For Creationists: What about DNA evidence?

[Autodidact]

Based on your description, it sounds like an incompletely formed organ. If it has formed properly, it would have completey given way to backbone, yes? If this is all it means to be vestigial, then what bearing does it have on evolution?

Think. Our ancestors had a notochord; we do not. As we develop as embryos, we first develop a notochord [that we don't need] because the genes are there for us to do so, genes we get from our ancestors who needed it. Then other genes make it go away again. Why do we go through this stage? Because we are descended from creatures who needed it, so retain the genes for that. Occasionally it doesn't get turned off, so we end up with one, which is a problem. Can you NOT see how this is evidence for evolution?

Again, I see this as incomplete formation of an organ. Why view this as a tail, a sign of ancient ancestry? Why not view it as a spanner in the works?

It is a spanner in the works. We don't have a tail, and don't need a tailbone, but we have one anyway. Why? Because we descended from creatures who had a tail. It's vestigial. It's a remnant of our tail-bearing ancestry.

Okay, so in the process of development, we pass through a stage where we have a feature that appears quite similar to what another creature has. Again, why assume this shows ancestry? It's interesting to think so, but it's evidence of exactly nothing. It just so happens that, as embryos mature, they pass through this stage.

It not just this isolated fact, but that the stage we pass through is consistent with creatures that other, separate evidence also indicates we're related to. It's not separate, unrelated evidence, but evidence that is consistent with DNA, vestigial organs, homology, the fossil record, etc. ToE is the only explanation that accounts for ALL of this evidence.

Again, why assume that? It may simply be that the process of growing a human involves genes that produce hair and other genes that regulate that production. In some cases where everything functions as it ought (normal cases) we get typical amounts of hair; otherwise, not. Again, unless one is already inclined to believe the evolutionary story, these cases don't provide compelling evidence of ancestry.

Why do you have hair follicles on your skin? You don't need them, they don't fill any function. You have them because you descended from ancestors whose entire body was covered in fur. And then we see that, sure enough, the genes for this are the same ones that those creatures have, and that our entire DNA is similar to those creatures, and that we have a similar structure to them, same organs, same bones, etc., just in different sizes, and the fossil evidence indicates that the organisms appear in the fossil record in older, with the newer ones (such as us) last, and the ancestral forms earlier, and it all adds up. This is called consilience, and is the gold standard for scientific evidence.

On an evolutionary picture, what counts as an "error"? You can only "err" if there is a "right" way of doing things.

Because we evolved, it's not an error. If you think a God magically created us, it would be. Why would God give us hair follicles and a tail bone? Why give us the same bones as a bat, in the same arrangement? Because we're both mammals, and so developed from the same ancestor. Otherwise why are bats' bones more like ours than they are like those of birds?

 

[Autodidact]

What the evolutionary record shows us is that while the result works quite well, the process was jerry-rigged, ad hoc, make-do. That's why a bat's wing is like your hand is like a whale's flipper. We're all mammals, so evolution has to work with what it has.

 

[Kerr]

Found a youtube link about evolution that is quite good, if anyone is interested:
YouTube - 7 -- The Theory of Evolution Made Easy

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Why do people laugh at creationist? Only creationists don't know. (youtube)

 

[themadhair]

Why do people laugh at creationist? Only creationists don't know. (youtube)

Speaking of which, isn't it crocoduck awards season again?

 

[Jose Fly]

It seems Dunemeister's position can be summed as: "I don't know much about biology--and I do what I can to keep it that way--but since I can't imagine how evolution could account for everything, I'm skeptical of it".

Ignorance can be overcome; willful ignorance cannot.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Hee Hee and the award for 'Admitting Your Ignorance on a Subject and Then Trying to Give Credible Claim Upon Said Subject' goes to Dunemeister for 'A Load of Unfounded Crap!' "

 

[themadhair]

What for those hotlinking preventions.

 

[Dunemeister]

Think. Our ancestors had a notochord; we do not. As we develop as embryos, we first develop a notochord [that we don't need] because the genes are there for us to do so, genes we get from our ancestors who needed it. Then other genes make it go away again. Why do we go through this stage? Because we are descended from creatures who needed it, so retain the genes for that. Occasionally it doesn't get turned off, so we end up with one, which is a problem. Can you NOT see how this is evidence for evolution?

