You wouldn't understand the concept of liberalism if it bit you on the ass JazzMan
No, I don't. I prefer logic over emotion when making decisions, especially relating to government. That's why California is always in financial trouble, because the liberals run it with their hearts, not their heads. They don't know when to say "no." You call it heartless. I call it responsible.
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12:23 AM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27116 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
Think of the mutations that make bacteria immune to the effects of antibiotics. They are random mutations, but since the mutations that worked lead to bacteria that contain the mutation more often the result is a bacteria that never existed before, one that was immune to antibiotics. And this happened in less than a century. Imagine what kind of mutations and selections could occur in a million centuries.
I hate to tell you this, but DNA says we're related to EVERYTHING living, including plants.
Poliometrius virus has been assembled from chemicals.
GL
I did not question the fact that we share dna with many other living things, I am fully aware of it ,so i dont know why you felt the need to bring it up but if you want to here my opinion on the dna relationship between us and all living things, i promise you wont like it any more than you like my current opinion on evolution
1 - while we do share dna with all living things , how exactly does that dismiss a common ancestry traced back to a common mother and father? 2 - they created a virus. "exactly" call me when they create a cell that morphs into a human being , splits into male and female parts, and reproduces?
heres a question for you
an archeologist find a clay pot and has it tested. using modern carbon dating methods they get a result of 100,000 years. Q: Does the the results verify the age of ; (a) the pot (b) the clay or (c) both ?
Mutation and selection require time because it takes time for successive generations to live, mature, and reproduce. Bacteria generations take minutes or hours at most so mutions that are beneficial for their support get into the population fairly quickly, still taking decades. Almost ever human ever alive is alive now, and with an average of less than ten generations per century it will be a long time before beneficial mutations show up in humans. In fact, there's some doubt whether that will really happen now that we have assumed some control over our genetic "destiny" in a way. With technology and society (such that it is) beneficial mutations get buried in the mix since things that would ordinarily prevent a genetic line from reproducing aren't as much of a problem now.
A beneficial mutation that happened today would likely not matter for thousands, tens of thousands of years, and even then not really unless there was something that would routinely kill people without the mutation before age of reproduction. As a possibilty there are a few people who are naturally immune to AIDS. Very few, but documented with natural immunity. Aids is a recent stressor on the human population, and with modern anti-retroviral treatments people can easily live almost full lifespans after infection, so how does the immunity to AIDS get into the general human population like the mutation that makes monkeys immune to the simian version of AIDS did thousands of years ago? AIDS is just too recent and too slow acting to get the job done so to speak.
Because the changed in our diets over the last few thousand years are creating problems with our health (more grains, carbohydrates, animal proteins and fat, and less raw plant foods) there is a need for adaptation, but even the Milano Mutation, as beneficial as it is, just couldn't spread aggressively into the population because even the worst case of CVD generally won't stop reproduction enough to leave the mutation population to supplant and surpass the general population fast enough.
You wouldn't understand the concept of liberalism if it bit you on the ass, besides, it's the conservatives that are against universal access and for profits at the expense of social responsibility.
JazzMan
why is it , that only a liberal can refer to society's responsibility to an individual while not refering to the individuals responsibility to society or themselves. great we are supose to be responsible for everyone elses problems yet we can't expect them to take responsibilty for their own. only liberalism can contradict itself so perfectly while claiming to be the higher intellect... lol
[This message has been edited by JRM-2M6 (edited 08-26-2005).]
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12:43 AM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27116 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
OK, those points are well taken, and that article is very interesting.
Again, what about higher organisms? Why don't we see more evidence of strange animals that seem to be in "transition" from one type to another, like dinosaurs to birds? Shouldn't there be more animals that appear to be halfway toward evolving into something very different?
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12:55 AM
Steve Normington Member
Posts: 7663 From: Mesa, AZ, USA Registered: Apr 2001
OK, those points are well taken, and that article is very interesting.
Again, what about higher organisms? Why don't we see more evidence of strange animals that seem to be in "transition" from one type to another, like dinosaurs to birds? Shouldn't there be more animals that appear to be halfway toward evolving into something very different?
That is a hard to question answer for several reasons. First off, evolution is not a process from A to Z where we can point to an animal and say, "That is Q, the offspring of P and the parent of R." If a modern animal is a transition animal, how would we know without seeing what it will eventually become? Maybe the duckbilled platypus is a transition from an aquatic cold-blooded fish to a warm-blooded mammal. Or hippoponami (sp?) could be the transition to a mammalian amphibious creature. Second, we are used to seeing the animals around us as they are right now, not viewing them as they were long ago or long in the future. So we look at all the animals we know as the end product of evolution, not steps in the chain. Finally, we have very limited knowledge of most of the history of most animals we see. For domestic animals, the only knowledge we have is the breeding that we ourselves have done. That is of probably limited use for evolution. For wild animals, we don't know much about their common ancestry or chain because we've only been studying them for a short period or time. For instance, why is the coyote so much smaller than the wolf? Did a wolf-like canine have a mutation to be smaller that made it more sucessful during a time when food was scarce? Or did a coyote-like canine have a mutation to become bigger that made it more successful in hunting large game?
Steve already responded, but I was going to say (as he already did) how do you know what is midway? We are probably midway to something else.. Many animals might be 'midway'.. Bah.. it stinks when I think of a response and scroll down to find it's already been answered..
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03:29 AM
fierobear Member
Posts: 27116 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
The point I'm trying to make is, wouldn't it be obvious if we were looking at a strange animal that looked like a dinosaur, but had "winglike" appendages and weren't anywhere adequate for flight? I mean, why would an animal develop a "proto-wing" if it were going to take 50,000 years to become an appendage that improved to the point of usefulness? How would a proto-wing benefit the generations before flight was achieved?
