Hi,

I just found this site, I hope it hasnt been regurgitated here too much:
http://www.creationscience.com/
in particular 20 questions for evolutionists:
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...4.html#1141593

This isn't quite the usual batch of questions, I can usually answer them all. Many of these have me stumped, but then again Im pretty stupid. Please delete this post if its too OT

3. Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don’t we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?

5. How could the first living cell begin? That’s a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man. How could that first cell reproduce? Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen? Whichever choice you make creates a terrible problem for evolution.

6. Please point to a strictly natural process that creates information. What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4,000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn’t the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?

7. Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA, which can only be produced by DNA?

10. If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least eight moons revolve backwards?
Im not sure why they shouldn't spin backwards. Surely this question is as arbitrary as saying 'if the solar system evolved, why are some planets so far away?'. It's a question for sure, but the answer is going to be irrelevant.

11. Can you name one reasonable hypothesis on how the moon got there—any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why aren’t students told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the moon’s origin? What about the other 90+ moons in the solar system?
I thought the scientific reasons for the solar system's moons was the standard model of solar-system & galactic evolution?

12. Where did matter come from? What about space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?
Im don't know, but where did God come from?

13. How could stars evolve?
Everything I've read about stellar evolution is perfectly logical and suprisingly simple, and experience matches prediction as perfectly as one could wish.

14. Are you aware of all the unreasonable assumptions and contrary evidence used by those who argue that the earth is billions of years old?
Im not sure what assupmtions he is talking about.

15. Why are living bacteria found inside rocks that you say are hundreds of millions of years old and in meteorites that you say are billions of years old? Clean-room techniques and great care were used to rule out contamination.

16. Did you know that most scientific dating techniques indicate that the earth, solar system, and universe are young?

17. Why do so many ancient cultures have flood legends?
Because there have been floods? Ice-ages, tsunamis etc etc...

19. Careful researchers have found the following inside meteorites: living bacteria, salt crystals, limestone, water, sugars, and terrestrial-like brines. Doesn’t this implicate Earth as their source—and a powerful launcher, “the fountains of the great deep?
As far as I know, we haven't found a single extra-solar rock with life on it, living, dead, or fossilized. Salt, water and sugar can be found all over the solar system. Im not sure about Limestone. Whats so special about Limestone?

Could any of you help with these questions? I can see there is a flaw in his logic and his sources, but I don't know enough about evolution to work it out.

Thanks
T


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: 4-Lom on 2002-04-15 07:59 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: 4-Lom on 2002-04-15 08:24 ]</font>

One suggestion I'd make would be to stick with the questions that have to deal with astronomy. The "backwards-spinning planets" is a good one.


-Adam

OK. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ17.html

"One suggestion I'd make would be to stick with the questions that have to deal with astronomy. The "backwards-spinning planets" is a good one."

No matter how often this gets explained to creationists, they keep going back to planets spinning backwards and how much energy it would take to change a planet's direction of rotation.

Let's assume all bodies started off spinning in the same direction - counterclockwise when viwed from "above". All that is necessary to change the direction of rotation is to have the planet impacted by a body large enough to tilt it on its axis. If it is tilted more than 90 degrees, its rotational direction will appear to have been reversed. Turn the earth upside down and it will still rotate from America toward Africa, but when viewed from "above" it will be spinning clockwise, not counterclockwise.
Anyone who doubts this can easily test it with a spinning globe. The only way the creationists argument on this point would be valid is if it is assumed that collisions between astronomical bodies never occurred - an observationally flawed assumption.

Short answer - there are no backwards spinning planets.

Since there are a lot of astronomy-based questions, I don't think there will be any trouble with this being off-topic.

I've been wanting to try my hand at debunking some of this stuff. Let's see how I do.

3. Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don't we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?

Who says there should be billions of transitional fossils. Geologists and paleontologist will be the first to tell you that fossil creation is relatively rare. Catching a single organism at a particular transitional state is pretty hit and miss. Also, when does a fossil become "transitional"? It's not a cut-and-dried division there. But even so, there's plenty of evidence in the fossil record for transitions. It's just that creationist scientists tend to ignore that evidence.

5. How could the first living cell begin? That's a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man. How could that first cell reproduce? Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen? Whichever choice you make creates a terrible problem for evolution.

