Creationists: since speciation has been confirmed many times?

Question

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY


(here are at least 15 examples):

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html

and since evolution proceeds by the accumulation of many small scale changes,

if there were no barrier to these small changes, you would expect the changes to give an incredible diversity of living organisms (the way the fossil record shows).

So, what barrier to constant change do you propose?



(This will be about the 6th time I've asked this question, and no creationists have ever attempted a serious answer).

Merry Christmas

seenotes: You could say a little more (like what the heck to you mean by that?).

Chi guy and Todd: that wasn't what I asked.

Ashely: What do you mean?

Tony: ?????

Chi guy: answer the question.

gilliamichael: You are the first one that has ever attempted an answer - thumbs up for that.

However, you could not be more wrong. The mutations you speak of, are the same ones that got all organisms where they are today (we are all accumulated mutations).

The question of DNA adding information is an easy one: Gene doubling and chromosome doubling.

Angus: that was not what I asked.

Curious: actually, most mutations do absolutely nothing (for the phenotype).

Mutations are what gives each offspring it's unique qualities.

gilliamichael: I wish I could say the same for you about having done your reading. Chromosome doubling happens all of the time and it usually harmless (look at ferns for great examples). THIS provides the raw information that will work when it is mutated. Think of it... with doubled genetic information, you get DNA that is now free to change and not effect the organism. Now, base pairs can change slightly and created new proteins. (Someone of your intelligence should have looked into this by now).

gilliamichael: here is a link to at least 14 peer reviewed sources for that (which lead to many more if you follow the links around). I can provide more if you wish (but I'm going to bed now). I will check for your response in the morning.

Merry Christmas

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

Already Saved: It would probably help if you described what these "in-built limitations" are. Otherwise, you have said nothing.

And specieation, IS change in one form to another.

I wish you had bothered to read the details I provided to actually understand the idea of mutations and the source of more genetic material. But reading your rant that was so rife with misinformation tells me that you really have no wish to understand (and you've written too many things for me to respond to).

So the question will still loom for you, and until you can come up with an answer, you will always appear as just a religious person who feels his faith is threatened by evolution.

Perhaps, your god is just deceptive or is just not capable of using an evolutionary process. But for many believers and non-believers who use the tools of science properly, they understand that life is much richer than that.

gilliamichael: I have provided for you, peer reviewed sources for all of those things that you claimed were "unobservable" and had "not been observed ever." Are you sure you looked at the SECOND link I provided? It has links to at least 14 peer reviewed papers that provide the exact thing you are claiming can not happen. Many of them have links to the original papers. One has a link to a search that brought up over 3000 references on gene duplication.

I think you have misunderstood it as a two step process:
1. Gene/chromosome doubling produces the new raw genetic material. It does not affect the organism because the useful genes are saved in the other copy.
2. Now, mutations can effect that copied DNA to create new functions. It only takes a single point mutation to make a new kind of protein.

We don't have to cut and past a phone book, we can just change a few words in Moby Dick and occasionally yield an equally comprehensible (but slightly different) version.

The new information can certainly wait around until it does something different. Do you think 'junk' DNA can never be acted upon and activated again? Perhaps it's function will be changed. Perhaps only altered slightly (forming a new protein).

As you have stated, we will get that extremely rare useful bit that can then be acted upon by natural selection, so that it will be not only preserved, but multiplied.

So there is your source, and the beneficial mutations come to us slowly. (The point of my original question).

You know, if we really want to get into the details, I suggest we trade email addresses.

I hope your Christmas was good.

Gilliamichael, also since you seem to be following the link of reasoning that Edward mentioned (that of Michael Behe). I thought I would provide an article that debunks his work:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5830/1427

This also debunks what you have mentioned. Of course, there are many others who debunk Behe, but this is a nice article with plenty of references and links.

Already Saved: I was hoping you would provide a little more specific mechanism than "They shall always be."

And I'm going to let you in on a little secret right now: I have been repeatedly asking this question to show the AiG aficionados that their understanding of evolution is way off. Since you have responded to this question about 3 times now (but never once really provided an answer), I would have hoped you would have caught onto this by now.

Let me say this to you carefully. Read it slowly, several times... Evolution does not predict that canids will turn into something else. That would be eviedence AGAINST evolution. Read my question again... evolution proceeds by the accumulation of SMALL changes, variety by variety, species by species.

It is only through time, extinctions and the extension of this that we get higher taxa.

Why have you never bothered to try and understand this?

Answer 1

Creationists do completely agree about speciation. It is a completely observable fact as I am certain that your reference points out. As such I fully stipulate agreement on that point.

However, you make the leap that evolution proceeds by the accumulation of many small scale changes and that has not EVER been confirmed through observation. It is an assumption that has no basis in fact. To be blunt, every attempt to demonstrate accumulated changes through speciation leading to increasing information has failed miserably.

