Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

[Simon39759]

It's much more than that. His point is NeoDarwinism is a myth, that small gradual, "microevolutionary" changes do not add up and create macroevolution. The mechanism of mutations adding up via natural selection does not work.

I don't think he ever was that categorical.
That"s beside the point, anyway, unless he or you have actual evidence...

 

[PixyMisa]

Thank you. I find the Socratic method boring as well but needed some evolutionist here to acknowledge this which we all know is true. It's a basic prediction of evolution (NeoDarwinism).

False.

If it's not true, NeoDarwinism is not true.

Therefore, also false.

Some years back a guy I don't necessarily agree with predicted publicly and insisted molecular studies would show the exact opposite and indicate the earliest organisms, at least those that gave rise to plants and animals, would have the most complex genomes.

[citation needed]
[definition needed]

Well, he was correct.

[citation needed]

Darwinism was wrong.

Non-sequitur.

Doesn't make strict creationism right, but it does show NeoDarwinism or what many just refer to as "evolution" is wrong.

False.

 

[PixyMisa]

But what if molecular studies indicate all the genes and even more were already present and did not emerge via natural selection?

Molecular studies of what?

 

[randman]

The evidence is not from this guy but from peer-reviewed studies of evolutionists themselves. He just predicted it. I just threw that in there to say there are theories that actually predicted what we'd see and NeoDarwinism had it dead wrong, exactly backwards.

It is getting time for me to go, but you will find the general trend and consensus now is that "the creatures that gave rise to plants and animals" had many more types of genes than exist in plants and animals today. If evolution happened, it was through loss of genes not the slow accumulation of them, which begs the question: If natural selection is not needed in the process of new genes, then why do we think it is central in the first place?

And once you see natural selection and gradual mutation are not the means of adding genetic material, what good is Darwinism in the first place except to explain microevolution?

And since microevolution actually decreases genetic variability, isn't it evolution in the wrong direction? Meaning the more something evolves, the less it can? It loses genes, not adds them?

Sexual and geographic isolation which is necessary for any real evolution massively decreases the available gene pool?

Look some of this up. Every bit if evidence for microevolution is evidence against macroevolution. Microevolution works against and opposite macroevolution. Natural selection itself is a conservative process.

 

[PixyMisa]

btw, do you know what neo-Lamarckian means in respect to what Grasse taught? There have been a lot of smears by Darwinists that don't want to deal with the facts he raised.

It's not a smear, just a description of a class of theories subscribing to the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Which is not, in general, true.

 

[randman]

Depends, has I explained, some genes have a very ancient history and have been coopted to different functions.

Still, if you could demonstrate such a thing, that would most certainly rise tremendous questions.

No, you just have to do it.

That's great. Now we are getting somewhere. I may have to cut loose for a bit but if not within the hour, I will be back up tomorrow and can post links to the studies or perhaps first to less formal reports.

 

[PixyMisa]

It is getting time for me to go, but you will find the general trend and consensus now is that "the creatures that gave rise to plants and animals" had many more types of genes than exist in plants and animals today.

Aha. That's not remotely what you said before. No, they weren't more complex. Yes, they may well have had more variation.

The same thing played out in the Cambrian Explosion with respect to body plans. Yes, this is entirely expected in evolution.

If evolution happened, it was through loss of genes not the slow accumulation of them

No, you've just completely misunderstood the data.

 

[randman]

It's not a smear, just a description of a class of theories subscribing to the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Which is not, in general, true.

It is in context because he didn't believe in that.

 

[randman]

Aha. That's not remotely what you said before. No, they weren't more complex. Yes, they may well have had more variation.

The same thing played out in the Cambrian Explosion with respect to body plans. Yes, this is entirely expected in evolution.

No, you've just completely misunderstood the data.

Nope. Not at all. But it has taken a very long time just to obtain some admission on what NeoDarwinism predicts relative to natural selection, as you suggested, being required for new mutations to remain.

Take a look at the studies or comments from the scientists themselves when I dig them up.

 

[randman]

I'll give my evidence when you guys take a definitive stance. Maybe the stance is NeoDarwinism has no predictive value as to the evolution of genes?

I think that's silly as we were all taught about simpler, earlier organisms evolving via mutation so there'd be a slow accumulation, generally, of genetic material?

 

[PixyMisa]

Nope. Not at all.

Actually, yes. I don't know the specific studies but it is perfectly clear from what you just said that you have completely misunderstood what they mean.

Take a look at the studies or comments from the scientists themselves when I dig them up.

A helpful suggestion: Next time try doing that first.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'll give my evidence when you guys take a definitive stance.

Our definitive stance is that you have no idea what you're talking about.

So, evidence please.

I think that's silly as we were all taught about simpler, earlier organisms evolving via mutation so there'd be a slow accumulation, generally, of genetic material?

I'll ask yet again where you think this genetic material is accumulating.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

"Wild guesswork?" all the work done by doctors and medical scientists is "guesswork?" Go back to your dictionary, friend.

