Bible-quoting science students on rise (USA spreads 'infectious diesease to UK)

Sidney Morning Herald ^ | 22 Feb 2006 | Duncan Campbell

[gobucks]

A GROWING number of science students on British university campuses are challenging the theory of evolution, saying that Darwin was wrong.

Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Koran as scientific fact and at one college in London, most biology students are now thought to be creationists.

Earlier this month, Muslim medical students in London distributed leaflets that dismissed Darwin's theories as false. Evangelical Christian students are also increasingly vocal in challenging the notion of evolution.

In the US, there is growing pressure to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Similar trends in Britain have prompted the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head-on with a talk next month entitled "Why Creationism is wrong", when the award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally.

"There is an insidious and growing problem," said Professor Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back from rationality. They [the creationists] don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease, as we see from the US."

Leaflets that question Darwinism were circulated among students at the Guys Hospital site of King's College London this month as part of the Islam Awareness Week, organised by the college's Islamic Society. One member of staff at Guys said that he found it deeply worrying that Darwin was being dismissed by people who would soon be practising as doctors.

The leaflets are produced by the Al-Nasr Trust, a charity based in Slough, west of London, set up in 1992 with the aim of improving the understanding of Islam.

The passage quoted from the Koran says: "And God has created every animal from water. Of them there are some that creep on their bellies, some that walk on two legs and some that walk on four. God creates what he wills for verily God has power over all things."

A 21-year-old medical student and member of the Islamic Society, who asked not to be named, said the Koran was clear that man had been created and had not evolved as Darwin says. "There is no scientific evidence for it [Darwin's Origin of Species]. It's only a theory. Man is the wonder of God's creation."

He did not feel that a belief in evolution was necessary to study medicine, although he added that, if writing about it was necessary for passing an exam, he would do so. At another London campus, some students have been failed because they have presented creationism as fact. They have been told by their examiners that, while they are entitled to explain both sides of the debate, they cannot present the Bible or Koran as scientifically factual if they want to pass exams. David Rosevear, of the Britain-based Creation Science Movement, which supports the idea of creationism, said that there was an increasing interest in the subject among students.

"I've got no problem with an all-powerful God producing everything in six days," he said, calling it an early example of the six-day week. Most of the next generation of medical and science students could be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London college. "The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism," she said, "and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all."

[Ichneumon]

Perhaps you and many others consider evolution to be a "branch of science." But it is an overarching, subjective philosophy that has little bearing on the way things work.

False.

It is hardly "irrational," as some might think, to attribute the presence of organized matter to intelligent design, or even a Creator that may remain in the background while science does its work.

It is, however, unscientific, because there is not a shred of positive evidence for that proposition, while there is a vast, overwhelming body of evidence along multiple cross-confirming lines supporting evolutionary biology.

What "branch of science" throws out an arbitrary, post facto explanation of history via the two words "natural selection?"

None, although the anti-evolutionists are very fond of dishonestly claiming that biology does, when it doesn't. Point of fact, it's the *anti*evolutionists who favor an "arbitrary, post facto explanation".

Who in their right mind would consider the notion of "natural selection" worthy of empirical science when it cannot predict the next million years of life while claiming to have the first 4.5 billion under its belt?

Anyone who understands what empirical science is actually about, instead of the creationist misrepresentation you describe here. Please try to learn something about science before you attempt to critique it.

[Ichneumon]

Ps: How can something be both theory AND fact at the same time? Once proved, theory becomes fact, no?

No. "Fact" is what happens. "Theory" explains how it happens. One never "graduates" to the other. They cover different aspects of description.

Here: Evolution is a Fact and a Theory. And I sense another question coming on, so also see: 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Scientific Proof?.

And yes, the meaning of "theory" in a scientific context really does matter. In common usage, "theory" means any potential explanation, including something you just dreamed up after two seconds of thinking and put forth as just a wild guess. In a scientific context, this is *not* what it means. In science, a theory is a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena, which has passed a number of validation tests and has made successful predictions which enable the outcome of various tests. In short, a "theory" in science is not just a guess, not "just a theory" in the vernacular sense, it's a very different kind of thing with a far higher level of validation and confidence. It is perhaps unfortunate that the same word is used for the layman's "just a guess" on the one hand and the scientifically tested propositions on the other.

[driveserve]

"See that is just it, except I disagree with your use of the term 'rise to science."

Yep. Your right. Science is a method, not truth or reality. Neither creationism or evolutionism can be expressed by scientific method. Both can be expressed by faith however.

And thanks for the kudos for my previous post...

[RunningWolf]

// Science is a method, not truth or reality

Well kudos to that too.

Wolf out

[Ichneumon]

Yes, ignoramuses like Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Einstein. All kinds of "people like you" who have believed in God and creation.

