So I am in denial because I link to data that de-bunks the lies of some presented "evidence" of evolution?
Or is it because I request a modest notion of a simple academic freedom to allow students to question a theory?
I am not going to play this like a football game.
Actually I am going to see how this discussion slows to a halt.
Seems an abundance of rude remarks and little substance so I have other things to do.
Peace
Fellowship
What data have you given links to? All I saw were primary school level arguments written by creationists. I must have higher standards. Hardly surprising.
Students can question any theory they want. Only you believe otherwise.
If they question it with a "but god did it", they better have proof if they are in a science class. Wouldn't want to have a scientific theory put forth without some evidence to back it up, would you fellowship?
No doubt heads will be nodded in unison if this was said in a religious instructions class.
FInally, I quote fellowship ...
"Get real Tonton.
In the process of being a jerk you make a bigger fool of yourself."
one last post -- in regards to trumptman's chemistry claims...
actually those are wrong. there are degrees of binding at the cellular level, if you think about it, it allows tight regulation where all tight binding would create an on off environment. as far as chemical evolution goes. i throw together a reaction, and while i know 99% of the reactants will react in a known fashion, that 1% allways strays into unknown territory, producing products i havent at this point the need or desire to identify. so the time issue makes sense. given enough time all known reactions will occur, some in the right order some not, but since our cells are doing it, the reactions are also possible in a non-life pot, given 1 billion years, and an imput of O, N, C, and P i actually see no reason why one wouldnt expect some sort of rudimentry cyclic reaction to occur let alone cellular life...
Are you saying a single light sensitive receiver couldn't 'evolve" into a human eye over a period of, say, 1 billion years?
That's a lot of time.
What process stops this from happening?
I can put coffe into a cup, add hot water, stir, and make a cup of hot coffee. Simple wouldn't you say? I would be hard put to reverse that process and get back the dry coffee.
Just because the eye is complex, doesn't mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps. It just means we would be hard pressed to 'reverse engineer' it.
Actually it does mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps.
When we take this outside of evolutionary debate it is much easier to understand. It is like the folks in future hardware that just ask why Apple doesn't just plug a Penium IV into their motherboards instead of a G4. You start with, well even if they suddenly found a way to make it pin compatible....etc.
I cannot really deal with the whole eye thing here because all the chemistry behind it really would be a couple chapters, not a couple pages.
one last post -- in regards to trumptman's chemistry claims...
actually those are wrong. there are degrees of binding at the cellular level, if you think about it, it allows tight regulation where all tight binding would create an on off environment. as far as chemical evolution goes. i throw together a reaction, and while i know 99% of the reactants will react in a known fashion, that 1% allways strays into unknown territory, producing products i havent at this point the need or desire to identify. so the time issue makes sense. given enough time all known reactions will occur, some in the right order some not, but since our cells are doing it, the reactions are also possible in a non-life pot, given 1 billion years, and an imput of O, N, C, and P i actually see no reason why one wouldnt expect some sort of rudimentry cyclic reaction to occur let alone cellular life...
billybobsky,
I have been basically skipping your posts because I cannot read and understand them. With regard to this one I cannot understand if you are discussing amino acids with regard to probability of the first cell or the eye argument. I'm not trying to be mean, just be realistic in telling you that without paragraphs, capitals, and punctuation, it is very hard to understand you.
Actually it does mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps.
When we take this outside of evolutionary debate it is much easier to understand. It is like the folks in future hardware that just ask why Apple doesn't just plug a Penium IV into their motherboards instead of a G4. You start with, well even if they suddenly found a way to make it pin compatible....etc.
I cannot really deal with the whole eye thing here because all the chemistry behind it really would be a couple chapters, not a couple pages.
Nick
Just a question : do you believe in evolution (even if not the evolutionist one) or do you believe that humans and more generally all species suddenly appears on earth some times ago ?
one last post -- in regards to trumptman's chemistry claims...
given 1 billion years, and an imput of O, N, C, and P i actually see no reason why one wouldnt expect some sort of rudimentry cyclic reaction to occur let alone cellular life...
...then you should have a clear roadmap for this---otherwise it is a superstition.
