Creationists, please provide evidence

[newhope101]

Quote:However, you once again dodge the questions with irrelevant articles.
No, I repeat, no evolutionary biologist worth a grain of salt would advocate natural selection as the only driving force behind evolution.

Have a read again....."The results lead to the provocative hypothesis that, rather than being the result of Darwinian selection for new adaptations, many of the genetic changes leading to human-specific characters may be the result of the fixation of harmful mutations. This contrasts the traditional Darwinistic view that they are the result of natural selection in favour of adaptive mutations."

Darwin is dead so is his theory in many ways. It must be comforting defending a cadaver. Oh I forgot, disproving some of Darwins hypothesis still means he is right. I forgot for a moment the low level of scientific veracity one requires to be an evolutionist. My apologies.

 

[McBell]

However, you once again dodge the questions with irrelevant articles.
No, I repeat, no evolutionary biologist worth a grain of salt would advocate natural selection as the only driving force behind evolution.

"The results lead to the provocative hypothesis that, rather than being the result of Darwinian selection for new adaptations, many of the genetic changes leading to human-specific characters may be the result of the fixation of harmful mutations. This contrasts the traditional Darwinistic view that they are the result of natural selection in favour of adaptive mutations."

Darwin is dead so is his theory in many ways. It must be comforting defending a cadaver. Oh I forgot, disproving some of Darwins hypothesis still means he is right. I forgot for a moment the low level of scientific veracity one requires to be an evolutionist. My apologies.

Still running around chasing your own tail I see.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Quote:However, you once again dodge the questions with irrelevant articles.
No, I repeat, no evolutionary biologist worth a grain of salt would advocate natural selection as the only driving force behind evolution.

Have a read again....."The results lead to the provocative hypothesis that, rather than being the result of Darwinian selection for new adaptations, many of the genetic changes leading to human-specific characters may be the result of the fixation of harmful mutations. This contrasts the traditional Darwinistic view that they are the result of natural selection in favour of adaptive mutations."

Darwin is dead so is his theory in many ways. It must be comforting defending a cadaver. Oh I forgot, disproving some of Darwins hypothesis still means he is right. I forgot for a moment the low level of scientific veracity one requires to be an evolutionist. My apologies.

No one is defending all of Darwin's hypotheses here. Pay attention to the research. The more we learn about biology and genetics, the more we understand how Evolution works and the more old hypotheses are removed from the Theory of Evolution, and new testable and accurate hypotheses are brought into the Theory of Evolution.
Guess what? Darwin was wrong about many things that he though were the only mechanisms in Evolution. That is what science does. It tests, observes, gets new information, and confirms it.
And you know what else? All the biological information we have gained further confirms the scientific fact of Evolution and adds to the Theory of Evolution.
'The Origin of the Species' is not like your Bible. It was merely a starting point for over 150 years of research. To clamp onto those 150 year old ideas as if they were some dogma, like you seem to be clamping on to 2000 year old ideas, would only restrict our understanding of Biological Evolution.
When you laugh with glee at the finding of new research that conflicts with Natural Selection, you are ten steps behind biologists who are slaping each other on the back for coming up with that research. Why are they so happy? Because their research only confirms Evolution and gives us an updated understanding of how it works.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Quote:However, you once again dodge the questions with irrelevant articles.
No, I repeat, no evolutionary biologist worth a grain of salt would advocate natural selection as the only driving force behind evolution.

Have a read again....."The results lead to the provocative hypothesis that, rather than being the result of Darwinian selection for new adaptations, many of the genetic changes leading to human-specific characters may be the result of the fixation of harmful mutations. This contrasts the traditional Darwinistic view that they are the result of natural selection in favour of adaptive mutations."

Darwin is dead so is his theory in many ways. It must be comforting defending a cadaver. Oh I forgot, disproving some of Darwins hypothesis still means he is right. I forgot for a moment the low level of scientific veracity one requires to be an evolutionist. My apologies.

How is this so difficult for you to understand?

