Experiment on Natural Selection
Zoe
would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
intelligence.
In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
this forum…..
Come on now, don't be backing away already.
…..and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
your position on natural selection.
Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
today.
I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
proteins.
It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
always combine in one and only one way.
Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins. In
order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
proposing must have happened. I do not want this to be a strawman
experiment; therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
the following:
Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
copies of the original to be made. Is there some other way? Clearly,
the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system. The most
that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith…faith in
a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
again.
And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
does not belong in the field of science.
So….here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
Sam
news:s15v83heeupd97kvt...@4ax.com...
> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
>
> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>
> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> again.
>
> And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> does not belong in the field of science.
>
> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
> elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
> might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
encompasss.
Chemically there are laws concerning how different element combine to form
various compounds involving straight forward physics. This is why in DNA
adenine only bonds with thymine and guanine only bonds with cytosine.
Inez
> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
>
> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>
> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> your position on natural selection.
>
> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> forms.
...from "old" lifeforms. The origin of life from non-life is a
different matter.
> And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> today.
>
> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> proteins.
>
> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> together in one and only one combination.
This is incorrect, and would be correct only if there were only one
possible condition for these elements to exist in.
> The variety of combinations
> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> always combine in one and only one way.
The fact that we have chemicals today that react to form different
compouds proves you wrong to a degree you should really feel some
embarrassment about.
Ernest Major
<muz...@aol.com> writes
>Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
>would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>intelligence.
>
>In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>this forum…..
You're welcome(ish) to talk about origins, but when by origins you mean
abiogenesis, it's misleading to write about testing the methodology (I
think you mean mechanism) of evolution.
>
>Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
>…..and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>evolution.
Apparently you don't because your material below is about abiogenesis,
not evolution.
> But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>your position on natural selection.
Apparently you don't because your material below is about abiogenesis,
not evolution.
>
>Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
>ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
>today.
You're wrong. You should be aware of the distinction between abiogenesis
and evolution. The theory of evolution is an explanation for the
diversity and disparity of life on Earth; it is independent of how the
first life appeared.
>
>I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
>objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
>elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
>abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
>In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
>together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
>acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
>proteins.
>
>It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
>governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
>for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
>together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
>is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
>always combine in one and only one way.
You're wrong again, in at least two ways. Firstly an equilibrium state
need not be (usually isn't) composed of a single compound. Second the
equilibrium state depends on many different variables, including the
concentrations of the elements, the temperature and the pressure.
>
>Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
>of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins. In
>order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
>proposing must have happened. I do not want this to be a strawman
>experiment; therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
>the following:
>
>Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
>demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
>themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
>ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
>a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
>copies of the original to be made. Is there some other way? Clearly,
>the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system. The most
>that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
>elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
>operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
The consensus is that proteins were a late addition during the process
of abiogenesis (or perhaps post-abiogenesis). You're attacking a
straw-man.
>
>Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
>somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith…faith in
>a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
>self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
>again.
>
>And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
>did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
>does not belong in the field of science.
>
>So….here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
>how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
>elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
>might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
>contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
>experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
>answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
>
Natural selection (differential reproductive success) is a process that
contributes to the evolution of life forms. We don't know how
abiogenesis happened, but we're pretty sure that it didn't happen via
mutation and natural selection working on a pool of proteins.
--
alias Ernest Major
geo...@hotmail.com
> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
>
> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>
> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> your position on natural selection.
>
> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
Dear creationists and antievolutionists.
abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
Thank you for your time.
> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> today.
>
> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> In the evolutionary
abiogenetic
> scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> proteins.
Bollocks. Can you believe people are still trying the bogus tornado in
a junkyard strawman? I suppose it doesn't help when Dembski, the Isaac
Newton of creationism/intelligent design/intelligent mutation/
intelligent evolution/well, SOMETHING'S gotta be up with evolution,
does it himself.
Talk Origins has a fascinating article describing various hypotheses
of abiogenesis.
>
> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> always combine in one and only one way.
Zoe, try baking a cake at different temperatures and see if the
ingredients always combine in one and only one way.
>
> Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
> of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins. In
> order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
> proposing must have happened.
Evolutionists are proposing that there is a colossal amount of
evidence that all life is related by common descent, which therefore
implies there must have been one lifeform which is the ancestor of all
life today. Evolutionists do not care whether this life formed by
chance, by some odd series of chemical processes, or whether a sky-
fairy made it from dirt.
> I do not want this to be a strawman
> experiment;
Too late!
> therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
> the following:
>
> Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
> demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
> themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
> ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
> a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
> copies of the original to be made.
Currently, the best avenue seems to be self-replicating molecules. You
probably know, for example, that DNA can replicate by tearing itself
into two and each half regaining a complementary strand from outside.
This is why, I think, the RNA world scenario is so popular, although I
don't fully know the chemistry of it.
I'm not sure why you feel a reproductive system is needed; do bacteria
have them?
> Is there some other way? Clearly,
> the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system. The most
> that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
> elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
> operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
You're a bit hung up on your strawman, inadvertent or otherwise, of
the need for a reproductive system. The article on Origin of Life at
t.o has the following hypothesis; self-replicating molecules
surrounded by bubbles of fatty acids. The larger the molecule, the
more fat it can obtain, thus competing with smaller self-replicators.
Errors in replication may lead to advantages which can be selected
for.
>
> Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith...faith in
> a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> again.
Zoe, how long do you think a primordial blob would last in today's
modern, hectic times?
>
> And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> does not belong in the field of science.
Then it's lucky that we don't do this, but unlucky for ID people who
make that exact argument in reverse.
>
> So....here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
> elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
> might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
Can you arrange your cylinders into self-replicating forms, is the
replication imperfect, and are there criteria which will improve the
success of particular arrangements? That's all you need.
backspace
> Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
> life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
> attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
> encompasss.
not concerned or more specifically who is this author that is not
"concerned"?
backspace
> Natural selection (differential reproductive success) is a process that
intent with Natural Selection.
> contributes to the evolution of life forms.
This word "evolution" is it now the Robert Sapolsky version or who's
version. Is it progressive, stasis? What is your intent with
"evolution". Do you wish me to visualize a from morphing into a donkey
or some other species transmutating as Darwin put it into another?
> We don't know how
> abiogenesis happened, but we're pretty sure that it didn't happen via
> mutation and natural selection working on a pool of proteins.
Might that be because a pool of proteins didn't exist from eternity?
Will in New Haven
When one is explaining one thing it is not required that ones
explanation encompasses everything else. Abiogenisis is not explained
by evolution. Evolution also doesn't cover the debate over the
Designated Hitter or have anything to say about the extra (missing/
dark) matter in the universe.
If you asked me how to get to Park Street I would not need to tell you
where it was in relation to the Lesser Magelenic Cloud.
By the way, did you major in stupid questions and inane remarks?
Or are you just naturally gifted?
Will in New Haven
--
"I have seen the David, seen the Mona Lisa too
And I have heard Doc Watson play Columbus Stockade Blues"
Guy Clark - "Dublin Blues"
Ernest Major
backspace <sawirel...@yahoo.com> writes
>> We don't know how
>> abiogenesis happened, but we're pretty sure that it didn't happen via
>> mutation and natural selection working on a pool of proteins.
>Might that be because a pool of proteins didn't exist from eternity?
No. Your question appears to betoken confusion (or insincerity).
We're pretty sure that abiogenesis happened because those parts of the
universe causally connected to the Earth were once incapable of
supporting life (at least as we known it).
We're pretty sure that it didn't happen by mutation and natural
selection working on a pool of proteins because the current genetic
material is DNA, because of the evidence for an earlier RNA world, and
because of the lack of an identified mechanism for replication of
proteins within a pool of proteins, inter alia.
--
alias Ernest Major
T Pagano
>Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
There are no such laws as far as we know. This demonstrates that Zoe
never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
the Behe-Dembski theory.
STRIKE ONE.
>it
>would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>intelligence.
Intelliigent design and natural selection are not mutually exclusive
as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
STRIKE TWO.
>
>In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>this forum…..
>
>Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
>…..and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>your position on natural selection.
>
>Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
>ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
>today.
Both Darwin and his neoDarwinian reformers required as an initial
condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
first common ancestor. Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
is a failure---Abiogenesis.
STRIKE THREE.
Since the ground work for the remainder of Zoe's argument is false
there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
>
>I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
>objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
>elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
>abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
>In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
>together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
>acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
>proteins.
Again evidence that Zoe hasn't done the requiste study. Purely
naturalistic theories explaining the emergence of life have run into
serious problems whether they assume Oxygen was in abundance or not on
some prebiotic earth---caught between the proverbial rock and a hard
place.
>
>It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
>governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
>for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
>together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
>is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
>always combine in one and only one way.
It's getting harder and harder to take Zoe seriously. He can suspend
the laws of nature whenever necessary to justify his metaphysical
world view of nature. Yet the atheist accuses the supernaturalist of
running afoul over this very thing when supernatural forces are
introduced.
As an aside not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of supernatural
forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any natural law.
Anyone think we need to read further?
Regards,
T Pagano
Slimebot McGoo
>Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence
...you should discard your presumptions.
McGoo
Perplexed in Peoria
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
>
> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>
> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> your position on natural selection.
>
> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> forms.
I'm not sure what you mean here by 'new life forms'. I would say that
selection of beneficial mutations is the key to the evolution of new
adaptive features by existing life forms.
> And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
Some people make that jump. I don't. We don't really know how life first
arose. We don't know the process. Some people guess that it was a
vaguely evolutionary process, involving a vague form of Darwinism, but
that is only a guess. Clearly, it wasn't exactly the same mechanism that
is in operation today, but there may be some similarities between that
process and this process. It is a reasonable guess.
> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> today.
As I state above, it wasn't exactly the same mechanism.
> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> proteins.
That sounds a bit like *one* scenario that has been proposed for
abiogenesis. Not the one I would favor, though.
> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> always combine in one and only one way.
You have a very cartoonish picture of how chemical law works. In fact,
chemical law works the same today as it always has. And it has always
permitted a (random) variety of results. The chemical laws simply
impose a kind of preference system on the results - a quantifiable
preference system so that we can say that with these inputs, the results
will be 90% this and 10% that. That is how chemical law works.
> Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
> of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins. In
> order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
> proposing must have happened. I do not want this to be a strawman
> experiment; therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
> the following:
>
> Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
> demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
> themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
> ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
> a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
> copies of the original to be made. Is there some other way? Clearly,
> the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system. The most
> that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
> elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
> operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
You are correct. It doesn't. And no one has come up with a hypothetical
mechanism "by which it can be demonstrated".
> Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
> a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> again.
I personally don't find your charge that this is somehow 'faith-based'
to be too unfair. I expect other people will object, though.
> And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> does not belong in the field of science.
Perhaps, if that word 'definitely' is really there in the answer and is
not just something Zoe stuck in to make the answer seem more ridiculous
than it really is.
> So..here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
> elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
> might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
You should probably throw out the potential *thought* experiment as a
futile attempt to *refute* naturalistic abiogenesis. Futile simply
because there is no falsifiable hypothesis to refute yet. And also
because your model of chemistry is too simplistic even if there
were a good hypothesis available to attack.
geo...@hotmail.com
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
> There are no such laws as far as we know. This demonstrates that Zoe
> never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
> canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
> the Behe-Dembski theory.
You haven't heard Zoe's laws of intelligence, Tony? She's talking
about a hypothesis of her own, not ID. I'd like to add that clearly
Dembski thinks there ARE laws involving intelligence, as he implies
that intelligence is quantifiable (he strongly implies that only
intelligence can cause irreducible complexity, but has not yet been
able to say why).
[snip]
backspace
wrote:
> On Jul 7, 11:34 am, backspace <sawireless2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 7, 5:03 pm, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:> Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
> > > life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
> > > attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
> > > encompasss.
>
> > Really says who. Where was it established and by whom that the ToE is
> > not concerned or more specifically who is this author that is not
> > "concerned"?
>
> When one is explaining one thing it is not required that ones
> explanation encompasses everything else. Abiogenisis is not explained
> by evolution.
Again may I humbly ask says who? Who says abiogenesis is not related
to "evolution" whatever is your intent with the word. Darwin's intent
was the slow gradual transmutation (nothing to do with genes) of one
species into another.
Now obviously the question is what came before this very first common
ancestor. So who says established where that abiogenesis is not part
of the debate - by what decree was this formalised?
Boikat
"backspace" <sawirel...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1183822453.9...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 7, 5:03 pm, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:
> > Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
> > life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You
are
> > attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
> > encompasss.
> Really says who.
Those who actually understand the subject.
> Where was it established and by whom that the ToE is
> not concerned
With abiogenesis? The origin of life is not important to the Theory of
Evolution. It does not matter how life emerged or arrived on Earth.
Evolution only deals with the diversificatin of life.
> or more specifically who is this author that is not
> "concerned"?
Who is the aurthor that presumes to question what the author was stating?
If you want to play word games, I suggest a "scrabble" news group. If you
want to second guess everything that anyone writes, I suggest "killfile",
since you're just wasting your time with pointless baffoonery.
Boikat
--
"Krrrrriptonite!"
Lex Luthor
>
>
Boikat
"T Pagano" <not....@address.net> wrote in message
news:apagano-toav83db0u75v...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
> There are no such laws as far as we know. This demonstrates that Zoe
> never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
> canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
> the Behe-Dembski theory.
>
> STRIKE ONE.
You tell 'em Tony!
>
> >it
> >would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> >beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> >intelligence.
>
> Intelliigent design and natural selection are not mutually exclusive
> as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
> Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
>
> STRIKE TWO.
Atta boy Tony! You go ahead ans set her straight on that. it's something
the "evolutionists" have been telling her all along. Maybe she will listen
to you.
>
> >
> >In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
> >this forum...
> >
> >Come on now, don't be backing away already.
> >
> >...and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
> >evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> >your position on natural selection.
> >
> >Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> >mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> >forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> >is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> >time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> >that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> >This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> >ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> >today.
>
> Both Darwin and his neoDarwinian reformers required as an initial
> condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
> of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
> first common ancestor. Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
> what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
>
> The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
> emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
> is a failure---Abiogenesis.
>
> STRIKE THREE.
The first part is okay, and something many cretiniods fail to grasp, however
your claim that abiogenesis has been stagnated for the past 50 years and is
a 'falure' is simply wrong. You are still hung up on the idea that since
abiogenesis has not been replicated, it's a failure, rather than an on-going
area of research. That's like claiming that areodynamics was a failure
prior to the invention of the first glider.
>
> Since the ground work for the remainder of Zoe's argument is false
> there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
> anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
<snip>
I'd rather savor the irony.
Inez
> On Jul 7, 5:46 pm, Will in New Haven <bill.re...@taylorandfrancis.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 7, 11:34 am, backspace <sawireless2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jul 7, 5:03 pm, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:> Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
> > > > life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
> > > > attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
> > > > encompasss.
>
> > > Really says who. Where was it established and by whom that the ToE is
> > > not concerned or more specifically who is this author that is not
> > > "concerned"?
>
> > When one is explaining one thing it is not required that ones
> > explanation encompasses everything else. Abiogenisis is not explained
> > by evolution.
