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[supersport]

You know the theory of evolution is not only hard to believe logically, but it’s so incredibly unlikely in so many different ways. For example, random, beneficial mutations are said to not happen but once in half-a-billion creatures within a population. And if/when that miracle mutation happens, what are the odds that this creature won’t be gobbled up by a predator before he/she breeds? If indeed that creature dies before breeding, then that once-in-a-billion mutation goes to waste.

Here are just a few more things off the top of my head that would require astronomical odds to overcome or are just flat-out unexplainable by the given evidence.

1) There is something called “epistasis,” which is a genetic phenomenon that’s been observed that shows even when an organism experiences a so-called “beneficial” mutation, surrounding nucleotides are negatively effected, which almost always has a negative effect on “fitness.” So in otherwords, even though a beneficial mutation happens, the fitness of an animal will decrease. This goes against everything darwinists have ever said because they claim the Natural Selection god will select only the “fittest,” – but if those who experience mutations are made less fit by the mutation, then we have a serious contradiction.

http://www.originaldissent.com/forum...p/t-15375.html


2) Evolutionists claim that we all evolved upwards from a one-celled organism. But in order for this to happen, there would have to logically be numerous types of mutations that show that the increase information and/or add completely new informaton. This has yet to be shown. Instead, mutations are almost all deleterious and are harmful/deadly to the organism. Not only that but no new animals are being formed – all we see is extinction. Ultimately, the genome is being irreversibly eroded by mutations, which means life is headed downward….and if life is headed downward, there is no way we could have evolved upwards from one-celled organisms.

http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/Cool/evolution.htm

3) Evolutionary theory has a huge physical and intellectual hole in it. This hole is that there is no biological variation for rapid change in organisms...for the reason given above that mutations occur once every half-billion creatures. This is why rapid instances of evolution makes them very nervious. For instance, when finches beaks evolve in 2 years, their only defense is that all the “unfit” finches starved to death before breeding, while the small percentage of unfit finches who happen to reside in the population were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be selected. Same with moths…..When the peppered moths quiclkly changed colors a century ago, evolutionists had to blame this physiological change on the death of unfit moths by saying they were devoured by birds….this supposedly left only the more fit moths of a different color. Death rules this theory.


4) There is no named hominid ancestor to humans. No bones have been found that are the supposed intermediate between monkey and man. Not only that, but modern human bones – or bones indecipherable from humans – have been dug up from the same debths as our supposed monkey ancestors. This makes us contemporaries, not ancestoral to these primates. Amazingly, evolutionists have constructed the whole theory on a platform of no fossil homind evidence.


5) No bones have every been found that link – or show descent from – one kind of animal to another. For instance, if a bat would have evolved from another mammal, there would logically need to be thousands of intermedicates between the orginal mammal and the completely evolved bat. These types of intermediate creatures have never been found.


6) There’s a huge population problem with Homo Sapiens. Since mutations are so incredibly rare, there would need to be huge numbers in a given population for the chance of a benefical mutation to happen. But can you guess how many total homind fossils have been unearthed as of 1980? This includes Neanderthals, Homo Erectus and all various Australopithecus bones:

Africa – about 1,400 total bones or fragments
Europe and Russia -- 1,500 bones/fragments
America/Austrailia – about 1,100 bones

This totals about 4000 bones. Now granted, not every person who ever lived could possibly be found….but people/monkeys most certainly lived in clans or communities….not spread out individually across the globe. So, how could man/monkey evolve via RM + NS with such small numbers of individuals!??? Where are all the bones? Remember, it takes half-a-billion creatures before a beneficial mutation can surface.

And since every human/monkey is certainly going to breed, this would quickly water down any mutations that did happen. And remember, according to the fact of epsistasis, if/when a mutation happens, it will instantly decrease fitness --- which would actually make it less likely that the creature would reproduce.

And why is it that of all the millions of creatures to roam the earth, ONLY humans are able to construct tall buildings, fly to the moon and solve calculus equations? Why are we the only ones who get married, wear clothing? Why are we the only creatures with written language? Why are we the only creatures who worship a creator? why are we the only creature who evolved to our level if existence and evolution is random? I mean it would be advantageous for all creatures to exhibit intelligence, would it not?

7) Humans and monkeys and mice and insects all share the same sets of genes. If you substitute the eye-forming gene of a fly and transplanted it to a blind cat, the cat will form a functioning round, blue eye, despite the fact that the gene came from a red-eyed fly. This proves that genes are universal and the need for new genes is not necessary for the evolution of new traits.

8) Monkeys cannot breed with humans. As much as evolutionists like to envision it, a creature with 23 chromosomes is not going to breed successfully with a creature that has 22 or 14.

9) Evolutionists have no logical origin for DNA. In fact, they don't have an origin for anything. They have no idea how sight, hearing, tasting, or smelling could have originated. They also have no origins for males and females or for sexual reproduction. They have no idea how life started. They have no idea how the world got here. They have no idea how time started or how space came to exist. They have no idea what formed the galaxies or holds them together in tight spirals, despite a supposedly expanding universe.

10) Finally, the theory of evolution goes against what the Bible says. I believe the Bible is the beautiful truth. And I believe Adam and his descendants indeed lived to be near 1,000 years old….this makes sense in light of man’s degeneration. What is described in the Bible is the only way it could have happened.

CC add: MOD HAT

 

[Liquefied]

10) Finally, the theory of evolution goes against what the Bible says. I believe the Bible is the beautiful truth. And I believe Adam and his descendants indeed lived to be near 1,000 years old….this makes sense in light of man’s degeneration. What is described in the Bible is the only way it could have happened.

This is all you needed to say. Everything else is easily refuted by visiting talkorigins.org

 

[Nathan Poe]

8) Monkeys cannot breed with humans. As much as evolutionists like to envision it, a creature with 23 chromosomes is not going to breed successfully with a creature that has 22 or 14.

Why would a monkey have to breed with a human?

On a different note, why would one want to?

9) Evolutionists have no logical origin for DNA.

Neither do Creationists.

In fact, they don't have an origin for anything. They have no idea how sight, hearing, tasting, or smelling could have originated. They also have no origins for males and females or for sexual reproduction. They have no idea how life started. They have no idea how the world got here. They have no idea how time started or how space came to exist. They have no idea what formed the galaxies or holds them together in tight spirals, despite a supposedly expanding universe.

Neither do Creationists.

10) Finally, the theory of evolution goes against what the Bible says. I believe the Bible is the beautiful truth. And I believe Adam and his descendants indeed lived to be near 1,000 years old….this makes sense in light of man’s degeneration. What is described in the Bible is the only way it could have happened.

Why is this the only way? Because you will it so?

 

[TeddyKGB]

Myself, if I could write elegant essay-length passages that make loads of authoritative pronouncements, cite what could only jokingly be called "sources," and give not a second glance (and barely a first) to factuality, I would seriously consider a career in political speechwriting.

Time to work on the 'elegant' part, supersport.

 

[shernren]

Can we embargo this thread?

 

[Gracchus]

You know the theory of evolution is not only hard to believe logically, but it’s so incredibly unlikely in so many different ways.

You believe in talking snakes, women made from ribs, magical trees, the sun standing still, virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, a man living three days in the belly of a fish, and walking on water, and you say evolution is hard to believe logically? Seems to me you have a really egregious double standard going there.

For example, random, beneficial mutations are said to not happen but once in half-a-billion creatures within a population.

