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From: Nick Balaskas <nikolaos@YorkU.CA>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 15:57:08 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
Fwd Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 09:32:37 -0400
Subject: Re: Panspermia


 >Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 09:10:51 -0500
 >From: Amy Hebert <yelorose@swbell.net>
 >Subject: Re: Panspermia
 >To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>

<snip>

 >I'm wondering if anyone has ever calculated a projected
 >evolutionary profile of a species based on known parameters of
 >that species' evolution to date?

Hi Amy.

Assuming that evolution from a single cell organism to a human
being through favourable mutations of the genetic code is the
reality of how we got here, then my understanding is that we
should not have yet arrived (see "Darwin's Black Box - The
Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Michael J. Behe (1996)
and "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" by Michael Denton (1985),
just to mention two good books).  It is not our scientific facts
that are wrong but our scientific assumptions which prevent us
from coming to even a reasonable explanation of our origins.
Maybe we are trying to find the correct answer to a wrong
question.

 >Scientists have calculated the probability of planets out there
 >that may contain life (Drake Equation) so why can't they
 >calculate the probable evolution of a given species based on the
 >rate of evolution observed thus far?  Anyone for "quantum
 >evolution"? ;>

If we extrapolate the observed rate of evolution, which is
exactly zero since no new species (variations, yes) have appeared
to science, then the product of our probabilities "Drake
Equation" for biological evolution would also be exactly zero.

 >Hey, Nick, why don't you challenge your scientist friends to
 >come up with a formula to calculate probable evolution?  I
 >wonder if applying such a formula to the human species - based
 >on the rate of human evolution thus far - we may find we have
 >evolved  more or less compared to our rate of evolution in the
 >past.

I have presented my fellow scientist friends with such formulas
and probability studies done by other scientists and published
in scientific journals, including popular periodicals such as
"Creation ex nihilo", "Creation Research Society Quarterly" and
"Cosmic Pursuit" and although they seemed to express some
initial interest, I have been unable to challenges them to look
into more.

One professor was so disturbed with some of the material which I
was sharing with two of his graduate students in biology (more
examples of fresh finds of unfossilized dinosaur bones) that he
literally chased me out of his lab and yelled after me that
"...even the Pope believes in evolution!".  He didn't seem too
thrilled when I replied that I was not a Catholic but if he also
wanted to believe what the Pope believed, that this was okay
with me.  ;o)

 >Nah, just the controversy alone over such a forumla would set
 >humankind back another million years. <grin>

Maybe it just might move us a quantum leap forward instead.  But
are we all ready to accept our special place in this universe as
created beings through an "Intelligent Designer", an expression
used more and more by scientists who cannot seem to be able to
say "God" (see "Show Me God - What the Message from Space Is
Telling Us About God" by Fred Heeren (1998) and "The Creation
Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer",
edited by J.P. Moreland (1994)?

Nick Balaskas

 >Amy
 >Home Page: "http://members.tripod.com/TheVanguard"