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https://www.newscientist.com/article/2377527-octopuses-edit-their-own-genetic-code-to-adapt-to-colder-water/

https://www.sciencealert.com/tweaking-just-a-few-genes-transforms-scales-into-feathers

The endlessly repeated "there are no transitional forms" mantra of YECs is an interesting study. First, the term "transitional form" is a slippery YEC term that YECs define in such a way as to make it impossible to ever demonstrate (even if we were just talking about human history and your own family tree!). But that aside, what I find interesting is how this YEC mantra persists regardless of how many "transitional" forms are found; which begs the question of how many "transitional" forms will it take to make a YEC happy before they're willing to acknowledge, "Okay, maybe, just maybe, those things might be related to each other"? And the answer, of course, is that no amount of "transitional" forms will ever be enough, because they've already pre-decided (before any evidence) that they are not related, no-way, no-how, no matter what. The example that comes to mind is the origin of tetrapods (incorrectly called the "fish-to-amphibian" transition by YECs). And specifically I recall a picture in YEC Duane Gish's 1970s/1980s book "Evolution: the Fossils Say No!" that criticized the "lack of transitional/intermediate forms" between fish and tetrapods: "THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!" The Gish picture (figure 1) is still used by YECs today (figure 1 caption) to say "look, fully formed fins & feet with no intermediate transitional forms in between!" Of course, Ichthyostega (discovered in 1932) was already old news, and before the days of the Internet information was harder to find, so perhaps Gish didn't know about Acanthostega (discovered 1952) which had characters intermediate between fish and Ichthyostega. Of course, once that discovery became more well known that still wasn't a good enough transitional form, so the YECs could still shout: 'THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!" And then, of course, more discoveries were made, but for whatever reason these weren't good enough, or didn't count, or still left large "gaps," so YECs felt they could still confidently shout: "THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!" And then more discoveries were made... "THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!" And still more discoveries were made (like the discovery of Tiktaalik in 2006).... "THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!" *So evolution keeps changing, while young earth creationism stays the same ("THERE ARE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!"), and apparently no amount of "transitional forms" will ever be enough to get YECs to acknowledge, "Hey, you know, maybe, just maybe, those things might be related." OR EVEN JUST, "I still disagree, but I can see why everyone else concludes that they're related."

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-evidence-interdomain-horizontal-gene-eye.amp

True or False: the Genome (DNA) of an organism contains all the instructions (the "blueprint") for making that organism?

A recent 2021 study argues that "expected evolutionary transition times likely exceed the lifetime of Earth, perhaps by many orders of magnitude." (See, "The Timing of Evolutionary Transitions Suggests that Intelligent Life is Rare"). Ever since John Maynard Smith & Eors Szathmary published their (1997) book on The Major Transitions in Evolution, the idea of "Major Evolutionary Transitions" (METs) has attracted the attention of biologists and astrobiologists alike. These are major *Major* evolutionary transitions; not normal, repeated macroevolutionary events like speciation for which there is an abundance of evidence and which we can study in real time; but seemingly unique, one-of-a-kind, never again repeated events. These "Major Evolutionary Transitions" (METs) have been variously called "critical steps" or "hard steps" in evolution. Just how many there are depends on one's definition and who you talk to, but the list usually includes things like the following: (1) The origin of life(2) The origin of photosynthesizing bacteria (3) The origin of eukaryotes (4) The origin of sexual reproduction (5) The origin of complex multicellularity with cell tissue differentiation (6) The origin of human symbolic language/intelligence These "hard steps" are thought to be extraordinarily improbable, one-time events in Earth's history. And some, like the origin of life on Earth, seem an impossible occurrence even within the age of the universe. As the researchers note, "it would take >>10^200 times the present age of the universe for a particular folding [of a 300 amino acid long protein] to occur, even assuming a sampling rate of 1 trillion conformational states per molecule per second and a volume of concentrated protein solution the size of Earth's oceans." This problem is compounded by the presence of life so quickly on Earth, essentially as soon as the Earth was habitable (~4.3 Gyr) if reports of biogenic carbon in 4.1 Gyr zircon crystals are accurate. If true, then that means there is an extremely small window of time for the first *two* "hard steps"---the origin of life *and* also complex photosynthesizing bacteria---as the biogenic carbon discovered is indicative of carbon fixation in photosynthesis. If this weren't difficult enough, there are some researchers (e.g., Raup & Valentine (1983), Multiple Origins of Life) who argue that (even if life did originate abiotically) the probability of life surviving is low unless there were multiple origins of life (they estimate 10 independent origins for one to survive). The researchers note, "The transition to eukaryotic life also involves similar “chicken and egg” difficulties [as the origin of life], with uncertainty on how an archaeon acquired a proto-mitochondrion, since endocytosis requires complex machinery only present in eukaryotes. A second potential hurdle for eukaryogenesis was the survival of the first prokaryotic host with a bacterial symbiont. Without the protection of spliceosomes and a nucleus, the prokaryotic host would be disrupted by extensive intron transfer from the lysis of its symbionts, resulting in few functional proteins. The chimera cell would need to evolve these complex defenses faster than the mutation ratchet effect driving the (already tiny) population to extinction, which could have also required a rare specific outcome among a vast combinatorial space." The researchers considered four "hard steps": the origin of life, origin of eukaryotes, origin of sexual reproduction, and the origin of human symbolic language in light of recent evidence that suggests there is only ~1 billion years left before the earth becomes uninhabitable due to the sun's increasing luminosity (vs. the 4 billion years once thought). This shorter window of time (~5 billion yrs) to achieve these evolutionary "hard steps" for an earth-like planet; combined with the fact that our sun is not a common type of star, and that planets orbiting red dwarfs (the most common type of star) do not seem habitable for life (which effectively rules out 75% of the Milky Way Galaxy); the researchers conclude that intelligent life must be rare in the universe. Importantly, the investigators indicate predictions of their model and what it would take to overturn their conclusions.

