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lucaspa

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Posts posted by lucaspa

  1. if I were a evolutionist I think it would be very benefitial to my cause to disprove the other leading theory. Isn't science suppose to test all areas not just the ones that benefit their theory. So, "scientists involved with evolution, by and large, completely ignore the question of creationism" doesn't make any sense, why would they ignore a topic that is directly related to their field of study.

    This doesn't take history into account. Pumices, young earth creationism was the accepted scientific theory from 1700-1831. Scientists did try it out. They falsified it by 1831. So there is no need for scientists now to falsify it all over again. The data that falsified creationism in the early 1800s still exists; the data didn't go away. Scientists have better things to do than keep re-inventing the wheel or falsifying theories already falsified.

     

    What we have are a group of people who refuse to accept that creationism is false. If it were not for their insistence on lying to our kids by teaching creationism in public schools, we would simply ignore them.

     

    BTW, the scientists who falsified creationism in the early 1800s were all Christians. Most of them were ministers. So you can forget the "atheist conspiracy" idea that is so popular in creationist circles.

  2. I am one of those "individuals who are not trained in the scientific method" so I am going to need some help on this. So those of you who are "trained in the scientific method" first define what the scientific method is and then use the scientific method to prove evolution and disprove creation or vise versa.

    First, let's separate creation from creationism.

    Creation is the theological idea that God created.

    Creationism is a specific method God is said to have used to create. In this thread, God is alledged to have zapped the universe into existence in its present form less than 20,000 years ago.

     

    Evolution can also be viewed as the method God created. In fact, most Christians do view it that way.

     

    There is really no "THE" scientific method. "The only rule of the scientific method is that we must discard any scientific statement if the evidence of our senses shows it to be wrong." Niles Eldredge, The Monkey Business, A Scientist Looks at Creationism, 1982, pg. 27.

     

    In general, science works by the hypothetico-deductive method. You propose a hypothesis or idea. A hypothesis is a statement about the physical universe. You assume the statement is true -- just for testing You then deduce consequences of that statement: think of things you should observe if the statement is true. You then go looking for those consequences. If you find the consequences, the hypothesis is supported. If you find the opposite, things that simply could not be there if the hypothesis is true, then the hypothesis is falsified -- shown to be wrong.

     

    Notice that this is what the OP is trying to do for the hypothesis that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Every example are things that supposedly can't be there if the universe is that old. However, the reason we don't take them seriously is that the consequences are seriously flawed. They misrepresent what happens and/or they have bad data. Criticisms also get criticized.

     

    Now, if the earth were created as it says in young earth creationism, these are some of the things we should see (consequences):

    1. No or very little sedimentary rock, because there has not been enough time for erosion to make sediments.

    2. No stars visible beyond 6,000 light years and stars becoming visible thru history as their light first reached the earth.

    3. Isotopes with half-lives less than 50 million years in the earth's crust.

    4. No or very few fossils. And those fossils are those of contemporary organisms. Skeletons of ALL organisms mixed together in the sediments.

    5. Clear genetic boundaries between the "kinds" of organisms.

     

    We see the opposite of all these, thus young earth is falsified.

     

    Now, each theory stands on its own. That is, falsifiying creationism would not mean evolution is true. Or falsifying evolution does not mean creationism is true. After all, they could both be wrong! The idea that falsifying an old earth means a young earth is true is one of the mistakes of the OP.

  3. although i am commerce student, i love reading about prehistory and evolution. but i was shocked when we had a few lines on evolution in enviormental science that to in commerce! what the hell commerce students will do of evolution?

    It was in regard to environmental science, right? Well, changes in the environment affect the evolution of organisms. Commerce students should be aware of that to understand one of the consequences of toxic waste of commerce in the environment.

     

    I'd appreciate the exact quote.

  4. Why do that, when it's not true? ID isn't a scientific theory. To the extent that it has any science in it, you can show that it has been falsified, but I see problems with calling it a theory when it isn't.

    Scientists and philosophers of science have tried for over 400 years to find a way to tell when a theory is scientific and when it isn't. It's called the Demarcation Problem. There has been no solution.

     

    What you are doing here is Special Pleading. You are trying to say ID isn't science. That isn't as strong as saying "it is wrong". My position is stronger. I'm not invoking special pleading to avoid the major claims of ID. ID does make testable statements about the physical universe. And that is the essence of what hypotheses/theories are; they are testable statements about the physical universe. So let's not *****foot around in the morass of what is and isn't scientific. Meet ID head on. It's scientific but it's wrong.

     

    The trial isn't about whether it's science, good or bad. That's not a constitutional question. The trial is about whether it's religion.

    The constitutional issue is whether government promotes a religion. That's the Establishment Clause. It's not whether ID is a religion, but whether having public schools teach ID promotes a particular religion.

     

    As I said, ID is a falsified theory. But that isn't how IDers want it taught. Now, if ID is false, the ONLY reason to teach it as valid is to promote a religion. In this case the religion is theism in general and Christianity in particular.

     

    Of course, the reason IDers promote this as free speech is that they say they have a theory that is equally valid to evolution. They say only special rules prevent them from presenting this idea to students. And you are helping them! You are setting up arbitrary rules of what is and isn't science. So IDers can say "See, our idea is correct but evolutionists don't want it taught and are manipulating what is science just to avoid mentioning an intelligent designer."

