Shocking claim to Macro-evolution!

[exchemist]

Good choice. I stop by those every 6 months or so, just to see if anything has changed. Nothing has. One of them is infested with a fellow named Jorge Fernandez. He is like usfan with a religious diploma mill degree. Insufferable.

I used to play around taking creationists apart on sites like that, but I've got rather bored with it. It is very rare indeed to find a creationist with the honesty and intellect to argue properly. The sole value of doing it, I concluded, was to stop them getting a free ride, and hence perhaps spurious credibility, with readers who were themselves undecided.

This was around the time when ID seemed in danger of being taken seriously. There was an idiot called Alastair Noble in the UK who was pushing it. We even had one parish priest who flirted with it until I pointed out what was wrong with it. Now that ID is dead as a doornail in the UK, I've eased up on it.

 

[Jose Fly]

No, it was either TheologyWeb or TheologyForums. I stopped visiting whichever one it was out of disgust when this whole thing went down.

Oh dear....it wasn't theologyonline was it?

 

[tas8831]

Oh dear....it wasn't theologyonline was it?

Oh... possibly - there are so many similar ones I don't remember exactly. He posted as 'Socrates' (of course!).

 

[Jose Fly]

Oh... possibly - there are so many similar ones I don't remember exactly. He posted as 'Socrates' (of course!).

That's probably different then. The place I mentioned is one of the most ridiculous forums I've ever seen. It's run by RW Christians, for RW Christians, and they make sure everyone knows that. I quit posting there a while ago, as it started morphing into a racist hate board.

 

[exchemist]

That's probably different then. The place I mentioned is one of the most ridiculous forums I've ever seen. It's run by RW Christians, for RW Christians, and they make sure everyone knows that. I quit posting there a while ago, as it started morphing into a racist hate board.

There are one or two individuals trying to do that here, too.

 

[Jose Fly]

There are one or two individuals trying to do that here, too.

I've noticed. Rather disturbing.....

 

[tas8831]

That's probably different then. The place I mentioned is one of the most ridiculous forums I've ever seen. It's run by RW Christians, for RW Christians...it started morphing into a racist hate board.

Shocking...

 

[gnostic]

Then reading ought to be very easy for him. How does he not know, and how could he not know that Evolution does not require abiogenesis. Its independent. People have always seen the similarities and the continuum of species but they didn't have an explanation for how changes might occur until Darwin discovered the Galapogos birds. Then he explained the mechanism of survival, and people began to realize he was right. After than much more evidence for evolution (not abiogenesis) appeared as more and more living species were catalogued as well as extinct ones.

I would add after this, but before DNA - when using Gregor Mendel’s mechanism of inheritance (genetics) together with Natural Selection was the next big step, in the 1930s-1940s, gave biologists better understanding of Natural Selection - hence the Modern Synthesis.

Charles Darwin’s own model of genetic mechanism (known as “pangenesis”) were inadequate. Mendel was Darwin’s contemporary, but Darwin was unaware of Mendel’s works. Plus, Mendel’s law of inheritance was lost and forgotten after his death, before their discovery in 1900. Eventually, the grandson of T.H. Huxley, Julian Huxley (was one of several founders) had unified Natural Selection & Mendelian Genetics as the Modern Synthesis. Modern Synthesis also included Mutations, as being responsible for Genetic Variation.

I am not too sure about the discovery of DNA, nor I do who were responsible for its discovery. All I know is that it changed everything there is to know about genetics.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I would add after this, but before DNA - when using Gregor Mendel’s mechanism of inheritance (genetics) together with Natural Selection was the next big step, in the 1930s-1940s, gave biologists better understanding of Natural Selection - hence the Modern Synthesis.

Charles Darwin’s own model of genetic mechanism (known as “pangenesis”) were inadequate. Mendel was Darwin’s contemporary, but Darwin was unaware of Mendel’s works. Plus, Mendel’s law of inheritance was lost and forgotten after his death, before their discovery in 1900. Eventually, the grandson of T.H. Huxley, Julian Huxley (was one of several founders) had unified Natural Selection & Mendelian Genetics as the Modern Synthesis. Modern Synthesis also included Mutations, as being responsible for Genetic Variation.

I am not too sure about the discovery of DNA, nor I do who were responsible for its discovery. All I know is that it changed everything there is to know about genetics.