>
> Again may I humbly ask says who? Who says abiogenesis is not related
> to "evolution" whatever is your intent with the word.
Who says a bird is not a cloud? Hint- you don't have to say it, it's
understood by the sort of folks who understand things because the
words mean different things.
Will in New Haven
Abiogenisis is part of the general question about why life exists as
it does. It is simply not the part that is addressed by the theory of
evolution.'
You fucking moron.
Will in New Haven
Not abusive enough. He isn't here for arguments. He is here for being
hit on the head lessons.
Of course, you are actually pointing out that he is an imbecile but
you are being much too subtle.
Whack him.
wf...@comcast.net
<sawirel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Jul 7, 5:46 pm, Will in New Haven <bill.re...@taylorandfrancis.com>
>wrote:
>> On Jul 7, 11:34 am, backspace <sawireless2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Jul 7, 5:03 pm, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:> Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
>> > > life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
>> > > attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
>> > > encompasss.
>>
>> > Really says who. Where was it established and by whom that the ToE is
>> > not concerned or more specifically who is this author that is not
>> > "concerned"?
>>
>> When one is explaining one thing it is not required that ones
>> explanation encompasses everything else. Abiogenisis is not explained
>> by evolution.
>
>Again may I humbly ask says who? Who says abiogenesis is not related
>to "evolution" whatever is your intent with the word.
who says atoms are the smallest particles of elements?
Darwin's intent
>was the slow gradual transmutation (nothing to do with genes) of one
>species into another.
>Now obviously the question is what came before this very first common
>ancestor. So who says established where that abiogenesis is not part
>of the debate - by what decree was this formalised?
uh...logic? evolution, by definition, is change. abiogenesis is a
start. different words, different concepts. you, above all, with your
convoluted concepts of language should appreciate that words have
meaning.
wf...@comcast.net
wrote:
>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
>There are no such laws as far as we know. \\
so much for 'intelligent design'. if there are no laws regarding
intelligence, how do we ever know ID is valid?
>
>Both Darwin and his neoDarwinian reformers required as an initial
>condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
>of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
>first common ancestor.
uh...wrong. all they require is what's see. life. period. we see
evidence of life in the fossil record. we see change in the fossil
record.
we don't know WHAT the first ancestor was, nor is that info required
for evolution to work.
Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
>what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
>
>The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
>emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
>is a failure---Abiogenesis.
and so has a grand unified theory of physics...a failure for 100
years.
so i guess physics is wrong and we can replace it with 'god did it'
except THAT idea has been dead for 2000 years.
>
>
>Again evidence that Zoe hasn't done the requiste study. Purely
>naturalistic theories explaining the emergence of life have run into
>serious problems whether they assume Oxygen was in abundance or not on
>some prebiotic earth---caught between the proverbial rock and a hard
>place.
and 'god did it' as a 'theory'? you want a dead theory...no
development on THAT idea in 2000 years.
>
>>
>
>It's getting harder and harder to take Zoe seriously. He can suspend
>the laws of nature whenever necessary to justify his metaphysical
>world view of nature
and so can you, it seems.
. Yet the atheist accuses the supernaturalist of
>running afoul over this very thing when supernatural forces are
>introduced.
zoe, by the by...is a creationist. she's using creationist reasoning,
so to speak. IOW she's on YOUR side regarding the use of magical,
harry potter type rules of science.
>
>As an aside not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
>Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of supernatural
>forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any natural law.
that's the definition of supernatural, otherwise we wouldnt even KNOW
it WAS supernatural.
>
backspace
What Theory of Evolution? Remember Darwin used the phrase only once.
He had a conjecture yes, but the theory
is supposed to explain the conjecture in other words explain the
mechanism. Nobody has yet provided a mechanism as to how a dog went
through various morphological changes to turn into a whale. Infact
Scott was so stumped by the question as posed by Berlinski that she
said: "..... why do we assume the fossils is the only evidence for
evolution...?"
Inez
> > Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> > somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
> > a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> > self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> > again.
>
> I personally don't find your charge that this is somehow 'faith-based'
> to be too unfair. I expect other people will object, though.
My only objection happens on the next step, when the implication is
made that when complete evidence is lacking that all things that
people have faith in are equally likely.
> > And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> > did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> > does not belong in the field of science.
> Perhaps, if that word 'definitely' is really there in the answer and is
> not just something Zoe stuck in to make the answer seem more ridiculous
> than it really is.
I believe that Zoe's statement is unfair in another way as well. The
hypothesis she doesn't want excluded is that there was some sort of
intelligence before life existed. I don't see how science can be
expected to address the question at all unless she wants to be
specific about what they're trying to falsify. Was this intelligence
free floating? Was there an intelligent stone? "Intelligence did it"
isn't a question that one can sink one's teeth into.
mel turner
news:s15v83heeupd97kvt...@4ax.com...
Hi, Zoe. Nice to see you back.
> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations
And genetic drift, etc.
>- to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
Never mind that, the question is does it fit and explain the observed
biological reality or not? So far the answer is "yes".
> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
> this forum...
Origins of what, exactly? Natural selection is basically just about
the origin [and maintenance] of adaptative traits in organisms.
> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
Has anyone backed away?
> ...and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
> evolution.
That should be "mechanisms". Natural selection is only a part of it.
>But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> your position on natural selection.
Position? Selection happens whether we approve of it or not.
> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> forms.
You're likely wrong, at least in part. Natural selection is key to the
evolution of new functional features. If speciation is what you mean
by "new life forms", it doesn't necessarily have to involve any
selected changes [but then it can]. Geographic isolation of
populations and genetic drift within each population can be enough to
account for "new life forms" arising.
>And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
Well, that will be true by definition.
> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed,
No, it doesn't extend backwards in time past the existence of
reproducing organisms. [In principle, however, evolution by
natural selection would begin with any sort of imperfectly
self-replicating prebiotic system.]
>to conclude
> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
Again, it requires the existence of some sort of reproducing
organisms [or reproducing pre-organism equivalents].
> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> today.
Perhaps we should be talking about the _last_ common ancestor of all
currently-existing life? We can say a whole lot more about it than
your ill-defined "first common ancestor".
> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
Isn't that a reasonable assumption? How would the earth have acquired
them since?
> In the evolutionary scenario,
You keep talking about abiogenesis as though it were synonymous with
"evolution". They're separate topics. Even if the first life was
magically poofed into being by some deity [or planted by
superintelligent time travellers who wanted to seed the source of
their own existence, or whatever], it will have evolved ever since.
>these basic chemical elements came
> together in random combinations
Chemistry isn't random. It has rules.
>to form amino acids,
Amino acids aren't necessarily part of it.
>and the amino
> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> proteins.
Why assume that the first self-replicators even had proteins? They
might have come later.
> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> together in one and only one combination.
Non sequitur. Chemistry has indeed many "rules", but vast numbers
of different combinations are obviously possible under these rules.
>The variety of combinations
> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> always combine in one and only one way.
And so that's one unnecessary strawman disposed of.
> Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
> of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins.
Or some other chemicals besides proteins.
>In
> order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
> proposing must have happened.
Evolutionists don't actually have to propose anything at all about it.
It's abiogenesis, not evolution. As for abiogenesis, that is indeed
the right question to ask, and you probably should have asked it
before making assumptions about proteins, etc..
> I do not want this to be a strawman
> experiment; therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
> the following:
>
> Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
> demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
> themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
> ever-lengthening chain?
Do we even know that proteins were involved at the start?
As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
> a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
> copies of the original to be made. Is there some other way?
Perhaps some early molecule would act as a template for duplicating
itself, rather like the way that nucleic acids do?
>Clearly,
> the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system.
Are any modern proteins?
The most
> that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
> elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
> operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
Mutation and selection don't even enter the picture until some sort
of self-reproducing entities already exist. Once they do exist, the
rest pretty much follows.
> Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> somehow did,"
We do know that life did arise somehow. Whether it was created by some
sort of designer or other, or arose strictly naturally, it will have
evolved ever since it got here somehow.
>that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
> a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> again.
We don't actually know that abiogenesis happened only once. We just
know that there's no surviving evidence that we know of for any other
origins of life. After life as we know it became widespread, it makes
sense that any attempted newcomers would be become "food" before
they even got the chance to try.
> And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> did not do it,"
Why not "We don't know, yet, and neither does anybody else? Besides,
the 'ID' group not only doesn't know, it's not even trying to find
out."
>that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> does not belong in the field of science.
How about "we currently see no evidence that any 'intelligence did it',
and besides, no one has proposed any clear ideas about just how an
intelligent designer could or would do it, let alone come up with any
evidence that shows how one actually did do it."
And besides, why couldn't the IDer have used natural evolution?
> So..here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
> elements",
Again, natural selection doesn't even enter into it until you already
have self-reproducing systems. Nor does mutation, for that matter.
>hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
> might work on mutations
Mutations of what? Changes aren't "mutations" unless they are changes
to the genes [or the equivalent precursors of genes] of a
self-reproducer.
>in these combinations as they come into
> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
The first step will be to realize that you aren't even asking about
evolution, but about abiogenesis.
Are you perhaps tacitly conceding that mutation and natural selection
can take us the rest of the way from the first cellular life to
life's present diversity?
cheers
Slimebot McGoo
wrote:
>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>... not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
>Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of supernatural
>forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any natural law.
LOL (I'm crying on the inside). This is really stupid - although not
extraordinarily so for something a creationist said.
How is something "supernatural" if it doesn't transcend natural law?
How do we know something transcends natural law if it doesn't violate
it?
McGoo
chosp
"backspace" <sawirel...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1183822453.9...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
Charles Darwin. Origin of Species.
Read it.
Frank J
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
> There are no such laws as far as we know. This demonstrates that Zoe
> never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
> canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
> the Behe-Dembski theory.
>
> STRIKE ONE.
>
> >it
> >would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> >beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> >intelligence.
>
> Intelliigent design and natural selection are not mutually exclusive
> as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
> Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
>
> STRIKE TWO.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>
> >Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
Wow! A creationist criticizes another creationist! It must be 07-07-07
or something.
Thank God neither are pure IDers or it would really be the Twilight
Zone.
(snip)
Steven J.
>
Be nice to Zoe, Tony, or people will begin to think that you're a
rude, self-important crank with delusions of adequacy.
>
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
> There are no such laws as far as we know. This demonstrates that Zoe
> never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
> canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
> the Behe-Dembski theory.
>
recall) that Darwin is not regarded in evolutionary biology as a
prophet, nor does the field rest on his authority, and it would exist
had he never lived at all. Now, if ID is really a science, it would
be the same for Behe and Dembski: it would be irrelevant that some
idea had never been proposed by them. Is the idea supported by
evidence? Does it follow logically from the principles set forth by
Behe or Dembski, or, conversely, address a problem that their views
raise without solving? There are various points to criticize about
Zoe's proposed "laws of intelligence," but you haven't raised any of
these points.
>
> STRIKE ONE.
>
> >it
> >would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> >beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> >intelligence.
>
> Intelliigent design and natural selection are not mutually exclusive
> as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
> Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
>
(an "edge of evolution") to what natural selection can accomplish, and
that these limits fall far short of the adaptions we actually find in
nature. Certainly Behe insists that intelligent design and evolution
can coexist: he apparently accepts common descent. But he equally
insists that they are alternative and mutually exclusive explanations
for, e.g. the bacterial flagellum (or any adaption more complex than,
say, chloroquinine resistance in _Falciparium_). So, again, Zoe has
not said anything that contradicts the theory of intelligent design,
assuming such a thing exists to be contradicted.
>
> STRIKE TWO.
>
You're a very poor referee, Tony. Zoe, of course, is a fellow
creationist and Christian, anyway, so why are you not merely
"correcting" her for errors she isn't making, but doing it in the same
triumphant score-counting way you do when annoying "secularists?"
Have you decided to go harrass easier prey?
>
> >In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>
> >Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> >evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> >your position on natural selection.
>
> >Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> >mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> >forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> >is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> >time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> >that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> >This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> >ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> >today.
>
> Both Darwin and his neoDarwinian reformers required as an initial
> condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
> of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
> first common ancestor. Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
> what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
>
proposed that there may never have been a unique "first common
ancestor," but a sort of swarm of early life forms, promiscuously
trading genes and forming symbiotic unions, so that the roots of the
tree of life may be, in fact, a tangled network rather than a straight
lineage.
For that matter, since the distinction between "life" and "nonliving
matter" may be rather fuzzy (see, e.g. viruses which are usually
thought of as nonliving but are subject to natural selection) natural
selection may very well have operated in the late stages of
abiogenesis. Of course, "fully-functioning replicating machinery"
need not refer to cells; strands of RNA in a test tube (or a suitable
early-earth environment) might suffice under some conditions.
Certainly you're right that it's hard to imagine natural selection
operating without some sort of replicating molecular systems.
>
> The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
> emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
> is a failure---Abiogenesis.
>
Abiogenesis is a field of research, not a theory, any more than, say
"astronomy" or "solid-state physics" is a theory. There are not many
scientists involved in such research, and it is hardly lavishly
funded, but it has not "stagnated," and a number of experiments have
been done and several hypotheses proposed.
Side note: what sort of explanations other than "purely naturalistic"
are there? You probably have seen the cartoon: two scientists staring
at a blackboard: the left side is covered with equations, and so is
the right side, but in the center is written in large letters "and
then a miracle occurs." One of the scientists notes, "I think you
need to be more explicit about step 2." "Non-naturalistic" simply
means "we have no idea how this happens, and don't even think it's
possible, but we think it happened anyway." It is not clear how this
could be an "explanation," or an account of why things are one way
rather than some other imaginable way.
>
> STRIKE THREE.
>
Strike one, rather, and it's not as though you covered yourself with
glory pointing the fact out.
>
> Since the ground work for the remainder of Zoe's argument is false
> there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
> anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
>
Why don't you surprise us, Tony? There are a lot of questions posed
to you over the years that you've never addressed; perhaps you could
tell us, e.g. what a "nascent" fossil feature or "genuine transitional
fossil" would actually look like, so we can tell whether any exist.
>
> >I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> >objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> >elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> >abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> >In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> >together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> >acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> >proteins.
>
> Again evidence that Zoe hasn't done the requiste study. Purely
> naturalistic theories explaining the emergence of life have run into
> serious problems whether they assume Oxygen was in abundance or not on
> some prebiotic earth---caught between the proverbial rock and a hard
> place.
>
Oxygen was presumably abundant on the prebiotic Earth. Oxygen, after
all, is abundant in a chunk of quartz, or a pool of water. *Free*
oxygen was rare on the prebiotic Earth, because oxygen is very
reactive and combines readily with most other elements.
>
> >It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> >governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> >for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> >together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
> >is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> >always combine in one and only one way.
>
> It's getting harder and harder to take Zoe seriously. He can suspend
> the laws of nature whenever necessary to justify his metaphysical
> world view of nature. Yet the atheist accuses the supernaturalist of
> running afoul over this very thing when supernatural forces are
> introduced.
>
Zoe is a girl's name, Tony. This particular Zoe is also a
creationist.
>
> As an aside not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
> Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of supernatural
> forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any natural law.
