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Darwin's greatest challenge tackled
European Molecular Biology Laboratory ^ | 10/28/2004 | EMBL

Posted on 11/03/2004 5:11:47 PM PST by general_re

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To: Imabeliever
"Yes, and all those fossilized ape skulls they occasionally find in Africa and the National Geographic staff fawn over, are really our uncles too. NOT!"

Proof that man descended from apes, in most movies where people are being chased, they always run upstairs.:)
It is the same as climbing a tree.:)
Only Benny Hill always runs around, while being chased.
41 posted on 11/04/2004 3:51:36 AM PST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (Dan Rather called Saddam "Mister President and President Bush "bush")
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To: Fitzcarraldo

Behold the power of Salamanders!

[LOL!]


42 posted on 11/04/2004 5:15:22 AM PST by Salamander (Pirates of the Appalachians)
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Comment #43 Removed by Moderator

To: jpw01

Of course evolution doesn't explain the origin of life. It's not supposed to. It is a theory about the changes that life underwent after it formed. There are scientific theories about the origin of life, however. These have much less convincing evidence in their favor than does evolution. Scientists are still working on this issue. On the origin of the universe, this too has nothing to do with whether evolution is true or not. The big bang theory exists to explain the way the universe developed. There is a good deal of solid evidence to support this theory just as there is for evolution. It strikes me that neither evolution or big bang theories are incompatible with creationism, however. Is it not possible that God created the universe via the big bang and then created life (whether via a special act of creation or abiogenisis or any other method is irrelevant), and then created the mechanism of evolution to allow for the wide diversity of life we see now? Could not "let there be light" refer to a big bang? (In the earliest stages of the universe, according to the big bang, light is all there is. Matter is created from the light) The Bible also gives the order of creation of types of life in essentially the same order as the theory of evolution predicts. Maybe the scientific theories and the Bible are consistent with each other. There is only one truth. If science and religion appear to contradict each other, the problem is with our understanding of either science, the Bible, or both.


44 posted on 11/04/2004 5:39:06 AM PST by stremba
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To: general_re; PatrickHenry

Whooohooo! Back to science and evolution. :-)


45 posted on 11/04/2004 6:40:17 AM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: RadioAstronomer

Yeh, I got real tired of Kerry/Bush babble.


46 posted on 11/04/2004 7:48:31 AM PST by furball4paws ("Facts are very stubborn things" - Peter Wimsey)
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To: stremba

I have no problem with either theory, as long as they are not used to explain the origins of life or the universe, which is often the case.


Science is a very good way of trying to understand all that God has created. It is, however, a very ineffective way of disproving God's existence.


47 posted on 11/04/2004 7:55:23 AM PST by deaconjim (Freeper formally known as jpw01 (Freep the world!))
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To: FatherofFive
I find it amazing that the evolutionists can believe that all of the universe can spring from a “Big Bang” (the size of the head of a pin)

The origins of the universe is not a topic covered by the TOE.

48 posted on 11/04/2004 9:40:49 AM PST by Modernman (Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J.)
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To: Modernman

However, the origins of cute bunnies is a topic covered by the TOE!

Check here for other questions: The Official God F.A.Q.

49 posted on 11/04/2004 11:02:29 AM PST by balrog666 (It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.)
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To: balrog666
However, the origins of cute bunnies is a topic covered by the TOE

I bet those bunnies would be delicious.

50 posted on 11/04/2004 11:09:07 AM PST by Modernman (Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J.)
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To: Imabeliever

Thank you. I am convinced.


51 posted on 11/04/2004 1:53:13 PM PST by Condorman (Changes aren't permanent, but change is.)
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To: Condorman

Odd. That wasn't supposed to happen.


52 posted on 11/04/2004 1:53:46 PM PST by Condorman (Changes aren't permanent, but change is.)
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To: aculeus
Ah, but of what possible survival benefit was the original ability to detect light?

Surely you jest?

53 posted on 11/04/2004 5:21:47 PM PST by donh
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To: FatherofFive
Read "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe.

Try "Finding Darwin's God" for a point by point analysis of Behe's argument. Behe made predictions about things science would never find due to unattainable complexity that had already been discovered before he published "Darwin's Black Box".

"Inadequate bench-checking", my old physics prof would have said.

54 posted on 11/04/2004 5:26:26 PM PST by donh
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To: Fitzcarraldo
That's neat. I wonder if they can get some of those blind cave salamanders (olms) to grow fully functional eyes by implanting retinal cells from "seeing" salamanders.

