Greetings Ready to Debate Evolution!

[FellowshipChurch iBook]

Greetings Everyone! This is my first post on this forum. I had no idea this forum existed. I came across it today. I have been discussing Intelligent Design Creation in another forum on the web for about a month now. I opened a thread that now has 16 pages 611 reply's to it.

I must say I have taken in a high level of perspective on both sides of this issue. I lean towards Intelligent Design Creation strongly and believe the path of thinking known of as "the theory of evolution" is completely incorrect at the foundational precepts advanced by the founders of the theory.

I hope to get vigorous challenge from the evolutionists here on the board.

I will let you know I have not "checked my intellect in at the door" by adopting my views on Intelligent Design Creation.

I have no time for name calling as it is not pertaining to the subject nor is it of any use to advance the plausibility of the ideas expressed by the proponents of evolution theory.

I will (write this down) never name call.

I only expect the same level of respect. (It is not a lot to ask really)

On the issues of Evolution I would like to submit a brief TOC (table of contents) of various topics I will discuss and bring forward for the purpose of supporting my views.

As Follows:

In regard to chemical evolution:

Molecular Biology
Protein Folding
Irreducible Complexity
Left and Right handed Amino Acids
How many Original Ancestors? Just one?
Genetic mutations via radiation etc.
Genetic variation
Discuss order systems such as biota "Block Creatures" and work by Stephen Wolfram.

In regard to macro evolution:

The fossil record
Gradualism
Punctuated equilibrium
Climate and Ecology

Cosmological evolution will be discussed at a later time.

Fellowship

 

[FellowshipChurch iBook]

I will begin with saying that I have no problem with all branches of Science. I take issue with the theory of evolution (chemical, macro and cosmological)

Origins is not a subject that is bound to the realm of the natural. True Science searches for the truth.

The Supernatural may be a reality that Science is not correctly tooled to address.

If origins are indeed of Supernatural origin by an Intelligent Designer / Creator this presents some challenges for human understanding.

Namely that Creator would have to be identified and that is not scientifically possible.

For this I will disclose now that origins may never be understood due to the fact we are unable to confine the designer / creator within a set of brackets for observation.

Indeed if it were true that Life originated via Intelligent Design Creation (IDC) science would be providing a false and incorrect approach to understanding origins all together.

While naturalistic are the ONLY ways origins could have happened (in the lenses of Science) in a closed system with no outside force responsible for Design and Creation.

Only one thing wrong with this assumption.

Many make the mistake of assuming that because "the theory of evolution" is part of Science, it therefor "Has" to be true.

I will link to a website for your expanded perspective on the issue of Design.

Consider it for added perspective:

http://www.iscid.org/williamdembski.php

God Bless and I look forward to continuing this discussion when I am afforded more time.

Fellowship

 

[D. Scarlatti]

Let me say it's appreciated that you refer to "Intelligent Design Creationism" for what it is: "Creationism."

Now which of William Dembski's philosophical/theological/political arguments (since he doesn't do biology) would you like to address?

 

[FellowshipChurch iBook]

D. Scarlatti Greetings,

I posted the link you reference as a reference to the views held not only by the founder but to the society fellows of the entire organization. The work brought forward by the various individuals I generally support and place the burden on "buyers" of the theory of evolution to bring to my attention anything that may be considered a misguided view.

As you may know it is widely viewed that IDC advocates rip at the theory of evolution.

I simply want the same. Please consider the work put forward by these men and women and bring to my attention anything that does not fly intellectually in your mind.

At such a juncture I will be pleased to discuss our different perspectives in viewing the same data.

With Tremendous Respect,

Fellowship

 

[FellowshipChurch iBook]

Greetings Members,

I would like to pose a challenge on a specific question in regards to the theory of evolution.

It is put forward more times than I can recall the following statement by evolutionists:

"All life originated from a common ancestor"

How is that known?

Just one ancestor that spawned all life? Why not two or three or a dozen or a few thousand or a few million "original ancestors" That came about independently of each other and plausibly led to individual and varying paths of evolution? (considering we are viewing this within the confines of the evolutionist lenses)

Were these evolutionists there? Do they somehow know there was just one ancestor common to all life?

Of course I do not lend credit to this whole idea of macro evolution origins but for those who do what a speculative theory to have to defend right off the bat.

Do any of you (evolutionists in particular) question this statement that "All life originated from a common ancestor" ?

Or do you just buy it hook line and sinker, No questions asked?

Could you give me the evidence that proves in your mind why that statement is in your mind "correct" ?

I would like to know how you come to terms to accept that statement above.

