Evolution/Creation on Trial

[sfs]

Don't you realize that ALL experiments and all lab work creating scenarios by tweaking the chemicals, conditions, etc. (like the Miller Urey experiment), that get ANY results are designed by outside intelligent forces?

Not clear what your point is. Gene duplication occurs whether or not there is an intelligent agent involved. Scientists aren't manipulating organisms to cause their genes to duplicate: they just do it.

"Duplication" doe not address mutation....by definition it means repetition of the same...duplicating: the action of duplicating something, in DNA makng an exact copy...

Gene duplication is a form of mutation. The DNA after duplication is different than it was before, because now there are two copies of the gene in the genome, where before there was one. When one of those copies undergoes further mutation, the genome now has two different genes, potentially doing different things. That's how new information can be added to genomes.

 

[The Cadet]

Seriously, dude, I am a complete layman and I still understand this. There are numerous examples in nature (see post #326) that point to this, and numerous lab experiments showing how this sort of duplication leads to new beneficial functions.

Don't you realize that ALL experiments and all lab work creating scenarios by tweaking the chemicals, conditions, etc. (like the Miller Urey experiment), that get ANY results are designed by outside intelligent forces?

And yet, these results are designed to mimic nature. The whole point is to set up a starting point and let nature take its course - assuming that these starting points were present in nature (and given that this is a large part of the design of the experiment, this assumption won't be pulled out of thin air), the result is equally possible in nature. If you don't understand this, then you've completely missed the point of these experiments, and you really need to learn how science works.

"Duplication" doe not address mutation....by definition it means repetition of the same...duplicating: the action of duplicating something, in DNA makng an exact copy...

As stated above, you can imagine it something like this in subsequent generations (obviously, this example is just made up on the spot to illustrate how it works; if you want a real example take a look at any number of the articles I linked in the spoiler in post 326):

CTAGACGAGAGA -> CTAGACGAACGAGAGA -> CTAGTCGAACGAGAGA

The duplicate doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to be conserved - either copy can mutate, and each can mutate in different ways.

 

[pshun2404]

Where did you get this nonsense?

A response to the point that experiments have been done over as many as 60,000 generations (as opposed to the expected 10 or 20,000 generations) and still no morphological change...

Start with these...

Burke, Molly K., Joseph P. Dunham, Parvin Shahrestani, Kevin R. Thornton, Michael R. Rose, Anthony D. Long. 30 September 2010. Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila. Nature, Vol. 467, pp. 587-590.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC22376/

Lenski, Richard E. (2000). "Source of founding strain". Michigan State University. Retrieved 2008-06-18.

Conclusion? "Darwin anticipated that microevolution would be a process of continuous and gradual change. The term macroevolution, by contrast, refers to the origin of new species and divisions of the taxonomic hierarchy above the species level, and also to the origin of complex adaptations, such as the vertebrate eye. Macroevolution posed a problem to Darwin because his principle of descent with modification predicts gradual transitions between small-scale adaptive changes in populations and these larger-scale phenomena, yet there is little evidence for such transitions in nature. Instead, the natural world is often characterized by gaps, or discontinuities. One type of gap relates to the existence of 'organs of extreme perfection', such as the eye, or morphological innovations, such as wings, both of which are found fully formed in present-day organisms without leaving evidence of how they evolved."-- Reznick, David N., Robert E. Ricklefs. 12 February 2009. Darwin's bridge between microevolution and macroevolution. Nature, Vol. 457, pp. 837-842.

 

[pshun2404]

Not clear what your point is. Gene duplication occurs whether or not there is an intelligent agent involved. Scientists aren't manipulating organisms to cause their genes to duplicate: they just do it.

Here is a great example of the what I am coming to realize is more typical than I previously had thought. I did not address gene duplication in nature at all...you misapplied what I said to something other...he was supporting a point that "duplication" equals "mutation" and claimed "experiments" as his support for this...all "experiments" are involved with, designed by, and enacted by outside intelligent force (true or false?) or do they design and conduct themselves?

understand That is NOT saying it is not good to do them, nor that they do not can and often do yield important insight and valuable applicable discoveries...I am all for them...just be honest with the data and do not indicate something engineered to be a fact of nature (like self replicating RNA experiments for example)

 

[sfs]

Here is a great example of the what I am coming to realize is more typical than I previously had thought. I did not address gene duplication in nature at all...you misapplied what I said to something other...he was supporting a point that "duplication" equals "mutation" and claimed "experiments" as his support for this...all "experiments" are involved with, designed by, and enacted by outside intelligent force (true or false?) or do they design and conduct themselves?

Yes, intelligent people (I'm not sure what an intelligent force would look like) are involved in all of science, whether they're designing experiments or just making observations. Intelligent people are also involved in all of religion and all of car mechanics. As I said, it's not clear what your point is. No action is required by an intelligent agent for gene duplication to occur. That is a fact. Gene duplication is a form of mutation. That is also a fact (based on the definition of "mutation"). Experiments demonstrate that gene duplication occurs, and that it can be beneficial. That's also a fact. So everything he said was true. Your response doesn't seem to address any of these facts.

understand That is NOT saying it is not good to do them, nor that they do not can and often do yield important insight and valuable applicable discoveries...I am all for them...just be honest with the data and do not indicate something engineered to be a fact of nature (like self replicating RNA experiments for example)

As I already said, gene duplication happens in the lab and it happens in the wild. It happens all the time. There's nothing remotely artificial about it.

