Science and the Bible

[ItinerantLurker]

Don't you find it incredulous that a dry river bed would be the source of enough sand to produce an erg that is, in the case of the Rub' al Khali, 250,000 square miles with sand dunes as high as 1,080 feet high.

No. And incredulity is not an argument.

I bought it up as an illustration of the power of radiation to break molecular bonds. I believe that the sand deserts are part of a healthy ecosystem and thus were created at the beginning. I also believe that God originally intended the earth to be eternal, thus the system which would make sand and unmake it.

And yet you have provided no explanation as to how radiation breaking molecular bonds would yield sand and gravel. Additionally, the earth is not at all eternal; the sun will eventually begin to run out of fuel and go supernova, destroying the earth in the process.

Ptolemaeus: The crater has a low, irregular outer rim that is heavily worn and impacted with multiple smaller craters.

Here’s a good overhead view of Ptolemaeus. I don’t see anything that isn’t consistent with standard explanations of impacts creating dust and causing some lava to spread out over the crater floor.

The moon's circumferance is 1/4 that of earth, hardly a splinter that could be broken off with a glancing blow. Try a little experiment. Take a large rock and a sledge hammer. Try to hit the rock with the sledgehammer using only a glancing blow. Try to hit it hard enough to break of a piece that is 1/4 the circumferance. Such a hit by a meteor would so degrade the orbit as to make it impossible to recover. This meteor strike would not just break off a piece of the crust, It would break off the entire crust.

You seem to be forgetting that the moon was formed from a bunch of much smaller pieces. It’s not hard at all to chip away a quarter of a rock into smaller pieces with a glancing blow. Do you have any evidence behind the assertion that such an impact would destroy any stable orbit? Something NASA’s models have missed?

Climb to the top of the Empire State Building. Drop off a ball of rubber and a ball of steel. Which is affected most by gravity, which hits first? Iron might have sunken quicker than Carbon, but it wouldn't be because of gravity. Density might allow it to pass through other materials more easily while it is molten, but gravity would not pull it faster. The existance of iron, in sizable quantities, disproves your theory that there would be no geological sign remaining of such a deep impact.

Yes, gravity pulls on everything equally but density affects which substances will “sink” quicker within a heavier than air solution such as a molten earth.

So, you are saying that evolution believes that parasites evoved to not be able to synthesize some metabolite, thus forcing them to become a parasite? Can you give me an example of a metabolyte that a particular parasite can no longer synthesize?

To what end? I’ve already provided you with an example of how populations can lose complexity within an evolutionary framework.

The point is, that evolving downward is just as likely and is most often more survivable tha evolving upward.

There is no “downward” or “upward”, there is only what survives and what does not and who can out reproduce whom.

And where would that place be? Where can human beings survive without tools? We do not graze, and are poorly equipted to hunt without tools. We do not compete well for "volunteer" food. We are not fast or strong. We do not reproduce fast enough. How did we survive before we were clever?

Warm climates usually. Human populations continue to exist even today which rely on stone-age technology, and if you care to study it the history of our evolution is punctuated with technological advances which lead to increased survival ability. Again, I’m not sure to what end you are arguing this, what is your essential point?

Exactly. But microwaves pierce solid material. Even shaded by the crater, eventually the microwaves will disperse the water into space. Not to mention the effects of the UV range of EM radiation.

Seriously, anytime you’re ready to present evidence supporting your claims go right ahead and do so. How are you determining the levels of exposure of polar craters which exist within the moon’s permanent shadow? And how are you determining that this level of exposure is high enough to disperse water within a non-YEC time frame?

You view of the origin of the universe is exactly the same as a deist. Do you believe that this "perfect car" idea also extends to society and psychology?

Obviously not.

Second, is genetic mutation. The problem is that mutations are almost always harmful, and when not are at least not beneficial. In order to have a successful mutation by evolutionary standards, one must have a ordinarily harmful mutation coupled with an environmental accident. In other words, the amphibian who lays reptile eggs must accidentally lay them on the land. DNA also has mechanisms for self repair. And, particuarly in the "higher" species, you would need more than one instance. The biggest problem is that genetic mutation isn't just a cause, but a result. Since outside causes of mutations are horrendously distructive to life, evolutionists look to inward causes, believing that genetic change is the normal effect of time to genetic material. This change must occur very slowly, but that brings the problem of the lack of transitional forms.

As we’re talking about the ToE I’m going to ignore your other propositions which have nothing to do with the actual theory. Unfortunately while your second explanation is more on point it is riddled with fairly common PRATTs.

Genetic mutations are not mostly harmful, they are mostly neutral, and we have observed beneficial mutations both directly and indirectly. You are partially right in your claim that evolution requires a mutation accompanied by a “environmental accident” though I think you’re envisioning this all wrong. It isn’t an environmental accident as much as it is an accident of environment – the mutation itself is completely random, and it is the environment that often selects either for or against it. Take sickle-cell anemia, this genetic condition is the result of a mutation that causes red blood cells to become elongated. Some variants can cause other harmful conditions to arise later in life, so this mutation is usually considered harmful, but in some environments it is actually a beneficial mutation because individuals who carry a single sickle-cell mutated gene are resistant to malaria. Therefore, the beneficial nature of the mutation is a “accident of environment”.

Other beneficial mutations that have been directly observed include bacteria that have evolved to digest nylon and lizards that have evolved to eat plants. In each case the mutation itself was random, and was only “beneficial” as a result of each population’s environment.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html

Furthermore, genetic mutations are simply a part of the process of sexual reproduction. Each human being, for example, has between 50 and 100 mutations. In essence, genetic mutations are known to produce beneficial mutations that allow organisms to survive better in their environments and which can eventually become “fixed” within a population. Sure, those beneficial ones don’t come around too often, but because beneficial mutations are selected for they don’t have to. Think of it this way, if you have six dice and want to roll all ones there’s virtually no chance of randomly doing so. But if you introduce selection and pick out a dice every time it rolls a one you will very quickly have all six dice exactly where their environment (you wanting all ones) selected them for.




Lurker

 

[Consumed]

like straining a camel for just a gnat

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

No. And incredulity is not an argument.
If I say to you that I made a million paper airplanes, you would find that incredulous. You would question my veracity. You are telling me that a dry river produces enough sand to conver a quarter of a million square miles with dunes up to 1000 feet high.

And yet you have provided no explanation as to how radiation breaking molecular bonds would yield sand and gravel. Additionally, the earth is not at all eternal; the sun will eventually begin to run out of fuel and go supernova, destroying the earth in the process.
Infrared produces swelling of rock, then cooling occurs. This produces cracks and eventually those cracks break off pieces. Those pieces get smaller and smaller. Eventually, the pieces are small enough to be sand and gravel. How quickly this happens depends upon the material and the amount of EM radiation they are exposed to.

Here’s a good overhead view of Ptolemaeus. I don’t see anything that isn’t consistent with standard explanations of impacts creating dust and causing some lava to spread out over the crater floor.
First, impacts don't create lava. Second, the point is that there is wear. From what? No water. No wind. The answer is the hard EM radiation over time causes flaking of dust.

You seem to be forgetting that the moon was formed from a bunch of much smaller pieces. It’s not hard at all to chip away a quarter of a rock into smaller pieces with a glancing blow. Do you have any evidence behind the assertion that such an impact would destroy any stable orbit? Something NASA’s models have missed?
But your contention is a single impact, so try to produce that much from a single hit. What you find at work, besides the difficulty of doing so without breaking the rock wide open, is that the rock goes flying off in the opposite direction. The earth didn't slowly crack. According to your theory, it was a sudden catastophic event, literally earth shattering. It is simple billiards. If you hit the earth hard enough to break off this amount of mass, there must be an equal reaction which would either place the earth into an irregular orbit with hyper-extreme climates or send us slowly falling toward the sun.

Yes, gravity pulls on everything equally but density affects which substances will “sink” quicker within a heavier than air solution such as a molten earth.
Only if it remains molten. The result of crcking the core would at least be bands of iron, hundreds of miles long and dozens of miles wide.

To what end? I’ve already provided you with an example of how populations can lose complexity within an evolutionary framework.
No you stated that there are but given no specific example. You stated that parasites were the results of an evolutionary loss of ability to synthesize some metabolite. Give me a specific example.

There is no “downward” or “upward”, there is only what survives and what does not and who can out reproduce whom.
Yet evolutionist arrange these in an order by what is closer to us versus what is farther away. Do you know if any evolutionist proposes that reptiles existed before amphibians or that ferns existed before seaweed? No. Why is that? Because whatever is closer to human is presumed to have emerged later. The goal of the philosophy of macroevolution is to explain change that produced human beings. It is ultimately anthropocentric.

Warm climates usually. Human populations continue to exist even today which rely on stone-age technology, and if you care to study it the history of our evolution is punctuated with technological advances which lead to increased survival ability. Again, I’m not sure to what end you are arguing this, what is your essential point?
The point is that man does not exist without technology. We are not physiologically equipped to survive.

Seriously, anytime you’re ready to present evidence supporting your claims go right ahead and do so. How are you determining the levels of exposure of polar craters which exist within the moon’s permanent shadow? And how are you determining that this level of exposure is high enough to disperse water within a non-YEC time frame?
You provided the answer. The water on the moon has spun off hydrogen atoms, and combined with other elements as hydroxyl. What caused this? EM radiation.

Obviously not.
I'm glad to hear that you do not apply this beyond the origin of the universe, life, and the species.

