Evolution

[Conscious Bob]

DNA, what does it do?

 

[Meadow337]

sheesh and I thought I had a one track mind? asked and answered.

http://www.news-medical.net/health/DNA-Evolution.aspx <- this is EXACTLY the kind of illogical logic I am talking about with regard to evolution.

Just take the first sentence for example:

DNA carries the genetic information of species and has been evolving over millions of years.

Like yeah so I can make a blank statement too.

'The earth revolves around the sun.' and I don't have to support that statement with any thing approaching an explanation or evidence and you must just accept it.

Compare the statements on that page with the explanations on the preceding page:

http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-DNA.aspx

Here we have clear explanations. This is composed of that, and combined with that, forms this structure which functions like that.

We can look through a microscope at the structure of the cell. We can observe it splitting and replicating. These are demonstrable facts. Unlike the bald, unexplained, unobservable 'facts' when they start sprouting about evolution.

 

[Conscious Bob]

Again you're not answering the question. Tell me what you think DNA does.

 

[Meadow337]

Here we go - take your pick

https://www.google.co.za/search?cli...rceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

 

[Conscious Bob]

Here we go - take your pick

A link to a google page, you're something else. Lets establish a couple of facts.

I agree with the Theory of Evolution and I also agree with the current scientific explanation of DNA.

You don't, you tell me (despite glaring evidence) the theory isn't proven. You've given me plenty links and that would be good provided you agreed with at least one of them but as you don't all you're doing is evading the question.

Tell me or post a link to a site that tells me what you think DNA does.

 

[Meadow337]

And I don't agree with the Theory of Evolution, without repeating myself too much, my issue is with the fundamental question - where is it?

All science must be demonstrable and provable. Evolution is neither. Even the most vehemently faithful supporter of evolution will admit that evolution can not be observed to be happening. This is in complete contradiction to the basic premise of evolution that it is happening continuously and has been happening continuously since the dawn of time. It is so completely in contradiction of the basic premise as to render the entire concept moot. There is simply no need to discuss it further than that point except to say "Back to the drawing board my good fellows".

The problem, however, is that until some bright spark actually manages to abandon the 'flat earth' idea and actually LOOK at the evidence with a fresh eye (even Darwin admitted he might have got a few things wrong at the end of his life) instead of trying to defend a theory that went the way of the Dodo almost as fast as it left Darwin's brain; we will get nowhere because 'science' has backed itself into a corner on the topic. It has so vehemently and with such religious fervour defended evolution as THE only scientific alternative to all the religious mumbo-jumbo about creation it can't gracefully back down and admit it believes as big a load of old cobblers as any one else does.

I don't have to have an answer for what an alternative might be to use my common sense to say there is a fatal flaw in evolution - more than one actually. The lack of any evidence of it actually happening is one objection. The Law of Entropy is another. (And the 'explanation' for why it doesn't have to conform to a law absolutely everything else has to is seriously laughable). The third really simple objection any one with can come up with is all the living fossils. If evolution was happening all the time continuously albeit slowly over millenia so excuse us if we can't actually observe it happening, how come it managed to turn a complete blind eye to certain species that have remained exactly the same as they are in the fossil record millions of years ago? Fourth objection - where are the transitional species? Either living today or in the fossil record. Just ONE? No? I thought not. There are completely fully functional species perfectly suited to their niche (and no mudskippers are not a transitional species - they are perfectly suited to their environment and are yet to show any signs of moving in either direction towards air or water 'evolutionarily') and no species with half a set of lungs or an eyeball in transition from a simple form to a more complex one. IF that story is even half way accurate. A locust's eye seems perfectly suited to a locusts needs to me. It lacks everything else to have a more complex eye, so what it has works perfectly with its body, its neurosystem, and its needs. There are no transitional species. Even homo sapiens sapiens just appeared on the scene with no 'missing link'.


And despite scientists doing it with the Bosun-Higgs particle you really can't just make stuff up because it must be there in order to prove your theory.

Until such time as there is actual proof I don't have to believe in evolution. It is after all just a theory some nitwit made up to explain the presence of species on one small island in the Galapagos more than a 100 years ago. Waaaay past time to let it go into the history books as the quaint notion it is and work on something new that actually does fit the evidence.

