My theory on evolution...

[accorn669]

We were supposed to find an evolutionary theory that most supported our views for Biology. I couldnt and decided to create my own. I know yall will rip me apart, but go for it...


The Origin of Life

I believe the scientific evidence best supports Progressive Theistic Microevolution (PTME), which states that God created general types of organisms that evolved horizontally via microevolution caused by environmental influences. PTME also states that God has control over the Earth, but he does not intervene in its processes. He exhibits control by utilizing the time and location of new organisms’ creation.
Evolution, which in this prose specifically refers to the progression and origin of life, is one of the most widely debated topics in biological fields today. This topic is so widely debated because none of the theories of the origin of life can be proven beyond a doubt. In fact, nothing in life can be proven beyond a doubt –including that statement. Because of the inability for humans to both comprehend and prove many things in life, we must base our belief on evidence. Also, because none of the theories behind the origin of life can be proven, all beliefs include faith. Even the most extreme evolutionary theory, Materialistic Evolution, requires faith.
When studying evolution, one must ask the question: what is life? In the past, living organisms were thought to be composed of a special material. When it was discovered that living organisms are composed of the same materials that compose non-living things, a new question arose: what differentiates living from nonliving matter? Life is peculiar in that it is definable only by its characteristics. The closet thing that life can be compared to is energy. Understanding the peculiarity of life makes understanding the origin of life every more difficult to understand. Amino acids, the building blocks of life, have been created using common gasses found in the Earth’s atmosphere; however, these experiments could only create the amino acids when a very specific list of conditions were met –conditions which could not have been met early in the Earth’s development.
There are two important ideas that must be recognized before submerging into the world of evolution. First, all reasoning is inherently flawed because of the unknown implications of future discoveries. This has been proved throughout history to be consistent. For example, spontaneous generation was thought to have been proved correct. When urine was placed in a sealed container, life grew. In that time, there was little doubt that life spontaneously originated from certain substances. Likewise, insects were thought to originate from spoiled food. However, with the advent of modern technologies, these ideas proved to be absurd. It is fair to say that current understanding in life will also prove to be absurd by future generations. With this in mind, I feel comfortable knowing that some things in life are better left unknown. With the current evidence we have, I will show that PTME is, in fact, the most logical explanation for the origin of life. PTME is substantiated by evidence against vertical evolution (macroevolution) and for horizontal evolution (microevolution) and by evidence for a creator.

Progressive Theistic Microevolution is substantiated by evidence that shows that vertical evolution did no occur, while horizontal did occur and is currently occurring. Darwin was correct in asserting that horizontal evolution was occurring. Horizontal evolution can be thought of as a series of environmentally driven genetic adaptations to a species that lead to new species with a better chance of survival. Natural selection is what drives horizontal evolution. Vertical evolution, on the contrary, is when one general group of organisms evolves into an independent group of organisms. There are many barriers to this theory.
Incomplete fossil records are a major barrier to vertical evolution. An intermediate fossil is necessary because the fossil record shows species with gaps between their supposed evolutionary histories. One would expect to find more intermediate fossils than extreme fossils of each group of organisms. However, this is not the case. “…the previous 120 years of fossil recovery [have] failed to provide one irrefutable case of an intermediate fossil” (http://home.primus.com). Because fossil records lack intermediate fossils, it leads one to believe that something bridged the gap between the two groups of organisms. The Cambrian Explosion is the greatest barrier to vertical evolution. The fossil records show that 600 million years ago, there were few fossils. About ten million years later into the fossil record, there was an explosion of fossils found in great variation and numbers. There are two important ideas that come from this. First, there were not any intermediates between these new species, and second, that this process of reaching new species happened geologically speaking, very fast. Both of these disprove neo-Darwinism, which is slow mutation over time. Ten million years could not possibly be enough time for all of these species to develop through vertical evolution. Jerry Coyne came to this conclusion: “We conclude—unexpectedly—that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak.” The incomplete fossil records show that vertical evolution and neo-Darwinism are incorrect. Darwin’s theory began, showing that horizontal evolution is correct; however, Darwin and Evolutionary Biologists butchered this theory with the addition of the unsubstantiated theory of vertical evolution.
The complexity of organ systems shows that they were unable to have been formed by vertical evolution. “Dr. Patrick Dixon, geneticist, estimates that something in the order of three billion different control systems are present within homo-sapiens alone; each system working with and depending on the others” (http://home.primus.com). In terms of a computer, Evolutionary Biologists explain just how the program and keys work; however, they fail to examine the inner circuitry of the computer. To explain vertical evolution, scientists need to stress detail in all of their work. But their work surprisingly does not include detailed information. Darwin himself recognized the flaw in his theory when he said, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed my numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down” (Darwin). When evolutionary theories were first developed, the field of biochemistry had not yet begun. After its establishment, evolutionary theories did not change. That was most likely because biochemistry disproves vertical evolution. Biochemistry revealed the great complexity involved in the complex systems of the human body. In order for vertical evolution to be correct, each stage of the progression of a complex system would have to be beneficial and independent of the future steps. Many complex systems are impossible to have evolved into existence because they are not useful piece by piece. They eye is the best example of an irreducibly complex system. The human eye can only function as a whole. It is made up of many intricate parts. Other organisms have eye-like parts, but in the process of evolving, they eye would be useless, and therefore, it would not pose any benefits to the organism, allowing it a greater survival rate. In order to substantiate vertical evolution, there would have to be many random, but perfect mutations that would simultaneously form the parts necessary to form the eye. Because vertical evolution cannot be substantiated, it leads one to believe that the eye was created. The Bombardier Beetle also has an irreducibly complex system. This beetle has a unique defensive system in which it combines many chemicals and enzymes to release a boiling, toxic substance onto its predator. They system is very complex and if all the parts were not working correctly together, the beetle could cause harm to himself. How then could the beetle evolve each part of the system one piece at a time? He cannot do this. Again, this means that he was created.
All of the evidence against vertical evolution leads to one thing: there must be a creator. This does not necessarily involve God. There are many theories that life was brought here by aliens. These theories, with only the aforementioned evidence, are just as valid as a God creating the earth and its species.
Progressive Theistic Microevolution is substantiated by evidence that shows that there is a Creator. The very fact that vertical evolution is not correct leads one to believe that there is a Creator. Much of the evidence for a creator comes from the organization in physics.
Many constants that have nothing to do with one another are actually related. That very fact that life exists is a miracle. Many people believe that life had many chances to create itself and to achieve the conditions necessary for life; however, they probably do not know that the same balance needed for life is needed for the existence of the universe. For example, “A stronger nuclear force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons –yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars” (Glynn).
Patterns in physics and laws point toward the universe’s purpose being man. Almost every law in physics has something to do with man being able to survive. On the surface, much of these seem to have nothing to do with the existence of man, but they really all have to do with each other when interconnected. This is truly the epitome of the arthropic principle. This principle states, that the goal of the universe was to create man. One of the greatest questions about the universe that has not been attempted to be answered is: how were the properties and laws of physics and chemistry established? This is such a puzzling question because we have virtually no evidence to even begin to answer this question. Gravity, magnetic fields, properties of hydrogen, and how light affects life are all topics that we accept for how they are. There is really no way to question their origin. The only logical answer is to say that they were created.
The Bible also holds key information that leads to the idea that there is a creator. It may seem unscientific to prove the Bible with the Bible, but the Bible is one of the most historically accurate and in-tact books. The oldest manuscripts of the Bible date back to circa 100 A.D., while the oldest manuscripts other than the Bible that chronicle the history of the Roman Empire date back to circa 900 A.D. The verse, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding” (Job 38:4) clearly states that God created the Earth. Unlike Genesis, it is actually God speaking instead of Moses. In the verse, “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33) God’s power and dominion over the world are demonstrated.
When studying physics, there is no way to avoid the countless supposed coincidences and conditions that were necessary to have life. Since life and the universe existing are such insanely improbable, there is only one conclusion to arrive at: Life, the universe, and existence were created. Once it has been established that everything was created and just did not appear randomly, one must acknowledge the powers of a creator. God could do anything, including creating life.
After studying the evidence, the Progressive Theistic Microevolution theory best fits. Evidence against vertical evolution and for horizontal evolution and evidence for a creator substantiate the theory of PTME and demonstrate an explanation for the origins of life.

*It was a word document, so now you cant see my footnotes.

[Peez]

accorn669:
We were supposed to find an evolutionary theory that most supported our views for Biology. I couldnt and decided to create my own. I know yall will rip me apart, but go for it...Hi and welcome. By this, do you mean that this is a project for a biology class? If so, at what level?The Origin of LifeOops. Biological evolution is concerned with what happened after the origin of life. The study of the origin of life is usually called abiogenesis.I believe the scientific evidence best supports Progressive Theistic Microevolution (PTME), which states that God created general types of organisms that evolved horizontally via microevolution caused by environmental influences. PTME also states that God has control over the Earth, but he does not intervene in its processes. He exhibits control by utilizing the time and location of new organisms' creation.I should point out that science cannot address supernatural events. The scientific method is concerned only with natural explanations for natural phenomena, therefore including a god in your theory immediately disqualifies it as science. That does not make it wrong, of course, but the theory would not be scientific.Evolution, which in this prose specifically refers to the progression and origin of life, is one of the most widely debated topics in biological fields today.As I have stated, evolution (as biologists use it) does not include the origin of life. You can discuss both in your own theory, of course, but keep in mind that this is quite different from the biological definition. I should also point out that evolution is not "widely debated" among biologists. That living things have evolved from common ancestors is a scientific fact, and virtually all biologists acknowledge this. There are yet many questions about various facets of evolution, and research is very active. There is a debate about evolution in the political arena, where creationists object to the teaching of science because it conflicts with their narrow beliefs.This topic is so widely debated because none of the theories of the origin of life can be proven beyond a doubt.I suspect that you are confused about the meaning of the term "theory" in science. A scientific theory is not a theory due to a lack of evidence. A scientific theory is a complex natural explanation, based on evidence and reasoning, that explains a number of natural phenomena. No matter how much evidence there is supporting a theory, it remains a theory.In fact, nothing in life can be proven beyond a doubt –including that statement.I would argue that nothing, save personal existence, can be "proved" (in the sense of established with absolute certainty). Science recognizes this, and scientific facts are not considered to be "proved" in this sense.Because of the inability for humans to both comprehend and prove many things in life, we must base our belief on evidence.Be careful of how you use "belief" here.Also, because none of the theories behind the origin of life can be proven, all beliefs include faith.Be careful of how you use "faith" here.Even the most extreme evolutionary theory, Materialistic Evolution, requires faith.I am not sure what you mean here, but all science is, by definition, "materialistic." That does not mean that one must be a "materialist" to do science, it just means that science is only concerned with the "materialist" universe, even if there is more. That being said, evolution as a completely natural explanation for the way life is today is not "extreme" at all, it is the mainstream position.<snip>
Amino acids, the building blocks of life, have been created using common gasses found in the Earth's atmosphere; however, these experiments could only create the amino acids when a very specific list of conditions were met –conditions which could not have been met early in the Earth's development.That is quite an assertion, do you have any evidence to support it? NASA (http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2002/02_33AR.html) can create amino acids in an environment similar to deep space, and they have been found in meteors.There are two important ideas that must be recognized before submerging into the world of evolution. First, all reasoning is inherently flawed because of the unknown implications of future discoveries. This has been proved throughout history to be consistent. For example, spontaneous generation was thought to have been proved correct. When urine was placed in a sealed container, life grew. In that time, there was little doubt that life spontaneously originated from certain substances. Likewise, insects were thought to originate from spoiled food. However, with the advent of modern technologies, these ideas proved to be absurd.I think that you are confusing reasoning with certain specific conclusions. Do you have a reason to suspect that the reasoning of these people was flawed? Note that being wrong does not indicate flawed reasoning, one might simply be wrong because of a lack of knowledge and/or understanding.It is fair to say that current understanding in life will also prove to be absurd by future generations.It is fair to say that some aspects of our current understanding of life might prove to be absurd by future generations. Perhaps you could point out one example of a hypothesis that was accepted as a fact using the scientific method, and which later proved to be "absurd."With this in mind, I feel comfortable knowing that some things in life are better left unknown. With the current evidence we have, I will show that PTME is, in fact, the most logical explanation for the origin of life.Again, note that biological evolution is not concerned with the origin of life.PTME is substantiated by evidence against vertical evolution (macroevolution) and for horizontal evolution (microevolution) and by evidence for a creator.I don't know what you are getting at with these curious descriptions of micro- and macro-evolution, both of which are fundamentally similar. I also suggest that supernatural creators, by there very nature, cannot be tested for with empirical evidence.

