I’m trying the plumber option. Although, since he says he can’t come until next week, maybe I could try the pastor first.
In the basement. Not to bad, actually – less disgusting than the mass of maggots I had to deal with last night in an outdoor garbage can. I’m on something of a roll.
There may be something to that demons thing…
If Dennis Venema is around, sure he could talk you through fixing it yourself.
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Do I? Evolution can be defined as a change in gene frequency within a population … which has nothing to do with atheism.
Re points 1-3:
None of these scientifically-accepted facts rule out the possibility that life on earth is the result of divine creation.
Re point 4:
No one will ever be able to demonstrate what process was responsible for the history of life on earth. That is a physical impossibility.
Re point 5:
Common ancestry is the best scientific explanation for the similarities in genetic material, but there exists another explanation that doesn’t require common ancestry - creation.
Re point 6:
The evolution of species evident in the fossil record could be the result of divine creation and not the result of a natural process. The fact that the fossil record does not present a single tree of universal common ancestry suggests that something other than a. natural process was at work.
None of the points 1-6 rule out the possibility that life on earth is the result of divine creation.
That wasn’t point 4. Point 4 was that the process of species change and new species coming into existence can be demonstrated. What you talk about here was covered in points 5 and 6.
Only by making God a liar. If living organisms are a product of creation then they were created with a book right in their DNA listing their common ancestry.
Again only by making God a liar. All the more reason for Christian theists to believe in evolution. Now if you were a Satanist or a Gnostic or a Platonist believing that the creator was evil then maybe that would work.
Incorrect. It suggests no such thing. It only tells us that we must get more information from somewhere else. Fortunately all that information is supplied in the genetic code. With that there is now only a single tree of universal common ancestry.
Imagine, for argument’s sake, that God created a chimp and created a human. Their respective genomes would naturally share many similarities due to their respective physical (internal and external) similarities.
Then a Darwinist comes along and says “Oh look - the genomes of these two organisms share many similarities - therefore they must have evolved from a common ancestor”. The Darwinist has offered a reached a reasonable conclusion, but has also made an honest mistake.
The moral of the story is, common ancestry is not the only explanation for genetic similarities.
The theory:
All life throughout history is connected by a tree of common descent.
The fossil evidence:
All life throughout history is not connected by a tree of common descent -rather, numerous phyla arise separately and independently.
The conclusion:
Since the evidence doesn’t support the theory, the theory is possibly wrong.
Unforunately, no one has access to the DNA of organisms that lived millions of years ago, so your “information from somewhere else” is not information at all, but merely wishful thinking built on an assumption built on a theory … in other words, hardly a convincing argument.
How would you demonstrate the process that was responsible for a trilobite (allegedly) evolving from a procaryote, for example?
You could have completely different DNA and still have physical similarities. For a start, you could use a different codon table which would completely change the DNA sequence while preserving the amino acid sequences in proteins.
There is also a lot of functional redundancy in proteins, so you don’t always need similar protein sequences for similar traits.
Only a tiny portion of the human and chimp genome has an impact on physical appearance or cellular function. So why are the entire genomes similar when they don’t need to be?
Why don’t we see clear and numerous violations of a nested hierarchy? Why don’t we see a combination of human, dog, bat, fish, whale, and bird DNA in a single species? Why do we see a nested hierarchy when there is no reason for one if groups of species are created separately?
That’s wrong. We are saying that we see a nested hierarchy which is a PATTERN of similarities. It’s that pattern which evidences evolution.
Then you need to explain why separate creations would necessarily fall into a nested hierarchy.
Prediction of the theory: The fossil species we find should fit into the same nested hierarchy that living species fall into.
Observation: The fossil species fall into the predicted nested hierarchy.
Conclusion: The theory is supported.
We have DNA from living species which are records of their ancestry. If species share a common ancestor then that evidence should be in their genomes, and it is.
If that were all it was, then you might have a point, but it is not. We have evidence of broken genes in the same places that there is no reason to share other than that they arose from a common source. And of course ERVs, It os like a common ancestor spilled coffee on his blueprint before making a copy to hand down the line. Eventually, Mr Chimp and Mr. Man compare their copies and see the same coffee stain, and know that they both came from Mr. Common Ancestor. Strange how every new advance confirms CA.
You cannot prove it, but you can demonstrate that it would produce the results we see, and is what the fossil record fits with (I am not an expert on Precambrian and early Paleozoic life, however, so I do not feel qualified to respond to this in detail).
There is no way to demonstrate that they arose independently-it would be like proving that most of the puzzle one is working on cannot exist, because one hasn’t found most of the pieces yet.
The fossil evidence:
But you yourself admitted that they are not connected by only a single tree of common descent but by several possible trees of common descent.
The genetic evidence:
Provides the evidence needed to determine which of those possible trees is the correct one.
The conclusion:
The fossil evidence is insufficient to determine all the details so you must turn to the genetic evidence to fill in information lacking in the fossil evidence alone.
But they have sequenced DNA from Neanderthals 120,000 years ago, DNA from Denisovans from 217,000 years ago, from mammoths 1.6 million years ago, a rhino from 1.7 million years ago, and more are being found all the time. It was enough to show what portions different human populations around the world have inherited from the Neanderthals and Denisovans, who were previously thought to have contributed nothing to modern human DNA makeup.
Like others here have observed. The pattern is revealed quite clearly and indisputably, from demonstrable means to test and confirm a vast number of conclusions derived from evolutionary theory.
The point is that we can demonstrate in a laboratory the process described by the theory works. Evolution can and does alter existing species and creates new species. Hiding behind our inability to train a motion picture camera at a time billions of years in the past is like trying to hide behind the post of a stop sign. It looks ridiculous.
Translation: We can theorize about what process was responsible for the evolution of a trilobite from a prokaryote and delude ourselves that we know, but the truth is, we can’t demonstrate that our theory is correct.
When the fossil evidence for a tree of universal common descent is found, wake me up. So far we only have fossil evidence of various phyla arising separately - hardly evidence of the famous single tree of Darwinian folklore.
A Green Warbler, for example, speciates into more Green Warblers … and this demonstrates, not only that that all life on earth evolved from a procaryote, but that we know what process was responsible for that evolution?
Why don’t you accept DNA evidence?
Do you accept the fossil evidence for shared ancestry between humans and other apes?
We observe both in the lab and in the wild that evolutionary processes produce a branching pattern of shared DNA and shared features. We see that same branching pattern of shared DNA and features across all life which is the evidence for life evolving from a shared ancestor.
Thanks for that information - I didn’t know DNA lasted that long. Can ancient DNA be trusted?
Only in very unusual conditions, like frozen in a cave – thus protecting the sample from both heat and radiation. So obviously we cannot expect DNA evidence from every species and every time period.
That’s a very good question, and one that scientists are always asking. If it was contamination from contemporary species then we would expect the DNA to match the genome of those species, but it doesn’t. Also, really old DNA would be highly fragmented and chemically altered (i.e. deaminated) which is what they see with these ancient DNA samples. The scientists are very aware of potential contamination and problems with ancient DNA and they work really hard to make sure they have what they think they have.
For sake of argument, would you accept that all green warblers share a common ancestor with other warblers? If so, why not all warblers and their similar warbler-like relatives? Where exactly does one draw the line? Genuinely, interested.
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