Feedback for April 1999

Whatever you consider the "capital T" truth, you are entitled to your opinion-- it makes no difference to science in any way. It doesn't change the evidence.

The same thing is true of science. Scientific theories aren't the result of one individual according to their own biases and presuppositions. They are the result of the scientific process, which includes peer review. A hypothesis does not become a scientific theory without rigorous examination by the community of scientists specialized in that area. Speak with some professional scientists, and they will tell you of heated arguments at conferences, papers savaging the work of others, and exchanges of correspondence to and fro between those with opposing viewpoints.

Perhaps these arguments do uphold the egos of the individuals involved, but that's only a secondary effect. The primary function of these arguments is to determine the truth, taking into account the flawed nature of humankind.

Here we have the old mantra of creationist falsehoods:

Missing links that aren't missing-- Noah's Ark as a historical reality-- Mitochondrial Eve supporting the idea of the Garden of Eden-- the idea that all evolutionists are atheists-- that plate techtonics creating sub-oceanic mountain ranges supports creationism in any way--

I have formatted three very recent news stories that document fossil discoveries that fill 'gaps'. Click HERE to read them.

The statement that "there are so many missing parameters in Darwin's theory" suggests that you need to update yourself as to the modern theory, a synthesis of many different disciplines (far beyond what Charles Darwin was capable of knowing), and learn why there are no missing parameters.

The reason why "people like me" have a hard time believing creationism is that there is not one shred of evidence to support it, and above that it is an irrational concept dealing completely in speculation.

What we have here is a person who refuses to accept the idea that humans could have evolved from primitive hominids, because the idea is repugnant to him, not because the science is bad... and he is willing to abstain from all critical thinking in order to reject this idea. I'm sure he is good at employing rational thought in his engineering field, but refuses to allow this skill to force it's way into the areas of his intellect that have been shielded by the armor of faith. He should step back and look at the evidence objectively.

As much as I disagree with those who insist on a literal global Noachic flood, I find that the reader's criticism does not hold water.

If a 9 Km flood occurred, the atmospheric pressure resulting would only be a minuscule amount smaller. The reason is that all the atmosphere would be displaced. Thus, the total air column at any given spot on the earth's surface during a global flood would be only minimally changed from the usual.

There are plenty of valid criticisms of a postulated global flood. Let's stick with those.

Wesley

There are some forms of evolutionary thinking that are projections. One of these is the idea that things progress in evolution, or that evolution is guided by a goal in the same way that we are when we set out for a destination. Neither of these things are scientifically verifiable. Early versions of evolution such as Lamarck's are projections of this kind.

That, of course, refers to the Gillian Brown interview of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins made a detailed reply to that very question.

Is it relevant to ask about the processes by which genetic information changes in content and in distribution? Certainly. However, anti-evolutionists like Gillian Brown are not involved in a search for enlightenment, but rather for magic bullets to use in their campaigns to discredit the last one hundred and forty years of biology. Brown appears to have thought that she might have had one such in the referenced question about genetic information, but for the usual definition of information and a "common sense" definition of information it is easily shown that such is not only possible, but has been observed.

Wesley

The The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability is not claiming that the law is only mathematical. What it actually states is

Thermodynamics is an exact science that is based on a limited number of specific mathematical concepts. It is not explainable in terms of qualitative metaphors. In order to understand the relationship between probability and the second law, the reader must be familiar with the relationship between probability and entropy. Entropy is a mathematically defined entity which is the fundamental basis of the second law of thermodynamics and all of its engineering and physical chemistry ramifications.

Entropy is a concept that has an exact definition that cannot be ignored by those like Gish and Morris who use rough and ready (and wrong) definitions to "disprove" evolution. Yes, the law states that in a given and isolated system energy decays, but not in all circumstances, as the FAQ goes on to show. One set of circumstances is where living systems gather and dissipate energy in order to grow, with various degrees of efficiency. Evolution occurs through a sorting of those efficiencies over generations.

There is a great degree of mathematical rigor applied to evolutionary modelling, as a cursory glance at any edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, or Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, or Evolution, and so forth, will show you, if you but look. Modern statistics was in large part developed in order to extend evolutionary biology. Before making grand claims about the science, perhaps you might look at the primary literature.

Also, you might have a look at a text on information theory before stating that information cannot be created. Genes are duplicated and mutated all the time, and we can in many cases actually induce changes seen in the wild. And your blanket claim there has never been any evidence that new functional information has been "attained" is just false. I quote from a comment by Ian Musgrave on his favorite (out of many) cases of novel functions attained by genes:

Yes, my favorite example is the nylon hydrolysing enzyme. It recently came in to existance via duplication of an existing gene, followed by a frame shift mutation.

Ohno S. (1984 Apr). Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the preexisted, internally repetitious coding sequence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 81, 2421-5.

Another nylon degrading enzyme has been isolated as new mutants in the laboratory, it is disctict from the above enzyme, but I do not know if it is a duplication event.