This topic arose in the Notes section of the forum, so I'm starting a post on it here, where the topic can be adequately addressed. "Natural Genetic Engineering" (NGE) is a phrase coined by Chicago University microbiologist/evolutionary biologist Dr. James Shapiro Wikipedia provides a summary of the idea. Based on volumes of evidence from microbiology and genomic studies over the past three or so decades, Shapiro concludes that: Shapiro has a book on the subject And numerous peer reviewed published science journal articles on the topic, some of which I have frequently referenced: "Living Organisms Author Their Read-Write Genomes in Evolution" (2017) " Nothing Makes Sense in Evolution Except in Light of Genomics: Read-Write Genome Evolution as an Active Biological Process" (2016) "Biological Action in Read-Write Genome Evolution" (2017) "How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome" (2013) "Why the Third Way of Evolution is Necessary" (2021) "What prevents mainstream evolutionists teaching the whole truth about how genomes evolve?" (2021) "What we have learned about evolutionary genome change in the past 7 decades" (2022) .... "Mobile DNA and evolution in the 21st century" (2010) "The basic concept of the read-write genome: Mini-review on cell-mediated DNA modification" (2016) "Genome system architecture and natural genetic engineering in evolution" (1999)

The focal point of most creation-evolution debates centers on the ability (or not) of random mutation and natural selection to account for life's diversity. This is understandable because it is still what is emphasized and receives the most attention in introductory biology courses. So people on both sides of the debate find it surprising and at odds with what they've learned and perhaps even unbelievable when I say evolutionary biology today recognizes that life's diversity cannot be explained by mutation-selection only, that there is much more in addition to this, and a plurality of mechanisms involved. I have then talked about the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, given examples, and posted links articles like microbiologist James Shapiro's "Nothing in Evolution Makes Sense Except in Light of Genomics. Reactions to this range from continued denial/rejection of what I say to possible acceptance on the basis of my word, but still without really understanding why. At least that's my perception, and I've realized (after recent discussions with @MindWalk and @stephen_33 on this topic) that I need to do a better job connecting the dots for people. It is my intent to do that very thing with this new thread: to better connect the dots for people as to how evolutionary biology has evolved beyond the standard Neo-Darwinian view (i.e., the Modern Synthesis) of mutation-selectionism, and most importantly *why*, so that people understand the underlying reasons instead of just taking me at my word. To this end, I have selected an article (that I don't think I've posted on before) that does an excellent job explaining these changes and how advances (especially in genomics) have revolutionized our understanding of evolutionary biology. The article is over ten years old but still relevant for the discussion, and methodically goes through the issues in a historical, chronological manner that I think people will find especially helpful (so my plan is to similarly follow this approach with a step-by-step walk through this article). Here's the article link and abstract: "Darwinian Evolution in the Light of Genomics" (2009) by Koonin Abstract-Comparative genomics and systems biology offer unprecedented opportunities for testing central tenets of evolutionary biology formulated by Darwin in the Origin of Species in 1859 and expanded in the Modern Synthesis 100 years later. Evolutionary-genomic studies show that natural selection is only one of the forces that shape genome evolution and is not quantitatively dominant, whereas non-adaptive processes are much more prominent than previously suspected. Major contributions of horizontal gene transfer and diverse selfish genetic elements to genome evolution undermine the Tree of Life concept. An adequate depiction of evolution requires the more complex concept of a network or ‘forest’ of life. There is no consistent tendency of evolution towards increased genomic complexity, and when complexity increases, this appears to be a non-adaptive consequence of evolution under weak purifying selection rather than an adaptation. Several universals of genome evolution were discovered including the invariant distributions of evolutionary rates among orthologous genes from diverse genomes and of paralogous gene family sizes, and the negative correlation between gene expression level and sequence evolution rate. Simple, non-adaptive models of evolution explain some of these universals, suggesting that a new synthesis of evolutionary biology might become feasible in a not so remote future. *To start with, I have highlighted three key ideas in the abstract: (1) Natural selection is only one evolutionary force and not the (quantitatively) dominant one. (2) The popular conception of evolution as an "increasing [trend in] complexity" is a myth. (3) The new evidence from genomics indicates that a paradigm shift may be in order (*this article predates and anticipates the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis). ***OK, but why? For those interested, we will walk through the article and see.

It's fine if you don't believe me and are suspicious of what I say @TruthMuse and @Kjav, but I encourage you to watch this three part video by YEC flood geologist and paleontologist, Ken Coulson. Ken Coulson is an acquaintance of mine but no friend of old ages or evolution, so hopefully you'll be open to what he has to say and teach, because there's a lot that can be learned from his three part video "How much of the geologic record was deposited during Noah's Flood?" Part 1 is a short 5 minute intro that gives common creationist arguments for the start of Noah's Flood being at the "Great Unconformity" boundary between the Precambrian and Cambrian at the bottom of the Grand Canyon Part 2 is an 8 minute video where Ken tells you about his PhD research (published in the Answers for Genesis journal) on Cambrian stromatolites (bacterial "reefs") in Utah and how this research shows that the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary can't be the start of Noah's Flood. The problems are similar to the problems with reefs found throughout the fossil record that I discussed in another OP. See here, here, here, here, and here. He also reviews all the common creationist suggestions for explaining these stromatolite "reefs" (maybe they grew faster, maybe they're not biological, maybe they were ripped up and transported, etc.). He explains in a non-technical, easy to understand way why these arguments don't work. It's very informative, and a short video, so I hope you'll watch. In Part 3 Ken gives his own Flood theory and explains why he thinks Noah's Flood happened during the Mesozoic time of the dinosaurs. I do not believe it is supported by the facts, however, I'm still willing to post the video, and welcome his contributions even though I disagree, because he's still a legit scientist who knows his geology and paleontology, while most creationists don't, but simply repeat the same erroneous creationist proof texts for flood geology that aren't actually true and don't actually work. I hope among other things that you will recognize that not all YEC scientists are the same and that some are better than others (in terms of accuracy and accurate information). And if YEC ever wants to attain a place of acceptance and legitimacy in science, then it needs more legit, rigorous scientists like Ken Coulson.

