Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

[dlorde]

If you conduct an experiment and your theory predicts all possible results, is that really science?

If by 'all possible', you mean 'all observed', then yes. You can then see what it predicts and see if that is also the case. That's how quantum mechanics works, and how evolution by natural selection works. Both fit all observed data better than all other competing theories and both have made predictions later borne out in observation.

 

[randman]

Quantum mechanics does not actually work that way though I think I know what you are talking about with superposition. But in reality, QM is more specific. Light behaves particle-like or wave-like depending on what we seek to know about it. If we want to determine the path of a photon, it acts particle-like. It doesn't act wave-like.

All possible results would mean it acts like a wave when we determine which path it took. So it's a "hard", not an elastic theory.

Evolution tends to say no matter what the data, it must be evolution. It's circular logic, but there are areas to pin evo theory down with facts, but even there, evos will likely just say it's evolution and say it predicted that all along.

Take the dinosaur bones with red blood cells. Years ago, that'd be considered the sort of fact so inconsistent with a 65 million year old bone, that it'd be in layman's terms, disproof of such old age. But once we started finding organic molecules such as red blood cells, evos insist, well, there must be a way. Evolution must be right.

But biochemistry has not changed. There is nothing to suggest organic molecules would not have broken down even after just thousands of years much less millions.

 

[dlorde]

...It's like you had mice, wolves, wombats, anteaters, etc,...that split and one developed a placenta. These forms didn't exist at all.

Marsupials and placental mammals split from the monotremes (egg-laying mammals - still present as platypus, anteaters) during the Cretaceous Period.

 

[randman]

Marsupials and placental mammals split from the monotremes (egg-laying mammals - still present as platypus, anteaters) during the Cretaceous Period.

Yes, but they weren't in all of those same forms except maybe the anteater from you mention. They evolved independently, assuming they evolved at all.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

So far on this thread, we've seen posters that didn't seem to even know what a genome is; have never heard the term adaptionism which is a very common term in the literature and a very basic concept; that made the absurd claim while calling me ignorant that placentals evolved from marsupials; that the mammalian ear did not independently evolve more than once; that had never even heard of Goldschmidt or Grasse, etc, etc,

That's not what most of us have seen. The person who you think didn't know what a genome is was questioning your apparent misunderstanding. And if you want a clue as to why we don't recognize the very basic and common term "adaptionism" try typing it in to Google.

 

[randman]

I doubt it. It doesn't appear you guys get the basic concept. Edit to add: hadn't read the article but here ya go...adaptionism mentioned. Guess they were wrong to spell it that way even though they are peer-reviewed journal on evolutionary biology.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00799.x/full

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Are you familiar with molecular studies in the literature that purport to assess the genetic complexity and features of the last common ancestor, etc,....even though we have no DNA, nor expect to find any?

Yes, I've worked with them. And while they can be used to theorize back to what a last common ancestor of any given gene looks like, these techniques are not used to trace back to before such a last common ancestor. This is a known and accepted limitation of the techinque.

You seem to think such work is fruitless, or perhaps just didn't know about it? Evolutionists don't think we have to find billion year old DNA to assess what their genome was like. They have theories they work with on mutational rates and study living creatures and do analysis that is generally accepted.

I don't think such work is fruitless, it is extremely interesting and useful in assinging functions to unknown proteins. But as I said, the techinque can only be used to determine the characteristics of the last common ancestor. Which itself was the product of an evolutionary process running for hundreds of millions, if not over a billion years.

Mutations though happen fairly slowly. And they remain through natural selection due to new traits given creatures a competitive advantage.

Mutations happen quite quickly. Natural selection working on the mutations to give rise to new traits and species happens fairly slowly, TO A HUMAN. However, dinosaurs evolved, flourished and went exinct in less time than the difference in time between the appearence of life and the last common ancestor of eukaryotes and eubacteria. That is not fast by any stretch of imagination.
You also seem to labor under the impression that a new trait, once gained, will never be lost. This is not correct. The theory of evolution deals with adaptation of species. Losing eyes, legs, the ability to synthesize amino acids, can all be adaptations that are advantageous to species.

So with so few traits compared to say, us, human beings, how did they manage to evolve into such genetic complexity that is likely greater than human beings? How did they evolve genes for complex nerve function if they had no complex nerve function? There was no trait there to be selected for. They hadn't evolved that much.

Which they? But you look at this backwards. Once mutations happened that created cells that could function in nerve-like way, the species containing such mutations were able to become more complex, slowly evolving to species with nerves. Theorizing that things arise because they are needed is not part of the theory of evolution, but rather creationism or ID.

 

[bokonon]

So with so few traits compared to say, us, human beings, how did they manage to evolve into such genetic complexity that is likely greater than human beings? How did they evolve genes for complex nerve function if they had no complex nerve function? There was no trait there to be selected for. They hadn't evolved that much.

Organisms which have no complex nerve function are not likely to have genes for complex nerve function. If these genes are expressed in the organisms which have no complex nerve function, they are obviously coding for something other than complex nerve function.

 

[randman]

I wish you would pay attention to what I write instead of adding things like this:

You also seem to labor under the impression that a new trait, once gained, will never be lost.

