Elsewhere, a guy who goes by the callsign of Cisco has endeavored, with respect to evolution, "to demonstrate the lack of logic in that theory, thereby refuting the elitist claim of intellectual superiority."
Well, first of all intellectual superiority does not equal acceptance or rejection of some theory. I would still say that Euclid or Ptolemy were intellectually superior, in the same way that Copernicus, Newton, or Einstein were intellectually superior. Their theories might not have been correct in an absolute sense -- but at least they chose to put their wits to good and proper use. That is "intellectual superiority" -- it's about methodology and fundamental operational principles, not about any intermediate results.
But regardless, the particular objections to evolution cited by Cisco don't hold up:
The entire purpose of the evolutionary theory was to answer the question of origins without acknowledging a creator.
No, the entire purpose of the evolutionary theiory was to explain speciation. And yes, without acknowledging a creator. Evolution doesn't address origins in an absolute sense; it only concerns itself with the story of life once it had a chance to form. More recent attempts to explain the very origins of first life can also be construed as pertinent to evolution in that beneficial features are still chemically selected; however Darwin's original thesis never dared look that far. The Origin of Species was focused on inheritance and change in traits. And actually, wasn't Darwin a Christian? Anyway...
Sagan once said that each cell contains enough data to fill up one million volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Much research has proven that if one function of the cell is removed, the interdependent processes will cease to function and the cell will die. Logic drives us to conclude that if one million volumes of data must be present to sustain life, then everything had to be present at the formation of the cell and had to be added at the exact same instant.
This is the argument from "irreducible complexity". I believe I've addressed it quite thoroughly already in my criticism of Dr. Behe, above in this thread. Let me summarize: the argument is bogus and doesn't hold up. See above for details.
Christian scientists founded almost every major science.
True. Also kinda conflicts with the first quote in this post. But:
Now the argument is that Christians can't reason but only think in terms of faith.
Oh, in the case of evolution we aren't talking about <u>all</u> Christians -- only about those who are still in denial.
When you dig into the grass roots of creation, they have no explanations. Every atheist will immediately jump to intimidation and name calling when questioned on the logical level.
I've got one counterexample for you: try me and see what you get. I can't promise to keep from name calling (I'm only human) -- but I do promise that such a weapon will not be the only one in my arsenal. Expect reasoned arguments, and feel free to ridicule me if you don't get what I just promised.
Micro-evolution is a fact. This has never been disputed by anyone who understands what micro-evolution is. Micro-evolution is the alteration of a specific trait due to natural response.
I just felt it had to be quoted for completeness. No problems here.
There are two plainly observable principles to micro-evolution. 1. A trait will alter because of a stimulus. 2. The trait will return to the norm if left to nature or returned to its original conditions.
Ok, this is where you begin to misfire. First of all, a trait doesn't alter because of a stimulus (though you may just be using bad language here.) Organisms either die or reproduce; traits change only across generations, not within them. But my real beef is with your point 2. The trait will return to "norm" only if the original conditions (under which the trait was norm) are restored. If you do not restore the original condition, then in fact the trait will never return to "norm"; in fact the new trait will become the norm. And given enough (geological) time -- like at least a few thousand years -- the very capacity to return to the original trait may be completely lost. Then, if you restore the original condition the species may once again adapt, but in a different way. Of course, I'm forced to say "may" because such experiments are not very plausible (nobody's going to write a grant for a study that lasts over multiple millennia.) But I am coming from a genetic viewpoint here, so I'm not just guessing in the dark. Call it an educated guess instead.
here are no examples in nature that even remotely indicate a change of species through evolution. The fossil records have zero transitional forms. Even fossilized insects such as spiders that have been dated to pre-historic times and are identical to modern day spiders.
First of all, I've already said plenty of times that the fossil record, while very valuable, is not the only source of verification for evolutionary change. DNA variability analysis shows genetic change over time and correlates very well with other dating techniques. Additionally, a powerful indication toward a common origin of all life consists of the biochemical, skeletal, cellular, organ systems, and other trends. As far as these indicators are concerned, all life currently in existence is a fossil base, and a very convincing one at that.
Note that not all species change. Spiders are not the only anscient species around that hasn't undergone much change. Sharks, coelocanths, blue-gree algae, horseshoe crabs, and many other lifeforms hadn't changed for millions of years. This is not a weakness of evolution theory. In fact, the theory does not <u>mandate</u> change. If a species in its old form is fit enough, there is no reason for it to become extinct. However, nothing still keeps it from spawning off newer species. For example, take a look at the vast variety of different sharks and spiders out there.
