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Evolution is compatible with religion?


Waspie_Dwarf

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ll this stirring of the same pot hoping for a new dish isn't helping ...

The problem is the human folly specifically tied to mental associations tangled with the religions on who OWNS GOD, thus who is the true beneficiary of GOD's creation ...

it was silly from the get go ...

~

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Heh, I'm involved in exactly such discussions on another site.

I'm not religious, but I have absolutely no problem with the idea that scientists studying evolution (or cosmology or astronomy or geology for that matter) might have a personal faith. Just a few examples:

- Kenneth R Miller (https://en.wikipedia...nneth_R._Miller): biologist and leading witness in the Dover-Kitzmiller Trial.

- Francis Collins (https://en.wikipedia...Francis_Collins): biologist involved in the Human Genome Project.

- Georges Lemaitre (https://en.wikipedia...orges_Lema”tre): astronomer and priest who developed the idea of the expansion of the universe and the Big Bang theory (despite being rubbished by Einstein for his troubles).

- Charlie Duke (http://www.charlieduke.net/): Apollo 16 astronaut.

If anything, these people are a Godsend to the evolution debate. If you go to a talk on Cosmology or the origins of life, religious views are not discussed and that is because they have no validity. These people outright lie. For instance Raymond Damadian inventor of the MRI is a creationist and outright says there is no evidence that refutes a 6,000 year old earth. That is just a lie. Or Danny Faulkner,26 years as Emeritus Professor, yet he outright states that there is nothing in observational astronomy that contradicts a 6,000 year old earth. That too is just a lie. We all know this, and we do not have to spend 26 years as Emeritus Professor to do so.

Appeal to authority is the only argument relgion has.

Because people reject education for indoctrination does not validate indoctrination.

And that is what I would love to ask one of these men, how do you serve two answers and claim there is no conflict. Clearly, there is. ID is just creationism wrapped up in different paper, so it is the same thing too.

These people are supposed to be forging new paths, educating our youth, and keeping that cutting edge sharp. They are not, they are letting us down with unsubstantiated nonsense and calling a personal view "science"

There are two answers here. Nature created the Universe, or God did. Evidence overwhelmingly supports a natural universe, not ID. As such, these people seem to be betrayers to me and I feel they are only making things muddier. If they must adhere to ancient fables, the very least they could do is be honest.

I do not see science and relgion walking hand in hand at any stage. They are two answers to one question, which does not have two answers. Religion seems to be the emotional reckoning and science is direct observation. They are completely different things, but only one of them can be correct. If not for indoctrination, I would not be able to understand why anyone at all would choose religion as an answer over science.

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Yes he was.

Those common Victorian values also made him a loving caring father, and sensitive to others, including "exhausted women".

He was not an idiot by any means, and nobody is superior, that is a false superiority complex you have there, people are what they make of themselves, men and women alike.

What absolute nonsense. Sounds like Church teachings vilifying Darwin for showing the Adam and Eve story was bunkum.

Can't be the church. I said women are superior.
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Can't be the church. I said women are superior.

I dunno, great place to get a false sense of superiority. And you seem to have one going by the remarks, or are you just pulling my chain? We are what we make of ourselves. Men and women alike. Some are not good people, some are.

Seems a reasonable assumption to me, and you did use the term "Evilution" and called evolution a relgion (LOL) to begin with.

Science is honest, and science is beautiful, relgion is not. I do not see how they are compatible on any level other than a social one.

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Personally, those that say there is no God are just as much in error as those that claim God is a undeniable fact. The only thing science could possibly say on the matter is if there is a God it has not been satisfactorily observed to date, we do not have the data to render a conclusion either way. In that sense science and the belief in a God or 'creator' are not mutually exclusive. Religion however, with its many extraordinary and counter indicative claims will almost always butt heads with the logic, reason and facts that are the foundations of the scientific minded. Anyone who can espouse religion (referring mostly to Abrahamic religions) along side science would seem to me to be suffering from cognitive dissonance.

Edited by S2F
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Evilution will start you on road to eugenics, sexism and racism.

Anything, taken as an ideology, can lead to this. It does not mean that the science is wrong.

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Personally, those that say there is no God are just as much in error as those that claim God is a undeniable fact. The only thing science could possibly say on the matter is if there is a God it has not been satisfactorily observed to date, we do not have the data to render a conclusion either way. In that sense science and the belief in a God or 'creator' are not mutually exclusive. Religion however, with its many extraordinary and counter indicative claims will almost always butt heads with the logic, reason and facts that are the foundations of the scientific minded.

