Expelled.... Thoughts?

"And take it from me, graduate school sucks."

You've finally said something I disagree with. RAs and TAs are indeed existing at poverty level, but then so are all your friends. Cheap beer and road-kill stew are the things memories are made of. Now the post-doc life, that stank. Your position is by definition temporary, you make squat, you're a slave to your PI, and you don't fit in socially with either the graduate students or the faculty. But grad school? Best years of my life.

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Graduate school is out of the question at this point in my life. I have to provide for a family. Are there books, lectures, websites, etc that I can look into?

If not, can you describe in laymen's terms (as much as possible) how DNA commonality necessitates a common ancestor for all life? And also how it is a virtaul impossibility that a creator (for sake of argument) could have made different living organisms distinctly but by using the same genetic building blocks, DNA? I really am wanting to understand this better, but I simply can't go back to college. There has to be an alternative for those of us who are not preparing to be professional biologists.
 
Hi Monohorns,

I think it might be unreasonable for you to enroll in grad school just to gain an appreciation of the data supporting common descent. A better strategy might be to read some the non-technical books written on this subject. Stephen Jay Gould's 'Wonderful Life' is a very informative look at the fossils in the Burgess Shale. Gould doesn't write about DNA but he does discuss the paleontological evidence for taxonomic radiation in these early organisms. Dawkin's 'The Ancestor's Tale' will take you back from man to protists one step at a time. He does discuss the evidence, molecular, morphological, and other, that supports our understanding of evolution. A work that is focused on DNA and its application to evolutionary theory is 'The Wisdom of the Genes' by Christopher Wills. There are other well-written books on evolution but these are the one's I would suggest starting with.

It also occurs to me that you might enjoy 'Finding Darwin's God' by Kenneth Miller. Miller is a Christian who also understands evolution. He believes that to deny God's work is to deny God. I don't necessarily agree with Kenneth Miller but I do enjoy his rational thought process.

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Mona
For a not really technical but philosophically challenging treatment on evolution, try Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". Lots of integrating ideas concerning evolution, thought models to ponder, etc. Agressive in stye, yes, but, worth your time if you are serious.
 
Thanks MUTMB, I read your post just didn't comment until now. I do appreciate the information. Your explanation still doesn't necessitate common ancestry. I can look at the information in your explanation and as reasonably say that God created different life forms while using similar building blocks. Both views don't contradict the information that I have seen so far.

To GT WT and others. I haven't been able to read any of the books you suggested yet. I will though.
 
I don't know if I would go so far as to say "intellectually lazy", because that would assume to speak the mind of the creator (if you believe in such a thing). That said, you are right, "God wants it that way" is a hard argument to avoid when having discussion like these. The mistake in logic is to assume that an evidence can "disprove" God, because the standard of "creation" can move with each discovery.

That said, the evidence for shared ancestry is fairly compelling. So the question I find myself asking is since the standard of creation is flexible... why not accomodate the evidence? Why can't it be God's will that Man evolve from a common gene pool over a period of millions of years? Why would God obfuscate the creation, and what purpose would that serve? In fact, why isn't considered a Christian enterprise to study God's creation? The only thing I come back to is not that it denies a christian creation, but rather that it denies the christian dogma... and if that is the case... then, yeah, I guess it is intellectually lazy.
 
I meant it is intellectually lazy for a person to say that "God made it that way" is equal in reasonableness to the findings of years of study.
 
I know... I was taking a long and winding path from not marginalizing his beliefs by calling them "intellectually lazy" all the way to marginallizing a potential subset of his beliefs by calling them intellectually lazy.

or to say it another way proving, in part, your point.
 
MonaHorns,

Now I am fairly out of my league here, but as I understand it, our DNA contains many genes which are inactive, which relate to traits we no longer possess. The point being, that if we were created without evolution, then there is no need for us to have this encoded material in our DNA.

A few other issues:

Uniformitarianism is a good idea, but it works only for related environments. If we look around today the majority of rivers are meandering. If we go into the past (before the Silurian) there majority of rivers are braided streams.

You made a comment about there being worldwide geologic evidence for Noah's Flood. I do not believe this is correct.

What is you issue with radiometric dating?

and lastly, I just want to take a stab at GT_WT, and remind him that Darwin was a geologist not a biologist. HA!
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I am not intellectually lazy. I use my mind dilligently and scientifically every day.

I think it is very important to study the natual world. Humankind has gained and will gain much from careful, intelligent, honest study of the world around us. You don't understand what I am saying. And really the true value of the study of the biology is not so that someone can claim that we descended from simpler life forms in the past. It is so that we can see how life operates today and use that knowledge to improve life here on earth.

The point is that when looking at experimental data there are at times corresponding factors that are that appear causal but are only coincidental. At this point in time from what I have read to date, I believe that the similarity of life on earth is not an indicator that one form came from the other but that all forms were created out of the same stuff. I have not seen any research to date that has necessitated the one over the other. The difference in my interpretation of the data from yours is that we have different presuppostions. You presuppose that there is not a creator in a literal biblical sense and I do. I am sure you think that you had no presupposition on this issue. I assure you that we all do. If at some point the data contradicts your interpretation or mine, then it is a matter no longer of presupposition but of accepting what the data says. We are not at that point yet.

