Re: New Evolution/ID debate thread

"Logos" <sdfs@xxxxxxx> wrote in
news:4MqdnUzlk9B1NA7eRVn-vg@xxxxxxxxxxxx:

> I want to wipe the slate clean and have a fresh start. This
thread
> will be dedicated to debating the merits of Darwin vs ID and
> Creationism.
>
> I'd like to lay a few groundrules, first.
>
> No linking to any website to make your argument, to include TO.
This
> also goes for cutting and pasting material from a website or
otherwise
> referencing another website or book.

In other words you're trying to rule out science itself?

Your request is denied.

I'll supply the facts I consider necessary. If you choose to
remain willfully ignorant that's YOUR choice.



> You have to prove your arguments through explanation. You can't
just
> say X, without asserting why X is true. For instance: X,
because W, Y
> and Z.

As noted above scientific evidence will be used.

Argument from first principles on SCIENTIFIC matters is completely
nonsensical.


> No ad homs or derogatory comments.

You first.



> That goes for derogatory comments
> toward both scientists and G_d.

Nor atheists.

Or else you will get back in kind, with interest.



> No one liners. If you have an argument, make it, as opposed to
just
> making smarmy side comments.

And spoil all our fun? Fine.

> Admit that science is a religion, the religion of naturalism.


No, I will not.

NATURALISM is a PHILOSOPHY. As is SPIRITUALISM.

Religion is BASED on spiritualism. Science is BASED on naturalism.


http://www.answers.com/religion&r=67

Religion;

1.
1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or
powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

Nope.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in
such belief and worship.

Nope.

2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.

Nope.

3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the
teachings of a spiritual leader.

Nope.

4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or
conscientious devotion.

Nope.

Since Science fits none of the definitions of a religion your
argument is nonsensical.

Therefore your request is denied.


> Do not
> start from the standpoint of superiority, like science is a
universal
> truth. We are on equal footing.

No.

Belief without evidence has no footing against knowledge based in
observible fact.

If scientific evidence contradicts religion, religion *must*
yield.

The Vatican has the common sense to adopt this position. You
should too.

Your request is denied.


> I'll start the argument.
>
> Darwinism is false. It is false because macroevolution has
never been
> observed.

False.

Modern genetics tells us macroevolution is no different to
microevolution other than by the following definition;

"There is no difference between micro- and macroevolution except
that genes between species usually diverge, while genes within
species usually combine. The same processes that cause within-
species evolution are responsible for above-species evolution,
except that the processes that cause speciation include things
that cannot happen to lesser groups, such as the evolution of
different sexual apparatus (because, by definition, once organisms
cannot interbreed, they are different species)."

You are ALSO making the error in stating "observing", science
doesn't need to *see* a process occuring in order to be able to
*understand* it.

Correlations between all the forms of Macroevolutionary and
Microevolutionary evidence are observed repeatedly everywhere
scientists look.

The macroevolutionary evidence is

1. Unity of life - common basic functions are based on the same
mechanisms across all life.

2. Nested hierarchies - we should observe nested hierarchies
over a broad range of time at various biological levels.

3. Convergence of independent phylogenies - Well-determined
phylogenetic trees inferred from the independent evidence of
morphology and molecular sequences match with an extremely high
degree of statistical significance.

4. Transitional forms -
* Example 1: reptile-birds
* Example 2: reptile-mammals
* Example 3: ape-humans
* Example 4: legged whales
* Example 5: legged seacows

5. Chronology of common ancestors - Fossilized intermediates
should appear in the correct general chronological order based on
the standard tree.

6. Anatomical vestiges - we predict that many organisms should
retain vestigial structures as structural remnants of lost
functions.

7. Atavisms - for each species, the standard phylogenetic tree
makes a huge number of predictions about atavisms that are allowed
and those that are impossible for any given species.


