Evidence for God from Science

neo-x wrote:

If an English professor is demolishing an evolutionary biologist in his own field what does that say about Darwinian evolution? Lol

because the English professor is the poorer of the two when it comes to skill in biology. I agree with Evolutionary biologists, but when it comes to theology Richard Dawkins simply sucks. And that is the precise reason why I won't take his word on theology, why? because he is incapable to do so for technical reasons. He lacks the skill.
But as a scientist I agree with his theory and work. And I won't take a pulpit preacher word on science, why? exactly for the same reason, the preacher lacks the skill to make such assessment accurately.

Neo my point is that if a college English professor could expose the weakness of Macroevolution think of what say someone like Stephen Meyer could do to it. If you read through the whole article you will see it too.

RickD » Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:51 pm

Neo wrote:
And I won't take a pulpit preacher word on science, why? exactly for the same reason, the preacher lacks the skill to make such assessment accurately.

Neo, Hugh Ross is both a "pulpit preacher"(he's a pastor), and a very knowledgable astrophysicist.
So much for that logic.

I know but info as only as good as its source. Hugh ross is astrophyscist, not a biologist, francis collins is a biologist and not an astrophysicist. Makes sense only if we credit them autheniticty in their respective fields. Its not to say that this is a hardline rule but the main point is, scientists are generally poor theolgians and theologians are generally poor scientists.

neo-x wrote:

RickD » Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:51 pm

Neo wrote:
And I won't take a pulpit preacher word on science, why? exactly for the same reason, the preacher lacks the skill to make such assessment accurately.

Neo, Hugh Ross is both a "pulpit preacher"(he's a pastor), and a very knowledgable astrophysicist.
So much for that logic.

I know but info as only as good as its source. Hugh ross is astrophyscist, not a biologist, francis collins is a biologist and not an astrophysicist. Makes sense only if we credit them autheniticty in their respective fields. Its not to say that this is a hardline rule but the main point is, scientists are generally poor theolgians and theologians are generally poor scientists.

But my point is that I would trust Hugh Ross when he speaks about Astronomy, and scripture. So, while your point MAY be generally true, it's not always true. That's all.

Those darn stubborn fruit flies just won't cooperate and change into anything else. Why can't they become something other than fruit flies

Bippy, you dont have to look at fruit flies. The article, if anything is just plain generalizations. Evolution is slow, very slow, very very slow...take the time to let that sink in. You think you have lived 50 years on earth, thats long comapred to teh fruitfly, but imagine if you had to live for 500 years, now thats long, tune it to 5000 years thats very long and 50000 years that is very very long. Now, if you allow the fruitfly the timing lets say 5000000 years, yeah you might get some different results, because that time is what nature used to produce the mutations and carry them through natural selction. You can not artificaiilly create the prehistoric earth atmosphere. The humidity level is different, the oxygen level is different, the ozone density is different, the amount of radiation is different, even the landmass of earth would be in a different shape meaning a different weatrher system than ours.

And now let me calrify the blatant errors in the article you posted,

One experiment produced fruit flies without eyes. Yet, after a few life cycles, flies with eyes began to appear. Some kind of genetic repair mechanism took over and blocked any possibility of evolution.

There is no kind of genetic repair mechanism takeing over, thats silly. This is an extremely ignorant, biologically illitrate statement. And it shows that you are trusting very poor sources. No offense, it may sound good but only because the writer is not aware of biological mechanisms. When a mutated gene is introduced, it gets embedded in the DNA, now this gene may switch off another gene, that switch is basically what we call a mutation, for example, flies without eyes. The gene for eye structure is not working, it does not mean it is not in the DNA anymore, it is not wiped out unless a special scenario occurs. Sometimes the both the mutated gene and original gene work togther (e.g varied eye color in humans) sometimes they don't. Now the same way the origanl genes is switched off and is not wiped out of DNA (unless the total number of organisms carrying that genes are obleiterated without having the oppurtunity to reproduce themnselves)-----the same way, the mutated genes, if the carrier reprduces successfully, is embedded in the DNA and carries forward,a ctivitaing in one generation and may not in the next, unless one or more genes is permanently disabled. Now in reproduction, sometimes the mutated gene may pass in the offspring but does not activate. It will still be there though. If eye-less flies gave birth to flies with eyes, this does not mean that evolution reversed, that is nonsense. What happened is that the mutated gene:

(1) either passed and did not activate meaning that the DNA carrying the eye gene, got activated instaed- if given time you will see, that the flies with eyes, which are the offsprings of the eye-less flies, may indeed give birth to the eye-less fly in some generations later. Because they might be carrying teh mutated gene, embedded and may activate

(2) the mutated gene did not pass in the fertiliztion period of the egg. If it would successfully pass active or not, it may still show up in later generation 1000 years later, given the DNA gets reproduced.

