Creazionism for reason and for science: the true

[mimmo77]

What is the true behind the creazionist thesis and the weak/wrong points of evolutionism?

I've read this:
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/
http://www.harunyahya.com/evolution01.php
http://www.harunyahya.com/definitivereply01.php
Note: do not consider any religious references!
Note2: His site is http://www.harunyahya.com/

Criticism of evolutionism seem correct (I also saw the site of Dawkins).
But the conclusions are wrong because they speak of a divine creation (like a god intervention).
Perhaps the truth is in the middle.
Perhaps the Criticism of evolutionism should be officially considered from science to create a new theory more reliable.


What do you think about this?

[bobdezon]

I think you have a skewed view of reality. Creationists are laughable at best. There is no need to meet in the middle. There is no middle position, they are wrong, end of discussion. Why would anyone in their right mind want to move away from established science, with reams of mutually supporting evidence and towards a theory which simply posits "god did it"?

[Matt]

Perhaps the truth is in the middle.


What about that £1,000 you owe me?

Don't remember it? I don't have any evidence?

Oh well lets split the differnce. I'll settle for £500

[Mongrel]

Didn't look at the links but I bet every one of the "criticisms and weaknesses" is covered in detail at Talk Origins (http://www.talkorigins.org/)

[Matt]

If any of the claims made on the website is not covered to you satisfaction on talk origins' index to creationist claims (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/) then we can discuss them here one at a time.

[Gib]

Perhaps the truth is in the middle.
It's possible, but by no means assured. Sometimes one side of an issue is just plain 100% wrong. The existance of flat-earthers does not mean that the earth is half flat/half sphere....


Perhaps the Criticism of evolutionism should be officially considered from science to create a new theory more reliable.
Criticism of current evolutionary theory is every day creating a more reliable theory. It's just that this criticism takes the form of actual testable hypotheses which are tested, and turn out to be true. The modification of the theory is usually very small, but occasionally we get a jump as large as the discovery of DNA.

The sort of "criticism" the creationists offer though usually take the form of ignorant propositions which are not testable, are at odds with the evidence, or quite often are just lies.

[Skeptiger]

The sort of "criticism" the creationists offer though usually take the form of ignorant propositions which are not testable, are at odds with the evidence, or quite often are just lies.

Unfortunately the "criticism" of creationists is also laced with an ulterior motive which is based on religion. No matter what skewed arguments they make, they cannot escape from the fact that their beliefs are not based on science.

[brettdbass]

http://www.skepdic.com/creation.html tellls me..


Creation Science is a pseudoscientific (http://www.skepdic.com/pseudosc.html) theory which claims that (a) the stories in Genesis are accurate accounts of the origin of the universe and life on Earth, and (b) Genesis is incompatible with the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution. “Creation Science” is an oxymoron since science (http://www.skepdic.com/science.html) is concerned only with naturalistic (http://www.skepdic.com/naturalism.html) explanations of empirical (http://www.skepdic.com/empiricism.html) phenomena and does not concern itself with supernatural explanations of metaphysical phenomena...in the first paragraph.

I don't need to know more, but there is a lot more on the page to show exactly why that above statements are correct, and therefore why creation science is total bunk.

[mimmo77]

Unfortunately the "criticism" of creationists is also laced with an ulterior motive which is based on religion. No matter what skewed arguments they make, they cannot escape from the fact that their beliefs are not based on science.

The "religion" question is a very bad thing,

[mimmo77]

Didn't look at the links but I bet every one of the "criticisms and weaknesses" is covered in detail at Talk Origins (http://www.talkorigins.org/)

Ehm, too many things to read, is there a summary?

And, IMPORTANT, IS THERE A SITE of Criticism of evolutionism that is NOT CREAZIONIST? ? ?

[Matt]

Ehm, too many things to read, is there a summary?


There's a number of FAQs on that site. The index to creationist claims (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html) will probably help you locate an answer to any specific criticism of evolution you're likely to come accross. Unfortunately there have been many fallacious criticisms of evolution and so there's a lot of material to cover. Just deal with them one at a time.

If you want a summary for the evidence for evolution from a common ancestor you can find it here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/)

Or if you have a specific question I can try to answer it.

[Matt]

And, IMPORTANT, IS THERE A SITE of Criticism of evolutionism that is NOT CREAZIONIST? ? ?

