Still More Evidence for Evolution 1482
Uche writes: "Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have uncovered the first genetic evidence that explains how large-scale alterations to body plans were accomplished during the early evolution of animals."
Control genes (Score:5, Interesting)
This fits nicely with Stephen J. Goulds theory of "stasis" evolution, in where when environment is more or less stable animals don't seem to evolve at all for millions of years but when there is drastic changes in the environment the animals evolve very quickly (in geological timeframe). The fact that the mechanism for inducing quick and major changes in the animals physiology in short time supports this theory.
Re:Evolution WILL happen (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Well done lads, collective pat on the back (Score:4, Interesting)
Radical change (Score:2, Interesting)
But when the environment radically changes, such as when people are finally allowed to spread into space, there will be -- In fact there MUST BE -- adaptation to the new environment in order to thrive. Imagine the stress of giving birth to a female who had bone loss due to long-term zero-G. Only people with lower bone loss, or lower birth stress, would be able to give birth.
Technology helps aleviate the need to evolve, as anyone who is alive and would without tech be dead can attest. I don't believe this will stop the process, it just becomes another factor.
OpenSource'ing the Human Genom would be wonderful too. Imagine finally being able to fix the idiocy of the human eye, for example. To pull the connector to a sensor grid out through the front, and then compensate for the blind spot through software, is definately in need of fixing. This becomes evolution, the creation of destiny.
Bring it on!
Bob-
Creation vs. Evolution debate at my university (Score:5, Interesting)
The creationists mostly lied the whole time.
1) They misaplied the 2nd law of thermodynamics very poorly by treating a race of species as a closed system. A few chemist and myself (a physics major) were very upset at these outright lies.
2) They denied the existence of any transitional fossils, and basically said that scientists were arranging bones and fossils how they wanted to see them.
3) They made false accusations against radioactive dating that haven't applied sense the birth of the field.
4) And finally they had to make up for logical loop holes by stating that early man was far superior to present man, and that in the begining all species existed at once, including the dinosaurs.
5) In all of the debate, they only had one true argument, and it was a bad argument at that. Guess what that argument was? "Positive" mutations haven't been reproduced or observed in the laboratory, therefore they do not exist, therefore evolution is false. And this article is about just that.
Before the debate, I thought it would be interesting to see why someone would believe in creation. Afterwards I was a bit depressed. I had no idea how far a person would go to decieve themself and perpetuate a lie. I felf very sorry for the young teenagers that came with their church group. They were being raised by liars.
One of the debaters agrugment was based on the very results that this article brings up. I know if he saw this now, it would not change his opinion one bit. He has no reason, he creates what ever psuedo reason needed to calm the conflict between his arogant soul and his mind. I bet he doesn't even know that his words are lies.
Any way, I thought I would share this with you people. I don't know what can be learned from this, but anyway, good luck in this sad and ignorant world maya.
Re:Evolution WILL happen (Score:2, Interesting)
On the contrary, i believe evolution is happening as we speak. but not on the scale of humans growing tales and fFeathers.
no, i'm thinking more about the sort of evolution on a cellular and microbiological level. the average american can eat all the carcenogens in a mcdonalds burger and coke. a previous human fFrom even a century ago probably wouldnt have the rigid stomach to handle a fFrench fFry.
more, we are presently using chemical fFertilizers to grow our fFood. previously these same chemicals would cause immediate poisoning and mass concers. today we are as a race more immune to these things.
the precedent example is when the europeans came to the new world, and brought malaria, polio and chicken pox -- which wiped out entire native american communities. today however, chicken pox is something or a rite of passage fFor 6-8 all year olds.
evolution hasnt stopped
Honesty - not! (Score:1, Interesting)
This particular problem has frequently been pointed out by creationists, but evolutionists have dismissed it as a non-issue. Until now. Now when they have found an answer to the problem, it suddenly makes sense to address the issue.
So a creationist claim that evolutionists cannot answer is irrelevant. A creationist claim that evolutionists can answer is relevant.
Interesting!
Re:OK then, Intelligent Design (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because something is irreducably complex *now* does not mean it was irreducably complex at the point at which the crucial beneficial change was made which allows the current behaviour.
Evolution can break down a complex interaction of simple non-necessary "actors" into a simpler interaction of necessary "actors", as easily as it can produce the extra "actors" in the first place.
