Is the Theory of Evolution on the ropes?

[Carfax83]

Question for OP:

since Jesus rode dinosaurs, which do you think was his favorite to keep as a pet?

I have no idea since Jesus is likely a figment of man's imagination. ()

 

[zinfamous]

Any way, the reason why your explanation doesn't make sense to me, is that it doesn't account for the fact that for mutation to be responsible for such an elaborate and well ordered system (if you read the article, synethesis of the flagellum is dependent on a "tightly ordered cascade in which expression of one gene at a given level requires the prior expression of another gene at a higher level") as bacterial flagella, all the right mutations (and none of the harmful ones) would have to occur at the same time without mistakes, instead of the numerous, slight successive changes ascribed to by darwinian evolution.

that is all profoundly untrue, and roundly rejected by all current evolutionary research. It's easy to misunderstand a subject, redefine that misunderstanding and rejected hypothesis as accepted, and thus trash it in support of your own argument.

but when you take a completely rejected model and use it in your defense, you are engaging in the most duplicitous and ultimately self-defeating practice.

More than anything, Dover laid the flagellum issue out on the table for fundies like you to see clearly and effectively. Whether or not you were then able to understand this is entirely up to you.

I suppose it is not surprising that you and yours continue to take a roundly rejected notion and hold as some profound understanding and conflicting issue within a field that you simply do not understand, but it is getting old, and all the more hilarious to watch you hold up such a flimsy and empty argument.

 

[Broheim]

I have no idea since Jesus is likely a figment of man's imagination. ()

which brings us to the million dollar question, who made the magic sky fairy that made us?

 

[zinfamous]

The rate doesn't have to be even I agree, but there should be far more transitional stages in the fossil record before the cambrian explosion.

We're talking billions of years here, yet the fossil record doesn't indicate any sort of major or minor transitional changes that occurred during the time before the cambrian era.

why should there be?

do you even understand what has to occur for a fossil to even exist?

DO you think that there is some fossil store, or depository out there where all organisms that have ever existed are conveniently and perfectly preserved in the proper strata for us to examine?

 

[Ophir]

So if life first appeared on Earth 3 or 4 billion years ago, why isn't there a gradual increase in complexity such as what darwinian evolution would predict?

Instead, we have a massive leap in evolution during a period of time that is relatively short compared to the amount of time life has existed on Earth.



One human generation = about one million bacterial generations, yet despite Scientists trying their best to provoke evolution in such creatures using methods like irradiation and who knows what else over the course of numerous decades, they still haven't succeeded in making bacteria anything other than what they already were.

There's a reason for that: they haven't been trying. One of the basic tenets of evolution is mutation driven by natural selection and COMPETITION. There is no competition when working on pure strains of organisms in tightly controlled conditions. Competition would be provided by a heterogenous mix of species competing for an energy source, such as in the digestive system.

Such a system is first off extremely difficult to study from a proteomic and genomic perspective. Second, if you're a biologist/biochemist studying the function, origin, nature, etc. of the flagellum you're studying pure strains of salmonella. Not only would contaminant strains introduce difficulty in your studies, it would invalidate them as your experiment is uncontrolled. That's why they're called contaminants. There's a reason why we go to such painstaking measures to maintain a sterile environment and use aseptic technique.

 

[Malfeas]

Despite having a decent vocabulary and use of grammar, you are an idiot.

 

[Carfax83]

Still the same creationist tripe. It still doesn't address the main issues that everyone has brought up already; that flagellar proteins need not have been evolved solely for flagellar purposes; and that not all of them are necessary for function, since even crude motility is better than no motility for a bacterium.

You're seemingly contradicting yourself here. Why would natural selection choose parts that weren't already well ordered, and completely functional?

Crude motility just wouldn't cut I think, nor half measures, and as the article I linked to states, "untimely expression of flagellum proteins may induce a strong immune response in the host system, something no bacterium wants to do."

So there is an evolutionary reason behind the tight and well ordered regulation of bacterial flagella.. If you read about the nature of the flagellum and how complex and well regulated their synthesis is, it's inconceivable that an unintelligent process such as random mutation could be responsible for their making.

First off, random mutation relies on slight, successive modifications OVER TIME, as well as probability in combination with natural selection. How could a random process create such an elaborate system, where in even the slightest mistakes results in a complete and utter failure?

Natural selection wouldn't choose half functional proteins that didn't work properly, and endangered the existence of the organism? It wouldn't allow the genes responsible for such to pass a long to future generations..

So therefore, how could random mutation, a system that relies on slight, numerous, successive changes be responsible for bacterial flagellum?

