Richiyaado

Hello all,

Now that the formal debate between scigirl and Douglas has begun in earnest, I thought I'd start this new thread so the rest of us can comment, make suggestions, and generally kibitz while it progresses. I don't necessarily expect scigirl or Douglas to post here themselves (unless, of course, they want to ). Anyway, since the other thread relating to their debate has gotten rather long and wandered off-topic, I thought (moderator permitting) that providing a fresh venue for everyone else might be worthwhile.

RufusAtticus

My Prediction:
Scigirl's gonna destroy Douglas in her next post. <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

Why:
His argument rests on entirely unscientific an unrealistic definations. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

There are no such things as 'kinds' or 'genetic barriers to macroevolution.'

My Take:
<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jul01.html" target="_blank">Genetic Barriers Don't Exist</a>

-RvFvS

wonderbread

Well I don't know about anyone else, but I have to applaude Mr. Bender. He has stepped out on a limb and done something I have never seen a creationist do, he defined the term "kind."

Oh course there is a problem with this, now instead of being an ambigous word that no one could really attack, it is now hunting season.

DB defined a kind as: "A population of creatures capable of producing offspring, whether 'viable' or not, 'between' themselves".

While this is a nice rehash of the biological species concept, it runs into the same problems. For example, how does your new definition of kind apply to organisms that are asexual? Also how can you tell if two species are the same kind if they have strong biological barriers to prevent mating? Are you going to artifically inseminate simular species to see if they make good biolgical "kinds?" If so, I say to you "Good luck with all the arthropods." How does your new concept of kind apply to extinct animals? No way to tell if they can mate with other species.

With this definition, Lions and Tigers are now the same kind (The hybrids are called Ligers).I don't know your position on the flood story, but if it is true, lions and tigers only had about 4000 years to microevolve the differences seen in them today. That is a rate of evolution faster then any biologist would ever consider, yet would be required to fit the creationist view.

At the end of the post DB said, "Genetic mechanisms coupled with natural selection and a long time frame (limited by the age of the Earth, of course) are not enough to account for evolution of a new 'kind' from a previously existing 'kind' (where 'kind' is defined [by me] as: 'A population capable, on a genetic level, of producing offspring, whether viable or not')."

Sorry to burst your bubble, but according to the defination you gave us, we see kinds creating other kinds all the time. As a matter of fact, according to your definition, a new kind can be made litterally over night. An example of this would be the evening primrose. The evening primrose has a normal chromosome number of 14. Variants have been found that have 28 chromosome, caused be an error in meosis that caused a doubling of chromosomes. The 28 chromosome variants are completly unable to breed with the 14 chromosome variety. Other plant species have also shown this phenomenon. According to your definition, this is one kind coming from another kind.

The Ensatina salamanders of california also pose a problem to your definition. There are eleven types of this salamander that live in the areas surrounding the central valley in california. The best way for me to describe this would be to just make a diagram. For this purposes, we will just use 5 of these salamanders as examples and lable them x,y,z,p and q. They are located around the central valley like so:
x
/ \
y z
/ \
p q
Sorry for the crudeness of my diagram, it was the best I could do. Now, q is able to form offspring with z, z can form offspring with x, x can form offspring with y, and y can mate with p. The interesting thing is though, that p does NOT hyrbidize with q. According to your definition, p and q are different kinds, but they are obviously related to each other. This is another example of one kind coming from another.

On a final note, I want to address your comment about different breeds of dogs "still being dogs." While they may still be dogs, I would like to see you mate a Saint Bernard with a Tea Cup poodle. Would you then consider these two dogs to be different kinds?

Edited to try and make the diagram understandable.

[ December 07, 2001: Message edited by: wonderbread ]</p>

babelfish

Bravo, Wonderbread! I think your post was extremely clear and easy to understand. I hope some of our fundamentalist friends on this board read it. I've noticed that they like things that are "easy to read."

Dr Rick

Since two threads on the same topic are redundant, the old one will be closed and this new one allowed to continue as posts on the actual debate have already been made here.

Rick

Dr Rick

A false dichotomy. The prescence of a god and/or its involvement does not exclude the possibility of a struggle. One could assert: 1)there is a god and a struggle, 2)there is no god and no struggle, 3)there is no god and there is a struggle, or 4) there is a god and no struggle. Scigirl is asserting that there is a struggle, and Mr. Bender does not explain why assuming their is no god is necessary for there to be a struggle.



The struggle does not have to be "in all circumstances"; it's enough for it to be present as a driving force in selecting some organisms over others to make natural selection occur.



Another fallacy: one could assume that breeding is a secondary motivation without affecting the veracity of scigirls original assertion as long as there is no opposing motivation that would negate the struggle. If there is a mitigating motivational factor, Mr. Bender has yet to reveal it.

Rick

Coragyps

The word "struggle" is such a stumbling block in SO many discussions like this! Someone needs to coin a word for "differential reproductive success" that doesn't carry connotations of World Wrestling Foundation or Mein Kampf or such. "Difrepsuc" sure won't work, though....

MOJO-JOJO

To a Chinese Restaurant it's still stir-fry!!

Richiyaado

Hello all,

I have a few questions/comments on the debate thus far.

First, Douglas says he disagrees that limited resources will cause a struggle for survival among populations of organisms because it's based on the implicit assumption that God doesn't exist, and because he claims any such observed struggle is due to the 'curse of sin'. My question is whether Douglas is putting forward the 'curse of sin' as a statement of religious belief, or does he regard it as a viable scientific hypotheses? If the former, is it his position that religious doctrine simply trumps any scientific theory he finds in contradiction to it, irrespective of any empirical evidence in support of the theory? If the latter (curse of sin as a scientific hypothesis), how would we go about testing such a hypothesis using scientific methodology?

Secondly, I'm unsure what Douglas means when he speaks about assuming a naturalistic view, since he apparently believes that doing so means God does not exist, or is not involved in His Creation. Is he referring here to metaphysics or method? Or does he make no distinction between the two?

On the central question of the debate, Douglas first says he does not reject the mechanism behind descent with modification (RM & NS), but that he does reject descent with modification itself. This strikes me as entirely contradictory. How can one accept that a mechanism exists for bringing about change, but that change itself does not occur?

Whatever the case, it's refreshing to see that Douglas at least admits he can offer no direct or conclusive evidence that microevolution cannot lead to macroevolution, given enough time. In my experience, this is the point where most Creationists leave the discussion, never to be heard from again.

Finally, Douglas seems to question whether or not there are clear examples of beneficial mutation. As scigirl points out, the fact that we know viruses do evolve antibiotic resistance shows that beneficial genetic mutations do arise— well, at least they're beneficial for the virus!

Enough kibitzing for now— please pass the peanuts!

[ December 07, 2001: Message edited by: Richiyaado ]</p>

theyeti

Just to pick a nit, viruses aren't suceptible to anti-biotics, bacteria are. Viruses, of course, evolve like crazy anyway.

theyeti