The Religion of Evolution

Here are some of my most favorite evolution quotes:

Dr. Soren Lovtrup, Professor of Zoo-physiology at the University of Umea in Sweden wrote, "I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar 'Darwinian' vocabulary...thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events." He went on to say, "I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science." He also said, "Evolution is 'anti-science.'"

- - - - - - - -

The late Sir Julian Huxley, once the world's leading evolution "expert", and head of the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said he believed that the reason so many scientists, himself included, embraced the idea of evolution was "because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores."

Evolutionist and philosopher Bertrand Russell said that getting rid of the idea of God "freed me up to my erotic desires."

- - - - - - - - -

According to their own testimonies, the most prominent evolutionists believed and taught evolution, NOT because of any scientific evidence, but based upon their rejection of God.

It really puts 2 Peter 3:3 in a new light doesn't it?

 

Do you think that John Woodmorappe is wrong, when he says that new species, genera, and families evolve? The ICR has promoted his book, so I can only conclude that they find that opinion to be accurate.

And since the same methods (such as anatomy, genetics, and molecular biology) that show descent within species, genera, and familie, also show predicted relationships among higher taxa, why should it be hard to accept the evidence?

"Kind", is an undefinable term, and not scientific. However, it is impossible to dismiss the fact that evidence from genetics and molecular biology confirm the phylogenies arrived at from earlier and entirely different evidence.

You're speaking of Barry Hall, and his observation of the evolution of a new, irreducibly complex metabolic pathway? That merely points out that there are no barriers to evolving such things. But it is not always necessary to evolve irreducibly complex features to produce new taxa.

They have been polled before. Almost all of them accept that evolution is a fact. However, it is true that scientists who are biologists, or in fields closely allied to biology, are more likely to accept evolution. The more one knows about evolution, the more likely one is to accept it.

So we shouldn't consider the opinions of scientists who are not biologists? That's a bit harsh. And if we did that, the number of "creation scientists" would be even smaller.

That doesn't seem be true. We've seen folks like Michael Denton become committed evolutionists recently.

And the number of biologists who doubt evolution seems to be declining. In 1997, the Gallup Poll found about 5% of scientists rejected evolution, with the remaining 95% about evenly split between theistic evolution and evolution without God's help.

Actually, genetics has again made a significant contribution to evolutionary theory. The dispute concerning from which group of ungulates whales evolved may have been settled by genetic analysis of whales and living ungulates.

Evidence is what counts. So, when we see evidence like the above, it matters far more than any perceived "hype". Science is a pragmatic game.

I've been a biologist for a long time. I don't see any of that happening.

The evidence falls into several areas:

*Anatomical data, including vestigial and suboptimal structure

*Genetic, including chromosome comparisons.

*Molecular biology, showing that the variation in highly conserved molecules also confirms evolution.

Even the small variations in the way DNA codes for proteins follow phylogenies obtained by other means.

 

Lovtrup was an evolutionist, who objected to Darwin's identification of natural selection as the key to directed evolution. (something since directly verified; even most creationists now admit that natural selection is a fact) But here's what he really said about evolution:

"Indeed, the nature and the wealth of the corroborating evidence are such that the theory on the reality of evolution turns out to be one of the best substantiated theories in biology, perhaps in the natural sciences."

http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho28.htm

and head of the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said he believed that the reason so many scientists, himself included, embraced the idea of evolution was "because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores."[/quote]

Huxley, like Dawkins after him, seemed interested in putting science to work to support his other ideas. However, he was certainly not "the world's leading evolution expert", given his contemporaries like George G. Simpson, nor do his unsupported statements tell us anything about evolutionary theory.

Russell was a mathematician. He had no training in biology. And he says nothing about evolution here. You probably should know that most evolutionists are theists. It also happens that most Christians also agree that evolution is consistent with God's creation.

The evidence you cited seems to refute the claim you are trying to prove. Huxley is the only significant scientist, and he didn't provide any evidence for his opinion. Russel didn't even mention evolution, and Lovtrup didn't attribute any such motive at all.

 

Amen Helen !!



Not only is the falsehood of evolution beaten into the brains of children in school, on the television, and other places, but the evidence of instantaneous special creation is squenched hard and fast everywhere and every time it is presented.

