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To: hopespringseternal
Until you demonstrate how bad+bad+...+bad=amazingly good, I am not buying. That massive difference in the genomes occurred far too rapidly for any mechanism you can demonstrate.

Do you even realize how ridiculous the argument is that the extensively documented and investigated process of evolution happens so slowly that eternity isn't long enough to see it happen, while simultaneously claiming that the unscientific *and* unbiblical process of "adaptation" happens several orders of magnitude faster than evolution? DNA mutation--the driving force of evolution--happens in every cell in your body, countless times every day, all by itself.

You have not done that, not even once. You guys are trying to treat science like history, for one thing. It doesn't work that way. Until you can demonstrate it and reproduce it, you haven't really gone beyond speculation. Historians know what happened and speculate about why. You are still at the point of speculating what happened.

Do not assume that because you don't know the extensive and painstaking work it took to establish every single fact I have presented here, that we scientists are just making stuff up out of the blue. Treating science like history--what a bunch of claptrap. You can't just pick up a book and find all the answers; in science, you have to actually make hypotheses and test them. Yes, there is still a lot we don't know--but that does not mean we are still "speculating" about what happened with all those fossils. We know what happened; we're just filling in the details.

If you could spend five minutes without scrawling "then a miracle happens" across the middle of your page evolution would be scientific. You can't do that.

I have not claimed "then a miracle happens", ever. Those supposed "miracles" are, in fact, gaps in your knowledge. Once you figure out what is in those gaps, those "miracles" will disappear.

Even in the work I had to dig up, the researcher is postulating a mechanism of mutation rather than selection and expression.

Do you mean, in that Wikipedia article about that long-running bacterial growth experiment? He actually didn't "postulate" a "mechanism of mutation rather than selection and expression." What he did was hypothesize the kinds of mutations that led to the phenotypes he saw--hypotheses which are easily testable, through sequencing the bacterial genomes.

Try to understand, this is all basic molecular biology: mutation happens constantly, and spontaneously. Most of the time, mutations are repaired correctly; sometimes, they are not. Most DNA mutations are completely invisible, because most DNA is junk. But DNA also contains genes. Genes contain the coding for proteins. A mutation in a gene, therefore, causes a change in a protein. A change in a protein causes a change in phenotype--the appearance of the organism. When we talk about evolution, we talk about the change in phenotype, which we can see--but it *always* results from a change in the DNA. And the DNA *always* evolves faster than the phenotype, because so much of the DNA is junk.

Evolution *always* occurs. Selective pressures *always* exist, whether they pressure a population into maintaining equilibrium, or they push a population towards establishing a new equilibrium suitable for the new environment.

What is really laughable is your assertion that different breeds of dogs represent evolution. This is something man did simply by selecting traits and recombining them to strengthen gene expression.

No, what is laughable is your attempt at trying to avoid believing that thousands of highly skilled scientists could actually be correct in their observations. I'm sorry, but no matter how much you try, you cannot argue the scientific description of the world out of existence, or argue the physical world into being something else.

Every time you come up with another objection to the scientific facts, you only succeed in convincing me that your science education is severely lacking. You will never convince me that the science is wrong--something about spending years studying and doing research in pursuit of my PhD gave me a lot of confidence in just how correct the science is. I also suspect that your strong objection to science is not because of the science at all--you object because young earth creationist charlatans (who want your money) convinced you that science and religion are mutually exclusive. They aren't. They are different, and have different purposes--but no one has to make a choice between them.

256 posted on 06/13/2012 8:00:45 PM PDT by exDemMom (Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)
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To: exDemMom
Do you even realize how ridiculous the argument is that the extensively documented and investigated process of evolution happens so slowly that eternity isn't long enough to see it happen, while simultaneously claiming that the unscientific *and* unbiblical process of "adaptation" happens several orders of magnitude faster than evolution? DNA mutation--the driving force of evolution--happens in every cell in your body, countless times every day, all by itself.

Funny. Real funny. If your cells were changing that fast it would kill you in short order. Chaos does not beget order. Adaptation is real. Traits exist in populations. Place pressure on a population that favors a trait and it will become more prevalent in the population. It is really just another way of saying "natural selection" but because I am not in your club and don't wear a funny hat, you don't recognize it.

We know what happened; we're just filling in the details.

Really? You have traced the actual incremental changes from one species to another at the genetic level? You have identified all the transitional forms between two species? You have worked out the evolutionary path for biochemical processes in the cell and repeated them?

Once you figure out what is in those gaps, those "miracles" will disappear.

You can't fill in the gaps. You haven't argued with Behe, you just voted him off your island. Every time you post something and I point out a problem with it, the issue is not the flaw in the example, but I am just not smart enough to get it. At least with my faith I don't have to leap across gaping logic chasms that you evolutionists need to cross.

Most DNA mutations are completely invisible, because most DNA is junk.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to dismiss anything beyond your understanding as trash. It is the mistake you "priesthood" scientists make again and again because your "science" is not true science, it is religion. How many times has "science" dismissed what it doesn't understand only to discover the truth later? As real science unravels more and more, we find that the things we sought to ignore were the richest ground of all for discovery.

Inquisitiveness drives science. A real scientist does not disregard what he doesn't understand, he studies it. Evolutionist throw away what they don't understand because it threatens their faith.

I also suspect that your strong objection to science is not because of the science at all--you object because young earth creationist charlatans (who want your money) convinced you that science and religion are mutually exclusive.

That is your straw man, not mine. I dislike religious belief wrapped in scientific trappings, which is one of the reasons I have no tolerance for evolution.

257 posted on 06/14/2012 10:09:46 PM PDT by hopespringseternal
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