Genetic testing...achondroplasia

[Devari]

I suppose Devari would argue that altruistic prairie dogs that stand and chirp to warn their kin about predators, risking their own survival, only do so because they understand the concept of kin selection.

 

What do prarie dog warning calls have to do with kin selection? Prarie dogs don't go around and only warn their siblings, they alert all other nearby prarie dogs that can hear the warning. That isn't an example of kin selection at all, it's a social behavior that has evolved to benefit the species in general.

 

Another theory of about why male homosexuality is heritable is that it is a multi gene trait with a number of genes that each result in more feminine traits such as senitivity, compassion etc., traits that have selective advantages for the individual. But if too many of these traits appear in one inidvidual the result is a tendancy towards homosexuality.

 

An accumulation of evidence points to homosexuality being heritable (not to say that nurture has no effect). The question is why?

 

First of all, there isn't enough direct evidence to say that homosexuality is necessarily a genetic trait at all. At this point it simply isn't understood what causes it. I've heard of a variety of possible explanations, some of which don't have any direct genetic basis. For example, it's been suggested that certain changes in maternal hormones during pregnancy may contribute to the development of homosexuality in males (i.e., abnormal levels of maternal hormones would interfere with normal male fetal development). This would not necessarily need to have a genetic basis at all and could simply be a random occurance that happens at a certain frequency due to the complexity of human fetal development.

 

Another issue to consider (which I've mentioned several times already) is that you seem to be assuming that there should be some "reason" for homosexuality to exist. There isn't necessarily any "advantage" or "explanation" for the trait, nor is there any reason we should expect there to be one. Any biological system will have certain types of abnormailities. For example, a significant percentage of pregancies spontaneously end in miscarriages. There is no advantage to this, it's simply a consequence of the complexity of fetal development and the fact that biological systems aren't perfect. That's why if homosexuality is going to be studied in a scientific sense it needs to be looked at completely objectively. For example, certain people seem to be trying to find some type of biological "justification" for homosexuality for political reasons. Those types of biases seriously compromise the integrity of any scientific study, but too many people refuse to look at the issue in an objective way because of politics. Even the straightforward idea that homosexuality is simply a biological abnormality that appears at random will offend certain people, even though this is the simplest explanation and might very well be the case. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above I suspect that policitical considerations will prevent any real progress from being made on this issue because there aren't enough people who will study the issue with the necessary objectivity.

[drcave]

What do prarie dog warning calls have to do with kin selection? Prarie dogs don't go around and only warn their siblings, they alert all other nearby prarie dogs that can hear the warning. That isn't an example of kin selection at all, it's a social behavior that has evolved to benefit the species in general.

 

Devari, prairie dog altruism is the classic example of evolution of a seemingly self-destructive trait through kin selection taught in most first year biology text books. Check out this link.

 

http://eebweb.arizona.edu/Courses/Ecol600A/kin%20selection.pdf

 

So what are your views on Intelligent Design?

[The Law]

Haha well if debate is going to continue then, devari your claims that cancer is biologically abnormal are wrong in a sense. Yes, the original biological system is functioning abnormally, however, the mutated genes are working JUST as they should be given the mutations.

 

Is your claim that homosexualty being "biologically" abnormal an attempt to show that it has no biological factors? If it's that, then you're wrong. However, if you're trying to show it's deviating from the normal intended function then you are correct.

 

Also, what about the possibility of genetic drift and correlated progression causing the genes to continually be past down? Remember phenotype = interaction of genes + environment, so the genes may be past down without necessarily being maladaptive.

 

Ps. drcave, you are right on the money.

[ploughboy]

Just because 1 deaf person thinks that way doesn't mean it applies to every single deaf person out there.

 

It's a popular enough viewpoint to be the official position of the Canadian Association for the Deaf:

 

"The Canadian Association of the Deaf encourages hearing society to cease looking upon people who are deaf as being inferior or deformed creatures in need of medical cures. Deafness is only a horrible calamity if hearing people make it so. Culturally Deaf people have a clear sense of identity and a tremendous feeling of belonging to a community. They should be recognized and celebrated as a socio-cultural minority."

