Over at UD, we have a thread entitled:
Why does defending Darwin increasingly remind one of defending communist economics?
It features some quotes from J. William Schopf, regarding some ancient fossils that appear morphologically identical to modern microorganisms.
“It seems astounding that life has not evolved for more than 2 billion years — nearly half the history of Earth,” said J. William Schopf, a UCLA professor of earth, planetary and space sciences in the UCLA College who was the study’s lead author. “Given that evolution is a fact, this lack of evolution needs to be explained.”
and
“The rule of biology is not to evolve unless the physical or biological environment changes, which is consistent with Darwin,” said Schopf, who also is director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. The environment in which these microorganisms live has remained essentially unchanged for 3 billion years, he said.
Jerry Coyne has blogged the same topic:
At UD, Mapou has posted:
The only problem with this is that random mutations, the engine of change in Darwinian evolution, do not care whether the environment changes or not. Mutations keep occurring no matter what. You just got to love Darwinists.
Which, ironically, is the same thing Jerry Coyne says.
They lose their teeth, sink into depression, and eventually die — a pretty consistent reaction. Blame Original Sin.
GlenDavidson,
We know what we know and who knows better.
You make my case.
AMEN about bat wings. Their likeness to mice or other creatures in these details makes the case they were a post flood adaption and not a created thing from creation week.
They show a common design in many details and then change came later.
it would be this way from a creationist model also.
This YEC sees marine mammals as first land lovers and only post flood adaptation. Those are special cases.
Genetics is ver involved and the bible would explain things based on ideas of the fall etc and new death.
Thats off the path here a bit.
I see at basic levels in biology a great sameness. nOt just like in eyeballs likeness for all/most but in the dna too.
a common design easily would handle the evidences presented for common descent that use likeness in genetics or higher looks.
Its all about grouping and then a hunch about the reason behind it.
Evos too quickly ignored the design option and therefore the descent conviction is not a scientific one but only a option that they saw no alternative too.
A big flaw in investigation.
EASILY a common reaction based on fundamental reactions to needs would produce like results.
why not/
Robert Byers,
As long as you accept the evidence for evolution, quite contrary to ID and other versions of creationism as these exist today, it hardly concerns me that you don’t actually accept the broader implications of that evidence.
Glen Davidson
Robert Byers,
This is just flat-out wrong. Common Design simply cannot explain hierarchic patterns in non-expressed DNA – in things that do not even make a difference to the ‘design’ of the organism (as one can easily prove by swapping them about). But you are disinterested in reason; I’ll leave you to your lines of ‘reasoning’.
Robert Byers,
I don’t think you get the point. When you actually subject an organism to such a ‘need’, it does not rearrange its DNA according to this ‘need’. It dies.
You realize they are talking about ONE species of bacteria, don’t you? There are millions of species in the world.
Millions of species evolve, one doesn’t and that means there is no evolution according to you?
You are not very consistent, are you?
An example, please. Can you describe what the mechanism of design of living organisms is?
An example, please. Can you describe what the mechanism of creation of living organisms is?
Just for the record, the thread was started to point out that it is impossible to say that evolution did not occur, just because morphology did not change. And very unlikely that evolution did not occur.
petrushka,
Of course, but you can say that to someone who knows what evolution is.
Its not one species. Its a test of the hypothesis that it fails.
We are saying the others didn’t evole. Change yes but not by selection on mutation plus time.
The lack of change, with lots of time, is a clue nothing ever changed by the equation of the evo hypothesis.
Thats the point.
Its like a out of place clue in a sherlock Holmes story.
Its a damning clue.
Therefore other mechanisms are there to be discovered to explain post creation week change in biology.
Creationists know this because of just looking at peoples looks despite coming from a family off the ark.
Innate triggers must be in biology life or rather a memory is in the biology that can be triggered.
Kist like in our own memories.
Millions of positives, one “negative”, and the hypothesis fails? I don’t get it. In fact, though is very unlikely that a species could remain unchanged so long (and this “unchanged” still has to be verified genetically) it’s not impossible. The theory of evolution does not state that every species HAS TO change. It depends on chance and selection. If selective pressure from the environment has not changed, then it depends on chance alone.
And what was the mechanism that produce that change? And why this mechanism you propose does not act on this particular bacteria?
Robert should check out the Wagner book to find out how genetic codes can change over time without affecting form or metabolism.
Neutral drift has been around as an idea for a long time, but Wagner explains how sequences can be mostly replaced over time with no change to phenotype.
NOT millions of positives. Thats not proven. This case , and others, is THE test of the hypothesis. It fails in unlikely, unreasonable, unpossibleness.
NO. You can’t say that biology is so senstive to change that it turned fish into me but aLL THAT TIME there was no change going on, or affecting, whatsover.
This is a predictable result from creationist criticisms. Gottcha.
It would be just more speculation that there was great time passing with genetic changing.
the real time results of things not having changed is a actual test of the hypothesis.
Its real science. Evolution as a hypothesis fails the test.
Evolution is based on things that can’t be tested.
This time it was. There is most likely more to come. This thing is not a special case.
A prediction. are you guys saying it is?? Make your bets!
Robert Byers,
“If we evolved from fish, how come there are still fish?”
Ok, then you need to explain a mechanism that hats put those millions of species on Earth. As far as I know, evolution is the only mechanism known capable of such thing.
And we know evolution is a real mechanism because it has been observed. So, even if I granted that we have not proven evolution for every species on Earth, it has been proven in a lot of species. So, still it’s one negative against many positives.
So, your claim is this: “right now, I can’t see any cat; that proves cats are not real”.
And nobody is saying that!!! Good point denying what nobody said, well done!!!!
Did you notice the article says this bacteria looks almost exactly as it did billions of years ago? Did you notice the authors are not saying that it “turned into” anything else?
Like living organisms having DNA? Like the genome of different individuals in a population not being exactly the same? Like different individuals having different fitness? Like proportions of alleles changing in different generations?
All those things are the basis of evolution and have been tested.
You did not explain the mechanism that produces the change you accept in living organisms.
It was the will of Cod Almighty.
You’re on the hook for that pun killing the thread.