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mpartyka
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Welcome to the forum, Dr. Giertych!
–Mike
Would you like a copy? I can purchase one for you on Amazon and have it shipped to your address, all at no cost to you.
It’s not my field, either, but if it was written at a level that even I could understand, I’m certain you’d have no problem with it.
–Mike
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mpartyka
Guest
I think the problem we’re getting into here is an either/or fallacy. Not all geological formations have a uniformitarian origin, and not all have a catastrophic origin. It’s only hardcore ideological zealots who say it must be all one or the other.
–Mike
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ricmat
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It is VERY interesting, and says much about you that you choose an item with religious (particularly Catholic) overtones to mock an image of strata with which you disagree over the scientific interpretation. You could have used other non-religious, non-Catholic, scientific or secular counter examples, but chose not to. Why not?
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StAnastasia
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ricmat, I don’t follow your logic. A cheese sandwich isn’t related to geological strata, nor did I say it was. I did indicate that people see images where they want to see them, whether it’s the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or a “dinosaur” on a fourteenth century tomb.
StAnastasia
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ricmat
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Catholics are openly mocked by the secular world for such things as grilled cheese sandwiches with images of Mary, Jesus, etc.
Since you claim to be Catholic, I think it is very interesting that you would use that particular example of “see images where they want to see them.” Certainly there are non-Catholic examples available that you could have used. You don’t need to add fuel to the fire.
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StAnastasia
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I’m not adding any fuel to any fire. You either see an image, or you don’t, whether it be the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or a dinosaur on Bishop Bell’s tomb. Humans seem driven to seek meaningful patterns and designs in whatever they view.
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ricmat
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If Humans do this, as you say, you could have used and example that doesn’t already malign just Catholics.
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StAnastasia
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OK – here’s Satan in the smoke of the World Trade Center:
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mpartyka
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ricmat
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Ah, now I get it. It’s not just Catholics, but religious people in general that see things that aren’t there. Well, at least you are expanding your range from Catholics to Christians in general.
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StAnastasia
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Mike, I see what you mean:
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Maciej
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Maciej
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I claim that races, whether natural or bred by man, are less variable than the population from which they were derived. They represent a part of the original population, and remain distinct only as long as there is sexual isolation. Examples of race formation are used to prove evolution (Galapagos finches, Biston betularia, Neanderthal etc.) but they do not. Of course there is information in RNA, proteins, even in celluloze. Quantification is of no significance to the discussion. You are trying to sidetrack the main argument about the nature of races - parts of a larger whole- but nothing new.
To confirm phylogeny it is not enough to show similarities or genetic distances between organisms. It is necessary to confirm sequences eg. fish - amphibian - reptile - bird. Are fish molecluarily closer to frogs than to birds? Maciej
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hecd2
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It appears that your position is so poorly developed and argued that you are unable to be consistent from one post to the next. Let me remind you of what you said in an earlier post:
To which I replied:
*This is a common claim, usually made by creationists who have no scientific training. So, it is excellent that, as a professional scientist, you have come to this forum, basing your thesis on the claim. In order for the claim to be credible, you would have to successfully negotiate the following four steps:
*]You have to define, rigorously and unambiguously, what you mean by genetic information (including whether it refers to the quantity of information in the genome of an organism, in an actively interbreeding population, in a species or in a habitat).
*]You have to show how to unambiguously quantify it - by bits, or gene count, or the total length of the genome, or the length of the conserved portion of the genome, or the protein coding length of the genome, or the number of alleles in a population or a species - so that you can tell whether the quantity of whatever you have defined as information in step 1) is more, less or the same from generation to generation
*]You have to demonstrate that macro-evolution necessarily requires an increase over time in whatever you have defined as information in step 1) according to the method of quantification in step 2)
*]You must then show that it is impossible for this increase in whatever you have defined as information to occur naturally by well known processes such as point mutations, insertions, deletions, inversions, translocations, duplications and so on.
I am unaware of anyone who has successfully negotiated these four steps - until you do so, your claim that “Macroevolution requires increase of information and there is no scientific evidence for this” is empty.
