Interview With Christopher Hitchens Featured on Why Evolution is true
Budikka666
ilbe...@gmail.com
> http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> Budikka
There isnt a shred of evidence for macro evolution. Not a shred.
Thats why its called an unsupported THEORY. Abiogenesis has to be
proven first before macro evolution can even be considered. The
worlds foremost ATHEIST Biologist and co founder of the DNA
structure, Dr. Francis Crick, affirmed the probability of
abiogenesis is about 10x40,000 th power chance. This is why no one
is really an atheist and hence, it is a non validated, non tenable
secular religion of willful self deciet . I once followed the
deciet for 10 adult years until I had to abandon the willful self
deceit because i didnt want God interfering with my lifesytle
choices . You can change too and God will help you in the process.
ilbe...@gmail.com
> http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> Budikka
Nobodys got this kind of silly religious faith in naturalism . Not
even Hitchens Dawkins, or yourself :
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/did-life-form-by-accident.htm
. (This is one time that you should believe what this atheist Biolgist
has to say in the site) . Id like to suggest that as an atheist, you
dont want God to exist because you dont want to be owned by him
thereby making you morally accountable for the way you use foul and
vile language in here in addition to lifestyle choices. I mean no
offense, because i used to do the same thing when i wanted to be an
'atheist' . Regards.
haiku jones
> On Jul 30, 5:05 pm, Budikka666 <budik...@netscape.net> wrote:
>
> >http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> > Budikka
>
> There isnt a shred of evidence for macro evolution. Not a shred.
I believe you're thinking of chemistry. There's not a shred
of evidence for the theories of so-called "chemistry" Not a shred.
> Thats why its called an unsupported THEORY. Abiogenesis has to be
> proven first before macro evolution can even be considered.
Well, that's refreshingly unencumbered by logic.
> The
> worlds foremost ATHEIST Biologist and co founder of the DNA
> structure, Dr. Francis Crick, affirmed the probability of
> abiogenesis is about 10x40,000 th power chance.
So Crick must have given up his beliefs in evolution,
obviously. Did he make a big public occasion of it?
> This is why no one
> is really an atheist and hence, it is a non validated, non tenable
> secular religion of willful self deciet . I once followed the
> deciet for 10 adult years until I had to abandon the willful self
> deceit because i didnt want God interfering with my lifesytle
> choices .
That was your reason? Geez, that was childish of you,
wasn't it?
Glad that's not MY reason...
> You can change too and God will help you in the process.
Something helped me, in any event. I must have passed
you on the road along the way.
HJ
Budikka666
> On Jul 30, 5:05 pm, Budikka666 <budik...@netscape.net> wrote:
>
> >http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> > Budikka
>
> There isnt a shred of evidence for macro evolution. Not a shred.
1.
There is in the current issue of "Nature" - a peer-reviewed science
journal that often publishes evidence supporting the Theory of
Evolution - the entire chimpanzee genome, which has just been read.
It turns out that chimpanzees differ from humans in only FOUR PERCENT
OF THE GENOME. This was no surprise to evolutionists, but it's a
massive bitch-slap for creationists like Dumbass Creationist.
Let's just do some simple math (and I do mean simple. Evolution does
not work in a linear, orderly, pre-planned organized fashion, but
this
is for illustrative purposes).
Human and chimpanzee genomes are about 3 billion base pairs long, so
that 4% difference is 120,000,000 base pairs. If we split the
difference, this means that the chimpanzees had to change out
60,000,000 base pairs and humans the same number in the time since we
parted from our common ancestor.
According to Richard Dawkins in his recently published "The Ancestor's
Tale" humans and apes parted company some 6,000,000 years ago. For
the
sake of argument, let's distribute the 60,000,000 base pairs over the
6,000,000 years, giving us a requirement of 10 base pairs per year to
macroevolve from a common ancestor into either a chimpanzee or a human
in 6 million years. What is there to prevent that? Why could that
not
have happened?
In order to respond to this question creationists will need to define
"kind" and define the mechanism which prevents one "kind" from
changing
into another "kind". But of course, every time I ask a creationist to
do that, they **RUN AWAY**.
Remember that this was not one chimpanzee/human ancestor changing
genes
or base pairs, it was every chimpanzee or every human. What was there
to prevent this?
This answer is nothing. There's your macroevolution.
2.
Richard Dawkins has a book out (http://tinyurl.com/bcbos) in which he
discusses, with examples, the pathway from the first cell to modern
humans. What's that if it isn't "macroevolution"?
3.
Recent genetic mapping has demonstrated that mice have 80% of our DNA
(or we theirs) with each species having only some 300 genes that the
other didn't have. Creationists have no intelligent explanation for
this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2536501.stm
What it means is that since the mouse and ourselves split from our
common ancestor, we each have diversified only 300 genes out of some
30,000 each. Maybe these are new genes or maybe we lost some that the
mouse didn't and vice versa. But the one thing that has the
creationists on their backs with their legs in the air like dead bugs
on a sun blazed window ledge is that such diversification is
completely
plausible. In other words, a mouse-like organism could as readily
have evolved into a mouse as it could into a human.
Let's make it tough on evolution and say that our common ancestor had
a
basic set of genes and in order for it to become a mouse or a human,
it
had to "grow" 300 new genes. We know there were critters not
dissimilar to mice running around in the finale to the dinosaur era.
In fact, similar creatures existed at least 75 million years ago.
Last
december, part of the DNA of one of them was recently reconstructed on
computer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4056559.stm
So let's set a starting point 60 million years ago and say this is
where we and mice took off. We each had to grow 300 new genes in 60
million years.
Creationists like to say that a gene has, on average, 100,000 base
pairs, so let's use that number. 100,000 base pairs times 300 genes
means we had to grow 30 million new base pairs in 60 million years.
That's one new base pair every two years! How hard is that? Not hard
at all given the breeding rate of mice and other small mammals that
kick-started this.
What mechanism prevents it? Nothing! The creationists cannot offer a
single argument against it, and this is the worst possible case they
can throw at evolution. The worse case that can be made and
creationists cannot argue a single thing against it! That's how
pathetic their position is.
Of course, evolution doesn't work in this simple, straight-forward
mathematical mode, but then neither do you need to grow every new gene
from scratch, given the wealth of pseudogenes and junk DNA the genome
has for mutation to play with, so it evens out. This is just a
demonstration of a concept, simplified so that even creationists can
grasp it. It takes the worst case scenario and the creationists lose.
No surprises there.
4.
He's a liar, because here it is, in the form of Sphecomyrma Freyi:
As these articles discuss:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/25/13678
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1998/A/199800382.html
http://www.antnest.co.uk/Origin.html
http://www.antcolony.org/oldest_ant.htm
the "ant kind" and the "wasp kind" had a common ancestor, precisely as
the theory of evolution predicted.
Therefore macroevolution is demonstrated.
5.
Carl Zimmer has a book (http://tinyurl.com/bqgyw) called "At the
Water's Edge : Macroevolution and the Transformation of Life" in which
he discusses, **with examples**, the pathway from aquatic life to
terrestrial life, and then back again. What's that if it isn't
"macroevolution"?
6.
Let me present a parallel example of the very thing he claims cannot
exist. Let me give him an example which shows transition from a
**single cell* to an adult human.
Conception.
If one cell cannot change into a human, how does anyone get born? The
reproductive process from start to finish involves two haploid cells
combining to become a zygocyte, the zygocyte multiplying and
organizing
itself into a morula, a blastula, a gastrula (the embryonic phases), a
fetus, an infant, a toddler, an adolescent, and a human adult.
Which part(s) of that does a god directly control? Or is **ALL OF IT
CONTROLLED BY GENES**?
How is this possible? How can the cell "kind" possibly transform into
the embryo "kind"? How can the embryo "kind", for which an aquatic
environment is a requirement, possibly transform into the infant
"kind", which cannot survive underwater? How can a tiny infant "kind"
possibly change into an adult "kind"? But it happens. Macroevolution
happens.
7.
Evolution of the jaw:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/evolution_of_the_jaw/
8.
Evolution of the eye:
http://scienceagogo.com/news/20050822230316data_trunc_sys.shtml
9. - 539.
530 instances of observed speciation:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
540.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/09/30/birdflu.drugs.reut/index....
reveals speciation (a new strain) in the bird flu virus:
"A strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus that may unleash the next global
flu pandemic is showing resistance to Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that
countries around the world are now stockpiling to fend off the looming
threat."
Speciation is an example of so-called macroevolution.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/09/30/birdflu.drugs.reut/index....
reveals speciation (a new strain) in the bird flu virus:
"A strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus that may unleash the next global
flu pandemic is showing resistance to Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that
countries around the world are now stockpiling to fend off the looming
threat."
Speciation is an example of so-called macroevolution
541.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4204021.stm
reveals: "...genetic analyses indicated that hippos had more in common
with cetaceans, the group to which whales and dolphins belong."
542.
Parthenogenesis proves Dumbass Creationist wrong, even using his own
criteria. This fact of life is evident looking at only a single
species in nature: the Western Whiptail lizard (Cnemidophorus tigris).
According to the creationists (who cannot offer a shred of evidence
let alone proof for their claims) this lizard can only have been
created directly by a god. Yet the Bible claims that everything was
created male and female according to their kind. What happened to the
male of *this* species? Yet if this lizard started out as a mating
pair, macroevolution must have taken place to render it into the state
in which it now exists.
C. tigris is considered to be monophyletic - that is, it's in a class
of its own - or more appropriately in this case, a "kind". No matter
how desperately creationists try to wriggle, they cannot wriggle out
of the fact that *even if a god created this "kind", it has still
subsequently evolved trhough genetic mutation into a different "kind"
from what it was originally, and if this species can evolve from one
"kind" to another, then so can any other organism, and design is
neither necessary nor intelligent.
543.
The chimpanzee and the human genome contain the same genetic mistakes:
Is this the work of an intelligent and perfect designer? That he
screwed up the chimpanzee genome and then made exactly the same
mistake
in an (according to the creationists) completely unrelated organism?
