Jesus wept, Darwin hysterically cried?

[UTEOTW]

"Lack of reasoning? Just how common was this beneficial mutation?"

And it is still a lack of reasoning. Can you or can you not come up with a valid scenario in which one would not expect three toed and single toed "horses" to have existed at the same time? If you can not explain why they should not be expected to have existed at the same time, then why do you see it as a problem? If you can imagine a scenario in which they would be expected to co-exist, then why did you ask the question to begin with?

"Except that you have to have evidence. I can make up any story I want about how things happen or why, but to be taken seriously, I have to have evidence of intermediary stages in gradual development of these complex systems. Describe the gradual development of the wing--with evidence, please."

See the previous post.

"The fact is that you can't describe any functional intermediary stage [of the eye]."

I think that was two posts ago.

"But, why stop there, get me from the flap of skin between the fore and rear legs on a rodent to a bat's wing."

If you really want to know something about the very little that is known about bat evolution, then go look up

Sears, K., Behringer, R. and Niswander, L.: THE DEVELOPMENT OF POWERED FLIGHT IN CHIROPTERA: THE MORPHOLOGIC AND GENETIC EVOLUTION OF BAT WING DIGITS

"No, the bugs, don't change, the populations change. The bugs that already had a resistance to pesticides or antibiotics survived, reproduced and now you have a resistent population. The resistance was already there, it just multiplied. There were no mutations."

Look above at the discussion on vancomycin.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3019/3.html#000036

"The information is incomplete. What do they get instead?"

You tell us. You are the one that asserted that only bad mutations happen. He gave you an example of a good one. If you think that the mutation has a worse side effect, then tell us what it is. Otherwise, I think he gave you an example of what you said was not possible. Of course I later gave you several more.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Lessee now . . . maybe a few loose ends still to tie up here.

Originally posted by Aaron:
No. My assumption is that bats do not have hollow bones nor avian lungs because they do not need them for the kind of flight God intended.

That is my assumption, and it is just as valid as assuming that natural selection gave bats wings at all.

But more than that, try to imagine the evolution of the eye or the wing. Any intermediary stage of such would only serve as a disadvantage to the species. Can you imagine an intermediary stage . . .
The fact is that you can't describe any functional intermediary stage.

Thanks to UTE above for describing gradual evolution of the eye. I'll now describe a reasonable gradual evolution of the wing. Take a creature that leaps as part of its way of life. Squirrels do that, frogs do that, lots of creatures do that, it's not a far fetched idea.

Such a leaper, if small enough, will find that twisting its body, moving its limbs will affect the way it leaps, affect the way it lands safely.

This is the first increment on the way to flight.

Every little bit of improvement in the way it guides the leap will help the leap a little bit better along the way. This end result of this is full flight. Its that simple.

Flying squirrels do not have wings. They're not even partial wings. They do not possess powered or controlled flight.

But they are the very thing you asked for, an example of an intermediate on the way to full flight.

. . . because my theology includes the Fall, and Judgment. Everything we see today is in a state of decay because of God's judgment on sin, and if left to itself, will finally die out. This explanation fits the evidence so much better than Darwinism.

I'm sorry, you assertion has no reasoning behind it. You have to say "because . . . " and fill in the blank before you have some reasoning behind it.

I shared with you my reasoning for your views seeming to imply a less than omniscient creator.

Let me repeat them so the point will be made for the readers you have apparantly decided to abandon.

Concerning the defective vitamin C gene. It is present in non-working form in man and all or most other primates

In the special creation theory, that would imply that the animals were all created each with the defect in place. This would mean the special creator copied a mistake over and over. This implies less than omniscience.

The attempt is made to shift the time of the fault in the genes to after the fall after the creation of the animals. Alas, this is ruled out because the genes would not have all become flawed in exactly the same way in all the different species by a new flaw in every one of the seperate genomes; random damage gives random results. The attempt to prove evolution wrong has therefore failed.

Anyway, I'm done in this thread. Face it. Darwinism is dead. Read Denton's book. [/QB]

As Mark Twain once noticed, sometimes death reports are somewhat exaggerated.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Again, you're just assuming things. Your assumption is that if God created each species seperately, He would not have given them certain traits in common."

You constantly claim that morphology is not evidence for evolution, when you quit asserting that the morphological evidence does not exist. YOu then try and claim that there is no reason not to expect what we see if all the species were created recently essentially as is. Well let's take a look at that.

First off you think that God created a whole series of fossils intermediate in morphology between Loxolophus and modern horses.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Loxolophus and rhinos.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Loxolophus and tapirs.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Protungulatum and cetaceans.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Protungulatum and camels.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Protungulatum and antelope.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Protungulatum and hippos.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Protungulatum and deer.

You also think that God created a whole series of animals intermediate in morphology between Protungulatum and pigs.

OK.

So you also think that God created the same mDNA sequences in horses and rhinos (Use of mitochondrial DNA sequences to test the Ceratomorpha (Perissodactyla:Mammalia) hypothesis, C. Pitra and J. Veits, Journal of Zoological Systematics & Evolutionary Research, Volume 38 Issue 2 Page 65 - June 2000.) but He did not wish to clutter other animals with this same pattern.

You must also think then that God decided to place the same retroposons DNA sequences in whales and camels and deer and pigs and hippos and other even-toed ungulates (Molecular evidence from retroposons that whales form a clade within even-toed ungulates, Shimamura et al, Nature 388,666 14 August 1997.) but did not choose to put these same sequences into any other animals.

You must also think that whales we created as is with the full complement of genes for making a sense of smell exactly like that of land based animals except that it is useless to them in the water. ("Olfactory receptors in aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates," J. Freitag, G. Ludwig, I. Andreini, P. Rössler, H. Breer, Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, Volume 183, Number 5, November 1998, Pages: 635 - 650.)

You must also think that God decided to be inefficient and let whale fetuses develop little back legs that later must be reabsorbed before the baby is born for some undetermined reason.

You must also think that though whales have no need ever for legs, that God decided that whales must need the genes for making full legs since whales are occasionally born with such legs.

You must also think that the bones of the whales front flippers need to have the same humerous, radius, ulna, wrist and digits just like you arms and hands even though these serve no additional function above what would have been provided by just making a rigid flipper.

You must also think that whales were created with the very complex bone that is the pelvis in order to anchor a few minor muscles when a much simpler attachment point would have worked as well or better. You say whales have no land dwelling ancestors so why do they have that pelvis?

