Hmmm… atheists also appear to lack a sense of humor. *takes notes*
I prefer what my 3rd grade teacher delicately reported to my mother: I have a “refined” sense of humor.
lua, without a demonstration that a brand new species was produced from these tests and experiments, you still lack any kind of proof of the primary claims of evolutionary theory. Numerous minute changes to a species that never, ever change the fundamental nature of that species, are not proof of speciation diversity through natural selection. Please note that although infinite changes artificially selected the dog we call “wolf” into the dog we call “Chihuahua,” the latter never stopped being a dog. My own body has now become immune to childhood diseases, yet I haven’t stopped being a homo sapien.
I think I'm starting to see how we might be looking at the whole ordeal differently, so if you'll be patient with me, I'm going to try to guide you through my perspective to see if we can get on the same page when we're talking about evidence—although this might be the long way around. Incidentally, that will probably address at least most of the other responses on this post so I'll only address them briefly after.
So when we talk about a species, let's set aside the fact that there's not actually a fool-proof way of defining one (there is apparently an eternal debate amongst biologists about classifying this or that, nothing new under the sun), but to really get to the meat of it we have to go right down to my interests and start talking about the genome.
When you talk about the “fundamental nature” of a species, what precisely do you have in mind? It's easy to say, “Well, you know, a dog will not become a cat, and the cat and the dog are very different,” and that's true! But what makes them different? What is the fundamental nature of the dog?
The answer, of course, is in his genome, and this is where we start to talk about the evidence that I feel like I see on a regular basis. The genome is everything. It's what separates you and I from a banana, a normal human baby from a clump of cells later necessarily miscarried because the cells' DNA did not contain some segment necessary to continue with the production of a human body, and what separates the cat from the dog. You mention minute changes to the genetic code, but, interestingly, between certain organisms, those minute changes are precisely what made it of a separate species and they are defined by those phenotypes that arise from those differences, and not the, say, ninety-some-odd percent similarities they might share with another organism.
So, okay, you probably know this. You probably have heard all about how much we have in common with other primates re our DNA and so on and so forth. You're probably not falling off of your seat right now in shock. But this is where you and I start to look at it in two different ways. I've gathered that you seem to think that, at the point of creation, God made a human and gave him his genetic code and also made a bonobo and happened to give him a very similar genetic code, perhaps just to stay organized and keep the programming tidy. Or maybe he created a "language" with DNA (although that makes things like the "wobble" effect in translation where the ribosomal complex winds up giving the codon the finger every once in a while and placing whatever it wants there, or that the code is
nearly universal, but not completely, and codes for different amino acids in some organisms a bit confusing, but whatever, we'll get to that).
Now, this is part of why this will be a disappointing conversation for you: there's nothing I can say or would possibly care to assert that would disprove that this, somehow, could have happened. For me, it raises a lot of questions, and it's interesting that you should mention Occam's Razor, because although “God did it” seems deceptively definitive and simple, it brings with it more questions than answers, not only in regards to classic bits of evidence like junk, viral, mtDNA and what have you, but also in the logistics of the point of creation itself. I also suppose it could be possible that God purposefully added this stuff to deceive the weak of faith, which I also couldn't disprove, although I'd think that a particularly nasty thing to have done, but again: nothing new under the sun.
So knowing that I can't disprove your claims that God did it any more than I could if someone claimed some other god did it, or that aliens did it, or that we're actually living in the matrix and this is all a simulation, let's talk about I see in my field that makes me continue to accept the theory of evolution.
When I'm making libraries, or when I'm doing digests, or when I'm even just browsing NCBI, I see a great deal of overlap. For example, I see modern bacteria whose very defining characteristics were obtained from viruses. So now I must ask myself: despite the fact that I, if I am so inclined, can (and frequently do) modify the DNA of this bacteria to make it contain
anything that I want it to, and that the modifying of the bacteria's DNA with viruses is not only observable but experimentally inducable, should I accept that these strange little organisms that I have growing on my dish actually have always been here, doing their thing, since the point of creation, and that it's mere coincidence that they contained segments related to a virus?
Or, as is more a softer and more popular way for modern creationists to protest, shall I now say, “Okay, yes, single-celled organisms can evolve and are easily manipulated and that's not a problem. That's microevolution, and my religion doesn't say anything about germs, so I accept this,” and move on? Of course not. I agree that it does not prove macroevolution occurs, although it is evidence that it is more likely than not, as there's really not so much separating us from the lowly E. coli as we'd like to believe. So let's continue on.