Who says that? In any case, this might be true if you consider each cell in your body a “creature”. In fact since there are millions of sperm cells in one [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], one would expect to find lots of point mutations.

That does not take into account epistatic mutations, where one gene suppresses or modifies the expression of another. This can happen in sexual recombination of genes and during chromosomal cross-over.

And if/when that miracle mutation happens, what are the odds that this creature won’t be gobbled up by a predator before he/she breeds? If indeed that creature dies before breeding, then that once-in-a-billion mutation goes to waste.

Indeed. And the ninety percent of all species that were wiped out in the Permian extinction were also a “waste” from the stand point of genetics. But life is competition for resources and the members of a species are the fiercest competitors of all, because members of that species are competing for the same resources.

Here are just a few more things off the top of my head that would require astronomical odds to overcome or are just flat-out unexplainable by the given evidence.

1) There is something called “epistasis,” which is a genetic phenomenon that’s been observed that shows even when an organism experiences a so-called “beneficial” mutation, surrounding nucleotides are negatively effected, which almost always has a negative effect on “fitness.” So in otherwords, even though a beneficial mutation happens, the fitness of an animal will decrease. This goes against everything darwinists have ever said because they claim the Natural Selection god will select only the “fittest,” – but if those who experience mutations are made less fit by the mutation, then we have a serious contradiction.

http://www.originaldissent.com/forum...p/t-15375.html

e·pis·ta·sis
n. pl. e·pis·ta·ses
1. An interaction between nonallelic genes, especially an interaction in which one gene suppresses the expression of another.
2. A film that forms over the surface of a urine specimen.
3. The suppression of a bodily discharge or secretion.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/epistasis

What the Study found is that two epistatic genes are almost always deleterious. What is deleterious in one environment may be favorable in another. Still, in this case, the deleterious mutation, will place the organism at a reproductive disadvantage, and competition, as Malthus pointed out is fierce. Natural selection does not select winners. It weeds out the less fit, not all at once to be sure, but over generations. Those left are winners only by default. We don’t have to worry that we will be wiped out by mutation, unless that mutation produces an organism that has superior survival characteristics in our environment.

2) Evolutionists claim that we all evolved upwards from a one-celled organism.

No. You suppose yourself to be at the top of a hierarchy. It comforts you, I imagine, to picture yourself as the crown of creation. In fact, by biomass and sheer numbers, humans are surpassed by insects, protists, and bacteria.

But in order for this to happen, there would have to logically be numerous types of mutations that show that the increase information and/or add completely new informat(i)on. This has yet to be shown.

In order to show that you must provide some way to measure information, and to do that, you would have to define information. Though most creationists using this argument have been repeatedly asked for such a definition and such a metric, none that I am aware of has provided them.

Instead, mutations are almost all deleterious and are harmful/deadly to the organism.

Actually, as has been pointed out many times (Perhaps you missed it?) most mutations are neither deleterious nor beneficial.

Not only that but no new animals are being formed – all we see is extinction.

Well, over ninety percent of all known species are extinct. But the point is, that harmful mutations are quickly selected out. The few beneficial mutations are then free to spread more or less rapidly through the surviving population.

Ultimately, the genome is being irreversibly eroded by mutations, which means life is headed downward…

There is no “up” or “down” in evolution. There are those who survive to reproduce and those who don’t. Evolution is not progress, it is a “red queen’s race” where you have to run as hard as you can just to stay in the same place, i.e. alive, and fit to breed.

...and if life is headed downward, there is no way we could have evolved upwards from one-celled organisms.

There is no “up” or “down”. There are few organisms simpler than a bacterium. (e.g. rickettsiae, viruses, prions) You can’t get much simpler and still be called alive. However you can get more complex. If cells don’t completely separate after mitosis, a colonial organism is produced. If, in a colonial organism, some cells become specialized the organism becomes multicellular.

But species of complex organisms can evolve into simpler organisms. There is a barnacle, an arthropod, that in its adult form is a shapeless blob, living as a parasite inside the shell of a crab. There are tapeworms that consist almost entirely of reproductive organs. So just as there is no “up” or “down” in evolution, there is no preference for “simple” or “complex”.

http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/Cool/evolution.htm

If you like we can go over this rather lengthy link in another thread. Some of it I have already addressed. I didn’t bother to read it all and I probably won’t unless you, or some other creationist give evidence that you have, in fact, read it yourself.

3) Evolutionary theory has a huge physical and intellectual hole in it. This hole is that there is no biological variation for rapid change in organisms...for the reason given above that mutations occur once every half-billion creatures.

As I previously pointed out, that is not once every half-billion “creatures”. Even if the half-billion figure is accurate it would be once every half-billion reproductive cells.

This is why rapid instances of evolution makes them very nervious.

Only in your fevered imagination.

For instance, when finches beaks evolve in 2 years, their only defense is that all the “unfit” finches starved to death before breeding, while the small percentage of unfit finches who happen to reside in the population were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be selected. Same with moths…..When the peppered moths quiclkly changed colors a century ago, evolutionists had to blame this physiological change on the death of unfit moths by saying they were devoured by birds….this supposedly left only the more fit moths of a different color. Death rules this theory.

By George! I think he’s got it! Of course he doesn’t like it.

4) There is no named hominid ancestor to humans. No bones have been found that are the supposed intermediate between monkey and man. Not only that, but modern human bones – or bones indecipherable from humans – have been dug up from the same debths as our supposed monkey ancestors. This makes us contemporaries, not ancestoral to these primates. Amazingly, evolutionists have constructed the whole theory on a platform of no fossil homind evidence.

This is utter and egregious falsehood. At one time there was more than one species of Homo extant simultaneously. In such a case it is obvious neither was ancestral to the other.

5) No bones have every been found that link – or show descent from – one kind of animal to another.

This is utter and egregious falsehood.

For instance, if a bat would have evolved from another mammal, there would logically need to be thousands of intermedicates between the orginal mammal and the completely evolved bat. These types of intermediate creatures have never been found.

Bats have very fragile bones. Bats do not live in an environment where many fossils have been found. Still, fossils are not the only evidence for evolution and not even the best. For instance we have this:

http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=978

6) There’s a huge population problem with Homo Sapiens. Since mutations are so incredibly rare, there would need to be huge numbers in a given population for the chance of a benefical mutation to happen.

They are not rare. Remember, all those millions of sperm in each [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. That would mean billions of mutations world wide every month.

But can you guess how many total homind fossils have been unearthed as of 1980? This includes Neanderthals, Homo Erectus and all various Australopithecus bones:

Africa – about 1,400 total bones or fragments
Europe and Russia -- 1,500 bones/fragments
America/Austrailia – about 1,100 bones

This totals about 4000 bones. Now granted, not every person who ever lived could possibly be found….but people/monkeys most certainly lived in clans or communities….not spread out individually across the globe. So, how could man/monkey evolve via RM + NS with such small numbers of individuals!??? Where are all the bones? Remember, it takes half-a-billion creatures before a beneficial mutation can surface.

As has been repeated pointed out fossilization rarely takes place, even when conditions are favorable. Most dead organisms get eaten. (Did you know that African porcupines eat ivory? That is why you don’t find lots of old tusks lying around.)

And since every human/monkey is certainly going to breed, this would quickly water down any mutations that did happen

That certainly is not true. Predation and disease take a terrific toll on young organisms. And sexual selection further narrows the gene pool.

And remember, according to the fact of epsistasis, if/when a mutation happens, it will instantly decrease fitness --- which would actually make it less likely that the creature would reproduce.

