A Question for Creationists

[AV1611VET]

"Something" and "nothing" are not meaningful concepts in QM.

Quinn Martin can take a hike.

[youtube]1mK2gwDs2Ko[/youtube]

 

[Naraoia]

The fact that it's extinct would indicated that something wasn't quite right in its adaptive abilities.

Extinction of a species only indicates that a change happened too fast for it to adapt. It could be that another species came along that outcompeted it, it could be that its old food sources disappeared, it could be that a space rock or climate change obliterated its entire habitat. You can be perfectly well adapted to a habitat and still struggle to survive if that habitat stops existing.

The fact that proto-whales left plenty of fossils indicates that they were doing something right.

The only thing is, you're here trying to win people away from God...

And that's where your assumptions are wrong. I think most of us, myself included, couldn't care less whether or not you believe in God. Or gods.

A Cambrian Explosion that completely invalidates evolution...

And here we go again, simplifying a complex and poorly understood phenomenon down to a completely misleading one-liner.

Irreducible complexity of organs and complex DNA even in the oldest species ever to exist?

What is the oldest species ever to exist? Surely you don't mean the oldest known fossils of living things, since there ain't no DNA in them, and prokaryotic cells don't have organs...

(See, this is why I think you don't understand what you're rejecting. I'd say whether or not you've handled fossils is quite irrelevant. It's the way you talk about scientific issues, the way you use terminology, that tells.)

If evolution were introduced today, it would be laughed out of existence.

That's a hypothetical you have no way of evaluating.

Whales didn't evolve from dogs, but from artiodactyls. And the genetics have been understood since 2006. The key is Sonic Hedgehog and Hand2.

I'm a bit leery of simplifications like this. Maybe it's accurate to say that we have a good genetic explanation for the transformation of legs into flippers (or vestiges, as the case may be), but the way you said it sounds like two genes turned land-dwelling ungulates into whales.

I would agree completely. Once you know, you know. There is no doubt that can come any longer. Doubt without knowledge is probable, knowledge casts out all doubt. It is a given.

Strange, in my experience, the more I know the less certain I feel about my knowledge.

A mosaic is more than one fossil together, like Archaeoraptor. Both Archaeopteryx and our friend the platypus are species with intermediate or transitional features.

Technically, the mixture of fossils that don't belong together is a chimaera. "Mosaic" does describe a mixture of primitive and derived traits, or more precisely, different traits evolving at different times/rates, so I'd say it's appropriate for at least some transitional forms.

Interesting that you mentioned the platypus, which is a good example of a mammal that is semi-aquatic much like the earliest whale ancestors must have been. And guess what? It actually does have webbed feet! Imagine that....

It's worth noting that embryonic vertebrates generally have webbed feet until late in development. All you have to do to get webbing in an adult is turn off the signals that cause interdigital tissue to die.

 

[mzungu]

Quinn Martin can take a hike.

[youtube]1mK2gwDs2Ko[/youtube]

Does Quantum Mechanics ring a bell

 

[OllieFranz]

I accept common ancestry but not as you present it. DNA shows a common ancestry only within a species.

I'm guessing that either you are using "species" and "kind" as basically equivalent, and based on your definition of kind. In which case, you are saying common ancestry is only within a kind

All humans have a common ancestry; all apes have common ancestry, all dogs have a common ancestry etc.

But "all apes" -- or even just the great apes -- are not the same species, they are five or six separate species, and according to your definition of kind, they are just as many different kinds.

All plants have DNA. Are they part of our common ancestry?

Actually, that is a good question. What is the difference between a plant and an animal, especially at the single-cell and undifferentiated colony level? Because of the difficulty of answering questions like these, we now recognize more kingdoms than just plant and animal. We have common ancestors with plants, but we are not descended from plants.

All life is not connected to each other through the first blob you say was the first life for. What was the first plant life form? How did it come into being?

I am not familiar with the exact definitions of the various kingdoms, especially the newer kingdoms. One of the posters who is a professional in the field might have a better answer to the first question. The answer to the second is that a mutation or insertion or ERV, or some other gene-altering event resulted in an organism that had not met the definition of a plant now meeting it.

I know you think you have but you have not presented any biological evidence that makes it possible.

He has. We all have. But you dismiss it as not showing you exactly what you ask, or if it does, you claim that it is "above your pay grade."

Of course mutation result in changes but not in new traits. They only alter the trait they would have gottend without he mutation. I don't u nderstand why that is so hard to see.

Yes, if the mutation occurs in the middle of a gene, and does not change the beginning or end, you still have the same gene, say a gene for eye color, but a new allele, and a new trait, say blue eyes instead of brown.

But if it affects the beginning or the end of the gene, you get a totally different new gene. It might affect the eyes, but it is equally likely to regulate the growth of horns.

