Evidence For And Against Evolution

[wellwisher]

One of the main premises of evolution is connected to random changes o the DNA; mutations, leading to useful changes, which are then chosen by natural selection. The problem with this are the words "random change", since random change on the DNA would lead to more net bad than net good. The net affect of such a mechanism would be some progressive change, for natural selection, but far more negative change that would have life falling like flies, left and right. The latter is not observed.

As a simple home exercise to demonstrate this, close you eyes and randomly point to a word or letter in my opening paragraph. Then replace that word or letter with one that is randomly chosen for you from a dictionary. Do this 100 times and keep track of how many times the meaning becomes messed up, and how many time deeper insight is added.

The paragraph is like the DNA with each letter and word like base pairs and genes. More harm that good will appear if you use random processes to modify the code. Why do you think that proof-reading enzymes were naturally selected to correct typos on the DNA of all cells? The goal was not random change? This was not selected since it contradicts the group viability of natural selection. Wouldn't natural selection have chosen randomizer enzymes instead if the goal was random change?

Darwin's theory of natural selection did not include anything about genes and DNA. This was added decades later. Darwin did not postulate a mechanism for change, but rather empirically observed change and observed a type of natural selection process, among life, that led to new optimizations and better long term viability. This was observed to occur without internal devastation in each generation, due to parallel random changes that do more harm then good. The empirical data describes targeted changes better than random. Proof-reading enzymes to minimize random change gives credence to this.

 

[Subduction Zone]

One of the main premises of evolution is connected to random changes o the DNA; mutations, leading to useful changes, which are then chosen by natural selection. The problem with this are the words "random change", since random change on the DNA would lead to more net bad than net good. The net affect of such a mechanism would be some progressive change, for natural selection, but far more negative change that would have life falling like flies, left and right. The latter is not observed.

As a simple home exercise to demonstrate this, close you eyes and randomly point to a word or letter in my opening paragraph. Then replace that word or letter with one that is randomly chosen for you from a dictionary. Do this 100 times and keep track of how many times the meaning becomes messed up, and how many time deeper insight is added.

The paragraph is like the DNA with each letter and word like base pairs and genes. More harm that good will appear if you use random processes to modify the code. Why do you think that proof-reading enzymes were naturally selected to correct typos on the DNA of all cells? The goal was not random change? This was not selected since it contradicts the group viability of natural selection. Wouldn't natural selection have chosen randomizer enzymes instead if the goal was random change?

Darwin's theory of natural selection did not include anything about genes and DNA. This was added decades later. Darwin did not postulate a mechanism for change, but rather empirically observed change and observed a type of natural selection process, among life, that led to new optimizations and better long term viability. This was observed to occur without internal devastation in each generation, due to parallel random changes that do more harm then good. The empirical data describes targeted changes better than random. Proof-reading enzymes to minimize random change gives credence to this.

You posted the answer to the "bad" mutations. Natural selection.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes, but naturally I have questions for which I am not getting understandable answers. So are you saying that certain bacteria change while alive and produce bacteria with those changes? Please, if you can, give a reference that I can understand. Although for some of these terms I would need a microbiologist professor probably to help me to understand. Who has a lot of patience. I looked up something about that, and here's what I found. If you can understand it, congratulations. I can't and have no real hope of understanding it because I have a lot of other things to do. It woud probably take me YEARS if not a lifetime to understand all the terms. My conclusion is that DNA is so complicated that it needed a creator. That's my conclusion.

OK, so essentially what you are saying is 'I can't understand it, therefore God' did it'.

Yes, you can understand this if you decide you want to. Furthermore, if you are going to try to argue against it, you *should* understand the topic first.

Here is something from a source about this. Again, if you can understand it, congrats.

