a swing and a rocket

[Meatros]

Meatros, I have to say that some of your questions and comments have shown so little knowledge that I have wondered how old YOU are! So unless you want to divulge your age, let Christian alone. I am 55, by the way.

I'm 24, 25 next week. On a completely side bar, totally off all these topics; I have to admit, if that's you in your avatar picture (which I think it is, but I don't know if you've actually said so), you've aged very well.

1. Speciation is NOT being argued! That has been said so many times I wonder what your memory retention time is!

2. I never argued anything about a single mutation leading to morphological changes. Please read my material again. You are knocking down a straw man. While that can be fun, it has nothing to do with this discussion.

I don't know how many times I have to say it, or ask for proof before you realize what I'm asking: What mechanism prevents microevolution (which you admit happens) from becoming macro? Credulousness?

As to point two:
You said this:

Now, please show me genetically how variation can become gross morphological change in the way of evolution. This is what you claim can happen. I am waiting to see evidence. Not interpretation, and not questions back at me, but evidence for what you say is fact.

I want to be perfectly clear; a single variation is not what I'm arguing.

3. The 'evidences' on TO have been more than adequately refuted here:

I'll have to check that out.

4. You assert variations built on top of each other through time can lead to gross morphological changes. Please give some kind of evidence for this which is hard science -- as in genetics -- and not someone's interpretation of the fossil record. Please provide evidence for what you assert happened.

The fossil record is the evidence. You are trying to subvert the issue though, do you admit that through enough microevolutionary steps, that a species can become another species?
Why or why not?

5. You said I had an ill-defined idea of species. Would you please tell me what you think my definition of a species is? I know what I think and I know what I have written on this forum, and I am betting you are pretty clueless as to what I have said there.

I'd say any definition of what precisely constitutes a species is an ill defined one.

And I have the feeling you are thinking of mutations as being variations. They are not. They are two different things. Mutations can provide some variations -- often sterile -- but all variations are most certainly not mutations. You need to make your points more precise. IN the meantime, most variations are neither harmful nor beneficial. Most mutations which are expressed are harmful and many are lethal. There is no rule that once in awhile a mutation must be beneficial. So the answer to what I think you are asking there is 'no.'

As has been shown to you, there are beneficial mutations, so your point is nul.

8. I have an elementary understanding of genes. If you think that because I didn't mention the amino acids I don't know what I am talking about, I'm sorry to disappoint you. You either got the point of what I was saying or you didn't. It looks like you didn't.

And you would think this...because?

9. It is not the DNA similarities which are turning out the be the main thing, if you have been keeping up with the recent articles in genetics -- it is the 'junk' in between which is starting to grab attention. Timing mechanisms and regulators are showing up as being quite different between man and ape/chimp. It's a different set of directions for the same materials. Or, another way of putting it is that the early claims of similarity were based on very inadequate knowledge. Our knowledge, by the way, is still something less than adequate for the claims that continue being made!

I feel you are intentionally missing the point.

 

[Helen]

Originally posted by Meatros:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Meatros, I have to say that some of your questions and comments have shown so little knowledge that I have wondered how old YOU are! So unless you want to divulge your age, let Christian alone. I am 55, by the way.

I'm 24, 25 next week. On a completely side bar, totally off all these topics; I have to admit, if that's you in your avatar picture (which I think it is, but I don't know if you've actually said so), you've aged very well.</font>[/QUOTE]Thank you. That was me three years ago when Barry and I were married. I think I am still recognizable! I am so blonde that I have had to stay out of the sun a lot, and that, plus no gray hair genes, no drinking (occasional wine is all) and no smoking has left my hair and skin in pretty good shape. HOWEVER, I do seem to be losing parts faster than most! But that's from the neck down! So the picture is deceptive in its own way, I guess! At any rate, I have three kids older than you! And please understand that I have been studying this material for many, many years now. I'm aware of what you have learned and, which is what I don't think you kow, I am also aware of why it has been taught to you. Actually, the truth has little or nothing to do with it. After I retired from teaching, I was able to spend more time reading some of the journals I did not have time for when correcting papers and such. I became furious when I realized that a decent portion of what I had taught kids in biology and general science in high school was not only wrong, but had been known to be wrong for some time. This, by the way, is not just with secular texts. I have taught in both secular and Christian settings and texts from both sides have the same problems -- just in different areas. It makes it very frustrating to be a teacher when you want to not only prepare your students for their future, but acquaint them with the truth about what we humans know, as well. I can honestly tell you that there is a great deal that you have learned in the sciences especially which is simply not true. I would encourage you to start digging on your own. Read some things that most people don't. Read some original material and see if the conclusions others draw from it are really warranted. It gets really interesting...

