RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

[Philip]

Audacity: Einstein could never have come up with his theories of relativity if he hadn't disagreed with Newton.

But Einstein also admited that his previous view of a Godless universe in a "Steady State" was his worst blunder. Course, that doesn't mean his view of God was the same as is a Christian's.

[Audacity]

Audacity: Einstein could never have come up with his theories of relativity if he hadn't disagreed with Newton.

But Einstein also admited that his previous view of a Godless universe in a "Steady State" was his worst blunder. Course, that doesn't mean his view of God was the same as is a Christian's.

And Einstein had an Illegitimate child, yet he wasn't a Christian.

[crochet1949]

Audacity: Einstein could never have come up with his theories of relativity if he hadn't disagreed with Newton.

But Einstein also admited that his previous view of a Godless universe in a "Steady State" was his worst blunder. Course, that doesn't mean his view of God was the same as is a Christian's.

And Einstein had an Illegitimate child, yet he wasn't a Christian.

Maybe your last sentence should have read -- '...an illegitimate child, yet he 'was' a Christian ?! But I don't see why That would make any difference. Being a Christian or not.

[Audacity]

Audacity: Einstein could never have come up with his theories of relativity if he hadn't disagreed with Newton.

But Einstein also admited that his previous view of a Godless universe in a "Steady State" was his worst blunder. Course, that doesn't mean his view of God was the same as is a Christian's.

And Einstein had an Illegitimate child, yet he wasn't a Christian.

Maybe your last sentence should have read -- '...an illegitimate child, yet he 'was' a Christian ?!

No, because he wasn't.

But I don't see why That would make any difference. Being a Christian or not.

It doesn't, which is my point.

[hughfarey]

There is a general point to be made here, which is that whenever a 'spontaneous creationist' spots a disagreement among evolutionists, that alone is assumed to be good evidence that evolution is a complete nonsense and thus creationism must be correct. They rarely look at themselves from a similar viewpoint. If I, as an an evolutionist, spot a disagreement among creationists, such as YEC or OEC or whatever, may I assume this to be good evidence that creationism is a complete nonsense and thus evolution must be correct? If not, then what is the difference in validity between the two viewpoints?

[abelcainsbrother]

There is a general point to be made here, which is that whenever a 'spontaneous creationist' spots a disagreement among evolutionists, that alone is assumed to be good evidence that evolution is a complete nonsense and thus creationism must be correct. They rarely look at themselves from a similar viewpoint. If I, as an an evolutionist, spot a disagreement among creationists, such as YEC or OEC or whatever, may I assume this to be good evidence that creationism is a complete nonsense and thus evolution must be correct? If not, then what is the difference in validity between the two viewpoints?

Not a good comparison because Theistic Evolution is considered creationism too.We have different competing theories but only one can be right. This rules out evolution as I have already explained well.All of this could be settled too if I was wrong about something I said about evolution. You could just post evidence prove me wrong and make me look bad but you have'nt and the few times you tried to I was vindicated,yet it does'nt matter to you. You have your mind made up and evidence to the contrary does not phase you otherwise you would address the issues I have with evoluion. Ignoring the reasons I say evolution is bunk science just does'nt cut it. I am right when I say normal variation in reproduction is what evolutionists use for evidence life evolves and it is not even close to being evidence life evolves. This means that all of that evidence behind evolution is all built on pure belief life evolves and not on evidence. This is not a micro vs macro argument against evolution because they both are myths built around a theory that has been believed because scientists have proven that there is variation amongst a population. So NORMAL variation in reproduction is the only thing that has been proven and yet this is common knowledge stuff that has been known for thousands of years by plant and animal breeders,even Darwin acknowledged it and assumed life evolves because of it. You are doing the samething Darwin did except using the samething Darwin did to assume life evolves.We are right back to where Darwin was 150 years ago still believing life evolves because of normal variation with Darwin's finches,only now normal variation has been demonstrated just like it was when Darwin used his finches for evidence life evolves.We did not need scientists in a lab to prove to us there is variation amongst a population and push this as evidence life evolves and then build a bunch of evidence around this and yet this is exactly what happened. Wasted scientific grant money for 150 years.

