Re: newly discovered species

Some very fascinating creatures!! But what does this have to do with our
discussion? They're newly discovered, not newly evolved.

Susan

Fwd: newly discovered species

Awesome.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben Winnick <>
Date: Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 2:46 PM
Subject: newly discovered species
To: Brandon Meredith <>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38347897/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Re: Dawkins, bacteria, Tibetans, fish, etc.

Hey Brandon,

I ask questions because I want to know, not to be difficult.  I’m not trying to miss the point, and I’m sad that you seem to think that.  Although I don’t think you mean to send that message, it sometimes seems as if you’re trying to avoid answering my questions by saying the book is boring, the author isn’t good enough, my questions don’t interest you, I should accept evolution because everyone else does, and so on.  Even if the book is boring and the author doesn’t have the ‘right’ title with his name, those things don’t have anything to do with whether the author’s ideas are right or wrong.  My questions may not interest you, but they are important to me.  If I’m to be persuaded that Darwinian evolution is true, I need answers that make scientific sense.

My next point is that IN his book, he claims that positive genetic changes are nearly impossible and just don't happen in nature. This claim is falsified by the bacteria test that we discussed. I was NOT trying to prove evolution with one test.

If you had finished the book, you would have found that what he said was that ‘positive’ mutations are very rare and generally come at a price.  Either genetic information (DNA coding) is lost, or there are accompanying negative changes.  (In any given organism, there are always going to be many more negative mutations than positive ones, so even if a positive change occurs, it isn’t the only thing passed to the next generation—many more negative ones may also be passed along.)  For example, an organism may become more heat tolerant, but at the same time lose disease resistance.  Although it wasn’t apparent from the bacteria study, it may very well be that while the bacteria gained the ability to metabolize a different kind of material, it also lost the ability to do something else—we don’t know one way or the other.  The other point I was trying to make about the bacteria is the statistical improbability of mutations driving evolution in light of the fact that it took tens of thousands of generations just to get one positive change.  How many generations would it take for bacteria to become non-bacteria, something more complex?  When I think about the complexity of a single cell—the mitochondria, the semi-permeable cell wall, and so on—the sheer number of DNA codons needed to direct cell function and reproduction is overwhelming.  At one positive change per 30,000-40,000 generations, how many generations would it have taken to develop even the complex function of a single-celled organism, much less the complex function of higher organisms such as mammals and people?  After all, most higher organisms have a much longer life cycle than do bacteria.

So one could assume that a lot of evolution is happening at this moment with bacteria.

One may assume that a lot of adaptation is happening with bacteria.  As far as I know, no one has ever observed bacteria evolving into something else, a more complex non-bacterial organism, even after watching many thousands of generations.

The article ASSUMES evolution is true and ASSUMES it's readers agree with that. That's how lonely you are out there Susan. Mainstream articles just aren't written with you in mind.

This is what bugs me. Just assuming something is true doesn’t make it true. I want to know the logical foundation for belief in Darwinian evolution.  I don’t care what everyone else thinks.  I want to know what is right and true, regardless of whether anyone else believes it or not.  An old saying goes something like this: “Right is right, even if everyone is against it.  Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”  If Darwinian evolution is true, it must have a logical foundation and must provide a sound explanation for the data observed.  I cannot accept current consensus simply because it’s the consensus—that would be asking me to accept it on blind faith rather than on sound logic and good science.  

Looked up sea water on wikipedia—article wasn’t very helpful—a statement backed up by vague theories.  The evaporite deposits mentioned in

this quote occur in bodies of water such as the Dead Sea where evaporation exceeds input, not in the oceans at large.    

Ocean salinity has been stable for billions of years, most likely as a consequence of a chemical/tectonic system which removes as much salt as is deposited; for instance, sodium and chloride sinks include evaporite deposits... One theory is that plate tectonics forces salt under the continental land masses...