Long before Darwin it was known that there is predictable order to the fossil record. All life does not appear in the same layer, but in different layers (strata). William Smith was the first one to discover and describe this in the late 1700s to early 1800s. He made one of the first geologic maps. During construction work in England he noticed that different types of fossils are found in specific strata, and this can be used to identify location and correlate rock units. He made one of the first geologic cross-sections He introduced a unique color-coded system to distinguish different layers that is still used today. Each color represented a different rock layer And he observed that specific types of fossils were confined to specific types of layers So once again, this is the basic pattern of the fossil record we observe. Instead of all life confined to one rock layer, we observe *faunal succession,* where different types of life are confined to different rock layers in a predictable order. William Smith was one of the first to observe this, and he is often considered the "father of biostratigraphy." Here are some of his diagrams (which he color-coded to match the colors he used on his geologic map). Starting at the top of the fossil record (the "London Clay"), and going down we see different types of marine organisms are confined to different strata (today, these are called "biozones"). -----["Top" of Fossil Record: Cenozoic]----- -----["Bottom" of (Mesozoic) Fossil Record]----- *Faunal succession is the most fundamental observation/data of the fossil record. And one of the key takeaways from the succession of different marine biozones that William Smith discovered and observed is that life on the bottom of the ocean has not been the same type of life throughout earth's history.