As we’re talking about the ToE I’m going to ignore your other propositions which have nothing to do with the actual theory. Unfortunately while your second explanation is more on point it is riddled with fairly common PRATTs.
Define PRATTs.

Genetic mutations are not mostly harmful, they are mostly neutral, and we have observed beneficial mutations both directly and indirectly.
Genetic drift may be mostly neutral, but a mutation is a sudden, well marked, transmissible variation in the organism.
You are partially right in your claim that evolution requires a mutation accompanied by a “environmental accident” though I think you’re envisioning this all wrong. It isn’t an environmental accident as much as it is an accident of environment – the mutation itself is completely random, and it is the environment that often selects either for or against it.
I accept that it is an accident of environment.
Take sickle-cell anemia, this genetic condition is the result of a mutation that causes red blood cells to become elongated. Some variants can cause other harmful conditions to arise later in life, so this mutation is usually considered harmful, but in some environments it is actually a beneficial mutation because individuals who carry a single sickle-cell mutated gene are resistant to malaria. Therefore, the beneficial nature of the mutation is a “accident of environment”.
I was hoping that you would choose this as an example. Sickle cell anemia is a horrendous disease. The reason why they are resistant to malaria is because their system is too weak to support the parasite. Without modern medicine, the sufferer dies between twenty and forty and will have lengthy periods of incapacity. In addition, sickle cell occurs when an individual inherits the gene to produce S-hemoglobin from one parent and healthy A-hemoglobin from the other. If the individual is homozygous, they die very shortly.It produces a individual who is physiologically crippled.

Other beneficial mutations that have been directly observed include bacteria that have evolved to digest nylon and lizards that have evolved to eat plants. In each case the mutation itself was random, and was only “beneficial” as a result of each population’s environment.
There have always been lizards who eat plants. Iguanas being a good example.
As for the nylon eating bacteria, I am a believer in microevolution. Even then, I find the story close to Lamackism.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html

Furthermore, genetic mutations are simply a part of the process of sexual reproduction. Each human being, for example, has between 50 and 100 mutations. In essence, genetic mutations are known to produce beneficial mutations that allow organisms to survive better in their environments and which can eventually become “fixed” within a population. Sure, those beneficial ones don’t come around too often, but because beneficial mutations are selected for they don’t have to. Think of it this way, if you have six dice and want to roll all ones there’s virtually no chance of randomly doing so. But if you introduce selection and pick out a dice every time it rolls a one you will very quickly have all six dice exactly where their environment (you wanting all ones) selected them for.
Sexual reproduction draws upon the gene choice already in the parents. DNA is self repairing since the amino acids involved come in pairs that "fit" each other. Any significate changes in the population take not hundreds but tens of thousands of genetic "errors" all of which must line up to the change. For instance, the eye. To form an eye you must have integrating changes in the nervous, vascular, skeletal, muscular, and endocrinal systems. You must form the bony orbits, the foramina, the fibrous capsile, the sclera, the chorioid and the retina. The retina must develop the specialized rod and cone neurons, bipolar neurons, ganglion neurons all hooked up to a optic nerve which must be connected to a "mutated" sight center in the brain. There must be DNA changes to produce the lens, vitreous humor, aqueous humor, iris, ciliary body, canal of Schlem, suspensory ligament, cornea, lacrimal glands, rectus and oblique muscles. All of these structures must be integrated and balanced before the vision that we depend upon would result.




Lurker

The chance lining up of genetic changes, most of which would be harmful until the whole is finished, to bring about the eventual benefit of sight, is a improbable to the point of impossible.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

You are telling me that a dry river produces enough sand to conver a quarter of a million square miles with dunes up to 1000 feet high.

That depends on the topography of the area. As it stands you’ve presented absolutely no reason as to why gravel and sand which looks exactly like it is the product of weathering and is the product of anything except weathering.

Infrared produces swelling of rock, then cooling occurs. This produces cracks and eventually those cracks break off pieces. Those pieces get smaller and smaller. Eventually, the pieces are small enough to be sand and gravel. How quickly this happens depends upon the material and the amount of EM radiation they are exposed to.

So you are no longer talking about radiation breaking molecular bonds then? Sure heating and cooling can cause rocks to crack but you are still miles away from showing how this process could reduce piles of rock to sand and gravel. Why are you so opposed to regular weathering via wind and water? Again your line of argument seems to offer no real reason for existing other than to disagree with conventional science for disagreement’s sake. It doesn’t explain observations better, it doesn’t deal with the time issues involved, and it doesn’t seem to bother with contradicting evidence.

First, impacts don't create lava. Second, the point is that there is wear. From what? No water. No wind. The answer is the hard EM radiation over time causes flaking of dust.

No, but massive impacts can trigger or “cause” volcanic activity.



"From what?" How about other impacts? It’s not like there is a shortage of them and you have, once again, completely failed to show how radiation on the moon can create dust fast enough to disprove an old earth.

But your contention is a single impact, so try to produce that much from a single hit. What you find at work, besides the difficulty of doing so without breaking the rock wide open, is that the rock goes flying off in the opposite direction. The earth didn't slowly crack. According to your theory, it was a sudden catastophic event, literally earth shattering. It is simple billiards. If you hit the earth hard enough to break off this amount of mass, there must be an equal reaction which would either place the earth into an irregular orbit with hyper-extreme climates or send us slowly falling toward the sun.

Only if the impacting object approached from an angle perpendicular to the earth’s orbit, if you had read the literature provided earlier on the NASA models you would note that the impacting body was likely on a similar orbit.

Only if it remains molten. The result of crcking the core would at least be bands of iron, hundreds of miles long and dozens of miles wide.

Why? Do you think a molten earth would cool down quickly? Is there something other than your personal incredulity that you are basing this on?

No you stated that there are but given no specific example. You stated that parasites were the results of an evolutionary loss of ability to synthesize some metabolite. Give me a specific example.

We were discussing whether or not the ToE assumes a constant rise in complexity, I gave you a general example of how evolutionary theory doesn’t actually do this. I’m not interested in debating the finer points of parasite biology in a thread that is already way overburdened with topics. Evolution does not require things to constantly get more complex, it simply explains how things adapt to their environment and while that adaptation does generally trend toward increased complexity due to selection pressures that trend is not universal.

Yet evolutionist arrange these in an order by what is closer to us versus what is farther away. Do you know if any evolutionist proposes that reptiles existed before amphibians or that ferns existed before seaweed? No. Why is that? Because whatever is closer to human is presumed to have emerged later. The goal of the philosophy of macroevolution is to explain change that produced human beings. It is ultimately anthropocentric.

The “order” you speak of is a result of the law of fossil succession, it is not an artifact of anthropocentric presumption. We put things in that order because that is the order we find them in.

The point is that man does not exist without technology. We are not physiologically equipped to survive.

Our ability to develop and use technology is part of our physiology. . .unless you’re suggesting that our intelligence doesn’t come from our brains.

Genetic drift may be mostly neutral, but a mutation is a sudden, well marked, transmissible variation in the organism.

It’s fun to make up definitions, I know, but why don’t we stick with the actual definition of a genetic mutation which is simply a change in the DNA sequence of a gene?

I was hoping that you would choose this as an example. Sickle cell anemia is a horrendous disease. The reason why they are resistant to malaria is because their system is too weak to support the parasite. Without modern medicine, the sufferer dies between twenty and forty and will have lengthy periods of incapacity. In addition, sickle cell occurs when an individual inherits the gene to produce S-hemoglobin from one parent and healthy A-hemoglobin from the other. If the individual is homozygous, they die very shortly.It produces a individual who is physiologically crippled.

And I was afraid you were going to simply launch into an error-filled rebuttal without carefully reading my post. Unfortunately it appears I was correct.

If you re-read my post you will note that the benefit conveyed by this mutation is to those individuals who carry only a single mutated hemoglobin-S gene. Your statement that sickle cell disease occurs when an individual inherits a single mutated gene from one parent is absolutely false, in order to contract the disease an individual must inherit two hemoglobin-S genes, one from each parent.

Figure 2. Schematic representation of the effect of the sickle cell hemoglobin gene on survival in endemic malarial areas. People with normal hemoglobin (left of the diagram) are susceptible to death from malaria. People with sickle cell disease (right of the diagram) are susceptible to death from the complications of sickle cell disease. People with sickle cell trait, who have one gene for hemoglobin A and one gene for hemoglobin S, have a greater chance of surviving malaria and do not suffer adverse consequences from the hemoglobin S gene.
(http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html)

There have always been lizards who eat plants. Iguanas being a good example.
As for the nylon eating bacteria, I am a believer in microevolution. Even then, I find the story close to Lamackism.

From the article,

“Pod Mrcaru, for example, had an abundance of plants for the primarily insect-eating lizards to munch on. Physically, however, the lizards were not built to digest a vegetarian diet.

Researchers found that the lizards developed cecal valves—muscles between the large and small intestine—that slowed down food digestion in fermenting chambers, which allowed their bodies to process the vegetation's cellulose into volatile fatty acids.

"They evolved an expanded gut to allow them to process these leaves," Irschick said, adding it was something that had not been documented before. "This was a brand-new structure."

Along with the ability to digest plants came the ability to bite harder, powered by a head that had grown longer and wider.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution_2.html
​

So here we have an example of a population of lizards evolving a new structure that provided a substantial survival advantage. If you are going to then play the “only microevolution” card you should know a couple of things,

• By doing so you are admitting that beneficial mutations do occur
• These mutations can provide survival advantages based on an organisms environment
• These survival advantages can be selected for by natural selection

It might be beneficial to also note that there is no functional difference between microevolution and macroevolution. If microevolution occurs then macroevolution will, eventually, take place.

