[templelane]

Hi, michealb the difference between species is that they cannot interbreed to produce viable offspring.

When two populations diverge their genomes can also diverge because of genetic drift or the founding animals not containing all the population genetic diversity possible add into that environmental pressures (to have long tails or something) and the two populations gradually change. This is the basics of speciation, eventually if you tried to mate two individuals from these populations you won't be able too, or you can but produce a sterile hybrid- this means they have become different species.

Apparently there is some contention about the definition of a species (real scientific controversy) but the breeding thing is the most generally accepted I have found.

I hope this helps michealb :)

And Inthebox stop using things that cannot reproduce to prove the fallacy if evolution- it makes you look like you don't know what you are talking about.

I have to thank you for that very interesting blog summarizing a recent scientific breakthrough- very exciting! I have no idea how it abets your argument but it is an absolute gem. Such elegant research.

[michealb]

Templelane,

Thanks, I guess I should be more clear. The point I was trying to make was where is the clear dividing line between species that makes it impossible to for one of them to vary to the point that they would be considered two difference species because for creationism or ID to be correct there would have to be a barrier that prevent small gradual changes from making a new species. The other point was that humans and animals are closer than most people realize and while a human and a mouse might seem to be far apart they share 97% of the same gene coding.

[inthebox]

Templelane:


This is from the link I provided:


"Well, it had to overcome something in human cells. There was something about human cells that were different from chimpanzee cells that HIV-1 needed to EVOLVE around. Whats that something? Um... something. BUT THATS WHAT HAPPENED! Thats why Vpu forms a viroporin!


Notice the WORDING.


It betrays evolutionary ASSUMPTIONS. This is not scientific.


Now say, like the Reverend Wright, I assumed the US government created HIV, the wording would be:


"Well, the US government had to overcome something in human cells. There was something about human cells that were different from chimpanzee cells that HIV-1 needed to adapt to. What's that something? Um... something. But that's what happened! That's why the US government developed Vpu which forms a viroporin!



Now if this were a scientific experiment with results where is the methods sections?
Where are the lab results? Where is the statistical analysis and discussion of potential weaknesses, and confounding factors of this scientific experiment.


Have they isolated an HIV from people, say in the 1800s, in which this HIV does not have VPU? And now they have a 1990s version of HIV that has VPU?


All the article did was compare SIV VPU to HIV VPU. They even say the are genetically and biochemically distinct. Yet they pass it off as "evolution."

[inthebox]

Michaelb:


What's The Difference Between A Human And A Fruit Fly?


"Professor Stumpf adds: "Understanding the human genome definitely does not go far enough to explain what makes us different from more simple creatures. Our study indicates that protein interactions could hold one of the keys to unraveling how one organism is differentiated from another."


Amazing isn't it. Where DNA and genetic information comes from, scientists don't know. Now they are discovering ERVs in the once called "junk Dna." Add to the complexity, the protein interactions.

[Galveston1]

It's not about considering all the facts, it's about what is considered science and what isn't. There is nothing scientific about saying "god said let there be light, and there was light" or "designer did it". Those statements don't fit in with the scientific method at all. Beyond that, the people pushing for ID are unable to separate ID from creationism - even you can't do it on a silly board on the intertubes. You can't teach creationism in schools - it's religion, plain and simple.

Plus, ID/Creationism can't ever be proven, unless the designer decides to make a personal appearance on the 5:00 news and say, "Hey! Check me out, and check out what I can do!". The scientific theories and laws taught in school are provable - god/designer isn't provable.

I keep saying it, and you keep ignoring it, or keep thinking it's an insult - ID isn't science, it doesn't belong in a science class, no matter what. Honestly, it's not an insult. ID doesn't fit the very definition, the very basic criteria to be science. Right or wrong, it still isn't science. Creationism is religion, it doesn't belong in a public school (when taught as fact).

Belief in the theory of evolution is a religion. And just to show how much hypocrisy is involved in dedicated evolutionists (no personal reference to you) when they have posted in these threads that they have no problem if creation is taught in some class other than science, consider this. In Texas, some schools will offer Bible studies as literature and history, as an ELECTIVE, and already some are screaming about it. The last time I looked, study of evolution was NOT an elective.

[ordinaryguy]

Belief in the theory of evolution is a religion.

No, it is not, and scientists don't "believe in" it any more than they "believe in" the theory of general relativity or quantum mechanics. Scientific theories are always being used and tested and extended and revised and applied in new ways. When experimental results or measurements and observations of phenomena are repeatedly found to be inconsistent with some aspect of existing theory, it is revised and new experiments and measurements are devised to test whether the new formulation provides a more consistent and comprehensive explanation than the old one did. This process of testing and revision is ongoing and never-ending. It is an entirely different sort of endeavor than religious belief. Your insistence that they are the same demonstrates how little you understand about how science is actually done, and what the role and function of theory is in scientific practice. Such arguments may be convincing to your fellow religionists, but to working scientists, they are simply absurd.