Someone mentioned that mutations just keep happening, pretty much at random, and the organism that survives has the most beneficial mutation. That's relatively easy for a bacteria, which survived an anti-bacterial drug. But how does a creature end up with a functioning wing? Wouldn't it take a million years, and a one-in-a-billion chance that all the mutations would line up nicely for a bird to be able to fly?
Connecticutfiero asked "how do we know a bird is perfect?". A bird's body is damn near perfectly suited for flight. It's bones are light and hollow, it is shaped just right, it's wings and feathers make just the right shaped airfoil to create lift...it's an amazing thing. Maybe it's my appreciation for the science of flight, but find it difficult to believe that birds didn't have some kind of designer.
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03:42 AM
Scott-Wa Member
Posts: 5392 From: Tacoma, WA, USA Registered: Mar 2002
OK, those points are well taken, and that article is very interesting.
Again, what about higher organisms? Why don't we see more evidence of strange animals that seem to be in "transition" from one type to another, like dinosaurs to birds? Shouldn't there be more animals that appear to be halfway toward evolving into something very different?
Why would they be strange? We have white tigers and other mutations that pop up over and over, white tigers don't survive in the wild because they stand out to much in Africa... but guess what? Change the environment to one with snow and siberian tigers work, african ones don't... it's filling a niche. Whatever fits a niche that is too specialized dies out, but the 'mutation' or adaptation attempt (to be more accurate) keeps popping up. Our influence as humans have intentionally and unintentionally turned bizarre plant mutations into the standard by flipping tens of thousands of years of evolution on it's head because we changed the rules of WHAT the definition of fittest was.
Let me give an example... wheat. The basic domestic crop that amongst a few others causes farmers to dominate the world over hunters.
Wheat has propagated itself for ten's of thousands of years by growing it's seed pop at the top of the plant and then spontaneously the plant explodes scattering it's seeds all around it. Worked that way for a long long long long time. People came along and started gathering the seeds off the plants with the 'mutant' defect that would cause them NOT to explode. They eat those plant seeds, poop them out and the mutant plants reseed in a manure pile. They just became fitter than their exploding brethren because they were easier to gather than the ones on the ground so got replanted in better soil and when people started intentionally planting seeds, those were the ones that got intentionally planted and tended. It only took a few generations to overwhelm the old survival strategy... but guess what... wild wheat STILL exists.
Look at strawberries... a wild strawberry is about the size of a booger and looks about as appetizing, yet before we had present say ones, they were food. While foraging for berries, which ones would you spend your precious time on? The biggest sweetest looking one you could reach. So you eat the biggest one... again, poop out seeds into the waste pile and those bigger than the rest strawberries reseed. And repeat... eat the biggest juiciest fruit from the new plants and poop.... now we have strawberries the size of apricots through this process, although it's become on purpose in greenhouses picking the most attractive plants/seeds/fruit to spend our efforts on growing.
Pecans... a poisonous nut, trees are the hardest to domesticate... takes to long and we are fighting other influences. If you were to eat pecans before the late 1800's you'd be dead in short order from arsenic poisoning... besides they were extremely bitter... the reason they didn't get eaten... a defense mechanism. But a gene that occasionally would get turned off in a tree would not have the poison and also missed the bitter taste. Why would we eat from that tree? Because we'd see the birds doing it... so cultivated them. It's recent history and documented. Wild pecans still exist... like other ape species. They still fit their niche.
Acorns are a nut used in cuisine around the world... never been able to cultivate for bigger nuts... why not? Following this theory of evolution and human intervention, acorns should be the size of baseballs. A couple of biggies that explain why you need to look at ALL the facts, not just the ones you'd like to pick to show a fault. Civilizations have tried since egyptians and maybe beyond to cultivate acorns, but failed. Why? 1) takes to long... humans have hardly made a dent in modifying trees for crops, olives, pecans, and fruit trees (and those we have to graft), a lot of freaking work. 2) other competition that makes small nuts more effective from the trees survival point... ie smaller nuts have a higher level of fittness.. Why? Because we are competing with squirrels!!! Walnuts, acorns, etc... the squirrels way outdo us at scattering the seeds, and thus fitting in the cheek of a squirrel is much more adventagous than being tasty to a human.
When you try to have an discussion with an creationist or intelligent design promoter (agenda anyone?), it's generally the creationist demanding that the person who has a better understanding of science explain everything to them and prove everything rather than them doing ANY research on their own, while demanding that the people that understand scientific theory just take their word that the creationists version of the bible and creation story is the truth cause their interpetation of their version of the bible says so. The same people can't even fathom the depth of research, testing done to validate, creation of experiments to prove or disprove ideas that go into science... it's just a waste of time and money. So believe in the literal translation of the bible as interpetted by their preacher and stop splitting atoms, colliding matter and antimatter, figuring out how the universe ticks... stop figuring out ways to see the true wonder of the universe and creation and huddle around a bible and commit suicide or go start a holy war, or just fill the coffers... whatever the 'morale' leaders say to do.
Without the scientists, you wouldn't have the computer your reading this on, the electricity that runs it, the microwave you cooked your meal in, the soda your drinking, the car you drive, the bible you read. You'd live in a hut burning turds for heat eating bugs and whatever else you could catch. The good thing would be that you might have an occasional schirmish with neighboring tribes, but no priests or beaurocrats forming you into standing armies for their own purposes... you'd be to busy getting your next meal to stand for such wastes of your time.