No, I can't. I see it as a process of development that sometimes goes awry.

It is a spanner in the works. We don't have a tail, and don't need a tailbone, but we have one anyway. Why? Because we descended from creatures who had a tail. It's vestigial. It's a remnant of our tail-bearing ancestry.

Would a chiropractor say the tailbone is useless for our posture? Does the tailbone play no role during birth?

It not just this isolated fact, but that the stage we pass through is consistent with creatures that other, separate evidence also indicates we're related to. It's not separate, unrelated evidence, but evidence that is consistent with DNA, vestigial organs, homology, the fossil record, etc. ToE is the only explanation that accounts for ALL of this evidence.

Fine, as I said, I'm happy to admit that it's the best game in town at the moment. Nevertheless, I'm profoundly unimpressed with the arguments I've heard thus far (with the caveat that my background and interest in biology are limited, which affects my ability to follow some of them).

Why do you have hair follicles on your skin? You don't need them, they don't fill any function. You have them because you descended from ancestors whose entire body was covered in fur.

They seem to have a function to me. They play a role in communication (fear, sexual excitement, etc.). They may play other roles that I'm not aware of, but at the very least, they do in fact seem to play that role.

And then we see that, sure enough, the genes for this are the same ones that those creatures have, and that our entire DNA is similar to those creatures, and that we have a similar structure to them, same organs, same bones, etc., just in different sizes, and the fossil evidence indicates that the organisms appear in the fossil record in older, with the newer ones (such as us) last, and the ancestral forms earlier, and it all adds up. This is called consilience, and is the gold standard for scientific evidence.

Sure, of course we have the same genes. If we were created according to a similar design plan using similar materials (what, is God supposed to use one material to create one creature and another to create another? Why?), this is exactly what we should expect. As for the fossil record, there are exceptions (I learned about them waaaaaaaaaaay back in public high school) where so-called older organisms appear higher up than the younger. This teacher also showed me how rock strata are dated according to the fossils in them and how the fossils are dated according to the strata, world without end. No, the teacher wasn't a creationist but a rather committed atheist. He just enjoyed and appreciated the fact that, although evolution is the best game in town (his phrase), it's not without its problems.

Because we evolved, it's not an error. If you think a God magically created us, it would be. Why would God give us hair follicles and a tail bone? Why give us the same bones as a bat, in the same arrangement? Because we're both mammals, and so developed from the same ancestor. Otherwise why are bats' bones more like ours than they are like those of birds?

Auto, these questions are so easy to answer, I'm surprised one of your intelligence would even ask them. Similarities in appearance may have nothing to do with common ancestry but similar function. The fact that we have features that are not as useful as others doesn't entail anything about ancestry. It just entails that some of our features are more useful day to day than others.

God created, but he had a system. We call that system DNA. So perhaps it turned out that in order to create the sort of creature he wanted that would be able to do what we do, the DNA building blocks he based life on wound up coding for certain features that are useful in some creatures (follicles for the gorilla) but less so for us. Honestly, the question about follicles and tailbones isn't really all that interesting to me. What's more interesting is finding out how critters function NOW, not how they MAY HAVE functioned or how they MAY HAVE received features way back in the day from some speculative ancestor. Nor do I think scientists should waste tax dollars trying to figure out what turned into what at what time. How useless and vain, especially in light of the fact that there's so much of interest going on in the present!

 

[Dunemeister]

It seems Dunemeister's position can be summed as: "I don't know much about biology--and I do what I can to keep it that way--but since I can't imagine how evolution could account for everything, I'm skeptical of it".

Ignorance can be overcome; willful ignorance cannot.

Amen.

 

[Amill]

At least he is interested in evidence, even though he has the attitude of "well god just made it that way, why assume it means ancestry." I guess God is just trying to deceive us? Why else make the world look as if(to an unbiased person) life has evolved?

Why are you so willing to believe in a supernatural creation with no evidence, when you are skeptical about the meaning of evidence that shows dinosaurs with feathers, whale transitions from land to water, embryonic oddities, fish that have lungs, snakes with legs or hip bones, all the many kinds of fossil hominid species, fossils with both reptile and mammal like features, shared nonfunctional genetic markers(when taken out affect nothing), ect....ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect.

