Evolution and common genetics

[UTEOTW]

"I am not going to show or discuss the entire articles. The titles alone give the basic gist of the article."

The articles do not support your assertion so you just refuse to discuss them. This is priceless!

I'll repeat, one article suggests that humans and chimps should be placed into the same genus because they are more closely related and diverged more recently than other species which are put into the same genus. It is an effort aimed at conservation more than anything else.

The second article points out that previous studies that found about a 1% genetic difference in the chimp and ape genomes had a shortcoming. That shortcoming was that they failed to account for insertions and deletions and only counted point mutations. When the indels were included, the difference was about 5%. But here is the kicker. The indels were ONLY found in non-coding DNA. THe difference between coding sections was accurate when reported at 1%. There is no additional difference found by this study in the coding regions. Only the junk.

Based on that, the articles fail to support your assertion. You can point to the titles all you want, we see now that you are ignoring the details. If you could support your assertions, you'd do so.

 

[Mercury]

Originally posted by JWI:
I understand that evolution takes place over a long period of time, more than a lifetime. However, all minor changes would have to occur within a lifetime. Otherwise there would be no changes whatsoever. Agreed??

Within a creature's lifetime? Absolutely not. If I lose a finger in an accident, that is not evolution. Changes during my life don't affect my genetic code that I pass down to any offspring. Even mutations in my cells as I age don't affect the genes that I pass on to my offspring (unless it's a mutation in the particular reproductive cell that fertilizes an egg). However, when I was conceived and when any other creature was conceived, genetic material combined in an imperfect process that also resulted in a few mutations. That is where the variation that natural selection works on comes from. Not from changes during a creature's life.

You may want to read some introductory descriptions of what evolution is, such as [this article from Encarta]. The sections on "Genetic Variation in Populations", "Mutation" and "Natural Selection in Populations" on the first two pages are especially relevant. Even if you don't agree with evolution, you may find it helpful to know what it is before attempting to refute it.

From that article:

But it bears repeating that organisms do not change their characteristics in direct response to the environment. The key is genetic variation within a population -- and the potential for new combinations of traits. Nature will select those individuals that have developed the ideal characteristics with which to flourish in a given environment or niche. These individuals will have the greatest degree of reproductive success, passing their successful traits on to their descendants.

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by JWI:
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?"
-Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, in letter to Luther Sunderland, April 10, 1979. Cited in: Sunderland, Luther D., Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, 1988), p. 89.

OK, here is a letter from the senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History. And he could not come up with ONE fossil or living transitional.

Nuff said.

Not quite enough.

You have once again either been the victim of quote mining or you have perputrated another one upon us. In any case, this quote, like all your others, is false.

I'll let the good doctor speak for himself. First, this is another letter he wrote addressing the very quote to which you refer.

Sorry to have taken so long to answer your letter of July 9th. I was away for a while, and then infernally busy. I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues "... a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."

I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false.

That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of him before) was my first experience of creationists. The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group. I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification). Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.

I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist's duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.

Yours Sincerely,

[signed]

Colin Patterson

And another quote of his.

In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else.

Dr. Colin Patterson, Evolution, 1978, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.p131-133

So do you see what he was saying? Patterson accepts evolution and he accepts that there are transitionals. His statement was that you can never tell whether a given fossil is driectly ancestral or whether it was from a side branch.

 

[UTEOTW]

"I'm sorry, but that is plain dumb for several reasons.

If I saw a green, scaly reptile walking around on it's two back legs, if it's tail was developing feathers, it's two front legs were transforming into wings, and it's snout into a beak, I could easily determine that this creature was either a reptile transforming into a bird, or a bird transforming into a reptile.

And the world should have tens of thousands of such creatures walking around this very minute if evolution were true."

Strawman.

If you had seen one of the theropod dinosaurs whose descendants became birds back in it heyday, you would not have thought that it was transitioning to anything then either. It was perfectly adapted for its lifestyle. It had to be, else how would it have survived.

BUt since you bring it up, what do you think a transitional today between a land dwelling animal and a future sea going animal might look like? Well adapted for gettin around in the water but difficulty on the land? Despite this, it must come onto the land for such things as child rearing?

