odds of modern man having "evolved" are as slim as the various parts in a junk yard coming together to form a Boeing 747.

My half man half dog statement was borrowed from a TV personality who made the same statement about the absurdity of evolution, his opinion, and not mine necessarily. It's made simply to demonstrate the order and preciseness of DNA instructions. Humans copulate and out pops another human. Ears don't show up on the chest, 4 arms instead of two, etc. unless there has been radiation, chemical, or viral damage to the DNA.

The nos of configurations by DNA malfunctions is endless in the creatures that could occur from reproduction, but extrememely rare because of the design in each species. A half man half dog or [bleep] does not pop out, even if radiation destroyed 3 % of the DNA that separates humans from [bleep]. Species lines follow species lines. The [bleep] line has coded instructions for [bleep] skeletons, muscle fibers, nervous system, etc. that make it a [bleep].

The paucity of the fossil record needed to demonstrate the case for macro evolution is problematical but not to say it's impossible, verging on the impossible though because there is hope and optimism only that some day they can find progressions w/o the gaps... One cannot trace by fossil progression the amoeba with it's greater number of genes than humans' numbers of genes, to species after species down through the ages to even get close to anything resembling a giraffe for instance. Gaps are huge and long standing and now do not appear to be an obstacle that can be overcome. The wooly mammoth is fun, though, because of ice traps. Can't do anything with it but show micro changes either.

Had I my notes on the Genome, I could actually make a very simple and almost conclusive argument for grand designs, simply by the preciseness of protein combinations, statistically off the chart so to speak. Maybe I'll run across them or the man who concluded the statistics.

A polar bear elongates his neck to catch seals in seal holes over tens of thousands of years and adapts his paws and thermal system to deal with swims of dozens of miles in Artic waters that would promptly kill a human or regular bear. Micro.
He's still a bear, griz, brown.

A salamander evolving to a human is macro. Can't prove it either. One can theorize.

Dr. Carl Baugh, the Creationist, has archeological evidence, (the man whoh believes the Biblical account that the earth is only 6000 years old) from South America in spades that dinosaurs lived contemporarily along side modern man. He has carvings, fine sculptures, tapestries, etc, the famous imprinted landscaped designs 25 x 30 miles pictured from above to show a dinosaur, in the driest place on earth in the deserts south of Peru. A tad more evidence and some say he will disprove Evolution altogether-macro. No evolutionists can stay on a stage with him as he calmly and methodically destroys their "bones." Remember the Darrow trial. It developed later involved a deer bone of all frauds.

He's such a "bones" expert that he makes short work of specimens discovered and introduced to attempt the progression on other hominids to modern man. It doesn't matter whether evolution could one day be proved, he has destroyed every attempt by evolutionists to demonstrate those bones were related to modern man. It doesn't matter if he is wrong about the earth being 6000 years old. He is a bones and anthropology expert, along with cohorts.

A monkey is a monkey is a monkey and is not a dog or man, just as they are not sharks, or eagles, lions, etc. You can't get from one to the other. You can't get from amphibians to them with any records. The dinosaurs are unique, too. Contrast a Tyran Rex with a Bronto. That's major disparity. It doesn't matter how much DNA is shared-it's still a different species no matter how much one thinks one is close to resembling another. Why wouldn't they share some DNA when they have similarities.

Evolutionist theory in micro can be demonstrated but those are minute to minor changes as a species adapts to it's environment.

Darwin made a quantum leap w/o evidence to state this occurred for one species to jump to another. The fossil record does not exist. The wooly mammoth exist. Oddly, one can't demonstrate the micro changes in the polar bear from snow and ice trapped polar bears undergoing micro changes to become a polar bear from what was once a Brownie. Or did the polar bear micro evolve into the Brownie as it adapted to it's environment?

20 billion to 25 billion humans have existed on the earth. All of their DNA together could fit into a drop of water. The strands in one individual would go from here to the moon and back 10,000 times. Preachers just drop such in their sermons out of nowhere.

I can sit back and observe Creationists and Evolutionists and don't have to do anything but go hmmm...just keep studying and reading.

Science involves facts that can be repeated and demonstrated.

The self claimed scientists here look pretty weak as knowledgeable about much of anything, especially basic biology, and wouldn't be deemed capable of teaching 2nd grade science. Not talking about the originator of this thread-Creationist Hawkeye.

I never cease to be amazed. I could do the same with evolution for those who prefer to believe that, but it's been done.

Why don't you just get a dictionary.

Hmmmm! Teaching Genetics and Microbiology to second graders would be a challenge.

I really like the part about all the human DNA that has ever existed fitting inside a drop of water. It must be a tight fit.

Some science does not involve testing hypotheses with repeatable and falsifiable experiments. It is legitimate science to look at information from the past to try to establish patterns.

How many chromosomes does a dog have? Chromosome number is one of the postmating isolating mechanisms that helps keep down the number if interspecific hybrids.

How much math have second graders had?

slasher
Amazing! Have you read any of these evolutionists' comments in this thread? You do realize you do not have a clue about the argument, right?

And you have a Creationist that can drive anyone off a stage? Surely you jest!

slasher
Was giggling too hard and meant to ask about this;

"The strands in one individual would go from here to the moon and back 10,000 times. Preachers just drop such in their sermons out of nowhere."

Would that be with the helix wound or unwound?

Slasher, there is no way that humans could have lived side by side with dinosaurs. Humans would have been lucky to have lasted 5 minutes with dinosaurs around.

Why, because hollywood says so?

No, because paleontologists say so. I'm a member of the Museum of the Rockies, one of the top museum for paleontology in the world.

When you look at the size of a dinosaur and compare the size of a human and a human's abilities you realize that humans and dinosaurs existing together is impossible.

Well I'm a member of google

http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/dinoscoexist.html

Stupid is as stupid does. One I've noticed is that people from Wasilla Alaska are stupid people. Is it something in the water?

Ever see "deliverance" old man?

You boys are again behind the scientists. In one of the vidios I watched this year there were three scientists on a dig in Mexico. Two were from U.S. and one was from Mexico. One American is a creationist and the other Amrican is an evolutionist. They discovered, in an undisturd tomb, the remains of an ancient king or monarch or someone important.

In the tomb were several pots and clay figurines. The evolutionist sent four samples back to a lab in the U.S. to have them dated by thermoluminesence. All four were dated 1,500 years to 2,500 years. The evolutionist didn't beleive the results and had them tested again and then again. The results were the same. Did I tell you the tomb was undistrubed? O yea, I did.

Here's the kicker about dinosaurs: Aproxamately 20% were pots with dinosaurs etched into them and figurines of dinosaurs.

If someone were to cry fakes, here is a problem. Someone who wants to perpitrate a fraud would make a few and sell them to the highest bidder. The tomb contained thousnads. Eighty persent were animals most of us are familiar with. That still leaves hundreds of dinosaurs. The triceritops had the dermal frills that were only recently discovered in a very well preserved fossil.

Just a few years ago a T-Rex femur was discovered with blood in it. How many "living fossils" have been discovered? It's great being a creationist.

And if they believe man came from animal, he had to come up with the dinosaurs.

Micro =/= macro

This whole experiment can only prove one thing conclusively--it takes Intelligent Design and life to generate life in any form.

The experiment was carefully developed and controlled by intelligent design. The life which resulted from the experiment was because intelligent life initiated and controlled the process. Life was always designed by God to create more life. The experiment proves the principles of creation and reproduction from initial intelligent design.

If the life spontaneously arose from a random act of inanimate matter we might be able to draw some definitive conclusions about evolution, provided those diagnostic thought processes were not a random act of mutation of intelligence.

derby,

I didn't say they did. I said Dr. Baugh said they did.

My whole post stated all of what I posted was from Creationists. None was my opinion. I, also, stated I could post from Evolutionists if I needed to and that I didn't have to believe either.

I, also, stated what a Creationist preacher stated and that was yesterday to his congregation. It does demonstrate how ignorant again Sitka is, his knowledge about what the preacher said shows he is in fact correct. Sitka would be stunned concerning facts about DNA, but he's ignorant as stated. He demonstrates as usual how he flies off the handle and sticks his foot in his mouth. It came from one of the top geneticist in the country to the rather famous reverend. Weak minds again.

Some people suffer from serious reading comprehension problems.

I'll stand by the ignorance of the two posters before me. There positions have never been proven.

And that bone man will make the best of them quiver, even if I don't agree with him on the earth's age. Evolutionists grasp at straws and he always demonstrates "It's not human." Every time to date.

Let's take a prairie rattler. Place him in 30 % oxygen, 2 atmospheres, 40 % humidity, 85 degrees F, and twice the electromagnetic field of today to duplicate the conditions of 6000 years ago. What will happen to the rattler, genius?

You are so ignorant about this that you always pick up where you left it. It's the same old ignorant statements about evolution and you can't prove a single one.

Even TV rarely carries Evolutionist theories anymore because it's just that, not provable and that's from libtards.

Sitka,

Then again I'm Ivy coated and live and consort with the top scientists in the country from time to time. Not to mention having lived with professors for years. And dined with presidents and the top engineers in the country. Not one buys your crapolla.

You fish and stare at wood. Give me a break!!

Slasher,
really, the reading comprehension problem is yours. And you have a writing issue too. You really don't make any sense and effectively irrelevant anyway. Your comments only illustrate you either know not of what you speak or you can't speak, or both. Your choice.

When you finish with petty name calling you do nothing to your cause and a "cause" it is. Not a base of knowledge.

I don't understand the degree of threat you obviously feel from evolutionary biologists, but it is imagined. You are safe and sound and free to believe whatever you wish and practice your faith, but science is quite a bit different than you imagine and issues of proof are well beyond you, or you would not make such statements. The earth is not flat, life evolves, and God may or may not exist. Each of those three things are pretty much the way it is. The first two are not going to change anytime soon (as in ever). The last, well who knows?

Brent

What's the answer genius? Never seen a high school grad that didn't know better. But they would not have to go to the dictionary to look up micro and macro either.

What name calling?

I recall you started that with your post very explicitly in fact. I wouldn't have needed to post what Creationist believe had it not been for your insults.

You cannot prove one iota of evolution.
You can show adaptability from mediated design and attempt to call it evolution.

That's absurd.

Well, you definitely have now proven my point about reading and writing comprehension. You don't have it.

You also are a poor debater in the extreme. Who you eat dinner with is really irrelevant to the entire issue under discussion. It does not make your arguments more valid. If anything it detracts from them.

Ivy coated eh? Poison Ivy perhaps?

Well, I hang with scientists, engineers and professors too. Every damn day. I think most of them might know a thing or two that you would do well to study up on.

Slash, with level of reasoning such as yours, you are indeed a wonder. But that is not a good thing. Go back to school and listen this time.

Enough of that!

Brent

All you needed to do was stay out of a pleasant discussion we were having about a subject that is still up in the air. You haven't done anything but infer ignorance on the part of the posters and present insults to us. You haven't proved anything.

Very few people can be an expert at many subjects. This is a public forum exactly for members to learn.

Someone coming in and slapping at people that they are experts such as you did and that everyone else needs to shut up is unbridled arrogance.

Someone mentioned an evolutionist could not stand on the stage with Dr. Baugh. Could be. Here's what I know.

When Dr. Kindell debated and evolutionists in Medfore, Oregon the evolutionist fell to the floor with an apparent heart attack. Of course the debate stopped. The ambulance people took the fellow away on a stretcher. Dr. Kindell opened it up for Q&A for a few minutes and then went to the hospital to check on his opponent.

The folks at the hospital told him the guy in question had already left. Someone informed Dr.Kindell the ambulance driver "is right over there. You can talk to him if you want." The driver told him the fellow was faking it and wanted to go home. By law they were required to take him to the hospital. The other one I know about with Dr. Kindell is when it came time for rebutal the Ph.D. evolutionist said, "There is nothing I can say to rebutt Dr. Kindell."

Dr. Kindell uses only science when he debates about science. He will also debate theology since one of his doctorates is Biblical Philosphy. Any of you folks who have a masters or higher and want to debate, I will let him know. He stopped debating undergraduates because he was accused of beating up on uneducated people. Ain't life grand!

Why don't you ask Brent and Notropolis what obscure junior colleges they attended or corresponence certificates they possess?

Reading writing, and comprehension obviously were taught.

I'm still waiting for the answer to my prairie rattler question.

Apparently, they were not educated at any accredited schools.

My apologies to Sitka. I think a lot of him, his knowledge, and his expertise in regards to a host of matters, but not this subject.

Additionally Duane Gish has debated evolutionists all over the world in 300+ debates. Creation Scientists are certainly willing to engage in scientific debates, using the established scientific methodology to challenge the basic premise of evolutionary religion--materialistic amoral philosophy, presupposition that all accredited science is evolutionary in explanation of origins, and hypothetical speculation of how something could possibly happen given enough time and chance.

Sorry, did not mean to credit you with something that was said by somebody else.

Thanks.

30% oxygen and two atmospheres of pressure must have really helped the elk hunters of 6,000 years ago climb those high mountains.

The partial pressure of oxygen at those conditions would be around 450 mm Hg and should present no problems to the reptile. Scuba divers are exposed to those levels of oxygen quite frequently. The temperature and humidity are fine for the snake. The electromagnetic field should have no more effect on a reptile than it did on most of the other animals alive 6,000 years ago.

I dare say you will have another set of answers that will be very interesting to read. This is getting quite entertaining.

A drop in the pressure of oxygen from 450 to 160 in only 6,000
years is fascinating. I want to hear more about that. Have you contacted CNN about this?

'My dad can kick your dad's ass' type arguments works for some things but it does nothing to extend an intellectual discussion regarding whether or not evolution does the best (or the worse) job of explaining the biological world.

