Creation vs. Evolution

[MikeFerrara]

Certainly; but is Christian doctrine expressed in jargon specific to theology? I do recall from my undergraduate years that any discussion of comparative theology that one must have a working knowledge of Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek in order to access the source material to prove one's point.

If I'm understanding your question...I would agree that we often must go to the original language in an attempt to get a more complete or accurate understanding of the text. Translation methods/idiologies come into play and, given that common useage changes, the ways in which a word or phrase is used in various contexts is also important.

Edit: Again, this is why I usually (I get lazy sometimes) reference chapter and verse. If someone has correction to offer, I'm all ears. By all means, look and read for yourself.

 

[Soggy]

Warthaug>>>>"However, direct observation is only one tool in the scientists toolbox. Indirect evidence is equally powerful, if gathered and analyzed properly.

Take DNA identification - in most cases no one actually see's a murderer/rapist/criminal commit the crime, and yet the presence of their DNA is considered strong proof they were involved."

Yes, that is historical science. The hope in forensics is that there is no other explanation to account for the directly observable evidence.

And, yes, this applies to other areas of science as well. Let's go back to Carroll. He matter of factly makes the claim that "This is how new capabilities arise and new functions evolve. This is what goes on in butteflies and elephants and humans. It is evolution in action."

So what is evolution in action? The "fact" that 100 million years ago the entire genome of K. lactis was duplicated and then some of the duplicated genes were lost and some were kept...still 100 million years ago. This gene duplication and subsequent degeneration was to have produced S. cerevisiae.

So your interesting percentages are just that; interesting.

And then your caricature of creation models has always been wrong. Genes clearly can change. So your option #1 is not even on the radar necessarily. I don't recall adhering to either the fixity of genes or the fixity of species. That is something you may have heard of (Aristotle), but not from me.

Warthaug>>>>"You are lieing:"
Are Mutations Harmful?

Not lieing. But it is telling that you would assume so.
CB101: Most mutations harmful?

Read response #1. "Of those that have a significant effect, most are harmful..." So my earlier claim of talk.origins stated was true. Yes, they then go to say, "...but a significant fraction are beneficial." Ok. Still, according to these guys, clearly of those mutations that are not neutral, most are harmful. So, lieing? Nope.

Warthaug>>>>"I have Campbell in front of me. They mention miller, say its an "early attempt to understand abiogenesis", and then go onto describe some more recient stuff.

So where were they wrong?"

Somebody asked which textbooks/schools were still teaching Miller. I gave a list. I made no commentary. Again, it is interesting that you would assume that I mentioned something.

Warthaug>>>>"Which is fine for high school, I guess."

Maybe. Except these were college physics texts as well. Sorry, I guess I should have emphasized that as well. However, the high school texts (physics) that I know of go into quantum mechanics, relativity somewhat in later chapters. Perhaps many teachers just skip these sections.

Warthaug>>>>""Kinds" are a creationist creation, and are not a scientific principal in any way, shape or form. As it stands, its so poorly defined as to make it useless for any detailed discussion of biology. After all, it's a sliding scale. "Kind" used to be "species", until the creationists caught on that scientists have been observing new species for for over 100 years now. Then it was equivelent to genus, but now that there is growing claims of new genuses being formed, I'm sure it'll change again - at least once us scientists come up with a clear definition of "genus"."

And you even claim that mainstream science has no clear definition of species. So I guess it's useless as well. However, what we do directly observe is that organisms vary within their kinds and have not produced anything beyond the kind, and have not produced increases in information.

Warthaug>>>>"I thought all mutations were lethal - that was your claim until, well, one paragraph ago "

As you were wrong about the Gould interview in earlier pages, you are wrong here. That may have been a claim on the thread, but not by me.

Warthaug>>>>"[*]Given the known mutation and selection rates, there is not enough time for just two members of a "kind" to make the species we see today; even assuming a 100,000 year old earth.
[*]Its well established that just two members of the same species cannot produce a viable population, as inbreeding will remove genetic variability far faster than mutation can create it"

I deleted your other assumptions about what I posted. Let's keep it to the diversity of species we see today and where there came from. If you want to debate the flood or the age of the earth you can do that with someone else...

I will deal with the above later.

This is pretty much impossible to read. Please figure out how to use vBulletin's quoting feature.

 

[shoredivr]

For goodness' sake, coachpill, please learn how to quote correctly, otherwise one just skips over your posts: they're too hard to follow.

Here's how you do it. Press the quote button below the post you're wanting to quote. You'll get the quote (eg "text text text") surronded by coding information: square bracket, quote, equal sign, person's name, post number on one side, square brackets, and square brackets, forward slash, quote, square brackets.

It looks like this without the spaces.


[QUOTE = coachpill; 3626268] text text text [/ QUOTE]

Don't cut out the code information if you want to make the quotes appear in a blue box with the name of the person quoted, like this:

text text text

For how to post multiple quotes, try the search function.

Of course, perhaps you'd rather have people skip over your posts.....

Edit: Hah, Soggy, you beat me to it.

