Evolution as natural history is psuedo-science

mark kennedy said:

Hold on a minute because I am not a newbie. TEs are the most vocal proponents for evolution on these boards. If they are questioning any of the major tenants for common ancestry I have yet to see the slightest glimmer of it. You might know something about TEs I don't but there is no indication that Darwin seriously questioned common ancestry. He accepted without question the natural theology of Paley and others, after developing his theory based on natural selection he abandoned it entirely and there was no real questioning involved.

You don't believe this has nothing to do with genetics and I don't happen to believe Darwin and the TEs are open minded. I don't see Darwinians or TEs asking any of the hard questions about human ancestry. They simply dismiss objections to the common ancestry and claim fundamental errors on the part of creationists. It allways goes back to the fundamentals, I have never seen an exception.

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You with your tenants again. "I tell you Behe, if you don't start paying your rent I'm going to make sure you get the same cell as Hovind!"

Really, though, maybe we could stop going back to the fundamentals if you'd stop making fundamental errors in the first place. Your entire divergence argument is based on one huge fundamental error:
and once that error is excised the whole argument vanishes.

Sometimes I wonder if you so adamantly preach your error simply because you're ashamed to admit that you're wrong. The strident, dogmatic, unyielding cries certainly have the feel about them of a martyr complex, of the kid in the corner wondering why his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is wrong and why nobody will accept that he can start with 1 + 1 = 3 or the cold fusion researcher insisting that another billion dollars of grant money will net him the breakthrough or the UFOlogist insisting that the government keeps aliens even though there's no proof they exist.

You know, it's alright to admit that you're wrong. We aren't going to wring your head upside down just because you've been yelling for the past few months about something you already knew was toast but kept going forward just to not lose face. It's ok. We're brothers here.

Because really, I can't imagine what else on earth would cause a rational person to behave like this.

mark kennedy said:

It is a great deal more then 8 pages, this has been going on for at least a year. You can believe whatever you think is right but I'm telling you this is about philosophy and the actual science is a forgone conclusion.

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And yet you continue to harp about humans and monkeys not sharing a common ancestor because the differences between them form too great a gap for evolution to span. That's a scientific argument; not a philosophical one.

Personal experience in literally thousands of exchanges I have yet to see an evolutionist question any aspect of TOE as natural history.

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Admittedly, you see very little of that here. But who are you to say that it doesn't happen at all in the privacy of one's mind? I certainly don't voice my every concern here. There are better places to look for answers than internet message boards.

Nor have they offered a basis for it being falsified unless it was allready conclusivly decided what the facts are. It's an a priori assumption and there is no real reason to support it being a conclusion.

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Creationists just LOVE to bandy evolution about as an 'assumption'. I hear it all the time. My pastor even uses that term. Fact is that it's not an assumption. It's a conclusion based on fact. Darwin's book didn't catch on because it sounded like a good 'assumption'. If you've ever read it, you'll see that he supports his claims with evidence -- even tediously at times.

Hold on a minute because I am not a newbie. TEs are the most vocal proponents for evolution on these boards. If they are questioning any of the major tenants for common ancestry I have yet to see the slightest glimmer of it. You might know something about TEs I don't but there is no indication that Darwin seriously questioned common ancestry.

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You used the term "universal common ancestor," which implies that all life is descended from a single first life form. Darwin wasn't certain whether life is descended from a single or a few common ancestors, as he notes in his book. That said, an overwhelming majority of scientists will tell you there's no more reason to doubt common ancestry than germ theory.

You don't believe this has nothing to do with genetics and I don't happen to believe Darwin and the TEs are open minded.

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I suppose it means nothing to you that most TEs were once creationists before they crossed the floor. I suppose it means nothing that people are increasingly leaving creationist interpretations for more modern theologies. There are certainly more TE converts in the world than YEC converts. So who do you think the closed-minded people are? Personally, I would guess they're not the one's who are willing to admit they're wrong and cross the floor in the face of convincing evidence.

I don't see Darwinians or TEs asking any of the hard questions about human ancestry.

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What hard questions? Throw them out here so we can have a go at them. But please keep in mind that your basepair mutation arguments have been dealt with handedly here. That said, I've yet to see these few 'hard questions' addressed from the creationist POV...
1) Why does the fossil record show increasing complexity through time?
2) How could Noah's Flood have preserved mud cracks, burrows, footprints, and fossilized nests throughout the rock column?
3) Why do multiple lines of evidence (radiometric dating, varve dating, dendrochronology, etc.) attest to the old age of the earth?