That is why our facial constructs resemble our ancestors, if not the recent than older. But that is precisely why in some cases a grandchild looks like his grandfather and not his father.

You, in your body are carrying a lot of genes, which are passed but are not activated, for pete sake think about your male nipples. You don't have mammaries glands, you have testosterone. But you have nipples, the genes for priducing milk is not found in males because of natural selection and mutation the function has been turned off and apparently wiped off.

My point is whoever wrote that article, knows nothing serious about biology.

bippy123 wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:

bippy123 wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:

XCM wrote:Then, wouldn't it serve to reason that in the case of animals suddenly changing physical characteristics to survive, its more likely is being directed by something than not? That's what you mean theistic evolution, correct? I'm still wondering whether the examples given in that article fall in line with Rich's believes regarding microevolution or do they contradict it. Furthermore, is there any Biblical basis for believing in modern day, right-before-our-very eyes beneficial mutations occurring?

Thanks for warm welcome, guys.

EVo Biologist do not agree that evolution is guided, the believe that random mutations caused by factors such as radiation, have NO direction.
It is AFTER they happen that the oganisim uses the mutations that best suit its needs ( natural selection of which mutations are beneficial) to "evolve".
Now, I personally do NOT agree that ALL mutation is so random, I am not a big fan of chance BUT even if that was the case then what we MAY still have is the process called "natural selection" being directed or guided ( perhaps).

Paul, they tried it with fruit flies, speeding up time, inducing random mutations and exposing them to all sorts of harsh conditions in the lab and not once did they turn into anything else but fruit flies, plus the mutants could never survive outside the lab.

The EB will just say that proves that mutation Can't be guided and must be a random and then "selected" via NS over many generations.

In other words they don't have any evidence of it happening in the way they claim it happened.
So much for the scientific method lol
How long can they hold onto this bologna of a theory?

I don't think you can ever have proof of random mutations if the experiment tries to DIRECT the mutation.
According to the view of random mutations, mutations "just happen" ( caused by radiation for example) and SOME of those mutations (maybe only one) is "selected" as useable via "natural selection" and the others are "disregarded", That some mutations may actually be BAD is just more evidence of NO direction at all.

It is not the case that cold weather causes a mutation in a wolf that makes his fur thicker and as such He adapts and survives.
According to EB, a random mutation may cause thicker fur for NO REASON, BUT because of that mutation the wolf CAN survive in colder climates and he "moves" there and natural selection selects THAT mutation is a good one and it is passed on in the wolves genes.

According to EB, a random mutation may cause thicker fur for NO REASON, BUT because of that mutation the wolf CAN survive in colder climates and he "moves" there and natural selection selects THAT mutation is a good one and it is passed on in the wolves genes.

Precisly, because with thick fur, the wolf survives and so does the mutated gene with it. The DNA passed on.

neo-x wrote:

According to EB, a random mutation may cause thicker fur for NO REASON, BUT because of that mutation the wolf CAN survive in colder climates and he "moves" there and natural selection selects THAT mutation is a good one and it is passed on in the wolves genes.

Precisly, because with thick fur, the wolf survives and so does the mutated gene with it. The DNA passed on.

Yep.
That said I am not sure I agree that ALL mutations are random and unguided.
I am not sure how it is proven that the mutation happens and THEN comes adaption do it or whether it can be shown that the mutation was caused by the environment and the mutation was directed in a certain way to BE beneficial as opposed to "just happened" to be of benefit, know what I mean?

Neo, Hugh Ross is both a "pulpit preacher"(he's a pastor), and a very knowledgable astrophysicist.
So much for that logic.

Rick, with all due respect, this kind of comparison is not really valid. Hugh Ross has a PhD in astronomy and has been an astrophysicist by trade. This is completely separate from, say, an English professor who hasn't studied biology since high school trying to be considered a valid source for biological theory.

Neo my point is that if a college English professor could expose the weakness of Macroevolution think of what say someone like Stephen Meyer could do to it. If you read through the whole article you will see it too.

Bippy, this guy didn't do anything close to "expose the weakness of macroevolution", at least not on the link you posted. His arguments are copy-pasted from literally any anti-evolution website in existence. Congratulations, this English professor with no professional knowledge of biology can still go online and read. Which is good and all, considering he teaches English, but hardly any kind of scientific breakthrough.

By comparison, I could go to wikipedia and start copying random passages of material about string theory and why it is correct. I'm a biologist by trade. Does that mean my reading skills should be factored into the debate surrounding the string theory model?

Yep.
That said I am not sure I agree that ALL mutations are random and unguided.
I am not sure how it is proven that the mutation happens and THEN comes adaption do it or whether it can be shown that the mutation was caused by the environment and the mutation was directed in a certain way to BE beneficial as opposed to "just happened" to be of benefit, know what I mean?

