Evolution - True Or False

[Ophiolite]

Sounds a lot like convergent evolution. Why not just call it that? Oh, I get it. That has the word 'evolution' in the phrase. And even 'convergent' implies some for m of motion, or development.

 

[river-wind]

I have not heard the term before. Google has not returned much, either.

What is the premise?

 

[Saquist]

Wolf Eckard or Eckart...

.observed the results of a global effort to induce mutation over a period of 40 years. Apparently a massive undertaking who's purpose was to explore the potential of mutation in plants and animals by stimulating living things with radiation.

He says a pattern emerge from the experiment although it yielded only 1% of all mutation in plants as usefull and less than 1% percent of animal mutations as useful. Agricultural science use these mutation today

but he says the same type of mutations always recoccurred yielding not a vast variety but a limmit to mutation in plants and animals over a wide spectrum.

Why is this the first time anyone has attempted to explore the limmits of life to discern what DNA can or can't do. Scientist are essentialy attempting toreverse engineer life to reproduce it as they wish...does not exploring the limmits of can and can not seem to be an obvious phase in discovery?

 

[Saquist]

Wolf Ekkehard Lonnig, a scientist from Max Planck Institute for the Plant Breeding Research in Germany

Scientist in the United States, Asia and Europe lauched well-funded research programs, using methods that promised to speed up evolution. After more than 40 years of intensive reearch, what were the results? "In spite of an enormous finanical expenditure," says researcher Peter von Sengbusch, "the attempt to cultivate increaingly productive varieties by irraditation, widely proved to be a failure." Lonnig said: "By the 1980's the hopes and euphoria among scientists had ended in worldwide failure. Mutation breeding as a separate branch of research was abandon in Western countires, Almost all the mutatnts exhibited 'negative selection values,' that is, they died or were weaker than wild varieties,#

Even so, the data now gathered from some 100 years of mutation research in general and 70 years of mutation breeding in particular enable scientist to draw conclusion regarding the ability of mutations to produce new species. After examining the evidence, Lonnig concluded: "Mutations cannot transform an original species {of plant or animal} into an entirely new one. This conclusion agrees with all the experiences and results of mutation research of the 20th century taken together as well as with the laws of probability. Thus, the law of recurrent variation implies that genetically propperly defined species have real boundareis that cannot be abolished or transgressed by accidental mutations."

Consider the implication of the above facts. If highly trained scientist are unable to produce new species by artificially inducing and selecting favorable mutations, is it likely that an unitelligent process would do a better job? If research shows that mutations cannot transform an original species into an entirely new one, then how, exactly was macroevolution supposed to have taken place?

#footnote
Mutation experiments repeatedly found that the number of new mutants steadily declined, while the same type of mutants reguarly appeared, Lonnig deduced from this phenomenon the "law of recurrent variation." In addition, less than 1 percent of plant mutations were chosen for further research, and lsess than 1 percent of this group were found suitable for commercial use. The results of mutation breeding in animals were even worse than plants, and the method was abandoned entirely.

I copied this a while back...for refrence.

 

[river-wind]

That appears to be stating that it is difficult to make a faberge egg with a sledgehammer. They were attempting to blast a living thing with radiation to induce mutations, and then select from the helpful mutations. however, blasting a living thing with radiation in that way is not going to produce nice, delicate, single mutations. You are going to create lots of them at once, all different, all in conflict with one another, and most of them will be harmful.

The problem sited is that inducing mutations led, more often then not, to detrimental effects. The theory of evolution states that most mutation will be negative or have no effect. I do not see a problem or conflict here.

I see a poorly thought out experiment; that the rudimentary methods humans have to control radiation would allow for scalple-like accuracy in inducing mutation sounds absurd. Maybe 60 years ago, I wouldn't have known better. But minor and often single-gene mutations are not going to be artificially replicated with a fat-handed punch to the DNA.

