lucaspa

That would be a demonstration of making tools to make tools. Pliers, power drill, and backhoe are the end products of a long string of tool making. Remember, you have to have tools to smelt the metal, other tools to make molds, still other tools to asssemble the power drill and backhoe. While you think of these are "tools", really they are much more complex than that. We are talking tool use. That is, where you take some object in the environment and use it to accomplish a task either without modifying it or with minimal modification. The chimp's stripping a branch of leaves for use as a probe of anthills is minimal modification of a naturally occuring object. A human picking up a stick and using it as a walking stick is tool use. Many, many species use tools. A few, like the chimp, can modify the tool minimally. Only humans, as far as I know, deliberately make a tool in order to make another tool.

9. E Linden, Can animals think? Time 154: 57-60, Sept 6, 1999. Some of the attempts to escape captivity -- including making lockpicks -- are as innovative as any human prison break. Orangutans are apparently some of the best. The joke was: put a screwdriver in a cage with a chimp or gorilla and they will sniff it, toss it, and tast it. Put a screwdriver in with an orangutan and he will hide it and, that night, use it to disassemble the cage.

Actually, warfare is not the "typical" evolutionary way of stabilizing a population. Remember, "resources" includes modern agricultural methods and medicine. Eliminate modern medicine and the availability of large amounts of food thru mechanical agriculture and you lose a lot of people 1) to disease, including simple infections of minor wounds and childbirth and 2) lifespan decreases due to inadequate nutrition and plain old starvation. You will probably get an initial period of warfare as civilization collapses, but then H. sapiens, like all other species, will have a stable population based upon the resources, without warfare. China is going to be facing the unintended side effects of this, because their "one-child" rule worked well enough to really skew the sex ratios for this generation. Women are very valuable property. However, considering the number of children a woman can bear, you would really have to reduce the number to minimal values to reduce population. My great grandmother had 13 children. That's 12 men (+ one for the woman) for replacement of current numbers. A 12:1 ratio of men to women would end up with all the problems you want to avoid. First, women would revert to the role of property, to be bought and sold for their ability to bear a child. Second, imagine the possible warfare over access to women? And this would be ALL THE TIME. No, I think LucidDreamer has the best idea: raise the standard of living. Data does show that, even in the absence of reliable birth control, the number of children drop as wealth increases. It's simple, the cost of each kid rises dramatically, so people can afford less of them. But, with better medical care, one kid is all you need to pass down your possessions to. So, 2 couples each have one child. You've halved the population right there for the next generation: 4 to 2. Then those 2 get married and have 1 child. Population drops 75% in two generations. And, of course, the smaller the population, the more resources per person. Wealth increases, which argues for individuals choosing to keep the birth rate low.

"Race" is a term that has fallen out of use in evolutionary biology. In Darwin's time, "race" referred to a nationality or tribal group. Thus, you have the Irish "race", the Tahitian "race" etc. Today, the definitions as used in biology are given in Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology, 1998: "Subspecies: A taxonomic term for populations of a species that are distinguishable by one or more characteristics, and are given a subspecific name (e.g. the spuspecies of the rat snake Elaphe obsoleta; se Figure 21 in Chapter 9). In zoology, subpecies have different (allopatric or parapatric) geographical distributions, so are equivalent to "geographic races;" in botany, they may be sympatric forms. No criteria specify how different populations should be to warrent designation as subspecies, so some systematists have argued that the practice of naming subspecies should be abandoned." pg 450 "Semispecies: Usually, one of two or more parapatric, genetically differentiated groups of populations that are thought to be partially, but not fully, reproductively isolated; nearly, but not quite, different species." "Race: A vague, meaningless term, sometimes equivalent to subspecies and sometimes to polymorphic genetic forms within a population." "Variety: Vague term for a distinguishable phenotype of a species" Biological species are defined as "different species represent different gene pools, which are goups of interbreeding or potentially interbreeding individuals that do not exchange genes with other such groups." D Futuyma Evolutionary Biology pg 27 "Genetic polymorphism is the presence of two or more genetically determined, more or less discrete phenotypes within a single population of interbreeding individuals." pg 239 "A population is a group of organisms of the same species living together in a given region and capable of interbreeding." Biology the Study of Life 6th edition. 1993, pg 605 So, there are no "races" of humans, but there are populations. The subject is more confusing because the medical literature has not caught up to the evolutionary biologists yet, and many papers refer to "race" or "ethnic group" when they mean "population". Thus, you can have the population of "Northern European" or "Americans of African descent" or "West Africans" or "San" or "Eskimos". But to say "caucasian", "negroid", "mongoloid" or "aryan" is useless. BTW, the recent genetic data shows that neandertals were a separate species, not a subspecies. We have Homo neandertals and Homo sapiens, both descended from Homo erectus. Sibling species.

