NEWSFLASH: Schools In Georgia (US) Are Allowed To Teach About Creation

There's a nice response for Dolittle and his likes by Behe >> http://www.arn.org/...mb_indefenseofbloodclottingcascade.htmAlso another response to the Boston Review Publication >> http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_brrespbr.htmRegards,
Ahmad

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I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know,but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science (Gould, 1983).

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Thanks for pointing that out. But I don't think I have been misled. Gould was partly right and partly wrong, as I would classify it. Creationism is based on Science.. although there is a certain degree of faith involved. The only thing that can make Gould's prediction about creationists come true, is valid empirical evidence that proves the non-existence of a Creator. The tables are turned. As far as I know, no potential data has yet been uncovered to make creationism a dogma.On the same criterias, evolution is not a scientific theory either but an ideological dogma if not to say some sort of "religion". The Darwinist professor of philosophy and zoology Michael Ruse confesses this in these words (in context):"And certainly, there's no doubt about it, that in the past, and I think also in the present, for many evolutionists, evolution has functioned as something with elements which are, let us say, akin to being a secular religion ... And it seems to me very clear that at some very basic level, evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism" (Michael Ruse, "Nonliteralist Antievolution", AAAS Symposium: "The New Antievolutionism," February 13, 1993, Boston, MA.)Regards,
Ahmad

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You DO realize that by "abrupt, Gould is talking about several million years, don't you?

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Have you ever heard of Punctuated Equilibrium? The Modern Synthesis?

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I have heard all of them. Yet none of them stand to the test. The only purpose of these models was to provide an explanation of the gaps in the fossil-record that the neo-Darwinist model could not explain. However, it is hardly rational to attempt to explain the fossil gap in the evolution of birds, for instance, with a claim that "a bird popped all of a sudden out of a reptile egg", because by the evolutionists' own admission, the evolution of a species to another species requires a great and advantageous change in genetic information.

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Tell me, have you ever read any complete work by Dawkins or Gould, or any other Evolutionist? Have you read The Blind Watchmaker in it's entirety??

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I have read the Blind Watchmaker... little about Gould's books. Say, have you read Henry Morris' "Scientific Creationism" or Wilder Smith's "Scientific Alternative to Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory"?? Interesting books.

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What we have been telling you is that you are arguing from ignorance . We have heard your arguments MANY TIMES before. They are all new and exciting and convincing to you, but they are OLD AND WEARY to us because we have refuted them over and over.

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Could be because your responses are not adequate or does not fit the scientific criterias. Science is progressive.. so the arguments may be incessant

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We DO have more education in Biology and Evolution than you do. We have all probably read a great deal more Creationist literature that you have, which is why your arguments are so familiar to us.

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Hmm..

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Go and read through TalkOrigins. Read Gould and Dawkins. Go and learn WHY we say your arguments are bunk and our evidence is better, even if you do not believe it. Do it for thsake of knowing what you are up against. This is why we read Creationist literature.

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Tell me one person who hasn't read evolutionist literature!! Its literally dominant in every biology books.

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Do the study and work to really write intelligently and show that you do understand, for example, a little bit about the second law of thermodynamics, instead of parroting what somebody else has told you is true without checking for yourself.

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I have checked.... thats why am here Regards,
Ahmad

Thanks for emailing me the d/l site. It would have been better if I got an HTML version, but nonetheless, thanks

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Perhaps at this stage it would be pertinent to bring us back to my original contention; that there is no positive evidence of non-evolvability of IC. Do you have any?

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I think I have reiterated the impossibility of IC systems evolving many times. I will try to clarify once more. If a system is IC, it CANNOT EVOLVE. Evolution states that systems start out in a simple form, and then, driven by natural selection, gradually get better and better. In contrast, irreducible complexity says that the system is useless until all the components of the system is present. Thus, natural selection could not drive evolution "from scratch." I think Cahrles Colson sums it up pretty good.Charles Colson: "The Darwinian theory states that all living structures evolve in small, gradual steps from simpler structures - feathers from scales, wings from forelegs, blossoms from leaves and so on. But anything that is irreducibly complex cannot evolve in gradual steps, and thus is very existence refutes the Darwinian theory.Furthermore, evolution has a lot of things to explain about IC systems. The origin of the cilia for example,and numerous other biochemical systems like the light-sensing system in animal eyes, the transport system within the cell, the bacterial flagellum, and the blood clotting system. All consist of a very complex system of interacting parts which cannot be simplified while maintaining functionality.Thornhill and Ussery attempted to explain the possibility of darwinian pathways in IC systems by the four aforementioned principles. Mike Gene has clearly outlined and summarised their arguments and clarified what indeed Behe said.

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Again, Behe provides no POSITIVE evidence for IC (T&U’s def), that is falsifiable, that is. You are making the assertion that IC is un-evolvable. You seem to require empirical evidence of everything else, so I’m going top ask you to meet your own standards.

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There is empirical evidence. And this empirical evidence is evident. IC as defined by Behe, poses a system to be functionally indivisible such that even the removal of one of the components will render the entire system useless. Now you explain me, How can such functionally indivisible irreducibly complex systems like the cilia, and other examples I gace above, can evolve??

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You are joking, right?

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Gee, what makes you say that?

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Give examples where chromosome c amino acid sequence are incredibly different in living beings of the same class, & that is the rule, not the exception, relative to other classes.

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Who mentioned anything about "chromosome c"? I was talking about Cytochrome - C and their difference in lving beings of the same class. Are you denying that? This Cytochrome - C shows the turtle is more closely related to the birds that to its fellow reptile, the snake. Furthermore, the chicken is grouped with the penguin rather than the duck, and man and ape separate from the main mammalian branch before the supposedly less advanced marsupial mammal, the kangaroo (Note: they are the same class - Mammalia)[Ayala, F., "The Mechanisms of Evolution." Scientific American, V. 239, No. 3,1978, p. 56.]A study conducted on molcular homology also shows that that molecular differences between some birds are greater than the differences between those same birds and mammals. It has also been discovered that the molecular difference between bacteria that appear to be very similar is greater than the difference between mammals and amphibians or insects. (W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville: 1991, pp. 98-99; Percival Davis, Dean Kenyon, Of Pandas and People, Haughton Publishing Co., 1990, pp. 35-38.)

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Again you are misled. Phylogenetic analyses relies upon the principles that; 1/ mutations are heritable,

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Mutations are hereditary only if they take place at the reproductive cells of an organism. A random change that occurs in a casual cell or organ of the body cannot be transferred to the next generation. Regarding Phylogeny, Carl Woese, reputed biologist from the University of Illinois, has this to say:"No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various (groups) to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves." (Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854.)

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Regardless, there is excellent congruence between morphological phylogenies & molecular ones. How the DEVIL did that happen, you ask? Cytochrome c, as you correctly observe, is vital in Krebs cycle, it has no morphological function, however. So why does it, & other molecular data support the same phylogenies? The odds against just two 10 taxa phylogenies being fully congruent is 1,190,250,000,000,000 : 1. Even having them 50% congruent is 289,000,000,000,000 : 1! Why are the phylogenies not 100% congruent at all times? Because point mutations occur randomly, & it is entirely possible that two distantly related molecules can become similar enough for a phylogenetic program to place a bird in the reptile clade, for example. But, this should be, & IS observed as the exception, not the rule. See my challenge higher up the post, if you think I’m wrong.

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So who has observed the popping out of a bird from a reptile egg?? I certinaly haven't. If point mutations are to be hereditary, they need to take place at reproductive cells of organism, as I said before. Otherwise, they will not be expressed in the phenotype of offsprings. What are the odds of this kind of "point" and "beneficial" mutations to occur in an organism?? I would say huge. And the odds of this to happen multiple times to create an entirely different species among all is extremely huge. Say 10^100000000000000000..... and can extend up trillions depending on the number of species.Furthermore, I don't think the congruence in morphological and molecular phylogenies are "excellent" as you describe it. A research carried out to make comparisons between "ribosomal RNA" (rRNA) and protein phylogenies proves my point. According to French biologists Herv Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "with more and more sequences available, it turned out that most protein pyhlogenies contradict each other as well as the rRNA tree."(Herv Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "The Rooting of the Universal Tree of Life is Not Reliable", Journal of Molecular Evolution, vol 49, 1999, p. 510.)I would like to hear some examples from you regarding the "excellence" you attribute to the congruence of morhological and molecular phylogenies.