Depends what you mean. There is scientific scrutiny of various parts of evolutionary theory. That's what makes the theory so strong, that it has been refined over 150 years to account for newly discovered information. The core principle of common descent has been spectacularly upheld. The percieved role of natural selection in shaping the diversity of life on this planet has been radically revised as we have gained greater understanding of the sciences of genetics and development. It is in these latter areas that you will find much scientific back and forth. Not a critism of evolution as such but some dissent about the finer details. That's how progress is made.

With regard to critism of evolution as a general principle there are many sites that claim to have no religious pretext. The whole Inteligent Design movement was an attempt to divorce creationism from religion. However in truth (as the wedge document (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy) reveals) such a move was purely asthetic and the driving force behind their dissent from evolutionary theory was entirely religious.

As it turns out there is no good reason to doubt the central tenets of evolution. It's an observed fact, like the existence of electrons or the earth orbiting the sun.

[Mongrel]

This (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html) is a good thing to watch, it's the Nova dramatisation of the Kitzmiller trial. ID tried to sneak into the schools educational system using the "Critique of evolution" excuse.

[Matt]

Lets take one example from the links you provided.

http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter1.php

This traces the supposed moral implications of the theory of evolution.

We see that this is the listed in the index to creationist claims, under ethics.

We have a number of responses provided

Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview. (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA001.html)



Evolution is descriptive. It can be immoral only if attempting to accurately describe nature is immoral.
Any morals derived from evolution would have to recognize the fact that humans have evolved to be social animals. In a social setting, cooperation and even altruism lead to better fitness (Wedekind and Milinski 2000). The process of evolution leads naturally to social animals such as humans developing ethical principles such as the Golden Rule.
Some bad morals, such as eugenics (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006.html) and social Darwinism (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA002_1.html), are based on misunderstandings of evolution. Therefore, it is important that evolution be taught well to negate such misunderstandings.
Despite claims otherwise (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH010.html), creationism has its own problems. For one thing, it is founded on religious bigotry, so the foundation of creationism, by most standards, is immoral.
Probably the most effective weapon against bad morals is exposure and publicity. Evolution (and science in general) is based on a culture of making information public.
Scientists are their own harshest critics. They have developed codes of ethical behavior for several circumstances, and they have begun to talk about a general ethics (Rotblat 1999). Creationists have nothing similar.
Some people feel better about themselves by demonizing others. Those people who are truly interested in morals begin by looking for immorality within themselves, not others.


We also see the claim that Survival of the fittest implies might makes right. (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA002.html)



This claim exemplifies the naturalistic fallacy by arguing that the way things are implies how they ought to be. It is like saying that if someone's arm is broken, it should stay broken. But "is" does not imply "ought." Evolution is descriptive. It tells how things are, not how they should be.
Humans, being social, improve their fitness through cooperation with other people. Even if survival of the fittest were taken as a basis for morals, it would imply treating other people well.


We see this "Karl Marx made it clear that Darwin's theory provided a solid ground for materialism and thus also for communism. He also showed his sympathy to Darwin by dedicating Das Kapital, which is considered as his greatest work, to him. In the German edition of the book, he wrote: "From a devoted admirer to Charles Darwin""

This appears to be a variation of a discredited lie.

Marx admired and corresponded with Darwin. (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA002_2.html) Talk Origins says of a similar claim...



Marx sent a personally inscribed copy of the second edition of Das Kapital to Darwin and wanted to dedicate it to him, but Darwin wrote a letter politely declining.


The response to that is...




Darwin wrote a letter declining the dedication of an unnamed book on atheism, but he wrote it to Edward Aveling. Aveling's common-law wife was Elanor Marx, Karl's daughter, and she inherited his papers. They got mixed up with Karl Marx's papers, and the letter was assumed to have been to Marx. This view found ideological favor in Russia, so it was widely repeated. Later, a letter from Aveling, requesting permission to dedicate his book The Student's Darwin to Darwin, was found among Darwin's papers. Darwin declined permission and argued that science should not address religious matters directly (Colp 1982; Carter 2000).
Darwin did have a copy of Das Kapital, but its pages were unseparated when he died, so he never read it.
None of this matters to the science of evolution.


