Evolution v Creationism: A Dead Issue

[Jose Fly]

As someone who spent a lot of time on the evolution v creationism battles over the last 20 years, I've noticed that in the last 5 years or so the issue seems to have largely gone off the radar. In the message boards that are still around (both Christian and secular) it's barely debated, if at all. Websites specifically dedicated to countering creationist talking points such as talkorigins and pandasthumb have gone silent, seemingly because there just isn't much to talk about.

Surveys have shown that younger Americans accept the reality of evolution at pretty much the same rate as the rest of the developed world. Thanks to national focus on science education by organizations like the NCSE, evolution is more widely taught than ever, even in the deep south. The Discovery Institute (the main "intelligent design" organization) stopped advocating for ID creationism to be taught in schools years ago, and they closed their alleged "research arm" last year.

On the science front, creationism remains as it has for over a century....100% scientifically irrelevant.

So for all practical intents and purposes, this debate is over. There isn't any sort of public debate over teaching creationism, nor is there any real debate about whether evolution should be taught. For sure there's still work to do in some parts of the country (mostly the south and interior west) where even though evolution is officially required, teachers don't teach it either because it's "too controversial" or they don't believe it themselves, but big picture-wise, "evolution v creationism" is in about the same state as "spherical v flat earth"....nothing more than something a handful of people argue about on the internet, but outside of that has little to no significance. And even on that front it's kinda dead....most forums where it's openly debated have a very skewed ratio where there's like 10 "evolutionists" for every 1 creationist.

Glad to see it!

[Sherlock Holmes]

This is one of the ways you can tell ID creationism is just a belief (and not a well thought out one).

SH states in Post #185: "I regard the entire universe as being designed".

But then when asked about "the criteria you use to establish that an object has been designed rather than being not designed", SH replies in Post #193: "That's one the research goals of ID".

Like many creationists I've encountered, SH doesn't seem to have put his talking points together to see if they're consistent. If the entire universe is designed, then there are no "undesigned" things, which means "the research goal of ID" to differentiate between "designed" and "undesigned" things is pointless.

Oops.

That's a fair comment, I did say each of those things, I'm happy to explore this and clarify if you'd like.

The difficulty here is that designed things are constructed from smaller also designed things, so take a Boeing 747 - that was designed.

But the hydraulic systems and pressure pumps were also designed as was the landing gear.

Pressure pumps are built from various forms of gears and electric motors, these too were designed as was the rubber tires and axles in the wheels.

The universe is the same, everything in a cell was designed, fundamental particles were designed and used to build atoms, atoms were used in the design of molecules as were the various kinds of molecular bonds.

Proteins were designed and are constructed from simpler molecules and the biological cell was designed and so on.

So yes everything was designed but a biological cell is not designed from raw fundamental particles just as a 747 was not designed from raw nuts and bolts although these are used.

That is what I was alluding to Jose, get it now?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #227]

There have been far more than 300 generations of mammals, so that looks like a non sequitur to me.

Ok, let's put some numbers to this.

To estimate the integration rate we applied to all genomes a uniform mammalian nucleotide substitution rate, derived from neutral nuclear protein-coding sites, of 2.2×10−9 per site per year [60].

Estimating rate of substitution

By finding synteny of the pre-integration sites (i.e. homology of the host genome sequences adjacent to the LTRs), we identified six full-length orthologous loci from three ERV families (HERV-H, HERV-L, and HK2) in at least four of the following species: human, chimpanzee, gorilla, macaque and gibbon. For each set of orthologous loci we built an alignment and ran a molecular clock analysis with BEAST [63,64] for at least 106 generations (Estimated Sample Size > 200). We used the General Time Reversible substitution model with a gamma distribution to account for variation of the rate among sites (GTR + G) [65] and an uncorrelated log-normal relaxed molecular clock model [66]. We used the previously reported times to Most Recent Common Ancestor (tMRCA) of the other catarrhines to human to calibrate the molecular clock [67]: chimpanzee: 6.60 (5.40-7.96) mya; gorilla: 8.30 (6.58-10.07) mya; orangutan: 16.52 (13.45-19.68) mya; gibbon: 20.32 (16.59- 24.22) mya; macaque: 31.56 (25.66-37.88) mya.

The median rate on branches of these trees was found to be between 0.6 and 1.3x10−9 substitutions per site per year, with an overall mean of these rates being 1.0×10−9. Other studies using several homologous LTRs in different families have found similar rates: between 1.0×10−9 and 1.3×10−9 [68]. A rate of ~1×10−9 was also found for non-coding genome regions among catarrhines [69]. The Subramanian and Kumar study [69] concluded that the two-fold higher substitution rate among four-fold degenerate sites across all mammals [60] was probably due to differences in the abundance of CG dinucleotides in coding and non-coding regions.

https://retrovirology.biomedcentral.com ... 015-0136-x

Notice the substitution rate has the units of "per site per year" So how many sites are there? Mammals have around 3.5 E9 base pairs. So mammals have 3.5 E 9 sites.

This study found the mean substitution rate to be 1.3E-9 per site per year. That gives 4.55 substitutions per year. Each progeny receives all mutations from the sperm and egg so it would experience 9.1 neutral mutations per year. Therefore in a human-like species with a 20 year generation time, each progeny would receive 182 new mutations per generation that have to become fixed. Haldane says that it would take an average of 300 generations.

That means for a species that has a 20-year generational cycle it would take 6000 years.