In a separate forum the origin of life came up again and I made the statement that there is not sufficient empirical evidence to accept abiogenesis as an established scientific fact. It was countered that there absolutely is, and that it is guaranteed in a sufficiently large universe. In my reply, I felt for the first time I was able to clearly crystallize the problems not only with this argument, but any claim that abiogenesis is a scientific fact, so I thought I would post my reply. ***It doesn't matter how big the universe is, if the universe isn't playing the game*** I'm speaking of *empirical demonstration/confirmation* Naturalistic science has a superb track record (true). So we would expect unsolved problems to eventually find naturalistic explanations (true). The existence of life does not contradict the laws of physics (true). So it seems reasonable a priori to (think, believe, expect, infer) that the origin of life is also a result of naturalistic processes (sure, let's go with that; based on just the aforementioned, true). So then we look to science to confirm this (belief, expectation, inference), and usually find it. Have we found it for the origin of life? NO. We do not have empirical demonstration/confirmation of abiogenesis. A "scientific fact" typically requires repeated empirical demonstration/confirmation. So, it would be false to say abiogenesis is an established scientific fact. Answering, "no," does not "require saying there is something beyond science that intervenes in our physical universe in a remarkable way." Answering, "no," is an evidentiary statement, not a metaphysical one. It doesn't matter whether there is intervention or not. It does not change the fact that we do not have empirical demonstration/confirmation of abiogenesis, so we cannot say abiogenesis is an established scientific fact. ***The existence of life does not contradict the laws of physics, but it also does not seem explainable by them*** As you know, in science there are two main philosophical views concerning the origin of life: that it is the result of *chance* or *necessity*. That life is either the result of an astronomically improbable 'accident' and stroke of 'luck' (and thus, we would expect life to be an extremely rare, possibly one time occurrence in the universe); or, that life is the result of necessity (determinism), and an inevitable result of the laws of nature that can't *not* happen (and thus, we would expect the universe to be teeming with life). Of the two, chance is less of a scientific explanation (when it comes to combinatorial chemistry), than a 'Hail Mary' fall-back. If life is the result of natural causes, then we would expect it to be the "natural" result of the regularities ("laws") of nature. We would expect there to be some normal, natural process or phenomenon that occurs with regularity as a result of the laws of physics that leads to life, and that we can observe and study. Similar to stellar nucleosynthesis, and how we can observe and study the origin and evolution of stars, and origin and synthesis of the chemical elements inside those stars. But instead, we see no observational or empirical evidence of any kind that life is a "natural" occurrence---a normal, "natural" result of natural processes, phenomena, or the regularities of nature. Pier Luisi states it even more pointedly: ***Chance is less of a scientific explanation, than a 'Hail Mary' fall back*** "Life is not a thermodynamic spontaneous process. In other terms, we can say that the origin of life is not deterministic." So that leaves our "chance" fall back, which is problematic from the start, because we're already conceding that life is not the result of normal, natural processes, phenomena or regularities ("laws") of nature (Which is the whole basis of scientific study!). We're conceding that there is nothing "natural" about life, and that it is a chance 'accident.' But let's consider this anyway. The simplest known cells still contain around 300 genes (and proteins), and thousands of copies of each protein, along with fatty acids, sugars, etc. totaling around a million or so molecules that are crowded and compartmentalized into a one cubic micrometer volume. It is a highly sophisticated, integrated, self-referential, causally looped, autopoietic system that creates and replaces its own component parts, and that at minimum requires integrated compartmentalization, metabolism, and self-replication. Abiotically, we are NOWHERE close to getting this. We don't even know how to get to it "on paper." Like Luisi says, "we do not have a conceivable theoretical scheme on paper, on how the origin of life may have come about. We can't even get ONE, SINGLE, ordered, functional protein or nucleic acid (RNA). But let's look at getting a single protein (which of the two, would be the "easiest" to do, even though most still consider this a dead-end). If we imagine ourselves a "warm little pond" with the "right conditions" for amino acid synthesis and assembly into a protein/polypeptide that is well stocked with a limitless supply of our 20 different amino acids, so we can roll the dice, and randomly combine our amino acids in the 'Hail Mary' hope that we hit upon a correct, linear, ordered sequence of amino acids to give us a functional protein (lets say, 100 amino acids long). We could do the typical crude calculation: 1/2 chance of picking the correct isomer ("left-handed" amino acid) x 1/4 chance of correct peptide bond formation x 1/2 conservative chance of picking the correct amino acid (polar or nonpolar), gives us 1/2 x 1/4 x 1/2 = 1/16 chance of getting a 'correct' amino acid, which each roll of the dice. The chance of doing that 100 times in a row is (1/16)^100 = 1 chance in 10^121; i.e., the number 1 with 121 zeros after it, which is so astronomically large, compared to your "1 chance in 1 billion (10^9)" lottery example, and even the age of our universe in seconds (10^17). Yes, it's crude and imprecise, and there are a ton of things wrong with it, but it gives us a rough sense of the "chance" probability involved. And that's just for one, single protein. *But you see, even if we started with a complete, intact, whole cell that was alive just moments ago, we can still predict that barring some interference and ingenuity on our part that it will not reanimate itself. We can predict *empirically* by the laws of physics and chemistry that the intact cell will simply degrade, and decompose back down into its component parts *in accordance* with the regularities ("laws") of nature. The same degradative *natural processes* that are at work against such an intact cell reanimating are also working against those components coming together in the first