They simply dismiss objections to the common ancestry and claim fundamental errors on the part of creationists.

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Because, Mark, it's the creationist fundamentalists who make the fundamental errors. There, I said it. And is there really any surprise? The majority of creationists here have nothing beyond a high school education, while the majority of TEs here have a science degree (or two, or three). That said, who do you think has the better understanding of science? Creationists HATE this fact because it prevents them from being taken seriously (as do the constant spelling errors that creep up in their posts). They blame the "arrogant/brainwashed" educated for sitting on high-horses and whine about not being taken seriously. But people don't spend 20-some-odd years in school for nothing! You've had one post-secondary biology course; others here have dozens. What makes you think your thoughts on the matter are any better informed? Thinking you know more about a topic than someone who has spent twice the time, effort and money on it -- that's arrogance.

Darwin said that the development of something as complicated as the eye by natural selection seemed unlikely. If Charles Darwin himself question natural selection as an explanation for the eye then why can't TEs question the divergence of our DNA and the development of the human brain from that of apes?

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Darwin said, in referring to the eye: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case." Please don't quote mine him. In fact, many scientists have come up with a plausible evolutionary pathway for the eye and... the human brain! Check out a college library.

Had you or any of the TEs dismissed my objections as a difference of opinion I would have left it at that. But no, you guys have to prove that the creationist is wrong at the most fundamental level, never conceding a single point. That is not genetics or biology, that is pure undiluted attitude.

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In science, points are conceded on the basis of evidence. You have presented none. Your claims about primate genetics have been thwarted, yet you continue to beat your chest and ignore everything anyone has ever said to you. That's plain for everyone here to see. Kudos to shernren for admitting his mistake in this thread and correcting it accordingly (Proverbs 12:1).

No sir, it is not falsifiable, there has not been one propositional basis for falsification.

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Are you blind, man??? rmwilliamsll just gave you a list of things that would falsify evolution! Here you continue to ignore what has clearly been presented to you. I'll even add to his list:
1.chimeras would falsify common descent and probably the whole edifice of the TofE.
2.grossly misplaced fossils would as well.
3.so would have a genetic code mapping codons to tRNA in multiple forms, especially if each represented a biblical kind.
4. A deviation in Hardy-Weingberg principles that do not lead to changes in allelic frequencies.
5. A visible shift in a clade's morphology through time that is not due to heredity.

You blame others for having closed minds, and yet here you are yourself, impervious to correction! And yet you continue to wonder why you aren't being taken seriously...

I apologize if this thread comes across offensively, as I'm sure it will. I love you as a Christian brother, Mark, though I fear I have done a poor job relating it. That said, I have found your posts exceedingly frustrating to read lately and had to get some things off my chest here. I hope cooler heads will prevail.

Spelling errors in last post:

- tenants
- arguement
- guntlet
- convinctions
- congradulations
- Dispite
- admitt
- vauge
- condesended
- foreward
- intimadate

Mark, you might stand a better chance of being taken seriously if you spell check your posts. First impressions count.

mark kennedy said:

I don't think I have ever had a post I didn't have to go back and check, edit and generally revise. The trouble lately has been I have to do these posts on the fly and my spelling is terrible anyway. I guess I could take a minute and run it through Word.

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The typos are the least of your worries, but you could always download Firefox 2.0 here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ . It automatically scans every word you type into an input box and wrong words get a dotted red underline just like in Word. Of course if you don't own the computer you're using then this won't work.

mark kennedy said:

That was never my arguement, that was my attempt to get a revised estimate between the current estimate and previous mutation rate for comparision. You make a big bluster about understanding the math and science. Does the mutation rate change when the divergence goes from 98% to 95%.

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You mean "similarity" back there. Well, single-base divergence is 35Mb, and that is adequately explained by a single-base substitution rate of 2 x 10^-8 / bp / generation. Indel divergence is 90Mb, and that is adequately explained with indels happening roughly one-tenth as frequently as single-base substitutions, while affecting 40-50bps at once on average, including transposon activity.

What we know about mutation rates changes when the similarity goes from 98% to 95%. AFAIK there was no good estimation of the indel rate between chimps and humans before the 95% figure was obtained; with the 95% figure we got a good estimate of indel rates, and they coincide well with what we have seen before in other species (both in terms of ratio of indel events to single-base events and indel-affected nucleotides to single-base nucleotides). So certainly we know more about mutations now.

But are you arguing about the historical development of our knowledge of human evolution, or the consistency of what we currently know? Because the former has nothing to do with validity and the latter shows no problems between theory and data, as I've shown.

mark kennedy said:

My arguement has been that the mutation rate only account for 98%, so does the mutation rate change with the known divergence or not?

