Interesting anti Evolutionary website, Darwinismrefuted.com

[Von Milash]

Bilbo, yer a smart fella. CC.

Sharla, you're a geneticist? Ever get the feeling you and I were brought together by fate? jk

[Sharla]

I don't believe the theory of macro evolution suggests a plant should be able to suddenly become an animal or an insect. Macro evolution is talking about a new species forming. Plants like rice and barley are different species.

Never have I ever heard of any scientist claiming a rice plant will evolve to be a mammal. Unless it occurred over millions of years as a consequence of the evolution of many intermediate species. Arguing that says absolutely nothing to disprove evolution.

new appendages can happen. We've all heard of people born with a sixth toe and 2 headed snakes etc.

A caterpillar will have exactly the same genetic sequence as the butterfly it becomes. It's just a growth and development stage like a human baby in a womb or a chick in it's egg so i have no idea of what you were trying to say there.

Fossils and molecular biology do offer support for the theory of evolution. I think I've explained that already.

Sure fossil records are still being pieced together. But so is medicine and computer science etc etc. Dealing with and finding old fossils and analysing them is a science. Something has had a long time to degrade - it takes a lot of work to assess and analyse. it doesn't mean it wasn't there in the first place and it doesn't mean the pieces won't fit together more completely as we learn more. You want to see all the pieces to believe in something then you'll understand why not everyone shares YOUR beliefs. Time will produce more evidence and no doubt you'll keep saying it's all crap no matter how much there is!

[Kev]

I don't believe the theory of macro evolution suggests a plant should be able to suddenly become an animal or an insect. Macro evolution is talking about a new species forming. Plants like rice and barley are different species.

Never have I ever heard of any scientist claiming a rice plant will evolve to be a mammal. Unless it occurred over millions of years as a consequence of the evolution of many intermediate species. Arguing that says absolutely nothing to disprove evolution.

new appendages can happen. We've all heard of people born with a sixth toe and 2 headed snakes etc.

A caterpillar will have exactly the same genetic sequence as the butterfly it becomes. It's just a growth and development stage like a human baby in a womb or a chick in it's egg so i have no idea of what you were trying to say there.

Fossils and molecular biology do offer support for the theory of evolution. I think I've explained that already.

Sure fossil records are still being pieced together. But so is medicine and computer science etc etc. Dealing with and finding old fossils and analysing them is a science. Something has had a long time to degrade - it takes a lot of work to assess and analyse. it doesn't mean it wasn't there in the first place and it doesn't mean the pieces won't fit together more completely as we learn more. You want to see all the pieces to believe in something then you'll understand why not everyone shares YOUR beliefs. Time will produce more evidence and no doubt you'll keep saying it's all crap no matter how much there is!

Hey Sharla, I think you mistunderstood me slightly. First off the theory of macro evolution DOES suggest a plant can become an animal, we are after all according the theory merely highly evolved blue-green algae that once floated in primordial soupy sea.

Your caveat of 'unless it occurred over millions of years' I emphasised in my last post. If these changes did occur slowly over millions of years then where are the fossils? Dinosaurs evolved slowly into birds over millions of years........ok then so why do we have fossils of dinosaurs and fossils of birds but of the millions of years in between we have nothing. And this goes for every species not just birds and dinosaurs.

As to the appendeges you are completely misundrstanding me. I'm not talking about an extra toe or even a head I'm talking about appendages that are new to the organism, your wheat may produce ears of corn but it surely can't produce an actual ear because the code is not there.

Fossils and molecular biology support evolution? No they support adaptation within a species and limited transmutation between closely related species of which I agree 100%

The fossil record still being pieced together is irelevent, it's not that we don't have enough evidence to understand evolution yet it's the precise opposite we have too much and it's all against it!

Firstly it disobeys the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, secondly the fossil record is virtual proof positive that it hasn't occured, thirdly molecular biology shows that nothing can just appear out of nowhere or suddenly change but that reams of genetic code within the DNA must first be present in an organism for change to occur. We also know that these changes don't just randomly occur, if they did biochemistry and medicine would be impossible!

The case against evolution is mounting all the time. It's fascinating to trace the historical development of evolutionary thought and the evidences for it from the time Lamarck and Darwin's grandfather Erasmus to the present day.

All of the evidence for evolution as presented in Darwins day is no longer accepted within the evolutionary community, in fact every couple decades or so all the preceding evidence gets thrown out and revised and new evidence is brought in. The universe has aged around a billion years every decade in the last hundred years to fit the ever changing evolutionary theories.

