How to have strong faith in a world of Carbon dating, Dinosaurs, Science, Atheist Debaters

[reggieM]

Yes but the goal of the article was to present the theory of evolution. It was trying examine competing ideas…

If there are competing ideas, then the science isn’t settled as you claimed.
I’d be required to accept or reject various evolutionary theories anyway, but you seemed upset about that.

 

[reggieM]

I would gladly go back a year or so when the subject was banned from discussion because these days I am liable to do myself some harm banging my head against the wall every time this comes up.

I’m glad the topic is not banned.

 

[mVitus]

However, the theory of biological evolution is a bit of a stretch. From what I understand, mutations are only capable of degenerating genetic information. Which would make upward progress impossible. Furthermore, abiogenesis is patently absurd.

Mutations are permanent changes in the genetic code. And there’s not really a standard “this is upwards” or “this is downwards” in it except for whether or not the organism survives.
As for abiogenesis, we have it either way. Either God created all life with abiogenesis in seven days or God created all life with abiogenesis over billions of years.

And, reggie, a few things.

1: Yes there are some other theories out there, but there are also those who theorize the Earth is flat, but the world’s roundness is settled science.

2: You said as follows

This says nothing about where the traits come from. Natural selection does not modify the population. If there are no new traits, natural selection does nothing.

New traits come from mutations. Sex also varies the genes. And the following are some things from Darwin.

Some Observations
1: Populations have huge reproductive potential.
2: That potential is not realized.
3: Resources are limited.
4: Organisms in a species vary.
5: This variance is inherited.

Conclusions
1: There is competition for those limited resources.
2: That competition leads to differential reproduction. (Those that survive reproduce, those that don’t, don’t.)

We can see this with modern populations. Albino animals for example tend to not reproduce as they’re easier to spot. Organisms with debilitating genetic diseases tend to die out. So as a species goes on, it is due to weed out the harmful genes as those don’t get passed on. While the useful or benign traits will persist.

But then you add in mutations which are the mechanism for change.
First off, most mutations are harmful and lethal. It’s a minority that are benign or useful. If a mutation is immediately useful, it will propagate as the organism with the mutation will be more able to breed and pass on the genes.
But then there’s the third category, benign mutations. These aren’t beneficial so there’s no impetus for them to propagate, but they can remain in the species. Then if at a later time that becomes useful, the species is already pre-adapted to a change in their environment. There are numerous examples of this, starting with the housefly.

As you probably know, DDT was a widely-used pesticide and did a great job of killing flies back in the day. But now it’s next to useless against them. So how did this happen?
When DDT came on the market, most flies died. However a few of those flies already had a benign mutation which allowed them to survive the DDT. So when DDT killed off the others flies, those flies were the ones that survived and reproduced until the trait passed on through the whole population.
This can be seen again with diseases becoming resistant to medicine or species resisting disease. The Black Plague for example served as some natural selection as those already adapted by chance to survive the plague survived and passed on their genes while others didn’t.

 

[edwest2]

the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/16649/title/Why-Do-We-Invoke-Darwin-/

Ed

 

[reggieM]

1: Yes there are some other theories out there, but there are also those who theorize the Earth is flat, but the world’s roundness is settled science.

There are scientific theories claiming that the Earth is flat?
Also, you seem to be saying that evolutionary theory claims that all morphological change comes through mutations inherited and by natural selection, is that correct?

 

[TaylorDonBarret]

Mutations are permanent changes in the genetic code. And there’s not really a standard “this is upwards” or “this is downwards” in it except for whether or not the organism survives.

“Can mutation create new information? Yes, depending on what you mean by ‘information’. Also, ‘new’ does not necessarily imply ‘better’ or even ‘good’. When evolutionists cite examples of ‘new’ information, they are almost invariably citing evidence of new traits, but these traits are caused by the corruption of existing information. Mutations can create new varieties of old genes, as can be seen in white-coated lab mice, tailless cats, and blue-eyed people. But damaging mutations cannot be used to vindicate molecules-to-people evolution. Breaking things does not lead to higher function (and presupposes a pre-existing function that can be broken). Also, not all new traits are caused by mutation! Some come about by unscrambling pre-existing information, some from decompressing packed information, some from turning on and off certain genes.”

creation.com/mutations-new-information

 

[reggieM]

Also, not all new traits are caused by mutation! Some come about by unscrambling pre-existing information, some from decompressing packed information, some from turning on and off certain genes."

