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I would point you to this page which shows a number of fossils which show progressively more ape-like creatures (the older the fossil, the more ape-like). No modern-type human fossils have been found with similar ages, nor any giraffe-like humans, nor penguin-like humans. I'd call that evidence.

"...science can't escape the fact that ultimately it is merely a *description* of the universe it doesn't tell us the true nature of the universe or even what 'nature' is."

"All natural laws are merely descriptions of ..."

You are missing a key concept here. Scientific theories are more than descriptions, they collectively form a 'model' of the observable world. As such, they may be used as predictive tools, which is not true of religious dogma. Given a certain set of conditions, outcome X will occur.

Religion, on the other hand, is descriptive of past events, and assigns causal relationships where there aren't any. Think of miracles - they can't be predicted, there's no evidence finding for a supernatural cause, and given the same set of initial conditions, the miracle can't be reproduced.

So evolution, natural selection, species environmental dynamics, etc. as a body of knowledge can be used to predict to a certain extent. Not exactly --what-- will occur, but that change in species characteristics will occur (speciation, see here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html) due to selection processes over time that have as their genesis factors such as isolation, mutation, interbreeding, etc.

Science is an axiomatic, rigorous, and predictive model, whereas religion is interpretation of history to fit a non-rigorous faith-based viewpoint.

If you actually want to learn something about evolution, then I recommend going to http://talkorigins.org/ where there are dozens of articles dealing with all manner of evolutionary problems and explanations, with full citations so you can go to a library and check for yourself.

You might also like to see what they think in the mirror universe of "creation science". Put on your false beard and pretend to be your fundamentalist twin as you visit the creationist response to talkorigins. Then read your Bible and check for yourself! :)

First of all, your arguing against inference. Have you ever seen an electron? Did you ever see your great-great-great-great-grandparents? Did you ever meet anybody that spoke Proto-Indo-European? No, but you can infer these things from the evidence.

As to evolution, of course you can observe it. We have nylon-digesting bacteria now when nylon didn't even exist before the 1930s. I was just reading about pupfish in Death Valley who have gone through a radical process of speciation since the valley dried up after 20,000 years ago.

If you wish to dip into some sort of solipsism or epistemological nihilism, be my guest, but what you're really doing is denying that any knowledge can be gathered that is reliable. You might as well deny that yesterday ever happened, and that the universe began at midnight, and everything is just fake memories. Just remember, if you want to deny or question evolution "because I've never seen it", then you have to be fair and basically call into question *all* knowledge, because everything is susceptible to such an argument.

If you actually want to learn something about evolution, then I recommend going to http://talkorigins.org/ where there are dozens of articles dealing with all manner of evolutionary problems and explanations, with full citations so you can go to a library and check for yourself.

Mathematics? The expanding universe? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html ?

Where is the evidence for your god?

I know it was a joke, but isochron dating is actually a really interesting technique. It's a way of telling how long ago stuff that came from a shared pool of matter separated off. A good trick is to use samples from meteorites which should have formed about the same time as the rocky planets from the same pool of matter. The details of the system are covered really well here and a good graph of meteorite results is here. One of the snazzy things about the system is that if your samples violate the assumptions necessary to make the measurement, it's usually easily detectable. The built in check is the correlation coefficient on the linear regression of the data. If the points aren't strongly collinear, there's something wrong with the date. Most violations of the necessary conditions for a correct result produce scattering in the points.

I know it was a joke, but isochron dating is actually a really interesting technique. It's a way of telling how long ago stuff that came from a shared pool of matter separated off. A good trick is to use samples from meteorites which should have formed about the same time as the rocky planets from the same pool of matter. The details of the system are covered really well here and a good graph of meteorite results is here. One of the snazzy things about the system is that if your samples violate the assumptions necessary to make the measurement, it's usually easily detectable. The built in check is the correlation coefficient on the linear regression of the data. If the points aren't strongly collinear, there's something wrong with the date. Most violations of the necessary conditions for a correct result produce scattering in the points.

Nothing to see here. It is not like the radiometric dating methods are completely speculative and saddled with risky assumptions at all. These dates are solid! 4Ma + or - 2Ma... or maybe + or - 4Ma or 40 trillion years, it is not like we are guessing at all.

