US scientists may have resolved 'Darwin's dilemma'

Fiddle. My question is why did some fish leave the ocean to become land mammals and some land mammals leave land to become fish mammals ..... as we were taught.

Mandates from Obama.

Olog-hai: "You are again giving credence to big government here, as well as government control of both religion and science."

Hardly, but there is no debate -- none -- over how religion & science are taught in private and home-schools.
They are taught however those schools' operators wish to teach them.

The question on the table is: how should these subjects be taught in government schools?
Of course, our Founders never even imagined, must less proposed, Federally controlled mass education, that would be influenced by the Constitution's prohibition against "establishment of religion".

But now we do have such schools, and assuming they will not be abolished anytime soon, the question remains, how should science & religion be taught there?
So I'll say again what I've posted here before: I think religion can be taught in government schools, provided it is strictly voluntary, with parental consent and presented by qualified clergy.

I do not think that religion should be taught by science teachers, any more than English is taught by Math teachers.

So, how does that not make sense to you, FRiend?

Meh - global warming. Then.

Hardly? What do you mean? Paraphrasing and re-paraphrasing the Soviet Union’s Constitution’s line about how “the church (should be) separated from the state and the school from the church” is “hardly” an affirmation of big government?

The Founding Fathers certainly did imagine the possibility of centrally-controlled mass education given the history of the Old World with such limiting systems, which is why they did not set up the federal government to contain such instruments.

I never claimed to be an authority (and your inferring that I am attempting to be is argumentum ad hominem), but you write several posts including this one ascribing argumentum ad verecundiam to the government, to “the enlightenment”, and to other ephemeral “authorities” that you cannot or will not identify.

By the way, natural science is the most rigorous of all science, and by every test, Darwin’s alleged theory fails miserably, standing on assumptions. Assumptions are not part of natural science; they are unscientific by definition. Also, saying it is valid for the government to define what science is is an attack on natural science.

Read: “most rigorous of all disciplines”. The requirement for empiricism in the branches of natural science, at least until Popper and his antiscientific ramblings, was/is absolute.

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.'"

Whatever are you talking about?
In the past 150+ years of field work, thousands of species of fossil-critters were dug up, studied, dated & classified.
Sure, it's estimated these fossils represent less than 1% of all species which ever lived (hence the "missing links"), but still they add up to an impressive catalog of ancestors in every major biological classification -- phylum, class, order & even many families.

To cite just one example, the number of fossilized ancient horse species is already hundreds, and growing every year as new fossils are found.

So for you to claim no such evidence exists is simply a massive exercise is eyes-closed hand-waving.
The evidence is everywhere!

PapaNew: "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”."

Yes, there are occasional honest mistakes, but very few real "hoaxes", and none -- not one -- in recent decades.
So-called Piltdown Man, a hoax perpetrated 100 years ago, was exposed as a hoax 50 years ago, remains the best known.
Neither Javaman nor Neanderthals are considered in any way fraudulent, though interpretations of the fossil data have changed over the years.
Javaman is today considered just one of dozens of early homo-erectus bone finds, and Neanderthals, of which there are many hundreds of bones recovered, are today considered our own fourth or fifth "cousins".

So, how many times do I have to post this particular photo before its point begins to sink in?
Do you have a problem with it?

PapaNew: "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”)."

Again, in Darwin's time (died 1882) just a few dozen fossil species had been found, so naturally many "missing links".
Today many thousands of fossil species have been found, analyzed, dated & classified, such that the catalog of ancestors includes "links" from every major biological classification -- i.e., phylum, class, order...

Still, it's estimated the total number of fossils found represent fewer than 1% of all the species which ever lived.
But more are found every year, and so more "links".

PapaNew: "True science and the Bible are friends."

Not according to most Creationists posting on Free Republic.
Most insist that natural-science is not real science, and that their own religious beliefs are somehow "scientific".
Ridiculous!

PapaNew: "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."