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What we know about it changes. I think this is a question more for sfs - did mutation rates before the Chimp Genome report account for indels, or not?

mark kennedy said:

You preach the gospel of naturalism with a passion, I have no problem with that. Then take up the guntlet and show me you have the courage of your convinctions. Answer a simple question, how does divergence increasing by 100,000,000 base pairs make no difference in the mutation rate because that's what this is all about. You just keep chanting fundamental error and offer nothing in the way of substantive backing. It's common on here to just contradict creationism and there are rounds of congradulations for doing such a great job. Dispite that no one answers a very simple question, how does the mutation rate change from 145 Mb to 35 Mb?

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Don't patronize me, I'm a Christian through and through. And if you'd only asked that clearly and concisely instead of actively pursuing the problem of units (see for example your immense quibbling with my accidents example, which would have been completely irrelevant to your question thus formulated), we would have told you.

mark kennedy said:

You know what, if I thought this was a real problem with my understanding of math and genetics I would happily admitt it. In fact I had given up on this line of arguement and was planing to do something else with my spare time. So you guys are going to make a lot of noise about how 1.5 x 10^-6/bp/generation is not an estimate of the number of base pairs. No problem because I know why you are so desperate to nail this down. You don't have an answer for 145 Mb/5my = 20 base pairs fixed per year for 5 my. The mutation rate then becomes so vauge it doesn't matter if its 99% or 90%, it will bend and flex to accomodate you a priori assumptions no matter what it is, even 85% wouldn't matter.

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Well, you're perfectly free to think we're being unreasonable and unaccommodating. Be careful you're not projecting, though. As for whatever it is you plan to move on to after this, I wish you more success than you've had thus far.

mark kennedy said:

Because I'm tired of being condesended to, I'm tired of being told I don't understand. I get tired of simple straight foreward questions about genetics and the human brain or divergence between chimpanzees and humans being dismissed. Most of all because I get tired of the disingenuise ambiquity of TOE and it's many proponents.

I don't care about the mutation rate because it makes no difference what the mutation rate is, it will accomodate TOE no matter what the differences are. To top it off the TOE is enjoying widespread propaganda machines that diminish the divergence and anatomical differences between apes and humans.

That curt condescending tone does not intimadate me, in fact, I'm starting to get tired of it.

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Well that's good, because I wasn't trying to intimidate you. Whatever your posting style is like you're still a brother in Christ to me. I struggle to remember that, and I only ask that you will remember it too.

Is this really all about Time and Nature's articles? Every evolutionist post I've seen here acknowledges that the 99% (or 98%) figure only counts point mutations (single nucleotide mutations). 95% includes many more mutations (up to 10,000 bp as far as I can tell).

Point mutations are much easier to measure, so they were published first. The actual measured indel rate was just about what was predicted before it could be directly measured both in number of base pairs and in number of indels.

Talking about point mutations is much more meaningful when talking about divergence because indels are much less consistant both in rate and size. So point mutations are more useful in dating a split. That would be why scientists don't ALWAYS talk about indels when measuring mutation rates.

So yeah, I'd agree (asI think many here would) that the Time and Nature articles were potentially misleading -- especially to a layman who didn't notice when they were talking about only point mutations. Of course, Time and I think Nature didn't make it explicitly clear, and that's quite a shame.

It doesn't change the fact that the journal articles on which these were based PREDICTED the 99% divergence counting point mutations AND about a 95% divergence counting indels (at 1/10 the rate of SNPs affecting, on average, 50 nucleotides).

mark kennedy said:

They sequenced the entire genome and compared it to the human genome in side by side comparisons. They could not claim it was too difficult, all they had to do was read the findings. Finding this at the top of the Google search engine gives me the impression that they don't like to tell people the actual divergence.

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Wait, are you talking about the nature pages here that are from August 2005?
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/chimpgenome/index.html

It was the FIRST thing in Google "chimpanzee genome", and it clearly states:

nature said:

Chimps are almost identical to us, genetically speaking. But perhaps not quite as similar as we thought. It is often said that the two species are 98.5% the same, in terms of single-letter changes in the DNA code. But mapping of the chimpanzee genome shows there are further differences in how DNA chunks are duplicated and rearranged. These differences cause our genome sequences to diverge by 2.7%, while single-letter substitutions add about another 1% of difference.