"Mitochondria retain their own DNA, separate from that of the cell’s nucleus. For many types of research, this mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is preferable to nuclear DNA as an object of study. Unlike our nuclear DNA, it isn’t a mixture of our parents’ genetic material. Because mtDNA is inherited exclusively from the egg and passed down through generations of the maternal lineage, it’s more akin to a clone of your mother (and her mother, and her mother and so on). And while eukaryotic cells have only one copy of nuclear DNA in their singular nucleus, they have many mitochondria and therefore multiple copies of each mtDNA gene. Because the mtDNA genome is much smaller than nuclear DNA (containing only about 37 genes instead of 20,000 or so in humans), it is also simpler to analyze."

So what I glean from this is that an offspring is a mixture of the parents' genetic material. Which was already discussed on the thread. But mtDNA comes exclusively from the egg and passed down through maternal lineage. (The rest is out of my realm of comprehension right now.) But, re-reading the above, if mtDNA comes only from the egg and is passed down through material lineage, what about the male? He, too, has maternal lineage, doesn't he, in his body? Questions, questions.

Yes, men have mitochondria and mitochondrial DNA that came from their mothers. They do not pass on that mDNA to their kids, though, while the mothers do.

I'm not sure what you found difficult about that paragraph. Perhaps if you picked up a basic biology book and read it, some of the issues would resolve. If you devote yourself to reading some of it every day, I bet you could get through it in a couple of months and that paragraph would make sense.

What Bacteria Can Tell Us About Human Evolution | Quanta Magazine

Anyway, I'm giving up trying to understand this, while I respect the knowledge of the "DNA library," I am not going to accept that life came about by circumstantial abiogenesis leading to circumstantial (mindless) evolution.

So, 'I don't understand this, I don't want to put the energy into understanding it, but I will deny that those that did put in that energy and *do* understand it got the answers right'.

Which is, in essence, saying there is no God the Creator and Giver of life. And frankly, while the cards for evolution may seem to stack up for many, what I see is a complex and, as some have said, irreducibly complex system with many questions and changing conclusions, starting from the first hypothesized unicell. So again, while science can look at DNA, and observe appearances and traits and cells, I see nothing to obviate the idea that God is the Giver of life and creator.

It is quite possible to belie ve in a God and also acknowledge that evolution has occurred and is occurring. Many working biologists believe in some religion and also understand the biology and agree with it.

 

[Polymath257]

One of the main premises of evolution is connected to random changes o the DNA; mutations, leading to useful changes, which are then chosen by natural selection. The problem with this are the words "random change", since random change on the DNA would lead to more net bad than net good. The net affect of such a mechanism would be some progressive change, for natural selection, but far more negative change that would have life falling like flies, left and right. The latter is not observed.

As a simple home exercise to demonstrate this, close you eyes and randomly point to a word or letter in my opening paragraph. Then replace that word or letter with one that is randomly chosen for you from a dictionary. Do this 100 times and keep track of how many times the meaning becomes messed up, and how many time deeper insight is added.

The paragraph is like the DNA with each letter and word like base pairs and genes. More harm that good will appear if you use random processes to modify the code. Why do you think that proof-reading enzymes were naturally selected to correct typos on the DNA of all cells? The goal was not random change? This was not selected since it contradicts the group viability of natural selection. Wouldn't natural selection have chosen randomizer enzymes instead if the goal was random change?

Darwin's theory of natural selection did not include anything about genes and DNA. This was added decades later. Darwin did not postulate a mechanism for change, but rather empirically observed change and observed a type of natural selection process, among life, that led to new optimizations and better long term viability. This was observed to occur without internal devastation in each generation, due to parallel random changes that do more harm then good. The empirical data describes targeted changes better than random. Proof-reading enzymes to minimize random change gives credence to this.

Now, instead of one fairly good paragraph, imagine a population of 10,000 such paragraphs, all slightly different from each other. And imagine that every generation, a few of them pass on slightly changed paragraphs from what they have and those paragraphs that are the least insightful are culled from the population.

Don't you think that after, say, 300 generations, you might see some improvements in the population?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

One of the main premises of evolution is connected to random changes o the DNA; mutations, leading to useful changes, which are then chosen by natural selection. The problem with this are the words "random change", since random change on the DNA would lead to more net bad than net good.

