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Evolution: Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do

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Lucy, the most cherished modern icon of evolution. Counterpoint: it is only 40 percent complete.

The battle between Evolution and Creation has raged since the late 1800s when Charles Darwin’s book took the world by storm. However, that debate has seen certain testimony that the public rarely hears.

Evolution and Abiogenesis

For instance, true Evolution requires that life somehow evolve from matter. In the centuries preceding Louis Pasteur’s experiments, people believed that life could spring up from inanimate objects. They actually believed that a bunch of rags left in a corner with some wheat berries would evolve into mice, or that maggots spontaneously generated from old meat. They called this theory, appropriately enough, spontaneous generation.

Modern research might lead you to believe that the idea of spontaneous generation came from Creationists. To the contrary! Francesco Redi in 1668, and then Louis Pasteur in 1859, dispelled that theory. Pasteur concluded, from his experiments, that life can only come from life. This conclusion presents a major obstacle for Evolutionists. They need some kind of generation to occur in order for life to spring from non-life.

Although it was proved invalid, many government school textbooks still contain the Miller-Urey Experiment. This experiment tried to simulate the conditions of the early Earth and prove that life could somehow come from non-life in this atmosphere. But the assumptions made within the experiment were incorrect. Even Carl Sagan, a popular evolutionist, tried to perfect the experiment – to no avail. He soon discarded it as implausible. However, the experiment remains in the textbooks today as evidence of Evolution, along with other disproven “proofs” such as Haeckel’s Embryos, Archaeopteryx, the Peppered Moth – etc, etc., etc.

Early hominids

In the absence of being able to prove life can somehow come from non-life, Evolutionists have managed to confine the argument to the ascent of man from an earlier form of life – usually some kind of ape-like creature. Hence the search for “the missing link” has taken center stage in the debate.

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We are all familiar with the anthropological chart that illustrates man’s evolution from an ape. It starts with an ape walking on all fours, to an ape walking semi-upright, to a more human-looking type of ape walking like a man, to a man with ape-like features called “Neanderthal” and then finally to “Modern day” man, or Cro-Magnon. But this chart is only an artist’s rendition. The fossil record does not support its assumptions. Of course through the years there have been claims that these missing links between apes and modern man were found.

Two aspects of our ascent from an apelike creature are critical to the hypothesis. The first assumption (or prediction) made by this hypothesis was that man’s brain grew as he evolved. Unfortunately for those that held to this hypothesis, realized that Neanderthal Man, who was supposed to be our closest relative on the evolutionary scale, had a larger brain than ours. This fact was swept under the rug as they quickly discovered that Neanderthal not only had a larger brain but was probably stronger and lived longer than we do today. However, any student going through the government school system before that idea was aborted would have been taught that Neanderthal was a valid “missing link” and proof that Evolution was indeed true.

In the quest to prove Evolution true, many missing links have been touted as proof, only to eventually fall by the wayside. One such “proof” was Piltdown Man, who was discovered in the gravel pits of Piltdown, England in 1912. Piltdown Man displayed many half-man half-apelike facial features. In 1953, Piltdown Man was exposed as a hoax. Once again, anyone attending a government school from 1912 to 1953, (41 years!) was taught that we had the proof that man evolved from apes. However, hope springs eternal among Evolutionists and the search continued.

Lucy, real and imagined

Lucy, the most cherished modern icon of evolution

“Lucy” skeleton (AL 288-1) Australopithecus afarensis, cast from Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris. Photo: User ILovedOne/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License.

In 1974, Donald Johanson, Mary Leakey and others embarked on a dig in Ethiopia and they discovered the fossil remains of an Australopithecus afarensis (a small ape), which is commonly referred to as Lucy. 40% of Lucy’s skeleton was found, but not her all-important feet. In the current hypothesis of Evolution where man evolves from an ape to a man, finding evidence that some kind of ancient ape walked on two feet is critical. It is referred to as bipedalism and bipedalism is the replacement criteria for brain size. This small glitch in their hypothesis did not stop Johanson or Leaky. When they found a human footprint in Ethiopia (yes, that’s another country), they claimed it was Lucy’s. Of course, the general public doesn’t know this. They are told that Johanson and Leakey found the “missing link.”

