Synaesthesia

1)Evolutionary theory entails that we should have “little difficulty” whipping up a living cell.

2)Living cells, being complex beyond all human fathoming are not only difficult to whip up, it is unlikely that human beings will ever create a fully evolved cell from scratch.

3)Therefore evolution is wrong, QED.

Oh, wait a minute, evolution is a theory that was developed to explain complexity. We acknowledge that cells are mind-bogglingly subtle. I suppose that means that this argument fails.

theyeti

David, #1: I will bet you that within 20 years we will be able to create life de novo in the laboratory. What will this do to your argument then? #2: Evolution and/or abiogenesis is not about "pure chance". How many times must we say this? Chance certainly plays a role, but natural laws are paramount. When an apple falls to the ground, it is not because of "pure chance", it is because natural laws demand it. #3: The ability or inability to create life in the lab is irrelevant (even if they did, creationists would declare it bunk because it was "designed", so you're making a pointless demand). There are lots of things that we can't reproduce in a lab that we know weren't created by divine poofing. For example, volcanoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, planets, stars, oceans, etc. There are reasons why they can't be reproduced in the lab, owing to space and time limitations. But it's irrelevant to whether or not they were formed in nature.

No David, you've got it wrong. What I'm pointing out here is that if your claims were true, then we wouldn't be here. This is just an attempt to make you see that the empirical evidence rules your idea out. You are too caught up with theoretical considerations to realize that the goal of science is to construct theories that match what we see in reality. For example, if you claim that the majority of airplane flights will lead to crashes, and you cite all sorts of things that could go wrong to back it up, all I have to do is show you flight data to prove you wrong. It doesn't matter what your arguments are, if they don't match with what we see in reality, then something is wrong with your premises and/or reasoning. If all mutations were seriously harmful and led to premature death, then none of us would be here. Your claim is therefore wrong. The fact humanity survives and thrives shows us that negative mutation does not consitute a barier for our mere existance.

You are so confused that I don't even know where to start. The fact that most mutations are neutral is due in part to the nature of DNA. This includes, yes, introns, but it also includes the fact that every third base pair is usually redundant. But there is also the nature of proteins. Proteins sequences are generally very flexible. There are a small number of conserved amino acids that are necessary for catalytic function and tertiary structure, but the majority of them can be substituted for something else without affecting function. Proteins with identical structure and functions often differ by 50% or more in their amino acid sequence. And we can take these amino acid sequences from various organisms, contruct a phylogenetic tree with them, and get the same tree that we get with morphology. This is despite the fact that the differences in sequence are irrespective of their function. Why is this? Because these various proteins are related by common descent, that's why. The differences in sequence are due to the accumulation of neutral mutations since their divergence from a common ancestor.

As for introns, their existance has nothing to do with neutral mutations. It just happens that most mutations within an intron will be neutral because the introns don't really do anything. If you want to learn why introns have originated and are maintained in eukaryotes and not bacteria, then please read some of my earlier posts where I spent considerable effort explaining this. I am getting very tired of repeating myself.

I didn't give you a link, I gave you an example. Here's another one. A mutation that gives a bacterium an extra gene for antibiotic resistance will be beneficial if that bacterium is inside of a hospital patient. It can then survive the antibiotics being given to that person. But it will be harmful to a bacterium living out in the soil, because now it will have extra DNA to replicate for no good reason. It's a matter of simple logic that the harm or benefit caused by a mutation will be dependant on the environment that an organism is in (and like Peez said, part of that environment includes the rest of your genome). I'm getting the impression that your reading is substandard, so the fact that you haven't come across this is irrelevant.

theyeti

[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: theyeti ]</p>

scigirl

That is damn funny, W@L!

DavidH--I work in the biological field, and I can assure you that we do not know everything about cells, DNA, biology, etc. But everything we do know seems to fit nicely with the theory of evolution. We are making leaps and bounds, however, in our understanding of biology through the invention of high-throughput screening methods like SAGE and DNA arrays, and also with the genome sequencing projects. There are labs working on "virtual cells," and doing exactly what you said they should be doing. But they do NOT know all of the variables yet!

I think many of us have also tried to point out over and over that evolution is not abiogenesis. While the theories are not completely unrelated, here's my explanation as to their meaning:

Abiogenesis--explains the origin of the first life forms on the planet. May have occured under conditions that we do not see today-i.e. different atmosphere, different temperature. Very difficult to study for that reason, but we have made some progress. And for all we know, abiogenesis is going on today-but it may be difficult to detect.

See <a href="http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-abiogenesis.html" target="_blank">talkorigins</a> for more details.

Evolution-explains how the first life forms diversified and created all the life we see today. Evolution is an on-going process, and is going on right now.

Got it?

Incidentally, how would you feel if we tried to poke holes in the Bible, but kept accidentally using the Koran? Abiogenesis is not evolution! Please get that through your head, ok?

Thanks,

scigirl

Coragyps

davidH - you said: Perhaps I wasn't too clear in my explanation. Hemoglobin C has no real relation to hemoglobin S, the one that causes sickle-cell anemia. They are two different variants of normal hemoglobin, both of which happen to confer some resistance to malaria. Hemoglobin C often has only minor health effects, even for homozygotes - people who have both of the genes for this trait as the C variant instead of the "standard factory model" A gene. You have to have an S gene to have sickle-cell disease - mild if you are SA genotype. severe if you are SS (or SC).
The authors of the paper speculate that, indeed, the C gene would go on to spread widely through tropical Africa if modern medicine weren't there to lessen the selection pressure from malaria. I think that this example is a perfect illustration of what biology textbooks try to tell us - a random mutation + natural selection = spread of new genes. In a word, evolution.

davidH

Because God is a Spirit - therefore isn't physical but can be if he so choses. As far as I am aware all technology can only enhance our senses of our physical world (universe). Hence the reason why nothing could detect God. He isn't physical and so can't be found, measured or detected.

