Any SOLID arguments against evolution?

[alextemplet]

I feel safe though Alex trusting in the scripture and Him who wrote it.

There's a difference between trusting in Scripture and trusting only in Scripture (sola scriptura, as Martin Luther called it). The Bible makes it clear that not all truth is contained with its texts.

I don't know if you read my post where I said that if you read Paul's letter to the early Roman Christians

Yes I read it but it still doesn't bring me much closer to understanding your position. Are you going to take me up on my offer for an e-mail discussion?

I'm not catholic but doesn't your church teach the original sin? Original sin and the fall of man was part of catholic teaching I thought.

Yes, this is one of the biggest reasons many Protestants take issues with Catholicism because this doctrine is often used as a justification for the practice of infant baptism. Apparently you don't seem to belong to that crowd of Protestantism, though, with as much as you keep talking about original sin.

[AstusAleator]

Because most evangelicals don't pick and choose what they want to take as literal. How do you get your authority for the Catholic Church from Acts if I can turn around and say it's symbolic or an allegory, or it doesn't mean what it says? You take Acts ch. 2 literally but not Genesis. Do you take Exodus literally, because Moses received Genesis on Mount Sinai from God according to Exodus?

Good point. And you go on in later posts to point out scripture in the "history" portion that claims everything in the Bible is the word of God. Being an agnostic; I don't believe any of it's literally true, but I think you're giving Alex a run for his money . Keep it up (in email).

[AFJ]

There's a difference between trusting in Scripture and trusting only in Scripture (sola scriptura, as Martin Luther called it). The Bible makes it clear that not all truth is contained with its texts.

Truth will not contradict itself. If there is other truth, and the scripture is truth, they will agree and/or support each other. Otherwise one or both is not truth. Otherwise truth is not truth. This is simple philosophical logic.

SO it comes down to what you decide to believe. Even for agnostics Mr. Arastus. You believe in God or you believe in no god, but you believe something--maybe you believe you're just another species, but you believe something. It is quite interesting that we even ask the question of origin--where does that come from? Genes? I doubt that.

I don't want to get into doctrinal discussions here my friend. SInce It is a science website. I think some God talk is in order since evolution is about our origins, but denom doctrine is purely religious. You can contact me at [email protected].

[alextemplet]

Is that your way of asking me to send you an e-mail instead of you taking me up on my offer to send me one?

[futurezoologist]

Oh hang on... i must have missed something.

Since the human race is so smart, why do we have children killing people in school, why do we have serial killers.

When did i say the human race was smart? Since civilization has begun has intelligence ever helped people pass on their genes? No, in fact its probably reduced their probability of passing on their genes. And we can prove that we are not smart by the fact that a few thousand years ago we thought a whole race of people originated from two people.

A. How do you know what Adam and Eve's race was?

No Alex, not how do I know what Adam and Eves race was, how the writers of genesis knew what their race was, they knew they were white, i know (and sorry if i seem a bit one-sided with this comment)that it is impossible for a whole race of people to have originated from two people--Many more problems than low genetic variation. Even so i don't need to know what race they were, by the fact that we actually have several seperate races it proves the Adam and Eve wrong. (off topic a bit, just a quick question i have: if Adam and Eve only had sons who did they reproduce with to produce more people?)

B. What does their race have to do with anything?

A lot. if Christians do not believe in the mutation of new genes then how do they suppose a new race came into play. Believers in such scriptures it seems are always adding a bit more to their books as the evidence overwhelms their arguments and they will continue to, because they need religion to guide their life and have someone to talk to when they feel down and religion needs them to exist, so they defend it.

This argument is way more complex than it should be, if a scientific journal said that Twisties killed 200 people every day or that one in three elephants had eight heads(providing no evidence obviously), what would you think of this journal? This is my view of the bible. So many on this site make out that they are thinking outside the square by believing in such blatent rubbish-the world is 5000 years old, magic is real, blah blah, its so outwardly obvious. Sure its a great story but please don't use it as a backing for your conclusions.

