A few points.
Galatian, if science truly did “find the errors and deal with them”, there would not be such a hue and cry popping up with all regularity in even the sacrosanct Nature about the need to clean up the various fields! Entire books have been written with many examples of dishonesty and unethical handling of data in ‘mainstream science.’ In the meantime, you have to be intentionally blind to ignore the differences between morphological classifications and genetic evidence – if evidence it be.
Secondly, it is implied by you when you say “there is no barrier to greater and greater variation” that simple variation can lead to major morphological changes. As far as our actual knowledge lies, there seems to be a rather large barrier between variation and eventual major morphological changes. And the more we know about the self-check system of genetic replication and the dismantling of proteins on a periodic basis to re-use the acids, the greater that barrier is appearing. Are you ignoring all the evidence in this area?
Challenge: can you please show me on any multicellular level where variation has led to major morphological changes in our experience? I am not talking about size or color variation. I am talking about actual changes in the body of the organism of form or function.
Lynn Margulis has been lionized for her idea that mitochondria were once viable outside the cell. No one has bothered to find out if that is really true, however, have they? It was simply an idea which answered the question regarding the mitochondria having its own DNA. So she was hailed as a heroine by the evolutionary establishment and her idea accepted as virtual fact. Great scientific method there!
Challenge: Can you please direct me to where I can find literature giving evidence of a mitochondria living outside a cell today.
And the idea that a new species, if isolated long enough, will turn into a new genus or family or order or class is something straight out of the imagination. The truth of what we see is that isolated subpopulations inbreed so much that they become genetically fragile, unable to vary more. This is called over-speciation and is one reason we have so many endangered species. They do NOT become more robust and varied, but rather less robust and more inbred and endangered. Evolutionary theories such as yours regarding this kind of thing really could use a brush with reality, I think.
Challenge: please give extant examples of a subpopulation increasing in genetic variability and becoming more robust on its own.
Nor will the old canard work about humans being related to apes because of your taxonomic classifications! What the genetic similarities there show are a few things:
1. There is obviously more to the whole thing than the genetics we do know now.
2. We don’t know nearly enough about genetics.
It is also becoming apparent that the standard idea of the genome is deficient. There is more to heredity than what is found in the DNA. Any reasonably logical scientist, when looking at the similarities of DNA between ape and man would have to ask himself, “What else is going on here?” Instead, you folks have jumped all over the idea that genetic similarities prove relationships. We do know, as you stated, that those with proven relationships do have similar DNA, and that would be expected. But to extrapolate from there and say the degree of similarity shows the degree of relatedness among different kinds (generic word) of organisms is a leap of faith (and yes, does indicate the religious nature of evolutionism) which has no basis in what we have actually seen. It is based on pure presumption that evolution is true in the first place. Good science should, I think, proceed a little more slowly than that kind of leap.
The definition of kind is, basically, ‘original population.’ You see, where you evolutionists are presuming a common ancestor, we are presuming something different. We are presuming that there was an initial creation of distinct populations of plants and animals, and that these are what ‘kind’ means. Right now the only way I know for sure regarding testing is to see which apparently dissimilar animals can achieve viable hybrids. I know there is a lot of work being done genetically here, as well, but I honestly don’t think we have enough knowledge of genetics yet to make this a sure way to test.
About Hall’s work: the mutations would not have come about had he not knocked out the original metabolic pathway and then stood back to see what happened. Let me know when you see that kind of knockout happen naturally, OK?
Going on through your multitudinous replies: ID is not just theistic evolution. It has nothing to say about theology at all, although theistic evolution can certainly fit under its umbrella. ID (Intelligent Design) simply uses scientific testing to see if, biologically, the kind of design is evident that would imply some kind of intelligent designer. It says nothing about the identity or work of that designer except to imply that he/she/it probably exists due to evidence and testing done. It is a tremendous straw man for the evolutionists to fight ID on the basis of some kind of religious accusation. It runs along the lines of opposition to forensic testing because someone is denying that anyone is murdered and therefore there cannot be a murderer. Testing is done not to establish the identity of the murderer but to establish whether a murder was committed in the first place. ID is doing the exact same thing: ‘was intelligent design committed here?” If so, then people and ideas are free to do what they like with the identity, if such is even available.
If your concept of the intelligent designer runs along the lines proposed by theistic evolution, that’s fine with ID. If your concept of intelligent designer runs along the lines proposed by Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or anything else, ID could care less. That is not its territory.
