Human common descent ancestor discovered - Page 3

Hmm. Sunlight is all we get and lower wave energy is what we export. Since you think there is higher, more complex forms of energy present on earth, how was that made? When plants store energy there is nothing conscious going on (yes you may think some intelligent being made the plant but it is not in itself intelligent). So you recognize the fact that higher forms of complexity can be made from lower complexity?

Okay. So its not evolution in itself you want to use your view on entropy against. Its going from chemicals to cells that you have a problem with. Take Tontons bottle as an example. Its wasn´t the most genius example (sorry) but it can illustrate another point. Write small letters on each ball, shake it a lot and pour out. repeat this exercise again and again with billions of bottles and at at some point the letters are going to spell "I am god and I made this world".

Its the same with the chemicals->biology. Give it time, the right conditions and lots of energy and you will eventual have basis for life. No mind needed.

Um, so benzene, I feel I am uniquely qualified to discount everything you say with regard to life making order. All physical processes follow the laws of thermodynamics, all coupled reactions and this includes generation of high energy molecules such as ATP -- which btw gains a significant amount (if not all) of its energy by the fact that it is so ordered (those phosphates don't want to be attached to anything that reduces the amount of resonance stabilization of their charge or in other words how many places the electrons can be found. In other words, life takes sunlight to make order, ATP/glucose, and breaks that order to generate more of itself which is far less ordered than its source of energy by obligation to following the laws of thermodynamics.

Think about it this way: if we arrange a room to near perfection (expending a great deal of energy to do so, I might add) and add a three year old to it, 99.99999999999999% of the time that room will be destroyed in the relative order sense. Life creates disorder. It has to.

Alright. Let's hear your evidence. Give us details on how these finds are what they are said to be.

BRussell, you should know that the debate isn't about the technical aspects of evolution. The entire set of talking points for creationists is to sow the seeds of doubt about evolution. The only thing talked about are the fringe aspects, unexplained phenomena, and misrepresented scientific concepts.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics is continuously used as a creationist talking point because it is vary easy to conflate our anthropic understanding of disorder and order with the precepts of the 2nd law of thermodynamics and thusly sow that seed of doubt into the fence sitters of evolution.

The essence of the talking is how does a plant grow from a seed to its full blown self of leaves, stems and roots, something that is higher "order". How does life form from basic compounds. How do higher "order" animals evolve when the 2nd law of thermodynamics state that everything should have increasing disorder.

In engineering, the 2nd law of thermodynamics essentially states that you cannot make something hotter without putting in work. The work or energy has to come from somewhere to make that plant grow, and as everybody says, there's the gigantic source of energy in the sky and a somewhat less gigantic source of energy in the Earth itself. The plant uses the energy from the Sun and the nutrients from the Earth to grow.

The onus is not on me to do that. I would prefer to ask the question: why does science exclude the possibility of the existence of data which falls outside its canon ?

Personally I would answer in this way: science has become a kind of religion with dogma that cannot be questioned. What you have done in your reply is to dismiss Cremo - not evaluate the evidence.

This is because it is a taboo. People's reputations are at stake and orthodoxy is a powerful form of suppression.

I am not qualified to argue for or against Cremo's evidence. I would expect instead that more qualified workers in that field would do that. Sadly, that is not the case.

Nevertheless, you cannot hold back the tide forever and other fields are also turning up evidence. Although it is hardly more progressive, Egyptology has recently turned up several key issues which point to the existence of modern man far earlier than the orthodoxy maintains.

Schoch in particular on his groundbreaking redating of the Sphinx in the light of water erosion has pushed back the date of that monument 10,000 years.
Of course his evidence has been ignored and he himself has been lambasted, maligned and generally ignored.

Still, eventually science will catch up. In the meantime both sides are holding back the progress of knowledge.

My experience is very very different. I'm in cognitive psychology, which isn't exactly like the hard sciences we're talking about here, but similar principles are involved. If anything, there's a bias in favor of publishing new and surprising results rather than replications. I'd never get published if I simply regurgitated what others have already said. Research fields have a definite preference for competition and new approaches and debates. Every dissertation has to be unique. No one wants to hire a researcher who simply says "I agree with so-and-so."

