Simple Questions For Those Who Believe That Evolution Is The Answer For Everything

originally posted by: WarminIndy
Can you prove with observable and testable evidence of macro evolution? Yes or no.

You said

Thank you, that's all I was asking. You concede that it is not observable, therefore it is not testable, therefore it is not scientific method. That's what you concede.

I didn't say that. Someone else did.

What logic? The logical step you just gave me was this...

1: Species remain as species, no matter the adaptation.
2: Adaptation to other higher order organisms is never observed nor is it testable.
3: Because it is never observed nor is it testable in science,
4: You have to believe that it does.

No, I didn't say that. You are STILL dodging my request/question. Please explain why the culmination of many small processes cannot culminate into the larger process. If micro evolution and macro evolution are guided by the same processes and the only difference is scale, what is the barrier that prevents one from becoming another?

I don't care whether or not the video answers anything, what it did do was show the very ideas that you have presented, only adaptation within the species, which is mere variety.

I wanted you to show me that adaptation leads to higher order life. You can't demonstrate that, so you are only stuck at the variety level.

No, you were all over the map. I showed interspecies change and you got upset because it wasn't interorder change. That is moving the goalposts.

There is no evidence, no observation, nothing testable to support that claim. You tell me where the evidence is. But since it is supposed to a genetic change, then let's talk about genetics.

The question wasn't about evidence in the first place, but I DID show you evidence of interspecies change. Other posters have shown, and yet you STILL refuse to answer the question that I specifically asked. Instead you jump around the issue.

How do genes works

Each gene is just a recipe and that recipe means that it is making a specific cell.

But the genes in your DNA don't make protein directly. Instead, special proteins called enzymes read and copy (or "transcribe") the DNA code

This is information sharing in a network.

Ah, so it is information that is being shared and this information comes from somewhere. But what you have in chimpanzees and humans are two different sets of markers, the chromosomes are not equal. So the information in chimpanzees came from its parent and then from its parent, so forth.

So, the recipe transcribed is the same from generation to generation, at the species level. And here again, today's news about epigenetics

Ah, gene repression. What causes a gene to repress? They don't know yet, but if there is indeed gene repression, then that is one explanation for why macroevolution does not happen and why it is not observed.

And here is also why

None of those links disprove macro evolution. They all support it but are suggesting different ways that it occurs.

The enzymes keep restoring the mark. Gene repression and restoring marks along the chromosomes, that is one explanation against macroevolution. As microevolution occurs to make varieties, and that is dependent upon environment, the RNA passes the information to adapt, for the purpose of the species survival. But it never answers the question about where the information comes from in the first place. We know that for us, it is through sex and the development of a new life form, one that has all the genetic code for that particular species.

It doesn't need to answer the question of where the information came from originally. That isn't part of the theory of evolution. Science's working hypothesis for the origin of life is abiogenesis.

OK, so there is more to learn. But now you know, gene repression is active and the enzymes keep restoring the mark within the chromosome, so by essence keeps it as a species. Not seeing macroevolution much at work here. And this news is only 2 hours old at the time of this comment, so it is pretty new.

You are seeing things that aren't there.

a reply to: Astyanax

Was it Satan who provided all the 'evidence' that the Universe is immense, and billions of years old? Was it Satan who made the sky dark at night, and ordained that the speed of light in vacuo must be a constant?

I'm not sure, but have you read some of the Gnostic Creation stories lately? You might be surprised...

a reply to: WarminIndy

When you say change, you mean adaptation, right? Species "adapt" to their environment, correct?

Actually, no, I don't. I personally think the word 'adaptation' in this regard is sloppy and misleading. Too many lazy thinkers seem to interpret that word to mean that the individuals have somehow chosen to change, when all that has happened is that those individuals that can survive in a new environment survive, those that cannot, do not.

The population that once survived in a geographical location is a different population to the one that is surviving in the new environment.