All I know is that Sherlock Holmes said something along the lines of if you have stripped away the impossible, what you are left with, however improbable is the truth. And when you strip away all that is impossible what you are left with is not evolution as it stands right now. And no amount of fervour is going force me to believe in it. Because really what is required is faith in it, making it no less a religious belief than creationism, because there is no scientific proof for it. What one observes actually happening in the world is not evolution. It is something far more complex and wonderful. And we are no closer to understanding it using evolution as science is to understanding the inner workings of the atom. As long as we / they are twisting reality to fit their theory and making stuff up like the 'missing link' because the theory says it must be there, when there is demonstrably no proof or evidence of it, there is a problem with the theory. Plain and simple.

And just for good measure if evolution is a response to enviromental pressure, and we are creating environmental pressure to the nth degree, why isn't nature responding by evolving new species? The 'answer' to that one is we are creating too much pressure, too fast for evolution to respond because it works so dreadfully slowly. Aah but wait, says the person with a little knowledge, what about the Cambrian explosion. Hummm umm says the scientist that we can't explain. GOTCHA! Because the evidence contradicts the notion evolution is slow, but evolution has to be slow to explain why it isn't happening now. Foucault's Pendulum says the simplest explanation must be right. Instead of postulating all kinds of wild theories as to what might have happened at the end of the Cambrian so as to not lose their precious theory, why can't Science just admit that that the evidence alone says that the notion that evolution is a really slow unobservable process is a lot of hot air and that they need to re-examine the actual evidence.

The problem is that every one is locked into an either / or debate. It's either evolution or creation with no-one saying but hold on the evidence actually suggests something else entirely is happening. Creation as put forward by Biblical Scholars isn't enough as it stands and neither is Evolution. The concepts, as far as I have read them, with Intelligent Design fall into a kind of apologists half world with a foot in both camps which doesn't work either. And both sides defend their belief religiously which is why it is so easy to start a debate on the subject. It is a belief system not a science. If it was science there would be no debate. No one argues about the structure of the cell or how the digestive system works now do they?

 

[Conscious Bob]

And I don't agree with the Theory of Evolution, without repeating myself too much, my issue is with the fundamental question - where is it?

On Earth, everywhere there is life.

All science must be demonstrable and provable. Evolution is neither. Even the most vehemently faithful supporter of evolution will admit that evolution can not be observed to be happening. This is in complete contradiction to the basic premise of evolution that it is happening continuously and has been happening continuously since the dawn of time. It is so completely in contradiction of the basic premise as to render the entire concept moot. There is simply no need to discuss it further than that point except to say "Back to the drawing board my good fellows".

Complete nonsense, Evolution is a proven theory, as for observation how about farm animals and pets bred from wild animals, pest resistant crops bred through genetic engineering, microbes and insect populations breeding resistance to antibiotics and insecticides, human resistance to malaria, predictive medicine, DNA fingerprinting, shall I go on?

The problem, however, is that until some bright spark actually manages to abandon the 'flat earth' idea and actually LOOK at the evidence with a fresh eye (even Darwin admitted he might have got a few things wrong at the end of his life) instead of trying to defend a theory that went the way of the Dodo almost as fast as it left Darwin's brain; we will get nowhere because 'science' has backed itself into a corner on the topic. It has so vehemently and with such religious fervour defended evolution as THE only scientific alternative to all the religious mumbo-jumbo about creation it can't gracefully back down and admit it believes as big a load of old cobblers as any one else does.

That's a bit of an insult to Flat Earthers, the Flat Earth Theory is at least a theory which is more than you've got at the moment. Thousands of years ago some guy standing on a plain watching the sun going down could be forgiven for thinking the Earth was flat because at the time there would have been no available contradictory evidence. As far as Darwin is concerned he is the fresh eye. By the way the Dodo is extinct because it evolved from an isolated bird population on Mauritius becoming flightless, slow and therefore vulnerable to humans and more agile introduced predators, good example of natural selection

