Is common descent a fact?

[cdowis]

If you want one thing you can point to as proof of common descent, it has already been mentioned.

Endogenous Retroviral Insertion

Did you read the response to this? I did.

There is plenty of other mutually supporting evidence from a wide variety of fields that constitutes proof, but the retroviral insertions stand on their own fairly well.

Please read the entire thread.

Referring to the theory of evolution as "just a theory," or these silly ideas about what is needed to sustain a population doesn't really address the evidence provided in retroviral insertions. If anything, these arguments are an attempt to convolute the issue.

Actually they clarify the issue.

The more ancestors you share, the more retroviral insertions you will share. Its that simple.

Tell us about the first humans, the first male and female. How did they find each other to reproduce, for example. The more you look and ask questions, the less it makes sense.

You can say science is unreliable, if you like, but then you need to come up with a better explanation than currently exists for these common insertions. Maybe you can pray about it and see what God's opinion on the subject is.

He gave me an understanding of the difference between facts/data and opinions. Opinions are not facts.

[Robert F. Smith]

Or, maybe, there's a small chance that such forums are used as public relations opportunities for creationists to falsely suggest there is a legitimate controversy that evolutionary biologists would prefer not to indulge.

I can think of no better way to engage in scientific discourse than via public debates in front of a lay audience where oratory skills are paramount, where its incredibly easy to gallop from one misleading statement to another, and where it is difficult to reduce complicated issues and errors in reasoning into soundbites. If only there were another way, a better way, to communicate where "evolutionists" might fare a little better.

You need to bear in mind, Ralph, that these were not audiences of yokels and country bumpkins, but rather university students and professors who had a stake in the free exchange of ideas in the university marketplace (you know, John Stuart Mill, and all that). It is very sad, but not so unusual to find that those on the losing end of a legitimate debate (like the generals in Myanmar) proscribe further debate. The Inquisition is alive and well and those who do not conform will find themselves out of a job and unable to publish in refereed journals.

[Robert F. Smith]

Common descent most decidedly is a fact, and the evidence for it is voluminous. To use one small example, mitochondrial DNA studies on the mutation rate and the degree of difference between species even allows us to determine how recently humans and other species share a common ancestor. (Note that the techniques used in this research are the same as those used in DNA genealogy research pioneered at BYU and LDS-run Sorenson Genetics. There is as much reason to accept the former as the latter.)

An extended case for common descent, and evolution, has recently been made by a prominent LDS biologist at BYU: Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNAby Daniel J. Fairbanks. Though the book is written for a general audience, Fairbanks also attempts to tackle how evolution does or doesn't fit into a religious worldview.

Don

Sorenson Genetics is a private corporation and has no connection to the LDS Church.

Most, if not all, BYU biologists are evolutionists. That has been true for a long time and puts the lie to claims that the Church which owns and operates BYU takes an anti-evolutionary point of view. Theoretical constructs by scientists run the gamut and are in a constant state of reassessment based on continuing research developments. Whether and to what extent this or that theory is factual has more to do with a particular polemic or apologetic need at the moment than it has to do with a final view of reality. Indeed, if one were to be quite fair to science and technology, it is possible that any or all of the three basic theories of origins are true: Intelligent Design, Transmission, or Evolution -- although the final evidence for all three is wanting. All make for nice theory. Proof is another matter.

[DonBradley]

CD,

I have neither the time nor the interest in providing detailed scientific documentation for your dismissal. If, however, the question of the truth of common descent, as opposed to position one thinks one can defend online, interests you, you may well wish to take a look at the very detailed work of the capable and devout LDS scientist to which I directed you.

Your great-great-great-great...grandmother was an ape!

Cheers,

Don

[DonBradley]

Genetics is only a valid branch of science when we're using it to prove heredity or catch criminals. When we use that same science to explore evolution suddenly it's all wrong. Didn't you get the memo?

Sadly, I did. It's amazing how the same science by which we run our modern world becomes suddenly dubious when it challenges cherished views.

Don