>
This is true only in the sense that not a single atheist anywhere has
demonstrated conclusively that the entire universe wasn't sneezed into
existence last Wednesday by Maeve the Cat. If I were looking for
demonstrations that supernatural forces require the suspension of
natural laws, I'd skip the atheists and go straight to, e.g. the
"credentialed creation scientists" behind the recently-opened Creation
Museum, with their repeated exhibits contrasting the results of
relying on human reason and biblical revelation. If they thought that
natural law was consistent with creationism, why make such arguments?
>
> Anyone think we need to read further?
>
I think that you and your tapeworm should read much, much further.
But I suspect that your ignorance is reinforced by a determination not
to learn anything that might force you to re-think your views, so it
might not help.
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
>
-- [snip]
>
-- Steven J.
Steven J.
> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
>
> this forum.....
>
> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> .....and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> your position on natural selection.
>
> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> today.
>
evolution of new adaptions (from camouflaged coloration to limbs,
wings, and eyes). Adaption and speciation are different phenomena,
and many evolutionists doubt that they are governed by the same
processes. So you might get new species through isolation, genetic
drift, and other causes, with natural selection playing little or no
part. It depends, I suppose, on what you mean by "new life forms" --
diversity of species, or disparity of body plans.
As I've pointed out to Tony Pagano, there is no need to assume a
"first common ancestor;" there may have been a mix of simple organisms
freely trading genes back and forth (as many bacteria still do
today), forming symbiotic unions, and, before the first true cells
emerged, a time when there were self-replicating systems that
straddled the boundaries between life and non-life. Natural selection
can operate on self-replicating systems whether they meet our
subjective criteria for "life" or not, but at some point in our
backwards journey, we reach a point where there's nothing for natural
selection to work on and where it, consequently, cannot function as an
explanation.
>
> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> proteins.
>
"Random" here is a potentially loaded word. In evolutionary theory,
"random" means "uncorrelated;" mutations are random not in the sense
that they are uncaused, or that any mutation is as likely as any
other, or in the sense that any imaginable mutation is even possible,
but in the sense that whatever causes mutations has nothing to do with
what causes some mutations to be beneficial, others to be harmful, and
others to be neutral. If atoms combined according to no pattern at
all, there's no reason to assume there would be a class of compounds
identifiable as "amino acids." But if you mean simply that there are
no known or suspected chemical processes that aim to produce
particular amino acids, I would agree.
>
> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> always combine in one and only one way.
>
You need to think this through. "Laws," whether we're talking about
human legislation or generalizations about the regularities of nature,
refer to rules governing particular situations. The same law can lead
to different outcomes in different situations. I'd think this would
be obvious: actual experiments in seeing how these elements (or simple
compounds like water, ammonia, and carbon dioxide) react with one
another show that a variety of compounds are formed. Depending on
which atoms are present, and on which collide with which, you can get
all sorts of outcomes. All are "governed" by and occur in accordance
with the laws of chemistry.
>
> Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
> of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins. In
> order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
> proposing must have happened. I do not want this to be a strawman
> experiment; therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
> the following:
>
You also need nucleotides and nucleic acids at some point.
>
> Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
> demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
> themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
> ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
> a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
> copies of the original to be made. Is there some other way? Clearly,
> the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system. The most
> that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
> elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
> operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
>
You are, as others have noted, asking a question that is outside the
purview of evolutionary theory (which does not depend on any
particular account of how life originated or where the ancestral
population of living cells came from). It's generally held that
something other than proteins would be needed for replication to
occur; RNA is still popular as a precursor to more complex self-
replicating systems.
>
> Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith...faith in
> a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> again.
>
I don't think it is assumed that this happened once but never again.
Perhaps life got started many different times, some even within
historical times. As Darwin pointed out, if the early precursors of
life managed to get organized after life already existed and had had
some time to evolve, these proto-life forms would quickly be gobbled
up by lifeforms that already existed. So the process might be going
on in various places in the Earth, but with results that are so short-
lived and local that we never noticed them.
>
> And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> does not belong in the field of science.
>
How about, we don't know, but if you find self-assembling prokaryotes
too much to swallow, what are we to make of self-assembling genetic
engineers? That intelligence presumably had to come from somewhere
(or else to be so far removed from the methods and competence of
science as to be impossible to investigate and useless as an
explanation).
>
> So....here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
> elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
> might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
-- Steven J.
Bobby Bryant
wf...@comcast.net writes:
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:10:17 GMT, T Pagano <not....@address.net>
> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>>
>> There are no such laws as far as we know. \\
>
> so much for 'intelligent design'. if there are no laws regarding
> intelligence, how do we ever know ID is valid?
The litmus test is, "Does the argument support my personal religious
beliefs?".
>> The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
>> emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
>> is a failure---Abiogenesis.
>
> and so has a grand unified theory of physics...a failure for 100
> years.
>
> so i guess physics is wrong and we can replace it with 'god did it'
>
> except THAT idea has been dead for 2000 years.
Surely only a few hundred.
>> As an aside not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
>> Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of
>> supernatural forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any
>> natural law.
Given how vacuous "goddidit" is, the "theory" of creationism doesn't
require anything at all other than a belief that God did in fact do
it.
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
Bobby Bryant
"Steven J." <stev...@altavista.com> writes:
> Side note: what sort of explanations other than "purely
> naturalistic" are there? You probably have seen the cartoon: two
> scientists staring at a blackboard: the left side is covered with
> equations, and so is the right side, but in the center is written in
> large letters "and then a miracle occurs." One of the scientists
> notes, "I think you need to be more explicit about step 2."
> "Non-naturalistic" simply means "we have no idea how this happens,
> and don't even think it's possible, but we think it happened
> anyway." It is not clear how this could be an "explanation," or an
> account of why things are one way rather than some other imaginable
> way.
IMO it means "let's hold on to the possibility that there is an
invisible gap that we can hide God in".
Desertphile
> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> intelligence.
The above sentence is without meaning.
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz
Earle Jones
Desertphile <deser...@nospam.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> > would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> > beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> > intelligence.
*
Obviously the theory of evolution isn't a worthy alternative to ID --
after all, it conflicts with your religious beliefs, which you **know**
to be absolutely infallible.
earle
*
Zoe
snip>
>
>Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
>life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
>attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
>encompasss.
actually, I was not thinking of abiogenesis, but after reading the
responses, I see that I have started too low in the process, which
indeed turns out to be abiogenesis.
I'll take the corrections and start again.
My universe will consist of, as Steven J. proposes, a swarm of
self-replicating cells, so simple that they cannot yet even be labeled
as bacteria, but they are alive and they reproduce.
Let's say that the sun's radiation causes one of these cells to mutate
(I'll consider the blue spheres in my sampling "universe" to be the
beneficially mutated cell), how does any potential benefit of this
mutation trigger a preservation response in the cell? Or do I have it
wrong as to what natural selection does about a mutation?
snip>
Zoe
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <s15v83heeupd97kvt...@4ax.com>, Zoe
><muz...@aol.com> writes
>>Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
>>would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>>beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>>intelligence.
>>
>>In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>>this forum…..
>
>You're welcome(ish) to talk about origins, but when by origins you mean
>abiogenesis, it's misleading to write about testing the methodology (I
>think you mean mechanism) of evolution.
I am talking about the origins of the first new species of cell that
supposedly evolved from the old and first cell-type organism. Is that
better?
>>
>>Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>>
>>…..and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>>evolution.
>
>Apparently you don't because your material below is about abiogenesis,
>not evolution.
I've readjusted. My sample universe has life, however that might have
occurred, and I am now working with a simple, self-replicating cell. I
am interested in testing natural selection and its abilities and
limits, not in abiogenesis.
snip>
Zoe
wrote:
>On Jul 7, 7:40 am, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
>> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>> intelligence.
>>
>> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>> this forum.....
>>
>> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>>
>> .....and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>> your position on natural selection.
>>
>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>> forms.
>
>...from "old" lifeforms. The origin of life from non-life is a
>different matter.
okay, as usual, I have not made myself clear. I really was not
intending to address abiogenesis, though I see now that that is
exactly what I've done.
Trying again: Selection of (supposedly) beneficial mutations is
considered to be the key to the evolution of new life forms from old
life forms. The oldest life form I want to use in my experiment is
the proposed earliest life form, a single self-replicating cell or a
swarm of self-replicating cells.
Can an experiment be done on this basis now?
>
> > And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
>> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
>> today.
>>
>> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
>> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
>> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
>> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
>> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
>> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
>> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
>> proteins.
>>
>> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
>> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
>> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
>> together in one and only one combination.
>
>This is incorrect, and would be correct only if there were only one
>possible condition for these elements to exist in.
I see what you are saying.
>
>> The variety of combinations
>> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
>> always combine in one and only one way.
>
>The fact that we have chemicals today that react to form different
>compouds proves you wrong to a degree you should really feel some
>embarrassment about.
>
well, I am not a chemist so expect many mistakes. But if
embarrassment attends my learning process, then I am willing to endure
it in order to learn. So please don't try to scare me away by waving
the embarrassment card in front of me, Inez.
Okay, so yes, I agree that different conditions will cause chemical
elements to combine in different ways. However, in a prebiotic soup,
can you describe the different conditions that would cause 2 hydrogen
and an oxygen to become water in the same setting that 6 oxygen, 6
carbon and 12 hydrogen become glucose? Is there a struggle for
partners in the start-up phase, and is it a case of survival of the
fittest as to which elements hook up with which elements first?
I do feel a teeny smidgen of embarrassment, Inez, at my simple
questions, but early earth is an unexplored area, even by scientists,
so I would like your speculations on how things may have worked back
then. Can those speculations be supported by present-day scientific
data?
Zoe
>On Jul 7, 3:40 pm, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
>> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>> intelligence.
>>
>> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>> this forum.....
>>
>> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>>
>> .....and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>> your position on natural selection.
>>
>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>> forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>
>Dear creationists and antievolutionists.
>
>abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
>abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
>abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
I've restated my conditions in previous posts, but really, I think you
need to be less vocal about separating abiogenesis from evolution. You
want your fully functioning, self-replicating organism upon which to
practice your evoutionomancy, but are unwilling to comment upon the
formation of such organism.
snip>
>> Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
>> demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
>> themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
>> ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
>> a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
>> copies of the original to be made.
>
>Currently, the best avenue seems to be self-replicating molecules. You
>probably know, for example, that DNA can replicate by tearing itself
>into two and each half regaining a complementary strand from outside.
>This is why, I think, the RNA world scenario is so popular, although I
>don't fully know the chemistry of it.
DNA replicates by splitting because it is within a genetic system. No
DNA will "tear itself" if placed by itself in a pool outside of its
reproductive system. I'm back in that part of your evolutionary
timeline when the genetic system has not yet "evolved."
>
>I'm not sure why you feel a reproductive system is needed; do bacteria
>have them?
bacteria do reproduce, sexually and asexually, some of them as fast as
once every 20 minutes. So they must have some kind of reproductive
system.
snip>
Lizzardwoman
A very easy example is as follows.
Perhaps the beneficial mutation allowed those cells to take up nutrients
faster and from a lower concentration than the rest of the cells. Then
those cells would outcompete the other cells for nutrients both because the
uptake velocity was higher and because those cells could survive at lower
nutrient concentrations than the other cells.
So the mutated cells have at least two advantages over the non-mutated
cells. They can take up nutrients faster than the other cells AND they can
drive down the nutrient concentration which starves the other cells while
sustaining the mutated cells. I think it is easy to imagine that the
mutated cells will dominate in a relatively short time (unless nutrients are
replenished at a much higher rate compared to total uptake for the
community - then something else besides nutrients may be limiting - perhaps
a physical or ecological factor).
sharon
--
"If you have a good balance, you will stay on the horse with balance, not
ass-friction." -- Theresa Sandin
Zoe
<jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
snip>
zoe wrote:
>>
>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>> forms.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean here by 'new life forms'. I would say that
>selection of beneficial mutations is the key to the evolution of new
>adaptive features by existing life forms.
I want to understand how evolutionists propose that new adaptive
features can be selected for before the mutational change has reached
the point of being adaptive. How do I recognize that an adaptive
feature has been reached sufficient that I can label my blue sphere,
say, as having a beneficial mutation?
>
>> And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>
>Some people make that jump. I don't. We don't really know how life first
>arose. We don't know the process. Some people guess that it was a
>vaguely evolutionary process, involving a vague form of Darwinism, but
>that is only a guess. Clearly, it wasn't exactly the same mechanism that
>is in operation today, but there may be some similarities between that
>process and this process. It is a reasonable guess.
okay, I have had to redo my experimental framework already. Make the
jump back to a simple reproducing cell, not to strings of amino acids.
I want to know how natural selection and mutations serve to evolve
that cell into a new life form that is no longer a single cell.
>
>> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
>> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
>> today.
>
>As I state above, it wasn't exactly the same mechanism.
>
>> I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
>> objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
>> elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
>> abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
>> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
>> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
>> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
>> proteins.
>
>That sounds a bit like *one* scenario that has been proposed for
>abiogenesis. Not the one I would favor, though.
what do you favor, please?
>
>> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
>> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
>> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
>> together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
>> is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
>> always combine in one and only one way.
>
>You have a very cartoonish picture of how chemical law works. In fact,
>chemical law works the same today as it always has. And it has always
>permitted a (random) variety of results. The chemical laws simply
>impose a kind of preference system on the results - a quantifiable
>preference system so that we can say that with these inputs, the results
>will be 90% this and 10% that. That is how chemical law works.
chemical law works the way we know it in our present conditions. I
know this is getting away from my natural selection scenario, and
getting into abiogenesis (my fault) but since I'm there now, tell me,
in an early-earth scenario, where elements first supposedly appeared
unattached, what varying conditions do you suggest would cause the
chemical elements to combine in different forms while sitting in the
same prebiotic soup?
snip>
>
>> So..here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
>> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
>> elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
>> might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
>> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
>> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
>> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
>
>You should probably throw out the potential *thought* experiment as a
>futile attempt to *refute* naturalistic abiogenesis.
well, I was hoping that it would be more than a thought experiment,
since I wanted to see, using my pretty little colored spheres, how the
beneficially mutated ones (color assigned) would get selected out to
carry on their good work.
Okay, that's probably too tall an order....
snip>
Zoe
wrote:
>
>> > Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
>> > somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
>> > a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
>> > self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
>> > again.
>>
>> I personally don't find your charge that this is somehow 'faith-based'
>> to be too unfair. I expect other people will object, though.
>
>My only objection happens on the next step, when the implication is
>made that when complete evidence is lacking that all things that
>people have faith in are equally likely.
the next step did not say "all things that people have faith in." It
said that one thing -- intelligence -- is ruled out due to a
deep-seated prejudice.
>
>> > And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
>> > did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
>> > does not belong in the field of science.
>
>> Perhaps, if that word 'definitely' is really there in the answer and is
>> not just something Zoe stuck in to make the answer seem more ridiculous
>> than it really is.
are there not posters on this forum who claim that intelligence
definitely did not do it? There are, you know. I am addressing them.