 

 

http://www.cad.ca/en/issues/deaf_culture_vs_medicalization.asp

[eise]

It's a popular enough viewpoint to be the official position of the Canadian Association for the Deaf:

 

"The Canadian Association of the Deaf encourages hearing society to cease looking upon people who are deaf as being inferior or deformed creatures in need of medical cures. Deafness is only a horrible calamity if hearing people make it so. Culturally Deaf people have a clear sense of identity and a tremendous feeling of belonging to a community. They should be recognized and celebrated as a socio-cultural minority."

 

 

http://www.cad.ca/en/issues/deaf_culture_vs_medicalization.asp

 

I think Jochi was referring to the analogy suggesting deaf communities are similar to francophone communities.

[Artemis]

I think Jochi was referring to the analogy suggesting deaf communities are similar to francophone communities.

 

The original analogy I posted was comparing how deaf people see themselves as having a tight-knight culture, just as many francophones see themselves as part of a distinct society too. Ploughboy's quote illustrates exactly what I was getting at.

 

I was not saying that being deaf is the same thing as being francophone, which is what Jochi seemed to think I was implying. I was simply comparing them in a cultural sense, ie. how deaf people and francophones see their community. As I explained in my earlier post, I am (as she also seemed to be) against parents purposely designing their child to be deaf because of the fact that you would be depriving this person of hearing for their entire life without their imput, and hearing is a marvelous thing to have.

 

So on one hand I try to understand how deaf people have a cultural identity and would wish their child to belong to have the same culture. But despite that, the act of deliberately taking away a child's hearing takes precedence over any cultural issues and is wrong to me.

 

...Funny how this thread started off being about achondroplasia and drifted to the question of a biological reason for homosexuality.

[drcave]

Take for example, homosexuality. Until fairly recently, being gay was considered to be a psychological disorder and therefore a serious medical condition and therefore a disability. In today's society, I think you'd be hard-pressed to call a homosexual person "disabled."

 

Political considerations in modern North American society have since resulted in the reclassification of homosexuality a "lifestyle choce", so it's now impossible to view the condition in a medical context without offending someone. Personally, I think that the issue would benefit from proper scientific study because from a biological perspective homosexuality is clearly abnormal and therefore has medical relevance.

 

Thats how it happened

[The Law]

It's a popular enough viewpoint to be the official position of the Canadian Association for the Deaf:

 

"The Canadian Association of the Deaf encourages hearing society to cease looking upon people who are deaf as being inferior or deformed creatures in need of medical cures. Deafness is only a horrible calamity if hearing people make it so. Culturally Deaf people have a clear sense of identity and a tremendous feeling of belonging to a community. They should be recognized and celebrated as a socio-cultural minority."

 

 

http://www.cad.ca/en/issues/deaf_culture_vs_medicalization.asp

 

Devari, if people are happy with the way they are... then you shouldn't classify them medically. If gay people are fine just the way they are, are living fine - then there's no reason to "classify" them medically. I'm quoting ploughboy because I'm trying to show that nothing should be totally black and white with medicine, and that someone may think something is a disability, but the the person who has it - they may not care at all, and may embrace their uniqueness.

[drcave]

I'm bored of this discussion now. Let's start a new controversial topic in another thread.

[Devari]

Devari, prairie dog altruism is the classic example of evolution of a seemingly self-destructive trait through kin selection taught in most first year biology text books. Check out this link.

 

http://eebweb.arizona.edu/Courses/Ecol600A/kin%20selection.pdf

 

If prairie dogs specifically warn close kin of danger and but will not warn of danger when non-related prairie dogs are threatened, then I agree then it would be an example of kin selection. However, if the "kin selection" only occurs because nearby prairie dogs happen to be relatives due to prairie dog social structure then technically the social behavior is what is responsible for the kin selection, not necessarily the fact that the prairie dog makes a warning call. Warning calls in general are an example of an altruistic social behavior, which is not necessairily the same as kin selection since it can benefit the entire species without any specific preference for kin. I was under the impression that prairie dog warning calls were not specifically directed at kin, but if this is the case then I will agree that it serves as an example of kin selection.

