RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

[hughfarey]

The minimum number of an ancestral group of organisms is related to their genetic diversity. Although Mitochondrial Eve was the source of all modern mtDNA, she and a single partner could not have encompassed the entire gene pool of the human species, which is why it is generally thought that she was not alone. I have seen figures of 6000 - 10000, which is a small enough band of protohumans, although there is some suggestion that all non-African people may have descended from as few as six individuals.

I've never really followed the "deleterious mutation" argument. It is not clear to me what it means. Does it mean that individuals with these deleterious mutations are less able to breed - which is, after all one of the criteria for successful evolution? If so, then it is very clear that however many deleterious mutations there are, there are plenty of successful ones - after all we're all still here! Hunting for primary sources, I have come across a website new to me with some very interesting examples of recent beneficial mutations to humans in particular, although sadly I haven't verified them yet. Have a look at http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/8thffoc.html. When you say that "It would appear impossible for deleterious mutations to have continued for millions of years, let alone billions", I have to say that it certainly doesn't appear so to me. It is a comment similar to "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." This is another of your 'failures', which I don't think are failures at all. Most creationists accept evolutionary speciation, and the difference between, say, a dog and a hyaena is easily accounted for by sufficient evolution to result in successive speciations. It is often claimed that because a dog hasn't turned into a fish in front of our eyes, that macroevolution must be constrained, but I believe that the only constraint is time - just give us a million years, and appropriate environmental conditions! (although it seems to have taken at least 10 million years to turn a hippo into a whale).

[abelcainsbrother]

When evolution is totally unfit to explain the incredible "complexity within complexity" of the simplest living organism let alone sex,male and female forms,instinct,mind or emotion,etc? Mutations are irrelevant.Darwin insisted that the tiny variation,as in a litter of kittens,for example might be accumilated,generation by generation,and extrapolated ad infinitum in order to finally turn a cat into a totally new and different kind of creature. This assumption is as infantile and unscientific as extending a graph of the growth of a new puppy over its first few weeks of life to "prove" that in five years time it will be the size of an elephant. And yet even today,evolutionists still make this claim based on assumption,without a credible mechanism for evolution while still using normal variation for evidence.

They'll show you normal variation amongst a population of bacteria and then tell you it evolved and it is the same with every other population they have tested.They are seeing what they want to see,not realizing it is just normal variation amongst a population that plant and animal breeders have known about for thousands of years,hence all of the different dog breeds and roses. Notice that in every case it remains in its population just like all of the different dogs and roses do and yet it is said to have evolved into some other kind of life,which has not happened at all.They are lying to you. It is just normal variation amongst a population. Like I said mutations are irrelevant when all you have for evidence is normal variation amongst a population.

All they have proven is the bible true when it tells us God created kinds to produce after its kind because this is the only thing they are showing, and what is shocking the most? Is this is really just normal reproduction when you really get down to it.So that evolutionists are claiming life evolves based on normal reproduction and the normal variation you get from it.

[abelcainsbrother]

Thanks for the link hughfarey http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/8thffoc.html I have taken the time to read it and here is what I think about it.All we are dealing with is life's ability to adapt.I have never denied adaptation as there are many examples of life that has adapted to its environment.As a matter of fact I often use eskimos as an example of people who have adapted to living in the extreme cold,their bodies are now better able to tolerate it,or like bacteria that adapted to live in Chernobyl in radiation.The examples in this link makes the same point but they are still humans,still in their population.But this focus on mutations is irrelevant because this is just adaptation we are dealing with.The evidence shows that no matter if there are adaptation,mutations,natural selection,etc they have no effect because we still only get normal variation amongst each population.

The thing we need to focus on is the point I have been making throughout this thread and that is in every case despite adaptation,mutations,etc in every case the life still remains in its population.This is no different than the dogs and roses example I used as we see plenty of variation but they are all still dogs,they are all still roses and in the link you posted they are all still humans.

