ERVs and how Evolutionists bluff with the data

[SteveB28]

So if Common Descent is pretty much a genetic fact, when of modern man evolved from the hominids, would it be true that at one point, all mankind originated from a male and female both having the DNA of modern man?

My understanding is that evolution occurs within populations, not individuals. But I will wait for a more complete answer from one of the many who are skilled in this field.

 

[DogmaHunter]

So if Common Descent is pretty much a genetic fact, when of modern man evolved from the hominids, would it be true that at one point, all mankind originated from a male and female both having the DNA of modern man?

No. Evolution is a gradual process.
Our entire genome is what makes us human. Not just a single change somewhere.

No Homo Erectus ever gave birth to a Homo Sapiens or alike.
Populations evolve, not individuals.
Individuals merely contribute by spreading their DNA (and mutations).
All the changes within the population combined is what resulted in humans.

In the same way, there never was a "first" person to speak spanish.
Spanish derived from Latin, but it is a gradual process that happens in a population over generations.
Each generation contributing its own changes, gradually.

No Latin speaking mother gave birth to a Spanish speaking child.

 

[lifepsyop]

1. Common decent is not based on assumption. There are mountains of evidence to support this claim. Allow me to cite a couple of examples and then link you to a page for you to read the rest.

And you accuse me of Gish Gallop? Now you're shotgunning the usual evolutionist canards in rapid succession. Since you've predictably decided to ignore the OP and my questions, I suppose I will briefly address these points.

A. Human chromosome #2. "Evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens from a common ancestor with chimpanzees is found in the number of chromosomes in humans as compared to all other members of Hominidae. All hominidae have 24 pairs of chromosomes, except humans, who have only 23 pairs. Human chromosome 2 is a result of an end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes".

Chromosome 2, (even granting you that the evolutionists' questionable interpretations of this genomic region are correct), is much more likely explained by a fusion event occurring in a past Human lineage which originally had 24 pairs of chromosomes. There is no need to invoke a mysterious evolutionary event from ape-like creatures.

B. 1971 Wall Lizard study. In 1971 5 pairs of Italian Wall Lizards were transported from one Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea to another island. In 2008, analysis of these Lizards was made. First the DNA sequences of the population of these wall lizards matched that of the original 5 pairs of Wall Lizards. Thus confirming they were descendants. What was discovered of these wall lizards is that they had different head morphology (Taller, longer, wider heads) and an increased bite force compared to the original 5 pairs. The change in head size correlated to it's diet change from insects to plants.
Another difference found between the two populations was the discovery, in the Mrčaru lizards, of cecal valves, which slow down food passage and provide fermenting chambers, allowing commensal microorganisms to convert cellulose to nutrients digestible by the lizards. Cecal valves are seen in less than 1% of all known species of scaled reptiles. It is a brand new feature not present in ancestral population and newly evolved in these lizards.
Now I know the favorite argument from people opposing evolution is typically "Oh that is just adaptation! That is just 'mirco evolution'" (This may or not be the case with you, I don't know). But it would be like saying I can drive my car down the street but it's impossible to drive it across the country.

If you followed the study of the Italian Wall Lizards (Podarcis Sicula) more closely, instead of the evolutionist hype, you would learn that the data suggests these changes are plastic. Researchers moved the lizards back to an insect diet and observed some of the anatomical changes, such as the cecal valves, begin to immediately revert. Thus it is far more likely that the genetic information for such adaptations were already present in the lizards, and were simply expressed when induced by different environmental stimuli. (phenotypic plasticity)

Vervust 2010
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20504228

Or wait... maybe a bunch of DNA copying errors fixated to form highly complex and novel stomach anatomy in only 30 or so years... Yea that must be it.

Nope, sadly, this is just another example of evolutionists grossly misinterpreting the data in order to sell another "evolution in action" fairytale.

Here is the link for evidence that common decent is not an assumption, but a fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent (All necessary citations located at the bottom of the link).

A wikipedia link awards you no points.

For example. Scientists were looking for the transitional link between fish and amphibian (Tiktaalik). Scientists used the theory of evolution to predict how old they thought the fossil might be and where they might find it. They knew from previous fossil finds that something like Tiktaalik would have appeared between 360 and 390 million years ago. The scientists also knew from previous research that the species would have been in freshwater. So they got out a geological map and looked for places that met these criteria. They settled on Ellesmere Island in Canada and after five years, they found this marvelous fossil.

That is how predictions in science are made. You make predictions based on the evidence available to you. The predictions have shown to be accurate over and over and over and over and over and over again with transitional fossils. Here is a link to a partial list of the transitions we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

If the discovery of Tiktaalik was a successful evolutionary prediction than the discovery of the Polish Trackways (an animal with far more advanced tetrapod features than Tiktaalik placed nearly '20 million years' earlier) was a failed evolutionary prediction. Even from an evolutionists' point of view, the data would infer that "tetrapod evolution" took place long before the arrival of Tiktaalik.

