Evolution - and how we know it's right

[edlib]

I cannot answer for all religions, but I can safely say that Christianity (and Catholicism), and Judaism, and I believe Islam, three major religions, have Creation.

Not each and every every believer of those religions subscribe to the creation myths, however. There are many that follow the moral and ethical guidelines of a religion without having to believe a word for word accounting of the tales told about creation of the universe and man.

By the same measure not all Darwinists and evolutionists are atheists as well... there's a lot of grey areas and crossover points.

 

Even within the Christian faith, you can find many variations on the tale of creation itself as you go from denomination to denomination, and even from congregation to congregation: From 7 literal 24-hour periods about 6000 years ago, to the Catholic church's guideline that a Darwinistic process of natural selection doesn't necessarily conflict with the spiritual mission of the church. Most seem to fall somewhere in the middle: that the universe and Earth was created many millions (or billions) of years ago, but that mankind was created with Adam. Or if not crated with Adam,.. then Adam was the first true human that God started working with, and the first with human intelligence and a spirit that could recognize God.

[SkinWalker]

This just dawned on me:

I cannot answer for all religions, but I can safely say that Christianity (and Catholicism),

Isn't that a bit like saying, "I can safely say that meat (and beef)...?" After all, Catholics are Christian.

[Kurgan]

You forget that several fundamentalist groups continue to assert that we're not!

 

But that's another topic for another thread...

 

I was about to correct Staff's statement about Catholicism but it was corrected. The Catholic church teaches "creation" only in the sense that "God Created the Universe" but not that it opposes evolutionary theory to explain the origin of species, etc. Not Creationism (Young Earth or some variant thereof). There was some debate recently over whether the RCC taught Intelligent Design instead. While this idea is certain believed by some prominent clergymen (a recent statement by that one cardinal sounds very much like ID), it's not the official teaching of the magisterium.

 

Lath made a statement about polytheistic creeds never having a problem with evolutionary theory. And while I haven't heard anyone publically rail against evolutionary theory on religious terms and not use some strain of Christianity as the basis, I would argue that there are plenty of polytheistic creation stories, that if taken as literally as certain Christian groups take Genesis, they'd have the exact same problems.

 

And I really hate to say "literally" because it's so easily misinterpreted (nobody takes the entire Bible "literally" even those who claim to)... but I think you guys know what I mean. If people say they take creation out of the Bible you should really ask them "which creation story" since there are several variations. Most churches favor allegorical or other "non-literal" interpretations of of the creation accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures today. That doesn't mean they all accept Darwinism or Neo-Darwinism (which aren't or shouldn't be perjorative terms, they're just accurate statements of evolutionary theories), but still. This is literally one of those debates where there aren't just two sides (and no, it's not just three sides either, throwing in ID).

 

And despite my respect for many of Mr. Buchanan's other ideas, that opinion piece by him on evolution sounds like he really hasn't studied the issue much beyond the headlines. It's one thing to assert that Darwinism has "failed" in the court of public opinion, but to equate it to a political (rather than scientific) theory like Marxist-Leninism and thus assert its falsehood is a problematic analogy.

 

PS: Freud's mythmaking on religion is fun to read, but hardly provable anymore than certain feminist theories of a golden age of matriarchy. Makes for breathtaking political rhetoric, but nothing really substantial in evidence. He may be a favorite whipping boy though so that's all I'm going to say on him.

[StaffSaberist]

I don't consider Catholicism a seperate religion. That's why I put it in these: () They are slightly different. But only slightly.

[RoxStar]

I don't consider Catholicism a seperate religion. That's why I put it in these: () They are slightly different. But only slightly.

 

Huh? They're both Christian, they're just different Sects...

[Samuel Dravis]

That having been said, I disagree that we cannot criticize religions. This isn't the thread for it, but why is it that we cannot argue or debate the merits of someone's religion. We debate and argue the politics of others. We debate and argue the legal positions others take on issues like marriage, executions, border security, immigration and the like. But somehow we've all agreed to respect the beliefs of others no matter how irrational they are. But I digress... this is, perhaps, another thread.

I agree, though for a different reason than yourself. It is necessary for someone who believes something to question it in order to understand their own position fully (and makes that belief stronger if it is well placed).

 

Doing so happens helps out in forum discussions too.

