US scientists may have resolved 'Darwin's dilemma'

Fox News ^ | 11/15/2014 | By Matt Cantor

[SeekAndFind]

Charles Darwin worried about a possible hole in his theory of evolution, but some American scientists may just have plugged it. For about a billion years after the dawn of life on Earth, organisms didn't evolve all that much.

Then about 600 million years ago came the "Cambrian explosion." Everything changed relatively quickly, with all kinds of plants and animals emerging—which doesn't quite seem to fit with Darwin's theory of slow change, hence "Darwin's dilemma." Now, within a few days of each other, two new studies have appeared that could explain the shift, ABC News reports.

One, by scientists at Yale and the Georgia Institute of Technology, suggests that oxygen levels may have been far less plentiful in the atmosphere prior to the Cambrian explosion than experts had thought.

The air may only have been .1% oxygen, which couldn't sustain today's complex organisms, indicating a shift had to happen before the "explosion" could take place.

In a separate study, a University of Texas professor explains where that oxygen burst may have come from: a major tectonic shift. Based on geological evidence, Ian Dalziel believes what is now North America remained attached to the supercontinent Gondwanaland until the early Cambrian period, in contrast with current belief, which has the separation occurring earlier.

[SkyDancer]

I just vaguely remember something from a biology book mentioning that ... I guess some scientist think one thing and some another ...

[BroJoeK]

Olog-hai: "That’s like saying “you may not like it, but the church/state upholds Aristotle over Galileo and that is the way it is”.
Government getting into science destroys both its credibility and its impartiality.
I prefer science, myself."

You are, of course, totally entitled to teach whatever you wish about creation vs. evolution in your own home-school, or private school.
You can also research and publish yourself whatever findings you suppose are important on the subject.

But tax-payer dependent government-schools fall under the US Constitution's prohibition against "establishment of religion".
And when the US Constitution does mention "science", it is clearly as our Founders understood the word -- natural-science and technology.

That is why US courts have consistently ruled against efforts of anti-science people like yourself to impose your religious ideas on public school natural-science classes, or to redefine the word "science" to suit your own purposes.

I'll say it again: I believe that Creationism should be taught in government-schools, in strictly voluntary elective religion classes, taught by qualified clergy.

No other public school solution pays the subject proper respect.

[BroJoeK]

Ology-hair: "Agreed about that being the scientific question about Neanderthals, but the answering has to stop at the evidence and not build on dogma"

I'll repeat, both speculations and hypotheses are essential to the scientific method, since they get scientists started down the track of confirming or falsifying theories.

As for alleged " dogma", I presume what you mean by that is anything you disagree with, right?
So, now... we must establish, at tax-payer expense, an Office of Olog-hai which will pass judgment on all scientific papers as to whether they are "dogma" or not??!

Good luck getting Congress to pass that one!

;-)

[BroJoeK]

redleghunter: "Don’t you know chance plus billions of years solves this problem.
As if they personify “chance” and “loads of time”.
As if they are deities!"

Do you not understand that there are fish today which can breath air and spend part of their lives away from water?
On the other side, there are reptiles, birds and mammals which live in water and according to fossils have become steadily more aquatic.

So what exactly is your problem with that?

[BroJoeK]

redleghunter: "Yet we have rabid atheists beating the drum this is all settled science.
Arrogance has no place in any profession.
This includes theology."

So far as I've seen, there are no "rabid atheists" on this thread, but quite a few Creationists who seem to me very confused about the differences between natural-science and their religious beliefs.

[Olog-hai]

By “dogma”, I mean just that. Uniformitarianism is not science by the definition of science. If that’s one of the pillars that Darwin built his theory on aside from Greek philosophy/metaphysics, then the foundation is not only shaky, but utterly undermined.

[BroJoeK]

WKUHilltopper: "Our teachers specifically told us these gill slits were used for breathing fluid...along with Haeckel’s Embryo Chart in our text books, which was declared a fraud nearly 100 years earlier."

I must have been sick that day in biology class, because I never remember hearing about this stuff until years & years later.
To this day, I've seen only evidence that Haeckel was somewhat mistaken -- honest but mistaken -- not that he was deliberately perpetrating "fraud".

[Olog-hai]

Hurling the epithet “creationist” indicates anti-something, particularly the descriptions of creation in religious scripture. Real science cannot discount the existence of beings in possession of power like that.

[Olog-hai]

You are again giving credence to big government here, as well as government control of both religion and science. That is not what the USA was founded on, particularly per the First Amendment.

[going hot]

Hurling the epithet “creationist”....

Caught my eye as I was clicking through the page. We sure have come a long way.

[BroJoeK]

PapaNew: "Transference between major animal groups is just what it says - something like a fish or its ancestor becoming a horse or its ancestor."