All we have is normal variation amongst a population even including the adaptation and mutations,so that they are a moot point. People get lost in all of the scientific explanations like in the link you posted,but in every case given we just still see normal variation amongst a population. I want to see how adaptation,mutations and natural selection causes life to evolve like is taught and yet as I said they are just documenting normal variation amongst a population while making up myths about speciation,adaptation,natural selection,mutations,etc. I hope this helps people understand what I mean when I mention normal variation.It is not evidence life evolves,not even alittle.

[abelcainsbrother]

I Feel The Earth Proves
https://youtu.be/s65IMX11vhI

[Mazzy]

hughfarey wrote:
The minimum number of an ancestral group of organisms is related to their genetic diversity. Although Mitochondrial Eve was the source of all modern mtDNA, she and a single partner could not have encompassed the entire gene pool of the human species, which is why it is generally thought that she was not alone. I have seen figures of 6000 - 10000, which is a small enough band of protohumans, although there is some suggestion that all non-African people may have descended from as few as six individuals.

hughfarey, I like to post research to support the assertions I make. I have read the above claims as well. You need to post some evidence. The problem is none of the claims, about mt Eve or Chromosomal Adam not being the first of their kind, is backed up with credible data. The data derived from research into the genome says, that every single living person alive today is a descendant of mt Eve & Ch Adam. Do you understand the difference between what the data says and the added throw in that seeks to align the data with what Evolutionists believe was the case at the time. Data and evidence has more weight than opinion which has no scientific weight at all without evidence to back it up.

Here is a snip to demonstrate the difference between data (result of the research or observation) and conjecture (an opinion not backed by any evidence).. I have added parenthesis to make highlight what was data and what was conjecture IOW opinion.

"By tracing the subtle mutations to mitochondrial DNA that have accumulated over the millennia, we can figure out which groups are most closely related, and ultimately fix the existence of Mitochondrial Eve to a fairly specific time in the past, which is currently estimated at about 200,000 years ago. (DATA) That pretty much rules out the idea of multiple origins for humanity — otherwise Mitochondrial Eve would have to date back a couple million years, and mitochondrial analysis shows that that simply isn't the case.

(CONJECTURE) It's worth noting that Mitochondrial Eve would not have been exceptional during her own life. She certainly wasn't the only woman alive at the time, merely the only one who can trace descent to everyone alive right now. All the other women alive at the same time as her either left no living descendants or are only related to some smaller subset of the people alive today."
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5878996/how-mito ...

The above article also mentions the point in my previous post about the fossil evidence meant to support the out of Aftica theory is at odds with the genetic data. The article goes to great length telling how Eve was not alone, but does not provide anymore than here say.

I also posted research to support that Adam and Eve can be dated to the same time.

I

've never really followed the "deleterious mutation" argument. It is not clear to me what it means. Does it mean that individuals with these deleterious mutations are less able to breed - which is, after all one of the criteria for successful evolution? If so, then it is very clear that however many deleterious mutations there are, there are plenty of successful ones - after all we're all still here! Hunting for primary sources, I have come across a website new to me with some very interesting examples of recent beneficial mutations to humans in particular, although sadly I haven't verified them yet. Have a look at http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/8thffoc.html.

That link is some guy or girl giving their opinion, not data or research. I posted a published paper to support my claims.

Here is more on deleterious (harmful) mutations. You may remember that one of the articles I posted a link to stated that there were 100 deleterious mutations for every duplication.

Deleterious mutations are predicted to disrupt gene function and to reduce organismal fitness. A surprising result from various genome sequencing studies of healthy humans is the high prevalence of deleterious mutations, including mutations that occur in a homozygous state.

http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v15/n ...

When you say that "It would appear impossible for deleterious mutations to have continued for millions of years, let alone billions", I have to say that it certainly doesn't appear so to me. It is a comment similar to "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." This is another of your 'failures', which I don't think are failures at all. Most creationists accept evolutionary speciation, and the difference between, say, a dog and a hyaena is easily accounted for by sufficient evolution to result in successive speciations.