[ShadowTemplar]

Also, how can you get evidence from a theory? I suppose you can get evidence for a theory, but a theory is not absolute.

 

Ah, the vagarities of grammar. The 'from' refers to the 'predictions' part, not the 'evidence' part.

 

Rather than just bring up the beginning of the universe, I will at least humor you enough to explain how they're related. If we evolved, then we must have a beginning, something to evolve from, do we not? And of course, we must have a place to evolve. Does our world have no beginning, always here, or did it evolve as well? Nowhere did this thread say it was only human evolution.

 

No, but Skin limited it to exclusively biological evolution. Haring off on cosmology trips would be both beyond the scope of this thread and, frankly, venture into theories far less substantiated than the theory of (biological) evolution (actually most theories short of gravity and quantum mechanics are less substantiated than the ToE).

 

Whoa, evolution has been tested? If you can show where evolution was tested, I'll back down now.

 

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

 

It's long and it's complicated. And, no, nobody expects you to read and respond to it all. But science is long and complicated, and you asked for evidence.

 

But no, I actually agree with you. It appears that science of today is, "let's create a theory and find evidence to back it up". Whether it's for one side or the other, that's pathetic.

 

Yes and no. There are two main avenues available for scientific progress: One is drawing inferences from already established theories. This can lead in radically new directions - as indeed it did when Maxwell proposed his correction of Biot Savart's Law. The other way new theories can grow out of old ones is through an abundance of experimental evidence revealing flaws in old theories - as was what happened through much of Quantum Mechanics' early years. Discrediting either of those approaches would hamstring science for no good reason.

 

The last way to increase scientific knowledge is the revolutionary leap of genius, where a theory is proposed on the basis of flimsy evidence and has little connection with previous theories - its only justification being that it 'feels right'. That has happened in the past (the theory whose centennial we're celebrating this year is one example). And it will undoubtedly happen in the future as well. But that is very, very rare.

 

And evolution is not such a theory. In fact, evolution is a straight-line generalisation of Malthus' population models, much the same way Maxwell's equations grow naturally out of classical electrodynamics.

 

Now, I am not able to get through the entire thread and reply to it all. (Sorry to disappoint you, ShadowTemplar.)

 

Actually, much of what's been said previously has been idle banter while we waited for you to show up. You didn't miss a lot. What I really inteded with this thread was a place for people like you to ask honest questions and present what they percieve as problems with evolution in a calm and civilised environment. I was hoping that we could then sort through them - or at the very least that Skin and I could point people in the direction of further reading.

 

Carbon dating is perfectly accurate, IMO. The Earth is a few billion years old. You see, there is religious grounding in that. According to the Bible, to God a thousand years is to a day as a day is to a thousand years. So when he says 'day' in Genesis, He may have meant it to symbolize an epoch. Or not, but that's my interperentation, anyhow.

 

Funny. I seem to recall an AiG tract saying differently.

 

But theological discussions aside, carbon dating and dendrochronology go back only roughly .05 Myrs. Ar-K and U-U dating, OTOH...

 

What I was saying was that the vast majority of world populace does not believe in evolution.

 

That's actually not quite correct... You don't have to be an atheist to value sound science. I can name several qualified biologists and physicists who'd be frankly insulted at the insinuation that they are somehow less christian because they acknowledge the validity of scientific theories.

 

Lath made a statement about polytheistic creeds never having a problem with evolutionary theory. And while I haven't heard anyone publically rail against evolutionary theory on religious terms and not use some strain of Christianity as the basis, I would argue that there are plenty of polytheistic creation stories, that if taken as literally as certain Christian groups take Genesis, they'd have the exact same problems.

 

Indeed. In fact there are several fundie hindu groups who reject evolution - because according to their fundie view the world has always existed and has always been the same - so change is impossible and beginning is impossible. And while we don't hear as much about it in the West, Muslim creationism is also rampant in many parts of the world. Of course they buy into the rethoric and propaganda originating in the US, but that's probably only because the US creationist movements have rather a lot more funding than the Middle Eastern ones.

 

PS: Freud's mythmaking on religion is fun to read, but hardly provable anymore than certain feminist theories of a golden age of matriarchy. Makes for breathtaking political rhetoric, but nothing really substantial in evidence.