Here's the real fraud: there's no such thing as "transference" -- it's not a scientific term, it's a non-term perpetrated by anti-scientists. Think about that.

The fact is that no fish ever became a horse, indeed no fish ever became anything other than a fish.
So there was never, ever "transference" between fish and horse.

What actually happened, according to fossils and DNA is that some fish did and still do spend some of their time out of water.
Their descendants adapted more & more to land, and eventually left fish-like fossils we call something else.
Those descendants continued to adapt & diversify and in due time left fossils which we call something else -- proto-reptiles, birds, mammals etc.
My point is there was never a sudden "transference" from fish to something modern.
Instead the fossil record shows relatively small changes of many millions of years.
To cite examples, fossils said to be the earliest proto-mammals and proto-birds look very much like similar fossils which are identified as reptiles -- no "transference".

PapaNew: "Transference between animal groups is the kind of evolution required by Darwinism becasue it theorizes that all living things evolved from a single organism source.
But there is no evidence of this kind of transference.
That is why I say Darwinism is a fake and a fraud."

You have to remember that basic evolution theory consists of just two ideas: 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection.
That theory has been confirmed innumerable times, and indeed is re-confirmed every day by scientists working in the field.

The further theory of common descent has also been confirmed innumerable times, especially in recent years with DNA analyses comparing changes in genetic codes of closely related, and not-so-closely related, species to calculate years since their last common ancestors.
These calculations are then compared and confirmed against fossil records to help clarify many species' evolution, evolutions which were previously obscure.

And contrary to what you imply here, there has never been a single serious falsification of basic evolution theory.
Therefore, all the "fake and fraud" is coming from somebody other than scientists working on evolution, pal.

PapaNew: "But evolution within a major animal group is another story, like the different breeds of particular types of mammals like wolves and dogs.
There is plenty of evidence of evolution WITHIN a particular type of animal or group but that type of evolution, but of course, that is not the kind required by Darwinism."

But there is no difference -- none -- between so called "micro-evolution within" species, and "macro-evolution between" species.
It is precisely the same thing, shorter term versus longer term.
Shorter term adaptions create new breeds, sub-species and species.
Continued over many more generations of separation and we see new genera, families, orders, etc.
There's no difference in the evolutionary processes, only the length of time they operate.

Remember the dividing lines between biological classifications are strictly human scientific constructs -- for examples, different species within the same genus usually can physically interbreed, but don't (i.e., some zebras), while those in different genera of the same family physically cannot interbreed successfully (i.e., Indian & African elephants).

Bottom line: as with basic evolution theory (descent with modifications and natural selection) the theory of common descent has literal mountains of fossil evidence and millions of DNA analyses supporting it, and not one piece of seriously falsifying data in now over 150 years.

And that's why evolution theory is considered "settled science", FRiend.

[BroJoeK]

alexander_busek: "...is merely a statement about your lack of imagination.
It provides us with absolutely no objective information."

No, it provides 100% objective information regarding my religious beliefs.
Of course, you may have different beliefs, and may or may not wish to debate which are superior.
Regardless, the fact that such beliefs are non-scientific does not make them invalid.

alexander_busek: "It is about as appropriate as my saying that I believe that, a million years ago, a little teapot was in orbit between Earth and Mars."

Wrong, because by definition, belief in God is a religious belief, not a scientific fact.
So, if you believe in orbiting tea pots, that would be a matter of great interest to... your psychologist.
By contrast, religious beliefs are frequently expressed in places of worship.

alexander_busek: "Unless you can provide objective evidence, it is inappropriate."

No, it's entirely appropriate to a discussion of religion and science, which is what this thread has become, doncha know?

[BroJoeK]

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Macro evolution is a scientific impossibility.
While microevolution (variations within a kind, as seen in dogs) is acknowledged fact, macroevolution has no basis in reality and has never been observed."

That's total rubbish, and you should be ashamed of yourself for it.
The fact is, there is no difference between so-called "micro" & "macro evolution" -- none -- except the length of time under consideration.
The process is exactly the same -- descent with modifications, natural selection -- over shorter ("micro-evolution") or longer ("macro-evolution") times.

The process which produces new varieties, breeds & subspecies -- which has been observed in nature -- continues in precisely the same way to produce new species, genera, families, etc. -- and that is observed in fossils and DNA analyses.

One example I've often cited is zebras -- over a dozen different breeds & sub-species which can & do interbreed, within three species which don't normally interbreed, but can if coaxed, within two different genera, which can't successfully interbreed in nature.
Both DNA and fossils show that all this diversity happened within the past few million years.
And those most closely related radiated within the most recent time periods.