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You could of course be bemoaning the accuracy of the molecular clock placing the divergences at circa 1 bn years ago-ish. Actually, I think the criticisms levelled at the molecular clock are valid, but doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be used as a tool for measuring a rough timing.

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You could say that but I do doubt the scientific accuracy of the "molecular clock" concept, to be honest with you.

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Surely, the salient question should be; why are they there at all?

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Thats not an answer. There should be fossils.. in fact many fossils that surpass the cambrian era, if indeed myriad of mutli-cellular organisms existed pre-cambrian. I am not denying they didn't exist at that time, but what proof is there that complex multi-cellular invertebrates (and chordates as recently doscovered)in the cambrian could have descended or evolved from organisms at the pre-cambrian??

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We call this the Gish number. If (Gish) wants to see a transitional between A & E, he expects to see ONE transitional, C. Of course, he now wants to see transitionals B & D!. No matter how many you show Gish, he needs to see more. Beyond that, this is pretty much the only valid question creationists bring regarding the Cambrian explosion, see below.

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Call it anything, but the absence of transitional fossils has shook the theory of evolution and you can't deny that

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He published in 1912, you have the cite. Ignoring & simply reasserting yourself without refutation won’t help you’re argument. This is only the earliest I could find. Even if you're right, so what? The Cambrian explosion has been known of since before Walcott was born, hardly an evilutionist conspriracy!

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The cambrian explosion has been known even before walcott was born, and I agree with that. Regarding that, I am not saying otherwise. My argument is based on the late (not less than 70 years) publication og the Burghess Shale fauna. Walcott did notpublish anything in 1912. In fact, from 1910 to 1917, he was working on the quarry of Burghess shale.

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How does this refute evolution? It is essentially a question, not a conclusion.

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Oh its a conclusion alright. If you read the article, you would find evolutionist writers note that some taxa which were considered "intermediate" between groups such as sponges, cnidarians and ctenophores can no longer be considered as such because of new genetic findings, and that they have "lost hope" of constructing such evolutionary family trees:The new molecular based phylogeny has several important implications. Foremost among them is the disappearance of "intermediate" taxa between sponges, cnidarians, ctenophores, and the last common ancestor of bilaterians or "Urbilateria."...A corollary is that we have a major gap in the stem leading to the Urbilataria. We have lost the hope, so common in older evolutionary reasoning, of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" through a scenario involving successive grades of increasing complexity based on the anatomy of extant "primitive" lineages"

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Ah, yes, sheer observation. How is this NOT empirical? I think you will find that the OBSERVATION of "arthropod-a-like" observations makes the said observations EMPIRICAL, by definition. The CONCLUSION is tentative, I agree, & I am not convinced myself that Spriggina actually IS an arthropod/trilobite ancestor. But the observation that Spriggina is "arthropod-a-like" is an empirical observation.

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Where is the "empirical evidence"?? How could the exoskeleton of the arthropods (trilobites) evolve from the annelids (spriggina)??

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Spriggina is a candidate for a trilobite ancestor. You maintain there are NO candidates. You are wrong. You tell me what a trilobite transitional SHOULD look like.

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If there indeed is a trilobite transitional, the organism should have a half exoskeleton and half-endoskeleton, half-jointed appendages, a body cavity with half-haemocoel etc. Everything should be hlaf-way since it's a transitional organism. At least, thats how I look at it.Furthermore, trilobites are more complex than spriggina. If natural selection and point mutations (taking in consideration the odds of it producing a benefician change as I outlined above) caused the spriggina to evolve in to a trilobite, then you have to base the reason (apart from empirical evidence) as to why did this occur? Mutations, on the majority, are harmful as it deranges the nucleotide sequence; so the majority if mutations occuring may even devolve the spriggina to relatively simpler organism. Are there any transitional fossils for that? Why only evolution has to occur, and not devolution since the possibility of the latter is more than the former?

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No, no, no, no, NO! The fossil evidence shows an abrupt appearance, but no palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist thinks that the phyla actually appeared abruptly. The molecular evidence suggests otherwise. You can only make the claim that major metazoan phyla has appeared abruptly in the Cambrian era IF you ignore non-fossil evidence. It most certainly HASN’T been established that this is true. But so what if it is? This is a watered down statement when compared to ALL metazoan phyla appeared in the Cambrian, without exception. How would this refute evolution even if it were true, which it demonstrably isn’t?

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Firstly, the "at once" appearance of living organisms refers to an extremely narrow geological time (~5-10 million mya) when all the animals phylas, except bryozoans, made their appearance. Now this does refute evolution.. which states that given NS and random mutations occuring over a long period of time, the organism gradually evolves from simple to complex. How was this evolution gradual during the cambrian explosion? Modern evolutionists propose different hypothesis to explain this like Punctuated Equilibria, plate tectonics etc. But what they can't explain is the wide variety of organisms making their appearance within an extremely short time. Note, these organisms varied from each other distinctly by possessing features complex and has no known evolutionary origin.

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I have asked this several times now; what implication does the appearance of major classifications of organisms at different times have on your belief system? You have used the fossil record to support your claim that ALL metazoans appear at the same time (& you admit this is an incorrect assumption), so it stands to reason that you use the same evidence to support your own hypothesis. Can you make the same observations fit your belief system?
What prediction are you making, what prediction am I making?

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There is a difference between "belief systems" and "creation science". Belief systems are particular instances of faith and ritual-based. Creation science is an attempt to explain the origin of wide diversity of life pointing towards a Creator. Creation theory offers reasonable explanations for both the Cambrian Explosion and the origin and ubiquity of the genetic code. The taxonomic diversity seen in the Cambrian Explosion may be simply the result of preservation of various communities of marine organisms living on or near the floor of the sea. The basis for the association of the fossils is ecological rather than genealogical. The absence of ancestors in the underlying strata is not due to a faulty fossil record, but reflects separate origins of the various groups. This proposition applies whether one reads the fossil record as extended history or as complex catastrophe.

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Au contraire! If you went to a garden centre, where would you get a seed fern? They have been extinct since the Jurassic! The problem creationists exhibit is they think animal life = all life. Therefore the abrupt appearance of animal phyla = the abrupt appearance of all life. Not so.

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And each of them complies with Creation theory. So what if the seed ferns went extinct? Similar explanations regarding the origin of plants can also be given. Have you heard of the "evolutionary explosion" (as evolutionists call it) that took place some time during the carboniferous period?

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As I have explained, prokaryotes precede eukaryotes, which in turn precedes multicellular life. All of this occurred BEFORE the Cambrian explosion.

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If I am not wrong, is this the endosymbiont theory of Margulis that you are referring to?

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Most animal phyla appear in a short time, but demonstrably not all; certainly not other Kingdoms phyla, orders, & classes.

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Agreed, but how can evolution explain this sudden origin of the "most animal phylas"??

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Again, au contraire, ever heard of the progymnosperms, of which the seed ferns are members? Just like animals, plants have intermediates too.

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So far, you haven't shown me any valid intermediate of animals. And what are the ‘progymnosperms’? Imaginary evolutionary ancestorsthere is no evidence that they ever even existed!

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In my discussions with you I have been careful not to make any unbacked assertions. Care to support the quote above with anything more than faith alone? That is, positive, testable, falsifiable evidence?

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IC and CE are my bets.

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As you have learned, Richard Kerr is wrong, Bryozoans were late in turning up for Gods creationfest, to the tune of 50 million years. Why would Dick make such an error of omission, do you think?

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I have been delving upon this subject in detail, lately. Bryozoans appeared just after the Cambrian period, in the Ordovician Period (495 mya) that is part of the same Palezoic era that cambrian period is part of too. Hmm.. does that ring a bell?

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Also, the earliest unargued multicellular animal body fossils date fom 900 million years ago (to my knowledge)(see a previous post), giving a 450 million year window of opportunity for the earliest metazoans taxa to the last phyla to appear.