First of all, most mutations are not bad - they are neutral.
Secondly, why do you consider this to be a problem?

The net affect of such a mechanism would be some progressive change, for natural selection, but far more negative change that would have life falling like flies, left and right. The latter is not observed.

99.99% of species that ever lived are extinct.
The majority of animals never gets to reproduce.

Also, it sounds like you mention "natural selection" but don't really understand what it's role is.

Secondly, let's put that "net bad" into a bit of perspective here...
Humans average out at ~55 mutations per newborn, a conservative estimate.
There are currently 7 billion people in the world.
That's 385 billion mutations.

So how exactly do you think these "bad mutations" should manifest in our current population of 7 billion?

As a simple home exercise to demonstrate this, close you eyes and randomly point to a word or letter in my opening paragraph. Then replace that word or letter with one that is randomly chosen for you from a dictionary. Do this 100 times and keep track of how many times the meaning becomes messed up, and how many time deeper insight is added.

"And let's just completely forget about natural selection while doing this, because it isn't convenient for my asanine argument...."

Darwin's theory of natural selection did not include anything about genes and DNA.

Indeed, since it was only discovered in like ... what, the 1950s?
Darwin's theory however did predict the existance of a mechanism that is capable of passing on traits with modification. Which DNA turns out to be quite exactly.

This was added decades later. Darwin did not postulate a mechanism for change, but rather empirically observed change and observed a type of natural selection process, among life, that led to new optimizations and better long term viability. This was observed to occur without internal devastation in each generation, due to parallel random changes that do more harm then good. The empirical data describes targeted changes better than random.

And then we discovered DNA and found out that there's nothing "targeted" about mutations.
And btw, Darwin's major contribution was the idea of natural selection. An idea that your entire post seems to be ignoring completely.

Yes, you observe optimisation over generations. Do you know why? Because natural selection discards the bad and keeps the good.

Proof-reading enzymes to minimize random change gives credence to this.

No, it doesn't.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Who's hypothesizing? He wrote it. I didn't. Here is something I like that he said:
“If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”

You've never read the work. So how can you opine on it at all?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Likely it is that you don't believe what the Bible says. But interestingly enough (although some people who claim to believe in the Bible disagree), the Bible says that God made man in His image, and offered him (not animals) the opportunity to live forever. Only mankind did He offer this opportunity to.

Why should anyone believe what the Bible says?
Why do you?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I didn't think of a solid firmament but of a vapor filled mass surrounding the earth. How it happened, or how it appeared to be, I don't know. But in terms of flood from above and below the earth, and pushing up of mountains, it makes sense to me.

So things that have no evidence make sense to you, but well-evidenced things do not. How does that work?

 

[SkepticThinker]

The water didn't come from space. It came from the water that was evidently around the earth. It didn't fly in from outer space, so to speak. You still didn't answer. Whether it's special pleading or not, I'm giving you my viewpoint as to why I do not consider it impossible both in generic terms and in extraordinary terms for the flood to have happened as recorded. You are more scientifically educated than I am, but that does not mean I can't question you or that I have to believe everything you and others say. On the other hand, do I believe what the Bible says? Yes. Do I believe everything it says, even if I can't explain everything? Yes. Do I also believe that things are happening that are beyond mankind's control? Yes, indeed. And do I believe these things are in harmony with what the Bible says? Yes again.
(Luke `17:26,27 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man: 27People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.…")
Scientists themselves are hypothesizing that mankind is at odds with itself. Both in an evolutionary fashion (destructiveness) and a moral way (selfishness, greediness). Yet some things go on as normal. Eating, drinking, going to work, lawsuits, taking care of animals sometimes, BUT -- many many bad things are happening. And scientists say that the earth may not recover from the destructiveness of men--not of animals. So yes, I believe that the Bible is telling the truth.

