Religion Creation vs. Darwin's MacroEvolution Myth

[Roylion]

Once more exposing their thorough-going non-comprehension for cosmological theory, in their desperation to drag the debate down to the usual 'Darwinian/Anti theist' argument, they ply ad nauseum in every other thread.

The title of the thread (and I didn't start the thread) is "Creation vs. Darwin's MacroEvolution Myth." There is no "vs." and there is no "myth." As has been explained repeatedly, (and whether you like it or not or whether you agree with it or not) evolution is a scientific fact.

The scientific community overwhelmingly recognizes that 3.6 billion years ago there existed the last universal common ancestor, (LUCA), of all living things presently on Earth. It was likely a single-cell organism. It had a few hundred genes. (355 genes according to a 2016 study). It already had complete blueprints for DNA replication, protein synthesis, and RNA transcription. It had all the basic components - such as lipids - that modern organisms have. From LUCA forward, it's relatively easy to see how life as we know it evolved. That's evolution.

Before 3.6 billion years, however, there is no hard evidence about how LUCA arose from a boiling cauldron of chemicals that formed on Earth after the creation of the planet about 4.6 billion years ago. That's abiogenesis. Two different things.

Maybe 'divine intervention' put LUCA there (even though there is no evidence to support this), maybe LUCA arose from non-life without divine intervention. Certainly there is scientific evidence that the second option was very possible. That evidence suggests that it is very possible that those chemicals reacted in some way to form amino acids, which remain the building blocks of proteins in our own cells today. Finding out how exactly, remains the object of on-going scientific study across the world.

Dr. Charles Carter professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who presented a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Aacademy of Sciences succintly summed up the current situation when he stated in 2015 that: "We know a lot about LUCA and we are beginning to learn about the chemistry that produced building blocks like amino acids, but between the two there is a desert of knowledge."

 

[cannot]

 

[cannot]

 

[M Malice]

For the believers out there.

The universe as we know it is roughly 13 billion years old, the Earth roughly 4.5 billion years old. Us on the other hand- https://www.universetoday.com/38125/how-long-have-humans-been-on-earth/ An extract pasted below.

While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s.

What was the creator doing for all those billions of years before we came along, was he fascinated with dinosaur genitalia before ours?

 

[Roylion]

Firstly...whether you like it or not, the Big Bang Theory is the prevailing cosmological model amongst the experts and all the available scientific evidence including gravitational waves, the 'Doppler Effect', Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) and the abundance of the Hydrogen and Helium found in the observable universe, support that model.

Some of the observed evidence in a little more detail.

1. Galaxies appear to be moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distance. "Hubble's Law." This observation supports the expansion of the universe and suggests that the universe was once compacted. 'Redshift' is the 'Doppler Effect' occurring in light. When an object moves away from Earth, its color rays look more similar to the color red than they actually are, because the movement stretches the wavelength of light given off by the object. Scientists use the word "red hot" to describe this stretched light wave because red is the longest wavelength on the visible spectrum. The more 'redshift' there is, the faster the object is moving away. By measuring the 'redshift', scientists proved that the universe is expanding, and they can work out how fast the object is moving away from the Earth.
2. In 1965, Radio-astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) which pervades the observable universe. This radiation is known as radio waves, and they are everywhere in the universe. This radiation is now very weak and cold, but a long time ago it was very strong and very hot. This is thought to be the remnant of the very hot universe which is believed to have started expanding 13.7 billion years ago. (see 1. above)
3. The abundance of the Hydrogen and Helium found in the observable universe are thought to support the Big Bang model of origins. There appears to be no obvious reason, outside of the theory of the Big Bang, why a young universe should have more helium than deuterium (heavy hydrogen) or more deuterium than Helium 3, and in a constant ratio as well.

A new window on the very early universe looks like it has been opened by the first detection of gravitational waves.

There have been two confirmed observations of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). They appear to actually exist. If gravitational waves have been discovered, (and it looks like they have) astronomers could use them to observe the cosmos in a way that has been impossible to date. Prior to this detection, astrophysicists and cosmologists have been able to make observations based upon electromagnetic radiation (including visible light, X-rays, microwave, radio waves, gamma rays), and particle-like entities (cosmic waves, stellar winds, neutrinos and so on). These have significant limitations - light and other radiation may not be emitted by many kinds of objects, and can also be obscured or hidden behind other objects.