A scientific study I found concluded that known Na removal processes account for only about 30% of NA going into the oceans, suggesting that Na concentration is increasing over time.  According to this study, the maximum age of the earth would be around 62 million years, not the billions of years needed for Darwinian evolution to occur.

All for now. :)

Susan

Re: Dawkins, bacteria, Tibetans, fish, etc.

Hey Susan,

As for sea salt, Jon suggests you read the wikipedia articles on sea salt, sea water, and salinity. That will answer all your questions. Apparently, the oceans have had a stable salinity for billions of years. I know...impressive.  

It seems to me that your questions which are meant to question the validity of evolution come across to scientists as sounding like "how does the world work"?

-b

Re: Dawkins, bacteria, Tibetans, fish, etc.

Hey Susan,

Argh again! Lol. I can't believe you said that all I did was belittle the author of Genetic Entropy! I went to great pains not to make an ad hominem attack on him because I know that bothers you, and I agree that that can be just a distraction! I gave you the reasons I disagreed with the book in one email. It was only later when you lionized him by calling him respected (the opposite of ad hominem and clearly containing the same issues) that I pointed out that I was not impressed with his pedigree. It's as if in every point I make, you miss the point. I think it's on purpose! Anyways, my main objection with the book was that it was very boring, and I didn't find the logic of many of his arguments sound, and it was taking a very long time to get to the point. Yes, only the second objection is sound scientifically, but I'm more than a scientist! I'm a human in his twenties! And I won't read a book that boring!

My next point is that IN his book, he claims that positive genetic changes are nearly impossible and just don't happen in nature. This claim is falsified by the bacteria test that we discussed. I was NOT trying to prove evolution with one test. There is clearly not such a thing out there. I was only trying to point out that his claim is wrong, and that experiment was only one example of of that. THAT is the point. Get it???

Anyways, thousands of generations doesn't take a long time when it comes to bacteria, and nearly every surface on earth is covered with it. So one could assume that a lot of evolution is happening at this moment with bacteria. 

As for your questions, Susan, I don't know. I just don't know why you think the oceans would have more salt. I just don't know why molecules are left-handed, and I may never be able to answer that question since I'm not a chemist. I'm not even interested in that question. I hope you'll try to answer it yourself. 

As for you mocking the article because it does a poor job of proving evolution, you again are missing the point. It is trying to prove nothing. The article ASSUMES evolution is true and ASSUMES it's readers agree with that. That's how lonely you are out there Susan. Mainstream articles just aren't written with you in mind. Anyways scientific journalsists don't try to prove anything. They just report on what scientists are currently talking about. 

-Brandon

Re: so, so depressing

Super-interesting. I totally don't believe it, though (see what I did there?:).

-B

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 14, 2010, at 12:59 PM, Ben Winnick  wrote:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874

RE: Dawkins, bacteria, Tibetans, fish, etc.

Hey Brandon,

Argh! Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall!!!

Sometimes I feel the same way about talking to you!!  I guess we’re even in that respect—doesn’t upset me at all, though—I like your persistence.  :o)  Besides, if we agreed on everything, our conversations wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or challenging...

While we both agree that adaptation occurs, we diverge concerning the idea that one kind of animal can evolve into another more complex one.  The article about the Tibetans gives a good example of adaptation, but doesn’t really address Darwinian evolution.  

The NPR article shows a great deal of creativity and imagination in coming up with a hypothesis for how humans are supposedly related to fish and yeasts.  And it takes guts to point to an exhibit as proof of how humans evolved from earlier organisms, based on an explanation that is mere conjecture.  So what if humans, fish, and yeasts have some similar DNA!  DNA is merely a tool, much like the words in an instruction book.  If you look at any number of books, you’ll find that some words, and some patterns of grammar, appear in all the books; the presence of the same words and grammar doesn’t necessarily imply that one book is somehow related to another. In much the same way, architectural drawings of different buildings use the same symbols for various parts of the structure, no matter how simple or complicated the structures might be.   And if God chooses to use the same mechanism for something, say glucose metabolism, in many different kinds of creatures, it would make sense that He might also choose to guide that mechanism through the same or similar sets of DNA.   Literature and architectural drawings don’t appear by themselves—intelligent beings create them and give them meaning.  It makes sense to me that DNA didn’t create itself, but was created by an intelligent being—I would say God Himself.  Again, we are looking at the same data (similar DNA in different kinds of organisms) and coming to different conclusions.  