Credentials, real or imagined also are not the issue at hand.

The issue at hand is; what scientifically sound principles can be brought to bear on the question of how different species came into being.

What common ground can be agreed on by all? What about; genotype determines phenotype. That is to say, that what makes a wombat different from a chicken is the content, arrangement, structure of its genomic DNA. If that point cannot be agreed on, then no intellectual discussion is possible. It is a required first principle.

If anyone would like to argue that wombats have always been wombats since genesis, what is the evidence? Something to consider is, to take that position is to also take the position that genomic DNA (or RNA in some cases) of every and all life forms has been more or less completely stable since genesis. That is to say, that unless the critter went extinct, the genomic DNA(or RNA)was the same in the beginning as it is now.


Takers?

Thunderstick,

I saw him debate a biologist at U of O. The evolutionist concluded with, "I feel like I went to a canbal party and was the main dish." Scientific facts are hard to get around.

Well, Slash, I am only telling you how it is. You don't seem to understand the state of the science. I'm sorry about that but I think it is not because you have lacked the opportunity to learn. You have seem to have a closed mind and that is a problem only you can fix. I'll leave that to you.

As for proving anything, that's not my job and not the point of this forum. The proof is manifold and exists in all the libraries and laboratories of the world. Science moves along in a much different way than you imagine. It is not something that happens over dinner.

I'll leave you to your own paradise now.

TS, Duane Gish I have seen in person. And I have to say, he was a singularly most ungifted mathematician. His arguments and logic were so stunningly bad he had to know that he was lying. He is there to stir the muck preach to the faithful, and score a honorarium fee for bringing his show to town. He is a liar and a joke. Find some other champion.

You haven't been discussing a debate as such but emotion.

In any debate between emotion and logic, emotion wins every time.

I don't point to Duane as my champion, only to point out that he has debated many of the leading evolutionists, often to their chagrin.

I stand by my first post that this whole experiment in question can only prove that Intelligent life begets life and that E Coli could not have survived outside its controlled environment established by intelligent life.

The logic of evolution is the height of willful ignorance--to believe that intelligent life can evolve from inanimate matter.

"The logic of evolution is the height of willful ignorance--"

And how do you know this? Based on opinion? Faith? or something else that we would all benefit to know too?

Okay. Let's see you lay out your "proof". Explain, in detail, exactly how this can ONLY prove ID? I'd like to see you do this.

Good thing you don't want Duane for your champion. You would be doomed from the get go. That he is a silver-tongued liar does nothing to champion your cause and interjecting him into this discussion only further illustrates poor judgement in building a rational argument.

Huh? Dr. Gish kicked his butt with science and logic.

Taking my statement in context I am not saying that we cannot learn anything else from this experiment...but as to the relevance of the experiment with our origins which is the thesis of this thread, the only thing this experiment demonstrates is that life comes from life. It does not in any way demonstrate evolution as the basis for the origin of the species. The experiment was designed by life, initiated by life, uses life as its starting point, is controlled by life, and reproduces life. If that is not self-evident to honest inquiry that life comes only from life, then no more information will be of benefit.
And yes, to deny this most obviously clear point is the height of willful ignorance i.e. choosing to be ignorant when you can easily draw a more coherent conclusion.



The only point of bringing Duane into the discussion is to say that some scientists with PH.Ds do believe in creation and are willing to defend that position from science. After all the debates Duane has had with evolutionists, you would have thought by now that they could have come with at least some good material for the debate format.

The weakness of your position is portrayed in the necessity you feel to attack Duane (and creation scientists) personally rather than giving an objective review of our position. Evolutuionists apparently:
1. are not good debaters
2. do not have good debate material
3. do not have good science to back up their positions

With over 300 debates on record with many of the leading evolutionists (including Stephen Gould) you would think they could have made a much better case for their position. Over 300 against 1!!!!!! and he keeps debating and they keep ducking debates......

It reminds me of one time when I shared the platform with Duane focusing on the "historical evidence" for Christianity while he focused on Creation Science....

A heckler comes in during Duanes' Q&A and can't keep quiet till its his turn to ask, so Duane gives him the floor. He becomes so mad at Duane's answer that he storms out babbling the whole time about dumb creation science...and we the audience must ask ourselves...if there is so much evidence for evolution why not bring it to the table objectively instead of resorting to emotional outbursts and a hasty departure???

Belief in Creation Science is indispensable to American freedoms, as they are founded on the belief that these freedoms were endowed upon us by our Creator. Our forefathers identified this in the Declaration...but the current generation has discarded the basic premise of freedom by accepting evolution, and therefore the freedoms themselves will erode away with the acceptance of evolution and resultant liberal thinking.

TS, you are one lost dude. Your logic is, well, illogical. You can't even identify the thesis of this thread... 'tis a sad statement about the intellectual level of this discussion.

And your bud, Duane can debate all he wants. He turns a pretty penny for it, that is for sure. But he hasn't changed a damn thing with regards to the relevance of evolution. But that's okay. At least it keeps him of the unemployment rolls.

I think it is time to put this thread to bed.

Toodles,
Brent

As has been aptly pointed out many times, the evolution observed in this experiment was micro (within the species), not macro (from one species to another). We believe in micro, so that is not the point in dispute. Observing micro-evolution does not prove macro-evolution--that is the logical disconnect of evolution.

Your approach is typical of evolutionists who run out of objective arguments--simply say to your opponent that if you had my level of education or intelligence you would see things my way.

Is this an attitude that developed from observing intelligent design or has it evolved in your mind by way of random, spontaneous and accidental postulations?

"Taking my statement in context I am not saying that we cannot learn anything else from this experiment...but as to the relevance of the experiment with our origins which is the thesis of this thread, the only thing this experiment demonstrates is that life comes from life. It does not in any way demonstrate evolution as the basis for the origin of the species. The experiment was designed by life, initiated by life, uses life as its starting point, is controlled by life, and reproduces life. If that is not self-evident to honest inquiry that life comes only from life, then no more information will be of benefit.
And yes, to deny this most obviously clear point is the height of willful ignorance i.e. choosing to be ignorant when you can easily draw a more coherent conclusion."

Nope. You missed it. The scope of the experiment under discussion was not to address the origin of life. That was you extrapolating wildly. Rather, the scope was/is orders of magnitude more narrow.

Opening statement on the thread is:



The "proof of evolution opening statement" and the ensuing discussion certainly revealed that many posters understood something was being "proven" that was disputed. The thread originator does make it clear that he does not intend to make this a "how did life start" thread, yet he infers that this evidence does "prove" that evolution, as commonly taught, is proven by this experiment. If this thread was intended to "prove" what we all agree on--evolution within a species, then the proof was not really required as you don't need to prove what is already believed by all. The obvious inference in the thread is "here is proof, that when extrapolated can be used to prove the whole evolutionary theory."

We disagree that it proves any extrapolation probability beyond micro-evolution, which is not the point in dispute. So was the thread pointless or an attempt to prove a disputed point?

Macro/micro seems to be a sticking point. That is unfortunate. It really is just a matter of scale. Since many of you "believe in" micro, how much micro can happen before it becomes macro. How different must two populations of frogs become before they are not the same species? I am not talking about a dog becoming a cat or half dog half man. I am talking about one species of frog having several populations in several different ponds that micro evolve enough so that some of the populations are so genetically different that taxonomists separate the populations into more than one species.

I mentioned the leopard frog several pages back. It was one species for a long time and ranged from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. The individuals from Mississippi would obviously not breed with those from Manitoba and went through micro evolution a little differently because they were exposed to different environmental conditions and had different options (mutations perhaps) made available to them. The frogs at each end of the range appeared so different from each other that the taxonomists decided they were different species. The frogs in Minnesota looked quite a bit like those from Manitoba and also quite a bit like those from Iowa which looked quite a bit like those in Missouri which looked quite a bit like those in Arkansas which looked quite a bit like those in Mississippi. Where do you draw the species lines? How different is different? That frog species was changed to seven different species. Micro had occurred so much that it resulted in macro.

If nothing else, this example points out one of the problems of using our concept of species as the basis for separating micro and macro.

How much micro will you allow to happen before you folks say stop?

I put "believe in" in quotation marks because I don't "believe in" micro, macro, gravity, electricity, cell theory, or any of the other scientific stuff. "Believe in" suggests that faith in the unseen and unknowable is involved. I have faith in the Almighty but try to understand science and try to use science to help me understand the works of the Almighty.


edit: Are viruses alive?

I think most of us would define "one species into another species (macro)" as a frog becoming something other than a frog.

To simplify our position: there are many variations within the human race coming from the one initial couple, but no evidence to prove that we evolved from apes and developed human characteristics of reason, morality, conscience, and soul from that which was previously animal, and beyond that from inanimate matter. Any extrapolation of micro-evolution to "prove" that evolutionary theory we reject as unscientific.

That gets back to the meaning of words. You are using a different set of definitions for words than scientists are. A change from one frog species to another frog species is macro. You saying otherwise does not change that. If you want to discuss science then you need to use the terminology as scientists use it and not as "most of us" might define it.

Notropis,

You keep posting about one species. God's Word says He created each kind to reproduce after its kind. What the creationists want you to show us is the evolution of rat to a bat or ameba to a parmesium. As I mentionedpreviously, after about a century of experiments with the fruitfly we positively know that it will not turn into a dragonfly or a butterfly. They are different kinds.

In any great debate, emotion beats logic every time.

Why do you want to see a rat to a bat? Nobody said a rat would turn into a bat. That is silly. They are not even closely related mammals. What about one closely related species to another. That seems to be all that you folks want in order to show macro. You set up supposed tests that are at odds with what scientists say in order to show that scientists are wrong. That is a circular argument. You set your own "rules" so you will always appear to win but are unwilling to try to understand the game your opponents are playing or use the terms he uses.

Each "kind" to reproduce after its kind seems to say "species" to me. Are you talking about Genus level, Family level, Order level, Class level, or Phylum level? A commonly cited definition of "species" is that two different species do not usually interbreed to produce reproductively successful offspring. That definition has problems but is about as good as any and better than most. Going from one frog species to another frog species would, therefore, be going from one "kind" to another.

Your rat to bat would best be approached by going back to look for the common ancestor of both bats and rats and seeing how the different populations of that ancestor became reproductively isolated and later led to the different lines that eventually produced rats and bats. I know of no scientists that would suggest that a rat would be likely to produce offspring that would be bats. Convergent evolution may produce bat-like rats that would still be rats, perhaps a different species of rat, but still rats. The suggestion that an individual rat becomes a bat later in life, if that is what you are saying, shows a great misunderstanding of science.

"Any extrapolation of micro-evolution to "prove" that evolutionary theory we reject as unscientific."

Very much like tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

As was mentioned previously, the definition of micro and macro evolution has been arbitrary and is the responsibility of the user to define it.

If something is rejected scientifically, what is the metric involved? And what level of precision used?

What are the units of a macro, is it divisible by micros? And if so, how many micros equals one macro.

The inability to clearly and unambiguously define micros and macros would suggests that the rejection was/is based on something other than science.


Addendum: It's cool if you can't. Just don't make the claim that your position is based on science but was/is based on personal bias.

yanno, you gotta realize at one point millions of years ago a new toxic gas was introduced to this planet that literally threatened a massive, global extinction.
Oxygen. Some evolved, some didn't.

We are not tossing out science to avoid evolution, but tossing out evolution to keep science.



Here is the on-line encyclopedic definition of a common usage of species:
There are many definitions of what kind of unit a species is (or should be). A common definition is that of a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring of both genders, and separated from other such groups with which interbreeding does not (normally) happen.

There are different working definitions depending on the context, but the above is in line with what we infer. Different kinds of dogs can "normally" interbreed but cats and dogs "normally" cannot. This is why the term subspecies is often used when differentiating "micro" differences within species from "macro" differences between species.

The terms micro and macro work very well within this common framework.



Thats like asking how many subspecies does it take to make up one whole specie? You can't always give an intelligent answer to a deliberately obtuse question.



The simple common definition was given.

The theory of evolution would be quite easy to disprove if false. Just show me one single mammal in Cambrian or earlier strata. Shouldn't be hard at all, if there never was any "macro" evolution, as you suggest.

That's ridiculous. They can carbon 14 date any volcanic rocks they find at that level of strata.

That experiment had nothing to do with spontaneous life generation.

TS,

The simple common definition lacks the required precision for a meaningful discussion because the definitions of species as well as sub-species are not always unambiguous. Sort of like using a Lufkin tape rule to measure the molecular distance between the hydrogen and oxygen atom in water. Can't be done.

The common definition of species fails miserably when asexual reproduction is involved. Think virus and bacteria.

Also,consider the following. According to the definition of species that you are basing your tenuous position on, it follows that the common Mallard and the Black duck that are divergent phenotypically and genotypically but can interbreed and produce hybrid viable progeny shared a common ancestor but that a teal and a mallard that do not interbreed are two different ducks that were created simultaneously during genesis and did not arise out of a common ancestor.

So evolution is going on with the Mallard and Black duck but it is not with the teal? A bit confusing.....no?

So when a definition fails to accurately describe what it is supposed to, the definition needs to be modified so that knowledge can be extended.

Where to turn for the required precision? How about applying the everyday tools of molecular genetics? If we can agree that genotype determines phenotype (pretty basic and should not be controversial) we can proceed to define species by something measurable. Chromosomal structure, nucleotide content, stuff like that. With very similar but different organisms, the difference can be at the level gene nucleotide content.

The artificial constructs of micro and macro gets very murky when looked at with a little precision.

If you cannot scientifically support a clear, unambiguous difference between micro and macro in all cases, then in all likelihood, it does not really exist.

