Posted on 07/29/2002 6:35:04 PM PDT by Tribune7
Printer-friendly format July 26, 2002, 6:11PM
A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest By JEFF FARMER
It has been said that if anyone wants to see something badly enough, they can see anything, in anything. Such was the case recently, but unlike some ghostly visage of the Madonna in a coffee stain, this was a vision of our ancestral past in the form of one recently discovered prehistoric skull, dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis.
Papers across the globe heralded the news with great fanfare. With words like "scientists hailed" and "startling find" sprinkled into the news coverage, who couldn't help but think evolutionists had finally found their holy grail of missing links?
For those of us with more than a passing interest in such topics as, "Where did we come from? And how did we get here?," this recent discovery and its subsequent coverage fall far short of its lofty claims. A healthy criticism is in order.
Practically before the fossil's discoverer, the French paleoanthropologist Michel Brunet, could come out of the heat of a Chadian desert, a number of his evolutionary colleagues had questioned his conclusions.
In spite of the obvious national pride, Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor. While looking at the same evidence, such as the skull's flattened face and shorter canine teeth, she draws a completely different conclusion.
Of course, one might be inclined to ask why such critiques never seem to get the same front-page coverage? It's also important to point out that throughout history, various species, such as cats, have had varying lengths of canine teeth. That does not make them any closer to evolving into another species.
A Washington Post article goes on to describe this latest fossil as having human-like traits, such as tooth enamel thicker than a chimpanzee's. This apparently indicates that it did not dine exclusively on the fruit diet common to apes. But apes don't dine exclusively on fruit; rather, their diet is supplemented with insects, birds, lizards and even the flesh of monkeys. The article attempted to further link this fossil to humans by stating that it probably walked upright. Never mind the fact that no bones were found below the head! For all we know, it could have had the body of a centaur, but that would hardly stop an overzealous scientist (or reporter) from trying to add a little meat to these skimpy bones. Could it not simply be a primate similar to today's Bonobo? For those not keeping track of their primates, Bonobos (sp. Pan paniscus) are chimpanzee-like creatures found only in the rain forests of Zaire. Their frame is slighter than that of a chimpanzee's and their face does not protrude as much. They also walked upright about 5 percent of the time. Sound familiar?
Whether it is tooth enamel, length of canines or the ability to walk upright, none of these factors makes this recent discovery any more our ancestral candidate than it does a modern-day Bonobo.
So why does every new fossil discovery seem to get crammed into some evolutionary scenario? Isn't it possible to simply find new, yet extinct, species? The answer, of course, is yes; but there is great pressure to prove evolution.
That leads us to perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this latest evolutionary hoopla. While on one hand sighting the evolutionary importance of this latest discovery, a preponderance of these articles leave the notion that somehow missing links are not all that important any more.
According to Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman, missing links are pretty much myths. That might be a convenient conclusion for those who have been unable to prove evolution via the fossil record. Unfortunately for them, links are absolutely essential to evolution. It is impossible for anything to evolve into another without a linear progression of these such links.
The prevailing evolutionary view of minute changes, over millions of years, is wholly inadequate for the explanation of such a critical piece of basic locomotion as the ball-and-socket joint. Until such questions can be resolved, superficial similarities between various species are not going to prove anything. No matter how bad someone wants to see it.
Farmer is a professional artist living in Houston. He can can be contacted via his Web site, www.theglobalzoo.com
Do see the problem with accepting this statement as definitive of anything? Here's a different version. I'll grant that it is just as biased.
Gish likes to "win" debates by bamboozling the credulous faithful who pack his audiences.
I don't think you like Gish.
I think he means (beneficial mutations) occur less commonly than harmful ones.
This is Max's words (excerpted) from his site:
1.2 Refutation of the creationists' arguments
1.2.1 Are all mutations harmful?
While it is true that most mutations are either harmful, as suggested by the creationists, or neutral, the creationists gloss over a crucial fact: beneficial mutations do occur, though they are very rare. . . .
Does the fact that we know many human detrimental mutations but essentially no clear beneficial ones mean . . .?
You also think gore's not doing too badly.
GK3 is the subject of direct, personal and rather vicious attacks. This indicates he is making points.
I was impressed with Max. He agreed that "macro-evolution" has never been observed. I notice he's using "macro-evolution" at the level of perhaps taxonomic order.
Vade, the only way to consider the observation of macro-evolution is by applying it to the taxonomic order.
Spetner is saying this is type of genetic change is less probable by orders of magnitude than getting an adaptive change with a single nucleotide substitution, which, he says, has not even been shown to be possible.
Note: he's not claiming the nucleotide substitution change to be impossible, just that it has been shown to be possible.
WHERE??????????
Just because there are genes that are the same in some species does not mean that they arose through mutations. That is an evolutionist assumption for which there is no scientific basis.