Of interest it shows you how creationists tell barefaced lies. From wanting to dedicate Das Kaptial to Darwin and having the offer declined (perhaps an understandable error on behalf of the Russian press who popularised the myth) we now have tha easily checkable claim that Das Kapital actually was dedicated to Darwin. In truth it was dedicated to Willhelm Wolff.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/dedicate.htm

Marx did indeed send a copy of Das Kaptial to Darwin and did indeed write an inscription in that copy. That's a far cry from a dedication

If Evolution Deceit is incorrect about that what else might not be as Evolution Deceit has described?

Did Karl Marx realy make it clear that "Darwin's theory provided a solid ground for materialism and thus also for communism" I don't know as I've not read much Marx and don't intend to for this irrelevent claim.

You see the most important and relavent part of the response above is part three. It doens't matter to the science of evolution. Fred West could have dedicated an autobiography to Stephen Hawking but doing so wouldn't make Black Holes dissapear whatever you think of Fred West.

I happen to bear no ill will to Karl Marx but even if I held him personally responsible for the outrages of Stalin Pogroms or the disaster of Mao's cutural revolution then it still wouldn't affect the evidence for evoution one jot. See argument to consequences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences).

Anyway that's enough for now. See what else you can dig up

[mimmo77]

This link is interesting:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

However, it gives a weak response to some hot questions, like this:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200_1.html
or this per example:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html

Also I see that the responses often want to by-pass the critic and go to attack of some stupid religious-crazionist assertions, like the assertion that the Earth is younger.

I still think that there are some weak point in the evolution theory, a lot of work is still to do

[Mongrel]

This link is interesting:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

However, it gives a weak response to some hot questions, like this:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200_1.html
or this per example:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html

Also I see that the responses often want to by-pass the critic and go to attack of some stupid religious-crazionist assertions, like the assertion that the Earth is younger.

I still think that there are some weak point in the evolution theory, a lot of work is still to do

Did you follow the link at the bottom of the 2nd quote (here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#gaps))? It's an essay which goes into great detail about transitional fossils. Talk Origins is a condensed "Dummies guide" of millions of hours of Biology research written for the layman, they supply links to technical papers and other appropriate references.

This highlights another problem when trying to combat the deliberate ignorance of cdesign proponentsists (http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/missing_link_cd.html), the huge majority of their campaign is based on snappy one-liners, to show how and why it's incorrect the biologists need an hour or more of your time and a whiteboard.

One question I would like to ask though, why are none of the people behind "Questioning Evolution" fully qualified biologists? They've got engineers, a handful from the other hard science disciplines and a load of humanities graduates but no one who's been properly trained in the appropriate field.

[filippo lippi]

I still think that there are some weak point in the evolution theory, a lot of work is still to do

Care to share them with us?

[mimmo77]

Care to share them with us?

Yes, I find it ridiculous that every time evoluzionist prove their theories by saying that there are evidences but we can not analyse them because these fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason.
For example: they really can't explain the lacking of millions of fossils of transitional links and intermediate forms, or the lacking of millions of fossils of some things of irreducible complexity, cells, dna, simple life forms, ecc.
And, auto generation of life is enough absurd.
They just say that fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason, so we haven't them.
Of course, this doesn't mean creation, but I mean that there are weak point in evolution theory.

[ZERO]

Yes, I find it ridiculous that every time evoluzionist prove their theories by saying that there are evidences but we can not analyse them because these fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason.
For example: they really can't explain the lacking of millions of fossils of transitional links and intermediate forms, or the lacking of millions of fossils of some things of irreducible complexity, cells, dna, simple life forms, ecc.
And, auto generation of life is enough absurd.

Irreducible complexity is no stumbling block for evolution.
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html



They just say that fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason, so we haven't them.
Of course, this doesn't mean creation, but I mean that there are weak point in evolution theory.
As previous links have shown, fossils are rare, but enough have been discovered to reach conclusions.

Yes, evolution isn't perfect but it is a lot better than any other explanation of life.

[Matt]

Yes, I find it ridiculous that every time evoluzionist prove their theories by saying that there are evidences but we can not analyse them because these fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason.

For example: they really can't explain the lacking of millions of fossils of transitional links and intermediate forms, or the lacking of millions of fossils of some things

Firstly evolution would be provably true even if there were no fossils at all. DNA evidence of common ancestry, reproduction of evolution in the laboratory, the observation of speciation happening in the wild, atavism - evolutionary throwbacks like whales with legs instead of fins due to the rare mutations leading to the expression of genes left dormant for millions of years. All this is sufficient evidence even if fossils hadn't been discovered, or had never been created.