I don't have to have an answer for what an alternative might be to use my common sense to say there is a fatal flaw in evolution - more than one actually. The lack of any evidence of it actually happening is one objection. The Law of Entropy is another. (And the 'explanation' for why it doesn't have to conform to a law absolutely everything else has to is seriously laughable). The third really simple objection any one with can come up with is all the living fossils. If evolution was happening all the time continuously albeit slowly over millenia so excuse us if we can't actually observe it happening, how come it managed to turn a complete blind eye to certain species that have remained exactly the same as they are in the fossil record millions of years ago? Fourth objection - where are the transitional species? Either living today or in the fossil record. Just ONE? No? I thought not. There are completely fully functional species perfectly suited to their niche (and no mudskippers are not a transitional species - they are perfectly suited to their environment and are yet to show any signs of moving in either direction towards air or water 'evolutionarily') and no species with half a set of lungs or an eyeball in transition from a simple form to a more complex one. IF that story is even half way accurate. A locust's eye seems perfectly suited to a locusts needs to me. It lacks everything else to have a more complex eye, so what it has works perfectly with its body, its neurosystem, and its needs. There are no transitional species. Even homo sapiens sapiens just appeared on the scene with no 'missing link'.

Then what are you doing here if you've no position to defend and by the way genetic science is a science. If we knew everything we could close down the universities.

And despite scientists doing it with the Bosun-Higgs particle you really can't just make stuff up because it must be there in order to prove your theory.

This really takes the cake... Charles Darwin's predictions led to the discovery of DNA just as Peter Higgs mathematical predictions are beating a trail in particle physics, the sciences may be different but the empirical viewpoint remains the same.

Until such time as there is actual proof I don't have to believe in evolution. It is after all just a theory some nitwit made up to explain the presence of species on one small island in the Galapagos more than a 100 years ago. Waaaay past time to let it go into the history books as the quaint notion it is and work on something new that actually does fit the evidence.

The proof is there you just prefer to ignore it.

All I know is that Sherlock Holmes said something along the lines of if you have stripped away the impossible, what you are left with, however improbable is the truth. And when you strip away all that is impossible what you are left with is not evolution as it stands right now. And no amount of fervour is going force me to believe in it. Because really what is required is faith in it, making it no less a religious belief than creationism, because there is no scientific proof for it. What one observes actually happening in the world is not evolution. It is something far more complex and wonderful. And we are no closer to understanding it using evolution as science is to understanding the inner workings of the atom. As long as we / they are twisting reality to fit their theory and making stuff up like the 'missing link' because the theory says it must be there, when there is demonstrably no proof or evidence of it, there is a problem with the theory. Plain and simple.

Sherlock Holmes didn't exist all I say is look at the evidence.

And just for good measure if evolution is a response to enviromental pressure, and we are creating environmental pressure to the nth degree, why isn't nature responding by evolving new species? The 'answer' to that one is we are creating too much pressure, too fast for evolution to respond because it works so dreadfully slowly. Aah but wait, says the person with a little knowledge, what about the Cambrian explosion. Hummm umm says the scientist that we can't explain. GOTCHA! Because the evidence contradicts the notion evolution is slow, but evolution has to be slow to explain why it isn't happening now. Foucault's Pendulum says the simplest explanation must be right. Instead of postulating all kinds of wild theories as to what might have happened at the end of the Cambrian so as to not lose their precious theory, why can't Science just admit that that the evidence alone says that the notion that evolution is a really slow unobservable process is a lot of hot air and that they need to re-examine the actual evidence.

You've shown your ignorance again the Cambrian Explosion (still debated) happened 540 million years ago but the fossil evidence proves life existed 3.8 billion years ago.

The problem is that every one is locked into an either / or debate. It's either evolution or creation with no-one saying but hold on the evidence actually suggests something else entirely is happening. Creation as put forward by Biblical Scholars isn't enough as it stands and neither is Evolution. The concepts, as far as I have read them, with Intelligent Design fall into a kind of apologists half world with a foot in both camps which doesn't work either. And both sides defend their belief religiously which is why it is so easy to start a debate on the subject. It is a belief system not a science. If it was science there would be no debate. No one argues about the structure of the cell or how the digestive system works now do they?

I'll leave you with the words of Richard Feynman

'It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are, if it doesn't agree with experiment it's wrong'.

The theory stands up to continual experiment.

 

[753C]

Complete nonsense, Evolution is a proven theory, as for observation how about farm animals and pets bred from wild animals, pest resistant crops bred through genetic engineering, microbes and insect populations breeding resistance to antibiotics and insecticides, human resistance to malaria, predictive medicine, DNA fingerprinting, shall I go on?