That alone falsifies Darwinian evolution that claimed all new traits came from mutations.
In fact, horizontal gene transfer would scramble the idea of an ancestral chain of development.

 

[Bradski]

That alone (not all new traits are caused by mutation) falsifies Darwinian evolution that claimed all new traits came from mutations.

Now I’m a long way from being a geneticist, so I’m not the guy who can tell you the number of ways in which genes can change and the reasons why they do. But the comment to which Taylor linked said that that not all traits are caused by genetic mutation (which is just a scientific way of saying that genes change) and then listed three ways in which they do.

“Some come about by unscrambling pre-existing information, some from decompressing packed information, some from turning on and off certain genes."

Unscrambling, decompressing and turning on and off genetic information is changing the gene. Is mutating the gene. And there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that genetic information does change. Does mutate. Even the creation site agreed with that and lists ways in which it happens.

Also, from the same site as was linked: ‘I do not believe all current human genetic differences are due to mutation. We have to make a distinction between mutation and ‘designed variation’.

In other words, we have to differentiate between what is natural and what is designed by God. Well, it is a site about creationism I guess. I stopped reading after that.

It might be a good idea, Reg, to look at information from the scientific community if you need to learn more about evolution. Not some wacky web site that is barely one step removed from proponents of alien abduction and a flat earth.

 

[reggieM]

Now I’m a long way from being a geneticist, so I’m not the guy who can tell you the number of ways in which genes can change and the reasons why they do. But the comment to which Taylor linked said that that not all traits are caused by genetic mutation (which is just a scientific way of saying that genes change) and then listed three ways in which they do.

“Some come about by unscrambling pre-existing information, some from decompressing packed information, some from turning on and off certain genes."

Unscrambling, decompressing and turning on and off genetic information is changing the gene. Is mutating the gene. And there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that genetic information does change. Does mutate. Even the creation site agreed with that and lists ways in which it happens.

Also, from the same site as was linked: ‘I do not believe all current human genetic differences are due to mutation. We have to make a distinction between mutation and ‘designed variation’.

In other words, we have to differentiate between what is natural and what is designed by God. Well, it is a site about creationism I guess. I stopped reading after that.

It might be a good idea, Reg, to look at information from the scientific community if you need to learn more about evolution. Not some wacky web site that is barely one step removed from proponents of alien abduction and a flat earth.

The transfer of pre-existing functional genes from one organism to another is not modification by inheritance - in other words, the organisms own genes did not mutate but genes from another organism move into it. That’s information from the scientific community.
There are biologists who know more about science than you or I do who reject neo-Darwinism. Some of those are creationists, but not all.

 

[Bradski]

The transfer of pre-existing functional genes from one organism to another is not modification by inheritance - in other words, the organisms own genes did not mutate but genes from another organism move into it.

If you want to use this as an argument against evolution, you are going to have to expound on it.

 

[Bradski]

Hang on…are you talking about horizontal gene transfer between bacteria? It’s extremely common and is an integral part of single celled evolution. Whether it plays a part in the evolution of multicellular organisms is still being investigated.

Either way, it is not, in any way, a refutation of the process of evolution. Far from it. It could add another method whereby it occurs.

 

[reggieM]

If you want to use this as an argument against evolution, you are going to have to expound on it.

I would just let the biologists refute evolutionary theory as many do. It’s not only creationist websites (of which there are many which include accomplished biologists) or Intelligent Design like Michael Behe …
But these scientists (linked below) are searching for a new theory of evolution because the current one has been falsified and is essentially useless. They haven’t been successful yet, but they have enough arguments against what is called today “evolution”.

thethirdwayofevolution.com/

 

[reggieM]

Hang on…are you talking about horizontal gene transfer between bacteria? It’s extremely common and is an integral part of single celled evolution. Whether it plays a part in the evolution of multicellular organisms is still being investigated.

Either way, it is not, in any way, a refutation of the process of evolution. Far from it. It could add another method whereby it occurs.