All of our old so called ancestors Neanderthal, Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Java Man etc have all been dismissed and the more recent findings the australopithicenes, homo habilis, homo erectus etc are going the same way.

American evolutionists led by the now deceased Stephen Jay Gould proclaim the Dawkins form of neo Darwinisiam dead due to lack of fossil evidence whilst Dawkins and the molecular geneticists decry that Gould's puncuated equilibrium theory is scientifically impossible.

Both camps basically argue the scientific impossibility of the other's beliefs and guess what.......they are both right!

[Sharla]

If you claim to understand the laws of thermodynamics what are they and how does evolution go against them? Coz i don't believe you.

Macro evolution does NOT claim that a plant will suddenly become an animal. It claims that it will specialize bit by bit to gradually become something different. You might want to read a little more about what the theory of macro evolution is before you bag it. Not what anti-evolution websites say it is!

Your cells are not carcinogenic until their DNA is altered by UV light or some other mutagen to suddenly change it's sequence in those particular cells. So YES new DNA sequences can occur that were not there before. They do NOT for the millionth time have to have always been there to exist.

I've been over that.

The fact that the theory of how specific species evolved over time is changing is not evidence against macro evolution. It's just evidence for the fact that scientists are working hard to uncover more about how individual species evolved. We're learning more about specific points in history which tell a story not that things didn't evolve at all. The basic concept that can occur has not been disproved.

If they were frauds as you suggested in your previous thread this would not happen. They'd stick to their original story very stubbornly despite all the evidence ........ rather like you.

Where is the meal you ate 3 weeks ago? Can you pin point the remnants of it exactly? and can you trace it to the sewer and identify the effluent that it became? Can you show you ate it? Can you tell exactly what it was? No but that doesn't mean that you didn't eat and have somehow miraculously survived without eating!

You probably could fish into your kitchen bin and show scraps of food you used to make your dinner. You probably could - if you were a plumber - trace your most recent effluent and tell the difference between that and cow shit.

There are fossils dating in between millions of years ago and the present time. You pulled that little statement out of nowhere!

You've also got to stop using the word random because you don't understand what is random and what is not. Reshuffling of homologous chromosomes is random, crossing over events are relatively random but less likely close to the sight of chromosome pairing. Mutagenic chemicals or UV light etc striking DNA and mutating it occurs because of environmental factors that are NOT random. A lot of mutations occur which are lethal or non-beneficial and do NOT get passed on. The fact that some do is NOT random it's because they are advantageous for survival in the environment in some way.

The basis of microevolution and mechanism is the same as for macroevolution. It's a bit hypocritical to say that you believe in microevolution but not macroevolution.

Now we have to technology to see that some evolution has occurred and because we can't trace every little step and you somehow irrationally believe it threatens your religious views you're bagging every scientist who ever worked in that field. Get over it!

[Kev]

Aww bollocks, I just wrote out a massive response to this and then went to close another window and shut it by mistake.


GGRRRRR!!!


Hang on I'll rewrite the whole blasted thing

[Kev]

Ok second attempt I hope I don't delete this this time!

First of all though I detect some hostility in your tone which I find a bit baffling. This is (or should be) just an interesting interchange of ideas and beliefs, as someone who is interested in the subject I find this conversation stimulating but I in no way am annoyed or irritated by the fact you don't agree with me. And remember, you started this debate here I merely listed a website I enjoyed reading! This should just be a fun conversation, it is for me, please if it's annoying you then you don't to have to reply to me!

Anyway that said let me try and answer your points. I'll refer to the second law of thermodynamic as SLOTD for convenience and if anything I say sounds patrinising, please don't take it that way, I already assume you are well versed in the second law, I'm just trying to convince you that I am too!


Ok so in laymans terms the SLOTD states that everything in the universe is running down or going from a state of usueful energy to less useful energy. It teaches that all systems will lead to their most probable state, which is a state of randomness and that as systems increase in entropy there will be less available energy to do useful work.

In other words all systems lead to a state of increasing disorder, everything is running down.

Evolution flies completely counter to this law at every step of the way. I know we are not talking specifically about the Big Bang here but ultimately that is where the story of evolution begins so it must be considered in the light of this law.