place. There is a name for this.... ***The "Tar/Asphalt Paradox"*** The "Tar/Asphalt Paradox" is not some theoretical problem, but a real-world problem that is well-known in the origin of life field that is backed by an "enormous amount of empirical data": BUT, what about your argument that a sufficiently large universe solves everything and makes the seemingly impossible, not simply possible, but *guaranteed*? Well, first, that's not really a scientific explanation. It doesn't really explain anything. It doesn't solve the "Tar/Asphalt Paradox." But there's another problem... For the better part of a year, I have done a deep dive into this topic, and researched it more extensively than I ever have. The myriad problems with abiogenesis are no secret and I thought I was well-versed. But I was unprepared for what I discovered. I expected to find more of the same. But instead I was "shocked" to learn of problems that I thought we had already solved. Assembling a chain of monomer 'building blocks' like amino acids to form a polymer is always a difficult challenge, but still there is *empirical demonstration* that it can be done. So this would seem to justify our "warm little pond" game-of-chance for spontaneously assembling a polypeptide from our limitless stock of 20 amino acids. And I was aware of hundreds of experimental studies that demonstrate amino acids (and nucleotides) can be chained together to make polymer peptide (or polynucleotide) chains on the surfaces of clay, by volcanic gas (carbonyl sulfide), and so on. But I had never taken a close look at them; never taken a deep look at the primary sources, until this past year. And as it turns out, I discovered that just like the lab-created self-replicating systems, these studies are also "proof of concept/principle" experiments, and simply *models* for prebiotic polymer synthesis (and this includes both polypeptides and polynucleotides). In short, there is no such thing as the 20 amino acids randomly combining together by chance to make peptides as envisioned by our "warm little pond" thought experiment. The spontaneous, chance formation of a functional protein from a random pool of 20 amino acids is impossible, because the scenario itself is a figment of the imagination (the problems are even worse for nucleotides!). There is no such environment where the 20 amino acids can randomly combine so we can play our roll-the-dice games of chance. The unique chemical properties of amino acid side chains make it impossible. Different amino acids have different reactivities, and are reactive under different sets of environmental conditions, temperatures, pH, salt concentrations, and so on. At best, our lab experiments under ideal conditions typically produce short-length peptides of only 2-3 amino acids for co-/hetero-peptides containing only 2-3 different types of amino acids, or up to ~10 amino acids for homopeptides made of a single type of amino acid (usually the simplest amino acid, glycine) (and the longer the peptide, the smaller the % yield). You see, when people read press releases about 'breakthroughs' on the origin of life and how they've discovered that amino acids can assemble into peptides, they envision the 20 amino acids randomly combining together to make polymer chains and think if you just roll-the-dice enough times, 'Voila!' we get life. They don't realize these studies are only *models* of prebiotic polymerization involving a single type of amino acid up to a few that is only a few amino acids long. We have models only, and no empiriclal evidence that nature can even play our roll-the-dice game of chance. (The prebiotic polymers we can form) And this is comparable to what we find in nature (although, the lab experiments still outperform nature). For example, in meteorites like the Murchison meteorite there are organic compounds---most of them useless---but a tiny percent (~1-2%) of potentially useful amino acids, sugars, and nucleotides. In fact, the types of organic compounds we find in meteorites, matches what we see in prebiotic experiments like the famous Stanley Miller experiment. But in rare cases, some of these meteorites also contain miniscule traces of short-length peptides; especially dipeptides of glycine (2 amino acids of glycine connected together). These comprise about 0.001% of the organic content, which is comparable to what we'd predict based on our experimental results. You see, everyone envisions the origin of life as a simple game of roll-the-dice and if we roll the dice enough times (in a big enough universe) we're guaranteed to hit the jackpot. No matter how improbable the random assembly of a protein (or RNA) from our pool of 20 amino acids, in a sufficiently large universe, it's bound to happen. But we're playing in an imaginary pool. There is no such thing as a "warm little pond" (or any known environment in nature or the lab!) where our 20 amino acids (or even just 10!) are capable of chaining together in random combinations due to their varied, mutually exclusive chemical reactivities (i.e., different amino acids are reactive at different pH, temp, salt concentration, etc., and inhibited or destroyed in others). The experimental evidence shows us that amino acids can readily form in small yields (~1-2%). But at best, the experimental evidence indicates that only two or three (in rare cases, four) different types of amino acids can chain together, and typically in lengths of only 2-3 amino acids long (up to ~10 for a single type of amino acid like glycine). And this experimental evidence matches our observational evidence of relatively small percent yields of amino acids, and even smaller, trace amounts of diamino acids in nature. As my wife likes to remind me when I get excited about how big a lottery jackpot has grown between winnings, "You have to play the lottery to win. You have to buy a ticket" (which, I don't think we've ever done). We see the same problem with abiogenesis: the laws of nature do not inevitably lead to life, but, in fact, work against it; the odds are astronomically improbable in our game-of-chance just for ONE single functional protein or RNA (and the odds for life itself are incalculable); we don't even know how it could happen in theory "on paper," and can't even conceive of a way for it to happen; and we don't have any empirical evidence that nature is even trying to play the game (or is even capable of playing). So... ***It doesn't matter how big the universe is, if the universe isn't playing the game (and so far nature is a 'no show' at the card table)*** ***So do we have empirical demonstration/confirmation of abiogenesis? NO*** ***Can we state that abiogenesis is an established scientific fact? NO***

