Evolution has been Disproven

Mr. Jack and PaulK thoroughly spanked this fallacy but I figure I will beat this dead horse some more from a different tack..

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1. Evolution requires that life comes from non-life. The first living cell is supposed to have come from non-living organic material in the oceans.

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This statement is false. If you believe otherwise please show where a scientific definition of evolution used by evolutionary biologists or genetics requires the change in allele frequencies over time to be dependent on abiogenesis.

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2. Life coming from non-life is called spontaneous generation. The dictionary confirms this: "Supposed production of living from non-living matter as inferred from appearance of life (due in fact to bacteria etc.) in some infusions..." [Oxford Concise Dictionary]
3. Louis Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation back in the 19th century when he placed a sterilised beaker with a straight entry tube alongside one with a crooked tube. Bacteria collected in the straight-tubed beaker but not in the crooked-tubed one, where instead they lodged in the bends of the pipe. He concluded that life only comes from life. This is now known as the law of biogenesis.

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As PaulK pointed out, Pasteur demonstrated that bacteria do not pop out of nowhere and his experiments had no bearing on abiogenesis.Please demonstrate how evolutionary theory is beholden to evolutionary theory...in fact spontaneous generation would falsify a major pillar of both evolution and genetics i.e. common descent.

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4. Since evolution requires life from non-life (spontaneous generation or abiogenesis), and Louis Pasteur disproved this, evolution has been rendered impossible on account of life not being able to generate from non-life.

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Since you have conflated abiogenesis, bacterial spontaneous generation, and evolution into one big happy creationist fallacy you have only proven that you have not studied the issue closely enough to come to even the most tentative conclusion regarding scientific theory...sorry..bzzzzt....try again

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If I haven't understood something, please accept my apologies. The most important question is, if the conditions of a billion years ago are unknown, and abiogenesis is today taught as being a fact, can anyone scientifically demonstrate abiogenesis? A scientific theory must be observably proven before it is accepted as true.

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There is no theory of abiogenesis. There are various hypotheses that have been proposed and are being tested for example here News articles and features | New Scientist but there is certainly insufficient evidence to warrant a theory of abiogenesis. I do not know that abiogenesis is taught at all much less as a fact in school....I personally only had passing mention of it in high school biology which dwelled mostly on things like minimal requirements for life etc.

your arguments about chirality were dealt with in this thread that you started http://EvC Forum: Faith versus Science -->EvC Forum: Faith versus Science
and then dropped out of.

Hi defender,The Lenski group papers did not show loss of information...it showed over 20,000 generations new mutations becoming fixed in populations as they switched to a new resource. The syncytin gene is an example of a gain of information and a critical function i.e. placental formation in Old World Monkeys and the rest of the Catarhine primates but not New World Monkeys and other mammals...so yes, gain of information has been observed...and why is loss of function not evolution???As to chirality, as stated before, once you choose one path i.e. D or L, you are then constrained from then on. It is a chemical either/or...once chosen you cannot mix and match...so you had a 50:50 chance of one or the other....you also seem to be operating under the assumption that fully form genomes were the first replicators and that DNA was the first replicator both of which are unlikely given the properties of DNA relative to RNA for example.

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As I said, populations may switch to a mutation that is beneficial. If a disease is introduced all those with an enzyme to digest it will die, but those without will prosper. Thus a loss of information can be beneficial.

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You claimed that this was not evolution...however it is as it is a change in an allele frequency over time..in this case because of a selective pressure.

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Information gain is achieved when a random mutation generates new data in a gene. Can you show that the Lenski experiments succeeded as a result of new information, or did the microbe populations merely switch to a latent trait or something else already in their genetic makeup?