You must also think that God thought that some horse might need two extra toes so He gave them the genes for making them. They aren't there because the hoses ancestors had three toes, are they?

You must think that God thought that those fused leg bones that allow horses to run so fast are also unneeded since they still carry the genes, which are occasionally expressed as atavisms, for making legs with a separate ulna and radius.

Now even though are your answers are arbitray and capricious and offer no reason to explain why things are the way they are, you stick to them. Common descent offers a reasonable and logical explanation for all of this and more. Your "explanation" asserts that things are as they are for no reason at all. Common descent offers predictions about what kinds of future data should and should not be found. Your explanation has no such ability because it is not tied to any type of logic or reason. Yours offers no explanation at all.

Yet you continue to claim that there is no evidence for common descent and that everything is consistent with a young earth. I intend no offense, but your view is delusional.

www.m-w.com

delusional - noun
1a - the act of deluding : the state of being deluded
2a - something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated

delude - verb
1 - to mislead the mind or judgment of

You have been deluded by those you trust. This is one big problem with YE. Those who claim to be Christain leaders are spreading false information in the name of God. I think there is a commandment somewhere in the OT about bearing false witness...

 

[Aaron]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
Your source has lied to you by not being complete. When he wrote the book, he was a young earther. He has since wrtitten another book called Nature's Destiny in which he shows where all he had to say in the first book was wrong. Why don't you read that book if you find Denton to be a credible source.

Denton, a Young-Earther? You'll have to post the evidence for that one. I've read his book. His first chapter is "Genesis Rejected," and all through his book, though he exposed the weaknesses of Darwinism, he insisted that though the evidence is lacking, evolution must have happened, not by a series of gradual mutations, but by punctuated equilibrium, which leaves no time for the intermediary stages to be preserved in the fossil record.

He, for philosophical reasons, didn't let Creation get a foot in the door. He accepted the premise of billions of years, time and chance.

But you say he was a young-earther.

Now a review of his "new" book, far from stating it's a correction of his earlier one, states that:

New England biologist Denton continues the assault on Darwinian science, especially the theories of evolution and natural selection, that he began in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Here, Denton takes a page out of the work of 19th-century natural theologians like William Paley and 19th-century anti-Darwinian scientists like Robert Chambers to contend that, far from being random and without direction, the laws of nature operate by design.

Publisher's Weekly

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0743237625&itm=2

I will read the book and get back to you. In the mean time, please post the evidence that Denton was a Young-Earther. (Oh, and I might state in your description of intermediary stages in the developments of the eye and wing, you provided no evidence that one came from the other? Also, your descriptions belie the intricacies of supposed intermediary systems which, in turn, are irreducibly complex.)

Now, considering that your statement of Denton's premises in his new book is nearly opposite that of the professional critics, I'm wondering if your interpretations of the citations you provided are reliable?

I'll look into them, though, and get back to you. But first, I'll purchase Denton's new book in which he "continues his assault" on Darwinian science.

 

[UTEOTW]

You did come back. Not that you addressed anything I posted or answered any of the specific questions directed at you.

"Denton, a Young-Earther? You'll have to post the evidence for that one."

Excuse me, I misspoke on that one.

But not the second part...

"Now a review of his "new" book, far from stating it's a correction of his earlier one, states that..."

Let's see what he has to say in that book.

It is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science--that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world--that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview.

He considers his view "mutatually exclusive" to yours and yet you wish to use him as a reference?

And...

...this is one case where he backs off his previous position by admitting to the "tiny incremental natural steps" that even you say he did not accept in the first book.

One of the most surprising discoveries which has arisen from DNA sequencing has been the remarkable finding that the genomes of all organisms are clustered very close together in a tiny region of DNA sequence space forming a tree of related sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental natural steps. So the sharp discontinuities...between different organs and adaptations and different types of organisms, which have been the bedrock of antievolutionary arguments for the past century, have now greatly been diminished at the DNA level.

And if you can post summaries, I guess I can too. This one (http://www.hobrad.com/etbooks.htm) says of the first book "Now somewhat obsolete in that Denton in his next book accepts evolution."

"Oh, and I might state in your description of intermediary stages in the developments of the eye and wing, you provided no evidence that one came from the other?"

The eye did not come from the wing. I don't know what you are trying to say here.

You had said, "But more than that, try to imagine the evolution of the eye or the wing. Any intermediary stage of such would only serve as a disadvantage to the species. Can you imagine an intermediary stage?"

For the eye, I posted how the intermediate stages of the eye would be fairly easy to come by through simple, gradual changes and showed that each step along the way would confer an advantage that the previous step lacked. I even gave a few examples along the way of animals that make use of the intermediate stages.

For the wing, I was more specific and showed how the muscles and skeleton of the wing developed for another purpose and then was later co-opted for flight later. I also showed that feathers came along far before flight and also for different purposes.

In both cases, I showed that you were wrong in your assertion that the intermediate stages would be a "disadvantage." I think waht you are getting at now is that, having failed in your first assertion, you are now going to claim that I did not provide enough details on the morphological changes with time. So if I spend a few hours digging out the various theropod transitionals and show you how the arms changed and how the feathers changed with time, is it going to make a difference to you? Is that what your cryptic comment above was even directed at? Do you doubt that the changes could not be shown to you if investigated?

"Also, your descriptions belie the intricacies of supposed intermediary systems which, in turn, are irreducibly complex.)"

Your assertion. First prove to us that something is irreducible complex and then we will examine your claims. It is hard to disprove something if you do not make a specific claim and offer some logic and data to support it.

"Now, considering that your statement of Denton's premises in his new book is nearly opposite that of the professional critics, I'm wondering if your interpretations of the citations you provided are reliable?

I'll look into them, though, and get back to you."

Hmmmm...So we both have claims about the book that say the opposite. But you admit that even in the first book that he says "evolution must have happened, not by a series of gradual mutations, but by punctuated equilibrium, which leaves no time for the intermediary stages to be preserved in the fossil record." So you are holding up someone who you admit accepts evolution as being an opponent of evolution. Strange logic there.

You must also remember something else about puncuated equilibrium. It seeks only to show why there are not a lot of transitional fossils at the species level, not at higher levels. That is a huge problem for your side since most YEers accept some change at the species level but deny it in the higher taxa.

