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there is no G-d? religion is bull? read this and I DARE YOU TO ARGUE :) (pg. 2)
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| DJBARON |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0
Ok, let's analyze the first part of your post, and that is the existance of a god. You are saying that the fact universe is organized and it exists is an evidence of a god. But what you're doing here is attempting to explain one unexplainable entity by making up another unexplainable entity and saying it created the first one. You can't explain how the universe came to be, so you're saying it was made by a supreme being. The thing is, you simply can't explain how that supreme being came to be, just as you can't explain how the universe came to be. Basically, you can go on forever like that, and explain that supreme being's creation as a pet project of an even more supreme being. Maybe the universe is a pet project of some supreme being, who knows, but that doesn't bring us any closer to the real answer. When you think of such an idea, it seems like you're moving in solving the puzzle one step further each time, but what you've done is you've just created an infinite loop whose ultimate solution is nowhere closer than it was before.
Now, you may limit yourself to just one supreme being, or a god. So when you look at the universe, you see it has no reason or logical purpose, and therefore you attribute its existance to some sort of higher purpose that we aren't able to understand. But what is the purpose of the creator of the universe? It has no purpose. It just is. So why is it so acceptable for you to have a purposeless uberentity that simply existed forever and which created this universe with a purpose, while it is impossible for you to accept the probability this universe itself existed forever and had no purpose at all?
And now about the second part of your post which deals with evolution. While the first part was understandable, because there'ss no way to definitely prove you're right or wrong, the second definitely isn't very intelligent. Yes, it is true that the likelyhood of a human being emerging from nothing is basically equal to zero. But, let's look at it from a different point of view. There are 9 planets in this solar system, there are more than a hundred billion stars in our galaxy. The number of galaxies that are out there we don't even know. Since we've recently discovered that stars usually have many planets, that's about a trillion planets in our little galaxy alone. Now, let's come back to our own little planet. It's almost certain that out of such a vast number of planets, some will have conditions and materials needed for life to emerge. Now, the only thing that is needed for life is to have some sort of self-replicating molecule, or in our case the first DNA or RNA. As soon as such a molecule appears, if it has enough resources around itself, in a very short time the world will be covered with those molecules. Some of them will have mistakes in them that will prove to be fatal, while some will be neutral or beneficial. Since our planet is pretty big, and it is also full of nutrients needed for life, imagine how much molecules that is. It's somewhere along the lines of 10^40 (my quick approximation). And all that is needed is that some of those molecules interact between each other in a right way. Those interactions are infact not that uncommon, as some discoveries have shown that some clouds of gas in the universe contain large amounts of amino acids. What that means is those reactions needed for life are quite common because those molecules react well with each other. Now, let's say your article is correct and the odds for a bunch of those molecules coming together really are 1 040 000 to one. That's one in 10^6. Since there are 10^40 molecules out there, that chance is pretty likely. And the 747 analogy is quite wrong. You see, molecules don't connect in completely random ways. If you put together same molecules under same thermal conditions together, you'll get the same result each time. If you put 747 parts together and mix them up, you'll get a different shape each time.
From that point on, evolution is no longer a random play, as your article seems to suggest. The reason why species are improving at a staggering rate is natural selection. Without it, it would truly be unbelievable that a human, or any higher animal evolved. Infact, it would all dissipate and we'd sooner or later devolve to the primordial ooze we came from, because harmful mutations are much more common than the positive ones. But when you have the constant struggle for life and death, the situation is a little different. Those species with even minor edge over the others will be greatly rewarded, while those with even the slightest defects will most likely perish. Imagine an antelope that runs 10% slower than other antilopes. It's not such a large difference, and yet it will be eaten as soon as the first lion attacks the herd.
If we look at our brain development, we see the same thing. There are many more people with mental diseases and handicaps than there are geniouses. And yet those few geniouses will procreate, while the idiots most likely won't. Now, we do know for a fact that mutations are happening. On average, a child has about 10 mutations in its genetic code that aren't inherited neither from the father, nor from the mother, but are instead created by an accident. Most are neutral, many are negative, and only a few show improvement over the original DNA. However, only the neutral and improved will be able to procreate further. Therefore evolution is infact directed by external forces, but those forces are not divine, they're of rather logical nature. Here's an interesting thing that's soon gonna be on the Discovery channel that proves my point. This guy whose name I forgot was working on the AI systems and multiprocessor interaction. He made a test in which a computer simulation connected the processors in a random way. Many of those systems were flawed or didn't work, many were just as good as the original versions, but a few showed improvement over the original human made design. Now since there's an external force choosing which of those systems should be multiplied (natural selection/benchmark results), only the best systems will remain while the bad ones will soon be forgotten. |
good article, i need some time to give you a good answer :) but for now just point you to this article... give it a read and await further discussion from my end!
http://www.aish.com/SSI/articleToPr...f+evolution%2E+
i hope that link works for u!