If you had bothered to read the article you would know that is not a conclusion it supports.

And why is it that of all the millions of creatures to roam the earth, ONLY humans are able to construct tall buildings, fly to the moon and solve calculus equations? Why are we the only ones who get married, wear clothing? Why are we the only creatures with written language? Why are we the only creatures who worship a creator? why are we the only creature who evolved to our level if existence and evolution is random? I mean it would be advantageous for all creatures to exhibit intelligence, would it not?

The jury is still out on intelligence. Certainly, some creationists seem to be surviving without it. I suspect, Supersport, that you could not design a skyscraper, or a space craft. I doubt any singe human could. It is culture and language that enable us to do these things. we are different. That does not necessarily mean we are better. Dolphins might think we are hopelessly inferior because we are such awkward swimmers and have no sonar.

7) Humans and monkeys and mice and insects all share the same sets of genes. If you substitute the eye-forming gene of a fly and transplanted it to a blind cat, the cat will form a functioning round, blue eye, despite the fact that the gene came from a red-eyed fly. This proves that genes are universal and the need for new genes is not necessary for the evolution of new traits.

Hox (homebox) genes, and many others do indeed show that some genes are common to segmented animals. This is evidence of common ancestry. Some genes however are not common to all organisms. This is evidence for evolution

8) Monkeys cannot breed with humans. As much as evolutionists like to envision it, a creature with 23 chromosomes is not going to breed successfully with a creature that has 22 or 14.

And just what evolutionists envision such a thing? Of course a genus of voles has been found with chromosomes ranging from 17-64 in number. In one species the males have a different number of chromosomes than the females!

http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2006/060914DeWoodyVole.html

9) Evolutionists have no logical origin for DNA. In fact, they don't have an origin for anything. They have no idea how sight, hearing, tasting, or smelling could have originated. They also have no origins for males and females or for sexual reproduction. They have no idea how life started.

Evolutionary biologists do have ideas about these things. Some are doing actual research in these areas.

They have no idea how the world got here. They have no idea how time started or how space came to exist. They have no idea what formed the galaxies or holds them together in tight spirals, despite a supposedly expanding universe.

These are not biological questions. You have tipped your hand. It is not just evolution you and other creationists object to. It is any science that you cannot jam into Genesis 1, 2.

10) Finally, the theory of evolution goes against what the Bible says. I believe the Bible is the beautiful truth. And I believe Adam and his descendants indeed lived to be near 1,000 years old….this makes sense in light of man’s degeneration. What is described in the Bible is the only way it could have happened.

And there it is. Your science is bronze-age speculation. You cling to it in hysterical fear because the world is too complex and anti-intuitive for you to understand. It is your idol, the manifestation of your inescapable ignorance, an ugly deity, to whom ignorance and falsehood are proofs of faith.

 

[supersport]

You believe in talking snakes, women made from ribs, magical trees, the sun standing still, virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, a man living three days in the belly of a fish, and walking on water, and you say evolution is hard to believe logically? Seems to me you have a really egregious double standard going there.

God created the world....what's so hard to believe in a virgin birth given to His Son?


Who says that? In any case, this might be true if you consider each cell in your body a “creature”. In fact since there are millions of sperm cells in one [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], one would expect to find lots of point mutations.

lol....at least you admit it....which is more than I expected. I must say I've never heard that rebuttle before, though. (you have to remember that only one sperm makes out alive!...so even if what you said is true -- which its not -- it's rendered meaningless)


Indeed. And the ninety percent of all species that were wiped out in the Permian extinction were also a “waste” from the stand point of genetics. But life is competition for resources and the members of a species are the fiercest competitors of all, because members of that species are competing for the same resources.

And that's the only direction evolution is going -- downward...indeed, all we see is extinction.




1) There is something called “epistasis,” which is a genetic phenomenon that’s been observed that shows even when an organism experiences a so-called “beneficial” mutation, surrounding nucleotides are negatively effected, which almost always has a negative effect on “fitness.” So in otherwords, even though a beneficial mutation happens, the fitness of an animal will decrease. This goes against everything darwinists have ever said because they claim the Natural Selection god will select only the “fittest,” – but if those who experience mutations are made less fit by the mutation, then we have a serious contradiction.

http://www.originaldissent.com/forum...p/t-15375.html

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/epistasis

What the Study found is that two epistatic genes are almost always deleterious. What is deleterious in one environment may be favorable in another. Still, in this case, the deleterious mutation, will place the organism at a reproductive disadvantage, and competition, as Malthus pointed out is fierce. Natural selection does not select winners. It weeds out the less fit, not all at once to be sure, but over generations. Those left are winners only by default. We don’t have to worry that we will be wiped out by mutation, unless that mutation produces an organism that has superior survival characteristics in our environment.

No it's not....I'll go back and re-read it but I don't believe my link said anything about 2 mutations being deleterious....They said ANY mutation is deleterious...thus the title that says "neo-darwinism falsified in the lab."

No. You suppose yourself to be at the top of a hierarchy. It comforts you, I imagine, to picture yourself as the crown of creation. In fact, by biomass and sheer numbers, humans are surpassed by insects, protists, and bacteria.

You got that right....it does comfort me.

In order to show that you must provide some way to measure information, and to do that, you would have to define information. Though most creationists using this argument have been repeatedly asked for such a definition and such a metric, none that I am aware of has provided them.

You could start by showing me a brand new kind of animal that's evolved...complete with absolutely new traits.



Actually, as has been pointed out many times (Perhaps you missed it?) most mutations are neither deleterious nor beneficial.

Wrong...you cannot show me ONE random mutation that has proven to increase information.



Well, over ninety percent of all known species are extinct. But the point is, that harmful mutations are quickly selected out.

Then why hasn't the depression mutation been quickly selected out?


The few beneficial mutations are then free to spread more or less rapidly through the surviving population.

Boy that's all in your head...have any actual proof or evidence (or fossil evidence) to back this up?



There is no “up” or “down” in evolution.

If all we see is extinction, with no new kinds of animals being formed, then we are going down. If humans' genomes are degenerating -- which they are -- then we're going down.


But species of complex organisms can evolve into simpler organisms. There is a barnacle, an arthropod, that in its adult form is a shapeless blob, living as a parasite inside the shell of a crab. There are tapeworms that consist almost entirely of reproductive organs. So just as there is no “up” or “down” in evolution, there is no preference for “simple” or “complex”.

But it's still a loss of information. Take the blind cave fish. That fish lost its vision, but the mutation added nothing. To be counted as a mutation that could be considered the type you need, you'd need to show me where an eye could be formed when there was no genetic information there to start with...and it would have to come via random muation + natural selection...not from within the animal upon an environmental change.


Bats have very fragile bones. Bats do not live in an environment where many fossils have been found. Still, fossils are not the only evidence for evolution and not even the best.

That's a nice excuse. The truth is, though, that bats haven't changed since they were created.


They are not rare. Remember, all those millions of sperm in each [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. That would mean billions of mutations world wide every month.

That is a bogus arguement...where in the world did you hear that?

As has been repeated pointed out fossilization rarely takes place, even when conditions are favorable. Most dead organisms get eaten. (Did you know that African porcupines eat ivory? That is why you don’t find lots of old tusks lying around.)

Another bogus arguement...why would there be some fossils and not others? Why does proof always lie where we can't see it?


Hox (homebox) genes, and many others do indeed show that some genes are common to segmented animals.