As to why fish and amphibians can regenerate retinal cells, but people and rats can't, and chickens have only limited abilities to do so, my hypothesis is based on two suppositions: first, endothermic vertebrates (birds and mammals) either semi- or fully lost their regenerative abilities when they gained the advantage of warm-blooddedness (the same reason why we can't regenerate limbs the way reptiles and amphibians can). Secondly, mammals lost their ability to see in color because as nocturnal animals, it wasn't necessary; whereas birds, being primarily diurnal animals, kept color vision (primates, including mammals, regained their color cones when they returned to an active day life). Similarly, because mammal eyes didn't need the continual protection from intense visible and UV light, they may have completely lost the capacity for retinal regeneration.

55 posted on 11/04/2004 10:16:56 PM PST by RightWingAtheist (Feynman Lives!)
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To: jpw01
Why did God have to come from anywhere? God is infinite, and therefore, always was and always will be.

You have no evidence at all that anything, anything at all, is "infinite, and therefore, always was and always will be" because in order to have this evidence you would have to be "infinite, and therefore, always existing and always will be" in order to gather enough evidence to prove and validate the premise. There is simply no way you can know this.

God created time for our benefit, but is not bound by His creation.

Begs the Question that you 'know' that God created time. There is no way you can know this. Where and how did you gain this knowledge? Assertion Without Proof.

The universe, on the other hand, had to have a beginning.

Again, how do you know this? The Universe "appears" to have had a beginning, but you cannot "know" this. Assertion Without Proof. Best Supposition, at best.

The question remains, if everything had a first cause, what was the first cause for God? Otherwise, everything didn't have a first cause, (because God didn't) and why choose God as not having a first cause rather than the Universe?

Faulty logic.

56 posted on 11/04/2004 11:46:34 PM PST by LogicWings
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Commentary from Creation Safaris:

“Evolution Stories Are Subtle and Complex” – Truth or Euphemism? 10/29/2004

A worm brain has photoreceptors similar to those in humans. What does it mean? Elizabeth Pennisi in Science1 sets the stage, commenting on work by Arendt et al. in the same issue,2 “Ciliary Photoreceptors with a Vertebrate-Type Opsin in an Invertebrate Brain.” One might think this demonstrates common ancestry, but Pennisi explains that it’s not a simple evolutionary story:

Despite incredible variation in size and shape, eyes come in just two basic models. The vertebrates’ photoreceptor cells, typified by rods and cones, are quite distinctive from the invertebrates’. And although both use light-sensing pigments called opsins, the opsins are quite different in their amino acid makeup. For years biologists have argued about how these varied components came to be. Some insist that eyes evolved only once, despite this modern difference [sic]. Others have argued that optical structures evolved at least once in invertebrates and again in vertebrates. New data showing unexpected similarities between photoreceptors of a marine worm and humans add a new twist to this debate. Detlev Arendt and Joachim Wittbrodt, developmental biologists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and their colleagues have found that in addition to its regular opsin pigment, the worm contains another one almost identical to the human’s. Their finding suggests that even the earliest animals had the makings of both vertebrate and invertebrate visual systems, and that some of the photoreceptor cells in the invertebrate brain were transformed over a series of steps into vertebrate eyes [sic]. Although some researchers are skeptical, others think the data are sound....

The research team thinks this “sheds new light on vertebrate eye evolution,” but the problem is that it pushes the origin of sight, a complex interaction of multiple functional parts, even farther back in time. Another problem is that the human-like opsin in the worm has been conserved (unevolved) for 500 million years, according to the standard evolutionary time scale:

Arendt and Wittbrodt jumped into the fray over eye evolution after Arendt noticed some odd cells in the brains of ragworms, a relic marine annelid species that’s been relatively unchanged for the past 500 million years. “We were surprised,” Arendt recalls, as these cells looked very much like rods and cones.

Further molecular and genetic studies showed that “Not only the morphology [outward appearance] but also the molecular biology of the two types of receptors was already set in our common ancestor” [sic], according to a French biologist. To put this new discovery into an evolutionary context, Arendt et al. had to invent a hypothetical ancestor even further back in time from the hypothetical ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates, dubbed Urbilateria:

They go further to suggest that the two types likely [sic] arose [sic] in a predecessor of Urbilateria. In that organism, they speculate, the gene for one opsin and the genes to build the one type of photoreceptor cell were duplicated. The extra set of genes might have evolved [sic] into a different visual system: “We think both photoreceptor cells track back to one cell type,” [Joachim] Wittbrodt [one of the authors of the paper] says.