That's what evolution is all about, and to deny it is to massively close your eyes and hand-wave away evidence.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Scientists have attempted experiments on rapidly reproducing species to induce mutational changes hoping they would lead to new and better species, but these have all failed to accomplish their goal."

Fossils and DNA evidence suggest that the average species live about a million years before going extinct or evolving enough to be classified a new species.
So a million years of evolution is typically what it takes before two separated populations of the same species no longer interbreed in the wild.
That makes them different species, a fact which can be seen by careful comparison of their DNAs.

As of today, the day has not yet arrived when scientists can simulate a million years of DNA evolution within a computer, and then grow the resulting creature in real life.
But eventually it will come, and then you should ask yourself: why do you put such futile efforts into denying the obvious?

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: ""No truly new species has ever been produced."

Do you not yet "get" that nothing in evolution is ever radically new, it's all baby-step incremental?
That's why we speak of "evolution not revolution".
Evolution of life is nature's way, and so there are no "truly new species", ever.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Also, life could never have originated by chemical means.
Scientists still don't know how life originated, because it's origin still cannot be explained.
Matter of fact, in the 1970s, Sir Frederick Hoyle calculated that the probability of spontaneous generation of a single cell organism was one chance in 10 to the 40,000 power."

As I've posted here before, there are about a dozen different scientific hypotheses of how life first began on Earth, including panspermia, space-aliens, divine miracles and various forms of abiogenesis.
None have been seriously confirmed or falsified, and so all are still more-or-less equally likely to have happened, or not happened.

But Fred Hoyle's old calculations are ludicrous, because nobody but nobody fantasies that life suddenly sprang full-blown from some mud puddle.
Every idea of "life from chemistry" supposes that even the most complex natural chemistry would be only the simplest conceivable form of "life".
But that might be enough, in the beginning, if such chemistry could "eat" and reproduce.
And if reproduction was less than perfect, well now you'd have evolution of complex chemistry.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "George Wald, a prominent atheist said: 'When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: Creation or spontaneous generation.
There is no third way...'. "

More rubbish -- a false choice which is rejected by every scientist working in that area.
Today there are about a dozen different hypotheses on how life arose.

However, I do agree with Hoyle on the following: "if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."

I believe that nothing in God's Universe is random chance, but everything is for a reason, a purpose and according to God's long-term plan, even the seemingly "random" nature of evolution's descent with modifications and natural selection.

And we are proof of that, imho.

Think about it...

[BroJoeK]

"God Bless"

:-)

[PapaNew]

The critical difference between evolution within an animal type or group and Darwinist evolution, of course is evidence of actual links (I call “transference”) between the “before” and “after” whether over a short period or over millions of years. Darwinist evolution lacks such evidence and has been called pseudo science in the scientific community - it is anything but “settled.” Hence, I call Darwinism a “fake.”

The most glaring and relevant example of the lack of for Darwinism is man and the “missing link” (AKA missing evidence of transference) of monkey becoming man. There have been many hoaxes forwarded by Darwinists claiming to have found this “missing link”, including the so-called “Javaman” and Neanderthal Man”. Hence, I call Darwinism a “phony”.

Darwin himself, who began as a church-going Christin, died not having reconciled grave doubts about the unexplained but critical holes in his theory like these “missing links” (or lack of evidence of “transference”).

The only evidence of the origin of the species including man is physical evidence and the Bible (if you believe the Bible). True science and the Bible are friends. Since you don’t seem to argue against the tonnage of prima facie evidence for Intelligent Design, I can only guess that your argument is that God created man from the dust through evolution from primordial goo and put in all the necessary coding in that primordial goo to evolve into the different animal groups and man. That is not Darwinism per se, but again, if that is your interpretation of creation, it lacks any, much less a preponderance, of physical evidence of the critical “links”.

If you believe the Bible, then you believe God created man. The question is how. The Bible says God made everything, including man, by the Word (John 1:3), which he spoke when he said, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen 1:26).

The Bible says Jesus is the Word who came into the world that He had made (John 1:10). And Jesus demonstrated creating something out of nothing when he fed five thousand and four thousand men plus women and children with a few loaves and fishes (Matt 14:17-21, 15:34-38). All of this is Bible evidence that God created man in a way that we today would call a miracle - and he was to have dominion over all that God had created on previous “days” by his Word.

So, again, there is scant physical or biblical evidence that God created man to evolve from goo through monkeys to man. The fact that we really don’t know how God made man from the dust through his Word, doesn’t validate our attempts to fill in the gaps with our own explanations outside of sufficient evidence before us.