A theory is not a grown up hypothesis. That is a common misconception. Both hypotheses and theories are testable statements about the physical universe. There is no hard and fast line between the two. Hypotheses are generally more specific statements while theories are more general statements. Hypotheses/theories can either be 1) untested, 2) supported (by the data), or 3 falsified (by the data). As I studied QM as part of Physical Chemistry, it was a VERY strongly supported theory. Why don't you think it is supported?

I think the confusion that the gene is the unit of selection is because population geneticists look at the change in frequence of alleles in a population. The change in frequence of the gene is the result of selection on individual organisms. Since an increased or decreased frequency of the gene was the result of selection, Dawkins understandably, but erroneously, decided that the gene was the unit of selection.

Altruism is explained on passing along the genes. But the SELECTION still occurs at the individual level. It is the individual that has those alleles that is going to have the behavior. But it is the TOTALITY of genes present in the gazelle, not just one. Remember, gene selection means that the single genes are being selected. That's not the case. In this case the gazelle can avoid the lion by several different mechanisms: early detection of the lion by better eyesight or hearing, agility, or straight out speed on a straight line. So, a gazelle that has the allele(s) for faster speed but the allele(s) for better detection is still going to avoid being eaten. Which gene(s) are selected? Or even, the gazelle with allele(s) for slower speed but better detection is going to avoid being eaten. So which gene(s) are being selected? Both. It is because of the cooperative effort of genes in an individual that ensures that it is the individual that is selected, just like it was the team (individual in that competition) that was selected in the game, not Maradonna. No matter how good Maradonna was, if the team was bad, then Maradonna would not make it past that game to go further in the World Cup, would he? That was a poor analogy. Any allele that confers an advantage or disadvantage after reproduction is essentially unseen by selection. This is why humans have so many degenerative diseases like blocked coronary arteries. Since heart attacks happen in the 50s or 60s, the individuals have already had their kids, so mutations to lessen heart attacks are not selective. A current hypothesis on longevity in humans is the care given by grandmothers to babies. A child with a living grandmother to help care for it is more likely to live than a child without a second caregiver in a primitive society. So there is indirect selection for longevity in females (males just go along for the ride since the alleles are not sex-linked).

Sorry, but nucleotides are not the basic unit of selection. Neither is the gene. Instead the basic unit of selection is the package of genes that is the individual. It is the individual that has to compete, not the gene. This becomes even more apparent when we remember that most traits involve several genes and that most genes are involved in more than 1 trait. The single gene -- single trait is good illustration because it is simple, not because it is common. A single nucleotide doesn't even correspond to an amino acid. Instead, it takes 3 nucleotides to code for an amino acid. And the 3rd nucleotide is often irrelevant. So how can selection be on the nucleotide level when selection can't even see the 3rd nucleotide in a codon because any nucleotide there is going to give the same amino acid? And remember, most SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) are very much neutral. You can see this doing a search on SNPs in PubMed.

Yes, that is another alternative. However, this highlights an inconsistency in the position: by the reasoning of anti-abortionists, even married couples would not be allowed to use the Pill. After all, aborting a "baby" within a marriage is "killing a child" just as much as aborting an out-of-wedlock fetus. So the result is to limit sex even in a marriage to those occasions where the couple is willing (and able) to accept a high likelihood of pregnancy. I wonder if the rank and file is going to like this. After all, the data indicates that nearly all American Catholic couples use birth control, many of them the Pill, despite the Church's official position on this. Since many of these people also think that God created us directly, it also sets up the theological problem of why God would give us such a high sex drive if He wanted us to mostly abstain.