As a believer in the Bible, I love science. I love intellectual pursuits. In fact, it is my love of the creator and his revelation that causes me to pursue scientific truth even more. Because of that I will continue to read about the subjects found in this discussion. Please read earlier in the discussion where I asked for books that I could read that will educate me more on the subject. Maybe I will encounter data that will cause me to reconsider my current presuppositions. Maybe maybe my current presuppositions will be justified. However, to accuse someone of laziness is extremely rude. I am either right or wrong, but laziness is not my problem.
 
Nivek, good points. I of course do not know for sure why inactive genes exist. However, I don't think it necessitates a belief in evolution. At the same time, I don't think the answer in this case is "God just created it that way."

Just because I believe that life was created does not mean that I believe that genetics are static. Genes have been observed scientifically to be dynamic. My uneducated guess at this point would be that humans were created with much more genetic capability, diversity than we now possess. That there has been a type of genetic decay over time. I have read articles that basically said this. I remember reading an article about immunity once that could explain this. Basically, our body responds to disease in a way to protect itself. The body is indeed protected from the disease but in the process loses some of its genetic capability. This in turn has caused suseptibility to future different health threats. Therefore, I find no problem with agreeing with you in your understanding of inactive genes and believing in a biblical creation.

Yeah, about the geological evidence for the flood. Again, I read something years ago that explained there was a geological strata that could be found globally more or less that could correspond to a global flood. That was what I was referring to, but unfortunately I can't provide evidence of that article.

My issue with radiological dating is that there are assumptions that I don't agree with. For Carbon dating, it must be assumed that the C14/C12 ratio in the atmosphere is constant. There are studies that say it isn't. I have also read a study showing that there is preexistent Ar in rock not produced by K decay. K-Ar dating assumes there is no Ar at the formation of the rock. So I think there are some issues that are being ignored about these dating methods by and large by the scientific community.

Anyway... That's where I am coming from.
 
Monahorns,

Well, I believe the presence of unused genetic material does support the case of evolution. Again this is out of my league, I think GT or Theropods can handle this better....., but there was recently a program where a graduate student was activating some inactive genes in chickens and they resulted in a change in features which are observed in what are thought to be the ancestors of the chicken, it also resembled the legs of the ostrich.

Obviously I cannot comment further on the flood stuff.

Geochemistry is a little closer to home for me (but not entirely). Argon is an inert gas- meaning it does not react. As a melt solidifies slowly gases escape readily. If the melt is quenched you often find vesicles (gas bubbles) present in the rock (look up a scoria for a classic example of a vesicular basalt).

If the rock is solid and the system is effectively closed, then as K decays to Ar, the Argon is present in the crystal, though the system is unstable.

When it comes to stable isotopes, they are a different critter altogether. You will not find a single stable isotope geochemist or any geochemist who will claim that there is uniform historically static stable isotope ratio. It will not happen. However, that doesn't mean there isn't information still present that we can use or that patterns are not present for analysis.

I am not sure how much detail you wish me to get into so I will cut it from here. But I feel I need to stress this. When the majority of scientist publish a paper, it not possible for them to put everything in the paper. The paper is supposed to give another scientist ample ability to replicate the project and test the results, not teach the basics of the science, this is what we learn in the classroom.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I am definately learning some things. I read the wikipedia article on gene duplication and paralogy. Some of the terminology was difficult. I understand the concept though.

One thing about gene duplication. Is the duplicated gene the new information itself? Or is it only when another mutatation occurs that it is considered new? Also, is the whole chromosome any more capable after the duplication or does it take a different type of mutation before the new capability is realized?

What does "free from selective pressure" mean? Apparently it allows the duplicated gene to mutate without causing problems to the organism. Is that all it means or is there more?

Thanks guys.
 
The thing about genes is that they become less and less important the more advanced an organism. A corn plant blows us a way by a factor of 10 in terms of total number of base pairs (but most of their DNA does nothing). We have 20-25k genes (down from the first estimate of 30k). This number is pretty average for a mammal, but lower than a snake (they need different proteins that work at a variety of temperatures since they don't metabolically control their body temperature).

The pattern of gene expression*- which cells, how much, targeted where, slightly modified form of the gene, etc.- is what really matters. Genetically (not making any claims about phylogeny here), the differences between humans and chimps are very slight differences in the patterns of gene expression*.

*With 3 notable exceptions (lymphocytes, reproductive cells and cancerous or precancerous cells), every cell in your body has the same DNA. They are different based on how they VERY CAREFULLY SELECT when and how much of that DNA to turn into active enzymes (protein). An advanced cell with a nucleus (eukaryote) can change, to a degree, how a given gene makes a protein by putting different pieces of the same gene together in different ways (from 5 segments or "exons", A-E, a cell could make 1 protein form A-C and another from B-E).
 
Mona
Another word about genetic decay. These terms imply some sort of preferred directionality - progress vs decay, in evolution. Yet the evolutionariy space is hugely muiltidimensional and the possible paths are bush like within this space. There is no preference in destination (outside of your and my wishes, perhaps).

Just to say, progress and decay are misleading concepts in this area, better to be avoided.
 
I saw a preview for this movie last night. Some old professor is talking to his class about evolution, and Ben Stein raises his hand and says something like "Uh, but how did life start in the first place?". In the next shot, he's sitting in the halllway, having been "expelled". ******* ridiculous. The professor would have said "The theory of evolution doesn't deal with the beginnings of life. So anyway, like I was saying..."

If this is anything like what the movie itself will be like, then it's going to be pretty pitiful.
 
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