And didn't you reference this same scientist back on page 11 as a supporter of ID? doesn't that kind of make him a biased source?


edit: this appears to be the guy's website (though it's mostly in Germman)
http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/lonnig.html

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Wolf Ekkehard Lonnig, a scientist from Max Planck Institute for the Plant Breeding Research in Germany




I copied this a while back...for refrence.

You are really an ignoramus. Do you honestly think that the opinion of one 'scientist' matters?

And there is NO mention of law of reoccurring variations.

Interestingly, there is no difficulty finding beneficial mutations in the literature.

 

[Saquist]

That appears to be stating that it is difficult to make a faberge egg with a sledgehammer. They were attempting to blast a living thing with radiation to induce mutations, and then select from the helpful mutations. however, blasting a living thing with radiation in that way is not going to produce nice, delicate, single mutations. You are going to create lots of them at once, all different, all in conflict with one another, and most of them will be harmful.

I agree.

The problem sited is that inducing mutations led, more often then not, to detrimental effects. The theory of evolution states that most mutation will be negative or have no effect. I do not see a problem or conflict here.

It's saying experimentation failed to produce viable mutations. This was irradiating...true...what other mehods are they're

Is retro-virus and gene therapy another form of manipulating DNA? Otherwise blasting radiation is actualy doing what happens in nature. From point A to point B today...radiation plays a factor in life and mutations.


I

see a poorly thought out experiment; that the rudimentary methods humans have to control radiation would allow for scalple-like accuracy in inducing mutation sounds absurd. Maybe 60 years ago, I wouldn't have known better. But minor and often single-gene mutations are not going to be artificially replicated with a fat-handed punch to the DNA.

Excellent..so you're saying it must be tailored to produce the desired effects?

And didn't you reference this same scientist back on page 11 as a supporter of ID? doesn't that kind of make him a biased source?

I refreneced Wolf E Lonnig before. Yes...does that make his statements biased. No. His research is viable as any scientist. His position or Ideology does not make him biased no more than it makes you biased.

Biased is somthing we can control. Objectivity is a learned behavior. It's used by Supreme Court Judges, Juries, and Scientist.

Bias is evidenced by clear partiality or clearly chosen path despite contrary information. If Biased means he was researching information to support his theory then all scientist are biased....which I wouldn't diagree with.

But If you're saying that he's shown an inability to objectify his own theory...I'd say you were wrong...but that would be my opinion. So biased or not biased...it subjective.

edit: this appears to be the guy's website (though it's mostly in Germman)
http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/lonnig.html

I took German courses I didn't have that much problem with it other than Germanies nortoriously large nouns which I wasn't familiar with. It required aa couple of hours to go through but German is remarkably similar to English.

 

[spidergoat]

Consider the implication of the above facts. If highly trained scientist are unable to produce new species by artificially inducing and selecting favorable mutations, is it likely that an unitelligent process would do a better job? If research shows that mutations cannot transform an original species into an entirely new one, then how, exactly was macroevolution supposed to have taken place?

I thought new species develop when a subset of the parent species, through geography or behavior, fall into reproductive isolation. Basically, this experiment proved that a single mutated creature will be very unlikely to form a new species on it's own. That doesn't mean it didn't happen before, only that it is unlikely.

 

[river-wind]

Is retro-virus and gene therapy another form of manipulating DNA? Otherwise blasting radiation is actualy doing what happens in nature. From point A to point B today...radiation plays a factor in life and mutations.

Certainly. But the amount of radiation X experienced in daily life is at a certain balance with built-in mutation correctors Y and natural selection facotrs Q.

You can't simply double, triple or quadruple X without also increasing the rates of Y and Q, and still expect not to kill your subject.

A pushup helps build stronger muscles. But crushing a person's arms does not "speed up" the strenthening process.

Excellent..so you're saying it must be tailored to produce the desired effects?

No, I'm saying that poorly mimicing a system that already exists does not invalidate the existance of the original system.

I refreneced Wolf E Lonnig before. Yes...does that make his statements biased. No. His research is viable as any scientist. His position or Ideology does not make him biased no more than it makes you biased.

I am biased. He is biased.