Edward Max MD, PHd writes: "The shared galactosyltransferase
pseudogenes are fascinating for a reason that complicates their use in
arguing against creationists: evidence suggests that there may have
been a selective advantage to mutations that inactivated this gene.
The
enzyme product of the gene catalyzes the production of a particular
carbohydrate molecule that is found on cell membranes of mammals who
possess the enzyme, but also on certain infectious bacteria.
Individuals infected with such bacteria would benefit from mounting an
immune attack on this carbohydrate molecule, but if the same
carbohydrate appeared on their own cells such an attack could damage
their own tissues. Therefore, individuals who carry mutations in the
enzyme--and thus would not make the carbohydrate on their own
cells--would be free to mount an immune attack focused on this
molecule, protecting them against many bacteria without danger of
damaging their own tissues. Therefore, selective pressure would have
led to spread of gene copies that had undergone crippling mutations.
Creationists could reasonably argue that such mutations could have
occurred independently in different species as examples of recent
microevolution after independent creation of the species. It is
possible that different mutations did inactivate the gene
independently
in several primate ancestors. However, the human and chimpanzee
galactosyltransferase pseudogenes have identical crippling mutations;
therefore, it is most likely that the gene was inactivated in a common
human/chimp ancestor."
The only thing that can explain this is either a really stupid
creator, or macroevolution.
544.
Here's something Dumbass Creationist lied about recently:
> The only genetics evidence that they offered, which was
> that chimps are 98% identical in code to humans. I
> showed them that while they try to pretend that it's
> almost exact, it's really 96%
Dumbass Creationist pretends he understands science, claims he's
widely read on
the topic, and even claims he has some books on the subject! Wowee!
He also claims he can discuss it. He's a liar. He has never
discussed
even one of these examples with me despite his assertion in his
macroevolution thread that he would.
I specified in my example #1 (http://tinyurl.com/dxqjc) that it was
**96%** genetic match overall (the exact figure Dumbass Creationist
lies that
evolutionists do not use) in a genomic comparison between humans and
chimpanzees. I'd be tickled to death if any creationist could
scientifically explain that from the special creation perspective, but
this shows what an incompetent liar Dumbass Creationist is. **He
never even
read what I wrote yet felt he could dismiss it**!
The 98% figure is also true. It applies when you compare genes which
specify proteins, as opposed to the entire genome (including junk DNA,
most of which does nothing). Clearly Dumbass Creationist doesn't
understand
this distinction, yet he arrogantly feels fully qualified to dismiss
the topic. Go figure.
What this distinction means, unfortunately for Dumbass Creationist is
that
when we take into account junk DNA, most of which codes for nothing
and
is just the detritus of evolution, there is *more* difference than
when
we look only at genes that code for the proteins which build and
maintain our bodies.
> and that the 4% means thousands
> upon thousands of differences,
4% of the genome in this case is only 120,000,000 base pairs, and as I
just pointed out, this is irrelevant because it is largely junk. The
difference in working genes is only 1%-2%.
Since we have ~25,000 genes, this percentage is at most 500 genes out
of 25,000. That means something akin to chimpanzees having ~250 genes
we do not have and us having ~250 they do not. We diverged from
chimpanzees some 5 - 7 millon years ago according to the best
available
evidence so far, which means that in (say) 5 million years (to give
Dumbass Creationist his best shot), we (each species) had to acquire
or change
250 genes. This works out to be one new gene every 20,000 years - a
gene that was duplicated and then changed, or simply changed.
What is there to prevent that? Please give your scientific answer,
Dumbass Creationist, and let's discuss it. Science has already shown
it can
happen and that it does happen, therefore it is up to you, Dumbass
Creationist to show why it did not in the specific case of humans,
chimpanzees, and
the putative ancestor. Science doesn't know of anything that could
prevent it. Does creation science? I await Dumbass Creationist's
evidence. I
won't hold my breath.
Scientists have found genes that have changed in many genomes. There
are many mechanisms which can do this and which do actually do this
(humans and chimpanzees exhibit this, for example, in our blood
grouping and my example #543 - http://tinyurl.com/aeyfm - addressed a
case like this). Anyone who cares to scientifically demonstrate such
a
mechanism would become more famous than Darwin and fabulously wealthy.
Any takers?
545.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4331252.stm
reports discoveries of more fossils of Homo floresiensis.
This is a new hominid species that has been found nowhere else but on
Flores island, Indonesia. About 800,000 years ago, Homo erectus was
on
Flores.
Since the Bible makes no mention whatsoever of a separate creation on
the Island, this is actually two examples of so-called macroevolution.
First H. erectus evolves and populates the island, then H.
floresiensis
evolves from H. erectus.
To refute this, Dumbass Creationist must provide science showing that
H.
sapiens, H. erectus, and H. floresiensis are all the same "kind", or
that they are all separate, specially created "kinds". Science can
find no evidence at this point that they're not all related by
evolution, so this leaves the ball roundly in the creationist court.
546.
This one is based on testimony (under oath to god himself by a
practicing Christian) being given in a current court case, but I can't
give a rerference to it because Dumbass Creationist throws a hissy-fit
if you
actually reference something. Note that he never does himself, so I
shall respect that tradition - until a while from now.
Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, *46* in all. Chimpanzees have
48.
Now if there is so-called "macroevolution" - if humans and chimpanzees
actually *did* share a common ancestor, then at some point in our
respective evolution from that ancestor, the chimpanzees gained two
chromosomes, or we "lost" two. This is a prediction that the modern
synthesis of the Theory of Evolution makes. In fact, it is a
prediction Charles Darwin himself made.
Actually, the loss of a pair of chromosomes would more than likely be
fatal to an organism, so it's unlikely they were lost. The only other
option is that they got fused together.
Chromosomes have genetic markers at the their ends (called telomeres)
and in their middle (called centromeres). If two pairs of chromosomes
in the human lineage fused together from the larger number of
chromosomes in an ancestor we share with the apes, there should be
evidence of this. Failure to find such evidence would be a crushing
blow to the Theory of Evolution
When scientists were able to look at human Chromosome 2 in sufficient
detail, they discovered that it was actually the result of a fusion of
two other chromosomes. They could tell this because at one point in
the chromosome they found extra telomeres. These were not at the end
where they would have been put if humans had been designed, but in the
middle, where the two originally separate chromosomes had become
"glued" together.
But what of the centromeres? What do they do? They tell the
chromosome where to separate when reproduction takes place. So
wouldn't this mean the doubled chromosome 2 separates in two places?
Nope. One of the centromeres is disabled by mutation.
So here we have macroevolution proven at the genetic level. A god
might make two species similarly, but would an intelligent designer,
with all eternity to work in and infinite resources to call upon make
a
mistake like that? No!
So there you have it, Dumbass Creationist. Proof of macroevolution
(if you
insist upon calling it that) that cannot be accounted for by
intelligent design, that links chimpanzees and humans back to a common
ancestor.
I did it without a single reference to a web site, without giving you
a
URL, without referring to a book, or a science paper and without
saying
the name of the unmentionable web site. I gave you the scientific
detail, which you said you were prepared to discuss. I met your every
condition and gave you every single thing you asked for. I invite you
to discuss it.
547.
This one is based on testimony (under oath to god himself by a
practicing Christian) being given in a current court case, but I can't
give a reference to it because Dumbass Creationist throws a hissy-fit
if you
actually support your assertions (he cannot support his own, you see).
I'll reveal the source a while from now.
Human hemaglobin has two "families" - alpha and beta. The alpha group
consists of 7 genes in chromosome 11. The beta group consists of six
genes in chromosome 16. These families themselves are sound evidence
of evolution at the genetic level, but it goes much deeper than that.
Of the seven genes of the alpha group, *four* are pseudogenes. Of the
six in the beta group, one is a pseudogene. It's called the psi-beta
1
sequence.
A pseudogene is a duplicate of another gene, but it has errors in it
which prevent it from functioning. Psi-beta 1 has *six* errors. One
of these prevents the gene from even starting to be translated into a
protein. Others would immediately cancel such translation even if it
were to start.
In other words, it's junk DNA, but it is of value from the point of
view of evolution because it means it is available for mutation to
transform it into some other sort of gene (thereby increasing the
information in the genome) without interfering with vital functions in
the organism.
Now if there is macroevolution, if humans and some other organism did
have a common ancestor, you would expect to find similar hemaglobin
patterns in their genome.
Do evolutionists claim that humans recently descended from cats, dogs,
or horses? Nope. Do those "kinds" share the hemaglobin pattern?
Nope!
The understanding scientists have from all available lines of evidence
is that humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Do
chimpanzees have a similar pattern of hemaglobin? Yes!
Can't creationists claim that a designer would have made two similar
organisms out of the same building blocks? Well, no. First of all
they offer no rationale as to why this ought to be so and secondly,
they offer no evidence that it actually was so (yes, these are the
same
hypocrites who chide scientists for having no evidence - which is
actually a lie).
But having no scientific support has never stopped creationists from
pontificating about evolution, so this is precisely what they do
claim!
Humans and chimpanzees are 98.5% alike in their functional DNA,
creationists insist, because they were designed! I've never seen a
chimpnazze doing brain surgery or designing Mars rovers, and while
they
never submit scientific abstracts to peer-reviewed journals, they do
*paint* pretty decent abstracts, so let's pursue this creationist
"logic" a little further.
So we have functional DNA that's 98.6% like chimpanzee DNA even though
there is no logical reason why a god would need to do this when
supernaturally creating different "kinds" by means we humans cannot
pretend to understand.
But this is a perfect god, who doesn't make mistakes, who had infinite
resources to call upon and all eternity in which to plan his work,
work
which was unconditionally declared perfect upon completion. And this
god never lies, right?.
Right.
Now let's talk again about the beta-globin group. There are six genes
in humans and six in chimpanzees. They are the same genes. One of
them in humans is a non-functional pseudogene called psi-beta 1. The
same one in chimpanzees in a non-functional pseudogene.