Note that the Cambrian explosion does not necessitate the complete evolution of all that life. All it requires is the evolution and spread of something that makes these organisms apparent in the fossil record.

But why did all these organisms appear suddenly during the Cambrian period? What about all the billions of years before the Cambrian period, when Life was already present on Earth?

Your painstaking differentiation is strange. Because not even Judge Jones, given the best evidence that "intelligent design" proponents could give in a court of law, could tell the difference between creationism and intelligent design. If you really aren't Christian, you're fooling yourself. Plain and simple.

The difference between ID and creationism is quite plain and easy to understand.. Also, you have no idea who I am or what my beliefs are, yet you're telling me I'm fooling myself by not calling myself a Christian?

Thats a remarkable statement. I'm the World's foremost expert on myself, and I'm telling you that I'm not a Christian.

Fact.. Not everyone that believes in God/Supreme Being/Creator is a Christian.

Fact.. Not everyone that believes in Intelligent Design belongs to, or has to belong to a religious group or denomination.

Do you disagree with any of the above? If so, I'd like to see how you explain the concept of Deism.

 

[Ophir]

While I have no formal training/education in genetics, I can still form an opinion, and I respect that you seem to know more about this subject than I do.

However, your explanation about the genes used to make flagella mirrors the supposed rebukes of Behe's ID that I've read, in that it side steps or glosses over the fundamental difficulties involved in explaining how evolution could create such parts via numerous, slight, successive changes over long periods of time.

This is a very recent article in which the author attempts to show why Behe hasn't been refuted on the flagella.

It's rather technical in nature, but perhaps you could fully understand it.

Irreducible complexity is an asinine argument with which to try to refute evolution with. Just because a system is completely dependent on the sum of its parts, doesn't mean it couldn't have been achieve through iteration. Let me give you a simple example: picture a jenga tower that is perfectly built. Every block except those that are necessary for support have been removed and the tower is "perfectly" tall. This tower now can no longer support the elimination of any further bricks, that would cause failure. That system is irreducibly complex; however, it doesn't mean it wasn't able to be assembled, or created from less complex parts.

To take this argument to the flagellum structure, just because the system is now "perfect" doesn't mean it always was. The system that is now created by 60 genes working in perfect harmony doesn't mean that it wasn't created from a system of 100 genes working in imperfect harmony. Eventually, though EVOLUTION, the system was refined to what it is now. Why? Because that is beneficial to the organism and its decendants.

Systems working in discord or composed of superfluous parts are rampant in the whole of biology, they are the norm. Why weren't they intelligently designed?

 

[Gibsons]

I've found that things are not always as simple as they appear, and that darwinian evolutions have a tendency to trivialize things. You offer a simple and generalized explanation, but I can't help but think why it wouldn't occur to Behe (and many others) who has a PhD in Molecular Biology that it really is as simple as it appears to be.

I also have a PhD in molecular biology. I can't explain Behe's idiocy, however. I've read one of his arguments against evolution in an area I have some specialty in (immunology), and was simply aghast at its stupidity. I couldn't decide if he was really that stupid, or just blinded by his own biases, or just trying to make a buck by filling up a chapter in a book. Nonetheless, it's enough to consider him a fraud, now and forever. You just don't make a mistake that bad if you're interested in the truth.

I wonder how Jonathan M, the man who wrote that article would respond to your assertions.?

Don't know and don't care too much either. I wrote that for you, as you claimed to have little background.

Any way, the reason why your explanation doesn't make sense to me, is that it doesn't account for the fact that for mutation to be responsible for such an elaborate and well ordered system (if you read the article, synethesis of the flagellum is dependent on a "tightly ordered cascade in which expression of one gene at a given level requires the prior expression of another gene at a higher level") as bacterial flagella, all the right mutations (and none of the harmful ones) would have to occur at the same time without mistakes, instead of the numerous, slight successive changes ascribed to by darwinian evolution.

It's not my specialty, but I've got a pretty good background in bacterial transcriptional regulation. You're wrong about how it "had" to evolve. There's nothing about sigma factors that is outlawed by a darwinian theory. Despite what the article is telling you, sigma factors aren't strictly necessary for transcription in bacteria. Really. They're pretty close to it now, but not completely. They help and it's pretty easy to see how RNA polymerase became (mostly) dependent on them - it's pretty much a specific example of my previous post.

Natural selection would not select parts/components that weren't already well connected and regulated now would it?

"Well connected?" WTF does that even mean?

