Human common descent ancestor discovered - Page 5

benzene,
As MarcUK pointed out, this is a discussion on evolution and not the origins of life. We have you admitting that microevolution does exist because it has been observed. I need you also to admit that there are no new gene products between chimpanzees and humans, just regulatory differences of already existing gene products and some mutations which affect regulation and protein function. Is it then that chimps and humans are the same species? I have to say that this fact is all the evidence I need to combine what has been observed -- microevolution, with what has been proposed to occur over long periods of time -- macroevolution.

benzene, on gravity and natural laws, you are just dead wrong and totally uninformed.

1. Scientific laws are not mathematical proofs. They are approximations used to describe observations, and they can be and have been wrong, such as with newton's law of universal gravitation.

2. Newsflash: newton's law of gravitation is not "gravity exists." Newton's law is a mathematical description of his theory about the mechanics of gravity, and this 'law' isn't even accurate.

It's really pathetic that you have a bugs bunny understanding of the 'law of gravity.' Your beliefs are clearly a case of the non-scientist being led by the pseudoscientists.

Other than the dinosaur tracks, MarcUK and Hassan i Sabbah are up to their old tricks of not reading my posts and then posting ignorantly. For those that want to make their own conclusions about the dinosaur tracks, go to this link. Also, let me get this straight: talkorigins believes that the very human-looking tracks are the result of selective water erosion of dinosaur tracks. Wow. No wonder you guys believe macroevolution can occur.


I've seen the research that observed nitrogen heterocyclics in space, as well as some of the simpler amino acids. Those are not, however, nucleotides. The are only the bases (and there are a lot more nitrogen heterocyclics than those used in DNA/RNA, as you know). Additionally, they are hardly in the concentrations needed for what you're talking about...but we'll get to that.


That's my point though, you don't have bucket loads of time. Unless you are trying to say that the oceans were one big pool of amino acids and nucleotides all at 100mM (which is laughable in the extreme), you're not going to get anything close to even a measureable turnover from even the most optimized enzyme/inorganic catalyst.
Additionally, there are lots of chemical reactions completely separate from life that can break down your pre-biotic materials. Oxidation immediately springs to mind (some people have postulated O2 didn't exist much early in time), free radical degradation, heat, and a million other organic reactions.


First of all, I don't know any natural mechanism (other than the ones used by life...obviously) to take a sugar, add a base, and then add three phosphates. So you're all ready in trouble, and you still have the problem with autocatalyzing reactions not having even a fleeting concentration of their substrates to work on.




Well, as you know, catalysts do not change the equilibrium position. So what you're saying is: A perfectly (or near perfectly) optimized crystal (we haven't even got to proteins yet, I'm assuming) happens upon a decent concentration of amino acids and polymerizes them (randomly, of course) into a protein. This happens a whole lot of times, until eventually a functioning protein is made. Now we have a single (functioning) protein. Great, so you just made alcohol dehydrogenase. Now what?


No, I don't agree, and here's why: Other than your last example (which, as you would have to agree, is very rare), making a single substrate from a single enzyme does not help the enzyme to be any more fit. Only when the enzyme is observed in a larger context, and where it's products can help the organism for which it works, does the enzyme make life better for itself. For those out there who don't understand what I've said so far, I'm going to make an analogy:

Say you have a shoemaker. He can make 50 shoes a day. He, however, only needs a single pair of shoes once a year. It does not benefit him to make 50 shoes a day, let alone one, unless there is a market for him.
I know Dr. Behe has been much maligned for his "irreducible complexity", but that's a great example of what's going on here.

Also, what happens if your protein is inactivated by a free radical? Then what? You have to start all over again.


Actually, lipid bilayers are observed in every life form, so I would say that they're probably one of the oldest tenets of life, but I suppose you could make a statement for a protein envelope (a la viruses).

Also, it is quite evident that lipid bilayers are quite a bit more complex than your average grease slick. They must contain transporters, structual proteins, etc.


Oh, I see, you are talking about the RNA world. Ok, that makes things a bit simpler. Well, other than the fact that little more than self-excising RNAs have been observed operating in a catalytic function, you can make the leap (as some have done) that they were the first enzymes. As well as lipid bilayers being synthesized, you are being somewhat disingenuous when you say that they are generated by a single catalyst. If I remember correctly, there's more like 12 or so.


Yes, but usually not structually useful ones, and they definitely still need ways to transport materials across the membrane.


Agreed, but if you get a lipid bilayer too soon, you're screwed. You need to have all of your ducks in a row before you enclose your machinery, otherwise you've done the cellular equivalent of suffocating yourself. How a pre-cell managed to corral everything it needed from randomly floating active enzymes (of which the probability of creating is slim enough), into a enclosed space is truely an exercise of the imagination.


For even this very simple step you are forced to constrain the supposed inital environment in a very unlikely setup.


I'm glad we agree about that. Although, it would be really cool to find a mechanism capable of doing that (I can't think of why a cell would ever need to). Talk about nobels for everybody (I'll share it with you!).


But that's different that the reverse-reverse transcriptase that we were talking about earlier. This is much more plausible, at least from a probability POV, but still, you're making the jump from a single catalytic RNA construct to a functioning "system". Making one enzyme is a big enough jump. Making more than one in the same vicinity and time and having them come together is...impossible.