 

So what are your views on Intelligent Design?

 

My view of "intelligent design" is that this is another example where politics and science have come into conflict. Basically, certain religious groups have decided that the idea that humans evolved from other organsims is a threat to their religious beliefs because they seem to think that the idea of evolution precludes the existance of God. Their response to this has been to simply refuse to accept the idea of evolution and propose the concept of "intelligent design" that claims that humans were instead designed directly by God with no evolutionary steps.

 

Unfortuantely, the idea of "intelligent design" is completely impossible to test because there is no way to test involvement by God when by defninition He does not need to follow scientific laws. The concpet of "intelligent design" also has no rational basis as a theory because there's nothing "special" about humans in a biological sense. We follow the same biochemical prinicples as all other organisms on Earth. We also have several imperfections both on the anatomical and even molecular level that would seem to preclude that we were "designed" as a superior biological species. One good example of this is the blind spot in the human retina which requires that our brains provide interpolated sensory information at the center of our field of vision. Another example at the molecular level is the inability to synthesise glucose from acetyl-CoA, resulting in the inability to maintain singificant levels of blood glucose using lipid stores during fasting and thereby limiting the ability to survive prolonged periods of starvation. The only argument that could be presented that makes humans "special" is our reasoning ability, but that certainly can't be correlated with any fundamental biological differences that humans have relative to other species since we really aren't "special" at the biological level at all.

 

What's even more annoying about the "intelligent design" concept is that there is no conflict between evolution and religion to begin with. There's simply nothing about evolution that makes it incompatible with religious beliefs. Evolution simply explains how humans are related to other organisms. It says absolutely nothing about how or why life came to exist. It's still perfectly possible to believe in evolution as a scientifc theory and also believe that God used evolution as a "tool" to create humans as part of His creation. Although it's impossible to examine the bible in a perfectly literal sense, there is actually some biblical support for this in Genesis because God created other forms of life before creating humans. It would make perfect sense for God to create humans based on the same scientific and biological prinicples that He used to create other forms of life, so evolution is not in conflict with this concept in any way.

 

Unfortuantely, the majority of North Americans don't understand basic scientific prinicples and also tend to have an extremely limited understanding of religion, so it's impossible to explain to certain people why evolution and religion have no conflict with each other. As a result the entire idea of evolution has been turned into a major political issue among certain religious groups simply due to a lack of undersanding. As a scientist I find this exceptionally annoying, but untill certain people develop the ability to rationally evaluate and understand the necessary scientific concepts I don't see how this issue can be successfully resolved.

[Devari]

Devari, if people are happy with the way they are... then you shouldn't classify them medically. If gay people are fine just the way they are, are living fine - then there's no reason to "classify" them medically.

 

Medical conditions aren't based on someone being "happy" or on any kind of moral judgement, it has to do with objective scientific study. Many people with physiological or psychiatric conditions are "happy", but this doesn't make their conditions normal. Just because someone is "happy" with bipoloar disorder or with a heart defect doesn't mean that these things shouldn't be classified as medical conditions.

 

I'm quoting ploughboy because I'm trying to show that nothing should be totally black and white with medicine, and that someone may think something is a disability, but the the person who has it - they may not care at all, and may embrace their uniqueness.

 

That's great, but it has nothing to do with the objective scientific study that is necessary to understand medical conditions. I fully agree that social support is very beneficial for people with disabilities, but trying to claim that the person in question doesn't even have a disability at all is simply wrong.

[drcave]

If prairie dogs specifically warn close kin of danger and but will not warn of danger when non-related prairie dogs are threatened, then I agree then it would be an example of kin selection. However, if the "kin selection" only occurs because nearby prairie dogs happen to be relatives due to prairie dog social structure then technically the social behavior is what is responsible for the kin selection, not necessarily the fact that the prairie dog makes a warning call. Warning calls in general are an example of an altruistic social behavior, which is not necessairily the same as kin selection since it can benefit the entire species without any specific preference for kin. I was under the impression that prairie dog warning calls were not specifically directed at kin, but if this is the case then I will agree that it serves as an example of kin selection.