Paul, I'm sure I've said it before, but you bring up an interesting point here. While, scientifically speaking, we can only see mutations and adaptations as random, that doesn't mean all biologists think that evolution is purely random. You start to cross into personal beliefs when you bring that up, because, as we see it, evolution appears unguided.

For instance, while we might see the wolf's fur example and say "well, that random mutation can't be random, because it seemed perfect for this environment." The problem with that logic is that, while a few wolves may have had that adaptation, the majority probably did not and died out. It's very rare for an adaptation to actually grant a positive benefit, but of course we typically only see the positive ones because they flourish. This is one argument for why evolution has to be framed as a random process; because it seems logically inconsistent for a perfectly guided process to produce no benefit (or even a negative effect).

The other thing that you have to take into account is that most biologists are not atheists. Many are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. and I know for a fact that many accept the possibility that evolution was guided or at the very least nudged in certain directions by supernatural causes. But we can't factor that into the scientific theory of evolution because there is no evidence of it.

And as a last note, prior to Darwin, early naturalists (it was the general term for natural scientists at the time, not a philosophical point of view) had theorized various forms of evolution/transmutation of species over time. Obviously, none of them really caught on for various reasons, but many revolved around the notion that environment can impact change in species. Ultimately the downfall of this idea was simply a lack of any mechanism. The fact that Darwin provided mechanisms like natural selection and sexual selection is part of why his idea was considered more convincing than these earlier concepts.

Ivellious wrote:The other thing that you have to take into account is that most biologists are not atheists. Many are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. and I know for a fact that many accept the possibility that evolution was guided or at the very least nudged in certain directions by supernatural causes. But we can't factor that into the scientific theory of evolution because there is no evidence of it.

One point I would like to make is that saying it is random or guided are both based on belief, you cannot prove it is guided nor can you prove it is totally random, the default position should be we don't know yet whether it is random or not.

It's not that we see randomness, it's that we would interpret randomness based on our own presuppositions, hence making it opinion and not fact.

I look at it more like God wound up the clock at let it run so to speak, it is only guided in the way that God already knew where it would end up because he set the laws in place, so I guess I kinda see it as both random and guided all at the same time. It is like freewill versus predestination, they are both different sides of the same coin, both can be true at the same time even though there looks to be a contradiction.

*edit* I have no idea whether (macro) evolution is true or not and neither do I really care, but it is most definitely an interesting subject.


Dan

neo-x wrote:

Those darn stubborn fruit flies just won't cooperate and change into anything else. Why can't they become something other than fruit flies

Bippy, you dont have to look at fruit flies. The article, if anything is just plain generalizations. Evolution is slow, very slow, very very slow...take the time to let that sink in. You think you have lived 50 years on earth, thats long comapred to teh fruitfly, but imagine if you had to live for 500 years, now thats long, tune it to 5000 years thats very long and 50000 years that is very very long. Now, if you allow the fruitfly the timing lets say 5000000 years, yeah you might get some different results, because that time is what nature used to produce the mutations and carry them through natural selction. You can not artificaiilly create the prehistoric earth atmosphere. The humidity level is different, the oxygen level is different, the ozone density is different, the amount of radiation is different, even the landmass of earth would be in a different shape meaning a different weatrher system than ours.

And now let me calrify the blatant errors in the article you posted,

One experiment produced fruit flies without eyes. Yet, after a few life cycles, flies with eyes began to appear. Some kind of genetic repair mechanism took over and blocked any possibility of evolution.

There is no kind of genetic repair mechanism takeing over, thats silly. This is an extremely ignorant, biologically illitrate statement. And it shows that you are trusting very poor sources. No offense, it may sound good but only because the writer is not aware of biological mechanisms. When a mutated gene is introduced, it gets embedded in the DNA, now this gene may switch off another gene, that switch is basically what we call a mutation, for example, flies without eyes. The gene for eye structure is not working, it does not mean it is not in the DNA anymore, it is not wiped out unless a special scenario occurs. Sometimes the both the mutated gene and original gene work togther (e.g varied eye color in humans) sometimes they don't. Now the same way the origanl genes is switched off and is not wiped out of DNA (unless the total number of organisms carrying that genes are obleiterated without having the oppurtunity to reproduce themnselves)-----the same way, the mutated genes, if the carrier reprduces successfully, is embedded in the DNA and carries forward,a ctivitaing in one generation and may not in the next, unless one or more genes is permanently disabled. Now in reproduction, sometimes the mutated gene may pass in the offspring but does not activate. It will still be there though. If eye-less flies gave birth to flies with eyes, this does not mean that evolution reversed, that is nonsense. What happened is that the mutated gene:

(1) either passed and did not activate meaning that the DNA carrying the eye gene, got activated instaed- if given time you will see, that the flies with eyes, which are the offsprings of the eye-less flies, may indeed give birth to the eye-less fly in some generations later. Because they might be carrying teh mutated gene, embedded and may activate

(2) the mutated gene did not pass in the fertiliztion period of the egg. If it would successfully pass active or not, it may still show up in later generation 1000 years later, given the DNA gets reproduced.

