One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

[Crossbones]

Humor me

How can it be demonstrated experimentally that natural selection acting on genetic mutation has sufficient efficacy to generate all the variations of animal and plant life on Earth from an initial, perhaps relatively simple, DNA configuration?

Because the experiments show that the mutations causes the orgasms to evolve and that the larger evolutionary steps had a really, really long time to happen and the timeframes for these changes is in line with what mutations are seen in observable experiments.

Again, I have a problem seeing this because a common sense take on “coding” is that random changes to coded information will almost always degrade, NOT improve, functionality. The party line regarding evo is that random alterations consistently brought forth millions upon millions of gradual improvements to the code which allow for diversity, survival and increasing complexity in life forms.

Harmful mutations don’t survive. Beneficial do and are passed on to future generations.

How can that claim regarding continual diversity, complexity and improvement in life forms ever plausibly be “tested” experimentally? You say it can be. How?

Evolution predicts certain changes. Scientists create experiments to search for these changes by studying organisms where many generations can be produced quickly (have you ever wondered why these guys are so obsessed with fruit flies). These changes are observed. Of course, it goes beyond this to fossil records, etc.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Define “Evolution” for the class, please.

All organisms today came about by genetic mutation and natural selection.
The genetic mutation, AS FAR AS Science can tell honestly, is random, but see-
ing how God is the Creator, he is clearly the one who guided this natural process
of evolution and is even still guiding this process today.

You don’t “like” Intelligent Design yet you believe in a Designer? Right…talk about fallacies…as if your ad hominem against Behe wasn’t enough.

No, I don’t like Intelligent Design which pretends to be a science. It’s a 20th Century
invention by Fundamentalist Christians as an alternative and opposition to Evolution.
Now true, it did have 19th Century predecessors, but it didn’t enter into full blossom
until the early 20th Century in America.

Now what ad hominem did I make against Behe? I did not attack his character, his
intelligence, nothing of the sort that would count as an ad hominem.

I do believe in a Designer, a God, a Creator, but I don’t need to weave fake scientific
ideas, or ignore what all evidence says and force it into the Bible, or force the Bible
to do something that it was never intended to do.

Now:
Are you implying that I am an atheist because I believe in Evolution?

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

If Creationists are not defined by their beliefs, what are they defined by?

And how is it not a pre judgment to attribute bad behavior on a group of people, many of whom you know nothing of other then a belief they hold in common?

I suppose that I am trying to tip to carefully, but maybe it is their beliefs.
How do Creationists deal with evolution? They argue against it. What u-
sually happens when Creationists try to argue against evolution of for
Creationism? USUALLY, Logical Fallacies.

 

[HansTrappist]

All organisms today came about by genetic mutation and natural selection.
The genetic mutation, AS FAR AS Science can tell honestly, is random, but see-
ing how God is the Creator, he is clearly the one who guided this natural process
of evolution and is even still guiding this process today.

Nonsense.

Science has never demonstrated that Random Mutation acting on Natural Selection can give rise to the complex, intelligent biological life around us.

And you are still throwing around “Evolution” loosely. Let’s get unequivocal already:

If by “Evolution” you are implying that common descent and natural selection are true then, yes, “Evolution” is true.

But if by “Evolution” you mean that random mutation gave rise rise to complex, intelligent life then, no, “Evolution” is not true and no Science has not proven that it is true. There are some things that random mutation can do and it is certainly capable of explaining some simple features of life. But random mutation has to work with pre-existing cellular machinery, so there is a very limited number of things it can do. Sure, random mutation might blow up a bridge or build a dam with genetic debris. If such an event happened to do the organism some good, then it would be favored by natural selection. In a sense, that is what happened with the Antartic fish that have evolved what amounts to an antifreeze protein in their blood, but this type of example likely marks the far boundary of what random evolution can do.

Behe argues that the best evidence of what Darwinian (aka Random) Evolution is capable of doing in Nature (where it counts) is from the studies on such organisms as Malaria and HIV and E.Coli. What we see in these cases is not evolution, but rather devolution:

*Time is actually not the chief factor in evolution - population numbers are. In calculating how quickly a beneficial mutation might appear, evolutionary biologists multiply the mutation rate by the population size…

The numbers of malaria cells and HIV in just the past fifty years have probably greatly surpassed the number of mammals that have lived on the earth in the past several hundred million years. So the evolutionary behavior of the pathogens in even such a short time as a half century gives us a clear indication of what can happen with larger organisms over enormous time spans. The fact that no new cellular protein-protein interactions were fashioned, that mutations were incoherent, that changes in only a few genes were able to help, and that those changes were only relatively (not absolutely) beneficial - all that gives us strong reason to expect the same for large organisms over longer times.