So we start with a big bang, a huge violent explosions of gases and extremely dense matter that explodes in every direction. Now as anyone who has ever seen an explosion can testify they are anything but orderly! Yet evolution requires that out of this chaotic explosion things became infinitely more ordered and structured, galaxies and solar systems forming, each with their own stars and planets, all in neat orbits of each other. When it comes to actual life on earth we see the same problem, namely that organisms, despite existing in a universe where everything is decaying, actually increase in complexity and order evolving to a higher state of existant.

This is a complete antithesis of the SLOTD which says that left to its own devices this kind of order could not have occured.

As to what macro evolution is and is not I feel I understand well enough what it is, I just don't happen to agree with you that there is sufficent evidence to support it,especially as it contradicts the SLOTD as briefed above, has left little to no trace in the fossil record, and our own attempts to manipulate or force evolution have failed miserably. Any interbreeding of animal species always produces infertile offspring, experiments on fruit flies shows that they resist any effects of radiation once a few generations have passed and of course I don't see any biological evidence to support how such change could come about anyhow.


You want to stress that macro evolution occurs very gradually, that is fine but you cannot have your cake and eat it too. If it occurs gradually how is an organism to function for the millions of years in between evolving from one species to another?

How for example did the early dino birds survive before their wings were fully developed? Could you even draw me a series of drawings showing how a velocoraptor turned gradually into a bird all the time being fully adapted and suited to its own envirmental niche and able to survive and mate unimpeded by it's transmorphing?

Reptilian skin gradually over millions of years became feathers, bones gradually over millions of years became hollow, the lungs and respirotary systems gradually changed, the sex organs also gradually changing over millions of years and at every stage of development the dino bird was able to thrive in its enviroment and mate and reproduce healthy offspring.

As for the meal I ate three weeks ago, thats not a fair analogy. A scientist looking for transitional fossils is not looking for the equivalent of the particular meal that I ate three weeks ago, he's just looking for one meal that any one of the 6 billion people on earth ate in the past year or so, a much less daunting task.

All he needs is a single fossil find for a single species of any organism on earth, it's not nearly so daunting as finding one meal from a specific person.


As for me not applying the word random correctly I may be wrong but I don't think I once mentioned the word 'random' in this thread until this post in relation to thermodynamics, a correct application I may add. Please show me where I keep using the word random or am showing signs of misunderstanding it

Regarding mutations and whether they are passed on or not I would say I understand this area pretty well, for a layman at least. The best known example of a 'positive' mutation in the scientific literature is that of the Sickle Cell, and in Africa this particular mutation has spread as it's immunises the sufferer against Malaira, thus it's a trait that been passed down through succesive generations.

It should be pointed out however that sickle cell is a life threatening disease and that it doesn't actually provide protection as such, its just that red blood cells in a sicle cell sufferer are so diseased that the malaria virus cannot incubate in them. The life expectancy for an adult male malaria sufferer is 42 years, so hardly a positive mutation but hey this all the best one that scientiest have!


You mentioned earlier tha DNA sequences can occur that were not there before. Can you provide an example of a 'beneficial' mutation that has occured in this manner? I'm not talking a sickle cell type damagin mutation here, just a purely positive change in an organism that resulted from new DNA being added?

It shouldn't be hard to name one, actually there should be untold billions of examples seeing as the entirety of life on earth has evolved in this way so I'd love to hear you name a dozen or so.


Finally I hope you don't see this debate as antagonistic or hostile, I love debating this stuff, I find it intellectually stimulating and it's a pleasure to meet someone as knowledgeble as yourself who just happens to sit on the other side of the fence to me. I respect you views, although I disagree with them, but what fun would life be if we were all the same anyways

[Munkymagic]

fukking hell, this shitt wasn't in my disney world of knowledge encyclopedia's

[Munkymagic]

Bilbo, don't take offence to this mate but i'd always thought of you as a bit of a thick kunt. Nice chap, funny but a chip short of a butty so to speak...only kidding mate .

I can now happily admit that I was wrong.

It takes borderline genius intelligence to come out with some of the flannel you are chucking out on here.

Seriously though. You're a smart chap aintcha!? Either that or you have too much time on your hands to do nothing than research stuff on the internet/in books.

One thing is for sure. I wouldn't like to play trivial pursuit with you for money mate

[Kev]

Bilbo, don't take offence to this mate but i'd always thought of you as a bit of a thick kunt. Nice chap, funny but a chip short of a butty so to speak...only kidding mate .

I can now happily admit that I was wrong.

It takes borderline genius intelligence to come out with some of the flannel you are chucking out on here.

