Where did the laws of nature come from?

[stevevw]

To be fair, so has the vast majority of the scientific and legal community who has investigated it. Thinking that ID and creationism are simply tools for theocrats to force religion onto public school students is hardly a fringe view.

That may be the case in the US where it has crept into the politics. But it doesn't happen here where I live. So maybe we have a cultural difference that I cant relate to as much. But the old debate of evolution verses creation isnt as polarized as it use to be. There is a large middle ground that is made up of many different views.

 

[stevevw]

When you make simple mistakes like this, it is really hard to take seriously your claims that you're successfully able to summarize research on the cutting edge of our understanding of biology.

So it may be a bit simplified but that is what most sites say a mutation is.

mutations—random spelling mistakes in the long sequence of letters that make up our DNA.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/science-behind/genetics-overview/

Mutations result either from errors in DNA replication or from the damaging effects of mutagens, such as chemicals and radiation, which react with DNA and change the structures of individual nucleotides.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21114/

See, here's an example of ignoring posts you don't want to read. A page back I posted a quote from your linked interview of Margulis where she explicitly said that ID is a scientific dead end. Despite this, you continue to rely on her to support your pro-ID claims. Why do even your own sources show that you're making this all up?

No I havnt ignored it. I have just missed it. I didn't even see the post in the first place. I get my replies through my email and if it doesn't come through this then I will miss it. Unless I go back and check all the pages I sometimes will miss posts. I dont always have time to do that. But I will go back and respond to it if I can find it. But in the mean time I dont have any problems with Margulis disagreeing with ID. I have said that I dont necessarily support all of ID or creationism's theories but like some of the ideas they have. I support that there is design in life but dont go to the point that ID goes.

The point with what Margulis was saying is that evolution can make mutations and natural selection be something it isn't by making out it can mutate just about anything which accounts for all the changes we see in life. That evolution overlooks and underestimates the damage and cost mutations also do. She was saying that the evidence shows that there are other mechanisms for how things get their genetic material and change biologically and symbiosis was one of them.

 

[stevevw]

Double post

 

[digitalgoth]

The point with what Margulis was saying is that evolution can make mutations and natural selection be something it isn't by making out it can mutate just about anything which accounts for all the changes we see in life. That evolution overlooks and underestimates the damage and cost mutations also do. She was saying that the evidence shows that there are other mechanisms for how things get their genetic material and change biologically and symbiosis was one of them.

Selection isn't a power. "Selection" is just a description of an organism's reproductive success. Organisms that are able to reproduce more effectively will tend to have their genetics become part of the population (remembering that evolution describes changes in populations, not individual organisms). Those that reproduce less effectively tend to have their genetics less represented in the population.

That's all selection is. It describes that aspect of a population of organisms. The allele frequency in a population. Usually caused by reproductive success because it has better survival ability in a particular environment.

Mutation = a change in an organism's genetics that is relevant to the replication of that change.
Selection = does that change become more or less represented in the population of organisms.
Genetic Drift = The alleles in the offspring are a sample of those in the parents and can cause the distribution of that allele in a population to drift in particular ways due to chance.

It is impossible to argue that those factors do not affect life and change genetics of a population. If you want to argue that there are other forces at play, feel free, but you cannot discount those factors because they are absolutely proven to affect populations of organisms.

 

[stevevw]

As far as the Cambrian explosion, first off, its a long period of time, millions of years, so explosion is a description that sounds a little more exciting than it is. A bunch of life started raditating out into different forms of life and evidence of it was being found around a common time period. It certainly would make sense that more advanced forms of life would be discovered as they leave evidence to be discovered, and under different environmental pressures populations of organisms evolving in different ways makes complete sense, because there's no design or rule to how natural evolution occurs. Small changes add up to make large changes over time.

Yet many of the life forms are now seen to be advanced in the sense they have evolved all the modern body parts we see today. They are different types of creatures but they have all the complexity and modern features we would see in any creature today. Yet they popped into existence is a relatively short time in evolutionary terms without any trace of where they came from.