That is why our facial constructs resemble our ancestors, if not the recent than older. But that is precisely why in some cases a grandchild looks like his grandfather and not his father.

You, in your body are carrying a lot of genes, which are passed but are not activated, for pete sake think about your male nipples. You don't have mammaries glands, you have testosterone. But you have nipples, the genes for priducing milk is not found in males because of natural selection and mutation the function has been turned off and apparently wiped off.

My point is whoever wrote that article, knows nothing serious about biology.

Neo, are u serious about the fruit flies. They speeded up the process and introduced every known harsh environment possible and nothing happened, and when you say time created that mutation that is absolutely nothi g but speculation on your part, absolutely nothing. Your using the classic evolution of the gaps theory. Even stephen J Gould understood the weakness in the fossil records and said that animals have long period of stasis follow by harsh environmental events that cause them to change abruptly. The fruit flies were bombarded with every harsh environment known to man and the results were that fruit flies didnt change into nothing but fruit flies. Now you can speculate all you want about Macroevolution being a slow process but that doesn't change the fact that the fossil record speaks volumes against it.

Again if punctuated equilibrium works then we should be able to observe it in the least complex of animals, bacteria, fruit flies etc etc. behe also talked about mutations causing a loss of fitness and loss of information. For Pete's sake NEO, I would expect you to see this. I was a theistic evolutionist myself for 42 years so it doesn't have an effect at all on my faith whether I believe theistic evolution or not. We can speculate till the cows come home but at the end of the day, it's just speculation and the fossil record speaks against it. Now I'm not saying that you can't believe in common descent and not be into ID , Behe himself believe in common descent but has shown in a very cogent way (at least in my opinion) that random mutation and natural selection aren't efficient to cause change on a macro evolutionary level, plus you can't use the "many micros equals a macro" argument because we both know its a lot more complicated then that. And your post shows absolutely nothing as evidence for Macroevolution .

The whale transition chart is a mess and doesn't show Macroevolution at work at all.

Michael Behe sums up the these limits perfectly here.

http://youtu.be/s6XAXjiyRfM


Are you trying to tell me that Michael behe knows nothing about biology or evolution.
He was also an evolution, so one day he suddenly woke up and stopped believing in Macroevolution because he disagreed with the evidence? Did he suddenly stop becoming an expert and knowing nothing about biology because he questioned it.

He is an expert in this field . Are you saying he suddenly lost his senses ?

A bunch of micros doesn't equal to macro.
Period

Danieltwotwenty wrote:

Ivellious wrote:The other thing that you have to take into account is that most biologists are not atheists. Many are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. and I know for a fact that many accept the possibility that evolution was guided or at the very least nudged in certain directions by supernatural causes. But we can't factor that into the scientific theory of evolution because there is no evidence of it.

One point I would like to make is that saying it is random or guided are both based on belief, you cannot prove it is guided nor can you prove it is totally random, the default position should be we don't know yet whether it is random or not.

It's not that we see randomness, it's that we would interpret randomness based on our own presuppositions, hence making it opinion and not fact.

I look at it more like God wound up the clock at let it run so to speak, it is only guided in the way that God already knew where it would end up because he set the laws in place, so I guess I kinda see it as both random and guided all at the same time. It is like freewill versus predestination, they are both different sides of the same coin, both can be true at the same time even though there looks to be a contradiction.

*edit* I have no idea whether (macro) evolution is true or not and neither do I really care, but it is most definitely an interesting subject.


Dan

We have never observed it.worse yet the fossil record speaks volumes against it, but the problem here is that when we don't see the evidence for transitionals with gradualism they say its punctuated equilibrium , when we don't see punctuated equilibrium they say gradualism . It's a theory that can't be falsified at all. The grand ole evolutiin of the gaps argument.

bippy123 wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:

Ivellious wrote:The other thing that you have to take into account is that most biologists are not atheists. Many are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. and I know for a fact that many accept the possibility that evolution was guided or at the very least nudged in certain directions by supernatural causes. But we can't factor that into the scientific theory of evolution because there is no evidence of it.

One point I would like to make is that saying it is random or guided are both based on belief, you cannot prove it is guided nor can you prove it is totally random, the default position should be we don't know yet whether it is random or not.

It's not that we see randomness, it's that we would interpret randomness based on our own presuppositions, hence making it opinion and not fact.