Try almost all of them. Carrol says that evolution does not procede by the formatoin of new genes, but by change of expression of old ones.


This is evidence of common ancestry. Some genes however are not common to all organisms. This is evidence for evolution

ok....I see, so either you win, right? Is that how science works? It's funny how your theory can shatter right in front of you yet you insist it's still standing.

 

[card]

You know the theory of evolution is not only hard to believe logically, but it’s so incredibly unlikely in so many different ways. For example, random, beneficial mutations are said to not happen but once in half-a-billion creatures within a population. And if/when that miracle mutation happens, what are the odds that this creature won’t be gobbled up by a predator before he/she breeds? If indeed that creature dies before breeding, then that once-in-a-billion mutation goes to waste.

It may have happened the evolution way but it could not possibly have happened your way.
So I think I would rather believe the improbable than the impossible.

 

[gladiatrix]

But species of complex organisms can evolve into simpler organisms. There is a barnacle, an arthropod, that in its adult form is a shapeless blob, living as a parasite inside the shell of a crab. There are tapeworms that consist almost entirely of reproductive organs. So just as there is no “up” or “down” in evolution, there is no preference for “simple” or “complex”.

But it's still a loss of information. Take the blind cave fish. That fish lost its vision, but the mutation added nothing. To be counted as a mutation that could be considered the type you need, you'd need to show me where an eye could be formed when there was no genetic information there to start with...and it would have to come via random muation + natural selection...not from within the animal upon an environmental change.

Loss of information? Not really. This mutation is actually beneficial for the cavefish and not truly a loss of function. You sound like another creationist, DGEproject...

Here is a repost of a discussion with DGEproject on the benefits to the cavefish of being blind.

I have seen many evolutionists try to use the eyes of blind fish as evidence for evolution. They are overlooking many things. The embryos of the Astyanax Mexicanus start with eyes. But the eyes degenerate because the lens receives no signals from incoming light. Yet these fish keep their genetic programming for eyes! If Evolution was true then the Blind Cave Fish would respond to environmental stimuli by the loss of genetic information for eyes because such information is unnecessary or the fish would pass down this absence of such physical traits. This situation should be no different from the Galapagos finches responding to environmental stimuli by alterations in the physiology and genetic information in their beaks. Why would one species responnd to environmental stimuli with genetic change while another does not? Why don't all organisms that live in dark environments become blind?

Also why would eyesight be selected against? In teh dark blind eyes are just as useful as normal eyes.
I doubt evolutionist have any good answers to these questions, but I am sure they will scramble to defend their dying theory.

Completely wrong and a perfect example of creationist misrepresentation of the facts....

The only truthful statement here is that the lens of the the embryos degenerate before birth. No one (other than creationists) claims that the lens degenerated due to lack of stimuli (well, maybe you in Lamarckist mode, supersport) Most scientists have advanced the idea that this degeneration was the result of accumulated mutations, but a recent paper may have just disproven that idea.

From Hedgehog signalling controls eye degeneration in blind cavefish
ABSTRACT
Hedgehog (Hh) proteins are responsible for critical signalling events during development but their evolutionary roles remain to be determined. Here we show that hh gene expression at the embryonic midline controls eye degeneration in blind cavefish. We use the teleost Astyanax mexicanus, a single species with an eyed surface-dwelling form (surface fish) and many blind cave forms (cavefish), to study the evolution of eye degeneration. Small eye primordia are formed during cavefish embryogenesis, which later arrest in development, degenerate and sink into the orbits. Eye degeneration is caused by apoptosis of the embryonic lens, and transplanting a surface fish embryonic lens into a cavefish optic cup can restore a complete eye. Here we show that sonic hedgehog (shh) and tiggy-winkle hedgehog (twhh) gene expression is expanded along the anterior embryonic midline in several different cavefish populations. The expansion of hh signalling results in hyperactivation of downstream genes, lens apoptosis and arrested eye growth and development. These features can be mimicked in surface fish by twhh and/or shh overexpression, supporting the role of hh signalling in the evolution of cavefish eye regression.

It would seem that the degeneration of the lens is the result of the very proactive work of other genes rather that representing the loss of function hypothesized originally. Now the "hedghog" genes are common to all species with eyes including humans. There is a birth defect in humans called "Cyclops" which is the dirrect result of the loss of shh function. This loss of function expands eye development, resulting in a single large eye in the middle of the forehead. Yamaoto et al " reasoned that increased shh could do the opposite in cavefish, that is, function as an inhibitor of eye development."Below are photos from the experiment:

Fig. 1
a:LEFT-Sighted Cavefish b:MIDDLE-Blind cave fish c:RIGHT-Normally sighted-cave fish with defective lens (other eye keep normal)

Fig. 2: Here's what happens in other animals (including us)

a: Cy, the kitten (lived for a day)
b: Human fetus

Their experiments explained below:

From UM Scientists Find Clue to Blindness in Cavefish
To test the effects of that extra dose of shh and twhh, the scientists injected messenger RNA from the shh gene into one side of a sighted fish embryo. The messenger RNA directed the production of extra shh protein, which increased the dose of the hedgehog gene in that embryo.

They saw immediate effects on eye development. In 78 per cent of the normally sighted fish, eye development was arrested in the embryonic stage. Adults that developed from these embryos were missing an eye on the injected side (c in Fig.1).

They also transplanted lenses from the shh-injected fish embryo into a sighted fish embryo, to test whether the lens had been altered. A little more than a third of those embryos had arrested development in the eye region, showing that the lens was the target of increased shh activity.
In a third experiment, they looked at the effects of reducing the hedgehog gene activity. Cavefish embryos were treated with cyclopamine, an inhibitor of the hedgehog-signaling pathway. These embryos showed a partial restoration of eye development.

This is actually direct evidence for evolution where natural selection would have selected for those fish with overactive shh genes, because being born blind would have confer a selective advantage to those in such an environment. In other words, "By being born blind, the cavefish does not waste energy or brainpower on eyesight, a faculty that is useless in total darkness." (See this news article)

I think that this from Pharyngula sums up the situation completely (please read, much more in depth than my post):

What all this is telling us is that the failure of the eye to form in the blind cavefish isn't the result of a passive loss of eye genes, but the expansion of expression of genes that actively oppose eye formation. Other work from the Jeffery lab suggests that the expanding genes are responsible for an increase in jaw size and the number of gustatory receptors. The enlargement of sensory and manipulatory structures isn't to compensate for the loss of eyes, as Darwin suggested, but may actually be the developmental cause of the organism's blindness.

Loss of information?...not hardly. The expression of this gene was actively suppressed eye formation. Where's the "loss of information"? One needs "info" to ACTIVELY suppress a function.

A fish in perpetual darkness doesn't need the expense of supporting eyes. What we also have here is an excellent example of natural selection in action.

 

[Gracchus]

Lest we forget how this discussion developed I have included all of it for convenience. The original post and my first replies are italicized.

You know the theory of evolution is not only hard to believe logically, but it’s so incredibly unlikely in so many different ways.

You believe in talking snakes, women made from ribs, magical trees, the sun standing still, virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, a man living three days in the belly of a fish, and walking on water, and you say evolution is hard to believe logically? Seems to me you have a really egregious double standard going there.

God created the world....what's so hard to believe in a virgin birth given to His Son?

If I were to stipulate to a virgin birth, that would mean that Jesus was not a direct descendant of David through the male line. So he wasn’t king of Israel. If he wasn’t the king of Israel then all those prophecies were wrong, that said he would be.