Well.... my religious beliefs go by a specific name: "theistic evolutions" and stated simply, it means: whatever truths about the natural world science can discover or theorize, those describe the way God created and intended it.
We don't argue against science, even when, as it happens, science sometimes changes its mind, discarding one theory in favor of a new one -- we see no religious implications in any particular theory, and no theological harm when old theories get replaced by better ones.

What we insist on is: no "random chance", no "accidents", no "coincidences", everything is God's plan, God's reasons, God's actions and God's purposes.
So the Universe is not a cold unfeeling place, hostile to insignificant specks like ourselves.
Instead, it is a house carefully prepared for us to live and grow in.
And if evolution was one of God's tools of creation, then so be it -- God bless evolution.

PapaNew: "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'."

First of all, every individual fossil is a "link" between its ancestors and its descendants, if any.
So every fossil can be classified and has a place on the evolutionary "tree of life".
And today's catalog of such fossils is orders of magnitude more complete than it was back in the day of Charles Darwin.
So your conclusions here are very, very wrong, FRiend.

PapaNew: "The Bible says God made everything, including man, by the Word (John 1:3), which he spoke when he said... "

Sure, but here you are only talking about God's plan and purposes, not the natural science of how He did it.
And, believe it or not, the Bible does tell us intriguing hints of how He did it.

First of all, the Bible clearly tells us that He didn't just issue orders for things to magically appear, but rather that He worked hard at it, because after six long days he rested.
And it says something about His work: He created (heaven, Earth, every living thing), He separated (light from darkness), He made (the vault of Heaven, solar system & stars, all animals), He placed or set (celestial bodies in their positions), He blessed (all living things), He formed (man) and finally, He finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all His work.

But that's not all the Bible says, it also tells us that God "formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

Here's the point: God went about constructing the Universe in the same way that you or I would construct a new home -- metaphorically cleared the land, dug the foundation, placed the footers, etc., etc.
Like us, God worked hard, and then took a well deserved rest.
It wasn't all magic, most of it was just plain hard work!

And, He created us from the "dust of the ground", so as far as I'm concerned, God is the first Darwinist!
Sadly, Charles Darwin was a rather poor image of his creator...

PapaNew: "All of this is Bible evidence that God created man in a way that we today would call a miracle..."

Sure, but the Bible does not preclude natural explanations for some of what He did, including evolution.

PapaNew: "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."

What you here call "scant... evidence" is, in fact, literal mountains of fossil evidence and millions of species DNA analyses, all, without exception, confirming a "tree of life" pointing back to common ancestors many millions, even billions, of years ago.
Basic evolution theory (descent with modifications and natural selection) is confirmed daily by scientists working in the field, and has never been seriously falsified -- not once.

So, in terms of scientific ideas, that is just about as close to "settled" as it ever gets.

PapaNew: "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."

Agreed.

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."

No, there is no difference, period.
It's precisely the same process, which when observed has been called "micro-evolution", and when inferred in longer time scales is sometimes called "macro-evolution".

But let me remind you again, that scientific terminology is intended to be precise in definitions.
So, a process which has been observed, and confirmed, is not called a "theory", but rather a "fact".
So, we are saying that since so-called "micro-evolution" has been observed, and confirmed, it is now classified as a fact, not theory.

By contrast, longer-term so-called "macro-evolution" cannot be observed directly, and so remains a "theory", however, it is theoretically precisely the same thing as the fact of "micro-evolution".
The theory simply says: if you continue "micro-evolution" for many millions of years, it can lead to separated populations evolving into new biological classifications we call species, genera or families, etc,

Physical evidence of "macro-evolution" can be seen in thousands of fossil species found, plus millions of living species' DNA analyzed.
They all, without exception, point to related species with common ancestors.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "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."

But, first of all, that word you used, "species", is strictly, 100% a man-made scientific construct.
In and of itself, it means nothing specific, except "somewhat different from other species".
Indeed, I heard your man, Ken Ham refer to breeds of dogs as "species of dogs" -- so that word "species" is less that precise.
Precisely how different species are, is a matter of definitions and interpretations.

That's why the advent of DNA analyses in recent decades has created such turmoil in the biological classification system -- species which were once considered distantly related are now found, by matching their DNAs, to be much closer and visa versa.
So when, precisely should different "breeds" or "sub-species" be reclassified as separate "species"?
It's a matter of definitions, and definitions have recently been changing, a little.

