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shropshire

Origin of the species, where do you stand?

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I've noticed that the ones arguing against evolution have yet to propose an alternative theory.



We're discussing NDT here. What I believe to be true is no secret and has been discussed A LOT in many other threads. Just trying to stay on topic. (this time) ;)



The topic is: "Origin of the species, where do you stand?", so it IS a perfectly valid question.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Based upon gjhdiver's Jeebus thread, clicky what do you believe are our origins...

  • "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." It's fair to describe this as the creationist view.

  • "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process." We'll call this the theistic view.

  • "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process." I'll term this the naturalist view.



  • What about the concept that creation is god and continues to be, the philisophical view
    When I go, I want to pass away in my sleep, just like my dear old Grandmother, NOT screaming like the passengers in the car she was driving.

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    Sorry. You just stated one of the fundamentals of evolution in a post doubting that such fundamentals exist; I thought you meant to say something else.



    Not really. You just believe that the process of Natural Selection can accomplish a lot more than I do and a lot more than there is evidence for.

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    Agreed. Do you also agree that traits that arise as a result of natural selection are heritable?



    Of course.

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    New species that we have observed forming:

    Fruit fly (Drosophila paulistorum)



    Let’s just take one for now:

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    Drosophila paulistorum Dobzhansky and Pavlovsky (1971) reported a speciation event that occurred in a laboratory culture of Drosophila paulistorum sometime between 1958 and 1963. The culture was descended from a single inseminated female that was captured in the Llanos of Colombia. In 1958 this strain produced fertile hybrids when crossed with conspecifics of different strains from Orinocan. From 1963 onward crosses with Orinocan strains produced only sterile males. Initially no assortative mating or behavioral isolation was seen between the Llanos strain and the Orinocan strains. Later on Dobzhansky produced assortative mating (Dobzhansky 1972).



    Two fruit flies successfully mate (indicating same species) and produce offspring which display behavioral isolation. How is this trans-speciation?

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    Nope. All the offspring of a given set of parents have approximately the same amount of DNA, even if one is better adapted than the other.



    More information does not mean new information. New characteristics may arise from recombinations, mutations, loss of information, etc. but the result is still coming from the information available to begin with (or the reduced amount over time). It’s like the difference between a short haired dog and a long haired dog; they’re both still just dogs; just more isolated and specialized. One more adapted to live and function in a particular environment better than the other. The short haired dog would probably die out if placed an extreme cold environment and visa versa.

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    Then how do you explain the new species that arise?



    Speciation occurs due to the ability built into the instruction set within our DNA to adapt to our differing environments.

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    I think you may have a misconception about what evolution is. It's not a magical process that turns a horse into a giraffe. It's not a secret process that adds whole sections of useful DNA to a genome. It's a eons-long process that only has two parts to it:



    1) Better adapted organisms (i.e. horses with long necks) survive better than organisms without the new adaptation. The organisms without the adaptation die.

    2) Those adaptations are heritable; they appear in offspring.

    That's all you need for pandas to evolve a sixth finger (a "thumb"), for people to evolve the skeleton/musculature for walking upright, for giraffes to grow long necks, for fish to turn fins into spines into legs, for squirrels to turn loose skin into wings. The "new information" you talk about is nothing more than DNA that has only one advantage over every other bit of DNA ever made - it survived slightly better than a version that died out.



    I’m not talking magic here. You’re trying to gain a benefit from Natural Selection that it cannot provide. Yes… it allows for longer haired dogs to survive over short haired dogs in extreme cold environments. The gene for short hair would be more detrimental to the survival of the short haired dogs and they would most likely die out. No… it cannot give you a heritable line of traits (even over millennia) which can gradually grow wings for the dog so it can fly (I’m not predicting this by the way). The possible information for that kind of progression is not available.