You have no roadmap and you cannot explain in biomechanical detail how this might happen.
Actually it does mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps.
Without discussing the eye, how about a less complex part of the body? Or perhaps a less complex organism?
As for proofs, are you saying we haven't been able to create larger chains of amino acids? It sounds like we have been able to do that. Either way, I'm still in favor of science classes teaching as theory and helping interested students persue the proofs you're looking for.
How do you feel about this statement: "Information-adding mutations do not occur in nature. It's just that simple." Life might not have evolved in a series of simple steps, but does it evolve at least in part due to mutations?
...then you should have a clear roadmap for this---otherwise it is a superstition.
You have no roadmap and you cannot explain in biomechanical detail how this might happen.
The reasoning here is that all explanations that do not describe all details leading to an end result are equivalent to superstition, and presumably therefore no better than anything else that might be described as superstition?
Evolution is not treated as a theory when approaching paleontology et al, it is treated as holy gospel and the ONLY starting point (remember its just a theory). And we go downhill from there.
I disagree. The theory is just that, even in science. Virtually every scientist would be more than happy to rearrage everything to suit a better known truth. As things stand, there is no better explanation and science will continue to move forward.
Science continues to stand on previous knowledge and continues to discover new ways to arrange previous knowledge. Science doesn't have time to wait for proof of something that happened five billion years ago. It estimates and uses the estimation as a basis for further study.
I have been basically skipping your posts because I cannot read and understand them. With regard to this one I cannot understand if you are discussing amino acids with regard to probability of the first cell or the eye argument. I'm not trying to be mean, just be realistic in telling you that without paragraphs, capitals, and punctuation, it is very hard to understand you.
Nick
I am sorry. When arguing, I often ignore accepted grammatical rules. My only idea in regards to the specific subject of the lens is that for a long time and indeed still today most organisms with eyes get around primarily by smell, touch, infrared pits, and taste. Think about cat's wiskers, ant's feelers, the sensitivity you have to touch. I think it is hard for humans to understand how any creature could survive without good eye sight because we ourselves are dependent so strongly on it. It suprises me little that for a long time there were creatures with malformed eyes that could still get around, indeed well. Improvement by improvement dependency on eye sight increased as the lens developed better and the development of cones came along.
It can occur step by step, if you realize that there are other senses that all species are capable of using...
shetline I expected better self control than this.
Yes, I'm clearly dangerously out of control. Anyone in his right mind wouldn't come near this thread.
You should know I am fair with what I am saying in my posts here.
Odd, I don't seem to know this.
I have only said people should have the academic freedom to ask questions.
Context is important, and you've said this in the context of a thread about mandated criticisms of one specific academic subject area.
Is your point that students currently aren't allowed to ask questions? With most of the teachers I remember, most of them would be thrilled to have any questions at all, anything that showed some signs of life existed in the classroom.
Having mandated criticisms would somehow increase academic freedom? How would this be implemented? The teacher demands that for the next fifteen minutes every student criticize evolution? Or do you have in mind, say, someone else's specific list of criticisms to which you expect the students to be exposed, for their own good and academic freedom of course?
What are the criteria for obtaining this recommended list of criticisms?
You don't have to bring up flat earth and other such rude nonsense.
Have to? Not absolutely essential perhaps, but illustrative nevertheless.
Your tactics work like this:
1) List a series of doubts, typically demonstrating a misunderstanding of the subject, like "How could a bunch of random events ever produce [insert terribly complicated thing here]?".
2) Ignore any comparative merit of one scientific theory over some other thing not even worthy of the name "theory" by stating, with a complete misunderstanding of the workings of science, that until such and such is utterly, completely explained step-by-step, and until some series of impossible experiments, which can't be done without time travel, are completed, it's all just guesswork and faith.
I quite literally mean that if this is your approach to science, and (here's the catch) if you are consistent about how you apply these unreasonable criteria (instead of only pulling them out of your bag of tricks against your favorite targets), then you truly have nothing left by which you can distinguish the merits of a round earth vs. the merits of a flat earth.
I mean really.
I'm sure you do.
Why do people that support evolution always have these rude tricks up their sleaves?
Rude tricks being something like this...
