john.queen.ii@mail.utexas.edu wrote:
> ---What is simplistic about natural selection turning monkeys into humans?
> It's really hard to fathom such a series of events. Of course im talking
> about on the molecular level and not some artists magical rendition of
> evolution. natural selection..would not produce change unless there was
> something new to select from.
In response to The Bell Curve a number of people in the media and the
scientific community played up research that shows that only an unbelievably
minuscule percentage of the human genome has anything to do with racial or
ethnic differences. President Clinton even mentioned it in his final state of
the union speech, pointing out that the percentage of the genome that differs
between *any* two people regardless of race is less than 1%. He then joked
that if the congressmen looked around the room, they might find that fact
rather disturbing. Now what these people have failed to mention is that the
human genome and the chimp genome differ by only about 1.5%. Scientists are
even using this kind of research to back up the fossil record in determining
when different species diverge from each other.
People like Clinton want to suggest that race doesn't matter because they
don't like the fact that people still think race matters. So why is race the
issue that won't go away? If Martin Luther King Jr. did so much to fight
racism, why is it that racism still exists? If it's because humanity is
somehow fundamentally divided, why do you think God wanted humanity to be that
way? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't just think that evolution is
incorrect. You also think that the notion is in some ways repugnant. It
bothers you that some people would try to blur the line between human and
animal. I know for some religious people, the oneness of humanity is as
all-important as the oneness of God.
> --You see, what you are left with is not much. The 'giraffe mechanism of
> evolution' which use to be associated with natural selection has long ago
> been shown a fallacy by evolutionist and everyone else. what a animal does
> during his lifetime doesnt have any effect on his reproductive genes. it
> doesnt matter is if i have the biggest muscles in the world and learned
> karate. this knowledge will not pass to my kids. nothing will change in
> the gene pool becuase of what i do. the only hope for genetic 'recoding'
> is when the egg meets the sperm, where life begins. this is the material
> that counts..no outside influence maters in the end. however, when mating
> occurs, genetic information is shared, but nothing new is made.
Yup, that's true.
> --so with natural selection you are left with mistakes during conception
> and the duplication of eggs and sperm. theses mistakes can then be mixed
> with other mistakes when the offspring mate later on in life. However, the
> monkey and human genome do not make mistakes very well. mistakes mean
> cancer, paralysis, learning disability, autism, choose the disease and put
> it here. however, the mechanism to catch mistakes are very very great in
> both the monkey and human. Just open a biochemistry textbook and read for
> yourself...mistakes are taken care of at several levels. the vast
> complexity of mistakes producing any meaningfull change is so very hard to
> even begin to imagine. even if just one amino acid changes..this will
> change the hydrophilicity of of the protein, its three demensional
> structure, its ability to be recognized and used.
You're right, meaningful evolutionary change is hard. Maybe that's why it
takes so long. Look, nobody's suggesting that butterflies are going to grow
machine guns. Evolutionary change has a lot to do with finding a niche where
having slightly different characteristics becomes more valuable. If you go to
a jungle, you'll find that the inanimate environment is so hospitable that life
seems to flourish, and yet you'll also find that life has flourished so well
that it's all rather inhospitable to you. That might explain why some humans
left Africa. It would also seem that the physical differences that people
evolved fit well with the environments they came to inhabit.
> --at last i would like you to think about the metabolism of your cells.
> every day..24 hours a day..genetic material is being accesed...the DNA is
> unfolded..transcription..translation...amino acids are lined up..protiens
> are built..cellular processes can go on.. all these events are
> opportunities for mistakes to occur. i am not talking about evolution. i
> am talking about the efficiency of our cellular procceses. any mistake is
> taken care off...the waist is destroyed. translate this into what only
> happens occasinally as the production of sperm and egg..and when the sperm
> and egg meet. gee...natural selection...when looked at soberly is not
> simplistic from any stretch of the imagination. natural selection must
> have something that is truely new to select from...and this new stuff would
> be hard to come by.
Oh, I certainly agree that the effects of evolution can seem unfathomably
complicated. In fact, I don't blame the world's cultures for evolving myths to
help them cope with life's many intrigues. My point was that the mere
mechanism of natural selection is a simple, almost intuitive discovery. That
which can't be, is not. That which is, can be. It's a philosophy that makes
so much sense that economies inevitably followed it. I would argue that
evolution takes place in politics, advertising, music, humor, you name it! Is
it so hard to accept that everything you so rightfully point out seems designed
couldn't exist any other way?
Thank you for bringing up the sperm and the egg because I'd like to point
out some research that makes it hard for me to believe that the intricacies of
life were beautifully designed by the hand of God. You see, not all sperm hope
to win a swimming race to the egg. Most sperm have a different use. Some
sperm form portals by entangling with each other into webs that are able to
block unfriendly sperm and pass friendly sperm. Other sperm actually seek out
enemy sperm and engage in chemical warfare by secreting enzymes at the enemy.
The enemy, of course, is the sperm which belong to a different man. Ouch!
Either men evolved to cope with the depressing reality that their women
sometimes cheat on them, or God is one hell of a cynic.
Brian
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