Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[JPhillips]

Juice

I am currently reading Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer. I believe you recommended it to me. Thanks. It is a fascinating book.

I think we should close the book on this subject in our future discussions. We are at an obvious impasse. There are those who have already made up their mind without supporting scientific evidence that Darwinism is an unreproachable, undeniable fact. They apparently don't feel the need to review the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence which to even the casual reader, reduces Darwinism to incredulous nonsense. I suppose there are those who cannot stand the idea there are things in nature that cannot be rationally explained by the laws of nature unless driven by the purposeful will of a Divine Consiousness.

I sincerely believe that in a relatively short time, even the most steadfast scientists and supporters of Darwinism will concede it is a dead end when challenged by more modern thinking.

[Alun]

There are those who have already made up their mind without supporting scientific evidence that Darwinism is an unreproachable, undeniable fact. They apparently don't feel the need to review the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence which to even the casual reader, reduces Darwinism to incredulous nonsense.

You have yet to comment on the evidence supporting evolution by natural selection; you have yet to provide coherent evidence supporting your beliefs against evolution by natural selection. So yes, I agree that there is nothing else for us to say unless you take the initiative and do either of these things.

[Belinda]

Evidence for natural selection:

1.Geological strata containing fossils, evidence which is interpreted like a detective pieces together the facts of a crime.

2.The method of breeding attenuated pathogens in labs is one of natural selection, these weakened pathogens can then be used to vaccinate against the diseases.


3.Fruit flies and sea cucumbers are examples of organisms that breed very fast so that experiments in natural selection can be repeated again and again and again with positive results. 'Positive results ' means significant evidence that natural selection is a real process by which species adapt and eventually change.


If you care to present evidence against the fact of natural selection, I can refute your evidence.

[Meleagar]

Evidence for natural selection:

1.Geological strata containing fossils, evidence which is interpreted like a detective pieces together the facts of a crime.

You don't understand the nature of the argument. ID doesn't deny an old earth or common descent.

2.The method of breeding attenuated pathogens in labs is one of natural selection, these weakened pathogens can then be used to vaccinate against the diseases.

ID doesn't deny that natural selection can generate some limited variation from currently existing organisms.

3.Fruit flies and sea cucumbers are examples of organisms that breed very fast so that experiments in natural selection can be repeated again and again and again with positive results. 'Positive results ' means significant evidence that natural selection is a real process by which species adapt and eventually change.

The evidence so far acquired by long-running, multi-generational studies of fast-reproducing organisms like bacteria, HIV, and fruit flies show the limitations of random mutation and natural selection as argued by ID theorists. While slight modifications and variances occur apparently through natural selection, HIV, bacteria (notably malaria) and fruit flies have never evolved into something else.

One might argue that there has not been enough time, but time isn't the issue; mutability and number of generations is the issue. Tens of thousands of generations of observation of malaria under extreme laboratory-generated environmental pressures have never shown any malaria strain evolving into something other than a slightly modified malaria, and even then it is unclear if the slight variation is actually new, or just the reappearance of a dormant variation.

Also, most variation comes at the price of damage to the organism, which brings up the unsolved problem of genetic entropy.

If you care to present evidence against the fact of natural selection, I can refute your evidence.

ID doesn't refute that natural selection exists and generates slight variations or that all biological entities share a remote, common ancestor; it refutes that natural selection is a sufficient sorting mechanism for producing most of what it is claimed to have produced in terms of novel, functional body-plans like eyesight or winged flight.

ID doesn't refute evolution; it refutes the materialist ideology that insists that non-teleological forces are sufficient to produce everything evolution has wrought. ID is an additional evolutionary theory component that ID theorists believe is demonstrably necessary to the evolutionary process in order for functional, interdependent, complex body plans and abilities (like eyesight and winged flight) to successfully come into existence.

[Alun]

Meleagar, Belinda is covering all of the bases, since e.g. the fossil record has indeed been questioned in this thread.

While slight modifications and variances occur apparently through natural selection, HIV, bacteria (notably malaria) and fruit flies have never evolved into something else.