PEACE! |
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| DJBARON |
this is long, but it helps bring in new angles and some interesting points to consider on this subject :)
An M.I.T. physicist takes a look at Darwin, the fossil record, and the likelihood of random evolution.
At the basis of the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution lie two basic assumptions: that changes in morphologies are induced by random mutations on the genome, and that these changes in the morphology of plant or animal make the life form either more or less successful in the competition to survive. With nature's selection, evolutionists claim to remove the theory of evolution from that of a random process. The selection is in no way random. It is a function of the environment. The randomness, however, remains as the basic driving force that produces the varied morphologies behind the selection.
The question is: Can random mutations produce the evolution of life?
Because evolution is primarily a study of the history of life, statistical analyses of evolution are plagued by having to assume the many conditions that were extant during those long gone eras. Rates of mutations, the contents of the "original DNA," and environmental conditions -- all these affect the rate and direction of the changes in morphology. And these are all unknowns.
One must never ask what the likelihood is that a specific set of mutations will occur to produce a specific animal. This would imply a direction to evolution, and basic to all Darwinian theories of evolution is the assumption that evolution has no direction. The induced changes, and hence the new morphologies, are totally random, regardless of the challenges presented by the environment.
PROTEIN COMBINATIONS
With this background, let's look at the process of evolution. Life is in essence a symbiotic combination of proteins (and other structures, but here I'll discuss only the proteins). The history of life teaches us that not all combinations of proteins are viable. At the Cambrian explosion of animal life, 530 million years ago, some 50 phyla (basic body plans) appeared suddenly in the fossil record. Only 30 to 34 survived. The rest perished. Since then no new phyla have evolved.
It is no wonder that Scientific American asked whether the mechanism of evolution has changed in a way that prohibits all other body phyla. It is not that the mechanism of evolution has changed; it is our understanding of how evolution functions that must change to fit the data presented by the fossil record. To use the word of Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, it appears that the flow of life is "channeled" along these 34 basic directions.
Let's look at this channeling and decide whether or not it can be the result of random processes.
Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 proteins. Now, it is estimated that there are some 30 million species of animal life on Earth. If the genomes of all animals produced 50,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the species (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 million x 50,000) 1.5 trillion (1.5 x 10 to the power of 12) proteins in all life. (The actual number is vastly lower).
Now let's consider the likelihood of these viable combinations of proteins forming by chance, recalling that, as the events following the Cambrian explosion taught us, not all combinations of proteins are viable.
Proteins are coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 300 amino acids. There are 20 commonly occurring amino acids in life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein is 20 to the power of 300 (i.e. 20 multiplied by itself 300 times), or in the more usual 10-based system of numbers, 10 to the power of 390 (i.e. the number one, followed by 390 zeros!).
Nature has the option of choosing among the possible 10 to power of 390 proteins, the 1.5 x (10 to power of 12) proteins of which all viable life is composed. In other words, for each one correct choice, there are 10 to power of 378 wrong choices! With odds like that, it is amazing that our bodies ever get it right.
Can this have happened by random mutations of the genome? Not if our understanding of statistics is correct. It would be as if nature reached into a grab bag containing a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion proteins -- and pulled out the one that worked.
And then repeated this trick a million million times.
This impossibility of randomness producing order is not different from the attempt to produce Shakespeare or any meaningful string of letters more than a few words in length by a random letter generator. Gibberish is always the result. This is simply because the number of meaningless letter combinations vastly exceeds the number of meaningful combinations.
With life it was and is lethal gibberish.