Now since we have very good reasons to doubt evolution. I take the very same evidence in the earth and that has been found in the earth and I say it is evidence of a former lost world totally different than this world with different kinds of life in it than this world we now live in has. So the earth is billions of years old,plenty of time for a former world,we have evidence in the earth of how much life lived in the former world and what kind of life lived in the former world.

We also have ancient mysterious structures around the world on the earth that are evidence of the remnants of the cities that once existed in the former world. Isaiah 14:17.We have evidence of a former world that existed,not evidence that life evolves, In fact,when we look at fossils we see fully formed creatures that once lived in the former world until they died and were fossilized. There is noway we could look at any fossil and claim this life was evolving. Whether it is dinosaurs,trilobites,sabre teeth cats,giant deer,hominids,pakecetus that evolutionists claim was a whale,etc we simply see the kinds of life that once roamed the earth in the former world that once existed the bible told us about if you understand the Gap Theory.

There was a former world until it perished,then a gap of time when the earth sat in an uninhabitable state until Genesis 1:3 no life existed until God made this world we live in now starting with verse 3 in Genesis chapter 1. God is simply making the earth habitable again so that he can make this world after verse 3. 2nd Peter 3:6 "Whereby the world that then was,being overflowed with water,Perished:" Genesis 1:2 "And the earth was without form, and void;and darkness was upon the face of the deep.And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the WATERS."

[Mazzy]

Audacity said

Obviously you're not familiar with how science operates. Scientists disagreeing with the status quo is how science often progresses. Einstein could never have come up with his theories of relativity if he hadn't disagreed with Newton.

Have you been banned. Not sure. Still...

I am familiar with how science operates. By your own argument, creationists also have various theories that address data and/or what is observed. So I guess creationists are allowed to change their minds as well. Observation is the best way to explain data. As in my original post, it has been observed that energy can create matter instantly. However, molecules to man has not been observed due to time constraints. In fact no one has ever observed chemical reactions forming a complex factory of reproduction, a living cell.

More importantly so much of what has been observed in a lab appears to align with a creationist paradigm. For example......

1. Mitochondrial Eve demonstrates all of mankind alive today are related to and descendant from a single female as told in the bible. This evidence supports creation and requires theoretical assumptions about who else or what else was round at the time to provide support for TOE. There is no evidence of cohorts other than by theoretical modelling.

2. Y chromosome Adam, demonstrates we are all related to and descendant from the one male, There is no evidence to suggest that there were cohorts other than theoretical modelling based on the assumption of TOE.

3. The Y chromosome in the human and chimpanzee males are remarkably and unexpectedly different to each other and comparable to a chicken and human at 310 million years of divergence. Hence further proof that Chimps and humans are not related. Attempts to explain why the Y chromosomes are so different are theoretical. The fact that they are very different supports chimps and humans being created individually.

4. An abundance of life is shown to arise during the Cambrian period. This is the evidence and this is proof of creation. Anything else apart from this evidence are hypothetical assumptions. Evolutionists attempts to assert ancestry to the Precambrian creation have failed. Researchers are unable to provide anything more than assumptions and hypothesis re oxygen levels and why such a plethora of life suddenly begins to appear at the one time. Precambrian creatures still exist today such as bacteria, sponges, coral and flatworms. IOW sea creatures that continue into upper layers described as the Devonian period.

5. Mankind appears fully formed. This is evidence for creation. Researchers attempts to show ancestry through the fossil record to chimpanzees have failed. The constant debate and reclassification of fossil evidence along with proof that homo cranial features are not unique to the homo line, invalidate any attempt to prove ancestry through morphological similarity. Genomic information is reliant on fossil evidence to inform same and hence is not a reliable source of data. Evolutionary moves away from smooth transitions to staged evolution to resolve the fossil evidence have also failed. Attempts to tie bipedal walking to brain increases have failed. Attempts to tie humans to knuckle walkers have failed. Attempts to classify bipedal walking as a move to humanness have failed.

