Abundantly
Blessed abundantly
Typically, internet discussions about evolution and creation are both directed at creationists and rife with bold declarations like, "You idiots have no proof!" As delightful as it would be to throw insults about, I figured it would be a good idea to turn the focus on evolution politely. So, as you read the rest of this long and fairly boring post, please keep in mind that I mean no disrespect toward anyone, though I couldn't help but include a playful nudge here or there.
I only have four questions that I want to ask, but each requires substantial background knowledge, which I attempted to provide to the best of my ability. I have highlighted the questions in bold for your convenience.
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WARNING: Science content. Lots of it. Handle with caution and thinking cap. Note: Thinking tiaras, hats, and wigs are also acceptable.
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Everyone learns about Louis Pasteur in school. He's the guy that developed the Law of Biogenesis. Back in the day, people used to think that frogs came from mud, or that rats came from garbage, so on, and so forth. Louis Pasteur did an experiment and proved that life comes only from life. Now, this is funny, because textbooks tell us that organisms grew out of “warm ‘chemical soup’” that was made up of “compounds of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.” None of those are living organisms.
So, this thread is for all you Pasteur-doubters.
Based on the posts around here, it would seem that some of you clearly have all the answers when it comes to evolution. Which is good. I have questions.
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We might as well start from the beginning. Bacteria. I assume you know what prokaryotes are, but just in case...
The large paragraph above is scientific fact. You can find it in any textbook. Really. You've got the domains of bacteria and algae, which are simple and single-celled and have DNA but no nucleus. Then, you've got the Eukaryotes (animal and plant cells), which are hundreds of times bigger than the bacteria and algae, have other little parts called organelles (which keep the cell alive), and have DNA and a nucleus. Simple enough, right? But here's the problem.
Scientists don't know how the nucleus -- a very important part of the cell -- got here.
It is speculated that some organelles, such as mitchondria and chloroplasts, began as independent bacteria and eventually lost their ability to live separately, evolving to become a permanent part of the (eukaryotic) cell.
...Riiiiight...
So. Clearly, the idea, "A bunch of dying bacteria managed to get together and decided to turn into a conglomeration of organelles that, despite being expressly unique to one another prior to conglomerating, follow the directions given thereto by the nucleus, the origin of which, remember, is yet to be determined," isn't very realistic.
I did come across one other theory: That one bacterium ate another bacterium, and several generations later, the first bacterium's great-great-great-grandbabies had little bacteria inside of them. And eventually, the little bacteria inside the bacterial-grandbabies evolved into what is now the nucleus.
. . . So, if I eat a banana, my great-great-great-grandchildren are going to have bananas inside of them? . . . Is that why babies are always so chubby? Okay, that's a cheap shot, I know, sorry. But seriously, such a phenomenon has never been observed. Never. You'd think that, if bacteria really do evolve, we'd have seen this happen at least once in all the years we've researched them.
But it isn't at all surprising. Bacteria do mutate, sure, and we call that evolution, but they don't exactly grow legs. See, bacteria are known to mutate in exactly two ways.
For instance, let's say we have a medicine that kills bacteria with enzymes. The bacteria can ditch the parts of their DNA that give them enzymes, thereby effectively sidestepping the medicine. That's way one. (They lose genetic information.) But some bacteria are just flat out immune to certain medicine, for some reason or another. So, the bacteria that are not immune can actually swap parts of their DNA to get whatever creates the immunity. That's way two. (They swap genetic information with other bacteria.)
Quiz time! Hurray!
...Aaaand they managed to turn into cells hundreds of times bigger than them how?
My question: Is there any reasonable speculation out there as to how prokaryotes (bacteria) "evolved" into eukaryotes (cells)? If not, I'm forced to conclude that it's impossible. And if bacteria couldn't turn into cells, then...how did we get here? You can't just skip the first step, you know.