Good questions. I tend to agree, but that is because I agree with your premise: people will have sex whether married or not and whether birth control or abortions are available or not. However, anti-abortionists don't agree with the premise. They think that if the risk of pregnancy is higer, people will abstain from sex outside of marriage. And that is what they want. Therefore they want to ban abortion and now, it seems, oral contraceptives in order to limit sex.

As one poster pointed out, there are several versions of creationism. http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/1593_the_creationevolution_continu_12_7_2000.asp However, all versions seem to have some elements in common. 1. They all agree that God directly manufactures either whole organisms or parts of them. That is, the organism or part was not there one minute, and the next it was. 2. All agree that humans do not share a common ancestor with apes. Humans were specially manufactured by God.

Why do you say that? It was desire to understand how God created that motivated Darwin to study nature and discover evolution. It was belief in the Christian God that provided the necessary assumptions about the physical universe for modern science to exist.

Where did you hear this? Neandertals lived near the ice. Now, genetic data does show that about 200,000 years ago H. sapiens went thru a genetic bottleneck. Thus we are all descended from a small breeding pool. But I have never seen it connected to any of the ice ages. 9. A Gibbons, Studying humans -- and their cousins and parasites. Science 292:627-629, April 27, 2001. The use of tools sent our technology flying. That is different from intelligence, altho most people confuse technology with intelligence. Again, our technological development is exponential. But that is NOT intelligence. Technology, in evolutionary terms, is a very small adaptation: the ability to make tools to make tools. An incremental step from chimps and other species that can make tools. But a step that has enormous results.

With tribal warfare, in-group communication is key to survival. But your premise involves competition between the communication skills of one tribe vs the communication skills of another tribe. You have competition between tribes. I am saying that the competition was not with tribes, but with predators and prey and members of your own tribe: the cheaters. As far as I can see, the evidence is against frequent intertribal warfare. The same negotiating skills that allowed intratribal coopertation would work toward intertribal negotiations to avoid conflict. What is your data for "uncharacteristically fast rate"? We get humans in social groups from at least 4 million years ago. Since you are talking 50,000 years ago, that is 3.95 million years for speech related traits to become genetically fixed. Even the FOXP2 allele that allows more complex speech is 100,000 years old. Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Wolfgang Enard, Molly Przeworski, Simon E. Fisher, Cecilia S. L. Lai, Victor Wiebe, Takashi Kitano, Anthony P. Monaco, Svante Pääbo Nature 418, 869 - 872 (22 Aug 2002) This seems to be your premise. Only it seems unjustified by the data. 1. Modern tribes at that level of technology don't engage in frequent warfare. Why do you think tribes then did? 2. Of all the human and hominid fossils found, only a few neandertal fossils bear evidence of trauma due to human weapons. If tribal warfare were as common as you hypothesize, we should find that a large percentage of such fossils would bear testimony to old wounds.

Did you realize that you did not distinguish about how God created the universe? Creartionism is a particular method God is supposed to have used. Most Christians believe that God used the methods discovered by science to create the universe. IOW, God created the universe by the Big Bang, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution. Now, some scientists who believe(d) that Yahweh (Christian god) created the universe: Charles Darwin at the time he wrote Origin of the Species Charles Lyell (the man who falsified the last version of Flood Geology and solidified uniformitarianism in geology) Asa Gray (America's premier botanist in the late 1800s and one of Darwin's earliest supporters) Theodosius Dobzhansky Francisco Ayala (the most prominent living evolutionary biologist) Kenneth Miller -- the most effective opponent of ID. Now, if Carl Sagan thought these men were "idiots", or you think so, then I can tell you who the real idiots are.