You and your friends are totally full of garbage. Let me show the story of the nylon bacteria which you folk of course were too lame or too dishonest to post yourselves. Probably too dishonest because it shoots down all the nonsense you folk have been spouting about it and about a few other things. Note that the author is a virulent evolutionist:
this single microevolutionary addition of a single thymine ('T') nucleotide caused the new bacterium's enzyme to be composed of a completely novel sequence of amino acids, via the mechanism of frame shifting. The new enzyme is 50 times less efficient than its precursor, as would be expected for a new structure which has not had time to be polished by natural selection. However, this inefficiency would certainly not be expected in the work of an intelligent designer. The genetic mutation that produced this particular irreducibly-complex enzyme probably occurred countless times in the past, and probably was always lethal, until the environment changed, and nylon was introduced.
While most frame shifts of such a key enzyme would destroy the enzyme, resulting in immediate death of the organism, this particular protein happened to react with nylon oligomers. And so it was that a drastic mutation suddenly gave an ordinary sugar-eating bacterium the unusual ability to digest nylon, which just happened to be present in abundance in the little waste pond behind a Japanese factory. From: Nylon Bug
Note that the article says nothing about all the silly stuff you folk keep saying it can eat. Also note that even this evolutionist author states (twice) that a frame shift mutation is deadly. Also read the whole article if you like and see for yourself that there is not the slightest hint as to what caused this mutation. This is in no way any kind of advance and when the plant closes, the bacteria will die as I have been saying.
Why do you claim this? Isn't the near-identity of all cheetahs evidence for a 'genetic bottleneck' (Ie a very small population)?
It is a very small population now because of the killing of it done by man. However, they have been collected for many years in zoos and such at different times so they did not all arise from the same place. Scientists were totally astounded to see that the genome was totally the same. This has not been found in any other known species.
Seems you and Max agree that there is no evidence for macro-evolution! Gee Vade after over a year you finally come out with the truth!
Assumptions are not science, evidence is science and there is no evidence for evolution. From day one, with the charlatan Darwin, the only basis for it has been what you just said 'you can't prove me wrong so I can say I am right'. This is garbage not science. Just because something cannot be disproven does not make it scientifically true. Yet evolutionists have been claiming just that - that evolution is scientifically proven for some 150 years. Now I call that absolute dishonesty.
Those changes I referenced were NOT destructive. The mutation in Ubx bestowed the ability for it to become a transcriptional repressor. Other mutations just led to different morphologies. Don't blame your illiteracy on evolution.
Garbage. Post it here so all can see your statement is not true.
Note how complicated it is. Note that these scientists call it a program. Note that small changes or mistakes lead to disastrous results. -me-
And as has been stated a hundred times, your interpretation is largely incorrect. Genes can be added or knocked out of mice with usually no ill effects.
You can say whatever you wish as many times as you wish, it's a free country. However, you need evidence for your statements, you have none, you give none. You have evidence post it here. I've seen it already and it does not prove evolution. That is why you do not post it.
Further, it is not my interpretation that the development of an organism is a program, it is the opinion of the scientists who wrote the textbook I quoted from, one of which is a Nobel Prize winner.
So we come back to the question you have been avoiding through 3-4 threads and perhaps over a thousand posts by now:
Even reading Gish's version, Max is killing him. You have to have cotton candy for brains to be gulled by Gish.
I don't think you like Gish.
How many times do you have to catch somebody? Did you follow Max's links on Gish?
What was the point of mangling Max's paragraph on beneficial mutations? I summarized his point.
GK3 is the subject of direct, personal and rather vicious attacks. This indicates he is making points.
We all answered his stinking platypus arguments over a year ago and he's still posting them to the same people demanding apparently the same answers on thread after thread. That indicates to me that he's an idiot or a troll.
Vade, the only way to consider the observation of macro-evolution is by applying it to the taxonomic order.
Cetacea (Max's example) is an "order." You know, "order," "family," "genus," "species." I tend to think macro-evolution means speciation, a thing creationists used to deny happens. (I've been doing these threads for about 3 1/2 years. The evolution of the creationists is something to behold.) Why speciation? It's the Point of no Re-melding.
Anyway, it's become obvious that speciation happens. Creationists have generally gone from denial to bar-moving. Now "macro-evolution" to a creationist is whatever hasn't been demonstrated yet.
At the level Max is describing, (land animals to cetaceans) of course "macro-evolution" hasn't been directly observed. We haven't accumulated 55 million years worth of observations since Darwin, only about 143.
Man you are one confused puppy.
I am talking about any mutation which confers a survival benefit.