[michealb]

Amazing isn't it. Where DNA and genetic information comes from, scientists don't know. Now they are discovering ERVs in the once called "junk Dna." Add to the complexity, the protein interactions.

Complexity doesn't prove design though. Snowflakes are extremely complex looking but snowflakes forming doesn't clash with a particular religious faith. If evolution didn't clash with faith there would be no issue with it. Which is why ID is religion not science.

We could make the same argument that your making about evolution about our theories of gravity. I mean we don't know where the first cell comes from and we don't know where gravity comes from. We don't have all of the middle fossils and planes fly despite gravity. So using this logic evolution and gravity must be faulty theories.

[Galveston1]

[
Plus, ID/Creationism can't ever be proven, unless the designer decides to make a personal appearance on the 5:00 news and say, "Hey! Check me out, and check out what I can do!". The scientific theories and laws taught in school are provable - god/designer isn't provable.

We are pretty far from my original point, BUT:
What you just said, He did in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Eyewitnesses left a record for succeeding generations. You just refuse to accept the record.

You cannot prove that man is the product of evolution. It is a, shall we say, quantum leap from showing mutation of microscopic cells to production of man or any other animal.
You keep talking about laborotories. Take some raw materials and make us a man! Too hard? Okay, make us an earthworm.

Talk about circular reasoning. When pressed to answer difficult questions about how something came to be, the answer comes back, "we don't have to explain it, it's evolution".

If evolution is not a religion, then the BELIEF in it as an answer to ourselves and everything around us IS a religion. See how zealously it is defended, and what great faith is expressed that evolution will one day provide the answers that we seek? And like any other religion it refuses to admit that any other religion has any merit.

[inthebox]

Complexity doesn't prove design though. Snowflakes are extremely complex looking but snowflakes forming doesn't clash with a particular religious faith. If evolution didn't clash with faith there would be no issue with it. Which is why ID is religion not science.

We could make the same argument that your making about evolution about our theories of gravity. I mean we don't know where the first cell comes from and we don't know where gravity comes from. We don't have all of the middle fossils and planes fly despite gravity. So using this logic evolution and gravity must be faulty theories.

Complexity orders of magnitude more than Darwin could ever think possible makes evolution less likely. Francis Crick of DNA double helix fame, an atheist, can't explain DNA - He, like Dawkins, try to explain it in the even more unprovable theory of panspermia. How did ETI get their "intelligence" then becomes the question.




Planes fly because of acceleration and lift. It is reproducible - lift that is. All you have to do is while driving down the road at say more than 40 mph stick your arm out, bend your elbow out 90 degrees, wrist straight and point your fingers in the direction of travel.
To get lift bend your wrist back/ fingers pointing higher.

Every invention, technological advance, in humanity is by intelligence and design.

The internet was not formed by the chance happening of crossed cable wires. An automobile is not a random collection of metal, plastics, rubber, and composites. Today's cellphone with camera, video, email, mp3, address book etc. is designed on purpose. It was not the spontaneous melding of rotary phone, TV, radio etc...

I'm showing my age: :)


Remember when you had to open cartons of OJ or milk. Spread the end of one side then press inward and hope that a spout opens up? Someone got tired of prying the spout open raggedly and decided to put a hole with a screw cap on the top instead. Intelligence and by design.

Remember taping pieces of paper notes up on a wall or on the fridge, someone got the bright idea to put glue on one side of that paper and that became "post it notes" / 3M - again intelligence and design.

It is even more complex in nature. Dolphin sonar, bat echolation. Evolution cannot reproduce the development of a single eye let alone 2 to provide depth perception. Then when you cosider a "primitive" fly's compound eye compared to ours...

These are the obvious visible examples we can see and relate to, but try taking graduate level neurophysiology, or biochemistry and you will be even more amazed. :D

[ordinaryguy]

When pressed to answer difficult questions about how something came to be, the answer comes back, "we don't have to explain it, it's evolution".

On the contrary, it's the creationist who refuses to provide an explanation. "God made it that way" is not an explanation, it's a statement of religious faith.

A biologist would never say "we don't have to explain it". Biological science is all about finding better explanations of how life works. Evolutionary theory has proved to be a very powerful tool for developing and refining those explanations. Still, it is only a tool, not an article of faith, and it has been and continues to be refined, revised, and improved.

[ordinaryguy]

I'm showing my age: :)

You're showing far more than that, I'm afraid. By simply repeating your same arguments, even after their fallacies have been pointed out, you're showing an inability or unwillingness to engage in constructive debate and discussion.

