Republican Acceptance of Evolution Plummets

Yet my interest is in neither, it is the way you throw around the word "fallacy" when in an earlier exchange we know you do not understand logic so you do not understand fallacy. Life may well have evolved, I personally believe it does, in plant and animal life. But knowing your tendency to call something fallacy incorrectly makes me question your wisdom of anything.

 

You are making a claim the abiogenesis is false. Abiogenesis has nothing to do with Earth. It's only a word for the concept of the second non-life becomes life. Which had to have happened because life didn't exist 1 second after the big bang.

 

This requires faith on your part, because the notion is strictly theoretical. It's the reason the debate between predetermination and random mutation exists. The time scale theory is highly problematic, however, as there simply isn't a dearth of fossil record documenting species transformation (hence the notion of punctuated equilibrium).

I don't follow.

There is a problem of presumption in your answer. You think that because man and chimps share an inordinate number of ERVs, it presumes that they had a common ancestor - but there is another possibility: what if they merely share a common design using common ingredients?

You see a Nissan Maxima, and a Nissan 370Z, and they both share the same engine. Does that make you 'scientifically certain' that at some point in the past, there must have been a Nissan Zaxima or something?

No: we know that they were both simply manufactured by the same company.

It is my contention that all species were designed, and - as such - it would not be a surprise that many if not all of them would share the same 'parts'.

I don't find that exceptional or unusual - or even unexpected. After all, two different breeds of dog can mate, and form a whole new kind of dog. Now, if you have something which shows a fish turning into a horse, we may have something. We just don't know, but what we do know is that there aren't fossils to establish transitionary examples of such.

It's still yeast. I'm not arguing that slight changes within common lines don't take place. I'm arguing that each type of animal - reptiles, mammals, marsupials, birds, etc - were 'designed', and put in place in the original recognizable form, and have evolved from there based upon environmental challenges. I believe that these adaptations were not random mutations, but - in fact - genetically intelligently programmed engineering.

I'll offer as evidence of this the research of Dr. James Shapiro, who has coined the term 'Natural Genetic Engineering' - about which there is much information on the 'net. In a nutshell, his research has definitively proven that cells contain an intentional genetic engine which restructures DNA as needed to adapt to environmental challenges. This eliminates the notion that evolution is random.

And there is the nut of it. If Evolution is not random, then it is ordered. And if it ordered, it is designed.

 

People radically overestimate the sample size needed for an accurate poll. Do the math yourself if you like. You can be 95% confident that at least 45% of Republicans think humans have existed in their present form since the beginning. The poll is fine. +/-3.0% @ 95% confidence is pretty standard.

 

It's what the evidence supports. No faith needed. You previously insinuated that macro-evolution was inter-species change. I gave two examples of that. Therefore, macro evolution has been observed and the only difference between that and micro-evolution was the amount of time. They are the same, but some folks decide to refer to long-term micro-evolution as macro-evolution.

You commented about punctuated equilibrium when quoting a sentence in which I was referring to the macro/micro distinction. It doesn't matter. Complaining about punctuated equilibrium is a dead-end as far as this conversation is concerned.

Cars do not give birth to other cars. The analogy doesn't fit. And you can contend that all species were designed all you want. We have multiple examples of new species arising from other species, and ample evidence to support the theory of evolution. All of the alleged evidence that design "theorists" point to has either been debunked or is equally supportive of evolution. The simple fact is that all of the evidence fits an evolutionary model, while design "theory" is supported by only a fraction of that evidence and has much more evidence against it.

You asked for examples of speciation that have been observed, I gave them to you. Now you say they aren't exceptional or unusual. Great! We agree! You just don't want to call it evolution for some strange reason. Even Shapiro's conclusions point to evolution, but with directed mutations instead of random ones. It's still evolution. Maybe Shapiro's work will end up being incorporated into evolutionary theory. But if you actually think his research has "definitively proven" his conclusions, then you're either being extremely dishonest in this discussion or you have a serious dearth of understanding of evolutionary theory. His work is far from being as substantiated as the existing parts of the evolutionary model.

By the way, going from unicellular to multicellular is not a "slight change." It's a leap. It would be like a human giving birth to a human-like organism that could regenerate lost limbs. And there are over 1500 species of yeast. "It's still yeast" is like saying "they're still cats" if a population of tigers started giving birth to lions.

