Hare! Hare!

A_Christian, you appear to be overly concerned with your physical biological appearance. That is not what makes you in the "image and likeness" of God. The existence of your sould is what makes you such. In Gen2, God created the physical form of man first, and THEN "breathed the breath of life" into him, thus giving him a soul. Thus, it is not the physical form, but the spiritual form, that makes you in God's image.

Creating the physical form evolutionarily prior to the addition of the soul does not contradict the idea that man is created in God's image and likeness.

 

The same gene is disabled in humans and Guinea pigs, but by different mutations. So we have chimps, and humans and guinea pigs, all with the same gene inactivated. But humans and chimps have the same mutation, on the same site, and the Guinea pig has a different one.

One more confirmation of phylogenies obtained by several other lines of evidence.

It keeps on coming. How much is enough to convince a reasonable person?

 

If I remember correctly, didn’t God create cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, before He (God) created Man? Why would God need to clearly separate the two?

To me it’s quite clear. Man didn’t evolve from some ape. As some here believe that they evolved from monkey, this to me contradicts scripture, and therefore I don’t buy it for one second. When God makes clear He created “Man” from the dust of the ground.

 

Because there is a difference between man and the other animals. As John points out, we are the ones with a soul and that is what is in the image of God. We are the ones that can think abstractly and differentiate between right and wrong. For some of us who think that the creation account is not to be taken literally this separation serves to show the relationship of man to God within creation. We are the ones who have been given a soul and the ability to chose to accept and worship God or to reject him.

The evidence does not agree with you. You have not even tried to deal with the tiny amount presented above. You have asserted that it is not true and asserted that your interpretation of scripture is correct. The facts are still here.

 

So God gave man all of the physical traits of an ape...to teach us a lesson. At not just outward traits, He gaves us a remarkable genetic similarity. Down to having the same genes on the same location of the same chromosomes. Down to sharing the same mutations of the same nucleotides on the same genes. Maybe you have some good reason why a designer would introduce the same mistake into human and the apes. For some reason He didn't want us to make vitamin C. Helen started a new thread on just this topic and I posted the following quote over there.

OK, you say God would say that both humans and chimps need the enzyme to metabolize steroids and this is just an evidence of common design. So why is that the in both species that useful gene was then copied and that unneeded copy was mutated by deleting the same 8 base pairs of the gene? Saying that these copying errors happened in a common ancestor and was then passed down genetically makes a lot of sense compared to the exact same series of errors having happened separately.

 

You mean there are scientists that have went on record with actual facts that supports the theory that you evolved from a monkey without a shadow of a doubt? Hey, I’m a Tennessee native and love UT football. I’ve seen some of the Alabama football players are yeah; I’d almost agree that a few of them might have evolved from an ape.

What we need to keep in mind is that our Creator has given the scientific community guidelines to work within if they want the truths. His truths never change, whereas the scientific communities does, and quite radically at times. Unfortunately, science isn’t in possession of ALL the facts, therefore there are in no position to make a final judgment on anything. In any field of science one only needs one new contrary fact to force a new way of thinking. What one considers as fact today may not be fact tomorrow.

When I think of evolution, I think of it in an extreme situation as in an ape over time gradually mutating into a man, as we know today. I’m talking the type of evolution, which posits that some kind of unicellular organism through millions of years of mutations became an ape, which eventually became a man, and not to mention a female version of the same! Evolution in this sense is not something that has been shown to work in a laboratory.

I’m sure plants and animals’ change, and can vary in some amazing ways, but a person remains a person, a dog a dog, and a rose a rose. Has science seen bacteria become anything other than bacteria? NO. Have they ever seen E.coli, become anything other than a type of bacteria that isn’t E.coli? NO. With over a hundred years of work with E.coli, this is from what I’ve read, at 20 minutes per generation time, that’s over 2-1/5 Million generations of the E.coli bacteria, even forcing or encouraging mutations; they still haven’t been able to get anything other than bacteria.

Back to the Bible, why did God take a rib from Adam to create Eve? God could’ve structured Genesis in a way that suggested evolution, but chose not to, b/c it simply isn’t true.

 

OK, I'm out of my league here but why do you call this particular feature a mutation? How do you know there were copying errors?

Andy

 

Fair enough question. I'll try and keep it simple if you'll forgive that it might mean leaving out some details.

You have two genes side by side. Each of these genes contains a long chain that codes for two particular proteins. Adjacent to these two genes are two additional genes that have the exact same code. The most likely explanation is a copying error. These errors can occur when both halves of a segment of the spliting DNA go with a particular "half". You get one with two copies and one with none. Since all four genes are side by side, that appears to be what happened here. In addition, in the copy, one of the genes has a series of 8 base pairs from its DNA that have been deleted, another kind of copying error that can occur. I'm not a biologist so I will not speculate if both things could have happened at once or if it took two different steps. The gene with the mistake in it is not known to make a useful protein.