Oh, it's very accurate. But you need to update your examples. Try the Kansas School Board minority report in July 2005 or the current case in Dover, PA. http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/KS/177_standards_debate_harming_kansa_9_1_2005.asp http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/PA/780_emkitzmillerem_trial_to_b_9_15_2005.asp

No one got arrested here, either. This is a CIVIL SUIT, not a criminal one. No statutes were broken. We don't arrest bad teachers, but we fire them. Because, guess what? "heavy boots" isn't part of the science standards. However, what happened here is that the local government -- the school board -- decided that ID should be taught as a valid theory. Why would they do that? What's the purpose of teaching a falsified theory as a valid one? In this case it is to promote a religion. Now, quoting from Quinn in discussion of the 1982 MacLean vs Arkansas case of creation science, yes, you can declare that bad science fails the Establishment Clause: "a statute violates the Establishment Clause if it fails any part of the following three-pronged test: First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. . . ; finally, the statute must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion." ... Ruse's second ploy is to suggest that for legal purposes Judge Overton had to argue that creation science is not science at all because he could not have held Act 590 in violation of the Establishment Clause if he had merely shown that creation science, though testable, has been tested and massively disconfirmed, and is therefore bad or weak science.25 But this suggestion is mistaken on two counts. First, as I noted above, Judge Overton could have held Act 590 in violation of the Establishment Clause without even addressing the question of the scientific status of creationism merely by arguing, as he in fact did, that Act 590 fails part of the three-pronged test. Second, if Judge Overton had been able to show that Act 590 has as a major effect the advancement of religion, then he could at least have tried to argue from the premise that creation science is bad science to the conclusion that Act 590 has the advancement of science only as a minor effect at best. And if he had successfully done this and also shown that Act 590 has no other major effects, then he would have been entitled to conclude that Act 590 has the advancement of religion as its primary effect, which is all he needed to establish in order to show that Act 590 fails the second part of the three-pronged test." The Dover board specifically excluded abiogenesis from the teaching of ID. Go to http://www.ncseweb.org and check out the written documents. Why do you focus on abiogenesis? IDers don't. Neither Irreducible Complexity nor Complex Specified Information is about abiogenesis. And you must know -- because you have read Origin of the Species (right?) -- that abiogenesis is not part of evolution: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450. However, to meet your challenge head on, yes, life has been made experimentally in the lab, and under conditions that occur TODAY in nature: http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm'>http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/ http://www.siu.edu/%7Eprotocell/ http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html http://www.christianforums.com/t155621 That's my point: the case is not over if ID is a scientific theory (which it is). Being science is not enough to get a theory taught as a valid theory. The theory must BE valid. Can a school board mandate teaching flat earth as a valid theory in science class? Why not? The case would not hinge on the Establishment Clause, but instead it would discuss fraud and the deliberate deception of students. Look, we both know that ID has a religious agenda. The question is: what is the best way, for science, to deal with that? Does science benefit if you try to artificially define science such that ID is not science? Since there is no clear cut way to determine what is science and what is not, you have to misrepresent science to provide such a criteria. How is misrepresenting science good for science or science education? How do you say that ID is not science? Because it mentions a (possibly) supernatural intelligence? What "rule" in science prevents a science from doing that? Do a PubMed search on "God" and you get almost 1,800 articles. I say let science do what science does: test theories. Forget the religious implications of ID; they are irrelevant to deciding whether the theory is correct. Science doesn't care if there is a supernatural entity that manufactured life on the planet. Darwin showed that. OK, atheists care, but their religious views don't have any more place in science class than those of IDers. The universe is what it is and, if that would include a deity manufacturing life, then that is the way it is. Right? Don't you discard or modify beliefs when the evidence is against them? Why should that be any different for atheists than theists? So, ID is testable, has been tested, and has been found false. I'll be glad to go into all that in separate posts. ID is a falsified theory. Why then do people want ID taught as valid? NOW is where the religious nature of ID comes in. IDers want ID taught as valid to promote a religion. Now ID fails the Establishment Clause. Here, let's see if I can summarize Quinn's excellent reasoning on this. I suggest you read the full article for yourself. BTW, Quinn is discussing the Opinion of Judge Overton in the 1982 MacLean vs Arkansas case. You are using the same arguments Overton used about creation science, i.e. it is not science but religion. " Judge Overton begins with a statement of what he takes to be the essential characteristics of science: (I) It is guided by natural law; (2) It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law; (3) It is testable against the empirical world; (4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and (5) It is falsifiable (Testimony of Ruse and other science witnesses). 10 ... 6) If any statement S is scientific, then S either is a natural law or is explainable by a natural law and is testable, tentative and falsifiable. ... The problem is that (6) is demonstrably false. None of the characteristics it alleges to be necessary conditions for an individual statement to have scientific status is, in fact, a necessary condition of scientific status of an individual statement, ... To be sure, as Ruse notes, science looks for explanatory laws. 18 But if there are no laws to be found, scientists are prepared to settle for less and can do so without forfeiting the scientific status of their achievements. Certain statements about individual events in the quantum domain are not laws and have no known explanations in terms of laws; moreover, they can have no explanation in terms of laws if contemporary quantum theory is correct, as it seems to be. But they will remain scientific statements even if contemporary quantum theory is correct. Hence, either being a natural law or being explainable by a natural law is not a necessary condition for scientific status. "Consider next the conditions of testability and falsifiability. As a result of the work of Pierre Duhem, it has been known to philosophers of science for three-quarters of a century that many scientific statements are neither testable nor falsifiable individually and in isolations but only conjunctively and in corporate bodies. Hence, being testable and being falsifiable are not necessary for individual statements to have scientific status, and the argument for (8) fails too. Moreover, it would not strengthen Judge Overton's argument to retreat to the more plausible claim that only in the case of whole theories, and not on the level of each individual statement, do testability and falsifiability count as necessary conditions for scientific status. Creation science as defined in Section 4(a) of Act 590 and as further interpreted by Judge Overton himself clearly satisfies these conditions. For example, the statements in 4(a)(l) and 4(a)(6), as Judge Overton interprets them, together imply that there is no matter on earth more than 20,000 years old. The trouble with this claim is not that it is untestable or unfalsifiable. Its problem is rather that it has been repeatedly tested and is so highly disconfirmed that, for all practical purposes, it has been falsified. "Unfortunately, the patently false claim that creation science is neither testable nor falsifiable seems well on its way to becoming, for some evolutionary biologists, a rhetorical stick with which to belabor their creationist opponents. [same thing with ID] "Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely and in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them. The core issue is not whether Creationism satisfies some undemanding and highly controversial definitions of what is scientific; the real question is whether the existing evidence provides stronger arguments for evolutionary theory than for Creationism.39 The question is not whether creation science fails to accord with some dubious and probably ephemeral theories about what is necessary for counting as science. The real issue is whether creation science, whatever it may be, now has high epistemic status as compared to its rivals for credibility in the empirical domain. Since it does not, the following argument seems promising: (21) Act 590 does have the advancement of religion as a major effect. (22) Act 590 does not have the advancement of empirical knowledge as a major effect. (23) Act 590 does not have the advancement of any other aim as a major effect. (24) Hence, Act 590 has the advancement of religion as its only major effect. (25) Whence, Act 590 has the advancement of religion as its primary effect." I find this line of reasoning overwhelming, which is why I'm using it for ID. Substitute ID for "creation science" and the argument is still overwhelming. "CONCLUSIONS Scientists and their friends should derive little comfort from the outcome of McLean V. Arkansas. Victory was indeed achieved at the wholly unnecessary expense of perpetuating and canonizing a false stereotype of what science is and how it works." Phillip Quinn Chapter 25 in But Is It Science? Edited by M Ruse, pp. 367-385 (From Science and Reality: Recent Work In the Philosophy of Science, edited by James T. Cushing F. Delaney, and Gary M. Gutting. Copyright ~ 1984 by University of Notre Dame Press. Reprinted by permission.)

