Re: Humans did not have gill slits


AndreVan wrote:
The following are not scientific mechanisms for the origin of all life
forms from a common primordial cell, and go against 'biological
evolution':
1.natural selection
2.random genetic mutations.

Natural selection:
A creationist, the chemist/zoologist Edward Blyth (1810-1873), wrote
about it in 1835-7, before Darwin, who very likely borrowed the idea
from Blyth.[ Taylor, I., In the Minds of Men, TFE Publishing, Toronto,
Canada, pp. 125-133, 1984.]

Organisms having an inheritable trait or character that gives it an
advantage in an environment over those who don't have the trait, will
have more chance of passing on the trait to future generations. Those
without the trait will not succeed in the population, an example is
Darwin's finches, where finches with a certain type of beak size
survived in an environment that suited the type of beak, as the
environment was dictating the type of food supply available.

The size of beak selected for actually went from small to large and
back again. The relative numbers of finches with the different beak
sizes changed in the population.


In this way organisms become more adapted to their environment, those
without the trait are eventually lost from the population.

The numbers changed....the trait is not necessarily lost....its
frequency changes in the population.

What natural selection actually does is get rid of genetic variation in
a given population, and by definition it cannot cause anything new to
arise.

No....it changes the relative numbers of alleles in a population. If a
new and better allele comes along, it may get selected for at the
expense of the existing alleles.

The price paid for adaptation, or specialization, is always the
permanent loss of some of the genetic information in that group of
organisms.

Mutations provide new information however.


In an information losing process such as adaptation, there is always a
limit to the amount of variation, as gene pools cannot keep on losing
their genetic information indefinitely, as can be seen by some
experiments with fruit flies, variation only went so far.

Is this because they are still only fruit flys that have not mutated
into bats?

You are forgeting that mutations will add new information.


Scientists tested Drosophila birchii in the lab to see how quickly this
rainforest fly would be able to adapt to a dryer environment.
They exposed flies to desiccation (drying) stress until 80 to 90% had
died, and then bred from the survivors. The offspring were no better
than there parents at surviving drier-than-normal conditions. With
mounting surprise, the researchers repeated the process, for 30 cycles
over 50 generations, but still no increase in desiccation resistance.
Even after dry-stressing fresh batches of the flies from 4 separate
rainforest populations, the researchers noted that, "the most
resistant population lacks the ability to evolve further resistance
even after intense selection over 30 generations."

If alleles did not exist in the population that would allow for
surviving in the dessicated environment, then there should be no
expectation of subsequent populations doing any better. The allele has
to already exist before is can be selected for.


Natural selection eliminates genes in a population. It cannot create
new ones.

Mutation creates new ones though...

This is noticeable in extreme environments, eg. In dry
conditions, flies that lose body moisture too quickly will die out and,
without offspring, their genes will be lost from that population. But
in a wet rainforest environment, there's no advantage in conserving
body moisture; what's needed is just the opposite; the ability to
withstand high humidity and the rampant diseases that thrive in such
conditions.

Therefore Drosophila birchii populations have become highly adapted to
life in the rainforests, but it has come at a cost. The price paid for
such specialization is the permanent loss of genetic information useful
for survival in a drier environment.

Perhaps this complete lack of alleles that would allow for the coping
with dry environments is why they die....


In contrast, the Drosophila flies (D. melanogastor, D. simulans, D.
serrata) from intermediate (less humid) environments still contain
sufficient genetic variation to enable the population to adapt to drier
conditions.
[Science 301(5629): 58-59 & 100-102, 2003.]
What we have here is a culling of genes already in existence. No new
genetic information was created, and the flies remained flies.

Right...which is what is expected.


Darwin's Finches showed that adaptation and speciation may occur in a
couple of hundred years. What was observed with the finches was
variations in beak sizes due to environmental changes causing changes
in their diets.

This is not "evolution" but adaptation, the finches
remained finches.

What? It's not evolution until they become turkeys or some other bird?


The same loss of genetic information as with the
Drosophila flies occurs, a process in direct conflict with what
evolution of all life from a cell requires, because "molecules to
man" evolution requires massive amounts of new genetic code to be
added to an organism (and retained) that did not exist before. This is
a fact of science.

You clearly do not understand what you are talking about.


In a similar way dog breeders manipulate genes to breed new kinds of
dogs. Chihuahuas were bred by selecting the smallest dogs to breed from
over many generations. This was done by eliminating the genes for large
size. This type of breeding has separated genetic information from one
type of dog and another.

All observed examples of natural selection involve sorting or loss of
pre-existing genetic code (information); evolution requires new genes
with new information.

