The Founding Fathers on Creation and Evolution

“It’s been shown that mitochondria (the parts of the cell that process energy) had their origin in cyanobacteria.”

You mean it’s been observed in the lab under controlled conditions?

My sincere apologies -- I got the bacteria species wrong! The theory is that mitochondria originated from Rickettsiales-like paleobacteria. See Endosymbiotic Theory for details. My porous memory garbled the story: chloroplasts (the organelles in green plant cells that do photosynthesis) originated in cyanobacteria, which also contain chlorophyll. (Details: Photosynthesis.)

Anyway, the origin of mitochondria is an event that happened billions of years ago. But here's the evidence: As you might know, the DNA of eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei) form long chains, while the DNA of bacteria comes in closed loops called plasmids. Mitochondria happen to have their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of the eukaryotic cell. Their DNA turns out to be a closed loop, just like that of bacteria. There are other features of mitochondria that are bacteria-like, in fact, quite similar to the one particular type of bacteria mentioned above. I don't remember the details. I read about this in a lovely book, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution, co-authored by Lynn Margulis, who is credited with doing a lot of the work towards establishing the bacterial origin of mitochondria.

Now you ask about lab experiments. As I mentioned, the origins of mitchondria or chloroplasts were long ago. But interesting experiments have been done showing how a single-celled organism (an amoeba) could be infected with a bacteria species, and the bacteria get transmitted to the amoeba's descendents. The interesting thing about the experiment is that over time, the amoebae became dependent upon the bacteria, relying on the bacteria for certain biochemical functions and losing the ability to do these functions on their own. (This was shown by surgical removal of the bacteria from the amoeba.) In other words, the amoeba had formed a successful symbiotic relationship with the bacteria. Biologists are pretty sure this sort of thing happened long ago when the first eukaryotic cells evolved. Evidence for the Plausibility of an Endosymbiotic Origin of Eukaryotic Organelles

So in your opinion, humans are no more advanced that eukaryotic cells?

That is indeed one of the many strange things we are to believe, say the Darwinians. There is no direction to evolution, and thus, there has been no progression throughout the history of life on earth, from goo, to you. Another, related thing that we have to believe follows from this:

Darwinism may be defined as a certain rational, causo-mechanical (hence, non-teleologic) explanation of the origin of new species. (Vernon Kellog, Darwinism To-Day)

In other words, it implies this: your hand has no purpose. You probably think it does have a purpose, but you are mistaken. But not just your hand, mind you--you yourself have no purpose at all.

“Fhe ToE is extraordinarilly well supported by by experiment, observation and has passed the test of predicting future discoveries.”

That conclusion has been hotly debated around here for a long time. Your comments about anyone who disagrees with you being a nut case notwithstanding, there are many problems with the TOE and you are aware of that. I personally am not a YEC.

The TOE may be a popular idea but there is no experiment under controlled conditions which can show the progression of one type into another simply because of the long time periods required by the TOE. If changes take place over millions of years then there is no valid test which can be set up to observe the results. (Yes, I realize that Natural Selection can be tested in the lab all day long; that’s why there is no argument over whether such adaptation exists. But NS is only a component of the TOE, not the sum total of it).

Discussions of Ring Species and Punctuated Equlibria and other data don’t answer the fundamental question of the validity of the TOE to explain the diversity of life, they are simply another way to try and make a certain data set fit the popular paradigm.

The fossil record is not a controlled experiment, it is a forensic record, and is useless for testing a scientific theory. The TOE is a beautiful theory in the sense that a test can be designed to test it and to falsify it, but one of its basic premises declares that it never can be tested because of the long time period required. That’s what’s called a test you can’t fail.

But then again, the whole TOE industry is built on finding ways to make any and all data fit the TOE, not finding ways which might call it into question. For example, see discussions of Punctuated Equilibrium.

But I have another question for all the Evolutionists. What difference does it make? Who cares? Maybe the TOE is correct, maybe it’s not, but there is no way to test it and observe it, so why should it be so dogmatically stated? Sure it’s fun to discuss but what difference does it make to anyone? Science can exist just fine with the concepts it uses in the lab independent of the TOE, such as Natural Selection, so what difference does it make?

Why not bring science back into the realm of what can actually be tested as classical scientific theory requires and let anything outside that realm be a subject for discussion but not dogmatically asserting that it happened this way or that way?

What do scientists have to lose by only stating what can be tested? After all, no one can ascertain what happened based on forensic evidence anyway. There will always be an element of belief involved with forensics. And until a time machine is invented it will always be that way.

“Forensics with less conclusive evidence have sent criminals to the gas chamber. “

Absolutely. But that still doesn’t mean that forensics, which is the study of one-time past events, is equivalent to the scientific method, which postulates that a theory can be tested repeatedly.

Juries deliberate on the basis of “beyond a reasonable doubt”. They can’t possibly say exactly what happened because one-time events can’t be tested repeatedly. A jury ruling is based on belief. Do you want to relegate science to just a strong belief on the part of a group of scientists? That’s a really low standard.

‘Try explaining the branching of the genomes of various animals without evolution and without saying, “because the Bible says so”.’

I don’t understand your point here. It is possible we will never be able to explain — in a true scientific sense — ‘the branching of the genomes of various animals’. At least until some brilliant physicist builds a time machine.

I still don’t understand the emotional component of this argument for scientists. There is no repeatable test under controlled conditions which can test and falsify the TOE but many absolutely insist that they know this is how it happened. For example, what is a transitional form? It seems obvious that a transitional form must be both similar and dis-similar from the previous form. What is the minimum change or difference required to distinguish a transitional form? How can one set up an experiment and a control group to determine the minimum difference required to say one item is a transitional and another is not? No one can even establish a basis for such things but many scientists have declared it is ‘just so’.

The TOE should be called ‘Science Lite’ because it is definitely a lightweight when it comes to following the scientific method. Of course, if it really is just forensics, then it should be stated as such and then the Crevo arguments will probably die away pretty quickly.

“There is no repeatable test under controlled conditions which can test and falsify the TOE but many absolutely insist that they know this is how it happened.”

There is no need to do that. A theory makes certain predictions. These predictions must be falsifiable. It's easier to do a test in a lab but there is no restriction for a theory it must be testable in a lab.

“For example, what is a transitional form? It seems obvious that a transitional form must be both similar and dis-similar from the previous form. What is the minimum change or difference required to distinguish a transitional form?”

Depends on the amount of fossils you got of one type and another one. Say you have a huge amount of A and a several B all older than A. They look similar. So scientist predict that there have been a transitional form. Sometimes scientist are able to find such a kind of fossil sometimes not.

“How can one set up an experiment and a control group to determine the minimum difference required to say one item is a transitional and another is not?”

You see there is no need to do such an experiment. Is there a transitional form between you and your grandfather? I guess so.

It's the same thing for art, kind, type and any other typologies. They are man made and won't fit always proper to nature.

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