Mutations are not mistakes to what was good. First off, what is good. If you mean good is "the organism is able to live in its environment" then I guess we can use that. Mutations are changes that occur due to imperfect reproduction of the creature. You can say its a mistake in the sense that the DNA of the reproduced organism does not perfectly match the DNA of the original organism, but that's about it, and only makes sense in the context of that copying operation.

Thats all I meant it as. But we are also accumulating more and more of these mutations. The other point is that so called beneficial mutations are very very rare. The evidence is showing even beneficial ones have a fitness cost to them. So primarily the great driving force that is suppose to produce all the Cambrian creatures plus everything that has ever lived is something that is mostly a cost to fitness and not a producer of better and fitter living things. It seems like a backward step in making things better.

Evolutionary changes, taken as between a single generation, are not going to create giant novel new features, however I can think of one case where you can see a fascinating change in one generation, and that is the mutation CCR5-delta 32. For those individuals who have both parents that pass on the mutation, it gives total immunity to HIV. I'm sure you're thinking of a novel mutation as a horn growing out of a forehead or wings suddenly appearing in thin air, but immunity to a disease that's killed 25 million people is a pretty impressive feature I would think.

No I dont think that was and understand the process for evolving a feature. If we see a feature like a wing it is normally the result of 100s of smaller changes to systems and process that we dont see. Thats the point in that to achieve this there has to be constant mutations all working in the same direction without any being selected against. All accumulating into a wing through chance and random mutations that dont know it needed a wing. When you consider that mutations are mostly neutral or negative its a mighty feat thats unbelievable.

Also, major feature changes don't really occur in one change, "novel features" which also needs to be defined, requires multiple changes over time. Much like you don't win a war in one battle, but of a series of tactical victories, large changes to a genome requires a multitude of changes, all of which won't occur at the same time, but over time, because DNA doesn't mutate 100% of itself every time it replicates and start the organism over from scratch with all new features.

Yes and tests have shown that for mutations to make even a small working functional change is very unlikely.
Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds
The prevalence of low-level function in four such experiments indicates that roughly one in 10/64 signature-consistent sequences forms a working domain. Combined with the estimated prevalence of plausible hydropathic patterns (for any fold) and of relevant folds for particular functions, this implies the overall prevalence of sequences performing a specific function by any domain-sized fold may be as low as 1 in 10/77, adding to the body of evidence that functional folds require highly extraordinary sequences.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002228360400762

Evolution still isn't a power. Scientists are merely saying that given time, and really that's just generations of reproduction that's meant, mutations will be created every generation, and the environment will cause a selection process of those mutations that lead to reproductive success of the organism. That's it. Small mutations occurring, sometimes building on each other, over generation after generation, some of which allow it to respond better to changes in the environment.

That is all assumption and has not been scientifically verified. If anything over time things will stay much the same. Small changes can occur with species. But mutations is mainly cause a fitness cost in the end. The power I am talking about is with some of the scientists claims in giving the theory more creative ability then it has.

 

[digitalgoth]

Yet many of the life forms are now seen to be advanced in the sense they have evolved all the modern body parts we see today. They are different types of creatures but they have all the complexity and modern features we would see in any creature today. Yet they popped into existence is a relatively short time in evolutionary terms without any trace of where they came from.

The Cambrian "explosion" was not a Giraffe walking out of the surf or a 50' dinosaur just popping into existence.
Have you even googled "Cambrian Explosion" and read about it? It was a period of time when there was a change from mostly unicellular life living in colonies to more evidence of multicellular life. More evidence is available for study because fossilization allowed for it to be studied, even more so than some future periods. This time period was millions of years long so the evolution of multicellular life began the basic phyla of animal life.

That doesn't mean a big saber-toothed clam started wandering around building cities. It was just a time period where fossilization was in a position to occur, and it happened that life was transitioning from unicellular state and cell colonies to multicellular state and diversification.