Have you ever seen a seal? What about a walrus? How about a penguin?

Any chance that these creatures fit the expectations of something that might be becoming aquatic?

"But it is also dumb for this reason. If a person could not determine whether a live creature was a transitional, then how could a person determine a fossil as well???"

Ah yes. The flaw in your logic.

We cannot tell today because we do not have a time machine with which we can go into the future and see which creatures stay the same, which go extinct and which change.

With fossils, well we can and do have the before and after creatures. We know they were transitional because we have the sequence.

 

[UTEOTW]

"An example of this is the duckbill platypus. This was once widely held by evolutionists as a living transitional.

They've since changed their tune."

Put me into the category of those who think that the platypus, while not being itself transitional, is an excellent example of a creature who preserves that expected characteristics of some of the transitionals between reptiles and mammals.

Such things as the reptile like leathery egg. The poor thermal regulation. The common orifice for wastes and egg laying. The lack of nipples.

"Today, the Archaeopteryx is being recognized as a true bird and not a dinosaur. Here is a statement
by Dr Alan Feduccia, a world authority on birds at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

'Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.'"

You love the quote mines don't you? More inaccuracy, however.

Here is what he also said in an interview in Discover magazine, I think.

Creationists are going to distort whatever arguments come up, and they've put me in company with luminaries like Stephen Jay Gould, so it doesn't bother me a bit. Archaeopteryx is half reptile and half bird any way you cut the deck, and so it is a Rosetta stone for evolution, whether it is related to dinosaurs or not. These creationists are confusing an argument about minor details of evolution with the indisputable fact of evolution: Animals and plants have been changing.

And here is his response to your bit of quote mining in a private letter.

If you go back in time, the context for this quote (with my first name misspelled), is from the Bakker period, when in 1975 he published that, "Archaeopteryx is an earthbound, predatory, feathered dinosaur that could not fly." (or something like that). Not even Bakker believes that any more, but most paleontological depictions even today show Archae. as an terrestrial, feathered, predatory dinosaur. Certainly, Archaeopteryx is a transitional form from reptile to bird, but the question is: what type of reptile?" ... The creature thus memorialized was Archaeopteryx lithographica, and, though indisputably birdlike, it could with equal truth be called reptilian.... The Archaeopteryx fossil is, in fact, the most superb example of a specimen perfectly intermediate between two higher groups of living organisms--what has come to be called a "missing link," a Rosetta stone of evolution...

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
"I am not going to show or discuss the entire articles. The titles alone give the basic gist of the article."

The articles do not support your assertion so you just refuse to discuss them. This is priceless!

That is no more "priceless" or funny than your refusal to acknowledge that your belief in evolution is ultimately based on faith in a philosophy that is neither scientific nor provable.

I'll repeat, one article suggests that humans and chimps should be placed into the same genus because they are more closely related and diverged more recently than other species which are put into the same genus. It is an effort aimed at conservation more than anything else.

Why? The answer is because evolution was assumed prior to approaching the evidence. Approach the evidence from the perspective that evolution is not true and you will come up with other explanations. They may not be ones that you consider likely... but they will be no more speculative nor dependent on mind experiments than the ones you do consider likely.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Mercury:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
You don't believe in common descent. You believe in common ascent... that they share an ancestor that was more simple than either of them and that through mutation and natural selection both genetic information and biological complexity were added in two different directions.

Evolution really is about common descent, and this term says nothing about organisms becoming more or less simple.</font>[/QUOTE] Nope. It is saying that the offspring attain some level of complexity outside of the scope they inherited from the progenitor. Descent means to come down from... not to ascend up from.

When Scripture reveals that Jesus was a descendent of David, this does not mean that Jesus was more simple than David.

No. It means that He physically inherited a bloodline and genes from him.

When we read that Josiah descended from Amon, this does not mean that Josiah was less than his father in any way.

However it is completely contrary to the notion that Josiah somehow attained genetic information from some entity besides his mother and father.

I think everyone realizes that descent can refer to a hereditary relationship without comment about upward or downward progression in any aspect other than time.