Human psi-beta 1 has six errors on it. The chimpanzee version **HAS
THE SAME SIX ERRORS**.
There's your "proof" Dumbass Creationist.
Care to discuss it? Care to toss around how it was that this god made
the same useless gene with the same six errors not once, but twice in
two different "kinds"? Or can we instead talk about you keeping the
promise you made when we supplied you with this?
548.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/orbulina.html
"This page shows the common ancestry of two modern species of foram.
They are both single-celled sexually-reproducing carnivorous plankton,
which drift at a shallow depth in the tropical and sub-tropical
oceans. Luckily for us, they have limestone skeletons, with patterns
of small holes for access to the outside world. We are also lucky that
they are very common: there are at least 10,000,000,000,000 (ten
trillion) alive today.
"Much of the world's ocean bottoms have been undisturbed for tens
of millions of years, so complete sets of intermediate fossils have
been seen at many locations around the world."
There you have it - a continuous series of fossils which show
transition from one species to another - macroevolution by Dumbass
Creationist's *own* definition - proven.
549.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/snails.html
"If there had been gaps in the fossil sequence, we would have thought
that these were fossils from several different species. If we look at
snails alive today, we can find separate species which differ by less
than the difference shown in the picture.
"The picture was scanned from
"Life, The Science of Biology, Second Edition, Purves and Orians,
Sinauer Associates 1987, page 1041
"The shells are from a freshwater deposit in Yugoslavia, laid down
from 10 million years ago to 3 million years ago."
550.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eocoelia.html
"The data is from fossils gathered at thirteen different depths.
As is usual in geology, the diagram gives the data for the deepest
(oldest) fossils at the bottom, and the upper (youngest) fossils at
the top. The diagram covers about ten million years.
"Each shell is ribbed. For each shell, the ratio of rib height to
rib width was measured. For each depth, the average ratio was
computed. Each little horizontal box shows the average, and also the
statistical distribution about the average.
"Notice that the boxes at the top have no overlap at all with the
boxes at the bottom. That is why the shells at the top are the species
Eocoelia sulcata, but the shells at the bottom are the species
Eocoelia hemisphaerica.
"Notice that each box overlaps the box above it, and the box
below it. As you go from bottom to top, there are no breaks or sudden
jumps. There is a smooth transition that starts at one species and
ends at a different species."
551.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/pelycodus.html
"The dashed lines show the overall trend. The species at the
bottom is Pelycodus ralstoni, but at the top we find two species,
Notharctus nunienus and Notharctus venticolus. The two species later
became even more distinct, and the descendants of nunienus are now
labeled as genus Smilodectes instead of genus Notharctus.
"As you look from bottom to top, you will see that each group has
some overlap with what came before. There are no major breaks or
sudden jumps. And the form of the creatures was changing steadily."
552. - 577.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/PSCF12-97Miller.html
Geologist Keith Miller discusses "The Precambrian to Cambrian Fossil
Record and Transitional Forms", listing 25 individual references.
578.
http://dnapolicy.org/genetics/translocations.jhtml.html
explains how genetic material can switch chromosomes. Sometimes this
is harmful, sometimes not. But it is definitely a potential source of
macroevolution.
579.
Carl Zimmer's article at:
In part, is states:
"Claes Wahlestedt, one of the scientists who will be setting up shop
on
Scripp's Florida campus, searches for new drugs by understanding how
the human genome evolved. Genes only become active in our cells when
certain proteins lock onto small stretches of DNA near them called
enhancers. The enhancer bends until it meets up with another piece of
DNA called a promoter. That bending acts like a switch, turning on the
gene, allowing it to produce a protein. The elements of these switches
are very hard to pinpoint in the human genome. That's because they are
very short and are located hundreds or thousands of positions away
from
the gene they control."
So much for intelligent design! The article continues:
"Making matters worse, they are usually nestled within long stretches
of DNA that don't appear to serve any function. Finding these switch
elements could prove very important to medicine. A mutation to a
switch
may make people prone to certain diseases or respond poorly to certain
medicines.
"Wahlestedt is finding these promoters, and it's evolution he's
using as his guide. He and his colleagues described their approach in
an open-access paper published earlier this year in the journal BMC
Genomics. They lined up the sequences of human genes with their
corresponding genes in mice. They then looked near the genes, in the
long sequence of non-coding DNA, searching for short stretches of DNA
that were similar in both species. Their reasoning was this: if a
piece
of non-coding DNA in the common ancestor of humans and mice didn't
serve an important function, it might pick up mutations over time
without causing any harm. As a result, most non-coding sequences
should
be noticeably different in humans and mice, because we share an
ancestor that lived some 100 million years ago. But switches probably
played a vital role in that common ancestor, and most mutations that
struck them would have had a devastating effect. Natural selection
should have prevented most of these mutations from becoming fixed in
both humans and mice. As a result, parts of DNA involved in switching
genes on and off should look very similar in humans and mice, unlike
the other non-coding DNA.
"Wahlestedt and his colleagues used this method to identify a
number of candidate switches. Further tests confirmed that most of
them
actually did affect the way genes work. And still more tests showed
that humans carry different versions of these switches, and that these
differences affect the way that these genes make proteins. If
Wahlestedt had used creationism as his guide, he'd still be
floundering
in an ocean of DNA."
580.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4337888.stm
reveals a new dinosaur - that looked like a bird:
"The 90 million-year-old reptile belongs to the same sickle-clawed
group of dinosaurs as Velociraptor and feathered dinosaurs from
China....Analysis by the authors of the Nature paper show Buitreraptor
and Rahonavis, a fossil animal from Madagascar previously considered a
primitive bird, form a southern branch of the dromaeosaur family
tree."
So what was once classed as a bird is now joined by a dinosaur and
they're both in the same grouping as velociraptors and feathered
dinosaurs.
581,
"An infant gorilla in a Congo sanctuary is smashing palm nuts
between two rocks to extract oil..."
That means it's smarter than most creationists, who have yet to figure
out that the only way they can crack the nut of evolution is through
the only way they cannot do it: by finding evidence to refute it or
evidence to support their own position!
"It had been thought that the premeditated use of stones and
sticks to accomplish a task like cracking nuts was restricted to
humans
and the smaller, more agile chimpanzees.
"Then, in late September, keepers at a Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
International sanctuary in this eastern Congo city saw 2 1/2-year-old
female gorilla Itebero smashing palm nuts between rocks in the "hammer
and anvil" technique, considered among the most complex tool use
behaviors."
"Earlier this year, researchers reported observing gorillas in the
wild
in the neighboring Republic of Congo's rain forests using simple
tools,
according to a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation
Society at the Bronx Zoo."
So not only are gorillas extremely close cousins of ours (as their DNA
will demonstrate when the code is read), they use tools and can speak
in American Sign Language. In other words, they are so close to us
that there is no reason at all why we could not have a common
ancestor.
That is, unless any creationist reading this cares to offer a
scientific explanation of the mechanism which prevents one "kind"
(which you will have to define, of course) changing into another kind
via evolution.
582.
http://www4.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-10/tifg-fbi100305.php
discusses work done at TIGR on influenza.
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/june/flu.htm
reveals that: "There are three types of influenza virus, A, B and C.
Types A and B viruses cause epidemics of disease almost every winter,
while type C viruses only cause a mild respiratory illness and are not
considered clinically important. Influenza type A viruses are divided
into subtypes based on two proteins on the surface of the virus, the
haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). The current subtypes of
influenza A viruses that infect humans are A (H1N1) and A (H3N2).
Influenza A viruses are found in many different animals, including
birds, pigs, horses, whales and seals. Wild aquatic birds are the
reservoir for all subtypes of influenza A viruses. There are fifteen
different haemagglutinin and nine different neuraminidase types that
occur in influenza A viruses in wild birds. Unlike influenza A
viruses,
influenza B viruses are not divided into subtypes and have only been
isolated from humans and recently from seals."
And here's why it represents macroevolution that transcends the "kind"
barrier: "Influenza viruses can change in two different ways. The
first
way is referred to as "antigenic drift" and occurs by continuous
mutations taking place during the replication cycle of the virus.
These
changes are unpredictable and if they occur within the five defined
antigenic sites on the HA protein, can give rise to an antigenically
novel virus. The new variant virus can escape the host's previously
acquired immunity, and can then spread rapidly through a susceptible
population.
"The second type of change, "antigenic shift", occurs in
influenza
A viruses. Antigenic shift is an abrupt, major change due to gene
reassortment and results in an influenza A virus with new
haemagglutinin and/or neuraminidase proteins. When a new subtype of
virus appears after antigenic shift that can cause both illness in
humans and can also spread easily from person to person, an influenza
pandemic (worldwide epidemic) can occur. During the last century three
influenza pandemics occurred. In 1918 -1919, the "Spanish flu" caused
approximately 40 million deaths worldwide. The virus that caused it ,
influenza A (H1N1), was unique because almost half of the people who
died were young, healthy adults. The next pandemic, the "Asian flu"
occurred during 1957- 1958 and was the result of an antigenic shift
producing an H2N2 virus. In 1968, a new subtype (H3N2) emerged and was
referred to as the "Hong Kong flu" since it was first detected in Hong
Kong before it spread globally causing the third pandemic."
583.
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/therapsd.htm
Lenny Flank discusses the evidence (and explains it) for reptile-to-
mammal evolution.
584.
refers to a www.sciam.com article " Marine Microorganism Plays Both
Host and Killer", which discusses "The colorless organism, named
Hatena...[which] alternates between two phases: one allows it to host,
and another allows it to devour a green alga."
This reveals a major macroevolutionary step which human cells also
undertook (before they ever became human) - that of engulfing another
cell and evolving a relatioship with it which was beneficial to both.
In humans, it is the mitochondrion component
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondria). This organelle was taken
onboard a long, long time aog and is now a permanent part of our cell
biology.
