Do you believe in evolution?

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by Darknes
How do you explain this identical gene being evolved from completely different phyla? Or was this gene present before the two phyla separated?
The hox gene is very widespread - pretty much wherever an organism needs to code for an extension, like a leg or wing. And I didn't say "identical" gene, I said nearly identical. This is the trail you were seeking. You can follow the insertions, deletions and substitutions throughout many clades and, conincidentally or not, the pattern follows what is predicted by other evolutionary patterns.

 

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by Rylan1
Agreed... there is evidence of an expanding universe... and that the Universe began...I don't know the reasoning behind Einstein's unwillingness to state this..his evidence and theory of gravity and time and space support it.
When Einstein's work predicted either an expanding or contracting universe, he was concerned because that view contrasted sharply from the widely held dogma of the day - that the universe was static. To rationalize this apparent contradiction he added the "universal constant" to his calculations to force a static universe. After Hubble, in the early 1930's (I think) showed that, without doubt, the universe was expanding, Einstein called his inclusion of the universal constant the "biggest mistake of my life." Science at work - a theory modified by objective, measurable data.

 

[clown boy]

Originally Posted by GeriDoc
Oh, my!! You just keep cutting and pasting without critically evaluating what you are being told. Take a look at this site for another view of the issue.
I disagree with that site because they say "why it is still ok to teach on Kettlewell's experimernt".... because it was no experemint... and no, I didn't just cut and paste that. I referenced from Dennis Peterson's book.

 

[ophiura]

Originally Posted by socal57che
Anyone that knew me a few years ago could certainly observe the change that God caused in my life. A few years ago my posts would have looked identical to Ophiura's. ... Like Oph, I felt that someone had crammed this down my throat. Now I'm on the other side. .
I think I would prefer to be left out of this. I don't appreciate the implication that can be made from it...that somehow I do not have God in my life because I believe in evolution.

 

[clown boy]

Here is the evolutionary recipe that some of you all treat as science. Note that this was said by an evolutionary scientist with a Phd.
1. Unknown Chemicals
in a primoridial past... through...
2. Unkown Processes
that no longer exist... produced...
3. Unknown Life Forms
that are not to be found...
but could, through
4. Unknown Reproduction Methods
spawn new life... in an
5. Unknown Oceanic Soup Complex
... at an...
6. Unknown time and place
There is your beautiful little theory summed up.

 

[socal57che]

Originally Posted by ophiura
I think I would prefer to be left out of this. I don't appreciate the implication that can be made from it...that somehow I do not have God in my life because I believe in evolution.

I definitely did not mean to imply that. Just that my personal experiences in the recent past have changed my perspective. God was in my life before and after. I was not Atheist. My own relationship with God changed the way I see the world. I can see that God is hard at work in your life. It is reflected in your words. I know that what I say can be very abrasive and I pray that you will not hold my personal opinions against Christianity as a whole. (I think it's obvious you wouldn't) I will refrain from referring to you in the future.

 

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by Clown Boy
Here is the evolutionary recipe that some of you all treat as science. Note that this was said by an evolutionary scientist with a Phd.
1. Unknown Chemicals
in a primoridial past... through...
2. Unkown Processes
that no longer exist... produced...
3. Unknown Life Forms
that are not to be found...
but could, through
4. Unknown Reproduction Methods
spawn new life... in an
5. Unknown Oceanic Soup Complex
... at an...
6. Unknown time and place
There is your beautiful little theory summed up.

ClownBoy: Puleeezeee - get your facts straight. Not one of those statements bears in any way on the theory of evolution. Darwinian evolutionary theory begins after life existed, and does not and never has addressed how life arose. There are plenty of people trying to answer that very difficult question, but not evolutionary biologists. I am tempted to parody your quote by talking about an unknown all seeing being...etc, but I have too much respect for the people taking part in this thread.

 

[clown boy]

What??? Have you ever heard of the Big Bang Theory?

 

[ophiura]

Forget the moths then...
journey - in your definition, is this adaptation?
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib..._quietcrickets
I suspect a good amount of the "battle" is due to disagreements in terminology.

 

[clown boy]

Originally Posted by ophiura
Forget the moths then...

 

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by Clown Boy
What??? Have you ever heard of the Big Bang Theory?