6. The search for Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) has failed and no longer ties all life to a single celled LUCA. This supports creation. Evolutionists assumptions in relation to horizontal gene transfer remain controversial and provide no substance other than assumptions and hypothesis as to why there is no LUCA and ancient genealogy is all messed up. The fact is simply, there is no evidence of a LUCA and that is support in favour of creation.

7. Researchers have now shown that the sharing of genes means little in the understanding of what makes humans special or other creatures unique. It is about gene expression and gene families. The fact that a human and a plant share genes is support for common design, and not a linked ancestry.

8. Experiments with fruit flies demonstrate that over 1000 generations a so called advantageous allele did not set in the population and the fitness landscape actually decreased.

9. Research has demonstrated that the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 (language gene) not only look different but function differently too.

10. One would expect that a creator would not need to create DNA that is totally useless. More and more researchers are finding that non coding DNA is not useless at all.

There is plenty more to speak to, but this post is long enough.

[Mazzy]

There is a general point to be made here, which is that whenever a 'spontaneous creationist' spots a disagreement among evolutionists, that alone is assumed to be good evidence that evolution is a complete nonsense and thus creationism must be correct. They rarely look at themselves from a similar viewpoint. If I, as an an evolutionist, spot a disagreement among creationists, such as YEC or OEC or whatever, may I assume this to be good evidence that creationism is a complete nonsense and thus evolution must be correct? If not, then what is the difference in validity between the two viewpoints?

My expectation is that science would advance faster if researchers accepted what they have observed. Researchers can count/use what supports their view and ignore the rest.

For example as soon as scientists were able to look at chimp and human genome comparisons they should have seen they were not alike at all. Scientists use algorithms that contain numerous insertions values they can only guess at. They are filled with possible population size, rates of divergence, time lines, assumptions on relationships etc etc. There are many explanations as to why what is observed is not what was expected eg horizontal gene transfer, deletions, multiplications, recombination etc etc etc.

Here is some information.....

" Researchers are finding that on top of the 1% distinction, chunks of missing DNA, extra genes, altered connections in gene networks, and the very structure of chromosomes confound any quantification of “humanness” versus “chimpness.” “There isn’t one single way to express the genetic distance between two complicated living organisms,” Gagneux adds

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/biolo ... s/1836.pdf

"Chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes are remarkably divergent in structure and gene content"

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 08700.html

This is written by John Hawkes. John Hawks is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an evolutionist.

"Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.
So much for 98 percent. Let me just repeat part of that: humans and chimpanzees, “comparable to the difference … in chicken and human”.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/chi ... -2010.html

Indeed a researcher could support our nearest cousin as being a cat (90%), cow (80%), mouse (75%), fruit fly (60%) or a banana (50%).

https://www.genome.gov/10005835/

[hughfarey]

An interesting collection of statements, which illustrate well the different approaches that creationists and evolutionists take to the evidence - evidence, I may say, entirely discovered by evolutionists. The mantra “this supports creationism” is, I’m afraid, more or less meaningless. After all, absolutely everything “supports creationism” in that God can do anything, and could, if he so wished, have spontaneously created everything we know in any way, and at any time. Maybe yesterday. Who knows? Perhaps all the coherence we spot in the laws of physics, the passage of time, and the appearance of common descent is an illusion; and there is nothing anyone can say which can disprove this hypothesis.

So in the absence of any way of falsifying the theory of spontaneous creation, we can validly say that it isn’t a scientific hypothesis. Creationists do not always deny this, instead they claim that nor is evolution a scientific hypothesis, because it can’t be falsified either. This would sound more credible if they didn’t then spend most of their time attempting to falsify it!

Evolutionists do think that their ‘theory’ can be falsified. For example, to take an illustration of your own, if the DNA of humans, chimpanzees and chickens was all equally different, such that it was impossible to infer that any two were more closely related than the other, that would be a real blow. But of course there’s no such evidence. The quantitative difference between any two may be similar, but qualitatively it’s very easy to derive a closer relationship between chimps and humans than between either of them and chickens.