Reminds me of my college professor who had anger about beating evolution into our heads in his class.
By inference, characterize all opposition to your viewpoint as angry men beating things into other people's heads? Gee, isn't it about time for another link to that wonderfully poignant, intellectually deep Jack Chick comic strip with the angry professor about now?
You can blame that professor for my dis-loyal rank with the evolution hoax.
Or do you mean "rude tricks" such as using emotionally-weighted words like "hoax", trying to create an impression, while offering no evidence, that not only is evolution wrong, but that in some way it is part of a deliberate scheme of deception? That is what a hoax is, correct? And when people perpetrate a hoax, it generally follows that they themselves know and believe something different than the deception they promote?
Do you have any working theories on who is behind this hoax? Could it be...?
Just a question : do you believe in evolution (even if not the evolutionist one) or do you believe that humans and more generally all species suddenly appears on earth some times ago ?
I do believe in manipulation of already established traits. When they say retroviruses mutate, I do not believe they are applying it in the same sense we apply to other organism because it appears that the traits remain the same, but the genetic marker or whatever else we used to identify it has changed. To me this sounds like what happens sexual being recombine their DNA before passing it on to their offspring. I don't consider our offspring mutants. (Well at least not scientifically. )
I will gladly admit that I haven't read a book or two on retrovirus mutation though.
I would say that with regard to speciation and new traits, evolution as an answer has fallen well short. The explanations that attempt to bridge the gap do so for those who do believe in it or really don't care. For me though that is not the case.
I will say that I am open to a naturalistic theory that does not require leaps of faith. I guess it is like in the book (and movie) Contact where the main characters explanation of what happened was so fantastic that it sounded harder to believe than religion.
Perhaps the process that brings about these changes started elsewhere or perhaps it was here and we just don't understand it nor have the science to understand it yet. I am open to answers but have not found one that scientifically satisfies yet.
I do believe in manipulation of already established traits. When they say retroviruses mutate, I do not believe they are applying it in the same sense we apply to other organism because it appears that the traits remain the same, but the genetic marker or whatever else we used to identify it has changed. To me this sounds like what happens sexual being recombine their DNA before passing it on to their offspring. I don't consider our offspring mutants. (Well at least not scientifically. )
I will gladly admit that I haven't read a book or two on retrovirus mutation though.
I would say that with regard to speciation and new traits, evolution as an answer has fallen well short. The explanations that attempt to bridge the gap do so for those who do believe in it or really don't care. For me though that is not the case.
I will say that I am open to a naturalistic theory that does not require leaps of faith. I guess it is like in the book (and movie) Contact where the main characters explanation of what happened was so fantastic that it sounded harder to believe than religion.
Perhaps the process that brings about these changes started elsewhere or perhaps it was here and we just don't understand it nor have the science to understand it yet. I am open to answers but have not found one that scientifically satisfies yet.
Nick
I don't know if i understand well what you try to mean, excepted that you did not buy the evolutionnary theorie explanation for the giant jumps in phenotypes (the expression of genes : what you call traits).
I am not an expert in evolution things (i have just the basic knowledge), but i'll like to know too the genesis of big jumps (linear evolution, or jump evolution ?)
Concerning retrovirus mutations, it change their traits however, even if slighty, it changes the antigenes on the surface of the virus. That's why vaccination do not work. You make a vaccination that work on a certain type of antigena that you will not encounter in the new mutant of the retrovirus. Only the replicating code of the virus do not change.
I do believe in manipulation of already established traits.
This is what I don't get - how someone can believe in "micro-evolution" but not "macro-evolution." If species can change, as you acknowledge (I think), then how can longer time frames not produce larger changes? It seems to me that's like saying you believe that in 20 years water can form trenches but you don't believe that in a million it can form river beds.
Skepticism is great! It's what makes the world go 'round. Why just evolution, though? There are lots of scientific theories that are quite tough to get your mind around. Are you skeptical of any of those as well? And do you start threads about them?
You know where I'm going - that the reason people single out evolution is that they feel it threatens their religion. Never mind that theologians from most religions themselves say it doesn't, there's a populist American Christian idea that it does. That, IMO, is why some people suddenly become skeptics about one particular branch of science, but not others. It's why the Church hated Galileo - they believed his ideas threatened them. But did they really? And does evolution threaten religion now? Maybe it does, but only in the sense that it encourages people to look for naturalistic explanations for things rather than religious explanations.
