Barbarian observes:
Nope. Even your leaders have admitted that natural selection is a fact:
Despite the claims of evolution, the appearance of new species, antibiotic resistance in bacteria, pesticide resistance, and sickle-cell anemia are not evidence in favor of evolution. They do, however, demonstrate the principle of natural selection acting on existing traits—a concept that creationists and evolutionists agree on.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/arti...n-vs-evolution
I knew it. You cut and paste slabs of text without reading them!
I pointed out that even hard-core creationists admit the fact of natural selection. Notice that AiG does so.
I have no leaders, and I have said many times that natural selection works ON EXISTING TRAITS. Did you read that?
Yep. That's why evolution requires natural selection, acting on random mutations. Both are necessary. Natural selection is limited to acting on whatever alleles are there; mutations are the raw material on which selection takes place.
But your problem is that you haven't the faintest understanding of a simple fact: NATURAL SELECTION CANNOT CREATE NEW CHARACTERISTICS - such as flight.
Of course it can. Because it determines what alleles from one generation will be present the next, it limits the possible outcomes and thereby drives increases in fitness. That's what Hall observed in the evolution of a new enzyme system in E. coli.
Barbarian observes:
As you learned, it produced a new, irreducibly complex enzyme system. Reality trumps anyone's reasoning.
Here you are again parading round shouting that we all learned something!
No one really expects you to admit it.
(sound of goal posts being frantically repositioned)
A new enzyme system does not equate to a new genus, family order, any new SIGNIFICANT taxon.
As you learned, even AiG openly admits speciation is a fact. And the ICR has endorsed the idea that new species, genera, and families evolved from a few basic "kinds" that were on the ark. So that's not at issue, either.
All mutations are either neutral or damaging.
You've been misled on that. Most are neutral. A few are harmful. A very few are useful. Natural selection works that out. You've already been shown a list of useful ones. So there's no point in you denying the fact. Would you like to see some of them, again?
Just remind me: how many were these
Too many to count. I mentioned resistance to hardening of the arteries (mutation appeared a few hundred years ago; we know the individual to whom it happened), a mutation for stronger bones, reducing likelihood of injuries, and a new mutation in West Africa, which provides protection against malaria, without the drawbacks of the HbS allele that causes sickle cell disease in homozygotes. As you learned, any harmful ones tend to be removed because organisms having them tend to die before reproducing, while organisms with favorable mutations are more likely to leave offspring.
Then show how this ratio of good to bad could possibly produce the Cambrian explosion of new species and higher taxa.
Sure. Let's say an organism has 60,000 genes, about twice what humans have. Now let's assume that favorable mutations are one in a million. We know that most organisms have several mutations not present in either parent. (humans usually have a dozen or more).
So let's say five mutations per organism, with a population of just one million of them. That would mean five useful mutations per generation. In a thousand generations, that would be five thousand useful new alleles. Most of the invertebrates in the Cambrian would have generation times of a year or two. So in 10,000 years, you'd see 50,000 useful mutations.
Plenty of time. Remember, many of the body plans in the Cambrian were already present in the Precambrian; the real advance in the Cambrian was fully-armored bodies. And that caused disruptive selection, with lots of new species, as new ways of life became possible.
Natural selection has nothing to work on, no matter how much wishful thinking you may indulge yourself in.
They are called "mutations." Surprise
Barbarian chuckles:
And yet those bacterial evolved a useful new enzyme system. By mutation and natural selection. Creationists often consider bacteria to be cheating, because they reproduce so fast, we can see evolution of such things.
(more goal post shifting)
Ha hah haaaa! Lenski shot himself and you in the foot, didn't he?
I'm just pointing out that you're completely wrong about how new traits appear. As you learned, it is by random mutation and natural selection.
NOT A SINGLE NEW SPECIES!
As you learned earlier, speciation has been directly observed, and even the most prominent of creationist organizations admit the fact.
Barbarian points out the error of assuming no useful mutations:
In vertebrates, one really good one is the Milano mutation that provides almost complete protection against hardening of arteries. We can even trace it back to the individual, who first had the mutation.
Ha ha haaaaah! Marvellous eyewash.
As you see, it's precisely what you said was impossible.
(goal posts get shifted again)
Exactly how many new species has this fantastic, supercalaphragilisticexpealidocious mutation produced?
As you now understand, speciations have been directly observed, and the major creationist organizations admit that they are a fact.
Barbarian obeserves:
Another is the new digestive organ evolved by lizards transplanted to a new island in the Adriatic. Over a few decades, they evolved a cecal valve, not seen before in such lizards.
Another is the Hbc mutation, which provides protection from malaria without the disastrous effects of homozygousity found in Hbs.
