Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.0

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“Devolution” is not a thing. Even if we were over a hundred million years to evolve back into single-celled organisms, it wouldn’t be “devolution.” It would still be good 'ol “evolution.”

“Evolution” doesn’t mean “getting better.” It means that species adapt to environmental pressures. “Devolution” would mean something like “adapt away from environmental pressures,” which is a nonsensical idea since there cannot be a mechanism for it.
 
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Richca said:
I said nothing about alien intelligences. However, if a wheel was found on some distant planet or in another galaxy, it would be reasonable to assume that it was fashioned by some intelligent creature and not the product of inanimate nature.
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That’s not the problem. The problem happens when someone takes something which is NOT clearly of an intelligence, and declares that it must be so. “There’s a wheel, so some intelligence capable of making wheels must exist” is a fair inference. “We know some things can be made by an intelligence, so whatever exists must have been made by an intelligence” most certainly is not.
 
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Deleterious random mutations it all the rave, right?

dev·o·lu·tion
ˌdevəˈl(y)o͞oSH(ə)n/Submit
noun

descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state.
 
Is The Y Chromosome Washing Away?

(Extrapolate back to Adam) See, there are concerns the degenerative changes the chromosome has experienced over time. It’s believed that millions of years ago, the Y chromosome was in really great shape and had a lot to offer, but for the last 6 million years or so, that appears to no longer be the case. What has happened since Y’s inception, and what does the future hold? That’s a question science is still trying to answer.

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Hugh_Farey said:
I do not find that the randomness of natural selection conflicts with divine intention, and suggest that the evidence of the natural world supports randomness as part of the way God directs its progress.
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Natural selection isn’t random. Changes in the genome which are thought to be the end all and be all of the development of life on earth from single cell creatures to human beings, are said to be caused by random chemical changes. Natural selection is nothing more than a fancy term for survival - if it lives to procreate, it lives to procreate. In order to go from a single cell to a simple plant requires an impressive amount of change. We’re not talking about ten sixes but rolling ten dice and coming up with twelve sixes.

There is no evidence of randomness; it is merely the default position taken when no cause is found. There exists no evidence of an evolutionary force as there is evidence of electrochemical interactions. What we don’t know is attributed, incorrectly here when we speak of the changes in life forms, to physical processes we do know about.

Dark peppered moths appeared related to air polution in London. We did not see an assortment of red, green, bright blue, chartreuse, or hot pink moths on the walls appearing and disappearing as the dark ones persisted. There were simply more dark moths, reflecting the gene for a darker colour or the elimination of the one coding for white.
Hugh_Farey said:
randomness as part of the way God directs its progress
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It is a contradiction in terms. God creates different kinds of animals and plants which have gone forth and multiplied, taking a variety of forms.
 
Richca said:
The Neanderthals are sunk with Homo Sapiens, i.e., true human beings
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That would require evidence that Neanderthals had a human soul, wouldn’t it. You may think that they did, but mere opinion does not count for much. What evidence do you have?
Richca said:
The Nephilim in the Bible were human beings, apparently a large, as in size, race of humans.
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The Nephilim were the result of mating between human women and the “sons of God” (Genesis 6:4). How many sons does God have? And if those sons mated with human women then they were biologically compatible with human women. That means that Jesus was not the only human son of God, there were other human sons earlier.

There is also the problem of how the Nephilim survived the allegedly universal flood, see Numbers 13:30-33.

rossum
 
buffalo said:
We all share genetics with neandertals.
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Not strictly. Human populations that left Africa, or that left and later returned, have 1% to 4% Neanderthal DNA. Populations that never left Africa do not have any Neanderthal DNA.

rossum
 
The story of the Y chromosome is very interesting. To me it is evidence of an external order behind the diversity and growth in complexity of life on earth. I don’t know as much as I would like, but this is area of study offers an excellent opportunity to grow in understanding.

The story goes something like this; corrections are welcome:

I believe its turtles and crocodiles that have 23 pairs of autosomes. There is no difference between what would be the X and the Y chromosomes. They are able to share genes which is one method to ensure genetic health. Sexual determination is made through the influence of environmental factors. Since these creatures have been around a long time on the earth’s timeline, which I believe to be more or less correct, it must work to produce sufficient males or females as needed.

In birds, if I recall correctly, we find an inversion of the genes on the Y chromosome. This makes the X and the Y incompatable for recombination, except at their ends. The result is a deletion of genes on the Y chromosome. It’s not clear why this happens; it may be the result of a glitch in replication, an intended effect for unknown reasons, or an inevitable consequence of a necessary process like inversion. Again, I must reassert that random chemical mutaions are bad, and this could be further proof, if day-to-day experience is unconvincing. So the Y chromosome becomes smaller, losing more genes, and undergoing further inversions to carry out internal recombination, as we progress down the timeline.

Beyond marsupials, we see the addition of genes from another autosome onto both the X and the Y, sort of replenishing the shrinkage of the Y, which then carries out a further inversion to make it even less amenable to recombination with the X. This would have happened in time within individual animals, with the advent of new species. There remains an ongoing deletion of genes through possible uncorrected random mutations which cause further shrinking of the Y chromosome.

When we get to primates, something interesting happens; a spermatogenesis gene from an outosome is copied into the Y chromosome where it goes on to duplicate twice, resulting in 4 copies of itself. The Y chromosome becomes a bit longer as it is given a boost in its capacity to produce features of maleness.

