Science vs. Creationism

[PearlWatson]

London underground mosquito says hi again.

Professor of Genetics Says 'No!' to Evolution

being also an academic teacher in population genetics, I found it necessary to play down the evolutionary explanations given in textbooks, for the simple reason that I find no evidence to support them. In fact, it was my teaching of population genetics, coupled with the discovery that my children are being taught evolution in secondary school on the claim that population genetics provides evidence for it, that made me enter the debate publicly.

I had been taught that palaeontology gives the bulk of the evidence for evolution. To my surprise, I found that evidence is lacking not only in genetics but also in palaeontology, as well as in sedimentology, in dating techniques, and in fact in all sciences. However, here I shall restrict myself to a review of the arguments for evolution drawn from my field, genetics.

Perhaps the most evident misinformation in textbooks is the suggestion that microevolution is a small-scale example of macroevolution.

MICROEVOLUTION

The example used to support this is usually the story about the grey or black moths (Biston betularia) living on the bark of trees, the population adapting in colour to the colour of the bark — darker in industrial, polluted environments, and lighter in cleaner ones.

The misinformation lies in concealing the fact that select, adapted populations are genetically poorer (fewer alleles1) than the unselected natural populations from which they arose. We find the same in forest trees. In polluted environments, the surviving trees have fewer alleles than in non-polluted ones. Microevolution, formation of races, is a fact. Populations adapt to specific environments with the more successful alleles increasing in numbers and others declining in frequencies or disappearing altogether. Change can also occur due to accidental loss of alleles (genetic drift) in small isolated populations. Both amount to decline in genetic information. Macroevolution requires its increase.

POSITIVE MUTATIONS?

A useful mutation (e.g. an orange without seeds) is not the equivalent of a positive mutation. I felt uneasy lecturing about positive mutations when I could not give an example. There are very many examples of negative and neutral mutations, but none I know of which I could present as a documented example of a positive one.

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.

Variants of alleles in a gene pool are a fact of life. How they came to be is another matter. Some, usually neutral or excessively deleterious, arise from mutations. Some are introgressants from other species. Still others are within the population since its origin — however that came about.

Professor Maciej Giertych, M.A.(Oxford), Ph.D.(Toronto), D.Sc.(Poznan), is head of the Genetics Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Dendrology in Kornik, Poland.

 

[babe]

Founded on the evidence those events left behind, actually.



Yes, we have.



Not a part of evolutionary theory.

I suppose you get tired sometimes. . . . .

In this thread, I posted once about how the old medieval notion of "Spontaneous Generation", circa the time of Spinoza as I think I recall. . . . .

If I remember correctly, somebody put some horsepoop in a jar and sealed it, and marveled at how flies hatched "from nothing". While Darwin indubitably imagined his theory was more advanced than that, it is actually exactly the same idea.

"Evolutionary Scientists" expanded the scale and the duration of the phenomenon beyond any practical possibility of observation, and asserted that a closed system with some energy inputs like the sun, volcanos, lightning etc. acted on a murky sea with lots of ammonia, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, reduced carbon chemicals such as oils and whatever else there is, and voila the building blocks of "Life" tangled themselves together, achieving step by step the complete set of necessary capacities inherent in "Life".

Missing from this theory is a coherent defintion of what "Life" is, as well as any truly scientific demonstrations of any of the alleged steps. It's always a very weak demonstration of a merely chemical sort of behavior producing something that still behaves like "dead" stuff, and nobody has ever demonstrated in any material way any nonliving "stuff" following the Second Law of Thermodynamics acquiring the capacity to transcend the Second Law by being properly arranged as a "living" particle which can propagate itself, or even having the capacity to maintain a "steady state" by repairing the decay or damage accruing from the operation of the Second Law, as all "Living Things" are known to do in "Life".

So, despite the extended axiomatic assumptions necessary as "a priori" conclusions in the "Science" of "Evolution", 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.

 

[♪alt13]

I suppose you get tired sometimes. . . . .

In this thread, I posted once about how the old medieval notion of "Spontaneous Generation", circa the time of Spinoza as I think I recall. . . . .

If I remember correctly, somebody put some horsepoop in a jar and sealed it, and marveled at how flies hatched "from nothing". While Darwin indubitably imagined his theory was more advanced than that, it is actually exactly the same idea.

"Evolutionary Scientists" expanded the scale and the duration of the phenomenon beyond any practical possibility of observation, and asserted that a closed system with some energy inputs like the sun, volcanos, lightning etc. acted on a murky sea with lots of ammonia, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, reduced carbon chemicals such as oils and whatever else there is, and voila the building blocks of "Life" tangled themselves together, achieving step by step the complete set of necessary capacities inherent in "Life".

Missing from this theory is a coherent defintion of what "Life" is, as well as any truly scientific demonstrations of any of the alleged steps. It's always a very weak demonstration of a merely chemical sort of behavior producing something that still behaves like "dead" stuff, and nobody has ever demonstrated in any material way any nonliving "stuff" following the Second Law of Thermodynamics acquiring the capacity to transcend the Second Law by being properly arranged as a "living" particle which can propagate itself, or even having the capacity to maintain a "steady state" by repairing the decay or damage accruing from the operation of the Second Law, as all "Living Things" are known to do in "Life".

So, despite the extended axiomatic assumptions necessary as "a priori" conclusions in the "Science" of "Evolution", 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.

cut and paste response

Evolutionary theory deals mainly with how life changed after its origin. Science does try to investigate how life started (e.g., whether or not it happened near a deep-sea vent, which organic molecules came first, etc.), but these considerations are not the central focus of evolutionary theory. Regardless of how life started, afterwards it branched and diversified, and most studies of evolution are focused on those processes.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml

 

[babe]

Professor of Genetics Says 'No!' to Evolution



Professor Maciej Giertych, M.A.(Oxford), Ph.D.(Toronto), D.Sc.(Poznan), is head of the Genetics Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Dendrology in Kornik, Poland.

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

 

[babe]

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

So I watched the little snippet.

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

 

[♪alt13]

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

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.

 

[♪alt13]

So I watched the little snippet.

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

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.

 

[babe]

cut and paste response

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml

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."

 

[♪alt13]

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.

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.

 

[PearlWatson]

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.

cut and paste response
"Regardless of how life started, afterwards it branched and diversified"

Darwinistic mechanisms of "branching and diversifying" requires "spontaneous generation" of new genetic material...it is a belief in a succession of poo jar scenarios.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

Darwinistic mechanisms of "branching and diversifying" requires "spontaneous generation" of new genetic material...it is a belief in a succession of poo jar scenarios.

Uh, no, but keep on lyin', looks good on ya.

 

[babe]

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.

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.