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dinon74
New Member
8 Posts |
 Posted - 02/10/2002 : 23:23:53
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First time to this board and had some questions, I emailed these to contact staff section and still haven't received an answer. Maybe someone out there could answer these. I'll just copy the email I sent. Thanks
Also I was reading the rest of your articles, on the evolution side how would you explain the human eye. Is that something that evolved all at once. Or where did we get bats from. The logical course would be from mice or rats, yet as they began to evolve and the forelimbs began to grow longer and develop webbing they would fall to the law of natural selection.
A few other things to respectfully debate:
1. The erosion of Niagara falls in Canada before the horseshoe falls were reinforced were eroding at 1-3 feet per year. It is 7 miles long or 35,000 feet thus calculating would place it around 35,000years old. Yet the evidence shows that the rate of erosion was closer to 6 feet per year which would put it around 5-6,000years after the Flood. If the earth were as old as the Evolutionist community believes the Falls would be pretty much non-existent or at least no where in the vicinity of where it is today.
2. The wide spread nature of sediments across the North American continent. Particularly of underwater animals in Tennessee and Montana. We see Intercontinental distribution of sediment across the world. Plus the abundance of fossils in the record table argue heavily on the side of a very rapid deposition. There are actually pictures of a fish fossil with another fish still in its mouth. This happened very quickly.
3. The existence of the Nation of Israel. No other nation has lost their language and their land and had them both returned again. That happened as you know in 1948.
4. Look into the work of Sir William Ramsey he lived in the late 1800's he set out to prove the Bible was the product of ambitious monks, and looked to show the inaccuracy of the Bible. Your search might prove interesting.
5. The relationship we find with respect to Protein and DNA. We are faced with the age old question which came first the chicken or the egg. They are bio-chemically dependent. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot read DNA without the presence of protein yet the information to make the protein is in the DNA. It is like giving you a video tape on how to make a VCR but you have no VCR to play the tape. That is the situation with Protein and DNA. Plus with modern day science we can see how complicated the DNA strands are and the Information they contain. It is not random chaos or useless garbage, it is ordered information. How can nothingness and random chaotic events over billions of years produce coded information on that magnitude? That would be like taking a bathtub and filling it with alphabet soup, you could provide energy and stimulus by stirring it. It doesn't matter how long you do that you'll never get anything intelligible. Even Sir Fred Hoyle who discovered the Red Shift ( I sent you an email on that too ) said that the chance of just getting the basic enzymes of life would be 1 in 10 -40,000
In reading your other articles you mention some names in the so called Christian community. One of them being Bob Jones; he isn't even associated with mainstream Christianity. It is frustrating to see bigoted and ignorant people used as spokes people for my faith. Yet the overriding truth is that we do not follow humans we follow the Lord and He even said that many would come in His name and pretend to do His will yet when the day comes He will cast them out and say I do not know you. I hope we can begin to talk about this as I believe we can both learn from each other and I can help dispel some of the misconceptions out there. I actually have an engineering degree and really looked for the scientific evidence along with the historical and archaeological. Plus I have seen how Jesus has changed my life. (Check out the life of Saul of Tarsus) Truth is truth, yet in this day and age everything is relevant. Yet that very position defeats it's own philosophy by making an absolute statement.
I look forward to hearing from you and maybe even see my questions posed on your website to help others in their decisions.
Respectfully,
Dino Nowak
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
 Posted - 02/11/2002 : 01:37:14 [Permalink]
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It is always nice to see somebody asking questions and I hope I can help answer at least some of them.
You will find much more information about this and similar questions in the Talk.Origins archive at:
http://www.talkorigins.org/
1. I am not sure I understand that part (engilsh is not my native language so this might be my fault.)
When one knows how fast it is eroding and how big it is today, all one can calculate how big it was at a point in the past or how big it will be at a point in the future, provinding that conditions don't change very much. How would one be able to calculate its age? Also making any calculation for more then a few millenia in the past would seem unwise sice it is not that old. I am not familar with norther american geology but I think that niagara is a result from the last ice-age.
