Why do people deny evolution?

@farmerman,

I have them on ignore.

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FM should not only ignore them here, he should stay out of the September 11th thread. Let the obsessive conspiracy theorists have their playground. It's no skin off the nose of any of the rest of us.

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@Setanta,

Interesting that one who is so overtly opinionated, isn't interested in the opinions of others.

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Quote:

Why do people deny evolution?

Mainly because evolution is a bunch of bullshit, basically an ideological doctrine masquerading as a science theory.

The good news is that in the Internet age, the control freaks are having less and less luck keeping this information out of people's hands. Don't believe me? Try a simple Google search on "Charles Darwin" and switch to image search. Half the images you see show Darwin either looking like a poster child for Burma-Shave or sitting in a tree eating a bananna, apparently a clear majority of the people on Earth are starting to despise the guy.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/496xn/p02kqy1g.jpg

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@Builder,

That's because they're dicks, Mr (I like to pretend to be anti Trump but all I do is slag off Hillary Clinton, even now long after inauguration) Builder.

I'm sure you can find someone interested in your horseshit. Bitch with them to your heart's content.

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@gungasnake,

You're basing your theory on his critics?

Is this sketch, and others you're referring to, from his era? A bunch of Christians defending their own theory against his new proposal?

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@Setanta,

Quote:

FM should not only ignore them here, he should stay out of the September 11th thread. Let the obsessive conspiracy theorists have their playground. It's no skin off the nose of any of the rest of us.

That's downright American of you, Setanta!

Perhaps you should write to Dr Leroy Hulsey, the scientist [sigh-en-tist, for those of you who don't know the pronunciation], who performed the study that concludes that the US governments' story of 9-11-2001 is the largest fiction ever described by any US government, and that is really saying something, to let him that he is an "obsessive conspiracy theorist".

I'm sure that given your excellent science and your world class debating skills, he will quickly retract his entire two year scientific study.

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@camlok,

There is one honest question that points out the stupidity of all the 9-11 conspiracy nuts.

Is it possible that the "molten" metal observed was not iron but instead aluminum? Is there any slight possibility the engineers were mistaken concluding it was molten iron? Any slight possibility?

If you answer no, you are not worthy to discus anything on this topic because you clearly are NOT scientifically minded.

If you answer yes then perhaps the engineers conclusions could be in error. How many structural engineers investigating a collapsed building also included airplane parts? The answer to this question is none.

Even a remote 1% chance of error on deducing the molten metal type is enough to reveal the conspiracy nuts are nothing more than airchair scientists who exaggerate data to support their mental illnesses.

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@Builder,

The image is from Chuck Darwin's era but appears to have been revived recently and is enjoying new success...

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@gungasnake,

Quote:

Mainly because evolution is a bunch of bullshit, basically an ideological doctrine masquerading as a science theory.

I know, right!? Heliocentrism, gravity, evolution, germ theory ... who the hell thought up all that crazy ****?

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@Krumple,

I asked one of the 911 guys this AM, the very same question. Didnt see yer post, I am driving in N Pa and stop at wifi's diners to relax

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More difficulty for Evolution.

I've long suspected that there are more levels of encoding in the genome than we have yet discovered. I base that on the idea that even with several Billions of DNA pairs, that would not seem to be enough data to encode the complexity that makes up a living organism if there was not a further mechanism for data compression. Think MPEG encoding of video and audio.

A new article in Phys.org seems to confirm this. It looks like decoding DNA codons is depending on context of the surrounding codons. This is in addition to the effects of Epigenetics in non-coding portions of DNA.

A small snippet of article follows. Note to Farmer: The text in italics is directly from the researchers at University of Utah and Phys.org, not the Discovery Institute. DI comments in regular text.

Quote:

The so-called central dogma of molecular biology states the process for turning genetic information into proteins that cells can use. “DNA makes RNA,” the dogma says, “and RNA makes protein.” Each protein is made of a series of amino acids, and each amino acid is coded for by sets of “triplets,” which are sets of three informational DNA units, in the genetic code.
University of Utah biologists now suggest that connecting amino acids to make proteins in ribosomes, the cell’s protein factories, may in fact be influenced by sets of three triplets – a “triplet of triplets” that provide crucial context for the ribosome.

The difficulty for natural selection would be in finding codon optimization for a given gene. If the speed through a codon is dependent on the 5′ and 3′ flanking codons, and the flanking codons are dependent on their 5′ and 3′ flanking codons, then selection pressure on a single codon is exerted over five successive codons, which represent 615 or 844,596,301 codon combinations. If modified tRNAs interact with bases in a codon context-dependent manner that differs among species depending on differences in tRNA modifications, ribosome sequences, and ribosomal and translation factor proteins, it is easy to understand why many genes are poorly expressed in heterologous expression systems in which codon use is the primary factor in the design of coding sequences for foreign protein expression. The potential impact of differences in tRNA modifications represents a significant challenge in designing genes for maximal expression whether by natural selection or in the laboratory.

The paragraph on the “significance” of the hypothesis states the challenge succinctly:

“Data presented here support a model in which the evolutionary selection pressure on a single codon is over five successive codons, including synonymous codons.

The more that natural selection has to “think” about (if you’ll pardon the expression), the less able it will be to get things right. More accurately, it’s going to take a lot more of what David Berlinski calls “sheer dumb luck” to find a beneficial change. If there are 844,596,301 codon combinations to worry about, it’s like having to get many more numbers right in Powerball than you thought when you bought your lottery ticket. This is what they imply:

The tRNA modifications vary throughout the three kingdoms of life and could affect codon–anticodon pairing. The differences in tRNA modifications could account for differences in synonymous codon biases and for the effects of codon context (the ability to translate specific triplet bases relative to specific neighboring codons) on translation among different species. Here, using in vivo genetic systems of Salmonella, we demonstrate that the translation of a specific codon depends on the nature of the codons flanking both the 5′ and 3′ sides of the translated codon, thus generating higher-order genetic codes for proteins that can include codon pairs and codon triplets.