"You might hate the ID argument that scientists haven't documented one species turning into another in real time, but that doesn't make it untrue."

Absolutely, hating it doesn't make it untrue. The fact that it's untrue makes it untrue.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html - There's a handful of documented cases at the end, and I recommend you read up on speciation, because you've got it wrong. There's not even a firm definition of 'species' because it's a human concept, not one intrinsic in nature. So, you want to define species as reproductive isolation? Tigers and Lions are different species, right? Except they can mate with each other. If the dad was a tiger, it's a tigon, if the dad was a lion, it's a liger, and tigons and ligers are physically quite different, and different from their parents. And the females of both are fertile! You can get as much tiger DNA into the lion's genetics as you want, and as much lions into the tigers. But they're still separate species, because it's useful to categorize them as such for us.

And on top of all that, you're utterly wrong in your first sentence. Speciation is a byproduct of some of the pathways of evolution, but nothing about evolution requires speciation. If all animals could reproduce with all others, attributes would still be selected for. As it stands, speciation is actually a terrible measure of anything other than reproductive isolation, because a lot of evolution happens inside a population. Speciation will generally only occur in a situation where a population is split by geography, evolves in different directions for a long period with no crossover until they are socially, physically, or genetically incapable of mating. Otherwise they'd blend back together and be indistinguishable, but still changed by evolution all-together.

So, as it it stands, the mutation in the human population IS evolution - random chance is filling the space of genes that are viable. If there happens to be some new selection pressure, the population will have more diversity with which to adapt.

And before you quote dictionary definitions, note that there are a lot of them. This one is apt: "Evolution: In biology, the genetic transformations of populations through time, resulting from genetic variation and the subsequent impact of the environment on rates of reproductive success." ( http://www.answers.com/evolution&r=67 )

But it's still based on assumptions that we can't prove. We've observed 30,000 generations of fruit flies and have yet to have one mutation that has added information to the genome. Only mutations that lose (remove) information.

I'm sure there have in fact been beneficial mutations in fruit flies, but I don't have time to look them up. However, the talk.origins website has several clear examples of beneficial mutations in humans.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html#Q2

But actually you didn't even say beneficial - you claimed that only deletions occur. This is completely false. Just to give the easy, obvious example, Down syndrome is a mutation in which there is an entire extra copy of the 21st chromosome, and many mechanisms are known which generate new material within a single chromosome.

Don't rely on creationists to tell you what we know about genetics, mutation, and evolution. They lie freely and often.

We've observed 30,000 generations of fruit flies and have yet to have one mutation that has added information to the genome.

Well, not exactly.... And here's an example of a transition adding information you can partially test on your own body:

Lay your fingers on the side of your jaw. Now, trace along the edge up to the very top of the jawbone. Notice how close your fingers are to your ear canal. Inside the inner ear are three bones, the ossicles: malleus, incus, and stapes. They are carefully arranged to transfer sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea as efficiently as possible. How could such an amazing mechanism arise? (One that's been cited, even, as 'irreducibly complex' - just Google around a bit.)

It turns out that a classification of dinosaur called the therapsids had two jaw joints. The therapsids are known (by several independent lines of evidence) to be ancestral to modern mammals... and we have a basically complete fossil record of the gradual transition of one of those jaw joints into the modern bones of the inner ear. Note that intermediate steps were all advantageous, though not as efficient or optimized. Some transitional forms did help amplify sound energy but didn't work while the animal was chewing. We still have problems with that under some circumstances (try to listen to someone while eating celery) but the separation is far more developed now.

See a useful illustration of this here.

...how does that relate to demonstrating that evolution occurs in a system without a designer?

That's not what the parent asked for - he was asking for evidence that evolution could happen at all. The programs that Minev and Tierra evolve are objectively more complicated and sophisticated than the ancestors, and even contain 'irreducibly complex' parts like unrolled loops, etc.

We don't know how life got started on Earth. Right now, it's impossible to disprove that gods or aliens planted the first cells here. That's a separate question from whether or not evolution happened after that, or whether evolution can happen at all. (But you might want to reflect on this if you doubt the former.)

I guess you missed the point, I am pointing out the amount of information contained in the DNA. Some estimates, using your scenario is on order of a magnitude in difference between an Amoeba and a human in terms of DNA information content. DNA of amoeba: 5 x 10^8 bits of information Human: 6x10^9 bits of information Information is a generalized term related to the specified complexity of the DNA.

