Kraft,
I do not generally like debating about a third party source. But the links you provided are an excellent source for pointing out the problems with macro-evolution. I was disappointed that you presented nothing new. But it is understandable. The Gould-Dawkins debates can be chilling for an evolutionist.
>You already accept natural selection, so you're most of the way there.<
Actually, I investigated, and proved natural selection to myself over 30 years ago.. During the intervening 30 years, I have proven to myself, through reading the works of biologists, that Darwinian natural selection as a mode of macro-evolution is false, as have many if not most scientists of all ilk’s. I guess you did not get the memo.
As you wrote above, most scientists now use the less specific term "adaptation", previously "gradual adaptation". But since nothing gradual has ever been provided by the evidence, one must tweak the nomenclature.
>With natural selection we have variation within a population, where does this variation come from?
Natural selection does not either provide or produce variation, or anything else. It is simply the removal of genes from the pool. It is a reduction event.
>Gene and genome duplication, mutation and recombination are thought to be the main ones.<
No. "Mutation" has nothing to do with it. What do "genome duplication and recombination" mean exactly? Reproduction? That is not a source of macro-evolution. Macro-evolution requires a method of change to the genetic code. So far, everything that has been tested as a method to provide this has come up short.
>These things are heritable, and I bet you'll agree that certain offspring will have advantages that let them reproduce more than others (due to competition, limited resources, etc.). I'm sure you're familiar with all this. Let us look at all the variety of dogs, how did we get such variation. Easy, we bred them, artificial selection. <
That is all well and good. Nothing there to argue. But no macro-evolution. From your own "29 evidences" article, "However, whether microevolutionary theories are sufficient to account for macro-evolutionary adaptations is a question that is left open.
"Left open", indeed. I love the way the author of your "29" article worded the following:
"Though gradualness is not a mechanism of evolutionary change, it imposes severe constraints on possible macroevolutionary events. Likewise, the requirement of gradualness necessarily restricts the possible mechanisms of common descent and adaptation, briefly discussed below. "
I guess that was his brief props to Gould, Eldredge, et al.
And finally, continuing from your sited "29" article, "None of the dozens of predictions directly address how macro-evolution has occurred, how fins were able to develop into limbs, how the leopard got its spots, or how the vertebrate eye evolved. None of the evidence recounted here assumes that natural selection is valid. None of the evidence assumes that natural selection is sufficient for generating adaptations or the differences between species and other taxa. Because of this evidentiary independence, the validity of the macroevolutionary conclusion does not depend on whether natural selection, or the inheritance of acquired characaters, or a force vitale, or something else is the true mechanism of adaptive evolutionary change. The scientific case for common descent stands, regardless."
As does the case for common DESIGN stand, regardless, using the same criteria.
Further, while he poo-poos the need for an explanation of the mechanisms involved to produce a "common descent" event, he later refers to these mechanisms, which he surely knows have been disproved or seriously questioned, in his explanations of some of his evidence of "common descent". This is intellectually dishonest. He states that he did not need them, so why does he then refer to them?
Let’s briefly do a little exercise, apply the same "common descent" criteria to something else: Look at all of the vehicles we have today, boats, planes, cars, trucks, etc. Now, let’s classify the vehicles according to all characteristics: time, size, shape, environment, geography, bells and whistles, power source, etc.
I suppose the beginning would have to be the wheel. Then, since most have an internal combustion engine, they would all be somewhat related, going back to the steam engine. Then, most would be made of steel, or an alloy. Another point of relation. Of course, some differences would naturally occur because of the environments they worked in. Most are segregated according to environment, but a few can even cross environments, amphibious vehicles.
Now, let’s look at just the cars. They would have their own category, but they are somewhat related to trucks. SUV’s would be a combination of the two. Trucks are generally larger, some have more wheels, sometimes have different functions from cars. The cars can look really different. They can have spoilers, two door, four door, hatch, whatever. Color is no big deal, they can be repainted. All of the vehicles in use today can be related back to the original components in some way.
Then, let’s look at the evolution of the car itself. What did they look like in the past? Boxier. Some were good, some not so good. Even individual parts were different. Wheels became much better over time, as did engines. Many changes. Many went extinct because of selection pressure. Their information was no longer incorporated in future cars. Cars became sleeker, prettier, more powerful, more efficient, etc. Even some features could be considered "vestigial" parts.
