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77% of all electricity generated in Europe is from Nuclear power plants. Why is it we don’t do the same here? When talking about atmospheric pollution I think nuclear is a “greener” source of power then burning anything. At least with nuclear waste one can presumably keep it in a barrel and pay someone to watch for a long time, once co2 or mercury is released into the environment it is very hard to remove. http://www.hamline.edu/personal/amurphy01/es110/eswebsite/ProjectsSpring03/ebarker/Minamata%20Web%20Page.htm

endoplasmicMessenger wrote:

That's another way of saying that the DNA molecule can encode ANYTHING.

Duh.

Well, I'm glad that you agree that the DNA molecule can encode anything. Because that's the same as saying its encoding is not dependent on energy state of the DNA molecule. If encoding were dependent on energy state, then there would only be certain things that could be encoded. And the fact the DNA can encode the blueprints for every creature that has ever lived pretty much means that in can encode anything. It's up to you to demonstrate that there is something that can not be encoded by the DNA molecule.

Or that its encoding does not depend on energy state.

Like I said, bullshit.

Oh, now I'm convinced (not).

Look, just how do you think DNA gets propagated?

What does this have to do with the energy state of the DNA molecule?

Do you really think that DNA encoded in an organism's cells is going to survive if it causes that organism to expend twice the energy to do half the work?

Probably not. That's something that will be decided between the organism and its environment (maybe you've heard of Natural Selection). It doesn't have anything to do with the energy state of the DNA molecule itself. It's because the encoding of the DNA molecule does not depend on energy state that it can encode arbitrary changes that can be beneficial (or not) to the organism.

Do you really think that a stronger, faster, more efficient organism--thanks to its DNA--isn't going to create more offspring?

I don't think you even understand what the energy state of a molecule is. You originally seemed to be suggesting that what gets encoded into the DNA molecule was determined by the resulting energy state of the DNA molecule. As if a DNA molecule in a lower energy state will result in an organism with better survival characteristics. The energy state of the DNA molecule, and the resulting survival traits in the organism are to completely orthogonal concepts. It does not appear that you understand that.

The way I see it, there're two possibilities. The first, and most likely, is that you just cut-n-pasted that introduction to DNA because you found it linked off of some Liar-for-Jesus's website. You don't understand more than a few words of it, but that doesn't bother you. It sounds all technical and impressive, and it all boils down to, ``DNA can encode ANYTHING.''

As they say, Ad hominem attacks are the last refuge of the weak minded. If there is something you disagree with, why don't you engage the argument instead of slashing out.

You like that, because it's not too hard to then make the false leap to ``Every permutation of DNA is equally likely.''

Well, for the first time you are showing some evidence that you actually understand the matter at hand. Yes, that is exactly my point: Every permutation of DNA is equally likely. If you can demonstrate that this is not true, then please be my guest.

You really like that one, because the obvious conclusion is that ``Only Jesus can make sure that only good DNA winds up in your genes.

Huh? Mutations are more likely to be harmful than to be beneficial. Maybe you should check out these frogs in Minnesota. They will have a hard time producing any offspring at all.

Shit, even your summary contradicts your premise, when you talk about interlocking blocks bumping into each other. Right there, in that very paragraph, you demonstrate that, in the real world, DNA cannot encode ``ANYTHING.''

Huh? The things that are bumping into each other are called "proteins". A protein is a chain of amino acids usually several hundred long. All cells function literally by proteins bumping into each other and in doing so, modifying how the inte

Every change had to confer a survival advantage

Why? All that needs to happen is for a change not to cause the organism to die before it can pass its genes on.

Wrong. Let's say you have a son who has six fingers. Does that mean that the whole human population will suddenly have six fingers? No.

Does it even mean that any of his descendants will have six fingers? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on how the mutation was introduced and what the survival rate is.

He may mate with someone and the mutation could disappear altogether since a mutation is by definition a "non-standard" part of the chromosome. Did you ever notice what happens when a horse and a donkey mate? What you get is sterile offspring. So a mutation by itself is not enough. You need a mutation whose carrier will survive into the next generation.

A steady state population means that overall, the total number of members of the population remains about the same. That means that for every two parents, about two offspring will survive. If the parents have six offspring, during the course of their lives (extremely conservative for animals in the wild) that means that four of them will die before reproducing. So, right off the bat, the chances are 4-to-2 that any mutation will not survive.

"Survival advantage" means that of all the surviving and reproducing offspring in the population, some "substantial/statistically significant number" will have the mutation. So, by definition, to have "survival advantage", the mutation must already be present in some statistically significant portion of the population. And to get this far, it must overcome the 4-to-2 death rate. And even if it survives one generation, the odds get worse and worse that it will survive multiple generations. Do the math. First generation .33 chance of survival. Second generation: .11. Third: .04. etc.

