Evolution Opponents Lose Kansas Board Majority

[ArmchairGeneral]

But Africans DO run from lions(and a dozen other top predators- at least).

And the sickle cell is not always present in Africans(one in 500, and the trait is one in ...even if two parents who have it mate, there's still only a 50% chance it'll manifest.

This seems like it would've been an eventual death sentence for africans if modern science and society had not intervened(not only does it make it harder to get away from the african super-predators, the disease itself can be quite harmful, especially in a primative population)

It also affects people of Arabian, Greek, Maltese, Italian, Sardinian, Turkish and Indian ancestry.(not a lot of malaria in Italy is there? LOL)

Statistics from: http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/4439_1221.asp

I guess I didn't explain it well enough. There are three possibilities: 1) You do not have the sickle cell mutation; 2) You have one copy of the sickle cell mutation; 3) You have two copies of the sickle cell mutation. Situation 1: You don't have anemia, but you're more likely to die from malaria. Situation 2: You have mild anemia, but you have a significantly better chance of surviving malaria. Situation 3: You have severe anemia, and you die.

So, depending on how much malaria is present, the percentage of people with the sickle cell trait will vary. High malaria exposure makes sickle cell less disadvantageous, if not advantageous, thus you should see more people with the sickle cell mutation. Which is exactly what you do see in Africa, the world capital of malaria. Trade-offs, my friend, trade-offs. It's not an all or nothing game. Small advantages matter.

And about Italy- Venice used to have severe problems with malaria. Here's a link about the possibility of it coming back: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no6/romi.htm

[dalem]

Abiogenesis is a central prediction of evolution theory.

Once again, NO IT IS NOT.

You deny that intelligent creation is a viable possible origin for life on earth but you also acknowledge that in order to prove abiogenesis we'll by definition have simultaneously proven intelligent creation, because creating biological life from scratch out of chemical compounds is, well....creation.

What does Occum's razor say to that, and i wonder...what would happen if the offspring of man's new creation adhered to Occum's razor when pondering where they came from.

I'm not a big fan of Mr.Occum.

Clearly.

-dale

[Bill]

Well, to start off, it's abiogenesis, not ambiogenesis. It refers to the idea that life originally came from non-life. A, not+bio, life+genesis, creation=not-life-creation.

Kill a brutha for a typo why dontcha...

LOL

And no, I don't think you understand abiogenesis, because no one does.

Fair nuff.

You keep referring to the probabilities of abiogenesis, when nobody can calculate those probabilities, because no one actually has developed a plausible chain of chemical reactions to create life from non-life. Perhaps I'm underestimating you, but I have a feeling that you ignored that little exchange between me and bandwagon. We both ended up admitting that we simply don't know enough to say whether abiogenesis is possible or not. There are suggestive possibilities with RNA, but also massive problems that may or may not be resolved. We just don't know.

Actually i am basing my position that it is statistically virtually impossible precisely because even intelligent beings deliberately trying to replicate the feat are unable to do so despite a quite determined effort.

Obviously i could never put any sort of precise odds on it, but....if you know how many protiens would be needed at each step, and how many atmospheric variables were involved, and how many years were involved, etc, you could statistically model each distinct step of the process.

And that number would be HUGE.

So no, there is no way to measure it, other than to just know it's virtually impossible as i know it's virtually impossible for me to ever bang J Lo, much as i'd like to.

And speciation. That's not a very wise thing to dispute. Do you really think that your little green men came to earth and deposited african elephants, indian elephants, the various species of mastodons, the various species of mammoths, and all the other elephantish species? Because that's what you are implying, intentionally or not.

I'm not sure that i can get my head around random freak mutations resulting in goo becoming a millipede, but that same original goo also becoming a whale, and a person, and a fern, and an eggplant, and a jellyfish, and so on down the line.

It's highly implausible.

Creationists, or IDers, or whatever you want to call 'em, long ago abandoned the idea of fixed species. In fact, even the great Linnaeus eventually began to suspect that species were not immutable. The IDers I know concentrate on a concept that they have coined the term baramin to describe. That is from the Hebrew bara, create+min, kind. Thus, created kinds. This is meant to describe what Creationists believe to be the original kinds of animals created by the great God/Superintelligence/Whatever. Much research is being done to try to describe the boundaries of various baramins, mainly by looking at hybridization between species and trying to see if there are absolute boundaries between certain groups of species. The research I have looked at was investigating the nightshade family- potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, locoweed and a whole bunch of other species- to find out whether it could be a baramin. So it's not speciation that they are questioning.

See now i like that concept a lot better.

It may be speciation, but it's a lot different concept than a common goo becoming all life. I just said something like this a few posts ago...in the form of a question.