It does not take much effort to see how they changed over time, and even without knowing the actual history of the vehicles, you could surmise a relative sequence of the "evolution" of all vehicles. That is because each vehicle was not built using totally new ideas. Later vehicles were built upon the knowledge gained from building earlier vehicles. There is evidence of obvious "common descent".
But what one over-riding concept do all vehicles have in common? They were all designed. So, as the author of "29" can make a case for common decent, even considering the tremendous number of anomalies, you can do the same thing with other topics. But it surely does not prove macro-evolution. It as much proves a common design.
>>Now, we have an event that limits breeding between groups. As geneflow between the groups is slowed/stopped, independant mutations and selection will occur between the groups. Thus we see seperation, . In this example we would see cladogenesis. A common ancestor population branching to 2.
According to Hardy and Weinberg, evolution will not occur if:
1. mutation is not occurring
2. natural selection is not occurring
3. the population is infinitely large
4. all members of the population breed
5. all mating is totally random
6. everyone produces the same number of offspring
7. there is no migration in or out of the population<<
If only nature and the geological record would cooperate. I assume you mean the above as some proof that the mentioned mechanisms result in macro-evolution?. As I mentioned in a previous post, the geological record indicates massive extinction events over time. 99.9 percent of all species that have ever inhabited the earth have gone extinct. What is observed generally is; at most slight modifications of body plans over hundreds, thousands, and even millions of generations, followed by an extinction event, followed by completely new body plans, a new "creation", if you will.
Highly doubtful that, by pure chance, the extinction events would be terribly adroit at "selection". Asteroids, floods, ice ages, Volcanic activity, is rather random, and/or all encompassing. It is the subsequent "creation" events which provide the new talent.
Dr. Patterson commented on the statement that the Hardy-Weinberg principle showed stability: "Yes. It has nothing to do with evolution. People keep asking me why I didn't mention it in my book. Ha! Ha! It has nothing to do with evolution. Every time I find a population it's inside Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium."
So, can we agree that natural selection does not have anything to do with macro-evolution, even according to your own source? If not, there is more below.
>Speciation?
I'm sure you're familiar with the allopatric and sympatric speciation models. Genetic drift, mate selection and polypoidation are other ones that occurs. Do we see any speciation events? Yes, we have observed many.
Evening primrose, Zea mays, ferns, we have found many instances in plants. Much research has been done on Drosophila, and we have observed
we have speciation there. There are many more here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/<
Concerning this: What is your point?
PROFESSOR G.G. SIMPSON, one of the elite spokesmen for evolution, writes about multiple, simultaneous mutations and reports that the mathematical likelihood of getting good evolutionary results would occur only once in 274 billion years. That is assuming 100 million individuals reproducing a new generation every day. "Obviously such a process has played no part whatever in evolution."
MICHEL DELSOL, PROF. OF BIOLOGY, UNIV. OF LYONS, "If mutation were a variation of value to the species, then the evolution of drosophila should have proceeded with extreme rapidity. Yet the facts entirely contradict the validity of this theoretical deduction; for we have seen that the Drosophila type has been known since the beginning of the Tertiary period, that is for about fifty million years, and it has not been modified in any way during that time."
S. M. STANLEY, Johns Hopkins Univ. "Once established, an average species of animal or plant will not change enough to be regarded as a new species, even after surviving for something like a hundred thousand or a million, or even ten million generations... Something tends to prevent the wholesale restructuring of a species, once it has become well established on earth."
STEPHEN T. GOULD, HARVARD, We can tell tales of improvement for some groups, but in honest moments we must admit that the history of complex life is more a story of multifarious variation about a set of basic designs than a saga of accumulating excellence.
Species are shown to change color, size, some shape, etc. But the record indicates they do not make any great jumps until an extinction event comes along.