Perahps you can actually explain these numbers rather than just asserting them. How do you measure information in DNA? Be specific. A previous poster offered two strings of identical length and asked for an evaluation of which contained more information; you have not responded to that. Why?

Mutations of the DNA in the lab have shown a loss of information most of the time and never an increase in information.

This is where you reveal that you haven't actually done research. Mutations typically change information rather than remove (or add to) it -- unless you are using a different definition of "information" than a typical geneticist would use when discussing "information" as it relates to genetics; if so, present your definition so that it can be evaluated. Mutations can also add information through gene duplication; while gene duplication itself merely replicates existing "information" such that the same information occurs twice where it once occured only once, further point mutations on one of the duplicates will result in an increase in the total information in the genome. See here, and at least try to explain why the information contained therein is false rather than dismissing it outright without bothering to address a single detail (as so many creationists often do when dealing with information from Talk Origins).

And information isn't just duplication of the same DNA, that is similar to make a copy of the same letter on the copy machine - no new information, just the same information twice.

True, but when a gene is duplicated changes to one of the copies do result in new information, because the result is a net increase in the total information.

Tests have never been able to show where information is added - which leads to dramatically different species/kinds.

This claim is just false. Have you actually done any research?

Not sure what you mean by the mechanism that the designer used,

You assert that a "designer" is responsible for patterns of similarity in genetics across species through "code reuse". This implies that a "designer" of some sort exists and that this "designer" used some mechanism to put DNA in place across individual species. State the mechanism that this "designer" used.

I fail to understand why my request could be considered puzzling.

but you raise an important other point that evolution cannot explain. We all agree DNA exists and contains the blueprint for how any living organism grows and is fashioned into what it becomes. DNA by itself does nothing, it is the blueprint, you still need the "computer" if you will that interprets that information and causes certain chemical interactions to occur to produce the expected result.

Are you referring to RNA and ribosomes?

Where DID that computer come from? Kind of like a chicken and the egg problem for evolution, but not a problem for ID.

You are incorrect. The theory of evolution addresses the emergence of extant biodiversity from common ancestry. The process requires extant life at the "beginning" to occur. How that original life came to exist, while a subject of interest to biologists, is not itself a part of the theory of evolution and never has been.

God created the computer and the DNA.

Interesting. Major ID proponents, like Michael Behe, have claimed that "Intelligent Design" need not involve a "God", and that the "designer" need not be a deity or supernatural in origin. This claim has even

Setterfield has been debunked, see here and here and elsewhere :-)

There are many conceivable lines of evidence that could falsify evolution. For example:
        * a static fossil record;
        * true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis, where two whole organisms come together;
        * a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;
        * observations of organisms being created.

(from http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211.html)

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html

Maybe you should listen more carefully.

It's interesting you mention mitochondria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion/) because there's this endosymbiotic theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory/ ) that supports the "complexity over time" I mentioned before. And it keeps going on even today (http://web.uconn.edu/mcbstaff/graf/Sym.html/).

"If you're going to rely on science, then look at the math. The math doesn't support it. And then, coming to the conclusion that natural science does not support abiogenesis, I turn my attention to the supernatural. For me, this is less of a stretch."

You might find the title of this site offensive (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html/), but it goes into a deeper detail on abiogenesis. I don't think we can rule out abiogenesis yet (or ever, IMO).

Anyhow, we seem to agree to disagree.

"It's run by athetism fundamentalists"
Quote third Response The talkorigins team itself includes Christians, atheists, agnostics, theists, and a couple of other self-descriptions.
Read last Feedback Letter and Response. They also refute anyone that suggests evolution leans atheist.

"It's run by athetism fundamentalists"
Quote third Response The talkorigins team itself includes Christians, atheists, agnostics, theists, and a couple of other self-descriptions.
Read last Feedback Letter and Response. They also refute anyone that suggests evolution leans atheist.

Go look in a mirror. Explain to me why you have traits of both of your parents.

Is this not descent with modification? What exactly do you think evolution is?

A change in allele frequency over time. If that isn't what you thought evolution is then you can now stand corrected.

Evolution is the fact that offspring get traits from both parents. Natural selection explains why this offspring will be successful in reproducing or not.

