What's new
By:

Science vs. Creationism

AKMVP said:
Whats the point in bringing these old quotes, some of them from dudes deceased 50 years ago as some kind of reliable arguments? Behe is a joke and been dismissed from any law court he was involved. Even his own university disagrees with his views. This single discussion is enough to laugh and admire how Behe is destroyed by real scientist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bFQLpUfwx7M
Click to expand...


So I watched the little snippet.

I wouldn't buy a used car from the guy on the left.
 
babe said:
No doubt by dawn there will be some kind of a smear laid down here discrediting the Prof quoted above.

Let's hope we get more specific information that "He's a crackpot" and "Reputable Scientists have exposed him" as a fraud, a dupe, or a schemer hell-bent on re-writing high school textbooks
Click to expand...

no need

here are a bunch of observed beneficial mutations
https://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

one from our very own U of U

Papadopoulos, D., Schneider, D., Meier-Eiss, J., Arber, W., Lenski, R. E., Blot, M. (1999). Genomic evolution during a 10,000-generation
experiment with bacteria. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 96: 3807-3812

Edited by John R. Roth, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, and approved February 3, 1999 (received for review July 21, 1998)

Molecular methods are used widely to measure genetic diversity within populations and determine relationships among species. However, it is difficult to observe genomic evolution in action because these dynamics are too slow in most organisms. To overcome this limitation, we sampled genomes from populations of Escherichia coli evolving in the laboratory for 10,000 generations. We analyzed the genomes for restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) using seven insertion sequences (IS) as probes; most polymorphisms detected by this approach reflect rearrangements (including transpositions) rather than point mutations. The evolving genomes became increasingly different from their ancestor over time. Moreover, tremendous diversity accumulated within each population, such that almost every individual had a different genetic fingerprint after 10,000 generations. As has been often suggested, but not previously shown by experiment, the rates of phenotypic and genomic change were discordant, both across replicate populations and over time within a population. Certain pivotal mutations were shared by all descendants in a population, and these are candidates for beneficial mutations, which are rare and difficult to find. More generally, these data show that the genome is highly dynamic even over a time scale that is, from an evolutionary perspective, very brief.
Click to expand...
 
babe said:
So I watched the little snippet.

I wouldn't buy a used car from the guy on the left.
Click to expand...

Yeah he would probably be too honest with you and tell you everything that was wrong with it. It would probably be better to buy one from a real charmer that would tell you what you want to hear.
 
heyhey said:
cut and paste response

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml
Click to expand...

I might have missed it the first time.

This thread is titled "Science vs. Creationism". We have drifted off topic if we are now actually talking about "Evolution" in this sense.

In my day, the high school and college textbooks clearly alleged that Darwin's theory provided a stand-alone explanation for the origin of Life. The books put this kind of primeval chemistry under that title. I'd call it progress if "evolutionary science" now adheres to this fine point.

But my various comments about how I don't care to debate evolution per se in defense of my ideas about intelligence or will or purpose being driving forces in nature. . . . "Creation" and "Design" being inherent in living things as we know them. . . . .still are just being ignored by the little camp of deniers who think nature has no underlying design, purpose, or intelligence. . . . .

It is still the triumphant march of materialism and meaninglessness that underlies the "believers" in "evolution".

I've dabbled in population genetics a little, and in some other specific biochemistry issues that go back to genetics. . . . .

For me, the best example of "evolution" is the range of plants that have photosynthetic capacities. The textbooks do "Life" a great disservice in characterizing it as a simple molecular reaction between chlorophyll and sunlight. We still have a pretty complete set of the plants found across geologic time which can do photosynthesis, including some very primitive types. If you want to demonstrate a gradual progress over time, that's what I'd go to. So you may ask. . . . chlorophyll is a simple molecule, how is that gonna show genetic changes? Well, you need to consider the whole assemblage of molecules that "help", that funnel energy into the reaction, the proteins that synthesize these photo-active chemicals. . . ..

So, as I've said before, there is plenty of change across time evident here on this earth, and if that's what you mean by "evolution", I'm all for it. Isn't our world full of wonders, and isn't it great to learn about them.

