Human Genome Confirms Evolution

xpccx writes "Here is a very interesting article at MSNBC by Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He states that "The genome reveals, indisputably and beyond any serious doubt, that Darwin was right - mankind evolved over a long period of time from primitive animal ancestors. Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true." This is arguable but should spark quite a debate." Even Kansas agrees.

Comments

Proof in science, and false science

[Anonymous Coward]

During my decade of playing scientist, I often had to support myself by teaching. During these bouts of masochism, I would often be assigned to a lab section. In these clases I would find the depths of the complete lack of understanding of what proof is and is not, what science is and is not. From an educational standpoint, it was depressing. From a professional standpoint, I see the abject failure of the educational system to provide a clue to the masses. You can bring a student to knowledge, but you cannot make them think.

That said, many of these lab reports used single or multiple "observations" to prove the thing being tested. That is, the assumption was made by the student that the appearance of the phenomenon was proof of the truth of the hypothesis. It was amazing how many people came in believing this nonesense.

Scientific experimentation never ever proves anything. It can disprove only (the proof side involves checking on all possible permutations of things, and that is not possible in times long compared to the age of the universe). Hence, what one needs to investigate are the predictions of a theory. This was the other thing that students got wrong. A theory is a hypothesis, an idea, that makes predictions. If the theory does not make testable predictions, it is not a scientific theory. If you cannot objectively test an idea's predictions, how can you possibly assess the validity of the idea?

"Scientific Creationism" makes no predictions. It is an attempt to codify a system of beliefs into a particular language. As such, it is not a scientific theory. If it made testable predictions (say structural predictions on the form of proteins in similar organisms) then it would be testable and therefore falsafiable.

And that is the difference. Evolution, or rather, evolution-like theories, which make specific predictions are testable and falsafiable. If you find sufficient evidence that can convince a skeptical group of unbiased investigators that there is a disparity between the prediction and the observation, then you may rightly claim that the theory (or one area/mechanism) is false. The flip side of this is that if you find no such evidence, then your results are consistent with the theories predictions. One of the other more important aspects is that even if one particular mechanism in the theory is found not to be correct, it may not invalidate the entire theory, rather just that mechanism. From this, people build on existing theories with new theories that can explain the observations, and make more predictions. So even if Darwin's orginal mechanisms are not quite right, the latest proposed ones fit the data even better than before, and make testable predictions that are being looked at as we speak.

Compare this to a biblical dogma derived "theory" which makes no testable predictions, provides no method of falsification, and generally does not allow room for disagreement. "Scientific Creationism" is not science (as it fails the testable hypothesis portion of the requirement for a theory). It is dogma. In a new set of clothes. Do not be fooled.

Re:First Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

All our genes are belong to Darwin.

Scientific Creationism? What is it?

[Per Abrahamsen]

The only form of creationism I know involves an omnipotent creator. Such a creater can obviously do anything (that's omnipotent for you), including faking evidence of evolution. However, any theory requiring an omnipotent creator is unscientific, as it can never be disproved. One requirement for a scientific theory is that is falsifable, i.e. it is possible to design an experiment with a possible outcome that would disprove the theory.

Which makes me wonder, what is this "scientific creationism" thing? Creationism without an creator? Or just another abuse o fthe word scientific?

Note that "scientific" does not mean "true". A theory can be scientific and false, or unscientific and true.

Interesting Editorial

[WaldoJMU]

This is a very well-written and interesting editorial... but it's not a scientific article.

Dr. Caplan does an excellent job of pontificating his viewpoint - that Darwin was right and "all those who thump their bible and say there is no proof" are wrong; he very clearly and concisely tells us that the proof of evolution is in our genes, and that every scientist worth his/her salt agrees that there is no other explanation other than Darwinian evolution.

However, not once does he lay out the proof of which he speaks. Whether Dr. Caplan's viewpoint is correct or not, this article is nothing more than an emotionally persuasive argument with no scientific credibility whatsoever. It's well and good to say that there is undeniable evidence of Darwinian evolution in the human genome - that's what most people have been hoping for, searching for; but if such a sweeping statement is going to be made, especially to the rather scientifically ignorant masses that MSNBC and other mainstream media outlets serve, then it must be backed up by the actual evidence in question, lest we fall into the trap of believing a Big Lie that simply gets repeated enough times.

Science is detailed observation of the natural world, and this article offers no such observations, only emotionalism. I would greatly enjoy reading a scientific paper on this subject.

The fact that this is a bad argument...

[freeBill]

...against scientific creationism does not mean that scientific creationism is, in fact, right.

Note that Caplan (who has said much more interesting things than this: see, for instance, his interview on cloning on the Charlie Rose Show) may not be actually saying as much as some people are assuming he's saying. He specifically states that the Human Genome Project results disprove "scientific creationism," not creationism. Since "scientific creationsim" refers to a specific movement, it is entirely possible they have made statements and predictions which are contradicted by this new evidence. He goes on, however, to imply that the new evidence proves something more broad about creationism in general, which is clearly false.

I believe that the best arguments against scientific creationism are not scientific arguments, but moral and religious arguments. I will offer two below: one theological and one practical.

My theological argument is based on the fact that I believe in a God of truth. If God created the world 4,000 years ago or so, then he created it as if it had existed for billions of years and as if life evolved slowly over time. Thus he is a God of deceit. Since it is more important to me that God be truth than that He created the universe a few thousand years ago, I choose to believe that those who believe the Bible says the universe was created (relatively) recently are wrong. Note that, even if I chose to believe that God was deliberately deceiving me, I would still have to decide whether I should accept that deception as what He wants me to believe.

When I go to the Bible to see what it says, I find that the statements there are vague and contradictory. It is not at all clear that the 7-day creation story is to be taken literally. There are other places where creation appears to take place over a long period of time.

I also note that my belief that God is truth is not unambigously supported in the Bible. While there are several places where "God is truth" is clearly indicated, Jeremiah just as clearly says that he saw God lie to other prophets in order to trick Ahab into an ill-starred battle. The belief on which I found this theological argument is a belief and nothing more. But I think it is preferable to the alternative.

We have seen other times when religious communities believed just as strongly as the creationists that the Bible said things which in the end proved to be untrue. An obvious example was the geocentrism on which many scientists were persecuted during the Copernican revolution and beyond. Today we do not believe that the Bible says the earth is the center of the universe, and it clearly is not. I suspect someday we will see virtually universal agreement that the Bible does not say anything one way or the other about evolution or about Darwinism. And I suspect we will find the current debate as quaint and silly as we now view the torture and excommunication of those who suggested the sun was at the center of our solar system.

This historical perspective leads me to my second argument against scientific creationism: the practical argument.