??? The "cave men" skulls in Europe are Cro Magnon, who are us -- H. sapiens. Now, if you mean going back to H. erectus (who was only sometimes a cave dweller) yes, there are skulls that are in between: Erectus to sapiens: Omo valley. Omo-2 "remarkable mixture of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens characteristics" pg. 70. Omo-1: another mix of erectus and sapiens Omo Valley, Ethiopia: ~ 500,000 ya. mixture erectus and sapiens features Sale in Morrocco: skull discovered in 1971, ~300,000 ya. also shows erectus and sapiens features. Broken Hill skull: another skull with mixtures of erectus and sapiens features Tautavel, 200Kya: large brow ridges and small cranium but rest of face looks like H. sapiens. "We shall see the problem of drawing up a dividing line between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is not easy." pg 65. Ngaloba Beds of Laetoli, 120 Kya: ~1200 cc and suite of archaic (erectus) features. Guamde in Turkana Basin, 180 Kya: more modern features than Ngaloba but in-between erectus and sapiens. Skhul, Israel "posed a puzzle to paleoanthropologists, appearing to be almost but not quite modern humans" Skhul and Jebel Qafza caves: "robust" H. sapiens at 120 Kya that have brow ridges like erectus but brain case like sapiens. Bouri http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0611_030611_earliesthuman.html http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/06/11_bones-background.shtml actual paper: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v423/n6941/full/nature01669_r.html Vertesszollos, 400 Kya. Teeth like H. erectus but occipital bone like H. sapiens. brain ~ 1300 cc As to civilization, we can see intermediates all over the planet today. Tribes that have agriculture and some building but not massive amounts of technology. The Masai and Zulus in the 19th century come immediately to mind. The "Ice Man" discovered in the Alps dating to 15000 years ago shows intermediate civilization. It appears he was on a trading trip south of the Alps (commerce) but died on the return trip. Trading implies an economy where goods and services are traded, which in turn implies a civilization.

They are talking about common oral contraceptives. ""By carefully detailing the available medical information concerning the abortifacient effects of oral contraceptives' date=' Randy Alcorn has developed a logical and thoughtful challenge to every prolife person. The conclusions of this study are scientifically accurate. Birth control pills usually prevent pregnancy, but sometimes they cause an abortion. Questions? Objections? Randy has addressed them in a gentle but firm way. This is the manner in which the often fiery debate over prolife subjects should be carried out- unemotionally, intelligently and quietly. The evidence is before us . . . `How should we then live?'" ~ Patrick D. Walker, M.D., Professor of Pathology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences" This guy Alcorn has apparently written a book that alledgedly surveys the scientific literature and he has found (which no one else has) that a side-effect of oral contraceptives is to cause fertilized ova to abort. IOW, prevention of ovulation is not the only mechanism oral contraceptives use to prevent pregnancy. As I read the blurbs about the book, this really highlights that the pro-life movement is really about sex, not protection of the unborn. The real objective of the anti-abortionists is to keep people from having sex except in situations approved by them -- marriage. The possibility of pregnancy is used as a means to keep people, especially women, in fear so that they will only have sex in situations where, if they do get pregnant, they will be able to take care of the kid. The baby is being used as a way to force people to be "moral" by the standards of the anti-abortionists. Abortion made it possible for women to get out of pregnancy whenever they wanted. Now we have this attack on birth control pills. So the objective is to get rid of the most convenient and [b']reliable[/b] form of birth control. Put the fear of God (and babies) back!

In evolution, the selection unit is always the individual. Not a single gene. It is the individual who survives and reproduces, not the gene. But, when each cancer cell is a little different from all the other cancer cells, how do you target each and every cell? Whatever you use for the target, there will be one or two cells (out of the billions in the tumor) that don't have that target. So, you still have 1 or 2 survivors, who then divide and make the tumor all over again. And now the new tumor is immune to your treatment. Yes, the problem is exactly that resistance will be passed on to new cells. In this case, the cell is the "individual".

Maybe, but Zynod's point is that cancer is not a single disease or cellular defect, but a number of diseases and cellular defects that have similar results. So it is unlikely to be a SINGLE cure for all cancers. In the last 20 years, I have seen what appeared to be cures. However, both failed because of natural selection. Each cancer cell is a little bit different because they accumulate changes in the genome. So, a treatment will kill 99.99% of the cells and reduce the tumor to invisibility on MRI or CAT scan. However, a few cells survive and begin dividing again. Soon the entire population of tumor cells has come from cells immune to the treatment. Natural selection in action. When do the vast majority of cancers occur? After you have had children! Therefore, being cancer prone is not visible to natural selection.

