A Question for Creationists

[frogman2x]

The DNA for all humans are different, therefore every single human is a different species.

Has that been proven

 

[lasthero]

The only one making a complete idiot out himself is the one who denies that science has proved there is more than one blood type. Even those with a 2 high 2 digit IQ, can see that.

And anyone who took a basic science class would understand that science doesn't PROVE anything. I'll post this again, since you apparently didn't read it the last time.

Suppose that you invent a good guess, calculate the consequences, and discover every time that the consequences you have calculated agree with experiment. The theory is then right? No, it is simply not proved wrong. Because in the future there could be a wider range of experiments, you could compute a wider range of consequences, and you may discover that the thing is wrong.

That's why the laws like Newton's Laws about the motion of planets last such a long time. You get the law of gravitation and all the kinds of consequences for the solar system, and so on, compare them to experiment, and it took several hundred years before the slight error of the motion of Mercury was developed. During all that time, the theory had been failed to be proved wrong and could be taken to be temporarily right. But it can never be proved right because tomorrow's experiment may succeed in proving what you thought was right wrong.

We never are right; we can only be sure we're wrong.

And this is, again, from Richard Feynmen, one of those guys you said got the Nobel Prize for 'proving stuff'.

 

[lasthero]

Has that been proven

No, it hasn't.

 

[mzungu]

Hey, c'mon!

Think of what we have to put up with!

In all earnest; we give scientific evidence and receive no evidence in return. I and others have constantly told him that ToE does not say we evolved from chimps and yet he insists that it does. He is not here to debate. I am willing to debate but when faced against a deaf ear then I shall ignore him. If you noticed, so far we are not here to dissuade creationists from their faith but to convince them that science does not deal with religion and there is no need to feel threatened by it. On the contrary we are demanded to produce evidence yet none is being given back.

This particular person is not here to debate but to frustrate and make posters give up and leave. Our resident biologist has time and again explained and gave evidence only to be dismissed. Surely a little humility will not hurt? The arrogance exhibited by this poster is beyond me. He will remain on my ignore list.

I know that he uses tactics that frustrate posters into saying things that will make this poster press the button. Well I will not give him this pleasure.

 

[frogman2x]

I can just imagine it: "Please god, I want to be ignored." That must be why you post in the first place: an overriding desire to be ignored.

Get a dictonary and look up scarcism.

It does sort of go against the worldview I've noticed in most convinced religious people though, the worldview that thinks it entirely natural to regard the universe as having been created for the sole purpose of them having somewhere to live. In my experience, that sort of self-centred, self-important worldview doesn't square with wanting to be ignored usually, but there you go.

IMO the world view today is more about "meism" than the Christian world view.

The world was created for man to have place to live and commune with its Creator. A world view that think matter created itself out of nothing is abssure. A world view that says sdomething as complex as DNA came out of the primoridal soup is evenmore absurd. If you are happy with your world view, fine, but unless you know more about Christianity than is evident so far, don't tell me what its world view is.

 

[lasthero]

A world view that think matter created itself out of nothing is abssure. A world view that says sdomething as complex as DNA came out of the primoridal soup is evenmore absurd.

Nobody ever said either of these things. This is some hardcore false-witness bearing.

 

[AV1611VET]

In all earnest; we give scientific evidence and receive no evidence in return. I and others have constantly told him that ToE does not say we evolved from chimps and yet he insists that it does. He is not here to debate. I am willing to debate but when faced against a deaf ear then I shall ignore him. If you noticed, so far we are not here to dissuade creationists from their faith but to convince them that science does not deal with religion and there is no need to feel threatened by it. On the contrary we are demanded to produce evidence yet none is being given back.

This particular person is not here to debate but to frustrate and make posters give up and leave. Our resident biologist has time and again explained and gave evidence only to be dismissed. Surely a little humility will not hurt? The arrogance exhibited by this poster is beyond me. He will remain on my ignore list.

I know that he uses tactics that frustrate posters into saying things that will make this poster press the button. Well I will not give him this pleasure.

But doesn't that sound like someone you already know?

 

[OllieFranz]

*BUMP*

But you are not the selector, you are the product of the selection. The selector is the farmer or the rancher in the case of animal husbandry, and environmental pressures in the case of Natural Selection.

One thing you seem to miss (and I'm not singling you out, it's a common misconception among those that don't actually study evolution -- even including those who argue for it) is that evolution is not an event that happens to an individual, it is an ever-ongoing process that describes populations statistically.

Let's assume that you are a breeder of screwts. If you only have one male and one female, then you are stuck with just the four (or less, if there are duplicates) alleles for skin color. But if you have 100 males and 100 females,you can choose to only let red screwts breed.