Don't you dare put the anti-evolution creationists in the same league as those actual scientists. There's nothing wrong with believing in "God and creation". There is, however, everything wrong with using that belief as an excuse to reject with a hand-wave any and all science which you choose not to accept just because you incorrectly believe it might clash with your religion. The men you mention were never ignorant enough to make that mistake -- they followed the evidence wherever it led, firm in the conviction that whatever they found, it was revealing the workings of God's creation. The same can not be said of the modern anti-evolutionists, who desperately argue against even the most strongly validated and well-established scientific findings, which they barely understand (or thoroughly misunderstand), out of a misguided sense that it is somehow "blasphemy" against their narrow notions of what God might be or how His universe works or how He brought it to be.

Those who reject science out of fear, ignorance, and these flimsiest of personal biases aren't fit to shine the shoes of the great scientists who believe in God which you list. They sought truth, in the most intellectually honest way possible. They looked at Creation itself to learn how it worked. The anti-evolutionists, on the other hand, actively avoid looking at the real-world evidence, so as to better maintain their cherished preconceptions, unsullied by facts, unchallenged by reality.

[Ichneumon]

Yep. Your right. Science is a method, not truth or reality.

You're half right -- science is a method for *finding* truth and reality. The most effective method for that purpose ever devised in the history of mankind.

Neither creationism or evolutionism can be expressed by scientific method.

Again, you are half right. Creationism is not science. Evolutionary biology, however, meets all the requirements of the scientific method, and has so much positive evidence and research behind it that it is one of the most well-established fields in all of science.

[driveserve]

"In short, a "theory" in science is not just a guess, not "just a theory" in the vernacular sense, it's a very different kind of thing with a far higher level of validation and confidence."

So, does "far higher level of validation and confidence" equal or rise to "undeniable truth"?

Thanks for the response...

[driveserve]

"Evolutionary biology, however, meets all the requirements of the scientific method, and has so much positive evidence and research behind it that it is one of the most well-established fields in all of science."

So is the "science" of global warming but that's about as much science as Tarot card reading and less accurate.

Biology is a well established field. Evolution is an explanation of faith that God does not exist, therefore He could not have created all that is. It uses biology to buttress that faith.

[Ichneumon]

I agree and disagree on a regular basis with normal people however this is creepy.

This is not about "agreeing or disagreeing". This is about someone posting material they know to be false, because they have been shown extensive documentation of its falsity in the past, and then they continue to post the false claims.

As an old saying goes: "You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not, however, entitled to your own 'version' of facts."

What kind of a person would keep files on other

Someone who is tired of seeing falsehoods repeatedly put forth to mislead other people.

Upfront I am a Creationist who has NO DOUBT that God created ALL we see and don't see in seven LITERAL 24 hour days - just as He stated in the Bible.

Feel free.

Objective science also supports that.

You're kidding, right? You've been corrected on this point countless times previously, and you have been unable to support this claim when asked to do so.

As for you, you prefer to believe in evolution.

No, wrong. We "prefer to believe" whatever the real-world evidence and vast amounts of cross-validating research indicates actually happened. It happens to turn out that it overwhelmingly indicates evolution. If you're still unclear on this concept, please read: Do You Believe in Evolution?.

You, on the other hand, "prefer" to disregard reality and cling to whatever beliefs you *choose* to have, and if that means rejecting everything the real world actually shows, you're happy to do so.

That's your choice, of course, and no one is trying to deprive you of it. But don't expect us to appreciate it when someone not only *ignores* the actual evidence, but actually *make up* claims about it which are simply not true and then passes on these misrepresentations to pollute the minds of others. We don't accept that kind of behavior from Michael Moore, and we won't accept it from anyone else either.

That is your choice however you have NO RIGHT to attempt to intimidate people into silence with "files" that you know you selectively edited.

He has not "selectively edited" them, and he'll be glad to provide links to your original posts so they can be read verbatim. Nor is he trying to "intimidate people into silence", he's trying to shame them into no longer telling blatant falsehoods over and over again.

What kind of a person does that?

Someone who actually cares about protecting the truth from being destroyed by false propaganda.

Are you so cornered that you must refer to Nazi tactics to stop debate?

No, actually there is another party to this debate which is more at home with those sort of propaganda techniques.

As best I know, only desperate people have to resort to your tactics.

"Only desperate people" have to "resort to" pointing it out when people are posting falsehoods? Ooookay...

I'm sure glad I have better things to do with my time than to save replies in files, edit them to suit my purposes, which in your case is to silence or embarrass people.

If you actually feel that avoiding falsehoods would leave you with nothing but silence, you might want to reconsider your material.

I can't imagine wasting my time like that nor having such a hateful grudge on someone who does not agree with me.

This is not about "disagreement". And I think you know that full well.

There's something VERY DISTURBING about a person that does this.

Yes, I can see how some kinds of people might find it disturbing to be held to sticking to the truth.

Perhaps you ought to back off this evolution myth.

It's not a myth, it's supported by over a hundred years of solid science.

You seem to be obsessed with it - this is not normal.