If a theory predicts that all morphological change is a function of the mutation rate of the cells of that organism - which the theory did predict, and then you come along and say “there could be another method” – then you just falsified the theory.
Now you could come up with another theory that is “adding another” mechanism. But let’s not say that “the science is settled”. The predictive power is weakened. You won’t know when HGT will drive change or when the organism’s own gene mutations do it.
Additionally, as I said – this refutes the notion of modification by descent since an organism can pick up fully functional genes from another organism that are non-ancestral. So tracing lineage becomes even a bigger mess than it already is.

 

[reggieM]

Hang on…are you talking about horizontal gene transfer between bacteria? It’s extremely common and is an integral part of single celled evolution. Whether it plays a part in the evolution of multicellular organisms is still being investigated.

Either way, it is not, in any way, a refutation of the process of evolution. Far from it. It could add another method whereby it occurs.

What has become increasingly clear in the past 10 years is that this liberal genetic exchange is definitely not limited to the DNA of the microscopic world. It likewise happens to genes that belong to animals, fungi and plants, collectively known as eukaryotes because they boast nuclei in their cells. The ancient communion between ferns and hornworts is the latest in a series of newly discovered examples of horizontal gene transfer: when DNA passes from one organism to another generally unrelated one, rather than moving ‘vertically’ from parent to child. In fact, horizontal gene transfer has happened between all kinds of living things throughout the history of life on the planet – not just between species, but also between different kingdoms of life. Bacterial genes end up in plants; fungal genes wind up in animals; snake and frog genes find their way into cows and bats. It seems that the genome of just about every modern species is something of a mosaic constructed with genes borrowed from many different forms of life.
aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life

Not limited to single-celled organisms.

 

[edwest2]

The transfer of pre-existing functional genes from one organism to another is not modification by inheritance - in other words, the organisms own genes did not mutate but genes from another organism move into it. That’s information from the scientific community.
There are biologists who know more about science than you or I do who reject neo-Darwinism. Some of those are creationists, but not all.

Exactly. Horizontal Gene Transfer occurs after bacteria come into contact with a harmful substance. It is built-in. The ability to do this is in all of them right now. Sure, in some cases, most or all will die. But in others, a few survive through this built-in mechanism. But how can that be?

Ed

 

[reggieM]

Exactly. Horizontal Gene Transfer occurs after bacteria come into contact with a harmful substance. It is built-in. The ability to do this is in all of them right now. Sure, in some cases, most or all will die. But in others, a few survive through this built-in mechanism. But how can that be?

Right. This is what some would call evidence for Design by God since the built-in mechanism to incorporate functional genes from other organisms — actually from entirely different species! – is not explained by evolution. How would that capability to incorporate genes from non-related organisms arise from mutations and selection? There would be no present-day benefit for having this capability which might never be used.

 

[reggieM]

It seems that the genome of just about every modern species is something of a mosaic constructed with genes borrowed from many different forms of life.

So the evolutionist cannot look at the genome of a species and notice similarities and then assume “this is evidence of an ancestral lineage from ancient mutations and selection”.
Instead, it could be “genes borrowed” from other species.

From the linked article:

‘What scientists have seen is just a little tip of an immense iceberg,’ says Antonio Teixeira, a biologist at the University of Brasilia. W Ford Doolittle, a biochemist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, agrees: horizontal gene transfer, he wrote recently ‘is far more pervasive and more radical in its consequences than we could have guessed just a decade ago’. Researchers have now discovered so many examples of gene transfer between species and kingdoms of life – with many more surely to come – that they have to adjust their understanding of how evolution works. Standard evolutionary theory does not account for the possibility of complex organisms suddenly acquiring genes from other species, let alone how those foreign genes might change a creature for better or worse. Think of it this way: if the genomes of living species are flowers on different branches of the great evolutionary tree of life, horizontal gene transfer is a subversive wind whipping pollen from one part of the tree to another.
aeon.co/essays/genes-that-jump-species-does-this-shake-the-tree-of-life

Yes, “radical consequences” for evolution since we have to “adjust our understanding” about how evolution works (since current understanding is wrong), and “standard evolutionary theory does not account for” what was found in nature.