Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

[randman]

Dinwar, when you start out with bogus, wrong and uncivil comments, I often just don't read the rest of the post. That's probably why I never saw your books and probably won't either.

Maybe you could link a scientific paper?

Regardless, I hate for you to write a lengthy post just not to be read but maybe you just want to rally others. In that case, I will just ignore all of them.

Gotta remember which poster is which though.

 

[randman]

Randman, you have won me over. Evolution is bunk. Now, why should I believe in Creationism?

Wish your sentiments were not sarcastic, but will respond anyway.

What is creationism?

If you mean do I believe you should believe in God, seek Him out and accept Jesus as Lord? Well, yeah.

But that's not really what you are asking. As far as science goes, it's not necessarily the conclusion one holds that's important. That's something most evos never understand about science though they claim otherwise.

The important thing is the approach, how you approach data and theories, etc,...It's fine to have a hypothesis you think is true and try to prove it. That helps move things forward except if you are an evolutionist, you believe questioning their theory is an attack on science itself, which is a very unscientific attitude. Real science welcomes dissent.

So you want to embrace and look at and understand any criticisms and alternative views and understand their strengths and weaknesses. You should be informed, for example, as much on the views you have rejected as those you accept, ideally. May not always happen in practice.

But if you hold to a view as the evos on this thread do, and yet as they demonstrated, have often never heard of the arguments such as front loading or whatever opposed to their view, then you know you have people that are dogmatic in their views and not really interested in real science. They don't want to really look at the data and see what it says but just argue for their side.

Of course, you can learn by arguing dogmatically but you need to at least get the points of the other side.

I have rarely met evos in debate that do that. Most informed IDers and creationists actually understand evolution far better than evolutionists do because they were usually taught evolution and have had to understand it in order to argue against it.

Of course, some don't really look into the facts either way but I am talking those well-informed of the various aspects of the debate.

 

[JudeBrando]

Stupid Christian ...<snip>

There really was no need to go any further, was there? After all, that was the premise and the point.

 

[bokonon]

Epigenetics is a fascinating new area of discovery that will be incorporated into evolutionary theory, but I don't see how this line of argument is meant to establish the veracity of your claims regarding evolution by natural selection. Pedantry aside, changes in allele frequency are still, by far, the primary factor in generational evolution as we now understand it.

Yes, I think randman would not be able to give an example of evolution -- micro, macro, or velcro -- which was solely due to epigenetic changes.

I have to say, though, I'm impressed to find a creationist who's even heard the word epigenetics, much less apparently familiar with its definition.

I don't expect we're going to convince him, because he still has that DOC-like quality of steadfastly refusing to grapple with any serious challenges to his worldview. Still, even with his misconceptions and what I believe are unjustified conclusions, I wish every creationist (and even every skeptic) had as much knowledge of biology as he appears to have. I thought the point he made about viruses in response to someone's comment about DNA organisms out-competing RNA organisms as a matter of chemistry was well played, for instance.

 

[randman]

Over 98% of our dna is junk, or filler. The Creator must not be very intelligent at all.

Another example of you guys parroting old, incorrect information. ENCODE has shown you are wrong.

What implications does that have for evo arguments?

Will you just insist there are none and so avoid looking at the data to see what it does and does not say?
At a minimum, it shows evo arguments related to Cyto-chrome C (I believe if I recall correctly) are not longer valid.

 

[Wowbagger]

What is creationism?

You have not answered this. All you have done is argue that dissent should be acceptable. What IS creationism, as a scientific perspective?

Is it merely dissent against evolution? If so, what value does that add, if there is no new empirical knowledge to be gained from that?

Real science welcomes dissent.

The missing ingredient in this sentence is evidence. Real science welcomes dissent based on quality of evidential support.

Do you have good, solid, positive evidence for an Intelligent Agent intervening with the origins of life? Can you even, in principle, develop a testable hypothesis for acquiring such knowledge?

They don't want to really look at the data and see what it says but just argue for their side.

You are not addressing issues of quality in arguments.

Creationists and evolutions see the same data, they just interpret it differently. And, this leads to battles of "my pile of evidence is bigger than yours" and "No, my pile is bigger than yours", which can seem hopeless to resolve for many folks.

But, there is a way to resolve it! There is a way by which we can tell which idea is more likely on the right track than its competing idea: We can test ideas.

The ideas behind Evolution are very testable. I argue that those of Creationism are not. Each side can interpret the data any way they want to. But, one of them is ultimately going to generate more and better science, and the other will simply sit there and react to the discoveries.

