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GlobeMallow

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I am astounded by most the responses on this forum. As a scientist I can attest to Hkizzle's sentiment. The scientific method is impenetrable - the people no, but the method, yes. Most importantly, as KTskater relayed, there are so many checks and balances to the scientific method that any personal biases in science are immediately destroyed by the review process. It appears many of you doubt evolutionary theory. This saddens me greatly because it has been tested and tested and tested so many times we are sick of it...and each time it has held up. By this point it deserves the designation of law. I do not mean to make a mess of your beliefs, I just wish the dissenters among you would take a step back and re-evaluate your stance on the scientific method, and by association, evolution. Let us love; the space between the stars is where our wonder resides. Let us keep an open mind towards it all.
 
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Adaephon

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The issue is just the fact that a lot of people are simply ignorant of science and the scientific method. It's an educational problem.

Take comfort in the fact that all that is important is known. Long live the Praxis!
 
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berachah

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I am sorry you are so disappointed that people dare challenge the mainstream belief.. Had this not been the case in every fields of science throughout the ages, we would have no progress at all. Thankfully Christians initiated and advanced many of these fields whilst professing Creation and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although I happily accept variation and changes within species and survival of the fittest/best suited to environment etc I do not accept the theory of evolution where more basic species evolve into 'higher', more advanced species.

And I strongly doubt,
that life could spontaneously birth forth from non life and indeed can somehow survive long enough to develop the capacity to ingest, digest and utilize matter for survival and develop the capacity to reproduce before dying out.........

that out of a massive explosive bang came order and laws for nature and all living things...

that the original one cell could miraculously burst forth into life and thereafter somehow get all the genetic information into itself through mutation / sexual reproduction / other to eventually evolve into a human......

I wonder how internal and sensory organs could evolve, how knee joints could evolve and what came first; the chicken of the egg How does a creature develop an organ that is sensitive to colour when it is not aware of color at all..? And how do we evolve the concept of God?

There's a hundred more questions that no evolutionist cares to answer scientifically so at the moment I am not in the slightest way convinced.....

Mans wisdom is foolishness to God and for me evolution is a classic example of this...
 
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Adaephon

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Cool story bro. I'd take all of this a lot more seriously if I thought your skepticism had any informed merit. Science is answering all the things you "wonder" about already.

Take comfort in the fact that all that is important is known. Long live the Praxis!
 
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KTskater

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Here is a little list of peer-reviewed articles, published by respected journals, by scientists who disagree with the evolutionary model:

Michael J. Denton, Craig J. Marshall, and Michael Legge, “The Protein Folds as Platonic Forms: New Support for the pre-Darwinian Conception of Evolution by Natural Law,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 219: 325-342 (2002).

Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations, and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution,’” The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4):1-27 (December 2010)

William Lane Craig, “Barrow and Tipler on the Anthropic Principle vs. Divine Design,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 38: 389-395 (1988).

Douglas D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341:1295–1315 (2004).

William G. Pollard, “Rumors of transcendence in physics,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 52 (10) (October 1984).

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some further research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology, 1-21 (2010).

William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Vol. 14 (5):475-486 (2010).

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig and Heinz Saedler, “Chromosome Rearrangement and Transposable Elements,” Annual Review of Genetics, Vol. 36:389–410 (2002).

Stanley L. Jaki, “Teaching of Transcendence in Physics,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 55(10):884-888 (October 1987).

Michael Behe and David W. Snoke, “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues,” Protein Science, Vol. 13 (2004).

Michael Sherman, “Universal Genome in the Origin of Metazoa: Thoughts About Evolution,” Cell Cycle, Vol. 6(15):1873-1877 (August 1, 2007).

Solomon Victor, Vljaya M. Nayek, and Raveen Rajasingh, “Evolution of the Ventricles,” Texas Heart Institute Journal, Vol. 26:168-175 (1999).

Douglas D. Axe, “Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301:585-595 (2000).

Frank J. Tipler, “Intelligent Life in Cosmology,” International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2(2): 141-148 (2003).

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutations: The Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture, Ornamental and Plant Biotechnology, Vol. 1:601-607 (2006).