False. We have witnessed the species divergence of corn and fruit flies, for example. (I cited this here.)

And no, I am not referring to divergence due to hybridization or polyploidy. The experiments involved selective reproductive forces only.

This is the original corn article: Pasterniani, E. 1969. Selection for reproductive isolation between two populations of maize, Zea mays L. Evolution. 23:534-547.

[Juice]

There are approximately 3000 different fruit flies whatever is done to them they are still fruit flies.

The only divergence observed in corn is polyploidization. The Pasterniani experiment was the result of hybrid isolation.


If Darwinism is dependent on this type of proof then it really is in trouble. No respectable biologist will site these examples knowing anything about microbiology. As I said Darwinism is an outdated theory which needs to catch up to 21st century science.

While the Darwinist fiddles with the mechanics of life and does a two step over the obvious we are forced into a material reality. Darwinism cannot define life, or existence, or thought.

Darwinism is attractive to the secularist and the atheists who will not accept the subtle nudge in the cell towards an intelligent designer who made the concept of creativity the only true science. How can anything come into being without a creative influence?

[Meleagar]

False. We have witnessed the species divergence of corn and fruit flies, for example. (I cited this here.)

The fruit fly did not become something other than a fruit fly, and the corn didn't become something other than corn. ID doesn't claim that RM & NS are insufficient for some speciation.

However, it should be noted that even minor successful speciation is claimed to be accomplished via RM & NS within the context of the presence of vast amounts of unexplained, FSCI, and a large amount of unknowns as to how much morphological variance is already programmed into the code that is only revealed under new environmental stressors. It is also claimed without knowing much about the regulatory framework that governs morphological expression in different environments and how it is accomplished in very short periods of time.

So, claiming that RM & NS are sufficient even for minor variation when one cannot even explain the presence or the full activity and capability of the material (DNA) that RM & NS are acting upon can be nothing more than bald assertion from ideology.

The only rational, scientific means of asserting that RM & NS & Genetic Drift are sufficient to explain anything is to show how the DNA came into existence by unintelligent processes and how it functions in near entirety when it comes to phenotypical variance and expression, gene transcription & checking, regulatory and systemic frameworks, etc., and to have a mathematical model of random mutation, natural selection and genetic drift based on real-world, empirical observations showing how the interaction of those processes with the DNA framework can produce the kinds of variances observed in the time allowed.

The reason that the DNA framework explanation is necessary is because if it is operates intelligently - i.e., with some kind of teleological, decision-making process when it comes to transcription, error-checking, and storing mutations in non-coding areas for later use; or in regulatory oversight with potential quantum computing processes that are interactive with the local environment, then RM & NS & GD become secondary mechanisms and entirely insufficient to explain even the most minor successful variations.

Without such a comprehensive model, the claim that RM, NS & GD are sufficent to generate what they are claimed to generate is nothing more than ideological, materialist fiction that has zero appropriate evidence to back it up.

They say if RM & NS is sufficient, then we'll see slight variations in species in the lab under stressed conditions (X); X occurs, so they claim that this evidences their premise. This is a textbook case of affirming the consequent, a logical fallacy, and is an invalid form of reasoning. They haven't established RM & NS as sufficient or as the only explanation for what they see occurring in the lab.

[Belinda]

Irreducible complexity, the argument supported by Mr Behe, is refuted by researchers into cellular structures.The most powerful rebuttals to the flagellum story, however, have not come from direct attempts to answer the critics of evolution. Rather, they have emerged from the steady progress of scientific work on the genes and proteins associated with the flagellum and other cellular structures. Such studies have now established that the entire premise by which this molecular machine has been advanced as an argument against evolution is wrong – the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex. As we will see, the flagellum – the supreme example of the power of this new "science of design" – has failed its most basic scientific test. Remember the claim that "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional?" As the evidence has shown, nature is filled with examples of "precursors" to the flagellum that are indeed "missing a part," and yet are fully-functional. Functional enough, in some cases, to pose a serious threat to human life.
**********
To superimpose ID upon natural selection is to support the notion that natural evolution is planned from first life to fully evolved organism. How then can an ID buff account for the wastage of what they count as fully evolved organisms?Does the Planner intervene at a time and place selected by himself to cut off the species? How many add-on hypotheses do ID buffs plan to invent to support their God of the Gaps?