The only thing he's "obsessed with" is the belief that when people engage in a discussion, they should do so honestly.

I don't understand why you believe you are above the rules on THIS forum.

Which rules are you referring to?

Hopefully someone will enforce them for ALL who participate here. You're way out of line.

He's merely saying that if someone consistently posts falsehoods instead of facts, he's going to call them on it, and he's even letting them know in advance in the hopes that they'll behave honorably. How exactly is that "out of line"? Wouldn't you do the same if you found someone distorting the truth?

[gleeaikin]

Earth does not circle the sun.

Yes, you are right. The earth and the other planets elipse the sun. But the sun is definitely near the center. At least it was when I took an astronomy course in college.

[driveserve]

Whoohoo! You're so cute when you're sanctimonius.

Let me be the first to say thank you for letting us know that there is nothing wrong in believing in God and Creation. I can come out of my hole now.

Now, I can't speak for my fellow ignoramuses but I can say with a high level of confidence and self-validation that I do not reject any and all science that clash with my religion, In fact, I find God in all that science discovers or proves or validates or explains. If evolution is indeed fact and therefore undeniable truth, it is God's work. If not, it is still God's work. All is God's work. Even you my breathless friend, are God's work.

My objection to evolutionism is that the folks pushing it are lying. They look you in the face and say that it has nothing to do with God. Well, it does. They have faith that God does not exist (A fact, as it were), then come up with evolution (The theory to the fact) to prove it.

Let evolution into the schools. It just an argument for crying out loud. Then let creationism in too. But stop with the science stuff. Put where it belongs; Religious Studies.

Lastly, all those men cited were great indeed. But it is telling that you left out (a glaring omission) the man who is most responsible for this thread. Darwin himself. Did you mean to leave him off your "great" list?

Oh! I forgot. Nice use of the biblical "Not fit to [shine] the shoes of..." in your last paragraph. Did you realize? I think not. Perhaps God's speaking through you...

[darbymcgill]

Put your catcher's mitt on PLACEMARKER....

[driveserve]

"As an old saying goes: "You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not, however, entitled to your own 'version' of facts."

Why is nmh not entitled to his own version of the facts? You hold on to the myth of evolution as fact. Is that not your entitlement?

You readily accept 100 years of conjecture as truth but reject 5,000 years of written word and human experience as false. Cannot nmh do the same but visa-versa?

You propagate the falsehood of evolution. Cannot nmh propagate the falsehood creationism?

You see, neither of you have fact on your side. Only faith.
I, for one will side with nmh and the faith that God made all and it is He that I must follow. If I'm wrong, I'll have to answer to Darwin. Whoop-de-doo.

[Ichneumon]

Actually you don't have to look to far to see evidence of God and His magnificent Design. Look at mutations. According to evolutionist, mutations generate "new" information so that new features as legs, feathers, brains, eyes etc. could "evolve". However random changes in new information do NOT create new meaningful "paragraphs" or "chapters" of information. They only corrupt it. Mutations destroy. Mutations do NOT create.

I regret to have to inform you that like practically everything you try to claim about evolutionary biology, what you have just posted is entirely incorrect. See for example:

The Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution. By Stuart Kauffman, S. A. (1993) Oxford University Press, NY, ISBN: 0195079515.

Compositional genomes: Prebiotic information transfer in mutually catalytic noncovalent assemblies

Eigen M, and Schuster P, The hypercycle. A principle of natural self-organization. Springer-Verlag, isbn 3-540-09293, 1979

The origin of genetic information: viruses as models

Compositional genomes: prebiotic information transfer in mutually catalytic noncovalent assemblies

Stadler PF, Dynamics of autocatalytic reaction networks. IV: Inhomogeneous replicator networks. Biosystems, 26: 1-19, 1991

Lee DH, Severin K, and Ghadri MR. Autocatalytic networks: the transition from molecular self-replication to molecular ecosystems. Curr Opinion Chem Biol, 1, 491-496, 1997

Lee DH, Severin K, Yokobayashi Y, and Ghadiri MR, Emergence of symbiosis in peptide self-replication through a hypercyclic network. Nature, 390: 591-4, 1997

Apolipoprotein AI Mutations and Information

Creationist Claim CB102: Mutations are random noise; they do not add information.

Multiple Duplications of Yeast Hexose Transport Genes in Response to Selection in a Glucose-Limited Environment

Evolution of biological information

Evolution of biological complexity

Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug

Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Computation

Examples of Beneficial Mutations and Natural Selection

The evolution of trichromatic color vision by opsin gene duplication in New World and Old World primates

Gene duplications in evolution of archaeal family B DNA polymerases

Koch, AL: Evolution of antibiotic resistance gene function. Microbiol Rev 1981, 45:355378.

Selection in the evolution of gene duplications

Velkov, VV: Gene amplification in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. Genetika 1982, 18:529543.

Romero, D & Palacios, R: Gene amplification and genomic plasticity in prokaryotes. Annu Rev Genet 1997, 31:91111.