I believe it was Dewey, the father of our public school system, that said something to the effect that Sunday school one day a week cannot compete with the brainwashing that the children will get in public schools five days a week (my emphasis added). Looks like he was right in the short term, but in the end evolution will be exposed for the lie that it is.

 

Yep. I gave you a couple of others in the other post. But when we find such things, it's big news to taxonomists because the process is so precise. Hence, when we find that springtails are a clade unto themselves, or new and old world vultures are not a clade, it's a surprise, and considerable work has to be done to resolve the problem.

On the other hand, it certainly refutes the assertion that the very precise agreement of genetic and other evidence is some kind of fraud by scientists who faked it to agree with earlier phylogenies.

If that were so, the few errors in classification would simply be covered up and not mentioned at all. One of the better reasons to trust science rather than creationism is that science finds the errors and deals with them.

 

Woodmorappe seems to have accepted the evolution of new families for two reasons:

a. He thinks the evidence is compelling.
b. There is no way to make Noah's Ark possible unless these taxa evolved after the presumed Flood.

But you're right. If one admits speciation, everything after that is a matter of judgement. After that, there is no barrier to greater and greater variation.

Isolate them even longer, and you will get even more variation. Eventually, it gets great enough to produce a new genus. And so on.

That would put humans and apes in the same kind. There is far more anatomical and genetic variation between the various felids than there is between humans and any ape.

What's the current definition of kind? Last time I checked, "baraminologists" assumed some sort of "barrier" between kinds. Have they found a way to test that assumption? If not, on what grounds do they believe it?

Actually it does. We use genetic matching to establish relatedness among humans. It works. We have also tested it on known relationships between other organisms. It works there, too.

All these different and independently obtained sources of evidence give us the same results. And we know that they work, because they have been validated by testing organisms of known descent.

No, that's not what happens. We accept the evidence, because it's been tested and we know it works.

They show remarkable consistency. Your example of chromosome number in organisms is belied by the fact that we are able to show humans and chimps are closely related, in spite of the fact that humans have one less pair of chromosomes than chimps.

This is not remarkable, nor is it news, although it certainly complicates things. How could humans and chimps be closely related, if they have different numbers of chromosomes?

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

It turns out that genes are a lot more informative than the number of chromosomes. Fusions and breakages, and even duplications happen in various organisms, but the genes themselves are very constant.

Right. For example, we can look at the human/chimp example:

There are two potential naturalistic explanations for the difference in chromosome numbers - either a fusion of two separate chromosomes occurred in the human line, or a fission of a chromosome occurred among the apes. The evidence favors a fusion event in the human line. One could imagine that the fusion is only an apparent artifact of the work of a designer or the work of nature (due to common ancestry). The common ancestry scenario presents two predictions. Since the chromosomes were apparently joined end to end, and the ends of chromosomes (called the telomere ) have a distinctive structure from the rest of the chromosome, there may be evidence of this structure in the middle of human chromosome 2 where the fusion apparently occurred. Also, since both of the chromosomes that hypothetically were fused had a centromere (the distinctive central part of the chromosome), we should see some evidence of two centromeres.

The first prediction (evidence of a telomere at the fusion point) is shown to be true in reference 3 . Telomeres in humans have been shown to consist of head to tail repeats of the bases 5'TTAGGG running toward the end of the chromosome. Furthermore, there is a characteristic pattern of the base pairs in what is called the pre-telomeric region, the region just before the telomere. When the vicinity of chromosome 2 where the fusion is expected to occur (based on comparison to chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q) is examined, we see first sequences that are characteristic of the pre-telomeric region, then a section of telomeric sequences, and then another section of pre-telomeric sequences. Furthermore, in the telomeric section, it is observed that there is a point where instead of being arranged head to tail, the telomeric repeats suddenly reverse direction - becoming (CCCTAA)3' instead of 5'(TTAGGG), and the second pre-telomeric section is also the reverse of the first telomeric section. This pattern is precisely as predicted by a telomere to telomere fusion of the chimpanzee (ancestor) 2p and 2q chromosomes, and in precisely the expected location. Note that the CCCTAA sequence is the reversed complement of TTAGGG (C pairs with G, and T pairs with A).

