Functionally Complex

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Your talking about expertise. The body of knowlege that comprises geology and biology is comparable to that of medicine. If you want to belittle the scientific method in order to score cheap points then thats up to you.

However, if I want to consult a medical expert I visit a qualified doctor. If I want to learm about the history of the earth I talk ...[text shortened]... alogues who take their inspiration from the foundation legends of a Neolithc / Bronze age tribe?

Keep you eyes on the words I'm using, I'm talking about fossils.
I'm not belittling anything, there are no cheap points being made
here. You think because Joe Blow with degrees in X, Y, Z knows
without a shadow of doubt, that when he says this fossil was from
a creature that later became this other creature he is without error,
because of his vast knowledge in either geology, biology or
both? If you do your faith in man is quite large in my opinion.
Kelly

You can quite clearly see a path of evolution in proteins from small changes in DNA over millions of years. We don't need fossil records.
Whether these changes were chance or not is a theological debate
but one thing's clear, the probability is that these variations would have happened at sometime anyway and having the advantages (the successful ones) had, they were likely to be selected for.

Cells aren't quite as simple as having evolved. Take the mitochondia
in human cells (the cells energy device~). It was originally a separate
organism that found it's way into the cell and got comfy, the cell didn't mind as it got a symbiotic kickback of ready energy.

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
You can quite clearly see a path of evolution in proteins from small changes in DNA over millions of years. We don't need fossil records.
Whether these changes were chance or not is a theological debate
but one thing's clear, the probability is that these variations would have happened at sometime anyway and having the advantages (the successful ones) ...[text shortened]... the cell and got comfy, the cell didn't mind as it got a symbiotic kickback of ready energy.

We can clearly see the evolutionary path in proteins from small
changes in DNA over millions of years? You do not think this is
like guessing where the dots connect? It is amazing, the skill
required, the knowledge being able to peer into the distant past.
Are you sure it took millions of years and maybe not a billion,
or just one million, how about just one point two million years?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Keep you eyes on the words I'm using, I'm talking about fossils.
I'm not belittling anything, there are no cheap points being made
here. You think because Joe Blow with degrees in X, Y, Z knows
without a shadow of doubt, that when he says this fossil was from
a creature that later became this other creature he is without error,
because of his vast k ...[text shortened]... er geology, biology or
both? If you do your faith in man is quite large in my opinion.
Kelly

Fine, go with the stone age folk tale. Good choice. I daresay you'll be seeking medical advice from the same source

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Fine, go with the stone age folk tale. Good choice. I daresay you'll be seeking medical advice from the same source

Belittling me does not change what are facts and what are belief
systems. It really doesn't matter if the beliefs are of the stone age
kind, or the modern educational kind.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
We can clearly see the evolutionary path in proteins from small
changes in DNA over millions of years? You do not think this is
like guessing where the dots connect? It is amazing, the skill
required, the knowledge being able to peer into the distant past.
Are you sure it took millions of years and maybe not a billion,
or just one million, how about just one point two million years?
Kelly

Yes you can. Read

Antiquity and evolution of the MADS-box gene family controlling flower developement in Plants, Nam et al, Molecular Biology and Evolution Vol 20, 2003, p1435

Originally posted by KellyJay
Belittling me does not change what are facts and what are belief
systems. It really doesn't matter the beliefs are of the stone age
kind, or the modern educational kind.
Kelly

I'm not belittling you. If you want to reject science for superstition in the field of evolutionary biology then will you be consistent and reject science when your own life is on the line?

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Yes you can. Read

Antiquity and evolution of the MADS-box gene family controlling flower developement in Plants, Nam et al, Molecular Biology and Evolution Vol 20, 2003, p1435

Cool, that study millions of years old monitoring the progress of
plants, or is it just someone connecting the dots and calling it
millions of years?
Kelly

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
I'm not belittling you. If you want to reject science for superstition in the field of evolutionary biology then will you be consistent and reject science when your own life is on the line?

I'm not rejecting science, I'm rejecting beliefs that are being passed
off as facts.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Cool, that study millions of years old monitoring the progress of
plants, or is it just someone connecting the dots and calling it
millions of years?
Kelly

Read it. I just did last night

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Read it. I just did last night

Well I believe you read it last night, but the data, what you are
calling a million year old process, did it come from a million year
old study, or a study that someone did that claimed the process
took a million years?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Well I believe you read it last night, but the data, what you are
calling a million year old process, did it come from a million year
old study, or a study that someone did that claimed the process
took a million years?
Kelly

It came from a team of people sequencing regulatory proteins. It cites more literature for this one, fairly low key, paper than the entire ID body of knowlege. It discusses real data and compares the results of various statistical treatments. Models are examined against the real data and conclusions are inferred. If the endeavour of a sizable team working in a context of previously published work is less informative than a stone age oral legend thats fine by me.

I suggest you walk to work tommorrow: they didn't have the internal combustion engine in the neolithic in the fertile crescent so it can't be trrue that it works. I'd be a little cautious about the wheel too.

Kelly has a point. No one has run an experiment showing that single celled prokaryotes will evolve into humans over time. People have run experiments showing that people who are given antibiotics recover from bacterial disease faster than than those who are not, for a medical example.
Macroevolutionary theory depends on "natural experiments" I've read. Whether or not these are as valid as those run by humans from beginning to end can be reasonably challenged I guess.

The original statement that started all this was

So what? You still need millions of transitional fossils, and you don't even have one.

KellyJay doesn't like some of us calling certain fossils transitional. Well, ok, but if we can't know if some fossils were those of organisms in some sort of transition because we weren't there, then dj2becker's statement is meaningless. If transitional fossils are impossible simply because people need to observe the transition in order to label them transitional, then it's no surprise that there are no transitional fossils. Dj's statement is meaningless.

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
It came from a team of people sequencing regulatory proteins. It cites more literature for this one, fairly low key, paper than the entire ID body of knowlege. It discusses real data and compares the results of various statistical treatments. Models are examined against the real data and conclusions are inferred. If the endeavour of a sizable team worki ...[text shortened]... ile crescent so it can't be trrue that it works. I'd be a little cautious about the wheel too.

Well fine why didn't you say so I was under the impression that
what was being presented was the view that someone could see
millions of years into the past, and know what that certain
evolutionary lines were solid facts due to some means to see the
process.

What you are telling me that all you really are talking about is
nothing but a statisitcal models. Which is simply again, nothing
but a statistical model, not a fact about something that happened
millions of years ago.
Kelly