Either evolutionists are predicting that fish-tetrapod transition occurred in the rock layers occupied by Tiktaalik or they're not. Sorry, but you cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

Tiktaalik is just one more example of evolutionists' over-selling their case to an unsuspecting public.

Nearly all of the evolutionists "evidence" has this shady, ambiguous quality to it. You guys are grasping at straws.

4. Why isn't there any consideration at all to asking if abiogenesis even occurred? Ummm because we'd like to know the answer. We know how the origin of species worked, wouldn't we want to know how it all began? Would you rather them argue from ignorance and say something along the lines of "You know we really need to ask the question, did this even happen?

Yes, a true scientist would ask that question. It may reveal very useful information on the limitations of natural forms to give rise to complexity. But as I said, such a scientific question is forbidden in mainstream academics. One may only ask HOW, but never IF abiogenesis occurred. One is simply not permitted to follow the data towards the possibility that natural abiogenesis cannot occur. That hypothesis is a blasphemy to the overarching evolutionary creation narrative and will quickly lead to excommunication.

It is interesting that you find such a simple and rational question so outrageous. It goes to show how much ideology drives the evolutionary community.

How is the question of common decent forbidden? You're welcome to question it but the evidence against you is overwhelming.

Yes, it's so overwhelming that you've been unable to demonstrate a single piece of evidence for it in your lengthy post that set out to do just that.

 

[029b10]

I see the problem quite clearly: you don't understand the predictions of common descent. Either that or you ignore them..

What predictions, the only principle evolution can legitimately claim as the basis for any predictions is the one it was established upon, random genetic mutations.

 

[029b10]

What predictions, the only principle evolution can legitimately claim as the basis for any predictions is the one it was established upon, random genetic mutations.

As the Thomas Paine quotes implies, Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them. Simply stated, since the reproductive process originates from the fusion of the motile gamete produced by the male with the nonmotile gamete of the female. The reproduction process of fertilization, unlike cell division which occurs numerously and frequently during the development of an organism, is a different matter in that it requires the fusion of two cells.

1. Required. The Fusion of two cells.

The nonmotile gamate produced by the female can not spontaneously mutate into the zygote.

The non-living cell, the egg, can not spontaneously emerge into the zygote necessary for the reproduction process to begin. Thus, the fusion of two cells is
a critical biological event that is required for fertilization in sexually reproducing organisms and for tissue organization during development.

But interestingly enough, the immaculate conception as interpreted by Modern theology in which a female conceived, thus produced a motile gamete absent of any source of insemination, is dismissed by scientism who dismiss the possibility of it being a random genetic mutation.

2. Restricted. Fusion of specific cells.

While the gamete of a female and the gamete of the male are necessary to produce the zygote, the fusion of gametes of human with the gametes of primates, either human male to primate female, or human female to primate mate. The fact this fusion can not occur presently, would indicate that it will not occur at any future time, and therefore did not occur at any time in the past.

Seems this tree doesn't bear any fruit of a tree yielding seed, yet the bonus question is "How many nerves are contained in the umbilical cord of the human fetus during its development in the womb and the umbilical cord of a primate during its development in the womb?

While this isn't intended to insult or criticize anyone whose views may differ, but the fact remains, Its Your World!

 

[lifepsyop]

Evolution predicts both concordance and very specific kinds of discordance. Discordance found in close-lying branches of the tree is expected, because ILS is inevitable. Discordance found solely between widely separated terminal branches of the tree is not expected.

This would be a sound rebuttal if not for the fact that the organization of the 'close-lying branches' are formed in response to the discordant data itself. That is your problem. The common ancestral nodes are imaginary data points and thus can be manipulated accordingly to accommodate discordant data.

Again, see the Bird and Mammal examples from the above studies. When such discordance is found in the data, the problem will always be sourced somewhere deep in the 'close-lying branches'. These are imaginary, non-falsifiable events that are said to have occurred many millions of years before the animal groups diverged into the 'widely separated terminal branches' that we see today.

In the study, ERVs are found in a contradictory pattern among the outer-lying branches of the Placental Mammals.

Evolution Theory "resolves" this conundrum by following these mammal groups over "60 million years" down to the base of their supposed common ancestral tree and imagineering an incomplete lineage sorting event there.

This is only possible because the Common Ancestry "Tree" is based on imaginary data points, is extremely plastic, and thus can be retro-fitted with all sorts of new modifications in order to accommodate discordant data found at the 'Tips' of the branches.

You should be able to admit this, sfs.

Now, if you could show an example of that -- a specific ERV insertion at the identical genomic location in, say, one New World monkey and one great ape -- you would have pointed out a genuine inconsistency between the data and the theoretical expectation.

Such a pattern would be resolved by positing incomplete lineage sorting events at the base of the New and Old World Monkey branches.

And you avoided the uncomfortable admission that the Primate ERV patterns could, even by your standards, be in great disarray relative to they're current pattern, and still be accommodated by Evolution. The evolutionist party line is that the primate ERVs are precisely predicted by Common Descent. I'm sure you know that isn't true.