 

Freud is a cheap hoax and a political pseudoscientist. His crap's so deep that he compares disfavorably with even the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

 

But that's for another thread...

[edlib]

Whoa, evolution has been tested? If you can show where evolution was tested, I'll back down now.

Every year there are viruses and bacteria that develop resistances and immunities to the treatments and antibiotics that had worked only months or weeks before. Think about the fact that the entire planet is currently tooling up to fight a bird-flu pandemic, despite the fact that it can't currently transmit from human-to-human yet, only bird-to-bird and bird-to-human.

 

So what's the panic all about? The fear is that the flu virus will develop a strain that will eventually transmit from human-to-human and will be incredibly had to fight.

 

But, if it's not currently a danger except for those that live and work around birds, how will it happen that it might become a danger for the general population?

 

Well, by the same processes that Darwin proposed so many years ago: Natural selection and random mutation that leads to evolutionary advantage. It's happening every day, all around us, just at the micro scale. Bacteria and viruses multiply so fast that we can actually see those processes in action.

Unfortunately, life on the macro scale takes so long to reproduce that it's impossible for us to see in real-time, and have no evidence that's the way it happened except by looking into the past. But why should we expect that the processes that work on very small, quick-lived life-forms on our planet are any different that the processes that affect the larger, slower-lived life forms? Especially when the fossil record and DNA evidence seems to indicate that's exactly how it happened.

[ShadowTemplar]

Unfortunately, life on the macro scale takes so long to reproduce that it's impossible for us to see in real-time, and have no evidence that's the way it happened except by looking into the past.

 

Not quite.

[edlib]

Hmmm... interesting stuff. I stand corrected.

 

Still, until we can show real-time evidence of human evolution (which is, after all, what this entire debate is truly about, despite what some folks may claim) those that refuse to see the facts will find creative ways of explaining all of that away.

[ShadowTemplar]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

[Kurgan]

That's actually not quite correct... You don't have to be an atheist to value sound science. I can name several qualified biologists and physicists who'd be frankly insulted at the insinuation that they are somehow less christian because they acknowledge the validity of scientific theories.

 

Right. I've had discussions with people who put up the false dilemma that you either accept the (Christian) Bible on faith as absolutely true, or you accept science (insinuating that science is only used as a substitute for religion by people who don't have God).

 

Indeed. In fact there are several fundie hindu groups who reject evolution - because according to their fundie view the world has always existed and has always been the same - so change is impossible and beginning is impossible. And while we don't hear as much about it in the West, Muslim creationism is also rampant in many parts of the world. Of course they buy into the rethoric and propaganda originating in the US, but that's probably only because the US creationist movements have rather a lot more funding than the Middle Eastern ones.

 

Well said. I know of Hindus who have no trouble believing that we've been through a series of creations and destructions, so while the "cycle" might be eternal, the current earth/universe is not necessarily. Also I've read about Muslims who defend the Qu'ran as geling with science, in taking it symbolically to be parallel with modern science (rather than saying the science is wrong and needs to support a literal reading of the text).

 

 

 

Freud is a cheap hoax and a political pseudoscientist. His crap's so deep that he compares disfavorably with even the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

 

But that's for another thread...

 

Agreed. I know his other stuff is much disputed nowadays as well, I was merely referring to his "theories" on religion. Still, no matter how debunked some of his ideas have been, they still get brought up as fact by people every so often, usually without realizing who said them or why.

 

Also: I don't know if this has been said or not, but I've come to realize that many creationists do accept that some form of evolution takes place, but they still reject mainstream science about it. This may be because in the media it's depicted as "creationism vs. evolution" as if there were only two positions, and then it's often characterized as the irreligious vs. "the Christians" again as if there were only two views.

[ShadowTemplar]

Agreed. I know his other stuff is much disputed nowadays as well, I was merely referring to his "theories" on religion. Still, no matter how debunked some of his ideas have been, they still get brought up as fact by people every so often, usually without realizing who said them or why.

 

Tell me about it. Doesn't work wonders for the credibility of psychology to support quacks like Freud, Young, and Gardener.

[Kurgan]

Huh? They're both Christian, they're just different Sects...

 

It may be that he isn't just confused about Catholicism, he may have a different "standard" of what "Christianity" is. Some evangelical Protestants for example feel that only certain Baptist, Lutheran and Pentecostal churches are "Christian" and all other self-idenfitied Christian churches are deviations, corruptions or heresies from it.