 

That fact that warning calls help non kin as well as kin is incidental, collateral benefit if you will. The altruistic trait is passed on because it increases the survival of kin which also carry a copy of the gene. Indeed, the evolution of social behaviour creates opportunites for kin selection to take place. Kin selection can't take place unless the species lives in family groups, kinda like sexual selection can't take place in organisms that reproduce asexually. It's not called kin selection because they are only altruistic to kin; it's called kin selection because the trait can be passed on through kin even if the altruistic individual doesn't live to pass on the trait directly via offspirng of its own.

[Devari]

That fact that warning calls help non kin as well as kin is incidental, collateral benefit if you will. The altruistic trait is passed on because it increases the survival of kin which also carry a copy of the gene. Indeed, the evolution of social behaviour creates opportunites for kin selection to take place. Kin selection can't take place unless the species lives in family groups, kinda like sexual selection can't take place in organisms that reproduce asexually. It's not called kin selection because they are only altruistic to kin; it's called kin selection because the trait can be passed on through kin even if the altruistic individual doesn't live to pass on the trait directly via offspirng of its own.

 

I think we might be talking about slightly different things here. What I'm referring to isn't necessarily a matter of passing on a single genetic trait, it's the idea that a closely related individual will share common genetic material and helping the survival of the relative will increase the chance of the common genetic material being propagated to future generations (along with the gene that predisposes the behavior, assuming it is a single-gene trait). In that sense kin selection requires that the altruism is specifically or at least preferentially directed toward kin (i.e., close relatives) rather then to unrelated members of the species. If you're referring to the development of the survival behavior itself I think that's really a separate issue.

 

Also, why the question about intelligent design? I've mostly heard about that topic in American politics but there doesn't seem to be much of an issue about it here in Canada.

[drcave]

Secondly, even indiscriminite altruism may be favoured in so-called viscous populations, i.e. those characterised by low rates or short ranges of dispersal. Here, social partners are typically genealogically-close kin, and so altruism may be able to flourish even in the absence of kin recognition and kin discrimination faculties. This suggests a rather general explanation for altruism.

 

You seem to be caught up in semantics, insisting that alarm-call altruism isn't kin selection. Take a close look and the excerpt from Hamiltons explanation altruism by kin selection. Do you disagree that this altruistic trait is passed on by because relatives are saved?

 

Have you ever conceded a point in your life?

[vogue]

It's still perfectly possible to believe in evolution as a scientifc theory and also believe that God used evolution as a "tool" to create humans as part of His creation. Although it's impossible to examine the bible in a perfectly literal sense, there is actually some biblical support for this in Genesis because God created other forms of life before creating humans. It would make perfect sense for God to create humans based on the same scientific and biological prinicples that He used to create other forms of life, so evolution is not in conflict with this concept in any way.

 

This is simply not true...

 

The bible says that in the beginning God created everything and saw that it was 'very good' (perfect). This is the most important aspect of the Bible because upon this very fact rests the complete Christian faith. Christianity must be totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with its full might against the theory of evolution.

 

In Romans we read that 'sin entered the world through one man, and through sin - death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.' (5:12)

 

The whole justification of Jesus' life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam's fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.

 

Even a high school student knows enough about evolution to know that nowhere in the evolutionary description of our origins does there appear an Adam or an Eve or an Eden or a forbidden fruit. Evolution means a development from one form to the next to meet the ever changing challenges from an ever changing nature. There is no fall from a previous state of sublime perfection. By the way, this state of perfection also included physical perfection. Everything God made was 'very good' (Genesis 1:31), so the genes of living things (as well as Adam and Eve) were perfect—no mistakes! But, when sin entered the world (because of Adam—Genesis 3:6, Romans 5:12), God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate, that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over thousands of years, this degeneration has produced all sorts of genetic mistakes in living things.

 

 

Most people have the wrong idea of what the creation/evolution question is all about. They don't understand the real issues involved and think that evolution is a scientific theory.