Is it really that hard to let go? I challenge you to go beyond forum discussions and actually do research or take some biology courses. Creation isn't an explanation for anything, it's an excuse for things we don't understand. You can't explain why manatees have fingernails, why fossil whales had 4 limbs(some even now get born with em), other than "well, god just did it that way." Is that really a satisfying answer?

Not trying to sound like a dick but I take issue with people with a dishonest view on issues. If you can't hold evidence of opposing sides to the same standards, why should anyone even appreciate your opinion? Especially if you acknowledge that you haven't looked into it very much.

 

[MSizer]

Hey All, I'm learning some cool new stuff here, and I love that, but I'd like to keep in mind that my question was actually about DNA (not vestigial organs or anything esle). Not trying to discourage anyone's input, just a kind reminder that the topic is getting away from us.

8^) (on that note, I haven't really seen an answer to the OP yet. I'm hoping it might come, but I'm not holding my breath 8^(

 

[Autodidact]

No, I can't. I see it as a process of development that sometimes goes awry.[/quo0te] Well, there is none so blind as he who will not see.

Not sometimes, Dunmeister, all the time. We're all born with a notachord that we don't need, and which then is switched off by another gene later in development. The only thing that goes awry is that sometimes it doesn't get switched off. Having one we don't need and then throw away is normal, vestigial, and evidence of our evolutionary heritage.

Would a chiropractor say the tailbone is useless for our posture? Does the tailbone play no role during birth?

Have you looked up vestigial yet?

Fine, as I said, I'm happy to admit that it's the best game in town at the moment.

And for the last 150 years, after having been attacked from all sides by every biologist worth his mettle.

Nevertheless, I'm profoundly unimpressed with the arguments I've heard thus far (with the caveat that my background and interest in biology are limited, which affects my ability to follow some of them).

I understand. You don't know anything about it and don't want to learn, but you're not impressed with what you don't know. Got it.

They seem to have a function to me. They play a role in communication (fear, sexual excitement, etc.). They may play other roles that I'm not aware of, but at the very least, they do in fact seem to play that role.

Think, think, think. Why would hair follicles be necessary or evolve to show fear? What is the function of fur on a bear, to show fear?

Sure, of course we have the same genes. If we were created according to a similar design plan using similar materials (what, is God supposed to use one material to create one creature and another to create another? Why?)

God could use the same method, or 7 different methods, or 12 billion different methods. ""God magically poofed" (ToMP, or Theory of Magic Poofing) is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Remember, try really really hard to remember this, we're not arguing about whether God did it or not. We're arguing about how, if He did, He did it. Did He magically poof, or did He use evolution?

, this is exactly what we should expect. As for the fossil record, there are exceptions (I learned about them waaaaaaaaaaay back in public high school) where so-called older organisms appear higher up than the younger.

You are mistaken. A single exception would falsify ToE. There are no exceptions. None. Ever. Millions of fossils, and no exceptions. More recent organisms never once appear in the fossil record in older strata. They may be higher, because the layers themselves can get bent of even inverted, but never older. Think about it. If ToE is true, this could not happen. And lo and behold, it doesn't. Because ToE is true.

This teacher also showed me how rock strata are dated according to the fossils in them and how the fossils are dated according to the strata, world without end.

Baloney. Either you're lying, or your teacher was a nincompoop. Strata are dated primarily by radiometric dating methods.

No, the teacher wasn't a creationist but a rather committed atheist. He just enjoyed and appreciated the fact that, although evolution is the best game in town (his phrase), it's not without its problems.

He either doesn't exist, is a liar, or utterly incompetent. ToE is one of the best supported theories in the history of science, much better, for example, than atomic theory. It's the only remaining game in town because all the other games were disproved. Only ToE explains all the evidence.

Auto, these questions are so easy to answer, I'm surprised one of your intelligence would even ask them. Similarities in appearance may have nothing to do with common ancestry but similar function. The fact that we have features that are not as useful as others doesn't entail anything about ancestry. It just entails that some of our features are more useful day to day than others.