I look at it more like God wound up the clock at let it run so to speak, it is only guided in the way that God already knew where it would end up because he set the laws in place, so I guess I kinda see it as both random and guided all at the same time. It is like freewill versus predestination, they are both different sides of the same coin, both can be true at the same time even though there looks to be a contradiction.

*edit* I have no idea whether (macro) evolution is true or not and neither do I really care, but it is most definitely an interesting subject.


Dan

We have never observed it.worse yet the fossil record speaks volumes against it, but the problem here is that when we don't see the evidence for transitionals with gradualism they say its punctuated equilibrium , when we don't see punctuated equilibrium they say gradualism . It's a theory that can't be falsified at all. The grand ole evolutiin of the gaps argument.

This is exactly why I fence sit on this subject...............

Neo, are u serious about the fruit flies. They speeded up the process and introduced every known harsh environment possible and nothing happened, and when you say time created that mutation that is absolutely nothing but speculation on your part, absolutely nothing.

Why is it nothing? why do you think your male nipples are on you? what function do they perform? seriously, how intelligently are they designed for a male?

They speeded up the process and introduced every known harsh environment possible and nothing happened,

Wrong, mutations happened, but the DNA didn't survive for longer periods, sixty years in a lab with artificial interference is compared nothing to the pre-historic earth's environment and 4 billion years. And that is the problem which you won't take into account.

And yes I am speculating on evidence and logic, but I am not speculating randomly, we know evolution works because we know it works through DNA.

The fruit flies were bombarded with every harsh environment known to man

No, first you don't know the entirety of the "every harsh" part and second the conditions are only those known to modern man, we don't know a lot yet.

Now you can speculate all you want about Macroevolution being a slow process but that doesn't change the fact that the fossil record speaks volumes against it.

We don't have all of the fossil record. But the key is not fossil, it is DNA.

The fruit flies were bombarded with every harsh environment known to man and the results were that fruit flies didn't change into nothing but fruit flies

I asked you before and I'm asking you again, If you get a mutated fly with no wings, would you classify it as a fly?

You see the problem here is, you are not taking into account other factors. Fruit flies may not even be the best organisms for testing.
For example, sharks and crocodiles are from the Triassic period and they haven't changed much for 300 million years. It does not mean that evolution is not happening or mutations are not happening. Consider the homo genus which indeed has evolved in the last 4 million years with the evolution speeding up in the last 300,000 years. Yet at the same time, the evolution of sharks in the same time period has almost changed to nothing new, why? because it has adapted well to its environment, and the sharks with the mutated genes would not be able to adapt to the environment as fast as the other sharks do and as a result gets wiped out in competition, so we only see sharks the same way we have been seeing them, why? because of the fierce competition, mutated sharks don't survive as well as normal do. So the rate of mutation slows. And again, the homo genus on the other hand has evolved so rapidly and got extinct too that we are the only surviving species left.

Consider abnormal human babies today, we call them abnormal, but they are in the technical sense mutated (meaning change in DNA), because some genes are turned off, some are not functioning properly, some are missing, or a new feature has occurred because of a malfunction. Humans have adapted well and people born with more than two hands and two feet, or less than two hands and two feet will not survive at the same rate as we normal humans do. But if they are indeed given an environment where people with a certain genetic mutation could thrive in their own kind, then 2 million years later you will have another species of the homo genus, thriving, adapting to the change, using their mutated parts, may be a population has 4 legs instead of two living in an environment which they have adapted to and make good use of their mutations. Would you call them humans if you see them running like a tiger across the plains?

Species successfully mutating gradually will at one time diverge into two different species because the changes over time will gradually push them apart. The best case if humans and chimp, 95%-98% similarity. I often hear, the 2 percent difference is millions of base pairs and I ask, what about the rest of the 98% why is so much of that similar, makes you think doesn't it?

It started with a group of hominid who used their hind legs to stand tall in the long grassy plains instead of four, and thus becoming homo erectus.

And your post shows absolutely nothing as evidence for Macro evolution .

My post showed that the source you cited as your conviction was absolute nonsense in biological terms. And I wanted to explain that to you so you don't trust and make decisions on poor sources.

He was also an evolution, so one day he suddenly woke up and stopped believing in Macroevolution because he disagreed with the evidence? Did he suddenly stop becoming an expert and knowing nothing about biology because he questioned it.

I am not a fan of personalities. What behe thinks or not is his issue, not mine, what others think or not is their problem. I have to follow what makes sense in the best light of evidence. Who says behe can't be wrong? Even Einstein was wrong about quantum physics.

And while its true that an individual expert in his respective field has the authority to make claims and they can be followed, it does not mean its always right or true. Behe can not deny common descent because he know that's true.

A bunch of micros doesn't equal to macro.