Stark, GR & Wahl, GM: Gene amplification. Annu Rev Biochem 1984, 53:447491.

Reinbothe, S, Ortel, B, & Parthier, B: Overproduction by gene amplification of the multifunctional arom protein confers glyphosate tolerance to a plastid-free mutant of Euglena gracilis. Mol Gen Genet 1993, 239:416424.

Gottesman, MM, Hrycyna, CA, Schoenlein, PV, Germann, UA, & Pastan, I: Genetic analysis of the multidrug transporter. Annu Rev Genet 1995, 29:607649.

Schwab, M: Oncogene amplification in solid tumors. Semin Cancer Biol 1999, 9:319325.

Widholm, JM, Chinnala, AR, Ryu, JH, Song, HS, Eggett, T, & Brotherton, JE: Glyphosate selection of gene amplification in suspension cultures of three plant species. Physiol Plant 2001, 112:540545.

Otto, E, Young, JE, & Maroni, G: Structure and expression of a tandem duplication of the Drosophila metallothionein gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1986, 83:60256029.

Maroni, G, Wise, J, Young, JE, & Otto, E: Metallothionein gene duplications and metal tolerance in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 1987, 117:739744.

Kondratyeva, TF, Muntyan, LN, & Karvaiko, GI: Zinc-resistant and arsenic-resistant strains of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans have increased copy numbers of chromosomal resistance genes. Microbiology 1995, 141:11571162.

Tohoyama, H, Shiraishi, E, Amano, S, Inouhe, M, Joho, M, & Murayama, T: Amplification of a gene for metallothionein by tandem repeat in a strain of cadmium-resistant yeast cells. FEMS Microbiol Lett 1996, 136:269273.

Sonti, RV & Roth, JR: Role of gene duplications in the adaptation of Salmonella typhimurium to growth on limiting carbon sources. Genetics 1989, 123:1928.

Brown, CJ, Todd, KM, & Rosenzweig, RF: Multiple duplications of yeast hexose transport genes in response to selection in a glucose-limited environment. Mol Biol Evol 1998, 15:931942.

Hastings, PJ, Bull, HJ, Klump, JR, & Rosenberg, SM: Adaptive amplification: an inducible chromosomal instability mechanism. Cell 2000, 103:723731.

Tabashnik, BE: Implications of gene amplification for evolution and management of insecticide resistance. J Econ Entomol 1990, 83:11701176.

Lenormand, T, Guillemaud, T, Bourguet, D, & Raymond, M: Appearance and sweep of a gene duplication: adaptive response and potential for new functions in the mosquito Culex pipiens. Evolution 1998, 52:17051712.

Guillemaud, T, Raymond, M, Tsagkarakou, A, Bernard, C, Rochard, P, & Pasteur, N: Quantitative variation and selection of esterase gene amplification in Culex pipiens. Heredity 1999, 83:8799.

Please -- try to learn something about the field before you post any more of your incorrect presumptions as if they were facts.

They are known by diseases they cause in humans such as cancer - a cell mutation.

You sort of "forgot" to mention the many examples of beneficial mutations. Why is that?

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is not due to an increase in meaningful due to mutations. In ALL mutations studied, there has been a LOSS of function causing the resistance.

Completely false. Many of the links I've posted above debunk this false claim, and see also:

Genetic Variant Showing a Positive Interaction With ß-Blocking Agents With a Beneficial Influence on Lipoprotein Lipase Activity, HDL Cholesterol, and Triglyceride Levels in Coronary Artery Disease Patients

Genetic restriction of HIV-1 infection and progression to AIDS by a deletion allele of the CKR5 structural gene

Evolution of new information

Spontaneous mutations in diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae: more beneficial than expected

Are Mutations Harmful?

Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug

Directed evolution of human estrogen receptor variants with significantly enhanced androgen specificity and affinity

Multiple duplications of yeast hexose transport genes in response to selection in a glucose-limited environment

Complete Rescue of Lipoprotein Lipase–Deficient Mice by Somatic Gene Transfer of the Naturally Occurring LPL^S447X Beneficial Mutation

Punctuated evolution caused by selection of rare beneficial mutations.

PLEIOTROPIC EFFECTS OF BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS IN ESCHERICHIA COLI

The Distribution of Fitness Effects Among Beneficial Mutations

Hey, here's something that probably never occurred to you -- why don't you actually learn something about biology before you attempt to pontificate about it?

- for example loss of control over the production of the enzyme that breaks DOWN penicillin so that much more of the enzyme is produced.

I don't know where you got this horsecrap, but it is entirely false. Penicillin resistance is well known to be due to genetic mutations in the PBP genes *themselves*, not due to any "loss of control" as you claim, and the altered enzymes produced by those genes do not "break DOWN penicillin" as you falsely claim, they *bind* to it and thus take it out of action. The mutations serve to *increase* the binding efficiency of the altered enzymes. See for example:

Penicillin-Binding Protein 1A, 2B, and 2X Alterations in Canadian Isolates of Penicillin-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae

Sometimes information has been acquired from another type of bacterium, which then enables the recipient to resist the antibiotic.

