Why I don't believe in evolution

[Brown10985]

“Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention.” (par.70)

In populations!? Polygenism?

 

[infoguy]

…

Evidences for Macroevolution by Theobald

Evidence of redundant pseudogenes, parahomology, and the rest (from the article) does nothing to refute Intelligent Design.

Why couldn’t God design similarities across different species?

The issue of the extreme complexity of the bacterial flagellum, and how this could have developed by “natural selection”, is not even addressed.

…

 

[Philip_P]

I’m not a scientist, so my terminology is probably imprecise here and I’ll try not to pretend to know more than I really do…

To look at the flagellum of bateria, it might help to stop thinking of organisms as single unitary creatures and instead think of them as a cooperation among single celled, much simpler creatures. Actually, that’s one theory for how things like mitochondira in cells developed - originally mitochondria were an independent entity that entered into a symbiotic relationship a single-celled organism. If you find this hard to conceive of, read up on jellyfish - essentially a “jellyfish” is really a bunch of little organisms acting as one. Same sort of concept for cells, only the relationship by now is much closer.

Anyway, back to the flagellum. In a similar fashion to how mitochondria are now “part” of the cell, the parts of the flagellum were probably at one point independent organisms that entered into a symbiotic relationship.

Gee, I don’t feel I’m doing too good a job at explaining this. Does someone who knows what I’m talking about and who has a more information on hand want to take a stab at this?

 

[Steve_Andersen]

infoguy:

…

Evidence of redundant pseudogenes, parahomology, and the rest (from the article) does nothing to refute Intelligent Design.

Of course it doesn’t
Science can’t address supernatural things

ID proposes no mechanism that can be tested or measured objectively.
We can’t put God in a lab (and frankly I wouldn’t want to)

ID is fine for a theology or philosophy class but shouldn’t be taught as an alternative to science. It is a disservice to both God and science

Why couldn’t God design similarities across different species?

Well he could have
But the world He made is indistinguishable from one which evolved naturally so we better believe in evolution if we know what’s good for us
(old joke I know but those are the best)

infoguy:

…The issue of the extreme complexity of the bacterial flagellum, and how this could have developed by “natural selection”, is not even addressed.

…

sigh

Sure they’re complex…they have been evolving for billions of years

Bacteria didn’t pop out of nothing with flagellum fully developed

Besides, as stated before that “pick on minor example and project that out to discredit the whole thing” is not the way science works. It rests on the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence

For example if someone said to you “those Borgias were rotten human beings how could you Catholics ever let them be Popes?” And the proceeded to malign all Popes based on one example. You know that is not a fair and valid argument

 

[john_doran]

Steve Andersen:

Besides, as stated before that “pick on minor example and project that out to discredit the whole thing” is not the way science works. It rests on the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence

i don’t understand this. evolutionary theory attempts to demonstrate the truth of a universal proposition : “All *X’*s are Y” (all living organisms are the result of evolution".

if, then, even one counterexample is found, then the universal proposition is demonstrated to be false (if “some X is Y” is true, then “All X’s are Y” can’t be).

 

[hecd2]

vern humphrey:

Thanks for the correction.

You’re welcome. I apologise for the rather caustic tone.

Alec

 

[hecd2]

john doran:

i don’t understand this. evolutionary theory attempts to demonstrate the truth of a universal proposition : “All *X’*s are Y” (all living organisms are the result of evolution".

if, then, even one counterexample is found, then the universal proposition is demonstrated to be false (if “some X is Y” is true, then “All X’s are Y” can’t be).

John is correct. If one instance of an extant species on earth that is not descendant of an earlier species by the process of evolution could be demonstrated, then we would have to modify the proposition that all extant species on earth are the descendants by evolution from one or a small number of original species (the principle of common descent). However, no-one has demonstrated any such thing. All that we have here is the argument from personal incredulity: ‘I can’t see how the bacterial falgellum or the eye could have evolved, so that proves it didn’t.’ The argument is fallacious.

The God of the gaps argument is bad science and bad theology.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Philip_P]

hecd2:

John is correct. If one instance of an extant species on earth that is not descendant of an earlier species by the process of evolution could be demonstrated, then we would have to modify the proposition that all extant species on earth are the descendants by evolution from one or a small number of original species (the principle of common descent).