One example I like, and have cited here before, is zebras -- since to casual human observation "all zebras look alike".
Well, they are not "all alike".
Amongst all zebras, there are about a dozen different "breeds" and "subspecies", which can readily interbreed, within three separate species which don't normally interbreed in the wild, and two separate genera which physically can't interbreed naturally.
And yet they are all considered "zebras", but they are not all the same.
Both fossil records and DNA analysis tell us those different zebra classifications all evolved within the past few million years.

Did we actually "see" it happen". No, of course not.
But the physical evidence is powerful enough that in other contexts, could convict a man of murder, or of being a child's father!

Yes, you are totally free to close your eyes and wave your hands claiming, "it doesn't exist".
But still, it does, FRiend.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "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."

In fact, new DNA instructions are found to have been gained, even in human beings, even in the past few thousands of years, of which a little thought produces several examples:

skin color adapted to more or less winter sunlight.
Very high mountain dwellers adapted for lower oxygen in the atmosphere.
Sickle-cells developed to defeat malaria.
Tolerance for milk in adults who keep dairy animals.

The list is longer, but those come to mind, and they prove beyond reasonable doubt that evolution never stops!

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Also your claim that the many theories on the origin of life all equally likely to have happened is absurd and unscientific."

And yet again we see the anti-scientist hoping to redefine what is, or is not, "scientific".
Sorry, pal, but when you take your stance against science, you lose all naming rights for what is, or is not, "scientific".

In this particular example, we are dealing with the fact of several different hypotheses proposed for the origins of life on earth, including abiogenesis, panspermia, alien space-ships and, of course, Divine Miracles.
Within the "abiogenesis" category are several different hypotheses, and my point here is: none of these various hypotheses has been either strongly confirmed or falsified.
They are all still "works in progress", and may or may not contribute to some final theory, if & when such a thing is ever confirmed.
That's why I say each is as likely, or unlikely as another to be true, or false.
As of today, nobody knows for sure.
So, in what way is that a problem for you?

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "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."

Oh, but certainly you can!
We can begin with the fact that even today there are "critters" which straddle the border between "living" and "chemistry", most notably viruses, but also including the prion said to cause Mad Cow Disease.
These are not, in themselves, alive, but require a living host to function.
However, they are still vastly, orders of magnitude, more complex than would be the first complicated chemistry we could remotely classify as "life".

And that complex chemistry is precisely what scientists today hope to demonstrate, someday, maybe, with luck...
Such chemistry needs three basics -- 1) a membrane to keep out what it doesn't want, and keep itself in, 2)some kind of ability to absorb energy (aka "eat"), and 3) reproduction.
Such complex chemistry was orders of magnitude less complex than today's simplest cells, therefore making Hoyle's old calculations ludicrous.
But as long as it continued to reproduce imperfectly, then evolution would operate to steadily increase its complexity, eventually becoming something we can classify as "living".

Anyway, that's one abiogenist hypothesis.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "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."

The truth of this matter is that no fossil has ever been found which was not "transitional", between its ancestors and descendants, if any.
Every fossil, and every DNA analyzed, fits somewhere on the great "tree of life", pointing back to common ancestors.
Yes, some fossils are more obviously "transitional" than others, but all show numerous similarities to their more closely related ancestors and descendants.
Thus, despite the estimate of only 1% of all species which ever lived having recovered fossils, many of today's species can be traced back many millions of years through their fossils.
And of course, of all the "transitional forms" ever found, none are more striking than these:

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "I said before the who theory of evolution goes against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which makes it highly questionable."

But of course, it does no such thing, because the earth has continuously received new energy input from the sun.
That makes your whole thermodynamics argument moot & void, and surely somebody has long since pointed this out to you?
So why do you keep making it?

Olog-hai: "The Founding Fathers certainly did imagine the possibility of centrally-controlled mass education given the history of the Old World with such limiting systems, which is why they did not set up the federal government to contain such instruments."