Which is exactly why science exists. It is framework to reduce the effect of bias on the final conclusions of a study. His opinion of "we failed, so it must be impossible" is not the same thing as a statistical analysis of the experimental data.

Biased is somthing we can control. Objectivity is a learned behavior. It's used by Supreme Court Judges, Juries, and Scientist.

Bias is evidenced by clear partiality or clearly chosen path despite contrary information. If Biased means he was researching information to support his theory then all scientist are biased....which I wouldn't diagree with.

But If you're saying that he's shown an inability to objectify his own theory...I'd say you were wrong...but that would be my opinion. So biased or not biased...it subjective.

Which, again, is why science is designed the way it is. Every scientist is biased. but a properly designed experiment, and properly analysed and peer-reviewed results will give us the most unbiased results that are possible.

Quoting one scientist is fine. Determining that the statement is true because of who said it is not.

 

[RoyLennigan]

@ Roy Lenningan
An honest answer.
Certainly you have a balanced view of your world.

I belive that it's evident that animals can adapt into new breeds and that can exclude other breeds. It happens to dogs but to the point of a entirely new creature...no...that defies what I've come to know about the nature of DNA and life in general not to mention a biblical perspective.

Thanks for your rationality. I say its better to give a little bit than to argue endlessly. Most of what we're arguing about is just words anyways.

This post has motivated me to start a new discussion in the biology & genetics forum (though it may not stay there) entitled "Validity of Micro/macro-evolution idea + does the bible explain it?" I would appreciate it if you would read and take the time to reply to it.

For some reason I am always intrigued when someone has different ideals than me. Maybe I'm looking to learn something. Maybe I'm looking to teach something. Maybe I just want agreement.

 

[Ophiolite]

For some reason I am always intrigued when someone has different ideals than me. Maybe I'm looking to learn something. Maybe I'm looking to teach something. Maybe I just want agreement.

Maybe you're just a nice guy.

 

[kenworth]

i was watching an anti-evolution documentary and they were saying that there should be evidence of "step" species and then put up a "joke" drawing of what these might look like.there were two creatures one was a fish which has grown legs and one was a reptile with the beginnings of wings.
the funny thing is is that there is evidence that one of these creatures did exist in the past,and the fish with legs is alive and well and living in australia i believe.

blue?

 

[(Q)]

Wolf Ekkehard Lonnig, a scientist from Max Planck Institute for the Plant Breeding Research in Germany

"At the end of April, a turning point in the slow-boiling dispute was reached when the personal homepage of geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, a researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, was shut down. On the homepage, which could be found on the institute’s server, he posted over 1,000 pages of material supporting ID and refuting neo-Darwinism. Ulrich Kutschera, professor for plant physiology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kassel, found the material inappropriate for the homepage of the renowned institute.

“In my point of view, he can promote his religious ideas and concepts on his private homepage [2] …But in my opinion, as a professional evolutionary biologist at the university in Germany, I have to teach the subject, it’s not correct to promote private religious beliefs mixed up with scientific facts on an official homepage of a research institute [3].”

Kutschera makes it clear, that Biblical and in his words, supernatural forces, have no place in the naturalistic world of science. Religion and science are two separate spheres. The promotion of religious views with missionary zeal damages the business of science according to the Kassel professor."

http://www.weloennig.de/DeutscheWelle.html

 

[Woody]

"In biology, evolution is the change from generation to generation in how common various inherited characteristics are within a population. These characteristics are encoded on genes. Competing variants of genes, known as alleles, cause different characteristics to become more common in different organisms, resulting in variation between organisms with different alleles. As these differences in and between populations accumulate, new species can evolve from prior ones. All known species are descended from a single ancestor through this process of gradual divergence." ~ Wikipedia

So what is your opinion?

It's some of both. Abiogenesis can not be ignored from the theory of evolution anymore than Chapter One can be ignored from a College Science Text.