A common YEC false dichotomy is to try to divide science into two types: "Experimental/Operational Science" vs. "Historical/Origins Science," and then to argue along the lines of the following: Of course, there is no such distinction in science, because it is a false distinction---a false dichotomy (And you actually *can* do experiments on the past----we do it all the time). So-called "historical sciences" are just as valid as so-called "operational/experimental sciences," and, in fact, employ experimental science every bit as much as "experimental sciences." "The Scientific Method" ingrained by education in students probably doesn't help the situation, because it gives people the wrong idea, when the truth is there is no "Scientific Method." Instead, scientists use multiples "Methods," plural. And the same is true with so-called "historical sciences." They are not limited to one method. Again, scientists employ multiple methods. YECs also seem unaware of the nuances that exist. For example, YECs will often argue that "experimental" science is more reliable, because it's repeatable and can be verified in the here-and-now. But what they don't seem to realize is that those observations still *can't* actually be verified everywhere in the universe to see if those observations hold true in every situation, circumstance, and location in the universe. So "experimental" science still has to make assumptions when trying to generalize specific observations to the rest of nature (This is the well-known problem of *induction*). So-called "historical sciences" actually have an advantage in this regard, because one is dealing with past events that are known to have happened, and that have left behind a record of evidence of those events. And that record of evidence can, in fact, be *experimentally* tested---*repeatedly*---and can be *experimentally* *verified* *repeatedly*. That's why this false dichotomy is such nonsense, because it is not a reflection of reality: so-called "historical sciences" employ "experimental science," too. Science simply doesn't fall into 'neat' little categories like "experimental/operational" vs. "historical/origins" where one is confined to one type of method. Scientists employ multiple methods and any and all methods available to them.