Of course, but it has nothing to do with evolution either. It is a theory to explain the origins of this universe. Again - Darwinian evolutionary theory simply accepts that a universe exists, and so does life. The theory tries to explain how the plainly visible changes in organisms comes about.

 

[ophiura]

Originally Posted by Clown Boy

....there are other examples
...though I have not yet found a scientific article (and believe me, people would love to publish that), or at least less biased statement that the moths were a hoax...regardless, they are, or were, one of many examples.

 

[darknes]

Originally Posted by GeriDoc
The hox gene is very widespread - pretty much wherever an organism needs to code for an extension, like a leg or wing. And I didn't say "identical" gene, I said nearly identical. This is the trail you were seeking. You can follow the insertions, deletions and substitutions throughout many clades and, conincidentally or not, the pattern follows what is predicted by other evolutionary patterns.
Maybe I'm not completely following you, but you're saying that this gene existed before the phyla separated? This is basically my theory that all evolution was preprogrammed in the initial forms of life. How these different genes were utilized formed the different types of organisms. This explains why we see sudden jumps in evolution, and haven't found intermediate species with partially formed organs.

 

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by Darknes
Maybe I'm not completely following you, but you're saying that this gene existed before the phyla separated? This is basically my theory that all evolution was preprogrammed in the initial forms of life. How these different genes were utilized formed the different types of organisms. This explains why we see sudden jumps in evolution, and haven't found intermediate species with partially formed organs.
The hox gene is very old, judged by its distribution across the animal kingdom. As for "preprogramming", that is a tricky question. If life arose due to natural forces (as opposed to a planner) the resultant life could have a built-in tendency to undergo changes (evolve) stemming from the laws of chemistry and physics. That would be a form of preprogramming, as opposed to programming in the sense that a programmer (mortal, in this case) pre-programs what will happen when i click on the

icon, or the programming that some compromise evolutionary theorists adopt, that a god made the rules of the game, among which is a rule that organisms evolve.
As for intermediate organs - there are plenty of examples. Kidney function exist as flame cells, protonephridia, and a host of other forms, all of which are intermediate to the next level. Similarly, the eye (look at the cover of Zimmer's book, which has dozens of visual organs as its theme).

 

[darknes]

Last night I watched a 2-hour show on the History Channel that I have to say was very well done. It covered the creation of the earth through the past 4.5 billion years, and how many scientists believe it evolved.
I learned quite a few things from the show that I wasn't aware of, and was very impressed. It explained how the atmosphere, and the oceans were created.
One part I thought was most interesting was the idea that originally, the oceans were full of phytoplankton. There was no ozone layer, so nothing could survive on land due to the sun's UV rays. All the land was situated near the southern part of the earth in one great mass, which caused an enormous ice-age. This ice-age would have almost wiped out all living organisms if it weren't for the lava under the earth's surface to break apart the land mass.

 

[darknes]

Originally Posted by GeriDoc
The hox gene is very old, judged by its distribution across the animal kingdom. As for "preprogramming", that is a tricky question. If life arose due to natural forces (as opposed to a planner) the resultant life could have a built-in tendency to undergo changes (evolve) stemming from the laws of chemistry and physics. That would be a form of preprogramming, as opposed to programming in the sense that a programmer (mortal, in this case) pre-programs what will happen when i click on the icon, or the programming that some compromise evolutionary theorists adopt, that a god made the rules of the game, among which is a rule that organisms evolve.
As for intermediate organs - there are plenty of examples. Kidney function exist as flame cells, protonephridia, and a host of other forms, all of which are intermediate to the next level. Similarly, the eye (look at the cover of Zimmer's book, which has dozens of visual organs as its theme).
But doesn't your idea of evolution state that organisms developed through random mutations in their DNA, which caused them to evolve? The way you describe the hox gene, it sounds like the gene was already there; different organisms then evolved through mutations in the genes, which rearranged where this hox gene would be located.

 

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by Darknes
But doesn't your idea of evolution state that organisms developed through random mutations in their DNA, which caused them to evolve? The way you describe the hox gene, it sounds like the gene was already there; different organisms then evolved through mutations in the genes, which rearranged where this hox gene would be located.
The relatively new biological discipline of evo-devo maintains exactly that - evolution of new traits can occur through mutation, or by "repurposing" existing genes (remember, Darwin knew nothing of genes, it was way before Mendel). That is in part, where Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument breaks down. Many of the irreducible functions (cilia, blood clotting) are actually made up of genes that do other things, and have been "repurposed". For example, many of the proteins (coming from genes) involved in blood clotting are proteases that, in other more primitive organisms, are involved in digesting specific proteins. This protein degradation is actually what happens when blood clots.
There is a great popularization of evo-devo, "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean Carroll. I am not an evolutionary biologist or a developmental biologist, but this book has stunned me with its clear exposition of amazing ideas.

