Freethought & Rationalism Archive

lpetrich · 03-28-2002, 12:12 AM

Quote:

OC:
But the similarities are also in the unused regions of DNA, the areas that are not used in making bodies. Why would that be?
Ed:
As I stated above, those presently unused regions may have been used in the past for adaptations to ancient environments and humans and apes prefer similar environments.

Ed, do you have any good reason for that being the case? Though some noncoding DNA is probably involved in gene regulation, much of it is just plain junk.

Quote:

OC: As for your 'it may have been different in the past' (flowering plants, junk DNA etc): all the evidence suggests not. How might you go about providing evidence for your position? How is it at all refutable? How can we tell, in other words, that it isn't total bollocks?
Ed:
Its called research, we need more of it. Though as I stated to lp it may be very difficult to discover such evidence given that we would probably need exhaustive knowledge of ancient environments and unless we have a time machine such a thing is nearly impossible.

Actually, there has been an abundance of paleoecological research; just consult the professional literature.

And Ed, why don't you start doing research into your pet hypothesis?

Quote:

(mutations and information...)
Ed:
Yes, but in doing so it becomes less specific thereby resulting in a loss of information.

What do you mean by being "specific"?

Quote:

Ed:
If you are referring to the tracks at the Paluxy River, those were carved by local pranksters not creation scientists.

So, Ed, are you willing to accept that those tracks are a creationist Piltdown?

GunnerJ · 03-28-2002, 05:33 AM

Gentlemen, ladies,

Quote:

No, duplication does not usually increase information. For example DNA is like a sentence. "The dog chased the cat." If one gene is duplicated "The The dog chased the cat." This may still be understandable but if another is duplicated "The the dog chased chased the cat." It starts losing its meaning or information.

Quote:

Yes, but in doing so it becomes less specific thereby resulting in a loss of information. Just like a sentence, by making a sentence less specific it contains less info. For example, "The dog chased the cat." This is less specific than "Spot chased the cat." Now you know exactly which dog you are talking about so it contains more info.

<sigh> He is comparing DNA to sentences with English vocabulary, grammar and syntax not merely as an illustrative analogy, but to prove a point. He actually thinks that DNA is just like an English sentence. Why are we still humoring this troll? His brain has obviously been far too shrunken by the swelling of his skull to be able to process any actual information about real genetics, even if it could get through!

DNFTT. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

PS- Poor Morpho! He made a simple request to share notes with fellow "wildlife biologist," Ed, and has been completely blown off! It's really rather rude of Ed not to acknowledge the requests of a colluege.

KC · 03-28-2002, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ed:
[b] No, because more personality requires more genetic information, but natural selection by mutation is inadequate to increase information given that all studies so far show that mutation either maintains the status quo or results in a loss of information

Incorrect. There are mutations known that are reversible. If mutations only maintain the status quo or are losses of information, then a mutation that produces a reversal of the original mutation could not be possible--- it would require a GAIN in information.

This canard of mutations only being neutral or losses of information is so much ignorant codswallop.

Cheers,

KC

Ed · 03-28-2002, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich:

MrD: ... But things like trilobites, brachiopods, various corals, and crinoid stem segments are extremely common fossils. ...
Ed:
That is my point, animals that were more mobile and in areas where the populations were low during the flood there would be few if any fossils. ...

lp: A comment which makes me wonder whether Ed knows what a trilobite is, because trilobites have a feature that could enable them to escape the fate of crinoids and corals. I'll leave Ed to find out what that feature is; let's see how smart he is.[/b]

I assume you are referring to their legs but they were rather slow footed and slow witted so they wouldnt get far.

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lp: The ecological-zonation hypothesis fails miserably, because organisms with similar tastes in habitat are found over big ranges of ages -- organisms that are sometimes very slow or stationary.

Yes, but that is because they were already at the higher elevations.

Quote:

Ed:
... But this is only if the fossil record is the result of the flood, some christian geologists think the flood left little or no evidence.

lp: Little or no evidence? A very stupid hypothesis, because a worldwide flood would have produced a distinctive layer of mixed-up sediment.

Maybe but given that it only lasted a year the layer may not be very thick within the billion year geological column. And Dr. Davis Young a geologist at UNC believes that hypothesis.

[b]

Quote:

lp: Ed seems like he wants to have it both ways -- to advocate that the sedimentary rocks were produced by Noah's Flood, and then to deny that he had ever claimed that when challenged.

