What they won't say about Evolution.

Originally posted by Fortinbras
I have heard some say that the fossil evidence was placed in the soil by Satan in order to lead people astray. Now, that is one big helluva stretch.

Yeah I heard a lot too, but fortunately most christians are not that retarded.

Amantine, let me put it to words very simply.
If abiogenesis is wrong, then both creationists and evolutionists would be right, making this thread absolete. (evolutionsist vs creationists)
I'm sure you will once again point out that evolution does not have to be about how it all started, but because creationism is about how it all started, a creationism vs evolution discussion only makes sense if you look at evolution as a reason for life, instead of just a reason for changing life.

Originally posted by amantine
Why do you think that microevolution in different environments with isolated populations can't lead to two different species (= macroevolution)?

It has never been observed or explained. However, intelligent genetic manipulation, has been demonstrated, and even in your store ion the corner, they prolly have a wide variety of new humancreated species of plants etc. Why is this so hard to understand. A genome is an incredibly influct code, and for a creator to throw away the old old specie completely before starting programming a new genome, well, it would be incredibly inefficient and directly silly. A Creator will most likely continue to build and devellop existing genomes. This just doesn't happen by itself. It has never been observed. But like I said, Creation has been prooved, tested and tested again. Man has created new species using technology. Nature has never shown any proofs of this, that it has happened by itself. The only thing we can proove is possible, is Creation. So what do you have to say in your defence Amantine?

Evolutionary belief is a remarkable and largely unexplained phenomenon. It is a belief held by most intellectuals all over the world, despite the fact that there is no real scientific evidence for it at all. Evolutionists allege that evolution is a proved scientific fact, based on a multitude of scientific proofs, but they are unable to document even one of these supposed proofs.

The lack of a case for evolution is most clearly recognized by the fact that no one has ever seen it happen. Horizontal variations" (e.g., the different varieties of dogs) are not real evolution, of course, nor are "mutations," which are always either neutral or harmful, as far as all known mutations are concerned. A process which has never been observed to occur, in all human history, should not be called scientific.

Charles Darwin is popularly supposed to have solved the problem of "the origin of species," in his famous 1859 book of that title. However, as the eminent Harvard biologist, Ernst Mayr, one of the nation's top evolutionists, has observed:

Darwin never really did discuss the origin of species in his On the Origin of Species.

Not only could Darwin not cite a single example of a new species originating, but neither has anyone else, in all the subsequent century of evolutionary study.
It is also a very curious fact that no one understands how evolution works. Evolutionists commonly protest that they know evolution is true, but they can't seem to determine its mechanism. One would think that in the 125 years following Darwin, with thousands trained biologists studying the problem and using millions of dollars worth of complex lab equipment, they would have worked it out by now, but the mechanism which originates new species is still the central mystery.
It used to be claimed that the best evidence for evolution was the fossil record, but the fact is that the billions of known fossils have not yet yielded a single unequivocal transitional form with transitional structures in the process of evolving. This ubiquitous absence of intermediate forms is true not only for "major morphologic transitions," but even for most species. As a result, many modern evolutionists agree with the following assessment:

In any case, no real evolutionist uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation

Not only are there no true transitional forms in the fossils; there is not even any general evidence of evolutionary progression in the actual fossil sequences. The superficial appearance of an evolutionary pattern in the fossil record has actually been imposed on it by the fact that the rocks containing the fossils have themselves been "dated" by their fossils.

The basic reason why there is no scientific evidence of evolution in either the present or the past is that the law of increasing entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, contradicts the very premise of evolution. The evolutionist assumes that the whole universe has evolved upward from a single primeval particle to human beings, but the second law (one of the best-proved laws of science) says that the whole universe is running down into complete disorder. Evolutionists commonly attempt to sidestep this question by asserting that the second law applies only to isolated systems. But this is wrong. Entropy can be forced to decrease in an open system, if enough organizing energy and information is applied to it from outside the system. This externally introduced complexity would have to be adequate to overcome the normal internal increase in entropy when raw energy is added from outside. However, no such external source of organized and energized information is available to the supposed evolutionary process. Raw solar energy is not organized information.

The existence of similarities between organisms--whether in external morphology or internal biochemistry--is easily explained as the Creator's design of similar systems for similar functions, but such similarities are not explicable by common evolutionary descent.