That's not what I receive as testimony from the Spirit of God. You have been presented a stained glassed Jesus and Mother Mary with a little halo. No offense against catholics, but we live in the real world and we need power to overcome it. The Jesus we find in scripture is in the trenches with sinners--thats who he came to save--and in Acts he sends His Spirit and fire from heaven upon Peter and the first congregation. The bible says they turned the world upside down.

What??

FZ are you under the impression that creationists deny species change or NS? Most don't. A wise creator has put adaptation within his creation--and why not? It is for survival. The scripture uses the word " kinds." Well qualified Ph.Ds are now researching to see how broad a kind is. Is it the equivalent of a family or order? You see there is flexibility within a given model, just like you have flexibility in your model.

Wait minute... then why are we debating? The original question i posted referred to any arguments with natural selection and other forms of evolution. If the bibles are now accepting that their god had already thought of natural selection and was the creator of it but they had not yet derived the symbolism in their scriptures to let them know this(as is usually the case)... then what is this argument about?



Sorry if there is a lot of errors as it is late and im sleepy.

[GaryGaulin]

.... i know (and sorry if i seem a bit one-sided with this comment)that it is impossible for a whole race of people to have originated from two people--Many more problems than low genetic variation. Even so i don't need to know what race they were, by the fact that we actually have several seperate races it proves the Adam and Eve wrong. (off topic a bit, just a quick question i have: if Adam and Eve only had sons who did they reproduce with to produce more people?)

[17] Francisco J. Ayala and Mario Coluzzi
Colloquium Paper: Systematics and the Origin of Species: Chromosome speciation: Humans, Drosophila, and mosquitoes
PNAS 2005 102:6535-6542; published online before print April 25, 2005, doi:10.1073/pnas.0501847102
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/suppl.1/6535.full

[futurezoologist]

Sorry Gary your going to have to be a bit more specific on that, there's about 30 pages there and i don't have time to read it all at the moment, if you are referring to the population starting from a few individuals at a cellular level then this is not what I'm referring to, I'm referring to the theory that 2 humans(as we know them now) were plonked onto the planet 5000 years ago.

[AstusAleator]

I'm prettttty sure the bible never talks about Adam and Eve's skin color. In fact, so far as I know, the only book that mentions skin color is Psalms, poetically describing body parts.

Cultural norms have probably shaped the idea for many that biblical characters shared european traits.

My understanding of white-skin origin is that after diverging from african populations, northern populations lost pigment in a selective response to vitamin deficiency. ??
It is also my understanding that "black" people are also a divergence from the evolutionary predecessors, who were more brown-skinned.

PS: FZ I think your sig is more disturbing than mine. Well done!

[AFJ]

Wait minute... then why are we debating? The original question i posted referred to any arguments with natural selection and other forms of evolution. If the bibles are now accepting that their god had already thought of natural selection and was the creator of it but they had not yet derived the symbolism in their scriptures to let them know this(as is usually the case)... then what is this argument about?

Because FZ. NS and evolution are not necessarily synonymous. NS has been observed but it has been seen to be temporary --that is when stressful environmental factors take place the population of a species may exhibit certain traits more dominantly. This is because certain traits may not enable certain organisms to survive under certain conditions. When less stressful factors return so do the original variety of traits. I would have to do some hunting to find the research, but I have read it. It had to do with bird beaks and it was couple who had actually done the research for quite a number of years. Forgive my vagueness.

When did i say the human race was smart?

Perhaps I confused you with someone else. I thought you had said Jesus was a magician and toward the end of the post you said that humans were getting too smart for magic.

[AFJ]

“The Hemoglobin number,”-- that is the number of different ways you can arrange the molecules that form Hemoglobin. There are more ways to arrange them than there are atoms in the universe, but there are only 5 ways that work! What are the odds that evolution happened? Not a chance!
From Dr. David Menton PhD

Dr. Menton was awarded "Professor of the Year" in 1998 while associate professor of anatomy at the respected Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis—now a professor emeritus (he holds a PhD in cell biology from an Ivy League school, Brown University).