I see genes that all organisms have that code for certain proteins. I see some of these organisms happen to never ever express these proteins because they simply no longer have any need for them. I see some of these organisms who have an even shiner and new gene that encodes for a protein that takes the place of this old protein and, in the same way, renders the common gene as redundant and no longer useful. So I'm left with these questions: why would our DNA contain so many genes that are now useless? Actually, worse than useless, given the high rate of replication in the body, they're actually a liability. You may answer, "Because God did it," which is fine, but others have proposed this idea: that the genes were inherited from long ago, when this creature's life was fundamentally different and it did have a need for this protein, and, over time, a beneficial mutation rendered the prior one obsolete, something which can be observed, once again, in those bacterial experiments I just mentioned. Only this time, on a larger scale.
To me, this suggestion makes a lot of sense. It explains the results I'm finding. And I'm finding nothing but new results which are ones I would expect should this theory be accurate. If you wish to replace this theory for me, I'm all for it, but it necessarily must address why I am getting these false-positives for evolution and also explain in a far more convincing way the findings I've obtained. I can have you saying “Allah did it,” and my mother saying, “God did it,” and my cousin asking me if I've considered whether The Great Pumpkin might have had a hand in it over my shoulder all day, but I have to give them equal weight because I can't make predictions using those models, nor can I design experiments using those models.
Sometimes, I have the opposite problem of the one I just described. I'll look at some rare, insanely rare mutation, or something like a viral injection which most of the creatures on Earth
won't have, but at a certain point, the organism we expected of being a common ancestor for, for example, humans, had this segment, and then miraculously all of the creatures we suspect were descendants, including the humans, has this strange segment.
To me, it loops back around again to the bacteria, and to me this really is the best use of Occam's Razor: I see this phenomenon in microbiology all the time, and I know what's happening, and I know it's just mutations and ancestry, and I can view it any given day while I drink an overpriced coffee and browse on the internet. Same phenomenon, simple explanation. So when I see this phenomenon in these larger organisms, in humans, there is no reason in my mind why I shouldn't accept that the answer is precisely the same as it was for the bacteria.
To suggest that, for some reason, this couldn't have happened and that humans are exempt, makes things infinitely more complicated. You might swoop in and say that God just put those segments there as a bookkeeping strategy, you know, give all the primates this segment just to keep things orderly or whatever His whim was at the time, but even though that takes less time to explain, it still floods me with unresolved questions, and again, I cannot make hypotheses with this, I cannot do tests, it's no longer science, it's the supernatural. It can't mix.
You complain that we've never observed speciation, and, to be honest, this is a puzzling complaint and I don't quite understand such an objection. I can pretty much play God with bacteria in a lab and no one much cares about those creepy crawlies, I get it, but the reason why this is so easy is because of how quickly they reproduce. And it's a steep growth, which allows for a lot of random mutations. And it's easy to stress those little guys out and create environmental pressures. All the perfect things you'd need to observe evolution (or, for the sake of our conversation, I'll keep calling it microevolution) in action. With animals, it's often wildly different.
The proposed model for all of these different species coming from a common ancestor is designed to stretch out over a mind-boggling amount of time. Never mind that most of our understanding of genetics and biology came within the last 50 or so years, but human observation of these changes, even if there was a consistent and rigorous, ongoing effort for the whole of humanity to observe and document all of plant and animal life and changes going back from the earliest whispers of human history, it wouldn't have been even near long enough to observe the dramatic indicators of these changes according to the timeline the theory of evolution puts forward.
Also, did you know that we're still finding new animals even today? Also, have you
seen those deep-sea fish they're researching now? If there is a God, one of my favorite decisions he's ever made was to stuff those horrific creatures down into the depths of the ocean where they will never see the light of day. Our window—humanity's window—has been so small, so narrow, and the window for detailed and documented observation of biology has been even smaller, that this objection about not witnessing a dog turning into a new species is not only a strange one to request, but highly irrelevant to the argument of whether or not evolution is true. It's as though I told you that I know how to build a boat, and it will take me one month, and you claim that I cannot make a boat, and the evidence is that it's been a whole minute since I uttered those words and I have not produced a boat yet. It doesn't follow.