Still, are the numbers we’ve examined enough? A hundred billion billion (10^20) malarial cells and HIV viruses is certainly a lot, but it’s miniscule compared to the number of microorganisms that have lived on the earth since it first formed. Workers at the University of Georgia estimate that 10^30 single-celled organisms are produced every year; over the billion-year plus history of the earth, the total number of cells that have existed may be close to 10^40. Looked at another way, for each malarial cell in the past fifty years there have been about 10^20 other microorganisms throughout history. Can we extrapoloate from malaria and HIV to all of bacteria? To all of life?

Sure. We do of course have to be cautious and keep in mind that we are indeed extrapolating, but science routinely extrapolates from what we see happening now to what happened in the past. The same laws of physics that work here and now are used to estimate broadly how the universe developed over billions of years. So we can also use current biology to infer generally what happened over the course of life on earth. Since we see no new protein-protein interactions developing in 10^20 cells, we can be reasonably confident that, at the least, no new cellular systems needing two new protein-protein interactions would develop in 10^40 cells - in the entire history of life. The principle that we use to make the extrapolation - that the odds against two independent events is the multiple of the odds against each event - is very well tested.

…Until an organism is found that is demonstrated to be much more adept than the malarial parasite at building coherent molecular machinery by random mutation and natural selection, there is no positive reason to believe it can be done. And the best evidence we have from malaria and HIV argues that it is biologically unreasonable to think so.*

 

[HansTrappist]

No, I don’t like Intelligent Design which pretends to be a science. It’s a 20th Century
invention by Fundamentalist Christians as an alternative and opposition to Evolution.
Now true, it did have 19th Century predecessors, but it didn’t enter into full blossom
until the early 20th Century.

Now what ad hominem did I make against Behe? I did not attack his character, his
intelligence, nothing of the sort that would count as an ad hominem.

I do believe in a Designer, a God, a Creator, but I don’t need to weave fake scientific
ideas, or ignore what all evidence says and force it into the Bible, or force the Bible
to do something that it was never intended to do.

Now:
Are you implying that I am an atheist because I believe in Evolution?

Let’s quit diverting with the childish ad hominems and attempts to turn this into a discussion on hidden motives.

Let’s get back to the topic of discussion:

Intelligent Design, at least Behe’s brand, is scientific to the core: it follows the empirical evidence to its logical conclusion.

Behe’s argument is simple: “Design” is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts for some functional purpose (even Richard Dawkins agrees with that definition). When we see Design we conclude the presence of a Designer. This is true whether we observer the design present in an automobile or the design present in the biological nanotechnology present in a human cell. The conclusion of Intelligent Design is not a religious conclusion. It is based on standard scientific and logical reasoning. Intelligent Design is not concerned with the identity of the Designer. That is the realm of Theology.

 

[SuperLuigi]

=lynnvinc;11555556]I’ve come to the thinking that rejection of evolution in this day and age may be a sin (akin to lying), tho I’m not sure. Truth cannot deny truth – which means to me that God knows how he created creation (big bang, evolution), and now we have found out thru science. The ancients, of course, did not have the benefits of modern science, so they are completely sinless in their wrong beliefs about creation.

Sin means to offend God. Evolution is far from being proven as is the Big Bang.

But if it is a sin to reject evolution, it would not be as much a sin as rejection of anthropogenic climate change and refusal to mitigate it, which would be akin to participating in the killing of people and others of God’s creatures and a refusal to acknowledge such. Chips off the ole Cain block.

Anthropogenic climate change is over-exaggerated by those who seek political and selfish gain.

If there is any moral imperative here, it is to be alert for scandal.

I am well aware of your stance on this, and be assured that climate change as a policy driver is causing breathtaking environmental damage due to faulty, inferior renewable energy initiatives.

 

[vz71]

I suppose that I am trying to tip to carefully, but maybe it is their beliefs.
How do Creationists deal with evolution? They argue against it. What u-
sually happens when Creationists try to argue against evolution of for
Creationism? USUALLY, Logical Fallacies.

I see.
So creationists WILL be dishonest when they argue against evolution.

And you know this in advance of the argument.

It would seem people would have to hide their beliefs from you to get a fair listen.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Nonsense.

Science has never demonstrated that Random Mutation acting on Natural Selection can give rise to the complex, intelligent biological life around us.