Nicely put.

A related point I'd like to make here is that there are some theologists who claim for God the title of creator of the universe, on the basis that anything that cosmologists have to say about what caused the universe to come into existence is unprovable and therefore not science. The problem with this claim is that such a God is not one who cares whether we eat bacon or whether we shave our upper lips, nor is this a God who sent His only begotten Son, nor one who wants or needs our unconditional love or our complete submission or who made a covenant with a specific group of people. In summary, this is a God which is entirely external to our universe, and thus incapable of influencing or affecting it.

Anyone who can espouse religion (referring mostly to Abrahamic religions) along side science would seem to me to be suffering from cognitive dissonance.

Well, I think I'd disagree with you here. There are so many ways of being religious that I'm pretty sure most religious scientists are religious in a way which doesn't induce this cognitive dissonance.

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I know many that believe both, they just see God as the 'programmer', he wrote the program , set it off and then it all ran itself. He just sits back and watches .... out of curiosity .

Tbh, that sort of rationalisation just smacks of intellectual laziness. That isn't a pop at you, but at the idea of some divine creator being who supposedly knows all there is to know requiring to "set off" evolution.

Why?

This being could just extrapolate evolution in it's mind and wouldn't need to observe it in action. Knowing everything, it could skip evolution and just create perfection. Knowing everything, God cannot be "curious".

There is no reason that can be argued for why such a being would "create" an evolving universe, except for the lazy rationalisation that there exists some ineffable "plan" at work.

Edited by Leonardo
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I remember an old monk explain it somewhat along the lines as " God need not offer logic because God does not need to explain or offer reasons to anyone as to why, even if there be reason or as so presented, it need not be reason that meets anyone's approval or standards, the human mind is not as capable as usually claimed, much less commonly boasted "

Paraphrasing of course ~ as I understand it , it also means you can't find God or the divine in a test tube or invent any machine that can detect God/the Divine, though I hear there has been some progress somewhat in finding some God 'particle' ... or something like that ~

All the words that has been trapped in books are the voices of long dead ghosts that wails and screams at our thoughts at every opportunity it gets ~ Gnosticism allows them a voice but I don't think that also implies that God needs to speak in any particular language or even has to communicate in a designated linguistical standard ~ that is IF God needs to answer to anyone at all ...

~

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The idea of a young earth came from the 98th Psalm: "A thousand ages in thy sight are as but an evening gone." Because god created the heavens and the earth in six days, the YECs think this means the earth is six thousand years old, give or take a little. BUT: How long is an age? The YECs just ASSUME that an age is a thousand years, but the Bible never says.

Well, no, not just that. The creation story in Genesis takes place over six days, and the strictest YECs say that day means day, and it isn't some euphemism for a longer period of time. At the end of those six days we have Adam, and then in the following chapters we have the descendants of Adam and how old each of them was when their son was born. This provides us with a Genesis chronology down to Abraham, who's traditionally (but with no particular evidence) dated to somewhere around 2000BC. Thus, by counting back, we can in theory arrive at a rough date for the creation.

On top of that there's the calculation by Bishop Ussher in the 17th century, who specifically placed the year of creation in 4004BC. He was someone who employed the one-day-is-a-thousand-years logic, but slightly differently than you describe. Instead, he assumed six days of creation meant a period of 6000 years from creation to the start of the Tribulation: 2000 years from Adam to Abraham, 2000 years from Abraham to Jesus, and 2000 years from Jesus to the start of the End Times, and finally the 1000 year period of the Tribulation as described in the Book of Revelation. Why 4004BC? Because by Bishop Ussher's time people had worked out that Jesus must have been born in 4BC.

That being the case, the Bible can't exclude spontaneous generation OR evolution.

Well, it does if you think that God made the Earth exactly as it is today. However, non-Creationist Christians generally don't have a problem here.

Now to put the shoe on the other foot:

There is no way to demonstrate the immense amounts of time needed for the earth to evolve from a glowing ball of magma to the oasis we see today. So geologists, biologists and others have adopted the Doctrine of Uniformity. It is just ASSUMED because it makes sense and explains a lot of other things about the earth, the cosmos and life. But because it is an ASSUMPTION, it can't exclude a short life-span for the earth - like 6000 years, maybe?

Well, no.

Pretty much the only assumption involved in determining the age of the Earth is that only naturalistic processes are involved.