Never have figured out how evolutionists can ignore probability. Hemoglobin is formed by the coded mRNA and the ribosome, with the tRNA molecules which bring the proper amino acids which will match the nuecleotides in the mRNA. But mRNA gets its instructions from DNA. Point being that if the improbability of chance in hemoglobin is high, how much more for the DNA which is a much longer molecule?!

Here's another. Evolution is built on billions of years because it has to be. Take it out of the equation and it's over.

Im not a nuclear physicist so I'm asking. How much hydrogen would it take for the sun to burn for 4.5 billion years? I know this goes against theory but it seems like if the sun were really that old it would have had to be much bigger at on time ---just for the simple fact of the amount of hydrogen it would take if it has burnt that long. But even though measurements do show the sun to be shrinking, it is supposed to expand until about 10 billion years and become a red giant. Inconceivable.

On the other hand, it is much more logical that complex systems or objects of any kind show design and therefore are designed and therefore have a designer.

[GaryGaulin]

Sorry Gary your going to have to be a bit more specific on that, there's about 30 pages there and i don't have time to read it all at the moment, if you are referring to the population starting from a few individuals at a cellular level then this is not what I'm referring to, I'm referring to the theory that 2 humans(as we know them now) were plonked onto the planet 5000 years ago.

To reduce it down to its basics here is the K-12 explanation I have so far of the speciation mechanism(s). Natural selection is not mentioned because speciation would still occur without it.

From: http://theoryofid.blogspot.com/

Speciation

Speciation is a process where a population so much changes from the population they once were that they have gone their separate ways. Where still able to have offspring the entire population no longer chooses to pair-up together. Or a population that became isolated from another can experience genetic drift that forces them forever apart.

In some cases speciation happens very slowly by taking small learning steps, one gene or epigentic switching change at a time. There is here no single genome change was an event that made a new species.

In other cases speciation follows a very sudden change in genome structure. This happened in humans, fruit flies (drosophilia) and mosquitoes following a chromosome speciation[17] event from an ancestor much like us that in our case was very different from modern great-apes we know which did not exist back then.

How long it would take an isolated genome to slowly speciate much depends on its learning rate (how fast it gains or changes new information/genes). Sexual reproduction has a good amount of crossover exchange which greatly accelerates the ability to adapt and change. Asexual reproducers such as E. coli produce clones of itself which are identical to the parent. Fast responses to environment is then from exchanging plasmids. But these are separate transient genomes not the genome that accomplishes reproduction.

There are "living fossils" that have changed so little it seems to us that they should have become a new species by now or at least new morphology. But this change is relative to how fast our genome changes in comparison to theirs. So it is not time alone that matters, we must also consider the genome learning rate in our consideration of how long it takes for a given genome to speciate.

Home/Classroom Fruit Fly Speciation Experiment

In this experiment one or more people create unique environments inside an assortment of jars, coffee cans (may become rusty environment) and other containers are given a unique food source and environment inside an aquarium or even trash-can with screen on top for some air flow but no escape. Open air hole(s) on the top of each environment container allows movement from one environment to another for the ones that would rather leave the environment to go in search of a new one. Their sense of taste and smell will help them find another. When the food needs changing or rotating (so not all maggot young are removed) they can be brought outside where those that escape will not matter since population must be kept down or all may perish at once. A short time in refrigerator or cold weather will slow them down to a stop.

Inside of each environment there is one or more small paper cups or other tiny food dish so the container itself will not need cleaning. Each member of group can bring a new supply of food of their choice to the experiment. In the case of food like soggy pizza the very salty toppings will help keep the food from overspoiling but too much pepperoni might be toxic to them. A couple of overripe grapes or other fruit can be included so they have more than dry salty pizza and sugary water source.

Each in a group can be as creative as they want in designing their environment. Can be lit or dark. Wet or dry. It can include an open flying space. Or include toys or other material to climb in and around where their wings will no longer do them much good anymore. Cleaning might be more difficult where not still but toys could be a tied together as a bundle to lift out to swap food then place inside. This will give some of the flies that would rather fly away the opportunity to do so while those that prefer their bundle will get to repopulate their environment.