Maybe. But that doesn't save evolution from being contrary to the definition of the word "descent". Descent involves inheritance. Evolution depends on something separate from inheritance being at play.

 

[UTEOTW]

Scott

I am heading to have lunch with my lovely wife, so I'll get back to the rest later. But I have a question.

From my perspective, you seem to be playing both sides against the middle. This leaves me uncertain as to what your real opinion is.

Is it your opinion that the observations from creation are inconsistent with evolution?

Or is it your opinion that the observations from creation ARE consistent with evolution, but that we have no way of knowing if they really are the product of evolution or if God decided to just make things that way?

To me, you seem to be mixing and matching your arguments in a manner like "There is no evidence for evolution but even if there was you cannot show that God did not just make it that way."

Could you help me out here and tell us which it really is in your opinion?

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
Scott

I am heading to have lunch with my lovely wife, so I'll get back to the rest later. But I have a question.

From my perspective, you seem to be playing both sides against the middle. This leaves me uncertain as to what your real opinion is.

Is it your opinion that the observations from creation are inconsistent with evolution?

No. Not generally. Although there are some problems that evolutionists tend to gloss over or give presumptive answers to.

Evolution by and large can accommodate the evidence. You start with a presumption of naturalism and an assumption of ToE itself. You then explain the evidence from that premise and occasionally associate it with observed science that is not contradictory.

If you want to have faith in such a system, that's certainly your prerogative. I depart from evolution at its presuppositions because I presuppose that God did have an active role in creation and that all evidence must be interpretted in a way that is consistent with what He said about it.

That leaves alot of room to differ on many things. But to believe evolution, you have to explain away too much of what God said about creation.

Or is it your opinion that the observations from creation ARE consistent with evolution,

Consistent? Yes. I have repeatedly said that evolution is "possible". I just see the problems with it and its stretches of credibility and its overwhelming dependence on the assumption of the theory itself... and find it unconvincing- especially in light of direct statements by scripture.

but that we have no way of knowing if they really are the product of evolution or if God decided to just make things that way?

We have no way outside of the Bible.

There are many ways to explain origins built on all sorts of presuppositions. We may find the presuppositions unreasonable or even irrational... but that doesn't make them anymore metaphysical than assuming naturalism.

To me, you seem to be mixing and matching your arguments in a manner like "There is no evidence for evolution but even if there was you cannot show that God did not just make it that way."

Both statements are true with regard to macroevolution. There is no evidence for it. The ToE accommodates the evidence. It explains the evidence in a generally reasonable fashion... but that isn't the same as evidence.

Once again, if the theory can survive both "A" and "not A" equally well then you cannot say that either is an evidence for the theory. You can say that it accommodates the theory.

Could you help me out here and tell us which it really is in your opinion?

My presupposition is that God is truthful/omnipotent/omniscient, that God has the power to communicate Himself effectively, that there is no God-given reason to believe that Genesis is anything other than a narrative, that God has a right to both supernaturally and providentially do things without giving us an explanation for why or making it "predictable" to us, and that all evidence can and should be explained within the parameters laid out by God in His Word.

And I contrast this with the metaphysical assumptions of naturalists... that you deny you make but that I have continually pointed out to you in virtually every interaction we've had.

My opinions may change on particulars... but not on the presuppositions. I do believe in common descent from directly created kinds. I do believe that those originals were perfect and significantly different (to include greater adaptability) from the forms we find today after 6K-10K years of corruption due to sin and change due to God's gracious gift of adaptability.

Think of it like this. Scientists have found that adaptation has genetic limits. There is built in ability to change but also built in resistance to changing too far. You say that those limits have been expanded or else breached over the course of history through some rare process. I say that those limits have actually closed in... that animals have progressively speciated in ways that leave them less adaptable than their ancestors.

Parsimony is on my side. Mutations generally result in an overall loss even when they leave a species more able to withstand pressures within a specific locale. At best, we can claim a lateral shift that does not change the "kind" of animal it is. Mutations that add useful information apart from inheritance are speculative.

My idea would predict that when populations shift significantly within the range of their genetic adaptability for extended periods they would suffer genetic atrophe on the other end of the spectrum. They would lose the ability to adapt all the way back the other way. Speciation by loss also predicts significant and abrupt ascension of new species as well as signficant extinctions.