As a practical matter, it seems like the goal of Christians should be to generally encourage belief in God and to avoid things which discourage belief. I believe this is the central tenet of evangelism, that we should emulate the life of Christ, the Evangelist.

Observing history, it is clear to me that the Copernican revolution did some damage to belief in Western Europe not because Copernicus sought to sow disbelief but because the assumption of the church was that he would. By tying belief to a doctrine which was not in fact clearly indicated by scripture, the church ensured that (when the evidence came in supporting the heliocentric model) the community of Christianity was damaged far beyond what it would have been had it not taken such a dogmatic stand.

It seems to me that, as a practical matter, we Christians have a moral obligation to avoid taking a stand on evolution which will be as damaging to our community as was anti-Copernican dogma.

And it should be made clear this is, in fact, what most Christians believe. The vocal minority of scientific creationists may get the most press. But surveys show that many, if not most, people who believe in God (again a majority) also believe in evolution. Remember that Darwin was trained as a minister and never believed he was attacking the Bible or belief in God.

Indeed, the head of the public effort to decode the human genome, Francis Collins, is very open about his Christianity and his belief that genomics do not in any way threaten God. Here is a quote from him:

God is not threatened by all this, I'm happy to report. I think God thinks it's wonderful that we puny creatures are about the business of trying to understand how our instruction book works because it's a very elegant instruction book indeed.

Other breaking news...

[jamiemccarthy]

In other news, the NEAR probe's landing on Eros finally proves, once and for all, that Copernicus' heliocentric model of the solar system was correct!

I'm glad we can finally know for sure that Aristotle's earth-centered model was wrong.

Jamie McCarthy

Proof of Evolution?

[bgarrett]

Please distinguish between the "Bible-thumping zealots" and people who actually practice the tenets of Christianity while at the same time taking a reasonable viewpoint. By "reasonable" I do not mean "scientifically mainstream", however. The fact that living things change over time is quite plainly true. The fact that all DNA is constructed from the same basic building blocks is also true. The revelation that a fraction of the former estimates for human DNA are actually relevant is interesting, but ultimately it doesn't prove anything along the lines of "we are descended from bacteria". The fact that we may have genetic sequences in common with bacteria is not in itself proof; we're also composed in part from minerals like iron, and I see nobody suggesting that human beings evolved from rock. Shared components do not in and of themselves prove ancestry.

Re:This Doesn't Disprove "Scientific Creationism"

[caveman]

If DNA is god's signature, then all we need is his credit card number. And behold, let there be sixteen-way xeon systems! And the users did rejoice, and did feast upon the CPU cycles.

Re:This Doesn't Disprove "Scientific Creationism"

[PD]

You and the other person who replied to me are completely misunderstanding me.

Evolution is a fact. Species change from one form to another over time. Speciation has been observed at least twice, both in the laboratory and in the wild. No one disputes that evolution occurs.

There is a theory about how evolution occurs: It is called "The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection". That theory has a great deal of support. There is another theory out there. It is called "The Theory of Evolution through Acquired Characteristics." Otherwise known as Lamarkian Evolution. Lamarkian evolution does NOT have any support at all, and the theory is not favored by anybody now.

Get it?

1) Evolution is an observed fact.

2) Scientists have come up with theories to explain the fact of evolution.

3) The Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection is the currently supported theory.

4) The Theory of Evolution through Acquired Characterists is not favored anymore.

5) Both theories described evolution. Both theories were about the fact that species change over time. One theory proved useful, one did not.

I hope that was more clear this time. As you can see, I am right. :-)

Re:Once again...

[PureFiction]

I BELIEVE that God created everything.

Do you beleive this because you want to, or because of cold hard evidence presented to you?

Evidence for evolution: 122,345,566 pieces of evidence.

Evidence for creationism, aka GOD: 1 billion people attesting their faith.

Hmmm.. which one seems more logical. A large cult of fanatics? Or maybe reprodcuble, logical scientific fat... Hard choice!

yeah, but...

[woggo]

The real problem with this debate is that it invariably deteriorates (rapidly, even in serious articles) into evolutionists cracking jokes about Bible-thumping and fundamentalists. Now I don't agree with fundamentalists, but this pattern really annoys me, because it seems to be little more than a foil for the fact that the evolutionists don't have a falisfiable theory either.

I will say that evolution is one of the better explanations we have today, but phlogiston was once the best explanation we had for combustion. Evolution is not falsifiable -- even if it were, no amount of science can disprove a mystical, revealed truth.

I guess I could also bring Nietzsche and Wittgenstein's views of "science as a religion, flawed like all the others" into the fray, but I fear I will catch enough heat for this.

But what's the point of this article?

[Zico]

No matter what side of the issue you're on, this article offered nothing to decide the matter. It didn't even look like it was trying to convince a non-believer, just a bluff to try to sound superior to "those who thump their bibles." (I just did a Google search on Caplan, it seems like that's his standard level of dialogue when he's censoring or chastizing a Christian point of view.) Why would a neutral person think that mapping the human genome decides the matter definitively? If it does, Caplan didn't even come close to showing that. And this clown actually gets paid to teach students?

Cheers,

Re:It's still not proven

[sethg]

We have long known that we would share much in common with other creatures. I don't think any scientific creationist has ever denied this. Why should God use more complex tools to create life when so much of it is reusable? Perhaps as a software developer, I see the inherent need for reuse of code whenever possible that others might not. All this shows is that evolution would have had to do less work to get to the point that complex life has gotten to. It is in no way the smoking gun that proves the theory.

One way to prove the theory of evolution (or at least, demonstrate that it has a much higher probability of truth than any competing scientific theory out there) is to show examples of bad designs that can only be explained by evolutionary constraints:

In parthenogenetic lizards of the genus Cnenidophorus, only females exist. Fertility in these lizards is increased when another lizard engages in pseudomale behavior and attempts to copulate with the first lizard. These lizards evolved from a sexual species so this behaviour makes some sense. The hormones for reproduction were likely originally stimulated by sexual behaviour. Now, although they are parthenogenetic, simulated sexual behaviour increases fertility. Fake sex in a parthenogenetic species doesn't sound like good design to me.

In African locust, the nerve cells that connect to the wings originate in the abdomen, even though the wings are in the thorax. This strange "wiring" is the result of the abdomen nerves being co-opted for use in flight. A good designer would not have flight nerves travel down the ventral nerve cord past their target, then backtrack through the organism to where they are needed. Using more materials than necessary is not good design.

In human males, the urethra passes right through the prostate gland, a gland very prone to infection and subsequent enlargement. This blocks the urethra and is a very common medical problem in males. Putting a collapsible tube through an organ that is very likely to expand and block flow in this tube is not good design. Any moron with half a brain (or less) could design male "plumbing" better.