 

[sfs]

Hernandez, Ryan D., Joanna L. Kelley, Eyal Elyashiv, S. Cord Melton, Adam Auton, Gilean McVean, 1000 Genomes Project, Guy Sella, Molly Przeworski. 18 February 2011. Classic Selective Sweeps Were Rare in Recent Human Evolution. Science, Vol. 331, no. 6019, pp. 920-924.

Bad paper for you to begin with. First, it doesn't say that adaptive evolution hasn't occurred in humans; it says that classic selective sweeps -- starting from a new mutation under selection and going to fixation, and involving only nonsynymous mutations -- were rare. It leaves plenty of room for lots of soft sweeps and sweeps around regulatory mutations. Second, the paper was very likely wrong in its conclusion. See this paper; it's conclusion is, "Our results suggest that adaptation was frequent in human evolution and provide support for the hypothesis of King and Wilson that adaptive divergence is primarily driven by regulatory changes."

Conclusion? "Darwin anticipated that microevolution would be a process of continuous and gradual change. The term macroevolution, by contrast, refers to the origin of new species and divisions of the taxonomic hierarchy above the species level, and also to the origin of complex adaptations, such as the vertebrate eye. Macroevolution posed a problem to Darwin because his principle of descent with modification predicts gradual transitions between small-scale adaptive changes in populations and these larger-scale phenomena, yet there is little evidence for such transitions in nature. Instead, the natural world is often characterized by gaps, or discontinuities. One type of gap relates to the existence of 'organs of extreme perfection', such as the eye, or morphological innovations, such as wings, both of which are found fully formed in present-day organisms without leaving evidence of how they evolved."-- Reznick, David N., Robert E. Ricklefs. 12 February 2009. Darwin's bridge between microevolution and macroevolution. Nature, Vol. 457, pp. 837-842.

That's not the conclusion; that's the introduction. Part of the conclusion: "Although Darwin might have erred in some of the details of his principle of divergence, particularly the generally agreed starting point of reproductively isolated species, his basic idea has merit. The fundamental truth of his principle of divergence has emerged in different facets of evolutionary ecology, a field in which the same principle, in the form of character displacement or some models of sympatric speciation, was discovered independently... Understanding macroevolution requires the integration of ecology, evolution and the role of history in shaping the diversification or decline of lineages."

 

[pshun2404]

Yes adaptation IS regular in human biology (a blessing and a curse) but nothing suggests it caused divergence (though even if divergence were true and Darwin was correct, then Apes and Humans are both divergent species not man from ape...and of course once a mutation has occurred that will get duplicated...duplication makes an exact replica of what is there (that's what duplication means).

Paul

 

[sfs]

Yes adaptation IS regular in human biology

Then why did you post a link to the Hernandez paper?

(a blessing and a curse) but nothing suggests it caused divergence

Adaptation is caused by genetic changes. Genetic changes to a population are divergence.

(though even if divergence were true and Darwin was correct, then Apes and Humans are both divergent species not man from ape

That's true if you mean existing ape species. Our common ancestor would also be considered an ape, however.

...and of course once a mutation has occurred that will get duplicated...duplication makes an exact replica of what is there (that's what duplication means).

No, a duplication is a mutation, and further mutations to one of the copies leads to two different genes. Do you understand that? Gene duplication is one of the ways that you get new genes.

 

[stevevw]

Cite please? Neither of the articles you cited appear to have anything to do with that (although I can't actually read the first one, so...). Although it's perhaps pertinent to point out that the very first article indicates very strongly that yes, we can detect HGT. The discovery of HGT in eukariotic macroorganisms was a really significant discovery that has led to a revision of the theory - but not its abandonment.

OK this is a long post so I will answer it bit by bit. I have partly answered this first part in my last post. Ask anyone down on the farm who has tried to cross breed and create hybrids of farm animals or plants.

You often hear evolutionists say its obvious that animals can evolve new features like wings or lungs or new limbs ect. Some require complete restructuring of any parts all working together. Considering that mutations are random and a blind process I find this hard to believe that this can all be orchestrated and directed towards a specific goal for making complex creatures. Evolutionists often say this can happen but they never can explain how it stage by stage and down at the chemical level.

I have posted links to evidence showing the difficulties for mutations being able to evolve directed changes in proteins before. I have posted links showing how tests done on flies and bacteria have not produced anything apart from the same creatures with variations.

Doug Axe and Ann Gauger have a new peer-reviewed paper up at BIO-Complexity which provides a quantifiable measure of how many mutations are required for a relatively simple biological innovation – the functional conversion of one enzyme to that of its closest structural neighbor. The authors argue that their results show that similarity of structure does not guarantee ease of interconversion, and that that goes to the root of all Darwinian trees based on such similarity.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/darw...e-does-not-guarantee-ease-of-interconversion/

These numbers are not friendly to evolutionary theory, and mathematical studies that have attempted to study the issue have run into a wall of improbability, even when attempting to model simple changes.
http://creation.com/mutations-new-information
We infer from the mutants examined that successful functional conversion would in this case require seven or more nucleotide substitutions. But evolutionary innovations requiring that many changes would be extraordinarily rare, becoming probable only on timescales much longer than the age of life on earth.
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1

And this ignores the massive genetic diversity present within the category of "fly". Look, I'm sorry, but "It's still a fly" is a horribly facile argument. Like, would "It's still a primate" be a convincing argument to you when it comes to human evolution from an ape-like ancestor? I somehow doubt it. Given that there are far more phyla within Diptera than within Primates, I kind of wonder - on what basis could you then make the claim that there is more genetic diversity within "primates" than within "flies"?