The old arguments for evolution based on the recapitulation theory (the idea that embryonic development in the womb recapitulates the evolution of the species) and vestigial organs ("useless" organs believed to have been useful in an earlier stage of evolution) have long been discredited.

Evolutionist, however continue to believe in their religion no matter what proof is found against it.

It has been observed that microevolution can lead to new species in nature: Observed instances of specification and Some more specification examples. In my opinion this is strong evidence for macroevolution, because it shows microevolution, which nobody really doubts anymore, can lead to macroevolution.

Several speciation events have also been seen in laboratory populations of houseflies, gall former flies, apple maggot flies, flour beetles, Nereis acuminata (a worm), mosquitoes, and various other insects. Green algae and bacteria have been classified as speciated due to change from unicellularity to multicellularity and due to morphological changes from short rods to long rods, all the result of selection pressures.

I also found a copy of Fujiyama 2002 in the university library:

The BESs mapped with high confidence were used to calculate the difference between the chimpanzee and human genomes at the nucleotide level. The number of sites in valid alignments (nucleotide sites that have PHRED quality values q >= 30) was 19,813,086. Out of this number, 19,568,394 sites were identical to their human counterparts for a mean percent identity of 98.77. This value is consistent with previous observations; however, our calculation comes from a much larger random comparison of slightly less than 1% of the total genome.

I also found the 48.6% number, but even my knowledge has its limits; I'm ashamed to admit I don't know the difference between BESs and BACs.

We found that 48.6% of the whole human genome was covered by the chimpanzee BACs (Table 2). One of the reasons for this apparently low coverage is that we used rather stringent conditions for the calculation; that is, BAC clones were incorporated into the calculation only when they had two sequenced ends in the same NT contig with the correct orientation. Probably because the orientation of draft sequences within the NT contig is sometimes incorrect, 70% of the total paired ends fit the condition. The coverage for chromosomes 14, 20, 21, and 22 was substantially higher. This difference correlates closely with the quality of the human genome sequences used as reference where finished chromosomes and those with longer contigs display higher BAC coverage.

I am thinking of giving up. I gave examples of transistional fossils, I gave examples of microevolution, I gave examples of DNA evidence, I gave examples of specification and I tried to respond to all your questions. I admit that evolution may need some minor changes and that abiogenesis has a long way to go (which any scientist will admit), but I think there's too much evidence to discard it totally. I have a feeling that my posts get ignored sometimes and I don't like it when someone says there is no evidence for evolution after all I've said. Maybe I'll make a post summarizing everything I've said.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by amantine]

Like I said in my first post in this topic, to all of you who denies creation and says it can't be proven. It has been prooved, and it is being proved again and again right now, in labs, on corn fields and tomato gardens all over the world. And have I told you about skunk? Skunk is a kind of pot/weed/canabis which is human made. Many of the motherplants trace their descendance back to the fifties and the sixties infact. We are talking about a completely new species or sub species here. Classes even. And when they use cotton genes to make better corn, it's the same this, humans change the genetic code of the species so it's not really the same species anylonger. So cut the crap. It's not whether Creation can be proved. Creation has been proved. The question is whether Evolution can come up with similar results and examples. The answer is: NO.

Mike

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Camelop�rdalis]

The problem with the Evolution theory is that it relies on new science. But although there are many things with holes in now, a lot of things get explained and proven every day.
It must be realised that man's time on this planet has been very, very short and his technology for discovering things about his world has only just been created.

Darwin relied on theory but modern science has the backup of technology. Although it has been proven that there are flaws in the argument, logic and technology actually dictates that evolution did have a part to play in the creation of the world.
We know from our own records that man himself is still evolving. For example, you today would look different from a human 200 years ago - modern man is a lot taller than his previous counterpart.
We are also affected by our changing environment. You only need to look at different cultures to see how the people there have naturally adapted and turned out differently to those who have been exposed to different environments.

In my opinion, the creationist theory does not hold water. Taken in the context of the times that it was written, it is a substitute for the unexplainable. Science was not available and man had to have a theory to explain why he was walking the planet. A whole bunch of legends were almagamated from different beliefs and they culminated in the creationist theory that exists in the modern day Bible.