Perhaps one of the most famous examples of how evolution does not produced designed, but "jury-rigged" traits is the panda's thumb. If you count the digits on a panda's paw you will count six. Five curl around and the "thumb" is an opposable digit. The five fingers are made of the same bones our (humans and most other vertebrates) fingers are made of. The thumb is constructed by enlarging a few bones that form the wrist in other species. The muscles that operate it are "rerouted" muscles present in the hand of vertabrates (see S.J. Gould book "The Panda's Thumb" for an engaging discussion of this case). Again, this is not good design.

For more in this vein, see Evidence for Jury-Rigged Design in Nature.

Of course, you could argue that an Intelligent Designer created all these species in an apparently jury-rigged fashion for a different purpose, but what is that purpose?
--

Hawking-Hartle No-Boundary Universe

[alienmole]

But from the big-bang onwards we don't require from a god to explain the Universe.

This brief summary describes Hawking & Hartle's proposal for a no-boundary universe, in which the issue of what happened before the big bang is taken care of with some neat mathematics. The bottom line is that the progression of time from the big bang as a "beginning" is just something we perceive from within the universe - looked at from an appropriate conceptual/mathematical perspective, there's no problem.

In this model, what happened before the big bang is a little analogous to the problem of "where does all the water go that falls off the edge of the horizon?" was when we believed the earth was flat. The imagined problem disappeared once we comprehended the larger structure.

Re:This Doesn't Disprove "Scientific Creationism"

[Black Parrot]

> But not only could it be God's creative signature but also an "easter egg" left in our programming to baffle scientists for millenia.

And the easter egg is a pop-up that says

ALL YOUR BASE PAIRS ARE BELONG TO ME

--

First things first. . .

[Salgak1]

Talking about science disproving a religious belief, or vice versa, it 100% grade-AAA bovine excrement. They aren't really in competition: science relies on the repeatable experiment as its' basis, and religion relies on articles of faith as its' basis. It's not that they're incompatible, it's that they're asking totally different questions.

Science asks: How ???
Religion asks: Why ???

And now, I'll sit back, and await the flames from both the pure-science fanatics and the pure-religion fanatics. . .

Re:This Doesn't Disprove "Scientific Creationism"

[ChadN]

Everything is not based on faith... Take my word for it.

Darwin VS God

[Numeric]

To play Devil's Advocate:

I took a Darwin class in college and debated the issue Darwin VS God, where I interviewed a Catholic priest as a primary source, as well, as read through some Church documents. From what I gathered and remember, the Church states, God began the process of creating humans (The presence of a soul in humans separates man/woman from animals). In other words, he didn't say "Hocus Pocus, I am going to pull Adam and Eve from my magical hat." The "process of creation" could be something quite similar to Darwin's evolution theory. The Biblical tale of Adam and Eve should be interpreted as "folklore". So this story doesn't fully address nor fulfill "Creation vs. Evolution" debate in the present day. God and Darwin can be both correct.

Re:Darwin VS God

[dhovis]

This statement does apply to the Catholic Church, which has actually learned its lesson after their dealings with Galileo. The Catholic Church has actually essentially adopted Galileo's position (a few hundred years later) on the use of the Bible for interpreting scientific discoveries (which is to say, the bible is a book that tells you how to get to heaven, and its usefulness outside of that is limited). I give the Catholic Church a lot of credit for this stance. They have a lot of other policies that are stuck in the dark ages, but this one is certainly what it should be.

However, this does not stop other religous sects from condemning evolution of Biblical grounds. You are never going to be able to argue with these people, as someone else pointed out in this discussion, it is always possible that people can just say "God created Man's genetic code that way" and you can't argue with that, because if God exists and God has the powers advertised, then God is certainly capable of doing that. You have to start arguing the existance of God and that is something you can neither prove or disprove.

(And lets not even get into the whole "what does the Bible mean discussion)
--

Not necessarily

[0xdeadbeef]

I mean, God could have been one half-assed programmer.

--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom

This Doesn't Disprove "Scientific Creationism" ...

[IntelliTubbie]

All the DNA evidence in the world can't disprove "scientific creationism." In fact, nothing can disprove scientific creationism. It's unfalsifiable, and therefore there's nothing "scientific" about it. A creationist could simply say that God chose to create us with DNA containing similar components from other living things. And who are we to question His choice? Maybe these virtually identical strands of DNA are God's creative signature -- his way of demonstrating that all life is connected to its Creator. I don't believe it, but hey, you can't disprove it.

Cheers,
IT

Some background and few remarks on evolution...

[VSc]

Account for my English it's my second language. Don't pick on words.

Some background:

First, I think we all agree that solid science relies on facts (or, emperical data) and comes up with a plausible hypothesis to try to explain their relationships (like, cause and effect, interdependence etc) and once the hypothesis is shown to predict relyably the outcome of a certain process, the law is stated with a theory to support it (that is, a 'law' simply states how things shoud work - 'unsupported body falls until it meets the ground' and a 'theory' explains the mechanism). So, we have the distinction between 'facts', 'hypothesis', 'law' and 'theory' layed out here.

Clear minded science, obviously, should look at evidence first and form a theory basing on that.

'Facts', in turn, is something which can be observed and repeated.

So, on to the topic: here's how the evolution theory roughly goes:

• Everything started with a Big Bang (infinitely dense 'cosmic egg' less then a protom in size exploded into out universe)
• Basic chemical elements were formed
• With the course of time matter formed itself into galaxies, stars and planets
• On earth, the chemical elements of primordial soup, under the influence of radiation and electrical discharges, formed more complex ones, which in turn started to self-replicate
• ...and evolved into first living cell
• ...which in turn evolved into more complex organisms
• and on to the humans, in a process called 'macroevolution' (as opposed to 'microevolution', which goes on presently within the boundaries of spieces)

Correct me if I'm wrong on this outline (well that was a rough one anyway).

An interesting observation: there is no factual prove of any of these steps having taken place . (the obligatory disclaimer: read before you flame).