ABRUPT MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES
Nature, molecular biology and the Cambrian explosion of animal life have given us the opportunity to study rigorously the potential for randomness as a source of development in evolution. If the fossil record is an accurate description of the flow of life, then the 34 basic body plans that burst into being at the Cambrian comprise all of animal life till today. The tree of life which envisioned a gradual progression of phyla from simple forms (e.g. sponges) on to more complex life (e.g. worms), and then on to shelled creatures (e.g. mollusks), has been replaced by the "bush" of life in which sponges, worms, mollusks and all the other 34 phyla appeared simultaneously. Each of these bush lines then developed (evolved) a myriad of variations, but the variations always remained within the basic body plan.
Among the structures that appeared in the Cambrian were limbs, claws, intestines, and eyes with optically perfect lenses. These exploded into being with no underlying hint in the fossil record that they were coming. Below them in the rock strata (i.e., older than them) are fossils of one-celled bacteria, algae, protozoans, and clumps known as the essentially structureless Ediacaran fossils of uncertain identity. How such complexities could form suddenly by random processes is an unanswered question.
It is no wonder that Darwin himself, at seven locations in "The Origin of Species", urged the reader to ignore the fossil record if he or she wanted to believe his theory. Abrupt morphological changes are contrary to Darwin's oft repeated statement that nature does not make jumps.
Darwin based his theory on animal husbandry rather than fossils. If in a few generations of selective breeding a farmer could produce a robust sheep from a skinny one, then, Darwin reasoned, in a few million or billion generations a sponge might evolve into an ape.
Yet the fossil record did not then nor does it now support this theory.
The abrupt appearance in the fossil record of new species is so common that the journal "Science," the bastion of pure scientific thinking, featured the title, "Did Darwin get it all right?" And answered the question: no. The appearance of wings is a classic example. There is no hint in the fossil record that wings are about to come into existence. And they do, fully formed.
We may have to change our concept of evolution to accommodate a reality that the development of life has within it something exotic at work, some process totally unexpected that produces these sudden developments. The change in paradigm would be similar to the era in physics when classical logical Newtonian physics was modified by the totally illogical (illogical by human standards of logic) phenomena observed in quantum physics, including the quantized, stepwise changes in the emission of radiation by a body, even as the temperature of the body increases smoothly.
PRE-PROGRAMMED LOWER FORMS
With the advent of molecular biology's ability to discern the structure of proteins and genes, statistical comparison of the similarity of these structures among animals has become possible. The gene that controls the development of the eye is the same in all mammals. That is not surprising. The fossil record implies a common branch for all mammals.
But what is surprising, even astounding, is the similarity of the mammal gene that controls the development of eyes in mollusks and the visual systems in worms. The same can be said for the gene that controls the expression of limbs in insects and in humans. In fact so similar is this gene, that pieces of the mammalian gene, when spliced into a fruit fly, will cause a wing to appear on the fly.
This would make sense if life's development were described as a tree. But the bush of life means that just above the level of one-celled life, insects and mammals and worms and mollusks separated.
The eye gene has 130 sites. That means there are 20 to power of 130 possible combinations of amino acids along those sites. Somehow nature has selected the same combination of amino acids for all visual systems in all animals. That fidelity could not have happened by chance. It must have been pre-programmed in lower forms of life. But those lower forms of life, one-celled, did not have eyes.
These data have confounded the classic theory of "random, independent evolution" producing these convergent structures. This similarity is so totally unsuspected by classical theories of evolution, that the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the Untied States, "Science," reported: "The hypothesis that the eye of the cephalopod [mollusk] has evolved by convergence with vertebrate [human] eye is challenged by our recent findings of the Pax-6 [gene]... The concept that the eyes of invertebrates have evolved completely independently from the vertebrate eye has to be reexamined."
The significance of this statement must not be lost. We are being asked to reexamine the idea that evolution is a free agent. The convergence, the similarity of these genes, is so great that it could not, it did not, happen by chance random reactions.
FOSSILS IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES
The British Natural History Museum in London has an entire section devoted to the evolution of species. And what evolution do they demonstrate? Pink daisies evolving into blue daisies; small dogs evolving into big dogs; a few species of cichlid fish evolving in a mere few thousand years into a dozen species of cichlid fish. Very impressive. Until you realize that the daisies remained daisies, the dogs remained dogs and the cichlid fish remained cichlid. It is called micro-evolution.
