Are there transitional fossils?

[PsychoSarah]

in short...
but this is the main problem. if those ervs (actually ervs parts) are functional. then its possible that they are an integral part of the genome by the designer and not a result of a viral infections. its also possible that those are indeed a viral infections. but in this case- if they are functional then their position in the genome isnt random at all. so your main claim about shared ervs is problematic.

I don't recall saying that where viruses insert themselves was entirely random, only that it is not consistent. For a virus to force a host cell to produce more viruses, they have to insert themselves very close to existing host genes. Since, in the case of the vast majority of genes there are multiple copies of them, viruses don't consistently insert next to the same one every time. Viruses can also make mistakes and insert themselves in a location that prevents them from forcing the cell to produce more virus, leaving the viral DNA to be fairly inert to begin with.

As for your comment that they would be integral parts of the genome and not viral insertions, there are aspects of many ERVs that would prevent that from making sense. From what I have read on them, most of the ones with a function act as promoters for genes, not as genes themselves. There is no need for the promoter to match up with viruses at all, since plenty of promoters in our body do their job just fine without having any relation to viral promoters. More importantly, since the retroviral genes can remain intact, we have genes which only function to repress those viral genes and prevent them from doing anything. There is no sense in doing this, as opposed to just designing us with the promoters and not the actual viral genes. That way, we wouldn't need genes that only function to prevent the viral genes from being active. Heck, even if those repressive genes have a secondary function, they'd do it just fine without the presence of the viral genes our bodies do not use.

you again assume that their function evolved after their insertions. but its only a belief, not a scientific claim.

We can literally observe viruses insert themselves into the DNA of other organisms, and observe what happens and if they impact phenotype. Since it is actually the promoter part of the virus and not the viral genes that are active in the cells, mutations have to occur that prevent the expression of the viral genes first before they can have any beneficial function. Otherwise, the viral promoters would only serve to activate the viral genes. You know, those viral genes that our bodies do not need and that we actually need to combat to retain normal function?

like i said above- not in this case:

"The possibility of contamination is extremely low because no PCR products were detected in any negative controls, and the laboratory at Washington State University in which DNA of M. latahensis was extracted, amplified, and sequenced never possessed samples of the four extant species of Magnolia that share an ndhF sequence with M. latahensis."

"To check for possible errors in the original sequence of S. albidum and to eliminate the possibility of contamination of the P. pseudocarolinensis sample from S. albidum, we newly determined the rbcL sequence of Sassafras albidum and compared it with the sequence from GenBank . The newly determined sequence was exactly the same as the sequence from GenBank. Thus, because the fossil sequence differs from all other sequences of Lauraceae reported to date, contamination seems highly unlikely."

Yeah, they are saying that there is no contamination FROM SPECIES THAT CURRENTLY EXIST. Basically, what has been demonstrated is that the DNA segment they found doesn't belong to any known, modern species. However, that does not mean that it belongs to the fossil species. Fossils can become contaminated with DNA at any stage of their formation, and between the time they are formed and when they are found.

They did what they could with such a small segment of DNA: tell what it doesn't belong to.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Evolution is a specific focus on changing traits, adaptive evolution is of particular importance. Biology is the study living systems and does not require a bunch of old bones and dirt informing us with regards to natural history. Darwinism was synthesized with Mendelian genetics not because biology or genetics needed it, it leaches off the sciences. The unified theory of biology was the DNA double helix, a molecular architecture all living systems share. That science grew to become genomics while Darwinism contributes nothing except a seething contempt for any causation, organic or inorganic, due to God acting in time and space doing what only God can do.

Uh, what?

Look, I don't even know what your issue is anymore. The strongest evidence that humans and chimpanzees share ancestry is in our genes, not fossils. Fossils are just a means of knowing about what species existed in the past, and the order in which various traits, etc., started to appear on this planet. If fossils never existed, we'd still conclude that humans and chimpanzees share ancestry on the genetic basis alone. What we wouldn't know is if walking upright or highly intelligent brains evolved first.

The theory of evolution is the unifying theory of biology, whether you like it or not. You can clearly see how genetics impact how species change over time, and how the environment shapes adaptive patterns. But, environment doesn't change the genes themselves (perhaps their degree of expression a bit, but otherwise even environments that promote mutation don't do so in any patterned way). And genes certainly don't change the environment organisms live in (such as temperature, etc). Basically, a rocky area vs a desert means nothing to genes themselves or how they function if you just consider gene theory, but evolution provides the relationship between the two dynamics and how they impact the biology of Earth. Hence, I have provided a brief summary as to why evolution is the defined unifying theory of biology, and gene theory is not.

Whatever you think Darwinism is, I don't think it is prevalent in the scientific community. So, what's the problem?

 

[mark kennedy]

Uh, what?

Look, I don't even know what your issue is anymore. The strongest evidence that humans and chimpanzees share ancestry is in our genes, not fossils. Fossils are just a means of knowing about what species existed in the past, and the order in which various traits, etc., started to appear on this planet. If fossils never existed, we'd still conclude that humans and chimpanzees share ancestry on the genetic basis alone. What we wouldn't know is if walking upright or highly intelligent brains evolved first.

That's simply not true, divergence of brain related genes are so devastating to Darwinism the subject is ignored, at least on here. Protein coding genes diverge by one codon per gene in each species. The protein products show gross structural divergence at 20% on average. At 90 million base pairs in 5 million years you'll need an indel 300 base pairs long permanently fixed genome wide every generation for five million years. This is impossible given the mutation load, functional constraints and certainly the deleterious effects.

With brain related genes you never get beneficial effects from mutations or even mildly deleterious. You get disease, disorder and death. What is remarkable is that anyone with a cursory knowledge of the life sciences would appeal to comparative genomics unless woefully misinformed or gravely disingenuous.