So new observational results and theoretical advances are now coming in rapidly. Some of these new discoveries may alter / modify current theories, some may confirm existing models / theories.

And of course based on the available observational evidence to date (SOME of which has been described above), the 'Big Bang Theory' of the origins of the universe is far more plausible and creditable as an explanation of the processes of the origins of the universe / earth / life than the Biblical creation story written down by an ancient cultural group, roughly between 700 - 200 BC.

So based on what has actually been "tested and observed", Dawkins is quite right to favour the 'Big Bang Theory' over 'divine creation'. Out of the two, there's certainly much more test and observed evidence for the Big Bang Theory.

Secondly, there are a significant differences between 'spontaneous generation' and 'abiogenesis'. 1. Frequency, 2. Complexity and 3. Reproduciblity. Spontaneous generation is the debunked idea that life can, on a daily basis, arise from nonliving material. Spontaneous generation held that life in its present form today could form from non-life, and did so all the time — for instance, aphids sprang from dew on plants, maggots emerged from rotting meat, and mice were created from wet hay.

Here's an example of "spontaneous generation" from the Bible.

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

In 1859, Louis Pasteur performed experiments that put the final nail in the coffin of "spontaneous generation". He proved definitively that life does not spring, fully formed and unbidden, from any recipe of inorganic or dead organic matter. Abiogenesis, on the other hand, does not predict that life in any form known today - not even the simplest single-celled life forms - were created in some flash of magic or through some arcane recipe of components.

Dawkins does not support the disproven theory of spontaneous generation.

"The whole rationale of Darwin’s theory was, and is, that adaptive complexity comes about by slow and gradual degrees, step by step, no single step making too large a demand on blind chance as explanation. The Darwinian theory, by rationing chance to the small steps needed to supply variation for selection, provides only the realistic escape from sheer luck as the explanation of life. If rotifers [microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals] could spring into existence just like that, Darwin’s life work was unnecessary." Richard Dawkins" The Ancestor's Tale, 2005.

I can go through the scientific evidence that has been collected for the possibility of abiogenesis occurring, again if you like.

 

[Roylion]

Well sure. Below is a bit of 'explicitness' for you. Please insert where "then a miracle occurs".

In the 1950s, several experiments by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey verified that the natural formation of amino acids, components of proteins, and other organic compounds out of inorganic materials was possible under the atmospheric conditions of Primordial Earth.

In 2001 Jennifer Blank at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported: "Through subsequent chemical analysis, the team discovered that the initial amino acids in the mixture had linked together to form peptides, from which proteins can be formed."

A 2015 paper from a a team of chemists working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, at Cambridge in the UK, published in the journal Nature Chemistry, showed that the chemical precursors for the synthesis of amino acids, lipids and nucleotides, which would be required in a primitive cell, could have all arisen simultaneously through reactions driven by ultraviolet light.

In 2015, NASA scientists studying the origin of life managed to reproduce uracil, cytosine, and thymine (all building blocks of life) from an ice sample containing pyrimidine under conditions found in space.

A 2016 study showed that the building blocks of life can be replicated in deep-sea vents. These experiments have for the first time demonstrated that RNA molecules can form in alkaline hydrothermal chimneys.

And while none of the above is conclusive....yet..., empirical evidence for the possibility of 'abiogenesis' happening does exist.

 

[Long Live HFC]

Ummmm, yeah that's kind of the point right? Otherwise all you're doing is piecing together warious threads that really need to be looked at in the light of the bigger questions. Do you need to go back to the start of a movie you've not seen to understand the story, or do you watch with a few minutes to go, pick up a point or two and then deduce the whole plot from that?

perhaps you missed the OP of this thread?

 

[RupieDupie]

But wouldn't that mean that if a person is found dead, with no witnesses, there can be no way to reconstruct the event? The police would have to proclaim "Act of God"

 

[Bennett.]

That might be so, but they are separate issues.

The very title of this thread is "Creation vs. Darwin's MacroEvolution Myth". As I have explained ad nauseum, there is no issue between the two. In whatever way life appeared on earth, evolution still exists. To try and pit one against the other shows a lack of understanding of what evolution actually is. And that is the point I'm making.