No, it is you who is trying to create confusion. You are trying to avoid the problem created by genetics that makes it almost impossible to fix a mutation in a species. So like every evo you are just skipping the point and going on as if such a thing happens. You do not get beneficial mutations right off the bat. A duplicate gene would have to be changed, that takes more mutations after it is duplicated. A point mutation is highly unlikely to give anything but a minimal advantage, certainly not enough to overcome the 50% bias against its survival. A completely new working gene in one fell swoop would constitute a miracle and you folk do not believe in miracles do you?
You're missing the point. Read my lips. When you're at a local maximum, you don't move. That's the "stasis" you guys keep swearing is a "disproof" of evolution.
Spetner is saying this is type of genetic change is less probable by orders of magnitude than getting an adaptive change with a single nucleotide substitution, which, he says, has not even been shown to be possible.
This thread is littered with examples of beneficial mutations. You "rebut" by finding yet another willful ignoramus saying there aren't any. Hello?
Note: he's not claiming the nucleotide substitution change to be impossible, just that it has been shown to be possible.
I don't care what he's saying. Against a pile of evidence and obvious logic that of course a thing happens, citing some authority to say it isn't proven is meaningless. Especially if the "authority" on religious grounds has his head up something the AdminModerator doesn't like to see posted in photographs.
"No tushies allowed" placemarker.
Of course it is relevant. You are claiming this is a favorable mutation, so it must be compared to how the bacteria functioned previously.
BTW - this is similar to the case of the nylon bacteria. -me-
Yes this is evolution. The selection of mutations which give rise to novel traits. You must be a closet Darwinist.
No, this is not evolution, this is adaptation - and adaptation for the worse:
I refer you again to the word COULD in the article. Further, the article did not show anywhere that there was any gene duplication. All it showed was that two DNA base pairs were altered. NO NEW INFORMATION WAS ADDED. In addition (and I am sure you forgot about it) one of the summaries you cited (see post#1213) said the following:
The specificities for the biologically selected substrates generally increased by at least an order of magnitude via increased Vmax and decreased Km for the substrate. These changes were very specific for the selected substrate, often being accompanied by decreased specificities for other related substrates. The single, double, or triple substitutions in the enzymes did not detectably alter the thermal stability of ebg enzyme. Post# 1213 .
So what we have here is another example of a mutation which decreased the functioning of the system except in the one specific circumstance, and which did not add any new genetic information to the organism, and does not show, in any way the expression of any new mutated genes.
As it is obvious to anyone, you cannot have evolution without the addition of additional genetic information. A single celled organism has some 600 genes and some one million base pairs of DNA, a human has some 30,000 genes and some 3 billion base pairs of DNA. You cannot get from a bacteria to a man without adding new genetic information and you (and evolutionists) are still unable to show it ever happening. And again I refer everyone to post#1271 where it can be clearly seen why this cannot happen by random means as evolution claims. It would require the co-evolution of an entirely new system to support the expression of the gene as well as an entirely new system of relating the new gene to the rest of the organism, as well as a complete rearrangement and addition to the developmental program of the organism to enable this new gene to work. In other words, utterly impossible.
1301 posted on 7/23/02 9:05 PM Pacific by gore3000
Your example does not show:
1. greater complexity.
2. greater genetic information.
3. the duplication of and expression of a new gene.
4. better functioning under normal conditions.
In short it does not show anything necessary for evolution to be true. What it does show is adaptation to the environment. One last thing, it is even doubtful that this can be called a mutation. The specificity of the change, suggests (but does not prove) that it may have been due to deliberate adaptation by transposons. As I said at the start of this discussion 4 - 2 does not equal 6. You need additional expressed genes for evolution to be true and such has never been shown.
Instead of insults why don't you answer my question:
This is another tremendous admission by that evolutionist. For evolution to be true, beneficial mutations have to be pretty common. With the millions of species known and the great differences between them and single celled organisms, they need to be common for evolution to be true. In addition to which it is extremely unlikely that a single mutation would endow a creature with any kind of great benefit so what is needed is a long series of beneficial mutations, passed on throughout the species by the almost impossible means of mendellian genetics. So putting his statement in focus, it is practically an admission that evolution is false.
Speciation, especially with the loose definitions used by evolutionists is not proof of evolution. To get evolution you need increased complexity and even your author acknowledges that this increased complexity, which many call macro-evolution has never been proven. Also, I have been asking for over a year for such proof in these threads, and no such proof has been forthcoming.
How true, the evolutionists will do anything but discuss evolution. Insults, nonsense, even attacks on the moderator are their favored subjects, anything but discussing facts about the subject of the thread.
How true, the evolutionists will do anything but discuss evolution. Insults, nonsense, even attacks on the moderator are their favored subjects, anything but discussing facts about the subject of the thread.What this means is that after all the time he's been here, and after all the copious posting he's done, g3k has yet to find anyone to just chat with, or joke with, or to pal around with. No fun. No good times. No cyber-buddies. I wonder why that is?938 posted on 8/7/02 9:40 PM Eastern by gore3000
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.