Again, as far as micro becoming macro, they are two entirely different things, as I have tried to point out. One does not become another. It's the same sort of thing as saying that if a tree grows up far enough what is to prevent it from becoming a cloud? After all, the two are both mostly water! But the one thing is simply an entirely different thing than the other. This is part of what you were not taught, or what was avoided when you were a student. Variation already is a potential within the genome. Mutations are errors. Variations go back and forth -- that's the nature of the thing. Vary too much and the organism is dead! Mutations can kill, too, but they are different. They are mistakes. Variations are not mistakes.

About my use of the term 'variation' in the singular, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I was thinking of it generically when I used it that way and not in terms of just one variation. Variation itself, as a noun, can indicate a process of a number of different appearances and not just one of them. So I'm sorry if I confused you. I never assumed you were talking about one variation doing that much. I have understood that you meant a number of them. I will try to be more careful.

The fossil record, to continue on down the post, is simply evidence that things died. Everything else is interpretation, from either side. Please don't call it evidence for evolution. It is not. It is evidence that there were animals and plants, many of which we don't see today, which were alive at one time and died, often catastrophically if the disarticulated skeletons in some areas are any indication.

And again, and again, I have no trouble with speciation. That is not what is being argued here. The argument is common ancestry.

ITM, you REALLY squeaked around telling me what you think I define a species as -- especially when you first told me I didn't know! Here is a working definition: an isolated population which shows some kind of identifiable difference from related populations and which frequently refuses to interbreed with them.

OK?

To continue: beneficial mutations are beneficial only in very particular circumstances and by way of deletion in terms of animals. This is not what evolution needs.

About DNA etc., I strongly recommend catching up on the material in some of the recent material coming out. I am not missing any point. You are just, evidently, not aware of some of the points I am referring to.

Have a good day, and thank you again for the compliment.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

From Helen:

The fossil record, to continue on down the post, is simply evidence that things died. Everything else is interpretation, from either side. Please don't call it evidence for evolution. It is not. It is evidence that there were animals and plants, many of which we don't see today, which were alive at one time and died, often catastrophically if the disarticulated skeletons in some areas are any indication.

This must be the latest fad in creationist circles to chant: "fossils aren't evidence, fossiles aren't evidence".

Its even an "interpretation" that things died. How do you know it wasn't, for example, artifacts fabricated to look like fossils, put there by the flying saucer pilots? You interpret that possibility as less likely. Sure, thats right, but it is an act of interpretation.

You have no evidence for anything whatever without making intepretations! If you dislike the interpretations the evolutionists make about how the fossils show a continuing history of life, why, find fault with the details. Show, for example, that where evolution would predict intermediate forms, the intermediate forms are never found.

Oops - they ARE found. Well, think of something else. Show, for example, that all forms of animals are present all the way back to the beginning week of the history of life.

Oops - they AREN'T found all the way back, not all of them. In fact, way at the beginning, the forms are the simplest. Hmmm.

Gosh, it seems like all the fair and reasonable tests from the evidence come out siding for the evolution interpretation. Oh well.

If juries followed your rules for drawing conclusions, nobody would ever be convicted of a crime!

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
This must be the latest fad in creationist circles to chant: "fossils aren't evidence, fossiles aren't evidence".

I consider it with a criminal trial analogy. We try and present evidence and upon cross examination it's all references to "interpretation" and assertions that we are wrong.

"We found DNA at the scene that matched the defendant.

"Prove that no one else could possibly match that DNA. You're just interpreting the evidence. It could be wrong."

"We found fingerprints that match the suspect at the scene."

"Prove no one else has that pattern. You're still just interpreting. It's not my fingerprint."

"The suspect's alibi did not check out. He was not where he said he was."

"That does not place me at the scene. There are plenty of other places I could have been."

We present various lines of evidence and the best defence is that we are not interpreting it correctly. I want to see the better interpretations.

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by Helen:
And they were exposed to the first radioactive material on the surface of the earth when the fountains exploded upward, bringing pulverized material with them. This means there was a rash of deleterious mutations possible with those first generations after the Flood --

Please show the evidence that there was enough radioactive material on the surface of the earth in recent times to cause a "rash" of mutations.

You should still be able to locate the longer lived isotopes in that layer and even if you want to postulate that they have ALL decayed, then decay still leaves effects in the surroundings (remember the Po halos) that should be detecable.

