[PRACTICE] Hone your skills

[Darth Servo]

Hmmm. the most "concise and eloquent" rebuttal?

"One lie after another"

[Base Delta Zero]

((Continuing the Wonders of Logic: A refutation in two parts))

-- this would make it able to react to its environment, such as the shadow of a predator lurking overhead. Now, these cells might become concave, offering better field of vision, then filled with mucous etc... until eventually a lens and the whole complex eye system developed.
As for the wing, they were originally flaps of skin between arms used to assist in gliding. Eventually the became larger and the arms longer in order to provide more lift for gliding until they grew large enough that a flapping creature could fly on its own.
As for sentience (sapience, whatever), it is not a distinctive cut-off or an on/off switch, but a combination of several mental factors, which many different animals have in varying degrees. Humans (and perhaps some higher primates) are unique only in the extent and union of these factors.

A darwinian micromutation, such as one that might create a lense or a retina would not provide any advantage to an organism's survival and reproduction--would in fact be utterly useless--unless accompanied by numerous other micromutations, each of the precise type required to create the other parts of the organ in question. Wings are even more difficult to explain using natural selection, since the evolution of forelimbs into wings would have placed the intermediates at a serious disadvantage long before htey became useful for flying. It is hard to imagine the complex avian lung, the complicated sonar system of the bat, and an almost infinite number of other intricate organic mechanism arising through the accidental accumulation of precisely the corect parts.

I've largely adressed this already, but Evolution is not 'accidental'. The 'correct parts' accumulate over time, with each change being minor. Avian lungs didn't spring into existance, flying creatures with large lungs had better stamina, and thus an advantage, so they were selected until the lungs grew to their present size, bats with better hearing similarly had an advantage... do you really not see how these would not be an advantage? If the proto-bat didn't have sonar, better hearing would still benefit it.

Furthermore, most body parts are not the product of a specific gene, but of interactions among various genes, with each individual gene contributing to various different properties. Since a destructive effect on any essential body function is fatal, any mutation that had such an effect, however beneficial in some other respect, would prove fatal.

Actually, while most body parts are the product of different 'codes' or molecules, they are still part of the same metaphorical gene, or 'allele'. This allele may not be physically together on the chromosome, but it acts as a single instruction. Of course, I'm not a molecular biologist, but in any case, your second point has no relation to the first. It is also perhaps the most obvious statement of all time; of course an animal with a fatal mutation would die, but many mutations have no or a negligible adverse effect on critical systems. A mutation that causes an abnormally strong heart, for instance, might not have a harmful effect, and actually be beneficial.

Darwin's theory of evolution says that each part of the bodily system arose by chance and was preserved by change for long periods until the accidental appearance of numerous other parts of the precise kind required, finally kmade the original part useful, without any of the changes proving detrimental enough to threaten the species' survival in the meantime.

Sorry, Darwin's theory of evolution does not say that. It says that individually advantageous changes compounded to form new varieties of bio-structures. A random primordeal blob did not develop an eye lens, then a retina, then an iris, but it could have developed photosensitive skin cells. Actually, the Theory of Evolution just says that organism with an advantageous difference are more survive to reproduce (passing that trait on) resulting in the development of species, but whatever.

A group of world-renown statistians declared evolution unlikely on that basis.

Some day, a creationist will realize that evolution isn't random and... wait, they don't have that kind of intelligence.

FOurth, there is no pattern of evolution at the molecular level.

That doesn't even make since, unless you're trying to say molecules... somehow... evolve...

Fifth, despite several millenia of intense experimentaion, plant and animal breeders have only been able to create new varieties within the species through artificial selection. They have never been able to convert one species into antoher--though human intelligence is far more powerful than mere accident or change.

'Several millenia' is NOTHING. Evolution takes place over a period of aeons (that is, millions of years). Additionally, the populations you're probably thinking about have not been seperated. I would also point out the example of a horse and a donkey, or a lion and a tiger, species which are not yet divergent enough to be unbreedable, but whose offspring are inferile.