If red is a dominant trait, then there are probably parents with alleles for recessive colors. Not only is one generation not enough to eliminate the recessive alleles from the next generation, but there is a chance that there will be offspring that inherit only recessive allels and do not get red skin at all. On the other hand, while only 40% of the original herd are red-skinned, 90% of the first generation offspring have red skin. Using the same breeding strategy, we get a second-generation herd of 95% red skinned. If the percentage were a smooth funtion, it would approach 100% red as a limit, but never reach that limit, but since the percentage is calculated from discrete, whole numbers of offspring, there will be a time when they other alleles are eliminated entirely.

If it is not a breeder, but the environment that is selecting for red skin, then there is nothing but opportunity that "forces" two red-skinned screwts to breed, or "prevents" non-red screwts from breeding. There will still be the occasional blue-skin or green-skin mating. The first generation will be 75% instead of 90%. The second generation will be 80% instead of 95%. A much slower approach to the goal.

Bred breeds reach uniformity before the number of changed genes present a cross-breeding problem. Great Danes can still (in principle) be bred with chihuahuas. But "wild" breeds will often accumulate enough changes that they can't cross breed. For example, Herring Gulls cannot cross-breed with Black-backed Gulls.

At what point do we decide that Herring Gulls are a different species from Black-backed Gulls? We could say that when we reach the point where there is no chance whatsoever of cross-breeding the two. But there are two problems with that idea. First, there is no way to determine exactly what generation that degree of separation occurs, so we can only declare the sub-populations to be new species some time long after the split occurs. Plus, there is the problem of hybrids.

Horses and donkeys are so different that they are clearly labelled as different species, and yet, they can hybridize. At one time it was claimed that because the hybrid offspring were sterile (not "impotent") , it didn't matter that the hybridization was possible. But a significant number of female hinneys are not only fertile, but can concieve and bear the fetus to term. And among the Great Cats (genus Panthera) all of the female hybrids are fertile and can be re-hybridized.

In conclusion, there is never a single, one time historic "event" which produces a new species, it is a slow, generational, statistical process with no clear ending points.

 

[mzungu]

But doesn't that sound like someone you already know?

Are you referring to me

 

[Naraoia]

So as usual, you guess, make up some senerio you think plausable and go on from there. Not very scientific.

I did not "make up some scenario". I gave you some examples of early primates/primate relatives. If you want a detailed explanation of why they're considered what they are, ask a palaeontologist specialised in them - I'm not one.

How did that monkey get something your parents did not have? Why did your brotgher get it but you did not? That alone should break the chain of evidence for the common descent of apes and humans.

What are you even talking about. :nooooo:

The usual evo rhetoric---dogmatic statements and no biological evidence.

Demonstrating exactly how a principle works is "dogmatic statements" now. You're little better than a bot spitting a random retort back at anything anyone says to you.

One of your heroes in the faith, Colin Patterson, says, "No one has ever prfoducedc a species by mechanism of naturla selectdion. No one has ever gotten near it..."("Cladistics" INterviewon BBC, March 4, 1982).

What heroes of whose faith? The first time I even heard of this guy was from creationists quote-mining him.

No miscommunications here.

Yes there is. Please, for once, read what I wrote and not what you think I should have written.

You insist there are no transitional fossils.

We think there are many.

There is only one fossil record.

So clearly you and us mean something different by transitional fossils. That's what I meant by "miscommunication". We use the same words but clearly aren't talking about the same thing.

Gould said basically the samem thing so he invented P.E. which is even more absurd.

How is PE "absurd", exactly?

Something with fur or skin instead of scales and something without gills.

If you don't mind me asking, can you tell me why you predict these properties?

Since soft tissue is not usually fosiled, I don't think you can find one.

Scales are not exactly "soft tissue". Fish scales are more or less made of bone.

You certainly can't provide the biological evidence that made it possible.

Where does this certainty of yours come from?

Then you need to present the evidence that proves they are not right.

This sentence makes no sense.

No I haven't. You just say it happend and yet offer no evidence. Let's get specific. Natural selection preaches the passing of good traits to the offspring. Now even that can't be proved.

What can't be proved? That you inherit things from your parents?

You have no evidence that there a trait for stronger legs in rabbits. There is a gene for legs but not for better legs.

Haven't I discussed at some point that a "gene for legs" doesn't exist? Legs are built by...

- Genes for their components (e.g. the collagen in bone, the keratin in skin and claws, the myosin in muscles)
- Genes that regulate the genes for all that stuff (e.g. bone morphogenetic proteins that switch on the "make bone" program, MyoD that does the same for muscle)

There are lots of these.