Flies have a lot more variations in their genetics because they can populate quickly and share genetic info more easily. They have an ability to share genetic info through HGT so they can obtain genetic info from the vast population. But at the end of the day they are still Flies.

No experiment in labs or any observation in nature has ever found that they can evolve anything but what they already have. There has never been anything new as in features that even look like they would go on to become something else besides a fly. This is also the same for humans, apes or any other creature. There is a lot of variation and a lot of new variations can be generated. But only ever within the genetics that is already present. No new features have been added. If you can cite any of the above that can show something new created then please do.

This is where this argument falls flat. While it's easy to make simple groupings of things that are different - "It's just a dog/monkey/feline/fly/bacterium", these categories differ widely in terms of morpholotical and genetic variance. Do you have any information about the genetic variance within Diptera? I've looked for information on this but could not find any data on the genetic diversity within Diptheria (or even just fruit flies); anyone willing to help fill me in would be very welcome.

I havnt seen anything along these lines in all the searches I have done. I would have thought they differ widely. But the variance still doesn't go outside a certain limit as far as I understand. Look at the variance with humans. We have sizes from midgets to almost 9 feet tall. We have mass the same. We have people born with deformities such as extra limbs. We have all different shapes in eyes, heads, noses ect. But nothing is of a different feature than what humans already have. So there are limits. We cant get antennas, or green hair or skin. Plus any unusual feature that is abnormal will usually revert back to the norm fairly quickly.

It may seem intuitive to say, "They're all just flies, they all have similar genetics", but the amount of genetic diversity between chimps is far greater than within humans, and I don't think the average man on the street could tell an African chimp from an Asian chimp. Given that I've heard it described that Drosophilia alone has far greater genetic diversity than humans do, and that chimpanzees simply aren't that different, genetically, I think it's not all that unreasonable to assume that the order of Diptera has significantly more genetic variance than just the branch of the tree that holds us and our closest living relatives, the cimpanzees and orangutans. Which puts this whole "it's still a fly" argument in a bit of a tough spot, doesn't it?

Not really. There may be more variance within the Diptera but its still within a certain limit. That variance may be because they have a greater ability to share genetic info through HGT. There maybe other reasons simply because they are a different type of organism which may be able to gain greater genetic info from the gene pool. Evolutionists categorize the fly and other creatures into species and and other groupings based on the way they have decided to build the theory. But when we look at morphology they are still flies in shape and really this is what we are talking about.

You can go into how the genetics varies and can continue to vary but that just may be the great ability for their existing genetics. That may be how it was designed in the first place to have that great amount of flexibility so that each creature has some room to adapt and survive. But that doesn't mean that the same mechanism that allows creatures to vary their genetics with what they already have also has the ability to vary a creatures shape to the point that they become a completely different shaped animal like an ape into a human.

Yes, and as I have pointed out, we know how this new genetic info arises! There are a variety of mechanisms, most notably gene duplication. This whole argument is a complete waste of time. We know that new genetic information can and quite often does arise, we have a pretty good idea of how it happens, and this idea that somehow it's impossible to make new genetic information is completely baseless and has never been taken seriously because we've known it to be wrong pretty much since it was proposed (unless I'm missing something, and the idea predates the discovery institute, in which case we've merely known it to be wrong for 40-50 years).

And that gene was modified to produce a completely novel function - basically, what you were demanding in your earlier argument with the flies. And we know this didn't happen through gene duplication, but rather through mutation. Okay. So what? We have a way to modify the information present, and a way to copy existing information. This is obviously capable of increasing the amount of information. It's really a no-brainer. If I take "ASDF", copy it, and mutate the results, nobody could reasonably claim that the new code, "AZDFBSDE" somehow does not have more information than the original.

From what I understand any added info is a variation of existing genetics. A switching on or off or recombination of existing genetics. Mostly it comes with a cost to fitness.
For example: If you scramble the letters in the word "Dinosaur", you can never spell words like "lion", "zebra" or "queen".

Dr Lee Spetner, a scientist and teacher at Johns Hopkins University speaks of the lack of new information produced by mutations. In his book: "Not by Chance" he writes:
"...in all the reading I've done in the life sciences literature, I've never found a mutation that added information."
This man is not a student slack in his research, He is well educated in science and in the area of mutations.
He goes on to say that upon closer more in depth investigation:
"all point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it."
http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...nfirm-that-genetic-entropy-decreases-fitness/

Many people get confused about what the information that is created represents. I know there a lot more to it than just the meaning of information in a mathematical sense. It can be multidimensional with biological info so it has to work on many levels. I always think of it as evolution being able to create new information in the sense that it had to conjured up something new that wasn't there in the first place and had to rely on a self creating mechanism but without any ingredients to use.

So if you had to build a car motor when the only ingredients you had were to build a clock motor then its not going to happen. The ingredients for the cars pistons, electrical system, brakes and suspension are not there to build one. Being able to create the ingredients out of the existing ingredients is impossible as well because the existing ingredients are only for the clock motor and modifying that.

I will follow Gitt and define information as, “ … an encoded, symbolically represented message conveying expected action and intended purpose”, and state that, “Information is always present when all the following five hierarchical levels are observed in a system: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics”
http://creation.com/mutations-new-information

I have also read that some variations are not even from mutations.
There could be a considerable amount of information stored in the genome in compressed, hidden form. When this information is decompressed, deciphered, revealed, or unscrambled (call it what you will), this cannot be used as evidence for evolution, since the information was already stored in the genome.
http://creation.com/mutations-new-information
I will leave it at that for the moment as I will have to check out the links you have posted. In the meantime perhaps you can check out the one above. I found it very informative. As I said I am no geneticist so I have to research and try to understand the best I can. So I will probably be out of my depth here. But I can refer to the experts and try to find those who can relay things in more layman terms for me to understand. But of course this doesn't give a good insight into the complexity of genetics.