As for natural selection, you have made statements that made me suspect that you really didn't understand how it is supposed to work. My previous post attempts to clear that up. And if you disagree with that post, I'm sorry, but that's the science, the best we have, and it makes sense to me, to the hated creationists, and to vast majority of biologists in the world.

Well i was always under the impression that it was competition that drove mutation, not random freak chance. Blame it on my big city public school education...but i can't help but think there's still some truth to that. It simply seems more 'right' to me that there should be some sort of unity of purpose behind natural selection processes.

[Bill]

Once again, NO IT IS NOT.
-dale

To me they are peas in a pod because popular evolution theory predicts there is a common ancestor.

OK, show me the goo.

To me they go hand in hand.

[Bill]

I guess I didn't explain it well enough. There are three possibilities: 1) You do not have the sickle cell mutation; 2) You have one copy of the sickle cell mutation; 3) You have two copies of the sickle cell mutation. Situation 1: You don't have anemia, but you're more likely to die from malaria. Situation 2: You have mild anemia, but you have a significantly better chance of surviving malaria. Situation 3: You have severe anemia, and you die.

So, depending on how much malaria is present, the percentage of people with the sickle cell trait will vary. High malaria exposure makes sickle cell less disadvantageous, if not advantageous, thus you should see more people with the sickle cell mutation. Which is exactly what you do see in Africa, the world capital of malaria. Trade-offs, my friend, trade-offs. It's not an all or nothing game. Small advantages matter.

And about Italy- Venice used to have severe problems with malaria. Here's a link about the possibility of it coming back: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no6/romi.htm

I follow, but check it out.

1 in 500 have the trait. If two parents with the trait mate, there's a 1 in 4 chance the child will have the disease, and a 1 in 2 chance he'll have the trait.(all those stats are at that link).

I think if you follow that pattern to it's conclusion in the absence of modern medicine and society it predicts bad things.

It was an excellent description, i was merely making an observation is all.

[ArmchairGeneral]

Abiogenesis is a central prediction of evolution theory.

No, it's not. Abiogenesis is a central tenet of the wider philosophical evolutionary view, which demands naturalistic, non-intelligent forces explain everything about life. Abiogenesis is not a prediction of any scientific theory, though. It's a hypothesis trying to become a theory. Evolutionary theory deals with how life might diversify into what we see now, once it (life) exists. Abiogenesis deals with how life originally came to be. You can have evolution without abiogenesis. Just drop a cell onto earth, and if it reproduces, evolution predicts that its descendants will change/diversify over time to better match their environment/environments. Google theistic evolution, and you should easily be able to find scientists who don't believe in abiogenesis but believe in evolution.

[dalem]

To me they are peas in a pod because popular evolution theory predicts there is a common ancestor.

OK, show me the goo.

To me they go hand in hand.

Well, you are wrong. Read a book. Why don't you start with SJ Gould's "Hens Teeth and Horses Toes".

-dale

[Bill]

"Francis Crick has commented on potential limitations of Occam's razor in biology. He advances the argument that because biological systems are the products of (an on-going) natural selection, the mechanisms are not necessarily optimal in an obvious sense. He cautions: "While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research.""

Heh...

[Bill]

Well, you are wrong. Read a book. Why don't you start with SJ Gould's "Hens Teeth and Horses Toes".

-dale

Are you telling me that evolution theory does not predict a common ancestor?

If it does, then i'm hardly wrong.

[Bill]

No, it's not. Abiogenesis is a central tenet of the wider philosophical evolutionary view, which demands naturalistic, non-intelligent forces explain everything about life. Abiogenesis is not a prediction of any scientific theory, though. It's a hypothesis trying to become a theory. Evolutionary theory deals with how life might diversify into what we see now, once it (life) exists. Abiogenesis deals with how life originally came to be. You can have evolution without abiogenesis. Just drop a cell onto earth, and if it reproduces, evolution predicts that its descendants will change/diversify over time to better match their environment/environments. Google theistic evolution, and you should easily be able to find scientists who don't believe in abiogenesis but believe in evolution.

Does evolution theory or does evolution theory not predct a single common ancestor?

If it does(as i believe to be the case), then it damned well ought to offer up some hypothesis as to what said ancester was and how it developed.

Even the big bang does that.

[ArmchairGeneral]

Kill a brutha for a typo why dontcha...

LOL

Sorry. There I go nitpicking again.

Actually i am basing my position that it is statistically virtually impossible precisely because even intelligent beings deliberately trying to replicate the feat are unable to do so despite a quite determined effort.

Obviously i could never put any sort of precise odds on it, but....if you know how many protiens would be needed at each step, and how many atmospheric variables were involved, and how many years were involved, etc, you could statistically model each distinct step of the process.

