# Anti-evolution: Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 24, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887 "2003-04-24T16:52:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/121 "2003-04-26T06:14:47Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Dostromin_ > **I believe in the concepts of evolution, and other concepts that run with evolution (like speciation and genetic drift and what not) but just not on the level that scientists do.** So you say that you buy into the idea of speciation, but you seem to balk at the idea of common ancestors. Can you please tell me what you think speciation is if it is not the divergence of species from a common ancestor? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Dostromin_ > **Your trying to tell me that prehistoric dogs evolved into whales.** Have you read the previous posts regarding this? The “dog-like” reference was used probably due to _general_ size and morphology. It was used as an example because you can visualize the _general_ size and shape of a dog. The common ancestor proposed is no more a prehistoric dog than it is a prehistoric whale. Being a common ancestor, it was the predecessor of both. The concept of common ancestry is key to Evolutionary theory. It is **very** different from your linear banana to human and dog to whale misconceptions. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Dostromin_Many organisms have similar biochemestry. We are biochemically over 50% similar to a banana. Does that mean that people evolved from fruit? Or that fruit evolved from people? No, but Evolution does propose (and support) that plants and animals and all (currently or previously) living things…shared a common ancestor at some point in the (very distant) past. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/122 "2003-04-26T06:46:58Z")
> [@](#): > > An organism simply would not change the way it is tought they way they would. Why? Can you produce any reason at all as to what would prevent it? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/123 "2003-04-26T07:11:07Z")
He can’t imagine that it’s possible. Therefore, it isn’t possible. He doesn’t need a reason – given enough time, he’ll find some way to discard the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/124 "2003-04-26T07:18:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dostromin \* > **Your trying to tell me that prehistoric dogs evolved into whales. That is why I find it farfetched.** You obviously haven’t been paying attention because no one is trying to tell you any such thing. A mere nine posts above yours, I wrote > [@](#): > > however, note that “canine-type” does not mean “canine”. The Mesonychians (the group which was thought to be representative of the land-bound ancestors of cetaceans) were, more or less, dog-like in appearance (with some notable exceptions, such as the possession of hooves). **But they were not dogs, nor were they even closely related to dogs.** > > The most current theory, however, is that cetaceans are most closely related to Artiodactyla (the group which includes all the “typical” cloven-hooved mammalian herbivores, like deer and antelope, as well as pigs and hippos). \*\* > [@](#): > > There had to have been some evolutionary forces at work to get the rabbits to change, but I do not think that rabbits evolved from an entirely unrelated organism (like dog-like animals and whales).\*\* And who the heck is telling you organisms evolved “from an entirely unrelated organism”?! The whole point is _that organisms descend from **related** organisms_. You know, that whole “descent with modification” thing? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/125 "2003-04-26T11:39:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dostromin \* > \*\*I believe in the concepts of evolution, and other concepts that run with evolution (like speciation and genetic drift and what not) but just not on the level that scientists do. > All of those the concepts of evolution (and genetic drift, speciation, others) do happen, but I think it is unreasonably farfetched to think that whales evolved from dog-like creatures. That’s crap, and the only “proof” lies in old fossles, a useless hip bone in modern whales, and vague ideas of genetics. Very vagues ideas. I think that scientists are playing a game of connect the dots and they have, in the bigger scheme of things, failed. \*\* Did you read my link? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/126 "2003-04-26T11:40:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dostromin \* > \*\*Call me crazy, but I don’t think evolution is anywhere near an exact science! \*\* I won’t call you crazy, but I also won’t call you educated in biology either. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/127 "2003-04-26T11:42:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dostromin \* > \*\*Does that mean they are related? No! Does that mean one evolved from another or from a common ancestor? No! It just means that the bones look the same and that they give birth to live young. \*\* Yes they are related. ---