My biggest suggestion is that you do some research on biological evolution. Avoid anti-evolution sources (would you go to an Al Qaida source to learn about the U.S. of A.?). There are many good biology text books, and a number of good sites such as Talk.Origins (http://www.talkorigins.org/).

Peez

[ps418]

Incomplete fossil records are a major barrier to vertical evolution. An intermediate fossil is necessary because the fossil record shows species with gaps between their supposed evolutionary histories. One would expect to find more intermediate fossils than extreme fossils of each group of organisms. However, this is not the case. “…the previous 120 years of fossil recovery [have] failed to provide one irrefutable case of an intermediate fossil” (http://home.primus.com).

Utter bunk, as an examination of any vertebrate paleontology textbook will reveal (I recommend Carroll's Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution). There are numeous examples of morphological intermediates, and the number of examples has grown tremendously in just the past ten years. For starters, check out:

Transitional Vertebrate Fossil FAQ (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html)

The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation" (http://www.gcssepm.org/special/cuffey_00.htm)

29 Evidences for Macroevolution, section 1.4 (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates)

Transitional Forms: Fish to Amphibian Transition Documented (http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/transit.htm)

Origin of Whales and the Power of Independent Evidence (http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol20/6334_origin_of_whales_and_the_power_12_30_1899.asp)

Early birds and feathered dinos (http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/fd.htm)

Species and Genus Level Evolution in the Fossil Record (http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/sle.htm)

Patrick

[accorn669]

Hi and welcome. By this, do you mean that this is a project for a biology class? If so, at what level?

>>I am currently a junior in high school. I wrote this paper for AP Biology last year as a sophomore.

I should point out that science cannot address supernatural events. The scientific method is concerned only with natural explanations for natural phenomena, therefore including a god in your theory immediately disqualifies it as science. That does not make it wrong, of course, but the theory would not be scientific.

>>It depends on how you look at it. At first I thought of excluding all supernatural ideas from my theory, but I couldnt because it was supposed to be what I truely believed. To a non-believer it must seem absurd to have supernatual ideas in a scientific paper. However, hypothetically speaking, if God actually does exist and does play an active role in life, wouldnt you think that they would be somewhat connected? This connection between God and science is explained very well by Schroeder in his book, The Science of God.

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Because of the inability for humans to both comprehend and prove many things in life, we must base our belief on evidence.
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Be careful of how you use "belief" here.
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Also, because none of the theories behind the origin of life can be proven, all beliefs include faith.
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Be careful of how you use "faith" here.

>>I am meaning for both belief and faith to be used in non-religious manners.

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Even the most extreme evolutionary theory, Materialistic Evolution, requires faith.
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I am not sure what you mean here, but all science is, by definition, "materialistic." That does not mean that one must be a "materialist" to do science, it just means that science is only concerned with the "materialist" universe, even if there is more. That being said, evolution as a completely natural explanation for the way life is today is not "extreme" at all, it is the mainstream position.

>>The point of my above quote was to show that even the most extreme view on of evolution requires faith (non-religious) in that idea. The word "materialistic" is only used as a way to describe a specific type of evolution.

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<snip>
Amino acids, the building blocks of life, have been created using common gasses found in the Earth's atmosphere; however, these experiments could only create the amino acids when a very specific list of conditions were met –conditions which could not have been met early in the Earth's development.
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That is quite an assertion, do you have any evidence to support it? NASA can create amino acids in an environment similar to deep space, and they have been found in meteors.

>>I guess I poorly explained what I was getting at. I drew this idea from Darwin's Black Box. In it, Behe explains how specific the conditions would have to be for spontaneous generation to occur. He goes on to say how these conditions were replicated in a labratory. The problem is that there was no labratory equipment billions of years ago. It only proves that it was possible that it could have occured. Also, the conditions in the lab remained stable for a very short period of time.

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PTME is substantiated by evidence against vertical evolution (macroevolution) and for horizontal evolution (microevolution) and by evidence for a creator.
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I don't know what you are getting at with these curious descriptions of micro- and macro-evolution, both of which are fundamentally similar. I also suggest that supernatural creators, by there very nature, cannot be tested for with empirical evidence.

>>One of the roots of my theory was the difference between micro and macro evolution. Quite simply, I believe the evidence points toward micro evolution occuring both in the past and present; it also points toward macro evolution never having occured. However, to say that there is no macro evolution and to not mention God in the same sentence would be illogical. If there is no macroevolution, there must be a God exibiting control over the world. I belive that neither a theory of evolution nor a theory of God can be "tested" empirically. They can be reasoned, if that is what you meant. Have you read Mere Christianity? It seems that C.S. Lewis does indeed successfully reason God to exist emprically.

My biggest suggestion is that you do some research on biological evolution. Avoid anti-evolution sources (would you go to an Al Qaida source to learn about the U.S. of A.?). There are many good biology text books, and a number of good sites such as Talk.Origins.

>>That is actually the site where I did most of my research.

[Arikay]

I would suggest reading the site again.

Macro evolution is just speciation (not a vertical change) and that has been observed in nature.

The beginings of life have nothing to do with the theory of evolution.

For all the theory of evolution cares, the Eternal Flying Invisible Tie Dyed Unicorn, who holds the beginings of life in his nose, sneezed on earth and thats how life got started.

The hypothesis of abiogenesis says otherwise, however it is Seperate from the theory of evolution.

[accorn669]

Patrick, I had previously looked at the fossil records' evidence and I have done so again. There is evidence to support macroevolution, just not alot of it. Supporters of it continually point to specific examples and pieces of evidence. Thats the best that can be found to support it. Just a few scattered examples. If macroevolution did occur, I would expect the intermediary fossils to vastly outweigh the others, for that is where the most complex evolution would have occurred.

[Doubting Didymus]

1) Macroevolution does not mean large scale morphological change.

2) All fossils are transitional fossils.

[accorn669]

Arikay and Doubting Didymus,
Macro evolution is "the large-scale patterns, trends, and reate of change among families and other more inclusive groups of species," while microevolution is "change is allele frequencies resulting from mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection."

Arikay, I know that the origin of life and evolution are independent of one another. I am just speaking of them together because I was tracing life from its beginning to its present state.

Doubting Didymus, maybe transitional fossils are different to you, but I was one to think that they were the fossils found that could fill in the evolutionary gaps between families. I think that by you asserting that all fossils are transitional, you are trying to say that there are no gaps in evolution.

[Arikay]

Are you sure?

Wiki, an online encyclopedia gives the definition of macro and micro evolution as:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
"Microevolution refers to small-scale changes in gene-frequencies in a population over a few generations (population genetics is the branch of biology that provides the mathematical structure for the study of the process of microevolution). These changes may be due to a number of processes: mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, as well as natural selection. Macroevolution refers to large-scale changes in gene-frequencies in a population over a long period of time (and may culminate in the evolution of new species). The difference between the two is hard to distinguish because, over time, successive tiny mutations like those evidenced in microevolution build up in isolated populations and eventually create entirely new species, which is known as macroevolution."

The problem with grouping abiogenesis with evolution is that abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution, so you cant group them together and still call it evolution.
Many creationist groups do that, then they show that since abiogenesis is only a hypothesis, that so is evolution. And that is untrue.

Originally posted by accorn669
Arikay and Doubting Didymus,
Macro evolution is "the large-scale patterns, trends, and reate of change among families and other more inclusive groups of species," while microevolution is "change is allele frequencies resulting from mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection."

Arikay, I know that the origin of life and evolution are independent of one another. I am just speaking of them together because I was tracing life from its beginning to its present state.

Doubting Didymus, maybe transitional fossils are different to you, but I was one to think that they were the fossils found that could fill in the evolutionary gaps between families. I think that by you asserting that all fossils are transitional, you are trying to say that there are no gaps in evolution.

[Deke]

acorn669,

Though I do not share your views on this matter, you are to be commended on such an analysis, for such a young person. At your age, I think I was still flinging dirt clods at girls ;)

Acorn, many people, me included, cringe a little when hearing terms like "Progressive Theistic Microevolution". I cringe because I am for lack of a better word, appalled that adults who claim to be scientific experts are so irresponsible as to pose ideas such as this to young people. This "theory" acorn, is a thinly veiled attempt by Christian Fundamentalists to ever so discretely blend religious doctrine into science, in such a way as to be imperceptible to young minds such as yourself. You are being duped my young friend, count on it.