Addendum: The points put forth here were pretty much covered by Notropis' earlier posts.

That's not what evolution proposes. At least find out what a theory proposes before you call it ignorance.

That would be a change in genus, not species. Genus is a larger category than species, and usually contains many species within each.

It does not matter how you spin the arguments or define the terms, whether as commonly used or with scientific precision, when contemplating the full theory of evolution as to the origins of life you need to have an uncaused first cause which brought about matter that spontaneously generated life which evolved into many different genus and species. This you cannot demonstrate or prove in the least which leaves the total (macro) evolutionary theory in the whole as nothing but unproven assumptions.

Its simply what some people want to believe, not that which is credible to believe based upon scientific evidence.

Please note the following from the encyclopedia again on genus vs. species:

"The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, and hence different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. In the hierarchy of the binomial classification system, genus comes above species and below family."

The fact that one common working definition does not apply in all cases does not make it a good common working definition for most cases.



Obviously not confusing for most people as they still came to be called ducks. The exceptions to the common rule do not disprove the rule, they only show themselves as exceptions in relation to some aspects of the normal rule of application.



Its only unclear for those that need it to be in order to support their hypothesis. Most normal grade school children can easily understand it and most scientists can get the drift as well. The only ones that object to the common usage are those that need to build their hypothesis on the aberration rather than the rule. Should your normal working knowledge of science be based on the rules or the aberrations?

My point exactly...it is irrelevant to proving the evolutionary theory.

TS,

"It does not matter how you spin the arguments or define the terms, whether as commonly used or with scientific precision, when contemplating the full theory of evolution as to the origins of life you need to have an uncaused first cause which brought about matter that spontaneously generated life which evolved into many different genus and species. This you cannot demonstrate or prove in the least which leaves the total (macro) evolutionary theory in the whole as nothing but unproven assumptions."

Spin or not, if you really are interested in knowing whether your position is based on science or personal bias, you need to prove that there is a clear, unambiguous difference between the micro and macro evolution. It is the crux of your argument. So far, you have failed in every way to do so.

Like I said before, it's cool if you choose to ignore something fundamental and not dealing with it props up your belief system.

Accepting evolution doesn't mean there isn't a God or a First Cause.

Thunderstruck, What is life? Are viruses alive? Where is the boundary between living and nonliving? Are thunderstorms alive?

I don't know what the boundaries of life are or when or how it started. That does not really matter to me. What does concern me is the patterns of life, how it works, and how it changes over time. These things will help me understand the past and the present and help me predict the future.

It is not necessary to "prove" how life began in order to understand and learn from the patterns we see in evolutionary theory.

TS,

In Science, what you call aberrations is where new knowledge is found. Exceptions to the rule are where existing hypothesis are refined to more accurately describe what is going on. The more accurate the description, the more probable that predictions based on the description will be right. Not to do so will give only a stagnant perception and faulty predictive value.

So far, your view unfortunately, is that of the stagnant.

Addendum: Textbooks are updated for a reason. Perhaps the book(s) in your library need updating as well.

TS,

I've got to ask again since you sidestepped it the first time. Do you not see the oddness in thinking that Mallards and Black ducks are, by your view... evolving and Teal are not? That Mallards and Blacks share a common ancestor and Teal do not.

I quoted you the difference between micro and macro based on the common usage of the term species. Perhaps it makes it easier to say that one family of species never evolves into another family of species. How hard is that to understand? if you are willing to understand it.

Scientists and science textbooks would differ among themselves on how to split hairs over certain divisions, yet that does not obscure the obvious understandings of species and families of species.

The fact that one species may evolve more than another within the same family, or in a different way, does not change anything about that family of species because ducks are still ducks.

Aberrations have their place no doubt, but they do not change the rule. Aberrations only produce variants within the boundaries of a species or family of species they do evolve into another family of species.

So you are saying that the current observable patterns of evolution do not prove an evolutionary origin of life?

That has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. Evolution doesn't address the first cause of life, only how the various species came into existence. Evolution proposes that all living things share a common ancestor. How that original life came into existence is a question apart from the theory of evolution. It does not address that question.

TS,

"I quoted you the difference between micro and macro based on the common usage of the term species. Perhaps it makes it easier to say that one family of species never evolves into another family of species. How hard is that to understand? if you are willing to understand it."

Common usage was adequate before the molecular revolution. The criteria and precision of how to parse the natural world has drastically changed in the past 30 years with the flood of new scientific information since molecular tools first became available. I can't know when you were in school but by your posts, it is clear that you need to visit a modern library, perhaps take a current molecular biology course, have fewer dinners with college presidents whose chief job is to pimp for endowments and and see what you have been missing.

"Scientists and science textbooks would differ among themselves on how to split hairs over certain divisions, yet that does not obscure the obvious understandings of species and families of species."

Precisely the point. Exactly what defines one species from another is a human construct and is therefore arbitrary. Let me help you with the logic. If what defines a species is arbitrary, and your definition of what is micro and macro evolution is hinged on the definition of species, then the definition of micro and macro is arbitrary. As you have stated in an earlier post, you have no problem with 'micro evolution'. If micro is no different than macro, congratulations, you are an evolutionist. And I did not mean that as a derogatory insult.

Have you even thought about the questions that were posed to you in previous posts? Take them on, one by one. Take your time. They are exactly the kind of questions you should be asking, if only for yourself if you are truly interested in knowing the kind of foundation that your belief system is built on. So far, it appears to be a little shaky.

This information is not new to me. What's the point you intended to make by quoting it?

Then your point is in error. The theory of evolution doesn't touch the question of the origin of life on earth. Have you ever read On The Origin Of Species?

"Aberrations have their place no doubt, but they do not change the rule. Aberrations only produce variants within the boundaries of a species or family of species they do evolve into another family of species."

Again, you are the only one talking about evolution as one species becoming another. Try and retain that evolution is more precisely; different organisms diverging from a common ancestor.

No, I am saying that you don't have to know how life started, or really what life is, in order to be able to understand and learn from the patterns of life.

All ducks are not the same. Going from one species of duck to another species of duck is macro. The term duck is a casual term that can include members of many different species and several different genera. You are using casual terms to try to describe concepts that must be described in noncasual terms.

I have several .30 caliber rifles. Can I use the same ammo in all of them since they are all .30? After all, a duck is a duck and a .30 is a .30. I would have a hard time trying to shoot some 30/06 out of my .30 Carbine. To the unknowing a .30 should fire any .30 cartridge. That would be a logical assumption. My late uncle claimed I could shoot a 30-30 cartridge out of my 1903 Springfield. To those better informed with the terminology of ammunition the differences between a 30/06 and a .30 Carbine are obvious.

"The fact that one species may evolve more than another within the same family, or in a different way, does not change anything about that family of species because ducks are still ducks."

By the exact definitions of species that you base your belief system on, Mallard and Blacks (interbreeding) are 'micro-evolving' whereas Mallards and Teal (non-interbreeding) are not 'macro-evolving'.

So you see, the common definition of species that you seem to put so much value on is pretty silly when applied to something as simple as 'if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it is a duck'.

You apparently don't know much about geology. Same here, except I have attended a few lectures about it. It used to be believed what you say. But more advance studies have shown the presence of oxygen in all strata. Like I have said many times. It's great being right.

You never cease to amaze. You know all kinds of facts that the cutting edge of science hasn't yet discovered.

The_Real_Hawkeye,


Have you heard of the electron mass spectrometer? It is so sensitive it is perhaps a magnitude better than what was used in the past. ALL fossils (How many?) which have been tested have aproximately the same amount of carbon 14. Like what one would expect from Noah's Flood. All carbon 14 will be "extinct" within 100,000 years since its half life is only 5,730 years. Even diamonds are discovered to have traces of carbon 14. They are so hard they cannot be contaminated.

About the volcanic rock: All the rocks of known age give ages way too young to accomodate the theory of evolution. All the rocks of unknown age are susppose to be old enough to suport evolution.

Ringman, I am curious about the oxygen in the strata. In what form was the oxygen? Was if free molecular oxygen gas or was it tied up in compounds such as iron oxide?

edit: Hawk, Carbon 14 dating would not be good for dinosaurs because the half life of carbon 14 is so short. There are other isotopic methods that are more useful for old stuff.

The_Real_Hawkeye



What was it that congressman yelled at the president?

Straw men are so much fun to make, aren't they? We all have a world view whether we beleive it or not. We all come to the table or computer with biases. Some realize they have them and others don't. It does not mean they don't have them.

Notropis,

If you take evolution back to its roots, the big bang, you discover nothing spontaniously changed into something without a first cause. Then contrary to known principals of gas mechanics particles changed into atom that gravitationally formed stars. Then for some reason stars exploded and changed into particles. Fast forward billions of years and we discover non-living chemcals spontainiously changed into living things.

With all the changing how do you know that any experiment you carry out will result in the same thing tomorror as you got today?

My bias can kick your bias' ass.

carbon12,



You are assumeing they don't share a common ancestor. Remember someone posted right here on this thread something about frogs that have common ancestors and yet are no longer fertile. You don't beleive it, but all ducks, if they could, can trace their ancestry back to two created by the God of the Bible ducks.

The God of the Bible gives stability in more than kinds. We can conduct experiments and expect consistant results because God has promised uniformity, but not uniformitarianism.

Mass-energy from nonmass-energy does not exist in the Big Bang idea. Read more about it. The mass-energy existed and only changed form according to the laws of nature.

Please inform me about the oxygen.

Why does it reject creation science then? Are you admitting that evolutionists are daft to our origins?

"You are assumeing they don't share a common ancestor. Remember someone posted right here on this thread something about frogs that have common ancestors and yet are no longer fertile. You don't beleive it, but all ducks, if they could, can trace their ancestry back to two created by the God of the Bible ducks."

Nope. Not assuming that at all. I was just pointing out the inconsistency in thinking that Mallards and Blacks share a common ancestor whereas Mallards and Teal do not. The inconsistency springs directly from the definition of species that TS gave in an earlier post.

The_Real_Hawkeye,

You have not kept up with the modern theory of evolution. The stuff I have read talks about evolution encompassing everything there is. That includes the entire univesrse and other unknown universes. It includes the evolution of stars and star systems. It includes chemicals and the spontanious generation of life (abiogenesis, hardly a creation term) and laws and art and philosophy.

To me, creation science is in the same category as global warming--junk science.

Notropois,



From what I understand it was free oxygen gas.

"To me, creation science is in the same category as global warming--junk science."


Can we be a little more precise with the terms we use? (Capital C)Creation science refers to something different from (lower case)creation science. Which do you mean?

Notropis,

Have you ever heard or read the term "Quantum flucuation of nothingness"? The speaker was teaching everything came from nothing. When I asked about gravity I was told it did not exist yet. He said, "Even the laws of science came from nothing." This flies in the face of cause and effect: The very bed rock of science.

Have you even thought about the questions that were posed to you in previous posts? Take them on, one by one. Take your time. They are exactly the kind of questions you should be asking, if only for yourself if you are truly interested in knowing the kind of foundation that your belief system is built on. So far, it appears to be a little shaky.
[/quote]



I quoted from an online encyclopedia. How do you get more current than that? I suppose you want me to believe that you are more brilliant than they?



Of course it is of human construction, the animals did not write their own diagnosis. The scientific definitions of species are not as arbitrary as you would make them. Your theory can only survive on smoke and mirrors, otherwise a clearer understanding of families of species would show you clearly wrong. If species are arbitrary to the point you intend to make it, your logic would prove too much, for it would prove nothing at all, other than all is arbitrary. The arbitrary would be the absolute of your logic...except that you could never be absolutely sure about the arbitrary or it would no longer be arbitrary....

It doesn't reject creation, even if it does reject a false science called "creation science." It does reject the belief that all species were created in their present form. It proposes, instead, that all species evolved ultimately from one simple common ancestor. As to the ultimate origin of the common ancestor of all living creatures, yes. Evolution theory has nothing to say on that subject. Other scientists work on that question, but it's got nothing to do with evolution.

Okay, Creation Science and creation science is in the same category as global warming--junk science.

I hope this helps.

You need to read the definition again and pay attention to the bold print:

A common definition is that of a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring of both genders, and separated from other such groups with which interbreeding does not (normally) happen. Other definitions may focus on similarity of DNA or morphology. Some species are further subdivided into subspecies, and here also there is no close agreement on the criteria to be used.

Because there is variation we are going with the "common" definition. In the "common" definition there are "norms" of breeding. This allows for variation from the norms within the same family. The family is divided into subspecies which show variations within the same family. One family of species does not evolve or interbreed with another family of species.

This is really elementary.

"Have you ever heard or read the term "Quantum flucuation of nothingness"? The speaker was teaching everything came from nothing. When I asked about gravity I was told it did not exist yet. He said, "Even the laws of science came from nothing." This flies in the face of cause and effect: The very bed rock of science."

It could be easily argued that the very very bed rock of science is to assume nothing. Short of that, assume as little as possible.

There is less to explain if one assumes that everything arose from nothing than to assume that there was something that everything arose from. Because then there is the problem of explaining where did that 'something' come from.

If creation is a possibility why could it not occur initially with age/maturity?



I am happy that we can agree on the daftness and irrelevance of evolution to our origins.

But evolution assumes a lot that it cannot demonstrate in an experiment.

Nothing says it couldn't have happened that way, other than a huge mass of scientific evidence that contradicts that conclusion.We can agree that evolution theory says nothing about the origin of our very first ancestor, the common ancestor of all species.

Thunder, Species are divided into subspecies. Families are divided into genera which are divided into species which are occasionally divided into subspecies.

Mass-energy is neither created nor destroyed but can only change form. We will see if the QF fellow has legs or is just another flash in the pan of curious ideas. Lamarck and Albert both came up with curious ideas. One lasted and one didn't.