By the way Camelop�rdalis. Your creationist theory seems to rely entirely on the ability to clone. May I just remind you that cloning is not the creation of life.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Leveller]

Originally posted by BlackJackal
The basic reason why there is no scientific evidence of evolution in either the present or the past is that the law of increasing entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, contradicts the very premise of evolution. The evolutionist assumes that the whole universe has evolved upward from a single primeval particle to human beings, but the second law (one of the best-proved laws of science) says that the whole universe is running down into complete disorder. Evolutionists commonly attempt to sidestep this question by asserting that the second law applies only to isolated systems. But this is wrong. Entropy can be forced to decrease in an open system, if enough organizing energy and information is applied to it from outside the system. This externally introduced complexity would have to be adequate to overcome the normal internal increase in entropy when raw energy is added from outside. However, no such external source of organized and energized information is available to the supposed evolutionary process. Raw solar energy is not organized information.

I choose to attack only this point of your post at the moment, I still have a lot of school to do. Don't worry, I'll talk about the rest later.

Your interpretation of the second law does not agree with the evidence. Your version is Entropy can be forced to decrease in an open system, if enough organizing energy and information is applied to it from outside the system. CMBR shows that the universe was once full of a isomorphic gas. Gravity caused this gas to contract into stars. Did the entropy of the universe increase? Yes, but locally the entropy decreased. Was there any organizing energy and information applied? No, that is not necessary.

The same exchange of increasing entropy elsewhere to decrease entropy in a certain place also happens when you build a house. You increase the entropy elsewhere by burning oil and eating food, but you decrease the entropy in another place.

In the sun at the moment the entropy increases. This allows the entropy to decrease in another place (for example on earth, by life), because the entire entropy of a closed system like the universe must always increase. Entropy, Disorder and Life

The problem is that people seem to think the 2nd law means that no order can appear from disorder. This is not true in nature (source):

However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?

Oh, and Camelop�rdalis, genetic engineering adds genes from other organisms into the genomes of a certain organism. If there was no evolution, those different genes would never exist, we would still have the same organism. We would also expect genes with similar function to be the same in different organisms, but this is not the case (look at my figures for cytochrome c and hemoglobin differences). You can only explain these differences if you allow microevolution in your theory. This in my opinion automatically also leads to macroevolution (see the posts with examples of specification). Your theory of genetic engineering gods can only work with evolution.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by amantine]

Are you people even reading amantine's posts? Or any of the posts from people you disagree with?

As previously stated, if you wish to discuss Evolution on a Scientific level, you are required to A) Know the very basics, the Scientific Method for example. and B) actually pay attention to what others are saying. Instead of making the exact same points over and over in half a dozen different wordings. Read the posts and links supplied by people showing you the answers to your questions.

A note to the few people that asked earlier in the life of this thread why it is in the Religion forum and not the Science forum. This is exactly why, because inevitably in these arguments, there is an influx of people completely unfamiliar with science, or even basic board courtesy. They prefer to wallow in their own ignorance, all the while repeating the same mantras without even looking into them.

Well, biologists at the University of California have uncovered the first genetic evidence that explains how large-scale alterations to body plans were accomplished during the early evolution of animals. The achievement is a landmark in evolutionary biology, not only because it shows how new animal body plans could arise from a simple genetic mutation, but because it effectively answers a major criticism creationists had long leveled against evolution...the absence of a genetic mechanism that could permit animals to introduce radical new body designs.

ucsdnews.ucsd.edu...
www.kaumudiusa.com...
nai.arc.nasa.gov...

I guess that just kind of blows the theory "We are talking about a completely new species or sub species here. Classes even." Your theory hinges on the fact that this cannot happen by evolution.

Seems to be a bit more practical than "faith". Faith that an incredibly powerful sentient being, existing outside of space and time as we understand them, created the known universe, employing methods and satisfying motives that are as yet unknown to us, and written about in a book which could possibly be fiction.

Originally posted by Leveller
By the way Camelop�rdalis. Your creationist theory seems to rely entirely on the ability to clone. May I just remind you that cloning is not the creation of life.

I'm not talking about cloning here. I'm talking about modifying a genome so it in fact becomes a whole new species. Gene manipulation. Genetic engeneering. Not simply copying and pasting. But even to some extent writing. they are basically tearing appart the genomes turning them into jigsaw puzzles, and they may take one piece from let's say cotton, and transfer it to corn, thereby changing the genetic code of the new corn cob, turning it in to a super veggie.