But you can't, because such inconsistencies don't occur. They don't occur even though there are far more available comparisons between distant branches than there are between neighboring branches, i.e. many more opportunities for discordance. Instead, we consistently find patterns that are consistent with common descent.

As I've explained, within the context of greater common ancestry of major animal groups, the "neighboring branches" are formulated ad-hoc based on the actual data found at "distant branches". When discordance is found between distant branches (actual observed animals), then the problem will inevitably be pushed back towards an imaginary event occurring at the supposed neighboring branches, where such animals are imagined to have been first "evolving" from their common ancestral populations.

That's why your argument isn't worth taking seriously: it doesn't engage the actual scientific evidence for common descent.

You consistently avoid addressing the arguments raised.

 

[sfs]

This would be a sound rebuttal if not for the fact that the organization of the 'close-lying branches' are formed in response to the discordant data itself.

Incorrect. The organization of primates into Old World monkeys, New World monkeys and great apes, in my example, was accomplished long before any genetic data at all was available.

Evolution Theory "resolves" this conundrum by following these mammal groups over "60 million years" down to the base of their supposed common ancestral tree and imagineering an incomplete lineage sorting event there.

Right -- exactly where we would expect to see it. Not where we don't expect to see it.

This is only possible because the Common Ancestry "Tree" is based on imaginary data points, is extremely plastic, and thus can be retro-fitted with all sorts of new modifications in order to accommodate discordant data found at the 'Tips' of the branches.

You should be able to admit this, sfs.

I would be happy to admit it if it were true. It's false, however. If ERVs were distributed at random on branches, it would be quite impossible to produce consistent trees; there are far, far too many different ways to distribute them randomly. Instead, we see that the ERV insertions always obey the large scale structure of the tree.

Such a pattern would be resolved by positing incomplete lineage sorting events at the base of the New and Old World Monkey branches.

No, it wouldn't. The phylogenetic distance between the common ancestor of Old and New World monkeys is just too great for a polymorphic ERV insertion to have persisted in both lineages; that would not be a plausible explanation. This is where you always end up in defending your claims. When confronted with the fact that genetic data actually do follow evolutionary predictions, you retreat to imaginary claims about what imaginary biologists would do with imaginary data.

What you should be doing is explain why the data fall into the patterns they do. Why do we never see ILS between distantly related single branches? Why do ERV insertions usually follow a perfect tree, even when that tree was established on different grounds? For example, in the Lebedev paper on HERV-k insertions, all 14 insertions that they studied followed the same tree. Why? Common descent provides a clear explanation for that fact. Let's hear yours.

And you avoided the uncomfortable admission that the Primate ERV patterns could, even by your standards, be in great disarray relative to they're current pattern, and still be accommodated by Evolution. The evolutionist party line is that the primate ERVs are precisely predicted by Common Descent. I'm sure you know that isn't true.

I'm not aware of any "party line" on ERVs, except that they're great evidence for common descent, which is correct. The only line I'm aware of from competent evolutionary biologists and geneticists is that ERVs should follow the predictions of common descent, which include the presence of ILS.

As I've explained, within the context of greater common ancestry of major animal groups, the "neighboring branches" are formulated ad-hoc based on the actual data found at "distant branches". When discordance is found between distant branches (actual observed animals), then the problem will inevitably be pushed back towards an imaginary event occurring at the supposed neighboring branches, where such animals are imagined to have been first "evolving" from their common ancestral populations.

And I've explained that it would be impossible to do that.

 

[sfs]

What predictions, the only principle evolution can legitimately claim as the basis for any predictions is the one it was established upon, random genetic mutations.

I have no idea what argument you're trying to make here. Common descent is the basis for the prediction that ERV insertions should follow a nested hierarchical pattern, and that violations should be confined to neighboring branches.

 

[lifepsyop]

Incorrect. The organization of primates into Old World monkeys, New World monkeys and great apes, in my example, was accomplished long before any genetic data at all was available.

And placental mammals were organized into different groups long before the 2009 Churakov study referenced in the OP. That did not affect researchers ability to concoct imaginary events at the imaginary base of their trees to explain away discordant data.

Right -- exactly where we would expect to see it. Not where we don't expect to see it.

Dodging.

It's "where you expect to see it", because that's where researchers have to assume it exists ad-hoc, i.e. in imaginary, highly re-arrangeable common ancestral nodes.

I would be happy to admit it if it were true. It's false, however. If ERVs were distributed at random on branches, it would be quite impossible to produce consistent trees; there are far, far too many different ways to distribute them randomly. Instead, we see that the ERV insertions always obey the large scale structure of the tree.

The tree is imaginary and has little to no actual structure. As I've demonstrated.

No, it wouldn't. The phylogenetic distance between the common ancestor of Old and New World monkeys is just too great for a polymorphic ERV insertion to have persisted in both lineages; that would not be a plausible explanation. This is where you always end up in defending your claims. When confronted with the fact that genetic data actually do follow evolutionary predictions, you retreat to imaginary claims about what imaginary biologists would do with imaginary data.