This magnificent museum, with all its resources, could not produce a single example of one phylum evolving into another. It is the mechanisms of macro-evolution, the change of one phylum or class of animal into another, that has been called into question by these data.
The reality of this explosion of life was discovered long before it was revealed. In 1909, Charles D. Walcott, while searching for fossils in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, came upon a strata of shale near the Burgess Pass, rich in fossils from the Cambrian era. Over the next four years, Walcott collected between 60,000 and 80,000 fossils from the Burgess Shale. These fossils contained representatives from every phylum that exist today (except one). Walcott recorded his findings meticulously in his notebooks. No new phyla ever evolved after the Cambrian explosion.
These fossils could have changed the entire concept of evolution from a tree of life to a bush of life. And they did, but not in 1909. Walcott knew he had discovered something very important. But he could not believe that evolution could have occurred in such a burst of life forms ("simultaneously," to use the words of Scientific American). This was totally against the theory of Darwin in which he and his colleagues were steeped.
And so Walcott reburied the fossils, all 60,000 of them, this time in the drawers of his laboratory. Walcott was the director of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. It was not until 1985 that they were rediscovered (in the draws of the Smithsonian). Had Walcott wanted, he could have hired a phalanx of graduate students to work on the fossils. But he chose not to rock the boat of evolution.
Today, fossil representatives of the Cambrian era have been found in China, Africa, the British Isles, Sweden, Greenland. The explosion was worldwide. But before it became proper to discuss the extraordinary nature of the explosion, the data were simply not reported. It is a classic example of cognitive dissonance, but an example for which we have all paid a severe price.
At this point we must ask the question, what has produced the wonders of life that surround us? The answer may be implied by those very surroundings. In that case the medium would be the message! |
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| DJBARON |
to add some flavour here,
guys for every time you see the word G-d appear anywhere here, take out our subjective understandings of the meaning of the word, and replace it with
'ABSOLUTE PERFECTION LACKING NOTHING'
because in essense we can only understand this about G-d, that G-d is ABSOLUTE PERFECTION, and LACKS NOTHING.
so therefore, echange the word G-d for PERFECTION LACKING NOTHING, and see the results of our discussion when you do that...
big difference eh? |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | | from my clear understanding, judaism was around way before the other mentioned religions, and is also the spiritual base for both christianity and islam. Both religions are 'hybrids' based of the old bible given to the Jews at Mt. Sinai. Once people changed around the original bible and the laws of it, resulting in both christianity and islam, a manmade aspect came into being. Even though there is some truth to what they say, the eventuality of corruption became evident within the middle ages as the church began to take over europe, and as we even see in modern day, the islamic leadership is all religious, and they say what they want, and the people believe what they say. This is not true observance to the word of G-d. this is observance to the word of MAN. TOTAL CORRUPTION, which is worth nothing in the eyes of any intellectual. So we do have an agreement on this. |
Just on this point, the word of God - whatever it may have been originally - was corrupted long before the Christians and Muslims came onto the scene. No parts of the OT were written prior to the fall of Jeruselum in the 7th century BC, several hundred years after Yewah first appeared archeologically. It's impossible to know whether a man called Abraham ever existed to form the original covenant with Yewah, but if he did (and if the Biblical lineages are to be believed) then we can put well over a thousand extra years between God's original message and the message eventually written down by Isreali refugees living in ancient Babylonia. Like I say, even if we presume that this original covenant existed, that's there's an awful lot of time there for an orally passed down message to become corrupted by man (have you ever played Chinese Whispers?).
Then if we examine post-Abrahamic figures who feature prominently as having close ties with Yewah (and thus instrumental in the development of the Jewish faith) we can either say definitively that they didn't exist, or - at best - that there is absolutely no evidence that they existed. There were never any Isrealites in Egypt, so no Exodus, no 40 years in the desert, no Moses to pass on the ten commandments. There was no-one called Josua who went up the present day West Bank systematically annexing towns and cities. There was no great victory over the Philistines led by Kind David (in fact there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest that the Isrealites are merely the decendants of Canaanite refugees forced up into the Isreali mountains by the Philistine armies) - Kind David never even existed. Nor did King Solomon. In fact, virtually every event in the OT prior to the fall of Jeruselum is demostrably false.