Another common creationist hope lies in ‘failed’ searches. The search for a common ancestor of all current life? Failed. The search for an explanation for abiogenesis? Failed. The search for laboratory speciation? Failed. Well, sorry, but all this represents is a rather desperate hope by creationists that scientists have finished searching, which they haven’t. A search hasn’t failed until either all possible places to search have been searched, or until everybody gives up. Neither of these is anything like true. Exactly the opposite. Not only do we continuously discover new needles in the haystack, but we continuously discover more haystack! The success of the search so far encourages us to continue to explore, and we don’t know how long we need to go on for. Not only have these searches not ‘failed’, many of them have barely begun.

The mitochondrial DNA thing may turn out to be another two edged sword. It isn’t true that all human mitochondrial DNA is exactly the same; it varies considerably due to mutations. Knowledge of the variety and rate of mutation allows us to distinguish different ancestral lines, and to establish roughly the point at which they all converge on ‘Ancestral Eve.’ What is less well known is that our knowledge of chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA allows us to establish not only the point at which ‘Ancestral Bobo’ lived, but also a female primate ancestral to both chimpanzees and humans, and similarly, by comparison with other primate mitochondrial DNA a proto-simian from which we all descended.

[abelcainsbrother]

An interesting collection of statements, which illustrate well the different approaches that creationists and evolutionists take to the evidence - evidence, I may say, entirely discovered by evolutionists. The mantra “this supports creationism” is, I’m afraid, more or less meaningless. After all, absolutely everything “supports creationism” in that God can do anything, and could, if he so wished, have spontaneously created everything we know in any way, and at any time. Maybe yesterday. Who knows? Perhaps all the coherence we spot in the laws of physics, the passage of time, and the appearance of common descent is an illusion; and there is nothing anyone can say which can disprove this hypothesis.

So in the absence of any way of falsifying the theory of spontaneous creation, we can validly say that it isn’t a scientific hypothesis. Creationists do not always deny this, instead they claim that nor is evolution a scientific hypothesis, because it can’t be falsified either. This would sound more credible if they didn’t then spend most of their time attempting to falsify it!

Evolutionists do think that their ‘theory’ can be falsified. For example, to take an illustration of your own, if the DNA of humans, chimpanzees and chickens was all equally different, such that it was impossible to infer that any two were more closely related than the other, that would be a real blow. But of course there’s no such evidence. The quantitative difference between any two may be similar, but qualitatively it’s very easy to derive a closer relationship between chimps and humans than between either of them and chickens.

Another common creationist hope lies in ‘failed’ searches. The search for a common ancestor of all current life? Failed. The search for an explanation for abiogenesis? Failed. The search for laboratory speciation? Failed. Well, sorry, but all this represents is a rather desperate hope by creationists that scientists have finished searching, which they haven’t. A search hasn’t failed until either all possible places to search have been searched, or until everybody gives up. Neither of these is anything like true. Exactly the opposite. Not only do we continuously discover new needles in the haystack, but we continuously discover more haystack! The success of the search so far encourages us to continue to explore, and we don’t know how long we need to go on for. Not only have these searches not ‘failed’, many of them have barely begun.

The mitochondrial DNA thing may turn out to be another two edged sword. It isn’t true that all human mitochondrial DNA is exactly the same; it varies considerably due to mutations. Knowledge of the variety and rate of mutation allows us to distinguish different ancestral lines, and to establish roughly the point at which they all converge on ‘Ancestral Eve.’ What is less well known is that our knowledge of chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA allows us to establish not only the point at which ‘Ancestral Bobo’ lived, but also a female primate ancestral to both chimpanzees and humans, and similarly, by comparison with other primate mitochondrial DNA a proto-simian from which we all descended.

Not exactly true Hugh when you say evidence entirely discovered by evolutionists.It depends on what kind of evidence you are talking about.It was Christians who started modern day science before evolution became a scientific theory and they had already discovered fossils and evidence the earth is millions of years old. It was'nt until Charles Darwin in 1859 pushed the evolution theory that evolution became a scientific theory and very few people even knew about evolution then.Charles Darwin took the known scientific discoveries and came up with a way to fit evolution into it. He had to sell evolution based on the evidence already discovered.Since then the evidence has been improved but it is all based around evolution. Evolution did not become very popular until Charles Darwin wrote his book "The origin of species" in 1859.It was then that evolution grew in popularity built around evidence that was not discovered because of evolution. It was just discovered being open minded to what the evidence in the earth revealed,not evolution or any particular creation theory.I'm not saying nobody had heard about evolution theories that were around but they were not really believed then.