When I say "It would appear impossible for deleterious (harmful) mutations to have continued for millions of years, let alone billions", I actually back it up with published research. Your opinion is noted, but it would be best if you backed it up with research. By using more than opinion we may be able to see which view the weight of the evidence actually supports, ie creation or evolution. Don't you agree?

I said in my post that creationists acknowledge adaptation, but it is limited. I posted 2 published articles that spoke to negative epistasis.

Epistasis is the phenomenon of the effect of one gene (locus) being dependent on the presence of one or more 'modifier genes', the genetic background.When two mutations together lead to a less fit phenotype than expected from their effects when alone, it is called negative epistasis. (Epistasis: Wiki)

It is often claimed that because a dog hasn't turned into a fish in front of our eyes, that macroevolution must be constrained, but I believe that the only constraint is time - just give us a million years, and appropriate environmental conditions! (although it seems to have taken at least 10 million years to turn a hippo into a whale).

It is a shame that evolutionists have not observed change above species level. Researchers have never ever even observed a germ line mutation, only somatic ones. This may also be a myth. As previously posted, evolutionists couldn't even get one 'advantageous allele to fix in a population of drosophila (fruit fly).

So you asked me to present evidence that better supports creation than evolution. I chose to provide evidence that there are limits to adaptation.

I have presented data that supports all humans alive today being related to one female and one male, both dated to the about the same time, IOW modern mankind adapted from another human being, not an ape. I have presented data to support that deleterious mutations have been accumulating in mankind at a rate of 100 per duplication. I have presented published data to support that even 'beneficial' mutations act together to bring about a drop in fitness.

I have posted data about the myth of 1% highlighting that human chimp dna comparisons are bogus and biased. Therefore there is no genomic data to suggest that mankind evolved/adapted from an ape. To support this further I will post a published article that speaks to the incredible differences in the human and chimp dna. I have posted an article by John Hawkes that speaks to it simpler language.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ...
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/chi ... -

All the data, observed or calculated, supports limits to adaptation. The studies I posted found that that there is cost to becoming more fit, IOW adaption has its limits. The more mutations the bacteria accrued the bacteria hit limits to the amount they could adapt or evolve. Additionally, mankind being related to one man and one woman not being an ape than adapted/evolved, all of which supports God having created mankind fully functional and deteriorating likely as a result of the fall.

Now can you please post what you think is evidence that better supports evolution than creation?

[hughfarey]

hughfarey, I like to post research to support the assertions I make.

Me too, as you must be aware. Perhaps I should have waited till I had more time to respond. For the initial size of a human population based on gene diversity: "Estimation of Hominoid Ancestral Population Sizes under Bayesian Coalescent Models Incorporating Mutation Rate Variation and Sequencing Errors", Burgess and Yang, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2008; "Mobile elements reveal small population size in the ancient ancestors of Homo sapiens", Huff et al. and "Genetic traces of ancient demography", Harpending et al., both at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS.org)

For the "guy or girl giving their opinion":
1) Italian avoidance of heart attacks; "Cardiovascular status of carriers of the apolipoprotein A-I(Milano) mutant: the Limone sul Garda study", Sirtori et al., Clinical Investigation and Reports, 2001
2) Tibetan resistance to altitude sickness; "Glycophorin a Somatic Cell Mutation Frequencies in Residents of Tibet at High Altitudes", Jensen et al., Health Physics, 1997
3) Immunity to AIDS; "HIV and the CCR5-Delta32 resistance allele", de Silva and Stumpf, FEMS Microbiology Letters, 2005
4) Unusually strong German family; "Myostatin Mutation Associated with Gross Muscle Hypertrophy in a Child", Schuelke et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2004
5) Connecticut family with unbreakable bones; "High Bone Density Due to a Mutation in LDL-Receptor–Related Protein 5", Boyden et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2002

More later...

[abelcainsbrother]

hughfarey, I like to post research to support the assertions I make.