Here is how Gould, perhaps the most famous of the puncuated equilibrium advocates stated this.

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know--as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups."

Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, 1983, Norton, New York.

So, now that you're back on the thread, do you have any answers for the myriad of questions asked to you and points made against your position? Or are you happy to ignore all of them, presumably because they cannot be addressed factually and logically by your side, and change your claims as you have done in your last post?

 

[Aaron]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
You did come back. Not that you addressed anything I posted or answered any of the specific questions directed at you.

Read my post again. I said that I would look into your citations and "get back to you. But first, I'll purchase Denton's new book..."

Let's see what he has to say in that book.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />It is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science--that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world--that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview.

</font>[/QUOTE]Look at what he said in the first segment of boldened text. The guiding principle for modern scientific investigation is an assumption. So, the idea of Creation or Intelligent Design is rejected NOT because of the evidence, but because of the philosophy.

That's the way it has to be, because it is a premise quite outside the realm of scientific investigation.

And, yes, it IS entirely opposed to the Creationist assumption of the literal interpretation of Genesis, but the opposition is philosophical only, NOT data-driven. That's why his first chapter was Genesis Rejected.

In the second set of boldened text, he states emphatically that the correct interpretation of the data depends on that presumption.

In the last paragraph, though, he mistates the argument. The heart of the debate is not about opposing sets of evidence. It's the same evidence—when it's faithfully presented that is. The debate is about how to interpret it.

That's why I said morphology (and the "new" DNA evidence is simply morphology under a microscope) is not in and of itself evidence of cause and effect. It can be. But, depending on one's basic assumption, just as easily can be evidence of the same mind at work in all of life.

He considers his view "mutatually exclusive" to yours and yet you wish to use him as a reference?

As an authority on Darwinism—not Creation. Moses is the authority on Creation. I, of course, have not had first-hand exposure to the evidence of evolution. I only know what I have read. I cannot on my own authority say there is no evidence of intermediary stages in the evolution of life in the fossil record, or ANY record for that matter.

Denton did, and did so with flawless integrity. The main criticisms of his book were philosophical only. He could not be dismissed as a quack or a liar.

And...

...this is one case where he backs off his previous position by admitting to the "tiny incremental natural steps" that even you say he did not accept in the first book.

One of the most surprising discoveries which has arisen from DNA sequencing has been the remarkable finding that the genomes of all organisms are clustered very close together in a tiny region of DNA sequence space forming a tree of related sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental natural steps. So the sharp discontinuities...between different organs and adaptations and different types of organisms, which have been the bedrock of antievolutionary arguments for the past century, have now greatly been diminished at the DNA level.

Actually, the DNA level is a weaker argument. DNA, as we've been taught, is information. If we analyze all your posts on the Baptist Board at the byte level, we would find an amazing similarity in sequences, and some differing only by what we could call "small increments."

Now depending on my presumptions, I could say these sequences are the product of an intelligent will, or I could say they're evidence that one post is related to the other and descended from a common ancestral post.

These presumptions are easily tested, however. Not so with the theory of evolution. It can't be tested, and neither can Creation.

And if I approached your pages of text using equidistant letter sequences, as in the so-called Bible codes, I could make your posts say anything I wanted.

It's much easier when I can start arguing with your posts at the byte level.

But it all still depends on my presumptions, as Denton said. Even when looking at the DNA sequences, his "whole argument ... is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world..."

But now, that all the places evolutionists insisted for over a century that should abound with evidence of Darwinian evolution have yielded none, and laboring under the shadow of notoriety for perpetrating a host of frauds, we're to suddenly accept their claims that the evidence for Darwinian evolution is clear at the DNA level where the general public cannot see it, and where the information can be made to say practically anything? It's only evident to the secret conclave of microbiologists?

We'll see.

But the argument is really not about the evidence iself, except when there is a fundamental lack thereof as in the case of Darwinism. The argument is about who gets to interpret it.

Anyway, as I said, I'll read Denton's book, then get back to you.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Read my post again. I said that I would look into your citations and 'get back to you. But first, I'll purchase Denton's new book...'"

Sure, get Denton's book and when you finish we can have a lively discussion on whatever parts of Denton you wish to present for us.

In the mean time, the vast majority of the items on the table here have nothing to do with whether or not we agree on what Denton has to say and can be addressed now.

"Look at what he said in the first segment of boldened text. The guiding principle for modern scientific investigation is an assumption. So, the idea of Creation or Intelligent Design is rejected NOT because of the evidence, but because of the philosophy.

That's the way it has to be, because it is a premise quite outside the realm of scientific investigation."

Of course any kind of scientific investigation has to exclude the supernatural phenomenon. Do you have an idea of how to set up tests for whether an action is the result of the supernatural? Do you not take your medicine because the doctors who did the clinical trials made the assumption that it was the medicine producing the observed effects and not the supernatural? Do you think that NASA could have hiot the comet more easily this week by allowing that we might be wrong about gravity and there might actually be angels pushing objects around the solar system? Should we abandon the scientific explanation of why hydrogen and oxygen in the right proportions make water and instead allow the supposition that God has a hand in each and every water molecule?

Or maybe all of these things obey the laws that God Himself setup.

Do you disagree with Denton that the universe is capable of being understood by humans? Do you disagree with Denton that it is possible to explain what we see in terms of natural processes? Do you disagree with Denton's acceptance that evolution happened?

You brought Denton into this. Don't tell me that you now disagree with what he has to say. You aren't going to refer to someone as an expert that should be heeded and then ignore most of what he has to say are you?

"In the last paragraph, though, he mistates the argument. The heart of the debate is not about opposing sets of evidence. It's the same evidence—when it's faithfully presented that is. The debate is about how to interpret it."

Yes, and on the last page, you were given many opportunities to re-interpret the data. I do not see them at this time. For example, why do whales possess the full genetic set of genes for making the type of olfactory senses that land dwelling animals have?

"I cannot on my own authority say there is no evidence of intermediary stages in the evolution of life in the fossil record, or ANY record for that matter. Denton did, and did so with flawless integrity. "

Did he? You claimed before that he was advocating puncuated equilibrium. PE says that many of the intermediate forms at the species level are missing because of relatively rapid change but that we have abundant examples of transitionals at the higher levels of taxonomy. This was all shown to you on the last page. So are you now changing your argument about what Denton said about the fossil record?