Some might already be familiar with the online article "Radiometric Dating a Christian Perspective." For those who don't, it's a long read, but a "must read" for anyone who wants to argue against radiometric dating and "long ages, because the truth is there are a ton of myths and misconceptions about radiometric dating. So before debating the subject, people should at least be better informed about radiometric dating and how it really works. One of the most important take aways is that we have over 40 different radiometric dating methods *plus* additional NON-radiometric dating methods that independently confirm the Earth is older than 10,000 years old. This is a hallmark of good science: when different methods and measurements come to the same conclusion *independently* of each other that is a strong argument for the reliability of the results. (Different radiometric dating methods independently confirm the age of the oldest rocks in Greenland within the margins of error) Sure, radiometric dating is based in part on a number of assumptions such as that the daughter isotope (product) is all the result of the parent isotope, and not another source such as by leaching or contamination or a different natural source. But what people fail to realize is that we have ways to test the validity of those assumptions with every rock sample. (Good rock sample where assumptions check out) (Bad rock sample where assumptions don't check out) Another important point (that I've never seen anyone else point out) is the problem of radioactive isotopes with a *short* half-life. If the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old, then we should see an abundance of isotopes with short half lives in rocks, but with the exception of cosmogenic isotopes that can be replenished we don't see this. Plus, we have NON-radiometric dating techniques that lead to the same conclusion (also discussed in the article). For example, the dendrochronology record (of tree rings) goes back to over 10,000 years, and the record from ice cores goes back to at least 100,000 years. On top of this, YEC solutions simply don't work. For example, even if radioactive decay was somehow accelerated during a one year global Flood, there could be no flood, because the heat generated from such a massive amount of accelerated decay would vaporize the oceans (*and that's a conclusion from the YEC RATE Project). The article also includes an Appendix that answers 20 common objections to radiometric dating. Again, it is a "must read" for anyone who wants to dispute the accuracy of radiometric dating.

New study... "Published in the Journal of Cell Science, Professor John Martin (UCL Division of Medicine) thinks a single genetic molecular event (inheritable epigenetic change) in an egg-laying animal may have resulted in the first formation of blood platelets, approximately 220 million years ago. In mammals and humans, platelets are responsible for blood clotting and wound healing, so play a significant role in our defense response. Unlike our other cells, they don't have nuclei—so are unique to mammals, since other classes of animal such as reptiles and birds have blood clotting cells with nuclei. Our platelets are formed from megakaryocytes that mature in the bone marrow. When these megakaryocytes are released into the blood stream and reach the very high-pressure blood vessels the lungs, they "burst" apart, each cell releasing thousands of platelets inside the bloodstream. The researchers suggest that millions of years ago a mammalian ancestor—possibly an animal related to the duck-billed platypus—underwent the very first formation of platelets, thanks to a sudden genetic change in the nucleus of its blood clotting cells that meant normal cell division did not take place causing the cells to increase in size. If so, those much larger cells might then have been forced to burst inside the first capillaries they met in the animal's blood stream, releasing their cytoplasmic fragments. These fragments proved to be more efficient at stopping bleeding, so if this genetic change was inheritable, it would have given its offspring a major advantage through natural selection. An animal with this epigenetic change could stem bleeding from fighting or wounds much better than its competitors, and so live longer. Professor Martin, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at UCL, says, "Because of the uniqueness of platelets, it is reasonable to suggest that a unique event led to their origin. This was a radical, internal evolution occurring in a single animal, on a single day, 220 million years ago, and was then reinforced by natural selection." Professor Martin and his colleague Professor Paolo D'Avino (University of Cambridge) then suggest that this single cellular rapid change ultimately led to the development, over 120 million of years, to the placenta, allowing the fetus to be retained inside the mother for longer-term development and thus allowing evolution to achieve live birth. The ability to clot wounds is an essential element of live birth by means of a placenta, since the placenta splits from the mother's uterus during the birth process. The female would not survive birth and therefore not be able to suckle her offspring if she were unable to stem the bleeding. In their paper, Professors Martin and D'Avino propose experiments that would support their hypothesis, including in vitro and in animal models. "Without this single critical epigenetic change, we suggest mammals would never have evolved, and therefore human beings would not be around today," says Professor Martin. "With this research, we've laid down a marker based on the available evidence—and we're suggesting these experiments that will either support or help to refute our hypothesis."