Negoro S, Kakudo S, Urabe I, and Okada H. (1992 Dec). A new nylon oligomer degradation gene (nylC) on plasmid pOAD2 from a Flavobacterium sp. J Bacteriol, 174, 7948-53

My second favorite example is the Sdic gene, where the annexin and dynenin intermediate chain genes were duplicated in tandem, then the intervening sequences deleted to form a single new gene, (the Sperm specific dynenin intermediate chain gene Sdic). The good thing about this example is that a previously non-coding part of the sequence became the protein coding sequence, and the protein coding sequence has a non-coding role.

Capy P. (1998 Dec 10). Evolutionary biology. A plastic genome [news; comment] Nature, 396, 522-3.

Nurminsky DI, Nurminskaya MV, De Aguiar D, and Hartl DL. (1998 Dec 10). Selective sweep of a newly evolved sperm-specific gene in Drosophila [see comments] Nature, 396, 572-5.

My third favorite is the vancomycin resistance gene, where a D-alanine D-alanyl-ligase was duplicated and mutated into a D-alanine D-lactate ligase.

Park IS, et al. Gain of D-alanyl-D-lactate or D-lactyl-D-alanine synthetase activities in three active-site mutants of the Escherichia coli D-alanyl-D-alanine ligase B. Biochemistry. 1996 Aug 13;35(32):10464-71.

All these examples are in the primary literature, and you're free to go into a library and look them up.

One honestly determines beliefs by examining the evidence.

Some conjectures do not deserve the same consideration as others. Conjectures which generate claims in conflict with observed physical evidence can be summarily discarded.

Young-earth creationism is a conjecture which is in conflict with the available evidence. As such, it does not deserve equal consideration or time with robust and well-tested theories from science.

Wesley

We also have links to debating areas on the World Wide Web, which can be found in our Other Links section.

I don't know what you mean by "law of conviction." My conviction is to the empirical truth. I can believe that no amount of proof, one piece or a thousand, could convince you. Hovind's 10,000 challenge is addressed here.

Your grasp of science is really rather poor. You might try to improve it. Radiometric dating is reliable, and the Flood never happened. Try my Evolution for Beginners page.

[This site needs a standard smiley to link to ;-)]

Here is an experiment for you. All you need is a die (one half of a pair of dice). Take the die and shake it around in your hand, and call a number from 1 to 6. You say 6. Roll the die. It comes up 6. You can calculate that the odds were 6 to 1 against that you would roll the 6. Now, your calculation would mean something if evolution worked this way.

But it doesn't.

Roll the die again. But this time, don't call out any numbers. It comes up 4. Now, what are the chances of it coming up 4? One to one-- even odds-- because you didn't specify a number in advance, and no specific number was required. So what if it rolled 4?

That's the way it works. No one can predict the course of evolution, due to the random nature of selective pressures. Things are as they happen to be. The fact that we are here proves nothing (except that we are here). All talk of the probability of evolution is meaningless, unless you can provide evidence to support the notion that we are the goal of the process, and not just the result of the process.

The vast majority of reasonable people when shown the evidence of the various sequences presented here as representing transitions do find them convincing. Unfortunately, some people have an almost infinite capability to ignore the evidence.

During the Scopes' trial, Piltdown man was mentioned in a couple of the experts' affidavits, but in no case was considered a central piece of evidence. It was explicitly considered anomalous in one of those affidavits.

The reader confuses "Piltdown man" and "Nebraska man". "Nebraska man" was classified on the basis of two teeth, but when additional research turned up more fossils, it was re-classified as an extinct peccary. "Nebraska man" does not appear in the Scopes' trial transcript. It is possible that it was commented upon outside the courtroom, but I have no references to such.

The reader's assertion about the proportion of transitional fossils is also incorrect. Even Darwin knew that.

I've spent considerable time examining both biological literature and data, and also anti-evolutionary literature. I find that my conclusion is that there is plenty of evidence of historical and observable evolutionary change, and no evidence whatever of a recent six-day creation event and later global deluge.

Wesley

I would not say people here are obsessed with evolution. For some of them, it's there job- they work in related scientific fields. For others, like me, it's a facinating interest. One thing I am obsessed about, and that is reality. Creationism is anti-reality and anti-science, and I'll work against it as long as I am able. You can call that an obsession, if it makes you happy.

I'm glad you think evolution makes sense.

Which, by the way, begin at The FAQ, the Must Read FAQs, the Evolution FAQs and the general navigation page.

How's that for a segue?

Dr. Laurence Moran has extensive experience in discussing these topics with various kinds of anti-evolutionists in the talk.origins newsgroup. I can assure you that Dr. Moran has examined the merits of arguments from people on both sides of the debate, and is not reticent to tell people on either side when they are in error.

In my own experience in dealing with anti-evolutionary creationists, I'd say that Dr. Moran is far too restrained in suggesting that such people could benefit from getting a clue. Young-earth creationism is religious doctrine which is anti-scientific at basis. YEC adherents doing science do so in spite of rather than because of their YEC beliefs.

