I'm glad to see I'm talking with someone with a good grasp on the subject. I'll admit my grasp isn't quite as technical. My Biology degree was a while ago, and so was genetics of eucaryotes. So I'll concede to your knowledge on the detail. That said, let me adress the more general question that doesn't necessarily need the details.
The question is, why would an intelligent designer create nonfunctional genes?
Your answer was "to create a false impression that evolution had taken place". Take a look at this article. I would be interested to here an evolutionist microbiologist's view on it.
You are at least more informed then than most of the people here who are anti-creation. Seems you got a little too much of the doctrine of man for your tastes though. I've been there and understand. Religion can be a terrible thing. But God didn't create religion, man created religion. Man continually tries to put his own spin on things. I personally say toss all religion, but don't toss God. Through my personal study and research I have come to the belief that the God of the Bible is God. Yes that is a belief. You can not find any facts to back it up, unless God speaks directly to you. But if you look at the big picture and compare it to the bible, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. And that is the way God wants it. He could easily appear saying, "I am God, no more debate!". But that isn't why he created us. He gave us free will so we wouldn't be mindless servants. Then he put us in a world with just enough evidence for us to come to our own conclusion. God wants us to love him because we choose to, not because he made it impossible not to. He respects your choice either way. Sure, it would be nice to have some bit of evidence which I could use to say, "See, I was right!". But that's not going to happen until it's all over. God respects your decision either way. If you keep your eyes open, you'll see many instances where he will try to prod you in the right direction, but he will never force you. All I'm saying is make an informed choice. Look at the data before you make your decision. God Bless.
Your missing my point. This discovery is not evolution. Any scientist can see that no information was added. This should be more correctly labled a tool for speciation. All religeous beliefs aside, I don't see how anyone can come to another conclusion without a burning need to find any proof to uphold their theory. No one can be truely unbiased, myself included, but putting as much bias aside as I can, this is the only conclusion I can draw. As for religion and science not mixing, or in my personal case Christianity and Science not mixing, I think you have not done your research. I have a B.S. in Biology with a heavy emphasis on genetics with a minor in Chemistry. At one time I was in your shoes and believed as you do. But I continued to look for answers, and found them without throwing my education away. You seem to be truely passionate about this. I would suggest you keep digging. You may be surprised at what you find.
As you correctly pointed out this is not macro-evolution. No information was gained. But I will address your points all the same.
Creationists, infact scientists well into the time of Darwin, looked at the simularity in different kinds as a sign of a single creator. I say you have a simular example here. We were all created with DNA as our information store. Men and animals have very simular functions, and we live biochemically in the same world. In order to function in the same ecosystems we would have to be simular.
As to your reference as to why we have so many pseudonized genes, are geneticists truely certain those genes are pseudonized? There is still alot of work to be done in the field, infact we have barely scratched the surface. There was a time not too long ago that "scientists" believed there were over 100 vestigual organs in the body. Today, that term is not used, or with trepidation. Even the appendix was found to have a use. Don't you believe it is possible that different uses may be found for these pseudonized genes in the future? In fact, geneticists are counting on it. When the genome project finally numbered the genes in a human, they found allot less than they expected. Thus, they theorized that perhaps genes are more complex than we originally thought.
As for your second question (ignoring the first answer), nature seems highly organized, but physics says everything is moving towards chaos. In fact this can be seen in many processes, and life itself depends on some of these processes. So, I would argue that the highly non-random psuedomization of genes argues against evolution and natural processes. It actually points to an intelligent designer.
The reason why Creationist are offended by Evolution is because it subverts the foundations of the Bible. If you reason Evolution through to its conclusion, you have to admit that there was death and suffering before Adam, and that Adam's sin did not curse the earth and cause that death and suffering, so Jesus' death on the cross was for nothing.
Another conclusion of Evolution is that we are decended from animals and not a special creation of God. Thus we are subject to survival of the fittest just like any other creature on earth. The strongest survive. Right is not a law written in our hearts by God, but something we evolved socially to survive. Through evolution moral values change and what ever proliferates the species is the moral right. Thus killing of the weak, or rape by the strong would proliferate the species and should be morally right. We know in our hearts this is not true. Do you know why?
You don't have to have blind faith. I don't. Here are a bunch of respected scientists who also do not prescribe to blind faith.
Answers in Genesis
Check it out.