**Author:** ![Azael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@Azael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azael)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/128 "2003-04-26T14:36:21Z")
> [@](#): > > _from tdn_ > \*\*4) “I was never a monkey!” Some people really believe that evolution implies this, and take it as a huge insult. > \*\* Assertions like this one seem to be part of a larger pattern… I’m sure many of you have noticed that many who refuse to accept evolution will give common misconceptions about evolution to back up their reasoning. Thus the “ridiculous” idea of dog one day suddenly turning into a whale. I’ve even heard a Creationist say that since evolution implies “survival of the fittest” species should be going extinct all the time (This was phrased to me as “Shouldn’t species be going extinct?” - As if they weren’t). Another one that has thrown me is “if the world is so old, how come there aren’t more fossils?” He seriously believed that since there weren’t enough bones and graves to account for “millions of years” worth of life, evolution had a fatal flaw. Now I realize that in the case of the young-earth Creationists, this is very much a result of the strawmen they have been fed at church. It is those who dismiss evolution not on the basis of religious programming but rather because they never studied enough about the subject to resolve percieved contradictions that truly worry me. There is also that fascinating bit of human psychology that anyone who has come across a **1=.999…** thread should be entirely familiar with. People will outright rationalize their beliefs in the face of a shocking degree of proof to the contrary. If there is one thing I do have faith in with regards to science, it is the fact that it abhors a contradiction. It may be enough for interacting with reality, but it will never be enough for interacting with other humans. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/129 "2003-04-26T14:40:00Z")
Yeah, but didn’t Beck say: “In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey”. 🙂 It sure works well as a literary device. Bad science, though. Very bad science. ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/130 "2003-04-26T16:08:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Azael \* > **Another one that has thrown me is “if the world is so old, how come there aren’t more fossils?” He seriously believed that since there weren’t enough bones and graves to account for “millions of years” worth of life, evolution had a fatal flaw.** The dust under my bed is only an inch thick! … Tertius01, let me say that I haven’t read your article. The reason is that when you tell me that the article says the genetic code is near-optimal, then I wonder whether it’s worth wasting my time on. (Let me say that I will, however, shamelessly rip off its bibliography, and go to the original literature- I’ve been reading up on the origin of the genetic code for a while now, and have been planning to incorporate it into the abiogenesis FAQ.) The fact is that there’s plenty of evidence that the genetic code is evolved. For example: - biochemically early amino acids are coded for with biochemically early nucleotides, suggesting that as new amino acids evolved, organisms had to evolve new nucleotides to code for them. - While we’re at it, uracil is a biochemical precursor to thymine, precisely as you’d expect from the RNA world hypothesis. - In general, redundancy in the genetic code involves the third position. Why not the first or second, if God can do it however he likes? Third-base redundancy suggests that an early code used two bases per codon, with the third serving as a placeholder, like the space between words in written text. - Thus when new amino acids evolved, the third position was placed into service as a coding region. This is exactly what you see: biochemically early amino acids tend to be distinguished by the first two codons, while biochemically late ones are distinguished by changes in the third position. One last thing to bear in mind is that if you know anything at all about information theory, you know that the genetic code is far from optimal. A sort of “quote mining” (albeit probably unintentional) is going on if any IDist tells you otherwise. If you work from the idea that evolution is true, then yes, the genetic code has a lot of error-resistance. But it’s being measured against the standard of, “what kind of genetic code could have evolved?” If you’re an IDist, you’re not constrained by that. You could, for example, imagine a genetic code based on Hufmann coding, which would be resistant to frameshift mutations and would encode more information per nucleotide. For that matter, this all begs the question of why God would even _need_ to create an optimal genetic code. If God is going to let things evolve over billions of years on their own, sure, it’s good that the genetic code has some error-resistance. If God is going to keep tinkering and introducing IC systems, or is going to create new species entirely, then He can just keep correcting mutations. If you can’t answer those questions, then you’re just making a “gee-whiz” argument: the genetic code is so cool, God must have done it. Now, all that being said, does you article really address the evidence for the evolution of the genetic code? ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/131 "2003-04-26T17:54:11Z")
Incidentally, I forgot to mention that the “optimization” of the genetic code is a natural consequence of the fact that it was evolved. When an enzyme evolves to change one amino acid into another, similar amino acid, naturally you’re going to end up using a similar codon for each. (For example, the old AA might originally have a redundant third position, and when the new AA evolves, the two AA’s are distinguished by differences in the third position as the old codon “splits” into two.) This is the kind of thing you see over and over again when you read the kinds of papers your site had in their bibliography. Did they even mention it, or did they just handwavingly (and falsely) declare that the code’s optimization is just plain inconsistent with evolution? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/132 "2003-04-26T17:58:39Z")
