Flann 5 wrote:
What's interesting is that there are various schools of theory on origins and evolution often complete with philosophies.
Here's an interesting article by Edmond Jacobiti where he assesses them from his perspective. He neither advocates intelligent design or creation but gives a good appraisal of various views.

Your beyond doubt about the articles value
here's the correct link to the article http://www.siue.edu/EASTASIA/Jacobitti_072601.htm

It took me about 4 hours to read through the entire thing but it certainly presents what has been the crux of much of whats been discussed here on Booktalk, I recommend anyone not familiar with the various theory's on origins and evolution read it for them selves, particularly you lurkers out there, you my just learn something, I know I have.

I think that there is merit in a combination of the theory's discussed, Taken as individuals there appear to be hole's but when combinations are made, ideas become stable with logic.
This maybe simplistic but the way I see it is " big fish eat little fish, an imaginary fish may feed the [soul] but the imaginary one will ultimately leave the belly grumbling"
So I guess that's the side of the fence I occupy, but it should be known that my fence is only three feet tall and chain linked, Its very clear to look through and is only there to keep my dog from wandering the neighborhood.

Thanks Taylor. I expect your head is seething with ideas having digested Jacobitti's essay. It's very useful in clarifying what the issues and differences actually are.
He comes from a postmodernist perspective philosophically,(which I don't share) but his analysis of strengths and weaknesses of competing theories is very good and he's clear and readable and quite witty.
He's mainly focused on secular theories. There's always the presupposition of philosophical naturalism here.
He baulks at design primarily I think because of the problem of evil as he say's himself. As a theist I appreciate his not presenting stereotypical caricature of this position and recognising valid criticisms from that source.
One point on this. It's often asserted that 99% of all species have gone extinct and Christopher Hitchens often made much of this when debating.
I wonder about the reliability of this stat.Is it of actual known species or does it include innumerable never discovered imaginary intermediates which the theory dictates must have existed? I'll have to investigate this stat.
I did a quick search on this. It's complex. Stephen Jay Gould said that 99% of all species had gone extinct with most not leaving a trace in the fossil record. This suggests to me an extrapolation but based on what? The degree of estimated incompleteness of the record or the required intermediates for the theory or both?
I'll look into it.

I disagree with him that I.D./creationists "shoehorn the evidence" and when it comes to the fossil evidence I would say the shoe is on the other foot.
Still it's a well considered essay with plenty of food for thought for anyone interested in these matters.

First; thank you.
I agree caricaturizing should have no place in the debate, its use is debasement and should be scorned.

Flann 5 wrote:
He baulks at design primarily I think because of the problem of evil

The questions of evil and freewill and determinism etc... are subjects I am greatly interested in, the differences can be quite confusing for a non-initiate, I'm working on it.

I also agree with the question of 99% of species extinction, it seems a leap of faith, I don't think I'm inclined to put to much doubt toward the number given time scaling in the geologic context though. I imagine there is inclusion of speculated life forms but I just know to little to think for certain.
Lastly; typically there are two pair of shoes, I would say shoehorning is part of both.

Something the article fails to mention directly;
A male bear will wander the country side looking for food, if it encounters a female, the male will ether attempt to eat her cubs (if she has any) or he will attempt to hump her (if she'll have him, good for him), if she wont have him, the male bear will go on his way, continuing to forage for food. Given that scenario, is reproduction the driver of evolution, or an empty stomach?.

Taylor wrote:Natural selection seems a part of a co-variant system, For me, I think that simple to complex is a natural exchange, our planet has changed over billions of years, the sustainment of complexities as we know them today, wasn't compatible in early stage development, of course we'll never really know for sure as not enough from then survives today, as it is, when new discoveries are made its a genuine needle in the hay stack.