I don't konw what the theory is for first cell creation, but it probably started with even simpler viral and bacterial forms that combined and formed cooperative structures that became cellular organisms. As for the conditions on the Earth, it was almost definitely a nitrogen/CO2 atmosphere. There are plenty of anaerobic bacteria and other life forms that survive on a lack of oxygen. The first life forms took the CO2 in the atmosphere and expelled oxygen. As the ratio of O2 increased due to this process, more and more organisms evolved to use this new resource, eventually creating the balance we have now.

6. Please point to a strictly natural process that creates information. What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4,000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?

No expert here, so this is just my opinion. But first of all what does it mean by "creating information"? Does it mean the continuation and increasing complexity of some system? In that case, DNA and RNA can be considered an example in itself. It naturally reproduces copies of itself and mutates to form new and sometimes more complex forms. This can be demonstrated in observation and testing. So what's the argument?

But even more, this is an argument of incredulity. It starts with the supposition that natural processes couldn't produce such marvels. If you don't agree with that supposition, then the whole argument falls apart.

7. Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA, which can only be produced by DNA?

I believe that RNA formed first from various free-floating naturally-interacting protiens. Later, more complex DNA arose from the RNA. But I'm no biologist.

10. If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least eight moons revolve backwards?
Im not sure why they shouldn't spin backwards.
Surely this question is as arbitrary as saying 'if the solar system evolved, why are some planets so far away?'. It's a question for sure, but the answer is going to be irrelevant.

What a moot point. You're perfectly right. The formation of the solar system isn't the only factor at work in how orbiting bodies move. Influences and impacts by other bodies are more than enough to explain such things.

11. Can you name one reasonable hypothesis on how the moon got there? Any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why aren't students told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the moon's origin? What about the other 90+ moons in the solar system?
I thought the scientific reasons for the solar system's moons was the standard model of solar-system & galactic evolution?

It seems to me that there've been many reasonable hypotheses given for the origin of our moon. A large impact on the Earth that sent debris into orbit to form the moon is the one that fits the data the best. And I'm sure there are decent theories for the other moons as well, captured asteriods being the most common answer, but not the only one. This seems to be just a red herring to me. A bit of innuendo intended to make people doubt the accuracy of the scientific method.

12. Where did matter come from? What about space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?
Im don't know, but where did God come from?

This is something cosmologists and quantum physicists are working on all the time. They've put out some pretty good theories. The only problem is thy are very complex and can't be explained easily. Of course once again creation scientists simply ignore or reject the perfectly reasonable theories already put forward.

13. How could stars evolve?
Everything I've read about stellar evolution is perfectly logical and suprisingly simple, and experience matches prediction as perfectly as one could wish.

Another one where creationists simply reject the theories already out there, and frame their questions in ways that throw doubt on the mainstream explanations. They take the smallest bit of discrepancy, usually those areas that are not yet fully explained by the scientific method, and try to use them to discredit the whole theory.

14. Are you aware of all the unreasonable assumptions and contrary evidence used by those who argue that the earth is billions of years old?
Im not sure what assupmtions he is talking about.

I'm with you here. What assumptions. There's plenty of evidence for the age of the earth, from many different fields that compliment rather than contradict each other. Sure there are probably a few discrepancies, but they are most likely due to the limitations of the means used as opposed to the data itself. Radiometric dating, sedimentation, fossils, mutation rates in organisms, ice layers; I don't know them all, but at the very least it can be shown conclusively that the Earth is older than the Young-Earth creationists claim.

15. Why are living bacteria found inside rocks that you say are hundreds of millions of years old and in meteorites that you say are billions of years old? Clean-room techniques and great care were used to rule out contamination.

Well, for one thing, a clean-room is only good for preventing additional contamination during examination. It can't prevent contamination from the environment where the sample was found or from the collection process itself. And who knows, maybe some bacteria have been alive in those samples for billions of years? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

16. Did you know that most scientific dating techniques indicate that the earth, solar system, and universe are young?

This is just a bunch of crock. The vast bulk of (very credible) evidence is for a very old Earth and universe. See my answer for number 14. On the contrary, it's the methodology of young-earthers that has the real credibility problem.