 

Evolution, however, is not a 'scientific' theory; it is a belief system about the past. We don’t have the past; we only have the present! All the fossils, all the living animals and plants, the world, the universe -everything exists in the present. We cannot test the past using the scientific method (which involves repeating things and watching them happen), since all evidence we have is in the present. Evolution is a belief about the past which describes the way some people think the evidence came to be here in its present state.

 

It is important to understand that by definition, creation is also a belief about the past which describes the way in which the evidence in the present came to be. The difference is that we base our understanding of creation upon a book which claims to be the Word of One who knows everything there is to know about everything-who was there and who is able to tell us what happened. On the other hand, evolution comes from the words of men who were not there. This whole issue revolves around whether we believe the words of God who was there, or the words of men (no matter how qualified) who were not there.

 

Just some thoughts to ponder:) ...

[vip_138]

 

Evolution, however, is not a 'scientific' theory

 

someone has cajones

[drcave]

T This whole issue revolves around whether we believe the words of God who was there, or the words of men (no matter how qualified) who were not there.

 

Just some thoughts to ponder:) ...

 

That an easy one for me I put my "faith" in science and the good ol' scientific method. I know that as an athiest I am in the minority in Canada, I wonder how the stats stack up in med school. I always figured there would be a negative correlation between education and faith, as one learns and understands more one has less need to fall back on: "Gee, I dunno, I guess God made it!" Perhaps there are more relgious people in medical school than the general population because it's a field that requires altruism. I've always felt that belief in a higher power is the human manifestation of altruistic genes, making it possible for our intelligent brains to rationalize self-sacrifice.

 

Just sharing my perspective.

 

I wonder if Vogue was trolling or really believes that the evolution is not science?

[Devari]

You seem to be caught up in semantics, insisting that alarm-call altruism isn't kin selection.

 

That's not what I said. What I said was:

 

If prairie dogs specifically warn close kin of danger and but will not warn of danger when non-related prairie dogs are threatened, then I agree then it would be an example of kin selection.

 

From what I had understood I thought that the warning calls were not directed specifically at kin, but since I'm not thoroughly familiar with prairie dog social structure I've specifically acknowledged that the behavior may be an example of kin selection if it fits the appropriate criteria.

 

Take a close look and the excerpt from Hamiltons explanation altruism by kin selection. Do you disagree that this altruistic trait is passed on by because relatives are saved?

 

You seem to be misunderstanding my comments. I have no issues with the mechanism of kin selection, I'm simply stating that for kin selection to occur the benefit has to actually be directed towards kin. The distinction I'm making here is between an altruistic behavior that benefits an entire community versus an altruistic behavior that benefits kin.

 

Have you ever conceded a point in your life?

 

Didn't I already concede in an earlier post that prairie dog warning calls would be considered kin selection as long as kin specifically benefit from the behavior?

[Devari]

This is simply not true...

 

Your comment that my post is simply not true is simply not true.

 

The first problem you've run into by trying to interpret the bible in a strictly literal sense is that the bible is not a "perfect" historical document. Like anything made by humans it has inherent limitations. Even the process of translating the bible into other languages affects the accuracy of the document. The bible can still be "divinely inspired" and can therefore give us essential information about God, but treating it as a perfect document simply isn't going to work.

 

The bible says that in the beginning God created everything and saw that it was 'very good' (perfect). This is the most important aspect of the Bible because upon this very fact rests the complete Christian faith.

 

First of all, "very good" does not equal "perfect". The simple fact that humans were given free will and the ability to sin proves that everying God has created is not perfect. God didn't create perfection. He intentionally created an imperfect world.

 

Also, refer to my comments in my earlier post regarding several biological imperfections present in humans. Humanity is imperfect on both the spiritual and biological levels.

 

Christianity must be totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with its full might against the theory of evolution.