The barriers to constant change are what we observe. Accumulated mutations create harmful effects within the genome and the resulting effect is harmful to the species. Additionally, further loss of genetic diversity as is seen in ALL cases of speciation further restrict the viability of the species as well as it's resulting diversity.

Certainly the fossil record demonstrates incredible diversity of DEAD organisms [living organisms make poor fossils] but that again does not give the reason for the diversity. You are assuming evolution, not demonstrating it.

Merry Christmas to you as well.

Also, please let me know if you would like a seventh time.

clipped from above:
However, you could not be more wrong. The mutations you speak of, are the same ones that got all organisms where they are today (we are all accumulated mutations).

That is again an unobserved assumption. There would need to be an overwhelming majority of coordinated information increasing and phenotype changing beneficial mutations to result in the kind of collectively improving changes that you are claiming with evolution. What we observe is exactly the opposite. The overwhelming [near total] majority of mutations are either harmful, information destroying, or silent as they have no phenotype changes on the organism.

As to the Gene doubling and chromosome doubling suggestion, you are grasping at straws. Doubling the existing information would most often be harmful to the organism and it would NEVER add new information that would allow the organism to change into a new direction.

Still, I appreciate the thumbs up. You at least have done your reading.

Again, Merry Christmas.


Now lets not get snippy.

I have indeed looked into it and I saw the obvious flaw that you are yourself guilty of. You say [correctly I might add] that the majority of mutations are not expressed in the phenotype of the organism. This doubling does often fall into that catagory. But then you take a flight of fantasy and imagine that further [completely unobservable] beneficial information increasing changes that DO effect the phenotype of the organism are taking place at not only an alarming rate but are somehow coordinated with other mutations that are equally beneficial information increasing phenotype changing mutations thereby allowing the organism to evolve into completely new territory.

All of this happening of course without any observable proof dispute generations of eager scientific research!

What do you say to that?

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additional comments:

Sorry for the delay in responding but I took time out to enjoy Christmas with my family-Hopefully you also took time to enjoy Christmas with people you love.

I took another look at your links and your comments and still you are relying on a false premise to give you additional information which is the basis of evolution. New information MUST be found in order to express a change in the organism from one type to the next. [notice that new information is NOT needed to change from one species to another because that is ALWAYS resulting from the loss of information.]

You want to use the "doubling" of information that does not create harm to the individual because it is not expressed in the phenotype of the organism as a source of this new information as it's data can mutate without causing harm due to its lack of providing phenotype changes. The flaw with this idea is obvious and two fold.

1- If the data is mutations of already existing information then there is no new information given. No matter how you cut and paste a phone book, you will never have a new work of fiction for the best seller list providing that you only cut and paste with a blindfold on which is the equvilent to blind mutation.

2- Even if you did somehow manage to get new useful information from this mutationally altered "extra" data set, it would still be a non-expressed data set and cause no net gain of benefit to the individual or change in its phenotype. You can not just set genes onto the back burner waiting for them to be useful before "engaging" them into useful expression. You have to take on the good and the bad as they occur. As you have already stated [correctly] that most of those changes are neutral, that leaves only the harmful, and finally the smallest catagory [extremely rare] useful.

There is still no source of large numbers of new, useful, mutations that express positive changes in the phenotype of the individual that allow evolution to progress as the theory demands. NO actual research has demonstrated anything else dispite countless attempts from generations of dedicated scientist.

Please feel free to try again. Also, while I am not sure your comment was addressed to me let me answer for others. Our faith is not threatened by evolution but we do see it as a threat to the intellengence of the populace when people blindly adhere to its faulty premise.


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This particular "conversation" is getting cumbersome in this format. I would like to persue the conversation as you suggest in email. Mine is :
[e-mail]
I will check out that article you mentioned and as you presumed, I did not follow all the links that you mentioned because I found so often that same flawed assumption. Lets try taking on one at a time if we could. Please email me.
Also, I did have a great Christmas, thanks for asking. Hopefully you did as well.

Answer 2

I am a creationist who believes in evolution. I believe evolution may have been God's will. he intents to have all these species go through changes. In Quran, the plural of worlds is used. There is a specy called the jinns is also mentioned. May be the jinns live in a different world. By the way this is my own theory. Muslims are like Christians when it comes to evolution.
Since most of the universe is unknown to the humans, there may be so many more species in different galaxies. The fragment of knowledge that we have, these theories cannot really be proven, its the question of chicken or the egg.
When there is a total barrier to change that will be armageddon. In Quran the day is described as the day when the sun will come down, the mountains will start flying in the air as if it were cotton balls. The changes have been happenning for millions of years, its a natural progression.

Answer 3

You do know what a stockbreeder calls a bad mutation don't you a cull . How many answers here would you say are culls and what does that say about the people who made them ? This is essentially a grammar school subject and they block it out because it conflicts with their trained in prejudice . Even the most reasonable cretinists here only accept as much as they can say is gods doing . Everyone else seems hopeless but not serious .