As for the creation deal with aminoacids forming into whatever... go look it up, there are papers covering the theory, they've got a few very plausible experiments duplicating the most likely ones. Can't 'prove' it with todays technology and probably won't be able to beyond a shadow of a doubt just because of the conditions at the time and what gets left behind. Dinosaurs, leaves, bigs got caught as fossils, amber etc.. aminoacids? The conditions were all wrong for fossils and what sort of record would an aminoacid leave and how the heck would we find it? We can tell what is going on inside a star 20,000 light years away, because we can 'see' it with our technology, space based telescopes etc... we can 'see' back in time to the dawn of the universe, the shadow of the big band even, but no further. It's like showing up after a fireworks show and seeing the smoke floating in the air and declaring that god said let there be smoke. Did it come from a fantasic explosion of light and sound? A fire and drifted by? A plane flying by? Just a weird looking cloud? Scientists could catch some of the smoke, analyze it and other properties of the atmospere and determine there was an explosion. They might even find the paper from the shells and be able to piece part of what happened back together. There are scientists studying the shadow of the big bang, trying to determine the shape of the universe in the years after the bang. Can they determine the shape of the universe before that explosion? No... Can we determine the exact shape of a firework before it exploded and what the explosion looked like the instant it happened from a smoke cloud wisping around 4 hours later much less than billions of years later? BTW... can't have ever seen a firework or know why anyone would make or blow one up...
We as humans are seeing how the smallest parts of creation fit together and along with the largest pieces. Our understanding is filling in at unbelievable speed... we have mapped the humane genome, split the atom, launched telecopes that can see back to the earliest galaxies in the universe, created weapons with capability of destroying our very existance, all within a hundred years. Electricity, lights, radio, tv, computers, internet, space travel, cars, aircraft, all within a couple of hundred years. But from the groups that insisted the earth was flat, the stars were painted on the sky, the whole universe revolved around the earth, that if god meant man to fly he'd have given him wings... Prove it to me and don't use any of that scientific mumbo jumbo. Wait wait wait, that's taking to long, I have to get back to preaching my beliefs at others or making fun of them. I have someone to call a slut/heathen/liberal/democrat (insert marginalizing phrase of choice here) because they don't follow my dogma.
There I go ranting again... but it's hard watching the same people demand proof of something over and over using stupid arguements in attempts to topple valid theories. The Second law of thermodynamics being used as an argument against evolution is one of my favorites... take a scientific theory that uses proven fact for a specific set of conditions and apply it to something completely unrelated. Or the creationist science fairs.... I put dirt out in the sun for a week and no people sprang out therefore evolution is false, well a few plants sprouted but no animals... ok so Scientist Suzy showed me all the microbes swarming around, but still no people popped up therefore people were created by god from scratch. Scientists say it took millions of years but our arguement is that if I can't do it this weekend, they must be wrong. The adults applaud this idiocy. Texas has the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country but if they teach sex education in school their kids will start having sex... wonder how they are getting pregnant without teachers explaining the actions needed... and the ones needed to avoid it.
Cover ears and go nah nah nah nah nah nah nah.... can't hear you... if I can't hear you I can go on believing what I know to be untrue....
Oh but wait... someone has a quote for that for the unbelievers, we are the ones that listen but do not hear.... sheesh. I think I'll go have a real discussion with a buddist. At least it's interesting and has some mindbending concepts that science backs.
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03:57 AM
PFF
System Bot
lurker Member
Posts: 12355 From: salisbury nc usa Registered: Feb 2002
Originally posted by jstricker: Where in this thread have I said that I'm supporting the postition of the Bible being the literal word of God? ... Please, stay on topic. John Stricker
ok, john, let's look at this carefully.
quote
Originally posted by lurker: quote Originally posted by jstricker: Only if you assume that time had a beginning. Did it? Prove it. /quote while not a satisfactory proof for me, it ought to be good enough for you: get out your bible and turn to page 1. "In the beginning, ..." genesis. literal word of God, right?
i answer your question in terms i expect you to understand, but then you deny the source when you reply:
quote
Originally posted by jstricker: Where in this thread have I said that I'm supporting the postition of the Bible being the literal word of God? In fact, I haven't said (except facetiously talking about the ancients and stargates) that I have a belief one way or the other EXCEPT that I don't believe the theory of the origin of life as taught in theory of evolution can not stand up to the light of scrutiny. Please, stay on topic. John Stricker
subtle, very subtle. and very dishonest. true, in THIS thread, you never said you believe the bible is the literal word of god. but then, you never deny it, either. read on. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum6/HTML/034052-2.html
quote
Originally posted by jstricker: No, God created man in the image of himself, perfect at creation,
here, we have an assertion that you believe genesis, or parts thereof, literally.
quote
Originally posted by jstricker: Originally posted by JohnnyK: No no.. You guys have stated before the bible is written by man,.. /quote Where, exactly, did I ever say that? John Stricker
strong evidence that you feel the bible is god's word, but a skilled wordsmith like yourself might weasel out of it.
Originally posted by jstricker: I believe that the Holy Bible is the literal word of God revealed through his servants.
there it is. let's see that again so there's no doubt.
quote
Originally posted by jstricker: I believe that the Holy Bible is the literal word of God revealed through his servants.
so what you are doing is subtly evading the question, feigning facetiousness, and accusing others of evasion(!?), all the while expecting the sloth, indifference, or lack of attention of your readers to hide your deception. this is hypocrisy. i doubt jesus would approve, though after that little late evening episode in the garden, i doubt he'd be surprised. since you're such a good christian and bible scholar, i'm sure you know which one i refer to.