And you are still throwing around “Evolution” loosely. Let’s get unequivocal already:

If by “Evolution” you are implying that common descent and natural selection are true then, yes, “Evolution” is true.

But if by “Evolution” you mean that random mutation gave rise rise to complex, intelligent life then, no, “Evolution” is not true and no Science has not proven that it is true. There are some things that random mutation can do and it is certainly capable of explaining some simple features of life. But random mutation has to work with pre-existing cellular machinery, so there is a very limited number of things it can do. Sure, random mutation might blow up a bridge or build a dam with genetic debris. If such an event happened to do the organism some good, then it would be favored by natural selection. In a sense, that is what happened with the Antartic fish that have evolved what amounts to an antifreeze protein in their blood, but this type of example likely marks the far boundary of what random evolution can do.

Behe argues that the best evidence of what Darwinian (aka Random) Evolution is capable of doing in Nature (where it counts) is from the studies on such organisms as Malaria and HIV and E.Coli. What we see in these cases is not evolution, but rather devolution:

First, when a mommy and a daddy “love each other very much,” they
produce a child. This child carries DNA from both parents, and a very
slight difference. That is a fact. Repeat this process long enough, you
will have a new species.

Now the Catholic Church that such a process cannot be observed for
millions of years and therefore prove conclusively what you are argu–
ing against, but at the same time the Church also says that evolution
can be disproved. You cannot say evolution, in your latter description,
is false.

What I would like you to try now is find valid support from a scientist
who is not an intelligent design advocate who has a literal interpreta-
tion of the Bible to defend. Give me an unbiased source.

I ask again:
Are you implying that I am an atheist because I believe in Evolution?

 

[vz71]

First, when a mommy and a daddy “love each other very much,” they
produce a child. This child carries DNA from both parents, and a very
slight difference. That is a fact. Repeat this process long enough, you
will have a new species.

It seems we have the hypothesis.
Can this be repeated in a lab?

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Let’s quit diverting with the childish ad hominems and attempts to turn this into a discussion on hidden motives.

Let’s get back to the topic of discussion:

Intelligent Design, at least Behe’s brand, is scientific to the core: it follows the empirical evidence to its logical conclusion.

Behe’s argument is simple: “Design” is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts for some functional purpose (even Richard Dawkins agrees with that definition). When we see Design we conclude the presence of a Designer. This is true whether we observer the design present in an automobile or the design present in the biological nanotechnology present in a human cell. The conclusion of Intelligent Design is not a religious conclusion. It is based on standard scientific and logical reasoning. Intelligent Design is not concerned with the identity of the Designer. That is the realm of Theology.

Again, what ad hominem did I apply to Behe?

The definition Behe gave there on what Intelligent Design is about and how he goes about
it sounds credible enough, though it still sounds more like a philosophy. It really seems more like seeing “something” then recognizing that it must have been made by someone.

I ask again:
Are you implying that I am an atheist because I believe in Evolution?

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

It seems we have the hypothesis.
Can this be repeated in a lab?

No, Creationism is a hypothesis.
Scientists SEE the mutations which are unique to the offspring which neither parent has.

All we need to do is see single celled organisms mutate, then we
can (if willing) understand how more complex organism evolve over
a long period of time.

Evolution is not a hypothesis, it’s a theory, VERY different, but not
different I guess in the ears of Creationists and whatever you are.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Because the experiments show that the mutations causes the orgasms [sic ] to evolve and that the larger evolutionary steps had a really, really long time to happen and the timeframes for these changes is in line with what mutations are seen in observable experiments.

This does not meet the burden of proof you promised. It extrapolates far beyond what the experiments show.

Harmful mutations don’t survive. Beneficial do and are passed on to future generations.

Yes, of course. But assuming there are exponentially more harmful mutations than beneficial ones the demise rather than survival of future generations would be a no brainer.

By hitching random mutations to survival, the theory begs the question because there is no way of experimentally proving that in the balance of time merely random mutations would suffice to continue future generations. The fact they have survived but we have no way of showing why they did, owing to the large time frame, makes the experimental extrapolation inconclusive at best. We can’t just assume the fact of survival demonstrates the efficacy of random mutation to spit out potentially successful variations - that is precisely what is in question.

Evolution predicts certain changes. Scientists create experiments to search for these changes by studying organisms where many generations can be produced quickly (have you ever wondered why these guys are so obsessed with fruit flies). These changes are observed. Of course, it goes beyond this to fossil records, etc.

Way beyond this

How can evolution “predict certain changes” when the changes are supposed to be random?