While you are definitely correct that the interests of those offering funding often set limitations on what studies will be done, the above list is evidence that if a someone is curious about another view point and they investigate it with solid science, it can get published. These ID scientists are the opposing view points that I can take seriously.

As far as Biblical archaeology goes...I'm pretty sure the History Channel routinely runs specials about new findings that prove events in the Bible took place or that the places they talk about exist. I've watched a couple on Sodom and Gomorrah, at least one on the Hebrews leaving Egypt, and there are probably a dozen that investigate Jesus. So, even the mainstream media is presenting the data that supports the Bible.



Interesting thoughts/predictions. I'm also glad to hear that your faith doesn't rest upon Creationism (Capital "C" = young earth, special creation). Mine does not rest upon evolution. A think those are both good positions to have.
 
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Ronald

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miamited

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Hi globemallow,

Let me see if I understand your basis of 'truth'. Your icon says that you're an atheist. Now, that does mean that you don't believe there is a god, right? That's the truth to you, right?

And you want those who know that what you believe about a god to then trust that you know the 'truth' in other things. Well, I'll just let you know right from jump, I'm not much convinced that an atheist knows the truth about anything. Especially, those things that relate to how and why we're here. They, by the very foundation of their belief, must believe in some sort of 'evolutionary' process for their existence because the only other explanation is that a god created them and that's just complete nonsense, right?

God bless you.
IN Christ, Ted
 
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KTskater

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Ronald

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berachah

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Here is a little list of peer-reviewed articles, published by respected journals, by scientists who disagree with the evolutionary model:

thanks for the references...
 
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Uhh, what do you mean Evolution hasn't been observed? What about the transitional species fossils, evidence of speciation/ring species? Or do you mean that NO, the scientists haven't been able to physically observe a biological process which takes millions of years to produce a visible change in an organism's phenotype? The ridiculous argument aside, scientists actually define Evolution as "...change in inherited characteristics of a biological population over successive generations...".
Ever wonder why insects develop a certain resistance to pesticides? Congrats, you've made your first "observation" of evolution in work.

Here's a question in logic. If creation happened by a miracle of God in violation of nartural law, could a science based on the study of natrual law ever possibly get the right answer regarding the process?

That's a big IF. Basically, speculation there.

But they ARE biased in that they demand all answers be framed using natural processes. Miracles defy natural processes.

...so what you're saying is that science, a study of natural things in the natural world is biased because it doesn't adhere to your unsubstantiated beliefs?
 
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sfs

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"Any system of interacting parts in which the removal of any one part destroys the function of the entire system. An irreducibly complex system, then, requires each and every component to be in place before it will function." Michael Behe
Yes, I'm aware of Behe's definition. Combine his definition with my previous comment (that major organs always have different versions, with slightly or significantly different components) and you will find that major organs are not irreducibly complex.
I'm quite comfortable thinking that way. I've yet to encounter a credible reason to reject the idea.

Then what is designing and ordering the eco-system if it is not designing itself?
We can watch ecosystems change themselves as conditions change. No direction from outside is required; mutation and natural selection (and various other natural processes) do the job.

This kind of order speaks to a designer.
The presence of order in the universe, and especially the fruitful order we see in biology, may speak to a designer. As a Christian, part of my faith is that it does. That nothing to do with your claim that natural selection requires a mind to work; it doesn't. All it requires is for some organisms to reproduce more often than others.

Yes, I know you said that. The problem is that it's wrong. We can take a bunch of genetically identical organisms, let them reproduce for many generations, and observe how they adapt to their environment. They do adapt, and the changes are indeed the result of new mutations that have become common because of natural selection.
 
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sfs

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No, that's not what Tomkins was saying. He said that evolution predicted that organisms should be fine if you knock out genes. What he said was wrong. Why do creationists find it so hard to speak accurately about science?

And why must the Duffy genetic variences be a mutation?
It doesn't have to be, but where else would it have come from -- propose an alternative explanation and we can evaluate it. Why wouldn't it be a mutation, though? It's just a single-base difference, just like one of the millions of mutations that occur every day.