In Hatena, it is still a temporary process: "Surprisingly,
photosynthesis did not originate in plants and algae, but arose first
in bacteria. Algae figured out a way to engulf bacteria, which
eventually evolved into a chloroplast, a specialized cellular
component
responsible, in this case, for photosynthesis. How it happened,
though,
has been a mystery. Now biologists Noriko Okamoto and Isao Inouye of
the University of Tsukuba in Japan have observed a similar process
taking place in the wild algae Hatena.
"Hatena's life cycle alternates between a host phase and a
predator phase. As a host, the otherwise colorless Hatena harbors a
green alga cell known as Nephroselmis, which makes Hatena appear
green.
The green cell splits in two, always producing one colorless daughter
cell and one green daughter cell. The colorless cell develops a
feeding
apparatus that it uses to engulf a new Nephroselmis. Once devoured,
Nephroselmis becomes a functioning part of the host and the host's
feeding apparatus--now no longer needed--degenerates."
585.
"Scientific American" Nov 2005 edition (USA) has an article in the
"News Scan" section on page 36 titled: "Relative Distance" discussing
briefly the genetic connection between humans and chimpanzees,
exampled
or discussed in earlier macroevolution threads in this series:
Example 2: http://tinyurl.com/d4376
Example 4: http://tinyurl.com/dmbxj
Example 542: http://tinyurl.com/77tyl
Example 543: http://tinyurl.com/bpdqm
Example 544: http://tinyurl.com/czsdq
Example 547: http://tinyurl.com/88kch
Example 581: http://tinyurl.com/8c8od
In the article, the genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees
is clarified (clueless thread-starting declaimers of macroevolution
take note): "Although the human genome differs from our closest
relative's by 1.2% in terms of single nucleotide changes, the
international Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium finds that
duplications and rearrangements of larger DNA stretches add another
2.7% difference. Seven regions in the human genome bear strong
hallmarks of natural selection; for instance, one contains elements
regulating a gene implicated in nervous system development and another
possessing genes linked with speech."
As a footnote (and this isn't direct evidence of macroevolution, which
is why it doesn't get its own number) here's a Scientific American
article whcih demonstrates how useful genetics is in tracing ancestry,
a procedure which itself can provide evidence of macroevolution:
586. - 588.
http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/talk_origins.html
589.
Horse evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/
590
Archaeopteryx as a transitional fossil:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html#Variation
Recently an extraordinarily well-preserved specimen has been found
which does indeed confirm its status as a transition, and stronger
evidence of macroevolution:
http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;310/5753/1483)
591.
http://stcynic.com/blog/archives/2005/10/
discusses how Michael Behe, perhaps the leading scientist supporting
intelligent design, who was recently "disowned" by his own university
(http://www.lehigh.edu/%7einbios/news/evolution.htm)
Here's the conclusion:
"And remember, the core of Behe's entire argument for ID is that
irreducibly complex systems cannot evolve. Yet what does he admit
under
oath that his own study actually says? It says that IF you assume a
population of bacteria on the entire earth that is 7 orders of
magnitude less than the number of bacteria in a single ton of
soil...and IF you assume that it undergoes only point mutations...and
IF you rule out recombination, transposition, insertion/deletion,
frame
shift mutations and all of the other documented sources of mutation
and
genetic variation...and IF you assume that none of the intermediate
steps would serve any function that might help them be
preserved...THEN
it would take 20,000 years (or 1/195,000th of the time bacteria have
been on the earth) for a new complex trait requiring multiple
interacting mutations - the very definition of an irreducibly complex
system according to Behe - to develop and be fixed in a population.
"In other words, even under the most absurd and other-worldly
assumptions to make it as hard as possible, even while ruling out the
most powerful sources of genetic variation, an irreducibly complex new
trait requiring multiple unselected mutations can evolve within 20,000
years. And if you use more realistic population figures, in
considerably less time than that. It sounds to me like this is a heck
of an argument against irreducible complexity, not for it."
One of the massive flaws in the "reasoning" of those who argue that
so-called macroevolution cannot occur is that there are (they assert)
distinct "kinds" (which they cannot define), and between these "kinds"
is a barrier (which they cannot identify) which prevents one "kind"
from muating, over time, into another "kind".
Well, as the above-quoted article admirably shows, Michael Behe, the
leading light of the so-called Intelligent so-called Design movement,
has himself admitted, in court, under an oath to God, that he has no
grounds to make such an assertion, not even at the biochemical level!
He's openly admitted that his entire book "Darwin's Black Box" was a
house built on sand. He's admitted that an "irreducibly complex"
system (so-called) can establish itself in 20,000 years or less.
592.
Tagmosis - the segmented structure of living things is evidence of
so-called macroevolution, and here's a fascinating article on the
topic:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/pycnogonid_tagmosis/
593.
In the nineteenth century Spartina alternifolia was found in Townsend
harbor in southern England, it is a native of the Americas and
presumably seeds were transferred in a boat's bilge.
There already existed a European species S. maritima. Early in the
20th century a sterile hybrid of these two was found and was called
Spartina townsendii This went through a process of diploidization
(duplicate pairs of chromosomes) and became a new sexually reproducing
species known as Spartina anglica
(http://www.as.wvu.edu/~kgarbutt/EvolutionPage/Speciation.htm)
594.
"The study focused on a species of grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum,
growing in plots within what is the longest running ecological
experiment currently in existence, the Park Grass Experiment at
Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, UK. These plots were
originally set up in 1856 to test the reactions of meadow vegetation
to
different fertilizer applications, procedures which continue to this
day and which have generated enormous amounts of data on plant
physiological responses, population dynamics and community ecology.
Building on previous work (eg Snaydon and Davies, 1976), Silvertown et
al (2005) have shown that there has been a shift in flowering time of
A. odoratum at the border between adjacent experimental plots.
Crucially, this 'inverse cline' of flowering is a signature of the
first steps along a particular road to speciation, that has been
predicted by modelling studies exploring how natural selection against
hybrids could contribute to reproductive isolation between populations
in proximity. It suggests that some species within adjacent plots in
the Park Grass Experiment are not exchanging genetic material via
pollination as frequently as would be expected. The genetic outcome of
this reproductive isolation was tested by using Inter Simple-Sequence
Repeat (ISSR) markers, which confirmed that there had been genetic
divergence between adjacent plots at these neutral marker sites.
Reproductive isolation and genetic divergence, the first phases of
speciation, had been confirmed."
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v95/n3/full/6800718a.html
595.
(You have to go see this picture of the spider with its big black
eyes. It looks sooo cute!)
Ahem! Anyway, the URL reveals the charming story of Evarcha
culicivora, a vampire spider (a salticid - jumping spider no less!)
from the Lake Victoria region in Africa.
"Lab experiments conducted near Lake Victoria showed the spider
preferred female mosquitoes fed with human blood over all other prey,
including male mosquitoes, which don't feed on animal blood."
The spider doesn't get blood directly from humans, it has it
delivered!
It's rather like we don't get milk directly from cows (for the
majority of us westerners at least), but go get it at the store.
So the question here is, did a god design this spider from scratch?
Because if it did, then it also had to design the mosquito beforehand,
since this is an irreducibly complex system to put it in "intelligent
Designer" terms, isn't it? The spider couldn't survive without the
mosquito to bring it liquid lunch.
Why would an intelligent designer - a loving god, no less, who loved
us
*soooo* much that he found the courage to tell someone else to go die
for us - design a system that ultimately involves hurting humans?
In fact, this situation is doubly parasitical, because the species of
mosquito in question, A. gambiae is the principle vector of the
malaria
parasite, which afflicts *half a billion* people, killing a million of
them every year (and fundies whine about abortion????).
Did a loving god *design* that?
Or did E. culicivora evolve from those two reps of the spider "kind"
on
the ark?
596.
http://www.bio.psu.edu/People/Faculty/Marden/project2.html
reveals a model for how insects started to fly - an example of
macroevolution.
597.
morris.umn.edu/academic/biology/biol1101/creationism.html
Slide 17 - shows the macroevolutionary steps from water to land using
fossils
Slide 16 - shows the macroevolutionary steps from land to water using
fossils
and since these were already addressed (but not so well illustrated)
in previous messages, here is the new one for this item number:
Slide 17,18 - shows hominid evolution by means of fossils.
598.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4377898.stm
reveals that the ignition key to life has been discovered. It's
rather
fitting that such a vital gene was discovered in Bath, England, site
of
ancient Roman baths which purportedly had a revitalising effect!
"Scientists have found the gene responsible for controlling a first
key
step in the creation of new life. The HIRA gene is involved in the
events necessary for the fertilisation that take place once a sperm
enters an egg. Faults in this gene might explain why some couples
struggle to get pregnant despite having healthy sperm, say the
researchers from the UK and France....
"Lead researcher Dr Tim Karr, from the University of Bath, said:
"All sexually reproducing animals do the same kind of DNA 'dance' when
the DNA from the mother's egg cell and the father's sperm cell meet
for
the first time. When the sperm enters the egg, its DNA has to undergo
a complete transformation so that it can properly join with the female
DNA to form a genetically complete new life. Sperm makes this change
by swapping the type of 'packing material, known as histone proteins,
it contains. The result is called the male pronucleus, which can then
combine with the female pronucleus. The process is controlled by the
HIRA gene."
This fact was learned by closely observing fruit flies, which use the
same process that humans do. This could only be true if macro
evolution had occurred, nudging a common ancestor into speciation
which
in one line of descendents led to fruit flies and in another line led
to us.
599.
What if evolutionists told you that there was a fish which had
evolved,
over time, from your standard pelagic free-swimming fish into a bottom
dweller? Instead of the usual one-eye-per-side, this fish evolved
both
eyes on one side, so that when it lay on the bottom, it didn't have to
endure the inevitable icky (or icthy) jokes along the lines of "Here's
mud in your eye, Hippoglossus!"