>
>I believe that Zoe's statement is unfair in another way as well. The
>hypothesis she doesn't want excluded is that there was some sort of
>intelligence before life existed. I don't see how science can be
>expected to address the question at all unless she wants to be
>specific about what they're trying to falsify. Was this intelligence
>free floating? Was there an intelligent stone? "Intelligence did it"
>isn't a question that one can sink one's teeth into.
abiogenesis isn't a question that one can sink one's teeth into, and
yet scientists prefer to invoke it rather than intelligence. What
does that say about certain prejudices?
Zoe
<stev...@altavista.com> wrote:
snip>
>Selection of beneficial mutations is considered to be the key to the
>evolution of new adaptions (from camouflaged coloration to limbs,
>wings, and eyes). Adaption and speciation are different phenomena,
>and many evolutionists doubt that they are governed by the same
>processes. So you might get new species through isolation, genetic
>drift, and other causes, with natural selection playing little or no
>part. It depends, I suppose, on what you mean by "new life forms" --
>diversity of species, or disparity of body plans.
disparity of body plans.
>
>As I've pointed out to Tony Pagano, there is no need to assume a
>"first common ancestor;" there may have been a mix of simple organisms
>freely trading genes back and forth (as many bacteria still do
>today), forming symbiotic unions, and, before the first true cells
>emerged, a time when there were self-replicating systems that
>straddled the boundaries between life and non-life. Natural selection
>can operate on self-replicating systems whether they meet our
>subjective criteria for "life" or not, but at some point in our
>backwards journey, we reach a point where there's nothing for natural
>selection to work on and where it, consequently, cannot function as an
>explanation.
that's been one problem, in my mind, for macroevolution -- the
ubiquity of bacteria, and the fact that, as you say, even today they
freely trade genes back and forth, that they reproduce rapidly so that
their generations can equate to millions of years on a relative time
scale, and yet we do not see bacteria evolving any new body plans.
snip my jaunt into chemical evolution>
Zoe
wrote:
>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
>There are no such laws as far as we know. This demonstrates that Zoe
>never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
>canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
>the Behe-Dembski theory.
>
> STRIKE ONE.
ouch. My eardrums, Tony, my eardrums. And I'm a her, not a him. And
I'm not studying ID claims. Actually, I'm just playing in my little
sandbox with my little marbles. Is that okay with you? It's okay
with me.
>
>>it
>>would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>>beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>>intelligence.
>
>Intelliigent design and natural selection are not mutually exclusive
>as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
>Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
>
> STRIKE TWO.
eh? I can't hear you so well now. And if Behe and Dembski state that
ID and natural selection are not mutually exclusive, I sure agree with
them.
>
>>
>>In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>>this forum…..
>>
>>Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>>
>>…..and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>>evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>>your position on natural selection.
>>
>>Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>>mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>>forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>>is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>>time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>>that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>>This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
>>ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
>>today.
>
>Both Darwin and his neoDarwinian reformers required as an initial
>condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
>of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
>first common ancestor. Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
>what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
okay.
>
>The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
>emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
>is a failure---Abiogenesis.
>
> STRIKE THREE.
you striking me or them, Tony? I'm getting rather confused.
>
>Since the ground work for the remainder of Zoe's argument is false
>there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
>anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
no, I suggest we go no further. My ears are ringing.
snip>
Zoe
<mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:s15v83heeupd97kvt...@4ax.com...
>
>Hi, Zoe. Nice to see you back.
thank you, Mel. Back for some more blows.
>
>> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
>> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>> beneficial mutations
>
>And genetic drift, etc.
>
>>- to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>> intelligence.
>
>Never mind that, the question is does it fit and explain the observed
>biological reality or not? So far the answer is "yes".
>
>> In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
>> this forum...
>
>Origins of what, exactly?
origins of new species from old species (now that I've been made to
clarify myself.) Do note that the title of this thread is experiment
on natural selection, so I'm trying feverishly to pull the thread back
to that aspect, having rambled myself away from it.
> Natural selection is basically just about
>the origin [and maintenance] of adaptative traits in organisms.
natural selection does not originate adaptive traits, does it? It is
supposed to allow those traits to prosper...or something like that,
right?
>
>> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
>Has anyone backed away?
yes. But that was my fault. I described an area of which scientists
have little or no understanding -- abiogenesis -- and that immediately
evoked cries of "abiogenesis is not evolution." They want a fully
functioning organism with its systems in place upon which they can
apply their mutations. Well, I want to start with that first form of
life is claimed to have begun the evolutionary process.
>
>> ...and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
>> evolution.
>
>That should be "mechanisms". Natural selection is only a part of it.
>
>>But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>> your position on natural selection.
>
>Position? Selection happens whether we approve of it or not.
I agree. I want to know your position on the power of NS.
>
>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>> forms.
>
>You're likely wrong, at least in part. Natural selection is key to the
>evolution of new functional features. If speciation is what you mean
>by "new life forms", it doesn't necessarily have to involve any
>selected changes [but then it can]. Geographic isolation of
>populations and genetic drift within each population can be enough to
>account for "new life forms" arising.
we are back in the early earth of the evolutionary worldview,
remember. There are no populations yet. Just your first common
ancestor.
>
>>And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
>
>Well, that will be true by definition.
>
>> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed,
>
>No, it doesn't extend backwards in time past the existence of
>reproducing organisms. [In principle, however, evolution by
>natural selection would begin with any sort of imperfectly
>self-replicating prebiotic system.]
I've reordered my thinking in that respect. We are now working with a
simple cell.
>
>>to conclude
>> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>
>Again, it requires the existence of some sort of reproducing
>organisms [or reproducing pre-organism equivalents].
>
>> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
>> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
>> today.
>
>Perhaps we should be talking about the _last_ common ancestor of all
>currently-existing life? We can say a whole lot more about it than
>your ill-defined "first common ancestor".
first common ancestor is ill defined because I am waiting for you to
define it. It is really your common ancestor concept, you know, not
mine.
snip digression into chemistry>
snip>
>> So..here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
>> how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
>> elements",
>
>Again, natural selection doesn't even enter into it until you already
>have self-reproducing systems. Nor does mutation, for that matter.
>
>>hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
>> might work on mutations
>
>Mutations of what?
mutations of the genes in a simple cell.
>Changes aren't "mutations" unless they are changes
>to the genes [or the equivalent precursors of genes] of a
>self-reproducer.
>
>>in these combinations as they come into
>> contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
>> experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
>> answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
>
>The first step will be to realize that you aren't even asking about
>evolution, but about abiogenesis.
>
>Are you perhaps tacitly conceding that mutation and natural selection
>can take us the rest of the way from the first cellular life to
>life's present diversity?
I am asking you to explain how mutation and natural selection can take
a single cell from being a single cell to life's present diversity. A
question is not a tacit concession, is it? If I can wrap my mind
around your mechanism, then maybe, just maybe, I can try a hands-on
experiment.
Milan
It says that the scientists, naturally, prefer not to invoke imaginary
entities to solve their problems. They do what we do all the time in our
everyday lives: we dont imagine that ghosts or angels or gods mess around
with our things. It's that simple.
regards
Milan
Lizzardwoman
"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message
(snip)
| that's been one problem, in my mind, for macroevolution -- the
| ubiquity of bacteria, and the fact that, as you say, even today they
| freely trade genes back and forth, that they reproduce rapidly so that
| their generations can equate to millions of years on a relative time
| scale, and yet we do not see bacteria evolving any new body plans.
I'm not a bio type but I had bio friends in grad school who were using
chemostats. In one experiment they grew chlorella (algae) in the presence
of a flagellate (zooplankton) predator. Over a few months IIRC, the
chlorella started clumping together to avoid predation. Control cultures
without predators showed no such clumping. Now of course this wasn't
conscious... some chlorella happened to form colonies and those survived
predation. It's been a while but I think those are the correct general
facts.
sharon
Inez
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:54:59 -0700, Inez <savagemouse...@hotmail.com>
"Invoking" isn't part of science. To the best of my knoweldge various
scientists have various theories about how life came about, and none
of them happen to involve intelligence. If you want to propose
something that seems likely and which there is a tiny crumb of
evidence for, I'm sure your ideas would be listened to if they had
merit.
wf...@comcast.net
>
>abiogenesis isn't a question that one can sink one's teeth into, and
>yet scientists prefer to invoke it rather than intelligence. What
>does that say about certain prejudices?
abiogenesis is based on the laws of chemistry.
believe or not, we have alot of experience with chemistry.
intelligent design?
never been defined...never been observed....never been tested
yes, there is a bias: it's called 'logic'
wf...@comcast.net
>
>I want to understand how evolutionists propose that new adaptive
>features can be selected for before the mutational change has reached
>the point of being adaptive. How do I recognize that an adaptive
>feature has been reached sufficient that I can label my blue sphere,
>say, as having a beneficial mutation?
you don't have to. nature selects what's adaptive
you've been arguing against science all this time and you don't even
know THAT??
>
Mark VandeWettering
You have it wrong. The reason that we call the mutation a benefit is
because it is more likely to pass the mutation to children than the
unmutated cells. Mutations aren't judged to be beneficial in the abstract.
Mark
Perplexed in Peoria
"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message news:kkd093lpff1f94rtc...@4ax.com...
I can only speak for myself, Zoe. I tend to prefer naturalistic abiogenesis
hypotheses to supernatural abiogenesis hypotheses because I can falsify
the naturalistic ones. Analyze them in detail to find out whether they
still make sense. I know how to do that for chemistry. I don't know how
to do it for miracles. Maybe if I knew more facts about theology it would
be a different story.
Inez
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 08:17:55 -0700, Inez <savagemouse...@hotmail.com>
I should think a general one could be done. We still have bacteria,
although probably not of the original sort.
>
> > > And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> >> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> >> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> >> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> >> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> >> ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> >> today.
But here you're back to abiogenesis.
Sorry, I'm not especially trying to scare you away, I find you one of
the few creationist on this board who can carry on an interesting
conversation. Carry on.
rick_...@hotmail.com
> In article <0u609319jbd9jk3g9mcu6skefffntip...@4ax.com>,
>
> Desertphile <desertph...@nospam.org> wrote:
> > On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> > > would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> > > beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> > > intelligence.
>
> *
> Obviously the theory of evolution isn't a worthy alternative to ID --
> after all, it conflicts with your religious beliefs, which you **know**
> to be absolutely infallible.
>
> earle
> *
I always wondered what it must have been like. Long long ago, when
mankind was evolving to his present form.
There must have been soft grasses, and mosses, everywhere, no
prickles, and big juicy berries at waist height, so that fat naked
white men, with their pale pink asses, needed to evolve in such a way,
through natural selection.
rick_...@hotmail.com
Bow legged, beer bellied, the fattest and the pinkest of the lot.
No hide, no claws, no fangs, no fur.
Just a big sign eat me, before I eat everything, painted on his chubby
physique.
Natural selection, made him that way out of necessity for survival.
Made him tasty to predators, harmless, slow moving, clumsy and fat.
Poor sighted as well in many cases.
And if he bit you with his rotten crooked teeth, he would hardly leave
a mark, on any predator.
Not being able to see in the dark, would merely lay down and die if
discovered when darkness fell.
Blind in the snow, and freezing cold in the rain, they huddled
together in clumps, and if forced to flee would soon be overtaken or
die of exposure to be found and eaten later.
Yes it was his absolute lack of survival abilities, which he was bred
for, over the eons of time. So that some day he might needs use his
head to make all that nature had deprived him of, whilst naturally
selecting him as a ready source of protein.
Steven J.
demonstrate a degree of complexity and elaborate behavior suggestive
of multicellular organisms: <http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/
sf058b09.htm>. As for individual bacteria, they come in a variety of
shapes, but there's only so much one can do with a single cell without
the organelles or nuclei that characterize eukaryote (pretty much
every organism you can see with the naked eye, plus a lot of single-
celled organisms like amoebas, euglenas, etc.) cells.
One might suggest, from a selectionist point of view, that niches for
multicellular body plans are already occupied by eukaryotes, and that
bacteria that did "try out" such plans would be outcompeted and driven
into extinction.
>
> snip my jaunt into chemical evolution>
-- Steven J.
Boikat
<snippage>
> >
> > STRIKE THREE.
>
> you striking me or them, Tony? I'm getting rather confused.
> >
> >Since the ground work for the remainder of Zoe's argument is false
> >there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
> >anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
>
> no, I suggest we go no further. My ears are ringing.
Pay no mind to Tony, Zoe. You may be dence as a brick, but at least you
appear to be thinking for yourself. Tony, on the other hand, is dence as
collapsed ignorantium, is arrogant and officious and believes he's the only
one who understands anything. Being chastized by Pangy-poo is a badge of
honor. Salute'!
Boikat
--
"Krrrrriptonite!"
Lex Luthor
Steven J.
> On Jul 7, 12:10 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
> > >Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
> > never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
> > canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
> > the Behe-Dembski theory.
>
> > STRIKE ONE.
>
> > >would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> > >beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> > >intelligence.
>
> > as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
> > Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
>
> > STRIKE TWO.
>
> > >this forum.....
>
> > >Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>
> > >.....and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
> > >evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> > >your position on natural selection.
>
> > >mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> > >forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> > >is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> > >time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> > >that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> > >This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> > >ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> > >today.
>
> > condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
> > of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
> > first common ancestor. Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
> > what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
>
> > emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
> > is a failure---Abiogenesis.
>
> > STRIKE THREE.
>
> > there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
> > anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
>
> > >objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> > >elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> > >abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> > >In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> > >together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> > >acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> > >proteins.
>
> > naturalistic theories explaining the emergence of life have run into
> > serious problems whether they assume Oxygen was in abundance or not on
> > some prebiotic earth---caught between the proverbial rock and a hard
> > place.
>
> > >It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> > >governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> > >for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> > >is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> > >always combine in one and only one way.
>
> > the laws of nature whenever necessary to justify his metaphysical
> > world view of nature. Yet the atheist accuses the supernaturalist of
> > running afoul over this very thing when supernatural forces are
> > introduced.
>
> > As an aside not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
> > Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of supernatural
> > forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any natural law.
>
> > Anyone think we need to read further?
>
> > Regards,
> > T Pagano
>
> Wow! A creationist criticizes another creationist! It must be 07-07-07
> or something.
>
I'm not sure that Tony noticed that Zoe is a creationist; he certainly
seemed oblivious to the fact that she's a woman. ISTR, a few years
ago, that, in a long thread with a lot of back-and-forth, a
creationist ended up posting a rebuttal to a part of a post that was
quoted from one of his own earlier posts (i.e. he was criticizing
himself). So this is not an unprecedented phenomenon.
>
> Thank God neither are pure IDers or it would really be the Twilight
> Zone.
>
> (snip)
-- Steven J.
Ross Langerak
"backspace" <sawirel...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1183826934.5...@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 7, 5:46 pm, Will in New Haven <bill.re...@taylorandfrancis.com>
> wrote:
>> On Jul 7, 11:34 am, backspace <sawireless2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Jul 7, 5:03 pm, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:> Your experiment is
>> > > life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You
>> > > are
>> > > attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
>> > > encompasss.
>>
>> > not concerned or more specifically who is this author that is not
>> > "concerned"?
>>
>> When one is explaining one thing it is not required that ones
>> explanation encompasses everything else. Abiogenisis is not explained
>> by evolution.