I just showed you how it can. DNA is the evidence. The idea is not that the change in evolution is consistent, not even Darwin believed that. And with the examples above you should not expect it to be so.

neo-x wrote:

Neo, are u serious about the fruit flies. They speeded up the process and introduced every known harsh environment possible and nothing happened, and when you say time created that mutation that is absolutely nothing but speculation on your part, absolutely nothing.

Why is it nothing? why do you think your male nipples are on you? what function do they perform? seriously, how intelligently are they designed for a male?

They speeded up the process and introduced every known harsh environment possible and nothing happened,

Wrong, mutations happened, but the DNA didn't survive for longer periods, sixty years in a lab with artificial interference is compared nothing to the pre-historic earth's environment and 4 billion years. And that is the problem which you won't take into account.

And yes I am speculating on evidence and logic, but I am not speculating randomly, we know evolution works because we know it works through DNA.

The fruit flies were bombarded with every harsh environment known to man

No, first you don't know the entirety of the "every harsh" part and second the conditions are only those known to modern man, we don't know a lot yet.

Now you can speculate all you want about Macroevolution being a slow process but that doesn't change the fact that the fossil record speaks volumes against it.

We don't have all of the fossil record. But the key is not fossil, it is DNA.

The fruit flies were bombarded with every harsh environment known to man and the results were that fruit flies didn't change into nothing but fruit flies

I asked you before and I'm asking you again, If you get a mutated fly with no wings, would you classify it as a fly?

You see the problem here is, you are not taking into account other factors. Fruit flies may not even be the best organisms for testing.
For example, sharks and crocodiles are from the Triassic period and they haven't changed much for 300 million years. It does not mean that evolution is not happening or mutations are not happening. Consider the homo species which indeed has evolved in the last 4 million years with the evolution speeding up in the last 300,000 years. Yet at the same time, the evolution of sharks in the same time period has almost changed to nothing new, why? because it has adapted well to its environment, and the sharks with the mutated genes would not be able to adapt to the environment as fast as the other sharks do and as a result gets wiped out in competition, so we only see sharks the same way and the rate of mutation slows. And again, the homo genus on the other hand has evolved so rapidly and got extinct too that we are the only surviving species left.

Consider abnormal human babies today, we call them abnormal, but they are in the technical sense mutated (meaning change in DNA), because some genes are turned off, some are not functioning properly, some are missing, or a new feature has occurred because of a malfunction. Humans have adapted well and people born with more than two hands and two feet, or less than two hands and two feet will not survive at the same rate as we normal humans do. But if they are indeed given an environment where people with a certain genetic mutation could thrive in their own kind, then 2 million years later you will have another species of the homo genus, thriving, adapting to the change, using their mutated parts, may be a population has 4 legs instead of two living in an environment which has been tailored to their needs and they have also adapted to it. Would you call them humans if you see them running like a tiger across the plains?

Species successfully mutating gradually will at one time diverge into two different species because the changes over time will gradually push them apart. The best case if humans and chimp, 95%-98% similarity. I often hear, the 2 percent difference is millions of base pairs and I ask, what about the rest of the 98% why is so much of that similar, makes you think doesn't it?

It started with a group of hominid who used their hind legs to stand tall in the long grassy plains instead of four, and thus becoming homo erectus.

And your post shows absolutely nothing as evidence for Macro evolution .

My post showed that the source you cited as your conviction was absolute nonsense in biological terms. And I wanted to explain that to you so you don't trust and make decisions on poor sources.

He was also an evolution, so one day he suddenly woke up and stopped believing in Macroevolution because he disagreed with the evidence? Did he suddenly stop becoming an expert and knowing nothing about biology because he questioned it.

I am not a fan of personalities. What behe thinks or not is his issue, not mine, what others think or not is their problem. I have to follow what makes sense in the best light of evidence. Who says behe can't be wrong? Even Einstein was wrong about quantum physics.

And while its true that an individual expert in his respective field has the authority to make claims and they can be followed, it does not mean its always right or true. Behe can not deny common descent because he know that's true.

A bunch of micros doesn't equal to macro.

I just showed you how it can. DNA is the evidence. The idea is not that the change in evolution is consistent, not even Darwin believed that. And with the examples above you should not expect it to be so.

Again your speculating that evolutiin works through DNA, when the same argument can be used for a designer working through the same material. You cannot sidestep the transitional fossil evidence my friend. As far as the best evidence, it your opinion, I certainly don't see how it is the best evidence here, and bringing male nipples into the equation is a cheap evolutionary trick. Lets say we don't even know the function of the male nipple, does that mean that we won't know it in the future? Evolutionists claimed years back that vestigial organs were a point for evolution and a point against ID, but what is the evidence showing now? It's pointing towards function and not junk, and in fact the more we get to understand things the more function we are starting to see which is what ID says.