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

I see.
So creationists WILL be dishonest when they argue against evolution.

And you know this in advance of the argument.

It would seem people would have to hide their beliefs from you to get a fair listen.

Creationists will often do it by mistake, though intent of dishonesty is possible at times.

It’s really not a matter of “IF” but “WHEN” Creationists will do it again and again and again.

And on that last point:
Scientists have peer review for a reason. It allows Science to be kept honest, be checked
and rechecked, and somehow I don’t feel that many of the “Creationist-Scientists” would
allow some of their papers to be scrutinized by real scientists. If such happens, and real
scientists do in fact approve, I’d be happy to hear about it.

 

[vz71]

Evolution is not a hypothesis, it’s a theory, VERY different, but not
different I guess in the ears of Creationists and whatever you are.

You provided for us the statement that:

First, when a mommy and a daddy “love each other very much,” they
produce a child. This child carries DNA from both parents, and a very
slight difference. That is a fact. Repeat this process long enough, you
will have a new species.

THAT is your hypothesis…although you are calling it a fact.

Now, is it possible to test this in a lab?
Can we make predictions based upon this hypothesis?
Will these predictions prove out?

I find it odd that the opposition to evolution is being battered about that they haven’t ‘real science’
But when a statement is actually put into real scientific scrutiny…

Is it possible that I am seeing a double standard being applied?

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

You provided for us the statement that:
THAT is your hypothesis…although you are calling it a fact.
Now, is it possible to test this in a lab?
Can we make predictions based upon this hypothesis?
Will these predictions prove out?
I find it odd that the opposition to evolution is being battered about that they haven’t ‘real science’
But when a statement is actually put into real scientific scrutiny…
Is it possible that I am seeing a double standard being applied?

Perhaps that was a bad example.
Now if you want predictions and science, here is a recommended link:
[/INDENT]

 

[vz71]

Creationists will often do it by mistake, though intent of dishonesty is possible at times.

It’s really not a matter of “IF” but “WHEN” Creationists will do it again and again and again.

As I said, interesting prejudice.

You have attributed lies and deceit to a group of individuals based solely upon a belief in creationism.

How exactly does it lend itself to an honest debate when one side already stands in accusation?

 

[meltzerboy]

This does not meet the burden of proof you promised. It extrapolates far beyond what the experiments show.

Yes, of course. But assuming there are exponentially more harmful mutations than beneficial ones the demise rather than survival of future generations would be a no brainer.

By hitching random mutations to survival, the theory begs the question because there is no way of experimentally proving that in the balance of time merely random mutations would suffice to continue future generations. The fact they have survived but we have no way of showing why they did, owing to the large time frame, makes the experimental extrapolation inconclusive at best. We can’t just assume the fact of survival demonstrates the efficacy of random mutation to spit out potentially successful variations - that is precisely what is in question.

Way beyond this

How can evolution “predict certain changes” when the changes are supposed to be random?

Firstly, random matrix theory is used by some mathematicians to predict patterns of randomness. Psychologists, on the other hand, believe we tend to see patterns in everything, including randomness, whereas there are none. Finally, one of the misconceptions about evolution is that it is based only on randomness.

 

[vz71]

Perhaps that was a bad example.
Now if you want predictions and science, here is a recommended link:

I was hoping to get what you said.

Do you have examples of what you described?

I am curious to know if there are any examples of sexually reproducing organisms producing a different species.

 

[DrTaffy]

I am curious to know if there are any examples of sexually reproducing organisms producing a different species.

The term for what you are talking about is ‘speciation’, and there are many examples of it being observed, both in the lab and in nature.

Using search terms such as “speciation examples” you can find a vast amount online. Good places to start might be the Wikipaedia entry or this page on talkorigins.org.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

I was hoping to get what you said.

Do you have examples of what you described?

I am curious to know if there are any examples of sexually reproducing organisms producing a different species.

Sadly, which I didn’t make clearer before, I do not have that.

As for you last point there, kind of a misrepresentation of evolution. the wolf-sized Pakicetus
did not give birth one day to a massive blue whale, but generations gave a transition to the
Ambulocetus, which gave rise eventually to Rodhocetus, and so on and so on to whales.

I’m not saying BELIEVE(!), but we do have fossils of all these whales, terrestrial and sea bound, and
when we study their ages, observe an obvious transition form land mammal to permanently sea-dwell-
ing mammal, we have not many other conclusions to make other than God is trying to mess with our
heads, but I don’t think that’s the case, so I’m going with evolution.