Neither the US Constitution, nor the Federalist Papers, nor other documents related to our Founding contain discussions of Federally controlled mass education.
The reason, as you would agree, is that they neither imagined nor supported such ideas.
And that is certainly an argument for abolishing the US Department of Education, plus all other Federally directed interference in state & local school systems.

However, the fact remains that we now do have, and have long had, mass public tax-payer supported government-education controlled, ultimately, by the Feds.
This system has been tested in courts many times, which have refused to rule it unconstitutional.
Further, even allegedly "conservative" Republicans -- Governor Perry comes to mind -- are afraid to say they will abolish it, if elected.

So government-schools are ruled by interpretations of the Constitution which prohibit "establishment of religion" and define the word "science" as natural-science.
Given all that, I argue that you don't want government-teachers teaching religious doctrines to your children.
What you want instead is that those people stick to their subjects -- i.e., math, English, science -- and leave the teaching of religion to qualified clergy in voluntary religion classes.

How can you even possibly disagree with that?

Olog-hai: "I never claimed to be an authority..."

You most certainly do!
Every time you announce, from your high throne on Mount Olympus, that this or that is, or is not, "real science", you proclaim your authority over definitions.

The fact is, you have no authority -- zero, zip, nada -- to declare anything to be included, or excluded, from the term "science".

And obviously, neither do I, but I am only here reporting on how the term "science" is used, rightly or wrongly, in today's America.
You may not like it, but that's what it is.

In today's usage, in courts of law and in public schools, the word "science" is short for our Founders' term "natural-science" which is specifically intended to exclude any reference to religious beliefs.
Courts have said that precisely how "science" will be understood must be determined, not by Olog-hai, but rather by actual scientists.
And therefore, Creationism is not science, regardless of how sincerely, or fiercely, you might wish otherwise.

But again I'll repeat: in your own home-school, or private school, you can teach all these matters however you wish.
It's only in the tax-payer dependent government-schools that such logic prevails.

Olog-hai: "By the way, natural science is the most rigorous of all science, and by every test, Darwin’s alleged theory fails miserably, standing on assumptions.
Assumptions are not part of natural science; they are unscientific by definition."

And there you go again!
Declaring from your high throne on Mount Olympus what is, or is not "science".
You can't do it, at most you can pronounce what you wish to be included or excluded, but I'll tell you in advance: your wishes are rejected.

What you people call "historical sciences" (geology, astronomy, paleontology, archaeology, bio-chemistry related to evolution, etc.) are all based important assumptions, including methodological naturalism and uniformitarianism.
And no amount of hand-waving on your part will change that, it is what it is, regardless of your declarations to the contrary.

redleghunter: "I have issue with the overconfidence in suppositions stated as settled science."

That term, "settled science", to the degree it's ever used accurately, only means we don't see other scientists actively working to falsify it.
It certainly doesn't mean that something is necessarily true, only that scientists themselves can't find a way, given today's data & tools, to prove it false.

Of course, "settled science" can be, and has been in the past, overturned as new data or ideas are applied.
However, no amount of eyes-closed hand-waving by anti-science religious believers will ever change "settled" to "unsettled" science.

Here's the bottom line: strictly speaking, no scientific theory is ever really "settled", it's only ever provisionally accepted, pending some new data or idea.
So I wouldn't get hung up on that term, because it only tells us about what scientists are now doing, not how valid the theory might prove to be, in the very long term.

Does that make sense?

No: if I claimed to be an authority, I would have spelled out just how I would have thought so. Which would be in and of itself argumentum ad verecundiam should I have actually stooped to doing so as you have falsely claimed.

However, you yourself have not only used argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad hominem (repeatedly again in your last post: why do you insist on undermining yourself repeatedly by such?), Aunt Sally, but also argumentum verbosium where you post much but say little.

What you people call “historical sciences” (geology, astronomy, paleontology, archaeology, bio-chemistry related to evolution, etc.) are all based important assumptions, including methodological naturalism and uniformitarianism …

Neither of those assumptions are required in order for science and the scientific method to analyze the material universe.