I was pointing out that your incredulity is strangely selective. If your unmarried daughter comes to pregnant and says, “God did it.”, are you going to believe her? Like the Greek gods, he does have a history.

lol....at least you admit it....which is more than I expected. I must say I've never heard that rebuttle before, though. (you have to remember that only one sperm makes out alive!...so even if what you said is true -- which its not -- it's rendered meaningless)

So how many copulations take place every day? How many babies are conceived? Yes, beneficial mutations are slow to come. But considering how much time has passed, and how short the generation times are for most species, it is far from impossible, and not meaningless.

For example, random, beneficial mutations are said to not happen but once in half-a-billion creatures within a population.

Who says that? In any case, this might be true if you consider each cell in your body a “creature”. In fact since there are millions of sperm cells in one [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], one would expect to find lots of point mutations.
That does not take into account epistatic mutations, where one gene suppresses or modifies the expression of another. This can happen in sexual recombination of genes and during chromosomal cross-over.

I notice you did not address this rebuttal.

And if/when that miracle mutation happens, what are the odds that this creature won’t be gobbled up by a predator before he/she breeds? If indeed that creature dies before breeding, then that once-in-a-billion mutation goes to waste.

Added: Unless of course the mutation helps keep the creature from being gobbled up.

Indeed. And the ninety percent of all species that were wiped out in the Permian extinction were also a “waste” from the stand point of genetics. But life is competition for resources and the members of a species are the fiercest competitors of all, because members of that species are competing for the same resources.

And that's the only direction evolution is going -- downward...indeed, all we see is extinction.

No, because some survived, although much depleted in numbers and diversity. All life now extant evolved from the survivors. And, since you seem to have missed it I will repeat: Evolution does not have a preferential direction. There is no up or down.

Here are just a few more things off the top of my head that would require astronomical odds to overcome or are just flat-out unexplainable by the given evidence.

1) There is something called “epistasis,” which is a genetic phenomenon that’s been observed that shows even when an organism experiences a so-called “beneficial” mutation, surrounding nucleotides are negatively effected, which almost always has a negative effect on “fitness.” So in otherwords, even though a beneficial mutation happens, the fitness of an animal will decrease. This goes against everything darwinists have ever said because they claim the Natural Selection god will select only the “fittest,” – but if those who experience mutations are made less fit by the mutation, then we have a serious contradiction.

http://www.originaldissent.com/forum...p/t-15375.html

e·pis·ta·sis
n. pl. e·pis·ta·ses
1. An interaction between nonallelic genes, especially an interaction in which one gene suppresses the expression of another.
2. A film that forms over the surface of a urine specimen.
3. The suppression of a bodily discharge or secretion.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/epistasis

What the Study found is that two epistatic genes are almost always deleterious. What is deleterious in one environment may be favorable in another. Still, in this case, the deleterious mutation, will place the organism at a reproductive disadvantage, and competition, as Malthus pointed out is fierce. Natural selection does not select winners. It weeds out the less fit, not all at once to be sure, but over generations. Those left are winners only by default. We don’t have to worry that we will be wiped out by mutation, unless that mutation produces an organism that has superior survival characteristics in our environment.

No it's not....I'll go back and re-read it but I don't believe my link said anything about 2 mutations being deleterious....They said ANY mutation is deleterious...thus the title that says "neo-darwinism falsified in the lab."

I was referring to the original paper. “Neodarwinism Falsified in the Lab” was the title of the article on the creationist web site that misreported the research.

http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev1004.htm

The scientific paper was: Rafael Sanjuán, Andrés Moya, and Santiago F. Elena, “Evolution: The contribution of epistasis to the architecture of fitness in an RNA virus,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 10.1073/pnas.0404125101, Published online before print October 18, 2004.

Note that the title of the paper refers to the “ contribution of epistasis to the architecture of fitness”

2) Evolutionists claim that we all evolved upwards from a one-celled organism.

No. You suppose yourself to be at the top of a hierarchy. It comforts you, I imagine, to picture yourself as the crown of creation. In fact, by biomass and sheer numbers, humans are surpassed by insects, protists, and bacteria.

You got that right....it does comfort me.

Which may be a reason why you want to believe it, but your comfort is not a reason anyone else has to accept as valid.

But in order for this to happen, there would have to logically be numerous types of mutations that show that the increase information and/or add completely new informat(i)on. This has yet to be shown.

In order to show that you must provide some way to measure information, and to do that, you would have to define information. Though most creationists using this argument have been repeatedly asked for such a definition and such a metric, none that I am aware of has provided them.

You could start by showing me a brand new kind of animal that's evolved...complete with absolutely new traits.

First, evolution does not usually produce absolutely new traits overnight. Biologists do not understand evolution to work that way.

And second, you have failed to provide a definition of biological or genetic “information” or a metric by which it could be measured. I didn’t expect you to.

Instead, mutations are almost all deleterious and are harmful/deadly to the organism.

Actually, as has been pointed out many times (Perhaps you missed it?) most mutations are neither deleterious nor beneficial.

Wrong...you cannot show me ONE random mutation that has proven to increase information.

How can you demand that I show an increase in information, when you cannot even tell me how you would have me measure it?

Not only that but no new animals are being formed – all we see is extinction.

Well, over ninety percent of all known species are extinct. But the point is, that harmful mutations are quickly selected out. The few beneficial mutations are then free to spread more or less rapidly through the surviving population.

Added: Along the geologic timeline we have indeed seen new forms of life appear. The earliest fossils do not include vertebrates, for instance. I could cite even more.

Then why hasn't the depression mutation been quickly selected out?

Well, for one thing, even chronic depression does not stop one from breeding. Acute depression comes and goes, but would have little or no impact upon breeding success. And modern anti-depressants will probably render depression less debilitating.

Ultimately, the genome is being irreversibly eroded by mutations, which means life is headed downward…

There is no “up” or “down” in evolution. There are those who survive to reproduce and those who don’t. Evolution is not progress, it is a “red queen’s race” where you have to run as hard as you can just to stay in the same place, i.e. alive, and fit to breed.

If all we see is extinction, with no new kinds of animals being formed, then we are going down. If humans' genomes are degenerating -- which they are -- then we're going down.

But we do not just see extinction, we see survival, and we see adaptation. You see “eroded”, “degenerating” genomes. You think we, and all life are “going down”. Maybe you ought to see about getting a prescription for anti-depressants.

...and if life is headed downward, there is no way we could have evolved upwards from one-celled organisms.

There is no “up” or “down”. There are few organisms simpler than a bacterium. (e.g. rickettsiae, viruses, prions) You can’t get much simpler and still be called alive. However you can get more complex. If cells don’t completely separate after mitosis, a colonial organism is produced. If, in a colonial organism, some cells become specialized the organism becomes multicellular.
But species of complex organisms can evolve into simpler organisms. There is a barnacle, an arthropod, that in its adult form is a shapeless blob, living as a parasite inside the shell of a crab.

Added: In the larval form, however, it is nearly identical to other free-swimming larval barnacles.

There are tapeworms that consist almost entirely of reproductive organs. So just as there is no “up” or “down” in evolution, there is no preference for “simple” or “complex”.

But it's still a loss of information. Take the blind cave fish. That fish lost its vision, but the mutation added nothing. To be counted as a mutation that could be considered the type you need, you'd need to show me where an eye could be formed when there was no genetic information there to start with...and it would have to come via random muation + natural selection...not from within the animal upon an environmental change.

