Evolution was, and is, a great notion

The Boston Globe ^ | 6/17/2003 | Chet Raymo

[Radix]

What was the greatest scientific idea of all time? The answer, I think, is clear: Evolution by natural selection, conceived more or less simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century. It was their genius to imagine a way diverse organisms could arise from simple ancestors by purely natural process.

[Aric2000]

Oh,and before you start posting MORE nonsense, let's look at what this website claims.

This website, since it seems to be the one you keep quoting... http://www.ruforchrist.com/Creation_evidence.htm

· the universe is billions of years old,

· life spontaneously arose from nonliving minerals,

· mutations create or improve a species,

· natural selection has creative power.



Let's go over these one at a time, shall we?

First one.

· the universe is billions of years old,

The universe is in fact over 15 billion years old, and there is NO way that ANYONE can get around it. It is scientifically obvious that indeed the universe is 15 billion+ years old.

First one, TOAST!! and the rest of the arguments on this site are insane, no scientific basis at ALL!!

OK, on to the 2nd


· life spontaneously arose from nonliving minerals,

No where does evolution claim this, NO WHERE, so does NOTHING to disprove evolution.

OK, On to the 3rd...


· mutations create or improve a species,

No, mutations don't, because there is no create or improve, there is ONLY survive. Mutations allow a creature to survive and reproduce, this is not necessarily an improvement, nor a detriment. It just happens to be the mutation that allows the creature with that mutation to survive BETTER then the creatures in it's species that DO NOT have that mutation.

and the 4th....


· natural selection has creative power.

Evolution DOES NOT claim this and never has, no creative power at all, see the answer to the last question.

The WHOLE premise of the argument is false, therefore the entire website is a BALD FACED LIE!!!

If you want to fight evolution, at least use evidence and the ACTUAL theory, instead of claiming it says something that it doesn't.

[Aric2000]

Oh good grief, give me a fricking break...

I showed you that you are wrong and so you claim that since I do not believe in yor god, therefore I am wrong.

Get a grip...

I am NOT an ATHEIST, and I understand that evolution is the BEST theory to explain the available evidence at this time.

Time for you to to come back to the real world, because it is obvious that the Matrix has you.

[f.Christian]

If the history of evolution shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ideology science

[goodseedhomeschool]

We teach then that they are animals and then wonder why they act like animals.
Just because "certain people's religion happens to be included in this generations science textbooks does not mran it qualifies as science or that it becomes science by association.

[Aric2000]

Yes you do, and since you have no clue and REALLY do not want to know...

YOU SAY "GODDIDIT" and then shut your ears to any evidence that might refute you, and might actually give you an answer.

[goodseedhomeschool]

Radix, I appreciate your article here. I am addressing most of my comments to you because there are certain very nasty people who post on every evolution article here at FR. I will not lower myself to their level. I hope this has been useful. Have a blessed night.

[Aric2000]

Just can't handle it can you?

Science is science, religion is religion.

One is based on evidence, one is based on faith.

If you cannot handle one and the other without it conflicting somehow, You are the one with the problem.

It's called a LACK of faith.

[bondserv]

Easy big guy. Be good to the well meaning folks.

I take issue with your assumptions.

1. The Universe is estimated to be between 15 and 20 billion years old.
Yeah, Yeah astronomers say this star is that many light years, that star is that many light years, triangulate the muffusada with the bamboozla and you get we have a 5 billion year plus or minus guess that can and does change frequently. It looks old. HeHeHe

Rebuttal: A God that obviously took great care to create a humble living enviroment for yours truely, tells us that He spread out the stars like a scroll. They were close one moment now their light is stretched across the heavens the next moment. 15 billion yrs + or - 5 billion of stretched light. You must admit the scroll unrolling makes perfect sense scientifically when you are talking about an Entity that can hurl a galaxy at 200,000 miles per hour.

2. Because evolution has nothing to do with Origins as Darwin so clearly left out of his title, don't go there.

Rebuttal: Origins are Toast for Aric, no need to cause anguish.