As for evidence of change, you don't see any dragonflies around with a wingspan of one foot, do you? Be thankful, for they used to exist. Caetacians are clearly transitional creatures representing a mammalian colonization of the aquatic environment. Dogs evolved from wolves, and elephants from mammoths. There is a well-developed fossil tree for horses. And even now we've got fish that crawl out onto the shore and slither in the mud using their fins, in a manner eerily reminiscent of reptile gait, and these fish even go so far as to climb trees! Snakes have vestiges of reptilian limbs. Heck, even we humans have residual hair, useless articulated toes but nevertheless an inborn grasping reflex, water in our eyes and cochleas, a vestige of a tail, > 98% of chimp DNA, and of course that stunning overall similarity to apes, gill slits and tail in our fetal stage (actually, in early development we are indistinguishable even from fish embryos!), and the list goes on... Birds show an awesome morphological similarity to dinosaurs. We can group species according to shared traits -- for example, we've got warm-blooded vs. cold-blooded, marsupials vs. mammals, canines vs. felines, etc. All of these groupings point to common ancestry, and the fossil record as well as morphology and DNA analysis support that hypothesis. I don't specialize in paleontology, but even I can come up with all of the above and lots more if necessary. So you tell me who's intellectually superior here, since I assume you are aware of the preponderance of evidence <u>supporting</u> evolution.
There are two critical flaws in the theory that change is gradual: Dysfunctional change and the DNA code barrier.
First, in other posts on this thread I've already pointed out that, and in what ways, gradual change is not a good theory, so debunking it does nothing to disprove evolution. In fact, punctuated equilibrium is much closer to the truth.
Dysfunctional change is just another description for irreducible complexity, and I had already addressed it in previous posts on this thread. As for the other argument:
The DNA code barrier. A fact of genetics is that trait changes have a ceiling.
Ok, let's see why:
There is a limit to the number of combinations of these chemicals, therefore there are a limited number of traits variations.
The number of variations possible in a strand of DNA is grotesquely greater than the total number of lifeforms that ever lived. Take even fruit fly DNA: 12,000 genes. Assuming an average gene length of 1000 base pairs (generously low), we've got well over 12 million digits of a base-four number. That's 4^(12,000,000) combinations, many more than there are atoms in the universe! Granted, not all of those combinations will be viable, but even if only one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion works, you've got 4^(11,999,800) possible distinct viable organisms. And that's only with a fruit fly's DNA. Now think of human DNA, with 100,000 genes that code for proteins alone.
No new genetic material can be added.
Now you are just flat wrong. First of all, clearly not all organisms on Earth have the same amount of genetic material, therefore new material clearly can be added and in fact was added in the course of evolution. You can have reproductive abnormalities where chromosomes are duplicated in whole or in part. You can have retroviruses inserting their DNA into gametes. Plants can cross-pollinate. Bacteria just outright exchange plasmids within and across species. DNA synthesis or recombination can misfire. In fact, it is because cellular mechanics are so complex that so many things can and do go wrong. And in very few cases, the accident is not a catastrophy. For evolution, all you need is a scant few cases.
Mixing the available genetic code will produce variations in the trait but will not change into a completely different feature. For example, your parents genes are combined to produce your various traits. People have several different colors of hair, eyes, and skin, but without a mutation, these traits will remain within its boundaries.
This is what happens over the short term. But you are extrapolating here what humanity has observed for a measly couple of millennia to billions of years. Not exactly a sane extrapolation by any scientific measure. But let me point you to a very simple example -- dog breeds. Does it not seem incredible that a German Shepherd and a Chihuahua had a common ancestor? Heck, they probably can't even interbrede any longer. Yet, they had both been artificially "evolved" over a very short timespan. Over the very long timespans, the same thing tends to happen, only not artificially.
there are mutations that can occur and mutations almost always cause diseases or defects.
<u>almost always</u> -- you are skimming an important issue here. <u>Sometimes</u>, rarely, mutations actually do not cause diseases or defects. And then they simply proliferate and spread. Human skin, eye, and hair color, blood chemistry, body plan, facial features -- all serve to illustrate this process in action. You may not get very far if you tried to breed only fair-skinned people in an effort to produce dark skin -- but that's because 1) you would have operated only on very few generations, 2) your sample would have been extremely inbred and thus lacking proper genetic variability. In nature, it happened over at least hundreds of thousands of years within large and genetically diverse populations -- to the point that it's not even clear whether the original human precursors had a dark or fair skin under their fur. And although I've confined this example to humans, it is representative of what happens in general across all species.
However, even under mutation, skin will still be skin and eyes will still be eyes.
That's right, but only if you look at short snippets of the process. However, over longer time eyes evolve from simple patches of photoreceptors, skin develops from simple epithelial layers, bones develop from cartilage, etc.
Through selective breeding, Darwin was able to produce many drastic variations of pigeons. He observed very rapid changes in traits that he could alter by this selective breeding and concluded that if he could make these changes within a few generations of pigeons, in time a new species of bird would develop. There are several flaws with this theory.
First of all, Darwin's theory was a proto-theory, in the same way that Newtonian mechanics preceded GR. The theory of evolution is not a fixed target, it keeps moving as new evidence surfaces. This is normal for all theories, so if you were to make a special scandal of it you ought to be similarly intolerant of, say, the Standard Model of elementary particles. It is a strength of the scientific enterprise that it never makes a religion out of its theories, even if it tries very hard. Eventually, old paradigms crumble, even if only with a great struggle. But notice that theories (especially ones that had agreed with empirical evidence for a long time) progress in an incremental manner, where superceding theories do not completely invalidate, but merely extend the previous ones. So don't look for evolution to be trashed; instead, expect evolved forms of it. Pun intended.