[Mazzy]

An interesting collection of statements, which illustrate well the different approaches that creationists and evolutionists take to the evidence - evidence, I may say, entirely discovered by evolutionists. The mantra “this supports creationism” is, I’m afraid, more or less meaningless. After all, absolutely everything “supports creationism” in that God can do anything, and could, if he so wished, have spontaneously created everything we know in any way, and at any time. Maybe yesterday. Who knows? Perhaps all the coherence we spot in the laws of physics, the passage of time, and the appearance of common descent is an illusion; and there is nothing anyone can say which can disprove this hypothesis.

Please don't confuse 'evidence' with an hypothesized support. Indeed what has been found does support creation. For example if biblical creation were true creationists need data to support modern mankind being related to one male and female ancestor. Guess what? It does. That's too bad for evolutionists. Now evolutionists have to add a story line. eg That data really doesn't mean what it indicates because there were other people about as well and all other ancestral lines since then died how. Indeed Why? Because evolutionary scientists said so or else TOE will be falsified in favor of a creationist paradigm.

So in the absence of any way of falsifying the theory of spontaneous creation, we can validly say that it isn’t a scientific hypothesis. Creationists do not always deny this, instead they claim that nor is evolution a scientific hypothesis, because it can’t be falsified either. This would sound more credible if they didn’t then spend most of their time attempting to falsify it!

Sure we can falsify creationism. eg dna indicates mankind is related to multiple ancestral lines, but it doesn't. God would not need to make useless dna. The saga of 'junk' dna once upon a time sounded like great support for TOE being the useless remnant. Creationists maintained that God would have no need to create useless dna in a creation event. I shouldn't need to tell you that is exactly what we researchers are finding. eg expression switch, essential for chromosome structure, the function of centromeres and play a role in cell division (meiosis). Some noncoding DNA sequences also determine the location where transcription factors can attach and control transcription of the genetic code from DNA to mRNA.

Evolutionists do think that their ‘theory’ can be falsified. For example, to take an illustration of your own, if the DNA of humans, chimpanzees and chickens was all equally different, such that it was impossible to infer that any two were more closely related than the other, that would be a real blow. But of course there’s no such evidence. The quantitative difference between any two may be similar, but qualitatively it’s very easy to derive a closer relationship between chimps and humans than between either of them and chickens.

Some organism had to be more similar to mankind than the others. How does one come up with a percentage when huge chunks of DNA are missing, or when the Y chromosome is hugely divergent in comparison, deletions insertions, etc You can't! If you would like to critique the paper on "the myth of 1%" I would welcome it.

Another common creationist hope lies in ‘failed’ searches. The search for a common ancestor of all current life? Failed. The search for an explanation for abiogenesis? Failed. The search for laboratory speciation? Failed. Well, sorry, but all this represents is a rather desperate hope by creationists that scientists have finished searching, which they haven’t. A search hasn’t failed until either all possible places to search have been searched, or until everybody gives up. Neither of these is anything like true. Exactly the opposite. Not only do we continuously discover new needles in the haystack, but we continuously discover more haystack! The success of the search so far encourages us to continue to explore, and we don’t know how long we need to go on for. Not only have these searches not ‘failed’, many of them have barely begun.

There is not desperation on my part. I'd say the long line of papers on dna first, rna first, proteins first, heaps of experiments in controlled labs, and coming up with zilch is a failure to date. Sure you can live in hope, but 'hope' is not a valid scientific hypothesis.

Creationists actually do research. John Sanford invented the gene gun and has published numerous papers. Regardless, it's fine to let evolutionists do it for us. So far they are doing a great job at supporting creationism.

