Posted on 02/13/2006 4:31:16 PM PST by MRMEAN
Biologists are beginning to solve the riddles on which intelligent-design advocates have relied
To advocates of intelligent design, the human sperm's tiny tail bears potent evidence that Charles Darwin was wrong--it is, they say, a molecular machine so complex that only God could have produced it.
But biologists now are starting to piece together how such intricate bits of biochemistry evolved. Although the basic research was not meant as a response to intelligent design, it is unraveling the very riddles that proponents said could not be solved.
In contrast, intelligent design advocates admit they still lack any way of using hard evidence to test their theories, which many biologists find revealing.
The new insights on evolution at its smallest scale were a major yet little-noticed reason why a federal judge late last year struck down a plan in Dover, Pa., that would have put intelligent design in public school classrooms. The findings the judge cited will provide the ultimate test of ideas about the origins of life, more lasting than court rulings or the politics of the moment.
Most scientists have long rejected intelligent design, or ID, on the grounds that it is a religious proposal not grounded in observation. ID adherents say biochemistry actually supports their view. They argue that many tiny mechanisms--the tails of sperm and bacteria, the immune system, blood clotting--are so elaborate they must have been purposely designed.
Yet biologists have made major strides on each of those phenomena since the first ID books were published in the mid-1990s.
Working without the benefit of fossils, experts are using new genome data to study how fish evolved the crucial ability to clot blood. A wave of new research on the evolution of the immune system seemed to stump ID witnesses in the Dover case. And even ...
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
micro means "tiny"
microbe means "tiny living thing"
differentiating between an adjective and a noun is not nitpicking, especially when endeavoring to get someone to define what he means when he uses a pseudo-scientific term developed by anti-evolutionists for the sole purpose of obfuscation. ESPECIALLY when he seems to have created out of whole cloth a novel meaning of that nonsensical term.
look at my tagline.
believe it.
now - you have qualms about both microbe-to-man and microbe-to-chimp evolution. very good. I will now assume that you have a similar qualm with the idea that ANY vertebrate mammal arose from distant microbial ancestors. indeed, I shall presume to extend this to ANY complex multi-tissue organism.
I am correct in this, yes? This does hew to what you believe, yes?
Assuming so, and abandoning it for a moment, do you have a qualm with the idea that homo sapiens (us) and pan troglodytes (chimps) derive from a common ancestor, and that the mechanics of the speciation from that common ancestral stock was genetic mutation and various forms of selective processes?
much of what we call "random" or "chance" does have a web of causation, but it is too vast, deep, wide, and subtle for us to trace.
so... "quasi-random"
there might be real random events, on the exceedingly small scale... such as precisely which atom in a sample of radioisotope will undergo fission at time=x, perhaps...
I think it gives a person more dignity and self-respect to know that they were created in God's image for His purpose than to believe that they descended from animals and when they die that's the end. It also gives a reason to treat the bum on the street as someone of importance when one realises that under the dirt, filth, drugs, and alcohol, is a human being whom God loves and died for. People deserve dignity because of that; in spite of their conditions and circumstances. That explains the motivation behind much of the mission and relief work done by religious organizations around the world.
Good point. Truly random is a very hard test to meet. There are mathematical definitions, and it is hard to achieve true randomness.
However, state lottery systems, for instance, work dilligently to get to randomness. It is close enough for practical purposes. This is what I meant. Quasi-randomness means "random as for practical purposes" but not meeting more refined tests.
In sperm-egg uniting, there is a degree of unpredictability, but it is not truly random statistically, because there are chemical and biological factors involved. These factors bias the outcome (if we knew everything about each of the 10 million or so sperm and which egg was released this month). This is, thus, random for practical discussion, but not statistically random.
I hope this clarifies my previous post. Thanks for raising a valid issue.
####micro means "tiny"
microbe means "tiny living thing"####
I think we're all aware of that.
What I'm waiting for from you is a revelation. You've built yourself up as possessing great knowledge of this subject. So much so, that I'm expecting phenomenal things from you. So, drop all the cuteness and pettiness and hit me with what you've got. Demonstrate to me that we're descended from micro-organisms beyond any reasonable doubt. For that matter, demonstrate to me that humans and chimps are descended from a common ancestor beyond a reasonable doubt. If you can do that, demonstrate that God had nothing to do with it.
Remember, I'm not just asking for evidence. I admit there is such evidence. I've never ruled it out as a possibility that we are indeed descended from micro-organisms. If you do nothing but provide me with evidence I'll be forced to consider you a failure since there are alternative explanations for that evidence (e.g., God's design and creation).
Don't forget, I stated at the outset that it's possible that we are indeed the descendents of micro-organisms, but I have doubts. So do others, which is why we object to banning any other possibility from being discussed in the public schools. You jumped in AFTER I had so asserted, as if you had the capacity to take things one step further and clear up those doubts. So go ahead.