And a note to the non-math people out there. It's possible that Elvis is still alive. Heck, it'd be possible for him to be living a hundred years from now, if only he reached some eastern shaman during his post-faked death (and subsequent coverup) that taught him the keys for long life.
However, is it plausible? Hardly.

Also, a note to MarcUK and Hassan, if they post my elvis thing out of context to "prove" I'm a moron, you really are pathetic.


Yeah, if I was a naturalist, I'd probably go with the RNA world thing myself, however, making the jump from a self-excising polynucleic acid to a repeatable enzymatic construct is a rather large one.


I looked at protein design a bit as a possible thesis, but I don't think (and you would agree) that we've really got too terribly far yet. (my main area of interest is NMR technique design for biomolecules) As for your example, if you already made one succesful oh, say, kinase, you would use that same domain over and over. (which is what we see in nature). Unless you like masochism, you wouldn't make a different protein for each organism that made the same thing.


I would agree with you quite a bit. Dawkins (or is it Gould?) began to espouse the panspermia theory quite a bit. As I posted before, if someone could somehow convince me that the single cell came about by chance (which is getting more and more remote the further I get in my field), the step from single-celled to multi-cellular would be paltry by comparison.


He's more than just that. Based upon what I observe every day in my life and work, he appears to me to be scientist, engineer, and artist.


Even good diet and exercise can't save you from amassing genetic defects though. Look at Mr. Armstrong. Less than 50 years ago he would have been a dead man.


I agree. However, the very long lifespans started to decline dramatically after the flood, and very quickly stabilized on what we would consider a "normal" lifetime (a bit shorter, actually, because of the obvious medical concerns). Protective water canopy?


Yes, but based upon my earlier statements, where are you going to find a nice little isolated place with a high concentration of the pre-biotic materials, all free from the ravages of environmental chemistry? Getting a system capable of generating all of these molecules themselves, even in conditions like you state, is not likely at all. (and that's an understatement)


All methods of making nucleotides occur in already-living objects. Of course, it's possible I missed something. If you have a mechanism where life (or the critical enzymes from life) isn't/aren't needed for this, I'd like to hear about it.


Acutally, most enzymes become denatured even when you go a little bit above 37C. And also, it's not just the sterility of the solution at question. I doubt you could say that the original "prebiotic" soup was made of distilled, deionized water with just the critical amino acids/nucleotides. (and your crystal, of course)


See above, also many metal-containing proteins can have the metals titrated out of them via mass action. (Had a real pain of a protein I had to work with that had that problem).


I was referring to the activation energy as a thermodynamic barrier. These are overcome by either enzymes, or heat (which cells can't utilize too well).

Hardeehar, I appreciate our discourse. I'm glad your're actually reading my material, and responding to it in kind. I hope that we can continue this fairly civil discussion, and that *ahem* certain others can take a hint and do as well. Thanks.

To my eyes, all you've done is misrepresent science and have provided no evidence whatsoever for your assertions. As is typical of all of these sorts of threads, it's always we who have to go about providing evidence in the midst of a minefield of fantastical assertions.

You said that no evidence of science will change your mine. You believe in the Bible and what it says. Why bother going around discussing this? It's a gigantic waste of time for all of us.


You have been hammering on thermodynamics because that is the typical talking point for creationists. Evolution is consistent with all of our known theories in science. Everyone has already told you that evolution is consistent with thermodynamics. You simply choose not to accept it.


As we all know, there are only hypotheses for abiogenesis. Lots of them. This is one:

On the origins of cells
a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells.
...
All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life's most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. ... The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. ...

Here is another:

The Emergence of Competition Between Model Protocells

The transition from independent molecular entities to cellular structures with integrated behaviors was a crucial aspect of the origin of life. We show that simple physical principles can mediate a coordinated interaction between genome and compartment boundary, independent of any genomic functions beyond selfreplication. RNA, encapsulated in fatty acid vesicles, exerts an osmotic pressure on the vesicle membrane that drives the uptake of additional membrane components, leading to membrane growth at the expense of relaxed vesicles, which shrink. Thus, more efficient RNA replication could cause faster cell growth, leading to the emergence of Darwinian evolution at the cellular level.
...
Our results show that osmotically swollen fatty acid vesicles can grow at the expense of relaxed (isotonic) vesicles. We have attempted to model the behavior of a primitive cell in which an RNA genome encodes functional RNA, but the same principles would apply given any other charged genetic polymer. In contrast, a neutral polymer such as PNA (peptide nucleic acid), having no associated counterions, would be a much less effective osmolyte, a difference that may have influenced the natural selection of the genetic material itself. We suggest that the phenomenon of osmotically driven, competitive vesicle growth could have played an important role in the emergence of Darwinian evolution during the origin of cellular life (supporting online text). The present results suggest that simple physical principles may allow a direct connection between genome and membrane. RNA replicating within vesicles could confer a substantial growth advantage to the membrane by creating internal osmotic pressure. The faster replication of a superior replicase would therefore lead to faster vesicle growth, at the expense of cells lacking RNA or containing less efficient replicases. A faster replicase genotype would thus produce the higher-level phenotype of faster cellular growth, a prerequisite of cellular replication (supporting online text). Darwinian evolution at the organismal level might therefore have emerged earlier than previously thoughtat the level of a one-gene cell.