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Whew, that was long. But hey, it's science, and I wanted to make myself as clear as possible. Don't worry, though, this next one is a lot shorter. And it has pictures!
Coelacanths.
They’re everywhere.
So, scientists decided that humans came from a close cousin of the coelacanth – the lungfish. That’s all fine and dandy, but didn’t they overlook one rather obvious detail? Coelacanths exist today. Evolution says that every living organism is in a constant state of change. If that is the case, why haven’t the coelacanths changed? Sure, they’re a little bigger than their fossils, but then again, couldn’t the fossils have been of young coelacanths? I don’t think they’ve changed at all. So where is evolution in all this? Certainly you aren't going to tell me that evolution applies to only some species?
My question: How do Darwinists explain the evolutionary stasis of coelacanths? Those fish (allegedly) have had millions and millions of years to evolve, yet there they are. Completely unchanged. It really looks like evolution is just a load of hooey.
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The fossil record is supposed to be some sort of all-purpose proof for evolution, but it doesn’t add up completely. There’s the Cambrian Explosion.
...What? That doesn’t look like evolution. It looks more like a massive flood came and fossilized a whole bunch of animals (early in those animals’ existence). A flood would account for all the sediment, but since it's all over the world, it would have to be a pretty big flood. A world-wide flood. Sounds familiar.
Actually, there are fossils of trees that penetrate multiple rock layers. How? Shouldn’t trees decay after several thousand years? And yet there they are.
To date, scientists have no explanation for all this. Well, creationists do, but those don’t count, right?
Sidenote: The trees even lack branches, which is exactly what we would expect to see if they had been damaged by a large flood.
My question: How do you explain the Cambrian Explosion and the tree-fossils, if a world-wide flood does not?
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Finally, the eyeball.
Complicated, right? You know, most people use this piece of anatomy to say, "Look! Complicated! Intelligent Design!" In fact, I'm sure at least half of you thought that I would.
But no. I'm here to talk about incipiency. The state or condition of beginning to exist or appear; the initial stage. What was the incipiency of the eyeball?
Back to the eyeball.
Could it have developed so gradually?
Let's think about this. Logically, if you will. Evolution would have the eyeball form little by little from an itty bitty version of itself. . . But how? As we know, taking one piece away from the eyeball deprives it of its own function. You can't have a working eyeball without a retina. The retina receives the light. You can't take the lens, either. Same reason you can't take the lens of a camera. You can't take the cornea. What will protect the lens? You can't take away the iris. The retina would burn up in no time. I could go on. Without all these things, the eyeball would be useless.
And what happens to useless traits? That's right, they disappear from the species.
So, clearly, the incipient eyeball would need all these things. That means, the eyeball had to evolve into existence all at once. It wouldn't have survived if it had to be bred in and out of every species until the DNA found the perfect combination of random traits that fit together in such a way that the human brain could receive sight. Which leads me to my next question.
How did the body know to connect the eyeball to the brain? I mean, goodness, you can't just put a cornea, iris, lens, and retina just sitting there on some guy's face without letting the guy know what it does. And you can't send signals to just any part of the brain. It has to be the right part.
The best part is that we have two of them. I don't recall seeing any cyclops-animal-fossils before the two-eyed fossils showed up...
My question: How? Not only did the cornea, lens, retina, and iris have to develop perfectly, all at once, and in such a way that they connected to one another, but they also had to be able to send signals to the correct area of the brain. Otherwise, the eyeball would not exist, or else it would be a lump of useless, just sitting there on your face. Oh, and they both apparently evolved into existence at the same time.
I could go on and on and on....
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Okay, so that makes four questions. Four questions I have never received a single straightforward answer to. If you could answer my unanswerable questions, you would be doing the first edition of Darwin's Origin of Species a huge favor. But not the sixth edition. Darwin decided against the whole evolution-lead-to-man's-existence thing in that one. You know, Darwin himself was not a Darwinist. In fact, I believe he said something quite similar to that...
Thank you for being patient with me. God bless.
I only have four questions that I want to ask, but each requires substantial background knowledge, which I attempted to provide to the best of my ability. I have highlighted the questions in bold for your convenience.
__________________________________________________________
WARNING: Science content. Lots of it. Handle with caution and thinking cap. Note: Thinking tiaras, hats, and wigs are also acceptable.
__________________________________________________________
Everyone learns about Louis Pasteur in school. He's the guy that developed the Law of Biogenesis. Back in the day, people used to think that frogs came from mud, or that rats came from garbage, so on, and so forth. Louis Pasteur did an experiment and proved that life comes only from life. Now, this is funny, because textbooks tell us that organisms grew out of “warm ‘chemical soup’” that was made up of “compounds of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.” None of those are living organisms.
So, this thread is for all you Pasteur-doubters.
Based on the posts around here, it would seem that some of you clearly have all the answers when it comes to evolution. Which is good. I have questions.
_____________________________________________________________
We might as well start from the beginning. Bacteria. I assume you know what prokaryotes are, but just in case...
Prokaryotes are the most basic forms of life; they are “simple, single-celled organisms.” Prokaryotes are supposed to be the oldest types of organisms. Among these are Bacteria and Archaea, but all other living things belong to Domain Eukaryota, which includes plants, animals, and humans, while the first two domains comprise algae, bacteria, and the like. Now, while both prokaryotes and eukaryotes are made of cells and contain DNA, these cells differ from one another. Eukaryotic cells have a nucleus, but prokaryotic cells do not. Eukaryotic cells also are much larger than the cells of archaea and bacteria and contain organelles, which are “organlike structures within the cell with specialized functions.” So, if eukaryotes are the prokaryotes’ closest connection to complex organisms such as plants and animals, then it follows that for such complex life to exist, prokaryotes must have evolved into eukaryotes directly. This means that prokaryotes must have developed not only nuclei, but also the many organelles necessary for the survival of said nuclei.
The large paragraph above is scientific fact. You can find it in any textbook. Really. You've got the domains of bacteria and algae, which are simple and single-celled and have DNA but no nucleus. Then, you've got the Eukaryotes (animal and plant cells), which are hundreds of times bigger than the bacteria and algae, have other little parts called organelles (which keep the cell alive), and have DNA and a nucleus. Simple enough, right? But here's the problem.
Scientists don't know how the nucleus -- a very important part of the cell -- got here.
It is speculated that some organelles, such as mitchondria and chloroplasts, began as independent bacteria and eventually lost their ability to live separately, evolving to become a permanent part of the (eukaryotic) cell.
...Riiiiight...
You know, you can find lots of things in a typical animal-cell. There's the plasma membrane, mitochondria, centrioles, vacuoles, lysosomes, ribosomes, golgi complex, golgi bodies, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, rough endoplasmic reticulum, cytoplasm, microtubules, microfilaments, and the nucleus, which comprises the nuclear envelope, nucleolus, chromatin, and nuclear pore. Each of these organelles has a very specific function, and all of those functions are coordinated by the nucleus. Lots of things, lots of functions, all connected. Did you know that cells react to light? That means that, not only are they built to sense how much light is around them, but that they are also built to react to it accordingly. And that's just one example. Every part of the cell is used for a specific purpose, and when you put all of the parts together, you get a working cell. But if you take a part out, the cell dies.
So. Clearly, the idea, "A bunch of dying bacteria managed to get together and decided to turn into a conglomeration of organelles that, despite being expressly unique to one another prior to conglomerating, follow the directions given thereto by the nucleus, the origin of which, remember, is yet to be determined," isn't very realistic.
I did come across one other theory: That one bacterium ate another bacterium, and several generations later, the first bacterium's great-great-great-grandbabies had little bacteria inside of them. And eventually, the little bacteria inside the bacterial-grandbabies evolved into what is now the nucleus.
. . . So, if I eat a banana, my great-great-great-grandchildren are going to have bananas inside of them? . . . Is that why babies are always so chubby? Okay, that's a cheap shot, I know, sorry. But seriously, such a phenomenon has never been observed. Never. You'd think that, if bacteria really do evolve, we'd have seen this happen at least once in all the years we've researched them.
But it isn't at all surprising. Bacteria do mutate, sure, and we call that evolution, but they don't exactly grow legs. See, bacteria are known to mutate in exactly two ways.
1. They lose genetic information.
2. They swap genetic information with other bacteria.
2. They swap genetic information with other bacteria.
For instance, let's say we have a medicine that kills bacteria with enzymes. The bacteria can ditch the parts of their DNA that give them enzymes, thereby effectively sidestepping the medicine. That's way one. (They lose genetic information.) But some bacteria are just flat out immune to certain medicine, for some reason or another. So, the bacteria that are not immune can actually swap parts of their DNA to get whatever creates the immunity. That's way two. (They swap genetic information with other bacteria.)
Quiz time! Hurray!
When you have a dollar, and you get rid of the dollar, how much money have you made? You haven't -- you've lost money. Now, when you have half the money in the world, and your friend has the other half, and you trade one of your dollars for two of his, how much money have you made between the two of you? You haven't -- you started and ended with the same amount of money. All you can do is lose money or shuffle it around, but there's no new money being made.
Same goes for bacterial DNA. They either lose genetic information, or swap it, but there is actually no new information being added to the world of bacteria.
Same goes for bacterial DNA. They either lose genetic information, or swap it, but there is actually no new information being added to the world of bacteria.
...Aaaand they managed to turn into cells hundreds of times bigger than them how?
Quick recap:
1. Eukaryotic cells are hundreds of times bigger than bacteria, have a nucleus, which bacteria have not, have organelles that bacteria have not, and are generally one massive hurdle for bacteria to bunny-hop over if bacteria really want to evolve.
2. Nobody knows where the nucleus came from.
3. Bacteria don't eat other bacteria.
4. Bacteria can either lose or swap genetic information, but bacteria as a whole do not gain information.
1. Eukaryotic cells are hundreds of times bigger than bacteria, have a nucleus, which bacteria have not, have organelles that bacteria have not, and are generally one massive hurdle for bacteria to bunny-hop over if bacteria really want to evolve.
2. Nobody knows where the nucleus came from.
3. Bacteria don't eat other bacteria.
4. Bacteria can either lose or swap genetic information, but bacteria as a whole do not gain information.
My question: Is there any reasonable speculation out there as to how prokaryotes (bacteria) "evolved" into eukaryotes (cells)? If not, I'm forced to conclude that it's impossible. And if bacteria couldn't turn into cells, then...how did we get here? You can't just skip the first step, you know.
___________________________________________________________
Whew, that was long.
But hey, it's science, and I wanted to make myself as clear as possible. Don't worry, though, this next one is a lot shorter. And it has pictures! Coelacanths.
Some of our earliest fossils of eukaryotes are of coelacanths. They supposedly existed millions of years ago and were once thought the ancestors of humans. Of course, then we found some just off South Africa’s eastern coast as well as in parts of Indonesia.
They’re everywhere.
So, scientists decided that humans came from a close cousin of the coelacanth – the lungfish. That’s all fine and dandy, but didn’t they overlook one rather obvious detail? Coelacanths exist today. Evolution says that every living organism is in a constant state of change. If that is the case, why haven’t the coelacanths changed? Sure, they’re a little bigger than their fossils, but then again, couldn’t the fossils have been of young coelacanths? I don’t think they’ve changed at all. So where is evolution in all this? Certainly you aren't going to tell me that evolution applies to only some species?
My question: How do Darwinists explain the evolutionary stasis of coelacanths? Those fish (allegedly) have had millions and millions of years to evolve, yet there they are. Completely unchanged. It really looks like evolution is just a load of hooey.