I think meadow might have meant evidence for the type of evolution that turns a fish into a bird. Not the type that makes a wolf into a min-pin.
Only reason I'm jumping in is because you sound really knowledgeable and I am curious about the larger issues, and despite holding certain beliefs, I do have an open mind about these things.

 

[Conscious Bob]

I think meadow might have meant evidence for the type of evolution that turns a fish into a bird. Not the type that makes a wolf into a min-pin.
Only reason I'm jumping in is because you sound really knowledgeable and I am curious about the larger issues, and despite holding certain beliefs, I do have an open mind about these things.

It's DNA, time and circumstances that's responsible, the best adapted creatures survive. Nature doesn't produce transitional forms, that's a human term. What happens is the best adapted animals pass on their genes to their offspring. The fossil record only contains isolated examples, a snapshot of creatures that would've reproduced in their millions.

The wee pedigree dog wouldn't exist in nature despite it being a complex organism. Natural Selection would kill it off because there are better adapted animals in nature that would out compete it. There are fish in water and birds in air but there are also birds in water and fish in air as species are shaped by Natural Selection.

 

[Meadow337]

The theory stands up to
continual experiment.

What experiment - again if there was such a thing there wouldn't be any debate.

FYI wolf DNA contains the potential to be any dog. Really excellent Nat Geo article on that very subject a few years back. Dogs are not an "evolved" wolf. Dogs ARE wolves.

 

[753C]

I guess it is the "how" of the fish and the birds in the first place that makes some people find evolution a little tough to swallow as an explanation for life. It's not the adaptations that make them specialized to their environment. It's the idea of all of this complex life coming from soup. It is tough to imagine, don't you think? Possibly even tougher than some of the other explanations out there. At least for some people...

 

[Conscious Bob]

The theory stands up to
continual experiment.

What experiment - again if there was such a thing there wouldn't be any debate.

Again... Genetic Science, a science that takes place in commercial, government and university laboratories, every day, all over the world or are you disputing the science of Genetics doesn't exist too?

FYI wolf DNA contains the potential to be any dog. Really excellent Nat Geo article on that very subject a few years back. Dogs are not an "evolved" wolf. Dogs ARE wolves.

In genetic terms yes but Natural Selection has been replaced by human aesthetics, cuteness for instance, I'd like to see a Chihauhua take down a Moose...

 

[Conscious Bob]

I guess it is the "how" of the fish and the birds in the first place that makes some people find evolution a little tough to swallow as an explanation for life. It's not the adaptations that make them specialized to their environment. It's the idea of all of this complex life coming from soup. It is tough to imagine, don't you think? Possibly even tougher than some of the other explanations out there. At least for some people...

Any more bizarre than some big guy with a beard bellowing 'let there be life' go figure?

 

[Meadow337]

Any more bizarre than some big guy with a beard bellowing 'let there be life' go figure?

I rest my case. It is always perceived as an us or them debate however neither side answers the evidence and both sides defend their position religiously. And I use that word deliberately because evolution is as much a religious belief as creation is, in the way it is defended despite the evidence.

 

[Conscious Bob]

I rest my case. It is always perceived as an us or them debate however neither side answers the evidence and both sides defend their position religiously. And I use that word deliberately because evolution is as much a religious belief as creation is, in the way it is defended despite the evidence.

Your case is not so much rested as put down.

By the way, what do you think DNA is?

 

[Meadow337]

Nope my case is not put down in the slightest. You did not counter any of my assertions with anything approaching a fact. You hint at experiments. I ask what experiments because if there was an experiment that proves evolution it would have been headline news. It wasn't.

New species? Besides inserting glow worm DNA to make potato plants glow in the dark - which proves nothing because genetic engineering is not evolution at work. It is man fiddling with things he shouldn't. Hasn't happened despite gazillions of generations of breeding fruit flies.

One ickle little speck of anything besides a nutrient rich soup ?- no matter how carefully done the experiment there isn't so much a hint of life. Frankenstein is dead and remains dead I'm afraid.

Transitional species are not there because life does not evolve into other life, not because 'life doesn't produce them'. They are a logical expectation of evolution. If not why on earth is so much effort put into digging up 'THE' specimen that proves the evolution of man?