Lots of supporting information in their papers.


So I gather that this website declares anyone believing in a billions of years old universe as an evolutionist? So anyone in any field be it physics to math who does not believe in creationism is an evolutionist. Ok. That cleared that up.

The website provided the following answer to the question: What is the best proof for creation?:

Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians all have the same evidencethe same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same starsthe facts are all the same.

The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions. These are things that are assumed to be true, without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. All reasoning is based on presuppositions (also called axioms). This becomes especially relevant when dealing with past events.

...[lots of comments on debating]...

Ultimately, Gods Word convicts

1 Peter 3:15 and other passages make it clear we are to use every argument we can to convince people of the truth, and 2 Cor. 10:45 says we are to refute error (like Paul did in his ministry to the Gentiles). Nonetheless, we must never forget Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Also, Isaiah 55:11: So shall My word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do.

Even though our human arguments may be powerful, ultimately it is Gods Word that convicts and opens people to the truth. In all of our arguments, we must not divorce what we are saying from the Word that convicts.
...
When someone tells me they want proof or evidence, not the Bible, my response is as follows:

You might not believe the Bible but I do. And I believe it gives me the right basis to understand this universe and correctly interpret the facts around me. Im going to give you some examples of how building my thinking on the Bible explains the world and is not contradicted by science. For instance, the Bible states that God made distinct kinds of animals and plants. Let me show you what happens when I build my thinking on this presupposition. I will illustrate how processes such as natural selection, genetic drift, etc. can be explained and interpreted. You will see how the science of genetics makes sense based upon the Bible.

One can of course do this with numerous scientific examples, showing how the issue of sin and judgment, for example, is relevant to geology and fossil evidence. And how the Fall of man, with the subsequent Curse on creation, makes sense of the evidence of harmful mutations, violence, and death.

So Answers in Genesis gives no data or evidence to a question asking for the best proof for creationism, except to say that we all have the same facts, but just interpreted differently. Only asserts that the Bible says God did it, and it is the only way to interpret it. Quote mining and selectiving thinking at its best, and not to mention no original work either.

Loved the answer for the age of the Sun: "Therefore creationists should no longer invoke the missing neutrino problem to deny that fusion is the primary source of energy for the sun. Classic.

This discussion is ultimately futile. I don't believe we will convince Elihu that his chosen interpretation is false -- he is standing on the weak argument that because it is very unlikely that something occurred means it didn't occur, this isn't going to change. I should comment on two things that he wrote in his nice response to me: lipid membranes only prevent charged species from crossing (and even this is a weak selection); the most prevalent element in space is hydrogen, meaning that on the balance the universe is a very reducing environment, and that earth is an aberration. Aberrations only exist because of history, and in this case the natural history of the planet. I should also note that radical reactions almost never occur in reducing conditions -- all of the radical scavengers that I know of are reductants of some form or another. This special property of hydrogen therefore makes the number of degradation reactions possible for the pre-biotic soup to be minimal. THT's posted theories provide answers to all of benzene's other questions. Do I believe them, maybe, but all that us non-creationist have to do is prove that there are possibilities...

I do have a question for Elihu, when we discover life on other planets, perhaps in other solar systems, perhaps on mars, how will your view of this new data fit in with your theory? No amount of tweaking in genesis will allow you to explain multiple establishments of life. Of course, the way the planet is going, we may all be dead before humanity finds evidence of life on other planets.

I'm staying pretty much out of this thread since a lot of it is outside my field of discussion.

But Hardee's juvenile attitude is hard to take, even from a bystander.

The guy came in, chose a screen name and has spoken honestly as to how he sees the issue. Hardee's inner cyberstalker took hold and then not only childishly publicized his name, he seems to be trying to invoke some sort of "we know who you are" response. You must quietly think your position is truly weak to have to resort to such nonsense.

The guy chose a screen name, like we all did. Use it. It's disheartening that a mod or even one of his like-minded posters haven't told him to grow up and act like an AppleInsider.

This is dumb. We all know Trumptman is Nick, Applenut is Eric, Scott is well, um... Scott... so what's the problem with Elihu? Do you see something in his name that I don't?

The difference is that he chose to be called Benzene. And he didn't include his real name at the end like Nick does. At the very least, we can respect the identities people choose for themselves on this board.

Better squeeze this one in before work starts up again...


How interesting. First you harangue me for being in the rank and file of creationists, with my brain turned off, just spouting what I've heard from somebody else, and then you ridicule me from differing with them.
Fact of the matter is, if you look at the (very obviously) footprints, it's awfully difficult to sell them as eroded dinosaur tracks. For those who still don't believe me, here's a link.


I never did. Go through the five pages and check for yourself. As a matter of fact (from page 1):



All known theories in science, huh? You don't get out much do you. If everybody told me that taking LSD was a great thing, I still wouldn't do it. You need to convince me, not convert me by mass action. BTW, no one here (or any of the very qualified people I've talked to), has been able to explain how nature got over the "thermodynamic problem".


First of all, all they're trying to explain is inital encapsulation. A: it hasn't been observed, only postulated, and B: going from a solid iron sulfide crystal to a lipid bilayer is hardly trivial.


I wouldn't expect you to know this, but basically what they're saying is that this would explain why genetic material (like RNA and DNA) is charged. (e.g. it enhances osmotic pressure). It's the same thing as above, but now we've magically got lipid bilayers, and we've somehow managed to generate a whole complement of catalytic (in this case, nucleic acids) to store in them.

