Open Questions Concerning Darwinism

[mark kennedy]

I'm just going to ask a series of questions, they are intended to be true or false but of course you can respond as you see fit:

1) Darwinian Evolution governs the development of life forms on this planet that is not an artifact of the Earth. Darwinian Evolution is a logic which is applicable to all life forms and all biosystems that may exist in the universe, even the ones we have not discovered?

2) If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, Charles Darwin's theory of Natural Selection would absolutely break down?

3) Is Human DNA and Chimpanzee DNA greater then 98% the same?

4) The Scriptures (Old and New Testament) clearly teach that Adam was the first human and we are all sinners because of the sin of Adam and Eve?

That should get us started, there are many more but these are the most substantive. As a warning, in case someone is thinking about trolling the thread, I have an answer for evolutionist trolling tactics whether you have substantive answers for these questions or not.

To Creationists and casual observers, I would appreciate a response to the poll question.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Marshall Janzen]

To keep from a long answer, I'll focus on one of your questions:

3) Is Human DNA and Chimpanzee DNA greater then 98% the same?

The question is meaningless without stating how the comparison is being made. To see why, consider how to measure the similarity of the gospels of Matthew and Mark.

One approach would be to divide the text into short units of verses (pericopes). Count how many pericopes there are in each gospel, and then see how many of those sections are shared. By my rough count of the pericopes listed on this site, that leads to 184 pericopes in Matthew and 123 in Mark. Of those, 107 are shared and 93 are unique to one or the other gospel.

• What percentage of pericopes are the same in both? 107 / (184+123) = 35%
• What percentage of Mark's pericopes are in Matthew? 107 / 123 = 87%
• What percentage of Matthew's pericopes are in Mark? 107 / 184 = 58%

Another approach would be to determine how many words in both gospels are identical. So, one could list the unique words in both gospels, identify which words appear in both and which only appear in one, and then compute a percentage. In this method, the order or recurrence of the words does not affect the percentage.

Or, one could compile how many stretches there are where exactly the same words appear in exactly the same order, and then divide this by the total length. To make the percentage even lower, spelling differences of the same word could count as differences.

And, in all these comparisons, one would also need to decide whether parts of the text that aren't present in all manuscripts, such as the long ending of Mark, should be included or excluded from the calculation.

Making comparisons like this is messy. There are many factors involved, and each of the issues we see in comparing the gospels has its analogue in comparing the genomes of different types of organisms. This is not to say that it's impossible to state a percentage value of similarity of either gospels or genomes, but for the number to be meaningful, it would need to be accompanied by an explanation of how it was derived. Many different percentages may be accurate descriptions of the similarity, but using different methods. Even the percentage that is identical will vary based on the methods. A percentage without a methodology means practically nothing.

 

[metherion]

1) Darwinian Evolution governs the development of life forms on this planet that is not an artifact of the Earth. Darwinian Evolution is a logic which is applicable to all life forms and all biosystems that may exist in the universe, even the ones we have not discovered?

I'll go with trying to field this one.

Darwinian evolution is a process governing the development of imperfect replicators. Life on earth as we know it is made up of imperfect replicators. Darwinian evolution may also be seen in non-living systems, as seen in computer science through evolutionary computation and evolutionary programming.

Because it operates on imperfect replicators in an environment of selection, if the replicators are perfectly replicating, or there is a lack of selection, Darwinian evolution would not apply. So it is false to say it would apply to all life forms and biospheres, as we COULD discover a biosphere of perfect replicators. However, all life as we know it replicates imperfectly, and exists in an environment with selection. Therefore, given that Darwinian evolution operates on known living and unliving cases that involve imperfect replication and selection, it is logical to say it would work on other planets as long as life there is 'life as we know it', i.e. imperfect replication and selection. Just like it is logical to say gravity would function as long as the planet said life was on had mass (as gravity from a mass affects even massless things like light).

True or false really wouldn't have gotten that whole idea across, would it have?

Metherion

 

[mark kennedy]

To keep from a long answer, I'll focus on one of your questions:

Is Human DNA and Chimpanzee DNA greater then 98% the same?​

Here is a resource that might prove helpful and you should understand, genomes are measured in base pairs:

Ensembl genome browser: Chromosome 1

Length bps (base pairs): 249,250,621 bp

Chimpanzee genome browser: Chromosome 1

Length bps (base pairs): 228,333,871 bp

The question is meaningless without stating how the comparison is being made.

Direct comparisons of draft sequences (measured in base pairs) of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) genome and human (Homo sapien) genome.

Example of one such study:

Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome (Nature 2005)

To see why, consider how to measure the similarity of the gospels of Matthew and Mark.

