Coral Ridge Ministries and CSI

john2001

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Originally posted by Stratnerd

John

I don't think this to be the case although broadly it is. A few posts ago, AS pointed out the work of Doolittle which suggests quite a bit of lateral transfer amongst the most ancestral lineages. For example, all eukaryotes are composed of several different lineages via symbiosis. If true, and I don't see why it shouldn't be, then nestedness of life only occurs later. But at the beginning it looked more like a twisted rope. I'm just being nit-picky...

Either way, I fail to see how any of these problems pose a problem for evolution itself and somehow show the world is 6000 years old with a poofed biota.

Well sure. The horizontal exchange of DNA is something that is pretty much accepted as muddying the waters of descent when we look at very ancient (micro) organisms. As to modern multicellular organisms, there is some evidence of horizontal transfer, primarily due to viral DNA, but again, this is not significant.
 

john2001

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Originally posted by aharvey

AS,

I'm sure you're going to love hearing this, but if you're going to allow the phrase "tends to" in the second law of thermodynamics, then I'd say, yes, evolutionary theory has guiding laws and principles that are as precise as those in physics: "Natural selection tends to favor those individuals that are best adapted their environment." "Descendants tend to resemble their ancestors." "Lineages that share a distant common ancestor tend to be less similar than lineages that shared a recent common ancestor."

Agent Smith has more problems to deal with in his black and white view of science. The second law of thermodynamics is a special case of results from statistical mechanics. It is not carved in stone that locally and in short times the second law holds. It holds only in the sense of average values.
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by john2001

Here are the fundamental laws of biology.
1) Law of taxonomy: All organisms can be organized into a unique nested heirarchy.
2) Law of faunal succession: All organisms within the fossil record can be organized into a unique pattern of succession with time.
3) allele frequencies change with time.
This what I found:

1)taxonomy
a. grouping of organisms: the science of classifying plants, animals, and microorganisms into increasingly broader categories based on shared features. Traditionally, organisms were grouped by physical resemblances, but in recent times other criteria such as genetic matching have also been used.
b. principles of classification: the practice or principles of classification
c. study of classification: the study of the rules and practice of classifying living organisms

2) law of faunal succession
Observation that taxonomic groups of animals follow each other in time in a predictable manner.
Sequences of successive strata and their corresponding fauna have been matched to form a composite picture detailing the history of the Earth, especially from the beginning of the Cambrian Period. Faunal succession is the fundamental tool of stratigraphy and is the basis for the geologic time scale. Floral (plant) succession is also an important tool. Climate and conditions throughout the Earth's history can be studied using the successive groups because living organisms reflect their environment.

3)allele frequencies change with time.
. Could you show some information on how allele frequencies changing with time show mutation, natural selection and divergence? This is at least part of a law right? If so which one?

4)* faunal extinction
The world wide death and disappearance of diverse animals groups under circumstances that suggest common and related causes; also known as mass extinction.



*I added number 4 for it seemed to somewhat contrast what you called the law of faunal succession.
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by Stratnerd

> ape to man evolution

What that it didn't happen? You mean we're that different? How much is different enough to be too different?
Where is the physical evidence that shows ape to man evolution? The Nature article shows the separation gap getting larger between ape and man, not closer. Dinos to birds seems to be too different. Ape to man seems to be very different. A single cell into all living life seems to be extremely different.
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by Stratnerd

John

I don't think this to be the case although broadly it is. A few posts ago, AS pointed out the work of Doolittle which suggests quite a bit of lateral transfer amongst the most ancestral lineages. For example, all eukaryotes are composed of several different lineages via symbiosis. If true, and I don't see why it shouldn't be, then nestedness of life only occurs later. But at the beginning it looked more like a twisted rope. I'm just being nit-picky...

Either way, I fail to see how any of these problems pose a problem for evolution itself and somehow show the world is 6000 years old with a poofed biota.
Dolitle said life couldn't have happened from a single cell. How did evolution happen if it didn't evolve from a single cell out of the primordial soup?
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by aharvey

AS,

I'm sure you're going to love hearing this, but if you're going to allow the phrase "tends to" in the second law of thermodynamics, then I'd say, yes, evolutionary theory has guiding laws and principles that are as precise as those in physics: "Natural selection tends to favor those individuals that are best adapted their environment."
Natural selection proves natural selection?
"Descendants tend to resemble their ancestors."
You guys are trying to help me understand a common ancestor. Which specie of ape is our closest decendant and where is the evidence?
"Lineages that share a distant common ancestor tend to be less similar than lineages that shared a recent common ancestor."
So where is the physical evidence from between Lucy and man today?
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by aharvey