And that number would be HUGE.

Like it or not, if the proper reactions are discovered, the probabilities will go way, way down. And it's really an all or nothing proposition, in my view. Either we don't discover the proper reactions, and we're left with molecules developing that are statistically about as likely to occur as the Statue of Liberty waving her arm (which is physically possible, given quantum mechanics, but statistically impossible), OR we discover reactions that, given the proper plausible early earth conditions, would be statistically LIKELY to occur, given a few million or billion years. If it's a one in a million shot, then I don't like it one bit, but certain discoveries about RNA and amino acids indicate that there MAY be a way that, given the proper conditions, it would be not only statistically possible, but actually probable.

I'm not sure that i can get my head around random freak mutations resulting in goo becoming a millipede, but that same original goo also becoming a whale, and a person, and a fern, and an eggplant, and a jellyfish, and so on down the line.

LOL, me neither. I would try to give an explanation of why at least on the face of it it looks like they did, but it's pretty late at night. Maybe tomorrow.

See now i like that concept a lot better.

It may be speciation, but it's a lot different concept than a common goo becoming all life. I just said something like this a few posts ago...in the form of a question.

Heh, I'll make you a creationist yet.

Well i was always under the impression that it was competition that drove mutation, not random freak chance. Blame it on my big city public school education...but i can't help but think there's still some truth to that. It simply seems more 'right' to me that there should be some sort of unity of purpose behind natural selection processes.

It may seem 'right,' but it sure isn't borne out by the evidence we have now. And we understand mutations pretty well, at least compared to a zillion other aspects of life that we literally don't know crap about. We can not only cause mutations, but predict the number of mutations in any given generation of a species. And we know that different species have different rates of mutation, which we can calculate. And it's all based on theories which predict random mutation. So the theories seem to be pretty well supported by the experimental data.

[ArmchairGeneral]

Does evolution theory or does evolution theory not predct a single common ancestor?

If it does(as i believe to be the case), then it damned well ought to offer up some hypothesis as to what said ancester was and how it developed.

Even the big bang does that.

Yes, evolutionary theory predicts a single common ancestor. But it says nothing about where that ancestor came from. It simply doesn't matter in evolution whether it was from goo or God. Evolution, if it works, would work either way. And the big bang is a good example of a theory that does exactly what evolution does: it says, this is how the universe developed from a singularity. It doesn't say where the heck that singularity came from. Evolution says: this is how life developed from one single ancestor. It doesn't say anything about where that ancestor came from. So both theories give room for Something or Someone we can't understand with our science, yet. Makes the Deists happy, at least.

[ArmchairGeneral]

"Francis Crick has commented on potential limitations of Occam's razor in biology. He advances the argument that because biological systems are the products of (an on-going) natural selection, the mechanisms are not necessarily optimal in an obvious sense. He cautions: "While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research.""

Heh...

He has a point. Something you learn very quickly when you study molecular biology: Nature has a thing for Rube Goldberg.

[an4815]

Snakes, or just serpentlike lizards?

Hard to say without having ever seen one alive, or at least having an intact example to look at. THAT is a big part of the problem i have with this theory.

The fossil is intact. They can compare that with snakes. A reptile that looks very very similar to a snake rather than a lizard...that must be a snake.

I understand how they say it works

That's the problem. You don't.

[an4815]

What are YOU trying to say here....that longer arms for a bi-pedal preator vs shorter ones are NOT an obvious advantadge?

Havnt been in many fights, have you?

Half the problem is that your definition of "far more capable preditor" revolves around some kind of cartoon like Discovery Channel "Worlds Meanest Preditors" caricature. You think that "more capable preditor" must always mean longer and longer teeth, thicker and longer arms and thicker and thicker armor.

You are not even contemplating that improvements have downsides as well as upsides. For exampe you have not even considered the fact that having forearms too long and too heavy will slow a bipedal therapod down, or that having armor too thick will also slow a preditor down. You could have the meanest looking preditor out there, but if it cannot even catch up to it's prey then it's useless. It is more than likely that therapod arms are the optimal length. Simply saying that they should be longer has absolutely no evidence going for it.

So yes, if speciation put them there(which is NOT the same as natural selection/ie survival of the fittest), it did so foolishly.

No it's not the same. But the fact is that if therapod's small arms are pointless then NATUARL SELECTION has failed. Saying it's speciations responsibility doesn't make it so. At the end of the day it is natural selection that will determine the optimal length of therapod dinosaur arms. So immediately you should think "hmm maybe my assumption that longer arms would be a huge advantage might be misplaced" rather than thinking natural selection has failed.