 

[pshun2404]

Adaptation is caused by genetic changes.

Yes it certainly can be and I do see that is some cases but there is another application where I see us as changing and then adapting to the change but not as a result of mechanistic cause and effect but as a matter of biological, psychological, sociological, necessity...in some cases it could be instinctual (say to avoid the unpleasant) and in others a conscious decision of advantage, etc. You see adaptation (at least in this case) almost as a required effect where I see it as an ability that at least all higher order creatures may or may not do (of course on a genetic level we have no choice). All creatures adapt (some better than others, thus leading to greater odds for survival). When a person living in an environment that is constantly causing anxiety adapts, the physiological state becomes tolerable. It becomes "normal" for them but they have not changed genetically. When we adapt to environmental conditions, say like the Alaskan Eskimos, to 6 months of darkness, we do not (even over 1,000s of generations) lose melanin and become pale skinned, we just LEARN and adjust to endure. So adaptation is a much more broadened subject and an ability (to me) that has many applications.

Paul

 

[pshun2404]

OK this is a long post so I will answer it bit by bit. I have partly answered this first part in my last post. Ask anyone down on the farm who has tried to cross breed and create hybrids of farm animals or plants.

You often hear evolutionists say its obvious that animals can evolve new features like wings or lungs or new limbs ect. Some require complete restructuring of any parts all working together. Considering that mutations are random and a blind process I find this hard to believe that this can all be orchestrated and directed towards a specific goal for making complex creatures. Evolutionists often say this can happen but they never can explain how it stage by stage and down at the chemical level.

I have posted links to evidence showing the difficulties for mutations being able to evolve directed changes in proteins before. I have posted links showing how tests done on flies and bacteria have not produced anything apart from the same creatures with variations.

Doug Axe and Ann Gauger have a new peer-reviewed paper up at BIO-Complexity which provides a quantifiable measure of how many mutations are required for a relatively simple biological innovation – the functional conversion of one enzyme to that of its closest structural neighbor. The authors argue that their results show that similarity of structure does not guarantee ease of interconversion, and that that goes to the root of all Darwinian trees based on such similarity.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/darw...e-does-not-guarantee-ease-of-interconversion/

These numbers are not friendly to evolutionary theory, and mathematical studies that have attempted to study the issue have run into a wall of improbability, even when attempting to model simple changes.
http://creation.com/mutations-new-information
We infer from the mutants examined that successful functional conversion would in this case require seven or more nucleotide substitutions. But evolutionary innovations requiring that many changes would be extraordinarily rare, becoming probable only on timescales much longer than the age of life on earth.
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1
Flies have a lot more variations in their genetics because they can populate quickly and share genetic info more easily. They have an ability to share genetic info through HGT so they can obtain genetic info from the vast population. But at the end of the day they are still Flies.

No experiment in labs or any observation in nature has ever found that they can evolve anything but what they already have. There has never been anything new as in features that even look like they would go on to become something else besides a fly. This is also the same for humans, apes or any other creature. There is a lot of variation and a lot of new variations can be generated. But only ever within the genetics that is already present. No new features have been added. If you can cite any of the above that can show something new created then please do.

I havnt seen anything along these lines in all the searches I have done. I would have thought they differ widely. But the variance still doesn't go outside a certain limit as far as I understand. Look at the variance with humans. We have sizes from midgets to almost 9 feet tall. We have mass the same. We have people born with deformities such as extra limbs. We have all different shapes in eyes, heads, noses ect. But nothing is of a different feature than what humans already have. So there are limits. We cant get antennas, or green hair or skin. Plus any unusual feature that is abnormal will usually revert back to the norm fairly quickly.

Not really. There may be more variance within the Diptera but its still within a certain limit. That variance may be because they have a greater ability to share genetic info through HGT. There maybe other reasons simply because they are a different type of organism which may be able to gain greater genetic info from the gene pool. Evolutionists categorize the fly and other creatures into species and and other groupings based on the way they have decided to build the theory. But when we look at morphology they are still flies in shape and really this is what we are talking about.

You can go into how the genetics varies and can continue to vary but that just may be the great ability for their existing genetics. That may be how it was designed in the first place to have that great amount of flexibility so that each creature has some room to adapt and survive. But that doesn't mean that the same mechanism that allows creatures to vary their genetics with what they already have also has the ability to vary a creatures shape to the point that they become a completely different shaped animal like an ape into a human.

From what I understand any added info is a variation of existing genetics. A switching on or off or recombination of existing genetics. Mostly it comes with a cost to fitness.
For example: If you scramble the letters in the word "Dinosaur", you can never spell words like "lion", "zebra" or "queen".

Dr Lee Spetner, a scientist and teacher at Johns Hopkins University speaks of the lack of new information produced by mutations. In his book: "Not by Chance" he writes:
"...in all the reading I've done in the life sciences literature, I've never found a mutation that added information."
This man is not a student slack in his research, He is well educated in science and in the area of mutations.
He goes on to say that upon closer more in depth investigation:
"all point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it."
http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...nfirm-that-genetic-entropy-decreases-fitness/

Many people get confused about what the information that is created represents. I know there a lot more to it than just the meaning of information in a mathematical sense. It can be multidimensional with biological info so it has to work on many levels. I always think of it as evolution being able to create new information in the sense that it had to conjured up something new that wasn't there in the first place and had to rely on a self creating mechanism but without any ingredients to use.