The reality is that the connection only has to be "good enough," and the molecular connections involved in regulatory processes are usually not very strong by objective standards.

Especially when according to the article, "untimely expression of flagellum proteins may induce a strong immune response in the host system, something no bacterium wants to do."

idiocy of the highest order. There are many many bacteria that don't live in a host, thus an immune response is irrelevant. Flagella existed before there were hosts with immune systems to recognize, so irrelevant in the general context of how they came to be. There are bacteria that have regulated and specific means to deliberately induce strong immune responses, thus the entire argument is based on a false premise. You're quoting a moron.

So for darwinian evolution to create bacterial flagella the way you explain it, would require it to not be subject to chance or random probability.

No.

 

[Carfax83]

Strawman. Again, there's no reason for the apparent record to show a linear or smooth increase in complexity. There's no reason from theory to assume that the actual increase in complexity should be linear or smooth.

I would disagree that there isn't a reason. For darwinian evolution to work with it's numerous, slight, gradual and successive changes, very large time scales (much larger than 10 million years) are required otherwise the probability obstacle cannot be overcome.

If massive leaps in evolution occur over a small amount of time, then the case for random mutation being the underlying cause of evolution diminishes, because random mutation is fundamentally an unintelligent process that relies on brute probability.

This is why the Cambrian explosion is used by ID proponents in their arguements, because it shows that evolution doesn't necessarily rely on large time scales to do it's work. Massive jumps can occur in short periods of time, which to me, contradicts the gradual and successive nature of darwinian evolution.

You're demanding that labs growing around 10e7 or so bacteria per generation, in under 10e2 years, should do something similar to what was seen in I dunno, 10e21 organisms, in hugely diverse niches, at a time span well over 10e7? You're really trying to make a direct comparison between these two things?

No, I'm just saying that I find it funny that even after millions of generations of bactera, Scientists still can't get them to mutate into anything other than a bacteria.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

You're seemingly contradicting yourself here. Why would natural selection choose parts that weren't already well ordered, and completely functional?

Why wouldn't it? Nirvana fallacy.

Crude motility just wouldn't cut I think, nor half measures, and as the article I linked to states, "untimely expression of flagellum proteins may induce a strong immune response in the host system, something no bacterium wants to do."

Bacteria have no immune system. They have enzymes that protect against viral infection, but that is no immune system. And it does not do anything to actual proteins.

Oh, and also: argument from ignorance

So there is an evolutionary reason behind the tight and well ordered regulation of bacterial flagella.. If you read about the nature of the flagellum and how complex and well regulated their synthesis is, it's inconceivable that an unintelligent process such as random mutation could be responsible for their making.

Argument from personal incredulity.

First off, random mutation relies on slight, successive modifications OVER TIME, as well as probability in combination with natural selection. How could a random process create such an elaborate system, where in even the slightest mistakes results in a complete and utter failure?

Where on earth did you get the idea that random mutations needed to be slight? And where did you get the idea that the phenotypic changes produced by even slight modifications needed to be slight?

Maybe you should get a greater understanding of regulatory mechanisms in embryology.

Natural selection wouldn't choose half functional proteins that didn't work properly, and endangered the existence of the organism? It wouldn't allow the genes responsible for such to pass a long to future generations..

Half-function is better than no function. That is all that is relevant. Nirvana fallacy. Again. It's like saying that because cars are less efficient than teleportation we should all abandon our vehicles and just walk everywhere.

But why did all these organisms appear suddenly during the Cambrian period? What about all the billions of years before the Cambrian period, when Life was already present on Earth?

Why not?

The difference between ID and creationism is quite plain and easy to understand.. Also, you have no idea who I am or what my beliefs are, yet you're telling me I'm fooling myself by not calling myself a Christian?

c.f. Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover Area School District.

Thats a remarkable statement. I'm the World's foremost expert on myself, and I'm telling you that I'm not a Christian.

In some aspects...yes. In other aspects...nowhere near close. And yes, you're fooling yourself. Because in terms of detail, creationism is just another creation myth. Pure and simple. You don't have to be Christian to believe in a creation myth. But tagging yourself onto a Christian ideology because you don't have the education necessarily to critically appraise the literature on a scientific theory...that is dumb.

 

[Gibsons]

I have no idea since Jesus is likely a figment of man's imagination. ()

As an atheist/agnostic, I have little doubt that Jesus existed. I don't think he was a zombie or that his mother was a virgin though.

 

[Ophir]

You're seemingly contradicting yourself here. Why would natural selection choose parts that weren't already well ordered, and completely functional?

