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<b><font color="ff0000">Dinosaurs: An Adventist View</font></b> <BR> <BR>Lawyer David Read has written this book. I decided to start this thread when I read an assertion of his which I think may yield some interesting discussion and examination. Here is the statement:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>When our DNA copies itself, it does so flawlessly 99.99% of the time, but occasionally there is a copying error. The modern theory of evolution posits that those copying errors accumulate to create new biochemical mechanisms, new organs, and eventually change species into different, new species. That is the theory of evolution in a nutshell. But our real-world experience with DNA copying errors is that they cause all kinds of problems, including thousands of diseases. The notion that DNA copying errors are responsible for all of the diversity of plant and animal life that we see around us is an idea that I don't find at all credible, and I marvel that it has become scientific dogma. <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.atoday.com/dinosaurs-adventist-view-interview-author" target="_blank">http://www.atoday.com/dinosaurs-adventist-view-int erview-author</a> <BR> <BR><!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>Has anyone studied DNA mutations? Any thoughts on the accuracy of his statements in the quote? <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>
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Mendel's Accountant, look at it. Mutations, the basis of common ancestry and evolution, weakens the ability of macroevolution. <BR> <BR><a href="http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2007am/techprogram/P35998.HTM" target=_top>http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2007am/techprogram/P 35998.HTM</a>
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<b><font color="ff0000">Mendel's Accountant</font></b> <BR> <BR>I know little about radiometric dating and even less about genetics. Perhaps you could explain how it works? Maybe we should invite a molecular-geneticist to join us in explaining things further. <BR> <BR>The term mutations seems negative to me. But, doesn't genetic theory propose that changes are the "way of life" of gene reproduction. The genes that change and survive are successful, those that don't survive obviously aren't successful. <BR> <BR>Let's call genetic mutation, "genetically generated change". If the change becomes permanent, then the life form has adapted. Creatlionists, such as myself, believe that this adaptive permanent change happens within "kinds". I am content with "kinds" including, for dogs, up to the "family" classification. <BR> <BR>So, why can't genetically generated change be acceptable to a creationist? <BR> <BR>I will repeat the obvious, I know very little about this. <BR> <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>
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As a novice I ask: what is the difference between mutations, which all scientists accept, and microevolution? <BR> <BR>Scientists recognize that mutations are continuing in genes of both humans and viruses.
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From David Read's book: <BR> <BR>"But our real-world experience with DNA copying errors is that they cause all kinds of problems, including thousands of diseases." <BR> <BR>No, not always. Some genetic mutations "weed out" inferior or harmful genes and allow the "good" ones to continue. We see this in familial inbreeding, which produces more of the harmful genes, but with wider intermarriage between different ethnic groups, the "good genes" gradually eliminate the "bad ones." <BR> <BR>Whether this occurs naturally, or by human genetic modification, it is a fact.
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Genetic modification in nature: (from "Biotechnology."<b> <BR> <BR>All the existing wild species of plants and animals are the result of genetic modification by nature.</b> In nature, traits with an adaptive value, i.e., traits advantageous for the survival of the species, have continuously been preserved by Natural Selection. <BR> <BR>Natural Selection results in genetic modification, and in turn in new varieties and species. Natural Selection cannot cause new genetic variation, but only operates at a given time, upon the existing variation in the genes for different traits in a population. <BR> <BR>Natural sources of genetic variation: <BR> <BR>a) Gene mutations: Whenever a cell undergoes division, mitosis in the body cells or meiosis in the sexual cells, new copies of the entire DNA in the cell are made. This is DNA replication, which uses both the strands of the DNA in the cell as templates. This process is very faithful, but occasionally some copying errors creep in, resulting in a different sequence of nucleotides, which means changed (mutated) genes. Since there are several copies of the same gene, many mutations do not initially matter and they do not also matter when not affecting important metabolic processes. Mutations with an adaptive value to the population/species are fixed in the population by Natural Selection. If a mutation is deleterious, the individuals containing it as well as the mutated gene are eliminated. Mutations that have neither beneficial nor deleterious effects at the time remain dormant in the population (neutral mutations), till the environmental forces tilt the balance making them either beneficial or deleterious. <BR> <BR>Mutations occur routinely in nature and have been responsible for an enormous number of new varieties and species. The population with selected mutations is genetically modified, and will be different from the parents. This is how most of biological evolution progresses, but extremely slowly, requiring a large number of generations for perceptible changes to establish. <BR> <BR>Simply Google "Genetic Modification in Nature" for many articles.