In 2006, a juvenile Australopithecus afarensis skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia was found, which was quickly named “Lucy’s baby,” although according to Evolutionists, this fossil is considerably older than Lucy. It was also reported that the foot and other evidence from the lower limb provided clear evidence for bipedal locomotion, although the scapula and long and curved manual phalanges clearly showed that this child was a tree climber. In 2006, at the time the report was made, the foot had not been excavated. Since then, it has. It is now being reported that the foot was “capable” of walking upright. And that, my dear friends, is a significant difference from stating that this creature preferred walking on two feet – especially when everything else about it clearly indicated it was a tree climber.

This is just a small taste of the “missing links” that prove Evolution. Literally, books have been written about all the hoaxes and frauds masquerading as proof of Evolution. Unfortunately, every time one of these links is found, it makes the news but the general public never hears about the times these links are proven to be frauds or hoaxes. Please keep in mind that every time an Evolutionist tells you that there is plenty of proof of Evolution, this may just be the proof they are referring to.

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Summing up

So, if Evolutionists haven’t been able to prove that life can come from non-life and they have exhausted the search for bipedalism and come up empty, and have abandoned the notion that brain size is an indication of evolution, what will they come up with next? Perhaps Mermaids. In a recent Discovery Channel the groundwork for such a claim has already been laid. In light of what you have just learned, the question is – will you buy it?

Why has this “theory” remained the “standard?” Perhaps because all contradictions are being censored. As a former court reporter, I can tell you that if juries only heard the prosecutor’s version of an event, juries would always convict the accused. The defendant’s version of an event may be just as compelling. It is why both sides of an event must always be told. It’s the only way to arrive at the truth. In most government schools around the country, this is not being done – censorship is strictly employed. The situation is worse at higher levels of education. Students are not only discouraged from discussing the problems with Evolution; they are humiliated and intimidated if they raise any questions to that effect. If Evolution is true, then I must ask, what are they so worried about? I’m not saying that government schools should teach Creationism; I am saying that they should revise their textbooks and eliminate the known hoaxes and frauds. They should also present the problems with the “theory” of Evolution. This logic is applied in the field of physics and great strides have been made as a result. We are drastically short-changing our students by not permitting honest discussion.

Duane Gish, creationist extraordinaire, once said:

It’s unbelievable what unbelievers have to believe to be unbelievers.

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RoseAnn Salanitri is a published author and Acquisition Editor for the New Jersey Family Policy Council. She is a community activist who has founded the Sussex County Tea Party in her home state and launched a recall movement against Senator Robert Menendez. RoseAnn is also the founder of Veritas Christian Academy, as well as co-founder of Creation Science Alive, and a national creation science speaker.

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[…] Reprinted from Conservative News and Views […]

Fergus Mason

“true Evolution requires that life somehow evolve from matter.”

Well, there’s your problem.

Life is a process which affects matter. To say it “evolves from matter” is absurd. Matter is matter. Life is a process that can affect it. The carbon in your body is exactly the same as the carbon in a lump of graphite; the difference is that your body is undergoing the process of life and the graphite is not.

“if Evolutionists haven’t been able to prove that life can come from non-life”

Actually that has nothing to do with evolution. Evolutionary theory only explains the diversity of life once it has appeared. The subject you’re looking for is abiogenesis, which is rather different; for a start it’s chemistry and biochemistry, whereas evolution is pure biology.

Evolution is a lot less confusing if you actually learn what the theory says. Your article makes it clear that you have not so far done so, because nearly every claim you make about what evolutionary theory says is false.

Fergus Mason

“How did the process start, if not from God?”

We don’t know exactly, but there are various possibilities involving non-living replicators. Personally I think an answer will be found within a decade. Some experiments aren’t all that far from producing a simple proto-cell.

“Every chain of events has a First Cause.”