If you think of that range of adaptability as a three dimensional sphere, I suggest that the sphere started large and various populations created new centers but within the overall sphere and not equal to it. Progressively, you would have many spheres that variously shared genetic attributes.

Your system demands that species routinely break out of those limits on adaptation. The problem is that we simply don't see that in the evidence.

I can accept it as reasonable and biblically consistent that all cats have a common ancestor or that all equines have a common ancestor or that all cattle have a common ancestor. I have even less doubt that many lines of descent were lost before, during, and after the Flood.

It isn't necessary to categorize every commonality as either inherited, environmental, or directly created. It could be a combination of both.

 

[Scott J]

You have made a big deal out of the power to predict. But ToE doesn't predict abrupt appearance of new species. My system does. Your system doesn't have an observable, common mechanism for effecting the changes. Mine does. Your system does a poor job of explaining where information came from to start with as well as how it expanded so significantly in the biological world. I don't have that problem since I cite a programmer.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Scott, we have over and over attempted to show how new information can come about through TOE. Having done so, could you please address where our explanations have been inadequate in some kind of detail - instead of just repeating "Your system does a poor job of explaining where information came from to start with as well as how it expanded so signficantly in the biological world".

Do you have some substantive critique of the proposed mechanisms, or is it merely a matter of taste, you don't like the explanations in the same way some people don't like hard rock music?

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Scott, we have over and over attempted to show how new information can come about through TOE.

Can isn't the same as "did" or "does". The explanations cannot be disproven therefore they cannot be declared "impossible".

Having done so, could you please address where our explanations have been inadequate in some kind of detail

They depend on assumptions and mind experiments rather than anything tangible. They are dependent upon things that cannot be repeated or reproduced from one point to another.

- instead of just repeating "Your system does a poor job of explaining where information came from to start with as well as how it expanded so signficantly in the biological world".

OK. Information by random circumstances is highly improbable. Not impossible... but incredibly improbable.

Do you have some substantive critique of the proposed mechanisms,

Yes. They aren't tangible nor do they even follow patterns that are observed in nature. If information increases by random mutation or any other proposed process actually occurs, it is very, very rare. Also, the mechanisms haven't really been proposed... there are too many blanks. A proper proposition would include details that could facilitate a repeatable experiment.

or is it merely a matter of taste, you don't like the explanations in the same way some people don't like hard rock music?

Yes and no. I don't like the explanations because a) they are built on a presupposition that God was not an active force in creation and b) because they don't appear likely since we don't observe them occurring and can't repeat them.

Even UTE's proofs concerning plastic eating bacteria, inserts, et al. aren't observations nor experiments. They are explanations of how something that is might have come to be. That isn't a proven mechanism... its speculation.

Implicit in such "proofs" is the notion that "God wouldn't have done it that way if biblical creation is true."

 

[jet11]

Here is a former evolutionist that has changed his thoughts. I will say I do not know enough about this man to vouch for the credibility of the data, but it is interesting. I also am not trained enough in this area as to debate this topic, but I thought it might add to the debate.

Scientific Evidence for Creation

Scroll down the left and select Scientific Evidence for Creation.

 

[Petrel]

Originally posted by Scott J:
Even UTE's proofs concerning plastic eating bacteria, inserts, et al. aren't observations nor experiments. They are explanations of how something that is might have come to be. That isn't a proven mechanism... its speculation.

Did you see the article I posted a while ago where researchers infected a plant with two different viruses and by recombination a new virus with different properties containing DNA from both other viruses was produced? I can go dig it up again this evening, I suppose.

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by Petrel:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
Even UTE's proofs concerning plastic eating bacteria, inserts, et al. aren't observations nor experiments. They are explanations of how something that is might have come to be. That isn't a proven mechanism... its speculation.

Did you see the article I posted a while ago where researchers infected a plant with two different viruses and by recombination a new virus with different properties containing DNA from both other viruses was produced? I can go dig it up again this evening, I suppose. </font>[/QUOTE]This may be true, Petrel, but even with experimentation showing that another virus can be generated does not prove anything. It only supports one very, very tiny facet of the evolutionary theory. Certainly, for the theory to have come about in the first place, there IS evidence for it. But, as shown by many inaccurate theories held in the past--evidence CAN be deceiving.

