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Originally posted by amannionThat is not how I understand the situation. If you are looking for a smoking gun in order to get a murder conviction, and you do not have one, one very powerful piece of convicting evidence is not available.
The key word is 'would'. It would be a problem if it could not be explained. It can. Hence, it is not a problem.
Next ...
Now there may be reasons why it is not available. But its absence, for whatever reason, weakens that avenue of abtaining a conviction.
The negative example is just coincidental.
The "smoking gun" of the proof of many transitional life forms is not at all abundant in the fossil record. Another powerful piece of evidence needs to be obtained in its place.
Originally posted by jaywillWhat about the similarity in DNA? is that not a powerful smoking gun?
That is not how I understand the situation. If you are looking for a smoking gun in order to get a murder conviction, and you do not have one, one very powerful piece of convicting evidence is not available.
Now there may be reasons why it is not available. But its absence, for whatever reason, weakens that avenue of abtaining a conviction.
The nega ...[text shortened]... t in the fossil record. Another powerful piece of evidence needs to be obtained in its place.
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why are people fine with accepting that a species can evolve but have a problem with new creatures being born from those which came long before?
Nature doesn't care what labels we humans attach to a creature, and whether we define two animals to be different is irrelevant. if creature A evolves in a way that does not prevent it from reproducing then after a sufficient number of successful trials of such sort coupled with environmental changes it will be pretty much indistinguishable from creature B.
We humans might refer to this creature B as a different animal, but what has occurred is pretty much what you are willing to accept!
Originally posted by jaywillWhich would all be great if scientific modelling worked in the same way as a murder investigation.
That is not how I understand the situation. If you are looking for a smoking gun in order to get a murder conviction, and you do not have one, one very powerful piece of convicting evidence is not available.
Now there may be reasons why it is not available. But its absence, for whatever reason, weakens that avenue of abtaining a conviction.
The nega ...[text shortened]... t in the fossil record. Another powerful piece of evidence needs to be obtained in its place.
It doesn't.
Scientists don't look for 'proof beyond reasonable doubt'; rather they look for the best possible explanation for some event or phenomena.
As I think I've said more than a few times now - evolution is the best possible explanation.
Could there be a better one? Of course.
Is there? No.
Do you have one? Of course not, otherwise you wouldn't be avoiding the simplest of questions - what is the alternative?
You claim a flaw in the evidence. This supposed flaw is easily explained, and is not the only piece of evidence we have.
Yet still you claim otherwise.
I'm not sure what you expect at this point.
It's quite clear that you presupposed notion of intelligent design clouds every argument or piece of evidence that runs counter to this possibility.
Which is all fine for you, and for any other ID proponents - knock yourself out.
But this isn't how science is conducted.
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Originally posted by jaywillI'll say it again.
That is not how I understand the situation. If you are looking for a smoking gun in order to get a murder conviction, and you do not have one, one very powerful piece of convicting evidence is not available.
Now there may be reasons why it is not available. But its absence, for whatever reason, weakens that avenue of abtaining a conviction.
The nega t in the fossil record. Another powerful piece of evidence needs to be obtained in its place.
jaywill Another powerful piece of evidence needs to be obtained in its place.
What about DNA itself? We can see that all animals have the same structure, apes have closer DNA to us, etc etc, and we can see DNA changing in bacteria in the lab. What better, more powerful, 'smoking gun' evidence would you like? (or do you have another conclusion that this evidence does not fit?)
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Originally posted by snowinscotlandIt is a possible evidence. But a common design could also account for this.
What about the similarity in DNA? is that not a powerful smoking gun?
A common creator could also be an interpretation of common DNA. If all organisms were designed to live in the same biosphere this might account for a common genetic code.
If every living creature were distinct biochemically, a food chain might not exist.
Perhaps life with a different biochemiocal makeup is not possible.
Perhaps even if it were possible it could not survive in this biosphere.
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We can see that all animals have the same structure, apes have closer DNA to us,
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Some studies show that human being shares a 90% DNA similarity with some apes.
Does this prove that people evolved from apes?
Some other studies show a DNA similarity of about 90% between humans and mice.
We could then with the same conviction think that mice evolved into humans.
Look at the following two sentences:
Charles Darwin was a scientific god.
Charles Darwin was a scientific dog.
Though the two sentences are about 90% the same the small difference means a tremendous lot. Here dog and god are just about opposites.
So with DNA similarity a slight difference in the message can mean a tremendous difference in the resulting life form.
A slight difference in the ordering of the four nitrogen-containing bases represented by the letters A,T,C,and G, can make a big difference on where on the alledged evolutionary tree we have to place recipients of these small differences.
Originally posted by jaywillThis demonstrates a fallacy in evolutionary thinking. No existing species has evolved into any other.
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We can see that all animals have the same structure, apes have closer DNA to us,
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Some studies show that human being shares a 90% DNA similarity with some apes.
Does this prove that people evolved from apes?
Some other studies show a DNA similarity of about 90% between huma ...[text shortened]... on the alledged evolutionary tree we have to place recipients of these small differences.[/b]
Apes haven't evolved into humans, nor have mice. Nor, by the way, have humans evolved into the others.
Apes (by the way, apes are not a species - just a convenient grouping of a number of different species), humans and mice all evolved from common ancestors.
The genetic difference between humans and mice is greater than that between humans and apes - it's not about the same as you suggest.
The physiological similarities between apes and humans are enormous, whereas the differences between us and mice are great.
By the way, ape physiology is closer to humans than it is to monkeys.
Originally posted by jaywillYou made the correct argument by yourself.
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We can see that all animals have the same structure, apes have closer DNA to us,
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Some studies show that human being shares a 90% DNA similarity with some apes.