The theory of evolution is the unifying theory of biology, whether you like it or not.

I neither like nor dislike the statement, I know it to be completely false. The Darwinian naturalistic assumptions you equivocated with normal Mendelian changes in traits isn't a unified theory it's a fallacy. What unified biology was the DNA double helix model, it unified molecular biology (physical cause) and genetics (external traits), with that the world saw the birth of a new science.

You can clearly see how genetics impact how species change over time, and how the environment shapes adaptive patterns. But, environment doesn't change the genes themselves (perhaps their degree of expression a bit, but otherwise even environments that promote mutation don't do so in any patterned way). And genes certainly don't change the environment organisms live in (such as temperature, etc). Basically, a rocky area vs a desert means nothing to genes themselves or how they function if you just consider gene theory, but evolution provides the relationship between the two dynamics and how they impact the biology of Earth. Hence, I have provided a brief summary as to why evolution is the defined unifying theory of biology, and gene theory is not.

Whatever you think Darwinism is, I don't think it is prevalent in the scientific community. So, what's the problem?

No problem except mutations are rarely adaptive on an evolutionary scale for one thing. For another the deleterious effects of mutations on brain related genes means that mutations on the scale required are a formula for extinction. It's not a theory, it's not an hypothesis and its not evolution it's a myth.

 

[mark kennedy]

Sigh. Over time, non-coding sequences can acquire mutations that cause them to start having useful function. Viral ERVs are no different. They don't serve any positive function the moment that they are inserted, which is easily observed. And my point about viral insertions not being consistent enough to explain away shared ERVs between humans and chimps still stands. In fact, some viruses are known to insert themselves in such a way that it causes cancer, such as HPV. Also, a personal request here: if you are going to give a source, make sure the full article is publicly available; I am not paying to read the whole thing, which I would like to do before giving consideration as to what the article says (this applies to your second source).

ERVs are perhaps the worst homology argument I've ever heard. The largest, most abundant class of ERVs is present in African Great Apes but absent in humans.

Against this background, it was surprising to find that the chimpanzee genome has two active retroviral elements (PtERV1 and PtERV2) that are unlike any older elements in either genome; these must have been introduced by infection of the chimpanzee germ line... The larger family (PtERV1) is more homogeneous and has over 200 copies. Whereas older ERVs, like HERV-K, are primarily represented by solo LTRs resulting from;LTR recombination, more than half of the PtERV1 copies are still full length, probably reflecting the young age of the elements. PtERV1-like elements are present in the rhesus monkey, olive baboon and African great apes but not in human, orangutan or gibbon, suggesting separate germline invasions in these species. (Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome, Nature 2005)​

Do note, ERV class 1.

With more than 100 members, CERV 1/PTERV1 is one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome. (Genome Biol. 2006). They can be found in African great apes but not in humans. What is more the ERV virus is nearly extinct in the human genome with only a couple that actually work. The only thing that ERVs are proof of is the lengths evolutionists will go to to conflate and confuse the evidence.

The real problem here is that Darwinian logic will jump on things in common as proof of common ancestry but ignore divergence as evidence for independent lineage. What I find even more interesting is that it's uniformly accepted that these super abundant retroviruses are there as a result of germline invasions. Has it occurred to no one that germline invasions on this scale would be deadly deleterious and yet another ingredient in the formula for extinction Darwinians demand we presuppose before the actual evidence is even considered.

What we really know about ERVs:

• Most retroviruses infect somatic cells, but might infect of germline cells on rare occasions.
• ERVs have been inactivated by mutation for the most part and do nothing.
• ERVs have been proposed to be involved in multiple sclerosis (MS) and HERVs were found in greater frequency in the sera of people with schizophrenia.
• 98,000 human ERV elements and fragments making up nearly 8% of our genome and no HERVs capable of replication had been identified.

Endogenous retrovirus

The inverse logic is intuitively obvious, if the homology argument for things in common can prove common ancestry then differences can prove independent lineage, thus creation. Failure to accept the inverse logic is tantamount to an open admission of predicating all arguments on assumptions made before the evidence is considered.

The real world evidences from evolutionary biology are compelling and pose great challenges for the Creationist. The vast array of molecular machinery capable of epigenetic alterations for improved adaptive fitness are astonishing in their scope and significance. Where the Darwinian falls short of a compelling argument is they want universal common ancestry assumed across all periods of time and space a priori (without prior). All the evidence is then organized around these junk yard fabrications known collectively as Darwinian homology arguments.

Where is the proof that massive germline invasions are a viable explanation for 8% of the human genome? If the ERVs that are at identical splice sites are valid proofs of chimpanzee common ancestry then the ERVs present in the chimpanzee genome but absent in human genomes is a valid proof to the contrary.

 

[Speedwell]

The real problem here is that Darwinian logic will jump on things in common as proof of common ancestry but ignore divergence as evidence for independent lineage. What I find even more interesting is that it's uniformly accepted that these super abundant retroviruses are there as a result of germline invasions. Has it occurred to no one that germline invasions on this scale would be deadly deleterious and yet another ingredient in the formula for extinction Darwinians demand we presuppose before the actual evidence is even considered.

What I don't get is why you think that common descent amounts to metaphysical naturalism.

 

[mark kennedy]

What I don't get is why you think that common descent amounts to metaphysical naturalism.

It's because it transcends all of history, that's why. There is not that much to get here, Darwinian logic is all consuming and will not allow for the miraculous. I know you are a Christian, what I don't know is why you would accept so willingly that naturalistic assumptions with regards to natural history are compatible with Christian conviction. God is the first cause, no self respecting Christian would deny that. Are we in agreement on that at least?