The mitochondrial DNA thing may turn out to be another two edged sword. It isn’t true that all human mitochondrial DNA is exactly the same; it varies considerably due to mutations. Knowledge of the variety and rate of mutation allows us to distinguish different ancestral lines, and to establish roughly the point at which they all converge on ‘Ancestral Eve.’ What is less well known is that our knowledge of chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA allows us to establish not only the point at which ‘Ancestral Bobo’ lived, but also a female primate ancestral to both chimpanzees and humans, and similarly, by comparison with other primate mitochondrial DNA a proto-simian from which we all descended.

You do realize don't you that algorithmic magic uses unknown speciation dates as insertion values? Here is a bit of information for you about the not so credible 'mutation rate'.....

"In the past six years, more-direct measurements using ‘next-generation’ DNA sequencing have come up with quite different estimates. A number of studies have compared entire genomes of parents and their children — and calculated a mutation rate that consistently comes to about half that of the last-common-ancestor method."

http://www.nature.com/news/dna-mutation ... et-1.17079

Even at half the mutation rate a 'story' will be invented to keep the TOE timeline from totally falling apart, and falsifying a plethora of published papers.

[Mazzy]

There is a general point to be made here, which is that whenever a 'spontaneous creationist' spots a disagreement among evolutionists, that alone is assumed to be good evidence that evolution is a complete nonsense and thus creationism must be correct. They rarely look at themselves from a similar viewpoint. If I, as an an evolutionist, spot a disagreement among creationists, such as YEC or OEC or whatever, may I assume this to be good evidence that creationism is a complete nonsense and thus evolution must be correct? If not, then what is the difference in validity between the two viewpoints?

The theory of evolution is a theory undergoing evolution. eg Darwin 1859, modern synthesis 1942, Integral model 2012.

As I said in my previous post, evolutionists demand a higher level of substantiation than they themselves can provide. Additionally much data does appear to better support a creationist paradigm and challenge an evolutionary one.

[hughfarey]

Please don't confuse 'evidence' with an hypothesized support.

Certainly not.

Indeed what has been found does support creation. For example if biblical creation were true creationists need data to support modern mankind being related to one male and female ancestor. Guess what? It does. That's too bad for evolutionists.

That's cherry picking your evidence, in my opinion. Evolutionists don't deny that DNA comparisons lead to a single male and female ancestor. However, the same evidence also suggests that that they lived thousands of years apart, and other evidence suggests that they were not alone.

Now evolutionists have to add a story line. eg That data really doesn't mean what it indicates because there were other people about as well and all other ancestral lines since then died how.

No. Different evidence leads to different conclusions, neither of which conflict.

Sure we can falsify creationism. eg dna indicates mankind is related to multiple ancestral lines, but it doesn't.

Establishing that humans do not have a common ancestor would be a bit of a blow for evolution too!

God would not need to make useless dna. The saga of 'junk' dna once upon a time sounded like great support for TOE being the useless remnant. Creationists maintained that God would have no need to create useless dna in a creation event. I shouldn't need to tell you that is exactly what we researchers are finding. eg expression switch, essential for chromosome structure, the function of centromeres and play a role in cell division (meiosis). Some noncoding DNA sequences also determine the location where transcription factors can attach and control transcription of the genetic code from DNA to mRNA.

I think it's difficult to claim what God would or wouldn't do, and then say that the evidence supports the claim, because God can do whatever he likes. It is a bit more rigorous to claim what evolution could or couldn't do, and to see if observations refute it. Redundant DNA, absurd designs such as the recurrent laryngeal nerve, and vestiges of former characteristics with minimal current importance are suggested by evolution. No doubt some functional relevance can be found for many of them, but as a whole, I think these support at least the appearance of evolution, even if they do not refute creationism.

Some organism had to be more similar to mankind than the others. How does one come up with a percentage when huge chunks of DNA are missing, or when the Y chromosome is hugely divergent in comparison, deletions insertions, etc You can't! If you would like to critique the paper on "the myth of 1%" I would welcome it.

I didn't bring up the percentage game, and I agree that it is not a very satisfactory way of comparing the similarity of DNA. However, that doesn't mean that the DNA of humans and chimps is not vastly more similar than that of either of them and chickens.

I'd say the long line of papers on dna first, rna first, proteins first, heaps of experiments in controlled labs, and coming up with zilch is a failure to date.