Yes, but this does nothing to help your false claims, since there are countless examples of evolutionary gain of drug resistance which are *not* due to horizontal transfer.

Mutations will NEVER produce the NEW and COMPLEX information needed for evolution to proceed.

Again, this is completely false -- see the above links.

Further research has revealed that many examples of features in living things that are made up of highly complex parts where every part has to be present for all to function at all. They cannot be simpler and still function. It is not possible for small step wise mutations and natural selection to create such systems because of series of functional intermediaries is impossible. Examples include and not limited to bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting system, the ATPase "motor," the signaling system in cells, the DNA coded protein synthesis system etc..

This has all been debunked multiple times before -- why do you pretend that it hasn't, then just repeat the false claims again? For example, here is my own analysis of the many fatal fallacies and false claims in Behe's "Irreducible Complexity" argument. It deals with your claims both in general and in specific cases.

As for the blood clotting cascade, the following papers shatter all THREE of your false claims about it (false claim #1: "every part has to be present for all to function at all", false claim #2: "They cannot be simpler and still function", false claim #3: "It is not possible for small step wise mutations and natural selection to create such systems").

Check out The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Clotting, or The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation as viewed from a comparison of puffer fish and sea squirt genomes. Excerpt from the latter paper:

It is thought that 50–100 million years separate the appearances of urochordates (which include the sea squirt) and vertebrates. During that time the machinery for thrombin-catalyzed fibrin formation had to be concocted by gene duplication and the shuffling about of key modular domains. The relative times of duplicative events can be estimated by various means, the most obvious being the presence or absence of a gene in earlier diverging organisms, although it must be kept in mind that lineages may lose genes. Another way to gauge events is from the relative positions of various gene products on phylogenetic trees, earlier branching implying earlier appearance. In this regard, (pro)thrombin invariably appears lower on the phylogenetic trees than do the other vitamin K-dependent factors (Fig. 2).

The order of events can also be inferred by considering the most parsimonious route to assembling the various clusters of peripheral domains. Nine of the proteases under discussion can be accounted for by six domain-swapping events (Fig. 5). Indeed, the presence of a multiple-kringle protease in the sea squirt genome provides a reasonable model for a step-by-step parallel evolution of the clotting and lysis systems. It should be noted that a serine protease with only one kringle has been found in the ascidian Herdmania momus (36). Although numerous scenarios have been offered in the past about how modular exchange was involved in generating these schemes (refs. 4, 12, and 37–41, inter alia), the new genomic data now provide a realistic set of starting materials.

Also, Evolution of enzyme cascades from embryonic development to blood coagulation:

Recent delineation of the serine protease cascade controlling dorsal-ventral patterning during Drosophila embryogenesis allows this cascade to be compared with those controlling clotting and complement in vertebrates and invertebrates. The identification of discrete markers of serine protease evolution has made it possible to reconstruct the probable chronology of enzyme evolution and to gain new insights into functional linkages among the cascades. Here, it is proposed that a single ancestral developmental/immunity cascade gave rise to the protostome and deuterostome developmental, clotting and complement cascades. Extensive similarities suggest that these cascades were built by adding enzymes from the bottom of the cascade up and from similar macromolecular building blocks.

That was the abstract. An excerpt from the text:

The downstream protease of the vertebrate clotting cascade (Fig. 1d), thrombin, belongs to the same lineage as complement factors C1r and C1s. The upstream and middle proteases of the clotting cascade (factors VII, IX and X) belong to the most modern lineage, that of horseshoe crab clotting factor C. Therefore, the lineage of thrombin is parental to that of the upstream and middle proteases of the clotting cascade (Table 1) and distinguishes it from the other vitamin-K-dependent clotting proteases (factors VII, IX and X, and protein C). This conclusion agrees with sequence and species comparisons implying that thrombin was the ancestral blood-clotting protein [11]. It also suggests that vertebrate blood clotting emerged as a by-product of innate immunity, because the entire functional core of vertebrate clotting shares ancestry with complement proteases.

And if that's not enough, you could check these out:

Banyai, L., Varadi, A. and Patthy, L. (1983). “Common evolutionary origin of the fibrin-binding structures of fibronectin and tissue-type plasminogen activator.” FEBS Letters, 163(1): 37-41.

Bazan, J. F. (1990). “Structural design and molecular evolution of a cytokine receptor superfamily.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 87(18): 6934-6938.

Blake, C. C. F., Harlos, K. and Holland, S. K. (1987). “Exon and Domain Evolution in the Proenzymes of Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology: The Evolution of Catalytic Function, LII: 925-932.