The second prediction - remnants of the 2p and 2q centromeres is documented in reference 4. The normal centromere found on human chromosome 2 lines up with the 2p chimp chromosome, and the remnants of the 2q chromosome is found at the expected location based upon the banding pattern.

I apologize for the length of the quote, but it is needed to establish why this is important.

I'll respond to the rest of your questions in another post.

 

Yep. The role of transposons as elucidated by Barbara McClintock is hardly news these days. And from the beginning scientists suspected that non-coding DNA had other functions.

And Lynn Margulis has shown that we can get lateral gene transfer, even in vertebrates from time to time. But it's not a common thing, nor does it obscure the evolutionary trends in any cases I know about.

Usually, this happens though fusions and breakages. In plants, it's often by polyploidy, which they can tolerate more easily than animals.

4. Regarding Barry Hall's work with E.coli. You are right -- there is no barrier for developing irreducibly complex pathways as long as there is an intelligent being setting it up! [/quote]

Or even when the intelligent being has no idea of how to do it. Hall was completely in the dark about how such a thing might evolve. He merely observed the evolution of this feature by random mutations.

If that's all it's about, then ID is just theistic evolution

Hmmm... so biologists are less likely to accept evolution? No, that's not the case. We can make an even stronger statement; in the United States, at least, the more educated one is, the more likely one is to accept evolution.

Gallop Poll 1991
1."God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."

College Graduates: 25%

All adults: 47%

No HS diploma: 65%

2. "Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation."

College Graduates: 54%

All Adults: 40%

No HS diploma: 23%


3."Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process."

College Graduates: 16.5%

All Adults: 9%

No HS diploma: 4.6%

1997 results were "barely" significantly different, according to Gallup; the number of YE creationists had declined to 44%, while the number of evolutionists remained about 49%.

With the elderly representing a gradually increasing part of the U.S. population, one would expect that the creationist view would receive increasing support. In fact, there appears to be a gradual erosion of support for the creationist view. It is barely statistically significant. The sample size is about 1,000 so the sampling error is within +/- 3.2%, 19 times out of 20. It will take a decade or two to determine if a significant shift has really happened.

I was surprised to see that Denton, in "Nature's Destiny", has presented the case for evolution, by citing evidence. I think Denton's adherence to the notion of a meaningful universe is philosophically driven, but he cites the evidence for the fact that it happens.

Biologists are certainly more familiar with evolution than non-biologists. The last poll of those in the biological and earth sciences showed something much less than 1% who did not accept evolution. I'm wondering what a metallurgist might say, if I told him that my hydrologist disagreed with him on the nature of alloys.

No, we already know it works, because we can test it on organisms of known descent. There is no mystery how chromosome breakages and fusions work. It's been observed. And in vertebrates at least, the telomere remains are evidence for the way it happened.

Actually, there have been a few surprises, such as the revelation that the old and new world vultures are a polyphyletic grouping.

Further, whales, which were at first thought to have most likely evolved from mesonychid ungulates are now thought to have evolved from an allied group, based on DNA information. If you were right, this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

No, genetic and molecular evidence is just what it is - evidence.

So is all science. But evidence beats suppositions. We know, for example, that the human coccyx is vestigial (and useless, which is another issue) because we see the same structures in it that occur in animals with tails. And from time to time, a true tail occurs in humans, just as in other animals.

Any evolutionist would argue that sometimes evolution leads to less than perfect structures. But if God is the designer, His work would be perfect.

I would be open to anyone's detailed explanation of how Adam had an optimal spine. I spent decades as an ergonomist, so I have some understanding of that structure.

See above. Even where chromosome numbers change from fusion or breakage, the same genes in the same order persist, the occasional transposon notwithstanding.

Of course. If not, they wouldn't be found in all organisms, and therefore would not be that useful for evolutionary phylogenies. However, the random neutral mutations in cytochrome c (for example) shows the same evolutionary relationships that one gets from other, independent sources.

No, that's wrong. The changes have no affect in the way cytochrome c works. That remains constant. These are only random, neutral mutations. There are some sites that cannot be changed without affecting the activity of the molecule, and these never change.

 

(Barbarian observes)
Even the small variations in the way DNA codes for proteins follow phylogenies obtained by other means.

It's quite true. DNA coding is not quite universal; there are small differences, and these sort out according to phylogenies obtained by other lines of evidence. I'll see if I can find a complete set to show you.

