GraceAngel, that’s not at all true. In fact, that’s a rather Gnostic thing to say – you’re confusing knowledge with love. There are lots of saints who were quite simple men and women, but they loved God no less that Saint Thomas Aquinas.Pity, coz you would love Him loads if you knew more.
GraceAngel.
I mean, “no less *than * did Saint Thomas Aquinas.”GraceAngel, that’s not at all true. In fact, that’s a rather Gnostic thing to say – you’re confusing knowledge with love. There are lots of saints who were quite simple men and women, but they loved God no less that Saint Thomas Aquinas.
I wish that I could have edited the post above scientist #2 begins “the 5 genetic facts asserted”Hi Mike,
This is a response to your post that began: Originally Posted by mpartyka View Post
“Here is a summary I did for another thread once that covered material from Relics of Eden and another book – The Making of the Fittest by Sean Carroll:”
Sorry its taken so long to get back to you. Not only have I been quite busy but due to the fact that I was inexact when I asked my question “What are some of the proofs for evolution as you define it or rather within the definition that you accept?” To Anastatia Since she had no reply and you at least gave it a shot I thought that your reply should be answered. However, I am not a scientist and do not know how to reply properly. But I do know some scientists in a cyber sort of way and they have other scientist friends so I was able to get a little help from these friends and that was a bit time consuming so that is another reason for the delay. But before I get to their replies I would like to state what I really meant about SCIENTIFIC proof.
I wish that I could have edited the post above. Scientist #2 begins
The Francis Bacon quotes came from HOW THE CATHOLIC CHRUCH BUILT WESTERN CIVILATION
Science must be:
· observable
· measurable
· repeatable
My question should have been asked something like this: Would you give examples of evolution that has been observed. That is mutations that evidence one species evolved into another species?
Below are the replies to your post from a couple of scientists. I don’t know if they want their names on the work. I will asked them and if they do I’ll return to say who they are.
Scientist 1:
The author of these “revelations” does not explain how they are supposed to support the theory of evolution. My response is this.
the 5 genetic facts asserted here are nothing but speculation. Science can no more prove the history of any genetic change than the formation of new species in the prehistoric past from a few fossil bones.
- There are my similarities between humans and primates. This is obvious to all, both in terms of morphology and on the molecular level.
- Some people have a tendency to call things they do not understand as “nonfunctional”, “pseudo-something”, “junk DNA”, “vestigial organs” etc. Let us wait and see. Science is progressing and gradually the role and function of various things becomes apparent.
- Statements like: “are known by their characteristics to have formed through duplication and retrotranscription of a ‘parent’ gene” indicate that the mode of formation is deduced and not observed. If all humans and chimps have these “10 NANOG pseudogenes” then their formation has not been observed, is not reproducible. In all deductions we can err. The conclusion “these pseudogenes could not have been originally included in two independently-created genomes” is therfore an extrapolation beyond the available evidence.
- Re to “Fact 3”: Perhaps both copies of the CMT1A gene are needed in humans and chimps. Why call the variants “damage”? They are possibly different for some purpose we do not understand yet.
5)Re “Fact 5”: I fail to see how geographical differences as the one described should be an agrument for evolution. Once it was thought that marsupials live only in Austrialia, until they were found in South America. The history and causes of geographic differences are an interesting issue, but it should be studied including the possibility of a major global catastrophy being responsible for them.
If you are given the number 100, can you tell if two numbers were added up to get the 100 without knowing all of its history? ? Or what the 2 numbers were?
Maybe the 100 has always been 100 – it was written down (= created) as 100!
The fallacy here is extrapolation beyond the range of measurement. A parody of fact #1 should make this illogic clear:
Humans and chimps have 2 arms in common – arms that are known by their characteristics to have formed in both cases by attachment to the shoulders, through duplication and retrotranscription of a “parent” arm gene. Therefore, these arms could not have been originally included in two independently-created genomes.
There is as much – or little – evidence for this factoid as for the 5 facts listed.
Science uses a scientific method that tests all theoretical claims.
So where are the genetic tests of chimps and humans made over millions of years that satisfy the scientific method, by which these 5 facts are ‘known’? Without this experimental support this is the scientific ‘mythod”.
Well, that’s not really a fair question, is it? Evolution takes place over at least tens of thousands of years, so no one has been around long enough to make the direct observations you’re requiring. The examples I offered are of mutations whose origins and development can be tracked backwards through genetic comparisons among various species. It’s not a time-lapse video, but it is good evidence of evolution.My question should have been asked something like this: Would you give examples of evolution that has been observed. That is mutations that evidence one species evolved into another species?