 

[Speedwell]

It's because it transcends all of history, that's why. There is not that much to get here, Darwinian logic is all consuming and will not allow for the miraculous. I know you are a Christian, what I don't know is why you would accept so willingly that naturalistic assumptions with regards to natural history are compatible with Christian conviction. God is the first cause, no self respecting Christian would deny that. Are we in agreement on that at least?

God is the first cause, and in the context of Aristotelian metaphysics--which has been the foundational philosophy of Christian theology for many centuries--He is the Final cause. That passage which you like to quote in which Darwin discusses natural causality I find to be very insightful. I expect that all natural phenomena, including abiogenesis, will be found to have a fully explanatory set of natural causes, all sustained by divine providence.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

That's because you don't know anything about the subject matter. It's why no one wants to talk about the actual definition because you'll have to face the fact that evolution isn't one thing but two, it's a scientificly investigated phenomenon and the presuppositional worldview of atheistic materialists. Once people realize that you guys don't get to hide behind the pretentious equivocation fallacy you call evolution. Couldn't have that, you guys might actually learn something about that subject matter.

And your arrogance is showing once again.

 

[doubtingmerle]

sure. do you think that a robot with a living traits (like self replication and made from organic matter) is evidence for design?

Do you think the price of eggs in China will go up today?

Can you please stay on subject? This thread is not about the price of eggs in China. This thread is not about whether you think there was a designer behind it all. In fact, I have been very emphatic that I am not asking you who you thought designed it or if you think it is designed. I could hire a thousand planes to write in the sky, "doubtingmerle is not asking if you thought somebody designed it" but none of that would matter, you would still come back here and claim the question is about if somebody designed it and who.

Sigh.

Now can we please get back to the question you completely ignored? You have been proposing this idea that, many years after dinosaurs, the first man or the first zebra could have suddenly popped into existence, fully formed, out of nothing. I have been explaining to you that this would be a violation of the law of conservation of matter. You whistle in the wind and pretend nobody told you this. I have explained that such an event is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. You whistle in the wind and ignore it. So I ask you if you have any evidence that the first zebra or the first man came into existence by simply popping up out of nothing at the command of God? So far you have presented zero evidence.

maybe yes and maybe no. but it will still not be evidence for evolution. only a variation in the horse family.

Maybe yes, maybe no?

What kind of an answer is that? So far you have presented nothing on how you think creatures came into existence, other than you think God did it. How did God do it? Did creatures suddenly pop into existence? Did they evolve from earlier creatures? Did he use robots or factories or aliens to create creatures? You seem to be open to any of that, no matter how bizarre, except for the one method that does have evidence, evolution, and yet somehow you insist that God could not have used evolution. Please, please show us evidence that God used a different method. Arguments about the price of eggs in China or designed watches have nothing to do with actually addressing the question.

OK, so you do accept the possibility that the first zebra was not created, that it evolved over a long period of time from the Hyrocatherium by the process of evolution. You say that would not be evolution. Flapdoodle. If the zebra evolved from the Hyrocatherium, that, my friend, would be evolution. You are simply equivocating, accepting evolution as long as we don't call it evolution.

What do you think is the most likely explanation for the fossils we find of the horse family, that show an incremental buildup of horse features over millions of years? For me, the most likely explanation is that the horse and zebra evolved over millions of years. You say maybe yes, maybe no. If you think another explanation is more likely, please put your idea on the table.

Do you really want to propose the idea that dozens of horse species popped up out of nowhere over millions of years as a counter-proposal to evolution? Then say so. Or do you think everything in that horse chart popped into existence 6000 years ago? Then say so. As long as you refuse--refuse!--to commit to anything on this, you really are not presenting a competition to evolution.

Let me guess. You will ignore all that, and say you think there was a designer behind it all, yes?

again: the timetable for a lots of kinds is changing everytime. till 2010 anyone thought that tetrapods evolved near 370my. but in 2010 they found a fossils that change this view.

Uh, we have been over this and you simply ignore the response. We have fossils that appear to be relatives of the actual creatures that first came unto land. We also now have tracks on land that may have been a few million years earlier. I have offered three explanations for that. You simply ignore it. Scientists are not agreed on the explanation. Understood. This happened a long time ago, and the early tracks are difficult to interpret. Were they really tracks, were they at the time reported, and what made them? There are differences of opinion. That is to be expected when we have many people looking at ancient evidence that is sometimes vague.

Compare that with your views, which are all over the map, and you are just one person. Going by your writings, the first zebra could be 6000 years ago, it could be 4 billion years ago, it could have evolved for anywhere from 5 years to 50 million years, it could have been created in a complete violation of the laws of nature, it could have been created by space robots, etc. When I look at the great confusion of ideas from you, and you are just one person, why be surprised that scientists debate if the first vertebrate on land was 370 or 390 million years ago?

yes. i said that its possible too. but its also possible that human population was just too small.

Right. In your willy nilly, everything is possible (as long as you don't use the word "evolution") world, it is possible that humans were created before the Triassic.

At least we found something we agree on: there were not many humans in the Triassic. I say there were none, you say possibly there were a few. But we both agree, there are no human fossils, no stone axes, no cars, no remnants of human culture found in the Triassic (250 to 200 million years ago). And there were no fossils of any placental mammals in or before the Triassic.

My point, again, is that the obvious explanation for this is that the Triassic represents a period of time long before human civilization, where dinosaurs ruled in the earth. And radiometric dating constantly says that rocks from this period are millions of years older than rocks with placental mammals.

Do you agree that rocks from the Triassic are millions of years old?

Let me guess--you will say maybe yes, maybe no, you just think there was a God behind it all. If that is your only point, why are you even on this thread?