17. Why do so many ancient cultures have flood legends?
Because there have been floods? Ice-ages, tsunamis etc etc..

Absolutely. But who says there are so many flood legends? I don't know of too many. And there have also been influences from one culture to another. It can be pretty well shown that the Genesis flood legend is heavily influenced, if not taken directly, from the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh (I believe, help me out here).

Besides, the very concept of a giant flood is not too big of a leap to come up with if you have an imaginative mind and have seen some real flooding. The existance of several similar stories is not conclusive of a common cause.

19. Careful researchers have found the following inside meteorites: living bacteria, salt crystals, limestone, water, sugars, and terrestrial-like brines. Doesn't this implicate Earth as their source, and a powerful launcher--the fountains of the great deep?
As far as I know, we haven't found a single extra-solar rock with life on it, living, dead, or fossilized. Salt, water and sugar can be found all over the solar system. Im not sure about Limestone. Whats so special about Limestone?

Right you are about the bacteria, although see number 15. Probably most of these things can be explained by contaminants from the environment after touchdown. They might be referring to that Martian meteorite that was supposed to suggest life on Mars, but then that would be a rather reasonable explanation for life in the meteorite, wouldn't it?

As for limestone, it's a sedimentary rock formed from the shells of marine organisms, so it has an organic origin. That would be a problem if it could be shown that there really is limestone in a meteorite and that it conclusively had an origin from outside of the Earth. But I know of no meteorites like that. I think in this case, it's up to the creationists to show the evidence for the contamination.

And I have no idea what this "fountains of the great deep" is. Are they claiming that all meteorites originated from the Earth and were launched into space by some supernatural means? I would say that it's possible some large impactor could fling some Earth debris into orbit, which could then fall to Earth again as a meteorite, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to determine the terrestrial origin of such. I mean, we can easily determine meteorites that came from the Moon and Mars, why not the Earth itself?

So how'd I do? I'm sure others can fill in the details better than I can though.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

I notice he brings up the "depth of Moon dust" argument, which even most Creationists agree is no longer legit. That should be enough to discredit him right there.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I just re-read the DNA argument on number 7, and I realize that they are trying to create a paradox where DNA needs proteins that are only formed by DNA.

BUT, if the original RNA/DNA evolved from pre-existing natural proteins, which then started to produce the new proteins, which in turn supplanted the original proteins in the DNA, then there is no paradox. Another straw-man here.

_________________
David Hall
"Dave... my mind is going... I can feel it... I can feel it."

<font size="-1">(fixed a poorly worded sentence.)</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2002-04-15 10:20 ]</font>

I like this one, too. But I have the feeling that if it weren't so--if the planets all rotated the same direction--the question would be "Well, what are the odds of that happening??"

It's like Karl who claimed that therapsid evolution was a confirmed fact.

But check out
http://www.creationresearch.org/crea...98/cm9809.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home...j_v15n1_mammal.
asp#f42
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home...fossil-rec.asp

Karl said "The creationists, of
course, cannot admit that such a transition exists, hence they are forced to
assert that no such transformation is possible (without acknowledging the
detailed fossil evidence which demonstrates that it occurred in precisely
this manner). Because the fossil evidence of the transition from therapsid
to mammal is extensive, detailed and well-studied..."

Remember that fossils are static, not dynamic. They are nouns, not verbs.
Unless we observe the motion (i.e. transitioning from one kind to another
kind) the motion is only presumed, not proved. We interpret the data
(nouns) based on our world view. Creationists and evolutionists have very
different worldview. So they come to interpret the data we find (nouns)
based on our worldview, and assumptions that are derived from them.
Evolutionists, of course, believe in evolution, so they look at similarity
in fossils and fill the gaps with an evolutionary story, or explanation.
Creationists believe the Bible, which describes sudden appearance of
critters and variation only to limits within a kind. The empirical
observations we make today are more consistent with creation than evolution,
e.g., mutated fruit flies are still fruit flies. Mutated bacteria are still
bacteria. We see lots of variation, but no change in basic kinds.

Did Karl confirmed his statement "Because the fossil evidence
of the transition from therapsid to mammal is extensive, detailed and
well-studied..."? What is the evidence? Are the conclusions made from the
studies based on evolutionary assumptions? What is the raw data (nouns)?
It is always good to get original research papers. Reading
these carefully and critically (in the scientific sense) can provide a
wealth of ammunition.