>
> Again may I humbly ask says who? Who says abiogenesis is not related
> to "evolution" whatever is your intent with the word. Darwin's intent
> was the slow gradual transmutation (nothing to do with genes) of one
> species into another.
> Now obviously the question is what came before this very first common
> ancestor. So who says established where that abiogenesis is not part
> of the debate - by what decree was this formalised?
>
Evolution requires reproduction, mutation, and selection. Before the first
self-replicating organism came into existence, there was no reproduction
(obviously), and therefore, no evolution. Evolution has nothing to do with
abiogenesis. Evolution could not start until abiogenesis was complete.
Bobby Bryant
bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant) writes:
> In article <1183841964.9...@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
> "Steven J." <stev...@altavista.com> writes:
>
>> Side note: what sort of explanations other than "purely
>> naturalistic" are there? You probably have seen the cartoon: two
>> scientists staring at a blackboard: the left side is covered with
>> equations, and so is the right side, but in the center is written in
>> large letters "and then a miracle occurs." One of the scientists
>> notes, "I think you need to be more explicit about step 2."
>> "Non-naturalistic" simply means "we have no idea how this happens,
>> and don't even think it's possible, but we think it happened
>> anyway." It is not clear how this could be an "explanation," or an
>> account of why things are one way rather than some other imaginable
>> way.
>
> IMO it means "let's hold on to the possibility that there is an
> invisible gap that we can hide God in".
A sort of "gap of the gaps" argument, if you will.
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
rick_...@hotmail.com
> On Jul 8, 3:09 am, rick_so...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jul 8, 1:19 am, Earle Jones <earle.jo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > > In article <0u609319jbd9jk3g9mcu6skefffntip...@4ax.com>,
>
> > > Desertphile <desertph...@nospam.org> wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> > > > > beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> > > > > intelligence.
>
> > > *
But yes, like the fur coated long fanged mountain lion, he soon moved
into caves where he lost his hair became bald and white and surefooted
as a mountain goat. Able to leap 2 or 3 feet before falling onto the
rocks below.
So congenial to his neighbors, sharing everything equally, always
giving and taking nothing in return their numbers grew, until both the
caves were filled with their bones.
The cave bear, with his mighty claws, strong jaws, huge fangs, and
swift powerful limbs, was no match for this naked bald chubby pink
giant termite.
And like the monkeys swinging from limb to limb, leaping always
leaping, able to do 2 or 3 chin-ups before collapsing in a pile a
smelly sweat.
Coughing farting wheezing they stealthily bumbled across the savanna,
sunburnt and dying of thirst, hiding in the short grass as they stunk
on the breeze.
Fat naked white man, in his element.
rick_...@hotmail.com
> On Jul 8, 3:09 am, rick_so...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jul 8, 1:19 am, Earle Jones <earle.jo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > > In article <0u609319jbd9jk3g9mcu6skefffntip...@4ax.com>,
>
> > > Desertphile <desertph...@nospam.org> wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
> > > > > beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> > > > > intelligence.
>
> > > *
But yes, like the fur coated long fanged mountain lion, he soon moved
rick_...@hotmail.com
Well?
Where are all those evolutionists, with their explanations, as to how
you move to the north country, but don't adapt and grow fur like a
mountain lion, mountain goat or cave bear?
Where on earth do you go to become fat white bald and helpless?
rick_...@hotmail.com
Like this you mean?
http://www.markhemmings.com/MarkWebsite/snowmonkeys/index.htm
rick_...@hotmail.com
Well I looked it up and guess what?
There is no proof whatsoever.
No explanation and no proof.
And just a reminder, hair does not keep you warm in the snow. There is
a world of difference between hair and fur.
rick_...@hotmail.com
> > > But yes, like the fur coated long fanged mountain lion, he soon moved
> > > into caves where he lost his hair became bald and white and surefooted
> > > as a mountain goat. Able to leap 2 or 3 feet before falling onto the
> > > rocks below.
> > > So congenial to his neighbors, sharing everything equally, always
> > > giving and taking nothing in return their numbers grew, until both the
> > > caves were filled with their bones.
> > > The cave bear, with his mighty claws, strong jaws, huge fangs, and
> > > swift powerful limbs, was no match for this naked bald chubby pink
> > > giant termite.
> > > And like the monkeys swinging from limb to limb, leaping always
> > > leaping, able to do 2 or 3 chin-ups before collapsing in a pile a
> > > smelly sweat.
> > > Coughing farting wheezing they stealthily bumbled across the savanna,
> > > sunburnt and dying of thirst, hiding in the short grass as they stunk
> > > on the breeze.
> > > Fat naked white man, in his element.
>
> > Like this you mean?http://www.markhemmings.com/MarkWebsite/snowmonkeys/index.htm
>
> Well I looked it up and guess what?
> There is no proof whatsoever.
> No explanation and no proof.
>
> And just a reminder, hair does not keep you warm in the snow. There is
> a world of difference between hair and fur.
So you climb down from the trees and head out onto the savanna, where
you evolve, and lose your fur.
Which protects the other animals from the sun.
Those same animals, like lions, and hyena, and leopards and jaguars,
which follow you stinking and sweating across the savanna, eating you
at their leisure, as their numbers grow, and yours diminish until you
are gone.
It just doesn't add up, that monkeys, leave the safety of the trees,
and don't get eaten by predators in the open savanna, and no other
animals there, are bald, they have fur, and monkeys still exist, still
have fur, and still climb trees.
Just because some monkeys have faces like humans, you seem to think
that they turned into humans?
Well don't you need some scientific proof of some of the more pressing
points like how that might have happened?
What bald white creatures exist on the savanna?
So they were black man apes with pointy sticks?
Ever take on a hungry lion with a pointy stick?
How about a pack of hungry hyenas?
So they were in large groups.
So large that the hyenas and lions and jaguars could just run in, at
50 mph, cause a panic, grab a dinnner, and go and eat it?
How long would 100 people last?
100 weeks?
I don't see how any of this is real science.
Ernest Major
<muz...@aol.com> writes
>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:19:08 GMT, "Perplexed in Peoria"
><jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>snip>
>
>zoe wrote:
>>>
>>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>>> forms.
>>
>>selection of beneficial mutations is the key to the evolution of new
>>adaptive features by existing life forms.
>
>I want to understand how evolutionists propose that new adaptive
>features can be selected for before the mutational change has reached
>the point of being adaptive. How do I recognize that an adaptive
>feature has been reached sufficient that I can label my blue sphere,
>say, as having a beneficial mutation?
There's little hope of us providing you with an understanding of "how
evolutionists propose that new adaptive features can be selected for
before the mutational change has reached the point of being adaptive",
for the simple reason that they don't propose that non-adaptive
mutations can be selected for. (They can spread other processes such as
genetic drift and hitchhiking, but that's not being selected for.)
Take the mutation which replaces normal human haemoglobin with
haemoglobin C (which is one of several which provides some protection
against malaria). In the absence of malaria haemoglobin C is, to the
best of my knowledge, neutral, which puts it one up on haemoglobin S
(the haemoglobin of sickle cell trait/anaemia), so it is neither
selected for or against. Add malaria to the mix, and it is selected for.
Note well that whether it is adaptive or not depends on the environment.
Note that if it the mutation occurs in a malarial environment it is
immediately adaptive - there is no intervening period in which it is not
adaptive.
--
alias Ernest Major
Ernest Major
<muz...@aol.com> writes
>>You're welcome(ish) to talk about origins, but when by origins you mean
>>abiogenesis, it's misleading to write about testing the methodology (I
>>think you mean mechanism) of evolution.
>
>I am talking about the origins of the first new species of cell that
>supposedly evolved from the old and first cell-type organism. Is that
>better?
Elsewhere - I've lost it in the thread - you claim that you're talking
about the time before there were populations. So I'd better make the
following clear ...
It may or may not be meaningful to speak of the first organism as a
single individual - the line between life and non-life may be fuzzy. But
assume for the sake of argument there was an identifiable (by an
omniscient contemporary observer) first organism. This may accumulate
mutations as it lives - DNA repair is likely to relatively inefficient
at this stage - but these mutations are unlikely to transform it into a
new species.
However this first individual doesn't remain a single individual. It
reproduces, and its daughters reproduce, and so on, and a population
forms and grows (at first exponentially), and individuals drift away to
other places and form other populations, and in a geologically short
time there are billions of near copies of that first individual.
(Evolution requires life as a precursor; natural selection requires that
there be at least two living organisms.)
Now, back to the original question. It appears that your not so much
asking about natural selection, but about the efficacy of natural
selection in achieving speciation. It happens to be the case that many
different processes can be involved in speciation; at one extreme
natural selection is involved, at the other extreme natural selection
is, if you draw the box in the right place, the only process involved.
For the example of the first extreme, consider allopolyploidy by the
union of unreduced gametes. Organisms normally produce gametes (eggs and
sperm) with half the number of chromosomes of the parent, which, when
they unite, regain the parental number of chromosomes. In some
organisms, e.g. plants, the process of the formation of gametes is
erratic, and there is an appreciable rate of production of gametes with
twice, or even four times, the normal number. An unreduced gamete from a
plant of one species can fertilise an unreduced gamete of another
species. This produces an allopolyploid offspring, which contains
complete sets of chromosomes from both parents. If it is viable, and
self-fertile, it is a member of a third species. (This particular
example doesn't apply to your question, as you're talking about the time
before sexual reproduction and even before there were two species.)
For an example of the second extreme, consider a population the
morphology of whose members clusters about a mean morphology. Now
imagine that the environment changes so that the mean morphology is no
longer favoured, but that two or more atypical morphologies are
favoured. After time we know have a metapopulation whose members are
clustered about several different morphologies.
Now to answer your question. Speciation occurs in the modern world -
we've seen it happen perhaps 100 times - and a variety of processes are
involved. Why couldn't those processes (or rather the subset of them
that were operating at the time) have resulted in speciation in the
ur-population. The ur-population would have spread into different
environments, in these different environments the descendant populations
would have accumulated, by drift and selection, different genetic
changes. When sufficient genetic changes have accumulated you have new
species.
--
alias Ernest Major
backspace
> "Random" here is a potentially loaded word. In evolutionary theory,
> "random" means "uncorrelated;" mutations are random not in the sense
> that they are uncaused,
Who says it is "uncorrelated" in evolutionary theory?
Tony Raymonds
<muz...@aol.com> writes
>Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
>demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
>themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
>ever-lengthening chain?
It's thought that proteins came along quite late i.e. long after
abiogenesis, but actually your description could actually be a possible
solution (we don't know for certain what happened because few clues have
been left behind).
If you have a string of units (doesn't matter what) which adds new units
sourced from the environment around, it then what happens when it
eventually breaks in two? You get two strings, both of which will add
units to their ends.
There you have a simple but viable reproductive system.
A good, readable book on this subject of abiogenesis is Genesis by
Robert M Hazen. ISBN 0-309-09432-1
--
to...@wacky.zzn.com
Boikat
People who understand the subject, and who do not have a comprehension
problem.
Boikat
>
Rolf
"T Pagano" <not....@address.net> wrote in message
news:apagano-toav83db0u75v...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:40:34 -0400, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence,
>
> never began any study of ID to begin with. Like most of the other
> canards in this forum Zoe will construct an ID of his own making NOT
> the Behe-Dembski theory.
>
> STRIKE ONE.
>
> >would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
> >beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
> >intelligence.
>
> as Behe and Dembski have pointed out for almost 10 years. Apparently
> Zoe's "study" never got past the cover page of any work.
>
So the mutations are introduced by the designer, for NS to do the rest of
the job, eh?
> STRIKE TWO.
>
> >
> >In other words, I want to talk about origins, which is the title of
> >this forum...
> >
> >Come on now, don't be backing away already.
> >
> >...and I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for
> >evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
> >your position on natural selection.
> >
> >Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> >mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> >forms. And the observation that mutations can and do change alleles
> >is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
> >time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> >that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
> >This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first common
> >ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we see
> >today.
>
> Both Darwin and his neoDarwinian reformers required as an initial
> condition for the functioning of the darwinian process the existence
> of fully functioning replicating machinery----that is, some cellular
> first common ancestor. Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY nothing to say about
> what existed prior to this First Common Ancestor.
>
You're damn right, and science have been repeating that ad nauseam - the ToE
begins with the first cell,. period. It does not concern itself with how the
first cellular life got here. So why mention it? You already knew that,
didn't you?
> The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
> emergence of the First Common Ancestory has stagnated for 50 years and
> is a failure---Abiogenesis.
>
There is no theory of abiogenesis - but that doesnt mean a lot of
speculation is going on about how life COULD have started without divine
intervention. And a lot of interesting hypotheses detailing details of such
a process have been proposed and studied.
So why are you trying to win the race by using a stick on a dead horse?
> STRIKE THREE.
>
> Since the ground work for the remainder of Zoe's argument is false
> there is little reason to go beyond this point. Let's look
> anyway....maybe Zoe will surprise us.
>
> >
> >I have before me on my desk a "universe" of small cylindrical
> >objects, differentiated by colors, that will represent the basic
> >elements that are abundant in nature and that are assumed to have been
> >abundant back in the early earth - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.
> >In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> >together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> >acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> >proteins.
>
> Again evidence that Zoe hasn't done the requiste study. Purely
> naturalistic theories explaining the emergence of life have run into
> serious problems whether they assume Oxygen was in abundance or not on
> some prebiotic earth---caught between the proverbial rock and a hard
> place.
>
You better provide some real relevant references for that claim. I just do
not belive you!
> >
> >It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> >governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> >for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> >together in one and only one combination. The variety of combinations
> >is evidence that there is no law that says that certain chemicals will
> >always combine in one and only one way.
>
> It's getting harder and harder to take Zoe seriously. He can suspend
> the laws of nature whenever necessary to justify his metaphysical
> world view of nature. Yet the atheist accuses the supernaturalist of
> running afoul over this very thing when supernatural forces are
> introduced.
>
Please specify, what laws of nature are you referring to?
Seems to me you are pretty good at hand-waving.
> As an aside not a single atheist anywhere, including the rabid
> Dawkins, have successfully argued that an introduction of supernatural
> forces, in fact, would require the suspension of any natural law.
>
>
> Anyone think we need to read further?
>
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
>
> >
> >Okay, so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
> >of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins. In
> >order to do my experiment, I must know what evolutionists are
> >proposing must have happened. I do not want this to be a strawman
> >experiment; therefore, before proceeding, I would like an answer to
> >the following:
> >
> >Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
> >demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
> >themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
> >ever-lengthening chain? As far as I know, reproduction occurs through
> >a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
> >copies of the original to be made. Is there some other way? Clearly,
> >the first protein strings are not yet a reproductive system. The most
> >that they can do is continue to make random chains as various chemical
> >elements bump into each other. So how does mutation and selection
> >operate at this level to pull a reproductive system together?
> >
> >Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> >somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
> >a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> >self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> >again.
> >
> >And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> >did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> >does not belong in the field of science.