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Interesting. Can you back up your claim?

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What of the above refute evolution?

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If all the animal phyla, save the bryozoans, including complex invertebrates as well as vertebrates, hemichordates and chordates all appeared in span of ~5-10 mya, how do you think evolution can explain this?

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You rely on negative evidence & incredulity. As with IC, you have presented nothing but this is missing type arguments, rather than positive, falsifiable evidence to support your argument. As I am growing tired of saying, everything is in its predicted place. The mystery of the Cambrian explosion is how did so many bodyplans appear in such a short space of time, nothing more.

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So how does evolution explain this appearance of highly complex bodyplans in such a "shot period of time"?? Concerning IC, what of my arguments regarding IC deal with "this is missing"?? I have given several examples of IC. How do they classify as "this is missing" argument since in IC every component is needed to make the system effectively function.

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Finally, a comment on "transitional" fossils in the Precambrian. What would a soft bodied protoarthropod with no jointed legs look like? What would a chordate transitional look like before it got a notochord? What would an echinoderm/chordate ancestor look like?

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What would a fish with half human female body look like? How do we identify a horse with features that are half-human? The answers lie within the question itself. A soft bodied protoarthropod with no jointed legs, WILL LOOK LIKE ONE. It will have no jointed appeandages but will be a cross between its ancestors and its own "future" species.All chordates have notochords. So if there exists a chordate transitional, it should be a cross between its ancestor species and the future specie. For example, if there is a transition between an echinoderm and chordates, the resulting species is bound to have everything in half. It should have half an exoskeleton and half an endoskeleton. Half from each species, especially the characteristic features.Ofcourse, then again, it is not for me to decide the transitionals but Nature herself, IF evolution indeed took place. Legends of Mermaids, Centaurs throughout the centuries were believed until this century... which has rendered all of them as myths and used as fairy tales for children. Who knows? Evolution might have the same fate in the near future.

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Creationist assertions shown to be in error:

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1/ All animal phyla appeared at the same time.

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With the exception of bryozoans, what are your bets?

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2/ No animal phyla appeared after the Cambrian explosion.

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What are the animal phylas that appeared first after the cambrian explosion, save the bryozoans?

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No animal phyla appeared before the Cambrian explosion.

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Metazoans and traces of multicellular organisms can be traced before the cambrian era. But what phylas had their go before the cambrian explosion and appeared in a complete state?

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There are no possible intermediate fossils of metazoans in the Precambrian.

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No intermediate fossils of any species during any era has been shown yet.

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Remaining problems:

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1/ Why did so many body plans of metazoan fossils appear at roughly the same time?

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2/ Why is there such a paucity of fossil multicellular life in the Precambrian?

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Taking in account the high level of complexity involved in the body plans of metazoans. The second question appears to be correct. Here are some additional questions I infer:Regarding Cambrian Explosion:1. How does evolution explain the appearance of mosiac living organisms including recently discovered chordates, highly complex trilobites and opabinia and virtually all the animal phyla (except bryozoans) that made their entry in ~5-10 mya during the cambrian era?2. I'll raise the same set of questions, Darwin raised regarding lack transitional fossils at this time:"Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined? But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me." (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 179.)Regarding IC:1. How does evolution explain irreducible complexity in organlles and systems that are functionally indivisible? (Thornhill and Ussery could not explain that)Regards,
Ahmad

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Um, so, do you understand that what Gould means when he says "abrupt" is not what you mean when you say "abrupt"?

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Hmm... what does he exactly mean?

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But do you understand them? Why not explain them in your own words here?

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I did.

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Ah, as I suspected. You do not understand PE at all.

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Here is a good explanation of the basics. Please read it and show where it suggests anything remotely like the "bird out of a reptile egg" scenario is predicted.

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Punctuated Equilibria

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What else can you expect from a pro-evolutionist site? But PE does fit in the "bird out of a reptile" scenario.

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No, see below. PE explains the rate of the apparent appearence of fossils.

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And why was PE proposed? They claimed that this theory arose out of biology, but there is no empirical biological basis for such speciation events. It seems that the 'mechanism' was adopted because it 'explained' their observation of the fossils.

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Also, you are incorrect that PE was developed to explain gaps in the fossil record:

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Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution

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"Some Creationists claim that the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium was proposed (by Eldredge and Gould) to explain gaps in the fossil record. Actually, it was proposed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, not their total absence, and to explain why speciation appears to happen relatively quickly in some cases, gradually in others, and not at all during some periods for some species. In no way does it deny that transitional sequences exist. In fact, both Gould and Eldredge are outspoken opponents of Creationism.

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The basic 'mechanism' of speciation proposed by Eldredge and Gould was borrowed from others. The concept of allopatric (geographic) speciation had been recognized as a mechanism of evolutionary change, albeit in a gradualistic manner. Mayr in particular had elaborated on this. Eldredge acknowledged that allopatric speciation can be traced even to pre-Darwinian biology. Eldredge and Gould made one controversial addition, that:"Most evolutionary changes in morphology occur in a short period of time relative to the total duration of a species" (Eldredge, N. and Gould, S. J., 1972. 'Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism', Time Frames: the Rethinking of Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria, page 204)and argued that it was a logical deduction from the peripheral isolate theory of allopatric speciation. Although they acknowledged that: [b]"No new theory of evolutionary mechanisms can be generated from paleontological data'"(same book, page 202)one suspects that the concept of rapid speciation came from their reading of the fossil record rather than from any new understanding of allopatric speciation. Even this concept of rapid speciation was not really new. Other than Goldschmidt, Soviet workers had proposed in the 1960s that change tends to be concentrated in rapid speciation events and that species remain remarkably stable after becoming established.(Stanley, S. M., 1975. A theory of evolution above the species level. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 72(2):646- 650.)Kurt Wise, a creationist palaeontologist, suggested an alternative explanation for the fossil evidence of abrupt appearance of species and stasis. Read his article, PUNC EQ CREATION STYLE >> Geoscience Research Institute | I think we need more research on that...

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Really? Care to back this up? Cites from the literature, or at least from Biologists' work, not Creationists or Creationist sites.

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Huh? So you're telling me (correct me if I am wrong) that a change from one species to another does not require a great advantageous change in the genetic information?

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Wow. I am surprised that you could misunderstand it so profoundly and/or be so unmoved by the amazingly detailed logic and evidence that he provides.

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Yeah right! His logic ends with his fallacious claim when he states that some of the parts in our eyes have been wired backwards and suggests it to be a wrong way.

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I strongly suggest picking some up. "The Panda's Thumb" is a good one to start with.

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Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try to get that.

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Yup.

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What do you think about it?

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Um, considering that you don't even know what a peer-reviewed science journal is

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Standard norm where the theories of scientists get evaluated by their peers. What about it?

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misrepresent evolutionary theory

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The theory misrepresents itself

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physics, and the scientific method

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Just what according to you is the scientific method?

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and think that posting out of context, dishonestly-altered quotes instead of arguing from an informed position is legitimate debate

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I apologise for the "out-of-context" quote of S.J Gould. Henceforth, I'll try my best to quote evolutionists in their proper context. However, I quote them to prove my point, not as an alternative to a legitimate debate.

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I don't really think you are in a position to judge if our responses are adequate or not.

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I am a science student and I think I have every right and position to question the adequacy and veracity of claims of anyone I wish to. And I do exercise my right.

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That's my whole point. In your arrogance and ignorance, you have decided we are wrong, yet you don't have the barest understanding of what you are attempting to deny.

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Firstly, I respect your opinion about me as arrogant and ignorant and take that as an ad hominem. Secondly, I don't think I have decided about anyone being erroneous. There are people triple times more intelligent and thoughtful than me in this forum, I bet. There is certain amount of truth in everyone. How do supposedly impose your own decision about me deciding that you guys are wrong is bizarre, since I don't recall making such an accusation. Lastly, enlighten me as to what indeed am I attempting to deny that I don't have the "barest understanding" of what I am talking about.

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The problem is, you have yet to use anything resembling science as an argument.