It was a team effort to say the least. And I have to keep my Francis's straight. The existence of Chromosomes were known before they knew what they were chemically. Walther Flemming is accredited with the discovery of chromosomes and their naming in 1882. Cell biologists will often add dye to cells since different molecules will absorb dye. DNA is one of those molecules. The etymology of Chromosome is colored ( Chromo) bodies (some). He was after Mendel, but like Darwin unaware of Mendel's work. In 1910 Thomas Hunt Morgan came up with the tie in between genes and chromosomes. And I finally learned what "recombination" is and when it happens:

Genetic Recombination and Gene Mapping

Soon after Gregor Mendel’s laws were rediscovered, opportunities arose for scientists to use Mendel’s principles to explain the inheritance of various traits they were studying in their laboratories. However, work from multiple labs found that Mendelian principles were not always sufficient to...

www.nature.com

Oh great, now I have to take a step backwards. It turns out that DNA was "discovered" before we even knew about the existence of chromosomes. Nucleic acids were discovered and analyzed in 1869 by Johannes Miescher. He analyzed material from white blood cells and discovered "nuclein". I guess it is a good thing that he did not study red blood cells. Again, no idea of what it did.

Jumping way forward it was Watson and Crick that ultimately got the credit for identifying the structure of DNA, and Francis Crick was one of the Francis's I told you of.

Moving even further forward we have the other Francis. Francis Collins was the lead researcher in the human genome project. Okay, he did not "discover" DNA by any means, but he made the mapping of it possible.

And the reason that I went off on this long journey is because Francis Collins is also a devout Christian that very much believes in God, but knows that the Adam and Eve stories are myths. He also formed Biologos. A Christian scientific website that strives to educate Christians, and others, about the genome and about science:

God's Word, God's World - BioLogos

Are science and religion at war? Many people today believe they are in conflict. BioLogos exists to show that you don’t have to choose between modern science and biblical faith.

biologos.org

 

[Audie]

Lol. It's not a personal opinion! It's science.

Do you know what "abiogenesis" is? Why do you ask?
Where's the connection? don't you get it?
You gotta have an origin for the rest of the chain!

That is so true! You cannot study plumbing
without knowing the origin of water.
No more than you can learn the history
changes in women's fashions if you
don't know what " Eve" favoured.

 

[gnostic]

Oh great, now I have to take a step backwards. It turns out that DNA was "discovered" before we even knew about the existence of chromosomes. Nucleic acids were discovered and analyzed in 1869 by Johannes Miescher. He analyzed material from white blood cells and discovered "nuclein". I guess it is a good thing that he did not study red blood cells. Again, no idea of what it did.

I didn’t read the history parts in the articles to nucleic acids, DNA & RNA. Hence I wasn’t aware who proposed what, nor when they were respectively discovered.

Normally I would read them, but didn’t.

Anyway, if Miescher discovered it, neither Mendel, nor Darwin, knew about it…and they were his contemporaries.

Plus, Mendel gave up his researches, because he became Abbot, as his duties prevented further experiments. Mendel published his work in 1866, but it didn’t receive as much attention than Darwin did with Natural Selection…not until 1900.

Despite Miescher and Mendel living much closer together in the same region, neither of them knew of each other’s researches.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I didn’t read the history parts in the articles to nucleic acids, DNA & RNA. Hence I wasn’t aware who proposed what, nor when they were respectively discovered.

Normally I would read them, but didn’t.

Anyway, if Miescher discovered it, neither Mendel, nor Darwin, knew about it…and they were his contemporaries.

Plus, Mendel gave up his researches, because he became Abbot, as his duties prevented further experiments. Mendel published his work in 1866, but it didn’t receive as much attention than Darwin did with Natural Selection…not until 1900.

Despite Miescher and Mendel living much closer together in the same region, neither of them knew of each other’s researches.

Miescher only discovered the chemical. He knew nothing about its structure or what it did. That is why it is so hard to credit the discovery of some of these concepts. From my reading I do not even think that Miescher only knew that it was in the cell nucleus, not what it did.

And I just did a search on DNA before Watson and Crick, the realization that it was the source of the genetic code was known before their work, but not by much. That was discovered in the 1940's:

Before Watson and Crick

How did scientists discover that DNA was the blueprint of life? Brenda Maddox explains.

www.pbs.org

 

[gnostic]

Miescher only discovered the chemical. He knew nothing about its structure or what it did. That is why it is so hard to credit the discovery of some of these concepts. From my reading I do not even think that Miescher only knew that it was in the cell nucleus, not what it did.

And I just did a search on DNA before Watson and Crick, the realization that it was the source of the genetic code was known before their work, but not by much. That was discovered in the 1940's:

Before Watson and Crick

How did scientists discover that DNA was the blueprint of life? Brenda Maddox explains.

www.pbs.org

From what I can see, Rosalind Franklin also played a part with Watson and Crick. If I am reading it correctly, Franklin correctly stated that it was 2 helice nucleic acid, where Watson & Crick originally proposed 3 helices…they later changed it to 2, and got much of credit, where as Franklin was forgotten.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Excerpts from a very long, eye-opener of an article by James Tour.