> >
> >So..here I sit with my potential experiment on my desk, ready to see
> >how natural selection might work in my little universe of "chemical
> >elements", hoping to gain an understanding of how your proposed NS
> >might work on mutations in these combinations as they come into
> >contact with each other. Should I just throw out the potential
> >experiment as a futile attempt to understand evolution, or is there an
> >answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
>
Slimebot McGoo
>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:54:59 -0700, Inez <savagem...@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>> > Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
>>> > somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
>>> > a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
>>> > self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
>>> > again.
>>>
>>> I personally don't find your charge that this is somehow 'faith-based'
>>> to be too unfair. I expect other people will object, though.
>>
>>My only objection happens on the next step, when the implication is
>>made that when complete evidence is lacking that all things that
>>people have faith in are equally likely.
>
>the next step did not say "all things that people have faith in." It
>said that one thing -- intelligence -- is ruled out due to a
>deep-seated prejudice.
>>
>>> > And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
>>> > did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
>>> > does not belong in the field of science.
>>
>>> Perhaps, if that word 'definitely' is really there in the answer and is
>>> not just something Zoe stuck in to make the answer seem more ridiculous
>>> than it really is.
>
>are there not posters on this forum who claim that intelligence
>definitely did not do it? There are, you know. I am addressing them.
Name one and provide the quote that shows this. Posters on this forum
claim that an intelligent agent is definitely not supported by any
evidence. You're displaying your own presumptions and prejudices
(again).
McGoo
Slimebot McGoo
>Well?
>Where are all those evolutionists, with their explanations
Many of them are right here, day after day, explaining evolution. Are
illiteracy and dishonesty requirements of creationism or are they
effects of it?
McGoo
Free Lunch
Slimebot McGoo <olde...@youth.inc> wrote in
<he1293h8jard21nt5...@4ax.com>:
It appears to be a positive feedback loop. Adherence to creationism
causes a denial of the evidence which causes a stronger adherence to
creationism which forces even more denial of reality.
The ones who try to sell their lies to the world tend to curl up to
protect themselves from the slings and arrows of reality making
themselves even more committed to their false doctrine.
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> ... it would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution
> - selected beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy
> alternative to intelligence.
Your comment makes no sense. AFAWK The only intelligence capable of
deliberately inducing beneficial changes to a genome is humans, and
it's only within the past few years that human knowledge and
technology has gotten even close to that capability, and it's only
in the future that such capability might become practical. To
explain *past* evolution, from the first replicator to modern life,
by some *future* human technology, is utterly absurd.
> I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for evolution.
If you want to test the sorts of changes that can evolve over the
course of a few years, you need a lot of money to pay for a lab and
skilled workers in the field. If you want to test the sorts of
chages that require millions of years, you need to help develop
space habitat, purchase your own asteroid and convert it into a
laboratory, hire an army to defend your lab for millions of years
against all future military activities of the rest of humanity, and
somehow convince your descendents to carry on your programme after
you are long dead. I suggest you stick to the short-term evolution
experiments. Do you have the money to pay for lab and skilled
workers?
> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
> forms.
No, there are several "keys":
-1- Raw fecundity greater than one;
-2- Genome that is copied very accurately;
-3- Differential survival that is caused a mix of:
-3a- genetic factors, and
-3b- happenstance events;
-4- Occasional mistakes in copying the genome.
-5- Limits to growth (resource depletion), which cause effectively
fecundity to drop below 1 for the less-fit tail of the
distribution while the effectively fecundity of the more-fit tail
remains greater than 1.
When you say "selection of beneficial mutations", you seem to be
conflating items 3a and 4.
> the observation that mutations can and do change alleles is used
> to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a time
> where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
No such time existed, except for the first few millions of years
after the Big Bang. As soon as the first stars blew their heavy
elements out into space, some molecules began to form in space,
ending the era of only elements. This was appx. 9 billion years
before the Earth formed, 10 billion years before life occurred on
Earth and biological evolution started happening.
> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first
> common ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we
> see today.
The phase "first common ancestor" has no meaning.
Perhaps you meant to say "last universal common ancestor"?
> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
> proteins.
No. Proteins were a relatively modern invention *of* already-existing life.
> It would appear that, at this stage, there must have been no law that
> governed the reactions between oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen,
> for if there were a law, then these elements would always come
> together in one and only one combination.
It's apparent that you have not the slightest understanding of
chemistry, and are just making up combinations of words at random.
There are laws (from quantum mechanics) which determine the
position and properties of orbitals of each atom in various
circumstances such as ionization or excitation state. There area
laws which describe the statistical behaviour of atoms insofar as
they change ionization or excitation state in various circumstances
such as arrival of photons of various energies and physical
jostling. There are laws which determine the statistical likelihood
of various kinds of bond between the atoms caused by the orbitals,
and various other kinds of affinity between atoms such as
electrostatic attraction. Applying these laws, we predict a wide
range of various molecules and crystals that can be formed, and
observations show these predictions are a lot better than either
"all random combinations are possible" or "the atoms always come
together in one and only one combination".
> so we now have a few basic elements that have formed a variety
> of amino acids that have formed a number of simple proteins.
Nope, you completely misunderstand theories of abiogenesis. I
suggest you check Google Groups to find mention of clay-crystal
patterns, and also random auto-catalytic sets of chemicals.
> As far as I know, reproduction occurs through a reproductive
> system that has to be up and running in order for copies of the
> original to be made. Is there some other way?
There is no need for a separate "reproductive system". It is
sufficient for there to exist some chemical system that synthesizes
various chemical species, some of which are the very same chemical
species that constitute the chemical system in the first place.
> is there an answer that would allow me to do the experiment?
Yeah. How much money do you have for running millions of different
versions of the experiment simultaneously? How much money do you
have for computers and software for running simulated chemistry to
avoid the cost of physical chemistry experiments? Do you have
enough money to explore all the chains of chemical reactions that
can occur with only these starting chemicals:
- The four elements you listed (H, O, C, N) in large quantities
(all inputted as individual nucleons in a high-temperature plasma,
allowed to cool gradually as the plasma flows from the injection
vessel towards the Earth-temperature vessel);
- All other naturally occurring relatively stable elements in trace
amounts, different combinations of them in each different
experiment (88 other elements, hence 2^88 different combinations
of them possible) (likewise injected as plasma);
- Whatever unstable fragments occur when a high-energy UV (Ultra-Violet)
photon strikes one of the molecules that was already formed
(turned on only in the Earth-temperature vessel, only after the
initial measurement of various molecular frequencies was completed).
I predict that from just the four main elements, none of the trace
elements, you should quickly generate substantial quantities of
- molecular oxygen/hydrogen/nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia;
and if the amount of oxygen is limited, also:
- carbon monoxide;
and then after UV used, lesser but still substantial quantities of
- cyanide radical (as hydrogen cyanide or ammonium cyanide), formaldehyde;
and much lesser but still detectable quantities of several other chemicals,
which I won't specifically predict, but possibly some two-carbon sugars
and perhaps a one-carbon amino compound such as H3C-NH2.
So how soon can you do the first part of the experiment and test my
predictions?
Earle Jones
Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
[...]
> I am asking you to explain how mutation and natural selection can take
> a single cell from being a single cell to life's present diversity. A
> question is not a tacit concession, is it? If I can wrap my mind
> around your mechanism, then maybe, just maybe, I can try a hands-on
> experiment.
*
Zoe: I believe that you have learned Lesson (1). That is, abiogenesis
is not evolution.
Here's Lesson (2): Individuals do not evolve. Populations evolve.
That means individual animals, plants, bacteria, cells, molecules, atoms
-- do not evolve. Evolution has to do with averages measured over a
population.
earle
*
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> The only theory which attempts to explain the purely naturalistic
> years and is a failure---Abiogenesis.
Not so! I've seen new progress just within the past five years.
You should make a regular habit of reading the News section of Sky
and Telescope each month. Watch for anything that looks like
discovery of new organic chemicals in abiotic places (molecular
clouds, atmospheres of planets around other stars, venting from
active comets, meteorite fragments such as Murchison). For example,
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have recently been
discovered in all sorts of new places not even suspected 50 years ago.
> not a single atheist anywhere, ..., have successfully argued that
> an introduction of supernatural forces, in fact, would require the
> suspension of any natural law.
Huh? I thought that's implicit in the definition o "supernatural"?
What are *your* definitions of "supernatural" and "successfully"?
Tony Raymonds
<muz...@aol.com> writes
>I want to understand how evolutionists propose that new adaptive
>features can be selected for before the mutational change has reached
>the point of being adaptive.
It can't. A mutation which does not confer an advantage will at best be
passed on randomly or (much more commonly) not be passed on at all
because it gives a disadvantage. There is no special treatment for
mutations that might be useful in the future.
>How do I recognize that an adaptive
>feature has been reached sufficient that I can label my blue sphere,
>say, as having a beneficial mutation?
When the mutation allows it to produce more little blue sphere offspring
than it's neighbours produce.
--
to...@wacky.zzn.com
Will in New Haven
wrote:
> "Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in messagenews:kkd093lpff1f94rtc...@4ax.com...
> > On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:54:59 -0700, Inez <savagemouse...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > >> > Please note that if your answer is that "we don't know, but they
> > >> > somehow did," that you are not yet talking science, but faith.faith in
> > >> > a particular worldview that says that self-construction and
> > >> > self-assembly of chemicals into complex forms happened once but never
> > >> > again.
>
> > >> I personally don't find your charge that this is somehow 'faith-based'
> > >> to be too unfair. I expect other people will object, though.
>
> > >My only objection happens on the next step, when the implication is
> > >made that when complete evidence is lacking that all things that
> > >people have faith in are equally likely.
>
> > the next step did not say "all things that people have faith in." It
> > said that one thing -- intelligence -- is ruled out due to a
> > deep-seated prejudice.
>
> > >> > And if your answer is that "we don't know, but intelligence definitely
> > >> > did not do it," that you are revealing a deep-seated prejudice that
> > >> > does not belong in the field of science.
>
> > >> Perhaps, if that word 'definitely' is really there in the answer and is
> > >> not just something Zoe stuck in to make the answer seem more ridiculous
> > >> than it really is.
>
> > are there not posters on this forum who claim that intelligence
> > definitely did not do it? There are, you know. I am addressing them.
>
> > >hypothesis she doesn't want excluded is that there was some sort of
> > >intelligence before life existed. I don't see how science can be
> > >expected to address the question at all unless she wants to be
> > >specific about what they're trying to falsify. Was this intelligence
> > >free floating? Was there an intelligent stone? "Intelligence did it"
> > >isn't a question that one can sink one's teeth into.
>
> > abiogenesis isn't a question that one can sink one's teeth into, and
> > yet scientists prefer to invoke it rather than intelligence. What
> > does that say about certain prejudices?
>
> I can only speak for myself, Zoe. I tend to prefer naturalistic abiogenesis
> hypotheses to supernatural abiogenesis hypotheses because I can falsify
> the naturalistic ones. Analyze them in detail to find out whether they
> still make sense. I know how to do that for chemistry. I don't know how
> to do it for miracles. Maybe if I knew more facts about theology it would
> be a different story.
There is nothing to know about theology. Despite the "ology" at the
end, there is no subject-matter to study. That doesn't mean that there
couldn't be some supernatural beings or events. It just means that the
people who claim to know about these things, often in detail, are
convinced by argument without evidence, deluded or lying.
Will in New Haven
--
"Ripple in still water,
where there is no pebble tossed,
nor wind to blow."
Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead) "Ripple"
Rick Merrill
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 08:28:33 -0700, geo...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> On Jul 7, 3:40 pm, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Before picking back up on my study of the laws of intelligence, it
>>> would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution - selected
>>> beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy alternative to
>>> intelligence.
>>>
>>>
>>> Come on now, don't be backing away already.
>>>
>>> evolution. But in order to do so, I need to have an understanding of
>>> your position on natural selection.
>>>
>>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>>> is used to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a
>>> time where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>>> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>>
>> abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
>> abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
>> abiogenesis is not the same as evolution.
>
> I've restated my conditions in previous posts, but really, I think you
> need to be less vocal about separating abiogenesis from evolution. You
> want your fully functioning, self-replicating organism upon which to
> practice your evoutionomancy, but are unwilling to comment upon the
> formation of such organism.
>
> snip>
>
>
>>> Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
>>> demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
>>> themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
>>> a reproductive system that has to be up and running in order for
>>> copies of the original to be made.
>> probably know, for example, that DNA can replicate by tearing itself
>> into two and each half regaining a complementary strand from outside.
>> This is why, I think, the RNA world scenario is so popular, although I
>> don't fully know the chemistry of it.
>
> DNA replicates by splitting because it is within a genetic system. No
> DNA will "tear itself" if placed by itself in a pool outside of its
> reproductive system. I'm back in that part of your evolutionary
> timeline when the genetic system has not yet "evolved."
>> I'm not sure why you feel a reproductive system is needed; do bacteria
>> have them?
>
> bacteria do reproduce, sexually and asexually, some of them as fast as
> once every 20 minutes. So they must have some kind of reproductive
> system.
>
> snip>
>
Consider the prion - my candidate for the first replicator.
Zoe
<lizzardw...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
>"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:v9b0931cmnv3luvpq...@4ax.com...
>| On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 11:03:03 -0400, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:
>|
>| snip>
>| >
>| >Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
>| >life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
>| >attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
>| >encompasss.
>|
>| actually, I was not thinking of abiogenesis, but after reading the
>| responses, I see that I have started too low in the process, which
>| indeed turns out to be abiogenesis.
>|
>| I'll take the corrections and start again.
>|
>| My universe will consist of, as Steven J. proposes, a swarm of
>| self-replicating cells, so simple that they cannot yet even be labeled
>| as bacteria, but they are alive and they reproduce.
>|
>| Let's say that the sun's radiation causes one of these cells to mutate
>| (I'll consider the blue spheres in my sampling "universe" to be the
>| beneficially mutated cell), how does any potential benefit of this
>| mutation trigger a preservation response in the cell? Or do I have it
>| wrong as to what natural selection does about a mutation?
>
>A very easy example is as follows.
>
>Perhaps
perhaps? You start with "perhaps" and call this an example? Come on,
Sharon, an example should consist of hard, scientific evidence, taken
from current observation that can be reasonably extrapolated back to
an earlier unobservable time period.
If I were to start my defense of intelligence by saying "perhaps" I
bet you would be all over me for speculating and fantasizing.
Now.... have you observed cells today that, under the right
conditions, will take up nutrients faster than others, and become
fatter and and more efficient eating machines than others around them?
If so, that is the kind of example you should produce and say, we see
this happening today under the kind of circumstances that we imagine
the early earth was under.
>the beneficial mutation allowed those cells to take up nutrients
>faster and from a lower concentration than the rest of the cells. Then
>those cells would outcompete the other cells for nutrients both because the
>uptake velocity was higher and because those cells could survive at lower
>nutrient concentrations than the other cells.
okay, so now, in perhaps-land, you have more efficient cells,
voraciously gobbling up the nutrients. Do you consider the ability to
out-eat other organisms to be evidence of speciation?
>
>So the mutated cells have at least two advantages over the non-mutated
>cells. They can take up nutrients faster than the other cells AND they can
>drive down the nutrient concentration which starves the other cells while
>sustaining the mutated cells.
are you saying that the healthier, more efficient species are examples
of what you call macroevolution? What happened to change in
morphology? That is the part that creationists differ with you on,
you know.