Actually, what it would indicate is that there were multiple, separate origins of life rather than just one. That would indeed be an interesting finding - a completely separate line of life. However, much to the chagrin of those hoping for proof of extraterrestrial life, thus far the evidence points to a single origin. All the genetic evidence we have looked at, without exception, is far more similar than it is different - in other words, we’re all related.

Now one place where it gets a bit blurry is when you’re dealing with things like viruses, which we aren’t even sure if they’re “alive” or not. Still, even viruses are based on protein strands (RNA I believe), and protein is a base component of all life we’ve discovered.

 

[hecd2]

Philip P:

Actually, what it would indicate is that there were multiple, separate origins of life rather than just one. That would indeed be an interesting finding - a completely separate line of life. However, much to the chagrin of those hoping for proof of extraterrestrial life, thus far the evidence points to a single origin. All the genetic evidence we have looked at, without exception, is far more similar than it is different - in other words, we’re all related.

Well it might indicate that there were multiple separate origins of life or it might indicate something else depending on the nature of the unrelatedness.

It is true that there is strong evidence for relatedness between all known kingdoms of life because of homologies in fundamental structures. In particular, some types of ribosomal RNA (rRNA), one of the building blocks of the ribosome, the machine that makes protein in the cell, has some tightly conserved sequences and syhjthesis. In fact both rRNA sequence and its 3D structure tell us a lot about the deep phylogenies of life and the relationship between archaea, eocytes, bacteria and eukaryotes.

It seems to be the case that eukaryotes (incluing all plants, animals, fungi) are the result of a fusion of two or more ancestral organisms. Both archaeal and bacterial sequences are present both in nucleus and organelles of eukaryotes. The most recent analysis of this is here: Rivera and Lake, ‘The Ring of Life provides evidence for a genome fusion origin of eukaryotes’, Nature 431, 152 - 155 (Sep 2004).

However the situation is extremely complex owing to the fact that lateral gene transfer is known between prokaryotes and eukaryotes and there are significant differences in the sequences and method of synthesis of fundamental building blocks like rRNA between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

It does seem that the tree of life has a single root, but positioning it is still extremely problematic and it is difficult to say at the moment what LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all life) was. Here is a good resource with a great reference list for those interested in this subject:
tolweb.org/tree?group=life_on_earth

It’s still not 100% clear that all life is related because of single ancestry or as a result of fusions occurring deep in the phylogeny.

Now one place where it gets a bit blurry is when you’re dealing with things like viruses, which we aren’t even sure if they’re “alive” or not. Still, even viruses are based on protein strands (RNA I believe), and protein is a base component of all life we’ve discovered.

There are both RNA and DNA viruses. Neither RNA nor DNA is a protein strand. RNA and DNA are NOT proteins. Protein is made in cells by the ribosome based on a DNA template. Double stranded DNA is based on nitrogen containing bases linked between the twin helices with hydrogen bonds on a backbone of phosphate-sugar. This is not a protein.

Viruses have to insert themselves into the genomes of other organisms to replicate, hence the doubt about whether they are ‘alive’. Their relatedness to the rest of life is not really known at the moment.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Gastro]

Bacteria have been evolving for a much longer time than higher organisms. Why would it be a problem for evolution if they have complex structures?

Andrew

 

[Philip_P]

hecd2:

Well it might indicate that there were multiple separate origins of life or it might indicate something else depending on the nature of the unrelatedness.

I was thinking if, for instance, we found an organism with a radically different genetic architecture, or even one that wasn’t based on genes at all. That would radically challenge our understanding of the origins of life.

RNA and DNA are NOT proteins. Protein is made in cells by the ribosome based on a DNA template. Double stranded DNA is based on nitrogen containing bases linked between the twin helices with hydrogen bonds on a backbone of phosphate-sugar. This is not a protein.

Viruses have to insert themselves into the genomes of other organisms to replicate, hence the doubt about whether they are ‘alive’. Their relatedness to the rest of life is not really known at the moment.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure about whether it was a protein. Thanks.