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Here is one example (there are many more) of a novel mutation arisingProc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Feb 4;100(3):1072-7. Epub 2003 Jan 21. Related Articles, LinksParallel changes in gene expression after 20,000 generations of evolution in Escherichiacoli.Cooper TF, Rozen DE, Lenski RE.Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. cooperti@msu.eduTwelve populations of Escherichia coli, derived from a common ancestor, evolved in a glucose-limited medium for 20,000 generations. Here we use DNA expression arrays to examine whether gene-expression profiles in two populations evolved in parallel, which would indicate adaptation, and to gain insight into the mechanisms underlying their adaptation. We compared the expression profile of the ancestor to that of clones sampled from both populations after 20,000 generations. The expression of 59 genes had changed significantly in both populations. Remarkably, all 59 were changed in the same direction relative to the ancestor. Many of these genes were members of the cAMP-cAMP receptor protein (CRP) and guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp) regulons. Sequencing of several genes controlling the effectors of these regulons found a nonsynonymous mutation in spoT in one population. Moving this mutation into the ancestral background showed that it increased fitness and produced many of the expression changes manifest after 20,000 generations. The same mutation had no effect on fitness when introduced into the other evolved population, indicating that a mutation of similar effect was present already. Our study demonstrates the utility of expression arrays for addressing evolutionary issues including the quantitative measurement of parallel evolution in independent lineages and the identification of beneficial mutations.

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About those early replicators. How did they replicate? Proteins are required for life, and they are included in the cell's production cycle. Proteins also require a specific chirality. Where did they come from?

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Proteins are required for life NOW...but are unlikely candidates as the original replicators...RNA is more likely as there are autocatalytic RNAs. Are you asking where do proteins come from? I dont get the second part of your question. [quote]Now, we know that life won't work without specific-chirality DNA. So either the previous simple replicators must have all composed themselves of nucleotides with the same chirality, or DNA evolved from a replicator with non-specific chirality, and somehow arranged every left-handed nucleotide to the opposite side by random chance.[quote] Actually replication can occur without DNA i.e. RNA...if the first molecule of the first replicator has a specific chirality, it will only further incorporate more molecules of the same chirality..not mix and match...all subsequent replication will be non-random with respect to chirality.

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Simpler forms before DNA won't solve the problem as far as I understand it. If replicators before DNA worked just as well with specific chirality as without it, wouldn't mutations have been just as likely to keep non-specific chirality just as it was?

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Who said the original replicators were achiral?

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Could you demonstrate how a pre-DNA strand could work without specific chirality, knowing what we do now about molecular biology?

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Since I have repeatedly stated that once a given molecule..it could be 2 bases of RNA for all we know..has a specific chirality (50:50 chance) all subsequenct replicated molecules will have to have the same chirality...not a mix and match...so how would I demonstrate or model something I don't think occurs or occurred?..and why would I?

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Mammuthus, I wish to clarify something about my chirality point. You state "once the first molecule was formed" referring to a replicator, such as DNA, but I ask how the first molecule was formed with specific chirality.

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The same way they all do except without a protein catalyst

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By association, since you have to have abiogenesis before life can form for evolution to work on, evolution also could not have happened.

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By this logic, since you need to have been present when the first car was ever built to be able to learn to drive, cars cannot exist...this will come as a bitter surprise to my wife today since I promised to pick her up in our car (which cannot exist) in a couple of hours.Really, once you have a replicator evolution can and does happen...what you are claiming is that since how abiogenesis occurred is not known one cannot study evolution which is the old creationist fallacy of conflating to unrelated concepts...or more accurately, misunderstanding several concepts at once.Oh and also using your logic..since you were not there when the bible was written or any of the events within occurred you cannot therefore know that it is true and without this knowledge it must therefore not have happened and is a lie...glad we cleared that up finally

Hi Q,
Just because Juhranimo lacks the motivation requisite to understand or persue the information you posted does not mean the entire forum population is so handicapped. As you yourself observed, it was worth it because it may inform other readers, if not the intended beneficiary of your efforts. Being an evolutionary biologist with a relatively narrow specialization in molecular evolution of mammals, all the references you posted were new to me (I study evolution and not abiogenesis)...and you saved me the time of immediately having to look everything up with a recap. I think the way you did it is the way to go...which is more informative, Quetzal's well constructed response or Juhranimo's simplisitc "God is still God"?This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 02-11-2005 08:49 AM

Check out the edited version.

I had unecessary insults in the first and last lines. Reading the quoted passage in Percy's edited post, you can probably figure out what the more objectional commet was.