"Now depending on my presumptions, I could say these sequences are the product of an intelligent will, or I could say they're evidence that one post is related to the other and descended from a common ancestral post."

Hmmmm. Except that my posts are not the product of sexual reproduction with random variations that are acted upon by selective forces. So your analogy fails the test of relevence.

"But now, that all the places evolutionists insisted for over a century that should abound with evidence of Darwinian evolution have yielded none"

You must have missed something along the way. The evidence for evolution has been found in overwhelming abundance. From the twin nested heirarchy to the shared retroviral inserts to present biogeography to past biogeography to the agreement between the different phylogenies to the shared pseudogenes to anatomical parahomology to ontogeny to molecular parahomology to atavisms to vestiges and so on and so on.

"...and laboring under the shadow of notoriety for perpetrating a host of frauds..."

You list for me frauds in current use to support evolution and I will list two creationist frauds for each.

"...we're to suddenly accept their claims that the evidence for Darwinian evolution is clear at the DNA level where the general public cannot see it, and where the information can be made to say practically anything? It's only evident to the secret conclave of microbiologists?"

It's all published although the general public may lack the background to understand it. Anyone is free to go down to their local university and learn the needed skills to analyze the publications. Of course medicine advances despite the public's lack of understanding and quantum mechanics advances despite the general public's lack of understanding and superconduction research marches forward despite the general public's lack of understanding.

 

[UTEOTW]

"That's why I said morphology (and the "new" DNA evidence is simply morphology under a microscope) is not in and of itself evidence of cause and effect. It can be. But, depending on one's basic assumption, just as easily can be evidence of the same mind at work in all of life."

I tried to do this with this post.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3019/3.html#000042

Let's try again with a different approach.

The question to be asked is what interpretation best explains the evidence that we observe. As new information comes in, it will either support your interpretation or contradict it. Support tells you that you are on the right track. Contradiction tells you that you need to rethink your theory.

The first observation that gets discussed is morphology. Now if we look at the animals that are alive today and the animals that the fossil record tells us were alive in the past, we see that the form a nested heirarchy. All by itself this could mean that all of these animals were produced by common descent or by common designer. (As a note, I am not trying to set up a false dilemma here. I recognize that there may be other explanations that could be put forward but I am purposely restricting the discussion to the two possibilities under discussion.) So you have to go to the next observation.

The next most obvious observation is genetic. If you examine all the different types of genetic material that has been tested and use it to construct phylogenic trees, you find that you get much the same pattern as you do when you arrange the fossils by morphology. Let's see how these observations stack up.

One easy test is to look at just the functional genes. These can again be used to support common descent or a common designer. Both will claim that creatures that are the most similar should have the most similar DNA.

But you can start to untangle the two by looking into further types of genetic material that is not related to the functional part of DNA. One example would be to look at retroviral inserts. These happen when a virus inserts part of its genome into its host. If this happens in a reproductive cell, then the genome of the virus can be passed on to the offspring. Since this has nothing to do with the functional part of the genome, it can shed light on the situation for us. For example, if common descent were true, then you would expect the retroviral DNA to show the same pattern as the other lines of observation. If a common designer were the true explanation, then you would expect a random distribution of the retroviral inserts when compared between the species. In fact, you see that the pattern follws that which wbe expected of common descent. The common designer option cannot explain this pattern.

If you take the retroviral discussion and repeat it with things like paralogs, pseudogenes, retrotransposons and such you will find the same result. One pattern would be predicted by common descent and another by a common designer but the patterns only fit that of common descent. For example, whales have a complete set of psuedogenes identical to what land based animals possess for their sence of smell. If whales evolved from land based ancestors, this is easily explained. But if they were recently created as is, there is no reason for them to possess such useless genes. A common designer advocate is forced into giving an arbitrary, ad-hoc explanation for this observation.

From here let's move on to other topics. Let's first loook at atavisms. We have brought a few into discussion already. Atavistic legs on whales. Two extra toes on horses. Unfused leg bones in horses. Atavistic tails on humans. The observation is that these atavisms ONLY manifest themselves in a pattern consistent with the phylogenic trees generated from the other lines of evidence. The atavisms only make parts that were possessed by their ancestors in the common descent interpretation. You never see atavisms that fail to follow this pattern. Common descent offers a simple explanation. The common designer option gives no reason why we should expect whales to have genes for making legs of humans to have genes for making tails. They are again forced into capricious explanations.

Development tells a similar story.This has the potential to get rather complicated, so I'll stick with an example already in play. We observe that whales go through a developmental stage in which they possess rear legs. Again, this shared developmental trait follows the same pattern as the other lines of evidence. Common descent offers a simple reason for this to be the case. A common designer has no logical reason to send whales through a stage with legs which must later be reabsorbed.

This can keep going for a long time. If you look at other areas of evidence, you keep coming back to the observation that all the bits always fit the tree that you get from morphology and genetics. This is true for parahomlogy. This is true for vestiges. This is true for the chronology of the fossils. Every observation that you make brings you back to these same trees.

So the question is which interpretation of the data fits the observations. The answer is that common descent offers a simple and compelling answer for each one. A common designer can be hypothesized for some of the observations but for many of the observations, the evidence is the opposite of what would be expected. The only recourse for YEers is to ignore these contradictions. BUt you really must worry about someone's ideas when they must ignore so much.

 

[Aaron]

"Look at what he said in the first segment of boldened text. The guiding principle for modern scientific investigation is an assumption. So, the idea of Creation or Intelligent Design is rejected NOT because of the evidence, but because of the philosophy.

That's the way it has to be, because it is a premise quite outside the realm of scientific investigation."

Of course any kind of scientific investigation has to exclude the supernatural phenomenon. Do you have an idea of how to set up tests for whether an action is the result of the supernatural?

Let me clarify my statement. The premise that "the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes," is just as much outside the realm of scientific investigation as the act of Creation itself. That's why it has to be an assumption—a statement of faith, really.

Creation is rejected by "science" NOT because of the data, but because of the philosophy.

But no, a naturalistic presupposition is NOT required to learn about nature. On the contrary, pioneers like Pasteur and Newton proceded on the antithesis of Naturalism. They, as Newton stated, were "thinking God's thoughts after Him."

Neither is a naturalistic presupposition required to motivate someone to study the physical universe, just as knowing that Henry Ford invented the Model T is no obstacle to those who are interested in studying the automobile.