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Don, within in kinds, yes for adaption and change. But the whole system of evolution is based on mutation. Mendel's calculates the fittest to proceed to MacroEvolution. That is where most creationists refuse to go. Microevolution I studied at Andrews, but Macroevolution has never been proved. Google it for yourself. Speculation, Extrapolation, Hoax after Hoax, and flawed assumptions follow those that say MacroEvolution is true if Microevolution is true, like Neal Walls said before he left posting here.
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Bob, please explain the platypus. Was it an original creation, or was it microevolution, or what "animal" is it: repitlian, mammalian, or neither? <BR> <BR>Were all the plants and animals on our earth today, created in their present state? If so, how did even 7 or a pair of each squeeze into Noah's ark? <BR> <BR>Or, if all the known animals today "evolved" from those in the ark, how did that occur? Is mututation limited, or unlimited to produce very different animals than those original ones?
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Bob, who created the dinosaurs? Were they "too big" to squeeze into the ark? How old are their fossil remains that have been found almost world wide? <BR> <BR>Are they the "amalgamation" EGW spoke of? Wait, she said that amalgamation was seen in the species of humans, representing some "races" today" didn't she?
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I refuse to debate about EGW because you know how I feel about her. But, the Nephrim (sp) we know very little about, only every thought was continually evil as the Bible says, and only 8 people, flawed as they were, were saved in the Ark. If that evil included somehow messing with animals within kind to get dinos, why not? If they were created as is and were in an isolated part of pangea at the time of the flood, before pangea's catastrophic break up, could the dinos not have been isolated on pangea as the grizzly is in Yellowstone, and the evil had made them uncontrollable. Speculation all on my part, but so be it.
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Bob, <BR> <BR>Believing in a literal flood creates more problems than it solves, in my opinion: <BR> <BR>1. It presents God as a cruel tyrant, who just tortures the whole of nature (apart from a handful of animals on the ark), and for what reason? Just because some people were bad? That's collective responsibility... Such a God should kill Godself! Is it possible that everyone else (all animals included) was so unrighteous? Can you really love such a God? <BR> <BR>2. It presents God as created in our own image - that's why God "regrets" its creation. <BR> <BR>Interestingly, it also provides some basis for a belief in some kind of a moral evolution. Modern people are not so bad as those before the flood, which clearly proves that we are becoming better. Isn't that a biblical proof for evolution of humankind?
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If you want to believe your believed in theory. You believe in evolution, Jesus was not an evolutionary charter. He was implanted in Mary's womb. Believe otherwise, salvation is done away with. If you haven't gone to <a href="http://www.globalflood.org" target=_top>www.globalflood.org</a> and studied John Baumgardner's work, I recommend it. Society certainly has improved since ancient times but societal "evolution" does not prove naturalistic evolution as you are suggesting.