So if you had to build a car motor when the only ingredients you had were to build a clock motor then its not going to happen. The ingredients for the cars pistons, electrical system, brakes and suspension are not there to build one. Being able to create the ingredients out of the existing ingredients is impossible as well because the existing ingredients are only for the clock motor and modifying that.

I will follow Gitt and define information as, “ … an encoded, symbolically represented message conveying expected action and intended purpose”, and state that, “Information is always present when all the following five hierarchical levels are observed in a system: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics”
http://creation.com/mutations-new-information

I have also read that some variations are not even from mutations.
There could be a considerable amount of information stored in the genome in compressed, hidden form. When this information is decompressed, deciphered, revealed, or unscrambled (call it what you will), this cannot be used as evidence for evolution, since the information was already stored in the genome.
http://creation.com/mutations-new-information
I will leave it at that for the moment as I will have to check out the links you have posted. In the meantime perhaps you can check out the one above. I found it very informative. As I said I am no geneticist so I have to research and try to understand the best I can. So I will probably be out of my depth here. But I can refer to the experts and try to find those who can relay things in more layman terms for me to understand. But of course this doesn't give a good insight into the complexity of genetics.[/QUOT

Great post Steve but by now you should know the only sources accepted by atheists (a little narrow-ized as necessary box they create) will be very recent, Journal entries (reviewed by only their peers) that agree with their view (all others being selectively excluded). You know that evidence from all the other fields of study, or from others within,if it disagrees or indicates contrariety, MUST BE rejected, discredited, mocked, and so on...there is no room for individual or creative thought....if 10 others haven't said it is true or plausible before you (even if it is not) then it cannot be true or plausible!

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Um, dude? I even linked you to an article where experts pointed out that they were probably not different species, and other experts disagreed, and said, and I quote: "There is actually some debate about whether or not they actually do constitute different species." If you're going to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty, it would behoove you to find an actual example of intellectual dishonesty.


I don't know that they are different species. I'm not sure of the definition of the term, and this is a problem throughout most of science. The term comes from the victorian age, and runs into the problem that we need to have discreet boxes, when nature just does not have those. The main issue is that the entire concept of species has some significant flaws, and saying "it's the same species as long as they can produce viable offspring" is a nice simple concept until you remember that things like ring species exist. Nature tends not to fit nicely into neat boxes like that.

And yet all the evolutionists want to claim that because creationists don't yet have an exact definition of "Kind," this somehow disproves creationism. Even if now suddenly, you want to use a definition you fully admit that "I'm not sure of the definition of the term, and this is a problem throughout most of science."


I mean really, you think the fact that "Nature tends not to fit nicely into neat boxes like that." makes it any easier to define Kind than it does species??? And as for interbreeding - that is the first and primary definition of the word species. There should be no doubt in your mind, no debate needed when two animals or anything actually mate and produce fertile offspring.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species


" A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms where two hybrids are capable of reproducing fertile offspring, typically using sexual reproduction. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem."



So, in the present case it is more than adequate, leaves no ambiguity. We are not discussing ring species where the difficulty may start, or on cases in which we see no reproduction between similar things. We are discussing animals that clearly interbreed and produce fertile offspring. If there is any ambiguity, it is placed there by you yourself.


As for bacteria that reproduce through binary fission: just cements the issue, since E coli always remain E coli - since they receive no other genes through a secondary source. As those bacteria that somehow never evolved over billions of years in fantasy land proves evolution. It just proves that when something self-replicates it always remains what it started out as; just the individual variation possible within the genome it itself has. No other breed (genome sequence) added to the recombination process.

I feel the need to point out that the Grants are among the scientists who very firmly hold that the Finches are, in fact, separate species.

I feel the need to point out that the Grants - are some of those that refuse to accept the prime definition of species - simply because they want to prove their pre-conceived idea of speciation. Even if all we ever do is see breed mating with breed within the species.

There are four nucleotides we can work with: A, G, C, and T. What, exactly, are you asking for? That DNA somehow implement a different nucleobase? Or what? To put it another way:


CAT -> CATCAT -> GATCAT


Are you claiming that that is never observed? Because this kind of duplication with mutation is exactly what we find in the venom of the platypus.

Nope, not claiming anything of the "Kind" (pun on words). Life started out simple, shall we assume CAT? You can get CATTACCAATAC or whatever through the duplication process, but where may I ask do you then magically come up with CAT with a "G"???????? This IS NOT WHAT IS OBSERVED IN THE LAB. We have CATG and we always end up with only CATG in any number of combinations. We never add a B to the list magically. This is the problem you want to assume happened in the past. Against all observations of how it really works. You can't just shove new letters in because you want them to somehow be created without being created.

I am a computer science dropout with a casual interest in evolution and a chip on my shoulder. I am not Peter or Rosemary Grant. I am not Richard Dawkins. I am not an expert, in other words. I faintly remember having a discussion about Finches, but I'm not quite sure what the outcome was; in any case it would be nice to refresh it.

I have no idea if they're the same species, and given that there is real dispute among actual biologists, I feel like offering my own opinion (they aren't) is not particularly productive.

Then why argue that the fossil record has not been mistaken similarly and that it really just shows breed mating with breed producing new breeds, not new species?

Do you honestly not understand the difference between a tetrapod species with an abnormal number of functional limbs and this sort of well-understood deformity?

Fingers != limbs.

And then there's a bunch of meaningless, baseless claims, at times completely unsupportable even in principle.