Neither does the understanding that all the technology in this world exists because of an intelligent will prevent the engineers in my workplace from designing better and more efficient diodes and transistors.

Do you not take your medicine because the doctors who did the clinical trials made the assumption that it was the medicine producing the observed effects and not the supernatural? Do you think that NASA could have hiot the comet more easily this week by allowing that we might be wrong about gravity and there might actually be angels pushing objects around the solar system?

These are not presumptions, and are examples of things that are testable, and in no way support the idea that Naturalism was the illuminating doctrine.

But science can neither predict nor rule out the supernatural. I'm told of an ass that spoke, of an ax head that swam, of fire from heaven to ignite the wood under an altar, of the sun traveling backward, of a virgin birth, of the dead being raised back to life, of leprosy healed, a severed ear being restored with a mere touch, of a Resurrection from the dead.

All of these are supernatural interferences with nature, but, for your premises to be valid, could never have happened. Darwinism requires that "all phenomena" has to be explainable by naturalistic means.

Ultimately, the philosophical basis of modern science can only be rational to a mind that either cannot or refuses to believe in miracles.

Should we abandon the scientific explanation of why hydrogen and oxygen in the right proportions make water and instead allow the supposition that God has a hand in each and every water molecule?

This again, is not an assumption. Water molecules are testable. But how is the idea that God has a hand in each water molecule less rational than the assumption that the first water molecule was formed by the chance meeting of oxgen and hydrogen, or that the first oxygen atom was formed by the chance meeting of 16 electrons, 16 protrons and 16 neutrons? Or worse, that they have simply always existed?

It isn't.

Again, it's only foolish to an unbelieving or obstinate mind.

Do you disagree with Denton that the universe is capable of being understood by humans? Do you disagree with Denton that it is possible to explain what we see in terms of natural processes? Do you disagree with Denton's acceptance that evolution happened?

You brought Denton into this. Don't tell me that you now disagree with what he has to say. You aren't going to refer to someone as an expert that should be heeded and then ignore most of what he has to say are you?

Don't be ridiculous. It is not required that one demonstrate flawless accuracy in order to be regarded as an authority in a given discipline. Neither is it required that one agree with every postulation of an authority in order to appeal to him.

He CANNOT be dismissed as misinformed, a quack or a liar. The biggest objections to his book were philosophical.

He did not deal with DNA mapping in his first book. So, no, his second book is not a treatise on why, as you said, "all he had to say in the first book was wrong." He has not changed his mind on the lack of evidence the fossile record, the failure of morphology, and the irreducible complexities of the biological systems we observe. And the fact that he is not a Creationist, only further shields him from the accusation that he has an ax to grind. (You attempted to discredit him as a young-earther.)

Anyway, you may have copious amounts of leisure time to post on the Baptist Board, but I don't. I will read the book, and your posts and get back to you.

BTW, did you read the primary sources in the citations you made, or are these listed in another work? If so, what are the works from which you got your citations so that I may review them?

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Some scientist are atheists. Some scientists are Christians. Some scientists are undecided. They all approach science with the same rules of inquirey and are able to work together by simply ignoring that other part of their lives, when they are doing science.

As a Christian, I would expect a miracle to leave behind a trace. If a man is healed by a miracle, I expect him to be lame at one moment and leaping around another. That is evidence.

There is evidence for the common descent of all current life. Traces that are as convincing as the leaping of a former paralytic. All your complaints about the philosophical leanings of the scientists involved is to no avail. It ignores the evidence.

Denton is not being dismissed as a quack or a liar. He is being dismissed for ignoring the evidence. He claims there is no evidence, which is proof he ignores it.

 

[UTEOTW]

So you still choose to ignore the data? That is what someone who wishes to hold a YE view must normally do. You still have not made a response to the data presented, to the questions asked of you, or to the challenges of your earlier assertions.

You have made a big deal out of a lot of things but then never bothered to mention them again when your assertions are challeneged. I think I at least deserve a logical and factually supported answer to the observations that I showed in my last post that all point to same set of facts and the difficulty that YE has in explaining these observation without resorting to arbitrary and capricious ad hoc assertions.

"BTW, did you read the primary sources in the citations you made, or are these listed in another work? If so, what are the works from which you got your citations so that I may review them? "

Some of the references I find on my own and some I come across when reading about other things. I have give the primary citations for many of these. Those are not hard to find. For some the full papers are available online while most give you access to at least the abstract. For example, in my claim to support the whale's relationship to the other artiodactyls I use the following.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v388/n6643/abs/388666a0_fs.html

The origin of whales and their transition from terrestrial life to a fully aquatic existence has been studied in depth. Palaeontological,, morphological and molecular studies suggest that the order Cetacea (whales, dolphins and porpoises) is more closely related to the order Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates, including cows, camels and pigs) than to other ungulate orders. The traditional view that the order Artiodactyla is monophyletic has been challenged by molecular analyses of variations in mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. We have characterized two families of short interspersed elements (SINEs) that were present exclusively in the genomes of whales, ruminants and hippopotamuses, but not in those of camels and pigs. We made an extensive survey of retropositional events that might have occurred during the divergence of whales and even-toed ungulates. We have characterized nine retropositional events of a SINE unit, each of which provides phylogenetic resolution of the relationships among whales, ruminants, hippopotamuses and pigs. Our data provide evidence that whales, ruminants and hippopotamuses form a monophyletic group.

 

[Aaron]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Denton is not being dismissed as a quack or a liar. He is being dismissed for ignoring the evidence. He claims there is no evidence, which is proof he ignores it.

...which would make him a liar.

It's the very "evidence" of Darwinism that he exposed as unsubstantiated conclusions. He ignored nothing, and that's why he is a credible witness.

 

[Aaron]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
So you still choose to ignore the data?

Nope. You'll just have to give me time to review it. That's all.

Summary of our argument so far:

Me: Evidence is interpreted according to presuppositions.

You: No, it's not. (You then post a quote from Michael Denton that says it is.)

Me: See? Naturalism is a philosophical assumption, not a data-driven conclusion.

You: Well, it has to be that way or we get bad science.

Me: No we don't.

You: What about all my citations?

Me: You just have to sit on them for a few days while I look them up.

You: You young-earthers are just ignoring the facts!