[This message has been edited by lurker (edited 08-26-2005).]
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04:05 AM
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
You're missing the point, lurker. What I believe in how life began is neither here nor there. What does matter is that when it comes to the ORIGIINS of life, the beginning, the current THEORY OR EVOLUTION is just as incapable of being supported scientifically, statistically, or empirically than the ancient/stargate, God/creation, or any other "BELIEF" system that many here are oh so eager to denigrate others for having.
Don't try to tell me that I'm an idiot because I might happen to believe in creation, instead answer the question as to how it's even remotely mathematically possible to have the amino acids be formed at random and then suddenly spring to life, at random, with no input from anyone/anything else, when we can't even come close to figuring out what events might have even caused the creation of life. At the same time, show me the cross/species. I really loved Tugboat's little chart that he posted a while back on the family trees. I was particularly impressed with how, at critical junctures, there was a mid relative named "A hypothetical common ancestor". That's just so perfect. WE don't know. We can't find it. But we BELIEVE IT SO IT MUST BE THERE. That's Great.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by lurker:
so what you are doing is subtly evading the question, feigning facetiousness, and accusing others of evasion(!?), all the while expecting the sloth, indifference, or lack of attention of your readers to hide your deception. this is hypocrisy. i doubt jesus would approve, though after that little late evening episode in the garden, i doubt he'd be surprised. since you're such a good christian and bible scholar, i'm sure you know which one i refer to.
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06:57 AM
Tugboat Member
Posts: 1669 From: Goodview, VA Registered: Jan 2004
Originally posted by fierobear: Can you show me one example of a modern mutation that is beneficial? If evolution happened for a billion years, then it must be an ongoing process, right?
Fossilization:
"ABSTRACT
Studying the process of fossilization, or taphonomy, can involve several varying directions. After an organism has died (regardless weather it was flora, fauna or miscellaneous others), a rare event may occur leading to the possibility of fossilization. A brief discussion of the multitude of biased events which limit the possibilities of fossilization will then be followed by the basic types of fossils that may be formed. Carbonization is one form of fossilization and is typical for such organisms as plants and insects. These fossils are a coal black film formed when the volatile organic compounds disperse from the decomposing organism and end up leaving a thin residue of carbon. Permineralization is a second type of fossil formed. The soft tissue of the organism decay away and the remaining hard parts are flooded with ground water. Dissolved with in the water is calcium carbonate (calcite) or silicate. Which ever mineral is present precipitates out and fills the pores of the long gone organism. Cementation occurs and a "rock" is left in the place of the wood or bone or what-have-you with an amazing amount of detail preserved as well. Dissolution and replacement is a third type of fossilization and can be a step wise progression from permineralization. In some cases, when the ground water flows into the space previously occupied by the soft tissues of the organism, the original material may dissolve away, leaving a void in the surrounding sediments. This space, which is in the shape of the organism like a jell-0 mold, quickly becomes filled with minerals and an internal mold or "stone cast" is formed. Replacement can occur if it is a per mineral fossil which is dissolved and replaced by a secondary type of mineral. Finally, recrystallization can be the fourth type of fossil. Shells are often recrystallized because of the relatively unstable minerals that they comprise of to begin with. While each type of fossilization is different and thus differing degrees of detail remain to be scrutinized by the paleontologist, all fossils are subject to the capricious whims of the environment before, during, and after fossilization has occurred. This paper is a syntheses of these forces as well as the chemistry involved in forming fossils."
Originally posted by JRM-2M6: I did not question the fact that we share dna with many other living things, I am fully aware of it ,so i dont know why you felt the need to bring it up but if you want to here my opinion on the dna relationship between us and all living things, i promise you wont like it any more than you like my current opinion on evolution
1 - while we do share dna with all living things , how exactly does that dismiss a common ancestry traced back to a common mother and father? 2 - they created a virus. "exactly" call me when they create a cell that morphs into a human being , splits into male and female parts, and reproduces?
heres a question for you
an archeologist find a clay pot and has it tested. using modern carbon dating methods they get a result of 100,000 years. Q: Does the the results verify the age of ; (a) the pot (b) the clay or (c) both ?
Show me how you can figure we all were traced back to one pair of humans. Now you expect a billion years of evolution overnight??
You can't carbon date clay...
GL
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08:57 AM
Tugboat Member
Posts: 1669 From: Goodview, VA Registered: Jan 2004
Originally posted by jstricker: You're missing the point, lurker. What I believe in how life began is neither here nor there. What does matter is that when it comes to the ORIGIINS of life, the beginning, the current THEORY OR EVOLUTION is just as incapable of being supported scientifically, statistically, or empirically than the ancient/stargate, God/creation, or any other "BELIEF" system that many here are oh so eager to denigrate others for having.
Don't try to tell me that I'm an idiot because I might happen to believe in creation, instead answer the question as to how it's even remotely mathematically possible to have the amino acids be formed at random and then suddenly spring to life, at random, with no input from anyone/anything else, when we can't even come close to figuring out what events might have even caused the creation of life. At the same time, show me the cross/species. I really loved Tugboat's little chart that he posted a while back on the family trees. I was particularly impressed with how, at critical junctures, there was a mid relative named "A hypothetical common ancestor". That's just so perfect. WE don't know. We can't find it. But we BELIEVE IT SO IT MUST BE THERE. That's Great.
John Stricker
Actually, he made his point quite well about your arguing style.
The theory of evolution doesn't address the origin of life, so not being sure (yet) of the origin doesn't discredit evolution. We KNOW that life evolves.
Where did he say you were an idiot?? There's that style again.