Changes are like brown-eyed parents having blue-eye children. I know that is not causse by a mutation but th principle is the same.

But it was originally a mutation. That is why it is far more prevalent in Caucasians than in other races. It occurred after the races spread into Europe and Asia, and the people in Africa and Asia (and from Asia into the Americas, Polynesia, and Australia) only bred with Europeans occasionally, and blue-eyed Europeans even more rarely.

Show me a mutation or a series of mutations that has resulted in a change of species.

It is not a question of a single mutation, otherwise the first mutant would die without issue. It is an accumulation of mutations. Despite the cliche, I doubt you could point out the one straw in a heap that was the one that made the heap heavy enough to break the camel's back.

 

[Loudmouth]

I accept common ancestry but not as you present it. DNA shows a common ancestry only within a species.

Why can't DNA be used to evidence common ancestry between species?

All life is not connected to each other through the first blob you say was the first life for.

Please present your evidence for this claim.

I know you think you have but you have not presented any biological evidence that makes it possible.

Yes, I have. I have presented studies that demonstrate that every child is born with mutations:

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v43/n7/full/ng.862.html

I have shown that mutations are responsible for new traits in humans:

Direct estimates of human per nucleotide mutation ... [Hum Mutat. 2003] - PubMed - NCBI

Vadoma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The genetic basis of adaptive melanism in pocket mice

Of course mutation result in changes but not in new traits. They only alter the trait they would have gottend without he mutation.

An altered trait is a new trait.

Changes are like brown-eyed parents having blue-eye children. I know that is not causse by a mutation but th principle is the same.

There are changes caused by mutations, and I have cited them for you.

Show me a mutation or a series of mutations that has resulted in a change of species.

Those are the differences between humans and chimps. Those are the mutations that have resulted in two different species.

 

[Loudmouth]

Of course they did.
When they were given the choice between recanting these stories or suffering torture and death, they chose the latter because their made up story was just too good.

It all makes (im)perfect sense. In the words of Tom Petty, "It don't make no difference to me, 'cause you believe what you wanna believe."

Then show me evidence that it isn't made up. Show me evidence that the Earth really is just a few thousand years old. Show me evidence that species were created separately.

 

[Loudmouth]

It does unless you have a better explanation as to how the universe came into being. If you don't likek the deity answer, present your own.

That is a God of the Gaps fallacy.

Argument from ignorance - RationalWiki

 

[Loudmouth]

Since matter cannot create itself out of nothing, it must have a Creator.

Where did you show that matter had to create itself out of nothing in order for our universe to come about through natural means?

If you don't know how it came into existence, then can you say I am wrong?

If you don't have evidence for your claims, how can you say you are right? Your claims require just as much evidence as anyone else's.

Now you said in an earlier post that God cannot come out of nothing, and I don't think I answered that. God is eternal.

Then the energy that produced the matter in our universe is also eternal, problem solved.

 

[Loudmouth]

You admitted you don't know, so how can you know his explanation is not right? What evidence do you have that it is a metaphore?

What evidence do you have that it is a literal history?

 

[Naraoia]

None, not one of the fossils you posted is an intermediate. They are all distinctly separate.

Are you really not aware that even most hard core evos acknowledge the fossil record does not support evolution?

They don't. Even assuming your quotes aren't taken out of context (and that's a very generous assumption based on my experience), you are brandishing the views of two guys out of millions in this field. To support the claim that "most" acknowledge whatever nonsense you said about the fossil record. That is a giant evidence fail, plain and simple.

"I regard the failure tofind a clear 'vector of progressss' in life's history as the most puzling fact of the fossil record...we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that doe snot really display it."(Stephen J Gould, "The Ediacaran Experiment," Natural Hisstory(Vol 93, Feb 1984).

You have no idea what this quote is about, do you?

Gould is not saying that the fossil record does not support evolution. Evolution =/= progress, and in fact, that is exactly his point. The article is primarily about mass extinctions, and more generally about the role of chance events in the history of life. He is arguing that chance (as opposed to adaptation or lack thereof) played a much bigger role than people expected, and that the path of life through time is more like a snowflake being swept by turbulent winds than the traditional "march of progress". (I nicked the snowflake analogy from this book.)

For example, on the Permo-Triassic mass extinction, he writes on pp. 295-6:

For a removal so profound [i.e. ~96% of all animal species], we must seriously consider the possibility that entire groups will be lost for purely random reasons.