Any of them can have variations due to mutation. A rabbit could have a BMP mutation and grow extra sturdy bones. Or it could have a mutation that causes overproliferation of muscle cells, resulting in bigger and stronger muscles. Or a Hox gene mutation that changes the shape of its bones. (E.g. this image shows a change in mouse paw bones caused by a deletion in the hoxd13 gene.)

For the sake of aargument I will give you a gene for stronger legs. Now how does this cause the rabbits with the stronger legs to become anythign o her than a rabbit?

It doesn't. Who said it does?

Yoou are the one with a degree in evolutionary biology, so include the biological evidence that makes it posssib le fdor a rabbit to evolve into something other than a rabbit.

And since I'm the one with the degree in the subject, perhaps you'll listen to me when I explain why your question is nonsense. (Of course, you didn't get the idea when Loudmouth and lasthero explained it, so I'm not sure how I could make a difference...)

First: technically, every descendant of a rabbit is a rabbit. This is the basic idea of a clade, the evolutionary unit of classification. A clade is just an ancestor and all of its descendants. So when you're asking for evidence that a rabbit evolves into a non-rabbit? You are basically asking for a creature that isn't a descendant of its ancestors.

Second: if we forget the technicalities and assume you mean "something that doesn't look very much like a rabbit", the answer is basically: over a long time period, by lots of successive modifications. A stronger leg does not a "non-rabbit" make, but add a stronger leg and shorter ears and hooves instead of claws and this hypothetical rabbit descendant is starting to look a lot less like a rabbit. None of those individual modifications is a big deal in itself, but there's nothing in what we know of biology that says they can't add up to a big deal.

(Then there are, of course, large-effect mutations that beget hopeful monsters. These exist in nature - this particular one may even be forming a new species -, but I don't think they are likely to be the biggest driving force of evolution.)

The phylogenic tree is a joke.

No, it's really not. It's an extremely well-studied tool that people have spent decades perfecting, and I can assure you it's still alive and well.

Also, when you've just said biology isn't your strong suit, perhaps calling fundamental concepts in biology "jokes" does take a bit of gall on your part...

I thought they had recoginzed that and given up using it. First, you have no idea what the second, third, fourth, fifth, etc., life forms were.

None of which has anything to do with phylogenetic trees.

You consider it a strawman because you can't provide the evidence to support your faith.

No, I consider it a strawman because NO ONE ACTUALLY PROPOSES WE CAME FROM PLANTS.

If you wish to prove me wrong, please cite a credible scientific source that says we came from plants. Preferably a textbook or a journal article. In lieu of that, I'll accept well-referenced Wikipedia entries, online lecture notes or similar.

If it is to hot for you in the kitchen, get out of the kitchen and put me on ignore.

I came here to fight nonsense, not to ignore it.

 

[AV1611VET]

Are you referring to me

I was referring to me.

 

[SkyWriting]

I would like you to provided the evidence that mutations, and take as many as you like, have ever resulted in a change of species.

New species can be developed over time by mutations to DNA. This takes into account that the definition for species has mutated many times and has 15 different meanings though.

It can range from any significant difference, to inability to cross breed. So "species" is the critical word. There are some dogs which cannot or do not cross breed. But they are not considered different species most of the time.

 

[lasthero]

Get a dictonary and look up scarcism.

'Scarcism' is not in my dictionary. Or any dictionary.

 

[frogman2x]

I gave you a link with observed speciation events. What more do you want?

I ask you to give me an example. Either do it or admit you can't

 

[lasthero]

I ask you to give me an example. Either do it or admit you can't

I did. Other people have. How are the things in the link I provided not examples? Did you actually click o the link? Do you even know how? Pretending to be stupid is not an adequate rebuttal, no matter how naturally it comes to you.

 

[mzungu]

I was referring to me.

No AV; I think most people including atheists here will attest that you do not insult fellow posters.As for having weird ideas..... Well Let's say at the least you keep us entertained.

 

[frogman2x]

The DNA for all humans are different, therefore every single human is a different species.

Just as I thought, You dont have a clue about how DNA works.

 

[lasthero]

Just as I thought, You dont have a clue about how DNA works.

How do you say something this ironic and not physically hurt yourself?

 

[frogman2x]

And this is, again, from Richard Feynmen, one of those guys you said got the Nobel Prize for 'proving stuff'.

You should have done your homework.

From wikepedia:He developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams.

He may have made the statement but he got his prize for something he PROVED.

 

[lasthero]

He may have made the statement but he got his proze for something he PROVED.

Okay, first off, don't even pretend like you actually understand what ANY of that stuff means.

Nothing about what you said is him 'proving' anything. And I can't help but note that you're not even trying to refute his actual argument.

Did you even read the quote?