Thats all I meant it as. But we are also accumulating more and more of these mutations. The other point is that so called beneficial mutations are very very rare. The evidence is showing even beneficial ones have a fitness cost to them. So primarily the great driving force that is suppose to produce all the Cambrian creatures plus everything that has ever lived is something that is mostly a cost to fitness and not a producer of better and fitter living things. It seems like a backward step in making things better.

That is all assumption and has not been scientifically verified. If anything over time things will stay much the same. Small changes can occur with species. But mutations is mainly cause a fitness cost in the end. The power I am talking about is with some of the scientists claims in giving the theory more creative ability then it has.

I deal with evolutionary processes all the time. The only factors that affect the populations are mutation, genetic drift, and selection affecting reproduction success. Incredible complexity can develop after a enough generations. Sometimes mutations destroy an organism, sometimes a buildup of an overly changing environment cause extinction of the entire population, and other times absolutely astounding complexity is created. Most mutations aren't beneficial, but bad ones are selected out of the population. Ones that allow organisms better success tend to remain.

 

[VirOptimus]

As I have said many times and posted evidence for I base things on the scientific evidence. I have rarely used religion as the basis for my views. If I did then there would be no coherent reason for disagreeing with Darwinian evolution. You dont seem to get it and cant accept that people with no religious reasons disagree with evolution. We are not talking about a complete rejection of evolution but the extent to which Darwinian evolution claims it can change living things. There is no evidence for it and its as simple as that.

I dont think anyone disagrees that there is evolution where living things may change within their species such as with the beaks on Darwin's finches. But they remain birds and dont become another animal. The changes in beak sizes (micro evolution) on the finches has been verified. The change from one animal to another (macro evolution) has not. There is a limit to evolution and when things go beyond that limit there is a cost to fitness not the making of better and fitter living things. If anything those who believe in an assumption without scientific evidence have as much faith in their theory as someone who is religious.

So, are genesis the literal truth?

 

[stevevw]

The Cambrian "explosion" was not a Giraffe walking out of the surf or a 50' dinosaur just popping into existence.
Have you even googled "Cambrian Explosion" and read about it? It was a period of time when there was a change from mostly unicellular life living in colonies to more evidence of multicellular life. More evidence is available for study because fossilization allowed for it to be studied, even more so than some future periods. This time period was millions of years long so the evolution of multicellular life began the basic phyla of animal life.

That doesn't mean a big saber-toothed clam started wandering around building cities. It was just a time period where fossilization was in a position to occur, and it happened that life was transitioning from unicellular state and cell colonies to multicellular state and diversification.

I didn't mean that the type of animals we see today came into existence in the Cambrian period. I meant that the level of complexity and features was just as great as what we see today. They just happened to be very different types of creatures. But still they had complex eyes, systems and other features that rival what we have today. In fact some say they were even more complex and evolved. So to say that they just popped into existence without any trace is amazing in evolutionary terms. The level of complexity in their features would have required many stages of evolution. Yet we see nothing.
Cambrian fossil pushes back evolution of complex brains
The remarkably well-preserved fossil of an extinct arthropod shows that anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of evolution.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010131436.htm
So complex brains that are just as complex as today and have never changes or evolved for millions of years suddenly appeared without any trace of where they came from.

I deal with evolutionary processes all the time. The only factors that affect the populations are mutation, genetic drift, and selection affecting reproduction success. Incredible complexity can develop after a enough generations. Sometimes mutations destroy an organism, sometimes a buildup of an overly changing environment cause extinction of the entire population, and other times absolutely astounding complexity is created. Most mutations aren't beneficial, but bad ones are selected out of the population. Ones that allow organisms better success tend to remain.