[Fr_Chuck]

I am sorry, the issue here is that one that will not accept creation though design ( that was the theme of the question some 14 pages ago) have no real proof or idea how it could have happened. How one cell first even started life, and how that one cell changed the DNA to become trees, animals, fish, birds and all the billions of variations of those.

Why 1000's of types of grass, and not just one that worked best in one area, way 1000's of types of tress, esp some that have often no useful purpose. Why all the variations of fish at the same depth levels.

And when that cell first became that first rabbit after a million years, was it a male rabbit or a female and where did the other rabbits come from to make other ones ** OK not rabbits but get the idea.

The simple fact is that an idea of it all just happened, has to be much more silly than an idea that there is some control factor over it, that developed things in some order.

Reading the supporting ideas of DNA no, honestly inthebox makes a lot more sense to someone who wants to see it.

[ordinaryguy]

The simple fact is that an idea of it all just happened, has to be much more silly than an idea that there is some control factor over it, that developed things in some order.

If you think that evolutionary theory says nothing more than "it all just happened", you need to study it in a lot more depth and detail. Of course things developed "in some order". The interplay between planetary conditions and living organisms is wonderfully complex and ongoing. The changing physical environment is the "control factor" that sets the terms of "success" for living organisms at any point in time.

Personally, I don't mind if people use god as the "explanation" for everything we don't yet understand. But it does annoy me when they continue to insist on using him for that purpose even after perfectly good scientific explanations are available.

To me, the real mystery is why living organisms want so desperately to survive. If you want to say that it's god that makes them do it, I'm OK with that.

[jillianleab]

We are pretty far from my original point, BUT:
What you just said, He did in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Eyewitnesses left a record for succeeding generations. You just refuse to accept the record.

It is far from the original point, but there have been hundreds of people since Jesus who claim to be the son of god, or claim to speak to god and "know things", or even claim to be god. Jesus was not god, so he doesn't fit my example of GOD appearing on the 5:00 news. Any loon at this point in time can make the news and say they are god, or the son of god, or a messenger from god, etc (Jim Jones claimed to be Jesus reincarnated, for example). So it's not that I refuse to accept the record, I refuse to accept the messenger because I don't trust it. But that's another topic! If you want to go further with this, PM me or start a new thread, I don't want this one closed because we get off topic. :)

You cannot prove that man is the product of evolution. It is a, shall we say, quantum leap from showing mutation of microscopic cells to production of man or any other animal.
You keep talking about laborotories. Take some raw materials and make us a man! Too hard? Okay, make us an earthworm.

It is a quantum leap from microscopic cells to man or earthworm. Give me a few billion years and I'll give you a man. That's what you need to understand, it's not an overnight thing.

Talk about circular reasoning. When pressed to answer difficult questions about how something came to be, the answer comes back, "we don't have to explain it, it's evolution".

Sorry, but you're wrong here. As OG said, scientists don't say "we don't have to explain it"; they explain it, you refuse to accept the explanation (which is fine). Sometimes science will say "we don't know yet", but that doesn't mean "we aren't working on figuring it out" or "we won't ever know that". And theists use the argument you state all the time; "It's too complex, god did it. We don't understand how this could happen, god did it. Something bad happend, it was god's will. Something good happened, god did it." There's no credit for the individual, no accountability, no thought involved in saying "god did it"

If evolution is not a religion, then the BELIEF in it as an answer to ourselves and everything around us IS a religion. See how zealously it is defended, and what great faith is expressed that evolution will one day provide the answers that we seek? And like any other religion it refuses to admit that any other religion has any merit.

I can only speak for myself here, but I'm not defending evolution, I'm defending the scientific method and what belongs in a science class. I don't care if you ever accept evolution as fact, and I don't care if you children and grandchildren and so on never accept it as fact. I just want you and everyone else to recognize what is science and what is not science. If you studied evolution a little more, you might understand it's claims, which might help you understand why it's being taught and why it is, in fact, science. That might also help you understand why ID and Creationism are not science. You might not ever believe it, but that doesn't mean you can't understand it.

The reason we say evolution will provide the answers we seek in time is because that's what science does. I'm not saying ID doesn't have merit, I'm saying it's not science, so it doesn't belong in a science class. I'm also saying those of you who push for ID being taught are disguising creationism which you know is religion and you know doesn't belong in a public school. And if you don't know that, you need to spend more time in a government class.

Belief in the theory of evolution is a religion. And just to show how much hypocrisy is involved in dedicated evolutionists (no personal reference to you) when they have posted in these threads that they have no problem if creation is taught in some class other than science, consider this. In Texas, some schools will offer Bible studies as literature and history, as an ELECTIVE, and already some are screaming about it. The last time I looked, study of evolution was NOT an elective.

