by zagor 142 Replies latest jw friends
That's ok LT (congratulations again!!!!)
I am bowing out of this thread. I have no desire to prove anything, debate, or convince someone of something and being the simple minded person I am don't belong in it.
It did keep me reading all day!
Thanks for the information everyone.
Apostate Kate:
I am an example of what happens to human DNA when the code is not replicated free of mutations. The gene is the C282Y I am homozygous and carry this mutated gene.
No, you are an example of what happens when someone receives two copies of a mutant gene, specifically one that is quite common in certain populations, apparently due to benefits it confers in its heterozygous form. Another unmistakable example of natural selection in action.
LittleToe:
I think you're being a little harsh on kid-A. Kate wrote as if she knew what she was talking about. She made evidentiary claims that were completely untrue and she pretended to be an expert in a subject where she doesn't have even the most basic knowledge. She claimed she had done in depth research when it's quite obvious she didn't even understand what her doctors must have told her about her condition. She didn't "explain in layman's terms", she completely misrepresented the situation and I don't think kid-A was out of line in calling her on it. Kate has now admitted she's not up to debating the topic, which is fine. I have no doubt that she's capable of learning about the subject, but pretending she already understood it was a bad idea.
I understand enough to know that DNA is not some unstable substance but a stable code. Some of you take in information and see it one way, I take in information and take it another way. I am not pretending to be an expert I think I have made that very clear, nor am I a research scientist which I doubt you are either.
I researched DNA and came up with my own conclusions. You are welcome to come up with yours but I do not have to accept them.
Apostate Kate:
I researched DNA and came up with my own conclusions. You are welcome to come up with yours but I do not have to accept them.
Absolutely. You don't have to accept anything. You are completely free to draw your own conclusions. And I am completely free to show you and others why you are wrong. These are not matters of opinion, they are matters of fact. One of us is wrong. Either you with your highly unusual belief in the immutability of DNA and your own unique terminology, or me and the vast majority of scientists with our belief in evolution by means of natural selection.
Derek:
Sorry pal, but I entirely disagree. Kate never claimed to be an expert, and it was obvious from her posts that she wasn't giving a textbook explanation. Kid, on the other hand, claims to be a "scientist" as a call to authority. Given that he is in the allegedly superior position, respecting knowledge, who should cut whom some slack? He would happpily deride clergy for such a perceived lack, so why shouldn't the shoe be placed on the other foot?
I feel certain he had half an idea what she was attempting to explain, or could have teased it out with a few well placed questions. If he has no patience to explain to the lesser mortals who are attempt to bend their minds around such topics, he should at least attempt to show some self-control from dissuading them from having an interest in the subject. After all, it's a topic he loves, right?
The alternative would suggest that he doesn't have a deep enough understanding of the subject himself, and is close to the borders of his knowledge, hence is engaging in pre-emptive strikes so that his own ignorance isn't uncovered. Since his area of study and specialism is neurology, rather than genetics or evolution per se, and there's no rule that says that everyone has to be an expert in everything; this seems as plausible an explanation for his behaviour as any, at this point.
I await an explanation with baited breath...
Kate:
May I ask: do you feel well qualified to "come to [your] own conclusions", in contradiction with established scientific belief, on the subject? I'm also interested in knowing why you've come to said conclusions.
Because I've never seen proof that mutations can cause an organism to change into another species. Why can't we see something like that today if it is happening? This lactose thing is not brand new genetic information being added, it was already there and was turned on in humans, it will not cause a human to evolve into another species.
Where does completly new genetic information come from? For instance; if a single celled living thing in the ocean mutated, how does that create an eye? Billions of years? Doesn't it take the genetic code for an eye to duplicate an eye?
Does DNA replicate?
From what I've read the fossel record shows periods of teeming life with complete die-offs and then teeming life again. That also discounts a slow billions year evolution. One evolution Scientist now admits there is a record of this and says that life just popped back up again. He is not alone.
"He's not the only one. Numerous scientists question key points of contemporary Darwinian theory. Do you hear about them in the mainstream media? In your high school science classroom? Not likely. Rather than playing by its own rules--survival of the fittest--Darwinism has claimed protected status and is being coddled along, its life artificially prolonged."