Evolution is the process of harmonisation of an organism to its natural surroundings, with the additional constraint of fitness. "Fitness" can mean dumping things that aren't necessary because you can do the job easier another way now.
An example, your appendix: At one point it was presumably useful (perhaps even necessary). Now it's an atrophying organ with no discernable purpose, or side-effects when removed.
So, in summary, the author makes the assumption of linear progress in time. This is a false premise, and his argument therefore does not hold. To get from A to B, evolution (remember, this is random chance followed by population migration) could might easily go A,G,F,E,D,C,B.
Simon.
Re:So what indeed (Score:1, Interesting)
Creationists accept the origin itself as "God" and thus have no need to delve deeper into where God came from.
Rewind both theories to the very beginning of the tape and you will eventually reach a given that can't be proven. In the case of science, it is: given a large superdense ball of matter here is how it turned into a universe. In the case of religion, it is: given a superior, supernatural being of some kind here is how he created a universe.
All these so-called "discoveries" are just window dressing. Articles like this one remind me of the magicians using eye-catching attention getters to distract people from the charade they are respresenting as truth.
- JoeShmoe
.
Evidence? (Score:1, Interesting)
What would you have said when all thinking ppl, said that the earth was flat?
Just because something is supported by the majority does NOT make it fact. Understand this and you'll have a crack at making some real discoveries.
"It's possible we haven't discovered every moon or even every planet in our solar system, but that doesn't mean the sun may actually revolve around the earth after all."
True but the earth revolving around the sun has nothing
to do with your beliefs.
"Creationists (usually) base their conclusion on a religious, rather than scientific conclusion."
Well, the article based its theory on evolution in an
effort to explain macroevolution. So what's your point?
"They misaplied the 2nd law of thermodynamics very poorly by treating a race of species as a closed system. A few chemist and myself (a physics major) were very upset at these outright lies"
Umm..whether or not this is true. William Thomson was the a founding father of thermodynamic and he was a Creationist/Christian. He also created the Kelvin scale for absolute temparatures amongst some other electrical scales and the modern view of energy. His full name was Lord Kelvin William Thomson. He was wrong about some things but who isn't?
"Accepting Creationism means tossing out all of established science. Creationism is the adversary of all science, not just Darwinian evolution."
Why?
As I stated above Kelvin Thomson was a Creationist. As was, James Clerk Maxwell who was the father of modern physics, Edward William Morley who measured the speed of light, Georges Lemaitre who showed that the universe was expanding. This is only a few that I know of. So throw them out and live in the Dark Ages.
Please think. I'm not saying that you should believe this or that but not to just believe what "authorities" say.
Those are the sort of ppl that look like fools in half a century. Everything that is stated as fact does not necessarly hold up against time.
This is science?!?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/graphics/images/mchox2
Do they purport that this genetic switch creates the numerous organs required to allow flight, including a complete set of wings, as well as creating the numerous changes in the brain to allow flight to be controlled? Does it create the numerous changes to the articulation of nearly every visible limb on the illustrated insect's body? If not, isn't this illustration sophism at it's very worst?
Hey slashdotters! Try looking at this article half as critically as you would a press release from Microsoft.
I believe creationism SHOULD be taught in schools! (Score:5, Interesting)
Along those same lines, I would expect to teach:
o) geocentricism, "the moon landings hoax/nasa big lie", "mars face", etc. in astronomy
o) flat earth in geography
o) "free energy", "100mpg carburetor" in physics
o) "breast enlargement pills","penis enlargement pills" in sex ed
o) all the current all-natural/herbal/psychic/magical/religious "cures" in the "health food"/"alternative medicine"/"complimentary medicine" industry.
etc etc etc.
Most of the effort in current teaching methods seems to be emphasis on teaching existing theories, and little to no effort is given on how to dissect and examine "alternative" claims for validity.
Re:Control genes (Score:2, Interesting)
Dogs, for example, are entirely a product of human-manipulated environments, and aren't likely to survive in their present form without us. Dogs lost a lot of robustness in order to get along with us, and are now almost as helpless in the wild as we are. A lot of people might think this a disadvantage, or some sort of devolution, but it turned out pretty well for them.
Most of your "new species" are likely to be some sort of domestic or scavenger. The primary traits being either usefullness or benign-ness. Getting along with us is a good survival trait nowadays.