So, the point of all this is to say, in was sense was the word of God only corrupted later on by Christians and Muslims when the supposed word of God - namely the Bible - is so inaccurate to begin with? Could it be because whatever the "original" word of God was became so corrupted by being passed down orally over several generations that by the time it was eventually written down, it was already corrupted beyond comprehension to begin with? |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJBARON
this is long, but it helps bring in new angles and some interesting points to consider on this subject :)
An M.I.T. physicist takes a look at Darwin, the fossil record, and the likelihood of random evolution.
At the basis of the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution lie two basic assumptions: that changes in morphologies are induced by random mutations on the genome, and that these changes in the morphology of plant or animal make the life form either more or less successful in the competition to survive. With nature's selection, evolutionists claim to remove the theory of evolution from that of a random process. The selection is in no way random. It is a function of the environment. The randomness, however, remains as the basic driving force that produces the varied morphologies behind the selection.
The question is: Can random mutations produce the evolution of life?
Because evolution is primarily a study of the history of life, statistical analyses of evolution are plagued by having to assume the many conditions that were extant during those long gone eras. Rates of mutations, the contents of the "original DNA," and environmental conditions -- all these affect the rate and direction of the changes in morphology. And these are all unknowns.
One must never ask what the likelihood is that a specific set of mutations will occur to produce a specific animal. This would imply a direction to evolution, and basic to all Darwinian theories of evolution is the assumption that evolution has no direction. The induced changes, and hence the new morphologies, are totally random, regardless of the challenges presented by the environment.
PROTEIN COMBINATIONS
With this background, let's look at the process of evolution. Life is in essence a symbiotic combination of proteins (and other structures, but here I'll discuss only the proteins). The history of life teaches us that not all combinations of proteins are viable. At the Cambrian explosion of animal life, 530 million years ago, some 50 phyla (basic body plans) appeared suddenly in the fossil record. Only 30 to 34 survived. The rest perished. Since then no new phyla have evolved.
It is no wonder that Scientific American asked whether the mechanism of evolution has changed in a way that prohibits all other body phyla. It is not that the mechanism of evolution has changed; it is our understanding of how evolution functions that must change to fit the data presented by the fossil record. To use the word of Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, it appears that the flow of life is "channeled" along these 34 basic directions.
Let's look at this channeling and decide whether or not it can be the result of random processes.
Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 proteins. Now, it is estimated that there are some 30 million species of animal life on Earth. If the genomes of all animals produced 50,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the species (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 million x 50,000) 1.5 trillion (1.5 x 10 to the power of 12) proteins in all life. (The actual number is vastly lower).
Now let's consider the likelihood of these viable combinations of proteins forming by chance, recalling that, as the events following the Cambrian explosion taught us, not all combinations of proteins are viable.
Proteins are coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 300 amino acids. There are 20 commonly occurring amino acids in life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein is 20 to the power of 300 (i.e. 20 multiplied by itself 300 times), or in the more usual 10-based system of numbers, 10 to the power of 390 (i.e. the number one, followed by 390 zeros!).
Nature has the option of choosing among the possible 10 to power of 390 proteins, the 1.5 x (10 to power of 12) proteins of which all viable life is composed. In other words, for each one correct choice, there are 10 to power of 378 wrong choices! With odds like that, it is amazing that our bodies ever get it right.
Can this have happened by random mutations of the genome? Not if our understanding of statistics is correct. It would be as if nature reached into a grab bag containing a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion proteins -- and pulled out the one that worked.
And then repeated this trick a million million times.
This impossibility of randomness producing order is not different from the attempt to produce Shakespeare or any meaningful string of letters more than a few words in length by a random letter generator. Gibberish is always the result. This is simply because the number of meaningless letter combinations vastly exceeds the number of meaningful combinations.
With life it was and is lethal gibberish.
ABRUPT MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES
Nature, molecular biology and the Cambrian explosion of animal life have given us the opportunity to study rigorously the potential for randomness as a source of development in evolution. If the fossil record is an accurate description of the flow of life, then the 34 basic body plans that burst into being at the Cambrian comprise all of animal life till today. The tree of life which envisioned a gradual progression of phyla from simple forms (e.g. sponges) on to more complex life (e.g. worms), and then on to shelled creatures (e.g. mollusks), has been replaced by the "bush" of life in which sponges, worms, mollusks and all the other 34 phyla appeared simultaneously. Each of these bush lines then developed (evolved) a myriad of variations, but the variations always remained within the basic body plan.