Sexual reproduction draws upon the gene choice already in the parents. DNA is self repairing since the amino acids involved come in pairs that "fit" each other. Any significate changes in the population take not hundreds but tens of thousands of genetic "errors" all of which must line up to the change.

Don’t you realize that if each individual person has 50 to 100 genetic mutations that means that each generation will have billions of mutations?

For instance, the eye. To form an eye you must have integrating changes in the nervous, vascular, skeletal, muscular, and endocrinal systems. You must form the bony orbits, the foramina, the fibrous capsile, the sclera, the chorioid and the retina. The retina must develop the specialized rod and cone neurons, bipolar neurons, ganglion neurons all hooked up to a optic nerve which must be connected to a "mutated" sight center in the brain. There must be DNA changes to produce the lens, vitreous humor, aqueous humor, iris, ciliary body, canal of Schlem, suspensory ligament, cornea, lacrimal glands, rectus and oblique muscles. All of these structures must be integrated and balanced before the vision that we depend upon would result.

Please, you are assuming that our modern eyes must jump out of oblivion whereas the actual theory of evolution does no such thing. Instead eyes and their associated structures developed together from much simpler organs and structures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye#Stages_of_eye_evolution

The chance lining up of genetic changes, most of which would be harmful until the whole is finished, to bring about the eventual benefit of sight, is a improbable to the point of impossible.

I remained underwhelmed by your bare assertion of variables apparently deduced purely from your own incredulity. Curiously, professional scientists who actually study these issues disagree.





Lurker

 

[charisenexcelcis]

That depends on the topography of the area. As it stands you’ve presented absolutely no reason as to why gravel and sand which looks exactly like it is the product of weathering and is the product of anything except weathering.
I've never said that sand and gravel aren't produced by other means, only that there are cases even on earth where they are produced by EM radiation, such as ergs, particularly infrared. You are unwilling to admit that EM radiation will break rocks.

So you are no longer talking about radiation breaking molecular bonds then? Sure heating and cooling can cause rocks to crack but you are still miles away from showing how this process could reduce piles of rock to sand and gravel. Why are you so opposed to regular weathering via wind and water? Again your line of argument seems to offer no real reason for existing other than to disagree with conventional science for disagreement’s sake. It doesn’t explain observations better, it doesn’t deal with the time issues involved, and it doesn’t seem to bother with contradicting evidence.
It is EM radiation which causes the heating and the cooling. The issue is not whether all the sand and gravel on earth are produced this way, but whether there are clear demonstrations of the effects of the suns EM on molecular bonding, thus producing some of the sand on earth and most of the dust on the moon, thus causing a problem for the theory of an old moon.

No, but massive impacts can trigger or “cause” volcanic activity.
If that happens, there would be little left of the impact crater. there would also be little dust left over in the area.



"From what?" How about other impacts? It’s not like there is a shortage of them and you have, once again, completely failed to show how radiation on the moon can create dust fast enough to disprove an old earth.
You said there was no weathering on the moon. You asked me for an example. I gave you an example.

Only if the impacting object approached from an angle perpendicular to the earth’s orbit, if you had read the literature provided earlier on the NASA models you would note that the impacting body was likely on a similar orbit.
So what you are saying is that in order for this to work, the object would have had to been in near syncronous orbit with the earth but moving fast enough in comparison to the earth to produce an earth shattering event. Do you realize that even a 1% change in the earths's orbital symmetry would produce devistating results? In addition any change in speed would produce a change in orbit as the inertia-to-gravity ratio would change? This is a clear example of Sherlocks premise. If there is only one way that this will work, no matter how unlikely, that is the way it must be.


Why? Do you think a molten earth would cool down quickly? Is there something other than your personal incredulity that you are basing this on?
At our distance from the sun, with an atmosphere gone, molten material exposed directly to the cold of space, yes. It would have cooled quickly.

We were discussing whether or not the ToE assumes a constant rise in complexity, I gave you a general example of how evolutionary theory doesn’t actually do this. I’m not interested in debating the finer points of parasite biology in a thread that is already way overburdened with topics. Evolution does not require things to constantly get more complex, it simply explains how things adapt to their environment and while that adaptation does generally trend toward increased complexity due to selection pressures that trend is not universal.
My point is that macroevolution assumes that evolutionary change will move "upward". You said that evolution just observes the change whether downward or upward. I asked for an example of "downward" evolution. You gave me a general statement, I asked for a specific example.

The “order” you speak of is a result of the law of fossil succession, it is not an artifact of anthropocentric presumption. We put things in that order because that is the order we find them in.

Do you really believed that this is arranged so nicely? This is what they use to date the strata, not vice versa.
Our ability to develop and use technology is part of our physiology. . .unless you’re suggesting that our intelligence doesn’t come from our brains.
We are poorly equiped to survive without technology. We reproduce too slowly ( and too poorly), we have inadequate claw and teeth, standing upright makes us slow, we are too big to climb trees well, we swim poorly. If we evolved we did so from a creature that was poorly adapted and unlikely to survive.

It’s fun to make up definitions, I know, but why don’t we stick with the actual definition of a genetic mutation which is simply a change in the DNA sequence of a gene?
No, why don't we stick to the common definition, since that is exactly what must happen in order for evolution to occur.

And I was afraid you were going to simply launch into an error-filled rebuttal without carefully reading my post. Unfortunately it appears I was correct.
It stills makes each evolutionary step dependent upon an unlikely circustance. Since we are talking about millions of significant changes, the increase in the complexity of the end result makes the probability approach zero.

If you re-read my post you will note that the benefit conveyed by this mutation is to those individuals who carry only a single mutated hemoglobin-S gene. Your statement that sickle cell disease occurs when an individual inherits a single mutated gene from one parent is absolutely false, in order to contract the disease an individual must inherit two hemoglobin-S genes, one from each parent.
I'm sorry, but this is wrong. If the sufferer is homozygous the condition is fatal. Do your research on sickle cell anemia. The trait must be passed on by a single parent who must be a sufferer themselves.

Figure 2. Schematic representation of the effect of the sickle cell hemoglobin gene on survival in endemic malarial areas. People with normal hemoglobin (left of the diagram) are susceptible to death from malaria. People with sickle cell disease (right of the diagram) are susceptible to death from the complications of sickle cell disease. People with sickle cell trait, who have one gene for hemoglobin A and one gene for hemoglobin S, have a greater chance of surviving malaria and do not suffer adverse consequences from the hemoglobin S gene.
(http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html)


From the article,

“Pod Mrcaru, for example, had an abundance of plants for the primarily insect-eating lizards to munch on. Physically, however, the lizards were not built to digest a vegetarian diet.

Researchers found that the lizards developed cecal valves—muscles between the large and small intestine—that slowed down food digestion in fermenting chambers, which allowed their bodies to process the vegetation's cellulose into volatile fatty acids.

"They evolved an expanded gut to allow them to process these leaves," Irschick said, adding it was something that had not been documented before. "This was a brand-new structure."

Along with the ability to digest plants came the ability to bite harder, powered by a head that had grown longer and wider.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution_2.html

​

So here we have an example of a population of lizards evolving a new structure that provided a substantial survival advantage. If you are going to then play the “only microevolution” card you should know a couple of things,

• By doing so you are admitting that beneficial mutations do occur
• These mutations can provide survival advantages based on an organisms environment
• These survival advantages can be selected for by natural selection

It might be beneficial to also note that there is no functional difference between microevolution and macroevolution. If microevolution occurs then macroevolution will, eventually, take place.
No. Microevolution is the observation of creation continuing to occur within a species, but not outside the species. No matter how much it occurs to the bacteria, it remains a bacteria. If evolution is the observation of biological change over time, the issue is how far that change goes. If each "produces after their kind" then evolution does not extend beyond a species family.

Don’t you realize that if each individual person has 50 to 100 genetic mutations that means that each generation will have billions of mutations?
Then where is our second set of arms or eyes in the back of the head or third lung. The DNA is self correcting. Our genetic mutations are dead ends that do not get assimilated into the population. Your point is meaningless because all of these mutations have not produces a homo superiorus or a homo inferiorus.

Please, you are assuming that our modern eyes must jump out of oblivion whereas the actual theory of evolution does no such thing. Instead eyes and their associated structures developed together from much simpler organs and structures.
Look at your chart. Do you not see exactly what I am saying. There is a nerve from a "mutated" brain area that is, for some reason designed to carry "sight" information which connects to a mutated patch of photosensitive cells. Now, by chance a crater forms which would limit those cells from being useful, since they would now receive light from a narrower view point.Since there is no lens, they are nothing more than a light sensitive hole. Look at the eyes of fish, they are not directional. The hole won't help the sensitivity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye#Stages_of_eye_evolution

I remained underwhelmed by your bare assertion of variables apparently deduced purely from your own incredulity. Curiously, professional scientists who actually study these issues disagree.
Again, look at your own acceptance of the impossible as long as it comes from the mouth of a "scientist".