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    Do this experiment. Take a bunch of cards, each with a number from 0 to 9 on it. Shuffle them. Now go through them and throw out every card that has a number greater than 1 on it.
    If you look at the deck when you are done, it has new information in it! It now consists of only binary digits (0 or 1) in a new configuration! Where did the new information come from? You didn't create it; you just threw out _other_ information.
    Now throw out every card that's a repeat. In other words, if one card is a 1 and the next is also a 1, throw it out. Now check out the pattern when you're done.
    You will notice a pattern beginning to appear - it will look something like 0101110101010010101. There are a lot more alternating patterns. Again, how did that pattern appear? Did God do it? After all, if you didn't do it, someone must have put all that new information there.
    The answer, of course, is that God didn't do it. Neither did you, directly. You didn't PUT the cards in that order; you just threw out some information. But by removing some information you have made the remaining information more ordered. A pattern is beginning to appear.


    The above experiment shows how you can get order from randomness by just plain throwing away patterns you don't like. Which is exactly what natural selection does. Who added the new information? God? Again, no. Just the natural process of selection acting on a process with a lot of randomness to it (sexual reproduction.)



    If you took a bunch of cards, each with a number from 0 to 9, shuffled them, threw out every card with a number greater than 1, threw out every card that’s a repeat, and due to all this there suddenly appeared a card that you didn’t put in there with a capital A on it, that would be new information. Otherwise, you’re just reorganizing or losing information from the finite amount that you started with (e.g. Natural Selection). A loss of information might make the hand more specialized and more ordered but it’s still just a series of 1’s and 0’s. Not 1’s, 0’s, and an A. (required by NDT).

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    And, indeed, their belief system will be damaged, if not destroyed. That's a very frightening thing. I was 21 when I shucked my fundamentalist Christian beliefs. It was a very difficult time in my life.



    I was 29 when I gained my Christian beliefs. Prior to that was difficult. Now, it's even more difficult. It doesn't worry me in the slightest that the foundation of Christianity will be shaken by anything...ever.

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    Adaptation and Natural Selection as a result of environmental cues happens all the time. This is observable. Transspeciation does not and cannot be shown to occur. Natural Selection always results in a loss of information. It cannot add to the genome. Populations selected become more specialized and less information is available. Evolution (as you would describe it) requires the addition of new information. Not just reorganization, copying error, or mutation. Completely new information.



    Natural selection does not add nor remove information, it merely changes how some of the genome codes, via mutation.
    99.99% of mutations are deleterious but on rare occassions a mutations confer in an orgamism a better suitability to thrive. this over time can lead to speciation. There are numerous things that can drive speciation, one is island populations, the Galopos Islands are a good example of this.
    It really isnt rocket science, and the vast majority of educated clergy that I know fully beive in speciation and evolution. We do however come to loggerheads when the conversation turns to the origins of LIFE.


    So far you have done nothing to prove you point, there's nothing magical or mysterious about evolution.
    You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
    My Life ROCKS!
    How's yours doing?

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    >How is this trans-speciation?

    The two strains drifted so far apart genetically that they can no longer reproduce. That's speciation. Now that they are genetically isolated (i.e. they can no longer share genetic material) they will begin to diverge genetically.

    The fruit fly example is boring because while their genome is now quite different, their phenotype (what they look like) is not yet different. They look just like - well - fruit flies. It would take thousands of years for these new species to diverge significantly, even counting how fast they breed.

    When such a speciation happens in nature, and the two new species are competing for the same niche, one generally dies off (less well adapted.) When a new organism is introduced into an environment with lots of niches, speciation produces new organisms that fill these new niches. This happens remarkably quickly; when cichlids were introduced into african lakes about a million years ago, they very rapidly speciated and filled the niches with dozens of new species. This is called adaptive radiation.

    >Yes… it allows for longer haired dogs to survive over short haired dogs in
    >extreme cold environments. The gene for short hair would be more
    >detrimental to the survival of the short haired dogs and they would most
    >likely die out.

    Right. And eventually even the genes that code for short hair would be eliminated from the dog's genome.