 

[PsychoSarah]

That's simply not true, divergence of brain related genes are so devastating to Darwinism the subject is ignored, at least on here. Protein coding genes diverge by one codon per gene in each species. The protein products show gross structural divergence at 20% on average. At 90 million base pairs in 5 million years you'll need an indel 300 base pairs long permanently fixed genome wide every generation for five million years. This is impossible given the mutation load, functional constraints and certainly the deleterious effects.

The fact that most mutations that aren't neutral have negative impacts is the reason why the genomes across species remain so heavily conserved despite relatively frequent mutation. The worst of the negative mutations never enter the gene pool of a population because they result in non-viable organisms, most of which die before they are born. Furthermore, I know for a fact that your statement that every protein coding gene differs by at least one codon in each species, because even species as distant as humans and fruit flies share exact HOX genes, perhaps the most heavily conserved gene group on this planet.
Furthermore, promoter sequences that precede genes are between 100-1000 base pairs long in eukaryotes such as ourselves. Ever heard of the TATA box, a distinct sequence that's in almost every promoter?
Additionally, protein products can diverge a bit without the gene being transcribed being different. In fact, most genes are used to produce multiple protein products, with proteins selectively removing sections of the mRNA transcribed so that it "reads" differently. Don't forget that being structurally different and being functionally different are not one and the same. Plenty of proteins with somewhat different structures behave the same way.

With brain related genes you never get beneficial effects from mutations or even mildly deleterious. You get disease, disorder and death. What is remarkable is that anyone with a cursory knowledge of the life sciences would appeal to comparative genomics unless woefully misinformed or gravely disingenuous.

The genetic mutation of the gene DEC2 disagrees. People with this mutation have brains that tolerate less sleep than the average person, feeling well rested after weeks of sleep deprivation (and hour or two short of how much sleep a person would need to stay healthy every night). The people with this mutation are healthy in every way, and have normal intelligence. But, this grants them the ability, if they so choose, to stay up more hours of the day and perform more productive tasks than a person requiring normal amounts of sleep could. It is a beneficial mutation that affects sleep regulation in the brain, causing the people with the mutation to have more intense REM sleep (the sleep that refreshes you the most). It doesn't sacrifice the other sleep stages either, just makes that one more efficient.

I neither like nor dislike the statement, I know it to be completely false. The Darwinian naturalistic assumptions you equivocated with normal Mendelian changes in traits isn't a unified theory it's a fallacy. What unified biology was the DNA double helix model, it unified molecular biology (physical cause) and genetics (external traits), with that the world saw the birth of a new science.

Correction. You are somewhat right, and so am I; there are 4 unifying theories of biology, not one. Cell theory, the theory of evolution, gene theory, and the principle of homeostasis. So, there isn't a single theory that by itself covers all aspects of biology. Bad on both of us for that one; even between the both of us, we only got 50% of them. Look it up yourself if you like.

No problem except mutations are rarely adaptive on an evolutionary scale for one thing. For another the deleterious effects of mutations on brain related genes means that mutations on the scale required are a formula for extinction. It's not a theory, it's not an hypothesis and its not evolution it's a myth.

Again, the worst mutations never get the chance to enter the gene pool. Anything that hits an organisms intelligence too hard is liable to lead to the organism's death by a predator or the inability to care for itself, or make it anti social and unable to mate. It is what survives to reproduce that gets passed down to the next generation, and within every generation, some members do perish before reproducing. This is why some of the most successful species on this planet are just baby making machines, because when you have more offspring, the chances of at least one of them having good enough genes to be passed on is higher.

Remember that people used to have a lot more children in the past, and that many children did die and still do.

Still, I do not understand your obsession with quantity of negative mutations. You act as if people think mutations are biologically purposeful rather than biological errors that occasionally have a silver lining. You also act as if at no point the negative mutations are removed from populations, when miscarriages alone account for many of the worst ones. Most human pregnancies do not come to term because of mutations, and those that do and are live births cannot have most of the worst mutations because if they did, they wouldn't have survived for that long. People that make it to reproductive maturity successfully and don't have any mutations that cause infertility just aren't that likely to have many negative mutations that get expressed, because they would have died by that point if they did. Any genetic disease and condition that results in death after people reach the age to reproduce isn't bad enough to result in extinction or to be eliminated through natural selection. You'll notice that many of the worst genetic diseases in our population are recessive, allowing for healthy carriers of the bad gene to reproduce and allow it to possibly be expressed in the next generation. These genes do not persist via those that experience disease symptoms if they die before reproductive age.

So yes, we are lucky to manage to be born alive, much less make it to maturity. And those that do MUST, absolutely MUST, retain some degree of health to get to that point. As long as a person has beneficial mutations, and the negative mutations they have don't kill them before they can have kids, those beneficial mutations can be passed on. And as long as they aren't located near the negative mutations on the genome, THE BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS CAN BE PASSED ON WITHOUT NECESSARILY PASSING ON THE NEGATIVE MUTATIONS INTO THE SAME OFFSPRING. This is thanks to crossover of chromosomes.

 

[xianghua]

I don't recall saying that where viruses insert themselves was entirely random, only that it is not consistent.

but again: if those insertions arent random at all- then we can predict shared ervs without a common descent. so it cant be evidence for a common descent. more then that: retroviruses cant survive without their host. so how they survive in the first place? we also know that some species cant survive without an ervs. so how those species survived before they get thier ervs?