What sort of opinion can ID proponents have of William of Occam's elegant advice to not add on unnecessary hypotheses? After all, natural selection can do the job without the back=up of any Designer.

[Juice]

It would be a mistake to deny that Darwin based his theory on the actions of men in our ability to improve species by selective breeding and hybridization which he attributed evolution to natural occurrences by natural selection, heredity and gradualism. We see the full extent of this reasoning in nazi Germany by their attempts to create a master race and segregate society into slave races determining subspecies of which Jews and Gypsies were a part. Could we assume that where humanity is concerned that this is a possible outcome of evolution, as we note in H.G.Well's, "The Time Machine"?

Those of us who are more than remotely interested in this topic and make it a point to keep abreast of the current science recognize the bacterium flagellum as a cellular feature of intricate and complex design. That anyone can look at that level of bioengineering and consider it the product of random evolutionary advantages is mysticism itself.

I have encouraged readers to examine sexual reproduction since it is the "high wall of separation" between credibility and Darwinian evolution. I point out the human sperm cell which has a flagellate which only allows the cell to move in one direction, and that is towards the egg. Now. think about it, if that cell had to develop according to Darwinian evolution then at which point was it necessary to create the tail and the flagellal motor? And, why was it necessary to do so? What came first the chicken or the egg? It is more likely that less complex structures than the flagella are the result of de-evolution and in fact some leading scientist are already finding evidence of this.

I have suggested that accepting Darwinian evolution is a leap of faith in more ways than that of intelligent design since in order for evolution to work it must be a smooth directed process. Consider the lack of intermediate organisms in the fossil record then consider that if an organism must wait, determine and then incorporate a beneficial characteristic which is a necessity for its survival then the reason for that change may have passed and a new characteristic becomes more necessary than the previous incarnation.

The flagellum proves exactly that level of complexity. At which point was it not necessary to have the function for which it was evolved/designed? This is what Darwinian proponents fail to recognize.

Scientifically, is the discovery that the flagellal motor actually has a brake. It was previously thought that the organism would just stop its tail when it wanted to slow down thereby stopping the motor, but it turns out that there is actually a torque reducer. Those who know about motors know about reduction gear which allows the motor to freely spin while the fan, whip or tail stops. This is actually a protein, EpsE, which slows down the organism and the gene, espE, which produces it has also been isolated. This is the the kind of engineering complexity, nanotechnology, which defies simplicity.

Sorry folks but Darwinism is dead, only supported by dogmatism, and materialist idolatry!

Those of us who have embraced the 21st century have the rational advantage of objective metaphysics.

[Alun]

There are approximately 3000 different fruit flies whatever is done to them they are still fruit flies.

The only divergence observed in corn is polyploidization. The Pasterniani experiment was the result of hybrid isolation.

Hybrid isolation is not polyploidization, nor is the Pasteriani experiment hybrid isolation. Do you enjoy making **** up Juice?

The two types of corn were variants (different colors) of the same species, and freely exchanged DNA at the start of the experiment. They reproduced with one another. By selecting against cross-pollination, the scientists pressured the two variants to become sexually isolated from one another (while in the same field together), which is the definition of species divergence.

No respectable biologist will site these examples knowing anything about microbiology.

Not only is this another invalid line of argument but as far as I can tell from talking to you about this, I know more about microbiology than you. My lack of agreement with ID is not a function of ignorance. That example is most definitely not of hybrid sterility. The two isolated strains of corn still reproduce among members of their own strain, just not with members of the other strain.

The fruit fly did not become something other than a fruit fly, and the corn didn't become something other than corn. ID doesn't claim that RM & NS are insufficient for some speciation.