Just goes to show that nature doesn't always select for strength, agility, or the ability to run fast. Heck, just look at us. "The meek shall inherit the earth" indeed.
Re:Well done lads, collective pat on the back (Score:5, Interesting)
I refer to people who would ban the teaching of evolution for religious reasons alone, and in the face of overwhelming evidence "nuts" yes. If there were overwhelming evidence against evolution, then the people who would ban the teaching of evolution would not be "nuts", but that is not the case.
Professors and teachers of evolution themselves admit that it is nothing more than a theory.
First of all, let me clear up this misconception you have about how the word "theory" is used in science. A theory in science is an idea that has been tested many times and its predictions have stood up to experimental results. Theories are generally accepted throughout the scientific community. What you are thinking of is a hypothesis, or an idea that makes testable, but as of yet unsufficiently tested, predictions.
Secondly, let me dispel the other myth you state in that sentence. Evolution is NOT just a theory. It is fact. The fact that the alelle frequency in a population changes over time has been observed time and time again. There have even been numerous observations of speciation (an invidual of one species creating offspring of another species). I point you to the great FAQ at talkorigins.org [talkorigins.org] for a list of the many examples of this.
What is commonly refered to as "The Theory of Evolution" is just a collection of ideas about how and why evolution happen, such as natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, etc. No serious scientist disputes the fact that evolution occurs, the only dispute is over how it occurs.
Creationism is also, admitted by the professors of said doctrine, to also be a theory.
Creationism is NOT a theory. It doesn't hold up in experiments testing its predictions. It is at best a highly improbably hypothesis.
What makes it right for the kids to arbitrarily learn only one of these theories. It seems that under the First Amendment, that both theories should be taught, and let everyone decide for themselves.
What makes it right is that one of these "theories" is religious in nature and basis, and the other isn't. Since SCOTUS (that is, the Supreme Court Of The United States) has ruled that the First Amendment decrees a separation of church and state, the religious "theory" obviously does not belong in a publicly funded school.
This seems to be yet another instance of the government telling us what we should think.
This is in fact just the opposite. It is the government preventing itself from telling us to think a certain way on religious grounds. The government isn't preventing you from sending your children to a religous private school, or from teaching them creationism yourself. But it is preventing the teaching of ideas that favor one religion over another being supported by public funds.
Re:OK then, Intelligent Design (Score:2, Interesting)
A few hundred years ago, God was creating organisms. Then, through the magic of vivisection (ugh), we started to understand conception and development and the scientific explanation of how a organism comes to be. So God made the jump to creating species, and Creationism has been in retreat ever since. Did God hand-make species? No, that's natural selection. Species types? Dig some more through the fossil record... and that's still natural selection. Hmm, so what about natural selection itself? Inheritable characterists, surely such a transfer of essence bears the mark of the divine? No again, genetics turns out to be a relatively straightforward molecular process. Ah hah, molecules! God created the complex molecules! And if the response to that is "We'll get back to you, give us a few decades.", well so?
They will get back to you, eventually. And the Creationists, if they wish, can move the bar again. God can keep getting smaller and smaller, that's in His nature, and there will always be a scientific frontier, that's its nature. You can point to it and say "God is there!", and no one will be able to say otherwise. For a few years anyway, until it ceases to be the frontier.
Creationism will never be fully disproven, but how many times does the same basic theory have to be debunked and rewritten before you get the idea?
Re:You're Thinking Too Hard :-) (Score:2, Interesting)
Your dinosaurs are here (Score:3, Interesting)
Job 40:15ff [gospelcom.net], KJV: not only dinosaurs, but dragons, fire and all, just like the historical ones -
Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares. Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears? Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me? Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion. Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle? Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him. The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved. His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves. The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble. Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear. Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
As for the 4K years, it's more like 6K years, and there's no shortage of evidence, things like fresh wood in Manley sandstone. But I don't think you're serious. Your URL is a bit of a giveaway, for example. You sound like you're just ranting in ignorance. Are you?
Animals DON'T evolve (Score:3, Interesting)
animals are the expressions of genes
gene's evolve, animals don't
Re:Control genes (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, the current features of dogs are the result of human breeding. But how did we get there? We took dogs with certain charactistics that we wanted to maximize and bred them, doing this consistently through many generations until we had created many different breeds of dogs for different purposes. All of these characteristics existed originally, we just isolated them.