As a consequence of this, Evolution already has a solid reputation as a tool for solving problems in the field of biology, and other ideas. Creationism cannot be applied to any problems, with any sense of reliability, yet.

Science is the discipline of acquiring new empirical knowledge. If what you are doing is not productive in the acquisition of new knowledge, you are not doing science. No matter how confident you are in your interpretation of the evidence.

Most informed IDers and creationists actually understand evolution far better than evolutionists do because they were usually taught evolution and have had to understand it in order to argue against it.

I actually have no doubt that informed IDers understand evolution very well: If they didn't they would not be able to adapt their ideas to match the evidence uncovered by evolutionists.

But, the arguments of IDers cannot be applied to anything. They cannot be used to gain further knowledge about life, nor resolve problems in scientific fields.

Evolution has always had the power to change the course of creationism and ID proponents. But, ID has never discovered anything that would change the course of evolutionists.

Can you demonstrate that I am wrong about my assessment? Can you show us some of the great things we can discover about life, that Darwinists are completely missing out on?

Can you answer any of the other questions I gave you?

If ID or Creationism was a truly superior science, it should be easy for you.

 

[randman]

Over 98% of our dna is junk, or filler. The Creator must not be very intelligent at all.

Here's one article mentioning how the predictions and claims of evos of junk DNA are now shown to be wrong. It is worth noting creationists, IDers and others perhaps IDers or alternate evos all predicted these findings and Darwinists predicted the opposite.

You guys were wrong again.

the authors of the Nature paper write, "we also uncovered some surprises that challenge the current dogma on biological mechanisms." The surprises all involve unexpected complexity in the genome; complexity that necessitates a revision of the way we think about transcription and genes.
Furthermore, the ENCODE findings should lead to the final demise of the term "Junk DNA". "The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active." The majority of the genome now appears to have functionality. It must be regarded as a "complex, interwoven network" with genes being just one of many functional elements.

http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2007/06/16/encode_decodes_junk_dna

Maybe if evos spent half as much time listening to their critics instead of trying to silence dissent, they'd learn something. Obviously, other camps foresaw this finding and evos did not.

Why was that?

Evos will likely just say it was luck and continue to ignore the arguments of their critics and perhaps even deny their critics were the ones that were right all along in some detail like this.

 

[Wowbagger]

Over 98% of our dna is junk, or filler. The Creator must not be very intelligent at all.

Oddly enough, I might agree with randman on this one point: You are could be wrong about that.

Though, it might depend on what you mean by "junk". While not all DNA is directly encoded, a lot of it plays important, though, indirect roles regulation.

One could still call much of the non-encoding DNA strands as "junk": much of it is "unnecessarily" redundant or unweildy, from a human perspective. But, then again: So are many of the sectors on our computer's hard drives, and those were intelligently designed.

I would like to emphasize one point: The nature of DNA ("junk" or otherwise) is best understood through the model of Darwinian evolution. Creationism is a superfluous idea that does not add anything to what we know about it. Arguing about "junk" has always been a red herring of sorts. There are more important sub-topics to nitpick on.

 

[randman]

This is a pretty balanced article from a creationist that might be easier to grasp than reading the original science papers that don't necessarily address the implications in terms of the evo debate of the findings. Please keep reading down past the theological aspects the article.

http://www.reasons.org/design/bad-designs/junk-dna-problem-evolutionary-paradigm

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Real science DOES accept dissent.
It just also requires evidence and a workable theory.

Front loading for instance might solve the percieved problem of where genes come from (although the TOE has no problem explaining that), but it introduces a host of other problems.

1. We know that for a long time the only living organisms on earth were single cellular. From experience we know that single cellular organims quickly (within 10 generations or less) start losing genes they do not need to reproduce. How did the non-needed genes get perserved for hundreds of millions of years?
2. Bacteria and Eukaryotes have a very similar genetic code, but it is not identical. Front loaded organisms would therefore needed to have two different sets of DNA, and a number of transfer RNA's that recognize the same codon, yet have different amino acid's attached. How are there kept seperate and non-interfering?
3. A large number of eukaryotic genes ONLY work in a nucleus. Bacterial DNA does not, so the original front loaded organism must have had both, with a large number of proteins present in both cytoplasm and nucleus to function. How does this work?
4. The front loaded organism had all the genes needed for photosynthesis and the citric acid cycle. Why then did eukaryotes have to resort to endosymbiosis of bacteria containing these pathways?
5. The front loaded organism had all the genes present to become eukaryotic and multicellular. Why did it take so very long before multicellular life emerged?
6. Given how DNA replication and mitosis/meiosis work we would expect the front loaded pre-bacterial DNA and the front-loaded pre-eukaryotic DNA to have gotten mixed, leading to a whole range of organisms with differing ranges of genes. Yet we don't find that at all. Why is this?
7. Why is there such needless redundancy in the genes coming from the front-loaded organism? (both bacterial flagella as eukaryotic flagella work equally well through vastly different approaces. Surely one would have sufficed? The same goes for ribosomal biosynthesis. Why two different pathways?)
8. What is the predictive value of the front loading theory that works equally well as or better than the theory of evolution?