 

First, evolution has been sufficiently proven (and even directly demonstrated over small timescales) that trying to refute the concept is essentially futile. Secondly, there is really no conflict between religion and evolution unless you insist on trying to interpret the bible completely literally. And if you insist on interpreting the bible completely literally there are a lot of fundamental scientific principles that simply are not compatible with creation as described in Genesis. You would have to completely ignore fundamental physcial laws in order to accept Genesis as completely accurate, so you're really going to have problems with more than just the theory of evolution.

 

In Romans we read that 'sin entered the world through one man, and through sin - death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.' (5:12)

 

The whole justification of Jesus' life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam's fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.

 

All that is really necesary for the concept of original sin is that humans made a conscious decision to turn away from God. It doesn't necessarily have to happen in exactly the way described in Genesis. Trying to rigidly adhere to an imperfect document in an attempt to understand God's will isn't going to work, even if you may be well-intentioned from a religious standpoint.

 

Even a high school student knows enough about evolution to know that nowhere in the evolutionary description of our origins does there appear an Adam or an Eve or an Eden or a forbidden fruit. Evolution means a development from one form to the next to meet the ever changing challenges from an ever changing nature. There is no fall from a previous state of sublime perfection. By the way, this state of perfection also included physical perfection. Everything God made was 'very good' (Genesis 1:31), so the genes of living things (as well as Adam and Eve) were perfect—no mistakes!

 

See above. God's creation is far from perfect. If it were perfect then the very concept of sin would be impossible.

 

But, when sin entered the world (because of Adam—Genesis 3:6, Romans 5:12), God cursed the world so that the perfect creation then began to degenerate, that is, suffer death and decay (Romans 8:22). Over thousands of years, this degeneration has produced all sorts of genetic mistakes in living things.

 

 

Most people have the wrong idea of what the creation/evolution question is all about. They don't understand the real issues involved and think that evolution is a scientific theory.

 

Evolution, however, is not a 'scientific' theory; it is a belief system about the past. We don’t have the past; we only have the present! All the fossils, all the living animals and plants, the world, the universe -everything exists in the present. We cannot test the past using the scientific method (which involves repeating things and watching them happen), since all evidence we have is in the present. Evolution is a belief about the past which describes the way some people think the evidence came to be here in its present state.

 

God gave us the ability to think and reason. He also appears to have created the universe according to very specific scientific laws. Those scientific principles clearly indicate that all life on earth originiated from a single source. The theory of evolution simply describes this observation.

 

It is important to understand that by definition, creation is also a belief about the past which describes the way in which the evidence in the present came to be. The difference is that we base our understanding of creation upon a book which claims to be the Word of One who knows everything there is to know about everything-who was there and who is able to tell us what happened. On the other hand, evolution comes from the words of men who were not there. This whole issue revolves around whether we believe the words of God who was there, or the words of men (no matter how qualified) who were not there.

 

Just some thoughts to ponder:) ...

 

Again, you're placing too much faith in an imperfect document. The bible is neither a perfect historical record nor is it a complete description of God's will. I believe that there is truth in the Bible, but understanding that truth requires an understanding of human limitations. One of those limitations is that we aren't perfect and need to recognize that our attempts to maintain a written record of God's will in the bible aren't going to be perfect either.

[JewelLeigh]

Wow...this thread just won't die eh?

 

Don't suppose there is any chance that you guys would be happy with agreeing that you can't even agree to disagree, but that you're never going to resolve this on here?

[Devari]

That an easy one for me I put my "faith" in science and the good ol' scientific method. I know that as an athiest I am in the minority in Canada, I wonder how the stats stack up in med school. I always figured there would be a negative correlation between education and faith, as one learns and understands more one has less need to fall back on: "Gee, I dunno, I guess God made it!" Perhaps there are more relgious people in medical school than the general population because it's a field that requires altruism. I've always felt that belief in a higher power is the human manifestation of altruistic genes, making it possible for our intelligent brains to rationalize self-sacrifice.

 

Just sharing my perspective.

 

For the most part I don't see religion and science as being in conflict because they both address completely different things. Science is simply the process of observing and trying to understand the universe. Religion is a belief in God who by definition does not need to follow scientific laws. By definition you can never use science to "prove" or "disprove" the existance of God. In that sense I see the two as completely separate and I personally find that I have no difficulty believing in God while at the same time being a scientist and believing in scientific principles.