There is a reason that evolution is called evolution rather than Darwinism nowadays. It's because Darwin essentially provided the foundation for the theory, but since then we have accrued a much better understanding of the subject than Darwin ever could have, and in many respects Darwin's supposed model was inaccurate. This is understandable once you realize that scientific inquiry and developing of scientific theories is an on-going process and new information becomes available both as new facts come to light and new technologies and methods are invented. The fact that new developments come to light that challenged Darwin's original model of natural selection does not indicate any weakness in the modern theory of evolution, which is the sum total of both Darwin's foundational hypothesis and the hundred plus years of research that came afterwards.

If you don't understand this, you are in absolutely no position to be lecturing anybody about "scientific veracity" as you clearly don't know the first thing about how science works.

 

[Pegg]

I am asking whether you believe it is possible for a species that has the ability to interbreed with another species to lose that ability due to a mutation.

most mutations are harmful to the organism so of course reproduction is likely to be affected.

In this instance we are not talking about any “new” function, we are talking about the loss of an ability. But if the ability to produce hybrids is the key to defining biblical “kinds” then the loss of that ability would mean a new “kind” has emerged.

hybridization is not the 'key' to what a genesis kind is. Its merely one way to determine if two animals have the same genotype...reproduction is the key to a genesis kind. It imagine would be impossible to determine if an animal 'lost' the ability to hybridize.

If on the other hand you are going to argue that it is impossible for a species that has the ability to interbreed to ever loose that ability I would like to examine that possibility. Is this what you are saying?

im not saying that, no. Do you know how many woman cannot fall pregnant or who have multiple miscarriages? There can be many reasons for that, I certainly wouldn't say that its because they've emerged into a new species.

 

[tumbleweed41]

most mutations are harmful to the organism so of course reproduction is likely to be affected.

Q: Doesn't evolution depend on mutations and aren't most mutations harmful?

A: No. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.
That's the short answer. The long answer is that mutations can be neutral (neither helpful nor harmful), strictly harmful, strictly helpful, or (and this is important) whether they are harmful or helpful depends on the environment. Most mutations are either neutral or their effect depends on the environment. Let's look at an example of a mutation which may be harmful or helpful, depending upon circumstances.
English peppered moths come in two varieties, light and dark. Before the industrial revolution dark moths were very rare. During the worst years of the industrial revolution when the air was very sooty dark moths became quite common. In recent years, since the major efforts to improve air quality, the light moths are replacing the dark moths. A famous paper by H.B.D. Kettlewell proposed the following explanation for this phenomenon:

Birds eat the kind of moth they can see the best.
In England before the Industrial Revolution trees are often covered with light colored lichens. As a result light moths were favored because they were hard to see on the bark of trees whereas the dark moths were easy to see; birds ate the dark moths. During the worst years of the Industrial Revolution the air was very sooty so tree bark was dark because of soot. Dark moths were hard to see whereas the light moths were easy to see; birds ate the light moths. As a result the dark moths became common and the light moths became rare.
​

Despite creationist criticisms, this explanation has stood the test of time. Before the Industrial Revolution, a mutation which changed light moths into dark moths was an unfavorable (harmful) mutation, whereas during the dark years it was a favorable (helpful) mutation.
To see why most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful it helps to know a bit about what mutations actually are. A mutation is a change in the genetic material that controls heredity. The genetic material is contained in chromosomes. Plants and animals have two copies of each chromosome whereas bacteria only have one copy. Organisms which have two copies of each chromosomes are called diploids. Those which only have one copy of each chromosome are called haploids.
Chromosomes are divided into genes, each gene being a stretch of DNA, i.e., a sequence of nucleotides (A,G,C,T for short). The location of a gene is called a locus. (The position of a nucleotide within a gene is called a site. Don't mix up locus and site.) At a given locus you may find that the DNA sequence is different from one critter to another in some small way. These are usually known as different alleles although sometimes they are confusingly called different genes. Let's call them different alleles so that we don't get confused; besides that's the standard term.
If we look at populations of animals and plants we find that there are multiple alleles at 10-20% of the genes. In other words if we look at a given locus in all the members of a population about 10-20% of the time we will find more than one sequence at that locus. There can be more than two alleles within a population for a given gene locus.
(Source)

hybridization is not the 'key' to what a genesis kind is. Its merely one way to determine if two animals have the same genotype...reproduction is the key to a genesis kind. It imagine would be impossible to determine if an animal 'lost' the ability to hybridize.

