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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Atheism
- Thread starter Disco08
- Start date
Can't see any real reason to make merging a priority trobber. Although the topics are related, unless you want this merged with the politics thread?, they could both meander off in very different directions. Then again I haven't read the threads that closely so will leave the decision to others to do as they see fit. 
Re: Rosy, it's time to use the mergenator
I've seen it all rosy, and it's a different topic, IMO.rosy23 said:Then again I haven't read the threads that closely so will leave the decision to others to do as they see fit.
Curtis E Bear said:The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing at all...
*smile*, I'm wise!
Yep - the more I learn the more I realise there is much more I don't know....................
Disco08 said:
Horse evolution: you get a bunch of fossils of similar and vaguely similar creatures from places all over the world and put it together into a sequence. Hey Presto, you have one of the showpieces of evolution!
As for the vesigal 'toes' on the horse this article shows they are not vesigal at all!
'Horses and camels have muscles in their legs with tendons more than 600 millimetres long connected to muscle fibres less than 6 millimetres long. Such short muscles can change length only by a few millimetres as the animal moves, and seem unlikely to be of much use to large mammals. The tendons function as passive springs, and it has been assumed that the short muscle fibres are redundant, the remnants of longer fibres that have lost their function over the course of evolution. But Wilson and colleagues argue… that these fibres might protect bones and tendons from potentially damaging vibrations….
Their experiments show that short muscle fibers can damp the damaging vibrations following the impact of a foot on the ground. When the foot of a running animal hits the ground, the impact sets the leg vibrating; the frequency of the vibrations is relatively high-for example, 30-40 Hz in horses-so many cycles of vibration would occur while the foot was on the ground if there were no damping.
The vibrations might cause damage, because bone and tendon are susceptible to fatigue failure. Fatigue in bones and tendons is the accumulation of damage resulting from repeated application of stresses. Bone fatigue is responsible for the stress fractures suffered by both human athletes and racehorses, and tendon fatigue may explain at least some cases of tendonitis. Wilson et al. suggest that the very short muscle fibres protect both bones and tendons from fatigue damage by damping out vibrations' R. Mcneill Alexander, "Biomechanics: Damper For Bad Vibrations," Nature, 20-27 December 2001.
Panthera tigris FC said:
This quote here summarises what I am talking about.
'Although an almost incomprehensible number of species inhabit Earth today, they do not form a continuous spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. Instead, nearly all species can be recognized as belonging to a relatively limited number of clearly distinct major groups, with very few illustrating intermediate structures or ways of life.' Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 9
Evolution predicts a genetic smear. Creation predicts distinct groups and variation within groups.
evo said:
This is the 'molecular clock' idea, whereby over time DNA accumulates changes. I think according to this site http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/argresp/sequence.html , the sequence roughly follows what we would expect from an animal's taxonomy. To me this is just as easily fit into common design as common ancestor.
The weakness is, as you would expect the clock is calibrated using fossil evidence, which has an assumption of evolution. Also, evolution may not nessecarily proceed at a constant rate.
I think you'll find that we share rather less than 97% of our DNA with the humble cockroach :hihi.
Djevv said:
It's good that you cite a book about evolution to try to discredit evolution!
I don't really follow your assertion that evolution predicts a genetic smear - to the contrary good or positive mutations will result in the greater success of those organisms carrying that mutation resulting in a concentration of those types and diminution of those types with bad or poor mutations. Evolution does not predict that you have an infinite and even variety of mutations - good mutations are replicated, bad mutations are eliminated.
This is the very point of evolution.
Djevv said:
That article theorises that they may not be vestigial as there are biomechanical advantages to having them. The examples of vestigal anatomical parts are legion - vestigial pelvic bones in whales from when they were land mammals at one stage are a profound example.
We also have hundreds of examples of blind animals that live in caves or in the deep sea that retain vestigial eyes that are now useless.
But design flaws themselves are myriad - the most completely obvious example in humans is the spinal column - designed to be horizontal, not vertical - it is strikingly similar to those of four legged mammals. Because our spines were designed to be horizontal, many of us are afflicted with chronic back problems that happen over a life-time due in large part to its the vertical positioning.
As humans we have many many design flaws that point to "unintelligent" design (ie evolution) rather than the design of an intelligent creator. For example, we breathe, speak and eat through the same orifice - the mouth and throat. An intelligent designer would have created a separate "eating" orifice and a separate "breathing" orifice to prevent the risk of choking and asphyxiation. Yet we can see that some marine mammals have evolved this - whales and dolphins with blowholes separate to their mouths.
Other examples: wings on flightless birds. Wisdom teeth in humans - a legacy from larger-jawed ancestors
Djevv said:
Where does it say that evolution predicts a smear? Did you ignore the processes I mentioned in my last post? Both drift and extinction events can mask the relationships between related species.
I am still waiting to hear the predictions your theory makes.
Djevv said:
So there is a theoretical use for these muscles....how does that support your argument? Why would god use the same 'setup' for this use in hooved animals? Couldn't he come up with a more efficient system?
As the antman pointed out in clear and precise fashion their are innumerable examples of unintelligent design and vestigial organs.
Djevv said:
Actually it is not the 'molecular clock' idea. The molecular clock is based on DNA sequences that are not constrained by selection. When talking about coding sequences within DNA, these are maintained due to natural selection. So why are so-called 'junk' DNA sequences present in the same position in related organisms ie. endogenous retroviruses in hominids link?
The data fits very well with the fossil evidence. I don't understand what you mean by the fossil record has an assumption of evolution. It is one of the lines of evidence that supports evolutionary theory. The different independent lines of evidence agree with one another, that would seem like more substantiation of the validity of the theory, not an argument against it. For example, species that are closely related as judged by morphological or physical traits tend to have much higher levels of DNA sequence similarity. Why is that?
As I have said before present evidence that contradicts evolutionary theory if you really want to challenge its validity. Your theory proposes a supernatural deity where none is called for.
You are right about the 97% between cockroaches and human....for example, about 50% of human genes have an orthologue (equivalent) gene in Drosophila melanogaster a well studied species of fruit fly.