As for your comment that they would be integral parts of the genome and not viral insertions, there are aspects of many ERVs that would prevent that from making sense. From what I have read on them, most of the ones with a function act as promoters for genes, not as genes themselves. There is no need for the promoter to match up with viruses at all, since plenty of promoters in our body do their job just fine without having any relation to viral promoters. More importantly, since the retroviral genes can remain intact, we have genes which only function to repress those viral genes and prevent them from doing anything. There is no sense in doing this, as opposed to just designing us with the promoters and not the actual viral genes. That way, we wouldn't need genes that only function to prevent the viral genes from being active. Heck, even if those repressive genes have a secondary function, they'd do it just fine without the presence of the viral genes our bodies do not use.

its possible that they was active in the past and degenerated since then.

You know, those viral genes that our bodies do not need and that we actually need to combat to retain normal function?

see above: some species do need their viral genes and cant even survive without them.

Yeah, they are saying that there is no contamination FROM SPECIES THAT CURRENTLY EXIST. Basically, what has been demonstrated is that the DNA segment they found doesn't belong to any known, modern species. However, that does not mean that it belongs to the fossil species.

but the DNA they found is almost the same like others species of this family (as far as i aware about). so it cant be a contamination. if its was a real contamination we should predict to find a different sequence that match to other family.

 

[xianghua]

So I ask you if you have any evidence that the first zebra or the first man came into existence by simply popping up out of nothing at the command of God? So far you have presented zero evidence.

again: i do have evidence that they was created by a designer. i dont know how the designer do that but its doesnt matter. i do think that all creatures doesnt have a common descent. its means that they not evolved from other creatures. so a fish for instance doesnt evolved into a tetrapod.

If the zebra evolved from the Hyrocatherium, that, my friend, would be evolution. You are simply equivocating, accepting evolution as long as we don't call it evolution.

not if they are basically the same creature. wolf and dogs for instance belong to the same family. so basically they are the same creature and can even interbreed.

Uh, we have been over this and you simply ignore the response. We have fossils that appear to be relatives of the actual creatures that first came unto land. We also now have tracks on land that may have been a few million years earlier. I have offered three explanations for that. You simply ignore it. Scientists are not agreed on the explanation. Understood. This happened a long time ago, and the early tracks are difficult to interpret. Were they really tracks, were they at the time reported, and what made them? There are differences of opinion. That is to be expected when we have many people looking at ancient evidence that is sometimes vague.

if so no fossil can be evidence against evolution. and therefore your claim about fossils in the wrong place as evidence against evolution is meaningless.

Do you agree that rocks from the Triassic are millions of years old?

no. because we cant prove this so we just dont know. do you think that a radiometric method is a scientific method? if so: what is credibility level of this method? (lets say that i want do date a rock. how far the result can be from the real age of the rock?)

 

[doubtingmerle]

again: i do have evidence that they was created by a designer.

What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?

Once again, I am not asking if you think there is a designer. I am not asking you for the price of eggs in China. I am asking if you have any evidence for your proposal that animals came into existence by popping up out of nothing.

How many more times do you need me to repeat that?

Let me guess. You will once again evade the question and pretend I never asked it, yes?

i dont know how the designer do that but its doesnt matter.

It does not matter how the designer did it? Really? Ok, then why not go by the only method that has evidence, that the designer did it by evolution? If it doesn't matter what method, then why fight dogmatically that it wasn't this one particular method?

not if they are basically the same creature. wolf and dogs for instance belong to the same family. so basically they are the same creature and can even interbreed.

We are not talking about a zebra breeding with a Hyracatherium. We are talking about Hyracatherium evolving into zebras over time. I had asked you if you thought that was possibly where the first zebra came from and you had said "yes". Are you now going to back down on what you had said?

If the first Zebra did not come into existence by the creator using evolution, how do you think it happened? Did it just suddenly pop into existence out of nothing? If you think so, then what is your evidence that God used this method?

if so no fossil can be evidence against evolution. and therefore your claim about fossils in the wrong place as evidence against evolution is meaningless.

Really? There is debate if the first vertebrate on land was 390 million years ago or 370 million years ago. Therefore all claims about the fossil record are meaningless? I disagree. A minor adjustment in the date of the first vertebrate on land does not throw away all the evidence we have.

no. because we cant prove this so we just dont know.

I disagree. There is strong proof the Triassic was millions of years ago.

Even if you distrust radiometric dating, how do you account for the rocks with Triassic fossils being buried so deep? In North Dakota, the Triassic layer is 7000 feet underground. Above it are Jurassic, Cretateous and Tertiary layers in order going up to the surface. Now how do you account for that Triassic layer, which has no mammal fossils, but has fossils of many other odd creatures unlike anything today, buried under a mile of rock layers, each showing signs of different forms of life living on those layers all the way up? How did all those rocks get on top of the Triassic layer, if not over millions of years? See The Entire Geologic Column in North Dakota .

do you think that a radiometric method is a scientific method? if so: what is credibility level of this method? (lets say that i want do date a rock. how far the result can be from the real age of the rock?)

Yes, of course radiometric is a scientific method. It is extremely accurate. For instance, there is a rock formation in Greenland that is extremely old, and has been measured using many different methods. A uranium-lead measurement said it is 3.6 b (billion) years old +/- 0.05 b. Lead-lead said it is 3.65 b, +/- 0.10 b. Rb-Sr said it is 3.64 b,+/- 0.06. And so on for 12 different independent measurements with different methods, all yielding almost exactly the same answer. This is not an isolated instance. When a rock is dated they commonly use multiple methods and find extremely accurate correlation. How do you explain any of that? See Radiometric Dating .

 

[mark kennedy]

The fact that most mutations that aren't neutral have negative impacts is the reason why the genomes across species remain so heavily conserved despite relatively frequent mutation. The worst of the negative mutations never enter the gene pool of a population because they result in non-viable organisms, most of which die before they are born. Furthermore, I know for a fact that your statement that every protein coding gene differs by at least one codon in each species, because even species as distant as humans and fruit flies share exact HOX genes, perhaps the most heavily conserved gene group on this planet.