I am not a biologists but I study this topic a lot. I can rely on experts to get a good understanding. If a feature that needs to be evolved has many components to it then the mutations have to all work together and continue to be individually selected and be beneficial every step of the way to continue to build that feature. This all has to be coordinated and happening at the right times in the right ways. So for a process that doesn't know what direction it is going in and what it needs to get that this is virtually impossible. Even to make a small functional change for a protein that makes an improvement so that it is beneficial and selected for needs around six mutations all working together.

The evidence points to that not being possible in the time needed and would take longer than the earth has been in existence. Now consider the levels of complexity and variations and the amount of change that would be needed not just for small changes in a protein but for complex features that need 100s if not thousands of changes it begins to be impossible. The point is Darwinian evolution is an assumption of ideas that has not been scientifically verified. Yes mutations and natural selection happen but not to the extent and way Darwinian evolution claims.

The changes in populations are normally small using existing genetic material and are is limited. Animals can also gain new genetic material through HGT. But there is no evidence for great changes where one type pf animal can become another. Breeders know this and they hit a limit for change. Darwin knew this and he could only assume some examples of macro evolution. He was using what happens with micro evolution like the changes in beak sizes of his finches on the Galapagos Islands and extending that to beyond the capabilities of evolutionary change. Darwin even acknowledged that different species of similar type animals was really great variation within the same type of animal. Evolution doesn't even really have a clear idea of what a species is. So the idea that a species can become other species is unclear and this is the basis for speciation to turn one type of animal into another.

There is suppose to be many species of bats but maybe this is just great variation with the bat type. They are still all bats and will remain bats with great variation. But that variation has boundaries. Beyond that when breeders have tried to make the changes beyond those boundaries things get broken down and have a fitness cost. Left to nature things will revert back to the natural state that they were before.There is evidence that even beneficial mutations will have a negative effect on each other and has a diminishing effect rather than a progressing positive effect towards better and fitter living things.
Diminishing returns epistasis among beneficial mutations decelerates adaptation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21636771

 

[Loudmouth]

I didn't mean that the type of animals we see today came into existence in the Cambrian period. I meant that the level of complexity and features was just as great as what we see today.

Then show us an animal as complex as a mammal from the Cambrian. I bet you can't do it.

 

[KCfromNC]

So it may be a bit simplified but that is what most sites say a mutation is.

mutations—random spelling mistakes in the long sequence of letters that make up our DNA.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/science-behind/genetics-overview/

Mutations result either from errors in DNA replication or from the damaging effects of mutagens, such as chemicals and radiation, which react with DNA and change the structures of individual nucleotides.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21114/

That's nice. Where do any of these say that all sites subject to mutations are "already good".

She was saying that the evidence shows that there are other mechanisms for how things get their genetic material and change biologically and symbiosis was one of them.

Which has exactly nothing to do with ID or other forms of creationism. Be honest - did you just name-drop her because a leader of the creationism movement mentioned her, or did you intentionally seek out someone who says that ID is not science to promote your idea that ID is a scientific alternative to modern biology?

 

[KCfromNC]

So to say that they just popped into existence without any trace is amazing in evolutionary terms.

In addition to the claim being amazing, it is also flat out incorrect. The fact you use fossil evidence to demonstrate that there's no fossil evidence is particularly amusing.

Snipped the rest of the baseless assertions. That which is presented without evidence and all that.

Diminishing returns epistasis among beneficial mutations decelerates adaptation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21636771

This paper has nothing to do with the claims you've made in the paragraphs above it. Did you just hope no one would read it?

 

[stevevw]

That's nice. Where do any of these say that all sites subject to mutations are "already good".

So are you saying that we are damaged already from damaged cells and mutations are more damage that compounds the situation. Chances are if mutations found already damaged cells then its too late as the damage is already done. The cells have mechanisms that repair damage done by mutations so most mutations are repaired. Therefor most mutations do damage to good cells that need to be repaired again. If they kept leaving damage to the cells there then we would be very unhealthy and unfit. I thought evolution said that mutations are supposed to make things better and fitter. That any negative mutations are weeded out. The point is you dont call something damaged or an error unless the prior state was good and working.

