[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

AO, I couldn't imagine that Mendel could live and work for 25 years after Origins, and not know of it. I wonder why you assumed that. Just look at the first result after searching for mendel darwin, and you get, from PBS and Google 1: "Mendel read Darwin with deep interest, but he disagreed..."

Well, my mistake on Mendel not being aware of Darwin.

Darwin was certainly not aware of Mendel's work. If he had been he might have been able to give Mendel a better explanation of evolution. Since Darwin didn't understand genetics (Mendel obviously did), Genetics was apparently Mendel's main objection to Darwin's book, which fool already pointed out (nice how you deleted the part of the quote that gave actual context). The "mixing" part of Origin is one of the things that Darwin got wrong. So, Mendel disagreed on that, I do too!

Of course that's what modern synthesis is (the union of evolution and genetics/DNA), which brings us to Dobzhansky, on MY list.

And then AO, as to your list, perhaps you didn't understand the point of our list. It's not to prove that creation is correct. It's to disprove the claim that only scientifically ignorant people believe in creation.

Um. Your list doesn't prove that at all. Most of your list was before Darwin and most of those that were after were not biologists.

What you did is make a list of apples and compared it to oranges. The claim that scientifically ignorant people are the ones that don't accept evolution is TIME dependent. What is scientific ignorance now was forgivable not too many years ago.

Early on, Darwin didn't have tons of evidence. He didn't really know how evolution worked since he didn't know genetics. But now that there is DNA data and the science of evo-devo, far more fossils etc. it's really scientifically inexcusable to deny evolution. So making a list of scientists that are before Darwin or barely after isn't actually answering the challenge at all.

And then AO, as to your list, perhaps you didn't understand the point of our list. It's not to prove that creation is correct. It's to disprove the claim that only scientifically ignorant people believe in creation. Since so many of the fathers of the natural sciences, both before and after Darwin, reject evolution and natural origins, the above list falsifies that common atheist claim.

My list was not to falsify your list (which is a list of talented scientists certainly), but to show, contrary to popular YEC AND atheist perception that either you accept evolution and are an atheist OR you're a YEC and believe God, that there are plenty of scientists that are both believers and evolution/old earthers. I would like you to acknowledge that the third way exists.

AO, we were listing the FATHERS of the branches of science, and Google 1 for: father of modern biology is Linnaeus, and he's in our list.

Funny, Google is telling me it's Charles Darwin. But I don't think Google is the authority on this issue regardless. I do know that the first historical scientist mentioned in most Biology texts is Darwin. Though Mendel, Linnaeus, Watson and Crick usually get their own photo shot also.

Linnaeus is certainly the father of biological TAXONOMY he gets a mention in every classification discussion. However, his system actually has evolutionary implications, even though he was a creationist and didn't see it. Linnaeus lived long before Darwin, so I wouldn't really have expected him to put the pieces together.

And as for Walcott and the Cambrian Explosion, adding to his being stunned by the complexity of life so low in the geologic column, I imagine you've thought through the stunning discoveries in microbiology that supercharges the "explosive" part of all that variety?

I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to since the Cambrian explosion is multicellular life and microbiology normally covers unicellular organisms (frequently only prokaryotes). We also know now what Walcott didn't, that there are fossils of multicellular life that's even older than the fossils he found. Last thing I remember reading on this subject was it's thought that the evolution of eyes really drove the diversity, and more importantly the hard shells of the Cambrian explosion.

And now, reportedly, sponges are genetically 70% the same as humans?

You YECs love to throw around "the same" as if it always means identical. You're sloppy with the terminology so that you can make it sound like chimpanzees aren't actually that similar to us.

When talking about sponges and other "simple" animals 70% is not 70% identical but in general 70% of the same genes (i.e. protein coding regions). Having the same genes doesn't mean those genes have the same sequence. When we compare humans with chimps we are looking at large amounts of identical sequence not only in genes but in DNA regulatory regions.

And what was so much of the genetic toolbox doing in "ancient" species that would not need those tools for tens and hundreds of millions of years?

You do understand that we now know that an organism's complexity is not due to the genes it has, but how they are used. We have the same number of genes as most other animals. Sponges do not have a lot of the regulatory DNA we have. They have what they need, and it only takes changes to when and where genes are expressed and how they interact to make a "simple" organism more complex.

AO, you might dismiss all this, but it's part of the powerful evidence that's been lining up that forced New Scientist to do their cover story admitting that DARWIN WAS WRONG: on the tree of life! Check it out at KGOV.com! And now, we're just waiting for Darwin's other shoe to drop...

Um. I've read the article before. There are plenty of things Darwin didn't know and was wrong about (we've covered genetics extensively). You know that magazines like that LOVE making headlines that sound provocative right?

The only point of that article is there is a lot of horizontal transfer of genetic information at the base of the tree of life. There is even some higher up in the tree and the more scientists look, the more can be found. That means that a pure tree isn't really 100% correct. But it's pretty close to right.

The fact that we can tell the difference between rare instances of horizontal transfer and descent with modification is a problem for your side, not evolution.

FYI Bob this isn't your radio show so you don't get to make misleading statements without being called on it. So far I think the score is one for me and at least three for you.