Although I find this subject interesting, the Bible is much more concerned about redemption than creation and is a revelation of Jesus, our Redeemer. Nevertheless, I also wanted to add that the Bible easily accommodates geological and fossil evidence of countless ages gone by that in no way contradicts the creation by his Word. The fossil record does not interfere with the Bible record of creation.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

No there is a huge difference between micro and macro evolution. Micro has been observed and is proven. Macro is just a theory. It has never been observed or proven and it is a plain and simple lie to say otherwise. It is not just that macro supposedly takes more time, it is also that macro claims to chance one species into another. This process that you claim produces new species has NEVER been observed in nature. Of course animals can break into subspecies. You can see this in dogs, any of which came originally form wolves. But they can all still interbreed. But notice that their DNA never becomes more complicated. It only becomes less. The wide variety of dogs that were able to be bred from wolves now have lost information in their DNA, not gained it, as would be necessary for evolution to take place. For instance, you will never be able to to breed such a variety of dogs if you started with a Chihuahua compared to if you started from a wolf because the Chihuahua has less variants in its DNA than the wolf, having lost many of these parts along the way. For real evolution to happen DNA would have to be gained. But that is a problem because although it has been shown that parts of DNA can be lost or corrupted, it has never been shown to be gained.

Also your claim that the many theories on the origin of life all equally likely to have happened is absurd and unscientific. I'm not sure what you mean when you call Hoyle's calculation's ludicrous. You yourself say that if life spontaneously arose it would be in the form of the most simple of organisms. But that is just what Hoyle calculated for. His calculations were based on a single celled organism, You can't get any simpler than that.

Also if evolution were really true, then one would expect to find thousands and thousands of transitional forms in the fossil layer. Do we find this? No. We find hardly anything that can be called a transitional form, and even many of these are likely to simply have been a separate extinct species and not a transitional form.

As I said before the who theory of evolution goes against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which makes it highly questionable. After all would you believe me if I said I found a ton of exceptions to the law of gravity, but since they were all in the past and I couldn't prove that they really happened and you would just have to take my word for it?

[redleghunter]

My problem is not what we can observe today or others observed. I have issue with the overconfidence in suppositions stated as settled science.

[BroJoeK]

BJK in post #223: "Ology-hair"

Sorry about that!
It's that silly automatic word-completion on my allegedly "smart" phone.
Very helpful with my fat fingers on small keys, but you really have to watch it -- it'll sneak funny stuff in when you least expect it.
I promise to be more careful in the future. ;-(

[BroJoeK]

Olog-hai: "By 'dogma', I mean just that. Uniformitarianism is not science by the definition of science."

There you go again!
Trying to redefine the word "science" to suit your own purposes, pretending to be some kind of "authority" on just what is, or is not, proper "science".

The truth of this matter is that you, Olog-hai, have no authority -- none -- to declare anything either "in" or "outside" natural-science.
Science is not necessarily what you declare it to be, never was, never will be.
Whether you like it or not, the definition of "science" is outside your personal control.
So, you can take it, or you can leave it, but you can't change it.

What is "science"?

I'll repeat what I've posted here before: first and foremost our word "science" is short of the Enlightenment Age term: "natural-science", meaning natural explanations for natural processes.
That is what our Founders understood the term to mean, and what they mean by "science" in the US Constitution.
"Natural science" is defined specifically to exclude any reference to super-natural or spiritual phenomenon & explanations.
The philosophical term for it is the assumption of: "methodological naturalism".

But that is not the only assumption of natural-science.
Another is the term "uniformitarianism", meaning we assume that basic natural processes we see in operation here and now were operating more-or-less the same in times past and places other than earth.

Obviously, such assumptions are not iron-clad, for just one example: it's understood that Earth's rotation which is today 24 hours was, billions of years ago, less than half that.
So Uniformitarianism does not overrule other observations, but it would apply, for example, to elements of the Periodic Table -- we assume they were the same and behaved the same on early Earth as today.

Again, these are not just matters of tradition & convention, but also of US law, since the US Supreme Court was asked to rule, and did so, saying that the word "science" is defined by actual scientists, not by anti-scientists such as yourself, Olog-hai.

[BroJoeK]

Olog-hai: "Hurling the epithet “creationist” indicates anti-something, particularly the descriptions of creation in religious scripture.
Real science cannot discount the existence of beings in possession of power like that."

"Creationist" is not an epithet.
Indeed, I consider myself a "creationist", meaning I believe God created the Universe and everything in it, according to His plan, design, reasons & purposes.
But that is my religious belief, having nothing to do with science, and unconnected to any particular scientific assumptions, discoveries & theories.
Every week I learn new details of my religious beliefs from the pastor in my church.
If I may say so, the chief concern of church is not the "how" of God's creations, but rather: what is the necerssary response of humans to the Creator of the Universe?

Science merely proposes a few partial explanations for how the natural world works.

So, the word "creationist" is not an "epithet", far from it.
But it is a religious term, not used in natural-science.

Does that help?