> I think it is easy to imagine that the
>mutated cells will dominate in a relatively short time (unless nutrients are
>replenished at a much higher rate compared to total uptake for the
>community - then something else besides nutrients may be limiting - perhaps
>a physical or ecological factor).
thank you for the speculation, Lizzardwoman, but you have not yet
begun to talk real science.
Zoe
<wett...@attbi.com> wrote:
>On 2007-07-08, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 11:03:03 -0400, "Sam" <s...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>
>> snip>
>>>
>>>Your experiment is regarding abiogenesis. ToE is not concerned with how
>>>life started. It describes how existing life changes over time. You are
>>>attempting to use ToE mechanisms to explain something it does not
>>>encompasss.
>>
>> actually, I was not thinking of abiogenesis, but after reading the
>> responses, I see that I have started too low in the process, which
>> indeed turns out to be abiogenesis.
>>
>> I'll take the corrections and start again.
>>
>> My universe will consist of, as Steven J. proposes, a swarm of
>> self-replicating cells, so simple that they cannot yet even be labeled
>> as bacteria, but they are alive and they reproduce.
>>
>> Let's say that the sun's radiation causes one of these cells to mutate
>> (I'll consider the blue spheres in my sampling "universe" to be the
>> beneficially mutated cell), how does any potential benefit of this
>> mutation trigger a preservation response in the cell? Or do I have it
>> wrong as to what natural selection does about a mutation?
>
>You have it wrong. The reason that we call the mutation a benefit is
>because it is more likely to pass the mutation to children than the
>unmutated cells. Mutations aren't judged to be beneficial in the abstract.
so, Mark, it seems to me that you are saying that it is the germ-cell
that "recognizes" a beneficial mutation and passes it on to the
offspring, while it retains the unmutated cells. How does the germ
cell line differentiate between the two?
Already I'm beginning to realize that it may be impossible to test
natural selection in the context of macroevolution.
Zoe
wrote:
>On Jul 7, 5:26 pm, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 08:17:55 -0700, Inez <savagemouse...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
snip>
>> Trying again: Selection of (supposedly) beneficial mutations is
>> considered to be the key to the evolution of new life forms from old
>> life forms. The oldest life form I want to use in my experiment is
>> the proposed earliest life form, a single self-replicating cell or a
>> swarm of self-replicating cells.
>>
>> Can an experiment be done on this basis now?
>
>I should think a general one could be done. We still have bacteria,
>although probably not of the original sort.
does it matter that it's not exactly the same? Demonstration of your
evolutionary theory can still go on in the current sort, can't it?
snip>
>>
>> well, I am not a chemist so expect many mistakes. But if
>> embarrassment attends my learning process, then I am willing to endure
>> it in order to learn. So please don't try to scare me away by waving
>> the embarrassment card in front of me, Inez.
>
>Sorry, I'm not especially trying to scare you away, I find you one of
>the few creationist on this board who can carry on an interesting
>conversation. Carry on.
thank you. But you cut off the rest of the post. I would have liked
to have heard your answers in order to carry on.
Zoe
>
>"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:kkd093lpff1f94rtc...@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:54:59 -0700, Inez <savagem...@hotmail.com>
>It says that the scientists, naturally, prefer not to invoke imaginary
>entities to solve their problems.
come on, Milan...so far only imaginary entities have been invoked as
the first common ancestor -- through words like "perhaps" and
"imagine."
>They do what we do all the time in our
>everyday lives: we dont imagine that ghosts or angels or gods mess around
>with our things. It's that simple.
but you do imagine nameless blobs to be your first common ancestor.
Zoe
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <lqb093tjggblbobl6...@4ax.com>, Zoe
><muz...@aol.com> writes
>>>You're welcome(ish) to talk about origins, but when by origins you mean
>>>abiogenesis, it's misleading to write about testing the methodology (I
>>>think you mean mechanism) of evolution.
>>
>>I am talking about the origins of the first new species of cell that
>>supposedly evolved from the old and first cell-type organism. Is that
>>better?
>
>Elsewhere - I've lost it in the thread - you claim that you're talking
>about the time before there were populations. So I'd better make the
>following clear ...
>
>It may or may not be meaningful to speak of the first organism as a
>single individual - the line between life and non-life may be fuzzy. But
>assume for the sake of argument there was an identifiable (by an
>omniscient contemporary observer) first organism. This may accumulate
>mutations as it lives - DNA repair is likely to relatively inefficient
>at this stage - but these mutations are unlikely to transform it into a
>new species.
how much apparatus are you prepared to give to this imagined first
common ancestor, please? Does it have at least an immune system to
protect it from its hostile environment?
>
>However this first individual doesn't remain a single individual. It
>reproduces, and its daughters reproduce, and so on, and a population
>forms and grows (at first exponentially), and individuals drift away to
>other places and form other populations, and in a geologically short
>time there are billions of near copies of that first individual.
>
>(Evolution requires life as a precursor; natural selection requires that
>there be at least two living organisms.)
okay.
>
>Now, back to the original question. It appears that your not so much
>asking about natural selection, but about the efficacy of natural
>selection in achieving speciation. It happens to be the case that many
>different processes can be involved in speciation; at one extreme
>natural selection is involved, at the other extreme natural selection
>is, if you draw the box in the right place, the only process involved.
>
>For the example of the first extreme, consider allopolyploidy by the
>union of unreduced gametes. Organisms normally produce gametes (eggs and
>sperm) with half the number of chromosomes of the parent, which, when
>they unite, regain the parental number of chromosomes. In some
>organisms, e.g. plants, the process of the formation of gametes is
>erratic, and there is an appreciable rate of production of gametes with
>twice, or even four times, the normal number. An unreduced gamete from a
>plant of one species can fertilise an unreduced gamete of another
>species. This produces an allopolyploid offspring, which contains
>complete sets of chromosomes from both parents. If it is viable, and
>self-fertile, it is a member of a third species. (This particular
>example doesn't apply to your question, as you're talking about the time
>before sexual reproduction and even before there were two species.)
true, so strike that example and moving on...
>
>For an example of the second extreme, consider a population the
>morphology of whose members clusters about a mean morphology. Now
>imagine that the environment changes so that the mean morphology is no
>longer favoured, but that two or more atypical morphologies are
>favoured. After time we know have a metapopulation whose members are
>clustered about several different morphologies.
do you have examples of this in the current world that can be
extrapolated back to the early earth scenario?
>
>Now to answer your question. Speciation occurs in the modern world -
>we've seen it happen perhaps 100 times - and a variety of processes are
>involved.
would you be less vague, please? What exactly occurs in the
speciation you are referring to? Do you mean adaptive changes where
the species retains its morphology but copes with its environment more
successfully? Or do you mean morphological changes that distinguish
one part of a population from another part of the same population?
>Why couldn't those processes (or rather the subset of them
>that were operating at the time) have resulted in speciation in the
>ur-population.
pardon my ignorance, but what does "ur" stand for? I imagine you are
referring to the new population, but not sure what "ur" specifically
refers to.
>The ur-population would have spread into different
>environments, in these different environments the descendant populations
>would have accumulated, by drift and selection, different genetic
>changes. When sufficient genetic changes have accumulated you have new
>species.
please for examples from today's populations that can be reasonably
extrapolated back to an unknown time?
Zoe
wrote:
>On Jul 7, 5:59 pm, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:54:59 -0700, Inez <savagemouse...@hotmail.com>
>"Invoking" isn't part of science.
I am using that word in the sense of "resort to" or "put into use."
> To the best of my knoweldge various
>scientists have various theories about how life came about, and none
>of them happen to involve intelligence. If you want to propose
>something that seems likely and which there is a tiny crumb of
>evidence for, I'm sure your ideas would be listened to if they had
>merit.
Zoe
<jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message news:kkd093lpff1f94rtc...@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:54:59 -0700, Inez <savagem...@hotmail.com>
>I can only speak for myself, Zoe. I tend to prefer naturalistic abiogenesis
>hypotheses to supernatural abiogenesis hypotheses because I can falsify
>the naturalistic ones.
okay. Please falsify your first common ancestor.
> Analyze them in detail to find out whether they
>still make sense.
can you analyze your first common ancestor?
> I know how to do that for chemistry. I don't know how
>to do it for miracles.
abiogenesis is not a miracle of nature?
> Maybe if I knew more facts about theology it would
>be a different story.
you don't need to know about theology to recognize mental activity
wherever it might be found.
Zoe
sorry, I'm not inclined to do that kind of time-wasting research.
> Posters on this forum
>claim that an intelligent agent is definitely not supported by any
>evidence.
that's just a shorthand way of saying that an intelligent agent
definitely did not do it. And ask any atheist, and they will say an
intelligent agent definitely did not do it. It is the agnostic who
leaves room open for the possibility.
snip>
Lizzardwoman
You can select for faster growing or more efficient strains using chemostats
as far as I know. That wasn't a whimsical example. I was trying to write
it soyou might understand it easily.
| >the beneficial mutation allowed those cells to take up nutrients
| >faster and from a lower concentration than the rest of the cells. Then
| >those cells would outcompete the other cells for nutrients both because
the
| >uptake velocity was higher and because those cells could survive at lower
| >nutrient concentrations than the other cells.
|
| okay, so now, in perhaps-land, you have more efficient cells,
| voraciously gobbling up the nutrients. Do you consider the ability to
| out-eat other organisms to be evidence of speciation?
I think it can constitute a first step towards speciation because whatever
other changes occurred would come along for the ride as the new strain
outcompeted the old one. Then another change might occur favoring some
subset of the mutated cells. Then another. Eventually, you would have
another species based on how the microbio types determine species. I have
seen them rename bacteria with a diferent genus name (e.g., Alteromonas
putrifaciens to Shewanella putrifaciens IIRC). So based on that, these
bacteria things seem pretty squirrily and PERHPA even changy.
| >So the mutated cells have at least two advantages over the non-mutated
| >cells. They can take up nutrients faster than the other cells AND they
can
| >drive down the nutrient concentration which starves the other cells while
| >sustaining the mutated cells.
|
| are you saying that the healthier, more efficient species are examples
| of what you call macroevolution? What happened to change in
| morphology? That is the part that creationists differ with you on,
| you know.
I'm saying that is a first step. Now try to imagine second, third, fourth,
etc. steps with each one ratcheting the mutated group away from the orginal
population in terms of some metabolic aspect.
In terms of morphology, PERHAPS some phototrophic cells developed the
ability to synthesize more pigment than the others. They could live deeper
below the surface than non-mutated species where the nutrients are
morereplete.
Also, there is the Chlorella culture that because colonial in the presence
of a phagotropic flagellate. That would be considered a morphological
change AFAICT without being an actual bio type myself.
You are limiting the discussion to single-cells organisms and demanding a
change in morphology. While I think examples can be produced, it is easier
to understand morphological changes in multicellular organisms.
| > I think it is easy to imagine that the
| >mutated cells will dominate in a relatively short time (unless nutrients
are
| >replenished at a much higher rate compared to total uptake for the
| >community - then something else besides nutrients may be limiting -
perhaps
| >a physical or ecological factor).
|
| thank you for the speculation, Lizzardwoman, but you have not yet
| begun to talk real science.
And your performance in the geological column thread was "real science"
PERHAPS?
sharon
wf...@comcast.net
>On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 21:41:20 -0400, "Perplexed in Peoria"
><jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>I can only speak for myself, Zoe. I tend to prefer naturalistic abiogenesis
>>hypotheses to supernatural abiogenesis hypotheses because I can falsify
>>the naturalistic ones.
>
>okay. Please falsify your first common ancestor.
don't have to...not needed for evolution. all that's needed is to
demonstrate evolution...which has been done.
oh...by the way...demonstrate god.
>
>
>> I know how to do that for chemistry. I don't know how
>>to do it for miracles.
>
>abiogenesis is not a miracle of nature?
nope. it's chemistry
Zoe
wrote:
>In article <sgc093dkseunpufq0...@4ax.com>, Zoe
><muz...@aol.com> writes
>>I want to understand how evolutionists propose that new adaptive
>>features can be selected for before the mutational change has reached
>>the point of being adaptive.
>
>It can't. A mutation which does not confer an advantage will at best be
>passed on randomly or (much more commonly) not be passed on at all
>because it gives a disadvantage. There is no special treatment for
>mutations that might be useful in the future.
since mutations have to accumulate before they confer an advantage,
then before the point of advantage can be reached, the
non-advantageous earlier mutations will be discarded and you are back
to square one.
>
>>How do I recognize that an adaptive
>>feature has been reached sufficient that I can label my blue sphere,
>>say, as having a beneficial mutation?
>
>When the mutation allows it to produce more little blue sphere offspring
>than it's neighbours produce.
no, the litlle blue sphere will represent a biological organism that
has had a "beneficial" mutation passed on to it. Don't take my
spheres so literally.
Zoe
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <sgc093dkseunpufq0...@4ax.com>, Zoe
><muz...@aol.com> writes
>>On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:19:08 GMT, "Perplexed in Peoria"
>><jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>snip>
>>
>>zoe wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>>>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>>>> forms.
>>>
>>>I'm not sure what you mean here by 'new life forms'. I would say that
>>>selection of beneficial mutations is the key to the evolution of new
>>>adaptive features by existing life forms.
>>
>>I want to understand how evolutionists propose that new adaptive
>>features can be selected for before the mutational change has reached
>>the point of being adaptive. How do I recognize that an adaptive
>>feature has been reached sufficient that I can label my blue sphere,
>>say, as having a beneficial mutation?
>
>There's little hope of us providing you with an understanding of "how
>evolutionists propose that new adaptive features can be selected for
>before the mutational change has reached the point of being adaptive",
>for the simple reason that they don't propose that non-adaptive
>mutations can be selected for. (They can spread other processes such as
>genetic drift and hitchhiking, but that's not being selected for.)
are you saying that adaptive mutations cause an instant, recognizable
change in morphology such that it will be readily selected for? I
thought the process of macro-evolving was a slow and incremental one
that takes millions of years? That means that each mutation
supposedly adds to the last until you finally get a definitive
morophological change, where a leg disappears and a wing takes its
place. If this is the case, then how do non-adaptive, in-between
mutations, on their way to the final adaptive change, get selected for
when they are not yet adaptive? And if they are not selected for,
don't they just die out? They don't know to wait around until the
final flourish.
>
>Take the mutation which replaces normal human haemoglobin with
>haemoglobin C (which is one of several which provides some protection
>against malaria). In the absence of malaria haemoglobin C is, to the
>best of my knowledge, neutral, which puts it one up on haemoglobin S
>(the haemoglobin of sickle cell trait/anaemia), so it is neither
>selected for or against. Add malaria to the mix, and it is selected for.
>Note well that whether it is adaptive or not depends on the environment.
>Note that if it the mutation occurs in a malarial environment it is
>immediately adaptive - there is no intervening period in which it is not
>adaptive.
but this does not have to do with the kind of morphological change
that evolutionists insist happen in macroevolution. This has to do
with coping skills, better health, and so on. Are you saying that
adaptation (which creationists recognize) is the same as evolution?