I think that first, an actual effort to actively search for a new origin of species model would help, preferably one that had the full backing and support of a mainstream scientistic community that currently pretends to have a monopoly on thought itself
I wouldn't mind this at all. In fact, monetary awards, fame, careers, Nobel prizes and whatnot are generally the carrot in front of a researcher's face to prompt them to check for holes in any scientific theory, anyway. I know for myself and for any scientist I've ever discussed this with, we'd be all for making a new theory if we could possibly think of one better, or if we ever made some discovery that showed evolution to be impossible.
There are, you can rest assured, a lot of theist scientists who are trying their best to think of a better model. But nothing has come out of it yet, and I must disagree that outlawing evolution and pushing the whole scientific community to think of some other idea will produce anything more satisfying. If it's to occur, it'll happen. That's science.
Second, attempt to run this new model pass the gatekeepers without getting your career destroyed, and you chased out of town with evolutionary theory’s version of “anti-semite” branded into your forehead.
I'm not sure if I asked for examples of this already, but I thought I did. Do you have any?
As for your objections to Christianity, I agree, Christianity makes no sense to me either and you're not going to get any argument from me there. I still don't quite agree with Islam, but rest assured that I don't agree with Christianity.
1.) Speciation proceeds in both the presence and absence of geographic barriers, while evolutionary theory says that just such barriers are needed for it to function.
I'm afraid that I'm not so sure what you're saying here. Or, more accurately, I think you may be mistaken or your sources were a bit confused. Can you show me where you got the idea that speciation can only occur with geographic barriers? Atmospheric conditions, mutations and good old-fashioned sex should work just the same.
2.) The concept that species slowly evolve into different species, leaving behind a fossil record of numerous, partially transformed species growing more and more complex or specialized, is a fiction promoted as a blind faith doctrine unsupported by any facts. Experimentations on millions of fruit flies, as well as over 6,000 years of barnyard artificial selections have never left any trace of any of these organisms ever transforming into a new species. Ever.
I still have the same objections to this as I listed above.
On a side note, I was in charge of keeping this lovely mutated fruit fly population for some undergraduate lab experiments once upon a time. They had these odd eyes that were cream white and their bodies were this strange light shade. There's a nice genetics legend behind it that involved a woman crawling out of a window to recapture a single mutant, but I'll spare you. Anyway, a few times I was too clumsy when transferring them from tube to tube, and a few would escape here and there, no big deal. But I started seeing the occasional white-eyed fly hanging around on that floor. I'm a little bit disappointed they didn't go forth and prosper. They're somehow less disgusting than the wild-types. Or do I only think that because they were mine?
3.) The molecular level mutations that appear in biological organisms do so as a matter of 100% pure chance, and do not happen automatically as a kind of ‘speciation factory’ requiring the concept of natural selection to guide the process along.
So after another 100,000,000,000 experiments with fruit flies, in which it is revealed they are still quite fruit flies and nothing more nor less, will it then be time to throw the evolutionary model away finally and stop wasting resources on fake science? Or will it have to be 200,000,000,000?
Again, same complaints as before, although I do want to add that, for most fruit fly experiments, we're using this wt Drosophila that, despite being called a wild-type, are not actually the same ones you'll find in your home, and are regulated lab strains. Most fruit fly experiments are genetic experiments (some medical), and we choose fruit flies because they are very genetically stable, and there's no meiotic recombination in males. This is a very rare quality that allows for comparatively lower mutations and recombination rates. Also, I've never heard of a lab keeping mixed flies together or even keeping their descendants over large spans of time. Usually, we anesthetize them to examine them phenotypically and genetically, and they tend not to survive that. If they do, they tend not to be very fertile afterward.
Regardless, if we were keeping a fruit fly population in all these various conditions instead of in isolation, closely regulated, in pure strains delivered by lab companies, and we did this over millions of years, you'd have yourself a very interesting experiment and I would love to see the results. Someone should start this project, actually, and some lucky jerk a million years from now might get to see our hard-earned results.
The difference here is that the mathematics and telescope observations supported the facts of the heliocentrism model, while nothing is supporting evolutionary theory except double talk and cheating. The pro-heliocentrists actually had a leg to stand on and weren’t pretending a pagan religion was science.
I don't see the double-talk and cheating, and I have seen a lot of new technology verifying our suspicions and allowing us to look deeper and deeper into molecular biology. So, I guess, unless you have something to show me, we can agree to disagree on this point.
