Comment on Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’ by krissmith777.
@ Sean Pitman
Mutation of the c-kit gene causes the constitutive or unregulated activity of tyrosine kinase. In other words, there is a loss of functionality that results in a tumor. Tyrosine kinase is usually well controled. It can be turned off and on. However, occasional mutations come along that keep the tyronsine kinase activity of the protein turned on all the time. The normal ability to turn off this activity is lost. Because this signaling pathway is always on, a tumor develops.
Well, true there would be a downside. There always will be a downside, but that just shows that there is no “road to perfection,” but that is fine since evolutionary theory does not make the prediction everything only gets better; just that species evolve to adapt to their enviorments. But then again, loss can be a good thing or even neutral, in which case, natural selection favors it or gives it a pass. But the point was “gain of novel function.” IF there is a function gain in location X, even if there is a loss of function in location Y, it still would be a viable evidence.
So, such examples of “evolution in action†aren’t really examples of the evolution of something qualitatively new when it comes to novel functionality.
To my knowledge, yes it sometimes has a lot to do with information that was already there. I think one of the over all points here is that “pre-existing” information has more to do with examining the “evolutionary past” of a species. For example, we know chickens do not have teeth, but we know they have the genes to produce them; hence we know the ancestors of chickens had teeth. Another example is fossil genes in our species, asa I leanred when I took Biology: We apparently have fossil genes that gave our ancestors the ability to see in the dark, but have been determined by natural selection to not affect out survival. –Point being, I think this has more to do with investigating evolutionary past rather than the present, (i.e., evolution in action).
Rather, they are examples of a loss of some pre-existing functionality and the problems that resulted from that loss of regulatory ability.
Well, of course some of them have to do with “loss” or even pre-existing information, but sometimes one’s loss is another’s gain.
There is no rule that says there should be no loss. If, for example,there are five fully functioning genes, and then one of them duplicates itself (now being six genes) and the duplicate eventually does the work much better than it’s predocessor, we may end up with the original gene being lost. As far as the number of genes is concerned, we would be right where we began, BUT since this hypothetical duplicated gene is much more efficient than it’s progenitor, we still would have a net gain despite a loss that had occured.
Genetic gain is not inherently necessary for evolution to work as there are examples of gene loss leading to succesfull, new species. We are such an example since genetic studies have calculated that we went through plenty of gene loss during our evolution:
http://www.umich.edu/~zhanglab/publications/2006/Wang_2006_PLoSB_4_e52.pdf
Gene duplication does happen, not uncommonly. However, all that results is more of the some thing.
Well, it is common. It has to be, considering that more than 97% of human genes are duplicates. (Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/103/50/19027.full.pdf )
Gene duplication, by itself, does not produce anything functionally new.
Not by itself, it doesn’t. But it does provide new raw material to work with. Most duplicates simply disappear, but there are some that have relatively newer function: One example is the Eosinophil Cationic Protein (or the ECP) which is toxic to bacteria by making their cell mambranes porus, though it has some relationship with athsma.
— In bacteria, duplicate genes (or enzyms) are one of the criteria that are used to determine different species of bacteria. (Source: http://www.biology-direct.com/content/4/1/46 )
While duplicated genetic sequences may be more able to drift in sequence space, free of the contraints of natural selection, the average time it takes for such sequences to randomly come across higher-level functionality increases, exponentially, with each step up the ladder of functional complexity.
I’m not certain where “avarage time” comes from. If by “avarage rates,” you mean the mutation rate we may be seeing now, then perhaps. But the problem here is that mutation rates are unpredictable and can really pick up the pace, hence the uncertainty with some molecular clock dating methods. Rates can really pick up, as we know from the Devonian Radiation which seem to have resulted from adaptive radiation. Some wonder if the Cambrian “explosion” is such an event, though I have my doubts about that.
krissmith777 Also Commented
Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@Professor Kent,
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, that Dr. Pitman chose to ignore this problem. According to Pitman, plate tectonics moved very rapidly during the flood and then slowed down, which creates the dilemma Kris has spoken to. The massive ocean basin and its seamounts could not have existed prior to the flood, but how could they possibly have formed in such little time during the flood itself–or during the following year?
In my judgement, it was the strongest point I made in that comment.
Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@ Professor Kent
How bizarre that I argue for the superiority of the Bible, and Bob, rather than joining me, says that Richard Dawkins–of all people, being one of the most antagonistic toward the Bible–is on my side! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE THAT CLAIM TO DEFEND SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM?
The way some of out fellow christians associate others with positions they just do not like with “hard” atheists like Richard Dawkins is nothing more than an ad hominem. — In a different thread on a different website, one person I was talking to kept bringing up Richard Dawkins. It was “Richard Dawkins says..” “Richard Dawkins claims…” It was all a tactic to simply dismiss what I was saying simply because he thought Dawkins would agree with me…even slightly. But there are major problems with such tactics: 1) Richard Dawkins speaks for Richard Dawkins, not for me. 2) I don’t even care what Richard Dawkins says, and our fellow Christians who worry about what he says should have better things to worry about. There seems to be a mentality here that because Dawkins takes a certain position, that we should take the opposite extreme, but that doesn’t even follow.
Let the hard atheists like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet and Christopher Hitchens say what they want…It makes no difference to me.
Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@Sean Pitman,
You said before that overall rate of erosion and and sedimentation world wide along with the replacement of the materials is constant… I know that. But you keep assuming that the rate of today is the same as 200 million years ago, and quite frankly, you have no basis for such an assumption…and really, there is reason to believe otherwise as well.
Geologists point out that the landmasses of today are much more mountainous and more rugged than in the past….and the mountanous topography is a excelerator to the rates of erosion…Now, if this is true, then that would mean that today the overall rate of erosion (and the addition of sediments to the ocean basins) would right now be at an all time high…As such, the current rate of sedimentary deposition cannot be used as a reliable clock to date the ocean floor. (Davis Young, Christianity & The Age Of The Earth, pages 128-131)
Reputable Creation Scientists give vastly different estimates of the sea floor accumulation. You give the estimate of 15 million years. — Henry Morris gives the estimate of 75 million years (Scientific Creationism, pages 155, 156) — Stewart E. Nevins gives the estimate of 30 million years (Link: http://www.icr.org/article/evolution-ocean-says-no/ ) — Russel Humphries’ estimate is 12 million years (Link: http://creation.com/evidence-for-a-young-world ) — With all these vastly differing estimates on the parts of creation scientists, it makes me wonder about the basis of their data…especially since it’s the same argument. It’s not as if we have numerous dating methods being used and all disagreeing…Rather, it’s that we seem to have the same method being used and still disagreeing.
–But I think I’ve found the mentality behind your argument. Stewart Nevins, on his page about the sedimentation of the sea floor, says:
In only 30 million years assuming constant rate of erosion all the ocean sediments could have accumulated. This age does not square with the over 1 billion year age assumed by evolutionary uniformitarian geologists. (Bold, his)
So, his argument is that since today’s rate would have deposited more, that therefore the principal of uniformity is wrong.. I dare say anyone who claims that geologists think “rates” have always been the same for EVERYTHING doesn’t understand the principle…At least, not in it’s current form. The principle he is refering to is known as “Substantive Uniformitarianism,” and modern geology rejects that. — Geologists now use a different principle called “Methodological Uniformitarianism”; that is processes around today have happened in the past…whether it be a storm, a mudslide, a volcanic eruption, etcetera..They may happen at different rates, but the same phenomena that happen today leave a finger print, and we can identify a geologic formation from the past with a similar finger print. (For more reading on this: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1979/JASA9-79Young.html )
Recent Comments by krissmith777
Scientists ‘potentially skeptical’ of evolution need not apply
I do not know all the details, but I do think that the University is handling this situation quite badly. In the actual news article itself drom the Hufington post, some scientists are quoted as saying that they may as well have a “Creation Museum” with him around… Logical Fallacy: “Slippery Slope.”
Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians
@Sean Pitman,
At the very least, global migration under ideal conditions, even of sloths, seems plausible (and I think unavoidable given the doubling time for sloth populations under ideal circumstances) – certainly not “impossible†as you’re trying to suggest.
Well, for the record, I said “it would have been difficult, if not impossible.” Perhaps it was possible.