More importantly however, if you insist on the word 'adapt' species DO NOT "adapt", the population "adapts". You can have MANY relatively isolated populations of the same species. If one population encounters some new environmental conditions that presents a survival challenge, it is only that population that will need to adapt. Populations of a single species that are isolated long enough and presented with enough survival challenges, MAY, over time, become separate species. Or not.

Adaptation is not complete change of the entire genome to accommodate a new genome.

Correct. It is a response to an environmental change. If the food supply for a population becomes poorer than it used to be, those individuals that can best live and reproduce using the poorer quality foods will have their DNA come to dominate the population.

I just saw a video of a biology professor who couldn't explain KINDS and said that people are fish.

The term "KINDS" is not a term used in Biology, it is a term used in the Bible, so I am not surprised, and you should not be either. The Bible doesn't define it either, so your preacher cannot explain it either. It is a loose term, open to anyone's interpretation, like the word 'bunch'. A 'bunch of guys' does not explain the number of guys in the bunch.

Would you care to elaborate on how humans are fish? This was a biology professor in a secular setting. If you want me to believe your side, show me the evidence that humans are fish.

No I would not care to elaborate on something so foolish. What are you talking about?

Humans are vertebrates, as are most fish, but that is about it.

Yes, you say it is for populations and yet can only say that for recent populations you have observed, but you still can't show evolution of one kind to another. Macro evolution has never been observed by anyone, and yet it is still being taught and all of this what you say is mere semantics.

I don't know what you mean by 'kind'. Do you mean one 'kind' of dog to another 'kind' of dog? That has certainly been observed (in most cases, but not all, that was of course by human selection). One 'kind' of fruit fly into another 'kind' of fruit fly; one 'kind' of finch into another 'kind' of finch? Absolutely these have all been observed.

When you say "kind" "species" "evolve" and all the catchwords, what you really are in essence merely saying is that every species adapts to their environment, because if you move individuals away from that environment, they can adapt to a new one. Isn't that what you are really saying?

No, not at all.

First, I don't use the word "kind", it is too imprecise for use. It is only used by people who insist on trying to get science to conform to their interpretation of the Bible.

Second, if you "move individuals (a population) away from an environment" (or more likely, the environment changes around them), some individuals may survive or none may survive. If some survive, and they reproduce, they pass on the genes that allowed them to survive; those that died will not pass on their DNA. When the first generation dies off, the resulting population has changed. Time (measured by generations) has passed and a changed has occurred. That is the definition of evolution - change over time. Of course that one change has very probably not made them a different species.

Importantly, those individuals that got moved, may very well NOT survive and the population does NOT adapt. Every species does not adapt to new environments.

But let's say this, if an individual did not adapt to the environment, what would happen? They would die. Therefore adaptation is at the individual level, because the ones who died don't breed and therefore no population.

For a population to adapt to a new environment some of the individuals in that population must have in its gene pool the necessary mutations to allow it to thrive in the new environment. The mutation does not occur in response to the new environment, some pre-existing mutation allows them to take advantage of the new environment. The mutation must have been added to the gene pool in some previous generation. This is the problem I have with the word 'adaptation' - it can too easily be misinterpreted to mean that the mutation follows the environmental change, which is exactly the opposite.

Suppose you have an animal that eats a certain kind of grass, lets call it a 'bandersnatch'. Then a fire comes through and destroys the grassland. When the land is repopulated, the grass is replaced by a less nutritious sedge. Our bandersnatch herd can't digest sedge. All the bandersnatches die and that is the end of that population (because there are other bandersnatches on the other side of the mountain those population are unaffected).

But suppose 25 generations ago, a cosmic ray zapped the DNA of a bandersnatches sperm cell just as he was getting jiggy with pretty young bandersnatch lady. The cosmic ray causes a small change in the DNA (a mutation) such that the offspring of that union can digest poorer grade plants, like sedges for example. 25 generation pass, and that mutated gene just sits there doing nothing in particular because there is plenty of the special bandersnatch grass that they love so well. After 25 generations, maybe 100 out of 1000 bandersnatches have the mutation.