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Yup, you young-earthers are ignoring facts such as the distance starlight has obviously covered and the time it would take to cover that distance, the presence of single explanation, the one true tree of life of common descent that explains so many separate things such as the patterns seen in the morphology of fossils and modern skeletons and modern flesh, the patterns repeated in the development of embryos, the patterns seen in the similar chemicals that make living celss function, the patterns seen in the genetic code, the patterns seen in the retroviral insertions, the results from analysing radioactive decay daughter elements, the results from geological anallysis, the results from analysis of tidal interactions of galaxies, the results from studies of plate tectonics . .

Yes, you ignore all that and more.

 

[Bro. James]

Do not forget the Piltdown Man.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Bro. James:
Do not forget the Piltdown Man.

Selah,

Bro. James

Oh, its ok to ignore him!

 

[Aaron]

I've ordered Denton's book, and I'm still reviewing your evidence. It's difficult to wade through a lot of the technical terminiology, but in time, I'll have myself educated enough to understand what they're trying to say.

I could not find your Trends Genetics article online, so I posted a question or two about it.

The presumptions were more readily identifiable in some of your other evidence, and I pointed them out.

"Adaptive evolution after gene duplication," Hughes AL, Trends Genetics, 2002 Sep.18(9):433-4.

A gene was duplicated and one of the copies mutated to give rise to a new function.

Was the gene duplicated in a laboratory, or was this duplication observed in nature?

What was the nature of the mutation? Did new DNA spontaneously generate to add information, or did it simply rearrange itself to form the new function?

What was the new function, and what old functions were affected?

Another way to produce new proteins exists without even having to mutate the genes. It is called alternative splicing. Genes consists of exon and intron sections. During the process of converting the DNA to protein, the introns are removed and the exons spliced together. Yet organisms can change this splicing such that while the original protein is still made, a new protein is also made by various changes to the process. Maybe an intron is not removed. Maybe an extra exon is removed. There are even more complicated examples. In each case, a new protein is formed from the same raw genetic material without changing the protein that works. When you add point mutations and the copying around of transposable elements, this becomes an even better way to make new proteins.

Another way to get new proteins is to get them from other species. An example. A retrovirus can insert its genetic material into its host. Sometimes this happens in a germ line cell and the virus DNA gets passed on. It happens often enough that a sizable percentage of our DNA are retroviral inserts. These genes can also be subject to mutation and might be made into something useful. Here is an example of that happening.

"Syncytin is a captive retroviral envelope protein involved in human placental morphogenesis," Mi S, Lee X, Li X, Veldman GM, Finnerty H, Racie L, LaVallie E, Tang XY, Edouard P, Howes S, Keith JC Jr, McCoy JM, Nature 2000 Feb 17;403(6771):785-9.

I found the abstract of this online here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=Display&DB=pubmed

Many mammalian viruses have acquired genes from their hosts during their evolution. The rationale for these acquisitions is usually quite clear: the captured genes are subverted to provide a selective advantage to the virus. Here we describe the opposite situation, where a viral gene has been sequestered to serve an important function in the physiology of a mammalian host. This gene, encoding a protein that we have called syncytin, is the envelope gene of a recently identified human endogenous defective retrovirus, HERV-W. We find that the major sites of syncytin expression are placental syncytiotrophoblasts, multinucleated cells that originate from fetal trophoblasts. We show that expression of recombinant syncytin in a wide variety of cell types induces the formation of giant syncytia, and that fusion of a human trophoblastic cell line expressing endogenous syncytin can be inhibited by an anti-syncytin antiserum. Our data indicate that syncytin may mediate placental cytotrophoblast fusion in vivo, and thus may be important in human placental morphogenesis.

First, notice the glaring presumption in bold. All they've done is observe a process then assume that this is a mechanism in evolution. It could have just as easily been assumed to have always occurred. To say that it is evidence of evolution is an incredible leap unless that particular protein was known not to be used in the growth of the human placenta in the past, or wasn't in use in the past until inserted by a virus.

Something to remember is, that a retrovirus cannot simply insert its DNA into a host's unless the host's DNA is compatible with it. That happening by chance is less probable than being able, by chance, to run a MAC application on an IBM.

(Creationists, you can read an interesting article on new information about viruses and see the same kind of evidence interpreted from a creationist assumption here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i1/viruses.asp#b33 )

Again, same evidence, just a different presumption.

Let's look specifically at the evolution of resistance to the antibiotic vancomycin.

Vancomycin works by attacking the D-alanyl-D-alanine in the cell wall of the bacterium. There are two genes, VanR and VanS, whose job is to make proteins to detect the presence of vancomycin. When detected, a cascade of other enzymes are created to protect the cell. VanH starts by converting precursor materials into D-lactate. VanA then joins the D-lactate with D-alanyl to make D-alanyl-D-lactate, instead of D-alanyl-D-alanine which is usually used in the cell wall. VanX hydrolyzes the D-alanyl-D-alanine that is still being made before it can be used in the cell wall.

This is the usual process, but there are variations. Some bacteria have VanB instead of VanA to make D-alanyl-D-lactate. Some bacteria replace the D-alanyl instead and make D-serine-D-alanine component instead of D-alanyl-D-lactate.

Once the resistance evolved, it was spread through plasmids.

You're not telling us that the defense could not have been accomplished unless the information for the defense process was already there. And, more specifically, the bacteria could not have shielded themselves against Vancomycin unless it already had VanR and VanS or something similar. New information was not observed to be created.

Plasmids are little loops of DNA transfered from one bacterium to another in a kind of sex act. But bacteria were always transferring their DNA to one another that way since we've been observing them. The real story is that the bacteria that did NOT have a defense for Vancomycin died, and the those that did have one survived and lived to reproduce.

Again, the population changed, not the organisms.

(Creationists, here is another little article that explains "evolved" resistances to antibiotics from a Creationist perspective. Again, same evidence, different presumptions, and a little more of the real story. Pay special attention to #3, Some germs become resistant through mutation.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/superbugs.asp )

 

[UTEOTW]

"I could not find your Trends Genetics article online, so I posted a question or two about it."

OK.

"What was the new function, and what old functions were affected?"

The new function was to gain the ability to digest bacterial RNA. I do not know of any other functions that were affected but the nature of the change seems to indicate that there should not have been an effect.

"Was the gene duplicated in a laboratory, or was this duplication observed in nature?"