The creationists would doubtlessly pour water on the idea, claiming it
sounds too fishy to be true. "Go tell it to the Marines!" they'd
jest.
They would saltily insist that evolutionists show them *every single
step* of this macroevolution.
Well, at the risk of leaving them floundering, here it is:
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/vert/fishes/larval/pleur.html
Pleuronectiformes is an order of fish - an order of fish that you
might
get at a sea food restaurant and also a zoological order. These fish
are commonly known as flatfish, such as halibut. (Hey, if you get
turbot at the restaurant and pay for it with a credit card, is that
turbot-charged?)
The flounder isn't, of course, like the fish in Disney's "Little
Mermaid", with stereoscopic vision. It is born as a regular fish, one
eye per side. It swims freely in the ocean, but then is starts
changing. One eye migrates over the top of its head to the other
side.
Because the ocellated flounder (Bothus ocellatus) has a dorsal fin
which runs right down to its nose, the eye has to migrate right
through
the fin. To facilitate this, it has a hole in its head which closes
after the eye has passed through.
Who ordered that? you might be tempted to ask, in the vein of Nobel
physicist Isaac Rabi, who asked precisely that when a sub-atomic
particle now known as the muon was discovered. Was it an intelligent
designer? Where is the intelligence in designing a fish that has to
go
through this risky transformation?
Maybe it's not my plaice to say it, but wouldn't a designer create the
fish complete to begin with? If not, why not? Why would a designer,
who wishes us to know his glory and wants to save our soles, put
misdirection into his design? Isn't misdirection the domain of Satan?
The only *intelligent* explanation of the transformation of the
pleuronectiformes is macroevolution.
600.
The best article you can read on eye evolution online, IMO, is:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye.html
Failing that, buy a book! Richard Dawkins's "Climbing Mount
Improbable" does it fine justice.
Chapter 5 starting on page 138 is devoted to eye evolution. This book
has the unnerving photograph of a toad on page 97 which has the
mutation of its eyes *inside* its mouth - not a big change if you're a
toad, but definitely an example of a mutation which, although bad,
didn't result in the death of the organism.
Dawkins also addresses eye evolution in "The Ancestor's Tale":
and it is from these that I draw material for this example.
Creationists always quote Darwin poorly on this topic:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA113_1.html
It's a telling commentary on their approach to "science" that they
find
it necessary to misrepresent so much science in order for their
"theory" to have even a remote chance of survival! If theories were
subject to the same evolutionary pressures as life, creationism and
intelligent design would have long ago become extinct.
Dawkins reiterates the fact that eyes have independently evolved on
Earth at least 40 times (and perhaps even 60), flowing into one of
nine
main channels.
Eyes are not quite as magical as creationists would like you to
believe. Even plants have "eyes" in the sense that they have cells
that can detect and use light. It's called photosynthesis. Given
that
this facility was embedded in living things at such an early stage of
evolution, why is it even remotely surprising that so many organisms
evolved eyes, and in such wide variety?
The first step in such evolution is exemplified in modern organisms by
starfish, jellyfish, leeches and other worms. These organisms have no
eyes in any meaningful sense. At best, they can detect light. They
cannot tell precisely where it comes form, but they do know it's
there.
Creationists ask, "What use is half an eye?". Well, the organisms
just
mentioned have far less than half an eye, yet it is of great value for
them. Marine organisms are far more three-dimensionally accomplished
than are we terrestrials, most of whom rarely look at the sky, let
alone can ascend into it on a whim without any artificial aids.
Even the "lowly" ability to detect which is the ocean surface and
which
the bottom would be of use to those organisms which need to traverse
between the two for feeding purposes, or which need to freeze or hide
when predators are close by.
The way to detect direction is to have a cupped eye. This is readily
made by increasing the number of photoreceptive cells and making them
concave. They can be any style from saucer to wine goblet in their
concavity. Dawkins examples these with diagrams of eyes from a
flatworm, a bivalve mollusk, a polychaete worm and a limpet.
By increasing the concavity to almost absurdist degrees, you create a
complete sphere - all except for a pinhole which focuses the image.
Dawkins again exemplifies these with a nautilus, a marine snail,
another bivalve mollusk, and an abalone. These particular examples
also demonstrate the beginnings of a lens.
He discusses problems with the pinhole approach, not least of which is
that the smaller the pinhole, the better the focus, but less light
gets
in. Also, an uncovered pinhole lets in dirt.
The resolution to this is to add a lens. This not only prevents dirt
from entering but provides focus while still allowing an aperture
large
enough to admit sufficient light. Dawkins exemplifies this in fine
style by taking a series of images in a pinhole camera made from
cardboard with a 1cm aperture.
The first image is a letter 'A', although you would not know this if
you didn't see what came afterwards, so poor is the image. Then he
hung a plastic bag full of water in front of the aperture and got a
well-resolved 'A'. The bag filled with water wasn't designed to be a
lens, but it worked. This is how nature did it. It didn't plan on
making a lens, but when something that fit the bill came along,
natural
selection made it permanent, so valuable did it prove.
The final of the three images on page 187 shows the image created by
placing a water-filled wine goblet in front of the aperture. This
performs extraordinarily well as a lens - even though it was not
*designed* as one.
One remarkable image in a remarkable chapter in Dawkins's "Climbing
Mount Improbable" appears on page 186, where a recognisable human face
(appropriately Charles Darwin) is shown imaged through the lens of a
firefly's eye! So yes, a firefly can make out your face. What it
does
with that information is anyone's guess!
But what does this have to do with macroevolution? Well,
*everything*!
An important example is given in the Howler monkey's story that
Dawkins describes in "Ancestor's Tale".
Most people think we have three types of color-sensitive cone in our
retinas, blue, green, and red, and that when one of these is triggered
we see the corresponding color, but this is not true. Cones in
humans,
when they work properly, are triggered by green, violet and yellow!
And the brain does not equate a violet signal directly with the color
violet. What the brain does is compare the firing rates between two
cones and derive the actual color from that.
In short, it's an analog system, not a digital one. Humans are now
designing digital systems. Why couldn't god?
Each cone has in it a protein called opsin which is kinked around a
molecule of retinal. The retinal comes from vitamin A, so yes,
carrots
really do help your vision. When a photon hits this chemical, it
tells
the optic nerve that it has been hit, and it's from this information
that our color vision is derived.
Specific genes create opsin proteins via RNA. The genes that make the
green and the yellow versions sit on the female 'X' chromosome. The
violet gene is on chromosome 7.
The evolution of vision is quite well understood by evolutionists.
The
problem comes for intelligent design advocates. Why are the genes not
organised together and protected from mutation better? The more that
scientists examine the genetics of vision (or anything else, for that
matter), the more obvious it becomes that it's a comedy of errors.
Why are humans only trichromatic whereas other organisms - turtles,
for
example - are tetrachromatic? Why can we not see ultraviolet like
bees
do, or perceive infrared like some snakes?
Why are our eyes wired backwards - with the nerves on the wrong side
of
the photoreceptive layer? That's like having the wiring of the camera
in front of the film. It doesn't make any sense if you think it's
designed.
Other organisms (some of the Cephalopoda class such as octupi, for
example) are correctly wired. Some idiot creationists, notably Kent
Hovind, the leading light(-weight) of creation-evolution debating, try
to dig themselves out of this nonsense by claiming that god did it
deliberately because he wanted to protect our sensitive retinas from
harsh light, whereas this wasn't necessary for aquatic Cephalopoda.
The problem for this "Just-so story" is that not all marine organisms
are so wired, and this explanation, far from rescuing his god from the
accusation of incompetence actually digs him deeper: Why did this god
make the light so hostile that he had to jury-rig our vision to offset
it?
Which brings us to the Howler monkey. Unlike old world monkeys, new
world monkeys are dichromats, with the exception of some females.
These females have two 'X' chromosomes, of course, meaning that some
of
them may have the "other opsin gene" on the second 'X', allowing them
to be trichromats like us. So all the opsin genes are there, they're
simply not all in every individual, especially not in males since
they're very 'X' gene-centric.
The howler monkey differs in that it experienced a genetic
translocation - the movement of a section of the genome from one place
to another. It's not the kind of thing you would expect to see in an
expertly designed system, but you will expect to see it in an
undesigned, undirected system that's left to its own devices.
Once a gene is translocated from, say, the muted 'X' chromosome to the
active one, it is then a duplicate of the already existing active one,
which means it is completely free to mutate without causing the host
organism any harm.
In the case of the Howler monkey, the gene that was translocated was
already a functioning opsin gene, but a different one from the one
already on the active 'X' chromosome. Once it became a neighbor of
the
other one, its future was assured.
Creation and intelligent design cannot answer the scientific questions
that evolution can. For example, why are the old world monkeys
enjoying color vision whereas the new world ones largely are not? If
these monkeys came from a single pair on the ark and have undergone
only harmful mutations since then, how is it even remotely
statistically likely that these mutations occurred only on one side of
the Atlantic?
In this series, I've avoided directly referencing science papers for
two main reasons:
1. This is the Internet, and I wanted ready and easily digestible
references that anyone reading this could click on and go to
immediately.
2. Most people (including myself) do not have ready online access to
the papers published in the refereed journals, and science education
is
so poor in the USA that people would not understand them anyway!
However, it's a good idea here to reference some of these with regard
to eye evolution because this is a favorite topic of creationists, and
I wanted to demonstrate that there is indeed a wealth of published
articles in peer-reviewed journals which directly address evolution -
something the creationists and intelligent designers cannot point to.
Comparison of color vision between old world and new world monkeys:
The evolution of eyes:
Optimization, constraint, and history in the evolution of eyes:
Molecular basis for tetrachromatic color vision:
Even the most pessimistic estimates allow eyes to evolve in a few
hundred thousand years:
And finally a talkorigins.org article on color vision:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vision.html
601. - 608.
http://www.zoology.ubc.ca lecture notes
609.
The fossil record shows five major times of mass extinction and
subsequent rediversification of organisms:
The Ordovician-Silurian (440-450 million years ago). 27% of all
families and 57% of all genera became extinct.