Neo-Darwinism requires that mutations can
generate this new information, but observed mutations have never been
shown to do so.

False. Mutations add information.

Natural selection and adaptation occur, but do not
support the hypothesis of all life evolving from a common cell at all,
even when we witness rapid organelle generation rates and adaptation.

So...it must be God doing that then...eh?


Natural selection is the effect the environment has on living forms,
selecting out life forms that are able to survive from those that
cannot handle their environment and therefore perish.

But this is only part of the mechanism that works.


The reason why Darwin was never elected to the prestigious Zoological
Section of the French Institute, was given by a member of the Academy
as follows:
"What has closed the doors of the Academy to Mr. Darwin is that the
science of those of his books which have made his chief title to
fame-the "Origin of Species," and still more the "Descent of Man," is
not science, but a mass of assertions and absolutely gratuitous
hypotheses, often evidently fallacious. This kind of publication and
these theories are a bad example, which a body that respects itself
cannot encourage."[From Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D.
Appleton and Co., London, 2:400, footnote, 1911.]

This is still true today; Neo-Darwinism and evolution in general
survive on philosophical speculation and assertions about the
historical past of life and the universe. Neo-Darwinian evolution is a
religion, partly born out of spiritism (the domain of the demonic
spiritual realm) and partly due to a disbelief in the Creator God.

Wrong.


Natural selection does not contradict creation it supports it. God
created various life forms to reproduce after themselves, this is what
we observe occuring today.

Only religious positions support creation by divine means.


"Survival of the fittest" demonstrates only how an organism has
survived, not how it has evolved.

Organisms don't evolve, populations do.


Genetic Mutations:
Random genetic mutations is not a mechanism for molecules to man
evolution.
Chance random genetic mutations are central to evolution hypothesis,
however, genetic copying mistakes have never been observed to add or
create any new genetic information (code) to an organism.

False.

In no known
case is antibiotic resistance the result of new information (base
pairs). [Spetner, L.S., Not by chance!, The Judaica Press Inc., New
York, 1998.]

False


Mutation rates per nucleotide per generation are very low. A mutation
is a random change in the nucleotides of a DNA molecule and occurs
during reproduction. They are small, random, and harmful alterations to
the genetic code.

False....most neutral

You can change the gene frequency or the ratio of the genes that are
already present as much as you like, but unless you add new genes you
won't get 'molecules to man' evolution.

There are a large amount of genes in each germ cell that can be
rearranged to allow for a wide range of variation in a life form, the
variation is limited within that life form. Isolation and inbreeding
within a population can cause genetic features to become fixed in that
population.

New mutations are extremely rare because DNA has it's own 'proof
reading' system, only low mutation rates can be tolerated, otherwise
error catastrophe would result.
Existing genetic mutations are inherited from parent organisms during
reproduction. The reason we appear to have many mutations in the human
gene pool is due to genetic load over many generations. We are becoming
more and more genetically "impure" as over thousands of years of
reproduction we've accumulated and retained most mutations in the
gene pool. Yet new mutation rates are too low to give any credible
support to diversification of complex life from a cell (evolution).

The 'simplest' known living organism has 580,000 letters of code
compared to humans who have 3 billion [Fraser, C.M. et al., The minimal
gene complement of Mycoplasma genitalium, Science 270(5235):397-403,
1995; perspective by Goffeau, A., Life with 482 Genes, same issue, pp.
445-446.].
Where are the scientific experiments that show an organism gaining new
additional letters of code by random mutations within itself?

In reproduction the fertilized egg already has all the genetic code to
form a particular organism. The DNA code is the blueprint for the
construction of organism.
Adaptation of a type of bacteria to feeding on nylon is not a mechanism
or process for 'molecules to man evolution', the bacterium did not
evolve into a different type of organism, no directional change
occurred, just stasis. An analysis can be found here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i3/bacteria.asp

Even in genetic experiments of rapid generation cycles of bacteria,
there has never been an occasion where the bacteria evolved into
anything new, the bacteria always remained bacteria.

Random genetic drift and population bottlenecks severely limit the
genetic variation, which is the raw material of evolution by natural
selection. Therefore not scientific evidence that all present life
evolved from a common primordial cell.

Evolution by 'beneficial mutations': so-called beneficial mutations
are a small fraction of genetic mutations: 90-95% of mutations are
harmful, 5-10% are neutral. Observed beneficial mutations are not the
information-gaining type needed for evolution.

The smaller the change, the smaller the selective advantage.
This is expressed by the selection coefficient s. If a mutation has s =
0.001 or 0.1%, a supposedly typical value, then the number of surviving
offspring is 0.1% greater for organisms with the mutant than without
it. But the smaller the selective advantage, the more likely that
random effects (e.g. genetic drift) will eliminate it: its probability
of survival is about 2s.
So the above mutation has only one chance in 500 of surviving, even
though it is beneficial.