And since you cannot begin to negotiate these four steps then your claim is indeed empty.
As for the formation of races, you should know that the formation of small founder populations allows rare alleles to fix which would otherwise drift to extinction. Furthermore it is a strawman to claim that the formation of isolated breeding populations is the only evidence for evolution. If you were interested in scientific knowledge rather than politicking on behalf of religious creationism, you would read and learn from a modern textbook on evolutionary biology, where you will find a wide range of evidence for evolution from direct observations of evolution in action such as speciation, evidence from molecular biology (including homologies, syntenies and fossil sequences), ecology, developmental biology, comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, biogeography, palaeontology and the fossil record, classification and so on.
It is not clear what point you are making here (is it possible that you are denying the existence of molecular phylogenetics as a discipline?), but you should know that frogs and birds (and lobe finned fishes), being in a sister group (Sarcopterygians) to ray-finned fishes are molecularly equidistant from them, and that frogs, birds and bony fishes are molecularly more closely related to each other than they all are to cartiliginous fishes or to the Agnatha (jawless vertebrates).
Meyer and Zardoya, Recent Advances in the (molecular) phylogeny of vertebrates, Ann Rev Eco Evo Sys 34, 311 - 338 (2003)
Townsend et al, The Phylogenetic Informativeness of Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequences for Reconstructing the Vertebrate Tree, J Mol Evol 67, 437 - 447 (2008)
Takezaki et al, Molecular phylogeny of early vertebrates, Mol Biol Evol 20, 287 - 292 (2003)
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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Maciej
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You write:
“you should know that frogs and birds (and lobe finned fishes), being in a sister group (Sarcopterygians) to ray-finned fishes are molecularly equidistant from them, and that frogs, birds and bony fishes are molecularly more closely related to each other than they all are to cartiliginous fishes or to the Agnatha (jawless vertebrates).”
This only confirms my point. If frogs, birds and finned fishes are equidistant from the cartiliginous fishes, there is no molecular confirmation of the cartilaginous fishes - bony fishes - amphibians - reptiles - birds phylogenetic sequece. Maciej
“you should know that frogs and birds (and lobe finned fishes), being in a sister group (Sarcopterygians) to ray-finned fishes are molecularly equidistant from them, and that frogs, birds and bony fishes are molecularly more closely related to each other than they all are to cartiliginous fishes or to the Agnatha (jawless vertebrates).”
This only confirms my point. If frogs, birds and finned fishes are equidistant from the cartiliginous fishes, there is no molecular confirmation of the cartilaginous fishes - bony fishes - amphibians - reptiles - birds phylogenetic sequece. Maciej
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hecd2
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Sigh. You really have got out of touch with biology, haven’t you? It might be better if you were either to stick to politics, or, if you really want to comment on biology, take a refresher course.
To say that frogs and birds (and lobe finned fishes), being in a sister group (Sarcopterygians) to ray-finned fishes are molecularly equidistant from them, is not to say that all Sarcopterygians are molecularly identical, nor does it mean that they are all molecularly equidistant from one another. So, for example, frogs and birds are more closely related molecularly to one another than either is to lobe finned fishes, birds and reptiles are more closely related molecularly to one another than either is amphibians and so on; all of which yields the phylogeny that you seek. But this is all very elementary stuff that you really ought to know.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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mpartyka
Guest
That, I would argue, is what Relics of Eden does. By examining duplications which have occurred in human, chimp, and other primate DNA over time, a sequence of species divergences can be established to explain the commonalities and differences of duplications shown in the present primate genome set. The sequencing evidence also serves to disprove the hypothesis of separate instances of special creation due to the infinitessimal probability that the same duplications could wind up in the same places in two entirely distinct genomes.
–Mike
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StAnastasia
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Mike and Alec, the irony is that all this long-winded discussion about basic biology is taking place on a thread concerned with last March’s conference on evolution in Rome, a conference at which all this basic biology was presupposed by the Catholic theologians, philosophers and scientists in attendance!
StAnastasia
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mpartyka
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Speaking of which, have they published any documents from that yet? I read all the abstracts that had been published as of last month.
–Mike
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