Please don't take this as an 'attack', I just am amazed at what some adults will try and pass off as "science"....Progressive Theistic Microevolution...pah-leeeeze ;)

One idea to determine whether an idea offered as "theory" is science or not, is to ask professional scientists. You might start by polling various instructors at your local community college or university. If the adults in your life discourage this, that will tell you something right away.

Good luck young Acorn! And keep thinking :)

Deke

[NonHomogenized]

Acorn, you say that there aren't enough transitional fossils to account for large scale "macro" evolution?

Well, there's a couple of extremely obvious problems with this.
I'll point you to a couple of pages at talkorigins that you might have missed, which go over this in more depth than I would.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

The gist is, (1) conditions are often not right to produce fossils, (2) we need an exceptionally complete fossil record to identify transitionals, (3) we really haven't excavated enough of the earth to find the number of fossils needed for this, and (4) said 'exceptionally complete' fossil records are, of course, exceptionally rare, as well. As such, we don't have very many of them, as, as such, have not identified many "transitional" fossils.

Secondly, all living beings are at some stage of a transition from one group to another. As it says in the first link I posted, "The misconception about the lack of transitional fossils is perpetuated in part by a common way of thinking about categories. When people think about a category like "dog" or "ant," they often subconsciously believe that there is a well-defined boundary around the category, or that there is some eternal ideal form (for philosophers, the Platonic idea) which defines the category. This kind of thinking leads people to declare that Archaeopteryx is "100% bird," when it is clearly a mix of bird and reptile features (with more reptile than bird features, in fact). In truth, categories are man-made and artificial. Nature is not constrained to follow them, and it doesn't. "

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by accorn669
Macro evolution is "the large-scale patterns, trends, and reate of change among families and other more inclusive groups of species," while microevolution is "change is allele frequencies resulting from mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection."

Very good. Where did you find these definitions? You'll note that the words do not mean small morphological change verses big morphological change.

Arikay: The wikipedia definition is the more common usage, but it is technically incorrect. Acorns definition above is actually quite good.

Doubting Didymus, maybe transitional fossils are different to you, but I was one to think that they were the fossils found that could fill in the evolutionary gaps between families. I think that by you asserting that all fossils are transitional, you are trying to say that there are no gaps in evolution.

Not exactly. What I'm trying to say is that all fossils represent an organism frosen in time, which has evolved from a different previous organism and is on its way to becoming something else again in the future. In that sense all fossils are intermediate.

What you are referring to is fossils that represent the common ancestor of multiple known species. Remember that nothings evolves from one family or other group into a different group. Rather, single populations divide, and each new population goes on to become different individual species.

That means that the kind of intermediate fossil you want to see should actually be very rare. You need to catch a population just in the historical moment that it diverges , give or take maybe a thousand years. We would probably see that very rarely, but we DO see fossil species that are close: either soon before the speciation or soon after it, so that it still represents the species as it would have looked at the time.

[accorn669]

Arikay, both of our definitions are fundementally the same; however, yours take the next step by linking micro and macro evolution. I view them independently, for I do not even think macro evolution has taken place in the first place. I think that both abiogenesis and evolution are theories. I do not purposefully talk about them together in order to reject scientific evidence for one.

Deke, I had no adult influence in coming up with my theory. When coming up with its principles I used many ideas from other theories to establish what I thought the evidence supported the best. The quirky name is just what I came up with to represent some of the previously established theories that helped me come to my conclusion. The word progressive come from the idea that God created organisms in each place where an evolutionist would think that macroevolution did so; it is based off of Progressive Creationism. The word theistic comes from Theistic Evolution and is based on the idea that God's hand was behind the whole evolutionary process. The word microevolution simply comes from the idea that the only type of evolution that occurred was microevolution.
The adults in my life do not determine what I think. I do. Do you think I am so naive as to think that if I polled university professors they would support creationism? That community is almost entirely in support of evolution and atheism. Just because they are learned in the science of evolution and biology does not make them correct. Evolution is still a theory, and it will remain that way until we can prove it. Some may disagree on the extent to which it has been proven; I am sure we would. But it is still a theory, as creationism would be considered. Scientifically speaking, there is much more evidence for evolution, but everything does not boil down to science. If we think that as humans we can determine "certainty" based on our observation alone, then we have forgotten how little power we have in such a powerful universe. There is more than science.

NonHomogenized, you have agreed with me on one point. The fossils simply arent there. You, however, take the next step and assume that they are or were there. You then try to close that gap by saying that intermediate fossils arent really needed in the first place. Paleontolgists would not be looking for them if they were unnecessary.

[accorn669]

Doubting Didymus, these came from my textbook. I think they fit well for my use, but maybe I am butchering the definition of macroevolution. I believe that there is noy evidence to support any form of evolution other than basic microevolution.

You would be right if evolution was smooth simple in it history. It is not. There are periods where evolution slows or is eratic. The Cambrian Explosion is a great example of this. The intermediate fossils represent the beginning and end of these periods. I am aware that single populations evolve rather than entire families. However, like I said, it is not smooth. There are critical points missing in this process.

Ah, you have made a very good point. Intermediate fossils should be rare. For specific stages of evolution they should be. The gap in the fossil record is not a single fossil. It is a series of single fossils. They are rare by themselves, but should not be together.

[Arikay]

Didy:
But a speciation change from one species to another would still be considered Macro evolution right?

Accorn:"That community is almost entirely in support of evolution and atheism. Just because they are learned in the science of evolution and biology does not make them correct. Evolution is still a theory, and it will remain that way until we can prove it. Some may disagree on the extent to which it has been proven; I am sure we would. But it is still a theory, as creationism would be considered."

well, science is not atheist, its agnostic (I believe).

Yep, your right, evolution is a scientific theory, and thats as high as it will go. It cant be proven with 100% certainty so it will never be considered a 100% proof.
I wouldnt consider creationism a scientific theory. Creationism that enacts the power of god to help solve its problems isnt even science. Quite a few YEC and creationism hypothesis that do fit with science have been falsified.



Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
Very good. Where did you find these definitions? You'll note that the words do not mean small morphological change verses big morphological change.

Arikay: The wikipedia definition is the more common usage, but it is technically incorrect. Acorns definition above is actually quite good.



Not exactly. What I'm trying to say is that all fossils represent an organism frosen in time, which has evolved from a different previous organism and is on its way to becoming something else again in the future. In that sense all fossils are intermediate.

What you are referring to is fossils that represent the common ancestor of multiple known species. Remember that nothings evolves from one family or other group into a different group. Rather, single populations divide, and each new population goes on to become different individual species.

That means that the kind of intermediate fossil you want to see should actually be very rare. You need to catch a population just in the historical moment that it diverges , give or take maybe a thousand years. We would probably see that very rarely, but we DO see fossil species that are close: either soon before the speciation or soon after it, so that it still represents the species as it would have looked at the time.

[Arikay]

Double post from server errors.

[NonHomogenized]

Acorn, you misunderstand. The points are, in order of importance:

1) "transitional fossils" is a pretty meaningless term. Any fossil you find can qualify.

2) transitional fossils are not useful in attempting to prove/disprove evolution, because:
a) usually, conditions weren't right to make fossils
b) when they were, there usually still weren't enough fossils made to be of use
c) in the cases where a) and b) weren't the case, many of the fossils have since been crushed or further buried by geologic activity
d) even if a), b) and c) weren't issues, we haven't excavated enough to find anywhere near 1% of the "expected" transitional fossils.

Of course paleontologists look for them; we don't know exactly what the "transitional" forms were like, nor when exactly they existed. Furthermore, paleontologists are not out to prove evolution. Evolutionary biologists often find these fossils of interest, because they can confirm or reject theories about when, where, or how evolution took place for a species, region, genus, and so on. Contrary to what certain individuals, such as Hovind and Behe would have you believe, there is no "great debate" in the scientific community about whether evolution occured. They are not trying to "prove" it; they are trying to learn more about it.

The transitional fossils that *have* been found, while far from complete, are quite extensive, nonetheless. If you would find information on them to be of interest, you can find some information at the Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ that I and ps418 linked to, or at http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/talk_origins.html . Furthermore, since you think transitional fossils are so important, obviously you take issue with speciation. For observed instances of speciation, you can check out http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html , for starters. With a little research, I'm sure you can find plenty more.

[Darwin's Beagle]

Acorn699==
We were supposed to find an evolutionary theory that most supported our views for Biology. I couldnt and decided to create my own. I know yall will rip me apart, but go for it...


The Origin of Life

I believe the scientific evidence best supports Progressive Theistic Microevolution (PTME), which states that God created general types of organisms that evolved horizontally via microevolution caused by environmental influences. PTME also states that God has control over the Earth, but he does not intervene in its processes. He exhibits control by utilizing the time and location of new organisms’ creation.

DB=
OK, I’ll bite. You state that the “scientific evidence best supports Progressive Theistic Microevolution”. BUT AFAICT, you present absolutely no evidence that SUPPORTS it. All you have given us is evidence, you think goes against evolution. If evolution is wrong, that is NOT support for your PTME.

Acorn699==
Evolution, which in this prose specifically refers to the progression and origin of life, is one of the most widely debated topics in biological fields today.

DB=
You made two errors in that sentence. Evolution does not deal with the origin of life. That subject is abiogenesis. They may be related but they are two separate theories. Abiogenesis says that life began naturally from abiotic chemicals. Evolution says two things – the diversity of life seen today arose from descent with modification from a pre-existing common ancestor, and natural selection is an important, but not necessarily exclusive mechanism behind this descent with modification.

The second mistake is in saying that evolution is widely debated in “biological fields”. It is not. Evolution is as fully accepted as any other major unifying theory within the natural sciences. What debate there is within the biological sciences concern peripheral points; the rate at which evolution occurs, the importance of other potential mechanisms such as neutral selection and species selection, whether or not evolution took this path or another path.

Acorn699==
This topic is so widely debated because none of the theories of the origin of life can be proven beyond a doubt. In fact, nothing in life can be proven beyond a doubt –including that statement.

DB=
In a trivial sense you are right. Nothing can be absolutely proven, everything is subject to revision with the advent of better data. However, there are plenty of things of which I am certain. I am certain I exist. I am even certain Paris exists even though I have never seen it. The reason is that there is sufficient evidence for me to believe it. Paris is on maps which have other places I have indeed seen. I have seen pictures from a variety of sources all showing me the same place and all saying that it is Paris. It is simply unreasonable to entertain the theory that it has all been a hoax.
Acorn699==
Because of the inability for humans to both comprehend and prove many things in life, we must base our belief on evidence.