I beg to differ...a picture can tell you about the sequence of events.

If I showed you a picture a family with grandparents, parents, and grandhildren, I bet you could tell who belonged to which group. But wait, you only have a snapshot, the "nouns" to look at. Same thing if I showed you three pictures cars colliding : before, during and after. You could put those in order as well.

Snapshots are effectively how we learn about stellar evolution. We have never witnessed a star's entire lifespan. However, by looking at many stars, we can use clues to deduce which stars are young, which are middle age, and which are old and dying.

Biologists have the clues that they can use to reconstruct the ages of different creatures based on the fossil record. I know some of the clues including radioactive dating, sediment layers, and biologists have others than I am not as familair with. That doesn't make my analogy invalid...it just says that I am not a Biologist [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Rob

This is halfway on-topic...

Harold Morowitz, in his several explanatory books about evolution (notably "Mayonnaise and the Origin of Life") coined a catch-phrase that is instructive: "The flow of energy through a system tends to organize that system."

There are lots of "natural events" that add "information" to the world. Just one example: the flow of air over sand tends to form intricate patterns of sand-dunes. (The fact that the patterns are regular and repetitious means that they do contain information.)

And (here's the astronomy part) the earth's biosphere has a LOT of energy passing through it. Sunlight in and reflected sunlight out, plus all the weather effects from sunlight (wind, storms, rainfall, etc.) There's also thermal energy from the heat of the earth's core, leading to volcanoes, geysers, and so on. Finally, there's tidal energy, and that has very definitely "ordered" the environment; ask any tide-pool dwelling octopus!

This was the big practical lesson of the early experiments with simulated primordial atmospheres and energy: the energy flowing through that closed system *did* add information to the system, in the form of larger and more complex molecules.

Silas

Good example, Silas. Anyone who has watched crystals form in a supersaturated or supercooled liquid has also seen complexity spontaneously created. Same situation - the energy flow through the system is where the order/complexity arises from.

I suppose, as (one of) the BABB's "resident" Creationists, I should be expected to join battle here, but I think I'll spare you all. My personal belief is that the Biblical account of Creation is correct, whether or not I can justify every single point. I admit that I have not the knowledge to counter every single argument against the Biblical account, so rather than trying to mount up support for the Creation Science site's list, or counter all the rebuttals, I'll sit this one out over here on the "Group W" bench, playing with the pencils and forms. But you know where I stand, er, sit, anyway.

I do want to supply an answer to a point raised by David Hall, however:

David (and anyone else interested), the "fountains of the great deep" are part of the Genesis Flood account:

There are, you won't be surprised to learn, somewhat different interpretations of exactly what they are, but the most common interpretation is that they have something to do with breaking up the continents (the Creation account specifies that the dry land was all gathered in one spot from the water, which is obviously not the case today).

So (and I'm not trying to affirm or support this, merely interpret it from Biblical to astronomical terminology), the site is claiming that during this event at the start of the Flood, rocks containing terrestrial "baggage" were flung out into space and have been returning from then until now, as meteorites. That is, meteorites do not have an extra-terrestrial source, but are pieces of the Earth returning from a humongous ballistic path.

So, David, the answer to your quoted question, is "Yes, that's exactly what they are claiming."

My personal? I hadn't thought of meteorites in connection with that, but it makes some sense to me, so I neither deny it nor insist on it being a part of my world-picture.

The (pass me another pencil, Jethro, I've chewed all the eraser off this one) Curtmudgeon

7. Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA, which can only be produced by DNA?

"Only" produced by DNA?

Stanley Miller in 1953 reproduced the early atmosphere of Earth (hydrogen, water, methane, and ammonia), exposed the mix to ultraviolet light and an electric discharge to approximate lightning, and produced the amino acids glycine, alanine, aspartic and glutamic acid, and others after about a week. Later researchers using similar techniques were by 1960 able to synthesize many of the components of DNA including adenine, one of DNA's four bases and also a key component of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), an energy-carrier in cell respiration.

Based on these results, I'd say the proteins came first.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

True. It should also be noted though, that in a few areas where circumstances were favourable, there *are* millions of fossils to be found, often with obvious transitions. When the evidence is there, it is always in favour of natural selection and evolution.