2. Aquatic fossils inland are indeed seen as a prove that the area in question was once underwater. Most people don't see this as a indice for a biblical flood thou.
I don't see follow the bit about the very rapid deposition. Wouldn't a deposition over billions of years leave more fossils then one that only took a short time?
The fish that fossilized probably died very quickly but what does that have to do with anything?
3. I don't understnad what the existance of Israel has to do with anything.
Also it does not sound all that true to me. There are peopels all over the world that have at one point driven from their land and lost much of their culture and later tried to reclaim both.
4. Somebody centuries ago aledgedly tried to prove the bible wrong and failed and that somehow means something for me.
If I want to find out about bible inacuracies all I have to do is read it myself.
5. It has been some time since I had that stuff at school but I suspect you mean the relationship between DNA and RNA who get copied of each other. It is generally accepted that in this case the RNA has been there first.
The bathub analogy is something not really related to the first part.
The analogy is not very good.
To make it more lifelike you would have to introduce somefactor of natural selection.
You could, after stirring, examine the contend of your tub, if some letter by random chance got aranged to form sylabels, you could take them out and glue the on a piece of cardboard together. Then you throw the pice of cardboard back in. Repeat.
After a time you will get a lot of pices of cardboard with letters on them they will by random chance arrange to form longer words.
Glue them together. If words form sentences glue them together. Occasinally you will have to examine the cardboards drifiting in your tub if they make sence throw out those words and senteces and paragraphs that don't . And fill in new letters.
After a while you will have more and longer cardboards with messages that actually make sense. A tub big enough and enough alphabet soup will gain you after waiting a long tiem complete books.
I don't know what you heard about redshift but it is probably wrong. The objects that have redshift are mostly so far away that their light has been traveling to reach us for more then the six-thousand years you think our universe is old.
I have never heard of Bob Jones.
In my experience belivers don't follow the Lord directly, but others who tell them what the Lord in their opinion meant to say.
There are many of those leaders out there with contradicting interpretations. Sadly those who are the least accepted are those who are the ones making the most noise.
I hope I could at least help a bit with this, or failing that start a discussion that might help.
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 03:04:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
First time to this board and had some questions, I emailed these to contact staff section and still haven't received an answer. Maybe someone out there could answer these
Dino,
From your post it sounds like you are talking about Creation Science. I'm not an anthropologist nor do I know much about history, someday I'll go back and study it but don't have time now. I'm just a high school drop out. The only thing I can say to you about your questions and religion is that I am an atheist and a Buddhist, not everyone in the world believes a god created the world and to me the idea that there's an all knowing suppernatural being who sees and hears and controls all is just not logical.
Don't know how long ago you wrote, they are busy but I hope the staff will get back to you. They are more capable of answering your questions than I and there are many posters on this site who will be happy to talk to you I'm sure.
*
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 07:11:24 [Permalink]
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Dino, I think it flattering that you would come here to learn about origins science, evolution and geology, but I fear you might not receive satisfactory answers because, well, most of the regulars here aren't chemists, biologists or geologists. The starting point suggested by Lars, www.talkorigins.org is indeed a remarkable resource and you might spend several days there, as I have. If you are interested in technical discourse, www.infidels.org is a heavily traveled debate scene.
I tend to regard isolated objections to old-earth such as yours as non-starters, because most young-earth evidences I have seen are either gross distortions of the facts or are incomplete representations. There is simply too much that Young-Earth Creationism can't account for.
If you wish to stick around here and share knowledge, and by all means make yourself at home, you will find that this bunch knows a good bit about biblical history, politics and philosophy. We also have a few different countries represented so you might get a perspective you haven't seen before. Be prepared to defend controversial opinions, however, because they don't call this place Skeptic Friends Network for nothing.
Laws of Thermodynamics:
1. You cannot win.
2. You cannot break even.
3. You cannot stop playing the game. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 07:35:58 [Permalink]
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Hi Dinon, and welcome to SFN.