DB=
This is a non-sequitur. It does not follow that because we have an inability to comprehend (an assertion that needs more qualification, I might add) and prove things (to what level of certainty?) that we must base our beliefs on evidence. Having evidence (aka data) makes it possible for us to form theories and test them. Passing the test makes gives us reason to believe them.

Acorn699==
Also, because none of the theories behind the origin of life can be proven, all beliefs include faith. Even the most extreme evolutionary theory, Materialistic Evolution, requires faith.

DB=
Perhaps what you are referring to is “methodological naturalism”. That is the assumption that everything science can investigate involves the natural world. Supernatural causation is not allowed as a scientific explanation. That is just the process by which science works with no matter what field of natural science you happen to be in. IDists, like William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and Alvin Plantinga argue that we should develop a theistic science. However, what none of them have done is show how it could possibly work. Since the supernatural powers COULD do anything it is impossible to rule it out. For instance, I drop a book and it falls to the ground. My naturalistic predilection would be to ascribe that to gravity. However, I cannot rule out that it was actually the hand of God that pulled the book down to the ground. The implications of this are astounding! The only reason we ourselves don’t flying out into space is that God keeps holding us down to the earth. What if he changes his mind someday. Kablooey, that’s it. And he could change his mind at any instant. I don’t think I could sleep at night if I believed this.

Acorn699==
When studying evolution, one must ask the question: what is life? In the past, living organisms were thought to be composed of a special material. When it was discovered that living organisms are composed of the same materials that compose non-living things, a new question arose: what differentiates living from nonliving matter? Life is peculiar in that it is definable only by its characteristics. The closet thing that life can be compared to is energy. Understanding the peculiarity of life makes understanding the origin of life every more difficult to understand. Amino acids, the building blocks of life, have been created using common gasses found in the Earth’s atmosphere; however, these experiments could only create the amino acids when a very specific list of conditions were met –conditions which could not have been met early in the Earth’s development.

DB=
Er… wrong again. The Miller-Urey experiments have been replicated under a variety of plausible early earth conditions. They could be created at deep sea vents. They could have showered down on us from outer space. The Murchison meteorite that landed in Australia in the 1980’s was found to have exactly the same type of amino acids as those produced in the Miller-Urey experiments and in the same relative proportions as well.
Acorn699==
There are two important ideas that must be recognized before submerging into the world of evolution. First, all reasoning is inherently flawed because of the unknown implications of future discoveries.

DB=
No, the reasoning isn’t necessarily flawed. The reasoning could be perfectly fine but if the initial assumptions prove to be wrong then the conclusions reached may be wrong. Future discoveries could conceivably show that the initial assumptions were indeed wrong.

Acorn699==
This has been proved throughout history to be consistent. For example, spontaneous generation was thought to have been proved correct. When urine was placed in a sealed container, life grew. In that time, there was little doubt that life spontaneously originated from certain substances. Likewise, insects were thought to originate from spoiled food. However, with the advent of modern technologies, these ideas proved to be absurd. It is fair to say that current understanding in life will also prove to be absurd by future generations.

DB=
I do NOT think that is fair to say. It may be correct about some inconsequential things, but I think that we have a pretty good basic idea about life.

Acorn699==
With this in mind, I feel comfortable knowing that some things in life are better left unknown. With the current evidence we have, I will show that PTME is, in fact, the most logical explanation for the origin of life. PTME is substantiated by evidence against vertical evolution (macroevolution) and for horizontal evolution (microevolution) and by evidence for a creator.

DB=
Why do you make up silly terms? What do you mean EXACTLY by vertical evolution. If you are going to say macroevolution, then you should have just used that term. In that case, my question would have been … What do you mean EXACTLY by macroevolution? Do you mean a change from one species into another? If so, been there, done that. Or do you mean a change from some higher level taxon into another? If that is so, the evidence for that is overwhelming.

Acorn699==
Progressive Theistic Microevolution is substantiated by evidence that shows that vertical evolution did no occur, while horizontal did occur and is currently occurring.

DB=
NO, IT ISN”T! PTME is NOT substantiated by evidence AGAINST evolution. You have to get some evidence FOR it. You don’t even try to do that. Let’s say evolution is wrong. That doesn’t make Goddidit correct. There could be a Lamarckian tendency for new species of life to arise on its own. Complete and without any assistance from any God. There could be some type of cosmic consciousness associated perhaps with matter generated during the Big Bang (ie not associated with God) that pops new lifeforms into existence. You are most certainly WRONG when you try to establish a dichotomy, naturalistic evolution or God.

Acorn699--
Darwin was correct in asserting that horizontal evolution was occurring. Horizontal evolution can be thought of as a series of environmentally driven genetic adaptations to a species that lead to new species with a better chance of survival. Natural selection is what drives horizontal evolution. Vertical evolution, on the contrary, is when one general group of organisms evolves into an independent group of organisms. There are many barriers to this theory.

DB=
You aren’t doing much better on your definitions. What do you mean by an independent group? Is a subspecies an independent group? Are species independent groups? Or, does it take a higher level taxon … genus, family, order, class, phylum, or kingdom … to be considered an independent group.

Acorn699
Incomplete fossil records are a major barrier to vertical evolution. An intermediate fossil is necessary because the fossil record shows species with gaps between their supposed evolutionary histories. One would expect to find more intermediate fossils than extreme fossils of each group of organisms. However, this is not the case. “…the previous 120 years of fossil recovery [have] failed to provide one irrefutable case of an intermediate fossil” (http://home.primus.com). Because fossil records lack intermediate fossils, it leads one to believe that something bridged the gap between the two groups of organisms. The Cambrian Explosion is the greatest barrier to vertical evolution. The fossil records show that 600 million years ago, there were few fossils. About ten million years later into the fossil record, there was an explosion of fossils found in great variation and numbers. There are two important ideas that come from this. First, there were not any intermediates between these new species, and second, that this process of reaching new species happened geologically speaking, very fast. Both of these disprove neo-Darwinism, which is slow mutation over time. Ten million years could not possibly be enough time for all of these species to develop through vertical evolution.

DB=
You are misinformed about the fossil record. Here is what it REALLY shows. There are undeniable fossils in rocks dated 3.6 billion years ago. These fossils are very similar to blue-green algae and other bacteria-like organisms. These are the simplest organisms known today. At about 2.0 billion years ago eukaryotic (organisms having a true nucleus) but still single-celled organisms make their appearance in the microfossils. There are controversial fossils of worm bore holes by 1.2 billion years ago. There are jelly-fish like fossils around 560 million years ago followed very quickly by the Cambrian explosion which did cover 10 million years. Your statement that 10 million years is not enough time for all these species to develop is an assertion based on personal incredulity. All biologists working in the field have no problems with it. 10 million years is an incredibly long time!

After the Cambrian explosion we see a consistent pattern in the fossil record in which species go extinct in one bedding plane to be replaced by similar species in adjacent bedding planes. The population of species in adjacent bedding planes are ALWAYS more similar to those in more temporally separate bedding planes. This certainly looks like descent with modification to me. How does this really support theistic special creation more than descent with modification. Was God experimenting? What took him so long to getting around to metazoans (multicellular organisms)? Why did he make a pattern that has fooled every serious paleontologist into seeing it as supporting descent with modification.

Acorn699==
Jerry Coyne came to this conclusion: “We conclude—unexpectedly—that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak.”

DB=
You are of course, not quoting Jerry Coyne since you have no idea what his paper was about. Instead you are either quoting Michael Behe’s quote of Jerry Coyne, or more likely quoting a creationist websites quoting Behe quoting Coyne. In any case, here is the quote taken in full context.

“Although a few biologists have suggested an evolutionary role for mutations or large effect (Gould 1980; Maynard Smith 1983: Gottlieb, 1984; Turner, 1985), the neo-Darwinian view has largely triumphed, and the genetic basis of adaptation now receives little attention. Indeed, the question is considered so dead that few may know the evidence responsible for its demise.
Here we review this evidence. We conclude--unexpectedly--that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak, and there is no doubt that mutations of large effect are sometimes important in adaptation.
We hasten to add, however, that we are not "macromutationists" who believe that adaptations are nearly always based on major genes. The neo-Darwinian view could well be correct. It is almost certainly true, however, that some adaptations involve many genes of small effect and others involve major genes. The question we address is, How often does adaptation involve a major gene? We hope to encourage evolutionists to reexamine this neglected question and to provide the evidence to settle it.”

So you see what Coyne is saying is NOT that naturalistic evolution didn’t have the time to cause speciation. Instead, he is saying that mutations having a large effect may be more important than previously thought. In case you are interested, mutations which occur in developmental genes like the Hox genes are perfect sites for mutations like this to occur.

Acorn699==
The incomplete fossil records show that vertical evolution and neo-Darwinism are incorrect. Darwin’s theory began, showing that horizontal evolution is correct; however, Darwin and Evolutionary Biologists butchered this theory with the addition of the unsubstantiated theory of vertical evolution.

DB=
Nope. Covered above.

Acorn699==
The complexity of organ systems shows that they were unable to have been formed by vertical evolution. “Dr. Patrick Dixon, geneticist, estimates that something in the order of three billion different control systems are present within homo-sapiens alone; each system working with and depending on the others” (http://home.primus.com).
DB=
That is quite a statement, especially since there are only 30,000 to 70,000 genes in the human. Three billion is the number of base pairs in our entire genome. So what is Dixon really talking about? He can’t be talking about anything that is under genetic control.

Acorn699==
In terms of a computer, Evolutionary Biologists explain just how the program and keys work; however, they fail to examine the inner circuitry of the computer. To explain vertical evolution, scientists need to stress detail in all of their work. But their work surprisingly does not include detailed information. Darwin himself recognized the flaw in his theory when he said, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed my numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down” (Darwin). When evolutionary theories were first developed, the field of biochemistry had not yet begun. After its establishment, evolutionary theories did not change. That was most likely because biochemistry disproves vertical evolution. Biochemistry revealed the great complexity involved in the complex systems of the human body. In order for vertical evolution to be correct, each stage of the progression of a complex system would have to be beneficial and independent of the future steps. Many complex systems are impossible to have evolved into existence because they are not useful piece by piece. They eye is the best example of an irreducibly complex system. The human eye can only function as a whole. It is made up of many intricate parts. Other organisms have eye-like parts, but in the process of evolving, they eye would be useless, and therefore, it would not pose any benefits to the organism, allowing it a greater survival rate. In order to substantiate vertical evolution, there would have to be many random, but perfect mutations that would simultaneously form the parts necessary to form the eye.