Lurker

You have wholeheartedly accepted your own inability to evaluate the information in favor of giving absolute acceptance to scientific orthodoxy, however farfetched.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

Lurker:
First, I think I will have to conceed the moon dust argument. I have heard and seen the argument based upon the effect of radiation on the surface of the moon, but I am unable to produce the supporting evidence. I have never bought the space dust argument.
Second, you are correct regarding sickle cell anemia being homozygous. I misread a sentence of my research. I still contend that sickle cell anemia is a genetic dead end as the shortened lifespan coupled with the periodic incapacitance far outways the marginal benefit.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

My point is that macroevolution assumes that evolutionary change will move "upward". You said that evolution just observes the change whether downward or upward. I asked for an example of "downward" evolution. You gave me a general statement, I asked for a specific example.

Your point is wrong, there’s really nothing more to it than that. Disagree? Okay, what part in the actual theory of evolution assumes this? Is it genetic variation or natural selection?

You asked for me to “Show me one example of change from complex to simple according to evolution”, I did. According to the theory living things can and do lose abilities that are no longer advantageous such as parasites who lose the ability to internally metabolize things that they can get from a host externally. There is no need to get any more specific than that in order to establish that, according to the theory, there is no assumption of constantly increasing complexity. Evolution explains how organisms adapt, sometimes this involves gaining new traits and sometimes this involves losing old ones that are no longer needed.

Do you really believed that this is arranged so nicely? This is what they use to date the strata, not vice versa.

This is fast becoming a greatest-hits remix of PRATTs. No, scientists do not use fossils to date strata, instead scientists use both relative and absolute dating methods.

We are poorly equiped to survive without technology. We reproduce too slowly ( and too poorly), we have inadequate claw and teeth, standing upright makes us slow, we are too big to climb trees well, we swim poorly. If we evolved we did so from a creature that was poorly adapted and unlikely to survive.

The evolution of human beings is fairly well understood and does not at all reflect this. If you’d like to learn more about the evidence concerning the evolution of man please feel free to do so here, Becoming Human.

No, why don't we stick to the common definition, since that is exactly what must happen in order for evolution to occur.

How about no? I’m not big on using non-technical definitions for technical terms just because they help you make an erroneous point. Most mutations are neutral.

No. Microevolution is the observation of creation continuing to occur within a species, but not outside the species. No matter how much it occurs to the bacteria, it remains a bacteria. If evolution is the observation of biological change over time, the issue is how far that change goes. If each "produces after their kind" then evolution does not extend beyond a species family.

Clearly you are continuing to use non-real definitions for technical terms by using “species” very differently than how it is used in biology (what on earth is a “species family”?).

Speciation has been both indirectly and directly observed, so unless you are going to radically alter the definition of “species” then macroevolution is a reality.

Then where is our second set of arms or eyes in the back of the head or third lung. The DNA is self correcting. Our genetic mutations are dead ends that do not get assimilated into the population. Your point is meaningless because all of these mutations have not produces a homo superiorus or a homo inferiorus.

You really need to take a stand on your whole mutation argument. I’ve already provided you with rock-solid examples of beneficial mutations that have been selected for by natural selection and become fixed in their respective populations, and you’ve already admitted that “microevolution” does occur. Doubling back on yourself to deny that beneficial mutations do, in fact, occur not only denies reality at this point but also denies your own words.

Look at your chart. Do you not see exactly what I am saying. There is a nerve from a "mutated" brain area that is, for some reason designed to carry "sight" information which connects to a mutated patch of photosensitive cells. Now, by chance a crater forms which would limit those cells from being useful, since they would now receive light from a narrower view point.Since there is no lens, they are nothing more than a light sensitive hole. Look at the eyes of fish, they are not directional. The hole won't help the sensitivity.

The chart is obviously a generalized overview which highlights certain distinct stages of the evolution of eyes, it isn’t meant to be a detailed description of the entire process. For that you can visit the link I provided which gives a more detailed overview of the stages of eye evolutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye#Stages_of_eye_evolution

Again, look at your own acceptance of the impossible as long as it comes from the mouth of a "scientist".

You have wholeheartedly accepted your own inability to evaluate the information in favor of giving absolute acceptance to scientific orthodoxy, however farfetched.

I don’t accept modern science just because it “comes from the mouth of a ‘scientist’”, I accept it because it is based on solid evidence. I started out in this debate arguing for your side against evolution. As an example, I used to use the complexity of the human eye as evidence against the theory just as you have in this thread, yet when I actually learned about the eye and about how eyes function in other organisms, and about the proposed evolutionary pathways I couldn’t help but admit that it actually all made sense.

Knowledge doomed my opposition to science, not the acceptance of my inability to evaluate information.

you are correct regarding sickle cell anemia being homozygous. I misread a sentence of my research. I still contend that sickle cell anemia is a genetic dead end as the shortened lifespan coupled with the periodic incapacitance far outways the marginal benefit.

Having the sickle cell trait is undoubtedly a beneficial mutation in a malarial zone. And I would argue that even the increased risk of offspring with sickle cell disease does not overcome it’s benefit. Malaria kills more people in Africa than any other disease, and most of it’s victims are children who have not had the chance to build up any resistance. From the viewpoint of reproductive selection having a genetic condition that will eventually kill you in your twenties is still preferable than susceptibility to a disease that will likely kill you in your first five years of life.

This has the added benefit of evidence seeing as prevalence of the sickle cell trait is highly concentrated in malarial zones.

Sickle Cell Distribution

Malaria Distribution

If there is no cumulative benefit why does this pattern exist?





Lurker

 

[charisenexcelcis]

Your point is wrong, there’s really nothing more to it than that. Disagree? Okay, what part in the actual theory of evolution assumes this? Is it genetic variation or natural selection?
Do you believe that lemurs could evolve from man? Could amphibians have evolved from lizards? No evolutionist would dare put forth such a theory because there is a prejudice that the complex came from the simple.

You asked for me to “Show me one example of change from complex to simple according to evolution”, I did. According to the theory living things can and do lose abilities that are no longer advantageous such as parasites who lose the ability to internally metabolize things that they can get from a host externally. There is no need to get any more specific than that in order to establish that, according to the theory, there is no assumption of constantly increasing complexity. Evolution explains how organisms adapt, sometimes this involves gaining new traits and sometimes this involves losing old ones that are no longer needed.
But never moving from complex to simple. If evolution is a constant, natural and unguided force than it is just as likely for there to be regression, perhaps more likely. Nevertheless, you gave me a general principle, that parasites lost the ability to produce certain metabolyte. So name a parasite and the metabolyte that they lost the ability to synthesize.....



This is fast becoming a greatest-hits remix of PRATTs. No, scientists do not use fossils to date strata, instead scientists use both relative and absolute dating methods.
Gieke: "We may even demonstrate that strata have turned completely upside down if we can show that fossils in what are the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below."
Schindewolf: "The only chronometric scale applicable in geologic history for the stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geological events exactly is furnished by the fossils."
White (preface to The Dawn of Life): "The book brings home very clearly one of the chief practical uses of fossils: that of correclating rocks of the same age. In other words, because the succession of the faunas and the floras has been established, the finding of fossils in widely separated regions can help the geologist to determine the relative ages of the rock formation the world over."
Elasser: "As is well known, the order of the geological strata is fixed entirely by means of the fossils."
All of these are published evolutionists.




The evolution of human beings is fairly well understood and does not at all reflect this. If you’d like to learn more about the evidence concerning the evolution of man please feel free to do so here, Becoming Human.
Again, show me one aspect outside of our technology in which we show the result of chance evolutionary changes that caused us to be well adapted. Since you admit that the changes must coincide with the accidence of environment, there must be some residial feature to testify of what caused our pre-technology (even pre "stone age") ancestor to survive.




How about no? I’m not big on using non-technical definitions for technical terms just because they help you make an erroneous point. Most mutations are neutral.
You may speak in whatever context you require to try to defend your point of view. What do you call it when a change is a sudden, well marked, transmissible variation in the organism.




Clearly you are continuing to use non-real definitions for technical terms by using “species” very differently than how it is used in biology (what on earth is a “species family”?).
In higher organisms, it is the range in which cross-reproduction is possible.

Speciation has been both indirectly and directly observed, so unless you are going to radically alter the definition of “species” then macroevolution is a reality.



You really need to take a stand on your whole mutation argument. I’ve already provided you with rock-solid examples of beneficial mutations that have been selected for by natural selection and become fixed in their respective populations, and you’ve already admitted that “microevolution” does occur. Doubling back on yourself to deny that beneficial mutations do, in fact, occur not only denies reality at this point but also denies your own words.
No, you showed me narrowing of genetic possibility, discovered after the fact. A dauchsund can chase quarry into smaller holes than a greyhound, but it was bred not by widening the genetic possibility, but by narrowing.



The chart is obviously a generalized overview which highlights certain distinct stages of the evolution of eyes, it isn’t meant to be a detailed description of the entire process. For that you can visit the link I provided which gives a more detailed overview of the stages of eye evolutions.
So what can first, the photosensitive cells or the nerve that communicated the presence of light or the brain center that interpreted that information. No matter how many steps you break it into, it still comes to hundreds of abstract mutations with no benefit at the least. Taking into account the huge number of individual amino acids that must be lined up correctly to acheive even the smallest step, it is impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye#Stages_of_eye_evolution



I don’t accept modern science just because it “comes from the mouth of a ‘scientist’”, I accept it because it is based on solid evidence. I started out in this debate arguing for your side against evolution. As an example, I used to use the complexity of the human eye as evidence against the theory just as you have in this thread, yet when I actually learned about the eye and about how eyes function in other organisms, and about the proposed evolutionary pathways I couldn’t help but admit that it actually all made sense.
Your personal change doesn't convince me.

