Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
Precisely. Natural and not supernatural selection.
Oh, ok, we're on the same page now.
__________________ "There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for ever should we fail- should we fall- we will know that we have lived." --Anomander Rake.
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." --Plato
"I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill." Psalm 3:4
"The virtuous man is never a novice in worldly things." Marcus Valerius Martialis
Precisely. Natural and not supernatural selection.
'Natural selection' is a common phrase for a particular phenomenon that inevitably emerges from population dynamics. A kitsch phrase such as 'natural, not supernatural, selection' is quaint, but completely misses the point. We know natural selection works, we've seen it in action, we've predicted its moves, and it's theoretically sound.
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A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone.
- Charles Darwin
"I am a scientist... when I find evidence that my theories are wrong, it is as exciting as if the evidence proved them right."
- Stargate: SG1
What can be asserted without reason, can be denied without reason.
- Anon
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
Most scientists would deduce that chance guided such evolution, but this conclusion is an equally subjective interpretation of the facts. It's hard to determine the statistics, much less how 'random' the distribution is, from a single observation. Even 'coincidence' would seem to require two observations. Proof of chaos, rather more.
We call them random events, not chance events - rather like rain falling on the pavement (sidewalk), you know a drop is going to fall, but you can't tell exactly when and where. Continuous random genetic variation followed by some form of selection is the only way something can adapt to unknown, unforeseeable events, such as a new or changed metabolite appearing in the environment like citrate or nylon. It's a type of trial and error approach, much like the way a blind man points his stick in random directions until he finds a path forwards.
Concerning interpretation of the facts: before DNA and genetics were properly understood, biologists had made classifications of living organisms and had constructed the Tree of Life. This is a representation of relationships between species and lineages and takes the form of nested hierarchies. The Tree of Life was constructed before Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species and has since been seen as the consequences of descent with modification and speciation. More recently, the genetic relatedness of organisms has been compared to the biological classifications and has been found to generally correspond - those organisms that are close on the tree have less genetic variation in their genes compared to those that are further apart on the tree. So what you call "random distribution" from "a single observation" is not true. We have countless thousand observations that demonstrate, by and large, that mutations occur at a steady rate and randomly. Chaos has nothing to do with it.
I can't see how you can have an inbuilt adaptatory system that has the ability to anticipate future conditions. It would need such a huge library of metabolic possibilities its genome would be massively overloaded - and this is not what we observe.
These experiments are a brilliant way to keep graduate students busy. It's probably mind-numbing work to culture and plate all of these variants. Perfect work for graduate students that have little training and need an ongoing project to move right into.
I don't know for sure, but I have a strong suspicion that these experiments were started with graduate students in mind.
__________________ "Since YAC [Young-Age Creation] epistemology accepts Biblical claims over physical evidence and human reason, logical or evidential arguments for evolution and/or against YAC are likely to be ineffective in converting most YACists."--Kurt Wise
I can't see how you can have an inbuilt adaptatory system that has the ability to anticipate future conditions. It would need such a huge library of metabolic possibilities its genome would be massively overloaded - and this is not what we observe.
Just for reference, the classic experiments that demonstrate the randomness of mutation are:
Both experiments demonstrate that beneficial mutations arise prior to selection meaning that mutations occur independently of need.
__________________ "Since YAC [Young-Age Creation] epistemology accepts Biblical claims over physical evidence and human reason, logical or evidential arguments for evolution and/or against YAC are likely to be ineffective in converting most YACists."--Kurt Wise
These experiments are a brilliant way to keep graduate students busy. It's probably mind-numbing work to culture and plate all of these variants. Perfect work for graduate students that have little training and need an ongoing project to move right into.
I don't know for sure, but I have a strong suspicion that these experiments were started with graduate students in mind.
Are you serious? I bet it was fascinating when they noticed the turbosity and got to determine that it was actually the E. coli utilizing citrate! Can you imagine how exciting that must be?!
__________________ "There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for ever should we fail- should we fall- we will know that we have lived." --Anomander Rake.
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." --Plato
"I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill." Psalm 3:4
"The virtuous man is never a novice in worldly things." Marcus Valerius Martialis
I think no matter how exciting it is (and believe me, reading that report was exciting) it's got to be balanced out a little by the mountains of work that would inevitably follow a breakthrough like that.
__________________ "We can easily forgive a child that is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy is when people are afraid of the light"
-Plato
I think no matter how exciting it is (and believe me, reading that report was exciting) it's got to be balanced out a little by the mountains of work that would inevitably follow a breakthrough like that.
mmm, probably true.
__________________ "There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for ever should we fail- should we fall- we will know that we have lived." --Anomander Rake.
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." --Plato
"I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill." Psalm 3:4
"The virtuous man is never a novice in worldly things." Marcus Valerius Martialis
This was a good thread to read. Take a lesson and notice who didn't make any posts in it. That should tell you why this subforum went downhill so fast. Stop letting certain people thread-jack everything and it might be respectable once again.
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The human race will begin solving its problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously - Principia Discordia
All there is is metaphor - Robert Anton Wilson
Do not offend the Chair Leg of Truth. It is wise and terrible! - Spider Jerusalem
This was a good thread to read. Take a lesson and notice who didn't make any posts in it. That should tell you why this subforum went downhill so fast. Stop letting certain people thread-jack everything and it might be respectable once again.
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