Scientists looking at the Earth in the 18th century were already coming to the conclusion that the Earth had to be way older than was apparently specified in the Bible. This was achieved simply by calculating how long it would have taken a molten Earth to cool to its current temperature.

And once scientists uncovered radioactivity, they realised they had both a means to determine the age of the Earth and a process to explain how old the Earth was turning out to be. Various radiometric dating processes are available, and they can be used to cross-check each other.

There is no logical reason to question the age of the Earth as determined by science.

So both sides of the argument are based on an assumption.

The difference is that science has only that one naturalistic assumption, and it's worked extremely well wherever it's applied.

And that leaves us high and dry with no explanation at all.

Sorry, I disagree.

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Exactly.

Gallileo said the sun didn't orbit the earth and got crapped on for it. Now, all these hundreds of years later the Vatican installed an observatory and gave Gallileo an, "Oops, my bad".

Oh yeah, :no::devil: That's how that played out.

Well, to be fair he did call the Pope an idiot while being funded by the church.

Not a great point in their defense, but it didn't help him.

Edit: Just noticed my phone corrected Darwin to Darling in post 21.

I do not usually refer to Darwin that way, I have no special care for him.

He never wrote me back anyway...

Yeah, I hate it when the phones do that.

Although, I have left some things intentionally, because well................................... hilarity.

............... but I thought you very intense about your post. ;)

LOL, no worries, it is from a great series called Inside Nature's Giants, Joy (with Dawkins there) does most of the hard work, Dawkins just does some narratives here and there, they cut up all types of Megafauna and autopsy them. Kangaroo, Racehorse, couple of whales, Lion and Tiger, there is quite a few animals that either die from natural causes or are part of a controlled cull.

Really neat show. Very informative. Growing up on a farm, butchering animals does not affect me, but I saw a show on the ABC where they cut up human cadavers, that one sent me a bit queasy.

My daughter inherited something from her dad, where one look at a splurting cut on a finger, and you're on the floor. :o

But she is a vet tech assistant now, so she took classes and such to overcome it. I'm proud of her. Because watching just the first scene in "Saving Private Ryan" at a friend's house, I literally had to slowly drag my husband through the friend's house to take him home, he really got roozy. Didn't make it past the kitchen.

ll this stirring of the same pot hoping for a new dish isn't helping ...

The problem is the human folly specifically tied to mental associations tangled with the religions on who OWNS GOD, thus who is the true beneficiary of GOD's creation ...

it was silly from the get go ...

~

Huh? :unsure2:

I don't know, maybe it's my secular raised brain that can't understand this. I digress.....................

Can't be the church. I said women are superior.

I'm not knocking your outlook here. ;):w00t: And you're feeding this particular feminist as well, but I wish history showed that too.

......... but, but, but, the thing is.............. no gender is. I think it has been shown that men and women are quite capable of achieving pretty much everything when the try. A lot of what women have done, from my standpoint, I think has been glossed over by some made up version of a part of society. I was told, that there was a version of the bible, that had talked about the wonders of what some women did. ( Anyone correct or tell me if that's true? )

I might be a feminist, but I will not erase the good men as well as women, did in the past and now. We are equal.

Granted, men cannot conceive children and gestate them and birth them, but I understand they are working on that now.

;) ............... scaring any men yet?!?! :P

Just kidding.

Personally, those that say there is no God are just as much in error as those that claim God is a undeniable fact. The only thing science could possibly say on the matter is if there is a God it has not been satisfactorily observed to date, we do not have the data to render a conclusion either way. In that sense science and the belief in a God or 'creator' are not mutually exclusive. Religion however, with its many extraordinary and counter indicative claims will almost always butt heads with the logic, reason and facts that are the foundations of the scientific minded. Anyone who can espouse religion (referring mostly to Abrahamic religions) along side science would seem to me to be suffering from cognitive dissonance.

Well from my observation of your post here, you did point out some well known religions. I don't know if I could disagree with you on that. Emphasis on the 'I don't know'. :D Anyways, I feel that my unique belief is a great partner though. I could reflect on it, and see if it isn't..........................................later........................................ much later! .

;)

A related point I'd like to make here is that there are some theologists who claim for God the title of creator of the universe, on the basis that anything that cosmologists have to say about what caused the universe to come into existence is unprovable and therefore not science. The problem with this claim is that such a God is not one who cares whether we eat bacon or whether we shave our upper lips, nor is this a God who sent His only begotten Son, nor one who wants or needs our unconditional love or our complete submission or who made a covenant with a specific group of people. In summary, this is a God which is entirely external to our universe, and thus incapable of influencing or affecting it.