Thank you,
Fellowship

I am a very curious person. Some insight would be most helpful for my understanding of this doctrine put forward by evolutionists.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Hello Fellowship and welcome to the forum.
You bring up an interesting point about the concept of common ancestry to all life. I would think that the idea that there are multiple ancestors to life on earth is accepted by many. Just look at ourselves, one type of bacteria for the body of the cell, and another for the mitochondria. Two independant lineages merged into one (or three in the case of chloroplasts and plants).
Did these cholroplast, mitochondria and eukaryote ancestors share a common ancestry further back? Perhaps, but the answer most likely is not so simple.
The transition between life and non-life is not as clear cut as one may suppose. Early in the Earth's history there was likely a time when complex chemical reactions that straddle the borderline between living and nonliving (i.e. micropheres) was widespread and diverse. Most probably, life arose multiple times in this planet wide soup over the early eons. How many of those early starts persited? I doubt we will ever know.
Perhaps uch conditions of complex chemistry like that can be found on other planets for us to really understand what the world was like then (the outer atmosphere of Venus may proove to be such a place).

 

[Morat]

How is that known?

 Genetic and structural analysis.

Just one ancestor that spawned all life? Why not two or three or a dozen or a few thousand or a few million "original ancestors" That came about independently of each other and plausibly led to individual and varying paths of evolution? (considering we are viewing this within the confines of the evolutionist lenses)

  Actually, whether there was one root or many (I think the highest is 'three') is a matter of some debate. It basically boils down to using a sort of genetic archealogy.

Were these evolutionists there? Do they somehow know there was just one ancestor common to all life?

   Where you there when the Great Pyramid was built? Did you see the Apollo Moon landing? Where you there when the Solar System formed? The Grand Canyon?

   Who was there when a young woman was murdered? Who alive remembers the name and history of a city buried under the sand?

   You're not actually claiming that forensic science, archealogy, and any other field of research that delves into past events has to do so by something as crude and easy to decieve as mere sight, are you?

 

 

[FellowshipChurch iBook]

Greetings Morat,

Genetic and structural analysis

You claimed would get us to where we "Know"
"All life originated from a common ancestor"

Ahhhh Slow down here.. as a matter of fact let's pause here for a second. Please give me a link to this knowledge that you allege is "Known".

Once you can provide this back up to lend validation to your claim I will discuss these findings with you.

You went on covering your dismay that indeed the pyramids were built in history as well as other items how could it be I would have issue with forensic science, archealogy, and any other field of research that delves into past events. Answer I have no issue with these fields of research. Show me the findings that support the claim that "All life originated from a common ancestor"


I will check in regularly for your responses to my questions.

With Tremendous Respect,

Fellowship

 

[RufusAtticus]

Fellowship,

Since you are asking about common descent, how much common descent do you accept? IOW, how may species and/or taxa are related to Man? Where does the tree of life determined by biologists and other scientists stop being accurate, in your view? Please explain your reasoning for making your determination.

Browse the tree of life if you need help making your answer.

 

[Finrod]

I will begin with saying that I have no problem with all branches of Science. I take issue with the theory of evolution (chemical, macro and cosmological)

*sigh*.

First off, there is no such thing as cosmological, chemical or macro evolution. There is only evolution, and it is biological.

This "cosmological, chemical, macro" bit is an old ploy. By combining elements of theories not relating to evolution, it becomes easier to make bogus arguments.

They have names you know. Cosmological evolution is really the Big Bang Theory. Not evolution. And so on....

 

[blader]

Origins is not a subject that is bound to the realm of the natural.

Science is a subject that is bound to the natural. Religion isn't.

True Science searches for the truth.

True science searches for natural explanations that best fit the evidence. Such as it is, evolution is a science. Creationism is not.

 

[Cantuar]

The Supernatural may be a reality that Science is not correctly tooled to address.

That's right. So science doesn't address the supernatural. Which means that if intelligent design involves a supernatural designer, it isn't science.

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
"All life originated from a common ancestor"

How is that known?

Just one ancestor that spawned all life? Why not two or three or a dozen or a few thousand or a few million "original ancestors"

I'm not an evolutionist, but I'll take a crack at it as if I were an evolutionist.

1. Spontaneous generation is unsupportable and way too embarrassing so we evolutionists divorced ourselves from it. We now insist that spon...er, abiogenesis has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution, so we don't care if there was one or a thousand common ancestors except when it is convenient to argue that we all came from one ancestor.