If you look throughout history, the most respected scientists are those who overturn prior theories and assumptions. People like Einstein, who was almost immediately hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the time, despite the fact that he wasn't associated with a university (I believe).

On the other hand, for something so fundamentally established by so many different observations, like evolution, you'd have to do more than bring in a few new contradictory observations. You also have to explain all those prior observations using your new theory, and that's going to be really really hard. But that's how Einstein did it, and that's why he was so well-respected by other scientists so quickly.

So if the first appearance of humans has been dated at 3 millions years ago (or whatever it is), and done so with thousands of different pieces of evidence from many different fields, it's going to be difficult for your friend Cremo to produce one book and say it shoots it all to hell. Maybe he's right, but he's got a lot of work to do to prove it.

I guess so.

But although I understand the thermodynamics argument as it relates to the initial creation of life, it just doesn't make sense to me on its face as it relates to evolution of more complex life. What does that have to do with heat transfer?

I was saying that life makes order for itself, while increasing disorder elsewhere. Life requires the continued synthesis of it's cellular machinery (which is very highly ordered), and it's DNA (also very highly ordered). It couples this very condensed order with reactions that generate a large amount of disorder elsewhere (in that they all eventually end up as waste heat).
We are both saying the same thing.

More disorder is created than order. Life isn't special. Without life, bonds hold together earth and in the creation of those bonds the universe becomes more disorderly. We are nothing but of the universe.

Everything is ordered or disordered depending on how you look at it. Except maybe math.

Yes. Oil is more ordered energy than the organisms that it came from. But less ordered life. But the degree of ordered/disordered is objective as soon as you have decided what kind of yardstick you are gonna use.[/quick shot]

You have a real big misunderstanding of what a 'law' is. Not to mention that einstein's theory of relativity showed that newton's theory wasn't actually accurate. And maybe einstein's wrong. But, yeah, there's a whole lot of evidence that backs it up, just like there is with evolution.

Can I ask benzene what he actually believes?

* Age of the Earth?
* Does micro-evolution occur?
* Does macro-evolution occur?
* Did dinosaurs ever roam the earth?
* Are humans descended from apes?
* First human lived when?
* Did they have a belly button?

The problem with creationism is that as long as another theory surrounding the origins of life (such as evolution) exists and has substantial evidence to back it, creationism loses all validity. Only in the absence of credible theory does creationism stand a chance. Creationist thinking seems to be that if you prove evolution wrong then by default creationism MUST be true.

You realise that this is how science has always worked, right? That's what all that chat about 'paradigms' is all about. You ignore (or even fudge) the data that doesn't fit into your theory because, without a theory to structure your data you've got nothing. It's only after you've got enough outliers and anomolies that you can start thinking about coming up with a new and better theory that explains everything the old one did, plus a bit more. And that doesn't mean that 'science' (meaning actual scientists who have invested in the old paradigm) are going to like it.

Planck's Principle: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -- Max Planck

There's plenty of geniuses who died before their breakthrough was appreciated. There's also plenty more cranks who would rather complain about being kept out of mainstream science than provide adequate proof of their claims.

And yes, with all it's warts, science has been a great deal more reliable than any of the crack-addled interpretations of old books have been.

Great. Wonderful. At least provide some examples.


It doesn't. To be sure there are conservative and dogmatic scientists out there, but if one has supporting data, capable of surviving scrutiny, then science can't ignore it.


Cremo proposes that humanity, as seen in its present form, is millions of years old. Does he show any evidence for this? Not really. What he does is take controversial archeological finds and takes the fantastical interpretation.

Here's an example. The Laetoli footprints? Cremo cites Tuttle saying they are too human-like to be australopithecene foot prints, and that implies that homo sapiens were alive that far back in time. The foot prints indicate beings 4 feet and 4 feet 10 inches tall through their foot size and stride. That's a strange homo to be walking around making footprints when there are tens of thousands of australopithecenes walking around who are 4 to 5 feet tall. He also fails to mention the other paleotonologists who say the foot prints are from australopithecenes.

