(July 17, 2014 at 10:42 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote:(July 17, 2014 at 10:32 am)SteveII Wrote: Jenny--No, I am not proposing God mutated them. I was merely pointing out that in the presence of *possible evidence* that we do not all have a common decent, that that conclusion is not even considered. This seems to happen time and time again. Pieces of evidence that call into question the common decent hypothesis are given elaborate theories to bolster the original hypothesis. This merely perpetuates the idea that common decent is true and ALL the science points that way--and then the cycle repeats.
My point is that scientist are not trying to falsify the hypothesis of common ancestor. They have already accepted it as true (which I think is bias). When theist scientist (that don't have this bias) gather up all the questions in one place, they are labeled at best, crackpots.
Here is a list of other legit questions. Of course there are theories to explain each one of them. Are they sufficient? Do these questions, when taken together carry any additional weight?
1. Fossil record for intermediate forms. You have to drink a lot of coolaid to make the claim that the fossil record proves common decent. It could just as easily be used to prove the opposite.
2. Genetics has wiped out the old "Tree of Life". Since different genes tell a different evolutionary story, it must be a web.
3. "Convergent Evolution". The odds of an organism developing a new useful feature is at the very least exceptional. To have the same or similar features evolve in parallel is simply staggering.
4. No vestigial organs or other features. Shouldn't we see all kinds of useless parts in all kinds of organisms on their way out?
5. I know this get's into the origin of life issue, but we now know the cell is one of the most complicated things on the planet.
6. GRNs are so complicated yet necessary for complex life. Chicken or the egg?
7. The ongoing net effect of random mutations is actually degrading functionality in human genetics.
8. Mathematical improbability of enough time.
Wow. Some of your numebred points make me wonder if you've done any research into any of the responses to your claims at all. The quesiton about 'intermediate forms' is horseshit, been disproven I can't count how many times. I've already addressed your "tree of life" statement and how evolution is not linear and is very inefficient in many cases, and that a bush would be a much more accurate metaphor, with many branches that end, each with innumberable branches that also end, sudden truncations and useless deviations, beacuse evolution is not a goal oriented process. Whenever you bring up 'odds' or 'probability', I have to ask how you exactly calculated that probability, especially considering your misunderstanding of evolution in the first place.
As for vestigal organs, are you serious? Just to list a few that occur in humans: The appendix, the coccyx, wisdom teeth, the vomeronasal organ, certain ear muscles that do not function, the plica semilunaris tissue of the eyes, certain parts of genitalia and embryo development, and not to mention the list of junk DNA in our genome that doesn't appear to do much of anything. Seriously dude.
And just to your last point, again I ask to see your calculations of this improbability.
Are you kidding me about the fossil record. Do you really think it shows what you think it does. If evolution were true, there would have been ancestors and transitional creatures between each genus, family, order, class, and phylum in the layers below the Cambrian Explosion. Where are they.
Your tree of life explanation? You simply stated that it was confusing and inefficient and that it was a bush. Well, it's not. A bush does not branch low and then reconnect further up so some genes can get from that branch to the other branch to match the observation. Genes are telling different evolutionary stories and drawing them does not explain them.
It seems the vestigial parts list is getting smaller--starting with the appendix. It now seems to "serve an important role" http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...tion-of-t/ Also, plenty of mammals have appendixes. The coccyx is an anchor point to muscles--hardly useless. Other examples--perhaps remnants of the past, but perhaps, like the appendix, we just don't know the purpose yet.
Junk DNA? Read http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6099/1159.summary
