The evidence AGAINST evolution

by AlmostAtheist 68 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Abaddon

  Absolutely Leological One.

  Some creationists basically are happy to limit god's direct involvement in the rise of man to making a big bang go bang the way it needed to in order to end up with sophont life, which then god proceeded to make contact with.

  Others have god starting things and 'blowing on the dice of chance" to direct things to the same ends.

  Others believe the universe is itself in some way god.

  Just as there are Christian creationists of varying beliefs, so to are there Muslim creationists and Hindu creationists, and those who 'believe in god', but have a personal belief system which engages on almost if not all levels with modern science's understanding whilst still believing in some higher power.

  I find debates on the subject here (and in most online forums) are all-too-often characterised by being some form of Christian creationism 'versus' the general gamut of Evolutionary theory. Obviously claims to Genesis being anything other than an allegory are as hindered by the evidence as any claims of other ancient holy (or secular) books creation accounts being literal.

  Thus for me, any universal common ground has to be non-sectarian, otherwise it isn't universal!

  But as I outline above, there are many creationistic beliefs that are impossible to disprove, for all that seven 24-hour days is obviously a fantasy.

  Both the creationistic and evolutionary theories boil down to two facts.

  1. We don't really know what happened at the very start, but there are some really great stories/equations that claim to be explanations.
  2. We have a vague but basically right idea of what happened since then, there's evidence for it.But we don't really know all the details of how it's happened since then. Again, there are still some really great stories/theories that claim to be explanations.

  There are plenty of gaps to fit god into (or to ignore its presence in).

  This of course leaves us with the "why can't you prove god exists" question, which is fun but beyond this topic.

  Anyway, the thing creationists never really target in discussions I've seen is the evolution of human intelligence. For obvious reasons it is a little hard to fit in with general evolutionary theory. Think how most 'survival benefits' - horns, stings, keen eyes, fleet feet - are seen everywhere. 'Mating benefits' - pretty feathers, fitness related-sexual dimorphism - are again seen everywhere. If human intelligence - sophoncy - evolved, how come there are no other similarly intelligent creatures, or evidence of others species with intelligence that have since died out? If it is a good survival or mating trait there should be other examples.

  Of course, in the question there are some good answers, and there are some who would claim that there are either species that are intelligent (enough) to show intelligence to not be a unique human characteristic, just one we have developed to an extreme (and which has allowed itself to develop further by its very existance and creative nature). There are also those who would claim there have been non-human intelligent species.

  Which either takes us back to god or onto our Lizard overlords...

  8-)
• 

  Forscher

  I think that our genetic make up is a pretty good evidence against evolution.
  
  Throughout the whole body of living things, we find that they are all divided into family groupings (canine etc...) within which they can interbreed. Yet, they can only go so far. For instance, within the family which contains horses, all sorts of intebreeding within the family occur. However, there are limits. When a horse is bred to a donkey, the result is a hybrid that is sterile. and there are others which can be cited.
  
  Why is this? Because the family has a certain number of chromosome pairs set for it which allow a certain variation, or speciation, within the family but prevents things from going further or cross-family breeding. For humans, there are 24 such pairs. For chimpanzees, 25 pairs. Anytime the number of chromosomes are not correct for the family, a it usually produces a deficient organism rather than an improvement. Examples among humans would include trisonomy 21 (Down's syndrome), trisonomy 15, (a variation that usually spontaniously aborts ), etc....
  
  I remember the sensation that occured in the 60's when a chimp was found who supposedly had 49 chromosomes, indicating a possible cross-species breed. He had certain features that were human-like (the ability to walk upright in the human fashion as opposed to the chimp style etc...). however, the chimp, now aged, was tested in recent years and shown to have the correct number of chromosomes for a chimp. indicating that no interspecies breeding had occured.
  
  This encourages both flexibility to adapt to conditions and stability so that the kinds of monsters mentioned in ancient myths, such as the minotaurs (part bull part human) just never happen. To me this indicates that intelligence was involved in the speciation of our planet and not just blind chance.
  