You have utterly failed to answer the question or even to read it. A bat's wing and a bird's wing have the SAME function, but an entirely different design. A bat's wing, a mole's foot and a whale's flipper have completely different function, but the same design. Why? Because whales, bats and moles are all mammals, are closely related, and evolution results in using what's already there and adapting it to the function.

God created, but he had a system. We call that system DNA.

God created, but He had a system. We call the system evoltuion.

So perhaps it turned out that in order to create the sort of creature he wanted that would be able to do what we do, the DNA building blocks he based life on wound up coding for certain features that are useful in some creatures (follicles for the gorilla) but less so for us.

Please try to think. This is God you're talking about, using the magic poofing method. He can do so any way He wants.

Honestly, the question about follicles and tailbones isn't really all that interesting to me.

So what? you're not a biologist. They are interesting to people who care about biology, because they are evidence of our common ancestry. If you don't care, then keep your nose out of it. Reality doesn't care what's interesting to you, it just is.

What's more interesting is finding out how critters function NOW, not how they MAY HAVE functioned or how they MAY HAVE received features way back in the day from some speculative ancestor. Nor do I think scientists should waste tax dollars trying to figure out what turned into what at what time. How useless and vain, especially in light of the fact that there's so much of interest going on in the present!

This is so stupid I'm just going to leave it out there to illustrate how little you value truth, knowledge, or science.

 

[Autodidact]

Amen.

 

[themadhair]

Hey All, I'm learning some cool new stuff here, and I love that, but I'd like to keep in mind that my question was actually about DNA (not vestigial organs or anything esle). Not trying to discourage anyone's input, just a kind reminder that the topic is getting away from us.

8^) (on that note, I haven't really seen an answer to the OP yet. I'm hoping it might come, but I'm not holding my breath 8^(

I doubt it would come. You would require the following to be true:
1) Someone who understands pseudogenes and that they correspond to the nested hierarchy of common descent.
2) Someone who understands endogenous retro-viruses and that they correspond to the nested hierarchy of common descent.
3) Someone who understands gene duplications and fusions and that they correspond to the nested hierarchy of common descent.
4) Someone who understands DNA transcription errors and that they correspond to the nested hierarchy of common descent.
5) Someone who understands the DNA role in enzyme and protein manufacturing and that such proteins/enzymes correspond to the nested hierarchy of common descent.
6) Someone who understands all of the above and can explain why it all perfectly matches the nested hierarchy of common descent without being due to common descent.

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 

[Amhairghine]

Based on your description, it sounds like an incompletely formed organ. If it has formed properly, it would have completey given way to backbone, yes? If this is all it means to be vestigial, then what bearing does it have on evolution?

It is incompletely formed only in the sense that humans have the organ but embryology involved recycling more primitive organs in a replay of actual evolution. Embryology is like watching a video of evolution of humans from before the Ediacaran Period when multicellular creatures first formed as early as 700,000,000 BCE. The Pikaia was an ancestor of all vertebrates. It had a notochord but no bones. As bony skeletal creatures (vertebrates were chosen by natural selection as better adapted the notochord did not simply vanish. It went through stages of adding bony plates for stabilisation and bony ribs to protect body parts. Gradually some notochordal creatures calcified parts of the notochord from the outside in leaving the cartilagenous remnant in the centre. Over time even that part was gradually eliminated.

The genes and regulator genes and switch genes that our primitive ancestors had remained with us. So like humans the embryo first begins as a one celled microbe. It then goes through the numerous stages like coelenterates to three layered creatures (worms.) We still have a gene that makes us grow a notochord. So human foetuses grow that notochord back "bone" first. Later regulatory genes (groups) organise reassembly of the notochord, replacing chordal tissue with osteocytes, and protein matrix for bone.

Our ancestors developed full bony status in stages over millions of years. We still have fish like lancelets (Amphioxus) which is happy with only a notochord. We have sharks that have cartilagenous skeletons but not real bone. However, every creature more advanced than lancelets begins as a lancelet like creature including us in the embryo. Then our later newer regulatory genes use the old genes but turn on a new function. That replaces the notochord in stages until none is left but true bone that replaces it.

The vestigial aspect is clumps of notochord sometimes do not get completely recycled. They remain and may grow as notochordal tumours called Chordomas. Children die from this "error" of regulatory genes.