 

So he's free to confirm or deny if this is his personal belief.

 

I can handle it. After all there's plenty of Catholics past and present who feel we're the one, true church. However, I think the idea that these other groups are not Christians at all, just because they're not us, is a uniquely non-Catholic idea.

[toms]

I'm sure scientists recently observed the creation of a new species of butterfly.. i'll have a look for the link if i get time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4708459.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3790531.stm

 

Also, the church of england is, i think, both protestant, christian and supportive of evolution. I remember reading a survey where about 9/10 CoE priests said they believed in evolution... so its not like evolution and christianity (or any religion for that matter) are incompatible. Many scientist think that the more they uncover of the wonders of evolution the more majestic it appears.. so maybe there is a god behind it all... But the method he used is unquestionably evolution, not genesis, or any other of the lovely stories that abound.

 

Catholisism may be weird, but its by far the largest and most influential of the christian sects, and all the other sects (no matter how they may have diverged) are deeply rooted in early catholic teachings. As such they have contributed to the beliefs of pretty much all christians... even if some have now decided to become strangely selective in terms of the part of catholic teachings that they believe to be infallible, and the parts they believe to be wrong. You could probably argue that the bible itself is a creation of the catholic church.. so to challenge them on it seems odd.

 

As far as I can tell there has been no NEW EVIDENCE to support genesis, or the indian thunderbird myths, or any other creation story that isn't from the original source and time period. Evolution on the other hand has had new evidence upon new evidence discovered by scientists from all over the world over the past 100 years. All creationists can do is try to pick holes in other work, as they can't find anything new to support their own beliefs..

[Kurgan]

Just to clarify something about the Bible, before somebody else objects. The Bible as we have it today pretty much is thanks to the Catholic Church. However, to avoid any misunderstanding:

 

The "Old Testament" that we have today was written by the Jewish people before the formation of the Christian Church. The writings that Christians call the OT however are somewhat different from what modern Jews use (called the "Tanak"). The order and division of the books is different, for example. The Catholic Church today accepts a longer OT canon (which includes the "Deuterocanon" which means a second canon, added to the collection later) with books like Tobit, Judith, Wisdom (of Solomon), 1 & 2 Maccabees, etc. The Greek and Slavonic Orthodox churches also accept these Deuterocanonical books plus a few others (like 1 & 2 Esdras, Psalm 151, etc.). The reason for the additional books is that about 200 years before Christ the Septuigint (meaning "seventy" for the 70-72 Jewish scholars who put it together), a greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was in use at the time by Jesus and his first followers, who lived in a Hellenized (Greek influenced) Jewish culture. Hebrew texts were known, but Greek was the trade language and many Jews spoke Greek, necessitating the translation in places like Palestine. The Greek text includes some additional material not found in Hebrew versions, like additions to the books of Esther and Daniel, in addition to the extra books. Some Jews considered these sacred scripture, but others disputed them. In about 90 in Jamnia (Yavneh), a group of Jewish Rabbis were assembled after the destruction of the Temple (which occured in 70) and, according to legend, decided on a Hebrew canon, excluding these "extra" books. Of course they also denied canonicity of the books Christians had become to regard as sacred, such as the Gospels and writings of Paul.

 

Now there is some disagreement today among theologicans/historians as to what actually happened at Jamnia/Yavneh. Some say the Rabbis merely agreed on what was already a "consensus" of Jewish opinion. Others say they basically made up their own rules and then expected those under them to follow them. Others say that they really didn't agree on anything, and it was later that people looked to Jamnia/Yavneh to establish a historical precedent for accepting only certain books as scripture. The main point though is that by the 2nd Century, the mainstream leadership of Judaism felt that they had a collection of books that were sacred scripture, and that was that.

 

In any case, Christians had their canon (roughly) of the OT and the Jews had their's. Outside of Palestine however, some Jewish groups continued to use the expanded canon, as apparently some Ethiopian Jewish sects do today.

 

The King James Version, the most famous English translation of the Bible, used by most Protestants today, at least traditionally, is actually one of the last revisions (there were at least eight of them since the original "Authorized Version" produced under King James I in 1611). So when you dig out that copy placed by the Gideons, it's actually not the last revision, but one of the last. Coming from that you have the English Standard Version and the successors to it, culminating with the New Revised Standard Version.

