The Evolution Conflict

[gluadys]

Three cheers for Gellman and Hartman. A really great response. We need more people like them.

I saw only a small factual error, here:

"Darwin thought genetic mutations made people, animals and plants different,"

Darwin didn't think that, because he didn't know about genetic mutations; they were discovered much later. But since that is what current Darwinian theory says, it's nothing to fuss over.

[samabudhi]

Total probability that an entity would form which could create such a protein = 10^950^∞

[samabudhi]

The problem with the 10^950 idea is that it's not evolution. Evolution is building on what you already have, not freak chance. Evolution favours parsimony.
Also, primitive cells were and are (there are still some lying around in deep sea volcanic vents) very simple. They are nothing like our cells.

Here's an interesting article from http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/watson.htm:

He talks about how clay is an unusual and not totally understood substance, and that:

"Clays are extraordinary, layered, crystal structures which have, built into them, what amounts to an innate tendency to evolve...Clays have a dramatic ability not only to grow, but to absorb other molecules, and this capacity varies according to their structure." pp. 36

"The memory of clay is manifest only in its ability to hold a pattern and to influence its environment when treated in a certain way."

"But this ability and the pattern are vital. The American chemist Armin Weiss has shown that some clays, in particular the mica types, can build up patterns of organic molecules between their silicate layers. He has identified more than eight thousand different derivatives in which the clays have acted as templates, inducing ammonium ions and alcohols to solidify into organic components." He quotes Cairns-Smith: "Reactions occurring in such an array containing suitable monomers could give rise to polymers with a genetically controlled configuration, out of which secondary control structures, membranes, and other cell structures could be formed." And then as more and more of the information in the silicates was transformed to the organic molecules, the clay would cease to control and take on a more passive role as a protective clamp. Cell walls could indeed evolve at a later stage from a vague tendency for the outer edge of a community to thicken like cold porridge, to the highly sophisticated ion and molecule filters that guard the borders of the modern cell." pp. 40

The problem is less about how complex proteins came into being as how the cell came into being. If one's definition of life is, 'It must grow', and 'It must produce offspring,' then crystals fit that definition. They have the structure which would facilitate life, or it's evolution. From there, proteins will be built, not just fall together.

I mean, if you can accept that God made cells and that we evolved from there, then you accept that something as comparatively complex as a human being (including our extraordinary mind) can come from a cell. Why not a cell from crystals?

[lunamoth]

It seems to me that this kind of reasoning is flawed, imagining that it would be necessary to first start life with a naked protein of 500 amino acids. It made me start to imagine someone putting my preschooler in a field with a billion bricks and expecting her to make the Empire State Building. But if I give her some clay she could make a nice doorstop for the front door of that landmark.

One thing God has is patience, patience and time. I seem to recall that it was only after thinking about the implications of the geological record, that the earth is very very old, that Darwin and others could entertain the possibility of descent with modification.

I heard a lecture once where it was postulated that life began as a pattern of crystals. Chemical crystals are very simple, yet also very organized. Imagine a salty stream with the salt crystalizing on an exposed rock. It builds up and builds up, and then breaks off. Maybe the crystals catch on the next rock downstream before fully dissolving, and there they build again, two crystal formations on two rocks, simple, yet organized thanks to their chemical bonds obeying perfectly the laws of nature. Reproduction, if you will.

Now imagine a more complicated situation, where two chemicals interact, but again they form a compound that is stable and organized, building, building, breaking apart, reforming. Replicating themselves just by obeying the physical laws. Maybe you need to have a special matrix, say a certain type of quartz mineral rock or whatever for the compound to be stable, but still the odds of meeting the conditions are not so high that it can never happen.

And now this slightly more complex compound itself becomes the matrix for another chemical reaction, and a slightly more "evolved" chemcial can be formed. It couldn't be formed without the compound matrix, but now that the compound matrix is available, it is possible.