Yeah, interesting. Makes sense when everything was centered around the Earth at the time. The flat Earth........ ;)

Tbh, that sort of rationalisation just smacks of intellectual laziness. That isn't a pop at you, but at the idea of some divine creator being who supposedly knows all there is to know requiring to "set off" evolution.

Why?

This being could just extrapolate evolution in it's mind and wouldn't need to observe it in action. Knowing everything, it could skip evolution and just create perfection. Knowing everything, God cannot be "curious".

There is no reason that can be argued for why such a being would "create" an evolving universe, except for the lazy rationalisation that there exists some ineffable "plan" at work.

I cannot argue with this. I would think he would skip the middle part, wouldn't he? I myself, could look at it, as we are not his children, but one big large dollhouse, where he would create only the best.

If we are his children, when take so friggin long for us to educate ourselves on the point he wants us to have? All the lives that missed the point and died.

I remember an old monk explain it somewhat along the lines as " God need not offer logic because God does not need to explain or offer reasons to anyone as to why, even if there be reason or as so presented, it need not be reason that meets anyone's approval or standards, the human mind is not as capable as usually claimed, much less commonly boasted "

Paraphrasing of course ~ as I understand it , it also means you can't find God or the divine in a test tube or invent any machine that can detect God/the Divine, though I hear there has been some progress somewhat in finding some God 'particle' ... or something like that ~

All the words that has been trapped in books are the voices of long dead ghosts that wails and screams at our thoughts at every opportunity it gets ~ Gnosticism allows them a voice but I don't think that also implies that God needs to speak in any particular language or even has to communicate in a designated linguistical standard ~ that is IF God needs to answer to anyone at all ...

~

In other words, it's the, "Because, I said so" dilemma.
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~snip

Huh? :unsure2:

I don't know, maybe it's my secular raised brain that can't understand this. I digress.....................

I meant all the arguments about them going on about MY god and YOUR god or THIS god or THAT god or REAL god and FALSE god ... ad nauseum

~snip.

In other words, it's the, "Because, I said so" dilemma.

Nahhh ... more accurately as 'Because God never said anythin' in the first place, never did, never had to' ~ ;)

~

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Bit hard to be a suckered in science. Your computer works, regardless of whether you believe in it.

Garbage in, garbage out.
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Oh yeah, :no::devil: That's how that played out.

Yeah, I hate it when the phones do that.

Although, I have left some things intentionally, because well................................... hilarity.

............... but I thought you very intense about your post. ;)

My daughter inherited something from her dad, where one look at a splurting cut on a finger, and you're on the floor. :o

But she is a vet tech assistant now, so she took classes and such to overcome it. I'm proud of her. Because watching just the first scene in "Saving Private Ryan" at a friend's house, I literally had to slowly drag my husband through the friend's house to take him home, he really got roozy. Didn't make it past the kitchen.

Huh? :unsure2:

I don't know, maybe it's my secular raised brain that can't understand this. I digress.....................

I'm not knocking your outlook here. ;):w00t: And you're feeding this particular feminist as well, but I wish history showed that too.

......... but, but, but, the thing is.............. no gender is. I think it has been shown that men and women are quite capable of achieving pretty much everything when the try. A lot of what women have done, from my standpoint, I think has been glossed over by some made up version of a part of society. I was told, that there was a version of the bible, that had talked about the wonders of what some women did. ( Anyone correct or tell me if that's true? )

I might be a feminist, but I will not erase the good men as well as women, did in the past and now. We are equal.

Granted, men cannot conceive children and gestate them and birth them, but I understand they are working on that now.

;) ............... scaring any men yet?!?! :P

Just kidding.

Well from my observation of your post here, you did point out some well known religions. I don't know if I could disagree with you on that. Emphasis on the 'I don't know'. :D Anyways, I feel that my unique belief is a great partner though. I could reflect on it, and see if it isn't..........................................later........................................ much later! .

;)

Yeah, interesting. Makes sense when everything was centered around the Earth at the time. The flat Earth........ ;)

I cannot argue with this. I would think he would skip the middle part, wouldn't he? I myself, could look at it, as we are not his children, but one big large dollhouse, where he would create only the best.

If we are his children, when take so friggin long for us to educate ourselves on the point he wants us to have? All the lives that missed the point and died.