So when the fires comes through, and the sedges are all there is to eat, it is those 100 bandersnatches that can thrive. It took 25 generations for the mutation to spread to 1 tenth of the population, but only 1 generation to go from 1 tenth to 100 percent.

They are not a new species yet - that will take many more of these events. They might still cross the mountain and mix with the other 'unaffected' populations there and find the original much more nourishing grass more to their liking. But that population, in that location, has adapted to that environment, but not the entire species.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Did you really just say this?

It doesn't need to answer the question of where the information came from originally. That isn't part of the theory of evolution.

I'm sorry, but it has everything to do with evolution, because what exactly is evolution? It means that an organism, through information, mutates along the chromosomes. Wait, isn't that how it is determined why you are related to globs of stuff floating in the pond? Yes, that is how it is determined.

How Genes Work

Now it is clear that genes are what carry our traits through generations and that genes are made of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). But genes themselves don't do the actual work. Rather, they serve as instruction books for making functional molecules such as ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins, which perform the chemical reactions in our bodies

Instruction books carry what? Information.

I think that you can't grasp the understanding that all phenotypical expressions are caused by gene expression, in the chromosomes.

Occasionally, there is a kind of typographical error in a gene's DNA sequence. This mistake— which can be a change, gap or duplication—is called a mutation.

A mutation can cause a gene to encode a protein that works incorrectly or that doesn't work at all. Sometimes, the error means that no protein is made.

Will you care to explain now how it has nothing to do with evolution?

But not all DNA changes are harmful. Some mutations have no effect, and others produce new versions of proteins that may give a survival advantage to the organisms that have them. Over time, mutations supply the raw material from which new life forms evolve (see Chapter 3, "Life's Genetic Tree").

Where does the information come from originally? Don't even tell me it is not part of evolution because it has everything to do with it, and just because you can't answer, don't say it isn't important. HOW did you arise from a single cell organism, from a non-living carbon molecule?

THAT is abiogenesis and if you go back through all the mutations, you have to reach a point of origin. That origin is non-living carbon molecules. I think you are in denial of the most fundamental question of all. Don't even worry about the rest of evolution later if this one thing cannot be resolved, but don't ever say it is not important, it has everything to do with it.

There are two major steps in making a protein. The first is transcription, where the information coded in DNA is copied into RNA. The RNA nucleotides are complementary to those on the DNA: a C on the RNA strand matches a G on the DNA strand.

Where does the information come from? Listen, if there were no information exchanges, you wouldn't be living at all right now. By what process did your species evolve from archaic humans? Through information along the chromosomes that led to phenotypical changes, from the genome. THAT is evolution.

A change in....what?

Led to a change in....what?

That became you....by what?

A change in the DNA led to a change in the genome that became you because the information was inherited, by you. Evolution.

So, where did the information come from?

a reply to: WarminIndy

You went off on a completely wrong tangent. The origin of life isn't important to the theory of evolution. I never said that it isn't important. The theory of evolution starts with the premise that life already exists. Abiogenesis is just one possible hypothesis (though it is gaining much traction as the most likely candidate).

I understand how genes work and about RNA and DNA. All of that validates evolution, so I'm not sure what your problem is. But I'm not going to answer any of your questions until you satisfy me with an answer on why many micro evolutions cannot add up to a macro evolution. Everything you say is true about micro evolution is true for macro evolution as well. So if you add up enough changes then it eventually becomes a new species, it's just inevitable. You can try to cherry pick various scientific articles and papers all you want for key phrases that you think validates your position, but you are ignoring the vast majority of what those articles and papers are saying for your quote mines.

a reply to: WarminIndy

So, it's all relative. And how does this play out in evolution? Given the fact that time is measured by linear standards, and evolution is considered linear, it takes no account of life and death cycles within lower forms of species.

I think you will find that with respect to evolution, biologists measure time in generations. What do you mean by 'lower forms of species'.