Much of the commonality of the genes is compelling but the divergence is significant as well:

In weighing alternative hypotheses of FOXP2 or any gene's potential involvement in the evolution of form (or neural circuitry), we should ask the following questions. (i) Is the gene product used in multiple tissues? (ii) Are mutations in the coding sequence known or likely to be pleiotropic? (iii) Does the locus contain multiple cis-regulatory elements?

64,65]. Patients with the FOXP2 mutation do have multiple neural deficits [66]. And, because FOXP2 is expressed in different organs and different regions of the brain, it is certain to possess multiple regulatory elements. Furthermore, it is an enormous, complex locus, spanning some 267 kb. Based upon a simple average base pair divergence of 1.2%, there should be over 2,000 nucleotide differences between chimps and humans in this span. Because there is much more potential for functional divergence in non-coding sequences, there is no specific reason to favor coding sequence divergence over regulatory sequence divergence at FOXP2. (Evolution at Two Levels: On Genes and Form. PLOS)​

Two problems here, one is mutations in this regulatory gene result in 'multiple neural deficits' and 'there is no specific reason to favor coding sequence divergence'. Specifically known effects of changes and assumed changes known from comparative genomics. There is no known mechanism for facilitating this change and yet we are supposed to assume it's the result of some serendipitous mutation.

Furthermore, promoter sequences that precede genes are between 100-1000 base pairs long in eukaryotes such as ourselves. Ever heard of the TATA box, a distinct sequence that's in almost every promoter?

Not really finding that many direct comparisons but I'll keep looking.

Additionally, protein products can diverge a bit without the gene being transcribed being different. In fact, most genes are used to produce multiple protein products, with proteins selectively removing sections of the mRNA transcribed so that it "reads" differently. Don't forget that being structurally different and being functionally different are not one and the same. Plenty of proteins with somewhat different structures behave the same way.

Yes, I'm aware of that and gene expression has a lot of complications that don't require dramatically different sequences. Gross structural changes in protein products seem a little high when it gets up to 20%.

Taken together, gross structural changes affecting gene products are far more common than previously estimated 20.3% of the PTR22 proteins. (DNA sequence and comparative analysis of chimpanzee chromosome 22, Nature 2004)​

The genetic mutation of the gene DEC2 disagrees. People with this mutation have brains that tolerate less sleep than the average person, feeling well rested after weeks of sleep deprivation (and hour or two short of how much sleep a person would need to stay healthy every night). The people with this mutation are healthy in every way, and have normal intelligence. But, this grants them the ability, if they so choose, to stay up more hours of the day and perform more productive tasks than a person requiring normal amounts of sleep could. It is a beneficial mutation that affects sleep regulation in the brain, causing the people with the mutation to have more intense REM sleep (the sleep that refreshes you the most). It doesn't sacrifice the other sleep stages either, just makes that one more efficient.

That looks like an amino acid substitution, changes can be equivocated with genetic mutations so I'm not sure if you have a point here or not.

Correction. You are somewhat right, and so am I; there are 4 unifying theories of biology, not one. Cell theory, the theory of evolution, gene theory, and the principle of homeostasis. So, there isn't a single theory that by itself covers all aspects of biology. Bad on both of us for that one; even between the both of us, we only got 50% of them. Look it up yourself if you like.

I'm not sure how you think this is a point of contention, I certainly never meant it that way. For me, Darwinian evolution has proven itself to be a pretty interesting unified theory. All theories are unified theories since they are an attempt to unify the facts. I watched a lot of House, I always thought how they did differential diagnosis was a perfect example of how you get a working theory. House would write all the symptoms on the white board and when they had a theory that explained them all they usually had a diagnosis. My thing has always been philosophy and while the scientific literature is compelling I always looked at this somewhat philosophically. When I talk about a unified theory on this scale I'm talking about the search for a unified theory of physics for instance, String Theory. Charles Darwin was confronted with his theory being metaphysics and he simply responded I don't know much about metaphysics. I'm paraphrasing obviously but a unified theory in an inductive system would be a massive undertaking. Physics never got theirs done, Biology I think it's safe to say, did with the establishment of the DNA double helix. That is not to disparage chromosome theory or the various others.

Again, the worst mutations never get the chance to enter the gene pool. Anything that hits an organisms intelligence too hard is liable to lead to the organism's death by a predator or the inability to care for itself, or make it anti social and unable to mate. It is what survives to reproduce that gets passed down to the next generation, and within every generation, some members do perish before reproducing. This is why some of the most successful species on this planet are just baby making machines, because when you have more offspring, the chances of at least one of them having good enough genes to be passed on is higher.

Needing less sleep is one thing, a bigger and better brain is another one. Darwinians have a very serious problem and always seem to get a pass. Mutations in these very sensitive genes result in disease and disorder on an epic level. Given the fact that the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes happened virtually over night is cause for skepticism.

Remember that people used to have a lot more children in the past, and that many children did die and still do.

Still, I do not understand your obsession with quantity of negative mutations. You act as if people think mutations are biologically purposeful rather than biological errors that occasionally have a silver lining. You also act as if at no point the negative mutations are removed from populations, when miscarriages alone account for many of the worst ones. Most human pregnancies do not come to term because of mutations, and those that do and are live births cannot have most of the worst mutations because if they did, they wouldn't have survived for that long. People that make it to reproductive maturity successfully and don't have any mutations that cause infertility just aren't that likely to have many negative mutations that get expressed, because they would have died by that point if they did. Any genetic disease and condition that results in death after people reach the age to reproduce isn't bad enough to result in extinction or to be eliminated through natural selection. You'll notice that many of the worst genetic diseases in our population are recessive, allowing for healthy carriers of the bad gene to reproduce and allow it to possibly be expressed in the next generation. These genes do not persist via those that experience disease symptoms if they die before reproductive age.