And yet it was that sudden change in fully functional skeletal additions you objected to. So when you have an extra finger or an extra limb, is there really a difference? Those feet and toes are fully functional in individuals with added digits. The skeleton overnight (9 months) added a new digit from a template that already existed. If people with six toes and fingers were to breed with one another, it would become a common sight. So is the human race evolving new digits, or did we once have six digits in the past?????? Apparently something is going on - we would both agree this is indeed mutation at work - errors in the replication process.

Are they, though? Again, what deliniates a "species" is hard to determine. I mean, are wolves the same species as the chihuahua? Because they can crossbreed with some dog breeds, but can they crossbreed with purse rats? Again, we run into the significant problem that "species" is a term that predates our entire understanding of modern biology and our understanding of evolution.

I guess that would depend if you believe Chihuahua's came from wolves?


"Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae.)"


So I guess first you must decide if the evidence leads you to believe they are descended from wolves or not? If so, again, there really isn't much ambiguity. I'd agree they are definitely infraspecific taxa. Subspecies, breeds, whatever they want to call them, but of the same species.

There is no such tendency beyond geographic separation. What's more, examination of haplogroups show that this entire concept of "African" or "Chinese" is completely superficial and ignores the actual genetics at play.

The genetics at play is the Chinese breed (race) primarily mates with other Chinese people. That when they do mate with another breed (race) such as Africans - they produce a new breed (race) they have termed Afro-Asian. Just as Husky when mated with Husky remain Husky. When Mastiff mated with Mastiff remain mastiff. And when Husky mates with Mastiff we get the Chinook, etc. Nothing superficial about it, it's all right there on the surface waiting to be "seen."

See, what I wonder is, can you find a single paleontologist or other relevant expert who agrees with you? Australopithecus Afarensis shows traits of both apes and hominids. Tiktaalik looks like a fish but has clear tetrapod qualities; the idea that it's some sort of "salamander" is ridiculous. The fact that you claim that it's impossible to make any claim about Ambulocetus from the skeleton discovered does not provide a whole lot of confidence in your understanding of paleozoology and paleontology.

And so what? Those same experts are the ones that claim those finches are all separate species - even if you personally do not think they are. Those same experts are that ones that labeled baby dinosaurs and adults of the same species as completely different species. Those same experts are the ones that for 80 years told us all about the facts of Archaeopteryx and Coelacanth. Those same experts are the ones that once assured us dinosaurs were reptiles, even if they now believe they were no different than mammals. They tell us lots of things - doesn't make it true. Not saying they are lying on purpose - just telling us what they personally "believe."

The main issue here is that you seem to be willing to expand what you mean by "kind" to whatever is necessary to claim we don't have any transitions. Sure, we have a fairly extensive fossil record of numerous dinosaur clades, often separated by long stretches of time and distance indicating that they could not really be the same kind... But never mind, every T-Rex is a T-Rex. Do you not get how silly this argument is?

Sort of like you want to expand what you mean by "species" to be anything you want it to be at any given moment in time? You know how silly is the argument that every T-Rex found being the same somehow is silly and doesn't falsify your belief in evolution through mutation? All you observe is stasis in the fossil record for every single creature there is - until breed mates with breed and produces a new breed within the species.

Do you know how silly it is to argue against Husky remaining Husky and mastiff remaining Mastiff until they mate and produce the Chinook? Or Chinese remaining Chinese until they mate with Africans and produce Afro-Asians? And then insist that is not what happened in the fossil record???

 

[pshun2404]

And yet all the evolutionists want to claim that because creationists don't yet have an exact definition of "Kind," this somehow disproves creationism. Even if now suddenly, you want to use a definition you fully admit that "I'm not sure of the definition of the term, and this is a problem throughout most of science."


I mean really, you think the fact that "Nature tends not to fit nicely into neat boxes like that." makes it any easier to define Kind than it does species??? And as for interbreeding - that is the first and primary definition of the word species. There should be no doubt in your mind, no debate needed when two animals or anything actually mate and produce fertile offspring.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species


" A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms where two hybrids are capable of reproducing fertile offspring, typically using sexual reproduction. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem."



So, in the present case it is more than adequate, leaves no ambiguity. We are not discussing ring species where the difficulty may start, or on cases in which we see no reproduction between similar things. We are discussing animals that clearly interbreed and produce fertile offspring. If there is any ambiguity, it is placed there by you yourself.


As for bacteria that reproduce through binary fission: just cements the issue, since E coli always remain E coli - since they receive no other genes through a secondary source. As those bacteria that somehow never evolved over billions of years in fantasy land proves evolution. It just proves that when something self-replicates it always remains what it started out as; just the individual variation possible within the genome it itself has. No other breed (genome sequence) added to the recombination process.






I feel the need to point out that the Grants - are some of those that refuse to accept the prime definition of species - simply because they want to prove their pre-conceived idea of speciation. Even if all we ever do is see breed mating with breed within the species.






Nope, not claiming anything of the "Kind" (pun on words). Life started out simple, shall we assume CAT? You can get CATTACCAATAC or whatever through the duplication process, but where may I ask do you then magically come up with CAT with a "G"???????? This IS NOT WHAT IS OBSERVED IN THE LAB. We have CATG and we always end up with only CATG in any number of combinations. We never add a B to the list magically. This is the problem you want to assume happened in the past. Against all observations of how it really works. You can't just shove new letters in because you want them to somehow be created without being created.

Then why argue that the fossil record has not been mistaken similarly and that it really just shows breed mating with breed producing new breeds, not new species?