What we find in chimpanzees is a further degradation of the Y chromosome, when compared to that of earlier primates, that is not present in human beings.

As an aside, I don’t think we need worry about the biological survival of maleness. It is moral decline that is the real threat, and it is by example that we teach our youth what it means to be a real man. They most certainly will not get it from our leaders or the entertainment industry.
 
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Richca said:
the stone which the bird is using to crack open the shell does not look like an artifact of the bird
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It’s interesting how far out some arguments get in trying to prove human beings are a species of animal. The bird’s attempt to crack open a shell with a stone is instinctive, like building nests as you mention earlier, similar to how beavers build dams. In trying to understand beaver behaviour, a tape of running water was placed near a beaver lodge; not being quite the engineers people believe them to be, they covered in with sticks. in interpreting animal behaviour, we should bear in mind our tendancy to anthropomorphize.
 
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buffalo said:
Haven’t you heard the news? Out of Africa is being questioned.
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All of science is being questioned all the time. It is only because Newton’s theory of gravity was being questioned that we now have a better theory: General Relativity. That in turn is also being questioned.

Intelligent Design has far more questions and far less evidence than Out of Africa.

rossum
 
You made the claim about Africa.

ID is proving to be a much much better explanation for our observations. Get used to it.
 
buffalo said:
Even though they lost reproductive capability (devolution) they are the same “family” as when they started.
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The vast diversity of organisms from an original ‘kind’ suggests either that they are not losing reproductive capability, or your classification system is very different from normal taxonomy.
edwest211 said:
It’s true? And why does anyone need to know that?
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In common with most things, nobody needs to know it. But knowing it, one can rejoice even more at the wonder, the power, the imagination and the creativity of God.
 
Richca said:
Besides human beings, has the universe or the earth in its billions of years of history ever produced an axe …[etc.]
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Why “besides human beings”? We are an integral part of the “universe or the earth”. We are the part that can make axes and computers.
I think we can safely assume that the inanimate universe and its forces is not going to produce by itself the artifacts, even the simplest, made by human beings …
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The inanimate universe and its forces produced human beings, who produce tools, art and so on. To make such a distinction between human beings and the rest of the universe is to assume something which you are trying to demonstrate. It may sound logical, but it is an entirely circular argument.
This common sensible fact based on observation reveals to us that there is a limit to what inanimate and unintelligent nature can do …
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No, it doesn’t, it assumes that human beings are not a part of the natural universe, which they are.
Does life even originate from unintelligent inanimate matter and unintelligent inanimate forces of nature?
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Yes, it does.
The debate between creationists and theistic evolutionists revolves around, in one sense, to what is to be attributed to direct divine causality in the creation and formation of the world and the distinction of things and to what can be attributed to the effects of second causes.
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Partially, although as we also think, with Aloysium, that God directly and immediately sustains all creation, there is a sense in which everything that happens is primarily caused by him. However, moving on…
That inanimate and unintelligent second causes are limited to what they can effect is evident from observation and experiment, the laws of nature, and the fact of human artifacts.
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No. From completely inanimate material, following God’s impeccable design, has arisen the vast panoply of life. This is something compared to which the human manufacture of watches and televisions is utterly trivial.
Another consideration is that if life and simple or highly complex organisms or animals evolved from inanimate nature and its forces here on earth billions of years ago, why is that not happening now? Obviously, the conditions for life on earth are still present. Have we ever observed a living cell randomly appear from out of the earth, the waters, or the sky?
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It is still happening now. Wherever the conditions for the creation of self-replicating molecules and bilipid membranes exist, there is no reason to suppose that they are not spontaneously appearing as much now as they ever were. Unfortunately, the competition (life as we know it) has had several billions years start, and will out-compete any new potential life before it has a chance to get going.

Aloysium, I’m afraid you’ve lost me. If evolution isn’t random, then it’s directed. Well, cool. Suits me. Most creationists can’t accept evolution because they can’t cope with blind, undirected, unintelligent, change. If change isn’t any of those, then I can’t see why they have a problem.
 
What are you using as the definition of species?

What are you using as the definition of speciation?
 
Hugh_Farey said:
Does life even originate from unintelligent inanimate matter and unintelligent inanimate forces of nature?

Yes, it does.
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Which is the unsubstantiated pagan creation myth.

The god of BUC did it. (blind unguided chance)
 
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buffalo said:
The god of BUC did it. (blind unguided chance)
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Chemistry is not blind unguided chance, and chemistry had a lot to do with the origin of life on earth. “Let the earth bring forth…” and the earth is made of chemicals.

rossum
 
Buffalo, you’re missing the point. A lipid bag encloses some chemicals. Somehow, they’re the “right” chemicals. That’s when the magic happens. This bag then somehow absorbs energy, or something, develops internal machinery and goes live. Simple…? No. Then it develops more machinery and reproduces. If that works for you… Somehow. We now have life… somehow.
 
edwest211 - It’s time to play let’s see what a top chemist has to say about it.

Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science – with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public – because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said – I say, “Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?” Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go “Uh-uh. Nope.” These people are just so far off, on how to believe this stuff came together. I’ve sat with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. Sometimes I will say, “Do you understand this?”And if they’re afraid to say “Yes,” they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.

 
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