This list is of course nowhere near complete, but all of these problems are already adressed by the current theory of evolution, with experimental data to back them up added to the theory.
Could you point us to the papers and experiments that indicate that all these problems are overcome in the front loaded theory? A reconstitution of a similar eu/prokaryotic organism would of course go a long way. As would an organism with two competing genetic codes in one system.
Until then its an unproven theory that ADDS problems rather than solves them, and real science does not accept theories without evidence to back them up.

 

[randman]

Oddly enough, I might agree with randman on this one point: You are could be wrong about that.

Though, it might depend on what you mean by "junk". While not all DNA is directly encoded, a lot of it plays important, though, indirect roles regulation.

One could still call much of the non-encoding DNA strands as "junk": much of it is "unnecessarily" redundant or unweildy, from a human perspective. But, then again: So are many of the sectors on our computer's hard drives, and those were intelligently designed.

I would like to emphasize one point: The nature of DNA ("junk" or otherwise) is best understood through the model of Darwinian evolution. Creationism is a superfluous idea that does not add anything to what we know about it. Arguing about "junk" has always been a red herring of sorts. There are more important sub-topics to nitpick on.

Saying it is best understood via Darwinism is a statement of faith and a non-starter.

How do you explain certain ultra-conserved genes in so-called junk DNA?

Likely you will argue they must be functional, and of course, the general ID and creationist position is they must be as well, but when deleted in mice, the mice are still healthy.

It's a conundrum but worth noting.

http://www.reasons.org/design/bad-designs/junk-dna-problem-evolutionary-paradigm

ENCODE is another study raising problems more unique to the evo narrative.

Equally problematic are the results from the pilot phase of the ENCODE project, published in the summer of 2007. The ENCODE project is a multi-million dollar international effort to catalog all of the functional sequences in the human genome. The initial stage of the project involved a detailed search for every functional element contained in a 1% sample of the human genome.

Based on this survey, researchers discovered that parts of the human genome previously viewed as nonfunctional junk are transcriptionally active, signifying function. Surprisingly, these sequences show little conservation in the genomes of other mammals. In other words, functional sequences freely vary without any evidence for evolutionary constraint.

This recognition runs contrary to the central ideas of molecular evolution and, too, raises fundamental questions about the validity of the evolutionary paradigm.

This is not what Darwinism predicts. There shouldn't be such variation in functional sequences. They should be conserved due to being selected for, etc,...related to their similar functions.

 

[Wowbagger]

Saying it is best understood via Darwinism is a statement of faith and a non-starter.

Evolutionary biologists did those studies your creationist articles are citing. The findings are, in fact, consistent with current ideas about Evolution.

Yes, many proximate ideas about Evolution changed as a result of this. But, it is hardly a problem: It still ultimately conforms to the core of Darwinian evolution: The process of Natural Selection.

Creationists did not make those discoveries. They were too busy suing school districts.

Evolutionists discovered new things about DNA. Creationists react.

Tell me, again, why my statement was of "faith".

How do you explain certain ultra-conserved genes in so-called junk DNA?

In terms of evolution: The articles your articles cited cover that.

What does Creationism add to the discoveries?

 

[randman]

We know that for a long time the only living organisms on earth were single cellular. From experience we know that single cellular organims quickly (within 10 generations or less) start losing genes they do not need to reproduce. How did the non-needed genes get perserved for hundreds of millions of years?

You hit on an interesting point, one that is extremely problematic for evolutionists. There is an explanation from front loaders though you might not like it, but consider what you are saying first in light of the data we have.

If those single cellular organisms lost genes "quickly", then how did they acquire the greater levels of genetic complexity that the LCA is considered now to have had? In other words, they must have had truly massive genomes, right?

Bacteria and Eukaryotes have a very similar genetic code, but it is not identical. Front loaded organisms would therefore needed to have two different sets of DNA, and a number of transfer RNA's that recognize the same codon, yet have different amino acid's attached.

A large number of eukaryotic genes ONLY work in a nucleus. Bacterial DNA does not, so the original front loaded organism must have had both, with a large number of proteins present in both cytoplasm and nucleus to function. How does this work?