I'll add *sarcasm* next time

 

[PixyMisa]

Irony. You missed the point - read the rest of his post:

It takes a little while to calibrate your irony detector properly. And then, of course, they keep exploding and you have to replace them...

 

[dlorde]

No kidding but new genes are added via mutation which remain through natural selection and over time, this process repeats itself until new genes accumulate along with new traits. That's the general pattern, right?

What you refer to as a 'new gene' is not necessarily a new chunk of DNA added to the chromosome. As wikipedia says, "A gene is a locatable region of genomic sequence, corresponding to a unit of inheritance, which is associated with regulatory regions, transcribed regions, and or other functional sequence regions". A gene may mutate and change its function, a sequence of 'junk' DNA may become active, a gene may arise overlapping the DNA of another gene. I'm not current with all the latest discoveries, but the effects of mutation on gene regulation and expression are complex and varied. Most species are diploid (2 sets of chromosomes, one from each parent), which gives scope for one gene of a pair to change without the total loss of the original gene function.

Existing genes may change function or become non-functional, sequences of DNA may be deleted, or inserted/duplicated or modified, and there may be changes in the expression of genes; so there is a sense in which changes accumulate, but the overall number of genes or the quantity of DNA doesn't necessarily increase correspondingly over time. There may occasionally be sudden increases in gene number and DNA quantity as a part of a chromosome is duplicated, or a whole chromosome is duplicated, or the entire genome is duplicated.

 

[randman]

Here are some media reports of what I am talking about.

The reef-building coral Acropora millepora does not have a lot on its mind. In fact, it doesn't have a mind at all. The invertebrate has only a diffuse net of nerve cells, one of the simplest nervous systems of any animal. Thus, it shocked Australian geneticist David Miller to find that the coral's DNA contains genetic sequences corresponding to genes that guide the patterning of the incredibly complex human nervous system.

Evolutionary biologist John Finnerty of Boston University agrees. The ancestor must have exhibited "a stunning degree of genetic complexity. … It is extremely important to reconstruct the genome of this ancestor, since it gave rise to almost all of modern-day animals," he says.

"The study makes clear that many genes previously thought to be vertebrate innovations were in fact invented long before the origin of the vertebrates," says Finnerty

The new work "is important in showing massive loss of genes in some animal lineages," agrees Eugene Koonin of the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Md.

http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/reef_relations.html

"The cells which gave rise to plants and animals had more types of genes available to them than are presently found in either plants or animals," explains William Loomis, a professor of biology at UCSD

 

[randman]

Here is one of the papers, and yes Pixy, I have read it, understood it, debated it and discussed it great length long before I posted here.

Gene loss has thus been much more extensive in the model invertebrate lineages than previously assumed and, as a consequence, some genes formerly thought to be vertebrate inventions must have been present in the common metazoan ancestor. The complexity of the Acropora genome is paradoxical, given that this organism contains apparently few tissue types and the simplest extant nervous system consisting of a morphologically homogeneous nerve net.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(03)00872-8

What are genes for complex and even human nerve function doing in this simple coral? Note the researchers were "shocked", "surprised", etc,.....This is not what NeoDarwinism predicts. Since the coral has no vertebrate nerve function, natural selection could not have been involved in selecting for vertebrate nerve function and the genes corresponding to that.

How did the genes get there?

Please note I don't want to get into a semantics of what "genes" mean. The term is used in the published paper so it's not out of bounds to repeat it.

 

[dlorde]

If natural selection is not needed in the process of new genes, then why do we think it is central in the first place?

Natural selection has nothing to do with 'the process of new genes', it simply means the individuals with genes that enable them to have more viable offspring will increase the frequency of those genes in the population. It's important for that reason.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Ok, so you could have a bird lay an egg and a reptile be born or vice versa. Species can just mutate wholesale. Natural selection plays no part in it or is it key according to Darwinism?

Do you actually think a species giving birth to a different species is something "Darwinism" predicts, or did I just misread an example you were trying to make? Have you ever actually defined what your opposing stance is yet on all this?

 

[randman]

Nope.
You are still stuck on the whole gene = morphology thing. I explained to you that it was wrong in my first post.

For example, by your reasoning, you would not expect a gene for hemoglobin in an animal without a vascular system.
In fact, the gene at the basis of the hemoglobin molecule traces its origin back to the pyrole ring of the , porphyrin molecule, back during the dawn of life, before the evolution of the animal cell, let alone metazoan, and has been passed down since then in one form or the other, with its sequence and function evolving slowly...

So evolution is not really a change in gene frequency but gene regulation?

Is this just a new ad hoc explanation from evos to explain why the data didn't fit their theory? Kind of like the idea similar traits are the result of common ancestry except, well, Marsupial and Placentals mess that idea up. So hey, must be convergent evolution. Just happened to evolve extremely similar pairs like mice, even in different environments. Evolution explains if similarities are inherited, and if not, evolution explains that they evolved independently. Evolution explains every result?

I like to look at the data and see what it does and does not say. When someone says the data must mean such and such, I look for examples where the data shows that to be wrong, and when it does, that means the original contention is not scientifically supported. Do this and it will be very hard to accept NeoDarwinism as factual.