Re:Control genes (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Bitter irony (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, there were Christian sects that existed alongside the Catholic Church (although they weren't very well tolerated) such as the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists, by the way, weren't always tolerated by the reformers. John Calvin used to burn them at the stake as heretics. Some "Protestant" denominations could be traced back to such sects and therefore were not "Protest"ing anything in the same vein as the reformers (having come out of the Catholic Church).
One additional note. I wouldn't necessarily call the Southern Baptists a "small" denomination in the US.
Re:Well, that answers most of my objections... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not "more evidence for evolution" (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, there are some legitimate nitpicks here. Hanson (1958) and Kuhn (1962) argued that empirical observations are 'theory-laden' and that scientists see the world through paradigmatic world views, respectively. Which is to say that one's theory influences what one observes or interprets his or her observations. These philosophers were not just skeptics -- they were influenced by the gestalt and 'new look' psychological theories of visual perception.
Some of the best evidence for the subjectivity of even empirical observations comes from cases where seemingly sober scientists 'saw' things that their theories told them were there but which actually do not exist. Some quotes:
"During the seventeenth century, when their research was guided by one or another effluvium theory, electricians repeatedly saw chaff particles revound from, or fall off, the electrified bodies that had attracted them. At least that is what seventeenth-century observers said they saw, and we have no more reason to doubt their reports of perception than our own." (p. 117, Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions. (3rd Ed.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.)
"In 1903 Rene Blondlot claimed to have discovered a new kind of ray, instances of which were recorded and investigated by a large number of eminent French scientists. Outside France interest in N-rays waned when it was reported by the American physicist R. W. Wood that during a visit to Blondlot's laboratory he surreptitiously removed from the apparatus an essential prism. Despite the secret sabotage of his equipment, Blondlot still reported seeing the effects of the N-rays." (p. 120 of Bird, A. (2000). Thomas Kuhn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.)
"There have been cases in the history of science in which skilled scientists of the highest repute have 'seen' or 'verified', through observation and experiment, the prediction of some hypothesis, even though this prediction subsequently turned out not to correspond to reality and could not be reproduced by other observers. For example, Sir William Herschel (1738-1822), discoverer of the planet Uranus, the father of John Herschel and the most famous astronomer of the eighteenth century, was able with the powerful telescopes he manufactured to resolve into individual stars several nebulae that had previously appeared to be milky luminous patches in the sky. In the mid 1780s, he conjectured that all nebulae were composed of individual stars so that none were made of a luminous fluid. In 1790 he did observe a nebula that he was forced to interpret as a central star surrounded by a cloud of luminous fluid. In the interim period, however, Herschel claimed to resolve into individual stars both the Orion and Andromeda nebulae. In fact, though, Orion is a gaseous cloud containing a continuous distribution of matter, not just individual stars, while Andromeda is a galaxy of stars." (p. 10 of Cushing, J. T. (1997). Philosophical concepts in physics: The historical relation between philosophy and scientific theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)
Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" contains similar anecdotes.
Re:You do live a sheltered life, don't you? (Score:2, Interesting)
I would submit that you fall victim to your own reasoning. If, that is you presume to limit God's toolbox to exclusively use evolution and geological processes. Personally, I believe that God created the Universe and everything we see in it. Furthermore I believe that all living things were created such that it's "seed should be in itself, after his kind". Meaning that from protozoa to humans were all created as they are now with no evolution taking place, ever.
Now don't misunderstand me. I am an EE student and my wife teaches AP biology at a public high school. I have attended college level evolution lectures and spoken to several professors on the subject. Yet I remain unconvinced that evolution has actually taken place. However, that is not to say that I want to implant my views with a 2x4 into someone elses skull.
I wonder if Creationists are afraid of the power and knowledge of the God who created evolution and the Big Bang; I wonder if they want to cut Him down to a size they can comprehend?
On the contrary. As a 'creationist' I strive to comprehend all of God's creations while realizing that as a mortal man, I will never achieve this goal. Perhaps you will agree that God is perfect and men and women are not. If so, understand that by sweeping all people who do not believe in evolution into one big "creationist" basket, you are including people who don't as you say, "resort to blatant misinformation". I have my reasons for believing the way I do and they are based in what I term to be fact. If you are interested in them, please e-mail me and I would be happy to explain my views.