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Haven't I?

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Apparently, you haven't because you do not seem to have an understanding of Evolutionary Theory, nor of the nature of scientific inquiry.

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Well, my biology Professor (evolutionist) didn't have that impression about me when I got an A+ for elaborating the ToE in my science papers Regarding the nature of scientific enquiry, you tell me about it. What are the physics of this nature?

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As it should be. I suggest you take a college-level bioligy course.

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As a final year student, I have done numerous reports and conducted group researches concerning evolutionary theory and its basis.

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But you spout decades-old, long-refuted Creationist arguments at every turn!

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Thats one way of looking at it. Another way would be the consistent counter-responses and counter-rebuttals given by creationists to their critics. Look both ways. The argument is progressive and that is exactly why specially designated forums like this one have been built.

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Only people who have a profound ignorance of Evolutionary theory, and worse, a profound ignorance of the history of the Creationist movement, would ever make the arguments you have repeatedly made, or use the debate tactics and logical fallacies you have.

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Really? So you tell me... what kind of "debate tactics" should I use? What "logical fllacies" have I made? Correct me. I am willing to accept correction. But it seems that you're only good at pointing faults (although I do appreciate that) that correcting and providing your evidence. I suggest you re-think your allegations about me and before pointing one finger at me, do take in consideration the four fingers that point at YOU.Regards,
Ahmad[This message has been edited by Ahmad, 11-19-2002]

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Of course you were misled! Without the complete sentence, it appears Gould is saying something other than he intended! Is this really the sort of tactic you approve of?

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I do stand corrected on this matter.Regards,
Ahmad

Perhaps you would like to read Kurt Wise (creationist paleontologist)article "Punc Eq Creation Style here >> Geoscience Research Institute | I think we need more research on that...

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Wise: 'The rarity of exceptions to PE sensu stricto [that is, stasis and abrupt appearance of species] indicates that a model of catastrophic deposition of the earth's rocks could be invoked as a mechanism to account for the paleontological observation of PE theory.'

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Interesting article.Regards,
Ahmad

My apologies for the late response. I was extremely busy with my work. Here is my response:

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Ahmad, this is an argument from definition. No one has shown that IC systems cannot evolve. You have been asked multiple times to produce positive evidence of IC non-evolvability (as creationists define it), & have repeatedly failed to produce any. IC is simply a system that fails if you remove one part.

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Mark, I asked you many a times: "How can IC systems evolve, in the first place?" I just don't see any way it can. Have you read Behe's book? Do you consider the example of the non-evolvability of a mouse-trap, that Behe exemplified to prove his point?Now you exemplify it. Show me how IC systems evolve? Provide POSITIVE, TESTABLE, EMPIRICAL evidence that IC systems can evolve, and I will respond.

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The clotting cascades HAVE been shown to have a plausible evolutionary pathway. If you remove a single molecule from the cascade, clotting will not occur, it is IC. So why can a plausible pathway be presented? Such a thing is impossible according to you.

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Since no valid "plausible evolutionary pathway" was shown in blood-clotting, it still stands as irreducibly comple. Read chapter 4 of Behe's book where he discusses the very complex details of the cascade required for blood to clot and not kill the human organism. This involves a variety of complex controls built into the process to prevent the death of the organism. On page 96, Dr. Behe states,"The bottom line is that clusters of proteins have to be inserted all at once into the cascade. This can be done only by postulating a 'hopeful monster' who luckily gets all of the proteins at once, or by the guidance of an intelligent agent." Here, he is clearly showing that extreme luck or intelligent design is required for the cascade to accidentally occur because of the described complexity of the process. At the end of the chapter on page 97, Dr. Behe surmises, "The fact is, no one on earth has the vaguest idea how the coagulation cascade came to be."

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IC is NOT unevolvable by definition, as you seem to think.

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Prove me otherwise. Show me how can an IC system evolve? (using an example would be helpful).

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Like what? Does it POSITIVELY show that IC couldn’t have of evolved? I guess not.

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Mark, something can be impossible only after the qiestion of its possiblity arises. How is it possible for IC systems to evolve, is something I cannot understand. How could the intricate irreducibly complex bacterial flagella have evolved? How could the cilium have evolved? Determine the possibilities of the evolution of these IC systems, and then I can show you the impossibility.

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Nope. YOU provide positive evidence that they CAN’T. It is your claim, not mine.

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How can they CAN, in the first place?

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Yes I do deny that turtle cytochrome c is more closely related to birds than reptiles. The sequence may be more SIMILAR, however.

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So similarity does not constitute for close relativity? And this is not me saying... but decades of reasearch in genome which shows this close relativity between turtles and birds rather than turtles and reptiles.

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You didn’t answer the question. I maintain that the similarities of cytochrome c are MORE similar within classes than of sequences outside it, & that is the rule, not the exception. I explained both the how & why of the exceptions, & I asked you to give examples where cytochrome c (you knew very well what I was talking about) amino acid sequence are incredibly different in living beings of the same class, & that is the rule, not the exception, relative to other classes.You haven’t done this. I ask you to accept what I say, or provide an example that contradicts me. Now, it was a rhetorical question, where you were supposed to see the obvious error in your argument; that you are claiming exceptions are the rule. Since I cannot prove a negative, the only way to demonstrate my argument to be incorrect is to provide an example of what I assert doesn’t exist, does. I now have to ask you to either:

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1/ Provide a class in which over 50% of the organisms contained therein have cytochrome c amino acid sequences that are more similar to organisms in other classes than organisms of the same class. Or;

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2/ Accept that the premise that cytochrome c similarities do not closely correlate to class, is wrong.

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Cytochrome C Differences Cytochrome C DifferencesBacterium to Six Organisms Silkmoth to Vertebrates
to yeast . . . . . . . 69% to lamprey . . . . .27%
to wheat . . . . . . . 66% to carp. . . . . . .25%
to silkmoth. . . . . . 65% to pigeon. . . . . .26%
to tuna. . . . . . . . 65% to turtle. . . . . .25%
to pigeon. . . . . . . 64% to horse . . . . . .30%
to horse . . . . . . . 64%Cytochrome C Differences Hemoglobin DifferencesCarp to Terrestrial Vertebrates Lamprey to Other Vertebrates
to bullfrog. . . . . . 13% to human . . . . . .73%
to turtle. . . . . . . 13% to kangaroo. . . . .76%
to chicken . . . . . . 14% to chicken . . . . .78%
to rabbit. . . . . . . 13% to frog. . . . . . .76%
to horse . . . . . . . 13% to carp. . . . . . .75%If you know the organisms in various classes, I think the table is self-explanatory. This table is the result of the experiments conducted by Dr. Michael Denton (Evolution: A theory in Crisis) with Cytochrome-C and haemoglobin. I included Haemoglobin differences too, to prove my point.Dr. Denton states, "There is not a trace at a molecular level of the traditional evolutionary series: fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. Incredibly man is closer to lamprey than are fish."He also states, "Each class at molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intemediates so long sought by evolutionary biology At a molecular level, no organism is "ancestral" or "primitive" or "advanced" compared with its relatives There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available a century ago the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted."[Source: Michael Denton. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. London: Burnett Books, 1985, pp. 290-91.]

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Either, this is a misquote, or just plain wrong.

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Link: hereYou put it in context, if I misquoted Dr. Woese.

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Non sequitur. This has nothing to do with the points raised.

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You raised the possibility. You said: "Why are the phylogenies not 100% congruent at all times? Because point mutations occur randomly, & it is entirely possible that two distantly related molecules can become similar enough for a phylogenetic program to place a bird in the reptile clade, for example."Has such a phenomenon, as the possibility you raised, observed?

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Actually, the genotypes. A mutation may be expressed in the phenotype. You seem to think you have stumbled on to something by pointing out that somatic mutations aren’t inherited. Of course they’re not!! Only mutations that end up in the gametes can affect evolution. No one is saying anything to the contrary. Phylogenetic analyses can only work with these mutations, what's the problem?

