The Mikamar book store

Well you have me interested. I will keep a look out at the library.

For only $25 you too can own this wonderful bottle of snake oil...

when catastrophies occur with somewhat regular frequency, they no longer are parts of "catastrophistic" thought. Extrememly large volcanoes erupt, on average about every 6 or 700000 years. COntinental drift defines mechanisms for many events that appear from time to time (as recorded in startigraphy). Also, bolide smackdowns occur , apparently frequently enough to warrant incorporation of their effects in the evolution of life.

reading the material in the article reminds me that there is a healthy war between superstition and knowledge

It should also remind you that not all of the reasons people have for rejecting evolution can be ascribed to religious fanaticism...

There are serious gaps in evolution, but I think with time these gaps will be filled. I also think that evolution theory will be added to, but never replaced. It seems fairly solid.

Please give an example of what you call a "serious gap".

I would be most appreciative to understand about which evolution deniers would NOT accept a religious worldview.

Also, I think Ionus is saying that there are some serious gaps in the "evidence" suurounding evolution. Id agree but only in the respect that we use paleontological evidence. Genetics and microbiology and chemical genetics eems to be really robust in underpinning evolutionary theory.
It used to be that paleontological data was the key to understanding "descent with modification". NO LONGER, in fact, weve seen where earlier paleontological data had suffered from too much reliance on convergent evolution, and not real cladistic analyses/

Weve got a really good understanding about the genetic structure of bats and theire insectivore ancestors. However, e dont have any early "Start up" bat fossils.
The Creationists wish to use that as an argument against evo/devo. I say,since we rely on so much intersecting data, weve got the story pinned down with accuracy, alla fossil will do now is provide us with an opportunity to show how we can make predictions with nat selection.

Remember, they found tiiktalik by doing precisely that. They didnt "stumble" over it.

We'll do this one at a time. There is a gap between amino acids and DNA.

Actually, DNA evidence is in its early stages. Untill we know what every DNA on the planet does, we will be in danger of error.

Does parallel and convergent evolution produce the same DNA if the animal performs the same function ? For example, big cats have evolved several times to and from sabre tooth cats. While this was going on, little cats (house cats) evolved some time before from a creature with a prehensile tail. How do we distinguish between the DNA of one version of a sabre tooth cat, one version of a big cat, and the house cat ?

They all look similar, it is only the paleontological evidence that allows us to understand their different evolutionary paths. The classification process is based on similar appearance, and though dated now, it seems we are stuck with it.

The problem is we dont know enough of which part of DNA does what and when it was accrued. Remember the huge effort to map human DNA, and we still do not know what most of it does.

So, by "gap" you mean an detailed description of the interim stages between those two things?

Because there are many theories which fill in that gap, but not yet enough evidence to narrow down which of those theories is most accurate.

Are you lamenting the lack of detail in the theories, or the lack of physical evidence?

I wouldnt proceed with that comment any further, someone with less courtesy will come along and start getting abusive.
The 4 nucleotides on the DNA molecule form the amino acids and then by coding three at a time or (In multiples of three) form the proteins that are responsible for the entire "life list" in organisms on this planet. The only difference is the separate nucl;eotide Uracil which only appears on RNA.
There is a very clear ascendency of nucleic acids to DNA and then to specific proteins. This has been unlocked and well unsderstood for about 30 years now. We are now engaged in showing WHERE all these nucleotides, amino acids and proteins exist in specific chromosomes and extar chromosomal structures (the epigenomic "filamenta").
James Watsons 2002 book "DNA" is a really good and intellectually available book on the subject, as is "RElics of EDEN".
WHen I agreed with you that we are missing much evidence for evolution, DNA and genomics WAS NOT one of those areas. Our knowledge on this aspect pof evolution is astounding and growing at light speed velocity.

There are always theories, I dont know of any area that lacks for them. Having solid evidence, as in the paleontological record, or duplicable by scientific experiments does create problems. I see most of the problems with evolution theory at the microscopic life level.
It is probably best looked at as a whole. What makes basic chemical actions eventually a sexually multi-cellular organism ? I can see evolution from there on, even though there are gaps, but the initial push (for want of a better word) that gets it through that stage I just find extraordinarily improbable. We may be the only life in the universe.

There are only 4 nucleotides, (actually 5 when we count uracil in RNA) nucleotides that account for roughly 20 amino acids which form about 64 separate proteins that account for ALL life. RNA is the key element and its been seen that bacteria and virus can "glom" entire sections of RNA codons to form new segments of DNA . Wht was unclear in the early days , was a genetic code. We didnt understand the rules by which a nucleotide could translate from a sequence into a peptide chain (polypeptides to be correct). They determined the minimal sequence by which the nucleotides could translate into amino acids and since it was a bunch of 4's (four different nucleotides is all we got) then a triplet of fours wouyld give us 4X4X4=64 possible transklations of peptides. SO, weve since discovered that life is made up of 64 different proteins. A quadruplet sequence is also a possibility but so far, its been debunked by the number of proteins involved and the fact that 256 would be waaay more redundant than efficiently expressed..

All this was initially suspected by a Physicist, Ernst Schroedinger (wave mechanics guy). He felt that all life was transferrable like bits of information and he thought nthat the DNA molecule was contructed like symbols in a "morse code" . BOY WAS HE CLOSE.

Many times our understandings come from, not within a specific discipline, but from guys standing around the periphery wondering "hey this looks like a bar code"

Paleontological evidence is lately turning out to be more of a following indicator than a ground breaker. (And here I am a geologist saying that paleo is not the key to our understanding of evolution). Actually paleo gave Darwin the first inklings of nat selection when he found several variants of camels and giant armadillos in the Patagonian desert. This bothered him and we can see his first thought s of heresy being forwarded in his "Voyage of the BEagle".WWhen he collected all his finches in the GAlapogos, he didnt know till 3 years later that all these different biords were even finches. So, the gaps I agree exist, are those gaps in morphology (stratigraphic cladistics) and paleontology. However, as I said before, paleo has many times led us down the wrong path opf assigned linneages becaue divergent and convergent evolution has often made us lean on similarities of structure to assign species and families. Weve found that the story is far more complex (and even more wonderful) when we see that species can diverge from separate rootstocks and then converge toward each other because of adaptive pressures. For example, weve got a number of "sabre toothed" animals from groups as different as canidae, felidae, marsupials, and even ungulates. (Imagine that there was a sabre toothed deer)

Im sensing an area that maybe I should ask a very basic question.
What is it that you think DNA does anyway"?

Everything, either directly or indirectly.

I sorta thought that. No, DNA has some very specific and very limited functions. As Stephen Gould said"DNA is merely the bookkeeper of evolution".

Some of the things DNA actually does include these:

It controls the metabolic pathways that take place within a cell

It codes the way proteins turn genes on and off (Allows genes to espress themselves)

It is the "messenger" that carries to daughter cells to make sure they contain the same information that the parent cells have. (This doesnt always happen and transcription errors can account for false information that can account for different functions of a cell, all the way to genetic diseases and cancer)

Its the "hard drive" of somatic and genetic material.

Those are pretty much the main functions of DNA.