In case the reader might mistakenly believe that I come to this point through ignorance of YEC, I will note that I have read many different books offered by the big names of the ICR, and a wide variety of other anti-evolutionary material. It confirms to a high degree of confidence the essential rightness of Dr. Moran's request that YEC anti-evolutionists should endeavor to understand what they presume to criticize.

Wesley

Thank you for your kind comments.

Let me invite you to do more than just appreciate our resources, though. If you teach concepts of biological evolution, consider sharing your most effective means of getting the ideas across. This archive could use some lesson plans or study units prepared by educators for use by other educators. If you or other teachers you know would spend a little time sharing these kinds of resources, then perhaps we could look forward to future students having better general knowledge of biology and evolution.

Wesley

• Natural Fossil Fission Reactors provides a detailed description of the Oklo discovery; what it is and what it did.
• Radioactivity in Nature includes a short description of the Oklo natural reactor.

They should take the hint from Pope John Paul, who said 1992 (speaking of the persecution of Galileo): "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was in some way imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture."

In other words, it's a mistake to base your understanding of the physical world from a literal reading of the bible.

In more general terms, parsimonious explanations are generally preferred by all scientists, but sometimes what is the more simple depends very much on how the subject is characterised. Simplicity is usually the deciding factor only in restricted hypotheses (such as "this fish taxon evolved from that taxon") not in the more general area of theories ("diversity of living forms evolved"), which tend to be preferred on the grounds of their generality - how much and how well they explain phenomena.

For example, "God created all things as they are" explains everything, but gives us no way to proceed - how to explain why the leopard has its spots, for instance. It is overgeneral and a bad form of explanation (unless we can infer why God so chose to create leopards with spots). Choosing between "leopards have spots because it camouflages them" and "leopards have spots because they have a certain developmental pattern" is usually harder than choosing between "leopards have spots because <insert biological explanation>" and "leopards have spots because God chose to given them spots", which means that a perference for one of the first two alternatives has a lot more information and explanatory power.

Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. Science is a method of discovering the way the universe works. If the evidence indicates that the world works differently than we had hoped, the scientific method is to not ignore or alter the evidence. Sometimes, science uncovers information that is uncomfortable, disquieting... demoting humans from their imagined centrality. Creationism represents an attempt at resisting this knowledge. Creationism, designed to protect a specific religious dogma, is a construction of scientific-sounding rhetoric that satisfies the faithful, confuses the undecided, and wastes the time of scientists. That is what this website is against.

Also see Irregularities of the Earth's Rotation, a brief guide from the International Earth Rotation Service.

Here is a set of 36 questions and answers about the rotation of the Earth, from the pages of NASA's Ask the Space Scientist.

I've been to that URL before. I don't feel like a hypocrite at all, and don't see why I should.

I just checked, and the URL given by Mark is already in the list of other web sites that are maintained here at the archive.

It is interesting to compare the extensive list of links here at the talk.origins archive to those provided at Pathlights' link page. Both in number and willingness to link to sites with opposing views, the talk.origins link page is clearly superior. We who have contributed to this archive feel that those who research the issues are far more likely to agree with our viewpoint, and we encourage people to have a look for themselves what the anti-evolutionists put forward for arguments. This means that we link to those anti-evolutionary sites. Go to the anti-evolutionary sites, and see how many provide a link back to here or to any other site which provides the mainstream science view of evolutionary biology.

Hypocrisy? I don't see it in what we have in this archive.

Wesley

That's a very good point. I think that a FAQ on ethology that shows the various evidences that behavioral traits are just as reliable for the analysis of interrelationships between species as morphological characters would make a fine addition to the archive. I would encourage you to try your hand at it. Put together a draft and then post it to the talk.origins newsgroup for commentary and revision. Eventually, it should wind up here.

Darwin's "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man" also influenced the development of psychology. Darwin's outlook that the human mind generally differed quantitatively rather than qualitatively from other animals was a crucial step in placing psychology in the empirical sciences rather than as a branch of mysticism. There is no dearth of people who will claim otherwise concerning how the "uniqueness" of human thought is established, though, even today.

Wesley

That's if you want to copy the text of the article, in other words, cut it out and paste it onto your own Web site. If all you wish to do is link to an article from your Web site, you may do so without further permission. Just copy the text from the "Location" box on your browser into an HTML link on your page. All we ask is that if you link to any of our pages, you also link to our home page, like so:

<A HREF="/">The Talk.Origins Archive</A>

Good luck with your project.

As the FAQ notes, the individual isochron data points travel along a straight line of slope "-1" as decay occurs. The isochron rotates with time not because the data points travel on curved paths, but instead because the data points furthest from the origin on the X-axis move a greater distance per unit time. (Since they have higher ratios of ⁸⁷Rb to ⁸⁶Sr, they increase their ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio more rapidly).

