In Six Days (A Biology PHD looks at Evolution)

In Six Days ^ | 02/17/05 | Timothy G. Standish, PHD biology

[furball4paws]

It's simple but nobody has done it.

Well then, lead!

PS I read a post about your daughter earlier. Congrats on a sharp specimen, but you'd better watch when she turns 14 (unfortunate voice of experience, sigh) :))

[RightWingNilla]

The sentence has 28 characters in it, so the probability is (1/27)28 or 1.2 x 10–40. That is about one chance in 12,000 million million million million million million! You would want a lot of monkeys typing very fast for a long time if you ever wanted to see this happen!

My God the writer COMPLETELY missed the point of Dawkins' example.

Cumulative selection is the key to understanding evolution. No one in their right mind (except creationists) argues that proteins and other macro-molecules arose in one step.

Evolution by its very definition postulates that these processes occured gradually.

Why is this simple concept so repeatedly misunderstood?

[FactsMatter]

Can you site a source for that?

[RadioAstronomer]

bttt for later read.

[antihannityguy]

Dinosaurs and humans did not co-exist.

Where is your evidence. If you read the Bible there are various passages about dragons and the leviathan. Dinosaur is a relatively new term invented in the 1800s I believe,

Carbon dating does tell us how old organic material is.

But it is frequently misused and is inaccuarate over a certain number of years

Light travels at a set speed, and millions of years must have passed for us to see starts that are millions of light years away.

Tere is evidence that the speed of light has slowed from the mid 1800s and if calculated backwards is near infinite 6000 years ago.

[Moral Hazard]

This article is pretty much a joke. This guy complains that nobody has found another planet that's like the Earth, when we currently have no ability to find another planet like the Earth. There are approximately 10^22 candidate solar systems out there, and we can't even check one of them other than our own.

He also seems to be of the opinion that evolutionary biology requires fully functioning complex proteins to form spontaneously. This is a bizzare argument. All that is required in the first "spark" is that you have an amino acid that is capable of self-replication. That is, it bonds with the surrounding material in the "primordial ooze" until it's formed two copies of itself, then splits apart from there. That's the logical starting point of evolution. Once there are trillions of copies you might expect some further mutation.

As for this "intelligent design" concept, it's just a cop-out. It finds God to be wherever you can't explain, and conversely finds him in nothing that you can explain. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean that there isn't a natural reason why it works.

[FactsMatter]

Do you think that, maybe, just maybe the reason for the 'slow down' in c is because we have much better equipment now that is much more reliable and has far greater accuracy?

[RightWingNilla]

As for this "intelligent design" concept, it's just a cop-out. It finds God to be wherever you can't explain, and conversely finds him in nothing that you can explain.

Its bad for science, yet its even worse for religion.

[RadioAstronomer]

I think we have misinterpreted the data and when rightly understood it won't show billions of years old at all.

There is way too much evidence that says the universe is billions of years old. Fortunately there was and event called SN1987A that gave us conclusive evidence that out distance measurement methodologies are valid.

[antihannityguy]

I believe the Institute for Creation Research has a very good web site www.icr.org with many other interesting facts that Darwinists overlook

[El Gato]

So far, only one place has been discovered where conditions for life are present, and we are already living on it. Thus, there is not much cause for optimism that the universe is teeming with planets bathed in a primordial soup from which life might evolve.

Never mind that we are not yet able to detect a planet the size of the earth at a similar distance from a similar star, even if that star were as close as Alpha Centari, Epsilon Eridani or other very very nearby stars.

IOW, if we were near one of those nearby stars, we couldn't detect the earth!.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

This is the same argument that I've heard wherein a Catholic Priest, when questioned on some theology replied: "Well my son, I don't know about that, but if we are going to hell, there are 500,000,000 of us going together."

[nyg4168]

Dinosaurs and humans did not co-exist.

Where is your evidence. If you read the Bible there are various passages about dragons and the leviathan. Dinosaur is a relatively new term invented in the 1800s I believe.

Well, as anti-evolutionists are keen to point out, you cannot prove a negative. (You cannot prove that God didn't create the world, for example) But you can have enough evidence to make any rational person believe a negative has been disproved. In this case, the overwhelming evidnce (and lack of evidence to the contrary) would lead any rational person to believe that humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist.

"Dinosaur" may be a recently new term, but humans have seen the evidence of giant lizard fossils in the ground for millenia. The only mention of Dragons in the Bible is in Revelation, which is a vision interpreted as a prophecy.