Cremo's theory is really simple to support. He just needs to find a homo sapien fossil older than 5 million years. When the evidence starts appearing, scientific theory and canon will change to support the new evidence. Right now, he doesn't seem to have anything.


I'm not holding back any tide. Just waiting for the data to arrive. If this dude has evidence, he can present it for scrutiny. It's easier than ever with the Internet. So, do you have a link? I'd like to see it. It's not too often one sees something that turns scientific canon.

I posted earlier that more disorder is created than order.

Again, we are saying the same thing. Life is special, however, because it can take unordered compounds and build massive macromolecules. Everything else you say is absolutely true.


And the entire set of talking points for naturalists is to call creationists "stupid".


You are partially right. However, few would look at a rolex and say that it is a disordered object. Interestingly, there is little research into exactly how humans recognize order. There is very little motivation on the naturalists side, because they believe everything came from random processes. However, William Dembski, an intelligent design mathematician, has published several works on what he calls an "intellegence filter". The concepts involved are quite interesting, but I think it still needs a little work. For those of you who are interested in A.I., this would be a key step, I believe, as the basic precepts involved would allow an intellegence to distinguish between random background noise and actually meaningful data.


No, oil is a dense form of energy, not more ordered. It's also not alive. As for the yardstick, see the above statements.


Google has an excellent definition of scientific law here
Notice the emphasis consistently placed on observability of a process. Creationists never talk about the "law" of creationism, but naturalists are always talking about the "fact" or "law" of evolution.


Sure, but I won't explain in detail why I believe each one, as I have already stated my fundamental beliefs earlier.

* Age of the Earth?
Don't know for sure. Lots of conflicting evidence floating around that I haven't had the time to sort through. Currently, less that 10k years.

* Does micro-evolution occur?
* Does macro-evolution occur?

Well, no strict defintion of these two terms has been decided on by either side, although I kind of like these: macro, micro
Based upon those definitions, I would say that microevolution has been shown to take place, whereas macroevolution has been merely postulated (as an extension of microevolution).

* Did dinosaurs ever roam the earth?

Absolutely.

* Are humans descended from apes?

No.

* First human lived when?

See "age of the earth".

* Did they have a belly button?

Lol...I don't know.

I know what you're getting at. I'm a young-earth creationist who believes that all organisms possess an ability (some more extensive than others) to adapt to their environments and undergo a certain amount of genetic change.


As I have been saying for several posts, purely naturalistic mechanisms are utterly unable to explain the orgin of life. Since as I have also stated before, it's an A or B choice, which leaves one to look for an explanation other than naturalism.

As for subsequent posts, I will sum up with the statement (as a card-carrying scientist), that science is all about applying the evidence to theory. If the evidence does not fit, there are two possibilities, not one:
1) You are generating/interpreting/applying the data incorrectly
2) Your hypothesis needs reworking (or outright falsification).

That's what I think segovius is trying to say, is that (for a trivial example) if you are trying to measure the speed of a bullet, but your instruments' maximum readout is 5m/s, all of your data will fit the hypothesis if it is "all bullets go 5m/s" (even though it is grossly incorrect).

(italics mine)

So... you believe humans lived right alongside the dinosaurs? And yet they didn't tear us all to pieces?

So Segovius believes in intelligent design, even though there's nothing but faith to back up such a belief.

Benzene believes in Biblical creationism, even though there's nothing but faith and the literal word of the Old Testament (which has been undeniably proven to be false in many areas) to back up such a belief.

Most of the rest of us believe in Evolution, which has loads of observable scientific evidence, and a few areas where there might be some question.

On a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of believability according to what we can POSSIBLY observe, ever, I'd say...

Creationists: 1
Intelligent Design: 3
Evolution: 8

I know where to place my bet.