I'm hardly obsessed, this is a pass time for me. What I keep running into is the fact that highly deleterious effects arise from mutations in brain related genes and there are very few beneficial effects. I couldn't agree more that the death of the unborn would result from deleterious mutations but when you compare that to 60 de novo genes required and a massive overhaul of highly conserved genes you have a serious problem.

So yes, we are lucky to manage to be born alive, much less make it to maturity. And those that do MUST, absolutely MUST, retain some degree of health to get to that point. As long as a person has beneficial mutations, and the negative mutations they have don't kill them before they can have kids, those beneficial mutations can be passed on. And as long as they aren't located near the negative mutations on the genome, THE BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS CAN BE PASSED ON WITHOUT NECESSARILY PASSING ON THE NEGATIVE MUTATIONS INTO THE SAME OFFSPRING. This is thanks to crossover of chromosomes.

Ok, lets assume a beneficial effect for a minute just for the sake of argument.

The number of loci in a vertebrate species has been estimated at about 40,000. 'Good' species, even when closely related, may differ at several thousand loci, even if the differences at most of them are very slight. But it takes as many deaths, or their equivalents, to replace a gene by one producing a barely distinguishable phenotype as by one producing a very different one. If two species differ at 1000 loci, and the mean rate of gene substitution, as has been suggested, is one per 300 generations, it will take 300,000 generations to generate an interspecific difference. (Haldane, J.B.S., "The Cost of Natural Selection)​

Thats assuming a beneficial effect, this is never as cut and dried as it seems.

 

[xianghua]

Once again, I am not asking if you think there is a designer. I am not asking you for the price of eggs in China. I am asking if you have any evidence for your proposal that animals came into existence by popping up out of nothing.

you actually do ask for that here:

" I ask you if you have any evidence that the first zebra or the first man came into existence by simply popping up out of nothing at the command of God? So far you have presented zero evidence"

so you want me to show you evidence for design or not?

It does not matter how the designer did it? Really? Ok, then why not go by the only method that has evidence, that the designer did it by evolution? If it doesn't matter what method, then why fight dogmatically that it wasn't this one particular method?

if you have a good evidence for evolution bring it. why not?

If the first Zebra did not come into existence by the creator using evolution, how do you think it happened? Did it just suddenly pop into existence out of nothing? If you think so, then what is your evidence that God used this method?

first: the fact that there is not evidence that a creature can evolve into a different kind of creature. a zebra and a horse are basically the same kind of creature.

Even if you distrust radiometric dating, how do you account for the rocks with Triassic fossils being buried so deep?

ok. first: we cant know if this rate was always at this level (and if so i can claim the same for the deneration of DNA or others point that show us a young age). secondly: a correlation between different methods isnt a proof that the date is correct. for instance: in the past, several different methods agree with an age of about 100my for the earth. but all those methods was wrong in a factor of about 5000%!. more then that: we know that a plalsma tmp can change the precision of the method by a factor of a one bilion!:

Rhenium-osmium dating - Wikipedia

"This normally occurs with a half-life of 41.6 × 109 y,[1] but studies using fully ionised 187Re atoms have found that this can decrease to only 33 y"

and remember that the universe indeed was in a plasma condition in its past.

 

[doubtingmerle]

you actually do ask for that here:

" I ask you if you have any evidence that the first zebra or the first man came into existence by simply popping up out of nothing at the command of God? So far you have presented zero evidence"

so you want me to show you evidence for design or not?

I am not asking you for evidence for design.
I am not asking you for evidence for design.

I am asking for evidence that animals popped into existence out of nothing.
I am asking for evidence that animals popped into existence out of nothing.

I have told you that over and over and over. Why do you simply ignore what people say, and pretend they are saying something different?

The phrase you quoted said, "I ask you if you have any evidence that the first zebra or the first man came into existence by simply popping up out of nothing at the command of God?" (emphasis added)

Many people believe that God used evolution as a tool. They believe that the designer used evolution to create his design. So you cannot refute the person who says the designer used evolution by saying, no there was a designer.

You are ignoring the question because you know you have zero evidence for your claim that animals popped up out of nothing, yes? So rather than say you have no evidence, you divert to a different question and hope we won't catch it.

Sorry, we saw your diversion.

if you have a good evidence for evolution bring it.

Been there. Done that. Once more: 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

first: the fact that there is not evidence that a creature can evolve into a different kind of creature.

Oh. my. word.​

You say this in response to,

If the first Zebra did not come into existence by the creator using evolution, how do you think it happened? Did it just suddenly pop into existence out of nothing? If you think so, then what is your evidence that God used this method?​

And we can see once again that you refuse--refuse!--to give one iota of evidence that the method of creation is that of popping into existence.

Atacking another view is not the same as providing evidence for yours.

ok. first: we cant know if this rate was always at this level (and if so i can claim the same for the deneration of DNA or others point that show us a young age).

Another diversion. Do you never actually deal with the question?

Once more, the Triassic layer that goes under North Dakota has dinosaur fossils and other odd animal fossils that are buried under 7000 feet of other fossil bearing layers. How do you explain all that rock on top of the fossil bearing layer of the Triassic? I think this is because the Triassic was long ago, and there was plenty of time for 7000 feet of sediments with fossils to pile up on top of the Triassic. You have no answer for why this is so, do you? You simply ignored the question, yes?

But regarding radiometric dating, yes we know the rate was constant. Distant starlight left the stars millions of years ago, and shows radioactivity was at the same levels when light left the stars as it is today.