I hope to see it, too. New technological devices popping up every two weeks has spoiled me. I want new, innovative and correct theories right NOW!
But we're in agreement here.
1.) Speciation proceeds in both the presence and absence of geographic barriers, while evolutionary theory says that just such barriers are needed for it to function.
i) SME: “While that model fits for many parts of the natural world, it doesn’t explain why some species appear to have evolved separately, within the same location, where there are no geographic barriers to gene flow.” ~Vicki Friesen, professor of biology (Science daily article, 20 Nov 2007) Doctor Friesen’s own research indicated that the band-rumped storm petrel shares its nesting sites in sequence with other petrels, with this conflicting with the standard view of evolutionary theory.
Is this your source for the idea that evolution requires a geographic boundary? Also, besides just saying “Science daily article” and the date, there should be a title so one could look it up and read it. Have you read this article? Can you tell me the title so I can read it, as well?
i) SME: "In sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. “Important issues about selection remain unresolved.” ~Joel Kingsolver, The Strength of Phenotypic Selection in Natural Populations (2001)
Which specific biological traits is he speaking of? Is he talking about human individuals? I almost don't know where to begin on this one, as, if this quote is suggesting what I think it suggests, there are too many examples in the world to describe how organisms (yes, even humans) can be at a genetic disadvantage when reproducing, particularly in populations where some strange allele is common, or where survival is more likely for a human due to a certain allele, a great and classic example of which is the high rates of sickle-cell anemia in malaria-stricken locations and, of course, low populations of those same carriers in higher altitudes. Is this really what he's claiming has never been observed? I'd need to know more details about his claims. His methodologies? Anything? You read this book that they referenced, correct? Tell me all that you can.
ii) SME: “Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin’s original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution. The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds’ major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life’s history, the principal ‘types’ seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate ‘grades’ or intermediate forms between different types are detectable.” ~Eugene Koonin, The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution (2007)
“The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds’ major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla.” I haven't the faintest idea what he thinks this sentence means, to be honest. Perhaps it was just transcribed lazily, or he had a poor editor. Again, I need more information than just this extraordinarily vague quote to have anything at all demonstrated to me, especially as, taken in isolation, at least, I could not disagree more with this paragraph. Context, please? Experimental findings? Something?
iii) SME: “The general foundations for the evolution of ‘higher’ from ‘lower’ organisms seems so far to have largely eluded analysis.” Emile Zuckerkandl, Neutral and nonneutral mutations: the creative mix--evolution of complexity in gene interaction systems (1997)
Oh man, you're killing me with these vague statements. I appreciate Emile's opinion, I guess, but I need to know more. I need to know how she formed it. I need to see some evidence. I need her to explain what precisely is eluding her.
3.) The molecular level mutations that appear in biological organisms do so as a matter of 100% pure chance, and do not happen automatically as a kind of ‘speciation factory’ requiring the concept of natural selection to guide the process along.
i) SME: “The great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level, as revealed by comparative studies of protein and DNA sequences, are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutations.” ~Motoo Kimura, The Neutral Theory of Molecular Biology (1983)
We actually had a nice discussion about that on here, somewhere. There's a lot of discussion about whether or not dramatic evolution will happen now that we've plateaued in comfort and security. Besides which, many people with alleles which, once upon a time, would have caused them to die young, are now being given the chance to reproduce and send that destructive allele sailing off into the future. So this quotation is actually faintly touching on another, thoroughly fascinating subject, although, regretfully, it does not disprove evolution.
The kind of extreme events/survival across great spans of time I believe are being referenced when the author says “Darwinian selection” are, yes, a lot more rare than your average mutation or recombination across generations. Of course it is. But the rarer ones are meant to explain the diversity from a common origin, and “Darwinian selection” is just one part of a large picture which is evolution.
They are, and again the difference between them and evolutionary theory is that they actually had facts/data/truths to work with that actually supported them, so that if the researchers veered off in the wrong direction based on wrong assumptions (“The universe didn’t have a beginning; the theists are stupid”), they could always go back to the facts that they did have and rebuild from that point up. Evolution, by contrast, is a house of cards, with all of the main points needed to prove it true lacking any kind of factual support. All efforts of the pro-evolutionists to prove otherwise – like TheRationalizer’s first major post in this thread – are a big mess of babbling, over-wordy misdirection designed to make you regret even inquiring into the topic in the first place by virtue of purest tedium.
