Posted on 06/17/2002 3:10:50 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a "wedge" for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.
Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.
To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
14. Living things have fantastically intricate features--at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels--that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
CONCLUSION
"Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and energy, and it tests those descriptions experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover--their definitions are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the existing framework of physics.
In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)
Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.
Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific ideas.
Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.
The Author(s):
John Rennie is editor in chief of Scientific American.
Apparently it takes less data to make a man than a woman. The Y chromosome is the smallest and least gene rich of all of the chromosomes.
In light of our discussion of "random" mutation, junk DNA, waste non-management in the genome, and the implication from the gene richness of the Y chromosome, please explain the following information.
Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome
Fast living on chromosome Y. The pattern of interspersed repeats can be used to shed light on the unusual evolutionary history of chromosome Y. Our analysis shows that the genetic material on chromosome Y is unusually young, probably owing to a high tolerance for gain of new material by insertion and loss of old material by deletion. Several lines of evidence support this picture. For example, LINE elements on chromosome Y are on average much younger than those on autosomes (not shown). Similarly, MaLR-family retroposons on chromosome Y are younger than those on autosomes, with the representation of subfamilies showing a strong inverse correlation with the age of the subfamily. Moreover, chromosome Y has a relative over-representation of the younger retroviral class II (ERVK) and a relative under-representation of the primarily older class III (ERVL) compared with other chromosomes. Overall, chromosome Y seems to maintain a youthful appearance by rapid turnover.
Lest I be misunderstood, I really meant non-richness or poverty.
Well, I tried to do make it as short as possible, perhaps it was too short. The purpose of the first quote was to show that if you wish to insert a new gene and have it work, you need to also insert other DNA that helps control the use of that gene. The one that expresses the gene for one thing. The purpose of the second was to show what would happen if a gene were duplicated. First of all, if it ends up in a vital part of the genome, the individual would die, this however is a small (but if it happens to you a very significant problem). If it does not however, some things can happen - it may dissappear - even in populations which have been 'seeded' with the extra gene. Chances are even more abominable in real life since no one else would have that gene (mendellian genetics again). However, the real big problem after all the above is that even though the test is being conducted with a new gene which should produce some phenotype changes in the individual - they cannot distinguish the individuals who have the new gene and those who do not! They have to do an entire genome scan to see if it is there! Why is that? Because of what I have been saying all along - a gene which is not intricately connected to the rest of the genome will do nothing. So essentially to get a new working gene, just one, you need what amounts to a miracle. You need:
1. a mutation which produces a duplicate gene.
2. that the duplicate gene does not hurt a vital part of the genome.
3. that the duplicate gene gets spread through the species at chances of 50% survival at each generation (note no selective advantage since the gene is just a duplicate at this point).
4. that the new gene acquires a mutation and then goes through 3 above to spread itself throughout the species again (again no selective advantage yet).
5. that it hits upon the correct helpful mutation by pure chance while going through 3 above after each try.
(Now the above alone should be enough to dissuade a reasonable person, one not blinded by faith in materialistic evolution, to say such a thing is impossible. The above is where we were some 50 years ago when DNA was discovered. Now we know more and the problem is worse.)
6. After all the above though, we still do not have a working gene! Now we need another miracle, we need the gene to:
a) be expressed in the cells where the new function, ability or whatever should go. Since there are some 3 billion cells in the human body finding which ones it should be expressed in is quite a task.
b. be connected to other processes in the organism that will tell it when to do its thing and when to stop doing it.
c. become part of the developmental program of the organism which tells the organism in what sequence each of the cell divisions is to take place. (we start with one cell and the program at each division has to determine what kind of cells to produce until we get a fully formed human being, the program does not stop there though, it continues running and telling the cells what to do until death).
Evolutionists believe however that all the above have happened - and not just once, but millions of times since the first single-celled organisms arose. Now who says that evolutionists do not believe in miracles?
OK, if modern cyanos don't branch, and later cherts have carbonaceous inclusions of the sort illustrated, then it does appear that Schopf has been seeing patterns in the noise--perhaps deliberately if his grad student is right. "Say it ain't so, Joe!"