Just thinking about these things Taylor. Actually the simplest cell is incredibly complex and the simple life form such as a bacterium is exponentially more complex at the biochemical level. Add to that the fact that a bacterial flagellum which is just a part is considered the most efficient machine currently known,then you have complexity right at the beginning if that's how things started.
The program of mutational breeding constituted a field test of the theory and turns up the law of recurrent variant.
We have living fossils apparently unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. The point is that mutations are the provider of significant change according to neo-Darwinism and they are random they say.
Why then over all these millions of years did random mutations not change these creatures? Of course complex creatures appear suddenly in the record in relative terms,fully formed and functional without ancestors and you have to judge for yourself whether the explanations given for this are satisfactory or not.
The theory doesn't seem to require optimisation either now or in the past but what is sufficient for survival and reproduction at any given time.
In the end there are philosophical elements which are hard to separate from interpretation of the evidence in an objective way.
Suffice to say it has critics not lacking in specialist knowledge in these areas and it seems to come down to how data is interpreted.
I take the view of design and purpose but not without supporting reasons. So do others like Prof of biology Scott Minnich.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm-Ukz72AdA

Flann wrote:then you have complexity right at the beginning if that's how things started.

Part of abiogenesis research is studying the various ways proto-life could form out of a prebiotic soup. Multicellular life is an afterthought. Complex cells are an afterthought. The first components would be some sort of lipid or protein shell surrounding a simple replication scheme. A very basic simulacrum of a modern cell. I stopped paying attention after a whlie, since scientists keep coming up with new ways it could possibly have happened.

[quote]Flann 5 wrote:
I take the view of design and purpose but not without supporting reasons. So do others like Prof of biology Scott Minnich.[/quote

Clearly Minnich is brilliant, What I find interesting is the work he does for a living, as he describes it, his job is not to evolve bacterium, (as in moving it into lets say the next stage of growth) but to run it into extinction. He fights disease. He personally is willing to accept design and at the same time credits scientific methods requirement to look beyond metaphysics.

Taylor wrote:Clearly Minnich is brilliant, What I find interesting is the work he does for a living, as he describes it, his job is not to evolve bacterium, (as in moving it into lets say the next stage of growth) but to run it into extinction. He fights disease. He personally is willing to accept design and at the same time credits scientific methods requirement to look beyond metaphysics.

He's a professor of microbiology Taylor. His views are in the minority among scientists on macro-evolution and many more scientists go with the theory all the way.
About bacterial resistance to antibiotics. I understood he was saying that this is mutational micro-evolution but there is a cost for that mutated bacterium in terms of "fitness" and this kind of mutation is leading towards extinction for it in real terms in the long run.
I don't fully understand the chemistry but that seemed to be the drift in layman's terms.The standard argument against irreducible complexity is that organisms can step by step increase complexity. Some parts may be functional for something else originally and eventually become part of, or co-opted to a more complex functioning whole later.

He didn't think it was that simple and gave reasons why, and the picture of things being gradually cobbled together didn't match his understanding of microbiology.It would be interesting to see to see him debate this with Kenneth Miller who mainly advocates the gradualist explanation in public.
As far as origin of life goes there are new theories out and no doubt they will be examined as others have been and we'll see how that goes.
Maybe a theoretical path for chemical evolution can be imagined. It seems to only have occurred once on our planet though some biologists question common ancestry in which case if true, it would have to occur more often.
Minnich seemed to think that in the sequencing of genomes of various organisms, the phylogenies constructed from these are ambiguous and we are none the wiser on common ancestry, or whether there may be individual lines of ancestry to more than one original.
This is in contrast to Richard Dawkins assertion that the molecular genetic evidence is emphatic on common ancestry.

I suppose as understanding grows things will become clearer but right now there's an awful lot that's not well understood.

Flann 5 wrote:
He's a professor of microbiology Taylor

I stand corrected on Minnich's current status. Thanks.

Flann 5 wrote:

Gnostic Bishop wrote:I am not into this science but nature can only work with the genes we have. If we presently only have 98% of ape genes for instance, we can only mutate to being 98% ape and will always be 2% something else. Regression is always possible and that is why some of us are born with vestigial tails.

O.K. Bishop but why do you dogmatically assert this theory to be correct when you are unwilling to look at critical evidence that undermines it?
You have no answer for Loennig's law of recurrent variation but he must be wrong anyway?

I would be as fool to think that the theory is not sound when so many sciences are using it daily. If other theories gain credibility, I am sure that the scientific community will embrace them. just as they have evolution.

Regards
DL