tuppence wrote:I'm not going to use the quote function, ted, but will simply try to respond on a point by point basis.
OK. I like the quote function, myself.
1. You are right that cats do not refuse anything but meat. I think I already mentioned catnip. And the fact that they nibble on grass (not really eat it like a meal, right?) does possibly indicate that an all-meat diet might not be enough. I don't have a problem with that and I mis-stated what I was trying to say. Fair enough.
OK.
2. We have been taught that dogs are carniverous. I disagree with that. From my experience raising and training them (as well as looking at the contents of dog food bags!) I feel pretty safe in claiming that dogs are, in our time now, actually omnivores primarily! This does not mean they always were, however. Even in terms of evolution there would have been a time when a dog precurser was not a meat-eater, but that this had to develop. In terms of evolution, where canines were always canines, there was a time when they were not meat-eaters.
I think most metazoans are omnivores at some level. Classifying a group as 'carnivore' or 'herbivore' is a reflection of their primary diet, not their exclusive diet. Even herbivores will eat meat, but I don't think that proves that cows used to be hunters.
3. Check Genesis 1:30 for what life was like before the Flood.
That provides only uncorroborated anecdotal "evidence." And since there was no 'flood', your point is moot.
4. This, then, makes it obvious to me that there was a time when these animals were not carnivores. However, knowing their requirements for high-grade proteins, I therefore assume that was available in some form or forms of plant life which are not around today on earth.
It is only obvious to me that the ancient Hebrews had fanciful imaginations.
5. Yes, we have observed major trends and draw general conclusions. Our mistake is in thinking that the present is the key to the past and that is an assumption which may not stand up.
Why would this assumption not hold up?
The past may be the key to the present, instead, in line with what the Bible tells us and other evidences we find that seem to fit there, such as the article mentioned at the beginning of this thread.
But the article mentioned was essentially irrelevant.
6. I don't have to 'imbue' dogs or anything else with the ability to make choices as to favorite foods. They already do that. And favorite foods for individual animals are not always what the rest of that family of organisms prefers! In our dog history, we have found, for instance, that some dogs refuse some types of dog food and gobble others like there is no tomorrow.
So does my dog and my cats. But my dog does not turn up his nose at one kind of dog food and run over to the garden and munch on carrots. I was referring to primary dietary mode, not 'preference' for one type of dog food over another.
Others seem to prefer the kind that was scorned by their house mates. It has gotten very interesting, and this is just commercial dog food! Given the choice between a fruit salad and dog food, we had a dog that literally preferred the former. We tried, as a joke one time, and found out that what we were joking about was really true. She really did prefer the fruit! Horses are the same. They will all eat basic alfalfa hay, but some prefer some kinds of fruit to others. We had one who refused apples! Loved carrots but not apples. Go figure. Animals have their preferences where food is concerned. By you challenging me on this point, I can only figure you haven't been around animals much!
No, I simply do not think that quirky habits of some domestic animals is grounds to declare a major dietary shift in their recent history.
7. It is not a "big conspiracy thing" to say that we have not been correct in some of our conclusions and in what we have been taught and taught others! It is simply saying we don't know it all!
Indeed - and yet you wrote that we need to rethink some things we have been "told to believe". What did you mean by "told to believe"?
8. Loss of function, genetically, means that there is a reaction which is not occurring on a chemical level due to a genetic change. It can also mean a protein is folding differently presenting a less specific substrate. There is always a loss of specificity where mutations are concerned.
Always? Are all proteins enzymes? You talk as if they are. In fact, not all proteins are enzymes, so the Spetnerian 'loss of specificity' schtick is misplaced. What if, due to mutation, an enzyme is able to utilize more than one substrate, making its end-function more efficient? Will that still be considered a loss of information? If so, why?
9. I have never found that defending the Bible takes mental contortions. It does take education in some other areas, though, such as idioms of other cultures and the ability to look up words in concordances to check root meanings and such. But this is not contortions. This is simple scholarship, as would be done, hopefully, with any serious bit of research.
I have found the opposite. Take John Woodmorappe's Noah's Ark book, wherein it is claimed that animals were trained to relieve themselves on comand in buckets, and that food could have been pelletized and such. There is no evidence that this is possible, much less true 4-5000 years ago. I consider that contortion.