And you always make this claim, but can never back it up.

You're in the awkward position of suggesting a discordance between primate branches would be irreconcilable, when the same type of discordance between significantly more distanced branches (placental mammals) is already accepted by evolutionists.

This is why your claim continues to fall flat.

What you should be doing is explain why the data fall into the patterns they do. Why do we never see ILS between distantly related single branches?

As I've explained repeatedly, this is a made-up distinction on your part. Discordance identified at distant branches is automatically shifted to imagined ILS events occurring at imagined neighboring branches.

Why do ERV insertions usually follow a perfect tree, even when that tree was established on different grounds? For example, in the Lebedev paper on HERV-k insertions, all 14 insertions that they studied followed the same tree. Why? Common descent provides a clear explanation for that fact. Let's hear yours.

And "Common Descent" also provides a "clear explanation" for why they wouldn't. (incomplete lineage sorting) That is the awkward truth that you keep shying away from because it reveals the impotence of the theory to make actual predictions.

I'm not aware of any "party line" on ERVs, except that they're great evidence for common descent, which is correct. The only line I'm aware of from competent evolutionary biologists and geneticists is that ERVs should follow the predictions of common descent, which include the presence of ILS.

Then argue it instead of asserting it.

 

[sfs]

And placental mammals were organized into different groups long before the 2009 Churakov study referenced in the OP. That did not affect researchers ability to concoct imaginary events at the imaginary base of their trees to explain away discordant data.

There was no consensus about the organization of placental mammals before that study. But you already know this, since you're quoting from the Churakov study: "However, pure sequence-based molecular attempts to resolve the basal origin of placental mammals have so far resulted only in apparently conflicting hypotheses."

You're in the awkward position of suggesting a discordance between primate branches would be irreconcilable, when the same type of discordance between significantly more distanced branches (placental mammals) is already accepted by evolutionists.

You seem to be confused about a basic point here. The deep branches of the placental mammal tree are close neighbors to one another, just as the branches of humans, chimps and gorillas are. It doesn't matter when the branches start: if they're close together, they can experience ILS. What cannot happen is for ILS to occur between distant terminal branches.

As I've explained repeatedly, this is a made-up distinction on your part. Discordance identified at distant branches is automatically shifted to imagined ILS events occurring at imagined neighboring branches.

Just because you cannot understand a distinction does not mean that it is made up. There's nothing imaginary or ad hoc about the fact that every New World monkey branch is closer to every other NWM branch than it is to any OWM branch. That's the phylogeny, and that's not flexible. So you still have the challenge of explaining why ERV insertions are never shared between one OWM and one NWM monkey, and not by any other species. I've told you the evolutionary explanation for that fact. I'm still waiting to hear yours. What is it?

 

[Not_By_Chance]

And placental mammals were organized into different groups long before the 2009 Churakov study referenced in the OP. That did not affect researchers ability to concoct imaginary events at the imaginary base of their trees to explain away discordant data.



Dodging.

It's "where you expect to see it", because that's where researchers have to assume it exists ad-hoc, i.e. in imaginary, highly re-arrangeable common ancestral nodes.



The tree is imaginary and has little to no actual structure. As I've demonstrated.



And you always make this claim, but can never back it up.

You're in the awkward position of suggesting a discordance between primate branches would be irreconcilable, when the same type of discordance between significantly more distanced branches (placental mammals) is already accepted by evolutionists.

This is why your claim continues to fall flat.



As I've explained repeatedly, this is a made-up distinction on your part. Discordance identified at distant branches is automatically shifted to imagined ILS events occurring at imagined neighboring branches.



And "Common Descent" also provides a "clear explanation" for why they wouldn't. (incomplete lineage sorting) That is the awkward truth that you keep shying away from because it reveals the impotence of the theory to make actual predictions.



Then argue it instead of asserting it.

Having looked at some of these threads and posted in a few myself, I am so glad I'm not a scientist and just accept what God, common sense and personal observation tells me - that 1) The universe did not form on its own but was created by God (from nothing, nothing comes); 2) Life did not start on its own from lifeless chemicals (statistical probability well and truly rules that out I understand); 3) So-called macro evolution did not happen, nor is it happening today (I've yet to see an explanation in layman's terms for how a reptile could turn into a bird for example, but I fully appreciate how animals/humans can change within limits in order to be better suited to their environment, e.g., dark-skinned humans thriving in sunnier climates). I don't think whatever you say, you will get the evolutionists to admit that there might be an alternative explanation to life's secrets because that would, as one evolutionist frankly admitted, allow a Divine foot in the door.

 

[Jimmy D]

I don't think whatever you say, you will get the evolutionists to admit that there might be an alternative explanation to life's secrets because that would, as one evolutionist frankly admitted, allow a Divine foot in the door.

Your mistake is equating 'the evolutionists' with atheists, please bear in mind a large proportion of scientists are also Christians.