Hence, the life of the fruit fly is very short, it does not take 150 years to have 150 generations compared to the life of humans. And if you must account for the differences in life spans,

That is why time is measured in generations.

then some life forms would be born and die out before any evolutionary change from one species to a higher form can occur.

Sure that is possible. Depending on what exactly you mean by the terms 'born and die out' and 'higher' form. Is that a problem you think needs solving, or just a statement of fact.

Is a bird a 'higher' form than a dinosaur? Or is it just a 'different' form? Your use of the word 'Higher' and 'Lower' implies to me that you are thinking that there is a 'better' form for an organism to be in, perhaps an 'ultimate' evolutionary form.

Evolution doesn't have a 'goal' beyond the continuation of life. It is not 'directed' from 'lower' to 'higher'. Organisms change because the change allows them to better exploit the resources they find around them. Nature conducts trials by creating countless individuals each slightly different from each other. Individuals live and reproduce or individuals die and do not reproduce.

It is that simple. What works continues, what doesn't work disappears. There is no higher or lower, no more-evolved or less-evolved. Every single organism on the planet, from the smallest virus to the smartest, fastest, strongest human being is fully and completely evolved. Their next generation will be fully evolved too - just differently. And the next generation. And the next.

a reply to: WarminIndy

They are adapted, but never to become something else.

Maybe. Maybe not. Life changes. That is the only certainty.

For something to become something else, it must have genetic information to do so, and where does the information come from if it isn't already in the organism? Outside. So it is not random.

Remember individuals don't evolve. Populations evolve.

A random individual gets zapped by a random cosmic ray (or any of a number of other 'outside' forces) in a random gene during a random sexual coupling. That is where the new 'information' comes from. The biosphere is not a closed system, like some would have you believe. The process is indeed random.

Not all mutations are caused by outside actors like cosmic rays. Sometimes the DNA just doesn't copy correctly due to some internal biochemical mishap. Its too hot or too cold, or the wrong protein arrived at the wrong time or what ever. That is still a random event.

Random is not defined by whether it is caused by an event originating outside the organism or inside the organism. Random just means unpredictable by the prior state and prior events. You can't predict when or where a cosmic ray will strike.

That random individual does not become something else, but his offspring become a little bit different, and their offspring a little more different again.

originally posted by: WarminIndy
I'm sorry, but it has everything to do with evolution, because what exactly is evolution? It means that an organism, through information, mutates along the chromosomes. Wait, isn't that how it is determined why you are related to globs of stuff floating in the pond? Yes, that is how it is determined.

Evolution is EXACTLY: genetic mutations sorted by natural selection. It doesn't mean anything beyond that. You are creating so called information simply because it functions LIKE information does today. However, it's not the same thing. DNA is physical. Changes in the genome are physical. If you do not have genetic mutations and natural selection, you do not have evolution, so the origin of DNA does not matter to evolution itself, regardless of how badly you want it to. Sure, it would be great to know exactly how amino acids became RNA and RNA eventually became DNA, but that is something that is currently unknown. It doesn't make evolution wrong or present issues with it.

a reply to: [post=18349841]TinkerHaus[/pos
the way I understand it, Info is used well...... as information silly.
in·for·ma·tion
ˌinfərˈmāSHən/Submit
noun
1.
facts provided or learned about something or someone.
"a vital piece of information"
synonyms: details, particulars, facts, figures, statistics, data; More
LAW
a formal criminal charge lodged with a court or magistrate by a prosecutor without the aid of a grand jury.
plural noun: informations
"the tenant may lay an information against his landlord"
2.
what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things.
"genetically transmitted information".

Now I say that info can have a cause and effect by taking all of the info that has been presented by the data provided, chopped and mixed, juiced, then digested..... the result from the info can open several more avenues for the questions and answers presented as well as data retreival, which also leads to more direct answers more direct questioning so on and so forth.