Among the structures that appeared in the Cambrian were limbs, claws, intestines, and eyes with optically perfect lenses. These exploded into being with no underlying hint in the fossil record that they were coming. Below them in the rock strata (i.e., older than them) are fossils of one-celled bacteria, algae, protozoans, and clumps known as the essentially structureless Ediacaran fossils of uncertain identity. How such complexities could form suddenly by random processes is an unanswered question.
It is no wonder that Darwin himself, at seven locations in "The Origin of Species", urged the reader to ignore the fossil record if he or she wanted to believe his theory. Abrupt morphological changes are contrary to Darwin's oft repeated statement that nature does not make jumps.
Darwin based his theory on animal husbandry rather than fossils. If in a few generations of selective breeding a farmer could produce a robust sheep from a skinny one, then, Darwin reasoned, in a few million or billion generations a sponge might evolve into an ape.
Yet the fossil record did not then nor does it now support this theory.
The abrupt appearance in the fossil record of new species is so common that the journal "Science," the bastion of pure scientific thinking, featured the title, "Did Darwin get it all right?" And answered the question: no. The appearance of wings is a classic example. There is no hint in the fossil record that wings are about to come into existence. And they do, fully formed.
We may have to change our concept of evolution to accommodate a reality that the development of life has within it something exotic at work, some process totally unexpected that produces these sudden developments. The change in paradigm would be similar to the era in physics when classical logical Newtonian physics was modified by the totally illogical (illogical by human standards of logic) phenomena observed in quantum physics, including the quantized, stepwise changes in the emission of radiation by a body, even as the temperature of the body increases smoothly.
PRE-PROGRAMMED LOWER FORMS
With the advent of molecular biology's ability to discern the structure of proteins and genes, statistical comparison of the similarity of these structures among animals has become possible. The gene that controls the development of the eye is the same in all mammals. That is not surprising. The fossil record implies a common branch for all mammals.
But what is surprising, even astounding, is the similarity of the mammal gene that controls the development of eyes in mollusks and the visual systems in worms. The same can be said for the gene that controls the expression of limbs in insects and in humans. In fact so similar is this gene, that pieces of the mammalian gene, when spliced into a fruit fly, will cause a wing to appear on the fly.
This would make sense if life's development were described as a tree. But the bush of life means that just above the level of one-celled life, insects and mammals and worms and mollusks separated.
The eye gene has 130 sites. That means there are 20 to power of 130 possible combinations of amino acids along those sites. Somehow nature has selected the same combination of amino acids for all visual systems in all animals. That fidelity could not have happened by chance. It must have been pre-programmed in lower forms of life. But those lower forms of life, one-celled, did not have eyes.
These data have confounded the classic theory of "random, independent evolution" producing these convergent structures. This similarity is so totally unsuspected by classical theories of evolution, that the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the Untied States, "Science," reported: "The hypothesis that the eye of the cephalopod [mollusk] has evolved by convergence with vertebrate [human] eye is challenged by our recent findings of the Pax-6 [gene]... The concept that the eyes of invertebrates have evolved completely independently from the vertebrate eye has to be reexamined."
The significance of this statement must not be lost. We are being asked to reexamine the idea that evolution is a free agent. The convergence, the similarity of these genes, is so great that it could not, it did not, happen by chance random reactions.
FOSSILS IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES
The British Natural History Museum in London has an entire section devoted to the evolution of species. And what evolution do they demonstrate? Pink daisies evolving into blue daisies; small dogs evolving into big dogs; a few species of cichlid fish evolving in a mere few thousand years into a dozen species of cichlid fish. Very impressive. Until you realize that the daisies remained daisies, the dogs remained dogs and the cichlid fish remained cichlid. It is called micro-evolution.
This magnificent museum, with all its resources, could not produce a single example of one phylum evolving into another. It is the mechanisms of macro-evolution, the change of one phylum or class of animal into another, that has been called into question by these data.
The reality of this explosion of life was discovered long before it was revealed. In 1909, Charles D. Walcott, while searching for fossils in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, came upon a strata of shale near the Burgess Pass, rich in fossils from the Cambrian era. Over the next four years, Walcott collected between 60,000 and 80,000 fossils from the Burgess Shale. These fossils contained representatives from every phylum that exist today (except one). Walcott recorded his findings meticulously in his notebooks. No new phyla ever evolved after the Cambrian explosion.