You can't do that unless you believe that they have a common source. What you would have to compare would be the manuscripts.

 

[mark kennedy]

I'll go with trying to field this one.

Darwinian evolution is a process governing the development of imperfect replicators. Life on earth as we know it is made up of imperfect replicators. Darwinian evolution may also be seen in non-living systems, as seen in computer science through evolutionary computation and evolutionary programming.

Because it operates on imperfect replicators in an environment of selection, if the replicators are perfectly replicating, or there is a lack of selection, Darwinian evolution would not apply. So it is false to say it would apply to all life forms and biospheres, as we COULD discover a biosphere of perfect replicators. However, all life as we know it replicates imperfectly, and exists in an environment with selection. Therefore, given that Darwinian evolution operates on known living and unliving cases that involve imperfect replication and selection, it is logical to say it would work on other planets as long as life there is 'life as we know it', i.e. imperfect replication and selection. Just like it is logical to say gravity would function as long as the planet said life was on had mass (as gravity from a mass affects even massless things like light).

True or false really wouldn't have gotten that whole idea across, would it have?

Metherion

My source material

Lec 1 | MIT 7.012 Introduction to Biology, Fall 2004 - YouTube

In the context Professor Weinberg made this statement in, is it true?

 

[Marshall Janzen]

Here is a resource that might prove helpful and you should understand, genomes are measured in base pairs:

Genomes can also be compared on the basis of codons (three base pairs that code for a certain protein or function), genes, etc. This is similar to how you can compare manuscripts letter by letter, word by word, or story by story. Again, knowing what exactly is being compared and how it is being compared is necessary to make a percentage meaningful.

Example of one such study:

Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome (Nature 2005)

Yes, that study does not just present a percentage. It presents a number of percentages, each one with details about what is being compared and how it is being compared.

You can't do that unless you believe that they have a common source. What you would have to compare would be the manuscripts.

By "common source" you seem to mean deriving from a common template, not merely being inspired or created by a common source. Are you suggesting that someone who doesn't believe that humans and chimpanzees are related (in the same sense that manuscripts of Matthew are related) cannot analyze the similarity of their genomes? Why would that be?

 

[mark kennedy]

Genomes can also be compared on the basis of codons (three base pairs that code for a certain protein or function), genes, etc.

Protein coding genes come in triplet codons:

Chimpanzee Known Protein-coding Genes: 1,824
Human Known Protein-coding Genes: 2,007​

I'm talking about whole genome sequences.

This is similar to how you can compare manuscripts letter by letter, word by word, or story by story. Again, knowing what exactly is being compared and how it is being compared is necessary to make a percentage meaningful.

No they are not similar, what you are attempting to compare, 'comparative genomics', to is called 'bibliographical testing':

We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! (taken from McDowell's Evidence That demands a Verdict, vol.1, 1972 pgs.40-48; and Time, January 23, 1995, pg.57).​

Yes, that study does not just present a percentage. It presents a number of percentages, each one with details about what is being compared and how it is being compared.

Through comparison with the human genome, we have generated a largely complete catalogue of the genetic differences that have accumulated since the human and chimpanzee species diverged from our common ancestor, constituting approximately thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertion/deletion events, and various chromosomal rearrangements. (Nature 2005)​

What did the study yield as a percentage?

By "common source" you seem to mean deriving from a common template, not merely being inspired or created by a common source. Are you suggesting that someone who doesn't believe that humans and chimpanzees are related (in the same sense that manuscripts of Matthew are related) cannot analyze the similarity of their genomes? Why would that be?

What I am suggesting is that all the manuscripts of Matthew have a common source, it's referred to as the 'autograph'. If the chimpanzee and human lineages have a common ancestor then you start with one genome and then you have two as a result of changes in the alleles over time. What you would expect is a constant or at least, consistent rate of change.

The manuscripts of Matthew and the rest of the New Testament are right around 99% the same. What I am asking is, are the genomes of humans and chimpanzees greater then 98% the same in their DNA?

I have been clear what is being compared, direct comparisons of base pairs is unambiguous. Is the statement 'Humans and Chimpanzees are 98% the same in their DNA', true or false because it cannot be both. The answer is quantified, qualified and not subject to interpretation anymore then the manuscripts of the New Testament are.

I'll make it easy for you, is my DNA and your DNA over 99% the same?

 

[Marshall Janzen]

I'll just respond to your conclusion, since I think it brings together what you said earlier:

I have been clear what is being compared, direct comparisons of base pairs is unambiguous. Is the statement 'Humans and Chimpanzees are 98% the same in their DNA', true or false because it cannot be both. The answer is quantified, qualified and not subject to interpretation anymore then the manuscripts of the New Testament are.