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are endogenous viral elements in the genome that closely resemble and can be derived from retroviruses. They are abundant in the genomes of jawed vertebrates, and they comprise up to 5–8% of the human genome

If ERV's comprise 5% of the genome that means that 1.75 E 8 sites are changed. That means that it would take 961538 generations. This means that it would take 5.76 billion years to produce this many ERV's in the human genome. I think that you believe that the earth is only 4 billion years old. That is a problem.

[Difflugia]

This study found the mean substitution rate to be 1.3E-9 per site per year. That gives 4.55 substitutions per year. Each progeny receives all mutations from the sperm and egg so it would experience 9.1 neutral mutations per year. Therefore in a human-like species with a 20 year generation time, each progeny would receive 182 new mutations per generation that have to become fixed. Haldane says that it would take an average of 300 generations.

That means for a species that has a 20-year generational cycle it would take 6000 years.

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are endogenous viral elements in the genome that closely resemble and can be derived from retroviruses. They are abundant in the genomes of jawed vertebrates, and they comprise up to 5–8% of the human genome

If ERV's comprise 5% of the genome that means that 1.75 E 8 sites are changed. That means that it would take 961538 generations. This means that it would take 5.76 billion years to produce this many ERV's in the human genome. I think that you believe that the earth is only 4 billion years old. That is a problem.

Your numbers are wrong at least because you're trying to turn a "fixation rate" based on SNPs to an ERV by multiplying a per-base rate to each base in an inserted retroviral sequence independently. A quick search finds that HERV-K family insertions are about 9.5kb long. If we treat that as an average, then you can divide your total sites, thus your total generations, by 9500 and the result is 100 generations. That's certainly way too low, so there's obviously something else grievously wrong with your analysis.

I'm not going to try to figure out why you're wrong, but one thing I will point out is that you keep throwing around an estimate of 300 generations for a point mutation to achieve fixation. That can't be right for the simple fact that it doesn't take population size into account. Maybe you're misreading Haldane or maybe Haldane was wrong. I don't know either way, but I do know that the number's pretty much meaningless as you're using it.

[JoeyKnothead]

Why does your avatar change every fifteen minutes and why does it always look like a short penguin?

It's the Linux mascot. I have right at a thousand of em. I try to change it daily.

Linux sucks.

I can't rightly argue against your expertise in sucking.

[Difflugia]

Linux sucks.

Let me guess... You used to be a devoted, outspoken user of Linux. You were root, for crying out loud! Then you read a book, learned all the tricks, and now you're Linux' worst nightmare.

[William]

Why does your avatar change every fifteen minutes and why does it always look like a short penguin?

It's the Linux mascot. I have right at a thousand of em. I try to change it daily.

Linux sucks.

I can't rightly argue against your expertise in sucking.

[JoeyKnothead]

The universe is the same, everything in a cell was designed, fundamental particles were designed and used to build atoms, atoms were used in the design of molecules as were the various kinds of molecular bonds.

The problem you face here is comparing what we know to be the product of humans, to what you claim to be the product of a god.

Proteins were designed and are constructed from simpler molecules and the biological cell was designed and so on.

Just asserting a claim ain't showing g that claim is true.

At best, the data shows things act according to their properties.

So yes everything was designed but a biological cell is not designed from raw fundamental particles just as a 747 was not designed from raw nuts and bolts although these are used.

You'll no more show there's intent to how stuff acts than you'll show your favored god's behind that intent.

[Sherlock Holmes]

The universe is the same, everything in a cell was designed, fundamental particles were designed and used to build atoms, atoms were used in the design of molecules as were the various kinds of molecular bonds.

The problem you face here is comparing what we know to be the product of humans, to what you claim to be the product of a god.

Proteins were designed and are constructed from simpler molecules and the biological cell was designed and so on.

Just asserting a claim ain't showing g that claim is true.

It does if it's self evident.

At best, the data shows things act according to their properties.

Yes, they've been designed to do that, that's not an accident!

So yes everything was designed but a biological cell is not designed from raw fundamental particles just as a 747 was not designed from raw nuts and bolts although these are used.

You'll no more show there's intent to how stuff acts than you'll show your favored god's behind that intent.

I don't have to show you, what you choose to believe is your choice.

[JoeyKnothead]

It does if it's self evident.

Because invisible sky beings are so self evident.

At best, the data shows things act according to their properties.

Yes, they've been designed to do that, that's not an accident!

Another claim without confirmaton.

So yes everything was designed but a biological cell is not designed from raw fundamental particles just as a 747 was not designed from raw nuts and bolts although these are used.

You'll no more show there's intent to how stuff acts than you'll show your favored god's behind that intent.

I don't have to show you, what you choose to believe is your choice.

Lol

Why even bother to debate if you refuse to support your claims?

[Sherlock Holmes]

It does if it's self evident.

Because invisible sky beings are so self evident.

If one knows what to look for.

At best, the data shows things act according to their properties.

Yes, they've been designed to do that, that's not an accident!

Another claim without confirmaton.

Nonsense, I confirmed this years ago.

So yes everything was designed but a biological cell is not designed from raw fundamental particles just as a 747 was not designed from raw nuts and bolts although these are used.

You'll no more show there's intent to how stuff acts than you'll show your favored god's behind that intent.

I don't have to show you, what you choose to believe is your choice.

Lol

Why even bother to debate if you refuse to support your claims?

Why present support when its rejected out of hand?