I can add little to what has already been posted, except I've read that bats are thought to have evolved from snall, aborial, shrew-like inscetivores, rather than rodents. From there, they diversifed wildly. I size, they range from the tiny Pipestrell to the big, heavy fruit bats. They feed on everything from nectar to blood. In the desert southwest, bats are an important pollenizer of cactus.
The question on the eye can be answered satisfactorly at talkoigins. It seems that ours is not the most efficent design; a sort of piece-together with whatever happened to be laying around the shop. Which is how biological evolution works. It uses what it has on hand.
luck,
f
"They will take away my Darwin Fish only when they pry it from my cold, dead bumper!" |
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Marc_a_b
Skeptic Friend
USA
142 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 08:08:36 [Permalink]
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Another non-expert, but I'll see what I can do about your questions.
1. This question assumes that the falls, and the river that goes over them have always existed in that spot. As landmasses change rivers can be created, diverted, or eliminated. For example the Great Lakes were not always there, being carved out by glaciers in an ice age. The Grand Canyon on the other hand is a great example of the erosion over a long period of time that can be caused by a river.
2. The fact that there are sediments shows that it was not a flood. A flood would cause a single sediment layer. What we find is thousands of layers showing areas that had been underwater for thousands, perhaps millions of years. As Lars said, the fish skeleton with another in it's belly only showes that it died on a full stomach.
3. The existanc or non-existance of Israel says nothing about evolution, one way or another. I am not a historian, so do not know if it is anyway unique
4. Don't know his work, but there are plenty of books around to show the contradictions and innacuracies of the bible. Might be interesting to see what he had to say.
5. Not a biologist, so do not know the correct answer here, but do find a few errors in your question.
1) you assume that protine can only come from DNA
2) "It is not random chaos or useless garbage" actualy, a large number of genes ARE useless garbage. Not all genes are expressed, and some medical problems arise when these genes are expressed.
3) "How can nothingness and random chaotic events over billions of years produce coded information on that magnitude? " Argument from Personal Incredulity, just because you cannot understand how this happens naturaly does not mean it doesn't happen. Actualy natural forces can often produce order, such as gravity seperateing lighter from heavier materials, electrical forces cause water to crystalize in a regular, ordered patter in forming snow.
One way for genetic 'information' to increase is through gene replication. All that happens is a gene that already exists is duplicated, so the decendent ends up having two copies of that gene, effectively doubling the 'information'. Note that I put information in quotes, as that term is often misused by creationist in arguments insisting that information cannot increase.
"he isn't even associated with mainstream Christianity"
The vast majority of creationists are not associated with mainstream christianity I think, but they are where the most vocal ones come from. I think the majority of christians (and other religions) fully accept the reality of evolution.
Ok, that was my shot at an answer
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 09:37:55 [Permalink]
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My 2 cents here. Dawkins has an excellent explaination of the human eye (and eyes in general) in Climbing Mount Improbable.
Otherwise, I see excellent answers from the other posts.
---
There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 12:30:04 [Permalink]
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Also I was reading the rest of your articles, on the evolution side how would you explain the human eye. Is that something that evolved all at once.
I see you don't think that eyes could be in any other more primitive form than your own eye.
Go to a fish store and buy a clam or some other bivalve and pry it open. Now look around the edge and you'll see a line of dots, they might be black or dark blue. These are light sensitive cells. Not eyes as you know them but clams can see with them.
Or where did we get bats from. The logical course would be from mice or rats, yet as they began to evolve and the forelimbs began to grow longer and develop webbing they would fall to the law of natural selection. Similar critters to mice, yes. Those that developed harmful attributes did fall pry to natural selection. You seem to be presenting a type of evolution that no scientist claims exists and then claiming it couldn't happen. You are right, it couldn't--but then no one said that it did.
1. The erosion of Niagara falls in Canada before the horseshoe falls were reinforced were eroding at 1-3 feet per year. It is 7 miles long or 35,000 feet thus calculating would place it around 35,000years old. Yet the evidence shows that the rate of erosion was closer to 6 feet per year which would put it around 5-6,000years after the Flood. If the earth were as old as the Evolutionist community believes the Falls would be pretty much non-existent or at least no where in the vicinity of where it is today.