Umm... because, it's not intelligent. It's spontaneous, mutation driven.

Crude motility just wouldn't cut I think, nor half measures, and as the article I linked to states, "untimely expression of flagellum proteins MAY induce a strong immune response in the host system, something no bacterium wants to do."

You did read the word may, right?

So there is an evolutionary reason behind the tight and well ordered regulation of bacterial flagella.. If you read about the nature of the flagellum and how complex and well regulated their synthesis is, it's inconceivable that an unintelligent process such as random mutation could be responsible for their making.

Inconcievable to you and that "scientist" who likes to use big mol bio words, maybe. Apparently not to many people in this thread or in the scientific community.

Natural selection wouldn't choose half functional proteins that didn't work properly, and endangered the existence of the organism? It wouldn't allow the genes responsible for such to pass a long to future generations..

Yes it does, all the damn time. You're telling me that genetic diseases don't get passed from parent to child? Look up cystic fibrosis.

 

[Mark R]

Yes it does, all the damn time. You're telling me that genetic diseases don't get passed from parent to child? Look up cystic fibrosis.

His point was that if a genetic disease caused nothing but disease, it would disappear rapidly, because of natural selection. This is correct.

So, why then, are some genetic disorders so common - e.g. cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and many others? For example, in Europe, about 6% of people carry the cystic fibrosis gene.

The answer is because most of these genetic disorders come from total loss of the gene - higher organisms, have a 2nd copy of the gene (1 from each parent). If one if faulty, in some cases, the other copy is sufficient for health.

If the loss of one copy caused no effect, you would still expect the faulty gene to disappear, but very slowly. But, what if having one copy of the 'faulty' gene was advantageous? This would provide natural selective pressure to keep the gene in the population. So, do these genes like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell confer an advantage, if present together a normal backup copy?

The answer is yes. Diarrhea is one of the most common causes of death in the world. The cystic fibrosis gene, when working correctly, is used for pumping fluid from the blood into body cavities (like the intestines) and elsewhere (sweat). People with one faulty copy are therefore expected to get less severe diarrhea, particularly if they get a severe infection, like cholera (where cholera toxin blocks the normal control system that regulate fluid pumping into the intestine, causing the body's fluid pump systems to run maxed out and causing severe dehydration). Similarly, the sickle cell gene is a faulty form of hemoglobin. With 2 dud copies, the blood cells are severely defective. However, with 1 dud, they aren't too bad - except, when they get infected with malaria parasites, where the small concentration of dud hemoglobin is toxic to the parasites, and the presence of the gene is therefore strongly favored by natural selection - even if someone unfortunate to inherit 2 defective copies of the gene is extremely unfit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Reading this thread is like listening to old cranky grannies at the old age home arguing about why that last bingo game was not fair.

 

[SSSnail]

I'm sorry, but I have to break my silence reading this thread. I wasn't going to post anymore, but alas, I had to say something.

I've read all the pages and it seems that carfax brought up a point that nobody seem to have sufficiently addressed - which is why all of a sudden shits are everywhere. Well, allow me.

Environmental changes.

Yes, it could be that for the umpty million of years prior to the period that you referred to, complex life wasn't possible due to the environment being not supportive of such life. Then, some shits happened, that made the environment more favorable to allow for faster and mo better shits to evolutionacate. Thus, buncha stuff spawned seemingly at the same time, in the grand scheme of things. In short, they haxed.

It's not a linear equation, but it's a better equation than some dude that's intelligent enough to have designed all this flawed shits you see here today.

 

[Ophir]

His point was that if a genetic disease caused nothing but disease, it would disappear rapidly, because of natural selection. This is correct.

So, why then, are some genetic disorders so common - e.g. cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and many others? For example, in Europe, about 6% of people carry the cystic fibrosis gene.

The answer is because most of these genetic disorders come from total loss of the gene - higher organisms, have a 2nd copy of the gene (1 from each parent). If one if faulty, in some cases, the other copy is sufficient for health.

If the loss of one copy caused no effect, you would still expect the faulty gene to disappear, but very slowly. But, what if having one copy of the 'faulty' gene was advantageous? This would provide natural selective pressure to keep the gene in the population. So, do these genes like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell confer an advantage, if present together a normal backup copy?