The Evolution of Creation (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a few possible answers to this. If I felt contrary, I could say that the "Earth=round" was inserted into the Bible after the fact. Maybe it was a lucky guess. Perhaps it really was divine inspiration. The point is that it's not compelling evidence that it's divine inspiration. Oh, and evolution doesn't rely solely on chance. That's an extreme oversimplification, usually only used when one is trying to "straw-man" the theory.
> People are so gullable these days. Because some scientist somehere says something, everyone believes it, without question.
No argument here, although I'd extend it to anyone with a real or perceived claim to authority or expertise.
> How can you predict what happend some 12 billion years ago? The weather is bearly accurate to more than one day, and yet evolutionists claim they know what was in the earths atmosphere billions of years ago.
You have a skewed idea of the definition of "predict" if you think one needs to predict the past. The reason the weather long ago is better known than the weather tomorrow is that the long ago has already happened. Scientists can tell what the Earth's climate was like long ago by seeing the evidence of its effects. When meteorologists predict the weather, they're merely taking what they have and extrapolating educated guesses.
> When Charles Darwin came up with the theory of Evolution, not only did the world not believe it, but neither did he. As i see it, the theory of evolution was made up to create a substitute belief to creation.
Whether he believed in it or not is irrelevant to whether it's consistent with the evidence. And, as I see it, it was put forward as a theory to explain biological diversity in the Galapagos Islands.
> People dont want to believe that there is a being somwhere in the heavens that is superior to them, a being that created them and the universe. This being is able to create the universe, and all that is in it, from giant starts, to microscopic life in six days.
Based on the fact that 95% of the world believes in said higher power, I'd say that people do want to believe in a higher power.
> People dont understand how this is possible, and so they create a theory, which allows them to deceive themselves into thinking that they are the superior being. They dont want to have to submit to the one and only true God, they want to do their own thing, which is evil.
Apologies, but this is just nonsense. Firstly, nobody who follows the theory of the origin of the species thinks they they are the controlling factor in that origin, so your claims they they're thinking they are the superior being is incorrect. Second, "the one and only true God" is not science, it's religion, so it can't be applied to the theory of origins in any meaningful way.
> I'm not providing much scientific evidence here for creation, but, any critical person, should be able to see that the theory of evolution is only a THEORY.
You seem to imply that because it's a theory, that it's necessarily wrong. The theory of relativity is also considered a theory, but it has stood up to much experimentation. "Theory" means "not yet proven" but should not be extrapolated to mean incorrect. It's more appropriate to say that theories are incomplete.
> How can we, who dont even understand life, who cant create life in a controlled enviroment, claim that life came about by chance?
There are two points here. First, nobody on Earth can explain why gravitation works. Nobody knows the reason why massive bodies attract one another. To say, however, that this means we can't discuss gravitation in a meaningful way is just silly. We discuss gravity by examining its effects on our universe. We discuss evolution the same way.
Second, I don't personally know anybody who claims that life "came about by chance", and this is the classic straw man argument about evolutionary theory. All this statement demonstrates is that you haven't actually read or studied the theory, because your statement demonstrates gross misunderstanding of the mechanisms of evolution. I won't go into the gory details unless you wish me to do so, but suffice it to say you're badly misinterpreting evolutionary theory, and it ruins your argument.
> With all of our intelligence, we have not been able to create life in a lab, and this is with inteligent input. There was no intelligent input in the theory of evolution. Just chance.
Refer to my statements above about incomplete understanding, and about the "evolution=chance" argument. I will add here that not being able to create life in a lab has no bearing to this discussion, because it assumes that because we haven't done it yet, we never will, and because we don't understand it now, we never can. A mere one hundred years ago, nobody could build a heavier-than-air flying machine, or a computer, or a television, or any of a thousand other things. We learn. It's what we do best.
Virg
Does this make any sense? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or maybe God created a world that is the result of billions of years of evolution. I'm not particularly religious, but it has always amazed me that so many people apparently believe that a very old Earth/Universe and biological evolution somehow preclude the existence of a higher power. The last time I checked, biology (and the natural sciences in general) was in the business of answering the "how" questions. It makes no attempts to answer the "who" or "why" questions.
