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To: cookcounty
It doesn't much matter what the pattern is. Virtually any pattern can be explained so as to fit the theory.

The actual pattern is that people, chimps, gorillas, et al all share the *exact same* mutation that prevents ascorbic acid synthesis. It explains this pattern as inheritence from a common ancestor that lost the ability.

In fact, standard biology goes further and says that this sort of pattern should be repeated for all sorts of DNA. It is, which is one of the reasons evo is held in high esteem.

How would ID deal with this? If you don't allow common ancestors for people and great apes, you have to make an assumption about a hypothetical designer, namely that it did something analogous to code reuse.

But used different code to make guinea pigs need vitamin c.

It doesn't much matter what the pattern is. Virtually any pattern can be explained so as to fit the theory.

Leave out the 'virtually' and you have one of the serious problems that ID faces in its struggle to become a theory.

What in ID precludes pegasi? What precludes a critter something like a bird and something like a mammal?

On what basis would an ID-er predict that any pseudogene found in cows and whales is also in hippos? Why not rhinos? Evolution says that these had a common ancestor, that's why this pattern is found. What creationist/ID-er concedes that cows and whales are more closely related than cows and horses? What could he possibly mean, except common ancestry?

74 posted on 11/03/2003 9:29:15 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Virginia-American
"What in ID precludes pegasi? What precludes a critter something like a bird and something like a mammal?"

Nothing (in ID itself) precludes it. Nothing demands it. "On what basis would an ID-er predict that any pseudogene found in cows and whales is also in hippos? Why not rhinos? Evolution says that these had a common ancestor, that's why this pattern is found. What creationist/ID-er concedes that cows and whales are more closely related than cows and horses? What could he possibly mean, except common ancestry?"

I don't think the IDers have a particular view on that. ID doesn't argue against evolution as a mechanism, they argue that there are some important and basic things that evolution hasn't the ability to coherently explain. The creationists would probably argue either 1) from a common designer, or 2) loss of, or scrambling of, genetic material. No creationists I ever heard of argue that nature is in it's "original" state, indeed they usually argue that life is undergoing rapid disintegration.

79 posted on 11/03/2003 9:50:52 PM PST by cookcounty
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To: Virginia-American
"The actual pattern is that people, chimps, gorillas, et al all share the *exact same* mutation that prevents ascorbic acid synthesis. It explains this pattern as inheritence from a common ancestor that lost the ability."

I thought the point about "beneficial mutations" was that they served a purpose to help the host survive. If the mutation came about which caused the loss of ability to synthesize ascorbic acid then this would reduce the viability of the host. Doesn't this go against evolutionary theory and the idea of beneficial mutations? Or am I missing something?
96 posted on 11/04/2003 7:44:14 AM PST by webstersII
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