Yet who is it who says there aren't enough fossils. Who says how many fossils there should be and how many there are? Does the theory of evolution predict a large number of fossils which simply don't exist? If so that would damage our trust in the predictive capability of the theory and therefore our trust in the theory itself.

Thankfully for evolution this is not the case. Evolution makes no predictions about how many fossils should be preserved, or subsequently found. I can't imagine how it would be expected to. When a creationist wants to deny evolution they can say that there should be thousands of fossils when there are only hundreds. Many people might just believe them.

But who says there are not that many fossils?

Some might check up and find that museums have catalogued and preserved hundreds of millions of fossils. Berkley Museum alone houses a collection 20 million strong.

The creationist simply need to claim instead that there should be billions of fossils when there are only hundreds of millions. Again someone might point out that there are indeed billions of discovered fossils. As well as those meticulously catalogued and preserved in museums there are many many times that amount existing in private collections or made into watches or coffee tables. Yes, certain types of fossils are that common you can pick them up for a pittance and use them for their aesthetic value. I used to have about a hundred ammonites myself. However the creationist claim of how many fossils there should be is not limited. It is not grounded in any calculation, observation or derived from any part of the theory of evolution. Since it is a number pulled for their rear orifice they will have no problem in raising the bar. There may be billions of discovered fossils but creationism would want to see trillions before it were convinced. If we include undiscovered fossils lying under the earth there may well be trillions or even more (I couldn't tell you but you might be able to research some reliable estimates). If a concerted effort were made over a long enough period of time, all these could be discovered catalogued and presented as evidence. To what effect though? Would it convince every last creationist or would they simply move the goal posts once more and demand to see a quadrillion fossils before they were convinced.

I think the time of serious academics is better spent than by chasing these movable targets.

It is a characteristic of many denialist campaigns to demand more and more detail of evidence before they will accept a conclusion that any rational person, any court of law or any legislator will have been convinced is beyond any reasonable doubt a long time ago.

It always possible to find more evidence, it always possible to demand that more be found but a some point enough is enough.

A similar tactic is used with regard to just transitional fossils rather than fossils of all types. Some creationists go as far as to say that no transitional fossils have been found. They hope that their victims do not check up on this. There are millions of catalogued and dated transitional fossils. However to expect a full record of every one of the billions of billions of species to have ever existed in every significant stage of their development is an unrealistic demand. There are inevitable gaps. They may point to these gaps in the fossil record. Find one sample to fill a gap between two other samples and you'll have turned one larger gap into two smaller ones.

Paleontologists jokingly refer to such creationist claims when they find a new fossilised speices and report making a new gap in the fossil record.

As you'd expect there are some transitions with bigger gaps than others. however as you'll see from the index of creationist claims many creationists are willing to claim gaps when in fact there are as a clear series of fossils detailing the gradual change and emergence of new features as we might ever hope to have.

However given that we do have hundreds of millions of catalogued and dated fossils we can use them to make a best guess as to whether phyletic gradualism is true, by analysing which seem to be transitional and how long (if at all) samples appeared to remain unchanged over time.

You see there's two (at least) ways evolution could work. Slow plodding and always making changes (That's phyletic gradualism), or relatively quickly in short spurts interspersed with longer periods of equilibrium.

Of course the extremes aren't the only options. There plenty of grey area in between - some species have hardly changed over billions of years others lineages may be actively displaying evolutionary changes half the time and in equilibrium the other half.

This analysis was written about at length by Stephen J Gould. As such he is often quote mined (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html) by creationists who would have us believe that he disproved evolution. As it happens he didn't, he disproved phyletic gradualism. A theory upon which evolution is not dependent. A theory which hadn't had much favour amongst anybody.

Long before Gould analysed fossils the long periods of equilibrium were predicted. Once an organism had evolved to suit its environmental niche to a sufficient extent, natural selection is not capable of making any further changes unless the environment changes (including other competing species) When an environmental change did occur then evolution might start to have marked effects. Gould called this punctuated equilibrium.

For more information http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html)
Gould merely confirmed what others (all the way back to Darwin) had expected to see.