Repeat over billions of years, each time getting a little more complex, until you get something that looks like RNA (ribonucleic acid--similar to DNA and very very effective little machines. Some viruses are just little strips of RNA.). Now I'm pretty sure the idea of an "RNA World," that RNA, not proteins, were the first molecules of life, held some credence and probably still does. RNA molecules can replicate themselves and have enzyme functions that help them to do just that. Viruses, they cause so much misery to us, yet they are just little strips of nucleic acid, bound up with a relatively small number of proteins.

Now, I am not a chemist and this idea of a crystal pattern that "evolves," if it ever held any weight to begin with, may very well be quite outdated. But it makes me think that you start simple, and build from there. One of the amazing things about life is that is has emergent properties, each level of organization from molecule to enzyme to cell to organism is greater than the sum of its parts. Often it seems like this property is used to explain why a Creator is needed. I believe in God, but I think the elegance of His creation is in the way complexity can arise from simplicity using a set and, at heart, very few number of physical laws. Some say there is just One Law, and this is the Holy Grail of modern physics.

OK, I have vastly oversimplified this. It is not known how the first life molecules are formed, or even what they were. And the chances of getting RNA are so great, based on what is known, that it has been suggested that RNA landed here from somewhere else, another planet that had even more time for this primitive evolution to take place. But I don't think that anything is to be gained, and much is to be lost, by just throwing up our hands and saying, well, it seems unlikely, and we don't know, so let's just say God did it.

[By the way, I am in favor of teaching religion (comparative religion) in the public schools, just not in the science class! Let's bring back classical philosophy, as well!]

[lunamoth]

You beat me it it Sama--faster and more eloquent to boot!

[samabudhi]

But I don't think that anything is to be gained, and much is to be lost, by just throwing up our hands and saying, well, it seems unlikely, and we don't know, so let's just say God did it.

Exactly. People should show a little patience for crying out loud.
Is it not good enough that in 100 years we have gone from blundering our way through medicine, physics, chemistry, astronomony, biology, to being well on top of our game in all those areas. We have progressed in leaps and bounds, but people don't have the patience when it comes to the biggest question of the physical world, 'How did life begin.'

We'll get there, eventually, just like with everything else, and when we do, people will just say, 'So what? How does that help me? I'm still going through the same daily grind of unpredictable suffering and happiness while watching the world destroy itself and prove to me that the beginning of life was just the beginning of death.'

Yeah. ...er...Think happy thoughts!

[gluadys]

Originally Posted by Mohsin

Regards to all.
A couple of articals that I came across regarding evolution.

With all due respect Mohsin, you have derived your information from sources which appear to have mis-understood the theory of evolution. I have studied the theory of evolution (as an interested lay person, not a professional) for 40 years and I have found many errors in the articles you have posted.

For example:

The theory of evolution faces no greater crisis than on the point of explaining the emergence of life.

No it doesn't. The theory of evolution makes no attempt to explain the origin of life. It assumes the existence of life.

There is a different field of research called abiogenesis which studies the origin of life.

The reason is that organic molecules are so complex that their formation cannot possibly be explained as being coincidental and it is manifestly impossible for an organic cell to have been formed by chance.

This is true, but it is not a problem for abiogenesis as it does not propose that an organic cell formed by chance.

Evolutionists confronted the question of the origin of life in the second quarter of the 20th century. One of the leading authorities of the theory of molecular evolution, the Russian evolutionist Alexander I. Oparin, said this in his book The Origin of Life, which was published in 1936:

Unfortunately, the origin of the cell remains a question which is actually the darkest point of the complete evolution theory.

Since Oparin, evolutionists have performed countless experiments, conducted research, and made observations to prove that a cell could have been formed by chance.

Oh dear me! Now a statement like this makes me fear the authors of this article are not simply mis-informed. I greatly fear they are being intentionally duplicitous.

It is true, of course, that scientists conduct many experiments, but it is certainly not true that any experimenter has tried to prove that a cell could have been formed by chance. Scientists already know that cells do not form by chance. Why would they try to prove the impossible?

