Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Disillusioned JW

  That is a great point Rafe. Furthermore, where do the young earth creationists who are scientists (or at least have degrees in science) attempt to show the supernatural (or natural) processes that the alleged supernatural god used (or might have used) to create any of the kinds of life? The answer is nowhere do they do so - since they say the alleged supernatural processes no longer exist. In contrast evolutionist scientists demonstrate currently exiting processes that produce biological change over generations and in some cases they have shown such processes produce a type of speciation.

  In addition, scientists performing experiments pertaining to abiogenesis have demonstrated processes which produce chemical evolution of organic chemicals from other organic chemicals and even from inorganic chemicals. They are making progress towards demonstrating abiogenesis.

  What scientific experiments or scientific observations do the so called creation scientists have to show for how alleged special creation took place? Nothing (or virtually nothing) at all!

  For more evidence that land animals evolved from certain kinds of fish see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusthenopteron , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choana , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_tetrapods , and https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/2020/saw0620Long31_d.png .
  
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  truth_b_known

  In researching this topic I found out that the fossil records support that whales evolved from land based mammals. Mind blown through the blow hole!

  https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03
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  Disillusioned JW

  Yes truth_b_known, and Charles Darwin in his On the Origin of the Species book from 1859 (in the first edition of his book) said that something as "monstrous" as a whale could have evolved (by natural selection) from land animals (though he speculated it might have happened from a bear)! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-did-whales-evolve-73276956/ (and Hitching in his The Neck of the Giraffe book) quotes Darwin as saying "... I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."

  The Smithsonian magazine science article then says the following. "Darwin was widely ridiculed for this passage. Critics took it to mean he was proposing that bears were direct ancestors of whales. Darwin had done no such thing, but the jeering caused him to modify the passage in subsequent editions of the book. But while preparing the sixth edition, he decided to include a small note about Basilosaurus. Writing to his staunch advocate T.H. Huxley in 1871, Darwin asked whether the ancient whale might represent a transitional form. Huxley replied that there could be little doubt that Basilosaurus provided clues as to the ancestry of whales."
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  smiddy3

  I find a lot of scholastic scientific evidence here defending Evolution ,but no such evidence seems to be forthcoming from those who promote a creator`s involvement.
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  Disillusioned JW

  News article from Sep. 27, 2021: 'Self-replicating protocells created in lab may be life's "missing link" ' (see https://newatlas.com/biology/self-replicating-protocells-life-missing-link/ )! Holy science!
  

  Do you understand a 'geek' language? If so, then you will be pleased to know that the above mentioned news article has a link the full scientific article published in the science journal called "Nature". The abstract of the journal article says the following.

  "The hypothesis that prebiotic molecules were transformed into polymers that evolved into proliferating molecular assemblages and eventually a primitive cell was first proposed about 100 years ago. To the best of our knowledge, however, no model of a proliferating prebiotic system has yet been realised because different conditions are required for polymer generation and self-assembly. In this study, we identify conditions suitable for concurrent peptide generation and self-assembly, and we show how a proliferating peptide-based droplet could be created by using synthesised amino acid thioesters as prebiotic monomers. Oligopeptides generated from the monomers spontaneously formed droplets through liquid–liquid phase separation in water. The droplets underwent a steady growth–division cycle by periodic addition of monomers through autocatalytic self-reproduction. Heterogeneous enrichment of RNA and lipids within droplets enabled RNA to protect the droplet from dissolution by lipids. These results provide experimental constructs for origins-of-life research and open up directions in the development of peptide-based materials."

  Do you understand that? I only partially understand it, but it reminds me of what I had read about proteinoid microspheres and coacervate droplets and the journal article talks about both.
  

  For information about proteinoid microspheres see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinoid . That Wikipedia article contains a quote from Our amazing world of Nature: its marvels & mysteries of Colin Pittendrigh . Before reading the Wikipedia article I had been reading my copy of the "Our Amazing ..." book and its quote of Colin. It looks like the experiment of creating self-replicating protocells, as reported in the recent "Nature" journal article, comes close to creating a living cell! Yippie!

  For information about coacervate droplets see see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coacervate . For information about protocells see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocell . That article (at least when accessed today) says "a functional protocell has not yet been achieved in a laboratory setting, the goal to understand the process appears well within reach" but it was written before the above mentioned "Nature" article was published.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  Besides my above post about self-replicating protocells, see the following article about an earlier experiment by a different group of scientists: https://globalnews.ca/news/4516282/mcmaster-researchers-planet-simulator/ .