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Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

randman said:
still doesn't explain why the process wouldn't repeat itself
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There's no reason why it shouldn't have happened many times and in different ways - we still can't assess the probabilities, and the chemistry is still uncertain; but if it did happen in different ways, all but the form we know today probably died out very early - because we see no trace of others. It's possible that it happened almost exactly the same way more than once (e.g. the same DNA base pairs, etc.), but if so, one version soon outcompeted the others, because as far back as we can tell, common chemistry is used for many basic functions, and it is astronomically unlikely that the complexity of chemistry in those functions and the unique developmental sequences giving rise to them could occur identically in separate lineages.
 
Actually, you wouldn't expect it to go very far.

Prebiotic chemistry and early life, based on our incomplete understanding of abiogenesis, share the common characteristic of being very slow and clumsy and dependent on natural pathways for the production of organic molecules.
It works ok enough if there is no competitors around, but in a world where older life form have had a head-start and have already evolve into more competitive form, the poor guys would be out-competed into oblivion in the bat of an eye.

And that's before we start polluting the world with all our photosynthesis, releasing oxidative oxygen that'd break down the fragile organic compounds. For the lifeform that existed at the time and saw it happen progressively, that was ok, they could evolve means of coping with oxygen but for organic chemistry... No such chance.
 
dlorde said:
Simon39759 said:
Maybe.
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I don't think sphenisc was criticising your arguments, more that your post got mangled somehow - it reads like some chunks are missing...
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Maybe.
No, seriously; I was in a hurry and got interrupted a few times. It's too late for me to edit it, though although, I did contact an administrator for that. Hopefully, it will get fixed.
 
catsmate1 said:
Pathetic. You are so scared to address actual arguments that you have to resort to further lies to dodge them.
Now why is it that you're too frightened to accept the correct quotation of Grasse, which I included three times?
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Are you that dense? Both are correct quotations. One calls NeoDarwinism a myth perpetuated by deceit. The other refers to common descent which he agrees with.

Maybe you don't know the difference?

Ok, but that's you being ignorant, not me.
 
sphenisc said:
randman, if you use the "Quote" button at the bottom right of a post, then a link to that post is included when you reply. That makes it easier for people to retrace the course of an argument.

Thanks
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Ok, thanks for the tip.
 
Biologists weren't shocked that nerve cells can be found in corals, they were shocked that they were better developed than expected.
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By cells, I assume you mean "genes" here correct?

Isn't that that exactly what I posted except "genes" not cells? Hence the reference to human and vertebrate genes?

To others, not going to waste time responding to all of you. If you think it's wacky to refer to human genes, we really don't have anything to talk about. That's what the paper says, and it does so for a reason, namely to differentiate it from genetic sequences that are not vertebrate or related human nerve function. In other words, as Mister says above though he somehow didn't see his comment as what I have been saying all along, they were not surprised to find genes for nerve function at all.

They were surprised to find genetic sequences corresponding to human nerve function.
 
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I said the mammalian ear evolved once. True. You say the definitive mammalian ear evolved more than once. Also true. These things don't contradict each other.
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Wrong. You were trying to "correct" me and so contradict what I wrote, and you were factually wrong.

It appears the tactic of most evos here is to either correct their critic with false or mistaken claims so they can claim their critic is not informed. I exposed a few of them early on.

Or, they make up stuff about what one has written, and then blast and mock that on and on while they themselves are the ones not grasping the arguments.

It's likely a waste of time.
 
randman said:
By cells, I assume you mean "genes" here correct?

Isn't that that exactly what I posted except "genes" not cells? Hence the reference to human and vertebrate genes?

To others, not going to waste time responding to all of you. If you think it's wacky to refer to human genes, we really don't have anything to talk about. That's what the paper says, and it does so for a reason, namely to differentiate it from genetic sequences that are not vertebrate or related human nerve function. In other words, as Mister says above though he somehow didn't see his comment as what I have been saying all along, they were not surprised to find genes for nerve function at all.

They were surprised to find genetic sequences corresponding to human nerve function.
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If they were human genes then we'd know something very strange happened. They are not human genes, they are coral genes.

They are an animal that has, at the early stage in their life, a nervous system. It would obviously have genes for nerve function. These genes are coral nerve genes, not human nerve genes. They are more advanced than we though they would be.

This means we're underestimating the rate of advancement in evolution, at best, not that the whole thing is wrong.
 
Simon39759 said:
To be nit-picky, he actually did not. It is Grassé with an accent aigu.
Nitpick; nitpick...

The problem is that, despite his vehement claims he is the one not knowing much of evolution or genetic (amusing consider he is making the exact opposite accusation, projection, maybe).

For example, his whole point is based that evolution will produce organisms that will gain in complexity. This is illustrated by his fundamental misreading of the sentence: "gradual accumulation of small genetic changes" that he microevolution: "Microevolution decreases genetic variability not increases it."
Presumably, Randman is here thinking about Natural selection, not microevolution. Microevolution would be a combination of genetic mutations -that increase genetic variability, sometime, -it's going to confuse him- by decreasing the number of genes and natural selection, that does reduce genetic variability so that the neat effect can be an increase or a decrease in genetic variability).
Obviously, if he confuse microevolution and natural selection, our argument that microevolution and macroevolution is the same thing will appear illogical to him. Makes sense.

