Gaps in Evolution

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You’re right to challenge my statement: “I flat out refuse to be considered the same as other mammal species.” I really don’t deny being a mammal. I don’t want to be considered the same as other mammal species.There is this innate sense that I am different.:rotfl:Sorry, but it is hard for me to be serious on my birthday.

There is enough of material naturalism in me that I recognize that what I see and touch is matter. Thus the matter, which makes cows and myself mammals, is obvious. I don’t deny the material side of my nature. Neither do I limit my nature to the material. In that respect, I am not the same as a cow or any other animal species. If this doesn’t make sense, challenge and I will try a different approach. .
But your not like other Mammals, thats the thing, We are in the Image of G-d. We have something animals don’t. We aer Body and Spirit. Not just a stack of Chemicals, created by mere chance, we are not an accident, nor an “oops”. We have Purpose.
 
Okay, let’s look at it this way. Let’s say there was an alien on his home planet with a very powerful camera. This camera can take a picture of it’s subject regardless of distance, lighting, and objects in between. Now let us say, using this camera, the alien takes pictures of a person over their life time, but only a dozen or so at random intervals.

Let’s say he did this to you. In the first picture, you were living in one place- in the next, you were living in another place. Based on this information, the alien concludes that we humans have the ability to teleport- because he knows you transitioned from one place to another, but he never saw you moving.

We don’t find transitional fossils as often because, while evolution takes millions of years, a fully evolved species will remain in it’s evolved form for much much longer than that- and all we have are random snapshots.

As to the humans thing- the species we evolved from no longer exists. A while back a group of some primate began the evolutionary trek to man, but the ape-men all died out.

And bacteria do evolve- ever heard of “drug resistant” strains?
Bacteria do evolve? Into what? Bacteria have the built-in ability to transfer bits of genetic material with different species of bacteria. It’s built in. Bacteria that change/adapt in this way remain bacteria. They do not sprout arms or legs.

Bacteria have been found in dirt that were already resistant to natural and synthetic antibiotics.

Peace,
Ed
 
Okay, let’s look at it this way. Let’s say there was an alien on his home planet with a very powerful camera. This camera can take a picture of it’s subject regardless of distance, lighting, and objects in between. Now let us say, using this camera, the alien takes pictures of a person over their life time, but only a dozen or so at random intervals.

Let’s say he did this to you. In the first picture, you were living in one place- in the next, you were living in another place. Based on this information, the alien concludes that we humans have the ability to teleport- because he knows you transitioned from one place to another, but he never saw you moving.

We don’t find transitional fossils as often because, while evolution takes millions of years, a fully evolved species will remain in it’s evolved form for much much longer than that- and all we have are random snapshots.

As to the humans thing- the species we evolved from no longer exists. A while back a group of some primate began the evolutionary trek to man, but the ape-men all died out.

And bacteria do evolve- ever heard of “drug resistant” strains?
I thought Bacteria would simply swap some DNA, to resist the durg?

Listen, as un-scientific I am, I believe G-d created heaven and earth, where he allowed evolution, or whether he Created everything the way it was, it wont matter, this simply turning into a discussion of Creationism vs Evolution.

The point is, eaither way, Will that bring anyone closer to G-d?

Catholics ages past could have been argueing whether or not the Earth was Round.
That doesn’t mean the one who thought it was flat was wrong, and condemned, they were saved.

The Creation or evolution of Life aside, what is the Athiest View of the MEANING of life. Not where it came from, we’ve been ranting in circles, and thank you for responding.
 
Bacteria do evolve? Into what? Bacteria have the built-in ability to transfer bits of genetic material with different species of bacteria. It’s built in. Bacteria that change/adapt in this way remain bacteria. They do not sprout arms or legs.

Bacteria have been found in dirt that were already resistant to natural and synthetic antibiotics.

Peace,
Ed
They only swap DNA to become drug resistant.
How Adaptation to be confused with Evolution.
 
granny, what I am seeing is an amazement for the rapid changes that go against the long ages required.

The other main point is there doesn’t seem to be enough resolution to adequately determine the actual size of the bottleneck.

-sidebar - you know what is neat and is starting to mature - looking over the research and hashing it out as to what it really means. We are doing this independent of the scientific establishment and its bias. We are bringing in other disciplines. This is good!
Hi Buffalo,

This thread is moving too fast. I got the same impression you did about not adequately determining actual bottleneck size. However, what struck me is all the different factors involved.

This is my long-term thesis: The possibility of two sole parents of the human race lies within the nature of the human species.