Huzzah, **Ben**! Way to dispel ignorance! ---
**Author:** ![Tertius01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tertius01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tertius01)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/133 "2003-04-26T18:05:06Z")
For one thing, as **TVAA** mentioned, the genetic code was only optimized for the particular size of the codon (three nucleotides, the minimum necessary to handle start, stop and twenty amino acids). Certainly a codons made up of more nucleotides would be more error resistant, but in a sense, less efficient. The article’s claim is that, of all the possible pairings of codon with amino acid, our particular code of pairing minimizes the amount of mutation errors, especially when you factor in the likelihood of different substitution errors. In fact, our particular code appears to be head and shoulders above the one million randomly generated possible codings in the experiment. If the code is indeed optimal (or very near optimal), I think it is up to those who attribute the optimality to natural selection to provide a force driving the optimality and the time for the optimization to occur. The obvious problem is that a change in codon assignment leads to changes in amino acids and defective proteins. Mutations happen; error-resisance seems like it is always a good thing. Saying an intelligent designer could tinker anytime it liked is missing the point I think. As I first said, I am not a biologist, so I really can’t offer any more information than is contained in the article. It isn’t very long, especially if you skip over the basic genetics at the beginning. This was written before your second post **Ben**. No it wasn’t mentioned, and that is exactly why I brought this here. [Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code](http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2002issue08/index.shtml?main#deciphering_design) ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/134 "2003-04-26T18:08:40Z")
But there’s the question: Why should God be concerned with making trade-offs between accuracy and efficiency? Why wouldn’t he take the trouble to make a virtually-perfect system? (We can imagine a coding scheme that makes each amino-acid sequence unique, so that any change to the code itself would make it non-functional. This would prevent ALL mutations. Why didn’t God do this?) If God were willing to constantly fix errors that would pop up, why would He care about accuracy at all? ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/135 "2003-04-26T18:13:34Z")
And don’t forget that mutation does play a role in evolutionary theory. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/136 "2003-04-26T18:14:59Z")
Precisely. If we really presume that God designed biochemistry, then we have to also presume that God is an idiotic designer. Heck, the majority of species on Earth are unable to fix nitrogen, thus making them dependent on special bacteria. What was God thinking? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/137 "2003-04-26T18:28:54Z")
“What was God thinking?” Logic and religion don’t mix. In religion, you always get to say “Well, God is mysterious and we are incapable of understanding his ways”. How conVENient. ---
**Author:** ![Tertius01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tertius01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tertius01)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/138 "2003-04-26T18:39:49Z")
I don’t think any advocate of an intelligent designer has said that the designer would be willing to constantly fix errors. I can’t imagine a coding scheme that would prevent all mutations. Even if you had codons with more than three nucleotides, the possibility for a double or triple nucleotide substitution is always there. Lets say for a moment that we have four nucleotides in a codon. Now lets say there is a “standard codon” related to a certain amino acid. You would have to include 12 additional “one substitution” codons (each nucleotide of the four nucleotides has three substitution options). Thus a 13 codon block, where the standard codon was always used, would be insensitive to single substitutions. For the 22 required actions, you would need 286 codons, but a four nucleotide codon only has 256 options. You would have to have a five nucleotide codon to be insensitive to single substitutions (352 codons required, 1024 available). Insensativity to double subsitutions would require an even longer codon. I’m not sure what you mean, **TVAA** , about making each amino-acid sequence unique. It seems you trade off between codon length and error resistance. You brought this up to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/139 "2003-04-26T18:43:16Z")
It’s not just a matter of length. If each amino acid had its own unique chemical “symbol”, then it would take a sequence of massively improbable events for a mutation to occur that wouldn’t just make the sequence non-functional. ---
**Author:** ![Tertius01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tertius01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tertius01)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887/140 "2003-04-26T18:47:57Z")
I see what you are saying. Basically 22 nucleotides? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-evolution-why/170887.md?page=8)