Sixth, it is now known that similarities in the structures of different animals cannot be pressed back to any similarity in the position of the cells of embryos and that these similar structures need not be controlled by identical genes. If the similaries of animal structures are the result of a common biological desent, why don't these similarities arise from common embryonic parts and similar genes? In other words, Darwin's embryology argument has been discredited.

Are you trying to say that different animals parts don't arise from the same parts of the embryo? If your talking about the cells dividing in different places, well, yes, the cells divide in a different place every time, even in the same species. Have you looked at developing embryos lately? Early in gestation, it's almost impossible to tell a human from a chimpanzee from a turtle from a chicken from a pig, or for invertibrates, a crab from a shrip from a barnacle, and vertibrate embryos even show some similarity to invertibrates.



Most people don't do this, but I'd like to take some time to talk about what kinds of system's you'd see if 'intelligent design' was really true.

• 1. A minimum of complexity. As creationists constantly remind us, life is very, very complex, with intricate (and inefficient and trouble-prone) systems. A designer would want his creations as simple as possible, in order to reduce the amount of things that could go wrong.
  2. No obsolete or otherwise useless parts. I'm looking at you, appendix. And vestigal arm bones in whales, and any of the vast number of wasteful systems. A designer would include nothing except what was needed, superflous machinery adds weight and can break.
  3. Materials that don't break when you sneeze on them. Carbon isn't the strongest stuff on the planet, and the human body is extremely vulnerable to damage. There are many other materials that are not, metals for instance. An intellegent designer does not build things out of weak materials, he builds from the best ones, especially when he intends his creations to last. (And don't tell me God couldn't design a self-replicating mechanical system, it really isn't that hard.)
  4. No blind obendience to other designs. Unless God made the earth using a Standard Template Construct, there's no reason every creature should carry the same designs as others, while they're no longer useful or even detrimental. Actually, even a Standard Template Construct would do better. There would obviously be similarities in design, but some things in nature are akin to building a jet airplane - and putting on a propeller, just because other planes have it.

[Adrian Laguna]

Additionaly, the human eye, for instance, is 'miswired' so that information actually comes in inverted and must be fixed by the brain.

I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with miswiring. The necessity of the eye to both be a pit and have light arrive through a narrow opening causes the images to flip on their own. In an optical photographic camera, the images in the film are also inverted because of this.

[Darth Servo]

Additionaly, the human eye, for instance, is 'miswired' so that information actually comes in inverted and must be fixed by the brain.

I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with miswiring. The necessity of the eye to both be a pit and have light arrive through a narrow opening causes the images to flip on their own. In an optical photographic camera, the images in the film are also inverted because of this.

Its a natural effect of any lens. To not have the image inverted, the reception area would need to be in front of the focal point of the lens.

[Mr. Coffee]

Hmmm. the most "concise and eloquent" rebuttal?

"One lie after another"

Even more concise... "Bullshit". Are we getting graded on this?

[Base Delta Zero]

I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with miswiring. The necessity of the eye to both be a pit and have light arrive through a narrow opening causes the images to flip on their own. In an optical photographic camera, the images in the film are also inverted because of this.

It was my understanding that Celaphods (such as squid) don't have this problem, and the information reaches their brain right side-up.

[The_Nice_Guy]

FOurth, there is no pattern of evolution at the molecular level.

I'll reply only to the fourth point, seeing as that most posters here did not.

The protein myoglobin in the human body possesses distinct similarities to some insect proteins, and when they were discovered in the fifties, were the first clear example of evolution at the molecular level, with the mammalian protein being more complex but still possessing the same general structure. I just attended a lecture by a chemistry Nobel Laureate(Huber) where he talked about his research on this and the implications of his work.

So clearly the fourth point was wrong.

TWG

[The_Nice_Guy]

Addendum: The insect protein was erythrocruorin.

TWG