BTW, the page of links you referred to as "supporting evidence" are just run-of-the-mill papers. (most don't even apply to evolution)
All evolutionary mechanism papers are very narrow in scope, and only apply in a very specific manner and in a very contrived environment. (and those are the easy questions) They also leave a lot more questions than answers. (Like my "and then a wing developed" analogy.) Nothing is simple. You fool yourself if you think it is on any level, whether it be biology, chemistry, or physics. (e.g. ecology -> behaviour -> organisms -> cells -> nolecules -> atoms -> subatomic particles -> gluons, mesons, etc).

Ho hum.


No, I'm making a very large jump in reasoning by stating that something that has 1x10^(-200) chance of happening is "impossible". (hearken back to my elvis statement).


Very good question. Excellent question, actually. I don't know, to tell the truth. You correctly state the bible has no supportable statements even coming close to explaining this.
I suppose I'd become an agnostic, or I just wouldn't bother anymore. Maybe panspermia, maybe idealism. That's a tough call. Lots would change though, for sure.

p.s. Don't let frank get you down. I ghosted AI for years before I registered, and even then didn't even post much. If I didn't want people to know my name, I wouldn't have linked to my homepage on my profile either.

Frank, it's cool man. He didn't post my last name, it would be a little difficult to find me anyway with only my first name.

Hello, it's me.

Benzene. I've made some points in my last two or three posts which you haven't addressed; could you put your mind to it today some time, old chap?

That'd be fantastic.

Have you heard of the Anthropic Principle? (Reluctant as I am to wheel it out). If (for the sake of argument) life arises by chance in a particular universe and then became intelligent, it can then theorize about its orgins as we are doing now. On the other hand, if life did not arise, we couldn't be having this argument. We aren't outside observers.

In other words, the low probability doesn't mean very much.

Chill Frank. I am Bruce, nice to meet you.

My identity isn't rapped up in my birth name nor the two names I have had here. I honestly wanted to see if benzene was a biophysicist -- we are so rare in the world, it was my curiosity not my cyber-stalker mode. And by calling him by his first name, I indicated my interest and the small pursuit I did to discover more about him.

After all, given the small field in which he and I float, we are bound to meet each other at some point in real life -- we might as well have a working relationship from the get go, no?

In any event, I am glad to have had this discussion, but alas lab work is calling...

Yeah I read about that for the first time recently in a Time magazine article (it's now pay-only online, but the article was about this book.) It does seem to have a resemblance to an Intelligent Design approach.

I haven't read any of the original sources, but, intuitively, I agree with your assessment. On its surface the anthropic principle just seems like a bad case of "hindsight is 20/20." If we exist, then the conditions for us to exist must have been highly likely, which is highly unlikely! Huh?

It's like flipping a coin 10 times, getting TTHHTTHTHH, and then saying the odds of getting that particular sequence was so low that it couldn't have just been random chance.

My comment is from this: My views on origins are not going to be swayed either way by any single find. Your views are apparently a strong YEC view, and it seems you are not swayed in anyway. Seeing that Creationism has an ultimate fall back, I don't see how an infinite amount of evidence will convince you.


Hardeeharhar is better at explaining it in the biomolecular way you want. I don't have any problem with it. The Sun and the Earth give off energy in various forms. That energy is used by macromolecules to convert itself into larger forms with heat and other compounds as byproducts.


It's a hypothesis. It's at a stage where there isn't hard supporting evidence. You asked for some proposals, I gave you a couple. In time, the proper mechanics will be proposed, cellular life will be created in the lab, and the conditions for early Earth verified. If one hypothesis fails, then a new one will take its place and the cycle of proving it begins again.

How does one explain how a non-existent problem was surmounted?

Now, I realize you have your own "special" meanings for words like "information" and "complexity", and that you try to relate those meanings to the thermodynamic concept of entropy, but none of that has a thing to do with whether or not evolution violates thermodynamics or not.

The Earth is not a closed system.

Processes on Earth use the influx of solar energy, and stored energy from the formation of the Earth, to locally create more ordered systems, and waste heat.

That waste heat is eventually dumped into space.

Local order increases, local entropy decreases.

Overall order in the universe decreases, entropy increases.

That's it. No violation of thermodynamics. If you think the initial processes needed to use energy to create local order are something special that can't happen by chance, then fine, prove it. If you think there are special theromdynamic barriers to certain kinds of self-organizing behavior, then prove it.

But simply acting as if the known evidence that supports thermodynamics also supports your own ideas is bunk. Spinning a lot of excess verbiage around nothing more than a core concept of "That just seems to complicated to happen by chance!" isn't how you make a successful argument based on thermodynamics.

Excellent, have been looking for a good thread on this topic to read up on. Although having run through five pages, my brain hurts a tad.

(that said, i've been lurking on the G5 thread on Ars's machach that now runs to 133 pages, and is in its second iteration. brainpain extremis)

Have been enjoying the debate from both sides. Evolution is undoubedly a fascinating topic, as are the arguments that propose that God 'created' everything, or designed it intelligently. Have never met a creatonist; in fact, in London, almost never meet anyone religious at all.