You imagine incorrectly.

im not saying that, no. Do you know how many woman cannot fall pregnant or who have multiple miscarriages? There can be many reasons for that, I certainly wouldn't say that its because they've emerged into a new species.

That would not be a change in alleles.

 

[Pegg]

1. What are the natural forces behind this genetic change?

I believe that it is a random process. When the genetic code is reproduced, the gene sequences change at random....nothing is behind it as such, its just the way reproduction works. To me it indicates that it was designed to do that because what it produces is individuality....every newborn becomes an individual.

And it isnt mutations causing these changes because they damage the organism rather then improve it.

1. What is the natural force that prevents genetic change?

Again, i dont think there is a 'natural force'....we simply reproduce according to the instruction located in the DNA. Those instructions make it impossible to go beyond what is written therein. Again its evidence of design because if those instructions could be so bent as to go beyond what is written, it would show that the instructions were random and therefore free to change dramatically. In other words, human dna will always produce a human, tree dna will always produce a tree, dog dna will always produce a dog... and the genes are guided by the dna to create the various phenotype of the organism.

1. What species have reached genetic equilibrium?

Zebras would be a good example, so are lions, meerkats and giraffs...basically any organism which reproduces the same features as the parents have reached an equilibrium. A lion will never suddenly have spots for instance...it will remain very similar to its parents. (of course the recessive albino gene may cause a change, but that would be an exception)

Biology online defines it this way:

Definition
noun
"A condition where a gene pool is not changing in frequency, allele are equal, thus, resulting in a population to not evolve even after several generations."

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I believe that it is a random process. When the genetic code is reproduced, the gene sequences change at random....nothing is behind it as such, its just the way reproduction works. To me it indicates that it was designed to do that because what it produces is individuality....every newborn becomes an individual.

That's a non-sequitur. How does genetic variation forming individuals indicate design?

And it isnt mutations causing these changes because they damage the organism rather then improve it.

Plain wrong: The vast majority of mutations do no harm whatsoever. Only very few are harmful, and an equally small number are beneficial.

Again, i dont think there is a 'natural force'....we simply reproduce according to the instruction located in the DNA. Those instructions make it impossible to go beyond what is written therein.

Then explain how mutation occurs.

Again its evidence of design because if those instructions could be so bent as to go beyond what is written, it would show that the instructions were random and therefore free to change dramatically.

Mutation occurs, therefore you are wrong.

In other words, human dna will always produce a human, tree dna will always produce a tree, dog dna will always produce a dog... and the genes are guided by the dna to create the various phenotype of the organism.

Technically, you are correct. Except this does not apply retroactively. As all species continue to reproduce, they will only reproduce within their certain taxonomic rank, but will produce variations of populations within that rank. However, this does not mean that every species suddenly popped into existence as is - all of the evidence clearly indicates that all life of earth share common descent.

In other words, the first mammals only produced mammals, which eventually included the first apes. The first apes only produced apes, which eventually included the first hominids. The first hominids only produced hominids, which eventually produced humans.

Zebras would be a good example, so are lions, meerkats and giraffs...basically any organism which reproduces the same features as the parents have reached an equilibrium. A lion will never suddenly have spots for instance...it will remain very similar to its parents. (of course the recessive albino gene may cause a change, but that would be an exception)

In this case, the exception proves you're talking nonsense. The existence of genetic information malleable enough for such mutations to arise clearly demonstrates that there is no such thing as an "equilibrium" in the manner that you assert. You cannot just shrug off a mutation and call it "an exception". There is no disclaimer written on an animals genetic code which reads "no mutations allowed! except for albino mutation, y'know, because it's an exception".