Remember, evolution is not perfect. Intelligent people know that evolution only produces what works for preservation of the species and adaptation. There is no such thing as perfection. Organisms can often thrive with errors that are not serious enough to prevent survival. However, there are millions of mutations that fail to live compared to one that is functional enough to survive. That is why some humans get Chordomas. Some humans are born with a pre-primate tail, diffuse body hair of apes and monkeys because we have all of those old genes. We depend on newer regulatory genes to give the old genes new programmes.

Again, I see this as incomplete formation of an organ. Why view this as a tail, a sign of ancient ancestry? Why not view it as a spanner in the works?

It is incomplete as an organ, but that is simply evidence that it formed at all proving evolution. Old organs ideally might be totally recycled but many others are only partially recycled or converted to new structures. Gill slits in primitive fish, and human embryos are recycled into functioning inner ear bones and the hyoid that stabilises the base of our tongues. In your words our ears are incomplete gill's. In mine, they are gill slits completely recycled into inner ear bones. It is regulatory genes that are the king pins of evolution. Like all organic things, they sometimes fail. There has never been a perfect human being as far as we know. Look hard enough and you will find some vestigials in us.

Okay, so in the process of development, we pass through a stage where we have a feature that appears quite similar to what another creature has. Again, why assume this shows ancestry? It's interesting to think so, but it's evidence of exactly nothing. It just so happens that, as embryos mature, they pass through this stage.

The structure in question must have a gene that we can code and if it turns out to match the code of an organ in a more advanced creature that is strong evidence. For example, birds are descended from raptor dinosaurs. Where is the chicken's tail? It is in the chicken embryo. Chicken embryos grow a tail with several distinct vertebrae in the egg. Before it hatches the tail is absorbed and present only as a small bony structure. Scientists have found the gene for a tail in chickens, a tail that is like the tail of embryonic dinosaurs in fossils. Regulatory genes order the dino tail gene to alter its function and with other genes to reabsorb the tail. So the Dinosaur Tail is structurally and genetically identical to the embryonic chicken egg.

The human embryonic notochord gene is identical to the notochord gene of amphioxus (Lancelets.) The notochord is histologically (microscopically) identical in human foetuses and amphioxus.

In Pikaia, 670 million years ago, had a crossed nervous system. It had a ganglion of neurons in the primitive head. The right side of that ganglion gave off motor nerves to the left sided body muscles (arranged longitudinally) causing them to contract and bend the Pikaia into a concave C curve. The Left side of the ganglion sends motor nerves across to the right sided muscles. When it sends signals the Pikaia bends into a reverse C curve. So it moves in wiggles ( ->) ->( ->)->( ->) This method of locomotion allows the Pikaea and Lancelet of today to wiggle out of harm's way. It worked well enough to survive. Today alligators walk by the body bending one way C curve to left with the left fore leg pulled back and the left leg extended foreward. The convex side (right) has the right fore arm extended forward and the right leg extended back. Humans ambulate in the same way. As we walk, our body bends slightly to one side. Our left leg extends forward while our right leg extends backward and the left arm swings back (balancing the right leg) while the right arm extends forward. Picture a human gait or marching soldier. His right arm is extended forward and the left is back. His right leg is extended back while the left goes forward. This is the same exact sequence as the gait of a cat, salamander, alligator, and human being. The only difference is that our fore limbs do not touch the ground since we assumed upright gait 3 million years ago. It happens that this posture of the arms extended opposite to the legs tends to balance our centre of gravity. It worked and we survived.

However, that crossed nervous system was later found in all pro-chordates and vertebrates. We have a brain in which the left motor cortex controls the right sided body muscles and the right motor cortex controls the left sided muscles. They have a crossing tract in the centre in which they pass each other going in opposite ways. We have it. Fish have it. Frogs have it. Reptiles have it. All mammals including us have it. It is called the Corpus Callosum. The same gene and regulatory genes direct the formation and cell migration of this structure in Salamanders, alligators, monkeys, and humans. It is clearly too much to be coincidence. There is no alternative explanation for this unique motor adaptation, especially when it involves the same genes.

Again, why assume that?