    > No… it cannot give you a heritable line of traits (even over millennia)
    >which can gradually grow wings for the dog so it can fly (I’m not
    >predicting this by the way). The possible information for that kind of
    >progression is not available.

    No one is suggesting that dogs will fly.

    Here's a more likely development:

    The dog starts evolving warmer fur. Also more fat, a higher metabolism, bigger feet (for snow) and arteries and veins that are closer together in their legs. Close arteries and veins produce a sort of "heat exchanger" effect; warm blood going to the dog's feet is cooled by the cold blood coming back in, which in turn warms the returning blood. There's no intelligence telling the dog to move its arteries and veins closer together. Random changes in the genome produce some dogs with closer blood vessels, some with farther blood vessels. The dogs with closer blood vessels survive more often; the trait is retained.

    Now comes along a mutation. One dog has a defective gene that means that the arteries and veins in his leg don't separate at _all_. This would ordinarily be quite a handicap - this makes the circulation in his legs ineffective, resulting in less sensation in his feet, less chance of healing injuries etc.

    However, in this environment he doesn't have to feel his feet as much. He's running on snow, not over the desert, so healing isn't as big a problem. And he has an excellent heat exchanger there in his leg. Just one screwed-up gene that made one mistake during his development - but it worked out well for him.

    He has descendents. Some have the new mutation, some don't. Some have it partially. (The advantage of sexual reproduction.) The ones that still have good circulation in their feet _and_ a better heat exchanger survive; the trait is passed on.

    Fast forward a few million years and you will see a pretty sophisticated heat exchanger in his legs, similar to the one ducks have. Someone like you might protest "but it can't just come from nothing! Where did the new information come from to design that sophisticated heat exchanger? How did evolution understand thermodynamics well enough to install a heat exchanger in that dog's leg?" And the answer, of course, is - it didn't. Random mutation provided incremental improvements, and natural selection eliminated the ones that didn't work.

    That's evolution in a nutshell. That's why bats have arms that look like wings (or wings that look like arms if you prefer.) They didn't just "sprout wings" out of their backs, because they had no structures in their backs that could become wings. But arms _can_ become wings, just as they are now becoming wings in flying squirrels. Hands _can_ become feet, as they did with humans.

    >If you took a bunch of cards, each with a number from 0 to 9,
    >shuffled them, threw out every card with a number greater than 1,
    >threw out every card that’s a repeat, and due to all this there suddenly
    >appeared a card that you didn’t put in there with a capital A on it, that
    >would be new information.

    Agreed. Evolution doesn't do that. It doesn't add new "letters to the alphabet" - just uses the same ol' alphabet to spell a new story.

    >Otherwise, you’re just reorganizing or losing information from the finite
    >amount that you started with (e.g. Natural Selection). A loss of
    >information might make the hand more specialized and more ordered
    > but it’s still just a series of 1’s and 0’s.

    Yep. And all we are, genetically, is a series of A's, C's, G's and T's (and sometimes U's.) With those four base pairs we can express everything from a human to an oak tree. No "new" information required.

    Now, if you could demonstrate that humans somehow acquired a few R's, K's and D's (new base pairs) spontaneously, or they've always had them and no other organism on earth does, you'd have a pretty good argument that we were "created" (or at least treated) differently than the rest of the life on the planet. But that's not the case. We have exactly the same genes, that express exactly the same codons, in an order that's almost identical to our nearest cousin (chimps/bonobos.) We can trace how the non-coding parts of our genome change over a few hundred years, and if you extrapolate back to the point that humans and apes split - you'd see almost exactly that amount of change.

    But in the end, we all use the same alphabet.

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    But arms _can_ become wings, just as they are now becoming wings in flying squirrels.

    There's the BS. From now till whenever those squirrels will only be able to go from a high elevation to a lower elevation, more commonly known as gliding. It will never be able to gain elevation,unless, by some chance, it catches an updraft, unlike the bat, whose wing has much more structure and was actually DESIGNED to gain elevation.