Again you present something that no one says is true.
The Earth didn't pop into existence at the beckoning of a magic word, with everything in place. There was no flood. The Niagara River wasn't always in the same place, nor has it existed since the beginning of the Earth. At one time where the river is today there were mountains higher than the Himalayas.
2. The wide spread nature of sediments across the North American continent. Particularly of underwater animals in Tennessee and Montana. We see Intercontinental distribution of sediment across the world. Plus the abundance of fossils in the record table argue heavily on the side of a very rapid deposition.
They do nothing of the sort. First there isn't "intercontinental" distribution of ocean sediment. Where the Great Plains are today there was, for millions of years, a shallow sea. Ocean levels were higher because the Earth was warmer. That's why you find an abundance of ocean life fossils there.
There are actually pictures of a fish fossil with another fish still in its mouth. This happened very quickly.
I have one of those sitting on a shelf here, the little fish is where the larger's stomach once was. All this means is that the bigger fish had lunch before he died. It has nothing to do with the cause or speed of death. Someday they might find a fossil of you with a slice of petrified pizza in you mouth that will tell them that you choked and not that you drowned in a flood.
3. The existence of the Nation of Israel. No other nation has lost their language and their land and had them both returned again. That happened as you know in 1948.
Due to the incredible guilt that the rest of the world felt after the Nazi atrocities came to light. Are you claiming that the Nazi's were the servants of God?
4. Look into the work of Sir William Ramsey he lived in the late 1800's he set out to prove the Bible was the product of ambitious monks, and looked to show the inaccuracy of the Bible. Your search might prove interesting.
Another "Creationist" brought this guy up so I have already researched him. He was a Minister who in a series of books twisted archaeological finds of the nineteenth century to fit his preconceived notions. He claims that archeology brought him from being a skeptic into being a believer. But when you check his bio you find that he was already ordained and made a pretty penny selling books that were almost completely lacking in scholarship. Not unlike an entire class of Christian authors we have today; many of whom claim to be "reformed" Atheists.
5. The relationship we find with respect to Protein and DNA. We are faced with the age old question which came first the chicken or the egg. They are bio-chemically dependent. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot read DNA without the presence of protein yet the information to make the protein is in the DNA.
You'll pardon me if I fail to maintain the "respectful" perimeters that you've set up…but…you don't really know what you are talking about, do you? This would be laughable if you were making scientific claims, and I would debate you. But I can't help but get the feeling that you are copying some creationist web site and wouldn't know what I was talking about. Correct me if I'm wrong but you don't seem to have researched biology at all.
In reading your other articles you mention some names in the so called Christian community. One of them being Bob Jones; he isn't even associated with mainstream Christianity.
Are you making claims that you are a member of "mainstream Christianity"? Are you a Roman Catholic or an Episcopalian? Because mainstream Christianity has no problem with evolution what ever. You are asking questions that I have only heard from Creationists, who are a splinter group (some would say a cult) of Christianity. Creationists are an embarrassment to mainstream Christians much as "flat Earthers" are.
Yet the overriding truth is that we do not follow humans we follow the Lord and He even said that many would come in His name and pretend to do His will yet when the day comes He will cast them out and say I do not know you.
Ah, good. Now you are making some statements that I can ask you about.
You say you don't follow humans? This message from God that you just told us about, did you get it straight from God, or did you get it from humans who said it came from God?
I hope we can begin to talk about this as I believe we can both learn from each other and I can help dispel some of the misconceptions out there.
The misconceptions only seem to be about evolution. Have you ever read any science books about evolution or have you confined you studies to Christian books that refute evolution? I ask that because I get the feeling from your questions that you don't actually know what evolution is. Do you understand the concept of Natural Selection?
Why do you think it has anything to do with religion, it's biology? If you could answer this I would appreciate it. Does Evolution being a fact in some way jeopardize your religious beliefs?
I actually have an engineering degree and really looked for the scientific evidence along with the historical and archaeological.