So if the sample of fossils that we do have, shows a small proportion of transitional examples this is not only not a problem for evolution, it actually upholds what was predicted by Darwin. Creationist will tell you otherwise. They will tell you that Darwin was wedded to gradualism. This I'm afraid is yet another creationist lie.

As http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html) reports Darwin wrote.


[N]atural selection will generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time, and only on a few of the inhabitants of the same region. I further believe that these slow, intermittent results accord well with what geology tells us of the rate and manner at which the inhabitants of the world have changed (Darwin 1872, 140-141, chap. 4).


"But I must here remark that I do not suppose that the process ever goes on so regularly as is represented in the diagram, though in itself made somewhat irregular, nor that it goes on continuously; it is far more probable that each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification (Darwin 1872, 152).


It is a more important consideration . . . that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change (Darwin 1872, 428, chap. 10).

The problem comes from the simplistic way evolution is sometimes taught. It is not necessary for a basic understanding of evolution to discuss equilibrium. Also evolution is often viewed from an anthropocentric viewpoint, as if it's ultimate goal, it's crowning achievement were the creation of the human race. Whilst of course that is the part of it with most universal appeal to us this can lead to the impression that other species are different because they are less evolved, that they are mere leftovers in a directed process striving towards our being. This is simply not true. Once a species has reached that match with it's environment there's no evolutionary force driving it to become more like us.

For many people this is new knowledge is in conflict with their established understanding of evolution. There is, however, no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We do not need to discard all of evolutionary theory because one part of an individual's understanding of it happened to be wrong. Instead simply increase your understanding of the details of how the proven fact of evolution actually works in practice.

[Cuddles]

Yes, I find it ridiculous that every time evoluzionist prove their theories by saying that there are evidences but we can not analyse them because these fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason.

Nobody has ever said that.


For example: they really can't explain the lacking of millions of fossils of transitional links and intermediate forms,

Yes they can.


or the lacking of millions of fossils of some things of irreducible complexity, cells, dna, simple life forms, ecc.

Irreducible complexity is such a stupid lie that even most creationists don't bother with it. Every single example that has been brought up has been debunked pretty much instantly, but some idiots still use the same old nonsense.


And, auto generation of life is enough absurd.

This has nothing to do with evolution.


They just say that fossils aren't come to us for this or that reason, so we haven't them.

No they don't.


Of course, this doesn't mean creation, but I mean that there are weak point in evolution theory.

Seriously, you're not even trying here. Some creationists at least try to make good arguments, but you're just using exactly the same tired old nonsense that creationists have been spouting for years.

[Matt]

As previous links have shown, fossils are rare, but enough have been discovered to reach conclusions.

Perhaps fossilisation is a rare event in comparision to billions of invividuals representing each of the billions of billions of species to have roamed the planet over the last 3 billion years. But fossils are in fact remarkably common. You don't need to be any sort of specialist to find them. Certain types are not particularly rare at all. Sea creatures are unsprisingly mare prone to fosilisation than other types. You want an amonite or a trilobite fossil you can pick one up for a few quid.

[ZERO]

Perhaps fossilisation is a rare event in comparision to billions of invividuals representing each of the billions of billions of species to have roamed the planet over the last 3 billion years. But fossils are in fact remarkably common. You don't need to be any sort of specialist to find them. Certain types are not particularly rare at all. Sea creatures are unsprisingly mare prone to fosilisation than other types. You want an amonite or a trilobite fossil you can pick one up for a few quid.
That is exactly what I meant but better explained. O0

And it is enough to learn a great deal about the history of life on this planet.

[Matt]

For example: they really can't explain .. of some things of irreducible complexity, cells, dna, simple life forms, ecc.

Irreducable complexity. This is the brainchild of Micheal Behe. It is essentially a refinement of the Watchmaker argument put forward by William Paley. If you think that irreducable complexity cannot come about as a result of an evolutionary process then I'd like you to vist this website.

http://www.stellaralchemy.com/ice/

It's a rather ingeneous simular=tion that uses genetic algorithms to evolve solutions to a simple game. By adding an element of competition by incrementally reducing the score required succeed to you can see irreducibly complex solutions evolve. That's to say solution where if any part of the genetic algorithm were removed the solution would be useless.