The Devonian (375 million years ago). 19% of all families and 50% of
all genera went extinct.
The Permian-Triassic (251 million years ago). 57% of all families and
83% of all genera went extinct.
The Triassic-Jurassic (205 million years ago). 3% of all families and
48% of all genera went extinct.
The Cretaceous-Tertiary (65 million years ago). 17% of all families
and 50% of all genera went extinct.
Read more detail here:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/extinction/
This means that organisms were, for whatever reason, wiped out en
masse
and new organisms arose over time to replace them. The sixth major
extinction is going on right now. If there is no so-called
macroevolution, how did this repeated rediversification take place?
610.
If there is no so-called "macroevolution", where did a family of five
filoviruses come from?
Did they "vary" from the male and female "kind" of virus on the ark?
Did a god specially create five separate hemorrhagic viruses where
none would do? Or did they evolve?
611.
Details the evolution of the mammalian vagina. It had to be
macroevolution and none of it makes sense if you try to purvey it
through non-existent so-called intelligent so-called design
"pathways".
612.
Evolution of red and green color vision in vertebrates;
http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/158/4/1697
613.
Cichlid fish in the East African Rift Valley lakes (also mentioned in
Richard Dawkins's "The Ancestor's Tale" pps 336-344:
http://hcgs.unh.edu/CichlidEvol/CichlidEvol.html
http://omniomix.com/inthenews.php?id=46150
There are three main lakes: Malawi, Tanganyika, and Victoria. each
containing about the same number of species, but each set of species
differing from the set in the other two lakes. The result of a
genetic survey in Victoria and surrounding aquatic bodies showed that
about 100,000 years ago (which ties in to geological dating of the
lake),
there began a diversification of species (in other words, there began
significant macroevolution).
614.
The idea that wings arose from gills is supported by this:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/flap_those_gills_and_fly/
but it begs a parallel question: Wouldn't a gills-to-wings transition
require a simultaneous change in gas exchange? Yep! here it is:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/10/pharyngula_an_e.html
Macroevolution and an example of a prediction evolution science made
which was fulfilled!
615.
The axolotl:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl
This is not only an example of macroevolution, it's also almost a
single-organism transitional series, and it's also one that defies
explanation from the creationists and the so-called intelligent so-
called design advocates.
The axolotl has both gills and lungs, and can breathe through its skin
(why, if it was intelligently designed?!). It spends its whole life
in the larval stage (rather like many fundies who post messages to
alt.atheism) because it has lost the genetics to continue its growth
into adult form. It can evolve into an adult salamander when
artificially induced to do so, but this tends to shorten its life.
This begs so many questions as to make a person dizzy in trying to
figure out which to ask first.
Why would a god design a creature whose life is significantly shorter
when it grows up that if it retains childhood throughout its life?
Was this a mistake this god made? Is this the only way this god could
give humans a decent life span - by inducing neoteny in them? Did he
get the idea from the axolotl?
Did Noah have two axolotls on his ark? If so, how did they get there
from Mexico, and how did they return after the flood receded? Or were
there just two salamanders on the ark, in which case, macroevolution
must have taken place to arrive at the axolotl and all the other
salamanders which exist today.
The axolotl can regrow limbs. Why can't we, if we're the pinnacle of
creation? And if a brand new limb can be regrown from nothing, where
is the foundation for the creationist objection to macroevolution?
616.
Abstract: The phylogeny of Crocodylia offers an unusual twist on the
usual molecules versus morphology story. The true gharial (Gavialis
gangeticus) and the false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), as their
common names imply, have appeared in all cladistic morphological
analyses as distantly related species, convergent upon a similar
morphology. In contrast, all previous molecular studies have shown
them
to be sister taxa. We present the first phylogenetic study of
Crocodylia using a nuclear gene. We cloned and sequenced the c-myc
proto-oncogene from Alligator mississippiensis to facilitate primer
design and then sequenced an 1,100-base pair fragment that includes
both coding and noncoding regions and informative indels for one
species in each extant crocodylian genus and six avian outgroups.
Phylogenetic analyses using parsimony, maximum likelihood, and
Bayesian
inference all strongly agreed on the same tree, which is identical to
the tree found in previous molecular analyses: Gavialis and Tomistoma
are sister taxa and together are the sister group of Crocodylidae.
Kishino-Hasegawa tests rejected the morphological tree in favor of the
molecular tree. We excluded long-branch attraction and variation in
base composition among taxa as explanations for this topology. To
explore the causes of discrepancy between molecular and morphological
estimates of crocodylian phylogeny, we examined puzzling features of
the morphological data using a priori partitions of the data based on
anatomical regions and investigated the effects of different coding
schemes for two obvious morphological similarities of the two
gharials.
(Syst Biol. 2003 Jun;52(3):386-402)
617.
Why do humans start out life with a tail?
http://www.nurseminerva.co.uk/tailbud.htm
618.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v249/n5453/abs/249128a0.html
"Seafloor spreading theory seems to explain why the ancestors of a
green turtle (Chelonia mydas) subpopulation which now travels 2,000 km
from Brazil to breed at Ascension Island, were induced to swim
oceanwards for increasing distances during the gradual separation of
South America and Africa in the earliest Tertiary."
What does this have to do with macroevolution? Well if creationists
are going to narrowly and cluelessly define macroevolution to mean a
lizard gives birth to a bird, I have no problem defining it the other
way to include migratory species like the marine turtle C. mydas.
Even
though they did not speciate, they were still evolving, and their
lifestyle certainly underwent a macroevolution. The evidence shows
that as the ocean floor spread, a phenomenon we can see at work today,
the turtle was forced to migrate further and further.
The only alternative to this (to put this in the standard
creationist/ID dichotomy) is for an intelligent designer (aka the
"loving" god of the Christian Bible) to deliberately make life hard on
the turtles rather than create them with breeding grounds close to
where they live, or better yet, enable them to breed in the ocean
without ever coming ashore. What went wrong with *that* "intelligent"
design?
The only explanation that makes sense is the Theory of Evolution,
which
shows that turtles didn't have to go far from their breeding grounds
originally, but as the contients were forced apart, the distance they
were required to travel became greater and greater.
619.
Birds repopulate the continent from which they originally spread:
http://girlscientist.blogspot.com/2005/11/backtracking-birds-show-isl...
The birds' progress was traced with DNA from island to island and back
to repopulate the original continet from which they left.
There is no explanation for this from the ID crew except "Godidit
because Godwantedit". The only *science* in this comes from the
evolution camp.
620.
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/dinobirds.htm#Birds
Dinosaur to bird transitional information
621.
http://www.tim-thompson.com/trans-fossils.html
Macroevolution and transitional fossils from Roger J. Cuffey
622.
Transitional Fossils on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil
And a take on them by the Beeb:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4351628
And more evidence on matters already covered:
http://www.agiweb.org/news/evolution.pdf
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton2.html#Primer
623.
Anolis lizard;
http://0-www.search.eb.com.library.uor.edu/ebi/article-200476
624.
Human endogenous retroviruses:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254
625.
The tunicate tail:
626.
Seeds of Diversity:
627.
Evolution of the placenta:
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=310
628.
Diversification of mammals:
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=156
629.
Transitionals confined by geographic location as Punctuated Equilibria
predicted:
http://www.ebonmusings.org/evolution/evoevidence.html
630.
The human jaw:
631.
Beneficial mutations in humans:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html
632.
Jurassic brachiopods of the genus Kutchithyris:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq%2Dintro%2Dto%2Dbiology.html
633.
Discussion of phylum-level evolution by an ex-creationist:
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cambevol.htm
634.
Mosasaur evolution:
http://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/smu-mfl111605.php
http://smu.edu/smunews/dallasaurus/
635.
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria:
http://aetiology.blogspot.com/2005/11/evolution-of-resistance-bacteri...
636.
Grasshoppers!
Chorthippus brunnaeus and C. biguttulus are all but indistinguishable
according to Richard Dawkins in "The Ancestor's Tale" (page 397). But
they do not interbreed in the wild and so are different species.
However, they are so recently (in geologic terms) separated that they
can interbreed. They're induced to do so by the temperature of their
head, as determined from the rate or frequency of their chirping. If
the female is artificially warmed or cooled to the temperature of the
other species, she will breed with it. Speciation is macroevolution.
637.
Hausdorf, B. 2001. Macroevolution in progress: competition between
semislugs and slugs resulting in ecological displacement and
ecological release. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
74:387-398.
638.
And now a brief word to those intelligent design advocates who blather
ill-informed nonsense about junk DNA: yes, there really is junk DNA.
While some of that monumental wasteland that is not genes is indeed of
value, there's indisputable proof that massive tracts of it is junk.
"In contrast to parasitic bacteria and archaea with small genomes, P.
ubique has complete biosynthetic pathways for all 20 amino acids and
all but a few cofactors. P. ubique has no pseudogenes, introns,
transposons, extrachromosomal elements, or inteins; few paralogs; and
the shortest intergenic spacers yet observed for any cell."
The only explanation for Junk DNA is macroevolution. Or an idiot
designer.
Which is it?
639.
Bacterial evolution:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
640.
http://aetiology.blogspot.com/2005/11/of-dragons-and-microbes.html
"...using new DNA sequence data, Dr Fry and his colleagues found nine
venom toxin types that were shared between lizards and snakes. Seven
of these were previously only known from snake venoms, including one
that had only previously been reported in rattlesnake venom but was
sequenced by the team from the Bearded Dragon."
641.
"The fore-limb first appears in the 11.4 mm fetus, and the hind-limb
in the 15.3 mm fetus. The fore-limb develops progressively during
gestation, while the hind-limb disappears by the 38.9 mm fetus."
