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New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution Theory
Washington Post ^ | September 26, 2005 | Rick Weiss and David Brown

Posted on 09/26/2005 3:27:53 AM PDT by Crackingham

When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was more than 96 percent identical to the human genome. Charles Darwin had deduced more than a century ago that chimps were among humans' closest cousins. But decoding chimpanzees' DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests.

If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species' DNA and the two animals' population sizes.

"That's a very specific prediction," said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and a leader in the chimp project.

Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.

SNIP

Evolution's repeated power to predict the unexpected goes a long way toward explaining why so many scientists are practically apoplectic over the recent decision by a Pennsylvania school board to treat evolution as an unproven hypothesis, on par with "alternative" explanations such as Intelligent Design (ID), the proposition that life as we know it could not have arisen without the helping hand of some mysterious intelligent force.

SNIP

"What makes evolution a scientific explanation is that it makes testable predictions," Lander said. "You only believe theories when they make non-obvious predictions that are confirmed by scientific evidence."

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; crevorepublic; enoughalready
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To: bvw
PS.

Annual Revenues

NFL: $4.2 Billion
MLB: $3.5 Billion
NBA: $2.0 Billion
NHL: $2.0 Billion

;^)

201 posted on 09/27/2005 3:32:58 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: bvw
Had it peer reveiwed too.

Yep. It was rejected.

202 posted on 09/27/2005 3:33:53 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: VadeRetro
"The overlapping ends are in the same area, but I'd say the speciation was allopatric. It is caused by differences of adaptation and history enforced by considerable if not total geographic isolation up until the ends reunite.

Would we know that if all the intermediate subspecies were extinct.

203 posted on 09/27/2005 5:14:31 PM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: b_sharp
Don't think so. Some of this may be hard to sort out given the paucity of data points and the long time frames involved.
204 posted on 09/27/2005 5:39:07 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: VadeRetro

OK. I'm officially bored.


205 posted on 09/27/2005 7:27:19 PM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: AntiGuv

Considering how few games an NFL team plays, especially versus MLB -- must be a statistical outlier.


206 posted on 09/27/2005 7:48:33 PM PDT by bvw
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To: muir_redwoods
... it seems reasonable to me for the human writers of the Bible to have made some. Review Leviticus chp 11 wherein bats are referred to as birds, review Joshua, chp 10 (I think) where it described the sun going around the earth. The mistakes and errors do not detract from the ethical and moral message and guidance extractable from the Bible.

1. Our 'scientific' definition of 'birds' was not the word available in Hebrew, Greek or any language back then so the definition used to refer to 'bats' is correct for that time - not an error - obviously the word "bird' means any creature that has wings and flies. Hence the so called 'error' is a reading back into the text of a foreign definition of a word - it's a common mistake made by some theological liberals who are trying to find fault with the Scriptures.

2. The reference to the sun setting is not an error - its the way we still talk in phenomenological language.

Cordially,

207 posted on 09/28/2005 8:27:21 AM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: Diamond
So as long as you can explain away the errors and mistakes they aren't errors and mistakes. I get it.

Seat yourself comfortably because there are about 1500 to 2000 more of them for you to work with if you're interested.

The bible is a man made document. It is full of the kinds of errors people make. It is no less valuable as an ethical and moral guide because of these errors and mistakes but it is worthless as a biology text.

208 posted on 09/28/2005 1:38:06 PM PDT by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopechne is walking around free)
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To: muir_redwoods
So as long as you can explain away the errors and mistakes they aren't errors and mistakes. I get it.

Explain away? What is there to justify in rejecting the esigetical interpretation of an ancient text based on nothing but the anachronistic importation of a foreign definition of a word?

Seat yourself comfortably because there are about 1500 to 2000 more of them for you to work with if you're interested.

Well, if you have found that many alleged errors it sounds as if you might be reading the text more with a motive of finding its 'errors' than for it's ethical and moral precepts. I'll bet with that many errors and mistakes you'd be bound to think there would be some in the ethical and moral realm of Scripture, too, wouldn't you?

The bible is a man made document. It is full of the kinds of errors people make. It is no less valuable as an ethical and moral guide because of these errors and mistakes but it is worthless as a biology text.

If the Bible were merely a man-made document (as opposed to divinely inspired via human agency) then it wouldn't even have that right either because it countless times refers to itself as the very Word of God, theopneustos . If its human authors are liars in their numerous claims regarding the nature and authority of their writings then they are worthless as ethical and moral guides.

Cordially,

209 posted on 09/29/2005 9:09:09 AM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: Diamond
"If its human authors are liars in their numerous..."

Until you can make the logical distinction between lies (your second unfounded claim of such things) and errors, a reasonable discussion is impossible

210 posted on 09/29/2005 2:22:53 PM PDT by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopechne is walking around free)
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To: muir_redwoods
Until you can make the logical distinction between lies (your second unfounded claim of such things) and errors, a reasonable discussion is impossible.

It is a logical conclusion that flows from the premise that God does not make errors, and that persons who 1) claimed to speak or write the very words of God, but 2) made errors, 3) prove their claim of divine authority to be false, and because of the nature of their claims it is reasonable to expect that they either knew or should have known that their words were false. Such writers, if that were the case, could reasonably be called liars, and would thereby be unworthy to be followed as ethical and moral guides.

Cordially,

211 posted on 09/30/2005 8:24:30 AM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: Crackingham
When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee,

That would be really cool. If that's what they really did. Genetic mapping is a statistical analysis, not an exact numeration. What they did was take a sampling of DNA chimp, do some statistical modeling on it, and arrive at a probability with a certain level of confidence and error on what the total genome looks like.

212 posted on 09/30/2005 2:14:20 PM PDT by frgoff
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Comment #213 Removed by Moderator


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