 

[sfs]

I don't think whatever you say, you will get the evolutionists to admit that there might be an alternative explanation to life's secrets because that would, as one evolutionist frankly admitted, allow a Divine foot in the door.

You think incorrectly here. Almost all Christians who are also biologists -- including me -- accept evolution. We accept it because it works as a scientific explanation.

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

Having looked at some of these threads and posted in a few myself, I am so glad I'm not a scientist and just accept what God, common sense and personal observation tells me - that 1) The universe did not form on its own but was created by God (from nothing, nothing comes); 2) Life did not start on its own from lifeless chemicals (statistical probability well and truly rules that out I understand); 3) So-called macro evolution did not happen, nor is it happening today (I've yet to see an explanation in layman's terms for how a reptile could turn into a bird for example, but I fully appreciate how animals/humans can change within limits in order to be better suited to their environment, e.g., dark-skinned humans thriving in sunnier climates). I don't think whatever you say, you will get the evolutionists to admit that there might be an alternative explanation to life's secrets because that would, as one evolutionist frankly admitted, allow a Divine foot in the door.

This is an argument from ignorance fallacy. "I don't understand it, therefore God did it".

1. Can you prove this?

2. Can you prove this. Statistical probability is an argument from incredulity "I can't comprehend how this is possible, therefore God did it" There are over 100 billion galaxies in the Universe. If life formed here, it is entirely possible it formed somewhere else. Probability says it's unlikely you can roll 6 on a die 10 times in a row but if you do it over 100 billion times over 14 billion years, it's likely you will roll a 6 ten times in a row several times.

3. Macro evolution isn't even a term used in science. If 'micro evolution' happens then 'macro evolution' happens as well. You just don't live long enough to see it. Using this argument is like saying you could drive your car down the street to your friends house but it's impossible to drive across the country.

Science is open to different possibilities. However you need to provide proof that falsifies evolution. What evolutionary biologist said "allow a divine foot in the door" Science makes no claims of the supernatural. It only explains the natural world.

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

You think incorrectly here. Almost all Christians who are also biologists -- including me -- accept evolution. We accept it because it works as a scientific explanation.

I have always wanted to ask a couple questions to a Christian who works in the Biology field.
Do you ever find it difficult to think objectively when it comes to answering questions about the natural world? I imagine your faith is important to you. Do you have to put it aside when a difficult question arises? I hope this is a fair question to be asking.
Also do you have any thoughts of opinions on the oceans hydrothermal vents hypothesis? I don't know much about the study. Is it a strong hypothesis or just speculation at this point?

 

[sfs]

3. Macro evolution isn't even a term used in science. If 'micro evolution' happens then 'macro evolution' happens as well. You just don't live long enough to see it. Using this argument is like saying you could drive your car down the street to your friends house but it's impossible to drive across the country.

Actually, "macroevolution" is a term used in science, although not very often. I've seen it used by a paleontologist to mean large-scale evolution over tens of millions of years. More commonly it's used by evolutionary biologists to distinguish evolution above the level of speciation from within-species evolution, where everything can be explained in terms of population genetics. Some theorists have argued that some processes occur at the macroevolutionary level that are absent in microevolution (in addition to the accumulation of microevolutionary change, of course). Larry Moran has a good essay on the subject.

 

[sfs]

I have always wanted to ask a couple questions to a Christian who works in the Biology field.
Do you ever find it difficult to think objectively when it comes to answering questions about the natural world? I imagine your faith is important to you. Do you have to put it aside when a difficult question arises? I hope this is a fair question to be asking.

No, I don't find there to be a conflict. My faith is a commitment, but that commitment has to be informed by my best understanding of what reality is really like, or what's the point? And science is a great way to get a handle what some parts of reality, at least, are like.

Also do you have any thoughts of opinions on the oceans hydrothermal vents hypothesis? I don't know much about the study. Is it a strong hypothesis or just speculation at this point?

Not really my field. I believe it would have to be a fresh-water hydrothermal vent for the chemistry to work. My impression is that they have found a number of chemical processes that work in a vent-like environment, and that could be crucial to the origin of life, but that there is still no overall, consistent model that works. So somewhere between mere speculation and a well-formed hypothesis.

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

And you accuse me of Gish Gallop? Now you're shotgunning the usual evolutionist canards in rapid succession. Since you've predictably decided to ignore the OP and my questions, I suppose I will briefly address these points.



Chromosome 2, (even granting you that the evolutionists' questionable interpretations of this genomic region are correct), is much more likely explained by a fusion event occurring in a past Human lineage which originally had 24 pairs of chromosomes. There is no need to invoke a mysterious evolutionary event from ape-like creatures.



If you followed the study of the Italian Wall Lizards (Podarcis Sicula) more closely, instead of the evolutionist hype, you would learn that the data suggests these changes are plastic. Researchers moved the lizards back to an insect diet and observed some of the anatomical changes, such as the cecal valves, begin to immediately revert. Thus it is far more likely that the genetic information for such adaptations were already present in the lizards, and were simply expressed when induced by different environmental stimuli. (phenotypic plasticity)

Vervust 2010
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20504228

Or wait... maybe a bunch of DNA copying errors fixated to form highly complex and novel stomach anatomy in only 30 or so years... Yea that must be it.