I have no problem with teaching the bible as an elective in schools depending on how it's done. I imagine most of the people you say are screaming about it probably object to the method of how it's being taught (granted, some will scream about it just because it's the bible). If the bible is studied in school as a historical document and the impact of it on modern and past societies is discussed, I have no problem with that. If, however, it's taught as fact (like church bible study) and no other religious texts are allowed to be taught, we have a problem. And no, evolution isn't an elective because it's not a class. Are you saying you want science or biology to be an elective now? Sorry kids, you don't get to learn about the human digestive system, because this class also mentions evolution. Come on...

[jillianleab]

inthebox the problem with your examples is you are talking about material things. Of course milk cartons with screw caps are intelligence by design, a milk carton is a thing, and it's not a biological or organic thing. Your examples prove nothing for or against evolution or ID.

[excon]

Hello:

Ever since the beginning of time, there's what the priests/shaman/witch doctors/believers say, and there's what science said...

Somewhere between then and now, the believers accepted some science as fact. Clearly, you don't believe the sun is God, and you don't believe the earth is the center of the universe. Do you?

If you don't, why not?? It WAS heresy to claim the earth revolved around the sun... Just as I think you're saying evolution is heresy... How long is it going to take you to get it this time? Or is THIS where you make your last stand?

excon

[ordinaryguy]

I can only speak for myself here, but I'm not defending evolution, I'm defending the scientific method and what belongs in a science class. I don't care if you ever accept evolution as fact, and I don't care if you children and grandchildren and so on never accept it as fact. I just want you and everyone else to recognize what is science and what is not science.

This is a vitally important point, and one that I wholeheartedly second. The really important question is not about particular historical facts, i.e. "How did life begin on this planet, and how has it changed over time?"

The real issue is how do you decide whether your explanation for something you observe about the physical world is "good enough", or whether it needs improving. IF you decide it needs improving, the scientific method is the right tool for the job. If not, you don't need it yet. Science education at its best teaches the method, not just the current state of knowledge, which changes daily. For people who are completely satisfied with all their explanations, a career in science is probably not the best choice.

[Galveston1]

This is a vitally important point, and one that I wholeheartedly second. The really important question is not about particular historical facts, i.e., "How did life begin on this planet, and how has it changed over time?"

The real issue is how do you decide whether your explanation for something you observe about the physical world is "good enough", or whether it needs improving. IF you decide it needs improving, the scientific method is the right tool for the job. If not, you don't need it yet. Science education at its best teaches the method, not just the current state of knowledge, which changes daily. For people who are completely satisfied with all their explanations, a career in science is probably not the best choice.

Good! You emphasize "method" and that's fine. Unfortunately, that is NOT what is happening in science classes across this country. Theory is being taught as FACT and is granted priority to the exclusion of anything else.

[Galveston1]

My original point is that intelligent design/creationism is no more religion than is evolution theory.

As I read the various posts favoring evolution, I see that much is made of the idea that evolution can be proved by scientific research, but the only thing that can be truthfully said is that scientists have been able to modify/alter certain cells. We now have the knowledge to meddle with genomes, but that is only dealing with what is already in existence. Creationism is criticized because it cannot be duplicated in the laboratory, but the fact remains that most of what is believed about evolution cannot be duplicated either.

Science is observing what is. Scientific theory can be whatever man's mind chooses to believe about the facts observed, and varies from scientist to scientist, and from time to time.

In a previous post I challenged anyone to make an earthworm. Let's take that to a more basic level. In spite of the billions of dollars and the lifetimes of research, man has never made even a single cell (plant or animal) that can reproduce. What is missing is that factor called life. We all know what it is, and yet we cannot explain or duplicate it. We see life all around us, so it is a scientific observation that life exists. What experiment can science do to duplicate it or even verify it, for that matter? It simply is. Science has absolutely no answer or explanation for it, and yet it would be un-scientific to deny it. It is belief to say that life accidentally happened. Belief is an integral component of religion

[michealb]

Evolution theory is sound and based on fact. Why you can't see that or refuse to accept it, I can't tell you. I do know that regardless of how many times something has been explained the only people that don't understand it are the people with extreme religious bias. That right there has to tell you something. I challenge you to find one person without a religious agenda to say that evolution isn't a sound theory. This is the earth is the center of the universe argument of the 21th centaury. The church will eventually say that evolution is god's plan and everyone will be happy again but until then we have some dark ages to go through hopefully it won't be to long though.

On your remark about making an earthworm. We aren't there yet, we are still working on making bacteria (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/sc...nd-genome.html) but just because we can't do something yet doesn't mean it's impossible.