I just wish i was a little more intelligent so i can provide better answers.....

originally posted by: Barcs

originally posted by: WarminIndy
I'm sorry, but it has everything to do with evolution, because what exactly is evolution? It means that an organism, through information, mutates along the chromosomes. Wait, isn't that how it is determined why you are related to globs of stuff floating in the pond? Yes, that is how it is determined.

You are creating so called information simply because it functions LIKE information does today. However, it's not the same thing. DNA is physical. Changes in the genome are physical. .

Um, information functions the way information functions.

Now the conversation just got silly. OK, see definition from DilligafMisFit who just provided the definition.

YOU exist as physical being, that is adapted because of information within your DNA that determines that YOU are a human. And this is measured, observed and testable. Tell us, from your biology book, just HOW does RNA function?

I didn't create the information, I just pointed it out to you. Now you are the one who is going to have to believe all the science or none of it, and seeing as science is based in information itself, the information about evolution is found in the information in the genome.

Please, don't be coy. I am sorry that you can't address where the original information came from, but you shouldn't pretend that information isn't transmitted and shared across the genome.

AGTC, a code of information. AAAGGGTTTCCC, genetic code. AAGGGTAACC, also a genetic code. Codes are information and the DNA responds and acts according to the code. I've already posted all the links about this, I am not going to rehash it. Whether you like the fact that it is information, that is up to you, but don't hide your head in the sand because it doesn't explain natural selection.

But here, algae proves Darwin's hypothesis wrong about competition. And guess who supported this article and research? The National Science Foundation. So when is this going to not be taught any more?

OK, that's one point, but it still is important, because what you have been taught about this one thing was WRONG.

originally posted by: WarminIndy
Um, information functions the way information functions.

Um, prove that DNA is information. Download your DNA file to a flash drive without manually mapping the entire genome. If all information functions the same, then it should be no problem. The conversation got silly a long time ago. There are many different forms of information, and no, they do not all function the same, and no it doesn't suggest a creator is necessary. You are trying to claim DNA is digital information. Prove it without multiple assumptions. Good luck.

YOU exist as physical being, that is adapted because of information within your DNA that determines that YOU are a human. And this is measured, observed and testable. Tell us, from your biology book, just HOW does RNA function?

I don't care if DNA functions LIKE information. It is a physical molecule. End of story.

AGTC, a code of information. AAAGGGTTTCCC, genetic code. AAGGGTAACC, also a genetic code.

Wrong. Those letters symbolize various atoms in the molecule, not data like a computer storing an algorithm. Humans have CREATED that information assigning it letters from the atoms.

But here, algae proves Darwin's hypothesis wrong about competition. And guess who supported this article and research? The National Science Foundation. So when is this going to not be taught any more?

LMAO! An old Darwin hypothesis from 1850 was proven wrong. This has nothing to do with anything we are talking about, you just cherry pick articles with a catch phrase you like in it. The hypothesis suggested that groups more closely related have less competition within, than groups that are not closely related. This isn't true, and has never been taught as fact in text books. It even says right in the article:

One of Charles Darwin's lesser-known hypotheses

You are acting like they proved competition and natural selection wrong. Come on now. At least be honest and please answer the question already about why small changes cannot add up to make big ones. You've dodged it like 5 or 6 times now and instead of directly addressing it you just go off on unrelated tangents. Is that a tactic they teach you when you become a preacher? Stop diverting every time you read something you don't like. I'm not dropping this until you answer it.

You started with wondering how individual mutations can become group mutations if they don't mutate at the exact same rate. Now we're talking about old Darwin hypotheses and DNA functioning like information. What is your actual agenda here? We know it wasn't to ask honest questions, because the questions have been thoroughly answered and you just deny the answers and move on to the next unrelated topic.

originally posted by: Indigent
I wish I could awnser all but I can only comment on 5, mutations don't ocur to adapt, mutations are random and those with beneficial mutations have a better chance to survive and pass on their genes, eventually there will be more of the population with the good mutations.

can you name a good mutation that occurs today in humans?

a reply to: guitarplayer

Lactose tolerance
HIV resistance
Malaria resistance

To name a few.

originally posted by: guitarplayer

originally posted by: Indigent
I wish I could awnser all but I can only comment on 5, mutations don't ocur to adapt, mutations are random and those with beneficial mutations have a better chance to survive and pass on their genes, eventually there will be more of the population with the good mutations.

can you name a good mutation that occurs today in humans?