• Big Bang: cannot be repeated or observed. Hence, it's not domain of science in the first place (yes you can speculate and theorize, but science deals with facts). Besides, you know what this 'cosmic egg' is? An ultimate black hole. Black holes are not known to explode. Instead they collapse in themselves because of own gravitational pull.
• Spontaneous formation (not proven for same reasons - impossibility to observe): oft-quoted second law of thermodynamics: chaos increases. Big Bang is a gross violation of it, as is formation of cosmic bodies and self-organization of matter.
• Imagine an explosion. Stuff goes in all directions, approx. the same speed. Because in case of Big Bang, there's nothing to hit, the matter would fly in all directions forever, without hitting anything and without stopping, without forming anything. To particles cannot collide if they have the same speed.
• Generation of more complex chemical compounds. Not proven. Generation of amino-acids from the elements in primordial soup is chemically impossible. First: water is deadly for their stability (if those *were* ever formed, they would instanteniously dissolve). Second: amino-acids are composed entirely of 'right-hand' compounds (chirality: elements having same chemical characteristics but being mirror image of each other). So, if needed compounds were indeed formed by chance, the result would be 50-50, which would cancel the whole reaction altogether.
• Abiogenesis - creation of life from non-life. Not proven.
• Macroevolution (development of more complex organisms from simpler ones): sorry, not proven. First, there are no 'intermediate' forms found. Every single one is complete and functional. Darwinism states that evolution is a gradual process, taking millions of years. Hence, almost 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing.
• In case with man, the fossils which are credited as being intermediate forms are few and far between. Besides the fact that they are reconstructed from just a few bones, they all are recognized to be whether an ape or a human.
• Use of microevolution as explanation for macroevolution is a stretch. Microevolution goes on within spieces, on existing genetical material, while macroevolution supposedly creates new spieces. There's no fossil or evidential proof for that.

Well here were few suspicions about the theory of evolution which so many hold as fact today. I tried to show that every step is taken on faith and is not proven scientifically (e.g. with facts) but instead explained away with more theories or ignored.

The suggestion is to rather have no theory at all than a lousy one, which is based solely on naturalistic world view of most of scientific community and s.c. 'public'. The fact that 'we are here after all' does not prove evolution yet.

I invite discussion.

__________________________________________

Re:Some background and few remarks on evolution...

[sl3xd]

Big Bang: cannot be repeated or observed:

Actually, it is one of the things that many astronomers are in the process of observing and gathering facts on; During the big bang 'space' expanded at a speed far greater than the speed of light; as a result, we can still observe what happened during that time as there is still EM radiation arriving at Earth from the 'big bang'

Just because there is insufficient facts at this point in time doesn't mean too much. And replication is a nice facet of the scientific process; although it is not always possible, or necessary.

Black holes are not known to explode:

In truth, hardly anything is known about these enigmatic lumps of matter; black holes have been shown to release mass, and that they eventually burn out. This certainly doesn't account for the 'big bang', however.

The 'egg' that is the source of the big bang: Black holes are not completely inside our understanding of superdense matter. This cosmic 'egg' is beyond our understanding of superdense matter. We simply don't know if there are any physical laws that are broken or not in the 'big bang'.

Moreover, with the energies required to observe such phenomenon, even on the micro level, requires accelerating high-density particles to speeds beyond the speed of light. The aborted US supercollider project was the limit of current theory; two protons, each moving very near light speed, crash head-on in an attempt to create a high enough energy reaction to observe the behavior of superdense particles. None of these come near what a black hole is, let alone our cosmic egg.

Oft-quoted second law of thermodynamics: chaos increases

Unfortunately, the 2nd law of thermodynamics depends on one assumption that we also don't know anything about: The 2nd law depends on an assumption that we live in an 'open' universe that expands without limit. A 'closed' universe that will collapse on itself does not follow the 2nd law on a univsersal scale.

And, another fun point about the 2nd law: I've heard many a physicist state that if the 2nd law is true, God cannot exist.

Because in case of Big Bang, there's nothing to hit, the matter would fly in all directions forever:

Unfortunately, this argument falls apart because it *has* been shown that until something like a million years after the big-bang (cosmic background astronomy has shown this) the 'laws' of physics as we know them did not exist, and nothing behaved as we know things to behave now.

Also, there *was no matter* until a very long period of time after the big bang; something like 700,000 years. There was, however, gravity. And massive amounts of gravity -- enough to pull and loop the primordeal soup back upon itself to form matter -- in lumps.

As for the chemical analysis: My chemistry is a bit rusty, as it's been a few years since I did any research in it. However, I DID do research in organic chemistry. It's not entirely impossible for the correct components to form spontaneously. And water does indeed dissolve ammino acids - as it dissolves the components of all other acids.

(And, a question here: isn't referring to the compound as an 'ammino acid' a misnomer, since to truly be an 'acid' it *must* be dissolved in water?) Yeah, I know; that's just play-on-words; but that's why I call it a 'question' I said my chemistry was a bit rusty already.

* Abiogenesis - creation of life from non-life. Not proven

Not disproven either.

* 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing.

Well, if we could recover 100% of any given fossil, this would hold meaning; you even stated yourself that there is insufficient data to show whether these things are ancestors or not; for all we know these incomplete fossils are the links.

To be short: Lack of evidence does not imply proof of non-existence; merely proof of a lack of knowledge.

* Besides the fact that they are reconstructed from just a few bones, they all are recognized to be whether an ape or a human.

That, of course, depends on how you define an 'ape' or a 'human.' There are fossils that are not what we consider 'human' by any right; neanderthal, cro-magnon, 'java' man... the bones are clearly *not* homo-sapien, or human. They are also clearly *not* an ape. Moreover, there can be no clear links, as evolution is simply a series of many small, microevolutionary changes. Give it a couple hundred-thousand years and the differences can be clear. Watch it the whole time and it's like watching grass grow - you don't notice the differences appearing.

* Use of microevolution as explanation for macroevolution is a stretch.

Well, there's plenty of time to stretch it in. In fact, the whole theory of evolution is not about single, huge, 'macro' evolutions... but a series of small microevolutions.

The main point here is: At what point do we consider a series of microevolutions on a species to create enough differences to 'create' entirely new species? A hundred? A thousand? A million? There is no 'line in the sand' to define this.

For saying there's no proof: Lack of proof does not imply a proof of lack. And, also - again, how is a macroevolution any different than thousands of microevolutions compounded over time? There is no difference, because macroevolution implies thousands (or millions) of microevolutionary changes over time.

You did do a good job of showing that there are suspicions about the Theory of Evolution; unfortunately, many are assumptions that are made from bad or insufficient knowledge. I note espescially the sections reguarding the big bang, and physical laws; many of these assumptions are based off of newtonian rules, and an infinite universe, of which newtonian rules do not hold true for the energies involved in the big bang. We have no clue if we live in an 'open' or infinite universe, or a 'closed' or finite universe.

I would like to again re-iterate: The lack of fact, evidence, or proof is *not*, nor does it connotate, prove, or show, a lack of existence.

Finally: Remember that the scientific community is trying to make sense of and understand the universe. These theories are based off of what knowledge we have. Contrary to what many would like to believe, they are not made lightly. Evolution was a bold theory when Darwin presented it. There has been a growing amount of evidence and facts that prove evolution is a correct theory. However, there has been no evidence to show that it is false; there has only been insufficient evidence to irrefutably convince the most zealous that evolution is fact.