It will be interesting to see how this hypothesis plays out. One immediate impact will be on research concerning genetic diseases. The triplet-of-triplets coding scheme might explain why mouse models of disease treatments don’t always translate well into human trials: the context is different.

“Higher-order genetic codes” — what a concept!

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@Leadfoot,

Where dos the "problem Lie"?? Noone in the racket ever said that naturl selection was "An optimization" routine. The fossil record is loaded with examples of multiple phenotypes of the same faunal assemblage (Im not sure about plants, Ive never seen any polymorph studies of fossil plants).

BTW, we discussed the "triplet" concepts nd the math behind "threes out of fours" several times. Now making another level of complexity seems to me to clip the genomes in favor of some kind of chemical determinism. Thats why Ive alwys been an (Unproven) fan of how , once a genetic bauplan arises, there can only be a limited number of evolutionary responses that correspond to a species stepwise path driven by nat selection.

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You only have to look at this a little bit to realize how stupid it
really is.

You are starting out with apes ten million years ago, in a world of fang and claw with 1000+ lb. carnivores running amok all over the place, and trying to evolve your way towards a more refined creature in modern man.

What's wrong with that?

Like:

Quote:

"Say! I'll bet if I put on these lace sleeves here and this powdered wig, them dire wolves and sabre-tooth cats will start to show me some RESPECT!!"

I mean, that's on top of the problem of monkeys, apes, or proto-humans being clearly incapable of moving down from trees and starting to live on savannas on a permanent basis. I mean, what's the most major difference between human infants and the young of all prey animals? That's right: the baby deer have the sense to keep quiet until they're old enough to run, full speed. What's gonna happen the first time a gang of 'proto-humans' starts walking around on the savannas and some human infant starts screaming his head off because something displeases him, with 500 and 1000 lb predators walking around all over the place? Can you say "Dinner Bell"??

The problem gets worse when you try to imagine known human behavorial constants interacting with the requirements of having the extremely rare to imaginary beneficial mutation always prevail:

Let's start from about ten million years back and assume we have our ape ancestor, and two platonic ideals towards which this ape ancestor (call him "Oop") can evolve: One is a sort of a composite of Mozart, Beethoven, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare, i.e. your archetypal dead white man, and the other platonic ideal, or evolutionary target, is going to be a sort of an "apier" ape, fuzzier, smellier, meaner, bigger Johnson, smaller brain, chews tobacco, drinks, gambles, gets into knife fights...

Further, let's be generous and assume that for every one chance mutation which is beneficial and leads towards the gentleman, you only have 1000 adverse mutations which lead towards the other guy. None of these mutations are going to be instantly fatal or anything like that at all; Darwinism posits change by insensible degree, hence all of these 1000 guys are fully functional.

The assumption which is being made is that these 1000 guys (with the bad mutation) are going to get together and decide something like:

Quote:

"Hey, you know, the more I look at this thing, we're really messed-up, so what we need to do is to all get on our motorcycles and pack all our ole-ladies over to Dr. Jeckyll over there (the guy with the beneficial mutation), and try to arrange for the next generation of our kids to be in better genetic shape than we are..."

Now, it would be amazing enough if that were ever to happen once; Darwinism, however, requires that this happen EVERY GENERATION from Oop to us. What could possibly be stupider than that?

Evolution is no longer being defended by anybody with brains or talent; it is being defended by what I would call academic dead wood.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

So how close to an evolutionary dead end would you say humans are?

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Where dos the "problem Lie"??

You either did not understand the implications of the article or you're just hand waving. 'The problem' was well described.

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@Leadfoot,

you will have to further your readings in gene biochem because the research team also announced that they seem to understand the biochem factors involved

1The initial codon recognition (which fires up the whole elongation process in the allele) is started by a reaction involving energy from Hydrogen bond and then results in base stacking energy for the next 3 successive codons --SWEET. Uh , this gives natural selection another mechanism (one that I can finally point out that organic chemistry is not just for nylon stockings anymore)

22This entire paper does NOT deny artificially induced environmental polymorphisms. It , in fact, looks at epigenesis constrained factors.

I recall that Wrnst Mayr used to lcture that , in his genetics mathturbation (the triplet concept was alrady known because of the list of 20 biologically significant amino acids in DNA) , Wrnst said that the math involved was neither binary nor trinary, but was HEXADECIMAL.
perhaps he was close.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Quote:

You either did not understand the implications of the article or you're just hand waving.

enlighten me then. Ive lready discussed the H bond significance

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@farmerman,

No real disagreement with you there. Yes, we see the implementation of this data compression but cripes a'mighty if it just doesn't scream 'Design'.

I think you do ignore the increased level of difficulty for successful mutations to occur in this scheme. This additional level of encoding also makes the abiogenesis argument more difficult as well.

Possibly unrelated, but what do you make of the growing interest in 'Bio-mechanical forces' being responsible for all physical organic shapes and body plans in everything from red blood cells to humans? We can't find the 'plan' anywhere in the genome.

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@Leadfoot,

It doesn't scream "design." It screams "evolution."
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm
It's my personal humble opinion, that homo sapiens are in the same family as neanderthals. The skull bone structures are very similar. We evolved into homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago from the primate family of animals.
We were not "created" by any god.
The christian God was created about 2,000 years ago. This planet is 4.5 billion years old.

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Why do people deny evolution?

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