You know. They are already talking about replacing pills and traditional medicines in the future, by engeneering and changing let's say make a new kind of banana, which is blue, bends the other way, and has "natural" antibiotica within it's genetic structure. Perhaps even specially designed for the patient.

I am talking about how Creation has been proved, nothing else.

Originally posted by Kano
As previously stated, if you wish to discuss Evolution on a Scientific level, you are required to .....

And Kano, I would also like to remind you which forum this discussion is in. Yep, that's right, in the Religious forum. And Creation science, doesnot just encompass biology and genetics, but also the creation of the elements and so on. Your constant nagging about abiogenesis not being relative to the discussion, it's straight out wrong. Creation is science and technology. Things we can understand. We need complex machinery to design complex things. And beauty alone should be enough proof that the lifeforms are created. Where are all the fossils of the deformed blobs? Well, Creation is possible, it has been prooved, observed, doublechecked, it has even reached our stores and entered the foodchain. What Macro evolutionists can't proove, we have already proven. What do you say the day you get apples with banana flavour and small genetically engeneered patterns let's say chess inspired black and white finish? Perhaps even with famous draws? How would you be able to prove anything like that using evolution?

This is a religious debate. Since it is in the Religion forum, and for once there are actually people who are able to explain using the tongue of science, why the macropart of evolution is plain wrong. How abiogenesis is dead wrong. And if you need a Creator to make the first cell, wouldn't it be correct to assume that he would perhaps also go on from there, improving, develloping, CREATING. And a being able to create life, has also probably managed to sustain his own, making him eternal and untouchable, governing Time Space. Life. Existance. Energy. Balance. Even Chaos.

Originally posted by Camelop�rdalis
I am talking about how Creation has been proved, nothing else.

Because we are learning to fiddle with genes means creation has been proven? That is one of the most amazingly stupid things I have ever read.

Firstly, 'Creation' is not a single theory about Abiogenesis, it is an entire story about 'God' making the Universe (as it is) in 7 days. Hardly the same as science working on genetic modification and creating viruses from scratch.

Secondly, if we did take it to mean Creation has been proven. That means we are basically now equivalent to God. Quite impressive really.

Thirdly, it simply re-raises the original question, where did God come from? If we are now equivalent to God, and are able to create new races offhand. We are their god, but we know we didn't create ourselves. So who created us, and who created them? Somewhere there has to be a beginning.

(Or is it just turtles, all the way down?)

And Kano, just one more thing.

And I'll make sure to write it over a couple of lines.

Amantine,

I have pointed out earlier in the topic that you are not able to use the sun's increasing entropy to support the earths increasing entropy because The ultraviolet light coming from the sun is deadly and destructive, certainly not constructive the way that it would have to be to be in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thus life is only possible because of the ozone layer which prevents UV light from reaching the earth and because of the existence of photosynthesis of green plants, neither of which would have existed on a hypothetical primitive earth.

Originally posted by Kano

Originally posted by Camelop�rdalis
I am talking about how Creation has been proved, nothing else.

Because we are learning to fiddle with genes means creation has been proven? That is one of the most amazingly stupid things I have ever read.

When a team of geneticists, merely fiddling with their inventions, let's say a blue corncob with fur which smells of roses and helps against constapation, in a couple of years time, patented and all, and working. This is actually not as absurd as it may sound. When he stands there and has accomplished that. When they finally figure out which gene the pig needs, in order for the scientists to modify its genetic srtucture, so it's internal organs are compatible with humans, thus solving the extreme need for donors, which in its turn lead to much terrible crime and unfairness. When these things are virtually here now, it's just a question of time, they basically know what to do, they only need to find stuff. And that takes time. Time they can use to fiddle further to make potatoes which grows to full size in two days. Sounds alot like a Donald Duck story, but this is soon reality. Well in many ways it is already reality.

[Edited on 11-5-2004 by Camelop�rdalis]

So how does that possibly by any stretch of the imagination come close to proving Creation?

By this logic we can say 'now that we have invented thermonuclear weapons, that proves god made the sun and all the stars'. What sort of gutter logic is that?

ZeddicusZulZorander,
Thank You for the links however, there is no observational data in those articles just theoretical. As I have said before and discussed with Amantine mutations are almost always harmful yet sometimes neutral and for a mutation to bring about a large scale change it has some major hurdles in its way.