  As mentioned oft by creationists, true transitional species just do not occur in the fossil record. I know that the archaeopteryx is often trumpeted as such a type, however, recent fossil findings bring that into question. There can only be two explanations fo that lack. Either they just weren't preserved in the record by the vagarities of chance (not likely), or they were never there in the first place. The acceptance of either explanation requires a certain amount of faith since none of us were there to see it happpen for ourselves.
  
  So now, can some of my fellow creationists step up to the plate as well?
• 

  Elsewhere

  I recall seeing a picture on a pro-creation website. The picture was of a fossilized leg in a cowboy boot. The point was supposed to be that tissue can be fossilized very quickly.

  I just could not figure out one very simple problem with the picture... why was the leg fossilized, but the leather cowboy boot was not?
• 

  NameWithheld

  For humans, there are 24 such pairs. For chimpanzees, 25 pairs.

  Back to Biology 101! Try 23 pair for human, 24 for the great apes (Human: 46 total / Chimp: 48 total) ...
• 

  BONEZZ

  Don't know if anyone saw this in the Times this week...kinda interesting. -BONEZZ Thursday, March 24, 2005 Compiled 2 AM E.T. March 23, 2005 Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene By NICHOLAS WADE n a startling discovery, geneticists at Purdue University say they have found plants that possess a corrected version of a defective gene inherited from both their parents, as if some handy backup copy with the right version had been made in the grandparents' generation or earlier. The finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity. If confirmed, it would represent an unprecedented exception to the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. Equally surprising, the cryptic genome appears not to be made of DNA, the standard hereditary material. The discovery also raises interesting biological questions - including whether it gets in the way of evolution, which depends on mutations changing an organism rather than being put right by a backup system. "It looks like a marvelous discovery," said Dr. Elliott Meyerowitz, a plant geneticist at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. David Haig, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, described the finding as "a really strange and unexpected result," which would be important if the observation holds up and applies widely in nature. The result, reported online yesterday in the journal Nature by Dr. Robert E. Pruitt, Dr. Susan J. Lolle and colleagues at Purdue, has been found in a single species, the mustardlike plant called arabidopsis that is the standard laboratory organism of plant geneticists. But there are hints that the same mechanism may occur in people, according to a commentary by Dr. Detlef Weigel of the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. Dr. Weigel describes the Purdue work as "a spectacular discovery." The finding grew out of a research project started three years ago in which Dr. Pruitt and Dr. Lolle were trying to understand the genes that control the plant's outer skin, or cuticle. As part of the project, they were studying plants with a mutated gene that made the plant's petals and other floral organs clump together. Because each of the plant's two copies of the gene were in mutated form, they had virtually no chance of having normal offspring. But up to 10 percent of the plants' offspring kept reverting to normal. Various rare events can make this happen, but none involve altering the actual sequence of DNA units in the gene. Yet when the researchers analyzed the mutated gene, known as hothead, they found it had changed, with the mutated DNA units being changed back to normal form. "That was the moment when it was a complete shock," Dr. Pruitt said. A mutated gene can be put right by various mechanisms that are already known, but all require a correct copy of the gene to be available to serve as the template. The Purdue team scanned the DNA of the entire arabidopsis genome for a second, cryptic copy of the hothead gene but could find none. Dr. Pruitt and his colleagues argue that a correct template must exist, but because it is not in the form of DNA, it probably exists as RNA, DNA's close chemical cousin. RNA performs many important roles in the cell, and is the hereditary material of some viruses. But it is less stable than DNA, and so has been regarded as unsuitable for preserving the genetic information of higher organisms. Dr. Pruitt said he favored the idea that there is an RNA backup copy for the entire genome, not just the hothead gene, and that it might be set in motion when the plant was under stress, as is the case with those having mutated hothead genes. He and other experts said it was possible that an entire RNA backup copy of the genome could exist without being detected, especially since there has been no reason until now to look for it. Scientific journals often take months or years to get comfortable with articles presenting novel ideas. But Nature accepted the paper within six weeks of receiving it. Dr. Christopher Surridge, a biology editor at Nature, said the finding had been discussed at scientific conferences for quite a while, with people saying it was impossible and proposing alternative explanations. But the authors had checked all these out and disposed of them, Dr. Surridge said. As for their proposal of a backup RNA genome, "that is very much a hypothesis, and basically the least mad hypothesis for how this might be working," Dr. Surridge said. Dr. Haig, the evolutionary biologist, said that the finding was fascinating but that it was too early to try to interpret it. He noted that if there was a cryptic template, it ought to be more resistant to mutation than the DNA it helps correct. Yet it is hard to make this case for RNA, which accumulates many more errors than DNA when it is copied by the cell. He said that the mechanism, if confirmed, would be an unprecedented exception to Mendel's laws of inheritance, since the DNA sequence itself is changed. Imprinting, an odd feature of inheritance of which Dr. Haig is a leading student, involves inherited changes to the way certain genes are activated, not to the genes themselves. The finding poses a puzzle for evolutionary theory because it corrects mutations, which evolution depends on as generators of novelty. Dr. Meyerowitz said he did not see this posing any problem for evolution because it seems to happen only rarely. "What keeps Darwinian evolution intact is that this only happens when there is something wrong," Dr. Surridge said. The finding could undercut a leading theory of why sex is necessary. Some biologists say sex is needed to discard the mutations, almost all of them bad, that steadily accumulate on the genome. People inherit half of their genes from each parent, which allows the half left on the cutting room floor to carry away many bad mutations. Dr. Pruitt said the backup genome could be particularly useful for self-fertilizing plants, as arabidopsis is, since it could help avoid the adverse effects of inbreeding. It might also operate in the curious organisms known as bdelloid rotifers that are renowned for not having had sex for millions of years, an abstinence that would be expected to seriously threaten their Darwinian fitness. Dr. Pruitt said it was not yet known if other organisms besides arabidopsis could possess the backup system. Colleagues had been quite receptive to the idea because "biologists have gotten used to the unexpected," he said, referring to a spate of novel mechanisms that have recently come to light, several involving RNA.
• 