1. Direct comparison of base pairs is ambiguous and would require further description of the methodology. If all the base pairs in a section are the same, but they are rearranged, how do you count that? How similar is AAAGGG to GGGAAAGGG? One could easily arrive at answers of 0% identical (since no base pair is in the same position), or 67% or 100% identical, depending on how one factors in position and duplication. When polyploidy duplicates the entire genome of a plant, what percent identical is the new plant to its parent?

2. Your own quote from the Nature paper shows another, more useful method for determining similarity. They base it on the genetic differences as events. So, a mutation that duplicates a section of DNA is a single change, rather than counting each base pair involved in the duplication.

3. My analogy with comparing two gospels, and your analogy with comparing New Testament manuscripts, both reveal the complexity in assigning a percentage value to a comparison. If you were as strict with your manuscript example as you are with genomes, you would not get a value of 99% similarity. While it is possible to get such a value, that would not be based on comparing the documents letter-by-letter, counting every difference down to changed letters that do not affect the words (such as spelling differences or how different manuscripts write the divine names differently).

 

[metherion]

Found a copy of the transcript, read it up to that point.

And the only arguments I can think about it being false are semantics.

Yes, it is true that if a system is set up to have imperfect replicators and selection, it will follow the logic of darwinian evolution. Semantics being that should we discover life or biospheres of perfect replicators, they would not be under it... but the logic would just stop after the first step, i.e. Are there perfect replicators, y/n?, with n being selected, and none of the rest applying.

However, note that he goes on to say that the form of life may certainly be peculiar to the earth, i.e. the double helix. So, just because imperfect replicators competing for limited resources in other biospheres might undergo darwinian selection and evolution, it doesn't mean they'll wind up with the same forms that life on earth has.

But its really no more of a stretch than assuming gravity will operate on other planets, especially, as I said earlier, because darwinian evolution has been shown to work on non-organic systems like those used in evolutionary computing and evolutionary programming.

Metherion

 

[Assyrian]

4) The Scriptures (Old and New Testament) clearly teach that Adam was the first human

The nearest you get to that in Genesis is the symbolism of Eve's name "because she was mother of all living" which at very least hyperbole since Genesis describes Adam as living Gen 2:7 and the same term chai was used for all living creatures. Being the meaning of a name rather than part of the narrative, you have to ask in what sense it meant she was mother of all living, it is often take as meaning every other human was descended from her, but it could just as easily be a reference back to God's promise that from her seed would come the redeemer of all. Paul does after all say that all creation will share in the inheritance of the children of God.

If you look in the narrative itself, there is no suggestion that Adam was the only human or that everyone in the world descended from him. The nearest you get is if the narrative is a parable and the story of Adam whose name means mankind, is the story of God's creation of the entire human race. Which would give another reason for Eve's name as she would then be a picture of every wife, every mother.

The only other place that discusses Adam as the first man, then goes on to describe Christ as the second man 1Cor 15:45-47. Paul is hardly speaking in terms of literal history since in the Genesis narrative the second man was Cain.

and we are all sinners because of the sin of Adam and Eve?

No the bible doesn't say that at all. It says we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but it doesn't say we all sin because of Adam and Eve. If that were the case, why did Adam and Eve sin?

 

[elahmine]

Your questions have insufficient detail/context to answer without being caught in a "trick question" especially if your posters simply want to answer true/false like you have asked them to do.

 

[Keachian]

2) If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, Charles Darwin's theory of Natural Selection would absolutely break down?

Eh, I was bored and had nothing better to do.

The problem with this question is it talks of successive modifications, slight modifications, when in some instances we can surmise from the fossil record that there are instances of concurrent modifications and modifications/mutations which survived that wouldn't even fit in a liberal definition of slight, in fact the whole placing of the nature of the modifications with Natural Selection is a bit of a red herring imo because Natural Selection deals with the selection of traits to suit the environment it makes no dictatorial claims on whether the modifications/mutations have to be slight, successive, or anything like that it merely suggests that the modifications/mutations which will further benefit the continued reproduction of the population will likely be propagated more purely because they survive longer to have more sex

 

[mark kennedy]

1. Direct comparison of base pairs is ambiguous and would require further description of the methodology. If all the base pairs in a section are the same, but they are rearranged, how do you count that? How similar is AAAGGG to GGGAAAGGG? One could easily arrive at answers of 0% identical (since no base pair is in the same position), or 67% or 100% identical, depending on how one factors in position and duplication. When polyploidy duplicates the entire genome of a plant, what percent identical is the new plant to its parent?