I don't follow. Are you saying they can't share a common ancestor? That's quite possible for front loading, not so much Darwinism.

The front loaded organism had all the genes needed for photosynthesis and the citric acid cycle. Why then did eukaryotes have to resort to endosymbiosis of bacteria containing these pathways

Having the genes for something and having the traits and processes for it are 2 different things? The coral does not have complex nerve function. The idea of evos is the genes are used for some other purpose. Maybe so. Maybe not so much. But they are not involved in vertebrate nerve function since they don't have one.

Of course, front loading does not necessarily say all of life has one common ancestor.

Lot of your objections can be equally applied to darwinism, I might add.

The front loaded organism had all the genes present to become eukaryotic and multicellular. Why did it take so very long before multicellular life emerged?

Why did it take so long under Darwinism? Think about it. Should be losing genes "quickly", right? So how did it ever gain the genetic complexity to evolve when it took so long. Doesn't the rate of envisioned gene loss indicate Darwinism, a slow accumulation of genetic changes, is wrong. Or are you now a front loader and speculating it had an incredible massive genome and so could lose genes "quickly" and still evolve.

How did it accumulate sufficient new genes if it was losing them so rapidly?

Why is there such needless redundancy in the genes coming from the front-loaded organism? (both bacterial flagella as eukaryotic flagella work equally well through vastly different approaces. Surely one would have sufficed? The same goes for ribosomal biosynthesis. Why two different pathways?)

The truth is we don't know enough about to know they work equally well or how genetics completely works. We just found out conclusively that junk DNA is functional, for example, though predicted by Iders and creationists. So I will leave this point off for now. There are answers though. Same as Darwinism in one sense. The conceived evolutionary pathways dictated differences in prior organisms.

You also asked about how front loading works better? I think my answers above answer that. Darwinism does not work too well because of rates of gene loss (and in a lot of ways such as isolation) make the accumulation of genetic complexity over time difficult. Not saying it never happens but in general, the more time that elapses, known processes decrease genetic variability.

 

[randman]

But, it is hardly a problem: It still ultimately conforms to the core of Darwinian evolution: The process of Natural Selection.

How so if functional sequences in fairly closely related animals are not highly conserved?

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Saying it is best understood via Darwinism is a statement of faith and a non-starter.

How do you explain certain ultra-conserved genes in so-called junk DNA?

Natural selection. Those areas where the amino acid or DNA sequence is of crucial importance will cause a lethal mutation if a mutation occurs and thus not produce offspring. The area's where this does not happen are open to mutation.

Likely you will argue they must be functional, and of course, the general ID and creationist position is they must be as well, but when deleted in mice, the mice are still healthy.

It's a conundrum but worth noting.

That just means we don't know WHY that particular gene is important. It might be essential under certain circumstances. And a large number of proteins are lethal if they misfold due to a mutation, but their function can be picked up by another if they are totally absent.

http://www.reasons.org/design/bad-designs/junk-dna-problem-evolutionary-paradigm

ENCODE is another study raising problems more unique to the evo narrative.



This is not what Darwinism predicts. There shouldn't be such variation in functional sequences. They should be conserved due to being selected for, etc,...related to their similar functions.

No it doesnt. They should be more conserved than the rest. But that is what is found.
As a nitpick. Junk DNA is a term no longer used in molecular genetics (since, oh the mid 90's or so). The current term is non-coding DNA, to indicate that while it might not code for proteins, it could still have a function we do not understand at the moment.
In fact by comparing the DNA sequences in this non-coding DNA to DNA coding for small RNA's in yeast we've found that such small RNA's also exist and function in humans.
Of course looking at that only makes sense when you assume yeast and humans shared a similar ancestor at one point.
Strange how when we assume that and look for a similar function we tend to find it eh? Almost as if this whole theory of evolution thing allows us to predict things we didn't know in one organism by looking at another.

Sure, there are surprises along the way. And sometimes we need to re-evaluate our theories (such as where in the timeline certain genes had evolved), but that's true for any science.

 

[randman]

Lukraak, the answer for highly conserved is that junk DNA is not junk. It's functional. We agree despite the mice experiment.

I think you missed the last point which deals with a separate finding (opposite of being conserved). "They should be more conserved than the rest", but they are not. That's the point of citing the finding.

That is problematic for Darwinism. Why are they not conserved?

 

[Brainache]

Here's one article mentioning how the predictions and claims of evos of junk DNA are now shown to be wrong. It is worth noting creationists, IDers and others perhaps IDers or alternate evos all predicted these findings and Darwinists predicted the opposite.