Behavioral Speciation

This experiment demonstrated how speciation is in part guided by what the organism itself finds desirable in the variety available to select as a mate. This includes extreme examples such as peacocks where females selecting the largest most attractive tail design has led to males with giant brilliant displays, even though this makes it more difficult to fly from predators.

In humans the looks of "sex symbols" are sometimes computer enhanced to represent the conscious ideals not yet common in our morphology. What gets added to or removed, helps show what human intelligence finds most desireable.

In a behavioral speciation there is no one day and time that a pivotal event occurred. And the genome must first have to be already drifting in that direction or else such morphological change is not possible. In the peacock example we can say that the peacocks are aroused by the direction their genome is already set to go anyway. Therefore what they in their mind find desirable is the same as what the genome finds desirable at the molecular level being expressed in the emergent peacock brain. What they find desirable is not here hard-wired into neurons it is an expression of the molecular genome itself that even responds chemically with hormones that increase to cause physiological change that in humans with just a picture of a member of same species inviting mating.

We can to some degree predict where a species is drifting towards, by how it idealizes itself. For our species there is all of art and culture where we find exaggerations of real life where the size of Betty Boops pupil alone is the size of her whole mouth yet we still recognize it as being human and sexy. What produces this may be that it is epigenetically possible to drift in that direction, or already are.

Chromosome Speciation (Human, Fruit Fly)

One giant chromosome may have advantage over two average sized ones, which would help explain why that sometimes happens with beneficial results. It first of all produces very large chromosomes from the shorter connecting together. And this would be another way the genome takes a good guess what might work. It already has two functional genes and put together something bigger, maybe better.

The telomeres may encourage a beneficial chromosome fusion by their having safely tangled protective ends, a mechanism to increase chromosome complexity. After occurring it can be enough to guarantee a very major speciation event.

In in this way, human speciation chromosome complexity increased when two chromosomes fuse at opposite ends to become one very large one. Even though there was not a significant amount of gene scrambling where ends tangled the rearranging of the chromosome territories may have already produced a noticeable morphological change. Morphology based fossil evidence dates human speciation to roughly 6 million years ago, which is in the range of estimates for the chromosome fusion.

When detailed in a cladogram there are two branching events.

First, the fusion in one parent's gamete (haploid sex cell) to produce 47 chromosome offspring with the fusion. That was next replicated in the population. The mother of a 47 might have known there was something about them that was not like all the other children but is expected they will love them just the same.

Second, the 47's paired up to occasionally produce an offspring with the fusion in both of the parents gamete they received which gave them the first 46 chromosome genome structure, were human. The 47 chromosome parents may have also been able to tell that their 46 offspring were somehow different from their 48 and 47 chromosome peers.

Chromosomal fusion has made humans unique among their kind where such a fusion makes a total of 46 chromosomes, instead of the 48 of all great apes. Here, a parent passed to offspring a fused copy in one of the two parental gametes, to birth a being with 47 chromosomes. That fusion then passed into the population where the fusion would then on occasion have the fusion in both gametes to make the first 46 chromosome human beings where from such man and woman (Chromosomal Adam and Eve) could only be born 46 chromosome descendants, us.

Hybridization Speciation

Common in plants and used in agriculture a hybrid species is created when two or more still reproductively viable species combine to form a new non-sterile species. In plants this is relatively easy. In animals can be more difficult. Horses and donkeys normally give birth to a sterile mule but on rare occasions a fertile mule is born.

