It’s not about my taste but the rules of argument. Namely, it is a logical fallacy if two completely different meanings of the same word are used at the same time, as evolutionists do. They provide evidence of evolution by an event in which the allele frequency of a population changes (no new genetic information) and say that it would show that the theory of evolution is the best and most scientific explanation for the history of life. The change in allele frequency says nothing about the hypothesis that all organisms are descended from a common ancestor. This is a mistake called - The Fallacy of Equivocation.
We don’t get how you coherently form your argument of common ancestry of humans and bacteria so it wouldn’t be a surprise if it was stated incorrectly. I definitely see all the evidence for evolution as described. How you get from non-life to some kind of primitive cell to complex single cells to sexed individuals though, I still have no clue.
Okay so let me clarify something. There are two different ways to understand the word “evolution” which frequently get mixed up if one is not careful to specify what they mean.
One is:
(1) The process by which evolution occurs (how do organisms change over generations?)
and the other is:
(2) What has happened in the past history of life (what did modern organisms evolve from and how are they related, if at all?)
The first one (1), the process of evolution, is technically defined as “transgenerational changes in the frequency of allele genes in populations”. Evidence for the reality of this process (the fact that this is something that happens, that organisms change over time) is the observation that carriers of different alleles (technical term for different mutant versions of the same gene) can be shown, by observation of wild populations or by observation of laboratory experiments, to change over generations. The frequency really does change.
Evidence for the second one, the past evolutionary history of life (and the common descent of different species), is shown by a combination of the fossil record, and by comparing the DNA sequences of different species of organisms and (among many other things) deriving phylogenetic trees from them, and then by comparing the degree of match of their (technical term incoming) branching topology (basically the order of the branches in an “evolutionary tree”).
So when somebody asks for “evidence for evolution”, it’s hard to know whether they are asking for evidence that evolution is really something that happens (that organisms change over time), or if they are asking for evidence for the past evolutionary history of life (including the common descent of different species)? They usually mean the latter.
Nobody here claims that evidence that evolution is something that happens, is also evidence that all species have a very deep evolutionary past and share common descent. The evidence for common descent and the deep evolutionary history of life is not the same as the evidence that organisms change over time. Even thought the subjects are related, and in some sense tie together into an overarching framework under “evolutionary biology”.
The notion that gene transfer does not lead to an increase in genetic information is odd, because it does to the organism receiving the new genetic material from another organism, and therefore to its offspring. I know it’s a creationist commonplace, but complexity arising from recombining a relatively small set of elements can result in a very large and complex genome.
So then why doesn’t the scientific community explain that to the public?
Basically scientists are taking arguments from design (fossil record, DNA comparison, and trees), applying them to “1” and inferring common descent and deep evolutionary history.
Creationists are saying - we’ve proved that this inference is shown to be impossible through simulations and observation of mutation rates.
And then the general public says that they’re liars.
Problems: first, those aren’t arguments from design. Second, you seem to use “inferring” as if it’s the same as “guess I pulled from my ass”; all science is inference.
But their “proofs” are faulty, as has been shown here on many occasions. If you refuse to learn, you will learn nothing. But don’t blame the people who are trying to teach you for that.
No. Simply not true. And I’m sorry to say but your statement there doesn’t even make any coherent sense. Scientists are not taking “arguments from design” (whatever you mean by that), and neither the fossil record, nor DNA comparisons, nor phylogenetic trees constitute “arguments from design”. Furthermore, none of these are “applied to (1)”.
The inferences of common descent and deep evolutionary history is from the fossil record, and from the DNA comparisons(like it is done in this link).
Yes creationists say a lot of things which are wrong. You can also find people who say that they’ve proved the Earth is flat.
Having interacted with creationists on the internet now for over 10 years, I have to say that it becomes increasingly difficult to entertain the idea that some of the more egregious cases are just mere examples of sincere misguidance. I don’t think all, nor even the majority of creationists are liars or dishonest, but I do think some of them are. Repeat offenders who continue to repeat the same falsehoods over and over again really do deserve the charge of dishonesty in my opinion.