Nope, sadly, this is just another example of evolutionists grossly misinterpreting the data in order to sell another "evolution in action" fairytale.



A wikipedia link awards you no points.



If the discovery of Tiktaalik was a successful evolutionary prediction than the discovery of the Polish Trackways (an animal with far more advanced tetrapod features than Tiktaalik placed nearly '20 million years' earlier) was a failed evolutionary prediction. Even from an evolutionists' point of view, the data would infer that "tetrapod evolution" took place long before the arrival of Tiktaalik.

Either evolutionists are predicting that fish-tetrapod transition occurred in the rock layers occupied by Tiktaalik or they're not. Sorry, but you cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

Tiktaalik is just one more example of evolutionists' over-selling their case to an unsuspecting public.

Nearly all of the evolutionists "evidence" has this shady, ambiguous quality to it. You guys are grasping at straws.



Yes, a true scientist would ask that question. It may reveal very useful information on the limitations of natural forms to give rise to complexity. But as I said, such a scientific question is forbidden in mainstream academics. One may only ask HOW, but never IF abiogenesis occurred. One is simply not permitted to follow the data towards the possibility that natural abiogenesis cannot occur. That hypothesis is a blasphemy to the overarching evolutionary creation narrative and will quickly lead to excommunication.

It is interesting that you find such a simple and rational question so outrageous. It goes to show how much ideology drives the evolutionary community.



Yes, it's so overwhelming that you've been unable to demonstrate a single piece of evidence for it in your lengthy post that set out to do just that.

You continue to argue from incredulity. "I can't imagine this is true, therefore it is false"
The wikipedia link includes all cited sources that you can click on to verify anything you are concerned about.
There is sufficient evidence provided to you but you prefer to be willfully ignorant.
Here is a simple explanation for your concerns with Tiktaalik
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/01/casey-luskin-em.html

If you're going to continue to argue from ignorance and incredulity, you should include what you think is plausible to describe the natural world we live in. Otherwise you're just using circular reasoning and repetition. Also, throughout your arguments you are using the nirvana fallacy. You are basically rejecting the theory because you do not think it is perfect or that it does not explain everything.

1. Addressing your human chromosome #2- So you are saying the interpretations are correct but also questionable? That is a contradictory statement. Evolutionary events of ape like creatures is not mysterious. It's well documented with evidence to support it's claims.

2. I don't know if you read the entire article that you posted in rebuttal to the wall lizard study but here is a quote from it.
"The plasticity experiment suggests that at least some of the changes associated with a dietary shift toward a higher proportion of plant material may be plastic. Our results also show that these morphological changes effectively translate into differences in digestive performance: the population with the longer digestive tract exhibits longer gut passage time and improved digestive efficiency" You are misrepresenting the study. That is called being intellectually dishonest.

3. You are not demonstrating how asking "IF" abiogenesis occurred is not permitted. I don't think you understand how a hypothesis works. That is asking a scientist to argue from incredulity which you so clearly love to do. Testing a hypothesis will determine if it is possible to occur or not. Lets use an example from abiogenesis. Hypothesis: Hydrothermal vents in the ocean may spontaneously create life". Now you are suggesting that we need to ask "Is this even possible? We have to ask if this even happened!" Well how do we conclude if it is or isn't possible. We test the hypothesis. You are saying because we don't understand it, we need to dismiss it. That is unproductive. Now if we test this hypothesis and see that it is possible, we cannot publish the findings yet because this test has to be repeatable and predictable. You don't understand how scientific testing works.

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

No, I don't find there to be a conflict. My faith is a commitment, but that commitment has to be informed by my best understanding of what reality is really like, or what's the point? And science is a great way to get a handle what some parts of reality, at least, are like.


Not really my field. I believe it would have to be a fresh-water hydrothermal vent for the chemistry to work. My impression is that they have found a number of chemical processes that work in a vent-like environment, and that could be crucial to the origin of life, but that there is still no overall, consistent model that works. So somewhere between mere speculation and a well-formed hypothesis.

Thanks for your reply. That was helpful.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

2. Can you prove this. Statistical probability is an argument from incredulity "I can't comprehend how this is possible, therefore God did it" There are over 100 billion galaxies in the Universe. If life formed here, it is entirely possible it formed somewhere else. Probability says it's unlikely you can roll 6 on a die 10 times in a row but if you do it over 100 billion times over 14 billion years, it's likely you will roll a 6 ten times in a row several times.

Hmm, you might want to read the following text about the probability factors and then re-evaluate why you think life is possible without God. If you can still accept that idea then you sure have a lot of faith!

"What are the odds that the first cell could have popped into being?