You already agree that traits can change by evolution. I have shown you that populations can become sexually isolated via evolution by natural selection. So what else is there? If traits change, including reproductive identity, then populations can diverge into two totally different species. Is there some special point where things won't continue to evolve by natural selection? If so, where is it?

However, it should be noted that even minor successful speciation is claimed to be accomplished via RM & NS within the context of the presence of vast amounts of unexplained, FSCI, and a large amount of unknowns as to how much morphological variance is already programmed into the code that is only revealed under new environmental stressors.

Obviously a vast amount is still unexplained. That is the nature of biology. However, we do know considerable amounts by applying what we know happens to DNA under selective conditions to judge that mutations are the source of variance. I.e. we can look at how it works in bacteria (where DNA is always on), then move up to higher order organisms (where DNA is highly self-regulated).

The only rational, scientific means of asserting that RM & NS & Genetic Drift are sufficient to explain anything is to show how the DNA came into existence by unintelligent processes and how it functions in near entirety when it comes to phenotypical variance and expression, gene transcription & checking, regulatory and systemic frameworks, etc.

And if we cannot fully understand something, Goddidit? Sounds rational and scientific to me! We simply cannot go back in time to analyze young earth chemistry, and therefore may just not be able to pinpoint how it happened. That doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the most likely explanations, and accept the idea that some totally unknown process was involved, rather than the ones we have significant but incomplete understanding of.

Further, we do not need to know the origin of DNA to talk about what it does and how it is involved in evolution by natural selection. Hence, whether or not abiogenesis happened, evolution by natural selection is still the best theory.

They say if RM & NS is sufficient, then we'll see slight variations in species in the lab under stressed conditions (X); X occurs, so they claim that this evidences their premise. This is a textbook case of affirming the consequent, a logical fallacy, and is an invalid form of reasoning.

No, it's inductive reasoning. Science is by definition not deductive. It searches for the most useful explanation, not necessary truth.

I have encouraged readers to examine sexual reproduction since it is the "high wall of separation" between credibility and Darwinian evolution. I point out the human sperm cell which has a flagellate which only allows the cell to move in one direction, and that is towards the egg. Now. think about it, if that cell had to develop according to Darwinian evolution then at which point was it necessary to create the tail and the flagellal motor? And, why was it necessary to do so? What came first the chicken or the egg? It is more likely that less complex structures than the flagella are the result of de-evolution and in fact some leading scientist are already finding evidence of this.

How is this a problem at all? The flagella did not evolve in humans, it evolved in bacteria; bacteria did not use the flagella to reach an egg, but to reach food sources.

Consider the lack of intermediate organisms in the fossil record

Consider that the fossil record is incomplete because fossils are rare, and hence the fossil record appears fairly unexpectedly sparse.

if an organism must wait, determine and then incorporate a beneficial characteristic which is a necessity for its survival then the reason for that change may have passed and a new characteristic becomes more necessary than the previous incarnation.

Changes that lead to reproductive selection don't last just one generation.

It was previously thought that the organism would just stop its tail when it wanted to slow down thereby stopping the motor, but it turns out that there is actually a torque reducer. Those who know about motors know about reduction gear which allows the motor to freely spin while the fan, whip or tail stops. This is actually a protein, EpsE, which slows down the organism and the gene, espE, which produces it has also been isolated. This is the the kind of engineering complexity, nanotechnology, which defies simplicity.

Complex, ergo Goddidit? No. Why wouldn't you expect the flagella to have brakes? If only one protein is required to employ the brake, why wouldn't you expect it to have evolved--giving bacteria who don't have to rely on friction an advantage?

[Juice]

Alun-No experiment from 1969 which you attempt to muddy waters of an actual evolutionary event can change the fact the corn was still corn and at the very most proved one seed type more dominant than another seed type which produced nothing more than your garden variety maize. There was no speciation and natural selection alone is not evolution. The corn theory did not even improve or add genetic information to the species. Just more Darwinian straw theories.