It's really very simple.

Here are some links:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4161281,00.html

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-06/uor-nsf061203.php

Ever wonder why your physician demands that you finish off all the antibiotics he is prescribing? That's right, evolution. You see, the drugs will first kill the weakest of the bacteria infecting you. If you stop, the strongest, least effected will survive and reproduce passing on this ability to withstand the drugs. Next thing you know we have antibiotic resistant bacteria. Evolution via natural selection. It's really very simple, isn't it?

another link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance

To point out an error in your post. Evolution says nothing about life originating, that is abiogenisis. Evolution is what has been happening since life appeared.

Did you know the same light-sensitive compounds that power the eye of a jellyfish are also present in your eye? And the striking similarities in the embryonic development of genetically related species (and even not-so-closely related ones).

And that humans have one less chromosome than our ape ancestors, which was recently found to happen because two chromosomes merged into during the development of homo sapiens.

Evolution predicts and fits with all of our current knowledge about life on earth, even if it manages to offend your religious sensibilities. Anyone who doesn't believe this has not looked honestly at the current scientific evidence, for example as laid out here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

"I don't have a problem with the scientific method. However Evolution isn't PART of the scientific method, because it hasn't predicted ANYTHING."

Evolution has made thousands of correct predictions, that for example, life evolves and fans out in slow, gradual steps, and the fossil record unearthed since the time of Darwin and the discovery of DNA as the agent of inheritance backs this up, without a doubt. Also, new structures evolve slowly from old structures, such as the bones of the ear. Did you know the same light-sensitive compounds that power the eye of a jellyfish are also present in your eye? And the striking similarities in the embryonic development of genetically related species (and even not-so-closely related ones). And that humans have one less chromosome than our ape ancestors, which was recently found to happen because two chromosomes merged into during the development of homo sapiens. Evolution predicts and fits with all of our current knowledge about life on earth, even if it manages to offend your religious sensibilities. Anyone who doesn't believe this has not looked honestly at the current scientific evidence, for example as laid out here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

How did you get this far in your education and not learn how idiotic and self-defeating it is to invoke the etymological fallacy. Theory has a rather more rigorous definition in science than it does in the common nonclemature.

Oh, and as to Irreducible Complexity, it was predicted by biologists decades ago, and is perfectly explainable in completely naturalistic terms:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html

...and of course, the rebuttals to this absurd claim

It's a double-standard. Evolutionists object (rightly) when creationists use tenuous logic and pseudo-science to poke holes in their science, but have no objection to making stuff out of thin air (or, in this case, grabbing some random Charismatic's pet "theory" on how old the earth is) to poke holes in Christian theology.

You don't understand the concept of the tree of life. First of all, please provide a specific definition of the word "kind" as it relates to classification of organisms. If you mean above the species level, this has already been addressed. Second, read "The Ancestor's Tale", that'll help you understand the concept of . Also, Talk.origins provides a complete, comprehensive list to false claims such as yours. Continuing to repeat them as if they were true can only be due to laziness or willful ignorance.

You don't understand the concept of the tree of life. First of all, please provide a specific definition of the word "kind" as it relates to classification of organisms. If you mean above the species level, this has already been addressed. Second, read "The Ancestor's Tale", that'll help you understand the concept of . Also, Talk.origins provides a complete, comprehensive list to false claims such as yours. Continuing to repeat them as if they were true can only be due to laziness or willful ignorance.

I think the problem may be that the evolution scientist have yet to back up all their statements with a single study done in the lab which can show even two consecutive mutations occuring in any life form and this mutation:
a) proving beneficial
b) surviving to the next generation

Personally, I believe that the problem is that creationists refuse to do any research, and then they make demonstratably false claims by assuming that their lack of research is equivalent to a lack of actual evidence.

See here.

Ok, here's one: according to the Bible, the rainbow is a sign of God's covenant with man that he will not destroy the world in a another great big flood. As we are led to understand, light did not refract prismatically before the flood, only after.

http://www.amazon.com/Waters-Above-Earths-Pre-Flood-Canopy/dp/0802491987

It is reasonable that this could have been the first rainbow

Here's another one: snakes did not crawl on their bellies before the fall of man, that was a punishment by God. So snakes presumably bounced around on their tails coiled like springs as evinced in the Gospel of Qbert

We are told that Adam and Eve were the parents of all mankind, when Cain killed Abel he went to live in a foreign land, God giving him a special mark so those people would know not to kill him. What other people, there's only three people on the entire planet at this time!