8. Molecular vestiges - Humans do not have the capability to
synthesize ascorbic acid (otherwise known as Vitamin C), and the
unfortunate consequence can be the nutritional deficiency called
scurvy. However, the predicted ancestors of humans had this
function (as do most other animals except primates and guinea
pigs). Therefore, we predict that humans, other primates, and
guinea pigs should carry evidence of this lost function as a
molecular vestigial character.

9. Ontogeny and developmental biology - embryology provides
testable confirmations and predictions about macroevolution.

10. Present biogeography -
macroevolution predicts .. there should be many locations where a
given species would thrive yet is not found there, due to
geographical barriers.

11. Past biogeography -
Past biogeography, as recorded by the fossils that are found, must
also conform to the standard phylogenetic tree.

12. Anatomical parahomology -
parahomologous structures have a history that should be explicable
from other lines of evolutionary evidence, since derived
characteristics (which is what these new functions and structures
now are) have evolved from more primitive (i.e. older) structures.
Consequently, detailed and explicit predictions can be made about
the possible morphologies of fossil intermediates.

13. Molecular parahomology -
Many proteins of very different function have strikingly similar
amino acid sequences and three-dimensional structures.

14. Anatomical analogy [convergence] -
if both species evolve the same new function, they may recruit
different structures to perform this new function. Analogy also
must conform to the principle of structural continuity; analogy
must be explained in terms of the structures of predicted
ancestors.

15. Molecular analogy [convergence] -
A familiar molecular example is the case of the three proteases
subtilisin, carboxy peptidase II, and chymotrypsin. These three
proteins are all serine proteases (i.e. they degrade other
proteins in digestion). They have the same function, the same
catalytic residues in their active sites, and they have the same
catalytic mechanism. Yet they have no sequence or structural
similarity.

16. Anatomical suboptimal function -
It simply means that a structure with a more efficient design
(usually with less superfluous complexity), could perform the same
final function equally well. Suboptimal structures and functions
should have a gradualistic, historical evolutionary explanation,
based on the opportunistic recruitment of ancestral structures, if
this history is known from other evidence (e.g. if this history is
phylogenetically determined by closely related organisms or fossil
history).

17. Molecular suboptimal function -
With the recent sequencing of the human genome, we have found that
less than 2% of the DNA in the human genome is used for making
proteins (International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium 2001,
p. 900). A full 45% of our genome is composed of transposons,
which serve no known function for the individual (except to cause
a significant fraction of genetic illnesses and cancers)
(Deininger and Batzer 1999; Ostertag and Kazazian 2001). One
retrotransposon, LINE1, constitutes a full 17% of the human genome
(Ostertag and Kazazian 2001; Smit 1996, IHGSC 2001, p. 879-882).
All specific individual Alu transposons tested so far have been
shown to be nonfunctional (Deininger and Batzer 1999). Thus, even
if these genetic elements in fact provide a bona fide function as
a whole, they would remain some of the most inefficient genes
known in all of biology due to thier excessive number and their
known propensity to cause illnesses.


18. Protein functional redundancy -
Okay, if you read this far you can go and read the rest of the
evidence yourself ;-)


19. DNA functional redundancy
20. Transposons
21. Redundant pseudogenes
22. Endogenous retroviruses
23. Genetic Change
24. Morphological Change
25. Functional Change
26. The strange past
27. Stages of speciation
28. Speciation events
29. Morphological rates
30. Genetic rates


>From

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution
The Scientific Case for Common Descent
Version 2.85
Copyright © 1999-2004 by Douglas Theobald, Ph.D.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/


Feel free to argue against any of these arguments.

I look forward to the rebuttals.