If you think that there are certain mechanisms that have been found for which an immediately obvious evolutionary pathway has not been presented then you might be right. However that does not mean that such a pathway does not exist. Proving that would be difficultt o say the least. It is something that Behe has failed to do with his favoured example the bacterial flagellum. he claims that for this to work seven different genes to produce seven different proteins must have evolved simultaneously. He has calculated the probability of this happening through chance alone to be astonomical and unfeasable within the timescales required to explain it's observed pressence in the here and now. He proposes the only alternative to be intelligent design. A being with the foresight to see how these genes would interact to provide a beneficial mutation guided the process.

Thanks intelligent designer for making a better pathogen ;-)

However what he presents is a false dichotomy. yes if any part of these genes that produce the bacterial flagellum were removed we might not have a working flagellum, as such any starting point from which the addition of a new gene would produce the working flagellum could not have produced by nature selecting for a better means of propulsion.

As it happens this isn't even true. Just five of these genes produce a less effective by certainly viable flagellum.

However he forgets that these proteins might have other purposes. Two of them together produce axle for the flagellum but they could alternativekly ahve evolved an organ for secretion. These exact two proteins have been found in other species serving exaclty that purpose.

As such since Behe announced his discovery and laid down his challenge to find a viable evolutionary pathway great steps have been made toward finding such a pathway. First two protein provide a survival advataage to proved an secretion ststem. Three more proteins combine with this to produce a working motor, two more combine to produce a better motor. Already the probability is reduced from the chance of seven simultaneous events combine to only two, two and three happening independently.

This is from memory I'm afraid. So please do the research yourself.

More than likley the actual historical course of events will be one gene at a time evolving, being selected for some benefit on combination with some other structure and later being combined incrementally in novel structures until the bacterial flagellum we see today. It's also quite possible that a new protein evolves which is neutral or not sufficiently deleterious to allow genetic drift cause it to dominate a small enough population.

P{ay particular attention to the possibility of other proteins with which the proteins seen today in the flagellum, might have previously combined with to provide some unrelated naturally selectable benefit. These historical proteins might have evolved too. A combination of these new version, with the proteins of the flagellum might no longer produce a naturally selectable benefit. Or they may not exist any more at all. Such an eleemnt of a viable evolutionary pathway is called a scaffold.

Look at the rock arch. Picture at the top of the talk origins home page.

http://www.talkorigins.org/pictures/title.jpg


This too is irreducably complex. Remove any segment from it and the arch would collapse. Clearly it could not have come about by the gradual addition of segments. Instead geologist tell us how it most likley eroded down from a larger structe. The removal of the scaffold leading to an irreducably complex design.

[filippo lippi]

Nice work, Matt. I hope Mimmo appreciates the effort.

[Matt]

cells, dna, simple life forms, ecc.
And, auto generation of life is enough absurd.


You know what. I could agree with you and still believe in evoltution.

There's a word for the initial origins of life. That's abiogenesis. Life coming from non life. You know what I can't tell you with any degree of certainty at all how it happened. Neither could Darwin.

The story of evolution begins after that with the initial population of single celled creatures somewhere some 3 to 4 billion years ago. Evolution explains how the rich diversity of life emerged from that initially shallow genepool.

We do know from genetic analysis that all life on earth is related. The same science that tells us beyond a shadow of a doubt that Eddie Murphy is directly related to Scary Spice's daughter Fortuna Daphne Bay, tells us how realted we are as a species to chimpanzees, to various other primates. How related various mammals are to one another and how related they are to various reptiles amphibians and fish. Even how rel;ted we are to a bannana plant or a culture of E Coli.

This study is called phylogenetics, and it produces the phylogenetic tree of life (http://darwin.nmsu.edu/~molb470/fall2005/projects/pan/).

http://darwin.nmsu.edu/~molb470/fall2005/projects/pan/images/PhylogeneticTreeOfLife.jpg



So it is with a great degree of certainty that we say we share a genetic heritige with all life on earth. There is some genuine debate and controversy on the role of horizontal gene transfer and not knowing how that initial small population of single celled organism came to be about we cannot tell if abiogensis happened initially with just one cell or indepedently more than once with subsequent genetic mingling disguising these independent origins.

We do know that abiogenesis doesn't happen today. Any of the basic building blocks necessary would be quicky consumed by the ubiquitous life already present. However it's not so long since natural historians assumed that it happned all the time. Ever wondered why baracle geese are so called. Ancient greeks belives that dead rotten driftwood spontaneously produced barnacles which in turn spontaneously turned into geese. Thsi perlief persisted for centuries not least because it allowed catholics to classify geese as fish and therefore eat them during lent.

