you know, as far as Evolution vs. Creationism goes ~at least as it concerns the origin of life~ neither one can really be called scientific, because neither is a repeatable event. you can’t create another universe.

science is defined as ‘systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.’ (dictionary.com)

The thing is, on the surface, both evolution and creation offer viable explanations for why we are here. the problem arises when you try and scrutinize either side. i would say both have their own hurdles and obstacles.

in my opinion, the Bible and your average Inbreeder are the biggest obstacles that Creation has to overcome.
and the biggest obstacle Evolution has to overcome is the physical mechanics of microbiology.

@The Matrix: Rebooted:

In order to truly understand a function, one must understand in detail every relevant step in the process. The relevant steps in biological processes occur ultimately at the molecular level, so a satisfactory explanation of a biological phenomenon such as vision must include its molecular explanation.

When light first strikes the retina, a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in the shape of retinal forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein’s metamorphosis alters its behavior, making it stick to another protein called transducin. Before bumping into activated rhodopsin, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with activated rhodopsin, the GDP falls off and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)

GTP-transducin-activated rhodopsin now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to activated rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cut a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, like a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.

Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.

Darwin himself said that:

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” (“The Origin of Species,” 6th Edition, 1928, p.170)

So reboot, please tell me how this process that allows us to see could have come about by means of ANY step by step process.

While you’re at it, look at the blood clotting cascade that keeps up from bleeding to death or how bacterial flagellum can be a molecular rotary motor complete with universal joint, drive shaft, stator & rotor, bushings, a propeller, etc…

@The Matrix: Rebooted

to call a motor protein, or any protein, ‘simple’ is totally lame. cells are not simple. and neither are any of their parts. people play it off like life began as some simple goo or whatever; when the chasm between nonlife and life is staggering and profoundly different.

you’re totally missing my point, which is that machines ~even simple ones~ cannot just come about mindlessly in a step by step manner. the human body, as it exists now, could not have come to be what it currently is in such a way.

you have to have all the many many vital parts working together in balance and harmony. and even then, it’s a daily struggle just to live.

and you can’t just ignore the mechanics of it all.

you have all these different systems working together; ALL of which you need to live. the circulatory, digestive, endocrine, nervous, skeletal, reproductive, respiratory, muscular, etc… take away one, & you’re done, son. you have to have them all to even have them at all.

if you take ANY step by step progressive path, you will not arrive at the human body.

your blood is made in the bones. riddle me this, batman: which came first?

your blood only carries stuff it gets from the other systems, like the respiratory and digestive and endocrine and immune system. without these systems, the circulatory is pointless. and with out a circulatory, the other systems have no way to move their goods around the body. which came first?

most people would think that the nervous system came first? nope. the only purpose of a nervous system is to run other systems. if there are no other systems, then it’s pointless. and you can’t have any of the other systems without a nervous system.

the human brain alone is the most complex thing in the known universe. and it is just one part of a larger thing with many parts, most every one of which is needed in order for any of the others to work.

what if you had all the systems except for the reproductive? where would you be then?

what if you had everything but no bones? besides being screwed because we’d have no blood, we’d be equally screwed because we couldn’t move.

no muscles? well think about that one. the heart is a muscle. but it is part of the circulatory and muscular, which is so bound to the skeletal system that it is often referred to as the musculoskeletal system. and since the blood is made in the bones, i guess it’s just one big system. but teeth are bones, and they’re part of the digestive system, right? and wait, the blood carries oxygen from the respiratory-

oh my, it does seem to all be tangled together, no?

you gotta have it all in ONE step, not many over so many years…

but it doesnt stop there. nooooo. look at the systems themselves; say the circulatory. you have a pump, some pipes, and the blood, which is all the stuff from all the different systems (food, air, waste, hormones, antibodies, etc.)

take out the pump, and you die.
take out the pipes, and you die.
take out the blood and you die.

look at the DNA/protein relationship as far as information is concerned. all the genetic info is in the nucleic acids, right? the proteins and enzymes take the info and make all the cellular doodads, right?

you can’t have the one without the other.

(and encoded information itself is quite a hurdle for evolution.)

anyway, evolution does not even try to tackle the actual facts of how life has evolved-let alone how it made the jump from nonlife.

you still fail to even attempt to address my point. now who’s being ‘deliberately ignorant’ and making pointless conversation?

i’m not talking about slime. i am talking about your body. the HUMAN body. evolution says that it happened in sooo many successive steps, a, b, c, d, e, f……..w, x, y, z (‘a’ being your single celled organisms and ‘z’ being the body we have today) but you can’t reverse the process and start taking parts out of the body…

please address this specifically with the human body, not some ‘slime mold colonies’. i mean really.

and you cannot even show how a fish evolves into an amphibian or how you get a worm from a jelly fish. you can have a cute little story about how everything just ‘evolves’, but you cannot address the actual, physical mechanisms of the change.

most every major plant and animal body type had ‘evolved’ shortly after the cambrian explosion at the beginning of the fossil record anyway.

and crack a book? i am soooo glad you gave me that idea, because i have never done that. i’m totally unread. in fact, i’m illiterate.

you’re just not getting my flow here.

just saying that the parts of the body developed co-dependantly is rubbish. you say it can happen, but you cannot show how it happens. you can say ‘mutation’ and ‘natural selection’ but you cannot show the way. you just point to a path and say that we came down it.

having more or less webbing between fingers and toes has nothing to do with how a system like a circulatory or respiratory can come to be in a step by step method. you say these systems evolved together, but that really is asinine.

you would have to ‘mutate’ the system whole and intact. and then you’re still screwed unless you mutate many other systems at the same time.

that is where evolution trips up; on the physical part, on the mechanics of the process. it’s a nice little happy story that sounds good, but it fails when you look at it closely.

life is clearly based on machines-machines made of molecules. molecular machines haul cargo from one place in the cell to another along ‘highways’ made up of other molecules, while still others act as cables, ropes, and pulleys to hold the cell in shape. machines turn cellular switches on and off, sometimes killing the cell or causing it to grow. solar powered machines capture the energy of photons and store it in chemicals. electrical machines allow current to flow through nerves. manufacturing machines build other molecular machines, as well as themselves. cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery, and even ingest food with machinery. Highly sophisticated molecular machines control every cellular process. the details of life are finely calibrated, and the machinery of life is enormously complex.

it is obvious that molecular machines are vastly more complex than the machines we, as humans, make and use in our everyday lives, like cars or toasters or calculators or telephones.

so why isn’t life pooping up in junk drawers around the country? why don’t we see transformers ‘evolving’ out of junk yards or land fills?

you can search the scientific literature out there, but you will be very hard pressed to find any papers on the question of how molecular machines (the basis of life) developed. the complexity of life has paralyzed science’s attempt to account for it.

Darwinism can explain many things, but it doesn’t explain molecular machinery. each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biological chemical processes that cannot just be papered over with rhetoric.

Anatomy is simply irrelevant to the question of whether evolution could take place on the molecular level. so is the fossil record. it doesnt matter whether there are huge gaps in the fossil record or even whether the record is continuous.

the fossil record has nothing to tell us about whether the interactions of 11-cis-retinal with rhodopsin, transducin, and phosphodiesterase could have developed step by step.

Darwinism, on this anniversary of Darwin setting off on his voyage aboard the USS Beagle, must be reconsidered in light of advances in biochemistry. For Darwin and his theory to be right, it has to account for the molecular machinery of life.

YOU ARE IGNORING MY POINT!!!

how many times do i have to ask the question?

you give no mechanism on how this could happen!
here are the steps that link gives for the way that the eye ‘might have evolved’:

* photosensitive cell
* aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
* an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
* pigment cells forming a small depression
* pigment cells forming a deeper depression
* the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
* muscles allowing the lens to adjust

but this is all just flawed logic. and so is just putting me into a box labeled “argument from incredulity”. i never said that life was so complex that i cant understand how it could have evolved, therefore it must be created. i said that the mechanics involved in biochemistry cannot come about by a step by step method.

your steps above dont show or prove anything.

first of all, how do you get a photosensitive cell in the first place? and dont try to gloss it over like it is some simple little gooey thing that can just form itself; it is quite complex. your link doesnt address how the photosensitive cell evolved in the first place. it just includes it as a convenient starting point. and then we add more cells, these are pigmented, right? oh, and then we’ll just throw in an optic nerve. oh, next we need some more pigment cells to make a ‘deeper depression’. and the skin covering the cell can simply form a lens…

also from your linked article:

“Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.”

so you take some loaded ‘steps’ that just conveniently start with cells, then add more cells, then more and more cells, until your simple photosensitive cell (which is not at all a simple thing) becomes the vastly complex human eyeball? and it only took 364,000 generations? now add all the other systems and vital parts of the systems, and how many generations would you need?

but still, none of it will work without the rest, EVEN IN ONE GENERATION!

you simply must address the mechanics of it all if evolution is right.

another quote from your article:

“Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.”

you don’t know the path the eye followed; you can’t even point to a path. the path doesnt even show up on any maps.

i’ve never cracked a book. and there are no alternatives to evolution.