 

[Helen]

"A significant fraction of the energy generated inside Earth comes from the decay of radioactive elements in its crust and mantle. The radioactive isotopes uranium-238 and thorium-232 are responsible for about 90 percent of this heat."
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/1_24_98/fob3.htm

Recently, and I can't remember where I read it, there was an article (respected journal or journal-summary type) regarding the reasonable sureness the geologists feel right now about all the earth's radioactive elements being under the surface of the earth originally. The quote above should help at least give evidence that this is the current thinking.

In the Biblical model, the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and this would have brought up massive amounts of subcrustal material -- including the radioactive elements.

We know radioactive elements cause mutations. We know the VAST majority of expressed mutations are harmful to lethal. We can see in the Bible that the ages of men dropped in half immediately after the Flood. This would have been a lot more than atmospheric changes. This required a genetic change -- possibly the destruction of the ability to rebuild telomeres.

If you want me to use some kind of evolutionary time scale to give evidence of all this, that's not possible. I don't think the evolutionary time scale has even the slightest relationship to the truth of history! But when one looks at the evidence from geology and the Bible together, the concept of a number of deleterious mutations shortly after the Flood makes sense.

Now, as far as the criminal investigation nonsense is concerned, you really have it wrong. No one is denying fossils (fingerprints). No one is denying any of the evidence! We are denying what you say the evidence means. That is a far cry from denying the evidence itself.

In a criminal investigation, both fingerprints and DNA are evidence of individuality and can be used to narrow the range of individuals who were at the scene rather dramatically. But that has nothing to do with the claims of evolutionists that one sort of animal changed into another. In your criminal investigation scenario, that would be the equivalent of seeing TWO sets of fingerprints -- one near the back door and one near the front door -- and then claiming that one changed into the other!

Then you would claim that a 'transitional' should be found somewhere in the middle of the house. And, sure enough, there is a third set of fingerprints, different from both the front door set and the back door set, but somewhat similar to both as well.

Were these three people related? Not necessarily. Were they in the house at the same time? Not necessarily. Did they live in the house at different times? Not necessarily.


Fossils are just like those fingerprints. We know that they were once live animals. We know the fingerprints belonged to live humans. That places them there at some time and, in the case of fossils, dead now. That's it, folks! Other information must be gathered from other areas, and it is very important to know when presuppositions are governing which conclusions are acceptable.

The presupposition of evolution governs what interpretations are 'allowable' regarding the fossil record. But that does not mean either the presupposition or the interpretation are correct.

 

[UTEOTW]

1. I do not doubt that most of the radioactive elements were once below the earth's surface. They are generally heavier than the elements that make up the surface of the earth and should have been expected sink lower during the formation of the earth. I don't see how it helps you to try to accept the old earth arguement for this when you do not believe that this is how the earth came into being.

Anyhow, that is still different. Enough radioactivity at the surface to dramatically lower lifespans as you propose should leave evidence. I do not care what kind of age of the earth assuptions you make, I want the evidence for enough radioactivity on the surface to shorten lives THAT much.

2. The analogy was that you do not try to contradict the evidence you just blame it on bad interpretations without offering a differnt interpretations.

If you were a lawyer trying to defend a client against a circumstantial case and you just continually claimed that the prosecutor was interpreting the evidence wrong and had really proved nothing, your client would go to jail. Same thing here. There is a strong circumstantial case for an old earth and evolution. But you are not trying to present a better interpretation of the evidence, you are just wholesale rejecting it. Which is not very persuasive. Give us the reasons for rejecting the interpretation, other than it disagrees with your interpreatation of Genesis, and what better way there is to explain the evidence.

 

[Helen]

UTEOTW, it takes very little in the way of mutations to throw things off severely. We have, at the ends of our chromosomes, something called telomeres. When a cell divides, it 'uses up' a section of this, and when there is no more to use up, the cell can no longer divide and it dies. This, for animals, is an entire body thing. However we are aware of certain types of cells -- such as cancer cells -- which have the ability to replace their telomeres (by manufacturing telomerase), and thus are able to divide 'forever.' All a mutation had to do was knock out our ability to produce telomerase and that would drastically reduce our life spans.

there are other ways it could be done, but I want you to see how little it really takes.

Here's a little more information:
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Telomeres.html

That is one of the more excellent pages of explanation for the layman I have found on the subject, actually. Plenty of diagrams, too!

The point is not actually so much the amount of radioactivity on the surface, but the severe bottleneck the Flood was for all species of land and air animals and humans.

Something just occurred to me, and I have NO way of knowing how to check it out... we know that there were much larger animals and insects in the past. I assume they grew from the same size eggs and such that we see them produce now.