On the last page, he offers an explanation for the lack of general progress* in the fossil record. First of all, he argues that a punk-eek type evolutionary process doesn't really produce progress even though it produces plenty of change:

[Punk eek posits that] the pattern of normal times is not one of continuous adaptive improvement within lineages. Rather, species form rapidly in geological perspective (thousands of years) and tend to be highly stable for millions of years thereafter. Evolutionary success must be assessed among species themselves, not at the traditional Darwinian level of struggling organisms within populations. The reasons that species succeed are many and varied--high rates of speciation and strong resistance to extinction, for example--and often involve no reference to traditional expectations for improvement in morphological design.

And secondly, big extinctions that take species basically at random can reset any progress that has been made:

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Whatever accumulates by punctuated equilibrium in normal times can be broken up, dismantled, reset, and dispersed by mass extinction. If punctuated equilibrium upset traditional expectations, mass extinction is even worse. Organisms cannot track or anticipate the environmental triggers of mass extinction. No matter how well they adapt themselves to environmental ranges of normal times, they must take their chances in catastrophic moments. And if extinctions can demolish more than 90 percent of all species, then we must be losing groups forever as a result of pure bad luck among a few clinging survivors designed for another world.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
You can argue over whether or not he's right, but nowhere does this article talk about evolution as anything other than a fact.

*I find "progress" a deeply problematic concept as applied to the living world. "Progress" is something that depends on a choice of values. If you think organismal complexity is a mark of progress, then life has generally progressed through time. Prokaryotes were joined by eukaryotes, then simple multicellular eukaryotes, then such complex creatures with differentiated tissues and organs as animals and land plants. But if your chosen value is, say, metabolic diversity, then life hasn't really "progressed" since the first oxygenation of the atmosphere, and eukaryotes are frankly a regression rather than an improvement.
[/FONT]

Most evos acknowledge that the fossil record does not support evolution. One of your heros in the faith, Stephen Gould says, "I find the failure to find a clear 'vectdor of progress' in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record...we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it."

Since when is Gould anyone's "hero of the faith"? In fact, Gould is a pretty controversial figure who made some very good points, but also held some rather extreme opinions that aren't generally accepted by the community.

Your whale expert, Gringich, puts a dog-like animal in the linage of whales.

For Pete's sake, people, can you at least get Gingerich's name right? Copy-paste if you're not sure.

What genetrics causes a dog-like land amimal doing quite well on land to lose it legs and nose and acquire fins and a blowhole. That actually contradits know genetics.

Do tell me about that. What known genetics does it contradict?

Look at them for goodness sake. There is no simialarity between a hipo and packicetus except both had 4 legs and a tail. One had fur, one didn't.

Now, how do you know whether Pakicetus had fur?

How did packicetus lose it legs? How did the thick, heavy hipo llegs become lim legs?

Why are we suddenly talking about hippos? Hippos are not the ancestors of whales.

Punctuate equilibra wa snot aboaut trends. It wa about the fossil record refuting the time honored dogma of gradualism.

No. It was about the fossil record refuting the time honoured dogma of even distribution of evolutionary change over time. That's all phyletic gradualism means. It's simply the idea that species turn into new species via a slow, continuous, gradual process. Eldredge and Gould argued that instead most change is concentrated around relatively rapid speciation events.

You know what's really funny to anyone who read their original punk eek article?

They proposed punk eek to introduce up to date evolutionary theory into palaeontology.

They argued that evolutionary theory actually predicts exactly what we see in the fossil record, and palaeontologists should stop looking for species to species transitions that evolutionary theory predicts they are unlikely to find in fossils! Here, I can quote:

The central concept of allopatric speciation is that new species can arise only when a small local population becomes isolated at the margin of the geographic range of its parent species. [...] As a consequence of the allopatric theory, new fossil species do not originate in the place where their ancestors lived. It is extremely improbable that we shall be able to trace the gradual splitting of a lineage merely by following a certain species up through a local rock column.

Another consequence of the theory of allopatric processes follows: since selection always maintains an equilibrium between populations and their local environment, the morphological features that distinguish the descendant species from its ancestor are present close after, if not before, the onset of genetic isolation.

And so on. I encourage you to read the whole paper before parroting erroneous second-hand interpretations of it...

[Allopatric speciation (i.e. speciation by geographic isolation) is the dominant mode of the formation of new species according to the modern evolutionary synthesis that emerged from the integration of genetics with Darwin's theory of natural selection.]

If they aer lacking at the species level, you cnnot say they ar present in the larger level.

This simply does not follow. Large-scale transitions involve multiple species and often large geographic areas, and take much longer than individual speciation events. Thus none of Eldredge and Gould's points about species to species transitions need apply to them.

I didn't say it doesn't translate to all animal. It does. Thatg is the point. Each species has its own unique DNA. Even more distinct, it can tell if we are related.

I can't parse what your point is here.

it can tell tht we are not related to apes or chimps or anyothe mammal. If we had the DNA from pakitecus it would show it is not related to hippos.