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The problem is this: If mutations take place in the reproductive cells of the organism, the probability of getting five mutations ("good" or bad) in the same nucleus has been estimated to be 1 in 10 to the 22 power! If there was a population of 100 million organisms with a reproductive cycle of 1 day, such an event (5 mutations in one nucleus) would be expected to occur ONCE in 274 BILLION YEARS!

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Seriously flawed logic, Ahmad.

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Hypothetical argument; you have a computer that randomly picks a 20 figure number. If the computer picks another 20 figure number, what are the odds that;

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1/ It will pick a 20 figure number? (Answer- Evens 1:1)

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2/ It will pick the SAME 20 figure number? (Answer- 99,999,999,999,999,999,999:1)

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See the difference?

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It’s the same thing with organisms. You may not end up with the SAME organism if you rerun evolution, but you WOULD end up with AN organism. The chance ofd getting the same genome would be astronomically against.

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Perhaps a better example would be; what are the chances of your parents getting an EXACT copy of Ahmad with their next child? Almost zero. But they GOT YOU, didn’t they? They WILL get a child, but the chances of getting EXACTLY the same as the last one is so small as to not even consider. So, statistically speaking, by your logic, you can’t exist, because the odds of having everything exactly the way you are is astronomically against!

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These odds you present are a strawman.

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But what are the odds that the organism so produced by random mutation will be "productive" or "viable" or "complex"?? "Chance" does not cause anything. Things that are caused by processes that we observe to be "random" we associate with increasing disorder, not more complex design (as we see in organisms).

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"The Phylogeny of the Hominoid Primates: A Statistical
Analysis of the DNA-DNA Hybridization Data"

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You might want to read this article by J.L Gibson, "DO DNA DISTANCES REVEAL AVIAN PHYLOGENY?Geoscience Research Institute | I think we need more research on that...An interesting article that highlights the various techniques used in DNA-DNA hybridization rate.

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Excerpt from the site: Although taxonomic groupings determined by DNA distances are often congruent with those determined by morphology, the number of inconsistencies is substantial. Unless some independent evidence can be found to support the relationships proposed from DNA distances, it seems reasonable to suggest that a point is reached beyond which the DNA/DNA hybridization method is not useful in determining relationships. On the other hand, if morphology is truly subject to convergence as much as is suggested by the DNA/DNA hybridization technique, classifications based on morphology need to be reevaluated. The usefulness of fossils in tracing ancestry would also be seriously challenged, since morphology is the basis for comparing fossils.

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"A molecular phylogeny of the hominoid primates as indicated by two-dimensional protein electrophoresis."

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I don't have subscription to BioMedNet. So can you please provide an alternative site for that?

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Molecular Evolution of Cytochrome c Oxidase Subunit IV: Evidence for
Positive Selection in Simian Primates"

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Unfortunately for them, they haven't provided any evidence for the molecular evolution... let alone positive selection. They can't even explain the high improbability coincidental formation of the Cytochrome C, in the first place!!

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"Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Primate
Mitochondrial DNA"

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Molecular phylogeny has not helped evolution in any way. Molecular biologist W. Ford Doolittle writes, "molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the 'true tree,' not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree" (Doolittle, W. F. Phylogenetic Classification and the Universal Tree. Science, Vol 284:2124-2128 [June 25, 1999].)Cao (one of the authors in Journal of molecular evolution) found that "molecular-based phylogenies conflicted sharply with previously established phylogenies of major mammal groups, such as ferungulates, rhodents, and primates."(Cao Y, Janke A, Waddell P, Westerman M, Takenaka O, Murata S, Okada N, Paabo S, Hasegawa M. Conflict Among Individual Mitochondrial Proteins in Resolving the Phylogeny of Eutherian Orders. J. Mol Evol 1998;47:307-22.)

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That’s six, six organism phylogenies that are congruent in all but one divergence. For a six sequence tree there are 945 possible trees, for a 5 sequence tree, 105 (to account for the one incongruence). So, (945^5) * 105 = 79,131,307,483,265,625 : 1 of the phylogenies being as congruent as they are by chance. 79 THOUSAND TRILLION to one !!!!! I would call this an excellent congruence, wouldn’t you?

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I wouldn't because your picture of the "tree" is not tree at all but more like a "bush" (aka, Ford Dooloittle). The three major "domains" of life--Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya have a distribution of characteristics which does not allow a tree to be constructed to describe their alleged ancestral relationships. This is due to a character distribution which is not what one would predict if they inherited their genes through common ancestry:1. Ribosomal genes in archaea are similar to those found in eukaryotes2. Morphology of archea is much more similar to bacteria.3. Eukaryote "operational" genes (those involved with amino acid synthesis and metabolism) seem to be most similar to those found in bacteria.(Doolittle, W. F. Phylogenetic Classification and the Universal Tree. Science, Vol 284:2124-2128 (June 25, 1999).)4. Eukaryote "informational" genes (those involved with cell replication) seem to be most similar to those found in Archaea.(Ibid)Here's a rough view of the bush courtesy of the IDEA center:

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BUT, the point surely was; THERE ARE FOSSILS THERE!!!

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WHERE??

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The major publication was 1912 field work in Alberta and British Columbia published Cambrian Brachiopoda (USGS Monograph 51). Unless you know of other Cambrian lagerstatten that Walcott kept hidden up his sleeve in British Colombia, your claim is falsified.

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What about the 65000 fossil specimens, Walcott removed to Washington D.C? In which Journal did he make those fossil dioscovery known to the public and when?

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Er, you don’t accept molecular data, do you? Typical creationist double standards. Accept ANY evidence that supports your position, & reject the same when it doesn’t. You cant have it both ways, mate.

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Let me rephrase to better put it: Accept any claim that is backed up by valid evidence and reject any that fails to meet the evidential criterias.

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Nor do they say they have lost hope of constructing family trees. You’re as guilty of misquotes as the rest of the creationists. Shame on you! What they DO say is; A corollary is that we have a major gap in the stem leading to the Urbilataria. We have lost the hope, so common in older evolutionary reasoning, of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" through a scenario involving successive grades of increasing complexity based on the anatomy of extant "primitive" lineages"

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Exactly. They have "lost hope" in reconstructing the tree that deals with the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor". They even point out that this "losing hope" is quite common in older evolutionary reasoning. So why have they lost hope is reconstructing the tree? Surely because there does not exist any "intermediates" between coelomates to suggest an evolutionary change.

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There was NOTHING that refuted evolution in the paragraphs in question, or the article in question, why did you think there was? What was in question was the actual nature of relationships of the major metazoan phyla. In fact, you’ve rather shot yourself in the foot with this;

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The new rRNA-based phylogeny proves nothing. Carl Woese, reputed biologist from the University of Illinois (also one of the authors in PNAS) has this to say:"A year ago, biologists looking over newly sequenced genomes from more than a dozen microorganisms thought these data might support the accepted plot lines of life's early history. But what they saw confounded them. Comparisons of the genomes then available not only didn't clarify the picture of how life's major groupings evolved, they confused it. And now, with an additional eight microbial sequences in hand, the situation has gotten even more confusing.... Many evolutionary biologists had thought they could roughly see the beginnings of life's three kingdoms... When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing other kinds of genes, researchers expected that they would simply add detail to this tree. But "nothing could be further from the truth," says Claire Fraser, head of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. Instead, the comparisons have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well."(Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854.)

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In truth, the transitional taxa exist, the team themselves don’t deny it, yet they limit their conclusions to the resolution of the data set. That is to say, the data doesn’t show a clear enough definition to reliably determine branching order, so they don’t pretend to show one that cannot be reliably inferred with this rRNA phylogeny.