Still you provide no definition or metric for “information”.
And why should there be even a blind eye if there is no genetic information there to start with. That seems to make no sense. Perhaps you misspoke?
In any case, the mutation does come “from within the animal”, although the selection may be environmental. And the eyes of blind cave fish are, in most species, still there, but non-functional, amd covered with skin. A fish in the sunlit world would find blindness a disadvantage when competing with his sighted brethren. But where there is no light, a blind fish is not at a disadvantage, because his brethren are just as blind as he even though they have functional eyes. So he has as good a chance as any to spread his genes. On the other hand, sighted fish could achieve some advantage by leaving the cave. This process would eventually leave only blind fish in the cave. For this example we need not consider a definition of “information” and we need no metric.

http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/Cool/evolution.htm

If you like we can go over this rather lengthy link in another thread. Some of it I have already addressed. I didn’t bother to read it all and I probably won’t unless you, or some other creationist give evidence that you have, in fact, read it yourself.

I presume you have decided not to defend your cut and paste link.

3) Evolutionary theory has a huge physical and intellectual hole in it. This hole is that there is no biological variation for rapid change in organisms...for the reason given above that mutations occur once every half-billion creatures.

As I previously pointed out, that is not once every half-billion “creatures”. Even if the half-billion figure is accurate it would be once every half-billion reproductive cells.

I take it you have decide to drop this point.

For instance, when finches beaks evolve in 2 years, their only defense is that all the “unfit” finches starved to death before breeding, while the small percentage of unfit finches who happen to reside in the population were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be selected. Same with moths…..When the peppered moths quiclkly changed colors a century ago, evolutionists had to blame this physiological change on the death of unfit moths by saying they were devoured by birds….this supposedly left only the more fit moths of a different color. Death rules this theory.

By George! I think he’s got it! Of course, he doesn’t like it.

Done with that too?

4) There is no named hominid ancestor to humans. No bones have been found that are the supposed intermediate between monkey and man. Not only that, but modern human bones – or bones indecipherable from humans – have been dug up from the same debths as our supposed monkey ancestors. This makes us contemporaries, not ancestoral to these primates. Amazingly, evolutionists have constructed the whole theory on a platform of no fossil homind evidence.

This is utter and egregious falsehood. At one time there was more than one species of Homo extant simultaneously. In such a case it is obvious neither was ancestral to the other.

No refutation?

5) No bones have every been found that link – or show descent from – one kind of animal to another.

This is utter and egregious falsehood.

Would you like me to provide citations, or are you going to forget the “no links” absurdity.

For instance, if a bat would have evolved from another mammal, there would logically need to be thousands of intermedicates between the orginal mammal and the completely evolved bat. These types of intermediate creatures have never been found.

Bats have very fragile bones. Bats do not live in an environment where many fossils have been found. Still, fossils are not the only evidence for evolution and not even the best. For instance we have this: http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=978

That's a nice excuse. The truth is, though, that bats haven't changed since they were created.

I explained why bat fossils are rare. The link pointed out genetic evidence for the evolution of bats. What you, and many creationists can’t seem to accept is that fossils are not the most convincing evidence for evolution. Fossilization is too rare an event. We have lots of evidence from genetics, developmental biology (embryology), and biological geography. Google for instance “Wallace line” or read about the species on the Galapagos Islands.

6) There’s a huge population problem with Homo Sapiens. Since mutations are so incredibly rare, there would need to be huge numbers in a given population for the chance of a benefical mutation to happen.

They are not rare. Remember, all those millions of sperm in each [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. That would mean billions of mutations world wide every month.

That is a bogus arguement...where in the world did you hear that?

No. It is simple arithmetic, although admittedly with large numbers. It is understandable that you are confused. You are floundering. Perhaps you are tired.

But can you guess how many total homind fossils have been unearthed as of 1980? This includes Neanderthals, Homo Erectus and all various Australopithecus bones:

Africa – about 1,400 total bones or fragments
Europe and Russia -- 1,500 bones/fragments
America/Austrailia – about 1,100 bones

This totals about 4000 bones. Now granted, not every person who ever lived could possibly be found….but people/monkeys most certainly lived in clans or communities….not spread out individually across the globe. So, how could man/monkey evolve via RM + NS with such small numbers of individuals!??? Where are all the bones? Remember, it takes half-a-billion creatures before a beneficial mutation can surface.

As has been repeated(ly) pointed out fossilization rarely takes place, even when conditions are favorable. Most dead organisms get eaten. (Did you know that African porcupines eat ivory? That is why you don’t find lots of old tusks lying around.)

Another bogus arguement...why would there be some fossils and not others?

Some species live in environments were fossilization is improbable, terrestrial environments where quick burial is unlikely, with lots of scavengers. Other environments, often aquatic or marine, offer sand and mud slides that cause quick burial, and anaerobic conditions and low temperatures that delay decomposition. Fossilization, while still rare, is more common in such environments.

Why does proof always lie where we can't see it?

Those who look carefully can see it. Those with poor “eyesight” have trouble seeing. And those whose eyes are firmly and stubbornly closed see only imaginary movies on the insides of their eyelids.

And since every human/monkey is certainly going to breed, this would quickly water down any mutations that did happen.

That certainly is not true. Predation and disease take a terrific toll on young organisms. And sexual selection further narrows the gene pool.

I take it that you are dropping this point?

And remember, according to the fact of epsistasis, if/when a mutation happens, it will instantly decrease fitness --- which would actually make it less likely that the creature would reproduce.

If you had bothered to read the article you would know that is not a conclusion it supports.

You have no comment. So, that point you will no longer contest?

And why is it that of all the millions of creatures to roam the earth, ONLY humans are able to construct tall buildings, fly to the moon and solve calculus equations? Why are we the only ones who get married, wear clothing? Why are we the only creatures with written language? Why are we the only creatures who worship a creator? why are we the only creature who evolved to our level if existence and evolution is random? I mean it would be advantageous for all creatures to exhibit intelligence, would it not?

The jury is still out on intelligence. Certainly, some creationists seem to be surviving without it. I suspect, Supersport, that you could not design a skyscraper, or a space craft. I doubt any single human could. It is culture and language that enable us to do these things. We are different. Every species is different to some degree. That does not necessarily mean we are better. Dolphins might think we are hopelessly inferior because we are such awkward swimmers and have no sonar.

You present no refutation?

7) Humans and monkeys and mice and insects all share the same sets of genes. If you substitute the eye-forming gene of a fly and transplanted it to a blind cat, the cat will form a functioning round, blue eye, despite the fact that the gene came from a red-eyed fly. This proves that genes are universal and the need for new genes is not necessary for the evolution of new traits.

Hox (homeobox) genes, and many others do indeed show that some genes are common to segmented animals.

Try almost all of them. Carrol says that evolution does not procede by the formatoin of new genes, but by change of expression of old ones.

What Carroll is that? ( Are we in Wonderland?) Can you provide a citation? How does that work?

This is evidence of common ancestry. Some genes however are not common to all organisms. This is evidence for evolution.

ok....I see, so either (way?) you win, right? Is that how science works?

Yes indeed, that is how science works. You are backed into a corner. You brought a swizzle stick to a gunfight. The facts are against you. Your reasoning is faulty. You can bluster, ignore inconvenient facts, claim victory, and call me a liar, but you have fallen into palpable disarray. I win. You could win too, were you able to learn. To the extent that you have learned nothing I lose too.