Me too, as you must be aware. Perhaps I should have waited till I had more time to respond. For the initial size of a human population based on gene diversity: "Estimation of Hominoid Ancestral Population Sizes under Bayesian Coalescent Models Incorporating Mutation Rate Variation and Sequencing Errors", Burgess and Yang, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2008; "Mobile elements reveal small population size in the ancient ancestors of Homo sapiens", Huff et al. and "Genetic traces of ancient demography", Harpending et al., both at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS.org)

For the "guy or girl giving their opinion":
1) Italian avoidance of heart attacks; "Cardiovascular status of carriers of the apolipoprotein A-I(Milano) mutant: the Limone sul Garda study", Sirtori et al., Clinical Investigation and Reports, 2001
2) Tibetan resistance to altitude sickness; "Glycophorin a Somatic Cell Mutation Frequencies in Residents of Tibet at High Altitudes", Jensen et al., Health Physics, 1997
3) Immunity to AIDS; "HIV and the CCR5-Delta32 resistance allele", de Silva and Stumpf, FEMS Microbiology Letters, 2005
4) Unusually strong German family; "Myostatin Mutation Associated with Gross Muscle Hypertrophy in a Child", Schuelke et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2004
5) Connecticut family with unbreakable bones; "High Bone Density Due to a Mutation in LDL-Receptor–Related Protein 5", Boyden et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2002

More later...

Just normal variation amongst a population is all you have even after adaptation occured,so much for adaptation and natural selection having any effect causing them to evolve above the species level.They only adapted and are still in the human population,no evolution has happened at all. You are promotng normal variation amongst a population and acting like it evolved.Seeing things not there. Please explain how adaptation,natural selection,speciation,mutations,etc has any impact in them people and causes them to evolve based on the link.

[Mazzy]

hughfarey, I like to post research to support the assertions I make.

Me too, as you must be aware. Perhaps I should have waited till I had more time to respond. For the initial size of a human population based on gene diversity: "Estimation of Hominoid Ancestral Population Sizes under Bayesian Coalescent Models Incorporating Mutation Rate Variation and Sequencing Errors", Burgess and Yang, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2008;

Thankyou for your reply. However, I am sorry hughfarey, but this research does not speak to mankind. The above research speaks to the supposed, unidentified and speculated hominid that diverged from the human/chimp ancestor, whatever that was. IOW, whatever species this was and how many of them there were, they were not human. Was it Ardipithecus? Was it Lucy, Afarensis? Evolutionary scientists have no clue. Hence this research is not evidence for living cohorts along side of Adam and Eve.

"Mobile elements reveal small population size in the ancient ancestors of Homo sapiens", Huff et al. and "Genetic traces of ancient demography", Harpending et al., both at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS.org)

The first article above is talking about 1.2 million years ago and before. The above research suggests at around the time of the human/chimp line split there are were around 18,000 apes and no more than 26,000 apes. By the study I posted, Y-chromosomal Adam is estimated to have lived in East Africa about 250 ka. Mt Eve is dated to the about the same time. I have posted a research paper on this also. However, please see my comments at the end of this post as I believe that genetic dating requires heaps of faith.

The second article talks about "They indicate a small effective size, on the order of 10,000 breeding individuals, throughout this time period."

In other words, this research is no more than guess work with insertion values such as mutation rates that scientists are still debating over.

See below.

For the "guy or girl giving their opinion":
1) Italian avoidance of heart attacks; "Cardiovascular status of carriers of the apolipoprotein A-I(Milano) mutant: the Limone sul Garda study", Sirtori et al., Clinical Investigation and Reports, 2001
2) Tibetan resistance to altitude sickness; "Glycophorin a Somatic Cell Mutation Frequencies in Residents of Tibet at High Altitudes", Jensen et al., Health Physics, 1997
3) Immunity to AIDS; "HIV and the CCR5-Delta32 resistance allele", de Silva and Stumpf, FEMS Microbiology Letters, 2005
4) Unusually strong German family; "Myostatin Mutation Associated with Gross Muscle Hypertrophy in a Child", Schuelke et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2004
5) Connecticut family with unbreakable bones; "High Bone Density Due to a Mutation in LDL-Receptor–Related Protein 5", Boyden et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2002

More later...