No, they were friends, like in Dinotopia or the Flintstones, which, if we ignore our knowledge as a fact that the person who actually wrote those stories did so as a work of fiction, have as much proof of being "fact" as the Old Testament has.

We just don't know as a fact (nor can we ever, which is convenient for the fundies) whether the people who wrote the Bible did so as a work of parable or not.

Hold on ! Intelligent design through the medium of a form of an evolution that is not the current one espoused by the orthodoxy if you don't mind

And as to faith - we're all at it. Creationists have faith in their authority figures from which they derive their opinions (ie the people who were responsible for the creation of the books they defer to), Evolutionists have faith in their authority figures (ie the scientists who map out evolutionary theory) and me, well, I am a kind of anti-faith-ist.

It's not that I have faith in any one idea or system, I'd like to but I haven't yet got past the first barrier: an overwhelming LACK of faith in the paltry authority figures we are presented with as such sorry 'experts'.

I see the evolutionists as a kind of mirror of the politicians (not surprising really as they both work and support the same system): I cannot bring myself to trust them.

So if I were placing bets (which I am obviously), in terms of 'realising there is more to life than dreamed of in your philosophy' or perhaps marking on the ability to question established hidebound and restrictive authority and possibly approach a semblance of free-thinking, I would place it like this:

Evolution: -3
Creationists: 4
Intelligent Design: 7

One more serious (?) point to tonton.

If you admit intelligent design as a possibility or an 'option' even if you don't believe in it (which we are doing by even discussing it) then one has to concede that it is not possible to compare it to evolutionary theory and draw parallels in terms of 'faith' and 'evidence'.

This is because if the ID theory were true it would take us into the field of metaphysics or theology perhaps. If evolution is true then we stay in the field of science as we know it. Nothing changes. In the first case everything changes. The two are not therefore an equivalance.

Put it another way: evolution requires proof and faith will not do as you point out. Indeed 'faith' in evolution if unsupported by facts would speak against the theory and critically damage it. This is precisely because there is no ID or directing will.

BUt if you are speaking of a theory that does postulate a guiding will - then you cannot use the same measure. It could be that the 'intelligence' wants us to have no evidence in order to have faith.

I'm not saying that is so. Just that things ain't black and white.

Must....not....draw....analogies....from.....curre nt.....political.....spectrum....must.....not....

This is incorrect. It has. It was all over the news. Iridium deposits ahoy. Google for a 180-kilometer diameter ring structure centered on the present coastline of the Gulf of Mexico and several hundred metres of sedimentary deposits and the word 'Chicxulub'. Magnetic anomolies suggesting a huge crater measureable from space. For heaven's sake.

Next.

Gravity is a theory. Like evolution. You are arguing, it appears, and depressingly predictably so, from a position of ignorance about the scientific term 'theory'. Just go to some University websites or do some frigging Googling. Gravity exists. We can see it. The planet is ancient. We can see it. We haven't yet been able to measure the causes of gravity. It is a theory.

Gravity doesn't happen. We don't understand it. It's only a theory.

I beg you. Please find out the truth for yourself. Get your nose out of that Book and look at how awesome the universe is.


I'm not afraid of facts, you see. And I still have to see you present one single piece of evidence so important that the sum total of the last century's research in these fields has to be counted out en masse.

There is a Nobel Prize in it for you.



No. They are not. Only lupus is a disease. All of these conditions result from genetic predispositions and are what we could call 'design flaws.'


The last time you checked you were completely, utterly, lost-an-argument-on-the-internet-by-ignorance-of-the-facts wrong. Strata are dated by an estimate of the time it would take for immense pressures to petrify organic sediments, their geographical location, their depth, a calculation of the immense time it would take for vulcanisation to cover ancient heathers, for a sea to cross all of it laying down the organisms that become limestone, for silts to cover that, for more vulcanisation to cover that, for a tectonic plate to crash into it and push the fossils of extinct tropical palms into the Arctic, the pertaining environmental conditions of the time they were laid down (cross-checked across entire continents) and the immense time it would take for immense pressures to transmute igneous rocks, stuff like that.

Next.