     

    I'm not doing that, and neither was Quinn and Laudan. If the theory involves a supernatural designer, and if the theory is correct, then that is that. Science will have to live with that. Science is about what IS, not about rules to exclude possibilities. Instead, ID makes testable statements about how traits in organisms came about: they were manufactured and placed in the organisms in their present form. Fine, I can test whether organisms are manufactured artifacts. And we can show that organisms are not manufactured, but arise by the processes of biochemistry and evolution.

  5. do they ever randomly mutate human genes' date=' trying to test for something that might correlate with increased fitness? For example, you said they discovered microcephalin and ASPM may affect brain size. Would they try to make a mutation that affected brain-size in a similiar fashion and test it?

     

    also, how does one differentiate a gene that is evolving the human species versus just mutating a small population of the race?[/quote']

    1. How would you test a mutated gene? Testing of fitness requires the entire organism, in this case a human being. It would be illegal and immoral to form genetically engineered humans.

     

    2. "mutating in a small population" is how most evolution happens. See my previous post and allopatric speciation. You are thinking of transforming the entire human population to a new species. This is called "anagenesis". It is very rare in evolution. Instead, what you nearly always see is "cladogenesis" where a small population is isolated -- either by geography or by ecology -- and face a different environment. Mutations that are neutral in the old environment are advantageous in the new. So there is directional natural selection to "fix" those alleles in the small population. Over the course of generations, those changes are enough to make the small population a new species.

     

    Large populations that are adapted to their environment have stabilizing natural selection. Most mutations would be less adaptive than the existing alleles and get eliminated.

     

    Everyone seems to think that increasing brain size in humans would be selected. I just don't see any selective pressure for increased brain size or intelligence. People with IQs of 80 earn adequate living (in evolutionary terms) and have just as many, or more, offspring than people with IQs of 180.

  6. I find it a bit arrogant to think that we are still evolving.

    We are mostly immune to evolution due to our technology and transportation. The technology negates natural selection by providing resources for everyone and compensating for traits -- such as poor eyesight -- that would be disadvantageous otherwise. Transportation means we have gene flow between most populations, which stops allopatric speciation.

     

    However, HIV is causing the selection of individuals with alleles that confer immunity. Also, there are indications that 3 populations of humans are diverging and could, if the trend continues, form their own species.

     

    Two of these are Andean and Himalayan highlanders. Data shows they have unique alleles for adaptation to living at the high altitudes. The question is how much they intermarry with lowlanders for gene flow. If they do not intermarry and become isolated in their unique climates, then over many more generations they could become reproductively isolated from the rest of humans -- which means they would be a new species of Homo.

     

    The other is the !Kung. Data shows that marriage patterns are that genes do not flow into to !Kung but that a few !Kung intermarry outside the !Kung. So, they are already showing partial reproductive isolation by one of the early mechanisms -- mate selection. Since the !Kung live in the Kalahari, they have adpatations for living in a very arid climate. Two studies have demonstrated that !Kung have some unique alleles. Again, if this continues for many generations, we would have a new species of Homo.

     

    Allopatric speciation like this is one of the major mechanisms of evolution. Transformation of an entire large population -- like H. sapiens is now -- is very rare. Instead, you get species splitting and the formation of new species in small populations that are isolated in new environments -- allopatric speciation.

  7. Here is a press release from the HHMI where Lahn has his lab. the PR journalist, or public information writer, assigned to the job may have garbled or misquoted Lahn, so be careful about putting too much weight on the press release (or the NY Times article either!) ... the only way to tell what Lahn and his colleagues claim or do not claim to have discovered is to read what they publish in Human Molecular Genetics, or the journal Science.

     

    Good points! I also note that the the NY Times article claims the microcephalin allele appeared 50, 000 years ago and claim it is associated with "modern" humans. However, anatomically modern humans -- including present brain size -- were present 100,000 years ago. This raises skepticism in me whether the alleles have that much to do with brain size.

  8. Robert T. Pennock' date=' ... He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.

     

    "As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."

     

    Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms[/quote']

    DAMN!! I thought Pennock was going to be smarter than this. First, he knows bloody well that IDers do offer evidence in support of their idea. What does he think Darwin's Black Box is? Second, he should know from Popper that any theory can have evidence supporting it. That isn't what counts. What counts is the evidence against a theory.

     

    I hoped they were going to take Quinn's approach. Instead of futzing around with whether ID is science or not, simply meet it head on: Call ID a scientific theory and then say it has been falsified. The evidence shows that natural selection can indeed explain the emergenc of complexity and that the origin of life is chemistry, not natural selection. Since ID is a falsified theory, the only reason for wanting to teach it as a valid theory is to promote a religious idea.

  9. The other alternative is simply to build something like a plasmid with eukaryotic promoters and put it into a plant or animal cell. There are a few ways of getting it into the nucleus, for animals usually mixing the DNA with calcium phosphate, precipitating out the calcium phophate, and inside the crystals are some DNA. These will diffuse through cell membranes and carry the DNA into the nucleus. For plants, where the agrobacteria aren't effective (i.e. for monocots) the most fun idea is coating pellets with the DNA and firing it into the cell.

    The most common method is electroporation.

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