He also misunderstand the definition of macroevolution, which is, let me restate, evolution above the species level. Statements like: "The fossil record just does not show evolutionary transitions of macroevolution." illustrate a misunderstanding of this process. Clearly, he means some big change (outside of the kind). But that's not macroevolution as scientists define it.
Of course, this sentence is also wrong, because transitional fossils, between "kind", are actually well known and described (for example, between fish and tetrapods or reptiles and birds). Obviously, I am sure Randman will shift the goalposts and pretend these were incorrectly identified, the common creationist defence in such case.

In term of genetic, he clearly does not know much better.
For example, he misunderstand the point of comparing corals and human genomes (using the well characterized genome as an animal model for vertebrates).
He also does not seem to understand the concept of genetic homology, despite it being pointed out to him.


And that's his main problem at the end.
He does not know much, understand even less, but consider the various attempts at correcting him by people that actually know what they are talking about (Hello Bonokon) as an attempt to obfuscate the point.
He seems to have received his deficient understanding from creationists websites.

That, in itself, is not as much as a deal breaker as his stubborn refusal to listen and learn.
Clearly, there is no going through him at this stage and the whole discussion is doomed to be nothing but an infuriating waste of time...
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There is so much wrong with your post and so much confusion and misrepresentation, it's likely a waste of time trying to clear it up. Maybe some brief comments:

1. Author of paper refers to common idea of genetic complexity going hand in hand with morphological complexity. That's because it was the common understanding and predicted by NeoDarwinism. That's the truth. Of course, evolution can happen via loss of genes, but there is a predicted general pattern.

2. You don't even know what the word "transitions" means in the context of my post. There is no moving a goalpost. I laid it very clearly initially. Maybe you lack the intelligence to grasp it.

3. Don't want to waste my time with the rest but there is absolutely no confusion on my part between natural selection and microevolution, etc, etc,...if you cannot grasp the basics of my argument, please don't go around misrepresenting what they are.

If that's how you help yourself psychologically, maybe you need a new religion other than evolutionism?
 
randman said:
They were surprised to find genetic sequences corresponding to human nerve function.
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No, they were surprised to find genetic sequences corresponding to gene products that regulate the early development of neural systems in vertebrates. These genetic sequences are found in humans, but only because humans are vertebrates themselves.

The gene sequences have nothing to do with the specifically human nervous system, nor with anything corresponding to specifically human nerve function.

For example, one of the vertebrate sequences found was Tumorhead. The Tumorhead sequence is generally studied by examining the genome of the model organism Xenopus laevis, which is a species of sub-Saharan frog, to the point where the Tumorhead sequence is usually cited in papers as a specifically Xenopus sequence. And, if you look at the full citations of genes that were identified in the paper, you'll see that the paper's authors do the same thing, labeling the Tumorhead gene sequence as a Xenopus sequence.

Would you describe the sub-Saharan frog Xenopus laevis as having a human nervous system or a human nerve function, randman?

And, in any case, while the Tumorhead sequence found in Xenopus generally governs the differentiation of neural cells into specialized nervous system functions in a vertebrate organism during embryonic development, an overexpression of Tumorhead proteins can actually suppress neural differentiation without affecting neural development as a whole (see this study).

So, the presence of Tumorhead in the genome of Acropora millepora does not in any way mean that the neural net of the coral should thus be complex and differentiated, as it is in a vertebrate's nervous system. And while I'm no expert on neural development, it makes sense to me that an organism with both a motile life stage (requiring a more complicated nervous system) and a sessile life stage (which doesn't require a complicated nervous system) would have genes which allow it to develop either a more complex or a less complex neural system as needed, during the various stages of the organism's development.
 
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I'm pretty sure evolutionism isn't a religion so I'd appreciate you not equating them as such. One works through gaining knowledge, the other's a wishmaker's delusion.
 
Just to make things a bit clearer.

The geome of A. millepora is estimated to be about 200 million bps corresponding to at least 20.000 genes.

Now, the genome of is actually about half that size; but the number of genes is about the same at 22,000.
That of drosophila is about as small even if the number of gene is actually almost as high, about 17,000.
Humans, of course, have a genome of about 3 billions base pairs and about 21,000 genes.

So we can see that Randman's point; that we observe a massive bleed-out of the number of genes is actually quite wrong.
On the other hand, we can see that the evolutionary pressure was indeed quite strong for these two organisms to keep small genomes. Small, but fully functional, of course.

One can also look at the actual numbers of genes:
most, but not all, of the genes listed in Table 1 as uniquely shared between Acropora and man are present in Ciona and would therefore be amongst the 2570 genes previously considered as likely to be chordate specific
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So, the majority of 2570 genes out of about 20.000 in the various genomes. Impressive but not really the crippling loss Randman likes to imagine.


