[_ Old Earth _] Finding common ground between God and evolution???

[Asimov]

Evidence? Eviendce changes faster than the weather. A favorite phrase of scientists is; "we now know" (that what we previously thought to be true is not.) There is much subjectivity in evidence. If someone is looking for evdience for or against something, then he will only see evidnece which seems to support his theories and reject the evidence that does not support it. That's call tunnel vision. That's why even guilty criminals can be exonnerated by a jury.

Guilty criminals are exonnerated due to lack of evidence, or circumstancial evidence.

That is not a good way to dispute science. As there are thousands of scientists working on the same idea, each trying to falsify it.

 

[Drew]

There seems to be some misunderstandings about science and the body of knowledge that the scientific method has produced. While it is (obviously) true that theories change based on new evidence and that evidence can be indeed interpreted in different ways, this in no way implies that the whole scientific enterprise is subjective and / or that empirical evidence fits equally well with all theories, rendering it therefore basically useless.

Empirical and scientific methods have greatly increased our understanding of the world. The fact that there is the occasional "step backward", rather than indicating the weakness of the scientific enterprise, is instead a measure of its strength - its commitment to go "where the evidence leads" and not give in to dogma.

People talk as if the shift from classical Newtonian physics to general relativity to quantum mechanics is a sign that science is a shaky and schizophrenic undertaking. This is simply not so. This "evolution" (no pun intended) is really about refinement and extension, not replacement.

The "data of life experience" shows us that our world is one where knowledge (whether scientific or otherwise) is almost always attained through a process of hypothesis and testing - life is largely an empirical experience.

 

[Asimov]

Good post, I agree with that, Drew.

And.....1000 posts....WOOOOOOOO!!!!

 

[HGPgal]

I also agree with Drew.

The shift from classical Newtonian physics to general relativity to quantum mechanics is a sign that science is finally discovering just how great the Creation is.

So, Asimov, give me one shred of observable evidence that evolution exists (and I don't mean natural selection/speciation).

With respect,
~~Lisa

 

[jwu]

Retroviruses reproduce by inserting their own DNA into that of a cell, which then starts building more of those viruses. Usually this is lethal to the cell, which at one time bursts.

However, occasionally it happens that the insertion of the virus' DNA is incorrect, and that it does not turn the cell into a virus factory. It survives the infection.
In even more rare cases it happens that this cell is a semen cell or an ovary (or one of those cells which are responsible for the production of those).

If this happens, then the individual that grows from it will have the inserted DNA in ALL its own cells, including the sex cells of that individual. This way the inserted sequence of DNA can spread through the population, by genetic drift, over the course of many generations (unless it is seriously detrimental, that is).

This has happened in the past, and such sequences could be identified in humans and other primates.

Humans have some unique sequences, but we also share some with chimps and gorillas. No other primate has this sequence in its genome, which is exactly what one would expect if the insertion happened before the speciation events that divided humans, chimps and gorillas from each other.
There are several other such sequences, and they fit exactly the phylogenetic tree of the theory of evolution. We do not see such sequences being shared by humans and orang utans, which gorillas and chimps do not have too.

This is a particularly good evidence for common descent, because the "common designer" argument doesn't work here. These sequences are not the result of design (or evolutionary development), but of an infection with a specific type of retrovirus.

Coincidence is extremely unlikely too, as the sequences do not only fit the predicted pattern of distribution, but they also are found in exactly the same part of the genome of the affected species - and retroviral insertions otherwise happen at a random place. One out of like six billion possible places each.

 

[HGPgal]

Recent discoveries of function in certain pseudogenes have led to the recognition, by some evolutionists, of widespread function in pseudogenes. The routine use of non-synonymous/synonymous ratios (KA/KS) does not lead to the indisputable conclusion that pseudogenes are simply pieces of junk DNA in a state of mutational ‘drift’. The complete unreliability of KA/KS as an indicator of pseudogene non-function is demonstrated by certain known functional pseudogenes.

The evolutionary storytelling of OR (olfactory receptor) genes progressively becoming pseudogenes as a consequence of the diminishing importance of olfaction in the course of primate evolution collapses in the face of recent research. Marmosets possess a strong sense of smell and numerous OR pseudogenes. Conversely, humans, for all their ‘degenerate’ sense of olfaction, have a set of ‘recently evolving’ OR genes.

Even if they are non-functional, orthologous primate urate oxidase (Uox) pseudogenes contain a phylogenetically-discordant, premature stop codon and a duplication. Pointedly, the striking discovery of the fact that the independently-derived guinea pig and human GULO pseudogenes have an astounding 36% identical ‘disablement’ is, if valid, as close as one can get to a resounding disproof of the entire evolutionistic ‘shared mistakes’ argument.

 

[jwu]

First off, plagiarism is bad

Let's take a closer look though:

ERVs are not comparable to these pseudogenes at all. They can clearly be identified as the remnants of viral infections, since they contain sequences which are characteristical for virii.

Furthermore, that article talks about a 36% similarity in the errors of those two independently deactivated genes. In case of ERVs it's 100%, and not only in one sequence but more than a dozen. Moreover, the viral sequences are not just a few hundred nucleotides long as the case cited by AIG, but tens of thousands or even millions (i don't have the exact figures right now...but a virus has to insert its entire genome into the cell, quite more than just a few hundred base pairs)

And even the case cited by AiG is not nearly as good as they present it:

When the human and guinea pig sequences (647 nucleotides in total) of the regions of exons 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12 were compared, we found 129 and 96 substitutions in humans and guinea pigs, respectively, when compared with the rat sequences (Fig. 2) [sic] [in original article]. The same substitutions from rats to both humans and guinea pigs occurred at 47 nucleotide positions among the 129 positions where substitutions occurred in the human sequences’ [emphasis added].34

So 47 of 129 substitutions were identical. Considering that there are only three different possibilites for a substitution (one of the three other nucleotides, a substitution with the same nucleotide as there was before won't do any change and won't be noticed as a substitution after all) this is well in line with what one would expect:
In case of 129 one out of three substitutions in the genomes of two different species the statistical average of identical substitutions is 129/3=43.

In this case there were 47 and not 43 - that's a minimal statistical deviation and not unusual at all. Think of it as throwing 129 dice. Statistically 43 of them should show values of 5 or 6 in average. In this case you got 47. Does that sound like an unlikely occurence? A deviation of less than 10% on a relatively small sample.

In other words, the author was either grossly incompetent or he fed you an outright lie.

 

[Vic C.]

First off, plagiarism is bad....

Yes it is. So is hotlinking photos. Sorry the photo has to go.

9 - Please keep posts down to a respectable length and provide source and/or links for your info. We want to respect copyrighted material. Refrain from all caps and bold, large fonts. Hotlinking of photos is PROHIBITED! We have a thread which explains how to post a photo.

 

[jwu]

Fixed, sorry about that; i wasn't aware of that rule yet.

There was no risk that the image would be changed to something else anyway though; i guess you're referring to the goatse one that some people use if someone hotlinks their images without their consent.

Perhaps a whitelist would help there to easen this a bit - i guess Christian websites wouldn't ever do such a thing, nor would universities or institutions which aim for an improvement of the general education.

 

[Vic C.]

Fixed, sorry about that; i wasn't aware of that rule yet....

No problem at all.

Hmm, http://i5.tinypic.com/ That's a new one for me.