Texas Songwriter: "Hello Pal. The 'Pal' is in a nice sense, not in a 'snippy' sense.
I don't have any other 'Pals".
I could say "Bud", but 'Pal" it is."

"FRiend" is the most sincere term you can use, here on Free Republic.
Every other term, "Pal", "Buddy", "Kemo Sabe", "Amigo", contains at least a small element of sarcasm & humor.
They are usually intended to be short for something along the lines of: "look, we're on the same side here, we're allies, and I want to be your FRiend, but you're not acting all that FRiendly, so listen more carefully to what I'm saying here".

Posters who respond with sincere friendship should be addressed as "FRiend", those not quite as Friendly as they should be, call "pal" or "buddy".
Hostile & insulting posters should be called... well, try to be nice, sometimes that works!

Texas Songwriter: "But as you know, all of this is speculation.
You may call it hypothesis if it makes you feel better."

Scientifically, as of today, it is an unconfirmed hypothesis, and so it will remain until or unless more evidence is found of it.
If it makes you feel better to call it "fiction" or "figment of imagination", that's fine, but scientifically it could eventually be confirmed, and so qualifies as "hypothesis".

Texas Songwriter: "If bacteria were to be carried on dust survival ability is impossible because there would not be enough of a shield from radiation."

I've read reports, over the years, of bacteria surviving in outer space on human space-craft.
I can't say any specifics, or for how long, but the suggestion is out there that life can be very hardy indeed.

Texas Songwriter: "If a 10 pound rock did escape our solar system it is estimated that at a speed of 100,000 miles per hour it would travel about 16 light years in a million solar years, a length of time which not allow bacteriological survivability..."

Of course, any argument that panspermia is unlikely is doubtless correct.
But the question is whether it's actually impossible, and that we don't know, yet.

Texas Songwriter: "astrobiologists--->proved exchange of copious quantities of organic material the shortest time estimated to transfer this material is on the order of millions of years."

Earth's geological evidence shows signs of early "life" within the first few hundred million years -- around 3.9 billion years ago.
Did it come from outer space, did it develop on Earth, or some combination -- nobody knows for sure, yet.

Texas Songwriter: "If you can refer me to coming close to life, (not organic molecules, not nucleic acids, not lipophosphates, but LIFE) I will change my mind."

The earliest "life" on earth would doubtless not satisfy your own personal definition of what is, or is not, "LIFE".
But if it did three basic things, we could call it not just "complex chemistry", but also "pre-life becoming life".
Those three things are the following:

Some form of membrane to separate "inside" from "outside"
Some method to gather energy, aka "eat".
Reproduction

All of these would constitute "pre-life", and reproduction imperfectly would drive evolution, increasing complexity eventually leading to, in your term, "LIFE".

Whether scientists can duplicate a simple "pre-life" in the lab is yet to be seen.

Texas Songwriter: "Speculation runs rampant, but science is in short supply on this subject."

Sure, so far...

Texas Songwriter: "Haeckel used deceit to inculcate millions of students into the nonsense that ontology recapitulates phylogeny."

You people keep claiming fraud & deceit, but I've only ever seen evidence that Haeckel was honestly mistaken, and even then was onto something: that fetuses of related species look much like each other, while those of more distantly related species still look amazingly similar.
In this particular example human "gill slits" do in fact look like those in fish, and in fish they do, in fact, become gills.
So, for you people to keep hollering "fraud" and "deceit" seems to me, well, just a tad dishonest, pal.

Texas Songwriter: "Because Darwinism has its roots in metaphysical naturalism it is not consistent to accept Darwinism and then to give it a theistic interpretation.
Theistic evolutionists are continually confused on this point..."

But there's no confusion here.
Evolution is an often confirmed scientific theory, based on the assumptions such as methodological naturalism and uniformitarianism.
Obviously, it's no more valid than its assumptions, but it's the result you get, when you look at the world naturally.

And since the Bible says nothing specific about how God created the Universe, evolution can easily be seen as one of His tools of creation.

Texas Songwriter: "To know that Darwinism is true (as a general explanation for the history of life), one must know that no alternative to naturalistic evolution is possible.
This is to therefore know that God does not exist..."