Certainly, if a person believes in an all-powerful God, then said person must (by definition) believe that said God would be capable of creating life by employing evolutionary processes. If you were an engineer charged with populating a planet, would you design a species, wipe the drawing board clean, and start from scratch to design another species that is 99% similar to the one you just got done with? I know I wouldn't, and I'm just a lowly code monkey.
I'm an apathetic agnostic, but as far as I can tell, this whole "evolution versus creation" debate is the biggest non-issue in recent history since, by and large, they are the same thing. Oh, I'm aware that there are problems with evolution if you are one of these Biblical literalists who believe that every last word of the Bible is 100% true and that the Universe is 6,000 years old. But I've always been under the impression that these folks constitute a small (but vocal) minority of American evangelicals. Certainly, the Christians that I talk to consider these folks to be a bit of an embarassment.
The "rift" between science and religion (to the extent that there is one) is largely a creation of militant fundamentalists and militant atheists taking pot-shots at each other from opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence. To the rest of us, there is a large middle ground that has more than enough room to hold us comfortably.
Re:Creation vs. Evolution debate at my university (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not "more evidence for evolution" (Score:1, Interesting)
But the question here is, "Who are my parents"? Correct me if I'm wrong: When we see a fossil, we determine its ancestors by its phenotype. It looks like a duck, has bones and bill and feathers like a duck, it's probably a duck, and its parents were probably ducks. It's an assumption -- a pretty reasonable one, which not even the most blow-hard young-earth creationist would contradict, but an assumption nonetheless.
But what about the first duck? Who were its parents? Now we make a slightly larger stretch -- we look for an established species which most likely matches the phenotype or predicted genotype -- but it's not an exact match, and sometimes there's a rather large difference between the phenotype of the fossil and the phenotype of its alleged ancestor. And since (correct me if I'm wrong) we don't have access to the actual genotypes (i.e., real DNA) of either, we have to infer it from phenotype.
So how am I supposed to prove to you that the first duck was not, in fact, a decendant of some earlier species of bird? Even if we did have access to their DNA, the scientists would come up with some explanation of how the first duck evolved from one of the established species. How different would the DNA have to be before they said, "OK, you're right, it's highly improbable that this mutation could have happened without help"?
Just supposing we found a way to get DNA from fossil records, and then supposing (hypothetically) that the DNA was incredibly different from one species to another, even with similar phenotypes. Do you really think that scientists would say, "Oh, well, I guess our idea of evolution isn't true. There must be some other way this new species came into being"? Of course not. They'd bend over backwards to try to explain it -- because they assume from the outset that there *cannot* be any interference, that everything happened by natural processes. That's what we mean by unfalsifiable -- if you assume there's no outside interference, something like evolution *must* have happened, no matter how strong the objections.
-George Dunlap
Two versions of Evolution (Score:1, Interesting)
I might think of myself as a creationist, but creation is not really science. I think creationism is more of scientific philosophy. The only place science really comes into play is the interpretation and refutation of already established data. As a science student, I have a problem with creation being taught in school science classes because it doesn't comply with the scientific method. How do you emperically prove that man was created?
Re:A kinder, gentler eugenics (Score:3, Interesting)
On the one hand, it's undeniable that if people with concrete, measurable genetic defects were not allowed to reproduce, then the occurence of these defects in future generations would be reduced and perhaps even eliminated.
Actually, no ... and the reason is simple. Most genetic diseases are the result of one of three things: receiving multiple copies of recessive traits that individually have survival benefits (sickle cell anemia, for instance), receiving recently broken copies of genes/chromosomes (Down's syndrome), or receiving broken genes that do not generally manifest until after typical reproductive years (genetically linked hypertension or genetically enhanced risk of breast cancer, for example). There is no evolutionary pressure on any of these types of genetic abnormalities that will make them go away: it is well known that recessive traits are nearly impossible to "breed out" of a population, because that requires that no one with the trait be allowed to reproduce; recently broken gentic material will continue to arise, as long as we reproduce, even if we could start out with a hypothetical "perfect genome"; and traits that don't reduce reproductive potential can not be acted on directly by evolutionary pressure.