Yeah, I do know that the origin of life has only a little to do with evolution.

Yes I know what you are pointing out. But you can't use a theory as a basis for fact, the fact has to come first and then the theory afterwards.
If my claims were true and we are still here, then there must be another theory, not the other way around - that the majority of mutations musn't be harmful. You can't base a fact on a theory, but you can base a theory on a fact.
I'm just showing that your reasoning isn't accurate - that's all.


Exactly my point - what we see in reality as facts have to be the basis for a theory. So if in reality most mutations are harmful you can't turn around and say that they can't be because we still exist.
That's the only point I am trying to make here.

Yes, that reasoning from your point of view is correct. But the reasoning that most mutations aren't harmful just because we are still here is not.

Yeah but the thing about this is that it is the antibiotic that causes the mutation. Not a pure chance mutation. Therefore hypothetically this mutation won't in all probablity occur unless in the presence of the antibiotic. Therefore this mutation can't be harmful for the bacteria as it caused by the antibiotic so allowing it to live in the presence of the antibiotic. Therefore the mutation won't happen unless in the presence of the antibiotic.

Also why is replicating extra DNA for no good reason going to be harmful to the bacterium? Surely the introns are replicated for no good reason too - why isn't that harmful?

Have to head now.

Writer@Large

Like I said, the sarcasm would be lost ...

--W@L

theyeti

Which is precisely what I have been trying to get through your thick skull all this time. Most mutations are not harmful, they're neutral. The harmful ones tend to get weeded out by natural selection, leaving the neutral and beneficial ones.

There was nothing wrong with my reasoning, David. I was presenting you a fact that contradicted your theory. You are the one who has been claiming that all (or almost all) mutations are harmful. This is what you are using to demonstrate that Darwinian evolution can't work, but your premise is flawed.

No, if the outcome of having most mutations fatally harmful is to render us extinct, then you certainly can use our continued presence to prove that wrong. Most mutations as measured by mutagenesis experiments show that most are either neutral or weakly harmful. All I was doing here was pointing out the logical outcome of your insistance that most of them are seriously harmful.

You have an anoying habit of focusing on tangenital issues rather than tackling the larger picture. When are you going to answer the questions that we've put forth to you? How do you interpret the evidence of shared pseudogenes and introns in a framework other than common descent? How do you interpret the fossil record? What about the other thread that was started for you to explain your issues with the age of the Earth?

You're wrong. The presence of the antibiotic does not cause the mutation. It is "chance" that causes it. You can do an experiment where you zap a bunch of bacteria with radiation, and then plate them on an antibiotic. Chances are, a few of them will survive because they received an appropriate mutation.

Because it requires more material and energy to replicate it. This puts a larger metabolic demand on the bacterium, and it will be outcompeted by its non-resistant, more energy efficient peers. Otherwise, we would expect all bacteria to be antibiotic resistant. This is also why we don't see introns in bacteria. The introns reduce the fitness of the bacteria, and thus they are selected out. However, for organisms with larger cells who spend most of their energy doing things other than replicating DNA, it's insignificant. This is why humans and other animals have plenty of introns. I've already explained this in previous posts.

theyeti

Jack the Bodiless

David:

There is no doubt that evolution occurs. The processes involved can be observed readily enough. What you seem to be hung up on are the probabilities involved: does all of this happen often enough to account for the present complexity and diversity of life on Earth?

And the answer is YES. As has already been pointed out, scientists actually use these calculations to estimate how long ago two species last shared a common ancestor (how much genetic variance there is, and how long it would take for the necessary number of mutations to occur). The results show that evolution is easily adequate as an explanation.

So are you now prepared to drop your objections to evolution? Is it only abiogenesis that you still have doubts about?

As for scientists "creating life": there is a proposal to do just that, but support for it is limited because many feel that it wouldn't really prove much. Scientists want to see abiogenesis under simulated early-Earth conditions, they're not that interested in building a life form under highly artificial conditions. Hence the need to simulate a process that probably took millions of years to occur somewhere in millions of cubic miles of seawater. It's a little difficult to compress this into a short experiment in a test tube.

Incidentally, creationism is a very small minority view outside the United States and a few small pockets of religious fundamentalism (e.g. Northern Ireland). I have never met a creationist in "real life".

Jack the Bodiless

BTW, churches don't teach evolution because it isn't their job to teach evolution. I haven't come across any church that teaches a spherical Earth either.

If you're referring to schools affiliated to religious denominations, they usually teach round-Earthism in geography classes and evolution in biology classes.

liquid

David, a reply.

IIRC, population world = 6bn, population US = 300mn, therefore 5%.

I actually have no idea what this means. Please be coherent. The population of the USA largely supports evolution, although a sizeable religious minority support creationism, between 20 to 30%. The scientific community of the USA probably supports evolution at the 95% level, with the level of biologists about 99%. These figures are from memory, but I would be surprised if they are far from the actuality.

Creationism is even less prevalent elsewhere in the West. I see you mention the UK - I live in the UK. I hope you are not trying to claim creationism has wide support here, because it simply does not. Not one school teaches creationism, not even religious schools, because the catholics and anglicans and major protestant denominations all see sense. But to be honest I don't know what you were trying to claim.

Point is, creationism is not widely supported, evolution is. Even amongst christians.

They were voicing support for the present curriculum, which includes evolution, and actively protected it by issuing the statement that they agree with the cponclusions of the court case (which specifically support evolution). It's pretty clear.

No, that isn't me, though I do know of at least 2 people who have stolen my name and used it on other boards. I have seen one other Liquid I believe to be independently created.