evolution discussion with faith

Granted that the seeming ordering of the fossils is a problem for creationism, descent is not a convincing explanation for it either. I find the current explanations far more inconsistent with the fossil record and the geological strata than the flood explanation. Millions of years to explain the deposition of a homogeneous stratum sharply demarcated from the next stratum, and containing a Just-So collection of fossils, just makes no sense. This is not so. The recognition of how natural selection works ought to tell you that what brings new phenotypes to the fore is the elimination of other genetic possibilities in a population. In fact the recognition of how DOMESTIC selection works, as in breeding programs, ought to demonstrate this. Sometimes it's merely a suppression or reduction rather than an elimination of genetic possibilities in a population, but this phenomenon is most sharply illustrated when there is an elimination, such as in a bottleneck or other drastic selection process. Sorry but it is extremely common. See above. See above. It means changed frequencies of alleles all the way out to complete elimination of some allelic possibilities. This is not increased genetic diversity. It may not be reduced in most population splits, or sharply reduced, but the overall trend is in that direction with each population split. Please think it through again.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 10:04 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 07:29 PM

It sets the direction of their expectations. I started to characterize this as an "optimistic" mental set somewhere on this thread. That is, there is an abiding expectation that progressive change is indefinitely possible, which derives from the ToE, so that if this is in fact not the case, but the genetic picture is in fact gradually very slowly deteriorating, then, given the complexities and yet-unknowns involved in genetics, this will not be detected for quite some time. Meanwhile legitimate discoveries are made and tested within these parameters. Biology has made great progress. Nope.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 10:14 AM

Mutations are apparently the only way new information could enter into the picture, but I don't know how to deal with this yet. The majority of the processes that effect change in populations are the selective/reducing processes like natural selection. Mutation is the ONLY one that increases, but I don't yet understand how it works well enough to see how it all fits together. For one thing I'm not sure it's random -- Pink Sasquatch believes it's not -- but very possibly a predictable or built-in mechanism for shuffling the chemistry of the genes to allow for diversity. Then the selection of such diversity still exerts a reduction in the process of bringing the new allele to phenotypic expression -- by eliminating competing alleles.

I don't know what some creationists may have said, but everything I've said is consistent with there being all kinds of variety within a species, so that of course all the different finches descended from a parent finch, and possibly all finches from a parent bird back farther. Creationists shouldn't have a problem with this. It is what is normally called "micro-evolution" now {abe: by creationists as a result of dealing with evolutionist assumptions}, that used to be called simply variation. It's observable in breeding animals all the time. Nothing could be more common.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 05:57 PM

Schraf, I'm sorry but I believe I have answered you adequately and I'm sorry if you don't think so. We are going to have to agree to disagree on this.

Isn't a finch a bird? Nobody knows for sure what the original Kind was in any particular case. Yet.

It is simply unknown what a Kind is. When it is known it will be quite specific. It isn't dependent on the Linnaean or any current classification system. I suspect it will ultimately be determined genetically. Don't know if "bird" is definitive of a Kind or there are separate Kinds of birds.

Picking up the subtopic, really Off Topic I guess, that started at Message 92 I ran across this statement that relates to it: "A small gene pool protected from too much variability." The process of speciating into this small gene pool was a process of reducing genetic variability. This is how new species of a Kind emerge, new phenotypes emerge, by the elimination of alleles that lead to different phenotypes, and as Mayr is suggesting it is also how the character of a species is maintained, preventing the reintroduction of alleles that would blur the character of the new species.I'm glad I ran across this because it reminds me that reduced genetic variability does have both a positive and a negative side to it. It does produce subspecies. Had the Fall never occurred, subspecies could have developed all over the place as a result of even the severest selecting out of very small gene pools, and there would have been no negative effect involved. The negative effect enters in with the interbreeding in a small gene pool that magnifies any genetic diseases, and can ultimately take a species to extinction. Had there been no Fall this would not have been a problem.But in either case, positive or negative, the fact that reduced diversity DOES accompany the processes that lead to speciation is affirmed in this passage about Mayr's views, and is clearly incompatible with the expectations of the ToE of endless variability.{ABE: If Mayr is right and variability under certain circumstances is not desirable, then this has implications for mutation, which supposedly continually increases variability in any population, or so I've heard around these parts}This message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 07:58 PM

That's an odd thing to think I would say, since of course I got the information from evolution-based biology. It is evolutionary biology that developed all these observations of the processes of population genetics. They operate from the presupposition that variation is open-ended, which is the opposite presupposition from the YEC's, that there must be a limit to it. I would like to get some understanding of this myself. It is simply the most reasonable supposition based on my YEC assumptions but I don't know enough genetics to do more than wonder about possibilities. Creationists who get into this problem get way too technical for me to follow. Possibly something like that. For instance, I'm still enamored of the idea that junk DNA may somehow represent the remains of all the genetic losses over the millennia that the YEC assumptions predict should have occurred. How that would show up in the genome I don't know, but some evolutionists have suggested that it represents evolutionary trial and error in the past, so they must also believe it could represent genetic possibilities that died. So it would be just as "hugely long" as that nonfunctional or barely functional area of DNA might one time have been."Multiple working versions of each gene?" Yes something like that. Multiple polyploidy? The scientists would have to explain to me how such things might be possible, but I don't expect that will happen as they are geared to prove to me that such things can't happen. Interesting thought. Is this something scientists have thought about? Can you explain this possibility to me? No evidence. That remains to be developed. And since scientists are looking for evidence in the opposite direction it probably won't happen too soon.

Naw, whatever a Kind is, the bird kind isn't going to include anything that's not a Bird. The question is whether there were a few original Kinds of birds rather than just one. My own guess would be no, that all birds descended from one original bird.

That is correct. All I can do is guess. As I said, the original Kinds must surely have been designed with enormous genetic capacity for variation -- in the case of Birds, designed to vary into finches and sparrows and woodpeckers and crows and vultures and geese and ducks and flamingoes and kiwis and ostriches and penguins, and any other kind of bird you can think of. Or perhaps ducks and geese or other groups derive from a separate Kind of their own. I tend to think the original genetic capacity was enormous enough to have generated every kind of bird, however, all those in existence now plus an even bigger variety that developed before the Flood, some of which, including perhaps Archaeopteryx, were preserved in the fossil record. As I said, what defines the Kind is at this point unknown. It's just a guess. But it seems to me highly unlikely that birds would overlap with mammals. The original bird (or birds) had no parent. God created the Kinds from scratch. Following out a supposition from YEC assumptions, they must all have had the genetic capacity for great variation from generation to generation, yet only variations OF that Kind -- marvelous kinds of birds, an amazing variety.

Who says I can't conceive of it? I believed the ToE for most of my life. Now I believe the Bible, and based on what it says I like to think about what the genetic situation must originally have been.

What I'd really like is for some of those here who do know science to stop arguing with me, try to think along with me, and try their best to supply SUPPORT for the creationist ideas, think through what would have to be the case if such and such were true, not giving up at the first contrary thought that occurs to them, either, or even the tenth, always jumping on the That Can't Work answer.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 10:54 PM

I'd like to complain about jar's unfriendly post. It is completely unnecessary, just his unsupported opinion, just a jab and nothing else. This thread has gone on in a friendly way for the most part, and his attitude is a sour note. Two other unfriendly impertinent posts were nipped in the bud. This one should also be.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-11-2006 11:08 PM

Thanks, crash but I suspect your view of how worth it is to argue with me is not shared by many.Anyway, what you describe may be what happens among scientists, but on this board most of the creationists are not scientists, and to treat us as scientists or upbraid us for our goofs as some do, is just a recipe for frustration.