 

You speak as though there are no problems with making this leap. Haldane's Dilemma alone should give you pause.

Why would that be? The fossil record simply doesn't support macro-evolution. Where are the fossils of the transitionary species? As Stephen Gould has explained, organisms show up in the fossil record, exist for long periods of time with evidentiary adaptation - and then go extinct, to be replaced by other creatures. That's more like Punctuated Creation.

The Cambrian Explosion - over 500 million years ago - displays sudden appearance of almost all animal phylae, with no evidence of any predecessors in the rock layers below. Though I suppose you could try to argue the point, no new animal phylae has appeared since then. In fact, there are about 40 fewer strains of animal phylae now than there was then. To put it as it was in reasons.org, the fossil record looks a whole lot more like a lawn than it does a tree. Different species appear abruptly - and independently - from one another.

Nor can different DNA appear in the offspring of an animal - so the analogy does work.

Yes, I can believe that, and you cannot refute it. And we do have ample evidence to support the notion of evolution within a particular species, but not a complete change to a new genus. You don't have that; you haven't had that, but it hasn't stopped you from accepting our present understanding of evolution as the explanation for all animal phylum - and that's unsupportable.

I'm not the adversary of evolution, but you're the adversary of an engineered design to evolution.

No, no it doesn't. You could cherry pick statements about design theory that are incorrect in an attempt to make your point, but my stance on 'design theory' doesn't contain refuted nonsense. In fact, my main belief on the subject is best described through Shapiro's research.

Someone else asked for speciation. I asked for examples of genus transferance. There is none.

Where did you get that idea? It is evolution - but you're attempting to stretch what we KNOW about what evolution does to cover things that we DON'T know it does.

Hold on. Directed mutations? Do you understand what you just admitted? How did evolution gain a conscience? You've just described programming. Nature's law of Entropy demands the opposite! Evolution as you've been taught to accept it demands that the only way that life evolves is by passing on the mutations which accidentally formed and happened to be the correct ones to survive environmental challenges which took place.

You've just shot a huge hole in the Theory of Evolution. Huge.

Not like you've been taught it is...no. It is now planned.

It already has. Shapiro is very well regarded. Read his treatise "A Third Way".

Waitaminute. You responded to my post in a matter of minutes after being exposed to one article which Shapiro wrote. I have followed his work for 5 years now, and - in particular - his followup to Dr. Barbara McClintock's research from 50 years ago. There is no way you are knowledgeable enough on what Shapiro's 'conclusions' are, and they have been proven. Nothing which Shapiro has published has ever been refuted, and what he has researched has already been peer reviewed.

That's a matter of opinion. It's still yeast, which is an incredibly simple organism - and it is nothing even close to what the study of evolution (as you'd have it represented as) is required to provide in order to support the notion of macro-evolution.

That isn't anything near as remarkable as a bird birthing a horse - or even a lizard birthing a fish, or the reverse.

In fact, tigers can breed with lions. They're called ligers. But to address your point, your analogy is unacceptable. Yeast is a far far FAR simpler organism.

 

Your abortion of the quote tags aside, it is fact...just not the way you wish it to be. If it were fact in whole, it wouldn't be constantly changing. Portions of it are fact. For anyone to disagree with my statement shows a person who is completely ignorant on the topic.

 

First of all....what in particular are you saying is constantly changing? And why would you believe any specific change would be considered reasonable proof against evolution?

Once you answer this I will provide IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE that PROVES both Scientifically and Physically....meaning it can be determined as a fact with living existing evidence...that EVOLUTION IS A FACT.

AboveAlpha

 

Technically, even if life did begin 1 second after the BB, that just means that abiogenesis occurred at that point. In order for no abiogenesis to take place, life would have had to have emerged directly from the singularity.

 

The Theory of Evolution has undergone considerable revision over the years. Are you in denial of this?

You are speaking in terms which are too general. I am not an opponent of the notion of evolution. I am an opponent of how secularists are trying to use it to mean things which cannot be proven, and which create assertions which stand in contrast to the belief of Creationism.