2. If I were going to argue in favor of spon...er, abiogenesis, I would say that the so-called statistical "proofs" that it could never have occurred ignore parallelism. That is, the first living single-celled organism didn't have to emerge in one long chain of events, but it could have emerged from a series of events that occurred in parallel. Looking at it this way makes it seem statistically more feasible for a cell to emerge. However, it should be noted that all these parallel developments somehow miraculously ceased the moment the common ancestor emerged, otherwise there WOULD have been thousands of common ancestors.

How's that?

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook


"All life originated from a common ancestor"

How is that known?

There are a number of ways to approach this, but I think it's interesting that you claim to believe in intelligent design, but then attack something that most intelligent design advocates have accepted out of sheer logical necessity; if God does, indeed, direct evolution, than evolution has to have happened.

Arguments for common ancestry include, but are hardly limited to, genetic and structural evidence for the similarity of life forms.

Anyway, I think the whole debate is fairly pointless. I've seen the evidence, I've been convinced that common descent and evolution are the best going theory for how life as we know it got where it is today. Since you apparently want me to change my mind, why not start by presenting reasons for which I should not continue to accept this working hypothesis.

Good reasons would be, say, errors in the evidence I've seen, or a more compelling theory. I am not particularly inclined to accept "God magically made it look as though this process happened" as a theory. In my experience, God's a big fan of setting the system up to do what He wants it to, and direct intervention is reserved for special occasions, so my default assumption will always be that the universe procedes according to consistent physical laws, as God ordained it.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by seebs
In my experience, God's a big fan of setting the system up to do what He wants it to, and direct intervention is reserved for special occasions, so my default assumption will always be that the universe procedes according to consistent physical laws, as God ordained it.

Well then get a new experience.

 

[Cantuar]

Be careful what you ask for...

 

[Morat]

You claimed would get us to where we "Know"
"All life originated from a common ancestor"

Ahhhh Slow down here.. as a matter of fact let's pause here for a second. Please give me a link to this knowledge that you allege is "Known".

Once you can provide this back up to lend validation to your claim I will discuss these findings with you.

You went on covering your dismay that indeed the pyramids were built in history as well as other items how could it be I would have issue with forensic science, archealogy, and any other field of research that delves into past events. Answer I have no issue with these fields of research. Show me the findings that support the claim that "All life originated from a common ancestor"

  Excellent. I recommend you start with, say..the relevant journals, where debate is ongoing right now as to the earliest forms of life.

    Do you have access to the major journals for evolutionary biology and biochemistry?

 Here is a nice list, and you might check here as well.

 

 

[Sky]

This whole debate about science is pointless. Why don't we talk about more important things?

 

[D. Scarlatti]

Hi again FCiB.

FellowshipChurch iBook wrote: Irreducible Complexity

I can't find this term in a BIOSIS search of several thousand refereed publications, aside from a couple of book reviews and an article in The Journal of Philosophy.

Perhaps the discussion can begin by you telling us what "irreducible complexity" is, and how it relates to biology?

 

[FellowshipChurch iBook]

Originally posted by Morat
  Excellent. I recommend you start with, say..the relevant journals, where debate is ongoing right now as to the earliest forms of life.

    Do you have access to the major journals for evolutionary biology and biochemistry?

 Here is a nice list, and you might check here as well.

 

Morat Greetings.

I went to your links above and I am most let down by such poor sources.

First of all so many broken links that lead to nothing. I can't tell you how many broken links I ran into, far too many.

I can not address the evidence you provide if it is not provided.

I did however see the topics of discussion that are listed (while broken links) I did see at least the topics discussed.

To which I laugh. Not personal but against the material mentioned on that list.

So many of these things linked are de-bunked and scientists that are not joined at the hip with evolution admit the false jumps being taken by some scientists assumptions / evaluations as the ones listed on your broken links.

Let me directly address some of this:

Bacteria on Mars?

That's fishy... You have faith in a rock from space that "seems" to look like it has a fossil record of bacteria...

Goodness that is a leap of faith...

How about you show me some actual living bacteria that is demonstrated to actually be bacteria from Mars not just something that "seems" to look like it.

quote from link posted below:

William Schopf, who was present at the NASA conference, voiced many of the objections listed above (see Grady et al., 1996). “The biological explanation,” he said, “was unlikely.” Another critic was John F. Kerridge—lead author on a paper advising NASA on a strategy for finding life on Mars. Although impressed with the science in the paper, Kerridge concluded that it “fell far short of establishing the case for evidence of biological activity.” Even McKay, as the project’s team leader, denied having found the “smoking gun” of life, let alone “absolute proof_” of life, either past or present.

www.apologeticspress.org

Also: If you like a source from something more joined in the Sciences as a reference consider the following Snip:

Now the Jan. 16 Science carries a pincer attack on that speculation.