Carbon dating does tell us how old organic material is.

But it is frequently misused and is inaccuarate over a certain number of years.

Frequent misuse does not mean it is wrong. I frequently misuse my calculator; that doesn't mean the calculator is wrong.. And apparently science has figured out that it can be inaccurate after a certain time period, and thus we know when and when not to rely on it so we're not being fooled.

Light travels at a set speed, and millions of years must have passed for us to see starts that are millions of light years away.

Tere is evidence that the speed of light has slowed from the mid 1800s and if calculated backwards is near infinite 6000 years ago.

Well, first of all, I think that measurements of the speed of light were not quite as accurate in the 1800s as they are today, so I'm not persuaded it has changed. And second, that's quite a leap to say it was infinite 6000 years ago without presenting an awful lot of observations and math.

For me, it all boils down to this: If you've ever been around scientists, you know they are always testing and criticising and poking holes in theories. The search to understand the world around us. That's the point of science. If there were credible evidence of creation in six days 6,000 years ago, you better believe the science world would publish and recognize it. It's just irrational to believe that hundreds of thousands of scientists have for centuries been involved in a consiracy to distort evidence in order to deny the biblical account of creation.

[El Gato]

IOW, if we were near one of those nearby stars, we couldn't detect the earth!.

Other than by the copious radio frequency emissions, but even that method is only possible out to less than 100 light years, since we've not been putting out much of that stuff any longer than that.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping, but I'm not going to bother the evolution list for stuff like this.

[stylin19a]

...For example, flipping a coin ten times in a row and getting heads each time is very unlikely; one would only expect it to happen about 1 in 1,024 tries. Most of us would not sit around flipping coins just to see it happen, but if we had a million people flipping coins, we would see it happen many times. This phenomenon is publicized in the newspapers when lottery winners are announced. Winning a million-dollar jackpot is unlikely, but with millions of people purchasing tickets, eventually someone wins...

Using the 10 heads in a row analogy stinks. It has to assume that once you flip heads 10 times in a row, it will now always be heads on any flip. Randomness can no longer apply

Rather, try this one on for size.

Take 10 identical coins and mark them 1 to 10.
Place them in your pocket.
Now take one out...there is one chance in 10 that you will get the number 1.
Now put it back in your pocket.
Pull a coin. The chances that 2 will follow 1 are not 1 in 10 , but 1 in a hundred.
With each new coin taken out, the risk is multiplied by 10.
So that 10 following 9 is 1 in 10,000,000,000.

Now try that with all the things that are required to make life.

Randomness ? Not a chance.

[microgood]

All that is required in the first "spark" is that you have an amino acid that is capable of self-replication.

And somehow from this these amino acids figure out how to grow organs, arms, legs, brains, eyes, DNA Chains billions and billions of molecules long.

It would take one smart amino acid and a whole lot of punctuated equilibrium to do that.

For me, evolution is not believable until this process can be explained, which of course it cannot be based on current evolutionary theory. That is why Gould came up with punctuated equilibrium which explains nothing.

[antihannityguy]

Well, as anti-evolutionists are keen to point out, you cannot prove a negative. (You cannot prove that God didn't create the world, for example) But you can have enough evidence to make any rational person believe a negative has been disproved. In this case, the overwhelming evidnce (and lack of evidence to the contrary) would lead any rational person to believe that humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist.

Well then to quote you "But you can have enough evidence to make any rational person believe a negative has been disproved. In this case, the overwhelming evidnce (and lack of evidence to the contrary) would lead any rational person to believe" that there is no MISSING link, as one has never been found despite the many fraudulent attempts.


Frequent misuse does not mean it is wrong. I frequently misuse my calculator; that doesn't mean the calculator is wrong.. And apparently science has figured out that it can be inaccurate after a certain time period, and thus we know when and when not to rely on it so we're not being fooled.

How ever you are wrong if you go around touting that incorrect number on your calculator as correct

It's just irrational to believe that hundreds of thousands of scientists have for centuries been involved in a consiracy to distort evidence in order to deny the biblical account of creation.

However evolution has only been around for a about 170 years, as for your conspiracy theory, how about the lack of discourse in public schools. Secular educators refuse to even acknowledge that evolution has problems. Although one is sincere, they can be sincerely wrong.

[jwalsh07]

All that is required in the first "spark" is that you have an amino acid that is capable of self-replication.

You've found an amino acid that can self replicate?