Mutation as a mechanism for evolution is pretty much dead because of two premises: that mutations are almost always harmful, and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity. These are two sides of the same coin, actually, the latter arguing from principle and the former from empirical observation.

Rarely, though, do arguments against mutation as the mechanism for evolution consider at once the many conditions that must be met if mutation is to bring about macro-evolutionary change (that is, change from one basic kind of life to another). Yet examining the probabilities of these conditions all being met together provides excellent evidence against evolution and in favor of creation.

There are 9 conditions that must be met for a mutation to bring about a macro-evolutionary change

Geneticist R.H. Byles has made the job easy for me by discussing nine important conditions in an article on the subject in "Limiting Conditions for the Operation of the Probable Mutation Effect" in the magazine Social Biology

1. Natural Environment


Byles's first condition is: "Natural selection must be inconsequential at the locus or loci under investigation." This is because natural selection tends to work against fixation of mutations--in other words, it tends to prevent their becoming a permanent part of the gene pool of a population. Natural selection keeps things stable rather than helping them to change. B. Clarke points out that even so-called advantageous mutations are harmful in that, because of increased competition, they can reduce population size, making their fixation nearly impossible. He adds that they will almost certainly lead to extinction of the mutant gene or organism, and possibly even the entire population.
2. No Structural Change


Byles's second condition is: "There must be no pleiotropic effect involved with the locus or loci, or, if such effect exists, all the phenotypic structures involved must be selectively neutral." This means that there either must be no changes in physical structure involved, or they must be selectively neutral. If none are involved, then of course evolution does not occur. But if only those occur that are selectively neutral, then they are of no advantage to the mutant and survival of the fittest does not affect it or its non-mutant relatives; again, no evolution.


Not only would mutations that met this condition appear to contribute little or nothing to evolution, but also they would appear never to happen--or nearly never, anyway. G. Ledyard Stebbins tells us that within the gene there is no such thing as an inactive site at which a mutation will not affect the adaptive properties of the gene. "Every character of an organism is affected by all genes," writes Ernst Mayr, "and every gene affects all characters. It is this interaction that accounts for the closely knit functional integration of the genotype as a whole."

In other words, there may well be no such thing as a mutation having no structural change in the organism. Yet Byles says that a requirement for the fixation of a mutation is that it have none, or that the effect it has must be selectively neutral. Neither case appears ever to happen, and even if the latter did, it would not lead to macro-evolution since it would leave the mutant no more "fit" than any of its relatives. Indeed it would probably be less "fit" because of the tendency of natural selection to weed out rather than preserve mutations in a gene pool.

3. Net Effect Must be Unidirectional


Byles's third condition is: ". . . the mutational event must be recurrent and, furthermore, the rate of back mutation must be so small as to be irrelevant." Byles himself admits, though, that even recurrent mutations are almost never retained in the population: ". . . non-recurrent mutations have a very low probability of remaining in the genepool at all . . . the odds against a recurrent mutation being retained in the gene pool for any significant number of generations are very high." And even "most recurrent mutations have been observed to retain the potential for back mutation." It seems that neither part of his third condition will be fulfilled; yet Byles makes it clear in his article that all the conditions must be fulfilled in order for mutations to be fixed in a population.

4. High Mutation Rate


Byles's fourth condition is: "The mutation rate at the relevant locus or loci must be very large." Yet Francisco Ayala says, "It is probably fair to estimate the frequency of a majority of mutations in higher organisms between one in ten thousand and one in a million per gene per generation."

Byles himself comments on Lerner's estimate of one hundred mutations per one million gametes (one in ten thousand). "Obviously, a mutation rate this small, even given a complete absence of back mutation (which appears never to occur), would result in a very small change in a given gene pool, even given large numbers of generations. This has long been considered one of the major stumbling blocks to the [Probably Mutation Effect] . . . In order for the P.M.E. to be effective, very high mutation rates are clearly necessary."

So it appears that this condition, too, is likely never met in nature.

5. Large Population


Byles's fifth condition is that the population involved must be large. He stipulates this because small populations can easily be destroyed by a mutation. And, as population size decreases, the probability that a mutation will be eliminated increases.

Dobzhansky, Hecht, and Steers, however, postulate that a small population with much inbreeding is important: ". . . the ideal conditions for rapid evolution . . . are provided by a species which is divided into a number of small local sub-populations that are nearly but not completely isolated and small enough so that a moderate degree of inbreeding takes place. . . . The division of a species into two or more subspecies is of course dependent on complete isolation being achieved in some way."