I’m trying to go at this in a logical, rational manner, using available scientific data, and it would help me a lot if you’d try to answer my questions in the same manner.  For example, if evolution is so well-backed by research, it should be fairly easy to provide data (not just hypotheses) supporting the evolutionist’s answer to why there isn’t more salt in the world’s oceans, how organic molecules came to have a specific handedness, or to any of the other questions I’ve asked.  And it would have been much more productive if you had used scientific data to try to refute the ideas of the author of Genetic Entropy, rather than simply belittling him.  Although I could easily have dismissed Dawkins as a militant atheist who has no intention of seeking truth, and the authors of all the articles you’ve sent me as having unthinkingly accepted evolutionary hogwash, it wouldn’t have been productive.  We would get nowhere if all we did was attack each other’s sources.  

I’m still enjoying our conversation, so let’s keep going...

Below is an excerpt from an article on specified complexity authored by a creationist, which is no different than you asking me to read something by Dawkins or any other evolutionist.  See if you can respond scientifically and logically to the content of the article—I already know what you’d think about the author. :o)  

Specification combined with complexity demonstrates purpose. For instance, the exact configuration of individual sand grains washed up on a beach is extraordinarily unlikely and therefore could be deemed "complex." However, a sand sculpture shaped like a dolphin is both complex (unlikely) and specified (set to the pattern of a dolphin's form). Arguing that waves (i.e., nature alone) can create sand sculptures because both a sculpture and the sand next to it are complex (uniquely arranged) ignores the key distinction: specification to a predetermined pattern.

Using different terms, evolutionary biochemist Jeffrey Wicken explains:

    Whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an external "wiring diagram" with a high information content.4

Machines with multiple functioning parts are complex in that their parts are uniquely arranged (i.e., lined up in an improbable array). However, any arrangement would be just as unique, just as improbable or complex, as any other. In order to function, the machine needs to have components that are specified to required parameters.

A molecular example is found in chaperonins. In cells, these barrel-shaped protein complexes shelter certain other proteins from watery environments, giving them extra time to fold into their necessary shapes. Chaperonins have a precisely-placed enzymatic active site, detachable caps, flexible gated entryways, a timed sequence of chemical events, and precise expansion and flexion capacities. Each of the parameters--size, shape, strength, hydrophobicity distribution, timing, and sequence--represents a specification. With each additional specification, the likelihood of a chance-based assembly of these parts diminishes…to miracle status.

Nonetheless, hard-core Darwinist Richard Dawkins stated,

    The creationist completely misses the point, because he…insists on treating the genesis of statistical improbability [complexity] as a single, one-off event. He doesn't understand the power of accumulation.5

Statistical improbability happens all the time, and by itself is irrelevant to the question of how life originated. Improbability with specification, however, only happens by intention, and it is this combination of qualities for which Darwinian scientists have yet to provide a naturalistic explanation.

http://www.icr.org/article/more-than-just-complex/

Here is a link to an article about probability and evolution: http://www.icr.org/article/probability-order-versus-evolution/   Again, see if you can respond to the content rather than the source.  If it would help, consider going into teacher mode, as if you were patiently and logically working through a proof with a student.  I know you can do this. :)

Susan

Fwd: The Human Edge: Finding Our Inner Fish

Hey Susan,

This article was forwarded to me.

-Brandon

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben Winnick <>
Date: Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 10:47 AM
Subject: The Human Edge: Finding Our Inner Fish
To: Brandon Meredith <>

I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127937070&sc=17&f=1001

The Human Edge: Finding Our Inner Fish
by Joe Palca

- July 5, 2010

It took him years of searching in the Canadian Arctic, but in 2004,
Neil Shubin found the fossilized remains of what he thinks is one of
our most important ancestors.