This happened in the wild but I fail to understand how the setting of a mutation affects the situation.

"What was the nature of the mutation? Did new DNA spontaneously generate to add information, or did it simply rearrange itself to form the new function?"

You'll have to define the difference for me to answer the question. But I do not see how you could define a new genetic sequence that did not previously exist that forms a protein that confers a function that did not previously exist as anything other than new "information." Here is how the abstract descried it. "Following duplication of the ancestral ribonuclease gene, adaptation occurred through a series of changes in the amino acid sequence of the protein it encodes. This example is a good illustration of how specialization of protein function after gene duplication can be as source of novel protein functions."

"First, notice the glaring presumption in bold. All they've done is observe a process then assume that this is a mechanism in evolution. It could have just as easily been assumed to have always occurred."

I fail to follow your logic here. The question before us is whehter or not there are means to add information (which it seems you may need to define for us in a quantifiable manner to continue this discussion) or if all mutations are, as you asserted, harmful. Showing mutations that are beneficial and which provide new functions serve to dispel your assertion. I would also expect that the mechanisms of evolution would "have always occurred" or at least for a very long time so you need to flesh out that objection a bit.

"To say that it is evidence of evolution is an incredible leap unless that particular protein was known not to be used in the growth of the human placenta in the past, or wasn't in use in the past until inserted by a virus."

By defintion, since the genetic material was acquired from a virus, the gene was not present in humans until after the infection that inserted the sequence into a germ line cell that was used for reproduction and then fixed into the population. Only after the sequence was acquired could it mutate into something useful. If you doubt this, then perhaps you can provide data that shows that another stretch of huam DNA also makes the same protein but without the markings of a retroviral insert.

"Something to remember is, that a retrovirus cannot simply insert its DNA into a host's unless the host's DNA is compatible with it. That happening by chance is less probable than being able, by chance, to run a MAC application on an IBM."

There is a problem with your logic. If they did not use the same code, then the virus could not invade and take over the hosts machinery for cranking out more viral DNA (or RNA) and viral proteins to make new little virii. They could not exist if they did not share the same code.

In addition, it is not random that all life shares essentially the same code. It is shared due to sommon descent so there is no game of chance involved. Now the common genetic code is another one of those peices of evidence that can be used to support either common descent or a common designer. It must be conceded that a common designer would be expected to use the same genetic code for translating DNA into proteins. However this also is where the common designer explanation has a slight weakness. There are some organisms with variations on the code. They may use a different amino acid than another organism for the same three letter codon. It becomes arbitrary to try and argue that a common designer would give all of life the exact same code except for a handful of organisms with variatins from the code. But in common descent, it merely becomes a bit of variety.

"You're not telling us that the defense could not have been accomplished unless the information for the defense process was already there. And, more specifically, the bacteria could not have shielded themselves against Vancomycin unless it already had VanR and VanS or something similar. New information was not observed to be created."

So you are telling me that bacteria made a protein that destroys their own cell wall for no good reason. That is until vancomycin came along.

So you are telling me that God created bacteria initially with a defense against an antibiotic that would not come along for quite a while? That does not seem very nice.

So you are telling me that God created bacteria initially with a defense against an antibiotic that would not come along for quite a while and that this useless set of genes with no selective pressure to be kept and the nasty side affect of having a component that destroys its own cell wall stayed in tact through millions of generations of bacteria?

"Plasmids are little loops of DNA transfered from one bacterium to another in a kind of sex act. But bacteria were always transferring their DNA to one another that way since we've been observing them. The real story is that the bacteria that did NOT have a defense for Vancomycin died, and the those that did have one survived and lived to reproduce."

Yeah...Natural selection.

"Again, the population changed, not the organisms."

Yes, evolution is something that happens to populations and not individuals.

This idea is a key part of puncutated equilibrium. During periods of relative stasis, random mutations accumulate in the population. Those that re harmful are selected out while there may be a few benefits and many neutral mutations. But when conditions change, then selection upon those formally neutral mutations will show some to give a competitive advantage. They will become beneficial and will be preserved. This underlying supply of new sequences to choose from gives the diversity to allwo for relatively rapid evolution.

Now was there some lucky bacterium out there with all these parts when vancomycin came along or did it evolve in response to the selective pressures once the antibiotic was introduced, I don't know. It seems possible that some other mechanism conferred a different advantage long enough for the better system to evolve.

There is an intersting experiment that I have heard described that is revelant. Take a single bacteria and culture it. All of the subsequent bacteria will have come from this one bacterium and thus will have started with its genetic makeup. Introduce something, say an antibiotic, to the culture after a while. Some of the bacteria will live and some will die and this is because some will have collected random mutations that make the bacteria more likely to survive and some have collected mutations that make them less likely to survive. Unfortunately, we run this same experiment in our own bodies all too often when we fail to complete prescribed doses of antibiotics.

But it cannot be denied that when vancomycin was introduced that some had or gained resistance while others did not. If they were all created as is, why was it not an all or nothing proposistion. That there was variety, some of which conferred an advantage, is an example of evolution in action.

And the example counters the #3 you point to above. This is not some defective gene. It is a cascade of interacting genes that takes a specific action in response to a specific threat. That is the real story.

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by Bro. James:
Do not forget the Piltdown Man.

Selah,

Bro. James

What do we not want to forget? That someone tried to pull a fast one over and that science through its normal course was able to show that it was a hoax. You are trying to show us that hoaxsters, crackpots, cheaters and the like should choose a field other than the sciences because you will be exposed, correct? That is if you are willing to put your ideas to the test. Now if we could just get YEers to submit their work to professional peer reviewed journals and be subject to the same level of scrutiny as actual science.

I guess this was supposed to be an answer to my request that the charge of frauds in the sciences be substantiated. I suppose the answer means that you could not find an actual case of current fraud so you went fishing. I'll still fulfill my end of the bargin bt exposing two current cases of YE fraud.

---------------

Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 146-147.

Morris based this on a legitimate paper [Funkhouser, J. G. and J. J. Naughton, 1968. Radiogenic helium and argon in ultramafic inclusions from Hawaii. Journal of Geophysical Research 73(14): 4601-4607. ] thatwas fdoing testing on some rocks from a recent lava flow in Hawaii.

Now, when rocks are heated to a sufficiently high temperature and are melted, the argon in the rocks escape. When the lava hardens into rock, the potassium-40 begins decaying into Ar-39. By measuring the ratios, a date can be determined. Now if the rocks are not heated sufficiently, the argon does not escape and the rocks will date older than they really are.