Ask any detective how many wrong trails they have followed because they followed the evidence. In fact, often evidence strongly supports something that is found to be false.

I guess my actual point is, another virus appeared. I cross a black lab and a poodle and I get something different, but it is STILL A DOG.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Thank you for your reply, Scott. It appears to me you have systematically ignored an important part of evolutionary theory in your critique of it.

Originally posted by Scott J:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Scott, we have over and over attempted to show how new information can come about through TOE.

Can isn't the same as "did" or "does". The explanations cannot be disproven therefore they cannot be declared "impossible".
</font>[/QUOTE]An interesting admission - the explanations cannot be disproven. If that is the case, what is the reason for your opposition to the theory?

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Having done so, could you please address where our explanations have been inadequate in some kind of detail

They depend on assumptions and mind experiments rather than anything tangible. They are dependent upon things that cannot be repeated or reproduced from one point to another. </font>[/QUOTE]Well, now, you have attempted to describe the explanations by saying they are "dependent on assumptions" (as if it were possible to post ANYTHING without being dependent on assumptions) and "dependent upon things that cannot be repeated".

Thats not true. For example, it is perfectly possible to re-sequence the bacteria that can digest nylon. It is perfectly possible to go back and view, again, the fossils in the museums. It is perfectly possible to explore and come up with more fossils in the ground. So your idea that the science cannot be repeated is false. But you are saying, I suppose, that we can't go back to the bacteria and cause them to again develop a new ability to digest nylon.

This is kind of like saying we can't be sure Lincoln was assassinated by Booth because we can't repeat the event. An empty criticism.

See, you've made these assertions, and what I fail to see is a logical connection between what you cite and what you conclude. For example, you cite as a "reason" for denying TOE (among other reasons) that it depends on "mind experiments".

Mind experiments have a valid history in science. Just saying a mind experiment is involved is not, logically, an argument at all! State what mind experiment you are referring to and state the flaw in the reasoning involved. THEN you will have some substance in your critique. But PULEEZE don't count quantity of words as substance.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />- instead of just repeating "Your system does a poor job of explaining where information came from to start with as well as how it expanded so significantly in the biological world".

OK. Information by random circumstances is highly improbable. Not impossible... but incredibly improbable.</font>[/QUOTE]OK now here is where you have missed the boat, where you have left out the key part of evolution theory, and why, therefore, all you opposition so far is just so much hot air.

You ignore the NON RANDOM feature of the theory, natural selection over generations that serve to NATURALLY AMPLIFY the very weak signal of random occurring beneficial mutations. It is this NATURAL SELECTION OVER GENERATIONS that clears out the bad and leaves the good, and enables the genome to progress from noisy mutations to enhanced information.

You never mention that. It has been mentioned to you over and over as key to evolution. Yet you never mention it. Why that astonishing omission on your part?

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Do you have some substantive critique of the proposed mechanisms,

Yes. They aren't tangible nor do they even follow patterns that are observed in nature. If information increases by random mutation or any other proposed process actually occurs, it is very, very rare. Also, the mechanisms haven't really been proposed... there are too many blanks. A proper proposition would include details that could facilitate a repeatable experiment. </font>[/QUOTE]How many repetitions of bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics from bacteria strains that have no such resistance do you require?

But I suspect you are asking for repetition of evolution of whole new classes of organisms from previous classes. Well, given the time frames required for that kind of evolution, it is unreasonable of you to declare you know evolution is false because it hasn't been done in the laboratory yet. After all, we have the fossil record, the genetic record, the vestigial evidence, the retro-viral insertion patterns, the shared defect patterns, and so on, that show it has been done in nature, over and over and over again!

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />or is it merely a matter of taste, you don't like the explanations in the same way some people don't like hard rock music?

Yes and no. I don't like the explanations because a) they are built on a presupposition that God was not an active force in creation and b) because they don't appear likely since we don't observe them occurring and can't repeat them.
</font>[/QUOTE]They are not built on presuppositions at all. They are built on what can we find and figure out if we look and we think. That is all. If you don't like the findings, your quarrel is with the God who left things looking that way.