People in Africa are immune to vivax malaria for a very specific reason: a single base in their DNA -- a single letter in their genetic instructions -- is different. They have a C (cytosine) where others have a T (thymine). Nothing to do with the dynamic state of their bodies, defense mechanisms, or anything else.

With your logic people who live in Africa are in the early stages of evolving into another species because they have responded to produce large amounts of melamine to protect from the sun.
If a Norwegian moves to the tropics and is exposed to the sun every day for 70 years, will his skin turn as dark as an African's? When an African moves to Minnesota, does her skin turn pale after a few years without the sun?

Well I have recently developed lactose intolerance...Does that mean my mutated gene has reversed itself.. Every response of the body to the environment is not a mutation.
It's certainly true that not every response of the body is a mutation, and not all lactose intolerance has the same basis. It is just as true, however, that some differences between bodies are the result of mutations, and it is equally certain that a mutation caused Europeans (among others) to develop lactose tolerance in adults.

So if changing the genes of the dna does lead to the evolving from one species to another what does? Please dont say natural selection and adaptation to the environment....
Mutating one of the handful of core developmental genes is not involved in one species evolving into another. Mutating some of the 10,000+ other genes is involved. The paper in question was only looking at that handful of genes, not at genes in general.

Essentially they grew better because of the changes of the more suitable and favourable environment they were placed in. Just like any organism would.
False. The environment was identical throughout the experiment. Yet bacteria from later generations grew better than ones from earlier generations, in the same environment. (And the environment was not at all favorable, in fact.)

In my opinion the body has all the data, capacity and inbuilt ingenuity to respond to various changes in its environment and these are not mutations but responses and adjustments.
Reality doesn't care what your opinion is. In real organisms, mutations occur all the time, and some of them lead to offspring that are better adapted to their environments. Even creationist organizations recognize this fact.
 
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berachah

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No, that's not what Tomkins was saying. He said that evolution predicted that organisms should be fine if you knock out genes. What he said was wrong. Why do creationists find it so hard to speak accurately about science?

Please reread the article I posted as you clearly did not understand it.


When you speak of mutations you (because of your belief system) believe the organism is mutating due to its inbuilt capacity to mutate and evolve to a higher species. The reality is that mutations in the overwhelming majority produce nothing good (ignoring the fact that statistically the odds of creatures evolving through mutations is so low as to be zero) and the mutations you refer to (as other have stated) largely result in cancer, disease, the ageing process and other negative changes within the body.

There is clear evidence showing vaccinations cause downs syndrome, another mutation, so clearly there are influences without that cause mutations that do not come from the body itself. I would suggest this is probably the same for any mutations you might be thinking of...


Malaria is the biggest killer in Africa by far. The fact that some people have survived the disease and over generations built an immunity against the disease (which is manifest in their genetic makeup) does mean this is a mutation, just the same as westerner resistance to flu does not mean they have mutations. Far more likely the internal resistance and defense to a disease cause a change in the genetic makeup which should not be referred to as a mutation.

sfs said:
If a Norwegian moves to the tropics and is exposed to the sun every day for 70 years, will his skin turn as dark as an African's? When an African moves to Minnesota, does her skin turn pale after a few years without the sun?

How about 10 generations...how about 100 generations? You dont know the answer do you? The fact is white people emigrated to Africa 150 years ago from Holland and their (those in Southern Africa) complextion is far darker their forefathers and that alone suggest that this is quite possible.


Well I guess when it suits the theory it a mutation...

sfs said:
False. The environment was identical throughout the experiment. Yet bacteria from later generations grew better than ones from earlier generations, in the same environment. (And the environment was not at all favorable, in fact.)

so you missed the part about increasing the temperature of the environment or just chose to ignore this?

sfs said:
Reality doesn't care what your opinion is. In real organisms, mutations occur all the time, and some of them lead to offspring that are better adapted to their environments. Even creationist organizations recognize this fact.

Your reality...
Im afraid your take on mutations is birthed out of yielding to a godless doctrine that blinds you to sound scientific discernment, common sense and the truths of the Bible.

