Happy birthday On the Origin of Species

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Brightmoon

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Yep people are still mad about it .

Some people think that scientists worship Darwin and his book . He got the major concepts of evolution correct but we’ve had 160 years of research about evolution that have gone way past what Darwin understood . It’s silly to think that we think of this book as Christians think of the Bible
 

Jonaitis

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View attachment 267237

Yep people are still mad about it .

Some people think that scientists worship Darwin and his book . He got the major concepts of evolution correct but we’ve had 160 years of research about evolution that have gone way past what Darwin understood . It’s silly to think that we think of this book as Christians think of the Bible

It is an interesting work of fiction, I recommend it to any aspiring apologist to help them begin their journey to evangelize the lost in the secular realm.
 
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Shemjaza

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It is an interesting work of fiction, I recommend it to any aspiring apologist to help them begin their journey to evangelize the lost in the secular realm.
If arguing against biological science is a part of your apologetics, then being 160 years out of date is an astonishing mistake.
 
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Brightmoon

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Personally, I’d recommend reading more up to date scientific literature to science illiterates . But if you are a science illiterate you wouldn’t understand the professional science journals anyway. Catch 22 writ large. But if you can stand the verbal Victorianisms , On the Origin of Species will explain, at a very basic level, an understanding of the theories of evolution . With the caveat that while Darwin didn’t always have a lot of evidence 160 years ago , we certainly do now.
 
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durangodawood

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It is an interesting work of fiction, I recommend it to any aspiring apologist to help them begin their journey to evangelize the lost in the secular realm.
Attacking evolution by natural selection has got to be the worst possible way to convince non-believers to come to the faith.
 
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Strathos

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Attacking evolution by natural selection has got to be the worst possible way to convince non-believers to come to the faith.

I'd think arguing against a heliocentric solar system and arguing against a round earth are worse.
 
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Anguspure

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View attachment 267237

Yep people are still mad about it .

Some people think that scientists worship Darwin and his book . He got the major concepts of evolution correct but we’ve had 160 years of research about evolution that have gone way past what Darwin understood . It’s silly to think that we think of this book as Christians think of the Bible
Yes, our imagination has run wild and many leagues beyond the evidence for extrapolation from the very simple observation that is Darwins Molecular Fiddler.
 
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Anguspure

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Attacking evolution by natural selection has got to be the worst possible way to convince non-believers to come to the faith.
That much is true. The Love that we show people should out shine any other contentious view point that we hold.
Nevertheless the apologetic for the truth about the Creator should also be upheld within the Church.
 
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Speedwell

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That much is true. The Love that we show people should out shine any other contentious view point that we hold.
Nevertheless the apologetic for the truth about the Creator should also be upheld within the Church.
The only essential truth about the Creator is that He created. The truth or falsity of the theory of evolution is a separate question.
 
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Anguspure

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The only essential truth about the Creator is that He created. The truth or falsity of the theory of evolution is a separate question.
Certainly by the grace of God, nobody is condemned because their view on these things, and certainly this point alone is enough of a challenge for those of us who have been brought up in a strongly secular/atheist world.
Nevertheless a foundational point of Judeo-Christian theology is that God rested on the seventh "day" following six distinctive "days" of creation.
Of course evolution is a real phenomena. The observation of change over time and speciation through natural selection, as observed by Darwin and Science in general is very well established by observational evidence.
I do not think, however that we need to kau tau to the extrapolation of NS acting on random mutation as a creative force when there is no evidence of such a thing, and when the only known agent of this sort of creativity is the sort of intelligent intervention that is claimed by our God.
 
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Brightmoon

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Certainly by the grace of God, nobody is condemned because their view on these things, and certainly this point alone is enough of a challenge for those of us who have been brought up in a strongly secular/atheist world.
Nevertheless a foundational point of Judeo-Christian theology is that God rested on the seventh "day" following six distinctive "days" of creation.
Of course evolution is a real phenomena. The observation of change over time and speciation through natural selection, as observed by Darwin and Science in general is very well established by observational evidence.
I do not think, however that we need to kau tau to the extrapolation of NS acting on random mutation as a creative force when there is no evidence of such a thing, and when the only known agent of this sort of creativity is the sort of intelligent intervention that is claimed by our God.
natural selection acting on a random mutation isn’t creative? Just where do you think the nylon eating bacteria came from? The only thing they had to eat was nylon . That is pretty much the definition of natural selection acting on a random mutation

Creationist ignorance isn’t funny, it’s pathetic and a little scary because you want to teach your ignorant pseudoscience in USA public schools
 
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pitabread

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I do not think, however that we need to kau tau to the extrapolation of NS acting on random mutation as a creative force when there is no evidence of such a thing, and when the only known agent of this sort of creativity is the sort of intelligent intervention that is claimed by our God.

If this was actually true, then why would NASA scientists use genetic algorithms directly based on natural selection (as per the theory of evolution) and claim superior results compared to traditional design methods?

http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/Space2006Antenna.pdf
 
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Anguspure

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natural selection acting on a random mutation isn’t creative? Just where do you think the nylon eating bacteria came from? The only thing they had to eat was nylon . That is pretty much the definition of natural selection acting on a random mutation
Nylonase involved the survival of a population of bacteria because of the mutation of one amino acid of a pre-existing protein with an existing function, causing change to allowing the efficient breakdown of nylon. There was nothing new created, nothing to see here.