Knowledge doomed my opposition to science, not the acceptance of my inability to evaluate information.
You assume that I am opposed to science. I am not. Perhaps that is part of the source of your change in view.



Having the sickle cell trait is undoubtedly a beneficial mutation in a malarial zone. And I would argue that even the increased risk of offspring with sickle cell disease does not overcome it’s benefit. Malaria kills more people in Africa than any other disease, and most of it’s victims are children who have not had the chance to build up any resistance. From the viewpoint of reproductive selection having a genetic condition that will eventually kill you in your twenties is still preferable than susceptibility to a disease that will likely kill you in your first five years of life.
The mortality rate of untreated malaria is lower than the mortality rate for untreated sickle cell anemia.

This has the added benefit of evidence seeing as prevalence of the sickle cell trait is highly concentrated in malarial zones.

Sickle Cell Distribution

Malaria Distribution

If there is no cumulative benefit why does this pattern exist?





Lurker

How do you explain the changes in the numbers of chromosomes among living organisms?

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Do you believe that lemurs could evolve from man? Could amphibians have evolved from lizards? No evolutionist would dare put forth such a theory because there is a prejudice that the complex came from the simple.

No, scientists do not put forth such a theory because the fossil, morphological, and genetic evidence does not support it. It’s not like it’s a big secret as to how scientists come up with this stuff.

http://www.fossilrecord.net/dateaclade/

But never moving from complex to simple. If evolution is a constant, natural and unguided force than it is just as likely for there to be regression, perhaps more likely.

Evolution is not “unguided”, it is guided by environment which selects for or against traits.

Nevertheless, you gave me a general principle, that parasites lost the ability to produce certain metabolyte. So name a parasite and the metabolyte that they lost the ability to synthesize

And again, I have to ask what for? You made a claim about a general principle of evolution that I showed you was false. What possible difference is it going to make to banter back and forth about the minutae of parasite biology? Clearly your claim that evolution always assumes an upward progression of complexity is false.

Gieke: "We may even demonstrate that strata have turned completely upside down if we can show that fossils in what are the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below."
Schindewolf: "The only chronometric scale applicable in geologic history for the stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geological events exactly is furnished by the fossils."
White (preface to The Dawn of Life): "The book brings home very clearly one of the chief practical uses of fossils: that of correclating rocks of the same age. In other words, because the succession of the faunas and the floras has been established, the finding of fossils in widely separated regions can help the geologist to determine the relative ages of the rock formation the world over."
Elasser: "As is well known, the order of the geological strata is fixed entirely by means of the fossils."
All of these are published evolutionists.

Wow. Are you familiar with the term “quote mining”?

“The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as “contextomy” or “quote mining“, is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]

Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms. As a straw man argument, which is frequently found in politics, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position.[2]“
​

Let’s see, you haven’t includes the full names of the authors here much less the standard reference information like where and when they were published. Your Geike quote is from 1963, your Shindewolf quote is from 1957, and your Elasser quote doesn’t even show up in Google which doesn’t exactly scream “reliable”. Is there a reason why you are quoting such completely out-of-date references? Are you under the impression that nothing has changed in these fields over the last forty years?

The one good quote you had in there was White, which is actually a fair description of how fossils can be used to correlate rocks of the same age because the order of fauna has been established. How you, and apparently your source, thinks this is somehow an argument against the law of fossil succession is beyond me. In the future, please don’t post quote mines unless you are prepared to complete a standard quote mine check.

Again, show me one aspect outside of our technology in which we show the result of chance evolutionary changes that caused us to be well adapted. Since you admit that the changes must coincide with the accidence of environment, there must be some residial feature to testify of what caused our pre-technology (even pre "stone age") ancestor to survive.

All of our technological abilities are a direct result of our brains. Our brains are the product of an evolutionary process. I’m altogether unsure as to what you are trying to ask here. . .are you trying to say that if our brains evolved we should be able to see vestiges of more primitive brains in our own physiology and in the fossil record?

You may speak in whatever context you require to try to defend your point of view. What do you call it when a change is a sudden, well marked, transmissible variation in the organism.

A mutation. And I would also call any change in the dna sequence of an organisms genome a mutation. Being “well marked” has nothing to do with whether or not a change in dna sequences is considered a mutation or not. If it changes it is a mutation by definition.

The mortality rate of untreated malaria is lower than the mortality rate for untreated sickle cell anemia.

Far more people die every year, and die younger, from malaria than from sickle cell disease.

How do you explain the changes in the numbers of chromosomes among living organisms?

The same way biologists explain them: fusing, breaking, and duplication events. Why?




Lurker

 

[charisenexcelcis]

[/font]

No, scientists do not put forth such a theory because the fossil, morphological, and genetic evidence does not support it. It’s not like it’s a big secret as to how scientists come up with this stuff.

http://www.fossilrecord.net/dateaclade/
Let's take one step. How do you decide that the lizard came from the amphibian and not vice versa. Whether you want to admit it or not, there is an assumption that evolution occured from the "simpler" to the "complex", "complex" meaning closer in structure and functioning to man.



Evolution is not “unguided”, it is guided by environment which selects for or against traits.



And again, I have to ask what for? You made a claim about a general principle of evolution that I showed you was false. What possible difference is it going to make to banter back and forth about the minutae of parasite biology? Clearly your claim that evolution always assumes an upward progression of complexity is false.
Because you stated your "proof" without being able to provide a single actual example.



Wow. Are you familiar with the term “quote mining”?

“The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as “contextomy” or “quote mining“, is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]

Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms. As a straw man argument, which is frequently found in politics, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position.[2]“
​

Let’s see, you haven’t includes the full names of the authors here much less the standard reference information like where and when they were published. Your Geike quote is from 1963, your Shindewolf quote is from 1957, and your Elasser quote doesn’t even show up in Google which doesn’t exactly scream “reliable”. Is there a reason why you are quoting such completely out-of-date references? Are you under the impression that nothing has changed in these fields over the last forty years?
I think that recent publications are more careful not to show their underlying thought processes. Take, for instance the quote that I used earlier from Carl Sagan. He would never have made that statement ten years ago, yet it shows what was in his mind. What all of these quotes show is an underlying attitude that then goes into how the science is approached. Do you think that the scientists have become purer in their pursuit of science?

The one good quote you had in there was White, which is actually a fair description of how fossils can be used to correlate rocks of the same age because the order of fauna has been established. How you, and apparently your source, thinks this is somehow an argument against the law of fossil succession is beyond me. In the future, please don’t post quote mines unless you are prepared to complete a standard quote mine check.
As I said, it speaks to the issue. I will quote whomever I care to.



All of our technological abilities are a direct result of our brains. Our brains are the product of an evolutionary process. I’m altogether unsure as to what you are trying to ask here. . .are you trying to say that if our brains evolved we should be able to see vestiges of more primitive brains in our own physiology and in the fossil record?
I am saying that without the brain we are the singularly least survivable mammal on the face of the earth. The environment apparently "selected" in the wrong direction, but fortuitously our brain showed up at just the right time.



A mutation. And I would also call any change in the dna sequence of an organisms genome a mutation. Being “well marked” has nothing to do with whether or not a change in dna sequences is considered a mutation or not. If it changes it is a mutation by definition.
LOL! I love this. First you tell me that isn't the definition of a mutation, now you tell me it is.



Far more people die every year, and die younger, from malaria than from sickle cell disease.
But the per centage of death by sickle cell anemia in untreated children is much higher than the corresponding rate for malaria. Which means that prior to modern medicine, sickle cell anemia only survived at all because it is recessive.



The same way biologists explain them: fusing, breaking, and duplication events. Why?
Do you believe that there should be a pattern in that duplication?




Lurker

One of the problems with macroevolution is that the genetics for most major systems are not Mendelian traits. This makes their genetic evolution impossibly complex.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Let's take one step. How do you decide that the lizard came from the amphibian and not vice versa. Whether you want to admit it or not, there is an assumption that evolution occured from the "simpler" to the "complex", "complex" meaning closer in structure and functioning to man.

There are genetic indications, but without getting too technical it has a lot to do with the fact that fish predate both amphibians and reptiles, that the first amphibious tetrapods such as Ichthyostega are found in the fossil record 374 - 359 million years ago whereas the first reptiles appear later some 320 – 310 million years ago.

This has nothing to do with assumptions of a universal rise in complexity which is found only in anti-evolutionary propoganda and nowhere in the actual theory of evolution.

Because you stated your "proof" without being able to provide a single actual example.

Parasites are an actual example.

“This observation that complex organisms can be produced from simpler ones has led to the common misperception of evolution being progressive and having a direction that leads towards what are viewed as "higher organisms".[3]

Nowadays, this idea of "progression" in evolution is regarded as misleading, with natural selection having no intrinsic direction and organisms selected for either increased or decreased complexity in response to local environmental conditions.[4] Although there has been an increase in the maximum level of complexity over the history of life, there has always been a large majority of small and simple organisms and the most common level of complexity (the mode) has remained constant."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_complexity​

For a uselessly-specific example why don’t we take mycoplasmas?

Being Pathogenic, Plastic, and Sexual while Living with a Nearly Minimal Bacterial Genome


“Mycoplasmas are commonly described as the simplest self-replicating organisms, whose evolution was mainly characterized by genome downsizing with a proposed evolutionary scenario similar to that of obligate intracellular bacteria such as insect endosymbionts.”
​

I think that recent publications are more careful not to show their underlying thought processes.