In other words, it's the, "Because, I said so" dilemma.

post-159412-0-90059000-1457456305_thumb. I am beginning to regret overthrowing you girls in Egypt, I am now totally in your corner ladies. Even you decide to kill me for other men's crimes against you. This patriarchy lie is really getting ugly.
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I would not even attempt to define the nature of the creator--I haven't a clue.

Anything determined to be factual, religion will have to accommodate.

Neither science nor the bible is infallible.

Science is always right--except when it's wrong.

It always amuses me to listen to pastors preaching the infallibility of the holy scriptures from bibles with center columns of corrections.

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I meant all the arguments about them going on about MY god and YOUR god or THIS god or THAT god or REAL god and FALSE god ... ad nauseum

Nahhh ... more accurately as 'Because God never said anythin' in the first place, never did, never had to' ~ ;)

~

Ok, if you say so. ................................ *shrugs* :whistle:;)

post-159412-0-90059000-1457456305_thumb. I am beginning to regret overthrowing you girls in Egypt, I am now totally in your corner ladies. Even you decide to kill me for other men's crimes against you. This patriarchy lie is really getting ugly.

:unsure:

:unsure2:

.................................... :huh: What?!?! :huh:

Seriously, I don't know what you mean here!

Edited by TheMustardLady
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Ok, if you say so. ................................ *shrugs* :whistle:;)

:unsure:

:unsure2:

.................................... :huh: What?!?! :huh:

Seriously, I don't know what you mean here!

You and me both. I don't follow that response at all...

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Personally, those that say there is no God are just as much in error as those that claim God is a undeniable fact.

Gidday Mate

I heard Michio Kaku say exactly the same thing when he debated Richard Dawkins and WIlliam Lane Craig. I do not believe that is the case as there are factors about "God" and ID that can be shown to be in error, while the characters themselves can be considered "beyond science" the claims they attribute to them are testable and the models have been shown to be in error.

Here is that debate.

The only thing science could possibly say on the matter is if there is a God it has not been satisfactorily observed to date, we do not have the data to render a conclusion either way.

While that is true and God is considered a "choice" by science, ID and any God concept indicate a "creator" yet following the evidence clearly shows a natural Universe that is something from nothing. We can say god did not create man, light, the planets or the Universe, in fact gravity had much more to do with these processes and aspects of evolution than any God concept can be shown to have contributed. Following the evidence denies the premise of a creator or ID and therefore renders the model invalid.

In that sense science and the belief in a God or 'creator' are not mutually exclusive. Religion however, with its many extraordinary and counter indicative claims will almost always butt heads with the logic, reason and facts that are the foundations of the scientific minded. Anyone who can espouse religion (referring mostly to Abrahamic religions) along side science would seem to me to be suffering from cognitive dissonance.

And while one can have faith without relgion, relgion is still the instigator of faith, and where the ideal of an omnipotent presence comes from. Be it Abrahamic, Indian or Native, the "sky entity" persists as a common theme.

How I resolve the issue is to adopt the position of Toothfairy Agnostic. TO me it seems to be the only neutral and fair position retaining a healthy respect for scientific nature.

noun; compounding

a person who believes that the existence of god is as likely as the existence of the tooth fairy. “A friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew who observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity, describes himself as a Tooth Fairy Agnostic. He will not call himself an atheist because it is in principle impossible to prove a negative. But "agnostic" on its own might suggest that he thought god's existence or non-existence equally likely. In fact, though strictly agnostic about both, he considers God's existence no more probable than the Tooth Fairy's. Hence the phrase Tooth Fairy Agnostic.” -Richard Dawkins

I can't prove or disprove god but the likelihood that he does exist is similar to the likelihood that the tooth fairy exists, so I am a tooth fairy agnostic.

LINK

That's how I see it anyways.

Cheers.

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You and me both. I don't follow that response at all...

That makes 3 of us.

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That makes 3 of us.

Make that 4.

Evilution will start you on road to eugenics, sexism and racism.

If you want a serious discussion this is most certainly not the way to do it.

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My daughter inherited something from her dad, where one look at a splurting cut on a finger, and you're on the floor. :o

But she is a vet tech assistant now, so she took classes and such to overcome it. I'm proud of her. Because watching just the first scene in "Saving Private Ryan" at a friend's house, I literally had to slowly drag my husband through the friend's house to take him home, he really got roozy. Didn't make it past the kitchen.