This question is easily answered by the example I provided involving the orangutan with the two functional copies of a particular gene. All the other primates listed have two copies, too, but one of these copies is non-functional. We know the non-functional copy is a pseudogene because we have an example of a related species with two functional copies. Then, because the mutation which renders the copy non-functional is the same in all the rest of the listed primate species, we know that the mutation in the copy took place in a common ancestor of those other primates.Some people have a tendency to call things they do not understand as “nonfunctional”, “pseudo-something”, “junk DNA”, “vestigial organs” etc. Let us wait and see. Science is progressing and gradually the role and function of various things becomes apparent.
On the contrary, geneticists see retrotranscriptions take place all the time in the laboratory. They know how retrotranscriptions work, and they know the signs to look for which indicate retrotranscriptions have taken place. It’s like seeing a sneakerprint in the mud – sure, you COULD say, “I don’t know how that got there…maybe somebody took a knife and carved out of the mud just enough dirt in the right places to make it look like a person wearing a sneaker stepped there,” but unless you’re dealing with a deceiver of the highest order, it’s more likely that the sneakerprint was caused by a sneaker. In the same way, a lack of introns and a trailing-A tail is just such a sneakerprint when it comes to DNA – you didn’t see the copying as it took place, but you see the signs that the copying did take place.Statements like: “are known by their characteristics to have formed through duplication and retrotranscription of a ‘parent’ gene” indicate that the mode of formation is deduced and not observed. If all humans and chimps have these “10 NANOG pseudogenes” then their formation has not been observed, is not reproducible.
Again, we go back to knowing when a gene is a copy. Tricolor vision is the result of there being three opsin genes in African primates as opposed to only two in South American primates. The third opsin gene in the African primate is a duplicate copy of the second opsin gene which is shared by South American and African primates. The geographical separation of the vision capabilities follows exactly the pattern one would expect of evolution:I fail to see how geographical differences as the one described should be an agrument for evolution. Once it was thought that marsupials live only in Austrialia, until they were found in South America. The history and causes of geographic differences are an interesting issue, but it should be studied including the possibility of a major global catastrophy being responsible for them.
Do you subscribe to Big Bang theory?Science must be:
· observable
· measurable
· repeatable
Quote:Well, that’s not really a fair question, is it? Evolution takes place over at least tens of thousands of years, so no one has been around long enough to make the direct observations you’re requiring. The examples I offered are of mutations whose origins and development can be tracked backwards through genetic comparisons among various species. It’s not a time-lapse video, but it is good evidence of evolution.
This question is easily answered by the example I provided involving the orangutan with the two functional copies of a particular gene. All the other primates listed have two copies, too, but one of these copies is non-functional. We know the non-functional copy is a pseudogene because we have an example of a related species with two functional copies. Then, because the mutation which renders the copy non-functional is the same in all the rest of the listed primate species, we know that the mutation in the copy took place in a common ancestor of those other primates.
On the contrary, geneticists see retrotranscriptions take place all the time in the laboratory. They know how retrotranscriptions work, and they know the signs to look for which indicate retrotranscriptions have taken place. It’s like seeing a sneakerprint in the mud – sure, you COULD say, “I don’t know how that got there…maybe somebody took a knife and carved out of the mud just enough dirt in the right places to make it look like a person wearing a sneaker stepped there,” but unless you’re dealing with a deceiver of the highest order, it’s more likely that the sneakerprint was caused by a sneaker. In the same way, a lack of introns and a trailing-A tail is just such a sneakerprint when it comes to DNA – you didn’t see the copying as it took place, but you see the signs that the copying did take place.
Again, we go back to knowing when a gene is a copy. Tricolor vision is the result of there being three opsin genes in African primates as opposed to only two in South American primates. The third opsin gene in the African primate is a duplicate copy of the second opsin gene which is shared by South American and African primates. The geographical separation of the vision capabilities follows exactly the pattern one would expect of evolution:
In closing, I would like to ask you about this little bit:
- Ages ago, when South America and Africa together were a single landmass, primates evolved.
- South America and Africa split apart and drifted away from each other, each carrying its own populations of primates.
- The mutation which enabled tricolor vision happened in Africa, so only African primates (including us) got tricolor vision. The primates in South America all still have bicolor vision only.
