Note: this topic was posted 10/7/2005. Thanks PatrickHenry.
Posted on 10/07/2005 7:23:15 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
All organisms are made up of chemicals that the information manages and regulates. These processes are far more fantastic than mankind has ever endeavored to create, because the programming can take raw materials in the form of molecules and either uses them as fuel or as building blocks.
This chemistry lab that we call the cell not only sustains itself, but is tasked with functions that are vital to the overall success of the entire organism. How the programing handles the use and production of these cells in relation to grander systems dictates the type of organism that is alive.
If mankind could knowledgeably edit the information, we could transform a creature into another creature. However, because of the multi-layered, multi-dependent nature of the program, successful editing to the level of creating a new creature may never happen.
If you don't understand the message or the context the message relates to, it's pretty hard to stake a claim that you have information, much less quantifiable information, such that you can stake a believable claim one message is more informationally dense than another.
Does it still run, regardless of the dent?
Many people seem to agree with you, except for scientists, of course.
This dance has repeated itself within the scientific community a multitude of times throughout history.
Yea, but not nearly as often as bold ideas, most with more traction than creationism, have proved to be shallow crackpottery. It takes more than a confident attitude to overthrow an established scientific paradigm.
Modern understandings always give rise to those tenacious hanger-oners who refuse to see the forest for the trees.
And modern crackpottery gives rise to tenacious crackpots, who can't see the tree of life because they are fiercely concentrating on the tiny gaps where sun shines through the leaves, who won't give up no matter how devastating the evidence against them grows.
Technobabble unrelated to proving your point. You undercut yourself in your last paragraph when you indicate the system is so complex we may never master it.
You left out a key point. Not only is the DNA code complex, but there is no way to know what changes might be useful or required in the future. Making changes in the genetic code is like playing the stock market. You might know every thing there is to know about placing orders, but you do not know the future.
If a designer knew every lever and cog in DNA he could still not design a successful ecosystem without including a mechanism for random variation and selection. The needs of a population change in unpredictable ways when environments change and competitors adapt.
Considering that we see in nature profligate overproduction of offspring, random variation, bloody heaps of wastage and selection, everything needed for Darwinian evolution is in place -- right now, not in the forgotten past.
Were you there?
</flaming idiot mode>
These are "just-so" stories that have no basis in reality. The evidence tells us three points:
1. There are massive extinctions of very highly developed creatures that will never pass on their genetic contribution to the future.
2. There are no new types of highly developed creatures coming into existence to counteract the extinctions (nature is whittling away the necessary progress it was supposed to have produced).
3. In order for the number of highly developed creatures we presently are seeing -- many of which are dieing off -- there would need to be creatures at clear stages of development between types.
Because the genetic evidence tells us that creatures are very distinct within the allowable adaptability -- big beak vs. small beak, Chihuahua vs. Great Dane, calloused vs. smooth... -- assuming it was different in the past is erroneous.
Maybe the environmentalists are right. Man is ruining evolution.
Number one is true.
Number two is false.
Number three is nonsense. Everything alive or that has ever lived is transitional.
The statement, "Because the genetic evidence tells us that creatures are very distinct within the allowable adaptability ..." is the opposite of the truth.
Talk about just so stories: It appears that because we can create some complexity (although nowhere near what we see in nature) and nature has really complex complexity (that we do not want to admit is natural) we suspect that if we told people that complexity can only be the result of an intelligence (who just happens to design things we can see as designed if we make a few assumptions) we could get them to believe that life and the universe are designed.
"1. There are massive extinctions of very highly developed creatures that will never pass on their genetic contribution to the future.
This only matters if you assume that evolution is teleological. It isn't.
"2. There are no new types of highly developed creatures coming into existence to counteract the extinctions (nature is whittling away the necessary progress it was supposed to have produced).
Nature is not supposed to do anything other than survive. The number of species constantly changes, there is no direction to it, it just happens. In fact the most populous organisms now and in the past are bacteria. They survive in environments we could never survive, reproduce in numbers that are uncountable, they are amoung the most difficult to kill. It looks as though bacteria may be the most 'advanced' organisms of all (for some definition of advanced).