Proof of transitional fossils that provide much support for evolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/genalg/genalg.html

For example, a genetic algorithm developed jointly by engineers from General Electric and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute produced a high-performance jet engine turbine design that was three times better than a human-designed configuration and 50% better than a configuration designed by an expert system by successfully navigating a solution space containing more than 10387 possibilities.

G.E. used GA years ago to improve on the jet engine. It increased efficiency by a few percent, which I heard was a big deal.

1. Facts are confirmed observational data on some phenomena in the world. E.g. Farther galaxies exhibit a red shift. This is an observation we can record and measure.
2. Theories try to put the fact in perspective (how, why) and it also attempts to make predictions. Theories must be be testable and falsifiable. To explain #1, you can say it the observation is due to the universe expanding and accelerating, while others claimed that the frequency of light deteriorates over large cosmic distances and this is why we see the red shift.

But there isn't an "overwhelming preponderance of evidence" on the macro scale.

But there isn't an "overwhelming preponderance of evidence" on the macro scale.

I know you meant that as a jab at Intelligent Design, but Evolution (as is traditionally discussed) is indeed in the scientific sense just a theory.

• You don't really believe in creationism. How do I know? Because you don't put your money where your mouth is. Nobody does.
• Um, yeah, mutations can and have been observed to add information.
• Here are a lot more than a handful of examples for you to dispute.

• You don't really believe in creationism. How do I know? Because you don't put your money where your mouth is. Nobody does.
• Um, yeah, mutations can and have been observed to add information.
• Here are a lot more than a handful of examples for you to dispute.

Creationists often assert that "macroevolution" is not proven, even if "microevolution" is, and by this they seem to mean that whatever evolution is observed is microevolution, but the rest is macroevolution. In making these claims they are misusing authentic scientific terms; that is, they have a non-standard definition, which they use to make science appear to be saying something other than it is. Evolution proponents often say that creationists invented the terms. This is false. Both macroevolution and microevolution are legitimate scientific terms, which have a history of changing meanings that, in any case, fail to underpin creationism.
...
In evolutionary biology today, macroevolution is used to refer to any evolutionary change at or above the level of species. It means at least the splitting of a species into two (speciation, or cladogenesis, from the Greek meaning "the origin of a branch", see Fig. 1) or the change of a species over time into another (anagenetic speciation, not nowadays generally accepted [note 1]).

As a Creationist I'm stunned that they would do something this dumb. Honestly, I have no problem with people arguing about religion and trying to prove it wrong, that's to be expected and trying to silence it is akin to saying that your argument is weaker than your opponent's.

To date, no direct ancestral chains have been established. That is, where one species can be definitively proven to have descended from another.

Well, actually, as has been pointed out, we have actually seen new species arise. But there's another remarkable fact - the hierarchical arrangement of living things - Animals, Chordates, Vertebrates, Mammals, each containing traits diagnostic of their type. But why? Why no lizards with nipples? Why no insects with fur, or feathers? Why does it form a tree, rather than a bush, or a bunch of straight lines, or a random order?

And then, a century after that remarkable fact had been noticed, there was another tree - one formed from examining DNA. And it is, with almost no surprises, the same tree as found by morphology. It didn't have to be - mouse Cytochrome C and wheat Cytochrome C are slightly different, but genetically-engineered wheat with the mouse version of Cytochrome C grows and lives just fine. So why does the DNA tree look just like the hierarchical pattern of inheritance we'd constructed from morphology?

There are a lot of other things that point to common descent, too.

Wow, it's hard to know where to start...

You've got quite a few assumptions going on here that can't be substantiated. You do a good job of simply stating them as fact.

You do realize that selective pressure reduces genetic diversity, right?

[Transitions above the species level] could just be other species. There is nothing showing that these are transitional, it is simply an assumption.

I will take the same out you did, I can't currently find the article that talks about his censure, so I will post more when I find it.

To be honest, I have not looked for a name yet. Almost every textbook I have looked at in the last 20+ years since I have been in school has had it.