Yes, I know the more educated one is, the more likely one is to accept evolution. After all, in order to get those degrees, you had to not only be steeped in it for years, but possibly have to accept it as well for your grad instructor to give you a passing grade. What is interesting, though, are the reports coming through of more men and women with those advanced degrees who started out as evolutionists and ended up saying, at the very least, “this is not working the way evolution says it should.” A number of those abandon evolution altogether when they see the ‘what if’ framework it is built on.
Yes, of course genetic and molecular evidence is evidence. The question is, “of what?” There is more to indicate the answer is ‘common design’ than ‘common heritage.’ In order to preserve the ‘common heritage’ answer, we are seeing more and more often that things like eyes, wings, and other complex body parts must have ‘evolved’ more than once. Aside from presumption and interpretation, there is no more evidence for that than of a cow jumping over the moon.
The point about the insects in amber and the DNA involved – since you missed it! – was that you simply cannot use DNA from extinct animals’ fossils to try to prove anything, or even to ‘indicate’ anything!
About generation times: they mean EVERYTHING in terms of evolution. Go ahead, get from a fish to a mammal in a couple of billion years using generation times and mutation rates. Don’t forget that sexual reproduction eliminates most mutations of any variety. Don’t forget that things like joints must have all their working parts together in order to support anything. Don’t forget that there is no posited transition between gills and lungs. Don’t forget cold-blooded to warm-blooded. Don’t forget scales to hair. Don’t forget that generation times lengthen with complexity. If it took one billion years to get from prokaryote to multicellular eukaryote (single-celled with no membrane-bound organelles to first single, and then multiple-celled organisms with not only membrane-bound organelles but whose various cells performed different functions), and figuring, as I did a slow generation time of one hour (E.coli is 20 minutes…), in order to give evolution the benefit of the doubt, then there is no way on God’s green earth that you are going to get from that multicellular beginning to yourself in three billion more years! By extending the generation times I was working FOR your side, but if you want to say it took three times as many generations to get from that first unicellular ancestor to the first multicellular organism with differentiated cells, that’s your business. It does mean, however, that you had better take that number of generations into consideration when you are dealing with further development and longer generations times…
You said the church, meaning your Roman Catholic church, does not take a position on evolution. True. And by refusing to take a position, they are leaving the door quite open for Catholics to believe whatever they are taught by secular science. That’s up to you. Bible-believing Christians are just that: they believe the Bible. There is quite a difference between believing the Pope and believing the Bible!
It also needs to be said that ‘interpretation’ is not a word that applies to simply believing what something says. ‘Interpretation’ has to do with taking what is said and attributing other meanings to it. Those who take Genesis literally are not interpreting, by virtue of definition of the words.
To quote you, “It's important to remember that.”
Bob Ryan was not mocking you. He was stating a fact. You didn’t like it. Evolution is very much involved with both brainwashing and dishonesty. It is what kids’ brains in are washed in from earliest education on, in most classrooms, television, magazines, etc. If that is not brainwashing, then the term has lost its meaning. The dishonesty is involved in stating that ‘this is the way that all true scientists know that it is’ when the facts are that there are plenty of true scientists who know differently and will say so, and that those who do believe in evolution are correcting ‘the way that it is’ with increasing frequency. You call it self-correcting, I call it self-excusing and covering up. There is also an enormous amount of dishonesty in the presentation to the public, whether it is putting almost-human feet on Lucy in an exhibit, continuing to use Haeckel’s embryo drawings, referring to the homology argument or whatever.
I might add here, that your idea of mocking and insults here holds not a candle to your twisting words I have said into meanings I clearly have not meant, which is dishonest, and your attitude of knowing everything and you will inform us poor ignorant creationists who dare to believe what God has said and, even further, are willing to give evidence that it is true! Personally, I find your attitude at least as objectionable as your somewhat strange idea that referring to the brainwashing that goes on regarding evolution to be insulting and mocking. It is neither. It is true.
Oh, please tell Eugenie Scott, Richard Dawkins, and the other high priests of evolution defense that abiogenesis does not make a difference to evolution if it did not happen! At least they are consistent, saying EVERYTHING must have had a natural cause. I bet they would love being called on for believing your ‘cartoon’ idea of evolution, too! Theistic evolutionists, such as yourself, “allow” God in at the beginning and then do not allow Him in any other time – and certainly do not allow that He knows how to communicate the truth to us in His Word! Give me an honest atheistic evolutionist any day! At least they are somewhat logical!
And lastly, “academic freedom” in Nature? You have GOT to be kidding! That is one of the richest jokes you have put forth yet!
To Matt Black – you are welcome to believe what you like, of course, but you might be interested in the work of a fellow UK’er regarding the early church and creation. It is extremely well-researched:
http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/