To date. Exactly. The search is far from over. There are plenty of unexplored avenues, and plenty of partly explored avenues which are worth exploring further. Scientists are more patient than creationists, it seems.

Creationists actually do research. John Sanford invented the gene gun and has published numerous papers. Regardless, it's fine to let evolutionists do it for us. So far they are doing a great job at supporting creationism.

Yes. Creationist web-sites love to list the various eminent mainstream scientists who are also creationists. However, it turns out that none of their mainstream papers actually research the evidence for creation, whatever they may publish in creationist literature. Andrew Snelling, for example, who claims to be a Young Earth creationist, has published numerous geological papers referring to millions of years. The gene-gun is a wonderful thing, but far from refuting evolution, it encourages research that tends to confirm it.

You do realize don't you that algorithmic magic uses unknown speciation dates as insertion values? [...] Even at half the mutation rate a 'story' will be invented to keep the TOE timeline from totally falling apart, and falsifying a plethora of published papers.

It has long been recognised that mutation rates are not like half-lives, which are fairly rigorously predictable, and there is plenty more research to be done to enable us to calibrate accurate mutation number/age relationships for all the various germ-lines in which we are interested.

Additionally much data does appear to better support a creationist paradigm and challenge an evolutionary one.

I dispute that, but it gets to the core of the discussion. It's not that this or that piece of evidence proves creation or evolution, but that it can be interpreted as better supporting one than the other. It seems that the DNA evidence can be interpreted as supporting either. What evidence do you think definitely suggests creation better than evolution?

[Mazzy]

hughfarey said

That's cherry picking your evidence, in my opinion. Evolutionists don't deny that DNA comparisons lead to a single male and female ancestor. However, the same evidence also suggests that that they lived thousands of years apart, and other evidence suggests that they were not alone.

I have read research articles about mt Eve and ch Adam living thousands of years apart. Unfortunately there is some 'evidence' that contradicts same....

"The Book of Genesis puts Adam and Eve together in the Garden of Eden, but geneticists’ version of the duo — the ancestors to whom the Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA of today’s humans can be traced — were thought to have lived tens of thousands of years apart. Now, two major studies of modern humans’ Y chromosomes suggest that ‘Y-chromosome Adam’ and ‘mitochondrial Eve’ may have lived around the same time after all" "It also suggested that Adam lived 180,000–200,000 years ago, similar to initial estimates of Eve’s age" Research quoted.
http://www.nature.com/news/genetic-adam ... NatureNews

I would be very interested to see this 'evidence' that suggests mitochondrial Eve and chromosomal Adam were not alone.

No. Different evidence leads to different conclusions, neither of which conflict.

Again what evidence has lead to the conclusion that mt Eve and chr Adam were among cohorts.

The story of the mitochondrial Eve is not what paleoanthropologists wanted to hear. They did believe that man came from Africa, but they believed it happened one million years ago. If Eve had lived a million years ago, most of the paleoanthropologists would have accepted the idea with open arms because the mitochondrial Eve data would have fit into the data they had. Now it seemed that there were several waves of humans that left Africa. Each wave seems to have taken over the world. Eve must have lived in Africa, 200,000 years ago, and then her descendants started migrating out of Africa, maybe 100,000 years ago to take over all the earth and all the older man types vanished from the earth without a trace in our genetic record. (Molecular History Research Center)

The above 'different' 'evidence' has lead to different conclusions both of which conflict in dating to align with either the fossil record or genetic data. Neither of which indicate cohorts for ch Adam or mt Eve.

Establishing that humans do not have a common ancestor would be a bit of a blow for evolution too!

You mean, it would be a blow to evolution if humans & chimps had no common ancestor. The common ancestor is yet to be identified. Suffice to say this common ancestor was initially predicted to look like a chimp and now it is meant to look nothing like a chimp and may have been a bipedal ape, according to some evolutionists.

I think it's difficult to claim what God would or wouldn't do, and then say that the evidence supports the claim, because God can do whatever he likes. It is a bit more rigorous to claim what evolution could or couldn't do, and to see if observations refute it. Redundant DNA, absurd designs such as the recurrent laryngeal nerve, and vestiges of former characteristics with minimal current importance are suggested by evolution. No doubt some functional relevance can be found for many of them, but as a whole, I think these support at least the appearance of evolution, even if they do not refute creationism.

