Impossible evolution of new beneficial proteins

As a matter of simple conprehension of biology; that most certainly is evolution. This is basic. Biologically speaking, over time we expect successful organisms to become more and more diverse. In this instance we are observing macroevolutionary change (by the biological definitions of macroevolution; as evolution beyond the level of species). Extended for millions of years, one can expect mice to become more and more diverse; unless they become extinct; but according to evolutionary biology they all remain mice.To understand this better; think of mammals. They are all "still mammals"; and no matter how far evolution proceeds their descendents will be "still mammals"; but mammals will encompass more diversity. If, perchance, mice continue to leave descendents for the next 200 million years; we may have mice which have become as diverse as mammals are today. Mammals are, after all, descended from one small species which diversified in just this way. If the last common ancestral species to mammals ran across your path tomorrow, you might think it was a mouse at a quick glance. I'm not sure. What I described is macroevolution; as the term is used in biology. You can, of course, simply redefine macroevolution as being evolution which has proceeded for millions of years. But that is pointless. If you go that route, then there is no basis at all for saying macroevolution is impossible (which was your earlier claim).The long existence of life in different forms is observed in the fossil record. This is perfectly good as observation in science. It is common to observe the effects of the past in the traces of the present.You are in the situation of the person who denies that a shield volcano is built up from lava flows. We can see the flows deposting new material, just like we see diversity accumulating and new species arising in the present. We can see and study the traces of many layers of lava flows on a volcano, just like we see the results of accumulated evolutionary change in our own genomes, and in the fossil record. We see no limit or constraint on how much lava can accumulate, just as no limit on the accumulation of evolutionary change is known.The fundamental objections to the possibility of cummulative change are expressed in such terms as "no new species", "no new information", "no new proteins". All these claims are based on simple ignorance of the facts. No insult is intended by that; you are, I hope learning that new information, new benefits, new proteins, are all direct observations. Change occurs; and there is nothing to stop arbitrary levels of change accumulating in time; and time we have abundance.We are diverging from the topic here; perhaps a new thread is in order.Cheers -- Sylas[This message has been edited by Sylas aka cjhs, 02-12-2004]

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Why? Because the information for feathers cannot spontaneously generate in a genome which codes exclusively for scales.

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Spontaneously? Who said evolution is spontaneous? That is creation.Over time the coding for scales could be altered so that scales have different textural properties. Bit by bit becoming lighter and fragmentary, until they are feathers. Why is this impossible?But I would like to suckerpunch you with another take on this whole subject. You keep advancing the argument that no new information has ever been seen to be produced, and that information can only be produced from an intelligence.Have you ever seen a nonmaterial entity produce information of any kind, specifically within a material organism? In fact, have you ever seen a nonmaterial "divine" entity.In an earlier post you rejected an evolutionary mechanism because as a scientist you must stick with observation! Please describe where you have observed one moment of divine creation, or nonmaterial "divine" entities at all. Also let the rest of us scientists know how and where we can observe these same things.Thank you very much in advance.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Thank you for pointing that out.I am aware that they do not accumulate in an induvidual. I was giving a simplistic demonstration. To clarify= The more mutations that accumulate, the more it produces a selective DISadvantage.I believe the "creationists" you are refering to are progressive creationsists and even Theistic evolutionists. They compromise the bibilical teachings to fit their beliefs. I am fully informed of their positions and have no desire to rabbit trail down them.Concerning MACRO-Evo you said, "Actually, it is entirely possible. In fact, what could prevent it? Microevolution is the small scale evolutionary change from generation to generation. Over many generations, change accumulates."Change does accumulate over generations, actually it's just speciation. Do you know how much variablity is in the human genome? There are 10^80 known atoms in the whole universe. If you took any two people, a man and a woman, and they had children, the chance of
that couple having two children that looked alike would be 10^2017. That is a lot of diversity. So what's the point.Well let's say we had 10^2017 polar molecules in a jar. We mix these POLAR molecules up and they can be arranged in lots of different ways. Creating Isomers of each other and so on. Now will one or more of those POLAR molecules over time change and become NONpolar? NOPE. Why? (Answer is too long to explain here).If you have a cake made from eggs, oil, flour and water, and you mix all these ingredients in a bowl. no matter how long you wait, chocolate won't gradually appear. In fact the longer you wait the less likely it will be a cake and will eventually be a mush of nothing.APPLICATION: (this is the point)Let's say those examples are the genome. The info in the genome will NOT gradually change over some LOOOOOOOOONG period of time into what it needs. The longer the time the (and this is the key) WORSE it's going to get.PS How do you put someone elses quote in those little blue boxes in your reply?[This message has been edited by CreationMan, 02-12-2004]