How does the DNA of two unrelated mammals look? Do you think mice and rats are related?

 

[Elendur]

It does unless you have a better explanation as to how the universe came into being. If you don't likek the deity answer, present your own.

How did you come to the conclusion that the universe came into being?

 

[Naraoia]

A gene can be divided into 3-base-pair segments called codons, each codon associated with a specific amino acid, except for six. These are three "start" codons and three "stop" codons.

Pedantry alert! The start codon(s) do(es) actually code for an amino acid, methionine in the case of the standard genetic code. AFAICT, in alternative codes, while the amino acid is not always methionine, there is always a translation for start codons. Also, the number of starts and stops varies by code, but there is only one start in the standard code most eukaryotes use.

The moon was created ex nihilo, which is Latin for GOD DID IT.

I thought it was Latin for "out of nothing". Admittedly, my Latin is a bit rusty.

If you are not even familiar with mutations 101, and genetics 101, why are you even here discussing the issue?

Oy, that's a bit rich from you.

I am not talking about DNA. I am talking about how traits are gotten by the offspring.

They are, for the most part, gotten encoded in their DNA. So yes, you are talking about DNA.

While our DNA is different, tells us that we are not related biologically but we are related by species---homo sapian.

But you are related biologically to all human beings, even in the YEC view. At the very least, we are all descendants of Noah.

"Kinds" can mate and produce offspring. Now give me your definition and tell why mine is not right.

Just to let you know that this is almost the definition of a biological species. The only difference is that the biological species definition specifies fertile offspring. So horses and donkeys are the same kind but not the same biological species.

By the way, how do you know that humans and great apes can't produce offspring? The experiments haven't been done for obvious ethical reasons, but we are, genetically speaking, extremely close to great apes. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a human could have kids with a chimpanzee, although I'd rather people didn't actually try it...

 

[Naraoia]

It can be inheriterd but blood is not a new trait. Both the albino and the hemiphilliac were going to get blood. The mutation only altered the blood they received.

If you knew anything about the current state of evolutionary biology, you'd understand that no one expects evolutionary novelty to appear out of nothing. New traits are expected to arise from the modification of existing ones. For example, the eyespots of some butterflies are generated by an old genetic circuit that usually functions to partition the developing wings of insects into different regions. Just like these genes normally mark out a sharp boundary between the front and back halves of a wing, they can mark out a sharply defined centre (focus) for an eyespot.

There is some evidence that totally new protein-coding genes can originate from random stretches of DNA in between genes that accidentally become expressed and turn out to be useful. There was also a recent survey of proteins of different ages suggesting that new proteins often come from repetitive DNA. Pretty fascinating stuff, though it does require a bit of background to understand.

Most of that article was over my science pay grade.

If you don't understand anything, ask. I'm sure there are people here who are able and willing to explain things.

To get more technical would not serve any purpose. If you believe all of what they said will result in evolution into a new species, that's fine. I just don't believe it is genetically possible. If it was, why don't we see new species today?

Observed Instances of Speciation

Either you don't use the same definition of species we do, or you're really out of the loop on evolutionary biology.

 

[Smidlee]

How is it better? You are postulating, as an explanation, the existence of a supernatural entity, without bothering at all with how you know that such an entity exists or how it brings universes into being.

Atheist also believe in the supernatural , for example Frankencell. I can't think of anything more supernatural than a mindless purposeless universe creating a mind.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Frankencell

What in this world is a Frankencell?

 

[Smidlee]

What in this world is a Frankencell?

The mythological first cell that is not like any known living cell today since we know living cells are very complex. Frankencell like Frankenstein is very simplistic when it comes to details.

 

[frogman2x]

Wrong! Sickle cell anaemia is an inherited TRAIT amongst many Africans. This disease is the result of a mutation that allowed the sufferers to become resistant to malaria. Children are born with this trait that gives them a better chance of surviving.

Duuh. That's the point. The mutation ALTERED the trait it would have gotten. Not only that the mutation DID NOT cause the person to become something other than what it parents were and it will only produce what it is and the mutation may or may not be passed on.

 

[frogman2x]

BIG BANG! Now get over it!

Wonderful. Now tell us all wher the matter that went bang came form.

After that tell us all where the energy for the BB came from.

You cn google until the cows come home and they will not answee eiher of those question. They may give the usual evo rhetoric but try to check it out.

 

[frogman2x]

But we do have Bush dogs that have partially webbed toes, which allow them to swim more efficiently: Bush dog - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When one of them developes fins and blowhole get back to me.

 

[CabVet]

Wonderful. Now tell us all wher the matter that went bang came form.

After that tell us all where the energy for the BB came from.

Sure, as soon as you tell us where God came from.