How old were the strata in which they found free oxygen?

"You need to read the definition again and pay attention to the bold print:

A common definition is that of a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring of both genders, and separated from other such groups with which interbreeding does not (normally) happen. Other definitions may focus on similarity of DNA or morphology. Some species are further subdivided into subspecies, and here also there is no close agreement on the criteria to be used.

Because there is variation we are going with the "common" definition. In the "common" definition there are "norms" of breeding. This allows for variation from the norms within the same family. The family is divided into subspecies which show variations within the same family. One family of species does not evolve or interbreed with another family of species.

This is really elementary."



Prexactly the point that you seem to be consistently missing despite the numerous occasions it has been clearly pointed out to you.

The definition of species is arbitrary. The clue that it is is when the words 'other definitions' and 'variations' was included.

Have you addressed the complications with your 'working' and 'common' definition of species when considering the asexual reproduction stuff that virus and bacteria do?

If it were so elementary, you would have grasped it and we would not be spending so many electrons discussing it.

Are viruses alive?

In case there is someone still reading this thread with an interest in real science, I will post one last time.

First, Thunderstick, just about every one of your statements is patently wrong. You are totally confused by the entire idea of evolution and apparently have made up your own theory of what it is so you can disprove it. The Society for the Study of Evolution is, without a doubt, the forefront of the field. Not one person there would agree with anything that you have said about what evolution is, how it is "proved" or any other topic you have touched upon. They meet annually and in conjunction with the American Society of Naturalists and the Society of Systematic Biologists. This coming year's meeting will be 25-29 June 2010 in Portland Oregon. http://www.evolutionsociety.org/SSE2010/ It might behoove you to go and try to understand what they are talking about before you try to shout them down. You look like Pogo meets Lebron James for a round of one-on-one hoops.
Your understanding of evolution within the taxonomic nomenclature is wrong. Not sorta wrong, but just flat dead wrong. This is clouding your ability to understand what evolution is all about. First, the Phylum,Class, Order, Family Genus, Species system and all its sub and supra parts is a filing system. It is not a description of how evolution happens. It does have some approximation of the history of evolution but it is not produced by evolution. So, one species does not evolve to become a member of another already existing family. That would make the receiving family polyphyletic (having more than one origin). We try to avoid that and wherever we find such ambiguities we refile the species where it is a member of a monophyletic group at that level.

A taxonomic level such as family is simply a convenient folder in which we can place a bunch of species that have a common ancestry. Within that folder, some species may be more closely related to some members than to other members, those related groups within the family are paper-clipped into a nice bundle and the bundle is given a genus designation. However, the degree of relatedness for inclusion in a genus or a family or any other taxonomic designator is strictly arbitrary and means nothing specific other than we strive to have each smaller bundle more closely related within the bundle than to the other bundles in the group.

Now not one single professional biologist in any recognized scientific society will agree with your notion of macro evolution. How you think this stuff up is really remarkable, but it is as fictional as Mother Goose and all those other nursery school fables. So, let�s look at a pathway of evolution. When an ancient, shrew-like species of mammal evolved flight, we ended up with bats. Not mallards. That same ancestral source of bats also evolved in another direction and gave us shrews. These comprise many different species in many different genera and families. But this ancestral shrew-like animal did not make an evolutionary jump to join a pre-existing group of bats. It created a long line of sequential species that eventually became so different from the ancestor that we recognize them as a bat, and this first bat continued to speciate, creating more species of bats � a wholly new group of mammals. Meanwhile some others from that same ancestral mammal were gradually evolving to become today�s shrews, first one new species which sequentially evolves many others which each evolve others and now we have bats and shrews, where before there were neither. And so we put shrews in one group and bats in another and both of these are bundled together as being more similar to themselves than they are to say rodents which had already split off from the ancestral bat/shrew precursor.

In this same way, humans did not evolve from apes, nor them from us. But rather humans and apes evolved from a common species that was neither ape nor human but simply the starting point for the bifurcation of those two groups of species.

As for the evolution of life, it is a big puzzle for sure. And one that certainly is interesting. But it is NOT macro evolution however defined by anyone except you.

Ringman, you are even more confused than TS.

TS,

I have to give up. BrentD was right. The stuff you come up with is just too lame.

How about a little compromise? Some say the Good Book says that the creator made all things. Now, I can buy into that, as long as you don't try to dictate the manner (method) chosen by Him to accomplish His work. Besides, some methods of creation actually save Him work doing improvements all the time. We know he only could work six days without needing a day off.

Wayme

What evidence suggests that asexual reproduction was an integral link in the ancestry of the sexually reproducing human species (for example)? Unless that link can be definitively established the point is largely irrelevant.

Notropis,



The couldn't be over about 6,000 years. The geologist was claiming precambein. One lecturer showed a photo of some almost speres of metal with some art work arond the equator. They wre found in the same precamrein layer. Man or his artifacts have been discovered in every strata.

"Are viruses alive?"

Good question. Dunno. They are pretty good at evolving.

BrentD,



Since you made such a blunder here, how can we know if anything you posted is credible?

Define "alive", and then answer it yourself. Or is that just rhetoric trolling for trouble.

Wayne

But Carbon, does it not fascinate and entertain you to see what arguements they will use? Does it not also scare you to think that lots of other people probably think the way they do? I realized long ago that nothing I can say will change their ideas one bit. The only hope is that some who read these threads may learn a little about what science actually says about a subject.

edit: Peepsight, That is the question. What is alive? My answer is that they are not for a variety of reasons. The question was asked to point out the problems with trying to determine what life is and when it starts and stops.

BrentD
Evolutionary theory has simply redefined itself over time to avoid its own obvious pitfalls such as missing links and transitional life forms. On one hand your evolutionary box can "seem" to work within the parameters you set for it because you don't address the missing links or transitional life forms.

At some point in time we start with something i.e. primordial soup/matter that is the common ancestor of all things. How does that one common ancestor of inanimate matter move to life forms of species? Where are the transitional life forms? Your post explains scientific classifications. You no doubt understand them very well and can define their operatives within your evolutionary box. But until you deal with origins, spontaneous generation of life from matter, and transitional life forms you cannot even begin to make your case plausible.

If you can prove that, you can easily destroy the theory of evolution. Have at it.

Here is a list of some Creation Scientists who are active in their fields:

1) Dr. Raymond Damadian - inventor of MRI device

2) Dr. Raymond Jones - CSIRO Gold Medal, detoxified Leucaena for livestock
consumption

3) Dr. Keith Wanser - 48 published papers, seven U.S. patents
(Professor of Physics, Cal State Fullerton)

4) Dr. Russell Humphreys - successful planetary magnetic predictions
(nuclear physicist, Sandia National Laboratories )

5) Dr. Kurt Wise - Ph.D. in paleontology under Stephen J. Gould at Harvard

6) Jules H. Poirier - designer of radar FM altimeter on Apollo Lunar
Landing Module

7) Dr. Sinaseli Tshibwabwa - discovered 7 new species of fish in the Congo

8) Dr. Saami Shaibani - "International Expert" by the US Depts of Labor and
Justice. 100 published articles (B.A. (Hons), M.A., M.Sc., D.Phil, a
physics professor and researcher)

1) (ID) Dr. Henry F. Schaefer III - five-time Nobel nominee
(professor of chemistry at the University of Georgia)

2) (ID) Dr. William S. Harris - $3.5 million in research grants, over 70
scientific papers, Director of the Lipoprotein Research Laboratory at Saint
Luke�s Hospital. Chair in Metabolism and Vascular Biology and is a
Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri.

Others:

Dr. Emmett L. Williams, Ph.D. Materials Engineering
Dr. David A. Kaufmann, Ph.D. Anatomy
Dr. Glen W. Wolfrom, Ph.D. Ruminant Nutrition
Dr. Theodore P. Aufdemberge, Ph.D. Physical Geography,
Dr. Eugene F. Chaffin, Ph.D. Physics
Dr. George F. Howe, Ph.D. Botany
Dr. Wayne F. Frair, Ph.D. Serology
Dr. John R. Meyer, Ph.D. Zoology
Dr. Robert Goette, Ph.D. Chemistry
Dr. Lane Lester -- Ph.D. in genetics from Purdue University
Dr. Andrew Snelling -- Ph.D. in geology, U. of Sydney
Dr. Don Batten, consultant plant physiologist
Dr. Gary Parker, Ed.D. in Biology/Geology, Ball State University
Dr. John Baumgardner, Los Alamos Laboratories
Dr. Donald B. DeYoung, Ph.D., Physics, Grace College, Winona Lake, Indiana
Dr. Eric Norman, Ph.D, Biochemistry, Texas A&M University
Dr. Clifford A. Wilson - Archaeologist, Author of "Crash go the Chariots"
Michael Oard, MS, Atmospheric Science, U. of Washington, meteorologist
Keyoshi Takahashi, Ph.D., Botany - has had research published in Nature.
Dr. Andy McIntosh, Reader in Combustion Theory at Leeds U., U.K.

Dr. George Marshall, Ph.D., Ophthalmic Science, U of Glasgow, Scotland
chartered biologist, member of the Institute of Biology
Dr. Danny Faulkner -- Ph.D. Astronomy, Indiana University, Associate
Professor, U. of South Carolina, Lancaster
Dr. David Menton, Associate Professor of Anatomy, Washington University
School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
Prof. Maciej Giertych, Ph.D.(Toronto), D.Sc.(Poznan), head of the Genetics
Dept. of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Dendrology, Kornik,
Poland.
Dr. James Allan, M.Sc.Agric., PhD., retired senior lecturer in the Dept. of
Genetics, Univ. of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dr. Andre Eggen, Ph.D. in animal genetics from the Federal Institute of
Technology in Switzerland, research scientist for the French government
Dr. Brian Stone, Ph.D., Head of the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,
U. of Western Australia
Dr. Donald Chittick, Ph.D. in physical chemistry, Oregon State U.,
Associate Professor of Chemistry , U. of Puget Sound
Dr. Giuseppe Sermonti, Ph.D., geneticist and microbiologist, has served as
Professor of Genetics at U. of Palermo & U. of Perugia
Dr. Andre Eggen, Institute Nationale de la Agrinomique of France, working
on genetic defect in cows known as the Bulldog gene defect.
Dave Phillips, M.S., physical anthropology, California State U., working on
Ph.D. in paleontology
Jonathan D. Sarfati, Ph.D., F.M. -- Ph.D. in Chemistry from Victoria
univeristy of Wellington, New Zealand. New Zealand chess champion.

Dr. Jack Cuozzo, orthodontist (DDS, University of Pennsylvania and MS in
Oral Biology, Loyola University of Chicago) and an original researcher of
Neanderthals, is the author of Buried Alive. This book sets forth the
thesis that human craniofacial structures continue to change with aging and
that Neanderthals were humans who lived to be hundreds of years old
(post-flood). If anything, humans are devolving.

Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo, physiologist for the human engine of the Gossamer
Condor and Gossamer Albatross man-powered flight projects (reported in the
National Geographic), received his doctorate from the University of Iowa.
Dr. Mastropaolo does not believe evolution qualifies as science.

Dr. Robert A. Herrmann -- Professor of Mathematics, U. S. Naval Academy

Dr. Ian Macreadie -- molecular biology and microbiology researcher,
Principal Research Scientist at the Biomolecular Research Institute of
Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
(CSIRO)

Dr. Felix Konotey-Ahulu, M.D., FRCP, DTMH, world authority on sickle-cell
disease, 25 years' experience as physician, clinical geneticist and
consultant in Ghana and subsequently in London. Visiting professor at
Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, and honorary
consultant to its Centre for Sickle Cell Disease. Author of 643-page
monograph "The Sickle Cell Disease Patient", Macmillan, 1991.

Dr. AwSwee-Eng, Ph.D., former Associate Professor of Biochemistry, Univ. of
Singapore, head of Dept. of Nuclear Medicine & Director of Clinical
Research , Singapore General Hospital, Author of about 30 technical papers
in biochemistry and nuclear medicine.

John K. Reed � Principal Engineer, Westinghouse Savannah River Company,
(1999-present) � degrees - B.S. geology (Furman Univ.), M.S. geology (Univ.
of Georgia), Ph.D. geology (Univ. of South Carolina) � other qualifications
- Senior Production Geologist (Sun Exploration and Production Co., Houston,
1982-1988); Research Asst. Prof. (Earth Sciences and Resources Institute,
Univ. of South Carolina, 1988-1991); Exploration Manager (PetraTex, Dallas,
1991-1992) Partner (Strata Consulting Services, Dallas, 1992); Sr.
Scientist (Westinghouse Savannah River Company, 1992-1999); ten articles in
CRS Quarterly; 14 articles in secular scientific journals, Associate Editor
for Geology for CRS Quarterly

Have you never been to a museum of natural history? Evolution doesn't need any fossil record to overwhelmingly support its truth, but by happy coincidence the fossil record is virtually replete with transitional forms for thousands of species, including human beings. We are no longer in the 19th Century.

"I realized long ago that nothing I can say will change their ideas one bit. The only hope is that some who read these threads may learn a little about what science actually says about a subject."

One can hope.

The_Real_Hawkeye,



Aparently you have not noticed they are models of theoretical transisional forms. Ask to see the origianl. You will get a major run around. The gaps are just as numerus and obvious in the fossil record as in living species.

In many cases the originals are held by the national governments from where they were found. They are available for hands on study, and you can arrange trips to the various vaults where they're kept across the world, assuming you're a scientist qualified to handle them. In any case, you will be allowed to see them.