Secondly, Darwin's main point was heretability of traits. And if he seriously expected his methods to be capable of producing entirely new species, then he was simply wrong (but I doubt even Darwin would have expected that.) Why? As follows:
1. His intervention was the trigger for these various breeds. It did not occur naturally
Well, actually compared to the next one, this is a pretty weak criticism. Natural selection as postulated by Darwin involved live-or-die dynamics in responce to environmental change. So artificial selection would simulate survival and death as far as reproduction is concerned. But even given that, Darwinian selection is not the only mechanism known today. All that is really needed is geographical separation, so that sub-populations do not have a chance to intermix.
2. When left to themselves, his pigeons returned back to the plain looking rock pigeon within a few generations. If his theory were valid, they should have continued their ascent.
Cessation of selection is equivalent to removal of natural pressures. Since pigeons are presumably already optimized for the currently normal conditions, re-instituting these conditions will unsurprisingly tend to pull the pigeons back toward the optimized state. In nature, geological change almost never reverts, and long-term climatic trends (such as glacial for example) are far too long-term to allow for such complete relapse. Additionally, I am skeptical of these results -- perhaps the pigeons were allowed to interbreed with other artificial "genera". For example, you don't see this sort of thing with dogs -- if you just keep breeding a bunch of Chihuahuas with no genetic pressures, they will hardly return to something that looks like a wolf or a dingo "within a few generations".
3. Darwin never saw was that there was a natural barrier that slowed change after a few generations and eventually reached a stopping point.
This is where we hit a problem with inbreeding. Genetic variability is crucial to evolution; by extensive inbreeding the variability is reduced and further change becomes increasingly difficult. Natural populations exhibit much more genetic diversity, and evolve over much longer time scales than in a lab setup (threrefore having ample chance to maintain that diversity), and hence overcome this problem.
Another conflict with evolution the DNA ceiling poses is disease. The farther from the ‘norm’ the more disease prone the plant or animal becomes.
Once again, this is a problem with inbreeding. It has nothing to do with departing from the 'norm', and everything to do with genetic variability.
Nature is filled with species that are completely dependent on other species. If one species cannot survive without another, evolution becomes an illogical deduction.
You forgot to factor in extinctions. Yes, species do indeed go extinct. Evolution is no magic bullet where survival is concerned.
There are also interdependencies between plants and animals. If a plant is dependent on an animal and an animal is dependent on that specific plant, the two would have to emerge from the evolutionary change at the exact same time and place. One generation later is too late.
Actually, symbiosis has always been one of the darlings of evolution. It shows yet another mechanism through which change can occur even regardless of other natural pressures. And actually, partners of symbiosis do not have to emerge at the same time; it is just as practical for one to emerge first, and then adapt to emergence of another. Symbiosis also produces entire new life forms. For example, the mitochondria in most living organisms are a symbiont.
There is a problem when evolutionist refer to Christians as non-thinkers because they are questioning an illogical theory. Critical analysis is not un-intellectual, but refusing to reason is.
Strong rhetoric, but little umph. Evolution is quite logical. In fact, it is logical enough for the majority of the scientific community to accept it and maintain it for centuries. It is, in fact, the most logical, cross-disciplinary, and consistent thing currently available. As for critical analysis -- why don't you critically analyze the very Bible you swallow whole, no questions asked? Or would that be too un-intellectual for you? I live you with a snippet from one of my older posts on the "Contradictions" forum:
For example, the Bible clearly states that Man was created in God's image. That is in direct contradiction to science, because according to science a) man was not created but is merely an evolved ape, b) man's "image" is by all means not the final form or function (evolution has not stopped yet and will not stop as long as any life exists). As other examples, we have the stories about the "garden of Eden", "tree of knowledge", "original sin", primordial earth being covered with water before it was "covered" with land, the "seven days" chronology of what was created before what and in what order. How is any of that (insert your favorite cuss word here) compatible with modern science? How is the postulate of "soul" or "afterlife" compatible with modern neuroscience? Is the Bible more compatible with the Big Bang, or with the infinitely old self-reproducing multiverse theory? What does the Bible have to say about the mechanisms of inheritance? How does the Bible address the (possible) existence of other intelligent life in the universe? (including, likelier than not, intelligent life far more highly evolved than us?) How is "judgement day" compatible with the currently-predicted thermodynamic death of the universe? And, I am sorry to ask, how is the resurrection of Christ compatible with modern science? Or parting of the Red Sea? Or simultaneous death of all first-born in Egypt? Or turning water into wine, or instantly curing disease by touch, or (insert your favorite "miracle here")? Or the "Tower of Babel" theory of diversity? Or the story of Jonah and the whale? Or the claim of originating morality, or defining right vs. wrong? How is any of that "compatible" with modern science?
P.S. When I was typing this up, I didn't see your new post to this thread. However, I'll post this up anyway, and address the stuff you just wrote presently.
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I am; therefore I think.
[This message has been edited by Boris (edited February 27, 2000).]