"The Cetacea are group of animals which have completely lost their
hind limbs during the course of evolution as a result of their
entirely aquatic mode of life. It is known, however, that during their
embryonal period, the hind limb buds are temporarily present. The
control mechanisms of this regression are not yet understood, and
vestigial limbs can sometimes be found in adults. The aim of the
present study is to describe the course of hind limb rudimentation
during prenatal development of Stenella attenuata (Spotted dolphin) at
tissue and cell levels and compare the results with other natural or
experimentally induced amelias. Hind limb buds of dolphin embryos, CRL
10-30 mm, were examined histologically. Before total disappearance,
they show histodifferentiation comparable with other mammals."
Just like the human embryo's tail disappears: "The development and
disappearance of the human tail between stages 14 and 22 were studied
using scanning and transmission electron microscopy, supravital
staining and light microscopy. The tail is a prominent feature of the
human embryo during stage 14 and is composed of paired somites,
mesenchyme and extensions of the neural tube, notochord and gut. The
tail grows with the embryo through early stage 17 when it extends more
than a millimeter from the trunk. Overgrowth by the trunk at the base
of the tail may account for the loss of part of its length during late
stage 17 and stage 18. However, during stage 17 cells begin to die in
all structures throughout the tail. Cell death continues in the
succeeding stages reaching massive numbers by stages 18 and 19, and
the
tail becomes less and less prominent with developmental time."
642.
An example of a beneficial frame-shift mutation:
643.
"...amphibians in general may comprise two classes of olfactory
receptors. Whereas teleost fish, including the goldfish Carassius
auratus, possess only class I receptors, the 'living fossil' Latimeria
chalumnae is endowed with both receptor classes; interestingly, most
of
the class II genes turned out to be pseudogenes."
644.
"...mammals generally have about 1000 genes for odor receptors. Of
these genes, only a portion code for functional odor receptors.
Humans
have 347 functional odor receptor genes; the other genes have nonsense
mutations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory
645.
"A comparison was made with the black pigmented subspecies Proteus
anguinus parkelj (black proteus), which has a normal eye structure. In
the retina of the black proteus, we found principal rods, red-
sensitive
cones and a third photoreceptor type, which might represent a blue- or
UV-sensitive cone. Photoreceptors in the regressed eye of the blind
cave salamanders from the Planina cave contained degenerate outer
segments, consisting of a few whorled discs and irregular clumps of
membranes....An even more pronounced degeneration was observed in the
photoreceptors of the animals derived from the Otovec doline, which
are
completely devoid of an outer segment, most of them not even
possessing
an inner segment. Even in some of these highly degenerate cells, the
presence of rhodopsin could be detected in the plasma membrane...."
646.
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/mysterious_trichoplax/#co...
Trichoplax - an intermediate form. Or is it a representative of the
first few steps towards life? What is its purpose? Where is the
design here? Only IDiot creationists have to ask that question.
Evolutionists already have it covered.
647.
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_haussler.html
"When Bats and Humans Were One and the Same"
648.
Hemaglobin:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991005071327.htm
649.
The Lancelet Amphioxus is mentioned by Richard Dawkins in "The
Ancestor's Tale", and more can be read about its direct relationship
with us here:
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2000/articles_2000_vertebrate.html
650.
Creationists often claim that the near perfect parallel between the
human and chimpanzee genomes is accounted for by the fact that we
perform similar functions, although if you ask them to specify these
functions, they quickly run away. However, if this is true, how is it
that, as Richard Dawkins specifices on page 553 of "The Ancestor's
Tale" that "Chemically, we are more similar to some bacteria than some
bacteria are to other bacteria."?
Clearly macroevolution *had* to have occurred in order for there to be
such massive differences at the cellular level. Otherwise why would a
god have made such differences if all these cells "perform similar
functions"?
651.
Another "missing link" between apes, humans and monkeys has been
found:
http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/missing-links-found/
652.
reveals that if evolution were nonsense, recent advances in tracing
obestatin would not have been achievable with such relative ease:
"Hsueh explained that before he and his colleagues started the
project,
they used the genome projects' information to create a database of
GPCRs that grouped them according to their evolutionary
relatedness....Hsueh and colleagues narrowed the search by focusing on
sequences that have been conserved during hundreds of millions of
years
of evolution - in organisms as diverse as fish and humans - because
these are likely to be of greatest biological importance."
653.
Butterflies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4708459.stm
654.
The evolutionary history of Sleeping Sickness:
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2001/articles_2001_Phylogeny.html
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/1998/Sleeping1998.html
655.
"Exploring receptor genes in aquatic mammals led to the discovery of a
large array of only class II receptor genes in the dolphin Stenella
Coeruleoalba; however, all of these genes were found to be
non-functional pseudogenes."
656.
Simple prelude to speciation (macroevolution):
657.
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Before_DNA.html
RNA life forms
658.
Darwin's finches:
http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch.html
659.
Evolution of the cichlid mandible:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/evolution_of_the_cichlid_...
660.
Barnacles!
Darwin spent a huge portion of his later years investigating
barnacles.
The reason is that they are wonderful exemplars of macroevolution. I
defy any IDiot creationist to claim that barnacles are all the same
"kind" and then pretend that macroevolution does not occur.
Barnacles look like limpets, but they're crustaceans. There is a
family of barnacles which are parasites. They're called sacculina and
they parasitize crabs. They have no shell or bodily segmentacean and
they begin their relationship with their crabby host by castrating it.
This serves, presumably, to focus the crab on feeding (thereby
benefitting sacculina) rather than on breeding and dying, which is the
sole purpose of pretty much every living thing.
You can read about this in Richard Dawkins's "The Ancestor's tale" on
page 433.
661.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9936993/site/newsweek/page/2/
Newsweek: "How could you tell that SARS came originally from bats and
not from civets, in which the virus was previously identified?"
Mary Pearl, president of the Wildlife Trust: "When we sampled a
variety
of bats, there were different versions of the virus in them. It had
been in them long enough to evolve into different forms. That wasn't
true of civets. Also, civets in the market carried the virus, but
farmed and wild civets did not. It all added up. The civet was just
another victim of the SARS virus. It picked it up in the marketplace
from the bats."
Newsweek: "What led you to suspect the horseshoe bat in the first
place?"
Mary Pearl, president of the Wildlife Trust "Jonathan Epstein, our
field scientist on the case, was looking at bat populations because of
Nipah virus - a deadly virus that emerged in humans in Malaysia in
1999. Nipah virus is harmless in fruit bats, but in people it causes
a
high fever, brain inflammation, seizures and death. It emerged in pig
farms in formerly forested areas when it passed from bats to pigs and
then to farmers. The Malaysian government moved quickly to shut down
those pig farms and put an end to the spread of the disease in
Malaysia. Subsequently there have been outbreaks in Bangladesh, so it
will be important to continue monitoring fruit bats for this virus
wherever the bats are found."
662.
Heart evolution:
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2000/articles_2000_hearts.html
663.
Fossil evidence for macroevolution:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/cool_stuff/tour_evolution_3.html
664.
Recent genetic sequencing of the genome of the protozoan Trypanosoma
cruzi, which causes Chaga's disease, reveals macroevolution:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5733/409
The genome literally doubled in size. This wasn't new information
since it was merely a repeat of the original genome, but it meant
that,
since every gene was now duplicated, the "spare" genes were free to
mutate into other genes, increasing the information content of the
genome without the organism suffering in any way at all.
T. cruzi can also increase the information content of the genome of
the
organisms it affects:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/292/7/794-b
The fact of the massive duplication of genetic material (talk about
junk DNA!) made T. cruzi particularly difficult to sequence. The
standard speed methods of sequencing (called "shotgun" and
"gene-walking") wouldn't work, so the whole genome had to be addressed
in toto.
665.
Detractors of evolution often conflate it with abiogenesis - the
origin
of life, and claim dead chemicals cannot become alive, but they can
sure act that way:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i40/8340walk.html
"Scientists have designed a molecule that walks across a surface in a
straight line, putting one bond in front of the other. Such purposeful
control of a molecule's motion is vital for advancing fields such as
molecular self-assembly, molecular machines, and computing."
Since science has shown that such a thing can exist, detractors can no
longer claim that the precursors of life were "dead" chemicals".
http://home.houston.rr.com/apologia/orgel.htm
http://informationcentre.tripod.com/abiogenesis.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/default.htm
Proto cells:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/239787.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1142840.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104483.stm
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey produced amino acids, the building
blocks of life, back in 1953:
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
Other experiments have produced similar results using a variety of
simulated early Earth environments:
http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon1millerurey.html
These same chemicals are found naturally in space, and doubtlessly
bathe whatever planets speed through them. 92 of them have come to
Earth on a single meteorite:
http://www.meteorlab.com/METEORLAB2001dev/murchy.htm
An introduction to evolution:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/default.htm
Cells hint at life's origin:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1142840.stm
Cradle of life?:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/239787.stm
Abiogenesis:
http://informationcentre.tripod.com/abiogenesis.html
Origin of life on Earth:
http://home.houston.rr.com/apologia/orgel.htm
Factories of life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/275738.stm
Lab molecules mimic life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/217054.stm
Mechanism for evolution described:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/222096.stm
Early animal evolution:
http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Ecology/early_animal_evolution.htm
Smallest genome a lot smaller than smallest modern cell:
http://mednews.stanford.edu/news_releases_html/2001/febreleases/bioet...
Precambrian to cambrian:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/evolution/PSCF12-97Miller.html
Early diversification:
http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Ecology/early_animal_evolution.htm
Transitional forms:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Primitive fish different:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/504776.stm
Fish with fingers:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/fishfossil0312.html
Snake with legs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/680116.stm
Ant-wasp evolution:
http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/publications/ms_sp...