Really? The evidence is readily available. An outing to any Natural History Museum will set you straight.
Plus I have seen how Jesus has changed my life. (Check out the life of Saul of Tarsus)
I'm sorry to hear that you think that your life needed changing, that is very sad.
I have "checked out" the life of St Paul. There is no historical evidence that he ever lived. He is just a legend. His conversion on the road to Damascus is taken almost line for line from a popular play of the period. Only in the play it was the God Dionysos who appeared and not Jesus.
Truth is truth, yet in this day and age everything is relevant. Yet that very position defeats it's own philosophy by making an absolute statement.
Perhaps a more realistic philosophy is to not claim that something is "the truth" if you, yourself, cannot prove that it is so. If you cannot prove something that means that you cannot actually know for certain that it is true.
Example; I claim |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 12:58:42 [Permalink]
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Hi, Dino,
Welcome to SFN. From the overall tone of your questions, I get the feeling that you're probably a Christian and a Creationist, and that you may not be so much interested in serious answers to your questions as you are in "witnessing", or presenting your point of view to non-believers.
I hope I'm wrong, and that you're truly interested in getting answers to your questions, because they all do have answers that don't require a Creator. This doesn't prove that there was no Creator, but if you think your arguments prove the existence of God, then I'm afraid you're wrong. In fact, although people have been trying to do just that for thousands of years, no one has yet succeeded -- and a lot of those people were a lot smarter than me or you!
I won't answer all your questions, but I'll take a swing at one or two...
quote:
I was reading the rest of your articles, on the evolution side how would you explain the human eye. Is that something that evolved all at once.
Well, evolution isn't a "side", first of all; it's a scientific theory that explains a lot of different observations about the natural world. You should be clear here: Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection says nothing about the origin of the universe or of life. It only describes how life changes over time.
Specifically about the eye... No! it did not spring into being fully formed. That's exactly what evolution talks about: ways in which living organisms have changed over time.
A typical Creationist response to this would be, "What good is half an eye?"
The answer is, plenty! There are many examples of light-sensitive organs in nature today, ranging from simple patches that can tell light from dark, to eyes that work much better than ours under some conditions. For a simple organism that lives in a shallow sea, being able to sense light is an easy way to tell "up" from "down" (since the "up" direction is lighter during the daytime). This can make all the difference in finding food or avoiding predators. There are lots of organisms today that have exactly that kind of "eye".
Once you have a basic light sensor, it's quite possible to describe a step-by-step process that leads to much more complex eyes like ours; and each step along the way could have benefits to some kinds of organisms. Indeed, we see a lot of those "intermediate eyes" in various kinds of organisms. For that particular species of worm (or whatever), the "intermediate" eye was good enough, and the species survived to the present.
Actually, Creationists have a lot more eye anomalies to explain than evolutionists do. Why, for example, would an effecient creator give a cave-dwelling newt eyes, but make them blind? Why is the retina of our eyes "upside down" so the light has to pass through the retina (and all its blood vessels and nerves) before it's sensed? There are many odd things about human (and other organisms') anatomy that only make sense in the context of evolution.
Continued...
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 13:02:41 [Permalink]
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quote:
Or where did we get bats from. The logical course would be from mice or rats, yet as they began to evolve and the forelimbs began to grow longer and develop webbing they would fall to the law of natural selection.
Bats are a wonderful example of "convergent evolution", where survival pressures resulted in two entirely different kinds of animals (mammals / birds) evolving to a similar (but not identical) result (flight). While the exact sequence of steps is not known in detail yet, it's pretty easy to see that a semi-bat, with webbing, can glide (like a modern flying squirrel), which is certainly an advantage.
By the way, a relatively new idea about bird evolution ("what good is half a wing?") suggests that birds may have evolved proto-wings originally to help them run up trees to avoid predators. There are some birds today that don't fly, but do use wings in this way.