When it is first proposed, a hypothesis comes from our imagination and doesn't have to be based on any fact at all. It is testing AFTER you form a hypothesis that establishes a connection to facts. Now, hypotheses come in 3 forms, depending on the state of testing: Untested. Supported Falsified. These aren't scientific hypotheses, because both involve ethical judgments: "ideal" in the first and "justice" in the second. Now, you can have competing hypotheses that both explain the data. For instance: 1. The fossils at Dinosaur National Park were deposited by a local flood. 2. The fossils at Dinosaur National Park were deposited by a world-wide flood. Both would account for the data, since both involve a flood. The difference is the extent of that flood. To decide between the hypotheses, you need more data.

First, thank you for taking the time and effort to answer each and every one of the points in the OP. WELL DONE! Second, there is no requirement that the Milky Way has always been a spiral galaxy or will always be one. My recollection is that, as you look farther out in distance/farther back in time, there are no spiral galaxies. Galaxies change shape. Humphreys, in addition to the problems you discussed, has made a mistaken assumption.

1. Laws are not more reliable than theories. Laws are simply well-confirmed theories. However, in the 1800s when scientists realized that deduction could not strictly "prove", they stopped calling theories "laws". Based on how it was done in the 1700s, we could say the Law of Common Ancestry and the Law of Natural Selection. 2. Science is such a reliable form of knowledge because it ONLY uses information that ANYONE can get under approximately the same circumstances. So, you COULD do the experiments. That you don't is due to lack of time, lack of interest, or lack of money. In contrast, I cannot stand with Thomas and put my hands in the nail holes in the risen Jesus. Therefore, I must trust the Biblical account. But I do not have to trust the data for evolution. I can get the same data myself. That's the difference between faith and science. Because evolution happens to populations, NOT individuals. You are born with your alleles (forms of genes). They do not change during your lifetime. However, your children will not have exactly the same alleles as you (and the other parent). Mutations occur at the rate of 1 per individual. The genetic makeup of a population will change over the course of generations as some alleles become "fixed" (are present in every member of the population) and other alleles are eliminated. Over the course of generations the population will slowly change such that the individuals in the population 10,000 generations from now won't look like the individuals now. This has begun in dogs. Genetically, dogs are now four different species, not one. Each species has alleles different from all the other species. So, if you want to understand evolution, you must think in terms of populations. Understand evolution correctly first. Then, if you disagree with it, you are at least disagreeing with what evolution really is, not some imaginary thing. Yes. Like plotting the course of spacecraft based on heliocentrism and gravity being true, my research is based on evolution being true. That the research works is further evidence that evolution is true. And here I thought Christianity was about having a personal relationship with Jesus! That doesn't depend on any text or leader of the religion. Again, the data they used becomes an accepted hypothesis for the next investigator's hypothesis. If the original data were fabricated, then the next experiment doesn't work. In fact, this is how fraud in science is usually detected. Let's consider Piltdown Man. A fake. It tended to show that humans evolved in England. Yet the next transitional form showing a mixture of ape and primitive human traits was discovered in South Africa. In fact, instead of 2 fossil individuals, dozens of A. africanus were found. The hypothesis that humans evolved in England didn't work with the new data. Thus, most anthropologists were convinced Piltdown was a fake for 2 decades before it was finally proven. Virtual particles occur in our existing spacetime. This is what you meant. However, one of the attractions of String Theory is that quantum fluctuations could make a spacetime. The First Law of Thermodynamics does not apply to getting a universe. It tells us what happens IN this universe. But it doesn't forbid getting a universe to begin with. Not "randomly", but they fall into order without direct intervention by an intelligence. In chemistry, hydrogen gas and oxygen gas combine to form water. Water has more order than the gases. But I've never heard any creationist claim that God has to directly intervene to get that to happen. 1. Virtual particles can gain permanence if energy is supplied. This is what happens in particle accelerators. The energy of the collision makes the virtual particles permanent so they can be studied. You collide 2 refrigerators and get a toaster and a blender in addition to the 2 refrigerators. Oh yes. Been done. Species have been observed forming from existing species hundreds of times and natural selection has been documented even more. And that's where life comes from non-life by chemical reactions. Which are NOT random. See the previous post.