So, don't want to get into arguments as yet, just want to throw a few thoughts and queries around and to find out some background. Sorry if I've missed discussion on some of these points already.

Creationism: so, am I right in thinking that this proposes that the Earth was created 10 000 years ago (or 4k, in some other views). Don't understand how this figure came about. Had heard that someone had added up all the generations in the Bible and worked it out that way.

Now, dinosaurs come up a lot. But if the Earth is only 10 000 years old , does this mean that all fossils, such as trilobites (which are marvellous, and I wish there were still some around for us to play with) have been 'planted' when the Earth was built?

if so, why?

What is intelligent design - don't get this at all

Now, it's entirely possible that God exists. Haven't seen any evidence to say that he, she or it doesn't. Equally, I have seen no evidence that he, she or it exists at all. Now, given that, as I understand it, God is meant to be some kind of 'all powerful' being, what form might he, she or it take? A pan-galactic megabeing of awesome power? A 'force' of some kind?

A sidepoint - someone mentioned that Jesus didn't exist. I'd heard that Roman historians had written about Jesus, saying something like he was a prophet who was stirring up trouble in Palestine. Any data you've come across that can confirm or refute this?

And another side issue that's not really relevant - what's in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Discovered in the 1950s I think, but what do they say? How do they relate the writings of the Old or New Testament? Are they controversial (perhaps why we don't hear much about them) or boring?

Hang loose
G
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Now playing: Duke Pearson and friends on KKJZ quicktime radio

There are both "Young Earth" creationists and creationists who will go along with the idea of a very old planet, although I don't think either consider mankind to be more than 10,000 years old. And yes, as far as I know, figures in the ballpark of ~10,000 years come from counting all of those "begats".

There are the John Bircher types who claim that all evidence conflicting with creationism was planted by Satan, but for the most part, dinosaurs and trilobytes and the like are all written off as stuff that died in The Flood (getting a pair of triceratops into an ark is hard work!). It requires an amazing amount of hand-waving dismissal of a broad range of dating techniques... but what the heck?

Think of this as sort of a tactical retreat from full-blown creationism. First "prove" that living organisms bear supposedly undeniable hallmarks of having been designed by an intelligent designer (which, of course means God, but could be taken to mean gods, plural, or a powerful race of aliens -- never mind how they came to be, or how their complexity arose). Then, having "proven" this, the hard work out of the way, come back later and "prove" the other trivial details of creationism, like how the story of Noah's Ark is *cough* literally true.

Excellent - I just love posts like this ! Direct proof that God exists - in a sinking thread of decaying putrescence we get a divine nugget of a lifesaver hehe


Yep, some joker had way too much time on his hands and counted all the generations and stated lifespans. Then being a literalist they had to uphold it. Unbelievable.

This lunacy first came to light in Bishop Usher's Annales veteris testamenti etc where he postulated 4004 BCE as the date of the creation by this method. Another right nutter called (Reverend) Lightfoot later clarified it and narrowed it down to Oct 23rd 4004 at 9 AM. Fundies have been believing these drongos ever since. More than sad.


That's one of the mental gyrations the fundies have to contort themselves into to get out of the corner they've painted themselves in. So, no it doesn't mean that in reality but yes, they believe it anyway.


God knows. Don't worry about it. Bygones.


Think of it like this: if the fundie/creationist/faith-based mode of thought was humanity's peak achievement (God help us) then perhaps it would ironically be an argument and a proof for non-intelligent design.

As it is, there is a higher strand, something that in relation to the paucity of this sad waste of human consciousness may be said to have some of the qualities of the 'divine'.

Or again: I accept evolution (up to a point, there are some glaring flaws but whatever) but I do not accept evolution by chance. That is to say i believe it is driven by a directive rather than random. More than that I can't really say.

But anyone who believes there is a Santa-esque old man sitting on a cloud and fashioning (imperfect) creations has a somewhat energy-compliant bulb, to say the least.


God if He exists, must be all the things we are not. That's why (if He exists) we haven't a cat in Hell's chance of understanding Him or perhaps even realising it.

Or if you prefer: all the things we understand and relate to and can conceive of are not God.

That's religion for a start.


The only contemporary account we have is Josephus.

There were others, we know this because they are mentioned in secondary sources, but guess what ? they were destroyed purposefully by the Church. So we'll never know what they said.

Actually that's not quite true. We may yet find lost MS and we can always refer to the writings of the Gnostics for a flavour of their view of Jesus. The Gnostic were an early Christian sect, predating the Church and whom the Church disliked. Hence the destruction of their books and the start of a habit of depriving history of important cultural elements that they happen to disagree with that remains a core element of orthodox Xianity even to this day.

It may even be that certain of these lost MS were amalgamated into the Qur'an where the figure of Jesus is an altogether more believable and coherent figure than his contradictory Biblical counterpart.


Yes they are boring. Yes they are controversial and yes, the Church finds them uncomfortable. That is one of the reasons why we here nothing about them. The other would be that there is not enough sex in there.

What Benzene is providing here is nothing more than a modernized version of the watchmaker argument; a 21st century shell for a 19th century idea.

People who find themselves angry with evolution generally act out of defensiveness; the "evolutionists" are big meanie heads who are rude and smelly and poop-faces. So instead of ignoring the condescension and realizing the facts are solid they invest in inane rhetorical combat and ignore the nose on their face (or the tail above their ass, as it were).