A theistic evolutionist believes that life on earth was created by God. They do not deny the certain observations of science that we're all related but asscribe the initial creation of life to a divine spark. They aslo acknowldge that human kind is not the innevitable result of billions years of evolution. Were we to somehow wind back the clock and allow evoltuoin to run again, our emergence would be unlikley. Therefore the theistic evolutionist sees evolution as part of God method but requires god to provide certain guidence to ensure our eventual arrival. You know like sending a asteroid to wipe out the dinosaur and give mammals their chance.

Divine spark is one kind of abiogenesis but not entirely necessary. Whilst I provide you with any certain materialistic explanation for abiogensis I can suggest a number of plausible ones.

Have a look at the Miller Urey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_urey) experiment. Note that complex organic chemistry including amino acids have been observed to have formed in outer space on comets. So we don't need to abandon materialism for the generation of the basic building blocks. Note too that molecular evidence finds that the oldest genes that we find in all life on earth consists of these amino acids in the proportions in which they're generated through non biological means in the Miller Urey experiment. This strongly supports a non biological origin for these early amino acids.

As for how these might have been combined to form cellular life priciples from evolution may help. Is life the first molecule that can self replicate if imersed in an environemtn of the necessary building blocks or should our definition include only cellular life? We can certianly find self replicating molecules that would be loosely subject to natural selection pressures which might help explain the evolution of cellular structures. How might these first self replicating molecules have come about? What might have been a naturally occuring environment for them to fullfil the conditions required for evolutions. Such questions keep biologists specualting. Many suggestions have been put formward. Clay theory, RNA world, black smokers or deep beneath the earth's crust.

Have fun researching abiogensis but don't let either the uncertainty in that field or any perosnal distaste for materialism affect the certainty of evolution.

[Matt]

Nice work, Matt. I hope Mimmo appreciates the effort.

Thanks,

Mimmo, is there anything I've covered so far, you're not clear on?

If so then please, one thing at a time.

If not is there anything more in the creationist literature for which you've not found a satisfactory response in the index of creationist claims?

Once agian - one at a time please.

[brettdbass]

Slightly off topic, perhaps?
Whatever, I think it's very interesting and probably quite relevant at least...



Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows.


In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.


http://evolutiondiary.com/2008/05/06/lizards-rapidly-evolve-after-introduction-to-island/


Who needs fossils when lizards are evolving right in fornt of our eyes?
I also remember reading a report in New Scientist a couple of years ago of a bird species that evolved into two distinct branches split across two neighboruing islands over just a few decades. Can't find a link right now.

[Mulder]

New Scientist recently devoted an entire issue to evolution. I think it answers many of the questions people have in this thread.

Go to http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620-evolution-24-myths-and-misconceptions.html and enjoy!

[DrS]

What a great link. Thanks Mulder :smiley:

[Cuddles]

Slightly off topic, perhaps?
Whatever, I think it's very interesting and probably quite relevant at least...

Fairly cool. However, I have a bit of a problem when they say:

Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows.

While the original idea of evolution involved gradual change over millions of years, that is no longer thought to be the case. The generally accepted theory is closer to punctuated equilibrium, although not quite as extreme as the original idea of that name. Bascially, although there is a background of continuous slow evolution, the majority of changes occur very rapidly, over thousands of years or even less, due to changes in the organism's environment ("environment" simply meaning the conditions it lives in, including other organisms). One obvious way of changing the environment is to introduce them to a new area. Far from this being evolution that would normally take millions of years, this is exactly what would be expected to happen.

A good example of this would be Darwin's Finches (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19125614.800-evolution-in-action-by-darwins-finches.html) on the Galapagos Islands, which have been observed to evolve different beak lengths over just a few years due to variation in the availability of different kinds of food.

[Mongrel]

So big changes, fairly quickly to broadly adapt to the environment then smaller changes over a longer period to 'specialise'?

[Graham Lappin]

Darwin's Finches on the Galapagos Islands, which have been observed to evolve different beak lengths over just a few years due to variation in the availability of different kinds of food.

I have been away for a few days and so I am just catching up on this debate. (Matt, I am seriously impressed). Another example would be the peppered moth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution