CC
What you have to do is collect every organism that has ever lived, with a
record of exactly what its parent(s) was/(were), and then point out that
there were no other organisms. That is, you'd pretty much have to be God.
Anything less leaves open the *theoretical* possibility that some organism
that some lineage started seperately, even though this would make almost
perfect probabilistic nonsense out of genetic similarities, because of the
*extreme* unlikeliness of two separate originations of RNA/DNA-based life
with the *same* basic genetic structure. If any of today's known lifeforms
originated separately from the rest, there is almost no chance at all that
they would have the same type of genetic structure, the same
genetically-encoded basic biochemistry, etc., as the rest of life on Earth.
I doubt that it's even likely that they'd use RNA and DNA.
I personally suspect that life *did* arise in multiple palces and times,
possibly thousands of times, but that the type of life we have today won out
and that the others will not be heard from.
> BV>And
> WRE>"- Patterns of differences in sequences of proteins and heritable
> WRE>information support the idea that these differences have accrued
> WRE>since the time of a last common ancestor."
>
> BV>Again, true, but this is hardly the dogmatic assertion that
> BV>"random mutation and natural selection" is responsible for
> BV>macro evolution, and school children should be told that no
> BV>other explanation is to be considered.
>
> Art posed "The Patterson challenge". That challenge was to
> give something true about "evolution". I did not feel the
> need to resort to dogmatic assertions in giving examples of
> "true things about evolution". While I don't expect anybody
> to have a "conversion experience" over this, it would be nice
> to get a straightforward acknowledgement that I did actually
> address the original request.
>
> BV>I gather you favor the idea of one common ancestor. Some
> BV>people, even Darwinists, have suggested more than one common
> BV>ancestor. 3? 10? 100? 1000? If the number gets too big it
> BV>might resemble special creation.
>
> Heh. "Special creation" started out as each species being a
> special production of the creator. I think that there is
> essentially no chance that we will settle upon a larger
> number of original separate ancestors than 100. That number
> is two orders of magnitude away from the hardline stance of
> a single common ancestor, but seven orders of magnitude away
> from the probable number of total species over time that
> would characterize "special creation". Which of these concepts
> is over time coming to "resemble" the other? I'd tend to say
> that the one that has changed more would be the one to say
> that about. The concept of "special creation" has definitely
> altered more than concepts of common ancestry.
>
> Personally, I find the existence of the canonical genetic code
> a very large stumbling block for any number of original common
> ancestors larger than about three, with a strong likelihood
> that one will, after all, turn out to be the right number.
>
> It turns out that I've discussed some of this here before.
>
> [Quote]
>
> I tend to think of SciCre argumentation, and even some of the
> ID argumentation, as a search for a "magic bullet". By this, I
> don't mean it in the sense that Ehrlich did when searching for
> a cure for syphilis. I mean it in the sense of werewolf
> movies. There, the magic bullet is simply a silver slug that
> will destroy the lycanthrope on contact. Those wielding the
> magic bullet need invest no other effort in dealing with the
> lycanthrope, are not required to be pure in spirit, and
> certainly have no need to *understand* lycanthropy in any deep
> sense. Similarly, the SciCre "professionals" are engaged in
> the peddling of "magic bullets", which retain their magic only
> so long as they aren't used on real lycanthropes. The magic
> bullet users, as Scott relates, remain secure in their faith
> that the evil lycanthropes can be held at bay or vanquished,
> right up until the time the magic bullet is fired -- and is
> found to have lost its virtue.
>
> Instead of magic bullets like "too little moon dust" or
> "materialistic philosophy", more good would come of trying to
> understand what exactly evolutionary biology is. As it is,
> creationist belief has tended more and more to resemble
> evolutionary biology. In little more than a century and a
> half, we have seen a change from general adherence to the
> doctrine of special creation to a range of beliefs, at the most
> different from evolutionary biology, creation of each separate
> "kind" (which when defined at all, tends to be defined such
> that the evolutionist term "clade" comes close to fitting the
> concept), and at the least different, a belief in physical
> common descent but separate imbuement of spirit.
>
> [End Quote - WR Elsberry, Calvin post, 19998/01/18]
>
> BV>And
> WRE>"- Evolutionary interrelationships have been used to advantage
> WRE>in medical research."
>
> BV>Are you saying medical breakthroughs have occurred which
> BV>depended upon "natural selection" being responsible for macro
> BV>evolution?-or depended upon the existence of one common
> BV>ancestor?
>
> Hmm. I thought I was reasonably clear in what I wrote. I
> wonder if Berthajane could review what I wrote for the
> keywords that she seems to have a problem with to see if
> I included them.
>
> BV>And
> WRE>"- Species have been observed to form, both in the laboratory
> WRE>and in the wild."
>
> BV>Some people question that speciation was what critics mean
> BV>by macro evolution.
>
> I don't recall saying anything about "macroevolution" in what
> I wrote. Nope... "grep" does not find any such use.
CC
Well, I'm grepful for that. :-)
I've noticed that anti-evolutionists keep expanding or otherwise redefining
"macroevolution," as science finds more and more specific present-day cases
of larger-scale evolution. Some have even redefined it to mean "sideways"
evolution from one family to another. But the real question about evolution
(once microevolution is admitted) is whether it can be responsible for the
apparent past history of life on Earth and for the present diversity of life
on Earth, not whether one "branch" of the "tree" of life can merge back into
another and independent "branch" (and without interbreeding, too!). Since
crossing family boundaries is extremely unlikely and also irrelevant, the
only real use of this kind of definition is propagandistic. The only
*legitimate* definitions of macroevolution are those that define it as some
degree of change over time in some lineage (possibly, for example, change to
the point of no longer being able to inbreed with the parent-species).