I'm not sure what the reader means when he speaks of the "worshipping organ" in humans, but the reader should be aware that the theory of evolution concerns itself with biology, not with the societal and cultural influences that may affect a person's behavior. Not everything in a person's life is determined by biology, after all. I don't know why the reader thinks we should see idolatrous monkeys; other primates also don't light fires, drive cars, or bake at 350 degress for twenty-five minutes or until the fork comes out clean.

"Evolutionists" aren't "aggressive on disproving creationism." Evolutionary biologists, for the most part, ignore the creationists and concern themselves instead with doing good science, as they should. Even those of us who participate in the debate don't do so because we want to see creationism necessarily disproved. I, for one, would be perfectly happy to accept the scientific conclusions of the creationists if they were arrived at according to the methods of science. What we are concerned about is not the ends, but the means that creationists use to reach those ends. For the most part, creationism consists of out-of-context quotation, distortion or avoidance of evidence, predetermined conclusions, and some flat-out lies, all masquerading in the guise of science. I wouldn't care if people were deluding themselves, but students (and decision-making citizens) deserve better than to have pseudoscience passed off as real science.

There are other types of eyes which evolved independently, such as insect and arachnid eyes, which are obviously very different from the types mentioned above....

5% of an eye is exactly 1% better than 4% of an eye. Once a light sensitive cell, by chance, evolved on top of a fish's head, there is then selective pressure to evolve a better "eye". With a little thought, you can realize that a partial eye will offer some benefit to a species. Consider that it would be beneficial for sea-going creatures to be able to distinguish where the surface of the water is. Therefore, light sensitive cells on the head would be very useful, wouldn't they? Would a predatory fish that had light-sensitive cells benefit if those cells were able to distinguish movement and shapes? Would prey fish have a better survival rate if they could see the predators? Every slight improvement on a light sensitive cell would serve a purpose. An optical "arms race" had begun, and the selective pressure must have been enormous, until an optically perfect eye evolved.

You do not need to see perfectly for eyes to serve a purpose. Even people with 10% vision can make out objects and avoid colliding with them. They certainly would not want to lose whatever vision they have, would they? If you had a choice between one eye or no eye, you would of course choose one. Color vision is better than color blindness, which is better than nothing. Any slight benefit could have offered a survival advantage. According to Richard Dawkins, the eye evolved independently about 40 times during the history of life on earth, and a 'camera eye' could evolve "rapidly" from a light sensitive cell.

Now, certain biological events, such as the evolution of the eye, leave few physcial traces. One reason is that the eye is soft tissue, and does not preserve well as a fossil. The second is that the time period in which the first eye evolved is extremely ancient, and precious few fossils are discovered from those levels in any case. But these are not reasons to conclude that the eye could not have evolved naturally. We can suggest how the eye might have evolved, because scientists understand some of the processes, but we cannot say "This is absolutely, positively the only way the eye could have evolved". We can't say that, and I don't think we need to. Just because we cannot state the exact circumstances of the evolution of the eye does not mean that the theory of evolution will be overturned.

We have clear evidence that evolution occured... the fossil record speaks to us unambiguously of the rising complexity of living organisms over millions of years, including humans. The fossil record mirrors the genetic record. The appearence of major groups in the fossil record is substantiated by relationships later shown by DNA comparison testing. There is no other explanation for this relationship between DNA and fossils besides evolution.

Although my explanation given above is hypothetical, there is nothing unreasonable about it. But to avoid the question and suppress science because of uncomfortable implications is wrong.

It does not take faith to accept geology, paleontology, genetics, chemistry. Hundreds of transitional fossils have been discovered since Darwin's day. Evolution has been witnessed in short-lived species both in the lab and in the wild, and the fossil record is extremely well documented. The fossil record demonstrates unambiguously the continuous evolution of life. You NEVER find people with dinosaurs, or dinosaurs with trilobites. It is very clear. There are NO fossils found out of order. There are no paleontology discoveries that conflict with our understanding of how life evolved over the ages. The appearance of major groups in the fossil record is substantiated by relationships later shown by DNA comparison testing. There is no other explanation for this relationship between DNA and fossils besides evolution.

Your main argument seems to be that you cannot accept evolution because you cannot believe that it could have occurred. That's not much of an argument. Yet you opt for another solution which offers no evidence whatsoever to support it. You hold on fast to the idea that what is unknown now will be forever unknown.

Your continual use of the word "accident" leads me to believe you need to read up how how evolution really works. You might try Evolution for Beginners or Introduction to Evolutionary Biology.

Personally, I do not accept things that are UNPROVABLE. Every discovery in the history of science has been based on processes that are natural. No discovery has ever supported a supernatural explanation of ANYTHING. Why should the scientific study of the origin of life prove any different? I think scientists will eventually find all the answers. You seem to think that that which is unknown is forever unknowable. It think, based on the history of science and the rapid development of technology, that what is unknown today will be known tomorrow. For some strange reason, you and other creationists insist on calling that faith. Well, if that makes you happy...

If one has faith, why search any further for the answers which one supposedly has? To quote Benjamin Franklin: "In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."