Turns out, it's a fish.

Shubin says his find, which he named Tiktaalik, represents an
important evolutionary step, because it has the structures that will
ultimately become parts of our human bodies. Shoulders, elbows, legs,
a neck, a wrist -- they're all there in Tiktaalik.

"Everything that we have are versions of things that are seen in
fish," says Shubin.

Of course, there are things that we have that Tiktaalik doesn't.

"We have a big brain, and portions of that big brain are not seen in
Tiktaalik," says Shubin. "But the template, all the way down to the
DNA that builds it, is already present in creatures like this."

Inside this fish, Shubin sees us.

"It's like peeling an onion," he says. "Layer after layer after layer
is revealed to you. Like in a human body, the first layer is our
primate history, the second layer is our mammal history, and on and on
and on and on, until you get to the fundamental molecular and cellular
machinery that makes our bodies and keeps are cells alive, and so
forth."

Our Inner Yeast

In fact, not only are we related to an ancient fish, but many of the
parts critical for making yeast are also critical for making us, says
Gavin Sherlock, a geneticist at Stanford University.

"About one-third of the yeast genes have a direct equivalent version
that still exists in humans," he says.

Sherlock says that not only do many of the same genes still exist in
humans and yeast, but they're so similar that you can exchange one for
the other.

"There are several hundred examples where you can knock out the yeast
gene, put in the human equivalent, and it restores it back to normal,"
he says.

Think about it, he says: We have a lot in common with yeast. Yeast
consume sugars like we do, yeast make hormones like we do, and yeast
have sex -- not quite like we do, but sex.

Sex isn't just fun and games. Sexual reproduction is critical for
stirring the genetic pot, speeding the evolution of endless forms most
beautiful, from fruit flies to blue whales to humans.

Now yeast is a single-celled organism. We have trillions and trillions
of cells in our bodies -- different kinds of cells, all fitting
together. How did that happen?

The answer is at the Field Museum in Chicago.

How We Got A Body

Shubin points to a display case in an exhibition on evolution. "This
tiny little diorama here, which you would just walk by, is arguably
one of the most important ones for understanding our bodies," he says.
"What you see is plastic fronds and jellyfish-like creatures in this
primitive ocean, but it's here where single-celled creatures like
bacteria and other microbes got together to make the first bodies."

And as time goes on, more forms emerge. Again, Shubin points at a
display that's easy to miss. Inside is an ancient worm: It has a left
and a right, a front and a back, a top and a bottom. These are the
same coordinate axes as our bodies.

"In fact, we believe, if you look at the evolutionary history of these
things, many of the genetic processes that make bodies like this and
bodies like our own arose over 500 million years ago," says Shubin.

As Shubin and I walk through the exhibit, we see the results of
tinkering with these genetic processes. Evolution brought fish,
dinosaurs, mammals. Finally, we come to a familiar-looking 4-foot tall
creature.

What Makes Humans Different

This is Lucy, an Australopithecus. She's more apelike than modern
humans, but getting there. Despite Lucy's proximity to humans, she's
clearly not human. Australopithicus went extinct.

On the way to us, something changed, and it was something more than
just physical.

Shubin points to a cabinet across the room. Inside is a re-creation of
a prehistoric human burial site. There's the skeleton of a woman who
has been placed in the grave, surrounded by her jewelry.

"It's hard to look at this as a fossil anymore," says Shubin. "You
look at this as a person who lived, and people loved this person
enough to do this. And that's what changed."

Shubin says it's not a bone or a muscle or a gene that made us human.
It was something else.

"The physiology and genetics made this possible. That's the template
that made all this happen," he says. "But when was that spark, when
was that moment? We don't know."

That moment that gave us the evolutionary edge that led to what we are
today -- the species that buries its dead, builds museums, explores
outer space. Shubin says it's the culture we built with our bones and
muscles and brains that makes our species unique. [Copyright 2010
National Public Radio]

Dawkins, bacteria, etc.