 

It should be noted that you can order the original KJV 1611 online, and it included notes on textual variants (as the Masoretic Jewish scribes did in the middle ages, preserving the different alternate bits for comparison) and what Protestants call the "Apocrypha" (the Deuterocanonical books as accepted by the Catholic Church, but not the extra books accepted by the Orthodox branches, usually). The Geneva Bible apparently included the new "Protestant Canon" (which followed the Hebrew Canon, but a different order of books, plus the New Testament), but also the Prayer of Manasseh, which it listed as "apocryphal" (Apocryphal means "hidden" which has traditionally been taken to mean either something spurious that must be hidden away to avoid corrupting people's beliefs, or else something esoteric or difficult to understand, requiring a mature believer or more educated reader to fully grasp).

 

If you crack open a Bible today, you'll see that the Jewish Bible is the shortest, then the Protesant Bible has a second testament tacked on, the Catholic Bible has a bit longer Old Testament, and the Orthodox Bible longer still. Protestant Bibles that include the "Apocrypha" are re-gaining popularity, especially among academic circles. Many bookstores carry them as well. Christian apocryphal writings and other writings not accepted by anyone as sacred scripture within the main large religious bodies (mostly gleaned from the Nag Hammadi texts discovered in the 1940's and early 50's) are also translated and available to the average Joe reader. Last year I saw in my bookstore the "Gnostic Bible" which is somewhat of a misnomer because there really was never an official "canon" of Gnostic works (Marcion, the famous leader often connected with historical Gnosticism is credited with the first "Christian" canon that only he and his followers accepted, but it included books taken from the New Testament only).

 

Anyway, sorry to ramble with the history lesson, but essentially what we have today is more or less what they had back in the day, but translated, and the order of books and what books are accepted is disputed between different faith groups.

 

Without the Catholic Church's preservation of the texts from the time of the first century through the middle ages until the present time, we may not have had a Bible as intact as we did to translate into modern vernacular tongues. The New Testament of course was produced in a time when the Christian Church was united (barring a few heresies that existed within the main church, such as the Gnostics and Arians).

 

The discovering of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 and their subsequent translation has shown the care with which the texts were preserved by the Catholic Church. Variations exist, but no extensive corruption as some alleged or feared before their final complete release to the public in the 1990's.

 

It should also be pointed out that non-Orthodox/non-Catholic Christians do not all come from the Catholic Church. Many come from each other, and some were formed independantly in recent times. But as for the Bible, yes, they all essentially owe it to the Catholic Church and the historical foundation also from that Church, whether they wish to admit it or not.

 

Despite common usage, some Protestant Chrisitans also object to the term "Protestant," preferring the term "Christian" or the name of their denomination. Apparently the term began (as do many labels, including "Christian" and the "Roman" in "Roman Catholic") as something of an insult, but was later adopted as a badge of honor and stuck. Typically most people mean "Protestant" to refer either to a church intellectually connected to the Reformations of the 16th century or simply a Christian who is not Orthodox or Catholic.

 

Speaking of labels, it can be difficult discussing the things sometimes because people do reject labels. Many fundamentalists label self-identified Christian groups that differ from them "too much" doctrinally to not be Christians. So you get Catholics lumped in by them with groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, etc. Now I personally object to such lumping since these groups diverged from Protestantism in part and in very recent times (100-200 years ago tops). Not all of these fundamentalists reject Penetecostalism, which also came about fairly recently (150-100 years ago). And even the term "fundamentalism" is problematic as a catch-all term. But if somebody says my Church isn't Christian, I'm inclined to think of them as one, unless they can prove to me otherwise.

 

It could be said that all Christians, except extremely liberal ones (ranging from former Anglican Bishop Shelby Spong to the Jesus Seminar folks) are fundamentalists to some degree (insisting on certain doctrines to be held to be a Christian) it's just that certain groups have more stringent rules and apply them to those even outside their congregations.