 

[darknes]

Originally Posted by GeriDoc
The relatively new biological discipline of evo-devo maintains exactly that - evolution of new traits can occur through mutation, or by "repurposing" existing genes (remember, Darwin knew nothing of genes, it was way before Mendel). That is in part, where Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument breaks down. Many of the irreducible functions (cilia, blood clotting) are actually made up of genes that do other things, and have been "repurposed". For example, many of the proteins (coming from genes) involved in blood clotting are proteases that, in other more primitive organisms, are involved in digesting specific proteins. This protein degradation is actually what happens when blood clots.
There is a great popularization of evo-devo, "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean Carroll. I am not an evolutionary biologist or a developmental biologist, but this book has stunned me with its clear exposition of amazing ideas.
Interesting! I was never aware of evolutionary developmental biology (I was wondering what you meant by evo-devo earlier

).
I always had problems with Darwin's original theory of evolution in single random mutations, which failed to explain how organisms evolve similar organs when they would have split from the evolutionary tree long before these organs developed.
Looks like I have a long list of books ahead of me! It's a good thing winter is right around the corner.

BTW, GeriDoc, you have PM.

 

[jerthunter]

Mitochondria, those wonderful little organelles that make our cells work.
Interestingly these organelles have their very own DNA and unlike nuclear DNA the DNA is just from the female instead of being half from the father and half from the mother.
The nice thing about mitochondria is that it is a great way to measure the maternal relationship between two people.
The interesting thing is that the further two people are related to each other maternally the more mutations have occured.
Amazingly almost all Eukaryotic cells posses mitochondria and you can measure the amounts of differences between the mitochondrial DNA between species' and it sure appears that as you get to more and more distantly related species' that there are more and more differences in this DNA.
Granted this is a very over simplified explanation, however a more detailed explaination would take far too long, require a lot of background knowledge, and be best explained by someone more knowledgeable than I.
*edit*
Luckily for us, we live in a wonderful age of computers so if you are interested in seeing these genetic differences for yourself you should check out an online systematic databases such as:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
I posted this website before but I am sure it has been buried deep in the thread.

 

[jerthunter]

Wow, it appears that after several days of debate that this thread finally died. Unfortunately I am bringing it up again.
I have a question and it is only for those people who insist on viewing the creation account as completely literal. I was thinking about the global flood and all and I started to wonder. Noah took two of each kind of animal on the ark and I was wondering if that included two of EVERY species of animal. Does that include everything from the smallest protozoans to the largest mammals?
Ok, I am not trying to disprove anyone's faith but what I am attempting to do is learn where the breakdown of belief in evolution occurs. Many people have stated that they believe in adaptation or microevolution but say macroevolution is completely different. So, I am hoping the answers to this question I asked, again only to those who believe in a completely literal understanding of Genesis, will help me figure out where the problem comes up for understanding the theory of evolution.
I figure one answer I might see is that some species have 'adapted' into seperate groups after the flood, but that sounds almost the same as believeing in macroevolution.
I remember a long time ago in church I was taught that Noah only needed to take land animals. But I was thinking, with a flood the covers all the land, all the freshwater lakes would mix with all the saltwater oceans and the excess water would be freshwater. This would seem deadly to most marine organisms, like using hyposalinity on our tanks but on a worldwide scale. Freshwater organisms wouldn't care to much for the high salinity from the oceans and the all the corals would be wided out. So that doesn't seem like it would work. So did the ark have giant freshwater, saltwater, and reef tanks to keep all these organisms alive during a worldwide flood? How about plants, did Noah take them with also? From my understanding of plants they don't do so well underwater.
The most common answer I expect to hear is that God can do anything. Of course with that answer it doesn't seem like it makes sense to try to scientifically explain anything about creation.
Of course there could be other answers and I would like to hear them, I like to learn what people think so I can figure out their thought processes and maybe develope new ideas.