They don't answer directly-asked questions. That is the hallmark of a dishonest person.

Well, the problem with Josephus is that the earliest works of his in original Greek are from 10/11th century. All earlier works are translations - some in Latin and others are just quotes, particularly in the work of Eusebius,

So when people chuck the name Josephus around and say we have the original work it is not quite true. The 10/11th c works could well be adulterated.

I don't know anything about the Church tampering with them but it is more than likely imo (one quote attributed to Josephus has him portray Jesus as a hunchback or 'crooked' for example), they have a track record of that sort of thing and we know they tampered with their own Bible so it seems odds-on.


Certainly not. The accounts they destroyed portray a different Jesus than the one they believe in. Some of these destroyed books have resurfaced when a stash of them was found hidden (from the pending destruction) at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945.

You might check out the published versions, I'm sure you know the Nag Hammadi library, the published version. Basically Jesus is portrayed as a magician in some cases and kisses Mary Magdalene a lot.

They still don't like it. Look how they treated last temptation and Brian - two of the most authentically spiritual films of all time imo.


I didn't know that. I suppose it's possible. there were many groups under the Gnostic banner. Some quite extreme.


Well in the Islamic tradition Jesus did not die on the cross but what happened to him after is not clearly stated and is open to personal belief. I think he has a grave in Kashmir that is sometimes shown and claimed to be his and some Muslims believe this.

I don't believe in the ascension personally but hey, I'm a Fortean, something might have been going on up there.

I'm not sure the Qur'an can be translated properly personally. This Dawood I don't get on with and there is one by the Mahdiyya movement (and so a bit biased) which seems ok, but again a bit turgid. Yusuf Ali is the translator.

I think there is a new version by Abdal Mannan (I think) which is supposed to be great but I haven't read it.

Basically it is poetry but it is never translated as such, just legalistically which I think is a shame. The Bible has many fine poetic moments in translation - in fact you could point to the origin of some modern literary devices in John.

What is the purpose of reading it though ? From your pov I mean. You may find other things to read that can achieve the result easier.

It's interesting I think from a critical view of a book allegedly written by the creator of the universe (and this is what it claims), you would expect such a book to if not shed some 'inside info' then at least not eventually be found to be contradicted by science.

The Qur'an passes this test imo as it does not fall into scientific/historical errors as the Bible does. But that's a different story, I sometimes think that interpretations of Islam by religious thinkers (particularly Sufis) are more beneficial to western non-Muslims in approaching these things. I don't read it much myself - only in an academic context. There are some amazing Persian masterpieces that I relate to more in a 'spiritual' sense but I'm waffling.

Life of Brian? heh.

A good article describing how the Bible-thumpers are taking control of our school boards.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGVNA3PE11.DTL

It's just unbelievable how many people just don't have a clue about evolution, or even how science works. I have no problem with creationism being tought in a history/religious studies class, as long as it doesn't become Christianity 101-but rather looks at all major religions. However, this pseudo-science crap needs to stay out of the biology class.

One of my favorite explanations came from a Babtist seminary student I had a deabate with. I asked what about the dinosaurs? Hise reply was that he never was taught an offical explanation i the seminary, but that he figured since they all looked so mean and ugly (e.g. T. rex), that they must have been Satan's creations that were killed off by God.

Perfect logic-how could you disagree?

BRussell hit the nail on the head. One must ask themselves why the major denominations of Christianity have accepted "theistic evolution." The reason is that they all started taking a scholarly look at the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and realized that a literal interpretation was unjustifiable.

From the "Catholic Encyclopedia"

"As in writing the first chapter of Genesis the purpose of the sacred author was not to expound in a scientific manner the constitution of the universe or the complete order of creation, but rather to give to the people popular information in the ordinary language of the day, adapted to the intelligence of all, the strict propriety of scientific language is not always to be looked for in their terminology. The expression six days and their division may be taken in the ordinary sense of a natural day, or for a certain period of time, and exegetes may dispute about this question."

There's also the uncanny similarities that the Creation Story and the Great Flood tale bear with earlier pagan story traditions. Also of interest is the correlation of the dates of authorship of the stories in the Old Testatment with the migrations of the Israelites throughout the region.

Oh look.

Scientists have reconstructed part of the DNA of a mammalian common ancestor.

Why did they bother? What were they hoping to prove?

What with the recent advances in creation science (working out how the Flood managed to sort animals by complexity rather than weight and sort vegetation by climate, the exact processes by which God speeded up light to account for the age of the universe and the newly-discovered scripture that says 'I sped up light', that sort of thing) this sort of 'science' is a waste of time. And it's Bad Science too. Unlike creation science. Which doesn't get on websites because its Better Science.

Why won't these people give up and stick with Genesis? This is a waste of time and they're only doing it to get laid or something.

So. Benzene. Are you going to address any of the points I made in my last posts?

I'll be terribly disappointed if you've given up here. Although you'll be the first creationist in history to have been convinced of his error after confronting the facts.

Yes I will, and no I haven't.

Lots of things happening, lots of work to be done. This can wait...for now.

DMZ....

Afternoon
First time I've been called a 'divine nugget'. Splendid. Unless that was merely referring to my post, or was a bad thing, but I'll take it as a compliment as it's a grey cold day in London town.