 

[Warthaug]

Warthaug>>>>"However, direct observation is only one tool in the scientists toolbox. Indirect evidence is equally powerful, if gathered and analyzed properly.

Take DNA identification - in most cases no one actually see's a murderer/rapist/criminal commit the crime, and yet the presence of their DNA is considered strong proof they were involved."

Yes, that is historical science. The hope in forensics is that there is no other explanation to account for the directly observable evidence.

And its also how we discovered atoms, the structures of molicules, etc, etc, etc. Based on you logic, we should all throw that away, simply because no ones ever directly observed an electron orbital, or seen a proton...

And, yes, this applies to other areas of science as well. Let's go back to Carroll. He matter of factly makes the claim that "This is how new capabilities arise and new functions evolve. This is what goes on in butteflies and elephants and humans. It is evolution in action."

I read the origonal paper, and that claim was not made anywhere within. Maybe Carol made that statement to a reporter, or was mis-reported as saying that, but its not a part of the scientific record...

Regardless, it is a great example of duplication, mutation and selection in action. Its just that the action occurred over millions of years, rather than days.

And then your caricature of creation models has always been wrong. Genes clearly can change.

From:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/no...ion-vs-evolution-post3619823.html#post3619823

"Mutations are degenerative in one way or another...mostly lethal. You (plural) must bet your bank account that some rare benign mutation will at some point become beneficial...therefore mutations would be deleterious and selected against."

Your own words; just one of many posts in which you clearly state all mutations are harmful. Clearly a lie, as indicated by the numerous scientific papers I cited.

So your option #1 is not even on the radar necessarily. I don't recall adhering to either the fixity of genes or the fixity of species. That is something you may have heard of (Aristotle), but not from me.

The link above says otherwise. You agreed with selection of existing alleles, but clearly and continually dismissed mutation as a possible source of new genes/alleles.

Warthaug>>>>"You are lieing:"
Are Mutations Harmful?

Not lieing. But it is telling that you would assume so.
CB101: Most mutations harmful?

You claimed all mutations were harmful, and that a mutation always came with a detrimental cost to the organism. Just incase you skipped the last link, here's another where you make that exact claim:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/3620737-post5255.html
"Mutations we witness today are almost always fatal to the animal that undergoes it."

Your position was clear, and the link you provided above doesn't anything to do to support either your old, or new position. It pretty clearly states that the vast majority are neutral. Even giving the first point, if you actually bother to check up Crowells paper you'll see that most of their detrimental mutations were not lethal (which was you claim), and instead get selected out over longer periods of time.

Likewise, newer studies, like the ones I cited, find far lower rates of harmful mutations. The reason for that is pretty simple - DNA sequencing technology has advanced dramaticallly over the past 3 years (from tech that took a decade to sequence the human genome, at several billion dollars cost, to one which can do it in 6 months for about $10,000). This has allowed a much better categorization of mutations, as described in all of those papers you ignored.

Read response #1. "Of those that have a significant effect, most are harmful..." So my earlier claim of talk.origins stated was true. Yes, they then go to say, "...but a significant fraction are beneficial." Ok. Still, according to these guys, clearly of those mutations that are not neutral, most are harmful. So, lieing? Nope.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/3620737-post5255.html
"Mutations we witness today are almost always fatal to the animal that undergoes it."

That would be a lie - my sources disproved it, and you were generous enough to provide yet another source which disproved it.

If you knew you were wrong, you lied. If you didn't, you were ignorant of the facts. But all the backpeddling in the world doesn't change what you wrote...

Warthaug>>>>"I have Campbell in front of me. They mention miller, say its an "early attempt to understand abiogenesis", and then go onto describe some more recient stuff.

So where were they wrong?"

Somebody asked which textbooks/schools were still teaching Miller. I gave a list. I made no commentary. Again, it is interesting that you would assume that I mentioned something.

And I ask again - given how Campbell outlines the miller experiment, what is wrong? Should we not teach how we come to knowlege? Should we not show the manner in which science progresses? Maybe we should erase the parts on the "cookie" model of the atom, forget about Newtons laws and jump straight to GR, not mention spontanious generation, or homonuclei.

Or maybe we should leave that stuff in. You apparently disagree, but teaching science should be as much about teaching how it works, as it is about teaching what it has learned.

Warthaug>>>>"Which is fine for high school, I guess."

Maybe. Except these were college physics texts as well.

If anyone's use campbell for college, we have more problems than miller. And I ask again - even at the college level, what's wrong with teaching about how our modern knowledge is developed?

Warthaug>>>>""Kinds" are a creationist creation, and are not a scientific principal in any way, shape or form. As it stands, its so poorly defined as to make it useless for any detailed discussion of biology. After all, it's a sliding scale. "Kind" used to be "species", until the creationists caught on that scientists have been observing new species for for over 100 years now. Then it was equivelent to genus, but now that there is growing claims of new genuses being formed, I'm sure it'll change again - at least once us scientists come up with a clear definition of "genus"."

And you even claim that mainstream science has no clear definition of species. So I guess it's useless as well.