Not necessarily. What causes a C14 atom to decay?

Fergus Mason

“First, ask how carbon-14 even came together. I’ll tell you: cluster decay during the same earthquakes that caused rampant transmutation in the earth’s crust.”

Uh, you know that C14 is constantly produced in the upper atmosphere when nitrogen atoms capture neutrons?

Fergus Mason

“radiogenesis alone did not produce all the carbon-14 in the atmosphere and in living things today.”

Any reason why not?

Fergus Mason

“Because something else happened to dump all that carbon-14 into the atmosphere. Something that happened 4400 years ago.”

*sigh* Evidence?

Fergus Mason

“I have laid that evidence before you, as I’m sure you remember.”

If you mean Walt Brown’s book, I’d much prefer a real apper by a qualified scientist. As you know I don’t respect Brown’s expertise (which is lacking) and I reject his conclusions, which are flawed in many ways.

MatthewJ

“I have laid that evidence before you, as I’m sure you remember.”

I take it that this is in reference to the idea that all radioactive elements on Earth arose from fusion of lighter elements in the plasma channels created underground by piezoelectric discharges caused by earthquakes during the Flood, yes?

Does this production method have explanatory power when it comes to the distribution of radioactive ores in the world today? On a macroscopic or microscopic level? For example, electric discharges through solids produce Lichtenberg figures and fulgurites. Are radioactive elements found in association with such structures or along such patterns today, and if not what explanation has been given?

The process of fusing lighter elements during the Flood to create transuranic elements which since then have decayed into all of the various radioactive isotopes that we have today would mean that the radioactive substances are a battery of sorts; another type of fossil fuel. In this case, the energy bound in the radioactive isotopes was originally some fraction of the energy present in the piezoelectric discharges at the time of the Flood. What can you tell us of the efficiency of that Flood process? I would predict that it would be rather low – much energy would have been spent in heating the rock to a plasma state, and then only some fraction of the nuclei in the plasma would fuse to heavier elements. Perhaps you or Walt can provide some rough estimates of efficiency?

This is of interest since the Hiroshima bomb, which released the energy equivalent of 15 kT of TNT, actually only ‘used’ 600 mg of uranium. That is, of the 64 kg of uranium present, only about 600 mg underwent fission, with the rest being dispersed almost immediately. So, roughly speaking, it would require the energy equivalent of 15 kT of TNT to ‘produce’ 600 mg of uranium by fusing whatever the fission products of uranium are, assuming perfect efficiency. This has implications for the survivability of a Flood event that produces all the Earth’s radioactive isotopes over a short period of time.

MatthewJ

I believe that it is the Congo, not Gabon, that has the greatest amount of lighting strikes in the world. At least according to NASA. Looking at the worldwide distribution of lightning, there doesn’t seem to be a good overlap with worldwide uranium mining, either.

Blitz

Let’s explain the term evolution first:
Cosmic evolution – origin of space, time & matter
Chemical evolution – origin of higher elements from hydrogen
Stellar and planetary evolution – origin of stars and planets
Organic evolution – origin of life
Macro evolution – changing from one kind of plant or animal into another
Micro evolution – variations within kinds (the only scientific one that has been observed)

Dr. Robert Gentry
link to halos.com
– Creation’s Tiny Mystery by Robert V. Gentry
(Shows that the earth HAD to be created instantly)

Dr. Russell Humphreys
link to creationresearch.org
– Starlight & Time by Dr. Russell Humphreys Ph.D.
(Made many predictions about magnetic fields on various planets and moons based on them being created a few thousand years ago, proven correct as probes reached them)

Dr. Walt Brown
link to creationscience.com
– In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood by Dr. Walt Brown
(Very well thought out, also made many predictions based on his theory several of which also proven true)

Dr. Kent Hovind
OK he did write one book that I am aware of (it was not very good), and he currently is in jail for tax evasion, however you can find the good in a lot of his seminars and debates. He does go off the deep end on some of the stuff he believes, but I suggest watching on YouTube:
– Lies in the textbooks
– The age of the earth
– Reasons why evolution is stupid
– Several of his debates
– His seminar classes
(Proves dating methods have faulty assumptions, shows many places where the earth has limits on how old it could be based on science)

Creation Ministries International
link to creation.com
link to creation.com
link to creation.com
link to creation.com
(Thousands of articles, references to scientific studies, etc.)