It's not like XMen...

Here's an example:
www.theguardian.com...

a reply to: Barcs

Did I say anywhere that the DNA itself was the information? Please point that out.

What I SAID was, DNA is changed because the information is being processed BY the RNA.

What do you think I have been saying all along about the information sharing network? Don't try the semantics game.

Oh here we go with the cherry picking. YOU demand evidence, I give you evidence and just because you don't like it, you call it cherry picking. So if one single hypothesis was proven wrong, then every process he hypothesized surround it, are now null and void, the hypothesis is wrong, find another one.

Now let's go through genetics again:

1: Information processed by the RNA across the genome leads to..
2: Small changes in the DNA across the genome...
3: That leads to variations in the phenotype.

YOU have a phenotype, I don't know what it is and I don't care, that was the result of a process through which every cell in your body is receiving and processing information. Gene expression is when your genotype determines which particular genes should function. Evolution means that you have inherited CERTAIN gene expressions, that lead to your phenotype. All contained in the chromosomes of your DNA. Now, point out where I said the DNA itself was information. DNA EXPRESSES the information.

a reply to: GetHyped

Are those not antibodies? which are part of the natural humoral immunity system of the body?

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: guitarplayer

Lactose tolerance
HIV resistance
Malaria resistance

To name a few.

Asian people are more likely to be Lactose Intolerant.

Duffy Null Allele

Because the derived Duffy null allele has a high frequency in most sub-saharan African populations and rare occurence elsewhere, this SNP is often included in global ancestry informative SNP panels and in panels of SNPs used to estimate admixture in African Americans.Ancestral Allele: A on the minus strand

If Out of Africa is true, then Africans derived the allele as a measure of protection, Europeans should also carry it ancestrally. But since it is ancestral, then why don't Europeans carry the mutation? Duffy Null is the malaria resistant mutation, the phenotype in African Americans, but not European Americans.

Duffy Null influences HIV in South African women

SNP article about Rs2814778 and Duffy Null in African Americans

Duffy Null blood group

The Duffy null phenotype, Fy(a-b-), is rare among Caucasian and Asian populations, whereas it is the most common phenotype in Blacks, occurring in over two-thirds of the Black population. The racial variation in the distribution of Duffy antigens is a result of a positive selection pressure—the absence of Duffy antigens on RBCs makes the RBCs more resistant to invasion by a malarial parasite.

What happened? This is a phenotype identification method of determining if someone is black or white. What is it called if a population has such differences in the phenotypes? What's it called again, when evolution is measured in a population because of phenotypical features? Species?

a reply to: WarminIndy

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. Lactose tolerance is a beneficial mutation. So is HIV resistance and malaria resistance. And no, having any of these beneficial mutations does not make you a different species. What have you been smoking, WarminIndy?

From all these replies, I can confidently state that I'm no longer rational! Creationism has won!

If micro evolution equals one, and macro evolution = 1000, then it's clear that millions of generations of micro evolution still equals one, because there are only ones! It's all about founding logic in tooth faery belief! 1+1+1+1+1 = 1! Stunning logic which dumbfounds me! GRRRRR

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: WarminIndy

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. Lactose tolerance is a beneficial mutation. So is HIV resistance and malaria resistance. And no, having any of these beneficial mutations does not make you a different species. What have you been smoking, WarminIndy?

I am saying that unless your side follows completely the science of taxonomy and phylogeny when it comes to the human species, then your side is really saying man is more special. That's all. So apply it across the board.