Funkhouser and Naughton were purposely removing xenoliths from the rocks that did not melt to see how much older they would date. Of course they dated as old because they had not been reset by melting. They also tested the bulk rocks and found that the ages were zero, as expected.

So Morris takes the data that measured too old, ignores the known reason that it dated too old, and then claims that radiometric dating does not work. If he actually read the paper, he should know better. It was easy to see and was even the purpose of the work.

---------------------

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-224.htm

"The observation that obviously recent lava flows from the north rim of Grand Canyon give ages even older than the deeply buried lava flows, challenges the basic assumptions upon which the isochron dating method is based. The discovery of an "old age" in an obviously "young" series of lava flows has encouraged further research at ICR."

Basically what Austin is claiming is that isochron dating does not work because it yielded a date for a lava flow older than a lava flow that was underneath it. But there are some things that he is not telling the reader.

When selecting samples for isochron dating, they must be cogenetic, that is they must have been isotopically homogeneous. Austin selected samples that did not meet this requirement. Instead they came from four different flows and a phenocryst, a grain that was not melted when the lava flowed but that likely solidified in the magma chamber from which the flows came.

Even better is that geologists will sometimes deliberately choose non-cogenetic samples. Why? Because they can be used to determine the age of the common source material for the different flows. Austin is aware of this possiblity because he cites an article on this very thing. ( http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-178.htm , C. Brooks, D.E. James, and S.R. Hart, "Ancient Lithosphere: Its Role in Young Continental Volcanism," Science, 193 (17 Sept. 1976): 1086-1094.)

So what this means is that he was dating the lithosphere under the older flow. This was already known to be older than the other flow (it is underneath for the obvious one).

Austin incorrectly carried out an isochron dating, knew what his mistakes were, knew what he was actually dating, and still submits this as evidence that isochron dating does not work.

 

[Aaron]

UTEOTW said:
Where do you get the idea that Eistein would have been an obscure biologists if he had gone into that field...

Can you name one naturalistic biologist from the 20th Century who has influenced our understanding of the physical universe as much as Einstein?

...and why does it matter to the discussion.

Because, as I keep saying, to interpret what one sees in biology today as evidence of evolution one must come to it with the presupposition that what we see today evolved. It's begging the question. Einstein came to his discipline with the assumption that the physical laws we see today have always been in operation more or less the same way since Creation. Had he been forced to adopt the arbitrary assumption that gravity evolved, he would have been attempting to explain what he saw in those terms and it would have slowed him down immensely. Had he been a biologist he would be forced by orthodoxy, not evidence, to assume that variation within a species turned fish into mammals, and that would stifle him much like it has biologists today.

Next question... JUst what is a "vestigial principles" in physics?

There are none, that's the point.

Finally, we should look at Einstein in the area in which he was qualified. Einstein, one of the greatest physicists ever, accepted the Big Bang origin of the universe. Why should we not trust him? How is his opinion much different than those you argue against here who accept, as you have asserted about Einstein, that God made the laws of the universe and the universe obeys His rules?

Einstein is best known for General Relativity. GR theories are testable through mathematics, and they hold out. What you are probably not aware of is that to get the Big Bang out of GR, one must approach it with the arbitrary assumption of an unbounded universe, one with no edge or center. (This is more complex than it sounds. Imagine dots equally spaced on the surface of a ball. The two-dimensional surface of the ball would represent our 3-D space—no center and no edge.) Crank that cosmology through the equations of GR, and the Big Bang seems to fit. But, approach GR with the assumption that the universe is bounded, with an edge and a center, and GR puts the Earth in the center of the universe at the beginning of Creation.

GR also reveals the non-linear nature of time. It is an established principle of GR that gravity affects time—not the timepiece, but time itself. Someone near the edge of the universe would not experience time like we would on earth. If we could shoot an astronaut to the edge of the universe and watch the clock in his ship in real time, the closer he got to the edge of the universe the faster his clock would run. In fact, everything would speed up from our point of view like a movie watched in fastforward, accelerating until it could no longer be seen. If our astronaut could live long enough, he would experience billions of years at the same "time" we experienced one Earth day.

Approached from a certain cosmology, GR supports the idea of a young earth and explains how light could traverse the vast distances it would have to in a "relatively" short amount of time.

Again, same evidence, different presuppositions.

But what motivates modern science to adopt the assumption of an unbounded earth? Only the established religion of modern science—Naturalism. They cannot accept the possibility that the earth could be in the center of the universe.

(Creationists, I recommend Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe by Dr. D. Russell Humphreys.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4389starlight10-10-2000.asp

Paul of Eugene, judging from his statement, "As a Christian, I would expect a miracle to leave behind a trace," may be interested in it as well as in this page:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/longday.asp )

"For instance, if our tonsils and appendices were really atavisms, as was commonly thought, there is no motivation to find out what they do or how to treat them when they're unhealthy, we just take them out."

Tonsils and appendices are not atavistic. They might be vestigal, but they are not atavsitic.

My mistake. Still, vestigal organs and atavisms are only labeled as such by presuppositions.

Not those tails that some babies are born with, they are atavistic.

The "tail" evidence was debunked long, long ago.

Once in a great while a child will be born with a "tail." But is it really a tail? No, it's just a bit of skin and fat that tells us, not about evolution, but about how our nervous systems develop. The nervous system starts stretched out open on the back. During development, it rises up in ridges and rolls shut. It starts to "zipper" shut in the middle first, then it zippers toward either end. Once in a while, it doesn't go back far enough, and that produces a serious defect called spina bifida. Sometimes it rolls a little too far. Then the baby will be born, not with a tail, but with a fatty tumor. It's just skin and a little fatty tissue, so the doctor can just cut it off. It's not at all like the tail of a cat, dog, or monkey that has muscle, bones, and nerve, so cutting it off is not complicated.

Creation Facts of Life, Gary Parker. Master Books, 1994.

Another physical phenomenon which some evolutionists have claimed in the past as evidence of evolutionary ancestry is when a child is born with a 'tail'. The 'tail', however, is really not a tail or part of the coccyx, but is rather a fatty tumour. The lesson to be learned, though, is that no one now claims it to be due to a 'reawakening' of human evolution.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i1/werewolf.asp