The Chauvet caves. I pointed out the depth of virgin mineral deposits, the bones of extinct species and pollen in the cave. I could have added the glacially-sealed cave entrance, marine artifacts discovered inside, heaven knows what else. You decided to settle on the carbon dating, as if that would make all of the other evidence for the painting's immense age redundant. I should have remembered: never, ever mention carbon dating when you're debating with someone who believes that the planet is 10,000 years old (I can't believe I'm writing this.)

Next.



Shiver.

No, I didn't. I was just grateful you presented an example in nature at last to back up your argument.

So, it seems that there's some striations on Mt St Helens that apparently formed very quickly, making all of glacial science redundant and proving that (I don't know) glaciation never happened and that the world is very young.

Except it turns out that your example is nonsense.


You can Google for the terms yourself and the citations yourself.

Why does there need to be an intelligence to any of this? Do we not understand yet that you can toss a coin and some fraction of the time it will land on its edge?

All of this talk of intelligent design assumes Life with a capital L is special. It isn't. It isn't perfect. It doesn't operate outside the properties of the universe. Fundamentally it isn't different than the reactions I run in benzene (heh heh).

Also: Why would a deity care if us peons believe in it? The argument that a deity shows no evidence of its existence for the purpose of generating faith is utterly and totally against everything mentioned in the Old and New Testaments where the hand of God is quite obvious from floating fires to manna from heaven. The worse thing you can do for your argument is to say it is unprovable. And those who support the intelligent design theory start with that proposition.

This is the theory of an infinite number of monkeys randomly bashing on an infinite number of typewriters for eternity would write the works of Shakespeare.

This may be true but what it neglects to address is that they would also half-write them, write them in all possible forms with all possible endings and write every other possible work of fiction as well.

We see no such correlation. The metaphor as it is suggests that the infinite monkeys with their infinite typewriters came up with one work in all of eternity and only one: a perfect Shakespeare.

Not a half written one, not all the variations with all possible mistakes - one and one only.

That's where it falls down.

Stop the bus. You can't just make up your own theory and call it Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is a quite specific recasting of Creationism so that it can attempt to pass as science rather than religion and hence get into school science textbooks.

That's like arguing with an athiest and saying "I'm a catholic, and I worship the little green pope that lives in the pond at the bottom of my garden", you're just looking for trouble from both sides.

If on the other hand you say "we'll *my* religion is *like* Catholicism but with frogs" then you'll be fine.

Again I feel the need to ask what you believe, as it really isn't clear. I'm picking up two trends:

* life is too complicated to not be designed
* random chance can't make complicated things

I honestly feel that you're missing the point if your objections are at such a low level. Richard Dawkins has a book addressing each "The Blind Watchmaker" and "Climbing Mount Improbable" (and is also guaranteed to annoy religious types with his athiest activism).

You interpretation of the monkey-shakespeare thing is so far off base I don't know where to start (though try the Mount Improbable book if you can stomach it).

But the fact that the mechanisms involved (random chance and selection) have been shown to work in labratory conditions evolving software etc. means you have to raise your game a little if you want to dismiss it in the specific case of the evolution of humans (or living things in general).

No actually... Where is there evidence that all combinations haven't been tried? In fact, we have loads of evidence of failed species, mutations that cause deformations, so the analogy is quite perfect...

Yes I can - I just did.


Ok - 'my' religion is 'like' Catholicism but it has frogs. Pink ones, because I'm a Fortean.

You're right - I feel much better.


I believe there is an intelligent design behind human evolution. I feel no need or desire to quantify it further. It may not even be understandable by human comprehension.


I've read Dawkins as it happens. You're right I find him extremely annoying. Irksome even.


Which base ? Who sets up these bases ? Is there a committee ? It's not off my base. Is yours better ? If so why ?


Please God no. I can't, I really can't.


Laboratory conditions, schlorobatory permissions - I don't think I need to raise my game. We both appear to be playing with a different shaped ball on a different pitch in a different league.