I don't have any idea how you concluded I thought that was possible. I agree with your scientist. The fact that genetic analysis shows evolutionary pathways does not mean we could recreate dinosaurs.

(Barbarian observes)
Evolution, in the usual sense, would be very unlikely to go from unicellular to multicellular organisms. All, or almost all multicellular organisms are eukaryotes. And that means that endosymbiosis was necessary, in addition to evolution.

It still happens occasionally. Endosymbiosis is more common than earlier supposed.

"One early and important discovery in support of the SET occurred in the laboratory of Kwang W. Jeon, a biologist at the University of Tennessee. Jeon witnessed the establishment of an amoeba-bacteria symbiosis in which new bacterial symbionts became integrated in the host amoeba (Jeon 1991). In 1966, when the bacteria first infected the amoebas, they were lethal to their hosts. However, as time progressed, some of the infected amoebas survived and became dependent on their newly acquired endosymbionts within a few years. Jeon was able to prove this dependency by performing nuclei transplants between infected amoebas and amoebas lacking the bacteria. If left alone, the hybrid amoebas died in a matter of days. Yet if he reinfected these hybrids with the once-lethal bacteria, the amoebas recovered and once again began to grow (Margulis and Sagan 1987). This discovery served to demonstrate that endosymbiosis could provide a major mechanism for cellular evolution and explain the introduction of new species." (Jeon 1991).

http://www.geocities.com/jjmohn/endosymbiosis.htm

Fortunately, the "generation time" for prokaryotes isn't close to a year. More like a few minutes. Math is like getting a new power tool; it can do wonders, but only if you know how to use it.

As it turns out,the Church does not take a position on evolution. The Pope, when he noted that evolution was more than just a theory, was simply reflecting on what science notes about it. There's no doctrine for Catholics in that regard. Like most of the world's Christians, Catholics are inclined to accept what science says about evolution, but there is no doctrinal reason to do so.

Helen, all Christians, including Baptists, think that they are "Bible=believing". They just differ on the interpretation of the Bible.

If you limited it to "Biblical Literalist", you would be right. But literalists are a small fraction of God's Church. There are people of great learning and wisdom, and piety on all of the various interpretations of Scipture. Including yours. It's important to remember that.

 

What is amazing is when the brainwashing tactics of evolutionism's high priests get published in scientific journals and all can then "see" the religion of evolutionism at work.

That business with the British Museum of Natural History's "evolution" exhibit comes to mind.

Bob

[ April 11, 2003, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

I'm thinking that you'd be more effective, Bob, without the insults and mockery.

How about dropping the "brainwashing" and "high priests" stuff and tell us what is is that bothers you about the British Museum?

 

I do not consider it brain washing to observe the factless void that comprises the salient "proofs" of evolutionism. As pointed out already - abiogenesis is absolutely indispensible to the evolutionary mythology.

Odd that this "happened on its own" according to the mythology - and yet "it can not happen with the aid of 100's of millions in grants and equipment" today.

As for the British Museum of Natural History in London -- - I was referring to the Darwin exhibit setup in 1981 to celebrate their first centennial.

22 distinguished biologists associated with that institution were attacked by evolutionism's priests (such as Halstead) for daring to describe "Evolution" as an "explanation of Charles Darwin for the origins of life" as if it was open for discussion and independant thought.

The Museum also published a pamphlet admitting that the "concept of evolution by natural selection was not, strictly speaking, scientific".

The attacks were published in the leading British science journal, Nature

The biologists responded that they were "shocked that the science journal Nature Would insist that a theory be presented as science fact". The biologists wrote "We have Absolutely NO Proof of the theory of Evolution" and here of course they were addressing the key salient "proofs" that are "required" by the mythology of evolutionism.

At first the journal tried to modify its stance by arguing that when the British museum's scientists argued that Karl Popper has said that "Darwinism is both metaphysical and unfalsifiable that in fact Karl Popper was "technically correct" - the journal later came out to declare that its mission in life was to defend evolutionism.

Eventually it clamped down on academic freedom and independent thought by arguing that "it would only MISLEAD museum goers to admit that Origin of the Species is simply ONE explanation among many".

As a result the "offending matrial" at the Museum was finally removed and the exhibit on Darwinism deleted all reference to the possibility of other explanations.