The importance is this. You can say that the useful genes are there from common design and we hit a deadlock. But both human and other apes having the same copied genes and one of the copies in each (the same copy) having the exact same mutation at least strongly implies a common ancestor. It is the same way that DNA testing can indentify not only individuals but also relationships, close and far. And there are many examples of these kinds of genetic connections between species. And not only that, but in general the genetic evidence matches up with the evidence from morphology. (I say in general because there have been cases where genetic testing has altered scientists opinions on exactly how closely certain animals are related. There should be that disclosure lest someone accuse me of neglecting it.)

But this is also one of the ways in which evolution can bring about new "information." Go back and read the thread on photosynthesis. http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=000244 You will se an example of how many proteins with different functions have been found to have similar structures. Once the copy is made of the gene, you now have two genes that can make the same useful protein. One of these can then mutate to make a new protein. The needed function is maintained by the unaltered gene. The new protein may be found to be useful in a new way. Or it may do the same job but better. It might kill the organism. Or it might just be as useless as junk.

I think we have already established that your mind is made up and you do not have to agree with it, but I hope this at least helps you to see how some of us find the evidence compelling.

 

Evolutionary theory doesn't state that humans evolved from monkeys. There are no credible scientists who state this (that I know of).

Evolutionary theory holds that humans and modern apes evolved from a common ancestor. Saying we evolved from monkeys is no more correct than saying monkeys evolved from humans. We are on different branches that split apart long ago.

 

Good to know you! I happen to be one of those Bama fans and graduates. I am so glad that this series goes in streaks. Our last good streak ended right after I got out of school. I like to win!

I agree. But I take this to mean that science is able to admit when it is wrong and move on to where the evidence leads. To me, it is a great sign against that idea that there is some grand conspiracy among all the scientists to eliminate God from our society. Evolutionist admit that it only takes one good discovery to throw the theory in doubt.

But the evolution from bacteria to something else is what took the longest! It seems that it took about 2 - 3 billion years to go from bacteria to the first eucaryotes. In 100 hundred years you would expect bacteria to stay bacteria. But we have seen evidence of evolution. Bacteria have evolved new, "irreducibly complex" metabolic pathways right before our eyes. Higher animals have turned into new species. What one would expect to observe during the time we have been watching is about what one would expect from the theory of evolution.

I think that is to illustrate the male-female relationship and is something you see echoed later in the Bible with the man being the spiritural leader of the family.

I don't think so. I think that the account is about as consistent with evolution as could be explained to people of the day. I do not think that people could have had the necessary background to understand the complexities until today. I also believe that the Bible is not concerned with being a scientific text. Its truth lies in the history of the Jewish people, their relationship with God, the gospel of Jesus, and the founding of the church after the death and ressurection of Christ to speak generally.

 

I haven’t been able to keep up with the news of college football, but I hear Bama has a new coach, hope it works out for them. I’ve always admired the traditions of Bama football. If you were a Florida Gator, this debate between evolution and special creation would be pale in comparison.

Keep in mind this experiment I referred to is conducted in a controlled environment, which means the E.coli would have a significant success rate opportunity than pond scum evolving even millions of years by chance! Remember, these E.coli produces a new generation every 20 minutes, which equals out to over 2-1/5 MILLION GENERATIONS. These experiments have yet to produce anything other than E.coli, even with the ability to FORCE or ENCOURAGE mutations.

I’d like to see a report on this evidence. If by chance it is the experiment conducted by Dr Barry G. Hall where in a recent study, Dr Hall has developed a method of so-called ‘in vitro evolution’ that allows E. coli bacteria to mimic ‘natural evolutionary processes.’ he observed how his experimental bacteria ‘developed’ resistance to a variety of antibiotics. Then he compared the resistance of these bacteria to the resistance found in naturally occurring bacteria.

Hall’s conclusion is just as misleading as his experiment: ‘… our in vitro evolution technique accurately mimics natural evolution and can therefore be used to predict the results of natural evolutionary processes.’

Click the link below to read more:

Biologists mimic evolution in the lab?

 

Yeah. Some teams you just feel that strongly about. As a Bama fan, I'll add that I wish our recent teams had been good enough for you to feel that way about us.

I'll just say that bacteria in the field will experience the same rapid reproduction. Yes, the less ideal the growing conditions the slower the reproduction time. But you are still talking about 100 years against about 2.5 billion years. 25 million times as long. I don't know, but I also doubt that there has been a single strain E. coli tested for the entire time under the same set of stresses. So the time period difference is even greater.