Spermatozoa utilizes a flagellum for motility, with a lack of imagination I understand the difficulty in comprehending the difficulty in sexual reproduction as being the result of an evolutionary process from a single common organism, please note the word common.

We have to understand why evolution must be a directed process once we understand mutations. If mutations more often than not cause a deleterious effect to the organism then what happens to that mutation when that organisms evolutionary progress does not result in extinction? One would have to conclude that some of those genes would be non functional. This was thought to be so called junk DNA, non-coding DNA, expressed in non functional sections of the genome, now know to assist in protein coding.

Think of a programmer who would construct a program which could detect, evaluate and create the information necessary to adjust to a new environment but would also have a backup algorithm in place which can also adjust any new sequencing as needed. This would mean a fully sequenced organism which would then have the ability to adjust.

This is necessary since if deleterious mutations were retained then most of the DNA would be faulty or repetitive and would eventually lead to the extinction.

We have to not only understand the science of Darwinism but the philosophy too. And for this we should turn to Nachmans U Paradox which simply matches deleterious mutations with neutral mutations and beneficial mutations in any given generation. Eventually, after a number of generations depending on the number of deleterious mutations per generation, the organism will reach a threshold were deleterious mutations become too cumbersome and the organism dies. This is why Darwinist "invented" "junk DNA" even though there was no real scientific proofs for non- coding DNA. The same is true for abiogenesis, a term which is supposed to lend support for a primordial common ancestor but in fact has no supportive science.

Darwinist make evolution sound so simple but it is in fact extremely complex. The brake or clutch of the bacterial flagellum is of such engineering complexity that it must be considered designed. And, heres why.

When the first self propelled vehicles were invented there was little thought given to braking. The vehicles moved so slowly that a person could just put their foot out and stop. As the speed progressed, clutch systems and braking systems were added. Imagine the same for the bacteria who evolves a method of locomotion in order to free itself from the effects of biofilm. This is an important adaptation since the organism is now free to explore new feeding sources. But, remember I mentioned "biofilm", like plague on teeth. Eventually the environment of grouped non motile organism will become contaminated by cellular secretions. The organism will also be affected by the "van der Waals" process. The organism is actually stuck in place by competing forces between the organism and its environment. So if the flagella is the result of Darwinian gradualism then how did those organisms survive an overpopulated environment living among its own secretions, dead and the U-Paradox without the ability to move around during the long process of evolution?

We have to think this through! The flagellal organism actually moves at speeds 10 times faster than a cheetah, the fastest land animal, which, scaled, comes to about 600 miles an hour, almost the speed of sound, but not quite. The flagellal organism can slow down, speed up without shutting down its motor, like a car on idle it still uses energy, very inefficient, but purposeful. So the flagellal motor is not just a grouping of interrelated parts, each part self sufficient but a designed necessity with no unnecessary gaps in the organisms genome.

The problems with Darwinism, neo-Darwinism and classical evolution are numerous and not just limited to straw experiments like corn, fruit flies and the production of simple sugars in a beaker but now extend into a world just now beginning to be seriously explored. There can be no doubt that a new paradigm of thinking in life origins is taking hold. Some might want to call it "God did it" as if that somehow diminishes the observations, since if there is a God, and there is, then God did do it. One thing I am sure of which is an obvious part of our reality and that is it was made with exploration in mind. Just as much as the world is so specifically suited to our needs so too are our abilities to explore, discover and define it. While some may want to attribute that ability to the nature of good fortune it just seems to me that God is giving everyone as much a chance to discover Him according to their own abilities and strengths whether that be faith itself or science we should accept the possibility that God can speak to us on so many levels and terms which also proves that it is all up to individual to accept the signs of His existence, or not.

[Meleagar]

"Goddidit" is a red herring; nobody claimed or asserted or insinuated "god". "Chance did it" cannot be claimed without a meaningful analysis of the probabilities involved; Darwinists have never produced such an analysis. "Some unintelligent process we don't understand did it" is not a scientific theory, it's an ideological claim.