I call baloney. I think you simple copy and pasted those quotes and didn’t actually know when they were published until I found out for you. I’ve seen this form of argumentation in the past and even used it myself when I argued against evolution. It preys upon ignorance.

What all of these quotes show is an underlying attitude that then goes into how the science is approached. Do you think that the scientists have become purer in their pursuit of science?

I think scientists have been publishing relative and absolute dating data for decades and that a few out-dated quote mines do not make all that data go away. Again, it’s not like this stuff is some big secret. Please feel free to learn about how relative and absolute dating are actually used,

Foundational Concepts: Relative Dating


Foundational Concepts: Absolute Dating

I am saying that without the brain we are the singularly least survivable mammal on the face of the earth. The environment apparently "selected" in the wrong direction, but fortuitously our brain showed up at just the right time.

And you are, once again, completely wrong in your analysis. Increased intelligence has been selected for in a variety of different organisms and has obvious and demonstrable benefits.

LOL! I love this. First you tell me that isn't the definition of a mutation, now you tell me it is.

No, I told you it wasn’t the technical definition and it isn’t. You are trying to place all your emphasis on “well marked” when such emphasis isn’t a requirement of the actual definition. You can keep trying to redefine “mutation” all by your little lonesome or your can acknowledge that any change in dna sequence of an organisms genome is the actual definition.

But the per centage of death by sickle cell anemia in untreated children is much higher than the corresponding rate for malaria. Which means that prior to modern medicine, sickle cell anemia only survived at all because it is recessive.

Irrelevant. More people die younger from malaria than from sickle cell disease, therefore trading off resistance to malaria for an increased chance of sickle cell disease is beneficial. If this weren’t true why does the distribution of sickle cell disease match the distribution of malaria?

Do you believe that there should be a pattern in that duplication?

Can you elaborate? Do you mean a pattern in how the duplication occurs physically or a pattern within nested hierarchies?

One of the problems with macroevolution is that the genetics for most major systems are not Mendelian traits. This makes their genetic evolution impossibly complex.

Curiously, professional geneticists disagree. That might have something to do with the fact that major systems within different species are not proposed to have arisen independently.




Lurker

 

[charisenexcelcis]

So, when the paleontologist finds a dinosaur fossil, does he then say, "Let's put together some data from the surrounding soil in order to date this." No, he says, "this strata is such and such era" based upon the fossil that he found. And if he does date the strata and it turns out to be much younger than he expected, does he then say, "This challenges our previously held view on these creatures." No, he says, "What geological event can explain why this much older fossil is found in a younger strata."
Much has been said in recent years about radiometric dating. The three issues with radiometric dating is that it is not entirely consistant, the presumption of uniformitarianism and that it requires a starting point.
In the first situation, evolutionists would propose various solutions based upon correlary geological events. Once again, if there is a difference between the dating based upon radiometric information and the dating based upon fossil evidence there is a presumption that there was some movement of the fossil or that a correlary geological event has changed the radiometric data.
The second issue is that of uniformitarianism. This is a presumption that the conversion of one element to another by radioactive decay proceeds at a uniform rate even over great periods of time. The problems is that radioactive decay is based upon half-life. For instance, if you have a pound of Uranium-238 it does not decay steadily, so that you can say that in a certain amount of time you would have a pound of Lead-206. Instead, the decay would be a reverse curve with it taking the same amount of time for a pound of U-238 to convert to half Pb-206 as it would a half pound to convert to half Pb-206. Since the half life period is 4.47 billion years and the process is by no means uniform, the older the dating, the greater the likelihood of error.
The third issue is that of a starting point. There must be a presumed beginning ratio. For instance, if you are using U-238 to Pb-206, you must have a beginning ratio of the two elements. Then you compare that with the present ratio and do the math based upon the calculated half-life. This beginning ratio is established by calculating what is the present norm in a given geological event and then predicting what the ratio would have been at the time period being dated since the age of the earth would change the initial ratio. It is, in effect, a circular calculation.
For the atheistic evolutionist, these issues are vital to their core view of evolution. Consider the following.
1. There is no reason to believe that God created the system of decay to be absolutely uniform.
2. There is no reason to presume an initial proportion of mother isotopes to daughter isotopes.
Understand that creationists and evolutionists both begin with a prioris.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

As we have been discussing, one of the problems with a naturalistic view of the origin of the universe is the origin of the moon. The size of the moon in comparison to the earth as well as its distance from the earth confirm that it is not captured. This narrows the possibilities. Either it formed at the same time or it came out of the earth. The idea of it forming at the same time presents difficulties that are unsurmountable. There is no plausible reason why the material that formed the moon wouldn't have simply coalesed with the earth. So, the presently popular theory is that the moon came out of the earth. Having this much material break away from the earth would required a colossal and sudden exertion of energy. The popular answer is a catastrophic meteor strike. The problems are enormous.
1. Such a strike would change the orbit of earth. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The amount of energy that would be needed to break off that amount of material would either send the orbit of the earth into decay towards the sun, move it farther out, or make it extremely irregular. It is proposed that the strike was lined up with the orbit of the earth. but that would not solve the problem because the speed of earth's orbit would be effected, which would change the inertia-gravity ratio.
2. The effect on the geology of the earth itself. Such as strike would crack the core of the earth, producing fissures that would create perminent scars on the surface and great bands of iron ore, thousands of miles long. It would disperse the atmosphere, forcing it to be recreated by some means.
3. The formation of the moon. The debris that formed the moon had to be ejected at a high speed, just short of escape velocity. The debris would have to reach a balance of mass and speed in order to reach near stable orbit around the earth. As these pieces came together, their increased mass would require a different speed to maintain the inertia-gravity balance. Each piece that coalesed would change the ratio.
There are many other problems but I think these three are sufficient to cast enormous doubt on the naturalist theory of the origin of the moon.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

One of the interesting problems that is faced by naturalist is the proposed atmosphere of early earth. Abiogenesis begins with the chemical formation of organic compounds. This requires a reducing atmosphere and an ample source of energy. For energy, the visible light spectrum is inadequate so evolutionist look to ultraviolet radiation. Most of the sun's UV radiation is blocked by the Ozone layer. Ozone is formed when free oxygen is hit by UV radiation. So, what was needed is an atmosphere relative devoid of free oxygen. Evolutionists propose an atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and water. According to the theory, the UV radiation acting upon the components to produce complex organic compounds, but those compounds then had to be seperated from the environment in some way to prevent their breakdown. There had to be a tradeoff, with events leading to less disorder, increasing the probability for improvement, interactions and complexity of chemical reaction systems. The increasing order within delimited systems was concomitant with thermodynamic increase in entropy in the surrounding systems.
The result is a delicate system. If the water breaks down or the carbon dioxide, the oxygen released would combine with and destroy the chemicals that are necessary to begin the process of abiogenesis. Likewise, the component elements must be separated from the surrounding environment. If enough oxygen is released, the UV radiation process stops.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

The next step of the evolutionary model is the protobiont. These are non-living units which organize chemical reactions both spacially and temporally. In other words, thes units separate the chemical reactions which are going on inside the unit from the chemical reaction going on outside the unit and cause some sort of sequence of chemical reactions. Two of the evolutionary models are the coacervate droplet and the protein spheroid. Coacervate droplets are macromolecules that are surrounded by a shell of water molecules which are rigidly oriented relative to the macromolecule forming a "membrane". The coacervate droplets will absorb chemicals from the surrounding medium and can be highly selective (lets only certain things in and certain things out) like a cell membrane. The problem is that these molecules tend to be transient, forming and disintegrating quickly and under many conditions.
Protein spheroids form when amino acids are exposed to boiling water. The problem with this possibility is that they lack the diversity thought to be neccesary to ensure the appearance of life.
As it is, the naturalistic evolutionists assumes the existance of a different form. These proposed protobionts would consist of an array of microspheres of diverse organic and inorganic compounds enclosed by lipidic membranes. In order to make the leap from protobiont to prokaryotic cells, the evolutionists would propose an extraordinarily numerous and diverse population of these. These protobiont would need to be self renewing and have the facility to incorporate increasingly complex chemical reactions.The big problem: not a single example survived.

 

[Elijahtruth]

Smallone, "i" am also His smallone! SCIENCE AND THE WORD ARE ONE, THE EPIC GATHERING AND SOUNDING has begun! Go too rapture is false topic there "i" left more Word! Go too His medical science ministry on the net Adam and Eve seed gathering ministry on the net! Therein our Father and Mother of the Garden are now Honoured for their completed mission! Also micrographs are on the services and about page which are the seven principalities of the air the Lord pointed out long ago, which actually cause premature death and aging! The infection contracted by our People in the garden is literally eight myco controlled phages and bacteria which work as one from our birth too bring us into old age and premature death! The mystery is finished Rev:10:7! Go too the site, many classic paintings telling the story of our people and God! Also on the signs page are the now Epic gathering signs which many have already came! And on His proof of His healing page, are verse's listed which prove He not only created science, He prophesy He would return in the day of Microbiology! He truly is the Great Physician and sent us a medical code for the beginning of the Glorified bodies! Go too the contact page leave a contact and much proofs will be sent you, SMALLONE! Much respect Elijahtruth

 

[charisenexcelcis]

Probably one of the crucial issues in the debate between naturalist and creationists is the transition period between the chemical multiplication of simple biochemicals and the creation of an environment that is favorable to life. The evolutionists propose three period. At the beginning you have an atmosphere with carbon dioxide, water, ammonia and methane. The lack of free oxygen allows UV radiation in so that there is sufficient energy to create amino acids. At the end you have bacteria producing oxygen through photosynthesis.
The problem is that the UV radiation is harmful to life and to many biochemicals. The very source of energy needed to build up a great reserve of amino acids is not only going to destroy these chemicals and the life that supposedly rose up out of them. According to the evolutionists, it took the bacteria a half billion to raise the oxygen levels to the present 21%. For hundreds of thousands of years they would have been under the destructive bombardment of UV radiation. No ozone, no protection. (Think of sunbathing without sunblock times hundreds.) It becomes a circular problem. You need the UV radiation to produce the chemicals that lead to the bacteria, but the same radiation destroys the bacteria.
so how does the transition occur? Apparently very carefully.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

So, when the paleontologist finds a dinosaur fossil, does he then say, "Let's put together some data from the surrounding soil in order to date this." No, he says, "this strata is such and such era" based upon the fossil that he found.