Interesting discussion about Josephus. Never heard of him before. (I read a lot of history, but he's never popped up). Will investigate further.

The reconstruction of the DNA of the common mammalian ancestor - computationally rather than physically - is an clever piece of work. There's another bit of research that may be of interest: the study on platypus sex chromosomes by Frank Gruetzner and Jenny Graves that appeared recently. One of only three monotremes (egg laying mammals), the platypus is evolutionarily 'earlier' than marsupial and placental mammals. And its 5 pairs sex chromosomes show similarity to both mammals and birds - as does its anatomy. Cunning.

Back to questions about creationism and intelligent design. (Again, sorry if issues have been thrashed out already.)

Do both preclude the existence of evolution in any form?

If so, is there flexibility in this? For example, in simple terms, evolution could be taken to mean the production of new species [um, not very happy with this description as it is too simplistic, but it'll do as a start]

But, on a smaller, DNA scale, organisms such as parasites and bacteria are demonstrably evolving at the moment in response to the natural selection that we place on them with antibiotics and antiparasitic drugs. Their genomes flux as they acquire mutations that produce resistance to the drugs, or they acquire resistance genes directly. And the resistance is spreading widely (for example, chloroquine is now almost useless for the treatment of malaria in many parts of the world). Major public health problem that I suspect will get only worse.

How do these issues sit with creationist and intelligent design thinking?

(or is this part of the macro/microevolution discussion)

Still not quite clear about what intelligent design is, or how it is proposed to work. Do we have any proponents that can explain the key principles from their pov?

Right, coffee and proper work is calling

Hang loose
G
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Now playing: some trumpeter whose name I didn't catch on KKJZ quicktime radio

First of all, there are new gene products, but yes, overall, the changes are mostly in the regulation, which is what I said earlier. Common sense would predict that the genetic differences would be very small between us and lesser primates, even if solely based on the outward similarities.

Microevolution does occur. No doubt about it. Bacteria develop enzymes to break down antibiotics, etc. However, these proteins do not just "appear" out of the blue. They are modifications to existing genes they convey, as you would expect, a degree of adaptability. Proteins are sort of like LEGOS. You can tack one domain on here, string another one there (forgive me hardeeharhar for the oversimplification). However, for macroevolution to occur, completely new genes, regulators for those genes, and all of the associated overhead must be generated literally out of thin air. Adaptation I can swallow, since every organism has some mechanism in place to do so. Random generation? Not a chance. Especially not for something we've only see in bacteria.

Preemptive strike: Lately I've seen a whole lot of arguments "demonstrating" "benevolent" mutations. In every case I've seen, it's been the restorin of a function lost because of a mutation in the first case. (a la the Ames test). That hardly counts as a true "good" mutation.


Good grief. I said information could be copied. Everyone who's taken a biology course knows that this allows the organism to make small changes to the gene in question. No example has ever been given of a cell producing useful gene de novo. This ties in to what I said above. Read Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box". Even seemingly "simple" things like developing a cornea are very complex problems when viewed through the eyes of a biochemist / geneticist. Heck for that matter, going to oxidative metabolism requires at least 20 new pathway proteins, as well as all the regulation needed. If you only develop one, you're worse off then if you didn't have any at all, because you're siphoning away your food source.


Never said they were mathematical proofs, as a matter of fact, I linked to about four pages that said the obvious. At least read what I link to before you post blindly. Sheesh.


Again, I didn't say that, and if you'd just take the time to read my links all about scientific law, you'd have saved us both our time.


Ok, that's just really funny. What's up doc? LOL...what a hoot.
Just bother to read what I posted before you say anything more and look really stupid.


Getting right to it. BTW, how do you say the marine shells got into the cave? I mean, they had to get there somehow.
While you're thinking about that, go back and read my posts about what your tailbone and appendix is for.


Yes, they are. And no, I do not hold blindly to the fact that there "has to be a God." I just figure if I see fingerprints, there has to be fingers that made them. If instead I see enough evidence to convince me otherwise, I will do so with the amount of analysis befitting such a change in position. It's not really up to you to decide how much information is necessary to change my mind.
If I was in these discussions to change other people's minds, I would be a very unhappy person. I enjoy these arguments because they help me reach the absolute truth, which is what I'm more interested in than anything else.


You know, it's already possible to create life in the lab. However, making life in the lab and then turning around and saying "Look, you don't need intellegence after all" is just...funny.
People once thought that classical mechanics was able to explain everything. Then technology developed to the point where we were able to observe discrepancies that classical physics couldn't explain. A new theory was then needed, and we're still hammering out the specifics, and will continue to do so for quite some time.


Ho hum. Yet another unititiated trying to take a crack at thermo. Hardeeharhar, would you like to point out where I've made one flawed statement about thermodynamics? Thanks.
Quit reading out of Hassan i Sabbah's playbook and go read my posts on how there is no magic in the thermodynamics of life. It's really funny I have to be the one stating this.


Yeah, that's the general way it's figured. 4k seems a bit small, the youngest I've ever heard is about 6-8k. Personally, I don't know how old the world is, because the hebrew word for "father" can also mean any familial predecessor. It could be that the genealogies are just hitting the important people.


Good questions.

It has been shown that fossils can form very quickly. (I think I linked to a fossilized human bone in a boot a while back). Especially when conditions like a large flood is concerned. Naturalists would say that they are the results of regional floods, a creationist would say that they are the result of primarily one large flood.