How do you know that it happened and anything came from anywhere?
You'd actually need to demonstrate that with evidence. You know, like the evidence you keep wanting for evolution, while you blindly accept whatever the Bible says. Sorry, but I'm finding this quite bizarre.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes, but naturally I have questions for which I am not getting understandable answers. So are you saying that certain bacteria change while alive and produce bacteria with those changes? Please, if you can, give a reference that I can understand. Although for some of these terms I would need a microbiologist professor probably to help me to understand. Who has a lot of patience. I looked up something about that, and here's what I found. If you can understand it, congratulations. I can't and have no real hope of understanding it because I have a lot of other things to do. It woud probably take me YEARS if not a lifetime to understand all the terms. My conclusion is that DNA is so complicated that it needed a creator. That's my conclusion.
Here is something from a source about this. Again, if you can understand it, congrats.

"Mitochondria retain their own DNA, separate from that of the cell’s nucleus. For many types of research, this mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is preferable to nuclear DNA as an object of study. Unlike our nuclear DNA, it isn’t a mixture of our parents’ genetic material. Because mtDNA is inherited exclusively from the egg and passed down through generations of the maternal lineage, it’s more akin to a clone of your mother (and her mother, and her mother and so on). And while eukaryotic cells have only one copy of nuclear DNA in their singular nucleus, they have many mitochondria and therefore multiple copies of each mtDNA gene. Because the mtDNA genome is much smaller than nuclear DNA (containing only about 37 genes instead of 20,000 or so in humans), it is also simpler to analyze."

So what I glean from this is that an offspring is a mixture of the parents' genetic material. Which was already discussed on the thread. But mtDNA comes exclusively from the egg and passed down through maternal lineage. (The rest is out of my realm of comprehension right now.) But, re-reading the above, if mtDNA comes only from the egg and is passed down through material lineage, what about the male? He, too, has maternal lineage, doesn't he, in his body? Questions, questions.

What Bacteria Can Tell Us About Human Evolution | Quanta Magazine

Anyway, I'm giving up trying to understand this, while I respect the knowledge of the "DNA library," I am not going to accept that life came about by circumstantial abiogenesis leading to circumstantial (mindless) evolution. Which is, in essence, saying there is no God the Creator and Giver of life. And frankly, while the cards for evolution may seem to stack up for many, what I see is a complex and, as some have said, irreducibly complex system with many questions and changing conclusions, starting from the first hypothesized unicell. So again, while science can look at DNA, and observe appearances and traits and cells, I see nothing to obviate the idea that God is the Giver of life and creator.

Then you've simply made the classical "argument from personal incredulity" logical fallacy. Evolution is something you don't understand, or can't imagine, and so you believe it to be false and instead go with God explanations. Which unfortunately, is just invoking a bigger mystery as some kind of explanation, as it actually has no explanatory power at all.

By the way, the theory of evolution doesn't speak to any god(s) whatsoever. It certainly doesn't not say there are god(s) or there aren't god(s) - it's simply silent on the matter. You can accept evolution and believe in god(s), as many, many people do. Many people believe that the god they worship is intelligent enough to have created the process of evolution.

 

[gnostic]

By the way, the theory of evolution doesn't speak to any god(s) whatsoever. It certainly doesn't not say there are god(s) or there aren't god(s) - it's simply silent on the matter. You can accept evolution and believe in god(s), as many, many people do. Many people believe that the god they worship is intelligent enough to have created the process of evolution.

The funny thing is that all current scientific theories don’t mention god at all, but these silly creationists would mostly single out Evolution.

And Evolution don’t cover the origin of first life on Earth, hence Abiogenesis, which is still ongoing testing hypothesis. And yet, creationists still confused Evolution with Abiogenesis.

 

[ecco]

nm

 

[YoursTrue]

Because I have no reason to. I don't believe things "just because". I require evidence.
And not only do the myths in the bible have no evidence, plenty of them are also demonstrably wrong.