If you read the paper it tells you this and that a mutation is damage to the correct sequence order. The repair process goes about looking for sequences that are out of order or different to what is suppose to be there and then go about repairing it. So mutations make changes to what is the proper order of nucleotide sequences.

All cells possess DNA-repair enzymes that attempt to minimize the number of mutations that occur. These enzymes work in two ways. Some are pre-replicative and search the DNA for nucleotides with unusual structures, these being replaced before replication occurs; others are post-replicative and check newly synthesized DNA for errors, correcting any errors that they find (Figure 14.1B). A possible definition of mutation is therefore a deficiency in DNA repair.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21114/

Which has exactly nothing to do with ID or other forms of creationism. Be honest - did you just name-drop her because a leader of the creationism movement mentioned her, or did you intentionally seek out someone who says that ID is not science to promote your idea that ID is a scientific alternative to modern biology?

So you are implying that there must be something wrong with me or the evidence or anything so long as you find something wrong. All because it disagree with your views. This is the tactic of undermine the source or the person and you undermine the whole thing. It doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with ID. It doesn't have to be an ID article or associated with ID. There are sources that are mainstream that disagree with what evolution says.

I use a various amount of research. Anyone who has done any research into evolution knows about Lynn Margulis. She is one of the icons of evolution and famous for her discoveries. She is just one of many sources I have used. I have to use people like her because you keep knocking down all the other support and put up hoops to jump through with the evidence. So you have to try and find something you will accept because you set such a high criteria for anyone who disagree with Darwinian evolution. So using non religious scientists is one way to get some support that you wont reject at the drop of a hat.

 

[stevevw]

In addition to the claim being amazing, it is also flat out incorrect. The fact you use fossil evidence to demonstrate that there's no fossil evidence is particularly amusing.

Snipped the rest of the baseless assertions. That which is presented without evidence and all that.

If all these creatures are complex and have all the modern structures like hearts and brains which are very complex and something we see in all modern life then it is showing that the codes for all life have been around for a long time and earlier then evolution has said. There didn't need to be a lot of evolution for mutating all these features. The codes were already there. They suddenly appeared without any trace of where they came from. They have even found evidence of eukaryotes in pre Cambrian layers. So that pushes things back even more. It is the opposite of evolution and making things go from complex to simple rather than simple to complex.

If a brain is evolved so early it would need many stages of evolution to occur. But there is no trace of those stages happening. The point is because there is similar levels of complexity way back when life was suppose to be simple then it is pointing to the code for that life being around from a very early stage and makes it harder to believe that there has been a slow and gradual evolution of things as Darwin said.

Cambrian fossil pushes back evolution of complex brains
The remarkably well-preserved fossil of an extinct arthropod shows that anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of evolution.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010131436.htm
Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes.
The apparent dominance of eukaryotes in non-marine settings by 1?Gyr ago indicates that eukaryotic evolution on land may have commenced far earlier than previously thought.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490597

This paper describes how creatures may have had a way of turning on and off existing genetic info when needed. So even from an early stage in existence living things may have had the code to produce complex changes to tap into. Not from random mutations but from existing genetics. This makes more sense in the light of the Cambrian period and the evidence which show that non adaptive forces support how creatures change.
Universal genome in the origin of metazoa: thoughts about evolution.
According to this model, (a) the Universal Genome that encodes all major developmental programs essential for various phyla of Metazoa emerged in a unicellular or a primitive multicellular organism shortly before the Cambrian period;
This model has two major predictions, first that a significant fraction of genetic information in lower taxons must be functionally useless but becomes useful in higher taxons, and second that one should be able to turn on in lower taxons some of the complex latent developmental programs, e.g., a program of eye development or antibody synthesis in sea urchin.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17660714

This paper has nothing to do with the claims you've made in the paragraphs above it. Did you just hope no one would read it?