Another misleading statement to put you on the defensive. Actually, the vast majority of so called "data" within most forms of DNA (certainly humans) is utterly worthless and redundant. This has been one of the major problems with the genome project. Most people assume that every little bit has a job to do, but that just isn't the case. Certain element may dictate several characteristics at a time, while the majority may perform no task at all - it's simply redundant matter left over from... you guessed it - evolution!
Short answer, there is no structured" sequence", just a bunch of jumbled bits. Good bits reproduce, useless (but harmless) bits get reproduced with the good bits, bad bits destroy the host (or perhaps more often, evolve over time into more harmless but worthless bits that spread more effectively).
Tim

"3. Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don't we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?"

It is probable that there isn't a smooth continuum. Evolution seems to have happened in explosive bursts - for reasons that can only be speculated upon - followed by long periods of relative stability. (Of course, if one takes the position that EVERY living species and every fossil is a transitional form, then there are lots of examples.)

Creationists know that fossilization is a rare occurrence - they use that as an argument for the lack of human remains from the flood. As has been pointed out, there won't be billions of fossils because the vast majority of creatures don't live in an environment where fossilization is possible. Bones exposed to sun, oxygen, wind and rain turn to powder in a short time. The vast bison herds of North America that were reduced from 10s of millions of animals to virtual extinction during the 19th century through "hunting" left no trace of their death, even though the vast majority were simply left to rot where they fell. Why no trace? Because bone only survives in that unique environment where minerals replace its organic calcium through leaching.
The "transition" species, particularly those based on land, would have had their bones disappear just like the bison remnants did.

Creationists demand the missing links, but when presented with one (e.g. archaeopteryx) they ask for the missing link before or after that one - "where's the more reptile-like one, where's the more birdlike one" - or they argue that its a fake. But archaeopteryx is clearly neither bird (it has teeth and doesn't have a "bird hip" nor reptile - at least as we understand reptiles. But it is compelling evidence that transition species do exist. The platypus is probably another - an egg laying monotreme mammal - some features of a bird (or "dinosaur") but a mammal because it suckles its young.

It's just possible that the transition wasn't smooth at all but rather took place in fairly large, discreet steps. If one fossil every thousand generations is all that survived, we may never see the gradual change that creationists demand. But then, they can't show us any evidence of magic either.

Under conditions observed today, what kinds of transitional states are obvious in what could become a fossil record? Is the duckbill platypus a transitional species? How about at the viral or bacterial level? Do we observe viri or bacteria turning into little critters? We've been looking for 100 or more years with some level of focus.

DJ

But you don't really expect that you will see any change in 100 years, do you? You are surrounded by a world that has put enormous environmental pressure on a host of species. Some will survive - some won't. Some branches on the tree of life will disappear, changing the occupancy of various ecological niches. We are in transition - but none of us has a crystal ball to "see" what the survivors of this era will look like in a million years.
Bacteria aren't going to sprout wings and become birds - but bacteria and viruses already show an incredible ability to mutate and evolve - both in response to their altered environment (the "superbugs") and as a result of genetic changes (like the rhinovirus).

I don't buy the arbitrary division of micro and macro evolution. Enough micro changes in succession will render the original organism unrecognizable. Just look at what humans have been able to do to the poor wolf in less than a thousand years - only by selective breeding. Sure, it's still the same species - but my view is that in time, a chihuahua and a wolf will be unable (biologically) to mate because they will continue to diverge by virtue of their not being able to mate for physical reasons. The slow, but relentless, genetic changes that are in some respects held in check by "cross breeding" can be expected to run at an accelerating rate once the two gene pools can no longer be mixed.

DaveC, I would agree that in some cases 100 years might not be enough. How about 5,000? Still not enough for the pinky finger to get smaller? How about for our useless tailbone to retreat further?

There must be some examples, over the past 5 millenia, that show some transitions going on that have been observed and measured... or maybe just noticed.

If it is only measurable in 1M year increments, then that only leaves about 4,600 evolutions of distinct major species. But that's not true either, for approximately 65M years ago, we had a mass extinction (hypothetically) that would mean that almost everything we see today has only had about 65 iterations.

Not enough time to develop everything we see here, methinks.

Thus, I think that the mutations occur much more quickly, in shorter time periods. Environmental conditions more than anything else would play the role.