If an individual received a degree in biology, and still can make comments like "evolved from chimps or out of pond scum 190,000,000 years ago", either he/she:

1) is untruthful about the degree,
2) received the degree in spite of cutting class every other day, or
3) bought the degree by mail order, or from a creationist college.

A person who makes those kinds of statements isn't prepared for any sort of debate. You should know something of the topic you're supposed to be debating beforehand. This person apparently does not understand evolutionary biology, and certainly made no valid arguments.

My answer to her, you, and anyone else who would come here to "debate", is as follows: Please describe, in as much detail as you can, how evolution takes place. I realize you don't believe in it, but in order to take an adversarial position, you must have an accurate representation of the opposing side. Okay? So let's hear it...

I think it would go something like this:

Me: "How does evolution work?"
You: "It doesn't."
Me: "But can you describe how evolutionists claim it works?"
You: "No."
Me: "Try harder."
You: "They say we came from chimps, and before that, pond scum, and before that, a rock. I don't believe it."
Me: "I would hope not. I wouldn't believe that stuff either. You might try finding out how it really works."

New species will often have roughly the same genetic diversity as isolated and quite functional populations of the parental species, since that is what they usually are at first.

More genetic diversity arises from mutation (slowly) and from recombination of existing variants that may not have tended to recombine in the larger group of populations of the parent species.

You need to read a good text on population genetics. In the meantime, read Chris Colby's excellent Introduction to Evolutionary Biology or look up Coyne, J. A. 1992. Genetics and speciation. Nature 355:511-515

Moreover, it's not even a relevant question. Chemical reactions depend solely upon the starting materials and the conditions they take place in. Given the same combination of inputs, heat, pressure, concentration, catalysts, etc., the same products will result. The chemicals couldn't care less whether they are somewhere "in nature" or in an Erlenmeyer flask, so long as the conditions are identical. The question (for abiogenesis, at least) is really (1) whether a particular reaction takes place, given certain conditions, and (2) whether those conditions were present on Earth at some point in its history. Part (1) can be investigated in the lab; part (2) requires investigation of other geological, chemical, and physical evidence.

As for the hominid fossils that we do have, readers can see some of them here. A completely intact (or even mostly intact) fossil find of any sort is an extremely rare occurrence in paleontology; consequently, paleontologists have become extremely skilled at reconstruction from fragmentary evidence. They don't do so simply by guessing; they do so against a backdrop of millions of observations of other fossil remains and existing creatures. It's detective work, not sheer speculation, and good scientists try not to overstep the bounds of what they can demonstrate. But sometimes they get lucky and find a mostly complete fossil. See, for example, the "Turkana Boy" specimen of homo erectus.

You probably intended to ask where the energy of the big bang came from, but that nobody knows, nor are we in a position to theorize much about it either.

Take a look at our Other Links page, for example; we have more links to creationist Web sites than I've ever seen collected on another site. Look at the references attached to a number of the articles on this site; one is likely to find more references to "standard" creationist texts than I'd bet most readers (including myself) have perused. Some of the contributors to this site are fundamentalist Christians and even were formerly creationists.

We reject the claims of creationists not because we haven't examined them. We reject the claims of creationists because we have.

As for "self-serving," everyone who has contributed to this Web site has done so without compensation, merely for the concern that we have about the advance of pseudoscience, poor argumentation, and wishful thinking at the expense of rigorous scientific examination.

However, I personally think that such point-by-point refutations can be immensely informative and valuable. See, for example, our discussions of Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box, Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, and the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication Life: How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or Creation? I know that the Archive would welcome the contribution of additional reviews, critiques, or point-by-point analyses of any other works. If we collect enough such reviews, the reader's suggestion to collect them all under one link seems eminently sensible to me.

And on the welcome page it says: "The Talk.Origins Archive is a collection of articles and essays that explore the creationism/evolution controversy from a mainstream scientific perspective. In other words, the authors of most of the articles in this archive accept the prevailing scientific view that the earth is ancient, that there was no global flood, and that evolution is responsible for the earth's present biodiversity."

And on the feedback page from which you posted this message it says: "Please note: Before sending feedback to comment on a perceived bias of the Talk.Origins Archive, please read the archive's Welcome page."

So evidently you did not read the title page, or the welcome page, or the note on the feedback page. The archive makes no false pretense at "even-handedness" (why would anybody want to be "even-handed" about stupidity anyway??). This archive is clearly and plainly marked in italic and bold face as a repository for mainstream science.

Thank you for reading the archive so carefully.

This website is not concerned with attacking the theological teachings of the bible. However, certain specific statements within the bible must be taken allegorically or metaphorically in the light of real scientific findings... such as the total lack of evidence of a worldwide flood. This site is not about theology, it is about science, in particular, biology and geology. There are many Christian evolutionists. Why do you think they accept the findings of science? Have they all been tricked by wicked evolutionists?