Indeed - the high priests of evilutionism were ruling then.

Bob

 

Galatian, you're right about literalists being in the minority of Christians. Literalist YECers are even in the minority amongst evangelicals, at least over here. The YECers tend to be limited to the more extreme charismatic/ Pentecostal fundamentalists, and I would prefer to trust the vast majority of Bible-believing Christians both rpesently and throughout history, for my theology, which is why I'm no longer a YECer but a theistic evolutionist.

YOurs in Christ

Matt

 

Nevertheless, mocking and insults are not supposed to be part of this forum. Besides, there have been many instances of evidence for evolution pointed out here. Let's do better from here on out.

I wouldn't know about mythology, but it is unnecessary to evolutionary theory,which only describes how living things evolve, not how they came to be. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Genesis is wrong about life being brought forth by the earth and waters. If God instead created life ex nihilo and had it evolve from there, it wouldn't make any difference to evolutionary theory.

Oh, the Cartoon Theory of Evolution. Right. The real one makes no claims about how life began.

It's always a dangerous game to define God in terms of what humans cannot do. What happens if tomorrow someone does it? That's happened before, and the "God of the gaps" argument damaged Christian faith thereby.

That would be sort of odd, because evolutionary theory makes no claims about the origin of life. Have you ever read Darwin's book?

I think you are confused. Here's what the scientists wrote to "Nature":

"Are we to take it that evolution is a fact, proven to the limits of scientific rigour? If that is the inference then we must disagree most strongly. We have no absolute proof of the theory of evolution. What we do have is overwhelming circumstantial evidence in favour of it and as yet no better alternative. But the theory of evolution would be abandoned tomorrow if a better theory appeared. Charles Darwin died nearly a century ago and is honoured at South Kensington as a great man of science. It does neither him nor science any service to misrepresent that status of his work."

They are making a good point. Everything in science is provisional. There is no "proof", and if new evidence were to demand a change in the theories explaining variation in living things, it would happen. Indeed, it has happened several times since Darwin. Note that the scientists point out that the evidence for evolution is "overwhelming", even if circumstantial, (thus admitting that sufficient new evidence could still overturn it). Not also that they point out that evolutionary theory would be overturned tomorrow if a better one were to turn up.

However, the "22 scientists" did not say that natural selection was not, strictly speaking, unscientific. That was in a subsequent article by Barry Cox, published by "Nature" in June. The letter from the British Museum scientists had been published by "Nature" in March.

Actually, Popper (a philosopher, not a scientist) has said that natural selectin (not Darwinsism, which is more than natural selection) is falsible, and a proper theory. He changed his mind when shown examples of potential falsifications.

In which month did that come out? That seems highly unlikely, given the sort of writing one finds in "Nature".

Further, the notion of a suppression of academic freedom by "Nature" seems absurd, since the journal saw fit to publish the opinions of dissenting individuals, who opposed the consensus of scientists, as well as the consensus of the journal's staff. Indeed, it directly contradicts their alleged claim to have a "purpose to defend evolution", since they published letters and articles opposing natural selection.

You've been misled on some things.

 

I wouldn't know about mythology, but it is unnecessary to evolutionary theory,which only describes how living things evolve</font>[/QUOTE]And I have another challenge.

If you really believe this, why don't you help us get the stuff about "the primordial ooze springing into life on it's own" out of the textbooks used in our schools?

 

Whoo... another long one. Helen, you are wrong about almost everything, but you are the most interesting and stimulating creationist I know. I'll put the different issues in different posts.

(Helen asserts great problems with dishonesty in science)

What percentage of published articles would you say were not honest, Helen? Did you know that there are folks who spend a great deal of time checking these issues? And yet, when one is found, it gets great attention, because it is so rare.

It's evidence. We know it works, because we can test it on organisms of known descent. And the phylogenies arrived at from DNA analyses turn out to be precisely the same as those obtained on anatomical evidence. The fact that the few errors discovered by DNA analyses were corrected gives lie to the notion that the analyses were somehow altered to confirm the original evidence.

Nope. Nothing at all. As you pointed out, considerable morphological change is possible even within species. No one, no matter how hard they look, has ever been able to show some kind of limit to variation of the kind we see in living things.

There is no such barrier. DNA has error-correction features, but it doesn't always work. We know that, because we can see mutations in viable organisms. You very likely have one or more yourself.