Seriously though. You're a smart chap aintcha!? Either that or you have too much time on your hands to do nothing than research stuff on the internet/in books.

One thing is for sure. I wouldn't like to play trivial pursuit with you for money mate

ha I like to think of myself as a something of a free speaking and independently minded maverick.

I rarely take myself seriously, especially when talking about boxing which to me is my football (soccer for yanks) and I like to talk to you guys like I would if I was talking to you in a pub, but I do have a serious side too. I got all A's for my A Levels and then dropped out of uni in my first year to work as a linen porter in a hotel

So intelligent, just not very bright

[Dizaster]

Whoever is really interested in this stuff should read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. That book is a total freak show when it comes to analyzing this sort of stuff.... You can find the e-book PDF in the sharing programs. I found it on bearshare so if anyone is like, totally desperate for it, I can probably e-mail it, just send me a PM or something.

[Kev]

Whoever is really interested in this stuff should read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. That book is a total freak show when it comes to analyzing this sort of stuff.... You can find the e-book PDF in the sharing programs. I found it on bearshare so if anyone is like, totally desperate for it, I can probably e-mail it, just send me a PM or something.

I quite like Dawkins stuff, not read the Selfish Gene but I've read the Blind Watchmaker and his latest work The God Delusion.

He can be quite funny at times, and some of his analysis is excellent. He certainly makes a mockery of Thomas Aquianus' Arguments for the Existence of God when he asks us to concieve of the smelliest individual imaginable and then argues that the most smelliest would have to exist in reality else he would not be most smelly person imaginable as a real person slightly less smelly is actually more smelly than a smellier person who only exists in fantasy.

And I do find his contempt for Christians quite hilarious at times. When he tells a story about one of his science colleages being asked a morality question for example the scientist suggested they consult with a theologian. 'Why a theologian' Dawkins asks, 'Why not the gardener or the Chef?!'

He is a funny guy certainly and his critique against some of the more longstanding 'evidences' for belief in God are pretty devastating but he fails on two counts. Firstly he only attacks age old theological arguments to disprove God. His debunking of religious arguments from 900 years ago is like a creationist proving evolution is false by exposing the Piltdown Man fraud or demolishing Lamark's theory of inheritence through acquired characteristics, meangingless as both science and religios arguments have moved on since then.

His second shortcoming is that the exact same methodology he uses to 'disprove' God he is guilty of following that same flawed methodology in his own arguments.

He talks of cranes and skyhooks suggesting belief in God is a skyhook, literally pulling a belief out of thin air wheras he believes that science should work from the ground up like a crane.

How ironic then that he believes the universe itself came from nothing at all, for no reason and with no purpose, if that isn't a skyhook I don't know what is

And then he also completely fails to justify why a crane solution is more scientifically likely than a skyhook solution. I mean sure, as a scientist he will of course hope to find a naturalistic biological explanation for the origin of life, BUT if there isn't one and life really was the product of planned intelligent design, then no amount of wishing thinking or dogmatic belief in the divinty of sciene will alter that one iota.

He also uses a wonderful sleight of hand mathematical calculation to 'prove' mathematically that life must exist on other planets, as even with odds of 100,000,000 to 1 against, there are more than enough planets in the universe so that even allowing for such long odds, with an almost infinite number of planets to play around with it must be a virtual mathematical certainy that life exists on many planets in the universe, thousands in fact.

This is all very convincing on the surface but it presupposes that evolution is true. That is by giving odds of 100,000,000 to 1 he's still basically saying that evolution occurred.

However if life was a product of intelligent design and didn't evolve from non organic materials then the probability of life arising by chance is 0 and of course 100,000,000 times 0 is still 0.

A good read, I can see from the Amazon reviews though that it doesn't convert anyone in either direction. He is like most Christians in fact, preaching to the converted, athiests see in his work a dynamite rebutall of all things divine whilst Christians merely shrug and dismiss the whole book as nothing but hate and nonsense.

I recommend people read him though, he's by far the most famouse devotee of evolutionary theory in its present forms and should most certainly be read, although I think people should also read the counter argument, Dawkins God by Allister McGrath being but one example.

[Fenster]

Bilbo,

In those 6000 plus posts you must hold the Saddo's record for most words typed

by miles.

[Kev]

Bilbo,

In those 6000 plus posts you must hold the Saddo's record for most words typed

by miles.

You saying I can go on a bit? :P

What can I say once I start typing it just flows out of me, I'm like a dam that's full to maximum capacity and then bursts. But I like to think it's quality as well as quantity.