>Written by a friend, Yellow #5
All of this points to a common ancestor to ALL life on earth. The fact that no known organisms differ from this fundamental scheme when countless other schemes could work equally well should smack anyone who examines it in the face. If evolution were NOT true the odds that ALL organisms would use the same biochemical schemes is utterly astronomical.<
OR, it is excellent evidence for a common DESIGNER. In fact, wonderful evidence. In fact, I would think the converse of his argument is actually true. If not for a common designer explaining what we see, there would probably be many different "biochemical schemes" that "magically" came to be through pure chance over billions of years! From your friend, "when countless other schemes could work equally well". So, why did these, "countless other schemes" not come about by pure chance over the intervening four billion years? I mean, it only took a half billion years to come up with the first scheme. The odds are so "utterly astronomical" that events occurred which could provide macro-evolution, this phrase is laughable.
>Something else you may find interesting, chimps, gorillas and orangutans have 24 chromosomes while humans usually have 23. Scientists thought this odd and hypothesized that a fusion had occured between 2 chromosomes, as well as predicting a certain structure for the resulting chromosome. When this was looked into what did they find? A chromosome that was analogous to those found in other primates, having 2 centromeres.<
So what possible significance, in the matter of macro-evolution, could this have?
>Now let's look at some fossils, we would expect some progression in hominid fossils to back the theory. What do we find?<
>Looks very nice to me. This is connected to the 29+ evidences of macro-evolution link I posted earlier. <
>You already mentioned that mDNA from neanderthal didn't match current man. Thus it is not a direct ancestor. What is the best explaination for that? We have a very similar creature, sharing characteristics with man, showing divergence. Looks to me like it branched off the hominid lineage, and had reproductive isolation. We share a common ancestor with neanderthals, but aren't descendants. As you have already accepted sources of variation, this makes perfect sense. <
There is no doubt it makes sense to ASSUME a common lineage beyond Neanderthal. But the point is, it is not EVIDENCE of macro-evolution. At the very best, it is extremely circumstantial. We should have many, easily found transitions from modern man, to his ancestors, mDNA verifiable back at least 40,000 years. So far, we do not. That is curious
Look at the genetic research as it stands now (or at least the last I have read). From memory, the old Africa theory placed "Eve", the female from whom all of us descended, living 2.2 million years ago. That was found to be incorrect, and the new-Africa theory places the age of "Eve" at about 200,000 years ago. Quite a difference. Then, the current Y chromosome work places "Adam" at about 47,000 years ago. This of course is all based on calculations, making many assumptions. But, as the evidence and confidence accumulates, the numbers are going down. This becomes more interesting as time goes on.
For decades, Neanderthals were thought to be modern humans’ direct ancestor. They are not. But many evolutionists still try to say that other various bones, much older than Neanderthal are direct human ancestors. THAT makes no sense. In fact, not one of the examples listed can be proved to be direct human lineage. It is ASSUMED to be evidence by evolutionists. They have FAITH that it is evidence. But it is NOT evidence.
This is my exact point in all of this discussion. All of the current positive evidence for common descent is also evidence for common design, a common designer, a one true God.
We have little actual evidence of true macro-evolution. The oldest mDNA evidence I am aware of that has been proven accurate is the 9,000 skeleton of a guy in England:
Using DNA from a tooth, scientists at Oxford University have established a blood tie between a 9000 year-old skeleton known as Cheddar Man and Adrian Targett, an English school teacher. Targett lives in the town of Cheddar, just a half-mile from the cave where the bones were found. It is the longest human lineage ever traced.
This was a truly modern man, with no evidence of a different conformation than humans today.
There have been findings in Australia, which may be 19,000 years old, but they have not been confirmed, to my knowledge.
You must also accept the evidence which refutes common descent. You cannot just throw out the anomalies which refute your conclusions, and there are thousands as pointed out in the "29" article. Also, at some point, in order to believe in evolution, you must have concrete evidence of the method or methods used by macro-evolution to make the changes over time. They are not apparent at this time. Further, you must consider the hard questions I have pointed out previously, but which no evolutionist cares to consider.
>When we look at fossils (geological column), it starts to jump out at you that there is a definite progression. At the bottom we have just microorganisms, progressing through to modern creatures.<
I have no problem generally with much of this, but your previous conclusion above is way off base. Paleontology and geology do not show conformation to any progression. There is no gradualism.
H.J. MACGILLAVRY "During my work as an oil paleontologist I had the opportunity to study sections meeting these rigid requirements. As an ardent student of evolution, moreover, I was continually on the watch for evidence of evolutionary change. ...The great majority of species do not show any appreciable evolutionary change at all. These species appear in the section (first occurrence) without obvious ancestors in underlying beds, and are stable once established."