Fergus Mason

“Let’s explain the term evolution first…”

And how many of the things you list (taken directly from Mr Hovind, I notice) are actually related to the theory of evolution? Would that by any chance only be the last two, which biologists in any case regard as being exactly the same thing? Stellar evolution, for example, has nothing to do with neo-Darwinism. In fact it’s a completely different process covered by a completely different branch of science, which is why Hovind’s claims of a “general theory of evolution” that covers both is so stupid.

Fergus Mason

“That’s a cop-out, and you know that.”

Nope.

“Any theoretical scientist worth his salt tries to come up with a general unifying theory of everything.”

Well no Terry, not at all. What sort of theory would unify, say, gravity and contagious disease? The theory of evolution describes the diversity of life through natural selection acting on random mutations. To try to “unify” that with stellar evolution, which describes the life cycles of stars based on progressive fusion of heavier elements, would be the act of a moron. The two are quite simply not related.

“If modern evolutionists say they don’t, then they are either liars or cowards.”

No, they’re just being honest. Evolutionary biologists don’t try to apply their work to stars and astrophysicists don’t care about Galapagos finches. The link exists only in Mr Hovind’s fevered little mind.

Fergus Mason

“Then they willfully blind themselves to this central flaw in their reasoning: before anything can change, it must begin.”

Yes, of course. However life obviously did begin, so evolutionary theory does fine as an explanation of how it’s changed since then.

“How, without God?”

I have no idea, beyond the likelihood that it involved non-living replicators. However abiogenesis is by no means implausible, so I don’t really see a problem for evolution here. Even if a god did create the first life form, at this point it’s pretty clear that from then on it evolved in accordance with Neo-Darwinian evolution.

You completely ignored my point about the absurdity of trying to “unify” biological and stellar evolution, of course.

Fergus Mason

“Yet you take your cue from evolutionists who refuse to connect biological evolution with organic, organic with chemical, and chemical with stellar.”

*sigh*

Terry, they refuse to connect them because beyond the fact that they both involve atoms (which are explained by atomic theory) there is no connection.

Living things evolve because the environment applies natural selection to random mutation through the mechanism of differential survival rates. Stars evolve because stars of different masses and chemical compositions go through a series of fusion stages, for example H+H=He and He+He=Be+He=C. No theory can explain both because they are different. That evolutionary theory can’t explain stellar evolution is not a flaw in the theory because it isn’t supposed to explain it. We have another theory to explain stars, and the fact that it can’t explain the diversity of life isn’t a flaw either. It would be like saying the germ theory of disease is wrong because it doesn’t explain magnetism, and quite frankly it’s because of statements like yours that no scientists take creationists seriously.

Fergus Mason

“But until you can explain how life originated without Divine help, any discussion of how it changes without Divine help, or the extent of or limits on that change, is strictly academic.”

The theory of evolution only requires that life exists, which it plainly does. Whether it began to exist with or without divine help is irrelevant. The origin of life is abiogenesis and is not part of evolutionary theory.

Many scientists, including Richard Dawkins, have hypothesised that the origin of life involved a similar process of natural selection acting on non-living replicators, which are known beyond any doubt to exist. My personal opinion is that they’re probably right, but the fact is that right now we just don’t know how life originated. However as the theory of evolution has nothing to do with how life originated, that isn’t a problem for it.

Fergus Mason

“He knows perfectly well that he jolly well better come out with a theory of origins, if he expects anyone to take him seriously.”

Why? He’s an evolutionary biologist; the origin of life isn’t his field, and in any case people have been taking him seriously for over 40 years.

Fergus Mason

“They often fail to see that some of their “insights” break the laws in other fields.”

That’s what peer review is for.