Well, hardeeharhar already pointed it out, but since you seem to miss my point when I said you were off base and instead acted like it was some kind of popularity contest rather than you just being wrong, I'll mention it again.

No-one, except you, thinks that evolution is supposed to have produced only a single perfect 'shakespeare'. And that is where it all falls down.

I'm frightened that you can have read a Dawkin's book, even if you hated it, and still not understood that basic part of the theory you're trying to discount. Maybe if you understood it, you'd find you liked it?

segovius,
God is an invention of human society. From everything we can tell about the history of human society, monotheism was invented about 5000 years ago. Prior to this (and to this day), people believed in any number of theories about the way the world was created all of which are based upon religious edicts and dogma and none of which accept challenges from evidenciary based analyses. We have, in the last 250 years, had a systematic exploration of the properties of life and its ability to survive and adapt. In no time prior to the last 250 years has such an exploration been undertaken. From every bit of evidence gathered, there exists a theory which is adaptable to new insights and evidence. This theory runs contrary to almost everything said in the dogmas of old, we admit that, but that is because the dogmas of old are wrong (and even they are self-contradictory). It isn't as if the argument over a creation story wouldn't exist if science hadn't sparked a supreme interest in the intellectuals of the enlightenment. The reason why a scientific view of evolution is so threatening is because it can explain a great deal more than any of the other theories out there and it denies the need (but not the existence) of a deity.

Be not afraid. The understandings and misunderstandings you attribute to me exist only in your mind.

I didn't dislike the books as such. They even have some useful insights.

It's Dawkins I can't stand, most notably in his incarnation as 'authority figure representing a monolithic institution that cannot be questioned and which stultifies the life out of free ranges of creative thought'.

While I say "right on Segovious, that's some good shit to disagree with", I have to disagree with your description of Dawkins. I've always found him kinda full of wonder and imagination. I find him inspiring.

I read this correspondence between him and some creationist where the creationist said "Well, you say there's absolutely no point for us to be here; we're just accidental cocktails of reacting chemicals, quickly decaying. That's really depressing." Dawkins responded by something like "Yes, there's absolutely no 'point' in us being here but your presence can still mean something. The 'point' might as well be finding out as much as you canbecause it's amazing that you canand doing the best you can for the people around you."

It's sort of liberating, no? There's no reason for me to be here. Fuck it, I'm going to try and make beautiful things.

Here is your answer:

Actually that is kind of liberating. I can see how that comes from a good place and perhaps I was a bit too harsh on Dawkins.

I don't believe there is no point or reason though. Maybe the making beautiful things IS the reason. A reason anyway.

Good grief. I have other things to do than write posts all day in AI. Cells to split, experiments to run, and papers to read. I haven't left because I was "intimdated" I left because I have to get sleep and actually get work done.
That said, let's get to it.


I was fully aware of the iridium "layer" theory. It's one that has been postulated by many naturalists for quite some time. However, there is significant disagreement (even among geologists) that it was from the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

For a summary of the problems encountered in trying to associate the extinction event with the impact layer, see these resources:

Signor, P.W., and J.H. Lipps. 1982. Sampling bias, gradual extinction patterns and catastrophes in the fossil record, p. 291-296, in Silver, L.T., and P.H. Schultz (eds.). Geological implications of impacts of large asteroids and comets on the Earth. Geological Society of America Special Paper 190.

Williams, M.E. 1994. Catastrophic versus noncatastrophic extinction of the dinosaurs: Testing, falsifiability, and the burdon of proof. Journal of Paleontology 68: 183-190.


By all means!


You very obviously did not follow the link I posted for a definition of a law. Try again
You also very obviosly did not even read your own link, as on the very same page is this:


Also, on this link, is the following lines:


and:

Hopefull this will put the "theory" of gravitation to rest.


Actually, I have my nose in lots of "Books", and I realize how awesome the world is, especially because I don't think it came about by pure chance.


