Posted on 02/24/2009 6:37:38 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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The tree-of-life concept was absolutely central to Darwin's thinking, equal in importance to natural selection...Without it the theory of evolution would never have happened. The tree also helped carry the day for evolution.
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For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree. "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life," says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. "We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change...
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
The field of biology has never been more productive in terms of information and application.
The “superior opponents” have produced nothing in terms of information that they didn't already “know” and certainly a big fat zero in terms of application.
Creationists are still fiddling with themselves in the locker room while imagining they are out on the field, while actual scientists score touchdown after touchdown and go home with the cheerleader.
It seems to me that the inter-related web of complexity-of-design, in the so-called “horizontal gene transfer” is most plausibly accounted for by commonalities in a Designer, than by some unaccounted-for cross-special transfer.
Just as Ferraris and Fiats share certain core parts (circuits, lightbulbs, steel, copper, rubber, etc) while being completely different animals, as it were, and the most logical explanation—and what we know from history—is commonality of the designer (or designers, in this case). So too it makes sense that from the molecular level, into DNA/RNA, on up to the shape of an eye, or the hands of man and monkeys, the commonality was originally found in the mind of God—not some imagined utterly-hypothetical inter-species transfer.
Thank God the tree is falling...may the web not ensnare us also!
(It is interesting how the models for science follow the prevailing philosophies of the day, eh? Modernism was all about universal paradigms (like that of a Tree), while post-modernism is all about a Web of related-ness, and skepticism toward any universals).
But God created man in his image. Do animals also share this commonality? Strange that God thought so little of man as to use his old design and not come up with perfect ones.
“Unfortunately, in the field of evolution most explanations are not good. As a matter of fact, they hardly qualify as explanations at all; they are suggestions, hunches, pipe dreams, hardly worthy of being called hypotheses.”
Dr. Norman Macbeth
>> Publishing entire genomes on the internet and providing the tools to make comparisons seems a funny way to sweep things under the rug. <<
Gee,really? I said that what was being swept under the rug was why Dinosaurs have DNA more similar to frogs, which was a relationship that was incompatible with traditional, anatomically based phylogeny. And you show me a traditional, anatomically based phylogeny to prove to me that Dinosaur DNA isn’t more similar to frogs???
Incidentally, that’s a great site for illustrating how the anatomically based phylogenists can’t agree on a single clade, isn’t it?
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Charles Darwin
“there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.” Pope Benedict XVI
“This collaboration will produce a powerful resource to investigate the patterns of molecular variation across the rice genome, assess evolutionary forces shaping rice and discover genes controlling important traits such as disease resistance, drought tolerance and nutritional value. In the long term, this information will be used to improve rice, and it will also help scientists better understand how to improve other crop plants.”
Jan Leach
When did Mr. NM get promoted to DR?
“The success of Darwinism was accomplished by a decline in scientific integrity.”
Dr. W.R. Thompson
Norman Macbeth the lawyer with no ‘formal’ (or informal for that matter) science education?
Why is it that Creationists always seem to go to lawyers for their science education?
And we have no evidence that one damn word in that whole statement is true.
What the heck are you talking about?
The current paper builds on work by a team headed by John Asara and Lewis Cantley of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.
“We determined that T. rex, in fact, grouped with birds — ostrich and chicken — better than any other organism that we studied,” Asara said. “We also showed that it groups better with birds than modern reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards.”
1872. Your dear Dr. has not seen the subsequent 140 years of evidence. Who knows what he might say now.
REALLY??
Which "man" was created in God's image?
....because Homo habilis was one "U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi" UGLY dude.
Ah yes....that part was written before the discovery of early "man's" existence.
Why do you feel the need to misrepresent the education background of the lawyer Norman Macbeth?
I think it is genetic.
>> The Creation Scientists have been pointing to far more than just DNA evidence. But come to think of it, they have been pointing to the DNA evidence for quite some time now as well. <<
Actually, the work involved showing that phylogenic lines aren’t what would be expected from genetic relationships was, to my knowledge, not only NOT done by Creation Scientists, but rests on several notions incompatible with Creation Science.
Evolution is not compatible with some sects of Christianity... (fixed).
Thanks for the ping!
God created man in His own image out of dust—that is already created components. What a strange and impossible world would it be if its steward, bore no commonality with his charges; man must be similar, but also superior, in what is most important, to all other animals—as the one animal made like God. All creation is also currently frustrated and subject to decay—that is all resultant of the Fall.
I think the evidence would show—if it is available—actual de-evolution in humans...in that genetically, and in almost all other respects, human beings were superior thousands of years ago, than we are now. Yes, our collection of knowledge is far greater—hence we live more comfortable, and by in large, a more enlightened existence, but the whole concept of progress, and social Darwinism, was an industrial-era notion, as living conditions radically improved starting 200 years ago. My own notion here, for certain, but not without a philosophical and biblical basis.
As to corrupt notion of God thinking so little of man, you should repent.
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