The evolving Darwin debate

WorldNetDaily ^ | March 24, 2002 | Julie Foster

[gore3000]

Even the evolutionists here who happen to be atheists seem to agree in this.

You have it backwards. Atheists are evolutionists because of their atheism. They had been looking for an atheistic explanation of life since ancient times and atomism did not quite cut it.

[Quila]

If there is no proof then how can it be a valid theory?

There is no proof, there's evidence, despite your claims to the contrary. That's what is required for a theory. Take advanced math if you want to get into proofs.

[Quila]

Pick any you like. Else you will say I picked the weakest.

The second one is pretty cool because it's the one where Darwin said about the absence of certain fossils, "The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained." He was saying that if no one finds these fossils, evolution theory could fall apart.

A hundred years later, after much stumbling, infighting and doubt they were found and verified. The process itself should show you that there isn't the kind of pro-Darwin censorship you are so convinced of (the reason none of the creationist arguments are ever published in a journal). It looked like they were found by a scientist, one who didn't accept evolution either, but then the find was later discredited even though it would have made Darwin's prediction true. This scientist pushed his 'find' for the rest of his life, ignored, despite that it would clear up one of the major perceived problems with evolution theory.

[Quila]

Your continued insistence that it is science in the absence of any proof shows that the claims of evolution are totally bogus and that it does not belong in the public schools but its own church.

Item 2 in the creationist playbook: redefine science completely away from accepted definition when it turns out evolution is scientific and creationism isn't.

[js1138]

The reason is simple - selection does not know what it is looking for, selection cannot act on a gene that is not working yet.

Selection doesn't look for anything. It simply disgards bad tosses. In non-sexual organisms, fatal mutations are inconsequential because the rate of reproduction ensures plenty of good copies. In sexual reproduction, most fatal mutations are weeded out before conception.

Most mutations are neutral or non-fatal.

Your statement about genes "not working yet" implies that a stairway doesn't exist if it doesn't reach the landing. But it is possible for neutral or garbage DNA to contain partial stairways that suddenly become significant when the last board becomes available.

The existence of junk DNA is proof that previous tosses are not thrown out. Much of what is currently non-functional was probably functional in a previous context.

[js1138]

You are absolutely wrong. Social Darwinism was not the misuse of Darwinian theory, it was putting Darwinian theory into action:

How is that different from building and using a bomb? Does the bomb disprove chemistry and physics? Does the fact that physicist might want to kill people make killing the only proper use of physics?

[js1138]

Evolution was not hijacked by evil doers. Darwinism is the soul of Nazism

Let's analyze your implied Syllogism: "Darwinism is the soul of Nazism. Nazis are Darwinists. Therefore Darwinists are Nazis."

Yup, You get an A+ in pure logic. Good thing logic is the soul of your argument.

[js1138]

Darwin's big atheistic buddy Haeckel. Also, it was Darwin's other great buddy, the atheist Huxley who coined the term "amoral" as a defense of the immorality in Darwinian theory.

Let's see how this one scans: "Darwin had a friend who defended an immoral action. Darwin also defended immoral actions. Therefore Darwin's scientific theory is technically false."

Yup, another A+ in logic. Good thing you base your arguments on logic.

[Quila]

They also do not purport to prove that religion is false.

Astronomy, physics, geology, archaeology, geometry, taxonomy (classification of animals), they all disagree with the Bible at some point, just as evolution does.

[Quila]

You think that if the theory of gravity was false we could have made it to the moon by using it?

As has been pointed out, there is no one "Theory of Gravity" however, there are many theories as to how gravity works, and no one is quite sure of any yet. I really think we're far closer to the truth with evolution.

Newton's laws of gravity (specific mathematical formulae) were quite useful in the trip to the moon however.

[js1138]

Okay, since you say that evolution can provide at least the same kind of proof as given in court, let's see the proof of macro-evolution from the above perspective which you claim already exists.

The jury has been in for quite some time.