Nothing about Evolution which has been established fact - that primarily being adaptation of species - stands in contrast to Creationism, or the notion of a Creator.

Attempting to claim that life sprung from 'primordial ooze' quite by accident...does. Those who believe that evolution covers an explanation of abiogenesis are sorely mistaken. Those who say that evolution has fully explained how all species have a common descendent are just fooling themselves. I've already explained this.

You will likely simply offer proof of what I already consider proven. You will not touch the subject I am really discussing.

 

Life took Billions of years to develop after the Big Bang Event.....and this was achieved through QUANTUM EVOLUTION.

There is little difference between the inanimate and animate....or to be more precise there is little difference between what is alive and what is not alive.

EVERYTHING....and I mean everything is comprised upon it's smallest and most basic level of Quantum Particle/Wave Forms....and this means EVERYTHING that is alive or not alive.

The ONLY difference between something that is alive or not alive is MOLECULAR COMPLEXITY.

In order for even the simplest Molecule to form or even an Atom....we must look at Quantum Evolution.

The Big Bang is also known as a WHITE HOLE....which is a emerging ejecta point creating a new Universal Reality that is connected on the other end to a Black Hole.

What is initially ejected from a White Whole is at first PURE ENERGY in the form of Quantum Particle/Wave Forms. Then this Quanta existing at an infinitely high energy state begins to create Space-Time which in turn creates Multidimensionality.

Since Quantum Particle/Wave Forms can exist at all positions SIMULTANEOUSLY upon their wavelength as they exist as both Particle and wave....the very moment Universal Expansion begins this causes such Quanta to group and align into Hadrons....and at first only Protons which then become a single Proton Atomic Nucleus surrounded by a single Electron Orbital Field as an electron is also a Quantum Particle/Wave Form.

Within the Proton exists a variety of Quantum Particle/Wave Forms such as Quarks, Gluons, Leptons, Mesons and the Higgs-Boson which this Higgs-Boson is responsible for giving Hadrons....which are both Protons and Neurons...but at this point only Protons exist.....the Higgs gives all Hadrons the ability to obtain mass.

At the point there exists Hydrogen Atoms which now exist as H2....an Elemental Molecule of 2 Hydrogen Atoms sharing an orbit of 2 electrons as 2 electrons in the first orbit is a full and stable orbit....at this point H2 has Mass and GRAVITY is created AS ANY PARTICLE OF MASS OR GROUP OF PARTICLES will warp space-time which is what Gravity is.

Thus Gravity causes the H2 to collect into vast groups and will eventually form groups so large that they will pass a specific Space-Time Gravitational Compression Threshold and self ignite via FUSION....and become a star....those grouping smaller than this threshold become planets.

Stars will then Fuse Hydrogen into Helium which is 2 Protons....2 Neutrons and 2 Electrons. As well the star will create all light elements up to Iron....all Heavy Elements such as Gold, Lead, Uranium are created from Stellar Supernova.

At this point heavy elements combined with at the time gaseous planets and then rocky planets form....Molecules form through Chemical Reactions driven by electrical charges and UV-Radiation.

Water exists in the frozen form of ice all throughout the solar system in the form of billions upon billions of comets which impact Earth and form the oceans...Mars also had vast oceans but lost them when it's liquid metal spinning core cooled to the point it could no longer spin thus no longer maintain a protective Electromagnetic Field allowing in Solar and Cosmic Radiation which spit H20 into Gaseous Hydrogen and Oxygen which was lost into space.

On Earth....Molecular Formation continued due to environment and conditions and material and eventually long chain Molecular Amino Acids formed and then DNA and RNA and then the FIRST VIRUS.

Now a Virus is NOT ALIVE...but it has DNA and RNA and shows just how close the non-living is to life.

Then Molecular complexity of DNA and RNA formed the first LIVING SINGLE CELLED ORGANISM....which of course though what would now be BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION....evolve into all life upon Earth.

AboveAlpha

 

Hold on.

Did you just claim to prove how life formed from non-living elements? Did you gloss over how "certain environmental conditions" happened to be able to form complex lines of code which we know as RNA and DNA?

When the Law of Entropy demands that time logs decay, and not order?



And - while we're at it, since you seem to persist on pushing the notion of multi (read: infinite) dimensionality - please describe to me the dimension where there is a God who Created Everything, and you're FOS.