Here again, Creationists have some problems of their own. Why should a clever creator produced two entirely different classes of animals that fly (birds and bats)? Was he experimenting? Wasn't one better than the other? Why make two kinds when one will do?
quote:
1. The erosion of Niagara falls in Canada before the horseshoe falls were reinforced were eroding at 1-3 feet per year. It is 7 miles long or 35,000 feet thus calculating would place it around 35,000years old. Yet the evidence shows that the rate of erosion was closer to 6 feet per year which would put it around 5-6,000years after the Flood. If the earth were as old as the Evolutionist community believes the Falls would be pretty much non-existent or at least no where in the vicinity of where it is today.
Niagara Falls is geologically recent; you can't prove a young Earth by looking at a young feature! No geologist would use Niagara Falls as evidence of an ancient Earth.
What's more, its erosion rate has varied radically over time. In fact, in one stretch, it may have eroded several kilometers in only a few hours or days (it was going through some very soft rock at the time). So it's not appropriate to simply multiply the current erosion rate by some number of years to find out how far away the falls are from their position then.
quote:
Plus I have seen how Jesus has changed my life. (Check out the life of Saul of Tarsus) Truth is truth, yet in this day and age everything is relevant. Yet that very position defeats it's own philosophy by making an absolute statement.
Dino Nowak
I think you meant to say "everything is relative", not "relevant". But either way, it's not a scientific position. If you think that's what the Theory of Relativity says, you have a lot to learn about Physics!
I'm sure no one here begrudges you your faith in Jesus. Most skeptics and agnostics are pretty willing to let others believe whatever they want. This isn't so true the other way around! But don't be too disappointed if we tell you that your personal feelings and inner experiences are not evidence that can be used to argue for the existence of any sort of god. If they were, then we'd have to accept the existence of Zeus and Thor and Coyote and a thousand other gods, all of whom have been believed in deeply by thousands of people.
So while it may seem to you that Jesus has touched your life, to a skeptic it seems more likely that you've been influenced by other Jesus believers to feel as you do. If you'd lived in a Muslim country, you might feel exactly the same way about Mohammed!
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 13:57:49 [Permalink]
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Hi Dinon! Hope I can answer a few questions.
quote:
3. The existence of the Nation of Israel. No other nation has lost their language and their land and had them both returned again. That happened as you know in 1948.
Well, the Isrealis never really lost thier languge, did they? It, (no pun intended!) 'evolved'. People never stopped speaking Hebrew.
Furthermore, while the anology is imperfect, several Native-Canadian tribes have had land returned to them.
And finally, this has nothing to do with biological evolution.
quote:
4. Look into the work of Sir William Ramsey he lived in the late 1800's he set out to prove the Bible was the product of ambitious monks, and looked to show the inaccuracy of the Bible. Your search might prove interesting.
I am not sure what this has to do with evolution, but if you are knowledgable about the Bible, perhaps you could explain a few things:
1: There are two different creation accounts. In one, God creates Adam and Eve at the same time. In another, God creates Adam first.
2: When did the water from the flood finally dry? Genesis 8:13 says 'Within a month' but Genesis 8:14 says it took two months!
Just a few...
You hit on a very interesting topic with your question of 'which came first, DNA or protien?'. There are several theorys as to how DNA arose, but I am very busy now. I will find them if you ask. Suffice to say, DNA and protien need not have come into existance at the same time.
quote:
It is not random chaos or useless garbage, it is ordered information. How can nothingness and random chaotic events over billions of years produce coded information on that magnitude?
They couldn't have. What's your point?
quote:
Even Sir Fred Hoyle who discovered the Red Shift ( I sent you an email on that too ) said that the chance of just getting the basic enzymes of life would be 1 in 10 -40,000
Argument from authority. Newton believed in magic. Einstien did not think that quantam mechanics was correct. Authoritys have been wrong in the past, and will be wrong in the future. So really, all that matters is the evidence.
quote:
It is frustrating to see bigoted and ignorant people used as spokes people for my faith.
Yes, I'm sure it is. It is frustrating to me when people claim that athiesm is incompatible with morality.
Life's a bitch, ain't it? :)
Debating this should be fun. Stick around, eh?