Ann Gauger writes: "Thus, EII′ and EII did not have frameshifted new folds. They had pre-existing folds with activity characteristic of their fold type. There was no brand-new protein. No novel protein fold had emerged. And no frameshift mutation was required to produce nylonase.

Where did the nylon-eating ability come from? Carboxylesterases are enzymes with broad substrate specificities; they can carry out a variety of reactions. Their binding pocket is large and can accommodate a lot of different substrates. They are “promiscuous” enzymes, in other words. Furthermore, the carboxylesterase reaction hydrolyzes a chemical bond similar to the one hydrolyzed by nylonase. Tests revealed that both the EII and EII′ enzymes have carboxylesterase and nylonase activity. They can hydrolyze both substrates. In fact it is possible both had carboxylesterase activity and a low level of nylonase activity from the beginning, even before the appearance of nylon....So. This is not the story of a highly improbable frame-shift producing a new functional enzyme. This is the story of a pre-existing enzyme with a low level of promiscuous nylonase activity, which improved its activity toward nylon by first one, then another selectable mutation. In other words this is a completely plausible case of gene duplication, mutation, and selection operating on a pre-existing enzyme to improve a pre-existing low-level activity, exactly the kind of event that Meyer and Axe specifically acknowledge as a possibility, given the time and probabilistic resources available. Indeed, the origin of nylonase actually provides a nice example of the optimization of a pre-existing fold’s function, not the innovation or creation of a novel fold."

"Our studies demonstrated that among the 47 amino acids altered between the EII and EII’ proteins, a single amino acid substitution at position 181 was essential for the activity of 6-aminohexanoate-dimer hydrolase [nylonase] and substitution at position 266 enhanced the effect." Kato et al. (1991)

"Here, we propose that amino acid replacements in the catalytic cleft of a preexisting esterase with the β-lactamase fold resulted in the evolution of the nylon oligomer hydrolase."
X-ray Crystallographic Analysis of 6-Aminohexanoate-Dimer Hydrolase

"Let’s put to bed the fable that the nylon oligomer hydrolase EII, colloquially known as nylonase, arose by a frame-shift mutation, leading to the creation of a new functional protein fold. There is absolutely no need to postulate such a highly improbable event, and no justification for making this extravagant claim. Instead, there is a much more parsimonious explanation — that nylonase arose by a gene duplication event some time in the past, followed by a series of two mutations occurring after the introduction of nylon into the environment, which increased the nylon oligomer hydrolase activity of the nylB gene product to current levels. Could this series of events happen in forty years? Most certainly. Probably in much less time. In fact, it has been reported to happen in the lab under the right selective conditions. And most definitely, the evolution of nylonase does not call for the creation of a novel protein fold, nor did one arise. EII’s fold is part of the carboxylesterase fold family. Carboxylesterases serve many functions and have been around much longer than forty years." Anne Gauger The Nylonase Story: When Imagination and Facts Collide | Evolution News

Creationist ignorance isn’t funny, it’s pathetic and a little scary because you want to teach your ignorant pseudoscience in USA public schools
Scientistic mythology is even more dangerous, murderous in fact, because it teaches us to disregard the possibility of the Supernatural and by extension the eternal consequences thereof.

If Scientism is right about the creative effects of some evolutionary mechanism then maybe it wasn't an intellectually correct idea to hold to the idea of a Creator. But, really for the average man on the street? So What! Most secular people live completely happy lives never once giving the question a second thought (In fact the mere consideration of the question, either way, has a person labelled as "religious" in many circles).

But if they are wrong well then the Creation deniers may well have helped lead one hell of a lot of people to their eternal death by their teaching.
 
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Brightmoon

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Nylonase involved the survival of a population of bacteria because of the mutation of one amino acid of a pre-existing protein with an existing function, causing change to allowing the efficient breakdown of nylon. There was nothing new created, nothing to see here.

Ann Gauger writes: "Thus, EII′ and EII did not have frameshifted new folds. They had pre-existing folds with activity characteristic of their fold type. There was no brand-new protein. No novel protein fold had emerged. And no frameshift mutation was required to produce nylonase.

Where did the nylon-eating ability come from? Carboxylesterases are enzymes with broad substrate specificities; they can carry out a variety of reactions. Their binding pocket is large and can accommodate a lot of different substrates. They are “promiscuous” enzymes, in other words. Furthermore, the carboxylesterase reaction hydrolyzes a chemical bond similar to the one hydrolyzed by nylonase. Tests revealed that both the EII and EII′ enzymes have carboxylesterase and nylonase activity. They can hydrolyze both substrates. In fact it is possible both had carboxylesterase activity and a low level of nylonase activity from the beginning, even before the appearance of nylon....So. This is not the story of a highly improbable frame-shift producing a new functional enzyme. This is the story of a pre-existing enzyme with a low level of promiscuous nylonase activity, which improved its activity toward nylon by first one, then another selectable mutation. In other words this is a completely plausible case of gene duplication, mutation, and selection operating on a pre-existing enzyme to improve a pre-existing low-level activity, exactly the kind of event that Meyer and Axe specifically acknowledge as a possibility, given the time and probabilistic resources available. Indeed, the origin of nylonase actually provides a nice example of the optimization of a pre-existing fold’s function, not the innovation or creation of a novel fold."