"3. In order for the number of highly developed creatures we presently are seeing -- many of which are dieing off -- there would need to be creatures at clear stages of development between types.
This link you keep making between the numbers dying off and 'replacement' species is ridiculous. Evolution, as a process, does not keep the number of species, or organisms for that matter, static. All species could die out if none adapt quickly enough to a changed environment, or the environment can not be adapted to. Evolution is not a guide, it is a result.
As far as new species showing up, they do, at a rate that is difficult to observe because of the gradualness of the changes. We can observe the change in minute amounts but cannot see the large changes.
"Because the genetic evidence tells us that creatures are very distinct within the allowable adaptability -- big beak vs. small beak, Chihuahua vs. Great Dane, calloused vs. smooth... -- assuming it was different in the past is erroneous.
It is different that this today, we need not go to the past to see it. The genetic evidence wee see as we sequence the genomes of disparate organisms shows us quite conclusively that organisms we now consider different species, for example cats and dogs, have a common ancestor.
By the way, all the differences between humans and other apes can be obtained by just those small incremental changes you mentioned, length of leg, length of arm, coarseness of hair, size of nose, size of forehead,...
"Maybe the environmentalists are right. Man is ruining evolution.
What environmentalist claim we are ruining evolution? How are we ruining evolution?
The evidence that we have gathered, beginning with Darwin, reveals that distinct genetic creatures have genetic expressions that allow for environmental adaptation. These adaptations are not a result of genetic editing by RMNS.
The Finch beaks that Darwin posited were a expression of natural selection altering the creature, has been found to be an adaptation within the creatures that was already part of their DNA. This is why when the environment returned to small beak conditions, the birds reverted back to small beaks.
What we are seeing in creatures is precoded genetic adaptation. Take callouses. People only express callouses when the epidermis is stressed. Once that area is no longer stressed, the callous subsides.
These gene expressions account for the variety of animals within a kind. Chihuahua to Great Dane. Breeding forces the expression of genes to maintain itself (similar to continue to stress the epidermis which results in thicker skin in the next generation [skin color is similar]). When Breeding is no longer put to practice an equilibrium creature results.
Again, these expressions are already hard coded into the creatures.
The mutations we see that are passed down through reproduction are edits to the genes that are damaging. These damages result in mutants that eventually get diluted within the pool. They do not result in a branching into another creature. The damage to the gene causes these organisms to have diseases and problems not found in the original pool.
Consider the knowledge we have about genetic defects. Heart disease, cancers, MS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Sickle cell, Lupus, Lou Gehrig's..... These mutations are evidence of destruction of the original code, ie. devolution.
Most fatal mutations are fatal before conception or before birth.
Branching to a new species is unlikely or impossible in a large population that is continuously interbreeding. Speciation requires an isolating mechanism.
A mutation may not be fatal until the system that is regulated by the code is highly stressed. Auto-Immune genetic defects work that way. There is not enough time, even if the mutating edits happen to let the creature function. It has been demonstrated by scientific research that Darwin's Finches were not mutations outside of their original code, which means that environmental pressures do not create new code, rather they reach to existing code to see if the population can survive. If there is no code to help the population to adapt enough, they go extinct.
We see this every year as more and more creatures devolve to the point where they are not as versatile as they once were, and go extinct.
Breeding has shown us that reproduction does not create new code. It isolates certain expressions. The isolation always does the same thing until the "blue blooded" little critters grow huge noses and ears, then die from weak cell structure (defective DNA). Unless they breed back into the less mutated population in time.
Bottom line, science show us devolution on a massive scale, within mankind's genetic code, as well as the animal kingdom. If bacteria could evolve via Darwinian Evolution, there would be no more life on earth. The limits were coded in intentionally by a sovereign Creator.
Peddle your fantasies somewhere else. You aren't worth responding to.
If people who are trained in science and motivated to see evidence such as you present can't see it, then you are a disposable loony tune.
Down the chute with you.
If they had the scientific research that proved their position, they wouldn't have to come though the side door.
Some day we will have the few billion dollars to convincingly prove these things through scientific experimentation. Until then common sense is our only proof.
Note: this topic was posted 10/7/2005. Thanks PatrickHenry.
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