Fantastically wrong. Paleontologists use available radiometric dating data from the surrounding strata to "bracket" the find and use intervening fossils that have been strongly corroborated to absolute dates elsewhere to narrow down that bracketed range.

"Dinosaur bones, on the other hand, are millions of years old -- some fossils are billions of years old. To determine the ages of these specimens, scientists need an isotope with a very long half-life. Some of the isotopes used for this purpose are uranium-238, uranium-235 and potassium-40, each of which has a half-life of more than a million years.

Unfortunately, these elements don't exist in dinosaur fossils themselves. Each of them typically exists in igneous rock, or rock made from cooled magma. Fossils, however, form in sedimentary rock -- sediment quickly covers a dinosaur's body, and the sediment and the bones gradually turn into rock. But this sediment doesn't typically include the necessary isotopes in measurable amounts. Fossils can't form in the igneous rock that usually does contain the isotopes. The extreme temperatures of the magma would just destroy the bones.


So to determine the age of sedimentary rock layers, researchers first have to find neighboring layers of Earth that include igneous rock, such as volcanic ash. These layers are like bookends -- they give a beginning and an end to the period of time when the sedimentary rock formed. By using radiometric dating to determine the age of igneous brackets, researchers can accurately determine the age of the sedimentary layers between them."
http://science.howstuffworks.com/dinosaur-bone-age.htm/printable
​

And if he does date the strata and it turns out to be much younger than he expected, does he then say, "This challenges our previously held view on these creatures." No, he says, "What geological event can explain why this much older fossil is found in a younger strata."

Again, fantastically wrong. Paleontologists regularly publish their findings, which necessarily contain all their data and methodologies specifically so that other scientists can try and falsify their conclusions.

Much has been said in recent years about radiometric dating. The three issues with radiometric dating is that it is not entirely consistant, the presumption of uniformitarianism and that it requires a starting point.

In the first situation, evolutionists would propose various solutions based upon correlary geological events. Once again, if there is a difference between the dating based upon radiometric information and the dating based upon fossil evidence there is a presumption that there was some movement of the fossil or that a correlary geological event has changed the radiometric data.

Evidence please. Radiometric dating has a very long history of concordance both with other radiometric dating techniques and with non-radiometric dating techniques that is not going to simply disappear based on your assertions.

The second issue is that of uniformitarianism. This is a presumption that the conversion of one element to another by radioactive decay proceeds at a uniform rate even over great periods of time. The problems is that radioactive decay is based upon half-life. For instance, if you have a pound of Uranium-238 it does not decay steadily, so that you can say that in a certain amount of time you would have a pound of Lead-206.

Who on earth are you allowing to teach you about half-lives? This is scary-wrong. Radioactive decay is exponential, but it is also very precise as the rate of decay is governed by the nuclear forces holding the atom itself together. "Half-life" (aside from being an amazing FPS series) refers to the amount of time it takes for a substance to decay by half.

This rate of decay is steady and measurable.

Instead, the decay would be a reverse curve with it taking the same amount of time for a pound of U-238 to convert to half Pb-206 as it would a half pound to convert to half Pb-206. Since the half life period is 4.47 billion years and the process is by no means uniform, the older the dating, the greater the likelihood of error.

You have made quite a number of grave errors about radioactive decay already, and this trend doesn't seem to be reversing. If it takes the same amount of time for a pound of U-238 to convert to half Pb-206 regardless of sample size then the rate of decay, by default, is uniform.

The third issue is that of a starting point. There must be a presumed beginning ratio. For instance, if you are using U-238 to Pb-206, you must have a beginning ratio of the two elements. Then you compare that with the present ratio and do the math based upon the calculated half-life. This beginning ratio is established by calculating what is the present norm in a given geological event and then predicting what the ratio would have been at the time period being dated since the age of the earth would change the initial ratio. It is, in effect, a circular calculation.

There are some 40 different radiometric techniques, and while perhaps a few of them use the process described above to calculate beginning ratios others do not. One easy-to-understand method is Potassium-Argon dating. Potassium is fairly abundant and one isotope , Potassium-40, decays into Calcium-40 and Argon-40, which is also a gas. So, when a particular potassium-40 carrying rock get's melted any Argon gas that might be trapped inside it will bubble out to the surface and, when the rock cools down into igneous rock there shouldn't be much of any left in it (watch it happen here).

Hence scientists can measure the amount of Potassium-40, the amount of Argon-40, and run a fairly straightforward calculation to determine how long it would have taken to produce this ratio:

t = h x ln[1 + (argon-40)/(0.112 x (potassium-40))]/ln(2)
(source)

However, there does exist the possibility that some Argon-40 did remain in the rock even when it melted. We can figure this amount by looking at other isotopes of Argon that occur naturally in the atmosphere such as Argon-36. Because the ratio of Argon-36 to Argon-40 in the atmosphere is known we can calculate how much, if any, Argon-40 was atmospheric by measuring the amount of Argon-36.

Additionally, we can improve further on this by testing multiple samples from the same set of rocks and by using another testing method such as Argon-Argon dating which has it's own methods of determining parent-daughter ratios,

"In the argon-argon method the rock is placed near the center of a nuclear reactor for a period of hours. A nuclear reactor emits a very large number of neutrons, which are capable of changing a small amount of the potassium-39 into argon-39. Argon-39 is not found in nature because it has only a 269-year half-life. (This half-life doesn't affect the argon-argon dating method as long as the measurements are made within about five years of the neutron dose). The rock is then heated in a furnace to release both the argon-40 and the argon-39 (representing the potassium) for analysis. The heating is done at incrementally higher temperatures and at each step the ratio of argon-40 to argon-39 is measured. If the argon-40 is from decay of potassium within the rock, it will come out at the same temperatures as the potassium-derived argon-39 and in a constant proportion. On the other hand, if there is some excess argon-40 in the rock it will cause a different ratio of argon-40 to argon-39 for some or many of the heating steps, so the different heating steps will not agree with each other."​

"Figure 2 is an example of a good argon-argon date. The fact that this plot is flat shows that essentially all of the argon-40 is from decay of potassium within the rock. The potassium-40 content of the sample is found by multiplying the argon-39 by a factor based on the neutron exposure in the reactor. When this is done, the plateau in the figure represents an age date based on the decay of potassium-40 to argon-40."​

"There are occasions when the argon-argon dating method does not give an age even if there is sufficient potassium in the sample and the rock was old enough to date. This most often occurs if the rock experienced a high temperature (usually a thousand degrees Fahrenheit or more) at some point since its formation. If that occurs, some of the argon gas moves around, and the analysis does not give a smooth plateau across the extraction temperature steps. An example of an argon-argon analysis that did not yield an age date is shown in Figure 3. Notice that there is no good plateau in this plot. In some instances there will actually be two plateaus, one representing the formation age, and another representing the time at which the heating episode occurred. But in most cases where the system has been disturbed, there simply is no date given. The important point to note is that, rather than giving wrong age dates, this method simply does not give a date if the system has been disturbed."
​

Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective

For the atheistic evolutionist, these issues are vital to their core view of evolution.

Wow. And here I though we'd moved past this. Radiometric dating is the realm of physics, and both atheist and religious physicists overwhelming confirm the staggering amount of evidence supporting it's reliability. The process of radioactive decay has absolutely nothing to do with either atheism or evolution.

Consider the following.

1. There is no reason to believe that God created the system of decay to be absolutely uniform.

Um. . .yes there is. Decay rates are governed by nuclear forces that cannot be significantly affected by planetary conditions and if decay rates were different in the past we would be able to see evidence of it in natural nuclear reactors suck as Oklo as well as the spectral lines of distant starlight.

2. There is no reason to presume an initial proportion of mother isotopes to daughter isotopes.
Understand that creationists and evolutionists both begin with a prioris.

As I have demonstrated previously in this post, modern radiometric dating techniques use a number of methods to determine the initial proportion of mother-daughter isotopes. The fact that these methods give off dates that are consistent with both other radioactive dating techniques, and non radioactive dating techniques is strong evidence of their reliability. If they don't work, why do they all agree?

Please feel free to learn more about radiometric dating here:
Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective
Precise dating of the destruction of Pompeii
Carbon Dating: The Basics


Lurker

 

[charisenexcelcis]

Fantastically wrong. Paleontologists use available radiometric dating data from the surrounding strata to "bracket" the find and use intervening fossils that have been strongly corroborated to absolute dates elsewhere to narrow down that bracketed range.
Look at your quote. What is the first thing that is said. This is the a priori of the entire statement, that dinosaur bones (which is funny, since fossils are rocks and the "bone" of it has ceased to exist) are millions of years old.

