Quote:

It seems obvious you want to drop this subject. Just let me point out one thing. I'm not the one who even said this was a failed experiment in the first place. Scientists, even the one who performed it, said it was a failure. I just took the conclusion to the next logical step.

I think this statement was about the Miller-Urey experiment. It was not a failure at all because it showed that organic molecules can spontaneously form from anorganic ones. What is in doubt is the exact composition of an early atmosphere. The Miller experiment has been repeated in various forms over the past decades with different atmospherical conditions and even conditions underwater. Some of these experiments created amino acids, others did not.

Quote:

Instead, what I'm saying is the more obvious conclusion is that at one point all of these genetic traits were more generalized within a smaller number of species, maybe within even only one species. However, because even on an island there are different requirements for surviving, certain genes of this species seperated and formed their own species, albeit with less genetic variance.

Okay, let's assume that the finches have a large variance in their traits and some environmental conditions cause them to have distinct populations. Why should their descendants lose any of that variance? Basically if you were to transport one of the finches back into a different ecological niche, so to speak, they could easily adapt due to their variance. I think you are trying to reinvent Lamarckism here, where body features gained during the lifetime of an individual gets passed on to offspring- doesn't work that way.



Quote:

Fair enough, but geneticists do not (maybe it could be said that geneticists are just more specialized biologists). A lot of biology is steeped in evolution, so biologists at this point are only looking for more proof of materialist evolution (forgive my use of the word materialist, I simply don't know any other way to put it, and there is an important distinction). Its ok, even from my creationist viewpoint, that biologists are only trying to find evidence of materialist evolution. As I've said, I'm all for anything that leads to a better understand of life. However, when they find evidence that contradicts their viewpoint, it should be presented FAIRLY to the public, not in a manner that misleads the layman.


If you talk to biologists you will find out that they are not out "looking for more proof of evolution". For biologists (and most every other scientist in the life sciences) evolution is factual. An astronomer does not look for "proof of gravity" when investigating a new planet, instead he looks for how the theory of gravitation (assumed to be correct) explains the position of that planet and what future motion might be expected. Similarly a biologist looking at a previously unknown organism looks for how the theory of evolution (assumed to be correct) explains the morphology of that organism and what other organisms are to be expected in its lineage. If the evidence contradicts the theory, our scientist will publish a paper about that, argue with his colleagues for a couple of years, then revise the theory and get a handful of prizes.

Quote:

However, geneticists have been trying for a LONG time to find some working mechanism for a change in kinds of animals. They haven't found it.

Again, biologists (not just geneticists) will disagree with your claim. The changes in kind are recorded in the fossil record. However, they can not be reproduced in a laboratory.

Quote:

And they've also found that there is something stopping these 'positive' or 'new' mutations from occuring.

You have claimed this before. No geneticist claims that there is such a mechanism and you have not backed up your claim that there is by showing how it might work. Merely repeating the claim does not strengthen it.

Quote:

If mutations are so good for creatures to become something else, why do cells have natural defense mechanisms (albeit, defenses that don't work 100%) to reverse or prevent these mutations? I'm seriously just asking, I'm not really sure myself. I'd like to say that these mechanisms show mutations are always bad, but I can't draw that conclusion at this time.

This is the example that JCL was talking about earlier. A mutation is far more likely to be harmful than to be beneficial. If you pick to 2 letters from our alphabet there are ca. 660 possible combinations. How many of these are English words (an, in, of, on, etc.) ? Maybe 20 ? Thus out of 660 character "mutations" only 20/660= 3% create "good" mutations.
Biologists do not disagree that mutations are mostly harmful, however, you are wrong to assume that therefore all mutations must be harmful. Some are completely neutral (because of codon redundancy as mentioned previously) and some are beneficial.

Quote:

So my assumption of the probibility of a mutation that causes a gaining of efficiency in a function or physical trait (I'm assuming that these cells weren't originally photo sensitive, and that they never contained this data in the first place so it wasn't hidden or corrupted) is zero.

In that case I recommend reading up on probability theory as well. You are also ignoring translocations here which allow completely new proteins to be created without having to change every base individually by simply appending half of an existing gene from one spot onto another gene at another spot.

Quote:

Because you have to affect more than just nucleotides, or I should say you have to affect nucleotides on a large scale (all at once nonetheless) to get that data to appear in the first place. This mechanism has yet to be discovered.


See above, this mechanism is known as translocation or cross-over.

Quote:

This is why a mutation affecting red blood cells (sickle cell anemia) doesn't completely change what the red blood cells are. It just causes a crippling of the original purpose of the red cells.

Because that's the fastest way to "deal" with malaria. We could imagine a rather complicated mutation that adjusts the immune system to deal with this disease, but switching a single nucleotide apparently does an acceptable job.

