MOD NOTE:
I'm asking Japhia888 to cite his quotes properly in future posts. This is because I thought you were quoting an actual expert in physics and it turned out to be William Lane Craig. You don't have to provide links just make it clear who you are quoting.
/MOD NOTE
On Isham, it would be nice to have a proper citation for this quote to get both the date when he said this and the surrounding context. As far as I can tell it was from a lecture in the early 90s so is twenty years out of date and the context is unavailable. It is true that Isham is critical of Tyron's early fluctuation model but there have been many improvements and changes since that time. Since we don't have the context I can only assume he's criticising these outdated models and the new models are more consistent with current evidence (as Krauss outlined).
On the RNA world, again you are out of date.
"we describe here an RNA molecule that catalyzes the type of polymerization needed for RNA replication. The ribozyme uses nucleoside triphosphates and the coding information of an RNA template to extend an RNA primer by the successive addition of up to 14 nucleotides"
(Johnston et al. 2001, RNA-Catalyzed RNA Polymerization: Accurate and General RNA-Templated Primer Extension)
"An RNA enzyme that catalyzes the RNA-templated joining of RNA was converted to a format whereby two enzymes catalyze each other's synthesis from a total of four oligonucleotide substrates. These cross-replicating RNA enzymes undergo self-sustained exponential amplification in the absence of proteins or other biological materials. Amplification occurs with a doubling time of about 1 hour and can be continued indefinitely."
(Lincoln and Joyce 2009, Self-Sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme)
So partial replication has been known for about 10 years while full replication has only been shown recently. There's still a lot more to understand in this area but your criticisms are inaccurate.
On micro/macro evolution, you're just quoting from creationist sites. I'm not going to go through every creationist argument on the internet and refute it (that's what TalkOrigins is for
). But anyway, you already accept descent with modification and natural selection so I don't see much left to convince you of.
Evidence for common ancestry, here's one recent paper:
"Universal common ancestry (UCA) is a central pillar of modern evolutionary theory. As first suggested by Darwin, the theory of UCA posits that all extant terrestrial organisms share a common genetic heritage, each being the genealogical descendant of a single species from the distant past. The classic evidence for UCA, although massive, is largely restricted to 'local' common ancestry,for example, of specific phyla rather than the entirety of life,and has yet to fully integrate the recent advances from modern phylogenetics and probability theory. Although UCA is widely assumed, it has rarely been subjected to formal quantitative testing and this has led to critical commentary emphasizing the intrinsic technical difficulties in empirically evaluating a theory of such broad scope. Furthermore, several researchers have proposed that early life was characterized by rampant horizontal gene transfer, leading some to question the monophyly of life. Here I provide the first, to my knowledge, formal, fundamental test of UCA, without assuming that sequence similarity implies genetic kinship. I test UCA by applying model selection theory to molecular phylogenies, focusing on a set of ubiquitously conserved proteins that are proposed to be orthologous. Among a wide range of biological models involving the independent ancestry of major taxonomic groups, the model selection tests are found to overwhelmingly support UCA irrespective of the presence of horizontal gene transfer and symbiotic fusion events. These results provide powerful statistical evidence corroborating the monophyly of all known life."
(Theobald D (2010) A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry. Nature 465(13):219-222.)
I'm asking Japhia888 to cite his quotes properly in future posts. This is because I thought you were quoting an actual expert in physics and it turned out to be William Lane Craig. You don't have to provide links just make it clear who you are quoting.
/MOD NOTE
On Isham, it would be nice to have a proper citation for this quote to get both the date when he said this and the surrounding context. As far as I can tell it was from a lecture in the early 90s so is twenty years out of date and the context is unavailable. It is true that Isham is critical of Tyron's early fluctuation model but there have been many improvements and changes since that time. Since we don't have the context I can only assume he's criticising these outdated models and the new models are more consistent with current evidence (as Krauss outlined).
On the RNA world, again you are out of date.
"we describe here an RNA molecule that catalyzes the type of polymerization needed for RNA replication. The ribozyme uses nucleoside triphosphates and the coding information of an RNA template to extend an RNA primer by the successive addition of up to 14 nucleotides"
(Johnston et al. 2001, RNA-Catalyzed RNA Polymerization: Accurate and General RNA-Templated Primer Extension)
"An RNA enzyme that catalyzes the RNA-templated joining of RNA was converted to a format whereby two enzymes catalyze each other's synthesis from a total of four oligonucleotide substrates. These cross-replicating RNA enzymes undergo self-sustained exponential amplification in the absence of proteins or other biological materials. Amplification occurs with a doubling time of about 1 hour and can be continued indefinitely."
(Lincoln and Joyce 2009, Self-Sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme)
So partial replication has been known for about 10 years while full replication has only been shown recently. There's still a lot more to understand in this area but your criticisms are inaccurate.
On micro/macro evolution, you're just quoting from creationist sites. I'm not going to go through every creationist argument on the internet and refute it (that's what TalkOrigins is for
). But anyway, you already accept descent with modification and natural selection so I don't see much left to convince you of.Okay, I had misunderstood you on this point - I thought you were talking about the constants of physics. On the 'privileged planet' hypothesis I think the answer is different. Yes the parameters can vary but there are also many more opportunities for planets to form. Just around our own sun there are at least eight planets and there are billions and billions of stars in the cosmos. Life could have plausibly existed on Mars at some point, and who knows on how many other planets in far away solar systems life could have, or did, emerge. The galactic lottery may run at billion-to-one odds, but with billions of tickets I've got a good chance at winning.Japhia888 said:
Evidence for common ancestry, here's one recent paper:
"Universal common ancestry (UCA) is a central pillar of modern evolutionary theory. As first suggested by Darwin, the theory of UCA posits that all extant terrestrial organisms share a common genetic heritage, each being the genealogical descendant of a single species from the distant past. The classic evidence for UCA, although massive, is largely restricted to 'local' common ancestry,for example, of specific phyla rather than the entirety of life,and has yet to fully integrate the recent advances from modern phylogenetics and probability theory. Although UCA is widely assumed, it has rarely been subjected to formal quantitative testing and this has led to critical commentary emphasizing the intrinsic technical difficulties in empirically evaluating a theory of such broad scope. Furthermore, several researchers have proposed that early life was characterized by rampant horizontal gene transfer, leading some to question the monophyly of life. Here I provide the first, to my knowledge, formal, fundamental test of UCA, without assuming that sequence similarity implies genetic kinship. I test UCA by applying model selection theory to molecular phylogenies, focusing on a set of ubiquitously conserved proteins that are proposed to be orthologous. Among a wide range of biological models involving the independent ancestry of major taxonomic groups, the model selection tests are found to overwhelmingly support UCA irrespective of the presence of horizontal gene transfer and symbiotic fusion events. These results provide powerful statistical evidence corroborating the monophyly of all known life."
(Theobald D (2010) A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry. Nature 465(13):219-222.)