DJ

I agree with your view that it could happen much quicker than 1 million years. It just depends how one defines "evolution". Is the human race, which averages about 8 inches taller than it did 600 years ago showing an evolutionary change or simply an inevitable response to better nutrition and health care?

Is the earth in a period of stability where evolution is crawling rather than bounding like it may have at other times? Who knows.

The tail bone and pinky finger would shrink fairly rapidly in a world where having them reduced the chance of survival. They don't just shrink because they're useless. Evolutionary theory is based on small changes conferring a particular advantage (or disadvantage) on a species.

If we lived in a world where only pro basketball players earned enough money to survive, what impact do you think that would have on the average height of human beings over a few generations? Postulate an environment where a bigger tailbone is a disadvantage to finding food or reproducing and you can then understand the mechanism by which it will shrink over time. Same argument for the pinky finger.

If women would never mate with a man whose ring finger was longer than his index finger, this trait will eventually disappear. I don't profess to know the mechanisms that caused slight variations to lead to species divergence, but we can see evidence of it all around us.

(1) mutation, (2) gene flow, (3) recombination

(1) Many different types of mutation can add info using the same 4 nucleotides (A,G,T,C). Here's two examples.

Point mutation...
gene sequence AAAA becomes AAAG (sure it's from existing nucleotides, but the blueprint for the organism is now different...i.e., new)

Copying/duplication error such as...
gene sequence AGTC is replicated as AGTCAGTC (the accidental duplicate insertion of the same sequence added to the overall DNA strand copy)

etc.

(2) Population A splits into subgroups A1 and A2 due to some geographic/behavioral separation. The two gene pools (A1, A2) evolve over time in slightly different directions due to their slightly different circumstances. Then the separation is removed and A1 and A2 start interbreeding again. Suddenly A1 has new info incoming from A2 and visa versa.

(3) The mixing of genes from sexual reproduction. My DNA is not exactly the same as either my mom's or my dad's. It is a combination of the two into something slightly different from either. Or a more extreme example...continent A has people of skin color X and continent B has people of skin color Y. Then A colonizes B and people start pairing off. New information has been added to each other's gene pool. Of course, X and Y are ranges (variation of skin color), but they can still be distinct ranges.



Of course, Creationists will say that (2) and (3) are not really new information and that (1) is never beneficial to an organism (culled by natural selection) or can never propogate in a population. But they're often stuck with the false idea that major leaps are made in one step in one individual. Evolution is actually a slow play on variations within a population.

4-Lom -

On second thought, just check out http://www.talkorigins.org

That website has detailed scientific rebuttles of all those arguments.

Right. "Transitions" are a function of the system of classification that separates the various fossils in categories. One researcher will put a new fossil into one group and a different researcher will put it into another. The classification system almost (not quite always but often) forces people to decide that a new fossil belongs to a particular group and not halfway in between.

A professor, whose name escapes me, formulated "Gish's Law" which states that the more extensive the fossile record, the more gaps there will be. For example, if you have two fossils there is one gap between them. If you find an intermediate type between the original two there are now two gaps. Still another intermediate in the chain creates a third gap and so on.

Creationist Gish has found an argument he can't lose. Since fossils are discrete objects there will always be gaps and even in the ideal case of a complete record of every type that ever existed there would be gaps.

I don't believe the difference between RNA and DNA is a matter of complexity. The thing about RNA is that self-catalyzing forms exist. So for RNA the chicken-egg dilemma doesn't exist since proteins can be formed without proteins to catalyze the reaction.

The question ignores the advances in RNA studies lately. It also assumes that DNA is thought to have been assembled de novo from a mix of assorted chemicals by random processes. Not true. DNA was doubtless the result of an evolutionary process from something else and was assembled in accord with the rules of chemistry and not at random.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Simmons on 2002-04-16 16:56 ]</font>

I'd have to agree with them there...I dont think two people mating and combining genes creates any information; it recombines but does not add. Say your mother has the genes for blue eyes (info partly pertaining to the manufacture of 'blue') and your father has genes for brown eyes (info partly pertaining to the manufacture of 'brown'). When the genes are combined, you do not have an off-spring with the combined knowledge of how to make 'blue' and 'brown' as would be the case if information was added or created, but you would have one or the other.