Fornace AJ Jr, Cummings DE, Comeau CM, Kant JA, Crabtree GR. “The Structure of the human gamma-fibrinogen gene. Alternate mRNA splicing near the 3' end of the gene produces gamma A and gamma B forms of gamma-fibrinogen.” J Biol Chem. 1984 Oct 25;259(20):12826-30.

Crabtree, G. R., Comeau, C. M., Fowlkes, D. M., Fornace, A. J., Jr., Malley, J. D. and Kant, J. A. (1985). “Evolution and structure of the fibrinogen genes: Random insertion of introns or selective loss?” Journal of Molecular Biology, 185(1): 1-20.  

Di Cera, E., Dang, Q. D. and Ayala, Y. M. (1997). “Molecular mechanisms of thrombin function.” Cell Mol Life Sci, 53(9): 701-730.  

Doolittle, R. F. (1985). “More homologies among the vertebrate plasma proteins.” Biosci Rep, 5(10-11): 877-884.

Doolittle, R. F. (1990). “The Structure and Evolution of Vertebrate Fibrinogen A Comparison of the Lamprey and Mammalian Proteins,” in ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY: FIBRINOGEN, THROMBOSIS, COAGULATION, AND FIBRINOLYSIS. C. Y. Liu and Chien, S. New York, Plenum Press. 281.

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “A detailed consideration of a principal domain of vertebrate fibrinogen and its relatives.” Protein Science, 1(12): 1563-1577.

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “Early Evolution of the Vertebrate Fibrinogen Molecule.” Biophysical Journal, 61(2 PART 2): A410.  

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “Stein and Moore Award address. Reconstructing history with amino acid sequences.” Protein Science, 1(2): 191-200.

Doolittle, R. F. (1993). “The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation - a Case of Yin and Yang.” Thrombosis and Haemostasis, V70(N1): 24-28.

Doolittle, R. F. and Feng, D. F. (1987). “Reconstructing the Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation from a Consideration of the Amino Acid Sequences of Clotting Proteins.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology: The Evolution of Catalytic Function, LII: 869-874.

Doolittle, R. F., G., Spraggon and J., Everse S. (1997). “Evolution of vertebrate fibrin formation and the process of its dissolution.” Ciba Found Symp, 212: 4-17; discussion 17-23.

Doolittle, R. F. and Riley, M. (1990). “The amino-terminal sequence of lobster fibrinogen reveals common ancestry with vitellogenins.” Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 167(1): 16-19.

Edgington, T. S., Curtiss, L. K. and Plow, E. F. (1985). “A linkage between the hemostatic and immune systems embodied in the fibrinolytic release of lymphocyte suppressive peptides.” Journal of Immunology, 134(1): 471-477.  

Ghidalia, W., Vendrely, R., Montmory, C., Coirault, Y., Samama, M., Lucet, B., Bellay, A. M. and Vergoz, D. (1989). “Overall study of the in vitro plasma clotting system in an invertebrate, Liocarcinus puber (Crustacea Decapoda): Considerations on the structure of the Crustacea plasma fibrinogen in relation to evolution.” Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, 53(2): 197-205.  

Hervio, L. S., Coombs, G. S., Bergstrom, R. C., Trivedi, K., Corey, D. R. and Madison, E. L. (2000). “Negative selectivity and the evolution of protease cascades: the specificity of plasmin for peptide and protein substrates.” Chemistry & Biology, V7(N6): 443-452.  

Hewett-Emmett, D., Czelusniak, J. and Goodman, M. (1981). “The evolutionary relationship of the enzymes involved in blood coagulation and hemostasis.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 370(20): 511-527.  

Holland, S. K., Harlos, K. and Blake, C. C. F. (1987). “Deriving the generic structure of the fibronectin type II domain from the prothrombin Kringle 1 crystal structure.” EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) Journal, 6(7): 1875-1880.  

Jordan, R. E. (1983). “Antithrombin in vertebrate species: conservation of the heparin-dependent anticoagulant mechanism.” Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 227(2): 587-595.  

Kant, J. A., Fornace, A. J., Jr., Saxe, D., Simon, M. J., McBride, O. W. and Crabtree, G. R. (1985). “Evolution and organization of the fibrinogen locus on chromosome 4: Gene duplication accompanied by transposition and inversion.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 82(8): 2344-2348.  

Kornblihtt, A. R., Pesce, C. G., Alonso, C. R., Cramer, P., Srebrow, A., Werbajh, S. and Muro, A. F. (1996). “The fibronectin gene as a model for splicing and transcription studies.” FASEB Journal, 10(2): 248-257.  

Laki, K. (1972). “Our ancient heritage in blood clotting and some of its consequences.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 202(4): 297-307.  

Neurath, H. (1984). “Evolution of proteolytic enzymes.” Science, 224(4647): 350-357.

Neurath, H. (1986). “The Versatility of Proteolytic Enzymes.” Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, 32(1): 35-50.  

Oldberg, A. and Ruoslahti, E. (1986). “Evolution of the fibronectin gene: Exon structure of cell attachment domain.” Journal of Biological Chemistry, 261(5): 2113-2116.  