(and... well, you know)
And where did you say the new species is to be found?
Would you like to learn about some speciations, then? The ICR mentions lions, cheetahs, leopards, bobcats, etc.
Lots more to see, if you like.
(Async wants to see the common ancestor of humans and redwoods)
Barbarian observes:
Actually you were shown, but it's not hard to do that again. It turns out that an organism still exists that is very much like the common ancestor of plants and animals. Not surprisingly, it's neither plant nor animal, but a protist, a single-celled eukaryote (animals and plants are also eukaryotes, organisms with nucleated cells)
Ah me! Such imagination! Come back brothers Grimm! Come back, Hans Christian! On second thoughts, forget it. You've been ousted by this collection of quacks.
(Async gets a bit frenetic when he learns new things)
And the fact that evolution (and you) can possibly propose the idea that says that DNA could have 'evolved' from whatever, shows just how far Darwin, Dawkins and you have climbed up the proverbial gum tree.
Barbarian chuckles:
Actually, evolutionary theory doesn't say how life began. It assumes life began, and describes how it changes. Even Darwin just supposed that God made the first living things.
You haven't been reading your wikipedia, then! Ha ha haaaah!
So you've been misled by Wikipedia, again?
Why haven't you read this, I wonder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Hmmm...
By the middle of the 19th century, the theory of biogenesis had accumulated so much evidential support, due to the work of Louis Pasteur and others, that the alternative theory of spontaneous generation had been effectively disproven.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Doesn't says it's part of evolutionary theory. Just tell us which of the four points of Darwin's theory is about the origin of life. You're on.
I know evolution theory doesn't SAY so, but how many times have you read about PREBIOTIC EVOLUTION?
Not in any of the literature. From creationists, yes. But of course, it's not part of evolutionary theory. If you want, as Darwin did, to just conclude God did it, that's perfectly consistent with evolutionary theory.
I imagine you do know something about DNA's structure and functioning.
I have taught it, yes.
How can you possibly look at that absolutely miraculous piece of molecular engineering and declare that it 'evolved'?
Because we can show that differences in the code sort out according to domains. So it has evolved over time. How it originated, as you learned, is not part of evolutionary theory.
Evidence. For example, since life appeared, it has evolved in a number of ways.
No, we're not having that bit of nonsense. 'Life appeared' begs the question of whether or not DNA 'evolved', from what I do know, but you don't.
Surprise.
And 'it evolved in a number of ways' is also a nonsensical statement. The genetic code is identical in all forms of life:
Natural Variation in the Genetic Code
Annual Review of Genetics
Vol. 21: 67-91 (Volume publication date December 1987)
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.ge.21.120187.000435
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ge.21.120187.000435?journalCode=genet
Surprise.
"... [the genetic code] is now known to be A UNIQUE AND INVARIANT SYSTEM OF RULES which is IDENTICAL IN EVERY CELL ON EARTH. No cell has ever been found that departs in any significant way from THE UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF THE CODE....
...like cilia and so many of the characteristics found in living things on earth, THE GENETIC CODE IS NOT LED UP TO GRADUALLY THROUGH A SEQUENCE OF TRANSITIONAL FORMS."
Denton, M, Evolution, A Theory In Crisis pp108, 109
As you see, Denton goofed. However, he has learned since that book:
t is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science--that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world--that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.
In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview.
Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny1998, p. 386.
In other words, no evolution has occurred in the genetic code.
Which means that IN EVERY ORGANISM, it was divinely implanted completely and in its perfection.
But, as you just learned, that's not the case. It has evolved. It's not quite the same in different domains.
Barbarian observes:
If you'd like to suppose that God just magically poofed DNA into existence, instead of using natural means as He says in Genesis, that's O.K. with evolutionary theory.
He never says so in Genesis.
Well, let's take a look...
Genesis 1:25 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.
Surprise.
Got any better ideas? And no, it's not OK with evolutionary theory, which says that there's no God.
You got suckered on that one. No such thing in evolutionary theory.
Ask Dawkins, and I'm sure he'll tell you all about that.
Dawkins says that evolutionary theory doesn't rule out God. He even admitted that he thinks God might exist.
So I ask you again - where did the powering, immaterial instinct come from? And how did it enter the genome?
"Instinct", as you learned earlier, is just a word that means "we don't know why it happens." When you supposed that a plant searching toward the light was instinct, I showed you it was a mere chemical reaction. All instinct, whenever we find out why, is like that.
You made, and are making your usual silly mistake, which shows you are chronically incapable of understanding the difference between the 'How' question and the 'Why' question.
Remember, when you said that a plant turning toward the sun was "instinct?" And then I showed you it was a simple chemical reaction. We no longer call it "instinct", because we have learned what it is.