... and that's relevant to our discussion about the preeminent position of scientific theories in scientific thinking because ...?
I thought that was over. Scientists can't agree on common definitions for their own terms .
Look, if you're offended by the notion that humans and apes share a common ancestor, then perhaps you should stop yelling at the scientists who generate evidence (that turns out to support this notion), and start yelling at the creationist "scientists" who aren't generating any evidence at all (sorry, yelling at evolutionary biologists doesn't count as scientific evidence even when it comes from people who call themselves scientists). When I became serious about this creationist-evolution controversy, I set out to find positive evidence for YEC, but the most substantial, and surprising, things I've learned are that 1) despite the rhetoric, YECs agree with the basic mechanisms of evolution, to the extent that they have no idea how to distinguish evolution from special creation "in the field," and 2) YECs haven't the faintest idea how to date a fossil in a way that yields dates consistent with a young earth.

Doesn't that strike you as a bit odd?
If you want to dicuss creationism, looks like a new thread. I am discussing intelligent design and I thought you were defending the scientific theory of evolution.
 

john2001

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Originally posted by Agent Smith

This what I found:

1)taxonomy
a. grouping of organisms: the science of classifying plants, animals, and microorganisms into increasingly broader categories based on shared features. Traditionally, organisms were grouped by physical resemblances, but in recent times other criteria such as genetic matching have also been used.
b. principles of classification: the practice or principles of classification
c. study of classification: the study of the rules and practice of classifying living organisms

2) law of faunal succession
Observation that taxonomic groups of animals follow each other in time in a predictable manner.
Sequences of successive strata and their corresponding fauna have been matched to form a composite picture detailing the history of the Earth, especially from the beginning of the Cambrian Period. Faunal succession is the fundamental tool of stratigraphy and is the basis for the geologic time scale. Floral (plant) succession is also an important tool. Climate and conditions throughout the Earth's history can be studied using the successive groups because living organisms reflect their environment.

3)allele frequencies change with time.
. Could you show some information on how allele frequencies changing with time show mutation, natural selection and divergence? This is at least part of a law right? If so which one?

4)* faunal extinction
The world wide death and disappearance of diverse animals groups under circumstances that suggest common and related causes; also known as mass extinction.



*I added number 4 for it seemed to somewhat contrast what you called the law of faunal succession.

The notion that species can become extinct is integral to our understanding of succession. As to mass extinctions, these are extreme cases extinctions followed by new species, so this all just part of "faunal sucession"----faunal successions at the level of whole ecologies.
 

john2001

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Originally posted by Agent Smith

Dolitle said life couldn't have happened from a single cell. How did evolution happen if it didn't evolve from a single cell out of the primordial soup?

No. He didn't say that. What he was saying that when you go back to the beginning, you can't point to a single line of microorganisms leading back to a single common ancestor. The best that you could do is to see a general collection of populations as the "ancestor"
of eukaria.

Any proposed chain of descent is complicated by the ability of microorganisms to exchange genetic material.

So, eukaryotes are decended from populations of microorganisms. The evidence of this is that our nuclei, mitochondria, and rhbosomes each have ancestory that can be traced back to common ancestry with different collections of microorganisms.

We can say that eukaria, prokaria, and archaea all share common ancestry, but we must say that there was considerable horizontal exchanges of genetic material when we go back to the beginning of life
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by john2001

The notion that species can become extinct is integral to our understanding of succession. As to mass extinctions, these are extreme cases extinctions followed by new species, so this all just part of "faunal sucession"----faunal successions at the level of whole ecologies.
How many times do you believe world-wide mass extinctions happened? How many times do you believe a biogenesis to have occured?
 

john2001

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Originally posted by Agent Smith



3)allele frequencies change with time.
. Could you show some information on how allele frequencies changing with time show mutation, natural selection and divergence? This is at least part of a law right? If so which one?

The fact that allele frequencies change with time allows for a mechanism of "descent with modification".

All Darwinian-style theories of evolution hold that species originate via common descent with mutation and natural selection being the mechanism of evolution.

Common descent is inferred from the laws of taxonomy and faunal sucession. Decent with modification follows from the notion of allele frequencies changing with time.
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by john2001

No. He didn't say that. What he was saying that when you go back to the beginning, you can't point to a single line of microorganisms leading back to a single common ancestor. The best that you could do is to see a general collection of populations as the "ancestor"
of eukaria.
Actually he says this:

*Doolittle argues that recent discoveries in molecular biology have begun to fracture the root of Darwin’s single Tree of Life.


*W. Ford Doolittle, “Uprooting the Tree of Life,” Scientific American, February 2000, pp. 90-95.