Since it hasn't even been shown that small variations occur via random mutation and natural selection, claiming that many such varations over time can build eyesight or winged flight is not only overreaching, it's not based on something that has been shown to be RM & NS in the first place.

Darwinism is nothing but storytelling predicated on materialist philosophy, nothing more. They haven't shown RM & NS to be capable of doing anything; evolution occurs and they claim it is RM & NS that did it, with no probabilitic accounting of RM, NS, or even an explanation of what they are working on and what its part is in the process. This is pure "affirming the consequent" and nothing else.

Darwinism is a materialist fairy tale, much like Genesis is a theistic faery tale.

[Alun]

There was no speciation and natural selection alone is not evolution.

Fine. What is "real" species divergence? I'm not going to keep running around while you move goal posts.

We have to understand why evolution must be a directed process once we understand mutations. If mutations more often than not cause a deleterious effect to the organism then what happens to that mutation when that organisms evolutionary progress does not result in extinction? One would have to conclude that some of those genes would be non functional.

Genetic drift happens. This is separate from Junk DNA--i.e. not all genetic drift requires intermediate non-functional DNA. But there also is non-functional DNA, as far as we know (although we also know that some "Junk" DNA is still used, just not for coding proteins directly). See wiki on it.

Darwinist make evolution sound so simple but it is in fact extremely complex.

Stop generalizing about Darwinists. It is both an invalid form of argument, an unsubstantiated claim, and frequently insulting.

So if the flagella is the result of Darwinian gradualism then how did those organisms survive an overpopulated environment living among its own secretions, dead and the U-Paradox without the ability to move around during the long process of evolution?

Early organisms lived in the ocean; secretions would've been swept away by the environment. Regardless, you are now unable to explain the majority of bacteria, which do not have means of self-propulsion.

The flagellal organism actually moves at speeds 10 times faster than a cheetah, the fastest land animal, which, scaled, comes to about 600 miles an hour, almost the speed of sound, but not quite.

This is irrelevant. A bacterial cell is only micrometers in size; it'd be surprising if they could not harness chemical energy more efficiently.

The flagellal organism can slow down, speed up without shutting down its motor, like a car on idle it still uses energy, very inefficient, but purposeful. So the flagellal motor is not just a grouping of interrelated parts, each part self sufficient but a designed necessity with no unnecessary gaps in the organisms genome.

How have you shown that based on what it can do? Which parts of the flagellum could not have evolved without foresight?

"Goddidit" is a red herring; nobody claimed or asserted or insinuated "god".

Doesn't matter. The point is that ID discards any attempt at explanation, since, like God, the intelligence that is being proposed cannot be understood; its mechanism is by definition unknown.

Some might want to call it "God did it" as if that somehow diminishes the observations, since if there is a God, and there is, then God did do it.

It is not an explanation. It does not do anything for our understanding of x to just throw up our hands and say something which is permanently beyond our understanding caused x.

"Chance did it" cannot be claimed without a meaningful analysis of the probabilities involved; Darwinists have never produced such an analysis.

... What do you think we've been talking about?

"Some unintelligent process we don't understand did it" is not a scientific theory, it's an ideological claim.

Some process that as far as we do understand involves no intelligence did it.

Since it hasn't even been shown that small variations occur via random mutation and natural selection

Wait, now you're denying microevolution by natural selection too? Weren't you pretending to care about the facts earlier? We have witnessed the evolution of reproductive isolation of populations (not infertility), the evolution of multicellular colonies from unicellular organisms, the evolution of antibiotic resistance, and the evolution of toxicity resistance to name a few. And we can look at how the genes changed and what environmental forces lead to the change to determine that this evolution occurred due to natural selection of genetic mutations. I'd cite all of these things, but I've already done so to the general disinterest of the ID advocates here.