Now, what laws in other fields does evolutionary theory break that aren’t also being broken by, say, the germ theory of disease?

Fergus Mason

“The germ theory doesn’t affect the evolutionary paradigm.”

Agreed. However germ theory, like evolutionary theory, requires life to exist in the first place, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to get sick and die messily all over the place. Does the current lack of an explanation for abiogenesis put germ theory in doubt? I don’t think so. Like evolutionary theory, it takes the existence of life as a given and goes from there. A theory is an explanation of one aspect of nature; to call one invalid because it doesn’t explain the origin of all the demonstrably existent objects it describes is a form of reductio ad absurdam, which as you know is a logical fallacy. Evolution explains the diversity of life. That life exists is not in dispute. That is sufficient for the theory.

“But the Big Bang theory does, as necessary as it is to allow enough time for the cosmic crapshoot to take place.”

Not at all. The Big Bang theory dates back to 1931, but it was already known by that point that Earth was billions of years old and most astronomers believed that the universe was either much older than Earth or actually eternal. Prof Lemaitre just gave us the tools to work out how old the universe is. If the Big Bang theory was disproven tomorrow (it won’t be; that the Big Bang happened is not in any doubt and hasn’t been since 1964) it wouldn’t provide the slightest shred of evidence for a young Earth, because we know from multiple lines of evidence that Earth is 4.54 billion years old.

Fergus Mason

“I, as you very well know, challenge every one of your alleged lines of evidence for an old earth.”

I know you do. However that ends up with you denying atomic theory and the observed chemical composition of the Sun, so I see your belief in a young Earth as a faith position and no more.

Fergus Mason

“I don’t deny atomic theory. But I clearly apply it differently from how uniformitarians apply it.”

There isn’t a different way to apply it, Terry. It describes atoms.

“Same with the Sun’s chemistry. I don’t deny observations, but I draw vastly different conclusions.”

Such as? That the Sun doesn’t contain a wide variety of elements as well as the expected helium and hydrogen?

In happier news, it’s nice to see that the IDF are supporting the British Army in the shape of Captain Harry Wales. Hopefully it signals a new age in their hitherto chequered relations with the rest of the world. The third photo in the slideshow is the one you want: [censored]

Fergus Mason

Uh, you censored a link to the Daily Telegraph?

Fergus Mason

“To an off-color photograph, yes.”

Off-colour? You’d see worse at any beach. It was just soldiers – British and, interestingly, Israeli – making a gesture of support for Prince Harry.

Fergus Mason

“By being not only out of uniform, but uncovered?”

By “uncovered” I assume you mean naked, as their bits were all covered by strategically placed firearms?

Yes, they were expressing their support for Prince Harry after his privacy was violated by some mercenary little trout while he was, er, uncovered in Las Vegas.

aynrandatheist

Terry, you really should stay away from scientific blog posts. The last scientific post I read of yours, “Higgs Boson: So What,” contained so many technical errors, like calling the collider an atom smasher (totally incorrect), that you might as well have been describing a toaster. From this post, it is also clear that you are not a scientist. You then go on to claim in the comments that the process of life must have a beginning, something that itself you believe was started by an entity that had no beginning (i.e., God). You have to be consistent here, Terry. Given that you’re fine believing that God never “started” (or was never created), it’s hard to understand why you feel that all other things/processes must have a finite creation/starting point. For once, I’d have to suggest that you take the advice of Ayn Rand (whom you seem to idolize, despite being a staunch atheist) and ditch the God explanation on this one and go with INFORMED (might be time to crack open the intro bio textbook), consistent, rational logic.

Bob Jones

“The last scientific post I read of yours, ‘Higgs Boson: So What,’ contained so many technical errors”

Yes, the science articles on this site usually have tons of mistakes.

“We are all familiar with the anthropological chart that illustrates man’s evolution from an ape. It starts with an ape walking on all fours, to an ape walking semi-upright, to a more human-looking type of ape walking like a man, to a man with ape-like features called ‘Neanderthal’ and then finally to ‘Modern day’ man, or Cro-Magnon.”