I think using the term 'minimal' is misleading. Loosing both eyes will not result in death, but they are hardly classed as having minimal function. Still it does seem sensible to conclude God would not need to put anything that is useless into his creation.

Some of the alleged "vestigial" organs are not found in the species alleged to be the ancestors of human beings! For example, the appendix does not exist in some ape species that are said to be ancestors of man. The famous biologist H. Enoch, who challenged the theory of vestigial organs, expressed this logical error as follows:

Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this?

I dispute that, but it gets to the core of the discussion. It's not that this or that piece of evidence proves creation or evolution, but that it can be interpreted as better supporting one than the other. It seems that the DNA evidence can be interpreted as supporting either. What evidence do you think definitely suggests creation better than evolution?

This is a good topic. Let me have a think and get back to you.

[Mazzy]

hughfarey said

I dispute that, but it gets to the core of the discussion. It's not that this or that piece of evidence proves creation or evolution, but that it can be interpreted as better supporting one than the other. It seems that the DNA evidence can be interpreted as supporting either. What evidence do you think definitely suggests creation better than evolution?

This was not as easy as I thought. I cannot pin one research paper. I have decided to get to one of the lynch pins of creationists claims which is this, limits to adaptation. It is only fair that you also speak to what you think definitely suggests evolution over creation.

Creationists do not deny an organisms ability to adapt. However the ability to adapt is limited. In other words, numerous studies demonstrate by using observation (the best form of research) that there are limits to an organisms ability to adapt. Therefore a single celled organism can no more continue to adapt over billions of years than a dog can adapt into the size of an elephant.

Here are a few research articles to support my view. Although written by evolutionary scientists they highlight that the expected outcomes did not eventuate.

Negative Epistasis Between Beneficial Mutations in an Evolving Bacterial Population
These data support models in which negative epistasis contributes to declining rates of adaptation over time. Sign epistasis was rare in this genome-wide study, in contrast to its prevalence in an earlier study of mutations in a single gene.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1193


Diminishing Returns Epistasis Among Beneficial Mutations Decelerates Adaptation
These results provide the first evidence that patterns of epistasis may differ for within- and between-gene interactions during adaptation and that diminishing returns epistasis contributes to the consistent observation of decelerating fitness gains during adaptation.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1190

Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila
We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles rarely arise, are associated with small net fitness gains or cannot fix because selection coefficients change over time.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 09352.html

The first two articles provide data that even so called beneficial mutations result in declining rates of adaptation and a decline in the fitness landscape.

The third paper demonstrates that despite researchers best attempts to get a beneficial allele to fix in a population it did not.

From the study, it would seem unlikely that beneficial mutations arise. Perhaps benefits fix somewhat to allow adaptation to climate and diet but it is unlikely that something like a deer could adapt to be something like a whale because it had to escape prey and run to the water.

Of course we know about deleterious mutations cited below. Yet this process is meant to have continued for billions of years.

Most Mutations in the Human Genome are Recent and Probably Harmful
"Our genomes are strewn with millions of rare gene variations, the result of the very fast, very recent population growth of the human species. From an estimated 5 million individuals just 10,000 years ago, we ballooned to more than 7 billion. On average, every duplication of the human genome includes 100 new errors, so all that reproducing gave our DNA many opportunities to accumulate mutations. But evolution hasn’t had enough time to weed out the dangerous ones: gene variants that might make us prone to illness, or simply less likely to survive."
http://discovermagazine.com/2013/julyau ... ly-harmful

Our bodies are filled with so called deleterious mutations. Again, how has this process continued for billions of years. I suggest the answer is that it hasn't.

It would appear impossible for deleterious mutations to have continued for millions of years, let alone billions. Although I am not a YEC, it appears the above is evidence that mankind was created perfect and deteriorated after the fall.

The above is the beginning of this discussion. Please speak to my assertions and offer your best support for TOE.

(Edited this morning. I should't have posted when I was very sleepy)