Chromosomal rearrangements are not necessarily differences since the are technically, 'the same DNA', just inverted or whatever. What I'm most interested in are substitutions, insertions and deletions. The differences in sequences with regards to order and position can raise the divergence considerably, not a good starting point. Gene expression is another difference that does not really contradict a direct statement that the DNA is the same because it pretty much is the same.

2. Your own quote from the Nature paper shows another, more useful method for determining similarity. They base it on the genetic differences as events. So, a mutation that duplicates a section of DNA is a single change, rather than counting each base pair involved in the duplication.

Yes, but that raises the divergence considerably. There are 35 million single base substitutions and 5 million insertion/deletion events that would have had to happen. With that as a given, what is the divergence as a percentage, according to the explicit findings of the paper?

3. My analogy with comparing two gospels, and your analogy with comparing New Testament manuscripts, both reveal the complexity in assigning a percentage value to a comparison. If you were as strict with your manuscript example as you are with genomes, you would not get a value of 99% similarity. While it is possible to get such a value, that would not be based on comparing the documents letter-by-letter, counting every difference down to changed letters that do not affect the words (such as spelling differences or how different manuscripts write the divine names differently).

No it doesn't, because Mark and Matthew would have had different autographs. The autograph of Matthew and the manuscripts that descended from them would be the only direct comparison analogous to common ancestry.

 

[mark kennedy]

Your questions have insufficient detail/context to answer without being caught in a "trick question" especially if your posters simply want to answer true/false like you have asked them to do.

My question concerning Darwinian logic is from a Biology Professors lecture, I didn't make it up. Darwin himself proposed that if there were an organ (his example was the eye) that could not have been developed through a gradual process would cause his theory to fall apart. The Scriptures speak directly to the question raised and explicitly answer the question in no uncertain terms. Finally, the finding of the Chimpanzee Genome Consortium are not ambiguous if you read the paper.

Before I move onto real questions with the answers being far more elusive I want to see how evolutionists respond to the ones I already know the answers to.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

Eh, I was bored and had nothing better to do.

The problem with this question is it talks of successive modifications, slight modifications, when in some instances we can surmise from the fossil record that there are instances of concurrent modifications and modifications/mutations which survived that wouldn't even fit in a liberal definition of slight, in fact the whole placing of the nature of the modifications with Natural Selection is a bit of a red herring imo because Natural Selection deals with the selection of traits to suit the environment it makes no dictatorial claims on whether the modifications/mutations have to be slight, successive, or anything like that it merely suggests that the modifications/mutations which will further benefit the continued reproduction of the population will likely be propagated more purely because they survive longer to have more sex

Would it interest you to know that the biggest difference between Darwinism and Creationism is the timeline? Darwin was a gradualist, his problem what has been called macroevolution, organs being a major issue with that. The problem with Creationism is not whether or not God acted in time and space. The real problem is what your starting point is and what had to happen in the space of thousands of years as opposed to millions.

That's how I see it at any rate. With Noah's Ark as the starting point how many original mammals, birds and reptiles are you starting with? How long ago was that? Had the evolutionists not run all the creationists off I would be asking them these questions as opposed to bringing it up in passing.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

Yes, but that raises the divergence considerably. There are 35 million single base substitutions and 5 million insertion/deletion events that would have had to happen. With that as a given, what is the divergence as a percentage, according to the explicit findings of the paper?

Mark, you've had that paper explained to you by people who are far more knowledgeable about its subject matter than I (or you). Both sfs and shernren (and maybe Papias too) have gone over that with you many times, as I recall. I'm not going to be able to show you something they haven't.

I responded to your original question, showing how it is meaningless to talk of percentages without being specific on how they are derived. If you cannot accept that very basic point, then I don't believe you are ready to engage with current scientific literature on genome comparisons.

 

[elahmine]

My question concerning Darwinian logic is from a Biology Professors lecture, I didn't make it up. Darwin himself proposed that if there were an organ (his example was the eye) that could not have been developed through a gradual process would cause his theory to fall apart. The Scriptures speak directly to the question raised and explicitly answer the question in no uncertain terms. Finally, the finding of the Chimpanzee Genome Consortium are not ambiguous if you read the paper.

Before I move onto real questions with the answers being far more elusive I want to see how evolutionists respond to the ones I already know the answers to.