The experiments were for different purposes.

However, every such attempt only made clearer the complex design of the cell and thus refuted the evolutionists' hypotheses even more. Professor Klaus Dose, the president of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Johannes Gutenberg, states:

More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution.
At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in statemate or in a confession of ignorance.

Do you see how cleverly these people insinuate a lie into their article? Suppose we leave off the first sentence of the quotation above. Begin with "Professor Klause Dose...states..." What does he state?

a) 30 years of experimentation ...have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem
b) rather than to its solution
c) at present all discussion ....either end in stalement or in a confession of ignorance.

This is all perfectly consistent with my description above of the research into abiogenesis. The problem is immensely complex. We have many theories but no solution yet.

But in front of this perfectly true statement they have placed the misleading statement that this research has "refuted the evolutionists' hypotheses".

Well, no it hasn't, for two reasons:
First, evolution makes no hypotheses at all about the origin of life. You cannot refute a hypothesis that does not exist.
Second, according to the authors of this paper, the hypothesis the research is supposed to prove is that life originated by chance. But that is not a hypothesis supported by any scientific researcher. So again, no hypothesis has been refuted because no hypothesis of this sort exists in the first place.

Even worse, they have called this whole section "Confessions from Evolutionists". Makes one think of those days in Stalinist Russia when dissidents were paraded before movie cameras to verify the "confessions" which they had signed under torture. Was Professor Dose really making a confession? Or was he simply describing an immensely intriguing and complex field of research.

Did you note, by the way, that they have not told you when he said this or where you can find the original citation. These are tactics used by people who have something to hide.

I am afraid that this is an instance of "quote-mining". Quote-mining has become rampant among anti-evolutionists. It is a heinous practice which is intended to deceive the unwary. As John Wilkins, a researcher into mined quotes says:

It is worth observing too that not only were these quotes taken carefully out of context, but that they must have been deliberately done so. After [unearthing the context] I could not find there is [any] way these could have been taken accidentally or in ignorance out of the context.

Several of them turn out to be railing against creationists. More than a few turn out to be making the exact opposite point [than the bare words seem to indicate] and at least one was reporting secondarily on the ideas of others in order to rebut them. Once is a mistake, twice is carelessness, three times could be stupidity, but the sheer volume of these is a deliberately planned campaign of disinformation.

(Emphasis in the original)

See these sites for more information:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quot...e/project.html
http://www.evowiki.org/wiki.phtml?title=Quote-mining

The following statement by the geochemist Jeffrey Bada from San Diego Scripps Institute makes clear the helplessness of evolutionists concerning this impasse:

Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth?

Another mined quote in a dubious setting. Again research on the origin of life is erroneously attributed to evolutionists instead of abiogeneticists. And the quote is neither dated nor sourced.

The Probability of a Protein Being Formed by Chance is Zero

Again, this is absolutely true. What is not true is the implication that science says it is. Science says nothing of the sort.

There are 3 basic conditions for the formation of a useful protein:

[snip]

In order for a protein to be formed by chance, all three basic conditions must exist simultaneously.

The irony here is that even if the three basic conditions are met, the protein will not form by chance. It is formed by the precise and predictable laws of chemistry. Predictable processes are the opposite of chance.

The probability of the formation of a protein by chance is equal to the multiplication of the probabilities of the realisation of each of these conditions.

In the first place, since we already know that chemistry, not chance, governs the origin of proteins, it is irrelevant to calculate the probability of a protein forming by chance.

Besides the authors are relying on the fact that most people don't understand probabilities, especially when large numbers are involved. In addition many of the figures are bogus. It is not true for example that in a sequence of 500 amino acids, the chance of any amino acid being used is 1/20 at every step. Amino acids (and proteins) are like 3-dimensional building blocks of various shapes. Once you have one amino acid in place, you cannot place just any amino acid next to it. Only those which have a compatible shape can fit next to it. Furthermore, to make a protein, the whole chain of amino acids has to be able to fold into the correct shape. There are far too many constraints on the process to call it chance.

