The design argument

Originally posted by lemon lime
The mechanism driving the flagellum works like a motor. You're asking me to imagine functions taking place within bacterium that have nothing to do with what a motor does, or how those parts could naturally come together to form a functional motor.

So my analogy and comparison of functions actually does make sense. A refrigerator has a motor and a syst ...[text shortened]... e the evolutionary process of selection is blind... it can't see or know or anticipate anything.

What Behe was referring to by irreducible complexity of the flagellum motor was the fact that if one part from that motor is missing then it no longer functions as a motor. There is a need for all the parts and in the correct arrangement to function as a motor to propel the organism. Some evolutionists have tried to present his argument as something that it is not.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Do you think if you say it often enough it will become true?

Biological evolution will never become true because the required changes require outside intelligent input. The present programming allows for variations within created kinds during reproduction, but not change from one kind to another.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Did they? Prove it.

There is no proof they didn't. It is just common sense they did, otherwise it is a miracle and miracles don't happen by evolution. 😏

Originally posted by Proper Knob
The objection raised, earlier in the thread by lemon lime, was that no beneficial mutation had ever been observed. The Lenski experiment quite clearly shows this claim is false. Having now read up on the topic I presume you agree.

I agree there was a change, but as I was saying to someone else we see
changes every time we become immune to something. Is that something
new, or is it built into life by design? Is it easier to see due to the size of
the life form under study? Not sure what argument you want to make with
it, but I have to see what it is you think is going on.

Originally posted by DeepThought
In reference to the E.Coli experiments RJ is claiming that because one of the groups of bacteria were genetically modified the explanation of the genetic changes in the other groups is due to horizontal gene transfer between the modified and unmodified bacterial groups and not due to evolution in response to environmental changes. In other words he is d ...[text shortened]... d be a problem with the experiment there's no particular reason to take his objection seriously.

That is right. I say the experiment is flawed or a hoax and is not what it is claimed to be. It may be like Piltdown man or other hoaxes by evolutionists. 😏

Originally posted by KellyJay
I disagree with this, "...interact with their environments to cause variations
in traits." Natural selection doesn't cause variations it may filter them out
but it is not a leading force in random mutations.

A genetic trait is commonly the result of several genes interacting, which is not something that happens by random chance alone. What happens by random chance are tiny mutations, altering and adding to the genome in smaller ways. But natural selection is what determines whether or not certain mutations can spread throughout a population, allowing mutations to accumulate. So natural selection is a filtering process (as you say), but that filtering is also what allows for positive accumulation of mutations to happen. Stable, non-interfering mutations can build up to a useful trait (as in the example of the Lenski experiments).

Natural selection on random mutations combinatorially allows for new genetic traits to form over time. This was the genius of Darwin, to realise and formulate this simple idea that has the power to explain all the biodiversity we see in nature today. And he did it before we knew anything about genetics.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Any 'leap to turn into something else'? What does that even mean? Again, I've read a handful of books on evolution and nowhere, I'll repeat that - nowhere - have I read any such claim being made.

I have no issue what so ever of talking about small changes within life, I
do believe it happens all the time! Where I draw the line in that I have
never seen it and no one else has either, is where people claim the changes
build upon one another over time so that after a while new things appear
like eyes that were never around before and everything that goes with
them for support, like a heart and everything that goes with it over time.

It is one thing to look at a small life form it is quite another to agree with
over time the small changes we can chart will take that life form through
time and turn it into something else completely.

Originally posted by C Hess
Let me put it simply: A toaster and a living organism do not display the same kind of complexity. One is the accumulation of materials that can't all form naturally without destroying each other, and is incapable of reproducing itself (or its parts), and the other is made of only a few materials, all of which can form naturally, and can reproduce its parts as ...[text shortened]... and an environment that supports them, you're good to go (or they're good to go, I should say).

So what, I've never heard one person ever say that with the beginning of
life only those things that shared the same level of complexity were able
to come together to start life.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I've never heard one person ever say that with the beginning of
life only those things that shared the same level of complexity were able
to come together to start life.