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"The Fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'"Creation Man

CreationMan,I think you are missunderstanding how evolution works. The distinction between 'kinds' is a man made one. The variation between life on earth is not so much a grupe of hard catagories, but rather a gradation of change over time.Consider this analogy: Now, at which point does red end and yellow begin? Life, and its diversity on earth is like the colors on the spectrum. Slight, infinitisimal, variations build up till the organisim is compleatly different from where it came from.Thus, to us it may seem like, "hey the mouse is still a mouse, so what if it turned brown!". Well, you have to think of it like that color spectrum, overtime that small change into brown will lead to other changes, maybe it gets bigger, grows larger ears, gets bigger eyes, etc. And before you know it, thousands of years later, you got a new kind of critter all together.With this in mind, consider: Like the color spectrum, I would ask you, where does squirl end and a whole new critter begin?Hope that helped![This message has been edited by Yaro, 02-12-2004]

I have not seen any fossils that are intermediate between reptiles and mammals. Perhaps you could suggest a few?As far as acuumulating mutations....see my last post.

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"The Fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'"Creation Man

Yes I understand. But you are showing me an example or model (color spetrum) that you are starting with and then apllying it to evolution.
Start with SCIENCE and then see if you can make the application. (BTW) on the color spectrum example? What are all those? Colors. What did you start with? Colors. What did you end up with? Colors. I would like to see an example of you starting with a color Spectrum and ending up with Crayola Crayons.Your Squirl. You started with a squirl, you ended up with a squirl. I want to see an example of you starting with a squirl, and ending up with a chimpanzee.Does that help a little bit?

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"The Fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'"Creation Man

BTW I loved the pics

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"The Fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'"Creation Man

You are makeing the mistake of assuming that evolution has a goal, and that there is a Better or Worse to begin with. It is not like a cake, we are not expecting the ingredients to make a cake, but guess what, the ingredients in the bowl are makeing something!Same way with evolution. The ingridients are mixing, that's all thats going on. There is no particular goal in mind.What affects the variation of life, and it's continued viability, is the influence of the environment. i.e. natural selection.Someone once compared it to water in a puddle. The puddle gives the watter it's shape, get it?Better or worse are not applicable terms, since there is no such thing in nature. Life simply adapts to fit it's changing environment and circumstances. Type {qs} before the quote and {/qs} at the end of the quote, only using[This message has been edited by AdminTL, 02-18-2004]

What did we start with? Living things. What did we wind up with? Living things.I don't see what we decide to call a "squirrel" or not has any relevance. The Folk Concept of Species is not relevant to this discussion.

No one would expect crayola crayons. You obviously didn't understand my example at all.Let me phrase it like you do:You start out with life, you get life. Understand?Nature makes no disticnction between reptiles, bacteria, or lizards, they are all kinds of life just like the various colors. Then I am sorry to disapoint you, but you are never going to have that result. However, given sufficient time, who is to say that a flying squirl wont become a bat-like creature, neither squirl, or bat? Heck I have trouble calling it a squirl now.Again, where does squirl end and another critter begin? That flying squirl really bears little resemblance to its relative, the squirl classification is mearly a human one, nature dosn't care.