It's funny how your theory can shatter right in front of you yet you insist it's still standing.

I find it kind of pitiful, but I do admit some comical aspects.

8) Monkeys cannot breed with humans. As much as evolutionists like to envision it, a creature with 23 chromosomes is not going to breed successfully with a creature that has 22 or 14.

And just what evolutionists envision such a thing? (Monkeys breeding with humans) Of course a genus of voles has been found with chromosomes ranging from 17-64 in number. In one species the males have a different number of chromosomes than the females!
http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/...WoodyVole.html

HEY! I just smashed one of your arguments to flinders.

Have you fallen asleep?

9) Evolutionists have no logical origin for DNA. In fact, they don't have an origin for anything. They have no idea how sight, hearing, tasting, or smelling could have originated. They also have no origins for males and females or for sexual reproduction. They have no idea how life started.

Evolutionary biologists do have ideas about these things. Some are doing actual research in these areas.

You are silent.

They have no idea how the world got here. They have no idea how time started or how space came to exist. They have no idea what formed the galaxies or holds them together in tight spirals, despite a supposedly expanding universe.

These are not biological questions. You have tipped your hand. It is not just evolution you and other creationists object to. It is any science that you cannot jam into Genesis 1, 2.

This was not an exchange about evolution or biology. So it is fine to drop this line of argument.

10) Finally, the theory of evolution goes against what the Bible says. I believe the Bible is the beautiful truth. And I believe Adam and his descendants indeed lived to be near 1,000 years old….this makes sense in light of man’s degeneration. What is described in the Bible is the only way it could have happened.

And there it is. Your science is bronze-age speculation. You cling to it in hysterical fear because the world is too complex and anti-intuitive for you to understand. It is your idol, the manifestation of your inescapable ignorance, an ugly deity, to whom ignorance and falsehood are proofs of faith.

Your argument from incredulity will be henceforth ignored, unless you bring it up again.

 

[supersport]

Note to Graccus...I don't have time to go through all these...but I'll try to get to most:

So how many copulations take place every day? How many babies are conceived? Yes, beneficial mutations are slow to come. But considering how much time has passed, and how short the generation times are for most species, it is far from impossible, and not meaningless.

Well you've just moved the goalposts....first you talked about billions of sperm -- which increase the odds of mutations...now you've quickly abandoned that. Yes, it is impossible, for the reason stated earlier.


I notice you did not address this rebuttal.

easy...

http://media.isnet.org/off/Xtian/Triunity/creation.html

With favorable mutation rates as low as one per 10 billion individuals or lower, most species cannot mutate rapidly enough to adapt to severe environmental stresses. The likelihood for extinction far exceeds the likelihood for mutating into a new, survivable species. The exceptions are species with huge populations and short generations.


No, because some survived, although much depleted in numbers and diversity. All life now extant evolved from the survivors. And, since you seem to have missed it I will repeat: Evolution does not have a preferential direction. There is no up or down.

And you can back that up how??? You have no proof that any new animal has formed...you have no proof of anything but extinction...you have no proof that any mutation adds information or complexity.



http://www.thefreedictionary.com/epistasis

I noticed you did not address this

First, evolution does not usually produce absolutely new traits overnight. Biologists do not understand evolution to work that way.

Well, biologists refuse to test this notion don't they!!! They refuse to test an animal by changing its location/environment and see how the offspring emerges....the immoral chickens that they are.


And second, you have failed to provide a definition of biological or genetic “information” or a metric by which it could be measured. I didn’t expect you to.

Well information is expressed in code in the human body....I would suggest that an increase in information would be an addition to the code that wasn't there before.


How can you demand that I show an increase in information, when you cannot even tell me how you would have me measure it?

I just did...now go for it.


Well, for one thing, even chronic depression does not stop one from breeding. Acute depression comes and goes, but would have little or no impact upon breeding success. And modern anti-depressants will probably render depression less debilitating.

No...what you said is that deleterious mutations would quickly get selected out....why are you blabbering around trying rationalize the story?




But we do not just see extinction, we see survival, and we see adaptation. You see “eroded”, “degenerating” genomes. You think we, and all life are “going down”. Maybe you ought to see about getting a prescription for anti-depressants.

survival is NOT a new organsism....which is what your theory was built around -- the creation/evolution of NEW organisms via RM + NS....now where are they?



Still you provide no definition or metric for “information”.

see above.


And why should there be even a blind eye if there is no genetic information there to start with. That seems to make no sense. Perhaps you misspoke?

No, remember that you guys say that completely new traits form by cumulative selection -- this is the device that gets information from one animals to another....this is how the eye supposedly formed in the first place. Now you are trying to deny this...which is it? Can it happen or not???



In any case, the mutation does come “from within the animal”,

No it doesn't -- it comes from within the population. You are a selectionist, remember? You are fighting the mutationists. You can't have it both ways. Your theory says that ONE mutation will happen in ONE individual by accident and then spread throghout the population over thousands/millions of years. Get it right.



I take it you have decide to drop this point.

No, I've answered that for you.

Done with that too?

Here's what I said

For instance, when finches beaks evolve in 2 years, their only defense is that all the “unfit” finches starved to death before breeding, while the small percentage of unfit finches who happen to reside in the population were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be selected. Same with moths…..When the peppered moths quiclkly changed colors a century ago, evolutionists had to blame this physiological change on the death of unfit moths by saying they were devoured by birds….this supposedly left only the more fit moths of a different color. Death rules this theory

http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/06/random-mutation-and-natural-selection.html

even this guy refutes the old, worn out explanation that darwinists have always used for finches. Please notice his "new" mechanism...and says this:

This process, called genetic accommodation [2], is part of the new science of evo-devo, which renders much of the classical "evolutionary synthesis" obsolete,

Now let's see who's quiet!!!!




I explained why bat fossils are rare.

yea yea yea....you always have an excuse -- like "fossil events are rare" right. Nice out.


Why does proof always lie where we can't see it?

Those who look carefully can see it. Those with poor “eyesight” have trouble seeing. And those whose eyes are firmly and stubbornly closed see only imaginary movies on the insides of their eyelids.

Ok...then show me ANY random mutatation that has been shown experimentally to contribute to cumulative selection. Show me ANY experiment on animals that proves selection. Show me ANY fossil that links monkeys to man.

What Carroll is that? ( Are we in Wonderland?) Can you provide a citation? How does that work?

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/051024crbo_books1

Evo devo’s first big finding is that all animals are built from essentially the same genes

But the truly surprising thing about Hox genes turns out to be evolutionary. All animals have Hox genes, and nearly all animals use their Hox genes to determine which appendage should go where along the axis that runs from head to tail. Given that the major animal groups, among them arthropods (now including insects), mollusks (snails), annelids (worms), and chordates (human beings), were in place at the start of the Cambrian period, Hox genes must be at least half a billion years old.

The basis of this selective expression involves that part of the DNA which is noncoding. Most genes, like most light fixtures, have “switches” near them

The idea that animal diversity reflects switch-throwing might also help to explain how so many different kinds of animals emerge from so few genes.

Yes indeed, that is how science works. You are backed into a corner.