"Our studies demonstrated that among the 47 amino acids altered between the EII and EII’ proteins, a single amino acid substitution at position 181 was essential for the activity of 6-aminohexanoate-dimer hydrolase [nylonase] and substitution at position 266 enhanced the effect." Kato et al. (1991)

"Here, we propose that amino acid replacements in the catalytic cleft of a preexisting esterase with the β-lactamase fold resulted in the evolution of the nylon oligomer hydrolase."
X-ray Crystallographic Analysis of 6-Aminohexanoate-Dimer Hydrolase

"Let’s put to bed the fable that the nylon oligomer hydrolase EII, colloquially known as nylonase, arose by a frame-shift mutation, leading to the creation of a new functional protein fold. There is absolutely no need to postulate such a highly improbable event, and no justification for making this extravagant claim. Instead, there is a much more parsimonious explanation — that nylonase arose by a gene duplication event some time in the past, followed by a series of two mutations occurring after the introduction of nylon into the environment, which increased the nylon oligomer hydrolase activity of the nylB gene product to current levels. Could this series of events happen in forty years? Most certainly. Probably in much less time. In fact, it has been reported to happen in the lab under the right selective conditions. And most definitely, the evolution of nylonase does not call for the creation of a novel protein fold, nor did one arise. EII’s fold is part of the carboxylesterase fold family. Carboxylesterases serve many functions and have been around much longer than forty years." Anne Gauger The Nylonase Story: When Imagination and Facts Collide | Evolution News

( snip)
g.
not with this bacteria
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That’s the problem with relying on creationist sources, you only get part of the whole story ! And the part you do get is misleading
 
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Anguspure

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If this was actually true, then why would NASA scientists use genetic algorithms directly based on natural selection (as per the theory of evolution) and claim superior results compared to traditional design methods?

http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/Space2006Antenna.pdf
Ah yes, the funny little aerial story. When applied to supply evidence of the creative power of "evolution" it is a good example of ingenious disingenuity, along similar lines to Dawkins' Weasel program.

Natural selection as a mechanism of elimination of less fit populations, leaving the most fit or best designed organism standing in the given environment, is a given and obvious.

Clearly the Antenna was not created as a result of natural selection acting on random mutation, however, which is necessarily blind and purposeless.

The search method used by NASA clearly incorporated design in that information about effective antennas was included in the program and was clearly searching with an end result in mind, that of the most efficient antenna.

Further to this Brian Miller writes:
"One of the most interesting examples they give is how NASA used an evolutionary algorithm to bend a length of wire into an effective X-band antenna.

In this way, the authors demonstrate the limitations of evolutionary algorithms. The general challenge is that all evolutionary algorithms are limited to converging on a very narrow range of results, a boundary known as Basener’s Ceiling. For instance, a program designed to produce an antenna will at best converge to the solution of an optimal antenna and then remain stuck. It could never generate some completely different result, such as a mousetrap. Alternatively, an algorithm designed to generate a strategy for playing checkers could never generate a strategy for playing backgammon. To change outcomes, the program would have to be deliberately adjusted to achieve a separate predetermined goal. In the context of evolution, no unguided process could converge on one organism, such as a fish, and then later converge on an amphibian.

This principle has been demonstrated both in simulations and in experiments. ....

In the end, the endogenous information associated with finding a new body plan or some other significant modification is vastly greater than that associated with the search space that biological offspring could possibly explore in the entire age of the universe. Therefore, as these authors forcefully show, in line with much previous research in the field of intelligent design, all radical innovations in nature required information from some outside intelligent source."

Evolutionary Informatics: Marks, Dembski, and Ewert Demonstrate the Limits of Darwinism | Evolution News
 
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Brightmoon

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That’s the problem with non living machines . They’re not as evolutionarily flexible as living organisms.

Getting only part of the story and being given misleading information to boot , is not understanding science, Angus
 
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Anguspure

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That’s the problem with non living machines . They’re not as evolutionarily flexible as living organisms.

Getting only part of the story and being give misleading information to boot , is not understanding science, Angus
The "flexibility" is the problem. If the search space for a new functional protein (for example) was limited and the number of possible functional proteins was at a high ratio compared to the search space then it could easily be seen that over a given number of searches we might get a result.

The truth is however that the search space (number of possible amino combinations and possible folds) is represented by a fantastically large number, and biologically functional proteins are exceedingly rare. There is only 1 good protein out of every 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 possible combinations (Axe, Undeniable) which is 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 times more proteins than could have ever existed on earth since its formation (Denton, Evolution 323)

That idea that non-intelligent mutation gave rise to anything advantageous for natural selection to act upon is fantastically improbable, let alone the idea that this happened thousands upon thousands of times, even over a period of 4 1/2 billion years.
 
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