It seems that evolutionists themselves have realized a great problem but are unable to deal with it. In a small population, a mutation will almost certainly be eliminated. Yet a small population is needed for evolution to occur. Here indeed is an impasse. But the problem gets worse.

Byles adds (in contradiction of Dobzhansky, Hecht, and Steere), "If the investigator is dealing with a population which is undergoing contact with genetically dissimilar neighbors, the effect of the mutation is inevitably so minor as to be undetectable. Therefore, to argue that mutation is the cause of change in the population's genetic structure, one must also of necessity argue that this population is not undergoing a process of hybridization." In other words, if the population is large, the effect of the mutation is almost nil. Even when Byles's condition is met, then, the effects of the mutations are almost zero on the entire population. And, furthermore, while Dobzhansky, Hecht, and Steere say some interbreeding between dissimilar populations is necessary, Byles says it is death to evolutionary change.

6. Selective Neutrality of Polygenes


Byles's sixth condition is: "Polygenes are not relevant to this argument, unless the entire anatomical complex is itself selectively neutral." This means that for organisms of many genes, the mutation cannot be fixed unless the whole anatomical structure of the organism is selectively neutral relative to the gene which mutates. That this does not occur was shown in our discussion of the second condition.

7. Little Hybridization


Byles's seventh condition is: "There must be little or no hybridizing admixture." This of course is to avoid making the mutation itself insignificant. But if the effect is actually significant, then this contradicts his second condition, which was that the mutation must cause no significant structural change (see under point 2 above). Furthermore, the only way in which to have no hybridizing admixture is to have a small population that is isolated from others of the same kind. This contradicts his fifth condition. If the population is small, the probability of a mutant gene's being eliminated rises steeply.

This seventh condition, if fulfilled, makes evolution impossible because the mutation would not be retained due to the necessarily small population. But if unfulfilled, it leaves evolution impossible due to the insignificance of the effect of the mutation.

8. Necessity of High Penetrance


Byles's eighth condition is: "The genetic structures involved must have high 'penetrance.'" Put simply, this means that the genes must be highly susceptible to mutation. It thus means almost the same as Condition Four.

Yet it occasions another problem. As soon as the structure becomes highly susceptible to mutation, it must also become highly susceptible to back mutation. But his third condition states that the rate of back mutation must be irrelevant. Again there is contradiction: fulfill Condition Eight and you can't fulfill Condition Three. Fulfill Condition Three and you can't fulfill Condition Eight. Yet Byles says that all of the conditions must be fulfilled for mutation fixation to occur; and without mutation fixation there is no macro-evolution.

9. High Heritability


Byles's ninth condition is: "The phenotype must have high heritability." This condition is almost never met for mutational phenotypes. Byles himself told us that the probability of retaining even a recurring mutation is "very low."

It appears that the probability of meeting any one of these conditions in nature is extremely low, if not non-existent. Recall now that the fifth and seventh conditions effectively cancel each other out, as do the third and eighth, and we are forced to the conclusion that it is impossible to meet all the conditions. Mutation cannot be the mechanism for macro-evolution.


[Edited on 11-5-2004 by BlackJackal]

Originally posted by BlackJackal
Amantine,

I have pointed out earlier in the topic that you are not able to use the sun's increasing entropy to support the earths increasing entropy because The ultraviolet light coming from the sun is deadly and destructive, certainly not constructive the way that it would have to be to be in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thus life is only possible because of the ozone layer which prevents UV light from reaching the earth and because of the existence of photosynthesis of green plants, neither of which would have existed on a hypothetical primitive earth.

Does salt water no longer block ultraviolet? The first organisms probably lived in water: (source).

Just above the visible in the ultraviolet, the absorption of water increases by nine orders of magnitude, adding to our protection against ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

At a depth were the amount of ultraviolet is no longer dangerous, there is still enough light for photosynthesis. Ultraviolet is in the region right of the visible light.


(Edit: fixed typo in the link's url)

[Edited on 12-5-2004 by amantine]

Originally posted by Kano
By this logic we can say 'now that we have invented thermonuclear weapons, that proves god made the sun and all the stars'. What sort of gutter logic is that?

Correct Kano!
We have also created fiction, so that proves that god is not real. Hmmm...sort of a circular arguement...