The paper wasn't meant to go with the paragraphs above. It related to the last sentence above the link about beneficial mutations affecting each other. I had already posted several links for what I was talking about earlier in the above paragraphs on a number of occasions and didn't want to post that again. If you have been following the thread you would see. Even earlier on this page of the one before it. I wanted to add another aspect of why it is hard for mutations to create such fit and more complex living things. It is often claimed that its the beneficial mutations that is the driving force for evolution. These are very rare and even so beneficial mutations can end up having a fitness cost. When they have to work together they will have an effect on each other which ends up diminishing any evolution towards better and fit creatures.

 

[Loudmouth]

If all these creatures are complex and have all the modern structures like hearts and brains which are very complex and something we see in all modern life then it is showing that the codes for all life have been around for a long time and earlier then evolution has said. There didn't need to be a lot of evolution for mutating all these features. The codes were already there. They suddenly appeared without any trace of where they came from. They have even found evidence of eukaryotes in pre Cambrian layers. So that pushes things back even more. It is the opposite of evolution and making things go from complex to simple rather than simple to complex.

If a brain is evolved so early it would need many stages of evolution to occur. But there is no trace of those stages happening. The point is because there is similar levels of complexity way back when life was suppose to be simple then it is pointing to the code for that life being around from a very early stage and makes it harder to believe that there has been a slow and gradual evolution of things as Darwin said.

Cambrian fossil pushes back evolution of complex brains
The remarkably well-preserved fossil of an extinct arthropod shows that anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of evolution.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010131436.htm
Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes.
The apparent dominance of eukaryotes in non-marine settings by 1?Gyr ago indicates that eukaryotic evolution on land may have commenced far earlier than previously thought.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490597

This paper describes how creatures may have had a way of turning on and off existing genetic info when needed. So even from an early stage in existence living things may have had the code to produce complex changes to tap into. Not from random mutations but from existing genetics. This makes more sense in the light of the Cambrian period and the evidence which show that non adaptive forces support how creatures change.
Universal genome in the origin of metazoa: thoughts about evolution.
According to this model, (a) the Universal Genome that encodes all major developmental programs essential for various phyla of Metazoa emerged in a unicellular or a primitive multicellular organism shortly before the Cambrian period;
This model has two major predictions, first that a significant fraction of genetic information in lower taxons must be functionally useless but becomes useful in higher taxons, and second that one should be able to turn on in lower taxons some of the complex latent developmental programs, e.g., a program of eye development or antibody synthesis in sea urchin.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17660714

The paper wasn't meant to go with the paragraphs above. It related to the last sentence above the link about beneficial mutations affecting each other. I had already posted several links for what I was talking about earlier in the above paragraphs on a number of occasions and didn't want to post that again. If you have been following the thread you would see. Even earlier on this page of the one before it. I wanted to add another aspect of why it is hard for mutations to create such fit and more complex living things. It is often claimed that its the beneficial mutations that is the driving force for evolution. These are very rare and even so beneficial mutations can end up having a fitness cost. When they have to work together they will have an effect on each other which ends up diminishing any evolution towards better and fit creatures.

Still waiting for you to show us an animal from the Cambrian that is as complex as any mammal species. Where is it?

 

[KCfromNC]

So are you saying that we are damaged already from damaged cells and mutations are more damage that compounds the situation.

No. Why do you ask?

I'm simply pointing out that there's no objective measure of good or bad that evolution is striving towards.

So you are implying that there must be something wrong with me or the evidence or anything so long as you find something wrong.

No. I'm saying that papers which make zero reference to ID have nothing to do with ID. That should be obvious, and yet for some reason you keep posting paper after paper which has nothing to do with ID. Where are all the peer-reviewed papers describing a scientific theory of ID and the evidence supporting it?

Anyone who has done any research into evolution knows about Lynn Margulis.

But not everyone is "knowledgeable" enough to claim to support ID as a scientific alternative and then turn around post and interview with her where she says that ID isn't the least bit scientific.