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mark kennedy said:

From what I'm getting indels are a fairly recent revelation. It seems very strange to me that it would be easier to spot a single base pair being out of place rather then a sequence of 10,000 bp. I don't think I am being nit picky here, these indels add up to 90 million base pairs. That represents a significant level of divergence and I think they should be upfront with the details.

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You are assuming that scientists can read through the genome like a book. This is flat out wrong. As a physicist, I don't understand it well (you'll have to ask sfs or look it up yourself) but I DO know that the genome was first examined in little parts. They'd chop up the DNA into little bits and analyze THOSE to determine the sequence. Again, I know very little about it, but my cursory study has made it very clear that it is MUCH easier to study tiny mutations, and only after technology advanced significantly are they now able to study larger mutations. I hope you can understand how it'd be IMPOSSIBLE to identify indels larger than 100bp if you're examining the DNA split into 100bp chunks!

mark kennedy said:

They said that the DNA was 98%-99% the same, they were crystal clear on what they felt the significance was. Small minor changes would explain the differences but when you look closer it is not only inaccurate, it is downright disingenious.

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So again, you're painting the entire evolutionist community (including ALL the scientists who published the correct numbers) based on internet articles you found at the top of Google? What about the site I found in nature (above) that says exactly the same thing you're saying?

mark kennedy said:

From what I am gleaning from the published finding there and elsewhere the indels average 300 bp.

Through alignment of the high-quality chromosomal sequences of HSA21q and PTR22q we identified about 68,000 indels in total. Greater than 99% of the indels are shorter than 300 bp, but there is a clear abundance of those around 300 bp in size​

DNA sequence and comparative analysis of chimpanzee chromosome 22

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This does NOT say that the average is 300bp. It doesn't even imply it. I mean, that's basic reading comprehension -- it's similar to a median, except instead of the middle number, it's giving the 99% point. This article (pdf!) directly states, "Average indel length, nt 36.4." It might not be the BEST source on this, but at least it DISCUSSES averages rather than the point where 99% of indels is less than this number!

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/100/8/4661.pdf

Hey, no problem! Google searches are often more luck than anything else!

I assure you, it is indeed much easier to identify one single nucleotide out of place than a large section. This is because when the sequence gets cut up, they don't just cut up one strand. They cut up many strands and analyze all the pieces simultaniously. Because they're just looking at small sections, an insertion will look identical to the original code it was copied from. Honestly, I'm a HORRIBLE source for information on this (and the last time I studied it was years ago when sequencing first came out in Sci Am and I got interested). But I assure you, at least historically point mutations have been MUCH easier to analyze than longer section mutations. I don't expect you to take my word for it, but if you're going to use that argument at LEAST look it up for yourself or ask an expert. There are VERY good reasons why scientists COULD not analyze long indels for many years. They now can -- that's the important part.

As for the link, it's not talking about comparing the genomes bp by bp. It's talking about the fact that 98% of our genome is found in the chimp genome (though parts are transposed or shifted). That statement is factually accurate.

nature said:

Chimps are almost identical to us, genetically speaking. But perhaps not quite as similar as we thought. It is often said that the two species are 98.5% the same, in terms of single-letter changes in the DNA code. But mapping of the chimpanzee genome shows there are further differences in how DNA chunks are duplicated and rearranged. These differences cause our genome sequences to diverge by 2.7%, while single-letter substitutions add about another 1% of difference.

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It's in their chimpanzee news special. Anyway, one can hardly say it's a conspiracy to mislead the public when they give better numbers in the details!

Further, it's not misleading. We DO share more than 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. That some of it has been rearranged by indels or transposons doesn't change the fact that 98% of our DNA is found in chimpanzee DNA. If they were NOT related, you would expect to find large sections that were NOT produced by indels would you not? THAT is the point they're making here. Note that they don't say our genomes are 98% the same, they say that 98% of our DNA is shared with chimps.

mark kennedy said:

The real problem is with the number of mutations involved and why is it that no one is wondering how they were fixed? I really don't think this is an exaggeration to say that this is a considerable amount of divergence. It was far and away more then we were being told but in all fairness science is a progressive discipline. Now they are getting a better look at it and the indels have thrown yet another variable into the mix. I also consider the chromosomal rearrangements to be of considerable length and there is more then enough reason for a creationist like myself to question a common ancestor for humans and chimpanzees.