But regarding DNA decay rates, that is known to vary significantly with conditions. Don't believe me? Leave two cans of commercial soup out for a month, one sealed in the vacuum packaging it came in, one fully open. Now take a whiff of each. Smell the difference? I proved my point. The rate of decay of complex organic molecules depends on conditions.

​

secondly: a correlation between different methods isnt a proof that the date is correct. for instance: in the past, several different methods agree with an age of about 100my for the earth. but all those methods was wrong in a factor of about 5000%!. more then that:

Uh no, early scientists had guesses of how old the earth was, but they differed widely. We now have accurate means of determining the age.

Criticizing scientists because a scientist made a mistake in the 19th century, is like condemning doctors because doctors made mistakes in the 19th century. That is irrelevant.

Do you have an explanation for why all those different tests in modern times, all of which are known to be accurate, all agree remarkably on the age of that formation?

we know that a tmp can change the precision of the method by a factor of a one bilion!:

Rhenium-osmium dating - Wikipedia

"This normally occurs with a half-life of 41.6 × 109 y,[1] but studies using fully ionised 187Re atoms have found that this can decrease to only 33 y"

and remember that the universe indeed was in a plasma condition in its past.

Uh, excuse me, but the universe was not in a plasma condition in the Triassic. This is irrelevant to rocks from the Triassic.

 

[xianghua]

Many people believe that God used evolution as a tool. They believe that the designer used evolution to create his design. So you cannot refute the person who says the designer used evolution by saying, no there was a designer.

ok. but in this case it's not a natural evolution anymore. and i guess you believe in a natural evolution. right?

yep. i dont have a proof that the zebra just popped into existence out of nothing. but i do have evidence that the zebra doesnt evolved by a natural process from a fish ancestor.

Been there. Done that. Once more: 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

again; i doesnt see there any scientific evidence for a common descent. you already said that the transitional fossils are the evidence. but we both agree that it doesnt prove a common de =scent because we can arrange also cars in such hierarchy, without any evolution. they also bring the ervs argument. but as i said to sarah- those ervs parts are actually functional. so their positions in the genome arent the reasult of a random events. we even dont sure that those are a real viral infections. so again: no evidence for evolution here.

I think this is because the Triassic was long ago, and there was plenty of time for 7000 feet of sediments with fossils to pile up on top of the Triassic. You have no answer for why this is so, do you? You simply ignored the question, yes?

it may be indeed an old layer. but maybe another process happened( a flood?). i just dont know. so my answer will be i dont know.

But regarding radiometric dating, yes we know the rate was constant. Distant starlight left the stars millions of years ago, and shows radioactivity was at the same levels when light left the stars as it is today.

i actually refer to the beginning of the universe formation. if all the matter in the universe come from a small point then all those atoms get inffected by the plasma state. its a one possibility.

But regarding DNA decay rates, that is known to vary significantly with conditions. Don't believe me? Leave two cans of commercial soup out for a month, one sealed in the vacuum packaging it came in, one fully open. Now take a whiff of each. Smell the difference? I proved my point. The rate of decay of complex organic molecules depends on conditions.

are you kidding? do you think that the scientists that published the paper arent aware of such conditions? they even mention different conditions in their paper.

​

Uh no, early scientists had guesses of how old the earth was, but they differed widely. We now have accurate means of determining the age.

not sure:

"Kelvin estimated that the Sun is about 20 million years old"

"The physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (in 1856) and astronomer Simon Newcomb (in 1892) contributed their own calculations of 22 and 18 million years respectively to the debate"

"The last estimate Thomson gave, in 1897, was: "that it was more than 20 and less than 40 million year old, and probably much nearer 20 than 40"

so at least 3 different methods gave the same result. im sure that if you lived in those ages you agreed with their calculations.

Uh, excuse me, but the universe was not in a plasma condition in the Triassic. This is irrelevant to rocks from the Triassic.

. true . i was talking about the origin of the universe.

 

[Speedwell]

ok. but in this case it's not a natural evolution anymore. and i guess you believe in a natural evolution. right?

yep. i dont have a proof that the zebra just popped into existence out of nothing. but i do have evidence that the zebra doesnt evolved by a natural process from a fish ancestor.





again; i doesnt see there any scientific evidence for a common descent. you already said that the transitional fossils are the evidence. but we both agree that it doesnt prove a common de =scent because we can arrange also cars in such hierarchy, without any evolution. they also bring the ervs argument. but as i said to sarah- those ervs parts are actually functional. so their positions in the genome arent the reasult of a random events. we even dont sure that those are a real viral infections. so again: no evidence for evolution here.




it may be indeed an old layer. but maybe another process happened( a flood?). i just dont know. so my answer will be i dont know.






i actually refer to the beginning of the universe formation. if all the matter in the universe come from a small point then all those atoms get inffected by the plasma state. its a one possibility.




are you kidding? do you think that the scientists that published the paper arent aware of such conditions? they even mention different conditions in their paper.

​

not sure:

"Kelvin estimated that the Sun is about 20 million years old"

"The physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (in 1856) and astronomer Simon Newcomb (in 1892) contributed their own calculations of 22 and 18 million years respectively to the debate"

"The last estimate Thomson gave, in 1897, was: "that it was more than 20 and less than 40 million year old, and probably much nearer 20 than 40"

so at least 3 different methods gave the same result. im sure that if you lived in those ages you agreed with their calculations.




. true . i was talking about the origin of the universe.

So what it boils down to is you don't know what actually happened and don't really care, as long as it wasn't common descent.

 

[xianghua]

So what it boils down to is you don't know what actually happened and don't really care, as long as it wasn't common descent.

yes, more or less.

 

[Speedwell]

yes, more or less.

So why don't you like common descent?