"Once the origin of life has been defined simply as a problem of increasing complexity, the basic approach of science is to break it down into three basic phases: the origin of monomers (or basic building blocks); the origin of polymers (chains of basic building blocks); and the origin of cells. Living things are built upon a variety of basic building blocks, including amino acids, the parts that make up nucleotides (sugars, nitrogenous bases, soluble forms of phosphate), and fatty acids. Thus, we need to account for their origin in the same way that we would need to account for the origin of bricks to explain the origin of a brick house. This appears at first glance to be no problem as these basic building blocks are largely thought to have been generated by the type of processes demonstrated by Stanley Miller. That is, as long as there was a reducing atmosphere, with no free oxygen, and an energy source, the monomers would spontaneously appear and accumulate over time. A soup of organic precursors was thus generated and might even have been bolstered from periodic impacts of meteorites and comets containing such precursors.
Once we have our soup of ingredients, the next step is to string them together in a process called polymerization. This step was crucial for two reasons. By stringing together monomers, the next level of complexity, peptides and proteins, along with nucleic acids, could be formed. This would allow two important biological features to emerge on the ancient planet, namely, specific catalysis and the capability to store and transmit information. By joining amino acids together, peptides could form that served to catalyze, or accelerate, chemical reactions thought to be important for the origin of life. However, most scientists who study abiogenesis think such protein catalysis probably came later as the peptides would be formed randomly and have no way to reproduce themselves. Thus, a catalyst may form, but within a few years, be lost for all time. Instead, most scientists look to the molecule RNA.
RNA is made up of four different nucleotides strung together. The four nucleotides are linked together through their sugar and phosphate groups. Each nucleotide differs in that it contains a different nitrogenous base. In turn, the nitrogenous bases on the same strand can fold back and form hydrogen bonds with each other, usually in a specific manner where A binds to U and G binds to C. What this means is that if we have a chain of nucleotides, the chain can adopt certain three-dimensional shapes as a consequence of the nucleotide sequence. For example, if one end of the chain contained eight adenines and the other end contained eight uracils, the two ends could bind together through the nitrogenous base interactions such that a simple loop is generated. This is significant because the ability to adopt different shapes is at the heart of biological catalysis. Thus, RNA could have functioned as a catalyst to speed up certain reactions, and in fact, there is now plenty of evidence to show that RNA can and does function as a catalyst. What's more, the nucleotide sequence of RNA can theoretically be replicated and once replication occurs, RNA can begin to function as information that evolves.
Because of RNA's ability to function as both a catalyst and an information storage molecule with the potential to reproduce itself, RNA is thought to be very important in the origin of life. So important that many scientists have subscribed to the paradigm where there once existed something called an RNA World. The primary reason for the wide-spread acceptance of the RNA World is that RNA gets us out of a thorny problem for life's origin, namely, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Since eggs need chickens and chickens come from eggs, the origin of chickens appears to be a problem. But if chickens at one time evolved from another type of bird, which at one point evolved from a dinosaur, which evolved from an amphibian, etc., the chicken-and-the-egg problem does not truly hatch until we reach the first life forms on the planet, some form of single-celled microbe. Yet here, the problem comes in explaining the origin of the molecule of life, DNA. In order to synthesize DNA we need various proteins. But in order to synthesize the proteins we need the information supplied by the DNA. RNA gets us around this problem because it can theoretically function as a self-replicator. Both the information (in the form of a template) and perhaps the catalytic ability to synthesize an RNA molecule can be found within the RNA itself. Other circumstantial evidence is often cited in support of the RNA world. For example, in addition to its catalytic and information storage ability, RNA is often said to play crucial roles in processes believed to be the most ancient. Furthermore, the synthesis of DNA components (deoxyribose and thymine) does not occur by unique DNA-specific metabolic pathways but instead occurs as the result of peripheral modifications of the pre-existing RNA synthesis pathways. This suggests that DNA arose after RNA as a mere consequence of some minor metabolic modifications.
Once the RNA world had formed, the stage was set for the origin of cellular life. Three main steps would be involved. First, the RNA World generated the process of information-guided protein synthesis similar to modern protein synthesis. Secondly, at some point, all this biochemistry was encapsulated by a membrane (although the exact timing of this encapsulation remains in dispute). And finally, the information-storage property of RNA was transferred to DNA in such a way that it could easily be retrieved."
Damn, you and I agree, I'll have to go bash my head in with a hammer now.
Science is a process, not an end result. It's only goal is to provide a rigorous means to test the validity of certain ideas that are in the position of being testable, and to integrate the results positive or negative into the greater pool of knowledge. That's why science can't be used in religion or philosophy, etc, because those areas don't have testable ideas that can be validated or invalidated using rigorous testing methods.
In science, you have to be prepared, and accepting, if your idea is proven wrong. If your idea is such that it cannot be tested then science doesn't even apply, and is completely nonrelevant.
It's the process that makes science so important. It's why we don't use leaches to treat infections anymore, and why we do use leaches to help revascularization in body part reattachment surgery. Science is why we don't sacrifice animals to increase crop yields, why we do amazing things for crop yields with genetics. Science is why we have modern medicine, and why the average age of death isn't 39 years anymore.
Science has no interest in, or applicability to, spiritual or metaphysical matters, and never seeks to involve itself with those, and never will. It's simple, they don't have testable ideas.
JazzMan
I respect Todds opinion in this matter too. I guess there are SOME old school conservatives left. BTW we use maggots instead of leeches to fight infection now.
You're right Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and debatably Oranguatangs are part of the hominid species. Here's why I screwed up...