This is not evidence of macro-evolution. No new information was created, only repetition of existing information. If the mutation had created say a wing (on a wingless creature), or an eye (on an eyeless creature), this would be evolution. For now all we have is more information on a how a particular gene functions.
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The question is, why would an intelligent designer create nonfunctional genes?
Your answer was "to create a false impression that evolution had taken place". Take a look at this article. I would be interested to here an evolutionist microbiologist's view on it.
You are at least more informed then than most of the people here who are anti-creation. Seems you got a little too much of the doctrine of man for your tastes though. I've been there and understand. Religion can be a terrible thing. But God didn't create religion, man created religion. Man continually tries to put his own spin on things. I personally say toss all religion, but don't toss God. Through my personal study and research I have come to the belief that the God of the Bible is God. Yes that is a belief. You can not find any facts to back it up, unless God speaks directly to you. But if you look at the big picture and compare it to the bible, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. And that is the way God wants it. He could easily appear saying, "I am God, no more debate!". But that isn't why he created us. He gave us free will so we wouldn't be mindless servants. Then he put us in a world with just enough evidence for us to come to our own conclusion. God wants us to love him because we choose to, not because he made it impossible not to. He respects your choice either way. Sure, it would be nice to have some bit of evidence which I could use to say, "See, I was right!". But that's not going to happen until it's all over. God respects your decision either way. If you keep your eyes open, you'll see many instances where he will try to prod you in the right direction, but he will never force you. All I'm saying is make an informed choice. Look at the data before you make your decision. God Bless.
Your missing my point. This discovery is not evolution. Any scientist can see that no information was added. This should be more correctly labled a tool for speciation. All religeous beliefs aside, I don't see how anyone can come to another conclusion without a burning need to find any proof to uphold their theory. No one can be truely unbiased, myself included, but putting as much bias aside as I can, this is the only conclusion I can draw. As for religion and science not mixing, or in my personal case Christianity and Science not mixing, I think you have not done your research. I have a B.S. in Biology with a heavy emphasis on genetics with a minor in Chemistry. At one time I was in your shoes and believed as you do. But I continued to look for answers, and found them without throwing my education away. You seem to be truely passionate about this. I would suggest you keep digging. You may be surprised at what you find.
As you correctly pointed out this is not macro-evolution. No information was gained. But I will address your points all the same. Creationists, infact scientists well into the time of Darwin, looked at the simularity in different kinds as a sign of a single creator. I say you have a simular example here. We were all created with DNA as our information store. Men and animals have very simular functions, and we live biochemically in the same world. In order to function in the same ecosystems we would have to be simular. As to your reference as to why we have so many pseudonized genes, are geneticists truely certain those genes are pseudonized? There is still alot of work to be done in the field, infact we have barely scratched the surface. There was a time not too long ago that "scientists" believed there were over 100 vestigual organs in the body. Today, that term is not used, or with trepidation. Even the appendix was found to have a use. Don't you believe it is possible that different uses may be found for these pseudonized genes in the future? In fact, geneticists are counting on it. When the genome project finally numbered the genes in a human, they found allot less than they expected. Thus, they theorized that perhaps genes are more complex than we originally thought. As for your second question (ignoring the first answer), nature seems highly organized, but physics says everything is moving towards chaos. In fact this can be seen in many processes, and life itself depends on some of these processes. So, I would argue that the highly non-random psuedomization of genes argues against evolution and natural processes. It actually points to an intelligent designer.
The reason why Creationist are offended by Evolution is because it subverts the foundations of the Bible. If you reason Evolution through to its conclusion, you have to admit that there was death and suffering before Adam, and that Adam's sin did not curse the earth and cause that death and suffering, so Jesus' death on the cross was for nothing. Another conclusion of Evolution is that we are decended from animals and not a special creation of God. Thus we are subject to survival of the fittest just like any other creature on earth. The strongest survive. Right is not a law written in our hearts by God, but something we evolved socially to survive. Through evolution moral values change and what ever proliferates the species is the moral right. Thus killing of the weak, or rape by the strong would proliferate the species and should be morally right. We know in our hearts this is not true. Do you know why?
You don't have to have blind faith. I don't. Here are a bunch of respected scientists who also do not prescribe to blind faith. Answers in Genesis Check it out.
This is not evidence of macro-evolution. No new information was created, only repetition of existing information. If the mutation had created say a wing (on a wingless creature), or an eye (on an eyeless creature), this would be evolution. For now all we have is more information on a how a particular gene functions.