And yet it was that sudden change in fully functional skeletal additions you objected to. So when you have an extra finger or an extra limb, is there really a difference? Those feet and toes are fully functional in individuals with added digits. The skeleton overnight (9 months) added a new digit from a template that already existed. If people with six toes and fingers were to breed with one another, it would become a common sight. So is the human race evolving new digits, or did we once have six digits in the past?????? Apparently something is going on - we would both agree this is indeed mutation at work - errors in the replication process.







I guess that would depend if you believe Chihuahua's came from wolves?


"Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae.)"


So I guess first you must decide if the evidence leads you to believe they are descended from wolves or not? If so, again, there really isn't much ambiguity. I'd agree they are definitely infraspecific taxa. Subspecies, breeds, whatever they want to call them, but of the same species.




The genetics at play is the Chinese breed (race) primarily mates with other Chinese people. That when they do mate with another breed (race) such as Africans - they produce a new breed (race) they have termed Afro-Asian. Just as Husky when mated with Husky remain Husky. When Mastiff mated with Mastiff remain mastiff. And when Husky mates with Mastiff we get the Chinook, etc. Nothing superficial about it, it's all right there on the surface waiting to be "seen."





And so what? Those same experts are the ones that claim those finches are all separate species - even if you personally do not think they are. Those same experts are that ones that labeled baby dinosaurs and adults of the same species as completely different species. Those same experts are the ones that for 80 years told us all about the facts of Archaeopteryx and Coelacanth. Those same experts are the ones that once assured us dinosaurs were reptiles, even if they now believe they were no different than mammals. They tell us lots of things - doesn't make it true. Not saying they are lying on purpose - just telling us what they personally "believe."





Sort of like you want to expand what you mean by "species" to be anything you want it to be at any given moment in time? You know how silly is the argument that every T-Rex found being the same somehow is silly and doesn't falsify your belief in evolution through mutation? All you observe is stasis in the fossil record for every single creature there is - until breed mates with breed and produces a new breed within the species.

Do you know how silly it is to argue against Husky remaining Husky and mastiff remaining Mastiff until they mate and produce the Chinook? Or Chinese remaining Chinese until they mate with Africans and produce Afro-Asians? And then insist that is not what happened in the fossil record???

Steve, they have already made up their minds, why confuse them with the facts? Logical reasoning of other possibilities, asking valid questions, showing contrary scientific evidence, is irrelevant if it points to a weakness or error in the consensus. Even trying to make them accountable for the many many attempts at deception, production of fraudulent conclusionism, and the use of well known propaganda templates (like the use of contrived images for imprinting), seems to all be okay so long as it supports and reinforces the accepted mantra but IF it causes one to question...THEN the need to dismiss, discredit, re-explain, mock and insult becomes the only viable option. Objective consideration is out....absolutely not allowed...no, no, no...if 10 or more Evolutionary Biologists have not said it first in recent times it must be squashed...you will be assimilated, resistance is futile! As some have shown, even reading a contrary scientifically based point of view is like causing a cog to get stuck, causing a glitch in the program. Some (a couple here in fact) can not even understand what is being said (sure evidence of programming). It does not register...true critical consideration has been sacrificed on the altar making up ever newer criticisms (somehow this minority I am referring to, certainly not all even here, thinks that's the same thing)

 

[bhsmte]

Steve, they have already made up their minds, why confuse them with the facts? Logical reasoning of other possibilities, asking valid questions, showing contrary scientific evidence, is irrelevant if it points to a weakness or error in the consensus. Even trying to make them accountable for the many many attempts at deception, production of fraudulent conclusionism, and the use of well known propaganda templates (like the use of contrived images for imprinting), seems to all be okay so long as it supports and reinforces the accepted mantra but IF it causes one to question...THEN the need to dismiss, discredit, re-explain, mock and insult becomes the only viable option. Objective consideration is out....absolutely not allowed...no, no, no...if 10 or more Evolutionary Biologists have not said it first in recent times it must be squashed...you will be assimilated, resistance is futile!

What scientific facts has Steve presented?

 

[The Cadet]

Nope, not claiming anything of the "Kind" (pun on words). Life started out simple, shall we assume CAT? You can get CATTACCAATAC or whatever through the duplication process, but where may I ask do you then magically come up with CAT with a "G"???????? This IS NOT WHAT IS OBSERVED IN THE LAB. We have CATG and we always end up with only CATG in any number of combinations.

I saw this and decided nothing else in your post is worth responding to, because if you don't get this, you're simply not worth debating. Every single book in the English language is some combination of 26 letters, 10 numerical characters, and a handful of other special characters. In essence, by your argumentation, there is essentially no difference in information between "The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 ;: () ' -" and the complete works of Shakespeare or your bible! There is no difference between "01" and the Skyrim Binary.

One more time. Here's a hypothetical genome.

GACTTACTGAGA

Then it mutates like this:

GACTTACTGAGA -> GACTTACTTACTGAGA -> GACTTACTTACGGAGA

Has information been added?

 

[stevevw]

Great post Steve but by now you should know the only sources accepted by atheists (a little narrow-ized as necessary box they create) will be very recent, Journal entries (reviewed by only their peers) that agree with their view (all others being selectively excluded). You know that evidence from all the other fields of study, or from others within,if it disagrees or indicates contrariety, MUST BE rejected, discredited, mocked, and so on...there is no room for individual or creative thought....if 10 others haven't said it is true or plausible before you (even if it is not) then it cannot be true or plausible!

I agree but I enjoy researching and learning. If I didn't have the time I wouldn't bother. I like learning things and I am normally studying with my courses which are on hold at the moment. The thing is more and more people are discovering new things and how some of the old ideas about evolution are not substantiated. The more we can look into the genetics the more we will see how complex and well designed it is and how it couldn't have come about by blind chance.