"This classification has been revised several times in the last few decades. Originally, the group was restricted to humans and their extinct relatives, with the other great apes being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. This definition is still used by many anthropologists and by lay people."
Show me how you can figure we all were traced back to one pair of humans. Now you expect a billion years of evolution overnight??
I didn't ask for an overnight example. but they should be able to atleast start the process and show the progression atleast headding towards becomming a human "right?" if it is a scientific fact, then they should be able to produce the results (to some degree) in lab insted of just saying its true because I have a PHD.
I really don't see how, asking evolutionist to show a little proof, is asking too much. especially since many of them consider a belief in a God in absence of evidance, irrational. Is it not fair to hold the "scientific community" to the same standards they rquire of others.
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You can't carbon date clay...
GL
then how can you carbon date anything that is considered "prehistoric" such as hand made tools and other items made form clay sand or rock? how can they claim to know the age of these things?
It requires an anaerobic environment to occur. In an aerobic environment micro-organisms will eat the skeletal remains in no time. In the absense of Oxygen the bones become preserved and are slowly replaced, molecule by molecule, over time with inorganic material until all that remains is essentially a rock in the shape of the original bone. The rock, then lasts as long as rocks last.
[This message has been edited by Toddster (edited 08-26-2005).]
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01:52 PM
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
Here's two realistic facts that you can show me, then I'll buy into evolution.
1) Demonstrate to me how, mathematically, it's even REMOTELY PROBABLE that aminos can form and combine and then spontaneously burst into life with no outside intervention. You don't have to do it, just make me a mathematical probability model that shows a probability of, oh, say, greater than 5%.
2) Show me just one example of one species mutating or changing into another new species. If the theory of evolution is sound, then it has had to happen millions of times. Show me where it has happened.
That's all. Make me a convert.
John Stricker
Tugboat made an attempt at showing some sites that addressed these questions, and which I'd already seen, but the sites themselves are filled with assumptions and gaping holes that have not, and probably (in my view) will not be filled. For some reason, you want to turn this around as to what *I* believe on the origin of life and that was never a point I addressed, or wanted to address. Consitently throughout this thread my contention is that both in the ORIGINS of life here, the accepted, taught "Theory of Evolution" will not pass what should be normal scientific scrutiny but because it is NOT based on any kind of intervention, it's being treated as the "correct" teachings of how things started.
I say that's a darn poor excuse to accept something that is supposed to be based on science and empirical data.
Now in the discussion of the ORIGINS of life as based on evolution theory, and done so with a scientific eye, it MUST PASS THE TESTS OF SCIENTIFIC SCRUTINY OR IT IS INVALID. Period. End of discusssion. The commonly taught and held theory doesn't do that and THAT is my objection to it.
Now if you MUST know what I believe, I believe that Darwinian evolution, which is primarily composed of mutation and natural selection, is valid to a degree. Where it falls flat is in speciation as I've said before and particularly in the timetables required based on probabilities of having as many varied species of plant and animal life in such a (relatively) short time span given the vast numbers of probabilities involved. Does life adapt, mutate, and exhibit natural selection? Yes it does. But mutation to the point of causing a reptile to become a mammal, for instance, would not happen suddenly (or the mutant would die almost at birth) and there should be historical record of intermediate changes, which there is no DEFINITIVE record of there being.
As to the original creation of life, I do believe that God gave man life, and a soul. I believe the Bible to be an accurate NARRATIVE of that process as it was handed down. The timeframes involved to me, are flexible simply due to the fact that so much time has passed and a great deal of time passed before man was given (or found) the capacity to write. Is that heresy? Some would say so. I don't. This is MY faith, not yours. I'm not trying to teach it or shove it down your throat. I don't care if you believe it or not, nor do I care if you think me nuts for my beliefs. More power to you. I've tried to be very careful to keep my views out of this discussion but, for some reason, they seem to be very important to you, Tugboat, and others, so there they are.
Now that you know, try to answer the questions I put forth in my original post. Those of you that have such unwavering certainty that the Theory of Evolution as it is currently being taught and embraced need to be able to answer questions like these if you continue to want to say that "This is the way it most likely began based on SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE". That's the difference. My belief is based in faith. Period. I don't need empirical evidence, that's what faith means. Those that claim they only believe in "SCIENCE" have no such luxury. Now if you want to say that you BELIEVE in Evolution just because that is your FAITH, the discussion is over and I accept that. Just don't try to tell me how illogical MY faith is when you're exhibiting the same thing. Tugboat is the only one that has even made a decent attempt at it and I thank him for it because I'm quite certain he didn't have all that information on the tip of his typing fingers which meant he actually took the time to do some research, and reading, and then present what he felt was relevant to the discussion, which is a great deal more than what you have done.
John Stricker
BTW: I *KNOW* that you didn't call me an idiot, but my beliefs on where life began here are commonly known to the regulars here, that is that God began life here on Earth, and MANY on the board have called people with my beliefs idiots and much worse for having that belief. I also never said that you called me an idiot but based on how this thread was going, and how many in the past have been going, I asked you to, and I quote, "Don't try to tell me that I'm an idiot because I might happen to believe in creation". I chose those words carefully because of my care in the previous posts to keep the discussion centered on the questions I asked originally, questions you have never even attempted to answer. You spent more time pulling up old threads with my posts to show what I believe when you could have actually done some research to find out if what you believe is even scientifically plausible by attempting to research the questions I posed.
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Originally posted by lurker:
now, john, where in this thread did i try to tell you youre an idiot?
dishonest? deceitful? evasive? hypocrite? yes. idiot? no
but if the shoe fits, that's your choice.
i'm going to be computerless all weekend, so you'll have to carry on with your lies, circumlocution and obfuscation without me. enjoy!