I think were most people get caught with evolution (aside from the "a-religious" aspect of the theory) is at the precise point of where a novel design comes from. It is actually interesting to study antibody formation in response to this. The antigen binding site of an antibody is specific (generally very specific) to a particular antigen. This happens because of a couple of things, the variablity in the protein loops and combinations of those protein loops is significant, but there is also evidence of high rate of mutation in these loops (perhaps specifically targeted, but they dont need to be if we think in terms of an immune system having millienia to combat a virus). There is also a selection pressure for the B-cells that produce the antibodies that bind most tightly to the antigen. Those that produce the antibodies that bind more tightly are induced by other cells to proliferate, those that cant cut it eventually die. It is evolution in a bottle so to speak on a protein/cellular level.
It is one of the most beautiful pathways I know about in biology (there are undoubtedly equally beautiful ones). Perhaps, I should also add that most of the proteins that we have structures of are not unique within a genome, meaning nature or evolution often takes what is already there and modifies it slightly to get something that does something completely different. Mistakes, beyond simple mutations, happen all the time in cells as well. Repeats of genes, which is where antibodies are suspected to have evolved (excuse the use of this expression) from, is the most obvious way for a cell to increase its function while not destroying a previous one, lets say random mutations build up until there is a protein that has some function the cell can use.
...and if you had an explanation for me you wouldn't be asking.
what does it mean?
(as a hint i will give you the definition from dictionary.com
biomechanics:
1. (used with a sing. verb) The study of the mechanics of a living body, especially of the forces exerted by muscles and gravity on the skeletal structure.
2. (used with a pl. verb) The mechanics of a part or function of a living body, such as of the heart or of locomotion.
)
you were using biochemical appropriately before, why the sudden switch to biomechanical which has very little to do with a molecule by molecule model of evolution.
Comments
Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
So I am in denial because I link to data that de-bunks the lies of some presented "evidence" of evolution?
Or is it because I request a modest notion of a simple academic freedom to allow students to question a theory?
I am not going to play this like a football game.
Actually I am going to see how this discussion slows to a halt.
Seems an abundance of rude remarks and little substance so I have other things to do.
Peace
Fellowship
What data have you given links to? All I saw were primary school level arguments written by creationists. I must have higher standards. Hardly surprising.
Students can question any theory they want. Only you believe otherwise.
If they question it with a "but god did it", they better have proof if they are in a science class. Wouldn't want to have a scientific theory put forth without some evidence to back it up, would you fellowship?
No doubt heads will be nodded in unison if this was said in a religious instructions class.
FInally, I quote fellowship ...
"Get real Tonton.
In the process of being a jerk you make a bigger fool of yourself."
Hypocrite.
actually those are wrong. there are degrees of binding at the cellular level, if you think about it, it allows tight regulation where all tight binding would create an on off environment. as far as chemical evolution goes. i throw together a reaction, and while i know 99% of the reactants will react in a known fashion, that 1% allways strays into unknown territory, producing products i havent at this point the need or desire to identify. so the time issue makes sense. given enough time all known reactions will occur, some in the right order some not, but since our cells are doing it, the reactions are also possible in a non-life pot, given 1 billion years, and an imput of O, N, C, and P i actually see no reason why one wouldnt expect some sort of rudimentry cyclic reaction to occur let alone cellular life...
Originally posted by xenu
Why not?
Are you saying a single light sensitive receiver couldn't 'evolve" into a human eye over a period of, say, 1 billion years?
That's a lot of time.
What process stops this from happening?
I can put coffe into a cup, add hot water, stir, and make a cup of hot coffee. Simple wouldn't you say? I would be hard put to reverse that process and get back the dry coffee.
Just because the eye is complex, doesn't mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps. It just means we would be hard pressed to 'reverse engineer' it.
Actually it does mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps.
When we take this outside of evolutionary debate it is much easier to understand. It is like the folks in future hardware that just ask why Apple doesn't just plug a Penium IV into their motherboards instead of a G4. You start with, well even if they suddenly found a way to make it pin compatible....etc.