No actually you hve to keep changing the rules. Here are the new rules

http://www.biology.duke.edu/nijhout/polyphenism.htm


[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In polyphenic development, hormones control a switch between alternative developmental pathways so that individuals with identical genotypes can develop dramatically different phenotypes. The hormones that control polyphenic development (juvenile hormone, ecdysteroids, and a few neurohormones) are the same as those that control insect metamorphosis. Hence an understanding of the endocrine regulation of metamorphosis has proven essential for understanding the control of polyphenic developmental switches. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It appears that in the control of polyphenic development, hormones act as stimuli that induce discrete switches in developmental pathways. There is independent regulation of the pattern of hormone secretion, of tissue receptivity to the hormone, and of the developmental response of each tissue to the hormone. Because hormone secretion is regulated by the central nervous system, this mechanism allows development to become responsive to environmental variables. Variation in tissue sensitivity to the hormones allows the developmental switch to produce alternative phenotypes in response to specific environmental signals. This is interesting from an evolutionary perspective because genetic variation in the signal and the response mechanisms provide the basis for the evolution of adaptive developmental responses to environmental contingencies. [/FONT]


Evolution indeed happens instantly during development....and it happens with purpose. THIS is what you guys are AFRAID to test............scientists aren't dumb -- just chicken.



http://www.molevol.org/camel/projects/synthesis/ Why not neo-Darwinism?

 

[c'mon sense]

Evolution indeed happens instantly during development....and it happens with purpose. THIS is what you guys are AFRAID to test............scientists aren't dumb -- just chicken.



http://www.molevol.org/camel/projects/synthesis/ Why not neo-Darwinism?

Here's a biblical rebutal to your scientific conjecture:
Ezekiel 18:2-3

Apparently God does disagree with creationists after all.

 

[JohnR7]

http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/06/random-mutation-and-natural-selection.html

even this guy refutes the old, worn out explanation that darwinists have always used for finches. Please notice his "new" mechanism...and says this:

Evo-devo does falsify neo-darwinism. Perhaps they will have to replace neo-darwinism with the theory of devo-darwinism.

 

[supersport]

Evo-devo does falsify neo-darwinism. Perhaps they will have to replace neo-darwinism with the theory of devo-darwinism.

yes it does....its funny to watch evolutionists squirm around trying convince people that it doesn't ...but if an animal has in intrinsic ability to alter his physiology/traits during development based on external conditions then that falsifies the notion that traits are passed on via lucky mutation. There is no way around it for them...even that dude in the link admits that much.

Nonrandom variation destroys the whole theory.

 

[JohnR7]

Originally Posted by supersport
Wrong...you cannot show me ONE random mutation that has proven to increase information.
How can you demand that I show an increase in information, when you cannot even tell me how you would have me measure it?

Maybe you could just answer one question rather then to try and play dodgeball and see what you can get away with. The Evo's on here are becoming pros at avoiding the questions and getting out of coming up with answers.

With God, he has a answer for every question and a solution for every problem. Science is a long, long, long way off from ever being able to make a claim like that. But then science is just trying to figure out what is going on. With God, He created us, and He created this universe. Even if man and the devil makes a mess out fo things, God can still straighten it out.

God's goodness is so much greater then any evil we will ever have to deal with. With God's help there is no problem to great, or situation to difficult that He can not find a way for us.

 

[ushishir]

Wrong...you cannot show me ONE random mutation that has proven to increase information.

Here are a few of the available examples and reviews:

Evidence for transit peptide acquisition through duplication and subsequent frameshift
mutation of a preexisting protein gene in rice
Minoru Ueda Masaru Fujimoto, Shin-ichi Arimura, Nobuhiro Tsutsumi, Koh-ichi
Kadowaki.
Molecular Biology and Evolution Advance Access published on September 13, 2006.
doi:10.1093/molbev/msl112

- A new useful function added to an existing gene

Turning junk into gold: domestication of transposable elements and the creation
of new genes in eukaryotes.
Volff JN.
Bioessays. 2006 Sep;28(9):913-22.

- Lists 40 choice examples of new genes formed from selfish genetic elements

Proc Biol Sci. 2006 Sep 26; [Epub ahead of print]
Opsin gene duplication and diversification in the guppy, a model for sexual
selection.
Hoffmann M, Tripathi N, Henz SR, Lindholm AK, Weigel D, Breden F, Dreyer C.

- Gene duplication gives rise to better colour vision

Wen Z, Rupasinghe S, Niu G, Berenbaum MR, Schuler MA.
CYP6B1 and CYP6B3 of the Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes): Adaptive Evolution Through Subfunctionalization.
Mol Biol Evol. 2006 Sep 19; [Epub ahead of print]

Yang X, Tuskan GA, Cheng MZ.
Divergence of the Dof Gene Families in Poplar, Arabidopsis and Rice Suggests Multiple Modes of Gene Evolution after Duplication.
Plant Physiol. 2006 Sep 15; [Epub ahead of print]

Origin and Neofunctionalization of a Drosophila Paternal Effect Gene Essential for Zygote Viability
Benjamin Loppin, David Lepetit, Steve Dorus,Pierre Couble, and Timothy L. Karr.

Current Biology, Vol. 15, 87–93, January 26, 2005.

Genetics. 2005 May;170(1):207-19. Epub 2005 Mar 21.
Origin and evolution of a chimeric fusion gene in Drosophila subobscura, D.
madeirensis and D. guanche.
Jones CD, Custer AW, Begun DJ.

Evolution of a novel function: nutritive milk in the viviparous cockroach,
Diploptera punctata
Anna Williford, Barbara Stay, and Debashish Bhattacharya
EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT 6:2, 67–77 (2004)

Then why hasn't the depression mutation been quickly selected out?

Well it seems that one of the mutations that can cause depression - although many people have the mutation but do not get depression. Actually protects against sudden infant death:

Am J Med Genet A. 2003 Oct 15;122(3):238-45.
Association of the serotonin transporter gene with sudden infant death syndrome:
a haplotype analysis.
Weese-Mayer DE, Zhou L, Berry-Kravis EM, Maher BS, Silvestri JM, Marazita ML.The mutation could actually have been selected for in this case. Also since many people with the depression allele don't actually get it the selection pressure against the mutation is not strong.

 

[WilliamduBois]

Maybe you could just answer one question rather then to try and play dodgeball and see what you can get away with. The Evo's on here are becoming pros at avoiding the questions and getting out of coming up with answers.

Wow, John, for someone who's famous on the internet for not backing up claims, you're sure good at calling the kettle black.

 

[Valkhorn]

Maybe you could just answer one question rather then to try and play dodgeball and see what you can get away with. The Creationists on here are becoming pros at avoiding the questions and getting out of coming up with answers.

Strange how you can take what John says, change one word, and suddenly turn it into the truth.

 

[Ondoher]

Evo-devo does falsify neo-darwinism. Perhaps they will have to replace neo-darwinism with the theory of devo-darwinism.

Actually, evo-devo compliments the modern synthesis. We are witnessing a new synthesis between developmental biology and the modern synthesis of evolution with genetics. There is no way that evo-devo can be seen as detrimental to evolution. It has evolution in the name for pete's sake.

 

[Ondoher]

yes it does....its funny to watch evolutionists squirm around trying convince people that it doesn't ...but if an animal has in intrinsic ability to alter his physiology/traits during development based on external conditions then that falsifies the notion that traits are passed on via lucky mutation. There is no way around it for them...even that dude in the link admits that much.

Nonrandom variation destroys the whole theory.

Actually, evo-devo explains how mutational changes in regulatory control of basic "toolbox" genes leads to the evolution of unique morhphology. It is a compliment to the other mechanism of the modern synthesis such as duplication and divergence, which has given vertebrates many copies of HOX genes and other tool box genes to work with.