[Juice]

I believe it safe to note that a possible result of blind "faith" in Darwinian evolution produces a lack of an imagination>

Being that there is no evidence or proof of life having started, and in fact more evidence that it could not have, hence the "Wellsian" "panspermia theory", in the oceans I would point out the lengths Darwinist go to in order to preserve an improbable concept. "Chemical evolution", life from immaterial chemicals, now called abiogenesis is just a horse of a different color to give at least a meaningful term to a mysterious event. Darwin, himself, understood the difficulties of life origins and concluded that the origin of life must have been created by God. So here we are some 150 years later proclaiming godlike knowledge of a supernatural event born of material inconsistencies. Please don't mention Miller-Urey whose greatest accomplishment was to show just how unnatural the necessary energy expenditures are in order to create even the simplest and incomplete biologically useful amino-acids. As noted Darwinist rely heavily on speculation whether corn, fruit flies, mice or a naturally engineered clutch braking system which would require a brain to operate let alone to make.

One of the other difficulties in single celled organisms surviving in an "ocean" is "Brownian Motion". The poor little critter would just be continuously knocked about in an ocean made of whatever chemical composition the Darwinist has no idea existed. Not only would the organism have to contend with variable random mutations but also a random directional existence and a constantly changing environment. First no oxygen, since O2 is harmful to protein structures, then O2 rich which somehow would have to have been magically created without plants.

Once again we are left with the classic "chicken and egg" analogy, except we must ask what came first the transcripted protein or the the protein transcription? Once we understood the language the message should be clear unless one lacks an imagination.

The term junk DNA was used to describe "psuedogenes". Junk DNA was thought to be un-transcribed genes. It is now a fact that "junk DNA" is actually transcribed. Just imagine now how difficult it is for a mutation to occur in a cell, whether beneficial or not, with an advanced system of regulating algorithms unless such a system also portends the usefulness of the mutation, like Dawkins selfish gene. Except this gene was made smart, understanding the purpose of itself, like the clutch braking system of the flagella, now where do you suppose a bacteria would be of a mind to stop, hover and go as it pleases?

How random is a coin toss?

[Alun]

Being that there is no evidence or proof of life having started, and in fact more evidence that it could not have, hence the "Wellsian" "panspermia theory", in the oceans I would point out the lengths Darwinist go to in order to preserve an improbable concept.

I am not saying things about the origins of life in this thread. I am saying that the ocean was inhabited by bacteria before land; are you disputing this historical claim?

As noted Darwinist rely heavily on speculation whether corn, fruit flies, mice or a naturally engineered clutch braking system which would require a brain to operate let alone to make.

Stop making these unsubstantiated generalizations and prove it. When have I speculated? Where is my reasoning incorrect? If you cannot answer these questions, you do not have an argument.

Not only would the organism have to contend with variable random mutations but also a random directional existence and a constantly changing environment. First no oxygen, since O2 is harmful to protein structures, then O2 rich which somehow would have to have been magically created without plants.

Umm... what are you even talking about now? The first bacteria lived in an anaerobic environment. O2 was first generated by autotrophic bacteria; only later would O2 be used to further acquire energy from organic molecules.

Once again we are left with the classic "chicken and egg" analogy

No, we're not. This is all basic biology.

The term junk DNA was used to describe "psuedogenes". Junk DNA was thought to be un-transcribed genes. It is now a fact that "junk DNA" is actually transcribed.

No, it is never used to describe transcribed DNA. (And it's a colloquial term nonetheless.) Where do you get these ideas? Junk DNA can refer to both non-coding DNA which is nevertheless used in part and to DNA that has no known use to the organism.

Just imagine now how difficult it is for a mutation to occur in a cell, whether beneficial or not, with an advanced system of regulating algorithms unless such a system also portends the usefulness of the mutation, like Dawkins selfish gene.

Why would it be hard for mutations to occur? And are you now questioning whether mutations occur? What exactly are you trying to say?

Once again, you're threatening to go off into speculation without referring to any evidence whatsoever. I've repeatedly shown you examples which back up my positions, and you've failed to coherently address all of them, but instead simply denied me, claimed they lacked imagination, or complained that, in some vague way, you've moved beyond evidence of this sort. You have demonstrated nothing, but claimed many things.