Here is a list of religious organizations that have publically come out in support of evolution:

American Jewish Congress
American Scientific Affiliation
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Episcopal Bishop of Alabama, Pastoral Letter
Episcopal Church, General Convention
Lexington Alliance of Religious Leaders
Lutheran World Federation
Roman Catholic Church
Unitarian Universalist Association (1982)
United Church Board for Homeland Ministries
United Methodist Church
United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (1982)

You might re-examine your basis for rejecting the compatability of science with your religious beliefs.

The scenario you describe is known as the Oparin hypothesis and was for a time the leading view of the origins of life. It is no longer. Please check out the publications below for a more up to date view.

Lipids were probably generated as a byproduct of early biological processes, and we know they tend to form cellular-like structures spontaneously, so they'd very probably incorporate the molecules that produce them. It is not necessary to think that the first organisms were cells, nor that they had a double lipid layer, nor even that they included RNA (they might have used a protein-based molecule set at first). Life is thought these days to have arisen not in the open ocean but underground, in a hot and chemical rich environment, perhaps on a silicate foundation to enable the first molecules of life to form. There is a lot of work being done. You can review it by reading some of these papers:

• Baltscheffsky, H., C. Blomberg, H. Liljenstrom, B. I. Lindahl, and P. Arhem. 1997. On the origin and evolution of life: an introduction. Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4):453–9.
• Kochavi, E., A. Bar-Nun, and G. Fleminger. 1997. Substrate-directed formation of small biocatalysts under prebiotic conditions. Journal of Molecular Evolution 45 (4):342–51.
• Lazcano, A, and SL Miller. 1996. The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre-RNA world, and time. Cell 14:793-798.
• Levy, M., and S. L. Miller. 1998. The stability of the RNA bases: implications for the origin of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 95 (14):7933–8.
• Lyubarev, A. E., and B. I. Kurganov. 1997. Origin of biochemical organization. Biosystems 42 (2-3):103–10.
• Matsuno, K.. 1997. Molecular semantics and the origin of life. Biosystems 42 (2-3):129–39.
• Miller, S. L., J. W. Schopf, and A. Lazcano. 1997. Oparin's “Origin of Life”: sixty years later. Journal of Molecular Evolution 44 (4):351–3.
• Nei, M., and J. Zhang. 1998. Molecular origin of species. Science 282:1428-1429.
• Piccirilli, J. A. 1995. Origin of life. RNA seeks its maker. Nature 376 (6541):548–9.
• Szathmáry, E. 1997. Origins of life. The first two billion years. Nature 387 (6634):662–3.
• Szathmáry, E., and L. Demeter. 1987. Group selection of early replicators and the origin of life. Journal of Theoretical Biology 128 (4):463–86.
• Szathmáry, E., and J. Maynard Smith. 1997. From replicators to reproducers: the first major transitions leading to life. Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4):555-71.
• Wächtershäuser, G. 1997. The origin of life and its methodological challenge. Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4):483–94.

The theory of evolution applies only when there are already structures that are copied and which use energy to do so and to persist. It therefore is entirely neutral as to whether God or some prebiotic process is the reason why life arose - since then it has been an evolutionary process. As it happens, I think that Darwinian evolution phased in along with reproduction of chemical cycles, and so there will not be a sharp divide between them, but the theory is designed to deal with life, not the arrival of life.

You might also check out the abiogenesis links at this archive.

There is no reason why an evolutionist must reject God, and a good many are believing Christians, Jews and members of other faiths. I hope this helps.

Now, does the origin of the solar system violate the "law of angular momentum"? No. All of the planets go around the sun in the same direction, as you would expect for any physically reasonable scenario. Only two planets ( Venus and Uranus) spin on their axes in the retrograde sense. The spin of Venus is only slightly retrograde, and it probably migrated from a prograde to a retrograde spin, because the angle of the spin axis is chaotic over large time scales (Venus' Free Obliquity; C.F. Yoder; Icarus 117(2): 250-286, October 1995 and The Chaotic Obliquity of the Planets; J. Laskar & P. Robutel; Nature 361(6413): 608-612, February 18 1993). The spin of Uranus is almost certainly an artifact of a large collision late in the stochastic process of planet formation by accretion of planetesimals (Planet Formation; Jack J. Lissauer; Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 31: 129-174, 1993 and A Possible Constraint to Uranus' Great Collision; A. Brunini; Planetary and Space Science 43(8): 1019- 1021, August 1995).

As for creationist arguments, you aren't supposed to find a lot on our site, because our site emphasizes mainstream science, as is clearly spelled out in the Welcome FAQ. However, you will find a considerable list of pro-creation web sites in the Other Web Sites index.

As for documented examples of speciation, see the Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ and the Some More Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ.

There was a discussion of this point in talk.origins earlier this year.

I think what's going on is that you just don't like the idea that your ancestors were non-human primates, are you are willing to "close your eyes" to the evidence and the conclusions of trained professionals, no matter what.

Should all research into the evolution of life be halted, because the bible doesn't mention it? Should science be suppressed because you don't like the idea that at some point in the history of life, your predecessors were not human?

Adam has succinctly described Gosse's thesis from the 1857 book, Omphalos. This work was the subject of an essay by Stephen Jay Gould some time ago, but Adam should look it up.