Evolution has never attempted to explain the "bigger question of creation ex nihilo". "Creation vs. Macro-evolution" is a non-issue.

The point is you can't really begin to explain the origin of life which led to evolution without knowing how it all came to be in the first place, otherwise you are just speaking from a place of ignorance.

 

[Procrastinator35]

But wouldn't that mean that if a person is found dead, with no witnesses, there can be no way to reconstruct the event? The police would have to proclaim "Act of God"

No, they wouldn't have to.....Silly analogy altogether really.

 

[Bennett.]

Viruses do not metabolise and require other cells to function, but they are replicators with genetic information and therefore can and do evolve.

A poetic account of a creator unable to conceive a process such as evolution?

Oh dear...

http://www.popsci.com.au/science/medicine/are-viruses-alive-new-evidence-says-yes,409690

 

[Procrastinator35]

For the believers out there.

The universe as we know it is roughly 13 billion years old, the Earth roughly 4.5 billion years old. Us on the other hand- https://www.universetoday.com/38125/how-long-have-humans-been-on-earth/ An extract pasted below.

While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s.

What was the creator doing for all those billions of years before we came along, was he fascinated with dinosaur genitalia before ours?

Alot of assumptions rolled into a 2 line sentence, with an absurd conclusion that doesn't follow logically in the least.

And this is offered up as an example of scientific thinking.....LOL.

 

[Roylion]

The point is you can't really begin to explain the origin of life which led to evolution

Evolution isn't trying to explain the origin of life. That's another question and area of study. By whatever means life began, still doesn't alter that evolution is a scientific fact.

without knowing how it all came to be in the first place, otherwise you are just speaking from a place of ignorance.

Ignorance of what? Evolution?

You dont have to know about the origin of life on earth to know about the evolutionary process.

 

[RupieDupie]

Oh dear...

http://www.popsci.com.au/science/medicine/are-viruses-alive-new-evidence-says-yes,409690

Evolution is not true! Here is an article explaining evolution to prove why! Or alternatively, viruses are living because they evolved, therefore evolution is false...

 

[RupieDupie]

No, they wouldn't have to.....Silly analogy altogether really.

Because, based on their evidence they can propose a most likely scenario?

 

[Procrastinator35]

Because, based on their evidence they can propose a most likely scenario?

People have enough trouble with the chicken/egg scenario, never mind attempting an extrapolation for the origins of all life-forms, garnered from current evidence.....It's pure guess-work & nothing else.

Abiogenesis & Macro0Darwinianism in general, follow the exact same teleology that inheres in the Religious mind-set.....It rejects the Miraculous in one instance, while positing another further back in time.....'Time' In effect, becomes the magical elixir.

Unfortunately, time is merely a human constructed measurement, prefaced upon our own limited mortality; & not an existential, ontological component.....Pushing the answer back further on a linear-generated time scale, answers nothing.....It's a pure philosophical cop-out.

 

[Bennett.]

Evolution isn't trying to explain the origin of life. That's another question and area of study. By whatever means life began, still doesn't alter that evolution is a scientific fact.



Ignorance of what? Evolution?

You dont have to know about the origin of life on earth to know about the evolutionary process.

Macro-evolution is NOT a fact at all. The only evolution we see in nature is within kind. This other question is far, far more important. This ignorance is that people try to tell us where we came from without any solid point of reference except that it happened out of nowhere and took a while. Would evolutionary theories change if we had a clearer picture of the initial beginning of life? Undoubtedly.

 

[Bennett.]

Evolution is not true! Here is an article explaining evolution to prove why! Or alternatively, viruses are living because they evolved, therefore evolution is false...

You said with all the sure confidence behind you that viruses weren't living. This shows you as being wrong. If you are indeed wrong, how can you be sure of what you speak?

 

[Bennett.]

People have enough trouble with the chicken/egg scenario, never mind attempting an extrapolation for the origins of all life-forms, garnered from current evidence.....It's pure guess-work & nothing else.

Abiogenesis & Macro0Darwinianism in general, follow the exact same teleology that inheres in the Religious mind-set.....It rejects the Miraculous in one instance, while positing another further back in time.....'Time' In effect, becomes the magical elixir.

Unfortunately, time is merely a human constructed measurement, prefaced upon our own limited mortality; & not an existential, ontological component.....Pushing the answer back further on a linear-generated time scale, answers nothing.....It's a pure philosophical cop-out.