Don't feed it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Miescher only discovered the chemical. He knew nothing about its structure or what it did. That is why it is so hard to credit the discovery of some of these concepts. From my reading I do not even think that Miescher only knew that it was in the cell nucleus, not what it did.

And I just did a search on DNA before Watson and Crick, the realization that it was the source of the genetic code was known before their work, but not by much. That was discovered in the 1940's:

Before Watson and Crick

How did scientists discover that DNA was the blueprint of life? Brenda Maddox explains.

www.pbs.org

There are a host of scientists that contributed to the discovery, characterization and structure of DNA.

Frederick Griffith and later Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty in the 1940's discovered the hereditary nature of DNA. Erwin Chargaff discovered the 1:1 relationship between complimentary nucleotide bases (A's and T's; G's and C's). He lived to be 96 and passed away in 2002. I saw an interview with him near the end of his life and he was still mad at Watson and Crick. Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase confirmed that DNA was the molecule of inheritance. Linus Pauling discovered the structure of proteins and that helped lead to the determination of the structure of DNA. Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins work with X-ray crystalography further helped elucidate the structure. This host of scientists spans roughly 100 years that were involved in the steps leading to fully characterizing DNA and establishing its function. Watson and Crick road on the shoulders or picked the pockets of a previous list of scientists and their important discoveries.

It think it is a fantastic illustration of the strength of science and the incremental increase in our knowledge with each new discovery.

The History of DNA Timeline

 

[Astrophile]

Excerpts from a very long, eye-opener of an article by James Tour.


James M Tour Group » Evolution/Creation

That's the claim made by one of the leading chemist in the world - James Tour.

Before we go any further, a little background on James Tour.


James Tour - Wikipedia

I have said this many times, but it seems that I must say it again. Unless you believe in spontaneous generation, modern humans (ourselves) must have had ancestors that lived at the same time as the australopithecines. No primate fossils from the time of the earliest australopithecines (the Pliocene epoch)have been identified as belonging to the genus Homo. Therefore we must be descended from non-human primates that lived at that time, and the most likely candidates for these non-human ancestors are the australopithecines themselves. Also, if we are not descended from australopithecine ancestors, why are there no living australopithecines? Do you suppose that they all swore themselves to celibacy and died out as a result?

All this should be obvious to anybody who is acquainted with the facts of life. Dr. Tour appears to be in the position of a person who says that they do not know how sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy and therefore denies that sexual intercourse is the cause of pregnancy.

 

[Astrophile]

Was he saying that?



It has to start somewhere, right?




Like, that!

The question of the origin of life is not relevant to the evolutionary relationship between humans, australopithecines and chimpanzees, or the relationship between feathered Mesozoic dinosaurs and birds. You might as well say that we can't be sure that rust is hydrated iron oxide without knowing how iron and oxygen were formed.

 

[metis]

Unless you believe in spontaneous generation, modern humans (ourselves) must have had ancestors that lived at the same time as the australopithecines. No primate fossils from the time of the earliest australopithecines (the Pliocene epoch)have been identified as belonging to the genus Homo.

When we go back that far, fossilized Homo fossils are very rare. However, there's enough evidence that there were previous proto-Aa's or their ancestors in progress. IOW, it's important for us not to jump to conclusions one way or the other.

 

[Balthazzar]

It's an anomaly. Life on earth, I mean. Who disagrees with this? It's uncommon in our surrounding and known universe. Most I've read, suggest life just happened due to the required conditions being met within an infinite period of time, how-ever long it took for life to form from the chaos. Practically speaking, we shouldn't be here, yet we are. How rare the conditions able to foster and nurture life are in our known universe? I would suggest extremely. This doesn't equate to impossibility, obviously. It takes nine months in a womb, but how many billions of years passed before life began on earth after the accepted beginning of our universe? How long does it take a child to read? How quick is a child to acknowledge a need being met? I'm guessing here, but I myself view the entire universe to be connected and life grew from that which is unknown into a conscious reality of experience.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Excerpts from a very long, eye-opener of an article by James Tour.


James M Tour Group » Evolution/Creation

That's the claim made by one of the leading chemist in the world - James Tour.

Before we go any further, a little background on James Tour.


James Tour - Wikipedia

Why would you refer to Tour in the first place? Tour is a moderately competent synthetic chemist. He has demonstrated time and time again that he cannot understand abiogenesis. If you understood the sciences at all you would have seen that he lost rather badly to Professor Dave in their debate.