Polyploid Speciation

Polyploid speciation is the result of chromosome count (information content) doubling, tripling or more. With twice or more of everything the cells are proportionately larger, resulting in a larger plant or animal. This is relatively common in self-reproducing plants. In animals reproducing the new genome structure requires a genome compatible mate, therefore surviving polyploidy species are less frequent but are still found in some insects, fishes, amphibians, reptiles and rat.[18]

At this point in time a "Chromosomal" Adam and Eve exists in science. A few might disagree with the 6 or so million year date but that is just a detail when the one and only Adam and Eve are now taking their place in our origin story. And it's not expected to be some hairy apish looking couple. It appears that reproductive problems from the fusion would require many generations of 48/47's before there were even 46's so we were already way different from the original 48 that put the fusion into genetic memory. I might also be able to conclude they had to be "human" enough to consider human to be able to survive the human chromosome structure. Where to place them in the fossil evidence will depend on what is learned from reconstructing them from phylogenetic data, but that's a challenge for the future.

The creation story found in Islam and Christianity and almost all others know about anyway, is where science is now heading. Includes the dust/clay work from Harvard but the easiest way to understand that is read the theory blog then see papers in references.

With all said, detail that Genesis does not include now has science to support the story. The fruit tree Adam and Eve were not supposed to eat from for some reason, could here have been the fruit fly food for the fruit fly Adam and Eve and all their grandchildren. It's a little funny to have to conclude that, but there you go. A little entertainment to go with your science, like the Creator has a good sense of humor or something.

I know it's not the plonking of two humans here 5000 years ago. Would need to be more like 6 million years, and from chromosomal speciation but scripture still works. And Creationists are well motivated towards somehow getting their Adam and Eve based world-view into science so this happening is no less than a "miracle" for them to have science they can do and not get in real trouble. It will no doubt replace the thinking we are the product of the same slow 48 ape to 48 ape speciation process we see at the zoo. Only humans have the signature 46 chromosome structure with all at once massive fusion event. And I think there is a scripture somewhere that adds detail where Adam and Eve's children found partners outside the family, as would here be possible.

All eventually makes sense in the light of science. Even Genesis. Which is why you need to understand what the long paper is explaining to know why origin of life science kinda already went the way of scripture.

[AFJ]

Speciation

Or a population that became isolated from another can experience genetic drift that forces them forever apart.

But this would take vast amounts of time also, as your theory says. Being that evolution would take so much time it seems that the populations would get so large that there would be evidence of it in our crust, seeing they would overpopulate and then regulate through lack of resources, catastophe, or disease. Most of the crust is silicon and oxygen, with of course all the other elements and compounds.

WHERE ARE THE VAST AMOUNTS OF CALCIUM THAT WOULD HAVE COME FROM THE BONES OF THOSE ANIMALS WHO DID NOT FOSSILIZE?

BECAUSE IT ALLEGEDLY TOOK SO MUCH TIME TO SPECIATE, WHY WOULD CALCIUM NOT BE DISPERSED EVENLY IN THE CRUST, BECAUSE THE ANIMAL POPULATIONS WOULD HAVE OVERPOPULATED, COVERED THE EARTH AND THEN REGULATED THE POPULATIONS? THERE IS NO EVIDENCE IN THE CRUST OF THIS.

And how did immobile plants seperate? They happened to somehow seperate and then mutate and then their transitions become dust--no trace.

Sexual reproduction has a good amount of crossover exchange which greatly accelerates the ability to adapt and change.

Yes completely true within designed kinds.The genetic material between certain species will not do this though--it produces nothing. And preferential instinct keeps this from happening also. Hippos will not mate with an alligator even tough they are in the same habitat.

There are "living fossils" that have changed so little it seems to us that they should have become a new species by now or at least new morphology. But this change is relative to how fast our genome changes in comparison to theirs. So it is not time alone that matters, we must also consider the genome learning rate in our consideration of how long it takes for a given genome to speciate.

You mean like blue green algae for on example. Supposedly the oldest living fossils or fossils period. A bit out of the subject at hand but evolutionary theory compares apples to oranges, comparing asexual to sexual, microorganisms to complex multicellular creatures who have entire immune systems, and do not rely on plasmids to adapt and survive.

And yes, my thoughts exactly, evolution would predict no living fossils in bacteria, because of the cloning between parent and daughter. How would they speciate and be seperate species. Once they changed their genetic material it should have remained and the old would have died off quickly. Cyanobacteria are still here after supposedly 2.8 billion years.