In human experience? As you know, major changes, even in small populations occur at much longer time frames than any human could observe. But certainly the reptile to mammal transitions would be agood example.

There's very good evidence.
</font>

• Mitochodria look like bacteria</font>
• Mitochondria have their own, bacteria-like DNA</font>
• Mitochondria reproduce on their own</font>
• We have directly observed endosymbiosis evolve</font>
• We see corresponding evidence for chloroplasts</font>

Mitochondria have evolved to obligate symbiotes. But since we have observed obligate endosymbiosis to happen in other organisms, that's beside the point. Some bacteria can reproduce only in specific animal cells. That does not mean that they are not bacteria.

Actually, there's a great deal of research on the subject, and much evidence, the most compelling of which is pointed out above. If it was just a clever idea, it wouldn't be widely accepted.

I can't give you an example of Toxoplasma gondii living outside of a cell today. It can't. It's become an obligate intracellular parasite. However, it is very definitely a protocist(protozoan) organism, and not part of human cells.

 

Even many creationists now admit that this happens. There's no barrier to evolution of higher taxa.

And yet Duane Gish himself admitted that the various species and Genera of Darwin's finches evolved from a common ancestor. And these are hardy and well-adapted birds. We even know the species from which they evolved.

It can happen. On the other hand, it would be very hard to explain humans if it always happened. In the case of canids, Darwin's finches, dinosaurs, etc. we see increased diversity associated with hardiness and success.

Helen, the reason the overwhelming majority of scientists accept evolutionary theory is that it best explains reality.

New Zealand birds. A tremendous explosion of evolution occured there, as it was a large area, sufficiently distant from land to prevent easy access, and birds there diversified into all sorts of niches not normally open to them. They became very well-adapted and successful.

Humans aren't just anatomically similar to apes (although Huxley's debate with Owens showed that there is no structure in apes or humans not found in the other). We also have evidence from molecular biology, showing that we are almost identical to the great apes, and then there's this:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

Not only are we almost identical genetically to apes (something that is demonstrably an indicator of common descent) but if you line up the chromosomes, you can see that one human chromosome is identical to two chimp chromosomes, down to the telomere remnants at the fusion site.

There's no way to see that any way but the way it is.

What we do know, from actual tests of organisms of known ancestry, is that genetic similarities indicate common descent.

We know it's true, because we have tested that idea. Does that mean that it's impossible for a small amount of lateral gene transfer to happen in vertebrates? Nope. It can happen, although it's rare.

Of course. We also know that the degree of difference is a function of the distance of the relationship.

Nope. Evidence. We can see, for example, that the degree of relationships among humans by genetic analysis follows historical data. The work of Calvari-Sforza in tracing human migrations by gene frequencies is a good example.

We can also show that in populations of other organisms of known descent.

That's a misconception. Evolution, as I've shown here, is based on evidence. Religion is based on faith.

If that were true, there would be no theory of evolution. Darwin, after all, started on the presumption of creationism. So did Wallace.

If you read "Origin of Species", you'd see how long and careful a study Darwin made of the evidence before coming to his conclusion. It has evidence in great detail. No "leap", but rather decades of careful study.

But evidence trumps anyone's presumptions. Technically, when scientists make conclusions based on evidence (of the sort I have cited) it is called an "inference". All inductive reasoning is based on inference from evidence.

True. In order to observe such things, we must usually do experiments. It's hard to be there in the wild, precisely when it happens. Fortunately, we know it happens, because we have directly observed it to happen. Unless someone can show that a knockout in the wild doesn't work like a knockout in the lab. Do you have any such evidence?

You're carrying one with you. You have a gene for making vitamin C, but it's defective, and doesn't work. Our ancestors evolved in environments where vitamin C was abundant in the food they ate, so it didn't kill them off.

 

Sorry, Helen. You bring up a host of interesting issues. It's why I enjoy debating with you.

My take, as you know, is that creation is so much greater than anything humans can do, that it is a category unto its own, and calling it "design" is an insult to God. It is, so far, a religious or philosophical assumption. If someone could, for example, show that Dembski's "explanitory filter" actually worked on something for which the answer had not been previously assumed, that might be a good start.

That's what it aspires to. But so far, no results.