Opal, S. M. (2000). “Phylogenetic and functional relationships between coagulation and the innate immune response.” Critical Care Medicine, V28(N9 SUPPS): S77-S80.  

Pan, Y. and Doolittle, R. F. (1991). “Distribution of Introns in Lamprey Fibrinogen Genes.” Journal of Cellular Biochemistry Supplement(15 PART D): 75.  

Pan, Y. and Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “cDNA sequence of a second fibrinogen alpha chain in lamprey: an archetypal version alignable with full-length beta and gamma chains.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 89(6): 2066-2070.

Patthy, L. (1985). “Evolution of the Proteases of Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis by Assembly from Modules.” Cell, 41(3): 657-664.

Patthy, L. (1990). “Evolution of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis.” Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis, 1(2): 153-166.

Patthy, L. (1990). “Evolutionary Assembly of Blood Coagulation Proteins.” Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis, 16(3): 245-259.

Patthy, L. (1999). “Genome evolution and the evolution of exon-shuffling—a review.” Gene, 238(1): 103-114.

Roberts, Lewis R., Nichols, Lanita A. and Holland, Lene J. (1995). “CDNA and amino-acid sequences and organization of the gene encoding the B-beta subunit of fibrinogen from Xenopus laevis.” Gene (Amsterdam), 160(2): 223-228.  

Sosnoski, D. M., Emanuel, B. S., Hawkins, A. L., Van Tuinen, P., Ledbetter, D. H., Nussbaum, R. L., Kaos, F. T., Schwartz, E., Phillips, D. and et al. (1988). “Chromosomal localization of the genes for the vitronectin and fibronectin receptors .alpha. subunits and for platelet glycoproteins IIb and IIIa.” Journal of Clinical Investigation, 81(6): 1993-1998.  

Wang, Y. Z., Patterson, J., Gray, J. E., Yu, C., Cottrell, B. A., Shimizu, A., Graham, D., Riley, M. and Doolittle, R. F. (1989). “Complete sequence of the lamprey fibrinogen .alpha. chain.” Biochemistry, 28(25): 9801-9806.  

Xu, X. and Doolittle, R. F. (1990). “Presence of a vertebrate fibrinogen-like sequence in an echinoderm.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 87(6): 2097-2101.

Zhang, Y. L., Hervio, L., Strandberg, L. and Madison, E. L. (1999). “Distinct contributions of residue 192 to the specificity of coagulation and fibrinolytic serine proteases.” Journal of Biological Chemistry, V274(N11): 7153-7156.

Zimmermann, E. (1983). “[The evolution of the coagulation system from primitive defense mechanisms].” Behring Institute Mitteilungen, 82(73): 1-12.  

The 2.0-Å crystal structure of tachylectin 5A provides evidence for the common origin of the innate immunity and the blood coagulation systems

Davidson CJ, Tuddenham EG, McVey JH. 450 million years of hemostasis J Thromb Haemost. 2003 Jul;1(7):1487-94.

I could go on and on with examples but I don't believe it is necessary.

Yes, you're right, you could go on all night posting more false claims and invalid arguments, but that really isn't necessary to establish that you really ought to go learn something about biology before you post any more misrepresentations about it.

This alone should point out the obvious about evolution.

Yes -- that it is based on a huge amount of actual research and evidence, and that the anti-evolutionists don't know the first thing about it, but are willing to endlessly babble on giving us their wildly misguided presumptions about it which bear little if any resemblance to the actual facts.

[Ichneumon]

["As an old saying goes: "You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not, however, entitled to your own 'version' of facts."]

Why is nmh not entitled to his own version of the facts?

Because the facts are the facts. There is only one version. Anyone who insists on having an alternative version of the facts is either lying or delusional. Thus the old saying.

You readily accept 100 years of conjecture as truth

No, I don't rely on anything as vacuous as mere "conjecture". You clearly haven't a clue what I've been talking about.

but reject 5,000 years of written word and human experience as false.

No, I do not.

Cannot nmh do the same but visa-versa?

Since you have misrepresented my own position, whatever he might do would not be the "vice versa" of my own if it as you describe.

But in any case, he's entitled to believe or not believe anything he wishes, as I have already clearly stated. He is not, however, entitled to misrepresent the facts. If he declares that grass is usually purple or that mutations never produce new information, he should be expected to be called on it, because these statements are contrary to fact.

You propagate the falsehood of evolution.

No, I most certainly do not.

Cannot nmh propagate the falsehood creationism?

No one's giving him a hard time for "propagating the falsehood of creationism". We will, however, continue to point out when someone propagates falsehoods about science, about the evidence, about us, about the facts, or about things which affect the ability of the citizens of this nation to effectively compete in a technological world.

You see, neither of you have fact on your side. Only faith.