A Look at Some Figures - Answers in Genesis

Evolutionists generally believe that although the spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter was a highly improbable event, the amount of time available is long enough to overcome this problem. This fallacy is because they (and most of us, really) just haven’t gotten around to some actual calculating on some of these problems.
The difficult thing is to conceive the size of some of the figures obtained. James F. Coppedge in the book Evolution: Possible or Impossible? has given some fascinating examples, one of which is here presented. Consider first this statement from the evolutionist George Wald writing on The Origin of Life in the Scientific American (1954):
Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless there. Given so much time, the “impossible” becomes possible; the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait; time itself performs the miracles.
Now using Coppedge’s figures, let’s take a look at the time it would take for one simple gene to arrange itself by chance. Remember, natural selection cannot operate until a self-replicating system is produced. Of course, this gene by itself is still only a dead molecule in the absence of other genes and other complex chemicals all perfectly arranged in time and space. Nevertheless, let us use as many sets as there are atoms in the universe. Let us give chance the unbelievable number of attempts of eight trillion tries per second in each set! At this speed on average it would take 10147 years to obtain just one stable gene. What does this number really mean? Let’s look at Coppedge’s example; assume we have an amoeba—and let’s assume that this little creature is given the task of carrying matter, one atom at a time from one edge of the universe to the other (though to be about thirty billion light years in diameter). Let’s further assume that this amoeba moves at the incredible slow pace of one Angstrom until (about the diameter of a hydrogen atom) every fifteen billion years (this is the assumed age of the universe assigned by many evolutionists). How much matter could this amoeba carry in this time calculated to arrange just one usable gene by chance? The answer is that he would be able to carry 2 x 1021 complete universes!
This means that all the people living on earth, man, woman and child, counting day and night, would be counting for five thousand years just to count the number of entire universes which this amoeba would have transported across a distance of thirty billion light years, one atom at a time.
Coppedge’s book makes fascinating reading in other respects and is one of the few works that really comes to grips with this matter of molecular biology and probability mathematics.
Evolutionists would have us believe that modern molecular biology lends its support to their world view, but the more information comes to hand, the more preposterous the whole idea of a naturalistic origin of life becomes.
 
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sfs

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Please reread the article I posted as you clearly did not understand it.
I read it carefully. Please point out where I misunderstood it.

When I speak of mutations, I mean mutations: any change to DNA that can be passed on to descendants. It doesn't matter whether they are good, bad or neither: they're all mutations. We know that mutations happen all the time because we observe them happening all the time; we also know the mechanisms by which most of them occur. Yes, most mutations in humans have no effect on fitness, and of those that do affect fitness, the overwhelming majority are deleterious.

None of this has anything to do with the question I asked: why couldn't the Duffy null trait be the result of a mutation? The difference between those who have that trait and those who don't is a single-base change to their DNA, the kind of change that happens all the time in the mutations that we observe. So why couldn't this have started out as a mutation?

I'm aware of zero evidence that vaccinations cause Down syndrome. Are you thinking of autism? There's also zero evidence that vaccinations cause autism, but at least that's a popular belief, unlike your claim about Down syndrome. It's also simply not true that all mutations cause problems, since I've pointed out multiple cases in which a known mutation is beneficial for humans.

I'm afraid this paragraph is meaningless. A mutation is defined as a change in the genetic makeup. What would a change in genetic makeup be that should not be referred to as a mutation? Where are you getting these ideas?

Well, yes, I do have a pretty good idea about the answer; coming up with such answers is one of the things I do for a living. 10 generations is impossible, 100 generations is quite unlikely, and 1000 generations is likely.

Well I guess when it suits the theory it a mutation...
No, when it's a mutation it's a mutation. Do you know anything about the genetic basis for lactose tolerance, or are you just trying to be randomly insulting?

so you missed the part about increasing the temperature of the environment or just chose to ignore this?
I missed it because it wasn't there. Quoting from the paper describing the experiment: "Twelve E. coli populations were propagated at 37 °C for 6,000 days in minimal medium supplemented with limiting glucose." Constant temperature for 6000 days -- not much of an increase, was it? Where did you get the idea that the temperature changed?