No, humans did not evolve from Neanderthals. That’s not what evolutionary theory says. Neanderthals are cousins of modern humans, which some biologists consider to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens. There is some evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and the earliest humans, but our relationship with Neanderthals is certainly not as simple and linear as you suggest.

aynrandatheist

Two Points:

Blitz, here are some other great websites with “evidence” supporting the existence of Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster: link to bfro.net and link to nessie.co.uk

These websites – along with the ones you offered – are about as scientifically rigorous and credible as theonion.com. None of this creation hogwash is supported by the scientific community…because it’s NOT science. Much like Greek mythology that was debunked ages ago, Christian creationism – and Mormon creationism, Scientology creationism and all other VERY different religious creation stories that you seem to have no problem dismissing (at least we agree there!) – is a myth fabricated by man to give us answers. Why? Well Terry hits the nail right on the head – because people like him WANT answers!

Terry, atheism most certainly will NEVER give you those answers. Because Atheism – by most people’s interpretation – would never support the fabrication of answers. Now SCIENCE might give us some of these answers one day. It might not. Much like man in the past did not know the origin of fire, the curvature of the earth, the cause of gravity, etc., we still don’t have all of the answers to the universe’s questions, and we likely never will. I’m guessing you would support the myths explaining the aforementioned phenomena despite us now KNOWING that these fabricated explanations are entirely false. You have every right to take this approach. I’m sure people at the time were complacent being spoon-fed these mythical answers. As I’ve already pointed, you are clearly not a scientist. I, however, am a scientist, thus I – and my millions of colleagues around the world – cannot adopt fanciful and mythical explanations to perplexing questions. No, we will CONTINUE relying on rationality, empiricism, and the scientific method to CONTINUE pushing the envelope of discovery for all of humanity…even for those who would rather believe that these life-saving/alerting discoveries are driven by religious sorcery ;)

But I shall end with a fitting quote from an interview with Ayn Rand:

“Interviewer: In that you are here with your certainty saying there is no god and anybody who believes there is is… It’s almost a suggestion that you believe that you are foolish if you believe there is and I think that’s a little arrogant and condescending.

Ayn Rand: No. The arrogance and foolishness… I would have to tell the truth. I think it’s a bad sign psychologically. It is a sign of a psychological weakness, a man who is afraid to stand on his own mind and has no responsibility. Because it is the absence of proof that brings on false thinkers. Every argument for the existence of god is incomplete, improper and has been refuted and people go on and on because they want to believe. Well, I regard it as evil to place your emotions, your desire above the evidence of what your mind knows.”

Well, Ayn Rand seems quite confortable in this assertion, Terry.

Blitz

aynrandatheist, I see you took the time to actually look at the sites I suggested (not). Both Dr. Gentry and Dr. Humphreys are brilliant scientists. There is absolutely tons of data that support creation, if you would admit to yourself you are not all-knowing and maybe there is some data out there you are not aware of. If you have the answers to everything, you are deceiving yourself and you are not using scientific method. As for your name, you would have to an all-knowing all-seeing being to absolutely KNOW that God does not exist. You would be better to call yourself agnostic not atheist.

Fergus Mason, I used Hovind’s definitions of evolution so we knew what we are talking about. Don’t use Hovind if you do not like him.
The first five types of evolution absolutely have something to do with your definition (Macro evolution and
Micro evolution). Because when you realize that the other four could never have happened, you lose all the time you need for Macro-evolution to occur.
Talk about stupid is arranging skeletons in some order from smaller to larger, then saying this is how we evolved, is real stupid. There is no scientific method, just guessing then believing it.
Talking about C14, the earth is not in equilibrium yet. It is estimated it would have been in 30,000 years. C14 is one of many indicators that we are on a young earth.
I really hope you folks take the time to read.

Blitz

Terry, it amazes me that you ran into liberals in Yale!? Say it isn’t so!
Yes I am so perplexed what is passed of as scientific method. If we are 80% Christian in this country, why are we teaching lies and the evolution religion in our schools. Yes, it is a religion because there are too many leaps of faith you have to take to believe it. Very unscientific!

