Posted on 03/07/2004 10:14:09 AM PST by yankeedame
I suppose that either you are sticking with the original definition of matter or you are many, many centuries out of date. The atom, as originally proposed, was an indivisible unit. BTW, we still can't "see" atoms, we can see instrument renderings which may or may not be truly representative of "atoms". We construct instruments based on looking for something we already have a conception of (to prove it true) and should not be surprised to find that they confirm that conception (they're doing what we designed them to do, finding what we designed them to find).
It still doesn't change by argument, BTW.
sorry about your eyesight, glasses and all..as I approach 62 I, too, have to adjust here and there.
May God bless you, my son.
Lots of people have disputed 'irreducible complexity' quite successfully. The bacterial flagellum, supposedly irreducibly complex, contains subcomponents which are homologus to a secretory system. The human blood-clotting system, supposedly irreducibly complex, has homologs in other organisms that lack several components of the human system.
So what's your definition of 'scientific in nature'?
Of course, only a handful of biologists say that. The other few million think its a fundamental principle of biology.
Mind you, there are millions of people who don't know a philodendron from a pterosaur who are quite convinced evolution is junk science.
This ought to at least get you started towards resolving your problem.
The other few million think its a fundamental principle of biology.
P.T. Barnum explained that one a hundred years ago. Something like:
if memory serves.
This can't be true. FReeper last visible dog assured us last week that this is not true.
A link to a list of one-line creationist idiocies? That's your argument?
P.T. Barnum explained that one a hundred years ago. Something like: There's a sucker born every minute
Yeah. They've spent decades of their lives studying and researching biology. What suckers, when any mindless oaf with a two-bit opinion can tell them they're totally wrong about the most important principle of their discipline!
How do you propose to handle ring species. These are common with plants growing around a mountain. A&B interbreed, B&C interbreed, C&D interbreed, D&A interbreed; A&C cannot interbreed, and B&D cannot interbreed. Line species exist with animals and plants too, but I find the rings to be more interesting. Under your definition, "species" isn't an equivalence relation; it fails transitivity. That's ok, it just means that "species" isn't a property of an individual animal or plant.
Yeah. They've spent decades of their lives studying and researching biology.
Any time they've spent studying evolution has been utterly wasted. They'd have been better off drinking and carousing with loose women.
And you've spent how long studying biology? Or are you just another opinionated know-nothing?
Ah, but parts of a baterial flagellum can work as something else. No one is suggesting that a flagellum over its evolutionary history was always a flagellum; any more than a wing was always a wing. One could just as easily argue that a wing without properly developed feathers is useless as a wing; but it wasn't useless as a foreleg.
The key point of IC is that you CANNOT have selection pressures take effect until the ENTIRE unit already exists. Up to that point, it's a purely random process, and any evolutionary biologist will tell you that if you take selection pressure out of the picture, evolution comes crashing down.
The entire unit could have come together in crude form from two pre-existing organelles by a single mutation , and then been refined by selective pressure. For example, we know of proton-motive driven enzymes, such as the F1ATPase, which operate by mechanochemical transduction. If you attach an actin fiber to the head piece of an F1ATPase, you have a primitive flagellum.
Take your case about the flagellum. The components are used in another system. Fine. But, there is NO selection pressure to integrate those components into a flagellum.
Sure there is. In some environments, any motility is a selective advantage. So, you have a mechanochemically coupled enzyme on the cell wall, and you have a secretory system that secretes some sort of polymerizable protein to the extracellular environment. And a mutation causes the secrreted protein to stick to the mechanically coupled enzyme. Presto, you have an external fiber that waggles around, driven by chemical energy. It won't be efficient, but if the bacterium is in a stagnant environment, anything that moves it elsewhere, even randomly, will allow it to supply itself with nutrients faster than diffusion will. And all of a sudden you have something that can evolve, by adding more components, and getting more efficient. And given a billion years and a trillion generations, all of the components will have become so optimized and so interdependent, that someone with very little imagination, or an ax to grind, will come along and say - AHA, IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX!
My car won't operate without a complex electronic chip that controls its ignition. It is therefore impossible for cars to have evolved without a pre-existing semiconductor industry.
Discovery Institute called it a victory for students, academic freedom, and common sense when the Ohio state board of education today voted 13-5 to adopt a model lesson plan on the "Critical Analysis of Evolution."In other words, Ohio is creationiod territory."The board's decision is a significant victory for students and their academic freedom to study all sides of current scientific debates over evolutionary theory," said Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute. "It's also a victory for common sense against the scientific dogmatism of those who think evolution should be protected from any critical examination."
Chapman added that the lesson plan is exactly the approach to teaching evolution that Discovery Institute has advocated all along, helping students learn both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory.
[The article continues. See the link above.]
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