Omphalos means "navel", and asks and answers the question, "If Adam and Eve were created instead of born, did they have navels?" Gosse's answer was, "Yes". The argument is that the right and correct way to create things is with the appearance of age.

One reason that this work is not as widely known as it might be is that it received a large helping of criticism, and not just from secular sources. Theists despised it in droves, for if the Creator made things such that they would mislead humans into error concerning their origins, then a necessary conclusion is that that Creator is, at basis, being deceptive. Theists mostly discard Omphalism as an apologetic in preference for retaining the theological theme that the Creator is not deceptive.

Some modern anti-evolutionary creationists prefer to accept the theological theme of deception and retain the Omphalos apologetic. It is not an unalloyed positive, though.

Wesley

You need to learn a few things before you go embarrasing yourself like this again.

Evolution does not say that life came from nothing, or from a rock. Animals don't mutate into other animals. Individuals do not evolve, species do. The flat earth thing is not worth commenting on.

The main reason for insisting on any event as a historical fact must always be the evidence that substantiates it. That is so in history, and even more so in science.

Morris' statement absolutely disqualifies creationism as any sort of science, and places it firmly in the realm of theology.

He said "No geological difficulty, real or imagined..." He is saying that if the evidence shows that events occurred differently than how it appears in the bible, the evidence should be rejected out of hand. In other words, don't bother questioning the bible, because it's right-- period. When reality conflicts with scripture, it's reality that is wrong, not the book. So creationists go out in search of only what supports their theology, while childishly ignoring every observation that contradicts it.

It is said that: "When the evidence contradicts the theory, the scientist rejects the theory. The theologian rejects the evidence." This is certainly the case with creationism.

Regarding the universal flood, you should read this page that I just finished, What Would We Expect to Find if the Earth had Flooded?

This is the second time that this criticism of a global Noachic flood has been entered in commentary here. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Water displaces air. If there were a global flood, all the air at current sea level would be displaced. It has to go somewhere. This means that during a global flood, the total air column at any given point on the earth's surface would not be appreciably altered from the normal amount.

Please note that a large number of valid criticisms of a global flood exist. Let's use those.

Wesley

Evolution is massively parallel, and does not happen like a chess game, one move at a time. A species consists of thousands to millions of organisms, all reproducing and existing in different ways, no two instances alike. If there's a better combination, it will probably occur within a short period. It's not like a species has to "strive" to evolve.

I do wish that, instead of making unsupported accusations, you specifically listed the strawmen that you claim to have read, as well as the poor logic and poor science. They are so "glaring" to you, yet you cannot recall a single one long enough to type it out? It seems that a lot of upset readers have this problem.

Your criticism that this website only deals with the more ignorant and absurd of the creationist claims needs to be answered. All of the rebuttals on this website are to real arguments of creationists, silly as they seem. The fact is that the common, young-earth creationist is more heavily engaged in attacks on biology and geology, and therefore have a greater volume of material that must be rebutted than does the Old-Earth Creationist or the Intelligent Design Advocate.

The "Intelligent Design" advocates (not theorists: there is no ID theory) simply have not advanced any testable science yet... even less than the "idiot" (to use your term) Young Earth Creationists. I.D'ers can't even tell us what a "designed" organism should look like, and what an "undesigned" organism should look like. Basically, their arguments are: "Life is just too complex to have originated on it's own... we can't prove that, but it sure looks that way to us." A common theme among them is: if something is currently unknown, that means it is forever unknowable.

I am going to help out all the Intelligent Design advocates: Here is a way to phrase your assertion. Please fill in the [blanks].

-------------------------------

I believe that the complexity of the universe is evidence of a designer because:

1) [first example of complexity which cannot be accounted for by any known natural process.]

2) [second example of complexity which cannot be accounted for by any known natural process.]

3) [third example of complexity which cannot be accounted for by any known natural process.]

*(Examples must be verifiable, testable and falsifiable. No assertions, speculations or opinions.)

The fact is that Behe and Dembski are thoroughly dealt with on this site. You can find that information here and here, and here.

Variation in plants comes about through the same mechanisms (mutation, selection, genetic drift, etc.) that it does in other forms of life. Contrary to the reader's assertion, plant evolution is discussed on this archive. See the Introduction to Evolutionary Biology, January 1999 Post of the Month, Observed Instances of Speciation, Some More Observed Speciation Events, and On the Origin of Species, just for starters. True, plant evolution isn't discussed as much here as animal evolution, but that is mostly because creationists tend to ignore plants in their critiques of evolution.

As for the reader's comment about fire, few other natural events are likely to be as selective as fire. Imagine a region with a set of plants, some of which are more resistent to fire than others. That resistence can take the form of a quick regrow time, windborne seeds that spread far in the large updrafts of a fire, the ability to survive substantial exterior charring, or whatever the resistence may be. Over time, if the region has frequent wildfires, the plants that have some resistence are more likely to survive and reproduce than those that do not. Many iterations later, you get plant populations that not only survive in frequent wildfires, but actually come to depend on them .

