Colossus wrote:Okay, first of all, nunz, your chicken and egg argument is so absurd as to be laughable. Have you ever studied evolutionary theory at all?
May I assume you are abusing my intellect or knowledge as you have nothing of substance to say to refute my arguments? This is not proof, it is personal attack. It is not an argument, it is invective. I could say you don't exist and that wouldn't make it true. You saying my ideas are laughable doesn't make them false. Please, at least try to argue against my ideas rather than pile on abuse.
Colossus wrote:Your all-or-nothing argument for the egg or the eye or any other evolved trait completely falls down because you are casually ignoring the fact that life has had a mind-bogglingly large number of generations to go through all of these changes.
Your casual ignoring of the main point of my post, (which in evolutionary terms or debate is called irreducible complexity ) means you never got the main point of the post. The complexity of an egg is all or nothing. The whole theme of the post is that if one part of the egg, the chickens behaviour or the chickens physiology fails then the whole thing fails. End of story. In maths it would be similar to a circular dependency. Variable A needs variable B which needs variable C which needs variable A in order to be solved. Life only had one generation to get the egg right. End of story.
Forget about the eye, think about the egg. If you cannot find an answer to the egg then ,according to Occam's razor and scientific logic, the theory fails and either gets chucked or reworked as it is flawed.
Colossus wrote:For the egg or the eye (and these are two very well-studied examples) there are so many gradients between no egg or no eye and the chicken's egg or our eye. There is no reason that evolution had to have all or nothing changes at any point.
Sure there is ... you show me an egg which was missing one of the items mentioned and I'll show you a dead egg! I even covered the 'less complex' eggs rebuttal or argument in my original post. Also if you could cite one case showing clear proof of the evolution of the egg then I would be interested in reading it. Note the word proof, not conjecture or fantasy.
Colossus wrote:That is not to say that such changes never took place. When one examines the molecular evolution of genomes, one sees clear evidence that there were periods of rapid change.
According to previous posters those 'rapid changes' were over hundreds or thousands of generations. The egg needs to happen at once. Even ten generations to make the changes would produce failure.
Colossus wrote:For example, did you ever wonder why we have 2 copies of each chromosome when 1 should serve just fine? That boils down the evolution of sexual reproduction, and the fact that multiple copies of genes help organisms that are <b>multiploid (i.e. have more than one copy of each chromosome) survive because it makes them less susceptible to death from a single mutation</b>. In fact, did you know that most fish are quadruploid? Or that many plants or octoploid? They are quadruploid or octoploid because somewhere in their ancestry one of their predecessors accidentally made an extra copy of everything....and it was helpful! These are good examples of how one organism could have had a massive genetic error that gave them (and their offspring) a major competitive advantage.
This is FUD ... it is off topic for the egg / chicken part of the topic. It adds nothing to it except to make confusing noise and steer away from the fact that evolution cannot account for the irreducible complexity of an egg.
Also it backs the anti-evolutionary point of view as well in the bolded pieces. You have just stated that major (or even most minor) mutations cause probable death. That is a classic anti evolutionary argument.
Also the more copies of sets of chromosomes (using your logic ) the less chance of evolution because the redundant DNA keeps the animal stable (ie anti mutation).
Colossus wrote: You simply cannot argue for the Creationist viewpoint or against the validity of evolution based on this kind of argument because this kind of argument vastly oversimplifies the evolutionary process and turns a blind eye to the majority of the evidence that exists in support of evolutionary theory.
Sure I can ... so far I see no argument for the evolutionary process which shows how something as complex as an egg can happen via evolution. Evolution turns a blind eye to the fact that by random chance some thing this complex and with so many intertwined requirements is impossible (or at least so close to impossible barring the accidental merging of every atom and element of an egg in a single instance of time and space ) that it cannot happen by accident. There is much chance of finding an eye on mars as there is to having an egg happen by accident.
Colossus wrote:I strongly suggest you go study some basic example organisms like the hydra, the coelacanth, the hagfish, lungfish, yeast, etc. before making absurd arguments like this one in public forums. Seriously, if you're going to talk about the validity or invalidity of evolutionary theory, please at least be well informed.
And having studied them what am I meant to find? These basic organisms are also impossible to explain via evolution. My next post is going to look at the impossibility of viable DNA / protein formation via natural means. Just cause they are 'basic' organisms doesn't mean they are not incredibly complex. Even a single celled animal or plant is incredibly complex to the point of making random life an absurd impossibility.
Again I repeat, abusing my post without proof or argument is just FUD. Using big words like coelacanth and hydra make you sound knowledgeable but beneath all you have said is NOT EVEN ONE single ITEM OR FACT DISPROVING the chicken and egg post.
On a more conciliatory note, thanks for at least replying on topic. So far several pages of post and not one serious, systematic attempt to refute my post.