Your immune system relies on recombination to generate new antibodies to fight off invading pathogens, so not only has this been observed, it is happening inside your body as we speak. Over the course of your life you will encounter and evolve resistance to an increasing number of pathogens, gaining novel antibody genes partly through a process known as VDJ recombination throughout your entire life.
On that question there are only hints, but that’s an addition to @Toni_Torppa’s problem, which was bacteria to humans. Now as for phylogeny, there’s the fossil record and there are genomes. (There’s other evidence, but that’s the main thing.) You have been exposed to quite a bit of that, but you have rejected it because it doesn’t fit your idea of Genesis. Is there any point in exposing you to more of it? You may, for example, recall the tree of primates I posted recently. It came from here.
And for that reason, @Toni_Torppa is correct to raise the flag and cry foul. To try and get a creationist on board with your definition of evolution is to get them to prematurely admit to 1) something they do not fully understand or 2) something you are not giving full disclose of.
Evolution has no place in the belief system of a creationist, I don’t care how much you massage or change the definition.
No he is not, because nobody did what he complained about anywhere. If you disagree, please point out by quoting the passage you think was intended to present evidence for (2) but actually presented evidence for (1). No such statement can be found in this thread.
They’re looking at designed organisms in the present, and comparing them. I was watching a debate between Venema and Jeanson last night and this morning. I haven’t finished it, but all I see so far is that we have one computer programmer who is running one program. He decides to turn off and on certain parts of the program. I have a brother who is a computer programmer. He’s taken months to learn a new program. It would be rather arbitrary of God to create several programs. None of us would do so if we were the original designer. Studying cosmology, it seemed to me that the right answers scientists have been getting the last 150 years were not complex and beautiful but simple and beautiful.
Not denying that - is it creating a very large and complex genome though?
So you say, and obviously I disagree about whether the organisms are designed. In fact I think the results of the comparisons they do, the patterns that emerge when doing the comparisons, constitutes evidence against the assertion that these organisms were designed. Such as the link I gave you earlier that shows that the differences in DNA sequences between humans and our primate cousins are really best explained as the product of biochemical mutations in DNA. A link you clearly have yet to click on and read.
But it seems to me this is besides the point. I corrected you on what was a totally wrong statement to make.
Then I have to say that I don’t think that what you’ve “seen so far” is all that much. For example you’ve apparently seen none of the contents of any of the links I’ve supplied in this thread.
I have to say I consider your speculations on what God would do(or what you would do in God’s place as a designer) as incredibly doubtful at best, if not totally irrelevant to what we have been discussing in this thread so far.
I don’t think there’s any good reason why God, if different species were independently created, would nevertheless design them to fit into a nested hierarchy, or exhibit consilience of independent phylogenies, or with DNA sequence differences that look like they’re the result of biochemical mutations. But I’m sure you’ll have no problem convincing yourself of that if that’s what you feel you need to do to reject evolution.
Irrelevant, but fascinating I’m sure.
Recombination is one among several (though not the only or solely responsible) mechanisms that can be shown to contribute to an increase in genome size, by resulting in novel, functional genetic elements. In some sense that is what has happened with your immune system throughout your life. VDJ recombination has contributed to creating novel antibody-encoding genes carried by your immune cells, thus technically increasing the amount of functional information encoded by cells in your immune system.
The Lego analogy was quite specifically about combining already existing genes to create genetic novelty.
It was never intended as an analogy for every process in ‘microbes to man’. Check the context: I was specifically responding to the claim that horizontal gene transfer cannot lead to genetic novelty, which is plainly wrong.
A good-faith approach to origins discussion - which I understand to be the raisson d’etre of this forum - involves seeking to understand more than seeking to dismiss.
If my analogy is fatally flawed in explaining its specific target concept then I hope to be corrected. But seeking to dismiss it in terms of something some distance from what it was seeking to explain is not especially productive.