<Hr>
6. Please point to a strictly natural process that creates information. What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4,000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn’t the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?
<Hr>

I'll take information creation for 5000. They want strictly natural? How about snowflakes? Not only is that information, it's complexity. Randomness in doesn't necessarily mean randomness out.

P.S. I wonder who did the code for that website. It took a *month* to load.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Pi Man on 2002-06-27 00:06 ]</font>

I've already posted my 2,000 words on creation pseudoscience so I won't bore you all again. I did want to address this false premise though.

There are billions of lines of digital code in DNA. There are only 4 amino acids that make up that code. As little as one change in one amino acid on any DNA strand can impact a change in the organism. When the DNA code changes occur, detrimental changes die out and successful ones go on reproducing. Changes accumulate over time.

There are several ways new information is created when DNA replicates.
1) steady rate of errors in copying:
Every time a cell divides an error can occur. In a developing fetus, a complete change can result. In a grown organism, you can get things like cancer developing.

2) recombining DNA during sexual reproduction:
Contrary to the false premise above, different combinations of DNA, even if no new material were to result, spread genetic changes into larger populations. In reality, genes from the mother and father are not always either or. Sometimes the combination differs from the two original genes because of interaction with eachother. Brown eyes plus blue eyes might result in hazel.

3) acquiring new DNA:
This occurs in other ways besides sexual reproduction. (Bacteria and viruses have at least 4 ways which I won't get into.) A virus is made of either DNA or RNA. When a cell is infected the DNA or RNA can become new DNA in the infected cell. When you have a cold sore that recurs, you are not getting a new infection, the virus has moved into your cells permanently.

4) losing DNA:
Whole pieces of DNA might become inactive due to a simple amino acid copy error. Whole pieces might break off.

I think all the varieties of dogs and cats should provide a lot of evidence for species transitions. When do a wolf and a poodle meet the criteria for being different species? How about a persian cat, a lion, and a tiger? They are not just 'adapted', they have 'evolved'.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: beskeptical on 2002-05-14 07:00 ]</font>

i bet you that since this post has nothing to do with astronomy it will get locked

<marquee>the guy that has come from mars, for no reason (no reason, or you think for no reason......) :-b </marquee>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Martian Jim on 2002-05-14 09:52 ]</font>

We can't seem to get away from the issue. I see a few locked sites from the past when creationists and evolutionists started in on eachother. I've only been on for a few weeks and I have already seen this subject pop up in several posts.

'Creation' applies to astronomy and the universe as well as to life on Earth. Since I see no science whatsoever, (sorry, but I'm speaking for myself), in a 'creation' description of how the universe developed, I wish the subject didn't come up on this site.

It is hard to keep to only the astronomy side of the subject. I won't bring the subject up, but I can't let a serious misconception go without a response.

I hope it causes people to look into the subject farther rather than to be offended. I have been pleased to hear about my misconceptions in astronomy. When I see there is more to something than my limited understanding, I am happy. I want to know more! That's what makes the world so interesting.

Everyone has done great work in explaining the questions posed in the beginning of this topic... I don't have anything to add there.

In my opinion, creation theory isn't useful for predicting the future. The refutations seem more useful in that they explain the evidence left from the past while offering predictions about the future.

I've thought about biblical creation theory a bit. Here is where my thoughts lead me... (read on for your entertainment)

When God created the heavens 6000 years ago... was the sky black for a few minutes until the light from the sun arrived? Did each planet appear in the night sky one after the other as Sol's light reflected and arrived on Earth? Did Adam wonder about the new night light 4 years later when the light of Alpha Centauri finally arrived? Did his descendants watch as new stars appeared in the sky when their light finally arrived?

Maybe, but that doesn't explain how we see stars more than 6000 light years away. Or galaxies several orders of magnitude farther.

So then, did God create all the photons between each star and the Earth so we could see them, and did he make them show what the stars would have looked like if they had existed before the beginning of the all? If so, then did He also create fossils to make us think there was life before the true dawn of life 6000 years ago?

Maybe, but such a theory would indicate the universe was more illusion than reality. Were we created to be fools?