But this thread is about whether we should teach kids about philosophies common to mankind across the ages, and whether "Science" defined as a purely materialistic explanation of Life merits public/government support as a tool for indoctrinating kids that religion is invalid, for the purpose of making people compliant to a fascist State. To a fascist State, religion is a problem because it postulates some higher power, some higher authority, than a few rich men.


uuhhhhh. . . . for OB, I should change that to " a few rich white men."
 
Last edited:
babe said:
I might have missed it the first time.

This thread is titled "Science vs. Creationism". We have drifted off topic if we are now actually talking about "Evolution" in this sense.
Click to expand...

No we can talk about the origins of life but to try and discredit evolution based on origins is silly. That is all ob was trying to say.
 
babe said:
the theory of evolution is in no way different from believing that inert, non-living crap left in a jar in a warm sunny place is capable of producing living things.
Click to expand...

heyhey said:
cut and paste response
"Regardless of how life started, afterwards it branched and diversified"
Click to expand...

Darwinistic mechanisms of "branching and diversifying" requires "spontaneous generation" of new genetic material...it is a belief in a succession of poo jar scenarios.
 
heyhey said:
No we can talk about the origins of life but to try and discredit evolution based on origins is silly. That is all ob was trying to say.
Click to expand...

So if you're scientist enough to actually understand the publication abstract quoted above, maybe you can understand Pearl's position. She is not a scientist, maybe more of homemaker/mother/wife with some penchant for criticizing public education priorities.

A lot of folks like that have religious sentiments, if not beliefs. What they get in the public schools is a pretty bald line of doctrinal assertions that "Science" disproves "Religion", and that those archaic dimwit fossilized humans have no sense if they still think religion is OK, after all that Science has proven about how there is no God.

I say some folks are falsely asserting that "evolution" disproves any possible "Creation" by any possible "God". I'm not really "BIG" on the infallibility of either the Bible, or men. We might be all wrong, still. I say it's just as wrong to teach a line of doctrine that is hostile to religious tradition, alleging it's supported by "Science", as it is to teach a line of doctrine that is hostile to scientific methods or learning, alleging that isn't supported by "Scripture" or "God".

The God I believe in, I believe, is a good model for any aspiring "Scientist". Has been doing all the stuff we've learned to do scientifically for billions of years. Might have a lot of similarly advanced "helpers". . . . Probably designed the systems that permit living things to change/adapt across time and particularly across habitats.
 
PearlWatson said:
Darwinistic mechanisms of "branching and diversifying" requires "spontaneous generation" of new genetic material...it is a belief in a succession of poo jar scenarios.
Click to expand...

Might be pretty worthwhile going to Heyhey's link to the the UofU prof/research team that did the 10000-generation E. coli study. . . .
 
babe said:
No doubt by dawn there will be some kind of a smear laid down here discrediting the Prof quoted above.

Let's hope we get more specific information that "He's a crackpot" and "Reputable Scientists have exposed him" as a fraud, a dupe, or a schemer hell-bent on re-writing high school textbooks
Click to expand...

Do a bit of research on him. He's pretty unabashedly anti-Semitic, for one. I would give him the same consideration I would toward E.O. Wilson on his thoughts on sociobiology.

EDIT: What little I read seems to purport that he argues any new genetic advantage is the result of dormant alleles and not via mutation. A really odd stance.

EDIT:

Found this.

from Brian Charlesworth and 34 others (names available on request from B.C.), Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Sir:

We are astonished that Nature would publish a Correspondence as full of errors as that by Maciej Giertych (Nature 444, 265; 2006). For someone with degrees from the universities of Oxford and Toronto, Giertych displays a breathtaking ignorance.

There is no “new scientific evidence against the theory of evolution” as he asserts, but fails to document. This can be verified by consulting any of the recent standard textbooks on the subject. The claim that “microevolution…is a step towards a reduction of genetic information” is nonsense. On the contrary, there is ample evidence for the frequent use of duplications of genes in evolution, many of which have acquired new functions. By any criterion, this represents an increase in the amount of genetic information.

Contrary to Giertych’s statements, the temporal ordering of rock layers by stratigraphy, and the extinction of dinosaurs some 65 million years before the existence of humans, are overwhelmingly established facts of geology and palaeontology. His claim that “No positive mutations have ever been demonstrated” is simply false. Disregarding the fact that it is illogical to rule out resistance to antibiotics and herbicides as examples of adaptations, as was done by Giertych, there are literally thousands of cases in which natural selection has been demonstrated in wild populations of animals and plants.