LOL, I can't get needles myself, they send me very light headed. I used to have a fear of heights, which is not great as a sparky. I overcame it by meeting the fear head on and just diving in. Some moments of trepidation, but I persisted :D

Huh? :unsure2:

I don't know, maybe it's my secular raised brain that can't understand this. I digress.....................

;)

I'm not knocking your outlook here. ;):w00t: And you're feeding this particular feminist as well, but I wish history showed that too.

......... but, but, but, the thing is.............. no gender is. I think it has been shown that men and women are quite capable of achieving pretty much everything when the try. A lot of what women have done, from my standpoint, I think has been glossed over by some made up version of a part of society. I was told, that there was a version of the bible, that had talked about the wonders of what some women did. ( Anyone correct or tell me if that's true? )

I might be a feminist, but I will not erase the good men as well as women, did in the past and now. We are equal.

Granted, men cannot conceive children and gestate them and birth them, but I understand they are working on that now.

;) ............... scaring any men yet?!?! :P

Just kidding.

True on every level. We are equal in ability, but I am sad to say the many women have not been recognised for their amazing contributions to science, which really does suck big time. Ada Lovelace and Rosalind Franklin to mention a couple. I hope as details come out, that these errors are corrected.

In other words, it's the, "Because, I said so" dilemma.

:tu:

BOOM!!

nail+hammer.jpg

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True on every level. We are equal in ability, but I am sad to say the many women have not been recognised for their amazing contributions to science, which really does suck big time. Ada Lovelace and Rosalind Franklin to mention a couple. I hope as details come out, that these errors are corrected.

Don't forget Grace Hopper.

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Patent applications are not made to "prove evolution" but to support a claim to some substance or method that can potentially generate a profit.

I worked in patents for more than 20 years. About 1995 in an office reorganisation, our section of a dozen examiners got landed with proteins and sugars. A peculiarity of the International Patent Classification is that DNA and RNA are classified as sugars because of the ribose parts of the molecule. We had to learn a lot and pretty fast. Turned out it mostly was not so difficult.

Most of the applications for synthetic or natural proteins defined their inventions as sequences of the 20 coded amino acids, occasionally including citrulline and ornithine, which are metabolic products. The sequences could be anything from four to hundreds of amino acids long. So determining whether a sequence of amino acids was new or not was a simple if lengthy process of checking whether that exact sequence had been published before. Luckily this coincided pretty much with on-line searching of databases, trying to find a difference of one or a few amino acids between two proteins of 300 amino acid length by eye is simple in principle but difficult in practice.

A majority of patent applications for proteins included related sequences that were not claimed as inventions, together with the DNA or RNA sequence that coded each of them This could cover dozens of pages. Much of this stuff was superfluous but was added in belt and braces (suspenders) style so there could be no objection that the invention had not been fully described. It did not cost the applicants much extra anyway.

What we usually got in these were sequences from humans, horses, pigs, cattle, sheep, dogs, cats and sometimes drosophila (fruit fly). Organisms of economic or technical interest.

You generally had to look twice the see the differences among humans, horses, pigs, cattle, sheep, dogs and cats. In fruit flies it was easier to see the differences, but there were plenty of similarities.

In one memorable case, the application was for one of the proteins coded for by a growth regulating gene. It was about 300 amino acids long. We got the usual mammals and for some reason the applicants put in growth regulating proteins from wheat, rice, barley, maize and rye. The proteins from mammals were virtually identical, and the proteins from the grains were virtually identical. But about 70 amino acids from the start of the mammal and wheat proteins, there was a sequence of about a dozen amino acids which were identical, then after about another 150 amino acids, another sequence of five which were identical. I did not look any further. Thus two sub-sequences of amino acids were identical in humans and wheat in a protein that did much the same job.

It turns out that this is common, though I did not know it at the time. Growth regulating genes and proteins are highly conserved. In some respects, these represent the 'transitional fossils" that young Earth creationists are forever asking for.

I see the attempts at deflection of the question by accusing Darwin of sexism and racism and the slippery slope argument about eugenics. Eugenics can only survive in an intellectual climate that knows almost nothing of genetics. Darwin could have been a serial killer, but that has no effect on whether evolution is a fact or whether his theory was good as far as it went. Aside from that, the "modern synthesis" which formed between 1928 and 1940 acknowledges Darwin and Mendel, but is largely the work of a biologists like Haldane and Mayr and the mathematician and biologist Fisher.

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Don't forget Grace Hopper.

:tu:

Too many to mention I am sad to say.

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