To horizontal swap there has to be more than one cell. Where did the cells come from? Where did the information, that they swapped, come from?
 

john2001

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Originally posted by Agent Smith

How many times do you believe world-wide mass extinctions happened?

We know of 6 or possibly 7 mass extinctions in the past billion years. Before that the evidence gets sketchy.

How many times do you believe a biogenesis to have occured?

I assume you mean "abiogenesis" which means "life from nonlife".

The answer can only be "at least once".

There is sufficient similarity between archaea and prokaria to suggest that these are not truly separate lines of descent. So, whatever evidence of abiogensis "events" is erased in the genetics of these organisms. It may be that there were many abiogenesis events, and that those that survive constitute the genetics of prokaria and archaea.

Not enough is known about the possible chemical pathways for anybody to say anything more about that.

A popular pre-boitic scenario is the RNA world hypothesis, which has gained strength in recent years because experiments have shown that RNA can act as a template in the same way that DNA can, and that RNA's can act as enzymes, which in turn can produce proteins.
 

john2001

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Originally posted by Agent Smith

Actually he says this:

*Doolittle argues that recent discoveries in molecular biology have begun to fracture the root of Darwin’s single Tree of Life.


*W. Ford Doolittle, “Uprooting the Tree of Life,” Scientific American, February 2000, pp. 90-95.


To horizontal swap there has to be more than one cell. Where did the cells come from? Where did the information, that they swapped, come from?

Perhaps you should read the actual article instead of reposting out-of-context quotes from the Discovery Instutute web page.

Basically, there is considerable evidence of horizontal transfer between archaea, prokaria, and eukaria. This means that it is not possible to nail down common ancestry to a single original "proto-cell". That is all Dolittle is saying.
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by john2001

We know of 6 or possibly 7 mass extinctions in the past billion years. Before that the evidence gets sketchy.
6 or 7? How old do you think the earth is? What evidence proves it happened at least 6 times?
I assume you mean "abiogenesis" which means "life from nonlife". The answer can only be "at least once".
Yes, abiogenesis, also known as spontaneous generation to some biologists. If there were multiple mass extinctions, then plant and/or animal life had to start over each time correct?
There is sufficient similarity between archaea and prokaria to suggest that these are not truly separate lines of descent. So, whatever evidence of abiogensis "events" is erased in the genetics of these organisms. It may be that there were many abiogenesis events, and that those that survive constitute the genetics of prokaria and archaea.
There is evidence for that right?
A popular pre-boitic scenario is the RNA world hypothesis, which has gained strength in recent years because experiments have shown that RNA can act as a template in the same way that DNA can, and that RNA's can act as enzymes, which in turn can produce proteins.
How does the RNA know which sequence to be in to make one of over 30,000 proteins? Where did RNA get the genetic information from if there is no DNA to take it from?
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by john2001

Perhaps you should read the actual article instead of reposting out-of-context quotes from the Discovery Instutute web page.

Basically, there is considerable evidence of horizontal transfer between archaea, prokaria, and eukaria. This means that it is not possible to nail down common ancestry to a single original "proto-cell". That is all Dolittle is saying.
So show me the evidence that proves you can get that single cell out of the primorial soup.
 

Stratnerd

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Where is the physical evidence that shows ape to man evolution?
as pointed out before, our planet shows that when you go from the most current biota (say, what we have today) to those getting older, the differences become greater suggesting that ALL organisms have been evolving. We know that organisms will evolve over time. Is there any reason that our lineage should be any different? Early biologists proposed that we shared ancestry with the great apes (gorillas, chimps) and we've found many fossils that show organisms with the types of features that we might expect to be intermediate. While we may never find the actual ancestors to us we find things that belong to lineages that are obvious relatives.

The Nature article shows the separation gap getting larger between ape and man, not closer.
Indeed, but what was that difference 50%? nope, 25%? nope, 10%? nope, 5%? nope, but less than a 2% difference.

Dinos to birds seems to be too different.
I don't think so at all. Heck, an Archaeopteryx was misclassified as a dinosaur for years and years. Maybe you can point to the salient differences between dromeosaurs and birds?
Ape to man seems to be very different.
some of my uncles I find it hard to believe that we are related... doesn't matter what seems to be.. especially if you're untrained but what is.
 

Stratnerd

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> I am discussing intelligent design

funny, I have yet to notice any comments on this very thing (despite me asking).
 

Free-Agent Smith

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Originally posted by Stratnerd

> I am discussing intelligent design

funny, I have yet to notice any comments on this very thing (despite me asking).
Funny evolution still hasn't found the right fossils to prove itself.
 
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