Penis EnlargementRCY E. RAYMOND, Prof of Paleontology, Harvard, "It is evidence that the oldest Cambrian fauna is diversified and not so simple, perhaps, as the evolutionists would hope to find it. Instead of being composed chiefly of protozoa’s, it contains no representatives of that phylum but numerous members of seven higher groups are present, a fact which shows that the greater part of the major differentiation of animals had already taken place in those ancient times."
STEPHEN GOULD, Harvard,"…one outstanding fact of the fossil record that many of you may not be aware of, that since the so called Cambrian explosion ... during which essentially all the anatomical designs of modem multicellular life made their first appearance in the fossil record, no new Phyla of animals have entered the fossil record.", Speech at SNW, Oct.2, 1990
RICHARD MONASTERSKY, Earth Science Ed., Science News, "The remarkably complex forms of animals we see today suddenly appeared ... this moment, right at the start of the Earth's Cambrian Period…marks the evolutionary explosion that filled the seas with the earth's first complex creatures....'This is Genesis material,' gushed one researcher .... demonstrates that the large animal phyla of today were present already in the early Cambrian and that they were as distinct from each other as they are today ... a menagerie of clam cousins, sponges, segmented worms, and other invertebrates that would seem vaguely familiar to any scuba diver."
RICHARD DAWKINS, Cambridge, "JM we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists .... the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation.....
H.S. LADD, UCLA, "Most paleontologists today give little thought to fossiliferous rocks
older than the Cambrian, thus ignoring the most important missing link of all. Indeed the
missing PreCambrian record cannot properly he described as a link for it is in reality,
of life: the first ninetenths."
Not to mention countless periods of completely different body types, example dinosaurs,, some apparently better than modern, who found themselves eventually extinct.
>When we do phylogenetic research it aligns with this. Genes are duplicated, accumulate changes, we see branching points and evidence of common ancestry.<
Please. When we do "phylogenetic research", we are no different than small children segregating our M&Ms into different piles according to color. "we see branching points and evidence of common ancestry". Or of common design in many cases.
>You asked of any recent developments, I would say bioinformatics and genome sequencing are a huge development.<
So run with it. Where do they provide evidence of macro-evolution?
.
>This is a short case for evolution, there are piles of evidence, including the very obvious ones like antibiotic resistance, our selective breeding of many plants and animals, homology, etc. I find evolution to be an elegant theory, with great explanitory power and the best explaination we have for the diversity of life on earth.
1.RNA-First Hypothesis
RNA could carry out processes associated with Life
Nobel Prize 1989 (Cech, Un of Colorado & Altman, Yale)
RNA can act as a substrate and/or an enzyme
2.Protein-First Hypothesis Sidney Fox (above)
Proteinoids form from amino acids at 180o
Proteinoids can form Microspheres
3.Clay catalyzed RNA & Protein synthesis (Both First)
Graham Cairns-Smith (University of Glasgow)
Clay is helpful in polymerizing Proteins & Nucleic Acids
Attracts small organic molecules
Contains zinc & iron (metal catalysts)
Collects energy from radioactive decay and releases it when Temperature and/or Humidity change.
Macromolecules to Living Cells
Took half a billion years
Event Still a Mystery
1. Prebionts
Nonliving structures that evolved into the first living cells
2. Coacervates
Organic molecules surrounded by a film of water molecules
Selectively absorb materials from surrounding water
Incorporate them into their structure
Not a random arrangement of molecules
3. Microsphere
Organic molecules surrounded by a double membrane
Can be formed from Proteinoids, when placed in boiling water & cooled.
Shrink & swell depending on the osmolarity of the water.
Can absorb material from the environment & grow & form buds.
Internal streaming similar to cells
Have been shown to form nucleic acids & polypeptides (ATP present)
Microspheres = Protocells!!<
Great! A whole lot of theory. Now, where is the evidence? The only thing provided here, that can be depended on, is the phrase, "Event Still a Mystery". I would have no problem, even if geological evidence of any or all of this was found. It should be there, if it happened. But it would be great to see some evidence.
You have been correct in one thing. The first life forms did inhabit earth at some point. You believe it was by pure chance, I believe it was by a creation event.