Here you say

""Consider abnormal human babies today, we call them abnormal, but they are in the technical sense mutated (meaning change in DNA), because some genes are turned off, some are not functioning properly, some are missing, or a new feature has occurred because of a malfunction. Humans have adapted well and people born with more than two hands and two feet, or less than two hands and two feet will not survive at the same rate as we normal humans do. But if they are indeed given an environment where people with a certain genetic mutation could thrive in their own kind, then 2 million years later you will have another species of the homo genus, thriving, adapting to the change, using their mutated parts, may be a population has 4 legs instead of two living in an environment which has been tailored to their needs and they have also adapted to it. Would you call them humans if you see them running like a tiger across the plains?""

Again the fossil evidence doesn't show this at all, plus the mutations are so random that we have never seen a mutant survive. This is plain nonsense and the odds are totally against it. The specified complexity involved in the creation of a any kind if animal is so precise the fossil record doesn't show anything close to what your speculating about at all. This is wishful thinking at best. If mutations happen all the time we should see millions of failed experiments but we see nothing of the sort. In fact we see the opposite, fully formed animals at almost every level of the fossil record. Again ten specified complexity involved is superb, on par with what we would expect from a creator.

Plus the time involved just doesn't allow it to happen. The 1980 Chicago conference even said that an accumulation of micro evolution doesn't equate to Macroevolution . Your forgetting also that if an extra arm or leg comes about through random mutation that the rest of the body has to mutate along with it to survive. This is why you can't conveniently say that for instance that by chance a random mutation comes about that seals the deal , it most certainly doesn't, especially in the case of more complex organisms. Lenskis bacterial experiment also shows that new information wasnt gained.

When it comes to large Macroevolutionary changes its been shown that whole systems have evolve also and we simply do not have this happening, to say the least any of the transitionals that show it even being attempted.
In short it involved a lot more complexity than your showing by your simple example.

And since your claiming this as almost a fact the burden is on you to show me more then an opinion that it could happen by simple steps of microevolution. Lets explore your scenario.

http://www.icr.org/article/1156/285/

What Is The Difference Between Macroevolution And Microevolution?
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.
Macroevolution refers to major evolutionary changes over time, the origin of new types of organisms from previously existing, but different, ancestral types. Examples of this would be fish descending from an invertebrate animal, or whales descending from a land mammal. The evolutionary concept demands these bizarre changes.

Microevolution refers to varieties within a given type. Change happens within a group, but the descendant is clearly of the same type as the ancestor. This might better be called variation, or adaptation, but the changes are "horizontal" in effect, not "vertical." Such changes might be accomplished by "natural selection," in which a trait within the present variety is selected as the best for a given set of conditions, or accomplished by "artificial selection," such as when dog breeders produce a new breed of dog.

The small or microevolutionary changes occur by recombining existing genetic material within the group. As Gregor Mendel observed with his breeding studies on peas in the mid 1800's, there are natural limits to genetic change. A population of organisms can vary only so much. What causes macroevolutionary change?

Genetic mutations produce new genetic material, but do these lead to macroevolution? No truly useful mutations have ever been observed. The one most cited is the disease sickle-cell anemia, which provides an enhanced resistance to malaria. How could the occasionally deadly disease of SSA ever produce big-scale change?

Evolutionists assume that the small, horizontal microevolutionary changes (which are observed) lead to large, vertical macroevolutionary changes (which are never observed). This philosophical leap of faith lies at the eve of evolution thinking.


A review of any biology textbook will include a discussion of microevolutionary changes. This list will include the variety of beak shape among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, Darwin's favorite example. Always mentioned is the peppered moth in England, a population of moths whose dominant color shifted during the Industrial Revolution, when soot covered the trees. Insect populations become resistant to DDT, and germs become resistant to antibiotics. While in each case, observed change was limited to microevolution, the inference is that these minor changes can be extrapolated over many generations to macroevolution.

In 1980 about 150 of the world's leading evolutionary theorists gathered at the University of Chicago for a conference entitled "Macroevolution." Their task: "to consider the mechanisms that underlie the origin of species" (Lewin, Science vol. 210, pp. 883-887). "The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution . . . the answer can be given as a clear, No."

Thus the scientific observations support the creation tenet that each basic type is separate and distinct from all others, and that while variation is inevitable, macroevolution does not and did not happen.