You guys were wrong again.



http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2007/06/16/encode_decodes_junk_dna

Maybe if evos spent half as much time listening to their critics instead of trying to silence dissent, they'd learn something. Obviously, other camps foresaw this finding and evos did not.

Why was that?

Evos will likely just say it was luck and continue to ignore the arguments of their critics and perhaps even deny their critics were the ones that were right all along in some detail like this.

So now the human genome is more complex than previously thought and this somehow supports your front loaded theory of diminished complexity?

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

You hit on an interesting point, one that is extremely problematic for evolutionists. There is an explanation from front loaders though you might not like it, but consider what you are saying first in light of the data we have.

If those single cellular organisms lost genes "quickly", then how did they acquire the greater levels of genetic complexity that the LCA is considered now to have had? In other words, they must have had truly massive genomes, right?

No, I said they lose unneeded genes quickly. That one word makes a huge difference. As there is a very well explained and proven method of gaining DNA trough meiotic errors there is absolutely no need for the LCA to have needed a huge genome in the theory of evolution.

I don't follow. Are you saying they can't share a common ancestor? That's quite possible for front loading, not so much Darwinism.

No, I'm saying such a front loaded organism would have internal DNA conflicts that are not present when you assume the variation evolved after the split of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Showing such an organism could exist would go a long way in proving front loading.

Having the genes for something and having the traits and processes for it are 2 different things? The coral does not have complex nerve function. The idea of evos is the genes are used for some other purpose. Maybe so. Maybe not so much. But they are not involved in vertebrate nerve function since they don't have one.

Nerve function is one thing. Its only needed in multicellular organisms. The ability to photosynthesize and use oxygen as an energy source is an immediate advantage that would not be lost so easily.

Of course, front loading does not necessarily say all of life has one common ancestor.

So where is the evidence that it did not?

Lot of your objections can be equally applied to darwinism, I might add.

No, as I said, all these things are explained by the theory of evolution already

Why did it take so long under Darwinism? Think about it. Should be losing genes "quickly", right? So how did it ever gain the genetic complexity to evolve when it took so long. Doesn't the rate of envisioned gene loss indicate Darwinism, a slow accumulation of genetic changes, is wrong. Or are you now a front loader and speculating it had an incredible massive genome and so could lose genes "quickly" and still evolve.


How did it accumulate sufficient new genes if it was losing them so rapidly?

But you keep ignoring the fact that its possible for organisms to gain genes during the course of evolution too. Gaining enough genes in the right way, with the right advantages at the right time to become a more complex cell is a very long process, hence using the TOE its not remarkable that this took so long. But once it was there it took a very short geological time to go from single celled to multicellular lifeforms.

The truth is we don't know enough about to know they work equally well or how genetics completely works. We just found out conclusively that junk DNA is functional, for example, though predicted by Iders and creationists. So I will leave this point off for now. There are answers though. Same as Darwinism in one sense. The conceived evolutionary pathways dictated differences in prior organisms.

ID did not even exist by the time science had discovered that there was genetic function in 'junk dna' In fact, their publications STILL use the term, as if they havent kept up with science.

You also asked about how front loading works better? I think my answers above answer that. Darwinism does not work too well because of rates of gene loss (and in a lot of ways such as isolation) make the accumulation of genetic complexity over time difficult. Not saying it never happens but in general, the more time that elapses, known processes decrease genetic variability.

No, your answers either accidentally or deliberately misquoted or misinterpreted my questions, trying to twist them. They never actually answered the question, and you never provided a single link to actual research showing an answer to any of them.

OH well, off to work

 

[randman]

But you keep ignoring the fact that its possible for organisms to gain genes during the course of evolution too. Gaining enough genes in the right way, with the right advantages at the right time to become a more complex cell is a very long process, hence using the TOE its not remarkable that this took so long.

I am not ignoring. Darwinism posits that gene accumulation can outweigh and did outweigh gene loss.

Where are the peer-reivewed studies to substantiate this claim? In other words, where do they compare rates of gene loss particularly through natural selection and isolation of subgroups with conceived rates of mutation rates of beneficial genes emerging?

I've asked this question for year and have never seen one single study and yet evos are confident they are doing real science assuming this untested claim has been verified.

ID did not even exist by the time science had discovered that there was genetic function in 'junk dna'

That's not true but rather than quibble, I thought you guys claimed ID is just creationism?

Is creationism then a recent thing?

 

[randman]

So now the human genome is more complex than previously thought and this somehow supports your front loaded theory of diminished complexity?

Personally, I don't think human beings evolved via natural means or even evolved at all. So not the best example, but so-called junkDNA exists in other organisms too.