The models you see are not speculations, but casts of the originals. Your objection is like saying that unless I see the original Dead Sea Scrolls there's nothing to be gained by reading publications of it, even if they contain clear detailed photographs of them. Silly.

PS I'm still waiting for you to prove that modern human fossils can be found in every strata. Prove that and you've single handedly destroyed the theory of evolution. You'll be a hero. Let's see the proof.

If you believe that you are very decieved. Rent the movie "Expelled" and let us know what happens to a profesor or scientist who just asks the wrong question. Get ready for discovering there is no Santa Claus.

I guessed correctly that you would not have a clue as to the answers. You answer is totally incorrect and not remotely in the ball park.
You must not be what you claimed to be.

So what is your answer since you seem to know it all? Please inform us ignorant folks.

Sitka,

I stated a preacher made those statements. He made them to a national audience. He had a reason. The context of DNA in the examples he gave is correct. Actually, he understated it. It would be more than 10,000 times and there would be room to spare in a drop of water.

Note in this thread what those two posters said about the human race, that includes you and your family. You are human scum, no [bleep] would sink low enough to mate with, and the other noted the posters here couldn�t handle high school science.

I took their posts to our top geneticist and microbiologist. They frowned and called it perverted, worthless rambling, an embarrassment to science. Students come from all over the world to obtain their Masters and PhD�s here for the genetics, whether cloning animals 2 miles from me, or a majority to work in agriculture genetics to imporove the lot of the lives in India and Asia. They have brains in spades, the true ability to reason, and startling IQ�s. They�re involved in real world applications and progress, not fairy tales. Fairy tales contribute nothing as if they could. They don�t waste their time with the drivel I have read here which is useless except to Socialists and Communists.

Somebody studied a coli in a petri dish. And exactly what have they established or proved that is of any possible benefit. Like we don�t already know how viruses and bacteria mutate and adapt, but not evolve. It�s much more than semantics.

You have a Campfire of people from all walks of life. You have policemen, lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, and gads of other blue collar and white collar types. I could post in science terms, microbiology, genetics, medical engineering, and on but what possible good would it do. It would be useless to the laymen here who want to learn about such subjects as this.

I do wish God would drop them a �bone� once, so they could win even one debate. Their grasping at straws has raised the rankles of the media, who tire of it. They want something real and productive. The typical Campfire member wants or needs to know the genetic and historical geological records, not drivel from wanna bes, whatever they are. They are certainly morally bankrupt and corrupt when they refer to humans as scum and the rest of us degreed or not, many here at the Fire with IQ�s dozens of points higher than theirs as they have with such contempt . I could care less as the smartest people I have known over the years did not got to college. Mr. George Carver, who worked a few miles from where I stay from time to time is a great example. Some of the guys who posted on the thread, �I grew up poor�� are champions and to be called the uneducated trash those two have called them?

We have had many Evolution discussions over the years, all pleasant. No one treated anyone with the contempt these two have and will continue to. Someone here taught me all I wanted to know in one night with multiple posts about the history of dogs and the different breeds. It was fascinating. I studied in too many fields and missed what could be my favorite topic had I not been here with classy folks.

You want to know the real contribution made by Evolutionists as these two who look at humans as just another animal types, not worthy of anything but their contempt? Who [bleep] would not sink so low to breed with? Socialism and Communism. Oh, I forgot the Nazis. Here�s the result of Darwin, his contemporary Spencer with his �survival of the fittest� and Marx who seized on both for the concept that the �state� is god� and the individuals are another animal and valueless.


The Belgians got it kicked off with Africa. Not to mention the initial horrors they started in Africa, their measurements of the Rwandans and division by skulls, deciding who would be in power by inane evolutionary theory, led directly to the massacres in the early 90�s of one million plus and the scars for life of those who witnessed it.

The Nazis continued it with the slaughter of millions of �sub genetically inferior humans, the Russsians, the Cambodians, and don�t forget the Australian Aboriginees who were murdered and skinned because they were nothing but animals. That�s maybe 200 million souls.

Obama believes the same baloney. You are just another face for rationed care, a pig with lipstick.

Evolution has never contributed to scientific progress or done anything positive in the world. Any innovations in medicine and medical engineering have been accomplished totally w/o it. We recognize it for what it is. It has ripped off the taxpayer for grants and charitable foundations.

It�s simple mediated design with adaptation to environments. I certainly do not consider you remotely in the same category as those two. Atheists have to look for an explanation. Maybe one day you will come up with an alternative. Sometimes one has to look around and see who believes the same as one does or twists even what you believe. Once one pukes at the sight of the morons and immoral characters, and the harm they�ve brought with their perverted twist on the value of the human being, the good ones worth their weight in gold, not scum, nor the IQ�s 90 who won the Medal of Honor, it�s time to bow the knee.

I don�t have to come down on the side of either Creation or Evolution. I�ve said that before to you. I have reveled and enjoyed these discussion too many times. I just learned who to put on ignore now and distinguish those who can actually demonstrate with knowledge and class a concept; a dogzapper for instance, a devout Catholic, one who doesn�t share my faith, but does share my reverence for life and a supreme Sovereign God.

I apologize again if I offended you, but you have been known to fly off the handle. I simply wanted you to get a little more into the Genome and DNA. You will find different calculations for the lengths and densities, volumes, weights, etc. Please consider the context of the DNA of a human, not all x billion cells, but the instruction.

I openly confess that I am not a scientist and am not claiming to be an expert in scientific matters. The truth is that most, if not all of us here probably cannot claim expertise, or are recognized authority. Yet all of us draw conclusions about life based upon what we do and what we can know and observe.

Creation scientists are divided in their understandings of the geologic age of the earth. Some believe in vast geologic ages of the earth and look at creation as the start of life on an old formless planet. There is some room for Biblical interpretation on this in Genesis 1 where it talks of the earth being without form and void, darkness over all, and the presence of waters before God started the creation of life and the brought the earth as we know it into formation by separating it from the water. These scientists still do not believe that biologic life evolved or existed prior to the 6 day creation.

Other Creation Scientists believe they can explain everything within the context of a 6 day model for the simultaneous creation (from nothing) of the geologic earth and biologic life.

I will not commit one way or the other on the potential geologic age of the planet before its creation as "earth" in the 6 day creation. I do believe that Genesis is very clear on the simultaneous creation of the earth (creation of form and separation from the waters) and life as we know it, and that it was created with mature age in 6 literal days.

The problem with evolution has always been in establishing a scientific model which begins its origins. It is interesting to note how evolutionists on this thread have tried to divorce themselves from this dilemma and separate it from evolution, when the founder of evolutionary thought called his most notable book--"The origin of the species." There is no way that evolutionists can demonstrate spontaneous beginnings of biologic life. Until they do so they do not even have a credible case, only wishful thinking. Life always begets life. Evolution also needs transitional life forms to prove its theory, because at some point, no matter how far back you push the issue, a macro evolution is required.

The geologic age of the earth can be argued in various ways but still it needs an uncaused first cause of creation.

Evolution still only remains an unproven theory that violates the basic laws of science--that creation is required by an uncaused first cause, the necessity for intelligent design, and life begetting life.

Well, TS I DO claim to be a scientist and an evolutionary ecologist to be certain. I do know the field, I do understand science, how it is conducted and why. And I do know what constitutes a valid theory. You are simply wrong so many ways I can't recount them. No Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, or Geology faculty at any normal university in the western world will agree with anything you say. You are simply wrong.

Slash on the other hand, I am beginning to believe, is just looking to stir the pot. He is a fraud and he knows it. Any biologist worth the label would recognized the described experiment as evolution. If he had indeed talked to the people he claims, he would know that. In fact, I would love to know where he lives and what grad school he refers too. There is a good chance I know some of the faculty. My guess is that he has never ever darkened their doors.

For those that really want to figure out what the discussion is all about and what is accepted as evolution, speciation, the macro and micro ends of the scales, taxonomy, phylogentics, and get a hint about why that bacterial study is so interesting you need only open up an introductory textbook. One of the gold standards for an introductory text on evolutionary biology is written by Doug Futyuma. You can get used earlier editions on line just punch his name into Amazon. At least then you will know the vocabulary and be able to hold an intelligent conversation with an evolutionary biologist, whether you agree with him or not.

Brent

In other words, you made it up. There is no proof.

A more recent example of evolution................

MM

Brent, I've had one of Doug Futyuma's books for many years. Read it several times over. Great book. Been a while since I looked it over. I believe the title was Science on Trial.

Now how can anyone deny evolution after seeing that proof?

So, slasher, you don't have the "real" answer to your quiz. I thought so. All talk and no substrance. Inform us of the real answers if you dare. I really would like to learn something from someone much more educated than I. One of the true signs of genius is that they(I) know they don't know everything and look to others more informed than they to help further their education. The more I learn the more I realize there is much more to learn and am eager for more information. Please help out this poor uneducated genius.

Ringman, I don't think I would look to Hollywood for reality.

Funny you should mention socialists and communists in the context of evolution. Stalin forbade any biologists lucrative employment in the Soviet Union if they accepted evolution as fact. Evolution theory contradicted the communist world-view. He only permitted to work, therefore, those biologists who denied evolution. As a consequence, the Soviet Union suffered twenty years of crop failures till Stalin died and once again real scientists (those who accepted evolution as fact, and understood its mechanics) were allowed to work.

Those types of books are fine for what they are, a discussion of social issues surrounding evolution. But they are not substitutes for a textbook.

Brent

Notropis,

Am I to understand you and Hawkeye don't know wht happens to professors or scienteists who ask wrong questions. Rent the documentary.

One of your ilk posted a link to it earlier this year. I watched it via the link at that time. What exactly are you referring to?

Keep in mind that I've also read several texts purporting to refute evolution from a Creation Science perspective.

I never said it served as a substitute for a text book (where did you get that from?). Since I already understand the fundamentals of evolution, however, and am not an evolution denier (I've been reading on the subject for several decades, and ongoing), I think I can skip over a text book at this point, though I certainly wouldn't mind looking one over if one crossed my path.

TRH, you are not the only person reading this thread.

Reverse evolution?

Thunderstick, could you define and/or describe what a Creation Scientist is? I was unaware that there was a university course of study for Creation Scientist.

I'm not trolling, I'm serious.

DD,

I guess you really did not know.

On this account you do greatly err. I posted a list before of creation science professionals. There are many contemporary and past scientists who reject evolution as unscientific. It is nothing but a theory. Basic applied common sense and logic along with an elementary understanding of science is sufficient grounds to reject it as nothing more than speculative hypothesis.

You may or may not be an expert in this field, but if an expert, you are expertly wrong.

You have not brought one iota of evidence to the table that cogently addresses the relationship of evolution to origins. Until you do this you are not even to first base in making a plausible argument for it.

Thunderstick, please define or describe what a Creation Scientists is? I really want to know. I'm really unaware of a university course of study called Creation science.

Please help.

TS Creation Science is an oxymoron.

Come on. Where are you at in PA. I can give you a few dozen folks to visit at top flight universities who are on the cutting edge of evolutionary biology and they will tell you the same thing.

"Nothing but a theory" is indicative of your ignorance. You are interestingly determined to remain ignorant apparently. That is a sad thing in America these days, when being reasonably intelligent is so easy.

Good luck in your wandering through the darkness. But you could simply flip the switch and actually learn something if you tried and life in the light of reason is so much more interesting.

BrentD, can you answer my question on what is or define what a Creation Scientist is? What's their course of study?

slasher
Please tell me what Institution of Higher Learning you are referring to... I am curious.

As to the length of DNA: http://omega.albany.edu:8008/calc3/vector-functions-dir/dna-solution-m2h.html

"i.e. about 2 meters long!"
--------------------------------------

"Somebody studied a coli in a petri dish."

Is this the way you wanted to write that?

"...but you have been known to fly off the handle."

Up yours, Buddy!!!!!!!!!!!




art

I was thinking you and Derby could take a few courses from this fellow to update your knowledge of biology a bit.

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/faculty/behe.html

I love his official disclaimer. Another fruitcake and definitely not an evolutionary biologist. Why do you listen to such nutcakes?

My ideas about irreducible complexity and intelligent design are entirely my own. They certainly are not in any sense endorsed by either Lehigh University in general or the Department of Biological Sciences in particular. In fact, most of my colleagues in the Department strongly disagree with them.

Note the last sentence in particular.

Or here:
http://www.nwcreation.net/colleges.html

Before you discount them as Bible colleges, keep in mind that our most prestigious colleges on the east coast all began as Bible Colleges before they degraded into liberal universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc.) of liberal elitism.

He is being honest about his colleagues' views as well as his own. However history has certainly shown that the truth on disputed topics is seldom rightly understood or believed by the majority. Truth does not become more true by numbers, but stands on its own merits. This is why creation scientists do so well in their debates with evolutionists all over the world.

Brent,
Your style certainly is typical of evolutionists. Where evidence is lacking substitute arrogance against all who disagree.

I'm still waiting on you to tell me how evolution relates to our origins. Until you do this succinctly you have no credibility. Everybody knows a process needs a beginning. What is yours?

So, the majority of the world think that the earth goes around the sun? Are they wrong too?

I'm still waiting for the evidence of humans in every geologic stratum, among other things. And it ain't gonna happen is it?

Where is your evidence TS? Talk about arrogance.... you are growing it. Where is it? If you want to rock the world and buck the trends, then the onus is on you to produce.

Ain't gonna happen it is?

Now Brent, You know the Earth is the center of the universe. It says so in the Bible. God made the Sun stand still in the heavens until a battle was over.

What exactly do you mean by "evolution of origins?" There are prodigious amounts of evidence of the origin of thousands of modern species, not to mention genera, families, orders, etc.