Mosquitoes still evolving:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/158522.stm
Origins of flight:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2664541.stm
4-winged dinos:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2684927.stm
Dog evolution:
http://www.provet.co.uk/online/dogs/evolution%20of%20the%20dog.htm
Human evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
Computer simulated evolution:
http://necsi.org/postdocs/sayama/sdsr/
Evolution vs. creationism debates:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/science/creationism/debates.html
Evolution not "atheist religion":
http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Inside/01-97/creat2.html
29 Evidences supporting evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
The evolution of the eye:
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/eye.html
The woodpecker's tongue:
http://omega.med.yale.edu/~rjr38/Woodpecker.htm
Radiometric dating - a Christian perpective:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page
Noah's ark never happened:
http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/noahs_ark.html
Ex-creationist on why young Earth creationism doesn't work:
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/
Another ex-creationist:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/
Creationists cannot define "kind":
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/kinds.htm
Even evolutionists believe in God!:
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1997/04/04/01.asp
General anti-creationism/pro-evolution FAQs:
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html
http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/newindex.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt/complexity.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specif...
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Creationism.htm
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/index.html
Questionable creationist credentials:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html
Even dyed-in-the-wool creationists think a lot of their arguments are
bad:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp
Only 600 genes separate mice from men:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2536501.stm
Whale evolution:
http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/Pakicetidnew.html
How could an eye evolve?
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/eye.html
Are mutations harmful?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html
Early human evolution:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/default.htm
Same errors in human and chimp DNA:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/
Humans and chimps not so different:
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE4/Humans-Over-Primates-NOT12apr02.htm
The evidence for human evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
Fossil bridges land and sea:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/701008.stm
Feathery fossil shed light on origins:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1058475.stm
Archaeopteryx:
http://www.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/birds/birddivresources/evolhist.html
wings for speed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/336192.stm
Bones make feathers fly
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/879956.stm
Changing one gene launches new fly species:
http://www2.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/uocm-cog120403.php
Transitional vertebrate fossils:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Transition to mammals:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/therapsd.htm
The fossil record:
http://www.nogs.org/cuffeyart.html
Transition to land:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/link/dyk.html
origin of feathers:
http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/1997Dec/msg00031.html
Sickle-clawed bird:
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/sickle.htm
Different species with the same junk DNA:
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/dna_virus.html
Evidences for Evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html
jury-rigged "design":
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html
666.
Tom Ray and Tierra
The book "Virtual Organisms" by Mark Ward discusses artificial life.
Can "digital organisms" macroevolve? The answer is a resounding
"Yes!".
In January 1990, Tom Ray populated an enclosed computer memory space
(which he called "Tierra") with virtual organisms and started it
running. They were 80 bytes long. They were given the ability to
reproduce and they also died off. Soon an organism 79 bytes long
appeared, and because it could reproduce faster, it was naturally
selected and it began to take over Tierra. Ray expected something
like
this to happen if the simulation was indeed modelling aspects of
evolution.
Then something totally unexpected happened. An organism 45 bytes long
appeared. Ray couldn't understand what had happened at first. 45
bytes seemed too small to survive. On deeper investigation, it turned
out that the new organism was a parasite. It used the larger
organisms
to reproduce itself without having to carry those instructions itself.
Macroevolution had produced a strong competitor. Soon, the larger
organisms had evolved to hide their reproductive instructions so that
they could not be parasitized, but parasites evolved to overcome this
immunity.
In short, Tierra was behaving exactly as The Theory of Evolution
predicts it should.
Other simulations, such as Avida:
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.html
and other digital life such as Amoeba, Cosmos and Nidus are
demonstrating aspects of evolution too. None of these simulations is
intended to be a exact duplicate of evolutionary conditions. For
that,
you would neeed an entire planet for your simulation, but what they do
show is that macroevolution is a fact of life, even artificial life.
This concludes my set of references to examples of macroevolution or
evidence supporting such, and with that, creationism and its
supporters
are refuted utterly.
Budikka
haiku jones
> On Jul 30, 5:05 pm, Budikka666 <budik...@netscape.net> wrote:
>
> >http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> > Budikka
>
> Nobodys got this kind of silly religious faith in naturalism . Not
> even Hitchens Dawkins, or yourself :http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/did-life-form-by-accident.htm
> . (This is one time that you should believe what this atheist Biolgist
> has to say in the site) .
> Id like to suggest that as an atheist, you
> dont want God to exist because you dont want to be owned by him
> thereby making you morally accountable for the way you use foul and
> vile language in here in addition to lifestyle choices.
I'd like to suggest that since you are, unfortunately,
utterly unattractive to the opposite sex, your reason
for turning to God was to take your disastrous
inability to get sex and turn it -- in your own mind --
into some kind of seeming virtue, a big win rather
than a tragic series of losses.
See Davey? If you can arrogantly make up the
motives and life stories of others in spite of your
utter and complete ignorance of either, than
two can play that game.
Are we having fun? Wanna go again?
HJ
Davej
> [...]
> Id like to suggest that as an atheist, you dont want God to exist
> because you dont want to be owned by him thereby making you
> morally accountable for the way you use foul and vile language
> in here in addition to lifestyle choices. I mean no offense,
> because i used to do the same thing when i wanted to be an
> 'atheist' . Regards.
Oh good grief, read Exodus 20-31. The God of Moses is an absurd,
ignorant, invented clown. Is the creator of the universe really going
to deliver rules about gored cattle falling into pits and how to
properly sell your daughter into slavery or how to beat your slave to
death with a rod? Grow up already. If Gawd really exists then he
hasn't yet visited this craphole planet.
Virgil
<295b75cd-40ce-4a38...@q35g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
"IlBe...@gmail.com" <ilbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 30, 5:05 pm, Budikka666 <budik...@netscape.net> wrote:
> > http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
> >
> > Budikka
>
> There isnt a shred of evidence for macro evolution. Not a shred.
> Thats why its called an unsupported THEORY. Abiogenesis has to be
> proven first before macro evolution can even be considered. The
> worlds foremost ATHEIST Biologist and co founder of the DNA
> structure, Dr. Francis Crick, affirmed the probability of
> abiogenesis is about 10x40,000 th power chance.
I very much doubt that Crick said anything so stupidly expressed.
And no one knows enough to estimate such probabilities anyway.
> This is why no one
> is really an atheist
That one person says god must exist, no matter how much evidence he
presents, does not mean that anyone else must believe it.
There still exists a flat earth society even today, so that even massive
proofs of a claim will not force everyone to believe it.
And "proofs" of existence of those alleged gods are more messy than
massive.
> I once followed the deciet for 10 adult years
During which time you did not learn to spell very well.
Virgil
<663227e5-759a-4c30...@g35g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
"IlBe...@gmail.com" <ilbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I mean no offense
No one, except possibly those who are massively both inept and stupid,
could be that offensive without meaning to be.
Christopher A. Lee
<ilbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I mean no
>offense,
Liar.
> because i used to do the same thing when i wanted to be an
>'atheist' . Regards.
You were never an atheist, liar.
skye...@yahoo.com
> On Jul 30, 5:05 pm, Budikka666 <budik...@netscape.net> wrote:
>
> >http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> > Budikka
>
> There isnt a shred of evidence for macro evolution. Not a shred.
<Ahem>
Tiktaalik
Ambulocetus
If those two fossils aren't good enough for you, may I point out the
Monotremes, the echidna, and the duck-billed platypus, primitive
mammals that still have some reptilian characteristics.
> Thats why its called an unsupported THEORY.
Only by you clueless godbots. The ToE is one of the best-supported
sciences there is.
And Davey, my lyin' lil fundy friend, as you've been told time and
time again, "theory" means "an explanation that takes into account all
the data currently known."
> Abiogenesis has to be
> proven first before macro evolution can even be considered.
Nope. And at any rate, we know that abiogenesis happend. All we're
arguing about is *how*. We think it came about by natural processes -
chemistry. You think it happened by magic.
But evolution, including that false creationist idea of "macro-
evolution" happened. That's a stone fact, and none of your belly-
aching is going to change it.
> The
> worlds foremost ATHEIST Biologist and co founder of the DNA
> structure, Dr. Francis Crick, affirmed the probability of
> abiogenesis is about 10x40,000 th power chance.
We've been over this before, Davey. The probability of abiogenesis is
exactly 1, since we're here having this discussion.
And remember, those numbers you quote above are based on the false
assumption that non-magical abiogenesis had to happen all at once and
in one place, and produce a complex, modern life form. In actuality,
the process went on in many places on earth for millions (perhaps
billions) of years, and the initial product was *waaaaaaay* simpler
than a modern bacterium.
> This is why no one
> is really an atheist and hence, it is a non validated, non tenable
> secular religion of willful self deciet .
Oh, Davey, you are *so* misinformed. You're *surrounded* by "real"
atheists.
> I once followed the
> deciet for 10 adult years until I had to abandon the willful self
> deceit because i didnt want God interfering with my lifesytle
> choices . You can change too and God will help you in the process.
And I ask again: given that I live like a damn nun, just what "life-
style choices" have I become an atheist to have? Please do me the
common courtesy of answering this time.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
BAAWA Knight
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes nine at cox dot net OR
skyeyes nine at yahoo dot com
skye...@yahoo.com
> In article
> <663227e5-759a-4c30-8fb3-86e0a35c8...@g35g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
>
> "IlBeBa...@gmail.com" <ilbeba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I mean no offense
>
> No one, except possibly those who are massively both inept and stupid,
> could be that offensive without meaning to be.
Unfortunately, that describes Davey to a "T."
Ken
EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE PROVIDED AFTER SEVEN MONTHS
NOTHING
ZILCH
NADA
ZIP
ZERO
You keep yammering about your proof, your evidence, BUT
Where are your "vast evidences"?
Where is your "proof"?
Where is your "supporting evidence"?
Where is this "proven historical evidence"?
Where is this "vast evidence of a personal nature"?
Where is this "very compelling evidence"?
Where is your "plenty of historical
evidence"?
WHERE THE FUCK IS IT, ASSHOLE?
Syd M.
> On Jul 30, 5:05 pm, Budikka666 <budik...@netscape.net> wrote:
>
> >http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/interview-with-hit...
>
> > Budikka
>
> There isnt a shred of evidence for macro evolution.
Stop lying, Davie.
PDW