So long as you are clear as to what definition you are using, it is useful. That said, at the research level we are more and more moving away from species, and using better defined criteria like clades. Give it a couple of decades and that'll probably trickle down to the high school texts as well..

However, what we do directly observe is that organisms vary within their kinds and have not produced anything beyond the kind, and have not produced increases in information.

And since kind is undefined, the above is meaningless. We've seen new species (by every definition in the books) and we've maybe seen new genus (by genetic definitions). And, as I pointed out before, and as you ignored before:

1) Information is not a quantifiable entity, as it is not a physically definable measure and is dependent solely on context.
2) Even in the most arbitrary measures of DNA content - absolute number of nucleotides, total number of unique genes, etc - evolutionary processes have been directly observed to increase all of those measures.

Warthaug>>>>"I thought all mutations were lethal - that was your claim until, well, one paragraph ago "

As you were wrong about the Gould interview in earlier pages, you are wrong here. That may have been a claim on the thread, but not by me.

I see you're still refusing to read up on the citations provided which show you wrong. I'm at work right now, but when I get home I'll give you chapter and verse; wherein Gould clearly states exactly what I've been claiming all along (and what you've been ignoring all along).

Warthaug>>>>"
[*]Given the known mutation and selection rates, there is not enough time for just two members of a "kind" to make the species we see today; even assuming a 100,000 year old earth.
[*]Its well established that just two members of the same species cannot produce a viable population, as inbreeding will remove genetic variability far faster than mutation can create it"

I deleted your other assumptions about what I posted. Let's keep it to the diversity of species we see today and where there came from. If you want to debate the flood or the age of the earth you can do that with someone else...

I will deal with the above later.

I eagerly await. Just to lend you a hand:

Mutation rates in mammalian genomes. [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002] - PubMed Result
Blackwell Synergy - Conservation Biology, Volume 22 Issue 2 Page 395-404, April 2008 (Article Abstract)

Bryan

 

[shoredivr]

By the way, Soggy, I hope you're feeling way better....

 

[shoredivr]

And I ask again - given how Campbell outlines the miller experiment, what is wrong? Should we not teach how we come to knowlege? Should we not show the manner in which science progresses? Maybe we should erase the parts on the "cookie" model of the atom, forget about Newtons laws and jump straight to GR, not mention spontanious generation, or homonuclei.

Or maybe we should leave that stuff in. You apparently disagree, but teaching science should be as much about teaching how it works, as it is about teaching what it has learned.

If anyone's use campbell for college, we have more problems than miller. And I ask again - even at the college level, what's wrong with teaching about how our modern knowledge is developed?

The fact that you have to ask him this at all is appalling, given coachpill's profession as a teacher. Standards for teacher training seem to be slipping if this is an indication of reasoning in the classroom.

I see you're still refusing to read up on the citations provided which show you wrong. I'm at work right now, but when I get home I'll give you chapter and verse; wherein Gould clearly states exactly what I've been claiming all along (and what you've been ignoring all along).

I think it's a tactic coachpill is using, and it's backfiring.

 

[Soggy]

By the way, Soggy, I hope you're feeling way better....

Thanks! Yeah, a few doses of vancomycin put me well on the way to recovery and they discharged me the next day with some oral antibiotics. Tough stuff, that MRSA.

 

[Warthaug]

Of course there are methods suitable the tratment of non-normal distributions but to simply state "standard deviation" or indices that rely on std dev don't imply their use.

It was a joke, and for all we know, thals data was parametricly distributed...

SD, SEM, CI, etc are nothing more than descriptions of data variation, and you can take any of those measures, go out 10²² of them, and still end up in creationist la-la land.

Granted. I guess my question was one of scope and limits. Isn't there a difference (or might there be?) between the relatively short term evolution of a plant or virus and the evolution of man (for example) from the most basic form that we can consider life?

Same process, just a matter of time. Is gravity still gravity if its acting against an object 1,000,000,000,000km or 0.000000001km away? Is light still light if its been flying through space for 5,000,000 years or 5,000,000 femetoseconds? If the answer to the above two questions is "yes", than why would you expect evolution to be different?

Put another way, those accomplishments aren't dependant on being able to evolve a virus into a plant or a plant into a man, are they?

No, they aren't. But nature didn't do that either; in fact, evolutionary theory pretty much states thats an impossibility. Its those types of misunderstandings/mischaracterizations of evolution that leads so many to be confused...

Bryan

 

[Warthaug]

Warthaug>>>>"Its hardly an assumption - the genetic, biochemical, antigenic, fossil, comparative physiological and pathogen susceptibility data all support that conclusions. The later three were well known before Darwin developed evolutionary theory; he even wrote a book on the subject."



Then you disagree with Steve Mack, Post-doc/Fellow, Molecular and Cell Biology, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute and his statement that I quoted. That's fine with me.

What statement?

 

[Warthaug]

The fact that you have to ask him this at all is appalling, given coachpill's profession as a teacher. Standards for teacher training seem to be slipping if this is an indication of reasoning in the classroom.

I must missed that post - he's a science teacher?

Bryan