10. I understand that you don't see the relevance of any of this. That does make me wonder why you would spend the time trying to attack what I was questioning, however.
I am not attacking anything, rather, I am pointing out the misguided 'interpretations' of the article. As I wrote, having receptors for 'sweet' does not make one a vegetarian.
11. Evolution requires that complexity be gained in order to be lost. We don't question the loss of complexity. We question the evolutionary claim regarding its gain.
Your 'questions' are mere assertions backed up with dubiouos circular and self-serving 'definitions'. It is merely asserted that some undefined and unmeasurable 'information' cannot increase and that evolution requires such an increase, therefore evolution is false. To prop up this vacuous notion, 'definitions' are concocted to ensure that the desired and pre-determined conclusion will be drawn. Hence Gitt's "theorems" and Spetner's enzyme routine.
And, unless you started with complex life as it is seen today and claim things only went downhill from there (which is pretty close to a creation argument) then it is absolutely required that complexity be gained since the beginning cells in the evolutionary scenario.
And there is evidence that such has occurred, as well as understood mechanisms that can account for it. Dismissals of this by creationists is not evidence that it does not occur/exist.
12. It is no unwarranted extrapolation that functions are going downhill and not up. It is called genetic load and it is extremely well documented.
That is not what genetic load is. Genetic load does not dictate that 'functions are going downhill.'
Genetic load is the loss of individuals due to an inability to reproduce due to mutational accumulation.
More succinctly:
The relative decrease in the mean fitness of a population due to the presence of genotypes that have less than the highest fitness.
(from
http://www.biochem.northwestern.edu/hol ... _load.html)
Sexual recombination, for example, acts to redcuce the genetic load by hastening the extinction of lethal or deleterious alleles and the fixation of beneficial ones.
13. Mutations do, indeed, appear to occur randomly. The fact that it appears to be random may be our lack of understanding, but that is not something to do with this thread. However the actual mathematical chance of a mutation which is expressed being not harmful or lethal to the organism is about 1000 to 1. This makes it very difficult, FROM WHAT WE OBSERVE, to get from fish to fowl.
And how much do we observe? How many fish were there that lead to fowl? One needs to think of these thngs in terms of populations, but most anti-evolution types seems to frame the 'problem' in terms of individuals. Makes the problem seem more problematic, I suppose.
The number of mutations that would take would be in the hundreds of thousands.
Really? How do you know that? What studies have determined these numbers? Please tell me, for I search every now and then for such studioes and have never been able to find them. I do hope you
do know of such studies, and are not merely tossing a big number out for rhetorical purposes.
That means that the mutations would have had to survive in a population through millions upon millions of harmful mutations and, not only that, these non-harmful mutations would have not only had to have added both form and function to the organism, but would have had to build upon each other to do it.
Please provide some documentary support for these big numbers you are tossing around. What do you mean 'survive through'? Neutral mutations get fixed all the time, and when an organism accumulates enoug deleterious mutations - or a lethal one - they DIE and do not pass those along. This is fairly simple genetics.
Since mutations, as you have stated, appear to be random, the chances of even ten mutations building upon each other through time to produce a possible new form or function is mathematically zero.
Really? Can you show the math for this? Better yet, use some real data.
There is NO observation in science today in genetics or any other field to indicate this can happen.
Really? Are there any observations showing that an anthropomorphic deity created Man from dust 6000 years ago?
Evolution does not have a process to fall back on. It simply is declared to us all that we are here so, of course, it had to have happened! Not good enough. That is faith, not science. I prefer science.
Me too. So, where is the science that supports a 6000 year old earth (another thread)? Created kinds? etc. Keep in mind - attempts to poke holes in evolution or equate Darwin with Hitler or something is not science.
14. Mt. Improbable is Dawkins' idea regarding evolution.
I was referring to your position of starting at the top.
And you have to start from the bottom for evolution to be evolution. Creation does not have that problem.
Indeed. Creationism has NO problems whatsoever, no matter what is or is not discovered.
We are quite convinced that it all started in a complex and created state with zero initial mutations and has been running downhill from there.
And the science for this?