No, in the long term, there is no chance that "genetic diseases" can be suppressed by preventing those that have them from reproducing. You can also think of it this way: we've been breeding now, under evolutionary pressure, for nearly 2million years, something like 100,000 generations, and genetic diseases are just as prevalent today as they were in the past; since many of them are fatal without treatments that have only been available for one or two generations, by your logic, shouldn't they have been bred out of the population long ago?
This doesn't argue against treatment, mind you, for those who are stricken with these diseases, just that such treatment will never "breed out" the vast majority of genetic diseases out there.
So then... (Score:3, Interesting)
Throw that one on top of the pile of moral aguments against "classic" eugenics, which it seems we agree is infeasible.
But doesn't this argue _for_ a genetic "repair" process style of eugenics? IE, assuming we have identified the genes for things like genetic hypertension or genetic predisposition to cancer, those genes would be snipped out and replaced with benign material as part of the reproduction (or perhaps pre-natal) process.
It seems the only way that defects that lack a natural deslection process can be weeded out.
Yes, certain things like sickle-cell anemia (which brings resistance to malaria), as I recall) are harder to judge in absolute terms as "defects" or "benefits" - it doesn't matter. Eliminate the set of all straightforward "bad" traits and we're all ahead. "Perfect" is the enemy of "good enough" or "better".
DG
Re:Well done lads, collective pat on the back (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes. And obviously, you don't know what "theory" means.
A theory in science is a unifying principle, an explanation for a whole class of phenomena. It is not a wild guess.
Anytime someone precedes the word "theory" with "mere" or "just a" or "nothing more than a", it's a signifier that you are dealing with an ignorant idiot.Theoligy and science (Score:4, Interesting)
First, just so everyone knows where I'm comming from, I was raised a creationist. And in the past I've been a devote creationist that would try to "debate" with others to promote my point of view -- thinking that if you believed in evolution you were an atheist. However, as I have matured (a little bit, not much), I can say that my own beliefs have evolved.
I don't understand anymore this animosity that Christians and Evolutionist have between each other -- this fierce compitition. When I read the Genesis account (first few chapters) and get all the imagery out of my head that I was raised with (the presuppositions so to speak) I see a very general story that is not intended to be a science text book. I think details are purposely omitted because the point of the book is not for us to know exactly how everything came into being, but to understand that a supernatural being created it and the relationship that we have to this being.
Christians that are threatened by evolution don't have a true concept of the omnipotence of an all powerfull God (or Yahweh, Jehovah, Cosmic Spirit, or whatever name you attach). Think about it, if you had unlimited processing power and data, you could drop thousands of pieces of paper from a plane at 10K feet and know exactly where each paper would land. Moreover, now assume that you can control all of the variables (wind speed/direction, ordering of papers, turbulance, etc) -- then you would be able to cause each of these papers to land where you wish them to land. Now, back up to the Big Band (or whatever started the Universe). Assuming that all energy and matter that exists in the universe today was involved in the Big Bang (to my knowlege science has not found any exceptions to the law of conservation of energy and matter). Now lets assume there's an all powerful being that causes this Bang and sets up all the variables to Its liking. This being, in theory, could then foreordain the entire universe as we know it today in a single instance at the time of the Big Bang. To the Creationist, all of this appears to be the work of God, Its creation. However, to the Evolutionist, all of this appears to be the work of chance (just a question for thought, but is anything really random? Or do we just label events as random when they become too computationally complex?). Add to this that God is outside of time (exists in all of time at all instances at once) and you realize that there's more the the Genesis account than meets the eye! I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that science and the Bible are mutually exclusive.
Now, on the flip side, I don't understand why some scientists are so bent on disproving the Bible and slamming Christians -- almost a fear of Judeo-Christian beliefs (well...maybe I do, there have been and still are some pretty crummy people that call themselves Christans). The Bible was written by over 40 authors from 3 continents and from various backgrounds (kings, prophets, common folk, political prisioners, etc) and it was written over a span of 1500 years! What a wealth of knowlege and wisdom it contains. Some claim that it contains a meta-narrative of a God trying to reconcile a relationship with mankind. If nothing else it contains history and 1500 years of culture and living experiance. How you choose to read it is where faith comes into the picture. It's just a shame that there are all of these debates about the Bible and Science, but very few people actually read the Bible (including Christians) even though it is classic literature and a great read once you understand the context/culture/timeline in which it was written.