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Read the abstract of the PNAS site."DNA sequence analysis dictates new interpretation of phylogenic trees. Taxa that were once thought to represent successive grades of complexity at the base of the metazoan tree are being displaced to much higher positions inside the tree. This leaves no evolutionary "intermediates" and forces us to rethink the genesis of bilaterian complexity."NO EVOLUTIONARY INTERMEDIATES >> NO TRANSITIONAL TAXA.As I said before, the taxonomic diversity seen in the Cambrian Explosion may be simply the result of preservation of various communities of marine organisms living on or near the floor of the sea. The basis for the association of the fossils is ecological rather than genealogical. This what the PNAS been saying recently(as you quoted), in the same article:"An observation repeatedly made when using rRNA data is of the extreme difficulty in resolving the branching order of phyla within the lophotrochozoans and the ecdysozoans. This is so much the case that even groups that are strongly believed to be monophyletic on the basis of morphological data, such as molluscs, emerge as polyphyletic in these trees. We have argued elsewhere that, within both branches, the phyla have emerged in a relatively rapid historical succession, thus leading to a case in which rRNA reaches its limits of resolution. We would like to stress that, if this view is correct, it leads to a profound reappraisal of the Cambrian explosion: Instead of corresponding to the rapid diversification of all of the bilaterian phyla, the explosion would have occurred simultaneously in three already well separated and poorly diversified lineages (the lophotrochozoan stem line, the ecdysozoan one, and the deuterostome one), implying that such an explosion would have been caused not by a single "internal" genetic innovation but, more likely, by an "external" (i.e., ecological) set of events."

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So? Why then do they go on to propose other methods of getting to the Urbilitaria? What’s your point? Read what they are saying in context.

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Did I mention anything about methods of not getting to Urbilitaria? NO! My point is to point out the case where they "lost hope of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" and the "disappearance" of the intermediate taxa "between sponges, cnidarians, ctenophores, and the last common ancestor of bilaterians or "Urbilateria" "Scientists have become so acutely aware of anomalies in molecular phylogenies that they have even considered abandoning attempts to reconstruct the root of the evolutionary tree, with the explanation that lateral gene transfer has confused the situation beyond recognition.(Doolittle WE. 1999. Phylogenetic classification and the universal tree. Science 284:2124-2128.)

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Secondly, no one is saying that chordates evolved from an echinoderm, but that they evolved from a common ancestor. Both trees support this contention.

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The dipleuroid theory has no evidence.

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See your own cite for evidence that such evolution happened. I don’t pretend to know how it happened, but that doesn’t invalidate the evidence that points to it having happened.

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Firstly, What cite are you talking about? Secondly, there is no "evidence" that the exoskeleton of the arthropods (trilobites) evolve from the annelids (spriggina).

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It’s a common misconception that something must be halfway for it to be a transitional. Does Archaeopteryx have half a wing?

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Archaeoptryx does not have half a wing 'cause its not a "dino-bird", in the first place. I would say using Archaeopteryx as a transition example is a bigger misconception since it has been disproved otherwise long ago.

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Good grief! What are you talking about? How can you possibly criticise evolution with such a poor understanding of it?

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Evolution, itself, does not make sense; let alone having a "poor understanding" of it.

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Firstly, the evidence suggests that the majority of mutations are neutral, a significant minority are harmful, & a small minority beneficial.

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What? The majority of mutations are dastardly harmful!! Mutations are not "organizing" mechanisms, but disorganizing (in accord with the 2LoT). They are commonly harmful, sometimes neutral, but never beneficial (at least as far as observed mutations are concerned)."The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur." -- Pierre-Paul Grass'in Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press. New York, 1977, p. 103.

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Harmful mutations are removed from the genome (of the population) by natural selection, the frequency of beneficial mutations is increased by the same process.

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Natural selection cannot generate order, but can only "sieve out" the disorganizing mutations presented to it, thereby conserving the existing order, but never generating new order. How the "frequency of beneficial mutations" getting increased by NS is uncomprehensible by me.

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Hence multiple good adaptive mutations accumulate, resulting in a gradual change over time.

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Why does that "gradual change" has to be from simple to complex but not vice versa? Which one do you think is more plausible and why?

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This is becoming tedious. There is strong evidence of major phyla appearing in the Precambrian. I’ve been here before, if you’re not going to read what I write, I see no reason in repeating myself.

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You don't seem to understand. I'll Richard Fortey (an evolutionist) put it, so maybe you will undersatand what I am trying to say:"This differential evolution and dispersal, too, must have required a previous history of the group for which there is no fossil record. Furthermore, cladistic analyses of arthropod phylogeny revealed that trilobites, like eucrustaceans, are fairly advanced "twigs" on the arthropod tree. But fossils of these alleged ancestral arthropods are lacking. .....Even if evidence for an earlier origin is discovered, it remains a challenge to explain why so many animals should have increased in size and acquired shells within so short a time at the base of the Cambrian."So why have they? Thats the challenge that still remains.

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You mean long periods of time meaning anything over 10 million years, evolution makes no such stipulation. Secondly, there’s those irritating Precambrian animal fossils found in 900 million year old rocks.

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The 900 million is the date as indicated by molecular clocks. I do really doubt its accuracy. In the book by Erwin, Douglas H., 1989, "Molecular clocks, molecular phylogenies and the origin of phyla," Erwin explains that the molecular clock model can only be applied when certain assumptions are met: 1) Constancy of substitution rate for the genes under investigation within lineages, and 2) Dependence of substitution on absolute rather than generation time. Both assumptions are refuted by the discovery of highly variable substitution rates. Statistical studies have revealed deviations from rate constancy and recent studies suggest that the deviations are significant. The implication is that the clock should be rejected [Erwin, p. 252]. He concludes his paper by saying that these two fundamental assumptions are invalid and that molecular evidence does not presently allow us to discriminate between a lengthy Precambrian divergence and the rapid burst of divergence close to the Cambrian explosion when these fossils actually appeared.Consider Erwin’s observations as he responds to Runnegar’s calculated date and that you use to indicate precambrian fossils for the origin of phyla:"There are several reasons for questioning the 1000-900 million years date. First, the annelid, mollusc, and vertebrate divergence dates the actual divergence of the phyla only if molluscs, annelids and vertebrates are each others closest relatives, or if all three diverged simultaneously (perhaps along with other taxa) from a common ancestor. Otherwise, the date, if correct, may simply reflect the divergence of pre-annelid, pre-mollusc and pre-vertebrate lineages during the evolution of metazoa. In this case the date is for an earlier event in metazoan phylogeny and may not reflect the radiation of existing animal phyla. More importantly, this application of the molecular clock requires extrapolation of evolutionary rates beyond calibrations points rather than interpolation between known points (W. M. Fitch, pers. comm., 1988). Since there are no methods to test the accuracy of such extrapolation, the results of such studies are unreliable. Third, as discussed above, substitution rates appear to be highly episodic, a feature which will be masked by the sort of long-term analysis used by Runnegar. As noted, increased substitution rates are particularly common during gene duplications events. If substitution rates have varied widely, the true substitution rate is likely to have been greater than the calculated rate, and the divergence time less."[Erwin, p. 234]So unless a valid conclusion is drawn about the "900 mya" and the accuracy of molecular clocks, your assertion is moot.

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Thirdly, evolution does not state that an organism HAS to evolve from simple to complex.

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But which one is more plausible, in naturalistic conditions (considering the 2Lot) without divine intervention?

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Fourthly, there's the divergences of the various clades shown by your own molecular data cite, which by definition occur before the cambrian explosion.

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Which cite? So what do these "divergences" prove?

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Precambrian origins aside. Provide POSITIVE evidence that this cannot happen. Tell me where evolution contradicts itself with actual measurable specifics. This is YOUR claim, not mine. Back up your own hypothesis, attacking other hypotheses doesn't make your own favoured one any more true without positive, evidence in its support.

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Oh you mean the creation hypothesis? Actually, it should be called the "Creation theory". But anyways.... evolution claims organisms evolved from simple to complex and thats why you see all the myriad organisms all around the world some very distinct from each other. some quite similar and they all carry out their processes effectively. What evolution contradicts is the "rapid" and "abrupt" appearance of living organisms, during cambrian explosion, in a very short time having no evolutionary, transitional or ancestral links to each other. And the organisms that emerged were very dictinct from each other, highly complex, and fully-formed. How can evolutionists fit this scenario in their theory? Together with that, the 2Lot also poses a considerable problem for evolution since it states the all systems (open or closed) gets more disordered and deteriorated with time. Thats why sometimes its called the "time's arrow". While evolution explains that life evolved from "simple" to complex >> the very opposite of 2LoT. Thats where evolution loses the toll.Now if creation theory was applied to it, everything makes perfect sense. Each organism in their respective phylas were all created. With conscious mechanism only can a system sustain its order. And that is exactly what creation theory states... the presense of divine intervention.