I see you have climbed two places in the rankings and are now rated higher than O'Sullivan, fair play to you

[Fenster]

Thanks alot.

Ive had a pretty unsettling week though. Played shit in China and found out my house has been wrecked by the floods.

Nothing that a few prayers to God wont sort out.

[Sharla]

I'll reply one last time - i promised myself i wouldn't because I'm arguing here that theres no evidence which conclusively proves evolution is not possible whereas you're arguing that you somehow know it's wrong and you're advertising it as if all scientists are evil and anti-god which I can't help but to take personally. But a have a few simple answers for you so here they are.

One - the big bang theory has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. As I said this before the theory of the big bang is a theory of how life might have been created based on physics, astronomy etc and the theory of evolution is based on biology and observations of processes seen happening in the world today and the fossil record. Evolution is a process postulated to effect living organisms so that's where it starts - not before that. I'm not a physicist so I won't argue an in depth knowledge and support of the big bang theory although i won't argue against it either.

Two- an animal survives for millions of years between one form and another because it is many different forms. A change in response to a selection pressure. If the selection is too severe and too fast then yes it can become extinct and that has been known to happen. If a few survive then their offspring are more likely too carry whatever trait helped them survive hence the favourable trait is selected for. We define a species as becoming a new species when it can no longer have viable offspring naturally with it's predecessor. For example I think a donkey and a horse can have a foal but that foal will be infertile so donkeys and horses are different species. Essentially a new species is a way for humans to conceptualize that they will no longer exchange genetic information - not necessarily a measure of the actual extent of physical difference between organisms.

The idea is that often different traits will isolate organisms from each other either geographically or behaviourally - that way small changes in their reproductive system will result from either more mutation or hormonal changes induced by differences in diet etc.

Three - This came up before and I don't think I explained myself very well so I'll try again. A new gene CAN occur in an organism that was not in the parents. This can happen due to crossing over as a natural part of meiosis or mutation caused by a mutagen very early in development - at the embryogenic stage. Even some viruses function by inserting their own DNA into a cell and allowing it to remain dormant until something activates it. This is what happens with the Herpes virus which is why people who get cold sores will get then several times in their lives because the virus has integrated into their DNA in the cells of that area and will be induced to be active by an environmental factor eg stress.

Four - even if you can only accept different genes being turned on and off that can be pretty dramatic. Just look at your butterfly example. All through the life cycle from the stage of caterpillar to butterfly the organism will have the same DNA. The code does not change. The expression of the code does change - genes are turned on and off, up and down regulated by transcription factors, phosphorylation, methylation etc etc.

Plants also have huge amounts of non coding DNA or DNA not containing genes in their genome. This DNA may be changed to coding DNA to create additional variation never seen phenotypically before. In a way it favours the idea that plants could evolve gradually to other forms. The idea is NOT that algae suddenly grew legs one day and the first 4 legged mammal emerged from the swamps. The idea is that many other intermediate forms existed between them which were (and still are - many still exist) different species. Actually a LOSS of function of many genes occurs also not just a gain of function which also makes this more realistic to me. It means many things have changed rather than just appeared.

I decided to study plants because i hate killing animals and because plants have very sophisticated biochemical functions which are interesting once you start to learn about them - even if they don't look that amazing. For example plants can photosynthesize, which is way above anything a single human cell can do. It's easy to assume that humans are the most functionally sophisticated creatures because we're intelligent but that just means that we've evolved organs and cell types which allow us to be more active as a whole organism. At the single cell level we are LESS sophisticated.

I think your comments about Dawkins are part of your reason for being so anti-evolution. I can see you are offended by him the same way I struggle with the idea that you think scientists would invent the idea of evolution just to be anti-god.

I don't believe evolution disproves god. At the same time I don't think he should have to consult with a theologist. Biologists are fundamentally theologists of the biological world so talking to a theologist about his theories when he can already discuss his ideas with other biologists and be rigorously scrutinized - seems redundant.

His job is not to make his theories fit in with Christianity - or any religion for that matter since Christianity is one of many and selecting one that is more credible than another would be an endless subjective debate.

His job is to look at the world and the physical evidence he sees and come up with a way to explain it. If he consults with a Christian theologist he is biasing himself towards ideas to support a belief rather than to be objective about what is most likely or possible from the evidence. This goes against the grain of all good scientists. We randomize all our experiments to avoid all bias including our own - to deliberately introduce it is absurd.