Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
Thanx for responding. Is it plausible? It's completely plausible! The point is that the cumulative nature of the evolutionary changes are recorded in such detail in the DNA, the overall mechanisms He used are rendered transparent.
DB
Perhaps. It seems something of a double standard in some ways however to speak of the cumulative nature of this material and infer the mechanisms and then to reject the more solid nature of ID (the non-discovery institute element) and claim that such inference without solid direct evidence is scientific in the one case but assuming or hypothosizing the presence of a creator is not.
Naturalism of the Gaps?
Dogmatism is the comfortable intellectual framework of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is more decadent than the worst sexual sin. ~ Dan Allender
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo
We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
Thanx for responding. In rare instances in the past, a retrovirus inserted a whole or partial segment of itself into the DNA of a human reproductive cell. Over time, mutations ended the capacity of the integrated viral DNA to escape. However, it could still replicate along with the DNA in which it resided, and from time to time insert more copies of itself elsewhere in the genome. It had become a retroelement. There is no evidence of modern retroviruses entering the human genome and changing into retroelements. But mice, cats, pigs, sheep, chimps, and gorillas all have active retroelements that are relative newcomers.
Retroelements make up a whopping 42.8% of the human genome. The most common one is "Alu," constituting 10% of our genome. It has more than a million copies of itself in our genome and is one of the few that is still actively transposing.
Through the coursde of many studies an unmistakable pattern has emerged. In case after case, transposable elements in human DNA were present at exactly the same position in chimp DNA, and to a lesser degree in other apes and monkeys, more alike or less alike depending on how far back in the family tree any 2 species diverged.
DNA "fossils" from retroviruses indeed leave an impressive trail of evidence that reveals the history of life and the genetic particulars of how God did it.
>>Perhaps. It seems something of a double standard in some ways however to speak of the cumulative nature of this material and infer the mechanisms and then to reject the more solid nature of ID (the non-discovery institute element) and claim that such inference without solid direct evidence is scientific in the one case but assuming or hypothosizing the presence of a creator is not<<
I'm not quite following you here. In the one case (specific mutations and their histories in the tree of life), the evidence is available and extensive. In the other, irreducible complexity is proclaimed. How is this a "solid nature?" It seems to me the very real evidence exhibited in the human genome is more reflective of intelligent design (the words themselves, not the current concept) than irreducible complexity - which by its very nature is non-scientific.