Growing to those sizes took time. We don't see dinosaurs now. They died out. An asteroid hit? Possibly. But what if they could not reproduce until they reached a certain size? And what it they could no long live that long? Just a random thought -- most of which are fit for throwing out. But one I would be interested in knowing if it could be dealt with through any data we have right now!

At any rate, it doesn't take much to throw the organism out of whack. It doesn't need a large amount of radiation. These were people who had not been exposed to radiation before in the history of the human race. We don't know what parts of the chromosomes were most fragile where that was concerned, but if the section allowing production of telomerase was one, then we have an easy answer to the age problem.

As it is, the only way I have heard of for long-agers to explain Genesis 5 and 11 is to say they 'represent' tribes or whatever -- they cannot affort to take them at face value at all.

And yet, if Moses wrote them (I personally believe he only edited and collated the accounts), wouldn't he have known better than to assign such improbable ages to men, or in statements made the way they are, if such had not happened?

But there is NO way for an evolutionist to explain those chapters in his naturalistic explanations -- so he has to allegorize them. On the other hand, should be Bible actually be telling the truth, then a very possible reason for that drop in ages twice would be connected to the corresponding breaks in the earth's crust and extrusions, or outgassing, both times -- for this would produce massive amounts of radioactive materials which would affect life on the surface.

 

[mdkluge]

Helen wrote:

We know radioactive elements cause mutations. We know the VAST majority of expressed mutations are harmful to lethal. We can see in the Bible that the ages of men dropped in half immediately after the Flood. This would have been a lot more than atmospheric changes. This required a genetic change -- possibly the destruction of the ability to rebuild telomeres

Fascinating. So did every "kind" after the flood experienced the SAME mutation that destroyed the ability to rebuild telomeres or was it just humans? Why was this mutation beneficial? That is, why did a reproductive advantage acrue to those humans who had experienced the mutation preventing telomere repair?

Oh, and by the way, since (according to Setterfield physics) the ratio of the rate of passage of atomic time to that of dynamic time was greater in the past, but was slowing over time, why did the number of dynamical years that people lived tend to decrease? Biological processes are primarily chemical, and their rates are governed by atomic time...

 

[NeilUnreal]

The length of or inability to rebuild telomeres is not an error, it's an important part of somatic cell regulation. There are even special mechanisms to help prepare telomeres for the next generation during germ cell development.

Telomeres are highly conserved in eukaryotes and have probably been around as long or longer than multicellularity. It's unlikely that simple mutations to telomeres or telomerase actvitity would merely shorten or lengthen an organism's lifespan while keep other aspects of growth and regulation intact.

As M.D.Kluge indicated, to postulate telomeric change as the reason for a lengthing of lifespans in multiple species implies that the same mutation occurred in the same way, at the same time, having exactly the same effect, to just the right germs cells in a lot of individual organisms. (IOW, it stretches the bounds of probability beyond even the most extreme evolutionary scenario.)

-Neil

 

[Helen]

I would refer you gentlemen to the following:

Evidence that exposure of the telomere 3' overhang sequence induces
senescence
Guang-Zhi Li, Mark S. Eller, Reza Firoozabadi, and Barbara A. Gilchrest
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 100, Issue 2, 527-531, January 21, 2003

Normal human cells cease proliferation after a finite number of population
doublings, a phenomenon termed replicative senescence. This process,
first convincingly described by Hayflick and Moorhead [Hayflick, L. &
Moorhead, P. S. (1961) Exp. Cell Res. 25, 595-621] for cultured human
fibroblasts 40 years ago, is suggested to be a fundamental defense
against cancer. Several events have been demonstrated to induce the
senescent phenotype including telomere shortening, DNA damage,
oxidative stress, and oncogenic stimulation. The molecular mechanisms
underlying senescence are poorly understood. Here we report that a 1- week exposure to oligonucleotide homologous to the telomere 3'- overhang sequence TTAGGG (T-oligo) similarly specifically induces a
senescent phenotype in cultured human fibroblasts, mimicking serial
passage or ectopic expression of a dominant negative form of the
telomeric repeat binding factor, TRF2DN. We propose that exposure of
the 3' overhang due to telomere loop disruption may occur with critical
telomere shortening or extensive acute DNA damage and that the
exposed TTAGGG tandem repeat sequence then triggers DNA-damage
responses. We further demonstrate that these responses can be induced
by treatment with oligonucleotides homologous to the overhang in the
absence of telomere disruption, a phenomenon of potential therapeutic
importance.