Take a population of 100,000. If only a male and female pair have a new
trait, natural selection must eliminate the other 99,998 and all their
heirs. If there is perfect selection (s = 1), this can happen in one
generation. But this means that for every new trait, 49,999 individuals
must be eliminated without offspring. Then the population must be
regenerated with these survivors.

Even if evolution happened at its maximum speed for 10 million years,
how many traits could be substituted in a creature with human-like
generation times of say 20 years? Only 500,000. This small number of
nucleotides is only a small fraction of the forty 500-page books worth
of information (120 million base pairs) which are needed to transform
an ape into a man. And in real life, selection is far less intense,
meaning that only about 1700 substitutions could occur. [AiG
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/improbable.asp]

Even if a beneficial mutation survives, for it to become fixed in a
population, the organisms not carrying it must be eliminated. This is
the cost of substitution. This limits the amount of substitution which
can occur in a given time. [ Haldane, J.B.S., 1957. The Cost of Natural
Selection. J. Genetics, 55:511-24.]

All observed examples of natural selection involve sorting or loss of
pre-existing information (genetic code); evolution requires new genes
with new genetic information that leads to a positive selection and
creation of a new organism. Neo-Darwinism requires that mutations can
generate this new genetic code and instructions, but observed mutations
have never been shown to do so. Sometimes a loss of information can
help an organism so is 'beneficial', e.g. beetles born without
wings are less likely to be blown into the sea. But loss of wings is
the opposite sort of change to what cell to present life evolution
requires.
Many debilitating diseases are caused by mutations, like cancer. Most
mutations do not provide a selection advantage.

The fact that it took considerable human intelligence, effort and time
to decode the genetic code (as in the human genome etc), how were these
very same DNA codes encoded in the first place without intelligence?

The genetic code does not contradict God's creation and genetic
mutations do not contradict a fallen creation caused by Adam & Eve's
sin.

As biological evolution is claimed to be a 'scientific fact', what
other processes/mechanisms are then left for 'molecules to man
evolution' to be scientifically possible?

Evolution is a religion masquerading as science. More 'magic' is
required for evolution to generate life from non-life, than
evolutionists claim is required for supernatural creation. "God did
it" is just as (if not more) feasible than "abiogenesis did it".
Considering that we cannot prove that God does NOT exist, and the fact
that there is no conclusive scientific evidence to support evolution,
it is highly risky and careless to reject God and eternal life through
Jesus.

Once we physically die, we no longer have control over what we believe
and are at the mercy of whatever 'truth' waits for us on the other
side.
To reject Jesus is to reject eternal life in God's new creation. You
remain dead in your sins and separated from your Creator, eternal
torture and suffering awaits you.

Are you prepared to take a chance on what awaits you on the other side
of death by putting your faith in evolution (naturalism) instead of
God?

What are your reasons for rejecting the Genesis account of the origin
of everything?

What scientific evidence makes the origin of all life today not
possible by God's creation account? Are there scientific experiments
to support this?

Have scientists been able to devise an experiment to verify all present
life diverging from a common cell?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Human evolution
    ... The claim counters a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, since in modern society the survivors no longer have to be the fittest, and is based on data from an international genetics project that can chart how evolution has shaped mankind over the past 40,000 years. ... In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist Prof John Hawks suggests that humans are in the evolutionary fast lane and many changes in our genes are driven by the dramatic rise in population, culture, changes in diet brought on by the advent of agriculture, and resistance to epidemic diseases that became major killers after the growth of human civilisations. ... "This is always a tough question, because selection depends on the environment and our environment has been changing," he explains. ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: Does anybody want to proofread and criticize a 7000 plus word
    ... Statistical Probability in the Evolution of Mendelian Populations ... selection of slightly advantageous mutations that frequently recur, ... biased gene conversion, and some elements of neutral molecular ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Humans did not have gill slits
    ... How do they "go against" biolgical evolution, ... Natural selection: ... which comes from mutations, and recombination of traits. ... There are no genetics textbooks which claim this. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • OT Mutation and Selection - was - Come on people...
    ... ::: I'm sure you are aware that all of us carry many mutations. ... :: Evolution doesn't have a direction, ... :: surviving long enough to produce progeny. ... selection is a very blunt tool that works slowly ...
    (uk.rec.humour)
  • Re: Humans did not have gill slits
    ... Natural selection: ... Mutations provide new information however. ... It's not evolution until they become turkeys or some other bird? ... J. Genetics, 55:511-24.] ...
    (talk.origins)