 

[KCfromNC]

If all these creatures are complex and have all the modern structures like hearts and brains which are very complex and something we see in all modern life then it is showing that the codes for all life have been around for a long time and earlier then evolution has said.

Really?

There didn't need to be a lot of evolution for mutating all these features. The codes were already there.

Citation needed.

They suddenly appeared without any trace of where they came from.

No trace at all? Come on, stop fibbing.

They have even found evidence of eukaryotes in pre Cambrian layers.

Or at least wait more than one sentence to contradict yourself. Wouldn't pre-Cambrian eukaryotes show a trace of where Cambrian eukaryotes came from?

So that pushes things back even more. It is the opposite of evolution and making things go from complex to simple rather than simple to complex.

That's not a requirement for evolution. As people have shown when disproving the claims of ID proponents, it is quite possible for evolution to remove features.

If a brain is evolved so early it would need many stages of evolution to occur. But there is no trace of those stages happening.

What sort of traces would you expect, specifically?

The point is because there is similar levels of complexity way back when life was suppose to be simple then it is pointing to the code for that life being around from a very early stage and makes it harder to believe that there has been a slow and gradual evolution of things as Darwin said.

Cambrian fossil pushes back evolution of complex brains

The remarkably well-preserved fossil of an extinct arthropod shows that anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of evolution.

Which kinda kills your claim that there are no fossilized traces showing the evolution of brains. Come on, at least try and stick to one story.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010131436.htm

Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes.
The apparent dominance of eukaryotes in non-marine settings by 1?Gyr ago indicates that eukaryotic evolution on land may have commenced far earlier than previously thought.

Interesting. But it has nothing to do with an intelligent designer god being involved, so I don't see the relevance.

This paper describes how creatures may have had a way of turning on and off existing genetic info when needed. So even from an early stage in existence living things may have had the code to produce complex changes to tap into.

May have. Or may not have. But hey, let's just reject modern biology on a guess. What could go wrong with that?

The paper wasn't meant to go with the paragraphs above. It related to the last sentence above the link about beneficial mutations affecting each other. I had already posted several links for what I was talking about earlier in the above paragraphs on a number of occasions and didn't want to post that again. If you have been following the thread you would see.

I've seen your interpretations corrected by people who understand the science, yes.

Even earlier on this page of the one before it. I wanted to add another aspect of why it is hard for mutations to create such fit and more complex living things. It is often claimed that its the beneficial mutations that is the driving force for evolution. These are very rare and even so beneficial mutations can end up having a fitness cost. When they have to work together they will have an effect on each other which ends up diminishing any evolution towards better and fit creatures.

And therefore an intelligent designer god did it? I think you're missing a few steps here.

 

[stevevw]

So, are genesis the literal truth?

I dont know what is classed as literal when it comes to the book of Genesis. I like what someone posted with professor John Lennox giving a commentary on the story of creation. he says there can be many interpretations of literal. There are so many things to consider when looking at the story such as the time, culture, the divine message and the theology. All I know is the basic message that God created us and the universe. That He created us in His image and He created us for a purpose. The details about how it happened are not so important as the divine message. Believing that the light God created was daylight or a special light is not going to make much difference to your salvation.

 

[stevevw]

Still waiting for you to show us an animal from the Cambrian that is as complex as any mammal species. Where is it?

I thought I had already done that. The two links I had which showed creature that had brains and hearts that are similar to today's creatures. The eyes of even the trilobites is as complex as anything today.
http://www.trilobita.de/english/eyes.html

 

[stevevw]

Selection isn't a power. "Selection" is just a description of an organism's reproductive success. Organisms that are able to reproduce more effectively will tend to have their genetics become part of the population (remembering that evolution describes changes in populations, not individual organisms). Those that reproduce less effectively tend to have their genetics less represented in the population.

That's all selection is. It describes that aspect of a population of organisms. The allele frequency in a population. Usually caused by reproductive success because it has better survival ability in a particular environment.