 

At the same time, one thing that science and religion both have in common is that they both require rational thought to be successful. Obviously certain aspects of religion simply need to be accepted based entirely on faith but some people seem to feel that this means you don't need to apply any thought or reasoning to those beliefs. Most of the difficulties that religion tends to encounter these days seem to result from certain people refusing to actually think about what they believe in.

 

 

Wow...this thread just won't die eh?

 

Don't suppose there is any chance that you guys would be happy with agreeing that you can't even agree to disagree, but that you're never going to resolve this on here?

 

We might not resolve anything, but at least these topics will be thoroughly dissected.

[vogue]

I wonder if Vogue was trolling or really believes that the evolution is not science?

 

Not only do I think that evolution – as a theory of the origin of species – is bad science, but I also believe that the rules of today’s science fly in the face of such as theory! Here is why:

 

Scientists get excited about finding stone tools in a cave because these speak of intelligence - a tool maker. They could not have designed themselves. Neither would anyone believe that the carved Presidents’ heads on Mt. Rushmore were the product of millions of years of chance erosion. We can recognize design – evidence of intelligence - in the man-made objects all around us.

 

Today, however, a large proportion of people, including many leading scientists, believe that all plants and animals, including the incredibly complex brains of the people who make watches, motor cars, and who carved Mt. Rushmore, were not designed by an intelligent God but rather came from an unintelligent evolutionary process.

 

But even Professor. Richard Dawkins a world-renowned crusader for Darwinism and atheism has conceded that living things are too improbable and too beautifully “designed” to have come into existence by chance. To a Christian (like me), the design we see all around us is totally consistent with the Bible’s explanation that God created all.

 

However, evolutionists like Dawkins reject the idea of a Designer. Dawkins has commented instead that natural selection is a blind, unconscious, automatic process which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life.

 

Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA. Dawkins (and evolutionists alike) believe that natural selection and mutations (blind, purposeless copying mistakes in this DNA) together provide the mechanism for producing the vast amounts of information responsible for the design in living things.

 

So can natural selection explain the origin of species? Natural selection is a logical process that can be observed. However, selection can only operate on the information already contained in genes—it does NOT produce new information. Actually, this is consistent with the Bible’s account of origins; God created distinct kinds of animals and plants, each to reproduce after its own kind.

One can observe great variation in a kind, and see the results of natural selection. For instance, dingoes, wolves, and coyotes have developed over time as a result of natural selection operating on the information in the genes of the wolf/dog kind.

But NO new information was produced - these varieties have resulted from rearrangement, and sorting out, of the information in the original dog kind. One kind has never been observed to change into a totally different kind with new information that previously did not exist! Hence, through natural selection a reptile can not evolve into a bird.

 

Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. Evolutionists DO agree with this, but they believe that mutations somehow provide the new information for natural selection to act upon.

 

So can mutations produce new information? Actually, research shows that the answer NO. All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.

 

The neo-Darwinian theory is supposed to explain how the information of life has been built up by evolution. The essential biological difference between a human and a bacterium is in the information they contain. All other biological differences follow from that. The human genome has much more information than does the bacterial genome. Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it. A business can’t make money by losing it a little at a time.

 

Evolutionary scientists have no way around the conclusions that many scientists have come to. Mutations do NOT work as a mechanism to fuel the evolutionary process.

 

Scientists have found that within the cell, there are thousands of what can be called ‘biochemical machines.’ All of their parts have to be in place simultaneously or the cell can’t function. Things which were thought to be simple mechanisms, such as being able to sense light and turn it into electrical impulses, are in fact HIGHLY complicated.

Since life is built on these ‘machines,’ the idea that natural processes could have made a living system is not feasible. The term ‘irreducible complexity’ has been used in describing such biochemical ‘machines.’

 

Again, Richard Dawkins recognized this problem of needing ‘machinery’ to start with. He has been quoted as saying:

‘If replication needs complex machinery, since the only way we know for complex machinery ultimately to come into existence is cumulative selection, we have a problem.’