You just avoided the issue of living fossils completely.

And the Cambrian Explosion is an issue in the whole evolution saga. Zip zap in the blink of a few hundred thousand years MUCH too fast for it to be attributable to evolution an entire new set of complete species had proliferated wildly with really no rhyme or reason. People who support evolution generally avoid discussing it at all. And they still can't have their cake and eat it. Either evolution is slow and unobservable in which case there is a HUGE issue with how to explain the Cambrian Explosion or it isn't in which case there is a bit of a quandary to explain exactly why we aren't forcing a similarly rapid evolutionary change right now - which one should then be able to observe happening. Which we aren't.

 

[753C]

Any more bizarre than some big guy with a beard bellowing 'let there be life' go figure?

It seems to me approximately the same level of faith would be required to believe either. On the other hand, an intelligence (big and bearded or not) seems to be more believable to most people on the planet. Religion, however unpalatable it may be to certain people, does not require scientific evidence. Just faith.
Evolution as an explanation for life on this planet requires both. So, the question is, can we mix up some soup and create life? And even if highly evolved, intelligent creatures, working with the most cutting edge science were able to accomplish it, how would that prove that it happened randomly the first time?

 

[Meadow337]

So, the question is, can we mix up some soup and create life?

Tried and failed. Can't be done. Not even by creating the most conducive conditions possible.

If it could be done it give some credibility to the evolutionary creation myth... In the beginning there was a nutrient rich soup which was struck by lightening and by some mysterious unexplained process the building blocks of life, amino acids, proteins, nucleotides, etc were formed. And ZAP with another bolt of lightening they gathered together in a discrete form and were ALIVE. From those first protozoa all life as we know it on the planet today evolved, including the evolutionary side path of the dinosaurs, who conveniently made way for the emergence of mammals through the intervention of a now proven meteor impact.

FYI the experiment doesn't produce anything. It just leaves the same soup it started with. Which one would think would cause a bit of a rethink on the whole idea, but no.

Edit:

Actually sitting looking at what I wrote just made me realise the similarities with the Biblical account.

Gen 1:2 Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

Evolution - there was a soup of dissolved inorganic components from rocks, volcanic activity, etc.

Gen 1:20 God spoke: "Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life! Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!"
Gen 1:21 God created the huge whales, all the swarm of life in the waters, And every kind and species of flying birds. God saw that it was good.

Evolution - life started in the oceans and emerged to eventually become dinosaurs. (Birds are dinosaurs btw).

Gen 1:24 God spoke: "Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind: cattle and reptiles and wild animals--all kinds." And there it was:

Evolution - Mammals replaced dinosaurs.

Gen 1:26 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature

And finally us, the johnny-come-lately's to the party.

Very amusing comparison.

 

[Conscious Bob]

It seems to me approximately the same level of faith would be required to believe either. On the other hand, an intelligence (big and bearded or not) seems to be more believable to most people on the planet. Religion, however unpalatable it may be to certain people, does not require scientific evidence. Just faith.
Evolution as an explanation for life on this planet requires both. So, the question is, can we mix up some soup and create life? And even if highly evolved, intelligent creatures, working with the most cutting edge science were able to accomplish it, how would that prove that it happened randomly the first time?

I don't consider Evolution to be an explanation of the origination of life, when life arrives watch it go but it requires the code first. Humankind can observe, analyse, splice and even synthesise DNA, what we can't do (yet) is create the conditions where it spontaneously generates on it's own. Stage three of the generation process has not yet been observed and it's probably chemical.

The process:

The Soup is formed (observed)
The building blocks of life form (observed)
The magic happens (not observed wtf?)
Life Evolves

This immense difficulty in getting DNA to spontaneously form has a consequence.

 

[Meadow337]

I don't consider Evolution to be an explanation of the origination of life, when life arrives watch it go but it requires the code first. Humankind can observe, analyse, splice and even synthesise DNA, what we can't do (yet) is create the conditions where it spontaneously generates on it's own. Stage three of the generation process has not yet been observed and it's probably chemical.

The process:

The Soup is formed (observed)
The building blocks of life form (observed)
The magic happens (not observed wtf?)
Life Evolves

This immense difficulty in getting DNA to spontaneously form has a consequence.

Yup its called the massive hole in the theory.