Yes and most living things go on and not much changes. Creatures that have mutated deformities or diseases cant keep up and are weeded out. But those that maintain their status continue to live. Natural selection can eliminate the weak and sick and make minor changes such as the color of fur or the size of a beak. But it can't create large positive change that makes fitter and more complex creatures. Even with the famous example that is often used to show positive change from mutations with the antibiotic resistance in bacteria. When bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance it is the result of a loss of info and not a gain. There is a cost to fitness that comes with that change. So over all things become less fit rather then fitter and better equipped to live. This was shown with the papers I posted before on negative epistasis with positive mutations.
The fitness costs of antibiotic resistance mutations
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.12196/pdf

Mutation = a change in an organism's genetics that is relevant to the replication of that change.
Selection = does that change become more or less represented in the population of organisms.
Genetic Drift = The alleles in the offspring are a sample of those in the parents and can cause the distribution of that allele in a population to drift in particular ways due to chance.

It is impossible to argue that those factors do not affect life and change genetics of a population. If you want to argue that there are other forces at play, feel free, but you cannot discount those factors because they are absolutely proven to affect populations of organisms.

As I have stated many times no one is disputing that. What is up for debate is the amount of change that can be made and when there is change the quality of that change. Darwinian evolution takes something that happens and is scientifically verified (micro evolution) and then extends that to beyond what it is capable to assume (macro evolution).

 

[stevevw]

Really?
Citation needed.

This is where I wonder if you are not ignoring the evidence. I have posted this support before. The following paper talks about the basic proteins that form all life are a set of structural forms that are woven into nature like the laws of physics. The protein folds are based on set structures that appears to be of an abstract, non-adaptive nature that is sometimes of a strikingly numerical and geometric character. The paper states that Darwin saw them as "ancient adaptations no longer useful but incorporated into the genetic system and passed down through the generations." But Darwin never shows any evidence for this claim.

So he sees that these structural forms are set in nature and have been around for a long time. So the basic protein forms for all complex life even today was there even in the early stages of evolution. Darwin cant account for how they have been adapted into life and neither can modern day explanations. The evidence shows that there are non adaptive driving forces for how things change rather than adaptive evolution through random mutations and natural selection.

The protein folds as platonic forms: new support for the pre-Darwinian conception of evolution by natural law.
The folds are evidently determined by natural law, not natural selection, and are "lawful forms" in the Platonic and pre-Darwinian sense of the word, which are bound to occur everywhere in the universe where the same 20 amino acids are used for their construction. We argue that this is a major discovery which has many important implications regarding the origin of proteins, the origin of life and the fundamental nature of organic form. We speculate that it is unlikely that the folds will prove to be the only case in nature where a set of complex organic forms is determined by natural law, and suggest that natural law may have played a far greater role in the origin and evolution of life than is currently assumed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12419661

I have posted support before showing that change has come from non adaptive forces such as
Darwinian evolution in the light of genomic
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651812/

Another paper states that living things has the code for life early and that this could be switch on when needed. So what may be seen as junk DNA may have been a part of all living things that had a lot more function and allowed them to use that vast DNA to switch on new genetic info to create new features. So they didn't need to mutate new features from a random process.
Universal Genome in the Origin of Metazoa: Thoughts About Evolution
This model has two major predictions, first that a significant fraction of genetic information in lower taxons must be functionally useless but becomes useful in higher taxons, and second that one should be able to turn on in lower taxons some of the complex latent developmental programs, e.g. a program of eye development or antibody synthesis in sea urchin. An example of natural turning on of a complex latent program in a lower taxon is discussed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17660714

This paper has similar aspects to the first two. It proposes that genetic material (Genetic code for life) was utilized from pre existing genetic info.
A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.
I propose that phylogeny took place in a manner similar to that of ontogeny by the derepression of preformed genomic information which was expressed through release from latency (derepression) by the restructuring of existing chromosomal information (position effects). Both indirect and direct evidence is presented in support of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15889345

I will leave it at that for the moment as there is a bit to discuss as it is.