Well I have quite a few problems with natural selection being true. For one there are still a lot of fools in this world. For another even the simplest species are still around and totally in contradiction to natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc., etc. they are the most successful species around! But there is a bigger problem which is the one I was pointing at. You seem to think that natural selection can be the cause for increased complexity and that it would solve the problems involved in creating such increased complexity. Natural selection only kills the unfit. It is not a cause of anything, specifically it is not a cause for the creation of new genes, etc. which would be required to get life from a single celled organism to humans. Further, when species, such as single celled bacteria can survive for billions of years and continue to be the most prolific species on earth, there is clearly no need for increased complexity, the kind required by evolution, for species to survive. So what I was really asking you was to substantiate, in view of the above, your statement on post#1158 that:
Complexity which arises from a far simpler set of rules (or beginnings) is a rapidly emerging scientific paradigm.
I doubt very much that there is any substance to the above except the wishful thinking of materialist scientists.
What is hard to believe about that sample is that anyone who calls themselves a skeptic would come within a thousand miles of any argument of its relation to the supposed operation of RMNS.
Using that program or its Herculean(chuckle) extension, I can with 100% accuracy determine the next "improvement" of the "organism". Prediction of the time used to accomplish that "improvement" would also be possible but would contain the statistical evidence of the "randomness". Is that possible with Darwinian evolution? Absolutely not. The weasel applet mentioned by someone on this thread is a better but still flawed example. It uses randomness in a more "realistic" fashion and is somewhat of a simulation of the RMNS as accomplished in animals(generations and mixing etc). However, it too is predictable in the statistical sense as to outcome at each step. Why? It has a specific goal. Nature as it is explained by Darwin has no such specific goal.
I concur. That's reason #2 why I don't buy the theory of evolution as currently explained.
The answer is that the explanation you are using is incorrect. Evidence of design relies on specified complexity which requires complexity, specification and information. A snowflake does not have any information, but DNA does. In addition to which, there is no naturalistic reason (chemical, etc.) why a string of DNA bases should be as it is:
Stephen Meyer makes this point beautifully for DNA.[19] Suppose some natural cause is able to account for the sequence specificity of DNA (i.e., the specified complexity in DNA). The four nucleotide bases are attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone and thus cannot influence each other via bonding affinities. In other words, there is complete freedom in the sequencing possibilities of the nucleotide bases. In fact, as Michael Polanyi observed in the 1960s, this must be the case if DNA is going to be optimally useful as an information bearing molecule.[20] Indeed, any limitation on sequencing possibilities of the nucleotide bases would hamper its information carrying capacity. But that means that any natural cause that brings about the specified complexity in DNA must admit at least as much freedom as is in the DNA sequencing possibilities (if not, DNA sequencing possibilities would be constrained by physico-chemical laws, which we know they are not). Consequently, any specified complexity in DNA tracks back via natural causes to specified complexity in the antecedent circumstances responsible for the sequencing of DNA.
From: Another Way to Detect Design
What you state is usually the case. However if you follow the reference in the article, you will see that the author is referring to the discovery that some cells can actually prevent the shortening of the telomeres through the use of telomerase:
However, when normal somatic cells are transformed in the laboratory with DNA expressing telomerase, they continue to divide by mitosis long after their normal life span is over. And they do so without any further shortening of their telomeres. This remarkable demonstration (reported by Bodnar et. al. in the 16 January 1998 issue of Science) provides the most compelling evidence yet that telomerase and maintenance of telomere length are the key to cell immortality.
From: Telomeres
In your dreams! But there is a deep pattern that developed, and I think it had its advantages, which would've been selected for. But I'm too swamped with work to go into that now.
Will be very interested in hearing your theory once you are finished writing inefficiently beautiful code! :)
Indeed it is, at least as substantiation for evolution. Here's the reason: bones tell us practically nothing of what a species is all about. They tell us very little about an organism, that is why we know so little about dinosaurs and why there is so much controversy about them, there are no living examples to tell us what they were like. However, the real kicker to paleontology as to telling us anything worthwhile regarding evolution can be seen in the following discovery that men's brains differ from chimps mostly due to gene expression, you need live organisms for such work because:
But Walter Messier, director of Evolutionary Genomics, Denver, Colorado told New Scientist: "It's sometimes difficult to devise an adequate control when you do expression pattern work. Let's face it, expression patterns can change after one has had lunch, for example. But it is a very valuable approach."