I cannot speak for everyone here, but for myself I could care less about personally held beliefs of whatever type. But when certain theistically motivated anti-evolutionists attempt to have their prsonal beliefs taught in science classrooms as if those beliefs were scientific in nature, I take both umbrage and action.

Wesley

It is: the suppression of valid science due to the conflict with religious dogma. Valid science was suppressed in the case of heliocentrism, and the theologians of the day succeeded (through threats of violence against scientists) in postponing the sun taking its rightful place at the center of our solar system for about two hundred years.

One may make a case that the burning of the Library of Alexandria in 415 A.D., by the followers of Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, was a similar case of the suppression of knowledge due to religious conflict.

No case has been more prominent, of course, than when Charles Darwin let the cat out of the bag. Today, we see organized conspiracies to supress the teaching of evolution in public schools-- not because it is bad science, as some creationists assert, but because it represents a threat to the literal intrepretation of Genesis-- and no other reason. They are willing to fabricate any story to make it appear otherwise... clearly a case of the ends justifying the means.

God and Evolution

To say we evolved from primates is not a leap of faith but a reasonable inference from the evidence. There is no reason to infer from the evidence that aliens engineered us (and plenty to refute it - why did these superior beings leave vestigial organs like the caeceum/appendix, and why did they not change structures that are not useful to us such as wisdom teeth?). See

Fossil Hominids

Certainty in science is restricted to logical formal implication - that is, maths. All else has the possibility (that is, the logical possibility) that it is wrong. Science is about making the best explanation with the fewest leaps on the best available evidence. Anything else is revelation. See

Evolution and Philosophy - Is Evolution Science, and What Does 'Science' Mean?

Darwinian theory does not say that selection (and drift and various other mechanisms of biology) does not apply to humans. Some think that selection is relaxed in some human societies (but not, for example, in stressed societies or societies subjected to endemic diseases), but that is also true in some circumstances for non-human organisms. Humans are as evolving now as ever they were, but that doesn't mean they are changing. See

The Modern Synthesis of Genetics and Evolution

Random Genetic Drift

You should also read this very revealing paper about why the Global Flood never happened.

Read Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month".

Wesley

I was hoping our local physics guru would handle this one, but I guess I'll give it a try. Caveat: I do whole animal biology. I've had some physics courses a long time ago. Everything that follows is "if I recall correctly".

One of the consequences of quantum physics is a phenomenon which yields particle/anti-particle pairs which exist for a brief time and then annihilate each other. There is no net gain or loss of matter in this case. These are sometimes called "virtual particles", and the reality of their existence is confirmed by such things as the Casimir effect. This is also the basis of Hawking's hypothesis concerning how a black hole may reduce in size over time due to continual anti-particle absorption as these "fluctuations" occur near the event horizon.

Your colleague is apparently extrapolating this small-scale quantum phenomenon into a likely means of producing the Big Bang. Yes, we do see fluctuations at the particle/anti-particle pair size. But I don't think anyone has produced evidence for larger-scale "fluctuations".

OK, do any of my colleagues have corrections/additions to make?

Wesley

The short answer to your question is that one of the chromosome pairs in humans lines up with two pairs of chromosomes in chimpanzees and other great apes. Where humans have one long piece, the other apes have two short ones.

See my answer to Linjun Xu in the July 1998 Feedback for a more complete discussion.

Perhaps the reader could explain more fully what it is about the theory of evolution that he feels cannot be observed, and moreover, why other indirect evidence cannot take the place of direct observations. Scientists are pretty good about finding evidence to take the place of direct observation when direct observation is not possible or practical due to human limitations. For example, no one has directly observed the nucleus of an atom, but we can investigate the properties of nuclei through other means, such as by banging them together. And some things we have observed. See, for example, the Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ.

The big bang theory in general does not imply that the universe should be slowing its expansion. Whether the universal expansion continues constant forever, or slows asymptotically to zero at infinity, or stops and reverses into a contraction, or continues to accelerate and expand more rapidly as time goes on, depends entirely on the details of specific models. The big bang as a general theory allows for any of these to happen, but which is in reality the case can only be settled by observation. Current observation suggests that the universe will expand forever and never stop, and there is growing evidence that the universe is actually speeding up its expansion with time and now expands faster than it did in the past.

General relativity does not imply that the universe had a starting point. The theory only implies that the universe cannot be static, but must be dynamic, either expanding or contracting; and either could be part of an eternal cycle (such as the alternative quasi-steady state cosmology of Fred Hoyle and others; see A Different Approach to Cosmology, by Burbidge, Hoyle & Narlikar; Physics Today, v52(4): pp38-44 (April 1999); and Reply to A Different Approach to Cosmology, by Andreas Albrecht, pp 44-46 in the same issue of Physics Today). It is the big bang interpretation of observational cosmology that implies the universe has a starting point. That big bang interpretation is necessarily consistent with general relativity, but it is from the big bang and not general relativity that we derive the implication of a starting point.

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