The article you quoted where I made that remark about guy or girl giving their opinion, was not a research article, that I can scrutinize and you used it as the lynch pin of your point. That is why I made that remark. I can also post heaps of papers written by John Sanford and he is a young earth creationist. Does that make John correct?

Now, as for algorithmic magic where insertion values like mutation rate are used, guesswork about who is who in the supposed human zoo line, dates set on a few bones suddenly reconstructed into an entire species and ineffective dating methods along with much other guesswork is not credible science. Lets look at the mutation rates that all 3 of the papers you quoted rest on. Please read this carefully. It is important.

This article on mutation rates demonstrates how non credible all papers on genetic dating and population size is. Below are some key paragraphs.

Studies slow the human DNA clock:

"In a review published on 11 September,Scally and his colleague Richard Durbin used the slower rates to reevaluate the timing of key splits in human evolution. “If the mutation rate is halved, then all the dates you estimate double,” says Scally. “That seems like quite a radical change.” Yet the latest molecular dates mesh much better with key archaeological dates."

"Although a slowed molecular clock may harmonize the story of human evolution, it does strange things when applied further back in time, says David Reich, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. “You can’t have it both ways.”

"For instance, the slowest proposed mutation rate puts the common ancestor of humans and orang-utans at 40 million years ago, he says: more than 20 million years before dates derived from abundant fossil evidence. This very slow clock has the common ancestor of monkeys and humans co-existing with the last dinosaurs. “It gets very complicated,” deadpans Reich."

http://www.nature.com/news/studies-slow ... ck-1.11431
http://www.nature.com/news/dna-mutation ... et-1.17079

In other words, this article from 2012 and the second from 2015, clearly demonstrates these algorithms are a lot of nonsense. That is why I refer to them as algorithmic magic. These researchers have no idea what the population size was at any time for any historic species, including Homo Sapiens.

[hughfarey]

In other words, this research is no more than guess work with insertion values such as mutation rates that scientists are still debating over.

I don't think this is easy to respond to. No, the research is not guesswork, but yes, it is still being debated about. You seem happy to accept mitochondrial Eve because she fits your ideas, but not other researches because they don't.

The article you quoted where I made that remark about guy or girl giving their opinion, was not a research article, that I can scrutinize and you used it as the lynch pin of your point. That is why I made that remark.

And very fair your remark was. I hope that my references have rectified the error.

I can also post heaps of papers written by John Sanford and he is a young earth creationist. Does that make John correct?

The point of referencing papers is to enable individuals to assess the data (assuming it isn't wholly fabricated) so that they can come to their own conclusions. John Sanford has published several papers irrelevant to creationism in mainstream journals, and several others attempting to validate creationism in creationist journals.

In other words, this article from 2012 and the second from 2015, clearly demonstrates these algorithms are a lot of nonsense. That is why I refer to them as algorithmic magic. These researchers have no idea what the population size was at any time for any historic species, including Homo Sapiens.

I'm sure you realise that's an entirely unreasonable summation, although it is entirely typical of the creationist approach to mainstream literature. None of the attempts to estimate the development of the human genome is "a lot of nonsense". They have all been based on real data, but have failed to achieve consensus as a result of over-extrapolation of the conclusions. I have no doubt that some accurate consensus will be arrived at eventually. Have you?

[abelcainsbrother]

Like I said before there is no credible mechanism for evolution and they patiently wait,assuming,speculating,using evolution imagination to fill in the gaps.Evolution is faith science built purely on faith and biologists are the high priests of evolution not any real evidence,but they wait. Then when honest evolutionists who realize the serious problem in evolution and are honest enough to admit it propose new mechanism's to explain how life evolves like Rupert Sheldrake,David Hough,etc they are considered evolution heretics by the majority and their ideas are shot down,ridiculed and rejected and no mechanism is chosen while they hide behind the peer review wall.No credible mechanism for evolution is the status-quo for 150 years and counting.

One More Wall
https://youtu.be/_9PnmY5PHGQ

[Mazzy]

In other words, this research is no more than guess work with insertion values such as mutation rates that scientists are still debating over.