DB=
Jeez Louise! The eye was disposed of back in Darwin’s day. There are plenty of “partial eyes” that serves their owners just fine. Planaria have light sensitive eyespots. Starfish have light sensitive eyespots inside pits that allow them a limited ability to determine where the light is coming from. Nautiluses have the pit deeply indented and moveable. This allows some image formation and better directionality. Vertebrates have human eyes that include the lenses. Furthermore, the crystallins of lenses in different species show exactly how they arose. In humans for instance, they are homologous to gut digestive proteins. The effect of this is that if you come down with diabetes when the glucose crosses over into your lens the crystallins convert it into sorbitol, an alcohol, that doesn’t diffuse out. Your lens swells up and you don’t see so well. This shows how certain genes can be CO-OPTED to perform other functions than what they originally evolved for. That is one way that irreducible complexity comes about (unless like some IDists your REAL definition of IC is those things that could not have come about by naturalistic evolution, in that case, IC does not appear to exist in biological organisms).

Acorn699==
Because vertical evolution cannot be substantiated, it leads one to believe that the eye was created. The Bombardier Beetle also has an irreducibly complex system. This beetle has a unique defensive system in which it combines many chemicals and enzymes to release a boiling, toxic substance onto its predator. They system is very complex and if all the parts were not working correctly together, the beetle could cause harm to himself. How then could the beetle evolve each part of the system one piece at a time? He cannot do this. Again, this means that he was created.

DB=
Really? How about this. Beetles need to get rid of wastes. One of the waste products is hydroquinone which is very distasteful. Some secrete this distasteful substance on their sclerites making them less susceptible to predation. Others store it in little sacs between the sclerites, making them even less susceptible to secretion. Some ants have deep invaginations that are surrounded by muscles which would allow them to inject the hydroquinone onto their surface when needed. Some insects secrete other chemicals along with the quinones. Hydrogen peroxide is another waste product from cellular metabolism, it is also distasteful. It reacts very slowly with the hydroquinone so it would afford even more protection. Catalases (enzymes that do other functions in the body) could be secreted to cause the hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide to produce a foamy secretion, adding a different kind of protection for the beetle. The sclerites become thicker and another invagination develops making the beetle better able to withstand the stress of the reaction, which in turn allows the beetle to secrete more and more catalase along with the hydroquinone and the hydrogen peroxide making the reaction more caustic to any predator. Finally tubes evolve to allow the beetle to do some aiming. Now that wasn’t so hard. I don’t know it that is how it actually happened or not, but it COULD have happened that way. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html.

Acorn699==
All of the evidence against vertical evolution leads to one thing: there must be a creator. This does not necessarily involve God. There are many theories that life was brought here by aliens. These theories, with only the aforementioned evidence, are just as valid as a God creating the earth and its species.

DB=
Baloney, even if there were actually evidence against neo-Darwinian evolution, that does not mean it is evidence FOR a creator. All it means is that there may be some other natural way to do it. Punctuated equilibrium is an example. Creationists incessantly quote punctuated equilibrium supporters saying that Darwin was wrong. They would have you think this means that creationism is right. But what punctuationists are saying is that Darwinian ULTRAGRADUALISM is wrong. That evolution can proceed perfectly naturally and relatively quickly by species selection. Thus, this shows that an argument AGAINST Darwinism isn’t an argument FOR creation.

Acorn699
Progressive Theistic Microevolution is substantiated by evidence that shows that there is a Creator. The very fact that vertical evolution is not correct leads one to believe that there is a Creator. Much of the evidence for a creator comes from the organization in physics.
Many constants that have nothing to do with one another are actually related. That very fact that life exists is a miracle. Many people believe that life had many chances to create itself and to achieve the conditions necessary for life; however, they probably do not know that the same balance needed for life is needed for the existence of the universe. For example, “A stronger nuclear force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons –yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars” (Glynn).
DB=
First, even if there were a creator of the universe, it says NOTHING about whether or not he created lifeforms. You have all the problems I mentioned associated with the fossil record. You also have boo-coo amounts of data that we haven’t even come close to mentioning yet. Here are just a few for you to consider. Human have 23 pairs of chromosomes, Chimps have 24 pairs. Every human chromosome has a unique structural analogue (based on G-banding patterns) with a similarly unique chimp chromosome except human chromosome 2. The top part of human chromosome 2 is identical with chimp chromosome 12 and the bottom part is identical with chimp chromosome 13 … the two chimp chromosomes left over. The DNA sequence shows there is an internal telomere-like sequence (normally found only on the ends, but just what you would expect if the two chimp-like chromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2) and a second centromere-like sequence (again exactly what you would expect if chromosomal fusion took place).

Humans, all other primates, and guinea pigs are the only mammals that do not make their own Vitamin C. But, they all have pseudogenes (gene-like sequences present in their genome that are not translated into protein product) for it. Primates all share the same mutation inactivating the gene, while in guinea pigs it is a different mutation.

Fetal whales of the order baleenocetes (baleen or toothless whales) have full fledged teeth that are resorbed before birth. If you incubate a chick’s egg with the fetal jaw material from a reptile, the chicken will be born with a full set of teeth. Sometimes boa constrictors are born with non-functional legs. These are curious findings especially if you are going to promote an idea of special creation for all species.

Second, the argument based on anthropic coincidences is an argument from ignorance. These constants do not arise out of our theory of the big bang. They have to be measured and inserted into the equations by hand. Therefore, people who make the argument say they COULD have been anything. So they stick other constants into the equations and find that most of these would lead to universes in which it is difficult to conceive of life having time to EVOLVE (notice that word, a creator could theoretically magic up life right away so that it wouldn’t need time to evolve). However, we do not have any theory of initial conditions. By that, I mean we do not know how those constants were determined. Thus, we have no idea as to what constants were possible or not. Perhaps, the ones we have were the only ones that were possible. If so then it is no surprise we are here. Perhaps, the odds of coming up with a universe like ours is only 1 in 10^1,000,000 power. If the initial big bang had 10^10,000,000 different areas then even with those poor odds we would expect 10 universes like ours. Who know? The answer is nobody.

Acorn699==
Patterns in physics and laws point toward the universe’s purpose being man. Almost every law in physics has something to do with man being able to survive.

DB=
Poppycock!! If what you are saying is true then God is stupidly wasteful. If Alan Guth is correct there may be an unseen universe that is as much as 10^100,000,000,000,000 bigger than the observable universe. There are at least 50,000,000,000 galaxies. There are an average of 100,000,000,000 stars per galaxy. The earth takes up about 1/100,000 of the volume of the solar system, and the volume of the earth that is used for human habitation and movement is about 1/1000th the volume of the earth. If the universe was made for us, what an incredible waste of space!

The universe has been around about 13,000,000,000 years. Humans have been around about 200,000. What a waste of time!

The universe neither knows nor cares of our existence.

Acorn699==
On the surface, much of these seem to have nothing to do with the existence of man, but they really all have to do with each other when interconnected. This is truly the epitome of the arthropic principle. This principle states, that the goal of the universe was to create man. One of the greatest questions about the universe that has not been attempted to be answered is: how were the properties and laws of physics and chemistry established? This is such a puzzling question because we have virtually no evidence to even begin to answer this question. Gravity, magnetic fields, properties of hydrogen, and how light affects life are all topics that we accept for how they are. There is really no way to question their origin. The only logical answer is to say that they were created.

DB=
If as you suggest, we have no idea how these things came about … it is silly to say “The only logical answer is … they were created”. The only logical answer in that case is to say we need more information.

Acorn699==
The Bible also holds key information that leads to the idea that there is a creator. It may seem unscientific to prove the Bible with the Bible, but the Bible is one of the most historically accurate and in-tact books.

DB=
Really? So creation took place around 6000 years ago? There was a world wide flood? We are all descended from Noah about 4000 years ago? Where is the evidence for exodus? So Jesus had two different genealogies through his father’s side? How’s that possible? How come the city of Tyre is still standing? A being capable of creating the universe, created it just for us so that we could be his cheerleaders … don’t you find that a little sad. This same being would kill off all but 7 pairs of clean animals and 2 of the unclean animals, and Noah’s family just because he couldn’t communicate his message to the rest of the world? Why wouldn’t they believe? If you read the bible without a priori eliminating the possibility that it is a pathetic myth that perpetuates itself through the unwarranted credulity of its followers, you’ll see it for just that.

Acorn699==
The oldest manuscripts of the Bible date back to circa 100 A.D., while the oldest manuscripts other than the Bible that chronicle the history of the Roman Empire date back to circa 900 A.D. The verse, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding” (Job 38:4) clearly states that God created the Earth. Unlike Genesis, it is actually God speaking instead of Moses.

DB=
Er… nowadays we usually think its OK to talk to God, but when God starts talking back there is something wrong.
Acorn699==
In the verse, “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33) God’s power and dominion over the world are demonstrated.
When studying physics, there is no way to avoid the countless supposed coincidences and conditions that were necessary to have life. Since life and the universe existing are such insanely improbable, there is only one conclusion to arrive at: Life, the universe, and existence were created.


DB=
Again the argument from ignorance. We have no idea how improbable the universe or life really is. The probability could be anything. The only REAL data we have is that both of them exist. So from that we could say the probability was 1.

Acorn699==
Once it has been established that everything was created and just did not appear randomly, one must acknowledge the powers of a creator. God could do anything, including creating life.

DB=
You haven’t established that. But because of the definition of God as an omnipotent being you could still say that God could do anything he wants.

Acorn699==
After studying the evidence, the Progressive Theistic Microevolution theory best fits.

DB=
You haven’t studied the evidence. You have selectively picked out things that sound good to you, but you have not tried to find fault with your theory. That is, you have not subjected your theory to the same type of scrutiny you have evolutionary theory. It was pretty easy to come up with significant objections.

Acorn699==
Evidence against vertical evolution and for horizontal evolution and evidence for a creator substantiate the theory of PTME and demonstrate an explanation for the origins of life.

DB=
Again, you do not seem to understand that you CANNOT substantiate a theory by finding FAULT with another. You must find evidence for yours, and you don’t. You may claim that the anthropic coincidences are evidence for it, but in reality they are only arguments from ignorance. That is they make sense only because of what we DO NOT know, not from what we DO know.

Regards,

Darwin’s Beagle

[ps418]

Originally posted by accorn669
Patrick, I had previously looked at the fossil records' evidence and I have done so again.