Now I'm out of time, for now, must run after this...

So, here is your fundamental, core root deep problem: science is not all-about "truth", science can't define "truth", indeed science explicitly excludes all forms of "higher truth" that come from the religious/spiritual/philosophical realm.
Science is only about "what works" and evolution theory, regardless of its higher "truth", or lack of, works in predicting and explaining what the geological & biological data tells us.

So, if somehow tomorrow, some genuine scientist confirms an alternate theory, falsifying evolution, then my response will be: that's fine, it's always interesting to learn how God might have worked to create us.
But it would change nothing of my religious beliefs, which are totally independent of any scientific theory.

Now time is gone, must run! Thanks FRiend!

Olog-hai: "...if I claimed to be an authority, I would have spelled out just how I would have thought so."

Despite your repeated denials, you've continued to do just that: claiming authority to define just what is, or is not, "science".
Indeed that is the summation of your entire argument here: you claim that various aspects of evolution theory are not really "science" -- based on what authority?
Why based on your own, of course, sitting on high throne of Mount Olympus.

To rebut your majesty, I've cited US legal decisions supporting the scientific definition of "natural science" as determined by actual scientists.

Of course, you are free to disagree with any of that, but not, I think, to claim your own authority as valid justification.

Olog-hai: "However, you yourself have not only used argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad hominem (repeatedly again in your last post: why do you insist on undermining yourself repeatedly by such?), Aunt Sally, but also argumentum verbosium where you post much but say little."

And here we see yet more pronouncements from the high throne on Mount Olympus!
Do you never grow tired of issuing such proclamations?
Do you not get dizzy from the heights and thin atmosphere?
Wouldn't you occasionally like to come down off your throne and join the human race?

Olog-hai referring to two scientific assumptions: "Neither of those assumptions are required in order for science and the scientific method to analyze the material universe."

Yet more pronouncement from Mount Olympus!
Of course they are required, indeed they help define just what the term "scientific analysis" means.

Yes, if you wish to go outside the boundaries of such assumptions, then you are totally free to do so.
But your results then will not be classified as "scientific".

And that's not just my opinion, it's a fact.

Strawmen, personal attacks and argumentum ad verecundiam again. All failing to mask the unscientific nature of “evolution” and the pillars it presumes to stand on.

Have a nice day.

You keep trying to equate them but they are radically different. Why? Microevolution makes for a more specialized species using DNA that the organism already has. Sometimes in Microevolution DNA is actually lost. Macroevolution assumes that DNA is somehow magically GAINED. And not only is it gained, the DNA gains must be positive. So far all DNA corruption we have ever seen have been negative. Big difference. One is scientific fact, the other is theory. Your claim that there have been positive gains in DNA are ridiculous. The high altitude one you mentioned isn't a DNA gain, it is situational. Anyone who lives in such climate their body adjusts to it. Same for the milk one. The body is a great adjuster. But it didn't have to mutate to adjust. For instance, if you were born and raised in Alaska you will have a higher tolerance to cold, whereas if you born and raised in Florida and then moved to Alaska, you may find yourself shivering all the time. Not a DNA issue, just a born and raised situational one. The sickle cell anemia one is not positive as you represent it. It often causes the person effected with it to die younger unless treated. great positive mutation there.

You keep claiming there are thousands of examples of missing links. The problem with many of them is that they are based on fragments too small to really determine anything. For instance take Nebraska Man, which was supposed to be an intermediate form between apes and man. Scientists built this whole assumption based on a single tooth that they found among some tools. The pictures they made of it all looked very convincing. However, it later turned out to be the tooth of a pig. These so-called evolutionary proofs keep on getting debunked based on further information. Also, a lot of these finds assume that there is one shape for the human skull and all human skulls found have to be that shape. Sorry but it's not that way. There is great genetic diversity among people, and you can find plenty of people today with slightly different shaped heads. Also, some groups of people throughout the ages have done things to change the shape of their heads. Yet they are still human. Take a look at these. The first is a woman from a trive in Africa that does head shaping, the middle one an African ambassador, Tutankhamen, and the last is an aborigine (note the heavy eyebrow ridge):