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05:54 PM
Tugboat Member
Posts: 1669 From: Goodview, VA Registered: Jan 2004
Originally posted by JRM-2M6: I didn't ask for an overnight example. but they should be able to atleast start the process and show the progression atleast headding towards becomming a human "right?" if it is a scientific fact, then they should be able to produce the results (to some degree) in lab insted of just saying its true because I have a PHD.
I really don't see how, asking evolutionist to show a little proof, is asking too much. especially since many of them consider a belief in a God in absence of evidance, irrational. Is it not fair to hold the "scientific community" to the same standards they rquire of others.
then how can you carbon date anything that is considered "prehistoric" such as hand made tools and other items made form clay sand or rock? how can they claim to know the age of these things?
You said "call me when they create a cell that morphs into a human being , splits into male and female parts, and reproduces?". If that happened in a human lifetime it would be "overnight". Why don't you learn a little bit about how evolution works, from a scientific point of view, before you say it doesn't work? Scientists have shown a lot of evidence, but not enough for you. The question is, how much will it take?
Scientists don't deal with "proof", they deal with evidence.
I may be wrong about carbon dating clay, it does cone from living matter. But you would be dating the clay, not the pots. The pots might be dated by where they're found and what we know about the inhabitants of the area.
While studying the genetics of the evening primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, de Vries (1905) found an unusual variant among his plants. O. lamarckiana has a chromosome number of 2N = 14. The variant had a chromosome number of 2N = 28. He found that he was unable to breed this variant with O. lamarckiana. He named this new species O. gigas."
As a crop geneticist, are you claiming that's not a new species?
GL
[This message has been edited by Tugboat (edited 08-26-2005).]
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08:49 PM
Cadillac Jack Member
Posts: 1165 From: Jacksonville, IL, USA Registered: May 2003
Ah, but love can be tested scientifically and in great detail it gets researched a lot. Love is mostly chemical reactions good or bad.
Carbon dating is accurate enough for what it is used for and can be/is backed up with various other methods. This is one of those flawed arguements like stating that you can't use your chainsaw for mowing the lawn, therefore chainsaws are useless and the earth is therefore flat.
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08:56 PM
Cadillac Jack Member
Posts: 1165 From: Jacksonville, IL, USA Registered: May 2003
one day long ago, aliens came to earth, and said "where are the women"? having heard (somewhere around tau ceti) that "earth girls are easy", they were expecting a good time, but were disapponted to find that there were no earth girls. being on the job and sort of lonely, they set out to make it so that this problem would not confront future visitors. carefully selecting from the least unappealing of the apes, at great personal sacrifice, they proceeded to establish a selective breeding program whereby the most intelligent among them had wild hot animal sex (purely for scientific purposes, of course) to mix their DNA with that of the locals. some of you here are the result. me, i'm pretty much pure alien blood, and am of the superior (though benevolent) race. i think that pretty much explains everything, dont you?
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09:01 PM
Tugboat Member
Posts: 1669 From: Goodview, VA Registered: Jan 2004
Don't they all seem that way to you? To me it seems that all animals including humans are are in a slow transition from one type to another. Pick out any one charistic of ..uh..say.. European humans. Compare the average size (height, weight) today to one hundred years ago. I don't have the data, but I bet there's a difference. Slow change over millions of years, why is it so hard to believe?
quote
Originally posted by fierobear:
OK, those points are well taken, and that article is very interesting.
Again, what about higher organisms? Why don't we see more evidence of strange animals that seem to be in "transition" from one type to another, like dinosaurs to birds? Shouldn't there be more animals that appear to be halfway toward evolving into something very different?
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09:20 PM
Cadillac Jack Member
Posts: 1165 From: Jacksonville, IL, USA Registered: May 2003
Don't they all seem that way to you? To me it seems that all animals including humans are are in a slow transition from one type to another. Pick out any one charistic of ..uh..say.. European humans. Compare the average size (height, weight) today to one hundred years ago. I don't have the data, but I bet there's a difference. Slow change over millions of years, why is it so hard to believe?
I am talking about a bigger transition. Dinosaurs to birds, fish/amphibians to land animals. Why no creatures with strange appendages that appear to be forming into wings, legs, hands, etc?
OK, those points are well taken, and that article is very interesting.
Again, what about higher organisms? Why don't we see more evidence of strange animals that seem to be in "transition" from one type to another, like dinosaurs to birds? Shouldn't there be more animals that appear to be halfway toward evolving into something very different?
How do you know that the animals you see around you aren't actually transition stages to a fairly different form of life? If you wait around for a few hundred thousand years you may be surprised. Even within human written history there have been changes in people, such as the average height gaining almost a foot for instance.
We have the perspective of being able to look over the geological fossil record, and as spotty an incomplete as that is we can still see changes that led to present day life. There is a fossil record, it does have valid samples in it.
The point I'm trying to make is, wouldn't it be obvious if we were looking at a strange animal that looked like a dinosaur, but had "winglike" appendages and weren't anywhere adequate for flight? I mean, why would an animal develop a "proto-wing" if it were going to take 50,000 years to become an appendage that improved to the point of usefulness? How would a proto-wing benefit the generations before flight was achieved?
Someone mentioned that mutations just keep happening, pretty much at random, and the organism that survives has the most beneficial mutation. That's relatively easy for a bacteria, which survived an anti-bacterial drug. But how does a creature end up with a functioning wing? Wouldn't it take a million years, and a one-in-a-billion chance that all the mutations would line up nicely for a bird to be able to fly?
