Loggerhead Turtles Defy Evolutionary Explanation

[anabaptistfaith]

there are two things wrong with your question. FIRST you say vetebrate eye when you should be talking about the human eye. You must already know human eyes suck and are unwilling to defend it. And second showing that humans can make a better eye does nothing to show evolution. Just like when scientists made a compound with the conditions required for new life, creationtists rebutted with "see its designed", indicating that the scientist set up the conditions ignoring the fact the conditions easily can come about through nature.

but to answer your question, contacts and glasses, night vision goggles.

But it's not that easy. Consider the two alternatives to the current setup:

See a quote from this article:

Regenerating photoreceptors

Someone who does know about eye design is the ophthalmologist Dr George Marshall, who said:

“The idea that the eye is wired backward comes from a lack of knowledge of eye function and anatomy.”1​

He explained that the nerves could not go behind the eye, because the choroid occupies that space. This provides the rich blood supply needed for the very metabolically active retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). This is necessary to regenerate the photoreceptors, and to absorb excess heat from the light. So the nerves must go in front rather than behind. But as will be shown below, the eye’s design overcomes even this slight drawback.
In fact, what limits the eye’s resolution is the diffraction of light waves at the pupil (proportional to the wavelength and inversely proportional to the pupil’s size); so alleged improvements of the retina would make no difference to the eye’s performance.
It’s important to note that the ‘superior’ design of Dawkins with the (virtually transparent) nerves behind the photoreceptors would require either:

• The choroid in front of the retina—but the choroid is opaque because of all the red blood cells, so this design would be as useless as an eye with a hemorrhage!
• Photoreceptors not in contact with the RPE and choroid at all—but without a rich blood supply to regenerate, then it would probably take months before we could see properly after we were photographed with a flashbulb or we glanced at some bright object.

but what are earth do you mean by brute force of evolution?

Perhaps a better term would have been "the unintelligent, insentient force of evolution."

 

[MoonLancer]

anabaptistfaith

you did not address my answer. You didn't even bother. You probably had this post prepared and mined.

Perhaps a better term would have been "the unintelligent, insentient force of evolution."

Do you understand human language? or maybe you do but are simply dishonest. Is gravity unintelligent and insentient? Only evolution gets such treatment and slander.

but going with the definition of unintelligent to believe that evolution is unintelligent and then attribute its outcomes to GOD says more about you then evolution.

 

[Split Rock]

So Isaac Newton never explained the law of gravity? He was a creationist.

And he never used "Goddidit" to explain the law of gravity, or anything else for that matter, now did he?. So what is the point in claiming he was a creationist?

 

[Split Rock]

"We learn nothing...."? Not so. Isaac Newton, a man who could be considered the father of modern science actually wrote more on theology than science and would have been a firm believer in "Goddidit."

He never used "Goddidit" to explain anything in science.

You have apparently failed to notice the two words I placed before the term "Grand Canyon." I had said the absence of structures such as the Grand Canyon would be hard on creationism.

So, if there were no canyons, you wouldn't be a creationist? I seriously doubt that.

Ummm, why shouldn't there be? A worldwide flood is a big event. Big enough to leave fossils everywhere.

Fossilization usually takes a long time. Also, your flood doesn't explain the order of the fossil record.

Nobody likes to claim that brain activity is random. But in your worldview, why shouldn't it? If all we see around us has advanced from mere pond scum by lucky coincidence, should our brains not operate only on coincidence/chance? Where in the process from pond scum to people did chance stop existing as a factor? These are serious questions for your worldview, friend. I suggest you ponder it seriously before answering. And while doing so, why not allow the suggestion of a creator of your ability to ponder penetrate your organ that is pondering? In short, the human brain is too complicated for anyone to completely understand. Anyone, that is, besides a Being that would have created it complete in the first place.

You are still making no sense whatsoever. Brains don't evolve by chance and they don't work by chance. You are really confused about my so-called "worldview," aren't you? Maybe you shouldn't be telling me what my "worldview" is in the first place.

It has not been convincing because I claimed that creationism hinges on the existence of Grand Canyon? My claim was not that creationism hinges on the Grand Canyon. Simple enough?

Or any canyon. You would still be a creationist.