Fergus Mason

“If we are 80% Christian in this country, why are we teaching lies and the evolution religion in our schools.”

Because science isn’t a popularity contest. It wouldn’t matter if 99% of Americans were creationists; creationism is not science.

Fergus Mason

“They gave me a set of fasteners and asked me to sort them out into an evolutionary “tree.””

That’s actually a fairly common exercise to teach about primitive and derived characteristics, and it’s a good one. Obviously fasteners don’t reproduce with modifications, but they do get changed and more successful changes are preserved, while less successful ones disappear; that’s why I’m fairly confident that you,like me, don’t own any shirts with chocolate buttons.

Fergus Mason

“But that exercise does not prove anything.”

It’s not meant to prove anything! It’s meant to make you think about the difference between primitive and derived characteristics. It’s a learning task, not a piece of evidence. Fasteners – or playing cards, cigarette lighters, whatever – are used because they’re outside the field of evolutionary biology and they make you look at the concept of characteristics rather than the characteristics themselves.

Fergus Mason

“But here’s the big weakness: when my TA’s ran that exercise with several of us in a teaching lab, no two taxonomic solutions were alike.”

Then you were doing it wrong. What sort of fasteners were you dealing with? Clothing fasteners? Rivets? Screws? It’s simple to categorise any of them.

“And your discussion of “primitive” versus “advanced””

That was primitive and derived, Terry. There’s a big difference. “Primitive,” in this context, means ancestral. Derived means not ancestral. For example lungs are a primitive feature of dolphins but a derived feature of lungfish, despite being more recent in dolphins.

“violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. How can something better informed, therefore more orderly, arise from something less orderly that occurred earlier?”

The Second Law of thermodynamics says no such thing, and you know it. It talks about energy unavailable for work in an isolated system. It has nothing to do with order at all. Which has higher entropy – water or ice? Which is more ordered?

Bob Jones

Terry,

Please stop spreading this misinformation about the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics says nothing about “order” or “information” in the sense relevant to this discussion. It says that entropy (technically, a quantity proportional to the logarithm of the number of accessible quantum states of a system) is nondecreasing.

Bob Jones

“But do you deny that information decreases in an irreversible process, absent some kind of information input?”

What’s your definition of “information”? I certainly do not deny the second law of thermodynamics. Physicists have ways of defining the information content of a system, but those definitions have nothing to do with the kind of “information” you’re talking about. There’s no law of physics that says DNA can’t evolve by natural selection.

Fergus Mason

“show me a computer operating system that wrote itself.”

As an analogy that fails utterly, for the simple reason that computer operating systems don’t give birth to randomly altered versions of themselves which then need to survive and, in their turn, reproduce in the environment.

Fergus Mason

“Random? There’s your problem. Nothing is truly random; else it would still be chaotic.”

Mutation is random. What prevents a descent into chaos is natural selection, which is the key principle of evolutionary theory but one that creationists tend to ignore.

Fergus Mason

“somehow DNA must start with all the information it could possibly have.”

It does: CGAT.

“Selection removes information.”

Not at all. Selection removes maladapted alleles. Mutation can add or remove genetic material, which I suspect is what you really mean when you say “information.”

“And how can any amount of information write itself?”

That depends on what you mean by “information.” Bear in mind that the “information” contained in DNA is just a long molecule that catalyses protein production.

Fergus Mason

“CGAT are the letters.”

No actually, they’re abbreviations for the names of molecules.

“DNA uses those letters to form enough “words” to fill all the volumes in ten Libraries of Congress.”

Only if you assume that DNA is a language, which it isn’t. It’s a molecule which acts as a catalyst to produce mRNA and, in turn, proteins.

Fergus Mason

“I used Hovind’s definitions of evolution so we knew what we are talking about.”

That’s a strange assumption, because one person who definitely doesn’t know what he’s talking about is Mr Hovind.