A divergence into evidence of macroevolution probably isn't germane. The original point was that the likelihood of mutation producing useful adaptation is vanishingly small, and shortly after that mutation cannot create new information. Since no rebuttal of the evolutionists point that information can indeed be created, it is assumed that this point has carried.The remaining point concerning mutation producing useful adaptation was countered by pointing to know mutations that have produced useful adaptations. Rather than countering this point, CreationMan is raising the bar and requesting evidence of macroevolution, but this doesn't seem relevant to the original point.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Administrator

I agree admin, creation man, if you would like to discuss this further, I would be happy to.Please open up a new thread, and let me know.

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I have not seen any fossils that are intermediate between reptiles and mammals. Perhaps you could suggest a few?

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Actually, I found this site which lays out how the progression from reptiles to mammals was a slow process with intermediate steps. For example:

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Unfortunately for Gish, however, many of these mammalian characteristics do indeed leave indications in the fossil record. Cross sections of therapsid bones reveal a series of small holes called Haversian canals, which are typical of fast-growing, warm-blooded animals (and which are absent in cold-blooded reptiles), indicating that the therapsids developed a progressively more mammalian warm-blooded metabolism as time went on. And as the skull and jaws were becoming progressively more and more mammalian, the rest of the body structure was following suit . . .

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So as you can see, there was an accumulation over time of mammalian characteristics. This is something that you seem to be arguing about. If reptiles and mammals were separate creations, why do we find creatures that are intermediate between the two? Easy. It is called evolution.You can also go the the thread Behe's Irreducible Complexity Is Refuted which shows the transition between multiple jawbones and one middle ear bone in reptiles to one jawbone and multiple middle ear bones in mammals. Again, this happens slowly, not in one fell swoop.

[This message has been edited by CreationMan, 02-12-2004]

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"The Fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'"Creation Man

The transition from reptiles to mammals is one of the best documented series of transitionals known. You can see it described for you at the talkorigins Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ. I have linked to the relevant part of the page. The best part of the transitional series is from pelycosaurs (early synapsid reptiles) through the therapsids and cynodonts up to the first mammals; for a much larger and more detailed list, with descriptions, follow the link.The image I have supplied is a reconstruction of Diictodon sollasi, by Cedric Hunter, and linked from the South African Museum. One of the most dramatic fossil locations is the Karoo formation, described at that link. It contains an estimated 800 billion vertebrate fossils! There are probably billions of Permian and Triassic reptile fossils in the formation; but no modern mammals. I discussed it in a thread last year.We should note that the term "reptile" does not have good taxonomic standing. This is important, given my previous comments about diversification. Some of the species which are ancestral to mammals could be called reptiles, but of course mammals are not descended from any modern reptiles. Mammals and reptiles are both "Amniotes", and represent the current diversity of that grouping. We can identify in considerable detail the development of the features by which modern mammals are distinguished, by virtue of many transitional species that existed in the past.The Pelycosaurs are one major group worth looking at in this transitional series, and this time I have linked to the marvellous pages and the Berkeley museum of palaeontology, which gives more details on this important transition.(Dimetrodons, linked from ucmp)Shrug. You said: "The more mutations that accumulate, the more it produces a selective DISadvantage.". That is incorrect. You have failed to account for selection; and for the fact that the vast majority of mutations are neutral.As already noted, we observe mutations accumulating in lineages right now. Every human generation adds many new mutations -- the vast majority of which are neutral. And yet, people now are not degraded versions of what people were like two thousand years ago. (Over that time, you can expect to accumulate perhaps 10,000 mutations in a lineage; very roughly.)Also, with respect to quote boxes; the relevant tag is "[ QS ]" (remove spaces). You can add "=name" after the QS. See the EvC page on UBB code, a link for which can be found next to the edit box when you are composing a post.I generally proceed as follows:

• Hit the reply button
• Modify the resulting url to replace replyquote=NO with replyquote=YES.
• Edit the tags to use the QS tag described above.
• Incorporate my comments into the post.

Cheers -- Sylas(Editted for the comments on reptiles)[This message has been edited by Sylas aka cjhs, 02-12-2004]