==========

Mark, I guess you have forgotten that Barry already answered this:

In brief, biological processes remain essentially unaffected by variations in lightspeed, c. If the old collision theory of reactions was true, all

reactions would proceed to the point of completion in a fraction of a second, even with the current speed of light. However, it can be shown that most reactions are controlled by a rate- determining step involving an activated complex. Reaction with the activated complex is dependent upon both the number of particles or ions approaching it, and the time these particles spend in the vicinity of the activated complex. As the physics of that step are worked through, it can be shown that even though there may be more ions come within reaction distance of the activated complex, proportional to c, the time that they spend in its vicinity is proportional to 1/c, so that the final result is that reaction times are unchanged with higher c values.

Consequently, brain processes, muscular contractions, rates of growth, time between generations, etc. all would occur at the same rate with higher c as they do today.

http://www.setterfield.org/other.htm#biological

 

[mdkluge]

Nope. Haven't forgotten. It's just that Barry Setterfield's "answer" is wrong and amateurish.

I've got to hit the hay soon, so my response must be brief. At the level of Setterfield's chemistry he contends that a molecule striking an activated complex when c was higher would have its velocity proportional to c, but the time it spends within reaction range of the complex reduced by a factor of c. There would be more molecules striking the complex per unit time, but the duration of their stays within reaction range would be reduced by a factor of c. So far so good.

But Setterfield has neglected to consider changes in reaction probability per unit time given that molecule and complex are "in reaction range." He has wrongly assumed that they will be the same. They will not. At a semiclassical level they are governed by the frequencies of electron orbits in both molecule and activated complex, which are proportional to c.

The above is merely a sketch of an argument. More generally times of atomic processes are, in principle, calculated as functions of dimensionless parameters times the reciprocal of the Bohr frequency (the frequency of an electron in its ground state orbit about a hydrogen nucleus). Those dimensionless parameters, the ratio of nucleon to electron masses, as well as the fine structure constant, cannot vary significantly in Setterfield's model. Consequently the frequencies of chemical (and biological) processes scale as the Bohr frequency, which varies as c. The probability per unit time of a chemical reaction betw4een complex and molecule at a given separation, then goes as c.

 

[NeilUnreal]

Evidence that exposure of the telomere 3' overhang sequence induces
senescence

Telomeres are a cause of senescence (colloq. death by old age) of somatic cells. This senescence is part of the cell-growth regulation processes in the ordinary life cycle of an organism. Organisms use various signals to regulate tissue growth; one way is by hormones, another way is apparently by cell-line senescence. Cancer is essentially a breakdown of the cell-growth regulation process -- usually (always?) beginning in a single cell. One of the ways this breakdown can occur is when cells fail to "die naturally of old age." There is evidence that cancer cells have increased telomerase activity (telomerase maintains telomeres). Thus, the ability to turn off telomerase in cancers which are regulated by its presence would have important therapeutic implications.

Telomeres have a critical function in keeping chromosomes separate and in normal DNA replication. They are thus are important to a cell regardless of their use as a regulatory mechanism. Since telomeres are so highly conserved in eukaryotes, and the intra-cellular processes are so critical, these cellular functions are probably primary, and the use of telomeres as a regulatory mechanism is probably secondary. (I don't have ready access to the latest research regarding the evolution of telomeres, so this is an educated guess on my part.)

Telomeres are part of a very complex system, involving everything from chromosome maintenance, to DNA replication, to growth regulation in coordination with hormones and other mechanisms (and the resultant prevention of cancer and other tumors). A major overall change in the length of the telomeres would very likely disrupt all these processes. This is as true for changes that lengthen the telomeres as for changes that shorten the telomeres.

Being able to lengthen or maintain telomeres may one day play a therapeutic role in controlling aging processes, but it will not be a panacea. Telomeres -- although important in cell-line senescence -- are only one of a number of factors in organism senescence.

Cell immortality is not the key to organism immortality. There is, however, one way in which cell immortality leads to a form of immortality. Telomerase functions to extend the length of germ cell telomeres. This means that each new generation starts with telomeres at just the right length for normal growth and development; e.g. the telomeres start with a "full charge."* In this sense, the germ line functions as a quasi-immortal super-organism, in part because of the action of telomerase.

-Neil

p.s. This is one of the reasons cloning is so difficult -- the cells used to start the clone must somehow be given this "full charge" in order for the clone to be normal and live a normal lifespan. It also provides a loose analogy of why a blanket lengthening of telomeres would not necessarily extend the life of an organism -- it's like saying you could extend the talk time of your cell phone by grossly overcharging the battery. It may work a time or two, but it's more likely you'll destroy the phone.

p.p.s. The site re. telomeres Helen pointed out in an earlier post is very well written and informative -- lots of easy-to-digest pages on many aspects of biology.