• There are some friends of O.J. who refuse to believe that DNA evidence proves anything -- who refuse to believe that enormous and improbable strings of nonfunctional DNA found in different species implies common ancestry.
• There are some friends of O.J. who don't believe in radioactive dating and believe that earth is less than four billion years old.
• There are friends of O.J. who don't believe that the continual finding of intermediate fossils implies the existence of intermediate species.
• There are friends of O.J. who believe it takes a huge number of mutations to produce a large an viable structural change in an organism, and who ignore recent laboratory experiments (reported in the current Scientific American) demonstrating that a change in just a few molecules on and existing gene can dramatically alter the body plan of a fruit fly.

So I guess we have a hung jury, and you win. Truth is on your side, just like it was on O.J.'s.

[js1138]

If, for example, your conditions state that landing on heads is more advantageous, then with each flip that is heads, the next flip should be even more likely to be heads.

I believe no such thing. I say that selection is a crooked gambler that keeps its winnings and is never required to pay its debts. I say nothing about who or what entity might have rigged the game, but evolution describes the game.

[Quila]

His hero, Malthus, the original chicken little, has been proven wrong by the tenfold increase in humanity while nutrition improved.

We'll go over the other stuff in the other thread, but we agree here: Malthus (an Anglican pastor no less, hehehe), was an idiot.

[js1138]

Even after an organism is established, what has been created before is not necessarily available, because without any context, it is useless. Which is why, perhaps, DNA contains so much junk.

"Junk" is simply stuff currently in disuse. In a changed context it is available for repair and re-use.

[Quila]

Some grandeur! War and famine he calls grandeur! As I said, the bad qualities pointed out are intrinsic to the theory of evolution.

No one ever said evolution/nature is nice. But because something isn't pleasant, it is automatically not true? God-sanctioned barbarism abounds in the Bible too, do you not use this fact to end your belief there?

[Quila]

Furthermore, if evolution were to be true, the examples of gradual evolution in the fossil record should be the rule not the exception.

That is one problem with evolution. There's no way we'll ever find all of the fossils necessary to close up every little hole to make people like you happy. They'll probably find every fossil, documented evolution chains for millions of species, and you'll point to the one they can't find and say "That disproves your theory."

[Quila]

Okay, this I have to see. Tell me how the murderer of Christians and Jews misused the teachings of the Bible. You make a lot of broad accusations, let's see you prove them with specifics.

This was in another thread. But in Mein Kampf, his speeches, private conversations and writings, he always insists that he is doing the right Christian thing, and continually proclaims himself a Christian. His troops' belt buckles even had "Gott Mit Uns" (God with us) inscribed on them. He made the Concordat with the Vatican, and therefore had no problems with the Church once its position of political power was taken care of. He strongly believed in the power of the church, as long as it was subordinate to the state.

We can play "he wasn't a real Christian" all we want in other cases, but in this case we're going for people using Christianity to evil ends, whether or not they believed it in their hearts.

[Quila]

No, they are arguing about the theory itself.

My point is none of them are saying "Evolution's fake, God must have done it." They are all arguing about what mechanism is being used in evolution.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

"Junk" is simply stuff currently in disuse. In a changed context it is available for repair and re-use.

But the point is that it is totally out of context.  in order for it to be useable, the ordering of the DNA helix must be radically altered.  Even then we don't know enough about DNA in general and DNA ordering specifically to know what (if anything) will happen.  All we know is that the more we learn about DNA and RNA, the more complex these supposedly simple building blocks actually are.  To date chance mutations and rearrangements of DNA sequencing seem to be more deleterious than otherwise.  But even of that we cannot be sure.

[js1138]

Even then we don't know enough about DNA in general and DNA ordering specifically to know what (if anything) will happen.

Makes it pretty tough to be a designer, also. Not much like doing a blueprint or writing a computer program. If code reuse depended on chance, you'd expect nature to be pretty cruel. You'd expect to find lots of unused sperm cells, lots pregnancies that fail in the first couple of weeks, a number of deformed and/or inadequate children. You'd expect to see a world in which millions of offspring die young for each one that survives to reproduce.

Nothing like the well ordered, designed world we actually see.

<];^)