The more we look into the workings of life, the more complicated it gets, and the more we see that life could not arise by itself. Not only is a source of information needed, but the complex ‘machines’ of the chemistry of life need to be in existence right from the start!

 

Some still try to insist that the machinery of the first cell could have arisen by pure chance. For instance, they say, by randomly drawing alphabet letters in sequence from a hat, sometimes you will get a simple word like ‘BAT.’ So given long time periods, why couldn’t even more complex information arise by chance?

However, what would the word ‘BAT’ mean to a German or Chinese speaker? The point is that an order of letters is meaningless unless there is a language convention and a translation system in place which makes it meaningful!

 

In a cell, there is such a system (other molecules) that makes the order on the DNA meaningful. DNA without the language/translation system is meaningless, and these systems without the DNA wouldn’t work either.

The other complication is that the translation machinery which reads the order of the ‘letters’ in the DNA is itself specified by the DNA! This is another one of those ‘machines’ that needs to be fully-formed or life won’t work.

One of the things we know absolutely for sure from science, is that information cannot arise from disorder by chance. It ALWAYS takes (greater) information to produce information, and ultimately information is the result of intelligence:

There is simply no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.

 

So what is the source of the information? We can deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must originally have come from an intelligence, which had to have been far superior to ours, as scientists are revealing every day. But then, some will say that such a source would have to be caused by something with even greater information/intelligence.

 

However, if they reason like this, one could ask where this greater information/intelligence came from? And then where did that one come from … one could extrapolate to infinity, for ever and ever, unless…unless there was a source of INFINITE intelligence, beyond our finite understanding. This is what the Bible indicates when we read in Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning God …’ The God of the Bible is an infinite being not bound by limitations of time, space, knowledge, or anything else.

So which is the logically defensible position?—that matter eternally existed (or came into existence by itself for no reason), and then by itself arranged itself into information systems against everything observed in real science? Or that a Being with infinite intelligence created information systems for life to exist, agreeing with real science?

 

The answer seems obvious doesn’t it?

 

Yes Christianity is based on faith but this is not blind faith, as some think. In fact, the evolutionists who deny God have a blind faith—they have to believe something that is against real science—namely, that information can arise from disorder by chance.

What do you think?

[AMmd]

I agree with you Vogue! awesome reply, I have nothing else to add.

Maybe we should sticky it

[vogue]

Again, you're placing too much faith in an imperfect document. The bible is neither a perfect historical record nor is it a complete description of God's will. I believe that there is truth in the Bible, but understanding that truth requires an understanding of human limitations. One of those limitations is that we aren't perfect and need to recognize that our attempts to maintain a written record of God's will in the bible aren't going to be perfect either.

 

lol once again I disagree. The Bible is perfect not because it was written by men, but because it was divinely inspired by God. Yes there are definitely translation issues and more understanding can be gained by looking back at the original texts and studying the literal Hebrew and Greek meanings. All in all I believe the English translations sufficiently portray what God originally intended. The Bible must be studied, not superficially skimmed.

 

Also God IS perfect and He created all of nature perfect. Humankind was intended to be the caretakers of God's creation. Free will is a perfect design created by a perfect God for a perfect man. Free will means choice and man chose to use that free will against his Creator. This fact does not preclude the original perfection of man. I can assure you that when a perfect God says His original creation was 'very good' He is not speaking as a fallible man...what may be perfect to you or me is not necessarily perfect to Him. Anything that originates from God is perfect because He is perfect. If God had originally created us with a heap of mutations, I doubt that would have qualified as 'very good' to Him, in fact it would imply that He was incapable of a perfect creation.

[JewelLeigh]

Vogue - thank you for this informative and intelligently-presented post. I hope you don't mind if I borrow it to send to a few friends as well.

 

I have found that medicine is a pretty secular place...where "science" and "faith" can't seem to mix. I have been laughed at (even by supervisors!) when I suggest that creation, to me, is reality. It is good to know that there are others who believe that faith and science can in fact be consistent with one another.