Implicit in such "proofs" is the notion that "God wouldn't have done it that way if biblical creation is true."

Over and over we get this false idea "you are saying God couldn't have done so and so" and that is such a false statement! We who accept God and also accept the evidence He left in nature do not in any way seek to say God "could" or "could not" have done ANYTHING AT ALL, but merely we say the evidence is God did this other thing, not the thing we thought He did prior to the development of modern science.

If we cannot reconcile the literal reading of Genesis One with the literal reading of the Stars and the Fossils and the Rocks then one of them must be interpreted in non-literal fashion. Both were authored by God. It is not being anti-God to choose to go with His evidence.

 

[UTEOTW]

Thanks for taking the time to answer, Scott.

"Evolution by and large can accommodate the evidence. You start with a presumption of naturalism and an assumption of ToE itself. You then explain the evidence from that premise and occasionally associate it with observed science that is not contradictory."

You might guess that I take a little different view.

I think that it is much more than just accomodation of the evidence. But I will grant that I must assume that things are really as they seem, that is to say, I must make the assumption that God would not have created life one way and choose to make it look like He used a different way.

One example would be shared retroviral inserts. These occur when a retrovirus infects a host, inserts a segment of its DNA into a germ line cell, that germ line cell is then used for reproduction and the insert becomes fixed into the gene pool.

Now such inserts are completely random and completely useless. (As in all things, I might not should be quite so enthusiastic there. I can think of one case where an insert has mutated into a useful gene. But even in that case, the insert is not useful as inserted.) So if you find the same insert in two separate species at the same location, the most parsimonious explanation is that they share the insert because they share a common ancestor.

If you examine your own genome, you will find that a few percent of your genome is made up of just such inserts. You will also find that you and I and all other humans share almost exactly the same set of inserts. That would be expected, I suppose. (Another aside. This would be more expected in an old earth where these inserts have had hundreds of millions of years to accumulate. It would be much less expected if all those inserts had taken place recently. We would all share the same inserts ONLY if they all happened before our last common ancestor and if none had happened since. I find it hard to believe that all those inserts could have happened in 10 generations, up to Noah, and then none have happened since.)

Now, if you take a look at the other apes, you find something curious. They, too, share almost the same set of inserts. Out of a few percent of our genome, there are a couple of differences, as would be expected, but fo rthe most part they are the same. The few differences among the apes are in a pattern consistent with phylogenies from other sources.

You can even take it a step further. Since these are useless sections of DNA, they collect mutations without selection pressures. The patterns of the accumulated mutations also follow the phylogenies from other sources.

This is not mere accomodation of the evidence. This is evidence that strongly supports evolutionary relationships.

Do I have to assume that God could not have just decided to put those inserts in there? Well, yeah. But it seems like a good assumption. Perhaps you could argue otherwise if you disagree.

But this is positive evidence. This is even evidence that can be tested. There are lot's of such inserts out there. If it could be shown that there was a pattern of such inserts that badly matched the expectations of evolution, then this would constitute good evidence against evolution. I am not aware of any such studies.

Is there an alternative explanation? How would we test it? How would we differentiate it from common descent?

 

[UTEOTW]

I am leaving for work shortly. This is why I am breaking up my responses. I'll have to go and I want to see what I can get to.

" Both statements are true with regard to macroevolution. There is no evidence for it. The ToE accommodates the evidence. It explains the evidence in a generally reasonable fashion... but that isn't the same as evidence.

Once again, if the theory can survive both "A" and "not A" equally well then you cannot say that either is an evidence for the theory. You can say that it accommodates the theory."

I do not know what you mean by "both 'A' and 'not A'". Could you shed some light? You are alluding to some problems that you have in your mind, but I do not know what those problems might be.

I am also confised by your statement that there is not evidence followed by a statement that it "accomodates" the evidence. It is one or the other.

I dealt a bit in my last post with your assertion of mere "accomodation." It is much more than that. Many of the lines of evidence point directly to common descent. There are no other theories to explain the data. It is much more than "accomodation," it is positive evidence.