Zoe
<earle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>In article <3nd093tue48eevmdu...@4ax.com>,
> Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>> I am asking you to explain how mutation and natural selection can take
>> a single cell from being a single cell to life's present diversity. A
>> question is not a tacit concession, is it? If I can wrap my mind
>> around your mechanism, then maybe, just maybe, I can try a hands-on
>> experiment.
>
>*
>Zoe: I believe that you have learned Lesson (1). That is, abiogenesis
>is not evolution.
what I have learned is that evolutionists divorce origins from
evolution because they have no answers in regard to origins. So they
spend all their time on a forum titled "Origins" promoting evolution
instead, and call that promotion "on topic."
>
>Here's Lesson (2): Individuals do not evolve. Populations evolve.
>That means individual animals, plants, bacteria, cells, molecules, atoms
>-- do not evolve. Evolution has to do with averages measured over a
>population.
oh stop. This is not making any sense.
A single "beneficial" mutation can happen to only one organism at a
time. It does not hit every member of a population. That single
organism would then pass on the mutation in its germ cell to its
offspring. If a population evolves, as you say, then it would have to
be because there was a single member somewhere that passed on its
mutations to its offspring. That individual would have to evolve
first.
So can we get back to the feasability of a single individual macro
evolving and passing on its macro changes to its offspring to create a
new macroevolved population?
Zoe
<lizzardw...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
>"Zoe" <muz...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
>(snip)
>
>| that's been one problem, in my mind, for macroevolution -- the
>| ubiquity of bacteria, and the fact that, as you say, even today they
>| freely trade genes back and forth, that they reproduce rapidly so that
>| their generations can equate to millions of years on a relative time
>| scale, and yet we do not see bacteria evolving any new body plans.
>
>I'm not a bio type but I had bio friends in grad school who were using
>chemostats. In one experiment they grew chlorella (algae) in the presence
>of a flagellate (zooplankton) predator. Over a few months IIRC, the
>chlorella started clumping together to avoid predation. Control cultures
>without predators showed no such clumping. Now of course this wasn't
>conscious... some chlorella happened to form colonies and those survived
>predation. It's been a while but I think those are the correct general
>facts.
so when a herd of buffalo press together when predators are near, this
is evidence that they are evolving?
Zoe
<stev...@altavista.com> wrote:
>On Jul 7, 8:03 pm, Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 21:23:54 -0000, "Steven J."
>>
>> <steve...@altavista.com> wrote:
>>
>> snip>
>>
>> >Selection of beneficial mutations is considered to be the key to the
>> >evolution of new adaptions (from camouflaged coloration to limbs,
>> >wings, and eyes). Adaption and speciation are different phenomena,
>> >and many evolutionists doubt that they are governed by the same
>> >processes. So you might get new species through isolation, genetic
>> >drift, and other causes, with natural selection playing little or no
>> >part. It depends, I suppose, on what you mean by "new life forms" --
>> >diversity of species, or disparity of body plans.
>>
>> disparity of body plans.
>>
>> >As I've pointed out to Tony Pagano, there is no need to assume a
>> >"first common ancestor;" there may have been a mix of simple organisms
>> >freely trading genes back and forth (as many bacteria still do
>> >today), forming symbiotic unions, and, before the first true cells
>> >emerged, a time when there were self-replicating systems that
>> >straddled the boundaries between life and non-life. Natural selection
>> >can operate on self-replicating systems whether they meet our
>> >subjective criteria for "life" or not, but at some point in our
>> >backwards journey, we reach a point where there's nothing for natural
>> >selection to work on and where it, consequently, cannot function as an
>> >explanation.
>>
>> that's been one problem, in my mind, for macroevolution -- the
>> ubiquity of bacteria, and the fact that, as you say, even today they
>> freely trade genes back and forth, that they reproduce rapidly so that
>> their generations can equate to millions of years on a relative time
>> scale, and yet we do not see bacteria evolving any new body plans.
>>
>Well, according to the following link, bacterial colonies do
>demonstrate a degree of complexity and elaborate behavior suggestive
>of multicellular organisms: <http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/
>sf058b09.htm>.
looks like bacteria are not so simple after all. Maybe we need to
move back earlier to simpler life forms.
Problem is, apparently, you need fully formed and functioning life
forms on which to practice the mental art of selected mutations. You
have no idea how these fully operating life forms came about....but
yet are willing to say that they did not arise through intelligence.
Why is that? Is something wrong with intelligence that the magic of
self-assembly is preferred?
> As for individual bacteria, they come in a variety of
>shapes, but there's only so much one can do with a single cell without
>the organelles or nuclei that characterize eukaryote (pretty much
>every organism you can see with the naked eye, plus a lot of single-
>celled organisms like amoebas, euglenas, etc.) cells.
>
>One might suggest, from a selectionist point of view, that niches for
>multicellular body plans are already occupied by eukaryotes, and that
>bacteria that did "try out" such plans would be outcompeted and driven
>into extinction.
so far, no scientific data has been presented in support of the
suggestions and speculations. Would it be fair to say that the first
common ancestor is taken on faith?
snip>
Zoe
wrote:
>In article <s15v83heeupd97kvt...@4ax.com>, Zoe
><muz...@aol.com> writes
>>Will someone please present a mechanism by which it can be
>>demonstrated that the earliest proteins would be able to reproduce
>>themselves instead of continuing to add amino acids in an
>>ever-lengthening chain?
>
>It's thought that proteins came along quite late i.e. long after
>abiogenesis, but actually your description could actually be a possible
>solution (we don't know for certain what happened because few clues have
>been left behind).
>
>If you have a string of units (doesn't matter what) which adds new units
>sourced from the environment around, it then what happens when it
>eventually breaks in two? You get two strings, both of which will add
>units to their ends.
>
>There you have a simple but viable reproductive system.
two separate strings of protein make a viable reproductive system? How
so? Is this considered good biological science?
>
>A good, readable book on this subject of abiogenesis is Genesis by
>Robert M Hazen. ISBN 0-309-09432-1
give me a summary, or at least a quote.
Zoe
see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
>> From: Zoe <muz...@aol.com>
>> ... it would help to test the suggested methodology for evolution
>> - selected beneficial mutations - to see if it is even a worthy
>> alternative to intelligence.
>
>Your comment makes no sense. AFAWK The only intelligence capable of
>deliberately inducing beneficial changes to a genome is humans, and
>it's only within the past few years that human knowledge and
>technology has gotten even close to that capability, and it's only
>in the future that such capability might become practical. To
>explain *past* evolution, from the first replicator to modern life,
>by some *future* human technology, is utterly absurd.
>
the hubris of the ant-like human, who thinks that he has reached the
pinnacle of intelligence and there can be no one smarter than him.
Pity.
>> I want to test the evolutionists' proposed mechanism for evolution.
>
>If you want to test the sorts of changes that can evolve over the
>course of a few years, you need a lot of money to pay for a lab and
>skilled workers in the field. If you want to test the sorts of
>chages that require millions of years, you need to help develop
>space habitat, purchase your own asteroid and convert it into a
>laboratory, hire an army to defend your lab for millions of years
>against all future military activities of the rest of humanity, and
>somehow convince your descendents to carry on your programme after
>you are long dead. I suggest you stick to the short-term evolution
>experiments. Do you have the money to pay for lab and skilled
>workers?
in other words, your theory defies testability. Thanks for the
admission.
>
>> Apparently - correct me if I'm wrong -- selection of beneficial
>> mutations is considered to be the key to the evolution of new life
>> forms.
>
>No, there are several "keys":
>-1- Raw fecundity greater than one;
>-2- Genome that is copied very accurately;
>-3- Differential survival that is caused a mix of:
> -3a- genetic factors, and
> -3b- happenstance events;
>-4- Occasional mistakes in copying the genome.
>-5- Limits to growth (resource depletion), which cause effectively
> fecundity to drop below 1 for the less-fit tail of the
> distribution while the effectively fecundity of the more-fit tail
> remains greater than 1.
>When you say "selection of beneficial mutations", you seem to be
>conflating items 3a and 4.
I'd rather not conflate any of the above points. Evolutionary theory
likes to hide its inadequacies behind a lot of words that actually say
nothing.
>
>> the observation that mutations can and do change alleles is used
>> to jump backwards past the fully functioning organism into a time
>> where it is said that only chemical elements existed, to conclude
>> that the same mechanism in operation today was in operation back then.
>
>No such time existed, except for the first few millions of years
>after the Big Bang.
I think you are contradicting yourself. First you say no such time
existed, and then follow up immediately with a few million years that
existed after the big bang. Either it existed or it didn't.
>As soon as the first stars blew their heavy
>elements out into space, some molecules began to form in space,
>ending the era of only elements. This was appx. 9 billion years
>before the Earth formed, 10 billion years before life occurred on
>Earth and biological evolution started happening.
what is your authority for this?
>
>> This mechanism is responsible for the formation of the first
>> common ancestor that, over time, evolved into the myriad species we
>> see today.
>
>The phase "first common ancestor" has no meaning.
>Perhaps you meant to say "last universal common ancestor"?
no, i meant exactly that, FIRST common ancestor. You do believe there
was a first common acnestor, don't you?
>
>> In the evolutionary scenario, these basic chemical elements came
>> together in random combinations to form amino acids, and the amino
>> acids came together in random combinations to form various kinds of
>> proteins.
>
>No. Proteins were a relatively modern invention *of* already-existing life.
I said nothing about time frame. So why the "No"?
snip>
I cannot, and neither can you, nor can your cohort of evolutionary
scientists. In other words, your theory cannot be tested. Do you
call that science?
Ernest Major
Yes, beneficial (adaptive?) mutations cause an instant (neglecting
issues of dominance and recessiveness), recognizable changes in
phenotype (not all changes are morphological, as demonstrated by the
haemoglobin C example).
But that is not incompatible with the acquisition of larger
morphological changes over extended periods of time. Your error is to
assume that nothing happens until the final stage - "a leg disappearing
and a wing taking its place". That is not what we think happens, and is
not what is observed in the fossil record. Look, at for example, the
theraspid-mammal transition. To a first approximation (genetic drift
complicates the matter a little) each stage is adaptive, or at least
neutral; each stage is selected, and therefore there is no need for them
to have to wait around for the final flourish.
>
>>
>>Take the mutation which replaces normal human haemoglobin with
>>haemoglobin C (which is one of several which provides some protection
>>against malaria). In the absence of malaria haemoglobin C is, to the
>>best of my knowledge, neutral, which puts it one up on haemoglobin S
>>(the haemoglobin of sickle cell trait/anaemia), so it is neither
>>selected for or against. Add malaria to the mix, and it is selected for.
>>Note well that whether it is adaptive or not depends on the environment.
>>Note that if it the mutation occurs in a malarial environment it is
>>immediately adaptive - there is no intervening period in which it is not
>>adaptive.
>
>but this does not have to do with the kind of morphological change
>that evolutionists insist happen in macroevolution. This has to do
>with coping skills, better health, and so on. Are you saying that
>adaptation (which creationists recognize) is the same as evolution?
>
Mutation and natural selection are not only processes involved in
evolution, but to the degree that changes are driven by natural
selection, then yes macroevolution is the result of successive adaptive
changes.
"Evolutionists" do not insist that large changes in morphology occur as
single steps (saltation); in fact the doubt that saltation is common, or
if it even occurs. Mutations can have a small effect or a large effect,
but if an organism is reasonably well adapted mutations of small effect
are more likely to beneficial; whether the cumulative effect of frequent
small changes or few large changes is greater may be an open question,
but the general opinion is that the former predominates.
--
alias Ernest Major
Lizzardwoman
Well, the reason that we only see ones who press together is that the ones
who didn't group were picked off over time. So this behavior was selected
due to predation pressure. It is one move away from a group that had some
animals who grouped in the face of predators and some who didn't.
The only thing that let's you accept one step without seeing where this
enterprise is heading is your slavish adherence to Bronze Age mythology.
If not, why is it that 99.999999999999999999999% of creationists are
theists?? Do you have an answer?
sharon
Ernest Major
<lizzardw...@nc.rr.com> writes
Zoe perhaps didn't release that the clustering of chlorella into small
colonies was hereditary; it continues to occur regardless of whether
predators are present.
--
alias Ernest Major
Ernest Major
<muz...@aol.com> writes
>On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 12:29:42 -0700, Earle Jones
><earle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>In article <3nd093tue48eevmdu...@4ax.com>,
>> Zoe <muz...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>> I am asking you to explain how mutation and natural selection can take
>>> a single cell from being a single cell to life's present diversity. A
>>> question is not a tacit concession, is it? If I can wrap my mind
>>> around your mechanism, then maybe, just maybe, I can try a hands-on
>>> experiment.
>>
>>*
>>Zoe: I believe that you have learned Lesson (1). That is, abiogenesis
>>is not evolution.
>
>what I have learned is that evolutionists divorce origins from
>evolution because they have no answers in regard to origins. So they
>spend all their time on a forum titled "Origins" promoting evolution
>instead, and call that promotion "on topic."
If you want us to discuss your "experiment on natural selection" you
might want to refrain from rude and dismissive comments like that.
Abiogenesis is not evolution; if you want to discuss evolution (and in
this thread you so claim) then you have to learn to make the
distinction, or else we'll all be spending our time trying to rectify
your confusion on that point, rather than discussing evolution.
>>
>>Here's Lesson (2): Individuals do not evolve. Populations evolve.
>>That means individual animals, plants, bacteria, cells, molecules, atoms
>>-- do not evolve. Evolution has to do with averages measured over a
>>population.
>
>oh stop. This is not making any sense.
>
>A single "beneficial" mutation can happen to only one organism at a
>time. It does not hit every member of a population. That single
>organism would then pass on the mutation in its germ cell to its
>offspring. If a population evolves, as you say, then it would have to
>be because there was a single member somewhere that passed on its
>mutations to its offspring. That individual would have to evolve
>first.
You're trying to focus on the earliest life forms. These wouldn't, any
more than living bacteria. have had separate germ cells. In fact a
separate germ-line is a trait displayed by only a small branch of the
living world (eumetazoans - animals other than sponges - if I recall
correctly, with the proviso that it also appears to have been lost in
placozoans and myxozoans).
In a large population a beneficial mutation can happen to more than one
organism. But the point is that it then spreads through the population
by selection.
The definition of evolution given in the text books is the change of
allele frequencies in a population over time; this can result from
mutation, selection, drift, or geneflow (and any other process that has
escaped my attention). The appearance of a mutant individual is by this
definition evolution, but it's a very small amount of evolution, and
it's evolution of the population, not the individual. The bigger change
in allele frequencies in the population (i.e. the greater amount of
evolution) results from the spread of that mutation by selection, not
from its original production.
>
>So can we get back to the feasability of a single individual macro
>evolving and passing on its macro changes to its offspring to create a
>new macroevolved population?
>
You're asking us to defend a position - saltationism - that we don't
hold. That's like an atheist asking you to explain how Moses could be
the Son of God.
As I explain in another post, the general opinion is that large scale
morphological change arises predominantly from the accumulation of small
changes over extended periods of time. To talk of a single individual
"macro-evolving" is pretty much nonsense.
--
alias Ernest Major