Never said that, and bluntly and quite frankly repeatedly stated the opposite. Don't create straw men. Let's deal honestly.

Theorizing that things arise because they are needed is not part of the theory of evolution, but rather creationism or ID.

This is another one. Haven't even broached that topic. Just trying kind of hard to get you guys to actually look at the process. Reread what I wrote. It's pretty straightforward.

 

[randman]

Organisms which have no complex nerve function are not likely to have genes for complex nerve function. If these genes are expressed in the organisms which have no complex nerve function, they are obviously coding for something other than complex nerve function.

But we do find organisms with genes for complex nerve function in corals, for example, and the idea is that certainly the ancestor to all animals had these genes, and this is a very primitive creature.

How did those genes get there?

 

[bokonon]

There is nothing to suggest organic molecules would not have broken down even after just thousands of years much less millions.

This is simply not true. The hydrocarbons in coal and petroleum are organic molecules which have survived as organic molecules (though perhaps not the same organic molecules) for millions of years.

 

[randman]

This is simply not true. The hydrocarbons in coal and petroleum are organic molecules which have survived as organic molecules (though perhaps not the same organic molecules) for millions of years.

We're talking about red blood cells and soft tissue. Look it up. Even evos admit this is a conundrum and they never thought it was possible, but they won't change. They say there must be a way.

 

[bokonon]

But we do find organisms with genes for complex nerve function in corals, for example, and the idea is that certainly the ancestor to all animals had these genes, and this is a very primitive creature.

How did those genes get there?

If you have a link to a paper, I'll be happy to address the specifics.

Failing that, my guess would be that some wormlike creature with a primitive nervous system might have been an ancestor of the corals in question, and the genes were adapted to some other function (perhaps intercellular signalling?) in the corals.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

We're talking about red blood cells and soft tissue. Look it up. Even evos admit this is a conundrum and they never thought it was possible, but they won't change. They say there must be a way.

Yes, it's a conundrum. But the evidence for the age of the dinosaurs is strong. If this discovery pans out it will mean that our assumptions about how long organic material can survive were wrong and that she's developed a new technique suitable for finding the microscopic remains of soft tissue.

Why do you think the think that our ideas of how long organic material can survive are the stronger idea that should prevail in this case?

 

[John Jones]

Secondly, I am not the one saying the species that gave rise to animals had all the gene types that exist today. Evos are now.

Orly? Which ones?

 

[John Jones]

If you conduct an experiment and your theory predicts all possible results, is that really science?

So you're saying that the theory of evolution (Origin of Species by Natural Selection) is not falsifiable?

Sir Karl Popper might disagree.

 

[cyborg]

So with so few traits compared to say, us, human beings, how did they manage to evolve into such genetic complexity that is likely greater than human beings?

How do you measure number of traits and genetic complexity?

If I asked for two values for each for two given species could you give me a number?

 

[bokonon]

So how would the simplest organisms with very few traits have the most complex or close to it, genomes?

They don't. The simplest organisms with very few traits, like e. coli, don't have the most complex genomes, or anything close to it.

 

[A'isha]

So basically you were ignorant of the fact that "the mammalian ear" has been discussed in print over the past few years, on how it evolved via convergent evolution, and you were wrong. I was the one informed on the subject and you were talking about the reptilian ear or something prior to the mammalian ear.

The paper you cited doesn't say that the mammalian ear evolved elsewhere via convergent evolution.

It says that an earlier form of the mammalian ear was already possessed by both Teinolophos trusleri and the other mammaliforms, inherited from their common protomammal ancestor. All of them also possessed the primitive jaw and dentary jaw bones inherited from that ancestor.

What the article is saying is that Teinolophos trusleri shows evidence that the dentary bones that formed the bones of the inner ear were still attached to the jaw, meaning that Teinolophos trusleri and therefore monotremes) separated from the mammal lineage at a point slightly earlier than thought, ie separated at a point before that dentary bone separation occurred in mammals.

But since Teinolophos trusleri had a working ear (and, indeed, the article makes the assumption that these bones "were already functioning in hearing in late nonmammalian cynodonts and basal mammaliaforms"), then what the article describes is not the mammalian ear evolving independently, but a part of the already evolved and functioning mammalian ear evolving independently, with that part being simply whether the bones of the middle ear which developed from the dentary bones in the jaw remained attached to the jaw as the ear functioned, or separated from it as the ear functioned. The fact that these bones, even attached, were already functional parts of the middle ear is why the separation was evolved independently in both lineages.

This article isn't any sort of shocking, groundbreaking upset of our understanding of the mammalian ear. It is, in fact, really only of interest to those people trying to figure out just when mammals and monotremes separated from each other, and thus how to create a cladogram depicting that.

In other words, what you've done is the equivalent of seeing how the owners of the same kind of car independently modded one part of the muffler in the same way, and claiming that means they both independently developed the entire automotive exhaust system.

 

[John Jones]

It doesn't, eh? care to prove that?

On the "actual facts" but of course they do. All facts are in accordance with evolutionary theory by definition.....

Eh? Care to prove that?

It sounds like you're again saying that modern evolution theory is unfalsifiable.