I cannot really deal with the whole eye thing here because all the chemistry behind it really would be a couple chapters, not a couple pages.
Nick
Originally posted by billybobsky
one last post -- in regards to trumptman's chemistry claims...
actually those are wrong. there are degrees of binding at the cellular level, if you think about it, it allows tight regulation where all tight binding would create an on off environment. as far as chemical evolution goes. i throw together a reaction, and while i know 99% of the reactants will react in a known fashion, that 1% allways strays into unknown territory, producing products i havent at this point the need or desire to identify. so the time issue makes sense. given enough time all known reactions will occur, some in the right order some not, but since our cells are doing it, the reactions are also possible in a non-life pot, given 1 billion years, and an imput of O, N, C, and P i actually see no reason why one wouldnt expect some sort of rudimentry cyclic reaction to occur let alone cellular life...
billybobsky,
I have been basically skipping your posts because I cannot read and understand them. With regard to this one I cannot understand if you are discussing amino acids with regard to probability of the first cell or the eye argument. I'm not trying to be mean, just be realistic in telling you that without paragraphs, capitals, and punctuation, it is very hard to understand you.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Actually it does mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps.
When we take this outside of evolutionary debate it is much easier to understand. It is like the folks in future hardware that just ask why Apple doesn't just plug a Penium IV into their motherboards instead of a G4. You start with, well even if they suddenly found a way to make it pin compatible....etc.
I cannot really deal with the whole eye thing here because all the chemistry behind it really would be a couple chapters, not a couple pages.
Nick
Just a question : do you believe in evolution (even if not the evolutionist one) or do you believe that humans and more generally all species suddenly appears on earth some times ago ?
Originally posted by billybobsky
one last post -- in regards to trumptman's chemistry claims...
given 1 billion years, and an imput of O, N, C, and P i actually see no reason why one wouldnt expect some sort of rudimentry cyclic reaction to occur let alone cellular life...
...then you should have a clear roadmap for this---otherwise it is a superstition.
You have no roadmap and you cannot explain in biomechanical detail how this might happen.
Originally posted by trumptman
Actually it does mean it could not have evolved in a series of simple steps.
Without discussing the eye, how about a less complex part of the body? Or perhaps a less complex organism?
As for proofs, are you saying we haven't been able to create larger chains of amino acids? It sounds like we have been able to do that. Either way, I'm still in favor of science classes teaching as theory and helping interested students persue the proofs you're looking for.
How do you feel about this statement: "Information-adding mutations do not occur in nature. It's just that simple." Life might not have evolved in a series of simple steps, but does it evolve at least in part due to mutations?
Originally posted by ena
...then you should have a clear roadmap for this---otherwise it is a superstition.
You have no roadmap and you cannot explain in biomechanical detail how this might happen.
The reasoning here is that all explanations that do not describe all details leading to an end result are equivalent to superstition, and presumably therefore no better than anything else that might be described as superstition?
Originally posted by ena
Evolution is not treated as a theory when approaching paleontology et al, it is treated as holy gospel and the ONLY starting point (remember its just a theory). And we go downhill from there.
I disagree. The theory is just that, even in science. Virtually every scientist would be more than happy to rearrage everything to suit a better known truth. As things stand, there is no better explanation and science will continue to move forward.
Science continues to stand on previous knowledge and continues to discover new ways to arrange previous knowledge. Science doesn't have time to wait for proof of something that happened five billion years ago. It estimates and uses the estimation as a basis for further study.
That's exactly how things should work.
Originally posted by ena
...then you should have a clear roadmap for this---otherwise it is a superstition.
You have no roadmap and you cannot explain in biomechanical detail how this might happen.
do you know what biomechanical means?
that is all.
ever.
guess evolution exists even on the internet.
Originally posted by trumptman
billybobsky,
I have been basically skipping your posts because I cannot read and understand them. With regard to this one I cannot understand if you are discussing amino acids with regard to probability of the first cell or the eye argument. I'm not trying to be mean, just be realistic in telling you that without paragraphs, capitals, and punctuation, it is very hard to understand you.