"Dinosaur bones, on the other hand, are millions of years old -- some fossils are billions of years old. To determine the ages of these specimens, scientists need an isotope with a very long half-life. Some of the isotopes used for this purpose are uranium-238, uranium-235 and potassium-40, each of which has a half-life of more than a million years.

Unfortunately, these elements don't exist in dinosaur fossils themselves. Each of them typically exists in igneous rock, or rock made from cooled magma. Fossils, however, form in sedimentary rock -- sediment quickly covers a dinosaur's body, and the sediment and the bones gradually turn into rock. But this sediment doesn't typically include the necessary isotopes in measurable amounts. Fossils can't form in the igneous rock that usually does contain the isotopes. The extreme temperatures of the magma would just destroy the bones.


So to determine the age of sedimentary rock layers, researchers first have to find neighboring layers of Earth that include igneous rock, such as volcanic ash. These layers are like bookends -- they give a beginning and an end to the period of time when the sedimentary rock formed. By using radiometric dating to determine the age of igneous brackets, researchers can accurately determine the age of the sedimentary layers between them."
http://science.howstuffworks.com/dinosaur-bone-age.htm/printable
​

Again, fantastically wrong. Paleontologists regularly publish their findings, which necessarily contain all their data and methodologies specifically so that other scientists can try and falsify their conclusions.
You do not think there is an orthodoxy of accepted presumptions? Does anyone ever say, maybe the proportion of mother-daughter elements aren't what we assume them to be? They may bicker over their pet variations, but no one would question the underlying presumption.



Evidence please. Radiometric dating has a very long history of concordance both with other radiometric dating techniques and with non-radiometric dating techniques that is not going to simply disappear based on your assertions.
Kerkut in Implications of Evolution gives three examples of errors ranging from 200 million years to 700 million years. Proceedings of the Second, Third, and Fourth Lunar Conferance; Earth and Planetary Letters reported that the Apollo sample materails when dated using three different methods revealed three different results ranging from two million years to twenty-eight billion.



Who on earth are you allowing to teach you about half-lives? This is scary-wrong. Radioactive decay is exponential, but it is also very precise as the rate of decay is governed by the nuclear forces holding the atom itself together. "Half-life" (aside from being an amazing FPS series) refers to the amount of time it takes for a substance to decay by half.
Actually, I would say the same of you. If the decay was steady than two single atoms of Uranium-238 would turn into Lead-206 at precisely the same time. A half life is a mathematically calculated probability. It says that in a certain amount of time (4.47 billion years for Uranium-238 to Lead-206)it is probable that half of a sample of the mother element would decay into a daughter element. If you had two sample, one pound, of U-238 would half of both samples be Pb-206 at precisely the same time? No. No true scientist would make that assertion. The below curve shows, in fact that the decay rate slows. now we have been studying these decay rates for a hundred years and the proposed half life of U-238 to Pb-206 is 4.47 billion years. So we have observed 100/4,470,000,000 of the period. This is like making a statistical conclusion about China based upon interviewing 29 Chinese citizens.

This rate of decay is steady and measurable.
This rate of decay is slowing and based upon a incredibly small portion of a half-life.



You have made quite a number of grave errors about radioactive decay already, and this trend doesn't seem to be reversing. If it takes the same amount of time for a pound of U-238 to convert to half Pb-206 regardless of sample size then the rate of decay, by default, is uniform.
A pound of U-238 would take no longer to convert to half Pb-206 than a half pound of U-238.



There are some 40 different radiometric techniques, and while perhaps a few of them use the process described above to calculate beginning ratios others do not. One easy-to-understand method is Potassium-Argon dating. Potassium is fairly abundant and one isotope , Potassium-40, decays into Calcium-40 and Argon-40, which is also a gas. So, when a particular potassium-40 carrying rock get's melted any Argon gas that might be trapped inside it will bubble out to the surface and, when the rock cools down into igneous rock there shouldn't be much of any left in it (watch it happen here).

Hence scientists can measure the amount of Potassium-40, the amount of Argon-40, and run a fairly straightforward calculation to determine how long it would have taken to produce this ratio:

t = h x ln[1 + (argon-40)/(0.112 x (potassium-40))]/ln(2)
(source)


However, there does exist the possibility that some Argon-40 did remain in the rock even when it melted. We can figure this amount by looking at other isotopes of Argon that occur naturally in the atmosphere such as Argon-36. Because the ratio of Argon-36 to Argon-40 in the atmosphere is known we can calculate how much, if any, Argon-40 was atmospheric by measuring the amount of Argon-36.

Additionally, we can improve further on this by testing multiple samples from the same set of rocks and by using another testing method such as Argon-Argon dating which has it's own methods of determining parent-daughter ratios,

"In the argon-argon method the rock is placed near the center of a nuclear reactor for a period of hours. A nuclear reactor emits a very large number of neutrons, which are capable of changing a small amount of the potassium-39 into argon-39. Argon-39 is not found in nature because it has only a 269-year half-life. (This half-life doesn't affect the argon-argon dating method as long as the measurements are made within about five years of the neutron dose). The rock is then heated in a furnace to release both the argon-40 and the argon-39 (representing the potassium) for analysis. The heating is done at incrementally higher temperatures and at each step the ratio of argon-40 to argon-39 is measured. If the argon-40 is from decay of potassium within the rock, it will come out at the same temperatures as the potassium-derived argon-39 and in a constant proportion. On the other hand, if there is some excess argon-40 in the rock it will cause a different ratio of argon-40 to argon-39 for some or many of the heating steps, so the different heating steps will not agree with each other."
​

"Figure 2 is an example of a good argon-argon date. The fact that this plot is flat shows that essentially all of the argon-40 is from decay of potassium within the rock. The potassium-40 content of the sample is found by multiplying the argon-39 by a factor based on the neutron exposure in the reactor. When this is done, the plateau in the figure represents an age date based on the decay of potassium-40 to argon-40."
​

"There are occasions when the argon-argon dating method does not give an age even if there is sufficient potassium in the sample and the rock was old enough to date. This most often occurs if the rock experienced a high temperature (usually a thousand degrees Fahrenheit or more) at some point since its formation. If that occurs, some of the argon gas moves around, and the analysis does not give a smooth plateau across the extraction temperature steps. An example of an argon-argon analysis that did not yield an age date is shown in Figure 3. Notice that there is no good plateau in this plot. In some instances there will actually be two plateaus, one representing the formation age, and another representing the time at which the heating episode occurred. But in most cases where the system has been disturbed, there simply is no date given. The important point to note is that, rather than giving wrong age dates, this method simply does not give a date if the system has been disturbed."
​

Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective

Wow. And here I though we'd moved past this. Radiometric dating is the realm of physics, and both atheist and religious physicists overwhelming confirm the staggering amount of evidence supporting it's reliability. The process of radioactive decay has absolutely nothing to do with either atheism or evolution.
Since Calcium-40 is the most abundant form of Calcium, you must also assume that there was a certain amount of Calcium-40 in the sample prior to reheating and recrystalization. I love the "we" bit. Have you ever actually done this?



Um. . .yes there is. Decay rates are governed by nuclear forces that cannot be significantly affected by planetary conditions and if decay rates were different in the past we would be able to see evidence of it in natural nuclear reactors suck as Oklo as well as the spectral lines of distant starlight.
It is interesting that you will defend uniformitarianism when it is convenient. I think you will abandon it in some of the further discussions. Scientist have observed a fractional length of time for the half-lives assumed and concluded that atom #1 will not decay at the same rate as atom #2, therefore producing a curve rather than a straight line of decay.



As I have demonstrated previously in this post, modern radiometric dating techniques use a number of methods to determine the initial proportion of mother-daughter isotopes. The fact that these methods give off dates that are consistent with both other radioactive dating techniques, and non radioactive dating techniques is strong evidence of their reliability. If they don't work, why do they all agree?
First, they rarely agree. Second, any that would produce inconsistant data are discarded as inaccurate. Finally, it is rare that more than one method of dating rock is used.

Please feel free to learn more about radiometric dating here:
Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective
Precise dating of the destruction of Pompeii
Carbon Dating: The Basics


Lurker

I was particularly surprise that you did not recognize that a real-life "curve" represents a probability of a variable result.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

At this crux of the abiogenesis process, the issue of DNA comes into play. Yeast, the simplist life form that I could find, has DNA that consists of 6,000 genes. A gene is a portion of DNA, a strip so to speak, that contains the information neccesary to produce a particular RNA that is neccesary for a particular biochemical. So, in this case you have 6,000 of these strands. For the evolutionsist, this is a temporal record of one gene joining with another, a possible history of evolution. The problem is that the complexity of DNA. Even in an environment rich with biochemicals and relatively benign to them (unlike the original environment proposed by naturalist), DNA is too complex to produce for any natural process. Try this, line up 6,000 of anything. Try dominoes or toys or rocks. When you are done, walk the line and see how many are out of alignment. Now try to do it on the deck of a ship during a hurricane. That is what we are talking about, only without a mind behind it to create order.
This is complicated by a couple of things. First, in order for this first life to survive, it would have to happen more then once. It would have to happen millions of times. Survival of life is dependent upon it's abundance more than it's adaptablility.
Secondly, it would have to produced only a few distinct forms. The alternative is that thousands or perhaps millions of these first life forms would have been selected out, the energy needed to produce them wasted, the temporary upsetting of the law of entopy wasted, the remaining forms reduced to a few making the continuation of life unlikely.