I believe as time goes by there will be more and more evidence for this. But like you say it comes down to what a person believes as well and how they want to see the evidence. There will always be a way where people can make the evidence look better for what they believe. Or they will focus more on certain parts of the evidence more than others. Thats why this subject is so open to interpretation. But there is a lot that has not been proven beyond doubt with evolution so I dont think anyone can say its a fact.

 

[stevevw]

I saw this and decided nothing else in your post is worth responding to, because if you don't get this, you're simply not worth debating. Every single book in the English language is some combination of 26 letters, 10 numerical characters, and a handful of other special characters. In essence, by your argumentation, there is essentially no difference in information between "The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 ;: () ' -" and the complete works of Shakespeare or your bible! There is no difference between "01" and the Skyrim Binary.

One more time. Here's a hypothetical genome.

GACTTACTGAGA

Then it mutates like this:

GACTTACTGAGA -> GACTTACTTACTGAGA -> GACTTACTTACGGAGA

Has information been added?

Tell me if I,m wrong but from what I understand the change in the letters which represent a genome would mean nothing unless they were in a right order that could contribute towards producing a trait or function. There can be many changes in the sequences but many may not mean much as they are not in the right order. Thats why some say that the DNA is like written sentences which mean something. If they are not in the right order than that written material can just be a bunch of mixed up letters that dont say anything.

But more than just sentences they have 3D meaning so they have to line up in several aspects and fit together in many layers as well at the same time. On top of that the letters of one sequence have to also join up with letters from other ones that have also been written correctly and in the right order to make a meaningful change in a feature or function. So a mutation can be just one small step in this process. You may need many mutations to make it all come together.

 

[The Cadet]

The more we can look into the genetics the more we will see how complex and well designed it is and how it couldn't have come about by blind chance

"Blind chance" is a complete misrepresentation of what's going on here, and you really should know that by now.

I believe as time goes by there will be more and more evidence for this.

Weeeeellll you guys have some catching up to do. Given that evolution is accepted by virtually every life scientist, that it is the basis of understanding in most of those fields, and that it has been used as a model for over a hundred years by countless studies, I'd say there's some work needed to be done. You need to present a real scientific model for the origins and diversification of life on this planet (I'm assuming you reject abiogenesis as well). You need to support that in the peer-reviewed literature. You need to offer more than blatant arguments from incredulity - "I cannot see how X could have evolved" is neither evidence nor a real argument against evolution.

Let me preface this next section by pointing out that I am not an expert, and that this is some highly technical stuff that I freely admit to not totally understanding. Also, as I pointed out to justa, this example is pulled right out of my rear to explain how duplication+modification leads to new information, regardless of whether or not you add an extra letter. With just 0 and 1, you can code a simple "hello world" program... And you can also code Skyrim. Anyone who wants to claim that this is somehow not an increase in information is off their rocker.

Tell me if I,m wrong but from what I understand the change in the letters which represent a genome would mean nothing unless they were in a right order that could contribute towards producing a trait or function. There can be many changes in the sequences but many may not mean much as they are not in the right order.

No matter what the sequence in a gene, if it is part of a coding region, it will code for some amino acid which will get assembled into some protein. Whether that protein actually does anything, or whether it is beneficial or deleterious, is another story altogether.

Thats why some say that the DNA is like written sentences which mean something. If they are not in the right order than that written material can just be a bunch of mixed up letters that dont say anything.

The problem with this is that the rules of language are considerably more strict. They're imposed from outside, whereas what function a protein has depends largely on its chemical structure and can vary greatly with the change of one amino acid. As far as I am aware, in some cases, a small change may have no effect whatsoever, or may lead to a beneficial change, whereas if you change any one letter in "morph", you no longer have a word in the English language. The analogy is not well-structured.

 

[stevevw]

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Steve, they have already made up their minds, why confuse them with the facts? Logical reasoning of other possibilities, asking valid questions, showing contrary scientific evidence, is irrelevant if it points to a weakness or error in the consensus. Even trying to make them accountable for the many many attempts at deception, production of fraudulent conclusionism, and the use of well known propaganda templates (like the use of contrived images for imprinting), seems to all be okay so long as it supports and reinforces the accepted mantra but IF it causes one to question...THEN the need to dismiss, discredit, re-explain, mock and insult becomes the only viable option. Objective consideration is out....absolutely not allowed...no, no, no...if 10 or more Evolutionary Biologists have not said it first in recent times it must be squashed...you will be assimilated, resistance is futile! As some have shown, even reading a contrary scientifically based point of view is like causing a cog to get stuck, causing a glitch in the program. Some (a couple here in fact) can not even understand what is being said (sure evidence of programming). It does not register...true critical consideration has been sacrificed on the altar making up ever newer criticisms (somehow this minority I am referring to, certainly not all even here, thinks that's the same thing)

Oh I understand that perfectly. They simply have their religion and refuse anything but their dogma, they just call their religion evolution. But I m not one to sit by and let those teaching false doctrines to those genuinely seeking answers. It is not to the close-minded ones that I argue - but to those that are genuinely seeking the truth - who I am sure can see the vast discrepancies in all their claims, being open-minded, not closed to everything not of their pre-conceived viewpoints.

I expect to convince none of the evolutionists - even if every single one of Darwin's finches interbreed and they know in their hearts they are one species. It is not to them that I speak - but to those that genuinely seek the truth so they are not fooled into following those false doctrines.