And yet, you still implied in your post that there are no good examples of intermediate forms. So, either you're contradicting yourself gratuitously, or you didn't examine the fossil evidence very closely at all.

There is evidence to support macroevolution, just not alot of it.

There is overwhelming evidence for macroevolution, as the links I gave you clearly document. This holds true whether you think God pushed the process along or that it happened via completely natural mechanisms.

Supporters of it continually point to specific examples and pieces of evidence.

That's right. That's because the alternative to 'pointing to specific examples and pieces of evidence' is to do what you did -- make a patently false blanket claim about the nonexistence of such evidence (e.g. intermediate forms).

Patrick

[Peez]

accorn669
I am currently a junior in high school. I wrote this paper for AP Biology last year as a sophomore.One really important lesson to take home from this is that it is vital to do good research before you write a paper. With so many errors of knowledge and understanding, the paper cannot hope to make any point.It depends on how you look at it. At first I thought of excluding all supernatural ideas from my theory, but I couldnt[sic] because it was supposed to be what I truely[sic] believed. To a non-believer it must seem absurd to have supernatual[sic] ideas in a scientific paper. However, hypothetically speaking, if God actually does exist and does play an active role in life, wouldnt[sic] you think that they would be somewhat connected? This connection between God and science is explained very well by Schroeder in his book, The Science of God.I am not trying to tell you that you should exclude a god from consideration in your theory, I am merely pointing out that it would not then be a scientific theory. There is nothing wrong with be unscientific, there are many important and valuable ideas that are not scientific. Claiming that a religious theory is scientific insults both religion and science.The point of my above quote was to show that even the most extreme view on of evolution requires faith (non-religious) in that idea. The word "materialistic" is only used as a way to describe a specific type of evolution.I disagree. First, you should describe what you mean by "the most extreme view of evolution," this doesn't make sense to me. More to the point, evolution does not require faith in an "idea." Evolution simply requires faith that there is a real universe, and that we can obtain useful information about it through observation. No more faith is required.I guess I poorly explained what I was getting at. I drew this idea from Darwin's Black Box. In it, Behe explains how specific the conditions would have to be for spontaneous generation to occur. He goes on to say how these conditions were replicated in a laboratory. The problem is that there was no laboratory equipment billions of years ago. It only proves that it was possible that it could have occured[sic]. Also, the conditions in the lab remained stable for a very short period of time.I recommend that you check this (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html) out, and do some of your own research on abiogenesis rather than taking a creationist's word for it. Note that the experiment in question did show that amino acids can be formed by chemical reactions outside of living organisms, and other work has confirmed this. Note also that this still has nothing to do with evolution, and certainly Darwin never addressed the origin of life (which just shows how unreliable Darwin's Black Box is as a source of information).One of the roots of my theory was the difference between micro and macro evolution.With respect, judging from your posts you do not know the difference, or at least you are using some definition of these terms that is non-standard. Please explain.Quite simply, I believe the evidence points toward micro evolution occuring[sic] both in the past and present; it also points toward macro evolution never having occured[sic].In the usual sense of these terms, you are incorrect. I urge you to do real research on these topics. Start with a good biology text.However, to say that there is no macro evolution and to not mention God in the same sentence would be illogical.I disagree. You seem to be just assuming that a god is required for what you are calling macro-evolution. Please explain why this would be so.If there is no macroevolution, there must be a God exibiting[sic] control over the world.Please explain, I do not see this at all.I belive[sic] that neither a theory of evolution nor a theory of God can be "tested" empirically. They can be reasoned, if that is what you meant. Have you read Mere Christianity? It seems that C.S. Lewis does indeed successfully reason God to exist emprically[sic].So apparently you disagree with Mr. Lewis, and so do I. I also disagree with you: evolution certainly can be tested empirically, and has been literally thousands of times. An scientific test uses empirical (observed) data to attempt to falsify (prove false) a hypothesis (a proposed "fact"). In science, nothing is ever "proved," but if enough credible attempts to disprove it have failed we consider it a fact. The bottom line is that a hypothesis must be, at least in principle, falsifiable in order to be empirically tested. That is, if the hypothesis is wrong there must be some way of proving that it is wrong.

Can we empirically test the actions of an all-knowing and all-powerful god, whose mind we cannot fully comprehend? Well, what potential observation would prove that such a god does not exist? I cannot see how any mere human observation of the mere natural universe could prove that such a being did not exist. This, you cannot test this empirically, and it is not science.

Back to evolution: is there anything that would prove that life did not evolve through descent with modification from common ancestors? Of course, there are millions of possible ways that it could be disproved if it was not true. Human fossils from 70 million years ago, mammal fossils from 500 million years ago, animal fossils from two billion years ago, eukaryotic fossils from four billion years ago, whale DNA being more similar to shark DNA than to cow DNA, oak metabolism being entirely unlike crocodile metabolism, bacterial genetic code being different from frog genetic code, etc., etc., etc.That is actually the site where I did most of my research.Please don't take this badly, but you did not do a very good job. There is plenty of information there that directly contradicts things that you included in your paper. In fairness, some of the material in that site is rather technical. I suggest that a good introductory biology text book would be a good place to start. Also, if you wish to impress your teacher :) try not to rely to heavily on one source.

Don't be discouraged by the negative feedback here. Keep reading, and keep learning. I would be happy to clarify any specific issues, but I sense that you need to get a handle on what science is, what evolution is and what evidence there is to support it.

Peez

[Peez]

Arikay:
...the Eternal Flying Invisible Tie Dyed Unicorn...SACRILEGE! Mock not the Invisible Pink Unicorn, sinner, lest ye... um... something bad will... um... happen.

:D
Peez

[Peez]

accorn669:
<snip>
I think that both abiogenesis and evolution are theories.I must ask you again to look up "theory." The theory of evolution is the proposed explanation for the mechanisms responsible for the fact that life has evolved through descent with modification from common ancestors. Abiogenesis is by no means a fact.I do not purposefully talk about them together in order to reject scientific evidence for one.I have no doubt that this is true, but your initial confusion of the two does suggest that you did not do enough good research.<snip>
The word progressive come from the idea that God created organisms in each place where an evolutionist would think that macroevolution did so; it is based off of Progressive Creationism.Again, this suggests that you should do more research: evolution is not "progressive."<snip>
That community is almost entirely in support of evolution and atheism.Whoa! Based on what do you imagine that the scientific community "is almost entirely in support of... atheism"? I know many professors who are religious. You seem to be implying that one must be an atheist to accept evolution. This is false.Just because they are learned in the science of evolution and biology does not make them correct.Of course it doesn't, but on the other hand you should at least take their opinions seriously. Judging from your paper, you have not done so.Evolution is still a theory, and it will remain that way until we can prove it.O.K., I will look it up for you: from Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition (edited for brevity)theory 1 the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another 2 abstract thought: SPECULATION 3 the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art 4 a a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances 5 a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena 6 a a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b an unproved assumption: CONJECTURE c a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subjectIt is pretty clear that you are using "theory" in the sense of definition 2 or 6 b, but in science "theory" is used in the sense of definition 1 or (obviously) 5. When someone tells you that evolution is "only a theory," they are only advertising their ignorance. Not only that, but "evolution" includes at least two distinct concepts: the history of life (the fact of evolution), and the mechanism by which life evolves (the theory of evolution).Some may disagree on the extent to which it has been proven; I am sure we would.Nothing in science is ever proven (in the sense of being established with absolute certainty). That life has evolved through descent with modification from common ancestors has been credibly tested so many times that it is a scientific fact, just like the fact that the earth orbits the sun.But it is still a theory, as creationism would be considered.Evolution is both a scientific fact and a scientific theory. Creationism is neither, it is a religious theory.Scientifically speaking, there is much more evidence for evolution, but everything does not boil down to science.There is massive evidence for evolution, no evidence against it, and no way to even test creationism.If we think that as humans we can determine "certainty" based on our observation alone, then we have forgotten how little power we have in such a powerful universe.None here have claimed to know anything with certainty, unlike many creationists.There is more than science.Of course there is. So why do creationists insist on trying to sell their religious position as if it was science?NonHomogenized, you have agreed with me on one point. The fossils simply arent[sic] there.Which particular fossils are you referring to? There are thousands of fossils that are intermediate between earlier forms and later forms. Are you suggesting that every population that ever lived would be expected to leave fossils?You, however, take the next step and assume that they are or were there.No, the next step is to ask why the intermediate fossils are there at all.You then try to close that gap by saying that intermediate fossils arent[sic] really needed in the first place.They aren't. Intermediate organisms are needed, but why would we assume that they all would have been fossilized, and then that these fossils would all be found?Paleontolgists would not be looking for them if they were unnecessary.Have you asked a palaeontologist why they look for fossils? You already stated that the scientific "community is almost entirely in support of evolution," so clearly more evidence is not needed. Just because we know that organisms have evolved does not mean that we know by which path they evolved. There are many interesting questions left to answer about gravity, evolution, and subatomic particles, but the underlying facts are not in doubt.

Peez

[Peez]

accorn669:
Doubting Didymus, these came from my textbook. I think they fit well for my use, but maybe I am butchering the definition of macroevolution. I believe that there is noy[sic] evidence to support any form of evolution other than basic microevolution.You are wrong. See, for example, 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) (which is at the website where you did most of your research, and which has been linked to above)Ah, you have made a very good point. Intermediate fossils should be rare. For specific stages of evolution they should be. The gap in the fossil record is not a single fossil. It is a series of single fossils. They are rare by themselves, but should not be together.This is an unsupported assertion. Just how rare the fossils in question should be depends on how large the population was, how long the "transition" took, and exactly how unlikely a fossilization event was. Getting hit by lightning in the next five minutes is very unlikely, would you then conclude that getting hit by lightning in the next five years is almost certain? Evolution does not make any predictions about fossilization rates. What evolution does predict is that any fossils found will fit into the pattern of descent with modification. Thus, each fossil is a new test of evolution, and millions have been found. It is telling that not one has been in a place that contradicted evolution.