If you think this, you really haven't a clue. I do have "fact on my side", and not "only faith", because I have spent many decades of my life carefully determining what the facts are, and testing/validating them to ensure that they are indeed the facts, and not just incorrect presumptions. There are very effective ways to do these things, known since about the 1650's, and refined to a highly efficient system in the centuries since. It appalls me that there are still people who are not aware of these developments, and who think such vapid and incorrect things as the notion that no one can have any facts and that every conclusion can be based "only on faith". I ask those folks to someday leave the fifteenth century and come join the rest of us in the present.

I, for one will side with nmh and the faith that God made all and it is He that I must follow.

Go right ahead. But be aware that this does not require you to reject science -- in fact the *majority* of American evolutionists are also Christians.

If I'm wrong, I'll have to answer to Darwin. Whoop-de-doo.

How old are you, twelve? This kind of response is entirely puerile. Are you capable of no better?

[PatrickHenry]

You care that some people around here don't tell the truth? That is deeply disturbing. Why can't you think outside the box and disregard reality like your debate opponents?
</mindlessness mode>

[Ichneumon]

Whoohoo! You're so cute when you're sanctimonius.

If I ever get sanctimonious, you'll have no trouble mistaking it for my current posts.

Let me be the first to say thank you for letting us know that there is nothing wrong in believing in God and Creation. I can come out of my hole now.

Why are you getting snotty when we happen to agree on this point?

Now, I can't speak for my fellow ignoramuses but I can say with a high level of confidence and self-validation that I do not reject any and all science that clash with my religion,

I didn't say that you had.

In fact, I find God in all that science discovers or proves or validates or explains. If evolution is indeed fact and therefore undeniable truth, it is God's work. If not, it is still God's work. All is God's work. Even you my breathless friend, are God's work.

We do not disagree on this point.

My objection to evolutionism is that the folks pushing it are lying.

Just a moment ago you were attempting to defend someone's falsehoods on the grounds that it's all "just faith", no one can claim to have "the" facts. And now you suddenly accuse a group of outright lying for having a different opinion than yourself. Does the word "hypocrite" sound familiar?

They look you in the face and say that it has nothing to do with God.

Really? Who, exactly, "looks you in the face" and tells you this? And how large a group is that, out of all the people who accept evolutionary biology? Be specific. Are you slandering millions of Americans and thousands of your fellow Freepers, or just a tiny fringe group which you want to obsess over and bitch about any time any of the rest of us use that nasty "evolution" word in your presence?

Well, it does. They have faith that God does not exist (A fact, as it were),

This is hardly the first time you have shown a great confusion between the concepts of "faith" and "fact". They are hardly the same thing.

then come up with evolution (The theory to the fact) to prove it.

Absolute and complete rubbish. This is a common falsehood about evolutionary biology, promulgated by its critics, but it is in no way true. Even among atheistic evolutionists, I can not think of a single example which actually meets your description. I doubt you can either. You are stating your presumptions as if they were fact, without first having established their truth beyond your mere belief in them.

Let evolution into the schools. It just an argument for crying out loud.

No, it is far, far more than that. If you don't understand why, you shouldn't be recommending curricula.

Then let creationism in too.

Sorry, the Constitution bars that.

But stop with the science stuff. Put where it belongs; Religious Studies.

If you mean that evolutionary biology belongs in "religious studies", you are grossly mistaken. Please try to learn something about a topic before you make confident pronouncements about it based on your lack of knowledge.

Lastly, all those men cited were great indeed. But it is telling that you left out (a glaring omission) the man who is most responsible for this thread. Darwin himself. Did you mean to leave him off your "great" list?

It wasn't my list, metmom posted it. I was commenting on her choices.

Oh! I forgot. Nice use of the biblical "Not fit to [shine] the shoes of..." in your last paragraph. Did you realize? I think not.

There you go, jumping to false conclusions again.

Perhaps God's speaking through you...

I would be foolish to either agree with *or* deny that, wouldn't I?

[Ichneumon]

You care that some people around here don't tell the truth? That is deeply disturbing. Why can't you think outside the box and disregard reality like your debate opponents?

Yeah, silly me. Think of all the time I could save if I just posted what I wished to be true, and stopped researching to double-check nearly everything for accuracy as I write it. (I have, let's see... 55 internet browser windows open at the moment -- thank GodDarwin for my tabbed browser)

[trashcanbred]

Well the major branches of science such as Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology and Physics... Within those branches are sub-branches, such as paleontology for example. Evolutionary biology is a sub-branch of Biology. Hey, if you prefer the term..."field of study", fine by me.

[trashcanbred]

When you say Creator... why don't you just say God? Why do you always use that term instead of God? Who in their right mind would consider the notion of "natural selection" worthy of empirical science when it cannot predict the next million years of life while claiming to have the first 4.5 billion under its belt?

Because like Meteorology, Paleontology, and even Geology... they cannot predict (with any degree of accuracy) what the next million years of their respective fields of study will be like either. Wanna throw them out the door as well?