And, from a religious standpoint, as I am a very religious man, it is sheer arrogance and pride for *US* to dictate how God should create us, and the world around us.

Various religious records state that God created the world - NOT how. He said 'let there be light', however details on how light was formed are not disclosed. God created man 'from the dust of the Earth'. Again - no details on how he created us, over what timeframe, and what intermediate steps (if any) were made.

And about the Earth being made in 6 days - well, we have an all-powerful God; why can't He create a 'time bubble' of sorts so that millions of years to us seems like a day to Him?

We create our cars, computers, pottery... all from 'the dust of the earth' there are intermediate steps we take to get from 'dust' to 'computer'. There is no reason to assume that God did not create man the same way; with evolution as a series of intermediate steps. There is no reason to assume that dirt rose out of the ground into man.

To say that you cannot have God and Science shows that you do not understand enough of at least one, or that you are making assumptions about how God does things that are undocumented, and may not be true.

God created Man, the Heavens and the Earth. The Bible, Koran, and many other religions teach that. (I cannot at this moment remember the name of the Jewish equivalent of the Old Testament; sorry.)

None give specific details as to how He did it. It's arrogant of us to dictate to Him or to ourselves how God does His work.

Re:Some background and few remarks on evolution...

[krlynch]

I don't know what your scientific training is, but you seem to be confused about a great many things:

• The Big Bang: The BB model makes definite, testable, falsifiable predictions about a great many things, including the existence of a nearly uniform background radiation, the ratios of various light elements in the cosmos, and a host of other things. Every measurement so far has been consistent with this model. So in a sense it HAS been observed, because we can directly measure its after effects. Furthermore, just because we can't recreate it doesn't mean it isn't correctly in the realm of science ... we can't make a solar system from scratch either, but we're pretty darn sure they exist. And what is this "cosmic egg" stuff you were talking about? It is unconnected with the big bang model.
• Your grasp of the ideas of thermodynamics is as poor as your understanding of the big bang model. Self organization is NOT forbidden by thermodynamics; if that were so, you could not have been born. I will not address your big bang argument, because I can't do so in a non-technical language (my short coming, not one of the theory) that people will likely understand. Maybe someone else will chime in.
• See above...your understanding of the big bang model, cosmological theory, and particle theory is woefully incorrect. Think for a moment about how ridiculous and clearly incorrect your last sentence was.
• Again, you clearly don't understand the scientific theory you are trying to use to support your point; amino acids CAN be formed out of simpler chemicals. It has been done in the lab, and some of the simpler amino acids have been observed in the spectra of extra-solar clouds. Your chirality argument also misses the point. The chiral molecules in biological systems are built by other molecules of the same chirality, from molecules of the same chirality. We could just as easily be built of molecules of the "wrong" chirality. The selection of one chirality over the other was likely random chance; there is not scientific "expectation" that life should be 50 50.
• Abiogenesis - not disproven either. We CAN create the essential molecules of life from simpler compounds, under conditions we think occurred on the early earth, and in the early solar system. That we don't necessarily (yet) know how the next steps might have occurred does not in any way affect our belief in the evolution that occurred AFTER those steps.
• Macroevolution - Your argument here is also specious. There are many things of which we don't have direct, first hand knowledge. I have never seen the "intermediate" stages of fueling my car, for example: I go to the gas station, I stick the fueling spout into a hole in the side of my car, I pull on the handle, and some time later, the machine tells me my car is full. I've never seen the fluid flow into the vehicle. That doesn't mean I don't know that gasoline has passed into the tank of the car. I believe it because there are other lines of evidence that convince me that the car has been fueled: the gauge moves up to F, the car drives down the road, etc. Same with macroevolution. (Furthermore, although I hesistate to mention this since I don't have a citation, we HAVE IN FACT observed macroevolution occurring in the wild, and in the lab, in viral, cellular, and multi-cellular domains). Along the same lines, we don't need to have ALL of the intermediate evolutionary forms. I observe that digestion occurs, even though there are many "intermediate forms" that the nutrients take on their way through my body. A further analogy: we no longer have evidence of all the "intermediate forms" of automobiles that existed between the Ford Model A and the 2001 Ford Mustang, but we know that they existed ... this doesn't suggest to me that we have to assume that the seat belt "materialized" or was "divinely created" out of nothing. Furthermore, have you considered the fact that we just might find some of those "intermediate forms" you desire tomorrow? or next week? or a year from now?
• The fact that our evolutionary ancestors are not all preserved is identcal to the reasons that not all species are preserved. It is just as specious an argument.
• Your "micro" versus "macro" evolution arguments are just as specious as the rest of your arguments. We know that microcellular processes drive macrocellular phenomena (think of muscular contractions), and we know that structural form is encoded in DNA. And we have observed both this "micro" evolution and "macro" evolution as you refer to these phenomena. When it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, and tastes like a duck, why would you insist on calling it a cow?

I am NOT arguing that our current models of biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, etc. are correct in every detail, nor do I expect them to remain static. However, I do believe from my own training (as a theoretical particle physicist), discussion with colleagues, reading of the peer reviewed literature, etc, that the essential fact that evolution currently occurs has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt, and I have further been convinced that it DID occur in the past, and that all species around today are descendants of earlier species. I believe this because the predictions made by our current theories and models fit the physical evidence much better than any of the alternatives. And living in a world with incomplete, and potentially flawed models is to me a much more reasonable and palatable options to throwing up our hands and saying "we don't have all the proof that we would like, so we aren't going to accept anything as more likely than anything else." We certainly wouldn't progress very far as a society if that were true.

Some detail would have been nice....

[Janthkin]

The story, I'm afraid, was completely useless. "This proves evolution!" they say. "These discoveries are the end of the argument!" they trumpet. But the story doesn't really explain HOW this result marks the end of creationism. Anyone seen a good scientific paper on this yet, or must we wait until they get published? Before alienating millions of fundamentalist Christians, it'd be nice to have the facts....

It's still not proven

[Valdrax]

Oh, but in many ways it is a religious belief.

The very fact that we share proteins and cellular structures in common with bacteria dictates that we must share genes in common with them. We've long known, for example, that mouse biochemistry is very similar to our own. Logically, we must share a great majority of genes with them. That the tools used to make similar structures are similar in no way denies divine creation of these things.

We have long known that we would share much in common with other creatures. I don't think any scientific creationist has ever denied this. Why should God use more complex tools to create life when so much of it is reusable? Perhaps as a software developer, I see the inherent need for reuse of code whenever possible that others might not. All this shows is that evolution would have had to do less work to get to the point that complex life has gotten to. It is in no way the smoking gun that proves the theory.