3. Because mutations have nothing to do with creation we will pass on this one.

Rebuttal: If the evidence doesn't show that mutations regularly on a daily basis create beneficial complexity to an organism, the millions of subsystems in said organism cannot get all of their cogs working in the same direction. You have no time for dilly dallying, get to work or you will die.

4. Natural selection has nothing to do with origins. Pass.

Rebuttal: If you don't tan you have two options a. die young from radiation poison to your ghostly skin, b. rent a U-Haul and pack up the rug rats it's time to move. Then allow your kids to spend small amounts of time in a more cloudy climate so their children might have a small chance of popping a tent on ground that is other than a glacier.

Oh, I do tire of this hard debating. Must I continue to suffer the little children. They hunger not for my cold reason that I serve up. Maybe I'll rather serve up tennis Buffy.

[ApesForEvolution]

LOL!! Adios!

[ApesForEvolution]

Succinct and accurate!

[RadioAstronomer]

we have a 5 billion year plus or minus guess that can and does change frequently. It looks old. HeHeHe

You are a bit out of date here.

Due to new data from the Hubble Telescope, the Hubble Constant is now calculated at 72 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This along with other observations gives us a better estimation of the date of the universe. The current estimation is approximately 13.4 ± 1.6 billion years. Obviously this could change should new data be gathered or a better way of estimating the age comes along.

Such is science. The theory is modified or discarded as new data is produced. On the other hand, Creationism, IMHO, attempts to force the data to a preconceived biblical notion.

[Stultis]

Can you explain this in English?

I'm not an expert, but I understand the essential points of the article well enough to simplify, thusly:

The main DNA in animals like humans and apes (and just about anything more complex than a bacteria) is stored in the center of our cells, and is organized into structures called chromosomes. These are complex coils of the DNA strand, also packed with proteins. They are actually fairly dynamic structures, often "loosening" up an uncoiling so the DNA can be copied or used to make proteins, but at certain points in the cell cycle they "tighten" up into well-defined structures. At such points they can be stained and visually compared across species, for instance by matching up the complex patterns of light and dark bands of varying widths along their length.

Click back on the "To [msg#]" links at the bottom of these messages and you will find the first post I directed to Timmy that shows this correspondence between the number 2 chromosome in humans on the one hand, and two different chromosomes in chimpanzees.

Now, obviously, if humans and chimps really share a common ancestry, at some point either the two chromosomes (as in the chimp, and all other great apes) became one (as in the human) or the one chromosome split and became two. IOW there was either a fusion (in the human lineage) or a split (in the ape but not the human lineage).

The evidence (discussed in the second article I excerpted, the one you are asking about) suggests that the former was what happened: Two chromosomes fused into one chromosome in the human lineage. Aside from the clues found in the human number 2 chromosome itself, there are other reasons to favor a fusion rather than a split. Entirely separate lines of evidence, for instance, suggest that humans and chimps share a more recent common ancestor than either shares with the orangutan or gorilla, so if there was a split it would need to have occurred at least twice (once in the chimpanzee, after it's lineage split off from that of humans, and also in the gorilla/orangutan lineage after the human/chimp lineage split off from it) and these separate splits would have had to occur in the exact same places on the same (corresponding) chromosomes.

Now, given that we are dealing with a fusion of two ape chromosomes to make one human chromosome, we might well expect to find some evidence of this on close examination of the human chromosome. The article discusses and provides documentation for detailed and specific evidence that the fusion actually did happen.

There were two examples of such evidence in the excerpt I posted, concerning "telomeres" and "centromeres". The names suggest the locations of these structures.

The telomere is a terminal structure (DNA sequence) that is found at the ends of chromosomes. Although the DNA sequences that compose the telomeres are not transcribed into proteins, as are the functional DNA sequences we call "genes," they do have an important function and purpose of their own. Basically they form a protective "cap" on chromosomes that prevent their ends from "fraying." In fact the telomeres, which are mostly composed of long repetitive sequences of DNA, do themselves degrade with repeated duplication of the chromosome during cell replication. The older you are (and therefore the more times your cells have divided) the shorter your telomeres become.