I cannot help but believe you are misunderstanding some very fundamental aspects of what evolution is all about, and what Darwin was talking about. You know, don't you, that when he referred to the origin of species, he wasn't referring to the origin of life, right? He referred to species, i.e., the great diversity of species that exist in the world.

Yeah, update our biology to the Eighteenth Century.

For all practical purposes, the Earth is the center of our understanding and interpretation of the universe.

Yeah, if you could extend an infinitely long tape-measure in every direction from the earth, you would find that it would go equally far in every direction, proving that the earth is indeed the center of the universe.

Hawkeye, I like that. Infinity in all directions puts us at the center. It will be interesting to try to do the math to figure out all the interesting motion of all the heavenly bodies with the Earth being motionless and everything else moving around it. I know, I know, Just go to Las Vegas to study the motion of heavenly bodies.

You might note that I said "disputed topics" ... The point is not that numbers decide truth, but rather that truth is not decided by numbers which is the game you play in claiming that all scientists believe in evolution and anyone who disagrees with you is not a scientist even though they may have far more credentials.



This was already addressed that it is not critical to creation science as some creation scientists believe the planet in some form existed before human life as I showed from Genesis.

However the origins are essential to proving evolution so we are still waiting on you to make your case.

This thread is about evolution being proved so the onus is on you to prove evolution. Had I started a thread on creation science the onus would be on me. Your simply ducking...again. As far as life producing life we see it every day. I have never seen life orignate from matter or from a big bang?

Evidence not arrogance is what we are asking for?

So if a scientist talks about a sunrise or sunset he believes the earth is the center of the universe???

And what do the species originate from???

Why do you keep saying that evolution has something to do with how life got started? Those of us who don't deny the fact of evolution may have all sorts of theories and/or convictions about how life got started, but we understand that the theory of evolution makes no assertions about that whatsoever. Have you ever actually read a basic explanation of evolution?

So how did it start by creation or evolution?

His theory was not so much that evolution happens (this was already well accepted by science in his time, and had even been proposed by churchmen such as Augustine), but rather that evolution is explained by natural selection. But to answer your question, Darwin proposed that they originated from ancestor species. Here, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elBEeqJQEW0

The problem is the loose use of the term "evolution". The question is not whether genetic change occurs. It does. The reason for the changes are many. These changes are then selected against as Darwinists claim. The confusion is in thinking that this is evidence that random mutation given natural selection can produce the fossil record we see. This has never been demonstrated nor is there clear evidence this is possible. In short, can natural selection and random mutation produce a mammal from a single celled animal in the geologic time we observe in the fossil record. Sometimes people refer to this as macro-evolution. Is it even probabilistically plausible? We don't really know.

The two questions underlying Intelligent Design are one, can we detect design, and two, can the process of natural selection fed by random mutation result in what we see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Abiogenesis

In the natural sciences, abiogenesis, or "chemical evolution", is the study of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how groups of living things change over time. Amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", can form via natural chemical reactions unrelated to life, as demonstrated in the Miller�Urey experiment, which involved simulating the conditions of the early Earth. In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids. Thus the question of how life on Earth originated is a question of how the first nucleic acids arose.

My personal conviction is that genesis tells the story of creation, and that this is not in conflict with the theory of evolution. God said be fruitful and multiply, for example, but the fact that our reproductive process doesn't ordinarily happen miraculously is not proof that God didn't create our reproductive process. Similarly, just because there is a naturalistic process leading to speciation doesn't mean that God didn't command all species into existence.

Thank you.

Many weather folks are careful to say "when the sun will appear to rise" or "appear to set" because they realize the Earth is rotating on its axis rather than the Sun orbiting the Earth. Casual terms are used in casual conversations but not in more exacting discussions. Those people who are Biblical literalists would claim the Sun moves around the Earth. What do you think about this, Thunder? How consistent are you?

Thunder, you seem hung up on the origins of life but have not really said what life is or what unfailing test can be applied to tell when life starts or ends.

Knowing when and how life began on Earth is not necessary to understand how life behaves. Just because we will never know exactly how it started, even if we eventually make life from nonlife in the lab, does not make the evolutionary theories invalid or useless.

The origin of life (OOL) is a completely unsolved problem. This is a given and admitted to by OOL researchers.

That said, OOL is related to Darwinian evolution in two ways: one, it is the boundary case. It is often referred to as chemical evolution or biochemical evolution. OOL researchers work toward defining an evolutionary process that is prior to the simplest cells we see today. Even the simplest organisms are incredibly complex. Two, it suffers from the same probabilistic problems that Darwinian evolution suffers from. Meaning that if chance is a primary component of the process it is very, very difficult to believe it happened.

Even if you ignore these two points, given the fact that OOL is so deeply difficult to explain you have to ask yourself how did it happen if there was no Divine intervention. Sure a materialist just laughs and begs the question by saying it had to of happened because there is no other way. This is pure faith. I find this the most interesting since it shows that atheists rely on faith too.

Given that amino acids are found in nature does in no way reduce the problem to "a question of how the first nucleic acids arose". This is a gross oversimplification.

Protein synthesis is a hugely complex and sensitive process. I can not overstate this last statement. Furthermore, the problem of discovering a "wild" source of nucleic acids does not explain how these nucleic acids became encoded(chained together in meaningful ways). DNA (or RNA if you assume an RNA world scenario) are strings of nucleic acids with an incredible amount of information encoded in them that describe the protiens that make up a living cell. The complexity is beyond belief.

Watch this video. The best part is toward the end. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_bolinsky_animates_a_cell.html

Generally accepted definitions can be found easily. This is the least difficult issue facing OOL research.


This is true.


This is true also, but the OOL question is still a deeply profound and disturbing question. It is a thorn in the side of Darwinists. It is pushed aside as it has been in this thread by just saying it does not have anything to do with Darwinian evolution.

I understand the need for technical boundaries between scientific disciplines, but when evolution within a family of species is extrapolated to be one and the same as evolution into different families of species then evolution needs to be challenged as an unviable answer to our origins.

This is really lame. Sunset and sunrise are used all the time by meterologists simply to mean what is visible from our earthly vantage point to the human eye. Books are written all the time with the same language. The Bible is simply recording Joshua asking the sun to stand still in the sky to prolong daylight hours. I don't know of any current credible Biblical literalist who thinks the earth is central to our solar system or that the Bible was intending to convey this. Most people of ancient times had that geocentric idea whether they were pagan or otherwise, not because of any Biblical record of someone's speech.

NeBassman,


The things is his "trap" consisted more of harmful chemicals than "building blocks of life". Also he started with a reducing atmosphere rather than an oxidizing atmosphere. The latter has come to be the accepted view for those who study that sort of thing.

What Miller prooved is that people are clever. He suports the idea "If I did not beleive it I would not have seen it." Make sure you read the above quote twice.

So if we admit that life had to begin with creation, we are also saying that the science of life begins with creation which means "creation" science is fundamental to any real science.

BTW Brent,
I am still waiting on evidence for how evolution began life.

I did, great. Thanks.

Thunder, Galileo was excommunicated for suggesting that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Lame? Perhaps, but literal interpretation demands the belief. Also, which version of Creation do you favor, the one day or seven day, the one where animals came before humans or the one where they came after? You like literal reading of the Bible so which is it?

The fuzzy boundary between life and nonlife is important because it shows that living things are not that different from some things we would consider to be nonliving. Viruses come to mind. They have some of the characteristics of life but not all, yet some claim they are alive. Thunderstorms have some of the characteristics of life but are rarely if ever considered to be alive. We are dealing with a soft science and need to realize the inexact nature of some of our definitions. Commonly accepted definitions of life are fine until you look very closely at some of the chemical assemblages that have many of the characteristics of life. To try to base one's rejection of a theory on a fuzzy boundary is folly.

They don't contradict. Perfectly consistent, if you read it carefully. In Genesis, chapter one, is recounted that God commanded the earth to bring forth all living creatures, thereby creating them himself, because he also created the earth, and this before breathing a soul into Adam whom he made after the beasts, fish, fowl, etc.

Then, in chapter two, we have an account of the events in Eden. Separate story. One event in Eden is when God brought to Adam all the beasts for him to name. What confused you was where it says, "And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth and all the fowls of the air ... etc." Notice the past tense, "having formed." It didn't say that God formed them after Adam came to be. It referenced having formed them, i.e., in the past. Otherwise it would have said, "Then the Lord formed the beasts and fowl, etc." But that's not what it said. It was a reference to what God had previously done.

I know how to read and I know how to read different translations of the Bible that have different shades of meaning. Read Genesis 2:18-20 in RSV and try to tell me that the animals were formed before Man. They were formed before Woman but not before Man. What about the one day as opposed to the seven day? Genesis 2:4-8 "In THE DAY that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens..." That sounds fairly clear to me if I read it as written without trying to spin it to fit a preconceived notion.

The point I am making is that I would like to see some consistency. Literalists point to some parts of the Bible but ignore others that are inconvenient to their agenda and then accuse scientists of ignoring data. Literalists go to great lengths to try to explain away obvious contradictions. I realize there are inconsistencies in Science and in the Bible but don't reject each because of those inconsistencies. Instead, I hope to learn from those inconsistencies what the true meanings of Scriture are and what the true nature of science is.

I suppose some will say the RSV is no good, a tool of the Devil, and worth less than nothing because the King James is the one and only true version of Scripture that is the true word of God. Spin, Spin, Spin.

Please provide a quote because I'm with relatives in a different state, so I only have their Bible as reference. I have several different translations at home, but not with me.

Notropis,

Perhaps you know that the chaper and verse divisions were added in the last couple hundred years. There was no Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 originally. The First Chapter tells us what happened during the creation week. The Second Chapter tells us what happened in the Garden Of Eden. God showed Adam that He is The Creator. After all, Satan could come along later and tell Adam he is the creator. How would Adam know any differently?

Also, prior to making Eve on the sixth day God brought the animals and birds to Adam to show him none was suitable as a mate.

By the way, I use the New American Standard Bible and the New King James Version. The New King James Version uses the same manuscripts from which the King James Bible is translated.

Genesis 2:18 RSV "Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." 19: So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and then brought them to man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name."

That sure does sound as if man was created before the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. It goes on in 20-23 to tell how woman was made from a rib. ( Men really do have the same number of ribs as do women.)

That seems to be fairly clear and must be subjected to some rather extensive spin in order to make it consistent with the other account.

So, Ringman, the Bible can not be read as written in order to get a true understanding of what the scriptures really mean. The translators threw these things in to confuse the reader and hide the true message. Spin, Spin, Spin. You can do better than that. I thought you literalists believed every word as it appears on the page without any need to try to explain what it meant. Six days means six days but THE (singular) day does not mean THE (singular) day. You read what you want and spin away the stuff that does not fit.

My translation says "a helper like unto him." It quite obviously is referring to Eve. How are various and sundry beasts "like unto" Adam? It was the beginning of the story that leads to where God made Eve from Adam's rib. Story telling back then didn't necessarily take the form to which we are today accustomed. The middle of the story seems to us out of place, but clearly the Word is not referring to various and sundry beasts when it refers to "a helper like unto [Adam]." Also note "a" ("a helper") is singular, yet many beasts are referred to, adding strength to my argument.

Notropis,

I don't understand what you are trying to say. If one takes a natural reading of God's Word the same way we read these post, there is no problem. Problems do exist: In the minds of those who want them.

There is a new science. OOP ART. It is called that because the artifacts and bones are in the wrong place is evolution and the geoloical colomn is true. It shows just how much evoluiontary thinking has permiated the world. The aritgacts and bones are not out of place with in a Cration/Flood worldview.

It doesn't and never claimed to. That's a separate area of speculative science. Not evolution theory. You're deeply confused on this point, and cannot seem to take correction.

Galileo was excommunicated for violating a "Roman Catholic" traditional belief. The geocentric view was originally proposed by Aristotle as a theory, though probably most of the ancient world believed it, and was officially embraced by Rome. Rome's theology is based on both their Church tradition and the Bible--never solely on the Bible. Early Christianity and Protestant Christianity is more representative of beliefs based solely on Scripture. You will not find this belief in any Protestant or early church creed. You are classic example of a skeptic whose knowledge of the scriptures is based on what other skeptics say about the scriptures rather than scholarly Bible study.

Galileo was a believer himself. Your knowledge of Galileo is also shallow. He said the following:

"I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the Holy Bible can never speak untruth�whenever its true meaning is understood." Galileo, in Drake, p. 181.

He quotes Augustine relating true reason to Scriptural truth.

"And in St. Augustine [in the seventh letter to Marcellinus] we read: 'If anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation; not what is in the Bible, but what he has found in himself and imagines to be there'" Ibid., p. 186.

I would say that Galileo's quote of Augustine pretty much has your own reasoning pegged as being faulty--not the Scripture.

Your imagined discrepancy on Genesis 1 and 2 is another classic example of a skeptics Biblical illiteracy. Let a good commentary help walk you through the two accounts of the one event.

Life only becomes fuzzy for those who are educated beyond their intelligence.

Hawkeye, read on. You have to read a bit more to make it clear. The helper fit for man was not found among the animals so God made woman. 20: ";but for man there was not found a helper fit for him. 21: So the Lord God causes a deep sleep to fall ...." so that a rib could be taken out to make woman. It is quite clear that the initial search for a fit helper was among the animals and that woman was made only because not fit helper was found among the animals. Don't just read a few bits and pieces.

Ringman, problems do exist on the pages of the Bible. If it is from human error, then we can not say the words are infallible. If it is because of divine plan, then we need to embrace the problems to try to understand what the message really is. You really can't have it both ways.

The fact that evolutionary theory has historically challenged creation science is very evident, this is why only one view is taught in schools today. The reason evolutions has separated itself in recent years from studies of beginnings is because they can't make any logical case or correlation. Therefore evolution itself has evolved into just a theory for explaining the development of species.