These fossils could have changed the entire concept of evolution from a tree of life to a bush of life. And they did, but not in 1909. Walcott knew he had discovered something very important. But he could not believe that evolution could have occurred in such a burst of life forms ("simultaneously," to use the words of Scientific American). This was totally against the theory of Darwin in which he and his colleagues were steeped.
And so Walcott reburied the fossils, all 60,000 of them, this time in the drawers of his laboratory. Walcott was the director of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. It was not until 1985 that they were rediscovered (in the draws of the Smithsonian). Had Walcott wanted, he could have hired a phalanx of graduate students to work on the fossils. But he chose not to rock the boat of evolution.
Today, fossil representatives of the Cambrian era have been found in China, Africa, the British Isles, Sweden, Greenland. The explosion was worldwide. But before it became proper to discuss the extraordinary nature of the explosion, the data were simply not reported. It is a classic example of cognitive dissonance, but an example for which we have all paid a severe price.
At this point we must ask the question, what has produced the wonders of life that surround us? The answer may be implied by those very surroundings. In that case the medium would be the message! |
There is one key mistake in the article. While it estimates there are 10^390 protein combinations possible, and that life uses only 10^12, it automatically assumes the rest of the combinations are not functional. If that were the case, the evolution would be at its end, as all the protein combinations would be used up. But, the fact that life doesn't use the rest of the combinations doesn't mean they're impossible. It simply means there are many evolutionary paths probable that haven't yet been taken.
It is true however, that most random combinations are ineffective. If you examine all lifeforms on earth, you will see that their protein structures are very similar. But every once in a while a functional change does happen. Humans and monkeys have more than 99% similar genes, and the only key difference is a minor variation in a way one single protein is synthesized. The time it took for such a little yet fundamental change to appear was several million years, when a defective monkey was born whose two cromosomes accidentally connected. Just think of how many defective monkeys were born during that time whose genes were flawed in a more serious way so that they couldn't have survived. But even such minor changes produce vastly different results. The most distant life form compared to our own is some sort of bacteria, and it still shares 60% of its DNA with us.
Now, as far as the eye and limb development development goes, if the same proteins control the structure of the eye, the logical conclusion is that all the animals with eyes and limbs had a common ancestor with the necessary genes. That is not surprising since there are some very primitive branches of life with basic light recognition systems, branches that date back to time far before bugs and mammals existed.
The fossile record that is mentioned does in some cases show abrupt changes. But that's because fossile record isn't complete. It's very difficult to find a skeleton of an animal that's been dead for 60 million years. So there are many holes only because very few of the corpses remain somewhat intact. Still, the way wing development is described in the article is flawed. There is a lot of evidence on dinosaurs having feathers, as well as there are several fossiles with primitive and clumsy clawed wings. And moving from a feathered claw to a wing is not that difficult. Just look at what humans have done with dogs in several thousand years. Changing feathered forearms into wings is not a major change in the gene structure, although from the outside it seems very different. And once when a new type of a successful creature appears, it spreads very quickly, as it yet has no natural enemies. That's why such abrupt changes happen. |
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| CortexBomb |
The thing that intrigues me with this whole debate is why so many intelligent design people make the leap from the idea that the ordering of the universe begs creation, and then leap out into the "therefore a religion at some point must have been right, God must have an interest in us" and any number of other far out conjectures.
I'm not completely willing to rule out intelligent design because looking at the fundamental order and nature of the universe the possibility is undoubtedly there, but to take the leap that there's an afterlife, a caring God, a "right" religion, or anything related is much too far for my tastes.
And if ID can only prove that some force built the universe, aren't we left at the same point? Is it really reassuring to think that the universe was created if we still have to acknowledge that the creator doesn't give a rip about humanity?
I mean, frankly, it seems like we're at the same point, we still have to make our own meaning for our lives, and this is all we get. So *why worry*/concern ourselves with the question? |
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| LiquidX |
To the Bible Topic. TO whomever Renegade quoted, let me tell you something.
The christians arose from the church that Jesus wanted to establish here on earth, which was the correct one. ( This is for the Christian believers ). As for what I know and understand, is that for the Jews Jesus was more like a rebel and liar.. right?? .. OK.