Xev -Ad astra!- Bellringer |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 14:08:34 [Permalink]
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Well what do you know? I check my e-mail, and Nature has this interesting little tidbit:
quote:
Chemists have reproduced the basic process of information transfer central to all life without the catalysts that facilitate it in living cells.1
They show that DNA alone can pass its message on to subsequent generations. Many researchers believe that DNA-like molecules acted thus to get life started about four billion years ago - before catalytic proteins existed to help DNA to replicate.
I do hope this url works, but you may have to register for Nature. It is free though!: http://www.nature.com/nsu/020204/020204-2.html
The article is quite technical though....well, I thought I'd post it anyway.
Now I really should be studying! 
Xev -Ad astra!- Bellringer |
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Archistrategos
New Member
28 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 15:18:05 [Permalink]
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Hey dinon, hello there, you are so dame polite I think I like ya (for a theist).
It seems that you do not belive to much in
environmental changes, the great continents drift, new lands are form and the ocean grows. In this world the only constant is change it self and while there's no "real" evidence for the creationist theory, there are lots of evidences or pieces of an better and less contradictory reality.
If you mention the genetics stuff only to point the impossibility of structural changes in life forms think again, it is happening even now. I suggest a trip to
http://fp.bio.utk.edu/skeptic .
I can say no more that have all ready been said by the others, only my best wishes and
hope fore a success in your hunt for knowledge and truth.
Sorry the english
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2002 : 15:35:07 [Permalink]
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As has been said many times before, anything can be explaned away by citing the supernatural. It is further said that if one must cite the supernatural, then one has not studied the subject thourghly.
As noted previously, the flying squrriel, an aborial rodent, has an effecent way of moving from tree to tree - gliding. This animal is not alone in evolving that skill. The sugar glider from Australia, for example, a marsupial. It in interesting to note that both these have a fair percentage on insects in their diets. If I were a speculatin' man, I might say, "Now that's likely to be Evolution goin' somewhere."
Unfortunatly, small mammal fossils aren't all that easy to come by. Many of their preditors digest bones and all, snakes and lizards, for example. And the bones are fragile to start with, as are snake's, for that matter Snake fossils,too are in short supply. It seems unlikely that the record will ever be anything like complete for bats. Or snakes.
Evolution can get pretty weird, especally in island populations. Observe a distant cousin of ours; a lemur called the Aye-aye. No supernatural creator here. The Aye-aye IS supernatural, or so it's thought among the folks in Madagascar.
http://www.duke.edu/web/primate/aye.html
Sorry, 'bout all this rambling. Sometimes, I get carried away (better away than out).
f
"They will take away my Darwin Fish only when they pry it from my cold, dead bumper!" |
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dinon74
New Member
8 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2002 : 00:58:20 [Permalink]
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I appreciate the response I was given by most of you. I hope you'll understand if it takes me more than a day to go over all of this information as I am here by myself.
To be honest I didn't feel as though my questions were given adequate answers. Many people directed me to other websites. Yet I was accused and criticized for getting my information supposedly from a website.
You'll pardon me if I fail to maintain the "respectful" perimeters that you've set up…but…you don't really know what you are talking about, do you? This would be laughable if you were making scientific claims, and I would debate you. But I can't help but get the feeling that you are copying some creationist web site and wouldn't know what I was talking about. Correct me if I'm wrong but you don't seem to have researched biology at all.
While I do not claim to be a genetic engineer I no doubt assume you are neither. Yet I do study, that is the marvel of science. So to get back to DNA maybe you could answer this question instead of avoiding the subject by dismissing my qualifications.
Are you familiar with the genetic repair system found in ALL living cells and in prokaryotes(that don't have a nucleus, of course I'm sure you knew that) This system continuously monitors the DNA molecule for mispaired bases and damage and it's a major roadblock in allowing genetic mutations to establish themselves in DNA. However it is these very mutations that the macroevolutionary process depends. If your evolutionary theory were true then natural selection would clearly have selected against these repair mechanisms. I would appreciate it if you could answer with a scientific argument as I have without referring me to a website or attacking my credibility. Does this qualify as a scientific claim and are you laughing now?