The answer is yes. Diarrhea is one of the most common causes of death in the world. The cystic fibrosis gene, when working correctly, is used for pumping fluid from the blood into body cavities (like the intestines) and elsewhere (sweat). People with one faulty copy are therefore expected to get less severe diarrhea, particularly if they get a severe infection, like cholera (where cholera toxin blocks the normal control system that regulate fluid pumping into the intestine, causing the body's fluid pump systems to run maxed out and causing severe dehydration). Similarly, the sickle cell gene is a faulty form of hemoglobin. With 2 dud copies, the blood cells are severely defective. However, with 1 dud, they aren't too bad - except, when they get infected with malaria parasites, where the small concentration of dud hemoglobin is toxic to the parasites, and the presence of the gene is therefore strongly favored by natural selection - even if someone unfortunate to inherit 2 defective copies of the gene is extremely unfit.

Yes, thank you for the refresher of bio 101. CF and sickle cell anemia are shown benefits of the heterozygote advantage; however, my point in the context of refuting his arguement is that let's say tomorrow malaria was eradicated somehow, 1000 years from now, the sickle cell anemia allele would continue to pass on and its carriers would continue to express less than functional - or "half functional" to use his wording - hemoglobin. According to his faulty understanding of natural selection this wouldn't be possible, which is wrong.

 

[911paramedic]

I have no idea since Jesus is likely a figment of man's imagination. ()

Aren't you worried about going to hell for saying something like that? I'm pretty sure that's against your rules.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

His point was that if a genetic disease caused nothing but disease, it would disappear rapidly, because of natural selection. This is correct.

So, why then, are some genetic disorders so common - e.g. cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and many others? For example, in Europe, about 6% of people carry the cystic fibrosis gene.

The answer is because most of these genetic disorders come from total loss of the gene - higher organisms, have a 2nd copy of the gene (1 from each parent). If one if faulty, in some cases, the other copy is sufficient for health.

If the loss of one copy caused no effect, you would still expect the faulty gene to disappear, but very slowly. But, what if having one copy of the 'faulty' gene was advantageous? This would provide natural selective pressure to keep the gene in the population. So, do these genes like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell confer an advantage, if present together a normal backup copy?

The answer is yes. Diarrhea is one of the most common causes of death in the world. The cystic fibrosis gene, when working correctly, is used for pumping fluid from the blood into body cavities (like the intestines) and elsewhere (sweat). People with one faulty copy are therefore expected to get less severe diarrhea, particularly if they get a severe infection, like cholera (where cholera toxin blocks the normal control system that regulate fluid pumping into the intestine, causing the body's fluid pump systems to run maxed out and causing severe dehydration). Similarly, the sickle cell gene is a faulty form of hemoglobin. With 2 dud copies, the blood cells are severely defective. However, with 1 dud, they aren't too bad - except, when they get infected with malaria parasites, where the small concentration of dud hemoglobin is toxic to the parasites, and the presence of the gene is therefore strongly favored by natural selection - even if someone unfortunate to inherit 2 defective copies of the gene is extremely unfit.

...and the point of Ophir's (and my) argument is that even half-functional proteins confer some advantage to an organism compared to no protein at all.

 

[911paramedic]

SSSnail
Lifer


Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Under a bridge
Posts: 10,001

Oh man 10,001 posts, you became a lifer in this thread! Does that mean you were born again? lol

 

[Gibsons]

...and the point of Ophir's (and my) argument is that even half-functional proteins confer some advantage to an organism compared to no protein at all.

How this point can be disputed or ignored is mind boggling.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Reading this thread is like listening to old cranky grannies at the old age home arguing about why that last bingo game was not fair.

So what did that make your thread where you ran off crying?

 

[jman19]

Hi PJW. Up to your old bullshit I see.

 

[Kev]

The point is, the abruptness of the appearance. The cambrian explosion took place approximately 530 million of years ago. According to neo darwinian evolutionists, life first appeared on the planet approximately 3 to 4 billion years ago.

So there is an inordinate amount of time for life to evolve during that time, however the fossil records indicate that complex life forms akin to what we see today first appeared during the cambrian explosion.

So if darwinian evolution relies on slight, successive, numerous modifications occurring over lengthy periods of time, why is there such a massive gap in the fossil records?

I mean, we're talking about billions of years here..

I guess a magic invisible man in the sky must have done it all then.

 

[Iron Woode]

The rate doesn't have to be even I agree, but there should be far more transitional stages in the fossil record before the cambrian explosion.

We're talking billions of years here, yet the fossil record doesn't indicate any sort of major or minor transitional changes that occurred during the time before the cambrian era.

I have been waiting for this one.

there is very little precambrian rock left. On average about 10% of life gets fossilized. Very few fossils have been found precambrian for those same reasons.

All fossils are transitional fossils as life constantly adapts and changes over time.