Nick
I am sorry. When arguing, I often ignore accepted grammatical rules. My only idea in regards to the specific subject of the lens is that for a long time and indeed still today most organisms with eyes get around primarily by smell, touch, infrared pits, and taste. Think about cat's wiskers, ant's feelers, the sensitivity you have to touch. I think it is hard for humans to understand how any creature could survive without good eye sight because we ourselves are dependent so strongly on it. It suprises me little that for a long time there were creatures with malformed eyes that could still get around, indeed well. Improvement by improvement dependency on eye sight increased as the lens developed better and the development of cones came along.
It can occur step by step, if you realize that there are other senses that all species are capable of using...
Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
shetline I expected better self control than this.
Yes, I'm clearly dangerously out of control. Anyone in his right mind wouldn't come near this thread.
You should know I am fair with what I am saying in my posts here.
Odd, I don't seem to know this.
I have only said people should have the academic freedom to ask questions.
Context is important, and you've said this in the context of a thread about mandated criticisms of one specific academic subject area.
Is your point that students currently aren't allowed to ask questions? With most of the teachers I remember, most of them would be thrilled to have any questions at all, anything that showed some signs of life existed in the classroom.
Having mandated criticisms would somehow increase academic freedom? How would this be implemented? The teacher demands that for the next fifteen minutes every student criticize evolution? Or do you have in mind, say, someone else's specific list of criticisms to which you expect the students to be exposed, for their own good and academic freedom of course?
What are the criteria for obtaining this recommended list of criticisms?
You don't have to bring up flat earth and other such rude nonsense.
Have to? Not absolutely essential perhaps, but illustrative nevertheless.
Your tactics work like this:
1) List a series of doubts, typically demonstrating a misunderstanding of the subject, like "How could a bunch of random events ever produce [insert terribly complicated thing here]?".
2) Ignore any comparative merit of one scientific theory over some other thing not even worthy of the name "theory" by stating, with a complete misunderstanding of the workings of science, that until such and such is utterly, completely explained step-by-step, and until some series of impossible experiments, which can't be done without time travel, are completed, it's all just guesswork and faith.
I quite literally mean that if this is your approach to science, and (here's the catch) if you are consistent about how you apply these unreasonable criteria (instead of only pulling them out of your bag of tricks against your favorite targets), then you truly have nothing left by which you can distinguish the merits of a round earth vs. the merits of a flat earth.
I mean really.
I'm sure you do.
Why do people that support evolution always have these rude tricks up their sleaves?
Rude tricks being something like this...
Reminds me of my college professor who had anger about beating evolution into our heads in his class.
By inference, characterize all opposition to your viewpoint as angry men beating things into other people's heads? Gee, isn't it about time for another link to that wonderfully poignant, intellectually deep Jack Chick comic strip with the angry professor about now?
You can blame that professor for my dis-loyal rank with the evolution hoax.
Or do you mean "rude tricks" such as using emotionally-weighted words like "hoax", trying to create an impression, while offering no evidence, that not only is evolution wrong, but that in some way it is part of a deliberate scheme of deception? That is what a hoax is, correct? And when people perpetrate a hoax, it generally follows that they themselves know and believe something different than the deception they promote?
Do you have any working theories on who is behind this hoax? Could it be...?
Originally posted by shetline
Really, really good things.
Do you have any working theories on who is behind this hoax? Could it be...?
Liberals. All of them.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
Just a question : do you believe in evolution (even if not the evolutionist one) or do you believe that humans and more generally all species suddenly appears on earth some times ago ?
I do believe in manipulation of already established traits. When they say retroviruses mutate, I do not believe they are applying it in the same sense we apply to other organism because it appears that the traits remain the same, but the genetic marker or whatever else we used to identify it has changed. To me this sounds like what happens sexual being recombine their DNA before passing it on to their offspring. I don't consider our offspring mutants. (Well at least not scientifically.
I will gladly admit that I haven't read a book or two on retrovirus mutation though.
I would say that with regard to speciation and new traits, evolution as an answer has fallen well short. The explanations that attempt to bridge the gap do so for those who do believe in it or really don't care. For me though that is not the case.