It is not assumption. It is intelligent observation.

It may simply be that the process of growing a human involves genes that produce hair and other genes that regulate that production. In some cases where everything functions as it ought (normal cases) we get typical amounts of hair; otherwise, not. Again, unless one is already inclined to believe the evolutionary story, these cases don't provide compelling evidence of ancestry.

That makes no sense. Are you saying that humans have less hair simply because they wear clothes? If you dress a chimp in a suit, one year later he is still just as hairy. If you take a stage 14 human embryo with gill clefts out of the mother, and put it in a fish bowl, are you saying that it will grow into a fish??? Did you sleep in science class?

On an evolutionary picture, what counts as an "error"? You can only "err" if there is a "right" way of doing things.

Genes are by nature somewhat unstable. Nucleotides can become detached easily. Enzymes can lyse them and rearrange the GTAC codes and does so in living humans and non-humans. Most mutations are lethal and we never know about it. Some are bad but allow survival (so we have dwarfs, facial deformities, absense of heart ventricular walls or holes in the walls, missing optic nerves, and grotesque deformities. We have some like albinism, ichthyosis, and thousands of neurological malformations. The "right'' way of building a mature human or mouse is assuming that the genes all work properly and are not mutated. However real life is that errors do happen. Despite some genetic similarity, some people are genuses, most are normal, and many are retarded or stupid. The system is not perfect.

The important information about Evolution is that it is not perfect. Evolution has never produced perfection, it just produces what works or adapts and adapts to some changes in the environment, the predator numbers or the food availability.

The entire universe is composed of things that happen by random actions of known laws acting in a system so complex it brings us to Chaos Theory. It is like predicting the weather with thousands of variables, each of which could drastically change a weather outcome.

Amhairghine

 

[nonbeliever_92]

dunemeister! please stop! you've already admitted that you have no clue what you're talking about why do you continue to try to bring up issues as to which you've never studied, nor have any interest in studying!??

 

[Amhairghine]

Ignorance is preferable to error,

-Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance is preferable to error, true. Yet billions of humans believe in virgin birth of human-gods, death and resurrection, walking on water, turning water into wine, curing epilepsy by casting out demons, leprosy is due to sin not bacteria, and the Earth is flat according to Jesus who with Satan saw all the nations of Earth from a high mountain. That is impossible on a spherical Earth. The Bible believes in the flat Earth. The Bible is packed with hundreds of errors yet 2 billion delusional people believe in this colossal error

and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Since I do not believe in gods I am less remote from the truth that there is no evidence for the existence of gods. Those who believe in gods in spite of total lack of evidence believe in what is wrong.

I do not want to believe. I want to know.
-Carl Sagan

"God made me an atheist. Who are you to question his wisdom?"
(Unknown)

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no [organized] religion in it"
John Adams

"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
Gene Roddenberry

"My spell-checker lacks the word 'creationism' in its dictionary, so each time that word is encountered, an alternative pops up at the bottom of my screen, 'cretinism'"
E.T. Babinski


"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787)

"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science."
Robert Ingersoll

"There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages."
Richard Lederer (Anguished English)

"If the God of the Bible really existed, He would immediately self-destruct because of 500 self contradictions."
Amhairghine
.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Good Question:
"What's worst, ignorance or apathy?"

Bad Response:
"I don't know and I don't care."

 

[Kathryn]

Ignorance is preferable to error, true. Yet billions of humans believe in virgin birth of human-gods, death and resurrection, walking on water, turning water into wine, curing epilepsy by casting out demons, leprosy is due to sin not bacteria, and the Earth is flat according to Jesus who with Satan saw all the nations of Earth from a high mountain. That is impossible on a spherical Earth. The Bible believes in the flat Earth. The Bible is packed with hundreds of errors yet 2 billion delusional people believe in this colossal error

This is really a topic for another thread, but I just couldn't let this pass without comment.