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But there's no problem. I've quoted data showing that indels happening one-tenth as frequently as single-base substitutions, but affecting up to four times more nucleotides, isn't anything to be surprised at - not only happening in our own chimp-human divergence case but in other examples as well.

mark kennedy said:

At this point I am questioning the candor and integrity of mainstream science to admit the differences. The general public is being told that human ancestry is already decided and this is something that was decided 150 years ago. As more data comes in the Theory of Evolution should be rethought and revised, always allowing for the possibility that human ancestry does not include apes. I am told that this is unscientific but I was under the impression that a theory was meant to generate questions for further study and research.

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But if Nature messed up on a figure, how does that automatically prove that evolution is wrong or that evolutionists are conspiring to block all protests? After all, they allowed free access to the initial genome sequence paper for the chimps - if there really was a conspiracy you'd bet that paper wouldn't even be so much as publicly announced, now would it? I don't see why you're making so much ado about nothing. And the theory does generate questions for further study and research - but to say that humans aren't apes is out of the question not because it's unfalsifiable but precisely because it's falsifiable and a mountain of data supports it.

mark kennedy said:

The honest answer is that we don't know what the indel mutation rate is. They have only been known to exist in human populations for a few years. That would be a reasonable response since much of science lays the ground work for further inquiry. I don't like the analogy for the same reason I don't like the other analogies I got on the same subject. The real answer is we don't really know what the mutation rate is for indels but we can give you a rough idea of what where we are at with this. I could handle that, I could respect that, I might not agree but telling me I don't understand the mutation rate is silly.

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When you insist that the mutation rate has to be measured in base pairs' worth of mutations instead of number of mutational events that is silly. And the fact is that as mentioned earlier the magnitude of indels seen in human-chimp divergence is right up the alley based on data from other species.

mark kennedy said:

I don't patronize people but I am not above being tolerant of views I strongly disagree with, as long as it's an informed and honest opinion. If native Americans want to insist that they are descended from the Buffalo people because they trust their traditions more then Western science I have no problem with that. It does not conflict with my worldview or understanding of natural science in the most remote way. It is a cultural thing and a deeply religious one. Creationism whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, whether you want to admit it or not is a strong Christian doctrine. You might want to keep that in mind as you engage other Christians on the topic.

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Creation is a strong Christian doctrine, and I see no insurmountable incompatibilities between creation and evolution.

mark kennedy said:

If native Americans want to insist that they are descended from the Buffalo people because they trust their traditions more then Western science I have no problem with that. It does not conflict with my worldview or understanding of natural science in the most remote way. It is a cultural thing and a deeply religious one.

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How would you feel if those same natives insisted that their creation story be taught in the science classroon "in the interest of fairness"?

mark kennedy said:

I guess I'll never know why they made such a grossly inaccurate statement, they just said the DNA was 98% the same and it's not. It's not factual and the paper explicitly describes the differences giving detailed analysis of the differences. You can rationalize it away if you like but I find it disingenuise and anything but accurate.

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Did you read the statement? It does NOT say the DNA is 98% the same. It says, "We share more than 98% of our DNA and almost all of our genes with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee."

It's not their fault if people have problems with reading comprehension, and that they blatently state elsewhere that there is MORE changes than previously thought shows that they are not trying to mislead the public!

We DO share more than 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees, and when speaking about ancestry that's a lot more important than comparing bp by bp. If humans and chimpanzees were created seperately (and not from a common ancestor) you WOULD expect to see more than 1-2% SINGLE mutations in one that are not found in the other. Yeah, there's another 3% that has been inserted or removed, but it's still genetic information that's found in BOTH genomes!

Anyway, if you stop for a moment trying to find errors in the articles you read, you might find that they ARE actually accurate. The fact that when you read, "98% of one is found in the other" you think, "98% is the same" reflects on your looking for a particular error. However, the statement they made (both of them actually) is entirely factually accurate.

mark kennedy said:

Look, I think biology should be taught in biology class and physics should be taught in physics class.

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I agree. I also feel religion should be taught in religion class and philosophy in philosophy class.

Neither of these disciplines are reliable with respect to distant history.

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The only ones who feel this way are creationists, most of whom are not biologist or physicists. I would add that 99% of biologists DO feel that evolution is biology -- in fact, they admit that is forms the foundation of their studies. It is the glue that holds everything together, they will say.
So who are you, or anyone else, to tell those 99% of biologists that they are wrong? They do the work -- they should know. It would be akin to me telling a pastor that the Bible isn't foundational to Christianity.

The fact is they don't need their belief system taught in schools but I really don't think it would hurt anything. Not teaching something in school does not make it go away, they are learning their cultural history from their people not from textbooks.

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Would it make a difference to you if we replaced the assumed 'Buffalo people' with 'creationists' in that sentence?