Connecticutfiero asked "how do we know a bird is perfect?". A bird's body is damn near perfectly suited for flight. It's bones are light and hollow, it is shaped just right, it's wings and feathers make just the right shaped airfoil to create lift...it's an amazing thing. Maybe it's my appreciation for the science of flight, but find it difficult to believe that birds didn't have some kind of designer.
If you think about it, flight was most likely a strong factor for survival. The first bird-like animals could probably only fly a few hundred feet, but if that distance was enough to escape a predator then it was a strong survival trait. Over hundreds of thousands of generations the selection would have been for longer and longer flights, and the only animals that could do that were the ones that happened to have slightly lighter bones, slightly better instincts for flying, etc. It's like saving money. Put a penny in a jar every day and that seems so trivial, but after a few decades you've got some money. In a million years you'll have almost four million dollars, all at a penny a day.
I think the biggest problem is understanding time scales. People find it easiest to relate to the time scales they've experienced, and by definition that pretty much is less than one hundred years. Well, in a million years that is ten thousand lifetimes at one hundred years a pop, or fifty thousand generations. Since breeding experience shows that we can affect significant changes in only a few tens or hundred of generations, look at dogs for instance, the changes that can happen in fifty thousand generations can be mind-boggling.
JazzMan
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11:50 PM
Aug 27th, 2005
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
Depends on your definition of a species, Tugboat. There are sterile varieties that I don't classify as different species and there are also hybrids that are varieties that while meeting the ONE TEST of not being able to interbreed, don't meet any other tests of being different species. But you bring up an interesting point that should be addressed. When we talk about species in common vernacular, I'm curious as to what most are thinking. I would suggest that if I asked almost everyone here to give me 5 species of animals, they would list things like dogs, cats, humans, cows, horses, etc. Those are not species, although most people think them such. In fact, species is the most tightly defined, narrowest classification of the Linnean system.
The actual ordering of the system is:
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Tribe Genus Species
The examples I just gave are actually different FAMILIES and not species. There's also a question of what defines a new species. The commonly accepted "test" is if they can interbreed, but that's not necessarily a valid test. For example, how do single cell animals "breed" when they reproduce asexually? They can't. Likewise in crop development, there is argument as to where TAM110 is a different SPECIES of wheat compared to TAM107. Both varieties (NOT hybrids) developed at Texas A&M University. For whatever reason, they cannot interbreed in nature, but can be forced to by man.
So although you may think that your question was a simple one, it's not at all, particularly when it comes to plants which is where most supposed speciation is observed (and also why there are so many more defined species of plants than animals).
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Tugboat:
Evolutionary theory doesn't address the origins of life.
While studying the genetics of the evening primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, de Vries (1905) found an unusual variant among his plants. O. lamarckiana has a chromosome number of 2N = 14. The variant had a chromosome number of 2N = 28. He found that he was unable to breed this variant with O. lamarckiana. He named this new species O. gigas."
As a crop geneticist, are you claiming that's not a new species?
GL
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07:36 AM
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
The thing about this is that the cartoon is attempting to elevate the THEORY of evolution to the status of a physical fact of water freezing and boiling at set temperatures. That is exactly my problem, not with the theory, but the way it is presented to students. It is presented as a FACT when it should be presented as a THEORY with many gaping holes, particularly when the discussion turns to the beginnings of life.
I am talking about a bigger transition. Dinosaurs to birds, fish/amphibians to land animals. Why no creatures with strange appendages that appear to be forming into wings, legs, hands, etc?
Fierobear I suggest you really look into evolution, because a lot of the questions you've been asking are already well covered. You might be surprised at how much evidence we really have.
For example:
you asked:
"fish/amphibians to land animals. Why no creatures with strange appendages that appear to be forming into wings, legs, hands, etc?"
Well have you ever heard of a mudskipper? Take a look at its "fins" they are in transition to becoming legs or hands. It uses them to skip about on dry land. This is a FISH that is turning into a land animal. It will probably go the way of the frog eventually. Just my opinion.
Any of a group of fishes belonging to the goby family, found in brackish water and shores in the tropics, except for the Americas. It can walk or climb over mudflats, using its strong pectoral (chest) fins as legs, and has eyes set close together on top of the head. It grows up to 30 cm/12 in long. (Genus Periophthalmus, family Gobiidae.)"
"along comes a little dino guy who grew his own fluff about 135 million years ago in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous!
This fossil dromeosaur (a small, fast-running theropod dinosaur related to the Velociraptors who are always eating the bad guys in Jurassic Park ) is the first dinosaur found with its entire body covering intact.The covering appears to be downy fluff and primitive feathers. It is the best evidence yet that animals developed feathers to keep warm -- before they ever learned to fly.
For a long, long time, paleontologists have searched for an actual, complete fossil of a dinosaur completely covered with feathers. Thanks to a group of farmers in northeastern China's Liaoning Province, one was discovered about a year ago. It has taken all this time to study the specimen and to write a paper which describes it for the science journal Nature."
in this article http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/1996-11/UoNC-CDSF-151196.php some scientists believe that birds actually gave rise to dinosaurs. And that modern birds are actually descendants of predino animals. They believe that the dinosaurs dead ended yet birds continued. It seems to be pretty logical because they also believe flight evolved from birds getting down from trees, whereas dinosaurs would have had to evolve flight off the ground. It's a strang strange world. Some day we'll know for sure hopefully.
[This message has been edited by connecticutFIERO (edited 08-27-2005).]
me, i'm pretty much pure alien blood, and am of the superior (though benevolent) race. i think that pretty much explains everything, dont you?