Moises stated out the 10 commandments, something that both jews and christians share... and before that, there were many signs given, as well written by the many profets the first coming.. and to what it seemed for Christians, Jesus. After that, the Roman Catholic Church rose up.. and they made some other versions for the Bible, I dont know their names, but those may be the corrupted versions that you are talking about.. but! there is the Original version which has been kep unchanged, which is the Bible used by all Christians Religion, and theres the one used mostly among Caholics.. but the Universal Bible is not corrupted nor unchanged as you mentioned. After the Roman Catholic church established, there were many branches that came from that same church to where other churchs form. My religion didnt come from the Catholic nor is near related ( Im from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.. some may know them by nick name, Mormons ).. Anyways, just wanted to point that out. No hard feelings:D |
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| LiquidX |
| quote: | Originally posted by CortexBomb
The thing that intrigues me with this whole debate is why so many intelligent design people make the leap from the idea that the ordering of the universe begs creation, and then leap out into the "therefore a religion at some point must have been right, God must have an interest in us" and any number of other far out conjectures.
I'm not completely willing to rule out intelligent design because looking at the fundamental order and nature of the universe the possibility is undoubtedly there, but to take the leap that there's an afterlife, a caring God, a "right" religion, or anything related is much too far for my tastes.
And if ID can only prove that some force built the universe, aren't we left at the same point? Is it really reassuring to think that the universe was created if we still have to acknowledge that the creator doesn't give a rip about humanity?
I mean, frankly, it seems like we're at the same point, we still have to make our own meaning for our lives, and this is all we get. So *why worry*/concern ourselves with the question? |
So you have a clue, and end up in heaven :D hehehe.. imagine there is one, just imagine, and you just didnt care and did all sorts of bad things.. your screwed he, unless you repent. LoL but still, if you believe or dont believe.. religion brings many answers to the questions you just asked, really.. in fact, theres many proofs/prophecies in the Bible that have come true.. so I dont know. Eitherway, I always respect a persons belief, and always intrigues me to see what do they believe in or what. |
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| DJBARON |
this is the BEST DISCUSSION I'VE SEEN EVER ON THIS BOARD!!!
AMAZING!!!!!! FINALLY TRUE INTELLECTUALISM UNFOLDS!!!!!!!!!
i will do some responding hopefully tomorrow good stuff on this thread! I will write tommorow PEACE! |
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| Perfect_Cheezit |
lol
Glad to see you're happy, DJBARON |
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| fuct4less |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJBARON
this is the BEST DISCUSSION I'VE SEEN EVER ON THIS BOARD!!!
AMAZING!!!!!! FINALLY TRUE INTELLECTUALISM UNFOLDS!!!!!!!!! |
i second this :) |
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| CortexBomb |
| quote: | Originally posted by LiquidX
So you have a clue, and end up in heaven :D hehehe.. imagine there is one, just imagine, and you just didnt care and did all sorts of bad things.. your screwed he, unless you repent. LoL but still, if you believe or dont believe.. religion brings many answers to the questions you just asked, really.. in fact, theres many proofs/prophecies in the Bible that have come true.. so I dont know. Eitherway, I always respect a persons belief, and always intrigues me to see what do they believe in or what. |
I completely respect people's right to be religious, on the micro level it's reassuring, it gives people an artificial extended family (as Vonnegut would say), and it can give some much-needed purpose to the grind.
I have a problem with it on the macro level, whatwith all the wars and bloodshed it's caused over the years, but this is really straying off topic.
My whole point was simply that even *if* ID was an indisputable concept (which is most assuredly isn't) it wouldn't prove anything other than the existence of a fundamental unknowable force. Perhaps that force is conscious, perhaps it isn't, but it still isn't giving us divine revelation or anything like that, and as such I don't see how it's getting us anywhere to argue about it if we agree that the end result is fundamentally the same.
If someone could prove that God(dess)(s)/etc. has an interest in humanity, has a reason to care about worshippers, is particularly focused on us, or any of the other major points of most religions then we'd have something to discuss, but ID in and of itself doesn't do any of this.
If all we're hoping for is agreement on whether or not the universe was created at some point, that seems as though it's not getting us anywhere of note.
Not to say that I don't enjoy discussions about ultimately pointless abstractions, I am a philosophy major after all :happy2: |
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