Statistics
A cell pops into being one sunny day. Doesn't sound too hard does it? Just, "POP!" and there it is. Gross ignorance would accept this fairy tale, but reality always gets in the way of fairy tales. Evolution isn't science.

To the extent that anything can be proven impossible, spontaneous life has been proven to be impossible. To the extent that anything can be proven impossible, evolution has proven to be impossible. These two ideas stand with the flat earth theory, the big bang theory and so many others. Even so, evolutionists remain closed-minded.

Scientists, way back in time, thought that there was such a thing as a simple cell. It was believed that a simple one-celled creature popped into existence one day by chance. The right combination of chemicals just fell together and voila: spontaneous life. Scientists now know that life is too complex for that. To date, we don't even know much about what constitutes life. We know a little about the elements that could be alive if they were alive. We know conclusively that these life-capable components could not just fall together by chance. The job of evolutionists is very difficult because they must argue that impossible things have taken place without any evidence that these impossible things did take place and with insurmountable evidence that these impossible things are impossible.

H. S. Lipson, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK, said: "I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject the theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it." Isn't that ever scientific! Lipson, and the "physicists," made up their minds before looking at the data. Then, the physicists are having trouble with what the data is telling them. They still can't believe it! Evolutionists are not open-minded at all, but Lipson was being more honest than the average so-called scientist when he wrote the above quote.

Evolution and Statistics
Fact: Scientists have failed every attempt to create the twenty different amino acids that are required to produce the proteins that exist in the smallest living cell. There was the falsified claim that a group of scientists had created life in a test tube, but that was a falsification. The experiment at that time confirmed that life couldn't be created by any known natural process. It only dealt with the attempt to create some molecules that are capable of combining to form other molecules and building blocks of cells. These molecules are not self-sufficient or capable of supporting life. They are simply molecules, and the scientists were not successful in creating them. They created some amino acids, but, in all amino acids, the molecular structure for living matter is different from that for non-living. They were not able to create the molecular structure for living matter, but only that of non-living matter. The method they used to create these few molecules of non-living amino acid has the unfortunate effect of destroying amino acids thousands of times faster than it creates them, so there would be no hope of accumulating enough to start assembling them into a DNA molecule, let alone a cell.

"... the odds against our universe randomly taking a form suitable for life as one out of 10,000,000,000^124--a number that exceeds all imagination. ... the odds of the random formation of a single enzyme from amino acids anywhere on our planet's surface are one in 10^20.... The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^20,000 = 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.... And this is just one step in the formation of life. Nothing has yet been said about DNA and where it came from, or the transcription of DNA to RNA, which scientists admit cannot even be numerically computed.... Nor has anything been said of mitosis or meiosis. [Ravi Zacharias, The End of Reason, p.35].

The probability of a non-living amino acid producing the special structure of living matter by chance is one in 10 to the 123rd power, that is, it is mathematically impossible.

The number just given is a 10 with 123 zeros behind it.

Interestingly, the news media and many schools claim that life was created in a lab. Of course, this is simply a lie.

For comparison 10 with 123 zeros behind it is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the number of atoms in the visible universe. Odds like that constitute a scientific impossibility. and this is just one very insignificant step in the process that would have been required. The molecules-to-man evolution conjecture / fabrication is possibly the most ridiculous scientific conjecture / fabrication that has ever been put forth by anyone at any time.

The math isn't important except to understand that the odds against evolution constitute an impossibility. Of course, people tend to prefer to believe what they prefer to true. In addition, the speculative assumptions of each person's world tend to solidify, even though these speculative assumptions have no basis. People get mentally stuck. Once speculative assumptions solidify, each person garners selective facts and speculative rational-lies-zations to bolster his or her foundationless assumed speculations. When the speculative assumptions aren't even addressed, but quietly are assumed to be obvious, they are very hard to deal with. They become mystical revelations of the Secular Humanistic intellectuals. At a certain point, the person making the speculative assumptions finds it hard to challenge his or her own paradigm, even when the odds become ridiculous. This is what has happened to evolutionism. Human weakness has made it possible for intelligent people to, not only accept the impossible odds just mentioned, but also to continue stumbling on to ever greater leaps into the preposterous.

OK, back to what would be required to have the initial cell pop into being. The first step along the way would be to have a method to create all the amino acids in nature. We already went over a little bit about the odds against that.

But, let's pretend: if there were a way to create amino acids of the right type, the next impossible leap would be to form an ocean of these specially structured amino acids. (Keep in mind that even one of the molecular structures-let alone an ocean-already has failed the possibility test.) But lets play pretend. Out of the bazillions of specially structured amino acid molecules that would make up this fictitious ocean, 500 must line up in the proper order; the impossible odds are one chance in 10 with 200 zeros behind it. Oh, this is silly to even think about. If you're an evolutionist, you don't want to know how big that number is. That is odds of 1 chance in 10 to the 200th power. Again, this alone would be impossible. But this is the land of make believe, isn't it? So let's press on to never-never land.