As the authors put it in conclusion, “The vertebrate eye thus represents a composite structure, combining distinct types of light-sensitive cells with independent evolutionary histories” [sic]. So although this proposal seems to favor those who argue for the single origin of eyes, it illustrates that “evolution stories are subtle and complex.”

1Elizabeth Pennisi, “Worm’s Light-Sensing Proteins Suggest Eye’s Single Origin,” Science, Vol 306, Issue 5697, 796-797, 29 October 2004, [DOI: 10.1126/science.306.5697.796a]. 2Arendt et al., “Ciliary Photoreceptors with a Vertebrate-Type Opsin in an Invertebrate Brain,” Science, Vol 306, Issue 5697, 869-871, 29 October 2004, [DOI: 10.1126/science.1099955].

“A likely story” can have opposite meanings depending on the tone of voice. Is the phrase, “subtle and complex” descriptive of a truth, or a euphemism for a dodge? Suppose you were a teacher, and your student’s story about the origin of his term paper, which was clearly a hodgepodge of plagiarisms from several internet sources, he described as “subtle and complex.” Suppose a politician described his flipflops over the years as being subtle and complex. Suppose your husband’s disastrous room addition project was defended with a story he said was subtle and complex. One thing is clear about this evolutionary story, as admitted by Pennisi: it is not simple and straightforward.

The PBS Evolution series tried to claim in 2001 that the eye followed a simple and straightforward progression from simple to complex, using the visual power of suggestion that a series of pictures of animal eyes in a progression from apparently simple to complex suggested an ancestral relationship. Evolutionists love the word “suggest”. Scattered similarities between distant organisms, all thriving in their own environments, all using highly-complex functional systems only “suggest” an evolutionary story when you have put yourself under Charlie’s spell and have opened yourself up to the power of suggestion. Snap out of it.

Read this evolutionary story with the wide-awake understanding that opsins are very complex proteins (see 10/01/2004 headline and Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, pp. 15-25). But their complexity alone is useless without even more complex organs and neurons that can interpret their responses. Evolutionists want to hypnotize us into the suggestion that stories relating worms to humans by common ancestry are scientific. Be a clear-headed judge of the evidence. When missing links have to be invented out of thin air, and when complex functions have to be presumed to have “arisen” [a miracle word] earlier than previously believed, the burden of proof is on the storyteller that the statement, “evolution stories are subtle and complex,” is not just pulling wool over the eyes.

57 posted on 11/05/2004 9:54:11 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo (The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory.)
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To: LogicWings
You have no evidence at all that anything, anything at all, is "infinite, and therefore, always was and always will be" because in order to have this evidence you would have to be "infinite, and therefore, always existing and always will be" in order to gather enough evidence to prove and validate the premise. There is simply no way you can know this.

I have God's Word, and therefor I do know this. If nothing is infinite, then what creates the limits?

Begs the Question that you 'know' that God created time. There is no way you can know this. Where and how did you gain this knowledge? Assertion Without Proof.

I know that God is the Creator of the universe, which by definition must include time. Once again, I gained this knowledge from the Bible.

Again, how do you know this? The Universe "appears" to have had a beginning, but you cannot "know" this. Assertion Without Proof. Best Supposition, at best.

I do see a lot of scientists who are trying to advance theories on the origins of the universe. I can read my Bible, which tells me that God created the heavens and the earth, and I know that covers most everything in the universe.

The question remains, if everything had a first cause, what was the first cause for God? Otherwise, everything didn't have a first cause, (because God didn't) and why choose God as not having a first cause rather than the Universe?

Now you are making suppositions. Why is it not believable that God didn't have a first cause, but everything else did? I choose God as not having a first cause because He tells me so in His word to us. I can also reason that an infinite God can create a universe that is finite.

Faulty logic.

Faith
58 posted on 11/06/2004 3:31:04 AM PST by jpw01 (Freep the world!)
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To: jpw01
I know that God is the Creator of the universe, which by definition must include time. Once again, I gained this knowledge from the Bible.

How do you know that the Bible is accurate.

How do you know that your interpretation of the Bible is accurate?
59 posted on 11/06/2004 7:15:26 PM PST by Dimensio (Join the Monthly Internet Flash Mob: http://www.aa419.org)
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To: Dimensio

[Crickets chirping ...]


60 posted on 11/07/2004 11:02:25 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.)
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