Let us remember what so many in the scientific establishment attempt to deny: evolution is nothing but a theory. It is a good one, and it is the only one that makes sense if you posit the lack of existance of a creating force. However the fanatical willingness to overlook flaws in the model is just as much a matter of religious (atheist) dogma as some of the twisted logic of some of its opponents.

The problem comes when one puts their faith in the belief that there is no God. Rather than accept the possibility that they are wrong and respect the beliefs of others, dedicated evolutionists will attempt to push their doctrine as fact, much as this author has done.

In truth, these people will hold their doctrine of evolution to less standards of proof than they would hold a religious man's beliefs. Though as religious man is treated a fool for believing in a being that he has never observed, evolution, which has never been observed, is not treated as rigorously. In fact, when confronted with gaps in the fossil records, evolutionists countered with the puncuated equilibrium theory. This theory holds that the reason for the gaps is that evolution suddenly happens across all species for a short period of time and then stops for millions of years. Brilliant! Now, if we cannot observe evolution it is not disproven because it may never happen in our lifetimes, or, indeed, in the lifetime of all of human civilization.

This gleeful "slam dunk" article that revels in taunting an evolutionist philosophical rivals is one of the worst examples of athiest zealotry that I've seen. In his rush to say, "I told you so," the author misses the simple fact that a divine creator could've used common tools in the creation of life just as easily as random luck. This is no proof, and this antagonistic little chestbeating is not worthy to be called news. Until we can see evolution definitively happen in a higher life form, we cannot accept the theory of evolution as proven no matter what other incidental evidence encourages support of the theory.

(Incidentally, I'm a theistic evolutionist. I believe very strongly that evolution is true, but that it was guided by a divine plan. However, as someone who does not assume that there is no God, I have no turned a blind eye to flaws in evolutionist doctine. I believe that they will be plugged one day, but I am not willing to outright dismiss the idea that evolution is the only possibility.)

What ARE those introns...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

A fellow I once worked with wondered:

There is a LOT of "non-coding" chunks of DNA (called "introns") mixed in between and within the genes, that get edited out between the copy into RNA and the actual production of the protein.

Could those be the comments?

And if so, do they qualify as "holy writ"?

(And I wonder: Is the mechanism that edits them out the preprocessor? Can it expand macros?)

Re:What ARE those introns...

[hardburn]

DNA looks a lot like your standard computer program, including what is noted in the parent post. You'll also note that it has a compression algarithm (the fact that it's a double-helix is a form of compression that puts human-built lossy compression to shame, even though DNA is lossless!). It runs on a base 4 number system.

Besides the physical, lossless compression noted above, it also has a sort of internal lossy compression, which essentualy builds the fractal-like attributes of an animal it describes. To see how, consider an idea based in the early days of computing and chaos theory:

To play what is known as the Chaos Game, you will need graph paper, a pencil, and a coin. However, results are best with a computer that has a random number generator. Pick a point at random on the graph. It doesn't matter where. Put a point there. Now think up two rules, a heads rule, and a tail rule. A rule can be something like "move up 4, left 5" or "move 20% closer to the center". When you flip heads on the coin, use the heads rule, and on tails, use the tails rule. Put a point where it tells you to move to. Then flip again, and again, and again, until you're sick of flipping.

You will find that you will not get a random pattern of dots, but a very structured pattern; a fractal. The more iterations, the sharper the image gets.

The scientists first trying this then tried to do the reverse: Given an image, how can you create rules that will make that image? Without getting into the details on how this is done, it turns out that the more fractal-like the image is, the simpilar the rules will be.

I beileve that our DNA is basicly a chaos game thats been running for millions of years. Our bodies (and those of any other animal or plant) reak of fractals. Our brain is a fractal. Our fingerprints are fractals. Our blood stream and nervous system are fractals (note how similar they look to the branches of a tree).

Thus, DNA has this beautiful lossy compression system for describing the bodies it creates. Describing each and every piece of something would make it bloated and prone to error. Instead, it is taken care of with a maximum ammount of elegance.

------

Another interpretation

[Ungrounded Lightning]

An infallible omnicient God (as generally postulated by the monotheists) should be able to figure out in advance an ideal design and just impelemnt it. So the only way to reconcile the observed tight fit to evolution with the hypothesis of such a God as creator is "he wanted it that way".

But what if the creator was something more fallible. Say a hacker. Or an engineering team. (Angels?) Or a series of engineering teams over a long period, such as you find in an industry. (Think "automobiles".)

Such projects are very cut-and-try, make mistakes, re-use previous workable designs with minor changes. It isn't for nothing that people refer to "the evolution" of aircraft, or trains, or warships. How WOULD you distinguish them - especially if they take place in an "intellectual property" enviornment that would limit transfer of designs from one line to another.

Of course you won't find the "Scientific Creationists" postulating a fallible God or long-term teams of fallible angels. But it makes for interesting speculation. B-)

Does it really prove it?

[Manic Miner]

Ok, I'm a Christian and a scientist and I would like to point that I do think evolution could have happened.

However, I would like to point something out which I think people usually fail to take into account. If we take as red for a moment that there is an almighty, all powerful God who created the universe. And that he created us in his own image (thats what the bible says). Well, I have a sense of humor so I think that God probably does to.

Given all of this, what is to stop God having created us the way he did, and then leaving a couple of "jokes" for us to fall for? I could just imagine him laughing... ha, you guys have got it sooooo wrong!

But as I said I actually think that evolution is correct, but is it really "proved" (can you actually prove something which you can't observe and recreate? and even then is it proved?) does knowing that we evolved actually help? Where did the whole universe come from? - the big bang? Well what created the big bang? Don't forget the ask the next question... I found that it led me to God. I find believeing that we are only here because of random chance impossible to believe, just look at the work around us - it's incredible, I can't believe it wasn't designed by God.

MOD THIS UP!

[cybercuzco]

Mod the parent up!

But the LORD GOD looked upon his credit report and was wroth. HE looked down upon the sleeping earth and saw that man was corrupted by the might of his bandwith, and pron flowed freely among the systems. And the LORD GOD called upon his credit card company and cancelled the card number and woe unto he who used it after said date. Meanwhile, not less than a swallows flight away, Saint Atalark snuck a hand greande from the arsenal of the great black beast of AARGH. Then saint Atalark raised up the hand grenade on high and said "O LORD bless this thy hand grenade, that it may blow thine enemies into tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the lord did grinand blessed the hand grenade. And the people feasted upon the lambs, and the sloths, and the orangutangs, and the breakfast cereals, and the fruit bats....