When looking at that list of skulls you have, they are all either men, or apes of various kinds (some of them extinct). If their diet was poor, their bones may be a bit deformed. This is what scientists believe is the case with the so-called Neanderthal man. The famous anatomist, Dr. Rudolph Virchow, upon looking at the Neanderthal bones found that the specimen had was simply an old person with a bad case of rickets (lack of vitamin D) and also arthritis. Homo heidelbergensis is also obviously human. The Australopithecus is acknowledged by many scientists to have simply been a chimpanzee. Matter of fact, in the case. of the Lucy skeleton, the scientist actually broke apart the pelvis, which was said to have looked too much like a primate's and then reglued it back together in a more human looking shape. It is circular reasoning to use assumptions of human evolution for the reconstruction and then using it as evidence for evolution. Dr. David Raup, curator of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History (an expert on the fossil record) says:
"Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded...ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as the result of more detailed information."

Also, to let you know, just because two organisms have "similar" looking DNA (i.e. they have large chunks of their amino acid protein sequences that are similar) that does not mean they are closely related to each other or one came before or after the other. It is the parts that differ and not the parts that are similar that matter. For instance, a rhodospirillum rubrum bacterium shares more of its DNA with a horse than with a yeast. A lamprey eel has only a 15% difference in DNA with a horse. and there is only an 8% difference between the DNA of a pigeon and a turtle. Nobody is going to make the argument that those are closely related.

Another thing. If evolution was real, then you would expect to find the less evolved specimens in the lower rock layers and the more evolved ones in the higher layers. So why then do we find numerous examples of the supposedly less evolved specimens and the supposed missing links on layers higher than the specimens that supposedly came after them? Also, why do you find a specimen and its supposed ancestor in the same layer? Also, why are these charts (like the one you posted) purporting to show an evolutionary sequence take specimens of various different ages, that were found on various different continents, and on various different layers (often with the human ones in layers lower than the "missing links", and put them in line as if one was supposedly the ancestor of the others? This is ridiculous bs and is entirely unscientific.

Another thing. Another problem is how could partially-evolved plant and animal species survive over millions of years when their basic organs and tissues were still in the process of evolving? How, for example, were animals breathing, eating, and reproducing if there respiratory, digestive, and reproductive organs were still evolving?

Also, about the second law of thermodynamics.

I don't see what the sun has to do with it. The law simply says that energy once received always dissipates. Everything tends towards disorder rather than order. This flies in the face of Darwinian evolution, which teaches that things grow more ordered and advanced over time. I'm not sure why you keep saying this is a moot point. Maybe because you have no real good way of addressing it?

Olog-hai: "Strawmen, personal attacks and argumentum ad verecundiam again."

No, just the facts, which you chose to see as "personal attacks".
So the real problem, sir, is in you, not in science.

You should work on that problem, imho.

Hello my Friend (initially I spelled fiend, but that was a mistake in typing). So.....here we go.

On Panspermia......I agree with you...it is nonsense. No more comment. On your devotion to the idea of panspermia.....you say...it could be scientifically confirmed......That is your statement of faith I referenced in a previous post to you. Nothing more needs be said.

If you would provide me with scientific documents proving bacteria inhabit outer space I would like to read them.

Your assertion that panspermia is unlikely by not impossible is philosophical assumption you make. I will not go there with you. It remains nonsense, like the moon is made of green cheese. I suppose there is such a theory, but it remains inane and without one centilla of evidence.

Early life.....3.9 billion years ago?......Cambrium 600 million years ago. Precambrium blue green algae found but never dated to nearly 4 billion years, has it. If it has please give me reference. Are you talking about Alexandr Oparin's theory of coacervates? Prelife.....hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen....they are all necessary for life.....but Prelife.....please give me a scientific reference for defining life as phospholipid membrane, a method of gathering energy, and reproduction which would constitute life. Now on to Haeckel......

