Life's Transitions

glenn r morton (Glenn.Morton@oryx.com)
Thu, 22 Jun 95 13:28:21 CDT

Mark Phillips writes;

>What was the justification for the prediction that the intermediate would be
>"a critter with both mesonychid and cetacean features which had four feet?""

What is being forgotten here is the prior to the discovery of Ambulocetus, the
earliest whales, were basically seagoing creatures. Their bodies were adapted
to the marine environment. But their teeth, and skulls shows a lot of
similarity to the Mesonychids.Thus it seemed reasonable to the researchers to
presume that if these animals evolved there would be found a critter like that
described above. Within certain limits, it is reasonable to think that their
might be something intermediate something which was more whale-like than the
Mesonychids and something more Mesonychid-like than the whales which lead a
life adapted to the shoreline. Living onshore like seals,otters or alligators
but finding food offshore. Such an animal would need legs.

Mark wrote:
>"You (and evolutionists) suggest that there will be (what we consider to be)
gradual changes from the mesonychid to the whale. This will _only_ be true if
gradual 'genotype' (DNA string) changes correspond to gradual 'phenotype'
(resultant animal body) changes. As I understand it, geneticists only have a
small understanding about how genotype changes affect the phenotype, thus
evolution, as it stands, has very little predictive power."<

Not nececssarily so. Some mutations have very little or not effect on the
phenotype. Others have huge effect. I do not have Yockey's book here, but
due to the degeneracy of the DNA code for proteins, there are changes in DNA
which will not alter the protein at all. Mess with a Homeobox gene and you
get something very strange. The way it would appear is that there is a
mixture of gradualism plus jumps.

You wrote:
"The only way to give evolution more predictive power is to add to your theory
something like the assertion "small changes in genotype lead to small changes
in phenotype."

Not true, see above.

Mark wrote:
>If you allow evolutionists to make this claim, why not allow Pregressive
Creationists to make the claim: "God formed the animals by taking one animal
and slightly modifying it to form another'. With this addition to the theory
of Progressive Creationism, PC would be just as likely to predict the
amulocetus as evolution.<

Sure you can do that. And God might behave in that fashion. But that view is
more closely akin to the theistically directed evolution rather than
Progressive creationism. God directing the mutations of evolution. What you
suggest here is not very PC-like.

Mark wrote:
>"Yes you can predict locations of electrons. You can not predict it with
arbitrary precision, but you can predict it."<

I must disagree. Have you ever heard of the Lamb-Rutherford shift? It is a
small spectral shift in light given off by electrons changing shells which is
due to the disturbance of virtual particles. In atomic physics, pairs of
particles are popping into and out of existence throughout space-time. As
long as the particles meet and destroy each other quickly enough, they do not
violate theHeisenberg relations. These particles are called virtual particles
.

What has been observed is that the frequency of light given off by a hydrogen
atom is not quite the proper frequency. But the discrepancies vary is a
manner that is predictable from the interference of the electron's path by
these virtual particles. This is an experimental verification of a strange
prediction of quantum mechanics.

What this has to do with predictability is that all the Heisenberg equations
say is that the virtual particles must be destroyed rapidly. Consider the
situation of the ELECTRON, which will be defined as the electron orbiting
around the hydrogen nucleus, and the electron/positron pair of virtual
particles. Here you have for a very brief instant, two electrons with
identical properties, and one positron. The positron must destroy an electron
before the Heisenberg relations are violated. But the positron doesn't "care"
which electron is destroyed. Nature is happy if the positron destroys either
the ELECTRON or the electron.Thus, there is no real assurance that the ELECTRO
N actually makes a complete orbit around the atom before some virtual positron
destroys it. Since this Lamb-Rutherford shift has been experimentally
observed, I would contend that not only can you not predict the location of
the electron, you can't even be sure it is the same electron next year.
Quantum is very, very strange stuff.
What you can predict (and I may be wrong here) is that the electron or its off
spring will be somewhere within 1 light year of me next year.

Mark wrote:
>"If the Genesis 1 qccount is taken to have a poetic nature and use metaphor
(which seems quite reasonable to me), then, metaphorically speaking, long
periods of time_do_ have evenings and mornings.<

and

>If you read Genesis 1, not as a scientific accout, but as an account telling,
in broad terms, about the creator creating the world - talking to people who
didn't knwo science and passed things down by word of mouth, then it seems
quite reasonable that the account would not be strictly accurate in a
scientific sense. The reason fr the separation of the creation event into
days then, is then done, not as a scientific theory about separate geological
ages, but rather as a literary tool, making the account easy to remember and e
asy to retell.<

Yes, lots of my friends take this position and they feel comfortable with it.
I do not. I keep asking myself, "So is the account historically accurate in
so far as it goes?" Everyone agrees that it is not a scientific account, but
is it a true account. By that, I mean if I were a fly on the wall at creation
would I have seen what God tells me here. If I wouldn't have seen that set of
events, then in what fashion is it true?I told my children about Santa Claus w
hen they were young. Even read them that famous poem, "The Night Before
Christmas". But that story tells an enduring tale of fantasy. It isn't true
in any recognizable sense of the word "true". I can't come to your house on
Christmas night and see flying reindeer. If that is what the basis of the
Scripture is, then I would have real problems with the Scripture. Truth is
objective. Something either happened as reported or it didn't.Your solution
would suggest that it really didn't happen the way described.

So if it didn't happen that way, why didn't God tell us what DID happen?? He
still wouldn't need to go into quantum to give an accurate account. When I
describe a car wreck, I do not need to describe how each molecule of the metal
frame moved in response to the forces. I simply say "This car hit that car."
That is an accurate, but non-detailed account.


To me the metaphorical approach leads to a problem with God's nature. Why
didn't He tell me a TRUE story of what happened?

glenn