  funkyderek

  I think that our genetic make up is a pretty good evidence against evolution.

  How curious. I think the exact opposite.
  
  

  Throughout the whole body of living things, we find that they are all divided into family groupings (canine etc...) within which they can interbreed.

  Normally only members of the same species can interbreed - by definition.

  Yet, they can only go so far. For instance, within the family which contains horses, all sorts of intebreeding within the family occur.

  Normally, horses can only breed successfully with other horses. With certain members of the same genus, they sometimes produce sterile offspring. Outside that, they cannot interbreed. This is precisely what would be expected from an evolutionary viewpoint. There is no reason thatthis should be the case if all species were created separately. Genus and any higher-level taxonomic terms would have no real meaning.

  However, there are limits. When a horse is bred to a donkey, the result is a hybrid that is sterile. and there are others which can be cited.

  Mules are usually sterile but occasionally have been known to give birth. The evolutionist's take on hybridisation is that certain species are quite closely related and can sometimes produce viable offspring. The more closely related they are, the more likely this is. The creationist position is - as always - that God made them that way for his own reasons.
  
  

  Why is this? Because the family has a certain number of chromosome pairs set for it which allow a certain variation, or speciation, within the family but prevents things from going further or cross-family breeding.

  I'm glad you're not using the Watchtower word "kind", but family in biology has a very specific meaning ("A taxonomic category of related organisms ranking below an order and above a genus" - dictionary.com) and you're using it incorrectly. Please be careful with this as it can lead to confusion. What about pairings between domestic horses (32 pairs of chromosomes) and Przewalski's Wild Horse (33 pairs of chromosomes)? Such pairings can produce fertile offspring.

  For humans, there are 24 such pairs. For chimpanzees, 25 pairs.

  Those numbers should be 23 and 24 respectively. Why are human chromosomes mostly identical to those of chimps? Human chromosome 2 looks exactly like what we would expect to see if it was a fusion of chimpanzee chromosomes 2p and 2q. That seems a peculiar design choice for a god to make.