Telomeres not only have specific and distinctive DNA sequences, but these sequences also have directionality, so that there is a "head" to the telomere (the part nearest the end of the chromosome) and a "tail" (the part towards the inside of the chromosome). It happens that in the human number 2 chromosome there are two telomeres joined head to head at the exact point where the fusion must have occurred if the ends of the two separate ape chromosomes actually did join to make the one human chromosome. IOW, in addition to the normal and functional telomeres and the ends of the human number 2 chromosome, there are two additional "fossil" telomeres meeting inside the chromosome at the fusion point.

The centromere, as the name suggests, is located at the "center" (not necessarily the exact center) of the chromosome. It functions as an attachment point when the complementary chromosome pairs are physically drawn together at certain points in the cell cycle, e.g. to allow "crossing over" during the creation of eggs and sperm, or to divide and segregate the genetic material during cell division.

In any case the important point to note is that chromosomes normally only have one functional centromere. Again the presence of a second "fossil" centromere in the human number 2 chromosome, in exactly the same place as the corresponding functional centromere in the second ape chromosome, is strong evidence that the chromosome fusion event really did happen, and that the two chromosomes in the apes correspond to, and are ultimately modified copies of, the one chromosome in humans.

[f.Christian]

The general unified theory of evolution is only a fantasy in your empty head !

[Stultis]

Well they need to begin considering the groundswell of rejection that is coming against their theory.

Well, yeah, I suppose when a legislature passes some law, or a school board some resolution or policy, or adopts some curricula material that advances the popular antievolution movement, you will get some additional percentage of evolutionary scientists to take notice and get involved somehow for some space of time. But it's still going to be a small percent that does so.

Most scientists are very consumed with their own work and research. They just tune this stuff out. To them it's a waste of time. What physicist doesn't get letters from guys building flying saucers in their garages, explaining the propulsion systems with detailed diagrams? How many of those letters do you suppose get answered?

Heck, even where you have matters of life and death involved, you are still going to have a tough time drawing more than a small number of scientists away from their professional concerns. How many virologists are willing to waste their time responding to anti-vaccination screeds on the internet? Even when the president of South Africa, on the basis of little more than a bit of internet research, declares that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, the most your going to get from most working scientists is a quick signature on a "you're a freakin' idiot" letter.

In short, most scientists, qua scientists, couldn't care less about you until you step onto to their turf. I.e. until you produce some substantive research results supporting you claim. Until then you're just a crank, no matter how "popular" your movement may be.

[RadioAstronomer]

Very well said!

[Stultis]

Yeah, well, absent the misspellings and typos, but then I was "sleep freeping". Back to bed!

[Stultis]

If Patrick Henry hasn't fully learned this lesson, its liberal detractors are worse off: Their view of freedom has produced intellectual chaos. As Reformation leader Martin Luther once put it, sinful man is like a drunken fellow who falls off one side of his horse, only to get back up and fall off the other side. Luther's drunken man is looking more and more like an Ivy League professor."

So Martin Luther is your scientific authority? Do you also agree with him here?:

"People gave ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus] who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.... This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13] that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."
~~~Martin Luther in one of his "Table Talks," 1539

I'll spare you Luther's lurid fulminations on the subjects of reason (that "whore") women (also whores) and jews (much, much worse than whores).

[Radix]

I have not actually kept up with this thread. In my wildest dreams, I never would have imagined that this thread would have 500 plus  posts. I almost did not post the original article.

 

I actually thought that the thread if it went anywhere would focus on the AI aspect. I do still consider myself to be somewhat of a newbie on FR.com! I post a lot out here because I have concerns for the morale of our Military. As far as I am concerned support for our Troops is the most important thing that the FR.com contributes to.

[f.Christian]

You have to denigrate God and Truth to prove a falsehood !

[PatrickHenry]

PLACEMARKER