The Thinkers: Pitt anthropologist thinks Darwin's theory needs to evolve on some points
"There isn't a huge number of missing transitional fossils because they were never there in the first place. Instead, new species emerged suddenly due to genetic alterations that created sharp differences with their predecessors." Swartze (evolution scientist)
So shouldn't we see positive PROOF that species can pop up? How can DNA just appear with new information out of nowhere? Again, doesn't DNA replicate? Genetic alterations? Show me.
The history of science has been riddled with inacuracies when something is accepted as fact that has yet to be proven with the ability to prove it again and again each time it is tested. After the WT, I don't accept anything as fact unless it has been proved to me and can be repeated with the same outcome.
The research done on fruit flys for example. I don't know the number but after many many generations of them trying to artificially create a new species it could not be done. Where's the proof?
There was a study recently done that shocked scientist, a plant that had mutated genes from two parents that skipped a generation to repair itself and go back to the original code. Rogue weeds defy rules of genetics - life - 23 March 2005 - New Scientist
So call me ignorant and stupid I can take it. If I refuse to accept as fact something that has not been proven to be fact makes me a lesser being, so be it. Maybe in another billion years I can catch up you.
So much to ponder here...so little time. I do think that some of the arguments by the strong paspermia camp do raise valid questions on Darwinian macroevolution. But I've only skimmed the surface on this topic. I do think that a lot of these questions readily lend themselves to consideration (at least on my part) of a theistic explanation as well.
But unfortunately there are other issues on my plate which currently take precedence.
Because I've never seen proof that mutations can cause an organism to change into another species. Why can't we see something like that today if it is happening?
It has already been pointed out several times that it isn't a single mutation or even a whole suite of mutations that are alone responsible. Genetic variation is a crucial component to the process, but you also critically need natural selection (which alters the frequency of genetic variants across the population) and some sort of reproductive barrier (which splits a parent population into distinct gene pools which would develop or drift into different directions in terms of genetic variation).
With regard to your question, the obvious answer is that the process is too slow to witness in a single generation. It is occurring, but you need a way of looking at the evidence that has greater time depth such as comparing phylogenetically related genomes (or fossil DNA, such as recent research with Neanderthal DNA). I gave you some published genetic studies presenting evidence of precisely this yesterday. Similarly, you cannot witness the formation of sedimentary rock in witnessing a single flooding event of a river, although that flooding event is itself part of the overall process. To give another analogy to language (which develops along similar processes as biological change), we all know that Spanish developed as a distinct language from Latin and it took many centuries for this to occur. But a person could listen to Spanish today and wonder "Why isn't Spanish turning into some other language?" because he or she can only glimpse a tiny snapshot of the overall process. It is changing and the evidence of that change lies in linguistic variation (= genetic variation in evolution) in the forms of spoken Spanish around the world. Already there are differences in the language according to social class, country, and other social variables. The Spanish in Mexico is a "dialect" (= subspecies in evolution) which still shares some mutual intelligibility (= interbreedibility in evolution) with continental Spanish, but which already has its own distinctive character thanks to centuries of relative isolation from the kind of Spanish developing in Spain itself (= reproductive barrier splitting the gene pool in evolution). Give or take a few more hundred years, Mexican Spanish would likely be a different language from continental Spanish, just as continental Spanish, French, Italian, etc. became "new languages" from an original Latin.
Getting back to basics, are you aware that DNA is made up on merely four encoding molecules? Even though it is so simple, at the building block level, copying mistakes still happen. Even one single mistake can affect the whole package, as evidenced in your own condition.
As an analogy, copying mistakes have been made with the bible that have led to vastly different conclusions being arrived at when examining the whole corpus. The result can be a completely different denomination, and a war. Something similar can occur with genetics.
If enough offspring, containing the "mistake" survive, this can eventually reach a critical mass of a distinct sub-species.
Bear in mind that we have so much DNA in our bodies that it is more likely that there will be many errors, rather than just one, and that this is multiplied by every person and every child. The bundle of mistakes that you carry can be joined with the bundle of mistakes that your spouse carries, resulting in children with their own unique bundle of mistakes.
Just to add another factor into the pot - every time you are infected with a virus the virus alters part of the DNA within the cells that it infects, with a greater or lesser affect on your wellbeing, but you don't remain unchanged by the event. That is how a virus propagates. It causes your body to create more copies of itself, instead of resuming normal functions.
This repeats ad nauseum.
Science has described this in a theory, which it continues to test. The evidence thusfar shows that it is the most likely explanation. The evidence doesn't contradict this explanation, otherwise it would have been discarded long ago.