Finally, one must point out what has been said before, that the human genome was used as a stand-in for vertebrates and, indeed, when broadening the search to other vertebrates, they also found matches...
Broadening the search to consider matches with other vertebrates likewise identifies additional cases of nominally vertebrate-specific genes in the coral EST dataset; for example, a clear match with snake venom phospholipase A2 is represented both in the Acropora dataset (1e−14) and in the jellyfish Cyanea
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So, yeah, a lot of genes of the vertebrates have ancestors in the corals. We knew that already. It is just that the numbers of these genes have been revised up from about 88% (2570 vertebrate specific genes out of 20,000) to somewhere above 94% (half that number).
That's the numbers we are talking about. It was an unexpected find, but when all is said and done, its implications are limited. It's not something that put the whole theory of evolution into question.
 
randman said:
There is so much wrong with your post and so much confusion and misrepresentation, it's likely a waste of time trying to clear it up. Maybe some brief comments:

1. Author of paper refers to common idea of genetic complexity going hand in hand with morphological complexity. That's because it was the common understanding and predicted by NeoDarwinism. That's the truth. Of course, evolution can happen via loss of genes, but there is a predicted general pattern.

2. You don't even know what the word "transitions" means in the context of my post. There is no moving a goalpost. I laid it very clearly initially. Maybe you lack the intelligence to grasp it.

3. Don't want to waste my time with the rest but there is absolutely no confusion on my part between natural selection and microevolution, etc, etc,...if you cannot grasp the basics of my argument, please don't go around misrepresenting what they are.

If that's how you help yourself psychologically, maybe you need a new religion other than evolutionism?
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Whatever. It is clear that you are wrong. I explained what was wrong in your posts and how it betrayed a clear misunderstanding of science.
You are now just pretending: 'No I didn't misunderstand anything it's you that don't understand because you are dumb'.

If you don't want your misunderstandings corrected, we can hardly force you out of the ignorance where you so blissfully wallow.
 
I can't afford to stay here but so long during the week. So brief comment and gotta go.

If NeoDarwinism does not predict a general pattern of evolving complexity, then why couldn't we start out with man at the beginning of evolution and evolve single cell organisms?

If I am so wrong, why is there a general pattern from simplicity to complexity?

The fact is I am not wrong here. You guys just don't want to admit, and go about saying I am claiming constant increasing complexity, etc, etc,...when I am not. But tbe general patter is indeed at the heart of NeoDarwinism.
 
The Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection, among other things, provides a framework by which we can empirically isolate and measure all of the various factors involved with how life forms change over time (selection pressures, genetic heritage, "random" elements if any, etc. Just to name a few). I think that makes it clear there is more than mere semantics at the end of the argument.

The application of Evolutionary thinking in medicine, agriculture, and animal conservation makes it even more clear that there is genuine science to be found in there. See this site for examples: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/topics.php?topic_id=15

It may have its foibles, and there may be disagreements over its various aspects. But, even so: the "competition" has nothing on it:

Neither Creationism nor Intelligent Design has anything to offer as far as empirical knowledge is concerned. They cannot, even in principle, be applied to solving problems in the field of biology. There is, in fact, nothing much more than semantics behind them.

Natural Selection might not necessarily apply perfectly well to the very beginnings of life: That is the domain of auto-catalytic processes and other natural things going on, as studied in the field of abiogenesis. The answers coming out of there are not complete, yet. But, every piece of knowledge that does come out of it, is at least reliable to the degree at which it was experimented on. The "competition" has no experiments to offer, nor reliable findings to work with: Not even in principle can they begin to offer any.

Is this clear enough to everyone, yet?
 
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Because abiogenesis started at the lower end of the spectrum.
From there it fanned out in all direction but, starting at the bottom, it was walled of in this direction, giving the wrong impression.

That's why, the longer it goes, the more complex the most complex organisms possible are.
You will, nonetheless, notice, how the simplest organisms are still around. Indeed, bacteria still are the most numerous living organisms around, a pattern that'd be impossible if evolution was always driven toward more complexity, or even if it was the dominant direction.

In reality, organisms can become more or less complex, depending of the evolutionary pressure.
More often than not, when talking about specific genome, trimming off the unnecessary crap is not a particularly strong evolutionary drive. However, in some circumstances, where smaller cells and/or smaller life cycles are required, this evolutionary pressure becomes stronger, with the expected results of significantly smaller genomes.
Not surprisingly, these smaller genomes do not necessarily, as I pointed out to you, translate as a loss in the actual numbers of genes within the organism.
 
I don't understand evolution, therefore I conclude that it must be magic that accounts for origin of species.
 
randman said:
If I am so wrong, why is there a general pattern from simplicity to complexity?
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Putting aside the fact that you're still being vague about "complex what", it's because things did start simple and so had no where to go but complex to start. But once some complex things evolved nothing stops them from becoming less complex.

The past half a billion years is probably, very vaguely, in some sort of equilibrium in regards to "complexity".
 
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