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<font color="0000ff">Speculation all on my part, but so be it.</font> <BR> <BR>iow, don't bother me with evidence or facts, <BR>I already have a firm belief, and I will speculate from that to explain the world rather than study science, history, archeology, oceanography, or Cosquers Cave which is purported to show that despite the claim that after the "flood", the waters went down, all of science today proves that for the past 20,000 yrs or so the oceans have come UP!!!! based on some old guy Milankovitch 's theory which Al Gore has not yet read so I won't either. <BR> <BR>And we can accept as a miracle of God that fossils of animals less than 10,000 yrs old were divinely interjected/installed into ancient rocks, which I agree, may sometimes measure millions of years old... sometime, somehow... <BR> <BR>and all those ancient ages given for limestone? <BR>it was created during the 150 day flood...just 4500 yrs ago...including the limestone on top of Mt Everest, the Matterhorn, and all those mts in BC. <BR> <BR>and as much as I love Google, I wish they would only show apologist web sites validating what I already believe, cause I hate having to click past all those science based web sites which disagree with my preconception. <BR> <BR>We should believe Baumgartner not because he has the right or wrong story, as explained by every other knowledgeable earth scientist, but because his story fits what I already believe. <BR> <BR>and God was not a cruel tyrant for trying to kill everybody....apparently, in His sole opinion, they all deserved it...including the nephilim, and the women who had been having sex with extra terrestrials...even any unfortunate innocent children or animals caught up in the divine plan and massacre. <BR> <BR>And the dinos were not taken aboard the main ark because they were too big, their nutritional and excretory requirements exceeded Noah's ability to shovel at his advanced age, so God put them on the third ark, and when it sank because they would not stop rocking the boat by, well, you know what, God buried them beneath the KT boundary and the iridium layer to fool infidel geologists into believing the earth is old. <BR><img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/6/2018.jpg" alt=""> <BR> <BR>note: the 2nd ark which contained all the marsupials got blown off course, and ended up in Oz.... <BR> <BR>I don't care if it goes against all modern science and Christian philosophy of love and forgiveness...its in the ancient writings which I believe in faith. totally. 100%... <BR> <BR>well, maybe except for that time they claimed the sun stopped going around the earth...(more bad science) just so the Hebrews could kill more of their neighbors (more bad philosophy) and use their virgins (more bad ignorance..of how that would dilute their gene pool)...all at God's command (in their imagination, like the failed Nuremberg excuse that "we only did what we were told".) <BR> <BR>QED <BR> <BR>signed, Bob <BR> <BR>PS...its a free country, and you can believe what those infidel geologists are misled to believe by reading only their own web sites, and refusing to accept Baumgartners theory, but if you do, you have been warned, my loving God told the ancient goat herders years ago that He will have to come down there and probably kill you later for your failure to believe His book of Words instead of being misled by His book of Rocks... <BR> <BR><img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/6/2019.jpg" alt="">
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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I get confused by your stories. Mainly because I see no future with evolution, for you or me, maybe for future generations, but you have with your position written off salvation and the afterlife. Until something a little more definitive than your cynical story comes along, I think I will wait for more substantitive proof than you are giving in your unique style, not necessarily scientific. How many scientists are talking about your South France cave as a definitive answer in the creation/evolution controvery or how many are into bristlecones like you are as the definitive answer. Help with this, because, like I said, John Alfke's , Elaine's or Bob's opinion, unless expert and unbiased is just that and you know what they say about opinions, eh??
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Bob, <BR> <BR>Did you decide to misread me? Of course "societal "evolution" does not prove naturalistic evolution". I've never seen this used to prove evolution, or intended it this way. We have much more tangible evidence of evolution that this. That's why I don't need to believe in evolution. Knowledge is stronger than belief. It just goes in the face of White's teaching that humankind is degenerating. It isn't. <BR> <BR>I have had a look at Baumgardner's work, but it's far from convincing. I can provide you with links if you are interested in a critical analysis of his claims. Are you really up to it though, or have you already made up your mind? <BR> <BR>You also simply ignored my question of what kind of God would God be if there had been a worldwide flood - how convenient! <BR> <BR>John Shelby Spong, Michael Dowd and many others already made an excellent job reconciling Christian theology with evolutionism. There is no need to re-invent the wheel here. I recommend you start with <a href="http://www.thankgodforevolution.com" target=_top>www.thankgodforevolution.com</a>. <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>What do you mean by saying that "Jesus was not an evolutionary charter" exactly? I know that we was "implanted" in his mother's womb the same way as you and me. The legend about "virgin birth" came later and was not even shared by all gospel writers. Paul never heard about it either - guess it wasn't invented then yet.
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