Now lets talk about whether there is enough time for Macroevolution to account for the current diversity of life on earth.


http://www.uncommondescent.com/intellig ... e-details/



In 2011, I had the good fortune to listen to a one-hour talk posted on Youtube, entitled, Life as Evolving Software. The talk was given by Professor Gregory Chaitin, a world-famous mathematician and computer scientist, at PPGC UFRGS (Portal do Programa de Pos-Graduacao em Computacao da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.Mestrado), in Brazil, on 2 May 2011. I was profoundly impressed by Professor Chaitin’s talk, because he was very honest and up-front about the mathematical shortcomings of the theory of evolution in its current form. As a mathematician who is committed to Darwinism, Chaitin is trying to create a new mathematical version of Darwin’s theory which proves that evolution can really work. He has recently written a book, Proving Darwin: Making Biology Mathematical (Random House, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-375-42314-7), which elaborates on his ideas.

Here are some excerpts from Chaitin’s talk, part of which I transcribed in my post, At last, a Darwinist mathematician tells the truth about evolution (November 6, 2011):

I’m trying to create a new field, and I’d like to invite you all to leap in, join [me] if you feel like it. I think we have a remarkable opportunity to create a kind of a theoretical mathematical biology…

So let me tell you a little bit about this viewpoint … of biology which I think may enable us to create a new … mathematical version of Darwin’s theory, maybe even prove that evolution works for the skeptics who don’t believe it…

I don’t want evolution to stagnate, because as a pure mathematician, if the system evolves and it stops evolving, that’s like it never evolved at all… I want to prove that evolution can go on forever…

OK, so software is everywhere there, and what I want to do is make a theory about randomly evolving, mutating and evolving software – a little toy model of evolution where I can prove theorems, because I love Darwin’s theory, I have nothing against it, but, you know, it’s just an empirical theory. As a pure mathematician, that’s not good enough…

… John Maynard Smith is saying that we define life as something that evolves according to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Now this may seem that it’s totally circular reasoning, but it’s not. It’s not that kind of reasoning, because the whole point, as a pure mathematician, is to prove that there is something in the world of pure math that satisfies this definition – you know, to invent a mathematical life-form in the Pythagorean world that I can prove actually does evolve according to Darwin’s theory, and to prove that there is something which satisfies this definition of being alive. And that will be at least a proof that in some toy model, Darwin’s theory of evolution works – which I regard as the first step in developing this as a theory, this viewpoint of life as evolving software….

…I want to know what is the simplest thing I need mathematically to show that evolution by natural selection works on it? You see, so this will be the simplest possible life form that I can come up with….

The first thing I … want to see is: how fast will this system evolve? How big will the fitness be? How big will the number be that these organisms name? How quickly will they name the really big numbers? So how can we measure the rate of evolutionary progress, or mathematical creativity of my little mathematicians, these programs? Well, the way to measure the rate of progress, or creativity, in this model, is to define a thing called the Busy Beaver function. One way to define it is the largest fitness of any program of N bits in size. It’s the biggest whole number without a sign that can be calculated if you could name it, with a program of N bits in size….

So what happens if we do that, which is sort of cumulative random evolution, the real thing? Well, here’s the result. You’re going to reach Busy Beaver function N in a time that is – you can estimate it to be between order of N squared and order of N cubed. Actually this is an upper bound. I don’t have a lower bound on this. This is a piece of research which I would like to see somebody do – or myself for that matter – but for now it’s just an upper bound. OK, so what does this mean? This means, I will put it this way. I was very pleased initially with this.

Table:
Exhaustive search reaches fitness BB(N) in time 2^N.
Intelligent Design reaches fitness BB(N) in time N. (That’s the fastest possible regime.)
Random evolution reaches fitness BB(N) in time between N^2 and N^3.

This means that picking the mutations at random is almost as good as picking them the best possible way…

But I told a friend of mine … about this result. He doesn’t like Darwinian evolution, and he told me, “Well, you can look at this the other way if you want. This is actually much too slow to justify Darwinian evolution on planet Earth. And if you think about it, he’s right… If you make an estimate, the human genome is something on the order of a gigabyte of bits. So it’s … let’s say a billion bits – actually 6 x 10^9 bits, I think it is, roughly – … so we’re looking at programs up to about that size [here he points to N^2 on the slide] in bits, and N is about of the order of a billion, 10^9, and the time, he said … that’s a very big number, and you would need this to be linear, for this to have happened on planet Earth, because if you take something of the order of 10^9 and you square it or you cube it, well … forget it. There isn’t enough time in the history of the Earth … Even though it’s fast theoretically, it’s too slow to work. He said, “You really need something more or less linear.” And he has a point…

Professor Chaitin’s point here is that if even a process of intelligently guided evolution takes, say, one billion years (1,000,000,000 years) to reach its goal, then an unguided process of cumulative random evolution (i.e. Darwin’s theory) will take one billion times one billion years to reach the same goal, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. That’s one quintillion years. The problem here should be obvious: the Earth is less than five billion years old, and even the universe is less than 14 billion years old.

Not even close to enough time . Now I will go one further and post the Darwinian response to this article, so I will basically beat u to the punch