From: Scientists Sort the Chimps from the Men
I've seen you trumpet the Cambrian explosion as being devastating to the theory of evolution. Creationists aren?t slow to use
Strawman argument since I do not use such examples to support my views. The Cambrian example, which is very well substantiated, is by itself devastating to evolution.
I did not call God a machine language coder, He is the Creator, I would never say such a thing.
Let's get on to the facts. You already admitted that intelligent beings (humans) did indeed write such complex code when computer resources were much smaller. Now, you may call such reuse of code 'ugly', but I call it gorgeous. I see no beauty in waiting for a 200 megabyte program loading when the same thing could have been done with a tenth or more likely a hundredth of the code. The reason why such garbage code has become an industry standard is itself interesting: programs have become too large for them to be created or maintained by a single individual. This was not the case in the old days so a programmer did not have to make the code 'easy to read' and 'easy to document' so that others would be able to add their contributions to it because he was the only one working on it. One would think that the Creator would be operating the same way - He did not have to document his code so He made it as compact and as efficient as possible.
As I said, replicating inefficient DNA is a big waste of resources - why replicate 10 times more DNA than you need? You need, food, time, etc. to accomplish it. It is a big burden on an organism to do that. One would think that a 'natural selection' process would work against such inefficiency would it not? Seems you are contradicting your own theory in bashing efficiency.
Which brings us to the big problem for evolutionists in all this. Such re-use creates problems in random mutations being workable, such re-use creates problems in even thinking how such re-use could have occurred through random means. Natural forces do not act in such a way. Only intelligent beings make choices, natural forces do not.
No, to me it has always smelled like a purely unintelligent hodgepodge - a classic kludge job. Funny how you think the same thing is an example of godlike elegance! But you're ignoring those introns & those psuedogenes, etc. On the one hand you think that hyper-reuse of some parts of some genes (much less than 3% of the total space) shows a great desire on the designer's part to save codons, but at the same time you have the other 97+% of the ROM devoted to regulating those genes. And your argument depends on all 97% of codon space being used for regulation! Your argument would be stronger if you thought that only the introns were put there by the designer. Then you could say that the other 77% really is junk and was the result of The Fall or something.
1. a mutation which produces a duplicate gene.
2. that the duplicate gene does not hurt a vital part of the genome.
3. that the duplicate gene gets spread through the species at chances of 50% survival at each generation (note no selective advantage since the gene is just a duplicate at this point).
4. that the new gene acquires a mutation and then goes through 3 above to spread itself throughout the species again (again no selective advantage yet).
5. that it hits upon the correct helpful mutation by pure chance while going through 3 above after each try.
First off, #2 touches on why the presence of junk DNA helps facilitate macroevolution: If the 73% of our genome that isn't coding nor introns really is junk - in the sense that the specific sequences don't affect the cell's metabolism - then that gives a random gene insertion a 73% chance of not clobbering an existing gene, & therefore not harming the organism in any way.
I think I tried to explain to you before why your #3 is all wrong. Let me quickly try again. (And godel or longshadow or some other mathematician will have to put some real math to my assertions here:)
The chance of any one allele (new mutation in this context) being passed on to a specific child is 1/2. The chance of the same allele being passed on to the second child is also 1/2.
The chance of at least one of these two children getting the mutation is 3/4. With 3 children, it's 7/8. With 8 children it's 255/256.
Put another way: The number of children that will have this new mutation will be (on average) 1/2 the number of children! If the mutated parent has 6 children over its lifetime, then the mutation will spread to three individuals. If the parent has 50 children, then this mutation will spread to 25 individuals, where before there was only one! There is no problem spreading a neutral mutation from one to several individuals.
So your #3, which you think is such a daunting barrier, is no such thing. This makes your #4 & #5 evaporate as well.
"Herself" Finally a wiccan raises his/her head. Even God, the bible one, can't back 4 bits worth of data in one bit.
Boo. But I'm just being evenhanded.
Even God, the bible one, can't back 4 bits worth of data in one bit.
It's not difficult. We pack megabits into kilobits all the time. It's called data compression and some programs are designed to be run from compressed states.
But for those who are blind to the road they are on, dare to see where it leads:
A voice of reason.
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