The scientists today say that any thing more then 1/10^(50) or a chance in 1 with 50 zeros is concidered as false or discarded.

This is a misrepresentation of a mathematical, not a scientific principle.

Therefore, it is impossible for proteins, each of which is a wonder of design and engineering, in which every part takes its place in a fixed order, to originate as a result of haphazard chemical reactions.

That's right. They don't originate as a result of "haphazard" chemical reactions, but as a result of well-studied and predictable chemical reactions.

Even so, evolution again has no answers,

Yet none of the article even speaks about evolution. It is all about the origin of life and the formation of proteins. These are not topics in the science of evolution.

By the way, did you know that scientists not only know a lot more about the formation of protein than your source article suggests. They have progressed to the point that by starting with amino acids, they can develop protein-based proto-cells with simple kitchen equipment:


Make your own proto-cells
http://www.christianforums.com/t150668&page=9
Call Sigma Chemical Co. at 800-325-3010 and order 1 bottle of catalog number M 7020 MEM amino acids solution. it will cost you $11.95 plus shipping for a 100 ml. bottle. Empty the bottle into a fying pan, turn the heat on low and heat until all the water is evaporated. Then heat for 5 more minutes. Add water. You will have protocells in the solution. They are alive. If this is too "artificial" for you, then put the solution out on a hot rock for the afternoon and let it evaporate. Then add water (rain).

(The person who posted this "recipe" is a Professor of Biology who has published many research papers on various biological topics.)

Here are some pictures of lab-produced proto-cells
http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/photos.htm

[samabudhi]

Marvellous! It took less time than I thought!

Thank you for posting these most interesting and important links.

Phenomenal!

[gluadys]

Well sama and luna,

You are both quicker than me.

But I think we have all come at the defects of the article in different ways and made different points.

Sama, I tried the link in your post and got a dead end. Would you check it out and see if a good one can be made? It sounded very interesting.

Some other interesting articles on the origin of life:


http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules...rticle&sid=357

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...?from=storyrhs

http://www.almostsmart.com/forums/sh...8422#post88422

[samabudhi]

http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/watson.htm

Sorry 'bout that. A colon found it's way onto the last one.

[Mohsin]

The evolutionary tree that I heard of has got so many flaws and now you are saying that the scienties are not trying to prove the creation of life, but its sustainance via evolution. There was a time when experiments were being held for this purpose. One thing is based on another. The entire theory of evolution, as I see it, requires proving of many things. You say that some crystals e.t.c protected the first life form, but it just adds more zeros to the probability formula that I posted. Also, for people who believe in a God also as a Creator will take the theory with a different approach. But for those who do not believe in a Creator, even the origin of life is very important to clerify. If they say that a complete molecule was the first living organism, then where did that come form?

There are several, several points that cannot be described by this theory.

Listen to these:
Why Transition From Water to Land is Impossible

Evolutionists claim that one day, a species dwelling in water somehow stepped onto land and was transformed into a land-dwelling species. There are a number of obvious facts that render such a transition impossible:

1. Weight-bearing: Sea-dwelling creatures have no problem in bearing their own weight in the sea. However, most land-dwelling creatures consume 40% of their energy just in carrying their bodies around. Creatures making the transition from water to land would at the same time have had to develop new muscular and skeletal systems to meet this energy need, and this could not have come about by chance mutations.

2. Heat Retention: On land, the temperature can change quickly, and fluctuates over a wide range. Land-dwelling creatures possess a physical mechanism that can withstand such great temperature changes. However, in the sea, the temperature changes slowly and within a narrower range. A living organism with a body system regulated according to the constant temperature of the sea would need to acquire a protective system to ensure minimum harm from the temperature changes on land. It is preposterous to claim that fish acquired such a system by random mutations as soon as they stepped onto land.