 

Sorry for the long post, I just thought I'd throw that in there, since religion was tied into this discussion of Evolution. For the most part Christian churches accept evolution, not as dogma or revelation, but as a fairly solid scientific theory that need not conflict with religious faith. Many rank and file Christians probably say they reject evolution, at least according to polls, but evolutionary theory is poorly understood by the general American public, so this is not altogether surprising. Their churches for the most part don't have a problem with it, so long as you still acknowledge that God is the source of all life, and humankind is in the image of God.

[Samuel Dravis]

Something I've found that really is interesting (be warned - it's about 2 hours long!):

 

HTTP Download -Not a direct link-

Streaming @ Youtube

 

Basically it's a take on both evolution and intelligent design. The speaker is Dr. Kenneth Miller, a witness for the Dover trial and proponent of evolution. He does make it clear that he supports it, but even if you don't think it's correct you can learn quite a lot from it.

[ShadowTemplar]

Oh, yes, Miller is always worth your time. He absolutely eviscerated the Dover Dolts...

[SkinWalker]

Mentioned during the Q&A after Dr. Miller's lecture: http://www.venganza.org/

 

Gotta love that site!

[Samuel Dravis]

Oh, yes, Miller is always worth your time. He absolutely eviscerated the Dover Dolts...

Yeah, he did. If you've read the court documents here, it really shows. Personally I think it's amazing that the board could decide that it was appropriate to put ID in schools in the first place.

 

Something about the video though - He says here's the evidence for in between species with Ambulocetans natans (I believe), but I'm not sure how much evidence there actually is for it. Reconstructions are fine, but I'm wondering exactly how much of the skeleton was found to base it on. (about 30mins in)

 

However, the evidence he presents later, using chromosome 2, is unambiguous and quite clear. He makes his point very well. I really don't see how anyone can continue to believe ID in the same way as it was presented at the trial (as an alternative to evolution).

 

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use." - Galileo Galilei

[SkinWalker]

I wrote the following at another forum (a science forum, believe it or not) in which I was debating a proponent of 'intelligent' design. I borrowed heavily from Dr. Miller's "The Flagellum Unspun - The Collapse of Irreducible Complexity, but used some more recent references for the TTSS & Flagellum discussion. I couldn't access some of the ones he cited:"

 

[T]he concept of irreducible complexity is not useless… It makes you think about the nature of systems and their origins. It doesn't necessarily makes you ignorant like Robison claims. It is also a tool of falsification for those who believe all biological systems have arisen through evolution without intelligent agents. It's a pitty that it comes from a man like Behe. Otherwise it may have gotten the proper attention it deserves.

 

It actually originates from Darwin, believe it or not. In his Origin of Species (1859: 191), Darwin writes that if there existed an organ or organism that could not have been formed by "numerous, successive, slight modifications," the "theory [of evolution] would absolutely break down." Behe and others have obviously read this and used it as their weapon against science. The anti-science community called it 'irreducible complexity' and declared that there were systems that could not have evolved because the removal of just one part would cause the entire system to fail (Behe 1996; 2002). Behe, and other anti-science types, have cited the bacterial flagellum as one of the several systems that fit this mold.

 

Other systems cited by Behe include the vertebrate blood clotting cascade and eukaryotic cilium, but the bacterial flagellum is the most significant it would seem. Homologous to the basal region of the bacterial flagellum is a mechanism known as a type-III secretory system (TTSS), which transmits toxins to the cells of bacterial hosts. It's been demonstrated that the TTSS remains completely functional even with most of the parts of the flagellum itself. The research (Aizawa 2001; Briggs et al 2004; McNab 2004; Yonekura 2000) wasn't conducted with the desire to disprove so-called 'irreducible complexity,' but rather the need to better understand the nature of bacteria.

 

With regard to the cascade system of clotting blood, Behe says the following (1996, 84-86):

When an animal is cut, a protein called Hagemann factor (XII) sticks to the surface of cells near the wound. Bound Hagemann factor is then cleaved by a protein called HMK to yield activated Hagemann factor. Immediately the activated Hagemann factor converts another protein, called prekallikrein, to its active form, kallikrein. [...]none of the cascade proteins are used for anything except controlling the formation of a clot. Yet in the absence of any of the components, blood does not clot, and the system fails.

 

Factor XII, mentioned in the quote above, initiates the cascade. If Behe is correct, the absence of this protein would result in blood that doesn't clot. Yet, dolphins don't have it (Robinson, Kasting & Aggeler 1969). Their blood clots just fine. Neither factor XII nor prekallikrein are present in the puffer fish (Jiang & Doolittle 2003).