No, it's BAD news for darwinists

[Wizard of OS]

Quoting from the 'Geeks4christ' site:

Ted Bardusch writes "Since the news that the human genome only contains 30000 genes or so (speculation had been like 142000), the model of one gene, one protein seems to be broken. As the NY times put it in the op-ed pice by Gould http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/opinion/19GOUL.h tml the model is now going to have to be far more complex. And the more complex it gets, the harder it is to see how a "simple" change can produce a series of mutations that leads to macro-evolution working. Like the irreducible complexity argument that Behe uses, this provides further fuel to the need to revisit the validity of Darwin. After all, Darwin himself stated that his theory would be invalid if there were complexity found at the cellular level. This shows there is huge complexity at an even deeper level. "

This says exactly the opposite.

--

This proves nothing of the sort.

[MikeTheYak]

You cannot 'disprove' Creationism. To do so, you would have to prove that God (or whoever) was unable to create a genome that looks like it had evolved from bacteria. Mapping the genome and seeing consistent patterns is no more compelling, in my opinion, than noting the similarities in human and mouse physiologies. It may be astronomically improbable that the human genome got to its current state in any way other than evolution (good luck proving that), but probabilities don't count when you're talking about religion.

I believe in evolution. I agree that the results presented here are independently corroborating evidence of evolution. However, the article does not present a single piece of evidence that invalidates the theory of Creationism. The author hypocritically takes the same tone as one of the bible-thumping zealots he derides.

No need for the genome

[rgmoore]

Of course we don't actually need a complete genome to tell that evolution has happened. People have been doing cross-species genetic comparisons for years as a way of looking at evolution. There are some genes that have been sequenced in hundreds or even thousands of different organisms, and they show exactly the same kinds of differences that you'd expect based on neo-Darwinism. Similarities are greatest between organisms that were generally believed to be similar already- human myoglobin is identical to that from chimpanzees but is slightly different from that of mice, for instance. Genes that have critical roles in sustaining life undergo evolution more slowly than ones that are less important, so basic structural proteins like actin are very highly conserved and less critical ones like hemoglobin are less conserved. Within a given gene family, changes that have no effect on function, like those that don't actually change which amino acid is coded for, are more common than ones that do change function. Conservative changes, which result in changing an amino acid to a similar one, are more common than radical one that change an amino acid into a totally different one. Changes in unimportant regions are more common than ones in critical regions. The behavior is so well understood that it's been used as the basis for "molecular clocks" that can tell how long ago species diverged by differences in critical genes.

This is so obvious to anyone who's looking at information like this that it's pretty much impossible to deny. It's staring you right in the face every time you look at the data. The genome is nice because it shows things working at an organism level, but crushingly clear molecular evidence of evolution has been available for quite some time.

Re:still a theory *sigh*

[Tassach]

Actually, (IIRC) the Pope came out a few years ago and basically endorsed the Big Bang theroy of the creation of the universe. He said basically that it's OK to speculate what happened AFTER the instant of creation, but not before.

As I understand it, the current official Catholic party line is that the Big Bang corresponds to the moment when God said "let there be light". Of course, the modern Catholic church (mostly) subscribes to an allegorical, rather than a literal word-for-word interpretation of the Gospel. I could be wrong; I havn't been a practicing Catholic for the last 18 years.

Also, the reason Evoloution is a "theory" and not a "law" is that it cannot be expressed in precise mathematical terms (like, for example, Ohm's Law or the first law of thermodynamics). Evoloutionary theory describes a general process rather than a specific mechanism. We can describe the mechanisms of evoloution in general terms, but it can't (currently) be expressed in a mathmatically provable manner.

Re:Almost

[HvidNat]

It is true that in "Origin of the Species" Darwin did not assert that man was descended from apes. However, in his later book, "the Descent of Man" he does speculate that man and great apes had a common ancestor.

For what it's worth. Darwin's ideas were not particularly new -- about 9000 years ealier ancient farmers already figured out that they can control phenotypes of subsequent generations of crops by careful selection of seed (the notion of artificial pollenation evaded them, however). Prior to Darwin, various monks had made "evolution-like" musings regarding man and the great apes (generally asserting deevolution towards the ape).

What really earned Darwin the spotlight was three-fold: his book was widely circulated, the subject matter was really hot for the time, and he was a Christian minister. The combination pushed his book into the "classics" category -- I think irregardless of his very keen observations and clear accounting of them.

For what it's worth... The process of natural selection isn't very disputable since it's a fundamental tool in various aspects of industrial and convservation biology as well as medicine. It's only recently though that we've begun to see the depth of the molecular basis for this selection and the biochemical interplay between organism and the environment. It's clear from modern genomics that evolution (at the molecular level) is not always as slow and deliberate as Darwin might have thought -- nor is fitness as simple as he first described.

I think it's a stretch to say man and apes (or all other mammals, for that matter) are not somehow related -- but whether that's by design or blind luck (and certain physical rules) doesn't really seem to present itself with any testable hypotheses. Personally, I like to think there's a creator, that Genesis is an allegorical synopsis of the descent of man, and that bickering over whether or not man descended from a lesser life form totally misses the point of both the scientific enquiry and the theological significance of the biblical account of creation. The bible means to tell you're beholden to the forces that made the universe for your very existence -- it's not a HOWTO on creating the universe. Imagine how inaccessible the bible would be if it started from probabilistic quantum mattery-energy discussion up through diagramming complex biological systems and beyond. Even if it did, nothing of philosophical significance would come of it -- and that's what the Bible quite specifically exists to provide.

Re:Did anyone ever doubt it?

[Eric Gibson]

I've always found it interesting that Christians worship the form of Christianity nurtured and spread throughout the world by the civilization that killed Christ. That being Romans... There were actually many forms of Christianity, it just so happens that the one that was accepted was the one that seems to embrace mind-numbing, brain washing dicta of the church. For example, this talk back from the MSNBC site:

Amen. Dr. Caplan is missing a key element in his theory. Those of us who have faith have already answered the question of creationism. Scientists want to overanalyze until they get the answer they want. Life is so much more fulfilling once you accept God and live your life instead of constantly analyzing it.

This kind of statement would have been ludricous to a Gnostic Christian, who believed in self understanding thru a never ending exploration of ones consciousness and the nature around them.

Fortunately, the Romans were able to kill off every other form of christianity except the one that met thier standards for a religion that benefited them. Very strange no one has been able to see thru this in the last 2 thousand years...

Re:Linnaeus Vindicated

[Golias]

Nice to hear from somebody capable of discussing this rationally, instead of trolling for creationist flames.

You are absolutely right that this is really only "evidence" of man's evolution to those who were already convinced of the theory's soundness. Critics of Darwinism have already dismissed much more compelling evidence than this, so I seriously doubt that this discovery will persuade them.

On the other hand, genetic similarities which do not correlate with traits like appearance do lend much more credibility to the theory that man shares common ancestors with other primates.