 

AGAIN....I ask you...what in particular are you stating that has changed about Evolution?

AboveAlpha

 

As to your first question we KNOW that through Quantum Evolution what was once Molecular Inanimate material evolved upon a Quantum Level and became LIFE.

We KNOW this because VIRUSES exist.

A virus has DNA and RNA just like all living things but it is NOT LIVING! It is just one small step below life upon a Quantum and Molecular Level and it's very existence is proof of Genesis through Quantum Evolution.

As to your second question....it is entirely possible a GOD exists....but is also entirely possible a GOD does not exist...no proof exists either way.

However probability exists at an extremely high level in favor of non-existence and a very low level of existence.

AboveAlpha

 

It would be more simple to list what hasn't changed. For starters: do you believe that birds evolved from dinosaurs?

I'm about to shut it down for the night, so I'll just cut to the chase and leave you a link to have you read on the subject. It was previously "common knowledge" that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Then...not so much.

There are myriad examples of this sort of backtracking.

What I find is the most important change to evolution science - which is taking place in real time - is James Shapiro's discovery regarding a 'Genetic Cellular Intelligence'. Simply summed, it means that cellular evolution has not been a random mutation, it has been a specifically engineered - at the cellular level - adaptive process based upon environmental stimulus.

Read: no 'Natural Selection'.

You'll have to read his white papers; it's too much to put here.

Now, here's the interesting part. He understands the explosive nature of his discoveries; he understands how and why it blows Darwinian Evolutionary Theory to smithereens. Intelligent Design advocates have absolutely FLOCKED to him, pleading with him to shed the appearances of secularism and admit what he really thinks about this topic.

But he's a smart guy. He knows how political this topic is; how loaded his answers on the topic will be. The spirit of the conflict - and how he's traversing the tightrope - is reflected in this piece on Shapiro's research. Of course his discovery begs for an answer beyond pure chance and randomness.

Of course. And that just blows up any attempt by secularists to co-opt Evolutionary study for the purpose of disproving a need for God.

 

James Shapiro's work is absolute unscientific nonsense upon every level.

There is not one single point or claim he has made that he can either provide proof or data.

You are reading B.S. from a B.S. Artist.

Evolution is a concrete fact.

AboveAlpha

 

If I allow that assertion to stand, it remains meaningless to your overall premise. What we don't know is if such a mechanism required an All-Seeing Eye to take place.

I don't think you're addressing what I'm addressing.

I think evidence exists, which is what we're discussing. While the Law of Entropy demands that all matter reduces to chaos, evolution itself demands - and displays - the opposite. I think Shapiro's discoveries beg the need for the complex order of Intent.

Which requires a Sentient Being.

You'll have to do way better than simply offering one of your articles of faith with this statement of probability, because - as you and I both know - you have absolutely no way of supporting it.

- - - Updated - - -

You'd better figure out who James Shapiro is. He is a highly regarded genetic scientist.

 

James Shapiro gets evolution wrong again

When is PuffHo going to realize that they’re publishing criticisms of evolutionary biology that are deeply misguided? Do they have no worries about misleading the public with bad science?

I refer to the recurring posts of my Chicago colleague James Shapiro, who is making a PuffHo blogging career out of attacking “neoDarwinism,” the modern theory of evolution. Not that we haven’t a lot to learn yet about evolution, but Shapiro has repeatedly been going after the importance of natural selection (see screenshot below) without offering a viable alternative. That is, Shapiro sees organisms as “self organizing” units controlled by “natural genetic engineering”, which of course doesn’t explain in the slightest why those organisms are adapted to their environments.

I almost don’t have the heart to criticize his latest piece, “Why the ‘gene’ concept holds back evolutionary thinking“, except that there may be some people out there (including the science editor of PuffHo) who think that Shapiro’s lucubrations are scientifically supported. They aren’t: they’re the misguided ideas of a contrarian who thinks that he alone has the key to overturning the modern theory of evolution.

