Originally posted by Nineveh
Or, since this is your field, why not poke some holes in his arguments?
Which arguments would you like me to comment on?
Kenyon was speaking from his field in Unlocking.
Basically Kenyon was speaking against his own work. He did not address the work of others. Indeed, if that Mystery program was supposed to be informative, why didn't they interview the leading people in the fields they were discussing?
I agree, if we don't know, we don't know. But I will go one further, if we don't know, we should find out instead of making up stories.
Science is about finding out. That is what the people you call "evolutionists" are doing.
Science can't explain everything, perhaps that's why you don't believe in the spiritual realm.
We are talking about science, here. Not what I may believe or not believe. Basically science operates in a restricted domain. We can only study scientifically those things that we observe/measure, that we can then communicate clearly to other scientists, and finally that we have some way of comprehending with our intellects.
Anything that fails any of these three critera fails to be science.
So, as far as the "spiritual realm" is concerned, this is not something that science can evaluate. I know of know experiment that can establish the existence of a spiritual realm, nor of any clear communication regarding exactly what the qualities of the spirit realm are, and finally I know of know intelligible theory describing or explaining just what the "spiritual realm" is.
I, personally have never experienced anything that I would call the "spirit realm". Indeed, it seems to be something more in the nature of a mythos, than anything that is real.
So, I personally see no particular reason to believe in it
It appears you will ignore any biologist who doesn't fit into your view of reality. At least that's what I am getting from your attitude about Dr. Brewer, Dr. Kenyon, et al.
Kenyon is a has-been. He is not a leader in his field anymore. His opinions are not in tune with the opinions of the current leaders in the field.
Brewer seems to be a decent scientist. I have no problems with his research. As to his little publication on the ICR page, I see this as an example of his *religious* beliefs not his scientific opinions on the subject of evolution. He certainly is free to publish papers on the failure of microorganisms to conform to a simple tree of phylogeny.
It is up to the biologists to fight it out, and determine what the next great theory of the origin of species will be. So far, it seems that it will be an "evolution" type theory, even if the radical were to happen, and some sort of ID-mechanism were adopted.
I see a lot of story telling from the evo side. Like making feathers appear where they aren't, or different bones put together to make something that isn't. Personally, I'd rather just look over the scientist's shoulder at the evidence and leave off with the tale telling.
In any field of science you will find that there is a natural language in which the results are orgainized and the theories are communicated. In the field of biology, that language consists of generalizations of collections of representative datasets. The prevailing method for organizing those representative datasets for morphology is cladistics.
Without having a detailed grasp of taxonomy, with its extension, cladistics, you cannot truly say what consists of "storytelling" and what does not. Certainly, what is told to the public sounds like "story telling".
Now, the majority of criticisms from the creationist and ID communities are in fact, criticisms of this public communication.
Martin Luther broke the dominance of the RCC. Whatever else the man said or did will be on his own head, no? Anyway, do you often just pull a few lines from a totally different conversation to aid your point?
You brought up Martin Luther. Not me.
As to quote mining, the totality of so-called "creation science" consists of out-of-context quotes and one-liners. I assumed that you found the practise acceptable, and was merely doing what the creationist camp does.
If you find this frustrating, consider the poor science teacher who has to deal with some smart-*** kid in his or her class firing out one-liners from some creation tract.
So far I haven't seen where ID has pulled a fraction of the stunts evo has in it's cause.
The ID movement is, so far, a political movement out of the Discovery institute. So far it is all stunts.
I keep hearing it, and keep posting Scientists from their field who hold to ID over evo. Instead of pointing to Hovind, why not listen to Kenyon and Brewer instead?
Ok. Its a short list. Neither Kenyon nor Brewer is discussing the majority of the theory of evolution. Kenyon is not disucussing evolution at all, only abiogenesis. Brewer is discussing microorganisms--prokaryotes in particular. Yet, it is to be inferred from their presentations that their comments are somehow fatal to the general notions of evolution in biology, which is simply not true.
Anyway, you are welcome for the info. Obviously the folks who investigate this stuff think differently.
"Mitochondria may not be inherited solely through the maternal line, according to new research that promises to overturn accepted biological wisdom.
If confirmed by other researchers, the findings could have huge implications for evolutionary biology and biochemistry."
So, I guess we shall see what "suprises" await us in this area as well
The conventional wisdom regarding mitochondria which was assumed in the "Eve" study a few years ago was that mitochondria came only from the maternal line.
The mitochondria do *not* reproduce sexually, as does the nuclear DNA. They reproduce asexually, by division. There is little or no exchange of DNA between the mitochondria of the two parents. You get your mitochondria from either parent, but most commonly from the maternal side.
The fact that the mitochondrian reproduces much as a bacterium does makes it the idea clock for determining descent.The point is that the mitochondria are the ideal clocks for studying the relatedness of organisms. The nuclear DNA is the clock for sexual-reproduction related variation, which si what the Nature article is about.