This includes the ones my children have been using. So based on my experience, it certainly looks universal. If you know that the schools in your area don't teach with such garbage, consider yourself lucky.

So is it only corporate money that make scientists bad, or does all money come with certain expectations? If it is all money, I guess researchers will have to fund themselves before we can believe them. If you think government money does not influence the outcome, you must not be around the academic community much.

Yep, mutations are mostly harmful and as you point out, we have lots of them.

No, most mutations are neutral, not harmful. Harmful mutations are selected against; beneficial mutations are selected for; that's what selection means.

Every mechanism we know of for random mutations is most likely going to destroy not create.

I just outlined mechanisms for random mutations, pointing out that some destroy and some create. Are you paying attention or just repeating yourself?

You postulate that small non destructive changes add up to create new things. You need lots of time for this to even sound reasonable. Oops, now you are talking gradualism.

No, this isn't gradualism. Mutations occur at roughly the same rate whether or not a species is undergoing change (you can breed fast-mutating strains, but that's not the point); the difference is that where in a species at equilibrium any change away from that equilibrium will decrease its fitness, in a species in flux (say, during a migration event), this will not hold true, and the species will change.

I can't find my source for this, and I do apologize--I'm still looking, and I'll post it when I get it--but the average rates of phenotypic change over the long term seen in the fossil record are far, far slower than those seen in the short term when a population migrates into a new region, or when it's subjected to some new strongly selective pressure.

Gradualism is not supported by the fossil record. Punctuated equilibrium drastically reduces the amount of time you have for this to take place, so much so that none of the intermediate species end up in the fossil record.

Yes; that's a darned shame. Of course, there are plenty of fossil transitions above the species level. Luckily we can see what you term "intermediate species" in the wild today in the form of ring species; these cover a span of space rather than time, but the idea is the same--a continuum of organisms reaching from one form that's certainly in one species to a form that's certainly in another.

So your believing in some sort of magical pony (or whatever it is you want to substitute) that comes down and produces a large number of beneficial mutations in a short period of time sounds a lot more like a religious conviction than science.

You're not paying attention. The mutation rate stays largely constant, and whether or not a mutation is beneficial depends on the environment. In a new environment, more novel mutations will be beneficial, but that's a function of the environment, not a function of the way the species works.

[Re: Haeckel's drawings] Read up on Wilhelm His.

The guy who had a feud with Haeckel and called him a fraud? What about him? All I found was a quote in which Haeckel defends his drawings as being diagrammatic rather than strictly representational, and as being a fair representation of the features depicted. Where's the fraud?

And when are you going to find me one of those textbooks which describes the biogenetic law as fact?

The same way you wont accept the word of some guy on slashdot, I'm not going to take the internet as a source over more direct knowledge.

I won't accept the word of some guy on Slashdot because I have no way of verifying it. (I'm seven feet tall and can shoot blue hadoken from my furious fists!) I'm not asking you to take "the internet" as a source, and I ask--again!--what you're disputing. The guy receives significant compensation from ExxonMobil and the Cato Institute, and did not lose his job for being "a heretic".

We are talking about a "heretic" wh

I can respect the characterization of it as an argument from personal incredulity, but not an argument from ignorance. The scientists who advocate it may be religious, but they are not ignorant of the subject. But it's incredulity on claims being made as "scientific" that there is no evidence for...

To start with, there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that it is even possible for a new type of organ or system to evolve through the mechanism of random mutation and natural selection.

I could go on from there to the larger claims being taken on faith, (such as the claim that all new organs and systems did evolve by that mechanism) but that would be an excellent starting point to prove.

Punctuated equilibrium is how scientists are currently trying to explain the fossil record.

OK, when have we seen a mutation happen and then reverse. If this is a no-new information mutation, then my statement still holds. If it is one were information is lost, I don't think you will find an example.

You need to take a look a the school textbooks still in use around here. It was taught when I was in school and is still being taught now. Any attempt to remove such an obvious problem stirs up the religious nuts who worship at that alter.

I define religion in the public schools as doctrine backed only by faith that gets you branded as a heretic if you disagree. Naturalism in the public schools fits that bill pretty well.

And the Neanderthal man was declaired in 1958 by the National Zoological Society to be a man suffering from arthritis.

