Very sorry you’re under the weather—hope whatever you have goes away soon...
How about giving the book another go? Did you look at his computer program, which he talked about at the end? Maybe the book seems boring to you because it’s written in a more scientific format, unlike Dawkins’ books, which are written more like a story. Perhaps you can give me some specific examples of how Sanford’s arguments are contradictory? I found his arguments to be sensible and empirically based. Reading the book does require deep concentration.
Dawkins’ books are anything but clear and concise, but that has nothing to do with the actual subject matter, other than making it more difficult to read. Just telling me that Sanford’s book is boring, rambling, and whatever, doesn’t do much to advance our discussion, as you’re addressing the style more than the content. If you don’t understand what he’s saying, perhaps you don’t know enough about the topic? If so, you’re not in a position to ridicule the book. I pointed out specific things I disagreed with in Dawkins’ books and gave specific reasons for my disagreement. If you can do the same with this book, then we might get somewhere.
Dawkins makes the point that if evolution is false, then there should be pretty easy tests that could be performed to disprove it.Remember, neither evolution nor creation can be proven empirically, in spite of what Dawkins seems to think. We can only look at evidence and see if it supports our perspective. You mentioned the distance of the stars—there’s still much to be learned about light and how it travels, and I’ve read some interesting theories that account for starlight—so, while this evidence may seem to fit more with your perspective, it’s not a proof for the long time needed for evolution. I mentioned the faulty K-Ar method of dating rocks, resulting in rocks (including the lava cap on Mt. St. Helens) being dated at much older ages than they really are. After accounting for excess Ar in volcanic rock, adjusted dates are more in line with a young earth.
I also mentioned some other evidences of a young earth: presence of C14 in deepest geologic layers (should have disappeared long before billions of years), thickness of mud in bottom of ocean (should be much thicker if old earth), presence of DNA in fossils (should not be there in fossils older than a few thousand years), amount of salt in the oceans (should be much higher if earth billions of years old). I’ve also read that the earth’s orbit would have deteriorated to the point that the earth was no longer in the ‘zone’ it has to be in in order for life to exist on earth long before the billions of years needed for evolution to occur. How would Darwinian evolution explain each of these? Each of these facts, especially when combined, seem to me to provide strong evidence against Darwinian evolution, which requires billions of years in order to work.
Take the presence of DNA in fossils. When that was discovered, evolutionary scientists might have worked on developing a new hypothesis about how DNA could last for millions of years longer than scientists had thought possible. Scientists working from a creationist perspective would see the presence of DNA as evidence that the fossils weren’t as old as had been thought. In each case the scientist is taking the same evidence—presence of DNA in fossils—and coming to different conclusions. The trick is figuring out which interpretation comes closer to the truth. From a biological perspective, it would be easier for me to believe that the fossils were younger than to believe that million year old fossils could still contain DNA.
And then there’s the analogy about entropy, which I gave in my first post on our blog—it would be helpful if you’d respond to that and explain how evolution fits with the analogy. I see entropy as a strong evidence against Darwinian evolution, so it would help if you’d explain how the evolutionary position gets around this.
It would also help if you could explain how evolution accounts for the presence of handedness in organic molecules. For evolution to occur, there must be some sort of mechanism by which the original amino acids went from the 50-50 mixture of isomers found in non-living molecules to 100% L-isomer in order for DNA to exist and form the genes which must mutate as part of the process of evolution. As long as there is a mixture of isomers, the amino acids might connect, but they will not be able to form the shape necessary for DNA to function as it does. No lab has been able to create pure isomers. It would take a great deal of faith to believe that the random chemical processes of Darwinian evolution somehow produced the proper conditions for a mixture to go to 100% pure isomer. What would be the probability for such a random process occurring?
By the way, scientific consensus isn’t all that important. While it’s nice to have, consensus doesn’t guarantee that the subject of consensus is actually true. Besides, sticking to the consensus position would tend to stifle the quest for truth.
Back to the book--
You see junk DNA as unimportant, even though Dawkins sees it as both evidence of evolution and a source of genetic material to be used in the process of evolution. It’s natural that I would present evidence to the contrary. If there is no junk DNA, then it can’t be evidence of evolution and can’t provide material to be used in the process of evolution. If there is no junk DNA and all that ‘junk’ actually has specific purpose, then the random mutations that naturally occur will be interfering with the body processes guided by that ‘junk’ DNA—this doesn’t help the idea of Darwinian evolution.
Here are what I see as some of the main premises of the book:
DNA is not a simple, static, linear array of letters, but is dynamic, self-regulating, and multi-dimensional, operating on multiple layers at once. Each nucleotide is multifunctional, interacting with many other nucleotides.
Mutations happen at the molecular level (affecting the genotype), but selection can only be carried out on the level of the whole organism (based on phenotype). Phenotype is affected not only by DNA but also by outside factors such as food supply. Therefore, selecting out bad (or selecting in good) phenotypes does little to eliminate bad genotypes (or promote good ones).
The ratio of deleterious-to-beneficial mutations has been estimated to be around one million to one. Because most mutations are recessive, negative mutations are less likely to be selected out. Any selection is, by definition, random. Overall, mutations lead to a net degeneration, rather than increased complexity.
Usually there is a tight linkage between beneficial and deleterious mutations. If one selects for a beneficial trait, one gets the deleterious one, too. [This explains why some modern fruit trees are more productive but are also more susceptible to diseases.]
Scientists (including Kimura, who was referenced by Dawkins) agree that it isn’t possible to simultaneously select for a large number of traits due to the cost of selection. This would mean that Darwinian evolution would have to progress very slowly indeed. It seems that this alone would make the probability for evolution impossibly small.
The fitness of the human population is degenerating 1-2% per generation. Mutations are the result of physical entropy being manifested at the molecular level. Like all machines, the bio-machinery affecting DNA replication, DNA repair, and selective elimination, all operate at less than 100% efficiency. This degeneration is the opposite of Darwinian evolution.
There’s much more to the book than this, but this is enough for now. :)
Susan
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