Further, the contemporary literature on molecular evolution is filled with studies that provide evidence for a positive role of natural selection. Physicists do not spend their time debating the correctness of the atomic theory of matter; it is intolerable that biologists should constantly be forced to defend their unifying theory against ill-informed attacks.
Click to expand...

Seems like there is absolutely zero science actually done to back up his opinion and the scientific institutes he is associated with back away from him.
 
Last edited:
heyhey said:
no need

here are a bunch of observed beneficial mutations
https://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

one from our very own U of U
Click to expand...

well, the point of the "guy on the right" is sustained even here, on two very important counts you seem to have missed.

You have sorta "extrapolated" from the actual findings of this study, stating as a conclusion what is reported as a possibility. You say "here are a bunch of beneficial mutations" when the abstract only asserts that a certain class of observations might be

Certain pivotal mutations were shared by all descendants in a population, and these are candidates for beneficial mutations, which are rare and difficult to find. More generally, these data show that the genome is highly dynamic even over a time scale that is, from an evolutionary perspective, very brief.
Click to expand...

candidates for beneficial mutations. Clearly the researchers are staying on solid ground and are not asserting anything not yet demonstrated.

And clearly, these researchers are validating "the guy on the right" in the assertion that beneficial mutations are rare. More to the point, you should listen to his comments another time and notice that he is further "right" on the issue of alleles, not just "mutations".

while the physicist, "the guy on the left", doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
 
heyhey said:
no need

here are a bunch of observed beneficial mutations
https://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

one from our very own U of U
Click to expand...

Examples of designed algorithmic variation...not spontaneous generation.

The bacteria remain bacteria.

This information, that contains that UofU experiment has some pretty interesting stuff on inheritance:

The current view of inheritance taught in our schools and colleges is Mendelian. Darwin imagined inheritance to occur by a blending of the characters of each parent, but Mendel showed that inheritance was particulate—it was carried by discrete particles in discrete states. These particles became known as genes, and genes were eventually found to be coded segments on the DNA molecules that make up chromosomes in the nucleus of cells. Darwinists today view all of inheritance as genetic, and because genes can change more or less indefinitely, they identify this as the obvious means to explain how everything has evolved from something else during the supposed millions of years of life on Earth.

But Mendel’s work only explained the things that changed during inheritance, not the things that remained the same. For example, he used varieties of pea plants that had round or wrinkled, green or yellow seeds. He simply took for granted, and thus overlooked, the fact that the peas produced peas. Darwinists today still remain blind to this fact and insist that peas will eventually produce something other than peas, given enough time. There is certainly enormous variability in all forms of life, yet all our experiments in plant and animal breeding still show the same result—peas produce peas, dogs produce dogs and humans produce humans. This result is not consistent with Darwinian expectations....

Cellular inheritance

Genes can no longer be seen as the cause of biological inheritance because we now know that control over their expression (i.e. their being switched on and off when needed or not needed, respectively, and the timing of these events) comes from epigenetic mechanisms operating in the cell.6 This suggests that the DNA simply provides a ‘library’ of information and the use of that information is controlled not by the genes themselves but by the cell.

If the cell, and not the genes, control inheritance, then certain observations that puzzle Darwinists become explicable. For example, Australian rock hopper wallabies display an incredible array of chromosomal aberrations, yet all within a group of species that are so similar to one another that most people cannot tell them apart.7 The chromosomes have been grossly scrambled, yet the cell is still able to extract the information it needs for survival. If the genes had been in control during such a scrambling process, Darwinists would expect it to take about a hundred million years, but the evidence suggests quite recent divergence of these species.

A similar pattern of cell stability in the face of genome change is constantly at work in bacteria. It has been found that new gene sequences are continually being brought into bacterial cells and spliced into the bacterial genome.8 The bacterial genome does not keep getting bigger, however, because it also has a complementary method of getting rid of unwanted or useless sequences. The result is that the bacterium is continually ‘sampling’ its genetic environment, looking for new gene sequences that might be useful in the ever-changing world around it. Throughout all this change, the bacterium maintains its integrity as a bacterium. For example, a study of the bacterium Escherichia coli over 10,000 generations found that at the end, ‘almost every individual had a different genetic fingerprint’, yet they were still Escherichia coli.9 Only if the cell is in control can we explain these observations.
Click to expand...