I quote an interesting debate thread on another forum:

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=11&t=1&m=1

While evolutionists are quite fond of parroting the phrase, "Creation Science isn't science", they insist that the theory of evolution is true science. I question how many evolutionists would disagree with the following.
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[1] Genuine science is objective and invites scrutiny and investigation.
[1a]It does not ridicule the critics of its conclusions, but instead silences their criticisms by setting forth the evidence from which those conclusions are drawn

[2] Genuine science seeks the truth that explains the observed evidence.
[2a]It does not prejudice the investigation by ruling out, from the start, hypotheses that may very well provide the best explanation for the observed evidence.

[3] Genuine science rejects any hypothesis that consistently fails to fit observed scientific evidence.
[3a]It does not persistently assume that the fault lies in the evidence rather than in the hypothesis itself.

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I have long claimed that the TOE is anything but true science. In reality it is nothing more than a rehash of very old pagan religious beliefs, with a few new twists thrown in for good measure.
At

{http://www.planetkc.com/puritan/EvolutionIsNotScience_f.htm},

the website source for material quoted throughout this post, the material made available would seem to be in agreement with me that evolution is not a true science but is indeed a system of religious beliefs, when we insist upon using the accepted definition of science. Below are futher comments from the same site.
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.......Evolution, disguised as a viable scientific theory, is actually a tool of religious propaganda and cultural domination, used by those who hold to the religion of Naturalism.

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Now, while evolutionists would prefer to deny the ancient beginings of their religious beliefs, history cannot be denied. The religion of naturalism, or evolution, is older than nearly every recognized religious belief in practice today. It has been slightly modified to fit in with todays mindset, but its' basic tenets remain intact.
**********************************************************************

Naturalism is the belief that all things, including the origin of life, can be explained purely in terms of natural phenomena, without the intervention of a supernatural being or deity. Ironically, many of the dogmatic proponents of Evolution may not even be aware that this is the religion they hold. Most seem unable to distinguish their religion from their "science", and thus pursue their opposition to a Creator on what they suppose are purely "scientific" grounds.
One of the most glaring evidences that Evolution is unscientific is the refusal of its proponents to respond to its critics in a fair-handed way. Instead, critics of Evolution are subjected to scorn and ridicule, and dismissed as mental midgets or religious crackpots. When the Evolutionist says that life originated without the intervention of a supernatural Being, he is making a religious assertion, not a scientific one. The fact that he may be a scientist by profession, or that he conducts his science in light of this presuppostion does not change the fact that it is a religious claim. It is no more "scientific" than the Creationist's assertion of an intervening Creator.

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In this thread, I will present articles that confirm the religious nature of the evolutionary beliefs as well as articles that show it is not the true science that it proponents claim it to be. This is not to say that scientific measures are never taken in the study of evolution, only that science is often abandoned, as it must be, to support many of the assertions made by evolutionists. Let us begin by having evolutionists comment on the following observation.
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The Mechanisms of Evolution are Fatally Flawed.

Evolution makes great but empty claims that it is based upon scientific evidence. In reality, Evolution is based primarily upon hypothetical mechanisms for how life might have begun and developed complexity and function...

*Abiogenesis - the belief that life arose from non-living matter through random interactions among naturally-occurring chemicals,

*Random Mutation - a proposed mechanism of how new genetic material might have come into existence,

*Natural Selection - a proposed mechanism of how beneficial genetic traits are selected and preserved,

*Vast Periods of Time - the belief that the universe is billions of years old, and the naive assumption that that is sufficient time to work the Evolutionary miracles needed to turn "primordial soup" into the vast diversity of plants and animals existent today.

Evolutionists appeal to these hypothetical mechanisms in an attempt to demonstrate the plausibility of evolution as an explanation for the origin of life. Because of their natural depravity, many people find this an attractive alternative to the idea of a holy, all-powerful Creator. Having rejected the idea of a divine Creator from the outset, they readily suppose that any argument for the plausibility of Evolution constitutes proof of Evolution. But just how plausible are these hypothetical mechanisms of evolution? Could they really accomplish the fantastic feat of bringing modern-day life into existence purely by natural causes?