It is just a sidestepping ploy. I'm not buying it. brent's silence on the matter merely confirms his inability to provide any evidence.

Why Thunderstick, that's just what you do.

So, Thunder, what is the boundary of life? Are viruses alive? When is something dead? Give me clear definitions that work all the time in every situation. I don't think you can even though that seems to be a cornerstone of your arguement.

edit: Brent's silence may very well be due to the futility of trying to explain science to those who do not wish to try to understand it. I enjoy recreational discussions and am always curious where these discussions go and what gems of wisdom they drag out of the ground. Then again, he may have gone out for the evening.

I think that between Ringman's and my own explanations, you have the answer to what seemed to you a contradiction. As Ringman said, the part with the animals was to show Adam that none of the beasts are helpers like unto him. In this section we read a reference to God having made all the beasts and fowl, not a statement that God made them then and there. It was interposed between 1) God stating that he was going to make a helper (singlular) like unto Adam, and 2) the story of making Eve from Adam's rib. The various beasts were not what God was referring to when he said he would make a helper like unto Adam.

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous commentaries I have ever read or heard of being imagined.

Please cite one respected commentary that espouses your view so we can at least read something that is following a logical exegesis of the text.

This thread was about evolution. You are attempting to sidetrack the whole thread because you cannot sustain the evolutionary premise. Why don't you stay on topic or start your own thread?

He may have his own reasons, but he has deliberately avoided the crux of the matter to anyone who believes in creation science and who rejects macro-evolution. He also probably realizes he does not have much to offer beyond what the leading evolutionists cannot offer either.



Viruses are said to be alive when they are exhibiting or propagating the characteristics of that which makes them classified as a virus. When they no longer exhibit or propagate that which classified them as such originally they are generally recognized as dead.

You badly need either to watch the mini-documentary I linked for you or, even better, read Darwin's The Origin of The Species. Darwin's theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, from day one, never touched on the origin of life question. He may have offered some side speculations in that direction (as most biologists must), but his theory has nothing to do with that question.

PS Even if life did originally spring into existence by a natural process, that in no way contradicts the Bible. Abraham's wife Sarah, for example, became pregnant with Isaac (not our Isaac) well past child bearing age due to God commanding it to be thus, yet we can safely assume that the pregnancy happened by a natural process (i.e., Isaac really was Abraham's son). Same can be said of the mother of John the Baptist. When God commands things to happen, and they do, that doesn't mean he always sidesteps nature to do it. He is the author of nature, so you should expect him to use it. Just like when he commanded the waters and the earth to bring fourth all living species. He used his own creation to perform his works in accordance with his will.

Thunderstick, probably the reason Brent dropped out is because this has turned into a circular argument and also in any debate emotion (creation) trumps logic every time. One can't argue against a negative (creation).

Here again, Hawk. If the words don't mean what they say, then they can not be read literally word for word as the literalists do. If they do mean what they say, then they contradict and the meaning must be found in a nonliteral-word-for-word reading. Can't have it both ways. I prefer the second approach, but literalists reject it.

God made man in his own image.
God wanted a helper for man because it was not good that he be alone.
God made the animals and brought them to man.
No fit helper was found among the animals.
God made woman.
Woman was found to be a fit helper.

The words on the page spell out both the motives and the order of actions. It is clear unless the words are not true. If that is the case, then other parts of the Bible may contain words that are equally untrue. If you get over the idea that every word is absolutely true as it appears on the page and try to determine what the story is trying to tell you, then you get a much fuller understanding of the message without having to do all the spinning.

Let me also cite the Wikipedia on macroevolution from an evolutionary perspective. They are defining it as I have previously, though they say it has occurred which we deny.

Macroevolution is a scale of analysis of evolution in separated gene pools.[1] Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution,[2] which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population.[3]

The process of speciation may fall within the purview of either, depending on the forces thought to drive it. Paleontology, evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy contribute most of the evidence for the patterns and processes that can be classified as macroevolution. An example of macroevolution is the appearance of feathers during the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs.


But our point is sustained in that a working definition between micro and macro is recognized and used.

And the following quote proves that modern creation scientists did not invent the terminology:

Russian entomologist Yuri Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration) first coined the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" in 1927 in his German language work, "Variabilit�t und Variation". Since the inception of the two terms, their meanings have been revised several times and the term macroevolution fell into limited disfavour when it was taken over by such writers as the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940) and the paleontologist Otto Schindewolf to describe their orthogenetic theories.

So in summary we believe this experiment only proves that which we recognize--microevolution i.e. evolution within the species i.e. Ecoli remains Ecoli.

Thunder, What characteristics of life do viruses have? Can they reproduce? You might want to read up on that one. There is a big difference between reproducing and being reproduced. If things that can be reproduced by some live organism are alive, then my computer is alive. Do you know how viruses work?

I stand by my first definition.

So you are saying that the creation view has clearly trumped even if it is assigned to emotional causes?

That is no definition. That just says that viruses are alive when they are viruses and dead when they are no longer viruses. Do you realize that they are not included in the classification system used for living things. Is a dead frog still a frog? According to your definition it would not be. You can do better than that.

The words in question are very clear, when read carefully. This is what I pointed out to you in explaining how you derived the wrong meaning due to your having missed some very definite clues as to how to correctly read and understand those words. I pointed out that "a" is singular. I pointed out that God wished to make for Adam a helpmate like unto himself, and that 1) beasts are not like unto him, and 2) they are many, while Eve was one, thus the singular "a." I pointed out that the Bible uses past tense in the Eden story when referring to the creation of the beasts and fowl. Put all that together (i.e., read it carefully), and you will have a correct understanding of the words.

In fact, the fact that in just the previous chapter it states that the beasts and fowl were created before Adam should have been enough for you not to make this mistake in interpretation. You should have used chapter one as a guide to interpreting chapter two, and you wouldn't have made the mistake.

The encyclopedia says:
The idea that all life evolved had been proposed before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of species. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_evolution

I am not saying that Darwin's focus was one defining how life started. I am saying that the acceptance or rejection of macroevolution will be based how you think evolution relates to our origins.

It seems like we may be pretty close in our thinking, for we both believe in creation and microevolution. Where we probably differ is that you allow for the Creator to have initiated the macroevolutionary process where I would say every family of species was initially created with maturity.

I am differing more sharply with Brent's position than yours.

Yes, I know.

Hawk, You must be reading a different Bible. The motivation and time sequence are quite clear in my version. If my brother's Old Testament Professor at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond reads it the same way I do, I feel I am in fairly good company in thinking it contradicts. But, to each his own interpretation of the scriptures. That in itself points out the futility of trying to use scriptures in a discussion of science.

Thunder, What in the world is a family of species? That makes no sense at all in scientific terms.

You ask the question about viruses then take that answer into the context of frogs after rewording my definition. The rationale for what constitutes life for one segment of creation is not necessarily the same for another. Life is defined within the classification characteristics assigned to that classification.

This is simple grade school science and a rather stupid question for an adult.

It is like me asking you how you know that your brain is alive and not dead?

Sure. There is no way to test the Bible creation theory that I know of. The Bible creation theory is a negative argument. Negative arguments can neither be refuted nor proven. Strictly emotion. Just like trying to prove or not prove there is a God.

Evolution, natural selection, theory can be tested and refuted or proven by scientific equipment, observation and generally accepted scientific procedures. Any evolutionary scientist can do a peer review of any other evolutionary scientist.

As a tax accountant, my work can stand peer review because of generally accepted accounting principles and tax law.

When I was cutting gem stones, gems could be identified by generally accepted identification procedures and scientific date.

If creation science is real science than show me real studies that can stand up to peer review especially by evolutionary scientists. All I've seen so far is emotion and faith. Emotion and faith cannot be reviewed.

The Scripture is not intended to and won't be clear to those who walk in darkness and are not seeking the light.

But if our gospel be hid , it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Thunderstick, no offense intended because I do like you, but it is obvious to those with even a little science education that you have had none.

Life begets life. Intelligent design precedes intelligent construction. Species reproduce after their kind. This is demonstrated every day and are the basic principles of creation. Those are facts!

Now demonstrate how matter evolves into life with evidence.

Notropis,



That's pretty much what It says.



With this explanation one exhalts himself above God; which is illogical. All that is necessary to understand God's Word is to read it naturally the way one reads these posts.

So, Thunder, life has no absolutes. "Life is defined within the classification characteristics assigned to that classification." So there is no clear boundary between life and nonlife, but you keep harping on how the importance of knowing how the first life started. Life has different characteristics in different assemblages of chemicals, but you still want us to define the cause of the origins of life? This is getting better all the time. Do you know how viruses are classified? They are not included in any classification system of living organisms. Do you know how viruses work?

The only person that says matter evolves into life is you and your creationist buddies.

Gentlemen,
Check out this new to me link. I received it in an email today. www.proofthatgodexists.org

It is a very fun site.

So, Ringman, if that is pretty much what it says, lets us look back at Genesis 1:24-27.

24-25: God created the animals.
26-27: God made man in his own image, male and female.

That sure does seem to say something different from
what I said above to which you agreed.

When all the clues are considered together, it is very difficult to come to any meaning other than the one I explained. You must want to read it in such as way as to make it seem contradictory.

derby_dude,



Somewhere on the 24 hour campfire someone posted Miller's experiment as evidence,I think, to suport molecules to life. If you check, I think you will discover Milled and company were not creationists.

It happens only if God wills it to, but evolution would not be the correct word for it, since evolution theory doesn't address this question.

Of course not. Are you suggesting that those who accept evolution are not free to study subjects other than evolution?

Well, Hawk, you must be reading it in a way that FORCES it not to be contradictory. That is spin that detracts from the message contained in the Scriptures. I am not trying to say the Scriptures are false. Far from it. I am saying that they are misread by people who want them to say a certain thing that they don't really say. If you start with the premise that every word is true as written, then you must look for ways to make them fit together. If you look for the message the words contain with the realization that some of the words may contradict each other, then you do not have to force the words to say things they do not mean.

Thunder, If it is a simple grade school science question, then why can you not give an answer in scientific terms? Do you know how viruses work? That is at least a middle school question that you seem unable to answer.

This is all a red herring. Life is definable. Even if you believe there is no distinct boundary (I believe there is a clear definition) you still have clear categories of living vs non-living. You are still faced with the complexity of the simplest free standing life form. This needs to be explained. It can not be.

Here is a definition of life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions

No. Atheists believe matter evolves into life. This is abiogenesis.

A Young Earth Creationist believes life was miraculously formed in a short period.

An ID proponent is a person who believes the fossil record and in an old earth. They also believe there is insufficient evidence to believe natural selection could have produced what we see. They also believe design can be detected in life. (This is where I stand)

A theistic evolutionist is a theist who believes in a completely materialistic process for the formation of life, but believes in God's existence.

I would say that the definitions of life are not what is in dispute among reasonably intelligent discussion. If the difference between life and matter mystifies you, you ought to be doing more study on your own before entering into a discussion of this nature.

The longer you dialogue the more evident you make it that you are throwing up smoke and mirrors to cloud over the the fact that you cannot explain how life can evolve from matter. If you cannot understand the difference between the two you need more help then what I can give--as you have chosen to be willfully ignorant. Scientists use those terms all the time.

Thunder, If it is so simple, answer the question. If the boundary between life and nonlife does not mystify you then tell all us scientists where it is. You ask me to explain something but can't tell me what that something is. Dodge, dodge, dodge. You must dodge because you have no answer. Lets get away from a reasonably intelligent discussion to a very intelligent discussion. Let us put aside general terms and discuss science with scientific terms that have precise meanings. Lets go from a grammar school discussion to a little higher level. I doubt you can do that. You only want to deal in foggy generalities.

The wikipedia definition (Wikipedia is not a reliable source for scientific study but will do at times to help demonstrate a point.) comments that there is no unequivocal definition of life. Thanks, Walkingman, for supporting my position with your reference. It gives characteristics that help us try to decide if something is alive or not. How many of those characteristics must something have in order to be alive? Viruses do not have all of them, but you claim viruses are alive. Do you even know how viruses work?

How can you base your arguement on a boundary when you can not even tell where that boundary is? You can't. You have to use smoke and mirrors to try to confuse the discussion so that you appear to be right.

Somewhat parallel question: Why are the common computer infections called viruses and not bacteria? That may give you a clue as to how viruses work.

The longer you dialogue the more evident you make it that you do not understand science.

The difference between our respective readings of those passages is that mine was a careful reading, making use of all available clues, while yours was a cursory reading, ignoring obvious clues as to correct meaning. You know the difference between plural and singular, for example, yet choose to ignore that distinction in your interpretation of the second passage so as to permit an interpretation that is contradictory with a previous one. I provided several other examples in earlier posts.

Because they infect a host, substitute their software for the host's software, and then force the host to manufacture and spread other copies of itself to other hosts.

Quite right about the viruses. They do not grow themselves but are grown by the host. Viruses do not metabolize or reproduce on their own but require a living organism to make them.

We will have to disagree about the reading bit. I have read the words numerous times about as carefully as is possible, not in a cursory way as you suggest, and, with the printed words I have in my RSV Bible, still see the sequences and motivations I mentioned. I will also mention that these inconsistencies were pointed out to me by the Professor, the late Dr. Leith, I mentioned above. I think he read the passage rather carefully and had plenty of scholarly background to help him understand the meaning. He was also the one who explained to me over a Thanksgiving dinner in our home years ago that the two versions were written at different times to communicate different personalities of God. One was while the Jews were beating up on other people and promoted the view of God as a fierce warlike God who was stronger than the gods of the enemy. The other version was written during bondage and showed God as being personally concerned with man by providing for his every need in a loving way. Both views of God are worth understanding. The Reverend Dr. L. also suggested that I not let the inconsistencies in Scripture get in the way of my understanding of the meaning of Scripture.