Peez

[Lobstrosity]

Accorn, here's a simple hand-waving argument that casts some doubt on Creationism:

First, with Creationism we postulate that there need be no relation whatsoever between any species. If God were simply to create them, He could make each species anything He wanted. One would not expect a priori to be able to taxonomically classify organisms in a Creation scheme. Here are some examples of what one would not be surprised to find:

- Chimps with eight legs
- Dogs with three eyes
- Fish with horizontal tails
- Crocodiles that give milk

I'm sure you can think of a ton more. A world like this would go a hell of a long way towards falsifying our current notion of evolution and would fall right in line with what one would reasonably expect from and omnipotent Creator. Creationists make excuses as to why God would create creatures that would allow for taxonomy, but frankly they're quite weak. One I've heard is that if God had a good model for an organism, it's easier to just tweak that model rather than making a whole new one from scratch. This I find to be truly hilarious. We're talking about an omnipotent God here--the guy who made the entire universe. There is no such thing as "easy" or "hard" where God is concerned. He doesn't have difficulty with anything, so the notion that the life we see on Earth was due to his laziness is just absurd beyond belief (especially considering how God always seems to do everything in the most inefficient manner imaginable). The only reasonable Creationist justification for the organisms we see (both alive and in the fossil record) is if God was specifically trying to fool us into thinking that there was evolution at work. If this was God's plan and he really did Create everything as we see it, then I must say that his plan has worked marvelously.

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by Arikay
Didy:
But a speciation change from one species to another would still be considered Macro evolution right?

You probably don't want to know what I think, but here it is anyway: I think that the terms 'macroevolution' and 'microevolution' are so confused, owing to just short of a century of wildly varying usages (I believe the terms were coined in the 1920s?), that they are now useless. The words need to be thrown on the scrapheap and replaced with a more appropriate set of terminology. Something that actually desribes the phenomena they are supposed to describe would be nice.

But yes, most definitions of macroevolution include speciation.

[Lobstrosity]

I'm sorry, but what the hell is the difference between micro and macroevolution? Can't we just say evolution and be done with it? Is the same fundamental mechanism responsible for both or does each characterize its own mechanism for genetic change? If its the same mechanism, why bother making a distinction?

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by Lobstrosity
I'm sorry, but what the hell is the difference between micro and macroevolution? Can't we just say evolution and be done with it? Is the same fundamental mechanism responsible for both or does each characterize its own mechanism for genetic change? If its the same mechanism, why bother making a distinction?

It depends on the definition you are using. There are about ten to pick from after all. There are definitions, particularly the more technical scientific definitions, that frame macroevolution as explaining a quite separate set of phenomena. Such as this one: "the large-scale patterns, trends, and rate of change among families and other more inclusive groups of species". Things like species sorting, which you were talking about recently in a different thread, come under this definition. Largely not to do with genetics directly. The influence of patterns and trends on evolutionary history. That sort of concept.

Its a bad word for it.

[Arikay]

I agree. From all that ive read biologists dont really use them anymore. Most often they are used in debates and by creationists who claim Micro is fine but Macro doesnt happen.

Both have been observed, and there is no known block from one to the other. So all of it should just be called evolution.

:)



Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
You probably don't want to know what I think, but here it is anyway: I think that the terms 'macroevolution' and 'microevolution' are so confused, owing to just short of a century of wildly varying usages (I believe the terms were coined in the 1920s?), that they are now useless. The words need to be thrown on the scrapheap and replaced with a more appropriate set of terminology. Something that actually desribes the phenomena they are supposed to describe would be nice.

But yes, most definitions of macroevolution include speciation.

[Paul2]

Maybe i'm wrong here, but i was under the assumption that all macroevolution is, is a whole bunch of "micro evolution events" over a period of time that form a new species. So if that's true, and you believe microevolution is ok, then what's the problem?

[Oolon Colluphid]

Originally posted by Paul2
Maybe i'm wrong here, but i was under the assumption that all macroevolution is, is a whole bunch of "micro evolution events" over a period of time that form a new species. So if that's true, and you believe microevolution is ok, then what's the problem?
Basically, there is nothing more to evolution than accumulated microevolution, the generation-to-generation transmission of heritable material. (Wait, wait...! ;)) The point, though, is that accumulated microevolution produces bigger patterns -- extinctions, diversifications and so on -- and is affected by larger and longer-term events -- geological, ecological and cosmic events, plates splitting to form separate continents, asteriod impacts, ice ages, and so on.

The ‘bigger picture’ is what macroevolution is about. So for instance the mammalian radiation after the Cretaceous is a macroevolutionary thing, but it was still predicated on the flow of genes down generations and differential survival and reproduction. Lobe-finned fish climbing onto land to exploit a wide range of new niches was macroevolutionary, yet it depended on mutation and selection within lineages.

Perhaps (he now realises), the micro- / macro- distinction is one of levels of explanation. Microevolution is to macroevolution what cytology is to histology.

Or something.

Cheers, Oolon

[pz]

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
Basically, there is nothing more to evolution than accumulated microevolution, the generation-to-generation transmission of heritable material. (Wait, wait...! ;))

Perhaps (he now realises), the micro- / macro- distinction is one of levels of explanation. Microevolution is to macroevolution what cytology is to histology. Yes. Macroevolution is nothing more than microevolution, in the same sense microevolution is nothing more than cell biology, which in turn is nothing more than chemistry.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Originally posted by pz
Yes. Macroevolution is nothing more than microevolution, in the same sense microevolution is nothing more than cell biology, which in turn is nothing more than chemistry.
Yeah, I know what you’re getting at (me), but that is precisely the point. The level of explanation that’s suitable depends on what the question is.

It is not wrong to explain that a car works by reference to the atomic structure of steel and the chemistry of combustion, it is just an inappropriate sort of answer if the question is, ‘what happens when I depress the accelerator pedal?’ See Dawkins on ‘greedy reductionism’.

Similarly, ‘why did mammals radiate in the Tertiary?’: it is not wrong to say that random mutations, selection, plus a pinch of genetic drift, in early mammals led to some surviving better than others in their environment; it’s not wrong, it’s just that a more useful answer involves the opening up of many ecological niches after a frigging great rock hit the planet.

As far as the genes that are passed on (or not) are concerned, the frigging great rock is irrelevant. All they ‘know’ is that they end up in more and more varied bodies. A ‘greedy reductionist’ would say that that’s all there was to it. A normal, sensible, real-life reductionist simply notes that the bigger picture has to be based on the smaller one.

Cheers, Oolon

[DMB]

I am not a scientist, so I expect to be shot down in flames, but it seems to me that all the classifications used, such as species, family, phylum or whatever, are convenient labels based on the fact that humans are hard-wired to classify things. We attach an enormous importance to labelling things, even though in biology there are always going to be fuzzy divisions between entities. Hence the spurious argument that if we evolved from apes, there must have been a family unit where the mother was an ape and the child a human.

So even if two present-day entities are now clearly of different phyla, that should be no bar to their having had (possibly remote)ancestors who were only of different species. So to me the distinction between macro- and micro-evolution looks artificial, a product of our classification mania.

[Tyler Durden]

Originally posted by pz
Yes. Macroevolution is nothing more than microevolution, in the same sense microevolution is nothing more than cell biology, which in turn is nothing more than chemistry.

Is this method of reductionism universally applicable to every facet of knowledge, of human activity? Or is it a pragmatic method that appears to work in certain subjects much better than others?

[Lobstrosity]

Originally posted by pz
Yes. Macroevolution is nothing more than microevolution, in the same sense microevolution is nothing more than cell biology, which in turn is nothing more than chemistry.
...which in turn is nothing more than physics. That's right, physics rules all--worship the mighty physics!

[Gracchus]

Originally posted by Tyler Durden
Is this method of reductionism universally applicable to every facet of knowledge, of human activity? Or is it a pragmatic method that appears to work in certain subjects much better than others?

It's all physics, and that is the fact. It is not a very useful fact except philosophically. It is useful when folks set up false dichotomies and reify arbitrary classifications, e.g. life, non-life. Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire. It is not a thing in itself, it is a process.

[pz]

Originally posted by Lobstrosity
...which in turn is nothing more than physics. That's right, physics rules all--worship the mighty physics! I intentionally left out physics, since physicists already have that horrible problem with swollen heads, and also seem to be unable to recognize sarcasm.

[Gracchus]

Originally posted by pz
I intentionally left out physics, since physicists already have that horrible problem with swollen heads, and also seem to be unable to recognize sarcasm.

Citation please. :confused:

[Wounded King]

Im afraid I shall now have to kill you all, my mind has snapped under the burden of yet one more physicist claiming that Biology is nothing more than physics.

You use the schroedinger equation to tell me the downstream targets of Shh signalling and then Ill start to believe you.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Steve Jones has referred to biologists suffering from 'physics envy'... clearly not all of them do!

Oolon

[pz]

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
Steve Jones has referred to biologists suffering from 'physics envy'... clearly not all of them do! Nah, it's true. We all have our moments when we wish biology were as simple as physics.

[Bubba]

As a non-scientist, I ahve to agree. Biology is (in my mind anyways) Much more complex than Physics.

Bubba

[Quetzal]

Originally posted by pz
Nah, it's true. We all have our moments when we wish biology were as simple as physics. Too true. Physicists have all those nice, neat elementary particles with neatly defined immutable properties - an electron is an electron is an electron, whether it's part of a wall or part of the sun - all of which are amenable to nice, neat incomprehensible mathematical equations. What do biologists have? F**king species. Can't even define the bloody thing, and for every example there's at least 2500 exceptions. What's up with that? Physics envy, hunh? Get real... :D

[DNAunion]

Gracchus: Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire.

/*DNAunion*/ That's a lie.

[RBH]

DNAUnion wrote/*DNAunion*/ That's a lie.
It may be wrong; I doubt that it's a lie.

RBH

[Gracchus]

It's not even wrong. :p

[DNAunion]

Oolon Colluphid: Steve Jones has referred to biologists suffering from 'physics envy'... clearly not all of them do!

pz: Nah, it's true. We all have our moments when we wish biology were as simple as physics.

/*DNAunion*/ Richard Dawkins would seem to agree.


”Physics is the study of the simple things... The biologists problem is the problem of complexity. The biologist tries to explain the workings, and the coming into existence, of complex things, in terms of simpler things. He can regard his task as done when he has arrived at entities so simple that they can safely be handed over to the physicist.” (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W. W. Norton & Company, 1986/1996, pages 1 & 2 & 15)

[KC]

Originally posted by pz
Nah, it's true. We all have our moments when we wish biology were as simple as physics.

I hear that. Particles don't pee on you when they are frightened, and don't deposit guano.

KC

[Dean Anderson]

In Mathematics, the experiment is all in your imagination.

In Physics, the experiment will not work.

In Chemistry, the experiment will explode.

In Biology, the experiment will escape.



When I studied Animal Behaviour, I learnt the basic rule very quickly...

When repeating an experiment with the same conditions and the same measurements, in each case the animal will do as it damn well pleases.

[DNAunion]

Gracchus: Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire.

DNAunion: That's a lie [according to what you have said in another thread, simply because it is a false statement].