To me, the first thing is to examine the human species which I believe is different in kind. Next, i.e., eventually, comes the establishment of free will. With free will, there will be the intellect with its abilities. Now there is a basis for the human species to act differently than other species which basically, in their bottlenecks, follow adaption and survival modes. Acting differently would be the reason that detrimental factors causing divergence, reduced populations, etc., can be overcome.

Another thing I spotted was that humans do not always follow expected patterns. Did you see this in relationship to expanding populations? I am still reading the link you gave in a subsequent post. Personally, I think there can be more than one theory operating at the same time regarding evolution.

Mike_BioProf, in his posts, answered some questions about Motoo Kimura’s work. This is my initial reaction to microbiology and evolution – as this science expands possibilities for understanding living organisms, there will be elbow room to reexamine the point which allowed human life.

Then there are the fossils. Tool making seems to be a dividing point. I am hashing over what that means in the development of various pre-humans. What I don’t understand is what cranial size has to do with quality.

Today is my birthday so let’s toast it with Pepsi!

Blessings,
granny

All human life is sacred.
 
Hi Buffalo,

This thread is moving too fast. I got the same impression you did about not adequately determining actual bottleneck size. However, what struck me is all the different factors involved.

This is my long-term thesis: The possibility of two sole parents of the human race lies within the nature of the human species.

To me, the first thing is to examine the human species which I believe is different in kind. Next, i.e., eventually, comes the establishment of free will. With free will, there will be the intellect with its abilities. Now there is a basis for the human species to act differently than other species which basically, in their bottlenecks, follow adaption and survival modes. Acting differently would be the reason that detrimental factors causing divergence, reduced populations, etc., can be overcome.

Another thing I spotted was that humans do not always follow expected patterns. Did you see this in relationship to expanding populations? I am still reading the link you gave in a subsequent post. Personally, I think there can be more than one theory operating at the same time regarding evolution.

Mike_BioProf, in his posts, answered some questions about Motoo Kimura’s work. This is my initial reaction to microbiology and evolution – as this science expands possibilities for understanding living organisms, there will be elbow room to reexamine the point which allowed human life.

Then there are the fossils. Tool making seems to be a dividing point. I am hashing over what that means in the development of various pre-humans. What I don’t understand is what cranial size has to do with quality.

Today is my birthday so let’s toast it with Pepsi!

Blessings,
granny

All human life is sacred.
Adam and Eve started out with preternatural gifts and knowledge. Do you suppose they regressed after original sin and had to redevelop toolmaking or did they understand it right from the get go?
 
Today is my birthday so let’s toast it with Pepsi!

Blessings,
granny

All human life is sacred.
Happy Birthday! I cannot celebrate with pepsi though as I am boycotting it. However, I wil toast you with a piwo.
 
Mike,
Here, science does not mean all of science. In my studies of electronics, how often was evolution brought up? Zero. Here, science only means evolution.

Peace,
Ed
Of course evolution is not relevant to all fields of science. But picking and choosing which science you like and which you don’t implies a disregard for the whole process of science. How can you teach young people that we can choose to ignore huge parts of biology, geology, chemistry, and astronomy because some may find the data unpleasant at first glance, and in the next breath try to teach them the science of electronics or medicine or anything else?

Mike
 
Of course evolution is not relevant to all fields of science. But picking and choosing which science you like and which you don’t implies a disregard for the whole process of science. How can you teach young people that we can choose to ignore huge parts of biology, geology, chemistry, and astronomy because some may find the data unpleasant at first glance, and in the next breath try to teach them the science of electronics or medicine or anything else?

Mike
Students must be taught to discern. And yes there are many parts of science that are not empirical and the conclusions are philosophical. They should be challenged and rejected. All science is provisional.

Science class should teach empirical science period. Students should have to take mandatory metaphysics and philosophy classes.
 
Adam and Eve started out with preternatural gifts and knowledge. Do you suppose they regressed after original sin and had to redevelop toolmaking or did they understand it right from the get go?
I do think there is a difference regarding tool making in pre-humans and Adam and Eve’s family.

Not sure if I am explaining this right. The human being is an intimate union of the spiritual and the corporal. Not only would they have the preternatural gifts, but Adam and Eve would have the natural spiritual gifts of intellect and will. Thus, if tools were needed before original sin, Adam had the human gift of intellience, conceptual thought and all the other goodies of the intellect.