Off to Great Grandma's for some turkey. Happy Thanksgiving to all. It has been fun.

Yep, real viruses are just little lunar landers containing RNA packages to infect host cells. Not much alive about them. The earliest proto-life forms may have operated similarly, though. No telling.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and all.

I got to admit Ringman with this site you have given quite the chuckle for today. I especially like the site constantly linking me to Disney's site.

So where's that leave a Deist especially a Pagan Deist?

I believe science when science says the earth is old.

I believe in a intelligent life force, you know may the Force be with you. I believe this intelligent life force created/designed the ingredients/laws necessary for the universe to come into existence as well as life.

I believe in evolution, natural selection.

Do you know how many highly credentialed law professors will confidently inform you that the Second Amendment merely permits states to maintain armed National Guard units?

Look, this is simple. If I said to you, "Hey Notropis, having made this figurine of a buffalo out of some very special walnut I'm going to give it to you today for your birthday," does that necessarily mean I made it recently? Now add another factor: Just before saying that to you, I told you the story of when I made this figurine back before you were even born. Now, as to my gift giving statement, is it logical to assume that I'm saying there that I just made this figurine with the idea of giving it to you for your birthday?

... the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Been there, done that one. I am not going back.

Have a Happy thanksgiving.

I think I'm off to Grandma IHOP.

Happy turkey day to you too.

Back from the turkey with a full belly.

I realize that scholars do not all agree on the meaning of the Constitution as well as of Scripture but related my initial source of this information to demonstrate that it was not just some skimming through the words that prompted me to read the passages as I do. Who is right? We will never know. There are some rather well studied and well respected theologians that see it my way as well as your's. Simple it may not be.

I understand your example but will point out that the statements do not rule out the possibility that you made it recently just for me after you met me for the first time, especially if you say that now that you have met me and want to make one for me. That is what it says about the animals in Genesis 2, that God made the animals in an attempt to find a fit helper for man. Why would he make the animals for man if man did not already exist?

2:4 "..In the day ( note THE day) that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5: when no plant in the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up-for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground-7; then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils ther breath of life; and man became a living being. (That certainly seems to say that man was created even before the plants.) 8: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put man whom he had formed. 9; And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight..." (That seems to support that man was made before plants.) Scipping down to 18; "Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I WILL (note future tense) make for him a helper fit for him." 19; "SO (indicating that the motive for making what will be made next is to make man a fit helper) out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air,..." (to try to find man a helper God made the animals after he had made man. This indicates both motive and chronology) 20; "...but for the man there was not found a fit helper for him." (out of the animals God had made in an attempt to find a fit helper for man.) 21; "SO (again indicating motive as well as chronology) the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man." (There was not found a fit helper for man among the animals, so God made woman.)

The motives and sequence of events seem to be quite clear if one reads the words as written.

God made the earth and heavens.
God made man
God planted a garden in Eden and made plants.
God made animals to try to find a fit helper for man.
No fit helper was found among the animals made in an attempt to find a fit helper.
God made woman.

No, it does not say that. It says God wanted to make a helper for Adam, like unto him. The like unto him part is crucial in interpreting who God is referring to. He's referring to Eve. After saying this, God begins to relate the story of what he did next, during which he reminds the reader of what happened in the previous "chapter," i.e., "having made the beasts ...," etc., in the past tense.He did not say he made them to be Adam's helpers. He merely recounted that he had made them as an introduction to the story about bringing them all to Adam to name, following which he made Adam's helper, like unto him (i.e., from his very rib). God tells us that Adam didn't find a helper like unto him as an explanation why it was necessary to make Eve. God was never in the dark about whether or not any of the beasts would prove an adequate helper like unto Adam.

If this really is the sequence of events then the Christian God is not the all-powerful, all-knowing God. God should have known that the animals would not be a fit help mate for man. He should have made Eve right off.

Of course, I've always wondered about the bit of Adam first and then Adam gives birth to Eve. So if Eve hadn't sinned would man have been the one to give birth?

Eve could only sin for herself. It was Adam's sin that was imputed to all of humanity.

Hawkeye, your Bible is different from mine. I quoted out of my RSV. "Like unto him" is not in that passage.

Get yourself a better Bible.

So now the different versions of the Bible mean different things. That just shows that the Divine Finger is not on every word. It shows that you can not take every word literally. Do you really want to go there? Which is the one true version that s the absolute perfect version? If different versions give different messages, can you trust any of them? You are opening up a big can of worms if you say one version is better than another. I suppose you will probably say the KJV is the ultimate source for all things Biblical. I just looked at the online KJV (mine is at my other home) and found no "like unto him" in it either. The KJV and RSV both say the same thing. Perhaps you are the one in need of a better Bible.

tropis,

New American Standard Bible reads "suitable for him" and the New King James Verssion shows "comparable to him".

That fits. None of the animals God made after making man for the purpose of not making man be alone were found to be suitable for him or comparable to him, so God had to make woman. That fits very well. Thanks.

OK for argument's sake, let's suppose you are the resident scientist (as you allude to) and I am the one needs educated (as you say). Give myself and the rest of us the opportunity to learn from you, because I and others may be able to benefit from your expertise.

So let's have a bit of a format:

1. Give us your credentials first so we know your level of learning
2. Explain to us the difference between life and matter as you understand it. However for sake of focus lets narrow it down to what constitutes human life in distinction from matter.
3. Explain to us how the evolutionary process could have caused matter to produce human life.

Thunder, I am not the one bothered by an exact boundary between life and nonlife. I am not the one basing my argument on the inability of science to "prove" how "life" started. I am the one saying that the boundary is fuzzy and, therefore, should not be the basis for your argument. You are the one who has to come up with a universally acceptable definition, not me. I don't think there is one, but you seem to think there is.

What are your credentials? How many degrees do you have that concentrated on evolutionary theory or even Biology?

The boundary between matter and human life has never been fuzzy except in a foggy mind. Scientists recognize this obvious distinction when analyzing data as well as 4 year old children. Your initial request for a definition was deliberately ignorant which is why I chose not to humor you.

You have provided the information I suspected--lack of real credentials from the one who claimed expertise and no answers to the real question.

Evolutionists are often smug and arrogant in their position, rather than engaging the most important question and providing real evidence. Macro-evolution will never be anything more than a foolish theory unless there is real evidence to demonstrate the spontaneous generation of life from matter.

A person does need to have much understanding of anything scientific to know how illogical are the tenets of macro-evolution. And of course this inherent achilles heel has been demonstrated time and again in debates between evolutionary and creation scientists.

Of course all translations aren't equal. Is that a surprise to you? Did you think the Jehovah's Witness Bible was as good a catalyst of the word of God as, say, the King James Bible?

Poor God didn't know that the various and sundry beasts wouldn't be a fit helper for Adam. He had to actually wait and see. Notropis, you apparently wish to twist the words to mean contradiction. If that's what you're about, go for it.

So, you don't have a good definition for the boundary between life and nonlife. I see you threw HUMAN life in the mix. I thought you just wanted to know how LIFE started. If the distinction is not fuzzy, then please tell the world what the hard and fast line is that separates all life from all nonlife. Without that line, your argument is without merit. The ball is in your court. Define the boundary. A true fuzzy mind sees things that do not exist and mocks people who see the situation more clearly.

What are your credentials and experiences with Biology. BS? MS? PhD?

We smug scientists have a hard time giving precise answers to questions that are very imprecise and asked by people who can not even define the terms used in the questions. It is very foolish to claim some tenets are illogical if you don't even understand what those tenets really are.

Hawkeye, How are the words I quoted out of MY Bible twisted? Show me precisely where the words I quoted from MY Bible, not yours, do not mean what they say.

edit: God changed his mind several times in Scripture. How many times do you read about God "hardening his heart" towards people.

I gave you at least three very definite reasons your reading of the verses in question was clearly in error. Go back and read my multiple posts on this question. That means you're twisting the meaning in three distinct ways. That's a lot of twisting. But keep it up, if that's your thing.

I see we are up to 44 pages. I wonder if this is going to set a record. I'm betting 100 pages.

You gave me reasons based on your Bible's words, not my Bible. Go back and look at the quotes from MY Bible and tell me where the MOTIVE and CHRONOLOGY are in error. Such words as "SO" and "THEN" make it very clear that your analysis that the animals were made before man is in error in MY Bible. It also very clearly states that there were no plants before man. Read it carefully with an open mind. I don't need to twist the meanings of words to try to make it say what it does not say. I don't have a copy of the Bible you have so can not comment on the version your Bible has. Quote directly from your Bible and I will look at it

I posted on another thread that I was going to bed. That was at 6:55 pm this date. I just took a quick look at other post and found this one and started to read page 1. I AM NOW GOING TO BED as it is now 11:10 PM. Can't believe it took me this long to go through 44 pages of posts on this matter. I am worn smooth out and so confused I don't remember who is for and who is against what.

Love,
Dew

Uncle Sam (throat slasher), Auburn, Cornell, and back to Auburn.

I bet you're a google speed typist and would have been the first to volunteer for the SS death squads to shoot and hang Jews. You were the cretan who absolutely knew my daughter had died and continued with your vicious, apathetic sarcasm.

"...there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Talk to yourself.

You're on ignore with some other [bleep] here.

derby,


The Atacama Desert is the place in South America. I've seen the dinosaurs in drawings, pottery, reliefs, tapestries, etc. One had a man sitting on the beast. You can see gigantic drawings of them on the landscape from planes.

The particular beast appears to be about 20 to 25 feet long. Obviously, it's a herbivore. It looks somewhat like a corythosaurus type. It's vertically banded.

You can google it. As the driest place on earth, relics are preserved as are bodies. I don't recall anyone finding the dinosaur's bones.

Once you believe in an intelligent creator you have to ask yourself what is the evidence for the character and personality of that intelligence. I believe the best evidence for His true character is found in the Bible of Christianity. The special revelation of Christ being central to the revelation of His character.

If you truly, truly believe in a supernatural world (I do). Then getting the answers right is of eternal importance. You have to look at all the evidences.


From a scientific standpoint this sounds like a theistic evolutionist position.

The points I made to you all still hold up with your translation. Anyone with good will can read the first two chapters of Genesis without choosing to interpret what at first glance may seem a slight ambiguity as contradiction. Plenty of clues are available to interpret it correctly, and without contradiction. I've already laid it out for you. I will not retype what I've already typed.

No offense intended but I'm a Deist. The Bible is a great book of mythology and nothing more. The revealed word of God, so to speak to a Deist, is in nature and science.

I'll concede an emotional Pagan bent to my Deism much the same way that many Deists concede a Christian bent.

I would probably call it a deistic evolutionist position but whatever.

slasher,

I in the tomb I mentioned where the three archeologist discovered a king or governor or mayor with all the pottery and figurines they discovered the remains of the person. Along with the remains of the person they discovered a small dinosaur in the same state of decomposition.

I will try to remember the video and from where I got it. Most of the stuff I get, I loan or give to other folks to share the fun of life and discovery. If I find it and you would like me to mail it to you send a PM.

Got a reference for the find in a peer reviewed journal?

Slasher
WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have me confused with someone else! First, I have zero idea what you are talking about and second, I am not even remotely close to being racist! Hating someone for their race/religion is not me at all.

Further, I have no idea what you are talking about relative to your daughter. I have/had no idea you lost a daughter. And quite frankly, losing kids is something I feel strongly about and would never make light of.

I have no idea where your attack came from and I certainly apologize if in some glib moment I said something that offensive, but it was sure unintended...
art

Slasher, Sitka Deer offers an apology. Check it out.

noKnees,

Check out the following quote:





I will give it a try. But, here's what I have discovered about evolutionists' "peer reviewed" anything. If it has anything that even barely slightly contradicts anything to do with old earth and/or evolutionary believe, it is censored.

I remember some years ago the curator of a museum in Canada was fired. Why? Because he accepted some artifacts from an archeologists that were unchallengeable, by their standards, too old for modern human. And yet they were of modern human origin. Life is tough when you live a lie. I will try to get the facts on this also.

You are the only person that I have ever known who calls modern evolutionary science a lie. I think your Bible Christianity makes you bias and prejudice.

The "what at first glance may seem a slight ambiguity as contradiction" is the whole point. A first glance, a second glance, a third glance, and hundreds of glances give the same results when reading the words from my RSV. There is no ambiguity. One must assume ambiguity and look for clues to try to get it to say something else. This is the problem I have with literalists. Every word is absolute truth unless you have to ignore what it says and try to look for "clues" to determine what you think it should mean. If it means what the words say, that is great. If it does not mean what the words say, that is great too. Consistency demands that you either say it is true, every word perfect, (EDIT) and try to find ways around the passages that seem inconsistent (END EDIT) or realize that the inconsistencies are there (EDIT) and accept them as part of the message (END EDIT). The inconsistencies do not bother me one bit. They do not detract from my understanding of Scripture and the message it communicates.

Your seem to claim to have the only true Bible and to know the only correct and completely consistent interpretation of the word of God. Lots of other people with different views have the same belief about themselves.

You never typed out the quotes from your Bible. You only threw out a few words from your Bible that are not in mine to try to say that my Bible is wrong.

I have several translations of the Bible, and I've never read first and second Genesis as contradictory in the least. You have to be looking intentionally to turn slight apparent ambiguity into contradiction to do that.

I am just looking for the truth. You see ambiguities, I don't. Inconsistencies would seem to bother you but don't bother me. I am glad you are as happy with your interpretation as I am with mine.