Nor am I saying that.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I agree there was a change, but as I was saying to someone else we see
changes every time we become immune to something. Is that something
new, or is it built into life by design? Is it easier to see due to the size of
the life form under study? Not sure what argument you want to make with
it, but I have to see what it is you think is going on.

There is no argument, lemon lime made a claim, which was wrong, and I presented the evidence to demonstrate why he was wrong.

That's all there is to it, evidence of a beneficial mutatin brought about by evolution.

Originally posted by C Hess
A genetic trait is commonly the result of several genes interacting, which is not something that happens by random chance alone. What happens by random chance are tiny mutations, altering and adding to the genome in smaller ways. But natural selection is what determines whether or not certain mutations can spread throughout a population, allowing mutations to ...[text shortened]... l the biodiversity we see in nature today. And he did it before we knew anything about genetics.

Natural selection determines whether anything can live through what life
has to confront be it a hard environment, lack of food, and so on if any
life form cannot hang in its environment it either moves or dies off. The
random changes in DNA would still be occurring everywhere up and down
the DNA sequence no matter what the environment was. If life all started
in a single place then that place would have had to have been so friendly
for life forever! Not to hot, not to cold, not to much oxygen at the wrong
time, radiation, gases, the wrong chemicals, and so on, yep that little
spot where it supposed to have begun would have had to been perfect
for a very long time all of that just to stay alive.

The idea that biodiversity through change was much easier to believe in for
me until DNA and we started to see how complex genetics really is, after
that it was keeping DNA healthy enough to stay alive and reproduce while
creating change that was going to alter the life form completely! You only
get to break it a little to much it dies, and you want me to accept it can
change with the majority of mutations either causing no affect or a
negative one were going to allow positive changes in enough life to over
come all the bad and actually do a complete DNA change from say a single
cell life form to one as complex as yourself through millions of years of
random mutation! Mind you not a designed mutation where you'd see the
eye start to form then it knows to add nerves and so on, no random
unrelated changes could build a functional eye!

Originally posted by RJHinds
That is right. I say the experiment is flawed or a hoax and is not what it is claimed to be. It may be like Piltdown man or other hoaxes by evolutionists. 😏

I see. Here's a link to Richard Lenski's website containing all the fat for the experiment. Perhaps you could take a while to peruse through it and then do e back to us, tell us what is 'flawed' and how it is a 'hoax'.

Have fun.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
There is no argument, lemon lime made a claim, which was wrong, and I presented the evidence to demonstrate why he was wrong.

That's all there is to it, evidence of a beneficial mutatin brought about by evolution.

I accept we become immune to sickness by being exposed to it, so the
changes you are so happy to see I don't really see that as anything more
than that. It is a function of life, I don't see it as anything new, and I really
don't see how you could go from a worm to a cow in a million years because
of what you claim here is evidence for a beneficial mutation! I am not one
to dispute there are small beneficial changes, I think becoming immune to
a sickness is an act of evolving therefore evolution, but it isn't something
that through other mutations and long periods of time are going to turn
a worm into a cow.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Natural selection determines whether anything can live through what life
has to confront be it a hard environment, lack of food, and so on if any
life form cannot hang in its environment it either moves or dies off. The
random changes in DNA would still be occurring everywhere up and down
the DNA sequence no matter what the environment was. If life all ...[text shortened]... hen it knows to add nerves and so on, no random
unrelated changes could build a functional eye!

Out of interest, what literature have you read with regards to the evolution of the eye? Also, how much literature have you read on evolution?

Originally posted by KellyJay
I accept we become immune to sickness by being exposed to it, so the
changes you are so happy to see I don't really see that as anything more
than that. It is a function of life, I don't see it as anything new, and I really
don't see how you could go from a worm to a cow in a million years because
of what you claim here is evidence for a beneficial muta ...[text shortened]... ing
that through other mutations and long periods of time are going to turn
a worm into a cow.

Worm to cow in a million years? Surely you're joking right?