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To: Physicist; mywholebodyisaweapon
RE: The core issue to which the creationists object is common descent.: It doesn't matter whether creationists object to it or not, evidence to the contrary is met with total derision on the part of evolutionists.

Look, the human genome project demonstrated that our line of critters managed to pick up genes from bacteria and viruses along the way ~ this is true of all the critters we've studied.

The trick is you or I could pick up genes from a virus (through some as yet unknown mechanism) that get inserted into our genome, which we could pass on to our descendants, but your genes would NOT have a common origin with mine in that case, nor would those of our descendants.

Still, presumably we'd all be the same species.

I really doubt the creationists want to believe bug genes can be picked up, but why are evolutionists so aghast that this could be the case? Why do they hang onto some sort of pristine "common origin" idea when it's been so handily refuted.

452 posted on 09/14/2006 7:33:12 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
The trick is you or I could pick up genes from a virus (through some as yet unknown mechanism) that get inserted into our genome, which we could pass on to our descendants, but your genes would NOT have a common origin with mine in that case, nor would those of our descendants.

That's true, but it's in perfect keeping with common descent AND Darwinism.

Remember: Darwin didn't know anything about genetics. All he knew was that there is some mechanism of variation, and that some of those variations are passed to offspring. From Darwin's perspective, it doesn't matter whether a variation came from a single point copying error or a wholesale insertion from a virus, just so long as the change is inherited. For all he knew, the latter was the only source of variation; it wouldn't have changed the theory.

And the fact that YOU might have picked up a virus from somewhere--not that there's anything wrong with that--and acquired a gene that I lack in no way changes the fact that we share common ancestors.

But if you want to update your GEDCOM files at Ancestry.com to include your newly acquired parent, I'll understand. :-)

462 posted on 09/14/2006 8:09:31 AM PDT by Physicist
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