hezekiah jones

Vanderzyden, how utterly disingenuous of you! First of all, the post doesn't read, "scientists have speculated that perhaps". It says: "... scientists speculated that perhaps ..." and goes on to point out that the "speculation" in question was made prior to the discovery of the hard data!

You go on to say:

But in this case, the "speculation" was confirmed by the observations! But you completely ignored that little fact didn't you?

<additional irrelevant objections snipped>

Oh great. Vanderzyden quoting <a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html" target="_blank">Alvin Plantinga</a> quoting Michael Ruse. We haven't all just fallen off the turnip truck, you know.

Why should you get another "challenge" when you've done nothing but completely sidestepped this one?

Richiyaado

Congratulations, Vanderzyden! You have met the challenge with... with... admirably prolux, yet totally evasive trumpery!

By the way, what is your explanation for the apparent fusion of these chromosomes? And what would be the purpose for the two extra telomeres and the nonfunctional centromere in human chromosome 2?

(No need to reply immediately, anytime during the current lunar cycle will be fine.)

monkenstick

I can't say i'm surprised at Vanderzyden's response

hezekiah jones

He already answered:

Albion

This just looks like someone trying to get an advanced degree in not answering questions and blaming the questioner. You only have to google on "chromosome fusion" to see that it's an observed mechanism. You only have to look at the description of the hypothesis to see that when the facts were observed, they agreed with the hypothesis without any need to redefine things like the number 2.

The digression about different forms of knowledge is irrelevant, whether you prefer talking philosophy or whether you don't. Of course science isn't the only means of finding out about things, and very few scientists would say otherwise, but it's the best way to find out about the material world. Chromosomes are part of the material world. The notion that science can't explain mind, consciousness, or beauty (yet, at any rate) is irrelevant. The question wasn't about mind, consciousness, or beauty, it was about chromosomes. You're creating irrelevancies, and it looks as if you're doing it to avoid answering a question whose answer you wouldn't like very much if you DID answer it.

"The Darwinist" doesn't reject anything in the Bible other than statements that can be tested scientifically and have been tested scientifically and shown to be false. That's it. No rejection of the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus, the message of salvation - simply rejection of the six-day creation and the worldwide flood and teh young universe. In the context of this question, they're just a bunch of red herrings strewn across the path.

lpetrich

What is "irreducible complexity"?

What do you mean by "biological information"?

True, our minds continue to have some riddles, like consciousness, but there exist artificial minds -- the operations of computers. And they could not have been constructed without some understanding of how minds work. And the really interesting thing about computers is that they need no special mind-stuff to work -- only appropriate organization.

What do you expect, O Vanderzyden?

It is NOT categorically rejected; it is given no special privileges. Genesis 30 tells us that one can make solid-colored cattle and sheep and goats have spotted and streaked offspring by showing them striped sticks. Vanderzyden, do you believe in Lamarckian inheritance?

So if someone claims that some other way of knowing has demonstrated that you are really a turnip, would you accept that?

How is that supposed to be the case?

Testable and falsifiable in what way?

Doubting Didymus

Haha! look at this!

and...

Anyone get the joke?

Richiyaado

Oh dear, hezekiah jones, I had no idea the question was insistent and overbearing.

Yet, I'd still like to hear Vanderzyden's answer using whatever terms he/she likes, naturalistic or otherwise. I mean, is there an invisible tinkering warrior army mischievously working to deceive foolish scientists on human chromosome two? Or what?

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Richiyaado ]</p>

DMB

This is a very funny thread. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Oolon Colluphid

Vanderzyden, I direct your attention to the original post.

To make it easier (and to hopefully avoid further pseudophilosophical navel-gazing), let me spell it out for you.

Background Fact 1:

Of all other animals, humans are anatomically most similar to chimpanzees.

Background Fact 2:

Of all other animals, humans are physiologically most similar to chimpanzees.

Background Fact 3:

Of all other animals, humans are biochemically most similar to chimpanzees.

(Supplementary question if you deny any of these three: please name a single bone, protein or enzyme not present in both. Name one feature of one species that could not be a modified version of something in the other.)

Evolutionary conclusion: Humans are chimpanzees’ nearest living relatives. If it works for species of finch or vole, why is it wrong here?

Background Fact 4:

Genes, and patterns of chromosomal DNA, are copied down generations, even into split populations. Repeated for emphasis: patterns -- sequences -- of DNA are copied down lineages from parent to offspring to offspring to offspring... even if the lineages are separated and do not interbreed. Or become separated.

(Supplementary demand if you deny BF4: go read even a very simple book on genetics. To deny this is to deny that you have ancestry.)

Non-evolutionary prediction based on BF4: DNA [patterns], by having been copied down generations from ancestors, indicate relatedness directly, not by inference from anatomical similarity.You may have your father’s nose; you certainly have his DNA. So the more closely related people (or any organisms) are, the more similar should be their chromosome patterns and genes. Example of confirmation: DNA fingerprinting works.

Background Fact 5:

Of all other animals, humans are genetically most similar to chimpanzees. Not just in genes, but in patterns of the DNA on their chromosomes.

Evolutionary comment: genetics -- which was a near-total unknown in Darwin’s time -- confirms the anatomical, physiological and biochemical conclusion of close relatedness between these species. It could have refuted it. But instead it fitted very nicely with what was expected.

Background Fact 6:

There is a discrepency in the actual number of chromosomes between the two species -- chimpanzees (and, note, other apes) have 24 pairs while humans have 23 pairs.

Hypothesis to explain BF5 and 6: two of the chromosomes have fused since the lineages separated.

Prediction from the hypothesis: There should be evidence of this fusion.

Test: Look for evidence of the fusion in the DNA sequences.

Background Fact 7:

Chromosomes have distinctive parts that are used when they are copied: telomeres and centromeres.

Sub-prediction: the evidence of fusion should be in the right places on the right chromosome. The human chromosome which is most similar to the two separate ape ones should contain telomere and centromere sequences, and these should be in the places they ought to be if the ape ones were ‘stuck together’.

Observation from nature: Human chromosome 2 has, along its length and in the places predicted by comparison to chimpanzee chromosomes 2p and 2q, telomere and centromere sequences.

Analogical mental image: If chromosomes were pieces of nylon string that have melted ends to prevent fraying, the human chromosome 2 has an anti-fraying melted bit in its middle. And if centromeres were a characteristic knot, usually halfway down each string, the human chromosome 2 also has two extra of these knots, in the same place as the knots on the separate chimp ones.

*******

Now. Vander. No more fannying around. Answer this, or quit the troll act.

Why is this not strong evidence for evolution?

You have had several, and it has been explained why to put it in a soundbite makes the definition near useless. But if you insist, the most catch-all Theory of evolution would be that random mutation plus natural selection, genetic drift, and long-term factors such as continental drift, asteroid impacts and climate changes (eg ice ages) have combined to produce the myriad of life-forms on this planet. (I’ve probably missed bits even so.)

That’s the theory of evolution, which like any scientific theory is the bundled set of hypotheses which together explain something fundamental about the world.

Remember that evolution is also a fact. A scientific fact is something that is so well evinced that it is perverse to withold agreement.

(Such agreement is always provisional, because the whole point is that we’re trying to find out how things are, not defining it at the outset. Something might turn up to make us reconsider. But provisional does not mean uncertain, just not absolutely certain beyond all possibility of error. Since we are not omniscient, we have to make do without absolutes, but simply that in which we can have great confidence in because all the evidence points to it.)

The scientific fact of evolution is that: All living things are related by descent with modification from a common ancestor.

Clear enough?

TTFN, Oolon