So then, did God create the laws of physics billions of years ago, then initialize a new universe with all the energy and/or matter we have today? Was he unable to come up with a set of laws that could produce the current state of the universe? Did he then resort to guiding the forces and materials into the present configuration?
Maybe, but if mere creatures like you and me can think of the concept of evolution, why couldn't God? And why did God decide to stop creating new species after we were made? Are we really the ultimate life form? Why does God let species die out without creating new ones to replace them? After all the billions of years, is He just tired of creating? Or does he just like to create new versions of viruses like HIV but not new species of mammals? Did he forget how to do anything more complicated than new microbes?

So then, did God create an initial universe but in such a way that it would eventually form the present state? Was evolution part of His created rules?

Maybe. This is as far as I've taken this thought. It's useless to believe in an initialy created universe. It explains nothing about what was before day 0, nor does it predict the future. But somehow I find it comforting. Maybe psychology is the best way to explain why I feel this way. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Enjoyed this topic immensly, thanks!
--Tom
http://www.tommyraz.com

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to add to others' comments, but here goes:

That's something that evolutionary biologists have considered; in many cases, there are too many fossils for "rarity of preservation" to be a convincing counterargument. Their solution is Punctuated Equilibrium, the view that new species originate from isolated offshoot populations which experience rapid evolution of features that show up in fossils; when they get big populations, these species show relatively little fossilizable change over the course of their existence. I make this qualification because much molecular evolution is essentially genetic drift that happens continuously -- and fossil genetic material is found only in relatively recent fossils.

How cells emerged from a "soup" of self-reproducing molecules is an interesting question; the first cells were likely underwater soap bubbles containing such molecules. They reproduced by splitting when they got too big, something that was eventually made more organized and efficient.

And the Earth's atmosphere started getting significant quantities of free oxygen only about 2.3 billion years ago, causing rocks to be more oxidized. This was likely the result of oxygen-releasing photosynthesis by cyanobacteria emerging at that time. However, there are plenty of alternative ways of getting hydrogen equivalents from inorganic molecules, which is what O2-releasing photosynthesis does; many bacteria use some of those ways. Methanogens do

CO2 + 4*H2 -> CH4 + 2*H2O

and the cyanobacteria could have had ancestors that got hydrogen equivalents by removing electrons from soluble Fe++ ions, thus producing the insoluble Fe+++ ions of the Banded Iron Formations of early Precambrian rocks.

I note in passing that methanogens do not eat any organic molecules other than some very simple ones; they make all the biological molecules they need, just as plants, algae, and cyanobacteria do. So some other planet, like Mars or Europa, may be the home of methanogens or methanogen-like microbes that live off of similar chemistry, such as sulfur or sulfate reduction:

H2 + S -> H2S

4*H2 + H2SO4 -> H2S + 4*H2O

However, there'd have to be hydrogen leaking from an object's interior for such "chemosynthesis" to work properly, since some sort of chemical disequilibrium is necesssary.

How does one define "information" here? There are lots of places where "information" emerges by natural causes, such as snowflake formation.

I note that one way of producing big and complicated genomes is by gene duplication; the extra copies can then evolve in different directions -- which is deduced to have happened many times. There are several well-studied gene families with evidence of gene duplication in their histories, such as the globin family, the homeobox family, the MADS family, and so forth.

The favorite solution to this conundrum is the "RNA world" hypothesis, in which the original important biological molecules had been RNA ones, which both self-reproduced and acted as enzymes. DNA emerged from RNA as a master-copy specialization, and RNA enzymes acquired "cofactors", molecules that help them. Some cofactors were amino acids and short chains of them; eventually, the mechanism for producing these amino-acid chains got well-developed enough to make big ones (proteins), making the RNA molecules unnecessary in most cases. But protein-assembly sites (ribosomes) still have RNA, and there are bits of RNA in various cofactors, like ATP, NAD, and Coenzyme A.

This leaves the origin of the original RNA unsolved, but that is a much simpler problem [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Furthermore, the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh closely parallels the Biblical story, complete with sending out birds to look for land as the flood recedes.

Furthermore, someone living on a floodplain might think that a big flood had flooded "the whole world".

However, there is zero physical evidence for a planetwide flood in the last 10,000 years, at least. For example, tree-ring dating projects ("dendrochronology") have assembled continuous tree-ring chronologies for that entire time, meaning that there were always some of those trees alive in that entire time -- with no evidence of anything really disastrous happening to them, such as a big flood that lasted for a year.