 

The concept of 'irreducible complexity' is, indeed, useless for offering any sort of logical explanation. Analogies of mousetraps and other machines are irrelevant. These are demonstrably designed systems and are not being suggested to be created by nature. Nature does, however, have its own "mouse traps" with systems of predator-prey organisms, but none have been demonstrated to be 'irreducibly' complex in any way. I challenge anyone here to show a natural system or organism that cannot operate without all of its parts.

 

 

References:

 

Aizawa, S.-I. (2001). Bacterial flagella and type III secretion systems, FEMS Microbiology Letters, 202 (2), 157-164.

 

Behe, M. (1996). Darwin's Black Box. New York: The Free Press.

 

Behe, M. (2002). The challenge of irreducible complexity. Natural History 111 (April), 74.

 

Briggs, L.J.; Davidge, J.A.; Wickstead, B.; Ginger, M.L.; Gull, K. (2004) More than one way to build a flagellum: comparative genomics of parasitic protozoa. Current Biology, 14 (15), R611-R612.

 

Darwin, C. (1872). The Origin of Species (6th edition). London: Oxford University Press.

 

McNab, R. M. (2004). Type III flagellar protein export and flagellar assembly. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Cell Research 1694 (1-3) 207-217.

 

Miller, K. R. (2002-2004). The Flagellum Unspun - The Collapse of Irreducible Complexity. In Ken Miller's Evolution Page (Evolution Resources). Retrieved 8106, from http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html.

 

Jiang, Y. and Doolittle, R.F. (2003). The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation as viewed from a comparison of puffer fish and sea squirt genomes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100 (13), 7527-7532.

 

Robinson, A. J., M. Kropatkin, and P. M. Aggeler (1969). Hagemann Factor (Factor XII) Deficiency in Marine Mammals. Science, 166, 1420-1422.

 

Yonekura, K., S. Maki, D. G. Morgan, D. J. DeRosier, F.Vonderviszt, K.Imada, and K. Namba (2000). The Bacterial Flagellar Cap as the Rotary Promoter of Flagellin Self-Assembly, Science, 290 (5499), 2148-2152.

[Samuel Dravis]

Sorry for the long post, I just thought I'd throw that in there, since religion was tied into this discussion of Evolution. For the most part Christian churches accept evolution, not as dogma or revelation, but as a fairly solid scientific theory that need not conflict with religious faith. Many rank and file Christians probably say they reject evolution, at least according to polls, but evolutionary theory is poorly understood by the general American public, so this is not altogether surprising. Their churches for the most part don't have a problem with it, so long as you still acknowledge that God is the source of all life, and humankind is in the image of God.

Exactly.

 

"...the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter -- for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God." - Pius XII

 

There is an nice read about the Catholic view on evolution here.

[ShadowTemplar]

Boy, do I wish they'd stop being so mealy-mouthed and spell it out in cardboard:

 

"We do not have a position on the Theory of Evolution, because we do not find ourselves sufficiently qualified in the application and results of modern science to commit to a position. And because it's none of our business anyway. And no, we don't have a position on the Theory of Gravity, or the Standard Model, or Cosmological Inflation, either. Nor, for that matter, do we have a position on Keynesian economics or the viability of the Welfare State. We're not here to do your high school homework."

[toms]

There was an interersting programme on Channel 4 (UK) a night or so back where an Oxford Professor (biology?) challenged the way religion is attacking evolution. The programme was called "Root of all evil?" and was actually mainly his opinion that religion is a very backward thinking concept and is causing all sorts of damage to the world. He wasn't entirely focussing on evolution, but also covered things like other science, conraception, religions extremism and hatred, etc.. I think there is a part 2 next week.

 

There was an interesting part where he went to a big southern evangelical centre to talk to the head guy, and the guy was claiming that if you "talked to scientists you wouldn't find any two of them that agreed on the way evolution worked".

The (world leading) scientist then said that he had never met any, and was told he obviously talked to the wrong scientists... and to stop being arrogant.

 

Then later some guy drove up in his pickup and shouted at them to get out of town and stop "calling his kids animals". Was weird.

[SkinWalker]

Richard Dawkins is the Man!