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Old 03-19-2009, 04:03 PM   #77 (permalink)
Guybrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by punkrawker07 View Post
Darwin's Theory of Evolution - A Theory In Crisis
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a theory in crisis in light of the tremendous advances we've made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. We now know that there are in fact tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Specified complexity pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." [5]

And we don't need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin's day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." [6]

here is something i c/p from allaboutscience.org. not to carry on the argument but to present that even darwin himself states that it seems unlikely. to be honest i only know the creation and evolution as far as explaining how we came to be. in light of the advances we've made in science and understanding things evolution could be wrong but the only other option is creation which is based out of religion. so what do you believe is true? well if you don't believe in a god well that leaves evolution even though it may not be right. i can't tell you either evolution or creation is correct but there is the unexplained in both.
Your quotation is ridiculous. It's copied from a biased site that is made to spread "credible" misinformation. It's an example of tooth and claw.

It contains unsourced statements and says naive things like that bacterias way less than 10-12 grams (well, of course they do .. a bacteria at 10-12 grams would be a ****ing monster).

Irreducable complexity has been pushed as a creationist argument, but it doesn't hold water. The first claim I read and became a popular argument against evolution was that bacterial flagella could not have evolved because a transitional stage would serve no purpose .. and as such, the proto-flagella which would be a requirement to evolve the real flagella could not be evolved.

That claim was forwarded by creationist pseudoscientists in a very unscientifical manner and has since subsequently been refuted by biologists.

Again, Wikipedia sums it up so nicely, so I'll just copy and paste from there :

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
In his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box, intelligent design proponent Michael Behe cited the bacterial flagellum as an example of an irreducibly complex structure that could not have evolved through naturalistic means. Behe argued that the flagellum becomes useless if any one of its constituent parts is removed, and thus could not have arisen through numerous, successive, slight modifications; therefore, it is hopelessly improbable that the proteins making up the flagellar motor could have come together all at once, by chance.[28] Mark Perakh explained that while Behe popularized the idea, biologist Hermann J. Müller had already explored it (under the slightly different name of “interlocking complexity”) and more than a decade before Behe’s book the same idea was explored by A. Graham Cairns-Smith, but neither claimed that “irreducible complexity” was a “marker” of a supernatural design.[29]
While Behe discussed the immune system and the blood clotting cascade in greater detail, the bacterial flagellum has become a "poster child" for intelligent design proponents and other creationists.[citation needed] It is one of two identified rotary structures found in nature (the other being ATP synthase)[30] and it is billions of years older than Behe's other two examples, which exist in many homologous forms, simplifying the explanation of their origin.[31]
Evolutionary pathways supported by the Theory of Natural Selection and Evolution (see: "The Flagellum Unspun and PBS/Nova Science's television production of Intelligent Design on Trial) have since been identified for the bacterial flagellum; thus, undermining Behe's argument.[32] In addition, the Type three secretion system, a molecular syringe which bacteria use to inject toxins into other cells, appears to be a simplified sub-set of the bacterial flagellum's components, meaning that it is much less likely to be irreducibly complex in the way that the bacterial flagellum could have in fact evolved from the type three secretion system.[33][34]
Exaptation explains how systems with multiple parts can evolve through natural means.[35]
References supporting the Wikipedia quotation :
  • 32^Pallen MJ, Matzke NJ (October 2006). "From The Origin of Species to the origin of bacterial flagella". Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 4 (10): 784–90. doi:10.1038/nrmicro1493. PMID 16953248.
  • 33^ Miller KR. "The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity"". Welcome to the web Site of the Dragonfly Book. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  • 34^ Dembski WA (2003-02-17). "The bacterial flagellum: still spinning just fine". Design Inference Website. Retrieved on 2008-06-02.
  • 35^ "We therefore find that Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large." Ruling, Judge John E. Jones III, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
(Flagellum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Now .. seriously .. You should take this to heart :

If you want scientific knowledge, don't go and get it from a creationist website. What are you thinking? You've written about the importance of being a sceptic more than once, yet that doesn't stop you from quoting a load of crap from one of the biggest ****factories out there.

Furthermore, and I have to say this irritates me greatly, you and that website are deliberately misquoting Charles Darwin which I find quite hard to swallow. The sentences posted on that site are taken out of their context and if you include the rest of Darwin's message, the point becomes in fact the opposite!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darwin
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.
I am frankly disgusted at how these people operate and spread misinformation.

Please, for God's, Darwin's, yourself or anyone's sake, don't be such a ****ing tool. These people only want to corrupt and hide the truth from you, even to the point where they are twisting Darwin's words to support creationism. You preach scepticism, so practice it!
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Last edited by Guybrush; 03-19-2009 at 04:30 PM.
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