Those two words are easy to list. Documentation is another story.

You want documentation? Here's a PubMed search for "evolution."
Results: 1 to 20 of 293706
evolution - PubMed result

 

[Naraoia]

The claim of the evolutionist is that the vertebrate eye would be better fitted to life if it were created by an intelligent source. Since I suppose you would consider yourself intelligent (as opposed to the brute force of natural selection), please support this claim with evidence that there is a better design to be found that man would be capable of creating.

Um, God is supposed to be a lot better at creating than man, so I don't see why human engineering is relevant.

I'll discuss the rest of the eye issue in response to another of your posts.

I'll admit I may have been wrong in asserting that the origin of DNA is "impossibly circular". But what about the origin of DNA repair enzymes? They require DNA information to exist, yet they repair errors in DNA which would then rely on the repair enzyme. So this, I believe it would be safe to say, is at least almost impossibly circular.

Why? Let's first establish that the first DNA genomes would have been tiny compared to the genome of any cellular life form. They would have descended directly from RNA genomes, and RNA genomes can't grow large because of the reactivity of RNA (and, at this point, the lack of substantial repair).

DNA does spontaneously get altered, but, being more chemically stable, it does so less often than RNA (it doesn't break nearly as often, for one thing). So unrepaired DNA is still an improvement over RNA, and allows for larger genomes (compare the genome sizes of RNA and DNA viruses). Larger genomes provide room for new genes - among them those that code for repair enzymes. These are another improvement, now that the cell can afford them - with repair, it'll acquire fewer mutations, and more of its descendants will do well. Repair enzymes in turn allow for even larger genomes, yet more genes... and with a good enough set of them, the road to (nearly) endless forms is open.

By the way, Sarfati's article is very misleading in places. Where he says that "about a million DNA 'letters' are damaged in a cell on a good day", he doesn't say what species he's talking about, but I'd bet a fair sum that it is humans. (I'm also slightly suspicious of the number, but I don't have my relevant notes here to check) The human genome is several orders of magnitude larger than the first DNA-based life forms' would have been, and to top it, it resides in relatively long-lived cells in a phenomenally long-lived and slow-reproducing organism. We need to maintain that DNA, or it would be in ruins by the time we reproduce. To a protocell that produces descendants every few minutes, losing some of them to DNA damage is much less of a problem. These protocells also start out in a world where no one has repair mechanisms, so the competition is even.

And this is only beginning to get into the problems of the origin of the first living cell, something not required of evolution, per se, but of the atheistic evolutionist nonetheless.

Oh, you really should watch the first video in the Origins series (The Origin of Life). The scenario it describes is nothing short of neat. The best thing is, a lot of it is based on known chemistry, not speculation.

(Sorry, I can't help it, I'm a huge fan of cdk's videos. The effect of good science explained with pretty visuals, I guess :o)

But it's not that easy. Consider the two alternatives to the current setup:

See a quote from this article:

Regenerating photoreceptors

Someone who does know about eye design is the ophthalmologist Dr George Marshall, who said:

“The idea that the eye is wired backward comes from a lack of knowledge of eye function and anatomy.”1​

He explained that the nerves could not go behind the eye, because the choroid occupies that space. This provides the rich blood supply needed for the very metabolically active retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). This is necessary to regenerate the photoreceptors, and to absorb excess heat from the light. So the nerves must go in front rather than behind. But as will be shown below, the eye’s design overcomes even this slight drawback.
In fact, what limits the eye’s resolution is the diffraction of light waves at the pupil (proportional to the wavelength and inversely proportional to the pupil’s size); so alleged improvements of the retina would make no difference to the eye’s performance.

The greatest design flaw is not the resolution of the eye - heck, does any eye have better resolution than a raptor's? It's the presence of a blind spot. Sure, you can't sense that you have one unless you look for it, but that's because brains are good at pretending that such gaps don't exist. You wouldn't need a blind spot if the optic nerve didn't have to collect axons coming from the other side of the retina. And it's perfectly avoidable, cephalopods are living proof.