3. Water: Essential to metabolism, water needs to be used economically due to its relative scarcity on land. For instance, the skin has to be able to permit a certain amount of water loss, while also preventing excessive evaporation. That is why land-dwelling creatures experience thirst, something the sea-dwelling creatures do not do. For this reason, the skin of sea-dwelling animals is not suitable for a nonaquatic habitat.

4. Kidneys: Sea-dwelling organisms discharge waste materials, especially ammonia, by means of their aquatic environment. On land, water has to be used economically. This is why these living beings have a kidney system. Thanks to the kidneys, ammonia is stored by being converted into urea and the minimum amount of water is used during its excretion. In addition, new systems are needed to provide the kidney's functioning. In short, in order for the passage from water to land to have occurred, living things without a kidney would have had to develop a kidney system all at once.

5. Respiratory system: Fish "breathe" by taking in oxygen dissolved in water that they pass through their gills. They cannot live more than a few minutes out of water. In order to survive on land, they would have to acquire a perfect lung system all of a sudden.

It is most certainly impossible that all these dramatic physiological changes could have happened in the same organism at the same time, and all by chance. Also, the fish the evolutionest claimed, I mean the fossil record of one they found was of a fish called a coelacanth, which was estimated to be 410 million years of age, was put forward as a transitional form with a primitive lung, a developed brain, a digestive and a circulatory system ready to function on land, and even a primitive walking mechanism. These anatomical interpretations were accepted as undisputed truth among scientific circles until the end of the 1930's. Living examples of this fish have been caught many times since 1938, providing a good example of the extent of the speculations that evolutionists engage in. Also, this fish is a deep water fish, stays below 200meters. What have you got to say about that?

Reptiles cannot turn into Birds:
The anatomy of birds is very different from that of reptiles, their supposed ancestors. Bird lungs function in a totally different way from those of land-dwelling animals. Land-dwelling animals breathe in and out from the same air vessel. In birds, while the air enters into the lung from the front, it goes out from the back. This distinct "design" is specially made for birds, which need great amounts of oxygen during flight. It is impossible for such a structure to evolve from the reptile lung. Also, a reptile body is very dence, whereas that of birds are hollow.


What is the Origin of Flies?

Claiming that dinosaurs transformed into birds, evolutionists support their assertion by saying that some dinosaurs who flapped their front legs to hunt flies "took wing and flew" . Having no scientific basis whatsoever and being nothing but a pigment of the imagination, this theory also entails a very simple logical contradiction: the example given by evolutionists to explain the origin of flying, that is, the fly, already has a perfect ability to fly. Whereas a human cannot open and close his eyes 10 times a second, an average fly flutters its wings 500 times a second. Moreover, it moves both its wings simultaneously. The slightest dissonance in the vibration of wings would cause the fly lose its balance but this never happens. Evolutionists should first come up with an explanation as to how the fly acquired this perfect ability to fly. Instead, they fabricate imaginary scenarios about how much more clumsy creatures like reptiles came to fly.Even the perfect creation of the housefly invalidates the claim of evolution.

English biologist Robin Wootton wrote in an article titled "The Mechanical Design of Fly Wings":
The better we understand the functioning of insect wings, the more subtle and beautiful their designs appear. Structures are traditionally designed to deform as little as possible; mechanisms are designed to move component parts in predictable ways. Insect wings combine both in one, using components with a wide range of elastic properties, elegantly assembled to allow appropriate deformations in response to appropriate forces and to make the best possible use of the air. They have few if any technological parallels-yet.
Robin J. Wootton, "The Mechanical Design of Insect Wings", Scientific American, v. 263, November 1990, p.120

On the other hand, there is not a single fossil that can be evidence for the imaginary evolution of flies. This is what the distinguished French zoologist Pierre Grassé meant when he said "We are in the dark concerning the origin of insects."
Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York, Academic Press, 1977, p.30