Brief background blurb

Maybe we are alone after all
Recall that the meteorite in question originated on Mars, then was blasted into space by an asteroid collision. It was found in Antarctica in 1984 after laying around for some 12,000 years.

After inspecting part of the meteorite, NASA's David McKay and colleagues located tiny carbonate structures and organic molecules on the meteorite that seemed to have been formed by bacteria on Mars more than 1.3 billion years ago.

fossil

Magnification of "fossils" in the Martian meteorite and the "red planet" (left) courtesy of NASA.

A sample of the Mars rock to scale against a paper clip. © UW-Madison/John Valley.

A mars meteorite sample clearly showing the orange-yellow carbonate globules. © UW-Madison/John Valley (The Red Planet is now frozen and dry, but it was much warmer and wetter back then.)

Although the assertion was controversial from the first, only now have scientists analyzed the meteorite's main organic compounds. The results are fueling the doubters. "This is bad news with respect to using these meteorites to assess whether there ever was or is life on Mars," says Jeffrey Bada. Bada, director of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Exobiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, was the main author of one of the new reports.

While not eliminating the possibility that life once existed on Mars, the new findings do seem to nullify the evidence for it.

Oops!
Bada's team spent years looking at amino acids in fragments from various meteorites. In August, 1997, they received fragments of the potato-sized meteorite that caused the sensation in 1996. okay, it's really smallThe researchers studied amino acids because they are the building blocks for proteins and enzymes and thus are essential to all known forms of life.

Amino acids and some other molecules can form in either of two mirror images. Like your own hands, both versions of these so-called "handed" chemicals look alike. But just as your left hand won't fit a right-hand glove, the opposite versions of handed chemicals are not identical. This distinction matters: biological systems only work if the handed chemicals are all in the same form. (On Earth, all amino acids used to make proteins are left-handed.)

Normally, you'd expect that the discovery of amino acids -- a foundation of life -- in a rock from Mars would be exciting news. But Bada's analysis showed that almost all of those amino acids were lefties -- just like life on Earth and other amino acids in the ice where the meteorite lay for 12,000 years.

More telling was the particular amino acids found in the meteorite. While earthly life uses more than 20 of these building blocks, only four were found in the meteorite -- exactly the same cast of characters as found in the ice. To Bada, the conclusion was inescapable. "They are clearly terrestrial and they look similar to amino acids we see in the surrounding Antarctic ice."

Believe it or not, scientists usually choose simple explanations over complex ones. And Bada says the simplest explanation for his findings was that the organic chemical had originated on Earth. And the second new study only reinforced that line of thought.

Another shoe drops
To understand the second study, we must return to McKay's 1996 report, which speculated that microbes had formed peculiar mineral grains found inside carbonate structures in the meteorite. As further evidence of life, McKay pointed to organic molecules in the meteorite.

I'm ready for my closeup But the study by A.J. Timothy Jull of the University of Arizona, also reported Jan. 16, undercuts that notion. Rather than inspect amino acids, Jull looked at the concentrations of two isotopes of carbon, the most important element in living things. (Isotopes are types of elements containing different numbers of neutrons; an isotope's number denotes its atomic weight.)

Since the carbonates and the organic material were supposedly formed by microbes that were taking in the same chemicals from the Martian environment, Jull reasoned that both should have contained the same proportions of carbon-13 and carbon-14. But he found "the organic material contains carbon-14 and the carbonate doesn't."

Carbon-14 often forms in Earth's upper atmosphere when an energetic particle like a cosmic ray blasts into a nitrogen nucleus, ejecting a proton. Thus Jull concluded that the carbonate minerals, which lack carbon-14, must have come from "somewhere in space, presumably Mars, and the organic material is a recent addition which took place while the meteorite was sitting on the ice." The disparity between the isotopes proved "there is no connection between the two things."

That covers the life on mars business pretty well. De-Bunked unless of course you still hold out faith in the unlikely. Again "faith" not fact or evidence.

Don't even get me started on Dr. Gould and the joke of "Suboptimality"

Link to read over if you want a nice laugh over that misguided nonsense:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/defdocs/rr1991/r&r9111a.htm


The Tree of Life is not origins nor was the following statement true "All life originated from a common ancestor"

Again for those who like to "believe" otherwise Micro-evolution does indeed occur, (We all agree on that)

Macro-evolution is not scientific in any way.

With Tremendous Respect,

Fellowship