"Intellegent design" depends on who you talk to. It is true that some fundamentalists have jumped on the bandwagon as a vehicle for the insertion of religion into schools. This is how naturalists portray it, and wail about the separation of church and state. Personally, I don't believe religion should be forced on anybody, let alone kids. Let them make their own decisions.
It started as several scientists coming to the conclusion that life couldn't have come to existence on earth by purely random means. Many "intellegent design" scientists don't want to be affiliated with any religion, and are basically gnostic.


That's a tough one. My only specific goal in this forum is to demonstrate design in the universe. I've been asked my personal beliefs a few times, but they've been just that.
As for your picture of God, (if you believe in him), is up to you to found out what best fits the evidence.


The dead sea scrolls contain many of the books of the bible, except for esther. What made them so amazing was that they were the oldest writings found, and that they matched up to later transcriptions almost exactly. (If you do any research into the ancient hebrews, they were a very strange lot. They loved exactness in their copying. It was said that you could drive a nail through a stack of copies of a single page of the torah, and it'd hit the same letter in every copy.)


Personally, I think people like that try too hard. As for getting triceratops into the ark, who said you had to take full-grown ones? I think I said that before in this thread...


You know, it's amazing these stories people cook up. We don't know for sure that king Arthur existed, but we're sure that there was a massive coverup who-knows-how-long in the past. A source, perhaps?


Oh really? How are they controversial?


Actually, I though hardeeharhar and I were having a pretty stimulating and relavent discussion. I have been the one who has been called names (MarcUK, Hassan i Sabbah, do you hear me?), without being nasty in response.
As for directly asked questions, I've been answering them this whole thread.

Benzene,
When is an enzyme that can take different substrates because of a mutation not beneficial? What happens when that gene dupicates, and one of them continues to mutate until it can no longer bind the original substrate? Is this not a new enzyme? There are loads of mutations that are merely neutral. Pile a bunch of neutral mutations up and you get something new. In this case, a neutral mutation is after all is said and done a beneficial one. Even a negative mutation that inadvertantly decreases the rate of a reaction catalyzed by an enzyme but allows it to take another substrate is beneficial. Beneficial and negative are completely obsolete terms.
Show me a comparisson between the Human Genome and the Chimp genome that shows completely new gene products.

hardeharhar

From Olson, Waterston, et al.: (the guys who did the chimp project)


This answers both questions. I was talking about the legions of absolutely new proteins that would be necessary to change from say, a cow, to a whale. (as is postulated by naturalists). The likelyhood that the rather slow (especially in eukaryotes) process of genetic change would be capable of creating the required interrelated pathways that exist in different species is ridiculous.
However, based upon the terminology, I stand corrected. I like your definition of a substrate defining whether or not a "new" enzyme has been generated, but I still think it's semantics because we're comparing two different things.

Looking at your question a bit deeper, you asked for "completely new", for which I don't thing zeta-globin counts. So, ironically, we're back to my original point. You show me a "completely new" genes birth observed anywhere. They all came from somewhere, which is exactly my point. Adaptation will get you so far, and that's it.

Oh, and to toot my own horn, I didn't say there were "completely" new genes between humans and chimps. You added that.

Benzene,
So what you are saying is that every gene product seems have some explainable origin in another lifeform? That to a very large degree it seems reducible, and we have a system that allows for large scale changes over time. I think everyone here who argues for the sake of evolutionary theory takes all of this as evidence that evolution can not only occur, but has occured. The great difference in viewpoint is that the complexity of the system seems insurmountable, but I feel you have to remember we have a great deal of evidence that our genes, our metabolism, the very scaffolds that perfuse nature are limited based upon the natural history of those very genes -- meaning in a nut shell, it isn't very easy to go from a cow to a whale (or from an elephant like creature to a whale) simply because on the way to those changes a great deal of mutations will occur that cause fatality, but it certainly isn't impossible -- natural selection plays within the rules of those proteins which already exist (well it did until we started doing genetic manipulation), changes are gradual, lifeforms which aren't perfect can and do still exist, the system is very heavily history biased.

My point with the chimpanzes is that there are very few proteins that actually differ greatly between related species that appear to the unobservant observer to be completely unrelated. (In the world view of creationist that I have had the pleasure of discussing this with, these species aren't related)...

Imagine that the cow is made up of a million legos.
Now imagine that once a year, you could change a few of the legos. You could swap the color, you could move it to a different place, you could change the shape of the piece, you could eliminate one lego or add another. If the change is damaging, the cow/whale would either adapt to the change or die off. If the change is beneficial, the cow/whale will thrive. If the change is neutral, perhaps a later change will make the neutral change beneficial. Eventually, the positive changes will dominate the change cycle, the neutral changes will continue until they turn into a positive change, and the negative changes will not endure.

In a few million years, you could easily have a whale.

Your whole argument is that macroevolution cannot be possible because it's sooooo slow. Well, if you indeed believe the earth is 10,000 years old, you're damn straight there wouldn't be enough time to make the necessary changes. But try to imagine for once that the scientists are right -- with tens of thousands of pieces of evidence that they're right, and about 50 pieces of evidence that they're wrong -- that the earth is 4.5 BILLION years old. Hello whale.