It’s important to note that the ‘superior’ design of Dawkins with the (virtually transparent) nerves behind the photoreceptors would require either:

• The choroid in front of the retina—but the choroid is opaque because of all the red blood cells, so this design would be as useless as an eye with a hemorrhage!
• Photoreceptors not in contact with the RPE and choroid at all—but without a rich blood supply to regenerate, then it would probably take months before we could see properly after we were photographed with a flashbulb or we glanced at some bright object.

Do octopuses have either problem? Certainly not the first...

It's interesting that the article talks about the "superior" designs of Dawkins as if they were hypothetical, when non-inverted retinas are found in many living animals (not just octopuses - figure 5 in this paper illustrates fairly complex "everse" eyes from a segmented worm and a snail, for example)

Besides, there's what, two, three layers of neurons connected to the retina? Granted, physiology isn't really my cup of tea, but that doesn't sound that far for stuff from blood vessels to travel. And couldn't you thread some capillaries among the neurons? Do the cell bodies even have to sit near the photoreceptors?

(BTW, again based on the diagrams in Arendt and Wittbrodt 2001, cephalopods don't have a RPE as such. Instead, pigmented cells are embedded between the photoreceptors. So in a sense, their retina can't not be in contact with the RPE. Why is that not an option for vertebrates?)

 

[anabaptistfaith]

And he never used "Goddidit" to explain the law of gravity, or anything else for that matter, now did he?. So what is the point in claiming he was a creationist?

Your claim was that no creationist can explain anything. Period. I showed that a creationist can explain something. Another period. Again, for things he would not have been able to explain, he would have been a firm believer in "Goddidit".

 

[anabaptistfaith]

And he never used "Goddidit" to explain the law of gravity, or anything else for that matter, now did he?. So what is the point in claiming he was a creationist?

Your claim was that no creationist can explain anything. Period. I showed that a creationist can explain something. Another period.

I repeat, for things he would not have been able to explain, he would have been a firm believer in "Goddidit".

 

[anabaptistfaith]

Um, God is supposed to be a lot better at creating than man, so I don't see why human engineering is relevant.

I'll discuss the rest of the eye issue in response to another of your posts.

Why? Let's first establish that the first DNA genomes would have been tiny compared to the genome of any cellular life form. They would have descended directly from RNA genomes, and RNA genomes can't grow large because of the reactivity of RNA (and, at this point, the lack of substantial repair).

DNA does spontaneously get altered, but, being more chemically stable, it does so less often than RNA (it doesn't break nearly as often, for one thing). So unrepaired DNA is still an improvement over RNA, and allows for larger genomes (compare the genome sizes of RNA and DNA viruses). Larger genomes provide room for new genes - among them those that code for repair enzymes. These are another improvement, now that the cell can afford them - with repair, it'll acquire fewer mutations, and more of its descendants will do well. Repair enzymes in turn allow for even larger genomes, yet more genes... and with a good enough set of them, the road to (nearly) endless forms is open.

Sounds like a nice theory. One problem: it is unobserved, much like the abhorred creationist view.

Oh, you really should watch the first video in the Origins series (The Origin of Life). The scenario it describes is nothing short of neat. The best thing is, a lot of it is based on known chemistry, not speculation.

(Sorry, I can't help it, I'm a huge fan of cdk's videos. The effect of good science explained with pretty visuals, I guess :o)

I don't have Youtube access.

The greatest design flaw is not the resolution of the eye - heck, does any eye have better resolution than a raptor's? It's the presence of a blind spot. Sure, you can't sense that you have one unless you look for it, but that's because brains are good at pretending that such gaps don't exist. You wouldn't need a blind spot if the optic nerve didn't have to collect axons coming from the other side of the retina. And it's perfectly avoidable, cephalopods are living proof.

Do octopuses have either problem? Certainly not the first...

It's interesting that the article talks about the "superior" designs of Dawkins as if they were hypothetical, when non-inverted retinas are found in many living animals (not just octopuses - figure 5 in this paper illustrates fairly complex "everse" eyes from a segmented worm and a snail, for example)

Besides, there's what, two, three layers of neurons connected to the retina? Granted, physiology isn't really my cup of tea, but that doesn't sound that far for stuff from blood vessels to travel. And couldn't you thread some capillaries among the neurons? Do the cell bodies even have to sit near the photoreceptors?