If you want a definition of evolution let’s go with “A change in allele frequencies within a population.” That one has the advantage of being correct.

Blitz

That is a bizarre definition, which boils down to micro-evolution. If all you truly mean is that there is genetic variation, then you have no argument from someone who believes in creation. However, once you take a leap of faith to say that well all these variations will create a new species you just left science. You believe this is how it might have happened. That is not scientific. I wish I could remember where I read the study, but scientist were trying to push as far as they could a flower into something different. Within a generation or two being left alone the flower returned to what it was originally. There is a natural limit no matter how many variations you introduce, it returns to normal. To clarify I am talking cross breeding not gene splicing. All you look at in allele frequencies is data already in the gene, no new information is being added. To change into something different new information NEEDS to be added. Where does this come from? No mutation has ever been should to be beneficial. Mutations are a loss, or a doubling of information already there (two headed goat for example).

From above: “But that exercise does not prove anything.”
“It’s not meant to prove anything!”
Then why do it? It is a useless exercise just like arranging skeletons in some preconceived order. It is a useless exercise.

Fergus Mason

“No mutation has ever been should (sic) to be beneficial.”

That’s just nonsense. How about antibiotic resistance in bacteria? How about the Cit+ mutation in Lenski’s E. coli experiment? How about the CCR5D32 mutation that makes 16% of Swedes immune to the HIV1 virus?

“Then why do it?”

To practice a technique, of course. I should have thought that was obvious.

Fergus Mason

“That is a bizarre definition”

No, that’s the correct definition.

“There is a natural limit no matter how many variations you introduce, it returns to normal.”

Rubbish. Leave a chihuaha alone for as many generations as you like; it’s never going to become a wolf again. Kohlrabi will never go back to being a wild brassica. I could gibe you hundreds of examples along those lines.

MatthewJ

“Are naturally selected genes the same as mutant genes? Considering the typical methods of mutation, I doubt that.”

What do you mean by this statement?

Fergus Mason

“Galapagos finches seem to shorten or lengthen their beaks with weather conditions.”

Good, you’re on the right track! Now let’s go a little farther. Why might changing weather conditions give a reproductive advantage to a finch with a different-shaped beak?

Fergus Mason

“Only that mutation usually makes a mess of a gene, so that it functions at less than par. Hardly the sort of material that anyone would select for.”

Unless, of course, the gene in question codes for a cellular structure that lets the HIV virus attach to the cell wall?

Also bear in mind that functioning at “less than par” is very dependant on the environment for many genes. Messing up a gene for coat colour could, for example, result in a darker coloured animal that can hide better in deep forest. Now, guess where melanistic leopards are usually found?

Fergus Mason

“It’s an external pressure.”

Yes, in that climate variations change the nature of available food.

“But now consider this: why should those finches change back once the weather changes?”

For exactly the same reason, of course. If the climate, and therefore the food, change back to the original conditions those finches best adapted to the original conditions will have a competitive advantage.

MatthewJ

“Only that mutation usually makes a mess of a gene, so that it functions at less than par. Hardly the sort of material that anyone would select for.”

So, what do you think the origin of a ‘naturally selected’ (as opposed to ‘artifically selected’, I suppose) gene is, if not mutation?

Fergus Mason

“The selection is by external pressure. Something from outside that makes one gene more valuable than another to doing the most important job: survival.”

Exactly right!

MatthewJ

I’m aware of the process of selection. You seemed to be drawing a distinction between ‘mutant genes’ and ‘naturally selected genes'(“Are naturally selected genes the same as mutant genes? Considering the typical methods of mutation, I doubt that..”). Perhaps that’s not what you meant.

I would say that random mutation produces ‘mutant genes’, and natural selection works to remove those mutant genes that decrease survival. Those genes, mutant or not, that persist in the population are the ‘naturally selected genes’. It was my impression that you were saying that the two sets arose from different sources somehow.

I think that your definition of genetic information is so poorly stated as to make it useless, but working from within what I think your paradigm is, I would suggest that mutation adds random bits, and selection removes those bits that are _not_ ‘information’.

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