So, basically, the occasional infrequent mutation, unless it is radical in its effects, is not likely to spread into the population as a whole. In fact, the mutation rate would have to be dangerously high in order for a mutation to be able to spread to the whole population. And why is this dangerous? Because then the very life of the species is in danger. Check out these frogs from Minnesota. That's what happens when your mutation rate is too high.

So study up on your population genetics and learn why it is not so easy for a "useful" mutation to survive and spread out in to the rest of the population.

I think evolution is a fact. Darwin had some insights that were significant enough to establish a new paradigm. But in the rush to join the paradigm, some details of the hypothesis were poorly developed. Did you know that Darwin did not suggest that randomness was the source of variation in evolution? This was a novelty added by the neo-Dawinists in their "synthesis" of the 1940s. They would have done better to remain silent on the issue as Darwin did. This is one of the very key issues of evolution: from whence does this variety arise? Randomness, for a number of reasons, just doesn't cut it. And the current paradigm is preventing exploration into alternate theories. Therefore, I think the important thing to do right now is to expose the numerous weaknesses of the current theory.

You claim that if macroevolution occured there would be a continuum of macroevolving fossils.

What I mean to say is that the neo-Darwinist model predicts that the fossil record will be continuous. The fact that it is not so is one of the model's major weaknesses. Of course, the neo-Darwinists were so embarrassed by this, that by the 1980s, they came up with Punctuated Equilibrium -- one of the most heroic efforts to account for a lack of evidence. But even this is still a hypothetical. I think one would be hard pressed to assert that every evolutionary change occurred via Punctuated Equilibrium. And this could certainly never be proven.

Show me your math.

Well, the point is academic. The fossil record is not continuous. The Darwinists have acknowledged that fact. And they have "made up" for it by introducing the notion of Punctuated Equilibrium. It states that in small, isolated populations, random variations will have a greater lasting impact. But this still ignores the crux of the issue: Where does variation, even in small populations, come from? If it is randomness, then it is very guarded randomness. If there is too little randomness, then the variations just will disappear from the population. If there is too much, then you end up like the frogs in Minnesota -- with population that may not be able to reproduce. Small populations are unstable for this very reason. And this is a double edged sword. You could just as easily argue that Punctuated Equilibrium reduces variation because of the potential instability of small populations. For Punctuated Equilibrium to work, the randomness must occur within a narrow range which is not too much and not too little.

Recombinant DNA can explain some of this. But even this does not explain one thing: over the long course of macro-evolution, the genome has to be gradually built up. If you start with three cards, there is a certain number of hands that you can have at which point you have exhausted all possible variety for those cards. If you add a couple of new cards, then you can have greater variety. Recombinant DNA can help you exhaust the intrinsic variety of your current set of cards, but it does not increase the number of cards. It shuffles the deck, but does not add new cards. An important question then is: Where did all the cards come from? Darwinists are quick to point out the (micro) variation that recombination produces. But are at a loss to explain the gradual build up of the genome over the long course of macro-evolution. And without this, we would all still be amoebas with only three cards in our pods. Of course, there is the occasional random flipping of a single bit from cosmic rays. And certainly these "point mutations" could eventually add up. But even though point mutations have been observed in the laboratory, a point mutation which increases survival value by adding new information (as opposed to having a "shuffling" or suppressing effect) has never been scientifically observed. Maybe tomorrow.

congratulations on being the first secular creationist

What you are missing is that most mutations are fatal to the species. Every hear of the frog mutations in Minnesota? Funny how none of those mutations improved the species.

Every try to mate a donkey and a horse? You get a mule: which is STERILE. That's the other problem. Not only do you need to have beneficial mutations, but they need to occur in such a way that offspring with the same mutation. Again, very rare.

Ever hear of the Cambrian Explosion? In just a few tens of millions of years, more life forms appeared that can be explained by using your "mutation" mechanism.

Because everyone knows the fangfish is an agent of Beelzebub.

You can see the homosexual agenda and godless science in its eyes.

Russ Christensen
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Yes, this is where I'd like to work. Too bad I don't know anything about wax.

More photos available here and here. These pictures really don't do it justice, though.

Form and function are one.

You've prabably seen this before, but for the two of you who haven't seen what Poe would have written if he had Access to MS-DOS check this out

Two Digits for a Date. by Paschal S Hammond. (to the tune of "Gilligan's Island," more or less)


can be easily found at http://www.hamline.edu/~math/ wnk/humor/twodigits.html, or at other places without the author's name.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
Of the doom that is our fate.
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date.
Two digits for a date.

and a page or two more.