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Let us refrain from the erroneous statement that evolution makes no attempt to deal with the origin of life via abiogenesis. By making this false claim, evolutionists show their deceptive bias while denying the mechanisms that demand recognition in order for the theory of evolution to even be plausible. Every idea has its beginning and the beginning of the evolutionary process is abiogenesis. To deny this fact is to shine the light of ignorance on an already flawed hypothesis. The study of the "origin of the species" must recognize its' starting point and learn to deal with it in an honest and open manner. No novel is regarded as being complete by removing the preface, introduction, and beginning chapters. Neither can the TOE be regarded as being complete by removing its causal beginnings. (We will ignore the absence of an explanation as to how the chemicals necessary for abiogenesis came into existance, for now anyway!) If you insist on claiming that the ToE makes no attempt to deal with how life arose, please begin your re-education at the following site,

{http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/origlifequotes.htm#general[/url]}

which will help you to understand where you went wrong in your thought process. Once you have recognized that abiogenesis and the Toe are inextricably linked, you will be better equipped to accept the obvious flaws in the ToE that will be revealed in this continuing thread.

 

[Repo Man]

I am unaware of any alternative scientific explanation that explains life on our planet. It is a bit like arguing with someone who says that 2+2=5.

 

[Woody]

I am unaware of any alternative scientific explanation that explains life on our planet. It is a bit like arguing with someone who says that 2+2=5.

Or arguing with someone that says faith in God comes from "nothing".

 

[Repo Man]

Or arguing with someone that says faith in God comes from "nothing".

Some believe in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and in alien abductions. I don't agree with them that there is any credible evidence for any of those, but I don't waste any time arguing with them either.

 

[iceaura]

I quote an interesting debate thread on another forum:

It's not interesting. It's tired, cliche-ridden, confused, and pointless.

In the future, when you see someone leading off by telling a science what its theories are - especially, correcting said science about its misconceptions regarding its basic theories - just scroll away. Unless you, as some here, occasionally enjoy puzzling out exactly where the footprints of thought started going in circles.

Whatever that other forum was discussing, it wasn't a Darwinian theory of evolution - of anything, "abiotic" or otherwise.

 

[Saquist]

"At the end of April, a turning point in the slow-boiling dispute was reached when the personal homepage of geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, a researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, was shut down. On the homepage, which could be found on the institute’s server, he posted over 1,000 pages of material supporting ID and refuting neo-Darwinism. Ulrich Kutschera, professor for plant physiology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kassel, found the material inappropriate for the homepage of the renowned institute.

“In my point of view, he can promote his religious ideas and concepts on his private homepage [2] …But in my opinion, as a professional evolutionary biologist at the university in Germany, I have to teach the subject, it’s not correct to promote private religious beliefs mixed up with scientific facts on an official homepage of a research institute [3].”

Kutschera makes it clear, that Biblical and in his words, supernatural forces, have no place in the naturalistic world of science. Religion and science are two separate spheres. The promotion of religious views with missionary zeal damages the business of science according to the Kassel professor."

http://www.weloennig.de/DeutscheWelle.html

contention: would you expect anything less?
If one doesn't want open debate and an exchange of ideas they put up walls where there were none before...

Hard heads and hot heads make the world go round.

 

[river-wind]

Why is an on-topic debate your source is having with his own colleagues "putting up [a] wall where there were none before"?

You quoted him because he is a scientist at a prestigious university openly supporting creationism. His own co-workers are stating that his claims do not appear to be based in evidence, but a lack of understanding (both his and the holes of current scientific understanding). That it is not science, but opinion and religion.

It's some of both. Abiogenesis can not be ignored from the theory of evolution anymore than Chapter One can be ignored from a College Science Text.

Since evolution via natural selection can work on top of any theory on the creation of life (God, panspermia, abiogenesis), then it should be looked at independently. Yes, abiogenesis and evolution are tightly coupled, as they rely on some similar mechanisms at their root, but they are not the same theory; on deals with changes in living matter, the other deals with the progression of chemical systems toward living matter.