Your sources:
Origins site:
This was truly disappointing. Not because of information, but because the site was simply full of dead links. I wasted a lot of time clicking on them for nothing. The body of the article presents nothing of substance, or fact, or evidence to even comment upon.
Lies, damned lies site"
The author is completely wrong about his claims. First, the evidence I presented previously was calculated by scientists, not creationists. I honestly cannot remember where I got it, but I believe it was Huxley. Further, the author is wrong in his assumptions"
1) They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.
2) They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.
3) They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.
4) They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
5) They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.
The actual calculations were based on the following:
What are the statistical odds that a primitive cell could be formed randomly? Again, scientists say the solar system is 4.6 billion years old. They say life began 3.5 billion years ago. Therefore it took 1.1 billion years to randomly form life. The simplest protein molecule of the simplest primitive cell has 400 linked amino acids, each composed of 4-5 chemical elements. If only 100 linked amino acids are considered, the odds of these elements randomly coming together to form a single protein are 1 in 10 to the 158 power. There are only 10 to the 80 power electrons in the universe! If you had one billion attempts per second, for thirty billion years to make a 100 amino acid protein, the odds of success is 1 in 10 to the 53 power.
Rarely do you see an avowed evolutionist that just outright lies. But this guy knows no bounds.
More on "29".
Most of the information has been around forever, and here it is well presented. Of course, most of it is not contradicted by anyone, because it is not relevant. His apologies to the mechanisms of "common descent" are laughable. He essentially says, "this is what was done, but we know not how". OK, so, big deal. Then, stuck in various parts of the article, he gives some credit to natural selection, mutations, etc, when we know that is not the case. Of course, he expects the reader to interpret "mutations" to mean genetic changes, when "mutation" is a specific term, the occurrence of which almost always has deleterious results. No probable explanation for genetic code changes that leads to macro-evolution has ever been found.
I love this: : "Truly genetically gradual events are changes within the range of biological variation expected between two consecutive generations. Morphological change may appear fast, geologically speaking, yet still be genetically gradual "
To quote John Lovett, "Yeah, that’s the ticket."
I cannot believe he put this in his article. He gives several sources concerning this statement. I did not look them up, but have read the opinions of the scientists mentioned. Talk about random chance? Genetic changes or "mutations" occurring over millions of years, all without individual deleterious effects, resulting at some point in an evolutionary change that actually works, and is morphologically manifested in a relatively short time. IOW, accumulations of genotypic changes over millennia, eventually resulting in a phenotypic positive, or at least non-negative, in a geological moment.
What are the odds? How could that not be a huge indicator of intelligent design? This ranks up there or beyond with the random forming of our habitable world, spontaneous generation, the advent of sexual reproduction, etc, as impossible events that must occur to allow for macro-evolution. Please add that to your faith requirement.
Please read under ‘Part I, Prediction 1.5: Chronological order of intermediates’ carefully. See if you can find the truly uncomfortable areas of macro-evolution, and then re-evaluate your confidence. I was sure the old excuse of an insufficient geological record was dead. Perhaps the next few hundred years will reveal the light.
Carefully read the section on vestigial structures. They are what they say they are. If proven wrong, they will do what is needed to make it right. There is no scientific accountability.
Articles on marxism, evolution, other social and political thought:
You may or may not be interested in the following, but it is all worth considering. Since you brought up some of the possible deleterious implications of religion, I wondered if you had considered the deleterious implications of evolution.
This first site goes into some interesting history of the social and political support of evolution. It also looks into the teaching of creationism vs evolution. However, the author vilifies Gould, which I think is a shame. Stephen Gould died in ’02, was a confirmed Marxist and evolutionist, testified against teaching creationism, etc, but I believe he was an honest scientist. When something was wrong, he said it was wrong. I do not think the author was very fair in his treatment of Gould.
It also looks at possible social ills that may be helped along by evolution.
http://www.trueorigin.org/gould01.asp
The following link is full of interesting history. It even implicates GW Bush as a purveyor of evolution.
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NewAge/Darwin.htm
If you are bored at this time, just skip this site. It is written by a Muslim, a bit over the edge. But he makes some good points, and exposes some of the social and political intricacies of evolution, or the irreligion.
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/layout...e_struggle_against_the_religion_of_irreligion
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