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    If you took a bunch of cards, each with a number from 0 to 9, shuffled them, threw out every card with a number greater than 1, threw out every card that’s a repeat, and due to all this there suddenly appeared a card that you didn’t put in there with a capital A on it, that would be new information. Otherwise, you’re just reorganizing or losing information from the finite amount that you started with (e.g. Natural Selection). A loss of information might make the hand more specialized and more ordered but it’s still just a series of 1’s and 0’s. Not 1’s, 0’s, and an A. (required by NDT).



    Oh for fucks sake - why haven't you been listening!!!!!

    In sufficient quantities those 1s and 0s can describe the entire world we live on, it doesn't need a new unit to carry new information.

    Likewise those As, Bs, Cs and G's can express information enough to describe every living thing on the damn planet! we don't need to add a Z on the end to describe something else, we don't need new units to turn a horse into a giraffe.

    Now since you are determined to keep parroting Spetner's 'information' catchphrase despite anything said on this site, perhaps you would at least read this fully referenced article answering his argument?

    From the introduction...
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    Although his arguments are superficially plausible, a closer look with some knowledge of biochemistry shows significant flaws. I will first briefly describe Spetner's metric of information, I will then show that 1) Spetner's metrics depend on a binding mechanism that does not occur in nature, 2) that Spetner's metrics require that substances bind to enzymes in an all or nothing fashion, whereas real substrates do not bind in this way. Furthermore, I will show that Spetner himself is inconsistent in his application of his metrics. In his Xylitol example he does not actually use the measure he develops, and in the streptomycin example he swaps to a different metric, when his original metric would show increased information. Finally, I will show that his "directed evolution" model is based on a misunderstanding of one form of random mutation.


    Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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    If you accept the premise that Jesus is God in the flesh, there's no problem with any of it.



    At one point, lightning and thunder were believed to be caused by Thor's hammer striking the anvil.
    Once you accept the divinity of Thor, there's no problem with any of it. Lightning, Valkyries...

    Of course, that stuff was mythology and that is different. Nobody believes that invisible guys fly around on clouds anymore.

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    > From now till whenever those squirrels will only be able to go from a
    >high elevation to a lower elevation . . .

    . . . which allows them to escape predators and find more food. Which is why they evolved wings; the wings give them a competitive advantage over other squirrels in some situations. Since they only evolved their wings a few million years ago, they're still pretty primitive.

    One flying squirrel species from Africa has gotten a little farther. Its "fingers" have started to get much longer, so it can lengthen its wing; it can wiggle them to extend its glide a tiny bit. It cannot yet achieve level flight. But its longer range in glide means it can find food that other flying squirrels can't - and thus it survives and prospers.

    >unlike the bat, whose wing has much more structure and was actually
    >DESIGNED to gain elevation.

    Just as the african flying squirrel is being designed to gain elevation. But it's not there yet. Give it another million years; these things take time.

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    But arms _can_ become wings, just as they are now becoming wings in flying squirrels.

    There's the BS. From now till whenever those squirrels will only be able to go from a high elevation to a lower elevation, more commonly known as gliding. It will never be able to gain elevation,unless, by some chance, it catches an updraft, unlike the bat, whose wing has much more structure and was actually DESIGNED to gain elevation.



    Do you believe all species were "designed" simultaneously, or did this "designer" keep coming back with new ones? How old do you think the Earth is, and how long ago did life first appear?
    ...

    The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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    Soon soon something like :

    NEWS TODAY !! - A group of philosophers, professors and kickass scientists who has been a leading champions of atheism and evilution on Dropzone.com for more than a few years has changed their minds. They now believe in God -- more or less -- based on scientific evidence.
    After decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Evilutionists has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature Speakers Corner Evilutionists said .
    They came to the conclusion as a group and said they are best labeled as deists now like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives , thus not to admit defeat to clearly.
    We now think of a God not very different from the God of the Christian but far away from the God of Islam "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."
    Over the years, these DZ.Com locals proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while shooting down and criticizing any belief that conflicts with their evilution theory..
    There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for them,
    … biologists' investigations of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Speakers on DZ.Com now have new threads relating to subjects like "Has Science Discovered God?"
    The first hint of Evilutionists’ turn was when one of their locals on the forum and sect leaders posted and wrote “it has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism,"
    DZ.Com Evilutionists said the debate over God (since they accepted Him has to exist) will start a million new threads on DZ.com and keep them busy as they have a lot to learn….