"And I contrast this with the metaphysical assumptions of naturalists... that you deny you make but that I have continually pointed out to you in virtually every interaction we've had."

Yes, I refuse to accept the assertion that to accept that things as are they seem is an unreasonable assumption.

I maintain that you are the one making the metaphysical assumption. You have the burden of proof to show that it is unreasonable to assumethat things are as they seem. You have the burden of proof to show that God might have created things to look as if He used a different method than He did.

"I do believe that those originals were perfect and significantly different (to include greater adaptability) from the forms we find today"

What form did that "greater adaptability" take? You start off with only only two representatives of each "kind" so it cannot be diversity in the gene pool. Do you think that there was a way to hide extra diversity within the geneome of an individual? How? What remains of this would we expect to see today?

Or by adaptability do you mean that the evolutionary mechanisms that you generally deny were actually in play for a while, providing the adaptations?

"Scientists have found that adaptation has genetic limits. There is built in ability to change but also built in resistance to changing too far."

I am unaware of this. COuld you provide some resources that we could read on this?

"Mutations that add useful information apart from inheritance are speculative."

Nope. Observed. YOu have been given examples before. Perhaps you would like to take my New Information Chamllenge?

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/21.html#000001

 

[UTEOTW]

"You have made a big deal out of the power to predict. But ToE doesn't predict abrupt appearance of new species. My system does."

Define "abrupt." Then we can talk.

"Your system doesn't have an observable, common mechanism for effecting the changes. Mine does."

Your system has no such defined mechanism. YOu have alluded to some sort of greater adaptability, but we don't know what thet really means.

On the other hand, the theory I accept has mechanisms such as duplication and mutation, alternative splicing, recombination, and gene flow to provide genetic diversity in a population. These mechanisms are observable in the present and the genomes show evidence of them occuring in the past. It also has various forms of selection, such as natural and sexual, to bring about change based on novel genetics.

"Your system does a poor job of explaining where information came from to start with as well as how it expanded so significantly in the biological world."

Not at all. Take a look at my post from yesterday on the other thread addressing this.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3217/11.html#000157

Or go back and read the first few pages of this thread. I have provided several mechanisms and examples of them in action. I have also examined the genome and shown where it reveals characteristics that show that these processes have actually been used to build up the genome.

"If information increases by random mutation or any other proposed process actually occurs, it is very, very rare. Also, the mechanisms haven't really been proposed... there are too many blanks. A proper proposition would include details that could facilitate a repeatable experiment."

See above. The mechanisms are proposed and observed. And tested for that matter.

 

[UTEOTW]

All right. Last post before work...

" Why? The answer is because evolution was assumed prior to approaching the evidence. Approach the evidence from the perspective that evolution is not true and you will come up with other explanations. They may not be ones that you consider likely... but they will be no more speculative nor dependent on mind experiments than the ones you do consider likely."

OK. Let me try something here.

Let's say I am using some bit of conserved molecular sequence between a unicorn and a griffin to indicate that they have a shared ancestor.

Unsurprisingly, you come forward and say that if they use the same protein, it is just because they share a common designer.

OK. I see the logic in that. The same function is needed so the designer used the same protien.

But then what if I go back and look at the genes that code for than protein in both the unicorn and griffin? I might find out that the DNA sequence is different but that in a way which yields the same protien.

Now when I have presented things like this before, the response has been that it is a metaphysical assumption to say that God would not have done such.

I am trying to understand how this works. If I point out that two things are the same, well that is evidence of a common designer. But if I show that there are subtle but important (important only to the debate, not function) differences then you say that this cannot be used as evidence against your assertion.

I do not understand how that works.

Back into the real world, you will see that where there is molecular homologies between groups of species, that often there will be silent mutations in the responsible genes. These silent mutations will follow patterns that yield phylogenies that are consistent with tose from other techniques.

I would just like your logic on why this is not positive evidence for evolution. I would like your logic on why it is more likely to you that a common designer would save time by reusing the same protein only to turn around and waste time by redesigning the underlying DNA sequence each time including redesigning it in such a way as to imply commone descent.