Biology online defines it this way:

Definition
noun
"A condition where a gene pool is not changing in frequency, allele are equal, thus, resulting in a population to not evolve even after several generations."

Except this has nothing to do with the absence of mutations, as you assert. It's to do with a variety of factors such as lack of environmental attrition or simply a particular population of a species dominating the gene pool. Certain predators, for example, haven't changed in a very long time. This is not because they are "immune" to mutations, it is because they have already adapted to the point where they are extremely successful hunters and breeders, and as a result those mutations either make no difference or very little difference whatsoever, since the high survival and reproduction rates of such animals would not select for those mutations.

 

[Half Asleep]

Darwin is dead so is his theory in many ways. It must be comforting defending a cadaver. Oh I forgot, disproving some of Darwins hypothesis still means he is right. I forgot for a moment the low level of scientific veracity one requires to be an evolutionist. My apologies.

On an essential level, you have virtually no idea how science works. This is why this sophomoric argument is going nowhere.

 

[fantome profane]

hybridization is not the 'key' to what a genesis kind is. Its merely one way to determine if two animals have the same genotype...reproduction is the key to a genesis kind. It imagine would be impossible to determine if an animal 'lost' the ability to hybridize.

In other words it is impossible to determine what is a “Genesis kind”. Perhaps wolves and coyotes are both the same “kind” but have just lost the ability to hybridize, you cannot say. Perhaps wolves and hyenas are both the same “kind” but have just lost the ability to hybridize, you can’t say. You can’t even say if wolves and kangaroos are the same “kind” or not.

You have spoken often of hybridization in several posts in this and in other threads, as if this had some relevance in determining whether species belong to the same “kind” or not. But apparently since you can never determine whether or not the ability to hybridize has been lost then you can never determine that any two species do not belong to the same kind. So hybridation has no value whatsoever in determining “kind”.

Thank you for your help. You have once again illustrated that creationists cannot even provide a coherent hypothesis; much less provide evidence.

 

[RedOne77]

Have a read again....."The results lead to the provocative hypothesis that, rather than being the result of Darwinian selection for new adaptations, many of the genetic changes leading to human-specific characters may be the result of the fixation of harmful mutations. This contrasts the traditional Darwinistic view that they are the result of natural selection in favour of adaptive mutations."

Darwin is dead so is his theory in many ways. It must be comforting defending a cadaver. Oh I forgot, disproving some of Darwins hypothesis still means he is right. I forgot for a moment the low level of scientific veracity one requires to be an evolutionist. My apologies.

And this disproves evolution how? Fitness landscapes are well understood and fit comfortably in the ToE.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Creationists, please provide evidence

No.

 

[Dan4reason]

I believe that it is a random process. When the genetic code is reproduced, the gene sequences change at random....nothing is behind it as such, its just the way reproduction works. To me it indicates that it was designed to do that because what it produces is individuality....every newborn becomes an individual.

And it isnt mutations causing these changes because they damage the organism rather then improve it.


Again, i dont think there is a 'natural force'....we simply reproduce according to the instruction located in the DNA. Those instructions make it impossible to go beyond what is written therein. Again its evidence of design because if those instructions could be so bent as to go beyond what is written, it would show that the instructions were random and therefore free to change dramatically. In other words, human dna will always produce a human, tree dna will always produce a tree, dog dna will always produce a dog... and the genes are guided by the dna to create the various phenotype of the organism.



Zebras would be a good example, so are lions, meerkats and giraffs...basically any organism which reproduces the same features as the parents have reached an equilibrium. A lion will never suddenly have spots for instance...it will remain very similar to its parents. (of course the recessive albino gene may cause a change, but that would be an exception)

Biology online defines it this way:

Definition
noun
"A condition where a gene pool is not changing in frequency, allele are equal, thus, resulting in a population to not evolve even after several generations."

When the genetic code is produced that is a random process with several mutations here and there. What is non-random is natural selection which drives evolution.

 

[Gunfingers]

Hell, just the hundred or so mutations are really random. All the stuff that makes the offspring an "individual" is just a mixture of traits from the parents resulting from each parent only passing on half of their genome.