  Anytime the number of chromosomes are not correct for the family, a it usually produces a deficient organism rather than an improvement.

  Most mutations are like that. The vast majority are harmful (or neutral) and the unfortunate organism suffers and dies as a result. Occasionally some are improvements, and through natural selection, spread rapidly.

  I remember the sensation that occured in the 60's when a chimp was found who supposedly had 49 chromosomes, indicating a possible cross-species breed. He had certain features that were human-like (the ability to walk upright in the human fashion as opposed to the chimp style etc...). however, the chimp, now aged, was tested in recent years and shown to have the correct number of chromosomes for a chimp. indicating that no interspecies breeding had occured.

  I believe he was named Oliver. I saw a documentary on this case and it seems clear that he was just a mutant chimpanzee rather than a chimp-human hybrid. I'm not sure why you mention it though. The fact that he wasn't a hybrid doesn't mean hybridisation would be impossible.

  This encourages both flexibility to adapt to conditions and stability so that the kinds of monsters mentioned in ancient myths, such as the minotaurs (part bull part human) just never happen. To me this indicates that intelligence was involved in the speciation of our planet and not just blind chance.

  That is a complete non sequitur.
  
  

  As mentioned oft by creationists, true transitional species just do not occur in the fossil record.

  No species is transitional except in hindsight. Any fossils that do appear to be transitional between species A and B are either labelled as being part of species A or B, or are given a new name C. In no case would a creationist allow that C was transitional between A and B. They simply claim that there are now three species with no transitional species.

  I know that the archaeopteryx is often trumpeted as such a type, however, recent fossil findings bring that into question.

  It's a bird with teeth. I believe there is some doubt over whether it is ancestral to modern birds or whether one or more of other species of birds with teeth is a more likely candidate. Either way, it clearly has some of the features we now see only in reptiles and some we see only in birds.

  There can only be two explanations fo that lack. Either they just weren't preserved in the record by the vagarities of chance (not likely), or they were never there in the first place

  At this point you're really showing you have only the most superficial knowledge of this subject. Fossilisation is incredibly rare. Conditions have to be just right for fossils to form and even then, the chances of them surviving and being found are relatively remote.

  The acceptance of either explanation requires a certain amount of faith since none of us were there to see it happpen for ourselves.

  Faith is unnecessary if you believe only what the available evidence compels you to believe.

  So now, can some of my fellow creationists step up to the plate as well?

  Hopefully, they'll do better than you - but I doubt it.
• 

  Forscher

  Thanks Namewitheld! I stand corrected on the numbers invovled.
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  Throughout the whole body of living things, we find that they are all divided into family groupings (canine etc...) within which they can interbreed. Yet, they can only go so far. For instance, within the family which contains horses, all sorts of intebreeding within the family occur. However, there are limits.

  So the point is that the mutations that could occur would create a new form of horse, but never a form that couldn't breed with other horses, right? So you wouldn't expect that a mutant horse would eventually become a new animal unable to breed with the original horses, since the rare mutation would either leave it fully a horse, or unable to breed and it would die off.

  Do I understand that argument correctly?

  So I'll address this to FunkyDerek, AlanF, and any others that have researched the subject in depth: How does current evolution thinking explain the jump from one species to another?

  I can imagine a mutant horse that can digest grasses that other horses can't. He can eat the grasses over there, that the other horses can't. He breeds and his kids also can eat them. In time, his line of horses migrates to an area with an abundance of that type of grass, since there's no competition for it. Mutations in his children would only be shared by his children, not in the original population since they have become isolated from one another. The new population could diverge greatly from the original population in terms of height, thickness of coat, whatever enabled them to live well in their weird-grass environment. But what would allow them to ever make a different-number-of-chromosomes change that would make them a truly different species?

  Dave
• 

  NameWithheld

  No problem! It made no difference to the overall meaning of your post anyway - just one of those random little factoids floating around my skull
• 

  Forscher

  Funkyderek said:
  
  "Hopefully, they'll do better than you - but I doubt it."
  
  IMHO, that was totally unessecary to the discusion and condescending on your part.
  
  Forscher