The “Fall” took away the preternatural gifts. Thus humans ended up having to work hard. They would still have retained that which made them human in the first place only now there are obstacles. In other words I view preternatural as different from human nature. Probably Adam did have a natural hard time until Eve said: "Make it round, Adam, round. 😉

Blessings,
granny

All human life is meant for eternal life.
 
Sense: This makes none.

I’m saying that our hypothalamus is programmed to try to fluff up our fur when we get cold, which is undebatable, but we don’t have any fur. Either this is a vestigial function, or we were designed with the intent of tricking us into thinking our species once had fur.
Goosebumps pull the skin tight so it cannot lose heat as fast. Also the muscular activity produce heat for the body, sort of like exercising.

We also get goosebumps when tickled, aroused, and hear certain music.
 
Goosebumps pull the skin tight so it cannot lose heat as fast. Also the muscular action produce heat for the body.

We also get goosebumps when tickled, aroused, and hear certain music.
Pulling the skin tight would not effect the loss of heat by a non negligible amount- you seem to be grasping at straws.
 
Of course evolution is not relevant to all fields of science. But picking and choosing which science you like and which you don’t implies a disregard for the whole process of science. How can you teach young people that we can choose to ignore huge parts of biology, geology, chemistry, and astronomy because some may find the data unpleasant at first glance, and in the next breath try to teach them the science of electronics or medicine or anything else?

Mike
Mike,

It would be fine if people just came here, posted their evidence and left. That way, we Catholics could make up our own minds. But no. People have to post over and over and over again until everybody just says yes to evolution. The ideology behind this is evident in the textbooks:
I did a little research and I think we can prove quite easily that mainstream evolution does not support the evidence of intelligent design in nature at all. Evolution is defined as a blind, undirected process built mainly on randomness. There is no plan or purpose for evolution – this contradicts the claim that “everything is designed” and that there is design to be found in nature.

We can see this in current biology textbooks:

“[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected.”
(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; emphasis in original.)

Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.”
(Stephen J Gould quoted in Biology, by Peter H Raven & George B Johnson (5th ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pg 15; (6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2000), pg. 16.)

“By coupling **undirected, purposeless **variation to the **blind, uncaring **process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”
(Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma (3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc., 1998), p. 5.)

“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that **matter is the stuff of all existence **and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
(Biology: Discovering Life by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed… D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphases in original.)

“Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any goals.’ The idea that **evolution is not directed **towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.”
(Life: The Science of Biology by William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, & H. Craig Keller, (6th ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co., 2001), pg. 3.)

“The ‘blind’ watchmaker is natural selection. **Natural selection is totally blind **to the future. “**Humans are fundamentally not exceptional **because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and brains “Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the apparent design of life.”
(Richard Dawkins quoted in *Biology *by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese. & Lawrence G. Mitchell (5th ed., Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pgs. 412-413.)

“Of course, no species has 'chosen’ a strategy. Rather, its ancestors ‘little by little, generation after generation’ merely wandered into a successful way of life through the action of random evolutionary forces. Once pointed in a certain direction, a line of evolution survives only if the cosmic dice continues to roll in its favor. “[J]ust by chance, a wonderful diversity of life has developed during the billions of years in which organisms have been evolving on earth.
(Biology by Burton S. Guttman (1st ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pgs. 36-37.)

“It is difficult to avoid the speculation that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront. “The real difficulty in accepting Darwins theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. Earlier, astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the solar universe, or even of our own solar system. Now the new biology asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.”
(Invitation to Biology, by Helena Curtis & N. Sue Barnes(3rd ed., Worth, 1981), pgs. 474-475.)
Kenneth Miller is often cited here as a Catholic who could ‘set us straight’ about evolution. But PZ Myers suggested Richard Dawkins would be a better choice as front man for the scientific community. The ideological bias is as clear as day. This is not about science or promoting science. It’s about promoting a sign that currently appears on buses: “Man created God.” And Pope Benedict stated, referring to the secularly famous remark by Pope John Paul II, “But it is also true that evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.” That’s where I stand.

All this hand-wringing about evolution is backed by the bright, free thinker, secular humanist, atheist and anarchist communities.

Peace,
Ed
 
No - I think you should already be up to speed. 😉

But OK - since you asked nicely.

We can start here:

How Bacteria Communicate
But that doesn’t at all explain how bacteria become drug resistant- my claim is that bacteria with weak resistance to a drug are killed off more often than those with strong resistances, so those with strong resistances survive and reproduce. As a result, the population as a whole is more drug resistant in the future. I have the entire medical community behind me on this one-
By what mechanism do you claim that the communication amongst bacteria amounts to drug resistance?
 
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