So........it's a faith position?

 

[RupieDupie]

People have enough trouble with the chicken/egg scenario, never mind attempting an extrapolation for the origins of all life-forms, garnered from current evidence.....It's pure guess-work & nothing else.

Abiogenesis & Macro0Darwinianism in general, follow the exact same teleology that inheres in the Religious mind-set.....It rejects the Miraculous in one instance, while positing another further back in time.....'Time' In effect, becomes the magical elixir.

Unfortunately, time is merely a human constructed measurement, prefaced upon our own limited mortality; & not an existential, ontological component.....Pushing the answer back further on a linear-generated time scale, answers nothing.....It's a pure philosophical cop-out.

But suppose all currently observed organisms have genetic material, what would be expected (as pointed out by roylion) of the last common ancestor of all the currently observed organisms? Would this have had genetic material? Without viewing the last common ancestor we (both you and I) can make an hypothesis.

 

[RupieDupie]

You said with all the sure confidence behind you that viruses weren't living. This shows you as being wrong. If you are indeed wrong, how can you be sure of what you speak?

Ah this is fantastic!

Because some scientists discovered, by looking at protein folding, that viruses evolved from a primitive cellular organism, demonstrating that a replicate can shed the cell and be relatively less like a cellular organism (a relatively inverse step in the abiogenetic process) that viruses can be argued to be living. Therefore disproving abiogenesis as a possibility and discounting evolution in one master stroke. I'm not sure presenting evidence for both evolution and abiogenesis helps your argument.

As an aside, what is also interesting is that my post stated, "it can be argued that..." and even after reading this article "it can still be argued that..." in both cases I am not incorrect.

 

[Roylion]

Macro-evolution is NOT a fact at all.

If evolution is a scientific fact (and Ive already explained why that is) then "macroevolution" is a scientific fact. Just as in microevolution, basic evolutionary mechanisms like mutation, migration, genetic drift and natural selection are at work. The scientific case for universal common descent (which is macroevolution) is overwhelming. At the smallest scale, macroevolution is the development of a new species or 'speciation'. And that has been observed.

Universal common descent specifically suggests that all of the earth's known biota are genealogically related, much in the same way that siblings or cousins are related to one another. Thus, universal common ancestry entails the transformation of one species into another and, consequently, macroevolutionary history and processes. All the hundred of thousands of pieces of genetic evdence found to date, supports universal common descent.

Because DNA is universal to all life, its presence strongly suggests that all creatures on Earth evolved from a common ancestor. It also explains how the proliferation of genetic mutations (essentially copy errors), combined with the processes of natural selection, enables evolution to happen. All cells on Earth, from our white blood cells, to simple bacteria, to cells in the leaves of trees, are capable of reading any piece of DNA from any life form on Earth. This is very strong evidence for a common ancestor from which all life descended. And therefore macroevolution exists. Human beings have approximately 96% of genes in common with chimpanzees, about 90% of genes in common with cats, 80% with cows, 75% with mice and so on.

This does not prove that we evolved from chimpanzees or cats though, (as is the usual cry from those creationists who don't understand what evolution actually is), only that we shared a common ancestor in the past. The amount of difference between our genomes corresponds to how long ago our genetic lines diverged. Hence 'macroevolution'.

The fossil record shows that the simplest fossils will be found in the oldest rocks, and it can also show a smooth and gradual transition from one form of life to another. For example we have well known and documented transitional forms between fish, snakes, lizards, and frogs, between whales, dolphins, and other land mammals, between reptiles and other proto-mammals, between birds and dinosaurs, etc. ASs I have said repeatedly, the evidence is overwhelming. There is no serious debate in science whether or not common descent (i.e. macro-evolution) happened.

One of the examples of transitional fossils mentioned above, is our collection of fossil hominids (see picture below). Based upon the consensus of numerous phylogenetic analyses, Pan troglodytes (the chimpanzee) is the closest living relative of humans. Thus, we expect that organisms lived in the past which were intermediate in morphology between humans and chimpanzees. Over the past century, many paleontological finds have identified such transitional hominid fossils.