So you would rather go with the vision of an Octopus? It's up to you, but I'll gladly stick with the superior vision God has designed me with.

(BTW, again based on the diagrams in Arendt and Wittbrodt 2001, cephalopods don't have a RPE as such. Instead, pigmented cells are embedded between the photoreceptors. So in a sense, their retina can't not be in contact with the RPE. Why is that not an option for vertebrates?)

I'm really not a scientist, so I cannot follow up on all your speculation concerning RNA/DNA evolution and vertebrate eyes. But your propositions are intriguing. I suggest you present them to CMI scientists such as Sarfati by contacting them through their website.

(I have communicated with Sarfati myself, as have many other lay people. He would probably have time to answer your Octopus eye objections, and if not him, one of his colleagues.)

 

[Split Rock]

Your claim was that no creationist can explain anything. Period. I showed that a creationist can explain something. Another period. Again, for things he would not have been able to explain, he would have been a firm believer in "Goddidit".

Your claim was that no creationist can explain anything. Period. I showed that a creationist can explain something. Another period.

I repeat, for things he would not have been able to explain, he would have been a firm believer in "Goddidit".

Now you are lying. I NEVER claimed that creationists cannot explain anything. I said that claiming "Goddidit" does not explain anything. Period. Please do not try to twist my words around, to make me say things I have not! And no, I do not accept that Newton would have used "Goddidit" for anything he wasn't yet able to explain.

 

[Split Rock]

So you would rather go with the vision of an Octopus? It's up to you, but I'll gladly stick with the superior vision God has designed me with.

You do not have "superior vision," in any sense, to other forms of animal life.

 

[Thobewill]

Now you are lying. I NEVER claimed that creationists cannot explain anything. I said that claiming "Goddidit" does not explain anything. Period. Please do not try to twist my words around, to make me say things I have not! And no, I do not accept that Newton would have used "Goddidit" for anything he wasn't yet able to explain.

Sorry, but he did use Goddidit. He couldn't get a stable solar system to work with his laws, mostly due to faulty data, but also because of the need for multiple-body equations that he couldn't yet derive. He claimed that it must be by god that they stayed together. He also warned against the use of his laws of motion to view the universe as a machine, believing that something (a deity) had to have set it in motion.

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.

That said...

Newton was what you guys would call a heretic. He called worship of Christ as god idolatry, and disputed the existence of the trinity. I couldn't find anything on his views on genesis, but i think he was a bible literalist.

Also...

Just because Newton created the laws of motion and calculus doesn't mean we have to also accept anything else he says, so this entire argument is useless. We take the science done in these peoples' lives, and ignore anything else because it isn't relevant. If a scientist created a Theory of Everything that was verifiable and testable, this would be regarded as one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. However, if he also believed in giant space bunnies which actively influence the lives and behaviors of human beings, should we also believe that? No. It's an association fallacy. Trying to give creationism validity because great scientific minds (who, by the way, lived at a time when christianity and bible literalism were the only options in europe) accepted it is ludicrous.

 

[Naraoia]

Sounds like a nice theory. One problem: it is unobserved, much like the abhorred creationist view.

However, it requires far fewer assumptions.

It's a known fact that DNA is more stable than RNA, basically, and the plausibility of the rest follows from that.

I don't really have time to research the origin of specific DNA repair pathways - this study is like the only relevant one I could find quickly. It appears that some repair enzymes are related to helicases, which also function in DNA replication, so would have been among the earliest protein enzymes to appear.

(BTW, I also just stumbled on a review of the origin of DNA genomes. There's no free pdf of this one, alas.)

I don't have Youtube access.

Oops, you did say that, didn't you?

The Origin of Life is (in theory) available for download here, and The Origin of the Genetic Code here. Big files, though, something like 90 MB each. Roughly ten minutes per video.

So you would rather go with the vision of an Octopus? It's up to you, but I'll gladly stick with the superior vision God has designed me with.

What is superior about it?

I'm really not a scientist, so I cannot follow up on all your speculation concerning RNA/DNA evolution and vertebrate eyes. But your propositions are intriguing.