I have "checked out" the life of St Paul. There is no historical evidence that he ever lived. He is just a legend. His conversion on the road to Damascus is taken almost line for line from a popular play of the period. Only in the play it was the God Dionysos who appeared and not Jesus.
Really how did you "check out" the life of Saul what sources did you investigate to come to the conclusion he didn't exist.(Please site them) Did Cesar or Plato or any other ancient figure exist.(and if so how do know the accuracy and validity of those texts and what sources are you siting?) Saul is well documented in old Jewish writings as well as Scripture. I know that you will not agree with the Historical validity of that yet that is another discussion. Can you prove they are not valid giving evidence as you ask me to? So I would ask since we are seeking evidence, what was the name of the play and from what time period. I believe those both occurred after Saul was already around. But I will wait for the research you did.
There are many more answers I need to reply to. I would ask a general question to all of you here. Have you investigated other world religions such as Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah Witness. I would really like to hear your opinions on those too. The other question I pose is this: Can you Prove to me that God doesn't exist, can you Prove that everything started from nothing or am I to have the same faith you say I have in my God. Let's turn the coin around.
Most of you guys are great I really enjoy debating, I believe we can do this without attacking each other.
To answer the question one of you posed if I am here to "witness" or seek answers to my questions. I would say neither I am here to learn your viewpoints and share mine. To say I am here to seek answers makes the assumption that everyone here is right and everything I say is wrong.
I look forward to speaking with you all again it is late here and I have to work in the morning. Have a good night....
Dino
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2002 : 03:30:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
While I do not claim to be a genetic engineer I no doubt assume you are neither.
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Why a 'genetic engineer'? This type of knowledge is undelying a great many of subjects. It would be hard to study anything related somehow to bio-chemistry without having to study genetics. This is not knowledge restricted to a precicious few scientist but at least in its basics almost common knowledge.
Yet I do study, that is the marvel of science. So to get back to DNA maybe you could answer this question instead of avoiding the subject by dismissing my qualifications.
Are you familiar with the genetic repair system found in ALL living cells and in prokaryotes(that don't have a nucleus, of course I'm sure you knew that) This system continuously monitors the DNA molecule for mispaired bases and damage and it's a major roadblock in allowing genetic mutations to establish themselves in DNA. However it is these very mutations that the macroevolutionary process depends.
How would thes mechanismens tell the difference between 'macro- and microevoultion'? By making that distinction you do acaknoledge that some form of evolution exists. The mechanism would be effective against any kind of mutation. It makes mutations rarer wich is a good thing for us and for evolution.
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If your evolutionary theory were true then natural selection would clearly have selected against these repair mechanisms.
Natural selction does not select what is good for evolution, but what is good for the species itself.
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I would appreciate it if you could answer with a scientific argument as I have without referring me to a website or attacking my credibility. Does this qualify as a scientific claim and are you laughing now?
I did not inted to attack your credeibility. In fact it would be stupid of me to do so, since the character of a person asking a question has nothing to do with the validity of question he is asking.
The website I was trying to direct you to was not intended to offend you, It was merrly a repositry for answers to question such as yours that have appeard on the newsgroup Talk.Origins. I directed you there because the answers there are much better formulated by people who have taken their time to reserch them then I could do here in such a short time.
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Have you investigated other world religions such as Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah Witness. I would really like to hear your opinions on those too.
In my opinnion The Jewish, Christian and Islam faith are to closly connected to make much difference. I count mormons and Jehova witness as Christians.
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The other question I pose is this: Can you Prove to me that God doesn't exist, can you Prove that everything started from nothing or am I to have the same faith you say I have in my God.
You can't prove the nonexistance of something. Formal logic does not work the same way as for example the logic used in courts.
You also fail to realize that most people who belive in Jesus do accept Evolution as a fact.
A qustion about the terminolgy you used what are in your opinion 'scientific claims' and 'scientific arguments'?
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