Alexander Williams, B.Sc., M.Sc.(Hons), Th.C., Dip.C.S., ThL.
 
babe said:
well, the point of the "guy on the right" is sustained even here, on two very important counts you seem to have missed.

You have sorta "extrapolated" from the actual findings of this study, stating as a conclusion what is reported as a possibility. You say "here are a bunch of beneficial mutations" when the abstract only asserts that a certain class of observations might be



candidates for beneficial mutations. Clearly the researchers are staying on solid ground and are not asserting anything not yet demonstrated.

And clearly, these researchers are validating "the guy on the right" in the assertion that beneficial mutations are rare. More to the point, you should listen to his comments another time and notice that he is further "right" on the issue of alleles, not just "mutations".

while the physicist, "the guy on the left", doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
Click to expand...

We also have this part of the explanation:

"Genetic literature on the subject often confuses mutations with alleles, or even mutations with recombinations. The finding of an allele that is useful for some purpose is not the equivalent of demonstrating a positive mutation — similarly when the find concerns a useful recombinant of alleles existing in the gene pool."
 
An trait that has never been seen in the history of the individual species and it's a newly found allele that's been there the entire time...

Certainly an eyebrow raiser, there.
 
Darkwing Duck said:
"there is ample evidence for the frequent use of duplications of genes in evolution, many of which have acquired new functions. By any criterion, this represents an increase in the amount of genetic information."
Click to expand...

Your source says this but duplication ain't new information...it is more information, like 2 copies of the same book would have more words, but not new words. (you can learn this from information theory).
 
Darkwing Duck said:
An trait that has never been seen in the history of the individual species and it's a newly found allele that's been there the entire time...

Certainly an eyebrow raiser, there.
Click to expand...

link?

So, to my own library research years ago, I found some strange things in the literature. . . . showing that humans have, comparatively recently, "borrowed" whole systems of functional genetic material from. . . . yeasts and snakes. . . . .

So you get the "family tree" you prefer by looking at cytochrome C, perhaps. Just don't look at some other protein-coding sequences. . . .

When something like E. coli can "borrow" an allele from another cell, we're talking processes in nature that are as competent as Mario Capecchi in his lab. Newly-found alleles merely reflect the fact that the borrowing occurs in large chunks sometimes. . . .
 
Darkwing Duck said:
An trait that has never been seen in the history of the individual species and it's a newly found allele that's been there the entire time...

Certainly an eyebrow raiser, there.
Click to expand...

How recombination works to produce new traits:

People have two sets of chromosomes. Let’s say a certain portion of one of Adam’s chromosome #1 reads ‘GGGGGGGGGG’ and codes for a green-colored something-or-other. The other copy of chromosome 1 reads ‘bbbbbbbbbb’ and codes for a blue something-or-other, but blue is recessive. Someone with one or two copies of the all-G chromosome will have a green something-or-other. Someone with two copies of the all-b chromosome will have a blue something-or-other. In the early population, about three quarters of the people will have the green version and about one quarter will have the blue version.

How, then, does this process produce new traits? Homologous chromosomes are recombined from one generation to the next through a process called ‘crossing over’. If a crossing over event occurred in the middle of this sequence, we might get one that reads ‘GGGGGbbbbb’ that causes the production of a purple something-or-other. This is a brand new thing, a new trait never seen before. This is the result of a change in the DNA sequence and we will not be able to tell the difference between this crossing over event and a ‘mutation’ until we can sequence the piece of DNA in question. Thus, new traits (sometimes incorrectly or colloquially referred to as ‘genes’) can arise through homologous recombination.27 But this is not mutation. Recombination is part of the intelligently-designed genome and usually only reveals information that was previously packed into the genome by the Master Designer (it can also reveal new combinations of mutations and designed diversity). Also, recombination is not random, so there is a limit to the amount of new traits that can come about in this way.
Click to expand...

Dr Robert W. Carter Ph.D. Marine biology
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top