Do you subscribe to Big Bang theory?
–Mike
Oh, I forgot to add. About the “big bang”. I believe that in the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth “ex nihilo”.Well, that’s not really a fair question, is it? Evolution takes place over at least tens of thousands of years, so no one has been around long enough to make the direct observations you’re requiring. The examples I offered are of mutations whose origins and development can be tracked backwards through genetic comparisons among various species. It’s not a time-lapse video, but it is good evidence of evolution.
This question is easily answered by the example I provided involving the orangutan with the two functional copies of a particular gene. All the other primates listed have two copies, too, but one of these copies is non-functional. We know the non-functional copy is a pseudogene because we have an example of a related species with two functional copies. Then, because the mutation which renders the copy non-functional is the same in all the rest of the listed primate species, we know that the mutation in the copy took place in a common ancestor of those other primates.
On the contrary, geneticists see retrotranscriptions take place all the time in the laboratory. They know how retrotranscriptions work, and they know the signs to look for which indicate retrotranscriptions have taken place. It’s like seeing a sneakerprint in the mud – sure, you COULD say, “I don’t know how that got there…maybe somebody took a knife and carved out of the mud just enough dirt in the right places to make it look like a person wearing a sneaker stepped there,” but unless you’re dealing with a deceiver of the highest order, it’s more likely that the sneakerprint was caused by a sneaker. In the same way, a lack of introns and a trailing-A tail is just such a sneakerprint when it comes to DNA – you didn’t see the copying as it took place, but you see the signs that the copying did take place.
Again, we go back to knowing when a gene is a copy. Tricolor vision is the result of there being three opsin genes in African primates as opposed to only two in South American primates. The third opsin gene in the African primate is a duplicate copy of the second opsin gene which is shared by South American and African primates. The geographical separation of the vision capabilities follows exactly the pattern one would expect of evolution:
In closing, I would like to ask you about this little bit:
- Ages ago, when South America and Africa together were a single landmass, primates evolved.
- South America and Africa split apart and drifted away from each other, each carrying its own populations of primates.
- The mutation which enabled tricolor vision happened in Africa, so only African primates (including us) got tricolor vision. The primates in South America all still have bicolor vision only.
Do you subscribe to Big Bang theory?
–Mike
Right. That could of course have been before an infinite series of big bangs. God undergirds the whole series, as God undergirds all of reality.Oh, I forgot to add. About the “big bang”. I believe that in the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth “ex nihilo”.
That’s not an answer. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that the Big Bang theory is a scientific theory – practically nobody denies that – and yet it is a theory that attempts to describe something unobserved and unrepeatable. So, science isn’t limited to describing observable, repeatable events. It’s also in the business of determining the existence and nature of things that happened in the past – sometimes the very distant past – which could never be directly observed or repeated in the laboratory.Oh, I forgot to add. About the “big bang”. I believe that in the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth “ex nihilo”.
There is no one mutation that changes one species into another species. Species divergence is the result of many, many accumulated mutations over time. You’re not going to be able to look at a genome and say, “Aha! There’s the smoking gun! This is what separated the orangutans from the gorillas!”Do you have an example of a mutation that changed one species into a different species?
That question is based on observations that are unrepeatable. That which you or the scientist whose work you read observe what in their opinion shows that two distinct species are descended from a common ancestor. These very objects, if observed by scientists whose presuppostions differ from the scientists whose work you read perhaps they would come to a different conclusion. I read the same bible as my friend, a seventh day adventist. We read the same thing and come up with different conclusions. Science cannot be like this. For something to be scientific it must pass the test IE “Science (from Latin scientia - knowledge) refers to the system of acquiring knowledge – based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism. The term science also refers to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research.” Otherwise it remains a philosophy or a religion…a belief system.There is no one mutation that changes one species into another species. Species divergence is the result of many, many accumulated mutations over time. You’re not going to be able to look at a genome and say, “Aha! There’s the smoking gun! This is what separated the orangutans from the gorillas!”
The examples I provided are actually answering a question different from yours, namely, “Do you have an example of a mutation that shows that two modern, distinct species are descended from a common ancestor?”
–Mike
You’re really not saying anything different from my “sneakerprint in the mud” analogy. Let’s say that a scientist has the presupposition, “The only people who have ever walked through this patch of mud have been barefoot.” Yet, there exists a sneakerprint right in the middle of the mud patch. Now the scientist has two options:These very objects, if observed by scientists whose presuppostions differ from the scientists whose work you read perhaps they would come to a different conclusion.