Answer 4

Well, for people who believe in something they obviously can't see, creationists seem to put a lot of their reasoning on "we haven't seen any dolphin change into a cow yet so it's not true". It's mostly because they believe what they believe, that's the whole point of it. To be honest I lean toward creationism but I have no firm reason for it... I think they think of the thought of intelligent design as the same thing as creationism and that one couldn't work without the other, which really isn't true.

Answer 5

Much too big a issue to answer right here right now but is the subject of Michael Behe's latest book edge of evolution. Is a worthwhile read but be forewarned it is not for those who aren't into the technical.

Answer 6

i dont really propose that there are barriers to change other than the time periods required for change .. i guess its a unique phenomena that humans have embarked on a road to self destruction in a relatively short period of time and in all this, we just happen to have the self awareness and knowledge to comprehend it at this given moment .. all the billions of years before were just a limbo that functioned flawlessly ..

Answer 7

The barrier to constant change is simple: in-built limitations. There has NEVER been observed, a change from one form to another. Speciation is merely greater specialisation, and almost always results in an overall LOSS of information --the OPPOSITE of what molecules-to-man evolution requires.
Even when a change by mutation does turn up -- e.g. after exposure to radiation -- the mutation is caused not by new material being generated, but by existing material being corrupted.
This corruption means that while the insect, e.g. the fruit fly, shows some marked differences from its parent (by having, for instance a leg growing from the head -- since when has such a mutation been beneficial?), the changes, while POSSIBLY beneficial in the short term, and in certain circumstances, are DOWNWARD, i.e. they are incapable of regenerating the info lost, without input from ALREADY EXISTING DNA from the parent host. We see this in the world all the time, when pure dog breeds are much more open to congenital defects (German Shepherds are prone to arthritis, Golden Labradors to cancers, Great Danes to cataracts) over, say, a mongrel, or even their parent kind, the wolf.
That they can change and be better adapted to their environment is a conservation of the existing species, not a development to a higher level. Furthermore, despite all the highly-publicised 'human ancestors', such as 'Lucy', the truth usually turns out to be much more mundane, especially when the ear canals are examined and prove they cannot walk upright. Evolutionists still cannot come up with proof that random mutations + time = new genera. The 'evolutionary tree' is replete with missing links between non-life & life, single-celled & multi-celled life, plant and animal life, asexual & sexual reproduction, invertebrate & vertebrate life, fish & amphibian, amphibian & reptile, reptile & avian, reptile & mammal, let alone how the sexes showed up simultaneously, & were perfectly suited for breeding.
Where evidence for 'speciation' exists, it is of e.g. a gnat turning into -- not a rat, bat or cat (or even steps on the way), but another (more specialised, therefore less adaptable) gnat. 'Species' in modern biology simply means a form that cannot interbreed with the parent form.
Read 'Refuting Evolution (1 & 2)', and 'Refuting Compromise', written by Jonathan Sarfati (Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Victoria University, Wellington, Australia), published by Master Books. These books take on evolutionists on their home ground, showing the facts kept from the general public though available for anyone willing to delve, and reveals that evolutionists, far from unanimous on things like dinosaur-to-bird evolution, are frequently attacking one another (though you wouldn't know it from the BBC,PBS etc shows on evolution, with their depictions of feathered T. Rex's).

The evidence for transition from all the above, while there are literally billions of fossils, is scant, & what there is, is subject to interpretation. Unfortunately, people like Richard Dawkins, David Attenborough, the late Carl Sagan et al WANT to believe in natural (i.e. no supernatural) existence, therefore REFUSE to honestly examine the supernatural evidence: this is because they want to believe we are answerable to no one. Unfortunately for them, they're wrong. If they persist, as seems likely, and probably was with Prof. Sagan, they'll go to hell, for they refused to take the salvation offered by God.
Don't make the same mistake.

Edit:
The limitation is, they shall ALWAYS be canines, felines, fruit flies, etc, not change from dogs & cats into cogs or dats. Thought you'd have realised the thrust of the limitation in the statement gnats don't turn into '... rats, bats or cats ...'.
You stated in e-mails you'd looked into what creationists believe; but if you don't know that, then plainly you haven't looked at what 'Answers in Genesis' et al teach.

May God bless all who truly seek Him.

Answer 8

I don't disagree with constant change. I just don't see any record of consistent changes for the better. Most mutations make the organism sick disabled or etc.

Answer 9

Angus seems to not know about our tail bone, or other myriad useless bits. I was pleased to see a few attempts at debate this time.

The first answer, "Blah, blah, blah..." made me very sad. It is so like she is covering her ears and saying loudly, "I can't HEAR you."

Answer 10

HA....fossil record....the vast majority of fossils show creatures with fully functional parts and fully formed...where's the transitional fossils...sorely lacking from the record.

You want a serious answer?
You direct me to talkorigins.
I'll direct you to answersingenesis.
Big deal...we both have scientists backing up our beliefs.

Hey, you brought up the fossil record.