Can you provide a link? I'd like to see this claim in context, but a quick Google search doesn't seem to turn up anything from the horse's mouth. Are you referring to the 1957 paper by Straus and Cave referenced here?

but microbiology has proven that evolution is no longer a valid argument.

Got a citation for that? I don't know enough about microbiology to evaluate such claims (especially when they lack specifics), but if you could link to an abstract of a paper published in a major peer-reviewed journal of science, which states that the current model of evolution has been falsified by observing irreducible complexity in a microbiological structure (or any biological construct for that matter) then I'll start to consider the possibility that what you've just said here is true.

Until then, it has about as much credibility as any random sample of technobabble from Star Trek, as far as I'm concerned. I may not be able to explain exactly why any particular bit of it is nonsense, but it is a sensible conclusion to reach.

Still, evolution does not prove or dis-prove the creationism,

Depends on what you mean by "creationism." Evolution doesn't disprove the idea that there is a creator who set the whole universe in motion according to an unfathomably complex plan, resulting in the intentional evolution of human beings and every other species on the planet, but it does pretty soundly debunk the accounts of most folks who call themselves "creation scientists" and believe in a 6,000 year old Earth and other nonsense derived from literal interpretations of the Bible.

DNA is a digtial code, it does not change. Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box is a great read.

Maybe you should re-read Darwin's Black Box, then.

Here is how evolution works. You've got an organism, with genes (physically manifested in DNA) which dictate how the organism gets built. Genes can mutate (the DNA changes). Most genetic mutations have a negative impact on a organism's ability to reproduce (pass on their genes), though some improve the lifeform's odds of survival/reproduction. Naturally, the beneficial genes tend to get passed on and are more widely represented in a population than the "negative" mutations, and this is what we call "natural selection." It is this process of genetic mutation acted on by natural selection which was/is responsible (over millions/billions of years) for producing all of the diversity of life seen on the planet, from a single common genetic ancestor (that is, humans descended from some kind of chimp-like ape, who if you go back far enough, probably descended from some sort of shrew-like mammal, who if you go back far enough ... you get the picture).

Behe is in agreement with my entire description of evolution.

The difference between Behe and other scientists working in the field is that he think that gene mutations (DNA changes) sometimes happen as a result of the meddling of an intelligent designer. Most everyone else thinks the genes mutate randomly (that is, with no guidance or overarching purpose) and that these mutations happen often enough and in such a way that natural selection is the only "guiding" mechanism required to produce large scale morphological changes, speciation, etc. and the scientific literature reflects this.

It's a review of Behe's latest book (not Black Box), but check out Jerry Coyne's article titled The Great Mutator for a lengthier distillation and robust criticism of Behe's claims.

You seem to be a pretty good example of why I have a problem with ID and other forms of pseudo-

It's obvious that you have learned your catechism well as you will spit it back any time your comfort level drops. How about dealing with the facts and having a mature discussion?

Let's look at some facts:

FACT: Darwinian evolution is NOT proved by the fossil record. In fact, quite the opposite. The reason for the theory of punctuated equilibrium is because Darwinian gradualism (yep, the one taught in your holy books) can't be supported by the evidence.

FACT: Natural selection and every observed mutation (including beneficial mutations) result in either less genetic information or at best no new information, not more. Government behavior not withstanding, no matter how long you give it, removing information will not produce more information.

FACT: Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny was discredited shortly after Haeckel fudged his drawings in the 1800s and unleashed this fraud on the earth. Yet last time I check, most of the texts used in the government churches still teach this as truth.

So who is it that is imposing which religion in the schools?

It's obvious that you have learned your catechism well as you will spit it back any time your comfort level drops. How about dealing with the facts and having a mature discussion?

Let's look at some facts:

FACT: Darwinian evolution is NOT proved by the fossil record. In fact, quite the opposite. The reason for the theory of punctuated equilibrium is because Darwinian gradualism (yep, the one taught in your holy books) can't be supported by the evidence.

FACT: Natural selection and every observed mutation (including beneficial mutations) result in either less genetic information or at best no new information, not more. Government behavior not withstanding, no matter how long you give it, removing information will not produce more information.

FACT: Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny was discredited shortly after Haeckel fudged his drawings in the 1800s and unleashed this fraud on the earth. Yet last time I check, most of the texts used in the government churches still teach this as truth.

So who is it that is imposing which religion in the schools?