I will say that I am open to a naturalistic theory that does not require leaps of faith. I guess it is like in the book (and movie) Contact where the main characters explanation of what happened was so fantastic that it sounded harder to believe than religion.
Perhaps the process that brings about these changes started elsewhere or perhaps it was here and we just don't understand it nor have the science to understand it yet. I am open to answers but have not found one that scientifically satisfies yet.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
I do believe in manipulation of already established traits. When they say retroviruses mutate, I do not believe they are applying it in the same sense we apply to other organism because it appears that the traits remain the same, but the genetic marker or whatever else we used to identify it has changed. To me this sounds like what happens sexual being recombine their DNA before passing it on to their offspring. I don't consider our offspring mutants. (Well at least not scientifically.
I will gladly admit that I haven't read a book or two on retrovirus mutation though.
I would say that with regard to speciation and new traits, evolution as an answer has fallen well short. The explanations that attempt to bridge the gap do so for those who do believe in it or really don't care. For me though that is not the case.
I will say that I am open to a naturalistic theory that does not require leaps of faith. I guess it is like in the book (and movie) Contact where the main characters explanation of what happened was so fantastic that it sounded harder to believe than religion.
Perhaps the process that brings about these changes started elsewhere or perhaps it was here and we just don't understand it nor have the science to understand it yet. I am open to answers but have not found one that scientifically satisfies yet.
Nick
I don't know if i understand well what you try to mean, excepted that you did not buy the evolutionnary theorie explanation for the giant jumps in phenotypes (the expression of genes : what you call traits).
I am not an expert in evolution things (i have just the basic knowledge), but i'll like to know too the genesis of big jumps (linear evolution, or jump evolution ?)
Concerning retrovirus mutations, it change their traits however, even if slighty, it changes the antigenes on the surface of the virus. That's why vaccination do not work. You make a vaccination that work on a certain type of antigena that you will not encounter in the new mutant of the retrovirus. Only the replicating code of the virus do not change.
Originally posted by trumptman
I do believe in manipulation of already established traits.
This is what I don't get - how someone can believe in "micro-evolution" but not "macro-evolution." If species can change, as you acknowledge (I think), then how can longer time frames not produce larger changes? It seems to me that's like saying you believe that in 20 years water can form trenches but you don't believe that in a million it can form river beds.
Skepticism is great! It's what makes the world go 'round. Why just evolution, though? There are lots of scientific theories that are quite tough to get your mind around. Are you skeptical of any of those as well? And do you start threads about them?
You know where I'm going - that the reason people single out evolution is that they feel it threatens their religion. Never mind that theologians from most religions themselves say it doesn't, there's a populist American Christian idea that it does. That, IMO, is why some people suddenly become skeptics about one particular branch of science, but not others. It's why the Church hated Galileo - they believed his ideas threatened them. But did they really? And does evolution threaten religion now? Maybe it does, but only in the sense that it encourages people to look for naturalistic explanations for things rather than religious explanations.
Originally posted by billybobsky
do you know what biomechanical means?
that is all.
yes I do
...and if you had an explanation for me you wouldn't be asking.
It is one of the most beautiful pathways I know about in biology (there are undoubtedly equally beautiful ones). Perhaps, I should also add that most of the proteins that we have structures of are not unique within a genome, meaning nature or evolution often takes what is already there and modifies it slightly to get something that does something completely different. Mistakes, beyond simple mutations, happen all the time in cells as well. Repeats of genes, which is where antibodies are suspected to have evolved (excuse the use of this expression) from, is the most obvious way for a cell to increase its function while not destroying a previous one, lets say random mutations build up until there is a protein that has some function the cell can use.
Ah well.
Originally posted by ena
yes I do
...and if you had an explanation for me you wouldn't be asking.
what does it mean?
(as a hint i will give you the definition from dictionary.com
biomechanics:
1. (used with a sing. verb) The study of the mechanics of a living body, especially of the forces exerted by muscles and gravity on the skeletal structure.
2. (used with a pl. verb) The mechanics of a part or function of a living body, such as of the heart or of locomotion.
)
you were using biochemical appropriately before, why the sudden switch to biomechanical which has very little to do with a molecule by molecule model of evolution.
i thought you would be (re)-banned by now