Examples of *observed* speciation are

5.1.1.1 Evening Primrose (Oenothera gigas)
5.1.1.2 Kew Primrose (Primula kewensis)
5.1.1.3 Tragopogon
5.1.1.4 Raphanobrassica
5.1.1.5 Hemp Nettle (Galeopsis tetrahit)
5.1.1.6 Madia citrigracilis
5.1.1.7 Brassica
5.1.1.8 Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum)
5.1.1.9 Woodsia Fern (Woodsia abbeae)
5.2.1 Stephanomeira malheurensis
5.2.2 Maize (Zea mays)
5.2.3 Speciation as a Result of Selection for Tolerance to a
Toxin: Yellow Monkey Flower (Mimulus guttatus)
5.3.1 Drosophila paulistorum
5.3.2 Disruptive Selection on Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.3 Selection on Courtship Behavior in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.4 Sexual Isolation as a Byproduct of Adaptation to
Environmental Conditions in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.5 Sympatric Speciation in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.6 Isolation Produced as an Incidental Effect of Selection on
several Drosophila species
5.3.7 Selection for Reinforcement in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.8 Tests of the Founder-flush Speciation Hypothesis Using
Drosophila
5.4.1 A Test of the Founder-flush Hypothesis Using Houseflies
5.4.2 Selection for Geotaxis with and without Gene Flow
5.5.1 Apple Maggot Fly (Rhagoletis pomonella)
5.5.2 Gall Former Fly (Eurosta solidaginis)
5.6 Flour Beetles (Tribolium castaneum)
5.7 Speciation in a Lab Rat Worm, Nereis acuminata
5.8 Speciation Through Cytoplasmic Incompatability Resulting from
the Presence of a Parasite or Symbiont

Observed Instances of Speciation
by Joseph Boxhorn
Copyright © 1993-2004
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5



> While there can be some changes in a species during
> generations, this really only extends to subspecies arising and
then
> getting reabsorbed back into the original population.

False. Trivially demonstrated in experimental microbial evolution
where the mutant bacteria are best suited to the new environment
and not the old.

The mutants don't survive in the original environment as they are
out-competed.

Not *all* adaptions are able to be absorbed into the original
population, even if they are *genetically* compatible.

Sometimes species seperation is simply a matter of behaviour.

Lions and Tigers are seperate species, seperated by behaviour,
not genetic incompatibility.


> The mechanism
> that prevents macroevolution is Irreducible Complexity.
> This is
> because creatures are so complex, with all their carefully
balanced
> enzymatic pathways etc, which are crucial to homeostasis.

False.

Most ID example pathways already have least one variant already
existing in nature and/or already existing theories describing
candidate evolutionary pathways.

Furthermore, ID itself CANNOT be used as a scientific argument
because it is fundamentally **unscientific**.



> If you
> change or take out one link in these pathways so that you can
evolve a
> new organism, you will be prevented because the whole thing will
fail.

False, as has been demonstrated in gene knock-out experiments on
mice.

This is especially interesting as the CURRENT pathways are highly
evolved, so being able to kick out a rung in the ladder and still
have it work is quite suprising.

Fortunately for the mice, retroengineering *simpler* evolutionary
pathways into complex animals is beyond current abilities. Modern
proteome simulation is also going to make this unnecessary.


> They cannot change in the step wise fashions necessary.

Yes they can. The human blood-clotting pathway already has a
proposal for evolutionary developent.

> In fact,
> beneficial mutations have never been observed in the lab.

False.

Resistance by mutation to antibacterial agents has been repeatedly
induced in-vitro and is *used* by biopharmacological producers to
aid the development of new antibacterial agents.


> It is
> ridiculous to think that something as wonderful as a human being
could
> have arisen from a worm, or an ant, or sludge.

This is an opinion based in sheer ignorance and anthropomorphic
bias.

Humans are no more particularly "wonderful" than other modern
animals by most **scientific** measures.

We ARE smarter. We ARE more social. We DO have a bigger culture
and longer cultural history.

But other animals think, speak, lie, learn, teach and have culture
too.

And we aren't evolved from what you might think of as a modern
worm, which has a long and glorious history. Nor ants.


Our common ancestors are FAR more ancient.



> I cordially await your response.

Done.

Let's see your rebuttal.


I'm waiting..

.