 

[Autodidact]

Alright, at least now we have something approaching a hypothesis, and we can begin to look at the evidence question. Yes, we're on p. 100.

I think Pegg's hypothesis is something like this:

At some unknown point in the past, God magically poofed two of each "kind" of creature into existence. A kind is a group of organisms that can reproduce together or be hybridized to produce offspring. It is larger than a species, and often corresponds to a genus, although that is not its definition.

Around 4000 years ago, two of each kind of land animal (never mind plants or aquatic creatures for now) got on a wooden boat and floated around while the entire world was flooded. The boat landed somewhere in Armenia or Turkey, and the pairs of creatures got off and traveled to their modern homes.

All of the species we see on earth now evolved from those original kinds, although I'm not clear by what process.

Assume that's the hypothesis. (If it isn't, Pegg, please set us straight.)

The core of the hypothesis isn't a hypothesis at all, and can neither be supported or refuted through any evidence. That is the magic poofing part. Since it is a supernatural claim, science cannot address it in anyway. It was unreasonable of the OP to ask for evidence, and even more unreasonable of the YECs who assert it to claim there is evidence in its support.

I'll try to explain why. God is all-powerful and unknowable. Therefore if God creates things directly, through magic rather than a natural process, He could do so in any manner whatsoever. He could make them look exactly as if they had evolved in the exact manner described in ToE, but by magic. Heck, He may have created the whole universe last Tuesday, complete with memories and everything made to look ancient. There would be no way of knowing.

So science cannot examine that claim, and we cannot posit any evidence in its support.

That doesn't mean it's false, just that it's not a scientific claim. You are free to believe it, just please don't say it's because of evidence, because it is literally impossible for evidence to support or refute it.

The rest of the hypothesis appears to involve natural, discoverable properties, and when time permits I will try, and maybe others can try, to figure out what evidence could support or refute it.

 

[Pegg]

Why do you think we don't? I mean, is anyone stopping them?

we do have them and yes, they are stopped by evolutionary scientists who not only refuse to acknowledge anything they have to say, but dismiss them simply because they are creationists.

See here for a small list of creationist scientists, past and present.

 

[Autodidact]

we do have them and yes, they are stopped by evolutionary scientists who not only refuse to acknowledge anything they have to say, but dismiss them simply because they are creationists.

See here for a small list of creationist scientists, past and present.

Then why did you say we don't? And how does someone else's failure to agree with them prevent them from doing whatever research they like? And how is an "evolutionary scientist" different from a scientist? Don't you mean, plain old scientists?

 

[Autodidact]

we do have them and yes, they are stopped by evolutionary scientists who not only refuse to acknowledge anything they have to say, but dismiss them simply because they are creationists.

See here for a small list of creationist scientists, past and present.

Francis Bacon died in 1626. Do you suppose Biological science has made any progress at all in the last 4 centuries?

Although if you're relying on dead people to do your research, I can see why you're having difficulty.

Micheal Faraday is an English chemist--possibly the greatest ever--who died in 1867. Why would we be interested in his views concerning a modern biological theory?

Kepler is an astronomer who died in 1630. Do you see what an absurd, laughable list this is? Honestly, Pegg, where do you get this crap? It's so shoddy.

Here's the fact: the Theory of Evolution is the foundational, consensus theory on which all of modern Biology is based.

I doubt that there are ten Biologists in the world who ascribe to your hypothesis.

 

[Dan4reason]

Hell, just the hundred or so mutations are really random. All the stuff that makes the offspring an "individual" is just a mixture of traits from the parents resulting from each parent only passing on half of their genome.

That seems about right. Thanks.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

we do have them and yes, they are stopped by evolutionary scientists who not only refuse to acknowledge anything they have to say, but dismiss them simply because they are creationists.

See here for a small list of creationist scientists, past and present.

You know, it's a bit dishonest to pretend that scientists who died before Darwin was even born are "creationists" in this context, seeing how one implication of creationism is rejection of evolution. How can someone reject a theory they never even heard of?