_________________________________________________________________
The fossil record is supposed to be some sort of all-purpose proof for evolution, but it doesn’t add up completely. There’s the Cambrian Explosion.
See, the oldest fossils we have are of bacteria. These fossils continue for a few rock layers, but suddenly, in one rock layer just above the final bacteria-layer, fossils from every phyla in the animal kingdom appear. So, we have bacteria, bacteria, bacteria, every phyla...
...What? That doesn’t look like evolution. It looks more like a massive flood came and fossilized a whole bunch of animals (early in those animals’ existence). A flood would account for all the sediment, but since it's all over the world, it would have to be a pretty big flood. A world-wide flood. Sounds familiar.
Actually, there are fossils of trees that penetrate multiple rock layers. How? Shouldn’t trees decay after several thousand years? And yet there they are.
To date, scientists have no explanation for all this. Well, creationists do, but those don’t count, right?
Sidenote: The trees even lack branches, which is exactly what we would expect to see if they had been damaged by a large flood.
My question: How do you explain the Cambrian Explosion and the tree-fossils, if a world-wide flood does not?
_________________________________________________________________
Finally, the eyeball.
Complicated, right? You know, most people use this piece of anatomy to say, "Look! Complicated! Intelligent Design!"
In fact, I'm sure at least half of you thought that I would.But no. I'm here to talk about incipiency. The state or condition of beginning to exist or appear; the initial stage. What was the incipiency of the eyeball?
Evolution is gradual and requires organisms change little by little, over time. So, this bird over here should develop a longer beak over a long period of time, while that fish over there develops sharper teeth. All to adapt to their individual environments. Well, did you know that it also works in reverse? If an organism does not need a particular trait, that trait will disappear from the species. In other words, humans don't use wisdom teeth, so all humans will one day be born without the ability to grow them.
Back to the eyeball.
Could it have developed so gradually?
Let's think about this. Logically, if you will. Evolution would have the eyeball form little by little from an itty bitty version of itself. . . But how? As we know, taking one piece away from the eyeball deprives it of its own function. You can't have a working eyeball without a retina. The retina receives the light. You can't take the lens, either. Same reason you can't take the lens of a camera. You can't take the cornea. What will protect the lens? You can't take away the iris. The retina would burn up in no time. I could go on. Without all these things, the eyeball would be useless.
And what happens to useless traits? That's right, they disappear from the species.
So, clearly, the incipient eyeball would need all these things. That means, the eyeball had to evolve into existence all at once. It wouldn't have survived if it had to be bred in and out of every species until the DNA found the perfect combination of random traits that fit together in such a way that the human brain could receive sight. Which leads me to my next question.
How did the body know to connect the eyeball to the brain? I mean, goodness, you can't just put a cornea, iris, lens, and retina just sitting there on some guy's face without letting the guy know what it does. And you can't send signals to just any part of the brain. It has to be the right part.
The best part is that we have two of them. I don't recall seeing any cyclops-animal-fossils before the two-eyed fossils showed up...
My question: How? Not only did the cornea, lens, retina, and iris have to develop perfectly, all at once, and in such a way that they connected to one another, but they also had to be able to send signals to the correct area of the brain. Otherwise, the eyeball would not exist, or else it would be a lump of useless, just sitting there on your face. Oh, and they both apparently evolved into existence at the same time.
I could go on and on and on....
_________________________________________________________________
Okay, so that makes four questions. Four questions I have never received a single straightforward answer to. If you could answer my unanswerable questions, you would be doing the first edition of Darwin's Origin of Species a huge favor. But not the sixth edition. Darwin decided against the whole evolution-lead-to-man's-existence thing in that one. You know, Darwin himself was not a Darwinist. In fact, I believe he said something quite similar to that...
Thank you for being patient with me. God bless.