    Free busy ... :P



    Two things I find hilarious:

    1. That after (supposedly) reading the point by point rebuttals of your arguments and the external sources you have been shown you creationists still think that your position is not only plausible but actually defeating evolution on the grounds of scientific evidence! Your stubborness in the face of reality is breathtaking.

    2. Even your attempted satire takes after your 'theory' and is riddled with internal inconsistencies:D

    If there weren't so damn many of you out there I'd be laughing so hard I'd cry.



    ....Comedy my idea with the post sparky :P

    I laugh all the time when i read these posts .. and yes i must admit sometimes i cry :(
    If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it

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    Just as the african flying squirrel is being designed to gain elevation. But it's not there yet. Give it another million years; these things take time.

    Since they are both rodents, at what point do we begin to call them bats?

    Eventually, some of them might run out of nuts due to a drought, and they just might get a hankering for blood. Then, we will have vampire squirrels. Don't you see the silliness of it all?

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    Do you believe all species were "designed" simultaneously, or did this "designer" keep coming back with new ones?

    In a word,"yes."

    According to Billvon's line of thinking, what did bats do before they could fly? Let me quess. They were tree rats. What did the tree rats do before they had the claws to be able to grip the bark of a tree?

    If you continue to reverse this thinking, eventually there are just globs of tissue that is prey for anything that comes along. Their only chance of survival is to breed in astounding numbers.

    But wait a minute. That would require a reproductive system that has to work perfectly from the formation of this particular creature.

    Every living thing on the earth has to have the ability to reproduce itself within its lifecycle. Otherwise, it is doomed to live only one generation.
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    How old do you think the Earth is,

    I don't think that it's the millions and millions of yrs. that Billvon keeps quoting for all of these changes to happen.

    As I said in an earlier post, a majority of the fossils that we find were laid down in a few catastrophic volcanic upheavals.

    Large dinosaur skeletons are found virtually intact. This eliminates a natural death with the possibility of the bones being carried away by another animal, or eventually deteriorating, and returning to the earth.

    We only have to look at Pompei as a recent example of this.

    Insects deteriorate extremely fast when left to the elements, yet we find layer upon layer of perfectly preserved imprints, all in the same location.

    Here's a serious question. What is the difference between the fossil records of the East coast, which seems to have been formed gently, as opposed to the Rockies and the west coast, which obviously experienced violent volcanic activity?

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    Just as the african flying squirrel is being designed to gain elevation. But it's not there yet. Give it another million years; these things take time.

    Since they are both rodents, at what point do we begin to call them bats?



    Where do you get that Bats are rodents, educate yourself a little please

    I supose to some people ignorance actualy IS bliss:S:S


    http://macro.dokkyomed.ac.jp/mammal/en/taxa.html
    You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
    My Life ROCKS!
    How's yours doing?

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    Do you believe all species were "designed" simultaneously, or did this "designer" keep coming back with new ones?


    In a word,"yes."



    Yes to which? Simultaneous, xor the "designer" kept coming back with new ones as older ones went extinct?
    ...

    The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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    Do you believe all species were "designed" simultaneously, or did this "designer" keep coming back with new ones?


    In a word,"yes."



    Yes to which? Simultaneous, xor the "designer" kept coming back with new ones as older ones went extinct?

    :D:D:D
    I can see it now,,
    The intelligent Designer....Hmmmm I know I put that Diprotodon down there somewhere, fuck it, I'll just make some thing else:)

    :D:D:D:D:D
    You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
    My Life ROCKS!
    How's yours doing?

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