Now we do know a lot more about the genome than we did when Beadle and Tatum proposed their “one gene/one enzyme hypothesis.” We know now that there are more than just protein-producing units in the DNA: there are parts of those units that regulate their expression (though this was posited by Jacob and Monod in the early Sixties), there are non-coding regions within genes (“introns&#8217 that get snipped out, there are “transcription factors” (protein-producing genes) that regulate the expression of many other genes (e.g., Hox genes), and now we know that there are “microRNAs”, small molecules that serve to shut off genes.

In other words, we’re starting to learn how genes (originally defined as “stretches of DNA that make proteins&#8221 are regulated, and the definition of a “gene” has become somewhat blurry. But I still don’t see the harm in using its original definition so long as we realize that the genome comprises much more than just protein-coding units. (The ENCODE project, however, has drastically oversold the notion that what we thought of as “useless” DNA is really functional. There’s still a lot of junk in our genome that doesn’t seem to do anything.)

Anyway, Shapiro’s point is that our modern understanding of how genomes are constructed and regulated when building organisms has completely overturned the modern theory of evolution—including the importance of natural selection—by making the notion of a “gene” fuzzier.

He’s wrong, and he’s wrong because he doesn’t seem to understand how evolution works.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/james-shapiro-gets-evolution-wrong-again/

James Shapiro has an agenda...and he is laughable at best.

AboveAlpha

 

Then you can provide proof correct?

I don't follow your logic of hung being stationary. A disco ball is hung from a ceiling and rotates.

The word translated "circle" here is the Hebrew word "chuwg" which is also translated "circuit" or "compass" depending on context. That is, it indicates something spherical or rounded or arched, not something that is flat or square.

 

Has the "missing link" been found yet? Get back to me when they do. According to evolution theory, a single celled amoeba "miraculously" came to life to become an intelligent human being. Sounds about as plausible as the Biblical creationism belief. Believing in the "intelligent design" belief, or a supernatural being most refer to as God gives me more hope of a life after this physical life. What hope does the theory of evolution provide?

 

Of evolution? Obviously. DNA evidence, morphological evidence, geological distribution, observed examples of evolutution in the lab and outside of it. Which would you prefer?

Yes, but the Earth isn't just spinning, it is orbitting the sun at 100,000 km/h, and we are moving through the Universe at an astounding 2.1 million km/hr. There is no hanging going on. The Bible portrays the Earth as completely stationary and the center of the Universe. It isn't.

Yeah, well "chuwg" is translated to circle here, and a circle is a flat two-dimensional space. Seems the Bible isn't as scientific as you think it is, or pretend it to be.

 

Missing links is a misnomer by people who don't understand that every species is constantly in transition from one form to another.

No, it isn't.

Sure, if you describe it incredibly inaccurately and in a silly fashion, then it will be innacurate and silly.

Hope and truth are exclusive terms. Just because a belief gives you hope doesn't make it true.

 

That isn't how science works. You called his work in an earlier post a "discovery". It isn't. It is a hypothesis about how evolution works. It hasn't been accepted by the vast majority of anyone because his work isn't peer-reviewed; he instead decided to write a book about it. Also, you're referencing a man who 1) Has denounced intelligent design and 2) Agrees that evolution is a real and demonstrable process. Maybe you should be careful about this reference if you're trying to disprove evolution in any way, shape, or form.

 

Not sure why you responded to my post with this long ass theory, but it is completely unrelated to what I was talking about. I guess professor types just have a need to pontificate. I was merely refuting the notion, put forth by Quantumhead (funny name, it implies a submicroscopic brain) that "Abiogenesis is a dead theory". Now putting aside the question of whether that statement was a play on words, I was just pointing out that in order for abiogenesis to be false, life must have always existed, right from the beginning. Not even 1 second after the Big Bang.

But since you put so much effort into your post, I will respond to it. Now, I'm open to the idea of multidimensionality, but as I understand it, the only real evidence for it is that we need extra dimensions in order for the math of string theory to work. That is not convincing. It seems to me that the white hole could just be the exit point of a wormhole whose black hole comes from the same dimensional situation which we have, but outside our universe, such that our "universe" and the "universe" of the black hole are actually separated by the chaos which lies between "universes". I hope that was clear. I mean that we could be separated by a huge distance, not by dimensions, from the originating black hole. Either way, its not really an explanation of the origin of "stuff", just an explanation for its distribution into what we call our universe.