Show me why I should totally abandon my doubts and agree with you that micro-to-man evolution is a fact and it's settled for now and all eternity. And while you're at it, demonstrate that God had nothing to do with it.
Honestly, I respect you and your opinion, but you're really off on a tangent here.
Excellent!
I do, sometimes.
Perhaps. But perhaps not. There is no way to determine if what happens in the world is random or guided. That cannot be answered scientifically.
(Unless, of course, one takes the view that each egg and sperm were individually directed by God. Nobody in biology would accept this, but as a matter of faith, it is unprovable.)
Why would nobody in science accept that idea? Is there some reason not to? I agree that it is unprovable but it shows that scientists are starting from some basic presumptions that are not neutral.
My objection to random chance is that there is no way of supporting the statement. It is just the opinion of scientists that it is true and that things are unguided. What is the evo objection to the idea that it's guided?
####What is the evo objection to the idea that it's guided?####
It does seem to disturb quite a few of them! :-)
It IS late and while I don't need to shave, I do need to sleep so out for the night palcemarker.
palcemarker= placemarker (foggy brain placemarker)
Quoting: "It's more like they accept the fact that they are made from the dust of the earth IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. That is the point. The substance that I'm created out of is immaterial to me because man is a living soul and the body is just the shell for this stay on earth. What I'm created out of does not define me. "
You offer a very odd statement. You object to a descriptive understanding that human and ape mammals are related via a common ancestry in our history.
I do not know what you mean "by being in the image of god". Your post seems to say "in the image of dust and dirt, from whom we were created". Maybe you did not mean this, but this is what I understand from your post.
I do not know what other image you refer to. Surely you do not mean that all of us look like God? Could you explain?
You say "The substance that I'm created out of is immaterial to me because man is a living soul and the body is just the shell for this stay on earth. What I'm created out of does not define me."
This has the ring of a theological argument, but is quite divorced from reality--we have bodies. What we are made of is quite clear--water, carbon-compounds, some nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfer, and a sprinkling of iron and other metals.
These combine wonderfully to make life everywhere, from bacteria to fish to mammals via natural processes. There does not seem to be a need to invoke a "supernatural force" to explain what we observe.
if "we are all aware of that" then no one would use "micro" in place of "microbe" ... ever.
if you await a revelation from me, you are bound to be disappointed.
I am no authority on molecular biology or evolution, and certainly have no ground-breaking "proof" tucked up my sleeve.
However, from long experience now, I *am* a bit of an authority on the tactics of imprecision, illogic, and obfuscation used by the anti-evo crowd to muck up the issue.
case in point - you say you don't want "just evidence", yet you request a demonstration "beyond a reasonable doubt". this is a contradiction in terms. Barring corporeal time travel, absolute first-hand demonstration is impossible to pull off, and you know this.
On the other hand, records of past events preserved in DNA are excellent "evidence" which do demonstrate common primate descent beyond a reasonable doubt: the so-called "DNA fossils" of genetic *errors* common to all primates; the set common only to apes (including humans); the set common to chimps, bonobos, and humans exclusively; the set common to humans alone; and sets exclusive to sub-groups or demographics within the overall human population.
This is DNA evidence which would easily stand up in court in a capital murder case, which fits the bill of "beyond reasonable doubt"
I've read biologists refer to these fossil DNA errors as "the smoking gun" of common descent.
but... you don't like mere evidence.
oh, well... what shall a mere mortal do?
Thanks for your post! :-)
I'm sorry if I got testy with you. I'm not trying to obfuscate anything. I'm not a scientist and I can't possibly know all the currently applicable terms used in the laboratory.
I thank you for your contribution but I think we were just on two different wavelengths. Evidence is fine and I respect you for providing it. You may be right. But I think that as long as there are alternative explanations we shouldn't be so dogmatic. After all, wouldn't creatures designed by God have close DNA if they are comparatively similar? You might not believe that such a thing could occur, and I understand that, but some of us look at the evidence and see something different than you, or at least are open to the possibility of an alternative explanation.
You're a very bright fellow, and I think you're an excellent debater.
Gravity makes satellites "fall" forever in a circle.
Sunlight shines on only one half the globe at once.
Arizona is two hours "behind" New York because of earth's rotation.
IOW all atheist/based science language just not by HIM or HIS WORDS
You guys are so funny.
Have you ever thought that maybe God "created" evolution first?
Why the need tgo go and pick on storks now.
What did they ever do to you?
it is not the similarity between similar critters of DNA which works... it is the exact correspondance of DNA *errors* - non-functional DNA, crippled DNA - in the same loci of the same genetic sequences which constitute the smoking gun of common descent.
think about it.
it is analogous to a particular flaw in the printed lettering of word 39 on page 231 of the 3rd print run of the 17th edition "Ostrogoths; and the Roman Women Who Submit To Them" - that shows up in all copies from that print run, in that location, but nowhere else and in no other print run. - it is inarguable evidence that they all came from the same common ancestor (printing typeset, in this case).
evidence just don't get better'n that.
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