Another instance where we'll simply have to agree to disagree, unless you can give me real examples. I do want to add that I don't find these arguments to be overly wordy or otherwise confusing or tedious. Especially right after reading original research articles in molecular biology, these posts are cake walks. But I think that highlights some of the issue that causes people who have been educated in biology and who are in the field to be less than receptive to debating with people who do selective, informal research and who carry many misconceptions to the table when they want to speak to us. Honestly, Mrasheed, this field is fucking mind-boggling. It is hard, it is intricate, it's amazing, and we have barely even scratched the surface. If you are truly interested in biology, take some courses. Particularly specialized ones. A college-level genetics course might be of particular interest to you.
While I do believe science should be accessible, I'm afraid it's a rare day where I can sit down and have an engaging conversation about my field with someone who performs their selective research on google or creationist sites. It requires a lot of shallow talk and a lot of explaining of basic concepts, as you saw, and we get thrust into this weird position where we kind of have to teach the person who is arguing with us about the basics of our field and then walk them through the steps of our argument, and a lot of people get lost on the way, because it's a hard enough subject as it is without trying to piece together everything on the fly during an emotional discussion. I can understand why some scientists just refuse to play this game or are impatient or, perhaps, condescending.
lol For that challenge I would have to play my “I’m a very busy cartoonist” card.
That's too bad. I have a lot of questions I'd need you to answer to disprove evolution in my field. It could have kept me occupied at work for months.
But let the record show that if definitive evidence for the emergence of a brand new species was indeed discovered within all of these experiments (as opposed to merely a blind faith optimism that the small scale changes within species is actually evolution in action that will eventually lead to the development of a whole new species)
The record doesn't show that, I'm afraid, but I've probably said enough about that for a start, for now.
Obviously you’re trying to get me lynched. They’ve destroyed the careers of actual scientists for daring to challenge their thought monopolies, so what chance would a Black American cartoonist have in coming out any better? I’m content in satisfying my own thirst for knowledge with self-study, and testing my theories against knuckleheads like you lot in spirited debate. I have little interest in getting my forehead branded.
American, huh? Greetings from New England. If you're in a warmer state, don't tell me about it. I can tolerate whatever you throw at me besides you taunting me with your homeostasis.
Luckily, we don't expect much from laymen. I might be a little wary of a molecular biologist who could look at me with a straight face and say he's never found any evidence for evolution, but for people with no higher education or experience in it, we don't ask much. Or we
shouldn't ask much, at least. You're a cartoonist. That's your deal. That's an impressive deal, I can't draw to save my life, but I don't expect you to understand science. Our bar is set very low for you as far as your scientific literacy goes. But you do have to try a bit harder than submitting the shahadah. We can't do anything with that.
Here’s a perfect example:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0019445If you will notice the meticulous, highly-professional nature of the testing, which actually involved several different testing methods to ensure the thoroughness needed in actual science, compared to the patently false claims that they performed less than such meticulous professionalism the field demands by your CEMB colleagues who’ve been quoting the mainstream critics all the way to the end of this thread, you’ll see the conspiracy, cheating and lies manifested.
That is a very interesting article. But I must have missed your point. I haven't read or watched what they posted yet, so give me a rundown if the answer was to be found in their posts and not yours. I understand the testing they did on this specimen and the conclusions of the article. What are you trying to demonstrate, precisely, by the results of these studies?
Again serpentofeden’s attitude and vitriol is actually perfectly representative of supposed scientists towards the work of other scientists, which to me, further demonstrates how evolutionary theory is not a science at all, but a pagan religion with savage radicals whose enthusiasm for killing careers of rivals is almost as abominable as the terrorists’ violent attacks on innocent people.
I actually don't see much of this attitude or vitriol in the scientific community. I guess I have to await those examples I asked you for. Also, I'm not sure I'd be talking about attitude or vitriol if I were you. Especially your remarks to Cornflower were completely uncalled for.
Whew! That took forever. Is that a good start, Mrasheed? My apologies to everyone who had to even scroll by this gigantic post. I even extend my apologies to you, Mrasheed. It's full of questions that I wouldn't want to have to answer, myself, so I know already that it's unfair to ask a working answer out of you. But whatever, all in good fun, right?
Topic: TheRationalizer Vs MRasheed - Facts of evolution Vs Facts of the Quran