You obviosly are unaware of how science works. Very rarely is a scientific theory knocked dead by a single discovery or statement. There is a progression of unrefutable evidence (like thermodynamics, which is not subject to interpretation like paleontology) that eventually makes the incorrect position untenable.[/b]


You obviously do not know the definition of a disease. Please read this to be informed. You also very obviously ignored my statements about the progression of genetic damage (mutations).


Let's get down to buisness:

First, petrification, or fossilization can not be expressed linearly. There are simply way too many variables, such as how fast sediment was accumulated, how much, and the conditions before and after. As a perfect example, in the June 1996 issue of Earth magazine, paleontologists found a non-fossilized section of a T-Rex bone. Impressive, no? Again, your interpretation depends on your axioms. If you state that a certain fossil is x million years old, then a fossil found below it must be x + y million years old. (not considering plate inversion or anything like that). If you (again, assume) that it takes a million years to generate 100 feet of sediment, and fossil y was found 100 feet above fossil x, then it would be a perfectly valid statement to say that fossil x was x + 1 million years old, as long as your axiom was right. If instead, it took only three days to generate 100 feet of sediment (which has been done in flood plains a lot quicker than that), then all of your conclusions have been shot to heck.
If you believe in a massive flood, something that could cover the face of the earth, then tectonic plate rearragement is very plausible (in fact, expected). Being alive around the time of the flood and immediately after during the settling of the geology must have been terrifying indeed. As for tropical plants found in the arctic (like those in the stomaches of frozen woolly mammoths found in siberia), the immense impact a global flood would have on the ecosystem would have could explain these changes.
Most creationists believe that a very dense water vapor canopy once existed in the atmosphere, which would go very far to explain the increased atmospheric pressures evident in fossils (like 6-foot dragonflies), as well as explaining how the world would have one been very green-house like.


Read my statements above as to how a cave containing pollen and bones could contain marine artifacts that have been sealed off in a cave by a glacier forming after the flood. i.e. Things living in the cave....a flood comes by and deposits marine artifacts...a glacier comes through after the flood and seals it off.


Hardly. The evidence you posted goes to support the statement that fine striations in massive amounts of deposited material can form very quickly.
Also, I never said glaciers couldn't have existed. Seems to me a massive flood and the subsequent ecological disturbances are an excellent vehicle.


Yes, because tossing a coin and having it land on its edge is a great example of how amino acids could concentrate, autocatalyze their polymerization (in the correct order nonetheless!) and fold to make a catalytic shape. (and that's only a single enzyme).

A billion monkeys banging on a billion typewriters writing sonnets is a pathetic example of the true problems necessary for life to have evolved. Fact of the matter is, no "macroevolution" has ever been observed, only postulated from microevolution. Segovius is correct, if evolution made one mistake (especially early on), it would have wiped out any chance of contuining the process at that point. Just because the monkeys make a trillion mistakes (as they are expected to do) does not in any way mean that they would eventually be predestined to write a correct one. (As there was no way to prevent from doing the same mistake twice)

hardeehar, The AI forums are a perfect place to discuss the likelyhood of evolution, because the usual mantra of "Well, everybody believes it" does not apply. If that statement were true, Windows would be considered the best operating system, and we'd all be lauding it. As it is, there is probably a higher percentage of scientists that have significant doubts about evolution than apple has marketshare (unfortunately...)


I didn't say there was a biological mechanism that prevented the addition of more genetic material.

Prokaryotes are usually very stingy with their genomic data, but they make up for that by dividing very quickly. (as well as picking up DNA from their surroundings)
Eukaryotes on the other hand, have pretty sophisticated DNA handling techniques, so they can tolerate a lot more excess material, which allows for very fine tuning of the control mechanisms of the actually transcribed material. (which recently was found to be probably less than 25,000 genes in humans, link)


You still haven't provided any material backing that claim.


He laughed.

Marc,

I have consistently stated my beliefs as two different entites throughout this thread.

Evidently you have not been paying close attention:

1) A vs. B statement (Evolution is not sufficient, so something else)
2) I personally think that the Bible's explanation fits best.


I guess it's a good thing you changed your sig huh?

[edit]
Big font sizes don't make you any more believable.