Your reality...
Im afraid your take on mutations is birthed out of yielding to a godless doctrine that blinds you to sound scientific discernment, common sense and the truths of the Bible.
What rubbish. My take on mutations is birthed out of my long professional experience as a geneticist. In contrast, your take on mutations seems to have been birthed out of thin air. If you will recall, my complaint was that creationists misrepresent science all the time. I'm afraid you're doing a fine job in this thread of proving my point. (Even Answers in Genesis lists "There are no beneficial mutations" as one of the arguments that creationists should never use.)

[Irrelevant material deleted -- it has nothing to do with mutations or even evolution, for that matter.]
 
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berachah

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I read it carefully. Please point out where I misunderstood it.
In the majority of cases, the disruption of single genes reduced the fitness of the nematode populations. This was an effect that kept increasing with successive generations. Theoretically, this would have eventually led to extinction.
As a result, researchers concluded that most every gene tested was essential to survival of the nematode. Because the mutant worms' fitness decreased over successive generations, the researchers also concluded that even single mutations negatively impact entire gene networks.
The researchers wrote,
In contrast to previous estimates, we find that, in these multigeneration population assays, the majority of genes affect fitness, and this suggests that genetic networks are not robust to mutation. Our results demonstrate that, in a single environmental condition, most animal genes play essential roles.1
In the biological evolution model, the process of genome mutation not only involves the hypothetical alteration of gene sequences, but the idea that not all genes are essential to life. In other words, there is room in the cell system for DNA to randomly change, so that once in a while it can spit out some useful new gene sequence to advance evolutionary progress. However, this new study shows that even though the cell systems in roundworms are dynamic and environmentally responsive, the fine-tuned DNA-based informational system that underlies it cannot be corrupted without diminishing its ability to survive.


Well you arrogantly dismissed my point that it is possible that the genetic make up of an organism could already include all the material that could lead to the changes in the DNA (in response to the influences of the environment), so I doubt you would receive anything except what your puffed up geneticist mind already believes.

In fact as a follow up to the E coli experient by Lenski (and in agreement with my comment above) you might be dare yourself to read this article. Bacterial 'Evolution' Is Actually Design in Action The conclusions showing that the Ecoli's ability to import citrate was through the amplification (of existing genetic material) and changes to the DNA order.

Besides that after 50 000 generations they were still E coli after another 5 000 000 generations they will still be.


Yes I am referring to autism and there is more than anough material to show the link between this / other diseases and vaccines, but clearly you have a filter on what material you are prepared to engage.

sks said:
I'm afraid this paragraph is meaningless. A mutation is defined as a change in the genetic makeup. What would a change in genetic makeup be that should not be referred to as a mutation? Where are you getting these ideas?

read my above comments

sks said:
Well, yes, I do have a pretty good idea about the answer; coming up with such answers is one of the things I do for a living. 10 generations is impossible, 100 generations is quite unlikely, and 1000 generations is likely.

And let us say after 1000 generations the offspring moved back to the North pole, do you suppose that after another 1000 generations there would be reverse mutation? (important considering -and according to evolutionists - there is evidence of cyclical weather patterns of a severe nature)


I wouldnt beat my chest so loudly because you're a geneticist. Last I heard your ilk were professing that people were gay because of their genetic makeup....

One only need read the ongoing contradictions of prominent geneticists and the failure of the profession to offer any meaningful breakthrough against disease and sickness to know that this field is in its infancy and is still like a blind man feeling his way in the dark..

You would do well to broaden your study and perhaps read a book by Henry Wright called "A more excellent way."

But one thing that your profession will no doubt one day 'discover' is that reborn Christians have a genetic flaw and in the not so distant they should be removed from society to advance the human race....
 
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berachah

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Apparently the fact that I bothered to learn about genetics before discussing the subject represents a grave character flaw on my part. I see no point to further discussion here.

Just before you go, perhaps you can, from a geneticist's point of view, answer this.....?

If it took 1000's of generations for the Ecoli to develop the ability to take in citrate how did the first creature that spontaneously burst forth into life (to start the process of evolution) actually survive as surely it would take more than 100 000's of generations to develop the ability to take in anything?

'...iron sharpens iron'
 
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