I cannot give you a single mutation, the smallest number of mutations that resulted in speciation I am aware of is three. Chrysopa carnea and Chrysopa downesi are two North American lacewings. C. carnea is light green in summer, brown in autumn and breeds in winter and summer. It lives in deciduous trees, hence the colour change. C. downesi is dark green and breeds in spring. It lives in pine trees, hence the constant dark green colouring. These two do not breed in nature since they live in different habitats and breed at different times. Both morphologically and reproductively they are separate species.Do you have an example of a mutation that changed one species into a different species?
You write: “So, science isn’t limited to describing observable, repeatable events. It’s also in the business of determining the existence and nature of things that happened in the past – sometimes the very distant past – which could never be directly observed or repeated in the laboratory.”You’re really not saying anything different from my “sneakerprint in the mud” analogy. Let’s say that a scientist has the presupposition, “The only people who have ever walked through this patch of mud have been barefoot.” Yet, there exists a sneakerprint right in the middle of the mud patch. Now the scientist has two options:
If there’s only one sneakerprint in a mud patch otherwise covered only in footprints made by bare feet, then option 1 might be plausible – someone might have faked the sneakerprint just to throw off the scientist. But if you find several tracks of sneakerprints through that mud patch, then option 1 becomes less and less plausible with every additional sneakerprint you find, and there must eventually come a point when the scientist has to say, “Okay, my presupposition is wrong.” It is the scientist who refuses to accept that his presupposition could be wrong even in the face of insurmountable evidence who becomes a “believer” and not a scientist.
- Demonstrate how a person with the appropriate tools can design a mud drawing that looks just like a sneakerprint.
- Accept that his/her presupposition is wrong.
The question we must answer, then, is, “Does the amount of evidence favoring evolution that we have today consititute an ‘insurmountable’ level of evidence?” Prior to 2007, before Relics of Eden was published, one might have said, “No,” and retained some level of intellectual integrity, but, having read Relics of Eden, I don’t believe that’s the case anymore. Granted, the data has not reached a level that answers every single question that we could ever ask about evolution, but it has reached the level that we can answer the question, “Did evolution happen?” with a confident, “Yes, it did.”
–Mike
Does that mean there is a universe where StA is not a heretic?Right. That could of course have been before an infinite series of big bangs. God undergirds the whole series, as God undergirds all of reality.
And the Divine science studies God. Theology is a higher order of science.You write: “So, science isn’t limited to describing observable, repeatable events. It’s also in the business of determining the existence and nature of things that happened in the past – sometimes the very distant past – which could never be directly observed or repeated in the laboratory.”
In order for it to be science and not subjective interpretation it must be observable and repeatable. You are confident that evolution happened based on interpretation of what now exists and giving an educated guess as to how it got there. There are other scientists who differ with your conclusions. I know a few in a cyber sort of way.
Annie
I don’t think you have the proper idea of what “observable and repeatable” means. A scientist cannot directly observe a retrotranscription event that took place millions of years ago, but a scientist can directly observe a retrotranscription event that takes place in a genome today, note what transpires and record the results of the event, and compare his/her notes against the evidence in our DNA to determine whether retrotranscription events have taken place in our DNA. This is no different from taking the mold of a shoeprint found in the field, making a similar mold with the suspected culprit’s shoe in the lab, and comparing the two to see if they match. Science makes comments about past events based upon present-day examples which are similar but not necessarily identical to the past events.In order for it to be science and not subjective interpretation it must be observable and repeatable.
How many of them are willing to read Relics of Eden? They really should see the data for themselves before commenting on it.You are confident that evolution happened based on interpretation of what now exists and giving an educated guess as to how it got there. There are other scientists who differ with your conclusions. I know a few in a cyber sort of way.
No offense to Dr. Giertych, but according to his biography on creationwiki.com, his education and experience in the lab is limited entirely to the plant kingdom, and he hasn’t been doing actual experiments himself for over 30 years. Dr. Daniel Fairbanks, the author of Relics of Eden, is doing present-day work on human and chimpazee DNA and is much more qualified to speak on the subject of common descent among primates.I can reveal the name of scientist #1. It is Dr. Maciej Giertych.
Probably not. Any universe will have differences of opinion, and wherever there is a difference of opinion, someone will be a heretic to someone else.Does that mean there is a universe where StA is not a heretic?