Grace and peace,
Mark

I never said you made it up, but I did say you needed to make the questions , not you're answers,more specific. I do not want to start an argument here. I just think if you're really wanting people's real answers it requires specificity to get at what you're wanting. Otherwise it seems like you're asking ambiguous questions and then when people give true/false answers you try to destroy their answers as meaning something other than what they actually are trying to present. The questions you are trying to get at are not as simplistic as you seem to think they are.

Make sense?

Peace of the Lord.

 

[7angels]

I'm just going to ask a series of questions, they are intended to be true or false but of course you can respond as you see fit:

1) Darwinian Evolution governs the development of life forms on this planet that is not an artifact of the Earth. Darwinian Evolution is a logic which is applicable to all life forms and all biosystems that may exist in the universe, even the ones we have not discovered?

false. sin is the cause which made as a result darwin's theory possible of only the strong shall survive.

2) If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, Charles Darwin's theory of Natural Selection would absolutely break down?

unknown. not sure what it is you are asking.

3) Is Human DNA and Chimpanzee DNA greater then 98% the same?

unknown. i have no knowledge of this at this time.

4) The Scriptures (Old and New Testament) clearly teach that Adam was the first human and we are all sinners because of the sin of Adam and Eve?

true

That should get us started, there are many more but these are the most substantive. As a warning, in case someone is thinking about trolling the thread, I have an answer for evolutionist trolling tactics whether you have substantive answers for these questions or not.

To Creationists and casual observers, I would appreciate a response to the poll question.

Grace and peace,
Mark

God bless you all

 

[mark kennedy]

Mark, you've had that paper explained to you by people who are far more knowledgeable about its subject matter than I (or you). Both sfs and shernren (and maybe Papias too) have gone over that with you many times, as I recall. I'm not going to be able to show you something they haven't.

I have had this paper explained to me wrong, and I know it's wrong. Clearly, we do not share 98% of the same DNA and the paper is explicit in this regards. It, 'all depends,' is not an answer when the clear metric being used is direct base pair comparisons.

I responded to your original question, showing how it is meaningless to talk of percentages without being specific on how they are derived. If you cannot accept that very basic point, then I don't believe you are ready to engage with current scientific literature on genome comparisons.

Just do the math by whatever metric you think is right:

Single-nucleotide substitutions occur at a mean rate of 1.23% between copies of the human and chimpanzee genome, with 1.06% or less corresponding to fixed divergence between the species.

Insertion and deletion (indel) events are fewer in number than single-nucleotide substitutions, but result in ~1.5% of the euchromatic sequence in each species being lineage-specific.

On the basis of this analysis, we estimate that the human and chimpanzee genomes each contain 40–45 Mb of species-specific euchromatic sequence, and the indel differences between the genomes thus total ~90 Mb. This difference corresponds to ~3% of both genomes and dwarfs the 1.23% difference resulting from nucleotide substitutions​

The Chimpanzee Genome Consortium did not think it meaningless to discuss it in terms of percentages. Thanks for your participation but you should understand something here. I have real questions as well, if the obvious is being rationalized away I can expect more of the same when the answers are far more elusive.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

I never said you made it up, but I did say you needed to make the questions , not you're answers,more specific. I do not want to start an argument here.

I recently happened upon a blog that had quoted one of my posts discussing gene expression. The post made the statement at the end of the whole thing that Francis Collins was a creationist. In case you didn't know it Francis Collins headed up the Human Genome Project and is opposed to Creationism in no uncertain terms, the man is a theistic evolutionist.

I bring up the questions on a real basic level because what theistic evolutionists need to understand is that Darwinism is opposed to theistic reasoning period.

The question was me rephrasing a very important statement regarding Darwinian logic. One that indicates that it is true for the evolutionist before any empirical evidence is examined. I was simply curious what kind of responses I would get, nothing more.

I just think if you're really wanting people's real answers it requires specificity to get at what you're wanting. Otherwise it seems like you're asking ambiguous questions and then when people give true/false answers you try to destroy their answers as meaning something other than what they actually are trying to present. The questions you are trying to get at are not as simplistic as you seem to think they are.

Make sense?

Peace of the Lord.

Well, for me to just bust into the forum and tell you that Darwinism is metaphysics won't fly. That was just a perception test, not really calling for a specific answer. The other questions are very specific and the true test is whether the answers are going to be direct since the specifics are evident and obvious.

There are far more important questions in evolutionary biology and I see great merit in pursuing the study. The only question in my mind is whether or not it Evolutionary Biology has anything to do with Christian Theology and the answer would appear to be absolutely not.

Nevertheless, I nurse enough of a doubt that I sometimes hazard a few feeler questions here just to confirm my suspicions. Not only that, I am genuinely curious if theistic evolutionists have any idea what is at stake.

Grace and peace,
Mark