Next, a sea of these chains has to form itself by chance. In spite of the fact that forming a sea of these chains is well beyond being farfetched (when it's impossible for random chance to form one or even one part of one part), let's pretend that there's a sea of them... just for illustration's sake. From this sea, DNA must randomly be formed; the odds used to be one chance in 10 with 155 zeros behind it, but now we know more about the DNA. DNA is much more complex than we ever imagined. The DNA is a tiny computer holding genetic programming of more information than a library of books. This computer must be perfectly and completely programmed in the simplest form of life; the odds against forming one of these DNA molecules, given all the materials listed above, used to be one in 10 with 400,000 zeros behind it. Now, with the little bit of work they've done trying to figure out the logic of the DNA... every time we get more information, evolution becomes sillier and sillier. Every time we learn more, it gets worse for the evolutionist. But the evolutionist thrives on the ignorant. They survive because people want to believe what they prefer to be true, not because they have any facts.

And the DNA is only one part of a cell. Every once in a while, we find out more about just how complex cells are. With every discovery, evolution is more silly.

False information and false logic have produced this unworkable hypothesis called evolution. And we haven't yet mentioned any level of complexity that would be capable of supporting life. We don't know enough about cells to really give a fair estimate of what it would take to pop a cell into existence by chance, but the odds get worse with each new discovery.

If you are one of those who is honest enough to admit that you don't understand these numbers, don't feel bad. Math can be very intimidating. We can't write out these huge numbers; they're too big. Telling how many zeros are behind the first 10 is a way to make it possible to write them, but it does give a false illusion of smallness. You know, from experience, how zeros affect a number. If 3 zeros are added to a check for one dollar that makes it a check for one thousand dollars. If 20 zeros are added to a check for one dollar, then that check would represent more money than exists in the world. What would 400,000 zeros do? Just make the check payable to me.

As if these numbers weren't large enough, you must realize that, when the odds of creating one of a certain type of molecule is one chance in 10 with 200 zeros behind it, the odds of creating two at the same time is one chance in 10 with 400 zeros behind it. When evolutionists say they need three of them to accidentally fall into place at the same time, the odds used to be one chance in 10 with 800 zeros behind it. It remains to be seen where the new research will put these odds, but they will make the concept of evolution much more unbelievable. Take a minute to grasp what happens. The odds keep getting more unbelievable for each additional one of these molecules that evolutionists need to create by blind chance. Take a moment to let that sink in. Now think of the evolutionists' ocean of these molecules covering the planet. The odds against all this nonsense happening are impossible to write using our method of telling how many zeros were behind the first 10. These odds become so fantastic that expressing them in a meaningful way becomes impossible. Every fairy tale you ever heard as a child is much more probable than the fairy tale of evolution.

The flaws in evolutionism compound from here. A partial amoebae, for instance, cannot sustain life or reproduce, and the law of entropy quickly destroys every element that is needed to make any creature. This means that all the events listed above plus the amazing complexity of an amoebae need to pop into being in a moment by blind chance. It must happen in a moment, because the second law of thermodynamics makes it impossible for things to go from lower levels of complexity to higher levels of complexity.

The Evolutionists will tell you a half truth about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Evolutionists will tell the half truth: "The Second Law of Thermodynamics only applies to isolated systems, so it's not relevant to evolution, because the Earth is an open system." This is a clever lie. Here is the part of the truth that they are withholding: the Second Law of Thermodynamics was derived using theoretical isolated systems, but it applies to all systems, and can only be overcome locally and temporarily in open systems when stringent conditions are met. Not only that, but we are not talking about the Earth. The Earth is just a subsystem of a much larger system called the Universe. The Universe is an isolated system. Evolutionists claim that Evolution took place in this isolated system, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that their story is a myth.

The ungodly are forced to hold on tightly to some basic presuppositions. These presuppositions are just simple-minded assumptions. They are filters and a way to censor out any data that supports the existence of God. They set up a web of rules to filter out God. They will only accept those things that conform to Naturalism, materialism, and uniformitarianism. Naturalism claims that God does nothing. Materialism claims that there is no God or spiritual realm. Uniformitarianism claims that there was not creation and that there was no violent worldwide flood, as the Bible and numerous other historical accounts record. Whatever they observe that does not conform to this complex filter is censored. The way that it is censored can take several forms. The ungodly may boldly proclaim that, though the data appears to support God's version and refute the version of the ungodly, yet it still must be interpreted to mean just the opposite of what it does mean. A backup method that ungodly people use is to prophecy that in the future, science will be able to explain what they see as an anomaly. If that fails, they will hide the data, set it aside, or lie to keep the public from knowing the truth. The data clearly demolishes the story of the ungodly and clearly supports the reality of the Creator God, His Bible, and His abiding Presence in His people. When confronted with the obvious, a closed-minded ungodly person says, "I can't understand it." They are willingly ignorant because they refuse to hold God in their knowledge. The reality is that these people, for whatever reason, don't what to know the Creator. They don't want to truly know Jesus, their Creator."

Here's the link: http://www.seekfind.net/Evolution_And_Statistics.html