After all, even sloths can move up to a mile in less than four hours when they want to…
They can move faster under some conditions. But it is my understanding that even though they could, they tend not to. They tend to pick up the pace only when necessary; like when they are fleeing from a predator, they can move up to 15 feet a minute, and even then they burn a lot of energy while doing it. On the grund, their maximum speed, however, is 5 feet a minute. (Link: http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/rainforests/sloth.html )
— Perhaps a journey of such a route could have been possible under certain conditions. Who knows?
But, what I am more concerned about is not the journey, but rather a trail that they would have left behind from Eastern Turkey to North America. I’m more interested in what they would have left behind on their migration to indicate that they were there. For a while, they should have at least had a population in those regions… Perhaps they still would have decendants in Russian forests, or skeletal remains from those who did not make it.
Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians
@Professor Kent
Thus, we cannot expect each successive generation to continue a straight-line march across the globe for thousands or even hundreds of years. In their normal daily movements, they might move 5 miles in a year…but not in a straight line. We have been reassured that even a “small slow tree sloth†can migrate at a 12-mile-per-year pace across the globe. I don’t think so!
It would require movement in areas of the world that they are not adapted to. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the sloth to move from Eastern Turkey, across the Bering Straight land bridge, then from Alaska and then to South America…But, for a moment, lets suppose for a moment that they succeeded…
The sloths tend to live between 10 and 20 years, and in that time they tend to have a single newborn per year. If we go with the conservative number that would mean that at minimum, they probably reproduce 10 newborns within 10 years, but it is also true that the newborns tend to have a high mortality rate within the very first year of their lives. – There is no statistic at the actual death rate in the first year before they have a chance to reproduce, but since there obviously was a net gain in the population (since the flood), that allows the minimum survival rate to be 40%. This would mean that if they birthed 10 newborn sloths, then a maximum of 6 die. If 2 males and two females survived, and if they in turn also had 2 males and 2 females that survived, there would constantly be a doubled population of sloths: The first generation (from the ark) which would be 2 sloths would therefore lead to 4 which in turn leads to 8, and then to 16, and so on and so forth.
[The mistake I made in a former comment was allowing the survival rate being 20% which, now that I think of it, would have only produced only two surviving sloths constantly. It had to have been more.]
Add into the equation that it is over 3,000 miles from Eastern Turkey to the Bering Strait which leads to North America. – Using Sean’s estimate that they may have traveled 12 miles in a [year], that would indicate that they made it to the outskirts of North America in 250 years. With this in mind, one is left to wonder about a population of sloths in modern Russia which should have been considerable…or at least noticeable, though it is possible there may have been times when their birth rates and survival rates would have dropped a bit, though that doesn’t clear the problem, and there should be evidence of such a migration from Eastern Turkey. – Also, when one factors in the time sloths spend sleeping in a day (15 to 18 hours a day), the idea that they could have traveled 12 miles a year is a stretch. And that goes without mentioning that they almost never get out of the trees. That begs the question of how far they were willing to walk over treeless territory until they would find more trees.
Why those who hate the Bible love blind-faith Christians
In my experience, those who hate the Bible hate any kind of Christian, not just people of blind faith.
But I don’t think anyone here is really insisting on blind faith, I think they just don’t want to use a certain sort of “test tube” for God. –There is evidence that the Bible is divinely inspired, which is why I hold it in high esteem. Even in the areas that would seem to have some “weakness” of archeological evidence, there is still some real strength that warrents belief. The profecy of the “cutting-off” of the messiah in Daniel 9:24-27 actually gives a time-frame that Jesus really seems to match, and as such I see true divine inspiration in the book of Daniel (which is actually my favorite book of the Bible). Even if Daniel were written in 164 BC, as a lot of skeptics believe, no uninspires writter would ever know such a detail. So, despite my differences of opinion of interpretation, there is no doubt in my mind that God did in fact inspire the Bible. This itself, in my judgement, is good, imperical evidence for not just the Bible, but also God himself.
But, as said before, the problem others here have is reducing God to a “test tube.” As a Christian myself, I am not crazy about that. — You ended your post with a good quote from Galileo Galilei, and so I shall end this comment with another from him:
The Bible teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.
Michigan Conference takes substantial action in LSU conflict
@krissmith777: Great liberal minds always think the same, they can judge the outcome. Outcome based decisions ignore principled decisions. Christ on the cross could not see through the grave, a great example of a principled decision!Thank you Michigan for standing on principle. (Quote)
I am not a liberal.