You people. You people. OK. We people keep alleging fraud and deceit by Haeckel regarding ontology recapitulating phylogeny. Now, I am not an expert. I have had a few embryology courses but I read after experts and so I will quote Those People for you. Haeckel, as you know famously alleged similarity between vertebrate embryos in the early stages of development buy as they approached full fetal development differentiated from that similarity. Darwin was no embryologist, but he was an adherent of Haeckel's views on this subject. Biologists and embryologists have known for more than a century that Haeckel faked his drawings. As he tried to proseletyze people to his worldview, he made drawings which were dictated by his presuppositions. Before the publication of 'Origin' Europe's most famous embryologist was Karl Ernst von Baer. Von Baer was the first to refute Haeckel's 'Preformationism' and the 'Law of Parallelism". These ideas were propounded not only by Haeckel, but by two other famous embryologists of the day, Johan Friedrich Meckel (of Meckel's diverticulum fame) and Etienne Serres. although at the time they were referred to as 'laws' they were simply summaries of empirical observations of that time, and they did not fit or comport with observations and had to be abandoned. According to Scientific historian of the time, Timothy Lenoir, von Baer feared that the Darwinists had "already accepted the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis as true before they set to the task of observing embryos. Scientific historian, Fritz Muller, who Darwin sited, "encouraged the confusion, but it was Mullers student, Ernst Haeckel, who 'dramatized the obfuscation' and became its most ardent promoter." Both Adam Sedwick and Frank Lillie acknowledged that recapitulation was a deduction, not an observation and remains so until today. This refutation of Haeckel was in 1909 (Those People). From the beginning Haeckel's biogenetic "law" was simply an deduction of inference, NOT OBSERVATION. By the 1920's the 'law of phyologeny was falling out of favor among embryologists who knew, but the educates kept the lie in school books for indoctrination reasons into Darwinism. Stephen Jay Gould said "the biogenetic las fell only when it became unfashionable." Historian of Science, Nicholas Rasmussen agreed with Gould, putting it this way, "All the important evidence called upon in the rejection of the biogenetic law was there from the FIRST Days of the laws acceptance."

In 1922 Walter Garstang criticized Haeckel's biogenetic law as "demonstrably unsound" because ontogentic stages afford not the slightest evidence of the specially adult features of the ancestry."

in 1940 -1958 British embryologist Gavin de Beer likewise, in his three volume book criticized Haeckel's recapitulation biogenetic law, saying that Haeckel's theory of recapitulation had "thwarted and delayed embryological research".

Haeckel's drawings were fabricated. Jane Oppenheimer said, "Haeckel's hand as an artist altered what he saw with what should have been the eye of a more accurate beholder". Wilhelm His accused Haeckel of SCIENTIFIC FALSIFICATION. In 1995 Michael Richardson noted that" the embryos drawn were not consistent with other data on the development of those species." He further said, the drawings show,"a clear misrepresentation of the truth".

Stephen Jay Gould, in March 2000 issue of said of Haeckel, that he exaggerated the similarities by idealization and omissions."

I will stop here......You get the picture....I could give you another 25 such quotes, by not Us People but by Those People-experts in the field of embryology. You have their quotes, not my quotes now, my Friend. Now you must make a determination about the validity of the recapitulation law. Are we a "tad dishonest"? Is that a fair indictment of people who have actually reviewed the literature by someone who clearly has never investigated it? I think not, my Friend.

It seems to fit what Richard Lewontin of Harvard University said, "Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are "against common sense" is the "key to understanding" of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science 'in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs"," in spite of its failure" to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a priori commitment to materialism."

I will stop here. If you really want to go into truth, naturalism, and presuppositionalism I will do so. It is a long ride to discuss it seriously. I will, if you are sure you want to go there.

I take note of you pointing out my core, deep rooted, fundamental problem but I am yet to get any substantive information from you yet. Here I reference you referring me to experts. Your opinion is measured in the balance and I see no use in regarding it about my deep, core rooted, fundamental problems. I will continue to deal in scientific fact and truth when speaking with you. I suspect all you want from me is reference to the facts. That is common ground we can discuss these issues upon. For this we must engage logic, reason, and rational thought. That seems only fair.