Quote:

I know these two hurdles exist because they were evidenced in the fly experiment

I remember from your lengthy post that you referenced some early 20th century experiments. If you want to do more research please look at the fly experiments performed in the last 4 decades.

Quote:

I understand why you think animals can gain new data, especially if snakes have legs (normally I would just call these lizards) but assumptions based on fossils are no match for the observable truth. You can cook up any equation you want, but the the observable truth never lies.

I know you would like some biologist to turn a fish into a lizard, but that's just not how it works. We are talking about millions of years with selection pressure. All that can be done in a lab is make bacterias resistant to their antagonists and show adaptation to their environment in fruit flies.
To come back to the theory of gravity: we can see and measure it in the small but it also causes galaxies to spin. Can we measure the gravity exerted on a galaxy? Can we reproduce it in a laboratory? Should we thus discount gravity on large scale object? No, those are reasonable extrapolations and as long as the facts match the theory and there is no better explanation we accept the theory.
Creationism as a theory (using the word in its non-scientific sense) claims that complete animals can be created out of thin air. We do not have any evidence to back up this claim. We can't even extrapolate because nobody has seen even a tiny bacteria materialize out of thin air.

Quote:

then this still fits within the creationist model of evolution because no matter how many times you pile bad things on to a creature, it'll never stop being that creature.

This is called "shifting the goal post". Usually creationists talk about a vague "kind" that is never clearly defined. This is why the modern definition of "species" is used by biologists. If creatures from population A can not produce fertile offspring with creatures from population B then they are of different species. Compare this to a vague notion of "no matter how often I change it it still stays basically the same".

Quote:

You can have 'new' data in the form of a new amino acid, or shorter or longer genes (more or less amino acids), but because we are already dealing with a well ordered creature, these changes can't lead to anything that is better relative to what already existed.

You are still claiming that there must be some process that prevents improvements to an existing organism without explaining what such a process might be.

Quote:

Which is why sickle cell anemia caused a 'new' amino acid to appear on a gene, but still caused something to become 'out of order'.

That's messed up. It should be: a nucleotide on a gene got changed which caused a different amino acid to appear which in turn causes sickle cell anemia.

Quote:

They die faster, they aren't pliable enough to squeeze through vessels. This may not always kill the victim, but it certainly doesn't help.

On average it helps them to live longer. What's the point of having a baby with excellent blood cells that dies within a few months due to malaria infection ?

Quote:

This is what I mean by miscommunication. I need to find a different way to say this. Nucleotides are organized into amino acids. These amino acids are further organized into genes. These genes then produce proteins.

Nope. Nucleotides are bases which make up part of the DNA. Depending on the level of abstractions you can organize these into exons or genes. Genes when translated cause amino acids to be created which when attached to each other form proteins.

Quote:

In the first example, we randomly remixed our amino acids to gain eyes (assuming for a moment that mutations worked on a larger scale than they do). However, this kind of mutation could be considered 'good' because it not only lead to data that never existed before, but it lead to data that never existed before that lead to a brand spanking new creature. There may be a me that exists without those eyes back in the cave, but I'm still a new creature because I grew eyes without the aid of previous genetic material.

I have adressed most of this above. Large scale mutations occur and you use a very subjective notion of "creature". An organism that has completely different blood cells you do not consider to be a new creature, but an organism that has its skin cells changed so that they are photo sensitive you do consider to be a new creature. I know what you are tring to say, but "I know it when I see it" ain't good enough in science.

Quote:

This is the kind of bait and switch tactic is used on the public. We're shown this change, and that it can lead to good things, but we're not shown the basis of this change and how it can't lead one creature to become another and never has before.

If you want large scale changes you have to look into fossils, and of course you'll find lots of uninformed laymen saying that those fossils are all made up and professional paleontologists stating how they relate to each other. Take your pick as to who you trust. I have never been interested in old bones, so I can not help you with that.

Quote:

The very idea of junk DNA in the first place is kind of a problem. You say junk DNA is junk because at our current understanding we don't know what this junk DNA is yet (or what it does). To say that its inability to create protein proves its uselessness is kind of a loaded argument. I can't prove you wrong because we don't know 100% of everything about genetics. Just like introns were first thought to be 'vestigial', and like some organs were first thought to be vestigial: things change.

Again, basic science: you can't prove a negative. Thus the burden of proof is on you to show that junk DNA is not actually junk. Some experiments have been done with mouse DNA where junk sequences were removed and the phenotype remained the same.

Quote:

So I think it would be fair not to jump to conclusions just yet.

So.. in a case where current evidence contradicts your basic assumption and clearly shows that humans and apes have a common ancestor it's not fair to jump to conclusion and we have to wait? Yet when chemists are trying to find models for abiogenesis but have not been successful in describing every step along the way it's fair to conclude that evolution is untenable??