The bible doesn't teach that the earth is flat - au contraire, the oldest book in the bible, the book of Job, describes an earth that is a sphere:

In the Old Testament, Job 26:7 explains that the earth is suspended in space, the obvious comparison being with the spherical sun and moon. [DD]
A literal translation of Job 26:10 is "He described a circle upon the face of the waters, until the day and night come to an end." A spherical earth is also described in Isaiah 40:21-22 - "the circle of the earth."
Proverbs 8:27 also suggests a round earth by use of the word circle (e.g., New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible). If you are overlooking the ocean, the horizon appears as a circle. This circle on the horizon is described in Job 26:10. The circle on the face of the waters is one of the proofs that the Greeks used for a spherical earth. Yet here it is recorded in Job, ages before the Greeks discovered it. Job 26:10 indicates that where light terminates, darkness begins. This suggests day and night on a spherical globe.

(From www,christiananswers.net)

As for a virgin birth, walking on water, casting out demons (the vast majority of people today are very well aware that epilepsy is not demon possession, and you have no way of determining that biblical accounts of demon posession are actually epilepsy), here are some thoughts from Dinesh D'Souza:

Science and religion can comfortably coexist because they operate in different realms. As biologist Stephen Jay Gould states, "Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world...Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values."

Richard Dawkins refutes this claim by pointing out that the Bible makes claims that involve nature (as the above post points out). He claims that miracles are nothing but "bad science" and since scientific laws cannot be violated, reasonable people must refute miracles.

Miracles ARE improbable - that's why we call them "miracles."

Human knowledge is limited. Miracles are a violation of KNOWN laws of nature.

Most people operate on the assumption that there are two kinds of statements - analytic and synthetic. The truth or falsehood of each type is determined like this: An analytic statement is one whose truth or falsehood can be determined by analyzing the statement itself. Example: "The bachelor's wife was beautiful." A synthetic statement's truth or falsehood can only be determined by examining evidence. Science is the study of synthetic statements, basically - hypothesis, experimentation, verification, and criticism.

So - how can one even claim "There is life after death," or "God made the universe?" Such statements are neither true by definition or true by empirical confirmation!

Well, newsflash - scientific laws are not verifiable either. The reason? No finite number of observations, however large, can be used to derive an unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible. For instance, as D'Souza points out, one cannot make a scientific claim that all swans are white - without checking out ALL swans - that's the only way to make such a scientific claim. This sounds silly, but keep in mind that for thousands of years, Europeans thought that only white swans existed - till they found black swans in Australia.

The great thing about science is that it is always open to correction and revision. Another way of saying that is that scientific laws are empirically unverifiable. How do we know what speed light travels at? We measure it. Over and over again. But this still doesn't prove that light travels at that speed always and everywhere.

But we've measured light over and over so many times that SURELY we know at what speed it travels!!! No - what we know is that so far, every time we've measured it, we've come up with this figure. That does not prove that it has never traveled faster or slower, or always will remain at this speed. What it DOES prove is that it USUALLY travels at a particular speed. So using that reasoning, surely we should use laws of physics to construct airplanes and satellites, for example - because scientific laws hinge on what is PROBABLE.

Science cannot verify laws - but it can discredit them. Take Einstein's theories of relativity - they contradicted Newton's laws, which had been "verified" repeatedly. This doesn't prove that Einstein's theories are absolutely true - but it does prove that Newton's weren't.

A common mistake is to assert that scientific laws are laws of nature. They are not - they are our best guess at the moment- they are observed patterns and sequences.

Miracles can only be dismissed if scientific law allows no exceptions.

Take the example of dead people coming back to life. Now this is EXTREMELY unlikely. But we do not know that it is a violation of nature's laws. What we know is that it is a violation of scientific theory. Can we say with certainty that scientific/medical advancements in the future will not reach a point at which a clinically dead person can be restored to life? No, we can't honestly claim that.

It might happen one day, and it could have happened before. All we know right now is that it is highly improbable - but we do not know it is impossible.

Miracles are a suspension of the laws of nature. Who says these laws are immutable? Even modern physics concedes that beyond the natural world the laws of nature do not apply. But even within nature, God cannot be restricted.

"Like the author of a novel, God is entirely in charge of the plot. How can He be bound by the rules and storylines that He devised? If God abruptly interrupts the logic of the story, the result will surely be disruption and confusion. But this is the point of miracles, to disrupt the normal course of things and draw attention to something happening outside the narrative. If God made the universe, He also made the laws of nature and He can alter them on occasion if He chooses to." D'Souza