When an unsupportable idea requires me to deny and reject established science, then it would be stupid of me to clinge to that idea.



I don't see what's interesting about that.
The vast majority of religions "offer" the promise of eternal life. It's kind of what religions do: prey on the fear of humans who have psychological problems in dealing with their own mortality. It's an exploit of human psychological weakness.




I also note that your reply didn't even touch upon the points raised in the post you are responding to.

The different religions do not offer the same thing as far as future life goes. Interestingly, the first scrolls kept are said to have been penned by Moses and kept and treasured for well over 1500 years with additions. They do center in on God's relationship with certain particular men, then branching off to basically the 12 tribes of Israel, and then, of course, Jesus. And beyond. But the books recognized as true (or canonical) began with Moses and ended with John's Revelation.

 

[leroy]

Quote from the first post

.

Came across this little gem a bit ago and thought I'd share.

View attachment 32918

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Thoughts?

. ​

can you define "evolution"?

 

[YoursTrue]

The funny thing is that all current scientific theories don’t mention god at all, but these silly creationists would mostly single out Evolution.

And Evolution don’t cover the origin of first life on Earth, hence Abiogenesis, which is still ongoing testing hypothesis. And yet, creationists still confused Evolution with Abiogenesis.

Not reading everything (my fault for lack of time). I do not confuse abiogenesis with evolution, although evolution is virtually impossible without abiogenesis, isn't it? You really can't have evolution, can you, without abiogenesis. And yes, while evolution circumvents and can't explain or prove the idea of God, it also exemplifies mindless happenstance in that some things just got together and continued on their evolutionary way without a purpose more or less. I say more or less because someone may start philosophizing about that. So -- in essence, it just -- happened. Starting with life. It just -- happened by virtue of starting with a few chemicals by chance meeting producing life. And now scientists are trying to figure out how to escape the disaster the latest link on the scale (humans "homo sapiens") may wreak on the earth.
While many religious concepts have not been helpful, in fact, have been hurtful, the concept of mindless evolution certainly is not helping mankind to turn around on a more beneficial course. That's how I see it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The different religions do not offer the same thing as far as future life goes. Interestingly, the first scrolls kept are said to have been penned by Moses and kept and treasured for well over 1500 years with additions. They do center in on God's relationship with certain particular men, then branching off to basically the 12 tribes of Israel, and then, of course, Jesus. And beyond. But the books recognized as true (or canonical) began with Moses and ended with John's Revelation.

Why do you think that makes a difference? Different religions have different "heavens". If you go by the religion with the best heaven Christianity is probably not even in the top three.

And no writings of Moses survive or even were known to have survived during any time in Christianity. And since he was almost certainly mythical that was only to be expected.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Quote from the first post

can you define "evolution"?

Yes.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not reading everything (my fault for lack of time). I do not confuse abiogenesis with evolution, although evolution is virtually impossible without abiogenesis, isn't it? You really can't have evolution, can you, without abiogenesis. And yes, while evolution circumvents and can't explain or prove the idea of God, it also exemplifies mindless happenstance in that some things just got together and continued on their evolutionary way without a purpose more or less. I say more or less because someone may start philosophizing about that. So -- in essence, it just -- happened. Starting with life. It just -- happened by virtue of starting with a few chemicals by chance meeting producing life. And now scientists are trying to figure out how to escape the disaster the latest link on the scale (humans "homo sapiens") may wreak on the earth.
While many religious concepts have not been helpful, in fact, have been hurtful, the concept of mindless evolution certainly is not helping mankind to turn around on a more beneficial course. That's how I see it.

No, not if you mean natural abiogenesis. We do know that there was an abiogenesis event. That exists even in the mythical Genesis story. Once life existed it evolved.

 

[leroy]

Yes.

would you define evolution?

 

[Subduction Zone]

would you define evolution?

There are quite a few. For biologists evolution is the change in percentage of gene alleles of a population.

A bit more general is that it is the process that led to the diversity of life today that started with a common ancestor. There are others.