I don't think this is easy to respond to. No, the research is not guesswork, but yes, it is still being debated about. You seem happy to accept mitochondrial Eve because she fits your ideas, but not other researches because they don't.

Guesswork may not be a nice word, but it reflects the data being offered. The hypothesis of the data is worse still. Using a multitude of changing insertion values, such as mutation rate, tendencies to choose a mate, geographical isolation dates for the human/chimp split etc etc, is actually guesswork dressed up as science. It is speculation used to speculate within an algorithm. At present genomic dating is an inconsistent mess, because no matter which mutation rate researchers use it falsifies either the dating of the fossil data or out of Africa proposals. That's just speaking to one of many speculated and changing values within an algorithm. If a creationist offered this sort of contradiction and guesswork as 'science' we would be laughed at.

In relation to Mt Eve, she doesn't fit my ideas at all. I am stuck with having to use this so called research and the preposterous results they offer. I could use creationist research, but I already know the response I will get, so I don't bother. We would argue about insertion values that no one can possibly know, neither evolutionists or creationists, and why scientific journals won't publish creationist work. All sides of the debate can tweak algorithms to reflect the result they need to get.

The point of referencing papers is to enable individuals to assess the data (assuming it isn't wholly fabricated) so that they can come to their own conclusions. John Sanford has published several papers irrelevant to creationism in mainstream journals, and several others attempting to validate creationism in creationist journals.

John Sanford has published a book on genetic entropy. That is about the degrading genome. Here is a paper co authored by John Sanford. These are directly related to creationism, that there are more.....

http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/The- ... quence.pdf

I'm sure you realise that's an entirely unreasonable summation, although it is entirely typical of the creationist approach to mainstream literature. None of the attempts to estimate the development of the human genome is "a lot of nonsense". They have all been based on real data, but have failed to achieve consensus as a result of over-extrapolation of the conclusions. I have no doubt that some accurate consensus will be arrived at eventually. Have you?

I'll tell what's typical of evolutionists. They have no idea what the term 'data' really refers to.

This article says the same thing I have been saying to you and you refuse to understand. I don't know why. I am sure you are very smart and educated, yet, you cannot grasp how much speculation these algorithms rely on, and that is 'NOT REAL' data.

"When investigations into these questions began a few decades ago, optimism was high regarding the possibility of pinpointing that first mother's date. But studies have since shown that the data alone are not enough to provide an answer. A certain number of starting assumptions are required, and when researchers' different assumptions are applied, the data can yield very different "ages" for Mitochondrial Eve. A review of the earliest calculations, published in the evolutionary journal Science in 1998, showed that:.......

"Regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate. For example, researchers have calculated that "mitochondrial Eve"--the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people—lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old. No one thinks that's the case, but at what point should models switch from one mtDNA time zone to the other?"

http://www.icr.org/article/5657/

The point being.......

Each model has its own assumptions, and each assumption has mathematical implications. To further complicate matters, some of the assumptions are not valid for human populations. For example, some models assume that population size never changes.

[Kurieuo]

A "critical mass" of such genomic information is required. A critical mass of "life", and I'd say "life forms", is required before natural selection can work its magic. Otherwise, there can be no mutations. First, an accumulation of life is necessary, an accumulation of genetic information within populations (and by all accounts being qualified in Information Technology, I think I'm fit to see that such is clearly "information" on different levels), then once this is had speciation can take place via natural selection acting upon mutations

That is again where we disagree. what you call information is just a random arrangement of the DNA molecule which is helping it or killing it. I think the word information is loaded with the connotation of having been predefined which is why I don't think we should use it anymore than we should say God has a beard the connotation being that he made humans in his own image.

I let this go for a bit, but I'd be interested in what you understand "information" to be? I was unclear about how or why you think saying "information" in biological terms is loaded. It is all heavily proven as I see, so I'm a bit confused about your words.

Have you heard of Craig Venter? He recently gained recognition for creating the first synthetic bacteria.

