I've already answered this and explained about mutations as best I can. Sorry it doesn't make sense to you that some mutations can be useful, some not, depending on circumstances. For example, the mutations that give some people white skin are valuable in northern latitudes, but dangerous in the tropics. They are dangerous in the tropics becauses pale skin allows the sun light to destroy folic acid in our blood, which if you are a woman carrying a baby, can cause the baby to have neural tube defects like spina bifida, which is often fatal. Is white skin good or bad? That depends on where you live (and I'm not talking about racism here!) A mutation for long hair might be good if it showed up in a bear living in the far north. The same mutation might be fatal for an animal living in a hot desert or a steamy jungle. Everything is a matter of context.Quote:
Originally Posted by inthebox
So you no longer think this disproves evolution?Quote:
The sickle cell is analogy is a base change - genetic information is not added it is altered..
It would depend on where you added them. If you put them in the middle of the gene for hemoglobin, a valuable protein, that would be a problem. But if you put them somewhere less important, you would just have some new DNA that could mutate and be selected for or against. In once case it could be lethal and anyone who got it would die and never pass it on to any future generations. In the other case it might turn out to be useful, or not.Quote:
How about adding a hundred base pairs and see what happens?
I understand that you feel skeptical.Quote:
I am skeptical that mutations and natral selection would be able to add genetic information in a beneficial manner.
I was pointing out that there is room for a sense of wonder while still accepting the facts of evolution. Appreciating the amazing way in which life has evolved on Earth over billions of years leaves room for people with a spiritual life.Quote:
It is interesting that you use God, faith, miracle in your last post. Faith and belief in miracles would be consistent with believing evolution is a fact.
An analogy is not proof. It helps us understand and think about good questions to ask, but it is not the thing itself. The circulatory system is a little like the metal pipes in a house. But veins and arteries are not in fact metal pipes.Quote:
and the computer analagy validly proves a purposeful design.
even though windows may not be perfect , hundreds of intelligent human computer techs are tinkering with code to make it better.
That's right. But butterflies and oak trees are not playstations. And they did not sit on a shelf and "randomly become" butterflies or oak trees. They evolved over millions of years from earlier life, one step at a time.Quote:
Playstaion 1 did not just sit on a shelf and randomly become play station 3.
Likewise, Australopiths did not sit on a shelf and randomly become humans. They walked and looked for food and loved and had children, some of whom had more children if they happened to run faster (when fleeing leopards) than their cousins who were, alas, a bit slow. And some of the fast children's children had more children because they were quite a bit smarter than their third cousins, who never could remember to carry a stone to throw at a leopard...