• (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern

• (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My

• (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My

• (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My

• (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My

• (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My

• (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My

• (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My

• (I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y

• (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y

• (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y

• (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y

• (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y

• (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

Added to the above, humans, dogs, snakes, fish, monkeys, eels (and many more life forms) are all considered "chordates" because we belong to the phylum Chordata. One of the features of this phylum is that, as embryos (including humans and including you and I when we were embryos), all these life forms have gill slits, tails, and specific anatomical structures involving the spine. For humans (and other non-fish) the gill slits reform into the bones of the ear and jaw at a later stage in development. But, initially, all chordate embryos strongly resemble each other.

In fact, pig embryos are often dissected in biology classes because of how similar they look to human embryos. These common characteristics could only be possible if all members of the phylum Chordata descended from a common ancestor.

Natural selection also exists. For example bacteria colonies can only build up a resistance to antibiotics through evolution. It is important to note that in every colony of bacteria, there are a tiny few individuals which are naturally resistant to certain antibiotics. This is because of the random nature of mutations. Over time in most species, the number of mutations will multiply to the extent where speciation will occur. Macroevolution.

When an antibiotic is applied, the initial innoculation will kill most bacteria, leaving behind only those few cells which happen to have the mutations necessary to resist the antibiotics. In subsequent generations, the resistant bacteria reproduce, forming a new colony where every member is resistant to the antibiotic. This is natural selection in action. The antibiotic is "selecting" for organisms which are resistant, and killing any that are not.

As I said above, at the smallest scale, 'macroevolution' is the development of a new species or 'speciation'. So, two populations that cannot mate to produce successful offspring are by definition separate species. When enough genetic changes accumulate in a population, eventually it loses the ability to mate with others of its species. Then, by definition, it becomes a new species. In other words, 'macroevolution' has occurred.

The only evolution we see in nature is within kind.

That's not quite correct. 'Within kind' I assume you mean within species. See the definition of 'species' above.

Here's an example of observed speciation. Macroevolution at the smallest scale. Biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant had been studying finches since 1973 on an island called Daphne Major in the Galapagos. When they first began their studies, only two species of Finch lived on Daphne Major: the medium ground finch and the cactus finch. But, in 1981, they noticed that an odd new finch had arrived at the island. It was a hybrid, a mix between a cactus finch and a medium ground finch. It had an extra large beak, an unusual hybrid genome, and a new kind of song. But somehow it was still able to find a mate. The female also had some hybrid chromosomes of her own. So their offspring were very different from the other birds on the island. The biologists observed that after four finch generations, (about four-five years) a drought killed off many of the birds on Daphne Major. In fact, almost the entire hybrid line was exterminated. Only a brother and sister pair remained. The two family members mated with each other, producing offspring that were even more unique than their parent line. From that point on, it was observed the odd population of finches mated only with each other. They were never seen to breed with the cactus finches or the medium ground finches on the island. The hybrid finches had become a brand new species. Macroevolution at the smallest scale in action.

Macroevolution does not mean a drastic and obvious change from one type of organism into another, although more distanty related organisms with different genmes caused by mutations will obviously look quite different from one another. Those who think this way believe that macroevolution is something like two dogs breeding to suddenly produce a cat, or two guinea pigs mating to produce a mouse. That doesn't happen in evolution.

This other question is far, far more important. This ignorance is that people try to tell us where we came from without any solid point of reference except that it happened out of nowhere and took a while. Would evolutionary theories change if we had a clearer picture of the initial beginning of life? Undoubtedly.

No they wouldn't. Why would they?

 

[M Malice]

Roylion , I don't think the creationist supporters read you postings at all or they just have a cursory look, even for me as a laymen with zero formal educational qualifications your posts are easy to understand and quite concise considering their length.

If you don't think evolution is a fact you should probably spend most of your time on the flat earth or moon landing hoax threads.

 

[cannot]

Roylion , I don't think the creationist supporters read you postings at all or they just have a cursory look, even for me as a laymen with zero formal educational qualifications your posts are easy to understand and quite concise considering their length.

If you don't think evolution is a fact you should probably spend most of your time on the flat earth or moon landing hoax threads.

he talks rubbish in the flat earth thread too dont worry

 

[M Malice]

he talks rubbish in the flat earth thread too dont worry

I do visit the conspiracy section occasionally although I rarely post even though I am open to a couple of the CTs. I can't say I have noticed Roy there. I would be fairly confident in saying that he would not be a flat earther.