Hey Brandon,

Stephen’s family was here for about a month—loved every minute of it, even though the grandkids kept us very busy.  They left on Monday, so now I have more time for writing—at least, until the stuff in the garden is ready to can/freeze.

Dawkins gives an example of a laboratory study where a bacterium evolved so that it could eat citric acid!

How does he know that this was true Darwinian evolution rather than simple adaptation to environmental conditions?  The evidence (the bacterial colony’s development of the ability to digest citric acid)  has been interpreted from an evolutionary perspective. Since the bacteria remained bacteria and never developed into any other sort of organism, even after thousands of generations, this example doesn’t do that much to promote Darwinian evolution.

From what I read, Lenski et al, evaluated the changes in over 30,000 generations of E. coli, concluding that millions of mutations and trillions of cells were needed to produce the estimated two to three mutations required to allow cells to bring citrate into the cell under oxic conditions. (Blount, Z., C. Borland, and R. Lenski. 2008. Historical Contingency and the Evolution of a Key Innovation in an Experimental Population of Escherichia coli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 105: 7899-7906. )
If it takes that much to achieve just one helpful change, what would it take to  make multiple changes?  Just how many generations would be required for a simple bacterium to make the number of changes needed in order for it to progress to a completely different (no longer a bacterium), more complex organism?  

In 1978, microbiologist Werner Arber received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to molecular genetics. In his studies, he observed that “changes in bacteria resulted almost solely from transposition and other types of chromosomal rearrangement, not mutations as required by macroevolution.”  He also said that genetically-encoded enzymes largely influence these rearrangements.  ( Papadopoulos, D. et al. 1999. Genomic Evolution During a 10,000-Generation Experiment with Bacteria. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. 96: 3807-3812.  Arber, W. 2000. Genetic Variation: Molecular Mechanisms and Impact on Microbial Evolution. FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 24: 1-7.  Wasn’t able to read the full papers.)  Although much of his research dealt with evolutionary ideas, Arber concluded that the genetic mechanisms that produce variation are designed and are not products of Darwinian evolution. Furthermore, he said that “this variation--often called microevolution--has clear limits and is unable to produce macroevolution.”  Dawkins, in his books, apparently ignores these findings and instead insists that multiple mutations are what drives Darwinian evolution.

I personally love when Dawkins takes on the scientific consequences of events in the Bible. The section on what the dispersal patterns of the animals coming off the Ark would be? Awesome. Totally unlike what we see in the world. Did you read that?

Of course, I read it.  He makes a silly assumption about how the animals should have dispersed as they left Noah’s ark, then proceeds to tear apart his assumption—a straw man argument if there was one.  Just why should there “be some sort of law of decreasing species diversity as we move away from an epicentre [ark landing site]?”  Again, Dawkins is looking at evidence (the location of various kinds of animals) and interpreting it from an evolutionary perspective.  

So, in the course of our discussion, my list of unanswered questions has grown.  Here are some of the major ones:   What would it take to believe a fossil was in the wrong place?  How does Darwinian evolution overcome entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics)?   What would Dawkins say about Arber’s research?   How would evolutionists explain the existence of R and L isomers in the proteins of living organisms but not anywhere else?  What about Dawkins’ faulty assumption that volcanic rock has no Ar when first formed?  How would you explain, from a scientific perspective, how my evidences for a young earth are invalid?  How do evolutionists account for the low salt concentration in the oceans (would be much higher if earth were billions of years old)?  What, other than the fact that he believes in creation, makes Sanford a ‘not respected’ scientist?  How do evolutionists explain fossilization of organisms being slowly covered with mud, while at the same time not rotting or being eaten?  How do evolutionists explain fossils crossing strata?  How do evolutionists know that the various strata developed over long periods of time rather than within a few  months or years?

Enough for now....

Hope you’re having a wonderful summer.  

Susan