Does this prove that people evolved from apes?
Some other studies show a DNA similarity of about 90% between huma ...[text shortened]... on the alledged evolutionary tree we have to place recipients of these small differences.[/b]
The percentage of DNA difference doesn't mean exactly that the phenotype difference is the same. No one is measuring (or should) difference between % DNA.
Originally posted by amannion===================================
This demonstrates a fallacy in evolutionary thinking. No existing species has evolved into any other.
Apes haven't evolved into humans, nor have mice. Nor, by the way, have humans evolved into the others.
Apes (by the way, apes are not a species - just a convenient grouping of a number of different species), humans and mice all evolved from common ancesto ...[text shortened]... s and mice are great.
By the way, ape physiology is closer to humans than it is to monkeys.
The genetic difference between humans and mice is greater than that between humans and apes - it's not about the same as you suggest.
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That information came from Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium, "Initial Sequencing and Comparitive Analysis of the Mouse Genome," Nature 429 (December 5, 2002, pages 520-562.)
Further studies in the future may show human DNA is closer to ape DNA. However, as I said before there could be two interpretations:
1.) Common Ancestor
2.) Common Creator
We must find other evidence on a molecular level which further causes us to lean more towards one interpretation or the other.
Proteins are the building blocks of life. Proteins are long chains of chemical units called amino acids. Most proteins incatin in their structures more than 100 of these amino acids. They must be in a very specific order.
The DNA contains the instructions for ordering the amino acids in each protein. Any variation in the specific order usually renders the protein dysfunctional. So the ordering of the amino acids is critical.
One fact which is of no help to the Common Ancester view is that expected sequences which would be transitional between say fish and amphibians or between reptiles and mammals, either do not exist any more or simply never did exist.
What exists instead are the basic types are molecularly isolated from one another, which seems to negate any type of ancestral relationship.
"So even though all organisms share a common genetic code with varying degrees of closeness, that code has ordered the amino acids in proteins in such a way that the basic types are in molecular isolation from one another."
( I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Athiest, Giesler and Turek, pg 151)
So the Darwinists have two gaps to explain.
1.) There are the gaps in the fossil record.
2.) There are gaps in molecular structure.
The difficulty in explaining the gaps in either case by Natural Selection remains a problem for Darwinists.
At the molecular level no trace exists which would prove FISH evoled into AMPHIBIANS which in turn evolved into REPTILES which in turn evolved into MAMMALS.
AMPHIBIANS, which have been always considered a Darwinian intermediate between FISH and other terrestrial vertebrates, are as far away molecularly from FISH as they are from REPTILES or MAMMALS.
Molecular isolation does not strengthen the interpretation of ancestral relationships between organism groups.
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Originally posted by jaywillDo you understand that there are two possible ways of looking at, for example, our current environment, the earth.
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The genetic difference between humans and mice is greater than that between humans and apes - it's not about the same as you suggest.
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That information came from Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium, "Initial Sequencing and Comparitive Analysis of the Mouse Genome," does not strengthen the interpretation of ancestral relationships between organism groups.
Either, you can say that it was created just right for the way we are; or, you can say that we are the way we are because of the environment.
If you are looking for a creator, I am sure you will look to the first, and be awestruck by how right he made it all for us.
If you are looking for understanding about the natural world, you will see creatures like the moths on the trees evolving, and wonder, awestruck, at just how we have been shaped by our environment.
So in a way I understand how you find it hard to see the latter, and in a way I am surprised how you cannot see yourself looking so hard in the other direction. The beauty of the natural simplicity of something like natural selection does not preclude God, yet you seem to think it poses a threat to him?
Originally posted by jaywillActually there is no reason to think that a creator would reuse particular code sequences. Common sequences doesn't particularly point towards a common creator. Even if you do believe in a common creator, you would look for other reasons for the common sequences (such as physical /chemical constraints etc).
Further studies in the future may show human DNA is closer to ape DNA. However, as I said before there could be two interpretations:
1.) Common Ancestor
2.) Common Creator
We must find other evidence on a molecular level which further causes us to lean more towards one interpretation or the other.
What should cause you to lean towards the common ancestor idea, should be the location of various species. There is a very very clear and undeniable pattern. Species with very close DNA often live near each other. That simply doesn't tie up to a common creator idea.
Since we are on the topic of apes an monkeys:
Why did God use one set of common DNA for monkeys in the Americas and another set for those in Africa and Eurasia?
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Snowinscotland,
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The beauty of the natural simplicity of something like natural selection does not preclude God, yet you seem to think it poses a threat to him?
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I do not disagree with an elegance or asthetic beauty to the idea of random mutations leading to a natural selection coming out to the improvment of organisms so that they are more fit to survive.
Sure the idea is neat.
But did it happen that way? Your moths on the trees were still moths though the darker ones survived. And those factories should not be expected to be around for 30 million years !
Had they, maybe evolution would not have changed just their color but turned them into something totally different encreasing even more their chances of survival.
For your mechanism to work you have to figure that some environment remain pretty much the same for a long long time - millions upon millions of years. Even one million years is enough to alter weather patterns, dry up marshes, lay down lakes, melt ice, alter local food sources, etc.
Asthetic beauty aside for the moment - which is more probable?
Originally posted by NemesioSo NS acts upon the species or is it an act of the species?
Not quite. Natural selection is the mechanism by which a species optimizes its chance for survival.
Each individual organism strives to live and pass its genetic material on. The most successful
of organisms is the one which passes on the most genetic material (probably living the longest).
So, any advantage in this end that an individual organism has ...[text shortened]... description of the mechanism which optimizes the survival of an
individual species.
Nemesio