RBH: It may be wrong; I doubt that it's a lie.

Gracchus: It's not even wrong.

/*DNAunion*/ For the record, are you asserting that the statement of yours I posted above -- Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire. -- is correct and accurate as stated?

[Gracchus]

Originally posted by DNAunion
./*DNAunion*/ For the record, are you asserting that the statement of yours I posted above -- Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire. -- is correct and accurate as stated?

Why Would I lie?

It is a fact that the universe is all physics. It is a fact that chemistry is a subset of physics. And it is a fact that biology is a subset of chemistry.

Again! Life is chemistry. Some reactions are not classified as life. When key reactions stop, we're dead. Perhaps you are trying to indicate that life is not poorly defined in chemical terms? How am I wrong? Teach me!

:)

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by Gracchus
Why Would I lie?

It is a fact that the universe is all physics. It is a fact that chemistry is a subset of physics. And it is a fact that biology is a subset of chemistry.

Again! Life is chemistry. Some reactions are not classified as life. When key reactions stop, we're dead. Perhaps you are trying to indicate that life is not poorly defined in chemical terms? How am I wrong? Teach me!

:)

Well... There are a generally agreed on set of criteria for what chemical properties 'life' should have. You know the ones: respiration, response to stimulus, so forth. Highschool biology. I don't want to put words in DNA's mouth, but the existance of widely agreed apon criteria may be what he's thinking of.

Whether they are good criteria, i.e. 'well defined', is a different question entirely. I personally hate them. I reckon they're as arbitrary as anything, expecially when you get right down to the very early stages of life. The criteria we have are biased in favour of everything from bacteria up, which you might think is sensible seeing as no good precursers to bacteria are extant, but they fuck you over when you're trying to talk about abiogenesis.

[Gracchus]

Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
Well... There are a generally agreed on set of criteria for what chemical properties 'life' should have. You know the ones: respiration, response to stimulus, so forth. Highschool biology. I don't want to put words in DNA's mouth, but the existance of widely agreed apon criteria may be what he's thinking of.

Whether they are good criteria, i.e. 'well defined', is a different question entirely. I personally hate them. I reckon they're as arbitrary as anything, expecially when you get right down to the very early stages of life. The criteria we have are biased in favour of everything from bacteria up, which you might think is sensible seeing as no good precursers to bacteria are extant, but they fuck you over when you're trying to talk about abiogenesis.

That's the reason I said poorly defined, because something like respiration may be problematical in anaerobic bacteria. A spore may exhibit none of the "properties of life". There may be no chemical activity whatsoever until you add water or raise the temperature. The closer you look at those defining boundary conditions, the more diffuse they get. It can happen as you examine boundary conditions you find your self suddenly immersed in chaos theory, catastrophe theory, and quantum mechanics. The boundary between chemistry and biology depends on who's doing the defining. :banghead:

From cosmology to quantum mechanics, all those sciences are studying different aspects and subsets of one thing. :)

[DNAunion]

/*DNAunion*/ For the record, are you asserting that the statement of yours I posted above – Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire. -- is correct and accurate as stated?

Gracchus: Why Would I lie?

It is a fact that the universe is all physics. It is a fact that chemistry is a subset of physics. And it is a fact that biology is a subset of chemistry.

Again! Life is chemistry. Some reactions are not classified as life. When key reactions stop, we're dead. Perhaps you are trying to indicate that life is not poorly defined in chemical terms? How am I wrong? Teach me!

/*DNAunion*/ No, I am trying to say that life is more than a mere “poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire”.

Does simple combusion, as occurs in fire, store genetic information using symbol sequences? Does simple combustion, as occurs in fire, transmit genetic information from generation to generation? Does simple combustion, as occurs in fire, undergo mutations in its coded information that affect progeny’s chances for surviving and reproducing?

Does simple combustion, as occurs in fire, rigorously control the flow of energy, capturing as much as it can in chemical bonds for future use elsewhere instead of simply wasting it as heat?

Are the contraction of skeletal muscle and the division of a cell by mitosis and cytokinesis nothing more than poorly defined chemical reactions like fire? Can simple combustion, as occurs in fire, decide to move in a direction opposite that dictated by the external forces imposed on it?

The complexity of life far exceeds that of a "rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire".

[Heathen Dawn]

Just finished reading the exchange between Acorn and the others … very familiar, all this. When I came to the IIDB (early 2001) I was out of YEC but not quite into evolution. I was a progressive creationist, believing God created each living organism basing it on the previous version (thus, Human = Chimpanzee ver 3.0). One of my first threads on the boards was about this progressive creationism hypothesis. I was given a trashing as much as Acorn has now been given here. If past events are something to come by, he’ll end up accepting evolution just like I did.

Orgel’s Second Law: evolution is cleverer than you are.

[Gracchus]

DNAunion inquired, For the record,...

(Why for the record? Are you implying that you weren't just curious?)

...are you asserting that the statement of yours I posted above -- Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire. -- is correct and accurate as stated? ...

The complexity of life far exceeds that of a "rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire".

The definition of life is inexact. That is one reason it is poorly defined. But life is a set of chemical reactions. The complexity is another reason the term is poorly defined. It is not magic. We are not souls driving around in chariots of flesh. We are the reaction itself, dynamic and ever-changing.

Your question was about my reply to this, originally posted by Tyler Durden: Is this method of reductionism universally applicable to every facet of knowledge, of human activity? Or is it a pragmatic method that appears to work in certain subjects much better than others?

I have answered your question, for the record. I have made some effort to clarify my position. Have you any more questions? Comments? If not, I consider your question answered.


:)

[DNAunion]

Gracchus: Have you any more questions?

/*DNAunion*/ Yes. Let's look at your original statement again:

Gracchus: Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire.

/*DNAunion*/ Do you consider fire to be a poorly defined set of chemical reactions?

[Gracchus]

Originally posted by DNAunion
/*DNAunion*/ Yes. Let's look at your original statement again:

Gracchus: "Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire."

/*DNAunion*/ Do you consider fire to be a poorly defined set of chemical reactions?

What I had in mind was that fire does feed, grow and sometimes reproduces by means of sparks and embers. In that way it is like life.

Is it poorly defined? That was not my intended meaning, but the term "fire" does cover a lot of different and complex reactions. Magnesium burns, so does gasoline, so does wood. Fire can burn at different temperatures, and give off different by-products. Some might say that fire is oxidation, but rust isn't fire, and sodium can burn in chlorine, if I remember my high-school chemistry.

But your question begs a question. Why do you ask? Surely not for information. :sarcasm:

I await your stinging rebuttal.

[Peez]

Why does this thread remind me of Ann Elk?

:)
Peez

[Wounded King]

I have a theory, it could be bunnies.

[DNAunion]

/*DNAunion*/ Yes. Let's look at your original statement again:

Gracchus: "Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire."

/*DNAunion*/ Do you consider fire to be a poorly defined set of chemical reactions?

Gracchus: … Is it poorly defined? That was not my intended meaning, …

/*DNAunion*/ So you misplaced the “like a fire” phrase. It doesn’t modify that which it immediately follows (“a set of poorly understood chemical reactions”) but rather applies to that at the complete opposite end of the sentence (“Life is …”). So what we have is two separate ideas, made difficult to comprehend by poor sentence structure:

1) “Life is a set of poorly understood chemical reactions”
2) “Life is … like a fire.”

A few posts back, I dealt a “death blow” to (2) without breaking a sweat, so there’s no need for me to address that one in detail here (though more could added to my previous comments, such as the maintenance of homeostasis using negative feedback). Suffice it to say that that part of your poorly constructed sentence can stand only as an overly vague, vastly understated, analogy. In fact, as stated, it could probably be considered wrong. To make sure it is correct – and even then just as an analogy - you would have needed to add what you later did: something like, “Life is … like a fire because both can …”.

That leaves only (1) to deal with.

“Life is a set of poorly understood chemical reactions”

What that says is that life is a set whose elements are poorly understood chemical reactions. Is that true? Nope. (I could argue here too that it is wrong because life is more than a mere collection of simple chemical reactions - as explained earlier in my post that showed the complexity of life is much greater than mere combustion – for example, life stores the information that maintains and reproduces itself using a information-processing system that utilizes coded symbol sequences). There are plenty of well understood chemical reactions associated with life.

Let’s look at one of the basic “chemical reactions” (actually, metabolic pathways, but we can dumb things down for a minute to try to fit them into Gracchus’s understated terminology ) taught in biology texts: aerobic respiration. It involves four well-understood sub “reactions”: glycolysis, formation of acetyl CoA, citric acid cycle, and electron transport and chemiosmosis. I won’t explain each of those because that would require typing pages and pages of details – because each one is so well understood, of course. I will just show the pages that the INTRODUCTORY, GENERAL BIOLOGY text I am tutoring out of this semester devotes to explaining the steps involved in these – of course, a biochemistry text would undoubtedly devote many more pages and go into even more detail. The discussion begins on page 155 and ends on page 168 (Eldra Pearl Solomon, Linda R Berg, and Diana W Martin, Biology: Fifth Edition, Saunders College Publishing, 1999). As an example of what is contained in those 14 pages, all of the 10 individual steps of glycolysis are listed and explained: for each step, what is the “main input” molecule, what is the “main output” molecule, what enzyme catalyzes that step, is ATP required or produced, is NAD+ reduced to NADH, how is the molecule acted upon modified (phosphorylation, isomerized, etc.), and so on; as well as stating how the overall pathway is regulated through negative feedback. The same is done for the other pathways; formation of acetyl CoA, citric acid cycle, and electron transport and chemiosmosis.

That’s aerobic respiration. The same kind of step-by-step detail is given in about 20 pages of the next chapter for photosynthesis (that chapter deals primarily with photosynthesis as it occurs in green plants): both the light dependent reactions (those that occur in the thylakoid membranes and produce ATP, NADPH, and molecular oxygen) as well as the light-independent reactions (those that occur in the stroma and form sugars like glucose), including the related “setup steps” (plants that use C4 and CAM pathways).

Because these key and ubiquitous metabolic pathways are well understood, your statement “Life is a set of poorly understood chemical reactions” is false.

[Gracchus]

Gracchus: "Life is a rather poorly defined set of chemical reactions, like fire."

/*DNAunion*/ Do you consider fire to be a poorly defined set of chemical reactions?

Gracchus: "What I had in mind was that fire does feed, grow and sometimes reproduces by means of sparks and embers. In that way it is like life. It was intended as a simplifying analogy.
Is it (fire) poorly defined? That was not my intended meaning, but the t