These are just small but important issues that are left out by the evolutionests. I know that many fossil records have been found, but they are mostly fabbricated. A few years ago, a discovery of a dinosaur fossil was found showing the marks of growing wings. It turned out to be drawn out or made up of five different fossils. Also the reputation the evolutionests have, I mean, Piltdown man which was found to be an Orang-utan Jaw and a Human Skull made up by Charles Dawson in 1912 in England. The Nebraska man, in 1922 by Henry Fairfield Obsorn in America. Many authorities gave Osborn their support. Based on a single tooth(which was the only discovery), reconstructions of the Nebraska man's head and body were drawn. Moreover, Nebraska man was even pictured along with his wife and children, as a whole family in a natural setting. In 1927, other parts of the skeleton were also found. According to these newly discovered pieces, the tooth belonged neither to a man nor to an ape. It was realised that it belonged to an extinct species of wild American pig called Prosthennops. William Gregory entitled the article published in Science (Vol 66, December 1927, p. 579) in which he announced the truth, "Hesperopithecus(the actual name given to the Nebrasca Man): Apparently Not an ape Nor a man". Then all the drawings of Hesperopithecus haroldcooki and his "family" were hurriedly removed from evolutionary literature.

I asked in my earlier posts, how can evolution prove the creation or development of the complex systems of the cells. How can evolution prove the creation of any organ? Even a simple organ is so complexed that it cannot be created by chance, but if only God, the Creator wishes it to be. How do the evolutionary process take place? There is no such thing as natural selection(proven by the discoveries of genetics), no mutation(no positive effects of it can be found as all it does is destory the necessary genetic data of the DNA turnig the subject into a freak of nature), what have you got? There are so many missing links and without them, this thoery cannot be anything more them a clear myth.

Also I noticed, actually concidering the message, you guys try to find errors in the posts. This is wrong. The few things that I would like to say in the end. Firstly, instead of apperitiating God's artistry with which He had created so many creatures, you say that they are due to evolution. Secondly, believing in something without proof is like accepting it something as a religion. You do not ask many questions in a religion but accept it as it is.

[samabudhi]

Let's focus on one subject shall we.

[samabudhi]

One thing is based on another. The entire theory of evolution, as I see it, requires proving of many things

Actually it's the other way round, since there are so many examples in nature of evolution that it just adds to the statistical probability rather than requiring us to prove each one.

If it can be seen in one species, there is no reason to suspect that it isn't in others. You just know there are other planets in the Galaxy by statistics. It would be remarkable if there weren't.

If they say that a complete molecule was the first living organism, then where did that come form?

This never ceases to amaze me! Religious people will pose this same question again and again but never apply it to the origin of God. 'God always was,' they say. So maybe the universe always was. Maybe the universe is an infinite cycle of arising and ceasing phenomena, which includes life and everything we know. Show me something in reality which has not arisen. Show something which will not cease. It's an infinite cycle. Problem solved.

[Mohsin]

Originally Posted by samabudhi

This never ceases to amaze me! Religious people will pose this same question again and again but never apply it to the origin of God. 'God always was,' they say. So maybe the universe always was. Maybe the universe is an infinite cycle of arising and ceasing phenomena, which includes life and everything we know. Show me something in reality which has not arisen. Show something which will not cease. It's an infinite cycle. Problem solved.

We can prove that life cannot originate by chance. Can you prove that God does not exist? The complexity of the very basic elements shows that there is a Creator for it. We can resort to our religious scriptures and prove the existance of God. Can you prove that the universe is an infinite cycle of arising and ceasing phenomena? What evidance do you have to support your claim?

I just missed out something in my previous post, people tend to post a list of scientiest supporting the theory of evolution. There are several many against it as well. Just I wanted to say that all these scientists worked for about more then a hundred years but the fact is that they cannot prove this theory as something more then it is, just a theory.

[Mohsin]

Originally Posted by samabudhi

Actually it's the other way round, since there are so many examples in nature of evolution that it just adds to the statistical probability rather than requiring us to prove each one.

What story do you have about the origin of birds and about the one in which fishes coming out of water to become reptiles. These are basic questions left unanswered.