I have not made up my mind which is the correct theory especially given that I am not a geologist. But there are intelligent scientists on both sides.

lpetrich · 03-28-2002, 10:04 PM

Quote:

MrD: ... But things like trilobites, brachiopods, various corals, and crinoid stem segments are extremely common fossils. ...
Ed:
That is my point, animals that were more mobile and in areas where the populations were low during the flood there would be few if any fossils. ...
LP:
A comment which makes me wonder whether Ed knows what a trilobite is, because trilobites have a feature that could enable them to escape the fate of crinoids and corals. I'll leave Ed to find out what that feature is; let's see how smart he is.
Ed:
I assume you are referring to their legs but they were rather slow footed and slow witted so they wouldnt get far.

Ed proposes NO independent evidence that trilobites were slow-footed and slow-witted; even if they were, they could still be swept up into higher sediments by all the currents in the Flood. Consider how the Fountains of the Deep would have mixed up the Flood and its sediments. Imagine some trilobites being carried upward in some of the FOTD's.

Quote:

LP:
The ecological-zonation hypothesis fails miserably, because organisms with similar tastes in habitat are found over big ranges of ages -- organisms that are sometimes very slow or stationary.
Ed:
Yes, but that is because they were already at the higher elevations.

However, Ed presents no independent evidence for ecological zonation. The arguments of ecological-zonation critics like myself do present independent evidence: clues in the rocks and the inferred preferred habitats of the organisms. In fact, there has even been an abundance of work on inferring the details of paleoecologies.

Quote:

Ed:
... But this is only if the fossil record is the result of the flood, some christian geologists think the flood left little or no evidence.
LP:
Little or no evidence? A very stupid hypothesis, because a worldwide flood would have produced a distinctive layer of mixed-up sediment.
Ed:
Maybe but given that it only lasted a year the layer may not be very thick within the billion year geological column. And Dr. Davis Young a geologist at UNC believes that hypothesis.

Ed, Ed, Ed, have some common sense and look at what you have stated. You are now advocating a hypothesis DRASTICALLY different from what you had advocated just above. Do you have any idea how grossly they contradict each other?

Quote:

Ed:
I have not made up my mind which is the correct theory especially given that I am not a geologist. But there are intelligent scientists on both sides.

Ed, the mainstream scientific community dumped Flood Geology almost 200 years ago, around when Charles Darwin was born. The rocks are too neatly layered to be the result of a single big flood -- especially one stirred up by some Fountains of the Deep.

Ed · 03-30-2002, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless:

This is equivalent to saying that if two identical twins are sprayed with machinegun fire, the bullets will hit in identical locations.

Hardly. Given that the mutations may have been delivered by viruses it is more like a heat seeking missile programmed to strike anything within a certain temperature range.

Ed · 03-30-2002, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Coragyps:
Re ecological zonation:

Cycads and cypress trees both like swamps, nicht wahr? But cycads are found below cypresses in the geologic column, no es verdad? We know cypresses have knees, but I don't think they have been shown to have feet. They can't run away from a flood any better than a cycad.

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Coragyps ]

Hello Cora. Maybe cycads preferred the lower elevation swamps.

Ed · 03-30-2002, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MrDarwin:


Ed, do you know the difference between spores and pollen? Even the most primitive non-flowering plants (e.g., mosses) produce spores. Heck, even fungi produce spores. And do you have any idea what a tracheid is? Did you know that tracheids are characteristic of all vascular plants (i.e., including ferns and gymnosperms), not just flowering plants? So the article you cite neither supports your own position nor counters mine.

But vascular plants supposedly didn't exist in the Cambrian.

Ed · 03-30-2002, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MrDarwin:


On the contrary, the fossil record demonstrates that flowering plants were as widespread and common in the past as they are today. Flowering plants are not only the dominant land plants today, they have been the dominant land plants in the fossil record since soon after their appearance in the Cretaceous.

Moreover, flowering plants, especially grains, provide the primary food sources of human cultures, and archeological evidence shows this has been the case throughout human history (and prehistory).

Depending on which Flood theory you accept, maybe the flood occurred early in the Cretaceous before they became dominant.

theyeti · 03-30-2002, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ed:

Hello Cora. Maybe cycads preferred the lower elevation swamps.

Lower elevation swamps? As opposed to the ones at high elevations!? You're losing it Ed.

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