I'm glad to hear that! A lot of this is outside my area, so I'm probably not the one to turn to if you want detailed information, but I try my best

I suggest you present them to CMI scientists such as Sarfati by contacting them through their website.

I have a fair hunch that they've seen all of this before. A long and (probably) futile conversation with Jonathan Sarfati is the last thing I have time and energy for

 

[Split Rock]

Sorry, but he did use Goddidit. He couldn't get a stable solar system to work with his laws, mostly due to faulty data, but also because of the need for multiple-body equations that he couldn't yet derive. He claimed that it must be by god that they stayed together. He also warned against the use of his laws of motion to view the universe as a machine, believing that something (a deity) had to have set it in motion.

I'm not sure that this was a God-of-the-gaps argument. He certainly could have believed that God set everything in motion for religious reasons, rather than because he couldn't figure out how it occurred naturally. I'll quote his "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy" from Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

Rule 3: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.

Rule 4: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.

I don't see Goddidit there.

 

[anabaptistfaith]

Sorry, but he did use Goddidit. He couldn't get a stable solar system to work with his laws, mostly due to faulty data, but also because of the need for multiple-body equations that he couldn't yet derive. He claimed that it must be by god that they stayed together. He also warned against the use of his laws of motion to view the universe as a machine, believing that something (a deity) had to have set it in motion.



That said...

Newton was what you guys would call a heretic. He called worship of Christ as god idolatry, and disputed the existence of the trinity. I couldn't find anything on his views on genesis, but i think he was a bible literalist.

Also...

Just because Newton created the laws of motion and calculus doesn't mean we have to also accept anything else he says, so this entire argument is useless. We take the science done in these peoples' lives, and ignore anything else because it isn't relevant. If a scientist created a Theory of Everything that was verifiable and testable, this would be regarded as one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. However, if he also believed in giant space bunnies which actively influence the lives and behaviors of human beings, should we also believe that? No. It's an association fallacy. Trying to give creationism validity because great scientific minds (who, by the way, lived at a time when christianity and bible literalism were the only options in europe) accepted it is ludicrous.

Thanks, Thobewill, for validating my claim. And I would have to agree: the assertion that such famous and useful men in the scientific field were creationists is not my strongest argument. By mentioning Isaac Newton I was only putting to rest the frequent claims by evolutionists that creationism stifles research and that practically no creation scientist does useful research of any kind. I do not necessarily advocate the theological viewpoints of Newton, but I do advocate his "Goddidit" attitude for things not yet discovered by man and for things (such as the human brain) that will never be comprehended by man. And even though we have now figured out the workings of the solar system, this does not invalidate the point that God is essential to its operation since He set those principles in motion from day 1.

 

[MoonLancer]

By mentioning Isaac Newton I was only putting to rest the frequent claims by evolutionists that creationism stifles research and that practically no creation scientist does useful research of any kind.

The claim isnt that there are no creation scientists that do useful research. The claim is that there is no useful research that comes from creation science. BIG difference.

and in the case of creation scientists their best work is when they put aside their religion, not when they try and use it as a base to model their work on.

I cant tell if you simply just made a mistake or are being deliberately misleading.

 

[Split Rock]

Thanks, Thobewill, for validating my claim. And I would have to agree: the assertion that such famous and useful men in the scientific field were creationists is not my strongest argument. By mentioning Isaac Newton I was only putting to rest the frequent claims by evolutionists that creationism stifles research and that practically no creation scientist does useful research of any kind. I do not necessarily advocate the theological viewpoints of Newton, but I do advocate his "Goddidit" attitude for things not yet discovered by man and for things (such as the human brain) that will never be comprehended by man. And even though we have now figured out the workings of the solar system, this does not invalidate the point that God is essential to its operation since He set those principles in motion from day 1.

The claim isnt that there are no creation scientists that do useful research. The claim is that there is no useful research that comes from creation science. BIG difference.

and in the case of creation scientists their best work is when they put aside their religion, not when they try and use it as a base to model their work on.

I cant tell if you simply just made a mistake or are being deliberately misleading.

I second that, although I suspect the latter. It fits in with the way he continues to deliberately misquote me. Anabaptistfaith, you are also ignoring the majority of Thobewill's post by claiming his post validates your false ideas. It did not.