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This time please answer the question. I know what a belief system is, & I know what creation science is. In order to answer this question you will have to state how you believe life got here, &, if in more than one event, in what order? Please give as much relevant information as possible.

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There's so many things to be discussed to give you "as much relevant data as possible". I'll just discuss things that are the top of my head , now. To begin with, creation science is rather a very mute and recessive subject, today. Much scientific energy has been wasted over the last century in the search for evolutionary evidences and experimental proofs, which have been unsuccessful so far and will continue to be. I just wonder ow much further we might have been in some areas of scientific understanding if a model of special creation had been the working hypothesis? But lately, it has been gaining grounds.To explain "how" and in "what order" is quite lengthy and is out of the scope of this forum and for which I need to make an entirely new forum. However, here are some interesting sites that can give you the explanation of creation:Geoscience Research Institute | I think we need more research on that...LIFE: AN EVIDENCE FOR CREATION
George T. Javor
Professor of Biochemistry
Loma Linda UniversityGeoscience Research Institute | I think we need more research on that...ORGANIZATION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
John C. Walton
Lecturer in Chemistry
University of St. Andrews, Fife, ScotlandIts quite hard to outline the entire creation thoery but tell you what; you tell me one thing creation can't explain and evolution can and I'll respond

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Hey, YOU said there were no plant intermediates, not me.

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Yes and I maintain my position. There are no plant intermediates. Whats that got to do with the argument from carboniferous age?

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Imaginary-ancestors-no-evidence-they-even-existed, indeed!

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Hmm.. I do stand corrected. But tell me: How are progymnosprems considered transitionals? And between what species is this plant a transition?

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You are wrong. I am talking about basic increases of complexity seen in the Precambrian.

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But the organisms in the precambrian were already complex. The Ediacaran fauna were highly complex as the organisms in the cambrian era.

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I HAVE shown you valid Precambrian intermediates. You don’t accept them, what can I do? I don’t pretend to show you DEFINATE transitionals, but they are valid!

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Wow.. indefinite but valid? You haven't shown me any intermediates or transitionals.... yet.

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Like I said, unbacked assertions. There is no POSITIVE, TESTABLE, FALSIFIABLE evidence of creation.

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But IC and CE are both testable and falsifiable. If it can be shown that systems can be reducibly complex or that IC does not exist in any system, then you have the theory falsified!If it can be shown, with valid fossil evidence, that Cambrian explosion was not really and explosion but an evolutionary change which occurred step-by-step and transitionals exist between different species, then you the explosion falsified.Until then.... they are strong, positive, testable evidence for creation

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Bryozoans don’t appear in the Cambrian, they appear in the Ordovician. Ergo not all Phyla appear in the Cambrian explosion. Simple. Was I not clear on this?

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Except the bryozoans, name me one another animal phyla that doesn't appear in the cambrian explosion. Surely the exception of one phyla does not falsify cambrian explosion, now does it?

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Yup. Pararenicola, Protoarenicola were found in 900 million year old rocks (for the second time of telling). They have been allied with annelids (themselves Cnidarians) (Sun 1986, Sun 1994, Cloud 1986)

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I did a search on XRefer regarding Pararenicola and Protoarenicola but the results yielded null.

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Because the ancestors lived deep in the Precambrian, were generally small, soft bodied, & not numerous? What a crazy whacked out explanation that was!

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The Ediacarans were highly complex, I should say. And very weird. What did Ediacarans evolve from?

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Excellent. You agree that Spriggina is a potential intermediate annelid-arthropod, then? By your own definition, you should do.

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So spriggina is a cross between annelids and arthropods? Does it have half of everything?

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If an intermediate proto-echinoderm/chordate intermediate fossil is discovered before it got a notochord, it doesn’t invalidate the fossil as a potential intermediate. It doesn't have to have half of everything. Creationist strawman.

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So, in evolutionist criterias, what should a potential intermediate have? Provide the criterias first. As far as I know, an intermediate species itself mean "half-way" >> intermediate or [/i]transitional[/i]. How do you explain it? Evolutionist strawman!!

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My bet is that the creationists assertion is wrong BECAUSE bryozoans appeared when creationists say they didn’t. Also, see cnidarians, above.

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Maybe you didn't read what I asked... save the bryozoans, what other animal phyla had their go AFTER the cambrian

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None. So what? Bryozoans appear after the Ce. Period. Creationist assertion 2/ blown out of the water.

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I did stand corrected, didn't I? Thats why I rephrased my question. I admit that the only phyla that appear after the cambrian era, i.e, the Ordovician era, is Bryozoa. Thats the ONLY phyla appearing after the cambrian era. I am asking for any other? If not, then surely the appearance of one phyla after the cambrian era does not dispute the abrupt appearance of the rest of the phylas at cambrian era and precambrian.

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Cnidarians (annelids), see above. The Ediacarans too, if you don’t want them to be ancestors of the Cambrian phyla, you choose.

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But the Ediacarans are very much different from the organisms appearing at the cambrian era. It does not depend on my choice, as I can be wrong many times. Show me valid evidence linking ancestry or transitionals with organisms at the cambrian era... as well as that appeared in the Precambrian. Ediacarans are strange organisms and quite complex and quite intelligent, according to BBC Sci/Tech News. And I agree with you. Many of the very best cnidarian fossils date back to the time when animals first appear in the fossil record, the Vendian. But most of them, especially the corals, made their appearcane at the cambrian era during the cambrian explosion.

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Regardless, even if the metazoans in the Precambrian didn’t belong to an extant phyla, they’d belong to an as yet un-named one by definition, unless you know of any metazoans that DON’T belong to a phylum? I know you don’t WANT them to exist, but they do. Creationist assertion 3/ blown out of the water.

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It doesn't matter whether I want them to exist or not... the truth remains clear. The early metazoans were weird and hardly resembled, if ever, to the organisms that existed at the same age. Some had five eyes (Opabinia), some had circular mouth with eyes at the sides(Anomalocaris), some had their spines as teeth (Ottoia) etc. How do you think a taxonomic classification is possible with organisms that appeared at the cambrian era?

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Except Spriggina, of course, see above

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Spriggina did not have any half endo/exoskeleton.

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Present in dinosaurs, but not in birds; pubic peduncle, long bony tail, & abdominal ribs. Present in birds but not dinosaurs; pygostyle, a bony sternum, a furcula,, a hypotarsus, & feathers. What do you think Archeopteryx possessed? Yup, all of them. By your own definition, a transitional.

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According to my definition, it should have half of from each species its transitional of. You're saying that Archaeopteryx had all the characteristics of dinosaurs abd birds (which I seriously doubt)... which sort-of makes it an ancestor of reptiles and birds. But this surely is not the case. Archaeopteryx was a true flying bird. Not half-way between a bird and a reptile. It's a perching bird with real flight feathers.Regarding your first features of characteristics found in dinosaurs but not in birds:1. According to recent findings, Ostrom's interpretation (which you cited) is wrong, and that the pubis of Archaeopteryx was oriented in a bird-like position. (A.D. Walker, Geological Magazine 117:595)2. While it is generally true that reptiles have tails, and birds appear not to, the detailed position is more complex. In embryo, some living birds have more tail vertebrae than Archaeopteryx does, which later fuse to become an upstanding pygostyle. The bone and feather arrangement on a present day swan shows striking similarities to Archaeopteryx. According to Professor Michael Pitman, there is no difference in principle between the ancient and modern forms: 'the difference lies only in the fact that the caudal vertebrae are greatly prolonged. But this does not make a reptile.'3. Archaeopteryx didn't have any gastralia (abdominal ribs). It is generally assumed that since archaeopteryx was a "missing link", is must have also had a gastralia like reptiles. But it didn't, there is no fossil evidence to support this claim.What's worse is that Archy cannot be the ancestor of birds either since the discovery of bird species like Protoavis texensis predates Archaeopteryx by about 75 million years and, as described by Chatterjee, is more like modern birds than is Archaeopteryx. It has a V-shaped furcula, a keeled sternum, quill knobs in the hand for attachment of flight feathers, birdlike cervical vertebrae, and a birdlike skull, pelvis and pectoral apparatus. So the idea of using Archaeopteryx as a transitional or ancestral bird is nothing more than a speculative hypothesis and unless it can be proven for it to be a transitional(let alone ancestral), you claim is moot.