Here is an abstract describing some bacteria that evolved the ability to metabolize nylon (byproducts)as a food source. Since nylon is a rather modern human invention, it is unlikely that this would have previously existed. I call it IC because it require two new enzymes, neither of which are useful by themselves. There were both point mutations and a frame-shift mutation involved in getting to the new enzymes. So far testing has not revealed any other potential energy sources that the enzymes would be useful in metabolizing, so it is unlikely that they existed previously to use on a different source.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6646204&dopt=Abstract

To be fair, the AIG answer can be found at the bottom of this page:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/negative7-24-2000.asp

An answer to that is at the bottom of:

http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

I'll let you read both sides and decide. If you want more just go to a search engine and search on nylon and bacteria.

Interesting reading. There isn't really enough there for me to get a good grip of what was going on but I think I have an idea. Bacteria in nature do what is called horizontal transfer where genes are passed back and forth. This sounds like they were artificially transferring genes known to cause resistance to one antibiotic into more bacteria to see if they would further mutate the gene to produce a new resistance to a different antibiotic to see which antibiotics were likely to have resistence before others. Seems more related to medical research than evolution other than the part about the evolution of new resistence. But I doubt that you think that antibiotic resistence is evidence of evolution.

 

John6:63

I went and found some information on Hall and I would like to comment further.

It does seem that he was trying to simulate in the lab things that happen in the field both to understand how the evelotion of these new traits takes place and to use the model to make useful predictions in the medical field about the potential for bacteria to become resistant to specific antibiotics.

As I said above, bacteria can exchange genes with one another through the process of horizontal transfer. What Hall was doing was simulating this transfer in the lab to speed it up. Sometimes he would just transfer random bits of genetic data to simulate what actually happens. In the case of the antibiotic research, he was transferring the specific genes that led to resistance to try and speed up the process of bacteria becoming resistant to new antibiotics. Something along the lines of letting a lot of bacteria mutate the same promising gene in parallel rather than letting them all go down different paths. And in the end, the results were similar to what has happened naturally.

Now my problem lies with AIG. First, they make it sound like the only way to get the result in the lab is to have some sort of contrived system in place when in reality the same thing happens in nature. Second, since they know that this happens in nature they also resort to their fallback position that this isn't evo;ution because there is no new "information" being created. The resistance is due to the "loss" of information. The truth of the matter is that new pathways are being developed before our eyes (and in our over medicated bodies) and that these new enzymes can be specific to different antibiotics contrary to their claim of a loss of specificity.

This is a very minor example of some of the things that led me away from a young earth position. Like you, I had always believed in a young earth and I though that there was something wrong with those people who push evolution. I mean, it just can't be true.

But then I started looking for evidence. I'm a very curious person. And I was startled and how bad it sounded. So much that I read just made absolutely no sense. One of the ones that really got me was the entropy line. When I first came across that it sounded like someone who was talking about something different than the thermodynamics I learned. And they were. They were trying to mix a layman explanation of entropy with the laws of thermodynamics in a way that makes no sense. Entropy is something that can be measured. The change in entropy can be calculated for a given change. It has nothing to do with what the creationists were trying to make it out to be. Granted, look at the recent threads here on the subject and you will get an idea how hard it is to understand. But I bet some of the people making the argument actually knew enough to know the difference. If they did not, why were they even talking about it authoritatively?

One more example: quote mining. I started a thread asking people what would change their mind. Somebody jumped in quickly with what seemed to be a damaging quote from a book. He just did not know that the quote was from a pro-evolution book and was intended as a criticism of trying to explain everything through natural selection alone. But he didn't know that, I'm sure he just lifted the quote from someone's webpage. The owner of the webpage just as likely lifted it from somewhere else. But somewhere the line started with someone who actually read the book and deliberately quoted out of context and gave the quote a meaning uninteneded by the author.

And it is these people who should know better who bother me. Usually they show enough competency that that seem to have some idea what they are talking about. In that case they are being deliberately dishonest. God does not need someone who has to resort to lies to protect Him.

I don't blame most of the people here for propogating such information. Remember, I once thought as you did and it sounds pretty good until you dig a little. But what I do blame people who post to places like this is for not investigating the claims before propogating them. If you are already at AIG it takes little effort to pop the right search terms into Google and read the other side.

It was as much the poor quality of the young earth arguments (to me) and the dishonesty with which the higher ups spread the information (again, in my opinion) as it was the quality of the old earth arguments that led to me swapping sides. Do scientists sometimes twist. Sure, but the difference is other scientists eventually expose them.

And that is not to say that all young earth arguments are such. I have just found too many to be so in my experience.

 

What would Koko the gorilla make of it?

I read in BioMedNet* that apes are capable of at least basic ethics, defined as "I hurt you = bad".


*Debating ethics and public policy: the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Tor Lezemore
Trends in Genetics 2002, 18:653-655