(It does not neccessarilly follow, from this evidence alone, that it happened slowly over a prolonged time. There is growing popularity around the theory that many of evolution's most radical mutations happened in quick bursts, with long periods of little or no change in between, rather than the steady march of slow and subtle changes.)

Almost

[pizen]

"Darwin was right - mankind evolved over a long period of time from primitive animal ancestors" Too bad that's not Darwin's theory of evolution. If one were to actually read The Origin of Species, he or she would learn that Darwin believed that all creatures evolved together from more primitive versions of themselves, not that humans evolved from monkeys who evolved from lesser creatures. That is the common misconception about the theory of evolution.

Re:This Doesn't Disprove "Scientific Creationism"

[ichimunki]

Thank you for using bold face type. Your assertions are much more believable now that you've indicated that you're emphatic about them. :)

Re:Prediction

[borgquite]

Roundness of the earth (Isaiah 40:22)
Almost infinite extent of the sidereal universe (Isaiah 55:9)
Law of conservation of mass and energy (II Peter 3:7)
Hydrologic cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
Vast number of stars (Jeremiah 33:22)
Law of increasing entropy (Psalm 102:25-27)
Paramount importance of blood in life processes (Leviticus 17:11)
Atmospheric circulation (Ecclesiastes 1:6)
Gravitational field (Job 26:7)
--
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench

Re:Scientific Creationism? What is it?

[White Roses]

In answer to your query, I suppose I'd better explain the histrionics America has to endure on a regular basis.

Scientific Creationism is merely a name given to right-wing bible-thumping zealots who wish schools in our country to not educate our children. See, most reasonable people, even those who believe in some sort of creation story, feel that evolution does actually happen. In fact, there is a popular, middle-of-the-road school of thought that would claim that the whole ball of wax, as it were, came into being via the hand of God, creating blue-green algae all those millenia ago, and then He (or She or It) took a hands off approach and let things get on with things. Frankly, I find this to be the scientific equivalent of being an agnostic. I find it easy to reconcile the two accounts: one is a religious story, meant to provide a direction to moral development, and the other is a scientific investigation, which has no moral to it's story, and is not meant to be believed blindly (emphasis on blind). In practice, the two should have no effect on one another. They don't for me.

Now back to the bible-belt zealots: unsatisfied with miseducating their own children to the nature of science, they want our schools to not teach evolution. But that's stupid. And dangerous. That way, you end up with presidents like Ronald Reagan who go on national television and say, "Well, it's just a theory," when asked about teaching evolution in the schools. So, most schools, at least those outside of Dixie (the South, to those of you in other countries that don't have to deal with this crap), say, "Sorry, no, we're teaching evolution and that's that." So, to muddy the waters (which is what zealots do, be they green or white-sheeted), the thumpers introduce this counter-intuitive bullshit called Scientific Creationism. The word scientific is used in this case to confuse and cajole the unwashed masses who can't tell the difference, kind of like calling Buzz Lightyear the ultimate in playtime fun. But really, it's just religion in a lab coat, so that the government won't notice they're violating the separation of church and state by forcing this steaming load of non-scientific lies down the throat of children, be they christian, muslim, jew or whatever. So, yes, it's just another abuse of the word scientific. A dangerous one at that. If I wanted my children (not that I have any yet, and this kind of thing is not making me want to have any) to learn about creationism, I'd send them to Sunday School to be indoctrinated.

Anyway, even the Pope says that evolution is more than a hypothesis (the link here is the only one I could find where the pontiff's statement was not followed by still more irrational, counter-intuitive, rabid drivelling by the religious right).

In short, my friend, be glad you live in Denmark.

Not a Shocker

[Auckerman]

Some guy with a PhD found out that MSNBC would actually listen to him and write a couple paragraphs that "Darwin is vindicated" because of the "Human Genome". I know how these guys work. They have Genetic data where they then try to explain differences using evolution. Fairly reasonable thing to do. All he's doing is take the explaination for the differences and using it to say "Darwin is vindicated", which is not a reasonable thing to do.

Instead you should just state, "Evolution is a fact". Human beings, in thier short time of recorded history have seen cows in Australia evolve to the enviroment, virii and bacteria evolve to resist drugs, new breeds of dogs and cats appear, et al. There is NO disputing the fact of evolution. Now if you want to suggest human evolved from other primates, you'll have some resistence, but once its explained that Evolution is a fact, it's not that hard to see it happening.

Re:Not a Shocker

[OlympicSponsor]

"Darwinian evolution is analog, genetics is digital. The two aren't compatible."

And this is exactly why everyone is either white OR black with no in-between shades. Same for hair color, height, intelligence, etc. None of these things fall into gaussian curves, no, uh-huh.

Use your brain for a minute.
--
http://www.geekizoid.com/article.pl?sid=01/03/03/1 346238&mode=thread

Jumping the gun

[Private Essayist]

Let's slow down a bit. This wasn't a news article, but an opinion piece. Although I agree with the author's conclusions, it's because of what I've read elsewhere, not because of what I read in this column. He didn't go into details, but asserted things with general statements. Even if he is right, that won't convince anyone. You need a more thorough treatment of the subject, using detailed scientific information, before you could even begin to convince someone.

Just to prove my point, what if this had been an opinion piece asserting that the human genome findings supported creationism? Would all those who support evolution suddenly decide that creationism is correct? Of course not, for it would only be an opinion piece and we would say his opinion is wrong, let's see the scientific data instead.

Next week I'm going to post to MSNBC an opinion piece that asserts that the universe is actually a few thousand light years in diameter, but looks much bigger because of the use of strategically-placed mirrors. Trust me, my opinion piece will absolutely, positively prove the point, even without the use of messy scientific facts...
________________

Exactly

[OlympicSponsor]

I was going to post the very same thing.

I might also add, to be fair, that this doesn't prove evolution "indisputably" either. For one thing, nothing can be proved "indisputably". For another, evolution is a theory about history--using facts about the present alone isn't necessarily conclusive.

All that said, I fully support evolution (and, more specifically, natural selection)--but I also doubt any True Disbelievers will be swayed by this evidence.
--
http://www.geekizoid.com/article.pl?sid=01/03/03/1 346238&mode=thread

Big, but not a cure for ignorance

[RareHeintz]

Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true.

Don't get your hopes up that the "scientific" creationists will have the sense to close up shop - theirs is not a desire to find the truth, but to believe that they have it already. These data will not be some kind of silver bullet to cure willful ignorance.

Ignoring the creationsists for a minute, data from the genome map will require rethinking of some of our earlier conclusions, not least of all those about the basic functioning of genes - with only 30,000, synergy and emergent properties are will become radically more important, and related branches of mathematics will probably see new interest.

Where's Buckminster Fuller when you need him?

OK,
- B
--