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I stand by the seven points I made, & when we can agree on them, we can move forward. You didn’t provide a single refutation of the points, so I’ll state them again:

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You make good points but baseless claims. I'll try to summarize some of them,Evolutionist claims shown to be baseless1. IC systems can evolve.2. Molecular and Morphological phylogenies are highly congruent.3. There are possible intermediates fossils of metazoans in the Precambrian. (when none has been shown)4. Cambrian explosion coincides with the Theory of Evolution.5. Archaeopteryx is a transitional dino-bird.Regards,
Ahmad[This message has been edited by Ahmad, 11-24-2002]{Replace a very long URL with "here" - It was causing the page to be excessivly wide - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 11-24-2002]

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To overturn a pardigm, you generally have to do more than insist upon (2), you have to show that (1) must be the case. Do you have any examples of this? Personally, I don't see how you (or Behe) can show that complex machanisms could not have come about through gradual evolution, especially as he's already been proved wrong about the Bombardier beetle.

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Firstly, the design argument from bombardier beetle still stands. Isaak tried to explain how the mechanism of the bombardier beetle could have come by evolution but he was wrong in many aspects.Secondly, (1) is exactly the case here. According to ToE, systems have evolved from simple to complex by natural selection and random mutations gradually but sometimes in irregular leaps (punctuated equilibria). If that is the case with a system, it is not irreducibly complex; in fact, it CANNOT be irreducibly complex since it evolved according to Behe's defintion. An IC system needs all its parts to effectively function such as if, even, one of the parts is missing, the system will cease to function. Therefore, an IC system, by definition, is unevolvable... unless proven otherwise. Surely, if a system is IC, it must have had ALL its parts from the very beginning of its existence (aka creation).So unless it is demonstrated otherwise, an IC system is unevolvable. You are making the positive claim that IC systems do evolve, I didn't. So the burden of proof is on the deniers to prove that no system is IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX. Then itself, will you triumph.

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In any event, how would you say that your argument differs substantively from the standard God of the Gaps" (in this case, Intelligent Designer of the Gaps) fallacy?

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There is a difference between explaining ongoing natural processes and the origins of natural processes. To use an analogy, just because a software program runs without the creator being present doesn't mean we should say there was no personal creator. Also, evolutionary theory has its own gaps that are assumed to occur without support by direct evidence. This is not to say that a broad theory of science has to explain every detail before being accepted. However, when it comes to evolutionary theory, far more gaps are accepted than are typical for other scientific theories.There is another reason why Dr. Behe's ideas should not be equated to the God of the gaps idea. In the past, the gaps were generally due to lack of information about certain natural processes. In contrast, Dr. Behe's ideas involve processes where we do have information. That information, though not complete, is sufficient to indicate problems with postulating completely naturalistic explanations.Regards,
Ahmad

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Who designed the intelligent designer?

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Ever heard of the word [i][b]Eternal[/i][/b]?Regards,
Ahmad

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Correct, there need not be anything advantageous (or disadvantageous, for that matter) about speciation. All speciation requires (under the biological species concept) is genetic isolation between two populations. There is absolutely no stipulation that the mutations involved cannot be neutral.

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For example, the sperm in population A may change to such a point that they are no longer compatible with population B's eggs. Genetic exchange is now impossible between the two populations, they have passed a point of no return, they are separate species. Note the changes in population A's sperm are neutral with respect to it's own population.

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This is known as gametic incompatibility.

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How does this gametic incompatibility give rise to new species? How does genetic isolation explain the existence of more than 2 million species worldwide and with what evidence? How does this account for an evolutionary process?Regards,
Ahmad

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Wrong in many aspects, huh? Pray, continue.

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Right. He fails to mention the step-by-step evolution of the inhibitor and anti-inhibitor that the beetle possesses without which it will blow itself up to an oblivion!!

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You're speaking in riddles man. An IC system is by definition unevolvable....unless proven otherwise?. How do you disprove a definitional proof??

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By empirical evidence. If evidence is provided that falsifies the idea of IC.... then lest its definition, the theory itself will collapse!!

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So, it can't be IC if it evolves? Whats all this unless proven otherwise malarkey?

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Right, a system is not IC if it's complexity can be simplified,i.e, it can do the same function with the loss of a component that it previously did [i][b]with[/i][/b] the component. That is Irreducible complexity. So if it can be shown that IC systems are capable of evolving,i.e, proven otherwise, with evidence then you have the theory collapsed.

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So you are saying you've got examples of systems that look to you to be IC? So what? All you've done is add a new term: "IC" and given it a bizarre definition. You haven't demonstrated anything.

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So you need a demonstration? I'll use a biological example here:UCSD IT Service Portal - Information TechnologyThe Cilia

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Cilia are hair-like structures, which are used by animals and plants to move fluid over various surfaces (for example, cilia in your respiratory tree sweep mucous towards the throat and thus promote elimination of contaminants) and by single-celled organisms to move through water. Cilia are like "oars" which contain their own mechanism for bending. That mechanism involves tiny rod-like structures called microtubules that are arranged in a ring. Adjacent microtubules are connected to each other by two types of "bridges"-a flexible linker bridge and an arm that can "walk" up the neighboring microtubule. The cilia bends by activating the "walker" arms, and the sliding motion that this tends to generate is converted to a bending motion by the flexible linker bridges.

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Thus, the cilium has several essential components: stiff microtubules, linker bridges, and the "motors" in the form of walker arms. While my description is greatly simplified (Behe notes that over 200 separate proteins have been identified in this particular system), these 3 components form the basic system, and show what is required for functionality. For without one of these components, the system simply will not function. We can't evolve a cilium by starting with microtubules alone, because the microtubules will be fixed and rigid-not much good for moving around. Adding the flexible linker bridges to the system will not do any good either-there is still no motor and the cilia still will not bend. If we have microtubules and the walker arms (the motors) but no flexible linker arms, the microtubules will keep on sliding past each other till they float away from each other and are lost.

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This is only one of many biochemical systems that Behe discusses in his book, Darwin's Black Box. Other examples of irreducible complexity include the light-sensing system in animal eyes, the transport system within the cell, the bacterial flagellum, and the blood clotting system. All consist of a very complex system of interacting parts which cannot be simplified while maintaining functionality.

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Evolution simply cannot produce complex structures in a single generation as would be required for the formation of irreducibly complex systems. To imagine that a chance set of mutations would produce all 200 proteins required for cilia function in a single generation stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. And yet, producing one or a few of these proteins at a time, in standard Darwinian fashion, would convey no survival advantage because those few proteins would have no function-indeed, they would constitute a waste of energy for the cell to even produce. Darwin recognized this as a potent threat to his theory of evolution-the issue that could completely disprove his idea. So the question must be raised: Has Darwin's theory of evolution "absolutely broken down?" According to Michael Behe, the answer is a resounding "yes."

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There are other biochemical systems that are irreducibly complex and can be found here:http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htmSo now I have demonstrated my point of view with an example (in this case, the Cilia). I hope that suffices. There are much more in the website.

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Strange thing to say. How are you measuring gap counts here? Sounds more like a personal prejudice to me.

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Nah, it ain't personal prejudice. I am measuring the gaps the same way the evolutionists shout out loud of the "fossil imperfections" as they call it. Ofcourse, the fossil record is essentially complete according to recent news but nonetheless they don't cease shouting.

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If Behe has information proving that it is impossible for certain systems to have evolved then you should share it with us. Otherwise you're just saying goddidit, aren't you?

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No I am not. If naturalistic explanations fail the test to suffice a phenomenon, then what am I supposed to do? You tell me: If something exists that cannot be explained by naturalistic explanations, what is the other viable option? Don't put words in my mouth.Regards,
Ahmad