Venter maps out genomes, calls DNA the "software of life." He has the desire to create synthetic life, synthetic fuels and what-not. Using his own data center full of high-powered computers, all analysing and mapping out genetic information in digital form, he often thinks in "software" terms like myself, and calls such "information", so I don't see such as any way loaded -- it's really just a fact. Our biology really is information, in that it is structured, meaningful and can be mapped, analysed and read. New "biology" can even be synthetically created and "booted up" as proven by the creation of synthetic bacteria.

There was a bit of resistance to the idea of "genetic code" when it was first used, what, around the mid-20th century. Since genetic code, implies information is encoded in biological material. Indeed, if there's one thing that reveals "design" to me, and perhaps this is why you feel the term "information" is loaded, it is that we're actually walking beings each with our own unique code, however similar, rather than some kind of walking blobs of plasma. But, it isn't really loaded if true.

In any case, a video I'd recommend to you is which I expect you'll be receptive of since Dawkin's is doing the interviewing and leading the discussion (and as such is quite sensitive to evolutionary thought):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E25jgPgmzk

Fascinating stuff really, and I don't believe anyone can seriously ignore that biologically, we're all walking encyclopedias of biological information. Even "software" driven. Biology meets IT, which is perhaps why I can readily recognise and talk in such terms (being IT-oriented myself). The implications of, and how one arranges such in their philosophical views of the world, that's really a separate issue.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

Good point, there is strong evidence for a designer out there even though this doesn't in itself disprove evolution.
My question is why are so many people, including intellectuals, in denial? You go and see topics about ID and any form of creationism and you see tons of hate. I think part of it is due to the creation vs evolution conflict, stemming from the Scopes' Monkey Trial, but I think a lot of it is deeper. What do y'all think?

[crochet1949]

Yes, there's definitely a conflict between creation and evolution. Evolution is a huge subject. As is creation. There are Lots of folk who don't want to be subject to a creator. Will admit to not being familiar with the Scopes' Monkey Trial. But I've taken part in a few discussions regarding creation / evolution. And then there are the theistic evolutionists.

It's the concept of animals crossing over boundaries by means of thousands of years of helpful mutations. The fact is that 99% of mutations are either destructive or don't make any difference in the organism / person.

To Me, this world --that which is observable is so obviously created / man is So much different than the animal world Has to have been created and has a designer. In Genesis -- everything was created and then man was and was given dominion over the animal world. And that's how it is Now.

And , as has been previously stated -- adaptation within say, the bird family --but birds Don't change into any other creature. And there Are numerous kinds of animals within the 'dog' family. As with the 'cat' family. But none of them will gradually change into an alligator, for instance.

People have ability for both verbal and written language and the ability to learn different languages. Animals do not.

[Philip]

Redundantly: The issue should NOT be one of Creationism vs. Evolution! The question is ALL about Creation - as in, there was no universe, NOTHING existing - not even space - and then there was. It burst forth with stunning power, in a mere moment, from another dimension with JUST the right things of extraordinary designs and functionality, obeying highly specific laws. And those first things did not slowly develop, as they INSTANTLY came into existence. And not just RANDOM things showed up - but JUST the right things to create a universe in which life would one day be possible. What instantly appears isn't a scene of chaos, but one of brilliantly controlled order. And all this happened 10 billion-plus years before conditions could have even supported life, and before even primitive life appears. And so, all that appeared 10 billion-plus years later, including EVERYTHING that now exists, is a result of what burst forth in that one moment. And so, the things and their characteristics, designs and functionality, which immediately came into existence at the moment the Big Bang began - THOSE are what need explaining. Arguments about evolution (simple forms morphing into evermore complex ones, over millions of years) are the wrong argument - as such things would have been entirely dependent upon all that zoomed into existence over 10-plus billion years before any life even existed, much less of which could potentially have evolved. Whether life evolved or was Created in a short period - they both are dependent upon the miraculous event and things apparent within moments of the Big Bang's beginning. Argue about the Source of THOSE extraordinary things! That's the far bigger question people should care much more about.