The 2018 International Conference on the Origin of Life identified five paradoxes that must be resolved "before any solution to the origin problem can emerge": (1) Asphalt Paradox. (2) Water Paradox. (3) Information-Need Paradox. (4) Single Biopolymer Paradox. (5) Probability Paradox. "Even if we solve the asphalt paradox, the water paradox, the information need paradox, and the single biopolymer paradox, we must still mitigate or set aside chemical theory that makes destruction, not biology, the natural outcome of our already magical chemical system."

(66) Stephen C. Meyer: Church Talk State of the Art [Talbot Chapel] - YouTube

Stumbled across a series of articles by atheists harping on or lamenting religion. Now as a religious adherent, I reject a lot of their disparaging remarks. But let's put that all aside and just *for argument sake* let's say atheism is true and that nature is the whole of reality and there is nothing but the material, physical. Let's just say that. On the assumption that's true, then, of course, all religion is illusory and must be the product of evolution. But here's the kicker: even on this atheist assumption that all religion is bogus, apparently there is quite a bit of research supporting the superior mental health benefits of religious belief over atheism, and that religious adherents have a higher evolutionary fitness and conferred survival advantage. (Now I have done almost next to no deep research on this and am basing this largely on what these atheist researchers say (see below for a sampling of quotes). But assuming these researchers are correct in what they say, then it raises an interesting quasi-paradox of sorts (for lack of a better descriptor) that we can put in the following way: (1) Atheists lament the 'ignorance' and 'superstitious' beliefs of faithful religious adherents---many of whom reject evolution in favor of worship and loyal devotion and belief in what atheists consider to be invisible, imaginary 'deities' that don't exist and are just figments of their imaginations. To atheists, religion is the epitome of superstitious ignorance and irrational backward, backwater belief that lacks any basis in reality, and that we would be better off without if we could just knock some sense into these ignorant people, and get them to accept the reality of scientific naturalism and evolution and so on. (2) Yet in a twist, the atheist view entails that religion must have some adaptive, survival advantage that was naturally selected for in the course of evolution (And as these atheist researchers say, confers a number of advantages over atheism in terms of mental health, life expectancy, survival advantage, improved evolutionary fitness, and more). (3) Now atheists don't seem to have a problem with products of natural evolution. For how can you criticize or 'blame' something that increases your fitness and survivability? That's just the natural development of things. But this raises a number of questions: *First, how can an atheists really criticize religious beliefs (even if bogus) when it still confers such adaptive evolutionary advantages? *Second, is it misguided or 'wrong' for atheists to want to convince adherents to abandon religion and to want to stamp out religion if it has so greatly contributed to our evolutionary success as a species. Isn't that illogical, irrational, 'anti-science' to support eradication of religion when doing so suggests that it would disadvantage us evolutionarily as a species? *Third, in terms of evolutionary advantage, wouldn't it be to an atheist's personal advantage to then adopt religion? Indeed, wouldn't such a move be the logical, rational, scientifically supported choice to make that is in the best interests of self? (Sample quotes)

Interesting, thought provoking article that consciousness is not a product of evolution, but that it's the other way around: https://mindmatters.ai/2023/01/neuroscientist-consciousness-didnt-evolve-it-creates-evolution/ Selected quotes: "What’s behind space and time and physical objects for us is a world of what I call conscious agents or consciousness." "Consciousness didn’t emerge from a prior physical process of evolution. Consciousness is fundamental and so we have to rethink the whole history of the universe actually from this point of view, from The Big Bang up through evolution. We have to rethink it in terms of how to rewrite that story, consistent with all of our current science but understanding that it’s … consciousness is fundamental, not the physical universe" *Claims: consciousness is either an illusion or the fundamental basis of reality